The Memory of Midnight Read online

  ‘Mamma!’ she cried, forgetting that her mother had been dead these two years.

  ‘Nell!’ Through the harsh labour of her breath, Nell heard Tom calling for her, but he was too far away. He wouldn’t have heard her.

  ‘Eleanor!’ It was her stepmother’s voice now, taut with impatience. ‘Eleanor, where are you?’

  ‘Here, here, I’m here!’ Nell was choking and gasping, too weak to scream.

  Her stepmother was still complaining. ‘Where has that girl gone? God’s bodkin, that child is nothing but trouble.’

  ‘Wait, I heard something!’ That was Tom.

  ‘Tom, Tom!’ Feebly Nell banged against the lid, but she was barely whispering by then.

  The next instant the lid was thrown open, and she arched out of the chest in search of air, an arrow released from a bow, dragging in a desperate, ragged breath, and then another, and another, not even aware of the shocked exclamations, needing only the sweetness of air.

  ‘Eleanor!’ Her stepmother bustled forward. ‘You foolish child! What are you doing in that chest?’

  Ungently she hauled Nell out of the kist, but Nell was still frantically gulping in air and didn’t care what happened as long as they let her breathe. She caught a glimpse of Tom’s white, shocked face and that brought her back to herself more than her stepmother’s scolding.

  ‘Couldn’t . . . couldn’t get out . . .’ she stammered.

  ‘Why didn’t you just push the lid? It’s not that heavy.’

  ‘Somebody put something on it.’ Nell was bent over, gasping and choking still, but a quality in Tom’s silence made her look up. ‘Didn’t you see?’

  ‘There was nothing on the chest,’ he said at last.

  ‘But I heard him!’ Tears of frustration filled her eyes. She looked around the room and spied the heavy ledger on the desk. ‘That! He put that on the chest! He knew I was in there, and he put it on so I couldn’t get out.’

  Tom looked horrified. ‘Who did?’

  ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t see. But I heard him. I did!’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Her stepmother was brushing her down efficiently. ‘Who would do such a thing? You just frightened yourself, you beetle-headed child! I’m not surprised you imagined things, stuck in a dark box.’

  Was that all it had been? Nell looked at the ledger and tried to remember where it had been on the desk when she came in, but her mind hurt with the effort of it. It had moved, she was sure it had, but how could she remember now when her breath was still coming in hoarse rasps and her heart was galloping in her chest? The more she tried to remember, the more her memory slipped and slithered away. The truth was, she couldn’t be certain.

  There was a splinter in her palm and her fingers stung where she had hammered at the lid.

  ‘What in the name of Our Lady were you thinking to get in there in the first place?’ Anne Appleby went on. Having satisfied herself that her stepdaughter was in one piece, her mind was running on to how to explain to Henry Maskewe that his papers were crushed by Nell’s panic. Her husband had obligations to Mr Maskewe. They couldn’t afford to alienate him. Why else would she be here, attending his wife in childbed on a day like this? She had business enough in her own home.

  Anne’s mouth tightened as she looked at Nell in exasperation. The child was a hoyden and no amount of beating seemed to quench her spirit. Everything about her was unruly: the thick coppery hair that curled out irrepressibly from under her cap, the freckles on her snub nose, the wilful gleam in her green eyes. Anne had done her best to teach her husband’s daughter to be obedient and demure, but Eleanor seemed possessed by an unchristian energy. Get the child to sit still, but yet she simmered, ready to burst into action the moment she took her eyes off her. It was very unrestful.

  She had a good heart, Anne could see that, but this latest escapade would have to be punished. Her husband was inclined to be indulgent of his only daughter, but Anne had their future to think of. They needed Mr Maskewe’s good opinion, and Nell’s friendship with Tom Maskewe could not be allowed to undo it.

  ‘We were playing,’ Nell answered hoarsely. Her throat was burning as she heaved in one delicious, agonizing breath after another.

  ‘You were told not to get into trouble.’ Anne clicked her tongue. ‘Why can you not play quietly like good children?’

  Nell and Tom didn’t bother to answer this.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother,’ Nell tried after a moment.

  ‘Sorry is as sorry does,’ Anne snapped back. She looked anxiously at the crushed rolled documents at the bottom of the chest. ‘Now what is to be done?’

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  They all swung round to see Ralph Maskewe in the doorway. He was smiling, but Nell found herself shrinking from the sight of all those teeth. Instinctively, she drew towards Tom and slipped her hand into his.

  Her stepmother explained that the children had been playing a game. ‘I fear your father will not be pleased to hear that Eleanor came into his closet. She knows better, but you know what children are . . .’

  If she hoped Ralph would let the matter go, she was disappointed. The smile evaporated and he looked grave. ‘I will send for my father,’ he said.

  Recalled from his warehouse, Tom’s father was in a black mood. ‘What’s this?’ he demanded, his gaze darting round the closet and his brows snapping together at the sight of the open chest.

  Nell and Tom had scrambled to their feet at his approach and were standing with their heads hung. It was Ralph who explained the situation this time.

  ‘By cock!’ Henry Maskewe roared at Tom when he was done. ‘Is there no end to the trouble you will put me to, boy?’ He pulled a switch from his doublet and tested it against his hand. ‘Come here, Thomas.’

  Nell quailed but she couldn’t let Tom take the blame. ‘It was not Tom’s fault,’ she protested, her voice quavering as she stepped forward. ‘You should punish me, not him.’

  ‘No, Nell, it was my idea to play hide-and-seek,’ said Tom, stepping ahead of her and holding out his hand.

  ‘Tom, no, you didn’t come in here!’

  ‘Since you’re both so happy to share the punishment, I’m happy to oblige,’ growled Henry Maskewe.

  ‘But sir—’ Tom started to protest.

  ‘Enough!’ His father snarled at him. ‘How many times have you been told not to come into the closet? It is not a place for children, as this brat should know too. And as for you, madam,’ he added with a glare at Anne Appleby, ‘I suggest you teach your daughter better manners than to go poking around in other people’s houses!’

  ‘Indeed, I am sorry for her behaviour.’ Anne swallowed her humiliation with a resentful glance at Nell. ‘She will be punished, you can be sure.’

  ‘I will punish her now since she is so ready for it. Step forward, girl.’

  Exchanging a look with Tom, Nell lifted her chin and took a step towards Mr Maskewe, but her legs were not very long and she had to take three more before she stood before him.

  ‘Hold out your hand.’

  She swallowed but did as he told her. Her palms were still torn and red from the chest, but she knew better than to resist.

  Beside Mr Maskewe, Ralph stood alert. He was watching Nell avidly, his pale eyes gleaming, and she knew without being told that he was enjoying this. She looked away, taking her bottom lip between her teeth as she braced herself. The pain that already clamoured in her hands was nothing compared to what was to come.

  The switch sliced through the air with a rushing noise and lashed her palm. In spite of herself, her body jerked, but she wouldn’t let herself cry. That would be letting Tom down.

  Swish, sting. Swish, sting. There were great red weals across her palm, and Nell’s face was screwed up with the effort of not whimpering at the pain of it.

  Swish, sting. Swish, sting. Swish, sting.

  Five strikes and it was done. Nell’s knees were unsteady as Mr Maskewe made a noise of disgust and waved her away.

  S
tepping back, she caught Ralph’s eye again and this time he smiled, showing those big, even teeth. Perhaps it was meant to be a smile of sympathy. To anyone watching, it might indeed seem so, but that was not sympathy Nell saw in his eyes. She might only be seven but she knew pleasure, and excitement, when she saw it.

  Tom was beaten too. He set his mouth and he didn’t say a word, but Nell could see how it hurt him. Her hands throbbed in sympathy.

  This was her fault. Guilt made it too hard to look any more and she shifted her gaze to Ralph instead. She watched him watching his brother. Something ran over his face whenever Tom flinched, something convulsive and unpleasant that she couldn’t put a name to, but which made her shudder, and when he glanced her way and smiled again, she could tell that he knew she had understood his expression and he didn’t care. For who would ever believe her? And what could she say anyway? I don’t like the way he looked when Tom was being beaten? She was a girl, and he was sixteen, the elder son of the house, and his father’s favourite. Ralph was always being held up as a model for Tom to follow.

  At last it was done, and Tom’s hands were as red and painful as her own. ‘I’ve had enough of trying to tame you,’ Henry Maskewe told his son. ‘You are eight now. Old enough to put off childish games like this. It’s time you had other things on your mind. I spoke to William Todd the other day. He is willing to take you as his apprentice. Perhaps when you have work to do, you will be less trouble.’

  Nell was taken home in disgrace.

  Their house lay across the street in Stonegate. Nell was desolate. Her hands hurt, but worse was the thought that Tom would be her playmate no more. He was happy at the thought of going to Mr Todd’s, she knew. William Todd was a merchant adventurer and did business overseas. If Tom did well, he could go on a ship, just as he had always wanted to do.

  And she would be left alone.

  Nell couldn’t remember a time when Tom wasn’t there. They knew the back ways into each other’s houses, how to slip in and out without being seen and given a job to do. Together, they had run out through the bar or over the crumbling city walls to the crofts and the common beyond. They had jumped over gutters and splashed in the river and listened wide-eyed to the stories of the mariners down on the staithes. To Nell, they had played and fought together forever, and even though Tom was a stupid boy at times, she could not conceive of life without him.

  But now, it seemed, she must.

  Everything was changing, she thought, scuffing her shoes miserably against the cobbles and earning herself a cuff of reprimand from Anne. After her mother’s death, her father had been too stricken with grief to care what she did and Nell had got used to running free. But a year ago, he remarried, and her stepmother made it her business to take both her husband and his daughter in hand. Nell had no objection to her stepmother as such, except that Anne was set on curbing her freedoms. She talked endlessly of proper behaviour, and reputation. She wanted Nell to sit still and silent, not run and jump as she was wont to do with Tom.

  Now Anne was increasing. Her father hoped for a son, and Nell hoped that it would take her stepmother’s mind off her, but today she had succeeded in capturing her attention once more.

  ‘Your father has been too indulgent with you,’ Anne chided as they crossed the street. Stonegate was divided into blocks of light and shade, with a narrow strip of sunlight laid between the gutters. When Nell looked up, she could see a thin slice of fierce blue between the jostling gables, and she screwed up her eyes, blinded by the contrast of dazzling light and the deep shade beneath the overhanging jetties. Normally the shade would be cool, but it had been hot for so long that the heat had crept into the darkest corners and there was no relief anywhere.

  Splatters of horse dung had dried to crisp trenchers on the street. Clouds of flies hovered over a dead pigeon and, without rain for so long, the gutters were clogged with weeds and dead leaves, with nettles and filthy straw and other ramell that rotted with the rubbish, their combined stench mingling with the stink of the festering cesspits. The inhabitants of Stonegate prided themselves on their street, but the heat had been so wearisome for so long that each complained about the state of their neighbours’ doors without rousing themselves to clear their own.

  ‘Something should be done about it.’ Nell had heard her stepmother grumbling to her father. ‘You must speak to the chamberlains again. What if the sickness comes?’

  Nell didn’t care about the pestilence or about the smell. She wished only to be out of her stiff skirts and scratchy cap. If only she could strip down to her shift and paddle in the river the way Tom did sometimes.

  The thought of Tom reminded her of that day’s news and her heart sank. Her stepmother was still talking, her hands spread against her hips to support her swollen belly.

  ‘He has let you run wild like a heathen, and what is the result? Mr Maskewe is angered, who must be kept sweet. Your father already owes him too much,’ Anne fretted, pushing Nell before her, past the shop with its stall and tattered pentice and down the narrow passage to the yard.

  ‘I will be confined soon, and there will be no one to mind you again. You will have to help with your new brother or sister, and then you will go into service like Tom. Your father will find a family where you can learn how to go on when I do not have the time to teach you.’

  Nell brightened. ‘Can I go to Mr Todd’s too and be in service with Tom?’ She wouldn’t mind that.

  Anne sighed. ‘You must learn to live without Tom, Eleanor.’

  ‘But he is my friend!’

  ‘You will have other friends. Maids like yourself. You’ll soon forget Tom when you don’t see him every day.’

  Nell’s face darkened. ‘I won’t!’

  ‘We all have to do things we don’t want to do,’ snapped Anne, impatient with her stepdaughter’s show of temper. ‘Even you, Eleanor.’

  ‘I’ll never forget Tom.’ Nell set her chin and shook her head stubbornly. ‘Never, never, never!’ She looked at her stepmother and her green eyes were bright with defiance. ‘Never,’ she said.

  Chapter Two

  York, present day

  ‘I can’t believe you’re going to live here!’ Vanessa stood in the doorway of the kitchen and looked around her with distaste. ‘It’s a horrible flat. Dark and poky and dingy. Ugh.’

  ‘It’s characterful,’ said Tess, determinedly unpacking pasta and milk and not looking at the stained sink or grubby tiles.

  ‘It’s dirty!’

  ‘Then I’ll clean it.’ Tess kept her voice even, the way she had learnt to do when she was talking to Martin. The thought of him snagged in her mind, caught on the barbed wire of memory, and she shook it free. She didn’t need to be careful now. She could say what she thought. The realization still caught her unawares sometimes, making her giddy with a strange combination of relief and apprehension. It was so long since she had been able to open her mouth without thinking that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with her newly found freedom.

  No more gauging a mood before she spoke. No more quick readjustment of her opinions in response to a drawing together of Martin’s brows. The slightest tightening of his lips could set her mind scrambling for a way out of the conversation without provoking him further.

  ‘I like it,’ she told Vanessa for the thrill of disagreeing, although the truth was that she had been dismayed when she unlocked the door at the top of the narrow stairs and let herself in. The flat felt different without Richard’s cheerfully chaotic presence. Before, it had seemed cosy and comfortable, the perfect refuge, but now the air smelt stale, sour, and the warm tranquillity she had liked so much when Richard showed her round had evaporated into an uneasy silence.

  It wouldn’t be silent when Oscar was here, she reminded herself. All it needed was a good airing. It would be fine. She would like it.

  Vanessa pulled the scrunchie from her hair, bent over, shook her head and then tied the glossy mass back in a ponytail, all in one practised move. She had the intimidatin
g glow of an exercise addict and was as slim and sparklingly pretty as she had been when they were at school. Next to her, Tess always felt drab and limp, and although she was glad to have a friend again, it was impossible not to feel suffocated sometimes by Vanessa’s insistence on helping her do everything.

  Tess wanted to manage by herself. Nobody seemed to think that she would be able to, and how could she prove them wrong when Vanessa kept sweeping in and taking over?

  ‘Seriously, Tess, I think you’re making a mistake,’ Vanessa said now as she smoothed the last strands back from her face. ‘Stonegate is no place to live with a child. It might be picturesque, but it’s noisy and there are tourists everywhere and you won’t have proper neighbours and there’s nowhere to park.’

  ‘I don’t have a car.’ Frustration feathered Tess’s voice, but Vanessa didn’t notice.

  ‘Yes, and look what a hassle it’s been just bringing some shopping in,’ she said. ‘I’d never live on a pedestrianized street like this. You’ve got to wait until cars are allowed in, sit for hours behind delivery vans, park on the pavement . . .’

  A sense of despair, all too familiar, began to wash over Tess but she brushed it aside. She was grateful to her friend, of course she was, but she could have got a taxi from her mother’s as planned. It was Vanessa who had insisted on helping her move in, and in the end, it had been easier just to give in than to argue.

  As it had always been with Martin.

  Humiliation bloomed under Tess’s skin, and she felt herself redden as she turned away to put the milk in the fridge.

  How many times do I have to tell you? The milk should be kept in the door of the fridge, Theresa, with the label facing the front. It’s simple enough. Even you should be able to remember that.

  Why hadn’t she laughed at Martin when he insisted on something so petty? Surely a new wife should have been able to tease her husband out of a mood? But it hadn’t seemed to matter much at first. Tess didn’t care which way round the milk faced, but if it was important to Martin, why not do as he asked?