‘Do you really want to hear this, Ranald?’
He shook his head. He didn’t know what to believe. Who to believe. He felt like he was swimming through smog. That everything solid he touched would fade into vapour. First Marcus and Liz … or Rebecca or whatever the hell her name was. Was he really so suggestible that all she’d needed to do was a bit of theatrics and he’d ended up imagining a whole person – for week upon week? But Jennie seemed so real. The girl in those letters certainly was.
Then he thought about his mother. Incest and murder. He searched his memory of her for clues that might suggest what she was capable of, but his brain came up short. In any case, how could he possibly remember someone in a ‘normal’ activity and then conflate that with something so heinous?
If all of that wasn’t enough to deal with, then there was the betrayal by Danny and Mrs Hackett – they’d seemed so down-to-earth and honest.
And now even in his letters written before he died, the old man had been hiding some of the truth.
He planted his feet on the floor, squared his shoulders and looked into Mrs Hackett’s eyes. What he saw there offered some reassurance. She wanted to tell him; needed to tell him. And the information she was about to impart, she believed to be the absolute truth. He could see that.
‘Go on then,’ he said.
‘It wasn’t that long ago, but you have to remember that this was a different age. There were very clear lines between the classes. Very strict codes of behaviour. As part of the ruling classes, the wealthy, your uncle had a lot of power over the people who worked for his family.
‘For a young woman from a working-class family, in her first job in the big house, it would have been terrifying. You also have to remember that there was little in the way of social security back then. Children in her situation – and she was little more than eighteen at the time – had to go to work to send money back to their families. Lose a job and it could be disastrous.’ She paused and rubbed at her mouth while trying to work out how to go on.
‘She went to my mother, not sure how to handle your uncle. She said that every time she turned round he was there, staring at her or saying how pretty she was. Trying to touch her hair, her face. Nothing sexual at first, she said. It was more like he was infatuated and was reaching out to touch her as if to prove to himself that she was real, you know?’ Mrs Hackett shook her head. ‘It was, as I said, a different time; children didn’t have the rights they have now. It was the age of being seen and not heard, and if something bad happened, people would shrug and dismiss it as just one of those things. Anyway,’ she exhaled, her facial muscles formed into a shape of inherited regret, ‘my mother said she told Jennie not to worry. It was just a phase and it would pass. To keep on with her work. Keep busy, she told her, and Mr Alexander would get bored and leave her alone. Except he didn’t, it got worse.’
Ranald slumped in his chair, feeling a chill; he crossed his arms as if that might help to warm him.
‘Alexander suggested to his mother that Jennie be promoted and become her and his sister’s chambermaid. This meant she was given a small room of her own in his mother’s wing and that he could visit her there.’
‘No…’
‘Sadly, yes. He began to go to her after everyone was in bed.’ She swallowed. ‘Your uncle effectively raped this young girl, night after night, for months, and there was no one – no one – she could turn to.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Ranald. ‘But his letter…’ He completed the sentence in his head: …told a vastly different version. He was moving on from his earlier position of doubt. Everything he was hearing had a ring of truth. ‘Couldn’t she go to your mother?’
Mrs Hackett shook her head. ‘She did. But – and the guilt of this haunted Mum to her last breath – my mother didn’t believe her. She told her off for telling lies and threatened to have her sacked if she repeated them again.’ She pursed her lips and exhaled slowly, as if releasing some of her own pain. ‘She said Alexander was a fine young man. The future of a great family, and a likely pillar of the community. There was no way he would be involved in anything so awful. She sent the poor girl away with a flea in her ear.
‘Next thing, Alexander was sent off to war and Mum noticed a change in Jennie. At first she seemed more like the young girl who first arrived at Newton Hall – lively and curious. Sometimes it’s only when something returns that you notice it was missing, you know? That was the first time Mum thought that Jennie might indeed have been telling the truth. But then she seemed to revert to being overly shy and sensitive. She started taking her food up to her room and avoided being with any of the other members of staff.’
Mrs Hackett held her hands on the table in front of her. She slowly rubbed the back of her left hand with her right thumb.
‘God knows how she managed to keep her pregnancy a secret.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Then it all came to a head. Mum was helping Alexander’s mother with something when they heard an awful scream. It came from the lift. They ran there and found Jennie covered in blood from the waist down. She had just given birth – Mum guessed that Jennie hid there when she realised she was going into labour – to keep away from everyone.
‘Mum said the sight would haunt her to her dying day. Jenny was trying to cradle the baby while chewing through the cord. The poor girl was terrified, exhausted and in a panic. The baby was stillborn, poor thing. Mrs Fitzpatrick ordered that everything be cleaned up and that the girl be sent from the house in disgrace. Jennie spoke up for the first time and told her that the baby was Alexander’s, that he had forced himself upon her and that she was frightened that when he came back from leave the rapes would start up again.’
‘Dear God,’ said Ranald, and heard his voice echo in the space. Rough and masculine, so out of place in this story of abuse. He shuddered at the thought of what poor Jennie had gone through.
Mrs Hackett stood up. ‘I need something to drink. Just a shame it’s not later in the day. This is a story that should be served with a large whisky.’ She replenished her tea and sat back down to continue.
‘Of course, Mrs Fitzpatrick was having none of it. This girl had thrown herself at her son, she thought, trying to worm her way into a position of wealth and privilege. And she had Jennie carted off to the asylum, telling everyone that she’d been found eating her own baby and that she must be insane or a witch or something equally vile.’ She paused a beat. ‘The poor girl didn’t stand a chance. Who was going to believe her against the Fitzpatricks? Sadly, she died shortly after. Loss of blood apparently.’ Mrs Hackett blessed herself. Her right hand finding the places to touch on her body, quickly and by long habit. Forehead. Heart. Left shoulder. Right shoulder.
‘What happened to the baby?’ asked Ranald.
Mrs Hackett looked at him. ‘That was something my mother remembered as being odd. Mrs Fitzpatrick was determined that the girl was lying, that her son hadn’t laid a hand on her, but she had the baby buried in the garden and a wee statue erected. Made a wee memorial spot, if you like.’
‘Really?’
Mrs Hackett nodded. ‘I think she was hedging her bets. I don’t know what they would normally do in that situation, back then. An unmarked grave in the council cemetery, maybe? But she had a little spot in the garden dedicated to him.’
‘It was a boy?’
Nod.
‘Whereabouts in the garden? Is it still there?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Beyond the big rhododendrons. There’s a small sort of clearing.’
He made a mental note and decided he would look for it later.
‘That would have been a source of comfort to Jennie. If she knew,’ Ranald said.
‘Poor Jennie. What that girl lived through.’ Mrs Hackett’s face was long, mournful. ‘Any woman who got pregnant out of wedlock in those days was treated abysmally. It was shameful. And it’s something we rarely talk about these days, like it’s a convenient community memory loss.’ She cleared her throat. ‘And then Mr Alexander came home on leave. He was furious that no one had told him about Jennie.’ She looked into Ranald’s eyes and held his gaze, as if it was essential that he understand the importance of her next few words. ‘He was a changed man. The war changed him, whatever went on over there. He had convinced himself that he was in love with her, and he confided in me in his later years that he was certain that in her own time, had she lived, Jennie would have realised he loved her and would have forgiven him for his youthful impatience.’
‘Youthful impatience?’ Ranald repeated. ‘That’s how he excused his rape of this girl? For fuck’s sake.’
‘Language, please, Ranald. I can’t abide that word.’
‘I’m not going to apologise, Mrs H. It’s the only word that works in the situation. It appears that everything he said in his letters was true. Apart from the events surrounding Jennie’s death, and that poor stillborn baby.’ He saw her in that lift, mouth open in a soundless howl, blood-stained teeth, and that little bundle in her arms. ‘He never admitted to any of that. And that’s where true repentance lies.’
She gave him a look that conceded agreement and continued. ‘In any event, as my mother would tell it, he went back to war and at the end, came home, utterly different from the man who first put on that uniform. Mum said she would come in early to do her work, avoiding his rooms because he always slept late, but she would hear his screams throughout the house. Blood-curdling they were. She said he must have had terrible nightmares.’ She shook her head. ‘He devoted his life to the family business, told his mother that Jennie was the only one for him and to get used to the fact that he wasn’t ever going to get married and have children.’ She considered that for a moment. ‘I think, unable to deal with his guilt, he twisted his own thinking, blamed his mother for Jennie’s death and this was his way of punishing her.’
‘So, he never met anyone else? Didn’t have so much as a single girlfriend?’
‘Not that we know of.’
‘Unbelievable,’ said Ranald. He held a hand over his stomach and pressed there as if trying to contain the conflicted emotions he was feeling. ‘You knew all of this, Mrs H. How could you spend so much time with him? What he did? It was vile.’
Mrs Hackett listened to his questions and leaned forwards on the table, her hands clasped in front of her as if in prayer.
‘I’ve been a regular churchgoer all my life, Ranald, and the Bible tells us that the person is not the sin. Or at least that’s what I believe. And it tells us that God is the judge. There’s far too many people willing to take on that role. I don’t presume to think I’m in a position to sit on judgement on anyone.’ She stopped speaking and looked down at her hands. She stretched her fingers out and closed them as if returning to prayer. ‘Besides, I firmly believe he repented. He took the knowledge of that sin and wore it like an emotional sackcloth for the rest of his life.’ She gave him a small smile. ‘What form of judgement or penance could I suggest that would match that?’
‘I think we should just have a proper drink, Mrs H regardless of the time of day.’
‘The tragedy is, Ranald, it’s not just a story.’
‘True,’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘True.’ And he thought about Ken Welsh. The old man still grieving for his big sister – carrying the weight of that all these years later.
Mrs Hackett stood and stepped forward. She took his hands in hers and, with eyes full of an empathy Ranald wasn’t sure he deserved, she said, ‘Thing is, it has to end here, Ranald.’
‘That girl you think you saw in the mirror? That’s a figment of your illness.’
‘But how did I know about her to see her?’ He paused and checked what he just said for sense. ‘If you know what I mean.’
‘You must have read one of your uncle’s notebooks and the suggestion of her was taken up by your subconscious?’
‘That feels a bit far-fetched.’
‘As far-fetched as a woman only you can see in a mirror?’
‘Well…’ His voice faded. The justifications that rallied in his mind weren’t strong enough to beat her use of logic. Then he remembered the album. ‘But I saw her photograph. I found an album in the other wing, and she was with Alexander. And she was just like the woman in the mirror. Explain that.’
‘You must have seen the photograph before,’ she said. ‘That could be enough to plant the suggestion.’
‘But I hadn’t. That was the first time I went into that room.’
She looked at me confused. ‘When was this?’
‘I can’t remember. Not that long ago.’
‘But, son,’ she stretched a hand out to touch his. Her face long with sadness, as if she was somehow complicit in this. ‘Your first weekend here, I found you up there. Don’t you remember?’
‘My first weekend here? You don’t work weekends.’
‘I did then. Just to be sure I could help if you needed something.’
Ranald scoured his memory and came up with nothing.
‘You say you found me?’ A nod. ‘You said you had no idea how you got into your grandmother’s sitting room. Thought you might have been sleepwalking.’
‘I did?’
‘You see, Ran. You have to forget all of this. You’ve read his memories and … and somehow taken them on. Some sort of weird gratitude? Jennie was a real person. Your great-uncle treated her appallingly, went to war and came back a changed person. He persuaded himself he had loved her and the tragedy of that twisted his mind over the years.’ She looked at him with kindness. ‘Maybe he had an undiagnosed condition. Maybe that’s what you inherited from him. I’m really not sure of any of this. But what I am sure of is that you need to leave that tragedy to die with him.’
He was aware that his physical self was wearing a mask of acceptance. He felt he had to let her think she was convincing him, but all the while his mind was rearing back from this version of events. Surely Jennie was as real as the clock on the wall, the books on the shelves, the clothes covering his flesh.
But what if Mrs Hackett was right? If Jennie was real, wouldn’t she run from him – a Fitzpatrick – not take him into her arms?
‘Right.’ Without making it seem to obvious, Ranald slowly pulled his hands away from hers. He felt heat building up in his neck and tried to understand where his new feeling of awkwardness was coming from. He broke eye contact with her and looked out of the window; read the gathering clouds in the distance and the sway of the leaves at the top of the trees.
He had heard her, but he could not allow himself to accept what she was saying. He was silent for a moment. ‘I found her letters, you know.’
‘What?’
‘Letters,’ Ranald repeated. ‘Jennie wrote to her family regularly, except the letters were never delivered. I found them in my grandmother’s desk.’
Mrs Hackett looked utterly mystified at this disclosure. ‘How on earth would they get there?’
‘You have no idea?’
Mrs Hackett shifted in her seat, and twisted again, as if that might dislodge some memory. ‘I remember Mum saying that as a young girl your grandmother was a spoiled little madam.’ She stopped speaking as if examining her thoughts. ‘Mum said she was hugely attached to Jennie and was devastated when she died.’ She took a deep, shocked breath as realisation hit. ‘Her bedroom was right next door to Jennie’s. Might she have heard her brother on his visits?’ She clasped at her throat. ‘Perhaps this was your grandmother’s way of punishing Jennie? Withholding the letters from her family? It would be easy enough for her to do. All the mail was piled on a table in the main hall for the doorman to see to. It might make sense to a girl that young: Jennie was hers, and her big brother took her away from her…’ Mrs Hackett’s eyes were full. She shook her head, back and forth, back and forth.
‘In what other family would any of that make sense,’ Ranald said, his voice heavy with certainty in the truth of what he just said.
Ranald made his way to the door, turned before he left and saw that Mrs Hackett had her mouth open as if to say something.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘You’ll think I’m a silly old woman.’
Ranald made a dismissive sound that he hoped encapsulated their previous conversations about women in mirrors and men reading to ghosts in lifts. ‘I’m sure nothing you could say would surprise me, Mrs Hackett.’
‘Alexander Fitzpatrick may have been changed by what happened to Jennie, but so was my mum.’ Her expression showed she was keen that Randal no longer thought badly about her mother.
‘I believe you, Mrs Hackett.’
‘The thing that haunted her most?’ She paled and held a hand to her throat once again. ‘Mum was feeling so bad about misjudging her that she went to visit Jennie in the asylum just before she died. She said there was no trace of that sweet little girl who first came to work for her. There, restrained on the hospital bed, hair plastered to her head, she screamed at Mum, said she would find a way to come back from the grave and make every Fitzgerald’s life a misery. She swore she would use her very last breath to curse the house and everyone in it.’