The Painted Bridge A Novel

THIRTY-SEVEN





Water dripped from the gutters and the branches. The line of snow on the ledge outside Anna’s window looked brittle, the surface lacy with holes. The fire was not quite out; a few embers glowed from under a soft blanket of ash. Lovely arrived later than usual with a jug of cold water, her face worried.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s Makepeace, miss. No one can rouse ’er. She’s not dead—Cook held a mirror to her mouth.”

She stepped outside the door and came back in with Anna’s boots, put them down in the front of the hearth.

“Thought you might like to have these. Make your own way downstairs, miss. Mr. Abse says we’ve got to manage the best we can. The magistrates are still ’ere, they couldn’t get away last night. He’s having breakfast with ’em, in the study.”

Anna washed from head to toe after Lovely clumped her way off down the corridor, humming. She put on her own dress again. Laced up her boots. Someone had cleaned them—the salt stains were gone. On impulse, she unlaced them again, took the money from the bed leg and hid it inside her boot. Afterward, she sat down on the bed, looking at the open door. She felt afraid to walk through it. She pinched her hands, reminded herself that she was a Newlove girl. Could endure more than any boy and was tough, resourceful.

She went down the stairs to the dining room and paused outside the door. Someone was singing inside. A lullaby. She pushed open the door. The breakfast table was laid as usual with tin mugs, the few spoons. Lizzie Button sat in her place at the far end of the table, in the seat where Anna had first seen her. She had a child on her lap. A long, pale infant, with thin, fair hair parted over a fragile skull. She held him stiffly as if afraid he would break.

“Lizzie!”

Anna sat down next to her. The piece of wood was on the table, still wrapped in its shawl.

“I’m going home, Anna. Those doctors spoke with my husband. They told him his mother was wrong about me. That I wasn’t any danger to anyone, let alone my own children.”

“Is this your Albert?”

“Yes. He doesn’t know me.” Lizzie hugged him closer. She kissed the top of his head and began to cry.

“What if my girls don’t know me either, Mrs. Palmer?”

A fair-haired man with prominent eyes, his hair cut like a monk’s across his forehead, arrived in the doorway. He had a small girl on each side of him—both dressed in identical coats, their wrists protruding from the sleeves—and another in his arms, asleep. The smaller girl ran to Lizzie and grabbed her skirts, buried her face in them, and began to wail. The other stayed where she was, not moving, as if she was made of stone.

The man nodded at Anna.

“Come on, Elizabeth,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

Anna remained at the table. It was quiet without Makepeace’s ringing footsteps, her sawing cough. The only sound was of dripping from outside and occasionally a muffled sliding of something dislodged, slipping; melting snow fell past the window in great lumps. A little woman, dark and quick and neat, came in bearing a platter. Anna stared at her as she put it down on the sideboard and she looked back pleasantly.

“Good morning, miss. I’m the Cook. Care for a piece of bacon?” She lifted the lid. “It’s nice and warm still.”

The others began to arrive and Cook nodded at her and departed. The rashers were crisp and strong and salty. Anna ate slowly, helped herself to tea, poured a cup for Mrs. Featherstone and rose from the table still feeling as if she was in a dream. The dayroom was dim and disorderly, the chairs out of their usual positions and the bags of handwork scattered. The curtain lay on the floor. The residents sat singly and in pairs and the atmosphere was subdued.

Anna pulled Talitha’s chair back to its usual spot, plumped up the green velvet seat and folded the fringed, embroidered Indian shawl over the back of it, then changed her mind and threw it over her own shoulders, breathed in the faint scent of naphthalene. “This is no place for a young woman, Mrs. Palmer. For any woman.” She heard Miss Batt as clearly as she had heard her the first time. Anna sat down on the window seat, feeling the silken tassels of the shawl, rolling them between her fingers. She didn’t read. She didn’t sew. She didn’t talk to Violet or Mrs. Featherstone or Miss Todd. She was waiting.

She didn’t wait long. An hour later, the door was kicked open and Makepeace struggled through it. She had on two capes, one on top of the other, and dragged a carpet bag behind her. She looked disheveled, as if she had dressed in a hurry. Under her arm was a piece of tapestry in a black lacquer frame. Makepeace stopped in front of Anna and rummaged in her reticule with a ringed hand. Her hair was freshly dyed, the top of her forehead stained brown, and in her eyes was a look of triumph.

“Letter for you,” she said, thrusting something in her lap. “You have my most sincere commiserations, Palmer.”

She hurried on toward the other door, passed through it and Anna heard the bag thump down the stairs, step by step. Anna looked down into her lap. The scent of violets rose from the letter and the handwriting, round and loopy, was familiar. She pulled out a single sheet of paper and held it for a moment still folded in her hand. Opened it.

“Miss, I thought I knew the gentleman you mention but I was wrong. I never did understand why everything had to be secrit. Please come to me as soon as you are able. Maud.”

She turned it over. The envelope had been steamed open; the flap lay limply against the pink body of it. The sender had written her name across the back. Mrs. Maud Palmer. She felt dizzy at the sight of those three words but with what she didn’t know. Was it dismay? Or was it hope?

* * *

Violet’s new bird had gotten loose. The others were chasing it, a note of fear in their laughter. It was ten-thirty, by the grandfather clock. Anna slipped out the door of the dayroom and down the stairs, lifted her cloak from the pegs in the cloakroom. She had to breathe unbreathed air. Take in the letter alone and think her own thoughts. Even the confines of the airing ground would be preferable to the dayroom.

The side door was unlocked. She let herself out and walked along the back of the house in slanting sunlight. The snow was melting on the path, sliding down between the gravel; it dripped from the branches of the trees, lay in shallow-edged drifts on the turf. At the window of the study, she came up close to the glass and peered through. Behind the stacks of books and papers, Abse sat at his fortress desk with his hands cupped over his ears as if he was trying to hear some faint and distant music. He looked up as she hurried away but made no sign of having seen her.

The gate to the airing ground stood open. She paused and looked in, at the walled enclosure, the grid of narrow paths and the wall of bricked-up windows along the far side. A robin hopped toward her, expectant, its head cocked. Glancing around her, Anna walked past the gate, quickening her step, her soaked feet carrying her on—under the trees and down across the grass. She reached the field, unchallenged, her heart beating painfully in her chest. The ewes were ships, their pregnant bellies swaying over dainty feet as they regarded her. She kept on—walking swiftly until she reached the edge of the lake. The level was high and the water fresh-smelling, moving all over. The trees were broken into hundreds of pieces across the surface, an undone jigsaw puzzle.

As she looked, a bellow thundered through the air, from behind her. It sounded like a wounded sheep. Anna turned and looked up the long snow-covered slope toward the house. In the distance, at the top, stood Fludd, legs akimbo, staring straight at her. He set off toward her, walking, not running, his stride purposeful. Anna’s mind felt hard and sharp and clear. The sheep were still gathered around a trough of hay, eating peacefully; there was no one else anywhere in sight. She ran to the bottom of the field, turned, and still running made her way along the bank until she reached the coppice of trees.

The holly berries were gone; the red-stemmed bushes in tender, new leaf. There was no path through the thicket, no obvious entry point. She pulled her cloak up over her head, tightened it around her and launched herself into the sharp, snagging holly branches, the stems of dogwood. Snow showered down on her from the leaves, wet and heavy. Her gloves were soaked and her fingers cold. She fought her way on through the tangle of growth, panting, struggling to breathe. She dared not look behind her but kept going, forcing her way through beeches that were still brittle with brown leaves, though silky sheathed buds emerged underneath.

Anna reached the other side with her wrists and fingers bleeding and stood for a moment, gasping for breath, pulling thorns and brambles out of her cloak and hair. She raised her head and looked at the white bridge, shimmering, its reflection trembling on the water below.

There was something odd about the bridge, close up. It looked not as if it was made of white stone, as it appeared from the house, but more like wood. Painted wood. And she couldn’t see the way onto it, only the front of it. She ran toward it, still panting, reached the bridge and stopped. She looked behind it, dreading what she would see. Catherine was right. It was not a bridge. It was nothing more than a piece of scenery. A two-dimensional, painted façade, its wooden back green with mildew.

A noise came from the undergrowth, of branches cracking and tearing, followed by a bellow of pain and a curse. Anna heard herself whimpering with fright. She stared at the bridge for a second then kicked the post at the end. It didn’t move. She took hold of the post with both hands and tried with all her strength to shake it. It didn’t shift even a fraction. It was solidly lodged in the ground. The balustrade over the top of the arches led in a smooth, undulating white line to the far bank. It was wider than it looked from the house. As wide as her own foot. It would have to serve.

Anna hoisted her skirts above her knees, got hold of the post with both hands and pulled herself up onto the support propping the back of the bridge. She scrambled along it, got both feet onto the top of the balustrade. For an instant, she paused, crouched down, looking at the dark, opaque water. She was a strong swimmer but not in skirts and a cloak. Not in icy water.

“You! Stop there!” Fludd’s voice was right behind her.

She undid her cloak and threw it down in the water. She could hear him panting, hear him coming nearer.

“Stop right there, missy. No funny business.” He laughed.

Anna raised herself so she stood upright and inched her front foot around, turning her body to follow. She began to walk, like a trapeze artist, one foot in front of the other, touching her toe to her heel, both arms stretched out to her sides.

A hoarse shout came from behind her. Another profanity. As she neared the center of the lake, she felt the bridge shake. She stopped, trembling so violently that she almost lost her footing. Don’t look back, she whispered to herself. She straightened again and resumed her passage over the water, her eyes fixed on the far side of the lake. As she stared in the direction of the gleaming silver birches, a figure appeared on the sandy bank in front of her. It was a man, dressed in sailor’s trousers, ragged and navy blue, and wearing a patched jacket. His beard and hair were long enough to catch the breeze and his feet naked on the melting snow. He stretched out his hand toward her.

“Come to me.”

His voice was a deep bell note on the air. Anna could feel the breeze in her ears and on her skin, smell the clean, absolving odor of the water. The air around her supported her as if she floated in its light. She walked surefootedly, felt her way along to the very end of the white ledge until she was close enough to leap to the shore.

She landed more heavily than she expected. The snow had almost gone and the earth was covered with primroses. Anna brushed off her hands and got up to look on His face. There was no one there. Jesus had disappeared. She lifted her skirts and ran—up the sloping ground under the sheltering canopy of the trees and on toward the city on the horizon, the dome of St. Paul’s, the roar and tides of the streets.

* * *

In Sebastopol Street, Anna turned in through the gate of number 59, lifted the metal hand knocker, let it fall. She didn’t have the sense that she’d had last time, of having been there before. She was chilled to the bone, felt she could go no farther, that if the door didn’t open she would simply slump to the step.

The door opened immediately, as if someone had been waiting for her just the other side of it. Maud Sulten was shorter than Anna—dark-haired and dressed in a red wrap, belted at her waist, her feet in embroidered green slippers emerging from the bottom of the robe. For a minute, neither of them spoke. They looked at each other, eyes locked. She had never known a stranger so perfectly, Anna had time to think, before the woman smiled.

“You must be Anna,” she said, taking her frozen hand and clasping it between her own, drawing her over the threshold. “Come in and warm yourself. I was expecting you. I’ve got the kettle on.”

Anna followed the woman down the passageway and into a sitting room where all the seasons bloomed at once—snowdrops, roses, lilies, poppies, chrysanthemums, poinsettias, in pots of artificial flowers. There was a crash and she looked down. A small boy grinned up at her from the rug in front of the fire, colored bricks flying and skidding and bouncing into the corners of the room from the castle he had just demolished.

His eyes were dark, his skin waxy and his little face serious for its years. Something about him was familiar. Anna sat and watched as he played. The room was cozy and enveloping; she felt strangely at home, listening to Maud clattering gently in her kitchen. She eased off her boots, her soaked stockings, wriggled her toes in front of the flames.

“Here we are.”

Maud stood in the doorway with a teapot and a pair of flowery cups on a lace cloth on a tray. She put the tray down on the table, took the lid off the pot and stirred the tea, around and around.

“The thing is, Anna,” she said. “I love him.”

“Your boy? Of course you do.”

“Not just our boy. I love Vincent. Foolish old goat that he is. I wouldn’t have married him otherwise.”