Chapter 15 Ormdale
Chapter fifteen
Ormdale
There, standing before Una, was none other than the errant Violet Worms. The second daughter of the ancient House of Worms—aged twenty-three, dressed at this moment with all the dignity of a newspaper boy on a street corner—looked at them thoughtfully.
“I see you weren’t expecting me,” she observed cheerfully. “Who were you expecting to bludgeon with old Excalibur? Not the Bleeding Monk? Are there other people crawling about in here?”
“A fake American,” blurted Pip, lowering the nursery sabre.
There was a brief silence.
“Right,” said Violet briskly. “Well, he hasn’t come this way. I haven’t seen a real American tonight, much less a fake one.”
Another silence.
“I suppose you’ll want tea,” said Una. She wasn’t really aware of saying it, but she heard the words, and they hadn’t come from Pip.
“Desperately,” Violet said. When no one made a further move, she added, “You did offer food as well, you know. Just now. Remember?”
“Of course,” said Una, turning to head back into the abbey.
“I couldn’t get into the larder, more’s the pity,” Violet prattled, following with Pip.
“What’s that thing King Solomon said? Refresh me with apples for I am sick of love?
I think it’s the other way round for me.
I’m sick of apples. Couldn’t get in, not even with my hairpin.
Actually, I broke all my hairpins that way.
Since when do we lock the larder, anyway? ”
That explained the state of her hair, Una thought as she led them down the passage to the kitchen.
“We’ve been locking it because Martha missed some baking. We thought it was the twins,” said Una. Was she really discussing these things so calmly?
“Oh, it was,” said Violet as they entered the kitchen. “They’ve been pinching food for me. But they have a strange idea of what a growing woman requires. Yesterday, they gave me two bags of boiled sweets and a scone that had been stepped on. And I haven’t had a cup of tea in days.”
“We’d have roasted the fatted calf for you, if only you’d shown up at the front door,” said Una, unlocking the larder with shaky hands.
Violet looked at Pip. “Do you think she really would have?”
Pip said nothing.
“I didn’t think so,” Violet said.
Una felt the unfairness of this deeply. What had Violet expected? For Una to be glad to find her missing sister creeping about the abbey like a thief?
“I’m going up to bed,” Una said abruptly. “Pip, please help my sister with anything she needs. I’ll see you in the morning—if you are still here,” she added.
Una never quite knew how she made it up to her bedroom again. She had seen a short moving picture once, in Skipton. It was jerky and flickery. She felt exactly like that.
Removing her belt and boots, she curled on her side in the bed and reached for Oolong.
It was only then that she remembered she had left Oolong in the kitchen with Violet.
Violet is back, she thought, and breathed through the pain in her chest.
If her sister was home at last, why did Una feel so horrible about it?
Violet woke the next morning with a crick in her neck and a dragon on her belly.
She groaned and looked up. There was nowhere else to look, because she had slept on the floor.
The first thing she saw was her little sister’s face, staring down at her with wide eyes in her face and tight fists at her sides.
“Why are you sleeping on the floor outside my room?” she demanded.
“Didn’t want to make trouble for anyone,” said Violet, rolling into a sitting position. She had slept in her clothes, with her bunched-up jacket for a pillow. Oolong had made himself comfortable on top of her.
“Trouble?“ Una repeated, her eyes enlarging. They really were just as blue and big as Violet had remembered them, like windows on a summer sky. “You made us chase you round the abbey in the dead of night, following a trail of apple cores!”
“You’re not going to let me forget that one, are you?” Violet said, with a sigh.
“Let you forget? It happened last night.”
Drawing up her legs, Violet leaned against the wainscotting and looked up at her sister. Una was neatly dressed in white, not a hair out of place, just as if she hadn’t been up half the night looking for intruders.
Just as if she hadn’t been brutally assaulted the night before, as Pip had described to her.
“You’re repeating everything I say, but in italics,” Violet said, running her fingers through her hair in lieu of a brush. She reached a snarl and winced. “I suppose you found my note, then.”
“Your note?” Una’s eyes positively bulged now. “You mean—two years ago? The one you left when you ran away in the dead of night?”
“That’s the one,” said Violet.
Una leaned against the doorframe, as if the conversation had weakened her. “Violet, it was stabbed to my pillow with a pen knife.”
“I wanted to be sure you’d find it,” Violet protested. “And you did!”
Una covered her face with her hands.
“All right,” Violet sighed. “Fair’s fair. I could have arrived more conventionally than I did last night.”
Una dropped her hands and stared once more.
“I just needed to check on things, before I committed myself,” Violet mumbled, putting on her shoes. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me.” Violet looked up at her. “I’m still not sure.”
Una didn’t answer, but she flushed.
“Where is everyone, anyway?“ Violet asked.
“Uncle George is at Windsor and Aunt Emily is visiting her friend by the sea. We expect them home any day,” Una said. “George is in Africa—“
“Oh, I knew about that, at least. It’s been in the papers,“ said Violet, standing up. “What have you done to the old nursery? Pip says I won’t recognise it.” She took a step towards her but Una shut the door firmly behind her and blocked her way.
“Not now,” Una said. “Let’s go down to breakfast.”
Una scooped up Oolong and made for the stairs.
Violet’s manners had not improved during her time away, Una soon noticed.
On the way to breakfast, Violet had simply shaken out her jacket and put it back on, hideously rumpled.
Una wondered if her sister had hidden a change of clothes somewhere, or if what Violet wore really represented all her worldly possessions.
They were not the clothes she had run away in. Where had they come from? Had her old things been stolen? Una tried not to stare at her older sister as the three of them ate their breakfast.
“So he was after old Georgie’s bit of armour, was he?
” Violet said, loading her toast with a monstrous amount of jam.
“He’s probably some sort of fanatic. England’s full of them, you know.
Theosophists and spiritualists and what-have-you.
I heard a lady lecture in Leeds—she says she’s found the reincarnation of Jesus Christ as a little Hindustani boy.
She set up a subscription to send him to Oxford, to be educated as a gentleman. ”
And Violet let out a throaty laugh at the thought.
“Some people have all the luck,” Pip muttered.
Violet turned to him in surprise. “Do you really think so? I wouldn’t be him for worlds.”
“Which?” said Pip. “A Hindustani boy, or Je—“
“Oh, stop!” Una protested.
“Neither of them,” Violet answered decidedly. “I don’t think either of them would receive kind treatment there.”
Pip choked on his tea.
“It does us no good to speculate about it,” said Una crisply. “Cousin Edith is writing to Stephen Fairweather about the intruder. He’ll make inquiries.”
“Is he still at the War Office?” asked Violet. “Hang on, Pip, didn’t you live with the Fairweather family in Bloomsbury? What was that like?”
Pip shrugged.
Violet sat back in her chair and looked at them both. “The two of you are not very forthcoming. I was counting on you to give me all the gossip.”
Pip glanced at Una, as if he wanted her to change the subject.
Una opened her mouth, but at that moment there was a patter of quick footsteps and the door burst open.
“Violet!” cried Cousin Edith. “You absolute rotter!”
In only a moment, Edith had hauled Violet to her feet, embraced her fiercely, held her at arm’s length, straightened and dusted off Violet’s jacket, then hugged her again.
“Don’t you dare laugh!“ Edith scolded, for Violet was indeed laughing. “Because then I’ll laugh too, and I want to be cross, you terrible scapegrace!”
Suddenly, Edith was crying. She sank into a chair, and began to fish about for a handkerchief. “Oh, no, not that one,“ she muttered to the one she pulled from her sleeve, going after another in her pocket.
Una froze, suffering bewildering waves of feeling.
Was this how she ought to have reacted to her sister’s appearance? And why hadn’t she?
“I’m sorry to weep on you,” said Edith. “But I was so afraid that you’d be gone again before I got here. Before Mother came home. And I’m so relieved. Please, please, don’t disappear again!”
Violet looked as if Edith’s greeting confused her as much as it did Una. She shoved her hands in her pockets like a guilty schoolboy—perhaps she didn’t know what else to do with them.
“And then to hide like that—from everyone but the twins, and sneak about!” Edith took a deep breath. “Why did you do it?”
Violet stammered, “I think—I think I wanted to just glimpse you and see—if there was still room for me.”
Edith gave a sniffle and looked at Violet searchingly.
“Do you mean like Peter Pan, gazing in at the nursery window?” Edith said slowly. “They put bars on the window, didn’t they? And he couldn’t get in.”
Violet darted an involuntary glance at Una. “Yes.”
“Horrible story!” Edith declared. “I’ll tell Mr Barrie next time I see him, I really will!
There are no bars to keep you out, and there never will be.
Don’t let my tears trouble you. I’m always like this when I’m expecting.
” She patted her swelling waistline. “This will be our fourth, you know. Margaret was born just after you left.”
“The twins told me all about her, and this one,” Violet said with a grin.
“How wonderfully indiscreet of them!”
They both laughed. Una stared.
The way the two of them were carrying on, it was as if Violet had never run away two years ago— never caused them all endless worry and hurt.
To her horror, Una felt tears in her eyes. She got up quickly.
“We open in two hours,” Una said, “I must go check everything’s ready.”