When the carriage turned the corner, Heather leaned back against the seat and smiled. She felt hysterical laughter rise, so great was her relief. She relaxed and closed her eyes and some time later they pulled up at the coach house on the outskirts of London. She went immediately to reserve a seat on the coach that would take her back to her aunt’s.
She had decided earlier she would go back. There was no other place to go. Aunt Fanny and Uncle John couldn’t possibly know what had happened to William for a long time, if ever. She doubted that any of William’s friends in London knew of a sister living on a small, dreary farm. It was hopeful thinking on her part, yet after seeing William living in such grandeur, she didn’t believe he had made much mention of his sister. And she had to leave London while Captain Birmingham was still in port. Her uncle’s farm was the safest place for her to be.
She would stay with her aunt just long enough to find a position of work elsewhere. She would become independent of the woman whose brother was dead because of her. It was hard to go back, but to remain in London was impossible.
On the coach trip back, her mind was tortured by the events of the day before. She tried to quell the thoughts that plagued her. Still they persisted, haunting her ruthlessly. She tried to convince herself that none of it was her fault, but it did little to still the pain of all that had happened to her. She was not the same person of the day before, an innocent who had ridden to London dreaming of great things to come her way. She was a woman now, no longer ignorant of a man’s caresses, no longer a girl.
She vowed with great determination this would not change her. Marriage now would only bring disgrace. But if she was to remain a spinster, she would at least be an independent one. Above all, she would not be dependent. Then later, employment would be found elsewhere.
The problem now was what she would tell Aunt Fanny and Uncle John. She needed a reason for coming back. Not being on the best of terms with her kinsfolk, she couldn’t return and say she had missed them so much in a day’s time she found she couldn’t bear to live away from them. That would surely make her aunt suspicious. No, it had to be some believable lie.
When the coach came to the village crossroads near her uncle’s farm, it stopped only long enough to allow Heather to get off. She descended without a glance behind and remembered nothing of her companions on the journey.
She took the road leading eastward out of the village, the sun now making long shadows before her. Unconsciously, the nearer she got to the small farm, the slower her step became. When she finally arrived, the sky was pitch black and meal time was long passed. She walked slowly to the door and lightly rapped on it.
“Uncle John, it’s Heather. May I come in?”
She heard scrambling from within the cottage and then the door was flung open. She had hoped to see her uncle first, but it was not to be so. Her aunt stood in the doorway, a look of surprise on her face.
“What are you doing here?” the woman questioned in astonishment.
It was time to tell another lie, and it bothered Heather to think that just since the day before she had been reduced to lying about everything.
“Your brother found when he returned to London that he had to journey to Liverpool and inspect some silks he wanted to buy. He didn’t feel that it was appropriate for me to be in the city unchaperoned.” She almost choked on the words, for the lie tasted bitter in her mouth.
“Well now, a bit disappointed’ you are, eh?” Aunt Fanny smirked. “Going all that way to London expecting the whole world. Serves you right for being such a snooty little beggar. Always thinkin’ yourself a queen. Leaving here in such a grand fluff, I could of thought you to be one. Now I’m supposin’ you’re here to take up your chores again after you’ve been away.”
“If it pleases you, Aunt,” Heather replied meekly, knowing that life with the woman would be harder now. But anything would be better than what Captain Birmingham had had in mind for her.
“It pleases me fine, missy, and you’re going to appreciate being home, you are,” Aunt Fanny sneered, meaning just the opposite.
Heather understood but made no reply. She would accept the way the woman treated her without complaints. It was probably what she deserved for being so vain to think that a life of wealth in London was something she had been created for. The only thing for her to do now would be to humble herself and make amends.
“Well, get to bed with you, for when morn comes you’ll have to be up and working. Your uncle is already to bed.”
Heather dared not mention food, but her stomach growled so, she was sure her aunt noticed it. The woman made no reference to it, and Heather knew she would not. She had eaten little that day with Captain Birmingham sitting across from her. Her mouth watered now as she remembered how tasty the food could have been if that fiend of a madman hadn’t been there.
Without a word she moved to her corner and behind the curtain where she disrobed. The blanket was as rough as it had been before and it was likely to prove as incapable of keeping out the cold as it had in the past, unless—unless she could find a position of work elsewhere. It would mean she’d have to go to the village and scan the town’s posted paper which usually advertised for young girls to fill occupations of maid, tutor and the like. It wouldn’t be hard to find something, she was sure.
Despite the hunger that gnawed at her stomach, she drifted into a dreamless sleep. Morning came for her in swift, harsh movements and cruel words when her aunt tore back the curtain and threw the old hand-me-down dress into her sleeping face. The woman reached down and shook her with ruthless hands.
“Get up, you lazy chit. You’ll be having to make up for the chores not done the two days you be gone. Get up with you now,” she snorted.
Startled out of her slumber, Heather sat up in her cot, blinking the sleep from her eyes. Her aunt looked more like a witch than she remembered, alarming her. With trembling body she quickly jumped out of bed and pulled the old dress over her head under the watchful eyes of her aunt.
She only had time to grab a piece of stale bread before Aunt Fanny sent her to fetch firewood. When she went out to get it, she found Uncle John preoccupied with his own thoughts and not even interested enough to speak to her. He was chopping the wood and when he saw her, he ducked his head over his work. She could not mistake the effort he made not to speak to her and it hurt deeply. She wondered why he tried to ignore her. It was as if she possessed two heads and he wished not to look upon her. An uneasiness crept through her suddenly and made her begin to wonder if he suspected anything. But how could he?
Through the day she grew certain something was troubling him. Though he never spoke to her, he watched her closely, as if he were trying to read her mind. Becoming uneasy under these stares, she would move out of his range of vision. She could not fathom what was bothering him, and she dared not ask.
By bedtime she was completely exhausted and fell into her cot, too tired to move. Her thoughts were not so inactive however. She saw William Court’s prostrate form as clearly as if she were again standing at the door looking back at him. But that vision quickly faded when Captain Birmingham’s face loomed up above her in the darkness. She saw his mocking grin, his strong brown hands reaching out for her. She heard his amused laughter once again, and with a strangled cry, she rolled over and buried her face into the pillow to smother the sobs that shook her, remembering too well the feel of his hands upon her body.
Morning dawned and she was up and working before her aunt stirred. She had vowed after those sleepless hours she spent in her cot that she would labor and toil until not one thought or memory remained that could torment her. She would find the joy of sleep through extreme fatigue.
When Aunt Fanny came from the other room, fastening her homespun dress over her enormous bosom, Heather was down on her knees cleaning cinders from the hearth. The woman came to the hob, snatched up an oatcake and frowned down at Heather.
“You look a bit pale this morn, missy,” Aunt Fanny sneered.
“Could it be you’re not happy with being here?”
Heather dumped the rest of the ashes into the wooden pail and stood up, brushing a strand of hair from her face. Soot was smudged across her cheek and the oversize dress she wore hung loosely from her slender shoulders, exposing much of one round breast where the neck opening had fallen. She wiped her hands on her skirt, leaving it smeared with soot.
“I’m satisfied with being here,” she murmured, glancing away.
Aunt Fanny reached out and jerked Heather’s face around, her fat fingers bruising her niece’s tender flesh. “Your eyes are swollen. I thought I heard you cryin’ in your pillow last night, and I see I was right. You’re mournin’ cause you’re not in London, I’m supposing.”
“No,” Heather whispered. “I’m content.”
“You lie! You hate it here! You want to live in London in the grand manner you think is due you!”
Heather shook her head in denial. She didn’t want to go back. Not yet anyway, not when Captain Birmingham was still there and likely carrying out his threat to search the city for her. He might be there for three or four months yet, getting rid of his cargo and buying more. She couldn’t go back.
Aunt Fanny pinched her viciously on the arm. “Don’t you lie to me, girl!”
“Please—” Heather gasped.
“Let the child alone, Fanny,” Uncle John said, standing in the curtained doorway of their bedroom.
Aunt Fanny turned on him with a snarl. “Look who’s givin’ orders so early this morning. You’re no better than she, moonin’ o’er somethin’ you ain’t got, always wishin’ for what you had but lost!”
“Please, Fanny, not again,” he sighed wearily, hanging his head in despair.
“Not again you say. Yet you live with that woman’s memory every day you live. The only reason you took me for your wife is ‘cause you could naught have her! She loved another besides you.”
He flinched under the cruelty of Fanny’s words and moved away, his shoulders drooping more with his defeat.
Aunt Fanny wheeled around on Heather and gave her an angry shove. “Get on with your work and stop dillydallying!”
With a quick, pitying glance toward her uncle, Heather grabbed up the pail from the floor and hurried across the room to the door. She could not bear the sight of her uncle’s sagging shoulders.
A week went by, then two, the last seeming even longer than the first. No matter how hard she toiled, Heather could not push her disturbing memories aside. She was plagued night and day. Many times she would wake in the darkness of night with a cold sweat moistening her brow, having dreamt again that Captain Birmingham was with her, holding her against his long, lean body in a fierce, passionate embrace. In other dreams he would appear as the devil, laughing heartily at her quivering form, and she would awaken with her hands crushed to her ears. Dreams of William Court were just as frightening. She would always see herself standing above him, holding the fruit knife in her hand, and from her fingers blood would be dripping.
Another two weeks drifted by without relief, and it was beginning to tell on her. Her appetite fluctuated from complete lack of hunger to nausea to insatiable cravings. She suffered from drowsiness, an unforgiveable sin in her aunt’s opinion. She had received enough bruises to be aware of that. And she did awkward things, such as carelessly dropping dishes or burning her fingers on hot kettles. It was enough to drive a person mad. It threw her aunt into a frenzy, especially after she broke a treasured bowl.
“What do you think you’re doing to my home, you vicious little bitch, breaking everything in sight like you are? Do you want me to take a stick to you?” she screeched, giving her niece a slap across the face.
Heather fell to her knees, trembling violently, her face stinging from the blow, and began to pick up the shattered dish. “I’m sorry, Aunt Fanny,” she croaked, tears scalding her cheeks. “I don’t know what’s come over me. I can’t seem to do anything right anymore.”
“As if you ever did,” sneered the woman contemptuously.
“I’ll sell my pink gown and buy you another.”
“And what will you sell to pay for the rest of the things broken?” Aunt Fanny inquired sarcastically, knowing well that the gown was worth more than all the broken items put together.
“I have nothing more.” Heather whispered miserably, rising to her feet. “Only my shift.”
“It ain’t worth a farthing, and I won’t be having your tits poppin’ out of those old dresses of mine when you go to the village.”
Blushing deeply, Heather pulled the neck of the gown up for the hundredth time that day. The dress was so large that what had been modest for her aunt was just the opposite for her. When she bent over, the monstrous neckline revealed a great deal. If not for the string tied around her waist it would divulge everything, right down to her knees, especially since she had nothing to wear underneath. For modesty’s sake, she had to save her chemise to wear when she went to the village.
It was less than a month later when she finally received permission to go with her uncle to the village. Though she had waited anxiously through the weeks for the authorization from her aunt, she was leery of going because her uncle still continued to watch her. It made her jittery to have him stare at her so. She feared that once out of Aunt Fanny’s sight he would be tempted to ask questions, wanting to know about William Court, and she wondered if going to the little hamlet was worth them finding out that the man was dead; however accidentally it had been, she was still to blame. But she had to go. It was the only way she could read the town paper that was posted in the village square. The sooner she found employment elsewhere, the better. Besides, her aunt was expecting a lovely gift from the bartered gown.
White-washed cottages with thatched roofs nested cozily by the village pond, and an inn near the crossroads invited strangers to stop and enjoy the peaceful serenity of the country hamlet. Late summer flowers adorned window boxes and flowerbeds, and trimmed hedges made do as fences between the cottages. It was by far a nicer place to live than London, where filth, beggars and sinfulness predominated.
When they arrived in the hamlet, Heather and her uncle went immediately to the village common, a piece of land a chain or so square in the center of which a posting board stood. Uncle John made a habit of going there first. It was his only contact with the world outside the boundaries of the village and his farm. There Heather discreetly scanned the notices. A scullery maid was needed, she read, but she cringed at the thought. Someone desired a governess, making her heart thump wildly in her bosom, but she read further and found they specified an older woman, no younger than forty. Her eyes ran over the notices again as she prayed desperately to find one she had missed which would be suitable. She was willing to work as a maid, but if there was something better, she would be happier. But there was nothing more. Her hopes fell, and when her uncle turned to go, she followed in his path with tear-filled eyes.
He led her next to a shop where she could select a replacement for Aunt Fanny’s broken dish. She did so listlessly, feeling now in the lowest of spirits. When her uncle had pulled the little cart to a halt near the square, she had been wonderfully elated because he had not questioned her. Now, though still thankful for his unasking silence, she wanted to go somewhere alone and cry. She chided herself for being so impatient. There was bound to be a notice later that she would find agreeable. But her aunt let her come so rarely with Uncle John that it might be ages before she could return, and that would mean having to stay with her aunt just that much longer.
Mr. Peeves, the shopkeeper, took the dish she handed to him. “Will there be anything else, Maid Heather—a new gown perhaps?”
Her face flushed with color. It was not the first time he made mention of a new gown. She knew how everyone stared at her with pitying glances behind her back and how the young girls made merry of her oversize clothes. She had too much pride not to be embarrassed. But as long as she had life left in her body she would hold her head high and
pretend it didn’t matter.
“No,” she replied. “I just want the bowl.”
“A very lovely dish it is too, well worth the money. That’ll be six shillings, Maid Heather.”
She dug the knotted kerchief from her pocket and untied it. She counted out the money carefully and gave it to him. It left her with seven shillings, which she knew her aunt would eventually be getting. Her eyes went longingly to some colorful ribbons on a nearby table.
“The blue would go pretty in your hair, Maid Heather,” Mr. Peeves suggested, having sharp eyes in his head. He took up the ribbon and handed it to her. “Try it on, why don’t you?”
Glancing uncertainly at her uncle, Heather let the shopkeeper press it into her hand. She turned slowly to the mirror, the only one in the village, and raised her eyes. It was the first time she had looked at herself in a mirror dressed as she was. Her hair was neatly braided and looped heavily from above each ear, and she was well-scrubbed and her clothes clean, but it made little difference in the absurdity of her dress. Her aunt’s gown fit worse than any sack, making her slight figure appear even smaller.
No wonder people stare at me and laugh, she thought wearily.
The door of the shop opened and she dragged her eyes from her reflection. It was Henry Whitesmith, a tall, thin lad of one and twenty who had long been infatuated with John Simmons’ niece. Though Heather had never encouraged him, he was always near when she was about, gazing upon her with adoring eyes, taking her hand whenever possible. She was fond of him, but only in a sisterly way. He came immediately to where she stood and grinned down at her.