by Mary Mackie
Jess glanced away, her eye lighting on another portrait on the nearer wall, this one a dazzling picture of Lily posing in flamboyant gypsy costume, dripping with gold beads, bangles, earrings. Lily as Jess had never seen her, confident and arrogant, her raven hair flowing in wild curls about bare shoulders, her red mouth smiling and provocative, her eyes challenging. Brown eyes – had the artist corrected that little error of nature? The picture was Lily… and yet not Lily. A strange, alien Lily. Striking though the picture was, Jess found it somehow repulsive.
‘When did she sit for this?’
He was taking something from the mantelpiece, something that he secreted in his hand as he looked round, looked at the picture and back at Jess with inscrutable eyes.
‘Before I knew her,’ he said.
Before… what did he mean? Hadn’t he known Lily all her life?
Still carrying the baby in capable, loving hands, he came closer, his eyes on the portrait. ‘It was painted by a friend of mine. He fell in love with her, too. When I saw the picture I was captivated. I had to meet her. She was even more desirable in the flesh. Such darkness. Such fire. I believe I would have married her. I was mad enough to do anything for her. But she laughed. She didn’t want to be tied down by the sort of life I had to lead. At the end of the summer she vanished, and left me desolate.’
He was not talking about Lily.
Something with the chill of the grave touched Jess’s spine and turned her flesh clammy.
‘I gave her this,’ he said, and held out his hand. On the palm lay the gold bangle which had been left with the baby Lilith – the bracelet with the word MIZPAH inscribed on it, and the initials ‘R’ and ‘S’. ‘Her name,’ he said, ‘was Sheba – Bathsheba.’
‘No!’ Denying the terrible thing he was saying, she lashed out and caught his hand, sending the bracelet spinning through the air to fall on the rumpled bed. ‘No!’
‘I’m sorry, Jess, but it’s so. The gypsy Bathsheba and I were lovers, one idyllic summer. I was nineteen years old and insane with desire. And then she disappeared. Totally. I was so distraught that my parents sent me abroad and there I stayed for three years, until my older brother’s death forced me back to marry my cousin Maud and try to carry on the Fyncham name here. I heard, of course, about the child left on the rectory doorstep, but I thought little of it, I certainly never dreamed she might be my child. But there was something about her. That dark loveliness… those flawed, beautiful eyes… that sweet vulnerability… I watched her grow, and I fell in love with her, Jess. I couldn’t help myself.’
Jess was backing away, not wanting to hear any more but unable to escape, not when he had Little Matty in his arms, holding him securely, almost hostage, forcing Jess to listen though her head shook from side to side.
‘I swear to you I didn’t know she was my daughter until the year she finished school. Then Sheba came back.’ Remembering it, his eyes clouded. ‘A changed Sheba. Changed by being mangled under a cart and mistreated by her various menfolk. She’d suffered a great deal – not least because she’d given birth to a Gorgio’s child afflicted with the devil’s mark – her own people would have killed the baby, that’s why she left her here… It was only then, when Sheba returned, when Lily was eighteen, that I knew she was my child. You must believe that, Jess. Sheba came back and asked me to take care of our daughter. And I tried to. I tried!’
His face was bleak. He looked older than his years, a haunted man. ‘By then it was too late. By then, I had grown to love Lily as a man loves a woman, not as a father his child. I tried to resist, but… I loved her. I wanted her. And she loved me, too! Jess, have you never known what it can be like to want someone so badly you can think of nothing else… To lie awake at night… to spend your days in a haze… I had to be with her! Don’t you understand that?’
Jess shivered, feeling sickness swell inside her. ‘You… you were her father! All her life she’d longed for her real father. She dreamed that when he came everything would be all right. He’d sweep her away somewhere wonderful, take care of her, make everything good…’
That was what had happened at the end! Lily had come running home to be with the man she loved, only to learn this final, unspeakable secret – that her lover was her longed-for ‘real’ father. That knowledge had been too much for her to bear. Her one last dream, her dearest dream, had been destroyed. Oh, Lily… dear, bruised, damaged Lily…
‘I’ll take the baby,’ Jess got out. ‘I’ll take him and we’ll—’
‘No, you won’t.’
He pushed her aside as he passed her, heading for the door. Jess stepped on one of the shoes he’d left on the floor and it turned under her heel, sending her sprawling. By the time she righted herself, Richard Fyncham and Matty had gone. What did the old man plan to do with that child? Dear Lord…
Frightened now, her ankle hurting, she wrenched open the door, only to be confronted by the back of the outer door, whose catch was cunningly contrived and defeated her for what seemed minutes. She had to get Matty! If some harm came to him… At last her anxious fingers solved the mechanism. The heavy door, with books stacked on its shelves, swung inward, letting her back into the library. It was empty, but another corner door, diagonally opposite this one, stood ajar.
Jess hobbled across to it and found herself in an empty cupboard with a side panel swinging open, revealing a narrow flight of stairs like the ones on the ground floor that ran up to the gallery. These stairs, though, as she discovered when she opened the panel at the top, came out in the attics, in a corner of the schoolroom right next to the door of what had once been Lily’s room. Was that how the squire had come to Lily’s bed without anyone knowing? Creeping up these stairs… Oh, shameful. Sinful!
But in Lily’s mind, she knew, that love had been something wonderful. Her journals had been full of joy when she wrote about Richard. They had loved each other, right or wrong, and now Jess tried not to judge. She herself had been so lucky, to have Reuben.
The schoolroom remained much as she remembered, except that it was dusty and cobwebbed. Had Hammond Fyncham Stroud, Bella’s boy, ever played here? But there was no time to wonder, not with the dormer window wide open and Sir Richard just finishing climbing through on to the roof balcony, taking her precious little man with him. The roof! Oh, dear Lord, please…
In her haste, Jess barked her shin on the sill and stumbled down the last step outside, lurching to grab at the stone parapet to save herself from falling full length. ‘Please!’ she gasped. ‘Sir Richard…’
He was standing peacefully holding the baby, pointing out things in the park – the trees, the grazing cattle, the tower of the church…
‘Give him to me!’ Jess cried.
He looked at her, and she saw that his eyes were wet, filled with deep sadness. ‘Do you think I could harm him, Jess? Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh. My grandson and my great-grandson all in one. You haven’t been listening! You can’t see beyond your petty, moralising, little Methodist mind. I loved Lily. I loved her in all the ways a man can love a woman. I loved her long before I knew she was my daughter, and I couldn’t stop loving her. Yes, it was wrong. You may think it was a sin, but it didn’t seem that way to me. Not when I was with her. My stupidity…’ He pressed his lips to the baby’s head in tender agony. ‘My stupidity was in telling her, in expecting her to understand. She was so young, so trusting. I should have married her and let her go on trusting me.’
‘Don’t say that! That’s… wicked!’
‘Why is it?’ he asked savagely. ‘She would have stayed with me, then. She would still be here, where she belonged – here in the home she always dreamed of finding one day. Instead of which… she died, all too soon, and I have spent my life alone, knowing that I killed her. They’ve all gone – all the ones I loved best. And what do I have left, Jess – what? Nothing except the knowledge of eternal damnation waiting for me because I loved the wrong woman. My daughter. My beautiful, beloved Lily.’ Over the child’
s fluffy dark head, he stared at Jess in anguish. ‘Do you believe I could harm all that is left of her – this precious scrap of humanity who is as dear to me as he is to you? I want to acknowledge him as my grandson. I want to name him as my heir. It will be no surprise – after Lily died many people suspected the truth. She was my mistress. She was my love and she bore my child. Let the world know that. The rest… The rest only you and I know, Jess. I shall never tell. Will you?’
Along the main drive a car was coming, making heavy way over the ruts, its engine sounding louder as it wound between the twin elms.
‘This will be my solicitor,’ Sir Richard said. ‘I asked him to come, to bring the draft of a new will. I hoped you might witness it for me. I intend to name Matthew Henry Henefer, my grandson, as my heir, through Jabez, my natural son by Lily Henefer. He can live here at Hewinghall, if that seems right – he, and his mother, will be welcome. And you, and Rudd, may visit all you please. Or take him back to Lynn, if you will. I shall provide for his education, to be sure he’s fitted for the life he was born to.’ Fixing her with those clear, compelling eyes, he added, ‘I shall do this, Jess, whether you will it or no. One day, he will own Hewinghall. That is his right and due.’
Jess leaned on the parapet, feeling dizzy, trying to think.
‘So…’ he said as the car drew nearer, ‘what will you do? Will you keep my dark secret for me? Will you forget, for Matty’s sake? Or will you tell him the truth and damn him for the rest of his life – as Lily was damned?’
Looking at the bright-eyed child as he grabbed for Sir Richard’s collar, trying to chew it, she knew she couldn’t condemn Matty to knowing the whole, shameful truth. Illegitimacy was bad enough; incest was… unspeakable. So she wouldn’t speak of it. What would be the point, except to inflict yet more hurt? Enough damage had been done. Enough lives destroyed.
The car was near now, coming up the last hundred yards. In the courtyard below, Longman was opening the gate to let the vehicle in. And, from the opposite direction, from the west lodge, a man and a woman came walking – she slenderly curved, with long brown hair blowing under a little hat, clinging to the arm of her escort, an older man, sturdy, supportive… Jess’s heart leapt at the sight.
‘Who’s that?’ Sir Richard asked.
‘It’s Reuben. And Bessy, my niece – Matty’s mother. They walked round by the coast road because Reuben wanted to look at the woods and call in at Park Lodge to see Dolly Gooden. They said they’d meet me here.’
‘Then we’d better go down and join them,’ Sir Richard said.
About the Author
Mary Mackie is an English writer of over 70 fiction and non-fiction books since 1971. Work of hers has been translated into 20 languages. She is known especially for light-hearted accounts of life looking after a country house for the National Trust.
Also by Mary Mackie
Sandringham Rose
The Clouded Land
A Child of Secrets
First published in the United Kingdom in 1993 by Headline Book Publishing, UK
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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United Kingdom
Copyright © Mary Mackie, 1993
The moral right of Mary Mackie to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781800324985
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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