Seeing how everyone’s eyes were turned towards them, and realising yet again how brazen and unfeeling people could be, Maria’s blood was fired. It was always the same! And Emily, lovely creature that she was, either didn’t see the rude stares, or she chose not to notice. ‘Leave the wheelchair here,’ Maria snapped, unwittingly venting her anger on the younger woman. ‘I’m quite capable of walking a few steps to the nearest table!’
‘Can I help?’ The manager was of Italian origin, handsome and attentive. But it had been a long day and Maria was in no mood to be patronised. One shrivelling look from her sent him scurrying back behind his till.
Emily couldn’t help but smile. ‘You’re incorrigible!’ she said, helping Maria out of the chair and leading her to a table by the window. ‘He was only offering his assistance.’
‘I’d rather be offered a cup of tea,’ Maria said, a smile creeping over her aged features. ‘Oh, and a slice of that jam sponge in there.’ She pointed to the dessert counter. ‘And tell him not to be stingy with it!’ When Emily began her way towards the counter she called out, ‘And don’t you apologise on my behalf either. If I feel an apology is necessary, I’ll give it myself.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of apologising on your behalf,’ Emily retorted, smiling as she turned to face the manager. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘she really doesn’t mean to be rude, but she’s old, and she can be difficult at times.’ Still peeved, he nodded politely but made no comment. Then he went stiffly into the kitchen, leaving Emily to order her refreshments from the amused assistant.
A few moments later Emily rejoined her. Carefully emptying the tray, she placed the teapot where Maria could reach it, and the plate containing a huge slice of cake beside it. ‘There you are,’ she said, pushing the tray on to the next table and pouring out her own tea. ‘Drink it while it’s hot, then we’ll make our way home.’ Glancing out of the window, she noticed that Goldings Ironmongers were due to have a sale on the following week. ‘I must remember that,’ she said, sipping at her tea. ‘We need some new curtain rails for the dining room. The old ones are sagging in the middle and the curtains don’t hang right.’
Maria had been closely watching her companion. She thought Emily appeared tired and pale. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, always concerned, always guilty.
Emily returned a bright smile. ‘I’m fine,’ she answered, ‘it’s just that I can’t stand this heat. It wears me out.’
‘Hmph! You don’t know anything until you’ve lived in Australia. What! You could fry an egg on a dustbin lid.’
Emily was surprised. It wasn’t often the old lady spoke of her origins. ‘You miss living there, don’t you?’
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘I often wonder, that’s all.’
‘Well, you can stop wondering.’
Emily gave no reply. Instead, she picked at her slice of cake and hoped she hadn’t revived bad memories in the old lady’s mind. After all this time, she knew even less about Maria Hinson’s background than she did her own.
Maria regretted her sharp tongue. Whatever happened in the past was no more Emily’s fault than it was hers. She might do well to remember that, she told herself angrily. There were many things she would have changed in her life if she had been able to. But adopting Emily was not one of them. Even though Emily’s parents had left their wishes clearly stating how, in the event of their early demise, they would want Emily placed with their ‘dear friend, Maria Hinson’, the legalities had been long and drawn out. In the end, Maria believed it was her wealth – accrued from sheep-farming in Australia and boosted by her late husband’s insurances – that persuaded the authorities how she would be a ‘suitable choice’.
When Emily first came to her over thirty years ago, Maria had found it very hard to come to terms with the girl’s physical handicaps. It became clear that surgery was not the answer – a course on which Emily herself had been reluctant to embark. She knew what Emily’s parents had told the girl… that the twisted bone in her leg and the scar on her face were a legacy of birth. Maria knew differently. Yet, like Emily, she had wisely learned to live with the explanation. And, even now, after all this time, the secret she kept caused Maria a great deal of anguish. It was the guilt again. It was never to do with any sense of disgust or revulsion at those awful physical reminders. She loved Emily more than anything in the world. But it was the guilt. Always the guilt!
Suddenly she felt ill. ‘I’m ready to go home now,’ she told Emily. She had a vigil to keep.
‘But you haven’t drunk your tea! And what about that cake you fancied?’ Emily was used to Maria’s strange mood swings.
The walk back along the embankment was a pleasant one. The unusually hot April sunshine which had sapped Emily’s strength had now weakened with the onset of evening. ‘See there,’ she told the old lady, pointing to where two swans were nuzzling each other. Maria loved to see the ducks on the river. Often, in the cool of a Sunday evening, the two women would spend many an hour feeding the ducks or listening to the band playing in the arena.
But for now, Emily wanted to go straight home. She had a pile of ironing to do, and the back windows to clean. And then there was Maria to be got ready for her bath before bedtime. Mentally exhausted by the work still awaiting her, she decided she might just leave the window cleaning until tomorrow.
Maria Hinson sat by the long casement window, her aged face turned towards the fading light of an April evening, her dark blue eyes dulled by the sadness which had haunted her down the long, lonely years; years marred by tragedies, cruel inexplicable tragedies that, one by one, had robbed her of those she loved. Even now, though it was almost a lifetime since she had fled Australia, Maria was never at peace. Fear stalked her every waking moment, murmuring through her deepest slumbers. Why? So many times she had asked herself that question… Why? Why? She did not know. She suspected she may never know. But then, some secret part of her was afraid to know, terrified of the evil influences that had so long shaped the path of her ancestors. ‘It still isn’t finished,’ she murmured.
Generations had come and gone, and, throughout, the evil had persisted. Yet somewhere there was a man, probably the only male descendant of Ralph and Maria Ryan. ‘He’s out there somewhere, not knowing the full horror of his past,’ she recalled. ‘I pray to God he has somehow survived.’
Lowering her gaze to the opened book resting on her lap, Maria thoughtfully perused the writing there. The book was a large black Bible, old and dog eared, but more cherished by Maria than anything else she had ever owned. Now, she gazed lovingly at the names written there, names of those whom she had never known… such as her grandparents, Ralph and Maria Ryan, so long gone, and other names – names with faces which were etched in her mind for all time. The first two entries were made in the meticulous flowing longhand of her own mother, Agatha; the remaining ones written there in Maria’s own thin, dainty scrawl.
Through the years, the family Bible had been a great source of comfort to Maria, and also a painful reminder. She gazed a moment longer on the details recorded there. Every name, every word, every awful happening was as familiar to her as the lines on her own face:
On the first day of January, in the year of our Lord 1896, I, Agatha Ryan, being the eldest child of Ralph and Maria Ryan, have made the first entry in this Bible. God willing, from this day on, the details of the Ryan lineage will be recorded by the eldest surviving child in each generation. All that remains of our heritage is contained in the chest, which is to be handed down with this Bible.
Ralph Ryan
Died 1880, aged 28 years – mysteriously drowned
Maria Ryan
Died 1880, aged 24 years – died in childbirth
Two children survive the above – Agatha (4) Matthew (infant)
Matthew Ryan (son of Ralph and Maria)
Died 1900, aged 20 years – stabbed in a brawl
Lou Baker (Agatha’s husband)
Died 1910, aged 32 years �
�� died of the fever
Jack Baker (Agatha’s son)
Died 1914, aged 4 years – crushed to death in an accident
On the 19th of July, in the year of Our Lord 1924, I, Maria Baker, being the eldest child of Lou and Agatha Baker, herein dutifully record the death of my beloved mother. In accordance with her wishes, I cherish this family Bible, and accept the responsibilities now entrusted to me.
Agatha Baker
Died 1924, aged 48 years – lost the will to live
Two surviving children – Maria and Lizzie
Thomas Hinson (husband of Maria)
Died 1934, aged 36 years – thrown from his horse
Lizzie Slater (Agatha’s third child)
Died 1938, aged 27 years – trapped by bushfire
and her husband Abel Slater
aged 29 years – died with his wife
Two surviving children – Abel (5) and an infant girl
Maria thought of all those who had gone before, and her heart was heavy. It had been fifty years since the last entry was made in the Bible, but then, on the day following the funeral of her sister Lizzie and Lizzie’s husband, Abel, Maria had realised with a shock she and the two children were all that remained of the bloodline directly descended from Ralph and Maria Ryan. It was a chilling thought, and one which made her examine the past, with a deeper purpose.
Even more chilling were the discoveries she made. Firstly, the family name itself had not survived. The only male who might have kept the name of Ryan alive was Ralph and Maria’s only son, Matthew. Tragically, he was only a very young man at the time of his death. There were other intriguing things also, each with a bearing on the male descendants of Ralph Ryan. No male child born had been christened Ralph, while the name of ‘Maria’ had been lovingly passed on.
There had been only seven children born through the generations – two to Ralph and Maria, three to Agatha and Lou, and two to Elizabeth (Lizzie). Of these, only three were male, one meeting a violent end before he reached full manhood, and a second crushed to death when little more than an infant. Lizzie’s son, thank God, had escaped the bushfire that took his parents.
It occurred to Maria that if indeed there was an evil and terrifying influence stalking the descendants of Ralph Ryan – who himself met a strange and particularly sinister end while yet a young man – then its purpose was to wreak its revenge on the males in the line.
It was disturbing, also, that of the females who had married, each of their husbands had been struck down in a cruelly unnatural manner. Firstly, Maria Ryan’s husband – drowned; then Agatha’s husband – taken by the fever; Maria’s own husband – whose neck was broken when he was thrown from his horse. And, in 1938, Lizzie’s husband was encircled by a raging bushfire. Sadly, Lizzie also lost her life going to his assistance.
Now, there was only one male descendant. This was Lizzie and Abel’s son, also named Abel, after his father.
‘Abel… Abel Slater.’ Maria murmured his name aloud. Was he still alive, after fifty years? Had he perpetuated the line, with his own sons and daughters? Oh, she hoped and prayed that this was so. Fifty years! Almost a lifetime, and there had not been one day when she had been able to rid herself of the guilt. But then, she hadn’t really deserted the boy, she told herself. By leaving her nephew there in that orphanage, putting as many miles between them as was humanly possible, Maria convinced herself that she was giving him his only chance of survival.
She had long suspected that somehow the evil that haunted the Ryan breed was hosted by herself. It was a disturbing and terrible thing, but the more Maria thought on it, the more she had come to believe it. And after a certain eerie incident on board the great liner that carried her across the oceans from Australia to England, she had lived in the shadows, afraid to be with other people, fearful that she might in some way cause them harm, although she knew instinctively that it was primarily the Ryan descendants who were in real danger… especially Abel – and any sons he may have begotten. Maybe he would be safe enough, though, as long as she kept away. As long as it kept away! A certain image crept into her mind, awakening all the terror that had lain dormant these many years.
On impulse, she moved her gaze along the garden to the dwarf apple tree, a wizened, misshapen thing that lived, but never blossomed. Her eyes grew round, flickering with the fear that whispered through every corner of her being. It was there, beneath the ground. Biding its time. Clutching the Bible to her breast, she began whimpering. It knew! It always knew.
‘Cold got to you, has it? Let me move you. You’ve been sitting by the window for too long!’ Emily’s voice was chiding, yet soft with affection. No one was closer to Maria than Emily. With the passing of time the two had grown ever closer, until now they were more like mother and daughter than mere companions. Maria’s influence had had a profound effect on the girl. Always a quiet creature and being long to recover from the trauma of losing her parents she, like Maria, had shunned the company of others, preferring instead the emotional security and solitude that Maria provided.
Seeing the other woman approaching with the intention of helping her away from the window, Maria raised her hand in protest. ‘No, no… leave me awhile. I have some thinking to do.’ Her uplifted eyes appraised Emily’s small, slim figure – too slim to be fifty years old, too shapely, and, in spite of the slight limp that was more pronounced when she hurried, the kind of figure that any young girl might envy.
Oh, how Maria would dearly have loved to confide the burden she carried, but she must never reveal it, not ever, particularly not to Emily. It would be far too dangerous, even after all these years. Instead, Maria consoled herself with the knowledge that she had done all that was within her power. She had buried the evil that might have destroyed them, and she had used her wealth wisely, justly. No, there was no one with whom she could share the awful secret. And so it must remain locked inside her; a secret she may even have to take to the grave with her.
The thought was a terrifying one. Because of it, Maria feared for her very soul. If only she had regained her faith in God, she might have sought comfort in His Church… confessed all to the priest. But she could not bring herself to forgive. Like those she had loved, her faith was lost to her. It was a sad and lonely thing which Maria truly regretted, but there was so much disillusionment and mistrust in her heart. Too much. All else was diminished by it.
‘All right, then,’ Emily agreed, ‘but only for a short while. The evening is drawing in, and I don’t want you overtiring yourself.’ She placed her hand on Maria’s bony shoulder when, leaning forward, she followed the old woman’s gaze. She knew how much Maria must love the garden, for she spent many hours looking out from the window, and yet, strangely enough, she rarely, if ever, actually ventured into it.
In fact, the only time Emily could recall Maria ever going into the garden was when she had seen the gardener preparing to dig up that small, deformed apple tree. Maria was almost inconsolable at the thought of it being uprooted. On pain of being instantly dismissed, the gardener was made to promise that he would never again attempt to dig up the tree, although he protested, ‘It’s an eyesore, miss… puts a blight on the whole garden!’
‘It is a delightful place,’ Emily murmured now, lovingly slipping her arm round the old woman’s shoulder, and the two of them looked out over the large expanse of ground that spanned beyond the old Victorian house. The garden was a large, beautifully tended place, with high walls all around making it both secluded and a pleasant sun-trap. Set with various trees and flowering shrubs, meandering crazy-paved walkways, and with the walls smothered in a profusion of climbing plants, it was a little paradise. Soon it would be May, and the buds would burst open, the flowers would be a riot of colour, and the heady scent of blossom would overlay the garden like a perfumed blanket.
Unlike Maria, Emily spent as much time out there as she could, but, what with being responsible for the day to day running of this big old house, and with only a local girl coming i
n two hours a day to help, she had little time left for leisure activities, although, of course, the evenings were not so demanding and did allow Emily to indulge herself. As she had never been one for going out and about, or mixing in the social sense, she was contented to sit in the garden and read a good book, or perhaps to push Maria in her wheelchair along the embankment.
‘I’m ready for my evening drink, though,’ Maria said, looking up into Emily’s pretty brown eyes.
‘Really?’ Surprised, Emily glanced at the mantelpiece clock. ‘But it’s only seven thirty,’ she pointed out.
‘I’m tired, my dear,’ Maria explained. ‘I won’t be too long before I go to my bed.’ She watched Emily hurry away in that slightly dipping manner. Again the guilt rippled through her. And yet she knew it was not really her fault.
Suddenly, she felt bone weary. Sometimes, like now, Maria felt she could no longer go on. That feeling would come on her suddenly, without warning. Weeks might go by, months, even years, when she could push it all to the back of her mind, but it never really went away. Then, one day, for no obvious reason, it would all come flooding back, tormenting her, making her fearful that somehow the evil had found her.
She had woken this morning with a terrible mood of foreboding on her; a kind of premonition, a sense of danger pressing her down. The feeling had been with her all day. Because of it, she had stayed by the window, watching, her eyes rarely leaving that particular place where, fifty years ago, by the light of the moon, she had dug a hole deep enough to bury a man. The thought made her inwardly shiver. It was no man that she had put deep into the earth. No man. No creature. Nothing that had ever possessed a soul. Unless it was a soul that was dark and awful as hell itself.
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