Ann Granger by A Mortal Curiosity

hastened to join her. She’d stopped and I thought at first she waited for me. But there was another reason, as I soon saw. We stood before a little grave and a tiny headstone surmounted by a carved praying angel.
    Louisa, infant daughter of James Craven and Lucy his wife, read the inscription.
    I reached out and took Lucy’s hand. ‘I’m so very sorry, my dear,’ I said gently.
    She shook my hand away impatiently. ‘ That’s not my baby. How can you be so silly? They’ve put up that headstone but it’s not my baby buried there. How can it be when my baby’s alive? They’ve hidden her, you know.’
    An audible catch of the breath escaped me. Dr Lefebre had warned me the poor young mother simply didn’t accept her loss. But to hear Lucy say the words aloud chilled my blood.
    Without warning she darted forward and seized my hand back in a desperate grip. ‘Lizzie, you say you want to be my friend. Do you know where they’ve hidden my baby? I’ve looked everywhere here. I went to every house in the village and knocked on the doors. I asked if they’d seen my baby but they hadn’t. Now the village mothers are afraid of me and won’t let me look at their babies for fear I’ll bewitch them. They don’t understand and I can’t make them. They think I’m mad. Sometimes I’ve got so cross when they wouldn’t listen or try and understand what I wanted, I’ve felt as if my head would burst. Even the village children call me the madwoman and run away if they see me. If you do know where my baby is, please tell me!’
    I don’t think anything could have been worse than the intensity of her pleading eyes and the awful earnestness of her manner.
    ‘Lucy,’ I began tentatively, ‘it is very hard for you to bear but—’
    I wasn’t allowed to finish. She flew into a rage little indicated by her previous way of talking. Her pale face reddened and she stamped her foot with anger on the soft earth. She released my hand, pushing me back with such unexpected force that I staggered.
    ‘Don’t begin to tell me more lies! Tell me if you really don’t know where my baby is, but don’t pretend my baby’s buried there in that grave. Oh, it’s too much! Isn’t it enough that everyone else lies to me but they have to bring you and that doctor to add to them?’
    ‘Why should I lie to you?’ I returned calmly. ‘Or, indeed, why should anyone lie to you or to me? Who are “they”?’
    She blinked and appeared momentarily nonplussed. Her rage evaporated and she said in a sulky tone, ‘My aunts, my uncle Roche, all the doctors they bring to see me, that stupid nurse, even the rector of this church here.’
    She flung her hand out to indicate the little stone church behind us. ‘When the village women complained about me to him, he went to see my aunts. They discussed me. I wasn’t there, of course, I never am when they want to talk about me but I’m very good at eavesdropping, you know.’ She said this with pride. ‘They’d left open the window because the day was so warm, so I leaned out of the window in the room above and they raised their voices after a while, in an argument. The rector kept saying he “couldn’t have it”, as if my comings and goings had anything to do with him! I must be kept out of the village, he said. They must keep me in the house and grounds. They must face up to their responsibilities regarding me. Aunt Christina got very cross at that and told him a Roche always knew his or her responsibilities. They would make arrangements so that I shouldn’t be left to roam. Roam , that was the word she used. Am I one of the forest ponies?’
    ‘No, Lucy,’ I said, because she paused and glared at me to demand an answer.
    It satisfied her. ‘Well, then,’ she went on. ‘I am a married woman and if James were here they would have nothing to say at all. As it was, they called me downstairs when the silly old rector had gone, and told me I must stay in the house and grounds or there would