Heritage of Shame

by Meg Hutchinson

  Whipping the chops from the scale the butcher turned to a table holding sheets of brown paper, the two women sharing a smile as they saw his colour deepen behind the generous whiskers.

  ‘You can weigh me a pound of sausages,’ the woman said as the brown wrapped parcel was handed across the counter, ‘and make sure it be a pound, these eyes be sharp to see weights and measures as they be to see faces!’

  ‘So who said Unity ’Urley were buying teats?’ The amusement afforded by the butcher’s embarrassment fading against this newer gossip, the shorter woman pressed for its sharing.

  Her keen look not straying for a second from the scales, her companion answered enthusiastically, ‘’Tweren’t nobody had to tell me, I seen it for meself in the chemist shop along of Church Street, Unity ’Urley buying teats and one of them boat shaped glass bottles for feeding of babbies whose mother’s br—’ She paused as the butcher looked up. ‘Well, them as can’t be fed natural, like.’

  ‘But what would Unity be buying such for? Ain’t as if her had any daughter, no nor any daughter-in-law come to that.’

  The sausages now wrapped, the butcher took a silver coin from an outstretched hand, dropping it into a drawer set beneath the counter.

  ‘That were what struck me.’ The bringer of gossip waited while several copper coins were counted into her palm. ‘Unity ’Urley don’t ’ave no wench so who was it her were buying teats and bottles for? Ain’t nobody I’ve heard of being delivered this last couple of weeks and when I asked old Doughty who it was they was fetched for he said as he d’ain’t know.’

  ‘Ar, well he would!’ The second woman sniffed. ‘He be so tight mouthed he makes a mute look like a preacher!’

  Having given the change the butcher rubbed both hands across his long apron. ‘That be a good policy when some folk be around – listen but don’t speak.’

  ‘That be summat you should pay mind to then!’ Red cherries bounced rapid as the answer their movement accompanied. ‘One man’s faults should be another man’s lessons. You should learn more’n the butcher’s trade – like keeping your nose out when it ain’t invited!’

  Pointing out her own selection of meat, Clara merely nodded at the man’s remark that ‘when arguing with them that be stoopid let ’em know they don’t be doin’ the same,’ as both customers stepped beyond hearing.

  Her own change carefully re-checked before being counted into a leather purse she placed her purchase in her basket, leaving the shop with a brief ‘Good morning.’ Out in the street she breathed deeply. No woman had been recently delivered of a child, Unity Hurley was past the age and she had no female kin. It could only point to one thing!

  *

  ‘What difference does it make! What difference?’ Clara’s grey pebble eyes had glared across the dining table. ‘It is another to lay claim upon the Glebe Works, another to stand between you and the business my father built, that is the difference.’

  ‘You are only supposing a child has been born, and you are only supposing it is Anne Corby’s child.’

  It might have been the father speaking and not the son. Anger cold inside her, Clara laid knife and fork on her plate. But she would not let one be as mindless as the other had been, she would not allow her dream to be lost.

  ‘As you say, I am simply supposing.’ She spoke quietly but ice crackled in each word. ‘Now you suppose for a moment, Quenton. Suppose your cousin, who will be of age in a short while, takes her inheritance, and not only that but makes an immediate Will naming her child after her. Where will you be then? I can tell you where you will not be. You will no longer be here enjoying the comforts of this house, nor will you be driving a carriage, much less one of those dreadful horseless ones I know you moon over. And while you are supposing on that think on this also, it will not be you who will be master of those works, it is not your voice will be listened to, not even by an apprentice, for you will be gone, dismissed, sacked like any common labourer. Once her hands prise yours loose then all you have, all you can ever hope to have, will be lost. How will it feel, Quenton, how will it feel to go cap in hand to any who might be disposed to give you employment? And what employment would they give? No, my dear son,’ she smiled scathingly, ‘not one with a large desk and little work upon it, they would not sit you in a director’s chair. Own to it or not, there are precious few in this town would not rejoice to see things take exactly that path I have just outlined to you.’

  She had seen her words drive home.

  Dressed in a plain cotton nightgown Clara plaited her faded hair, tying each braid with a white ribbon.

  She had watched her son’s eyes, seen the realisation dawn as each point drove home like a nail. He wanted no poverty ridden life, the sort lived by so many of the men who laboured beneath his hand. He had been brought up with all the comforts her brother’s money could pay for, comforts he would want to keep.

  Climbing into bed she turned off the lamp. Quenton was like his father in some respects but he had enough sense to know which side of his bread was buttered.

  Closing her eyes, Clara’s thin lipped mouth smiled in the darkness. Her son would not ask again what difference it made!

  3

  What would she tell this child when he was grown? How would she tell him of his beginnings? Anne looked at the tiny blanket wrapped bundle lying beside her. Could she tell him he was the result of rape, that he had been conceived out of violence by a man whose name she did not know and whose language she could not speak, that she had prayed to God so many times to cleanse her womb, to carry away the evidence of the abuse she had suffered? But her prayers had gone unanswered and now a child was born, a child she must rear alone. But how did you rear a child you had no money to feed or clothe, how long would it survive sleeping under hedges open to every aspect of weather? Truth was it would not. She must take the baby to the workhouse, give him to the care of the Parish. That might not afford him love but it would afford him life.

  ‘There, you look a lot better.’ Unity Hurley placed a tray on a bedside table. ‘You’ll soon have a bloom on that pretty face. I must admit, though, I had me doubts the first few days but that be all over now, we’ll soon have you right as ninepence.’

  ‘Mrs Hurley—’ Anne paused, feeling for the words that would say what must be said ‘Mrs Hurley, I am very grateful for what you have done—’

  ‘Hush your words, wench,’ Unity flicked a hand, ‘I done no more than any woman would have done.’

  Any woman! Anne remembered the meeting at Butcroft House. Clara Mather could not be reckoned among them.

  ‘Please,’ she watched the nimble fingers pour tea from a small cream teapot, its fat belly garlanded with pale pink roses, ‘I – I have to tell you, the child’s father… I have no—’

  ‘There be no need to go on.’ Setting the pot down. Unity glanced at the pale, drawn features. She had lied saying the bloom would soon be returned to those waxen cheeks; given what had been cried out during the long hours of labour it would be a miracle should it ever return. ‘There’s no need of telling of the fathering of that child for I’ve heard it already.’

  ‘You – you know!’

  ‘Ar, wench, I knows though it don’t be only the absence of a ring told me.’

  ‘Told you the child is a bastard!’

  Sympathy welled inside her but Unity pushed it aside, taking instead a firm, no nonsense tone as she poured milk into the cup set on the tray.

  ‘That is no fault of his and none of yours neither. He don’t be the first as were got by the forcing of a woman and I hold no doubt he won’t be the last, but a life allowed must be a life lived. It will be hard for both of you, wench, but there is no avoiding of that.’

  No avoiding! Two simple words but they sat like rocks in Anne’s heart. Life had been given, allowed by heaven to happen, but why, why condemn an innocent babe to a life that would forever carry the stigma of illegitimacy?

  Question not the Lord. One of her father’s favourite sayings. But,
though Jacob Corby may not have known it, those words were used only when in his deepest, most secret soul he did question, when he asked for reasons, as she had asked during that last terrible journey and so many times since. But heaven had not answered, she was alone as she had been in those vast snow covered wastes; but not as helpless. Her mother could do nothing to relieve the suffering imposed on a child by a father who saw only the glory of his own delusion, but she could help the son born to her. Throwing back the bedcovers she stood up, swaying when her senses reeled.

  ‘What in the name of all that be holy do you think you be doing!’

  Concern honing her tone, Unity loosed the spoon and somewhere in her whirling world Anne heard it clatter against the prettily painted crockery.

  ‘You don’t be ready to go getting out of bed yet, the child be but a week old. Lord, whatever next!’

  ‘Mrs Hurley,’ Anne caught the hand settling her back onto the pillows, ‘the baby, I – I have to take it—’

  ‘You’ll be taking it nowhere, my girl!’ Unity answered firmly. ‘Least not for some while yet. You need to rest and get your strength back, time then to do whatever be in your mind.’

  Reaching the cup from the tray she held it towards Anne. ‘Now you drink that while I take the child downstairs, it’s time he were bathed and set to sleep in his own bed.’

  She had not touched the child. Unity picked up the small bundle from where she had laid it on the bed an hour before. The girl had not once held him in her arms, not once smiled as the infant was brought to her, not once referred to him as her son. Curling a tiny finger about one of her own, Unity glanced at the young woman whose eyelids lowered to shut out sight of the child. Defence against a love which might have stirred in spite of herself – or was it rejection? She had spoken of him only as ‘the child,’ or ‘the baby’, never calling him ‘my son’. She did not ask that he be brought to her, made no comment when told of his well being. It was as if for Anne Corby he did not exist. Had the hurt been so terrible, the shame gone so deep she could not face it? But turning her back would not erase any of it. Unity looked again at the tiny face nestled in the blanket. Anne Corby must follow her own path but, try as ever she might, the shadow of an innocent child would be forever at her shoulder.

  Carrying the child against her breast, Unity crossed the room to the door then looked back at the face white almost as the pillows.

  ‘Drink the tea while it be hot, girl, then settle yourself to sleep.’ She spoke softly, no trace of censure marring her words and only pity behind her gentle smile.

  Drink the tea while it be hot! As the door closed Anne lifted a glance drowned with tears. She had used almost the same phrase to her mother, but that tea had not been given to them out of kindness. Her head falling backward onto the pillows, her blurred vision watched the evening shadows come together, forming and grouping at the foot of the bed, becoming misty figures, figures which so often peopled her nightmares.

  ‘You will feel better after some hot tea.’

  Watching through the eyes of memory Anne saw herself holding the weeping figure of her mother, helping her from that bleak snow swept graveyard, following in the footsteps of the priest who had turned from them without a word and was now a small black mark against the whiteness.

  Stumbling together, flakes of snow clinging to black veils hindering their sight, they made their slow way towards the low slung inn that was the heart of Radiyeska village. Anne watched her hand push open the heavy wooden door, a hand frozen beneath its thin cover of a cotton glove. The place had felt warm after the bone splintering cold of the cemetery but there had been no welcome in the faces which turned towards them, only a visible, almost tactile animosity; animosity oozing now from the shadowy figures playing about her bed. Men, each bearded and heavily clothed, each with a hat of dark Astrakhan fur seeming to grow upwards from unkempt whiskers, sat in a group around the huge iron stove, a haze of evil smelling steam rising from coats and breeches drying in the heat, their eyes like black beetles, hostile and furtive, watching every move. Yet none moved, none offered a place against the stove.

  But why had she expected them to? The cup forgotten at her side, Anne’s mental eyes followed the scene built out of shadows, her brain recalling the thoughts it had harboured as she had helped her mother out of her damp cloak. Why should these men be any different to the hundreds of others they had met while tramping across God forsaken wilderness where a pale skin had been seen as a visitation of some devil, or through towns where they had been laughed at, villages where they had been stoned?

  Settling her mother at the one unoccupied table, unoccupied because it was so far from the stove as to feel none of its direct heat, the spectre of herself glanced about the room. Apart from tables and benches it held nothing, its one attempt at decoration a wooden icon of the Virgin and Child. Everything they had seen since coming to this limitless land had been made of wood – churches, houses, the inns in which her father had sometimes allowed them to rest – and to her it seemed its people too were of the same unfeeling substance; but no, the people of Russia were not made of wood, stone was a better description.

  ‘Could we have some tea, please.’ Locked in the phantom world of memory, Anne saw her lips move, heard the words reality could not hear.

  Months of trudging from village to village had helped her acquire a smattering of the language, but it seemed the dialect spoken in one area differed from that in the next so she could never truly learn any in depth. Now she smiled at the frowning, heavy faced woman dressed in rough clothing, a shawl wrapping her head and hiding all but a small greasy patch of mouse coloured hair which dribbled onto her forehead. Her reply was incomprehensible, muttered while one hand lifted towards the icon then swiftly marked the sign of the cross over her large bosom.

  From the circle about the stove a wave of sniggers spread and Anne saw herself swallowing hard before her lips repeated their request. They were unwelcome here, she and her mother, yet they might afford a few minutes of sport.

  ‘We would like some tea, please!’ It held an edge crisp as the snow outside that inn but she saw they had understood, both the woman and her foul smelling clientele, that much was obvious from the smirks and nudges passing between them, so whatever the reason the request was being ignored it could not be put down to lack of understanding.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, dear.’ The shadowy image of Viola Corby touched a hand to her daughter’s arm. ‘I really do not want any tea, let us go to our room.’

  ‘No, Mother!’ Determination pulled her own mouth to a straight line and her haze compiled face stared, ignoring the dumpy woman’s fresh torrent of angry words. This time there would be no Jacob Corby to silence her, this time her mother’s needs would be met, that and nothing but that would be Anne Corby’s creed in life, and no one would deny that creed ever again.

  Her retort, a demand and not a request, exploded another further burst of abuse but the woman went towards the rear of the room. Behind Anne, her mother coughed into a delicate scrap of cloth, her thin shoulders folding inwards against the sting of pain.

  ‘I really do not want any tea, Anne.’ The shadow created figure wiped its mouth with a self-conscious move designed to hide phlegm spotted with blood.

  ‘It is warmer here, Mother.’ Anne turned to her, bending to rub the cold hands between her own. ‘You do need some hot tea.’

  The pillows at her back, that small unheard voice somewhere in her mind trying to tell her it was no more than memory, Anne felt only the shudder as her mother coughed again, heard only the racking sounds bubbling in her mother’s tortured lungs, saw only the fear in her own face as she turned to face those watching men.

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘if you moved just a little there would be room for my mother beside the stove; we have just come from seeing my father to his grave and—’

  ‘You should have stayed there with him!’ A bear of a man, stink rising from him, waved a deprecating hand. ‘That he the best
place for all bloody foreigners, though I begrudge them a place in the beloved soil of Russia!’

  Loud shouts of approval closed off the rest and she turned back to her mother as the mistress of the tavern came in with a brass samovar, its elegant, high curved spout glinting in the dim light, two handleless pottery cups beside it on a wooden tray. Giving Anne a look carrying such a volume of dislike her tongue might have found difficulty in expressing it, she set the tray on a plain topped table then turned to her more preferred customers, her opinions of foreigners besmirching the country with their fouling presence meeting with loud agreement.

  Pouring tea into each cup, Anne handed one to her mother, seeing the fingers which took it tremble from more than physical coldness. Sipping the hot liquid, Viola Corby looked at her daughter. Patting the hard bench she murmured, ‘Sit down, Anne, there is something I have to say.’

  At the foot of the bed the unreal figures moved close together, one coughing again into the handkerchief while the other looked anxiously at the twin spots of colour burning high on the sunken cheeks, at the unnatural brilliance flaming in faded blue eyes, and the bitter resentment she had felt then, curdled afresh. For weeks she had watched her mother grow steadily weaker, watched and wept at her own inability to do anything to change the indomitable attitude of the man who placed the responsibility for all things at the feet of his God, making a sacrifice of all that was his.

  It was then her mother told her they were to come home to England. She sat for a moment, the coarse voices talking so loudly now forgotten. Home to England! But how could they? It was so far and the harsh breath of winter was already sweeping the land. Her mother mistook her silence for fear yet it was not fear that coursed in her but the sharp, almost painful tug of premonition low in her stomach.

  ‘I want you safe at Butcroft House before—’ She was taken then with a spate of coughing which left her breathless but determined to go on. ‘There is nothing here for us now that your father is – is no longer with us. We have no reason to remain. We – we will go home, Anne, home where you should have been long ago among – among your own people.’