Free NaGeira by Paul Butler Page B

matter how devout, would have been subtle enough to prevent her daughter’s infection.”
    My mother nodded gratefully at Mr. Jarvis. “May we hope for a cure?” she whispered.
    Mr. Ridley frowned and the lines on his forehead became heavier. “This is a serious case indeed, Mrs. Ridley, and, in theusual course of events, punishable by far worse than mere incarceration.” There was a grave silence. My mother held the handkerchief from her face and became as still as rock. Mr. Jarvis, seeing this, leaned back slowly and gave her a reassuring smile. ”You must remember, my dear lady, that the creature that stands before you now is no longer your daughter. Even though she may look the same, her soul has decayed from the inside out.”
    Mother sighed and gazed at the table.
    “You may, of course, have your personal physician attend her, though I doubt the expense of it will prove worthwhile. It is her soul, not her mind, which is diseased. And Newgate is not an asylum.”
    “We had thought of sending her abroad to a religious house,” Mother said mildly.
    Mr. Jarvis gave her a gentle smile. “She is too far advanced, I am afraid. But you need not give up on her if you are not quite ready. She will be lodged in the master’s side and may have any treatments or comforts you deem fit.”
    “Indeed,” said my mother. She buried her face in Mr. Ridley’s handkerchief once more.
    ———
    I can’t recall how long it took me to work out all the implications of the conversation taking place before me. Now, sorting through their words again, it seems obvious from the start. But at the time, the realization came upon me only in a series of jolts, like the involuntary flinch a body makes from a flying stone. Only when the moment is past does a person have the leisure to questionwhether the missile was an accident randomly gliding in her direction, or whether there was purpose and intent behind its aim. All I know is that, by the time I finally absorbed the entire meaning of the exchange, I was alone in a stone-walled room with no fire, a thin straw mattress, and a barred window. Only then did I realize that, as a consequence of laying with Mr. Ridley’s son, I had been sent to prison.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    I ’m still haunted by the expression on my mother’s face just before she left the room. I remember standing by the table like a swaying reed as she and Mr. Ridley rose. Mr. Ridley went to the door with Mr Jarvis. At first it seemed as though my mother would do the same. But at the last moment she wafted toward me, raising her hands to my face before dropping them to her sides again in a helpless gesture. She tilted her head and gave me a look of such broken-hearted anguish—her eyes wet with tears, her brow a torment of furrows. Next moment, she was turning from me. As her moth-like figure disappeared through the doorway, I heard her greeted by the soft and comforting words of her new husband.
    ———
    The settlement has come alive in the search for Sara. For hours now I’ve been listening to the growing tumult. I’ve heard footstepsapproach to within a few yards, then trudge back down the hill. I’ve heard Sara’s name called frantically from the village, from the shore, and from the woods on the other side of my cabin. Sometimes everything goes quiet for a short time and I’ll hear muted voices and whispering. There’s something ominous in the fact that no one has yet knocked on my door. It’s as though a wolf pack is circling, cutting off possible routes of escape as it closes in.
    So much effort for one spoilt girl, the phrase comes to me unbidden. I despise myself for thinking this way, but I cannot help it. I’m jealous of this cruel and pretty creature. Her loss has caused the world to cease, when my incarceration caused hardly a bump.
    I could not begin to decipher the sorrow on my mother’s face that day in Mr. Jarvis’s office. Was it pity for the sufferings I would undergo in jail? I turned this