Heritage of Shame

by Meg Hutchinson

  But Abel Preston is not dead! Sniffing back the tears she chided her self-pity. He would not die, the amulet would not strike… Almost as quickly as the thought arose she checked it. That thing was destroyed, any power it might have been imbued with was destroyed along with it; she must not allow any trace to linger by attributing to it any other happening, there could be no more place in her mind for what Unity called ‘superstitious claptrap’. There had been enough of that, it had been stupid to allow herself to be carried along by it, they were tales for children.

  But Sir Corbett Foley had not been a child and neither was Mikhail Mikhailovitch Yusupov or his son. They had all been clearly afraid and so had the gypsies she had travelled with; they had not seen so much as the cloth the amulet had been wrapped in yet somehow they sensed its presence. And its evil…? A shiver ran through Anne. Why else would they have kept so wide a distance from her?

  ‘There you be, miss, I was just about give you up.’

  Aaron Butler’s gravelly voice breaking in on her thoughts, Anne’s smile was almost grateful. The acrid taste of iron dust and red hot metal finding her throat she coughed as she followed him into the cloying atmosphere of the foundry, its heat overpowering after the cool of night. From one end the furnace, stoked to hold its heat overnight, spilled an eerie red glow from around its door. The gateway to hell men called it, while women gave this war the same name. Following Aaron, hearing his repeated warning to ‘mind wheer yoh steps,’ Anne wondered just how many gates did that region boast?

  ‘That iron ore come in late this afternoon, be well it did for we couldn’t have smelted another day without it and letting the furnaces out be a bad job forrit takes a deal of time to bring ’em up to heat again.’

  ‘But we will have produced enough to fill our quota,’ Anne answered, glad her mind was drawn from thoughts of that amulet.

  ‘Reckons the govermint don’t never see enough as plenty, they seems to want more every week but they’ll have to look elsewhere from now on for we be driving flat out; what with lads of just fifteen year old having to register for conscription and liable to call up—’

  ‘They won’t ever be called upon.’

  ‘We all hopes on that but already there be young men of eighteen years who got no choice… I tell you, miss, we was all sadly deluded when we thought this lot would be over in less than six month and I reckons there’ll be many more yet to grieve over the dying of a loved one.’

  … dying of a loved one…

  Standing in silence while Aaron lit a lantern, Anne could not force those words from her mind. Abel was with those fighting men… he had not written… could it be he was already dead?

  ‘Will you want to go through the books?’

  ‘No!’ The strangled cry was an answer to her own thoughts, she must not think Abel was dead, she must never think that! ‘No,’ she turned the cry into a cough. ‘I – I called only to see if everything was all right.’ She coughed again hoping it would fool the man she had appointed foreman.

  Fooled or otherwise Aaron Butler kept his counsel, simply nodding as Anne turned to leave. ‘Old Zeck he set for the night.’ He glanced at the wooden hut outside of which a brazier glowed.

  Following the line of Aaron’s glance Anne smiled at the sight of the old man, his flat cap pulled low, his chin resting on his chest. ‘Let’s not disturb him, he looks so comfortable.’

  Drawn back into the corner of the wooden hut, beyond the reach of the flickering light of the brazier, Clara Mather smiled. The watchman of the Glebe was comfortable… in fact he would never feel discomfort… he would never feel anything again.

  *

  He had seen her come through the gate in spite of her keeping to the shadows. Clara watched the couple walking away. An old man ought never to have had such keen vision! Well, his eyes would see no more. It had been so simple. Anne Corby had not arrived yet but he could take her into the foundry to where Aaron Butler could deal with her queries. She had protested that the air in the works was too acrid for her health, instead accepting the old man’s offer that she wait in the hut. That had been her chance. Coming up behind the old armchair he always sat in she had slipped the long bladed knife from her sleeve. It had passed easily through the worn fabric and only a slight grunt had told the blade had found his back. So easy! But that knife had been meant for a different target. Clara’s teeth clamped hard. She had meant to use it on that trollop, meant to slip into the works’ office and wait for her there. But Aaron Butler had not come out, Jacob’s daughter had arrived and now they had left together. The slut couldn’t leave, she must go with Quenton, the promise had been made… his mother had told him he would not go lonely to his grave and his mother loved him, she always kept her promise…

  A sudden spurt of flame from the brazier lit the immediate darkness, showing Clara’s face as she stepped from the shadows, playing over tight screwed lips, reflecting on the insane gleam of her eyes. ‘Wait,’ she whispered, grasping the haft of the knife, pulling it from the dead watchman’s back, ‘wait, my son… I will send her to you, you shan’t go alone.’

  Making to leave the hut, knife clutched in her hand, Clara froze. Footsteps, someone was coming into the yard. Returning to the shelter of the shadows she waited. It was not the shuffling gait of Aaron Butler. Holding her breath, the knife ready for any who might come into the hut, she listened. The steps were quick now, quick and light, the steps of a woman… Anne Corby?

  Was it her returned for some reason? Returned alone! Silent as a wraith, one with the darkness, Clara slipped from the hut. Overhead a truculent moon drew the blanket of rain soaked cloud about itself. That figure… she could not be sure! Clara’s fingers clenched, driving the knife handle into her palm. But who else would come to the Glebe at this time of night? An iron foundry was hardly the place for a love tryst. It had— The thought halted as if quenched by the sudden shaft of light as the moon shunned its cover. The whole yard was bathed in a fresh washed brilliance and only yards away Anne Corby stood perfectly highlighted.

  Now, it had to be now! She had never disappointed her son, never let Quenton down… she would not fail him now. Moving like a phantom, the hand holding the knife raised above her head, Clara covered the distance between them, a screech of pure pleasure escaping her lips as she lunged, driving the knife deep into flesh.

  ‘I told you,’ she babbled triumphantly, ‘I told you you couldn’t have the Glebe… I told you it belonged to Quenton… you should have gone while you had the chance, left Darlaston for good, but you didn’t, so I took that chance away from you.’

  The peal of the bell of All Saints Church ringing from the other side of Walsall Street cut into the madness that was Clara’s brain, leaving the one thought: she must hide the body, but where?

  Again the peevish moon chose to display her charm, spreading a curtain of silver over the silent yard, over the girl fallen half into an empty crucible. A laugh bubbled from Clara’s mouth. Even the moon was showing approval, showing she had done right, why else would it show the way? Drawing out the knife, she let it clatter to the rough setts paving the yard, then with abnormal strength caught Anne’s legs, tipping her completely into the crucible. But what when the workers came to fill the container with ore? They would see the body! With a swiftness that spoke of the Clara of yesterday, the manic laughter ceased. They must not find it, Anne Corby must disappear completely… and what better way? Clara smiled into the darkness. There was no better way!

  *

  ‘Who the bloody hell were crackpotical enough to fill a crucible with ore afore lifting it onto the rollers!’ Aaron Butler glanced irately at the faces of the young lads stood in the yard. Nobody had owned to the error but then he couldn’t blame them, he would have done the same himself as a lad just starting in the iron.

  ‘Don’t be too bad, Aaron.’

  Aaron glanced at the man addressing him. An arm band circled his left arm showing he had attested for military service but had not been called away fr
om the vital work of producing iron and steel, an arm band which saved him the humiliation of receiving the white feather of cowardice. There were no more than six of these men to bear the brunt of the work and they kept the younger lads from as many of the dangerous jobs as they could, but soon enough those lads would be called upon to shovel coke into the furnace and in some cases even tip the red hot metal. This bloody war had a lot to answer for!

  ‘If you takes the other side, Jack, I reckon we can lift this lot onto the truck.’

  ‘You pair minds what you be at!’ Aaron raised a refusing hand but the crucible filled with iron ore was already lifted.

  ‘That don’t be heavy as I’d have thought.’ The one called Jack frowned.

  ‘How can you tell that?’ his friend grinned. ‘You don’t exactly go shovelling of ore all day.’

  ‘No,’ Jack turned away from the truck, a low wooden platform set on wheels, ‘but all the same I would have taken ’em to be heavier than that, they certainly feels it when we lifts ’em from the truck onto the bed.’

  ‘Then p’raps I should ask Aaron there to let you off the lifting seeing you be getting old.’

  One laughing, one mumbling, the two men walked together into the foundry.

  ‘Well, c’mon lads,’ Aaron returned to the task in hand, ‘them furnaces’ll be gone out afore you gets this ore to ’em. And you others get them wheelbarrers filled with coke. At this rate we’ll all be bowin’ to Kaiser Bill!’

  Following after the two pushing the truck he dismissed them back to the yard as the loaded crucible, taken by a pair older by a couple of years, was lifted onto the bed of steel rollers which would take it to the mouth of the furnace. Another couple of months would see several of these lads reach their eighteenth birthday, how soon following that might they find themselves at the front… how many of them would be dead long before ever they saw nineteen? But he could not afford to dwell on that, none of them could.

  Across from near the furnace the cry came, ‘Lift ’er skirts,’ and with it Aaron raised a hand to shade his eyes, protecting them from the heat and brilliant glare as a chain was hauled on, lifting the door of the furnace and revealing its white hot maw.

  ‘Right,’ he nodded briefly, confirming the temperature to be correct, ‘get that load in.’

  *

  ‘The first smelt always goes in at six thirty, see the clock, it’s almost that now.’ Sitting beside her son’s body, Clara glanced at the clock stood on the mantel in her room. ‘I put her in that crucible,’ she smirked, ‘I thought that appropriate… she couldn’t have it all ’cos it’s yours, isn’t it, Quenton? All yours. They won’t find her—’ hysteria sharpened a laugh to a shriek ‘—nobody will know she’s in that crucible, I covered her with lumps of iron stone, it will go into the furnace and… what did you say… the watchman? Shhh!’ Touching a finger to her mouth she bent over the still form, a giggling whisper squeezing past her thin lips. ‘Shhh, it’s a secret, I didn’t tell him and you must not… I didn’t tell him I had the kitchen knife up my sleeve; he doesn’t know—’ the whisper broke to a cackle, her normally cold eyes glowing with a crazed frenetic gleam ‘—he doesn’t know… I pushed it into his back; he didn’t see me.’ She laughed again, a high pitched screech which rang back from the silent room. ‘Nor did she, she didn’t see the knife but it saw her… it found the whore who wanted to rob you. But she won’t now, she’s gone – gone into the fire.’

  From beyond the open door the night lamp left burning on the landing flickered then went out leaving the room caught in thick clustering shadows, heavy curtains she had drawn hours before forbidding the new light of morning.

  She must make breakfast, Quenton would be hungry. Rising to her feet, her step sure despite the gloom, she left the room, picking up the lamp from its customary place on a heavily ornate stand as she passed along the corridor. At the head of the stairs she halted. Eyes blazing hatred she stared into the black well of the hall.

  ‘No!’ Lips curled back she snarled, ‘No, you can’t come back, you can’t take it, it’s Quenton’s… you shan’t have the Glebe, Jacob… you shan’t!’

  With the lamp lifted to hurl she stepped forward, a long scream echoing behind as her foot missed the first step, pitching her headlong down the stairs.

  *

  The creak of metal accompanied the turning of the handle which set the bed of metal rollers in motion to carry the crucible towards the searing heat of the furnace. So near to the scorching mouth that the hair on their arms fizzled, two well muscled men, a rag tied about their brows to soak up sweat threatening to blind them, stood ready with bars equipped with flat, spade like metal plates with which to push the container deep into the glowing furnace.

  ‘Stand away!’ Aaron’s warning topped the serpent hiss of the cavernous maw, then, ‘What the hell!’ He cursed as a shout rang above the clang of rollers. Ready to push the crucible onto the lip of the furnace one of the men caught his foot and stumbled, throwing his full weight against it. More aware than the younger men of the danger threatened he barked, ‘Get them skirts down… you men, stand back!’

  It took only a minute for the furnace door to lower, cutting off the terrible blasting heat, but to Aaron the minute was eternity.

  ‘Be you alright?’ Whipping the soiled neckcloth from about his throat he wiped it across his streaming face. ‘Be you all right, lad?’

  But the man did not answer, he could only point to the spilled lumps of ore and the arm which lay across them.

  ‘God Almighty!’ Aaron breathed, disbelieving his own eyes.

  ‘It – it be a body!’ The man who had stumbled glanced at the others before drawing back. ‘It – it be a body!’

  It was a body all right and unless he was very much mistaken it was a body covered in a fair amount of blood. Again Aaron’s mind was quicker than the rest. ‘You, lad,’ he nodded towards a young man, his face white as milk, ‘there be a blanket in that there watchman’s hut, go spread it on the floor, an’ you, Jack, you give me a hand to carry this poor sod.’

  24

  ‘I knew it, I knew it all along. I said there were summat wrong when her didn’t come home but you wouldn’t have it, you would insist her had gone to Bentley Grange to help out with them wounded soldiers… you would have it!’

  He had been wrong. Laban Hurley put his arms about his wife as she threw her apron over her face. He ought to have gone to Bentley Grange and checked on the wench. He had been wrong but there was nothing to be done about that now, best let Unity cry, she had held too many tears too long, these were best left to spill.

  He had known Unity was worried when the girl had not shown by supper time but Anne Corby was a woman grown, they could not expect no more than her sometimes do a thing without consulting them first. Unity’s tears spent he moved to his chair beside the fire. Taking his clay pipe from the mantel he packed the brown stained bowl with delicate shavings of Shag tobacco. The girl had often gone from the Glebe to the house of Sir Corbett Foley since it had been given over as a temporary hospital for troops brought back from France, why would he think last night to be different? Holding a spill to the fire he watched it catch the flames. Hadn’t she stopped there nights afore when the place had been pushed for hands… hadn’t they always found her a bed so she didn’t have the walk back to Blockall in the early hours? It were only common sense to think the same had gone on this time. But it hadn’t!

  Fingers tightening on the slender clay stem he let the thoughts flow in waves through his mind, fresh ones rushing in, washing others away.

  Aaron Butler had sent a young lad to fetch him to the Glebe. The doctor had already been there and was still tending to a figure laid on a table in the tiny office. The other man had held him back, the look on his sweat marked face saying he should wait until the doctor had finished his work.

  Laban drew smoke into his mouth, expelling it in short puffs which the chimney sucked hungrily into its dark throat.

  ‘Be you ready fo
rra shock?’ Aaron Butler’s voice had held a quiet warning but it had not been enough to prepare him for what he saw. Her face leached of any colour other than dark purple circling both eyes Anne Corby, her clothing stained with blood, had lain as if dead. ‘She has lost a lot of blood,’ the doctor had warned as he had turned to close the bag he always carried, ‘but the wound though deep is not lethal; given care and nursing she should make a satisfactory recovery.’

  It was the only time Laban had been guilty of quietly thanking God that the Sister Dora Hospital and every other place for miles around was filled to bursting with injured men. The girl could be nursed at home, the doctor had agreed, though he would need to call every day. He had brushed aside the constable desperately trying to make notes in a small notebook, telling him peremptorily, ‘All questions will have to wait.’

  But his own questions could not wait. Laban watched pipe smoke swirl a lavender trail into the chimney.

  Who… why…? Aaron had done his best to answer but all he knew was the girl had been shoved into that crucible and it was only the fault of its uneven loading, the fact it was top heavy, had caused it to topple, otherwise…

  Otherwise the wench would have gone into the furnace. Whoever had put her in that crucible had intended just that. Laban felt the same cold shiver he had felt that morning.

  ‘An’ old Zeck an’ all,’ Aaron had gone on. ‘The doctor reckons it was most probably the same knife killed him, it were found out in the yard; poor old bugger never hurt a soul, why the hell should somebody want to kill him?’

  ‘I’ll just go take a peek upstairs, see her be all right.’