Band of Angel by Julia Gregson Read Free Book Online Page A

three days she’d lain in the front room: Father, of course, and Aunt Gwynneth, his widowed sister, a woman Mother never liked. She’d stood there gazing down at her, reading from astone-colored book called
The Strength of My Life.
Mother would have hated it.
    Catherine cast a wild look in the direction of her father, who stood next to Eliza at the end of the pew. He looked distinguished in the smart frock coat inherited from his own father and worn only once before, at his wedding. Mother from time to time had begged him to dress up and take them out. Such a small thing to ask, but he’d always been so busy with the animals, a deliberate busyness that was part of his determination to throw off his privileged past, to be a proper Welsh farmer who spoke Welsh and had dirt under his fingernails. Determined for himself but not for them, not for his girls. For his girls it was always “be dainty . . . eat like a lady . . . watch your complexion.” And for God’s sake never have fun. He was a hypocrite, an impostor, and in the end nobody, nobody had been fooled.
    “Catherine! Catherine . . .” Her aunt, seeing her look so strangely at her father, touched her sleeve and inclined her head in a significant way toward the vicar.
    From the end of the church, the vicar’s voice, competing poorly with the wind and the boom of the waves outside, recited in indistinct gasps. “Man born woman . . . hath but a short time to live and is full of misery . . . cometh up.” A large wave, rising, falling, crashing on the rocks below washed the words away. “And is cut down like a flower . . . fleet . . . shadow . . . and never continueth in one stay.”
    And it was there, standing in that dark church, that Catherine prayed the most fervent prayer of her life: “Help me live my life.”
    When it was over, she followed the coffin down the aisle toward the patch of blue sky outside. At the door, Mr. Pitkeathly was smiling apologetically. “Forgive me, Miss Carreg,” he murmured, “but men only to the grave.”
    She carried on walking, not understanding.
    “Ladies stay inside,” he stammered, putting his hand up to her arm.
    Men only to the grave.
She’d stood in the half-dark of the church porch, bewildered, stranded, and then, when she understood, wanted to scream with rage.
    “It’s aridiculous convention, isn’t it? I’ve always wanted to know what part of the Bible God said it in.”
    There was a murmur from inside the church and several people in the rows turned around to see who had spoken. Catherine saw that it was Eleri Holdsworth, a tall woman with wild white hair, an artist who lived on the headland and whom Mother had admired from a shy distance. Now Eleri held out a hand to Catherine in the dark and squeezed her hand with surprising warmth.
    Catherine looked at her without speaking.
    “Please come and see me, please do, when you are ready,” said Eleri quickly. “I have something for you.”
    Then Aunt Gwynneth, bustling and frowning, had come out and taken her arm and led her inside again.
    Deio groaned out loud as she left his sight. He was up on the hill, standing between two ash trees. He’d been there for close to an hour, sure he would not be welcome inside. He’d seen the small party of men walk up the hill, the earth being flung, the church doors opening again. His eyes swept over the mourners, now crunching their way slowly down the hill, heads down against the wind. Then she’d raised her head and looked up without seeing him. He saw the whiteness of her skin and the look in her eyes and, for that moment, felt her wounds. He could have howled; this was not what he wanted; it was everything he wanted. He was so torn, so lost; he wanted to own her, to protect her, to be free. Watching her, he unthinkingly tore a clump of grass from the ground. He picked out a danesberry from the grass; the plant his ancestors said had the power to help souls from one life to another. He