"What do you want of me?" Lady Harvey sobbed. "I can"t bear this. I don"t even know if I can believe what you"ve told me."
"You can look on the parish records and you"ll see Hope"s birthday is 25 April 1832. You can also look at your Captain Pettigrew"s face and see her face looking back at you."
At that Lady Harvey looked really startled. Her eyes widened and she clapped her hands over her mouth.
"Bridie didn"t tell me," Nell said quickly. "Wild horses wouldn"t have dragged it from her. I saw the Captain for the first time the day you suggested Hope come here to play with Rufus. I knew he was her father the moment I set eyes on him."
"Has anyone else remarked on that?" Lady Harvey asked quickly.
"Why would they? All us Rentons are dark, and no one else knows you had another child. But I"m surprised you you haven"t seen the similarity. Didn"t you ever wonder why Hope was so beautiful, when James, Ruth and me are all so plain?" haven"t seen the similarity. Didn"t you ever wonder why Hope was so beautiful, when James, Ruth and me are all so plain?"
There was no response to that question.
"You"ve never really looked at her, have you?" Nell sneered. "She"s worked in this house every day for four whole years or more, yet you"ve never noticed that beauty. But then you don"t see any of us servants as people, do you?" Nell paused just long enough to draw breath.
"We"re not supposed to have feelings, or even a private life of our own. You don"t care if we are tired, sick or distressed, you don"t even value our loyalty. I comforted you when your mother died, but who comforted me when my parents died? Not you! All you offered was an afternoon off for the funeral. You don"t even care that Albert"s. .h.i.t me, even though I"ve worked for you for twenty years. What does it take to make you care, m"lady?"
Lady Harvey turned on her side and sobbed even louder, beating at her pillow with one hand. Nell stepped forward and rescued the tea tray from the bed, afraid that it would be spilled.
"I do care, Nell," her mistress said after a few moments, but her words were almost lost in the pillows. "I do. I do."
She rolled back over and looked at Nell with tears running down her cheeks. "I"ve often said I don"t know what I"d do without you. There have been so many times when I wanted to confide in you about how I felt when I was carrying Angus"s child, and indeed about the hopelessness of my situation, then and now. But I was afraid to, not because I didn"t trust you, but because I felt if I spoke of these things they would overwhelm me. Can you understand that?"
Nell thought back to the time Lady Harvey first admitted the Captain wrote to her. "Can I ask that you check the post each morning?" she asked so sweetly. "Of course he is only a friend, but William is being so difficult these days and he might not like Angus writing to me."
Like a fool, Nell had felt proud that her mistress trusted her so implicitly. She"d even been glad she got some small comfort from the Captain"s letters. But maybe it would have been better if she had spoken up then and informed her that the child of her union with her friend her friend was down in the kitchen right now, scouring saucepans, and asked if it wasn"t time she did something for that child! was down in the kitchen right now, scouring saucepans, and asked if it wasn"t time she did something for that child!
"With all due respect, m"lady," Nell said sharply, "your feelings are not that important to me now. I only want to know what Albert has done with Hope."
Lady Harvey looked at Nell with shocked eyes. She sat up and dried her tears on the sheet. "It"s Christmas Eve, Nell. Rufus is here too," she bleated. "And I don"t think my husband will believe for one moment that Albert killed Hope. He has a very high opinion of him."
"Are you trying to tell me Sir William won"t allow us to get the police?"
Lady Harvey began twisting her fingers together in agitation. "I don"t know. It"s very difficult for me to talk to him these days about anything. He"s not the man I married any more."
Nell a.s.sumed she was referring to his heavy drinking. "Well, catch him when he comes back in for breakfast," she said. "He"ll be feeling fine then."
"He"s gone out already?"
"Yes, Baines said he went out very early."
Lady Harvey frowned. "I don"t know him any more. Why does he keep going out at strange times and getting annoyed if I ask where he"s been? He used not to be like that, Nell, once we used to do everything together, we talked and laughed so much."
Nell nodded out of politeness.
"I expect you wondered how I could have become involved with someone else?"
"I thought you were very lonely when Sir William was away."
"It wasn"t just that," Lady Harvey protested. "You"ve been with me every day for sixteen years, Nell. You do everything for me, you know me better than anyone. Surely you"ve realized why I turned to Angus?"
Nell shrugged.
Lady Harvey sighed. "You don"t see it, do you? You think like everyone else, and how I thought too on my wedding day, that I was lucky to have a husband who was young, handsome and wealthy. Oh, I adored him, but I was so innocent then, Nell, I"d never even kissed a man. It was years later before I discovered pa.s.sion, and it was only then that I realized there had been none of that between me and William, no urge, no spark. In truth we were like brother and sister."
"Are you saying he didn"t lie with you?" Nell asked.
Lady Harvey blushed. "He did what was expected of him, at first. As I had no real idea what the bed side of marriage should be like, I thought it must be my fault he seemed so disinterested. Then Angus came to visit, and all at once I was getting feelings I"d never experienced before."
She paused, looking off into the distance. "He called one afternoon when William was out riding, and we walked in the garden together," she said. "We sat for a while in the summerhouse and suddenly he was kissing me. It was like a madness, Nell, so sweet and thrilling."
She went on to say how in the months following she tried to fight against the pa.s.sion she felt. How she would have Bridie stay in the room if Angus called and William was out.
"It was the same for Angus," she said sadly. "I saw everything I felt mirrored in his eyes. He didn"t call often because he was off soldiering, a whole year went by once without my seeing him, but he was on my mind constantly. Then William went to America, and sometimes I"d go out riding alone, and it was on one of those days that I ran into Angus."
"And you slipped up?"
Lady Harvey nodded. "As G.o.d is my witness, I tried very hard to resist the temptation. I did love William; we had some happy times together. But this thing I felt with Angus was very different, so strong, it swept away morality, loyalty and everything else I held dear. It was so beautiful and powerful, Nell, nothing mattered but to possess and to be possessed. If I"d had only just one tiniest bit of that with William everything would have been different. But I saw then that what William and I had in our bed was a duty; a furtive kind of fumbling that gave neither of us any pleasure, only shame. And I realized that William did not and would never desire me."
Tears sprang into Nell"s eyes as she remembered the humiliation of her own wedding night. She had been so willing, so eager for lovemaking, but Albert had pushed her away, making her feel dirty and loathsome. "Maybe we have been led astray into believing all men are earthy creatures," she said hesitantly, tempted for a second to admit that her own marriage was even emptier. "But you had Rufus!"
"The one good thing to come out of all this mess," Lady Harvey said with a snort. "When William came home from America I was so very low. I was racked with guilt and convinced that all that I had been through with my first baby was G.o.d"s judgement for my wickedness. But fortunately William came home with renewed enthusiasm for producing a son and heir, and maybe because I had more knowledge of pleasing a man, it happened."
"Surely that was enough for you?"
"Our child"s birth marked the end of William"s physical duty to me."
"But at least you have a child," Nell reminded her. She thought she would gladly settle for that.
"That isn"t enough when you have known the bliss of being in the arms of a man who does desire you," Lady Harvey said with a break in her voice. "For some years Rufus was was enough for me. Angus was safely abroad, and we had parties and house guests to distract me. But now-" She broke off as she began to cry. enough for me. Angus was safely abroad, and we had parties and house guests to distract me. But now-" She broke off as she began to cry.
"William goes off alone, he drinks and gambles too much. He speaks to me as if he hates me," she sobbed. "Last night I asked him why he"d left me in Suss.e.x so soon after the funeral and he said that the three days he was there with me were more than enough for him. I thought he meant the difficulties with my sisters, but he didn"t. He meant being in my company."
Nell had to grit her teeth to stop herself from interrupting Lady Harvey as she helped her with her toilette. A torrent of words flowed from her mouth how wonderful Angus was, how despicable she found her husband yet almost in the same breath she said she had written to Angus while at her family home to say their relationship must cease. It was the outpouring of someone who was entirely self-obsessed. She had also clearly forgotten that Nell had come to her with a serious problem.
She even asked at one point if Nell thought it wicked of her to wish for widowhood to release her from her unhappy marriage.
"My mother used to say, "Be careful what you wish for,"" Nell retorted, tempted to smack that beautiful face, if only to bring her back to reality. "But m"lady, we must talk about what is to be done about Hope, and indeed the position I find myself in.
"I can"t go back to the gatehouse with Albert ever again. So either you let me live here at Briargate, or I must go today and stay with Matt and his family. But either way you have to get Sir William to call in the police about Hope."
"I can"t do that." Lady Harvey shook her head irritably. "I know my husband and he won"t believe anything bad of Albert. Nor will he approve of you leaving your husband."
"Hope is your child," Nell said fiercely. "Her body may be buried in the woods or even the grounds here, and you expect me to keep quiet and continue to live with the man who killed her?"
Naked fear came into Lady Harvey"s eyes. "A police investigation will cause such trouble for us, Nell. Remember my son, for pity"s sake!"
Nell was bewildered by that plea. "Are you afraid I will betray your confidences? How can you think such a thing?"
Lady Harvey did not reply, and Nell took that as confirmation of her fears. "I have kept the secret about Hope"s birth for sixteen years," she said quietly. "Nothing would make me reveal it now, or anything else you have told me today, for it has no bearing on what I fear has been done to Hope.
"I have to know what happened to her, and if Albert has killed her I want to see him hanged for it. My brothers will feel the same, and if you and Sir William won"t help me with that, then I must leave here now and go to my family."
"You can"t leave me!" Lady Harvey exclaimed. "It"s Christmas, and I need you."
An hour later, Nell heaved the pillowcase holding her belongings over the stile and made her way across the paddock to Lord"s Wood. Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked, for leaving Briargate was like cutting off one of her limbs, but she knew she had to.
As she reached the wood she turned to take one last look at the house and she was reminded sharply of the evening all those years ago when she took this same path with Hope in her arms.
It had been dark then, Briargate just a shape illuminated by the moon. Today it looked sullen and bleak in the cold, grey morning light, very like the expression on Lady Harvey"s face when she finally realized Nell meant what she said.
She had tried to talk Nell out of it. But the more she said, the more obvious it became how shallow and selfish she was. She cried and said that Angus had never known their union had resulted in a baby because he was called away before she even knew she was pregnant. She was terrified that any kind of investigation at Briargate would result in her meetings and correspondence with him being discovered. She also said that her father had left Rufus a sizable share of his estate in trust, bypa.s.sing her because he was afraid Sir William would just squander it. William was already very angry with her about this because he was convinced she"d engineered it, and any further trouble would push him over the edge into madness. She even accused Nell of treachery.
Baines had taken Nell into his arms when she told him she was leaving, and when he let her go his eyes were damp. She"d asked him to say goodbye to Martha and Rose for her, because she couldn"t bear to do so herself.
Now she had to face her brothers and tell them that she suspected her own husband of murder, and in truth she didn"t know if she could bear that either. She had always been the placid, sensible one in the family to whom everyone turned for advice and comfort. But that wasn"t true; if she"d been sensible she"d have made sure Hope had no contact at all with Albert after he attacked her that time before. She should never have asked her to go down to the gatehouse to tidy up; it was like leaving a pet rabbit with a fox.
Chapter Ten.
1848.
"Just wait until he goes into the room out the back where the oven is, then run in and grab it," Betsy suggested. "There"s nothing to it, you"ll be long gone by the time he gets back and finds one"s missing."
"I don"t think I can do it," Hope whimpered as she looked across Wine Street to Salter"s Pies. "Mother always said it was a sin to steal."
When she woke that morning she had been absolutely determined to provide a meal for the three of them, but now she was here in Bristol"s most prestigious street, within sniffing distance of Slater"s Pies, her nerve had gone.
Normally at eleven in the morning this street was full of cabs, carts and carriages with hundreds of people thronging the pavements. But the bitterly cold weather had made the town quiet for over a fortnight, and now snow was expected later today only a few people had ventured out. Betsy said that made it an ideal opportunity for Hope to try her hand at a s.n.a.t.c.h and run.
"It"s sinful that the rich stuff their bellies while people like us starve," Gussie pointed out. "As for Slater, he ain"t even gonna miss one when he"s got that many!"
They hadn"t eaten for three whole days and all Gussie and Betsy"s usual avenues of opportunity to get food or money seemed to be closed to them. The extremely cold weather had delayed ships, and windows and doors normally left open were now shut. All the owners of food shops and stalls around the quayside were being extra vigilant. Daily they woke to find icicles hanging inside the window of their room, and there wasn"t a sc.r.a.p of wood lying around anywhere that they could burn on the fire. They couldn"t even go into an ale house to get warm without money.
Hope felt obliged to do something to help out. Her friends had provided her with food and a roof over her head for two months now, and although she"d paid her way to a certain extent by helping them with scavenging, it didn"t seem right to take a share of food they had stolen without ever taking the risk herself.
Both Gussie and Betsy were far too bedraggled to attempt entering Slater"s, which catered for the gentry, but Hope still looked tidy enough to pa.s.s for a servant out getting her mistress"s order.
"You don"t have to do it if you don"t want to," Betsy said. She looked worried now, along with being pinched with cold. "We"ll think of something else."
If either of them had insisted she do it, or belittled her for being such a prude, Hope might well have backed away. But they"d become her new family and they were the kindest and most generous people she"d ever known. Betsy"s teeth were chattering, the thin shawl around her shoulders was no protection against the icy north wind, and Gussie had a bad chest. Last night Hope had heard him coughing his very lungs up. He didn"t look at all well, his face was chalky-white and his chest rattled, yet these two who had grown up without any of the advantages she"d had were prepared to share anything they had with her.
"All right, I"ll do it," she agreed reluctantly. "Go away; wait for me at the top of St Nicholas"s steps."
For a moment they just looked at her in silence, their expressions reminding Hope sharply of how Nell used to look at her when she wasn"t convinced she could really manage something on her own. But then Betsy slapped her on the shoulder and smiled. "Be brave and quick. Don"t run when you get it; that just draws attention to you. But if someone chases you, go like stink and dodge in and out of the alleys."
Gussie just grinned weakly, but the way he fiddled nervously with his m.u.f.fler suggested he wasn"t entirely happy to see Hope joining the ranks of criminals.
Once her friends had walked off up Wine Street in the direction of Corn Street, Hope crossed the street and went down towards the pie shop.
Slater"s Pies was unique, not only for the dark green and gold frontage or the splendid mahogany counters, but because it had a reputation for making the best pies in the West of England. Just looking in the window was enough to make your mouth water: game, chicken, beef or pork pies arranged on green and white checked cloths, the shiny golden-brown pastry glinting under the gas lights.
Hope always stopped to look at them when she pa.s.sed. She loved the cleanliness of the shop and the delectable smells, and she admired burly Mr Slater in his sparkling white overall and tall starched hat. His face was as shiny as his pastry, his hands as big as hams, yet he wrapped his pies in white paper and placed them in his customers" baskets as delicately as a woman.
The pies she and her friends normally ate were small with only a sc.r.a.ping of meat in them, and the pastry was dull and soggy and as far removed from Slater"s as Lamb Lane was from Briargate. Slater"s pies, four or five inches high, stuffed with high-quality meat and brushed all over with beaten egg, were intended for a big household of ten or twelve people. Hope had seen the old cook at Briargate make similar ones for harvest suppers and parties and they were usually served cold with chutney.
But what Hope wanted today was one of the hot pork pies. She had lain awake last night imagining eating one, till she could almost taste the b.u.t.tery pastry, feel her teeth sinking into that rich, delectable pork. When she told her friends this morning what she intended to do, Gussie had warned her that few people he knew dared steal in Wine Street because it was so smart. But Hope"s view was that this gave her an advantage because Mr Slater probably wasn"t used to keeping an eye out for opportunists. But what if she was wrong?
It seemed a very good omen that an organ-grinder was playing just along from the pie shop. The man had a little monkey wearing a red jacket and little cap, which jumped up and down to the music. Everyone was stopping to look at him, so Hope didn"t seem out of place lingering by the window of the shop as she kept an eye on Mr Slater.
The wonderful smell of the cooking pies made her drool and her hunger pains came back stronger than ever. Mr Slater was packing four very big game pies into a box and tying it up with string. As she watched, he handed the box to a young lad who was clearly going to deliver it to a customer. He appeared to be cross with the boy as he was wagging a finger at him, perhaps telling him not to dawdle on the way.
The lad came out carrying the box and rushed off down Wine Street, not even pausing to look at the organ-grinder"s monkey. Mr Slater was alone in the shop now, and he was looking at a notebook, as if he had orders to fill.
There were five big pork pies at the end of the display, still steaming from the oven. Mr Slater came to the door and looked out, frowning; Hope thought he was irritated that the organ-grinder was spoiling his trade.
He stood in his doorway for a minute or two, checked his pocket watch, then turned and went straight out of the door at the back of the shop.
Hope"s heart began to race for she knew this was the moment and she had to seize it before any customers came in. Pulling a piece of cloth from around her waist, she took a deep breath and walked in. She deftly put the cloth over the pie nearest to her and scooped it up. But just as she was turning to leave the shop she heard the sound of returning footsteps and rushed out of the door.
She wasn"t quite quick enough, for just as she crossed the threshold she heard Mr Slater cry out, "Stop thief!"
Her bowels contracted with fear. She"d seen people running after thieves before and they usually caught them. But though Mr Slater"s cry was loud, the organ outside was louder, and she darted through the crowd clutching the pie closer to her. It was very hot, and she had to use her cloak to keep hold of it. She could smell it, and she was sure everyone she pa.s.sed by could too.
"Thief!" she heard him yell again, louder this time. "That girl in the grey cloak, stop her!"
Hope hitched the hot pie into her arms and ran up Wine Street, not even turning her head to see if she was being pursued. She turned into the Pithay, a very narrow lane which ran down to the river Frome. It was the area where most of the second-hand clothes and furniture shops were and the kind of customers they had were far less likely to want to help catch a thief.
But from behind her she could hear hobnailed boots striking out on the cobblestones. She ran like the wind then, her heart thumping so hard and fast with terror she thought it might burst. She knew she was dangerously close to the Bridewell and there could well be several constables out on their beat, but remembering what she"d been told she darted into alleys and kept running.
In the two months she"d been with Gussie and Betsy they"d been to the public gallery of the magistrates" court three times to watch someone they knew being tried. One friend got five years" hard labour just for stealing a couple of candles.
Almost every time they went to the Grapes they"d hear about someone being publicly flogged for minor theft even children as young as eight or nine could be sent to prison. Hope hadn"t expected that she would ever get used to the filth, squalor and brutality of life in Lamb Lane, but somehow she had. But many people had told her prison would make Lamb Lane seem like paradise, and she"d rather drown herself in the river than go there and find out.
She had a st.i.tch in her side from running up one alley and down the next, but the man chased her relentlessly. She didn"t think it was Mr Slater, he"d probably offered this man a reward to catch her, and anyone doing it for money would be very determined.
But Hope was determined too. The pie was heavy, but she had no intention of dropping it, and even less intention of being caught. She continued to run, trying hard to go faster so she could throw the man off, but the heavy pie was slowing her down, hunger had made her weak and the man was gaining on her.
As she came down Tower Lane, which was close to where she started from the Pithay, she glanced back and saw her pursuer was a tall, thickset, bald-headed man who looked like a prize fighter. He was less than fifteen yards from her now, and she knew she must find a way to outwit him.
As she turned the next corner she looked frantically around her for somewhere to hide, and like a gift from heaven there was an open street door. She darted in and shut the door behind her, then stood behind it quaking as she heard his feet go thundering by. Her breath was rasping now and she felt faint and shaky, expecting that any moment the man would guess what she"d done and come banging at the door.
"Is that you, Tilda?" a feeble old voice called out from down the dark pa.s.sage, startling her still further.