Intolerable Civility

Chapter Eight: Fever Dream

After the first few weeks of unsureness and confusion, marriage somehow became easy. Cate hadn't expected that, but then, she had expected to see her husband more than once or twice a day for a few moments at a time. Demery wanted very little to do with her, it seemed, and only talked to her about matters of convenience — to ask her whether she might desire the coach to take her to church, or to inform her that his mother was coming to tea. For the most part, Cate and Miss Skinner were let well alone in her apartments. The weather was too miserable to consider going out, so they remained indoors and played with Luke or amused themselves with books and cards and sundry chores. In the morning and evening they dined together in a small and rather shabby dining room downstairs. Demery never dined with them. If he ever visited any friends, he never invited Cate to join him, and if he ever had any guests, he must have entertained them in a different part of the rambling manor. It was better that way, Cate thought. She would not know what to talk of with Demery for the full hour of a dinner. Their conversation could barely fill five-minute intervals. Besides, Luke was getting very inquisitive about meals. He liked mashed cauliflower and stewed pear and boiled carrots. Sometimes he enjoyed gumming on a biscuit or a cucumber. Cate liked to sit him on her lap as she ate and share little bits and pieces with him. Sometimes it got messy. More than once Miss Skinner had had to dodge a flying lump of potato. Cate did not imagine Demery would approve such happy chaos.

In late November, Demery prepared to leave for London. He would be gone for several weeks, until almost Christmas, and then leave again in the new year. Cate secretly looked forward to his going. She felt quite content in the company of Miss Skinner and Luke. To be sure, Miss Skinner was not always pleasant company, but her unpleasantness was of a tolerable, familiar sort. Cate had no desire to get to know the rest of the neighbourhood, no desire to become better acquainted with Laurie or Demery's mother, hardly even any desire to go to the village or nearest town, as she did, occasionally, to amuse herself by spending a little money on some trinket for herself or present for Luke.

The night before Demery was to leave, the first snow of the year fell upon Plas Bryn. Cate stood at the window watching the flakes drift down through the darkness. Luke had already been put to bed, so it was just Miss Skinner and Cate in the sitting room. Miss Skinner never saw the delight in snow and was on the sofa reading her bible. Every year around the beginning of December, she became fervently interested in her bible, though she never reached Christmas Eve before becoming mired in Leviticus and putting aside her resolution to read it through. Cate wondered if it snowed out at sea. It seemed very strange to think of snowflakes hitting the slatey Irish Sea, roiling out in the distance. Did the snowflakes melt into the sea, or would they float?

One of the fishermen in the village would probably be able to tell her. Or perhaps Demery, but she did not wish to ask him something so inconsequential.

"Close the curtains," Miss Skinner said. "The chill is creeping through."

It was, a little, but the view was too pretty for Catherine to care. Besides, Miss Skinner was wrapped in a wool blanket and in front of a cheerful fire. She could not be too cold.

"I want to watch the snow."

"You will catch your death there."

"I am quite warm."

"There is nothing to see! It is night!"

"The snowflakes are tinted gold in the candlelight coming through the window," Cate said. "It's very pretty." An idea came to her suddenly. "It is Luke's first snow. I will show him."

Ignoring Miss Skinner's protestations, she passed through her bedroom to Luke's room. He was deeply asleep in his crib where she had put him three hours before. She stopped a moment, as she always did before waking him, to watch him and delight in the mere fact of his being. His tiny chest swelled rapidly in and out under the soft woollen blanket she pinioned him with.