Free Absolute Hush by Sara Banerji

heavy tapestry began to flow from among their legs like woollen urine.
    â€˜Why have you taken the Nymph Quilt?’ Elizabeth demanded, angry because she had expected to find cigarettes, alcohol, her lipstick, the sandalwood soap from London, and felt confused by the bedspread.
    The children shifted nervously, as though if she looked at it long enough it might enable her to guess.
    â€˜It’s precious, you know,’ Elizabeth said. She leant forward trying to read their thoughts, but their pale pudgy faces were closed down like shops on Sunday. Perhaps, thought Elizabeth, they were trying to sell the quilt. She wouldn’t put it past them.
    She remembered when they had tried to sell the back gate to the Any-Old-Iron man. Elizabeth had been just in time to see the fellow poised to rip the delicate eighteenth-century wrought-iron masterpiece from its hinges.
    â€˜I given Missy Sissy and Master George a shilling for it,’ the old man, who had a mental age of ten, had told Elizabeth. ‘I didn’t mean no harm. Don’t get me into trouble, please, Missus,’ then had burst into tears.
    Elizabeth had ordered the children to return the shilling, but apparently they had spent all but twopence on chemicals for curing the skin of a rabbit, and Elizabeth had paid the man back herself and compelled the children to perform tasks in compensation.
    â€˜That’s right, love,’ Mrs Lovage had said approvingly, watching Sissy furiously wash the luncheon dishes. And to Elizabeth, ‘It’s not so much the money as their characters.’
    Sissy, humiliated beyond endurance, left the dirty water and two of Elizabeth’s green crystal wine glasses in the bowl.
    â€˜Aren’t you going to empty the bowl,’ Elizabeth had asked.
    â€˜Oh, I am so sorry, Mummy, dear,’ cried Sissy. ‘Would you mind doing it for me? I’ve just washed my hands.’
    Elizabeth, gratified and amazed, tilted the basin, smashed her two best glasses and felt full of suspicion, without knowing if Sissy had left them there on purpose.
    Elizabeth did not want to go through another of those gate episodes, goading the reluctant children; George incompetent, Sissy sneering, so asked tentatively, ‘Ah … what are you doing with it?’
    The children were before the bright window so their expressions were invisible. Beyond them, Elizabeth could see May’s leaves unfurling and insects darting.
    â€˜You should be outside, not skulking indoors on a lovely day like this,’ she told them, expecting spring to somehow purify them.
    â€˜We’re going to have a picnic in the garden later,’ lied George.
    Elizabeth said, ‘You’re not going to take the quilt into the garden, are you? Oh, I hope not! It would have broken your father’s heart, for he was very fond of it.’
    â€˜No, we’re not,’ snapped Sissy sharply. ‘We’re not taking it into the garden, so don’t get in a state.’
    â€˜A state! A state!’ wailed Elizabeth clasping her breast, breathing wildly. ‘What a way to talk to your mother who loves you so and has given up everything for your sake. Oh!’ She turned and raced away, sobbing, trembling, unable to getquickly enough to the sympathetic protection of Mrs Lovage, peeling potatoes in the kitchen.
    â€˜Whew,’ said George, wiping his forehead as if he were Biggies, having just pulled off some deed of amazing danger and heroism.
    â€˜We’ll be safe in the attics,’ Sissy said. ‘Mother never goes there.’
    They were not sure if her distaste for the attics was because of spiders or the mess.
    The attics had been divided into six stark rooms for servants, although none lived there now. The bare boards, harsh wall-emulsions, poky windows, low ceilings and gimcrack furniture depressed Elizabeth, and, perhaps, she even felt guilty that, before the war, she had allowed the people who served her to live so