Break of Dawn

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘The servants are going shortly.’

  ‘Going?’

  ‘I have dismissed them, it’s the only way. I will see to their replacements as soon as I can, but until then we will have to manage.’

  Patience stared at her father wide-eyed, bewildered at how rapidly her world had changed. ‘She needs to be kept warm,’ she said weakly.

  ‘Then stay here with her.’ Jeremiah pulled the sofa closer to the fire as he spoke before straightening and adding, ‘I’ll see to everything upstairs as soon as I can.’

  When her father had left the room, Patience turned and looked down on Sophy again. The amber eyes were open and tears were seeping from them but Sophy didn’t make a sound. Patience stared at her helplessly. ‘Are you cold?’

  Sophy made the slightest movement with her head; even so, it caused her to wince.

  ‘Here.’ Patience slipped off her thick, woolly dressing gown and placed it over the trembling body of her cousin. ‘It’ll be all right. I’ll look after you.’ And then, aware that this might not be much comfort, she added, ‘I promise I won’t let Moth— anyone, hurt you ever again. I promise, Sophy.’

  When Sophy closed her eyes Patience wasn’t sure if she had understood her or not, but anyway, it didn’t matter. She had meant every word.

  Bridget, Kitty and Patrick left the house at ten o’clock with a month’s wages apiece and the precious references. By then Sophy was heavily sedated with a generous dose of Jeremiah’s laudanum and consequently unaware of their departure. The family carried all their worldly possessions in three carpet bags, but due to the back-door trading which went on with most cooks and itinerant traders who presented themselves at the kitchen door at certain days in the month, they weren’t as destitute as they could have been. Beef dripping, rabbit skins, feathers and bones were all disposed of into willing hands, and over the time Kitty had been at the vicarage she had made a tidy sum for ‘a rainy day’. This did not comfort Bridget in the slightest; she was bereft at leaving the child she considered her own, but it would cushion the three against the perils of homelessness while they looked for employment.

  A thin dusting of snow lay on the frozen ground from a brief fall the night before, but as Jeremiah watched the small family trudge down the drive from his vantage point at an upstairs window, he felt not the slightest remorse for turning them out in such bitter weather. On the contrary, he was more than a little peeved at having to pay out good money for nothing – as he described it to himself, ignoring the fact that he knew he had underpaid the three for years.

  After he was sure they had departed, he looked in on Sophy and Patience now ensconced in the spare room. Sophy was lying as still and white as a small corpse under the heaped covers of one of the two single beds the room held, and Patience was sitting in a chair by the fire reading.

  ‘Go and get yourself something to eat.’ Jeremiah walked over to the bed and stood looking down at his niece for a moment. ‘She’ll sleep for some time yet.’

  Patience didn’t need to be told twice, and once his daughter had disappeared downstairs Jeremiah made his way to the bedroom he shared with his wife. Mary hadn’t moved from the armchair in front of the fire where she had placed herself on entering the room with Patience earlier. When he had come to get dressed before he had carried the child to the spare room she had said not a word and neither had he, but her glance had carried its normal disdain when she had looked at him. Now, as he opened the bedroom door, she again looked at him in the usual dismissive way, but his opening words caused her thin, tight body to sit straighter. ‘The servants have gone, as you directed, so I suggest you get yourself down to the kitchen and start preparing an early lunch.’

  She stared at him as though he was mad. ‘I will not.’

  He carried on as though she had not spoken. ‘After which you will carry out the duties Bridget normally attends to, as well as seeing to dinner tonight. And until I can replace the O’Learys, this will continue, so let us hope it can be soon.’

  Mary had now risen to her feet, her bony hands joined in front of her waist. ‘Have you lost your mind, Jeremiah?’

  ‘No. For the first time in years I am thinking clearly, Mary.’ His calm demeanour was holding by a thread and Mary must have sensed this as she took a step backwards. ‘You’ve excelled yourself today, my devout, God-fearing wife. And I am partly to blame, I accept that. I have allowed you sufficient rope to hang yourself, but it wasn’t you who was caught in the noose, was it? It was all of us. You would have destroyed my standing in this community without a second thought because of your obsession regarding the child. But no more. I will not be ruined on the altar of your fixation. Of course this all depends on whether the child lives or dies, because you have taken her to the edge, do you realise that?’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me in this fashion.’

  ‘I dare much more than this.’ It was a low growl. ‘The child will reside in the guest room with Patience for the time being until I can arrange for her to attend a private school in Newcastle along with Patience.’

  ‘No, you won’t take Patience from me.’

  ‘Of course this will mean we have to cut back a little, my dear, so thriftiness will be called for.’

  Mary’s breath was coming in gasps. ‘I – I won’t discipline the child again.’

  ‘Indeed you won’t.’

  ‘There is no need for such measures.’

  ‘There is every need.’ Jeremiah spat the words into her stiff face, and only in that moment did Mary realise how far she had pushed him. ‘I see now I cannot trust you around the child and so she needs to be removed from your presence. You will not destroy my good name, Mary. Not while I have breath in my body. Sophy will go away to school and Patience will accompany her. Anything else would raise suspicions as to why we are educating our niece above our daughter. And while we are talking like this, you had better write to your uncle and inform him that his New Year visit will not be convenient this year. The guest room will be occupied.’

  ‘You – you devil.’

  ‘I am but what you have made me, Mary.’

  Jeremiah turned and walked out of the room, and if his wife had still had the pearl-handled knife in her possession she would have used it.

  PART THREE

  Destiny

  1896

  Chapter 6

  ‘Aren’t you even a little bit pleased to be leaving school for good, Sophy? I mean, no more arithmetic and French and embroidering those wretched samplers. If I have girls when I get married I shall make sure they never have to do any sewing.’

  Sophy smiled at her friend. Charlotte Gilbert-Lee had shared much of the last six years of her life and she was very fond of her, but Charlotte was the only daughter of Mr and Mrs Gilbert-Lee and her father was a prominent solicitor who doted on his offspring. Charlotte went home every weekend to be thoroughly spoiled, and her holidays were spent in a round of entertainment and fun. They were worlds apart, and yet from Sophy’s first week at Miss Bainbridge’s Academy for Young Ladies, Charlotte had taken the frightened and unhappy newcomer under her wing and smoothed Sophy’s path. Sophy and Patience had only gone home to the vicarage at holiday time – Jeremiah had maintained that a weekly trip to Newcastle to bring the girls home every weekend was too much – but neither of them had minded this. In the four months from Mary’s assault on Sophy until Jeremiah had got them into Miss Bainbridge’s Academy, the open warfare which existed between husband and wife had made life at the vicarage unbearable. And this had only got worse over the years.

  Thinking of this now, Sophy said quietly, ‘I like it here, I always have, and I’ve enjoyed everything.’

  ‘That’s because you’re good at everything,’ Charlotte said without a trace of envy. ‘Even the pianoforte with old Potty.’

  Miss Potts was the music teacher and Charlotte had been the bane of the poor woman’s life; no matter how Miss Potts tried, she was unable to make Charlotte grasp more than the mere rudiments o
f the instrument. As Charlotte herself cheerfully proclaimed, where the piano was concerned she had two left hands. Charlotte did have a beautiful singing voice, however, as did Sophy, and the two of them had often performed a duet at the musical soirées Miss Bainbridge put on for family and friends at the end of the summer and Christmas terms. As both girls were very pretty and their voices harmonised perfectly, they had been in great demand.

  Sophy had loved those occasions; in fact, she sometimes felt they were the only times she was truly alive, along with the dancing and drama classes taken by Miss Bainbridge’s sister. She could become someone else – anyone else – rather than Sophy Hutton, orphan. She had once daringly asked her uncle why she couldn’t be known by her father’s name of Lemaire, since it was so much more satisfying than plain old Hutton, but he had told her not to be so impertinent and that was the end of that. She knew why, of course. It was because her aunt and uncle had disapproved of her mother’s marriage and were determined to stamp out even the memory of her father’s name. But they wouldn’t. She was determined about that. She often pictured them, her mother and father, when they had been young and in love. Her mother had had deep blue eyes, Bridget had told her that, so she must have inherited her father’s unusual amber eyes. She liked the thought of that. She could see him in her mind’s eye – a tall, dark, handsome Frenchman with black curly hair and a captivating smile. And he was of the nobility, even if he hadn’t had any money. But more than that he had loved her mother, and he would have loved her too, if he hadn’t been taken so suddenly.

  ‘Miss Gilbert-Lee? Your father is here.’ Miss Bainbridge stuck her head round the door of the refectory where the young ladies were waiting for relatives or friends to collect them for the journey home, and the two girls looked at each other for a moment before hugging.

  ‘Don’t forget we’re going to write every week.’ Charlotte was suddenly tearful. ‘And I’ll get Papa to ask your uncle if you can come for a visit over the New Year. We mustn’t lose touch, Sophy. Promise me we won’t.’

  Sophy patted her friend’s arm. ‘Of course we won’t.’ She didn’t believe it. The Gilbert-Lees had made numerous requests over the last six years, asking that Sophy be allowed to come and stay, but her uncle had refused every one. Patience, on the other hand, who had been in the year above her and who had finished her schooling twelve months ago, had been given her mother’s permission to accept any invitation which came her way. And Charlotte was off to an expensive finishing school in the spring to prepare her for entry into fashionable society when she reached the age of eighteen; she would make new friends, girls who would invite her to their homes and who would be invited to Charlotte’s. Sophy knew this was the end of an era.

  After more hugs and tears, Sophy watched her friend depart before sitting down in a vacant chair in the refectory, her valise at her feet.

  She didn’t want to go back to the vicarage. She drew in her upper lip, biting down hard to prevent giving way. It hadn’t been so bad having to spend the holidays there because she had known she would be returning to the school again, but now . . .

  She rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, something Miss Bainbridge would have deemed unladylike. There were many things Miss Bainbridge deemed unladylike.

  It had been Patience who had broken the news of Bridget’s departure from the house six years ago, and to be fair to her cousin she had tried to be kind. Patience had even gone so far as to rescue Maisie and her other hidden treasures from under the blankets on the pallet bed, along with the two new books, although the ribbons had disappeared, never to be mentioned again.

  At first, Sophy had been unable to believe she would never see Bridget and her parents again, but when it had sunk in that they had gone for good, she had been bereft. She had only really begun to recover from the heartbreak of losing the only people in the world she loved and who loved her, when she had come to the school and Charlotte had befriended her. Charlotte had been her protector in those early days too; although her hair had begun to grow back, Sophy had still had to wear a mop cap for some time, which had been explained by saying she had been very ill and her hair had fallen out. Some of the girls had teased her most spitefully until Charlotte had let it be known that anyone who upset Sophy upset her too, and Charlotte was a favourite with everyone.

  She had never told anyone the truth about the loss of her hair, not even Charlotte. It wasn’t out of any sense of misguided loyalty to her aunt, but because the whole episode had made her feel painfully debased and ashamed. It still did.

  Sophy raised her hand to her hair, neatly secured in a shining chignon at the back of her head. All of Miss Bainbridge’s young ladies wore their hair in this fashion from the age of fourteen – it was part of their preparation for womanhood; although when she was at home her aunt insisted she scrape her hair back into a tight plait. She had complied with this order thus far, but had vowed when she was sixteen and had left the school, she would tell her aunt she was wearing her hair how she liked. And her sixteenth birthday had passed two weeks ago.

  Sophy’s beautiful eyes narrowed. There were going to be battles ahead. She didn’t know exactly when she’d ceased fearing her aunt, but gradually her dread of the woman who had treated her so cruelly had been replaced by hatred, and lately contempt had been added to the mix. Her aunt hadn’t touched her since that day six years ago, but Sophy knew now that if she attempted to do so again, she would fight her tooth and nail. She’d been a slight child at ten, finely boned and thin. She was still finely boned, but now slender rather than thin, and she was tall for her age. Moreover, she knew she was strong inside, where it counted. She’d had to be. She nodded mentally to the thought. Her aunt would not subjugate her again; she would kill or be killed first. That was how strongly she felt about it.

  Dear, dear. Suddenly Sophy’s irrepressible humour came into play. Whatever would Miss Bainbridge do if she knew that one of ‘her girls’ was capable of thinking such things? Expire on the spot, most likely, or certainly indulge in a ladylike fit of the vapours.

  Sophy glanced round the crowded refectory where excited girls were running hither and thither or clustered together in chattering groups, their faces alight with the anticipation of going home for Christmas.

  She wasn’t like any of these girls, she was different. Not just because she was an orphan, but deep inside, in her heart and mind. From when she’d first set foot in this place with Patience, Miss Bainbridge had taught them that a woman’s place in life was to be a decorative and useful asset to her husband. Furthermore, expensive objects were to be coveted, representing as they did, symbols of status and lifestyle. Miss Bainbridge had been adamant that gentility and morality were one and the same, and a woman’s identity lay firmly in the man whose wife she was. A woman, any woman, rich or poor, could only be happy fulfilling her sacred role of pleasing her husband in everything. These were the precepts Miss Bainbridge and her team of spinsters drummed into each girl from her first week at the school until her last, and it was true to say that all her classmates, even dear Charlotte, accepted such pri nciples without too much trouble.

  Sophy frowned, turning to gaze out of the window which overlooked the square of lawn and neat flowerbeds which was the girls’ exercise area when the weather permitted. Today, with only ten days until Christmas, the lawn was buried under an inch or two of snow which had fallen during the night and frozen, creating a scene which looked as though it had been painted in silver. But Sophy wasn’t seeing the garden or the mother-of-pearl winter’s sky above, she was remembering passages from the book each girl leaving the school had been presented with two days ago: The Manual of Home-Making and Fine Etiquette.

  A wife and mother, the book had stated, was called upon to be agreeable at all times, and any talents she possessed should be developed for the edification of her husband and sons. As she packaged the dinner to please her husband’s tastes, with skill and care, so she should package herself and particularly her intellect to avo
id being too clever in the company of her menfolk. The purposes of a woman’s intelligence should be limited by the expectation of her husband. A husband would not bring his problems home with him to be discussed with his wife, but wives, nevertheless, with gentle intuition, were to understand that such problems existed and do all they could to mitigate them.

  She had read that bit out to Charlotte, half-choking on the words, and Charlotte had looked at her strangely. ‘But everyone knows men don’t like clever, opinionated women,’ she had said reasonably. ‘That’s all it’s saying.’

  ‘And you think that’s right? That women should pretend to be stupid, or at the very least less intelligent than they are?’ she’d asked hotly.

  Charlotte had shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose so, but does it matter?’ she’d answered, before leaping up as the dinner gong had sounded, at which point the conversation had ended.

  But Sophy had thought about it several times since and now she sighed deeply. It did matter. Of course it mattered. Another passage in the book had stated that should the man of the house come home in a fractious mood or appear unreasonable or even tyrannous, then the wife’s course was clear. She must bear all things with a meek and quiet spirit and thus spread the balm of her humility and gentleness over troubled waters. Reverence your husband, the manual had stated, and remember at all times he is the breadwinner and his authority is not to be questioned. Your reward will be the knowledge that you have done your duty to the best of your ability. And this same duty, the passage went on, also applies to the ‘private’ side of marriage. A husband’s needs must be accommodated without complaint.