The Girl at the Window

by Rowan Coleman

  But to be the cause of his death? I thought my heart, as battered and bloody as it is, would be more hardened to the notion, but it was not. Not in that fateful hour as, in a rare, warm mood he settled Catherine on his lap as he sat before the fire and sang her lullabies.

  I had to screw my courage to the sticking place, as it says in the book of Master Shakespeare’s plays that resides in Ponden library. I knew I must either throw out the stew and accept the beating I would get for not giving my husband his meal, and hope one day for an ounce of contentment in this short and brutal life. Or feed John Bolton his dinner and free myself of that which keeps me from the man I love.

  All I have ever wanted was to live. To live the life that I deserve. A life with hope, and light, and love. If I should have never tasted such delights, then perhaps this bleak existence, and my belief in God, would have seen me through.

  But God is dead.

  And now, so is my husband.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  ‘What did you find?’ Ma asks, long after dinner when we are full of pie and Will is dozing in front of the fire, his head on my lap.

  ‘More than I can figure out right now, except …’ I glance at Ma, who has moved out of her hooded chair and is sitting by the fire in the armchair, stroking the top of Mab’s head. ‘Except I know that Agnes is – was – a mother who loved her child very much. So much that it’s sustained some fragments of her existence for hundreds of years, waiting for the time when she can find a way back to her child again. And perhaps because of Will, or Abe, I am the one she has chosen to right those wrongs.’

  ‘Heaton wrongs?’ Ma half asks, half states with something of an air of inevitability.

  ‘I’m not sure yet. Agnes’s Robert truly loved her, I think, but getting her pregnant and disappearing certainly didn’t help matters.’

  ‘Them apples don’t fall far from the tree,’ Ma mutters, and I notice how her fingers are twisting and turning in amongst each other, knotting with anxiety.

  ‘Were the Ponden Heatons always thought of as a bad lot, Ma?’ I ask her, hoping to lead her a little closer to what it is that she needs to say.

  ‘Well, they borrowed and they never repaid, took land and kept it, drank like fishes, spent money like it was water. Old Patrick Brontë blamed Branwell’s addictions on their bad influence, they say. Don’t suppose they were bad as such, more just rough. Country people, who sometimes had a lot and sometimes didn’t, and weren’t too fussed about how they changed their fortunes for the better. But there were poets amongst them, musicians and storytellers – your dad fancied himself as a bit of one of those. And Emily’s Robert – he was a gentle soul, they say, and kind.’

  She falls silent, and I listen to the sound of the fire, watching the logs as they burn from the inside, turning each one into a lantern.

  ‘You don’t have to say sorry, you know,’ I say at last. ‘For the way things have been with us. Dad and I were close, and I can see that you felt pushed out. It must have been hard, if things weren’t so great between you and Dad that—’

  ‘Trudy,’ Ma interrupts me, ‘I married your dad when I was very young. I thought I loved him, and he was handsome and funny and there was this house! Back then it seemed like a dream to me, everything sorted. I wanted to be his wife, fill this house with children. I thought we’d have this long and happy life together, but it wasn’t to be.’

  ‘Because Dad had affairs.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she asks.

  ‘I found a letter from another woman in the tin. Someone called Janice.’

  ‘She wasn’t the first, or the last,’ Ma says. ‘Your dad was a good man, and a good father. But not a good husband. I don’t suppose it was all his fault – we got married far too young and he’d had no idea what he wanted from life when he chose me.’

  ‘Oh Ma …’

  ‘I should have left him, I expect, but I was pregnant with you, and I loved this house. I thought, maybe when you were born, he’d come back to me, but even that wasn’t fair. By that time all I wanted was you.’

  I don’t speak. I just wait as the fire cracks and sparks, and Will breathes, and there is nothing but warmth and peace at Ponden.

  ‘But when they put you in my arms I felt nothing. Nothing at all, Trudy. I tried to love you, I tried so hard. I took good care of you, best I could. I was never cruel; I fed you, clothed you. I was a good mother to you in every way except one. I never loved you, not the way they said I should …’

  Closing my eyes, I’m not sure what I expect to feel; anger and despair? Rejection and hurt? But it’s something else entirely. It’s relief. Everything makes sense now, and that is an incredible burden lifted.

  ‘… Until now,’ Ma says. ‘When you walked back into the house that day, the moment I set eyes on you, after all those years, love came rushing in and knocked me off my feet. Girl, I love you so much. I think I always loved you – I just couldn’t let myself feel it until that day. Can you forgive me?’ she says, and her voice is barely more than a whisper.

  ‘Ma.’ Reaching out, I take her hand in mine and then, after a moment, kneel, before wrapping my arms around her. ‘You took me in, me and my son when we needed to come home; after everything, you took us in and loved us. I love you, Ma, and there is nothing to forgive – we are only human, we all do our best.’

  ‘There’s something else. I’ve been meaning to say something …’

  ‘What it is it, Ma?’ I hold her hand, and smile.

  ‘Nowt.’ Ma cups my cheek in her hand, and I see tears in her eyes. ‘Just that I am so glad you are home, lass. I’m so glad you are home.’

  1659

  Rain poured down as we put him in the ground, the same grave as where his mother, father, their lost babes, and his first wife and their dead infant lay, now almost ten boxes deep. A powerful wind came with it as the Parson made his prayers, snatching away his words as if it would not have the Bible read in this wild place. Bowling down the naked hill it came, tearing at my shawl where I had bound Catherine close against my breast; she cried and screamed and struggled, my strong girl, and I hoped the rain made enough tears for me.

  I had laid out his body with something like care, washing him and wrapping him a good new shroud, covering his face against any that might see the terrible look of pain that still racked it. His brother had come, and the Parson, and said prayers over him as he lay there on our trestle table. Mark Bolton told me I might stay at the Smithy until he sells it on, or takes it over, whichever suited him best. Had I been a real bride to John Bolton, I might have asked where was my wife’s portion, but I remained silent. What I had done, I had done to gain my freedom, not monies or properties, and the moment that Robert was free too, I’d have no need to fear for myself or Catherine ever again in that regard.

  So I’d stood on the hill and watched as they crammed his box in on top of the other rotting boxes, and covered it with the sodden, acrid mud that made this place stink of death. Finally they laid the tombstone back, and John’s name was added, very small, near the bottom, to conserve space for the next to be brought there. I thought, as I watched, that at least now it would never be me or my Catherine jammed into that vile hole, afforded no comfort, not even in death.

  There was no money for a wake, though his brother did bring a keg of ale to the house, and some sat about drinking and talking of him, until it was late and at last I had the room to myself. Strange how I felt, no guilt, no remorse, and yet I had murdered a man. At the time I felt calm, at peace. And now I feel it again. I almost feel a great indifference to the terrible evil that I have wrought, and though I know that I should fear the flames of Hell, I do not. For I will never leave this earth, not even in death. I am more bound to the earth and the stinking mud than John Bolton in his grave. If Hell comes to claim me, I will refuse to go.

  But then, past midnight, all the calm was ripped away by hate.

  There came a knock at the door, and I ran to it, hoping it would be my Robert, who mu
st surely have heard of John Bolton’s death these past days, but who had not made himself known to me as yet. But it was not Robert that bent his head as he came across my threshold. It was Henry Casson.

  If I had not known fear before, I knew it then. For his eyes burned with a terrible fury, and I knew that Robert must have told him of the secret I planned to use against him, though I could not think why, because it would surely put me in danger of his wrath.

  ‘You were expecting another?’ Casson said, looking at me with such loathing and disgust that I longed to crawl out of my own skin, remembering how badly he had used me, and hated me as he had done it. ‘You will be disappointed. You are not the only one made widow in these last few hours. Mistress Casson herself passed last night, and her son and his wife remain at her side in Christian prayer.’

  ‘Mistress Casson, dead?’ I managed to speak, mindful of Catherine slumbering in her crib, afraid that if she stirred or woke he would harm her. ‘Sickness?’

  ‘She was weak, aye,’ Casson said. ‘The ague took her in the night.’

  ‘Poor Robert.’ The words were but whispered on my lips, and yet he must have discerned them for he struck me hard enough to dash me to the floor.

  ‘And what of your poor husband, Mistress Bolton?’ Casson stood over me, as if to strike me again. ‘Did you really think in your stupid, addled brain that killing him would win you your love back? Robert came to me and told me of what you knew. A secret that was supposed to remain between you and I, and the only reason I have allowed you to continue to live all these years is because you are nothing, your life means nothing, your words … nothing. You foolish child, how do you think that naming me the murderer of his father frees him of his wife? He is not like you and I, Agnes. He will not kill to get what he wants – he doesn’t have the stomach for it.’

  All the time he had been talking I had inched away from him, leading him as far from Catherine’s crib as I could. My mind was engaged in furious thought, searching for a way to turn this situation to my advantage.

  ‘You are the Constable, you are the law,’ I told him. ‘You could say that Robert and I were married in secret, a marriage which has only just come to light. You could produce papers, have the marriage annulled, and send the bride back to where she came from. And in return, Robert and I will keep silent on your evil, if you leave Ponden Hall and do not return.’

  Casson laughed, spittle gathering in his mouth, as he grabbed me by the neck of my gown, pulling me up to him.

  ‘You overstep yourself, Mistress Bolton. You were but a useless, starving child when I bought you. I gave you what little life you have and you should be grateful to me. You have kept my secret all these years, and in return I will keep yours, if you take your brat and be seen no more in these parts.’

  ‘No! I shall not go!’ Such rage as I had never known overcame me, and every kick and punch and mauling that Casson and any other man had ever subjected my woman’s body to fuelled me with strength that felt beyond my possession. I pushed him away from me, with all my might, and this time it was he that stumbled.

  ‘No, I will not go and I will not be silent,’ I said. ‘My husband died of sickness, and he was buried before a man of God, nothing more. But mark me, I will tell all your secrets, Henry Casson. I will tell them all how you cut William Heaton’s throat and threw him in the bog, still alive, to bleed and drown. And maybe you are Constable and I am nothing but a poor widow, but who do you think they will really believe, when they talk amongst themselves by the firelight at night? Half of them think you did it already – they’ve just been too afraid of you to say aught. But I am not afraid of you, Henry Casson. There is nothing that you can do to me that will make me so.’ I had not realised it, but with every word I took a step nearer to him until we were but a hair’s breadth apart.

  ‘Don’t you see that Robert doesn’t want you, or your bastard any more?’ he spat at me. ‘For God’s sake, Agnes, I am giving you a chance to have a life away from this place and the evil that has been done to you in it. Go now, and you may have a chance.’

  ‘There is but one person whose word I will listen to on the thoughts and feelings of Robert Heaton, and that is Robert Heaton,’ I told him. ‘And how dare you mention God to me. You and I have nothing to do with God, Henry. We have not since you made me your mistress before I was ten years old. Give me what is owed to me, give me Robert, and you can keep the rest. He is all that I want.’

  Catherine had begun to mewl, just then, and Casson’s eyes went to her crib. A terrible, murderous look came over his face.

  ‘I shall make sure you get what you deserve, Agnes,’ he said to me. ‘You may be sure of that.’

  And then he was gone.

  My hands tremble as I write this, remembering snatching Catherine up, remember her slumbering so sweetly on my shoulder. Perhaps, I’d thought then, we should do as Casson commanded and go, vanish into the dark to keep us safe from his wrath. And yet … And yet I had to believe that Robert would come to my aid, that he loved me still as he’d vowed he always would. For if that one last thing that I held to be true and good was corrupt, then life had no value.

  Then had come the noise outside the door and for a moment my heart had leaped. Then it opened and all became horror …

  I do not care what happens to me now. My Catherine is dead, murdered most dreadfully, and they have dragged me here to the crypt to keep me prisoner until they hang me. And I do not care. My baby, my baby! He took my girl from me, beat her, beat her, and … I cannot write more. These may be the last words that I ever write. They may kill me, but I will not die. Not until I have seen my child avenged.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  ‘Now what?’ I hear Ma’s voice faintly in the background as I stand in the middle of the large upstairs room. This room had been our final hope for finding the last of the lost papers.

  As soon as we’d moved the last of the furniture out, into the hallway, I’d gone to the old barn to look for tools. It had been something of a shock to walk into the rickety, leaky construction and realise that it probably hadn’t been touched since the day Dad last left it.

  His old anorak hung on the back of a battered kitchen chair, and reaching into the nearest pocket I’d found a mint wrapped in plastic. In an instant I was sitting on Dad’s knee as he drove the tractor, sucking on one of the mints he always kept on him.

  For a moment I’d stood in the shadows, noticing his mug balanced on his workbench next to a chewed biro. There’s so little to tell me anything of the man I loved so much, and when I thought about it, I realised that though I might have loved him, I certainly didn’t know him. I only knew a version of him, the version that played games, made jokes, told ghost stories. The man that had affairs, that cheated on Ma when she was pregnant: I didn’t know him. And I’m glad I didn’t. Perhaps the greatest act of love that Ma could have ever shown me was to continue to hide that side of Dad from me, to let me hero worship him and suffer the consequences of my constant comparison.

  Going to his tool rack I’d selected a couple of hammers, some long nails and a crowbar, and when I’d shut the door on the old barn it had felt as if I was shutting in a chapter of my life that had hurt once, but could no longer harm me. I was healed, and it was Ma who had done it.

  We’d taken the floorboards up one by one, replacing them in turn. There were a few discoveries to be made. Under one already loose floorboard, we’d found a battered Matchbox Aston Martin DBR5, the James Bond car, some plastic soldiers and a reel of string that looked as if they might have been hidden there by Dad when he was a kid. After examining the treasure for a moment, I’d put them back where they had been and Ma had handed me the nails as I’d returned the board home. There had been a lot of dust and some signs of woodworm, but no trace of Agnes or Emily’s books.

  ‘Tru, now what?’ Ma asks me again. ‘You sure you checked the Peat Loft properly?’

  ‘Yes,’ I tell her, ‘I’ve been over every inch and there was nothing.’<
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  I’d been so hopeful about the Peat Loft. It was an older building, made one with the rest of Ponden when the middle part had been built to join the older parts together.

  This humble little building had played an important part in the lives of the Brontë sisters, perhaps even saving their lives. In September 1824, the Crow Hill Bog suddenly burst with a violence that made the ground tremble all around Haworth, causing a tidal wave of earth and mud, some seven foot high, to thunder towards the young Brontë children as they were out walking with their maid. In terror they had fled up the steps of the Peat Loft and taken shelter there as the river of earth tumbled past them. Full of nooks and crannies, deep recesses in ancient stones, some of which were carved with gargoyles faces, it seemed like the exact place where Robert might hide something so important to Emily, but I had found nothing, not even a trace of something, or a hint that something might once have been there.

  ‘Then Emily’s book ain’t here, or more of poor Agnes’s story,’ Ma said. ‘Maybe when Emily died, Robert was true to his word and burnt it. Or if he loved her as much as the Heaton legend says, maybe he had it buried with him. We could go and dig up his grave in the middle of night and check.’

  ‘Yes, it’s not that overlooked, the New Cemetery,’ I say thoughtfully.

  ‘Trudy, I were joking.’ Ma’s eyes widen.

  ‘So was I,’ I say, although I wasn’t entirely. The idea of coming this far and not finding The House at Scar Gill is almost too much to bear. Somehow it feels to me as if all of my future fate rests on the discovery; if I can find something that was so lost no one else in the world knew of its existence, then I can find anything. I can find Abe.