It would be fair to say the vicarage was a house divided, and the divide came in the shape of Sophy. On the one hand Jeremiah, Mary and Patience made no secret of their loathing of ‘the child’ as Mary continued to call Esther’s daughter, but John, Matthew and David held their cousin in deep affection and the little girl was Bridget’s sun, moon and stars. Unfortunately for Sophy, the three sons of the family were at private boarding schools for a great part of each year, and she was left to the tender mercies of Patience, whose chief delight was finding new ways to torment her. And in this Patience was ably assisted by her mother.
With each passing year Esther’s daughter had grown more beautiful and similarly, so had Mary’s hate of her niece grown. She lost no opportunity in physically punishing the little girl for the slightest fall from grace – of which there were many because Sophy was a spirited child – using her correction cane with righteous zeal and unerring accuracy for maximum pain. A word spoken out of place, a chore not carried out to her satisfaction, a glance she considered insolent – all brought forth retribution of the harshest kind. It was one of Mary’s regrets that she couldn’t find fault with the child’s aptitude for her lessons. Patience and Sophy were taught by a governess for four hours each morning, and although Patience was fourteen months older than her cousin she didn’t have half of her intelligence or natural proficiency. Once the lessons were over for the day Sophy was consigned to Bridget’s care with a list of chores from her aunt as long as her arm, and both Mary and Patience had taken to checking that these were being carried out at odd moments of the day, suspecting that Bridget was too lenient with her small charge.
Jeremiah had little to do with the workings of the house and none with domestic arrangements. When he was at home he buried himself in his study, emerging only at mealtimes or when they had guests. At those times anyone would have been hard put to guess the state of enmity existing between husband and wife. Most of the time he ignored Sophy’s existence, and when he was forced to acknowledge her presence, his granite profile concealed a bitter resentment which had grown like a canker over time, souring every aspect of his life.
As for Sophy herself, it would be true to say that but for Bridget and her parents the little girl’s life would have been unbearable. As it was, she accepted her lot, if not stoically – she had too much of her mother running through her veins for that – then with a fortitude which enabled her to be happy some of the time, although the older she got the more she questioned the unfairness of her position.
As she was doing right at that moment whilst helping Bridget clean the household silver on the scullery table. ‘I’m going into double numbers tomorrow, aren’t I, Bridget?’
‘That you are, my lamb.’
‘Patience and David had a party when they went into double numbers. Do you remember the frock Aunt Mary bought Patience, the pink one with the silk sash?’
Bridget nodded but didn’t comment. The mistress had spent a fortune on the dress from one of the la-di-da shops in Bishopwearmouth, but all it had done was to accentuate Patience’s extreme plainness ten-fold. No expensive frock could disguise the fact that Patience was the spitting image of her mother, in nature as well as appearance, Bridget thought darkly.
‘It was a bonny frock,’ Sophy murmured wistfully, glancing down at the plain grey serge dress her aunt made her wear every day except for the occasions they had visitors.
Bridget sniffed. ‘Bonny is as bonny does.’
Sophy stared into the round, rosy face of the person she loved most in all the world. Bridget sometimes said things which didn’t make any sense at all.
‘Kitty’s making me a birthday cake but we’ve got to keep it a secret,’ she whispered conspiratorially. ‘She said I can help decorate it and write my name in pink icing sugar.’
‘Is that so?’ Bridget knew she didn’t need to emphasise that the bairn’s aunt and uncle mustn’t catch a whiff of it, and Miss Patience, too, of course. She’d often thought it was a great pity Patience wasn’t a boy, because there was no doubt a major part of her fierce hatred of this child was down to the green-eyed monster. And she could understand how Patience must feel in part, because if Mrs Lemaire had been pretty, her daughter was beyond bonny. Sophy’s skin was pure milk and roses, her wavy hair a bright golden auburn and her lips full and perfectly shaped, but it was the bairn’s eyes that took your breath away. They were like none she’d seen before in a human face, being a burned honey colour and as clear as amber, with thick sweeping lashes and fine curving brows above.
‘If my mother was here she’d have bought me a new frock.’