Doctor Randolph was relieved that the injury occurred in the beginning of Winter, as the cold and dry air didn't favor the bacteria to fester. He had performed a small surgery, to realign the bones, and ensure that the blood irrigation to the foot was not compromised. Cauterization was preferred over the injury to avoid excessive bleeding. An infection had come uninvited causing swelling and clotting. The doctor had treated it with leeches to suck the infected blood, but he also needed to remove parts of the damaged flesh. This maimed the muscle, deforming the appearance of the leg. The scar was hideous to look at, partly burned and with keloids. It stood on the skin as a very ugly reminder, stamped along the calf that didn't look meaty anymore. When seeing together, the legs seemed like they didn't belong to the same body. One may think one of them belonged to a crooked creature. Arthur was the diligent nurse who helped her to change position in the bed, and in occasions, carried her along with Jory to sit her in the couch being careful with her immobilized leg, placing it over a stool. The Doctor had requested Arthur to sleep in a different room, if only to allow the wife's leg to rest unperturbed. Agnes demanded him to make the second room as his permanent room from now on.
As soon as the external wound healed, and the leg was not in risk anymore, the doctor Irving Randolph spaced his visits. The patient resented the absence of the doctor. For once, he was better company, and Arthur usually minded his behavior when his friend was on the house. For the coldest days of January and February, Arthur had opted to lock himself in the studio, counting the resting days for the mining season to begin. He sought it as an excuse to escape from the house, preferring to submerge himself in the clay, where the red that stuck on his clothes was associated with the ore, and not with his sins.
As the doctor had warned his friend, Agnes mood swung between extremes. From sadness to anger. She cried and sobbed desperately, blaming her husband. Sometimes she yelled the worst insults, blaming her husband. Other times she mistreated the maids, accusing them of being whores, and throwing the dishes over their heads. This made some of the chambermaids to quit, but what worried the Master was the fact that the foul mouth of his wife might give topic of conversation on the town. He had advised the woman against it. The husband's patience started to break as early as only two months after the incident.
"Now you speak like a vulgar-"
"Don't you dare to say whore! You have no right to call on me, you dirty adulterer, depraved, degenerated! I should call for the officers and make you hanged! Isn't that the punishment for your crime?"
"Enough! I won't let you slander the Sharpe name."
"Oh no, that you already did yourself! I should have never married you. Maybe your sickness comes in the blood, maybe that's why god took my good baby boys, to spare them. Are you that selfish to condemn the two that are alive. Are you planning to corrupt Lucille too? And what about Thomas, would you raise him to follow your steps?"
"You're talking nonsense, woman."
"If we send them away they can be saved from your corruption. I want to leave this house, you cannot retain me housebound like a prisoner!"
"No, I won't send the children away, neither are you leaving. You are not well, unbalanced I'll dare to say. And until you see reason you will remain isolated, for your own good" He left the room, closing the door after him to block the yelling and cursing that followed. It had to be Irving for sure, who else had put those words on his wife's mind.
While the maids kept in charge of the house chores, it was required from Lucille to tend her mother. She gave her sponge baths, combed her hair, read to her for hours, delivered the food and even feed her. When the maids where off, she even fixed easy meals by herself. Agnes didn't allow a different arrangement, because that way she could keep eyes on the girl, managing with strict control the children's daily schedule and tasks. Also, she developed the habit of keeping the cane at reach and was quick delivering strokes for the most menial issue that incommoded her. Gentle Lucille, you are pulling my hair..., I had been calling for an hour, didn't you listen child...I may die here, and nobody cares, ...you forgot to empty the basin, hurry up I need to go now!
In the nursery, Thomas spent most of his time in the attic, trying to devise trinkets to cheer up his sister. His creations were yet rudimentary and coarse, made by the hands of a child. But for Lucille, they were beautiful, and she encouraged him constantly. With his mother in the bed, he could have wandered in the house as he pleased, but a life of being conditioned had made him fearful to disobey and poor in self-confidence. He preferred the seclusion of the attic, it brought him some comfort, and he had no interest to take the risk of being heard by his mother - or found by anyone - downstairs.
For the children's disappointment, the tutors returned as expected for the change of season. While Agnes' mood and behavior improved with the presence of the tutors, her routine also changed a little. Jory helped her downstairs to the morning room with the inner garden, so she could take the sun. In the afternoon, she played the piano on the living room. Sometimes, Arthur himself carried her back upstairs, when she wanted to retire and rest.
The presence of the tutors made the Master of Allerdale to feel uncomfortable. It was a constant reminder of his wife's words. Had she really laid with one of them? He sincerely doubted it, all them were old except for the music teacher, who had a different kind of inclination - for men, he suspected. None would be interested in Agnes, not when her hair had started already to gray. He was sure that she had said it only to anger him, and it had worked. She did it on purpose, knowing the consequences. How could he control himself with her taunting him without peace? Not the way a married woman should behave.
When not in the mines, Arthur Sharpe occasionally spent time with the children. Truth was, he felt lost with them most of the time. Even when they were under the same roof, he didn't see them on regular basis, and most of their exchanges were brief, mostly involving words of acknowledgement and salutation. The dynamics of their relation had not been altered by the interruption of the father's travelling. Thomas and Lucille were polite and obedient. They were not noisy, and never speak, laugh, or even cry too loud. They never romped around the house like wild cattle, neither they quarreled like siblings usually do. In fact, Arthur cannot recall an instance in which he needed to punish them for misbehavior. Nevertheless, they suffered the ignorance and restlessness of age. Sometimes, the tutors had complained about them being particularly frolic during a lesson. Agnes would agree, but Arthur thought it was nothing in comparison with his own impish childhood.
An observant eye would realize that the children were indeed very reserved and even a bit fearful toward strangers – and few well-known people. Their behavior changed drastically when they were in confidence. Meaning by this, they were alone. Meaning by this, there were free to express themselves. With their father they were more relaxed than with other adults, as they craved for real parent-and-child interactions that were impossible to get from their mother. The children asked him many questions, and when no other soul was nearby they became very talkative. But as they were not yet ready to engage in more perspicacious conversations, their exchanges tended to be trying for the man.
For Arthur, this was contrary to how he had related with Camille. Verbal communication was not required with her, because she was mostly dissociated from common social interaction. Camile reacted positive to touch or visual stimulus. It had started with a petting, but Arthur had allowed it to grow in closeness. He never saw her as a daughter, and he would had ignored her at all, if not because she was the reflection of Emily. By all means, she looked exactly like her mother. She lacked the pronounced facial trait that was associated to those born with her disadvantage, although her expression looked always a little childish and vacant. About her condition, Arthur had investigated with his friend Irving, letting the topic to sneak casually on one of his visits, enduring hours of conversation about other maladies he was not interested in, just so it didn't look suspicious. Doctor Randolph's opinion was that the feeble-minded condition has more in common with epilepsy, infertility, porphyria, hemorrhagic disposition, and even some peculiar physical malformations - like hunchback and dwarfism -, that were either inherited, or developed in the womb or during the infancy. As specific causes, he listed those that may affect the fetus or baby from maturing properly, like sickness of the mother during the pregnancy, stress during the labor, a violent blow on the head on the infant, a lack of proper nutrition, ingest or exposition to poisoning substances by the mother or the baby. Also, the doctor thought it shouldn't be categorized along other mental illness like delirium and dementia, that were, to his criteria, induced after exposure and partaking to certain mortifying conducts. Unfortunately, the condition was inheritable, a sick parent could birth a healthy child, and this can still pass it to his descendants.
The doctor didn't mention inbreeding explicitly, even if such association existed. Arthur was the opinion that more than a biological reason, the claims were based on religion and superstitions. When a baby was born mentally sick or physically abnormal, some would say it was a work of Satan, or a punishment of god for the sins of the parents. Hence, the parents were accused of wickedness and sexual depravities - among these, prostitution and sex between blood relatives. Illegal or immoral, marriage between first and second cousins was relatively common, especially in the wealthy families. Less consensual and more depraved forms of incest were frequent among those raised in poverty. Ignorance, Irving had said, makes men to act in their savage primitive instincts, but ambition, makes families to consent same vices for wellness or social status. If it is a matter of education, then why the privileged ones do not set the example for the less fortunate? Irving was the philosopher of lost causes and moral rectitude.
Arthur Sharpe didn't concern himself about moral, in his mind it was the blood that make the Sharpe strong. Their parents had been cousins, and he had born perfectly well. Camile had been and exception, but he blamed it to the early age of her conception. Now Agnes, she was not a real Sharpe, a Sharpe by name, not by blood... and hadn't been she unsuitable for growing five healthy boys? So yes, he was guilty of enacting a memory long gone away. It was the closest for him to hold the body of the woman Emily never had the chance to become. Though, the pregnancy was never intended. Later he thought, that because she was a Sharpe too, her body had taken his seed greedily to sprout. He couldn't avoid a selfish feeling of manly pride, given his age and the fact that the conception occurred in a single union. Also, he indulged himself in the illusion of a child born from Camile, and how he would raise him to be the heir that would restore Allerdale to its former glory. It had been but a dream that turned into a nightmare. Still, he resented that it ended.
Thomas and Lucille Sharpe had enjoyed the escapades with their father even if they were scarce, few of the good times they will remember with the man that was their father. He had taken them once to see the horses and allowed Jory to show them how he cared for them. They even had seen the new little foal that had birth on Spring. He had taken Thomas to the mines once, the workers stared open mouth as they never had seen the child, even less standing next to the master. Thomas would had liked to spend more time there, or to be able to accompany his father to work every day. The excavation with all the ramps and the carts rolling over them was mesmerizing for his eager and creative mind.
Today, they just walked on the state, the three of them, because their father said that exercise would make them strong in body and character. They had reached some old stones forming a broken line of bricks no higher than the knee, the ruins of and old construction. The father chose that place to rest, and from there, they could view the family graveyard. He decided to tell them a story, in fact the very story that every single Sharpe had been told at least once, the one about their ancestors. He thought they were old enough to learn about their heritage, and this was something that not the mother neither the tutors could teach them.
"Father I'm thirsty"
"Thomas you cannot be exhausted already. Do you want to return?"
"No father" The boy spoke with regret.
"Well then, how about a story?"
"Yes please" Both children nodded, and the man smiled. Usually it was hard for him to find something that connected him with the children, but they loved stories.
Arthur thought that the young Sharpe indulged themselves too much in fairytales, so he insisted that the tutors selected more substantial topics for reading. Books were something that they had aplenty.
"The first Sharpe were born in this very soil, though they weren't Sharpe just then."
"How not?" Lucille asked incredulous.
"Well Lucille, the Sharpe name was forged, like a suit is tailored to fit the one that wears it. But this happened later, at the beginning they had nothing, not this land, nor the house, not even the name Sharpe. They were born in poverty. Unlike you, they had no toys, nor tutors. They lived in tents, being used to cold and hunger from early age. And they started to work as soon as they could raise a tool and carry a hat over their heads."
"Were they like baby Jesus?" Thomas asked.
"No, not exactly. You'll see-"
"Father, did they have a family? Baby Jesus had a father, which is god, but he also has a family."
What part of entertain the children with a family story had he considered easy? And was Agnes trying to raise the boy for a convent!? He was not a religious devoted beyond social formalisms that needed to be addressed publicly. He was perfectly fine with his lack of faith, unlike his wife, that drowned herself in a pretend piety.
"Well, Lucille, let's say the Sharpe didn't have a proper family. They were two in the beginning, a boy and a girl born together, and they only had each other."
Lucille wished she had born together with Thomas, then they could have the same age, and share absolutely everything. The father made a pause, just to avoid being interrupted again with a question.
"Father keep on the story, please." Both children pleaded.
"The occurrences that led to the birth of these children are imprinted in our blood like the grim to a miner's face. Their ancestors were peasants, who travelled with the seasons to find jobs in the big estates as unskilled workers. There used to be coal mines to the West, beyond Allerdale grounds. The miners then, weren't much different like they are now. Only that, it was not only the men who settled in encampments, but the whole families, women and children too. All of them had to work they share. The noblemen who owned the land provided them grain, a meager earning, and the benefit to live in his land while they worked it for him."
"Are there children with the miners in Allerdale?" Lucille asked.
"No, only the men camp nowadays. The old settlements were not only anarchic, but also plagued with debauchery, diseases, and bastards. The number of children in some of them surpassed the adults."
"What is a bastard?" Thomas asked. His curiosity toward the word had remained since his mother's 'accident'.
"A child born without a father." He noticed they didn't looked very convinced with the explanation, so he decided to elucidate it, to avoid them getting an erroneous conclusion – as they can get from their mother and her god-fearing speeches.
"It happens when the mother and the father of the child are not married to each other, then the child is not granted with the father's family name."
"Is that bad?" Lucille asked.
"Is not ideal. A bastard child bears a social stigma... a mark of disgrace."
"Can it be fixed?" Thomas inquired.
"Well, it may, if his condition is not exposed as an infant, and another man decides to take the child as his own, giving him his name."
"Were they bastards? The boy and the girl." Lucille asked, and now the father could see that she was smart indeed. She had payed attention and was making logical inferences about the story. Clever girl.
"Yes, they were born bastards and orphans. Their mother died in childbirth, the father could had been anyone. They were given to their closest relatives who care for them. But their hardships started even before they born. Their mother was a young girl, not much older than you Lucille. She lived with their aunt and uncle, and few cousins older and younger. They were not happy with the girl bringing an extra mouth to feed, when they already oversaw her, as they had done since her parents died. The pregnant girl had run away, leaving the camp, when she was close to the delivery. She walked four days and nights until she reached this very patch of land, and the pains of labor started during the night."
"Why did she runaway?" Lucille asked.
"Because their relatives were mean with her since they realized she was with child. And she didn't want her child to born there, like an errant gypsy, destined to live and die between faces blackened by the coal."
"How mean?" Lucille, again.
"They... punished her without reason... and yelled names at her."
"Like 'whore'?"
"Where did you hear that word, Lucille?"
"Mother?" She had heard it also from him, from both her parents, more than once.
"What is whore?" Thomas asked too.
"...is when a man and a woman that are not married do things that a married couple do."
"Have dinner?" The boy was innocent in a charming way. He has not idea of what activities his parents did together. The most common occasion in which he saw them at the same time was on the dinner table, or when they-
"...fight?" Lucille said. Now she was more perceptive, and bold.
"Your mother and I don't fight, we sometimes have disagreements...that we eventually resolve."
The Sharpe masters tend to forget about the children during their 'disagreements', like for example, the last one which caused their mother to be incapacitated in bed.
"What I mean is the things that a mother and a father do to make babies."
"Oh" Lucille got it. She knew it has something they do while sleeping on the same bed, not with precise details, though.
"So yes, they called her a... whore, but know that is not a nice word to use, not for a gentleman or a lady, even less for you children. I don't want you to say it again, do you understand?"
"Yes, father." Both said quickly.
"The miners in the camp sent a search party to find the girl, giving she was just a child herself and they believe she was lost. They found her in the morning of the fifth day, when they were about to give up the search. The first snow of the season had fallen during the night, and the land was covered in a white layer. The girl's body was found dead and frozen. She had taken off her coat and used to keep the newborn warm. Some said she died because the cold, but others said she bleed to death first, because around her body, the snow was tainted red. The two babies were found wrapped inside the coat. The girl was buried right there, as the men will not carry the body back in that weather. When they dug the ground, it was crimson as blood, and some say, as the gypsies were very superstitious, that it was her blood than had stained the ground and her very soul had attached to it."
He stopped because Thomas was crying, more like sobbing silently. "What's wrong Thomas?"
"Is a sad story" The boy sniffed.
The father took the boy in his lap.
"Well this is not a fairytale, it is a true story. It is the story of how our family started. It does have a better ending after all, we are here, aren't we? These children lived beyond adversity, to give us a land, a way of sustenance, and a name. To be born a Sharpe is a privilege, not a burden, and as hard as the work on the mines can be, even if we may struggle from time to time, we must keep on, and continue the Sharpe lineage."
Thomas nodded, now more calmed.
"The place where the children were born, and the mother was buried, is right here where our family burial ground is located today."
"How did they get the Sharpe name, did someone raised them as their father?" Lucille was quite the inquirer. Arthur could see the gears moving inside her head for sure, trying to make sense of all the details.
"No, they were given into care of their mother's relatives. Like their mother before, they were raised along, feed, and clothed, but they were not showed kindness or love."
"Who was the father?" Lucille was still focused in getting revelations from the story.
"Well, the girl never told. The children were both pale skin, as pale as their mother and their aunt. But their hair was dark, dark gypsy hair. Many came from the northern lands to join the work settlements."
"Didn't he love them?"
"A proper suitor would had requested to marry the girl, even as young as she was, the aunt may have consented. But he didn't, which may everyone think that he had engaged her by force. Because of that, he would had been lynched if they knew who he was."
Arthur Sharpe was having a hard time keeping the story age appropriate for his children, avoiding crude words. He had been told this same story as old as Lucille, and his father as well-mannered as he was had not spared him from explicit terminology... In those days, children in the miners' camps grew on their own, they initiated too young in vices like liquor and fornication... He remembered asking then what fornication was, ...is how a father and mother make a child, joining their bodies by their private parts in sexual arousal. How? Well... The explanation had been simplified, yet not convincing for the child's mind. Is this the truth father? Yes, but you must know, this is a thing only for married couples to do. Your mother may think you too small for this conversation, so we better keep this men's talk to ourselves. Yes, father. Maybe he had been too young himself for the crude terminology.
He decided to continue, trying not drifting away from the story.
"The boy was named 'Cole', because his white skin was always covered in black coal dust. In the tents, coal dust was everywhere, and small children were usually wandering on the floor. When the adult left to work, all the infants were left under the care of the older children - those who were not yet old enough to work on the mines. One of the small girls got fond of the twins, her name was Nan. She combed their dusted heads, washed their faces and bottoms with a soaked rag, and make sure they eat their food every day. It was her who named the girl 'Aine', which means radiance. Nan was the one who saw their first steps, taught them their firsts words, and really cared for them as family. They grew together, and guess what, they remained together for their entire lives. They all rest here." He walked them to the family graveyard and showed them the headstones engraved with the names. Coleman Sharpe, Anya Sharpe, Nan Hayden.
"Was she like our Nana?" Thomas asked with interest.
"Very much, Thomas, she is the very reason that all the Sharpe nursemaids are called Nana. I guess she was as given as our Nana, and my father's Nana before her."
"I like her" Thomas said.
"Indeed, and by the time she was called to work, the children were not as defenseless as before. Though, on their own, they learnt many things on the hard way. In the tent they shared with their relatives, no one spared them from harsh words and beatings. But they always stuck together, defending each other. Finally, they grew up and moved on their own, they trusted no one, except Nan, and kept to themselves in order to survive. Even with the lack of a proper education, they were smart and resourceful. They caught small game to satisfy their hunger and worked in the mines as everyone else. Their luck changed when an accident occurred, one of the deepest mines collapsed, and Cole was trapped inside with a group of workers. His sister joined the rest of the miners to dig but they stopped after two weeks, when the hope of finding them alive was lost. Aine continued and found a body, and another, and another. All the miners had died by injuries or suffocation, all but one."
"Cole?"
"Exactly, and being the workers such a superstitious lot, they became even more wary of him. Now, the nobleman that owned the land, Sir Stuart Walpole, had gotten notice of the accident, and he sent word for Cole that he wanted to meet him. The old man was curious to know what secret or amulet the boy had to avoid death in such way. Cole had never seen the manor where the noblemen lived, not even from afar. He thought it too big for a single family, when it could had given room to the whole camp of workers. The interior was even more exuberant, the boy had never seen opulence and went startled by the noble ways to live. He made himself a goal, to change his miserable life for one like that."
"But how he survived?"
"No especial trick, no magic at all, only endurance. In truth it was the sole idea of returning to her sister's side, they had never been separated and they loved each other being the only true family they had. That thought had keep his will during the two weeks he remained in the dark, fighting the hunger and controlling his breathing in the enclosed space.
Soon, Cole saw a real opportunity to relieve them both of their filthy live and kin. He said to Sir Walpole that his body had been imbued with magic at childbirth. His mother had placed a spell on him to be guarded before she died. He said that nature protected him, and this protection was stronger in the place he had born, because the earth itself was marked red by his mother's blood. With these words, Cole convinced the landlord to allow him mining on Allerdale Hall. It was empty ground, not good for crops, nor even grass for the beasts. So far, all the attempts to harvest the clay from the ground, resulted useless, bad land, cursed land, as the gypsies said. Any intent of settling ended premature. Sir Walpole wanted to make money of every inch of his land, otherwise it was a waste, so he offered young Cole a deal and sent him to Cornwall, to learn about the clay mining. The brothers left and returned in a year, they took Nan with them and hired new workers, starting the first mine in Allerdale. It was never easy, this land been never gentle with those who live on it. And our precious red clay has been a challenge for every Sharpe generation. But their perseverance eventually gave its fruits. The clay was not only a novelty because of its color, it also resulted strongest, making durable bricks. With time, the brothers gained the appreciation of the landlord and his family, because of their hard work. Their skin, once covered in black coal, became instead crimson, stained by the clay. Sir Walpole used to say that Cole looked like a golem, which is a man made of clay, and he may as well be born from the earth itself, cut and molded by a very sharp knife. The workers nicknamed him 'sharp', as a mockery out of jealousy for the privileged position he had acquired with the patron. Not 'sharp' Cole thought, 'sharpen' as in... improved, enhanced, tuned to perfection, he and his sister had achieved just that, to separate themselves from their lot, setting their own path of opportunities. Eventually, young Cole requested the hand of the man's second daughter in marriage, but he was denied. As much as he estimated the young man, Sir Walpole would not marry his daughter with a man who had nothing, no land, no fortune, not even a proper name. How he will present Cole in society along her daughter? Still, the man didn't want to lost Cole as he was a valuable asset, as a worker.
Not many years later, Sir Walpole died of a sickness that took the life of many that Summer. In the lack of a male heir, he left to his brother the lands of West Allerdale, where the coal mines were settled, on the condition of him providing for his charges - his widowed wife and his unmarried daughters. No one opposed to the marriage then, they boy was honest and they girls were urged to find a husband. Cole married the older daughter, to whom the father had left Allerdale estate. The twins built a house right here, those rocks you were sitting before is all that stands from its walls. With the union Cole inherited not only the land, but a title, as Sir Stuart Walpole was descendant of a Baronetcy with reminder to the grantee's son-in-law. The Sharpe name was officially registered when Cole travelled with his family to London, so his name was placed in the Official Roll, in order to get recognition of the Baronet title. The twins could not introduce themselves at the palace with just gypsy nicknames. So, they gave themselves proper names, that suited a respectable English Baronet and a Lady. Sir Coleman Sharpe and Lady Anya Sharpe.
This crimson clay is the responsible of our name and our success. Today is still firmly pressed in the grounds of the Royal palace. Coleman and Anya started the family wealthy, but it was their descendants who made it reach its paramount and ordered the construction of Allerdale Hall manor. Almost every single Sharpe had born and died in this land."
Lucille read the inscription on the headstones aloud.
"Sir Coleman Sharpe - April 17, 1752. B.B.H. Lady Anya Sharpe. December 08, 1755. B.S.W."
She continued reading the headstones in silence. The girl didn't notice the fact that there was no stone for a Lady Walpole. Sir Walpole's daughter was not buried in Allerdale. Her body was sent to her own family burial, as she died still young, leaving a son, Johnathan Sharpe, who was raised by his father, his aunt, and Nan.
"Father, what does these mean?" Lucille asked, touching the engraved initials in the headstones of the first Sharpe brothers."
"That means that they loved each other deeply, in a way they couldn't express openly. "
"Like Thomas and I?"
"No. In an adult way that some would have considered inappropriate. But we shouldn't be ashamed of it, my grandfather used to say that the Sharpe blood in our veins run as thick as the clay under our soil. He said we are like this clay, resilient and strong, and in this very soil a Sharpe can prosper. It bounds us together, like blood."
/\/\/\/\/\/\
At the beginning of the year, Doyle had visited and met with the master regarding the financial expenses planned for the upcoming season. Agnes had not partaken of the conversation, but she knew of the visit and so inquired with his husband. Arthur limited to answer that the funds were assured, even if the fortune of the Sharpe family was the shadow of its former glory, the last transaction had been a positive recovery. Agnes knew this was only because of the scam her husband had plotted with the Swedish woman. Taking advantage of the brief repentance period that her husband customary transited after his violent outbursts, she requested Doyle to order some commodities to make her bedrest period more bearable, including books translated from other countries, a mancala with glass beads, an ivory chess set, embroidering threads from India, a daguerreotype camera and even a cylinder phonograph. To this Arthur conceded, not showing real interest about the items selected.
Without the need - or excuse - to travel to France or anywhere else, adding to this the wife's condition, the master of Allerdale inhabited most of the time on the estate. The mining season had brought some relief, but it didn't impede that the man's sanity deteriorated gradually. In the same way his wife had found escape in her delivered new treasures, he had found his getaway in alcohol. This only made the wife's life more miserable, as if it wasn't enough with the prostration. Arthur opted to leave Agnes mainly to herself, and she felt like wasting herself progressively, because of her limited mobility.
With the passing time, his drinking turned worse. He had started to complain and found faults in everything, not that this compelled him to provide constructive solutions. He had even complained about Thomas. Why the boy strained with such few efforts? he had been unable to ride the horse, the beast had dropped him off and he didn't have the strength to hold on. The boy sweated and fainted from the hot, the heir of Allerdale was built with a delicate frame, not suited for hard work.
The Master's disposition didn't last for the complete mining season, and taking advantage of his incapacitated wife, he travelled when the first Autumn chills started to settle. Of course, he told his wife that he'll go to Carlisle for a couple of days to speak with the bank about possible investors. Of course, Agnes knew he just wanted to seek relief in brothels away from home. Of course, he was gone few more than a couple of days.
Arthur Sharpe arrived unannounced at night. Lucille had sneaked into the kitchen, as she had been sent to bed without dinner for a mistake with the boiling water that ended in his mother accidentally being burnt, even if it didn't cause a blister or injury. A bad thing about growing up was that the small spaces between the walls where most unreachable, and what had been her safest route downstairs for years was not affordable anymore. Also, the stairs creaked more under her weight, and she had to be extra careful when wandering at night. The woman had developed a sixth sense to recognize the creaky steps in the stairs as well as the metallic sound of the key turning inside the lock. Lucille was not locked in her room anymore, but each night she had to return the ring of keys to her mother, after locking Thomas' room door.
The family Doctor had retired the cast from Lady Sharpe's leg right two months ago, still he only encouraged to put weight on the leg for short periods at a time. Being able to bend her leg by the knee, Agnes was able to fit in the elevator. That relieved Jory of the constant carrying up and downstairs. The task that was passed onto Lucille, who now pulled her mother's wheelchair, having always to run for a blanket to cover her legs. The woman complained of pains all the time, the cold settled in her bones making it even more painful. In the afternoons, she requested a hot water bag when she rested her legs on the bed. And even if the maids were the ones who usually prepared it, it was Lucille who delivered it, hence getting the blame because the water was too hot. The cane had been almost broken over her back, with three hard hits.
Like a specter, the inebriated man entered in the house, leaving his coat and hat in the main hall where the driver has dropped his trunk. He walked to his studio and poured some whiskey in a glass, not to warm himself up, he was already warm, too warm, he had drunk all the trip to Allerdale and he was more than lightheaded already. He emptied the glass in one gulp, shaking his head abruptly. He took off his jacket, vest, and tie, and went to the kitchen to wash his face. The girl was in the kitchen in night clothes, pale skin and dark hair, just like him, he almost jumped on her sight, letting the glass on her hand to slip on the floor. Who was this girl again? he didn't remember hiring such a young maid. The girl was paralyzed, her body contour was noticeable below the faded gown that stuck to her lean shape. He approached her like a predator, his steps lacking steadiness in the stupor of alcohol. He placed his hand in her chest, feeling her ribs. A young girl in the brink to womanhood, a seed starting to sprout, thin but not meager, the flat belly with a bit of baby fat, the tiny nipples like rosebuds going to blossom, Emily. She was about to move, and he thought she would may run away, but on the touch of the man's hand she blushed. In truth, she was petrified, holding her breath when the intrusive hand cupped her chin, when his breath reached closer to her ear with his alcohol stench, when he smiled at her with a mouth full of teeth, two dimples showing on his cheeks. In the distance, Lucille was sure she could hear the elevator, but her father didn't seem to notice it.
He stumbled, closing the gap between them. She walked backwards until her back was pressed against the wall and the man's body closed any escape possibility in front of her. He didn't recognize her, she realized, he thought she was someone else, not mother though.
"Emily," a hand caressed her cheek while the other tangled in her long hair. Lucille felt her body shiver under the peculiar touch.
It was warm and nice, like Thomas body pressed against her under the blankets. She knew her father ways toward her mother, she had watched them enough, but she was not afraid, not of her father, not of the way his hand caressed her cheek, her hair. This kind of contact, the tenderness, it had always been denied by her mother.
"I never stopped thinking of you, your smile, your perfect skin white as mine, your blue eyes, the kiss in the stables. I love you dear, let me see you anew."
And with that, his hands ran softly by her sides, sneaking under her nightgown and placing themselves on her hips. His face moved closer, depositing a chaste kiss on her cheek and another on her closed lips, while the hands ran up lifting the fabric with them. He stopped when he reached up to her armpits, just to caress the pink little tops over her bosom. She lifted her arms and the gown slide through her head and out of her body. The cold making goose pimples in her skin. He stood there, watching her body in his intoxicated state. Like a child that had just unwrapped an unexpected present. A noise was heard suddenly, followed by her mother's voice.
"Arthur?" He turned around to figure it out were the sound came from, and there in the door appeared Agnes pulling the wheelchair by herself.
"I didn't receive letter for your arrival." He turned back again to see the empty space between him and the wall, and the gown in his hand. He turned abruptly, hiding the item behind his back.
"I'm here now, is that any matter?" He said in an unfriendly tone. She noticed it and took offensive right away.
"No. I'm more than used to your bully attitude when you have soaked up your last remains of decency in alcohol."
He grabbed her by the hair, pulling her head in pain, lifting her a little from the wheelchair.
"You know nothing of me. Nothing." the last word was spat on her face. "I deserved better, you know. I still do."
The man stumbled out of the kitchen and went to the studio, grabbed the bottle of whiskey and walked outside the manor.
Agnes accommodated herself, putting her weight on her good leg. She cleaned her tears with the back of her hand and moved the wheels to return upstairs to her room. The elevator made its creaky sound again, more like the whining of a demonic critter. A door was slammed in the distance, no doubt it was her mother locking the door, to impede her father from entering her room in his condition. Lucille stepped out of the cupboard, her body was naked, except from her undergarments, and trembled like a leaf in winter bliss. She ran as fast and quiet as she could toward the security of her room, but she didn't go inside. She needed to scream and cry and calm down and think about what had happened and what she felt, how she feel right now. The nursery, she went there, under the blankets of her old bed she rolled, looking to the ceiling. She had been scared, but not of her father, she knew he never would hit her as he does to her mother, or as her mother does to her, he never had. It was wrong the whole thing, because he was drunk. Men, Adelaide had told her once, act stupid when they drink too much, your father is not the worse, child. Is better to leave them undisturbed until the alcohol run out of their bodies. Then they will have a headache the next day, and regret.
Then why men drink?
Most of them, to forget the hardships of life. But unfortunately, drink never made things better, on the contrary.
Do you think father wants to forget us, Thomas and me?
Oh, of course no, it is only a bad habit, difficult to get rid of.
But you said...
A bell had ring, giving Adelaide a scapegoat from the conversation, she wished her sister was alive as she had been always better to calm the little ones.
Her mother will kill her for sure, it won't exist punishment enough in her eyes. It was her own fault, Lucille thought. She shouldn't be there, less at that hour. Her father had looked unfocused, talked to her as if she was another person. He caressed her so slowly, softly, it felt...different. That night, for first time in her life she felt desire. It was more that only wish for something, it was not a material desire. Instead, it was her body longing to feel again, the warm of his hands and the heat of his body close to hers. Like when you wake up from a dream and wish so bad to be back and continue it. But again, this was not a desire of her mind, it was one from her body, her skin, the blood pulsating under her skin, the small soft hairs that stood over it, and whatever was inside of her twisting on her stomach like about to get sick. Another thing happened that night for the first time, she ran a hand over her own body, exploring it, trying to imitate the touch the man had done. She caressed her sides with her fingers, as if they were feathers, stopping as he did on her chest, touching the nipples in a round movement with her thumbs. She shuddered and stopped, and then cried as a child, because she still was. Her thirteenth birthday was only a few days to come.
She had seen their parents together before, in the bed. At first, she had been indifferent, not understanding the exchanges of movement, then she had felt intrusive, noticing the nakedness that was not for her eyes to see. She never had a full glance of the intercourse nor an understanding of what really happened during it. Her perception was that they moved, and cursed - her father -, and yelled - her mother. Their naked bodies were close together and sweated with the movement, sharing the same bed, their mouths sharing the same air.
It was not as her and Thomas, they only held close to keep the warm, not naked, not moving, not sweating. They have not sleep clothe less on the same bed since they were very young, Thomas a toddler. Still, she knew what her father had done was wrong, she had enough proximity warnings from her mother - delivered by the cane- followed by long lectures about sin and propriety. A proper lady always keep distance from physical contact and dressed in sobriety - not exposing skin, except for the hands and face. Her mother had gradually banned bathing together, sleep in the same bed, sleep in the same room, lap sitting, tickles, hugs and kisses, from the sibling's life. Of course, this never happen entirely, not if they can sneak their way together at night. She secretly had thanked in a prey for her mother bedrest, it gave her some independence during the day, as the woman cannot follow her upstairs when she tended Thomas. Wrong or sin, Lucille didn't dismiss these new feelings, no matter how conflictive and confusing they were, and they nursed her own curiosity in a surreptitious way.
The diatribe between the wanting for the touch to be repeated, and the shame of having that feeling, was torturous. A new wave of guilt streamed on her chest. Thomas. She had been lingering on selfish thoughts and was trying to convince herself that she had not wronged her brother. He was still young and naive, and she must protect him from what he cannot understand yet. The pang in her stomach grew and she find herself unable to rest, opting to get back to her room, but first took and old nightgown from the closet. It fitted tight and she couldn't avoid thinking that the one she had lost tonight might become an invitation to trouble if her mother found it, wherever it was.
In the stable, the man held the nightgown in his hand, his face stuck on it, smelling its essences, drowning his sobs, drying his tears. Now he realized it had been Lucille, he had not noticed when his little daughter had started to change into a girl. She never had been graceful neither had the beauty of a China doll, but she was not devoid of grace. The silky ebony hair that was a family treat made a contrast with the pale skin, pale as the Alpine moths, unnatural white, ghostly white, same as the boy. The boy. Lucille was devoted to him, and he couldn't avoid feeling a pang of jealousy.
Life was unfair, but of course it was, wasn't he a Sharpe? He was cursed, all his kind was. At the age of 15, he had confessed his love to Emily. They had been raised together, and she was the closest he had for a friend or a sibling. He had told her he wanted to marry her, when they become older, he would attend college and return to prove himself, working for his father in the family business. Then he would court her openly and properly. But his hormones couldn't wait years long, and he drag her into the exploration of his own desires. He was immature, she was pure and innocent, being only 13. They promised to each other on the tryst where both secretly shed their childhood, and in the few that followed. Eventually he had learned the truth, that in Allerdale, the blood ran strong and sticky, like the clay on the mines. He tried to take full responsibility of his actions, but his parents didn't approve, not because they were young, or because she was not raised in a noble family, but because they were half brother and sister.
He had reneged his blood, gaining the only slap that his father ever gave to him, and making his mother ill of sadness. Jacob and Louise Sharpe were trying to break the cycle, betraying their own heritage. They send him away to study, so he would develop interest in a different girl, one not related to them. What they thought a fugacious infatuation, was for him true love. His grudge lasted out a decade, in which he took fun of respectable young ladies from respectable families, just to rejected them to his mother's dismay. Yes, he had married Agnes eventually for his father's sake, knowing that because of him the souls of his ancestors became restless, haunting him at every shadowy corner of the house.
For what happened tonight, Arthur hated himself, because he realized that he didn't want to fight against it, again. The girl had contained a scream, but not the plead within, father... "Father, please" The words had run through his brain trying to find the conscientious part in his inebriated mind. Father... He used to travel to escape from Allerdale, but in Allerdale, it was the rest of the world he was escaping. The manor was for him a place for both joyful and painful memories. What an irony of life, he thought, holding the fabric to his chest.