River of Destiny
Page 16
When she woke again the bed was empty and she could hear already the sounds of the farm awakening around the cottage, the heavy clatter of a horse’s hooves, the shouted commands of George and Robert and young Jem as they harnessed the Suffolks and the great shires and backed them between the shafts of the farm wagons and the plough. Betsy must be feeding the hens, she could hear the frenzied excited clucking, and somewhere one of the dogs was barking. By now Benjamin would have lit the forge furnace and Dan would be out there with him sorting through his tools, glancing out of the open forge door into the sunlit yard. She sat up with a groan and swung her legs out of the bed. She had to wash and get dressed and go out to the dairy. She was late.
As she stood a sharp pain gripped her back. She gave another groan, louder this time and put her hand to her stomach. Surely it was too soon? She stood for a moment waiting to see if the pain came again. It didn’t. After a moment she straightened and took a couple of uncertain steps towards the ewer and basin on the chest, and it was as she reached for the washcloth that she saw the figure again in the corner. She swung to face it. The woman was standing where she had the night before, tall, willowy, with long fair hair hanging in a plait over her shoulder. For a moment they looked at each other, then as Susan opened her mouth to scream the woman vanished.
Dan dropped everything and ran at the sound of his wife’s cry. ‘What is it, girl? Is it the baby?’ He had his arm round her shoulder in seconds and helped her to the bed.
She shook her head, sobbing blindly. ‘She was there.’ She pointed with a wavering hand at the corner of the room. ‘The woman. The woman who foretells a death!’
Dan froze. He glanced up at the corner of the room. He knew what she meant; the story was an old one. The ghost would appear only when there was to be a death on the farm, the wraith of a woman, dressed in black, her blonde hair hanging to her waist. He glanced at the doorway and saw a trio of faces peering in, Robbie, George and between them young Jem. He waved them away silently and they vanished, but he knew they had heard her. He knew that the words of her frantic cry would be round the farm in minutes. His father had lived and died in this forge cottage as had his father before him. That was why they were called Smith. As long as time itself his family had lived here and been blacksmiths and farriers on the farm. And for as long as that, as far as he knew, the family legend had been that when one of them was going to die the woman appeared, a harbinger of death.
‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ he murmured. ‘It’s because you are nervous about the baby. You’ve imagined it. It is easy to do with the shadows in here.’ He cradled her head against his chest, rocking slightly as they sat together on the edge of the bed. ‘You mustn’t be frightened. There is nothing to be frightened of, I promise.’
She was clinging to him, sobbing quietly, not daring to look up in case she saw it again. There was a slight movement by the door and Betsy appeared. ‘It’s all right, Dan. You get back to the forge,’ she said, bustling in. ‘George told me. I’ll deal with this.’
For a moment Susan clung to Dan, then reluctantly she let him go and pushed him away. ‘Go on, love. I’ll be all right.’
The two women watched as he stood up and waited for a moment, watching her, his face twisted with pain, then he turned and walked outside.
Betsy took his place beside Susan on the bed. ‘Tell me what you think you saw,’ she said firmly. ‘Let’s get to the bottom of this.’
Susan shook her head, her face stained with tears. ‘I know what I saw,’ she whispered. ‘It was the ghost. And I felt a pain.’ She touched her stomach lightly. ‘A terrible pain and it’s too soon.’
Betsy shook her head. ‘We all get pains, my love, ahead of time. That’s part of what happens, getting your body used to the feel of what’s to come. I’ve had six so I ought to know. Don’t think anything of that. There is nothing wrong with your little ’un. Nothing at all. It’s your own fear that made you imagine things. You can see that. You’re a sensible woman. A shadow here, a shimmer of light there and you think you see a figure. You know that is superstition, Susan. You know what the parson would say to that.’ She smiled comfortably. ‘Come on, my duck. Get you up and wash your face, then we must get to the dairy.’ With a combination of bustling and bullying and sturdy common sense Betsy eventually got Susan out of the bedroom and out of the cottage into the sunshine. For a moment both women stopped and glanced towards the forge. From inside they could hear the reassuring sound of a hammer, steady and firm. They looked at each other and Betsy smiled comfortingly. ‘Nothing to fear, my dear. Everything is back where it should be.’ She reached out and squeezed Susan’s fingers, then she turned and headed towards the dairy. For a moment Susan hesitated, staring towards the forge doorway, then she too turned away and followed Betsy across the yard.
Ken was asleep. For several seconds Zoë stood looking down at him as he lay on the bed, fully clothed, his shoes lying where he had kicked them on the rug beside him. She felt a wave of compassion as she studied his face. He looked exhausted and upset, even with his face relaxed in sleep.
She tiptoed out of the room and ran down the stairs. Grabbing her jacket, she let herself out of the kitchen door and headed across the lawns towards The Old Forge. She desperately needed to speak to Leo, to tell him what had happened and to ask his advice. There was no answer when she knocked on his door as she had guessed there wouldn’t be. He was still away. With a curse she wandered round the cottage, shading her eyes so she could look in at the windows as though there might be some clue as to where he was. She hadn’t walked round the building before. It was long and thin, originally two separate structures, the forge and the smith’s cottage, at some point linked by a third building between them. Studying them she could see The Old Forge itself now formed the kitchen and the study. Beyond was the living room and behind it another room which appeared to be some kind of workshop. In the corner a narrow staircase led upstairs out of sight, presumably to the bedrooms. She stared through the glass. The cottage was dark and felt strangely unlived in though he could not have been gone for more than a couple of days. With a sigh she walked on round the building, through pretty gardens which circled the property, round to the river side where there was a French door leading into the central room. She tried the handle and to her surprise it opened. She hesitated, then she pulled it open and looked in. ‘Leo?’ she called. ‘Are you there?’
There was no reply. Again she hesitated, fighting her curiosity. He obviously wasn’t there, but supposing he had had a fall or something? He might have been taken ill. No one would go away leaving their door unlocked. She owed it to him to check the place was all right. Stepping inside she pulled the door to behind her and tiptoed across the floor. She was in the long living room. She hadn’t noticed the small grand piano on her previous visit. She tiptoed between the armchairs and ran her fingers over the polished wood, wondering if he played.
Still on tiptoe she crept through to the room behind it and found that, as she had suspected, it was some kind of workshop or studio, with a huge table in the centre, littered with pencils and rulers and set squares and Stanley knives. Was this a clue to his profession now he was no longer a blacksmith? A craftsman of some kind, obviously. Or a painter. She looked at the portfolios stacked away against the wall, the sketches pinned to the beams. In the corner there was a spare bed, but it wasn’t made up. It was heaped with more portfolios and sketchbooks. She crept towards the staircase. ‘Leo?’ Her voice sounded thin and scared. ‘Are you there?’ She set her foot on the bottom step and looked up. It was a narrow boxed stair with a sharp right-angle bend halfway up. Holding her breath she made her way upstairs.
There was just the one good-sized bedroom, overlooking the river, and a bathroom, also large, which had presumably been created from a second bedroom. A quick glance showed her the usual selection of male cosmetics, aftershave, garden soap, hairbrush, toothbrush charger, but no brush – of course, he was away. She retreated back to the bedroo
m, low-ceilinged and heavily beamed like the bathroom, with two small dormer windows. She could smell his aftershave in here, sense him very close. The room was hung with dozens of paintings, the curtains and the bedspread were a strange exotic patchwork of purples and reds. She stared round in delight. This was not the bedroom she would have expected of a single man. She found herself wondering suddenly if he was gay and dismissed the thought at once. Being artistic did not mean someone was gay. So, did he have a girlfriend? She crept across to the chest of drawers between the two windows and looked at the top: photographs but of an older couple – perhaps his parents – and an aged spaniel. And a younger pretty woman with two children.
‘What are you doing up here?’ The voice from the stairs made her jump out of her skin. She spun round and confronted the figure of Jade in the doorway.
‘Jade!’ She put her hand on her chest, feeling the thumping of her heart. ‘You gave me such a fright. I was looking for Leo, you must have heard me calling him.’ She felt shockingly embarrassed and guilty at being caught prying into his things.
‘He’s not here.’
‘I can see that now. I was worried when I found the door open.’
‘I opened it. He gave me a key.’ Jade looked at Zoë with extreme hostility.
Another member of the Watts family with a duplicate key. She wondered if Leo knew the child had it. ‘So, do you know where he is?’
‘No. I keep an eye on the house for him when he’s away.’
‘Well, you certainly do that well.’ Zoë tried a friendly smile. ‘Do you know how long he will be away?’
‘No.’ The girl stared at her. ‘Why did you come here?’
‘I wanted to ask him something.’ Zoë paused for a moment, eyeing the girl cautiously. ‘About the ghosts. The ones which aren’t your brothers.’
Jade looked even more suspicious. ‘Here? There is only one here.’
Zoë stared at her. ‘There is one here? In this house, you mean?’
Jade nodded.
‘And you’re not scared?’
She shook her head.
‘And Leo isn’t scared?’
‘He ain’t seen her.’
‘Why?’
She stared at Zoë challengingly. ‘She doesn’t like men.’
‘In that case, could I see her, do you think?’ Zoë sat down on the edge of the bed. Still embarrassed and uncomfortable, she found herself hoping profoundly that Jade would be sufficiently distracted from her hostility to talk about the ghost, and at the same time wanting desperately for the girl to say no.
Jade regarded her solemnly for several seconds. ‘Don’t see why not. You see the ghosts in your house. Mrs Turtill saw this one, she told me.’
‘Really?’
Jade nodded. ‘She and farmer Bill stayed here before Leo bought the house. They were mending their farmhouse. I heard her tell Mum and I asked her about it. It’s an old legend. When someone sees her it means someone is going to die.’
Zoë looked at her, appalled. The girl was astonishingly articulate, but at the same time the lasciviousness on her face as she said this was somehow shocking.
‘And you have seen her?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you’re not frightened?’
Jade shrugged. ‘It’s not me that’s going to die, is it? I’m a kid. Only old people die.’
Zoë paused to mull over this confident piece of logic for a second. ‘And did anyone die after Mrs Turtill saw her?’ She knew she shouldn’t ask. She shouldn’t be encouraging this line of conversation at all.
The girl nodded. She grinned. ‘One of Mr Turtill’s workers was killed by a chainsaw.’
‘And who told you that?’
‘No one. They thought I shouldn’t know, but I was listening when my mum was talking on the phone.’
‘So, I don’t want to see this ghost, do I? Because it would mean someone I know is going to die?’ She shouldn’t go on talking about this, but somehow it was important to know.
‘Suppose.’ Jade grinned again. ‘Scary, innit?’
‘Yes, it is.’ She slipped off the bed and stood up. ‘Look, Jade, I think I should be going home. I came to find Leo but if he’s away I will have to wait to talk to him till he gets back. Will you lock up carefully?’
‘I always do.’ The girl looked indignant.
‘Good.’
Zoë made her way downstairs, conscious of the small form slipping down after her. Jade followed her to the door and showed her out. Then she closed it behind her and Zoë heard the lock click. Whatever the child was doing there, she was not intending for anyone to walk in on her again.
Emily Crosby was standing staring out of her bedroom window. In the distance she could see the sweep of the river catching the sunlight in a cold blue streak between the trees. She cupped her hands over her belly gently and a slow smile dawned across her face. She was now two weeks late, but it was more than that. She knew. For the last ten days she had known, counting the days, listening to her body, waiting, breathlessly hoping, then beginning to dare to believe it. And now she was sure. Always in the past there had been false alarms but she had never been more than a week late before. Never. And now she could feel the burgeoning life inside her at last. It felt different. Special. A strange internal knowing.
There was a tap at the door and she turned as Molly came in. ‘You sent for me, my lady?’ Molly’s sharp eyes had seen that protective, triumphant gesture.
‘Yes, Molly. I won’t be riding today. Will you tell them in the stables.’
‘Yes, my lady. Of course, my lady.’ Molly kept her face impassive. Lady Emily was not the type to share her news with a mere maid. But that would not stop her running downstairs and spreading the word. This was the best piece of gossip she had heard for ages.
Emily made her way downstairs, carefully holding the banister, and walked sedately into the morning room where her husband was sitting in his high-backed chair reading the previous day’s papers which had just been brought up from Ipswich on the wagonette. He glanced up as Emily appeared in the doorway and watched her close the door behind her. Every inch of her betrayed her excitement. ‘Emily?’ He dropped the paper and stood up. ‘What is it, my dear?’
She smiled and, suddenly unable to contain herself, spun in a tight pirouette. ‘It has happened, Henry. At last!’
‘What has happened, dear?’ He was by now thoroughly alarmed.
‘I am with child!’
For a long moment he stared at her, his incredulity plain on his face, then at last a slow smile began to spread across his features. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’ She pushed aside the last lingering doubt. ‘It has happened, Henry. We are going to have a baby!’
Neither noticed the slight scuffle outside the door as the girl who had been about to come in and tend the fire, dropped her bucket and fled down the backstairs to the servants’ hall. But the news had already arrived. Molly, her eyes sparkling, had moments before told Mrs Field and Beaton and William Mayhew, Mr Henry’s valet. They were all gathered round the large central table full of suppressed excitement. The girl’s confirmation convinced them all except Mrs Field, who still shook her head. ‘If that flibbertigibbet is pregnant, I’ll eat my hat,’ she commented sourly. ‘You mark my words.’
‘Can you believe it, at last?’ Molly found time to run down to the forge later that morning with the news. ‘Oh, Susan, you must be so relieved. That means she will have no more time to go riding. In fact she told Sam she wouldn’t be riding today and I expect she won’t ride again for quite a while. She won’t dare risk anything happening, will she?’ Riding was the euphemism the two sisters used for the suspicion neither would discuss openly.
Susan gave a grim smile. ‘And whose baby is it, do you suppose?’
Molly stared at her, shocked. It was no more than they had said in the servants’ hall but for Susan to come out with it so openly shook her deeply.
‘Sue –’
‘Does it matter, that much?’ Molly said at last, her voice gentle. ‘Think of Dan’s child being brought up to inherit the Hall.’ She put her hand to her mouth and giggled. ‘It is the squire that’s the cuckold, Susie, not you.’
Rosemary’s huge kitchen table was covered in maps and notebooks. Zoë glanced at them with distaste. She did not have to ask to know this was all part of Rosemary’s footpath crusade. ‘I wanted to ask you the name of your doctor,’ she said to Rosemary as she followed her in. ‘We haven’t needed one – neither of us is particularly doctor-minded – but this sleepwalking thing has scared me a bit and I would feel better if I at least had the number of someone to ring if anything happened.’
Rosemary walked over to the counter where their landline sat on its charger and reached for a neat loose-leaf address book. ‘I’ll write it down for you, Zoë. He’s a good chap. Pleasant. Will listen.’ She gave a rueful grin. ‘So, how is Ken?’