by Mary Mackie
‘He can’t marry you!’ The frantic whisper burst out of Lily before she could stop it. ‘He’s going to marry me! He said so. He said…’ The words trailed off as she saw her own horror and dawning comprehension mirrored in Clemency.
They had both been used, both lied to. Both of them had trusted Ashton Haverleigh.
‘He’s mine!’ Clemency spat, her blue eyes bright with terror. Her gloved hand came up and struck Lily’s cheek with the swiftness of a snake. ‘He promised me!’
Lily stared at her, soothing her cheek. The blow hadn’t been hard. What hurt most was that it had happened at all. Brokenly, she breathed, ‘He promised me, too. Oh, Clemency…’
‘Stay away from me!’ Clemency recoiled from the hand held out in sympathy, spots of bright colour on her cheeks making her look like a painted doll, except that no doll ever had such pain in its eyes. ‘Stay away from us both. I never want to see you again. Damn you, Lily, I knew you’d ruin everything for me if you could. You knew he was mine. You’ve always wanted everything I ever had. Well, you’re not having Ash. If you ever say anything… If you ever come near us…’
Lily was blinded by her tears. She didn’t see Clemency leave.
But she heard the latest arrivals announced: ‘Mr and Mrs Oliver Clare… the Honourable Ashton Haverleigh and…’
* * *
Lily found herself outside, in a night still haunted by sea-fret. The world looked strange and ghostly, lit by silver moonlight that spread through the mist from above. The mist now lay only some eight or ten feet deep. It was ebbing, like a tide.
Guided by that strange unearthly light, Lily started to walk along the drive, not knowing where she was going until she realised her feet were taking her to the rectory, to old familiar hiding places where she could huddle and nurse her wounds.
She couldn’t think clearly. She could only see Clemency’s face, pale blue eyes and spots of colour on alabaster cheeks. He’s mine! Stay away! Oh God. Oh, God!
She walked on, holding her rustling skirts clear of the ground, not even aware of the cool, damp cling of the mist that laid a fine dew on her clothes and hair. At last she came to the gate of the rectory garden and made round the house, towards the old shrubbery. No one would ever find her inside its tented branches. Perhaps Gyp would come and keep her company, as he had so often. It was their secret place. Theirs alone. Except… except that she had shared it with Ash! How could she ever feel the same about the hiding place now that—
As she came round the corner of the house she stopped, startled by a blur of bright lamplight behind the mist. Someone was at the side door – two male figures, in dark clothes and caps, one tall and thin, the other also tall, but broader – Lily thought she ought to know him but couldn’t place him. Eliza was in the doorway, taking charge of the bundles the men were bringing.
Lily drew back, into the shadow cast by the wall, her slipper scraping on a stone. The small noise sounded loud in the night.
‘Sssh!’ The thinner man glanced behind him at the crowding darkness.
‘You’re jumpy tonight,’ Eliza observed. ‘There en’t nothin’ there. Won’t be nobody back from the ball for hours yet – ’less Miss Peartree have one o’ her turns.’
‘Thought I heard something.’
‘Like what?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Not a dog barkin’?’ she enquired, and laughed. ‘Don’t say you’re gettin’ a conscience in your old age, Jim Potts.’
The bigger man said sourly, ‘That en’t funny, ’Liza.’
‘En’t it? Well, that make me laugh. I warned that primmickin’ little diddicoy by-blow I’d do for her if she crossed me.’
‘Don’t you talk about her in that manner!’ the big man warned. ‘You’re jealous is all.’
‘Jealous? Just ’cause you’ve gone shanny over her? Oh… clear you off, both of you, ’fore Reuben Rudd do come after you. He’re already suspicious. If he catch you here, he’ll know what’s to do, whatever story I tricolate for him.’
As she turned back into the house, the two men set off in opposite directions. One of them made away into the garden, heading for the far gate; the larger of the two headed straight for Lily, a big dark figure against a bloom of light in the second before Eliza shut the door.
Lily froze, backed up against the rough coldness of the wall, terrified as a cornered rabbit.
The man’s heavy footsteps stopped. He was peering into the darkness, listening. Had he seen Lily in that moment before the light died? ‘Who’s that?’ he muttered in an undertone, as if he didn’t want his confederate to hear. ‘Who’s there?’
Cowering away, Lily stopped her mouth with her hands, hoping he might go by without seeing her.
The man took another step, his boots gritting on the path. ‘Miss Lily? Is that you, Miss Lily?’
Lily couldn’t bear it. She turned and ran.
The man came after her. He caught her before she reached the gate, his hands coming hard and heavy on her. Lily let out a shriek, but the man’s horny hand clamped over her mouth as he held her back against him and the scent of dead pheasants and wet woods assailed her nostrils.
‘Miss Lily!’ the breathless mutter came in her ear. ‘Miss Lily, don’t be afeared. That’s on’y me. It’s Matty. Matty Henefer. Jess’s brother. Be still now. Don’t cry out. If them Pottses hear us—’
Lily stopped struggling and, slowly, Matty let her go. She threw herself round to face him, though she couldn’t see him properly for the maze of shadows. What had he said? Jess’s brother? The one who’d been in Hunstanton that day? Of course, that was where she’d seen the gardener Henefer before.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, keeping her voice low.
‘I was a-goin’ to ax the same of you. Lor’, Miss Lily, you hen’t got no shawl nor nothin’. Whatever have happened? You’re all a-shiver. Here, take my coat.’
‘I don’t want your coat!’ But as he laid it round her shoulders she was glad of its warmth and drew it closer round her. The world seemed to have gone mad; she couldn’t make sense of anything. ‘You’re always watching me, following me. I’ve seen you! What is it you want?’
‘Right now, miss,’ said Matty, ‘I reckon what I want is to get you safely home.’
Home? Lily thought dully. Where was that? She had no home any more.
But having no energy to argue, she let Matty lay his arm around her shoulders and together they made for the big house…
Twenty-Two
After the night of the ball, when he’d learned what had happened to Gyp, and when he’d brought Lily home safely, Matty ended his association with the Pottses. He moved out of Mrs Kipps’s cottage and took rooms with a fisher family in Martham, much to Jess’s relief. It was one bright spot in a winter that stretched into one of the dreariest she had known. At times she thought spring might never come.
The life of the big house went on, but in the nursery disconsolation held sway: Bella wasn’t well, suffering from coughs and colds, and Jess herself was sad, missing Reuben Rudd, listening for every word of gossip about him and grieving when someone said he’d been seen walking Eliza Potts home from chapel; but the main source of the darkness was in Lily. She was little more than a shadow, quietly going about her life.
Quietly – that was the disturbing thing. Lily had never been quiet for long; she was naturally exuberant, both in joy and in distress. Now she was like a mouse. She never sang, or laughed, or cried – not in front of Jess, anyway. It was because of Mr Haverleigh, Jess guessed.
Gossip had whispered many different tales about Clemency Clare’s absence. Now it had as many opinions about her sudden return. Only Lily had nothing to say on the subject. Whatever the truth, the fact was that Miss Clare announced her engagement to Ashton Haverleigh only a day or two after the Belladay Ball. The wedding was to take place at Christmastide, the first service to be celebrated in the newly refurbished church at Syderford. And, though Lily wouldn’t talk about it, Jess knew
that the coming wedding was a prime cause of her melancholy.
Another cause was the loss of Gyp. Learning that her pet was dead seemed to have been the last straw for Lily. She had lost everything – home, family, lover, position in life, and now her pet. So she gave up fighting and accepted her fate. She devoted all her time and attention to Bella, organising lessons and pastimes to keep the sickly child occupied. But it was all done dutifully, without any of her usual ebullience. She didn’t even complain when Lady Maud sent a bolt of grey cloth up to the nursery suite. Instead, she helped Jess to cut out and sew some plain dresses which she then took to wearing constantly – she who had sworn she would never wear grey.
Jess fretted about her, but Lily was shut in with her grief and wouldn’t talk about it. She didn’t even tell her secrets to her journal; during those months the only entries were sketchy notes and reminders, not the usual outpouring of all her deepest hopes and wishes and despairs.
The two young women did, however, have one conversation which stuck in Jess’s memory. One evening, as they sat sewing by candlelight, Lily said, ‘It takes nine months for a baby to come, doesn’t it?’
Jess started, glancing covertly at her friend’s slender figure. For a moment she feared… then she remembered that Lily’s ‘curse’ had come last week, on schedule; Jess had found the bloody rags soaking in their usual bucket. ‘That’s what they reckon.’
‘Is it always nine months? I mean… how long is it before you realise you’re that way? When does it start to show?’
She questioned Jess closely on the time-scale of pregnancy and Jess realised she must be thinking of Clemency. In June, Clemency had declared herself pregnant; in September she returned as if nothing had happened, except that she was thinner, and high-strung, from all accounts. Whatever had happened, the three months had not been easy.
‘’Course,’ Jess said slowly. ‘Things do go wrong, ’times.’
Lily’s head came up sharply, candleflame dancing in her narrowed eyes. ‘For instance?’
‘Could be the little ’un come too soon, afore that’s ready. So that miscarry, or gets born dead – stillborn, they say. And… ’times when the baby en’t wanted for some reason, well…’
‘Well?’
‘Well… there’s ways.’
Catching her breath, Lily threw down her sewing. ‘Tell me!’
Jess looked down at her work, pulling it to straighten the seam. ‘You can get it cut out of you,’ she said bluntly. ‘There’s women as’ll do that, for a price. If you hen’t got the price, then…’ Her flesh turned cold as she remembered – her mother hadn’t had the price. ‘Then you can do it yourself.’
‘How?’
‘There’s ways,’ Jess said, her throat clogged with awful memories. ‘That’s dangerous, though. That don’t alluss work. You can hurt yourself bad. Even kill yourself.’ She was staring into the past, seeing again the blood glistening in the lamplight, and her mother so pale, trying to smile, whispering, ‘Forgive me, Jess.’
Because of Merrywest. Merrywest! God damn his evil soul.
Lily stared at her, inwardly squirming. She only half understood what Jess was saying, but it sickened her. Clemency would never have tried to kill her child. Would she?
Lily shook herself; she couldn’t bear to think about it. Whatever had happened, Clemency was a ruined woman now, her reputation in tatters; no decent man would want a wife with such a history. So Ash was obliged to marry her, to ‘make an honest woman of her’, because he was the one who had debauched her. There was no doubt of it. It was the only explanation. Whether he loved Clemency or not, his family, and the Clares, had forced him to do the honourable thing.
Honourable! That was a fine word. The Honourable Ashton Haverleigh had proved himself nothing but a heartless, deceiving liar.
Though she sometimes wept at night her tears were more for her own stupidity than for love betrayed; she saw now what a fool she had been, enamoured of a dream, letting it blind her to the reality of the man. But she sorely missed the dream. And she sorely missed the comforts of loving.
* * *
After a while, when Nanny’s room had been redecorated with sprigged wallpaper and brown paint, Lily moved in there, across the far side of the schoolroom. Jess missed the company; already out of favour in the servants’ hall, she’d come to enjoy her closeness with Lily, but now she was alone again after she went to bed.
Lily felt lonely too, and nervous. At first she found it hard to sleep; she kept hearing noises, covert footsteps and breathing. Sometimes she thought she was being watched.
‘Oh, that’s just this old house,’ Jess said. ‘That do creak and groan and sigh to itself.’
‘Yes,’ Lily would say gravely, ‘of course,’ though she was convinced the noises had other causes. In the evenings, after the lamps were lit, any slight sound would make her start and peer into dark corners. She was haunted by the tale of the dead heir, young Harry Fyncham, and by thoughts of Nanny dying all alone in that same room where she herself now slept.
The room was fresh and clean now. Mrs Roberts had found some nice pieces of furniture for her to use; Lily’s own belongings made it homely, and Jess’s needle had added prettiness in new curtains and bedcovers. But Lily still felt it was Nanny’s room, not hers. Though that awful smell had gone, at times Lily fancied a whiff of it lingered.
* * *
In November, Reverend Hugh Clare left Hewing for his new post in York. Though Lily affected not to care, that parting was another wrench. She went several times to the rectory to collect the rest of her belongings, packing them herself, refusing to allow Eliza anywhere near her. Eliza and her brother had killed Gyp – Lily knew it, but she was helpless to do anything about it. Every time she visited that sad little grave, in the place she thought of as ‘the heart of the wood’, where Rudd had erected a wooden cross carved with Gyp’s name, Lily sat and numbly wondered what further wounds life could deal her.
As her adoptive father took his final leave of her, he presented her with twenty pounds, ‘to tide you over. However, after this I expect you to stand on your own feet, as many young women of humble birth are obliged to do. You have been fortunate, Lily Victoria. I hope you will remember that, and not call further on me – or on my nephew and his family.’
He was disowning her, abandoning her, but that came as no surprise. She was a foundling brat who had proved herself a disloyal, ungrateful, recalcitrant daughter – and who, moreover, had become an embarrassment because of her open admiration for a man who was soon to become her cousin’s husband. The Clares had closed ranks to exclude her.
She had thought she was beyond hurt. But the pain went on.
The Dunnocks, Peter and his mother, soon moved into the rectory and, since they brought with them the housemaid they had employed for years, they dispensed with Eliza’s services. Jess and Lily thought this a fitting end for Eliza until, to their astonishment, she was taken on as head laundry maid at the big house. Reverend Clare had organised the move, it seemed, and written a glowing reference extolling the maid’s virtues. Since she went home every night, the new job did keep her well away from the nursery, but it didn’t stop her spreading her vitriol, repeating and enlarging on slanders against Lily and Jess and dropping hints about Matty, too. The Pottses didn’t believe in forgiveness – once they found an enemy, he remained an enemy.
Jess couldn’t believe that the rector had so highly recommended a maid whom he knew to be bone idle, disrespectful and unreliable. But when she mentioned it to Miss Peartree that lady refused to discuss it – indeed, she seemed embarrassed by the whole business – and Lily only shook her head and made a pale smile: when her whole world had gone awry, what did one more stupidity matter?
The departure of Reverend Clare did, however, bring one or two small blessings. When the squire heard that Miss Peartree had nowhere to go, he invited her to become his tenant in Park Lodge – the house he had intended for Nanny – and he kindly asked only a minimum r
ent in keeping with the small income Miss Peartree received from a legacy. Lily and Bella often walked to the lodge of an afternoon, when the weather allowed, and sometimes Miss Peartree came up to share a nursery tea. She employed little Dolly Upton as her maid-of-all-work and the two got along happily. Thanks to the squire, the old lady looked forward to ending her days in tolerable ease.
Another unexpected comfort for Lily was her rediscovery of the old, faded rush basket in which she had been found as a baby on the doorstep. She kept it by her, using it for her sewing, and though the gold bangle was too precious to wear often she did put on her string of amber beads now and then. They were a link with her real parents, especially the father she had so long looked for.
With so many dreams shattered, she knew that this one too might turn out a fantasy, but she couldn’t let it go entirely. The amber beads were a symbol of that last, tiny, flickering hope. ‘Your heart’s desire,’ the gypsy had promised and, after all, her very oldest, dearest wish was to find her real father.
* * *
On the Monday before Christmas, Hewinghall held its Servants’ Ball. The occasion followed the pattern of the Belladay Ball, being held in the great hall, with the same orchestra engaged. Everyone who worked for the estate, in whatever capacity, had been invited.
Although Lily had donated one of her own dresses to be made-over to fit Jess, when the day arrived Jess decided not to attend. She didn’t feel comfortable with the other servants any more; since Eliza had joined the household the atmosphere below stairs had become even more chilly – Merrywest had started the decay and now Eliza was continuing it. ‘No smoke without fire’ seemed to be the general opinion, though there were a few who still supported Jess, including George the footman and Mrs Roberts, who had warmed again to Jess because she had soon seen through Eliza and wished she had never let the squire persuade her to find the girl a job. Eliza was good at bossing the others around, not so good at turning her own hands to useful work, and she was a disruptive influence. Mrs Roberts had remarked one day in Jess’s hearing, ‘I really can’t understand what Mr Rudd sees in that girl. It’s not like him to be so blind.’