by Mary Mackie
* * *
Jess would have given much to know what was being said behind the sand dunes, but from her station where rippling shallows caressed her bare feet she could hear and see nothing of either Lily or the gypsy. Bella was squealing with delight, kicking up little showers of the cool water to annoy Gyp, who barked and dodged away. But Jess’s mind was on her friend.
Suddenly afraid, she started back up the beach, going as fast as she could in the soft sand.
The pair were not far away, standing in a dip among the dunes deep in conversation. Seeing Jess coming, Lily turned to her, eyes shining, cheeks pink. ‘She knows, Jess. She knows!’
Jess didn’t need to ask: she knew what the gypsy had claimed to know – anything that Lily wished to hear. But the woman returned her look with blank defiance.
‘I shall have my heart’s desire!’ Lily sighed happily. ‘She says that my real father is close by, that he’s been watching over me all this time. Isn’t that right, Bathsheba? He’s an important man – a wealthy man. But he’s weighed down with responsibilities. That’s why he hasn’t revealed himself yet. But he’ll come for me when the time is right. And it will be soon. She foresees him coming soon! Oh, Jess…’ She was ecstatic. ‘Don’t you see…? It’s all coming right for me. Just when I’d begun to despair. But when I saw her standing there… Oh, I just knew she’d been sent to help me. Where’s Gyp? Where’s Bella? I want to hug both of them!’
As she flew away on lightened feet, Jess turned on the gypsy: ‘What’ve you now been sayin’ to my young missus?’
‘She’s happy, isn’t she?’ Bathsheba returned.
‘On’y because you took advantage! I know your sort. Get you out o’ here afore I chase you out, you lyin’ diddicoy!’
The gypsy drew herself up as straight as she could with her twisted back, her one good eye glittering. ‘I am going, Gorgio. I’ve had my say. I told her the truth, the way it came to me.’ She took a step forward and lowered her voice. ‘And I’ll tell you the truth, Jess No-name. You can run away from the past, but it always catches up with you. Your past is in hot pursuit.’ As she spoke she came closer, until her single, baleful eye was glaring into Jess’s. ‘Can’t you feel its hot breath on your neck? It’s coming. Your fate. Your Nemesis. Very soon now. Very soon.’
How did she know about Jess’s past? Why did she say Jess No-name? Before Jess’s guilt-addled mind could reason that the gypsy had been garnering gossip and making clever deductions, the woman had gone.
* * *
The gypsy did not appear at the rectory that evening to collect the promised guinea, so next day Lily went down to the encampment in the woods, only to discover that the caravans had gone. All that remained was trampled grass, the ashes of a fire, and some horse dung.
To Lily’s mind, the gypsy’s leaving without more money only proved that her intentions had been honourable, though she did wish she had been able to show the woman the engraved gold bangle and the necklace of amber beads.
Feeling light as ashes on the wind, she returned home and sent for the trap to be harnessed while she changed into a prettier dress and cape. She intended to visit dear Aunt Jane Gittens and cheer her up in her solitude. Being alone at the Hall with only the enormous Miss Wilks for company must be such a bore.
As it turned out, Aunt Jane was in need of a sympathetic ear. Her prized Siamese cat, Ching, had been missing now for two days and the old lady was distraught at his loss.
‘He can’t be lost, Lily,’ the old lady said, plucking fretfully at her skirts. ‘He’s a very resourceful cat. I’m very much afraid something dreadful has happened to him.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll come back,’ Lily comforted, settling on her usual stool beside the old lady’s chair. ‘Don’t worry, dear Aunt Jane. I shall look for him myself. I shall find him for you.’
The servants had been searching, too – a small staff had been left to care for Miss Gittens, the rest being divided between the London town house, where Oliver Clare was staying, and the rented house in Yorkshire to which Mrs Clare and Clemency had departed.
‘You will have heard the gossip, no doubt,’ Aunt Jane said. ‘They gave out that she was ill and had to convalesce, but you know the truth – she was discovered boating on the river – with a young man.’
‘Yes.’ Lily was glad Aunt Jane couldn’t see her face, which would surely have betrayed her.
‘Foolish child to be so indiscreet,’ Aunt Jane said. ‘But then – unlike you, dear Lily – Clemency was never the most biddable of girls. Any more than Dickon is the most biddable of young men. He’s supposed to be here overseeing the estate, but we hardly ever see him. He often stays out all night, though…’ Sighing, she shook her head. ‘What can I do? Letitia’s children are both so wilful. And now to lose my darling Ching…’
Miss Wilks looked up from her embroidery. ‘They’ve no right to expect her to worry about Mr Dickon. It’s making her ill. If you’re writing to them, Miss Clare, I hope you’ll say so.’
‘Yes,’ Lily said at once, laying a hand on Aunt Jane’s. ‘Yes, I shall tell them. Perhaps they’ll send for Dickon to come and join them, or tell him to go to his papa in London.’ Somehow she didn’t think Dickon would be wanted in Yorkshire. Not until Clemency’s problem had been dispensed with. Oh, she couldn’t bear to think about it, it made her want to scream. She jumped up. ‘I’ll go and look for Ching, shall I? Oh, yes, I shall. He’ll be frantic by now. If he’s shut in somewhere, I shall hear him crying.’
Searching the house gave her something to occupy her mind. She didn’t want to think about Clemency and Ashton now, not when she’d been feeling so happy. Ash was lost to her, but there would be other young men – more handsome, more noble – once she came into her true heritage. The gypsy had promised, Your heart’s desire…
There was no sign of the cat, though she looked in every room that lay open to her, in closets and cupboards and behind curtains, working through the house until she came to one of the rear passageways. The door of the gun-room stood ajar. Lily pushed it further and went in, calling, ‘Puss, puss, puss, puss,’ before she smelled cigar smoke and realised someone was there before her.
Dickon Clare was dressed for riding, his gingerish-fair hair tousled. In his fingers was poised a cheroot whose aromatic smoke twined enquiringly towards Lily as if it were alive.
‘Why, Lily Vee,’ he greeted. ‘What a delightful surprise. Do come in.’
‘I was… looking for Aunt Jane’s cat.’ She glanced around the room, seeing on the table a new shotgun and oily rags, a box of cartridges open beside it. Reminded of the way Dickon had blasted the pheasant at her feet, Lily said uncertainly, ‘Well…’
As she backed for the door, Dickon moved quicker, barring her way, still smiling. ‘Don’t go, Lily dear. Stay and talk to me.’ She instinctively stepped away from him, further into the room, and almost fell over a pair of muddy boots lying on the floor. Dickon stood there, letting smoke trickle from his nostrils as he smiled at her. She had never liked him. Now she feared him.
‘You had better let me go, Dickon,’ she said, her attempted firmness marred by the tremor in her voice.
‘Let you go? But, my dear Lily, what can you mean? I only wish to apologise for the nuisance Torrance and I made of ourselves at your party. Truth to tell, we were a little the worse for drink. But I’m sorry for it. Wouldn’t have embarrassed you for worlds.’
‘Then you should never have come.’
‘Indeed. It was a little inconsiderate of us.’ His smile deepened as he began to stroll towards her. ‘At your birthday party, too. How old have you become, suddenly? Eighteen? My, how time does pass.’ He looked her over in a predatory fashion that sent goosepimples along her skin.
Lily stood uncertainly, her pulse quickening until she could feel it throbbing in her throat. Under his sensual blue gaze her whole body seemed to have come alive with awareness. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I—’
‘I let the cat out,’ Dickon said
with an indolent gesture. ‘Blasted thing was at the french window, yowling to get out. So I let it go. Pity not to let it use its killer instinct for a while, eh?’ Now his grin looked wolfish. ‘Cats can fend for themselves. And they have nine lives. While you and I, Lily my dear, have only one. Surely you can spare me five minutes of yours?’
‘For what?’
‘Why…’ He ground his cheroot into an ash tray on the table. ‘To get better acquainted, of course.’
When he stepped closer, Lily backed off, awaiting her chance to slip past him. Most of her was terrified. But some deep, errant part of her was curious, a little excited. And that alarmed her even more. How could she even think of Dickon in that way? She feared and detested him. Yet he was a man. He might supply the answers to…
She gasped as her back encountered the edge of one of the gun cases. She edged sideways, slipping into a gap between two cases, up against the wall. With nowhere to go.
‘What is it you’re afraid of?’ he asked, faintly teasing, faintly triumphant. ‘Come, Lily Vee, let’s be friends.’
‘Don’t call me that!’
‘Why not? It’s fondly meant. We all refer to you as Lily Vee, didn’t you know?’ He lifted a hand, touching her face with fingers that smelled of tobacco smoke. She felt as if she were choking.
‘I should like to leave,’ she managed. ‘Please, Dickon—’
‘Hush!’ The fingers moved across her cheek, his eyes following the movement, touching her lower lip.
So she bit him. She grabbed his hand and sank her teeth into his thumb until she fancied she felt bone crunch. He cried aloud, swore obscenely, and jerked away – far enough for Lily to dart past him and run for the door just as it opened and the butler said: ‘Excuse me, Mr Dickon, sir, but—’ He goggled at Lily as she pushed him aside and fled.
A stable lad was in the courtyard, watering Lily’s pony, Greyman. She didn’t even give him time to put down the bowl but leapt up to the seat, gathered the reins and was away, hating Dickon Clare with all her heart. Hating herself, too, because there was a familiar throbbing in her body and she knew that as soon as she got home she’d have to shut herself in her room and try to soothe that ache. But it would not be Dickon she was thinking of. It would be Ash. Faithless, dissolute, deceiving Ash…
She drove at haste over the bridge, her bonnet flying off and bobbing on its ribbons behind her nape. But the fresh air helped to calm her. She was more under control as she made down the drive, allowing the pony to slow to an easy trot while she began to plot vengeance on Dickon. He would be sorry for what he’d done. When her real father came, soon now…
She had utterly forgotten about the lost cat until she saw something dart across the drive into the undergrowth and spreading trees that veiled the ruin that had once been Syderford Manor. Ching! She slowed Greyman to a walk. Was that where the cat was hiding, somewhere in the ruin of the old house?
Leaving the pony tethered to a branch, Lily picked up her skirts and ventured in among the undergrowth, where the remains of a path led to the ivy-grown frontage of the old house, its windows broken or missing, the left wing torn ragged where the stone had been removed for use in the new house. She’d always had the feeling that Syderford Manor might be haunted, but on this bright day the shades were sleeping. Consciously daring, a pulse beating heavily in her throat, Lily approached the main door.
She was vaguely surprised to find the door locked, obliging her to enter through a window whose lower panes were all smashed, with leaves lying dry on the bare board floor of what had once been an elegant room. Leaves, and bird droppings. There was even a dead bird. Newly dead – Ching’s work, by the looks of it. Grimacing her distaste, Lily ventured further.
‘Here, Ching. Here, Ching! Puss, puss, puss…’
The further door opened into a hallway, where stairs curved upwards into dusty gloom. Was it only five years since she had sat on these stairs and watched Ash and Dickon in the hall below?
Slowly, Lily began to climb, remembering occasions when she had been in this house believing she was accepted as a member of the family. These last few months had proved to her how wrong she had been. Well, it didn’t matter. Soon her real father would set everything right for her. The gypsy had promised.
Hearing a sound below, she froze, then snapped her head round to look down into the hall. A shaft of misty sunlight penetrated from somewhere overhead, dancing with dust motes, making the rest of the hallway momentarily hazy before her eyes adjusted and she saw the figure standing there dressed in riding breeches and fitted coat. For a second she fancied it was Dickon come after her, then, disbelievingly, she recognised Ashton Haverleigh.
‘Forgive me,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I saw the trap and wondered who could be here.’
Ashton! As she felt the blood drain from her head, her hand stretched out to grasp the banister for support.
Ash took a step nearer to the foot of the stairs, his fair head tipped back as he looked up at her. ‘Miss Clare? Are you unwell? You look so pale. Why…’ He began to mount the stairs. ‘You’re trembling. Are you ill? What’s wrong, Miss Clare?’
‘Don’t come any closer!’
He stopped, frowning at her. ‘You’re not afraid of me, are you?’
In front of Lily’s eyes rose a vision of Clemency’s face, contorted with hatred as she spat, I’m pregnant. And you know whose baby it will be.
‘No, I’m not afraid of you,’ she denied, though her feelings did include an element of fear. Mostly she felt sick – sick with bitter disappointment at the way he had betrayed all her dreams. ‘The truth is, Mr Haverleigh, I hate you! I hate you!’
The force of her words made him back off a step, staring at her with narrowed eyes. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Lily repeated in a voice that shook. ‘Because I know the truth about you, Mr Haverleigh. I know how you treated Clemency. You led her on. You used her, and then you abandoned her – to bear your child, alone and in disgrace.’
He regarded her strangely, his eyes wide and dark. ‘Who says so?’
‘She said so!’
‘Then she’s mistaken.’
‘Mistaken?’ She almost choked on her disgust. ‘Mr Haverleigh, that… that’s a disgraceful thing to say. It’s unworthy of you. No lady would lie about such a thing.’
‘But a gentleman would? Is that what you’re implying, Miss Clare?’
‘Yes!’
‘Thank you!’ His lip curled as he drew a deep breath and quietly, furiously, he said, ‘I appreciate this demonstration of your true opinion of me. However, since my good name appears to be at stake, let me assure you, Miss Clare, that I do not recall a single occasion when I have been alone with Miss Clemency Clare for even a moment. Perhaps you should report the matter to the bishop. Evidently a miracle has taken place – a second immaculate conception!’
Seventeen
He descended the stairs with swift dignity, two at a time, then strode across the hall, boots loud on bare boards, and pushed open the door to the morning room so violently that it slammed back into the wall. Hearing the bang echo through the house, Lily winced and, driven by distress, fled on up the stairs and through the first open doorway she came to.
It had been a bedroom. Now it was dark, the shutter closed across the tall window with faint gleams of light showing only emptiness – though somehow a rug had been left by the hearth, and near it a worn armchair. On the chair, something moved, and mewed.
‘Ching! Oh… Ching…’ Lily threw herself down, her head in her arms as she leaned on the chair, and wept.
She never knew how much time passed; it might have been a minute or an hour before she heard the step in the doorway. She stifled her sobs, but kept her face hidden, not caring who had come to find her, whether it was Dickon, or some village urchin – she was too unhappy to care.
A hand touched her shoulder, caressing and comforting her. ‘Lily… dear girl, we can’t go on with so many misunderstanding
s between us.’
Ashton’s voice, sounding tender and regretful. What had he said? Misunderstandings? Lily forced her aching head to lift, blinking at him through her tears, unable to see him clearly in the twilight of a room lit only by fitful gleams through cracks in the shutters.
‘Clemency lied,’ he said firmly. ‘Believe me… Clemency Clare would lie about anything that suited her whim. Though why she should have told you such a terrible thing I do not know. Is she having a child?’
Lily bit her lip, not knowing what to make of this. She felt so confused…
Sighing, Ash sat himself down beside her on the dusty floor. ‘Why was she expelled from school?’
‘It…’ She licked her dry lips and swallowed to clear her throat, though her voice was still croaky. ‘It was a silly indiscretion. She slipped away from us during an outing, on the day of the Procession of Boats. She was found, later, with—’
‘Found in a punt, with a man,’ he finished for her. ‘Yes, I heard that story, too – from Dickon.’ As a stray thought intruded, he paused to study her tear-blotched face. ‘Were you there, at the Procession? I was one of the oarsmen, in the third crew.’
‘Yes, I saw you.’ She flushed as she remembered the sight he had made in his close-fitting rowing costume, his body tall and lithe. So male… It had made her think shocking, intimate thoughts. The same thoughts came again now, beckoned by his nearness.
He turned towards her, kneeling, eager. ‘Was it the truth? About the student and the punt? Let us be honest with each other.’ His dark glance caressed her face, settling on her lips with almost the intimacy of a kiss. ‘What did Clemency tell you?’
Unable to repeat the calumny, she stroked the cat which still sat on the chair in front of her, stirring sensuously under her hands.