The Girl in the Mask (2 page)

My father stood staring at me, outrage on his face. His eyes travelled slowly from my windblown hair down to my shabby gown and patched shoes. I flushed painfully under his scrutiny, feeling suddenly awkward and clumsy. Finally, he glanced at the pistol at my feet.

‘Can you explain the meaning of this?’ he demanded coldly.

‘Of what, sir?’ I faltered, uncertain what was annoying him most: my apparel or my occupation. My most haunting memory of my father was that I always earned his displeasure, and had often stood before him, as now, afraid, but unsure what exactly I’d done to anger him.

‘It’s my fault, uncle,’ Jack broke in. ‘I suggested to Sophia that we might do a little shooting, and … ’

‘Silence, boy,’ snapped father, not taking his eyes off me. ‘I’ll deal with you in your turn.’

Jack subsided at once. I was sure he felt the threat in those words just as I did. ‘Have you nothing to say for yourself, Sophia?’ my father asked once more. At a loss for what he wanted to hear, and afraid of provoking him, I merely hung my head and shook it slightly.

‘Then go to your room. Stay there until I call for you!’

I turned, and Jack took a step to follow me, but was stopped by my father raising his whip and blocking his way. ‘I hadn’t dismissed
you
,’ he said, and his tone sent a shiver down my spine. I looked back at Jack, and he met my eyes for a moment, his own lacking their usual merry twinkle. He looked afraid.

I walked across the orchard on legs that felt numb. I stretched my hand out to open the door that led out into the park, and saw that it shook. Behind me, I could hear the murmur of my father’s voice as he spoke to Jack. I forced myself to keep moving. I closed the door carefully behind me to keep the geese from escaping. As I did so, I heard the first crack of my father’s whip and winced. I knew that there was a good chance I would feel the lash myself later, and shivered as I made my way back towards the house.

A large travelling chaise and four horses stood in the sweep of the carriageway before the house, and servants were carrying trunks and valises from the carriage to the house. A figure that resembled, at first glance, a giant crow was standing by the front door overseeing the operation. As I drew closer, I saw that it was in fact a female. A voluminous black gown swayed about her with every movement she made. Her large travelling bonnet was heavily trimmed with black crepe, denoting mourning. My heart sank even lower. I thought I recognized her. Could it be that my aunt Amelia had come to stay?

There had been some huge row, I dimly recalled, at the time of my father’s departure. The details were vague in my mind; perhaps I had never quite known them. But I was sure my aunt had refused to take charge of me during his absence. So I’d been left alone here, with Jack, in the charge of a particularly strict and joyless governess.

At that moment, my aunt turned towards me. I backed into the cover of the trees, and then swiftly skirted the house before she caught sight of me. After the shock of seeing my father, I couldn’t face Aunt Amelia. We’d always disliked each other.

I ran swiftly up the servants’ staircase, arriving two storeys higher, unseen and only very slightly out of breath, at my bedchamber. Restlessly, I paced the small room that had once been my nursery. Jack and I were in trouble. Was there anything I could do? Hurriedly, I pulled open my closet door. There hung my breeches and riding coat. My father certainly wouldn’t approve of those. I rolled them up into a bundle and stuffed them up the chimney. They would get sooty, but that was the least of my worries. I tried to anticipate the other things that would put my father in a rage, but my mind was strangely blank.

It was because absolutely everything I’d done would enrage my father. I could hide my breeches, but that was it. As soon as he looked through the paperwork, called for his steward or for my governess, all would be revealed.

Had I not known my father would return some day? In a vague and insubstantial way, I had. But I’d always dreamt he might stay indefinitely on his plantations. Then there was always the possibility he might succumb to some tropical disease, or even be shipwrecked on his return voyage. Then we might never have had to face the reckoning.

My life had begun properly four years ago, when my father left for the West Indies. Freed at last from his long rule of oppression and tyranny, Jack and I had swiftly made a few vital adjustments to the household he’d put in place, and then we’d flourished. The house that had once been sombre, filled with fear and brooding, became a home. We pulled back the heavy curtains to let in the light, ransacked the library and ran through every room shouting with life and joy. We ate our meals in the kitchen, haunted the stables, and rode all over the estate. I’d never known such happiness, not even when my poor mother was still alive, and I was just a small child.

Jack, the orphaned son of my mother’s brother, had come to live with us at Littlecote a year before my father had left. He had been here long enough to be as thankful as I was that my father’s tyranny had been so completely and miraculously removed.

But he was back. I leant my forehead against the painted wall and groaned aloud. What would my life be now? Any hope my father’s nature might have been softened by his long stay abroad had been put to flight in that brief glimpse I’d had of him in the orchard.

I waited in my room to be called, but no call came. My father had always known that the punishment itself could never be as bad as the anticipation, and the long wait brought back dark childhood memories. The sun passed slowly over the noon and crept towards the west. My tummy began first to growl with hunger and then to cry out. I’d eaten nothing today except a hunk of fresh bread and smoked ham in the kitchen at five o’clock this morning.

What could my father be doing all this time? I imagined him questioning the servants, looking through the estate books, and my hands sweated with fear. Dusk came. I lay on my bed, chilled and weak with hunger, unused to being so inactive, and yet unable to think of anything to do to occupy myself. I wished I’d at least had my new play here, and a candle to read it by.

At some point I must have dozed off, for I was startled awake by a noise. I sat up, staring into the pitch darkness wondering what it could be. The sound came again: a soft scratching. A glimmer of light showed through the gap at the bottom of the door. Someone was standing on the other side holding a candle.

I got off my bed, my body stiff with cold, and tiptoed to the door. ‘Who is it?’ I asked.

‘Hush! It’s me, Jack.’

I tried to open my door, but it didn’t move. I tugged on the handle, but it was locked, the key missing from the keyhole. ‘Who’s locked my door?’ I whispered, shivering at the thought that someone, probably my father, had crept into my room while I slept.

Jack didn’t answer, but said instead: ‘I’ve come to bid you farewell.’

‘What?’ I asked frantically. I tugged at the door handle, heedless of noise, but Jack hushed me again, urgently this time.

‘Sophia, I’m not allowed to be here. If I get another beating because you’ve made a damned racket, I’ll never forgive you,’ he hissed through the door.

There was a long silence. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered at last. ‘Are you running away? I want to go with you.’

‘No, I’m being sent away,’ replied Jack. ‘You can’t come where I’m going.’

‘Where?’ I felt a wave of fear and sadness engulf me at the thought of losing my cousin, my best and only friend since he’d come to live with us six years ago.

‘Into the army,’ said Jack. ‘Your father is to purchase me a commission in a cavalry regiment.’

This news sank in slowly. The thought of Jack being posted to some foreign land to fight battles made me feel sick.

‘Sophia?’ asked Jack when I said nothing. ‘Did you hear me?’

‘I heard you. Did you have any choice?’ I asked.

‘Yes. It was the army or the church. I’m not one for studying and preaching, you know that. A fellow needs some adventure.’

I leant against the door, dazed and lost. The army would suit Jack, of course. He’d look dashing and handsome in his red coat, and would relish the danger. I didn’t need to feel sorry for him. ‘What of me?’ I whispered. ‘What shall I do? Has father said?’

There was a long silence on the other side of the door. ‘He hasn’t. I didn’t rat on you, Sophia. You know I wouldn’t do that. But he knows pretty much everything.’

I felt fear rise in me again. I nodded, but then realized Jack couldn’t see me, and whispered, ‘Yes,’ because there was nothing else to say.

‘Look, Sophia, I have to go. I’m supposed to be in bed.’

‘When do you leave?’ I asked forlornly.

‘At dawn tomorrow. I’m being sent to catch the London stage.’

I felt the loneliness of his departure preparing to crush me, but I knew I had to stay strong. Besides, Jack wouldn’t welcome an emotional scene. I tried for a little humour: ‘Don’t get yourself shot, cousin,’ I said.

The sound of muffled laughter reached me through the oak door. ‘Not I,’ said Jack jauntily. ‘I’ll be the one shooting the other fellows.’

‘That dandy uniform will make you a fine target,’ I retorted.

‘I’ll be a blur,’ Jack promised. ‘Sophia … ’

‘Yes?’

There was a pause and then a shadow blocked some of the light beneath the door. I looked down and saw Jack’s fingertips reach through to me. I crouched down and touched my fingers to his. It was the nearest we could get to a farewell hug.

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ whispered Jack.

‘Nothing sensible, then,’ I replied. ‘Only mad, irresponsible things.’

He laughed softly once more, and then choked slightly. I felt tears spring to my own eyes, and blinked them back fiercely.

‘You’ll be all right,’ Jack said gruffly. ‘We’ve had good times. I won’t forget.’

‘Nor me. Now go,’ I said. The warmth of his fingertips left mine. The glimmer of light faded as his footsteps receded along the passageway. I was alone now.

I rose heavy-eyed at around six the next morning and splashed my face in yesterday’s tepid water in the washstand. It was a grey day out. I had nothing to do until someone let me out, apart from pacing the room and establishing in my mind over and over again that there really was no possibility of escape from the high, narrow window.

It was my aunt Amelia who came to me at last, unlocking my door and opening it. She stood on the threshold, looking me over. ‘Your father wishes to see you,’ she said. ‘If you wish to please him, you won’t appear before him in that outmoded gown.’

‘But I don’t,’ I said shortly. My aunt stared at me, and I wondered if she hadn’t understood me. ‘Wish to please him, that is,’ I explained.

Aunt Amelia stood gobbling like a turkey, unable to give expression to her indignation. ‘It sh-should be every daughter’s earnest desire to please her father,’ she stuttered at last.

‘Even if I wished to,’ I continued, ignoring her stupid remark, ‘I have nothing newer.’

Aunt Amelia ran her eyes over my shabby blue wrapping gown one last time before she gave up and led me from the room. ‘I wonder if you will be so brave when you stand before your father?’ she asked over her shoulder. I wondered too, feeling my legs shake as I descended the stairs. It was hunger, I thought, rather than fear. But it was hard to tell the difference at this moment.

My aunt ushered me into my father’s study and left, closing the heavy door softly behind her. My father sat behind his desk writing and didn’t look up. There was no chair set out for me. There was never a chair on such occasions. Instead I stood meekly before his desk, hands folded. There was a set routine, a ritual almost, that preceded any punishment he had chosen for me.

A fire burned hot in the grate, filling the room with a stifling heat; a complete contrast to the chill bedchamber I’d just left. I wondered my father could bear it. I reminded myself he’d spent four years in the tropics. For me, however, used to small fires and many hours outdoors, it was sweltering. I was tired, very hungry and quickly started to feel unsteady on my feet. This was the test; a sort of endurance. I fought the dizziness, gripping my hands together and breathing steadily.