Lily finished the flesh of the apple and dropped the core into the pen, making sure it landed where the boar would not see it. The gilt gave her one last indecipherable look – regret? Disappointment? Sorrow? – then lowered her snout to the ground and the apple core disappeared.
Lily cleaned the buckets and put them back in the woodshed. A glance at the sky told her it was time to set off to work, but first, one last thing. She shifted a few logs from the pile and removed one from the third row down. From the front it looked like all the others, but at the back a hollow had been carved out of it. She tilted it and a number of coins rolled out and into her palm. She took care to replace the logs just as she had found them. Indoors she eased a loose brick from the fireplace. Though it looked no different from the others it came away easily, revealing a small cavity behind. She placed the money in the cavity and slid the brick back into place, ensuring that it was exactly level with its neighbours. She closed the door behind her and did not lock it for the simple reason that there was no lock and no key. There was nothing worth stealing at Lily White’s place, everybody knew that. Then she left.
The air was knife-cold, but between the rust and black of last year’s growth, green was returning to the riverbank. Lily walked briskly, grateful that the ground was hard and let no wetness through the holes in her boots. As she neared Buscot, she peered over the river, to the land that belonged to Buscot Lodge and the Vaughans. There was nobody there.
She will be indoors, then, by the fire, Lily thought. She pictured a hearth, a huge log basket, the fire itself dancing brightly. ‘Don’t touch, Ann,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘It’s hot.’ But they will have a fireguard, being rich people. She nodded. Yes, that’s right. She has Ann in a blue velvet dress – no, wool will be warmer, let it be wool. Lily moves in spirit around the house she has never entered. Upstairs is a little bedroom where another fire burns, taking the chill off. There is a bed, and a mattress that is made not of straw but of real lambswool. The blankets are thick and – red? Yes, red, and on the pillow is a doll with plaited hair. There is a Turkey carpet so Ann’s feet won’t get cold in the morning. Elsewhere the pantry of this house is full of hams and apples and cheese; there is a cook who makes jam and cake; a cupboard contains jar upon jar of honey and in a drawer are half a dozen sugar canes, striped in yellow and white.
Lily explored Ann’s new home in perfect contentment, and her version of the interior of Buscot Lodge faded only when she was at the door of the parsonage.
Yes, she thought, as she pushed open the kitchen door. Ann must live with the Vaughans at Buscot Lodge. She will be safe there. She might even be happy. That is where she must stay.
The parson was in his study. Lily knew she was rather late, but she could tell by touching the kettle with her fingertips that the parson had not yet made his own tea. She wrenched off her boots and eased her feet into the grey felt shoes she kept under the dresser in the parsonage kitchen. Her feet were always comfortable in them. She had worked for the parson for two months before daring to ask permission to keep a pair of indoor shoes under the kitchen dresser. ‘Out of sight, they will be, and it will save your carpets,’ she had explained, and when he had said yes, she had asked for some of the savings he kept for her, gone straight to buy them, and then brought them directly back here. Sometimes at the cottage, when she was cold and afraid of ghosts, the thought of her grey felt shoes sitting under the parson’s kitchen dresser as if they belonged there was enough to make her feel better.
She boiled water, prepared the tea tray and, when all was ready, made her way to his study and knocked.
‘Come!’
The parson was bent over his papers, which showed the bald patch on the top of his head; he was scribbling away at a speed that made her marvel. He came to the end of a sentence and looked up. ‘Ah! Mrs White!’
This greeting was one of the pleasures of her life. Never ‘Good morning!’ or ‘Good day!’ – greetings that would do for anybody – but always ‘Ah! Mrs White!’ The sound of the name White on his lips was like a blessing.
She put down the tray. ‘Shall I make some toast, Parson?’
‘Yes, well, later.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Mrs White …’ he began in another tone of voice.
Lily started and he adopted an expression of kindly perplexity that only increased her fear about what was coming.
‘What is this I hear about you and the child at the Swan?’
Her heart lurched in her chest. What to say? Why a thing so plain to know should be so hard to explain was a puzzle, and she opened and closed her mouth more than once, but no words came out.
The parson spoke again.
‘So far as I understand it, you told them at the Swan that the child was your sister?’
His voice was mild, but Lily’s lungs flooded with fear. She could scarcely breathe in or out. Then she managed a gulp of air and on the exhalation words streamed out of her. ‘I didn’t mean any harm by it, and please don’t dismiss me, Parson Habgood, and I won’t cause any trouble to anyone, I promise.’
The parson contemplated her with an air no less perplexed than before. ‘I suppose I can take it that the child is not your sister? We can put it down to a mistake, can we?’ His mouth sketched a hesitant, experimental smile, which promised to become a steady, full one when she nodded her head.
Lily did not like lying. She had been driven to it many times, but had never got used to it, had never even grown to be any good at it, but most of all, she did not like it. To lie in her own home was one thing, but here, at the parsonage, that was not quite the house of God but was the house of the parson, which was the next best thing, lying was a much graver thing. She did not want to lose her job … She dithered between a lie and the truth, and in the end, unable to measure the dangers one way and the other, it was her nature that won out.
‘She is my sister.’
She looked down. The toes of the felt shoes were showing under her skirt. Tears came to her eyes and she rubbed them away with the back of her hand. ‘She is my only sister, and her name is Ann. I know it is her, Parson Habgood.’ The tears she had rubbed away were replaced by others, too numerous to catch. They fell and made dark blotches on the toes of her felt shoes.
‘Now then, Mrs White,’ said the parson, a little flustered. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’
Lily shook her head. She had never sat down at the parsonage in her life. She worked here, on her feet and on her knees, fetching and carrying and scrubbing and washing, and that is what gave her the feeling of belonging. To sit down was to be just another parishioner in need of help. ‘No,’ she muttered. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Then I shall stand up along with you.’
The parson stood and came out from behind his desk and looked at her thoughtfully.
‘Let us think about this together, shall we? Two minds are better than one, they say. To begin with, how old are you, Mrs White?’