Fragile Mask (3 page)

She had hoped to eradicate it here, thinking that with
distance the scars would heal, the fear die. She was wrong. Mama
seemed to be worsening, and Verena herself, instead of being
reassured by the passing of time, felt every day more hunted, more
at risk. She shivered, her gloved fingers clasping tighter within
the brown muff that hung from a cord about her neck.

Then she set her teeth, annoyed with the little loss of
control. Well might she shiver, she told herself with defiance. It
was cold, was it not?

Thrusting the thought away, she sped lightly in her snug
kid half-boots across the snowy square of ground that separated the
Ruishtons’ house from her lodging.

It had been Verena’s deliberate choice to move up here once
she got the lie of Tunbridge Wells. The Ruishton property lay
between two other plots on the one side, while closest to the
lane—a curved departure from the main London Road that led down
past the Common towards the centre of the town that clustered about
the chalybeate spring and the Pantiles—were a number of houses with
smaller areas of land about them.

The lodging house, of which Verena and her mother had hired
the better part, lay more or less opposite the Ruishtons’, largely
hidden from general sight within some fencing against other houses
round about, yet open to the fields. It had the merit of isolation,
Verena felt. For although it had not been possible to remain aloof
in a town like Tunbridge Wells—and for Mama’s sake Verena had
overcome her own disinclination for company—people were discouraged
from forming a habit of visiting.

Several gentlemen had done so at first, but Verena had, she
flattered herself, so well succeeded in damping any hopes of her
interest that they now contented themselves with clustering about
her when she went down into the town.

It was Betsey, whose fierce loyalty had frustrated the
landlady’s attempts to pry into the mysterious circumstances
surrounding her peculiar visitors, who let Verena into the
lodging-house. Mrs Quirk’s own apartments comprised the ground
floor of the house, and she provided such services as the ladies
required under the forbidding eye of the faithful Betsey. Although
she was able to report abroad that the ladies’ linen was of the
appropriate quality for the gentility, she could not satisfy
Wellsian curiosity as to why these ladies had come to the spa
town.

‘
They won’t believe as you’re here only for the mistress’s
health,’ as Betsey had informed the daughter herself, ‘but you
needn’t fear me, Miss Verena. That there Quirk won’t learn nothing
from my lips.’

Verena had every trust in Betsey on that count. She was
much of an age with Mama and had maided Verena since her childhood.
She had come with them on her own insistence—‘As if I’d leave you
both to fend for yourselves, Miss Verena! If not me, who’s to look
to your needs, I’d like to know?’—cheerfully taking on the burden
of Jill-of-all-trades to them both. She was bustling and sharp, a
buxom dame with a hectoring manner, and more than a match—as she
pridefully boasted—for any number of Quirks.

Verena accepted her loyalty without question, but could be
little comforted to hear of the gossip. The hard necessity of
defending her very small island from prying eyes only added to the
strains and stresses that beset her: the well-nigh impossible task
of keeping Mama’s spirits up, and the haunting dread that Nathaniel
might find them out.

‘
I was on the watch for you, Miss Verena,’ Betsey whispered
as she let her in, softly closing the door.

‘
Oh, dear. Is she up already, then?’

‘
If you can call it that,’ uttered the maid in a severe
undertone as she hustled the easier of her two charges towards the
staircase. ‘I tried to make her stay abed, indeed I did, Miss
Verena. But she would insist on dressing. Now she’s in a fair
collapse on the day-bed, like I knew she would be.’

‘
She had a bad night, then,’ Verena guessed, hurrying up the
stairs.

‘
Tossing and turning,’ confirmed Betsey, who always slept on
a truckle-bed in her mistress’s room. ‘Twice she woke up crying.
And I’m that sorry, Miss Verena, to have to add to your troubles,
but she must have been at the laudanum again, unbeknownst. For when
I woke and found her flat out, snoring, I looked at the bottle, and
the level is down.’

‘
Oh no, Betsey,’ Verena groaned, stopping on the landing to
turn and gaze at the maid in distress.

The maid nodded, setting the frill of her large mobcap
dancing. ‘Oh yes, Miss Verena.’ She set her arms akimbo of the
unrelenting black bombazine gown, its strict severity relieved only
with a white apron. ‘If you ask me, we should up and throw that
bottle in the dust cart.’

Verena sighed, untying the ribbons of her bonnet. ‘I would,
Betsey, except that there are any number of physicians in this town
only too ready to supply her with another.’

‘
Physicians!’ snorted Betsey, relieving Verena of the bonnet
as she removed it and brushing automatically at the flecks of snow
still adhering to the bronze velvet. ‘Much they know. It ain’t any
bodily ill that ails the mistress.’

‘
I know. Not now, in any event.’ In an absent-minded way,
Verena ran her fingers through her honey-coloured tresses to fluff
out the crushed curls. ‘I had better go in to her.’

The accommodation that served for the ladies’ parlour was a
large chamber to the front of the house, which looked out of a
square bay upon the short drive below, and from a rather smaller
window to the far side of the room upon the vista of trees that sat
in the square Verena had just left. Before this window, to take
advantage of the light, stood a small writing bureau that was
Verena’s particular domain, for she always conducted any business
there might be. Two large armchairs facing the larger window took
up most of the space in the bay, and set to catch the warmth from a
small fireplace opposite was an old-fashioned gilt wood day-bed
with worn damask upholstery, just now occupied by the frail and
exhausted frame of Mrs Abigail Peverill, thin with prolonged
griefs.

Verena’s entrance seemed to sweep a breath of freshness
into the stuffy atmosphere, and Mrs Peverill turned her head from
contemplation of the fire and put out a wavering hand.

‘
Dearest!’ she uttered. ‘I am sorry—so sorry.’

‘
Don’t be, Mama,’ Verena said on a bracing note, swiftly
crossing the room and leaning down to plant a kiss upon her
mother’s cheek.

It was a faded cheek, upon which the faintest traces of the
beauty it had once held remained, eroded by long years of
suffering. Furrows were etched into features once smooth and a
sallow shade now overlaid that peaches and cream perfection. About
the eyes a haunted look had chased away all vestige of joy, and the
myriad tiny lines that nestled there gave the lie to the lady’s
forty summers.

Mrs Peverill groped for her daughter’s hands and a rim of
redness gathered about her eyes. ‘So good to me…I am so very sorry,
my dearest.’

‘
Mama, pray hush,’ Verena begged, perching beside her mother
on the day-bed, and lifting the folds of the dove-coloured swathes
of muslin gown that were slipping to the floor.

It was like Mama to forestall criticism by a show of
contrition, Verena thought. She would guess that Betsey would see
and report on the lowered contents of the laudanum
bottle.

‘
I could wish you had not taken it,’ Verena said, ‘but it
does not matter now.’

Mrs Peverill dissolved into tears. ‘I could not sleep,
Verena. I tried so hard. Indeed, indeed I did. But what was I to
do? Such dreams…such horrible visions.

‘
Hush, Mama, hush,’ Verena crooned, lifting out from an
all-enveloping woollen shawl the trembling fingers that feebly
clutched at her hands.

It was some time before Mrs Peverill could overcome her
emotion. Verena had expected this as soon as Betsey mentioned
laudanum. The wretched stuff might help Mama to sleep, but it
always rendered her tearful and maudlin. If only she could arrest
Mama’s fears permanently. But how, when she felt them as acutely
herself?

‘
You’d best let me take your pelisse, Miss Verena,’ came
from Betsey who had followed her into the room.

‘
In a moment.’

But Mrs Peverill emerged from her handkerchief, and looked
enquiringly up towards the maid.

‘
Been out in all this snow, she has, ma’am,’ said Betsey. ‘A
miracle it is she isn’t sneezing the place down
already.’

Mrs Peverill reached out anxious fingers to feel the sleeve
of Verena’s coat.

‘
Oh, you are quite damp, dearest,’ she uttered in a much
stronger voice. ‘Do, pray, get out of that at once. I dare say your
boots may be wet through. Betsey, pray...’

The maid hid a grim smile of satisfaction and took the
brown furred pelisse as Verena peeled it off, revealing a pearl
gown of figured French lawn, waisted lower than was generally
modish, with wrap-over bodice and elbow-length sleeves, and worn
over a round gown of muslin with sleeves to the wrist and closed at
the neck with a frilled ruff.

Verena caught a wink from Betsey and understood. Anything
to divert the mistress’s mind. Bustling, the maid pulled up a
footstool conveniently to hand to one side of the day-bed, and,
pushing Verena down to sit on it, removed her boots and ordered her
to warm her stockinged toes at the fire.

‘
I’ll fetch your slippers to you, Miss Verena.’

‘
Oh yes, do so, Betsey,’ begged Mrs Peverill from her
languishing pose, adding with concern, ‘and a shawl. I could never
forgive myself if you caught cold.’

Betsey threw her a glance of scorn. ‘I’ll fetch a shawl to
her, ma’am, but what call you have to blame yourself for Miss
Verena’s gallivanting about in the snow, I’m sure I don’t
know.’

‘
Nor anyone else,’ agreed Verena, laughing. Betsey’s tactics
were masterly, and it would not do to allow Mama to fall back into
her vein of self-reproach. ‘Now, Mama, you must not scold. I have
been helping the village children to build their snowman. Oh, and
the little Ruishton boys came out to join us, too. Such a darling
pair. I know Mrs Ruishton dotes on them, although she is hoping for
a girl this time, she says.’

This turn in the conversation proved unfortunate, however,
for Mrs Peverill sighed deeply. ‘Ah, Verena, how much I long to see
you with your children about you.’

‘
Yes, well, I must needs be married first, and you know how
I feel about that.’

There was an edge to Verena’s voice, she knew, and she
wished very much that she might manage these discussions better.
But she could not. The very idea of marriage sent quivers up her
spine and caused her chest to feel hollow. How Mama could even
expect her to contemplate tying herself up in matrimony, heaven
only knew.

But Mrs Peverill’s eyes were swimming again. ‘It grieves me
so dreadfully, dearest, that I am standing in the way of your
future.’

‘
Mama, we have been over all that I don’t know how many
times.’

‘
I know, and I will never cease to bring it up until you
give up this foolish notion,’ cried her mother, her tears brimming,
over. ‘How can I bear to be such a burden to you?’

‘
But you are not a burden, Mama. Do you think I would have
taken this step if I thought that?’

‘
Yes, I am. Oh, I know you did not think so at the
outset, but I
know
I am making your life a
misery.’

‘
Nonsense!’

‘
Do not say it is nonsense. Look at me now. Unable to
support myself through a night of memories, and you have warned me
time and again against the taking of that drug.’

‘
Hush, Mama,’ begged Verena. ‘Heaven knows you have enough
reason for a sleepless night or two.’ She smiled warmly. ‘I never
expected it would be easy to overcome the pain of all those years.
But together we can do it, I am persuaded. Thanks to Grandpapa’s
bequest, at least I am in a position to take you out of that life,
and keep you out of it.’

‘
But think of your future,’ begged Mrs Peverill in distress.
‘Already you are one and twenty. Why, you are quite on the shelf.
It will not do, dearest.’

Verena laughed. ‘How can you talk so? Do you suppose I care
that I am on the shelf? My future is with you—and always shall
be.’

‘
No, Verena,’ said her mother. ‘There is little future
anywhere for me. I am convinced that I cannot last long, and then
what will happen to you?’

Betsey’s scandalised voice, as she came back into the room,
broke in before Verena could reply.

‘
That will do, that will. I never heard such fiddle-faddle
in all my born days. Talk as if you was a hundred, you do, ma’am.
And you not a day above forty, as I know.’

‘
Exactly, Mama,’ Verena agreed on a bracing note. ‘Come now.
I know you are feeling poorly at this present, but once you have
recovered your strength, you may expect to survive another
forty.’

‘
Nathaniel will have discovered us long before then,’
prophesied Mrs Peverill in a tone of settled gloom, ‘and I know he
will drag me home again.’