Lucy held her breath, not daring to think the worst of her parents, but sometimes she wondered if the babies her mother had borne, and who had been declared dead at birth, had actually been alive; and that between her mother and her father, they had simply agreed to do away with them in the quicklime. It was a dark thought that she kept to herself and didn’t want to acknowledge to anyone. It was a thought that was best kept a secret and not breathed to another soul. After all, it was an act of murder, and Lucy didn’t dare think that of her parents.
6
Adam woke to the noise of banging on the back door and his name being shouted in desperation. His mind was coddled from the heaviness of the previous night’s taking of Black Drop, and it took him a while to realize that he was not lost in one of his illusion dreams. Reaching for his pocket watch, he squinted and focused his eyes as he tried to read the time.
‘Mr Brooksbank, sir. Are you alright?’ Adam recognized the voice of Lucy, shouting with concern up at his bedroom window, between bouts of hammering on the back door of Black Moss Farm.
Nine o’clock – no wonder she was worried, as he was usually up and about by six. Adam sat on the edge of the bed for a second and then slicked back his hair, pulling on his trousers and braces before going to the window to reassure a worried Lucy.
‘I’m fine, Lucy.’ Adam leaned out of the window and squinted in the sharpness of the sun’s light. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realize the time. Give me a minute and I’ll be down to open the door.’
Lucy looked up at her drowsy employer and sighed with relief. She was beginning to worry that something was wrong and she hadn’t known what to do.
Adam quickly freshened his face with cold water from the jug in his bedroom; a shave would have to wait. Then he walked as fast as he could down the stairs to the cold, empty kitchen. His head was swimming with the excesses of his previous night’s indulgence in pain relief, as he pulled back the bolt on the front door and let Lucy in.
‘Are you alright? I thought you were ill or, even worse, that someone had murdered you in your bed.’ Lucy bustled past him. She threw her shawl down and looked at her employer. ‘You look ill, sir. Are you sure you are well? Perhaps you did too much yesterday. I’ll get the fire lit. By the looks of you, you could do with a drink of tea and something to eat.’ She looked hard at her employer and made Adam feel uncomfortable, by the long stare she gave him.
‘It’s not like me to not realize what time it is. I’ve had such hard days since I came here – it’s just sleep catching up with me. I’d welcome a cup of tea. I’ll go back upstairs first and shave quickly.’ Adam watched Lucy as she set about riddling the fire’s ashes and laying kindling sticks, before relighting the fire and placing the kettle to boil on the newly flickering flames. Lucy said nothing as he left the room and, climbing the stairs to his room, Adam swore quietly under his breath. She could have been right; she might have found him dead in his bed, not from murder, but by his own hand and an overdose of Black Drop as a substitute for his preferred laudanum. Laudanum he could handle; the effects of it might sometimes make him feel drowsy, but not like Black Drop, which made him hallucinate and sleep too hard. Damn the pain in his leg and the pain in his heart! Opium and laudanum were his only release from both, but he’d have to be more careful that they did not rule him.
‘Here you go, sir. Some porridge and a warm-up in front of the fire will soon make you feel more like yourself.’ Lucy pulled up Adam’s chair at the end of the table for him to sit in, as he arrived, clean-shaven and more awake, back in the kitchen. ‘It’s like you say, sir, you’ve done a lot of late, and what with your bad leg and all. It will have taken things out of you.’
‘Thank you, Lucy. I’m sorry you had to wake me. It’ll not happen again. You look tired yourself this morning. Are you alright? I’m not driving you too hard, am I?’ Adam looked up at the pale-faced young woman and smiled.
‘Oh no, sir. It’s just that I didn’t sleep well. It was as I had suspected: my father came home in a temper and I heard it all going on downstairs. And I’m always afeared for the young ones when he’s like that.’ Lucy bowed her head.
‘Oh, I see, so the news was not greeted well, I take it?’ Adam watched as she stirred the pot of porridge, before pouring some into a dish and passing it to him.
‘No, not at all. He’ll not be talking to any of us for a day or so now, he’ll be in
