Old Sins Long Shadows (45 page)

The coolness of the dairy hit his face as his feet landed on the floor
. He hadn’t been in this room for ten years or more yet nothing had changed. He did not stay to reminisce over teenage adventures. He was on a mission and was soon on his way. He strode through the corridor and into the main kitchens as if the house was his. The rooms were eerily quiet except for Daniel’s boots echoing on the slate floor. His path was lit by moonlight that poured through the windows along his route and with ease he ascended the servant’s stairs two at a time. He knew seeing for himself the place where his wife had been raped was madness, but the act of madness befitted his crazed mind. He wanted to share the pain she had endured and to do that was to see it, envisage it and feel it, as she would have done. He reached the first floor and then the second in quick succession. He had no interest to explore the rest of the house. This was no leisurely sight seeing tour, he was not there for pleasure. He was there to experience hell. On the third floor corridor that led off from the servant’s stairs a flickering glow caught his eye. Daniel stopped and saw the glow from an open fire reflecting on the wall. He realised for the first time he was not alone and he knew, without a doubt, exactly who that would be.

James Brockenshaw sat slumped in the chair looking at the
dancing flames in the fire. He had run out of brandy and sat sulking over his misfortune and too lazy to move. He knew he shouldn’t be here but the landlord of the Inn where he had been staying had evicted him for non payment of his rooms. Tomorrow he would go to Wadebridge and stay with some friends until the sale of the estate was complete, after that he did not know where he would go. His friends were becoming less tolerant of his visits. They had started to lecture him on his drinking and his gambling, the very same friends who only a few years ago encouraged him in such antics. Even his mother had refused to see him, calling him a drunk and a disappointment. Disappointment was the same word his father had used to describe him. Even that servant girl had looked at him with pure hatred. What was her name again, his befuddled mind tried to recall, Janey Carhart now Kellow. Kellow, his mind worked slowly in the haze of brandy fumes, Kellow, he knew that name. Suddenly it was as if the man himself had come out of his head, reached down and grabbed him by the collar. Hauling him to his feet, his face no more than a breath away, Daniel spat in his face.

‘
You bastard!’ Daniel roared, shaking Brockenshaw by the collar.

‘
Get your stinking hands off me!’ he demanded, struggling to free himself from the vice like grip. Daniel ignored him and instead started to drag him out of the room.

‘
I should kill you for what you did,’ he ground out.

‘What are you talking about?  Get off me.’  James’s breath stunk of spirit but Daniel did not care. He pulled him up towards his face so their noses almost touched.

‘
You raped my wife and I’m going to make you pay!’

Daniel dragged him from the room like a heavy sack of flour, while Brockenshaw stumbled and fell
as he fought to free himself. Both men fell heavily at the base of the servant’s stairs but Daniel quickly regained his balance and started to ascend the steps with Brockenshaw in tow.

‘
Where are you taking me?’ cried his prisoner.

‘
You are going to show me her room. You are going to show me where you raped her.’ Daniel sounded possessed, consumed with a steely determination to succeed in his quest.

‘
I didn’t rape her,’ cried James.

‘
Are you calling my wife a liar?’  Brockenshaw realised whatever he answered would not please Daniel.

‘
It was a mistake, nothing more.’  Daniel pulled him to his feet and slammed him against the wall.

‘
A mistake, you say?  Are you calling my wife a mistake?’ Brockenshaw tried to wriggle free but couldn’t. Once again Daniel was off, climbing the steps and heaving a stumbling Brockenshaw behind him. Panting, they both arrived at the dark servant’s quarters and Daniel finally pushed Brockenshaw ahead of him.

‘
Which room was it?  This one?’ he slammed Brockenshaw against a door, ‘or this one?’ Again Brockenshaw’s body hit a closed door caused by the force of Daniel’s push.

‘
It was that one, down there,’ whimpered the man, feeling scared for his life for the first time.

‘
So you admit you were here in the servant’s quarters. What would the son of the lord be doing in the servant’s quarters?’

He marched him down the corridor holding Brockenshaw’s arm tightly bent behind his back to the door that had once been Janey’s room
. Reaching across Daniel opened it and he pushed Brockenshaw inside who fell sprawling to the floor.

Daniel had expected to see an empty room, perhaps a bed and a chest of drawers
but nothing more. He had not expected to see Janey’s uniform hanging neatly on a coat hanger on the wardrobe door. On her bed lay her white lace cap as if waiting for her to pick it up and place it on her head. A delicately embroidered cushion lay on the bed, sewn, no doubt, by her hand. Daniel blinked. He had not expected to see the room as if she had just left it for a moment and would soon return. Brockenshaw was rising to his feet but Daniel did not see. His eyes had fallen on a pair of wooden patten shoes placed neatly by the wall. The same patten shoes he had concealed in his coat in order to trick her into taking a ride on his horse.

He should be near her, not here in this house wallowing in
the pain of self pity. She needed him and he was not with her. She may even be dead. How could she be dead and he not be by her side?  Daniel did not see the fist fly through the air but he did feel the pain as it cracked into his cheek. His head snapped back but he remained standing, although dazed. Brockenshaw fled the room and coming to his senses Daniel followed him in hot pursuit down the stone steps and onto the third level of the manor. Furniture covered in white dust sheets appeared like strange apparitions haunting the dimly lit rooms they ran through. Brockenshaw had the advantage of knowing his route but Daniel was the faster and more agile. Dodging tables and jumping over stools Daniel soon gained on the drunken man who tripped and stumbled his way through the house that had once been his home.

  Brockenshaw opened a door and suddenly they were running out onto the balcony of the grand staircase
. The ornately carved stairs wound its way down to the ground floor and into the front hall. In his hurry and fearful that Daniel was about to catch him, he looked behind. The shock at seeing Daniel so near and confirming his fears made him stumble backwards against the banister. The wood splintered and broke under his weight and he suddenly disappeared from view. Daniel slid to a halt, his breathing coming hard and fast, waiting for the thud of his body to hit the tiled floor below, but no sound came. Slowly he stepped forward and looked over the edge of the stairs to the ground floor. Hanging by his fingertips Brockenshaw swung preciously from the ledge, he was at Daniel’s mercy and his face crumpled in terror as Daniel smiled down at him. Daniel slowly lifted his foot and placed his heel on Brockenshaw’s fingers.

‘
I should crush your fingers to a bloody pulp and watch you fall to your death,’ he said in a chillingly relaxed tone. There was no empathy in his voice for the man that hung below him. ‘No one would mourn you. You are a disgrace to your family name. It makes a change to have me looking down on you. I am the wealthier of the two of us and I have Janey. Whereas you…’  He left the sentence unfinished; they both knew he was highlighting the mess Brockenshaw had made of his life. He lightly pressed his heel on his fingers and Brockenshaw, fearful that his life was about to end, whimpered as he felt the warmth of his own urine seep through his britches. ‘I would die a happy man knowing I rid the world of you,’ Daniel mused. He looked up and noticed the sky beginning to lighten. Agnes had told him to stay away until sunrise. It was time he returned home. ‘It will be dawn soon and I have somewhere else I’d rather be and as much as I want to kill you, I promised my wife I would not end my life on a hangman’s rope because of you.’  With one movement Daniel reached down, grabbed Brockenshaw’s hand and pulled him to safety, but he had not forgiven him. With all his might he kicked Brockenshaw in the stomach where he lay expending a small part of his hatred for the man. Unable to look at him further he spun on his heel and walked away to find out if it was his wife or this man’s baby that had survived the night. He left Brockenshaw curled on the floor holding his stomach and rocking with pain.

‘I’ll make you pay for this, Kellow!’ he shouted. His threat meant nothing to Daniel.

‘
I have a house full of witnesses who will vouch I am at home on this night and what would you say?’ shouted back Daniel, ‘That I came after you because you raped my wife?  That I saved you from a fall?  You have no case to charge me. You are a fool, a drunken fool, with no home, no money, no family and no future!’ 

The man lay on the floor listening to Daniel’s footsteps recede into the shadows
. His clothes stank of urine and their dampness chilled his bones. He had been terrorised, beaten and humiliated in his own home and he would not forget this night easily. He would get his revenge, one way or another, he would make Kellow pay.

A week later, while working, Daniel heard a baby’s cry from the other side of the farmyard. He hesitated, not wanting to confront the perpetrator. However, the wailing grew so, with long purposeful strides, he crossed the yard and entered the farmhouse by the back door.

The house appeared empty but for the cradle
by the range and its occupant. Seven days ago, while his wife lay dying in his arms, he had promised her that he would look after her baby. For seven days he had avoided the baby girl that had eventually been dragged from her body. It had been Janey’s choice to call her daughter Hope and the baby, born three weeks premature, could wake the dead with her cry.

‘
Edna!’ he called out irritably, ‘the baby’s squalling!’  It was unlike Edna to not be cooing over the baby. He glanced in the front room and up the stairs but there was no sign of the old woman. He looked warily back at the cradle. The persistent crying was beginning to grate on his nerves but it wasn’t himself he was concerned about. He edged towards the cradle and looked in.

The baby, mouth open wide and eyes closed shut, screamed for attention
. Her arms were thin and her hands, balled into fists, punched the air with frustration. She had kicked off her blankets showing spindly legs with overlarge feet. Her face, flushed red in anger, hinted at the obstinacy in her that had helped her to survive. She stopped her crying and tried to catch her breath, gulping and hiccupping. Suddenly, Daniel was frightened she was having difficulty breathing. He called for Edna again but there was no reply. He need not have worried, the scrawny thing started her crying again, demanding attention and refusing to give up. By now Daniel was looking directly down at the strange miniature human that seemed oblivious of his presence. Since her birth he had avoided her, unable to look at the baby that had caused so much pain. Her screams had now changed as she began to tire and her bottom lip trembled between each cry. One finger unfurled from each fist and Daniel thought she looked as if she was a conductor conducting an orchestra. Without realising it the thought made him smile but he was too engrossed in watching this little person move. Accidently the little girl poked herself in the eye making her cry louder but then the finger went into her mouth and she suddenly clamped her mouth around it and started to suck. Now that her mouth was occupied a silence descended, broken only by her noisy sucking. How powerful her suck was, thought Daniel, how strong the instinct is to survive. As if listening to his thoughts the baby raised her eyebrows causing him to smile again. How strange, he thought, to see such a tiny mite have all the same movements as an adult human being. He wondered if she was dreaming. Do babies dream?  Was she dreaming she was having her dinner or was it all instinct and nothing more?

He reached down and with one finger touched her other hand
. The skin, almost transparent, felt as soft as a petal. His finger was grabbed by a little hand and she held on to it tightly with a strength that surprised him. He noticed her cheeks were covered with a soft downy hair. He had heard Edna tell Molly that the hair would fall away over the next few weeks. Now, for the first time, Daniel had taken the time to see what they were talking about.

With a struggle he prised his finger away from her grasp but immediately reached down and picked her up
. He didn’t need to do it, the baby girl had stopped crying, but Daniel had become inquisitive to the cuckoo in his nest. Carefully he held her against his chest, supporting her head just as Edna had taught Molly. The baby immediately snuggled into him, even appearing to climb up his chest until she could go no higher as her head touched the bottom of his jaw. He was glad he had taken the time to shave that morning as he felt her delicate head against his skin. She was warm and had the sweet smell of milk and sleep about her. The little hair she had, felt like wisps of frayed silk against his lips as he ran his mouth against the top of her head.

Carefully, he walked to the kitchen w
indow to look for Edna, but instead his reflection appeared in the glass of the pane. It was a strange sight to see himself carrying a baby in his arms. She had fallen asleep against him, her little lips now quiet and at peace. Her trust in him was total and unquestioned. She did not fear him, she did not judge him, she did not question him.