by Lynch, R J
Mistress Wortley asked Kate, whom she insists on calling Katherine, who the father might be, but it seems she asked in what she thought was a subtle way and Kate said she was unable to help which may of course have been the truth. Mistress Wortley clearly felt she had done her duty by telling me and that now I should take it upon myself to decide the next step. She suggested I might want to talk to Lizzie and I may well do that but I cannot pretend I look forward to it.
And all through this conversation I could not rid my mind of the question: “Mistress Wortley. Beneath those expensive petticoats, are you wearing drawers today?” Of course, I did not speak the words.
I should not wish to seem hard on Mistress Wortley, for as I have said before she has deep pools of goodness in her. I in all innocence said how good she was to have taken over payment of the Poor Law aid to the Greeners in order to prevent Kate from being deprived of her lessons and she was furious, for she said she had told the Overseers that this was to remain a secret. I explained that all Poor Law payments, and all monies raised for them, have to be recorded in the parish churchwardens’ accounts and the vestry minute book and that Thomas was therefore aware of it and had told me. She swore me to silence and asked me to do the same with Thomas. I had not the courage to tell her how difficult that could be. I love Thomas and I would defend his name against anyone, but he can be pompous.
He can certainly be thoughtless, as he has had much opportunity to show since he became a Justice of the Peace. At dinner tonight he insisted on telling me such a tale that I had to send John out of the room, for it was not something I would wish a servant to hear. It seems that a woman from Shield Row had brought a complaint against another woman for seducing her (that is, the first woman’s) husband, keeping licentious company with him and enticing him to waste on her that which should have supported his wife and their children. The second woman, being brought before Thomas, admitted that she had not seen her own husband since August last and that she was with child by the first woman’s husband. Thomas seemed to find this unbearably funny and, when I pointed out the hardship two women and their children had been put to, to say nothing of the bare-faced disregard for the solemn vows of marriage, he said that people of what he called that class do not feel these things as people like us would. Really!
And if I were ever to discuss Thomas’s own disregard for the solemn vows of marriage, I cannot bear to think of the darkness that might come between us.
However, on a more pleasant note, I have bought a piece of soft American cotton and am making drawers from it! This is not proving easy as I have no pattern and have never made breeches for a boy, and really I can hardly fit them on myself in the drawing room in case a servant should enter. (Or, worse, Thomas himself). I shall persevere. They will open at the back and be secured at the waist by a cotton string. Whether I shall ever let Thomas catch sight of them I have not decided.
Chapter 15
The following morning, Lizzie Greener felt rather than heard Florrie come up behind her and push a dead rabbit into her lap. ‘There’s no use moping,’ Florrie said. ‘Clean that for me.’
Lizzie turned the plump animal in her hands. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘Never mind where it came from. It’s here.’
‘Isaac brought it. Didn’t he? I saw him sneaking by the hedge. He’d better be careful. Our Dad hasn’t gone yet.’
Her step-mother frowned. It was true that Robert Greener still lived, but the end was close, and Isaac Henderson had made it clear that he intended asking for Florrie’s hand when she was widowed.
Lizzie said, ‘He’ll get himself transported for poaching.’
‘Rabbits isn’t poaching. Poaching means game. Rabbits is theft.’
Lizzie slit along the length of the rabbit’s stomach and began to peel back the skin. ‘It’s still transportation. You wouldn’t have cooked this with turnips when you were at the big house. I hate turnips. Turnips are sheep’s food.’
‘I would not have cooked it at all. I was the pastry maid, not the cook. But Mrs. Oliver, now. For the servants she’d have stuffed it with oysters. If it was going upstairs she might have used it to make puptons.’
‘What are puptons?’
‘Something we’ll never eat here. She’d take all the bones out of a pheasant, or maybe a capon if pheasants weren’t in season. Then I’d have to chop up the rabbit very fine and rub it with lots of fat and herbs. You can use bacon but rabbit is better. Mix it with breadcrumbs and an egg to hold it all together. Forcemeat, they call that. I’d roll it out, just like I did pastry. Then she’d wrap the birds in it and bake them in the oven, long and slow.’
‘Oh, our Mam, that sounds lovely. Did you ever eat it?’
‘Me? Don’t be daft. Rich people’s food, that is.’
Lizzie’s grey eyes stared away into the distance. ‘It ain’t fair, our Mam. Is it?’
‘No, Elizabeth. It isn’t fair. But it’s how God means it to be, so we’d better just make the best of it.’
Lizzie felt tears standing in the corners of her eyes. ‘And what happened to me? Do I have to make the best of that?’
Florrie sat beside Lizzie on the bench and hugged her. Lizzie felt the tears begin to stream down her face. ‘Is that God’s will too? Can he do what he likes, because he’s a lord’s son and I’m a day labourer’s daughter? Can he force himself on us and take what he wants and then ride off and leave us with his bastard and nobody say a word? Can he?’
Florrie did not answer, and Lizzie knew there was nothing for her to say. The baby was there and, unless God Himself took a hand, her child would be born. If a farm labourer had been the father, something could and would be done. But the son of a lord? A lord who owned the house they lived in? A lord whose overseer decided who was hired for the day’s work and who was not? Florrie was helpless, and Lizzie knew it.
‘I’ll never let a man touch us like that again,’ she said. ‘Never. I’d kill meself first. No, I wouldn’t. I’d kill him.’
She saw the look of intense sadness on Florrie’s face, but there was nothing she could say to ease her stepmother’s obvious sorrow. The fury still seethed. She meant what she said.
A little later, when the rabbit was cleaned and Lizzie was tidying the house, she heard wheels on the road outside. Florrie was seeing to the chickens and Kate and Ned had gone to gather firewood on the common. Apart from her father, who slumped half-conscious in his bed in the corner, Lizzie was alone. She went to the door to see who had come, and found Lady Isabella crossing the yard.
‘Lizzie,’ said Lady Isabella. ‘I am pleased to find you at home. Do you feel able to talk to me?’
Lizzie nodded, wondering what the Rector’s wife could possibly have to say to her.
‘It is cold,’ said Florrie, ‘but the sun is shining and the sky is blue. Shall we take a little walk together?’
Again Lizzie nodded. She pulled the door closed behind her and stepped into the yard.
The calash in which Lady Isabella had arrived sat in the road with John at the reins. Isabella reached in and pulled out a large neck cloth of heavy wool, which she handed to Lizzie. ‘Wrap this around your shoulders, my dear, to keep you warm.’ When it was in place, she said, ‘It suits you. Please, keep it. I have more.’
Lizzie said nothing. All she could do was to wonder what it was that Lady Isabella wanted from her, but she would not ask. Let it come in its own time, when the woman was ready.
‘I love this time of year,’ said Isabella. ‘The earth seems so dead, and yet we know that there is life beneath and that soon we shall see it burst forth once more.’
The reference to life bursting forth struck at Lizzie’s heart. She knew that a new life waited to be born in her, just as surely as it did in the soil, and she hated it.
As though she could read Lizzie’s thou
ghts, Lady Isabella reached down her hand and clasped hers. ‘Lizzie. My dear girl. I want to ask you a question.’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you...are you with child?’
Lizzie came to a sudden halt, and Isabella stopped with her. ‘How did you know?’
‘That does not matter. But you are. Thank you for being honest with me. You know that there will be questions, and you will have to answer them.’
Lizzie withdrew her hand. ‘I cannot.’
‘Oh, Lizzie. Is the father unable to marry you? Has he a wife already?’
Lizzie felt a moment of fury. ‘You think I would do that? Lie with a man who is already married? Forget everything I have learned in church? Forget what my mother has taught me? Betray another woman?’
‘Then what...Lizzie, I want to help you. Please, believe me when I say that. The people who ask you questions, they will all be men and they will be unkind. All they will want will be to get the cost of your child away from the parish. If I can do anything to help you I shall, but I must know what it is or I can do nothing.’
Lizzie stared at her. The enormity of her secret, the need to protect her family, everything she had suffered told her she must say nothing. And yet, the need to answer kindness with gentleness drove her towards the truth. Take that together with her need to protect her brother Joe, to keep secret the knowledge that he had murdered Reuben Cooper, and it was too much. She began to cry. When Lady Isabella held out her arms, she tumbled into them.
And then, sobbing, her face buried in Isabella’s comforting bosom, she blurted out the story of what had been done to her and who had done it.
Chapter 16
Blakiston had woken that morning in a state of deep lethargy he felt unable to shake. His dreams in the night had been of lost happiness. When the girl from the inn brought his breakfast he had thanked her, but he had not fallen on the meal with his usual vigour. Instead, he picked at his food while his mind filled with thoughts he had believed banished for ever. How it would have been if his father had been less foolish. If he was eating this meal now in the company of the woman he had thought to spend his life with.
It was five weeks since he had received his brother’s letter. Five weeks since he had read Peter’s light-hearted account of his visit to their old home and the single sentence that the whole letter had really been about. She was married. She who had been promised to him slept now in the bed of another. He had felt then that it was not to be borne. He felt it now.
It would not do. Life must be lived. We must deal with what is, and not what we would like to be. With a heavy heart, he pushed aside the remains of his breakfast, put on his coat, checked his pistols and stepped outside, locking the door behind him.
More than one farmer felt his wrath that day over matters that he would realise afterwards justified more gentle treatment. At three o’clock he called on the Rector and took a glass of Madeira wine in his study. On the way in, he met Lady Isabella and thought that she looked both preoccupied and worried.
‘So, James,’ said Thomas when he had heard the story of the hunt for the killer. ‘It seems that no-one but Martin has seen this Joseph Kelly. A man who should stand out in a country parish spends hours on the road, yet no-one sees him but my curate.’
‘We will find him,’ said Blakiston. ‘I make no doubt about that.’
‘We must hope so,’ said Thomas. It seemed he had something more to say, but whatever it might be he did not say it. As Blakiston left, he encountered Lady Isabella whose mind once again seemed far away, though she said goodbye to him with warmth. Was something troubling these good people? If they would tell him what it was, there was nothing he would not do to help, but the privacy of friends was something Blakiston would not intrude upon without invitation.
As soon as she had said goodbye to Blakiston, Isabella summoned up her courage and rapped on her husband’s door. She entered immediately, closing it firmly behind her. ‘Husband,’ she said. ‘There is something of which we must speak.’
She sat down firmly and began before he had time to say that this was not a convenient moment. As she told him what Lizzie had had to say about her despoiler, she watched his face grow pale.
When she had finished, he said, ‘I suppose there is no doubt?’
‘She is not lying, Thomas. The Earl of Wrekin raped her, and now she is with child. Something must be done for the poor girl.’
‘But this is awful.’
‘Yes.’
‘The child will be, on one side at least, of noble lineage. It cannot be allowed to grow up as a stable groom, or chopping turnips in some miller’s kitchen. That would not be fitting to its blood.’
Not trusting herself to speak, Isabella rose and left the room.
Chapter 17
There were no guests at the Rectory that evening, and neither of them had any appetite. Isabella had therefore kept the menu simple. She would have liked to give her husband bread and water, but what he actually got was soup, some stewed fish, a boiled chicken and a roast duck. For pudding there was a fruit tart and a custard made with lemons, cream, eggs and sugar and decorated with currants. The meal being so modest, Thomas needed only one bottle of claret to ease his digestion. After dinner he retired to his study, poured a large glass of brandy, opened his pewter tobacco box and lit a clay pipe, risking Isabella’s wrath as the smell permeated the house. His nerves somewhat calmed, he took a sheet of fine wove paper and began to write. When he had finished the letter, he put it to one side so that he could sleep on it.
He went early to bed, but Isabella was already there. Nervous at his temerity in writing to Lord Ravenshead, Thomas would have liked some comfort but it was quickly apparent that this was not to be. Isabella refused even to speak to him. He sighed at the weakness of women, for surely it was he and not his wife who would bear the brunt if his Lordship found his Rector’s approach impertinent. He tossed and turned all night, wondering whether his wisest course would be to send his letter or to remain silent.
In the morning, he had made up his mind. There was, after all, such a thing as right, and it was what it was. Immediately after breakfast, he folded his letter, applied a wax seal to the envelope and handed it to John with instructions to deliver it to the Castle without delay.
Three hours later, John was back, followed by Lord Ravenshead’s own carriage which was to take Thomas to the castle. Lady Isabella spruced him up, while saying as little as possible, after which he clambered into the carriage and set off. He had rarely felt so anxious.
His trepidation did not ease when, climbing the castle’s great staircase, he met the Earl of Wrekin coming down. The scowling young man barely glanced at Thomas before yelling savagely for his horse to be brought to the front door.
The welcome in the Baron’s private quarters was somewhat more cordial, though his lordship’s mood was sombre. Thomas was pleased to see that Blakiston was there. Of course, he should have expected that—Wednesday morning at eleven was the Agent’s regular meeting with his Lordship. Lord Ravenshead held up his hand when the flustered rector began to run through his story. ‘Enough, Thomas. I have had the boy in and questioned him. I know the whole sad tale.’
‘Is it as I was told, my Lord?’
‘Worse, if that is possible. He had a new mare. He and his cousin, Ralph Liddell’s boy, passed a morning racing on the flats at Wylam. They met this unfortunate young woman on their way home. To his credit, young Liddell wanted nothing to do with the proceedings. But as for mine—he treated the young maid like a Quayside strumpet. A species I have no doubt he is familiar with. He gave the girl a sovereign, and he truly seems to have believed that that made matters right. Are we to be allowed no respite from scandal? You know it is but three years since Grafton divorced my daughter Anne. We have her eldest boy here still, for that was Grafton’s condition on agreei
ng a settlement. And now this. The girl is one of your parishioners?’
‘She is, my Lord.’
‘Has she ever been in trouble?’
‘Not to my knowledge, my Lord. And may I say, I am sure it was only high spirits on the part of the earl. A prank that somehow got out of hand.’
‘High spirits? A prank? Do you say so? Would you excuse a labourer on one of my farms in the same way? I thought not. Does the honour of a young girl of good character count for nothing because her ravisher is noble? Are we come to that? Something must be done. Tell me about the girl.’
‘Her mother died in childbirth when she was two. Her father married again, of course, and there are more children. Elizabeth…Eliza or Lizzie as her parents call her…is the eldest still at home. Indeed, she too would be away in service this twelvemonth, but for her father’s illness.’
‘He will die?’
‘He will, my Lord, and soon. There is another, one Isaac Henderson, wishes to marry the mother. He is younger than her and will no doubt outlive her, in which case he will take a younger replacement in his turn.’
‘And so it goes on.’
‘As your lordship says. It has served the people hereabouts well from the earliest days.’
‘And when a child gives birth? The baby is taken by the child’s mother as her own?’
‘It is common enough. You have only to look at the families in the parish. Can one woman carry two children in a year? Or one of fifty bear a strapping son? And yet there are cases where they seem to do so.’
