Heritage of Shame

by Meg Hutchinson

  His love… was that what her mother had not seen? Watching the shadow of sadness deepen on his face Anne felt a wave of pity wash over her. A lifetime of plenty, that had been Sir Corbett Foley’s life, years of wanting for nothing… except for the love of a woman he could never have.

  ‘Viola,’ taking a deep breath he went on, ‘Viola did not see the sort of life Jacob Corby was condemning her to – yes, girl, I say condemning, for he knew the dangers that lay ahead, the jungle fevers and river sickness that had destroyed stronger men than him, yet still he ruled that she and you go with him. Oh Lord… oh Lord, why did I not tell her!’

  Eyes closed, mouth firmed against a sudden trembling he turned his face away. But sorrow was not hidden by the move, only echoed by the shudder of his body. He was suffering almost as she had suffered seeing that wolf snatch her mother from the sledge, he too had lost for ever that which he loved most. Sitting in silence, Anne waited.

  ‘Forgive me.’ Snuffling into a large cambric handkerchief he avoided the need to look directly at her. ‘Damned head cold… comes of lying in that ditch… damned motor carriage… should ’ave known better than to take it! There,’ he sniffed, reaching for the glass of brandy and swallowing a little, ‘that’s better. Now for what I was saying… your mother had no trust in Jacob’s sister and for that reason asked me to take various things into my possession to hold in trust for you should it be she did not return to England. I said she was wise in some things and this, I think, was one of them. Had Clara Mather got her hands on what were left with me it would have been fed into the fire long since.’

  Replacing the glass on the night table he pointed to the opposite side of the spacious room.

  ‘There,’ he said easing himself higher on the pillows, ‘there in that escritoire, top drawer on the left, you’ll find a box.’

  ‘Not tonight.’ Despite the pallid lighting, Anne saw the bright spots of colour high on cheeks which in just a few days had become sunken. ‘Whatever it is will keep until—’

  ‘No!’ Catching her hand he shook it once, the quick gesture one of command, then his voice lowered taking on a gentler tone. ‘No, Anne, I made that mistake once long ago, I waited and waited until it became too late, the one thing which I truly loved was taken by another and only then… when she… only when the chance was gone did I realise what I had allowed to happen. They have a saying for that sort of thing, don’t they? I shut the door after the horse had bolted. Well, I won’t be caught that way again so bring that box to me.’

  A box! Her legs threatening to give way beneath her, Anne crossed to the elegant writing desk, its delicate structure seeming strangely out of place among the heavier, more masculine furniture. Was this where Sir Corbett had kept the amulet? Was it in the box he had asked her to bring to him?

  … only when the chance was gone did I realise what I had allowed to happen…

  The words filtered from the shadowed corners of the room.

  … I had allowed to happen…

  Hands shaking as they rested on the drawer Anne felt a frisson of apprehension travel through her. Did that mean Sir Corbett felt there to be some threat in keeping that trinket in this house, was he about to ask her to take it away, perhaps keep it herself?

  Slowly pulling open the drawer she stared into the indistinct interior, her vision taking moments to adjust, to mark the outline of a box.

  ‘Take it out, Anne, bring it over here.’

  To refuse would be an admittance of distrust, an accusal; but why would a man who had always shown her only kindness try to…? He wouldn’t! Thrusting her hands into the drawer she lifted out the box. Sir Corbett Foley would never deliberately place her in the way of harm.

  ‘These were your mother’s.’ The box set beside him on the bed, Corbett Foley took out a sheaf of papers. ‘She honoured me with her trust and now I am fulfilling it.’

  Papers! The box held only papers! Guilt and relief rolling into one, Anne’s fingers twined in her lap. How could she have ever let herself imagine what she had?

  ‘These,’ he held the folded papers out for her to take, ‘among these are deeds given to your mother on her marriage. Your father allowed them to remain in her name and for that I respect him, not many men would forgo the proceeds brought to them by marriage. But when it came to his own property, his house and iron works, Jacob Corby had no such foresight, his sister would run them both, she would look to things until his return. Your mother, though, she had no faith in that woman and for that reason left those papers with me. Take them with you, girl, and, if you will, a word of advice to go with them. Wait until the time is right before letting Jacob’s sister know what it is you have for her claws are sharp and they will strike deep if she feels herself and that son of hers threatened.’

  ‘Papers, just papers!’

  Hearing the relief in her voice the greying brows drew together. ‘Yes, girl, papers… what did you think was in that box?’

  Colour warming her face, Anne looked into eyes which minutes before had been misted by memories. ‘I…’ she hesitated. ‘I thought perhaps the amulet.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘That thing had worked too much harm already. I destroyed it, threw the pieces into the fire and buried the ashes where no one will find them. Let them lie in darkness like the creature whose work it did. Forget it, child, forget you ever heard of it; you are safe now, be sure it cannot strike at you or at anyone again.’

  ‘It tried to strike at you… it did, didn’t it? The fog you spoke of to Laban, that which you thought came from a box you had with you, it held the amulet?’ Nodding slowly he leaned deeper into the pillows. ‘Yes,’ he breathed, ‘yes, it was the amulet. I was taking it to Lichfield, to the Bishop there. I’d talked to the local man along of Bentley Church but he seemed to think I was either a crank or losing my mind; anyway he said it was beyond his jurisdiction to deal with anything of that nature and said it would have to be handled by the Bishop. That being so I shoved it into the motor carriage and set off for the railroad station.

  ‘I was halfway when a mist struck up. At first it didn’t register with me that it was not widespread, then I noticed the fields to either side were clear, the sun shining on the stubble left from the harvesting. That was when I looked at the seat beside me. At first I thought I was dreaming, then that p’raps that priest fellah was right and my mind was going… but it was neither of those things; I was seeing a mist and it was coming from that box. The road was too narrow to stop… feared a bump with a wagon, you know… so I drove on. I swear,’ he looked at Anne, his eyes darkening with something she could not understand, ‘the power contained in that amulet knew what I was going to do, for even as I looked at it the car began to vibrate and that mist thickened; it swirled in grey whorls, twisting and turning, wrapping about my face, filling my nostrils, squeezing between my lips, clogging my throat until I could not breathe. It was a foulness I could taste, could feel.’ He paused, obviously still feeling the effects of the moment. ‘It coiled about my neck like a living thing, tightening and choking, and I knew it was intent upon killing me. I tried to control the car, to bring it to a halt but try as I might I had no strength against what was in that carriage. Then I felt a blow to my head and knew no more until I woke up here.’

  ‘And the box?’ Anne could not hide the shiver that ran along her spine as she asked.

  ‘It were brought here with me and as I told you I broke the amulet into pieces, hammered the stones until they were no more than shards then put the whole lot to the fire. Rest easy, child, it can do no more harm.’

  His face stark and grey against the pillow, Sir Corbett Foley closed his eyes wearily. She had tired him. Anne rose and, kissing the man’s brow, turned to leave. ‘I will call again when you are feeling stronger.’

  Forcing his eyes to open he watched the slender figure move into the shadows. He had lied to the girl, lied… but only to set her mind at rest. That box which held the amulet had not been brought to Bentley Grange a
nd no search of the motor carriage or of the ground where it had collided with the hedge had revealed any trace of it. It was gone but not destroyed! He had felt its evil touch him a little more each day since that accident, felt its malignance draining the strength from his body. What would the people of today’s world say if they knew a perfectly sane, responsible man believed in witchcraft and curses? He smiled weakly. The modern world did not know as much as it gave itself credit for!

  At the base of the curved staircase of the graceful old house, Anne smiled her goodnight to the manservant waiting to see her and Abel out.

  ‘How is he?’

  Abel’s question met no answer for Anne heard only the words repeating in her mind.

  … it can do no more harm…

  The box with her mother’s papers clutched tightly in her hands she heard the echo and re-echo.

  Rest easy, child, it can do no more harm.

  Why did those words bring no comfort to her heart?

  16

  They had talked of little after leaving Bentley Grange. Abel walked beside Anne trying to avoid looking at the moonlight dancing in her hair. He had thought often of her since that night in the church grounds, felt a pleasure in seeing her and speaking with her on the days she came to Regency Leather bringing the goods she and Unity had worked on, but he had not expected that pleasure to develop into this. Stealing a glance at the figure keeping pace with him he felt a quick sharp jerk in his chest, the same catch of breath in his throat as happened whenever he caught sight of her or heard the sound of her voice. Little Anne Corby… the child he had often fought over, often shielded from her snotty nosed cousin and tyrant of an aunt… she had been no more than six years to his grown-up fourteen… no more than a babe.

  But Anne Corby was no longer a babe. Moving only his eyes he glanced again. Anne Corby was a woman and beneath a wan shadow which still showed in her face she was a beautiful woman. Beautiful and the heir of Butcroft House and Glebe Metalworks. In a few weeks she could take that inheritance into her own hands; Anne Corby would be a wealthy woman while Abel Preston would never be anything other than a saddle maker; yes, she would have money, wealth he could never match, but she would not know of an even greater wealth… the wealth of his love for her.

  When had he realised it? Hands deep in his pockets Abel let his thoughts ramble in the soft silence which had settled over the newly mown fields and which was drawing them both into itself until to break it would feel akin to committing a crime. When had he realised he was in love with Anne Corby? The question was not new to him, he had asked it of himself many times when night brought no peace from the thought of her, no rest to a body aching to hold her close; but the answer… the answer when it finally came had been a shock, he could not remember a time he had not loved her. Truth was he had always been in love with Anne Corby!

  Immersed within that same world of silvery silence Anne wrestled with the problem of whether or not to divulge what the older man had disclosed concerning the cause of his accident. She did not want to keep anything from Abel but would Sir Corbett wish her to speak of it to someone else? After all, he had said the vicar of Bentley Church had looked on his story of the amulet with clearly discernible disparagement and, visiting him after his accident, had spoken of that fog as a figment of an overwrought mind, an illusion born of shock and injury. Would Abel think along the same lines, would he think the owner of Bentley Grange a man with problems of the mind? And what of her own involvement with the pendant worn by a Russian monk whom Mikhail Yusupov had termed “mad”? Would Abel believe her? He would not have to answer, for she would observe the advice Sir Corbett had given and forget about the thing she had carried from Russia, forget it had ever existed.

  ‘What name have you chosen for your son?’ Abel had to break the chains circling his mind, to gain some respite from the emotion grasping his heart.

  ‘What?’ Anne had to push her way up from the soft depths.

  ‘I asked what name you were giving your son?’

  ‘Joshua,’ Anne smiled in the shadowed moonlight, ‘Joshua Laban.’

  Beside her Abel nodded. ‘He will be so proud of that, will Laban, and Unity too; it’s a thousand pities they had only two children, one more would have taken away the pain of losing Matthew and Luke.’

  Nothing would ever take away the pain of losing a child. Anne’s heart twisted at the thought of just how close she had come to parting with her own son. Unity’s pain had softened to an ache bearable by day, but in the solitude of the long night hours she knew it returned to rend the woman apart, breaking her heart as it had when first hearing both of her sons were dead. How had Unity survived such a blow? Anne felt the catch of breath in her throat. It was a strength she herself would never have, she could not go on living now without Joshua.

  ‘Did you know Matthew and Luke?’ She asked the question out of need to break the silence, a silence which would provide a breeding ground for thoughts which brought no happiness.

  ‘Yes.’ Abel’s voice seemed to hold a smile. ‘They were both some years older than me but they never treated me as a kid, not the way some lads get treated when they first start to earn their living, being sent to fetch sky hooks or a rubber hammer. Some men think that to be funny but the Hurleys were not like that, they treated a young lad with the same respect they showed to visitors come to order a saddle or harness, the good manners some only show to a man of property: but not Laban and his sons, money and position meant nothing to them, they lived by the teaching which said all men are created equal therefore they should be treated with equal respect.’

  As Unity and Laban had treated a stranger, a young woman heavy with child. There had been no condemnation on seeing a hand which wore no ring, no closing the door in her face; they had not acted as Clara Mather had acted, turning her from her own home. Pressing her fingers hard about the box she carried, Anne glanced away into the darkness, a darkness that covered Butcroft House… her house! But it would never be hers, she had no proof of inheritance, just as it was certain her father’s sister would have proof the Glebe Works along with everything else he had owned had been deeded to her possession. Not that she minded, let Clara and her son take it all. But what of Joshua when he was grown… would he so easily forego what should rightfully have been his?

  ‘It almost destroyed Laban when his boys were killed.’ Abel talked on quietly. ‘He lost the joy he had once had in the leather he worked, but never the pride; what he produced was ever of the same quality, one which could not be surpassed by any other in the trade; but now I see that joy returning… you have given him that, you and little Joshua, I saw it when he told me he and Unity were to stand as godparents.’

  They had both beamed with pleasure when she had asked them to fulfil that office. ‘It is kind of them,’ she answered, remembering their wide smiles and Unity’s rocking the child in her arms, singing to him that he would be ‘baptised along o’ the best’.

  ‘Anne.’ Abel interrupted the memory. ‘A male child needs two godfathers, will the second one be your cousin, will you give Quenton Mather that honour?’

  Passing at that moment the lych gate of St Lawrence church, Anne looked at the silhouette of the old sandstone building but the beauty of it was lost among the shadows of horror… the horror of being dragged into the darkness enveloping the grounds, the threat of Quenton!

  ‘No.’ Clogged by the emotion she had to struggle to contain, the reply was little more than a whisper.

  Their footsteps lost amid the rumble of a carter’s wagon passing on its way from King Street, Abel returned the driver’s jovial greeting, then, as the cart drew away, said quietly, ‘Anne, if you have no one better suited in mind, then might I stand as your son’s second godfather?’

  For a moment no words would come. Abel Preston, the boy who so often had been there to champion a little girl, to fight off a spiteful cousin, to answer back the aunt who terrified her so much she had never spoken of her unkindness to her mother; the boy
who had taken the trouble to spend time with a six year old!

  Her face tilting upwards, moonlight a liquid silver in her eyes as she turned to him, Anne knew her whole heart lay in her answer. ‘There could never be anyone better,’ she murmured, ‘my son could have no finer godparent than Abel Preston.’

  *

  She had pushed the tip of her finger deep into the child’s mouth, held it there a few seconds, felt the tongue pull greedily on it, heard the small gulping sounds of swallowing. It had swallowed the poison! Clara Mather stared at the leather gloves lying where she had put them on her bed. She had been determined to burn them once her cleaning woman had left the house but then instinct had warned she might need them again. There had been no time to recoat her fingertip, no time to administer a second dose of wolfsbane, it had been difficult enough to use the first time while keeping it hidden in her bag; she could not have taken the risk of repeating the process when any second Unity Hurley might have emerged from that pawnshop. But would what she had done serve the purpose intended, had there been sufficient extract on the glove to achieve her aim… would it eliminate the problem of Anne Corby’s by-blow?

  Her hair braided and hanging over her shoulder, lamplight casting a yellow hue over a plain white cotton nightgown, Clara stared at her own reflection in the mirror of her heavy mahogany dressing table.

  If not, she would try again and keep on until she was successful. It would be doing her brother a kindness, honour the memory of a man who was respected in this town, take away a stigma he did not deserve, the stigma of a bastard grandchild. Jacob had been a God fearing man and she, his loving sister… yes, she was doing this for him.

  Smiling in the contentment of finding justification other than committing murder simply to further her own ends, Clara picked up the gloves, carrying them to the wardrobe, hiding them behind a large hatbox. The cleaning woman was never allowed to set foot in this room but then Clara Mather was not always in the house and when the cat was away… a little care was preferable to a lot of regret! About to close the wardrobe she hesitated. How much was left in that bottle? She had put it away so hurriedly she had not checked. What if opportunity came and there was insufficient of the extract to take advantage of it?