The Women of Heachley Hall

by Rachel Walkley

  A lantern torch was next to the bed, and alongside it was a wind-up radio with a crank handle. I bent over and switched it on. A voice blurted, crackling but distinctive. I turned the radio off.

  I returned to the rudimentary living space. The lone shelf housed books: a motley collection of travel guides, small atlases and a few on plumbing and carpentry techniques. The table and bench possessed the features of the homemade: functional but lacking the refinement of varnish or mercury level straightness.

  What the interior lacked seemed stranger for its absence: no cooking facilities, pots or pans, in fact hunting around, not even food or flasks of water. There was a copper bowl, tarnished and dinted with an ancient crusty bar of soap nestled in its bottom; it smelt of lavender. Another familiar characteristic of the cabin’s occupant.

  I rummaged in the wooden chest and found a few more books, pencils and paper, upon which were scribbled designs for my airing cupboard and including a recent one: the fireguard.

  The paper slipped out of my hand and fluttered onto the floor.

  He’d lied to me. I’d tried countless times to give him the chance to open up and explain his circumstances. It had never crossed my mind he’d be homeless – a vagrant living on my estate.

  I groaned, cursing him, both annoyed by his deceit and pitying his situation. He’d lived in a freezing hut throughout winter – why? How?

  He could afford to buy new clothes, bootlaces and soap with what I paid him. Perhaps it wasn’t that bad. Maybe this primitive accommodation was a temporary abode, somewhere he dossed in the week when I needed him, then at weekends, he travelled farther to his real home. There, he’d have warmth and hot food. Except, he’d never stopped using string for his laces. What a blind idiot I was! I slumped onto the bench, burying my head in my hands in disbelief. Nobody chose to live like this. He came here to hide, but from what and whom, and for how long?

  The lid of the chest remained propped up. I dug down and pulled out a square tin. The decoration on the outside was vintage and chipped in places, but the brand was legible: Carr and Co Biscuits.

  I clawed at the rusty lid, fighting with the tight fit, and it flew off with a clatter. Inside were papers and unlike Felicity’s, these were originals. The fine paper felt friable, like tissue, the curling corners tinged with damp and each required me to handle it gingerly. I lay the various documents out on the table. They represented a passage of time and glancing at the visible dates, a considerable amount of time had passed since the first had been written.

  A day ago the names written would have been unknown to me, but now having seen the contents of Felicity’s box, Charles’s collection of secret papers mirrored some of her research.

  Love letters, not many, but addressed to Bea and signed by Kit. The brief handwritten missives divulged a love for what must have been a forbidden sweetheart. They referred to secret assignations and trysts in remote places.

  Glancing through them, I arranged them in what seemed like an appropriate order. Then went back and read them carefully.

  ·•●•·

  My darling Bea,

  There is a barn east of Watkin’s farm where we can meet on Sunday afternoon. It has fresh hay and an easy path from the house. Make haste at three o’clock. I will bring ale, bread and cheese, and we shall picnic. Do not speak of this to any of the other servants. I trust you appreciate this matter is of great personal risk to us both. I cannot wait to have you sit upon my knee again. Look for my next letter in my coal scuttle.

  Yours affectionately,

  Kit

  Watkin’s farm – Liz’s family name and the farm was still occupied by them decades later. I smoothed the creased letter flat with a trembling hand and cocked my ear to listen, holding my breath. Charles could be here any minute. But, for now I was alone. I picked up the next wafer of paper.

  My darling Bea,

  The weather is fine again this Sunday and I wait with much impatience to look upon your pretty face. I will take the trap to the beach and meet you there. I cannot risk us being seen travelling together. I will bring you back to Knottisham in the trap when it is dark and drop you close by the lane. The next letter I shall leave behind the basin in my chamber.

  With sweet kisses,

  Kit

  Why were these love letters in Charles’s possession? He knew I was interested in the history of Heachley and yet he’d kept them from me – I trusted him! With a pounding heart and churning stomach I read on.

  My darling Bea,

  How close we came to discovery. You must not loiter in the hallway with the expectation of finding me. I have included notepaper so that you may practise your letter forming and write to me instead. It is best if we do not meet for a while until my mother ceases her questioning.

  Affectionately,

  Kit

  An admonishment, but at the same time, Kit had sought to educate his lover. The pair were not matched in station and I was pretty sure who Kit was by now. I lay the letter to one side and eagerly picked up the next one.

  Dearest Bea,

  Since word has reached Father of our affair and your subsequent dismissal, he has confined me to the house and grounds. I hope this letter reaches you as I have entrusted it to the groom and his daily excursion to Docking to collect parcels. I await news of your condition. I pray you are mistaken as to its nature.

  Yours,

  Kit

  Dearest,

  I have heard no news from you and fear Father is intercepting your notes. I’m accompanied wherever I travel by Father or my brother, my account is withdrawn and I have no allowance. My mother has taken to the morning room and her sewing, refusing to discuss my heartfelt wish to be reconciled to you. It has given me much time for thinking upon our sad situation. I hope these words are not too difficult for you to read, but I fear our future is doomed to failure. With great regret, I seek release from the promises I gave you in haste and hope you understand my family honour depends on your good behaviour and continuing secrecy. Do not come to Heachley, I beg you, as the scandal it would create would be too much for my family to bear. It is over and there is little more I can do for you given my confinement. My father intends to send me abroad until the gossip has died down. Those to whom you have entrusted yourself will take good care of your health.

  I’ve given this note to our faithful groom. Please do not plead with him, as the poor man has little influence.

  With affection,

  Kit

  In just a few sheets the little saga had unfolded into something nightmarish. Charles had kept a tragic love story buried in a tin for what purpose? Had Felicity seen these letters? They fitted perfectly with the newspaper articles in the box. More importantly, they were personal and probably belonged to somebody other than Charles or Felicity.

  I snatched up the next scrap of paper.

  Kit.

  My darling.

  I am at the workhouse. Please come fetch me and take me away. I am desperate. My head hurts. Please, I beg. Do not forget me and the child I carry.

  Love and kisses. Bea.

  This last forlorn letter, written in a cruder hand on a scrap of crumpled paper, was unlike the elegant copperplate workmanship of the others, and its contents revealed the saddest episode. I had my connection made solid. The poor Bea, dismissed by her lover, was Felicity’s enigmatic Beatrice, who in turn had been given the name Nuri at birth. The man, whose signature throughout had been Kit, must be Christopher Isaacks.

  Why Kit had rejected his pregnant lover was encapsulated in a harshly toned note, signed by Henry Isaacks, and penned in the autumn of 1872. Beatrice, a servant in the household at Heachley Hall, had been dismissed – their affair exposed.

  October 12th 1872

  Miss Sully,

  Due to your gross misconduct, your services as housemaid are no longer required and with immediate effect, you are requested not to return to Heachley Hall or make contact with my son. Your belongings have been left at the pubic house
in Little Knottisham under the care of the Landlord.

  Your dismissal is a matter of disgrace to not only yourself but this family and our loyal servants.

  Henry Isaacks

  The final letter written on thicker notepaper was addressed in an elaborate hand to Mr H Isaacks and signed, the Master of Docking Workhouse. It had been dated some days after the death of Nuri Sully.

  The following letters were found in the personal possessions of the late Nuri Sully. Please dispose of them as you see fit and do not ponder upon their nature. It is not for a decent gentleman to dwell upon the misfortune of the destitute, nor those who are migrant to our shores. I return them to you as they should not fall into the wrong hands. Her remains, with those of her stillborn daughter, have been brought to the undertakers and as you requested, she will be buried as swiftly as possible at St Cuthbert’s. We have been unable to trace her relatives, but as they are gypsies, it is unlikely they will be found without considerable expense.

  I express my condolences for the loss of your son.

  A Gypsy. Now things began to make more sense. To fall in love with a servant, especially in prudish Victorian times, had been a tragic mistake for Christopher, but to make pregnant a Gypsy girl, a Romany, would bring dishonour to both families. They’d abandoned her as harshly as the Isaacks.

  How had Charles come by the documents?

  The expression on his face when he’d seen the Chindi box had been one of alarm. He’d ignored Maggie, not out of rudeness, but because he’d panicked. Had he ever rifled through the contents in Felicity’s absence, before Liz brought the box to the hospital, and removed those letters, the true substance of her research? If he had, he’d wilfully interceded in Felicity affairs. But why?

  I thumped the table and the fragile letters jumped. Carefully, I gathered them up and put them back in the biscuit tin.

  I had to decide whether to wait for him or return to the house.

  The door creaked and a slither of bright sunlight struck the table. I had my answer.

  ·•●•·

  Colour, the relic of a faint blush, drained from Charles’s face in the briefest of seconds. He gripped the doorknob tight and froze on the threshold. The light behind him shone past; his eyes were unfathomable hollows, darker than I had ever seen before.

  Unable to rise, my feeble legs seemed extraordinarily heavy. We stared at each other, unblinking, waiting.

  I licked my parched lips. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ My voice shook, unhinged by both his presence and my inability to rage at him. I felt disappointment, yes, but not anger.

  He opened his mouth a fraction, but said nothing. He’d glued his hand to the handle.

  ‘This place,’ I gestured, sweeping my arm around the room, ‘How long have you used it?’

  No response. The tick-tock pulse in my neck continued throughout his attack of muteness, the thrum a reminder of my racing heartbeats. I wrung my clammy hands together into a ball in my lap. ‘Charles?’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘I deserve an answer, don’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘You do.’

  The first time we’d met, he’d bounded into the house with energy, astounded by the passage of time. He’d slowly lost that vigour, and I remembered the transformation; deflating as he bore witness to the emptiness, showing sadness over Felicity’s death. I was convinced he’d not faked those reactions. Which meant he’d been absent for five years. Where had he lived?

  ‘You’ve been living rough here since I moved in, but not before. Why?’

  He blinked, awaking from his stunned trance. ‘I said before,’ he said gruffly, forcing the words out through his lips, ‘I’m itinerant. I sleep where I work.’

  I tapped the surface of the table with a quivering finger; jitters stampeded across my body. ‘This isn’t a home. I know what makes a home and this isn’t it. You have a bed, nothing else. How is this possible?’ I scraped the base of the tin across the table. So many questions and I could barely think where to begin. ‘Where did you find these letters?’

  ‘In the cellar.’

  ‘The cellar?’ I guffawed. There was nothing of value in the cellar. ‘Not Felicity’s Chindi box?’

  He finally let go of the door handle and ran his fingers through his hair, gathering the unruly strands in a bundle at the top of his head. He vigorously shook his head.

  ‘Believe me, I’ve never taken her things. I recognised the box, but I’d not looked in it. I wouldn’t—’

  ‘Steal from her?’ I pointed at the books on the shelf.

  ‘She gave them to me.’ He pressed his hands together as if to plead his case.

  ‘You didn’t know about the clearance – the locals in the pub knew the house had been emptied, but not you, unless you lied. Why didn’t you help yourself to more of her things back then? And I don’t get it, your absence. Five years,’ I reminded him, ‘How could you not know she’d died?’

  ‘I’ve been away.’

  I ignored his flippant reply. ‘You’ve been sleeping here since I arrived. Less than a mile from the house. Have you been creeping around the house at night? Did you bank down the fire in the sitting room?’ I rattled off my inquisition.

  ‘Miriam, please…’ The sentence hung incomplete. He’d a pained expression.

  ‘You abandoned her, Charles. Took her things. What did you think was happening in the house? Are you like Maggie, a believer in ghosts, a seeker of evidence? Is that why you hang about Heachley, hoping to see something to tell the newspapers, the TV shows? Who do you think the ghost might be? Christopher Isaacks or Nuri Sully? Perhaps both? But not Felicity, no. She’d already worked it out.’

  He shifted forward into the light and gaped, forming a wordless mouth while his pale face, now illuminated clearly, gave prominence to eyes as wide as opaque moons. His failure to give me a decent explanation for anything that had occurred over the past few months fuelled my disbelief, my frustration. Despair, too. He was supposed to be my friend. He was supposed to be…who the hell was this man and why had I foolishly fallen for him?

  Strength returned to my legs and I rose. Instinctively, my hands clenched into fists, not to fight or protect myself, but because I feared I might reach out to touch him, to feel him. In that touch would I sense the reason for his lies? Would I fathom him through his clothes, know him any better just by forming a conduit? I doubted it. I’d been fooled from the beginning of our relationship. The theories to account for his behaviour, which I’d previously dismissed, the products of fragmented guesswork that I had used to paint him as a criminal and a social outcast, were brought back to life. I glared, buoyed by my reconstructed opinions – he was a liar. I pressed my lips together into a deep frown of misery.

  Charles gasped, turned his back on me and ran out of the door into the woods.

  I followed him, determined to harangue him into giving me proper answers. He stumbled a few times then picked up his pace. The mist flooded in from all directions. The miasma shot out from behind the trees, oozed up from the ground and hung from the bare branches. Within sight of me, the white haze enveloped Charles, and thickened around his legs and arms. He slowed as the veil descended, licking its wispy strands across his chest, darting up to his chin. He halted mid-stride.

  Through the misty curtain, I barely discerned his features. Was he crying? His hunched shoulders juddered slightly and he buried his face in his hands.

  ‘Charles?’ A breathless exclamation and I ended my pursuit a few feet away from him.

  He rotated, inch by inch, lifting his head as he pivoted. His eyes were dry not tear filled. From out of his translucent pupils, the hollow depths of his sockets shone a fiery glow.

  I should have run away back to the sanctuary of the house, but it wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t afraid. The longer he remained captive in the fog, the more he seemed to merge into it, as if a mutual need had been met. I realised that as we stood face to face: Charles and the mist were a single living creature.

  I tumbled int
o an abyss of tangled emotions fuelled by dark explanations for his behaviour, and I discarded each one until one remained: curiosity – naked, untainted curiosity. I had to know who he was. I reached out, slipped my hand through the protective blanket and touched his shoulder. The moment I made contact, his electrified tension shot into my fingertips and I felt a jolt of something inexplicable, almost calming.

  Charles spoke with terrible clarity. ‘I am Christopher Isaacks.’

  With one deep, audible sigh, the mist vanished.

  THIRTY

  ‘What?’ Stung into action by his bizarre announcement, I recoiled, whipping back my hand.

  ‘I can’t hide from you any longer.’ The man I called Charles spoke in a strained voice, almost unrecognisable. He remained rooted to the spot. A waxy figure clothed in a timeless outfit. He might be at home in Madame Tussaud’s such was his ability to freeze into a statue. His eyelids flickered, a brief reminder that as far as I was concerned, he was alive.

  ‘Christopher is dead.’ I stuck to the facts. Christopher had been a Victorian gentleman; what I saw was Charles, a handyman.

  He looked at his feet, and as if to recall their purpose and moved one. The stained leather uppers creased into familiar ruts as he bent his toes, walking one step forward, then another. Colour, a minuscule hue of red, trickled into his cheeks and he nodded – in confirmation?