The Other Cathy (8 page)

Emma, readjusting the cambric collar of her riding habit
before the looking-glass in Cathy’s room, gave her young
cousin a troubled glance. Constantly she alluded to herself and
Seth as if he was one of the family; a very dear brother, or
closer even than that; like Cathy and Heathcliff, she had suggested. What nonsense!

‘Seth doesn’t exactly come out riding with me,’ she pointed
out gently. ‘He just accompanies me as a groom because your
papa doesn’t permit me to go alone.’

‘It amounts to the same thing. If it were I it would, anyway.
Oh, what fun we’d have, racing our horses and leaping the
sheep walls, and climbing to the very top of Black Scar Rocks,
and – and -’ Her eyes were bright with longing, and Emma
saw she was becoming lost in her world of make-believe.

‘Well, I must be off now,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘While I’m gone, why don’t you paste those nature pictures we cut out yesterday into your scrapbook. You always enjoy that.’

Cathy shook her head. ‘I don’t feel like it.’

‘How about working on the bead table mat for Aunt Jane’s
birthday, then?’

‘I might, I’ll see how I feel. Emma, you won’t forget to tell
Seth about the heather, will you? I want some sprigs from
right up by the Abraham Stone.’

Seth was waiting in the stable yard with the two horses
saddled and ready. He helped Emma to mount, and they set
off along the grassy path that linked with the old packhorse
track. But the golden brightness of the morning and the sweet
fragrance of the air failed to lift her spirits,

‘Cathy asked for some sprigs of white heather from Black
Scar Rocks,’ she told the boy.

‘Aye, happen we’ll find some there.’ For a few minutes they rode in silence, then Seth went on, ‘’Tis being said Miss
Cathy is chronic bad. Gran’mer telled me that she’ll never
see the winter.’

It was exactly what Emma feared in her heart, but she felt suddenly angry. ‘How can your grandmother possibly know
that? She hasn’t even seen Cathy recently, not for ages.’

Seth didn’t reply and kept his face averted, but Emma
could tell what he was thinking. It was futile for her to question how his grandmother knew such things. Ursly’s uncanny
knowledge might conceivably be attributed to shrewd guess
work, but local people were convinced she had the second
sight.

When they gained the high moorland Emma halted a moment, as she always did, to gaze down into the valley be
hind them; at the solid stone structure of Bracklegarth Hall,
and beyond it the mill on the farther bank of the river, its tall
chimney belching black smoke that drifted down on to the
rows of terraced cottages where the mill hands lived. It was a gloomy, depressing scene, and once again Emma felt a longing to escape. She recalled the words of the old gypsy woman
at the fair, ‘Ye’ll go away from here to some distant land
where no one knows ye.’ Could that really be what the future
held in store for her?

A soft thudding of hooves made Emma and Seth swing
round in their saddles. Even at a distance she knew immedi
ately that it was Matthew Sutcliffe. Heading in their direction
at full gallop, his Cleveland bay swerved agilely past a boggy
patch and took in a single confident leap a small gully that
lay in its path. Emma’s first thought was one of panic. She
wanted to flee from him, to avoid a meeting here in this lonely
spot without other people around. But she braced herself to
face him.

‘Good morning, Miss Hardaker,’ he called, bringing his
horse to a halt beside her. He addressed Seth. ‘I wish to have a few words with your mistress. Leave us for a short while,’

As the lad glanced at Emma for confirmation of the order,
she said quickly, ‘You will do no such thing, Seth! Stay where
you are,’

An impatient frown crossed the man’s face, but he con
trolled himself and spoke in tones of appeal.

‘I shall be most grateful, Miss Hardaker, if you will grant
me a brief conversation in private. Is it too much to ask?’

‘We have nothing to say to one another.’

‘I think you are mistaken. There are a number of things that need to be said – that must be said between us. I trust
you will not oblige me to say them in the presence of a third
party.’

Seth was looking very uneasy, and Emma told herself it
was largely for his sake that she agreed to the impertinent
demand.

‘Oh, very well! Seth, you may go and pick the heather for
Cathy. She said she wanted it from right up by the Abraham Stone. I will meet you over there in a few minutes.’

‘Aye, miss.’

Matthew Sutcliffe leaped down from his saddle and ex
tended a hand to assist Emma. But she chose to remain mounted, pointing out that she could perfectly well listen
from there to what he had to say. It pleased her to have him at
such a disadvantage, for the sun was behind her and shone
into his eyes as he looked up at her.

‘It is difficult to know how to begin,’ he confessed after a
lengthy pause.

‘It must be, so why begin at all? You know my opinion of
you.’

His face like stone, he said slowly, ‘I was sentenced to four
teen years transportation for the crime of which I was found
guilty. Fourteen years! Have you any conception of what that
means?’

‘It means that you were justly punished for your crime.
Though less than adequately, in my opinion. Do you expect
pity?
’

‘Have you none to offer? Can a young lady of gentle birth and upbringing feel no compassion for a man who has been
through the hell of such a sentence?’

‘I feel no compassion for you, Matthew Sutcliffe. If you want the plain truth, I rejoice in the thought of your being made to suffer. My only regret is that your punishment has
now come to an end.’

‘Then you have much to rejoice at,’ he flung back. ‘You can
reflect with satisfaction that during my time as a convict in
Van Diemen’s Land I was chained, starved and flogged un
mercifully for the smallest offence. And once I was incarcer
ated for weeks on end in a dark underground cell without even
sufficient room to lie down; without the least glimmer of light, and never the sound of another human voice.’

Emma shuddered, and felt the swift sting of nausea in her throat. ‘You – you had to expect such punishments if you
broke the rules.’

‘Do you find fault with me for clinging to the last shreds of my manhood?’ he asked with a harsh, discordant laugh that made Emma wince. ‘Should I have shown cringing respect to
guards who deserved nothing but contempt? Should I have stood by and watched atrocities without protest, such as the
time a fellow prisoner – an old man crippled by rheumatism -was kicked nearly to death because he couldn’t keep up with
the other men in the chain gang? For intervening in that incident I was awarded two hundred lashes. Or you might gain even more exquisite delight, my dear Miss Hardaker, to hear
of another occasion when I was guilty of no offence at all. A visiting official’s lady wife had expressed the whimsical desire
to witness a flogging. I had the honour to be selected for the
display and was given fifty lashes, greatly to her delectation.’

Emma closed her eyes, but even the tight-pressed lids could
not restrain tears from escaping. After a moment, he went on in
the same unyielding tone, ‘Perhaps you are unable to visualise
a flogging, so allow me to depict the scene for you. The victim
is first stripped of his shirt and bound fast by hands and feet
to a huge iron triangle, specially designed for the purpose.
The lashes are administered with expert precision, and spaced
out slowly to extend the agony. If he should faint from the
pain, pails of cold water are thrown over him until he recovers
consciousness and the flogging can recommence. In the end, the poor wretch’s back is a bloody pulp of lacerated flesh — ’

Overcome by revulsion, Emma felt herself swaying in the
saddle and feared that she was about to faint herself. Matthew
Sutcliffe sprang forward and, gripping her by the waist with
his broad, strong hands, lowered her gently to the ground.

‘Forgive me!’ he said remorsefully. ‘Please believe that when I contrived to meet you up here on the moor I had no
intention of distressing you by giving vent to my bitterness
and anger. It is not you whom I blame for my sufferings as a
transported convict, not you I hold responsible for being
wrongfully condemned for a crime I did not commit.’

The feeling of giddiness had passed now and Emma took a
step back, freeing herself from his hold.

‘Are you going to continue the pretence even now?’ she asked in a scathing voice. ‘I have heard about the way you kept protesting your innocence at the Assize Court, right up to the very last. But you were given a fair trial and found
guilty. The weight of evidence against you was overwhelm
ing.’

‘It was all circumstantial evidence.’

‘How could it be otherwise? You were too cunning to allow
an actual witness to the deed. But you cannot deny that for
weeks beforehand you were heard to utter threats against my father.’

‘Never a threat to use violence,’ he insisted. ‘Please try to
understand. I was little more than a youth then, barely eigh
teen years old. My mother had died many years before, so my father and I were particularly close. He was a good man who’d
worked hard all his life at the Hardaker Mill, raising himself
until he achieved the position of overlooker. He was fascinated
by machinery but, sadly, he didn’t live to see the success of
the condensing engine he developed. Can it be wondered at
that I became hotheaded and uttered wild threats on learning
that your father was taking the credit for the invention? In
stead of being known as the Sutcliffe Engine, it was called the
Hardaker Engine. My poor father’s one claim to fame – to
posthumous fame – had been stolen from him!’

‘There’s not an atom of proof for that allegation,’ Emma cried hotly. ‘My father would never have stooped to stealing
an invention from one of the mill’s employees. Why on earth
should he?’

Matthew shrugged. ‘It was well known that Hugh Hardaker
was overshadowed by his elder brother, Randolph. Perhaps
he saw this as his one chance of making his mark at the mill.’

‘And perhaps you saw a chance of extracting money by your
preposterous claim and your threatening behaviour. But when
papa refused to be browbeaten, you killed him in a fit of rage.’

The man stood there facing her, taking slow deep breaths
as he fought against his anger. Beyond him, where the moorland swept up to the jagged skyline of Black Scar Rocks, she
saw Seth waiting, watching them with a hand shielding his eyes from the sun. He was too far away for her voice to be
heard, but a beckoning wave would bring him galloping towards them.

But she did not beckon to Seth.

Matthew said, hard-lipped, ‘My father had been working secretly on the modified ring doffer for many months. He
often spoke to me of his ideas, explaining that these con
densers had been developed first in America, and how he was
producing a completely new design to suit English conditions.
He even showed me the detailed drawings he had done.’

‘There is only your word for that.What happened to these drawings? Nobody else has ever seen them.’

‘I don’t know what happened to them. Perhaps your father
destroyed them, and replaced them with copies drawn by him
self.
’

‘I see! And do you suggest that my father carefully arranged
the other evidence that convicted you of killing him? That
muffler of yours which was found on the weaving-room floor –
how did it get there that night, if you were nowhere near the mill as you claimed?’

‘I cannot explain that,’ Matthew admitted. ‘I had missed my
muffler a few days before, but how it came to be found in the mill is a complete mystery.’

‘And what about the message my poor father scratched on
the stone floor, with the metal point of the fly shuttle with
which he had been stabbed and left to die?
He lies
–
mine
–
MINE.’
She was word perfect.

Matthew shook his head. ‘I cannot account for that.’

It was with a feeling akin to triumph that Emma flung at
him the last accusation, the most damning of all the evidence
that had piled up against him at his trial.

‘If you were innocent, why would you never give the court
the details of your movements on that night?’ she demanded.
‘I have heard tell, from people who were present at your trial,
of how you stammered and were evasive when the question was put to you. Is that the behaviour of an innocent man?’

Matthew hesitated for a long while before replying. ‘My whereabouts that night had nothing whatever to do with your father’s death. I give you my solemn oath that I was nowhere near the Brackle Valley Mill.’