Killing Violets, Tanith Lee [the two towers ebook .TXT] 📗

Europe seethed with hatred of the Jews. Had always done so. Recall the dense red walls of the ghetto in Venice. The secret mediaeval pits where they had been left to starve, near Warsaw, unless, unless that was a lie.

“But there,” said Lilian, Raoul’s sister.

Anna came out into the gallery, her heels making a crisp noise. They would have heard her, anyway, and heard her stop.

The other women looked up, unflurried. “Ah, Anna. We take luncheon at one. Shall we go down?”

There were four men at lunch. One of them must be Raoul. Not the one with grey in his hair, or the scarred one, or the one with the gold signet ring. Anyway, obviously, she could recognise him at once, in the daylight of the small dining-room. Against the plummy reds splashed with green, the original Raoul. His nose was a little more crooked, wasn’t it, and his hands rather more fine, the fingers longer; one with a tiny dark freckle always under the nail… She was taking note of landmarks, surely.

When she came in between the Basulte Mother and the woman called Lilian, the original Raoul turned to her smiling, and she thought, Was it all a joke? But if it was a joke, what joke precisely? Had the brother lied? Or had the brother and Raoul devised the lie between them, like a test of female virtue in a play by Shakespeare? Would she fail if she spoke of it to him, or fail if she did not?

She should not stay here. She should find a means to go. But how, where? This had always been the problem.

“You look edible, Anna,” murmured Raoul, with the freckle under his nail.

He had, after his first avowal concerning love – or something – at first sight, not mentioned loving her again.

They ate lunch.

The women both wore green. Anna too had selected a green dress. To match the rooms.

During the meal, the men spoke about an estate, presumably the lands of the house. Horses and fields, something about ‘gamebirds’ in the ‘old days’. The husband of the sister called Lilian said something about some drunken affray at the public house in the village.

The sister remarked to Raoul, “You ought to show Anna the village. It’s awfully quaint.” She added to Anna, “Some of the houses were built in the 15th century.”

Anna looked at her. The eyes of the woman were hard as the polished diamond, though black. A mediaeval village, how suitable for the Jewess, who in those days would have been confined behind a wall, or burned for cooking Christian children.

In the harsh pale light, the Mother’s face did seem rather odd, young and too tight on the neck, which was itself hidden in an eau de nil scarf. Her hands were old, like claws, painted bright red at the tips. Like the hands of a madam.

The Father was not much more than forty, though, Anna thought. Men wore better anyway. They had a natural inclination to the carven and the rough, it was more fitting, this deep line by the mouth, the coarsening skin.

Will I ever be old? Anna glanced at her idea. Whenever she looked ahead, there was only a dim void. She fell softly into it, down and down. It didn’t hurt.

The lunch was over. Now there was coffee in the salon.

“Would you like to go to the village, Anna?”

“Why not?”

When they were upstairs, he followed her to her bedroom and went in with her. He pushed her to the wall, pulled up her skirt and dragged away her flimsy knickers like paper. He was finished in much less than a minute.

This surprised her, not the act, (she had known it happen this way before), but from him.

“I’m so sorry, Anna. That was selfish and brutish. Please forgive me. I just couldn’t wait. It’s been foul, not having you.”

Anna stepped from her ruined underclothes and drew down her skirt. She made a decision. Or, she made a decision as she always did, on the moment’s spur, not reasoning.

“But you were here last, night. You came in when I was asleep.”

Raoul too was adjusting his garments. He was flushed and lit a cigarette. “Oh. That.”

She waited. Then she said, “Do you mean it didn’t count?”

“It wasn’t enough.”

“But – it was you?”

He shot her a look, grinning. “Who do you think?”

She went into the bathroom and cleaned herself. When she came out, he was sitting on the window seat gazing out at the overcast, the hill-mountains, cows.

“You know,” said Raoul, “my family don’t always behave as they should. I should have warned you, Anna. It was remiss of me.”

“How don’t they?” she said.

“It’s in their blood. This lord of the manor thing. They behave like potentates. Basultes have owned this land since the Conquest.”

“Which… conquest?”

“Centuries ago. You can see, we’re that black Franco-Celtic Norman strain.”

“I heard your mother and sister,” Anna said, “discussing my blonde Jewishness.”

“Take no notice. None of them has ever been out of this house. Well, I mean, they have, physically, to France, Italy, Switzerland, that sort of thing. But they don’t see anything. What do they know?”

She said, “Do you wish I wasn’t here? Shall I go away?” When she had said it, she waited in suspense, nearly terror, not knowing what she dreaded the most, his rejection, or some vow of need.

But Raoul said nothing, and then he said, “If we’re going out, let’s do it soon, Anna. My father wants to talk over some business with me after four.”

They walked. She had been lent galoshes and a hideous waterproof and a sort of sou’wester, the sort of hat fishermen wore, apparently, or was that the men who rescued fishermen?

The housekeeper had overseen the maid who brought these items. The maid was Lily Sister.

Anna had been struck suddenly by the names, Lily Sister, Sister Lilian.

“What is that girl’s name?” she asked Raoul, as they clumped along the muddy, squelching drive.

“Which girl?”

“The maid with the boots and coat.”

“Let me think. God knows. Oh