by Clare Flynn
‘Do you have any idea what a mess he’s made of his ventures with racehorses? Have you ever asked him?’
Hephzibah blushed again. ‘He took me just once to see the horses and became impatient when I asked questions. I have avoided enquiring since.’
‘He’s never had a winner in his life. Not even a placing. He thinks he knows horseflesh, but he knows less than I do and I’d describe myself as ignorant. He pays too much for animals that can’t run – cracked hooves, long backs, constantly lame, overly jumpy – he’s had them all. When he does find a nag that has promise, he’s impatient and over-stretches it, runs it before it’s ready. But he won’t be told. He never learns from his mistakes. He’s badly advised. His trainer is bleeding him dry and he’s bleeding me dry.’
This was news to Hephzibah and she felt slightly ashamed that she had let herself become so ignorant about the business of the man who was still, after all, her husband. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said. ‘We never talk about the horses. I suppose he assumed it was a part of his life that I wouldn’t be interested in.’
The squire snorted. ‘Are you interested in any part of his life? Does he even have anything else in his life?’ He ground his cigar into an onyx ashtray and pulled himself upright, using the arms of his chair. ‘I’ll talk to Nightingale about the trust. We’ll all be better off without Thomas turning up here whenever he feels like it. I’m sick of him using this place like his club.’
‘But you can’t bar him from his own home. What about Edwin? He needs to see his father.’
The squire hobbled towards the door, where he paused, his hand resting on the handle. ‘The lad will do better without his influence. I’ll be as good as a father to him. It will be enough.’
The regular walks Hephzibah took with Edwin in his perambulator had at first raised a few eyebrows in Nettlestock. The villagers were not used to the lady of the manor trundling around the lanes this way, rather than employing the services of a nursemaid. She curtailed possible criticism by turning a beaming smile upon anyone she met along the way, and after a while the villagers took her eccentric behaviour for granted.
She varied the route, each time agreeing in advance with Merritt where they would cross paths. It was not difficult to find quiet spots on the myriad country lanes around Nettlestock. Sometimes she took the pony and trap and she and the baby went into Mudford or further afield to other towns and villages in the area where she was not known. On those days, Merritt would use his bicycle and cycle over to meet them at the appointed time and place. During these arranged meetings Hephzibah insisted on there being no physical contact between her and Merritt. Being so close to him yet unable to touch him, to kiss him or show any sign of affection was heart-breaking, but she told herself the meetings were for Edwin and Merritt. Mostly she left them alone together but from time to time, Merritt insisted on her staying with them, telling her that being with her and the child was the nearest he got to feeling part of a family and Hephzibah felt unable to deny him.
Today they were sitting on a bench on the towpath on the far side of Mudford. It was a mile or so out of the town and there was no one about, despite the unseasonable March sunshine. Merritt’s bicycle was leaning against a nearby tree and they had a good view of the canal in both directions so that he could make a quick escape in the unlikely event that anyone they knew should approach. A pair of swans glided past and a few moorhens were swimming close to the far side of the canal. Red campion flowers grew around the hedge behind them and the air was fragrant with the scent of bluebells. Edwin was lying asleep on his stomach on a stretch of grass beside them, safely away from the canal-side, exhausted after a long walk through the woods with the parson.
Merritt reached for her hand. ‘I don’t think I can take any more of this, Hephzibah. All the furtiveness and snatched moments. It’s killing me.’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘As Edwin gets older, meeting like this will be impossible. We can’t risk him mentioning it to Thomas. I’m worried sick that his colouring is so like yours and it can only be a matter of time before Thomas and Sir Richard notice and put two and two together. I even thought of dyeing his hair darker, but when I asked at the dispensary in Newbury the chemist told me that I’d have to do it every week or the roots would show and putting chemicals on a little boy’s head would harm him.’
‘Enough, Hephzibah, this is insane! We should have known it would be impossible to keep it a secret. We have to tell the truth.’
Hephzibah chose not to hear. ‘Obviously we need a way for you to continue to see Edwin regularly but you and I must stop meeting.’
Merritt looked anguished, and she stroked his hand. ‘I have found a way for you to have free access to him.’
She explained how Sir Richard planned to cut Thomas completely out of his will in favour of Edwin and how he wanted Merritt to act as trustee. ‘It gives you an excuse to spend more time with Edwin, then when he’s old enough to start lessons, I’m going to propose that you become his tutor – so you can see him almost every day. He can come to the parsonage for lessons. What do you think?’
‘Does Thomas know about this? That he’s to be disinherited?’ Merritt was frowning.
She shook her head. ‘The squire wants me to tell him. But I can’t face it. I dread to think how he will react.’
‘Making me trustee and entrusting Edwin’s education to me is likely to rile him further.’
Hephzibah looked down and twiddled her fingers. ‘I know. But there’s more. Sir Richard intends to ban him from Ingleton Hall altogether.’
Merritt twisted round to face her. ‘Does he plan to exile you too?’
‘No.’
‘How can he do that? It’s tantamount to saying you have no marriage.’
‘We don’t. It’s in name only. Thomas is rarely here and, since Edwin was born, he no longer sleeps in my bed.’
Merritt gave a little gasp and took her hand in his. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before, my darling? You’ve no idea how much pain you could have saved me.’
She looked away, ashamed. ‘I’m sorry, but I knew if I did tell you, you’d start to hope we could be together.’
‘Of course I would. And wouldn’t you?’
She looked at him, her eyes filling with tears, unable to find words to respond.
He squeezed her hand. ‘He must let you go.’
‘Why would he do that? He would have to accuse me of adultery and risk public humiliation. Thomas would never stand for that. He’s too proud. And he would have custody of Edwin. I can’t abandon our child.’
‘You could ask him for a divorce.’
She tilted her head on one side and gave him a mirthless smile. ‘Merritt, you of all people know better than to suggest that. It’s thanks to the Church of England that a woman is chained to her husband, no matter how badly he behaves.’ This conversation was proving harder than she had hoped. Why was Merritt being so unrealistic, so impractical, so stubborn?
She stood up and began to pace up and down in front of the bench, trying to control her rising frustration. ‘Unless I can prove that Thomas has not only committed adultery but has been physically violent towards me there is no hope of my winning a divorce. And do you have any idea of the cost and the time involved? And even if I were to succeed, Edwin would be taken from me.’ She sat down on the bench beside him again.
‘But Thomas has effectively deserted you!’ Merritt put his hands on her shoulders and turned her so he could look into her eyes.
She shook off his hands, avoiding his gaze. ‘That’s not grounds for divorce and anyway he is there occasionally. Once he finds out what the squire is planning, he will likely be there all the time. The squire can’t evict him from his own home while allowing his wife and son to remain. Think of the scandal that would create.’
Edwin stirred in his sleep and rolled over. Hephzibah took a shawl from a basket on the bench and draped it over the sleeping child. They were quarrelling. Why were they quarrellin
g? It was the last thing she’d wanted. She felt the tears rising and bent over Edwin, her back to Merritt while she brushed them away.
Merritt watched her tend to their child, then, as she returned to the bench, he said, ‘Edwin isn’t Thomas’s son. Look, Hephzibah, we’ve done enough of this dissembling. It’s wrong, plain wrong. We must face the facts. We love each other. We have a child together. Your husband is absent. If you can’t escape from him legally then we will run away together.’
So much of what he was saying made sense to her. She squeezed her hands together until her fingers hurt. Taking a deep breath she placed her hands around his. ‘Please, Merritt, try to understand.’ She told him the squire would never consent to Edwin leaving. ‘The one thing that matters more than anything to Sir Richard is protecting the future of Ingleton. Edwin is his heir. He will never let me take him away.’
The exasperation in Merritt’s voice was evident. ‘Why are you being so stubborn? Edwin isn’t even his grandson. We must tell Sir Richard and the world that he is my son.’
Hephzibah shook her head rapidly. ‘No. That would make Edwin a bastard. How can I do that to him? My priority now is my son. Ingleton Hall is his future.’
Merritt took her hands in his again and knelt down on the grass in front of her. ‘He’s our son. We are his future. He doesn’t need to inherit a country estate. He needs to be loved by his own parents, given a chance to flourish, to be educated, to find his own path, not be saddled with the responsibility of managing an unprofitable estate and a country mansion that’s seen better days.’
Hephzibah put her head in her hands. ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m full of fear. I wish to God I’d never done what I did. I’ve dragged you into this mess, Merritt. I have ruined both our lives. I’ve made things worse for Thomas as well. At least before Edwin was born he tried to rein himself in a bit in order to keep in with his father. Now it’s as if he doesn’t care. And it will kill the squire.’
Merritt jumped up, his face now angry. ‘Why do you even care what it will it do to the squire? He’s the man who chased you round the house with his hands up your skirts. He’s a complete blackguard. If it hadn’t been for him you’d have never gone running into the arms of his useless son.’ He banged his fist on the back of the bench.
Hephzibah started to cry. ‘Don’t say that about Thomas. He did what he thought was the right thing at the time. He cared for me. He wanted to help me.’
‘No he didn’t.’ Merritt’s mouth set in a hard line.
‘What do you mean?’ Hephzibah looked at him, afraid of what he was about to say.
Merritt walked away from her, towards the canal bank, speaking with his back to her. ‘Thomas Egdon married you so he could access the funds in his mother’s estate. His inheritance was held in trust until his marriage. He was no longer able to survive on the income and wanted to get his hands on the capital.’
Hephzibah was silent, numb with shock, remembering the words of Abigail Cake in the Egdon Arms the afternoon the lending library opened. Eventually she said, ‘How do you know this? What makes you say such a terrible thing?’
He turned to face her. ‘I saw the deed of trust. Just after you were married, the squire showed it to me.’ Merritt told her about what he had seen in the document and its implications.
Hephzibah stared at him, numb with shock. Abigail Cake had told the truth. ‘So Thomas didn’t care a fig for me. I was just the means to him getting his hands on more cash?’
Merritt was silent, staring out over the canal.
‘I was duped,’ she said eventually. ‘I believed Thomas loved me and I thought I loved him. The fact that I didn’t know I would love you more is immaterial. I married him in the belief that he and I loved each other.’
‘Why do you care? It doesn’t matter now. Not now that we love each other.’
‘I have been cheated, lied to, used, abused. It’s a matter of trust.’ Her voice was quiet. ‘I trusted Thomas. I would have done anything to keep his love, to make him happy. When I sought your help, I had no idea that I would fall in love with you. I saw it at the time as a way to keep my husband and save my marriage. If I had known that he only married me for money I would never have done what I did.’
‘Then thank God you didn’t know.’
‘You should have told me.’
‘What?’
‘You knew the reason he married me and yet when I told you I wanted you to sleep with me as a means of saving my marriage, you let me do it, without telling me.’
He looked at her, aghast.
‘If I had known that Thomas only married me to secure his inheritance I would have walked away from him then and there. I don’t know where I would have gone but I wouldn’t have asked you to make love with me. You knew that. You knew that if you’d told me I wouldn’t have done it. I trusted you, Merritt...’ Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘You have betrayed me too. I thought you were my friend. You took advantage of me.’
Edwin woke up and began to cry. Hephzibah rose from the bench and went to pick him up. Calming the child’s wailing she set him down and, holding his hand, walked over to Merritt and said, ‘I am weary of lies. Even my own mother lied to me, letting me believe that my father was a good man when all the while he was a cruel and cold one. She lied. My stepfather lied. Sir Richard lied. Thomas lied and now I find out that you have kept this from me. I am the fool. I must be so easy to gull.’
Merritt started to protest, but she turned away and said, ‘Don’t try to see me alone again, Merritt. You have disappointed me beyond measure. I don’t think I will ever be able to believe anyone in this world again.’
Hand-in-hand with her infant son she headed back along the towpath to where the pony and trap were waiting in the shade of a tree. It was only when they were out of sight of Merritt, and the little boy had been lulled to sleep by the motion of the trap, that she allowed her tears to flow. Her life was ruined. Worse, she had ruined so many others’. Most of all, she had hurt and been hurt by Merritt Nightingale. She cursed her stupidity, her susceptibility to the charms of Thomas Egdon, but most of all she wept for Merritt: for the chance of love and happiness she had thrown away and for the disappointment that he too, the love of her life, had lied to her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow ’ll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year;
To-morrow ’ll be of all the year the maddest, merriest day,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May
(from The May Queen, Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
The annual May Day fair was a long-standing tradition in Nettlestock. Most of the village would be present for the festivities on the village green. Maypole dancing by the children was the prime attraction, culminating in the crowning of the Queen of the May. The celebrations were more modest than they used to be – the decline in the fortunes of the village and the departure of so many villagers to the cities had taken its toll on many of the old traditions of rural life. Nonetheless there was always a good turnout and if the morris dancing and mummer plays were long gone, the maypole, the May Queen’s parade, the children’s races and the village picnic were all still big draws.
Abigail Cake had been chosen as queen when she was fifteen and it was often said around the village that there had never been a prettier one. It had been after the ceremonies ended that year that she had lost her virginity to Thomas Egdon, in the stable loft at Ingleton Hall. Her floral crown had been completely crushed and Thomas, in his urgency to get her clothes off, had managed to tear two of the buttons off her dress and afterwards, despite a hunt through the straw, they had been unable to find them. When she eventually arrived home, late, bedraggled but happy, Abigail’s mother had been angry and her father had taken his belt to her. Abigail had thought it was worth it.
Now was the time to put her long-prepared plan into action. The moment had come and her p
atience would at last be rewarded. Abigail had always believed the old axiom that revenge was a dish best served cold. There was something pleasing about choosing the May Day celebrations with the happy memories of the days when Tom Egdon had had eyes only for her – before Hephzibah Wildman had come along and stolen him from her. Now it wouldn’t be long until she had him back again.
When Abigail arrived at the green there was already a crowd of people. The air was thick with the smell of burnt sugar and roasting pork and full of the cries of children running sack races organised by Miss Pickering, the schoolmistress, assisted by the parson. As usual the squire had provided the pig for the roast and the landlord of the Cat and Canary had laid on a supply of cider. Abigail walked around, nodding to people as she went, stopping occasionally to talk to some, but her eyes always alert to spot her target. It was good to be out and about again on her own, without Rosy to worry about and keep out of her father’s way. She wouldn’t ever have to worry about Rosy any more.
Hephzibah Egdon was sitting on a deckchair under the shade of an elm tree, her small son upon her knee and Ottilie beside her. They were watching the progress of the sack races and the little boy was wriggling with excitement, eager to participate himself. The squire was perched on his horse, slowly walking the boundary of the green, as though desirous of keeping his distance from the village hoi polloi. Thomas Egdon was sprawled on a rug on the grass next to his wife and child. Abigail studied the family group from a distance. Thomas looked bored. Not surprising. That jumped-up governess looked so smug and self-satisfied. Not for much longer.
Abigail waited until the sack race was finished, then took a deep breath and marched towards the family group. She held out her hand to Edwin and said, ‘Come on, little ’un. There’s a running race about to start now. Come and have a go.’
As she expected, Hephzibah Egdon held on tightly to her son and shook her head, but the little boy was determined not to be prevented from joining in the fun.
