Briar Patch (19 page)

Carrie was probably meeting a man. Mary Jane wondered whether she should tell Ellen or Tom what she'd seen. They might think she was spying and say it wasn't her business, and maybe they were right. Yet if Carrie was seeing a man it might result in yet another baby and that would be one too many. It was going to be hard enough when Mary Jane gave birth to her own baby. Carrie hardly ever did anything for her daughter, except feed her and it was left to either Ellen or Mary Jane to change her and soothe her when she cried. Carrie's daughter would be a toddler by the time Mary Jane gave birth and more difficult than she was now. If Carrie had another baby it would make too much work.

It was time Ellen took a firmer hand with her daughter. Maybe she'd wait until her mother-in-law was in a mellow mood to tell her what she'd seen. Perhaps she ought to have waited to discover who owned the horse she'd seen tied up outside the cottage, but she'd been satisfied to know where Carrie went. At least if she was late another day, Mary Jane could tell Tom where to find her. That might be the best. Say nothing for now and let him discover what his sister was up to for himself.

Twelve

‘Carrie didn't sleep in her bed last night.' Ellen looked at Tom anxiously. ‘That girl will be the death of me. She has stayed out for hours before, even missed her supper – but the babe was crying half the night. I gave her a bottle of warm cow's milk and she quietened, but she's fretful this morning and she was sick. She still needs her mother's milk.'

‘Do you want me to look for her?' Tom asked. ‘I haven't much on this morning other than the milking and mucking out the sheds. If Mary Jane helps with the milking as usual I'll go as soon as I've done.'

‘You couldn't go before you clean out the sheds? I'm sorry to ask it, Tom, but I've got a strange feeling. She always comes home at night. I think something has happened to her.'

‘All right, Mary Jane can get on with the milking and I'll search for Carrie. I'll give her a good telling off when I find her. She's been allowed too much freedom, Ma.'

‘Yes, I know. It's just that I've had so much to do with your pa. I'm washing sheets three times a day, Tom. If it weren't for Mary Jane, I don't know what I'd do.'

‘She's a good girl,' Tom acknowledged. He pushed his chair back after draining his tea. ‘I'll eat later. If Carrie is hurt and lying out in the fields she could catch her death of cold.'

‘That's what worries me,' Ellen admitted. ‘Wrap up warm, Tom. It's freezing out.'

‘There was a frost last night.' Tom met his mother's worried look. ‘I know what you're thinking, Ma, but our Carrie isn't daft enough to stay out in the fields all night. She'd find somewhere to keep warm.'

‘If she could,' his mother agreed, ‘but I feel something bad has happened to her, Tom. I felt it last night. I should've told you then, but I kept thinking she would creep in late and go to bed, as she has before this.'

‘I'll find her,' Tom promised, pulled his old felt hat down low over his brow, and went out.

Mary Jane entered the kitchen a few minutes later. ‘I've been seeing to the baby,' she said. ‘She was crying because she was wet, but she's settled now.'

‘You'll make a wonderful mother,' Ellen told her. ‘Eat your breakfast, lass. You'll have to start the milking alone. Tom had to go somewhere.'

‘He said he would give me a hand,' Mary Jane said and sat down. ‘It won't be long before he'll have to help me a bit. I shan't be able to do it all in a month or two.'

‘What do you mean?' Ellen looked at her sharply. ‘Are you saying you're having a baby?'

‘Yes, I think so. I asked Ma yesterday and she said the signs were all there. Do you think Tom will be pleased?'

‘Yes, I dare say,' Ellen said and sighed. ‘We may have to take another girl on for a while but it isn't your fault. We should have expected it to happen sooner or later.'

‘You wish it had been later.' Mary Jane gave her a sulky look. ‘I'm Tom's wife, not a slave.'

‘Don't take it like that, lass. You know how I'm pushed – listen, he's started again and I've only just come down from seeing to him. Sometimes I wish the good Lord would take him out my way.'

‘Ellen!' Mary Jane looked at her in shock. ‘You shouldn't say things like that – Ma says we're punished for bad thoughts as much as bad deeds.' She crossed herself quickly.

Ellen turned away and went upstairs. She had a terrible feeling that she was about to be punished for a great many bad thoughts.

Carrie was getting to be a lot of trouble. Tom had always loved his sister despite her dreaming and her strange ways. He'd felt it was his duty to look after her but just recently he'd been too caught up with his own dreams to give her more than a passing thought. His mother had complained about Carrie wandering off for long periods. Tom ought to have made it his business to find out where she went and make her see that her baby was her responsibility and not Ellen's.

Mary Jane had worked so hard since they were wed and he knew it wasn't fair on her. He'd asked her to be his wife, not to work like a slave. Even with the extra man Tom had taken on he'd had more than enough to do himself. It would be best to buy the land he wanted and take on a lad to do some of the work his wife was currently doing. Money might be tight for a while but in another year the new stock would make all the difference to their income. Clearly they couldn't rely on Carrie to do much, but if Ellen were not so rushed she could keep an eye on the girl and stop her wandering off.

Tom knew how much Carrie loved the wild meadow in summer so he went down to the stream and walked along the bank to the beginning of Thornton land. He'd been half afraid he might find her body caught in the reeds and felt better as he walked on to the village. Seeing the vicar's wife in her garden, he asked if she'd seen his sister.

‘Not for several days, Tom. She sometimes comes to see me and stops for a glass of my cordial but I haven't seen her recently.'

‘She didn't come home last night. Ma was worried and I promised I'd find her. If anyone mentions seeing her, would you send word?'

‘Yes, of course. I'll tell the vicar. If you don't find her let us know and we'll rouse the village. Everyone likes Carrie, Tom. We should be sorry if anything happened to her.'

‘I expect she's just dreaming and doesn't even realize we're worried about her.'

Tom took a shortcut through the lane that crossed between his and Thornton's land. Carrie wouldn't have crossed over, would she? He glanced across the flat fields at a windmill and some barns in the distance. He knew there was a cottage on the edge of Thornton's land that had once been used by a farm manager but had been empty for a while, since before the old squire died. Shaking his head, he walked towards the hay barn. For a moment his stomach clenched as he recalled the day he'd sheltered from the rain with Roz. Then, as he saw something lying on the ground, his heart lurched and he ran towards what he could now see was a body.

Carrie's body. She seemed to be lying in an odd position with her head on one side. She was dead. A wave of grief and pain swathed through him as he knelt by her side and touched her cheek. He could see at once that there was no hope and she felt like ice. He didn't need to be told that she'd been dead for hours.

Tears trickled down his cheeks as he ran his hands over her face, stroking her hair back from her cheek. Poor little lost Carrie. What had happened to her? Tom looked round for the cause of her accident – if it had been an accident? What had made her fall and how had she come to be spread out this way – almost as if someone had placed her there and arranged her limbs.

He sat back on his heels, his brow furrowed. Her death wasn't natural. It looked to him as if her neck had snapped but how? There was nothing to trip her, nothing for her to strike her head against.

What ought he to do? His mother was waiting for news. She grumbled about Carrie but she would be devastated by her death, just as Tom was himself. He looked about him but knew there was no one to help. Everyone would be seeing to the cows or the morning chores. He supposed he ought to fetch a constable and let him see how she was lying because there was something wrong – something suspicious about it – but he couldn't go and leave her here now he'd found her. She was dead. Nothing was going to change that so he might as well take her home to her mother.

Tom wiped the tears from his cheek. He got to his feet, bent down and lifted Carrie into her arms. He was choking with grief and regret, blaming himself for not watching out for her more. He would take Carrie home and fetch the doctor, then he'd go into Wisbech and report that his sister had had an accident of some sort. The last thing he wanted was people asking questions and upsetting everyone. But he wouldn't forget what he'd seen and he'd find out what had happened somehow. If he discovered that Carrie's death wasn't an accident he would thrash the man who'd murdered her.

It had to be a man, perhaps the father of her child if, as he'd begun to suspect, Carrie had lied to them about the old squire raping her.

Ellen ran to meet Tom as he walked into the yard carrying his sister's body. She saw the way Carrie's head was flopping and screamed at him.

‘Where did you find her?'

‘She was lying near the hay barn, Ma. She must have fallen or something. I don't know how it could have happened. There's blood in the back of her hair but when I lifted her there was none on the grass.'

‘What are you saying?' Ellen's face was grey with shock and fear. ‘You mean she was put there? Was she murdered? Tom, who killed her? Some devil has hurt our Carrie.'

‘I'll fetch the doctor and tell him Carrie's had an accident. We've got enough to cope with as it is without having the law out here nosing about.'

‘I think she may have lied about the old squire,' Ellen said. ‘I reckon she's been seeing someone else and it's him that done this to her.'

‘Well, it's our fault for letting her wander off,' Tom countered. ‘If I find out who did this, I'll make him pay. I promise you he won't get away with this, Ma.'

Mary Jane had come out of the dairy. She followed them into the kitchen, watching as Tom placed his sister's body gently on the old sofa.

‘What's wrong with her?'

‘She's dead,' Ellen said, tears were running down her cheeks. ‘Our Carrie's dead, lass. Tom found her up by the hay barn.'

‘She wasn't there when I walked back from my mother's last night. I went right past it and I'd have seen her.'

‘Tom thinks she was put there.'

‘You mean . . . she was murdered?' Mary Jane's face went white. ‘No . . . she was all right when I saw her earlier . . .'

‘I thought you said she wasn't near the hay barn?' Tom's gaze fixed on her face, his tone harsh. ‘When did you see her?'

‘I saw her when I left here yesterday. I wondered where she was going so I followed her . . . she went into the empty cottage on the Thornton estate.' Mary Jane swallowed hard. ‘Don't look at me like that, Tom. I didn't know he was going to . . .'

‘Who?' Tom moved towards her, his expression thunderous. ‘What are you trying to say? Was she with someone – a man?'

‘There was a horse tied to the post outside.' Mary Jane swallowed hard. ‘I don't know whose it was, Tom. I just saw her go into the cottage and I left. I wanted to see my ma.'

‘Why the hell didn't you tell us last night?' He took her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘I might have found her alive.'

‘Let go. You're hurting me.'

‘Stop that, Tom. It isn't Mary Jane's fault.'

Tom let her go abruptly and she stumbled forward but righted herself by grabbing the back of a chair, looking at him sullenly.

‘How was I to know she was in danger?'

‘You couldn't have known but it's a pity you didn't tell us, lass.' Ellen looked at Tom. ‘Where are you going?'

‘To fetch the doctor and then to Wisbech. After that I'm going to Thornton's cottage. If that's where she was killed I might find evidence there . . .'

‘Dick died because he went off in a temper the time Carrie was attacked. Think what you're doing, Tom.'

Tom glared at his mother. ‘You don't want him punished?'

‘Aye, I do – but do it the right way. Let the doctor give his opinion and then go to the law. If he killed her he should hang but I don't want you hung for murder. We can't manage the farm without you.'

Tom muttered beneath his breath and went out, leaving Mary Jane and Ellen staring at each other in silence.

‘He won't do anything daft, will he?'

‘Tom has more sense than his brother,' Ellen said. ‘Sit down, lass. You look all in.'

‘I feel shaky,' Mary Ellen said. ‘If you don't mind I'll go upstairs and change the sheets on Carrie's bed. You'll want her laid out properly once the doctor has been.'

‘Why don't you have a lie down yourself afterwards? You're as white as a sheet, lass.'

‘I feel a bit odd,' Mary Jane said and then gave a little shriek and clutched at her belly. ‘It hurts, Ellen. It's sharp like my courses only worse.' Her eyes widened in horror. ‘I'm bleeding. I can feel it running down my leg.'

‘Go up and lie on your bed.' Ellen looked at her sadly. ‘It sounds like a miscarriage. I've had three in my time. The shock of seeing Carrie like that – and Tom shouting the way he did. He didn't know, lass. He'd have been more careful if he had.'