The Hawthorne Heritage

by The Hawthorne Heritage (retail) (epub)

Jessica had had a lifetime to accustom her to the apparent omniscience of servants; it did not surprise her in the least that Patrick’s circumstances were apparently already common knowledge in the household.

  ‘Strange business, though – Mr Edward being married, like—?’ Lucy cast a look of tentative enquiry.

  ‘We don’t know that he was,’ Jessica said, briskly. ‘And there again, we don’t know that he wasn’t. That is what must be established.’

  Lucy, busying herself about the bed, allowed herself a small uncharacteristically mischievous smile. ‘No doubt about the other, though, eh?’

  Jessica looked at her, puzzled.

  ‘Two peas in a pod,’ Lucy said, nodding knowingly. ‘Everyone’s sayin’ it—’

  Jessica sighed, knowing she should reprimand the girl: but to what purpose? Gossip and rumour must be flying about the house like dust. There was no way to stop it – no way either to prevent it spreading further. Such a choice morsel, no doubt suitably embellished, would be county property in no time. Who could blame Lucy for being intrigued? She bent over the trunk, rummaging amongst the well-worn books of her childhood.

  ‘You’ll be goin’ to see Mr Robert, I expect?’ Lucy asked, conversationally.

  Jessica straightened in surprise. ‘Robert? Of course not. He’s at Oxford.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘Bin home for two or three days,’ she said. ‘Not bin well, so Mary Baldock says. Talk of him not goin’ back.’

  ‘Surely not?’ Jessica’s brows furrowed.

  ‘So Mary Baldock says.’ Lucy quoted Old Hall’s kitchen maid as an unimpeachable source.

  Jessica hefted a book in her hand. ‘I wonder why he didn’t send to tell me? Yes – perhaps I will pop over there. This afternoon.’ She looked in sharp concern at Lucy. ‘He’s ill, you say?’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘That’s what they say. Though Mary said he seems all right to her. Just a bit down, she thought. It’s all that learnin’ if you ask me. Enough to put anyone under the weather.’ And with that gem of wisdom she left, her arms full of bed linen.

  Jessica rode to Old Hall after luncheon. She found Robert in the Old Drawing Room, hunched into a chair, staring into space.

  ‘Robert? Whatever’s wrong? Why didn’t you let me know you were home?’

  He turned his head, his reverie broken. ‘Oh. Hello Jessica.’

  She was taken aback by the look of him. Always pale, his skin now had an odd, unnatural translucence and was drawn across bones so fragile-looking that they might have been made of glass. ‘You look awful,’ she said, with the childish directness of close friendship.

  ‘Thanks.’ He smiled a little.

  ‘Whatever’s wrong?’

  He shrugged. ‘I haven’t been all that well.’

  ‘All that Well? You look—’ she stopped. ‘What is it? What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But—’

  He lifted an impatient hand. ‘Nothing now. Jessie, don’t fuss. I’ve been unwell. Now I’m better. Just – a bit tired—’

  She watched him, frowning, not sure how far to trust his reassurances. ‘How long are you home for? The rest of term?’

  ‘At least that. Possibly for good.’

  ‘For good! But Robert – why on earth—?’

  ‘Jessica, please!’ His voice held a grating edge of nerves. ‘I asked you not to fuss! I’ve been ill. I’m all right now. But it may be better if I don’t go back to Oxford. I don’t know yet. Now. I’d like to talk about something else, if you don’t mind.’

  She surveyed him for a moment longer, her eyes still worried, then, shrugging a little, she plumped into a chair opposite him, by the fire. ‘Well, there’s certainly something else to talk about!’

  He listened to her story with astonishment and gradually reviving interest.

  ‘Edward’s son? His legitimate son?’

  ‘So it seems. So the old woman says. And – oh, Robert, when you see him, you’ll believe it! You remember the picture in the dining room? The one of Edward and Giles as children? Patrick is the image – the very image – of Edward. It’s quite astonishing. And he’s such a sweet little boy—’

  ‘I doubt my sister thinks so.’

  Jessica sobered. ‘No. She doesn’t.’

  Robert shook his head. ‘Trouble, trouble and more trouble,’ he said, quietly. ‘Keep out of it, Jessica, if you can. Trouble like this is like the rising of a flood. It can drown anyone who’s near.’

  * * *

  Unsurprisingly Robert’s words proved all too prophetic. As they waited for Maria’s return and for the arrival of Sir Charles Sanders the family solicitor, trouble did indeed appear to be rising like a flood in the house. Clara’s mood was foul. And Giles, apparently abandoning his duties on the estate, had to all intents and purposes so far as Jessica could see given up eating in favour of drinking. He was seldom sober. His and Clara’s angry voices, raised sometimes but equally often fiercely and implacably quiet echoed in the rooms and corridors of the great house. Late on the afternoon of the second day after Maria’s departure Giles stormed from the house, setting his horse at the drive like a cavalry charge. Jessica watched him go from her window high in the west wing. In a Christian attempt to keep Clara from Patrick she had had the child installed in a small room near hers, to motherly Lucy’s delight. Over the past days Jessica and Patrick had become wary friends; but his heart was given to Lucy, and hers to him. Jessica could not bring herself to blame him. Though he said nothing she was sure he understood all too well what was going on, and at least part of what hung on its outcome; and she, for all her efforts must for the time being anyway be ranked with the enemy in the child’s sensitive mind. Lucy carried no such stigma. As Jessica watched her brother gallop wildly down the drive and wondered wearily what new crisis had triggered such a departure she could hear Lucy and the child laughing in the other room as they played a simple card game that involved much shouting and slapping down of cards.

  Giles did not return for dinner, which in accordance with the new order was served at six o’clock. Clara sat, frigidly silent across the table from a Jessica who after a few desultory attempts at polite conversation gave up and ate in silence also. She was glad to escape to her rooms after a brief and barely civil farewell from her sister-in-law. Outside the wind was rising. In no way unhappy with the solitary comfort of her small, familiar sitting room she settled back before the fire. Patrick was asleep in his little room along the corridor and Lucy, who for so many years had slept beyond Jessica’s own open door had, on the understandable plea that the child was restless in a strange house, moved her own truckle bed into the boy’s room where she sat now, within call, sewing and watching the sleeping child. Jessica had reassured her of her own capability of putting herself to bed when the time came; the thought of an uninterrupted evening’s reading was bliss. With a small sigh of relief at the peace of the moment she reached for her favourite book.

  Ten years before, with Europe still at war Augustus Von Kotzebue had travelled through Italy, describing in detail her lovely countryside and the treasure-houses of her cities. Jessica had discovered the book some two years before; parts of it she knew almost by heart – ‘the view of Florence, with the surrounding hills and the houses dispersed on them would be accounted by many as unparalleled—’ It had been counted so, she remembered, by Danilo O’Donnel, her Danny, who had sown within her the seeds of a love for a city she had never seen. As she picked up the small book it fell open at a well-worn page. A Florence she had read about so often that she felt as if she knew every street, every church, every sculpture in every gallery, waited in those pages. Smiling, she settled down to read and to dream. The glow of the fire was transmuted to the warmth of a southern sun. Narrow streets, smiling people, the centuries’ store of lovely things – her head nodded, and, sweetly, she slept.

  She jumped awake stiff and cold and for the moment completely disorientated. The fire had collapsed to ashes, and those candles that had
not died altogether were very low. It must be very late indeed. She stretched her legs gingerly, that had been tucked beneath her and were now painfully cramped. She could not place the sound that had awakened her until it came again – the quiet scrape of a restless horse’s hooves upon the gravel of the drive below. Flinching at the pain in her legs and her stiff back she got up and went to the window. In the flickering light of the windblown cresset by the front door she saw Giles’ horse standing, head down and blowing, a still, shapeless shadow slumped on his back. As she watched the animal danced again, eager to be rid of its burden and safe in a warm stable. Giles – for he it most certainly must be – did not stir. The horse moved again. This time Giles lifted his head, painfully. He was lying sprawled full length upon the horse’s neck, arms dangling limply on either side. God only knew how he had stayed in the saddle this far. Jessica reached for a shawl. She saw her brother, swaying perilously, try to lever himself upright in the saddle, saw him pitch over and disappear from sight. The horse tossed its head and danced dangerously. Flinging her shawl about her shoulders Jessica ran from the room.

  She encountered no one in her flight through the house. The world, it seemed, was sleeping. But as she reached the landing above the entrance hall, in which two wall-mounted candelabras threw their elongated, dancing shadows, she stopped. The front door had been opened by a sleepy footman. Giles leaned in the dark opening, his hat gone, his greatcoat muddy, his hair tousled. His fair face was flushed with bright colour. Almost at the foot of the stairs Clara stood poised, dressed in a froth of virgin white lace that hid her slim body from throat to ankle. Her face was still and pale as marble, and venomous with anger.

  ‘Thank you, Frederick. That will be all.’ Her voice was savagely quiet.

  The footman, long past curiosity or question in the matter of his master’s behaviour, mumbled a goodnight and left. Giles swayed, his handsome face lifted defiantly to his wife.

  ‘Where have you been?’ The question was icy.

  ‘Drinking,’ Giles said, and grinned belligerently.

  ‘I can see that, fool!’

  ‘Mind your tongue, woman.’ Giles was undoubtedly and barbarously drunk.

  Clara took a step down, towards him. ‘You’re disgusting!’

  He laughed, as if truly amused. ‘Then we make a good pair, my dear. But then, we always did. Two cats in a cage. Two – disgusting – cats in a cage,’ he corrected himself punctiliously.

  From where Jessica stood, unseen, on the landing above she could see Clara’s hand trembling upon the smooth wood of the sweeping banister. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’

  He too stepped forward, tilting his head further, the candles shining full on the perilous blaze of his face. ‘Well, how dare I?’ he asked, softly, of the ranked portraits that lined the walls. ‘How dare I speak so to the woman who blackmailed me into marriage – who sold her body and her soul for – this!’ He flung out his arms as if to encompass the house and its contents.

  Clara stood like a stone, watching him.

  His voice grated on, bitter and uncontrolled. ‘Whore!’ he said. ‘WHORE! Are you satisfied now? Are you enjoying your ill-gotten gains?’

  ‘At least I didn’t kill for them,’ she said, flatly and clearly, pure contempt in the words.

  He stood as if she had struck him.

  ‘Did you hear what I said? I said—’

  ‘I heard what you said.’ There was violence in the quiet voice. He was advancing on her slowly.

  ‘—at least I didn’t kill for them,’ she repeated, inexorably spiteful.

  He stopped. ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he said. ‘You know I didn’t!’

  ‘You didn’t save him. You stood, and watched him die. Where’s the difference between that and murder? You let the boat drift away from him. Knowing he couldn’t swim. You left him. Deliberately left him to drown when you could have saved him. I saw you. You know that I saw you!’ The momentary silence that followed the fierce words was terrible. ‘Oh, yes, Giles Hawthorne,’ Clara said softly, ‘you killed your brother.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘And I say yes! You know it, and I know it, and I dare you to deny it, you coward! Why else did you marry me but to still my tongue?’

  For a moment Giles bowed his head, his shoulders hunched. Clara descended the last couple of steps into the hall. She was smiling now, a small, excited smile that brought a sudden feeling of nausea to Jessica’s stomach. She tried to move, to retreat from this nightmare, and could not.

  ‘You killed your brother for New Hall.’ There was a taunting in Clara’s manner, like a child that tormented a wild dog for the fearful excitement of it. ‘And you were willing to take me to prevent me from telling what I saw that day. Don’t complain of your bargain now! Don’t dare! I’ll not give up this house! It’s mine by right! And FitzBoltons will inherit it, as they should!’

  He lifted his head and stared at her. ‘You’ll do as I tell you, Giles,’ she said, and this time there was no doubt that the taunt was deliberate.

  ‘Bitch,’ he said, flatly.

  She moved closer to him. As she moved the froth of her nightgown drifted and her naked body gleamed in the fitful light. She did nothing to cover herself. Giles clenched and unclenched his big hands, trembling. ‘Bitch!’ he said again, quiet violence threading his voice.

  Her eyes glinted. ‘Hit me!’ she said, a fierce excitement in her face. ‘Hit me, damn you!’

  He did. He hit her, hard, open handed across the face.

  She laughed.

  Jessica turned, her hands to her mouth.

  ‘Again! Hit me again, you pig!’ Clara’s voice was husky with excitement.

  With a choked sob Jessica turned and ran, blindly.

  Behind her, Clara laughed again, clearly for a second before, suddenly, the sound was smothered.

  * * *

  Jessica could not get up from bed the next morning – could not face a world so suddenly tainted and awry. She had slept hardly at all, and her heavy-eyed pallor easily convinced a worried Lucy that she was in danger of fever and needed rest and care. She lay like a doll, or like a small sick child, staring at the ceiling, in her head the endless repetition of that dreadful scene, the endless echoes of the terrible words.

  ‘—you killed your brother for New Hall,’ Clara had said, ‘—and you were willing to take me to prevent me from telling what I saw that day—’

  And Jessica believed it, could not help but believe it in face of Giles’ anguished and guilty reaction. She lay in silence and utterly alone. In whom could she confide such a secret? The thought of the grief such knowledge would afford her mother was unbearable. John was gone – lost to them all by William Hawthorne’s intransigence. Jessica had not the first idea where he might be or how to find him – and for the first time she understood that even a part of that might be laid at Clara’s door. Clara’s silence, her covert encouragement of John’s Catholic leanings, had not been for his benefit but for her own. Edward dead – John disowned and disgraced – Giles the only son left, the Hawthorne fortune his and his alone. No wonder Clara had done nothing to discourage John!

  Jessica tossed uncomfortably in her bed.

  ‘Here, my love—’ Lucy supported her head and held a small spouted cup to her lips. ‘This will help you sleep, poor lamb. Drink it down – tha’ss right

  She sipped the drink, sank thankfully back onto her pillows.

  ‘Jessie?’ A small bright head had appeared at the door. ‘Are you sick?’ Patrick’s face was drawn with worry.

  She tried to smile, tried to ignore the stab of pain that the sight of the child brought. ‘I’m all right. I’ll be better soon.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ He advanced uncertainly to the side of the bed, his wide eyes searching her face. With a pang she realized that in all probability he had watched his own mother die, and very recently. He never spoke of her.

  ‘I’m sure.’ She put out a hand, and he took it. ‘Do you want to take Bran for
a walk for me?’

  His face lit like a lamp. ‘Oh, yes please! May I?’

  She nodded. The sleeping draught Lucy had given her was taking effect. Her eyelids drooped. The marigold shine of the boy’s hair in the light from the windows blurred as if seen through tears. Somewhere very deep within her a resolution began to form. Giles had let Edward die. This was Edward’s son, legitimate or otherwise. Somewhere here was justice – and Giles, she suddenly thought, remembering the scene in the library, had probably been the first to see it. She tightened her hold on the child’s hand a little. ‘Patrick?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you like it here?’

  He hesitated for only a moment. ‘Y-yes.’ He could not keep the doubt from his voice.

  ‘Would you like to stay here?’

  ‘I – think so.’

  ‘If you could have rooms of your own – books to read and toys to play with – Lucy to care for you – Bran to play with—?’

  He nodded vigorously. ‘Yes.’

  ‘A pony?’ She persisted. ‘A pony of your own?’

  His eyes had widened.

  She closed her eyes, letting the relief of drug-induced sleep seep into her exhausted mind. She felt the child’s hand slip from hers, heard him leave the room quietly. Distantly, hatefully, those words rang again in her ears ‘—you were willing to take me to prevent me from telling what I saw that day—’

  She slept at last.

  She woke, heavy-eyed and unhappy late in the afternoon. Her sleep had been haunted by dreams she did not wish to remember, and the worst nightmare of all – the truth – crouched waiting for her as she awoke. But one thing had come to her, one small grain of comfort. She was not, after all, entirely alone. Robert was home. Robert would help her, as he always had. Robert would know what was best to be done.

  The thought once lodged she wanted to act upon it. She threw the bedclothes back just as Lucy came quietly into the room. ‘Goodness, Miss Jess! What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I’m getting up. I have to see Robert.’