The Drayton Legacy

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The Drayton Legacy Page 9

by Rona Randall


  Even when he lifted her down and led her toward his own cottage he could not see her face, for she clutched the shawl across it even more tightly. With his first few strides she tried to pull away, then resisted by dragging backwards until he grasped her firmly and commanded her to be still. At that, she had no choice because his hold was unyielding, but when they were within the cottage and he shot the bolt high over her head, then set the logs ablaze, she remained just within the door, passive and unmoving.

  There was something pitiful about her abject defeat. He could feel it, sense it, as he took bellows to the blaze. Over his shoulder he said casually, “If you refuse to shed those sodden garments you will catch your death, and that won’t please me. I am a bachelor who wants no sick young woman on his hands, compromising him into the bargain.” He put a light note into his voice and continued, as he replaced the bellows in a corner of the hearth and brushed dirt off his hands, ‘What is more, ma’am, you have already cheated me out of a good fire to come home to. Now we must wait for the blaze to catch. It might have been already roaring had Martha Tinsley been free to come along to light it, a good turn she frequently performs on bleak nights, but no doubt she was waiting for your arrival — and waiting, I imagine, she still is.”

  He turned to her fully then, shedding his outdoor things and yielding to the first hint of impatience when he saw her standing just as he had left her, head averted, clothes dripping water about her feet.

  He had had enough. Striding toward her he exclaimed, ‘God’s teeth, woman, you don’t have to hide your face from me! I have seen enough of your sex coming and going from Tinsley’s cottage, and many have I recognised though their identities neither concerned nor interested me. Nor does yours, so whether I know you or not, have no fear that your name will be bandied throughout Burslem. Enough of this!’ He seized her hand and dragged her to the fireside. “Strip of those clothes while I fetch something to wrap you in — “

  He took hold of her shawl, but her grasp of it tightened. He saw then that her hands were white and well cared for, and this surprised him because the unfortunate creatures who sought help from Martha Tinsley were the poor, the rough, the overworked. That halted him, and in the split second of his hesitation she was heading for the door.

  Angered, he leapt after her, pulled her round, ripped off her shawl — and looked into the white face of Jessica Drayton.

  Chapter Five

  He had blundered badly. The daughter of such a family would never have been at Martha Tinsley’s gate for the reason he assumed, and the enormity of this assumption now embarrassed him so much that he could only stammer an apology.

  “Miss Drayton! Forgive me — had I seen who you were…”

  Her eyes fell. She turned back to the fire, saying in a low voice, “I am grateful to you for bringing me here, Mr Kendall.”

  He made an inarticulate answer and hurried away, and when he returned with towels and his heaviest winter dressing robe she was kneeling before the hearth, her hair loosened and already beginning to steam in the heat. The curves of her body emphasised the saturation of her garments, clinging like a wet skin.

  “You’d do best to strip, ma’am, and I’ll dry your clothes in the outhouse. I have a forge there, so I never let the fire die out. I’ll go and build it up meanwhile.”

  He was glad to escape, and after stoking the outhouse fire and then changing into dry clothes in his bedroom upstairs, he took two pewter tankards from the kitchen dresser and filled them with ale from a butt in the corner. Unlike the Tinsley cottage up the lane, his own kitchen did not open directly from the living room, but was at the end of a short passage at the foot of the stairs. After waiting discreetly for a few more minutes, he carried the tankards along the passage and kicked lightly on the living room door. At her summons, he entered.

  She was standing before the hearth, cocooned in his robe. Her garments were in a wet pile on the stone flags and she stooped to pick them up, saying she would hang them to dry if he would show her where, at which he told her brusquely that he would attend to it. “Many’s the time I hung up my mother’s clothes, and more than that toward the end of her life, washing and dressing and undressing her too when she was too ill to do it herself. So don’t think that because I’m a bachelor, Miss Drayton, I am likely to be embarrassed by ladies’ undergarments.”

  He kept his tone brisk because he was still conscious of the mistake he had made. He put down the tankards, thrust a poker into the fire, gathered up Jessica’s clothes and carried them away. When he returned she was curled on the hearthrug, shaking her long hair between her fingers. He had always thought her a handsome young woman, despite the general opinion that her twin was the better looking. For his taste, Jessica Drayton’s features had a rare quality which was all the more appealing because it differed from the fashionable young women of today, but seen like this he considered her beautiful. This made him suddenly and unaccountably shy, a rare experience, so he covered it by thrusting the red hot poker into the ale until it spat and sizzled. Only then did he look at her again.

  The deathly whiteness of her face had been replaced with a hint of colour, but distress was still there. Uneasiness touched him. If she had been calling on the old crone for medicinal aid — herbal medicines and soothing poultices — could it have been for something more serious than headaches or the usual female ailments?

  “Drink this,” he said. “It will drive the chill out of you. Then I’ll take my gig to your home for dry clothes. No doubt your sister will come back with them.”

  “No!”

  “But your own won’t be dry for a long time — ”

  “I can wait. Please let me wait.”

  “Your family will wonder where you are.”

  She sipped the hot ale, looking down at the hearthrug as she did so, then toward the fire, anywhere but at him.

  “They will not,” she said finally. “I am reported to have taken to my bed with a chill, and my mother — “

  He waited. She looked at him then, her grey eyes steady.

  “— my mother believes me to be with Martha Tinsley.”

  He laid aside his ale.

  “Miss Drayton, I owe you an apology. I blundered badly. Not seeing who you were, I assumed you were at that cottage gate for other reasons.”

  “What other reasons?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. How could he say that he had believed her to be seeking an abortion?

  He stammered, “Not on your mother’s behalf. Not to buy some herbal cure. Though why you should hesitate on such an errand, I don’t understand, nor why you should remain outside for what must have been a very long time indeed.”

  Again she made no answer, but watched him with thoughtful eyes. Then she made up her mind and said frankly, “I had walked to the end of the lane and back no less than three times — and each time stopped at her gate.”

  “But why? Many people believe in her cures. Nor is there any law against them.”

  She lowered her glance and the curtain of her hair fell across her face, concealing it again. He leaned forward and gently drew it back. She caught at his hand, and clung to it.

  “I was afraid to go in. Terrified. You see — “ She took a deep breath. “You made no blunder, Mr Kendall.”

  Once the words were out she let go of his hand and slowly stood up, avoiding his eyes again. “Now I will leave as soon as you wish. Damp clothes won’t kill me, and frankly I almost wish they would.”

  Through his shock, he felt a tremendous anger.

  “Who suggested Martha Tinsley? I can’t believe it was your own idea, unless you have no knowledge of the barbaric methods used in this day and age to get rid of unborn children?”

  “Does it matter who sent me?” she said tiredly.

  “That tells me I’m right. It was someone else’s idea. And it does matter. To me.”

  “You are a kind man, Mr Kendall.” There was a stiff formality about her now, defensive, self-conscious, the inevitable result
of confessing a truth. On his side he felt shut out, incapable of helping her despite a compassionate wish to do so.

  “Who brought you to her?” he demanded.

  “No one.”

  “You mean you actually came alone?”

  She wished he would ask no more questions because she had been thrusting Joseph’s final instructions from her mind, but Si Kendall’s probing brought them rushing back.

  He said with feeling, “Whoever urged you to visit Martha Tinsley for such a purpose deserves a worse punishment than I can think of. There is no method more dangerous than hers.” Shocked as he was that a girl like Jessica Drayton should be in such a predicament, he was more shocked by this callous handling of it. Most of the women who resorted to Martha’s primitive methods were wives already worn down by childbearing and desperate to avoid more, or hapless maidservants who had ‘done their master’s bidding’ because to oppose it would have resulted in some trumped up charge and inevitable dismissal, or experienced whores who expected to take such things in their stride, but never young women of refinement like Jessica Drayton, whose sin had apparently been to love unwisely…

  Simon said briskly, “I won’t hear of your leaving yet. It’s getting late and the storm is still raging. You need rest and warmth. You will take my bed upstairs and I’ll shake down here.” His voice brooked no argument. “And be assured I will not go to your home for dry clothes. In the circumstances you can’t be expected to return yet —”

  “Not until darkness falls again,” she said unthinkingly. “I have to wait until then.”

  “At Tinsley’s cottage, out of sight? By whose orders?” When she was again silent, he continued, “Obviously, by someone who is ashamed of what you have done, and the proudest member of your family is your eldest brother. Head of the family, too. I won’t ask again who sent you to old Martha.” He felt a renewal of anger, and all of it levelled against Joseph Drayton. He had never liked the man. Now that dislike deepened.

  Simon took hold of Jessica’s shoulders and urged her into a comfortable chair. She said in surprise and gratitude, “Why are you being so kind to me?”

  He wanted to say: Because I have always admired you, liked you, considered you a most handsome young woman, with your beautiful profile and your humorous mouth and the gentle look that comes into your eyes when you look on your crippled brother…because you are unlike any fashionable young woman for miles around; free of artifice; unaware of your loveliness…because you are you, lovely Jessica, and I have loved you for a very long time indeed. But he could say none of this, not because he had yet to achieve the success which would place him socially on a par with her, but because he knew she was unaware of him as anything but Simon Kendall, the canal digger who was learning to read and write, whom she always greeted as a friend but was never likely to see as anything more.

  When he made no answer, she said, “I expected you to condemn me.”

  “For falling in love?”

  “For behaving the way I have.”

  “Which your mother and eldest brother consider shameful?”

  “They can’t be blamed.”

  “I blame them, but perhaps that is natural since my mother gave birth to me without the benefit of clergy, as you must well know since it is common knowledge hereabouts. That is one reason why Sir Neville takes an interest in me, though I flatter myself it is mainly because of my ability. No, he is not my father, so he is under no obligation to befriend me. It was his brother Adrian who seduced my mother when she was a lady’s maid in their home. There were three other brothers, all as wild as Adrian, all as spoiled, all as selfish, and all were shipped overseas by their father when he could no longer cope with their escapades. I believe two of them survive, but my own father died somewhere in South America years ago. So how can I condemn you when my own mother loved and trusted a man and suffered for it?”

  “I have always heard that Jane Kendall was very beautiful.”

  “She was indeed, but that didn’t save her from parental disapproval. Her father was coachman to the Armstrongs, her mother in charge of the linen room. Both prided themselves on their respectability, and never forgave their daughter. She was deprived of both her situation and her home. It was Sir Neville who gave her this cottage and who helped her throughout the years, putting work in her way — she was an excellent seamstress — and seeing that in the main she wanted for nothing. But it was Adrian Armstrong whom she continued to love. There was never another man in her life.” He wanted to ask if she, Jessica, would be faithful to her lover for evermore, but shunned the question.

  Instead, he continued, “Perhaps I can understand your mother’s reaction. In her position and with her background I suppose she must inevitably feel the way she does — but before God, I blame your brother. It was he, wasn’t it, who sent you to Martha Tinsley, he who arranged it? Through a third party, I have no doubt. Such a man would have no direct dealings with the woman. Was it also he who warned you not to leave her cottage until darkness fell again, afraid lest anyone should see you and guess why you had been there?” Simon finished on a rising note, “His cruelty is more shameful than anything you have done. And now, I suppose, things will be even more difficult for you.”

  “More than you can imagine. A marriage has been arranged for me — ”

  “ — but not to the man concerned? I didn’t think it could be.”

  Startled, her grey eyes questioned him, and he said gently, “I have sometimes taken a short cut through the Tremain woods when returning from a day’s shoot. There is a right-of-way there. And the only time I can go shooting is on the Sabbath.”

  “So — you have seen us — ”

  “Once or twice on my return journey. You emerged through Merrow’s Thicket, heading toward the gazebo within the Tremain estate.”

  “I never saw you.”

  “I took care you shouldn’t.”

  “And you saw us leave?”

  “Once only.”

  “And again took care?”

  “Naturally.”

  “That was — kind of you.”

  Kind? He had hidden because to face her would have been not only embarrassing but painful. To see the glow on her face, the glow of a woman who had just been loved, and to know that another man had been responsible and that he hated him for it, could have been his own betrayal. Besides, compared with Acland’s good looks and elegant dress, he would have been all too aware of the poor comparison he made in his rough breeches, rough shirt, and battered leather gaiters. Like a yokel.

  “And what will happen about this arranged marriage now?” he asked.

  “I can’t go through with it, but I have already said that.” She smiled a little wryly, and it did his heart good to see that she was capable of smiling again even to that extent. “Now, of course, my refusal will be unnecessary.”

  “You mean it will come from the other side. So the prospective groom is ignorant about things?”

  “Indeed, yes. As were my mother and Joseph.”

  Hence the need for Martha Tinsley’s services. Everything fell into place, dismaying him the more.

  “And who was to be the elected husband?”

  “Max Freeman.”

  He almost shouted with laughter. That bumptious, conceited, arrogant lout!

  Then a thought sobered him.

  “Since you have disobeyed orders, you will be in greater trouble — I can see that. I imagine a good bargain was struck to bring about this match.”

  She nodded, saying dully, “There is still time for me to go to Martha Tinsley.”

  “That you are never going to do.” He looked down at her, hesitant, half afraid but wildly hopeful, and as much to his own astonishment as to hers he blurted out, “There is another alternative, Miss Drayton. You need a husband — I need a wife.’

  Chapter Six

  “No doubt the idea sounds preposterous, Miss Drayton, but before you reject it out of hand please think it over carefully.”

  “
You cannot be serious!”

  “Because of our different stations in life?”

  “I am unaware of any.”

  “Except that you are the daughter of a Master Potter and sister to his successful heir. You were born into respectability. I was not.”

  “I can hardly be considered respectable now!”

  “You try to laugh it aside, but will you, when you come up against hostility? Your child, too. I have borne the stigma of bastard all my life, and stigma it is in the eyes of people today.”

  She was surprised to learn that he was so sensitive. She had always seen him as an independent man who paid little heed to other people, a capable man who stood on his own two feet, a man without intimate friends because he had no need of them.

  She said gently, “You have been kind enough. There is no need to extend it that far.”

  “I am not prompted by kindness now. As much as you need a husband to father your child, I need a wife because I intend to go much farther than being merely a canal digger.”

  “You have already done so. Martin told me you planned the entire scheme for Sir Neville, and are in charge of construction.”

  “And am I to stop there? There must be other projects, and I know what the next must be. The potteries need a link between the River Trent and the River Severn, not to mention the Mersey, but unlike Sir Neville’s canal, which cuts wholly across his lands, this one would need Parliamentary sanction. Before that could be granted the scheme would have to be outlined and presented to every influential person between Staffordshire and the West Country, even as far as Cornwall since this trunk route would be as valuable to the Cornish clay industry as to the potteries. Clay could be transported by such a route more quickly and economically than by sail up the west coast to Liverpool, thence by packload overland. Just as the Armstrong Canal will benefit both his coal mines in Worsley and the industries in Manchester, canal access between the Trent and the Severn will mean greater prosperity for both Staffordshire and the West Country.”

 

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