‘Oh, ma’am, I’ll do anything you say.’
‘And it can be known to the rest of the staff that the reason why I called you in is to offer you the cottage, Trice’s cottage, and your previous work back.’
‘Trice’s cottage! And my…’ There was a look of wonderment in the young woman’s face now, for it was well known that Trice’s cottage was better than the other four on the estate having, besides the loft, a sitting room and a kitchen. But then this wonderment turned to dismay as she said, ‘But the master, if he were to see me.’
‘Oh, I’ve thought about that. But I doubt if he’d recognise you now. Anyway, he is out most of the time and you could arrange your work accordingly…Oh, now, now!’ Nancy Ann rose from her seat, saying, ‘You mustn’t cry any more. We will talk again tomorrow when we’ll discuss which school will be suitable for David. Then you must go into Newcastle and make arrangements. I shall give you a letter of recommendation.’
Jennie had risen to her feet. She could not speak now, but what she did do was bend her knee deeply, then stumble towards the door.
Her entry into the kitchen interrupted a buzz of conversation among the entire kitchen staff, and it was the cook who said, ‘My God, girl, not you an’ all?’
‘No.’ Jennie shook her head before saying thickly, ‘Me and David are to have a cottage, Trice’s.’
There was complete silence for a moment; then Cook said, ‘Oh, well. But not afore time I’d say. I’m glad for you, Jennie, I am that. And I’m glad a day of reckoning has come in this house; it has been long waited. ’Tis meself that says it, although I’ve had to close me eyes and shut me mouth this many a long year.’
As Jennie passed the group standing between the long wooden kitchen table and the great fireplace with the big black ovens to the side, she said in an offhand way, ‘And I’m to go upstairs again into my old job.’ Then, without waiting for any response, she went quickly out of the kitchen, along a corridor, and into the cold meat store, where previous to being called into the hall she had been slicing bacon for the next morning’s breakfast, and boning breasts of lamb ready for rolling. However, she did not immediately begin her work again, but, her teeth clenched tightly, she looked around this room where, summer and winter for years now as part of her duty, she’d had the thankless job of standing in this cold cell preparing meats. Even on the hottest day it could make you shiver. Now all that was over. Dear God! She moved slowly round to a butcher’s block and, resting her buttocks against it, she bent her body forward and covered her face with her hands …
There followed a busy day, with much coming and going inside and outside the house. But there were to be two more incidents before this chapter of her life would close.
It happened in the late evening. She’d had her supper served on a tray in her sitting room, after which she went upstairs and paid her last visit to the nursery to see the children already tucked up in their cots and fast asleep. Agnes was tidying the nursery and she reported that William had been a little fractious. ‘Cutting his teeth, ma’am, he is,’ she said, her manner giving the impression she knew all about the cutting of front teeth—which she did—but more so did it point out that she was capable of carrying out the duties of her new position.
Nancy Ann had looked down on her daughter’s round pink face. She was growing fast and already her features were beginning to resemble her own, whereas the chubby baby showed marked traces of his father in the nose and lips.
She bade Agnes goodnight. Then at the foot of the stairs she passed Mary, and she said to her, ‘It’s a lovely night. I’m going for a stroll as far as the river.’
‘That’ll be nice, ma’am. The air’s cool now; ’twill make you sleep.’
When she reached the drive she did not go straight across the sunken garden and make for the river, but she turned to her left and made her way round the side of the house and through the yard. The men were still busy moving in and out of the stables and the tack room. When they saw her, they stopped and raised their caps to her. And she smiled at them. One whom she hadn’t seen before came out of the barn carrying a bale of hay which, on seeing her, he almost let slide from his shoulder. But, standing still, he managed to grip it with one hand while touching his forelock with the other, and in an unmistakeable Irish voice, he said, ‘Evenin’ to you, ma’am.’
This was definitely another McLoughlin. And without her enquiring he answered a question when he added, ‘I’m Benny, ma’am. Shane’s me brother. I’m new.’
She had stopped. And it was in this moment more than any other that she longed for Dennison to be by her side, for, had he been, once they gained the privacy of the gardens, she would have taken on the voice and the manner of the young fellow, saying, ‘Evenin’ to you, ma’am. I’m Benny, ma’am. Shane’s me brother.’ And he would have laughed, then shaken his head and put his arm about her shoulders and hugged her to him, saying, ‘You are a clever little puss, aren’t you.’ He often used this term after she had mimicked someone: a clever little puss. But would she ever again feel like mimicking anyone? Now she came to think of it, she had not done an imitation since the night she had taken off that woman.
The sun had set, the long twilight had begun. She emerged from the wood and onto the green sward that bordered the river here, and there she saw the boy, sitting on the very stone where she had espied him all those years ago. And as if he had sensed her presence, because he couldn’t have heard her footsteps, he turned his head quickly, then rose to his feet. But he did not move towards her.
When she reached him, she said, ‘Good evening, David.’
‘Good evening, ma’am.’
She noticed that he had a pencil in his hand and that he had been writing. Some loose pages were lying on the flat rock to his side. She now watched him rub the pencil up and down between his fingers.
‘It is a beautiful evening, isn’t it?’
In answer to her remark, he said, ‘Am I really to go to school, ma’am?’
‘Yes. Yes, David, you are really to go to school.’
She was quite unprepared for what happened next, for the boy now flung his arms about her and laid his head on her breast and, his voice rising to almost a falsetto note, he cried, ‘I love you. I do, I do. I love you.’
After taking a gasping breath, her arms went about him, and she placed one hand on his hair and stroked it. And when, in almost a gabble, he went on, ‘I’ll always love you. I’ll love you till I die. I love you better than anyone in the world,’ she pressed him from her and, holding his face between her hands and seeing that his eyes were wet, which almost brought the tears to her own, she said, ‘I…I am very honoured that you should like me, David, but…but you must not say anything like that again; except to your mother. You must love your mother.’
‘I do. I do. I love Jennie.’
She stopped him here by saying, ‘You should call her Mother, not Jennie.’
‘I…I think of her as Jennie, because I’ve always called her Jennie, because everybody calls her Jennie. And…and yes, I love her, but not like I love you.’
‘Now David.’ There was a stern note in her voice. ‘You are grateful to me because I…I am the means of sending you to school.’
‘Oh, no, no, ma’am, it isn’t just that. I’ve always loved you.’
She closed her eyes and bit on her lip. Here was a situation for which she wasn’t prepared. She drew him down onto the rock seat and, taking his hand, she said, ‘Now promise me something, David.’
‘I’ll promise you anything, ma’am, anything.’
‘Well, promise me that you will not say—’ She paused. How was she to put this? Then she went on slowly, ‘You will not repeat or express your feelings again because, you know, they will change.’ When he shook his head, she shook his hand, saying, ‘Oh yes they will. How old are you now?’
‘I’m…I’m twelve, ma’am.’
‘Yes, you are twelve, and you are a very sensible boy, and so let us change the subject.
Tell me, what would you like to be when you grow up?’
Without hesitation he said, ‘I’m going to write stories, ma’am, like those up in the attic.’
‘That is good. So you are going to be a writer.’ She glanced down at the sheets of paper lying to her side on the rock, and she added, ‘Do you write much?’
‘Oh, yes, ma’am, when I can at night, or in my free time. I write poetry, ma’am. I wrote that one last year.’ He pointed down to the papers. ‘But I have altered it, made it better.’ He picked up the piece of paper and handed it to her, and she smiled before she read what was written on it.
Softly, softly, the dove coos to me,
Softly, softly, from the branch of the big oak tree.
Would I had wings I’d fly to it there,
Then together we’d gently take to the air
And soar on the wind to the end of the sky.
O dove of the grey breast, why can’t I fly?
My feet touch the ground,
But my heart’s in the sky
And it sighs as it asks for the reason why
You, my dove, can travel the earth
While only my mind can know its worth.
Softly, softly, dove coo to me
From your throne on the branch of the big oak tree.
After she had finished reading she sat staring into his face, and she told herself that he hadn’t written those words, he had copied them from some book upstairs. Then she realised she was looking at a boy who was twelve years old and who had spent most of his time, apart from his work, on his own, solitary, up in that space under the roof where were stored all kinds of things, most being boxes of books and stacks of papers. She had seen these herself. She had even read the first edition of The Newcastle Chronicle or the General Weekly Advertiser, as it was called in 1764. It was dated March 24th, and she remembered being very amused at the advertisements in it, especially the one for Mr Bank’s Ball at the Assembly Rooms, tickets to be had from his dwelling house in the Flesh market. She also remembered shuddering at the advertisement for Mr Mole’s fighting-cock pit in the Bigg Market, and offering a prize of £50; another prize was a dark brown horse. Oh yes, there was all kinds of reading stored in the attics, so why shouldn’t he have imbibed enough knowledge to be able to write like this? Yet at twelve years old she was sure that neither of her brothers would have even thought like this. As for herself, who was supposed to be bright where her reading was concerned, she wouldn’t have been able to compose a similar piece of poetry. Constructively it had its faults, the metre was not quite right, but the essence was that of a thinker. Oh, what a shame it was that this boy had missed so much good schooling. Yet, would he have learned anything more than that which he had taught himself with the help of his mother? Yes; yes, he would have had a wider knowledge. But all that was now going to be rectified.
‘Do you like it, ma’am?’
‘I…I think it is a very fine poem, and you will undoubtedly be a writer one day. But you must make up your mind to learn all you can about…well, all kinds of things.’
The boy was staring at her, but it was some seconds before he said, ‘Why does the master hate me?’
She was completely nonplussed by the question and she made to rise from the rock, but his penetrating gaze still on her forced her to remain looking back at him. And now with almost a stammer she said, ‘He…he…the master doesn’t hate you.’
‘He does, ma’am. He is my uncle, so the men say.’
Oh, dear. Oh, dear.
‘I know all about it, ma’am. I know that my father was drowned in this river.’ He turned his head and nodded towards the water. ‘This is why I like to come down here; I feel I am near him. There are many pictures of him in the attics. He was beautiful. I look like him.’ There was no suggestion of pride in the words for he went on, ‘That’s why they tried to dye my hair with tea. I hated it here until you came, ma’am. I was going to run away many times. I’m glad I didn’t…But why does he hate me so…the master?’
‘He…he doesn’t hate you, David. It is just because he is sad. He lost his brother, you see.’
The boy now screwed round on the shelf of rock and, leaning forward, he rested his forearms on his knees as he said, ‘’Tisn’t that. No, ’tisn’t that.’
As she looked at his bent head and the position in which he was sitting, it came to her like a revelation and not a pleasant one, that although the boy looked like his father, his manner, his slight arrogance even at this age, and the position he was sitting in now, all spoke plainly that his nature was derived from the man who actually did hate him, for except for his fairness he was now as Dennison must have been at his age.
She rose hastily to her feet, saying, ‘I must be going, David. We…we will talk again once the matter of the school is settled.’
He was standing now and looking at her, and he made a small movement with his head but did not speak. And as she walked away she knew he was watching her, and she felt as she might have done had a mature man been in his place.
The meeting with the boy last night had disturbed her, for she could see that his strength of character would in the future, in some way, create trouble.
It was half past ten in the morning and she was sitting in the drawing room drinking a cup of chocolate when there was a knock at the door and Robertson entered, saying hurriedly, ‘Lady Beatrice has arrived, ma’am.’
Nancy Ann only just prevented herself from saying aloud the words that were running through her mind, Oh, no; not her. But she got up and went hastily through the door Robertson was holding open for her, and there, already entering the hall, was Lady Beatrice Boswell, who, ignoring for the moment Nancy Ann and looking at Robertson, said, ‘Pay the cab, man.’
Robertson looked at his mistress and made a small movement with his hand as if to say that he hadn’t any money, and Nancy Ann turned to where Mary was standing at the bottom of the stairs and said, ‘Take some money from my cash box, Mary, and pay the cabman.’
The cabby was now coming through the hall door laden down with packages, and as he began to drop them one after the other with a thud, Lady Beatrice cried, ‘Be careful, man! Be careful!’
The man sighed and turned away, saying to Robertson as he did so, ‘That’s only half of it.’
Still ignoring Nancy Ann, Lady Beatrice looked at Robertson and demanded, ‘Where is Trice?’ And the man, glancing from Nancy Ann to the newcomer, muttered, ‘He is no longer in service here, ma’am.’
‘What? Oh, well, take these upstairs to my rooms.’
As the man hesitated, Nancy Ann said quietly, ‘Leave them where they are, Robertson.’ And now looking fully at Lady Beatrice, she said, ‘Will you kindly come this way?’ She motioned towards the drawing room, and to this Lady Beatrice replied, ‘I’ll see you later when I am refreshed.’
‘You will see me now, Lady Beatrice.’
The tone stretched the painted face, the eyes widened, the mouth fell into a polite gape. She glanced from the butler to Mary who had re-entered the hall, then to a maid who was descending the stairs, and now letting out a long and seemingly placatory breath, she stalked haughtily past Nancy Ann and into the drawing room.
Slowly, Nancy Ann closed the door behind her. Then, passing the indignant figure, she seated herself on a single chair and, her hands joined in her lap, she looked at the woman. She had not seen her for over a year because her last entry into the house had been during the week the baby was born. And on that visit she stayed only a short time because the household was in an uproar. Previously her visits had often been a month’s duration; but even then she had generally kept to her bed, the while demanding the servants be at her beck and call. And so she herself had seen very little of her. Dennison always laughed about her. He was sorry for her, he said, because she had to live with her cousin, the Honourable Delia Ferguson, whom he jokingly described as being a horse minus two legs and a tail.
‘I wish to say to you, Lady Beatrice, that you cannot s
tay here.’
‘Wh…at!’ The word was drawn out; the painted cheeks that looked as if they had been tinted with enamel moved into deep creases. Then the voice demanded, ‘Where is Dennison?’ And she looked around as if she expected him to appear from behind the furniture.
‘Dennison is in London. I am now in complete charge of the house and the staff, which has lately become depleted. I have retained enough for the comfortable running of the house, but this does not provide for a guest to have servants at her beck and call fourteen hours of the day.’
‘This is outrageous. How dare you! You know who I am? I’m related to your husband, much closer to him than you are. Dennison would never countenance this.’
‘For your information, Lady Beatrice, Dennison has given me a free hand. For the future I may arrange my staff and invite whom I like into my house.’
‘Your house? Your house? Oh, I’ve heard about you and the fracas you caused. I stayed overnight in Newcastle at the Barringtons. It’s a scandal. Do you know your actions were scandalous? Not those of a lady, even if you were provoked. Oh, I know all about it.’
Now Nancy Ann rose to her feet and, forcing herself to remain calm, she said, ‘Then if you know all about it, you will have gauged that I’m of a character capable of removing obstacles I find in my way. Now, Lady Beatrice, I have much to do. You may remain until tomorrow morning or even longer, say a week, if you will conform to the rules of the house. Breakfast is served in the small dining room at nine o’clock, dinner at two, afternoon tea at five, and supper at seven. You will have no-one to maid you…I don’t. If you wish for a bath you can take it in one of the ground-floor closets so the maids won’t have so far to carry the water. If you agree with these arrangements then, as I said, you may stay for a week. But I’ll be obliged if, in any case, you did not unload your dolls.’
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