Chapter Thirty-Four #2
‘He just wants to humiliate Lucien,’ Venetia went on.
‘But why? What has Lucien done to invite such dislike from Terry?’
‘I can’t say,’ said Venetia, ‘it might make matters worse for Lucien and me.’
‘Come on now, tell me what’s been going on,’ Edie said, her hand tenderly patting the tiny baby’s back. ‘Otherwise, how can I help you?’
Wanting so much for Edie to do just that, to make everything right again, Venetia forced herself to give her all the details, how she and Lucien regularly went up on the roof even though it was strictly out of bounds, and of their time spent alone in the woods late at night.
Then she explained how Terry had caught them kissing and that it had looked far worse than it really was.
‘Worse?’ Edie had enquired. ‘In what way?’
Venetia knew she had to be brave. ‘We’ve never done … you know … it. We swore to each other we would never take that kind of a risk, no matter how much we wanted to.’
‘I’m very pleased to hear that,’ Edie said with a rare look of sternness on her face.
‘So you see how bad it is for Lucien and me. When it comes out that we’ve broken these rules, which Lady Constance is so strict about, nobody will believe us when we say that Terry is lying about what he saw us doing, and about the tin of money.
Lady Constance might decide we can’t stay on to finish our education.
She might think we’re not worth it because we didn’t respect the rules.
’ She was babbling now, but she couldn’t stop herself.
‘You do believe that Lucien didn’t steal the money, don’t you? He would never do anything like that.’
Putting a finger to her lips to hush Venetia, Edie gently laid the now sleeping baby into a crib.
‘I do believe you,’ she said quietly. ‘Lucien is a decent young man; I’ve always thought that.
A little headstrong at times, and stubborn like you, but he’s not a thief.
I’m disappointed though that you’ve both been up to …
to no good,’ she added. ‘I thought you knew better than that.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Venetia said, and meaning it. She hated knowing that Edie was disappointed in her. ‘But will you go and speak to Miss Selby?’ she asked. ‘She’ll listen to you. Please say you will!’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Thank you,’ Venetia said. ‘You have to make Miss Selby and Mr Grafton realise that it’s Terry who’s lying.
Because if Lucien does apologise for something he didn’t do, Terry will only do something similar in the future.
Or maybe something worse. He enjoys inflicting pain.
’ She then went on to tell Edie about the rabbit Terry had shot, but not killed outright, and which he’d put in a cage and watched it slowly die with cruel enjoyment.
‘He’s a sadist and he’s clearly got it in for Lucien and me.
It’s like he’s put us in a cage and is watching us squirm.
And he’ll keep on doing it until he’s stopped! ’
Her voice had risen to a shrill peal, and she was near to tears.
‘There, there,’ soothed Edie, putting her comforting arms around Venetia. ‘We’ll soon have all this sorted out. You’re not to worry.’
But Venetia did worry.
Even more so when Lucien didn’t appear in the dining hall when the bell rang for tea. She waited for a short while and after hanging around at the end of the queue with the clatter of plates and cutlery going on in the background, and too anxious to eat anything herself, she went to look for him.
It was now five-thirty and at six he was supposed to be going with Mr Grafton to Terry’s cottage.
Passing by Miss Selby’s office and peering in through the open door, she could see that it was empty.
But then beyond the desk and filing cabinets, and through the window, she caught a flash of movement: it was Mr Grafton striding across the lawn with a reluctant Lucien following behind.
Not missing a beat, Venetia hurried along the passageway, down the steps, past the toilets and their strong smell of Jeyes fluid and carbolic soap, then the laundry room and then out through a fire exit door.
From there she sped across the cobbled courtyard and stable block and continued towards Terry’s cottage.
Ahead of her, she spotted Mr Grafton and Lucien.
Keeping her distance, Venetia followed discreetly behind. She might not be able to stop the humiliation Lucien was being forced to go through with, but she could at least be there for him when the ordeal was over.
Carefully positioned behind a large oak tree, she peered out and watched Mr Grafton bang the knocker on Terry’s door. Lucien stood to one side, his shoulders hunched, his arms folded across his chest.
The door opened and Terry appeared wearing only a singlet vest on his top half and a pair of workman’s trousers with a pair of braces dangling from the waistband.
Words which Venetia couldn’t hear were exchanged and then to her concern, Mr Grafton shoved Lucien through the doorway, then turned and walked back up the path. He gave a brief glance over his shoulder as the door shut and then set off in the direction of the Hall.
Venetia held her position, fearing for her friend who was now entirely alone with an evil monster.
Why hadn’t Mr Grafton stayed with Lucien?
When ten minutes had passed, surely that was long enough for Lucien to make his apology, she crept out from behind the tree and moved slowly towards the cottage.
Not wanting to risk being seen going up the path, she hugged the perimeter of the laurel hedge, staying low to the ground so her head wouldn’t be seen above it.
When she reached the back, she squeezed through the smallest of gaps in the hedge next to a brick-built shed.
The door of the shed was open, and she could see that it was the outdoor privy.
The stench coming from it turned her stomach.
Moving up the ramshackle garden, she went and stood to one side of a window, and then very warily she peered into the kitchen, no more than a tiny scullery really.
The stone sink and wooden draining board were covered in unwashed pots and pans and empty beer bottles.
Shifting her gaze around the small gloomy interior she gave a small start at the sight of a dead rabbit strung up on a hook on the wall to the side of the range.
Cupping her hands around her eyes she strained to see beyond the kitchen, through the open door that led to the front of the cottage. At once she saw the outline of a large man. It was Terry and he was on his feet with his head tilted down as though looking at something.
At first Venetia didn’t understand what she was seeing, she couldn’t make sense of it. Why was Lucien kneeling in front of Terry like that? Was he being made to beg for forgiveness as a further act of humiliation?
But then it dawned on her what was happening and as the violent need to be sick consumed her, she clamped a hand over her mouth and not caring about the consequences, knowing only that she had to stop what her poor friend was being forced to do, she banged on the window.
That was when Terry whipped round, his ugly face as black as thunder.
But worse than that was the expression on Lucien’s face.
It was a combination of horrified alarm and shame.
Everything happened very quickly after that.
Lucien sprang to his feet and shoved Terry so hard that, even though there was no comparison between their body weight, Terry lost his balance and fell backwards.
Perhaps it was the sheer bulk of his body that caused him to fall with such force, but he went down like a sack of coal.
‘Run!’ Venetia screamed through the window to her friend and then trying to open the back door but without success.
By the time she’d raced around to the front of the cottage, Lucien had flung open the door and was already running, not towards the safety of the Hall, but in the direction of the woods.
She yelled at him to slow down as she charged after him, but he didn’t.
She upped her pace, twice looking over her shoulder to see if Terry was coming after them, but there was no sign of him.
When she finally caught up with Lucien, he’d come to a stop in the densest part of the wood and was bent double trying to catch his breath, a painfully ragged wheeze coming from his chest.
She put a hand out to him, to try and rub his back, to calm him so his breathing could return to normal. But he shuddered at her touch.
‘Just go!’ he rasped at her. ‘Leave me alone!’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m staying.’
‘But I don’t want you anywhere near me. Everything is going to be so much worse now. Don’t you understand that?’
‘We have to tell someone what … what Terry made you do. He’ll lose his job and will be forced to leave.’
Tears began streaming down Lucien’s cheeks. ‘Nobody must ever know!’ he cried. ‘You must promise not to tell anyone. I couldn’t bear the shame. I only did it because he said he’d force you to do it to him if I didn’t.’
Dismayed and sickened at Lucien’s words, and wanting more than anything to undo the damage Terry had caused him, she said, ‘Everything’s going to be all right now, Lucien. You’ll see. That vile man isn’t going to hurt you ever again.’
How naive she was to think that it could be as simple as that.