The Other Cathy

by Nancy Buckingham

  ‘What can I say? I – I do not deserve such magnanimity.’

  Emma shook her head. ‘I cannot hold you responsible for Uncle Ran – for your brother’s actions, Aunt Chloe. You are in no way to blame for all that has happened.’

  ‘Oh, but I am, child, may God forgive me! Not for what Randolph did – I knew nothing of that – I never had the smallest suspicion. But there is something else for which I was gravely at fault. I must confess to you now, Emma, I cannot bear the burden of it any longer. It was I who persuaded Hugh to register the Condensing Engine patent in his name. He would never have done so, but for me.’

  ‘Aunt Chloe! But why? What possible reason could you have had?’

  The muscles of Chloe’s face were working. A single tear squeezed out and trickled down her cheek.

  ‘Because I hated Arnold Sutcliffe! This was a way to get even with him, after he was dead.’

  Emma stared at her aunt, incredulous. ‘You carried your hatred all those years, just because he married another girl?’

  ‘So Jane’s been talking to you!’ she snapped, with a flash of the acidity that was habitual to her.

  Chloe closed her eyes and instantly the stabbing images were there to torture her again. The two startled faces, the naked limbs entwined on the hay in the old cruck barn; then her eyelids fluttered open, and her brief defiance crumbled as she gazed beseechingly at Emma.

  ‘Will you believe me when I say that although I always hated Arnold Sutcliffe and felt that for the cruel way he had scorned me, his son’s transportation was a just and proper retribution, I never for one moment doubted that Matthew Sutcliffe had killed Hugh. If I had not sincerely believed him to be guilty of this crime, I would have spoken out.’ Her fingernails clawed at the white damask tablecloth. ‘And now you will want to change your mind, Emma, and instead cast me from this house – as is your right, since Randolph named you his sole beneficiary.’

  For an instant, contemplating the long sequence of misery and suffering that Chloe had set in train by denying Arnold Sutcliffe the rightful credit for his invention, Emma wondered if she would be acting with wanton generosity. But no, the obligations of kinship were strong enough to survive even this astounding confession.

  Jane too had a confession to make, it emerged later that morning when Emma called at High Banks. While she was still divesting herself of her wet cloak, Jane took a leather pouch from a drawer of the omnium.

  ‘Here, child, this is your property.’

  Emma recognised the pouch at once. ‘So it was you who broke open my mother’s deed box, Aunt Jane!’

  ‘Yes, it was I! And I am truly sorry for it. But you see, Emma, when I heard Chloe mention that you were planning to go through your parents’ papers hoping to find a clue about your father’s death – about Hugh’s death, I was terrified. God forgive me, but I had believed all those years that your Uncle Paget was responsible. He and Hugh had quarrelled bitterly – did you know that – about the need for safety precautions at the mill. The morning after Hugh was killed Paget behaved so oddly! And after that he began drinking.’ She touched her eyes with her black crape handkerchief. ‘Poor unhappy man, if only I had known! In agreeing to protect Randolph, my husband ruined his professional career and brought tragedy to both our lives when poor darling little Annabella died. Loyalty to my brother should not have gone so far.’

  It was a version of the truth that, from kindness, Emma had allowed her aunt to believe. Nothing was to be gained from telling Jane the whole story and explaining precisely why Randolph had been able to enforce Paget Eade’s cooperation. Apart from Matthew, Emma had told no one that Paget was a bigamist. Similarly, she had not revealed the entire truth concerning the reason for the brothers’ quarrel that night at the mill, which had culminated in Hugh’s death. It had been necessary, in order to clear Matthew’s name, for Emma to disclose a great deal of what she had learned from Randolph Hardaker’s own lips, but she and Matthew had agreed that this final revelation should be withheld. Emma shrank from letting it become public knowledge that she was Randolph’s daughter.

  Leaving the matter of Jane’s confession, Emma went on to explain why she had come.

  ‘But you cannot do this, child!’ her aunt protested in astonishment. ‘Randolph’s intention was for you to have his property and wealth.’

  ‘And that’s precisely why I cannot keep it. Don’t you see?’

  Beneath her black mourning cap Jane’s smooth round face was puckered in a frown. ‘Does Matthew approve of your intention? It would be some recompense for what you and he have suffered at Randolph’s hands.’

  ‘Then let it be recompense to you, Aunt Jane. He made you suffer, too.’

  And so a legal agreement had been drawn up, and was signed by all three participants only yesterday.

  Emma turned her gaze from Black Scar Rocks and shook the reins, urging her mare forward. With a sudden pang, she said, ‘Oh, Kirstie dear, this is the last time we shall ever ride together. But never mind, you’ll be happy with Bernard, and I know you’ll serve him well. I wish I could take you with me to Australia, but that’s not possible.’

  Australia! Her initial reaction, when Matthew had first broached his plan, was sheer disbelief.

  ‘But surely it must be the last place on earth you’d want to live, Matthew, after all you suffered there.’

  ‘The Australia of convicts is disappearing, Emma, and something new and vital is emerging. Let us be part of it. If you remember, I had a profession before it was so rudely interrupted. I know about building railways, and Australia is crying out for them.’

  ‘Then we go to Australia.’

  ‘Do not agree, my love, merely because I say so. It must be what you want, too.’

  She shook her head at his male obtuseness. ‘Be assured it is precisely what I want.’

  Emma could see Matthew now, a little distance off, coming from the direction of Oakroyd House. She had not realised she had dallied so long, lost in thought. Now they would arrive together at Ursly’s cottage to say their farewells to the old woman. She turned Kirstie towards him. Matthew leaned from his saddle to kiss her and they lingered a moment, hands clasped.

  From Ursly’s cottage a wisp of smoke rose into the crisp, chill air. It was Seth’s day off and he stood waiting for them in the doorway. As they dismounted and hitched their horses to the old tenter frames, Emma noticed that the boy’s dark gypsy eyes were glistening with tears.

  ‘What is it, Seth?’ she asked, hurrying forward in sudden anxiety.

  He made a helpless little gesture, motioning them to enter. In the dimness Emma saw Ursly seated in her ladder-back chair beside the fire. For the first time Emma could remember, her restless fingers were still.

  ‘Ursly, are you ill?’ Emma dropped to her knees, taking one of the blue-veined hands in hers. But it was cold to her touch. Shocked, she glanced up at Matthew.

  ‘I – I think she is —’

  ‘Aye, Gran’mer is dead, Miss Emma!’ The lad’s voice shook with grief. ‘An hour gone, or more. For me, she did it, and she shouldn’ have. She telled me agin when I got here this morning that I were to go off with thee an’ Mr Sutcliffe tomorrow an’ not wait for her to die, an’ I said I never would leave her. Never! Then she said happen I would, any road, an’ she telled me to go an’ spread fresh bracken in t’shippon for the goat’s bedding. When I come back inside, she were gone – just like tha sees her now.’

  Emma remained where she was on her knees. A mistiness had risen before her eyes, but her other senses seemed acutely tuned. She could have sworn she heard Ursly’s voice, hardly more than a sigh, yet clear as the chime of a distant bell.

  ‘Seth can go wi’ thee now! Tak’ good care o’ t’lad ... for my little Cathy’s sake.’

  The veil of mist dispersed and Emma stared into Ursly’s face, shrivelled and lined and incredibly old – almost as old, she thought, as the timeless moor itself.

  ‘Emma, are you all right?’ asked Matthew, and she n
odded quickly.

  ‘Just for a moment, I thought —’ But how could she begin to explain?

  Getting to her feet, she became briskly practical about the things that had to be done.

  Emma could not remain indoors while she waited for Matthew to fetch her. Dressed ready for the journey, her luggage dispatched in advance, she paced the shrubbery walk alone. They had delayed their departure from the West Riding in order to see Ursly laid to rest in a grave beside Cathy’s. There was little else to be done. The old woman’s few humble possessions were soon disposed of; her goat, her cat, and her jackdaw found good homes.

  When the carriage arrived, Seth was sitting up beside the driver looking proud in a new suit. Matthew descended and took Emma’s small travelling bag from her.

  ‘All ready, my darling?’ he asked.

  ‘Quite ready! I have said my goodbyes, so let us go at once.’

  He handed her into the carriage and took his place beside her. At the parlour window a net curtain twitched aside and she saw Chloe and Jane giving them a final wave. She lifted her gloved hand, and Matthew raised his hat.

  As they took the valley road on the way to the railway station, Emma gazed up at the great gritstone ridge that dominated the moor, the Abraham Stone hidden now by a wisp of sun-glided cloud. In these last moments her thoughts turned again to Cathy. Death had finally exorcised the phantom of her Heathcliff. For young Seth there would be no torment of hell to endure, no fevered haunting from the grave by Cathy’s ghost, just tender memories of a sweet, dying girl who had innocently loved him. And if Cathy’s spirit did sometimes wander the silent moor, then unlike the anguish of that other Cathy, her thoughts would surely be untroubled, untormented, contentedly at peace.

  Emma felt Matthew’s fingers grip hers and turned to smile at him; but she didn’t speak, choked by the thickness of tears in her throat. Above the creaking of the carriage wheels she could hear a soft wind breathing down from the moorland heights. It might have been the singing of a happy child.

  Copyright © 1978 by Nancy Buckingham

  Originally published by Eyre Methuen

  Electronically published in 2015 by Belgrave House

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more

  information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

  http://www.BelgraveHouse.com

  Electronic sales: ebooks@belgravehouse.com

  This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.