‘And the burden of proof is yours, Mr McGhie.’
‘Quite,’ said Ranald. ‘I’ll settle for knowing what I’m dealing with and plan never to meet either of them ever again.’
That night he didn’t even bother with the pretence of going to bed. Instead, he grabbed his quilt, pillows and a book and settled in the lift for a read. Mrs Hackett might have tried her best to push him away from her, but he needed to believe.
As he lay there, he listened as the house settled around itself. Floorboards shifting, pipes creaking, slates clicking. The sounds of a living, breathing home.
He felt a breeze and she was there leaning into his side.
He turned to hear, feeling his heart swell. She still cared for him. He wished he could demonstrate in a very real way how he felt about her. How her presence was making everything that happened more bearable.
I know, Jennie, he sent her as he thought about his Uncle Alexander’s letter. I know everything.
He felt a slight pressure on his cheek as if a pair of lips had been pressed there. Then heard, ‘You know nothing, my love. Nothing.’
And her scream was a sharp, endless note that lasted through the night.
The following morning, he was woken by a nudge on his shoulder.
‘Ranald.’ Pause. ‘Ranald, you really must learn to sleep in your bedroom.’ It was Mrs Hackett. ‘I thought I was finished waking up you Fitzpatrick men in this lift.’ She shuddered. ‘I told you that stuff about the mirror was rubbish.’
He sat up and pressed his thumbs into his eyes as if that might push away his early-morning fatigue. ‘What’s the time?’ he asked, the words poorly formed in his mouth, as if his tongue was fighting against cotton wool.
‘Almost noon,’ she replied. ‘I saw you here when I arrived, but you looked so … cosy, I thought I’d let you sleep.’
He stood up willing the fog of his tiredness to lift.
‘Get dressed, Ranald, and come meet me in the kitchen, will you? We need to talk.’
Minutes later, wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans, Ranald was sitting at his kitchen table, both hands wrapped round a mug of freshly poured coffee and poised over it like the aroma was the only thing keeping his eyes open.
‘A long night?’ asked Mrs Hackett.
‘You don’t want to know,’ Ranald replied.
Mrs Hackett took a sip of her drink and sat back in her chair, as if using the wooden back to strengthen her spine.
‘If I am going to carry on here as your staff, Ranald, I need … we need to talk about what happened yesterday.’
‘We do?’ Ranald leaned on the table, resting his forehead on the heel of his right hand. ‘As far as I’m concerned, what’s done is done. I’ve moved on.’
‘You may have. I haven’t.’ She paused a beat. ‘We haven’t.’ She looked into his eyes, her own sending messages of humility, sorrow and not a little injured pride. ‘We made a terrible error of judgement and we want you to know that you have our complete loyalty from now on; and if we ever betray that…’
Ranald was about to answer with flippancy, but stopped himself when he realised that it would be ill judged. Mrs Hackett was being deadly serious and she needed something similar in return in order that she could, indeed, move on herself.
‘Thank you, Mrs Hackett,’ he said and dipped his head. ‘I appreciate the sentiment and the courage it would have taken you to say all of that.’
She gave a little smile in response and her shoulders sagged a little as if she had been holding herself tight.
‘Now, if we are back to normal I’m going for a swim.’ He stood up.
‘Mind if I detain you a little while longer?’
‘Aye?’ He sat down, a little confused.
‘In some ways, I think it would have been better for you if you had sold the house.’ Her mouth shaped a smile of apology.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked as he considered Donna’s warning to sell up before he became the latest victim of whatever was going on in this house.
Her arm moved up and away from her body as if it was pointing at the lift.
‘You need to meet someone. This thing you have about Alexander and Jennie … You need to get out and about. Meet real people, not some woman in a mirror.’
‘You know that there is something going on in this house.’
‘And that is why you need to go.’
‘But my great-uncle provided all of this for me. He spent decades trying to make up for his early mistakes. He spent all this money trying to set up a home for me. He built that library for me. He sought me out, Mrs Hackett, and, a bit late, I admit, he tried to look after me. I can’t let him down.’
‘Yes, he did all that. I remember him coming back from your graduation ceremony. The smile on his face. He was so very proud of you, Ranald. But if you are going to take on this house – and I mean really take it on – you have to know everything.’
‘Go on…’ Ran folded his arms tight around himself.
‘She – Jennie – worked under my mother. And mum told me everything. She was haunted by it.’
Ranald thought about the details he’d read in the letter. ‘I should think so.’
Mrs Hackett raised herself in her seat slightly as if she was going to rush to the defence of her mother, but then seemed to rein herself in.
‘You said my mother should be haunted by what happened. What did he tell you in that letter?’ she asked.
‘That Mrs Winters, your mother, had it in for Jennie from the moment she met her…’ Mrs Hackett took a sharp breath and held a hand to her mouth. ‘That she told everyone Jennie was a witch and was trying to … eat a child while casting a spell…’
‘The old…’ She interrupted Ranald, then stopped herself as if she was about to say something she considered too foul to be uttered. Her mouth was a scolding thin line as she worked through her anger at what Ranald said. ‘The guilt might have tortured him, but he clearly didn’t want you to think badly of him.’ She gathered her thoughts. ‘My mother did watch out for Alexander and Jennie, that bit is true. But not in the way he said.’
‘In what way then?’
‘Right enough, she didn’t believe the wee lamb at first. But then she did what she could to help her. The poor girl was terrified of him.’
37
‘Do you really want to hear this, Ranald?’
He shook his head. He didn’t know what to believe. Who to believe. He felt like he was swimming through smog. That everything solid he touched would fade into vapour. First Marcus and Liz … or Rebecca or whatever the hell her name was. Was he really so suggestible that all she’d needed to do was a bit of theatrics and he’d ended up imagining a whole person – for week upon week? But Jennie seemed so real. The girl in those letters certainly was.
Then he thought about his mother. Incest and murder. He searched his memory of her for clues that might suggest what she was capable of, but his brain came up short. In any case, how could he possibly remember someone in a ‘normal’ activity and then conflate that with something so heinous?
If all of that wasn’t enough to deal with, then there was the betrayal by Danny and Mrs Hackett – they’d seemed so down-to-earth and honest.
And now even in his letters written before he died, the old man had been hiding some of the truth.
He planted his feet on the floor, squared his shoulders and looked into Mrs Hackett’s eyes. What he saw there offered some reassurance. She wanted to tell him; needed to tell him. And the information she was about to impart, she believed to be the absolute truth. He could see that.
‘Go on then,’ he said.
‘It wasn’t that long ago, but you have to remember that this was a different age. There were very clear lines between the classes. Very strict codes of behaviour. As part of the ruling classes, the wealthy, your uncle had a lot of power over the people who worked for his family.
‘For a young woman from a working-class family, in her first job in the big house
, it would have been terrifying. You also have to remember that there was little in the way of social security back then. Children in her situation – and she was little more than eighteen at the time – had to go to work to send money back to their families. Lose a job and it could be disastrous.’ She paused and rubbed at her mouth while trying to work out how to go on.
‘She went to my mother, not sure how to handle your uncle. She said that every time she turned round he was there, staring at her or saying how pretty she was. Trying to touch her hair, her face. Nothing sexual at first, she said. It was more like he was infatuated and was reaching out to touch her as if to prove to himself that she was real, you know?’ Mrs Hackett shook her head. ‘It was, as I said, a different time; children didn’t have the rights they have now. It was the age of being seen and not heard, and if something bad happened, people would shrug and dismiss it as just one of those things. Anyway,’ she exhaled, her facial muscles formed into a shape of inherited regret, ‘my mother said she told Jennie not to worry. It was just a phase and it would pass. To keep on with her work. Keep busy, she told her, and Mr Alexander would get bored and leave her alone. Except he didn’t, it got worse.’
Ranald slumped in his chair, feeling a chill; he crossed his arms as if that might help to warm him.
‘Alexander suggested to his mother that Jennie be promoted and become her and his sister’s chambermaid. This meant she was given a small room of her own in his mother’s wing and that he could visit her there.’
‘No…’
‘Sadly, yes. He began to go to her after everyone was in bed.’ She swallowed. ‘Your uncle effectively raped this young girl, night after night, for months, and there was no one – no one – she could turn to.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Ranald. ‘But his letter…’ He completed the sentence in his head: …told a vastly different version. He was moving on from his earlier position of doubt. Everything he was hearing had a ring of truth. ‘Couldn’t she go to your mother?’
Mrs Hackett shook her head. ‘She did. But – and the guilt of this haunted Mum to her last breath – my mother didn’t believe her. She told her off for telling lies and threatened to have her sacked if she repeated them again.’ She pursed her lips and exhaled slowly, as if releasing some of her own pain. ‘She said Alexander was a fine young man. The future of a great family, and a likely pillar of the community. There was no way he would be involved in anything so awful. She sent the poor girl away with a flea in her ear.
‘Next thing, Alexander was sent off to war and Mum noticed a change in Jennie. At first she seemed more like the young girl who first arrived at Newton Hall – lively and curious. Sometimes it’s only when something returns that you notice it was missing, you know? That was the first time Mum thought that Jennie might indeed have been telling the truth. But then she seemed to revert to being overly shy and sensitive. She started taking her food up to her room and avoided being with any of the other members of staff.’
Mrs Hackett held her hands on the table in front of her. She slowly rubbed the back of her left hand with her right thumb.
‘God knows how she managed to keep her pregnancy a secret.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Then it all came to a head. Mum was helping Alexander’s mother with something when they heard an awful scream. It came from the lift. They ran there and found Jennie covered in blood from the waist down. She had just given birth – Mum guessed that Jennie hid there when she realised she was going into labour – to keep away from everyone.
‘Mum said the sight would haunt her to her dying day. Jenny was trying to cradle the baby while chewing through the cord. The poor girl was terrified, exhausted and in a panic. The baby was stillborn, poor thing. Mrs Fitzpatrick ordered that everything be cleaned up and that the girl be sent from the house in disgrace. Jennie spoke up for the first time and told her that the baby was Alexander’s, that he had forced himself upon her and that she was frightened that when he came back from leave the rapes would start up again.’
‘Dear God,’ said Ranald, and heard his voice echo in the space. Rough and masculine, so out of place in this story of abuse. He shuddered at the thought of what poor Jennie had gone through.
Mrs Hackett stood up. ‘I need something to drink. Just a shame it’s not later in the day. This is a story that should be served with a large whisky.’ She replenished her tea and sat back down to continue.
‘Of course, Mrs Fitzpatrick was having none of it. This girl had thrown herself at her son, she thought, trying to worm her way into a position of wealth and privilege. And she had Jennie carted off to the asylum, telling everyone that she’d been found eating her own baby and that she must be insane or a witch or something equally vile.’ She paused a beat. ‘The poor girl didn’t stand a chance. Who was going to believe her against the Fitzpatricks? Sadly, she died shortly after. Loss of blood apparently.’ Mrs Hackett blessed herself. Her right hand finding the places to touch on her body, quickly and by long habit. Forehead. Heart. Left shoulder. Right shoulder.
‘What happened to the baby?’ asked Ranald.
Mrs Hackett looked at him. ‘That was something my mother remembered as being odd. Mrs Fitzpatrick was determined that the girl was lying, that her son hadn’t laid a hand on her, but she had the baby buried in the garden and a wee statue erected. Made a wee memorial spot, if you like.’
‘Really?’
Mrs Hackett nodded. ‘I think she was hedging her bets. I don’t know what they would normally do in that situation, back then. An unmarked grave in the council cemetery, maybe? But she had a little spot in the garden dedicated to him.’
‘It was a boy?’
Nod.
‘Whereabouts in the garden? Is it still there?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Beyond the big rhododendrons. There’s a small sort of clearing.’
He made a mental note and decided he would look for it later.
‘That would have been a source of comfort to Jennie. If she knew,’ Ranald said.
‘Poor Jennie. What that girl lived through.’ Mrs Hackett’s face was long, mournful. ‘Any woman who got pregnant out of wedlock in those days was treated abysmally. It was shameful. And it’s something we rarely talk about these days, like it’s a convenient community memory loss.’ She cleared her throat. ‘And then Mr Alexander came home on leave. He was furious that no one had told him about Jennie.’ She looked into Ranald’s eyes and held his gaze, as if it was essential that he understand the importance of her next few words. ‘He was a changed man. The war changed him, whatever went on over there. He had convinced himself that he was in love with her, and he confided in me in his later years that he was certain that in her own time, had she lived, Jennie would have realised he loved her and would have forgiven him for his youthful impatience.’
‘Youthful impatience?’ Ranald repeated. ‘That’s how he excused his rape of this girl? For fuck’s sake.’
‘Language, please, Ranald. I can’t abide that word.’
‘I’m not going to apologise, Mrs H. It’s the only word that works in the situation. It appears that everything he said in his letters was true. Apart from the events surrounding Jennie’s death, and that poor stillborn baby.’ He saw her in that lift, mouth open in a soundless howl, blood-stained teeth, and that little bundle in her arms. ‘He never admitted to any of that. And that’s where true repentance lies.’
She gave him a look that conceded agreement and continued. ‘In any event, as my mother would tell it, he went back to war and at the end, came home, utterly different from the man who first put on that uniform. Mum said she would come in early to do her work, avoiding his rooms because he always slept late, but she would hear his screams throughout the house. Blood-curdling they were. She said he must have had terrible nightmares.’ She shook her head. ‘He devoted his life to the family business, told his mother that Jennie was the only one for him and to get used to the fact that he wasn’t ever going to get married and have children.’ She considered that
for a moment. ‘I think, unable to deal with his guilt, he twisted his own thinking, blamed his mother for Jennie’s death and this was his way of punishing her.’
‘So, he never met anyone else? Didn’t have so much as a single girlfriend?’
‘Not that we know of.’
‘Unbelievable,’ said Ranald. He held a hand over his stomach and pressed there as if trying to contain the conflicted emotions he was feeling. ‘You knew all of this, Mrs H. How could you spend so much time with him? What he did? It was vile.’
Mrs Hackett listened to his questions and leaned forwards on the table, her hands clasped in front of her as if in prayer.
‘I’ve been a regular churchgoer all my life, Ranald, and the Bible tells us that the person is not the sin. Or at least that’s what I believe. And it tells us that God is the judge. There’s far too many people willing to take on that role. I don’t presume to think I’m in a position to sit on judgement on anyone.’ She stopped speaking and looked down at her hands. She stretched her fingers out and closed them as if returning to prayer. ‘Besides, I firmly believe he repented. He took the knowledge of that sin and wore it like an emotional sackcloth for the rest of his life.’ She gave him a small smile. ‘What form of judgement or penance could I suggest that would match that?’
‘I think we should just have a proper drink, Mrs H regardless of the time of day.’
‘The tragedy is, Ranald, it’s not just a story.’
‘True,’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘True.’ And he thought about Ken Welsh. The old man still grieving for his big sister – carrying the weight of that all these years later.
Mrs Hackett stood and stepped forward. She took his hands in hers and, with eyes full of an empathy Ranald wasn’t sure he deserved, she said, ‘Thing is, it has to end here, Ranald.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That girl you think you saw in the mirror? That’s a figment of your illness.’
House of Spines Page 27