“I . . . I must have sleepwalked or something,” I blurt.
I can see Moll’s mind racing, her puzzled gaze puddling around my bare feet, rising slowly up the crumpled cotton of my nightie, my tightly crossed arms, my blazing cheeks. To my surprise, she simply puts down the laundry basket by the bed—stacked with clean folded linen—and walks stoutly to the open window, her rectangular frame rocking from one foot to the other. She peers out at the scud of clouds, her back to me, the belt of her overall tightening, loosening as she breathes. “Mrs. Wilde found you, did she?”
“Yes,” I admit sheepishly, wondering if she’s just bumped into my aunt on her way to make toast in the kitchen. I try to smooth my nightie, desperately wishing I were properly clothed, remembering Ma saying you can get away with anything if you’re dressed well.
“She means no harm in it, Margot.” Moll turns to me, her round face pinched.
“I . . . I’m not sure what you mean.” I glance at the door, worried that Sybil might return at any moment and I’ll be trapped here, pinned to the bed with fuss and toast.
Moll smiles kindly. “I found your hairs in the hairbrush, duck.”
“Oh.” I close my eyes for a moment. So much for a brain like a board game. Even Moll’s outmaneuvered me.
“Not as milky as Flora, but blonder than Pam and little darkling Dot. Similar to Audrey’s hair. But curlier, a shade darker and shorter.” She picks a pillow off the bed and skins it of its case, eyeing me a little more sharply. “And someone has been rifling through her frocks.”
“I . . . I’ve been an idiot, Moll.”
Moll snaps back the sheet from the bed. “I’m saying nothing.”
“Aunt Sybil . . .” I begin, and stop, not sure how much Moll has worked out.
“I guessed, Margot.” The sheet slacks in her hands. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you. But your aunt has faith, you see, blind faith, that’s all. Like I believe in the Good Lord, she believes in Audrey. And, well, sometimes she gets too wrapped up in it, that’s all. She loses herself.”
I stare down at my toenails, the red varnish suddenly incongruous, and feel a roll of guilt. For haven’t I encouraged Sybil? Isn’t that what we both do in this room, lose ourselves, hold reality at bay?
“You’re a kind girl, Margot,” Moll says more softly, second-guessing my thoughts, rumpling back the sheet, exposing the quilting of the mattress. “I can see that, the way you look after little Dot.”
My guilt intensifies. I’ve not been looking after Dot well these last few weeks. I’ve left her to grow up on her own this summer. And being Dot, she hasn’t complained, just taken refuge in Moppet, books, the companionship of her own imagination.
“Your aunt’s seen some dark times, Margot, darker than you’ll ever know.” Moll flutters over a fresh sheet and lifts a mattress corner. “But I haven’t seen her so relaxed, not for many years. Whatever’s gone on in here, in this room, it’s none of my business. All I know is that you and your sisters have breathed life into this house again.” She cocks her head, eyes me sadly. “I can’t bear the thought of you all flying away at the end of the summer like swallows.”
I smile back at her. “I’m glad you’re at Applecote, too, Moll. You didn’t leave like the cook. Or the old gardeners.”
She shrugs, smooths the sheet with the flat of her palm. “My sweetheart, Arnold, was shot down like that poor fella in the meadow. Missing in action. They never found him, either. I know a little of the Wildes’ heartbreak, that’s all.”
“So is it you who leaves posies in the crater!”
She colors. “I know it’s daft. But someone loved that pilot, Margot. If it were my Arnold . . .” She stops, her eyes pouching with tears.
To give Moll a moment, and despairing at my own fantastical theories, I peer out of the window, my hands on the glass, and watch all the lost loved people, wheeling tracks in the sky, disguised as birds. And I think of the pilot, our German James Dean, how he had a Moll back at home who was tiny-waisted once, who will always miss him, who will never be the person she would have been if he’d lived. Just like I will never be Margot A-Go-Go again without Pa. Sybil will never be Sybil again without Audrey. And I wonder if we’re only our true selves as children, before life starts to go wrong.
“Spoiled rotten she was, Little Madam I called her, but I’d have done anything for Audrey,” Moll says abruptly, her thoughts seeming to follow mine. “And she knew it, bless her.”
It strikes me that the answers could all be behind the black door of Moll’s missing tooth. “What happened to Audrey, Moll?”
“All I know . . .” Moll hesitates, sieving her words like flour, patting them out in puffs. “. . . is that Mrs. Wilde will never leave this big old house. Not while Audrey could come knocking on the door any day. And if they ever find her little broken body, it will break her mother’s heart. Mrs. Wilde lives for hope, Margot, you see. And up here”—Moll taps her temple—“Audrey’s as alive as you or me.”
“But it’s been five years. Most people think . . .” I try to say she’s dead but can’t.
“Your uncle did it?” Moll swipes at a pillow. “Well, of course they did. After he was arrested by those buffoons.”
“Arrested?”
“You didn’t know?” Moll clutches the pillow to her chest, red-faced. “But everyone knew.”
I picture Ma the day we left, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead, the small silence after she mentioned my uncle’s name. “My mother never told us.”
“Well, she probably thought it best,” Moll says quickly, trying to backtrack. “Now what have I done? Me and my big mouth. It’s all your questions, Margot,” she adds, more irritably. “You ask too many. You were the same as a child, like a bumblebee in the room.”
“So what happened?”
“It’s not my place,” she says tightly.
“Oh, Moll. No one ever tells the whole story about anything. Our whole family history is built on . . . layer upon layer of omissions,” I say, suddenly tearful. “It’s like the river, near the mouth of the Thames, you know, where they say you can stab at the ground and the underground water comes spurting out? Our family’s like that, just with secrets.”
“All families are like that, duck.” Moll gives me a sympathetic smile. “Now, she’s got a good heart, your mother. I always thought so. It’s not been easy. She does her best for you girls.”