Silk And Steel

by Catherine King

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

Mariah Bowes thinks that being alone and penniless is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, until she is the victim of a horrifying act of revenge. Daniel Thorpe is consumed with guilt, as it is his fault that Mariah endured such terrible punishment - he'd never realised the terrible consequences his affair with the beautiful Lily would bring. As Mariah pieces together the remains of her life she faces further horror - the terrible secret that her father, successful iron master and respectable member of the community Ezekiel Bowes, is determined to keep in the dark.

Release date: June 21, 2012

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 384

Sample

The vicar read quietly from his prayer book, his soft hand gently touching the chalk-white skin of the woman’s forehead. He
traced the shape of a cross and those slight movements signalled the end of life for Amelia Bowes.


Tears ran down the cheeks of her daughter Mariah as she grieved silently for her loss. While they had each other, their hardships
in this house had been bearable, but how would she survive without her mother? How could she continue to live here without
the only person in the world who loved her?


She could not call this house a home. A home was where she would have been welcome. But her father had regarded them both
as his servants, and treated them no better than he did his labourers at the ironworks. England may have a woman on the throne,
but men continued to do the ruling.


Mariah inhaled with a shudder as she tried to repress her sobs. During her mother’s long and painful illness, she had not
thought beyond caring for her. They had not been separated in all her nineteen years and she could not imagine a life without
her.


She heard the front door slam and her body went rigid. She knew who it was because she had sent the stable lad to the works for him. Her father’s heavy boots thumped on the stairs making
the treads creak and groan. The door to the bedchamber flew open and banged against the wall.


‘She’s gone then.’

Ezekiel Bowes stood in the middle of the sparsely furnished chamber in his working clothes. His face was streaked and sweaty
and his once white neckerchief hung, stained and greasy, around his damp, dusty neck.


‘It took her long enough,’ he added.

His ruddy face, hot from the furnace, showed no emotion, but then it would not unless he was angry. Mariah and her mother
always knew when Ezekiel had been crossed, but never when he was pleased. Happiness was not part of his life. Or theirs. Amelia’s
life had been an austere one as the wife of Ezekiel Bowes.


Mariah sat quietly by the bed and thought that her mother looked peaceful now – more so than she had for many years. The vicar
drew a white sheet over the still, serene face and murmured words of condolence to Ezekiel. Mariah saw the discomfort in her
father’s face. Ezekiel Bowes was not a church-going man and this new vicar was taking more of an interest in him than the
old one had.


She had sent for him against her father’s wishes because it was what her mother had wanted. Ezekiel was angry to see him in
his house, but Mariah guessed he would let it pass for the sake of appearances. Appearances mattered to Ezekiel, but only
to the world outside this house.


‘Aye, well. You can leave now, Vicar,’ he replied, with a surly nod.

The vicar added a few kind words to Mariah and hurried away. Mariah understood his haste.

‘I suppose you sent for him?’

‘Mother wanted him here at the end. You cannot begrudge her that, surely?

Ezekiel turned on Mariah. He was a dark, swarthy man, toughened by years of manual labour. His hair was beginning to turn
grey but he was still thick set and strong, for he still worked at the furnace with his men.


‘I don’t begrudge her anything now,’ he said. ‘Just get her out of here and clean up this chamber. I want everything of hers
gone from this house. Do you hear me?’


‘Yes, Father.’

‘Get on with it, then!’

Mariah got to her feet and began to collect up the small comforts of nursing that had helped her mother through her last painful
weeks. She knelt on the floor and piled the empty apothecary’s bottles and soiled linen on a square of old calico and tied
it into a bundle. She felt her father’s domineering presence in the room and when she looked at him he was sneering at her
mother’s shroud.


Mariah’s grief and anger rose against him. ‘She was a good wife to you,’ she cried.

‘What would you know about it?’

‘I know she was loyal to you, and you – you look as though you … hated her,’ she replied quietly.

‘Hated her? I married her, didn’t I? Aye, I did that. And with you growing in her belly.’

Mariah had not known this and was surprised but not shocked. Many a bride was wed with her first child already on the way.
Indeed, any future husband would be pleased to know his betrothed was not barren. In a way, this knowledge cheered her and
she remarked, ‘You must have loved her once, then?’


He began to laugh, a low growling chuckle rumbled in his throat, but his brown eyes were hard. ‘Is that what she told you?’

‘Well, no. She did not talk of her – her early life.’

Ezekiel shook his head as though he had lost patience with her. ‘Nigh on twenty years and she never told you.’

‘It isn’t a crime to be with child at the altar! Not if you loved each other—’


He let out a guffaw. ‘And I thought you two were close! Well, I’ll be damned! She never said!’

‘We were close,’ Mariah protested. ‘Especially as I grew older and—’ She choked on a sob. ‘When she became ill, she needed me.’


Ezekiel eyes glittered at her angrily. ‘She needed me.’ He spat out the words and his large frame towered over Mariah as she knelt by the bed.


‘But you shunned her! You – you turned her away from your bedchamber, from your life, and treated her like a servant! What
kind of marriage was that?’


‘Enough!’ Ezekiel shouted, closing in on her. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about! Don’t you ever say things like that again!
Do you hear me?’


Mariah’s hazel eyes widened. He was standing right next to her and she could smell hot coal and metal on his leather boots
and breeches. Anger radiated from him like the heat from his furnace.


‘Stop this hatred of her, Father! Stop it! She’s dead now.’

This seemed to calm him. But for how long? Mariah wondered.

‘What did she tell you?’ Ezekiel asked.

‘Not much. Only that you always took care of her and that whatever you did to us, to remember that underneath it all you kept
your promise.’ Mariah gathered up her bundle and rose. ‘As I said, you must have cared for her once. And she did try to be
a good wife to you.’


‘What else did she say?’ he demanded.

‘About what?’ Mariah was a full-grown woman now and not frightened of him as she had been as a little girl. If her father
had something to say to her, it was best out in the open.


‘About you!’ he barked. ‘Look at you. Carrot hair, white skin and freckles. Not dark like the rest of us.’

What was he getting at? Her brother Henry was like his father with brown hair and eyes. Her mother’s hair had had a coppery
hue when she had been younger and a skin like her own that freckled in the summer sun and reddened if she did not keep it
covered. ‘I have my mother’s hazel eyes,’ she muttered.


He leaned forward and his eyes looked directly into hers. ‘Oh aye, you’re her lass all right. Same stubborn way with you. But you’re not mine!’


Mariah’s jaw dropped, her eyes rounded and she swayed. ‘Y-you mean you are not my father?’ She did not believe it! Her mother
had lain with another man and carried his child. ‘Did you know this when you married her?’ she whispered.


‘Of course I knew!’

‘She never told me,’ Mariah murmured. ‘Not about this. Who is he, then? If you are not my father, who is my real father?’

Ezekiel sneered at her again. ‘Don’t go getting any fancy ideas. Your precious mother disgraced herself and her family with
some coal miner who got killed in a pit fall. And there was pretty little Amelia, left with no one to wed and a scandal on
the way.’


‘You knew about this and you married her?’ Mariah thought it had been uncharacteristically generous on her father’s part.
There must have been some kindness in him all those years ago, although she had never seen much evidence of it in her lifetime.
‘Then I was right, you must have loved her once.’


He did not answer but Mariah noticed his head shaking very slightly. Perhaps he had acted hastily and had regretted it ever
since? Perhaps this was why he had spent most of his time at his ironworks, preferring to join his men for the heavy labouring
in the yard?


‘I never loved her,’ he sneered. ‘Not her.’


Mariah blinked as his face contorted to a sadness she had not seen before. ‘Then why … why did you marry her?’ she asked.


He appeared to recover quickly. There was no grief after all; no sense of loss for her mother. He raised his voice, filling the stuffy bedchamber with his venom. ‘Do you think I did it
for nowt!’


Mariah tensed again. Her father was using the language of his earlier, younger years, language he usually kept for his men
at the works. This was a warning sign that he was really angry, frustrated with his furnace or his suppliers, or simply with
himself. She thought he was not a man at ease with himself and the successful ironmaster he had become.


‘They paid me ter marry ’er! So long as I took ’er away and never went back to ’em for owt else!’ he yelled. ‘Paid me well,
an’ all. They were tailors, you know. Her family were all tailors in the North Riding. Doing all right for theirsenns, and
her ma ’ad an uncle who was building cottages for a mine owner. How do yer think I got set up here wi’ me own furnace, when
I were on’y a labourer in a quarry and a forge?’


Mariah felt herself go cold all over. ‘You married her for money?’ she whispered. ‘They paid you to take her – and me – away?’

‘Aye. That’s what folk with means do with their wayward daughters.’

Mariah found it hard to imagine her mother as wayward. She had been a warm and loving parent to her, and had more than made
up for her father’s coldness towards them both. She must have been in love with Mariah’s real father. Perhaps they were planning
to marry when he was killed?


‘Mother never spoke of her own folk. She told me she had no kin.’

‘Aye, she would say that. They wanted nowt more to do with her, so she turned her back on them an’ all. It suited me too.’

‘But surely they will wish to know of her passing?’

‘Why? As far as they are concerned, she is already dead. They were glad to see the back of her, let me tell you.’ Ezekiel
grimaced at the body of his late wife. ‘And so am I.’


Mariah held her head in her hands. She knew her father could be unkind but to be this cruel to her mother’s memory was too much for her to bear.


She cried out in anguish. ‘She was your wife!’


‘She was a whore with a bastard!’ he retaliated. ‘But she got me a share in the ironworks. That was the deal.’

‘How can you be so disrespectful to the mother of your own child!’

‘Aye. She bore me a son, all right. I’ll give her that. He is all that matters to me.’

Mariah stood rigidly in front of him at the foot of the bed that cradled her mother’s dead body. ‘You never cared anything for her, did you? Never!’


‘No.’

‘Or me!’

‘Even less for you! Some pit worker’s bastard! I don’t want you in my house reminding me of that!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s clear enough, i’n’t it? Now your mother’s gone, there’s no need for you to stay here.’

‘But you cannot turn me out! I have nowhere to go!’

‘You look all right, don’t you? That carrot hair is not to everybody’s taste, but you haven’t got boss eyes or black teeth.
Or a limp. And if you’re like yer ma’ you’ll fall for a babby straight off to keep you out of mischief.’


Mariah was horrified. ‘What on earth are you suggesting?’

‘I am not suggesting, I am telling you. And if you value your mother’s reputation you will do as you are told.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that if you do not obey me, I’ll disown you for the bastard you are!’

‘B-but people would think my mother was …’

‘A whore? Aye, they would. So you’ll do as I say and get yourself wed. And look sharp about it.’

‘Be reasonable. I do not have a suitor.’

‘I can find you one, don’t you fret. A widower will do. One who won’t be needing no dowry to have a bit o’ young flesh in his bed of a night.’


‘You cannot do that to me!’

His reply was slow and deliberate. ‘I am your father, and until you are twenty-one I can do what I like with you and don’t
you forget it. Aye, I can find you a husband easy enough. And you’ll marry him, by God. Before midsummer, or you’ll be out
on the streets selling yoursenn like your mother did afore you.’


‘That is not true! How can you be so cruel? My mother would never have done such a thing.’

‘How do you know she didn’t? How do I know she wasn’t at it here? She was never wanting for a new gown. Neither were you and
I never paid for ’em. Where did they come from, I wonder?’


‘What do you think she did all day while you were at work? Why do you think she kept the morning room for herself? You were
never interested in anything she did!’


‘Why should I want to know what women do with their time?’

‘Why indeed,’ Mariah responded wearily. ‘All you are concerned about is your precious furnace.’

‘You listen ’ere to me, Mariah Bowes, and listen well to what I’m saying, because I mean it. I gave you my name, didn’t I?
You should be grateful for that alone. But while you carry that name, you make sure everyone in this town knows what a good
husband I was to yer ma, and what a proper father I am to you. Did I send you out to service as soon as you were old enough?
No. The both o’ you had a roof over your head and food on the table.’


‘We were your servants!’


It was then he hit her. He raised his right arm and brought the back of his hand hard across her face, sending her reeling.
She grasped the iron bedstead to stop herself falling and stumbled over the silent, cooling body of her darling mother. It
was then she realised the full extent of Ezekiel Bowes’ hatred for his wife and herself.


‘I was a good husband and father and don’t you forget it!’ he retaliated loudly. ‘As far as this town knows, we were – are
– a decent family! If ever I hear any different from you – or from anybody in the Riding – I’ll tell them what a whore your
mother was and expose you for the bastard you are!’


His dark eyes were angry and his hands were clenched into fists as he continued to shout. ‘And if your husband turns you out
because o’ that, it’ll be your own doing. You’ll be on the streets then, because I’ll not have you back here. D’yer hear me?
Never. Things are going to be different around here with yer ma and you out o’ the road.’


Ezekiel watched the coffin as it was lowered into the ground. It’s over at last, he thought, and soon the daughter will be
gone too, away from my house and that part of my life will be dead and buried for ever. He was a widower now, respectable,
with a profitable business and an educated son to be proud of.


He had friends at the Freemason’s lodge and they had turned out for him today, in their best black and polished boots. He
was glad of that. The church service had been an ordeal for him but he felt stronger with his friends around him. Their wives
and daughters were waiting for them in their own homes, the best place for womenfolk at times like these. None of them knew
of his early life, and now his wife had gone and the bastard was on her way too, he could erase all those memories from his
mind, push them away for ever deep down into the dark recesses of his past.


‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust …’ the vicar droned on.

He was anxious for it to be finished. Churchmen made him uncomfortable, and this one, this new vicar, more so than most. He
had never known the old vicar very well and he did not want to know this one either. In Ezekiel’s book, God was unforgiving. God had made him a sinner and God had made him suffer. For the rest of his life he would suffer.


His face contorted with the hurt of remembering as he stood by the graveside. He saw the vicar looking at him. What did he
know? he demanded silently. What did he know of growing up at the beck and call of his betters? Uneasily, he wondered where
this new vicar came from and hoped it was not the North Riding.


‘Father?’

A hand took his arm. It was Henry. My, what a fine gentleman he had become, dressed in a new black coat and tall hat. His
heart swelled with pride when he looked at him. Henry was his salvation. A fine boy, his son from his own seed, schooled and
confident, moving among the straggle of mourners, taking charge.


There was sherry wine and shortened biscuits laid out in the dining room at home. Ezekiel was cheered by the thought of going
back to his works as soon as this was over. He knew who he was when he was there. He was the gaffer and the men deferred to
him. He could have taken greater advantage of them but he did not. He was no longer the troublemaker of his younger years,
he was a changed man. A family man. Respectable. He would wear his black armband for the required length of time. Henry would
advise him.


Ezekiel managed a weak smile for the vicar before moving away, thankful this necessary show was over. There was old man Smith
from the ironmongers in town. A widower like himself. Well, no, not quite like himself. He had a big family of growing lads
and lasses. But they were a handful for him and it was rumoured he was looking for a wife. His shop was prospering and he
had a bob or two from rents as well, so he’d make any lass a good husband.


‘Mr Smith,’ he called. ‘Mr Smith, a word with you, if you please, sir.’

*    *    *

‘Do you know about Father’s plans, Henry?’


‘Of course, I do, Mariah. I am his son and heir. Father and I corresponded regularly when I was at school. The ironworks and
this house are my future.’ Henry sighed. ‘It is a pity the house is so close to the works, for it is well proportioned and
ideal for receiving callers.’


‘It was very convenient for Father in the early days. I remember when Mother used to cook dinner for his labourers and feed
them all in the kitchen. I helped her with the washing-up and cleaning,’


‘I did not know we used to have labourers in our kitchen.’


‘No. You were away at school for most of the time.’

Mariah had served her father and brother their breakfast in the dining room. When Ezekiel left for the works, instead of returning
to the kitchen, she drew out a chair opposite Henry and sat down.


‘Tell me about Father’s plans, Henry.’

Henry had come home from school for his mother’s funeral. At eighteen, he had worn new black clothes for the occasion but
now he displayed only a black armband on his finely tailored coat. It was a fashionable maroon colour, made of good Yorkshire
wool, Mariah noticed, and he wore pomade on his dark hair.


He sighed again. ‘Mariah, I have already said that you do not need to concern yourself with these matters.’ He frowned and
pursed his lips. ‘And do remove your apron if you wish to join me at the table.’


Mariah ignored his request and watched him dispassionately as he picked an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve. He had
grown into a handsome young man, with the dark hair and eyes of his father but without his swarthiness. Henry had inherited
the smooth-textured skin of their mother. A feature he shared with her, except he had more warmth in his skin colouring and,
of course, no freckles.


She felt plain and dowdy beside him. She had no money of her own and had sewn her mourning dress herself, from some black stuff already in her mother’s workroom. She covered it with a large white pinafore most of the time as the cloth had
been cheap and already showed signs of wear.


‘But Father’s plans do concern me, Henry,’ she persisted, ‘this is my home.’

‘Not for much longer, I hear.’ He measured out a small smile. ‘Father has told me you will marry soon and become part of another
family. That will be convenient for all of us. I know you are not a Bowes, and I no longer think of you as a sister.’


This was a shock for Mariah. Henry had grown apart from her in his years away at school and she no longer recognised him as
her little brother.


‘But I am your sister, Henry!’ she protested. ‘Your mother was my mother, too!’

‘She was not a Bowes and never a part of Father’s affairs.’ He shrugged. ‘She had no real claim to our family name. As Father’s
wife she was given it as a privilege.’


‘Family name? What family name? Father was an ordinary labourer before he came to the South Riding.’

‘If you take my advice, you will not let him hear you say that. He means to be a well-respected ironmaster in this town.’

Mariah thought he probably already was. As a young man he had invested his wife’s generous dowry in a rundown furnace, repaired
the crumbling brickwork and taken on men to labour alongside him. To give her father his due he had worked hard, but he could
have done none of it without marrying Amelia.


She said firmly, ‘It was my mother’s money that bought him the ironworks!’

‘No, Mariah. I think you will find that is not true. Women, generally, do not have money of their own. However,’ he pronounced
casually, ‘your mother’s father may have given her a dowry.’


Your mother? Mariah thought, not ‘my mother’ or even ‘our mother’. She said pointedly, ‘She was your mother, too.’

‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘Though Father did not wish me to be influenced by her. That is why he was so anxious for me to go away to be educated, and why he encouraged me to spend my time
with young gentlemen from school, away from here.’


Well, thought Mariah angrily, go back to your expensive school and snobbish friends! She asked calmly, ‘Then why have you
chosen to stay at home now?’


‘I would have thought that was obvious. Your mother is dead and soon you will be gone too. Father and I have plans. I shall
not go to university, but become a partner in the ironworks when I am twenty-one.’


Mariah despaired. She had thought Henry might be her ally against Ezekiel’s wishes in this matter. Her childhood memories
were of austerity mixed with occasional cheer, but she and Henry had been friends as children playing in the attic or the
garden. And she remembered how sad she had felt when Henry went first to a local day school and then, at eight years old,
further afield as a boarding pupil.


He had visited them rarely since then and, when he did, had little time for her or her mother. Mariah had put his aloofness
down to his new schooling. Mother said he was going to be a proper gentleman when he grew up. She had wondered at the time
why Henry, who was a whole year younger than she was, went for lessons before her, and had asked innocently, ‘When shall I
go to school, Mother?’


‘Heavens, my dear,’ her mother had told her, ‘Mr Bowes will not pay for you to go to school. You must stay at home with me
and look after the house. I shall teach you how to cook and clean and sew. You do not need to go to school for that. I learned
from my mother and you will learn from me.’


But her mother could not read or write so Mariah went to Sunday school and learned her letters and read Bible stories there.
Mariah had often wondered why her mother spoke so little of her own mother. She presumed she had died young and so did not
ask. Now that Amelia was dead it was too late and she wished she had questioned her more. All Mariah had now was a likeness of her that she had kept in her workroom. It was a drawing, well executed by a travelling artist who had
visited the beast market, mounted in an old silver frame. The features were recognisable as her mother’s and, indeed, a little
like her own. It was all she had of her past now; her mother had said she must have it when she was gone.


Mariah shook her head slightly at Henry’s lack of sentiment for his own mother. His father and his schooling had taken him
away from both of them. Henry pushed back his chair and his napkin fell to the floor. He did not pick it up but wandered over
to the windows where tall glass doors led into the garden. He fingered the material of the curtains and looked at the walls.


‘Between the two of you,’ he remarked, ‘you have neglected this house. Look at it! Dingy and unfashionable! What were you
thinking of, letting it get into this state?’


Mariah had realised by now that her brother was not interested in replies to his questions. He did not want to hear about
five years of illness and nursing and the small matter of her father’s refusal to pay for paint or wallpaper, or even new
fabric for window curtains. Father’s usual response had been that all his profits were invested in raw iron for the furnace.
Mariah thought this must have been true because Henry was right, the ironworks flourished while the house was run down.


It was a nice house to live in, though, and Mariah liked it. Situated, as it was, on the town side of the ironworks, it was
convenient for the High Street and the market square at the top of the hill, and had enough garden around it to grow fruit
and vegetables. There was a carriage house, too, where Father kept his haulage cart and heavy horses for transporting the
bars of steel his furnace produced. Father had his own horse, too, a large spirited beast that Henry also rode.


The stable lad, who slept next to the hayloft over the tack room, looked after the garden as well, so they always had fresh
greens and such like in the kitchen. But for years her father would not employ a housemaid and it was a large house to clean without a servant. Built of local stone, it stood four square
to the roadway, with a large front door and wide entrance hall. They had a drawing room, dining room, morning room and a large
kitchen with a roomy scullery at the back. Upstairs were four good bedchambers with two attics above them.


When her mother was well, they were able to keep down the dust from the coal fires, wax the floorboards and furniture and
cook meals between them. But when she became ill, Mariah could not manage the house and nurse her mother. Reluctantly, her
father had agreed to occasional help in the form of Emma, a ten-year-old girl from down by the canal on the other side of
the ironworks. She was a willing and cheerful child, but not used to a large house, and Mariah had to teach her many things
before she could become a real help.


Mariah knew Henry did not wish to know any of this and said, ‘Well, if Father will open an account at the draper’s in town,
I’m sure I can make new curtains and—’


‘Really, Mariah! What do you know of fashion for houses? You have never been anywhere grand enough to see what can be done.’

Henry began to pace about, looking up at the ceiling and turning to survey the whole room. His new leather boots squeaked
on the floorboards. ‘This furniture is too light,’ he declared. ‘I want mahogany from the East. And red velvet for the windows.
Yes. Dark red, I think, with gold tassels. That is much more fitting for a gentleman’s residence, don’t you think?’


Mariah stayed silent. She recalled her mother telling her as a child, ‘When Henry comes home from school he will be accepted
in the very best circles, and so will his father.’


‘And what about us?’ Mariah had asked.

‘Well, of course, we are part of this family so they must accept us as well. Perhaps Mr Bowes will give me an allowance to
buy new dress material and ribbons.’


Perhaps not, Mariah had thought; he is happy for us to forage for used and damaged garments at the market. To afford the clothes for their backs, Amelia Bowes sold surplus garden produce
to buy straw bonnets that she trimmed with bits of lace and ribbons, and then re-sold or traded for lengths of cloth. If ever
her mother caught sight of a fashionable traveller passing through the South Riding, every detail of her dress would be noted,
memorised and sketched out on a slate as soo