Mark Bunting was a man of medium height, thickset with dark bushy brows over deep-set eyes. His face was full and his lips thin. Like most keekers he was a lonely man, working between the devil and the deep sea, between the men who hated him and the owners who despised him. Bunting lived half a mile from the village, not in a stinking two-roomed cottage but in a good solid house with two rooms up and two down. It was provided by the Rosiers and it had a garden in which a dog was chained. Mark Bunting needed protection; he needed warning of approaching visitors. There was a blue mark running from the rim of his cap down to the top of his left cheekbone, which was proof what he had not always been on his guard. It was not an uncommon thing for keekers to be found in ditches with their heads split open.
‘Fine day.’ He came to a stop about a yard from where William sat.
It was some seconds before the old man, without glancing at him, said, ‘It’ll do.’
Katie, lifting her eyes slowly upwards and over her granda’s head, looked at this man about whom she had heard so much yet had never seen. She saw that he was very well put-on, and he looked entirely apart from the men in the village in that he was wearing a cravat and a fancy waistcoat. There was a pattern about him that reminded her of her master, and his sons, but she did not include his voice in that pattern, for it was rough-sounding. In the brief space of time that she looked at the man there came over her a feeling that she couldn’t understand, only that it was in a way a betrayal of her own kind, for why should she feel sorry for a keeker?
Bunting’s eyes were covering her face when William lifted his head sharply and glared up at him, and the man, turning abruptly, walked away from them.
William didn’t speak until Bunting was well out of hearing, then he said under his breath, ‘Bide your time; you don’t want to come up with that ’un.’
No, she didn’t. The way he had looked at her had frightened her a bit. Perhaps he frightened the men in the same way, by just looking at them, because although he was thick he wasn’t very big.
Silently now they watched the figure become smaller, and when the head disappeared from view William pulled himself up, tucked his crutch under his arm and said, ‘Well now, you’d better be away.’
‘Yes, Granda.’ She dusted some dry grass from her skirt; then raising her face to his she kissed him, while putting one arm around his neck and the other hand in his pocket and dropping in the three pennies, and before he could protest further she was running down the slope. At the bottom she turned and called, ‘Ta-ra, Granda,’ and he called back, ‘Ta-ra, me bairn.’
At intervals along the road she turned and waved; and then came the bend and after one last wave she could see him no longer.
It had been a lovely day, a wonderful day. She felt so happy she could sing. Suddenly she whirled around, and her scraping feet sent up a cloud of dust from the road, while the skirt of her print dress swirled into a balloon about her legs. Then she was running and laughing. She was daft, daft, but she was happy, and the ball was on Tuesday. The excitement of the event brought a fluttering in her chest. Perhaps she would see them dancing. Mrs Davis had let her and Dotty peep through the landing door once, but they hadn’t seen much from there, just the occasional figure floating past the bottom of the stairs. But even that had been wonderful. Oh, on her next day off she would have something to tell them at home, wouldn’t she?
She began to run again. Then suddenly she stopped and her step became sedate, while her eyes stared to the far end of the road and the approaching figure. Even at this long distance she knew it was the keeker coming back from his walk. As the distance lessened between them her limbs began to tremble. Dotty had told her that she had once seen the devil and that she got such a fright her face came out in spots and she hadn’t been able to get rid of them since. And it was true; her face was covered in spots.
Mark Bunting now took on all the appearance of the devil, and when he stopped dead in front of her she thought her knees were going to give way, and she put her hand to her face.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘The…the house.’
‘Rosier’s?’
She nodded.
‘What do you do there?’
‘I’m scullery maid.’
He stared at her, wondering the while why he had stopped; he didn’t like women. Fortunately for him they were not a necessity in his life. ‘What’s your name?’ he said.
‘Katie…Katie Mulholland.’
Big Mulholland’s girl. ‘That your grandfather back there?’
‘Aye. Yes.’
He hadn’t taken his unblinking stare from her face. He saw that she was frightened of him and this fact gave him a sense of pleasure and he prolonged the interview.
‘What do they pay you?’
‘A shilling a week.’
‘Huh!’ His head went up and he made a sound like a laugh, yet it wasn’t a laugh. ‘You get off every Sunday?’
‘No.’ She shook her head and backed a step from him as she said, ‘Every other.’ Then she added quickly, ‘I’m due in; I’ll be late.’ She took another two steps back.
Her fear amused him; he had the desire to pretend to spring on her. He was further amused by the thought that she would do it in her bloomers if he did. It came to him, as he watched her turn swiftly round and move from him at the point of a run, that she hadn’t addressed him as ‘Sir’. A girl of her standing should have; he wasn’t a man of the village. He felt piqued that even her fear hadn’t prompted her to use the term ‘Sir’. He watched her for a full minute before going on his way.
When Katie left the track and entered the grounds by the wicket gate she was still running, but once inside the grounds she came to a halt and pressed her two hands to her chest as she gasped for breath. Eeh, he had frightened her; the way he had looked at her…Yet it was funny she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. But she’d better not let her da or granda hear her say that.
She was still panting when she reached the rise that overlooked the house and saw Miss Theresa sitting there. She had a book in her hand but she wasn’t reading.
Katie gave a slight bob and went to pass her, when Miss Theresa spoke. ‘You’ve been home, Katie?’
‘Yes, Miss…Miss Theresa.’ Somehow she couldn’t call her ma‘am.
‘How are your folks?’
‘Oh, they’re fine, Miss Theresa.’
‘And you enjoyed yourself?’
‘Oh yes.’ The smile reached to Katie’s ears. ‘It’s been lovely.’
‘Come and sit down a moment and tell me all about it.’ She moved on the grass as if making room for her, and Katie looked down on her, her mouth falling into a gape, and she said, ‘What, miss?’ as if she hadn’t heard. But she had heard all right. Miss Theresa was funny. Just imagine what they would say back at the house if they saw her sitting there. It was as the others said, she didn’t really act like a lady. But that didn’t stop her from liking Miss Theresa the best of the lot.
‘Thank you, Miss Theresa, but…but I’m due in and Mrs Davis will be waitin’.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Theresa looked up at her and moved her head slowly. ‘But I’m glad you’ve had an enjoyable day, Katie,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Miss Theresa.’
Katie turned and walked slowly away now, down towards the copse. She wished she could have done what Miss Theresa had asked because she sounded lonely. But there, Miss Theresa couldn’t be lonely. She was with her family, and in this lovely house and garden, besides which she had a great big house of her own—better than this one, they said.
It was odd, Katie thought, as she neared the yard, but in the last half an hour she had met two people and she had thought they were lonely. Likely they weren’t at all; it was just her and her fancies. She was daft.
Back on the grassy slope, Theresa sat, her legs straight out before her, her hands lying limply in her lap. She was thinking of Katie, and Katie would have been surprised, even amazed, had she known of the times
since she had come into the household that Miss Theresa had thought about her. From the first Theresa had been fascinated by the young girl’s face. She thought the feeling was an artistic quality she possessed that could appraise beauty, that could be stirred and excited by it. Once, when they had been talking about money, Miss Ainsley had said, ‘Now take a child like Katie Mulholland, educate her, clothe her and what would you have? Someone who would doubtless be acclaimed from here to Rome. Yet what will happen to her? She will marry a miner, have two or three children before she’s twenty, and by the time she’s thirty there’ll be no semblance left of the beautiful girl. Whereas if she had money she could cosset and pamper that beauty and at thirty she would just be in her prime. Never despise money, Theresa,’ Miss Ainsley had ended.
Oh, if she could only go to Ainsley, but Ainsley was now in London, instilling wisdom into two young ladies.
What was she to do following Tuesday? Write to her husband and tell him she wasn’t coming back, or do what her mother asked and put up with it until after the wedding? She closed her eyes and saw vividly what it was she would have to put up with, and it came to her with clarity that never, as long as she should live, could she bear to be a partner in this with any man. Turning her body slowly round, she lay on the grass and buried her face in the crook of her arm.
Chapter Four
The ball was well under way, and there was a pause in the running, rushing and scurrying. All the guests had arrived, all had eaten and some were now dancing, and the house was filled with the echo of the music.
This side of the façade of the flower-bedecked rooms the staff were breathing more easily, some even daring to relax; and Cook was one of the latter. She was sitting in the rocking chair to the side of the open spit fire, fortifying herself with a strong cup of tea laced with gin. She was extremely tired but was experiencing a sense of deep satisfaction, for, as she had just remarked to Dotty: say it, as she herself would, for nobody else was likely to, she had done more than her duty this past week. More had been asked of her than should have been asked of any human being. But had she faltered? Not a step. And now her legs were killing her.
Katie’s legs too were very tired and every other part of her body, especially her arms. She had been on her feet from half-past five, and now all she wanted to do was to drop her head forward on to the table and go to sleep. She slid off the end of the wooden form, lifted her plate and said to Dotty, ‘I think I’ll swill me face under the pump, that’ll bring me to.’
‘Before you do any swillin’ you see to them boilers.’
‘Yes, Cook, I’ll do them right away.’ And she did them right away.
The last of the twilight was fading and it was very warm when she went outside, but cooler than in the kitchen, and she breathed deeply for a few moments before walking across the yard to the pump. The aspect of the courtyard was changed tonight, for the wide entrance was blocked with carriages. She would have loved to squeeze in between them and look towards the drive and the front door where all the lights were hanging, but she was afraid of running into the grooms. At present the grooms and coachmen were all in Mr Tatman’s harness room where beer and food was set for them, but if one of them should come out and catch you on your own they would rumple you, so Dotty said.
She pumped the water, then quickly held her face towards it, being careful that she didn’t get her cap wet or the front of her dress…There, that felt better. She looked up into the sky. It would soon be black dark and then the house would look lovely. She wished she could go along the wall and up the hill and look at it from there. But she would never dare, not only because she would be frightened of the dark, but because some of the guests went into the garden, and things went on, Dotty said. But Dotty told lies; her mother had told her to take everything Dotty said with a pinch of salt.
She finished drying her face on the underside of her coarse apron; then she walked back to the kitchen.
Florrie Green, the head chambermaid, was in the kitchen now and she had apparently caught Cook’s interest enough to cause her to put her feet down and sit up straight. ‘Frumpish the mother is,’ Florrie was saying. ‘Little and dumpy, and no style at all. Well, I was surprised. An’ you know what? She’s an honourable, and Mr Kennard says she’s one sister who’s a lady, and another who’s a countess. Well! To look at her’—she bent down now and put her face close to Cook’s—‘you would think a pedlar had dressed her.’
‘No!’
‘Aye, you would.’
‘How’s the daughter dressed—Miss Ann?’ Cook asked now.
‘Not bad.’ Florrie adjusted the bib of her fancy apron. ‘Pink she’s in; it suits her complexion. She’s pretty in a way, but she’s the kind that’ll fade early.’ She accompanied her pronouncement with a telling movement of her head. Then she went on quickly, ‘But the father now, he looks somethin’. He’s tall and thin, and his hair’s dead white. He’s got a sort of…a presence. You know what I mean, Cook?’
The cook now wagged her head slowly, signifying her complete understanding of class; then, bringing it close to Florrie’s, she said in a low voice, ‘It’s funny them not staying in the house, isn’t it? All going back to Shields.’
‘You’re not the only one who thinks that, Cook.’
‘Who they staying with?’ Cook asked now, and Florrie replied, ‘The Palmers; old family friends. They’re here; husband and wife. Uppish lookin’…I bet Miss Ann’s disappointed.’ She pushed the cook in her flabby chest with the flat of her hand. ‘She’s right over the hoop for him; you should see her lookin’ at him.’
‘You’ve seen them together then?’
‘Uh-huh! I was taking the dishes from Fanny at the side door and they were dancin’.’
As the chambermaid went to leave the kitchen Cook screwed her body round in the chair and called to her, ‘You never said what the missus looks like?’
Florrie turned, saying, ‘Outshines the lot of ’em, if you ask me. Her frock looks wonderful, an’ you can see she’s pleased as punch; everythin’ goin’ smoothly an’ that. But there’s one damper on the proceedin’s.’ She flapped her hand towards the cook. ‘Miss Theresa. Coo, she looks as if she’s lost a sixpence and found a threepenny bit. She was never very pleasant at any time, was she, but her face the night, Lordy me! I saw her dancin’ round with Mr Rodger; I don’t suppose anybody else would ask her. An’ she’s got a frock on…well.’ She closed her eyes and made a deep sweep with her head. ‘I’m tellin’ you, I wouldn’t swap it for me Sunday one.’
‘No!’
‘It’s a fact, Cook. And it isn’t like as if she mightn’t be able to buy one, for the old fellow was potty over her, wasn’t he? An’ her with a face’d turn milk sour. But God, there’s no countin’ for taste, I say that every day in the week—there’s no countin’ for taste.’
‘You’re right there, Florrie. You’re right there.’
The final word had been said on the matter, and Florrie went out and Cook settled herself again, only to turn her gimlet eyes on the girls seated at the table and shout, ‘An’ don’t you two sit there as if you’re finished. You, Dotty, can clear up the dishes and get the pans ready for the porridge; an’ you, Katie, get on with your floor.’
Katie stared through her tired eyes at the cook. She had somehow thought that the floor would have a miss the night, seeing that people would be tramping back and forward on it until the small hours of the morning. Her thoughts must have shown in her face, for the cook, her voice even higher now, cried, ‘An’ don’t you look at me like that unless you want your ears boxed.’
Katie immediately sidled from the form and went and got her bucket, and she had just started on the floor in the corner next to the ovens when Mrs Davis came hurrying into the kitchen. Seeing the cook sitting with her feet up she said, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, take a minute when you can; I just wanted to tell you how pleased everybody seemed with the dishes. I’ve heard a number of favourable remarks.’
To
this the cook inclined her head and gave Mrs Davis a tight smile, then said, ‘Well, I did me best as always. Nobody can say I don’t do me best.’
‘Yes, you always do your best, Delia.’ Now Mrs Davis turned her head to the dim corner to where Katie was kneeling, and without stopping to think she said, ‘Oh, that’s going to be a waste of time, Katie, with all the tramping back and…’ Her voice trailed away as she realised that in a way she was infringing on Cook’s domain, and so, looking at Cook again, she added in a pleasant, and apologetic, tone, ‘It’ll be dirty again by two o’clock, Delia.’
‘Well, you would have somethin’ to say if I made her scrub it after that hour, wouldn’t you?’ Cook had put her feet down and was sitting bolt upright in her chair.
‘Yes, I think I would, Delia. But this being a special occasion I should have thought the floor could have been left for one night.’
‘And have you find fault the morrow?’
Mrs Davis immediately became the dignified housekeeper. ‘If I gave an order that a thing wasn’t to be done, Cook, I wouldn’t be so foolish as to find fault the following day because my order had been carried out; besides, you’ll need Katie in a very short while to see to the side dishes and the big plate that will be coming from the tables. Mr Kennard and I will see to the sets and the silver in the pantry, but the rest can be washed here.’
The cook and the housekeeper looked at each other squarely in the eye. Then Mrs Davis turned slowly about and left the kitchen, and the cook repeated to herself, ‘Mr Kennard and I will see to the plate in the pantry.’ There was no doubt but they would. She glanced towards Katie, who had moved to a fresh patch of stone floor, but she didn’t countermand her order. If the dishes were to be washed, then she would wash them when she had finished the floor.
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