The Hawthorne Heritage

by The Hawthorne Heritage (retail) (epub)

  Guilt.

  She had no doubt at all that this was the key to Giles’ behaviour. Patrick’s coming must have seemed to him – as it had seemed to her – divine retribution. The meek would inherit the earth – literally – and the wicked would not profit from their wickedness. She could not feel sorry for him. He had allowed Edward to die. If not for him, Edward might have been here now – laughing, self-deprecating, winding them all around his smallest finger, glorying in the handsome child his son had become. Oh, no – Jessica felt no admiration. She watched with no compunction and little pity as Giles, his marriage a shambles and his aspirations ashes, took refuge in the bottle and in the dubious charms of the less respectable village girls who were all too eager to oblige the tall and handsome young man they all still knew as ‘the young master’. She was young, and she was unforgiving as only the young can be. She watched Giles’ attitude to Patrick like a hawk.

  She and Patrick had become friends. He was, as she had suspected, a lively youngster, and as each day advanced so did his confidence. Oddly enough as she got to know him better more than once she surprised herself comparing him in character not with Edward, but with Giles. The living picture of Edward, yet he had Giles’ restless recklessness, his single-minded confidence in himself, his determination to run faster, climb higher, be better at everything than anyone else. He was a charming child and popular as Edward had been with all who came into contact with him. Lucy would have died for him, and most of the rest of the staff – particularly, Jessica noticed with amusement, the females – took risks with their own safety and security more than once to prevent the wrath of his elders descending upon his bright head after one or other of his more outrageous pranks. He put pepper in the spice jar. He might have burned the house down with a home-made firework hidden in the log-stack for the great kitchen fire. He climbed one of the great elms by the park gate and Charlie Best broke his arm trying to rescue him. And through it all he danced and smiled and apologized always with grace; and escaped with a whole skin. Surprisingly Jessica, with the others, adored him – surprisingly because after one defection – Lucy’s – came another, Bran’s. The dog took to following the boy like a shadow. Jessica could not find it in her to resent it, though she could not deny a certain pang of pain. The dog, though getting older, was in no way a reformed character. He yearned still for the excitement of a rabbit-hunt, or the exercise of a gallop across the park. With her new preoccupation with Robert and Old Hall, and the preparations to be made for the wedding she had little time to indulge the dog as she once had. In a way she knew it was a good thing – she would be leaving soon now, but Bran would not pine. Nevertheless it was not easy for her to say, one squally winter’s afternoon when sleet and hail hurled itself at the windows of the house, ‘Would you like to have Bran for your own?’

  The wide eyes regarded her, startled, and with slow-dawning pleasure. One of the boy’s great charms was that he never expected nor took for granted the favours that life and his own blithe character brought to him. ‘You mean it? My very own?’

  She nodded. They were sitting by the fire in the library. Jessica, always fascinated by books, had been delighted to discover that somewhat unexpectedly Patrick – whether from inclination or a simple desire to please, she did not know – apparently shared her passion and had enthusiastically embarked with her on the task of sorting and indexing the books that had been bought or otherwise garnered in the nearly seventy years of the house’s life. It was something she had always planned to do, and this last winter at home offered her the perfect opportunity to do it.

  Patrick sat back on his heels. His face was a picture of delight. ‘I do love him very much,’ he said.

  ‘I know. Or you wouldn’t get him!’ Jessica briskly entered a title and an author and snapped a heavy tome shut. ‘After I’m married Robert and I are going to live abroad for a while. Bran can’t come with me. I need to leave him with someone I can trust.’

  ‘You can trust me! I promise! I’ll look after him for ever and ever!’

  She put out a hand to ruffle his hair. ‘I know you will. That’s why I’m giving him to you. The bit of him he hasn’t given to you already himself that is!’

  ‘Oh no!’ His face was concerned. He shook his head vigorously. ‘He’s your dog! You should see the way he watches for you when I tell him you’re coming! He’ll never love me as much!’

  She smiled. ‘Perhaps. He’ll soon forget me, I expect, when I’m gone.’

  ‘Of course he won’t!’ He jumped to his feet eagerly, ‘I’ll talk to him about you every day. And – I’ll read your letters to him, and let him smell them! You are going to write lots of letters, aren’t you—?’ He stopped as if a whip had cracked. He stood absolutely still for a moment, looking into the shadows by the door, then very quietly slipped behind Jessica and stood, tense as a drawn bow, his hand clenched on the back of her chair. She lifted her head. Giles stood, silent and swaying, by the open door. ‘Christ in heaven,’ he said, drunkenly and dangerously equable. ‘Isn’t there a single square inch in this bloody house where a man can be on his own?’

  She stood up, tidying the books. ‘It’s all right. We’ll go.’

  Giles walked carefully to the table where stood the brandy and the glasses and as carefully poured himself a drink, He sank into a deep armchair before the fire and nursed the glass, his haggard face in shadow. Jessica eyed him suspiciously. ‘You don’t have to go,’ he said, ‘but send the brat away, will you? I surely don’t have to be afflicted by him every corner I turn?’

  Jessica’s mouth tightened. Before she could speak Patrick grabbed her hand. ‘It’s all right.’ Eyeing Giles’ still form warily he sidled around the chair and fled.

  Jessica stacked her books. ‘That was entirely unnecessary.’

  He shrugged.

  Just the sight of the handsome, slouched body triggered in her a terrible animosity. The childhood dread had gone; he had no power over her now. Only a dislike that verged on hatred remained.

  With a sudden movement he tilted his head and drank the brandy at a swallow. Then he got up, walked to where the decanter stood, picked it up and carried it back to his chair.

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve drunk enough?’

  He laughed. ‘No. Not now. Not ever. There isn’t enough.’

  ‘You’ll kill yourself.’

  He lifted one derisive shoulder.

  She walked determinedly to him. ‘Giles?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘I want you to promise me something.’

  He poured the brandy, steady as a rock; not a drop spilled. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Don’t make his life a misery.’ As you did mine. She did not add the words, though she might have.

  There was an instant’s dead silence, then he barked harsh laughter. ‘I make his life a misery?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He contemplated the brandy, then lifted the gleaming, forget-me-not eyes. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  She fought an awful rage. ‘Because it isn’t civilized. Because it isn’t his fault, what’s happened. Because he’s been through enough and he doesn’t deserve more.’

  He laughed, a sharp crack of a sound that held no humour at all. ‘Deserve? Who gets what he deserves?’

  She could not hold her tongue. ‘Perhaps you have,’ she said, quietly.

  That shook him. He lifted his head, staring at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think you know.’ She was shaking. She wanted nothing but to get away. She turned from him. Like a steel clamp his hand closed on her wrist.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, very softly.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Tell me!’

  She swallowed almost painfully, and stood mute, caught like a bird in a trap. To struggle would be useless, and she knew it.

  ‘How have I got what I deserved?’

  She would not look at him.

  ‘How?’

  The words were there, trembling on her tongue, shrieking t
o be let loose. You killed him! You killed Edward!

  He shook her again. ‘Tell me!’ His eyes were blazing, his rage was feeding on his frustrations and his drunkenness and there was no stopping it. ‘Open your mouth, damn you! Tell me what you mean!’

  She shook in his strong hands like a doll. His fury terrified her. Yet, pushed to it, her own anger, her own disgust, her own hatred could match his, and more. ‘I heard you!’ she whispered, ‘I heard you both! You killed him! You let him die—!’

  He let go of her as if she had stung him. Almost she fell, but regained her balance and stood, shaking and sick with rage, tears of grief burning in her eyes.

  ‘What did you hear? When?’

  ‘You and Clara. The night you came home drunk. I saw you fall off your horse outside and came to help—’ She almost choked at the irony of that. ‘You quarrelled, down in the hall. I was on the landing.’

  ‘Well, well.’ His smile was wholly a sneer. ‘What a sweet little sister I have. You make a habit of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, do you?’

  ‘I wasn’t eavesdropping. I couldn’t help overhearing—’

  He laughed, quietly and unpleasantly.

  She stepped away from him, and he let her go. They stood watching each other. Measuring each other.

  ‘And what have you done about it?’ he asked at last, pleasantly.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’ve told no one?’ His eyes had narrowed.

  She hesitated for a second. ‘—No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How could I? It would have killed Mama, and done no good. Nothing will bring Edward back, will it? I – didn’t know what to do—’

  ‘So—’ he was regarding her coolly, ‘You ran to your pretty little friend Robert and he is to marry you and take you from the Ogre’s castle?’

  The hateful perception took her breath away. ‘Yes.’

  He smiled.

  ‘You’re wicked,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  The gall of him stung her to anger again. ‘Well, listen to this, Giles – for as surely as I’m standing here I mean what I say! I haven’t told what I heard. That doesn’t mean I won’t. If I hear of unkindness to Patrick – if you dare to make him frightened, or unhappy – then I swear I’ll tell!’

  ‘I’ll deny it.’

  ‘That’s as may be. But there’s plenty who’ll believe it. We both know that.’

  He looked at her for a long, slow moment. ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘so the Hawthorne spots come out at last. Very well, sister. You have a bargain. And may you rot for it.’

  She could take no more. On trembling legs she turned and walked, straight-backed from him, closing the door very quietly behind her.

  * * *

  It was a long, hard winter, deep in snow from January on and with a flaying wind that it seemed must be whipping across the flatlands of East Anglia directly from the frozen spaces of Russia. As the bad weather dragged on through an early Easter, April seemed an eternity away. And yet then, suddenly, it was upon her and with it the first song birds, the buds and blossoms of spring and the happy turmoil of her wedding.

  She awoke on the day to sunshine; surely, oh, surely a happy omen after these past bitter months, she thought as she jumped from bed and ran to the window on bare feet. Outside her window birds sang and fluttered in the ageless rites of mating and nesting; out in the park beneath the trees the daffodils that carpeted the ground bowed their pretty heads to the sun. She took a deep, deep breath and stretched. It was here at last. The day of her freedom.

  ‘Why, Miss Jess, whatever do you think you’re doin’?’ Lucy, flustered and sleepy-eyed, bustled into the room clucking like a disturbed broody hen. ‘Back in that bed with you, this minute! Tha’ss still too cold to be runnin’ about with next to nothin’ on, sun or no sun!’

  Laughing Jessica turned and ran back to the high bed, leaping onto it like a child, bouncing into the feather mattress. Her wedding dress hung on a wooden dummy by the window, the sun sheening the ivory silk with gold and glimmering on the tiny pearls that patterned the skirt like light gleaming on water. For weeks she had longed for the day she would wear it; even Caroline had conceded at the last fitting that it suited her ‘tolerably well’ and had declared that to see her baby sister looking so positively grown up made her feel quite ancient. The veil lay beside it, covering the chair on which it lay like a froth of sparkling mist. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Only just past seven. You’ve plenty of time yet.’ Lucy was plucking at the dress gently, straightening the folds of the sweeping skirt. ‘My, this is just the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, you know that?’

  Jessica hugged her knees, her eyes shining. ‘I think so. Oh, Lucy – just think – by this afternoon I shan’t be Jessie Hawthorne any more. Not ever again. I shall be the Honorable Mrs Jessica FitzBolton. And one day – oh, years I know – but one day I’ll be Lady FitzBolton! Doesn’t that sound funny?’

  ‘Everything you do’s funny.’ The young voice came from the doorway. ‘Funny-Bunny-Jessie! That’s what your name ought to be!’ Patrick shrieked with laughter and dodged as Jessica with sure aim flung a pillow at him. Then he danced into the room, grinning. His hair was tousled, the leather of his boots dark and stained with damp. ‘It’s a lovely day. Bran and I have been out already. You should have seen him make the rabbits run!’

  Jessica swung her legs off the bed. ‘You’ll be the death of that poor old dog.’ She had long since become accustomed – even pleased about – Bran’s attachment to the child. When Patrick’s Grandma Stewart had finally succumbed to an inflammation of the lungs in early January the boy had taken strange consolation in the companionship of the dog. At a time when no one else could console him the two had trudged the parkland and the lanes, and in solitude Patrick had recovered his spirits and come through his grief. Since then the two of them had been all but inseparable, and Jessica had no qualms about leaving them so. In fact she had few qualms about leaving anyone or anything at New Hall. Over the past few months the thought of this day had become the thought of freedom and happiness. She had not spared a thought as to whether the first was possible or how the second might be achieved. The one would follow the other as day followed night – ‘and they lived happily ever after’ had become almost a password between herself and Robert. For Robert too, with the decision taken and the arrangements made had taken his cue from Jessica and come to see their marriage as a solution to all problems. Jessica’s enthusiasm, her boundless optimism, her refusal to admit to any possibility of failure had infected him like a fever. To his delight he had been accepted by Maestro Pietro Donatti as a pupil; with such help and guidance, surely, even Jessica’s rosily-painted pictures of success were not too far-fetched. They had rented an apartment not far from the Ponte Vecchio from June and for an indefinite time thereafter. Like children they had plotted and planned, like children they had created a world of their own where problems existed only to be surely overcome. Like children they assumed that to wish something was to make it so. They had not once discussed Robert’s problem nor its possible effect on their marriage; like children they had shut their eyes, pretending the serpent in their Eden did not exist.

  Lucy shooed Patrick from the bedroom, clapping her hands and flapping her pinafore as if she were herding geese. Laughing still he went, swearing he was off rabbit hunting with Bran. Not for anything would he have admitted how much he was looking forward to wearing the satin suit that had been made for him for the occasion, as one of Jessica’s attendants. Royal blue and trimmed with oyster silk, it made him look a young prince and he knew it. He also knew its likely effect upon pretty little Betsy Morris, the new dairy maid. Jessica was not the only person looking forward to this day, and with good cause…

  She enjoyed, with intent, every single moment of it. She did not – she would not – let the smallest second pass without savouring it. She wallowed in the perfumed bath that Lucy and another maid prepared
for her. She enjoyed the long and complicated process of dressing her hair – a task undertaken on this special day by her mother’s new and extremely chic French maid whilst Lucy stamped about the room ostensibly tidying up but actually registering her chagrin and disapproval by making as much noise as she reasonably could without actually drowning the conversation. When it was done Jessica peered in pure pleasure at the small, oval face crowned by a mass of artfully piled and curled hair in which pearls glimmered like tiny stars. ‘Oh, how clever! I can never make it stay up like that!’

  ‘I’ll show you, Mam’selle—’ The girl smiled at her delight. ‘See – you place the combs so – and so – and the pins – so—’ She demonstrated deftly with her own hair. ‘You’ll soon learn how – and see how it suits the little face and the big eyes – la-la! The young M’sieu will be pleased I think!’

  It did indeed suit the little face and the big eyes – and the young M’sieu was most certainly pleased. When at last, dressed and perfumed and feeling like a princess in a fairy tale she drove with her mother, Giles and Clara through the spring woodlands to St Agatha’s she saw it in his eyes as she joined him at the altar, her small hands full of spring flowers, her eyes shining her happiness. Strangely, of the ceremony itself she remembered very little later. The church was cool, and lit by the shafts of sunlight that cut like golden sword-strokes through the high, narrow windows and dimmed the light of the altar candles. As she stood beside Robert and uttered obediently the appropriate responses her eyes were upon the smiling statue of St Agatha, and in her heart, suddenly and with a clarity that astounded her, she saw the dark angel-face, never forgotten, the skilled, strong hands that had worked upon that statue, that screen, this altar rail—