She stared round, not afraid but wide-eyed as a child. ‘Is this place haunted?’
‘Not exactly. At least, I’ve never seen any ghosts. It’s just – a place of ancient peace. That’s how I think of it. I sit here sometimes.’
‘It feels wonderful.’ Meg sighed and leaned her head against his chest and they stayed where they were, not speaking, not moving, just sharing that feeling of comfort.
After a while she opened her eyes again and looked at him. ‘Thank you, Toby.’
‘What upset you, Meg love?’
‘That child – she looked so like my Nelly. I thought my heart would burst with the pain of seeing her, of knowing that Nelly would never grow up and Sairey would.’
‘Eh, lass, lass, I don’t know how to help you.’
‘You have done. You’re the kindest man I’ve ever met, Toby Fletcher. You held me when I needed it so desperately. Only my brother Jack’s held me since she died – and I walked out of town after she was buried, so no one’s touched me since. I haven’t even wanted them to.’ She put one hand up to clasp his as it lay round her shoulders. ‘You’ve touched me a few times. You always feel warm. You make me feel warmer, too. I’ve been cold, Toby, so very cold.’
He shook his head, feeling his own tears overflow and not caring that she saw this weakness in him. ‘I’m glad I can help, though I think it’s only time will really cure your pain. And never quite. I still miss my mother greatly, though it’s been years since she died.’
‘You understand, then.’ She gave him one of her almost-smiles then looked around. ‘Can we stay here for a while? Can we just – sit here quietly?’
‘Aye, lass. I’d like that.’
She didn’t leave his lap, didn’t seem to realise how intimately they were sitting, but he was only too aware of it. He didn’t know how long it was before she stirred again – long enough for him to realise how fond he’d grown of her, even in such a short time. Long enough for him to stare into the distance and wonder if it would ever be possible for her to grow fond of him in return. Had she loved her husband? Did she still grieve for him as well? He didn’t know, because she’d not talked about him much, but he intended to find out.
Eh, his mother had always said that love took you by surprise, and when he’d mocked her for believing that, she’d laughed back at him. ‘One day you’ll meet a woman you want to marry, Toby Fletcher, then you’ll move heaven and earth to win her,’ she’d said. She’d been right in that as in most other things. A wise, kindly woman, his mother.
When Meg stirred and got off his knee, blushing slightly, Toby made no attempt to detain her. He could see how embarrassed she was, so spoke quietly of monks and their ways, pointing to the huge beams that still bore the shape of the trees they’d once been. He explained that they’d been there for hundreds of years and described how this place had been built.
Then he showed her the secret room, watching indulgently as she grew excited by it, forgetting her grief as she examined some of the items inside it.
When they’d finished, he took her hand and looked down at her earnestly. ‘Any time you feel the need, you come up here to the back, lass, and just sit for a while.’
‘I will.’ She stood on tip-toe and pulled his head down till she could plant a kiss on his cheek. ‘Thank you, Toby.’
The imprint of that kiss sat there like a warm shadow for the rest of the day, though it had been as simple and chaste as a child’s.
Andrew was in a very bad mood for days after his encounter with Jethro. Although he didn’t beat his wife again, he slapped one of his daughters, knocked the youngest maid flying when she dared to drop an item from a pile of washing while he was passing her on the stairs, and had his mill hands tiptoeing around in terror of offending him and losing their jobs and homes.
He’d taken the first steps to get rid of Fletcher, which should also get rid of Dixon’s wife because no one in their right minds would employ an old hag like her. Once she was on the road, looking for work, they’d get rid of her too. He wasn’t quite sure how much she knew about his past. Dixon had sworn he’d told her nothing, but still Andrew felt uneasy about her. And Jad was sure Fletcher was helping his mill hands run away, and that definitely had to stop. If they made an example of him, the other rogues in Calico would be a bit more careful what they did in future. It was like having a nest of vipers looking down on you. He hated the damned place.
It was taking longer than he’d expected to get rid of Fletcher, though, and that irritated him. He knew the anger that was simmering inside him wouldn’t go away again until the man was dead. All right for Jethro to play the honest man now, but
he
hadn’t been involved in their early doings and his father was dead so had escaped the penalties the law imposed.
One day as they were having their midday meal, Harriet asked quietly if she might visit her sister.
He walked round the dining table, ignoring the way she flinched from him, and lifted her chin to study her face. ‘In another day or two, when those bruises have gone completely.’
‘Thank you.’
He noticed how her hands were shaking and that pleased him. Women should be afraid of their husbands. How else could you keep them in order?
Harriet watched him go out to the mill, still feeling shuddery inside as she remembered how she’d thought he was coming to hit her again. She didn’t think she could take much more of it – only where could she go to escape him? Not to her sister’s, that was sure. Jethro was a friend of her husband’s. He’d just bring her straight back to Tappersley.
Two days later her husband gave her permission to visit Backenshaw and Harriet set out in their luxurious carriage. The coachman had strict orders not to stop at the Packhorse on the tops. She’d overheard Andrew telling him that though she had no idea why. When they came to the place the horses slowed down after the steep pull up the hill and she looked out, wondering why her husband hated this inn. It looked very ordinary to her, though a trifle run down in appearance.
And then
he
came out, the man she and her sister had seen in Halifax, the one who’d said he was a distant connection of Jethro’s. He was giving orders to someone, but not as Andrew did it. No, this man was smiling, a truly charming smile that lit up his whole face. The fellow he was speaking to was nodding and smiling back at him, then hurried off to do his bidding. It hadn’t taken nastiness to get whatever it was done, she thought, craning her head to look out of the window as the carriage pulled slowly past. What made her husband think you had to deal so viciously with everyone?
Tears came into Harriet’s eyes. How was she to stand a lifetime of this? No wonder she hadn’t fallen for a baby. She didn’t
want
his baby. She loved children and knew she would be devastated if a child of her body were treated as Andrew treated his daughters for he slapped them quite often, though they were the meekest, quietest pair of girls she’d ever met, hardly daring to open their mouths, even when he was out of the house.
She was beginning to suspect that the governess, who’d apparently been there for years, protected them as much as she could. If so, Andrew didn’t suspect. Harriet didn’t dare try to interfere with what Miss Swainton was doing in case she spoiled things for them. It was a pity. She’d have liked to be a real mother to Kate and Marianne.
When she got to her sister’s Harriet was still feeling emotional but tried to hide that. Out of pride she had never told her sister how Andrew treated her, though she knew Sophia suspected something was wrong. Well, suspecting wasn’t knowing, was it?
They went inside, Sophia with one hand on her slightly swollen belly, gesticulating with the other as she talked. How lively she was! How happy she seemed!
Harriet sat down, not saying much but enjoying being here nonetheless. It was such a relief to know
he
wasn’t within reach of her. Sophia had asked a question twice before she realised how her thoughts had strayed. ‘Sorry, I was wool-gathering. What did you say?’
‘I asked what was wrong.’ Sophia’s voice was very gentle as she added, ‘And don’t tell me nothing’s wrong, Harriet dear, because I know you too well. Has he been hitting you again?’
‘How did you—’ Harriet broke off and tried to regain her composure, but for once she couldn’t hide her feelings. Instead tears filled her eyes and flowed down her cheeks, betraying her, and words built up in her throat, try as she would to hold them back.
‘Tell me, Harriet love.’
Out it all poured. By the time her tale ended she was sobbing against her sister, who began patting her shoulders and making soothing sounds.
After a while Harriet drew herself upright. ‘I mustn’t – go on weeping. He’ll see my reddened eyes and then he’ll stop me coming here. And if I can’t s-see you and have just an hour or two of –’ she had to take a deep breath before she could finish her sentence ‘– respite from him, I’ll go mad or kill myself. I’ve thought of that, you know, only I don’t want to die, just get away from
him
.’
After she’d finished speaking they sat in silence, and when she couldn’t bear that any longer Harriet said bitterly, ‘If only I could get with child! Maybe then he’d be kinder.’
‘I can’t see how a child would change him. Look how meek his daughters are. They’re clearly afraid of him. A baby should be born to people who love it. No, it’s better you don’t fall for a child.’
Jethro was walking towards the room, whose door stood open a crack, when he heard his sister-in-law’s next words, spoken in a shrill, terrified voice.
‘I don’t know any more what’s better and what’s not,’ Harriet said. ‘But Andrew’s planning to kill someone. I overhear things, but not always the full tale. I think he might kill me if he knew how much I’ve overheard. I don’t know for certain who it is – but I suspect it’s your husband’s half-brother, the one who looks just like him.’
Jethro waited outside the door to see if she knew anything else.
‘It seems to me Andrew’s getting worse lately. Worse than he was when I first married him, I mean. He shouts at the servants, hits them too, and as for his workpeople . . . they go in terror of him and his overlooker. Jad Mortley is a dreadful man. He beats the children in the mill, everyone knows it. Many of them are parish apprentices who have to live and work there. I feel so sorry for the poor little creatures. They lead a dreadful life.’
She said no more, but he could see through the narrow gap how she was sitting, read the dejection in every line of her drooping body.
When he guessed she wasn’t going to say anything else, Jethro walked away. He was furious that Andrew would make her so unhappy. What good did it do anyone? And to take such a step when Jethro had told him he didn’t want his half-brother killed – fury boiled up in him at the thought.
Only what was he to do about it? He couldn’t go to the law because he had no proof. And he didn’t want to act with similar violence to stop the killing, he just didn’t. He’d never approved of violence which was a crude instrument and could rebound on the user as much as the victim.
Since his marriage he’d changed, grown softer, was only too aware of that. Sometimes he felt afraid of the man he was becoming, but whenever he determined to control his emotions better the mere sight of his son was enough to make him feel more kindly towards the world, a depth of feeling he had never experienced before. He’d not expected that of fatherhood and continued to worry about it. And Sophia had cast a similar spell over him. She was everything he wanted in a wife – and more.
Could you live in quiet content and still keep your life in order?
However, he still wasn’t comfortable with the fact that Fletcher lived nearby, looking so like him. Toby wasn’t as bad as he’d expected and everyone in Calico seemed to like him, but Andrew was right about one thing. That man’s continued existence was a threat to Jethro and to those he held so dear.
John Greenhalgh had a lot to answer for, leaving such a mess behind him for others to clear up.
Cully pulled up outside the Packhorse and left the patient donkey standing in the lee of the building, where it was partly sheltered from the wind. He strode inside and demanded a pot of beer from Alice, who was standing behind the counter.
She drew herself up. ‘Don’t you speak to me like that, Cully Dean!’
‘Like what, you silly bitch?’
‘Like I’m nothing. If you can’t be polite, I shan’t serve you.’ She folded her arms.
‘If you don’t get me that beer, I’ll shove you out of the road an’ get it myself,’ he roared, incensed.
A man in the corner stood up. ‘Don’t you treat my niece like that! You’ll not touch her – or Toby’s beer. You’ll wait to be served like everyone else.’
All the other men were staring at him now.
‘Doesn’t hurt to be polite,’ one of them said mildly, but his expression was disapproving. ‘Especially to one of our own.’
Cully swallowed his anger and turned back to Alice. ‘A pot of beer,
please
.’
She stood looking at him for a moment then turned and got it.
He paid in silence and went to sit down. When he got closer he saw that the men at the corner table had turned their backs and pulled their stools closer together, leaving no space for him, a sign of their annoyance. What was the world coming to when a man had to be polite to uppity girls who should be at home with their mothers? Everyone knew the sort of females who served in inns, knew they weren’t decent or respectable women – except those who were married to innkeepers, of course, and even they had probably got there by lying on their backs. He sat down by himself at a table on the other side of the fire from the group of men and sucked down some beer, enjoying the slurping noise, the silky feel of the foam on top and the taste. Good beer, even if the innkeeper was Toby Fletcher.
After a few minutes he said loudly, ‘Got to go outside a minute. Don’t clear my pot away, girl. I’m coming back for another.’