Scarlet Widow by Graham Masterton

Author:Graham Masterton [Masterton, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784975951
Publisher: Head of Zeus

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The next morning, very early, Mary came bursting into the house when Francis and Beatrice were still in bed and called up the staircase, ‘Goody Scarlet! Goody Scarlet! Are you awake yet?’

Beatrice threw back the sheet and climbed out of bed. Francis lifted his head from his pillow, blinking, his hair sticking up at the back like a cock’s comb.

‘What is it?’ he blurted. ‘What’s wrong?’

Beatrice ran downstairs in her nightgown and bare feet. Mary was standing in the hallway, biting her lip with anxiety.

‘What’s happened, Mary?’ She prayed that it wasn’t another dreadful atrocity like the Gilmans’ slaves.

‘Little Tristram Buckley, Goody Scarlet... he looks as if Jesus is just about to take him!’

‘We’ll come directly. Give us a few moments to dress and harness the shay. The Reverend Scarlet brought home a new horse yesterday evening.’

‘I saw it in the paddock. I can harness him for you while you get yourselves ready.’

‘How is Apphia? Is she bad, too?’

‘No, no. It’s only Tristram who’s so sick. Goody Buckley is beside herself.’

‘You’ll take care of Noah, won’t you, while we’re gone?’

‘Of course I will, Goody Scarlet. I’ll guard him with my life.’

Francis was almost dressed by the time she came back upstairs and she quickly stepped into her petticoats. She had to ask Francis to lace her corset for her because Noah had woken up and started crying and Mary had gone to attend to him.

‘Not tight enough!’ she told him as he fumbled with the laces.

‘Dear God, Bea, I don’t want to squeeze the very life out of you!’

They hurried outside. Mary had harnessed Uriel and tethered him to the split-rail fence beside the driveway. Uriel was restless. Although it was warm this morning, the sky was slate-grey and thundery, and serpents’ tongues of lightning were flickering on the horizon towards Bedford.

Francis clicked his tongue and Uriel set off along the driveway at a trot, his head held high. Even if Henry Mendum had upset Francis by appealing to Jonathan Shooks for help in curing his cattle, he had sold him a very handsome young bay.

When they arrived at the village green there were only three or four women gathered by the front door of the Buckley house. It was nearly six o’clock now and every woman in the village had her morning duties – baking and washing and scouring the rooms and preparing the family breakfast. Francis and Beatrice went into the house and the second they stepped into the hallway they heard a terrible, heart-tearing cry of anguish.

The cry was so shrill and so agonized that at first Beatrice thought it was Judith, but when she entered the children’s bedchamber she saw that it was Nicholas, who was standing next to Tristram’s crib holding the little boy pressed to his chest. His face was a mask of anguish, his mouth dragged downwards and tears sliding down his cheeks. When he opened his eyes and saw Beatrice and Francis he could only choke out, ‘Why, Lord, why? Why have

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