Emma paused to catch her breath as she came up on to the crest of the first ridge. She fanned her face, and took several deep breaths, before commencing her ascent of the slope to Ramsden Crags. They reared above her, huge granite horses dramatically outlined against the sky, ringed in sunshine, rivulets of which trickled down over their dark and ancient surfaces like running liquid gold. In winter, coated with ice and snow and sleet, their ghastly sheen could appal, but now in the soft summer air they appeared quite benign and welcoming. Emma looked about her, devouring the scenery with her eyes, as always drawing strength from those familiar surroundings. The haze was evaporating and, in spite of the gentle breeze blowing down from the high fells, she was already beginning to feel the heat. She was thankful she was wearing the dark green cotton dress Mrs Wainright had given her. It was light and cool against her bare legs.
Within minutes Emma was under the shadow of Ramsden Crags. She put down the heavy basket of clothes she was carrying, and seated herself on a flat rock. These days she always lingered for a moment at the Top of the World, for here she felt her mother’s presence more assuredly than she did in the little cottage. To Emma, her mother still lived and breathed in this quiet sheltered spot, so well loved by them both. Emma saw her adored face in the pale shadows and vaporous moorland tints, heard her tinkling laughter echoing around the time-worn crags, communed with her in the gentle silence that was unbroken, except for the occasional bird call or the faint buzzing of a bee.
Emma rested her head against the rocks behind her and closed her eyes, conjuring up her mother’s face. She opened them almost immediately and it seemed to her that her mother stood before her, radiant and smiling, the beloved image wholly formed. ‘Oh, Mam, Mam, I do miss yer,’ she said aloud, and she was filled with a longing, a yearning that was almost unbearable and brought an ache to her throat. She held out her arms, straining towards that nebulous image, which quickly faded. Emma sat quite still for a little while longer, leaning against the cool rocks, her eyes closed, pushing down the sadness that was still so near to the surface, and then, when she was contained, she picked up the basket and set off resolutely in the direction of Ramsden Ghyll.
Hurrying now, she shifted the heavy basket on to her other arm and descended into the Ghyll, all green darkness, shadowy and cool, where only thimblefuls of sunlight trickled in through the overhanging rocky ledges and ancient trees, whose crooked boughs knotted together like an old man’s rheumatic gnarly fingers. A rabbit skittered across her path and disappeared behind a soaring boulder coated with mats of moss that were dark and velvety in the dim light. When she reached the middle of the dell, where all sunlight was totally obliterated, she began to sing, as she always did here, her light soprano echoing sweetly in the perfect stillness. ‘Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling. From glen to glen, and down the mountainside. The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling. It’s you, it’s you must go, and I must bide.’
She stopped singing and smiled to herself, thinking warmly of Blackie. That was his favourite song and he had taught her the words. He had not been to the Hall for over a month. He had finished all of his work there for the moment. But sometimes he stopped by to see her, when he was in the district, and she wondered when he would be coming back. She missed him. Within minutes Emma was up and out of the chilly dell and in the bright air again, under the wide and shining sky, heading for the ridge that dropped down to the Hall. She began to walk more swiftly, to make up time, for she was later than usual this morning, well over an hour late, and Cook would already be grousing about her tardiness, of that she was certain. She ran down the slope and opened the old rickety wooden gate at the edge of the Baptist Field, closing it carefully behind her, dropping the heavy iron latch into place.
Emma no longer swung on the gate. She thought she was too grown-up to indulge in such a childish game. After all, she was fifteen and four months, already in her sixteenth year. A young lady almost, and young ladies, who intended to be grand ladies one day, did not do such frivolous things.
Entering the cobbled stable yard, Emma was somewhat taken aback to see Dr Malcom’s horse and trap tethered at the mounting block. The yard was deserted and unnaturally quiet, and there was no sign of Tom Hardy, the stableboy, who normally was busily currying the Squire’s horses and polishing the brass on the harness at this hour. She frowned, wondering why Dr Mac was visiting the Hall at seven o’clock in the morning. Somebody must be badly, she surmised, and immediately thought of Edwin, who had taken a chill the week before. He was prone to chest colds, so Mrs Fairley had told her. Emma’s feet flew up the stone steps leading to the back door, but not so quickly that her keen eyes did not notice the steps had not yet been scoured. That there Annie’s getting neglectful of her duties, she thought with a flash of irritation.
The moment she entered the house Emma knew that something was dreadfully amiss. She quietly closed the door behind her and went down into the kitchen. The fire blazed as always, the copper kettle hissed on the hob, but the delicious smell of breakfast cooking was noticeably absent. Cook sat in her chair near the fireplace, rocking to and fro, stifling her sobs and wiping her streaming eyes with the end of her apron, which was already sodden with her copious tears. Annie appeared to be reasonably controlled, and Emma strode rapidly across the flagged floor to her, hoping to elicit some information. But she perceived at once that Annie was as distraught as Cook, and she sat so rigidly in the chair she might have turned to a pillar of salt. Like Lot’s wife, Emma thought.
Emma flung the basket down on the floor hastily. ‘What’s wrong?’ she cried, looking from one to the other. ‘Why is Dr Mac here? It’s Master Edwin, isn’t it? He’s sick!’ Neither Cook nor Annie appeared to hear her words. Certainly they paid no attention to her. And the dysphoria and apprehension in the air instantly communicated itself to Emma, so sharply that she quaked inside. The overwrought Mrs Turner now looked up, an anguished expression on her apple-dumpling face, her eyes red-rimmed. She gazed at Emma mutely, obviously unable to speak, and then she burst into further paroxysms of tears, rocking herself more violently than ever, moaning loudly between her sobs.
Emma was frantic. She reached out and touched Annie gently on the shoulder. The petrified girl jumped nervously, as if Emma’s fingers had scourged her. She returned Emma’s questioning look with a mindless stare. Annie blinked several times, very rapidly, and her mouth jerked, but she remained silent. And then she began to quiver. Emma took hold of her firmly with her small strong hands, attempting to calm her, filled with a mixture of impatience, and the beginnings of real panic.
Emma now realized she must go and find Murgatroyd immediately, but at that very moment the butler appeared at the top of the stairs leading to the family’s living quarters. Emma’s eyes flew urgently to his face. It was more dolorous than ever. He was wearing his black butler’s coat, which was also unprecedented at this hour, when he was generally in his shirtsleeves and green baize apron, engaged in his pantry chores. On reaching the bottom of the stairs he leaned against the newel post and passed his hand over his brow in a futile gesture. His arrogant manner had been replaced by a deflated air, and this also registered most forcibly with Emma.
The bewildered girl took a few steps closer to him. ‘Summat serious has happened. It’s Master Edwin, isn’t it?’ she whispered. It was a statement rather than a question.
Murgatroyd looked down at her mournfully. ‘No, it’s the missis,’ he said.
‘She’s badly then, is she? That’s why Dr Mac’s here—’
‘She’s dead,’ interrupted Murgatroyd roughly, in a low harsh voice.
Emma took an involuntary step backward. She felt as if she had been struck across her face with great force. It seemed to her that all of the blood was draining out of her, and her legs trembled. Her voice was unsteady as she cried, ‘Dead!’
‘Aye, dead as a doornail,’ Murgatroyd muttered tersely, his darkening face revealing his distress, which was most genuine.
‘No, and she weren’t poorly yesterday either,’ intoned Murgatroyd in a woebegone voice. He looked at Emma with gravity, and for once there was no hostility in his manner towards her. ‘She tummeled down t’stairs during t’night. Broke her neck, so Dr Mac says.’
Emma gasped, and, reeling, she gripped the edge of the table to steady herself. Her eyes, wide and dazed, were riveted on the butler.
Murgatroyd inclined his head in Annie’s direction. ‘Yon lass found her at five-thirty this morning, when she went up ter take t’ashes out of the grates. Stiff as a board the missis was. Lying at the bottom of the front staircase in the entrance hall. That she was, and in her nightclothes. Fair scared the living daylights out of yon Annie, who come running ter fetch me like the Divil himself was after her.’
‘It just can’t be so,’ Emma groaned, pressing her knuckles to her blanched mouth. Her eyes welled with tears.
‘Aye, horrible it was, ter see her lying there, her eyes wide and open and all starey like, and glazed. And her head dangling loose like a broken doll’s. I knows when I touched her she’d been dead for hours. Cold as marble, she was.’
Murgatroyd paused in his harrowing litany, and then went on, ‘I carried her upstairs, fair gentle like, and laid her on her bed. And she might not have been dead at all. She looked ever so beautiful, just like she always was, with all that golden hair strewn about the pillow. Except for her staring eyes. I tried ter close ’em. But they just wouldn’t shut. I had ter put two pennies on ’em, till Dr Mac got here. The poor, poor missis.’
The shaken and stupefied Emma dropped heavily into one of the chairs at the table. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she fished around in her pocket for the bit of clean rag that served as a handkerchief, and wiped her face. She hunched in the chair, so stunned and appalled she could hardly think. But gradually her composure returned, and it was then that she recognized she had grown extremely fond of Adele Fairley. She was doomed, Emma said to herself. And then she thought: I knew summat awful would happen here, in this terrible house, one day.
The silence in the sun-filled kitchen was leaden, broken only by the muffled sobs of the weeping Cook. After a few minutes, the butler emerged from his pantry and said, with sour bluntness, ‘All this ’ere weeping and wailing like a lot of banshees has ter stop, yer knows.’ He spoke to the room at large, his eyes sweeping over them all. ‘We have our duties ter attend ter. There’s the family ter consider.’
Emma looked at him alertly, thinking compassionately of Edwin and the grief he must be experiencing at the news of his mother’s untimely and shocking death. ‘The children,’ she said, through her subsiding tears, and blew her nose. ‘Do they know?’
‘Dr Mac’s talking ter Master Edwin in the library right this minute,’ Murgatroyd informed her. ‘I told Master Gerald meself, after I’d got the missis upstairs ter her room, and afore I sent Tom ter the village for the doctor. Master Gerald waited for Dr Mac, who dispatched him posthaste ter Newby Hall ter fetch the Squire home.’
‘What about Mrs Wainright?’ Emma ventured.
Murgatroyd threw her a scathing look. ‘Do yer think I’m a gormless fool, lass? I already thought of that. Dr Mac wrote out a telegram, and Master Gerald is ter send it ter her in Scotland, from t’first post office he comes ter that’s open.’ The butler cleared his throat, and went on, ‘Now, lass, let’s get a move on down ’ere. For a start, mash a pot of tea. The doctor needs a cup—’ He glanced around the room and his beady eyes settled on Mrs Turner. ‘So does Cook by the looks of it.’
Emma nodded, and hurried off to do as he had told her. Murgatroyd now addressed Cook in a louder voice. ‘Come on, Mrs Turner. Pull yourself together, woman. There’s a lot ter be done. We can’t all collapse, yer knows.’
Cook lifted her sorrowful face and regarded Murgatroyd fretfully. Her ample bosom was still heaving, but her sobbing had ceased. She pushed herself up out of the chair, nodding her head. ‘Aye, there’s the bairns ter think about, and the Squire.’ She wiped her damp and streaked face on her apron again, and then looked down at it, still shaking her head. ‘Let me change me pinny, and then I’ll start on breakfast. Not that I thinks anybody’ll want owt.’
‘Dr Mac might want a bite,’ Murgatroyd said. ‘I’m off up ter see him now. And ter draw the curtains. We must show the proper respect for the dead.’
Cook, who was changing her pinafore, said quickly, ‘Did yet send Tom ter the village ter get Mrs Stead? Ter lay the missis out? She’s the best by here for that job.’
‘Aye, I did that.’
At the mention of her mother’s name a flicker of comprehension entered Annie’s deadened eyes. ‘Yer’ve sent for me mam,’ she said slowly, rousing herself from the stupor that had enveloped her for the last few hours.
‘I did, Annie,’ Murgatroyd asserted. ‘She should be here any minute, and yer’d best look a bit more lively, afore she does arrive. She’s got enough on her hands with the laying out. She don’t needs ter be worrying about thee, lass.’
The cook shuffled over to Annie and put her arms around her, looking down into the girl’s pale face. ‘Do yer feel a bit better, luv?’ she asked solicitously.
‘Aye, I thinks so,’ Annie mumbled. ‘It gave me a right fright,’ she gasped, ‘finding the missis like that.’ Her shaky voice cracked with emotion, and finally the tears suppressed by shock flowed unchecked.
‘Have a good cry, luv. Get it out of yer system, afore yer mam gets here. Yer don’t want ter be upsetting her, now do yer, luv?’ Annie buried her head against Cook’s comforting body, sobbing softly. Mrs Turner patted her shoulder and stroked her hair, murmuring kindly to her, and with motherly concern.
Satisfied that a degree of order had been restored, Murgatroyd turned on his heels and swiftly mounted the stairs. First he would consult with Dr Mac, to see if he had any further instructions, and then he must go around the house, drawing all the curtains, shutting out the light until after the funeral, as was the custom in the North after a death in the family.
Emma made the tea and they sat drinking it in silence, all of them subdued and sorrowing. It was Annie who finally spoke first. She looked at Emma across the table and said, ‘I wish yer’d been here this weekend, Emma. Then yer’d have found the missis instead of me.’ Annie’s eyes widened. ‘I’ll never forget that look on the missis’s face. Like she’d seen summat horrible afore she fell.’
Emma stared at Annie through narrowed eyes. ‘What on earth do yer mean?’
Annie gulped. ‘It was like she’d seen—seen one of them there abominations me main says walks over t’moors at night,’ Annie said, dropping her voice.
‘Now, Annie, shut thee gob, lass. By gum, I won’t have no fanciful talk about the spirits of the dead in this ’ere house,’ Mrs Turner snapped. ‘All them silly village superstitions. Stuff and nonsense, if yer asks me.’
Emma scowled. ‘I wonder what Mrs Fairley was doing? Coming downstairs in the middle of the night. Murgatroyd said she’d been dead for hours. She must’ve been wandering around at two or three o’clock in the morning.’
Annie volunteered quietly, ‘I knows what she was doing.’
Both Mrs Turner and Emma stared at her in surprise, and with expectancy. ‘And how do yer knows, Annie Stead?’ asked Cook imperiously. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, yer were fast asleep in yer room in the attic. Or yer should’ve been.’
‘Aye, I was. But it was me that found her. And there was broken glass all around her body. From one of the best wine goblets, it was. She was still clutching part of t’stem, and there was dried blood on her hand, like rust, where she’d cut herself.’ Annie shivered at the remembrance, and whispered, ‘I bet she was coming down ter the library ter get herself a nip, ’cos I’ve sme—’
‘Murgatr
oyd didn’t mention no broken goblet ter me,’ interjected Cook peremptorily, glaring at Annie.
‘No, he wouldn’t. But I saw him sweeping it up, ever so quick like,’ Annie replied. ‘He thought I hadn’t seen it ’cos I was scared stiff.’
Cook continued to glare at Annie speechlessly, but Emma sucked in her breath, recognizing instantly the veracity of everything Annie had said. It was the most obvious explanation. ‘Yer not ter repeat that ter anybody, Annie. Yer hear what I say? Not even ter the Squire,’ Emma cautioned gravely. ‘What’s done is done, and the less said, the better.’
‘Emma’s right, luv,’ said Cook, recovering herself. ‘We don’t wants no nasty gossip in the village. Let the poor missis rest in peace.’
Annie nodded. ‘I promise not ter tell owt.’
Emma sighed and was thoughtful. Then she looked pointedly at Cook and said, ‘It’s right funny, when yer think about it. First Polly died, then me mam, and now Mrs Fairley. All in just a few months of each other.’
Cook returned Emma’s concentrated stare. ‘It’s said, in these parts, that everything goes in threes.’
The funeral of Adele Fairley took place later that week. The Fairley mill was closed for the day, and all of the workers were in attendance, along with the servants from the Hall. The small cemetery adjoining Fairley Church overflowed with the villagers, the local gentry, and friends of the family from all over the country.
Two days after the funeral, Olivia Wainright left for London, accompanied by Edwin. Exactly one week later Adam Fairley departed himself, journeying south to join his youngest son at his sister-in-law’s Mayfair town house.
A Woman of Substance Page 36
