“I saw your uncle’s cart outside. I was in hopes you would be with him.”
She smiled at him warmly. “It’s nice to see you, Henry.”
He blushed with pleasure. “Where’ve you been? I’ve missed you.”
She shrugged her shoulders, glancing away. “Nowhere, Henry. I’ve just been staying at home with Aunt Fanny.” She didn’t want to speak of her trip to London. She felt her uncle’s eyes on her, but she didn’t care.
The door opened once again, and Heather sensed the identity of the person before she looked up, knowing that Henry was never without a tagtail. The new arrival advanced toward him but came to an abrupt halt when she spied Heather. The expression on her face changed, and Heather shivered under the withering stare.
It wasn’t the first time Sarah had glared at Heather, being as jealous as she was of Henry’s attentiveness to another girl. Sarah would have gladly done more if it had brought Henry down on his knees before her. Their families had already discussed the dowry she would be bringing to him when they were married, but he stood stubbornly opposed to being wed, and Sarah knew his infatuation with Heather to be the reason. It didn’t matter how much she made fun of Heather’s odd dress with the other village girls, she was still well aware, as were they, that beside Heather Simmons, even dressed as she was, they were found lacking. Even her own father had commented often of the uncommon beauty the Simmons girl possessed. All the men, young and old, were smitten with the Irish girl.
Henry scowled at Sarah before he turned back to Heather. “I have to talk with you,” he whispered urgently, reaching out to touch her arm. “Could you meet me by the pond later?”
“I don’t know, Henry,” Heather replied softly. “I have to stay with my uncle. Aunt Fanny doesn’t like me wandering off alone.”
“If he can keep an eye on you, can you still talk with me?” he asked hopefully.
She frowned slightly, confused. “I suppose so, but not, for very long.”
“Have him bring you to the pond before you leave,” he said in a rush. “I’ll be waiting.”
He left her without saying more and brushed past Sarah on his way from the shop. It wasn’t long before the girl followed him out.
Later, when Uncle John stopped his cart by the pond, Heather descended and went to where Henry stood by a tree. The young man was unable to speak for a moment as he gazed at her with adoring eyes, tracing lovingly each detail of her small, perfect features. When he did, his voice was uncertain and quavered with emotion.
“Heather,” he choked out. “Do you think your aunt would ill-favor me. I mean—would she think me not good enough for to court you?”
Heather looked up at him, surprised. “But, Henry, I have no dowry.”
“Ah-h, Heather, I care naught that you have none. I love you, not what you can bring me.”
She could hardly believe her ears. Here, indeed, was the suitor she thought she would never have because she possessed no dowry. But he was too late. She was no longer a virgin. She could never bring herself to marry any man now, sullied as she was.
“Henry, you know as well as I that your family would never let you marry me without a dowry. It’s just not done.”
“I’ll naught marry if I can’t have you, Heather, and my family wants my children. They’ll come round soon enough for us.”
Heather’s gaze dropped to her clenched hands. “Henry, I can’t marry you.”
The boy frowned. “Why, Heather? Are you afraid of having a man bed you? If that be it, rest at ease. I would naught touch you lest you felt ready for me.”
She smiled sadly. Here was patience and love offered to her and she could not take them. Captain Birmingham had seen to that. What a difference there was between the two men. She couldn’t feature the bearded captain of the Fleetwood being so patient with a woman. It was a pity she couldn’t marry Henry and lead a normal quiet life here in the village and raise children they both could love. But that was out of the question now.
“Henry,” she whispered softly, “you would do well to notice Sarah. She loves you very much and she would make you a good wife.”
“Sarah don’t know who she loves,” Henry snapped. “She’s always chasing after some boy and right now it happens to be me.”
She chided him gently. “Henry, that isn’t so. She sees no one but you. She wants to marry you very much.”
Henry wasn’t having any of it. “But I want you for my wife, Heather, not some simple-minded, plain girl like Sarah.”
“You shouldn’t say things that aren’t true, Henry,” she said in the same soft, reproving voice. “Sarah would make a far better wife than I.”
“Please! Don’t speak more of her!” Henry cried. His face had taken on a tormented expression, not so different from the one that had been on Sarah’s face. “I want only to look at and think of you. Please, Heather, I must have your uncle’s permission to court you. I can’t wait much longer to make you my wife.”
Here it was, a plea for her hand. Her aunt perhaps would be surprised. But it was too late. Now she had to convince this gentle man that she couldn’t marry him. But he would not listen. What was she expected to do—tell him what had happened to her? Then he would be repulsed, sickened, and she would be shamed.
“Henry, I won’t ask my aunt if she will allow it. I cannot marry you. It wouldn’t be fair to you. I could never be happy here. Don’t you see, Henry? I was brought up much differently. I’m used to having everything done for me and being dressed in the finest clothes. I can’t be content being a mere cobbler’s wife.”
The look on his face plunged a sharp pain through her bosom, yet Heather knew it was best this way. He would soon be able to lick his wounds and realize he had a life to live without her. She watched in agony as he staggered from her, blinded by his tears.
“Oh my God!” he cried. “I loved you the moment I saw you. I naught could think of no one but you these two years past. And now, you say I’m not good enough for you. You’re a black-hearted wench, Heather Simmons! May God have mercy on your soul!”
Heather stretched out a hand to him pleadingly, but he was gone, not caring where he ran, stumbling, then rising again. Tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she watched him run away.
“I’m cruel,” she thought. “I’ve hurt him deeply and now he will despise me.”
She turned toward the cart and walked slowly back. Her uncle was watching her. He always watched her now. Was he ever to stop?
“What’s the matter with young Henry?” he wanted to know when he reached down to pull her into the cart. His fingers closed over her upper arm, and he lifted her up as she clung to his shoulder.
“He asked to court me,” she murmured, taking a place beside him on the narrow seat. She wished not to discuss it. Her stomach quivered and she felt sick.
“And you told him no?” he questioned.
She nodded her head slowly as though an incautious movement might make her retch. She shuddered and was silent, and he, thankfully, stared off into the distance over the head of the old horse that pulled them, lost in thought.
The first of October passed and the weather grew cooler. Here and there a stray leaf drifted to the ground and came to rest on grass still green. Squirrels could be seen scurrying along limbs of trees in search of food to hoard for the winter. Soon it would be time for slaughter and Heather dreaded even the thought. She needed no further encouragement to be ill. Each morning she rose, dragging herself from the cot with an effort, feeling sick and listless and wondering if she would ever get well. With the extra load of chores her aunt had thrust upon her, she was finding it hard to keep her illness a secret. She had vowed never to allow her aunt to see her ailing, but it was becoming difficult. Sometimes she felt so faint she expected to collapse any moment. She had hoped in time that those tormenting memories which made her ill would leave her in peace. But still they remained with her, and so did her troubled stomach and frayed nerves.
“Stop
your mopin’ around and finish those dishes, missy.”
Heather shook off the daze that enveloped her and hurriedly wiped another wooden bowl. In just a moment more, she would be able to relax in a warm bath and soothe her aching body. She was tired and weary, and there was a dull ache in the small of her back. She had done the washing earlier in the day and her strength had been sapped away with the lifting, the scrubbing, the beating, the reaching. And later she had almost swooned when carrying in a load of firewood.
She put the dishes away and dragged out the wooden tub for her bath. Watching her, Aunt Fanny picked up another sweet tart from the table and stuffed a great part of it into her large mouth. Heather shuddered, wondering how the woman could eat so much. It seemed her aunt’s favorite pastime.
She wished the woman would go to bed as Uncle John had done. She would prefer to bathe in peace. But her aunt wasn’t budging, so Heather filled the tub and tested the water. It was pleasantly hot. She unfastened her dress and let it slide from her shoulders down to the floor.
She stood before the hearth, totally unclad, her smooth skin glowing in the light of the fire, and her slender body was clearly sithouetted in its glow. Her breasts rose heavier now and were taut, and there was a slight rounding curve to her abdomen.
Suddenly Aunt Fanny choked on the tart she was swallowing. With a strangled cry she leapt from her chair, alarming her niece who whirled around to look at her. The woman’s eyes were wide, staring at her in horror, and her face had gone from beet red to ashen gray. Aunt Fanny charged across the room toward her and Heather cringed away, thinking her aunt had gone mad. She was seized viciously by the arms.
“Who are you breeding by, missy? What jackal have you hooked yourself to?” the woman screeched.
Cold, dreaded shock seized Heather’s every nerve. Her eyes grew very wide and her face very pale. In her innocence she had not thought of this. As she had lain under Captain Birmingham and struggled with him, she had not considered the consequences of his act. She had reasoned her failure to come sick at her normal times to be because she was so upset with everything that had happened to her. But now she knew differently. She was going to have a baby—a baby by that scoundrel of a sea captain. That cad! Madman! Lunatic! Oh God, she thought, why? Why?
Livid with rage, Aunt Fanny shook Heather until her head threatened to snap off.
“Who is it? Who’s the bloody toad?” she cried. Her hands tightened around Heather’s arms until it brought an outcry of pain from the girl’s lips. “Tell me or by me God I’ll wring it out of you!”
Heather found it impossible to think. She was dulled, senseless with shock.
“Please—oh, please let me go,” she murmured in confusion.
A look of enlightenment crossed Aunt Fanny’s face, and she shoved Heather into a nearby chair. “Henry—that’s who it is, ain’t it? Your uncle said he was sweet on you, and now I know the reason. He’s the father of the babe. If he thinks he’ll ruin my good name in the village and go flitting off clean, he thinks wrong. I told you if you ever sinned, you’d be found to reckon with and now you’re going to wed Henry. The filthy good-for-nothing! He’ll pay for it, he will!”
Slowly some sense seeped through Heather’s trauma. She became aware of what her aunt was saying, of Henry’s name spoken. Shivering and addled, she forced herself to some semblance of awareness. Whatever she did, she could not let Henry take the blame. She could not hurt him like that and have him despise her more. Trembling, she picked up her gown from the floor and pulled it to her naked body.
“It wasn’t Henry,” she said softly.
Her aunt swung round. “Eh? What you say, girl?”
Heather sat unmoving, staring into the fire. “It wasn’t Henry,” she repeated.
“And who was it if it weren’t the cobbler?” the woman questioned fiercely,
“It was a sea captain from the colonies,” Heather sighed listlessly, dropping her cheek against the tall, crude back of the chair she sat in. The flames from the fire illuminated her small face. “His men found me and took me to him and he forced himself upon me. God’s truth.”
What did it matter now if she told of the defilement she had suffered in the hands of that man? Everyone would know in a few months of her pregnancy unless her aunt decided to keep her at the cottage and not allow her to go into the village. Even then, how would they explain the baby’s presence after the child was born?
Her aunt’s brow knitted in confusion. “What are you saying? Found you when? Where was this?”
Heather could not bring herself to tell the woman of William’s death. “I was lost from your brother and the Yankee seamen found me,” she murmured, still staring into the crackling fire. “They gave me to their captain for his pleasure, and he wouldn’t let me go. It was only through my threat to shoot his man that I gained my freedom. I came here straightaway.”
“How did you get lost from William?”
Heather closed her eyes. “We went—to a fair—and somehow we became separated. I didn’t tell you before because I couldn’t see the need. It’s the Yankee’s child I carry, not Henry’s. But the man won’t marry me. He’s one who takes and does what he pleases and he won’t be pleased to marry me.”
The frown was wiped away from Aunt Fanny’s face, and a slow menacing smile replaced it. “We’ll see about that. Now, tell me, didn’t your pa have a friend who be magistrate judge in London? Lord Hampton was his name, weren’t it? And didn’t he control the investigation of all the ships suspected of smuggling?”
Again confusion swept over Heather. Her thoughts were too muddled to grant her any explanation for her aunt’s questioning. She answered hesitantly.
“Yes, Lord Hampton did and still does as far as I know. But why—”
The smile deepened. “Ne’er you mind with the reasons. I want to know more of Lord Hampton. Did he know you and was he very good friends with your pa?”
A frown touched Heather’s smooth brow. “Lord Hampton was one of my father’s closest friends. He used to come to our home often. He’s known me since I was a baby.”
“Well, all you need know right now, missy, is that he is going to help you get wed,” Aunt Fanny said, a cold, calculating expression on her face. “Now get your bath and go to bed. We’re going to London tomorrow, and we’ll be having to rise early so we won’t be missin’ the coach going through the village. It won’t do to go in a cart when we’ll be callin’ on Lord Hampton. Now hurry with you.”
Heather got to her feet with an effort, completely baffled by her aunt. Why the woman wanted to know about Lord Hampton she didn’t know, but Aunt Fanny was a master schemer of devious plans, and it wouldn’t do to question her. Obediently Heather slid into the wooden tub, feeling a heaviness in her lower abdomen as though she were just now with child, and all the time before, unscathed.
There was no doubt whatsoever in her mind that she was breeding. She should have expected just such as this from the Yankee bull. Strong, potent, full-blooded, he had done a man’s due with an ease she found maddening. How was it when a great many men sweated over their mates month after month with little to show for it, that she had to have the misfortune to be taken to bed by such a virile male being.
Oooohh, he is abominable! She cried inwardly and added, quivering, He is a devil.
A stifled cry came from her lips, and she shuddered more violently, realizing what it would mean to her if he were forced to marry her. Her soul and life would be lost, married to the blackguard. She would be damned.
But at least the child would have a name and perhaps some good would come of that.
Her thoughts strayed to the unborn child. He was destined to be dark-haired, with both his parents being so, and he would likely be handsome if he took after his father. Poor child, it would be better if he were born ugly than to be a handsome scoundrel like his sire.
But what if the child were a girl? It would be a great blow to the man’s confidence if such a thing happened, great manly be
ast that he was. If she married him, Heather thought venomously, she would pray for a girl.
Before she finished bathing Heather heard her uncle begin to stir in the other room where Aunt Fanny had gone when leaving her. Their muffled voices had come to her as she bathed. The woman would never have waited until morning to tell him of Heather’s predicament.
Heather rose from the tub and clutched the towel over her bosom just as her uncle came from the tiny room. He appeared to have aged ten years.
“Heather, girl, I have to speak with you, please.”
She blushed crimson, hugging the towel to cover her nakedness. He seemed not to notice that she was without clothes.
“Heather, are you tellin’ the truth? Was it this Yankee who planted his seed in you?”
“Why do you ask?” she inquired cautiously, fearfully.
John Simmons rubbed his brow with a shaking hand. “Heather—Heather, did William ever touch you? Did he ever hurt you in any way, girl?”
Now Heather knew why her uncle had watched her so closely after she returned from London. He knew William, and had been worried about her. She could do nothing but reassure him now.
“No, Uncle, he didn’t hurt me. We became separated at the fair. You see, there was a fair and I wanted to go, and he was kind enough to take me. But I got lost and couldn’t find him. That’s when these men found me and took me to their captain. The Yankee is the father.”
A sigh of relief escaped the man, and a small, quivery smile crossed his face. “I thought—never mind. Just say I worried about you, but now we must find the man who be the sire, and this time I won’t fail you. Me brother’s child, I cannot fail again.”
Heather managed a smile for her uncle. She couldn’t tell him it would do no good to go to London to talk with Captain Birmingham because the man would not marry her. She was silent.
The Flame and the Flower Page 8