Abigail Moor (8 page)

“Oh!” her voice
was brighter, if not surprised. “How can I repay you, though?”

“I did not ask
you to. You can go straight to sleep and give me some peace because
I have a long journey to London tomorrow.”

She sat hugging
her bundle as he sorted out the room and had his bag carried for
him upstairs. There were no servants’ cots but there was a big
armchair by an open fire. He asked for extra blankets and two bowls
of warm water, towels and soap.

“Molly, you
sort yourself out. I will be downstairs long enough for you to
freshen up, dry your hair and make yourself comfy in the chair.”
She nodded. “Don’t touch my things, Molly. I’ll show you trust.
Cross me once and I will have you arrested, and I would not look
back, understand?”

“I won’t, sir.
You is kind and I need a friend.”

He smiled at
her and left. Joshua took two steps along the corridor when the two
ladies that had joined the coach at The Cruck Inn stepped onto the
landing. He stepped aside. The maid frowned disapprovingly at him;
the pretty young woman smiled, discreetly. When he returned, the
girl had curled up on his bed. He scooped her up in his arms and
placed her carefully down on the chair by the fire. Nestled under a
blanket, Molly slept on.

Abigail stared in disgust at the old, threadbare hangings around
the four poster bed. Then tried to fix her maid with as firm and
adult gaze as she could. “Martha Napp, now we have some privacy at
last. As we rest you must tell me who I am. I cannot wait a moment
longer. I need to know the truth!” she demanded.

The gentleman
had taken her mind from their situation. He seemed a decent person,
but she wondered what he was doing with such a young waif in
tow.

Martha dropped
their bags down on the bare wood floor and walked over to the small
fire which had been lit to air the room. It failed miserably. The
room smelt stale and fusty. Old drapes were nailed to a beam, as
opposed to hung at the ill-fitting window, and swung back unevenly,
to be held in place by worn out ties.

“There’s no
good getting all angry at me, Miss Abigail.” Martha was most
indignant.

“Why ever not?
There seem few others who I can be annoyed with and you have
secrets I wish to share. You have lied to me for as long as I have
known you. My whole life is not what I thought it was. I have no
idea who I am or where I came from. Everything I thought was true,
all I believed was so, has no truth in it at all. Was my mother a
lady or a...wanton woman? I have a right to know and I must be told
the truth for I shall never have peace in my heart again if I do
not.” Abigail could not remember ever speaking to Martha in such a
way, but she felt it was not only essential that she assert herself
before she started her new life, but necessary to relieve the
desperation she felt building up within her.

“Everything
that’s been done in your life was done for your own good – and
what’s more, my girl, what’s done is done and can’t be changed. If
it has been so important to you, why has it taken you to your
twentieth year before raising a question about it?” Martha’s colour
was high; her ruddy cheeks betrayed how upset she was by Abigail’s
change of manner. “You always thought you were from a place where
you had been left as a babe.”

Abigail,
however, was determined to find out the truth. How could she be her
own person and survive in the world if her real identity was being
kept from her. Nothing made sense to her anymore; it was as if she
had lived a lie, a life that was, apparently, not rightly hers.
Frederick’s words echoed in her mind; he had referred to her bad
blood. Was it true? How was she to know? Martha knew, and Abigail
stared sternly at her.

“Because I
believed I was from a workhouse where there were no records of who
my parents were. Because I believed you would tell me if there was
more to tell and because I was so happy with my life that I didn’t
even care!” The last few words escaped her mouth without her
thinking of what the admission meant.

“That being the
most important point, miss. You were happy with your lot and few
can boast of that fact.” Martha sighed and crossed her arms firmly
in front of her. “Abigail, most folk around those parts – where you
were found - would have left you to meet your maker in the abbey
grounds, whether they had been rich or poor. The poor could not
have fed another mouth and the rich would not even have blinked at
you as they sped by in their fancy coaches. Your life would have
been forfeited. Folks believe it would have been your fate and they
would’ve looked the other way. It took a special kind of person to
do what Lord Hammond did. He’s different to most of his type, God
bless him. He took you despite you being a bastard. Admittedly,
he’d intended to feed you up and then let you go to the foundling
home, but by the time you thrived he was already besotted by your
charms and to the young life that had nearly been snuffed out all
too early… Like his wife, Georgiana and his own bairn.”

“Tell me what
happened to her, Martha…please?” Abigail tried to soften her voice
slightly, hoping it would encourage Martha to tell her something,
anything of the secrets of her past.

“She died with
her babe, a girl, only one year before you were found; neither had
stood a chance. The baby was all the wrong ways round within its
mother. Tragic… really tragic... Anyhow, he found you and did all
he could to help you survive, and when you did he made sure you got
to live a good life, denied nothing, from learning to riding to
being loved.”

“Who am I,
though?” Abigail persisted as she tried to come to terms with what
she had just heard.

Martha it
appeared seemed to think that she had explained enough to make
Abigail feel better. However, to Abigail it raised even more
questions and doubts. Did it mean that if her father’s real
daughter had lived she may have been left to perish? It was a
disturbing thought that made her shiver involuntarily. She felt as
though she was somehow not quite ‘real’, but a substitute daughter,
no better than a replacement for the child of his own whom he had
been denied. All the times she had looked on Frederick as a
brother, thinking he considered her as his sister and the true
daughter of Lord Hammond, had suddenly lost their credibility. Had
she been in the wrong? Was she in fact no more than an impostor –
Lord Hammond’s pampered pet? Frederick would have been nine or ten
when his mother died, then within a year he was faced with this new
baby in the household who his father favoured. Was this when the
badness in him had started to form? Was that her fault also?

Why had her…for
the first time she hesitated before even thinking the title… her
father, not legally acknowledged her? If he had loved her so much
as he said he did, then why had he hesitated?

“Miss Abigail
Hammond,” Martha said, and looked to the fire instead of at her.
“That’s who you are and that’s who you will always be until the day
you marry a fine man of your own.”

“Did he ever
have papers drawn up to say that, Martha? Did he? Do I exist in
law?” Abigail asked, but knew the answer before Martha replied.

“That’s what is
in the letter - instructions for Mr Ashton at the solicitor’s
office. He has to get things sorted out and quick like, because
Lord Hammond has to be well enough to put things he intended to do
years ago in order. He wanted to find a good match for you, but let
things slip by as time itself did. Abigail, bless him, he was
loathe to let you go. He loves you so much. Of all the things in
his life that were bad, he always kept you away from it, clean
like.”

“Perhaps it was
not the real reason. Perhaps Frederick made my dubious heritage
common knowledge – who would want a bastard for a wife? They’d be
no better than a laughing stock and I’d be an outcast from polite
society. That is the truth of it; he kept me at Beckton to protect
me from the harsh reality, my own truth. ” Abigail spoke the words
with bitterness.

“Abigail! How
could you even think such things let alone say them! Your father -
yes, that is who he is - Lord Hammond has always been a father to
you in the eyes of the world and to you. It’s just as well he
cannot hear you or for sure he would take a turn for the worse,
lass.” Martha was waving an accusing finger at her.

Abigail spun
around and stared at the flickering fire.

“Then let us go
and deliver this letter to Mr Ashton straight away. Then, if we
return with him to the manor, all will be put right and we can send
Frederick on his way with a firm word in his ear!” Abigail stood
up, straightening her hooded cloak and arranging her bonnet.

“I don’t like
this happening to us any more than you do. It isn’t that simple,
lass. Mr Frederick Hammond is a man of great influence; he has the
law on his side. He knows it well enough. He represents not only
your father as his son and heir but the law here too. If that piece
of paper your father has given you falls into his hands, he may
prove it false or something, or simply destroy it. What then? Lord
Hammond told me we was to deliver it, then take ourselves off
somewhere for a few months to see what was to happen next. Abigail,
if Mr Frederick Hammond can manipulate the situation to his
advantage you will have nothing, not even a life of your own to
live. I could be locked in that asylum, so called working, but as
damned as those inside. Or worse, for my part in all this he could
send me to the assizes. We’ve got to make the most of what we have
with us here.” She warmed her hands over the flames, not even
looking around at Abigail.

“That may be
true and I wouldn’t put it past Frederick to do such a thing, but
we have to try and find our way to a happy outcome.” Abigail placed
her hand on Martha’s arm. “I need to know who I am, Martha! It is
my right!” Abigail did not raise her voice for she did not want the
whole tavern to know her business. She wanted this woman to tell
her everything she knew about her own past, no matter what it was.
Abigail’s instincts told her that Martha had somehow edited even
this version; she had more knowledge but for some reason was loathe
to share it. She looked around the gloomy room and felt
constrained. She was not used to pokey, grubby little rooms like
this. Everything and everyone seemed too close to her, except
Martha who seemed more distant than she had ever been throughout
Abigail’s whole life. Abigail then remembered Martha’s words. “What
abbey grounds?”

“Sit down,
child.” Martha pulled the one chair in the room over to the fire
and then fetched Abigail’s luggage over. She sat herself on her
haunches and rummaged inside the bag.

“I’m not a
child, Martha!” Abigail was only too aware that she was not yet one
and twenty, but she did not feel at all like a child - ignorant of
the world perhaps, but then that was different and to be expected
as she had been raised to be a lady.

“Then don’t act
like one now!” Martha said sharply, and then almost immediately
tried to withdraw her outburst. “I’m sorry, but remember for the
next three months you are still officially one. So we shall not be
staying here very long as we must lose ourselves - somewhere.”
Martha pulled out the Bible and handed it to Abigail. “Whitby
Abbey, but it is of no importance.”

Abigail took
the Bible and sat down on the chair. There was a knock on the door
that made her jump nervously.

Martha put a
comforting hand on Abigail’s shoulder and smiled. “Come in.” She
looked down at Abigail’s worried face and explained, “I ordered us
some victuals.”

A tray was left
on the small table. Martha went over to it and turned her nose up
at the roughly prepared food. “Cook would have had one of her turns
if she knew you was being fed food like this.” She picked up the
plate and took it over to Abigail. “Can’t be fussy now, lass. Best
be eating something, you need to get used to eating what we can
when we can. Once Mr Frederick has realised we’re missing the first
place he’ll look is around the estate, then at the stagecoach
routes. If he figures out the coaches thereabouts he’ll look to
Newcastle or York. He knows folks here, so this would be the
easiest place for him to ask questions, or should I say, to have
questions asked. We had best eat, do your business, then rent a
chaise to go elsewhere.” Martha took a large bite of the pie and
chewed away merrily on it.

“Why not go to
London? We’d never be traced there, would we?” Abigail asked as she
opened the Bible and removed the two letters that were hidden
inside.

“London?
Whatever would we do there? That’s miles away, that is, with its
dens of… well, places no decent folk would go, and their strange
ways. No, besides it’s far too obvious.” Martha shook her head
dismissing the option.

“Where is the
other one?” Abigail lifted out two letters. ”There were three
before.”

“That one has
already been delivered.” Martha took another big mouthful of the
pie. “Bit stale but not too bad. Here, try some.”

“To whom?”
Abigail asked, not going to be side tracked.

“To Ezekiel of
course... about our escape.”

Martha was busy
munching nervously away at the pie. “But how did he know I would
need to leave like that?” Abigail asked.

“Oh, I expect
he covered the option, just in case, like,” Martha continued
quickly. “One of them is for Mr Ashton and the other ‘un is for
you.” She gulped down some ale. “Now might be a good time for you
to read it, then if you have any questions you want to ask me, I’ll
answer what I can, lass.”

Abigail put the
one addressed to Mr Ashton into her purse and then opened the other
one addressed to her.

My Dearest Abigail,

The fact you
are reading this means I am either incapacitated or dead. In either
case, I beg you to be strong and be happy for your own sake as well
as for mine.