The Brynthwaite Boys - Season One - Part Two

by Merry Farmer

  “I didn’t realize the woods were so deep,” she said as Lawrence handed her over a fallen log growing moss.

  “Deep and old,” Lawrence answered, a hint of a smile in his otherwise serious eyes. “Sometimes I think that Mother Grace is as old as the woods themselves.”

  Matty blinked. “Mother Grace? Is that where we’re going?”

  Lawrence nodded. “She’s the only person I can think of that can help us restore your memory and discover what happened. I should have brought you here sooner.”

  Everything about his statement was unsettling. Lawrence spoke often of Mother Grace. He’d given Matty the feeling that she could see right through anyone, right through her. Whether she wanted to or not, Matty had a feeling the entirety of her secrets were about to be exposed.

  Lawrence paused as they reached the sun-dappled bank of a small stream. Moist, dead leaves scattered the ground, new shoots of growth spearing up through them. The stream gurgled a merry tune, and the scent of earth and life filled the air. In the dance of light and shadows filtering down from the trees, Lawrence appeared as some sort of virile forest god, inspiring a wave of desire in spite of her fear.

  Guilt followed hard on the heels of that emotion.

  “Lawrence, there’s something I should tell you,” she began in a quiet voice, unable to meet his eyes.

  “No, there’s something I should tell you,” he said.

  She looked up at him, frowning. “Tell me?”

  He stepped closer to her, taking both of her hands in his. “My trip to Grasmere last week,” he began. “It wasn’t to visit Rev. Albright. At least not entirely.”

  Matty swallowed, the butterflies in her stomach telling her what came next before Lawrence spoke.

  “I went in search of answers,” he said. “I found more than I had bargained for. I met your step-father, Trevor Hoag.”

  Trevor Hoag. The name was like a flash of lightning cutting through the fog of her memory. All at once, a tidal wave of images assailed her. She saw the room as it had been that night, half cleaned, chairs scattered every which way, her mother’s fallen over. The kitchen stove radiated heat as her mother shoved more wood through its mouth. She had wanted to make tea after supper. Her step-father had other wants.

  “Is that all you can think of, you great oaf? Sticking your sausage where it isn’t wanted?” her mother barked.

  “What do you know of it, you dried up old woman?” Hoag had bellowed in reply. “I deserve a fresh morsel after all I’ve put up with.”

  The younger children cowered at the table. Constance, the oldest of them at age ten, knew enough of what was being said to blanch in fear.

  “Keep away from me,” Matty warned Hoag, backing toward the corner.

  “Hush up, you,” her mother snapped. “You’ll do as you’re told.”

  “I don’t want him. I’ll scream and the neighbors will come.”

  “They will not,” Hoag snapped. “You’d only call Bobbo, and he’d line up to finish what I started.”

  “Is this how you conduct your business, you lummox?” her mother said without any power behind her words.

  Hoag didn’t say anything, he just lashed out, striking her mother across the face. Her mother reeled backwards, slamming into the table. The small children screamed. All but Constance fled from the room. Hoag advanced on Matty, unbuckling his belt.

  “No, stay away,” Matty panted. She searched for anything that could be used to strike him, anything at all, knowing she didn’t have the strength.

  “I’ve waited too long for this, too long,” Hoag growled.

  Matty lunged to the table and grabbed a kitchen knife. “You lay a hand on me and I’ll cut it right off.”

  “Get off your high horse, girl,” her mother shouted. “It’s about time someone other than me take it from that beast.”

  “Mother,” Matty gasped. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I already have. Now it’s your turn.”

  “No.”

  “Go on!”

  Her mother grabbed Matty’s arm and tried to force her toward a laughing Hoag. On instinct, Matty lashed out, slicing her mother’s hand with the knife. Her mother screamed.

  “Oy!” Hoag shouted, striking Matty across the face with his fist.

  The blow jerked Matty to the side. She dropped the knife, which went skittering toward her mother, and slumped against the table. Little Constance wailed.

  “Not you too,” Hoag barked. He crossed to the table and slapped Constance.

  “Don’t you touch her,” Matty’s mother shouted to defend the younger girl where she hadn’t been willing to lift a hand to help Matty. “I’ll hurt you if you touch my little Connie. You lay one hand on her and I’ll cut your willy off.”

  Hoag burst into ugly laughter. “What, like this?” He sidestepped around Matty, giving Constance another slap.

  Her mother yelled and snatched up the knife that Matty had dropped with her uninjured hand. She surged forward. Time sped up. Her mother slashed with the knife, but made no contact. Hoag howled like a feral wolf anyhow. He took a swing at her mother, knocking her sideways, then kept going. He clamped his hands around her throat and squeezed. Matty froze in terror as her mother choked and sputtered. Her mother’s eyes bulged and her face turned red, then blue.

  She should do something. She should defend the woman who had given her life. The woman who had been ready to let her foul husband vent his lusts on her, who hadn’t lifted a finger to stop the man from beating her more times than Matty could count. Matty stood motionless, frozen with fear and fury as her mother’s eyes rolled back in her head. She deserved what she got.

  That thought struck sense into her. She had to do something. Matty shouted and pushed forward, slamming her fists into Hoag’s back. She might as well have beat on the wall for all Hoag took notice. He released her mother’s throat, but not because of any blows Matty landed. Instead of choking her mother, he pried the knife out of her hand. Matty’s mother tried to scream through her crushed throat, but only a croaking cough came out. Then Hoag stabbed.

  She didn’t know how many times he raised the knife. Blood was everywhere. Her mother barely had a chance to cry out before she was flat on the floor, blood pooling everywhere.

  “No!” Matty lunged at Hoag, desperate to pry him away from her mother’s limp form. Constance was in hysterics behind her.

  Hoag turned on her, crashing a fist into her face. Matty saw stars as she staggered back, but that wasn’t the end of it. He hit her in the gut, grabbed her by the hair and smashed her into the table.

  “Now I’ll get what I want from you,” he growled, loosening his trousers.

  Even with the return of her memory, everything from that point was hazy. The struggle had continued, but she only remembered flashes of it. She fought, he beat her in an attempt to take the fight out of her. At one point he’d had her flat on her stomach across the table and was lifting her skirt. The next moment she had used the last of her strength to heave back, smashing him into the blazing stove. He had screamed, the smell of burning flesh filled the air, and then there was nothing.

  “You remember, don’t you?”

  Lawrence’s simple, gently spoken words pulled her back to the present.

  “All of it,” she confessed, strangled with emotion.

  Lawrence’s arms were around her in a heartbeat. He hugged her close as she wept against his shoulder, murmuring words of comfort against the side of her head. Tremors overtook her, and his arms were suddenly necessary to keep her on her feet. She hugged him with all her might, fighting through the remembered terror to tell herself she was safe, Hoag didn’t know where to find her, Lawrence was there.

  But Hoag did know where to find her. At least he had a clue, thanks to Bobbo.

  “It’s only a little farther,” Lawrence said. He brushed a soothing hand over her head. “Do you want me to carry you?”

  “No.” Matty swallowed and forced herself to stand straight. “No, I can walk
on my own.”

  She was grateful when he clasped her hand tightly as they walked. They crossed the stream and wove their way through more trees. The woods were noisy with wind and wildlife, but not a sound of it was human-made but their own footsteps. Matty clung to that, reminding herself that Hoag was not here, she was safe. For now.

  They turned a corner around a copse of bushes, and Matty gasped. A squat, cozy cottage seemed to appear out of nowhere. Ivy grew thick on the walls and moss on the thatched roof, causing the house to blend into the woods around it. Matty was certain she would have walked right past it if Lawrence hadn’t known it was there. Stranger still, a small table was set in a yard out front, three chairs around it. The table was spread with a rough linen cloth and laid out for tea.

  “It’s about time you got here,” an older woman said, coming through the open front door of the house with a plate of what appeared to be scones.

  The woman was far from being an old crone, like in fairy stories, though she was still older than Matty’s mother. Her salt-and-pepper hair hung in a long braid down her back. She wore a skirt of cheery, homespun blue, a clean white blouse, and something like a long, multi-colored waistcoat that reached nearly to her knees. Around her neck was a string of beads, charms, and river stones. Her figure was that of a much younger woman, and her face was only barely lined. She was beautiful in a startling, almost disturbing sort of way.

  “Mother Grace, this is Matty,” Lawrence said, leading Matty right up to the table.

  “I see.” Mother Grace brushed her hands together, then walked around the table to inspect Matty. Her eyes were a clear, deep violet. Matty had the distinct sensation that they could see into her soul. “Well, my dear, you’d best sit down and tell me all about it,” she said in a foreboding tone.

  Matty’s heart thrummed hard in her chest. She wasn’t certain she’d be able to catch her breath. This woman knew things. She knew.

  “Matty is beginning to remember her past,” Lawrence said. “The night of the murder, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Mother Grace let him finish his sentence, then she waved him to silence. “You’ve told me your bit of the story, my boy. Let Mathilda tell me hers.”

  Lawrence nodded obediently and took a seat at the table. Unsure what else to do, Matty took the seat beside him. Mother Grace finished their party by plopping into a chair and pouring tea into the fine, porcelain cups.

  “Drink that up, dearie, then let me take a look at the leaves,” she said, nodding to Matty. “And tell me what you know.”

  “I know that my mother was murdered by my step-father,” she said, the words rushing out of her like some giant force was pushing them out from her gut. “I know that he strangled her then stabbed her, then he tried to—” She swallowed, darting a sideways glance to Lawrence.

  Lawrence’s expression flashed from concerned to murderous. It was a relief to Matty. It meant she wouldn’t have to explain further.

  “I pushed him against the stove, and he burned,” she went on. “Then I ran.”

  “Hmm. I see.” Mother Grace nodded. She sat back in her chair, eyes narrowed, considering. “Drink your tea.”

  Matty obeyed. There was nothing else to be done. The tea was rich and bitter without sugar or cream, but she drank it hungrily. As soon as she set her cup in its saucer, her gut burned to know what the leftover leaves would say, but Mother Grace didn’t look at them right away.

  “You said you spoke to Hoag and he seems unhinged,” Mother Grace said to Lawrence.

  “Paranoid.” Lawrence nodded. “And I can see why. He knows he is the murderer and not Matty.”

  Mother Grace didn’t share the confidence with which Lawrence made his statement. She continued to nod and stroke her chin. “Be that as it may, until it is proven otherwise, it’s his word against your Matty’s.”

  Lawrence frowned as if he hadn’t thought of that. Something about the statement struck Matty as wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on what that wrongness was. Her memory may have returned, but it was warped somehow, like it too had strayed too close to the fire.

  “I brought Matty here today because there is a man, a friend of her step-father’s, who has come to Brynthwaite. He saw her. I want Matty to remain hidden until something can be done,” Lawrence said.

  It took Matty a few seconds to catch up to what he’d said. He wanted to bring her here and leave her.

  “I won’t stay here without you,” she gasped, terror washing over her anew.

  “You’ll be safe here,” Lawrence assured her, covering her hand with his as it rested on the table. “Mother Grace has protective spells all over this place, no one can find it.”

  Matty flinched. Spells? Did Lawrence believe in magic? Perhaps she was in a dream.

  “No one has found me yet who I haven’t wanted to,” Mother Grace said, her expression far more pragmatic.

  “You see?” Lawrence went on, leaning toward her. “I brought you here to keep you safe until I can learn more about Hoag, what happened, and what can be done.”

  “But you’ll leave me,” Matty protested. She hated how small and fearful she sounded, but she was more afraid than she’d been since the night she arrived at the forge.

  “Not indefinitely,” Lawrence said. “I’ll come every day if I have to. I’ll stay here at night.”

  Every fiber of Matty’s body wanted to scream in protest, but she kept her lips pressed shut, not trusting herself to speak.

  The silence continued until Mother Grace said, “Lawrence, would you run out back and fetch me a bucket of water from the spring?”

  Lawrence sent her a knowing look. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and stood like a boy given an order by his mother. “You will be safe here,” he told Matty before heading into the house.

  Mother Grace waited until they heard Lawrence leave the house through the back door before reaching for Matty’s teacup.

  “Some stories are best told in private,” she said, peering into the cup.

  Matty had no answer for her. She watched as Mother Grace stared at the tea leaves. She wasn’t sure if she believed in magic or fortune-telling, but if this strange woman could help her, she would cling to anything.

  “You love him,” Mother Grace said.

  Matty caught her breath. “Yes.”

  Mother Grace arched an eyebrow. “He loves you too. I’ve seen him fancy women before, but not love them.”

  Matty had no reply for that.

  “You’re in grave danger.”

  “The tea leaves show you that?”

  Mother Grace smiled. “No. I don’t need them to. I know how the law sees women, particularly women who defend themselves. Men rule this land, and they don’t like it when woman assert themselves.”

  “Oh.” She was right.

  “Unless you can prove that this man, Hoag, killed your mother, they will blame you for it and you will hang.”

  Matty tried to swallow, but it was as if the noose was already around her neck. “What can I do?” she breathed out on a whisper.

  Mother Grace shrugged. She set the teacup down. “Stay here with me,” she said. “Lawrence is right about that much.”

  “But—”

  “You love him and you don’t want to be apart from him, I know,” Mother Grace cut her off. “Such is the way of a young woman’s heart. But you must part from him now to be with him for the rest of your lives.”

  Matty’s breath caught in her chest. “Will we?”

  Mother Grace reached for her teapot and poured Matty another cup. “Likely. If you don’t hang.”

  A shiver shot down Matty’s spine. If she didn’t hang. There wasn’t a thing she could do to stop herself from hanging. Except to prove she was innocent. But how?

  “Lawrence will not be far from you in any case,” Mother Grace went on.

  “He won’t?”

  “No.” She broke into a wide, eager smile. “Not as long as his babe is inside you.”

  “How—” Matty gasped,
her mouth hanging open as Mother Grace’s words sank in. “What?”

  Mother Grace’s smile widened. “The tea leaves may not have told me what is obvious, but they are handy for telling the things we can’t readily see.”

  “But…but it hasn’t been that long that we’ve—” She snapped her mouth shut, quickly counting days.

  It was possible. It was likely.

  It complicated matters beyond measure.

  “What do I do?” she whispered. Her hand shook as the took the teacup Mother Grace offered her.

  “You stay here with me,” Mother Grace said. “You work with me to restore your memory to fullness. You let Lawrence search for ways and means to prove who the murderer truly is.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “As long as it needs to, my dear. As long as it needs to.”

  Polly

  Any day in which Polly Penrose uncovered a secret was a good day. A day in which she uncovered multiple secrets was a treasure. It was only just after luncheon, and already today was proving to be among the very best.

  “If you would be so kind as to work your way down to the lakeside, ladies and gentlemen, I can explain the rules of today’s game,” Mr. Throckmorton said to the jumble of house party guests as they finished their alfresco lunch in the hotel’s garden.

  Chairs were pushed back and the gentlemen helped the ladies to rise. Polly watched with narrowed, calculating eyes as George Fretwell helped Lady Arabella to her feet. The smile he shone on her had as much flash and charm as a fishing lure, and if she wasn’t mistaken, it served much the same purpose. She had told Elizabeth as much that morning as she dressed her hair. That was also when she revealed her first secret.

  “Jane tells me that George Fretwell never returned to his room last night,” she had informed Elizabeth as she brushed her hair.

  “Didn’t he?” Elizabeth answered.

  “No, and I think we both know where he was.”

  “Hmm.” Elizabeth frowned at her reflection in the vanity’s mirror. “Are you implying or do you know with certainty?”