Scarlet

by Brindle, J. T.

  ‘What is it, child?’ Hannah murmured, taking the trembling girl in her arms. ‘Another nightmare, was it?’ She rocked the limp and terrified child against her breast, deriving comfort as much as giving it.

  As though her very life depended on it, Scarlet clung to her mammy, her dark eyes big and afraid and the beadlets of sweat on her back bursting open to trickle away in meandering rivulets that fused the nightgown to her skin. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Mammy,’ she whispered, thankfully burying her head in those comforting arms, and she wondered how that gentle woman could have come so quickly to save her. She could not have known that Hannah had lain awake in the early hours, disturbed by her own terrifying premonitions. In the darkened room that was hers and Vincent Pengally’s, where he had taken her unyielding body to him again and again, Hannah had turned her head on the pillow to stare at his sleeping face, her quiet blue eyes scarred with accusation. There were times when she had seen him as her strength, and there were others, more recent, when she saw him for what he was, a man bent only on his own pleasures. Scarlet’s cry had not disturbed him, nor did his wife’s furtive movements as she crept from the bed and went on stealthy footsteps towards her daughter’s room.

  After a while, the terror ebbed from Scarlet’s senses, and only the shame remained. ‘I’m sorry, Mammy,’ she said, drawing herself away from the haven of Hannah’s arms. ‘I’ll be alright now… I promise. Go back to your bed before Father misses you.’ The thought of his formidable form and sinister face coming into her room was only another facet of Scarlet’s nightmare. She lay back in the bed, her black hair fanning out against the pillow and her face stark white, save for the gyrating shadows that emitted from the candlelight and played creeping shapes upon her velvet skin.

  ‘You’re sure now, child?’ Hannah stroked the magnificent tresses, taking pleasure in the touch of the locks against her fingers. ‘You’ll be able to sleep now, will you?’ When Scarlet nodded and gently patted her hand, Hannah was satisfied. ‘Goodnight, God bless,’ she whispered, bending towards Scarlet with a kiss. Then she got to her feet, lifted the candle and, shielding the light with her hand, went silently from the room.

  Some short time later, Hannah heard the familiar creak on the stairway, and she knew that sleep had eluded her daughter. No matter, she thought, let the child find her peace on the moors, for she can find it nowhere else. But where would she find her peace, she wondered; not on the bleak primitive moorlands, where every sound filled her with dread. Not here in this house either, she realised with a rush of pain, and never in the arms of her husband. Of late, she was convinced that something monstrous had happened, and was happening, even now, yet she feared it was too late. What could she do? Dear God in heaven, what could she do?

  Outside, in the cool October morning, when the dawn wrestled the night for supremacy and the sky was marbled with fingers of crimson, Scarlet found a measure of contentment. She looked up at the sky, and she wondered whether there really was a force more magnificent and greater than any other, a power of truth and love, from which mortals such as she might receive guidance. She thought not! It had been just over a week since she had enticed Garrett into the castle grounds, where they had committed the sin that had enslaved him to her, and had filled her with such conflicting emotions that made her wonder whether she was losing her sanity. What made her do it? Time and again, she had asked herself that question. She asked it now, aloud, to the sky. ‘What makes me do these things?’ She waited, as though for an answer, a sign that the fault was not in her, but in the make-up of that ‘powerful being’ who, according to John Blackwood, was supposed to ‘watch over us’.

  For a while, Scarlet wandered the heathland, pausing now and then to dip her hand into the fast-flowing waters of a brook, or to listen enraptured when the dawn chorus burst forth. Presently, she made her way back to the house, before the daylight swallowed the last vestige of darkness. Hurrying by the barn, she stopped when a great temptation took hold of her. Soon Silas would be stirring, she thought, and if she was there, warm and tender beside him as he opened his eyes, surely he could not turn her away? The longer she thought of Silas, and of the way in which she had used Garrett to torment him, the more damned she felt. But then her heart was flooded with resentment at Silas’s treatment of her. After all, she reminded herself, it was Silas who had driven her to such lengths, with his brooding silence and his deliberate rejection of her.

  As she lingered by the barn door, overpowered by temptation, yet burning with anger that he could so easily spurn her, Scarlet’s emotions were in a turmoil. Always, she wanted him, yearned for him in every corner of her being. Those shameful moments which she had spent with Garrett were as nothing compared to the glory of being held by Silas. In his arms their two souls became one, and all of her nightmares ceased. And yet, there was something awesome about Silas, some strangeness about him that both frightened and excited her. She felt it now, that special way he could wring her heart until she wanted to cry out. There were things about him that made her curious, that caused her to be vicious towards him. All the same, she needed him. She needed him now, more than ever, but she was desperately afraid that he would send her away and the terrible rift between them would grow even wider. She did not want that. She must not risk making an enemy of him. Not that. Quietly, she turned towards the house.

  Silas saw the shadow move away from the barn door and he was both relieved and saddened. The tender anticipation in his face gave way to regret. If only Scarlet had found the courage to come to him, he thought tenderly, she would have found him waiting, longing for her company. No matter what pain she inflicted on him, or how deliberately cruel she had been to use Garrett against him in that way, just then, in that exquisite moment when she had lingered outside the barn and his heart had quickened, he could have forgiven her anything. But the moment had passed, and with it a weakness that would have proved too dangerous.

  In the morning with the breeze rustling the treetops, the sun bright in a quiet sky, and all manner of work waiting to be done, the ogres of darkness seemed a million miles away. In spite of her disturbed night, Scarlet had risen early, washed at the pump and dressed herself in a pretty blue dress with an oversmock of white. Her long black hair fell in loose abundance about her shoulders, and her dark eyes sparkled. Coming into the kitchen, she put down the wooden bucket which was half-filled with water. ‘Are you alright, Mammy?’ she asked Hannah, who presently leaned on the stone sink, gazing out of the window, her thoughts seeming to carry her far off. ‘Mammy… are you ill?’ Scarlet came to Hannah’s side and, sliding a loving arm round her waist, she asked again with increasing anxiety, ‘Are you ill…? You can go back to bed, Mammy, and I’ll look after things. It’ll be alright.’ Scarlet had never seen her mammy in such a strange mood. She had served breakfast in silence, and twice when Scarlet had spoken to her earlier, she had not replied. Nor had she fussed about her husband in the way to which he was accustomed. Indeed he had watched Hannah going reluctantly about her domestic duties, and he also had addressed her but received no response. After finishing his breakfast of gammon and eggs, he had banged his fist on the table and stormed out in a fit of pique. Astonishingly, his attitude seemed not to have shaken Hannah from her peculiar mood.

  ‘Of course I’m not ill, child,’ she told Scarlet now, swinging round to lift the water bucket to the sink, into which she emptied its contents. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ She smiled, and Scarlet saw that the gesture did not reach her pretty blue eyes. ‘I’ll manage in here. You go and give John a hand… what with all the summer crops out, he’ll be eager to get the ground ready again.’ She saw Scarlet hesitate. ‘Off you go,’ she urged, and reluctantly Scarlet left to do her mammy’s bidding. There was something wrong, she felt it! But for now she chose not to irritate Hannah further.

  ‘Poorly, you say?’ John straightened his back from the digging, leaned on his fork and used the back of his hand to wipe away a lingering dewdrop from the end of his no
se. ‘Aye… that wouldn’t surprise me at all, young ’un… not at all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Scarlet was both concerned for her mammy and intrigued by John’s comment. ‘Why wouldn’t it surprise you to know Mammy was poorly?’

  A look of consternation crossed John’s homely features as he regarded Scarlet’s frowning face. ‘Hmph!’ he muttered, dropping his head to his chin and seeming to examine the churned earth at his feet. He was thinking of the observation his own dear Ada had made with regard to Hannah Pengally only that morning. ‘If you ask me, that husband of hers has finally sent the poor soul over the edge! What woman in her right mind would go into Pelham’s stores, spend half an hour picking and choosing what she wanted… then, when she’d paid for ’em with hard-earned money, wander off without ’em? Why, even when poor Mr Pelham went rushing down West Street after her, all puffed out and near collapse, she just stared at him like he was a fool… so the poor man said.’ Ada Blackwood had gone on to remark that it wasn’t like Hannah Pengally to behave in such a strange way. And John agreed wholeheartedly. All the same, he did not relate any of this to the anxious Scarlet. Instead he told her, ‘It’s a well-known fact that your mammy works far too hard for her own good. We shall just have to see she don’t overdo it, won’t we, eh?’

  ‘Can I leave the raking until later?’ Scarlet was eager to return to the house. It was true that her mammy worked too hard, what with that big house to keep clean, and all the cooking, washing and other things. Then she was often called on to help out at market, and to give John a hand when he found himself battling against the seasons. It wasn’t unknown, either, for Hannah’s husband to summon her assistance when a horse needed several pairs of hands before it would be restrained. On top of all that, Scarlet had been quick to see how peaky and frail her mammy had looked of late, and there had been the odd occasion when her kindly blue eyes had seemed almost haunted.

  ‘The raking can wait a while, I’m sure.’ John smiled reassuringly, ‘But don’t you be wasting no time, young ’un. As soon as you’re satisfied that your mammy’s well enough, get yourself back here straight away!’ He watched as Scarlet ran towards the house. Then, shaking his head, he resumed his digging.

  John wasn’t the only one to watch Scarlet’s slim young form as it sped across the rugged mounds of dry earth where once had been neat rows of vegetables. From his place at the forge, Silas had seen John and Scarlet at their work. Now he paused in his labours to follow her in her urgent flight. With her two hands raising the hem of her skirt from the dirt, and her black hair swept out behind her in the breeze, she made a captivating sight; one to hold his heart still.

  Mesmerised by Scarlet’s wild beauty, Silas was unaware that Vincent Pengally had both observed him and was enraged by what he had seen. Suddenly his gaze was brutally torn from Scarlet, when the large coarse hand descended on his bare shoulder, wrenching him round. ‘You’ll never learn, will you?’ The voice was low but vehement, as Silas found himself looking into vicious slitted eyes. With alarming speed, Vincent Pengally slid his hand around Silas’s throat and, snatching the tongs which rested on the lip of the forge, he drew the white-hot shoe from the coals. ‘Must I teach you a lesson you’ll never forget?’ he hissed, inching the glowing iron towards Silas’s naked chest. ‘Should I brand you… for the leper you are?’ The smile on his face was evil. When the heat seared into Silas’s flesh, he flinched, but did not cry out, even though the pain was excruciating.

  The smell of burning flesh at first excited Vincent Pengally, but then he remembered a certain day and a certain oath that Silas’s mother had lain on him, and for a moment his eyes showed the fear that had grown within him over the years, until it was almost an obsession. But now, with Silas at his mercy and the iron poised to strike again, only deeper this time, he was almost tempted to defy that power which he knew existed even beyond the grave. Suddenly the air was rent with a long and terrible scream. With wide and terrified eyes, he stepped away from his victim, dropped the tongs and stared, horrified, at the blood-red indentation low down on the boy’s chest. He watched as Silas hung his head in pain, and he was lost. ‘Evelyn,’ he muttered, putting his fists to his temples in an effort to shut out the echo of that piercing scream. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, he saw John running towards the house. A tremendous tide of relief ebbed through him. Of course! The screams had come from the house. He laughed out loud. In a minute he was gone from the smithy, leaving Silas drained of all but the strength to take himself to the trough, where he splashed the cooling water over his wound.

  Inside the house, down in the cellar, John and Scarlet were frantically trying the placate the trembling Hannah, who seemed not to hear them. Her stark blue eyes stared fixedly on a certain spot on the cold stone floor, and she was mumbling over and over, ‘It was here. Here!’

  ‘Come away, Mammy… please.’ Scarlet had been both astonished and anxious when she had returned to the house to find her mammy down in the cellar, especially since it was forbidden for anyone but her father to go down there. Scarlet herself had been allowed in the cellar only once, and that was many years ago, when her father had given in to her persistent requests to ‘show me where I was born’. He had taken her down and pointed to the very spot. The dark stain was still there. And so was the evil atmosphere that had marked the event. Scarlet had sensed something in that cellar, something that created discord deep inside her. She never again asked to go down there. Soon after, the cellar door was securely locked and only Vincent Pengally kept the key. No one else ever went down there. Until now!

  ‘Go back to your work!’ Vincent Pengally’s face was a study in rage as he slowly descended the flight of steps. ‘Leave her to me,’ he instructed the two who looked up at him with concerned faces. ‘Back to your work, I say!’ Without a word, John nodded his head and moved away from the bent tormented creature in Scarlet’s embrace. ‘You too, Scarlet. Leave her to me.’

  ‘Come on, young ’un.’ John touched Scarlet on the shoulder. ‘Your father knows what to do better than us.’ His nerves had been shattered by the poor soul’s terrible scream, and now he wanted to escape from that dark damp place where even the air seemed to choke a body. He had no great desire to stay in such close proximity to Vincent Pengally, either! He began his way up the steps.

  ‘Do you want me to stay, Mammy?’ Scarlet dared to defy her father. But when she looked into Hannah’s face she found no response, and was obliged to follow in John’s footsteps. ‘Call me if she needs me,’ she told her father. He did not look at her, but nodded briskly as he wrapped his long fingers about his wife’s shoulders. When he was satisfied that he and Hannah were alone, he tightened his grip on her, at the same time leaning towards her, his grey eyes like steel as he demanded softly, ‘What foolish thing is this, Hannah? How did you get in here?… Did you go to my private drawer and take the key?’ When she gave no answer but, trembling beneath his fingers, went on staring at the ground, he gently shook her. ‘That was a bad thing to do, wasn’t it, Hannah?… Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?’ His fingers tightened even deeper into her flesh, until the pain showed in her face. ‘Why did you want to come into the cellar, Hannah?’ His voice was softer now, but the eyes remained hard. ‘I asked you… what made you want to come down here?’

  Slowly she raised her head, and when her frightened blue eyes met his stony glare there was something about them that shook him rigid. ‘Scarlet was born here,’ she murmured. When he nodded, she went on in a tremulous voice, ‘What else, Vincent?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What else?… Did something else happen here, in this cellar?’ All these years, there had been something murmuring deep within her. Something. But she didn’t know… could never be certain. Always, when it rose to disturb her peace of mind, she had learned to suppress it. But now, because of what was happening, it wouldn’t go away. It was like it might happen all over again, and the thought was too unbearable.

  ‘What a foo
lish woman you are.’ He laughed, a little nervously. ‘You remember what happened here. I came home to find that you had fallen down the steps… broken your leg. You were already close to giving birth and there was no time to get a doctor… no time to move you. I set your leg… when Scarlet was born, you were unconscious. So you see, it’s not surprising that you remember so little of that part.’

  ‘I do remember… not clearly.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  ‘No, no… you were unconscious the whole time… and for a long while even after I got you upstairs.’

  Hannah continued to stare at him, in her eyes a mingling of doubt and confusion. ‘I can’t recall… all of it. There were dreams… awful dreams. I was so afraid… but not for myself.’ She shivered and lowered her gaze to the ground, to that dark stain. How many times had she told herself the very things that her husband now told her? She didn’t know. She only knew that she was not reassured. In her fitful dreams she had seen images. ‘Was there nothing else, Vincent?’ she asked again, the tears flowing down her face. ‘Was there… no one else?’

  In that moment he was thankful that she had her gaze lowered to the ground, for if she had been looking into his eyes she might well have seen the astonishment there. ‘No one else?’ He disguised his fear well, as she now lifted her gaze to his. ‘What are you talking about, woman?’ His fear became anger that spilled over. ‘Are you losing your mind?’ The intensity of his grip raised her to tiptoe. ‘There was you, me… and your newborn daughter. No one else! Who else could there be?’

  Hannah knew that he was challenging her to speak out what was on her mind, and she was greatly tempted. Yet she would not. Could not! He was not a man you could confide in. He did not know how to give comfort and assurance, only how to breed fear and distrust. She could never lay bare her soul to him, for he would only ravage it. Yet he had ravaged her once too often, and now, because her instincts told her one thing and he told her another, she lived in dread of the consequences. Her course was clear, and she must lose no time!