A Child of Secrets

by Mary Mackie

  Outside the gate lay the coast road, a broad lane kept in good order by Sir Richard’s workers, and beyond it a plantation of young pines grew well over head height. Where the pines ended, Matty was waiting, his big straw hat discarded for a more familiar cap. His hands were big and horny from salt and ropes and hauling shellfish, his shoulders broad, his face square, with a wide mouth given to laughter.

  He wasn’t laughing that night, though. He’d been lounging against a tree, chewing on a long grass. As he leapt up, Jess instinctively took a backward step, making it clear that she didn’t want him hugging her. Matty read the gesture rightly – it puzzled and hurt him.

  Taking refuge in irritability, she said, ‘So how did you find me? If you’ve been and told ’em all where I am, I—’

  ‘I didn’t tell nobody,’ Matty said. ‘Only our Fanny, and the boys. Well, I had to tell them, they’ve all been worried half to death. But I made ’em swear to keep it secret. Not to tell nobody. Nobody at all. Not ’til I give ’em leave.’

  ‘Well, that’s one sensible thing you’ve done,’ Jess said crossly. ‘Lord, Matty, d’you know what trouble you could’ve caused me? I hope you hen’t told nobody here at Hewinghall as I’m your sister.’

  ‘No, ’course I hen’t. What d’you take me for, our Jess – a fool?’

  ‘You act like it, ’times.’

  As they walked, he told her how easily he had traced her – through Lily. He hadn’t had to ask further than the men outside the Golden Lion before he’d learned who the girl with one blue eye and one brown might be, and where she could be found – many folk in Huns’ton knew of the beautiful but blemished daughter of the Hewing rector.

  Matty had gone home that Easter Monday evening and given the family the glad news that Jess was alive. He’d planned to come and find her when he had the time and the chance had come a few weeks ago when the fishing was poor and the Fyshers, for whom he worked, had had to lay him off. Failing to find a place on another boat, Matty had decided to tramp over to Hewing and call at the rectory, with the excuse of looking for work.

  Eliza had invited him in to the rectory kitchen for a cup of tea. But when he’d mentioned a girl named Jess, she’d turned cagey, curious about his interest in ‘Jess Sharp’. That name had warned him to be careful, so he’d told Eliza a few tarradiddles during which Mary Anne had blurted out that Jess was now at the big house. After that, Eliza had started to butter him up, trying to find out more about him, but he’d been too canny for her. She’d then sent him to see Mrs Kipps, where he’d taken lodgings and met Jim Potts.

  ‘Jim’s a good old bor,’ said Matty. ‘He’ll learn me a thing or two.’

  ‘He’ll get you into trouble more like!’ Jess fretted.

  ‘Jess, I en’t a complete fool, you know. Any road, now it’s your turn. Why’d you come here? Why’d you change your name? Why din’t you let us know where you were?’

  ‘You know why, Matty. I thought I’d killed Merrywest and they’d be after me.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t, and they’re not, so all that time you were afeared for nothin’. You could a been at home with us and we could a kept our own cottage – you and me and the young ’uns – ’stead of crampin’ in with Fanny and “Sprat”.’

  Not when Merrywest was our landlord, Jess thought. But she couldn’t tell that to Matty.

  ‘I’m doin’ all right,’ she said. ‘Got a good job – better’n slavin’ for the Boneses. As for Sam and Joe, why… you and me can both send money home to help Fanny raise them.’ As they crested the dunes the beach stretched out before them, sheets of wet sand reflecting the sunset sky in a welter of gold and flame and inky blue. A fisherman was checking his drift nets, and further out small boats had grounded on the banks, their crews out on the rocky scalps after cockles and mussels.

  ‘Don’t you wish you were with them?’ Jess asked, gesturing at the fishing boats.

  Matty shrugged. ‘’Times, maybe. Though gardenin’ pays better. And you can’t get drowned diggin’.’

  ‘No,’ Jess answered, and knew he was thinking about their father, lost for ever to the deeps of the North Sea. Was he also remembering Mother? She was glad he’d been away fishing when it happened. Only Jess had been there when her mother’s life ebbed on a shameful tide of blood.

  All because of Merrywest, God blast his black soul! Lord, how she hated him. The strength of her feeling frightened her and she had to force herself to listen to what Matty was saying.

  He planned to stay at Hewinghall, and she was glad of that. Yes, she was. Glad to have her brother back.

  Why, then, did a small voice deep inside her cry warning and wish that Matty had never come? Jess couldn’t have said. She only knew that his presence set a cold breeze blowing slantwise across her instincts, raising prickles of foreboding.

  ‘Tell me about Miss Lily,’ Matty said.

  Jess shook herself, forcing her mind back to the golden evening. ‘Oh, she’re a dear soul. She found me wanderin’ half dead and she took me in, bless her sweet heart. If that han’t been for Miss Lily, I wouldn’t be here now. She’re a friend, for all our difference in station.’

  ‘She wan’t very friendly to me that day at Huns’ton.’

  Jess laughed. ‘You startled her, throwin’ yourself down at her feet. But don’t take no account of the way she was then. She get the miseries, ’times. Then other times she’ll be light and happy, full o’ fun. I can’t never fathom the way she think. I reckon it has to do with her eyes – she feel as if she’re different from everybody else. Cast out. Like a sideshow freak.’

  ‘Well, she en’t!’ Matty said stoutly. ‘Whoever made her feel that way should be… should be slung overboard and drug along the scalps ’til he’s skinned alive!’

  Jess squinted at him sideways. ‘Oh, hum?’

  He hunched his shoulders and looked at the sand, his neck turning red. ‘I know she wun’t look cross-eyed at me, but ever since I looked up and seen her there, I keep a-thinkin’ about her. All the time, Jess. I hen’t never felt that way about no other girl. I reckon I’m in love with her.’

  ‘Don’t talk squit!’ Jess was alarmed. ‘That don’t do to raise your eyes above your station. She en’t for you, Matty.’

  ‘Why en’t she?’ he demanded. ‘I can’t help a-feelin’ what I’m feelin’, Jess.’

  As she drew breath to argue with him she saw the futility of it. Wasn’t she herself guilty of the same stupidity? One smile from Reuben Rudd and she’d been lost. And there was Lily, yearning after Ashton Haverleigh.

  ‘Feelin’s can’t alluss be trusted,’ she said, and linked her arm through his in a gesture of mutual comfort. ‘You’d better not think about Miss Lily. She have dreams way out of your reach.’

  ‘Maybe she do. But a governess en’t so far I couldn’t reach if I wanted.’

  ‘A governess? Who told you—’

  ‘’Liza Potts did. She say Miss Lily might be glad of somebody to sling a lifebelt, some day.’

  What was he talking about? ‘Miss Lily ’on’t never agree to bein’ a governess. She hate the very idea.’

  ‘That don’t signify. That’s all arranged. The rector and the squire do have it all planned, so ’Liza say. I thought you’d a known about it, Jess, seein’ as how you was sent ahead to prepare the way.’

  Stunned, Jess could only gape at him.

  ‘That’s been understood for ages, so ’Liza say,’ Matty told her. ‘Miss Lily’s comin’ to Hewinghall, to be governess to Miss Bella. Well, didn’t you know that, Jess?’

  No, Jess hadn’t known it, but now she realised what many hints and signs had been pointing to. Understood for ages? Then Lily wasn’t going to be given a choice. When she found out, whatever would she do?

  * * *

  Though Lily, at school, continued to brood over what the future might hold, her spirits were lightened by one of the summer spectacles in Cambridge – the Procession of Boats on the river. This finale to the ‘bumping’ races rowed by th
e various colleges was a gala occasion of flags and picnics, with people lining the river banks and all manner of craft crowding the river to see the fun. Miss Waterburn allowed her pupils to attend, wearing blue summer capes and straw boaters with blue ribbons, accompanied by most of the teaching staff as chaperones.

  Lily was cheering with the rest when she noticed a familiar figure in one of the crews, a fine athletic form in his clinging rowing costume, golden-fair, youthfully handsome, a smile of triumph on his face. Ash Haverleigh! The huzzahs died in her throat as she experienced a wave of physical longing that frightened her and left her with the familiar ache which, until now, she had experienced only while alone with her dreams in her bed.

  Tearing her eyes away, she glanced about her, looking for Clemency, to see if she had seen him, too. But Clemency wasn’t there. She didn’t appear to be anywhere among the group of blue capes, nor among the crowd nearby.

  Lily didn’t think much of it; she was too preoccupied in watching Ashton Haverleigh and thinking all manner of delicious, sinful, throat-catching thoughts. She watched him until he and the rest of his crew rowed their boat away down the river, out of sight.

  Only then did she think to look again for Clemency, in vain. By the time the young ladies gathered for the return march to the Academy, it had become obvious that Clemency Clare was missing.

  ‘Perhaps she’s eloped to Gretna Green,’ Anne Ferrers said as the seniors gathered in their drawing room. ‘Well, it wouldn’t surprise me. She’s been risking her reputation for months, sneaking out at night to meet men.’ To Lily’s horror, she went on to tell the others of Clemency’s night forays.

  Lily wondered if this was all her fault. Perhaps she should report what she knew. Perhaps she should have done so before: if Clemency’s earlier adventures had been known, this latest disaster might have been prevented.

  Not knowing what to do for the best, she found herself on the stairs, listening to a mutter of voices from below, where the teaching staff were gathered in the hall.

  ‘They’re here!’ someone gasped as the main door opened and a glowering Miss Waterburn strode in. Behind her came Clemency and Miss Rattray.

  ‘See her to her room,’ Miss Waterburn snapped. Miss Rattray took Clemency’s arm, propelling her towards the stairs.

  Lily hung there, wanting to offer a word of comfort, but the words died in her mouth as Clemency directed a look at her. Beneath her plain straw boater her eyes were bright with scorn and a little smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. She almost pushed Lily aside as she passed.

  ‘Lily Clare!’ Miss Waterburn was removing her gloves, breathing hard through her nose as was her habit when angry. ‘What are you doing there? Return to your room at once. There will be no discussion. No discussion, no speculation, no indiscretion. It never happened. Go!’

  Her veto on discussion was in vain: for days, in private, the senior girls talked of little else but the mystery of Clemency Clare.

  Clemency herself was locked in the turret, overnight and into the next day. Then, shortly before luncheon, Lily saw the door of Clemency’s room open and looked in to find the maid Perkins strapping up a trunk.

  ‘What are you doing with my cousin’s things?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Miss Clare’s leaving,’ came the reply. ‘Being sent home in disgrace.’

  ‘But… why? What has she done?’

  Perkins shrugged. ‘Search me. Miss Lily. I’m just doing what I’m told. Now, what do you suppose she’d want to travel in?’

  Knowing that, if she were in Clemency’s place, she would want to look her best, Lily picked out the travelling dress which was Clemency’s favourite, a blue worsted poplin trimmed with darker flounces.

  ‘I must see her,’ she said. ‘Perkins… Let me take the clothes.’

  ‘Not on your life, Miss Lily. I’d be dismissed if—’

  ‘Then let me come with you. I’ll make it all right for you, I swear. But I have to see Clemency.’

  Perkins was a simple soul, easily swayed by a pair of earnest eyes, one blue and one brown, set in a lovely face shining with sincerity.

  Seeing the maid. Clemency snapped, ‘About time, too! Oh, that bonnet’s wrong, you stupid fool. Still, it will have to do. Has my father arri…?’ She had noticed Lily, but her surprise turned to disdain as she demanded, ‘And what, pray, are you doing here?’

  ‘I was concerned about you,’ Lily said. ‘I know what it’s like being locked up in here. I know how you must feel, Clemency.’

  ‘You haven’t the least beginning of a notion about how I feel,’ Clemency retorted. ‘Save your concern, I don’t need it. I’m only too pleased to be getting out of this cheerless prison. I know why you’re here. You’re here to pry, to find out why I’m being dismissed. Well, I’ll tell you – I’m being thrown out, Lily dear, because I’m pregnant.’

  The word drenched Lily in horror. She stood staring, wide-eyed.

  Clemency’s laugh rang like a cracked bell. ‘And you know whose baby it will be, don’t you?’

  Her mind didn’t seem to be working. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, of course you do, Lily. Think about it. A gentleman with whom we are both acquainted. But it’s me he prefers, you see. Perhaps you’ll believe that now. Very soon, I shall have the pleasure of becoming the Honourable Mrs Ashton Haverleigh.’

  Fifteen

  Desperate to know what was happening at Syderford, Lily wrote to her papa, expressing her concern. She didn’t specify what disaster had befallen but alluded to it only as a tragedy that must cause the Clares great sorrow. The Reverend Hugh’s reply was cool: ‘It was thoughtless of her to be found in a punt with a young man, but I do feel that Miss Waterburn’s reaction may have been a little extreme.

  ‘However,’ the letter went on, ‘my nephew and his wife have decided that it will be good for Clemency to go away for a while, so they are taking a house on the Yorkshire coast for the summer.’ Judging by his letter, even he had not been told the full, shameful truth.

  The tale of the student and the punt had been spread at the Academy, too, to explain Clemency’s expulsion.

  One thing was horribly evident – Ashton Haverleigh had no intention of doing the honourable thing. If a marriage had been arranged, Papa’s letter would have said so. Ash was nothing but a vile seducer and here was the proof of it.

  Lily promised herself she would despise him for the rest of her life.

  * * *

  At Hewinghall, too, below-stairs gossip spread rumour about Clemency Clare. She’d come home from school and been whisked off to Yorkshire, for her health, so it was said. But Jess was more interested in the news that Reuben Rudd was to be released from hospital.

  The last Thursday in June dawned bright, with a brisk drying wind. Having prepared lunch for Nanny and Bella, Jess begged an early start to her free afternoon and set off through the woods eager to resume her cleaning at Rudd’s cottage.

  Soon the fire in the small range was blazing. While it heated the water in the side boiler, Jess made the bed and put away Rudd’s freshly washed and ironed clothes. Then she donned a thick hessian apron, rolled up her sleeves, and took down the lace nets and the worn velveteen curtains.

  By mid-afternoon she had the nets draped over bushes and was hanging the darker curtains on the line in the back garden. Being a long line, it sagged in the middle with the weight, so she was obliged to use only the higher ends, getting her sleeves and front soaked in the process.

  She was stretching to get the last curtain over the line when, with a bark that broke her concentration, Dash came charging down the path. Jess’s aching arms dropped. The wet velveteen swung in a bundle on the line and fell into her waiting embrace, further soaking her bodice and skirts as she stood hugging it.

  ‘Rudd knew what he was a-doin’ when he named you Dash,’ she chafed at the dog, adding to the man who had appeared by the corner of the house, ‘Can’t you keep him under control, Obi? Now look…’ Only it wasn’t Obi.

  Her he
art seemed to want to jump out of her breast as Reuben Rudd came slowly down the path. He was carrying his cap, so that the wind flicked a lock of tousled hair across his brow. Under it his freckles stood out against the pallor of his skin and his face was still, his eyes asking questions.

  ‘Miss Sharp,’ he greeted her gravely.

  Jess’s heart dropped. What had happened to Jessie, lass?

  ‘Looks like you’re getting wet,’ he added, and stepped in to help her.

  ‘There’s no need,’ she protested, but he ignored her.

  She being short, and he having the use of only his left arm, it took both of them to toss the curtain over the line and get it straight. By the time Rudd had fixed the curtain with pegs, Jess’s face was burning from the effect of his nearness.

  Had she really held his hand and lain next to him under cover of her coat, warming him with her body? She’d never been that close to any man except her dad and Matty – and Merrywest, her haunted mind added. But Rudd was different. She’d never felt like this, her senses filled by the sight, the scent, the feel of this man. But… Miss Sharp put her in her place. How had she ever imagined it any other way?

  Torn between shouting at him and bursting into tears, she emptied the rest of the water, saying crossly, ‘What are you a-doin’ of, anyhow? Should you be out?’ She was furious with herself for getting into such a stew. She almost wished he hadn’t turned up. Almost.

  ‘No law against a man taking a stroll, is there?’

  ‘That depend. What do the doctor have to say about it? Do he know you’ve left the hospital?’

  ‘They let me out of that place this morning. Not a minute too soon. I was going crackers, cooped up like a broody hen. Sir Richard sent his carriage to fetch me home. He wanted me to go to the big house for a few days, but I’ve had enough of that. I wanted to be home. Went by Obi’s place on my way, to fetch Dash, and got invited to dinner. I gather there’s been a bit of trouble – intruders, or summat.’

  Jess slid a sidelong glance at him. ‘That’s so.’