Daughter of the River

by Daughter of the River (retail) (epub)

  ‘Father! Please!’ Maddy, too, had leapt from her seat. She meant to plead with Jack not to harm Patrick. It was an automatic response. Her love for him was so deeply ingrained that, no matter how much he had hurt her, she could not bear to think of him being injured. But Jack, misunderstanding, did not give her a chance.

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, my lover,’ he said. ‘I’ll be all right.’ And he hurried from the cottage, slamming the door behind him.

  There was an unreal quality about the rest of the day for Maddy, as if none of this was happening. When she saw Lew slicing the loaf, however, and hacking off lumps of the bacon joint, she tried to stir herself.

  ‘Your dinner!’ she exclaimed. ‘You haven’t had your dinner.’

  Gently but firmly she was pushed back into her chair, and a cup of hot sweet tea was thrust into her hands.

  ‘I be managing fine,’ said Lew, his mouth full. ‘I won’t starve, don’t you fret.’

  ‘The tide be falling,’ said Annie. ‘You’ll need to get to the boat soon, won’t you, boy? Well, you go with an easy mind. I’ll stay on yer. Maybe William’ll lend a hand, with you being a man short. ’Tis his slack time. You give un a shout as you go—’

  With bread and bacon still in his hand, Lew thanked her and hurried out.

  ‘And how about you, maid?’ Annie turned to Maddy. ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and have a lie down? I dare say you could do with a spell by yourself, but I’ll be yer if you needs me.’

  Gratefully Maddy did as she was bid. Solitude was exactly what she needed, a chance to ponder on this awful thing that had befallen her.

  In her attic bedroom Maddy sat on the edge of her bed trying to make sense of what had happened. Then suddenly she found herself grappling with a bewildering succession of emotions that gripped her with such intensity her limbs trembled. Distress, a sense of betrayal, love, confusion, disbelief – each ran its course, leaving her understanding no better, and no more at peace.

  Patrick loved her. Hadn’t he said it? Proved it over and over again? Why, then, had he run off with Victoria? Maddy was not vain, she could see the attractions only too clearly. Victoria was pretty, elegant, and sophisticated. She was also gentry and Maddy could understand how that would appeal to Patrick. But why had he given no hint, no sign?

  Meticulously she went over every occasion when she and Patrick had been together during the last few weeks. He had been as warm and loving as ever. There had never been the least suggestion that someone else held his affections. Surely she would have noticed if there had, loving him and knowing him as she did?

  But perhaps she did not know Patrick as well as she thought. Certainly she had never believed him capable of such treachery. Of course, she had known and understood about his flirtations, but it had never occurred to her that he might seriously betray her with another woman. How wrong she had been! How stupid! How gullible!

  A great surge of anger and pain welled up inside her. Suddenly she wanted to purge her life of everything connected with Patrick. Her one memento was the silver Janus ring. Distraught, she pulled at the neck of her dress only to find that the ring was not there. Sometime during that very morning the ribbon must have come undone and she had lost it. It seemed to emphasise everything else that she had lost. Could the Roman deity have been the god of betrayal too?

  She sank back on the bed, longing for the release of more tears, but she remained resolutely dry-eyed. For a while she lay there, tense and miserable, until she could bear the inactivity no longer. When she went downstairs she found Annie in the kitchen, her swollen hands struggling manfully to peel some potatoes. She looked up as Maddy entered.

  ‘There idn’t no call for you to stir yet,’ she said kindly. ‘You have a bit longer if you needs un.’

  ‘I’m all right now, thanks. Here, let me take over.’ Maddy held out her hand for the potato knife; then when Annie was reluctant to pass it over she said, ‘I’d prefer to be up and doing, honestly I would.’

  Annie nodded with understanding and pushed the bowl of potatoes in her direction.

  ‘Goodness knows if Jack’ll be back tonight, but it’d be as well to have something ready, I suppose,’ she said. ‘And your Lew’ll need feeding when he gets in.’

  ‘Lew always needs feeding.’ Maddy peeled the potatoes with fierce concentration. ‘Annie, I haven’t thanked you yet for being so kind.’

  ‘I habn’t been kind.’ Annie was in no doubt about it. ‘Today be the worst day’s work I ever done, telling you news like that. I’d understand if you want me out of the way, but if you feels you needs a bit of company I’ll stay and gladly.’

  ‘Stay, oh please stay!’ replied Maddy fervently. She could not bear the idea of being alone with her thoughts; it had been what had driven her down from the seclusion of her bedroom – that and the fact that giving way to a broken heart was the prerogative of the rich; the poor had work to do and meals to cook.

  Annie had half risen from her seat, now she sank back again, happy to be of some use. ‘Before I forgets, I found a fairing on the floor, I supposes it must be youm. I put un in the glass dish on the mantel.’

  ‘Fairing?’

  ‘Yes, a ring with two faces on. My, I habn’t seen one of they in years. Us used to get them up to Totnes Fair off a gypsy pedlar when I were a girl. Fourpence I think they was in them days. He used to try to fool us they were real silver. I asks you a silver ring for fourpence! Base metal, more like.’ Smiling at the memory, Annie did not notice Maddy flinch.

  A tawdry ring bought from a cheapjack, not something of ancient significance. Maddy’s grip on the potato knife tightened. Patrick had not even been truthful about that.

  During the rest of the afternoon she was grateful for Annie’s ceaseless chatter and for the familiar tasks involved in preparing the meal. Not that she found concentration easy. Often she had no idea what her friend was talking about, and more than once she had to check that she had not forgotten some of the ingredients in the stew she was making; but somehow she got through the afternoon with a semblance of normality.

  ‘The men’ll be back soon,’ said Annie. ‘I’d best get something cooking for my William.’

  ‘Tell him I’m sorry for keeping you for such a long time, but you’ve no idea how thankful I’ve been for your company.’

  ‘Get on with you!’ Annie gave her a fond smile. ‘You habn’t heard more’n one word in five as I’ve said.’

  ‘Maybe not, but you were here to say them. That made all the difference.’

  ‘If it did then I be content.’ Annie kissed her on the cheek and made her slow way home.

  When Lew came home he looked surprised and relieved to find Maddy in her usual position, tending the cooking pots on the fire.

  ‘I didn’t expect this,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d be toasting myself a bit of cheese. Be you sure you feels up to cooking and such?’

  ‘Of course I do, if you feel up to eating it.’ Her reply was braver than she was feeling, but Lew was fooled.

  ‘That’s the girl!’ he exclaimed. ‘And when didn’t I want my vittles?’

  As soon as he had washed, he tackled his stew with enthusiasm. While he ate he talked about every bit of inconsequential gossip he had gleaned during the day, everything but the one thing Maddy knew everyone would be talking about. She gave up any pretence of trying to eat and pushed her stew away, scarcely tasted.

  ‘You may as well tell me what’s being said,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll just find out from someone else.’

  Lew nodded glumly. ‘Folks were talking about un down mill when us took the fish ashore – ’twere to be expected, I suppose. I had a word with Matt Efford, as plays the clarinet in the church band, and he reckons the carryings-on began way back at the country dance the squire gave for the gentry.’

  ‘As long ago as that?’ Maddy was appalled. ‘But that was early in the winter, before…’ She almost said ‘before Davie’s execution’ but she still could not speak of her brother’s death.
‘Before Christmas,’ she amended.

  ‘It were some time back,’ agreed Lew, noting her hesitancy and sharing her pain. ‘Matt were playing for the dancing, along with that Patrick rogue, and he reckons that Victoria were making up to the wretch. Oh, discreetly, mind. Asking about the music and would he be free to play up at the White House one day, but Matt says her were leading un on, anyone could tell. Course ’tidn’t the first time a lady of quality have set her cap at a rough fellow, and I don’t suppose ’twill be the last.’

  ‘Quality? She isn’t quality!’ Maddy rapped out the words.

  She was remembering that, after the success of the squire’s country dance, there had been quite a vogue among the local gentry for folk music. Patrick had played the music, and inevitably Victoria would have been there to listen, to dance – and to flirt.

  A whole winter of deception, when Maddy had thought Patrick loved her, yet his eyes had already been straying. The duration of his duplicity dealt her a new hurt, one that made her want to cry out in pain, for this affair must have been flourishing during the time of Davie’s trial and execution, when she was away from the village. Knowing that the pair of them were together while she was in such despair caused Maddy to bite her lips in anguish. Yet, afterwards, when she returned from Exeter, Patrick had been so kind towards her. What had that been? A charade? A ruse to cover his affair with Victoria? Maddy’s head was throbbing with it all, she could no longer think clearly.

  To hide her distress she busied herself with what was left of the stew. ‘I’m keeping some on one side for Father,’ she said. ‘But shall I leave it on the fire or not? There’s no knowing when he’ll be back; he’s bound to be tired and hungry, poor man, he’ll need something hot. On the other hand, if I leave it too long it’ll dry up and be spoiled.’ She was gabbling, she could not help it; anything to smother the awful anguish within her.

  If Lew noticed anything amiss he made no comment. ‘Why not take the pot off the fire completely?’ he suggested. ‘I brung plenty of logs on my way in, us can have a decent blaze going and the stew heating in no time, even if Father comes home in the middle of the night.

  His advice proved sound; it was dawn when an exhausted Jack returned home. Maddy, who had found sleep impossible, was downstairs, encouraging the dull embers in the hearth into flame the instant she heard his boots on the path. Lew followed soon after her.

  ‘I didn’t find un,’ said Jack dispiritedly as he slumped in front of the blaze. ‘Just as well, maybe, I’d likely have killed the wretch, and us’ve had enough trouble in that quarter of late.’ He rubbed his face wearily. ‘When I got as far as Newton Abbot I asked at the station if anyone’d seen a fancy miss and a fellow with a fiddle. No one had, but they recalled Old Man Fitzherbert right enough. Roaring like a bull, by all accounts, and not thinking clear.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘Because he only bothered about asking at the railway. By the sound of un he’m determined they’m gone to Lunnon, he was heard ordering his carriage to take the Exeter road. Not having no carriage, I hung about a bit to see what I could see, and I did find Lucy Ford’s pony and trap, which were more than Fitzherbert managed, for all his bellowing. It were stabled at an inn down by the market, but no one knowd where the couple who’d brung un had gone. I could find neither hide nor hair of them after, though I tried along every road out of town. They could’ve gone anywhere, in my opinion – Plymouth, Exeter, or maybe Bamstaple-Bideford way. They could be hiding out up to Dartmoor, plenty of places there where folks wouldn’t be noticed. No, I don’t reckon they’m making for Lunnon, somehow.’ Jack yawned, then looked at Maddy. ‘And how be you faring, maid?’ he asked belatedly.

  ‘Well enough, thank you, Father,’ she replied.

  ‘That be my maid.’ He rose and patted her on the shoulder. ‘I daresay this has bothered you some, but that bit of rubbish, he idn’t worth getting in no state over. Best you found out about un now ‘stead of later, eh?’ He gave another, wider yawn. ‘I think I be off to my bed. Thank goodness the ebb tide be latish today, I might manage a couple of hours’ sleep.’

  ‘Just leave they dishes, they idn’t going to run away,’ said Lew after he had gone. ‘You go on up too. I’ll see to the fire. As Father says, us can lie on a bit this morning.’

  Maddy managed the ghost of a smile and went upstairs to bed. She lay there, dry-eyed and wakeful, uncertain whether to be glad or sorry that the eloping couple were still missing. What good would it have done her if they had been found? Victoria might have been dragged back to Stoke Gabriel, weeping and wailing, but Patrick could never have been forced to return. He was lost to her for ever, and this increased her torment, for Maddy knew that, despite the way he had treated her, if he had appeared at the door that very minute she would have welcomed him back with open arms.

  The next thing she knew it was bright daylight. Having overslept was a blessing in disguise; in the frantic activity to catch up and get Lew and her father out before they missed the tide she had little time to think about her own sorrows. It was different after they had gone. Once alone, she began to consider the problems ahead of her. One of the most distasteful would have to be tackled that morning – going into the village where everyone would know what had happened.

  A few short months ago, after Davie’s troubles, she had had to face the reaction of the villagers. Then they had shown anger, hostility and, ultimately sympathy. Now it would be harder to bear, for they would show her pity. Patrick had done what Davie, for all his tragic fate, had never achieved. He had shamed her! He had made her that most pathetic of objects, a female past her prime who has been deceived by a man. There was no help for it, though. The sooner she faced the world the better.

  Commiseration was in the air, she could feel it as she walked down the steep hill towards Mrs Cutmore’s shop. A few folk sniggered as she went by, but most showed sympathy for her in their eyes, although few referred to what had happened. Only one old woman, who had known Maddy since her cradle, clutched at her with a claw-like hand and said, ‘You’m better off without un, my lover. That sort brings naught but trouble.’

  Maddy thanked her for her kindness, readjusted the set smile she had fixed upon her face, and continued about her business. It cost her dear to go on smiling and making remarks about the unsettled weather when all she wanted was to bolt home and hide her humiliation. She must have succeeded in giving an impression of equanimity, however; as she moved away from a group of women, having just passed the time of day, she heard one of them remark, ‘Her’m taking it well, at any road.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied another. ‘Sensible maid, be Maddy Shillabeer. Her’m got her head on straight.’

  Is that what they really think? wondered Maddy. Do they honestly imagine that I don’t mind that the man I love has run off with another woman? If only they knew. If only they knew!

  Although Maddy had been into the village, it was through Annie that she learned the most recent gossip. ‘Mr Fitzherbert idn’t back yet,’ her friend informed her. ‘He’m staying up to Lunnon until he finds un. Leastways, that were the message he sent.’

  ‘He seems certain they’ve gone to London.’

  ‘Where else? There be this place up to Scotland, Gretna or some such name, where I hears you can be married without the parents consenting, but somehow I don’t think that Patrick be turning out to be the marrying sort.’ She saw a shadow of pain cross Maddy’s face and carried on hurriedly, ‘Besides, there being so many people in Lunnon, who’s to notice two more?’

  ‘Father thinks they may have made for Plymouth or Bristol.’

  ‘Too close to home.’ Annie shook her head emphatically. ‘You mark my words, they’m up to Lunnon. Everyone says so.’

  ‘If they are then I don’t fancy Mr Fitzherbert’s chances of finding them.’

  She was right. Mr Fitzherbert returned home alone at the end of three weeks.

  ‘In a right high dudgeon he be,’ announced Annie. ‘Do you k
nows what he did? Took all Miss Victoria’s things, her pretty dresses and everything, and made a bonfire of them in the garden. Tended it hisself, too, until there wadn’t naught but ash left. Then he got the servants together and told them that from now on he didn’t have no daughter, and that anyone as mentioned her name’d be dismissed on the spot. He means it too. Even Mrs Fitzherbert idn’t allowed to speak of her.’ Her expression grew sad. ‘Seems terrible harsh, though, to deny your own flesh and blood. I idn’t saying that the maid idn’t a headstrong piece, and selfish to boot, but her’m young. And I fancy her’ll be repenting sore after her’m much older.’ She glanced at Maddy. ‘I don’t suppose you can be expected to have much sympathy for the wench.’

  ‘Not much,’ Maddy admitted. ‘But she’s been brought up to get whatever she wants, she can’t be blamed for that. In this case, whether she’ll continue to want what she’s got is another matter.’

  Annie nodded approvingly. ‘That be a fair way of thinking, in the circumstances,’ she said. There idn’t many in your shoes as’d be so generous.’

  Maddy felt she did not deserve such approval. Perhaps she should hate Victoria, yet somehow she could not. Self-willed and selfish the girl might be, yet there was also a vulnerability about her that Maddy found pathetic. Wandering the country with an itinerant musician was not going to be easy for a girl who could not even dress herself or do her own hair. To her surprise Maddy found that she pitied the silly girl. Her resentment was directed against Patrick, despite the fact she still loved him. After all, Victoria did not owe her anything, but surely Patrick owed her loyalty at the very least.

  Outwardly Maddy went back to her everyday life as if nothing had happened. It was a matter of self-respect for her to dress the same, to act the same as she had always done. Things had been different when Davie had died. Then she had felt able to give way to her emotions. Now, though, her pride was involved as well as her heart, and she refused to show how much Patrick had humiliated her.