Free Darkwater by Dorothy Eden

Hannah carried Marcus who was asleep. Fanny had attempted to take Nolly’s hand, but the child had firmly withdrawn it. She walked at Ching Mei’s side, small and upright and independent. It was half past eight and she should have been dropping with weariness. Indeed, her face was colourless, but her eyes stared out as brilliantly as ever.
    Fanny could see Trumble staring as they approached. Ching Mei’s pigtail and her trousered legs obviously fascinated him. He had expected a Chinese woman, but dressed respectably in skirts and petticoats.
    There was mist in the air. The wind was cool and fresh, like cold water. Fanny breathed deeply, smelling the familiar loved smell of damp earth and heather. Perhaps she would have withered away with longing for this and the moorland wind if she had gone abroad or stayed in London.
    Trumble had doffed his cap and sprung forward to help with the baggage. As they were about to climb into the carriage Fanny’s attention was taken by another small group who had left the train. She stared in pity and horror. There was a man, handcuffed, between two warders. He was on his way to the prison. Fanny caught only a glimpse of his thin bearded face beneath the flaring station lamps before he was hustled off.
    She shivered. Imprisonment. It was terrible. There were so many forms of it. The prisoner’s face had been expressionless, like Ching Mei’s. Like her own must be, at times.
    Fortunately no one else seemed to have noticed the episode. And in the carriage, when Marcus woke, and began to sob, Fanny suddenly remembered the sweetmeats Lady Arabella had given her. They had been left untouched in her reticule. She produced the small brown paper bag and distributed the sticky sweets.
    ‘There,’ she said. ‘We’ll be home in less than an hour.’
    She thought again, involuntarily, of the prisoner when the carriage had come to a standstill outside the front door, and Trumble was helping them all to alight.
    For either by accident or deliberately, the curtains had not been drawn across the drawing room windows and in the glowing lamplight the scene within was visible in every detail.
    Lady Arabella was dozing in the high winged chair by the fire. Opposite her on the sofa Aunt Louisa, her topaz necklace catching the light, was deep in animated conversation with Lady Mowatt. Uncle Edgar stood smoking a cigar and talking to Sir Giles. Uncle Edgar was wearing his most benevolent expression. He looked well-fed and content, a man without a care. Sir Giles must have just said something that pleased him for he made a deprecatory gesture with his cigar. Sir Giles, unlike the hapless creatures in his custody, had a ruddy jovial face as if he habitually dined well and had a cellar as well-stocked as Uncle Edgar’s. His wife was a quiet creature, soberly dressed. Aunt Louisa, with her honey-coloured necklace and her massive crinoline looked almost flamboyant in contrast.
    Beyond them Amelia and George were sitting at the card table engaged in a game of cards. George looked remarkably handsome. From this distance one couldn’t see the lines of difficult concentration on his forehead or his intermittently blank gaze. Amelia wore her sprigged muslin with the blue velvet sash. She had her curls pinned high in an adult manner, and looked very grown-up and sure of herself, the cherished daughter of wealthy parents.
    It was a pretty picture. It required no one else in it.
    Again Fanny had the overwhelming sense of being excluded from any genuine place in the family. The wind blew in a sharp gust, making her shiver again. The horses moved restlessly on the cobblestones. Hannah was saying, ‘You can walk now, a big boy like you,’ and had set Marcus down. And suddenly Fanny knew that the strange children, Nolly and Marcus, were looking in at the warm room, too. She felt a small very cold hand slipped into hers. She looked down. It was Nolly at her side. The child hadn’t looked up, hadn’t made a sound. Her