Red, White and Blue (Book Two of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Thirty Seven: The Charlottes

Cambridgeshire, May, 1881: 

Every grave had the same name on it. Of course, some of the wooden crosses were older than others – some of the mounds of earth had flattened or sunk or acquired sallow tufts of grass across their surface – but it was almost impossible now to tell who had been who. 

Even the first Charlotte Grey – the brilliant blacksmith's daughter who had started it all in the seventeenth century – couldn't be distinguished. She could have been anywhere. The grave that Ellini was currently digging might have been right next to hers – her spade might have brushed against the great woman's shin-bone. It wouldn't matter. They were all 'the great woman' down here.

Ellini leaned on her spade and wiped her forehead. She could feel her customary, caked-on layer of numbness crumbling away. Tears were prickling behind her eyes and the breath was catching in her throat.

The dead woman – wrapped in black rags in lieu of a coffin – wasn't Matthi, but that was the best that could be said about it.

Her name had been Amanita – although, of course, it would be Charlotte Grey forever now. Her parents had been enthusiastic students of the natural sciences, and had named her after a genus of mushrooms, because they thought it sounded pretty. Amanita said it was terribly embarrassing to have to explain – to every Rose, Blanche, and Emily – what her name signified.

"You shouldn't be embarrassed," Ellini had said. "Mushrooms are much more independent than roses. They can grow without sunlight, reproduce without men, and they don't taste bad either. I'd rather be named after a mushroom than some puny little flower."

And, indeed, there were mushrooms in the burial cave, speckling the earth like daisies. They were the best the slave-girls could do for wreaths and bouquets. Ellini hoped Amanita would be reconciled to them at last.

For some reason, this thought made her eyes blur again, and she almost doubled up, putting all her weight on the spade, as the tears squirmed out of her.

None of her fellow slave-girls were here. There was no need to keep up the pretence of invulnerability that her sisters found so soothing. And yet it was difficult. She felt as though the tears were forcing their way out through dry, disused channels.

How long had it been since she'd cried? Four years? Five? It was funny that you never forgot how – and funny, too, that it should be this particular burial which got to her, because there hadn't been much time to get to know Amanita.

She had been a dear little thing – always eager to follow her sisters and prove herself among them. But not strong enough to recover from the beatings that they shook off as a matter of course. What she had died of wouldn't have floored Ellini for a week, but she had been so desperate to take her turn as Charlotte Grey, so eager to prove that she was one of them. In the end, her injuries had plunged her into a fever from which she never really resurfaced. She had raved for days about white-haired angels with black ribbons round their arms, and then she had finally grown silent.

Ellini continued to lean on the spade for support. For a few moments, she was a spluttering, shuddering fountain of a woman. The crying fit might have gone on for hours if she hadn't heard footsteps in the tunnel that led to the burial cave. They were too light to be a gargoyle's, but she still spent a few frantic moments wiping her eyes and steadying her breathing before they arrived.

As it turned out, they belonged to Harriet – a strong, brawny, freckled girl, who liked spitting and shouting and laughing her head off, but was nevertheless quite in awe of the silent, slender Ellini.

"The gargoyles are asking for Charlotte Grey, Miss," said Harriet, who looked as though she was stifling the urge to curtsy. "It's Katherine's turn, but--"