The Secrets of Ironbridge by Mollie Walton

Author:Mollie Walton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction

Chapter 13

A week had passed since Louise’s death. Beatrice had not been allowed out of the house at all since. That horrible day, Beatrice had told Queenie first, who looked dazed and then distinctly off-colour at the news, but soon recovered and said she would inform Benjamina. Since her arrival at Southover, Beatrice had seen that there was no love lost between Queenie and her daughter-in-law, but now she saw that Queenie was disgusted by what had happened to the little dog and was not looking forward to telling its doting owner. Beatrice went to her mother afterwards in her bedroom and told her what had happened. Maman was shocked to the core that ‘such a cruel thing could be done to such an innocent’. At that moment, Beatrice thought of the two famished urchins that had devoured her food and she felt the phrase applied equally to them. Surely children were worth more than dogs. But the fact remained that her mother was right, the dog was innocent and had been deliberately killed to cause upset and fear.

Their talk was interrupted as they both heard a cry from the room across the hall, an inhuman wail that hollowed out the house. The strangeness of it left them both quiet and shaking their heads. Benjamina had not appeared from her room since, apart from the afternoon they had found Louise, where a solemn burial took place in the pet graveyard, alongside the bones of previous King dogs. Benjamina had insisted that no words were to be spoken, so she, Queenie, Margaret and Beatrice had watched the small wooden box the gardener had knocked together lowered into its resting place. Cyril was nowhere to be seen, Beatrice suspecting he had no time for the concept of dog funerals. Benjamina’s face was unreadable, blank and pale. The little grave was marked with a posy of flowers, yet Queenie said Benjamina had ordered a gravestone with the inscription ‘My beloved Louise, taken too soon by vengeful Death’.

The atmosphere in the house was stifling. The rains of the previous week had given way to muggy, cloudy heat that made the enforced curfew even more oppressive. Sometimes, to escape the house, Beatrice would take a turn around the gardens with her mother. They would talk of when Maman was a child and would tread the same walk. Maman told her how Benjamina had always had a little dog for company, but had loved this one the most. Sometimes, they would see Benjamina sitting at her window, staring out. Her large eyes in the white face were unsettling to look at and Beatrice would turn away. She was filled with guilt and confusion. It felt as if her family had been attacked and yet her loyalties lay more with Owen than the Kings. Her feelings were swirling so violently, she felt nauseous with the puzzle of it all. The worst of it was that she had nobody to talk to about it. She could not reveal the truth about her and Owen to anyone.

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