Down Weaver's Lane

by Anna Jacobs

  He stared at her in shock. ‘You mean, you think our Jane’s just - run off? Left her husband and child?’

  ‘I fear so.’

  ‘She’s gone mad, then. Women do that sometimes after they’ve had a child.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I saw her yesterday and she seemed in full possession of her faculties. In fact, she looked better than she had for a while.’ And that thought made Eleanor even more certain that her daughter-in-law had indeed run away. Knowing Jane, it would have been carefully planned. For the first time it occurred to Eleanor that they might not find her and she sucked in her breath in shock.

  Samuel glared at her. ‘I’m not having it said that my Jane has broken her marriage vows and run off like a loose woman.’

  ‘We shall not be able to hide the fact, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Then we’ll say she wasn’t in her right mind because of the child.’

  Eleanor did not argue. It would be easy enough for her to set rumours circulating to contradict such a statement and she intended to do just that. She already felt guilty for helping bring about such a disastrous marriage and was definitely not going to add to that guilt by allowing them to malign the poor young woman. If she did, Marcus might lock Jane up in an asylum once they found her. It had been done before by cruel husbands.

  When Claude joined them it was after nightfall and he was in a sour mood at having to leave a convivial evening with friends. His reaction was the same as Samuel’s. They must tell everyone Jane was in low spirits after bearing her son Charles and had been behaving irrationally. ‘And why the hell haven’t you sent for Marcus?’ he asked his wife. ‘Didn’t you think he needed to know?’

  ‘I thought that since she might have run away from him, we could work out some way to help her when she was found before sending for him. I see you do not agree.’ Suddenly, listening to the two men plotting how to keep the news a secret, not even considering that Jane might need help more than condemnation, she hoped her daughter-in-law really had been clever enough to get away. But she did not say that or openly argue with Claude who was bright red with anger.

  Marcus did not arrive until well after midnight and like his father he was furious, threatening to beat his wife within an inch of her life when she was found and to teach her a lesson she would never forget.

  Eleanor retreated to a corner of the parlour and watched them. Both fathers were on Marcus’s side still, she could see, though Rishmore said firmly that there would be no beating of his misguided daughter. ‘If I consider it necessary for her protection, I’ll take her to live with me again,’ he stated as his son-in-law ignored him and continued to rant.

  ‘Sir, she is in my charge now,’ Marcus said. ‘You would have no legal right to do that.’

  Samuel stared at him through narrowed eyes. ‘If I thought you were beating my daughter, I’d find a way.’

  Marcus had an ugly twist to his mouth sometimes, his mother decided, watching. She would not fool herself about her son from now on. What’s more, if she ever saw a way to help her daughter-in-law, she would do so. In the meantime she said quietly, ‘Until we find Jane, I think the baby and its wet nurse should be brought to Moor Grange where I can keep an eye on them.’

  All three men agreed instantly, almost absent-mindedly, then the two Armisteads went back to making angry comments about women and their irrationality while Samuel sat frowning at them.

  Feeling exhausted and upset, Eleanor left them to it.

  No one on the regular stage coach from Manchester to London thought anything of the young fellow who sat so quietly in a corner, wrapped in a heavy cloak and looking white and wan. When he mentioned in a hoarse whisper that he was recovering from the influenza, they took care to keep as far away from him as possible, relieved that he was not sneezing all over them.

  In London he strode off down the street with his small valise swinging in his hand.

  Two days later a lady wearing the flowing black veils of recent widowhood took a house in a small village in Hertfordshire. She and her elderly maid settled down to live together very quietly and frugally, working in their garden, attending church every Sunday and borrowing books from a circulating library to enliven their peaceful evenings.

  The maid told everyone that her mistress had lost not only her husband but also her only child in a carriage accident. Such a tragedy. And the late Mr Barrow had been a rather foolish young man where business matters were concerned, so sadly her mistress was now living in straitened circumstances.

  But Mrs Barrow must have been a trifle homesick for the north because it was noticed that she still found the money to take the Manchester Guardian every week.

  When several days had passed without news of Jane and with no sign of a body, Samuel Rishmore reluctantly agreed to the printing of handbills and posters offering a reward for anyone giving information which might lead to the discovery of his missing daughter. His wife had drawn a likeness of Jane only the previous year which, unlike most of Margaret’s sketches, actually bore a resemblance to its subject. The printer used it to make a woodcut and again, chance made it turn out well.

  ‘That’s her to the life, the jade!’ Marcus snapped when he saw it. ‘If that doesn’t find her for us, nothing will.’

  The posters were sent out far and wide across the county.

  A pawnbroker in Manchester studied one of them and decided that the young woman who had brought in a rather fine pearl necklace a few weeks ago was probably the one they were looking for. He smiled as he tore the poster down from the wall outside and threw it away. He did not intend to say anything. If his customer really had been this Mrs Armistead, it would do him no good to have her found. If she stayed lost no one would come to retrieve the necklace she had pawned and he would make a fine profit for himself by selling it.

  ‘Clever lady, that one,’ he muttered as he went back inside his shop to study the necklace again. She had known exactly what the piece was worth and what she could expect from him for it. She had been prepared to go elsewhere and had started to walk out before he gave her the price she was asking. ‘I bet they don’t find her,’ he said as he put the string of pearls away to wait for his next trip to London where he had acquaintances who would take it off his hands, no questions asked.

  As day succeeded day with no news, Samuel Rishmore grew so difficult to live and work with that his wife kept out of his way as much as she could.

  Claude Armistead alternated between anger and long dinners with colleagues in Manchester at which he could drown his sorrows and forget about his damned daughter-in-law.

  Marcus soon made an excuse to return to Manchester to deal with some ‘pressing matters’, leaving Charles, in whom he took almost no interest, to Eleanor’s care.

  George Duckworth had to tread carefully around his partner for a while, though Marcus was more angry at the humiliation of having a wife run away from home than about losing Jane.

  It was Margaret Rishmore who thought to go and see Jane’s old nurse to ask if she knew anything. But the old woman had apparently left town some three weeks before the birth of the baby.

  ‘Poorly, she was,’ the neighbour said. ‘Told me she wanted to die where she grew up, somewhere in the north I think. Near Carlisle. Or was it near Lancaster? I misremember. You could ask her cousin, who still lives in the next street.’

  Margaret went into the next street and found the cousin, from whom she obtained Aggie’s address. She didn’t tell Samuel about her visit or show him the piece of paper. She rolled it up and hid it among her embroidery silks which no one but she ever touched. She was quite sure Aggie was involved in her daughter’s disappearance. She remembered Jane once showing her a badly bruised back and begging for her help in escaping from Marcus and his cruelty. She hadn’t dared do anything. Now she wished she had.

  Margaret prayed every night that her daughter was all right and that her jewellery had brought in enough money for the two women to live on in decent comfort.

  And
she kept the address secret. She had failed her daughter once, but would not do so again.

  After his first rage had died down Marcus came to the conclusion that Jane had done the best thing for him in running away, though of course he didn’t admit that to anyone. Having a missing wife actually suited him far better than being widowed because no one could press him to remarry. He had provided his father with the grandson he wanted, so Claude continued to pay him an adequate allowance and left him mostly alone.

  And George was proving a very efficient partner. They were making a steady profit from their ‘little house of pleasure’ as Marcus liked to call it, though its official name was The Red House and they had used that colour in the furnishings. Good idea of George’s, that.

  On his occasional visits home Marcus watched from a distance as his aunt declined in health and her maid bloomed. If Emmy had been pretty before, she was beautiful now, glowing with happiness, and he could not stop thinking about her, wanting her. He’d arranged for a man in Northby to keep an eye on her and the fellow assured him there was no sign of anyone sniffing around, though she did talk to that Jack Staley sometimes after church. But they weren’t walking out together. Definitely not. And she never left the house at night.

  So the likelihood was that Emmy Carter was still a virgin.

  And one day Marcus fully intended to finish what he had started.

  15

  On September 8th Claude Armistead dropped dead in Manchester while drinking a loyal toast to the new King on his Coronation Day. His colleagues, who were as far gone in drink as he was, did not at first realise that he was dead and continued to drink around him until one of them tried to rouse him from where he lay slumped on the table.

  When they realised Claude was dead they laid him on a sofa with a handkerchief over his face and drank a solemn toast to him as well.

  The following morning half of them were still there, some awake but rather glassy-eyed, others with their heads pillowed on the table, snoring gently. After much discussion two of them drove to Padstall to give the widow the sad news and those remaining summoned a local undertaker to deal with the body.

  He seized his opportunity with enthusiasm and carried the corpse away, installing it in one of his more expensive coffins. He then drove it slowly to the deceased gentleman’s home in his best glass and iron hearse drawn by four glossy black horses. In this the coffin was displayed for all to admire, with its fine polished wood and gleaming brass fitments.

  The two gentlemen arrived at Moor Grange first.

  Eleanor listened to them in stony silence. Damn Claude! Could he not have died decently at home, instead of at a drunken dinner?

  ‘Thank you for informing me,’ she told them with chill courtesy. ‘I presume you have made arrangements to have the body brought home?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. The - um - undertaker fellow seemed very capable. He’s bringing it here this afternoon. In a hearse. All done right and proper.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  His companion cleared his throat. ‘Would you - um, like me to fetch someone to be with you? A relative? Close friend?’

  ‘No. I can manage, thank you.’ She had them shown out then informed the staff, who received the news in silence, except for the butler who offered her their condolences. She guessed from their expressions that they were already wondering about the security of their jobs, but soon that would no longer be her business.

  After sending a groom with a message to the family lawyer, she indicated where the coffin was to be placed when it arrived, refused to have the curtains drawn all over the house - a foolish custom and what good did it do out here in the middle of the countryside? - and left them to it. In the nursery she dismissed the nursemaid and held our her arms to her grandson who gurgled in pleasure. Holding him and occasionally murmuring endearments, she paced up and down the nursery thinking about what she would do after she had buried her husband. The warm body snuggling against hers was a great comfort and little Charles was his usual sunny-natured self. It was a constant source of amazement to her that her son could have produced a child as delightful as this one.

  Given her husband’s choleric disposition, she had been pondering for years about what she would do if she were widowed and had mentally settled on moving to Cheltenham or some similar town, where she might meet other genteel widows and enjoy some civilised company after all her years living on the edge of these bleak moors. Bath was too hilly for her taste, but Cheltenham was fairly level and would be a delightful place for gentle strolls and visits to the shops. No one, not even her husband, had ever known how much she hated living at Moor Grange or how the wind irritated her nerves when it whined around the windows, spattering rain and hail against them in season and out.

  Concealing her relief that this exile was about to end, she handed her grandson back to his nursemaid and went to change into some black garments.

  Later that day her messenger returned from the lawyer, offering his condolences and affirming Mr Baird’s readiness to be present after the funeral to read the will. Eleanor knew her jointure would be secure because her father had managed the legalities of that when she married. She was glad not to be dependent on her son but decided with some reluctance to offer to raise his child for him. As soon as she could, she would leave Padstall. She had done her duty and now intended to please herself for the rest of her life.

  The undertaker turned up with the body before Marcus arrived from Manchester and Eleanor received the man alone, amused that he seemed to have a face made for his trade, with long drooping jowls and sad brown eyes. However, his solemn demeanour hid a sharp eye for business and she was much entertained by the perfectly tactful way he outlined, with much detailed description, the services he could provide for a gentleman’s funeral and at what price.

  After a while she cut short his wilder extravagances and hired him at a total cost of £150, which the estate would pay for and which, she was sure, would infuriate Marcus. For this she would be supplied with mutes, black horses, plumes and weepers, not to mention the glass and iron hearse to carry Claude ostentatiously to his final resting place. She had never seen the point of employing mutes - sad-faced strangers dressed in what seemed to her more like fancy dress costumes than suitable funereal garb - but people in their position had to make some sort of show, so she suppressed a smile and approved of two being added to the mourning procession.

  Marcus arrived home just in time for dinner. As she sat down to eat with him, Eleanor saw that her son was already giving himself airs. He talked of little save what he intended to do with the money he had inherited and she listened with only half an ear because it had suddenly occurred to her that if she left the north, poor Matilda would be entirely at Marcus’s mercy. She could not do that to the old woman and would invite her to come and live in Cheltenham, she decided. There must be cottages to rent there as well as here and she had grown quite fond of her husband’s sister. The young maid could come with them, too. She was a good little worker. That would keep her out of Marcus’s hands.

  ‘I intend to settle in Cheltenham,’ she told her son abruptly, interrupting his tedious monologue.

  He looked at her sharply then nodded approval. ‘An excellent idea, Mama. You have no doubt had enough of these stupid moors - as have I. In that case I shall definitely sell the house and move into Manchester.’

  ‘And Charles? What shall you do about him?’

  He threw her a startled glance. ‘But I thought - you seem fond of him - aren’t you going to take him with you?’

  ‘If you will pay for his keep, certainly. But housing a child will require me to find a larger property than I would need on my own, not to mention hiring a nursery maid and extra laundry maid, so I shall expect you to cover those expenses.’

  ‘Ah. Yes.’ Marcus scowled, not wanting to give away any of his long-awaited wealth, but realising after very little thought that he had no choice. ‘Very well. I shall miss him, of course, but it is important for him to
be under a woman’s care. My only condition is that if his mother ever turns up again, you do not allow her to see him.’

  Eleanor inclined her head. She could not imagine that Jane would ever reappear - unless something should happen to Marcus, which was not likely. ‘Then after the funeral I shall visit Cheltenham which sounds a pleasant place with a very healthy situation and much to see and do. After all, if the Duchess of York and the heiress to the throne consider it worth a visit, I believe I could be happy there.’

  ‘I should come with you, I suppose.’ He didn’t want to. He and George were looking for new premises because the enterprise was flourishing and their girls were becoming very popular in certain circles. And now he’d be able to finance a rather special sort of place. He realised he had let his thoughts stray and looked across at his mother who had just cleared her throat to attract his attention.

  ‘As I was saying, you need not come with me, Marcus. It’s kind of you to offer, but I can manage perfectly well on my own. And you will be needed to deal with matters here.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure ...’

  Eleanor wondered as he left the next morning what it would be like to have a son whom you could love. She had loved him as a baby, though even then he had grizzled a lot, complaining and whining and keeping the nursemaid awake night after night. But he had grown into a spiteful unlovable boy, the sort other children avoided and other parents did not invite to visit a second time. And as a young man he had become a nuisance, always pestering her maids whether they welcomed his attentions or not. She had been relieved to marry him off and, she thought sadly, would not worry if she never saw him again after she’d moved away.

  Claude Armistead’s funeral was held two days later. Carriages, local gentry and tenants followed the hearse to the little church in the village of Padstall, then returned at a decorous pace to the big house for refreshments.