Chapter 4 #4
She ran until she came to a meadow still clinging to the remaining wildflowers of the season.
A small brook ran through the center of it, trickling over rocks and navigating mounds of moss and clumps of chamomile.
She sat down where the ground would not be damp and dropped her head to her hands.
Her heart beat so strong she could feel it through her bodice.
What have I to do with a girl?
The words rang sharply in her head. Banging around like when she’d stood too close to the church bells after Aunt Genevieve’s wedding.
She put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes.
“Violet?”
Startled, she lifted her head. Cyril had been running, and he slowed his last several strides to reach her.
“Go away,” she said.
“It wasn’t my idea. My mother made me come.”
He said it, but she knew how he sounded when he was only trying to placate her with sarcasm.
“Heaven forbid you should disobey your mother.”
“Would you?”
He had a point. She adored Mrs. Burke. She puffed out a sigh and rested her arms on her knees.
He approached and lowered to the ground behind her with his back leaning against hers. “What has happened?”
“Father told me he has no need for a girl”—her voice hitched most infuriatingly—“and he won’t be going riding with me anymore.” She heard the sound of tearing grass behind her and imagined Cyril with a long blade of it in his teeth. Several moments passed before he answered.
“My father says your father is still in deep mourning.”
She sucked in a breath and shouted, “But I am still alive!” She pounded her chest with her fist. “I’m still here!”
She spun on all fours to face him, angry and sad and frustrated. “Why am I still here? Why couldn’t it have been me instead of Daniel?”
He stared at her.
She turned back to her seated position and folded her arms. “You can’t even answer that question.”
He pressed his back against hers once more in a gentle shove. “Nobody can answer that question.” He paused. “Except to say that Daniel saved your life. That was the last thing he did. That’s how important you are, Violet. That’s how important you were to Daniel.”
Her heart pinched for the loss of a brother who’d cared for her that much.
Would he be angry with Father for dismissing her?
“I’m not important to my father. I don’t think he even likes to look at me.
He looked at me today, and it was such a startling thing, I couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at me. At my eyes.”
She felt Cyril’s back expand against hers and heard the release of his breath. “Well,” he said. “I know how important you are to your mother. Look at all she’s done to show it. I didn’t understand so much when I was eight and made to study with an over-precocious little baby.”
“I was four!”
He ignored her protest. “But egads, Violet, I know more of society now. Your mother, and mine, and my father, if I’ll be honest, have defied the laws of society to teach you so many things. Especially because you’re a girl.”
She broke off a long blade of sweetgrass and placed the white tip between her teeth.
How would it have been if her mother hadn’t allowed her to study in secret?
She could think of one word: suffocating.
“That is true. I can’t imagine how it would be if both my parents—” She couldn’t even finish the sentence, filled with deep gratitude for a brave mother.
She did not doubt her mother loved her. Not one bit.
“As for your father,” Cyril continued. “I don’t know what to say.
If it were me …” He paused again, and she knew he was thinking very hard about how to express his thoughts.
She doubted very much he could even imagine his own father saying such a thing to him.
She could not even fathom it. How different people were.
He leaned his head back against hers. “I’m so very sorry, Violet,” he whispered. “It is beyond me. Perhaps, in time, he’ll see what he is risking in pushing you away. But know you have others in your life who see you for everything you are.”
Violet removed the spent stalk from her mouth and bit her lip. “Even you?” she dared to ask.
He leaned away and turned, and she did the same.
His eyes sparked with mischief, and the sight brought unexpected relief. “Oh, I see you, all right. Every sharp twist of your thoughts, every challenging glare, every dodge and parry and, heaven forbid, crow of triumph over my loss. Lud, and your set jaw when I do win.”
She unleashed a laugh, and it felt good. Better.
“You are a girl, it’s true,” he said and sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “The most determined, clever, mischievous, capable girl I’ve ever met. Frankly, you are exhausting.” He collapsed on the ground, his arm over his eyes, a grin on his face. He peeked at her.
She couldn’t help laughing. She couldn’t help collapsing on the ground as well, her head near Cyril’s. She laughed again, and he joined her. “You know,” she said, chuckling, “it is rather exhausting, being so wonderful.”
He groaned and she laughed again. She gazed up at the robin’s-egg sky filled with puffy white clouds, and she decided that, despite how her heart ached over her father’s rejection, she would be the best Violet she knew how to be.