Break of Dawn (14 page)

‘I told you, didn’t I? I told you what would happen and I have been proved right. Not only does she want the elder brother but she has corrupted the younger, too. She’s vile, wicked, and I told you.’

Jeremiah glanced at Patience for an explanation, but it was David who stepped forward and faced his father. ‘Sophy and I went for a walk and – and I kissed her. It was my fault, she had nothing to do with it.’

‘Nothing to do with it? Oh, you foolish boy.’ Mary’s voice was rapier-thin. ‘She encouraged you, don’t you see? A girl like her knows a thousand tricks to lead a man on. It’s in her blood, she was born to it.’

‘That’s enough, Mary.’

Far from deflating her rage, her husband’s voice fanned it. Beside herself, Mary took a step forward, looking straight into Sophy’s stiff face, her own features contorted as though she was looking at something repulsive. ‘A whore born of a whore, that’s what’s been nourished in this house. That is what my children have been forced to consort with all their lives. Your mother was a scarlet woman, do you hear me? And she took her lovers by soliciting from the stage instead of the streets. She couldn’t even put a name to which one had sired you, there were so many.’

‘
Mary.
’

‘Don’t “Mary” me. You, you’d let your sons be defiled by her, wouldn’t you? Your own sons. That – that
harlot
.’

‘It’s not true.’ Sophy spoke for the first time, her voice strangely flat-sounding. ‘My mother was married to a French nobleman and he died.’

‘Your
mother
was an actress in the music halls in London, a hussy who flagrantly displayed herself to any man who could afford her,’ Mary said relentlessly. ‘She might have had the odd nobleman or two, but they paid like everyone else.’

The crack of her husband’s hand across her face sent Mary reeling backwards, and but for the ornamental fireguard she would have fallen into the fire. As it was she landed with her hands stretched either side of her and resting on the oak mantelpiece, her thin body stretched backwards.

For a moment everyone was rigidly still. Jeremiah fully expected Mary to retaliate by word and action but she simply looked at him, a look of such loathing and bitterness it was a wonder it didn’t burn him up where he stood. And then without a word she slowly straightened away from the mantelpiece and walked out of the room.

Jeremiah stood exactly where he was, his head thudding. He was not a violent man. He had never raised his hand to man, woman or child before this day. And now he had hit his wife, he had struck Mary. Dear God, what had possessed him? And why wasn’t he feeling remorse? He should, shouldn’t he? He was a man of the cloth.

‘Father?’

David’s face was white and shocked but Jeremiah’s glance passed over his son to the slim young girl standing silent and still. He had never felt so inadequate in his life. ‘Your mother wasn’t as bad as your aunt has painted,’ he said softly. ‘Come and sit down and let me explain. David, can you leave us. You, too, Patience.’

‘No, let them stay.’ Sophy still didn’t move. ‘Is it true? What she said?’

Jeremiah cleared his throat. Patience had gone to stand with Sophy and had put her arm round her cousin, her face as shocked
and horrified as David’s. ‘Your mother was always determined to follow her own star, Sophy,’ he said, struggling for words. ‘Even as a child she wasn’t happy in the village, she wanted more, but it led to her being taken advantage of.’

‘So she was an actress in the music halls?’

He nodded. ‘She ran away from here when she was fifteen years old.’

‘And my father? Did – did she know who my father was?’

‘Like I said, your mother was taken advantage of. It happens to the best of women when they are in a vulnerable situation.’

‘So I am a—’

‘You are my niece.’ For the first time in sixteen years Jeremiah went some way in redeeming himself. ‘And part of this family.’

‘No, I have never been part of this family, Uncle.’ Sophy glanced from Jeremiah to Patience, whose eyes were swimming in tears, and then David. When her cousin couldn’t meet her gaze, it brought home to her what she could expect if anyone found out the truth about her.

She bent, picking up her fur bonnet which had loosened and fallen to the floor at some point in the proceedings, and then straightened. Quietly turning away, and ignoring Patience’s anguished, ‘Sophy, wait,’ she walked out of the room, shutting the door carefully behind her.

Sophy left in the middle of the night. She would have gone without saying goodbye to anyone, but after she had packed her clothes in her valise and stuffed Maisie and a few other personal items she possessed into an old carpet bag, Patience stirred on the other side of the room. Sophy was halfway to the door when Patience sat up in bed. ‘Sophy? What are you doing?’

‘Ssh.’ She walked quickly over to Patience’s bed. ‘Keep your voice down.’

‘What’s happening?’ Patience peered at her in the dim light from the window, the white world outside reflecting the moonlight. It had snowed a little that afternoon but the evening had turned clear and a heavy sparkling frost had fallen which sat on the snow like diamond dust. ‘What have you got your coat on for? You’re not— No, you’re not thinking of leaving!’

‘I have to.’ Sophy sat down on the end of the bed. ‘I can’t stay, not after today. You must see that.’

‘No, I don’t. I don’t, Sophy, and Father wouldn’t want you to go like this.’

‘I don’t think that’s quite true. One way or another, I think I’ve caused quite a bit of trouble for him over the years. Anyway, I want to go. I’ve wanted to for ages.’

‘But you can’t.’ Patience reached out and grabbed her cousin’s hand, her lank brown hair which was drawn with excruciating tightness each night into curling papers bobbing as she knelt up. ‘I won’t let you. We’re friends now, aren’t we? And I’ve been longing for you to come home. It’s so awful here with just Mother and Father all day, and the boys are hardly home at all in the evenings. I don’t blame them, I wish I could escape too.’

Sophy smiled sadly to herself. Since the revelation about her mother, Patience had been as nice as pie to her, which was kind of her, it really was, but she couldn’t help feeling that now she was no longer a perceived threat where Mr Travis was concerned – for no respectable curate would dream of declaring an interest in a girl with her background – it had coloured Patience’s attitude somewhat. The thought of her mother weakened Sophy; she had deliberately put everything out of her head but packing and escaping the confines of the house while she had been getting ready to leave. She would think about her mother when she could bear to, but not now.

‘I can’t stay,’ she said again, extricating her fingers from Patience’s hand. ‘I have to go.’

‘But how will you manage? Where will you go? And it’s the middle of the night. At least wait till morning and let Father take you somewhere.’

‘I – I don’t want to see anyone.’ For a moment Sophy’s voice almost broke, but then she cleared her throat and a trace of bitterness showed through when she muttered, ‘My mother managed perfectly well, didn’t she, and she was a year younger than me when she ran away.’

Her uncle had come and sat with her earlier that evening and explained exactly what had happened to his sister, the life she had led, and the events which had driven her to seek refuge in her old home just before Sophy’s birth. He had tried to be kind as well as honest, but nevertheless, his abhorrence at his sister’s defilement had shown through. He had told her it had been his wish that she never find out the truth about her mother, but in a strange way Sophy was glad she had. It explained so much, not least the passion
that burned in her when she sang and danced and had acted in the little plays and soirées the school had put on. She was her mother’s daughter. Her eyes took on the hardness of polished amber. But she would never let herself be used by men as her mother had. She would die first.

‘Sophy, please stay.’ Patience tried one last time. ‘No one has to know about your mother; everything could be the same as before.’

They both knew that wasn’t true. Pandora’s box had been opened and there was no going back. Besides which, Sophy told herself fiercely, she wouldn’t live another day under the same roof as her aunt. ‘I can’t,’ she said for the third time, her voice stronger. ‘I’m sorry, Patience.’ She leaned forward and hugged her cousin briefly, before standing up. ‘You go back to sleep.’

‘Wait.’ Patience had slid out of bed. ‘You’ll need money. Wait here a minute.’

Before Sophy could stop her, Patience had flitted out of the room like a little white ghost in her voluminous nightdress, leaving Sophy in an agony of suspense and frightened that her cousin might rouse the house. She needn’t have worried. Patience was back in two or three minutes. ‘Here.’ She thrust a handful of notes into her cousin’s hands. ‘This will give you a bit of a start at least.’

‘I can’t take this.’ Sophy couldn’t see clearly but it felt like a good deal of money. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘Out of Mother’s cash box. Don’t worry, I shall tell her I gave it to you, I promise. She owes you far more than this, Sophy, the way you have worked for her for years, and I know she has quite a bit hidden away from her housekeeping elsewhere too. I saw her once, when she didn’t know I was about, counting notes into a cloth bag which she concealed in the back of her wardrobe, and since the boys have started work they give her their board too. She’s always going on about the cost of things and what she has to pay out to the tradesmen and so on, but there’s quite a lot in that bag, I can tell you.’

‘But why would she do that? What can she possibly be saving it for?’ Sophy asked in amazement.

Patience shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

Bridget had always used to say that there was nowt so queer as folk, and she was right, Sophy thought. What was the use of piles of money in a bag at the back of the wardrobe?

‘Anyway, take what I’ve given you. You’ll need it.’ Patience now hugged Sophy, holding her close for a long moment which touched Sophy more than anything else. ‘And write to me when you’re settled and let me know you’re all right.’

Sophy didn’t reply to this. Heartsore and smarting from her aunt’s revelation, which had made her feel she didn’t know who she was any more, she wanted to cut all threads which held her to the Hutton family and Southwick. Instead, she whispered, ‘I can’t take this money, Patience.’

‘You can and you are going to, else I’ll wake the whole house and tell them you’re leaving. You’ve earned it, Sophy, you know you have. And I shall tell Mother exactly that.
And
that I know about the bag in the wardrobe. She won’t make a fuss if she knows I’m on to that.’

The boys, and Patience too. Her aunt had no one who cared about her, but right at this moment in time Sophy couldn’t feel a shred of pity for the woman who had made her life a misery whenever she could, and who’d ripped her apart with her tongue earlier.

She stuffed the notes into the carpet bag and put on her bonnet, wanting to get away before it was light. Normally she would have been in fear and trepidation at the thought of leaving the vicarage in the middle of the night and walking into Bishopwearmouth, but now it was as nothing. And the money Patience had given her
would
enable her to put a good distance between herself and Sunderland.

A little while ago she had imagined herself begging a lift on one of the dray carts or farmers’ wagons out of the town, it didn’t matter where, just so long as she got away. There were bound to be barns where she could sleep. She hadn’t thought what she would do about food; or at least she
had
thought about it but put it from her mind, but now that immediate worry was gone. She had money. She would survive.

‘Goodbye, Patience.’ The two girls didn’t embrace again before Sophy left the bedroom, holding her boots and the carpet bag in one hand and the valise in the other. She trod carefully down the wooden stairs, which creaked and grumbled at the best of times, but then she was in the hall where she stopped and put on her boots.

The bolts on the front door rasped a little but not too loudly, and when she pulled it open the cold icy air took her breath away for a moment but also sent the adrenaline flooding her system. She shut the door quietly but her back was straight and her chin up as she walked down the drive, pausing only for a moment at the gates which led out on to the lane. But she didn’t look back. Instead she took a deep breath, squared her slim shoulders, and walked on.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said Sophy left for good early this morning and I gave her the contents of your cash box to help speed her on her way. I didn’t think you’d mind, considering you’ve wanted rid of her for years, Mother.’ Patience had been dressed for some time but had waited until the hall clock struck eight o’clock before walking into her mother’s room. This had once been the spare bedroom but her mother had moved into it shortly after she and Sophy had gone to school. Now, when the bishop came to stay, which was more and more infrequent due to his advanced years, he had David’s room and her brother shared with Matthew for the duration of the bishop’s visit.

Her mother had been sitting up in bed reading when she had knocked at the bedroom door. A book of devotional prayers. Now she slung the book aside and swung her legs out of bed as she cried, ‘Are you mad, girl? There was over four pounds in that box. Help me get dressed, I need to tell your father to go after her.’

‘There was four pounds and ten shillings to be exact, Mother. I counted. Of course, how much is in the bag in your wardrobe I have no idea. You would know that better than me.’

Mary froze. Her body remained rigid but her head turned, her
eyes boring into those of her daughter’s. ‘You’ve been snooping in my room?’

‘Not exactly. The door was ajar one day and I saw you, that’s all.’

‘How dare you.’ Mary’s voice was low but deadly.

‘I haven’t said anything to anyone – anyone except Sophy, that is. She didn’t want to accept the money from the cash box but I explained you had plenty more, besides which she was owed a lot more than four pounds if you count all the years she has worked for nothing.’