Chapter 23 Ormdale
Chapter twenty-three
Ormdale
As a child, Una had surprised everyone by weeping inconsolably at the funeral of her father and brother. Her sisters had been dry-eyed, and somewhat bewildered by her behaviour.
They could not know that Una cried because she was glad she would never have to see them again. And she knew that only a very wicked child indeed could feel that way—one of the Amelias, Janes, and Lucys who endured a painful fate of their own in just repayment for their lack of filial piety.
Since Violet’s return, Una had gone about her duties as carefully as always. But she was filled with a deep and crippling shame. It was that sudden understanding she’d had at the riverbank the night before. She wasn’t just confused or hurt by Violet’s sudden return, she was angry.
And she had no idea what to do with that anger.
Violet came in for tea with wild hair and bright eyes, waving a newspaper about.
“We kicked the Constitutional Crisis off the front page!” crowed Violet. “Oh! Cake!” she said appreciatively, tossing the newspaper onto the table in front of their uncle.
“Not the Daily Mail!“ Uncle George said in a pained voice, taking it up reluctantly. When he was done, he pushed it aside and gazed blankly at the tablecloth.
Una poured him a fresh cup of tea, and which he took much as a drowning man takes a life-preserver.
After he took a restorative gulp, he said in a low voice, “Don’t feel it is necessary for you to read it, my dear, if you don’t care to.”
Una was bewildered. It wasn’t unusual for something about the dragons to appear in the papers.
Sometimes there were essays about them, too.
Mr G.B. Shaw had written one calling their dragons a great Distraction, and Mr G.K.
Chesterton had responded with an essay that Una couldn’t make head nor tail of in which he argued that the best things in life were, in fact, Distractions.
Una privately thought neither of them would last a day at the menagerie.
“Hullo, that’s my drawing!” Pip said in amazement, holding up the paper for all to see.
The stark sketch of the man who had attacked her unfolded before her eyes, along with a slew of lurid headlines that had something to do with her.
Una felt both very heavy and very light all of a sudden.
“You drew him so well, Pip,” she managed.
“How on earth did they come upon all this information!” Uncle George wondered.
“Yes! How did they find out about the malefactor?” exclaimed Violet.
Pip tossed the paper aside. “I can make a guess,” he said.
They all looked at him in surprise.
“Miss Fairweather,” said Pip shortly, taking out a cigarette.
“Oh, I remember the Fairweather boy and girl at the wedding,” Violet interjected. Violet had been out walking all day, but would keep roaming about the room like a restless colt.
“You don’t mean Stephen’s daughter, Penelope?” Uncle George asked. “Are you quite sure, Pip?”
Pip nodded grimly. “She’s…ambitious.”
Uncle George sighed heavily into his teacup. “I do wish Emily were here,” he was barely heard to say.
“You’re very tight-lipped about them, Pip. Didn’t you get on?” Violet asked, now on one side of the room, now on the other. It was making Una’s head whirl.
“It was very kind of them to have me to stay with them,” he said, but his tone belied the words.
In the few letters Pip had written Una, he had never hinted at any friendship with the younger Fairweathers.
“The boy was a bit of a stick, but the girl seemed jolly enough to me. What was Penny like with you?” asked Violet, plucking the paper from where Sir George had consigned it—the wastebasket.
Pip played with his cigarette, though Una suspected he wouldn’t light it while Uncle George was about.
“She was forever running out to meetings and hauling signs about,” Pip said. “I don’t think she noticed me the whole time I was there.”
Una detected a new nadir of bleakness in his tone.
“Yes, that’s all very well, but is she the sort to leak something to the press?” Violet persisted.
Una wished Violet would leave him alone.
“If you think I have any insight into the mind of Penelope Fairweather, you are much mistaken,” said Pip grimly. “We’re not the same sort at all. I’m just a humble Yorkshire lad.” And he stubbed his unlit cigarette on the case so hard that it crumpled.
“What do you intend to do with yourself this year, Pip?” asked Uncle George.
“I’m sure I can’t say, sir,” Pip said, shoving the cigarette back in its case. “But I’d like to go abroad.”
“And what do your parents say to that?” Uncle George asked.
Pip studied his shoe. “My stepfather is more concerned with finding me a job. Less concerned with what it is.”
“What if we had a job for you here?” Uncle George said.
Pip stiffened, and so did Una.
“The frescoes in the Great Hall,” Uncle George explained. “They are in sore need of restoration. Did you learn anything about that sort of work at school?”
“A little,” Pip said, his face slowly relaxing.
Una was tremendously relieved—for a moment she’d been afraid Uncle George would offer Pip a job as part of the household staff again!
Violet made a noise from behind the newspaper. “Accomplished as she is beautiful, Miss Una Worms was considered one of the most eligible daughters of the landed gentry before her brutal attack.”
There was a silence.
“Violet,” said Uncle George in a tone that was ominously mild, “I’m not sure why you chose that excerpt.”
“Because why should she be any less eligible now somebody’s chloroformed her? It’s ridiculous!” Violet objected.
Una’s stomach turned.
“Oh,” said Violet, looking back and forth between the two men, whose faces bore the same expression. “Blast. I wasn’t thinking.”
Suddenly, Una couldn’t bear to stay any longer. She got up, smoothing her skirts.
“I’m such a fool, Una, you know I am,“ said Violet, jumping up and twitching on the spot, not sure whether to approach her or not.
“I need to go prepare something for tomorrow, that’s all,” said Una, stopping her with a hand.
As she shut the door behind her, she heard two voices:
Pip said, “I don’t suppose there might be grounds for a defamation suit against the paper, sir?”
And Uncle George said quietly, “Oh, I do wish Emily were here.”
“I’m going mad,” Violet burst out, as soon as she had tracked down Una to where she was bathing Oolong in a basin. “People say the prodigal son wasn’t punished, but he was. All that fuss and bother over his coming home? Sheer torture!”
Una went on ladling warm water over Oolong. The little dragon quivered with pleasure.
“I need something to do,” said Violet desperately.
“I would have thought you’d help Martha in the kitchen,” Una said. “She’s wearing herself out baking treats for you.”
Violet almost roared with frustration. “She won’t let me! She actually shoved a spoon at me to lick—can you believe it? Just as if she hadn’t thumped me every time I tried to do it when I was a girl!”
“Poor you,” said Una.
Violet grabbed her sister by the elbow. “I didn’t ask for any of this, Una!”
Una went rigid at her touch. How could Violet have forgotten—for even a moment—that her sister did not like being touched? Or shouted at, for that matter?
When Una was small she had sometimes curled up into a ball for an hour at a time, like a hedgehog, and no one could coax her out of it.
Once, Violet had pricked her sister with a pin, very lightly, just to see if she could still make a sound when in that condition, though she had instantly regretted it when Una had simply curled up smaller than ever, a tiny whimper the one unsatisfying result of the experiment.
Violet dropped her hand as if she’d been burnt. Una went back to bathing her dragon, head bent. Violet got the impression Oolong was watching them as keenly as a theatregoer.
“See here,” said Violet, “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I’m dense, all right? But for all that, I’m not too thick to see you don’t want me here. I’d offer to leave now—today—but it doesn’t seem fair to the rest of them—“
The words died on Violet’s lips as Una stood up straight, eyes blazing like hoarfrost on heather.
“Why?“ Una demanded, her voice rising. “Why, Violet? Why do you think you can fix things by leaving?”
“I—I don’t know!” Violet sputtered. “Why do you think I can fix things by staying?”
Una turned away to gather up the fresh dressing she had laid out for Oolong. Her voice was very low when she answered.
“Because,” Una said, “staying is what people—sisters, families—do for each other.”
“Since when has our family done what other families do?” Violet muttered, half to herself.
Una let out a bitter laugh. “Ah, yes. The rules are always different for you, aren’t they? I just don’t understand why.”
“Why what, Una?” Violet demanded. “Go on. Say it!”
Una’s shoulders tightened. “Why everything’s so easy for you,“ she whispered.
Violet’s mouth shut suddenly. Then she turned and left.