‘But I need you here,’ Eliza said.

  ‘You have your windows and your silks, your pictures . . . leave the rest to me,’ Mirabel answered, making for the door. She needed to be out in the fresh air to clear her head from all the wounding words. What they were doing now was wrong but it had seemed so right in York. There was such a look of sadness on Matt’s face as he struggled to take in this extraordinary news. Why should his wife not be with child after a few months? The more the real Mirabel lived in the household, the more she was coming to admire his kindness and generosity, his pride and hard-working endeavour to give them every comfort at the expense of his own happiness. Now Papa would be pleased to have an heir and their contract secure.

  As she strode down to her Foss hideaway, her heart leapt at the thought of bearing Matt’s child and the passion that had brought it about. She just knew it would be a son. Then the young farmer would forget his anger and accept the child as his own but the next few months would be hard to disguise her swelling stomach. Thank goodness she had her stays to keep her growth in check and a full apron and cloak. They would have to make some excuse to make their way back to Lawton Hall and stay there out of sight until the deception was complete. This could be done but only if she took care of every detail.

  Matt was wrong to call Eliza crazy. Her sister was fragile and delicate and needed protection. She was not to blame for any of this. Once there was a baby in the house, her sister’s place would be secure enough. She herself must be strong for both of them, careful not to strain her body too hard and keep out of view as much as possible. Folk see what they want to see, she smiled, and Eliza was the sun now and she must take her usual place in the shadows. Servants were invisible, seeing all and saying nothing if they were wise. She was learning so much about how everyday villagers lived their lives. How hard work coarsened their hands and faces, bent their backs. It was another world but up here among the hills it was bearable.

  ‘That Bella is a right funny one,’ said Matt’s mother one morning as she inspected the laundry basket. ‘I shouldn’t be saying this to a lad, but for a servant she wears some fancy stays and shifts. These York girls must live like ladies. I’ve never seen such whalebone or quality stitching. Makes my poor efforts look like sacking. No drab cloth for yon young lady. I think she’s above herself for a maid. You’ll have to take her down a peg or two . . . even if she is a hard worker and doesn’t give me back-word.’

  Matt stood puzzled, staring at these female contraptions that were a mystery to him. Mother was right. He’d seen it for himself. Who was Mistress and who was maid in his household? Bella seemed to be always giving the orders to his wife and it wasn’t right.

  ‘You must not stand for such insolence,’ he explained to his wife in her parlour next day. ‘Bella’s but a maid and an ugly one at that. I don’t know how you can bear the sight of her.’

  ‘I don’t see it. I don’t look on it,’ his wife paused from her sewing. ‘She wasn’t always thus. She was as fair as I was once upon a time. She is not to be dismissed, for I owe her much. She’s my arms and legs, my messenger and helpmeet. We are never to be parted and we talk of many things.’

  ‘I wish you would talk to me. Your head is allus bowed over that blessed needle,’ he said, aching to hold her and make her understand his loneliness in this marriage. He still couldn’t take the news that he would be a father in the New Year.

  ‘I’m sewing a layette for our child,’ she replied.

  Matt shook his head back, ‘Are you sure there’s a babby? Has Doctor Brindle examined you yet?’

  ‘No, not yet . . . I’ll have no more quacks fingering my body. Wait and be patient. It will come when the curlew returns,’ she argued, returning to her needlework with a smile.

  Matt sat down, exhausted. There was no use trying to coax her out of doors; she would only collapse in a faint. He ought to send for the Apothecary, at least, who might give her some calming pills. Truth was, he did not want anyone else to see his dilemma, to see the poor bargain he had made with the old Squire. He did not want her sent away to some asylum if this was all some untruth. In truth, the maid always managed to calm her nerves and keep her occupied and content in her own little world. Without such an assistant he would have no option but to hide her away.

  Sometimes he came upon Bella busying herself around the farm, taking an unusual interest in their stock for a townsbred, learning to milk the cows with gentle fingers that calmed even the most restless cows in his dairy. Beasts didn’t flinch from her face but yielded up the milk into her pail. He found her with the dairymaid making cheese and butter. She had a way with them as if she was in charge, not they, and they didn’t seem to resent it, which he found strangely endearing. Her voice was soft and educated. All he knew was that she had come from York as Mirabel’s maid. In truth he was growing used to her quiet ways and shadowy presence and his mother looked forward to evening readings.

  ‘She reads like a lady. She must’ve been a beauty. It must be hard to lose your looks like that,’ Mother sighed and smiled. ‘Still, she’s our gain, for we get the benefit of her teaching Sadie the dairymaid her letters.’

  It was not lost on Matt that the city maid was taking to country life in the way he had hoped her Mistress would. Her body, her cheeks were filling out and her curly hair and blue eyes sparkled as Mirabel’s never would, cloistered away from fresh mountain air.

  Only when his wife’s stomach swelled a little each month did he sense change was afoot. He yearned for those night dreams and passions. Was his wife hiding her secret lusts too? It made him smile to think that his quiet mouse by day could have been such a strumpet by night, riding him roughly until he grunted with pleasure at their secret jousting. Now he must be patient, for the door was always locked from him at night, but once the child was born, all would be well again.

  9

  As the months fled past, it was getting harder for Mirabel to disguise her condition. Without the tight lacing, her condition would have soon been discovered. Eliza could pad up her waist and waddle but she hardly left the room. No one expected anything else from her. They had to be so careful now and it was her greatest worry that she might deliver at Yewbank under the scrutiny of all the maids and Matt’s old mother, Lucy Stockdale, would want to be at the birthing. They must make sure they were out of sight when the confinement came and that meant a long visit to Papa and the services of some discreet midwife from Skelsby who could be bribed into silence when the time came.

  For all this Eliza needed to be rehearsed and prepared so that she might make that one effort to get out of the farmhouse without making too much fuss. She had taken to practising with her sister, walking to the door and pretending it was the outside porch, pretending to get into the steps of Papa’s chaise, rehearsing how they might achieve this one last feat.

  ‘I must take myself to Lawton one more time,’ Eliza announced at the dining table to everyone’s surprise. ‘Just in case I die in childbed. I must see my home one more time. I want the baby born in Lawton. It will please Papa so much.’ It was about the longest sentence she had spoke in public but everyone was agog with this decision.

  ‘It’ll make you ill again,’ said her husband. ‘Happen, we’ll get the doctor in here to be on the safe side.’

  ‘No, Mr Stockdale, I am decided in this matter. Bella will be at my side. That is sufficient.’ Matt was too dumbstruck to protest further.

  It looked as if their plan was going to succeed. The return to Lawton was achieved even if the welcome was a little cool and the house stripped of many of the best pictures and furnishings, servants dismissed and owed money. The house was cold and unwelcoming after Yewbank, dark and damp. All that remained was to prepare the bedroom for the confinement and send word for the services of the best midwife in town, preferably one who liked her ale bottle. Everyone was fussing around Eliza, unaware that the real mother to be was already doubled up with cramp and backache, knowing her time was close.

  Eliza managed to send for Papa and meet him on the stairs, saying that the labour was beginning and to send for Mistress Ackroyd straight away, clutching her stomach to great effect. No one else must be admitted through the door until the baby was born.

  ‘I’ll call for Doctor Brindle,’ he said, suddenly alert.

  ‘No, Papa, women are best left to their own devices,’ she ordered, clutching her belly again with a dramatic groan. ‘Leave us be. All is prepared in the upstairs chamber. Saddle a horse and send news to my husband in due course, that he must come and greet his child tomorrow. Take your time; do not rush back for it will be many hours yet awhile. There will be no admittance until it is done.’

  By the time the midwife was admitted to the room it was already dusk and Mirabel slipped into the bed in her shift and bed cap while Eliza took on the role of the servant, hovering quietly as the nurse examined the patient, unaware that they had swapped places. The final piece of deception was in place. Mirabel could hardly breathe as the pains grabbed her body and squeezed the new life ever forward. It was the longest night of her life. For once Eliza made no fuss and watched on with horror and fascination as the tiny body pushed its way into the world, purple and then pink, squealing, taking lungfuls of air and yelling lustily while sending an ark of piss across the bed into the nurse’s face.

  One look at her son and Mirabel knew she was bound to him for life. He was perfect, sound in limb and with those bright speedwell-blue Stockdale eyes just like his father. Suddenly she was so tired and exhausted that she lay back and slept. Eliza was instructed to pay the midwife well and ply her with strong ale so she would be dismissed groggy and sleepy back to the town. There was no need of her services once she had buried the afterbirth and informed Papa that a healthy boy child was born who would be called William Albert Dacre Stockdale, after their brother.

  Matt wanted to tell the world that he had a son. All his doubts were forgotten as he danced around the kitchen and drained the ale keg dry with his mother looking on.

  ‘Never thowt she’d do it, son, with being that little,’ she grinned. ‘I suppose William’s a good enough name but you should’ve had yer say and all. This’s what’s wanted, this bairn’ll bring new life to the place and cure yer wife’s ailments once and for all.’

  Matt stopped at every tavern to toast his new child and came back ‘market fresh’. He could not wait to see his son. His wife was such a mystery to him. How could this feeble woman who scorned him by day, devour him by night within the darkness of the bed curtains. He had crept in and she caressed him in the darkness. Only her hands puzzled him: by day they stitched like the furies, white and soft as silk, sewing her poor mind into those samplers; by night her hands were rough hewn and coarsened by passion. Once she was recovered he would insist they share the bed every night. This misunderstanding must not happen again.

  He arrived at Lawton to see her sitting, plumped up with cushions, holding the infant to him proudly, ‘Your son, as I promised,’ she smiled so sweetly, turning to the maid who was sitting in her usual spot, silent in the shadows. ‘Is he not a true Stockdale? He has your fair hair.’

  He had to admit he had the look of Matt’s own father, looking like a little old man in his arms. How proud he would have been. He bent down to kiss her forehead in acceptance of this surprise gift but she turned her cheek.

  ‘I’m so weary after all this travail but fetch my sewing box and I’ll stitch his name onto his sheets and linen; the first of many,’ she smiled.

  He turned to Bella and ordered her to bring wine to celebrate but his wife shook her head.

  ‘Later, the poor girl is as tired as I am for she had sat with me and helped deliver me safely. We both need to rest. Take your son and show him where you must,’ she ordered and he was thrilled to see her so alive. ‘Close the door and admit only Papa when he arrives back from his business. I want no visitors but the Parson who can baptise him here if you wish’

  For a few days Matt’s hopes of a miracle cure for his wife rose. She was brought back to life by this bairn. Then to his utter disappointment, on her return home she fell back to her old ways, sitting by the windows of light, rocking the cradle with her calfskin boot, sewing, sewing, always sewing. He never saw her feeding him but the boy seemed to be thriving. He insisted that the boy be properly baptised in St Peter’s church before the congregation, which upset his chapel-going mother.

  Mirabel did not make the church service for she was in one of her feverish moods. The baby was held by the maid as usual, who rocked him back and forth until he slept and the christening went ahead with the Squire bursting with pride at the sight of his grandson. His daughter had done her duty and produced an heir and he seemed mighty relieved that everyone was satisfied with her good work.

  Soon life at Yewbank was back to the old way. The baby roared, screaming for its feed, upsetting Matt’s mother with his untended cries.

  ‘That girl’s got not enough milk. She scarce lifts her eyes from her sewing to see to him. I’ve taken to putting him in the kitchen with me. It’s not right, Matt. His cries wake us all in the night but all that Dacre girl does is sew and sew: such fine gowns, I must admit, embroidered caps, capes. Her fingers are raw. Only Bella gets up to him in the night and shushes him up. There is nothing William lacks, poor lad, but a mother with a bit of sense. I cannot be doing with his cries. They tear my heart out. You’ve got to say something, son, or I will.’

  One morning Matt himself could hear the baby screaming out with hunger, so wondering when someone would lift the bairn and see to his comforts he came indoors to have words. Bella was scurrying across the top of the upper floor and in her haste she dropped some napkins. He picked them up still warm from the flat iron, smelling of lavender, and followed her into Mirabel’s chamber to return them. For once the door was not locked.

  Through the open door to his horror he glimpsed the maid’s pock-marked breasts as she suckled his son contentedly.

  ‘What in God’s name are you doing with my son?’ he screamed and the baby startled, screwed up its face and began to wail. Mirabel looked up at him blushing and for once had the grace to give him her full attention. Bella looked at him square on, the brazen hussy.

  ‘Someone has to feed William. He’s hungry and Mirabel has no milk. Wet nurses are common enough, Sire,’ she spoke without asking for permission.

  ‘Aye and we all know that a milk cow must first deliver to produce its milk. A barren cow cannot suckle a calf. Hellfire! What are you two she devils up to? Give me that thing . . .’ he snatched the child from the breast and slammed the door, his mind afire with rage at such deception.

  What had been going on under his roof? This was mischief indeed. What he was thinking was unbelievable. Whose child was this bastard? His head was ringing with fury at the scene he’d just witnessed.

  So that was their little game. They had hatched up this plot to deceive him, giving him the child of a maid and some quisling from the tavern too drunk to see her face. How could he have ever been deceived into thinking this was his own heir when he had been with his wife but twice? How they had deceived him! Matt tore through the kitchen, striding out into the yard with the screaming infant wailing for all to hear.

  ‘Out of my way!’ he ordered as the yard boy stepped aside. Then, seeing Sadie the dairymaid, he dumped the bundle into her arms and made for his horse to saddle up and mount, strapping the screaming child tight around his chest in a makeshift sling.

  He rode like the furies towards Gunnerside Foss but not before he halted suddenly to look up at his house, and the world that was fast collapsing around his head. How grand the farmhouse looked with whitened walls set against the emerald moorland, the sun torching the windows with golden light, so proud and outstanding but so full of corruption. How he had been duped and humiliated by those scheming women: one unfit to be seen and the other not right in the head. Poor Matt Stockdale who thought he could be a gentleman, fobbed off with someone else’s bastard, made a laughing stock in the district. No wonder they had hidden away in Lawton to deceive him. It was as clear as a mountain stream now. Well, he was going to have the last laugh now . . .

  10

  ‘What’s going on?’ puffed Lucy Stockdale, as she rushed into the bed chamber unannounced, hearing the screams. ‘Where’s the babby?’ Eliza was simpering and shaking her head and Mirabel was buttoning up her shirt trying to stay calm. How could she explain the mess they were all now in? But there was no time for explanations. Matt had taken her baby in a rage of fury, thinking William some bastard imposter. There was danger in the air and she must go to him.

  ‘Please see to Miss Mirabel,’ she begged, trying to stay calm and not alarm Mistress Stockdale further. ‘I must take the baby a warm shawl or he will be chilled in the fresh air.’ She ran down to the kitchen but there was no sign of her son. She ran through the yard calling his name but there was no answer until Sadie came out of the dairy and said the Master had saddled up and gone. Her heart was thumping with fear.

  ‘Saddle me a horse and be quick. The Master is out of his senses. He thinks the baby unwell,’ she lied. Now was not time for explanations. All she could think about was little William, hungry, cold and in danger from a man in the throes of furious confusion. This was the moment she had dreaded, the moment when all the tight ball of lies they had wound was unravelling fast. Mirabel mounted the brown horse for the first time in months, racing off down the track in pursuit of Matt, taking a flying leap over a wall in the race to save her son.

  Sitting in the saddle with the whimpering child, Matt suddenly felt as if all the stuffing had gone out of him. Matt wanted to cry out himself in shame for having been such a blind fool who’d built his house on the shifting sand of vanity, not on the rock of truth. It was built on the sands of pride and ambition. How could he ever think to emulate the gentry when he was but a yeoman? Here he was, a farmer’s son, parading about in his top hats and leather boots and fancy steed, now brought low by a frigid wife and a cunning maid in this house of whispering women. Damn them all!

 

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