Heritage of Shame Page 9

  ‘Yes,’ Anne answered quietly, ‘Jacob Corby was my father.’

  ‘Was?’ The owner of Bentley Grange leaned forward, the leather of the chair creaking with the movement.

  ‘My parents are dead.’ Keeping her explanation as brief as facts would allow, Anne told her story, told of the years of endless trekking, the travels that had ended so tragically; but of her rape and the birth of her son she said nothing.

  ‘It was wrong.’ Silver hair glinted in the light streaming through tall, multi-paned windows as the man’s head swung slowly from side to side. ‘It was wrong to take a woman and child, expose them to God knows what hardship and danger. Corby was ever a stubborn man but a dedicated one and there can be no combination more impenetrable to common sense. You have my deepest sympathies, child… a pity, a great, great pity; but we have to thank heaven you were saved.’

  He had listened yet somehow she felt this distinguished looking man did not believe all she said. Could it be he thought her here to beg his charity? The thought irking her pride Anne felt her jaw tighten.

  ‘Heaven is thanked daily,’ she clipped her words, ‘it is my regret I could do no more than thank Mikhail Mikhailovitch Yusupov and his son, Andrei, but sometimes even heaven smiles twice, I may yet be given the opportunity to express my gratitude in different terms.’

  ‘That would never do.’ Anne watched the autocratic features dissolve into a smile. ‘These Russians are proud beggars.’

  ‘We all have our pride. Sir Corbett.’

  ‘I see I have injured yours.’ The man’s hand moved once more to the small bell. ‘For the sake of the friendship I had with your parents I ask your pardon; I’m afraid the long years of being without my own dear wife have blunted my good manners, as for the social graces, he swung his head gently but his grey eyes twinkled, she said I never did have an abundance of those. But I can see why Mikhail chose to ask you to be his courier.’ He broke off to order the butler to bring tea, waiting for the library door to close before continuing. ‘He was ever the perceptive one among our group at Cambridge, he could smell a fraud at a hundred paces. He will be happy to hear you are not dead after all.’

  ‘Dead?’ Anne frowned. ‘Why would he think me dead?’

  ‘I am afraid we both thought the same thing. You see, my dear, Mikhail wrote to me saying his niece was paying a visit to England and that she would pay a call on her uncle’s old friend. It’s a ruse we often used as young men when the other’s… er… female acquaintance… was about to call. I knew he had no niece and that, like myself, old tricks had been left behind once he married, so when I read his letter I knew there was something he wished me to know yet was too important to set down on paper.’

  His hand lifting as the tap of the returning servant sounded at the door, Anne kept her silence. The whole thing was beginning to sound like some adventure story.

  Setting the cane aside and inviting her to serve the tea he gave the departing servant several seconds before furthering his explanation.

  ‘It was a week or so after his letter that I read in the newspaper an account of a ship being damaged during a storm in the Bosphorus and when, months later, you still had not arrived we both had to assume you had not survived.’

  ‘The ship I sailed on was damaged in a storm,’ Anne said, fighting memories suddenly swirling in her brain. ‘I – I was fortunate enough to be taken to shore in a lifeboat. The ship, it seemed, would be quite some time in repair. For reasons of my own I could not wait and having insufficient money to take passage on another ship I had to make my way overland. It took longer than I had supposed.’

  And it had been as difficult a journey as any she had taken with her father. With her teeth pressed together she struggled to dismiss the visions rising like dark spectres from the caverns of memory.

  Sir Corbett Foley’s astute gaze caught the tremble of fingers before they locked together. This girl had suffered more than a storm blown ship. Had it been to do with the message Mikhail Mikhailovitch had given her to bring? God damn the man! Why could he not have given it to a fellah? A man was more suitable every time, no woman knew how to handle danger!

  ‘I am sorry to have given rise to concern, the Yusupovs might think I took their help while having no intention of fulfilling their request; please explain—’

  ‘I told you, old Yusupov can smell fraud, he would have sniffed you out had you any such intent; but put any qualms aside, I will write to him this evening. But now you must give me his message, tell me exactly what it was he said to tell me.’

  The tea untouched beside her, Anne saw again the room heavy with dark wood and a man whose eyes became sharp and intense as she spoke of the home her mother had kept alive in her stories, of the little town of Darlaston set in the heart of England, heard the hiss of an indrawn breath marking the answer, yes; she had also spoken of a Bentley Grange and the man who had lived there at the time they had left England, a man by the name of Sir Corbett Foley.

  ‘It was no spoken message.’ Anne forced her mind to clear. ‘He asked only that I bring a box, that I take every care it should not be discovered.’

  ‘A box.’ Corbett Foley glanced at the tight knit fingers pressed into Anne’s lap. ‘No doubt that went down in the Bosphorus.’

  ‘Yes,’ Anne nodded. ‘But not due to any storm.’ Speaking quietly she outlined her reason for removing the contents then dropping the box itself overboard.

  The wench had more sense than he had given her credit for, but sense and courage were two entirely different fish, Mikhail should still have sent a man; faced with any kind of threat a woman was bound to give way. Walking miles across country with her parents was all very well; but alone…? For once Mikhail Mikhailovitch had erred in his judgement, the girl had obviously been threatened and had given the cloth bound object in order to secure her own safety; well, she could not be blamed, he would say as much in his letter.

  ‘If I may borrow a pair of scissors.’ Anne had watched the nuance of thought chase across the man’s face, now she rose to her feet. ‘The object given me by your friend is still sewn in the shoulder pad of my jacket.’

  9

  Unity Hurley bent over the work Laban had brought home for her to do. He still trusted her to help in the making of a saddle saying she had skills it took men years to learn. But then Laban forgot how many years she had worked beside him, the hours she had laboured while the business found its feet. She had watched every stage, followed the deft moves of his hands, listened to his explanation of every aspect of the industry, learned the quality of leather and the method of preparing and dyeing, become familiar with buffing and burnishing, carving, channelling, moulding and skiving, in fact all that the strength of her hands could do, and she had done it well enough to be given tasks he trusted no other to do; and this was one of them.

  The saddle had been ordered from Bentley Grange but Unity knew that had it been a collar for a wagoner’s horse the quality would have been the same, Laban Hurley allowed only the finest to carry his name. He had prepared the piece himself. Her fingers touching the soft pigskin she followed the stages mentally; the alignment of flap and panel, pressing the softer lining leather into the gullet or body to get the shape of the inside of the saddle, the rubbing with die masher, a tool which helped obtain a deeper imprint of that shape, the marking of a centre line which she had stitched to hold the two parts together. Now she would attach the pigskin facings already cut out by Laban. Placing the grain side of the facing to the grain side of the panel she selected a sharp pointed harness number two needle, its slight thickness rendering it more suitable for stitching linings to saddle panels, then threaded it with a length of number twenty-five thread, this Laban also favoured for the job in hand. The thread doubled in the single needle she would need to use, she slipped a thimble onto one finger, glancing once at the drawer which had held the child. She had argued against it. Unity bent her head over the leather and began the process of back stitching. She had argued so fiercely,
but like her father before her, Anne Corby had a mind of her own.

  The girl had suffered hardship, there were no denying that. Unity pushed the needle through the places already indicated by a pricker, a toothed punch which had marked and partly penetrated the leather in order to guide and ease the path of the needle. But through the years of her growing that hardship had been offset by the presence and love of parents. True, Jacob Corby had displayed little of that, but love for his daughter had been in his heart, else why would he have taken her with him, why hadn’t he left her behind where she would have the comfort of a home? He surely would have given mind to the extra burden traipsing a child along would bring, but take her he had; that said something in his favour. The comfort of a home but one empty of love, that could have been the childhood of Anne Corby. Unity pushed the needle with her thimble. But for Anne Corby’s son there would be neither love nor comfort. He would never know his father and the chance to know his mother was being snatched away.

  The foundling hospital or the workhouse! She pulled the thread tight. One were as soul destroying as the other. Anne Corby could have no idea of the life she was condemning her child to, no knowledge of what she was truly parting with.

  The needle becoming still in her hand she glanced again at the drawer. It had served as a bed twice before… each of her sons had lain in it. Matthew and Luke, both the centre of her world. The silence of the kitchen was suddenly invaded by laughter and the calls of children’s voices, her eyes seeing two tumbling figures as her mind recreated the past. One older by a year and a half, taller by half a head. Matthew, who had grown so quickly he was a man before she had known it, Matthew of the dark hair and deep brown eyes, Matthew as skilled in the leather as his father. Watching them with the eyes of memory, Unity smiled as the younger one tangled his lithe body about his brother, wrestling him to the floor. Luke the madcap, Luke with the laughing face. Lost to the yearning of her heart, Unity’s hand moved to stroke the tousled brown hair and, as he had on that awful day, her younger son stood to face her. He was no longer a child, no longer the boy she had sung to sleep after some nightmare or who had held back the tears of a scraped knee; he was seventeen and a man.

  ‘Don’t deny me, Mother.’

  Unity gazed into eyes that pleaded while her own brimmed with hot tears.

  ‘This be my chance to see summat of the world… please.’

  ‘I’ll look to him. Mother, I’ll keep him close.’

  Out of the shadows her elder son came to his brother’s side. The two of them tall and grown, filling her heart with pride while they broke it.

  So she and Laban had agreed. Together they had watched their sons leave to join the army. That was the last time she had kissed their faces, held their strong young bodies in her arms, the last time she had heard their voices speak their love for her. They had been sent to fight a Boer invasion in Africa. The letter had come with a photograph showing them in uniform, Matthew’s eyes solemn and thoughtful, Luke’s with the echo of a laugh.

  … I’ll keep him close…

  The words echoed in her heart, re-echoed against the pain in her soul.

  Matthew had done that. In a place called Natal he had stepped in front of Luke; the Boer knife was meant for his brother. It had hit him full in the chest. It was an act of bravery. A survivor of that battle had told her.

  An act of bravery! Unity stared at the illusory faces in her mind. That she would never doubt, but it had not saved Luke, he had died beside his brother and her world had fallen apart. She and Laban had lost their sons. A sob escaping her throat, she tried to hold the fading faces a little longer in her mind, to see the smiles, to hear the voices, but like mist in the sun of morning they melted away.

  Yes, they had lost their sons. Her fingers trembling, her whole body throbbing with the ache she would never fully lose, Unity’s tear shrouded gaze rested again on the drawer. But the love they had shared in the years of their growing, the memories… they would be with her always, the treasures a mother locks away in her heart, treasures which could never be taken from her. And what would Anne Corby have? All of the pain but none of the pleasure. And the child?

  Blinking her vision clear she ran a finger over her stitches, eight to the inch and neat as Laban was sure they would be. This was to have been Laban’s legacy to his sons. They would return from the war to take over Regency Leather; but fate had decreed otherwise, it had snatched the dream away. Yet it was not fate decreeing Jacob Corby’s legacy be denied his grandson, not fate snatching that dream away but Jacob’s daughter!

  The needle dug into the soft pigskin facing, biting savagely at the thicker leather of the saddle panel. Was there any difference? Her sons had been sacrificed for the sake of Empire, Anne Corby’s would be sacrificed for the sake of pride.

  *

  That unexpected return of a monthly still had her feeling nauseated, she would prefer the house quiet and to herself today.

  Clara Mather’s cleaning woman slipped the shawl about her shoulders. Not allowing herself time enough to knot the ends together beneath her drooping breasts, she clattered quickly from the kitchen and along the back path, crossing open land which led on to Hill Street. It was the first time Clara Mather had given summat for nothin’. The woman grasped her four shillings tightly in the palm of her hand. Four shilling! You could have set a Christmas turkey in her mouth when Clara Mather had handed over six days pay for five worked… a turkey ar, the woman grinned, and still found room for the plum pudding! She hurried on towards the Bull Stake. The Lord was good, and her wouldn’t say the devil were all bad, not if what had ’appened were anything to go by. Monthlies were the curse of the devil, was what her mother had moaned when the pains took her; well, let him visit it on Clara as often as he liked, for one woman’s suffering were another’s pleasure.

  Having watched the woman down the path and allowed several minutes against a possible return, Clara slipped the bolt of the kitchen door. She did not want to be disturbed, she wanted the house to herself but not because of any monthly, real or otherwise. Her steps quick and loud on the green and cream tiled floor of the corridor leading from the kitchen to the front door she hesitated at the foot of the stairs listening for any sound. Satisfied she was alone she went rapidly up the stairs to her bedroom. This was the one room of the house the cleaning woman did not clean. Clara glanced around at the plain austereness. This room, like the shopping and cooking, she took care of herself. She had watched the woman closely the few minutes it had taken to tell her she would not be needed today, watched as she replaced her shawl, seen the eagerness to be gone. An eagerness not exceeding her own. Clara took up a small bottle hidden behind the curtain. Her eyes had stayed on the woman’s face, searching for any sign she had detected a whiff of this. Clara eased the cork free and sniffed at the contents before holding the bottle to the light of the window. Such a small amount. A smile cold as a viper’s kiss touched her mouth. Barely covering the bottom of the bottle the tincture showed through the green reeded glass. There was enough. She had left the extracted juice of wolfsbane overnight, allowing the fumes to evaporate before pouring it into the tiny bottle. Then she had brought it here to her own room. Holding it now beneath her nose she sniffed again. There was no trace of brandy… either in the kitchen or in this bottle. In fact it gave off no odour other than a slight sweetness of honey.

  Unity Hurley had bought bottles and rubber teats. That could only mean that the child could not be fed with the breast, it would have to be fed cow’s milk, cow’s milk sweetened with honey!

  Replacing the cork she looked at the bottle fitting easily into her palm. Here was Quenton’s future, a future secured for him by his mother.

  *

  Sir Corbett Foley looked up from the object he had unwrapped. Even from where she stood several yards across the room Anne saw spears of light dancing from the bed of dark velvet, a myriad starbursts seeming to leap from his hand. He had stared at it so long, the nuances of expression on his fa
ce changing from surprise as he had peeled away the layers of cloth to… what? Anne kept her glance on the bearded face; was it accusation, did he think there should be more to what he held, that Mikhail Mikhailovitch had entrusted her with something which was no longer there? No. She met the keen eyes. It was not accusation played in them; anxiety, then? No, it was more than that… those eyes held fear!

  ‘Did you look at this, examine it before sewing it into your jacket?’

  ‘Had Andrei or his father wished me to see the contents of the box they would have shown it to me. They did not. Nor did I take it from its cover. They gave me their trust and I would not break it.’

  There was an honesty in those eyes he could not question. Sir Corbett Foley glanced again at the object in his hand. The girl had shown tenacity, a strength of spirit. He closed the velvet wrapping. Mikhail Mikhailovitch, the old dog, had not lost the knack of recognising the best.

  Opening a door set so unobtrusively into a large book filled cabinet that, had he not touched it, Anne would not have realised it was there, he set the object carefully inside, then closed the beaded glass doors.

  ‘You have displayed an integrity of which your parents would have been proud.’ He returned to his chair. ‘But did Mikhail tell you nothing of what you carried?’

  Anne shook her head. ‘At first he spoke of a possible war with Germany and how ill equipped the country was to meet such an event, that the army was led by incompetents and the Tsar refused to recognise the fact. He also said something about the Bolsheviks. Then he took the box from a cabinet and when Andrei tried to interrupt he said, “This must be… let it reach once more the hands of the vile Rasputin, then Russia and maybe the whole world will be—”’