The Memory of Midnight

by Pamela Hartshorne

  The cries it was her duty to make as Ralph’s wife. In Janet’s voice.

  Nell put a hand to her mouth, smothering her own gasp of shock and shame. She should open the door. She should put a stop to what was happening. Her husband was in there, forcing Janet, subjecting her to his dark and twisted desire, because Nell was untouchable for now. So stolid, stoical Janet must stand in her stead.

  Nell’s stomach roiled. She had been so happy to be free of him, but deep down she had known that he would look elsewhere, that some other woman would have to suffer in her place.

  Janet was her servant. Her expression might be hard to read at times, and her humour not the lightest, but she was part of the household. If she could not be safe there, she was safe nowhere.

  Nell stepped back from the door. She should go in. The knowledge hammered in her chest. She should stop Ralph. But inside her the babe kicked a warning. Nell didn’t need to imagine how Ralph would punish her if she thwarted him right then. The red mist would descend over his eyes, and he would have no mercy. She wrapped her arms protectively around her belly as if his boot were already aimed there. She had to keep the baby safe. She couldn’t lose it, not now.

  So she backed further away, quietly, ashamed. She went to her chamber and she lay back down on the bed, sick at heart.

  Two days later, when Ralph was out, Nell summoned Janet. She could hardly meet her eyes for shame. Certain that Janet must despise her for putting her in this position, Nell looked away after a fleeting glance. Janet looked as impassive as ever, but then so did she look composed after Ralph had been at her. Sometimes the only way to survive was to retreat into a place where everything was still and calm and no one could touch you. Nell knew this well.

  She cleared her throat. ‘I have found you another position,’ she told Janet.

  ‘Mistress?’ Janet gaped at her, astounded.

  ‘I . . . I fear this has not been a happy household for you,’ said Nell with difficulty. ‘I am sorry for it. You have been a good servant to me, and I did not expect that . . . I did not want for you to suffer for me.’

  There was a pause. ‘I don’t understand,’ said Janet at last.

  Nell drew a breath and made herself look into her servant’s face. ‘I know what my husband has been making you do,’ she said directly. ‘I am sorry.’

  The colour rose in Janet’s cheeks, and this time it was she who looked away, but she said nothing.

  ‘So . . . so I thought you might prefer to go to another house,’ Nell floundered on. ‘My stepmother needs help with my brothers. It is not such a fine house as this, perhaps, but they will be kind to you. Or I will find you some money so you may marry if you wish,’ she said when Janet still said nothing. It would be more difficult, as Ralph controlled the purse but she could make the housekeeping stretch further if she had to. ‘I cannot get it immediately, but if you can wait, I will see what I can do.’

  She wanted to ask if Janet was still walking out with John Scott, but it didn’t seem appropriate. Some money would help them marry, but would it erase the memories from Janet’s head? Nell didn’t think so.

  She waited patiently while Janet wrestled with her thoughts. In the end, Janet said that she didn’t want to go to a new household and be with strangers. ‘In that case, I will get you some money,’ Nell promised. ‘You can go back to your family until you decide what you wish to do. I will give you a good character if anyone asks.’

  Ralph’s face went ominously blank when he heard that Janet had gone. Nell did not dare tell him the truth about why she had sent her away. ‘She was idle,’ she lied instead, not meeting his eyes. ‘And insolent. I will have Eliza as my maid now and I will find a new girl to work with Mary.’

  There were several families eager to send their daughters into service with the Maskewes. Nell would take the plainest, and keep her well out of Ralph’s way.

  ‘I see.’ The blank look faded from Ralph’s eyes and he dabbed at his mouth with his napkin before pushing back his chair. ‘Yes, I see, my dear,’ he said, all affability. ‘You must, of course, do as you think best. If you are certain.’

  The smile that went with this was wide and white, but it told Nell that he was not fooled. He knew exactly what she had done, and why. He would wait until the child was born, and then she would pay for it.

  ‘I am certain.’

  Nell kept her expression steady until the door closed behind him. Only then did the calmness slip from her face, and her fingers twist in her skirts.

  ‘It is the right thing to do,’ she whispered. ‘I cannot regret it.’

  ‘Yes, you have done the right thing,’ the voice said. ‘You have saved Janet from Ralph. But now I want you to wake up, Nell.’

  Nell frowned. Wake up? What did he mean? She was not asleep! But even as she thought it, there was a rushing sensation in her ears and she was sitting in a strangely stuffed chair in a strange room with two strangely dressed men studying her with creased brows. Sucking in a breath, she clapped a hand to her throat where she could feel her heart pounding in fright, while her eyes darted around the room, widening at the unfamiliarity of it all. Where was she? What had happened?

  And then her mind jolted without warning, and she was Tess again. Her hand dropped from her throat to her stomach, but it was flat beneath her jeans. The babe was gone.

  ‘Tess, are you all right?’

  Ambrose Pennington’s expression held an undercurrent of panic. Her own must be ghastly, Tess realized.

  She summoned a smile. ‘Yes . . . yes, I’m OK,’ she said, but she wasn’t, not really. It was as if she had lost the baby all over again, and grief lodged like a rock in her throat. She swallowed hard. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘What . . . what did you see?’

  ‘We didn’t see anything,’ said Luke. He looked edgy, uneasy. He was rubbing the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other, his mouth tight. ‘It was just you sitting there, but you were describing what was happening. It was eerie. Your voice . . . it changed. You sounded really different. The Yorkshire accent was broader, but softer at the same time. Like it was mixed up with a bit of Dorset and a bit of Scotland.’

  He glanced at Ambrose who nodded. ‘Those rounded r’s were very distinctive. Rrralph . . .’ He tried to imitate the way she had sounded, and Tess shuddered at the name.

  ‘I hate him,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I hate how powerless I am to stop him.’

  ‘Yes, that came across very clearly.’ Ambrose’s voice was comfortingly prosaic, as if talking about your feelings for a man who had been dead four centuries was perfectly normal. ‘I’ve never come across such a vivid regression,’ he said. ‘Many people experience snatches of a past life, or there’s a certain blurriness to what they remember, but it’s so clear for you . . . quite remarkable,’ he said. ‘You are really very fortunate.’

  Tess thought about Ralph’s big teeth and the marks they made on her skin. She thought about his fists and the pain and the degradation she felt when he pushed roughly inside her. She thought about the blood puddling on the floor between her thighs and the baby killed by its own father.

  ‘I don’t feel very fortunate,’ she said.

  ‘No.’ Ambrose sobered. ‘That was tactless of me. You have suffered as Nell. It’s just to spend your life with people ridiculing the idea of past life regression, and then to come across such a spectacularly vivid example . . .’

  ‘I understand,’ said Tess.

  ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘A bit shaky. Okay.’ To her horror, her eyes filled with tears. ‘I want my baby.’

  ‘Do you want to try again?’ Ambrose asked. ‘Nell was responding before. I could try and ask her what she wants from you this time?’

  Luke shifted in his chair, ground his fist harder into his hand. ‘Do you think that’s a good idea? Tess has already had an unpleasant experience this morning. What if it gets dangerous?’

  ‘Nell has a powerful hold on Tess,’ Ambrose said. ‘I think it will be
more dangerous if we’re not able to make a connection with her through Tess. It’s always better to know what you’re dealing with.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Luke said stubbornly, and Tess reached out to lay a hand on his arm.

  ‘It’s all right, Luke. I want to do it. Nell seems to be reliving the key times in her life, so surely the next important moment will be the birth of her child . . . I want to know if the baby survived or not.’

  She needed to know if the babe was healthy. It felt all wrong now to have been wrenched out of a state of pregnancy. If there was a chance she could go back and feel the baby kicking inside her again . . . oh, how could she explain that to Luke?

  ‘I think Ambrose is right,’ she said instead. ‘I’d feel better if he could establish some kind of connection with Nell to ask her what she wants from me.’

  Luke’s mouth was still set in a mulish line. ‘That’s all very well, but what if the baby didn’t survive? What if Nell didn’t survive? Childbirth was a dangerous time in those days. Mothers and babies died.’ He swung round to Ambrose. ‘What happens if Tess starts haemorrhaging? She’s been bruised before. What’s to stop her bleeding while she gives birth to a baby who doesn’t exist? Are you qualified to deal with that?’

  ‘Luke.’ Tess drew a breath. She knew he was making good points, but she couldn’t think of anything beyond the clamour of need in her body. She had to have her baby back. What mother wouldn’t risk everything for that? ‘I know you’re worried, but it will be fine.’

  Scowling, Luke pulled his arm away from her hand. ‘You asked me not to let anything happen to you, Tess,’ he reminded her. ‘I promised I’d stay with you.’

  ‘And you are staying with me. Nothing is going to happen.’ She moistened her lips. She had forgotten her earlier fears. All she wanted now was to go back to her baby. ‘Ambrose could talk to me in the past before,’ she reminded him. ‘He told me to wake up and I did, remember? So if things get difficult, he can just wake me up again. Please, let me do it.’

  ‘You don’t need my permission,’ he snapped. ‘If you’re determined, I can’t stop you.’

  ‘But you won’t go away?’

  Luke didn’t answer immediately. She knew he wanted to argue more, but in the end his shoulders slumped and he looked straight into her face with an expression that squeezed her heart. ‘No,’ he sighed, ‘I won’t go away.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said softly, and, reassured that he would watch over her, she settled herself back in the chair and closed her eyes.

  ‘A girl?’ Ralph was disgusted when he was told, but Nell was euphoric. After the pain of the marriage bed, the pain of childbirth felt pure and true, and when she held her daughter in her arms, she was happy for the first time since Tom.

  She called the baby Meg after Margaret the midwife. Ralph didn’t care. He wanted a son. He would be back in her bedchamber soon enough, Nell knew, but first she could enjoy her lying-in. Ever mindful of his reputation, Ralph let the neighbouring women come and sit around the bed to admire the baby. Nell had wondered if her coldness would keep them away, but they were curious, and they came anyway. Besides, there was wine and there were sweetmeats, and there was the chance to look around the fine Maskewe house, to nudge each other and look significantly at the luxurious hangings, or to surreptitiously finger the coverlet.

  Cocooned in the warmth of the women around her, Nell relaxed for the first time in her marriage. The others exchanged bawdy stories and grumbled about men in general and their husbands in particular, but they didn’t sound too bad to Nell. She would have liked a husband who fell asleep over his dinner, or fretted endlessly about his health. She wouldn’t have minded so much if he was mean or snored or was foolish. She didn’t say anything about Ralph. There was no point. None of these women could help her. They couldn’t undo her marriage, more was the pity. They couldn’t change Ralph.

  No, Ralph wouldn’t change, but she could. Meg had altered everything. When she held the warm weight of her baby in her arms, Nell’s heart constricted painfully. Her love for her daughter was so powerful, Ralph mattered little in comparison. If she had to submit to his blows to make sure that her daughter was fed and clothed and safe, so be it. She could endure for Meg’s sake.

  As for Tom . . . Meg had changed that too. Tom had nothing to do with Meg. Nell had locked him away in a secret chamber of her mind. Compared to her daughter, he couldn’t matter.

  She smiled down at Meg, who had fallen asleep at her breast, a bubble of milky foam between her lips. Her hand was curled around Nell’s little finger, and Nell marvelled anew at how tiny she was, how perfect.

  Nell? Nell? Tell me what you want.

  Nell looked up, a frown touching her eyes. Until she was churched, the chamber was for women. The voice was male, and there was an urgency to it that she didn’t understand. She had heard this voice before in her head. It ought to seem stranger than it did. For there was no man there, only her stepmother, Anne, straightening the linen in the cradle.

  ‘I want my child to be safe,’ she said. It was impossible to imagine wanting anything more than that right then.

  ‘Aye, that is all any mother wants.’ Anne thought that she was talking to her. She turned from the cradle, smoothing down the small blanket over her arm. The maids were busy downstairs, the neighbours had gone, and for now there were just the two of them together.

  Anne hesitated. ‘Do you think you can be happy now in this marriage, Eleanor?’

  ‘Happy?’ Nell considered the question as she looked down at her sleeping baby. Once she would have said ‘no’ instantly, but now there was Meg. ‘I can be happy with my daughter,’ she said.

  ‘It is easier when you have a child.’ Anne settled on a stool by the bed, still absently stroking the blanket.

  It was the first time they had talked like this. Is this what motherhood does? Nell wondered. Did having a child of her own make her a member of a secret guild of women? She was one of them now. She knew how it felt to carry a babe inside her. She knew the wrenching, tearing pain and the wonder of giving birth. She knew what only another mother could know.

  It was the first time, too, that Nell had wondered what it was like for Anne to be married to her father.

  Anne kept her eyes on the blanket. ‘I have seen the light go out of your face since you were married, Eleanor. I had hoped that you would deal well with Ralph, but I fear it is not so.’

  ‘There is a darkness to him,’ Nell said in a low voice. ‘A viciousness that no one would ever guess. He shows a courteous face to the world, but when we are alone . . .’

  ‘I am sorry for it,’ said Anne, still without looking up. ‘I urged the marriage. Your father . . . he hates to see you so unhappy. I was the one who said you must agree. I was wild with worry about what would happen to Harry and Peter. They were so young. I did not know what would have become of us if Ralph called in the loan. For myself or your father, I could have borne it, but not for my boys.’

  ‘Nell.’ It was that voice again. ‘Nell, tell me what you fear.’ It held an edge of impatience this time, and Nell frowned it away. She was talking to Anne. This was women’s time. She didn’t want to stop and answer to a man’s voice.

  She stroked Meg’s downy hair. ‘Mother,’ she said. ‘May I ask you something?’

  ‘If you wish.’

  ‘If I had been your child, and not just my father’s daughter, would you still have pushed me into marriage with Ralph?’

  ‘How can I know? I knew you disliked him, but I didn’t understand why. I thought it would be a good marriage for you. It is only since I have seen the shadows in your eyes that I have wondered . . .’ Anne lifted her shoulders and let them collapse in defeat. ‘Well, it is a woman’s lot to be handed over to a man who may treat her as he wills. We all know this.

  ‘But I am sorry for your unhappiness, Nell,’ she added with difficulty after a moment. ‘You had such spirit as a child. I hate to see you crushed.’

  ‘I am no
t crushed.’ Nell’s chin went up, and she pushed aside the voice nagging in her head, demanding that she go somewhere else, be someone else. No, this time she would not do as she was bid! The voice was urgent, and somewhere she knew that it was important to listen, but her stepmother’s words had stung.

  ‘I am not crushed,’ she said again. ‘I endure. I will endure. I have Meg to think of now.’

  ‘Nell! Tess, can you hear me? I’m going to count to three, and when you hear “three”, you will wake up and you will feel relaxed and happy. One, two . . .’

  Nell ignored the voice. She was thinking about Meg. She was thinking about being strong. She was thinking about how much she could endure if she had to.

  There was an odd light shining through her eyelids. She stirred and mumbled a protest, turning her head aside from the light. Her neck was stiff and she hunched a shoulder as she tried moving it tentatively from side to side. ‘Ouch!’ The jab of pain brought her abruptly awake, and she squinted through still blurry eyes to see Luke jumping to his feet.

  ‘Tess! Thank God! Ambrose! She’s awake.’

  Ambrose came hurrying back into the room, wiping his hands on a tea towel. ‘I’m very relieved to see you awake,’ he told Tess. He leant over and peered anxiously into her eyes, one after the other. ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Okay, I think.’ Tess rubbed her sore neck. She must have been sleeping with her head at an unnatural angle. ‘What happened?’

  ‘It was fine at first,’ said Ambrose, standing back in relief. ‘You were talking about how happy you were with your baby, but when I tried to contact Nell directly, she just closed down. I’ve got to admit I panicked a bit, and did my best to wake you up, but you wouldn’t respond, and after a while it seemed as if you’d fallen asleep for real.

  ‘I don’t mind telling you we had a few anxious moments, but you were breathing and you didn’t seem distressed, so we thought we’d better leave you. I had to forcibly restrain Luke from shaking you awake. Being wrenched from one plane to another before you’re ready puts a terrific strain on the heart.’