The Ash Grove

by Margaret James

  ‘What absolute nonsense.’ Rayner shook his head, in scornful disbelief. ‘Mr Atkins would not hurt my sister. Not for the world. For God's sake, fellow! The man is in love with her!’

  ‘He's not, sir.’ Heavily, the man sighed. ‘Mr Atkins could never love anybody. Except, of course, himself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was married once. To the sweetest, prettiest young woman you ever saw. She came of a good family. Her father was a manufacturer and mine–owner, with a country house and other property, near Cardiff I believe. This lady brought my master beauty, accomplishments, and a handsome dowry, too.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She died.’ The man shrugged. ‘Sir, I know women and children are fools, who must needs be corrected. As a child must be weaned from the breast, a woman must be weaned from her folly, and it's her husband's bounden duty to perform the task.

  ‘But Mr Atkins used his wife cruelly! He beat her. He burned her. He had her locked in her room for weeks on end. He starved her, he — ’

  ‘If this is indeed the case,’ interrupted Rayner, ‘why did her friends and family do nothing about it? Why did they stand idle while she suffered?’

  ‘They knew nothing of it. She was too afraid of him even to hint, let alone to speak of it. Of course, the burns and bruises were always out of the way. Very well hidden, in fact. But her maidservants talked of what went on, as servants will.’

  ‘Did Mr Atkins behave like this when he was sober? Or when he was in liquor, and too drunk to know what he was at?’

  ‘Mr Atkins never takes spirits. He has no great interest in even the finest wines.’ The servant sighed. ‘The man is cruel, sir. He loves to torment, and he does it for cruelty's sake alone.’

  ‘So, continue. What became of his wife?’

  ‘She learned to endure. She studied how to please him, and sometimes she was successful in the attempt. She was pregnant, and happy to be so, when one day she made a foolish mistake. I don't know what she did to upset him, but whatever it was, it angered him dreadfully.

  ‘He went too far. He beat her regularly, it's true, but this time he beat her half to death. She miscarried of a dead child, and three days later she died herself.’

  Owen stared, both in horror and in dread. ‘He is known to be a widower,’ he whispered, fearfully. ‘He makes no secret of the fact that his wife died in childbirth. Is it possible that you might be mistaken about the circumstances of her death?’

  ‘I wish that might be so, sir. But it is not.’

  ‘Why have you come here?’ demanded Rayner, curtly. ‘Why have you sought us out? If your master discovers your treachery, surely you will suffer the torments of the damned?’

  ‘Indeed I shall.’ Again, the man shrugged. ‘My master keeps two men in his employ, who are used for just that evil purpose. They are known throughout the whole of Gower as his lieutenants. I ought to say, his executioners. For there is blood on their hands, murder in their eyes, but mere empty voids where human hearts should be.’

  Owen was convinced. ‘We must get Jane away from that place,’ he said.

  ‘Must we?’ Rayner stared into the fire. ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘Why?’ Owen gaped at him. The word coward was already formed, and hung ready on his lips. But now, he turned to the servant. ‘Go and ask them to find me a pony,’ he muttered. ‘I'll be downstairs directly.’

  The man went.

  ‘Rayner, will you not come with me?’ demanded Owen, as he reached for his coat.

  ‘No. Yes. No!’ Rayner wrung his hands. ‘I don't trust him!’ he wailed.

  ‘Him?’ Owen met his cousin's eyes. ‘Tell me, Rayner. What do you mean? Whom don't you trust? The servant? Your host? Or both?’

  ‘The servant, of course!’

  ‘You think he is lying? To what purpose?’

  ‘I don't know!’ Rayner paced the floor. ‘I don't understand any of this. But I don't trust that servant. Not at all. I think he's here to spring a trap.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Owen regarded his cousin with scorn. ‘The man was sickened by his master's behaviour towards his first wife, and is reluctant to see another poor woman suffer the fate of her predecessor. So, will you come back to Oxwich with me?’

  ‘No,’ replied Rayner. ‘I never wish to enter that house again.’

  * * * *

  The servant stood at the foot of the stairs, waiting. ‘I'll smuggle you in, sir,’ he said, as Owen clattered down the last few steps. ‘Have no fear on that score.’

  From the window, Rayner watched his cousin and the servant depart. Fetching a deep sigh, he sat down again. Ringing the bell, he told the chambermaid who answered his summons that Mr Ellis had been urgently called away, but that Rayner himself would settle that gentleman's account. ‘I need to drive into Swansea later this evening,’ he continued, smoothly. ‘Does this inn keep its own chaise?’

  ‘Yes indeed, sir,’ replied the maid.

  ‘Then please see that it is made ready for me, without delay.’ Rayner gave the girl a new half crown. ‘In the meantime, might I have paper and a pen?’

  * * * *

  Owen's path lay through the kitchen garden, past the laundries and across the stable yard. Here, the servant motioned to him to be silent, and keep his head down low. Finally, they reached a row of offices, where the stud books were kept, where the farrier stored his instruments and where medicines for sick beasts were prepared. A light shone dimly from underneath the last door.

  ‘In here, sir.’ The servant tripped the latch.

  ‘Mr Morgan? You come betimes!’ Flanked by Robin and Henry Corder, Michael Atkins sat calm and relaxed in a battered elbow chair. He spread his hands in welcome. ‘But now that you are here, do please come in.’

  Owen simply stared. But Michael Atkins grinned. ‘So my suspicions were justified after all,’ he murmured, pleasantly. ‘I was right to send Dennis after the fat fool — who disdains all daytime exercise entirely, but suddenly has a fancy to take a twilight ride!’

  He turned to the groom. ‘Well done, Dennis,’ he said. ‘Very well done indeed. You shall have a reward.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Dennis smirked.

  ‘Actually, I was expecting you to arrive rather later in the day,’ continued Michael Atkins, as he eyed Owen up and down. ‘But where one cousin comes, I daresay another will soon follow. So tell me. Where is the greasy simpleton just now?’

  Owen said nothing.

  Michael shrugged. ‘He'll doubtless be back for a late supper,’ he murmured. ‘Dennis, go and fetch the lady. Do so directly, if you please.’

  * * * *

  Five minutes later, the door opened, and Jane entered the room. In her nightdress and a light silk robe, for she had been fast asleep, now she smothered a yawn.

  Roused from her slumbers by Sarah, whose agitation and terror had been written only too clearly across her innocent little face, Jane had asked for her robe and slippers. She had reassured the maid and then, her puzzlement growing, had followed the servant to the stable yard, across the cobblestones and into the office, where she expected to find — she knew not what.

  When she observed her lover sitting at his ease, his two faithful servants flanked like bookends on his either side, she frowned. But when she glanced to her left and saw Owen Morgan there, she stared in blank astonishment. ‘Owen?’ She gaped in disbelief. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘He's come to seek his fortune.’ Michael Atkins still grinned, but now his pale blue eyes became as hard as flints. ‘I would imagine he means to seek a lady's favours, too.’

  Jane stared from her cousin to her lover, then back again. ‘I don't understand,’ she began. ‘I don't see what — ’

  ‘Be silent.’ Michael Atkins glared at her. ‘I've had enough,’ he muttered. Then he turned to Owen. ‘Mr Morgan, I've a score to settle with you, and tomorrow I shall call you to account.

  ‘As for you, Miss Darrow — you have taxed my good nature to its
limits. Indeed, I have been generous and indulgent to the point of imbecility! But in this, the fault was mine. For I never thought the day would dawn, when a woman would try to make a fool of me.’

  ‘What?’ Her bewilderment growing by the second, still Jane stared. ‘My dear Michael, how — ’

  ‘But now,’ interrupted Michael Atkins, sourly, ‘you have tried my patience long enough. You have imposed upon my hospitality. You have betrayed my confidence and abused my trust. In my more charitable moments, however, I am ready to believe you are more stupid than cunning. So for you, it will be quick.’

  ‘Quick?’ Her pupils dilating, Jane gaped at him. ‘My dear Michael, what can you mean? I never made a fool of you! Owen and I were engaged, it is true. But I — ’

  ‘He came back for you.’ Michael would not look at her. Instead, he produced a letter, its seal broken and its cover torn. ‘He loved you once, and he loves you still. This letter proves the point. As for you, his dearest Jane, his own heart's darling — I can hardly doubt that you return his regard!’

  ‘No! Michael, please — ’

  ‘It is of no moment.’ Fingering Owen's letter to Jane, a short note written in haste in a Swansea coaching inn, but in which the tenderest sentiments were most movingly expressed, Michael Atkins hesitated only a moment longer. Then he tore it to pieces, and dropped these into the candle's flame. ‘Dennis?’

  ‘Master?’

  ‘Take these two lovebirds upstairs, to the room prepared for them. See they are kept close.’

  Chapter 22

  Robin, Henry and Dennis were used to this kind of thing. Expertly taking their captives into custody, they hustled their master's guests into the house and up three flights of stairs, to a convenient attic room which had been specially prepared for an occasion such as this. Pushing Jane and Owen inside, they locked then barred the door.

  ‘But I don't understand!’ Bewildered, Jane stared all about her. ‘What can be the matter with the man? He must have run mad indeed!’

  ‘He has.’ Owen shook his head. He made as if to take Jane's hand. ‘My poor cousin! You don't know even one half of what he — ’

  ‘Don't dare to touch me!’

  ‘Sit down quietly, then. Listen to what I have to say. Then, dear Jane, make your peace with your Creator. Repent of your sins, if you've ever committed any, which I doubt — ’

  ‘But what is all this?’ Jane looked astonished, horrified and incredulous, all at the same time. ‘Owen, are you telling me he intends to kill us?’

  ‘I think he must.’

  ‘I don't believe you.’ Jane turned away. ‘I can see why he might hate you,’ she muttered. ‘But why should he wish to hurt me?’

  ‘Because I wrote to you, to tell you that I love you.’

  ‘Why should your demented ravings matter to a man like Michael?’ Jane shook her head. ‘In any case, I never saw any letter.’

  ‘He intercepted it. He read it. You watched it burn.’ Owen longed to embrace her, yearned to comfort and reassure her. But there was nothing reassuring to say. ‘Jane,’ he murmured, ‘since you will not pray, try to sleep, instead. If we are to acquit ourselves well tomorrow, you will need all your strength of body, and of mind.’

  ‘This is a nightmare. I shall wake presently.’ Turning back to her cousin, Jane pulled her wrap close about her body. ‘But before I wake, entertain me. Explain yourself. Tell me what this is all about.’

  So Owen did. Haltingly, stopping every now and then to recover his equanimity, he told his cousin the whole wretched story. Leaving out the most unpleasant details, and skimming over the rest, his tale was nevertheless a horrible one.

  ‘Oh, God.’ As Owen spoke, Jane had grown pale. Then, as he concluded his narrative, she began to shudder and shake so violently that she was obliged to sit down. Slumped in a corner, she covered her face with her hands. ‘Dear God in heaven,’ she cried, ‘can there be such a man?’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘Seems is the word.’ Looking up again, Jane met Owen's eyes. ‘You were ever a romancer,’ she muttered. ‘I wonder now if you've just spun me another of your foolish tales.’

  ‘Why should I do that?’

  ‘I don't know!’ Her face working, Jane looked ready to burst into tears. ‘Why, Owen?’ she wailed. ‘Why did you come to this place? What did I ever do to you, that you should wish to destroy me?’

  ‘How can you say that? All I've ever done is love you!’

  ‘I think you're mad.’ Jane massaged her eyes. ‘It must run in this family. Your mother was deranged, and so are you.’

  ‘But — what do you know of my mother?’

  ‘Enough.’ Jane shrugged. ‘After you left Easton Hall, and my own mother died, my father became unwell. That's to put it mildly. In fact, he was distraught. Positively beside himself with grief.

  ‘He spoke to me of matters to which he would never ordinarily have given utterance. He told me things he perhaps ought never to have told his daughter at all.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Owen, do you honestly not know why my father and your mother quarrelled?’

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Shall I enlighten you?’

  ‘Provided you do not break a confidence, or betray a trust.’

  ‘What? You're a fine one, to prate of breaking confidences and betraying trusts!’ Jane closed her eyes. ‘The truth of the matter is, your mother tried to kill mine.’

  ‘She did what?’ Owen stared. ‘Jane,’ he began, ‘I know you're upset. But what foolishness is this? My mother would have been incapable of such an act! She would have scorned — ’

  ‘Would she?’ Jane opened her eyes again. Angrily, she glared. ‘Only two minutes since, you told me how she tried to murder Michael's father!’

  ‘But that was an act of desperation! Do but recall the facts! Her husband had been done to death, in the foulest, most treacherous fashion imaginable. His widow was smarting with the injustice of it. Half out of her mind with grief, and despair — ’

  ‘Just as she was when she burned Easton Hall to the ground?’

  ‘When she did what?’ It was Owen's turn to glare. ‘My dear Jane, have a care what you say. I will not hear slander or lies. Not even from you. I will never believe — ’

  ‘I do not care what you believe.’ Wretchedly, Jane sighed. ‘The fact is, your mother was jealous of mine. She loved her brother dearly, you see. So, she would probably have been a difficult sister–in–law towards any woman who usurped her place in my father's heart. But my mother was not only beloved, she was low born.

  ‘In consequence, your mother hated mine from the start. When my mother presumed to conceive a child — something, apparently, that your own had been anxious to do for years, but without success — her anger knew no bounds. So, whilst my father was away from Easton Hall, she paid two ruffians to fire the place, with my mother inside it.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Owen scowled. ‘You've listened to too much village gossip. You've been taken in by old wives’ tales.’

  ‘As I said before, it's of no interest to me whether you believe me or not.’ Shivering, Jane hugged her knees. ‘Call me a liar, if you wish. It's of no account now.’

  ‘I never called you a liar!’ Too late, Owen realised he had been too harsh. ‘I merely wondered aloud if you had been misled.’

  ‘Perhaps I have.’ Jane's lower lip began to wobble. Unshed tears stood shining in her eyes. ‘After all, I've been misled about everything else, for almost the whole of my life.’

  ‘Oh, Jane! I'm so sorry!’ Observing how his cousin trembled, Owen took off his coat, and covered her. Then he went to sit by the window, to watch for what he feared — no, was quite certain — would be his last dawn.

  Jane remained silent. Half an hour later, when Owen glanced towards her, he saw that her eyes were closed. Her body relaxed and her breathing regular, she appeared to be fast asleep.

  * * * *

  ‘Good morning!’ Bo
oted and spurred, Michael, Robin and Henry stood on the threshold of the attic room. Freshly–shaven, his linen immaculate and his riding clothes cut to a perfection rarely seen out here in the back of beyond, Michael Atkins beamed at his guests. ‘We will take him with us,’ he said, nodding towards Owen.

  ‘Sir.’ Henry Corder grinned.

  ‘But what of the lady?’ demanded Robin, looking meaningfully at Jane. ‘Sir?’

  ‘I don't know.’ Irritably, his smile fading, Michael Atkins shook his head. ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  On her feet now, Jane stared at him. Meeting that incredulous blue gaze, he turned away. ‘I know,’ he muttered, as if to himself. ‘She's young. She's pretty. She could provide us with some most interesting entertainment. But I have decided against any of that.’

  Jane looked dazed.

  Owen thought it prudent to keep silent.

  Michael Atkins considered further. ‘Take her downstairs,’ he said, at last. ‘We can — ’

  ‘No.’ Breaking away from Henry Corder, Owen stood between his cousin and his host. ‘Do whatever you wish to me. But let Jane leave this place.’

  ‘Let her go?’ Michael Atkins's pale blue eyes became glassy. ‘My dear fellow, thanks to you she knows enough to have me hanged in chains, on Swansea quay! Yet you talk of letting her go.’

  ‘Marry her, then.’ Owen shrugged. ‘You are already engaged, so make an end of it. Then, when Jane has become your lawful wedded wife, you are secure. Married, she cannot be forced to bear witness against you.’

  ‘After what you told her last night, I doubt if she would allow me to take her by the hand. Let alone lead her to the bridal bed.’ Michael Atkins sighed. ‘You signed her death warrant in earnest, when you spun her that fine tale.’

  Owen closed his eyes. He should have remained dumb, he saw that now. But all was not lost. Rayner was bound to return, for his sister's sake if not for Owen's own. In the meanwhile, Owen must buy time.

  He drew a deep breath. ‘I don't care what you do to me,’ he began. ‘Believe me, it's true. Yes, I know what goes on here. I've heard stories about you and your family to chill the marrow and freeze the heart's blood.’