I leapt off Flossy and rushed in to demand that Job tell us where Beth was being hidden but there was no-one there. No trace of him remained, nor of Billy’s girl-clothes.
I cursed myself: I had let him get away from me, even given him the means to disguise himself, the one person who knew where Beth was. I, who thought I knew best and couldn’t wait, had rushed off just when I should have stayed close to him. Billy was twisting his hat again and I hadn’t got any idea what to do next.
‘He’s run away, Billy, he must distrust everyone, even me. Why would he do that? I only wanted to help him, surely he knew that?’
‘He likely be frightened out of his wits. Perhaps he thought we were going to get the law on him. Go home, Esther.’ Billy sighed sadly. ‘I’ll stay here, he might come back. Go and tell everyone we are back before another hue and cry is raised.’
I nodded, and weary beyond belief, Flossy and I made our way to Mrs. Makepiece’s house. She was not there but my earlier note was pinned to the door, it said: At South Farm.
I groaned. Now I would have to explain my stupidity to everyone and how it was all my fault that Beth was still missing.
Chapter Forty
We hear that there were two tons of Silver on board the Wreck, as mentioned in our last which is all saved and lodged at the Custom House, that the Captain died soon after coming ashore, and that one of the sailors was washed overboard and drowned.
Sussex Weekly Advertiser and Lewes Journal 1750/1806
Cecilia’s face was white and drawn, while Farmer Elwood’s was red and his eyes glinted angrily. Mrs. Makepiece started up eagerly as I went in but as soon as she saw that I was alone, she dropped heavily into her seat again. Farmer Elwood took a long, cold look at me and then walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. I knew he blamed me for upsetting Cecilia, again.
I sank into a chair and wept. ‘Billy and I had the boy Coad in our keeping,’ I cried. ‘He was beaten black and blue and dreadfully cold. We dressed him in all the clothing and blankets we had spare, even Cilla’s mother’s old clothes, but instead of waiting for him to tell me where she was, I rushed off thinking I knew. Now he has gone and Beth is still missing. I am so sorry to have worried you. I wasn’t thinking about anyone else but Beth. Forgive me.’
After a moment of silence, Cecilia asked me where Billy was now.
‘I left him at Miss Wardle’s in case Job came back.’
She nodded and rang the bell for Cilla, instructing her to go to Billy and take him some food, and to tell him to stay where he was until we decided what to do.
She looked at me. ‘Now Esther,’ she said quietly, ‘tell me what convinced you that Beth was at this woman Martha’s cottage?’
‘I asked Job if she was there and I thought he nodded,’ I whispered. ‘Also, I remembered that the first time we went there, I was in the main room, and there was a little bed in one corner. Martha has no children. She said she was caring for one of the forester’s children while he worked. She wouldn’t have a bed just for a visiting child, would she? Would she?’ I repeated, desperate for them to agree with me.
‘The boy, Job or Jo, or whatever his name is, did he actually say she was there?’
‘No, he couldn’t speak but I thought he nodded and agreed, and I suppose I wanted to believe it. He was so badly beaten and slipping in and out of consciousness – I just couldn’t wait. His brothers had set about him and I worried they might get to her before me.’
Mrs. Makepiece chimed in. ‘It were me that convinced Esther that Martha was the most likely person to want a child of her own.’ She turned to me. ‘But I didn’t expect you to go there with just Billy, alone and unprotected. Anything might have happened if those boys, men, had caught you – you of all people should know that, Esther. You rushed off alone before and look what happened then.’
‘I know, but I was convinced she was there and in terrible danger if the boy had given her hiding place away.’
Cecilia spoke calmly, ‘Well, we have to think again and try to find this boy, as he is the key to it all.’
I nodded, thankful that she understood.
‘I will ask John to make enquiries. We can send men round the public houses and drinking dens and down to Cliffe where it is easier to hide. He might even try to get on a boat, so we will tip off the customs officers.’
Mrs. Makepiece nodded vigorously. ‘I will talk to everyone in the town and pass the word round.’
Cecilia was looking hard at me. ‘I think you should go to your room now, Esther, freshen yourself and rest. I’ll send one of the stable lads home with Mrs. Makepiece. We will get everything underway this evening and by tomorrow we might have some news. A badly beaten boy, even if he is masquerading as a woman or girl, can’t get far. Someone will have seen him and if Martha hasn’t got Beth, someone else must have. ‘We will double the reward for her safe return and see if that flushes anyone out. Now leave me to talk John round to our way of thinking. He is a trifle cross, but he will do as we think best. Incidentally, did the clothing he was wearing include a hat and cloak? We perhaps need a description - I will ask Cilla.’
I nodded gratefully. ‘Job has protected Beth all this time. I don’t believe he will abandon her now.’
As I kissed Mrs. Makepiece’s cheek, she gripped my arm and said, ‘we’ll find her, lass, count on it.’
I was in the kitchen when Cilla returned and there was a constant coming and going of farm and garden hands. Farmer Elwood took himself off to speak to the constable, demanding that there be another search party sent out and giving notice of a doubling of the reward for anyone who enabled the safe return of Beth, dead or alive, and a reward for finding the boy, Job Coad, possibly masquerading as a girl.
My heart fluttered in panic when I saw the handbill saying, ‘Dead or Alive’ and my stomach heaved. I retched before running to the scullery and vomiting.
Chapter Forty-One
On Saturday last Richard Ade was whypt at the Cart’s Tail from the Bridge to the Market House, for the second time, pursuant to his sentence at our last sessions, which was to be whypt three times in the same manner, for attempting to commit a Rape on a child.
Sussex Weekly Advertiser and Lewes Journal 1750/1806
After another dreadful night, I was woken by a thundering knock on my door.
‘Esther,’ yelled Mrs. Fisher, ‘Beth’s grandfather be here to see you.’
I scurried around and dragged some clothes on, pulling a comb through my tangled hair.
He rose from his seat as I hurried into the kitchen. I was shocked to see how he had aged.
‘Lass, you been put to more distress than it be fair for one person to bear,’ he said. ‘I cannot help thee, but I wanted you to know that you be in my heart along with our Beth. I make a promise to you, lass, that if we find the child I will make it my life’s work to be as a father to her, no matter what my wife do think.’
I clutched his fragile, worn hands and nodded through my tears. I said, ‘Beth could want for nothing more in a grandfather, and she loves you dearly.’
I sat him down alongside the fire and gave him a jug of small ale. Mrs. Fisher offered some savoury tarts to tempt him.
The bell from Cecilia’s room tinkled briskly and I volunteered to see what she wanted. As I ran up the broad staircase, I happened to glance out of the window and was stopped dead in my tracks by the sight that greeted me. There was a woman walking towards the house. She was moving awkwardly and looked on her last legs. Trotting alongside her I saw a child, my child. There was my Beth alongside this woman. It was Martha. My first thought was that I must be losing my wits but then I screamed and flew back down the stairs, dragging the great front door open.
‘Beth, Beth, oh Beth!’ I cried. I pulled her away from Martha, sinking to my knees as I clasped her to me, tears of relief spilling on to her matted curly hair. ‘Oh, my lov
ely Beth, I am here, you are safe now.’ She looked up through dish-sized eyes and studied me before she put a finger to my lips and whispered, ‘Mama?’.
Still clutching her and crying, I turned to Martha who was swaying and looked to be on the point of collapse. Both her eyes had been blacked and her face was ghostly-white and still, like a mask. The apron she wore was covered in dark stains. Blood. Dried blood.
‘What has happened to you?’ I whispered.
She just looked blankly at me.
Suddenly, there were people everywhere: the stable lads, Mrs. Fisher, Cilla and the gardeners all came hurrying to see her; Beth’s grandfather, too, tears coursing down his reddened cheeks. I looked up to the window and saw Cecilia carrying Freddie in her arms, flying down the stairs to the door. I raised Beth into her grandfather’s arms and she put her own around his neck. I was gasping, great gulping breaths, overwhelmed to have my Beth back. The three of us clung together.
Beth was looking about her, not speaking, not laughing, just looking. She had grown and was wearing a smock that had been sewn with care. She looked so much older, no longer my baby. Her enormous eyes fixed on Freddie and when he reached out with his tubby arms and called her name, she broke into a small smile of recognition.
After all the hullabaloo had died down and the constable sent for, along with Farmer Elwood and Billy, I went to the kitchen where Martha had been taken and was being coaxed to take a drop of brandy in some hot sweet tea. She hadn’t said a word and I could see that she was in deep shock. I fetched a blanket from my bed and wrapped it around her. She started to shake with great tremors wracking her careworn body. I knelt in front of her, my hands placed gently round her face and forcing her to look at me. ‘Thank you, Martha,’ I whispered. ‘I thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
At last she seemed to hear me and focused her pale blue eyes on my face as if recognising me after a long absence. ‘He’d ’ave killed ’er,’ was all she said.
Cilla and Mary-Jane took Beth and Freddie upstairs to give them a bath together with an assortment of their toys. Cecilia was nursing Felicia and had retired to her sitting room, making me promise to tell her everything that happened, as it happened. Farmer Elwood came charging into the stable yard. He had been fetched from Lewes and brought the constable with him.
I tried to coax Martha to speak but she had retreated again, her eyes blank and fixed. I took her hands and found scratches and grazing, which I attempted to clean; her lip too was cut and oozing blood. Raising her skirt slightly, I saw that she was barefoot, her feet cut and bruised and looking so dreadfully sore. I wondered if Beth had walked barefoot all that way. Surely not - Martha must have carried her.
I whispered to Farmer Elwood, ‘She is shocked and terrified, as well, I think. Perhaps someone should go to where they live and see if there are any clues as to what has happened. I think they must have walked here. It’s a long way for Martha who can’t have walked further than her garden in years, let alone for a toddler.’ He nodded, and together with the constable, one of the stable lads and Billy riding Flossy, left at speed.
Mrs. Makepiece had been sent for as someone who knew Martha and might be able to coax her back into life. Both she and Beth’s grandfather sat either side of her and tried to get her to eat some broth and bread, but she ignored them and said not a word.
I went up to see Beth and Freddie in the bathtub and my spirits sang to hear their giggles, for Freddie had found the Beth that we all knew and loved, and I cherished him for it. Once they were out of the water and running around the room trying to get away from Cilla and Mary-Jane with their towels, I caught them both to me and sat them on my lap. Breathing their lovely, clean baby smell deep into my lungs, I knew true happiness and was once again quite overwhelmed, but this time in a good way. I inspected Beth’s little feet and could see that they were tender and bruised but not like Martha’s. She must indeed have carried Beth most of the way.
It was nearly dark before Farmer Elwood returned with the constable. Cilla came upstairs to look after all three children while Cecilia and I prepared to hear what he had to say about the circumstances of Martha’s flight from her home.
Chalky White had been found near the cottage with a long-handled axe embedded deep in the back of his head.
The constable insisted on speaking to Martha immediately, despite me telling him that she was incapable and completely unresponsive. I took him to the kitchen where she was still sitting and still staring blankly at the wall. He wasn’t a subtle man and immediately accused her of murdering her husband, one Chalky Mark White. She didn’t even blink. I don’t think she even heard him. I butted in and told the constable that he could not know that she was responsible; the blood on her clothes might have come from simply holding him; perhaps she had even been trying to save him. I also told him that I had seen the two elder Coad brothers harassing him the day before. I moved in front of him. He was so aggressive and I felt protective of Martha. If she had plunged an axe into his skull, then it would have been either self-defence or in protection of Beth. I pointed to her black eyes and bruised face as well as the split lips.
He turned a look of withering scorn on me. ‘People don’t put an axe through the back of a skull if it is self-defence,’ he flung at me. ‘This woman stole your child. Why are you defending her?’
‘I am not defending her,’ I shouted at him. ‘I am saying that we don’t know what went on and until she speaks we shouldn’t be accusing her of murder. We should be thanking her for bringing Beth back!’
Farmer Elwood joined us in the kitchen and I asked him if Martha could be held, under lock and key if necessary, in one of the storerooms rather than be sent with the constable to the gaol.
He wasn’t very happy with my idea so Mrs. Makepiece volunteered to take Martha into her own home. ‘I have known this poor lass since she were a child,’ she said, ‘and until you have some proof, or her own account, then I will keep and look after her. And, if that worries you, I will ensure that she can’t escape.’
Reluctantly the constable backed down. Martha and Mrs. Makepiece were sent in the gig to Lewes, with the constable riding alongside looking most disgruntled.
Later, I went upstairs to Cecilia’s sitting room and Farmer Elwood told us both how they had found White in his yard. An attempt to cover him had been made, but they found him almost immediately, with the axe still in his head.
‘Would Martha have had the strength to do such a thing?’ asked Cecilia, wondering.
‘Perhaps it depends on the provocation,’ I said. I told them what she had said to me when I tried to get into her cottage, and that her one and only comment today was, ‘he would have killed her.’
I went on, ‘When she comes back into her senses maybe she will explain, or perhaps she saw someone else attack him. Either way, it doesn’t seem right to lock her up in the state she is in.’
I think Farmer Elwood thought we were a bit soft and I could see he was glad that Martha wasn’t on his property.
Later, Mrs. Makepiece told me that the constable had made a great fuss over her locking her doors but then decided the next day that he was going to lock Martha up anyway. She had bathed Martha’s feet and loosely bound them with some of her own hose before putting her to bed with a hot brick to warm her and some brandy in her ale.
Chapter Forty-Two
Notice is hereby given that The Star Inn in Lewes in the County of Sussex, which was late in the occupation of Mrs. Crips, is now taken by James Jameson, from London, and is fitting up with all the necessary conveniences to accommodate Gentlemen, Ladies and others in the most agreeable manner and will be ready to receive Company at the next races, where the utmost care will be taken to oblige such as shall be pleased to favour him with their Commands, by, their most obedient humble servant James Jameson.
Sussex Weekly Advertiser and Lewes Journal 1750/1806
The followi
ng morning Martha declared herself to be Chalky White’s killer. By the time I got to Keere Street, the constable had already taken her into custody, with a look, according to Mrs. Makepiece, of grim satisfaction on his face.
I felt dreadful. This woman had brought Beth back to me, almost certainly saving her life, and in doing so had murdered her own husband. What on earth had gone on in that household?
‘I rose early,’ Mrs. Makepiece told me, ‘and didn’t unlock the door as I would normally do. I took her up some bread and my best jam with a drop of tea. She had her colour back and was looking more like the girl I used to know. I sat beside her and gradually she told me her story.’
Chalky White was a hard man, only showing kindness on rare occasion. He understood the pain of the loss of so many children but to him it was simply the loss of future labour. He expected his dues from Martha regardless of whether she was recovering from miscarriage or having her courses. She learned to do always as she was bid, and quickly, otherwise she would get a clout. He was a close man and hid his money from all eyes but what with the wood sales, the charcoal and the regular delivery of smuggled goods, which were hidden in a secret room below an outdoor scullery, there was money available. He fed and clothed her by buying material from the tinkers which she would fashion into serviceable workwear; she did not possess footwear. On occasion, he would unlock another secret store cupboard and in it were a pair of fine sheepskin slippers along with silk ribbons, some women’s undergarments, all embroidered with the initials A.C. If he was in a good mood, usually after smuggled goods were collected and he was paid, it seems he would tell Martha to dress herself in the clothing and sit alongside him. He would gaze on her and drink himself into a stupor but never once lay a hand on her when she was dressed in this outlandish fashion.
This all seemed very strange to me, and it was Mrs. Makepiece’s opinion that he had once had a sweetheart and these were her clothes, but as I have no experience of the carnal side of life, I didn’t feel able to find a plausible explanation for such behaviour. She suggested that while Martha was kept in pregnancy or its aftermath on a continual basis, not to take her when she was dressed in this finery implied him feeling that such fine clothes would be defiled if he handled them. Perhaps they were his memories, or some strange fancy - anyway, something not to be tarnished. I thought this all a bit unlikely, as I couldn’t see a man like Chalky White attracting the sort of woman who would have such fancy garments. Cecilia’s clothing was all monogramed, but she was a lady. I thought he had likely stolen them from someone he had worked for in the past; or possibly from the smugglers who were not above stealing during their lawlessness. Who knows, but clearly Martha had been made to suffer in all sorts of ways.
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