Eppie (62 page)

‘I am your natural superior. How dare you have the audacity
to imply that I am a murderer? Crumpton, drive them back to work.’

Eppie was overcome with a rage which she knew not how to
curb. ‘Having to endure years of bullying has made these people like frightened
animals. They believe they are weak, that they deserve the rough life they
lead. I tell you they do not. You condemn me for calling you a murderer. Why are
you so blind that you cannot see that by your cold-hearted treatment of the
workers it as though you are their murderer? By your very hand you
are
a
killer, for you shot my father.’

Eppie’s words offered the very opportunity for which Sukey had
been waiting, a chance to get her revenge on her childhood adversary. ‘That weaver
weren’t no more your pa than mine’s King George o’ England. For well ‘ee knows that
yer pa stands afore ya.’

‘Why would you suggest such a preposterous notion?’ du
Quesne demanded.

‘I overheard Dunham telling Miss Rowan that Wakelin Dunham
stuck his ma’s dead baby in her ladyship’s cradle and stole ‘er.’ She jabbed a
finger towards Eppie. ‘Genevieve du Quesne.’

Like moths around a candle, the workers drew close,
listening in awe.

Eppie glanced round at Martha and Lottie, thankful that they
were at the end of the line of workers. She had to protect their lives at all
costs.

Rowan stepped to Eppie’s side to offer her moral support.

Casting Rowan a quizzical look, Thurstan saw from her steady
gaze and dignified demeanour that she knew Sukey’s outburst to be true.

‘Shiz nicked Mistress Talia’s locket an’ all, has Dunham,’
Sukey added.

Involuntarily, Eppie raised her hand to her neck. Seeing
this slight movement, Thurstan rushed at her. Though she tried to fight him
off, it was to no avail. Slipping his fingers beneath the delicate chain, where
the locket hung under her bodice, he wrenched it free. ‘I will see you hang for
this, Dunham!’ 

Violently the roots of the mill shook. Alarmed, Eppie
glanced round in time to see the door to the scutching room blast open. Out
swept a macabre procession of gashed and bleeding spectres, their billowing
shrouds like the sails on a sloop of war. On and on, merciless, they stalked
towards their murderer, the timber floor reverberating to their weightless
tread.

‘No!’ Thurstan shrieked as though jumped upon by robbers. ‘Keep
away from me!’

Cotton threads whipped around his ankles, strained as taut
as guy-ropes, until he fell.

‘My property, I believe,’ du Quesne said, maddened by his
nephew’s inexplicable gibbering and bizarre behaviour.

At the moment that he snatched the locket from Thurstan, the
fusty phantoms made a wending rush through the cotton fluff. For an eerie
moment, a haunting sigh, like the last breaths of the victims, was left
dangling in the air.

A crazed look in his eyes, Thurstan scratched his dry hair, as
though it crawled with the blood of those who had died, making it stick up
wildly. ‘You saw her!’ he shrieked, staring at Eppie. ‘I know you saw her! Tell
me!’

‘What have you to say?’ du Quesne demanded of Eppie. 

She was struck dumb by what she had seen and by what she saw
now, everybody immobile, no evidence of the raw cotton or seed vessels that had
blasted down the aisle. None other than her and Thurstan had seen Talia leading
the gaunt-faced ghosts. The disembodied, the discarnate, faces she knew well: Titcher,
Tobias, Alicia, Jenufer, Brodie and the climbing-boys, many more besides. All had
lost their lives at Thurstan’s hands or at his instigation.

‘There was no theft, sir. I gave the locket to Eppie.’

Looking around at having heard that loved voice, hardly
could she suppress her thrill at seeing Gabriel. About him was a weary,
slightly dusty look. They gazed upon one another, each aware of the torment
felt by the other, their vulnerability.

‘Why would you do that?’ du Quesne asked. ‘Was there,’ he
wondered, ‘a possibility that Hix was speaking the truth? Why has Gabriel
always been so amiable with Eppie Dunham?’ Unwillingly, he forced himself to
stare long and hard at Eppie. There was something about her, that pensive look
he saw so often in his son. He had always dismissed it.

 Scoured by exhaustion, Eppie could not refrain from showing
in her face the truth. She dragged her eyes away from her father’s piercing
stare.

‘Your lordship, about my money,’ Mr Blower wheedled, having
become weary of waiting in the office.

‘Blast your money, sir!’

Mortified that his cousin should catch him in this
predicament, Thurstan peeled himself off the floor and hastened away; half
crawling and half running towards the mill doors.

Mr Blower, not seeming to be getting anywhere with Robert du
Quesne who, besides, no longer deserved his goodwill, pursued the magistrate,
hopping first this side of him and then the other.

‘Hix!’ du Quesne bawled. ‘I want no more lost time; get
these mules up and running.’

‘I will escort you home,’ Mr Grimley told Rowan. ‘Too much
excitement is not good for the heart.’

Rowan cast a loving glance at Gabriel, and he upon her, and
then allowed herself to be borne away.

Dismal and defeated, Eppie stood
alone. Women and children returned to their work, the men to the street.

‘That was some show, Genevieve du Quesne.’

Tenderness flowed through her as she faced Gabriel for the
first time as her brother.

Machines thundered. 

‘Let’s go into the office,’ he said. ‘It’ll be quieter.’

He slumped into Mr Grimley’s chair. ‘I must apologise for my
unkempt appearance. Twice I was thrown out of my lodgings for not paying the
rent. Added to that, I’m feeling pretty miserable. When I arrived in Malstowe
yesterday I went straight to Rowan and asked her to marry me.’

Although Eppie still shook from the spectacle of those long,
sad faces and the sight of the bulging sinews and veins on Squire Bulwar’s old,
strong arm as he reached through the haze of cotton dust towards Thurstan, she
managed a smile. ‘I’m so happy for you.’

‘I wouldn’t be.’

‘Rowan can’t have refused?’

‘Quite the reverse.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘Father. He said his good
friend Squire Obadiah Bulwar would never have allowed the marriage and nor,
therefore, will he. I know father detests malicious gossip and would hate to
admit that his daughter-in-law spent her early childhood in a poorhouse, but I
think he ought to judge Rowan on her finer qualities. Even Mrs Bulwar has a predilection
for her great-granddaughter. I don’t know, Eppie. I feel so helpless.’

Du Quesne stood beside the open window in the engine room, gazing
upon the river. ‘I will not allow myself to imagine that wretch Eppie Dunham to
be my daughter,’ he thought. ‘Besides, if I did, I would be crediting Wakelin
Dunham with a brain. He stole my wood, but any numbskull is able to pick up a
few fallen branches. The man would not have the wit to steal a child.’ 

He stared at Talia’s portrait, feeling gored with remorse
for the harsh way he had treated her, as though her infliction had been of her
own making. He straightened his shoulders. ‘I will not succumb to any show of
weakness.’

So preoccupied was he with his thoughts, he failed to notice
that Thurstan had entered the machine room and was shouting above the battering
engine. ‘Sir, I must speak with you!’  

Infuriated by the gormless expression on his uncle’s face, Thurstan
persisted, ‘The matter needs your urgent attention.’

‘Attention?’ du Quesne repeated vacantly, looking up at his
nephew.

‘Blower has accused you of using forged money to purchase
the steam engine.’  

With a jolt, du Quesne came back to reality, amazed at what
he was hearing. ‘Forged? That was
your
money.’

‘Mine?’ 

‘The money you loaned me after the last disastrous harvest.’

‘Are you accusing me of underhand dealings? I would have
thought better of you.’

‘Better of me?’ Du Quesne grew damp with rage. ‘I made that
settlement in good faith. I refuse to pay the man a second time.’

‘I see no hope for you, Uncle. You have slandered my good
name. That I will never forgive. I insist that you relinquish Tunnygrave Manor
to me. Then I will see what I can do about getting you off the charge of
forgery.’

‘Never will I do such a thing! Ever since you and that
deranged mother of yours came to live with me I have lavished money on you. I
have been proud of you like a father would be of a fine, upstanding son. At the
back of my mind, though, I have always had a gnawing feeling, expecting you to
lower yourself to such an underhand scheme.’

‘What else is a good education for? Throwing money at me
always was your way of assuaging your culpability. I hate you for what you did
to my father.’

‘I advised Charles, that was all.’

‘It was advice that led to his death. Before I have you
incarcerated alongside your odorous associate, Grim, there is one other thing
that you should know. For years I have known that Eppie Dunham is your
daughter.’

Du Quesne gaped in disbelief at what he was hearing.

Enjoying his supremacy over his uncle, Thurstan sought to
prolong the man’s distress. ‘On the night of Genevieve’s birth I could not
abide to be indoors, having to listen to Aunt Constance’s screams. Such pitiful
weakness. So I took a bottle of brandy to the folly, to while away the hours.
Towards dawn I was returning home when I chanced to see someone emerge from the
priests’ tunnel that leads from the manor.’

‘What tunnel? I know of no such place.’

‘Aunt Constance clearly had the sense not to let you in on
all of her family’s secrets, for which I give her credit.

‘You like to think that you kept Talia confined to the
house. However, I know that she often stole off along the tunnel. I used to watch
her standing upon the arch with her arms outstretched, her face to the sun, as
though she were willing herself to fly away from you.

‘This time, though, I saw a sly fellow creeping across the
arch. In his arms he carried a bundle. It was obvious that he’d been stealing
from the manor. I trailed him to the medieval granary. By then I was having
second thoughts. It was because of you that my father lost his wealth. It would
serve you right to lose some of your valuables. It was months later that I
realised Wakelin Dunham had actually stolen Genevieve.

‘Now I insist that you hand
over the locket. I should hate to miss this opportunity to have your daughter
hung.’

‘You stood up to father when he was about to hang Wakelin,’
Eppie reasoned with Gabriel. ‘You can stand up to him again.’ 

‘That’s easier said than done.’

‘You must have faith in yourself. What does it matter if he
casts you out? Nothing is more important than love.’

‘I suppose I shouldn’t let father wield such power over me.’

‘So you’ll tell him you intend to wed Rowan?’

‘Well, I would’ve liked to have married her.’

‘Then you will, muttonhead. ’

‘I can’t see how.’

‘Because you
are
already
married to her.’

‘I am?’

‘If you make-believe something has already happened it can
make it come true. I tried it with Mr Grimley when Lottie needed somewhere safe
to go during the day. Say to yourself that you have already asked your father,
and he has agreed. It’ll make you feel confident.’

‘I will tell him.’

‘When?’

‘Tonight.’

‘Now.’

‘Now?’

‘Now.’

Gabriel pushed back the chair and rose to his feet. ‘I’ll do
it.’ 

She grinned as he strode
purposefully away, not lingering to cast a backward glance of doubt.

Gabriel was disturbed, yet intrigued, to see a fierce
argument going on between his father and Thurstan, fists flailing as they
fought over Talia’s locket. ‘Father!’

Hearing Gabriel’s shout, Thurstan momentarily glanced round.

To protect his daughter’s life, du Quesne was determined that
the locket would not fall into his nephew’s hands. Hastening towards the
window, he cast it into the river.

Consumed with anger at its loss, Thurstan grasped the sill
of the window and leant forward.

Something grey and shapeless, like a mass of rotting leaves,
ripped through the water. Draped in lacy tatters, a skeletal arm reached up, its
fingers curling around the locket as it sank.

Stupefied, Thurstan stared at the gaping hole where Talia’s
nose would have been, at her cheeks, once rosy, now fallen into decay. Before the
phantom plunged to the depths, he beheld a transformation: her face radiant,
the way he remembered.

In the tussle, Talia’s lock of hair had floated to the
floor. Like a man obsessed, her father picked it up and stroked the ringlet. He
was filled with misgiving. Living in a world of his own making he had repeated
his father’s mistakes. His single-minded, uncompromising nature had made him
uncooperative, exiled from those he loved, fearful of the vulnerability of
exposing his feelings to those for whom he most cared. Too quickly he had waged
into battle like an army commander. His rashness had lost him the war, but
there was still time. He had always been so hard on Gabriel. It was time to
shatter that part of his character, the strong exterior that masked his inner
turmoil. It was necessary to lose his sense of self in order to find himself.
If Thurstan was about to throw him into jail, what had he to lose by pouring
out his heart, of letting go?

‘Father, I have decided, I shall marry Rowan! Nothing you
can say will stop me.’

Grim with grief, du Quesne meekly nodded his consent.

‘You agree?’ Gabriel said, paralysed with surprise.   

Swinging round in fury, Thurstan cried, ‘Rowan is to marry
me. All is arranged.’