The Gamekeeper's Wife

by Clare Flynn

  Christopher swallowed then nodded his head.

  ‘Tell me.’

  He felt his hand shaking and, afraid he would spill his tea, he put the cup back on the saucer, hearing it rattle against the spoon. ‘I don’t like to… I can’t…’

  The woman stared at him, her face still blank, revealing no emotion as she waited for him to collect himself. He imagined what his mother would say if she saw him now, reduced to stammering by a servant.

  Breathing in slowly, he said, ‘I sent him back to the dugout to get my pocket watch. I’d left it on top of my trunk. Stupid thing to do.’ He glanced down at his hand as it shook on the surface of the table, then drew it away resting it under the table on his leg. ‘The dugout took a direct hit from a shell. When we went back, there was a crater. Harold… Private Walters was the only man lost that day… if I hadn’t asked him to fetch my watch…’ He lifted his eyes, then dropped them again under her penetrating gaze.

  ‘So it would have been quick?’

  He looked up again. ‘Instant. He wouldn’t have stood a chance. Wouldn’t have known anything.’

  The woman frowned then sipped her tea. Putting the cup down, she said, ‘What about you? How did you lose the leg?’

  ‘Six months later. Just before the end of the hostilities. In Belgium. Ypres. I stepped on a landmine when we were advancing. A moment of carelessness on my part and it cost me my leg.’ He gave a hollow laugh.

  Mrs Walters studied him, her eyes green with little hazel flecks. She hadn’t smiled once. Pointing at his hand she asked, ‘Is that down to the war too? The shaking?’

  He nodded. ‘Nerves. They said it was shell shock.’ He was ashamed as he told her, but felt compelled to answer her questions. ‘Stupid, I know.’

  ‘Stupid? Hardly.’

  ‘My mother thinks it is.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘She keeps telling me to snap out of it.’ What was it about this woman that made him open up to her?

  Mrs Walters said nothing, but reached for the teapot and refilled their cups.

  After a few minutes of silence, she said, ‘So when do I have to be out of here?’

  He hesitated. His mother had told him to tell her she had to get out by the end of the week. ‘Have you anywhere to go? What will you do?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Family?’

  ‘All dead.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Perhaps there’s a place for you among the house servants. I’ll ask Mother. Then you’d have accommodation too.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve asked already. There’s nothing. It’s men they need, not more women.’

  ‘I see,’ he said again, conscious that he must sound inane.

  ‘I’m too old to find another husband. Not when there are so many young women and not enough men left to go round. I’ll have to go to the city and try to find work.’ She fingered the sleeve of her blouse, a tiny gesture that revealed that perhaps she was more nervous than she appeared. ‘I’ve lived in this house all my life. It’s all I’ve ever known.’

  Christopher was surprised, assuming she must have moved here when she married Walters.

  ‘My father was head keeper before my husband, who was much older than me. He was just turned fifty when he volunteered with your brother and most of the estate workers.’

  ‘I’m sorry. At fifty he could hardly have been expected to serve. Do you think he felt coerced to join up?’

  She frowned.

  ‘I mean was he put under pressure to volunteer?’

  ‘No one wants to get a white feather.’

  ‘But at fifty?’

  ‘He wanted to go. He couldn’t wait.’

  ‘He was a fine man.’

  ‘You thought so, did you?’

  ‘I know so. I suppose the fact that we both came from Newlands was a bond between us… but he was a brave man, a fine soldier.’

  The woman’s expression was inscrutable. She swirled her teacup, examining the dregs of leaves in the bottom, but said nothing. After a few minutes of silence Christopher stood up. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Walters.’

  She rose. ‘Will you visit me again? I don’t have much company. I liked talking to you.’

  He felt the blood rushing to his face and neck and he swallowed. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Come tomorrow. Same time.’

  As he clambered onto his horse, Christopher realised that he had failed to give Mrs Walters a date to vacate the property. What would he tell his mother?

  * * *

  Martha stood at the window, watching as Christopher Shipley mounted his horse. She wondered how he managed it, surprised at his strength in vaulting into the saddle with only one leg and in the absence of a mounting block. As he rode away, a memory of him as a boy came, riding on a little bay pony, galloping around the estate whenever he was home for the school holidays. She’d noticed him, his gritty determination, riding out in all weathers, climbing back onto his rather skittish pony whenever she bucked or reared and dumped him in the bracken.

  Here he was now, the master of the estate, clearly uncomfortable in a role that he had never expected to perform, were it not for the war and the death of his brother.

  Why had she invited him to come back tomorrow? What had possessed her? It had happened without her consciously planning it. There was something indefinable about him. Something that drew her to want to know him. Even though she knew she was treading a dangerous path.

  Martha sighed. Tomorrow she would give him a cup of tea, settle on a date to move out of the cottage and that would be that. That had to be that. In a couple of weeks she would be gone. Where to, she had no idea.

  Chapter 2

  Christopher avoided his mother for the rest of the day, shutting himself away in the library. He was cataloguing his drawings from Borneo, sorting them alongside his notebooks in preparation for when he would begin to compile his taxonomy. He worked until the daylight faded then went to his room to prepare for the ordeal of dinner.

  As he shaved, he studied his face in the mirror. He seemed so much older now than he had when he’d reluctantly departed for the Front. If it didn’t kill you, warfare added years to a man’s face. But worse than the physical changes was the effect on his mind – the nightmares, the shaking hands, the crippling fear and, worst of all, the sense of shame that he had let the side down by living when others much worthier had made the supreme sacrifice. Every day he saw that in his mother’s eyes. No Victoria Cross or Distinguished Conduct medals for him – just the regular campaign service medals for showing up. His dead brother had been a real hero, mentioned in dispatches and awarded a posthumous VC.

  Christopher rinsed the shaving brush and cleaned his razor, wiping the blade on the linen cloth laid out by the maid. He had to get away from here. He longed to return to the Far East, to the work he was born to do, to the unfinished business he needed to complete. Away from his mother’s plans. Away from the marriage she wanted him to make. Another hand-me-down from his dead brother. He was expected to marry Percy’s fiancée, Lady Lavinia Bourne. While it had not yet been discussed, Edwina Shipley treated it as a foregone conclusion. She frequently dropped hints, implying that one day, after a suitable mourning period had elapsed and Christopher had firmer control over the family affairs, an engagement would be expected. Such a marriage would further embed the Shipley family’s place in society, uniting Shipley wealth with Bourne blood and helping remove the taint of his grandfather’s humble Yorkshire roots and Edwina’s American antecedents.

  Christopher knew only too well his parents’ marriage had not been based on love, but on duty and pragmatism. His mother had turned a blind eye to his father’s indiscretions. They had slept in different wings of the large rambling house and once Edwina had delivered her husband the heir and the spare, she was no doubt relieved, and let him pursue his ill-concealed philandering without comment.

  Lady Lavinia wasn’t unattractive: small, blonde, blue-eyed, with a perfectly formed heart-shaped face and a pal
e flawless complexion. Doubtless, many men would have happily taken her as their bride. Christopher remembered her as flirtatious, bubbly and, he suspected, empty-headed. He had met her only once, before his departure for Borneo in late 1913, when her engagement to Percy was celebrated with a large ball at Newlands. After they had been introduced, Christopher had been able to slip away, unnoticed by the crowd of visiting dignitaries, to the library where he’d spent most of the evening absorbed in background reading for his forthcoming trip. There would be no such dispensation the next time Lavinia and her family were guests at the house. He would be expected to play the part of the head of the family, the generous host, the prospective husband. He gritted his teeth at the thought and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  As he tied his necktie he thought about Mrs Walters. The gamekeeper’s widow had been flitting across his mind all afternoon as he was cataloguing his work. There was some intangible quality about her that had intrigued him. An inscrutability, her thoughts concealed by the passive expression on her face, like a mask. Yet he remembered the nervous plucking at her sleeve and the occasional darkening of her eyes, which signalled there was more to her than she cared to reveal. And why had she invited him to return tomorrow? Why had he accepted? He put on his dinner jacket and realised he was looking forward to seeing her again. Even though the prospect was unsettling.

  Mrs Shipley was already seated at the table when he entered the dining room. ‘You missed cocktails.’ Her tone was accusatory.

  ‘Sorry, Mother. It took me a while today getting ready. My joints are a bit stiff.’

  ‘How many times have I told you, Christopher? You must have a valet. It’s not seemly to be dressing yourself. Wilson has little else to do and he served your father so well for so many years.’

  Christopher took a seat, ignoring his mother’s remark. ‘Hasn’t it been a lovely day? There’s a wonderful bank of primroses past the stables on the way to the sunken garden. Have you seen them?’

  ‘Primroses!’ She spat the word out in a mixture of amusement and disgust. ‘Really, darling. It’s time you hired more gardeners to get some herbaceous bedding and shrubs planted again. Sometimes I despair of you, Christopher. You’re such a dreamer.’ She shook her head as she dipped her spoon into her soup. ‘I always said your father should not have permitted you to study all that botanical nonsense at university. You’d have been better off learning from him, getting to grips with the management of the estate, and learning about the running of the factories.’ She frowned, as if the likelihood of his being able to run a large industrial empire was remote. She spooned up some more soup. ‘And I’ve never understood why you take so little interest in shooting. And what’s the point of riding so well if you never ride to hounds? The whole purpose of hunting is social. Everything is about making connections and using them. Heaven knows, your late father knew exactly how to do that, but all his hard work is going to waste.’

  ‘I’ve no interest in social climbing.’

  ‘Social climbing?’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘This family has no need to climb. It’s about maintaining our place, furthering our connections. If only you hadn’t spent so much time loitering in libraries and hacking your way through jungles, things would be a lot easier for us.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’ They went through this charade almost every evening over dinner. None of it made any difference. He would never be the son she wanted him to be and he wasn’t even going to try.

  ‘Did you call on the gamekeeper’s wife today? Have you told her she needs to be gone by the end of the week?’

  Christopher’s hand began to shake. Here it was – the inevitable inquisition. ‘There’s no need for us to push her out of her house yet. We can find the new man first. As long as she vacates before he starts work.’ He swallowed, trying not to stammer. ‘Besides, she has nowhere to go.’

  ‘That’s her problem, not ours.’

  ‘I’ve told her she can stay on until we’ve found a new gamekeeper.’

  Mrs Shipley’s spoon clattered against the side of her soup plate. ‘Really, Christopher, you are the giddy limit. I can’t trust you to get anything right. You’ll have to toughen up if you want to make a go of being in charge.’

  ‘Maybe I don’t want to make a go of it,’ he muttered.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Mrs Walters has had enough bad news with losing her husband. We can afford to show her some kindness and patience.’

  His mother tutted. ‘Why are you so afraid to tell people bad news?’

  ‘I’m not afraid. I’ve already told more than enough people bad news. I’ve had to speak to far too many grieving widows, Mrs Walters included. She wanted to know how her husband died.’

  Edwina Shipley pulled a face. ‘How grisly. Better not to know. You didn’t tell her?’

  ‘Of course I told her. She has a right to know. I said it was my fault. I’d left my fob watch in the dugout and sent the poor chap back to fetch it and got him blown to bits as a consequence.’

  His mother stopped eating.

  ‘She took it well under the circumstances.’

  ‘I’ve no interest in how she took it. I can’t understand why you should tell her you were to blame for the poor man’s death. What good can that possibly do? It won’t bring him back and can only serve to make the woman even more unhappy.’ She rang the handbell on the table beside her. ‘The only person responsible for that man dying is the Kaiser – and the German soldier who fired the shell at him.’

  She dabbed her mouth with her napkin as the servant came in to take the plates away and serve the main course.

  They ate the spring lamb, cabbage and roast potatoes in silence. Before they finished the course his mother spoke again, brightly – her annoyance gone. ‘I almost forgot. I have a surprise for you, darling. Some cheering news. This morning I had a letter from Lady Bourne. Lord Bourne has business in town on Friday so she thought it would be pleasant if she and Lavinia travelled down with him and called in here en route.’ She lowered her head and peered at Christopher over the top of her spectacles. ‘Of course I have replied to say they must stay for the whole weekend. Lord Bourne will join us from Friday evening.’

  Christopher inwardly groaned but said nothing.

  ‘I’ve invited the Harrington-Fosters and Major and Mrs Collerton to join us all for dinner on Saturday. Anyone else you’d like me to add? I’ll need to sort out the numbers so that Cook can make the arrangements. It would have been lovely to have a large party but I think that may be a step too far so soon after the armistice. Perhaps at the end of the summer. Or a winter party? That could be delightful. The run up to Christmas and the end of the year can be so frightfully dreary.’

  ‘I have other plans this weekend.’

  ‘What plans? You never have plans.’

  Christopher frowned then mumbled something about being invited to visit an old college friend.

  ‘You have no friends.’ In a more conciliatory tone she said, ‘I’m sorry, darling, but I’m sure whoever your friend is, he will understand your cancelling. This must take precedence. It’s your first opportunity to act as host.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t let me down, darling.’

  Resigned to his fate, but far from happy about it, Christopher ate the rest of the meal in a blessed silence punctuated only by the clock on the mantelpiece loudly ticking the passing minutes.

  Chapter 3

  The following morning was cloudy and grey, threatening rain. Christopher contemplated abandoning his promised visit to Mrs Walters, but wandered down to the stables anyway, where Hooker was saddled up and waiting patiently in his stall. He stood beside the horse, leaning against him, smoothing his hand down the stallion’s neck, feeling the warmth through his silky coat. The horse whinnied at the prospect of getting out in the open and enjoying a gallop.

  Relishing the fast ride under the dark clouds, the cold wind cutting into his face, Christopher rode out to the northern edge of the estate, to a small incli
ne where there was a panoramic view of the house and grounds. The huge honey-coloured stone building was like a curse, a drag on his energy, weighing him down with its attendant responsibilities – but from this distant vantage point he had to acknowledge its beauty. It was preposterous though – an enormous multi-roomed mansion with just himself, his mother and a disproportionate number of servants to rattle around inside. What right had he to all this space when Mrs Walters and thousands of other families were homeless, bereaved and impoverished, after the war the nation was supposed to have won?

  Newlands was a beautiful white elephant. A monument to the achievements of his grandfather and the empty aspirations of his parents.

  The deaths in the war of so many of the landed classes, and the death duties their widows and children faced, meant that many great houses like Newlands were unsustainable. Formerly wealthy families were selling off the silver, consigning the furniture and paintings to auction houses and abandoning their over-large houses in order to pay crippling death duties and avoid the mounting repair bills and property maintenance costs. The Shipleys were different. Their fortune, built on industrial machinery, had grown rapidly during the war and the run-up to it, when George Shipley expanded his business from machinery for the wool and cotton mills into armaments and motor vehicle engine parts. Christopher wished he could walk away from the place, hand the keys to a deserving recipient and sail back to the Far East.

  He turned Hooker towards the copse where the gamekeeper’s cottage was, squeezing his mismatched legs against the horse’s flanks to coax him forward.

  There was no washing on the line this morning, but the wisps of smoke from the chimney signalled that the woman was at home. He knocked at the door but there was no response.

  ‘I’m here,’ her voice came from behind him.

  He turned round to see her wiping her hands on her apron. There was soil on them and under her fingernails.

  ‘The dog died in the night. I’ve been digging a grave.’ She pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead, leaving a dirty streak.