Eppie (75 page)

Distraught by his words and seeing no reason to remain at this
frightful ball a moment longer, Genevieve fled.

In the Swan Chamber the music sounded unduly loud, throbbing
through the floorboards.

Moaning in despair, she tore off her long gloves and threw
herself onto the bed. 

The butler thumped his staff upon the floor. ‘Ladies and
gentlemen, supper is served.’ 

The music dwindled, ending on a long chord. 

She pictured the ball-goers. On a wave of babble and
laughter they would proceed in well-mannered merriment to the feast, each on
the arm of the person with whom they had last danced.

Voices rang in her head: ‘Granted you are not handsome,’
Lady Wexcombe had said confidingly, shortly before the ball, ‘you have no
conversation of significance, little taste and certainly no style.
Nevertheless, you will have a fine dowry to take into a marriage.’ 

‘Grr!’ Ramming a pillow over
her head, she promptly slept.

When Genevieve awoke, a hush had settled. The house hardly
breathed. Owls were silent, not even the rustle of a mouse disturbed the utter
stillness. 

Having groped her way along the dark hallway and down the staircase,
she peered into the dining hall. The glimmer from an oil lantern fell upon
half-eaten food: wilted salads, side dishes, assorted breads set amongst
venison, red mullet, plovers’ eggs in aspic, pies and puddings. Frowning, she
fingered the tail feathers of a roast pheasant, wondering what could have
happened to make the guests leave in such a hurry.

Seeking answers, she made her way below stairs. Though it
must be well before dawn, Mrs Bellows sat in an armchair before the range, the
glow from the fire lighting her face. She looked as pale as parchment. 

‘It’s so quiet. Is everyone abed?’ Genevieve asked, plucking
out one of the remaining flowers with which she had decorated her hair the
previous evening.

‘They’ve gone.’

‘Everyone?  All the guests?  What about those staying
overnight?’

‘Bolted, every last girdle an’ gaiter of ‘em,’ Mrs Bellows
said, slipping into the countrified voice of her childhood days.

‘Even Lady Wexcombe and her daughters?’

‘Even them.’

‘Why so sudden?’

‘That I cannot begin to imagine. There was a big to-do with
folk in an uproar. Permelia was distraught. It’s a wonder you never heard her.
Shortly after everyone left, his lordship barricaded himself in the Brown Room.’

Creeping to the study door, Genevieve knocked softly. ‘Gabriel? 
What’s up?’  She tried the handle. In despair, she slumped to the floor, her
back against the locked the door. ‘I hate this place! I really HATE this place!

Time and again Genevieve returned to the Brown Room and
whispered Gabriel’s name, all to no avail. Food and drink were left at his door.
Here it remained. Mrs Bellows cajoled. Hannah sang uplifting psalms. Still he
did not emerge. 

At
Genevieve’s command the remaining food from the dance was distributed to the
poor of Little Lubbock.

‘We
should never have allowed Hortence to encourage us to hold the ball in the first
place,’ she grumbled to Mrs Bellows. ‘It was such an unnecessary expense.’

The
second day wore on. Eventually, she could stand the tension no longer. Abandoning
her bonnet on the garden bench, she sprinted upstairs and hammered on the door
with her fists. ‘Right, Gabriel. This is it. You’ve had your chance. I ain’t
taking no more!’ 

She
ran through the house and outside, to the wood store.

Returning,
she shouted, ‘If you don’t open up this minute, I’m gonna bludgeon you down.’

Grasping
the hefty implement she wielded it over her shoulder and was about to splinter
the wood when the door opened, slowly.

She
wanted to laugh out loud with relief at setting eyes on him, exclaim merrily
that the axe almost sliced open his head. She could not, for her heart went out
to him in pity. All the flesh seemed gone from his face. His torn and twisted
hair was in his eyes, eyes so inflamed it was as though he had cried tears of
blood.

He spoke quietly. ‘I think it’s time we talked.’

Even now, when she could gain admittance, she lingered on
the threshold, wary that something of immense importance would be said,
unwilling for his words to be uttered. The room smelt rank from spilt wine, the
table littered with glass shards where he had smashed the owl bell jar. The
crocodile lay upside down on the rug as though, in his rage, he had fought with
it, and left it high and dry on a riverbank.

Quietly, she crept in and took her place beside him on the
couch. He sat with a hand upon each knee, gazing intently into the cold hearth.
He did not move.

Only the chime of the hour from the long case broke the
silence of the room.

Eventually, he turned to her and spoke gravely. ‘During
dinner, after the ball, malicious gossip spread amongst our guests. Hortence
said she suspected that we are not brother and sister.’

‘Don’t be daft. What else could we be?’

‘She referred to you as my mistress.’

Genevieve sat up abruptly. ‘That’s a load of hogwash, no
mistake. Why would anyone want to say such a wicked thing?’

‘I suppose people see what they want to see. What they saw
was you and I throwing ourselves at one another in the dance.’

‘I know I made a fool of myself, but I’ve grown accustomed
to that since the Wexcombes have been around. At the time I didn’t care what they
thought.’

‘Me neither. We’ve both been trying so hard to get along
with others. The dance was a moment of madness when we wanted only one another,
to be close and forget those ghastly people. Now we have been cast off by society.
Even though neither of us truly desired it, we will find it a wearisome burden
to bear.’

‘You are a muttonhead, locking yourself away for hours on
end, causing yourself misery, when we might have spoken earlier and thrashed
things out.’ After a moment’s thought, she added, ‘But, do you imagine it can
be true? That I am
not
your sister?  There’s no definite proof, if you
think on. Mam believed what Wakelin told her. Maybe he was lying? Why’d he wanna
do that?  You told me in the jail that Thurstan knew I was your sister, so they
must be wrong?’ Enlightenment dawned in her eyes. ‘It was Maygott! When I was
rushing upstairs, I saw him tongue-wagging to some guests. He seemed most persistent.’

‘That’d make sense. Maygott was fuming when I told him he could
only stay on if he became muck-man. He would revel in the role of the dreadful
avenger, set to the task of poisoning our relationship.’ He spoke in a heavy
voice, as though it took a great effort to speak. ‘There is another thing,
Genevieve. Rowan is dead.’

‘How do you know? Catesby never said!’

‘We have to assume that it was Thurstan who took Rowan. He
must have thought everything was falling into place for him. After I had lost
my life he would have become the lord of the manor. He would have forced Rowan
to marry him so that he could secure her inheritance. None of that has
happened, so what use is she to him now? None. I think we have to accept that
she has gone from us.’

‘And Dawkin?’ she asked, consumed by grief. ‘I keep thinking
back to the time when he left The Leaking Barrel. I stepped into the yard only
moments after he’d gone. I heard a coach racing away. Since then I’ve wondered
whether it was Thurstan’s and whether Dawkin was in it. It would’ve been easy
for the soldiers to bundle him into the carriage, like when Mr Crowe stole him
at the ice market.’

Though Gabriel and Genevieve came
down for their meals they sat at opposite ends of the table, eating little,
rarely speaking. The misery of accepting the loss of their loved ones weighed
heavy upon them. 

By now all the servants had learned why the ball-goers left
in a hurry. Though they tried to cheer brother and sister they soon gave up.

A depression fell upon the house.

The indoor servants were relieved to take themselves to
their quarters. Most were in a state of fatigue following the hectic
preparations for the ball. Housework was left. Dust gathered.

Consumed by their doleful
thoughts, Gabriel and Genevieve drifted to their respective chambers.

For nights Genevieve could not sleep, or restlessly slipped
in and out of half-sleep where fearful images chased through her mind. Eventually,
worn out and desperate for deep slumber she sipped a glass of foxglove wine as
a fleeting release from her misery. Lying back, with her head upon the pillow,
drained and exhausted, the bitter-tasting drink acted swiftly:

Giddily, she whirled into the Great Hall. It was full of
jostling, shifting people she did not recognise, could not touch, nor wanted
to.

‘Might one offer a word in confidence?’ Lady Wexcombe asked.

‘Please do,’ Genevieve answered.

‘I experienced a touch of nausea when I set eyes upon you
dancing with Gabriel.  In polite society it is essential that a lady keep her virtue,
at all costs. One false step means endless ruin.’

‘But Gabriel is my brother, so I’m
not sure I get yer drift.’

Floorboards creaked.

Instantly awake, she held her body rigid. Hours must have
passed. Darkness had crept around. Had she imagined the sound? Might it have
been the screech of violins in her dream? Fuddled with sleep, she tried to
order her thoughts. ‘Thurstan? Is it he, come to murder me in my bed? Here I
lie with no hope of protection from others. No weapon close at hand.’

Set upon her bedside table the candle flickered blue,
signifying the presence of a ghost in the chamber. Through the gloom swam the
stony, arrogant gaze she had come to dread in her early childhood. In her
mind’s-eye, she imagined Wakelin stepping up to the ivory-inlay cradle, in his
arms something wrapped in rags. ‘Could it be Eppie, his dead sister?’ She
blinked hard in an attempt to be rid of the apparition, to no avail.

Throwing off the bed linen, she tumbled down the three
wooden steps and fell against the body of the grim phantom. Tugging hard on the
rope around his leather jerkin to regain her balance, she cried, ‘You’re real!’
This unexpected revelation had a profound effect on her. She shook uncontrollably
and laughed wildly with relief.

‘What did you think I were?’ he asked grumpily.

Her emotion changed to one of frustration, almost anger. ‘Why
did you want to scare me out of me wits? I was sure you were dead. I’ve had nightmares
about you for months.’

‘That ain’t no surprise. Don’t you find it quiet, you and
him rattling around in a great big place like this?’

So thrilled was she to see him that her words spilled out
rapidly. ‘Quiet is hardly how I’d describe my time here so far. Betsy drove
Lady Wexcombe to distraction with her woeful tales, like how, at the poorhouse,
she was given two rations of butter by mistake and locked in a cupboard as her
punishment. We had a ball. It was dreadful. For weeks I’ve had to listen to
Lady Wexcombe ranting on, saying as how modesty is everything in polite
society.’

‘Then she wun’t think much to you stood before me in yer
nightdress.’

She stroked his cheek, burnt from the river fire. ‘Don’t say
you’ve got yourself into more fights?’

‘I’ve worse scars than this, though I won’t show you where.
It wun’t be
polite
.’

‘Wakelin, you don’t know how good it is to see you!’ She
threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fondly.

‘Geroff buzzing around me, ya bugbear.’ 

 A thought stuck her. ‘Mrs Bellows locks the house at night.
How did you get in?’

‘Me usual way of course; through the tunnel.’

It was then she noticed that the wainscot had been pushed
aside.

‘How did you know I slept in this chamber?’

‘I’ve been watching the house.’

‘Where’ve you been all this while? What happened to you the
night the bodysnatchers came to the church?’

‘Thurstan did for me. Luckily he didn’t hang around to see
if he’d finished me off proper. I got word to Fortune. She fetched me meat n’
ale, regular like, so I got by.’

‘You must be careful. Colonel Catesby is searching for you.’

‘As if I didn’t know. Why else d’ya think I’m skulking around
in the dead o’ night?’

‘Mam and Sam are wed? Have you heard? While I’m thinking,
Jacob said the folk that came to live in our cottage after us dredged a deer
from the arsenic well.  Did you have o’t to do with it?’

‘Why’d I?’ he answered shiftily, quickly changing the line
of conversation. ‘Which room’s Gabriel in?’

‘Two doors along.’

He swiftly let himself out and knocked insistently on
Gabriel’s door.

Curious as to what he wanted, she grabbed her shawl and sidled
into the hallway.

Gabriel was groggy with sleep, although he must only have
been dozing in his chair because he still wore the same clothes he had worn all
day: a grey banyan over his waistcoat, a white shirt, and deerskin breeches. Around
his neck a cravat was tugged out of place. ‘Wakelin? What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve been shot. The fly maggots did a good job of grubbing out
me dead flesh, so I’m back in me boots, as ya see.’

‘You disturb me in the middle of the night to tell me that?’

‘Course not. I’m here to say I’m starving and could do with some
food. I’ve brung me sack.’ He held it up for Gabriel to see.

‘Help yourself. Genevieve, would you mind ringing for Mrs
Bellows and let her know, otherwise she might clonk Wakelin on the head with a
frying pan, mistaking him for a burglar.’

‘Thanks,’ Wakelin said appreciatively. ‘There’s summat else
I wanted to ask you. I rode here on a nag what I pinched from the knacker’s
yard. I reckon I’d have got here faster with that horse riding on
my
back. It’s a miserable, head-hung beast with all its ribs showing. If I’m
caught I’ll hang for horse thieving. But then I’m gonna hang for stealing Eppie,
so what’s it matter? Ownee, I was thinking you might let me have a lent of one
of your mounts? I’ve a fair bit o’ riding to do.’