Straw in the Wind by Janet Woods Page B

‘That’s all I remember until morning. Our father woke us at dawn, to tell us that our mother and the baby had died. He was beside himself, weeping and wailing and banging his head against the wall. He scared Marianne. She ran downstairs and hid in the hall cupboard.’
    â€˜Your sister said she heard the baby cry.’
    Charlotte shrugged. ‘Marianne has always had a vivid imagination . . . she could have dreamed it, or heard an owl taking its prey on the heath.’
    Charlotte was keeping something back from him – something she wanted to forget herself, perhaps. He held the glance she threw at him.
    â€˜Is that what you believe, or what you want to believe?’
    Her eyes slid away. ‘I don’t know, Adam. I don’t want to remember what happened in my childhood. Growing up without a mother, and with a father who was drunk for most of the time, was unpleasant. Marianne liked her freedom, and I had to try and keep her under control. I was always on edge, trying to appease our father, whose temper was uncertain at the best of times. Marianne seemed to go out of her way to vex him. I tried not to bully her, but I know she resented my authority. I was only two years older than her, after all. I seemed to live in perpetual fear that one of us would do the wrong thing and upset him.’
    â€˜Marianne appreciates what you went through.’
    â€˜She does now. I was often wrong about her and I know I was unfair to her when I didn’t credit her with any sense. She has plenty of good sense, otherwise she wouldn’t have gone on to the heath that day. I feared for her sometimes.’
    â€˜Feared for her?’
    â€˜Pa used to turn against her in a way he never did with me. It was as though he saw our mother in her, and remembered she’d been unfaithful to him. Sometimes when he was drunk, he called her by our mother’s name. He took a riding crop to her for answering him back, once, and I thought he was going to kill her. She was covered in welts and bruises.’ Charlotte faltered, and her face paled. ‘I pray that she doesn’t remember those times. I begged him to stop hitting her but he wouldn’t, so one day I picked up his gun and threatened to shoot him with it.’
    Adam hadn’t expected that. As his eyes widened in surprise he thought that Charlotte had been incredibly brave to defend her sister against a man. Even so he didn’t disturb the thread of her thoughts.
    â€˜Pa laughed, and although he’d taught me to shoot he told me to go ahead and pull the trigger, and put him out of his misery. So I did. Marianne hit my arm to divert the shot. It went wide, and the ball creased the top of his ear and buried itself into the panelling in the hall, thank God. It’s still there.’
    She suddenly paled and a fine sheen of perspiration covered her brow. When he noticed she was trembling he crossed to the sideboard with her coffee and added a measure of brandy from the decanter. He placed it in her hands. ‘My dear, I’ve upset you, and I’m sorry. Here, drink this down.’
    â€˜No, it’s not you, Adam.’ She swallowed the remains of the coffee as he’d urged, grimaced, then shuddered and pushed the cup away from her.
    â€˜Shall I fetch Seth?’
    Before his eyes she pulled herself together and gained her strength. ‘No, it was just a faint and I’m beginning to feel better. The worst thing was, I didn’t try to wound pa. I wanted to kill him. Marianne was so small and helpless – too small to fight back. Her eyes were so wounded and bewildered. I told him that if he hurt her again I’d wait until he was asleep, and I wouldn’t miss the second time. He broke down and cried then. It worries me to think I’ve inherited his temper. I don’t let go of grudges easily.’
    He lightened her mood with, ‘Rest assured, if you ever point a gun at me I’ll run in the