I stood in the windowless room aghast with a single rushlight flickering, shoving bread and fruit into my trunk, preparing to abandon everything I knew—but caught out.
“I went to his study,” Clarke whispered.
A word of advice: do not ever kill for love, or you will find yourself tethered, staked to the ground when your cleanest instincts require you to run for your life without a backwards glance. Killing for love is one of the most tangled acts you can commit, reader, in an already twisted world.
She looked so small, this beautiful friend of mine. Clarke’s madcap blond curls hung loose and tangled, her miniature lips chalk white. Inexplicably, she was dressed in her holiday travelling clothes, an emerald woollen suit and a cap appropriate to her age. I blinked dumbly; Clarke was the colour of goose down, so I promptly deposited her onto a stool.
“You discovered Mr. Munt, didn’t you?” Her seaweed-green eyes flooded with brine. “I dragged myself to chapel to make a point in front of everyone, but he wasn’t there, so I tried to catch him alone. I had meant to beg him, it was shameful, but I found—did I find what you found?”
The silent steel cogs of my mind ticked.
“Yes.” I clutched her to me, cherishing her still-warm bones. “Oh, Clarke, I meant to plead with him myself. But there were drawers open and thieves must have—it was horrible. I’m so sorry you saw it too.”
Lying had never been easier. Either I informed Clarke that I had shoved a letter opener in Mr. Munt’s throat, or I kept my beloved companion for another half an hour; the decision did not trouble me overmuch. She set her head against my shoulder and quaked as she cried, whilst I attempted to determine the most efficient way never to set foot upon a scaffold. Swift escape seemed the best option; but swift escape had been delayed by my partner in defiance.
Meanwhile, I reminded myself harshly, Clarke was still dying.
“Here.” I tore away from her, hands landing upon some plain bread and shoving it unceremoniously into the white butter pot, tearing her off a portion. “Eat slowly. You know when we don’t, it—”
“I know,” she answered before devouring the hunk in mouselike bites.
I continued my travel preparations; a paper packet of cheese, a fistful of nuts. For leave I must, and I felt a knife in my own throat when I thought of final separation from Clarke. I wondered why on earth she was wearing ordinary clothing when we were all due at cold Sunday supper in uniform in an hour.
“Where are we going?”
Turning, I regarded my friend, who had slid off the stool and was reaching for a lone apple in a basket full of onions and braided garlic heads. Her freckles still glared dark as tiny bruises from the pallor of her cheeks, but her voice was stronger.
“Clarke, I haven’t anyone to go to.” Telling her the truth was always pleasurable, as if I were apologising for the glaring omissions. “My aunt loathes me, and until I’m of age . . . I simply can’t go back, not to her. You have a family, you can—”
“They told me they were publishers of poetry and plays.” Clarke’s eyes glinted hard and gemlike. “The older I grew, the more I thought it odd that they had sent me here. When I was home, they barely entertained or received any callers. For a day it would be splendid, and every hour afterwards I would feel more like a guest, Mother making the rounds at her Bohemian salons, Father at his office and clubs, them glancing at the clock during supper. I would ache to know what you were doing—I thought of you whenever they slighted me, whenever they heard my step and seemed almost . . . disappointed. Every visit, I told them we were tormented here, and every time, they said that school was difficult, and how could I move in artistic circles without an education? Artistic circles,” she repeated in disgust. “By the time I left after a visit, they could barely contain themselves for joy.”
“You can’t—”
“They lied to me, Jane.” The name, after so long without hearing it, stole my breath. She blinked in her oddly deliberate manner, polishing the apple against her sleeve. “They sent me away when I was six years old. And now you mean to send me away yourself.”
“But I—”
“Please don’t leave me behind to survive this school without you, I couldn’t bear it. Who knows what sort the replacement headmaster will be? We’ll find a new place to live.” Doubt pinched the corners of her mouth. “But perhaps you don’t want—”
“Of course I do.” A weightless feeling soared inside me, a flock of starlings scattering into flight. “I only—I’ve about five pounds and a silver watch that was my father’s, but that won’t get us far.”