Page 34 of Infamous

‘I suppose it’s too far to swim,’ said Eddie.

‘Yes,’ said Liza. ‘It is not the distance, although it is far – I think a strong swimmer could make it without too much trouble. It is the currents. People don’t expect lakes to have them, but they do. And when the wind gets up, conditions become dangerous very quickly.’

‘I’ve swum most of the way,’ Nash said dismissively. ‘It just requires a sort of deranged fortitude of spirit and the unwavering belief that you’ll survive.’

‘Deranged is right,’ said Dayo, also gazing out at the lake. ‘When Nash sets the house on fire I shall save you a spot on the boat I will fashion out of tree branches, Miss Miller. But be warned, I shan’t wait around for long.’

They were travelling through dense forest now, the shoreline only occasionally visible in flashes, until suddenly the road ahead of them opened up to reveal a large farmhouse. It backed onto fields that looked hard-won from the landscape, and liable to be swallowed up by root and branch again at any moment. Eddie could see more buildings in the distance, smoke rising from the chimneys – the suggestion of a small village which did little to abate how remote it all felt.

The coachman pulled the horses to a stop. Eddie felt as if her limbs had calcified; she managed to unfold them with a disconcerting chorus of quiet clicks and crunches, and then half-fell out of the carriage, righting herself in time to see Liza step out with easy grace. The dog bounded out, beside herself with delight that their travels were nearly over. The second coach arrived a moment later, but Eddie didn’t wait to see them disembark; she was already walking towards the lake, wrapping her arms around herself as a chill breeze blew in from across the water.

In front of her there was a narrow, dilapidated jetty, which seemed to be doing its best; moored at the end of it was a small boat, nudging against the dock every time a wave caught it. It looked antique, and big enough to fit perhaps six people at most. It did not fill Eddie with hope.

An elderly man who had seen them pull up exited the farmhouse and walked towards them, wiping his hands on his breeches.

‘Here you are, then,’ he said, nodding at Eddie. He glanced over the rest of the party and frowned, apparently not at all convinced by what he saw. ‘How many of you can swim?’

‘Rose and I have gone sea-bathing,’ Eddie offered.

The furrows between the old man’s brows deepened.

‘Never fear,’ said Nash, stepping forwards to greet the man with a thoroughly shaken hand. ‘If we go over, Liza and I will float on our backs and carry you on our bellies like otter pups, for we areexcellentswimmers. Good afternoon, Mr Perkins! You’re looking hale.’

‘And the same to you,’ said Mr Perkins, seeming keen to get this transaction over with as soon as possible. He was already walking away towards the dock before he’d finished his sentence. ‘Mrs Hall sends her apologies, but she and the rest are making ready. Hard going, with such a small staff.’

‘Ah,’ said Nash, momentarily stumped. ‘Well! I suppose we’ll just have to make do.’ He turned to his guests and gave a small, apologetic shrug. ‘I’m afraid everybody is going to have to .?.?. grab a trunk.’

‘Is that thing seaworthy?’ Valentine said, looking quite rumpled from the journey and none too pleased to be there.

‘That thing has aname,’ said Nash, ‘And it’s Mr Perkins. Wait, no .?.?.CaptainPerkins. Right-ho. Heave to and .?.?. you know. Avast.’

He strode over to the carriage and picked up his own trunk, which did involve a certain amount of heaving-to, and then walked determinedly away towards the dock with it. Eddie attempted to lift her own and almost knocked all of her teeth out when it slid towards her at alarming speed; she was saved by an elegant, familiar hand.

‘Is it really going to float with the nine of us and all our luggage?’ said Rose. She looked artfully dishevelled from travel, unlike Eddie, who probably looked like a broken broom.

‘It has to,’ Eddie said, as they each took one end of the trunk and began to walk with it, slow and crab-like, towards the jetty. ‘Not that I care if you all drown, of course, but my manuscript is in here.’

‘Ah,’ said Rose. ‘Has it been going well?’

Rose had read the first twenty or so pages as they’d been written, but this new and unsettling distance between them meant she was now rather behind. Usually she read absolutely everything that Eddie wrote; it was either handed to her as she and Eddie said goodbye so that she could read it before bed at her leisure, or performed aloud by Eddie herself, which often led to on-the-spot revisions and edits as she realised how foolish certain sections sounded with an audience. On many occasions Rose had, with permission, taken a pen to the margins to leave Eddie little notes of encouragement, or queries, or critiques that were tantamount to heckles.

What on earth does this mean??she had written next to a line that described somebody’s personality as ‘foaming’.

‘You know,’ Eddie said indignantly later. ‘Sparkling! Effervescent!’

‘Eddie, if you write that she’sfoaming, everybody is going to think the poor thing’s gone rabid.’

She had been right, of course, about that and a great many other things. Eddie hadn’t meant to keep her current project a secret; it had just suddenly felt so much bigger than the ones she usually wrote – the ones she handed off to Rose without a thought or a care – and then this business with Albert had frayed what usually came so easily between them until she didn’t feel like sharing it.

If she was honest with herself, Eddie also couldn’t bear the thought of seeing disappointment or hesitation in Rose’s eyes once she had read it. They had always been perfectly forthright with each other about these things, and Eddie had felt strong enough to withstand any criticism Rose threw her way, not that it was ever particularly damning. This manuscript, written not just for her eyes, but now for Nash’s, too, and perhaps even some glamorous editor in London with the power to change Eddie’s life, felt raw and a bit fragile, as if it might fall apart under too much early scrutiny.

‘It’s .?.?.’ Eddie said now, not entirely sure how to finish her sentence. She was interrupted by Albert, who had come to rid them of the trunk that was drooping between them. ‘We can carry it,’ Eddie said a little too sharply; he gave her a slightly frightened-looking smile and quietly insisted.

‘Oh, don’t be silly, Eddie,’ Rose said, letting go of her end and forcing Eddie to relinquish the rest of the weight into Albert’s arms. ‘If you’re so determined to break your fingers, you can go and fetch mine.’

They all managed to get into the boat in the end, although it did seem to be sitting quite low in the water once all the luggage had been dispersed evenly around under the watchful eye and rather spittly directions of Captain Perkins. Valentine sat down next to Eddie and wordlessly offered her a drink from a flask, which she declined; it was then offered to Kitty, who gazed at it with utmost reverence and then drank half the contents down in a few gulps. The dog almost sent them all overboard, having little understanding of the need to keep the boat balanced, and had to be hauled into Liza’s lap, where she sat panting excitedly.

‘I don’t like boats,’ Kitty said, as Valentine wrestled the flask back from her. She was wearing jewel tones from head to foot, peacock-green and amaranthine velvet, with turquoise in her ears and on her fingers, contrasting dramatically with her dark curls; apparently, this was what counted as travelling clothes when you were Kitty Stuart. ‘Man is fallible, therefore boat is fallible. This is just somebody’s best attempt at keeping us afloat.’