Chapter 5 #3
Mr. Kerr drew up short, whirling on her.
A shock of real fear lanced through her, but Violet mastered herself and did not retreat.
What a bully! An oaf! He could be six feet taller and still not frighten her in earnest. She declared it loudly in her mind until her body believed it to be so.
His arm was still outstretched, his black hat poised there, a single tremor passing through his hand.
There was a flicker of recognition in his golden eyes, his lips parting gradually.
“Mrs. Burton’s watercolor exhibition in June, do you recall it?” she asked.
“I do.”
He was likely remembering the outburst, the scandal, Violet’s public humiliation at the hands of the Frenchman’s fiancée. There was ugliness in his eyes now, judgment, and it spurred her on.
“You were free with your opinions there, with no regard for who might be listening, who might care! Derivative and silly…”
Her voice was rising; his eyes blackened.
“And for no one,” Violet finished, wrinkling her nose. “Those were your words, were they not?”
“I will not demean myself with a lie.”
Violet wanted to scream; she had never met anyone so cold, so constructed. He seemed to stare through her, as if she were no more than a pane of thin glass. Where was that silly, laughing boy rolling in the grass? Was he a summer’s dream?
“Then it must be a relief to be rid of my portrait. I’m sure it pains you to even be near it. But I wonder, why save it from the rain at all if the work was so objectionable?” she asked, fighting the urge to rise onto tiptoes to make herself larger. “What became of the self-portrait?”
Mr. Kerr’s top lip twitched exactly once on the right side, and then he shook his head, snorted, and ducked through the doorway.
Slamming his hat on and tugging impatiently at each wrist edge of his gloves, he did not wait for Bloom or anyone else before charging out of Pressmore and back into the chill morning air.
There was no hesitation from Violet, who stormed out after him.
They were well beyond propriety now, and who could care?
It was a wonder the whole world wasn’t locked in a feud with this odious family…
“And there are the manners I should have expected!” she shouted, struggling to match his stride, resorting to a trot to keep up.
He didn’t seem to know where to go, since his brother was still inside the house.
“Where, sir, is my painting? Did you throw it on a bonfire? Save it for a round of darts? Or is it already on the road to London so that you and your friends may titter over my deficiencies forevermore?”
Veering off the drive and toward the hedge maze, Mr. Kerr stopped abruptly beneath a willow.
The draping branches wept yellow tears, a carpet of tiny golden leaves gathering before the trunk.
“No, nothing of the sort. I simply will not stand to be interrogated in this manner. God, a wall of mortared stone would balk at the task. Desist, madam, and draw breath.”
She answered him with steely silence, waiting with crossed arms.
“It…was spoiled by the rain,” he told her. He added something in such a quiet undertone she couldn’t tell if it was “regrettably” or “predictably.”
Violet shrank. “Oh.” It was a harsh disappointment. “That’s a shame, I almost liked it.”
He seemed ready to say something else when his brother burst from the house.
Clutching his hat with both hands, he ran toward them with his head bowed as if he might need to duck or dodge at any moment.
His face was red, his blue jacket rumpled as if he had slept in it; unspent tears shined in his eyes.
“Well?” was Mr. Kerr’s sneering inquiry.
“It’s done,” Freddie murmured. An agonized scream erupted from the house behind them.
By and by, it flattened out into a wail.
“Badly. It went badly.” Mr. Kerr reached out and slapped Freddie hard on the shoulder, jostling him.
“Please, can we go? I’d sooner be lashed to a rock and torn apart like Prometheus than stay and hear her cries… ”
Mr. Kerr pulled his brother away from the willow and toward the road. With one stiff jerk of his head in Violet’s direction, he started toward the gates up the drive. “Good day, Miss Arden.”
Whatever urge Violet felt to follow was immediately quashed by the sound of Emilia continuing to suffer.
She made a nasty face at the backs of the retreating men and hurried back to Pressmore, following the sounds of gulping sobs to the same drawing room where they had just eaten breakfast, finding that a distraught Emilia had flung herself across a low sofa to endure her breaking heart.
It might have made a pretty picture if Emilia weren’t her dear friend and in such obvious, harrowing pain.
Ann knelt at her sister’s side, stroking the wet hair from Emilia’s tearstained cheeks.
And Violet joined them, wedging herself in beside Emilia and taking her by the waist, holding her tightly.
Not so long ago, Violet had been the subject of just such a scene, though Winny and Maggie had been the women there to comfort and soothe.
“There now, my darling, it will be all right,” Violet assured her, catching a droplet as it cascaded down to the edge of Emilia’s delicate chin.
“H-he said we cannot be! That he does not love me! It is a lie—I know it is a l-lie!” Emilia got out between heaves.
“Freddie has given you a gift, Emilia. You will see, I promise, you will see just how much better off you are without him. There are a thousand better suitors in the world more deserving of your love.” Violet caught Emilia as she tipped forward into her grasp and resumed sobbing.
She shared a look with Ann over her sister’s shoulder, and they both rubbed the young lady’s back and let her pour it out.
A calmness settled over her, one she hoped would pass to the woman in her arms. The image of Mr. Kerr’s burning gold eyes turning black with rage flashed across her vision.
“You were never meant to be with a Kerr. None of us were. Think of how they behaved today!” Golden eyes.
A sneering mouth. The towering form of a fiend angelical.
Yet I behaved badly, too, allowed his coldness to provoke me.
That was a thought for another time; Emilia needed her.
“Violet is right, cho?ī bahan,” said Ann, soothing her sister in the Hindi language they shared. “There will be others.”
Emilia fussed and shook her head. “I don’t want others. I want him!”
Elsewhere in the house, Mrs. Richmond shut and re-shut doors as if the action could seal the house against another incursion of unwanted visitors.
“Disarray!” she could be heard shrieking. “Crying and wailing and whatever else! Never again, I tell you! How is my hospitality rewarded, Bloom? We are left all out of sorts with a screaming young lady! Well! Well. That is what courtesy affords you with the Kerrs.”