Calico Road (40 page)

It wasn’t until she was in the bedroom that she began to wonder what he’d say and do when he found she was missing. He’d be furious and come searching for her, she was sure. And he’d take out his anger on anyone near.

Harriet would have liked to pace up and down the room, because she’d always found it aided thinking but didn’t dare betray the fact that she wasn’t asleep. After taking off her outer garments and putting her nightgown on over her underclothes, she blew out her candle and lay down on the bed.

But though she forced her body to be still, her mind wouldn’t stop dwelling upon the events of the day and she couldn’t get that poor child out of her mind. The girl was in for a miserable life here and Harriet had made it worse.

In the end she could only come to one conclusion: she couldn’t leave Jane to Jad Mortley’s vicious attacks and her husband’s possible reprisals, so would have to take the child with her.

What felt like hours later she heard footsteps mount the stairs, one pair of feet heavy, the other light. The girl was giggling and sounded drunk. As soon as the disgusting noises began issuing from the front bedroom Harriet got up and dressed herself in her warmest gown. She tied up the money and jewellery in a handkerchief and put it into her bag under the clothes. Could a wife be accused of theft if she took her own jewellery? She suspected that she could, from Andrew’s taunts, but didn’t care.

As she was walking along the landing there was a loud bump from the front bedroom and a squeal of pain from the girl, followed by pleas not to hurt her. Dear God, what was he doing in there?

As the pleas were cut off abruptly and the bed began to creak Harriet hurried down the stairs, putting her carpet bag by the kitchen door and going through the scullery to the coal house. The key was hanging nearby on the wall. She heard a sound inside as she turned it and called in a low voice, ‘It’s me, Jane. I’m running away. Do you want to come with me?’

The child stepped forward from the darkness into a patch of moonlight, staring at Harriet. ‘Won’t
he
come after you? Isn’t he your mester?’

‘Yes, he’s my husband, and yes, he may come after me, but I have a – a friend and if I can get to her she’ll help me.’

‘He’ll kill me if he catches me.’ Jane stared up at Harriet, head on one side, then her teeth gleamed in a brief smile. ‘But I reckon that Mr Mortley will kill me if I stay. All right, missus, I’ll come with you.’

‘Don’t speak from now on, just follow me. And wrap this round you.’ She gave the child an old shawl she’d brought ’specially for her then turned to lead the way to the back door.

‘I’m sure I heard a sound from down here, Cook,’ a voice said.

Harriet pressed back against the wall. Jane didn’t need any warning to keep quiet.

Cook’s voice came to them. ‘As you can see, there’s no one here. It’ll have been a rat. I’ll get the rat catcher in tomorrow. You go back to bed now. I’m a bit peckish so I’ll just have a piece of cake before I come up. And go quietly. Don’t disturb the master.’

‘All right, Cook.’

The kitchen door shut quietly and footsteps came towards the scullery and coalhouse. As the door swung open, the light of a candle shone in, clearly illuminating Harriet.

For a minute the two women looked at one another, then Cook said quietly, ‘As I thought, no one here!’ and turned away.

Harriet felt so sick with relief she couldn’t move for a minute, then took Jane’s hand and led her into the kitchen.

Cook was sitting at the table eating a very small piece of cake. She didn’t look up as they passed through the room, but the cake shook in her fingers and crumbs fell from it.

Harriet opened the back door with the spare key, leaving the usual key on its hook as she had planned. She wanted to leave no signs of how she’d escaped from the house.

She looked back at the other woman and for a minute their eyes met, then Harriet picked up her bag and took the child’s hand.

When they’d left Cook took a cloth and wiped up the coal dust the girl’s feet had carried in then forced herself to eat the rest of the cake, washing the plate carefully and putting it away.

The moon was shining brightly, showing the road ahead quite clearly, but the child slowed Harriet down more than she had expected because Jane was weak and unused to walking, especially uphill. She had to take rests, panted and wheezed at the steeper gradients, and more than once she tripped and fell. She didn’t complain, did her very best, with a look of dumb suffering on her face that made Harriet quite unable to leave her behind.

Several times she fingered the knife in her pocket wondering whether to kill herself first if Andrew caught them, or try to kill him and thus save the lives of many others. No, she’d have to kill herself. She couldn’t face death by hanging, just couldn’t.

At four o’clock in the morning Andrew decided that the night’s romping had made him hungry. He sat up and kicked the girl out of bed. As she lay where she’d fallen, still sound asleep, he decided she’d be useless at getting him some food. Then he grinned. His lady wife could do the honours.

He erupted into the back bedroom, holding a candle in one hand. Harriet was sleeping as primly as she did everything else. With a roar, he kicked the bed and shoved her body hard. Only it wasn’t a body but a rolled quilt, its softness mocking him. He looked round. Where was the bitch? What was she doing out of bed at this hour?

He ran down the stairs but there were no lights burning in any of the rooms and his candle showed him that Harriet wasn’t sitting in the darkness anywhere. He went back to the foot of the stairs and yelled, ‘Get up! Everyone get up and come down here!’

Within minutes Cook, the two housemaids, the governess and his daughters had gathered in the kitchen. Prissy was still asleep, but he didn’t send for her, because he knew she wasn’t involved.

‘Where is she?’ he shouted, thumping the table.

His daughters clung to one another, Marianne starting to sob. He grabbed her arm and shook her hard. ‘Shut up, you stupid little fool!’

It was the governess who spoke. ‘Excuse me, sir, but who exactly are you looking for?’

‘My damned wife!’

There was silence. Everyone stared at one another in shock then back at him.

‘Well? Someone must know where she is.’

They shook their heads.

‘You!’ He pointed to Cook. ‘Go and search all the attics.’

Praying that the maid wouldn’t betray their visit to the kitchen during the night, she left.

Andrew stabbed a finger in the direction of the governess. ‘You go and search all the bedrooms. The rest of you, stay here.’

He searched the ground floor himself, properly this time, looking in every cupboard, behind curtains, anywhere she could have hidden. Harriet wasn’t there.

He rattled the door of the coalhouse as he passed to make sure it was still locked, but didn’t think to look inside.

When everyone, including a yawning Prissy, had gathered again to report that they’d not found a sign of his wife, he stared at them in bafflement then ordered, ‘Stay here!’

He went upstairs to his bedroom, grimacing at the untidiness and smell. Prissy was a hot little wench, but she’d have to learn to wash more often. He’d used others like her over the years, because a virile man could never be satisfied by a
lady
. They didn’t even enjoy it, ladies didn’t.

Harriet had run away, of course. He should have locked her in her room. With a muffled exclamation of exasperation, as much with himself as with her, he began to dress. He’d gone too far. But hell, it was frustrating to be tied to a barren woman when you knew you were capable of siring children.

He stopped on that thought. She’d run away. Who was to say she wouldn’t fall in the darkness, even kill herself? He had been going to call out a search party, but now he changed his mind. He’d take Jad with him and they’d easily overtake her because there was only one place she could go – to her sister’s. Not that Jethro would harbour her. He knew the law as well as anyone.

Andrew went pounding down the stairs again and yelled, ‘Get the fire burning in the kitchen and make me something to eat, quickly!’ He ran across the mill yard and went to hammer on the door of his over-looker’s house, cursing the fellow for being slow to answer. When the door opened at last, he explained what had happened, sent Jad to saddle the horses and went back home.

In the kitchen, he found one of the maids weeping and Cook comforting her. ‘What’s the matter now?’

‘The girl you locked in the coalhouse isn’t there, sir,’ Cook said calmly.

‘What? How the hell could she get out?’ Then a smile slowly spread across his face. ‘My stupid wife must have released her.’ Excellent, he thought as he grabbed a piece of bread and butter from the plate Cook held out to him. Harriet had made a big mistake. The child would slow her down and they’d easily catch up with her. The bitch was stupid as well as barren. But she’d signed her own death warrant now.

20

M
eg couldn’t sleep that night. Holding Sal’s baby in her arms had stirred up so many memories of cuddling her own Nelly at that age. Helping the older children had brought back more: small arms clinging to her, a head drooping against her, a sticky mouth opening to be fed. She lay staring up at the ceiling, fists clenched by her sides, wondering if she was going mad again. After a while, when her thoughts didn’t swirl away into darkness and she remained fully conscious of the bedroom and the faint night noises around her, she decided this grief wasn’t like before. Then she’d nearly gone mad from the pain of her loss and had hardly noticed what was happening around her as she tramped the moors. This time it hurt, yes, but so much had happened since Nelly’s death that the grief was more distant, somehow – part of her, always part of her, but not skewering into her life until it made no sense.

And she didn’t want to run away, but to stay and make a new life here.

She couldn’t get back to sleep so eventually got up and wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, unable to lie there a second longer. She crept down to the kitchen through the darkness of the stairwell, trying to avoid the creaky stairs and nearly falling in the process. With a muffled yelp, she caught hold of the banister and clung to it, bringing herself to a halt halfway down with her heart pounding from shock. After a minute or so she continued slowly and carefully down the rest of the stairs, avoiding the creaky patch at the bottom.

In the house place it was cold, the flagstones chill beneath her feet. Most folk wouldn’t want to be up at this hour without a light, but she’d never felt afraid here.

She poked a splinter of wood into the faint red glow at the centre of the stove and lit a candle, then pulled out the damper to get the fire burning up. There were all sorts of things she could have been doing, but she just sat there at the table. Eh, it was strange. It was as if she was waiting for something to happen, though what she couldn’t imagine.

Worried sick by their slow progress up the hill, Harriet had to wonder if she should leave the girl behind, trying to hide her somewhere away from the road.

As if Jane had read her mind, she tottered to a rock to one side and plumped down on it with a groan. ‘Sorry, missus, but I can’t walk no more. I hurt all over where he hit me.’

‘I know.’ Harriet looked at the scrawny figure in the faint remains of the moonlight and put down her valise, decision taken. She removed the bundle of jewellery from it and tied that to her waist with a ribbon belt, then hid the bag behind a rock about twenty paces from the road, taking careful note of the place. ‘Stand on that rock, child, and I’ll give you a piggy-back. You’re too tired to walk any further and I’m not leaving you behind for them to catch.’

When Jane was settled Harriet looked back, exclaiming in dismay as she saw lights bobbing about further down the hill. It was her husband coming after her, she was certain of that! Who else could it be?

She didn’t say anything, wasn’t sure if Jane had noticed, but set off again, grimly determined to make it to the inn before daylight.

Surely an innkeeper who had helped others escape would agree to hide her?

Jad ran across the village to warn his deputy to take his place at the mill come starting time at six o’clock, then knocked at a few doors to each end of the main street to see if he could find any clue as to which way Mrs Beardsworth had gone. One woman, holding a wailing infant in her arms, thought she’d heard someone pass by heading towards the tops as she was trying to settle her sick baby, but wasn’t sure and couldn’t give a time.

He went back to report this to his master. ‘It’s not certain, but I think she went up the hill, sir.’

Andrew nodded. ‘It makes sense. She’ll be trying to get to her sister’s, though how she thinks she can get so far on foot without us overtaking her, I don’t know. We’ll go up that way and see what we find.’ He looked at Jad meaningfully as he added, ‘I only hope she hasn’t gone over the edge in the darkness.’

‘It’d be a great pity if she had, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes. I’d pay anyone who tried to save her, pay them well too – even if they failed.’

Jad smiled, knowing perfectly well what his master wanted. He’d expected to get his revenge on the bitch, but not this soon. Well, he was always ready to earn extra money and didn’t care how. ‘What about the girl?’

‘She might fall over the edge as well, poor thing. The two of them were together after all and trying to help one another. Very sad.’ After a minute’s contemplation of the pleasure of seeing his wife lying in her coffin, Andrew said briskly, ‘Well, let’s not waste any more time. Have you got some lanterns? It’s still pretty dark.’

Jad squinted at the sky. ‘Horses can see better than we can in the dark and the lanterns will show her where we are.’