Heritage of Shame Read online

  ‘“You speak pogadijib, the language of the Romany?” She spoke softly so no other could hear and when I nodded she looked at my stomach. “You carry the fruit of a mellalo, a filthy diddikai… a man not of your own country… the child in your womb was planted by no Romany.”

  ‘“No.” It was all I answered but it was enough for she nodded again, satisfied by the reply. I thought she would leave me and go to her place among the others but instead she drew tobacco and a clay pipe from the pocket of her skirt. Having lit it she sucked on it for several moments, then eyes half closed, peered at me through the veil of tobacco smoke.

  ‘“A chavvie in your womb don’t be all you were given the carryin’ of… there be something else…”’

  Anne’s fingers paused in their task as she watched the scene playing in her mind.

  ‘“There be what my people call a black ghost, a dark evil that walks with you, don’t deny it for naught be hid from them with the power to see and old Beshlie has the sight. A jewelled piece were given into your keeping across the water, given by a Rai, a great lord who fears for one greater still.”

  ‘I thought she had finished speaking and in the silence I saw the faces of the others illuminated by the flames of their fire, faces drawn with more than a passing anxiety; it was clear in the way they clutched the younger children to them, hiding their heads with shawls and scarves… it was as if the dark ghost they feared stared at them from the surrounding shadows.’

  Pulling her linen thread tight with each stitch Unity listened without interruption as the quiet flow continued.

  ‘The woman called Beshlie stared straight at the spot where the amulet was hidden, I thought she would tear it free, take it from me, but even as the thought ran in my mind the pipe fell from her mouth and onto her skirts and though I wanted to lift it away I could not move, it was as if the woman’s stare had become a net imprisoning me with invisible strands I could not break.

  ‘“The Rai thinks to save his king.” The voice seemed no longer her own, it had become deep and hollow while her eyes… her eyes had widened, each pupil extended until the whole was one circle which glittered like jet in the firelight, and though she spoke there was no movement of her lips. “But it be too late” she went on, “the great one be already marked for death, marked by that he scoffed as superstition. Three times more the earth will journey around the sun then in the seventh month of its fourth circle the kalo evil will strike, its foul black fingers will fasten about the Rai, his juval and his chavvies, the great lord and all of his family… for them it be already too late, they have looked on the devil’s trinket, touched its evil and though they be innocent of guilt they will be sucked into his maw.”’

  Across the streets the clock of St Lawrence church struck the half hour, its sound echoing like a mourning cry in the silence and Unity shivered, touching her breast with the sign of the cross.

  ‘Lord save us,’ she breathed, ‘to think you carried that – that thing ’alf across the world. If that gypsy woman knowed what ’er ’peared to know why let you keep that trinket… why not destroy it there an’ then?’

  Seeming to wake from a dream Anne blinked several times in rapid succession before replying, ‘The restriction which had held my limbs fell away and the woman picked up her pipe. Everything was normal yet her eyes still cut deep into me.

  “You have not uncovered the amulet,” she said, “you have not gazed upon it yet still its malignance has reached out for you. The shipwreck which almost took your life, the woman who would give you into the service of a man whose slave you would be… think you they be coincidence, the whims of fate? No child, they be the workings of the Dark One, it was his hand reached to you and it will reach again… destroy the piece now while there be yet time.’”

  ‘So why didn’t you?’ Exasperation throbbed in Unity’s question.

  ‘Because I had given my promise to deliver it to Bentley Grange,’ Anne answered simply. ‘I told the gypsy this and she nodded as if it were already known to her. “The way is set,” she murmured, “heaven has placed its counterweight in the balance scale, an honest hand and a truthful heart be the measure of its choosing but treachery and malevolence weigh heavy against it. Remember, little gaujo, reveal your secret to none but him to whom that piece be intended for the hand of evil be ever ready to snatch it. Heed the warning of old Beshlie, treachery and malevolence be waiting.” She left me then and I retired into my tent but long after I could still hear the soft murmurs of men and women and knew they talked of me, and the next morning I was taken to the port of Cherbourg, my passage to Dover paid and a sovereign pressed into my hand. It was the gift of the Romany, Beshlie said, it could not be returned without slight to them. There was so much I wanted to say, to ask how I could show my gratitude for their help but she and the women with her moved away into the crowd lining the quay and I lost sight of them.

  ‘The ship was a postal packet operating between the two ports and though a chair was placed on the deck I stood the whole time clutching the rail, memories of the shipwreck refusing to leave my mind. But finally it was over and I was ashore in Dover. I had thought I would remember the town for it was from there I had sailed with my parents but I could recall nothing. I must have looked confused because a man excused himself then asked might he be of service. I said I was looking for the railway station and he replied he was on his way there, and if I wished we could go together. He was so well dressed I was afraid my shabby clothes would be an embarrassment to him but he laughed that off.

  ‘I remember we had walked no more than a minute or so when he said we must cross to the other side of the street. I stood beside him at the edge of the footpath waiting for a wagon to pass when two dogs hurtled around the corner snarling and barking at each other. They came so close… I heard the snap of their jaws as they brushed against me and the memories of – of—’ The words choking in her throat Anne sucked in a long trembling breath, waiting a moment before proceeding. ‘Panic took hold of me, I stepped backwards away from the dogs and my foot caught in a drain. There was a hand against my arm, it felt like I was being pushed though it must have been someone grabbing to save me from falling beneath the wagon.’

  The bridle stitched, Unity let it rest in her lap. ‘Someone! You mean the man going along with you to the station?’

  ‘No.’ Anne’s shake of the head was brief. ‘It was a lad, he caught the skirt of my coat, pulling me from the road. I toppled backwards and he covered me with his own body, protecting me as several boxes fell from the loaded cart. He said later it was all he could think to do at the time but it was very embarrassing.’

  ‘Thank the Lord the lad had the presence of mind to do what he did and to hell with embarrassment!’ Unity answered sharply. ‘Red cheeks fades easy, broken bones takes an age to mend; so what did the other one do, the one who was going along of the railway station?’

  ‘I looked for him after being helped to my feet but he was not among the people who came to offer assistance, he was nowhere to be seen. I thought it a little strange after his being so helpful—’

  A fretful cry emanating from the drawer, Anne broke off and went at once to lift the baby into her arms, crooning gently as she rocked him.

  Leaving her seat Unity placed the finished work aside. Anne had thought his disappearance strange; it felt like I was being pushed, was what the wench had said. Was that what had caused her to topple into the path of a loaded wagon and not the catching of her foot? She had been eager to believe the word of a man whose fancy clothes and speech marked him a gentleman and therefore would do her no harm, just as her were eager to believe Clara Mather would be satisfied to be left alone with the Glebe Metalworks and so would wreak no mischief… but that woman were the soul of malice and her greed would not stop there. But it were not Clara Mather had walked beside Anne Corby along that street.

  Lifting the kettle from the bracket above the fire and replacing it with the pot of broth which would be the evening meal, Unit
y felt the cold touch of foreboding trickle along her spine. What had that gypsy woman said? Steam rising from the kettle spout hovered in a tiny vaporous cloud above the hob and as Unity stared it drew together, moulding and shaping until the heart of it became a face… the face of an old woman whose eyes seemed brilliantly alive and whose wrinkled lips made no movement even though words came clear to Unity’s mind.

  … malignance has reached out… shipwreck… slave… they be the workings of the Dark One… his hand reached… it will reach again…

  The baby’s sharp wail suddenly broke the trance which had settled on Unity, the illusion fading as she moved to Anne’s side.

  ‘He be ready for a feed.’ She smiled but the smile hid a shudder as she reached for the warm milk. Did that amulet the girl had carried possess some sort of power, an evil which now threatened her as it seemed it had threatened some Russian?

  … it will reach again…

  Pouring milk into the feeding bottle Unity’s hand trembled.

  12

  It had been a wasted journey!

  Clara Mather slammed the door of her bedroom angrily. She had lowered herself by going to that house, humbled herself by asking like some paid help if she might speak with Anne Corby… like some paid help! Clara’s fist struck the top of her night stand sending a glass rattling against the water carafe. She, Clara Mather, having to ask! And that woman, she had the instinct of a vixen.

  ‘You can come in,’ she had said, ‘though I’ll not pretend you be welcome.’

  Welcome! Clara snatched off an upswept brimmed, small crowned straw hat fashionable a decade ago, jabbing it into the box she had left on the bed. That was the last thing she expected of Unity Hurley… of all the women in Darlaston she alone had challenged when the older men had been sacked from the Glebe Metalworks, she alone had made the accusation of families being forced into poverty while Clara reaped the profits made from the work of men little older than boys. Truth it might have been but Unity Hurley’s business it definitely was not! Loosing her charcoal frogged coat she hung it in the wardrobe.

  It was almost as if the woman had sensed her reason for calling at that house yesterday, her sharp eyes following every movement; and her answers when asked about Jacob’s daughter, they had been as sharp. ‘Who is living beneath Laban Hurley’s roof be naught to do wi’ nobody but him,’ she had clipped.

  But the evidence had been there. Clara took out the black mourning suit, carrying it to the bed, lifting the sheet which protected it. A drawer had sat beside the hearth, a drawer set with a blanket in the manner of families too poor to provide a cot; a bed for an infant new born.

  Sliding the bottle from her pocket she stared into its green depths.

  An infant new born… but one with not long to live! It would have been so easy. Her fingers curled viciously about the hard cold glass. Two drops in the milk jug she had seen covered by a beaded cloth, the extract of wolfsbane was so powerful it would need no more to see that child to its grave. But she had not been given the opportunity, the few seconds it would have taken; had the woman left the room… but it had not happened. Unity Hurley had placed herself squarely in front of that drawer and moved not an inch.

  She had had no clear view of the inside of the drawer, only the blanket peeping above a corner telling its use; nor had there been a cry from it, no snuffles of a sleeping baby. Had it been there or had Anne Corby already left, trailing her bastard with her as Jacob had trailed his child? Unity Hurley would give no answer.

  But the threat to Quenton was not gone. A fresh burst of anger clawed deep in Clara’s stomach. So long as Anne Corby or her child breathed, Quenton’s future – the future she had schemed to provide – would be jeopardised. But fate had not given her the means only to snatch it away after one chance, instinct told her there would be another. Returning the small bottle to the inside of the ruched muff, Clara’s lips thinned to obscurity. Next time she would not fail.

  *

  So Anne Corby had returned to Darlaston. Abel Preston placed the saddle tree, a metal frame which formed the body of any saddle, on the flat surface of the workbench to test it for unevenness. The tree rocking slightly beneath his hand, he reached for a rasp and filed the metal sides. But it could not be her own home, Butcroft House, she had returned to otherwise Quenton Mather would not have chosen the street for his dirty work, that would have been done at the house, a place where none would see, none except maybe his mother, and she would turn a blind eye. Clara had never been able to see wrong in her son and her sight wasn’t likely to improve now.

  The metal frame perfectly level he took the piece of pigskin he had previously prepared by skiving the edges and shaving the thickness with a sharp blade, and he now applied strong adhesive to attach it to the metal.

  ‘You’ll need to bone that down well, Abel, lad.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ Abel smiled, smoothing the leather with a block of wood, ensuring every part of leather and metal bonded.

  ‘Ar, I knows you will; you be a fine worker, I can trust your pieces to have no faults.’

  The older man moved on through the workshop, settling at his place beneath the line of windows. Glancing after him, Abel experienced the sharp stab of pity which often struck him as he watched the man who had taught him every step of the leather trade, guiding his hands, training his eye until his skills matched those of his tutor. Laban Hurley had taught his own sons, brought them into the trade almost from the time they could hold a buckle or a mushroom shaped wooden masher, he had instructed them in every aspect, how to select the finest leather, to prepare and dress it, to cut a shape from it without wasting a scrap, taught them until his sons ranked among the best; and then they had gone to fight the Boers leaving this man to fight his heartbreak and his business to become a shadow of what it had once been.

  Satisfied the pigskin was well smoothed and secure enough to protect the webbing from coming into contact with the metal, thus safeguarding against rust, he set it aside, knowing it needed the glue to dry thoroughly before doing any more to it. Glancing once more at Laban, whose head was bent over his work, he selected a stiff paper pattern, placing it expertly on a length of white serge. Yes, the old man’s heart was broken but what work he produced was still the finest, constructed with only the very best of materials.

  Could the same be said of Jacob Corby’s works, of the lorinery produced there? Not every time! Marking round the paper pattern, taking care it did not move beneath his fingers, he frowned. That firm had not followed Laban’s style, some of its metal work was rough and poorly made, causing Laban to return it. But what else could you expect of young lads fresh from the schoolroom? Working metal required skill and for that to be acquired took training. Yet Clara Mather provided no apprenticeship, the reverse were her policy: use her workers while they were young enough to sweat for pennies and get rid of them when they asked for pounds.

  But now things were no longer completely in that woman’s hands. The brother would not return. That much Laban had divulged when told of the happening in the churchyard. But the niece was here in Darlaston… that could mean only one thing: Clara and her beloved son were no longer sure of their hold over Glebe Metalworks.

  The cutting shears put aside, Abel stared at the white cloth. Had he been wrong in thinking what he had, was Quenton Mather’s snatching of that girl from the streets not so he could satisfy some vile craving but to…? Breath leaving his lungs in a long slow stream, Abel felt his insides contract. No, not even Quenton would want to see the girl seriously harmed; but the mother, there was a different fish altogether and what the mother said do…! But would Quenton really go so far? The answer to that was yes, the man would ride on the coat tails of the devil if his mother told him to.

  There had been no reason given for his attack. Abel’s fingers moved deftly over a task he had done many times, straining the serge over the seat of a saddle webbed and trimmed the night before. He had walked Anne Corby the rest of the way, giving no vent to
curiosity as she paused at the Hurleys’ house. Was she living there? Had Clara Mather already spewed her venom?

  Anne had always been afraid of the woman. His mind flew back over the years, seeing a small girl flinch then drop the posy of mauve and white clover handed to her by a gawky teenaged lad with dark wind teased hair, her small legs moving as quickly as they could back to the woman who snatched angrily at her hand, almost dragging her away; and all the time Quenton, the sly spiteful Quenton, had smiled.

  He had wanted to hit him then. Abel tucked the serge under the head of the saddle, distributing it evenly towards the upward curving cantle, tacking it neatly beneath. He had wanted to smack the grin from his face, punch away the smugness and spite but Quenton had been smart enough to keep his distance; last night, though, the distance had closed… and Lord, it had felt good!

  The smile rising from deep inside settled on his mouth. Quenton Mather would tread carefully from now on.

  *

  She had told Unity the whole of her story… all the events which had occurred during her journey to England and then to Darlaston, told of the reason of her going to Bentley Grange and the conversation with Sir Corbett Foley, but she had not told of being attacked by her own cousin.

  ‘We must not add any more,’ she murmured softly to the baby nestled in her arms, ‘they have been so kind to us it would not be fair…’

  ‘What would not be fair?’ Work she had completed that morning wrapped now in a piece of cloth to prevent its being soiled by fingermarks, Unity stood framed in the arch that gave on to the scullery. Searching for a quick answer but finding none, Anne dropped her glance. She did not want to lie but neither did she want to cause possible worry to a woman who had already been kind enough to provide her with shelter; Unity Hurley had known Clara Mather for years, she must know she would be capable of visiting her anger on anyone helping Anne Corby, that must not happen to Unity and her husband.