The next moment she found herself outside the parlour, her brother moving her off towards her own chamber next door. “We can wait in your room,” he said.
But she was too much on the fidgets to wait anywhere. She paced her bedchamber, while Adam sat on the one chair the room held, regarding her worriedly. “Verena,” he said, “be still!”
She continued to pace. “How can I be still?”
“They must come to an understanding by themselves. We cannot interfere.”
She halted then and turned to him, repeating, “We cannot interfere. How often have I agonised on that question? Adam, do you know what this feels like?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Waiting here in this room,” she uttered, in a tone of anguish, for the memories were crowding in, “prohibited from going in, knowing that at any moment the shouting may erupt into violence.”
“Verena, there is no shouting,” Adam said, rising and going to her. “Listen! They are talking — in a civilised manner.”
She shook her head, for the visions were too strong. Visions of hateful days, when she had crouched, listening, not daring to move for fear of discovery, for fear of bringing about a worse punishment than that which she could hear — blow after blow, cry after cry, until she must cover her ears and weep those stifled silent sobs into her upraised knees, soiling her gown.
“Civilised?” she uttered in a shaking voice. “How can it be civilised? He is ananimal— a brutish animal!”
Adam’s arms went round her and he held her close. But the embrace was too stifling and she struggled free. “I cannot bear this,” she said, crossing to the door.
Adam was before her, holding it fast. “You will not interrupt them. I won’t let you.”
Verena shifted, pushing back and forth. “Let me go, Adam. I cannot stay in this house.”
He frowned. “You want to go out?”
“I don’t care where I go, but I cannot remain here.”
“Very well,” he said, and opened the door with caution.
She went through it, hesitated an instant or two, looking towards the parlour door. Then she saw Betsey standing guard outside it.
“Oh, thank heaven!”
The maid came up to her, whispering. “All’s quiet, Miss Verena. Murmuring voices, that’s all.”
“Betsey, I am going out.”
“That’s the way, my dove. You can go as you are, it’s warm enough. Don’t you fret now. Mr Adam and me will see all’s right.”
Verena nodded, and then Adam was ushering her down the stairs, saying, “Do you want me to come with you?”
“Dear heaven, no, Adam,” she replied, halting in the middle of the flight. “If you fail me on this occasion — if he removes Mama from this refuge —”
“He won’t, trust me,” Adam promised. “Or trust in Betsey, if you prefer.”
Verena did prefer it. But she knew Betsey alone could not prevent Nathaniel from taking Mama away.
She reached up and touched Adam’s hand. “I trust you.” Then, before she could change her mind and rush back upstairs to burst in on the conference in the parlour, she hurried down and let herself out of the house.
She walked on an automatic course towards the common, hardly looking where she went, her mind filled with distressing pictures of the past. She did not hear her name called, nor the footsteps running after her, and she was already on the common, taking a well-worn path, when Denzell caught up with her.
“Verena, wait!” he called, seizing her arm to halt her.
She stopped, unable to take in that she was waylaid. She saw the face, and knew it, and spoke its name without thinking, blurting out the confusion of her brain as if she was fully conscious she might safely do so.
“Oh, Denzell, she is alone with him! He says he will not hurt her, and perhaps he will not. But he will say such things … and she will believe him. She always did. And it will be nothing but black lies.”
