‘Then go.’ Mary so forgot herself as to scream the words. ‘Now! Today!’ as she hauled Sophy out of the kitchen, by which time Kitty and Patrick had moved to hold on to Bridget, who was fighting them to get to the child.
Mary found Sophy had turned into a whirling dervish as she dragged the little girl along the corridor and into the hall. When they reached the morning room which housed the cupboard with the dreaded correction cane, Sophy began to kick and claw at her aunt in a paroxysm of terror. She was still struggling wildly when the first vicious stroke of the cane hit her across the top of her legs, causing her to fall on the floor, her hair cascading about her shoulders. And then the cane came again and again, striking the small body with enough force to make it bounce. With each stroke Mary was flaying Jeremiah and his lies, the ruination of her marriage, Esther and her wickedness which had brought the seed of badness into her own family, and not least the sickness she felt whenever her sons were home and in close proximity to that seed.
By the time Sophy’s screams had brought Jeremiah, still in his nightshirt with his dressing gown thrown hastily about his shoulders, to the morning room, Mary had locked the door against intruders. Sophy was merely a whimpering, semi-conscious heap when Mary reached for the pearl-handled knife she used to open any letters or packages delivered to the vicarage. She sawed at the long strands of golden-red hair with savage satisfaction, and each time the small head fell forwards it was jerked up again.
It took Jeremiah a couple of minutes to force the door, and by then Mary had all but completed her grisly task. She sat straddling the senseless child, surrounded by a cloud of silky hair which had feathered into the air and settled about her, her face lit by an unholy gratification and her breath coming in short gasps.
Jeremiah stood stock-still, unable to believe his eyes. It was Patience, coming up behind her father, who brought Mary to her right mind. Patience’s voice was a whimper when she said, ‘Mother? Mother, what have you done?’ and something in her child’s tone reached the enraged woman, causing her eyes to focus. Slowly Mary stood up, letting the knife fall from her clenched fingers.
‘Take your mother upstairs and make her lie down, Patience.’ Jeremiah looked neither at his wife nor daughter as he spoke, his eyes fixed on the small figure at Mary’s feet. Sophy’s dress had been almost ripped off her back in the struggle, along with her petticoat and shift, and the criss-cross of blue-red weals on her back and legs were startling against the white flesh. But it was the bloody scalp, shorn of most of its hair, which was turning Jeremiah’s stomach. The child looked as though an animal had attacked it and he could hardly credit his wife, his contained, sanctimonious, self-righteous wife with perpetrating such an outrage.
He had been conscious of shouting from the direction of the kitchen whilst he had been trying to get into the morning room and now, as Bridget burst into the hall, he quickly pushed his wife and daughter out of the room and shut the door, blocking the entrance with his body.
‘What’s she done to the bairn?’ Bridget’s cap was askew and her face tear-blotched, and as Kitty and Patrick appeared panting behind her, Patrick caught his daughter’s arm as she lifted it as though she was going to strike her mistress. Such was the severity of the situation that Jeremiah didn’t think to reprimand Bridget. Repeating his earlier order to Patience, he said, ‘Take your mother upstairs,’ before he faced the servants. ‘The child is perfectly all right. Please go about your duties.’
‘Our duties?’ Bridget was beside herself. ‘The mistress has given us our marching orders and I want to see the bairn.’
He stared at the maid, his face blank but his mind working overtime. If he wasn’t going to lose all credence in the town, this matter had to be defused. Keeping his back firmly against the door and his hand on the door knob, he said, ‘My wife has disciplined the child but that is all and I am dealing with her now. We will discuss this later.’
‘Later my backside.’ Patience had led her mother to the foot of the stairs but now Bridget swung round, pointing at them as she said, ‘She’s a maniac, that’s what she is, and all over a few ribbons.’
‘Ribbons?’
‘The doctor gave me a present for the bairn last night, and she’ – again Bridget sent a burning glance towards the stairs – ‘she went barmy when she saw them.’