The great oak doors parted with a loud creak and in rushed my parents’ voices. Startled, I glanced at the print of the merman, with his lion’s face and devil’s horns, his fishtail and webbed fins. I shut Aldrovandi’s Monstrorum Historia. I needed somewhere to hide in the vast library, with its floor-to-ceiling shelving, its dark-wooded curiosity cabinets and sumptuous settee and tables. The stuffed Siberian bear near the window, frozen in a pose of attack up on its hind legs, claws and teeth bared, seemed a likely cover. Quickly, I slipped behind it, stowing the heavy book under my skirt.
Walking in step, my parents entered the draughty room. Papa had laid aside his silk breeches and jacket for the Labadists’ plain attire, which enabled work in the fields, the iron forge or dairy; Ma wore the dress of the sect’s women: black woollen habit, bos-roc cap, heavy dull black shoes.
‘You needn’t have come,’ said Ma.
‘Why won’t you believe me?’ replied Papa. The pleading in his voice made my stomach twist.
‘It’s not me you must convince.’
‘But you have sway,’ protested Papa.
Ma was sitting on the edge of a settee, as if sinking into its cushiony depths might soften her will. Lips drawn into a line, she studied Papa as if he were one of her caterpillars: she was distant and all-seeing, though I knew it was an act. He sat in the opposite armchair, right boot propped on his knee. His left foot shook ever so slightly. Peeping from around the side of the bear’s furry haunch, I saw the apprehension in his features and, underneath, a wild desperation…
Leave a Reply