Heritage of Shame

by Meg Hutchinson

  *

  He needed to be shown, needed to realise she was mistress of Butcroft House, she ran Glebe Metalworks and she held the purse strings; Quenton must be taught which side his bread was buttered! In the privacy of her bedroom Clara Mather gave rein to the anger bubbling inside her. Quenton was a fool. Sufficient unto the day… let tomorrow look to itself… that was his motto. Well, tomorrow was going to be a hard one for him, tomorrow he would begin to appreciate just where he stood, whether in or out of Butcroft! She had been too lenient with him, even as a child he had been allowed his own way, and from his being thirteen years old that way had been one of avoiding any physical labour and, no more than two years later, of ignoring any effort made to get him to listen to advice. But he would listen from now on, either that or…

  Or what? Sinking to the bed she sat staring at her hands clutched together in her lap. Everything she had ever done had been for him. Buttering up to her brother, upholding his religious fervour until it became a mania, agreeing he should follow the path set out for him by the Lord and of course he must take his wife and child with him, the last being urged without a care of where that path might lead, her one desire being that all his worldly goods be signed into her care. And she had taken good care, making as much profit as she knew how and paying most of it into an account bearing her name, sacking men to employ school leavers at a fraction of the pay… yes she had taken too good a care of the business to see Quenton fritter it away. But Clara Mather could not live for ever, should Quenton not alter his ways who then would this house and ironworks go to?

  But he would alter… he had to! Today had been a turning point in more ways than one and soon there would be another, soon there would be no obstacle in Clara Mather’s path.

  It had been so easy. Fingers losing their tension Clara stared at shadows sliding furtively close as if testing the efficacy of the bedside lamp. She had smeared the poison on the tip of her gloved finger, put it in the child’s mouth and it had sucked as if at its mother’s nipple.

  ‘Next door sent her lad to fetch Laban from his work, and that afore it were finishing time.’

  Clara listened to the conversation again in her mind.

  ‘Her said Unity ’Urley were beside herself, crying summat bitter that the babby were dead.’

  ‘But that babby don’t be Unity ’Urley’s so where was its mother?’

  ‘Seems her were off somewhere.’

  Off somewhere! Clara’s mouth thinned with satisfaction at the remembered criticism in the voice. Her niece would not be well thought of by the women of Darlaston, they would have no sympathies for a woman who left her child to be minded by another while she followed her own interest, and that in turn would mean neither sympathy nor interest when Anne Corby went the way of her son!

  But just what had her niece’s interest been? Clara thought for a moment, then dismissed it. Not that it mattered, the girl would not be alive long enough to develop any long term interest.

  One was gone, one to follow!

  Rising to her feet Clara slipped out of skirts and blouse, folding each with the meticulous care she had practised from being a girl. Care in all things had been her mother’s creed and it was one she herself had adopted almost religiously. And it had paid off. She slid her nightgown over her head and unpinned her hair, watching it fall like wispy grey ribbons over her bony shoulders. It had not always looked like this. Once it had been thick and gleaming as dark honey and her eyes had been the colour of a dove’s wing… so what had taken it all away?

  Jealousy.

  The word came from the inner reaches of her mind, breaking through the barrier she had so long ago placed around it.

  Jealousy…

  Robert Mather’s dying words had been meant as sympathy but they had proved too near the truth, a truth she refused to recognise yet which nevertheless had stayed with her through the years.

  ‘Jealousy has stripped everything which might have been beautiful about you.’

  He had looked at her through sad pitying eyes marbled with the violet shadows of death.

  ‘Jealousy of a brother who was given what you were not, of his property, of his wife whose looks were pretty and nature gentle as a spring dawn when yours were not… of a life you can never have; jealousy is a canker within you, Clara, a cancer of the mind.’

  But what had he known! The voice fading, she drew a brush savagely through hair devoid of shine, an angry glance meeting iron hard eyes reflected back from the dressing mirror. Robert Mather who hadn’t enough go in him to meet life let alone tackle it head on. No, that had been her job, the only legacy he had left her. Well, it would not be the same for Quenton! She would see to it he faced the realities of life… she would see him ready to accept the legacy left him by his mother.

  One was gone, one to follow!

  The thought returned and Clara met it with a smile.

  She had killed one Corby… she would kill the other.

  18

  He had received no baptism in the church. The priest had not held him over the beautiful stone font at St Lawrence, there had been no service.

  Unity Hurley stared at the black of mourning, the clothes she had bought fourteen years ago when one brief official letter had informed her of the death of her beloved sons. So many years, so much pain! She had thought nothing could ever equal the grief that letter had brought, that never again would her heart know that agony. But she had been wrong. That child lying downstairs, the tiny scrap which had brought joy again to her soul, the babe who had kindled joy afresh, now lay dead.

  Why? Why him? That had been the question his mother had asked, moaning it from the depths of a misery Unity understood only too well, crying it from a terrible despair. But tears and lamentations could not undo what was done; the child was at rest in blessed peace… only the living must suffer.

  But would the child she had loved, the one she would grieve for as even now she grieved for her own sons, be resting in blessed peace?

  Hair half braided, her fingers became still but blood coursing in her veins seemed to crash against her ears.

  The priest had come to the house, brought silk stola and holy water. He had spoken words of repentance asking the soul of the child be forgiven and accepted into heaven, then with the water had made the sign of the cross on the tiny forehead.

  But the child had not been named!

  The eyes reflecting back at her were filled with a fear she would not allow to show when with Anne Corby, but it was constant in her heart.

  The child had not received the sacrament of baptism! Unity stared into her own fear.

  Words of repentance, of asking forgiveness for a wrong the child was not responsible for, were they words sanctioned by the priest’s office or by the compassion of a man’s heart? Were they words which would admit a nameless child, one unsanctified by holy baptism, into paradise or were they just an empty salve?

  ‘The lad did all he could.’ Laban spoke gently, guessing the thoughts plaguing her mind. ‘’Twill do no good you worrying, best you take your rest for that wench will need your strength tomorrow.’

  And not only the girl. Unity sighed as she tied the ribbon at the neck of her cotton nightgown. He too, would need her strength as he had needed it before. She had never said it but she had known that, without her, Laban would have given up after hearing of his sons dying in that terrible foreign land, he would have let his life fade from him as theirs had faded; but she had urged him quietly to work… to live.

  ‘I’ll come to bed in a while.’ She smiled at him, at the tired face she loved so well. ‘I’ll just peep in at the girl first, make sure her be sleeping.’

  Drawing a shawl about her shoulders she went to the room they had given to Anne. Opening the door just wide enough to see inside, Unity frowned. The candle burned in its pottery holder but the bed was empty.

  *

  ‘It was my fault.’

  Coming to the last narrow stair Unity paused at the door which gave on
to the living room, a door which now stood open.

  ‘It was my fault.’

  Every word was an agonised sob pulling at Unity’s heartstrings.

  ‘When you were born I would not take you in my arms, I did not look at you, I left it to Unity to care for you.’

  The murmuring ceased on a long-drawn sob and Unity caught her breath at what she saw by the light of candles. Anne Corby, hair loose over her nightgown, was knelt beside the tiny white coffin, her dead baby clutched in her arms as she rocked slowly back and forth.

  Tears filling her eyes Unity shivered, the blood running cold in her veins, but she did not move as the broken murmurings began again.

  ‘I refused to hold you, to touch you for I knew I could not keep you; but it was not because I felt nothing… I soon realised in my heart I loved you but fear of love kept me from lifting you to my breast, fear of losing you as I had lost the one person I had truly loved in my life, my mother. It is for that reason, my own blind selfishness, my wanting to keep myself from hurting any more, that heaven punishes me by taking you away for ever… but I loved you, my darling, I loved you.’

  In the flickering, uncertain light of the cold room Unity saw the darker head press close to the tiny unmoving one, heard the heartbreak in every sobbing cry, her own heart feeling echoes of pain the years had only dulled. Let the wench cry, let her be with her son as she herself would have given her very life to have been with her own sons, to have held them in her arms, whispered her love as she whispered goodbye. But that had not been given her. She had not washed and dressed them for burial as she had dressed this child, not placed a penny in their mouth as she had done for him, nor would she see the place where they lay with no headstone to mark their bed. But she knew where their souls were; like everyone baptised into the faith of the Lord they were with Him now. But this child… what of his immortal soul?

  Standing on the lowest step, tears streaming over drawn cheeks, Unity spoke deep inside. Take him in your arms, Matthew and Luke, take him as you would a brother for that was how your mother loved him; bring him to the Mother of Christ, tell her of how he was not baptised, show him to her… ask her mercy. She was a woman whose son was taken from her, she will not refuse this little one the love of heaven.

  A sound from the room above breaking her silent prayer Unity wiped a hand across her cheeks. It would do no good for the wench to see yet more misery. Her limbs stiff from the cold of rooms that could see no fire and whose closed curtains could allow no light or warmth of day to banish their gloom until the funeral was done, Unity crossed to the kneeling girl.

  ‘Give him to me, wench—’ she spoke quietly, afraid that one more straw would have Anne collapse completely, ‘let me have him.’

  ‘No… please…’

  It was a strangled cry, its desolation vibrating among the shadows.

  ‘You have to be strong, girl, strong enough to let him go.’ Unity reached for the tiny body, easing Anne’s desperate fingers gently but firmly until they released their hold, then, resisting the urge to hold him against her one last time, placed the little corpse back in its coffin.

  ‘I can’t leave him.’ The breath of Anne’s sobs caught the pale flame of the candles placed beside the coffin and set their light flickering in a wild dance about the cold walls. ‘I can’t leave him here alone.’

  Had she done this each of the five nights the dead child had lain in the house, come down to sit beside him through the hours of darkness… sat here unheard, drowned in her misery, in the agony of her baby’s death?

  Reaching through the gloom to where familiarity told her a shawl hung from a peg on the stairs door she draped it about the girl’s heaving shoulders.

  ‘Then you shan’t leave him,’ she answered, some inner strength masking her own heartache. ‘We’ll sit with him together.’

  *

  What would the folk of Darlaston think if she did not go to that house, to at least pretend to a show of sympathy? But that was all it would be, a pretence. She felt no sympathy and certainly no sorrow, that child’s death had been a relief to her, an obstacle cleared from her path.

  Setting her black bonnet on her head, Clara Mather lowered the tulle veil over her face, arranging the folds neatly, meticulously, where they touched her chin.

  What did it matter what folk thought! She would go to the Hurley house, she had to be certain that the talk she heard in the town was true, she had to see for herself this bastard grandchild of her brother was truly dead. But would Unity Hurley let her in or would she slam the door in her face? That would make a more convincing picture in the eyes of people who always gathered to watch a corpse taken from the house, she would be the grieving aunt denied a last goodbye.

  Drawing on black leather gloves Clara held up the little finger of her left hand. It had been an act of genius smearing the tip with wolfsbane and inserting it in the child’s mouth, an idea only a shrewd brain would think up… and Clara Mather was nothing if not shrewd.

  ‘The flowers be in the brewhouse, mum; it be cooler in there, keep ’em fresh like.’ The daily woman looked up as Clara entered the kitchen.

  Clara glanced towards the cheap enamel clock, there were ten minutes to the woman’s finishing time but she wanted no paid help in the house when it was uncertain how long she herself would be absent, noses grew long and fingers itchy when there was no one about to slap them back into place.

  ‘There’s no need for you to stay,’ she snapped, ‘I’ll lock the door myself.’

  The woman had scurried off like a rabbit with a fox on its tail. Clara collected the bunch of pale blue pansies she had given old Zeb Davies of Dangerfield Lane sixpence for. She had only bought them for appearances sake and sixpence had been enough to waste, she wouldn’t throw that much away when it was the turn of Jacob’s daughter to go under the sod.

  The clock of St Lawrence church rang the half hour. Clara quickened her steps. Her daily woman had said the service was scheduled for eleven o’clock, that left her thirty minutes… more than enough time to reach Blockall.

  *

  ‘It be time, Unity.’

  Unity nodded to the neighbour who, as was usual in such circumstances, had taken a couple of hours from his work to help out. It had been a battle to get Anne to leave the room long enough to wash and dress in the dark skirt and coat a second trip to Darlaston bad procured. But it was no pawnshop had supplied that mourning outfit as it had supplied the silver christening cup she had bought that day; those clothes, together with a high necked white lawn blouse, had come from Sophie Hartshorne’s dressmaking shop in Walsall Street and the veiled bonnet from Lucy Corbett’s millinery. In fact everything the girl now wore was new, her heart might be in tatters but she would not see her son into his grave dressed the same way.

  Bending over the kneeling figure Unity whispered, ‘You have to come away now.’ Then, seeing the hand closed over a tiny marble cold one, added gently, ‘Joseph Bishop be waiting, we mustn’t keep him from his work.’ Glancing towards Laban stood at the empty fireplace her look said for him to take Anne into the scullery. It would be too much for her to watch the nails being driven into the lid of that sad little box, to see her child closed away from her for ever.

  As Unity’s hand touched her shoulder Anne felt a cry rise in her throat, the wild cry of heartbreak and anguish that weighed like lead inside her. But she must not release it. Rising to her feet she gazed at the tiny form dressed in the white, figured silk christening robe Unity had made and dressed her own children in for their baptism. He was to have worn it for that same ceremony but instead he was wearing it as his shroud… her baby would never bear a name.

  ‘But to me you will always be Joshua, my son… my son whom I love with all my heart, whom I will always love.’

  It was only a breath but each word was heard by Unity and despite her resolve to be strong for them all a sob rose to her lips.

  Standing beside the little coffin as Laban led the girl away, Unity draped a soft
white woollen shawl over the still form, a shawl she had crocheted so many years ago. Matthew had been carried to church in that shawl and so had Luke, now it covered another child she loved, but this one it would cover only in death.

  ‘Be you ready, Unity?’

  Tucking a corner of the shawl over the silver cup she had lain beside the child, Unity kissed the little face for the last time. ‘You don’t be alone,’ she whispered, ‘I know you don’t be alone; my Matthew and my Luke be there taking care of you. They will love you as we all loved you, they will keep you ’til I come.’

  In the scullery, light from its window dulled by a closed curtain, Laban’s arms supporting her, Anne felt every sound of the hammer drive through her like a knife, felt the cry rise again to her throat. But she must not let it free, to cry out now would be to shatter her soul, scatter its fragments over a thousand different dimensions. Turning her face into Laban’s shoulder, her hands clenched against his chest, she hid the scream of a broken heart.

  *

  ‘I just called in to offer these. I don’t want to impose… it’s just I wanted to show my sympathy… if Anne would have no objection.’

  ‘It be right kind of you, lad, I be sure the girl will hold no objection.’ Laban nodded his appreciation, taking the bunch of cream carnations and green ferns that were Abel’s tribute and passing them to be placed alongside the wreath which a few pence collected from every house in the street had provided.

  ‘I – I’ll get back to the works then.’

  The deep rich tone cutting through the sadness blanking her mind, Anne turned her head. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘you were to stand at my son’s baptism, will you… will you stand instead at his funeral?’

  He would stand in the flames of hell if she asked it. Abel’s throat tightened as he met eyes swamped with tears. Why had this happened to her, hadn’t fate tormented her enough without taking her child! Holding his arms stiffly at his sides, the only way he could prevent them reaching out for her, he nodded.