Page 28 of The Armor of Light

Roger said: ‘This is the guest bedroom.’

‘In the manor house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why am I in here?’

‘Because you’ve been injured. You have to stay here until you’re well again.’

Kit felt uneasy. He was being treated like a guest. He wondered what the squire thought of that. He said anxiously: ‘But I have to clean the boots!’

Roger laughed. ‘Fanny will do that.’

‘Fan can’t do it, she has too much work already.’

‘Don’t worry, Kit,’ said Roger. ‘We’ll work things out, and Fanny will be fine.’

He seemed to think there was something humorous about Kit’s anxiety, so Kit said no more about it. He thought of something else. ‘Can I go and see my mother?’

Alec answered: ‘Certainly not. No unnecessary movement.’

Roger said: ‘But your mother will come and see you. I’ll make sure of that.’

‘Yes, please,’ said Kit. ‘I really want to see her, please.’

7

AMOS DREAMED HE WAShaving an intense, intimate talk with Jane Midwinter. Their heads were excitingly close, they spoke in low tones, and the subject of their conversation was something deeply personal. He had a warm, happy feeling. Then Rupe Underwood came up behind him and tried to get his attention. Amos did not want to end this special moment with Jane, and at first he ignored Rupe, but Rupe shook his shoulder. Then he knew that he was dreaming, but he so badly wanted the dream to continue that he tried to ignore the shaking. It did not work, and he left the dream with the sadness of a banished angel falling to earth.

His mother’s voice said: ‘Amos, wake up.’

It was still dark. Mother did not normally wake him in the morning. He always got up in good time for whatever he had to do, and he usually left the house while she was still in bed. And anyway, he remembered, today was Sunday.

He opened his eyes and sat up. She stood by the bed with a candle, fully dressed. He said: ‘What’s the time?’

She began to cry. ‘Amos, my dear son,’ she said. ‘Your father has passed away.’

His first reaction was incredulity. ‘But he was fine last night at supper!’

‘I know.’ She wiped her nose with her sleeve, something she would never do in normal circumstances.

That convinced him. ‘What happened?’

‘I woke up, I don’t know why. Perhaps he made a noise... or somehow I just knew. I spoke to him but he didn’t answer. I lit the bedside candle so that I could see him. He was lying on his back with his eyes open, staring up. He wasn’t breathing.’

It struck Amos that to wake up next to a corpse must be a dreadful experience. ‘Poor Mother.’ He took her hand.

She wanted to tell him the whole story. ‘I got Ellen up and we washed his body.’ They must have been quiet about it, Amos thought; but anyway he was a heavy sleeper. ‘We wrapped him in a shroud and put pennies on his eyelids to close his eyes. Then I washed myself and got dressed. And I came to tell you.’

Amos threw back the blankets and got up in his nightshirt. ‘I want to see him.’

She nodded, as if this was what she expected.

They went together across the landing to the parental bedroom.

Father lay on the four-poster bed with his head on a spotless white pillow, his hair combed, his body covered with a blanket tightly tucked in, neater in death than he had been in life. Amos had heard people describe a corpse as looking so well that the person might still have been alive, but this was not the case here. Father was gone, and Amos was seeing a shell, and somehow that was horribly obvious. Amos could not have said what it was about the face that gave him that impression, but there was no room for doubt. Death was unmistakable.

He was seized by a feeling of grief so strong that he burst out crying. He sobbed loudly and shed a waterfall of tears. At the same time a part of his mind asked why he felt this way. His father had been unkind and ungenerous to him, and had treated him like a carthorse, a beast of burden valued only for its usefulness. And yet he was bereft, weeping uncontrollably. He wiped his face repeatedly but the tears kept flowing.