Heritage of Shame

by Meg Hutchinson

  ‘If leaving this house without the telling of it be what your mind is saying be unfair, then it be right.’ Unity set the wrapped bundle on the table. ‘But it would be just as unfair on my part to let you go thinking you have to remain in it… you be free to follow the way of your own choosing. If go you must, then bear in mind what I said to you… hand that child to an institution and I will offer a home to it; they won’t refuse, for the Parish has many poor little waifs and orphans to keep and so will welcome having one go to a good home, one where he will be loved.’

  ‘My aunt knows I am here, she will—’

  ‘Get her arse kicked if her comes here again!’ Unity interrupted, a determined line to her mouth. ‘I’ll be having no truck with that woman and her knows it, so her’ll keep away from Blockall and from this house especially; that being the case it strikes me you’d be better off here than anywhere, besides you’d be doing Laban and me a kindness.’

  Burping loudly the baby brought back a little of the milk Anne had just fed him.

  ‘Pardon you.’ Anne smiled, dabbing at the tiny mouth with the square of cloth placed beneath his chin, but her smile faded as she caught the silvery gleam of tears before Unity turned away. Laying the child in the drawer that was his bed, covering him with a soft blanket, she moved to where the older woman stood beside her work table beneath the window. Were those tears her fault, had she said or done something so hurtful? That was the last thing she would ever want to do. Distress obvious in her voice, Anne spoke quietly.

  ‘Unity, I…’

  But it seemed the woman did not hear. Her gaze fixed beyond the window she murmured to herself.

  ‘’Twere from that very spot I watched. Tall and straight they walked, side by side as they’d always done. Matthew, the eldest, said it were a man’s duty to fight for his country, and Luke… he never was left behind, “Matt did it so I did it” was ever his saying whether it were jumping over the brook or climbing the tallest tree; so it was that day. Down that street they went, every step they took pulling the heart from my body. My boys, my heart and my soul, walking away from me for ever.’

  The photograph stood on the parlour mantel shelf – two young men in soldiers’ uniform – they had to be Matthew and Luke, they had to be Unity’s sons! Realisation filling her with pity, Anne reached her hand to the woman whose sob beat like a single drum.

  ‘They fought brave, so we were told,’ the words went on, heartbreak pouring out in a stream, ‘did their duty. But what good be that to a mother whose arms ache to hold her sons, whose heart cries in the dark hours when her sees them smile, feels her soul call to them as they turn to wave, feels it wither and die inside her as they fade into the night.’

  A terrible shudder shaking her whole body Unity sank to the chair set alongside the work table, covering her face with her apron.

  She had made no mention of her sons until now. Sinking to her knees Anne gently held the sobbing woman. She had listened to the tales of another’s sufferings while speaking no word of her own, saying nothing of the terrible pain tearing inside her; Unity Hurley had comforted and cared for a stranger while all the time she must have thought of her own sons lying dead on some foreign battlefield. No one could give Unity back her children but maybe there was a way to ease a little of the pain. Glancing to where the child lay, Anne whispered against the other woman’s ear, ‘The child which was born in this house let him grow in it. Love him as you loved Matthew and Luke, watch him grow as you watched them, let him be your son.’

  *

  Unity had held her in her arms, their tears flowing together. With the bridle wrapped carefully in the piece of cloth Anne walked along Church Street remembering how they had clung together in a kitchen filled with memories for Unity, memories she would never lose and a sorrow that was deep and raw as it had been all those years ago. It was a sorrow Anne had tried to ease the only way she had known, and though the words had stabbed like a knife she had whispered them, let him be your son.

  She had felt the tremor fly through the woman held in her arms then Unity had put her gently aside, her head shaking, a tremulous smile on her mouth.

  ‘A child has but one mother,’ she had said quietly, ‘they be joined by a thread the strongest of knives can’t break, you know for you feel it. I love the child this house seen born but one broken heart be enough, I would not have you suffer the same; but this I will ask, make your home with Laban and me, let it be as though we were truly grandparents to the boy, to share in his love, to share him with his mother.’

  She had agreed with all her heart. Passing St Lawrence church she felt a shiver run along her spine. Would Quenton Mather try to attack her in the future? Refusing to let apprehension kindle into flame she crossed into King Street, her glance going to the tall chimneys rising to the right. The workhouse! At least that was one worry she would never have again, her child would not endure life there.

  Reaching the saddler’s shop Anne answered the man’s dour remarks on the weather. She had been here several times now, delivering purses and bags stitched by herself and Unity.

  ‘A good bit of work.’ Long grey sideburns almost meeting on his chin, the shopkeeper inspected each piece. ‘But that’s what be ever got from Laban Hurley, don’t let no inferior goods get past his nose; a man can rely on Laban… and seeing the way the world be going it be likely a lot more than one man going to be relying on the stuff produced along of Regency Leather!’

  Asking the meaning of what he had said, Anne felt her chest tighten with the answer. Lifting the flat cap perched on top of iron grey hair, scratching absently at his scalp, he squinted through eyes screwed from working long hours in the shadowed recess of the small shop.

  ‘Don’t you read the newspapers?’ He let the cap drop. ‘But there you go, young wenches don’t have no time for reading of the papers, they be too fond o’ gallivanting about; well, the papers be talking of Kaiser Bill and his struttin’; be like his father afore him do that one, a war mongerer, won’t be satisfied ’til his country and many another along of it be at war!’

  Leaving the shop with its rich smell of leather and polish, Anne breathed deeply, the face of Andrei Yusupov floating in her mind, his words ringing in her brain.

  … with that package goes the peace of nations…

  She had thought it a strange thing to say, but strange as it was it could not mean war… yet Sir Corbett also had referred to such action. The man’s prediction returned, mingling with that already in her brain.

  … the hounds of war are straining at the leash… I fear time is running out for the peace of nations…

  But war! Anne drew another lung filling breath, forcing her mind to order. The thought was inconceivable, the whole idea laughable! Countries would not fight each other ever again, too many hard lessons had been learned in the past, no more would young men such as Unity’s sons be called upon to give their lives; and as for a piece of jewellery, lifeless metal and stone, having anything to do with it… the idea was utterly incongruous!

  The money the shopkeeper had paid bit into her hand, her fingers squeezing into her palm at the words crashing into her mind.

  Evil finds many ways.

  Her father’s words pushed their way past the tumult of thoughts.

  It twists into the heart, whispers its foulness into minds, pours its poison into souls until they become corrupted with its malignancy.

  But evil is the working of the devil, Anne answered in her mind. It is practised through people not through an amulet! A trinket could never carry such power. But even as the thought hurled itself at the others she heard the quiet reply: Evil finds many ways.

  *

  Abel Preston flicked a sideways nod towards a side room, its door tightly closed. ‘Laban is in there. He’s talking with Sir Corbett Foley.’

  ‘Has he come to collect his saddle? I saw some of the work Unity did on it, he will be pleased, I’m certain.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt of it, Laban is the finest craft
sman in the whole area. And this part of the Black Country produces the best leather products to be found anywhere.’

  Abel Preston was proud of Laban’s skills and proud of the trade he himself had been taught. Anne watched him clear a stool of several pieces of dressed hide so she could sit down.

  ‘I think p’raps you should wait here rather than disturb Laban and Sir Corbett.’

  He had glanced at her as he spoke but his eyes had lacked… what? What had she seen in those eyes whenever they had met during the brief years she had lived in Darlaston? Taking the seat cleared for her, Anne strove to see into the past, smiling to herself as she saw the face of a fourteen year old boy laughing up at a small girl caught halfway up a tree, too scared to move another inch.

  ‘What are you doing up there… moppets like you shouldn’t go climbing trees.’

  The boy had smiled as he said it then with all the agility of a leopard had climbed to the side of the frightened child and with infinite care almost carried her down, standing her on the ground, his eyes twinkling as he wiped her tears on a scrap of dirty rag.

  That was what was missing now from his eyes, that was what she had seen in those early years… the gleam of laughter! But it was missing now as it had been missing when Quenton had come sauntering up to that tree. Abel had turned on him, his accusation savage.

  ‘You left her up that tree, didn’t you!’

  The words were so clear and sharp in her mind, Anne glanced towards the figure at the workbench. He might almost have spoken them now, but even as her memory gave the words, the enraged face of Quenton Mather joined the scene playing in her mind, his face dark with anger, his words snapping pompously.

  ‘It has nothing to do with you, nor with any other ragged arsed factory hand, so clear off before my mother—’

  ‘Oh yes, your mother.’

  Anne watched cold contempt harden the young mouth to a granite line.

  ‘It seems she forgot to teach you how unkind it is to treat your cousin as you have, so it is up to a ragged arsed factory hand to do it for her.’

  The picture blurred as Abel’s fist swung and the voice of her cousin became a yelp.

  Why had Abel Preston taken it upon himself to help her, to beat his warning into her cousin’s ear not to harm her ever? But it had been an empty threat so far as Quenton had been concerned.

  ‘Anne, my dear, I didn’t know you were here or we would have ended our meeting immediately.’

  Glancing at the two men coming from the inner room Anne’s throat closed on a gasp. Leaning heavily on the Malacca cane, his face swollen, eyes almost closed beneath purple bruises, Sir Corbett Foley limped towards her.

  13

  ‘An accident you say.’ Unity shook her grey head as Laban’s explanation finished. ‘Well, I can’t say I be surprised… riding about in a tin box! That be all them motor car things be, noisy smelly tin boxes that can only see a man finish up in a wooden box; a man like Sir Corbett Foley should ought to have more sense than go putting himself in such a contraption, it be naught less than inviting trouble. What be wrong with a horse and carriage? It served all these years so why go a changing of it now… progress, bah! It’s just downright foolishness you ask me!’

  ‘You can’t stop change.’ Laban moved from the supper table to take his chair at the fireside. ‘The world moves on though I admits there be times when I’d have it stand still.’

  ‘Well, that don’t never be like to happen, not when you have folk building daft machines and other folk daft enough to buy them!’ Unity gathered dishes, clattering them together, emphasising her contempt.

  ‘You’ll change your way of thinking when you be riding in one of them yourself.’

  Her hands coming to a sudden halt Unity glared at her husband. ‘Me ride in one of them things! The day won’t never dawn, Laban Hurley, don’t never set your mind to thinking I would trust myself to step into a contraption such as Corbett Foley has, ’cos you’ll die waiting!’

  Catching Laban’s roguish wink, Anne followed the older woman into the scullery, hiding her smile at the continued mumbling. But Laban had been correct in saying the world moved on, change must always take place… but change did not always prove the better for the people it was aimed at, the preachings of her father had shown that even though he denied it.

  Drying each dish Anne let her mind wander through the desert of wasted years.

  … the gods you worship are nothing but stone idols…

  The voice of her father drifted over the wilderness of an empty childhood.

  … there is no god other than the one who sacrificed Himself so you might live…

  So often had those words been hurled like missiles at people bewildered by their strangeness. Their bewilderment had gradually changed to fear, they were being bullied into giving up something they had known and loved, had lived with for long centuries; then fear had become anger with tribes split as some accepted the new credo whilst others clung to the old and family had fought family, killing in the name of change. But her father had seen no blame in what he did, he had gone blindly on across Africa and into the East, blind to the human damage left in his wake; but then her father had ever been blind to the sufferings of others. Preaching the gospel of Christ had been his all… but could Jacob Corby’s way of carrying that message, of forcing it down the throats of gentle innocent people, be the way Christ would have wanted it preached?

  ‘Change don’t always be for the best!’

  Unity’s retort seeming to answer her thoughts Anne gathered the finished dishes, carrying them into the kitchen where she set each in its place.

  ‘Did Sir Corbett say how that accident ‘appened?’ Unity had followed behind, now she settled to the work Laban had brought to be done at home, her fingers moving steadily as she plaited the leather strips Anne had already skived.

  ‘He did, though it seemed a queer account to me.’

  ‘In what way queer?’ Unity passed the supple strips one between another, first to the left then forward between the next two strips, crossing them into position with deft, perfectly assured movements years of constructing whips of exactly the same sort had bestowed on her.

  Laban took several moments before answering. Blowing a steady stream of tobacco smoke, watching it become swallowed hungrily in the chimney he mulled over the question.

  ‘In what he said about the fog.’ His answer was quiet as if spoken only in his mind but Unity’s reply was sharp.

  ‘Fog! What fog? There’s been none hereabouts for these past months ’cept that given off by them there steel and iron works and that don’t be fog but smoke, though I grant sometimes it lays over the town like black fog when there be no wind to carry it away.’

  Laban eased the pipe from between his teeth, studying the long white clay stem. ‘’Tweren’t that,’ he said, ‘Foley knows the difference atween foundry smoke and fog. He knows fog don’t come and go in the space it takes to say it.’

  Pulling each leather strand tight Unity completed the plait by hammering it square with a wooden mallet.

  ‘So you thinks he were imagining it, daydreaming or some such? Well, that be another thing a man can’t go doing in one of them fancy machines, they don’t guide themselves same as a horse’ll do.’

  ‘I didn’t say it were simply a fancy of his mind.’ Laban replaced the pipe, drawing deeply on it.

  ‘Then what do you be saying?’

  Or rather, what was Laban not saying! Anne moved to the rough crib, lifting the child who had begun to whimper. Sir Corbett Foley was too down to earth an individual to imagine things. Yet Unity had been correct in saying Darlaston had not yet seen the fogs brought on by winter.

  The child in her arms, Anne whispered soothingly into the tiny ear but her mind was with Laban. Just what was it the man had been told?

  ‘When I saw the bruising along of his face I thought that horse of his had thrown him, but then he said—’

  The explanation spoken so quietly had Anne�
�s nerves taut as bowstrings.

  ‘—he said he had intended going on horseback but the box going along with him were too awkward to hold while in the saddle.’

  ‘So what was wrong with going in a carriage?’

  Another stream of tobacco smoke sucked greedily into the wide blackness of the chimney, Laban shook his head.

  ‘The questions you ask, woman! I don’t know why he chose not to take a carriage and I didn’t ask; ’twere no business of mine his riding to the railroad station in that motor car.’

  ‘Railroad station?’ Unity laid the finished whip aside, casting a smile at the now quiet child as she moved to take the pretty flowered teapot from the hob.

  ‘That were the place Foley said he were heading.’ Laban heard the note of enquiry in his wife’s tone and resigned himself to repeating every last word that had passed between himself and the owner of Bentley Grange. ‘He said there were a matter he needed to discuss with somebody, though exactly what that matter were he didn’t get round to divulging. All he did tell were that halfway to Darlaston the motor car began to vibrate, jerking and bucking like a horse fresh to the saddle; said he tried to steer the thing to the side of the road but there was no controlling of it, it seemed almost as though it had a mind of its own, then there was the fog.’ Laban frowned into the fire. ‘He said it seemed to come from inside the motor car itself.’

  Anne’s nerves jolted, her hold tightening about the small body. Could it have been the amulet… was that the matter he needed to discuss?

  ‘Fog came from a motor car!’ Unity sniffed her feelings. ‘He must have been too familiar with the bottle.’

  Laban turned to watch his wife spoon tea from a painted tin caddy. ‘Corbett Foley weren’t drunk but he were—’