Read Online Wasp by Ian Garbutt - Free Book Online Page A

Practical yet still finer than anything she’d worn at home. The fastenings proved slippery. That mopsqueezer of a maid did nothing to help.
    Beth had hoped to see Julia and Sebastian immediately but both children were in Bath and wouldn’t return before the week’s end. ‘This will give you time to settle,’ Lord Russell explained.
    What to do? A few books sat on a shelf above the hearth but most were either printed in what she thought was Italian or turned out to be heavy, scholarly tomes that tied her head in knots. The weather chose to be fickle. One day the wind blew the wrong way and smoked the room out. She nearly choked before the maid arrived, muttering, to damp down the fire.
    ‘I’m going out of my wits,’ she whispered to herself.
    She’d hoped to spy her father working around the grounds, but he’d been sent off to arrange new plantings for the spring. Lord Russell was also noticeably absent, his interests taking him off to every corner of the estate. Beth thought about asking if she could go home until the children returned, but realised if she did so settling here would prove impossible. Besides, she needed to draw up a daily plan for her charges. It was so hard to think.
    Finally the overcast sky split into blue and grey patches. Beth decided to risk a stroll in the grounds. Outside, cool air gusted over her. She lingered on the step, closed both eyes and breathed deeply. This was unlike Dunston air, which even in winter was thick with woodsmoke, horseshit and stewing vegetables. Instead it was akin to standing on top of Farley Hill with a fresh northerly in her face. Her lungs burned, her blood sang.
    Invigorated, she took a few steps across a yard paved with broken stone. Ahead was a fountain. Bethany had only seen one other, in Dunston square. It never worked. The bottom was choked with dead leaves, bits of sacking and rubbish tipped in from the weekly market. Men watered their horses at the village trough.
    She remembered the back-cracking work of hauling a pail up from the stream behind her cottage so the family nag could have a drink, yet water squirted unchecked from the outlets of this elaborate sculpture in a fine, clear spray. The centrepiece was a naked stone boy, a jug raised in both hands. Rainbows coloured a wet mist which coated Beth’s face and hair.
    Outbuildings clustered around the courtyard, hemmed in by a wall twice a man’s height. Through an arch, she glimpsed a bridge over a reed-peppered moat. Hooked by curiosity she passed through, listening to the ticky-tack echo of her heels. Beyond, grass lawns sloped gently away. At the bottom sat a round pond like a big silver eye. More reeds poked through the water, and lily pads spotted the surface.
    A tardy sun appeared and began warming the land. A duck floated in the middle of the pond. Another two lurked in the rushes, beaks tucked under their wings. Sunlight shimmered off the coloured feathers. Any travelling man would have their necks wrung and their carcasses plucked. Dunston went without ducks for winter upon winter when the tinkers were camped on the common.
    On the far side of the pond stood a short, round tower of grey stone topped with crumbling battlements and studded with slit windows. It reminded Beth of a gnarled thumb poking out of the soil. Patches of moss greened the stonework. She glanced at the sun. Still early in the day, so she drifted down the slope towards the tower. Beyond lay a row of trees. Crows dotting the upper branches took flight, black wings flapping.
    The tower was more strange than ugly. The door lacked latch or handle. It was plain wood, stained dark, with no bolts or keyhole. Beth stretched her neck, trying to peek into one of the windows. It didn’t look the sort of place anyone would want to live in. She glimpsed snatches of things but couldn’t tell what they were. For a second she thought something moved, but wasn’t certain. Clouds rippled over the sun and odd shadows flew everywhere like