A Child of Secrets

by Mary Mackie

  ‘I can’t leave you alone.’

  ‘Oh, of course you can!’ Lily said impatiently. ‘What could possibly happen to me?’

  Jess started up the slope towards the Golden Lion, where figures moved against the light – men who’d been drinking; men still holding glasses of beer. Inside the hotel, other people were singing.

  Worried about Lily, Jess looked back, seeing her friend as a shadow in the moonlight, standing near the edge of the cliff staring out to sea, her cape flapping in the wind. She was unhappy, that was evident; she was—

  Jess stopped, her heart turning over, as two tall figures loomed out of the shadows either side of her. One of them said, ‘I told you that was her.’ The other reached out and grasped her by the arm, swinging her round so that her face was clear in the light falling from the hotel. ‘Jess!’ His hands came heavy on her as if to prevent her from escaping. ‘Jess, what’re you doing here? Where’ve you been?’

  She felt as though a hammer had hit her chest, stunning her heart; then it was pounding. She heard herself say, ‘Matty…’

  ‘I told you that was her,’ Tom Fysher said again. ‘Your Jess. I told you I’d seen her.’

  Jess was staring into her brother’s open, honest, puzzled face. The sight melted behind tears that came hot and blinding. ‘Oh, Matty!’

  ‘’S’all right, little ’un,’ he soothed her in his old, old way, using words he’d used since she was two years old, reaching to pull her against him. He was a big man, like his father, but then all the Henefers were big – big, fair, amiable – except Jess, who was little and prickly, like Granny Henefer, so everyone said. The runt of the litter.

  Oh, God! She tore free of Matty, fending him off with a shudder of revulsion. ‘No! Don’t touch me! Don’t!’

  ‘But, Jessie—’

  ‘Don’t!’ She jerked away from his seeking hands. She saw his face – the hurt, the bewilderment… Suddenly she was weeping, words tumbling out of her, ‘Oh, Matty, forgive me! It’s not you. It’s me. It’s because of what he done to me. But I didn’t mean to hurt him! I was scared. I never thought what it would mean. I was frit to death. Don’t tell on me. Please! I don’t want to be hanged for murder!’

  Twelve

  ‘What?’ Matty made to take hold of her again, but when she backed away he let his hands fall and stood frowning down at her. ‘Ha’ you gone shanny, Jess Henefer? What’re you now on about? Hanged? Why should you be hanged?’

  ‘Because… because of Preacher Merrywest,’ Jess managed. ‘Matty, I didn’t mean it. I must’ve lost my head. Seein’ him there… It all seemed so easy. But I didn’t mean to kill him.’

  ‘Kill him? What – Preacher Merrywest?’

  ‘That… that was me as done it.’

  ‘Blast, girl!’ He grabbed her, his hands on her shoulders gripping painfully tight, shaking her as if to waken her out of bad dreams. ‘What d’you mean? Kill him? You din’t kill him. He had a nasty fright, and a ducking, that’s all. Caught a cold from it. But he en’t dead. They pulled him out of that old dock right as rain.’

  Jess felt cold, as if iced water was being trickled down her spine. Her brain seemed to have stopped working. ‘Not dead? But…’

  ‘Is that why you ran away? Why, poor little mawther. All this time a-thinkin’… That wan’t your fault! You just happened to be a-standin’ there. The crowd moved, and knocked you into him, and he fell…’

  ‘Who say so?’

  ‘He do! Merrywest hisself. He come and told us about it, afterwards.’

  Jess couldn’t seem to take it in. Merrywest was alive? Did he really believe his fall had been an accident?

  ‘He en’t dead, love,’ Matty repeated. ‘He en’t even angry. He’re real concerned. He keep a-comin’ round every week or so, even now, to see if we have word—’

  That was it! ‘No!’ She threw up her hands and grasped his lapels in both her fists, her sight blurred by a red mist of terror. ‘Don’t tell him, Matty! Don’t tell him where I am! Please don’t. Please don’t!’

  After that, everything got confused amid flickering light and looming shadows. Some of the drinkers outside the inn had noted the disturbance and came running to intervene, the first of them wading into Matty and Tom. At the same time, a carriage rumbled up, its door open.

  ‘Jess, run!’ Lily shouted from inside the carriage. Jess did so, scrambling for safety. Lily’s hands reached out to help her.

  ‘Fargus!’ Lily yelled.

  The vehicle swayed as Fargus whipped the horses into motion. Jess was sent flying into a corner where she huddled in misery, hearing her brother calling, ‘Jess! Jessie, no. Wait! Jess, where can I find you? Where’ll you be? Blast, let me go! That’s my sister! Jessie… Jess…’

  The shouts died away as the carriage raced through lamplit streets and out into the darkness of the countryside.

  ‘Those ruffians!’ Lily gasped. ‘Are you hurt? Who were they, Jess?’

  ‘Nobody!’

  ‘But they knew your name!’

  Jess was shivering, huddled into herself, wishing she could wake and find it all a nightmare. She felt so cold, so sick. Her mouth was running with acid spit. Too much toffee and lemonade and ice cream and cockles…

  She grabbed for the door handle and pulled it down, leaning out as her insides erupted in a bitter stream.

  ‘Stop!’ Lily screamed, banging on the roof. ‘Fargus, stop!’

  The conveyance drew to a halt, swaying. Jess hung from the handle by one hand, throwing up everything she’d eaten. Shivering and sweating, she thought dizzily that it was all up for her now. Matty would go home and tell, and then Merrywest would come after her. Merrywest…

  She ought to feel relieved that she hadn’t killed him. Well, she was relieved – glad not to have that guilt on her conscience. But if thinking him dead had been bad, knowing him alive was worse. She’d never forget the look on his face as he fell into the dock – it repeated itself in all her worst dreams. He’d recognised her. He’d known! He wouldn’t forget that. Whatever he might have said to her family, Jess knew the blackness of his soul. Merrywest was a cruel enemy. He wouldn’t rest until he’d found her.

  ‘Jess! Why, you’re cold!’ Lily’s hands came on her, helping her back to the seat, tucking her up with a travelling rug round her.

  Jess closed her eyes, seeing red stars wheel in the darkness behind her eyelids. ‘I’m all right, Miss Lily.’

  ‘You’re far from all right.’ Lifting the trapdoor in the roof, Lily spoke to Fargus, telling him to drive on slowly and carefully. The vehicle moved away at a steady walk.

  ‘Those men…’ Lily said. ‘I thought I heard one of them… He said you were his sister.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Lily.’

  ‘Then why—?’

  ‘Don’t ax,’ Jess sighed. ‘Please don’t ax me nothin’. Not now. I’m sorry, Miss Lily, but I don’t want to talk about it.’

  To her relief, Lily let it go and silence closed in, the horse plodding along the lane, the wheels rumbling. Through half-open eyes Jess saw moonlight come and go, patched by trees’ shadow. She was feeling sleepy, and growing warmer thanks to the rug, when she felt Lily move to sit beside her, taking her hand and squeezing it.

  ‘Talk to me, Jessamy,’ she said. ‘Tell me everything.’

  Though Jess didn’t move, her brain woke up with a jerk. ‘About what?’

  ‘About you. You’re so mysterious. I wish… I wish I could be inside your head and know what you know.’

  ‘That’d be a disappointment, Miss Lily,’ Jess prevaricated. ‘You’re the one as goes to school. It should be you teaching me.’

  ‘But you know more about… about life. Jim Potts now… and there’s Eliza… and your master who… who hurt you. People do… do things to each other. Men, and women. It’s not supposed to happen until after you’re married, but… I hear people whisper things I don’t understand. There are girls in the village who’ve “fallen”. What does it mean? If you’re alone w
ith a man, something happens. That’s why respectable young ladies are guarded – to save them from that sort of danger. Isn’t it?’

  Jess remained very still, hardly daring to breathe. Her heart was pulsing in her throat and the carriage seemed airless. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But what happens? What?’

  ‘Horrible things,’ Jess said through a thickness in her chest. ‘I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t want to know.’

  Lily said no more until after they had turned in by the Lion Gate and were heading up the rise, when she asked if she should have Fargus take Jess up to the big house. Jess said no, the walk would clear her head.

  ‘Very well. Oh, when shall we meet again, Jess? I have another week before I go back to school.’

  ‘I get Thursday afternoon free.’

  ‘Then… shall we meet on Thursday? By the church gate. We’ll take a walk in the woods, if it’s fine.’

  Jess stood watching as the carriage moved away, heading off to the rectory with its lamps agleam in the night. Behind it, silence closed in. The night was quiet, with the moon climbing higher, lighting the way like a silver lantern. Jess stood and let the peace of the moment seep into her soul, calming her. The cool night air in her lungs helped too, though there was still a taste of bile at the back of her throat.

  Was it time to move on again, before Merrywest came after her? Or should she stay and brave it out?

  She looked to where the big house stood waiting for her, sprawling in its moonlit park. It was the only home she had. If she left, where would she go? From one or two of the windows, lights showed, and up in the attics her room was waiting – and Nanny and young Bella, and elsewhere Sal and the other maids, and friendly Mrs Roberts, and Lady Maud, and kind Sir Richard. Never forgetting blessed, vulnerable Lily. They all meant a lot to Jess; she felt a part of their lives. Besides, even if she had wanted to leave, her instinct said it was impossible: her fate lay here.

  Reaching the attics, she heard murmuring voices from Mrs Roberts’s room and went to knock there to let Nanny know she was back. Nanny spent many evenings playing cards with Mrs Roberts in her charming room, with its small, comforting fire.

  Mrs Roberts smiled at Jess. ‘Did you have a good day? I used to love the Easter Fair when I was younger. You really feel spring’s well begun when Easter comes, especially when the weather’s fine, like today.’

  ‘That was a master fine day, thankee, Mrs Roberts.’ It was a lie, but what else could she say? She wished with all her heart that she’d never gone to Huns’ton. She could hardly believe the hurt she must have inflicted on Matty.

  ‘You’d best look in on Bella,’ Nanny said. ‘She didn’t settle very well. I knew she’d had too much excitement. She’ll be sleep-walking again, I shouldn’t wonder, so be sure to bolt the door when you leave.’

  The schoolroom was in darkness except for two patches of moonlight coming through the dormer windows, though the small lamp on the table was still warm – it had simply used up its oil. Jess went to replenish it from the storeroom near Bella’s room, but before she got there something in the quality of the silence made her pause and listen at the child’s door. Small sounds of snuffling came from close behind the wood.

  Putting down the lamp, Jess unbolted the door and tried to open it. Something prevented her. She pushed harder and the door gave, but from the floor Bella gave a little moan. It was her body that was in the way!

  As gently as she could, Jess pushed the door wide enough so she could slip inside. The child lay on the floor, where she had evidently fallen asleep after a long bout of crying. She was stirring now, but she was cold as cold. When eventually Jess got the candle lit, she saw Bella’s tear-stained face and swollen eyes.

  ‘I wanted Nanny,’ she croaked. ‘I shouted and shouted…’

  And Nanny either wouldn’t come or wasn’t near enough to hear, Jess thought furiously, gathering the child into her arms. ‘There, darlin’. That’s all right now. Jess is here. Jess’ll stay.’

  Settling Bella into bed, Jess lay beside her, holding her to warm and comfort her.

  ‘The moon was shining on me,’ Bella said. ‘Don’t let it shine on me, Jess, please. It will turn my hair to seaweed.’

  ‘Why, that it ’on’t!’ She hugged the child closer. ‘Did you have a bad dream? That’s all it was, just an old dream. ’Cos of what Miss Lily said. There en’t really such things as mermaids. Miss Lily likes to make up stories, that’s all. Do you go to sleep now, little ’un, and don’t fret about it no more. I’ll not let nobody hurt you.’

  ‘Say that rhyme,’ Bella requested.

  Softly, Jess repeated the old nonsense rhyme that Granny Henefer had said to her so often:

  Do you know what’s in my pocket?

  When, and where, and how I dot it?

  Such a lot of treasures in it.

  Listen now and I’ll begin it:

  Here’s a handle off a cup that someone broke at tea,

  And here’s some pennies – one, two, three –

  That… Nanny Fyncham gave to me.

  Tomorrowday I’ll buy a spade,

  When I’m out walking with the maid.

  ‘I bought a leaping stick,’ Bella murmured sleepily.

  ‘So you did. You had a masterpiece of a day, didn’t you?’

  Bella didn’t answer. She was asleep.

  Now that Jess felt calmer, she could think more rationally. Maybe she’d been wrong to fear Merrywest’s vengeance. Maybe he wouldn’t find out where she was. Matty didn’t know her new situation, did he? It was even possible that Matty would hold his tongue and not tell that he’d seen her, though, knowing him, she doubted it: he’d be bound to tell Fanny, if no one else. They’d talk about it. The boys, Sam and Joe, would hear. ‘Sprat’ Fysher, Fanny’s husband, would find out…

  Sooner or later, Nathanael Merrywest would learn that she had been seen in Huns’ton. The question was – what would he then do?

  * * *

  That Thursday, Jess and Lily went walking, braving a stiff breeze and the threat of showers. After three days when nothing dire had happened, Jess was beginning to feel secure again. She was glad she’d seen Matty. At least she knew he was well, and that her family would know she was well, too; and her conscience was lighter for knowing that Merrywest wasn’t dead. She did thank the Lord sincerely for that blessing – her soul was free of the taint of mortal sin, even if her life on earth was now shadowed by the fear of his coming in person to blight her new existence. Much as she argued with herself, deep inside she knew he would come. Merrywest had scores to settle. He wouldn’t let it be.

  But she wouldn’t think about it. Sufficient unto the day… as Reverend Clare had it; or as Granny Henefer always used to say, Never trouble trouble, ’til trouble troubles you. It only troubles trouble, and troubles others, too.

  The Hewinghall woods were beginning to spring with April life. Buds fattened on all the trees and bushes; snowdrops trembled in sheltered hollows and where the trees grew less dense a carpet of delicate yellow resolved itself into a thousand primrose faces lifting to the sun.

  Lily knew the woods, every inch of them. She showed Jess where the first violets were peeping; she pointed out the places where seed and some sort of cooked mash had been scattered, ‘for the partridges,’ she explained. ‘They’re starting to breed, so the keepers like to keep them well fed. We must go quietly through here, not to disturb them. That’s why I didn’t bring Gyp. Mr Rudd doesn’t like dogs running loose in his woods when the game birds are nesting.’

  She moved on restlessly, all the time talking in a low voice so as not to disturb the birds that hid everywhere among the undergrowth.

  The skies were changeable, one minute bright, the next shadowed by cloud. A larger cloud swept up and threw a brief shower of rain on to the earth, leaving everything dewed so that, brushing under a tree or past a rhododendron, Jess and Lily dislodged tiny waterfalls that damped their arms and skirts.

  ‘“April showers bring for
th May flowers”,’ Lily said, flashing a smile behind her. ‘Keep up, Jess.’

  Growing up on the edge of Lynn, Jess and her playmates had wandered along the river bank, into the marsh meadows and the tree-lined lanes. But she was not familiar with deep woods like this one. On her own, she might have been scared of the shadows and quiet places, and the sudden eruptions of hidden life, but seeing it through Lily’s eyes made her aware of the pleasures of sharing this tangled world.

  Even so, her own nature preferred the open fields, the sunlight. The wood was a dark excitement to be dipped into for a thrill, not a refuge in which to hide from the world, as it was for Lily.

  She wondered what Lily was fleeing from now. Something was disturbing her, driving her on. Lily wanted to confide something, she guessed, but was afraid of doing so. So she kept walking, and talking. She showed Jess her favourite walks, especially one dark hollow she called the ‘heart of the wood’ where there was a pond so thick with frogspawn it was like gruel. In summer, she said, the leaves of the trees reached out to turn the place into a shady glade where she often came to read and think.

  ‘Once I saw a deer come down to drink at the pond,’ she added, brushing aside a trailing branch, ‘and once— Oh, no!’ Her voice was a moan of distress as she stopped, a hand to her mouth, and turned aside to hurry on, away from what hung from an ivy-clad oak ahead. It was, Jess saw, a rough framework from which were suspended the dead and decaying carcasses of birds and animals. She made out a hawk, and a jay with its flash of blue, a small fox, a cat…

  ‘Come away, Jessamy!’ Lily’s face was pale, her eyes haunted.

  ‘What was it?’ Jess wanted to know. ‘Whoever’d kill all them—’

  ‘The gamekeepers would! Mr Rudd and his men. They kill everything that might harm their precious birds and hang them up in the hope of scaring away other predators. Oh… I know it has to be done, but that tabby cat… I’m sure it’s little Cobweb, Mrs Tyler’s sweet little cat. She used to come purring… She wouldn’t harm their stupid pheasants! Oh, it’s too horrible. Let’s go. Let’s go.’