Heritage of Shame Read online

  HERITAGE OF SHAME

  Also by Meg Hutchinson

  A Love Forbidden

  A Promise Given

  A Sister’s Tears

  Bitter Seed

  Child of Sin

  Sixpenny Girl

  Pit Bank Wench

  Heritage of Shame

  Pauper’s Child

  A Handful of Silver

  Abel’s Daughter

  The Deverell Woman

  HERITAGE OF SHAME

  Meg Hutchinson

  AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

  www.ariafiction.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Hodder & Stoughton, a division of Hodder Headline

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Meg Hutchinson, 2003

  The moral right of Meg Hutchinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781789542738

  Aria

  c/o Head of Zeus

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  www.ariafiction.com

  My grateful thanks to David Mills and the staff of Walsall Leather Museum for their kind help and advice. Any mistake in my attempt to portray the very highly skilled work of saddle-making is, I assure the reader, very much my own.

  Meg Hutchinson

  Output of the leather industry during World War One was prodigious, with saddles numbering in excess of half a million. A hint of the efforts of the saddler can be detected in an extract from a speech quoted in Saddlery and Harness, 18 March 1916. The chairman of Messrs D. Mason and Sons Ltd of Walsall reported that in the two years (1914–15) ‘since the outbreak of war, in addition to many thousands of sets of gun harness and infantry equipment they [this firm] had supplied over 100,000 military saddles’.

  Contents

  Also by Meg Hutchinson

  Welcome Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  About Meg Hutchinson

  Become an Aria Addict

  1

  ‘I want nothing of Jacob Corby… and that includes you!’

  Eyes, dark ringed and bright with fever, played over a gaunt hard faced woman.

  ‘I came to this house for one reason only, that being to give you the benefit of a doubt I never truly held, a doubt which said you could not possibly be the same spiteful, selfish, cold hearted woman a child of six years was so afraid of. I see that memory was not false, you have not changed… but then neither did your brother.’

  ‘My brother was a fool!’ Eyes glittering like icebound stones Clara Mather glared at the thin young woman who held one hand protectively across a swollen stomach. ‘Jacob was a fool!’ she repeated scathingly. ‘But you are a bigger one if you think to come marching back laying claim to what I have worked to keep alive; you will never have the Glebe Works, I will see you beg in the streets—’

  ‘No, Aunt, that you will never see.’ Anne Corby’s quiet interruption rang with contempt.

  Harsh with scorn the older woman laughed, her cold eyes sweeping the swollen stomach. ‘No? Then how else do you expect to keep your bastard?’

  ‘I will keep it.’ The young head lifted proudly. ‘How need not concern you. Be assured I will never look to you for help though every stick and stone, every penny of what you claim to be yours is rightfully mine. As the daughter and only child of Jacob Corby, everything he owned is mine.’

  Quick as it was, Anne Corby caught the flash of fear leap in those hostile eyes and at the same moment she realised she had been wrong in one thing: she was no longer that frightened child going in fear of her father’s sister, rather the woman was afraid of her, of her taking away all she rejoiced in. But in that there had been no change – Jacob Corby’s daughter wanted nothing of him!

  ‘I see you recognise the truth of what I say,’ Anne continued, ignoring the twitch of pain beneath her hand, ‘that the Glebe Works and all that goes with it is my inheritance. But keep it, Aunt, and every night before you sleep thank your brother, thank Jacob Corby for leading his wife and daughter into hell, thank God for the delusion that took him half across the world and left you sole mistress in his stead.’

  *

  She had never thought to speak that way. She stood outside the house that had held her childhood and her dreams, as well as the fears she had remembered during the long days and longer nights of bone racking journeys her father had insisted on making while living out the mission he believed had been given him from heaven. Anne only now realised she was trembling. Wasn’t it true she had hoped for some sign of welcome, for the offer of a home? But one look at her father’s sister, one glance at those remorseless eyes had told her she was as unwelcome here as she and her parents had been in so many places. She had seen and understood her reception today but, unlike her mother, she had been able to turn her back and leave.

  Yes, she had turned her back, left the house which was truly hers… to go where? The question left her empty, draining the last of her anger. Without money, with nothing to sell which would raise enough for a night’s lodging there would be nothing but the hedgerow. Anne Corby was used to that, but the child? She drew in a breath against a further twinge of pain; what if her baby should come during the night?

  Was it time, had it been nine months since…? A sharper twinge sent her stumbling against the wall surrounding the house though it was not pain in her stomach had her cry out but the wave of horror which filled her mind, blotting out all but the memory of that day. She had called at a tiny wood-built house asking for a glass of water. The man who answered had smiled and though his curious form of language had been unintelligible to her he had understood her request and, pointing across the yard, had led her to the well. She had taken the ladle he filled from the rope-strung bucket, drinking her fill and smiling her gratitude as she handed back the crudely carved instrument.

  But her thanks had not been enough, he had caught her wrist, sending the ladle spinning from her hand, and at the same moment brought his bearded mouth hard on hers, his free hand pawing at her breasts. She had screamed when his mouth lifted, tried to twist away from him but his strength had been too much, and laughing he had thrown her to ground still firm with the last traces of winter. She had begged him to let her go, her terrified eyes asking what her foreign
tongue could not; but though he could not have failed to know the revulsion coursing through her he had freed his body from heavy peasant trousers then snatched at her own clothing, and with a grunt had forced himself into her. How long she had screamed, how long he had pushed into her she could never fathom, she could only remember the shout as he rolled off her, the shout followed by a bucket of water thrown over her, and the man’s wife driving a heavy boot against her ribs. And the man had laughed! His clothing still open he had stood over her and laughed!

  ‘Be you unwell, wench?’

  With her breath riding terrified cries, the nightmare of memory drowned the voice beneath the coarse laughter filling her mind, until a rough shake had her sag heavily against the wall.

  ‘Lord, wench, be you alright? You look as if it’s the devil himself you’ve seen.’

  The devil might have been more merciful, he might have taken her down into the fiery pit her father had been so fond of preaching about; instead she was left to endure the hell her life had become. It had been hard before the child had begun to grow in her womb, but once it could no longer be disguised…

  ‘Be you alright? Can I take you inside?’

  Swallowing the nausea that memory always brought, Anne shook her head. ‘No, no thank you.’

  ‘I thinks as you should go in. Judging by the looks of you it seem you be close upon your time. Come, I’ll help you to the door.’

  ‘No!’ Brushing the hand extended towards her, Anne straightened then swayed as a sudden rush of blood had her brain swimming.

  ‘That be it!’ The voice was suddenly sharp. ‘There be no two ways of playing… you needs be inside.’

  There was concern beneath the brusque tone, but as her arm was taken Anne pulled back. ‘Not – not in there. I – I am not welcome in that house.’

  ‘Not welcome!’ A face came closer to her own, eyes set in a thousand tiny lines looking deep into hers. ‘You be her… that babby. You be Jacob Corby’s little wench – Anne.’ The lined eyes smiled. ‘You be Anne Corby, least that was your name when your father took you from here but I see it is you’ll have a different one now.’

  Pain, sharp in its warning, had her hand go to her swollen abdomen. If she said nothing of the truth maybe… but lies, whether the self-believed kind her father had told or the sort of blatant one hovering so close to her tongue, neither could mask the truth for ever.

  ‘No.’ She gathered her courage as the face pulled away. ‘No, my name is not different. Now you see why those doors are closed to me.’

  The fingers grasping Anne’s arm lessened their strength but did not withdraw. ‘That’s a reason and though I don’t be in agreement with it I can’t deny another’s rights to follow their own judgement; but I’ll lay a pound to any man’s penny it don’t be the only reason you’ve been turned from that door, nor be it the true one neither. It’s my thinking the Glebe Works be at back of it. But where’s your father, wench? He’ll soon put paid to his sister’s high handed ways.’

  With a cry she could not hold back breaking from her, Anne clutched her stomach, and the hand holding her arm went swiftly about her waist, its strength supporting her. The voice was brusque once more: ‘That business can best be left to Jacob Corby but you, wench, you need a bed and a woman’s hand.’

  *

  So her brother’s child had returned! Clara Mather paced restlessly about the sitting room of Butcroft House. Jacob had fathered no more children, certainly no son or the girl would not have referred to the property as being hers… her inheritance. Clara’s fingers clasped painfully together. The inheritance was Quenton’s – her son would be master of the Glebe Works, her son and no other!

  Was it not Clara herself who had worked on Jacob, fed his fantasy of bringing the Lord to the heathen masses, encouraged his delusions of a God ordained mission to carry his message to the darkest corners of the world by always finishing every family prayer with one of her own, speaking the words aloud while pretending they existed only in the privacy of her heart, murmuring a prayer for someone to be sent, one who would be brave enough to carry on the work of the first evangelists, to follow in the footsteps of Peter and of Paul and carry the Word to foreign lands. Maybe the Lord had not heard her plea but her brother had. Jacob Corby had gathered his wife and daughter and followed a dream she had so fervently hoped would carry them into oblivion. But the child had returned. Except the child was no longer a child, Jacob’s daughter was nigh full grown, in a year she would be twenty-one – an age when, if she wished, she could marry freely. With a husband at her side she could have everything! Clara’s eyes narrowed, their gleam one of pure venom. If Jacob’s daughter married, then all of her own hopes for Quenton, her dreams of her own son becoming master of the Glebe Works would be ashes in the wind. But would a man take a woman who had a child born out of wedlock? The hope died as it came. There was many a man would be willing enough even though he took a bastard as well as a bride when that bride brought with her a dowry of Jacob Corby’s property. Twenty-one – an age when she could take everything into her own hands.

  Oh yes, she had said she wanted nothing of Jacob, nothing of what had been his, but how long before that tune changed, how long before she was back in this house, a lawyer at her side? But she would not have it, she would not take what belonged to Quenton, what she, his mother, had kept for him. He was the rightful heir, he the one her brother had seen as following after himself as master of those works, acknowledged him in all but the written word. Then had come along Viola Bedworth with her pretty curls and wide eyes full of innocence, and within three months Jacob had a wife and in due course he had a daughter… an heir of his own body.

  But marriage had not turned her brother from his path, more the opposite. A heart trusting in the Lord and a life led according to the teaching of Chapel had rewarded him with a loving dutiful wife here on earth; carry that teaching to the foreigner and what rewards would be his in heaven? His sister had agreed. She too would dearly love to carry the Word of the Lord to non believers, to spread the wonderful message as those first disciples had spread it but the Lord’s hand rested on her brother, he and not she had been chosen for the work. Those had been the words so often murmured with a tearful sniff and they had not been lost. He must go the way the Lord pointed, Jacob had said; he could not deny the call.

  The call! Clara Mather’s face twisted disparagingly. Even as a child her brother had been a fool. With his eyes closed to reality he had only ever seen what he wanted to see and in the call he saw a halo sitting on his own head but none of the hardship which must rest on the shoulders of his wife.

  You must not worry over what you leave behind, Clara had encouraged. God goes with you, brother, but He will not desert me, He will give me the strength to safeguard your interest here and keep it against your return… only keep it in hope you will never return had been what was behind that encouragement. Yet in spite of hope, despite her dreams, her brother’s daughter had returned and with her a child in the womb; a bastard? That was probably the truth of it but the father did not matter, it was still Anne Corby’s child and Jacob Corby’s grandchild… another claimant to the business Jacob had never shown real interest in. It should have been left to her but their father thought as most men of his time and many yet still thought, a woman did not have the brain for business, and so the whole inheritance had been Jacob’s. Teeth clenched behind thin lips, both hands pressed tight against her dark skirts, Clara Mather’s eyes were iron hard. She had run the business, kept it flourishing for fourteen years and she would not see her son robbed of it now, robbed of what was his, what must be his. No, neither Anne Corby nor the fruit of her whoring would take from Quenton… his mother would make certain of that.

  *

  ‘Mother… Mother, help me… please!’ Trapped in a world of pain Anne cried to the figure that watched but made no move to come to her. ‘Mother, I asked for water. Believe me, I did no more…’ It ended in a cry, her whole body contorting in a spasm of a
ll consuming agony but still the figure shrouded in black remained still. ‘The man… he… he seemed… he smiled as he handed me water and then… Mother, I speak the truth… please! Oh please, I need you…’

  Wave after wave of searing pain dissecting her words Anne reached a hand to the figure but it turned and walked away, leaving her to fall into a pit of shadows, shadows which came and went until out of them stepped her father, his gaunt face twisted with disgust, a hand raised in condemnation.

  Harlot! Child of Satan! Deceiver of men!

  Eyes brilliant in their anger stared at her.

  You will burn in the fires of hell! The Lord has turned His face from you, whore and Jezebel!

  ‘No!’ Anne’s head twisted from each invective, the words an almost physical blow. ‘Father, please… you must listen… it… it was rape…’

  Bent over the perspiring girl, Unity Hurley’s mouth clamped in a firm line. Stood on her own two feet a wench could deny the truth but laid on the childbed, racked with agony, that truth would reveal itself. Pain such as this young woman was suffering was a broom which swept the mind clean of lies, it left no corner in which they could hide. Rape – that most vile of crimes a man could commit against a woman – rape had seen the beginning of a life now struggling to enter the world.

  ‘Not much longer,’ she murmured pityingly, ‘just a little while and you can rest. It will soon be over.’

  But that was a lie no broom could sweep away. The pain of this night might be soon over but the real agony, did this girl but know it, was just beginning for her. The birth pangs would bring her a child but they would also bring a life of misery. The man had taken his sport; the woman would pay the price! Supporting the tiny head as it emerged, Unity glanced as the ashen faced girl slumped against the pillows, dark ringed eyes closed with fatigue. For Jacob Corby’s girl the price would be high.