Wild Wood

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  Helen follows as if she were walking to her own execution.

  “We couldn’t take the risk.” Janet’s lying on Jesse’s bed under a satin quilt. Rifle sights, her eyes are trained on her daughter’s face.

  “What risk? What do you mean?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I just could not.” Janet starts to cry without sound, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Dr. Nicholls told me I’d never have children.”

  “Dr. Nicholls.” Jesse leans forward. “Mum?”

  But Janet’s deep in the past. “When you were born, and no one wanted you, it seemed . . . it seemed so like the answer to my prayers, all the longing I’d felt. Even your father agreed.”

  Jesse pales. No one wanted you. “I don’t have a father. That’s what it says on the birth certificate.”

  “You do. And he loves you. We both do. Maybe we never made that clear enough.” Janet takes a trembling breath.

  Jesse hands her tissues. “Go on.”

  “Alicia’s mother. She arranged everything with the nuns, you see. The adoption was . . . it was unofficial.”

  “You mean it was illegal?”

  Janet pleads, “These things happen all the time in families. It’s for the sake of the child. In those days, there was such shame for the mother and for the little one, growing up illegitimate. It was always for the best.”

  “For the best.” Jesse’s incredulous.

  “Adopting you solved so many problems. And the countess—Lady Elizabeth, that is—she helped us immigrate to Australia. As a family. They knew people, the Donnes. And in those days, no one thought to question someone like her.” Janet shakes her head.

  “Lady Elizabeth was Alicia’s mother?” Jesse leans forward. “But why did she want to help? You were just a housemaid. And all the secrecy. What was that about?”

  “She was such a tiny little thing, Eva.” Janet’s evasive. “Just like a child herself, really. A child with no one to turn to.” Janet catches Jesse’s glance. “It’s true. She couldn’t speak, you see, so no one knew what she was thinking. But then, that poor girl, when she died having you—” Janet gasps, blots her eyes, though more tears come. “Well, I couldn’t let you just be taken away, could I? Not put in some orphanage and forgotten. Dr. Nicholls was on my side.” She gulps, shaking. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you crying and no one coming.”

  “Eva couldn’t speak?”

  “Well, maybe she could, but not English. Didn’t worry the earl, mind. Not him. He made her understand what he wanted, right enough.” Janet’s expression hardens.

  “The earl?”

  Both hands over her face, Janet speaks through her fingers. “Lies compound, Jesse. Don’t ever let anyone tell you they don’t.”

  Behind her, the door to the bedroom opens.

  54

  TWO DAYS had passed, and the keep still smoldered, though we had cleared the inner ward of bodies; soon they would be buried, with Father Simeon to pray for them. And our fighters, those who remained, patrolled Hundredfield’s damaged walls. We might have beaten Alois’s men, but I was wary; their leader lay in his winding sheet, but another could arise. A reiver band is a monster: cut off one head, and another grows in its place. And so, when the drum of hooves was heard coming from the forest, I roared for horses.

  Tamas, who commanded the battlements now, ran to me on the castle side of the great gate.

  “Well?”

  “We need you here. Let me take the men outside the gate.” This was too polite.

  I held up the stump of my right hand. It pained me very much, and blood seeped through the bindings. “I cannot fight and ride—is that what you mean?”

  The boy—no, the seasoned fighter that he was—laughed.

  I liked him for that.

  “Yes. Outside these walls, you will be a burden in a fight.”

  This was too much truth. I said politely, “I control the horse with my knees. And I have an ax.” I did. And had used it well with my left hand when Alois died. That surprised me still.

  Margaretta was watching. For these two days, camping together in the roofless tower with her father and the children, she had nursed my body and I had nursed her spirit. But each morning she buckled me into Godefroi’s armor. And that was what held me up.

  Behind, Helios brayed a challenge as he was led into the yard. And he was answered. Horsemen were close.

  Dikon held my stirrup as Tamas tried again. “We have too few men left. We cannot afford a sally that—”

  “The walls are breached. We must go out to them. They will not expect that.” Raising my only hand to the gate wards, I would have dropped it. But I did not.

  We all heard the horn winding through the trees. Tamas ran, and I ran after him, to the battlements.

  “Look!”

  Look indeed. On the road across the river, a troop of horsemen came from the forest at half gallop.

  I bellowed, “Archers!”

  But Tamas had better eyes than I. “No!” He was pointing. “Hold!”

  Anger flared in my heart at the challenge, but Tamas was right to do it, for on their shields was the blue lion of the Percys, rampant on a yellow ground.

  I ran for the inner ward and up into the saddle as men massed behind me.

  “Drop the gate!” This time, Tamas shouted the order, and he was obeyed.

  As the gate came down over the gap, I spurred Helios and let him run, shouting, “À Dieudonné, à moi, à moi!”

  I was lucky not to die.

  The horsemen in our path were skilled. Some fired bows as they rode and cloth yards whined close, but I lay against the stallion’s neck still bellowing, “À Dieudonné!”

  “Arrêtez!” A shout. And no more arrows flew.

  Halting the stallion, I called out, “Bèrnard!”

  There, at the head of the troop in his Percy colors, was Maugris’s friend from long ago. Bèrnard de Loutrelle had been a squire at Alnwick with my brother; and I, haunting their steps, had been cuffed for getting in their way.

  “Bayard?” The man spurred his horse and we met in the middle of the river track. He saw the stump of my right arm and therefore clasped my left, as if I had truly been his brother. “I did not recognize you. Not with the blood, and the beard.” He grinned amiably. “But Hundredfield still stands. All will be well when we shore up the walls. We have enough men.” Between three and four hundred rode at his back.

  “It is good that you came. We welcome you.”

  “Godefroi?”

  “My brother is dead.”

  “And Maugris?”

  I shook my head.

  “Sergeant!” Bèrnard called over one of his men. “We shall escort the Lord Bayard.” Fifteen were counted out from the troop. They would ride before us, an honor guard.

  Bèrnard de Loutrelle and I entered Hundredfield together, the burned and shattered patrimony of the Dieudonné. As we clattered across the drawbridge and beneath the great gate, I called out, as he had, “All is well!”

  Margaretta stood with the children in the inner ward. She was brave. She did not hide her battered face, her swollen, blackened eyes.

  Bèrnard saluted. “Lady, you will be well guarded now.”

  She looked up into my face. “I thank you, sir. But there is no need.”

  My vision misted as I turned the stallion in a tight circle. “I shall return. And then . . .”

  “Yes. There will be a then.” Tears stood in her eyes.

  Beside her knees, I saw Aviss, clinging to her skirt. “Give him to me.”

  Without hesitation, Margaretta held the boy up in her arms.

  I took the child and sat him on the saddle before me. He stared at Bèrnard, big-eyed. “Aviss, stay here with your mother. You must lead the guard until I return. Do you understand?”

  The boy gazed down at Margaretta. And nodded.

  Returned to her arms, the expression on that solemn little face was transformed. He smiled at me, and I saw how like my mother her grandson was.
And it seemed to me I was, at last, a happy man.

  Holding the ax above my head, I called out, “À Dieudonné, à moi, à moi!”

  “À Percy, à Percy” came the reply.

  In memory, I feel her eyes on my back still as I wheeled the stallion and took him home, a destrier for the last time. My days of fighting were done.

  55

  ALICIA KNOCKS. “May we come in?”

  Janet sees them first. Her terrified expression makes Jesse look around.

  Jesse gets off the bed. “Actually, I was hoping my mother could rest.”

  Helen’s standing in Alicia’s shadow. “Perhaps we should all go downstairs and—”

  “No.” Forlorn, but definite. Janet sits higher against the pillows. “I need to show you something.”

  “Janet.” Helen puts a lot of force into that one word.

  “No, Helen. I have not come all this way to lie.”

  Three pairs of eyes are trained on Helen Brandon’s face.

  In a firm voice Janet says, “I want my handbag.”

  Jesse capitulates. She goes to a chair beside the window and picks up the bag—it’s big and black and weighs more than she expected.

  “Come in, Alicia. You too, Helen.” Janet doesn’t say Let’s get this over with. But that’s what she means.

  The bag is clicked open and Janet takes out a large envelope; she puts on reading glasses and looks at Helen. “Is there anything you want to say first?”

  Helen Brandon’s complexion is gray-white. She hesitates, then shakes her head.

  Janet smoothes the flap of the envelope open, and the others watch as she takes out a sheaf of paper; it’s folded in three and tied with faded pink ribbon. But the bow is knotted tight, and it’s a silent minute before Janet can work it loose. She unfolds the stiff paper and there’s a heading: “Deed of Confidentiality.” Written in black-letter copperplate, the words pop off the paper as if they’ve been waiting to be seen again.

  There’s a moment of paralysis.

  Alicia asks politely, “And that is what, exactly?”

  “I signed this on August tenth, 1956.” Janet leafs through to the back page. She points to her own signature—the letters round and careful. “We—both of us—agreed to all the terms offered by the earl. Your father.” She’s looking at Helen.

  “Terms?” Alicia has her voice under control. She sounds only faintly curious.

  Another name is written beside Janet’s. The second signature is a scrawl, but Helen clears her throat. “Yes. Janet’s right. We both signed.”

  “A little more information might be useful.” Alicia sounds calm. But she hears the thump of her heart like a drum in her head.

  Janet offers the document and Alicia takes it. “It’s all in here.” But her eyes are on her daughter.

  In the corner of the room is a lady’s writing desk, a piece of fussy Victoriana with a sloping lid. A pampered daughter might, long ago, have used it to write thank-you letters after a ball.

  Alicia goes to the desk, and it seems natural she’ll take the only chair. Jesse stands behind her shoulder as they begin to read.

  Janet and Helen watch the girls. Janet is flushed, her hands gripped together on the counterpane. Helen’s expression is impassive. After a time she sits in the window seat, staring at the empty sky.

  Scanning the text in silence, Alicia pauses before she turns each page waiting for Jesse to nod. A clock with a delicate tick marks the seconds, and the minutes, as more than twenty pages are carefully read and turned. Finally, they reach the signature page, and Alicia turns the deed facedown. She stares from Janet to Helen. “How much of this is true?”

  “All of it.” Helen has her back to the room.

  Janet nods.

  Alicia gets up and instantly sits down again. She captures her hands between her knees to stop their shaking.

  Jesse taps the document. “Alicia’s father, the earl . . .”

  Janet speaks in a rush. “Yes.”

  “It says that Rory, that you . . .” Alicia’s staring at Jesse. Shock is taking over.

  Helen talks so quietly, Jesse steps closer. “I did not want you to find out this way, Alicia, please believe me. When Janet arrived this afternoon, I tried to stop her from coming here. I knew what this would mean, and . . .” Finally, Helen turns.

  Alicia holds up a hand. She says reasonably, “I think that’s likely to be a self-serving lie, Helen. I believe you just wanted to cover your back, go on sitting on the truth as you’ve done for all these years. This situation has suited you well.”

  Helen half stands. “Your father rapes me, I get pregnant with Rory, I work here as a servant, and you call that doing well?” Her face is scarlet. She’s trembling with distress. Or rage.

  “Rape?” Alicia’s face washes white.

  Jesse puts a hand on Alicia’s shoulder. “But this deed gives you the Hunt, Helen. I don’t understand.”

  Alicia interrupts, “And whatever you say, whatever accusations you want to hurl at my father—who cannot defend himself—I’d call this document evidence of some kind of blackmail.” Alicia’s face is very cold. “Tell me the truth.”

  The other woman swallows. Faced with Alicia’s glacial rage, she falters. “I had nothing. No one. I had to protect myself. And Rory.”

  Jesse says quietly, “This deed seems to say that we are all related. Is that right? Alicia and me and Rory? That we share a father? Alicia’s father?”

  Janet rushes in: “Yes. You’re half siblings.”

  The silence is like a void opening in the floor. The words are said. They’re all too frightened to move.

  When Helen speaks, her voice grates in her throat. “Oh, he had form, your father. First me, because I was there and he thought it was his right.” She takes a deep breath. “Just a kid, that’s all I was, in service for the first time. And I didn’t know how to stop him. Or who to tell. Who was going to believe me?” Her eyes brim, and her voice crumbles to nothing.

  Alicia says calmly, “But in the deed, it sets out that the estate agrees to pay Rory’s school fees. I would not describe that as abuse. I’d say it was a reward. Just what kind of services were you offering, Helen?” The cut is surgical and precise.

  Helen says fiercely, “Your father wanted me to go to Holly House; he wanted Rory adopted. His own son. Your brother. Dr. Nicholls would have arranged it, like he did with her.” She gestures at Jesse. “Oh, yes, they were all in it that time, him and the nuns and your dear mother, Alicia. The sainted Elizabeth.” The name spits from her mouth.

  Jesse is rigid. “That’s cruel. And shocking.”

  Helen turns on her. “Shocking. Yes, it is. And it was. But it could have been us, my son and me. The nuns did that then—just took the baby from your arms straight after the birth; bound your breasts to suppress the milk. But her mother intervened. And Rory was born in the cottage we lived in. Oh, yes. He was born on Hundredfield, just like you, Alicia. Only you had all the privileges, all the comforts.” Her face works. “And every day we had to look at each other. Every day. Rory was your father’s son. We were dirt to him. Dirt.” The words die on the air.

  “Perhaps Lady Elizabeth wanted him to see what he’d done. Wanted him to face it.” Janet’s voice wobbles.

  Helen is bitter. “Didn’t stop him, though, did it? He did it again.”

  “But what happened with Eva? Why was I adopted out if Rory wasn’t?”

  “Rory wasn’t what?” Rory’s at the door. “Hello, Mum. Didn’t know you were here.” He looks from face to face, and his expression changes.

  “You need to read this.” Alicia hands him the document. Then she strides from the room.

  56

  AS SHE walks down the stairs, Alicia swallows, hard. She will not give in. She will not allow any of them to see how she feels.

  But she stops with a gasp and clutches the banister as if the oak can stop the shakes. And the pain.

  Above, on the walls, her ancestors look down, impassive.
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  Through tears, Alicia stares from a general to an admiral, to a colonel in the uniform he wore at Waterloo, all gold and scarlet. And there’s her father—more scarlet and gold—a lieutenant in the Scots Guards, so handsome, so young. “Got anything to say, Dad?”

  That painted face does not change. It never will.

  Outrage. Fury. Love. Loss. How can she tell the difference?

  Alicia looks down. The staircase seems steeper than the flank of a mountain. But she will walk those stairs, she has to go outside; she wants to know if the world looks different.

  Rory puts the deed back on the desk. “So, are you going to tell me about this, Mum, or shall I ask Janet?” His eyes have no expression.

  “I did what was best. Justice. For us both.” She was angry only so few minutes before, but now Helen sounds crushed.

  Rory folds the document into its accustomed creases. “So, it’s true. That’s why you didn’t have photos of my dad. He was there all the time.” A big man in a small chair, he gets up from the fragile desk and hands the deed to Janet. He can’t look at Jesse. Not yet.

  And she can’t look at him. She clears her throat. Says nothing.

  “How did you do it? Get him to acknowledge us both. Blackmail?” Now he flicks a glance at Jesse. His sister.

  Janet clutches the deed to her chest. “Yes.” Her face is flushed.

  “Don’t you dare, Janet Marley. I got you the child you wanted. And a new life. Without me she wouldn’t be standing here today.” Helen’s voice is low, but Janet flinches. The tone is savage.

  She. Even now, Helen won’t say her name. But Jesse is not about to play this game. “So, what did you do, Helen?”

  Helen Brandon’s staring at her son. “I said, after Eva died, that I’d go to the papers. The Mirror, the Sun—I didn’t care. I knew one of the scandal sheets would buy what I had to sell. An earl’s illegitimate child, born from rape, is a scandal—though there was no way I could prove it, not after all that time.” She looks away from Rory. “But two bastards, and a young girl dying at the birth of the second—supervised by a disgraced doctor—before her body disappears? That would have been a bomb going off at Hundredfield.” This time Helen is defiant. “Lady Elizabeth had had enough. She made your father agree to what I asked.”