Chapter Eleven 1895 #6
‘Only to . . . only because I . . . still feel responsible. For what happened to his brother.’
‘You must feel very responsible indeed. You . . . you say his name in your sleep. All too often for my liking.’
Now Theo looked at him, horrified. His expression was pained.
‘Do you love him?’ Ralph gave her arms a jerk as he spoke, and Theo shook her head.
‘No.’ She swallowed. ‘He . . . he was very hard with me, after the trial. He blamed me, when we had been firm friends before it all – the three of us. He was hard, and we parted badly, that’s all.’
‘Then you still . . . think about what happened?’
‘I can’t help it, Ralph. Forgive me.’
‘I remember him staring at me during the trial,’ he murmured. ‘Such a black look! I thought at the time he must be a man of bad temper. A cruel man.’
‘I suppose he was,’ Theo said. ‘In some ways. Never more so than when harm came to Kit.’
‘I did no harm to the boy, and neither did you! But you were all just children, I suppose.’
Theo said nothing. She was thinking of the frozen river as it tunnelled away beneath the trees; a secret path to a different world. How much she wished she hadn’t turned back.
Ralph bent his head forwards, shutting his eyes for a moment.
‘How I wish you would just forget about all that!’ he said sadly. ‘I thought he was the reason, you see. I thought he was the reason you cannot love me.’
‘Oh, Ralph.’ Theo shook her head.
He saw much more than she gave him credit for, and she felt foolish, and ashamed. He’d begged her not to lie but she had to.
‘I do love you. I do. That . . . time, and any dreams I may still have of it, are only because it left such a terrible mark.’
‘My poor darling.’ Ralph let go of her arms and took her hands, now painfully numb in spite of her gloves. ‘You look frozen. Let’s go home.’
Later, as she undressed, Theo noticed ten round bruises on her skin, one on the front and four on the back of each arm: Ralph’s fingers and thumbs, where he’d grabbed her.
She pulled the sleeves of her nightdress over them quickly, so that he wouldn’t be reminded of her inadvertent treachery.
She hardly dared meet his eye as she lay down beside him, and didn’t sleep for hours; too afraid that she’d betray herself again, after the glimpse of Toby that had shaken her to her core.
It had been him, she was sure of it. Just a few feet away, and she could still feel that closeness.
A thrill of anticipation, as though he were right there in the room.
She lay rigid, eyes open, terrified that Ralph would notice him there.
The brandy was boiling in Toby’s blood, blurring his brain and his eyes so that the lanterns left streamers through the air.
He horsed about on the ice like a boy, playing bulldog with the others – crashing into each other, falling, finding it all hilarious while people tutted and swore at them.
He drank and played the fool so that he could ignore that feeling again – that sense of acting in a play.
He did it so that he wouldn’t look for her.
There were plenty of married couples there, of the middling and upper sort.
The gala was as close to Shaftesbury as to Hallewell.
He briefly wondered what he would say if he found himself standing in front of her. But there was nothing to say.
Still, he couldn’t prevent the sadness that stole over him.
It was nothing to do with Theo, he decided.
It was all down to his aimlessness, and his sick mother; it was because of Lily, and Tom, who had not answered his letter.
He begged his friends to stay on, later and later, even though they were cold and tired and still had a long walk home.
He made them stay until the crowd had thinned right out, and she was not there.
Mrs Theodora Anscombe. Even the name made his gorge rise; he did not want to see her.
He trudged back along the lane in silence, well behind the others; numb hands in his pockets, face all but covered by his scarf. The ground was pitching like the deck of a ship. He focused all his energy on putting one foot in front of the other and not throwing up.
But the dejection would not go. He shook his flask but it was empty, and when his friends peeled off towards their various homes he stood for a while, alone, mesmerised by the glow of moonlight on the snow.
Meandering up to the green, he sat down at the foot of the Roman Cross.
Its carvings made by ancient hands, so many centuries before.
How bewitched Theo had been by that idea – as awed as any pilgrim at a shrine.
Mrs Theodora Anscombe. The world was white and black and grey.
Sepulchral; not a place for living things at all.
Toby stared at the castle, outlined against the glacial sky.
The stone at his back burned with cold, and symbols danced before his eyes: a triangle that might mean fire; a circle that might be a snake.
Soon, he could no longer feel his body or his face, but he could feel his heart and it was beating off-kilter, with a disconcerting wobble.
It was better to stay there, Toby decided.
Far easier to stay there than to find the strength to go home; to feign sobriety and good cheer, to feign success.
You’re a coward, Toby Meriwether. The faint stars wheeled, the castle watched, and there seemed to be nobody in the whole world except for him, alone in the snow.
His pulse slowed, which was a relief. Slow was probably better.
And warm was better than cold – he was getting warm now, even starting to feel flushed.
His father’s greatcoat was incredibly heavy.
Suffocating, in fact – beneath it, his skin was actually prickling with heat.
Toby shook his head in wonderment, which made his brain slop around queasily.
It took a moment to coordinate his fingers, but then he set about unbuttoning the coat, and fought his way free.