Eppie (44 page)

Weary almost beyond endurance, Eppie sighed; thankful that cooling
rain and blissful rest were not far off. To her dismay, she spied du Quesne,
who had wound himself into an irritable, hot-tempered mood, riding fast towards
her.

‘Never before, Strawhead, have I known anyone as dilatory as
you.’

Intent on punishing her, he set her to collecting stones
from amongst the stubble, to be carted away to mend drinking places for
cattle. 

Massaging her aching back, Martha looked up to see Eppie
trudging before du Quesne, her besmirched smock sagging around her filthy knees
with the weight of the load. She saw not the peasant and the lord, but the
daughter and the father.

Fortunately for Eppie, a distraction in the cornfield
averted du Quesne’s attention.

Taking yet another trip to the brewery wagon, Bill Hix had
used a short-cut through uncut corn when a mouse scampered up the leg of his
trousers. ‘Na! Na!’ he yelled in surprise and revulsion. Scampering around like
a dizzy dragonfly, he attempted to unbuckle his belt. ‘Geroff me!’

Glad of a diversion from their labours, harvesters stood
around laughing about Bill’s misfortune.

Seeing the mouse scuttle across the corn stubble, Sukey
grabbed her father’s scythe. Bashing the ground as the creature ran past, she unwittingly
slashed the blade into a hornets’ nest. The looped hazel twig attached to the
bottom of the shaft, which laid the cut corn evenly, snapped.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Bill bellowed. ‘You’ve broke me
bow.’

Sukey raced around, arms whirling, trying to escape the
torment of the wasps. ‘I never touched yer stupid scythe!’

Reapers guffawed at her blatant lie.

Scowling at Eppie, Sukey cried, ‘Snigger at me would ya,
hey?’

‘I’m not,’ Eppie answered, startled.  

In the girl’s eyes, as she hurtled towards her, Eppie saw burning
hatred. She backed off and made to run. Sukey was too quick for her.

Knocked to the ground, she tried to fend Sukey off as she tugged
at the ribbons under her chin. Her bonnet torn off, her burnt ear and singed
locks were exposed for all to see. Some reapers chuckled at her odd appearance.
Others turned away, saddened and embarrassed for her.

Fast and furious, Wakelin raced up, cursing Sukey.

Du Quesne sniffed disdainfully. ‘By the deuce, Dunham, I
will be glad when you are muck-man. Then I will no longer have to suffer your rank
comportment.’

‘Muck-man?’ He span around to face du Quesne. ‘No way. Not
me.’    

‘It is the ideal job for you. No respectable man is prepared
to take on the task.’

‘I ain’t respectable?’

‘I am glad to see you recognise the fact,’ du Quesne said derisively.

‘We’ve cut the last sheaf!’ Edmund shouted. ‘Let’s go a-drowning!’

Wakelin joined the eager crowd of field-farers and ditchers
hurrying towards the harvest-wain. Drawn by garlanded horses, it had pulled in
at the field entrance.

Maddened by Wakelin’s bullishness, du Quesne hitched
Ranger’s bridle into his left hand and, with his free hand, drew an ivory-handled
pistol from his waistcoat.

Eppie recognised it as the pistol he had used to kill
Gillow.

‘Not another step, Dunham,’ du Quesne demanded. ‘For your
mulish attitude you shall labour on until darkness, at the ditches.’  

Distressed for Wakelin, Eppie and Martha watched him
traverse the field, his head lolling between his broad sloping shoulders as
though he were looking for something lost in the stubble.

Although du Quesne and Maygott rode swiftly past him on
their way to the manor house, they paid them no heed. 

Filled with sadness for Wakelin, Eppie turned her attention
to the harvest-wain. Boughs of oak and ash, festooned with flowers, projected
over its sides. The wagoners had returned dressed, as tradition would have it,
in women’s garb. Tiredness forgotten, the villagers and itinerant workers
cracked jokes. Hastily, the rake-maker’s wife fashioned a corn doll, the female
spirit, from the last sheaf.

Seeing Gabriel riding up to the wain, Eppie nearly fainted
away with shock. Compared to his sallow complexion when he had left home, he
looked the epitome of health, his skin tanned, hair lightened.

She instinctively shrank back, hoping he would not spot her,
that she would be lost in the crowd. Though she had not been aware of it,
forced to spend such a long time away from him, a reserve had grown in her
heart. In childhood they had innocently played together. Now, being older, it
seemed extraordinary that the lord’s son would even consider continuing a
friendship with her. Surely he must see that separation, merited by differences
in their social standing, was more important to maintain than their companionship?

Leaping from his horse, Gabriel handed the reins to Paxton
Winwood and, speaking to him, pointed in the direction of the manor stables.

Young men leapt onto nags, singing heartily: ‘We’ve
ploughed, we’ve sown, we’ve reaped, we’ve mown. Harvest home, harvest home! We
want water and we can’t get none!’

Approaching, Gabriel grinned. So pleased was he to be with
her that he chattered on excitedly. ‘It’s so good to see you, Eppie! You, too,
Mrs Dunham. It has been a most tiresome journey. At one point, the flies teased
my horse so much that it threw me. I rolled under a hedge and nearly died of
fright. Beside me lay a masked highwayman, booted, spurred, and shot through
the head.’

Eppie thought about Dawkin. When Wakelin had gone to speak
to the chimney sweep about Dawkin, a few weeks after Christmas, he had
discovered that Mr Crowe had relocated to London, taking the climbing-boys with
him.

‘Mr Grimley invited me to break my homeward journey by
spending a few days at Bridge House. I met Rowan and was quite taken by her
charms. She is such a beauty and so gentle. Her parents, relatives of Mr
Grimley, are deceased, so she has come to live with him. I’ve been away longer
than I anticipated. After my stay with Doctor Morton, father sent me abroad, to
be tutored by a professor. The professor treated his sons and me to a Grand
Tour of Europe. Doesn’t the harvest-wain look colourful! I thought I’d stop and
travel home in style with the reapers.’ A dark doubt took hold of him. ‘Eppie, why
will you not look at me?’

Seeing Eppie reluctant to answer, Sukey seized her opportunity,
‘Her durn’t, her’s that ugly. Her bruver shoved her inta the fire an’ fried off
‘er ear.’

Cross, Eppie stamped her foot at the girl. ‘I tripped!’

Gabriel was stupefied by the revelation. Glancing into
Martha’s anxious eyes, he saw in a flash the horror of that night.

The wain set off to the threshing barn where the Harvest
Home would be held. Seated high upon the corn, children blew horns. Men and
women sang.

Tightly gripping the dusty ribbons of her bonnet, Eppie told
Gabriel. ‘It was an accident!’

‘I know Wakelin better than that,’ he answered, scouring the
crowd. ‘Where is he?’

Sukey dashed after the wain, calling back to Gabriel, ‘Your
pa told him he had to be mucky-man. Wakelin said no way would he do it, so he’s
been sent ditching friz punishment.’

The tale thus recounted, Eppie trembled to see the resolve
grow in Gabriel’s stony countenance. ‘Don’t get angry with him. He was upset
because Twiss was killed.’

‘I am truly sorry to hear about Twiss. But what Wakelin has
done to you is abominable. He can’t hide behind the death of his dog.’ 

Eppie made to follow him as he strode towards the ditches.

Martha held her back. ‘No,
Eppie, it’s between them.’

His mind preoccupied, Wakelin failed to notice the boy draw
near.

‘Haven’t you caused Eppie enough suffering?’

Gabriel’s shrill voice sliced through Wakelin. The last
thing he wanted was trouble with another du Quesne. Weary and hungry, with
muscle spasms from the beer sloshing in his innards, he did not feel in the
best of tempers. He made pretence of having neither seen nor heard him. 

‘To torture Eppie with fire, that is the most loathsome
thing imaginable.’

Wakelin wetted his palms by spitting upon them. Using a butterfly
blade to scoop clay, he slapped it against the side of the ditch.

‘You stand there like a corpse with not the slightest show
of emotion, not a flicker of remorse.’

Wakelin surged through the ditch, rather than climb to where
Gabriel stood rebuking him. Mud splashed above his knees. Aware of Gabriel
closing in, he bolted out and lobbed the shovel at a blackthorn hedge.

‘What harm has Eppie ever done to you?’

Trudging away, Wakelin stared grimly at his clayed boots
squelching slime at each weighty footfall. 

‘Don’t you realise what a sinful thing you have done?’

Wakelin was increasingly agitated with Gabriel tagging on. Snatching
the knife out of his boot, he flicked mud from its blade.    

‘Don’t you care that you have caused your mother grief?’

Wakelin swung round. A blinding flash of white light seared the
anvil clouds and rain pounded, battering the parched fields. ‘Leave my ma outta
this. Eppie’s got nowt to do with you. Shiz my sister, I’ll do what I want with
her.’ Instantly, realising the implications of his incautious words, he
regretted them. He loved Eppie too much to wish her harm. It had been his
old-self talking, that dead part of him which he had come to detest. And as to
calling Eppie his sister, that was how he truly felt.

‘She’s not
your
sister, and well you know it,’
Gabriel said without hesitation.

Wakelin scowled. ‘What rot are you on about now?’  

‘Eppie said she spotted you beside Genevieve’s tomb, just
before I arrived at the church to practice for the concert. She said you seemed
upset. That’s what started me thinking that something odd was going on. Then,
when I saw Talia and Eppie together in the garden the resemblance between them
was plain to see.’

Wakelin was shaken by the memory of the ghost. ‘Saw ‘em,
together? So, it’s like everyone says, you are raving.’

‘It was you who broke into the tomb using the sledgehammer. In
it were the remains of your baby sister.’

‘For all yer ranting ya can prove nowt.  So, do us a favour,
leave me be.’ 

Gabriel thrust his hand into his pocket and fetched
something out. He opened his palm. ‘Remember this? On the night Genevieve was
born, I placed it in her cradle. In my childish way I thought it would make the
baby become Talia. In the morning I found it on the floor.’

At the sight of the locket, Wakelin’s blood chilled. Sweat
trickled coldly between his shoulder blades. His crime was so close to being
discovered. ‘Did ya?’ he said, trying to stop his voice from shaking. He turned
and marched off. ‘Well, the baby must’ve knocked it out.’

‘She was bound with linen,’ Gabriel said, pacing after him. ‘At
first I was confused. I didn’t know what to think or do. I resolved that I
would let things be. I convinced myself that, in Mrs Dunham, Genevieve has a
devoted mother. I thought that was sufficient. Now I realise I was wrong. I’m
taking her back with me, back to her real home. That way she will be out of
harm’s way.’

Wakelin turned on Gabriel. ‘How can ya imagine she’ll be
safe in the hands of your father? It’s common knowledge that he treated Talia
like a prisoner. Eppie loves her freedom. D’ya want to deny ‘er that? No, I
tell ya, du Quesne’s heartless. In the cornfields he laughed his boots off when
he clapped eyes on Eppie’s burns.’ 

Gabriel was taken aback by Wakelin’s emotional torrent of
words. ‘I would never deny that father can be unfeeling. I have felt the sting
of his birch too often to say otherwise. But things will be different from now
on.  I am older.  I will be there to protect her.’

‘Will ya? That I doubt. You’re forever running from home. Besides,
he’d never accept her.’

‘He has no option.  She is his daughter.’

‘Look,’ Wakelin said, exasperated, ‘I know I ain’t always made
things easy for Eppie, but I’ve changed.  From now on, I intend to do right by
her.’

Streaming rain poured down Gabriel’s face. ‘These are fine
words, Wakelin, though, frankly, I do not trust you.’

‘Never will you have her! Never!’ Wakelin screamed into
Gabriel’s face. ‘I’m warning ya, du Quesne. You’re as frail as an eggshell. I
could smash ya ta flittericks, so leave things be!’

‘I am not afraid of you,’ Gabriel cried defiantly.
‘Genevieve must know her true family.’ Turning his back on Wakelin, he headed
in the direction of Dank Cottage.

Tearing after him in fear and anger, Wakelin swept the boy
round and slammed his fist full into his face. Gabriel had been so surprised by
the sudden assault that he had no time to cry out.

Standing over the young man’s unconscious body, lying
sprawled in the stubble, the dreadful thought came to Wakelin that his strike
had been so hard that it had killed him. He knelt down to check, sighing with
relief. Gabriel was still breathing.

In the attack the locket had fallen from the boy’s pocket.
Gaping greedily at the gold, he was overcome by temptation. More than this,
though, he was mesmerized by Talia’s beauty. This was an opportunity to keep
her memory close to him.

Terrified that someone might have witnessed the assault he
stared around, warily. He could not leave Gabriel here, so close to the
ditches. It would be obvious that he had attacked him. Scanning the field,
unsure, he caught sight of the pumping mill
.

Gabriel draped over his shoulder, hands trailing and head
lolling, Wakelin mounted the ladder to the storeroom at the top of the mill, where
he knew lumber and ropes were stowed. Around him the storm crashed, relentless.
Vivid lightning flashed.

Laying him on the timber floor, he touched the boy’s skin.
It felt cold and clammy, not simply wet from the rain.

‘I’m sorry, lad,’ he said, filled with misgiving, ‘for what
I did in taking Genevieve, for all the pain I’ve caused ya.  Leastwise yu’ll be
dry up ‘ere.’