A Child of Secrets Read online

  A Child of Secrets

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue June, 1919

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  About the Author

  Also by Mary Mackie

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  For Pat Midgley and all Friends of True’s Yard Museum, in appreciation for friendships formed and for allowing me access to the gold mine of information regarding the fisherfolk of King’s Lynn. In the event, I was able to use only a little of the material I researched, but it’s good to know you’re there for future reference.

  June, 1919

  She found herself walking slowly, deliberately, her hands spread on the perambulator handle while her mind rehearsed the things she would say. She wasn’t afraid of him, now. A little nervous, perhaps, but not afraid. No, not any more. Too much had happened. Too many years between.

  ‘Soon be there, my man.’ She smiled at the baby in the pram, who was watching the sky and the passing trees with fascination. Such eyes he had. Great big eyes, blue like forget-me-nots, in a merry face given to smiles and dimples. Blessed little man! she thought with a fierce surge of affection. But, even as she smiled at him, her eyes misted and grief cloaked her throat.

  She took a quick breath and lifted her chin, looking ahead to the confrontation she had planned. Once, she’d never have dared to do it. But it was a different world now, after the Great War. There’d been Zeppelins in the skies, even here in West Norfolk, and bombs dropped, killing and injuring folk in Lynn – folk she knew. Now, in the aftermath, everything was changed, the old order swept away and new rules applying. So she was coming back to get things straight. Once and for all. For Lily’s sake. Maybe both of them would sleep easier after this day.

  With the June sun beating down on fields where haymaking was in full swing, she felt hot and over-dressed in her town clothes. She’d wanted to make a good impression, so she’d put on her new ‘utility’ suit, with a fox fur round her shoulders, and a little black straw cloche with two long feathers. Now she wished she’d at least had the sense to wear her older shoes, for the new, cloth-topped boots, elegant though they were with their waisted heel, were beginning to pinch. She had forgotten just how far it was from the station to the big house. Nor was she as young as she had been when first she walked this road.

  Nearly thirty years ago. Lord, but she hadn’t realised it was so long. It made you feel old thinking of it. Not that she felt any different. In her head she was still the same Jess Henefer. Still taking it upon herself to set everyone else to rights, as her mother would have said.

  Beyond a squat cottage built of the local sandstone, the Lion Gates of Hewinghall stood open. Made of wrought iron, they were in need of a fresh coat of paint – the black was faded, with patches of rust showing. Jess half expected someone to come out from the lodge and challenge her, but despite the drift of smoke from its chimney the place appeared deserted, dreaming among its roses and its tall pink hollyhocks. She walked on, making down the long driveway that tunnelled through a tangle of oaks, their trunks lost in rhododendrons thick with huge purple flowers.

  Her keen eyes made out more signs of neglect. The drive beneath her feet was badly rutted and the bushes on either side had run riot, choking other growth and filling the rides. Once upon a time it would never have been allowed to get into such a state, but then a lot of things had been let go during four long years when all the young men had been occupied elsewhere.

  The baby jumped and threw up his hands as a shotgun went off in the woods. There was a clatter of wings, another blast of shot. ‘That’s all right, my little man,’ Jess crooned. ‘Never you fret. That’s on’y somebody as’ll be eating pigeon pie for supper. Reuben used to bring me pigeons. Blasted fiddly things they are, too.’

  As she started off again, she became aware of the silence in the wake of the shots. It made her think how much more quiet it must have seemed on the battlefields when at last the great guns stopped. Jabez had said how the noise of it got into a man’s gut, and into his dreams; the booming and the reverberation, the smoke and the stench. And the fear. Yes, he’d talked about the fear. He’d known it was only fools who claimed not to be afraid. Well, for him the fear was over, and the pounding, and the noise…

  They’d printed a nice piece about him in the paper – a piece that named all the boys from West Norfolk reported lost and missing in the final weeks of the war last November. She’d read every word, still feeling numb, still not believing it – Corporal Jabez Henefer, killed in action. And then, reading on, she’d seen another familiar name. It had seemed to leap out at her, trying to tell her something, under the heading ‘Tragic death of Baronet’s heir’. The few lines of print told of the sudden death, from influenza, of four-year-old Hammond Fyncham Stroud, only grandson of Sir Richard Fyncham of Hewinghall.

  That was when she’d written the letter – written it and posted it off before she could change her mind. Reuben hadn’t been pleased about it, but she’d managed to convince him that they couldn’t deny the baby his rights.

  For months, all through the winter and into spring, she’d believed the old man was ignoring her letter; then at last had come the summons, naming time and date. ‘Come alone,’ he had written. ‘Just you and the child.’

  And so she had come back…

  The view opened out across a field where beet tops showed green, beyond which a small flint church nestled in a hollow of the park. The drive began to climb between pairs of elms, so that the effort of pushing the heavy pram made Jess sweat. She hardly noticed. She was watching twisted chimneys peer over the top of the rise, pushed up by long slated roofs and gable ends, as if the house were rising out of the landscape. Its languid red brick nestled against a backdrop of woods, like an old woman comfortably settled with a shawl at her back to protect her from draughts. The pasture was dotted with oaks and sweet chestnuts, drifted with peaceful sheep. Just as she remembered it.

  Behind that stately façade there had always been bustle and noise: family and visitors, servants and horses and dogs and carriages; maids hurrying up and down the bare back stairs; Mrs Roberts red-faced as she pored over her receipts in the kitchen’s heat; Bella chasing in the garden after the cat, with petticoats flying, and Lily… Lily in so many moods.

  Memories came crowding, each one clamouring for attention, becoming a blur. For a moment she simply stood and let it wash over her, all the different things that Hewinghall had brought her: sorrows and joys, bitter fears and bounding happiness. And puzzles… That was another reason she’d come back – to fit that last piece into the picture. After so long, surely he’d have no reason to refuse to tell her the whole truth?

  Today, Hewinghall looked deserted. No smoke twined from its barley-sugar chimneys and most of its windows were blinded by grey shutters, closed behind the glass. Rough pasture grew up to the wrought-iron fence which guarded a gravelled courtyard where, someone having left the gate open, a couple of sheep wandered, chewing at the
grass around the bases of two cannon brought back by some Fyncham ancestor from some forgotten war. Dandelions grew at the foot of the fence and the gravel was patchy, worn to bare earth in some places, puddled with dark moss. The whole place wore a sad, seedy air, as if no one cared for it now, as if its master had given up. Perhaps he had.

  The front door was made of oak, bleached by the slaked lime with which it had been preserved. It was a solid old door, three inches thick and patterned with wooden knobs to simulate the iron studding of an earlier time. Some of the knobs were missing. There was dirt ingrained on the stone step, and tendrils of weed growing in the cracks. Jess’s hands longed to be at those weeds, but instead she reached and pulled the brass bell-pull, noting how badly it needed polish.

  You couldn’t hear the bell from outside the front door. It rang deep in the house, in the corridors and the butler’s pantry – assuming it still worked, Jess thought as she stepped back and looked up at the house towering above her. Big white clouds, gleaming in the sun like fresh sheets on a line, framed the parapets. The place looked to be shut up, except that, on the first floor, the library shutters had been folded back and one of those windows was open to let in the air. She sensed that the old man was in the library – it had always been his favourite room. Perhaps he had watched her approach.

  ‘Maybe he’s as windy as we are,’ she murmured to the child, but saw that he had settled to sleep. Tucking his cover more closely round him, she stepped up to the door again and pulled the bell with a longer, more determined action.

  Standing there, she felt the old house like a physical presence, its brooding silence making her nerves thrum. She wasn’t as confident as she’d made believe; underneath her outer composure a pulse beat hectically in her throat and her palms were damp with nerves inside her best kid gloves.

  There came a sound from inside, the bang of a door, the shuffle of feet on stone flags and an impatient muttering. Jess heard bolts being drawn, and then a key grating as if it had not been turned in many a long day. Finally, the door opened a few inches and an old man peered out at her, bald, unshaven, wearing a faded tailcoat and a collarless shirt open at the throat.

  Longman! She was shocked to see how old and unkempt the butler had grown. She hardly recognised him and, to judge by his suspicious frown, he certainly did not remember her. As he peered at her she decided not to complicate matters by trying to remind him.

  ‘I’m here to see the squire,’ she informed him.

  The butler drew himself up. For all his untidiness he could still assume a disdainful air. ‘The master does not see anyone, except by prior appointment – in writing. Besides, he’s already expecting a visitor.’

  ‘That’s me!’

  Longman looked her up and down. ‘Not unless you’re Mr Sanders of Truelove, Sanders and Truelove, it isn’t. Good day to you, madam.’

  As he began to close the door, Jess stepped forward, placing a hand on the smooth, lime-bleached oak. ‘I have a letter here in my bag, written by his own hand. I won’t be turned away, even if he have changed his mind. You now go and tell him I’m here.’ She raised her voice, aiming it at the open window of the library above. ‘Tell him Jess Henefer is here. Tell him Jess Henefer has come to see him, as arranged.’

  The butler’s eyes narrowed to a squint. ‘You’d better wait. I’ll see what he says.’ The door closed in her face: manners at Hewinghall had evidently gone to pot along with everything else.

  She became aware of the high, piping call of dozens of house martins, darting and swooping through the air above the courtyard, teaching their young ones how to dive after flies. The birds came every year to build their nests in the eaves of the great house, to rear their young and see them fledged. Their departure signalled the end of summer, but you always knew they’d be back. Always, always would. Some things didn’t change…

  If only it were that simple with people. People changed all the time. As well as you thought you knew folk, they could still surprise you and leave you with riddles.

  Ah, there you had the nub of it. It was the not-knowing that niggled, the last questions that needed answers.

  Though she’d loved Lily like a sister, she hadn’t understood her. No, never. She’d watched, and listened, and wondered, but she’d been an onlooker most of the time, helpless to prevent the onrush of fate. Perhaps, today, she’d finally find the key. Perhaps, at last, she’d solve the enigma that had been Lily Victoria Clare.

  She found herself looking back across chasms of time, past memories both bright and baleful, to a winter day when, distant in time but not far from this spot where she was now standing, she and Lily had first met.

  How young they had both been, that December day in 1891…

  One

  Jess hadn’t eaten in four days, except for some brambles cocooned in cobwebs. As the cold red sun went down she knew she was near the end of her strength. She forced her feet to move, one in front of the other, heedless of the briers that tore at her tattered skirts and shawl. Branches reached out under cover of the uncertain light, clawing at her eyes and hair. She stopped, startled, as a pheasant flew up and battered away through the wood giving its loud ‘cock-uck, cock-uck, cock-uck’ of alarm. The panicked beat of her heart in her throat made her feel sick.

  Now that she had stopped, her muscles seemed to have seized up; she wanted to move but couldn’t. She stood there, shivering with cold, her mouth so dry she couldn’t raise a spit, her stomach so empty it was gnawing itself. And then she heard the voice, singing.

  It was a woman’s voice, a mellow contralto, rich notes floating warm and unearthly on the cold air. Jess thought she was probably dying and angels were coming to meet her – except that she was quite sure her destination would not be heaven. Murderesses did not go to heaven.

  The singing went on, coming nearer.

  Straining her eyes in the fading light, Jess saw a figure moving behind a network of branches. A dark shape, cloaked and hooded, its arms gestured to emphasise the yearning music of the song. Plaintive words spoke of unrequited love and longing. But they stopped abruptly. The figure threw out its arms in theatrical appeal to the lowering crimson sun and began to declaim aloud:

  Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

  Towards Phoebus’ lodging; such a waggoner

  As Phaeton would whip you to the west,

  And bring in cloudy night immediately.

  Spread thy close curtain…

  The apparition was coming closer, her path bringing her round towards an inevitable confrontation. Run! Jess ordered her legs, but they were too weak. They could scarcely bear her weight, let alone move her on.

  …love-performing night!

  That runaway eyes—

  The words broke off as the speaker realised she was not alone. The little dog pattering ahead of her had stopped, with a questioning bark, looking at Jess with its ears pricked. ‘Gracious goodness!’ the young woman said half to herself. ‘Whatever…’

  Jess didn’t blame her for being startled. She too might have baulked if she had been walking alone in the woods and come suddenly upon a slight, thin figure up to her knees in tangled undergrowth, shaking with cold, ragged as a scarecrow, her hair wild, her face smeared with dirt and old tears. She wanted to run away, as she’d been running for four days, but her feet were rooted to the frozen earth. It looked as though her flight was over, one way or another.

  ‘Are you real?’ the gentle, husky voice asked. ‘I almost took you for a phantom.’

  Jess only stared back dumbly.

  Cautiously, holding her heavy skirts bunched away from trailing briers, the young woman stepped nearer. With the light behind her, her face was a pale blur in the shadow of the cloak’s wide hood, backed by a network of bare branches with the cold sky above and the red sun hanging low. ‘Whatever’s wrong?’ she asked in concern. ‘Who are you? Are you ill?’

  Jess hadn’t the strength for coherent thought. All she wanted to do was lie down and let exhaustion
have its way. She couldn’t seem to speak, so she shook her head.

  ‘Oh, but you are!’ the other argued. ‘You must be. Why… you poor thing, you’re frozen!’

  The stranger was no more than a girl, younger than Jess herself. Seventeen, perhaps. Her face was a perfect pale oval, framed by the wide hood and by dark hair dressed in curls above her brow. But her eyes… Jess felt the shock like a physical blow.

  For, in that pale, pretty face, blessed with a pink mouth and straight dark brows, the eyes that stared back at Jess were not a matched pair: one was blue like the speedwells that grew by the banks of the Ouse, the other was brown as the moleskin cape that Jess’s mother had guarded so jealously from moth. Jess’s shaking knees buckled and she sank down among the crackling undergrowth, into a white mist. She fought it, struggling to stay conscious, fearing that if she let go she might never wake up.

  The dog barked again, a short, gruff warning. Faintly, as if from far distances, Jess heard another voice, a man’s voice. Was it her dad, come to fetch her away to eternal damnation? But no, ‘Hardlines’ Henefer had had a great loud voice and this man was soft-spoken, with a strange inflection that wasn’t Norfolk. He sounded annoyed, demanding to know what they thought they were doing. Then evidently he recognised the girl in the cloak for his voice changed, becoming respectful.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Miss Clare.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Rudd. Only me.’

  ‘You’re out late, miss. It’ll soon be dark.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I forgot the time. Dreaming, I’m afraid.’ Her tone mocked her own frailty, begging his indulgence. ‘And I know you’ve asked me not to bring Gyp into the woods, but he’s on his lead, as you can see, and he’s really very good – he doesn’t bother your birds at all. And look… I found this girl. I think she’s ill.’

  Jess heard the undergrowth crack and swish as the man forded through it. He bent beside her, examining her with swift efficiency, his hands warm, strong and sure. ‘She’s not feverish. Just weak. Exhausted, poor lass. What the heck’s she doing in my woods?’