‘We have nothing to say to one another.’
‘I think you are mistaken. There are a number of things that need to be said – that must be said between us. I trust you will not oblige me to say them in the presence of a third party.’
Seth was looking very uneasy, and Emma told herself it was largely for his sake that she agreed to the impertinent demand.
‘Oh, very well! Seth, you may go and pick the heather for Cathy. She said she wanted it from right up by the Abraham Stone. I will meet you over there in a few minutes.’
‘Aye, miss.’
Matthew Sutcliffe leaped down from his saddle and extended a hand to assist Emma. But she chose to remain mounted, pointing out that she could perfectly well listen from there to what he had to say. It pleased her to have him at such a disadvantage, for the sun was behind her and shone into his eyes as he looked up at her.
‘It is difficult to know how to begin,’ he confessed after a lengthy pause.
‘It must be, so why begin at all? You know my opinion of you.’
His face like stone, he said slowly, ‘I was sentenced to fourteen years transportation for the crime of which I was found guilty. Fourteen years! Have you any conception of what that means?’
‘It means that you were justly punished for your crime. Though less than adequately, in my opinion. Do you expect pity?’
‘Have you none to offer? Can a young lady of gentle birth and upbringing feel no compassion for a man who has been through the hell of such a sentence?’
‘I feel no compassion for you, Matthew Sutcliffe. If you want the plain truth, I rejoice in the thought of your being made to suffer. My only regret is that your punishment has now come to an end.’
‘Then you have much to rejoice at,’ he flung back. ‘You can reflect with satisfaction that during my time as a convict in Van Diemen’s Land I was chained, starved and flogged unmercifully for the smallest offence. And once I was incarcerated for weeks on end in a dark underground cell without even sufficient room to lie down; without the least glimmer of light, and never the sound of another human voice.’
Emma shuddered, and felt the swift sting of nausea in her throat. ‘You – you had to expect such punishments if you broke the rules.’
‘Do you find fault with me for clinging to the last shreds of my manhood?’ he asked with a harsh, discordant laugh that made Emma wince. ‘Should I have shown cringing respect to guards who deserved nothing but contempt? Should I have stood by and watched atrocities without protest, such as the time a fellow prisoner – an old man crippled by rheumatism -was kicked nearly to death because he couldn’t keep up with the other men in the chain gang? For intervening in that incident I was awarded two hundred lashes. Or you might gain even more exquisite delight, my dear Miss Hardaker, to hear of another occasion when I was guilty of no offence at all. A visiting official’s lady wife had expressed the whimsical desire to witness a flogging. I had the honour to be selected for the display and was given fifty lashes, greatly to her delectation.’
Emma closed her eyes, but even the tight-pressed lids could not restrain tears from escaping. After a moment, he went on in the same unyielding tone, ‘Perhaps you are unable to visualise a flogging, so allow me to depict the scene for you. The victim is first stripped of his shirt and bound fast by hands and feet to a huge iron triangle, specially designed for the purpose. The lashes are administered with expert precision, and spaced out slowly to extend the agony. If he should faint from the pain, pails of cold water are thrown over him until he recovers consciousness and the flogging can recommence. In the end, the poor wretch’s back is a bloody pulp of lacerated flesh — ’
Overcome by revulsion, Emma felt herself swaying in the saddle and feared that she was about to faint herself. Matthew Sutcliffe sprang forward and, gripping her by the waist with his broad, strong hands, lowered her gently to the ground.
‘Forgive me!’ he said remorsefully. ‘Please believe that when I contrived to meet you up here on the moor I had no intention of distressing you by giving vent to my bitterness and anger. It is not you whom I blame for my sufferings as a transported convict, not you I hold responsible for being wrongfully condemned for a crime I did not commit.’
The feeling of giddiness had passed now and Emma took a step back, freeing herself from his hold.
‘Are you going to continue the pretence even now?’ she asked in a scathing voice. ‘I have heard about the way you kept protesting your innocence at the Assize Court, right up to the very last. But you were given a fair trial and found guilty. The weight of evidence against you was overwhelming.’
‘It was all circumstantial evidence.’
‘How could it be otherwise? You were too cunning to allow an actual witness to the deed. But you cannot deny that for weeks beforehand you were heard to utter threats against my father.’
‘Never a threat to use violence,’ he insisted. ‘Please try to understand. I was little more than a youth then, barely eighteen years old. My mother had died many years before, so my father and I were particularly close. He was a good man who’d worked hard all his life at the Hardaker Mill, raising himself until he achieved the position of overlooker. He was fascinated by machinery but, sadly, he didn’t live to see the success of the condensing engine he developed. Can it be wondered at that I became hotheaded and uttered wild threats on learning that your father was taking the credit for the invention? Instead of being known as the Sutcliffe Engine, it was called the Hardaker Engine. My poor father’s one claim to fame – to posthumous fame – had been stolen from him!’
‘There’s not an atom of proof for that allegation,’ Emma cried hotly. ‘My father would never have stooped to stealing an invention from one of the mill’s employees. Why on earth should he?’
Matthew shrugged. ‘It was well known that Hugh Hardaker was overshadowed by his elder brother, Randolph. Perhaps he saw this as his one chance of making his mark at the mill.’
‘And perhaps you saw a chance of extracting money by your preposterous claim and your threatening behaviour. But when papa refused to be browbeaten, you killed him in a fit of rage.’
The man stood there facing her, taking slow deep breaths as he fought against his anger. Beyond him, where the moorland swept up to the jagged skyline of Black Scar Rocks, she saw Seth waiting, watching them with a hand shielding his eyes from the sun. He was too far away for her voice to be heard, but a beckoning wave would bring him galloping towards them.
But she did not beckon to Seth.
Matthew said, hard-lipped, ‘My father had been working secretly on the modified ring doffer for many months. He often spoke to me of his ideas, explaining that these condensers had been developed first in America, and how he was producing a completely new design to suit English conditions. He even showed me the detailed drawings he had done.’
‘There is only your word for that.What happened to these drawings? Nobody else has ever seen them.’
‘I don’t know what happened to them. Perhaps your father destroyed them, and replaced them with copies drawn by himself.’
‘I see! And do you suggest that my father carefully arranged the other evidence that convicted you of killing him? That muffler of yours which was found on the weaving-room floor – how did it get there that night, if you were nowhere near the mill as you claimed?’
‘I cannot explain that,’ Matthew admitted. ‘I had missed my muffler a few days before, but how it came to be found in the mill is a complete mystery.’
‘And what about the message my poor father scratched on the stone floor, with the metal point of the fly shuttle with which he had been stabbed and left to die? He lies – mine – MINE.’ She was word perfect.
Matthew shook his head. ‘I cannot account for that.’
It was with a feeling akin to triumph that Emma flung at him the last accusation, the most damning of all the evidence that had piled up against him at his trial.
‘If you were innocent, why would you never gi
ve the court the details of your movements on that night?’ she demanded. ‘I have heard tell, from people who were present at your trial, of how you stammered and were evasive when the question was put to you. Is that the behaviour of an innocent man?’
Matthew hesitated for a long while before replying. ‘My whereabouts that night had nothing whatever to do with your father’s death. I give you my solemn oath that I was nowhere near the Brackle Valley Mill.’
‘Your solemn oath is far from adequate, in the circumstances.’
Again he was silent, and when he finally spoke it was with restrained urgency.
‘If you will listen to nothing else I say, Miss Hardaker, then listen to this! Through all the long years of my ordeal, one thought helped me to endure it and survive. My sole aim then was somehow to find the wherewithal on my release to return to this country and be revenged on the true culprit. Somebody knowingly allowed me to be condemned to the hell of transportation for a crime he had committed.’
‘And who, in your twisted mind, do you suppose this person to be?’ she asked.
‘I wish to heaven I knew! But to discover his identity is my objective, that is why I am here. I had to wait eleven years to get my ticket-of-leave, being classed as a recalcitrant prisoner because I refused to submit. But when the time came at last, things went faster than I ever dared hope. On the gold field at Bendigo, after two years of fruitless struggle, I and my two colleagues suddenly found a rich vein on the stake of land we were on the point of abandoning. As my fortune accumulated I felt a fierce joy, for I realised that I was being granted this chance of seeing that justice was done. And it shall be so, Miss Hardaker. I swear before God that I have but one purpose in life, and I will allow nothing to stand in my way.’
Emma’s throat was dry, and she said huskily, ‘I do not understand why you should be telling all this to me, Hugh Hardaker’s daughter. You are surely not asking for my help?’
‘No, not that, but I want you to try and understand. I believe you could understand and sympathise, if you would only cast aside your prejudices and trust me, as your instinct tells you to do.’
‘You presume incorrectly, Mr Sutcliffe!’
‘Do I? The other evening when I dined at Bracklegarth Hall, you scorned me with contempt for speaking of our previous meeting here on the moor. But I still maintain that we both experienced the same feeling of instant accord that morning, of being truly in sympathy with one another. It is difficult to define, perhaps, but it was undoubtedly there. And however hard you deny it to me, you will not succeed in denying it to yourself,’
‘I do deny it! Of course I deny it!’
Her mare was quietly grazing nearby and she called to her, praying that she would not make too clumsy a business of gaining the saddle unaided. When Matthew Sutcliffe stepped forward to assist her, she said curtly, ‘I can manage, thank you.’
‘For heaven’s sake, my hands will not defile you.’ She was conscious of a tremor at his touch. There seemed an instant when they were both very still, acutely aware of each other’s nearness. Then in a single smooth movement she was safely mounted. As she wheeled Kirstie and made to ride off, he softly called her name. She paused and glanced back, to see him standing with his hands limp at his sides, looking up at her.
‘I did not kill your father,’ he said in a voice drained of emotion. ‘As God is my witness, I am innocent of his death.’
For a second time Emma felt tears press against her eyelids so that for a moment she was almost blinded. Brushing them aside, she set Kirstie in a fast canter through the sea of purple heather to where Seth patiently waited for her, a few sprigs of white heather in his hand.
* * *
That afternoon, while Aunt Chloe was taking her nap and Uncle Randolph had returned to the mill after his dinner, Emma, pleading a headache, left Cathy with her scrap book and slipped out of the house, heading for the stables. By good fortune it was Joseph’s half day, and she found Seth alone in the harness room polishing a snaffle, and asked him to saddle Kirstie for her. He was plainly apprehensive of letting her ride alone, but she assured him he wouldn’t get into any trouble.
‘Just say nothing about it, Seth, and no one will be any the wiser. I have something I must do.’
The weather had changed and the sky was a mass of tumbled grey clouds, while the wind was whipping the heather and moor grass in great swirling designs that rippled up and down the slopes. Emma kept an anxious lookout for any sign of Matthew Sutcliffe; another encounter with him was no part of her plan. But as far as the eye could see the stark moorland was empty of other human life. Presently she started to descend into a shallow gully, picking her way with care down the rock-strewn path to the stepping stones that crossed a clear, swift-rushing beck. Ahead of her, set in a patch of rough land enclosed by a low wall, stood a tumbledown old building, its begrimed walls the drab colour of gritstone. A long row of windows on the upper floor denoted it as the home and workshop of a hand weaver of a past generation. From one of its two squat chimneys a wisp of smoke eddied, to be instantly borne away by the wind. Apart from this, and the white she-goat tethered on a length of chewed rope, the place might have been uninhabitated. Emma dismounted and hitched Kirstie to the rotting remains of the old tenter, a long wooden frame on which the scoured cloth would once have been stretched to dry. She went up to the door, which was made of rough planks and showed gaps stuffed with strips of rag to stop the draught. She rapped with her knuckles, and a thin voice called, ‘Come tha in, Miss Emma!’
Hearing her name spoken so confidently, Emma was startled. Ursly must have heard the horse and watched for her approach from the window, but it was still surprising that the old woman had known who it was, considering her near-sightedness.
The dim interior was clean though very shabby, with decrepit pieces of furniture that might have been decaying since the weaver’s time. Some worn out matting partially covered the stone-flagged floor, and bunches of herbs were suspended from the ceiling beams to dry. In a dark corner a cat’s eyes glowed green, and from his perch by the window a jackdaw grumbled at her.
Old Ursly sat close to the smoky peat fire with a number of pots and pans at her feet, pounding something in a stoneware bowl with a stubby wooden pestle. She was a tiny figure, barely four-foot-six standing; now, seated, her head did not reach the top rail of the ladder-back chair. Almost like a child, Emma thought, if it were not for the seamed brown skin and toothless, shrunken mouth. She was seventy, perhaps, or more. Nobody really knew, probably not even Ursly herself, except that she seemed to know everything. She did not rise for Emma, but that was her way. She just jerked her head towards a folded carpet-chair that was leaning against the iron fender.
‘So tha’s come then! Tha looks fair moithered, and no wonder!’
‘You sound as if you were expecting me, Ursly.’ Emma put aside a small basket containing some greengages she had taken from the sideboard in the dining room and set up the chair. ‘And why is it no wonder that I should be looking upset?’
The small black eyes peered at her shrewdly. ‘Is there no reason, then?’
Emma sighed. It was always the same with this strange old woman, next to impossible to extract a straight answer to a question. Her every utterance had an enigmatic quality, which increased the uncanny feeling that she could see beyond the vision of ordinary mortals despite her impaired eyesight.
‘Well,’ she said now, ‘out with it then, my lass. Tell me why tha’s come all alone to see old Ursly.’
Emma bit her lip. She had planned to make this seem a casual visit, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
‘I thought it was time I called in to see you,’ she said lamely. ‘Seth said you haven’t been keeping too well lately.’
‘There’s nowt wrong wi’ me, as tha can see! Here, go and fill t’kettle at the beck, and we’ll mak’ ourselves a pot of tea.’
Obediently, Emma took the soot-blackened iron kettle outside, pulling the door shut to keep out the blustering w
ind. She walked down to where the little stream gurgled over its rocky bed, pondering what she knew about Ursly. So much, and no more; even the name by which she was known – was it her forename or patronym, or the name of a husband long since dead? She might ask till she was blue in the face, Emma thought ruefully, and still be none the wiser. And Ursly’s daughter had been called Rosie and nothing else. Not that Emma remembered her; she was five years old when Rosie died giving birth to Seth.
Emma had heard the story of Ursly’s first appearance in the Brackle Valley on a freezing mid-winter day, forty years ago; she had been tramping through the snow along a lonely moorland track with a bundle on her back and a baby in her arms. Where she was going and whence she came no one knew, but it had been fortuitous, for a young man had been thrown from his horse and was lying badly injured, both legs gashed by the gritstone boulder against which he had fallen. The young man was William Hardaker, Emma’s dead uncle. Ursly had cleansed his wounds with snow and bound them with clean strips of petticoat torn from her bundle; but William later recounted with relish that some witch-like incantations had accompanied the application of a balsam made from leaves of Adder’s Tongue. Making him as comfortable as possible, she had taken the baby and gone to summon help, and the local doctor freely admitted that Ursly had saved the boy’s life, while contemptuously dismissing the curative properties of her balsam. But William’s mother had been more generous, insisting out of her gratitude that Ursly should take a situation at Bracklegarth Hall and make her home there with the baby. She was an excellent seamstress, but the position which started off vaguely as sewing-woman became more obscure as the years went by until she was virtually Maud Hardaker’s companion. The family resented Ursly’s privileges, and she would doubtless have been sent away when Maud Hardaker died but that Uncle Randolph’s wife Henrietta had taken a liking to her. While Chloe took charge of the household management, the ailing Henrietta and Ursly would spend long hours alone with each other. However, after Henrietta had been laid to her rest, Uncle Randolph had dispensed with Ursly’s services; even though, for Cathy’s sake, he kept Seth on. Old Ursly had been banished with a small pension to this remote homestead tucked away in a fold of the moor, relic of the Hardaker who first sought to augment a meagre living as a smallholder by becoming also a weaver of cloth, over a hundred years ago.
The Other Cathy Page 6
