Jacob placed the portrait back against the wall and leant his father’s against it, so the two would be staring at each other, but their faces would be hidden from the world.
She looked down at the boxes stacked beside the paintings. Several were full of gowns and day dresses.
‘It’s a shame all this expensive material is going to waste,’ she said, picking up a silk gown bedecked with lace and intricately embroidered. ‘Molly is such an expert with needle and thread. She even has one of those sewing machine things and can whip up a dress in no time. I’m sure she could use all this material and make clothing for the servants and your tenants.’
‘Tell her to help herself,’ he said with a shrug.
She lifted up another beautiful satin gown embellished with finely crafted embroidery. It was a crime that such intricate work had been abandoned to the moths and she knew that Molly would be able to work her magic and create something fashionable with what was left of the exquisite fabric.
She looked back in the box to see what other hidden treasures it contained and found the gold locket Jacob’s mother had been wearing in the portrait. Pushing on the small clasp, she flicked it open. One side contained a miniature of the same young lady in the painting, the other was of a small child and a lock of blond hair was curled around inside.
‘Jacob, I think this must be you.’
He looked over her shoulder at the contents of the locket. ‘It’s just a baby. They all look the same and that locket could belong to anyone.’
‘No, it’s the locket your mother was wearing in the portrait.’ She pointed to where the portrait leaned against the wall.
‘That proves it’s not me. That portrait was painted before I was born.’
Margaret lifted up the lock of white-blond hair. ‘But this has to be yours.’
‘My hair is much darker than that,’ he said dismissively.
‘Hair often darkens as one grows older.’
He walked across the room as if suddenly interested in the pile of old books and ledgers stacked in the corner.
She looked back down at the locket and noticed that the miniature of the baby covered another picture. She gently prised off the top portrait and found a miniature of Jacob’s dour father.
‘She’s placed a picture of you and a lock of your hair over that of her husband.’
‘Well, we can hardly blame her for that. Even an unwanted child is better than having that ghoul glaring out at you,’ he said, flicking through a book and not looking in her direction.
She sighed, let the locket’s delicate gold chain curl gently in her hand, placed it to one side and lifted another gown from the box. Underneath, she found a haphazard pile of letters that appeared to have been tossed into the box. She picked one up and scanned the contents, hoping it would give her some insight into the woman Jacob had said never wanted him.
‘Jacob!’ she gasped out as she picked up yet another letter and quickly read through it.
He stopped what he was doing and looked over at her. ‘What have you found now?’
‘Letters to your mother. And they are about you.’
Chapter Fourteen
Jacob removed the letter from Margaret’s hand and quickly read the contents, not sure if he wanted to hear his mother’s cruel words, but determined to face the cold facts, no matter how unpalatable.
My dearest Charlotte, it is always a joy to receive your letters and to hear of little Jacob’s latest exploits. Walking already! I think you might be right that he is the cleverest of children, although mothers always think their child is brighter, sweeter and more beautiful than any other child. Although, as you insist on telling me, yes, in Jacob’s case, I’m sure this is correct…
Frowning, he flicked to the signature and discovered that it was from his mother’s mother, a woman he had never met.
He continued reading the letter, which then went on to discuss local gossip about people he had never heard of, and ended with the mother counselling the daughter on how she should be the one to temper her husband’s bad moods and reminding her that it was the wife’s duty to create a harmonious home so that her husband did not feel the need to constantly correct her and point out her faults.
Jacob winced inwardly, knowing that nothing anyone could ever do would have stopped that curmudgeon from finding fault with everything and everyone.
He picked up another letter and quickly read the contents to see if that one letter was an aberration. It wasn’t. The next one, and the one after that, and the one after that, were all of the same nature. They began with the grandmother gushing over something supposedly remarkable he had done, such as learning to say a few words, or hugging the gamekeeper’s dog, or trying to help the maid as she cleaned the steps, then went on to recount the local goings-on, and ended with further advice on how to turn a tyrant into a loving husband.
He placed the letter back in the box, picked up the locket and opened it. Had he been wrong about his mother all along? Those letters had not been sent to a cold, unloving mother, but one who had adored her child—a woman who’d had to live under the same tyranny which had made his childhood so miserable.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, looking towards the portrait that had been dumped in this dusty room when she had died at a young age. Jacob wasn’t sure what he was sorry about—for believing the lies his father had told him, which were obviously designed to hurt him, or for all that she had endured at the hands of his father, or for not cherishing her memory all these years but continuing to disparage an innocent woman.
