A Child of Secrets

by Mary Mackie

  ‘Yes, we do mind,’ Jess retorted.

  ‘Now, that en’t friendly.’ He caught her arm, managing to separate her from the others, who hurried on, in no mood to talk with Eliza’s brother.

  ‘That wan’t friendly of your sister to get poor Dolly dismissed from her situation for nothin’,’ Jess said.

  He frowned. ‘What? I don’t know nothin’ about that.’

  ‘No? Well, everyone else now do. Eliza ’on’t get away with it.’

  ‘Eliza can take care of herself,’ he said with a shrug that dismissed the subject. Looking her over with fresh interest, he grinned. ‘She told me you had a sharp tongue in your head. If I’d a known you was goin’ to chapel I might a gone along myself. Not that I’m much of a prayin’ sort of man, as ’Liza must’ve told you.’

  ‘Eliza haven’t even mentioned you,’ Jess said with satisfaction, and walked on after her friends, hoping to end the conversation.

  Jim Potts was not discarded so easily. ‘What? Not mentioned her favourite brother? I shall have to have a word with the gal. She’s told me about you. Plenty. On’y she didn’t mention how pretty you was.’

  Now Jess knew he was a liar.

  ‘Howsomever,’ he added, ‘I couldn’t a gone to chapel this mornin’. I bin workin’.’

  Jess slanted him a look, curious in spite of herself. ‘On a Sunday? Doin’ what?’

  ‘Bit o’ this, bit o’ that. Buy from one man, sell to another. I’m a trader, me. An enterprenner. My own master. Have my own business some day. Real business. A shop, prob’ly.’

  Unimpressed, Jess increased her pace. She couldn’t abide being near Jim Potts any longer.

  ‘I better get back to my friends,’ she said, and hurried on to rejoin the little gaggle of young folk walking home from chapel.

  ‘What did he want?’ Dolly asked.

  ‘Nothin’ that signify,’ said Jess. ‘Load of old squit. I give him short shrift, don’t you worry.’

  ‘You want to stay away from that one,’ Susan Upton said. ‘He’re a wrong ’un. Everyone know that.’

  ‘Just because he’s a Potts?’ one of the other girls demanded. ‘Give a dog a bad name…’

  ‘And what’s it to you, Tansy Stafford?’ someone else teased. ‘Mashed on him, are you?’

  Jess was unable to stop herself from looking round – to assure herself that Jim Potts wasn’t following. He’d been watching for that. He saluted her merrily and turned aside on to another pathway, whistling, hands in his pockets, the subdued retriever following a few paces behind.

  Great fool! Jess thought scornfully. But something about the man nagged at her. It had nagged at her when she first saw him, up at Hewinghall. But it wouldn’t stay still long enough for her to see what it was.

  * * *

  After spending a companionable day with the Uptons, Jess walked across the snowy park to the big house, apprehension growing with every step. What did fate intend for her there?

  The nurserymaid, Kate, was alone in the big schoolroom, with the fire burning low and just a candle on the table to see by. The candle flickered in several different draughts, making shadows lurch and loom.

  ‘Miss Bella’s in bed,’ Kate told Jess. ‘She’s been a bit poorly and Nanny gave her some medicine that make her sleep. Nanny’s takin’ hot chocolate with Mrs Roberts, the housekeeper, and I was just finishin’ some mending – Miss Bella’s a terror for tearing her lace cuffs. You can now give me a hand, do you like, and I’ll tell you what have to be done.’

  She took Jess to leave her things in the back corner room which they would share that night. Tomorrow Kate was leaving and the day after she would be wed to her blacksmith, George Hewitt.

  During the evening, Jess heard a lot about George Hewitt and, in odd words and phrases thrown in among the rest, she learned a little more about her new situation. Bella, she discovered, liked to be out and about but she had to be preserved from chills – she was a sickly child, prone to coughs and chesty infections; her inclinations for the out-of-doors had to be curtailed when the weather was cold or wet.

  Lady Maud was an outdoor-lover, too, though she enjoyed a stronger constitution than her daughter. She bred horses and trained them to the saddle. ‘George do all her shoein’ – her ladyship say he’s the best blacksmith in Norfolk. Pity of it is, she care more for her horses than she do for her little ’un. Or for her husband, come to that.’ Sir Richard, in the nurserymaid’s opinion, was at fault in the opposite way – he coddled and spoiled his daughter. ‘Still, that’s on’y natural, considerin’ how they lost the boy.’

  ‘The boy?’ Jess queried.

  ‘Oh, that was afore I come here. None of ’em talk about it. Nanny said I wasn’t to gossip and put ideas in your head. Still…’ She glanced round the cold expanses of the big, shadowed room and shivered. ‘There’s high sprites here. Can’t you feel ’em?’

  Jess shook her head. Ghosts were a load of old squit – especially when she was wide awake and with a light shining. If the dead returned it was mainly in folks’ minds and troubled consciences, like hers about Preacher Merrywest. After a bad dream, she could believe that he might come back.

  ‘Well, I can,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve heard ’em, too, up and down the passages at dead of night, and here, in this room. You can hear the floor creak. I don’t stray out of my room in the dark, ’less I’m forced.’

  Kate settled the fire safely and, having cleared up their sewing, leaving the schoolroom tidy, led the way back to the room they were to share that night. Since there was only the one bed they shared that, too, lying top to tail swaddled in the blankets, warming each other with their body heat.

  ‘I used to lie like this with my sister, afore she got wed,’ Jess murmured into the darkness.

  ‘So did I,’ Kate replied through a yawn. ‘And two nights from now I shall be lyin’ next to that lovely great warm Hewitt bor. Shan’t be cold then. Nor never no more.’

  Jess felt a coldness deep inside her. For her, the thought of lying with a man brought nothing but the memory of horrors.

  Within minutes, Kate’s even breathing said she was asleep. Not so Jess. Everything about her was alien – the draughts in the room, the smells, the feel of the bed, the faint moonlight falling at a different angle. Kate’s gossip about ghosts had brought Merrywest closer. Her mind replayed frightening dreams she’d had, so that she was almost afraid to sleep.

  She turned over, huddling closer under the covers for comfort, turning her thoughts to Lily. Lily was now safely at school but eventually she must come home to a house where Eliza Potts, her enemy, seemed to wield an increasing influence. Did she even know that Jess wouldn’t be there? Had Miss Peartree written to tell her what was happening?

  The wind blustered about the old house, making it creak and crack. Had Jess been more fanciful she might have been scared; sometimes it sounded as though there was someone walking right outside the door, making the floor creak. Sometimes it sounded as though someone was knocking, wanting to come in the window. But it was just the old house settling.

  There! The floorboards moaned again, by the head of the ‘family stairs’ as Kate had called them. Was someone there, or was it only the wind? Who could be there? If it was anyone at all, he must be creeping about in the dark – no light showed under the door.

  The board creaked again. This time Jess was sure she heard a sort of sigh, or was it a sob? Or was it the wind? Now thoroughly awake, she unwrapped the blankets from around her and, shivering in the cold air, sat up, swinging her legs out of the bed, moving slowly so as not to disturb Kate. There was a dull pong as her heel connected with the tin chamber pot under the bed. Jess held her breath, but Kate didn’t stir.

  Arms outstretched, Jess felt her way across the room. Her toes discovered the square of thin carpeting that covered the boards near the door and then her hand found the door itself. The latch lifted with the smallest snick, revealing deep darkness.

  But something breathed in that blackness. S
omething snuffled and shivered. ‘Who’s there?’ she demanded. ‘Speak up, or else—’

  A brain-piercing wail split the darkness, making her stop her ears. Behind her Kate woke with a start. ‘Whassamatter? Who’s that? Bella?’

  The screaming paused for a short breath, then assaulted Jess again, louder and higher. A flare of misty light lit the room behind her as Kate struck a match. It let Jess see the terrified child who huddled in the passageway, her long hair in pigtails trailing over the shoulders of her nightgown, her face swimming against the darkness, pale as a dead dab floating belly-up in the Fleet, with staring eyes above a wide-open mouth. She was screaming like a steam engine’s whistle.

  Setting the match to a candle, Kate came hurrying, snapping, ‘Bella! Stop that row!’ She gave the candle to Jess and pushed her aside, advancing on the child.

  ‘Don’t—’ Jess began, but Kate’s hand was already connecting, hard, with Bella’s cheek. The screams choked off. Bella stood shaking, staring at Kate, shuddering with both cold and terror, her arms wrapped tightly round her body as the nurserymaid grabbed her and shook her. ‘What’re you doing out o’ bed, heh? Hen’t I told you to stay in your room? You’re a bad, wicked girl! D’you want old Harry to get you?’ She glanced round at Jess. ‘Her medicine should a made her sleep all night, but with you comin’ when you did I forgot to bolt the door. Let’s get her back to bed.’

  With a hand guarding the candleflame from the currents of air that flowed about the attics, Jess followed the pair back to Bella’s room. She blamed herself for the state the child was in, still shivering, teeth chattering, her arms locked round her own thin body. She was all wrapped in with herself, alone with a deep misery that called out all Jess’s protective instincts.

  ‘Here we are, then,’ Kate said briskly. ‘Here’s your room. Get you into bed now, and do you stay there.’

  ‘Shall I—’ Jess began.

  ‘Just wait.’ She helped the child into bed and tucked the covers round the small, shivering form. Bella turned her face to the wall, curled up in a ball with her eyes tightly shut, excluding everything, pretending she was alone.

  ‘She’ll do,’ said Kate. ‘You’ll have to remember – bolt the door every night, comewhatever. Can’t have her roamin’ about the house – Lord knows what Lady Maud’d say if little ’un turned up downstairs.’

  ‘D’you think they heard her crying?’ Jess asked.

  ‘No, shouldn’t think so. Anyway, her ladyship sleep like the dead when she’ve had a couple.’ Shivering she rubbed her arms through her nightgown. ‘I’m friz. Come on, Jess, let’s go and get warm in bed.’

  ‘I’ll stay a while,’ Jess said.

  Kate stared at her in surprise. ‘In here? On your own? It was this room where…’ She stopped herself, with a guilty glance at the bed. ‘Well, do you suit yourself, but I’m now goin’. Don’t forget to bolt the door after you when you come.’

  Jess was cold, too, but that was nothing new. A shawl lay across the end of the brass bedstead; she wrapped it round her shoulders and went to lift the curtain and look out at the night. Earlier clouds had parted, leaving bright moonlight sparkling in the frost on the parapet and lighting the snowy park.

  ‘That look real cold out there,’ she said quietly. ‘Though that en’t much warmer in here, is it?’

  The only response was a change in the quality of Bella’s breathing. It had been hoarse and fast; now it slowed – Bella was listening.

  Jess went on talking, about nothing really, just letting the child know she was there. She sang bits and pieces of old songs and lullabies that came to her, songs she’d sung for Sam and Joe, and poor little Sarah-May, who’d died before she was two. After a while, when the cold got too much, she sat on the end of the bed and tucked her feet under the cosy eiderdown, curling up like a cat. Bella was resting now, her breathing even and relaxed. If she wasn’t asleep she soon would be.

  Jess was drifting, too comfortable to move and get chilled again, when a sudden thought shot her awake as if someone had prodded her. She was remembering Jim Potts, loping away from her that morning after chapel with a black dog trailing behind him – and on another day, wearing a tweed cap and a big weatherproof cape… She was also remembering another snowy, moonlit night, when she had seen a caped man come secretly to the rectory, loping down the path – with a black dog behind him.

  She’d been so sure the night visitor was Reuben Rudd. But now she wondered if she could’ve been mistaken. Rudd strode out, while Jim Potts slouched along – just as the night visitor had slouched in the moonlight.

  Had she been wrong all this time? Oh Lord! For weeks she’d thought the worst of Rudd – thought dreadful things, fended him off, been cool and clipped with him. Maybe he did have a kind of fancy for Eliza – many a man did, Jess was sure – but did that mean he would come creeping at night to have his sinful way? Oh, why hadn’t she listened to her heart? Her heart had known all the time, from the first moment she saw Rudd, that he was a good, kind, honest man worthy of respect and trust and friendship…

  No, it was more than that. The truth was, she’d taken one look at him and known he was a man she could love. And that had frightened her so much that she’d latched on to the notion of him and Eliza being lovers.

  But what on earth would bring Jim Potts calling on his sister late at night? Something illegal? Smuggling, maybe. Plenty of that went on round these coasts – Jess’s dad hadn’t said no to a bit of extra cash in hand on account of the odd bottle of rum or brandy. Or maybe it was poaching – folk said Eliza’s family were rogues, and hadn’t Miss Peartree…

  Jess sighed to herself. Whatever the way of it, sure as eggs was eggs she’d ruined any chance she might have had with Rudd. Not that she’d ever had much of a chance. Not she. Not with the weight of sin she bore on her conscience. If Reuben Rudd ever knew the truth about her – what she was and what she’d done – he probably wouldn’t waste his energy even spitting on her.

  * * *

  Lily received a strange letter from Miss Peartree; it told a garbled tale of a disappearing brooch which had found its way into Dolly’s pallet by some mysterious means which Miss Peartree didn’t quite understand. She said that Dolly’s place at the rectory had been taken by a sister of Eliza’s, a girl of fourteen with a sullen expression and a constantly runny nose; her name was Mary Anne. Though she was slovenly, at least she was available to fill the empty place at once and Reverend Clare said she would learn, given time and patience.

  Lily was perplexed. Why had Dolly been replaced by yet another member of the Potts family, whom most people regarded as little short of scoundrels? Was Papa demonstrating his Christian sense of charity towards the oppressed? A pity, then, that he couldn’t show the same compassion for his adopted daughter.

  Reading the letter again, Lily realised that it didn’t mention Jess once. Usually Cousin Oriana had some story of Jess’s prowess to recount, but this time – not a word. Perhaps she was growing forgetful in her old age. Oh, dear! If Oriana succumbed to senility it would mean yet more changes.

  Near Easter, with the evenings lengthening and the weather turning mild, Lily looked forward to going home. It would be good to talk to Jess, to share the hope that, with her eighteenth birthday rapidly approaching, her real father might make himself known this very summer.

  He had to come soon! He was her only hope of escaping from a life where she felt increasingly trapped. She didn’t belong where she was. There had to be something else in store for her. There had to be. She had always known it.

  One night she was dreaming about it, seeing a great carriage drive up to the rectory with a gold crest on its side, the footman climbing down, opening the door… Just as the passenger was about to reveal himself, she was startled awake by someone shaking her arm and hissing, ‘Lily! Lily!’

  She broke out of the dream with a shock, disorientated and blinking in the light of the forbidden candle Anne Ferrers was carrying, eyes flaring wide in a pale, worried f
ace, fingers to her lips entreating silence.

  ‘What?’ Lily mumbled.

  ‘The drawing room,’ came the whispered reply. ‘Someone’s in there, climbing in through the window. I heard them.’

  ‘Robbers, you mean?’ Suddenly wide awake, Lily threw back the covers, reaching for her wrap.

  ‘No!’ Anne barred her way to the door. ‘Oh, hush, Lily, don’t wake anyone else. It’s not thieves, it’s… it’s Jane and Clemency. I heard them. I couldn’t sleep. I was going to find my book, and I heard their voices. They’ve been out. Now they’re climbing back in. Oh… what shall we do?’

  Ten

  There came sounds – a sharp yelp, a faint clatter, a hiss of whispers – from the senior drawing room. As Lily hurried down the hall to investigate, two figures emerged in a rustle of petticoats, with long cloaks slung round them: Clemency Clare and Jane Lassiter, their hair curled and decked with pearls, jewels glittering at ears and throat, rouge on lips and cheek. They looked like the sort of common women one saw in cartoons, frequenting the balconies at Music Halls, except that their eyes were wide and frightened.

  Clemency recovered first. ‘Come, Jane, we must change.’

  As she made to brush past, Lily caught her arm, saying, ‘Clemency! What happened? Who cried out?’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ Clemency pulled away as if the soft hand on her arm were a spider, and darted into her room with Jane a pace behind. The door closed in Lily’s face.

  ‘Where do you suppose they’ve been?’ Anne breathed. ‘All those hints about secret beaux… Maybe it’s true.’

  ‘It’s not!’ Lily snapped. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not!

  But other matters needed her attention: someone was calling for help.

  With Anne at her heels, Lily hastened into the drawing room. The shutters at the window were folded back and the window up, letting cold air lap into the room.