by Mary Mackie
‘When I got here, it looked more as though a good fairy had been about. Then I saw you – at the window.’ His gesture indicated the upper window, the bedroom window.
So he knew she’d been in there. Oh, Lord! But she’d meant it for the best. She hadn’t meant to poke and pry into his private business.
‘And then,’ Rudd said in a different, softer tone that sent ripples of awareness along every nerve in her being, ‘then I thought maybe it was true, after all.’
She waited, but he said no more so she was forced to look directly at him for the first time in minutes and say, ‘What was?’
He didn’t move, but the intimacy of his look made him seem very close. ‘You being there with me in the woods, after I fell. Taking care of me. Keeping me warm.’
For a moment she couldn’t speak. It felt as though her heart had swollen to fill her throat and stop her breath; what she read in his eyes was everything she’d ever dreamed of.
Jess Henefer had been through too much to let tears come easy ever again. But they came now, misting huge brown eyes in her plain, pointy-chin face. Feeling her lips tremble, she sank her teeth into the bottom one.
‘Jessie, lass…’ It was no more than a whisper as he reached out with his free hand and stroked her cheek with the back of a curled forefinger, the lightest of touches, like the sweep of a butterfly’s wing, but it set her whole body on fire.
Unable to bear the sweetness of it, she ducked away, making for the door. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. I’ll make us some tea.’
Rudd didn’t protest, only followed her and sat himself down at the table, legs stretched out across the worn linoleum as he watched her going about her domestic chores.
Wiping her hands on her skirt, she felt the small shape of the silver button in her pocket. She’d brought it with her half intending to discover which piece of his clothing it had come off, so she could sew it back. Now she brought it out, holding it on her open palm.
‘Is this yours?’
The brush of his fingers as he picked up the button set her heart off again. She considered his bent head, admiring the way his hair grew in strong waves, and remembering its thick, soft texture. Then he looked up, shaking his head. ‘No. Where did it come from?’
‘That was on the floor.’ Nervous of being so near him, she snatched the button back and moved away again. ‘I thought I’d sew it back on if… well, it don’t signify.’ Embarrassed, she thrust the button back into her pocket. She felt downright shy of him.
She got the teapot, warmed it with a dash of hot water and reached down the tea caddy from the cupboard which she had scrubbed and tidied.
‘You look like you’re at home,’ Rudd commented.
Sensitive to criticism, Jess flung him a wary look.
‘I like it,’ he assured her.
Her blood beat an unsteady rhythm in every vein and her hands were all thumbs. She could hardly think what to do next – and all she was doing was making a pot of tea! But her mind was full of him sitting there, watching her with bright eyes, much as Dad had sat and watched Mother move about the tiny kitchen at Salt’s Yard. Was that how it would be, she and Rudd together, maybe with their children about them and—
The sugar bowl slipped out of her hand as she put it down. It fell on its side, sending a little landslide of sugar across the table. Jess cried out at her own clumsiness and turned to the sink thinking dizzily about brushes and pans. But—
‘Jessie.’ Rudd was there behind her, his hand on her arm turning her to face him. He tipped up her chin, making her look at him and see the tenderness and understanding in his eyes. That – and the sudden longing he couldn’t control as his glance slid to her lips and rooted there. ‘Jessie…’ he muttered again, and bent to kiss her.
Fleeting though the contact was, it scorched her. All at once, all she could think of was Merrywest. Merrywest’s grinding mouth. Merrywest’s hairy body…
‘No!’ She tore free, thrusting at him with all her strength. ‘No!’ And she whirled and fled from him.
She was out the gate before he got breath enough to roar after her, ‘Jessie! Jessie, come back. I didn’t mean… Jessi-i-i-ie.’
When eventually she stopped running she found her face flooded with tears. She was on the path that led down to the beach. Desolate, she walked on until she sank exhausted into a sheltered hollow. And there she stayed, soaked to the skin, hugging her knees and wishing herself dead.
She must have fallen asleep, for she came awake to find herself shivering. The weather had changed. A mist from the sea now surrounded her sandy nest like a damp grey blanket. Voices had disturbed her – male voices, calling and laughing as the men made their way up from the beach. Before Jess could move, a figure rose above the edge of her skyline, a dark figure blurred by the mist. He stopped, seeing her, saying softly, ‘Blast…’ then to his hidden companion, ‘Go you on, Jim. I’ll see you at the “Nelson” later.’
Jess peered up at her brother, suddenly aware of the state she was in, her clothes soaked and caked in sand, her face swollen and reddened by weeping. What story could she tell?
Matty slid down into the hollow, carrying a heavy basket which he plonked down beside her as she sat up and rearranged her skirts. The basket was full of live crabs. ‘Look at you,’ he said, seating himself on the sand. ‘Where’ve you now been to get in that state?’
‘Oh, I… I was doin’ my washin’ and had a fallin’-out with one o’ them laundrymaids. Botty little mawther. Shouldn’t’ve let her upset me.’
‘That en’t like you, our Jess,’ Matty said. ‘You can usually give as good as you get.’
Jess cast a look at his bucket. ‘You been crabbin’?’
‘No, we’ve been pannin’ for gold,’ her brother returned dryly. ‘And that’s not so far off the truth, neither.’ He touched the cloth bag that hung at his waist. It jinked and clinked as he patted it. ‘Jim knows a man as pays good money for whole sea-shells – to sell to ladies that like decoratin’ boxes and such.’
Jess wasn’t listening. She’d noticed the waistcoat he was wearing, hanging open over the darned linen shirt their mother had made. The waistcoat was grey, made of woollen stuff. Jess had often seen her father wearing it, and when he died it had been handed on to Matty, who’d slowly grown broad enough to do it proper justice – a waistcoat with six silver buttons with wavy edges, stamped with a pattern like a lattice.
Jess slipped her hand into her pocket, feeling the hard round shape of the button she had found on Rudd’s bedroom floor – a button that would match the remaining five on the waistcoat Matty was wearing.
All at once she was afraid for him, and bitterly angry. ‘You shun’t listen to Jim Potts! I’ve told you afore, Matty, he en’t a fit friend for you. D’you know how he earn his money for them fancy clothes and doin’ses? And don’t tell me it’s from findin’ shells on the beach.’
‘He’s a businessman! A dealer,’ Matty argued.
‘So he say! Nobody hereabouts do trust him, nor any of them Pottses. One of the keepers told me Jim Potts is a poacher – and worse. They even reckon…’ Again her eyes were drawn to the place where the button was missing from his waistcoat. ‘Some say as how he’s a… a housebreaker.’
‘Huh!’ said Matty. ‘Give a dog a bad name. He’ve told me how folks about here hen’t got a good word for him, or any of his family – just because his uncle got sent to prison once for stealin’ a few old pheasant when his little ’uns was starvin’.’
‘Do you believe that, then you are a fool.’
‘Well, he en’t a burglar!’
‘I didn’t say he was. I said “housebreaker”. On’y last week…’ She glanced again at his waistcoat, at the shank of black cotton sticking out from the grey wool. ‘Somebody wrecked Mr Rudd’s cottage.’ She lifted her eyes to his face. ‘You’ll’ve heard of Reuben Rudd, Matty – he’re the head gamekeeper at Hewinghall. Jim Potts’s mortal foe.’
Matty could never lie convincingly, especi
ally not to her. His face was a study of guilt and defiance. ‘What’re you now yarnin’ about, our Jess? Yes, that so happen I have heard o’ Mr Rudd – Dan Sparrow told me he’re in hospital in Lynn, after havin’ an accident. Fell out of a tree, din’t he?’
Jess could hardly speak for the fury that boiled up in her, at Matty’s stupidity and Jim Potts’s evil ways. ‘You’ve no more sense than a May gosling, our Matty! Jim Potts’ll let you swing for him, see if he don’t.’
‘I don’t know what you’re prattlin’ about,’ he said stubbornly, though the red tide in his neck rose all the way to his hairline.
‘This!’ She showed him the button from her pocket. ‘This was on the floor in Rudd’s bedroom! Just thank the Lord it was me as found it and not the police. Dad’s waistcoat. You went and wrecked Reuben’s cottage wearing my dad’s waistcoat!’
‘Jess—’
As he reached for her she jerked away. ‘Don’t touch me! I don’t want to talk to you. Now I’m goin’ to have to lie to Reuben some more – as if there weren’t enough I can’t tell him.’
‘You make it sound as if you and him—’
‘And what if we are? He’s a fine, good man. You don’t know the half of it, Matty. You’ve let that Jim Potts spin you a yarn and you’ve believed it, and gone shywannickin’ off without thinkin’ of consequences. Oh… how could you do it, Matty? And you reckon you’re a fit mate for my Miss Lily? You’d do better with a female dickey. You’re such a blasted great fool!’
* * *
Jess hardly slept for worrying about Matty and wishing things had gone different with Rudd. She felt worn out the next morning, hardly in a mood for being ‘lent’ to the rectory, to help prepare a party for Lily’s homecoming. Miss Peartree had asked Nanny if Jess might be spared for a day or two – which only made Jess wonder afresh at the close links between nursery and rectory.
Miss Peartree was excited over Lily’s homecoming. After all, today Lily was ending her schooldays. And since she hadn’t had a proper party for her birthday, being away at the time, a feast was planned, with custard tartlets and strawberry jelly, all her favourites.
Eliza was mostly upstairs, making final preparations to Lily’s room, and Mary Anne too found jobs which kept her out of the kitchen.
‘They’re both bone idle!’ Miss Peartree confided. ‘That’s why I asked Nanny if she could spare you. Besides… I know Lily will be happy to find you here. Lately her letters have been… Oh, I can’t explain. I just feel she’s unhappy. I’m worried about her. And when she discovers—’
She was interrupted. The door burst open and Mary Anne rushed in to announce with snuffling venom, ‘It’s that grinnin’ bor, Gooden. He say he have to see Jess and he won’t go away until he have.’
‘The boy Gooden?’ Jess queried.
‘Mr Rudd’s apprentice,’ Miss Peartree supplied. ‘I can’t imagine what he can want. Can you? Mary Anne, ask him—’
‘I have. He ’on’t say. He say, “I have to see Miss Sharp and on’y Miss Sharp,” he say. Stupid fool of a bor, he be. Alluss got a silly grin on his face.’
‘Perhaps you’d better see to him, Jess,’ Miss Peartree suggested.
On the doorstep, Rudd’s apprentice stood clutching his cap, fidgeting from foot to foot – and grinning, as Mary Anne had said, though Jess guessed an excess of self-consciousness caused that nervous grimace. The boy was out of breath and red in the face, as if he’d been running. He tugged a forelock in greeting and produced a letter from inside his cap.
‘That’s for you, miss. He said I was to wait for an answer.’
Jess didn’t need to ask who ‘he’ was. ‘How did he know I was here?’
‘He din’t, miss. He sent me up to the big house and they told me.’
Feeling as though everything had stopped – even her heartbeat – she stared at the envelope. On it was written, in an unsteady hand, ‘Miss Jessamy Sharp’. She could read her own name easy enough, but she doubted if she’d be able to read the letter and she didn’t intend to try with the boy watching. Simpler to say brusquely, ‘There en’t any answer,’ even though the words near choked her.
‘Right, miss.’ Clapping his cap back on his head, the boy turned to hurry off as if the rectory held terrors for him, while Jess put the letter carefully away in her apron pocket, where it stayed like a live thing, tormenting her.
During the afternoon, she was preparing the jelly moulds at the big table. Miss Peartree had been called away and Eliza and her sister were drinking tea in chairs placed either side of the open sash window, through which a cooling breeze came idling. Eliza was looking at a newspaper while Mary Anne sat with one leg curled under her, twiddling an end of her hair into lank ringlets, and sniffing.
‘Mary Anne, hen’t you got a hanky?’ Jess said eventually, sick of hearing the girl snuffle.
‘I’ve now lorst it,’ the girl replied.
‘Well, find you another one quick sharp!’
The newspaper rattled as Eliza folded it, saying, ‘Sit you still, Mary Anne. You don’t take orders from her. She’re on’y the nurserymaid from the big house, and no better’n she oughter be.’
‘You tryin’ to say somethin’, Eliza?’ Jess asked.
‘If the cap fit…’ Eliza shrugged, fanning herself with the folded paper as she leaned in the wheelback chair. ‘I hear you been visitin’ Rudd’s cottage, cleanin’ up for him. And then there’s that new gardener at the hall what come after you all the way from Huns’ton. Heard talk about him, too. Hen’t we, Mary Anne?’
The only answer was another sniffle before Mary Anne wiped her nose on her sleeve.
‘Go git you a handkerchief!’ Jess snapped.
‘Poor little mawther can’t help it,’ Eliza said. ‘She was born with the snuffles. Anyhow, there’s worse habits than that.’
‘Such as?’
‘Some folk might say that leadin’ on two men at the same time was a nasty habit. Some folk might think a woman was axin’ for folk to talk.’
‘Some might,’ said Jess hotly. ‘Unless they knowed the folk in question better than you seem to do, Eliza Potts. Some folk have their minds higher than their belts.’
Eliza greeted this in silence, her green eyes narrowed with a speculation that turned slowly into sneers as she interpreted Jess’s indignation correctly. Then she began to laugh, softly at first, breaking into loud peals of mirth that made Jess’s face burn. She was about to reply when the door opened.
Eliza’s face changed; her laughter stopped and she got to her feet as Lily whirled in, wearing a light travelling cape designed to keep out the summer dust. She paused near the threshold, her mismatched eyes darting round the three faces before her. ‘What’s going on? What’s the joke?’
‘Just kitchen gossip, Miss Lily,’ Eliza murmured, dipping a brief curtsey. ‘Come on, Mary Anne, we’ve work to do. ’Scuse us, Miss Lily. Nice to have you home.’
This piece of insincerity was answered by a look from Lily that would have kippered herring. Then Eliza was shepherding her sister out, bound for some quiet corner where they could sit and do nothing unobserved.
Giving Jess a tight smile, Lily came nearer. ‘Cousin Oriana told me you were here. Are you well?’ She glanced at the door as if to make sure it was closed, then added in a lower voice, ‘I wanted to see you as soon as possible. I need to know…’ She couldn’t wait to ask; all the way home it had been burning in her mind. ‘What are they saying about Clemency? I want to know every detail. Cousin Oriana has written to me, of course, but it’s not the same – her ideas of what’s interesting don’t always coincide with mine. Besides, I want to know everything, Jess. Tell me everything.’
Jess did her best. Officially, word was that Clemency had been ill and had been taken to convalesce on the Yorkshire coast. However, gossip at Hewinghall whispered that she had come home in disgrace and that she’d been whisked away in hopes of saving her reputation. What she had done was not known, though some fancied it had to do with a yo
ung man.
‘Oh, gracious goodness, of course there was a man!’ Lily cried. ‘But are they mentioning any names? Have there been rumours of a marriage?’
‘Not as I’ve heard, Miss Lily.’ Jess was bewildered. Why did it matter so much?
‘Then maybe you haven’t been listening! Sometimes you’re so dull, Jess.’ Stormy-faced, she swirled away in her loose cape, only to stop, her back to Jess. When she swung round her lovely, faulty eyes were abrim with tears and her soft mouth trembled. ‘Oh, Jess… I didn’t mean that. I’m just so… Oh, forgive me!’ She rushed to throw her arms around Jess, who instinctively embraced her friend, stroking the heaving shoulders, while Lily sobbed against her. ‘Oh, Jess, I’m desolated. Desolated.’
* * *
Lily was in no mood for a party, especially one with custard tartlets and strawberry jelly – Cousin Oriana treated her as if she were eight instead of eighteen. She was even more wearied by the prospect when she discovered who the guests were to be – Cousin Oriana’s friend the widowed Mrs Anderson, from the Mill House, with her two horse-faced daughters; the curate, Peter Dunnock; and, possibly, Dickon Clare.
‘Oh, not Dickon!’ Lily cried.
‘Why not?’ Miss Peartree replied. ‘We must have more than one young man or Mr Dunnock will feel overwhelmed. Dickon has promised to bring a friend with him, so—’
‘A friend?’ Lily’s heart quite skipped with dismay. She pressed a hand to its palpitations. ‘Who?’
‘He didn’t say who, my dear. Does it matter? I thought you might go walking in the afternoon, then after tea we could have a musical soirée. You love to sing, and Tilly Anderson plays piano tolerably well.’
Lily wasn’t listening. She was thinking that if Ashton Haverleigh were to come to her party with Dickon that would mean he was not responsible for Clemency’s disgrace, in which case Lily would be free to adore him with renewed fervour. Perhaps that was why no rumour had so much as breathed his name – because he was innocent. Oh, please God, let it be so!