But that hadn’t made it feel less wrong. And she’d missed having Violet to play with.
Lydia had met her father’s brother for the first time at the funeral. He’d been only rarely talked about at home, and then but briefly, in the same pinched tones one used for speaking of unpleasant things. She’d understood why after meeting him. Uncle Reuben had been so unlike her father she’d have never known the two men were related.
His son, her cousin Silas, had been equally unpleasant. He’d been fourteen that summer, the same age as Joseph, though Joseph had already seemed a young man in his manners and physical build, whereas Silas had looked and behaved like a child who’d been over-indulged. He’d been rude. He’d mocked their younger cousin Oliver, who stammered. He had slipped a silver spoon into his pocket at the table and, when Lydia had told him he must put it back, he’d done so with a sly smile that implied such things as theft were mere amusements. So she’d thought it only justice when, just after dinner, Benjamin had finally lost his temper and knocked Silas to the ground.
She hadn’t heard the conversation that provoked it. She’d only seen Silas spin sideways and drop like a stone.
They’d left shortly afterwards. And on the journey home no one had spoken at all until Benjamin finally had broken the silence. “He said when they were his, he’d sell them.”
Without looking back, their father had replied, “They are not his. And he can make no claim to them until your uncle dies.”
“And when that day comes,” had been their mother’s promise, “we’ll do all we can to keep Phyllis and Violet safe.”
Lydia, sitting in silence through all of this, had absorbed gradually what they were speaking of, and what it meant. And for days after that she had lived with a heavy place deep in her heart where a piece of her innocence had been torn out and replaced with the weightier truth of the world.
On the fourth day, her mother had taken her hand and they’d gone for a walk, through the cool of the trees to the path that led down to the edge of the cove where the tide, being in, lapped the shore with a shining, smooth surface that covered the tangle of reeds and dark rocks underneath. But she knew they were there.
She’d reminded her mother, “You said it was wrong to own people.”
“It is. It is wrong. More than that, it’s impossible.” Squeezing her hand very slightly, her mother had explained, “One person cannot own another, darling, for our souls belong to us and God and no one else.”
She’d been confused. “So Uncle Reuben doesn’t own Phyllis and Violet?”
“He can only hold their bodies as a gaoler holds a prisoner.”
She had only vaguely understood, but she had known one thing with total certainty. “It is unfair.”
Again her mother’s hand had tightened briefly on her own. And then she’d bent and taken off her shoes and stockings, and had done the same to Lydia. “Come, let me show you something.”
It had been a warm day but the water had been cold enough to numb her ankles as, beside her mother, she’d stepped into it. Beneath her feet the sand had shifted, changing to accommodate her, and when she had stopped to stand, it softly sank and swirled around her heels and toes and held her like an anchor.
Her mother, who like Lydia was standing with her skirts and apron gathered in her free hand, looking at the slowly drifting clouds above the blue horizon, had said, “When I’m feeling troubled and the weight of all my worries is a heavy thing to bear, I come down here, and in my mind I set each trouble on a wave and let it pass me by.” She’d smiled down at Lydia. “You feel them passing?”
Lydia had felt those waves against her legs, and nodded.
Her mother had pointed. “Look there now, which trouble will you set on that?”
The swelling wave that moved towards them had but scarcely raised the surface of the water, but it had held darkness underneath it. “Silas,” Lydia had said. “That wave is Silas.”
“Then let’s stand and let him pass us by. Good riddance to him.”
But the darkness had been in the water still when that cold wave had passed, and nothing in the years between had managed to erase the threat of Uncle Reuben and her cousin Silas from their lives.
She knew it must be worse for Violet, but she’d never felt she had the right to ask how Violet felt.
She did not ask her now.
She only bent her head and answered, “No. You’re right. Mr. de Sabran cannot enjoy being a prisoner. Perhaps I’m the one who is being ungracious.”
“I didn’t mean you had to treat him better,” Violet told her. Moving up she dipped her own hands in the basin and began to wash them clean. “He’s still a Frenchman. After what they did to Mr. Joseph and to—” With a sideways look at Lydia she caught the words back. “You don’t owe them kindness. I just meant he had his reasons, too, for acting like he does.” She looked where Lydia had just been looking, through the kitchen window to the cider press now taking final shape beside the shed. “At least he isn’t idle, like His Majesty.”
As if on cue, a series of by-now familiar noises from the little chamber at the far end of the kitchen let them know Mr. de Brassart was just now awakening.
“His Majesty,” said Lydia, dry-voiced, “will want his toast and tea.” And crossing to the hearth she swung the kettle into place above the low fire and began the preparations. She knew better than to ask Violet to do it, for if Lydia found it a challenge to mind her own manners while dealing with Mr. de Sabran, for Violet it seemed to be nearly impossible to walk the same floor as Mr. de Brassart.
He’d made a great show of accepting her father’s reminder that Violet was not to be treated with anything less than respect, but his glances at times were so insolent Violet had come close to speaking her mind, and however sympathetic Violet might be to a person’s loss of freedom, in his case she plainly thought it justice.
He had done himself few favours when he’d spoken up at dinner yesterday, starting badly to begin with by unwittingly asking about the one item of furniture in the whole house guaranteed to make them all fall silent.
“That’s an interesting chair,” he’d said. “Where was it made?”
He’d meant the chair that sat across the room, close by the window. It was curious in its construction, built upon an X-shaped frame instead of four straight legs, and with a leather seat slung lengthwise from the high back so its occupant, while well supported, did not sit completely upright. Her mother had adored that chair, since sitting very straight had caused her back to ache unbearably, and daily after dinner she had sat there with her needlework, the chair positioned just so it would sit within the light.
They had not moved it.
Lydia, aware the silence might stretch on forever if she did not speak herself, had said, “It is a Spanish chair. My brother Daniel sent it as a gift, from the West Indies.”
That had roused Mr. de Brassart’s interest. “Really? From where?”
“From Kingston, in Jamaica.”
“He lives there, your brother?”
“Yes.”
“I have a brother who lives in the West Indies also,” he’d told her. “At Saint-Domingue.”
Not knowing much about the islands or their relative positions, she had nodded in acknowledgement, content the conversation was no longer focused on her mother’s chair. Until he’d added, “He has been there for many years, my brother. I have not seen his property, but he describes it in his letters very well. He has much land and many slaves. A great estate.”
Violet had said nothing, though from the set of her jaw it had been plain she’d wanted to. Setting the platter of vegetables down with controlled force, she’d left the room. Joseph had frowned at his plate, and their father had frowned at the table.