Knight's Acre: Till Death Do Us Part

by Margaret Brazear

  “Make us a cup of tea, girl,” he said.

  “I don’t have time,” she said. “I’m going out.”

  He finally looked up and his eyes wandered over her.

  “Where did that get-up come from?” he demanded. “I’ve told you before, I don’t want you borrowing stuff from ‘er next door. It makes me look bad.”

  And we can’t have anything making you look bad now, can we?

  “I bought this coat last year, but I haven’t worn it before.”

  He frowned suspiciously.

  “Where do you think you’re going, all dolled up?”

  “I am meeting someone for tea,” she replied.

  “Meeting someone?” His voice began to rise as his frown deepened. “You been doing something you shouldn’t?” he demanded. “You meeting the same bloke as bought you that fancy coat? A man don’t buy clothes for a girl without getting something out of it.”

  “I told you, Father, I bought the coat myself, last year. I even showed it to you, but I don’t suppose you remember.”

  The newspaper rustled as he folded it over a page and fixed his eyes on it once more.

  “You ain’t going nowhere,” he said. “Make my tea.”

  She strode to the front door and pulled it open.

  “Make it yourself,” she said.

  Jack finally got to his feet, grabbed Jessica’s arm and pulled her back inside.

  “I told you, you ain’t going nowhere. You don’t need to be courting some man; you’ve got me to look after.”

  Jessica’s eyes filled with tears, which she rapidly blinked away. For all her father had taken little notice of her over the years, she always believed he had some love for her. Now she knew different and despite everything, it hurt. She yanked her arm away from him.

  “I am an adult now, Dad,” she said. “I shall do whatever I like.”

  She hurried outside before he had a chance to grab her again. She knew he wouldn’t follow; he was too concerned with what the neighbours might think to continue the argument where people might see.

  She hurried to where Simon waited in the Earl’s black carriage, with its family crest. He opened the door when he saw her coming and reached out a hand to help her climb up the step and inside.

  As the carriage drove away, Jack Milligan stood on his doorstep and watched, slowly shaking his head. It couldn’t be, could it? Surely it wasn’t the Earl who was courting her. If it was, His Lordship would definitely want something more than her company in return.

  And wouldn’t it just piss off the old bag next door. That Simmons woman had been trying to get him interested in her girl for years; looked to Jack like she was too late. The idea cheered him up and he smiled to himself as he went back indoors.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Engagement

  Jessica started sneaking out to be with Simon. Sometimes he would pick her up in the Earl’s carriage, but mostly she liked to walk out of the village, up to the woods at the edge of Knight’s Acre, so they would not be seen. It was difficult to get away and in church on Sunday morning, they pretended not to know each other. It wasn’t a secret as such, but Jessica would rather not face questioning from her father, who thought he had to approve of everything she did. And he’d already made his position clear; he thought she should concentrate her entire life on looking after him.

  But he liked to spend his evenings in the pub, and his Sunday afternoons, so she had time to get away then.

  She and Simon would go for long walks, they would go for rides in the carriage and once they went to the races in Newmarket. Jessica wasn’t so keen on that; she didn’t like the crowds and when one of the horses fell and had to be shot, she was very distressed.

  Catherine had given her a couple of dresses that she no longer wore because she didn’t like them. They were still in fashion, but she didn’t think the colour suited her. But Jessica, with her auburn hair and green eyes, was made for the dark green silk of the gown. The other dress was light brown and again, it was more Jessica’s colour than Catherine’s. Catherine was fair and suited red and blue, especially blue; that brought out the colour in her eyes and sometimes made them appear darker.

  “Let me pay you for them,” Jessica pleaded, knowing her friend would refuse and knowing she didn’t have the money.

  “Don’t be daft,” said Catherine. “They’ll only take up space and never get worn. I look a fright in them. Besides, they’re a bit small for me without a corset and I’m starting to think I’d be better off without one of those.”

  Jessica was shocked.

  “But not to go outside, surely?” she said. “What will people say? I mean, I often don’t wear one in the house, but I wouldn’t dream of going out without one.”

  “But we don’t need them, Jess,” said Catherine. “All right for girls like Susan Langley, who has a bit of extra flesh to hold in, but not us. Cecily won’t wear one.”

  “Well, that’s Cecily,” said Jessica. “She never does anything people might think women should do.”

  “You’re telling me!” came the voice of Mary Simmons.

  Jessica wondered if she had ever had a conversation with her best friend without her mother eavesdropping. She was outside Catherine’s bedroom door.

  “Waste of money,” said Mary. “All that education on a girl. It’ll all be wasted, you mark my words. She’ll give it all up when she gets married and has a babe or two to look after.”

  “Give it all up to spend her life cleaning and cooking and washing,” said Jessica. “I can’t see it somehow.”

  “Anyway, Catherine,” said Mary. “I don’t want you having anything to do with that girl. “She’s obviously a bad influence. No corset indeed! You’re not leaving this house without being properly dressed, and don’t think you are. You’ll never get a husband that way.”

  Catherine walked to the door and closed it, shutting her mother and her ears out. She moved across to the window and opened it, so they could lean out of the window and talk in relative privacy.

  “You don’t see men squeezing themselves and almost choking just to look good, do you?” she said.

  Jessica shook her head.

  “I suppose you’re right, but your mum’s going to have a fit.”

  “I know,” said Catherine. “But Michael says he prefers me without one.”

  “That’s a bit saucy, isn’t it?”

  Catherine blushed, tried to fight a smile of contentment.

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But he says he wants to feel me when he puts his arms round me, not something stiff and cold like a lump of wood. He says if I’m going to wear a corset all the time, he might as well go to the woods and hug a tree.”

  Both girls giggled, but Catherine’s words had conjured up an image with which Jessica was uncomfortable. Was her friend really saying she got that close with Michael Kimpton? Without being married? Was she not afraid of getting pregnant?

  These were all questions she would keep to herself. Even as close as she was to Catherine, whom she had known all her life, there were some things it was not proper to ask.

  Jessica had started off by getting Dad’s dinner and leaving the dishes to soak, tried to cover her best clothes with her coat so as not to arouse his suspicions. She was sure he would expect her to spend the rest of her life with him, waiting on him, cooking, cleaning, washing for him. Jessica had no intention of doing any such thing.

  Simon gave her a lovely silver brooch for Christmas. It had little sapphires in a circle and it shone brightly.

  “I haven’t got you anything,” she said.

  “That’s all right. I know how hard it is, but the Earl pays me good money so I might as well spend some of it on my best girl.”

  He kissed her then. It was the second time he had done that and the sensation was indescribable, made her tingle all over, made her tingle in places she couldn’t acknowledge.

  When Jessica went out after Christmas, at new year, she had draped her scarf over the brooc
h so her father would not ask where it came from, but he looked up from his paper and smiled.

  “I saw the brooch, girl,” he said. “Don’t know why you want to keep it hidden.”

  “You saw it?”

  “I did and I know who bought it for you as well. You go and have a good time, but don’t you do anything you shouldn’t. You save that; a man don’t keep a cow when he can get the milk for free.”

  Her surprise overwhelmed her distaste at his metaphor.

  “I didn’t think you would approve,” she said.

  “Why not? You’ve caught yourself a prize, girl. Just you be sure to play your cards right and all our lives could be changing.”

  She frowned as she left the cottage. She had no idea why he was pleased about her courtship of the Earl’s estate manager. Having no idea that he had watched the carriage that picked her up on several occasions, she could not guess that as she left, he was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed and dreaming of early retirement, perhaps a suite of rooms in Knight’s Castle, perhaps a gentle, lazy old age with servants to look after him.

  He knew who had given her the brooch; he had seen it before when the Earl opened his great hall for the villagers to gawk at the fine jewellery, statues and paintings.

  ***

  She was early for her rendezvous with Simon so she decided to drop in on Catherine for a little while. Between seeing him and looking after her father and the house, she hadn’t been able to see her for a little while.

  Mrs Simmons opened the door and greeted Jessica with a scowl.

  “Umph!” she scoffed. “It’s you, is it? I don’t know how you’ve got the nerve to show your face round here.”

  Jessica blushed.

  “I’m sorry Mrs Simmons,” she said. “Have I done something to upset you?”

  Catherine’s voice came from inside.

  “Let her in, Mother. I never wanted His Lordship in the first place.”

  His Lordship? What was she talking about?

  Mrs Simmons turned and marched away in the direction of the kitchen, while Jessica went inside and closed the door. Catherine was embroidering what looked like a nightdress case.

  “That’s beautiful,” she said. She sat close to her friend and dropped her voice. “Is it for your wedding night?”

  “No, it’s for yours,” she said.

  “What? What are you talking about? And what’s wrong with your mother?”

  Catherine set aside her embroidery and stood up.

  “Come outside,” she said.

  She grabbed her coat off the hook as she went out of the door, Jessica following.

  “Your father has been telling people that his daughter is courting the Earl,” said Catherine. “He came round specially to tell Mother that she had no hope for me, cos he’d already been taking you about in his carriage.”

  Jessica was shaking her head.

  “No wonder he was so keen for me to leave the washing up and go out,” she said. “It’s not true, Catherine. You do know that?”

  “Well, no, I don’t really. I haven’t seen you for ages; last time we spoke, you were keen on the Earl’s new estate manager.”

  “Simon. Simon Swinburne and it’s him I’ve been seeing. The Earl let him use his carriage.”

  “And your father saw you getting in it and thought you were seeing the Earl himself.” Catherine smiled. “What a muddle! Are you going to tell him?”

  “Father? I don’t think so. If I tell him, he’ll not be so accommodating, will he?”

  “And it’s shut my mother up,” said Catherine. “Well, at least it has as far as pairing me off with His Lordship goes. She hasn’t stopped complaining about you getting in first, sneaking in when you knew she wanted the Earl for me.”

  Catherine laughed, so did Jessica.

  “Well, I’ll keep it to myself then,” said Jessica. “It’s to my advantage and it’s also to yours, but I suppose I won’t be welcome here anymore.”

  “You’ll always be welcome here,” said Catherine. “My mother’s been looking through the old family papers in the attic, trying to find some ancestor who was a duke or some such. I don’t know who told her that.”

  Jessica hugged her friend then went off down the path to make her way to the edge of the woods, where she had agreed to meet Simon. Now she had decided on the subterfuge, he could bring the carriage all the way up to the door in future.

  But this time Simon had arrived in a little two seater trap, pulled by one pony. He didn’t need a driver for this; he could drive it himself which was more private, but also a little embarrassing for Jessica. Although he never spoke, the fact of the driver being there made her feel that she was behaving properly. Still, she knew Simon well enough by now; she was half convinced that he had turned up alone this time because he wanted to make a proposal. She smiled at the thought as she made her way to the waiting transport.

  It began to snow as she reached it and climbed inside. She didn’t mind the snow, in fact she liked it, but Simon wasn’t keen so he pulled the hood up and they sat inside for a little while.

  “Where did you learn to drive a horse?” she asked.

  “Oh, here and there. This isn’t the first big estate I’ve worked in.”

  He kissed her and this kiss made her even more shivery; it was stronger somehow, longer than normal and she found herself clinging to him, wanting him to do more than simply kiss her.

  “Jessica,” he said. “We’ve been walking out for some months now.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wasn’t sure at first, but now I know I am in love with you. Will you marry me?”

  Her heart was hammering, her stomach was churning, and her voice refused to work. She fell into his arms, clutched him close against her and kissed him.

  She sat up to find him gently brushing tears away with his thumb.

  “Is that a yes?” he asked.

  “Oh, Simon. Yes, of course I’ll marry you. I love you so much.”

  He reached in his pocket and brought out a ring. It looked like an antique ring, a cluster of tiny diamonds around a ruby in the centre.

  “I can have it resized if it doesn’t fit,” he said.

  He slipped it on her finger and it fitted perfectly; she couldn’t believe her luck. She had dreamed all her life of a decent, kind man, a handsome man who would sweep her off her feet and marry her. She had to assure herself that she wasn’t asleep and dreaming.

  But how was she to tell her father that she was engaged, but not to the Earl of Harrisford?

  ***

  Jessica decided to keep the ring hidden until a date had been set for the wedding. She knew it would be a small affair, not the huge, society wedding her father would be expecting. Simon had never mentioned a family, but she didn’t think he had one and she had no one but her father. Catherine would stand as bridesmaid; she wondered briefly who Simon would get to be his best man. Perhaps the Earl would do them the honour and he might even give them an important wedding gift.

  Catherine was the only person she told. Jessica was the only person who knew about Catherine’s own engagement to Michael Kimpton and they could both keep each other’s secrets.

  “It’ll be a spring wedding,” she told her friend. “Then I will move into his house on the estate. It’s much bigger than these tenants’ cottages and there’s nothing there but fields and the Castle itself.”

  “At least we’ll get some privacy when we want to have a natter. Mother’s still ranting about you catching the Earl instead of me. If she looked up from her ambitions once in a while, she might notice what her own daughter is doing.”

  “Is Susan Langley still mooning after your Michael?” Jessica asked with a smile.

  “She is. Every time we see her, her eyes follow him along the road. He smiled and tipped his hat to her the other day and she turned and ran! Poor little thing; I feel sorry for her. She never seems to do anything save clean up at the Castle and help her mother. I have no idea what happened t
o her father.”

  “Nor me. Tis a shame; she’s quite pretty as well,” said Jessica. “I did ask her to have tea with me once, when the tea shop opened. I thought she looked as though she needed a friend, and she seemed really excited, but her mother wouldn’t let her go. She’s the one keeping her from having a life.”

  “I hope when we are mothers, Jess, we let our children live their own lives.”

  Jessica slipped her ring onto her finger and held out her hand to show her friend.

  “It is beautiful,” said Catherine. “It looks old.”

  “Simon says it was his great grandmother’s.”

  “Really? That is an honour.”

  But there was something familiar about that ring, something Catherine could not quite grasp. She wouldn’t mention it to Jessica; it may be nothing. It likely was nothing. It was a common enough design, really, but still, she could not help thinking she had seen that ring before.

  Jessica sent off for some patterns from London, along with some sample swatches of material for her wedding gown and for Catherine’s bridesmaid dress. She was so excited when the satin she ordered finally arrived and she dragged out the old sewing machine and cleared the table, ready to lay out her pattern and cut it out.

  She took the cover off the machine first, to make sure it was clean enough to have contact with the delicate white satin. It was a hand operated Singer and she would need to put it on the table to use. It was terribly heavy, and would need oiling, so that was the first job. She didn’t want any oil left to mark her fabric.

  She didn’t hear her father come in. He was early today; he usually stopped at the pub for a beer before he made his way home, but today, for some reason, he was here now, just as Jessica had got ready to start on her wedding gown.

  “What’s that for?” he demanded.

  She turned to him, took a deep breath to steady her nerves.