Old Sins Long Shadows (30 page)

Janey continued to isolate herself and had no interest in their gossip. A new realisation had started to dawn on her that she could no longer ignore
. It reared its head in the form of nausea that left her violently retching on an empty stomach into her chamber pot each morning. Janey Carhart knew without a doubt that she was with child as she had seen her own mother experience the same symptoms years before. Lady Brockenshaw did not suspect but she knew Janey dreaded the sudden return of her son. She didn’t know how she knew, she just did and she felt it was her responsibility to protect her loyal maid. So one morning she took Janey’s hand and told her she was free to leave if she wanted. She told her that she knew she was dying and Janey should not feel obliged to stay on her account. She handed her a reference that she had privately dictated to Mr Tallock and told her to use it to her advantage to find another position. There was no haste, she told her, but she no longer wanted Janey to have the burden of nursing a sick woman born from loyalty and duty. She sighed and squeezed Janey’s hand.

‘
There is no future for you in this house, Janey. You must find a future elsewhere. The truth is w
ture elsewhere.  Wo protect her loyal maid. child and she had no other option but to seek help to the only family
e are ruined. My son has seen to that. Bosvenna Estate is now owned by the bank and they will soon be knocking at the door to claim it. I tell you this in confidence and to give you time to seek a position elsewhere. My brother is doing all he can and I know he will take care of me, but it’s only a matter of time. You have my blessing to take care of yourself. Do you understand?’  Janey did understand. That night she wrote to her mother for the first time in many months asking for help. There would be no vacancy willing to take on a woman with child and she had no other option but to seek help to the only family member she had. She had to be truthful so in the neatest writing and with great care she confessed in her letter that she was with child but stopped short that it was as a result of rape. The shame at such an admission was still too great.

Helman Tor stood alone on Bodmin Moor. It was majestic, mystical yet domineering to the surrounding baron landscape, with their long forgotten Stone Age settlements decaying at its base. It was formed following the Ice Age which had exposed its granite to wind, ice and water leaving in its wake smoothed edged granite blocks precariously balanced on top of one another. Yet it had stood for thousands of years and would remain standing for a thousand more. Their strange shapes, as if piled high by some gigantic hand, had a special significance to the people of years gone by and the ghost of built up paths leading to its summit, now disguised by grass and heather, stood as a reminder of their spiritual and religious pull over the centuries. Yet it was not a spiritual or religious calling that drew Janey to its heights on that blustery day. Janey had climbed Helman’s Tor to see for herself the place where it had been known unwanted babies were thrown and she looked down in deep thought to the great natural fissures beneath her.

Her mother’s reply had arrived that morning
. What should have been her salvation had become a nail in her coffin. Her letter was blunt and unfeeling, cursing her for bringing the ultimate shame to her family name. She would not, she wrote, from this day forth recognise her and her bastard as a member of her family and all contact was to be forever severed. Janey had feared this response. Her mother had fallen from the heady heights of headmaster’s wife of a large boy’s school, to living with her brother as nursemaid to his children. The blame for her fall from grace lay firmly, she believed, at her daughter’s door.  She would not allow her to drag her any further down in society. Janey knew her own future and that of her illegitimate baby was bleak. No one would employ a pregnant woman, leastways an unmarried one. She knew women who gave birth outside of wedlock were treated as outcasts of society. They were ostracized and shunned as were their bastard children. Scared for her future, Janey had read the coded adverts in the newspaper from the baby farmers. The adverts read innocently enough, “a widow willing to adopt a baby for a small fee” it usually said. No names, no references, nothing to tie the baby farmer directly to the real meaning behind their message. There was no guarantee what services they were really offering. After the money was paid to a third party, and the baby handed over, the mother would leave hoping her child was about to have a better life, but knowing in her heart of hearts there was a risk the baby may never be seen alive again. Despite her desperation she could not let someone else care for or, at worst, kill her baby, but could she kill it herself?

Janey stood facing the wind as it whipped her skirts about her legs
. She contemplated her next move. On learning of her pregnancy her nightmares had changed. She now dreamt of giving birth to a hideous creature that screamed in pain and horror all day long. She could see no bottom to the deep fissures below her that dropped away so suddenly from the edge she stood on. She wondered how many bodies lay in their depths, how long they took to die and how much did they suffer. Perhaps if she jumped and ended her own life her death would take the pain away from her baby. No one would miss her, she thought, and she would not have to suffer her demons anymore.

Suddenly she felt a fluttering in her womb, as gentle
as butterfly wings. Her waist had only just begun to thicken but she had been able to hide it well and up till that moment she had purposely tried to feel no bond with the creature growing inside her. Yet the fluttering continued, refusing to quieten and be ignored any longer. I am here, the fluttering told her. I am here. I am real.

‘
Janey?’ came a man’s voice from behind her. She turned around in surprise and saw Daniel standing alone against the dark grey sky. He had been watching her.

He had seen the figure on Helman Tor sometime before and was surprised to see it still there when he returned to his fields later that morning. The length of time the person had been standing there against the billowing wind warranted a closer inspection. He realised, from the flapping of her dress, it was in fact a woman and not really knowing why he was drawn towards the lone figure. As he came closer he realised it was
her
. He had not seen her for some time and as she turned around he was surprised at how much she had changed. Her hair, usually so neat, was untidy and loose, the wind whipping up the strands giving the appearance of angry flames dancing around her head. Her face was pale, with dark circles beneath her eyes and her cheek bones seemed more prominent as if she had lost weight.

However, the most dramatic change to her appearance was her sadness and it pained him to see her so ch
anged. He frowned.

‘
You will fall,’ he told her bluntly, watching the wind buffeting her body as she stood close to the edge. She ignored him and turned to look down into the blackness of the crevices. He tried again,’What is ailing you?  You look unwell.’

‘
I am well,’ she said. ‘Leave me be.’  Instead Daniel came a step closer, concerned that at any moment she might lose her footing.

‘
I will not. Not until you tell me what brings you to this God forsaken place on a day like this.’

‘
They say people come here to end their lives. Is that so, Mr Kellow?’

‘
I have heard it so. What brings
you
here?’

She laughed and he could see that
she was on the point of hysteria.

‘
I have good news for you,’ she told him theatrically. ‘You were right all along. He was no gentleman. I have been used and discarded.’ She bit her lip. He must never know what she had endured. No one must ever know.

‘
What has he done?’ Daniel was instantly concerned and stepped forward again. They both knew who they were talking about. ‘Tell me!’

Janey realised her fo
lly and stepped nearer the edge.

‘
Leave me be.’

Daniel watched her, she was troubled and Brockenshaw was the cause
. He remembered warning him in the dark alleyway in Bodmin to leave her be. Brockenshaw had openly boasted of his conquest of her and now he had left her. She had been
used and discarded
she had said and Brockenshaw had done just that. She stood before him looking windswept and broken-hearted, for the loss of the man she loved.

‘After bedding you Brockenshaw has ended his relationship with you.’  He spoke his name with the hatred he felt for the man. Janey laughed again, one step closer to the hysteria she felt threatening her sanity.

‘
Indeed he has!’ she cried swinging around to face him. Her eyes were wild, as wild as her hair in the gusting wind.

‘
Did you love him so much?’ he asked angrily but Janey turned away, unable to look at him. She would rather he branded her a loose woman who had been immoral for love than the victim of rape. So concerned was she that he would feel she had invited such an assault that she vowed she would take it to her grave.

‘
Do you think it hurts to die?’ she asked changing the subject and looking down once more to the rocks beneath.

‘
No more than it does to live,’ he replied, approaching her quietly.

‘
That, Mr Kellow, is a matter of opinion.’  She stepped closer, her toes teetering on the edge. ‘To live would be to prolong my torture.  You warned me and I did not listen.’

‘
Then listen to me now. Step back or you will fall.’ Daniel was growing concerned whilst she was growing reckless.

‘
Perhaps that is what I wish!’ An unusually strong gust caught at her skirts, it swirled her dress and pulled her away from him, throwing her off balance. His vice like grip caught her flailing wrist, causing the skin around it to blanch. She would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her but he did not bring her to safety, instead he held her at arms length teetering on the edge. He pierced her with an angry glare.

‘
You want to die?’ he asked menacingly. Janey could not answer, suddenly she felt frightened. Daniel’s grip was the only thing preventing her from falling and certain death.

He shook her wrist angrily and asked her again,
‘Do you want to die?  Just say the word and I will let you go!’

Fear made her forget everything else and
she looked up into Daniel’s face. As the wind buffeted their bodies he remained solid as the rock he stood upon and continued to hold her firmly.

‘
You would let me go?’ she asked in disbelief.

‘
Just say the word and you will find out.’

She shook her head in disbelief as it dawned on her what the answer was to be.

‘I don’t want to die,’ she whispered. He shook her wrist again.

‘
Shout it to the wind! I cannot hear you!’ he demanded.

‘
I don’t want to die!’ she screamed back at him, her words were instantly snatched by the wind but he had heard her. He stepped back pulling her towards him onto more solid ground and she sank to her knees in relief. Shaking she looked up to find him smugly smiling.

‘
That made things a little clearer for you.’

‘
You were going to kill me!’ Janey accused, furiously.

His smile faded,
‘No more than I could kill a kitten.’ he replied quietly.

She stood up, b
rushing her dress down in anger.

‘
I wouldn’t be surprised if you drown a sack full each summer.’ she accused him.

‘
Only, if they scratch me with their claws.’  He was frowning again. She stood watching him, handsome, healthy and muscular with the darkest brown eyes she had ever seen. His expression relaxed. ‘He is not worth your sorrow,’ he added gently. Janey looked at him and saw the future she might have had. If they had been nicer to one another at the harvest dance they may have started courting, but everything was different, she was no longer the virgin a man desired for a wife and in her womb she carried another man’s baby. ‘Besides,’ he was saying, ‘You still have my coat and my chances of having it returned are far less if you are dead.’

He stood watching her and saw the sadness that still engulfed her. Suddenly he was beside her, wrapping her body in his arms and holding her close, but the movement and ch
ange in circumstances had been too sudden and took Janey by surprise. Instead of delighting in the embrace an overwhelming panic took hold and Janey was back in her room fighting off James all over again. She did not see Daniel before her but James; she could even smell the whisky despite Daniel drinking none. A blood curdling scream came from deep in her throat and she pushed him roughly away. He stepped back, shocked, his hands in the air in mock surrender.

‘
No! Don’t touch me!’ she screamed, before turning and running for her life.

He watched her figure growing smaller as she made her way down Helman Tor and across the moor
. The wind pounding her made her journey difficult but it was evident she would rather be anywhere than by his side and in his arms. She had found his touch repulsive. She was broken hearted for another man and no other, especially Daniel, could replace him. He felt sick with the rejection.