The Gamekeeper's Wife

by Clare Flynn

  Martha’s nerves evaporated. Why should she be afraid? All she was about to do was ask for the right thing to be done for the support of her son. David was, after all, Mrs Shipley’s grandson.

  Her adversary spoke first. ‘I heard you had married again? Why have you come? Why did you ask to see my son?’

  ‘Mr Bannister says he’s overseas.’

  ‘Mr Bannister is correct. Captain Shipley is in the Far East.’

  ‘I see.’ She hesitated a moment. ‘And Lady Lavinia?’

  Mrs Shipley narrowed her eyes. ‘My daughter-in-law is dead. I presumed that was the reason for your visit.’ Her expression was cold, hostile.

  Martha’s heart began to race. ‘I didn’t know. When? How?’

  ‘October. She drowned. Here in the lake. Some fool, probably your late husband or father, had thrown an old man-trap in there and her foot was caught in it.’ She inserted a cigarette into a long black holder and lit it, exhaling the smoke slowly. ‘Why are you here?’

  Deciding the truth was the best choice, Martha told her about her marriage and recent discovery that it was invalid. ‘I married Dr Henderson, believing him to be a widower and because I was carrying your son’s child.’ She felt herself shaking as she got the words out, afraid to look Edwina Shipley in the eye.

  ‘You were pregnant with Christopher’s child?’ Mrs Shipley’s words were hesitant, her characteristic confidence now absent. ‘Did my son know?’

  ‘No, he did not. My son’s name is David. He is fourteen months old.’ She could see Mrs Shipley mentally doing a calculation.

  ‘Where is the child?’

  ‘He’s in the village. Miss Edmonds is looking after him while I’m here.’

  ‘You’re sure my son knows nothing about the baby?’

  Martha nodded.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell him?’

  Martha hesitated. ‘Because of you. Because you would have cut off his allowance and stopped the payments for Jane.’

  ‘Ah, yes. They wrote to tell me she’d died, poor creature.’

  Martha clenched her fists, angry at the woman’s tone. ‘They told you? Not Captain Shipley? Didn’t he know?’

  Mrs Shipley turned her head away. ‘I thought it better he didn’t.’

  So that was why he hadn’t come to the funeral. Martha closed her eyes, relieved to know that Kit hadn’t simply ignored his sister’s death, but angry that Mrs Shipley had continued to exercise control over him.

  ‘And you are now homeless?’ Edwina Shipley asked curtly.

  Martha nodded.

  ‘Then you will bring the boy to me. I will give him a home here. Wait.’ She left the room and returned with an alligator skin handbag and pulled out a cheque book and fountain pen.

  Martha watched, horrified as Edwina Shipley filled out a cheque, and handed it to her. ‘That should take care of things for you. Bring the child to me this afternoon. I’ll see that he is cared for. He is after all a Shipley and needs to be brought up as one. I don’t want to see or hear from you again, Mrs… Mrs whatever your name happens to be now.’

  Martha stood up, holding the cheque in her hand. She tore it into pieces and let them flutter to the floor. Both dogs raised their heads as the shower of paper scattered, then finding it of no interest, dropped them and closed their eyes again.

  ‘That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? That little book of cheques. A flourish of your pen and you think you can buy me. Is your opinion of motherhood so low that you imagine a mother would be prepared to hand over her baby in exchange for money? Would you have done that with your own son? You are a monster, Mrs Shipley.’

  ‘Sit down!’ Mrs Shipley barked. ‘Tell me why you came to me, if not for money.’

  Martha remained standing. ‘I did come here for money. Money to help me support my son. I am alone in the world. I have no means to earn a living with a small child to bring up, with no references, no roof over our heads. All I want is a modest allowance to help me bring up my child. Your son’s child. Your late husband at least saw fit to do that for my daughter.’

  Stuffing her hand in the pocket of her coat, Martha squeezed her fist tightly, trying to summon up her courage. ‘Do you think I want to ask this? Do you think it gives me any pleasure to come to you with a begging bowl?’

  Edwina Shipley leaned forward, elbows on her knees. She was wearing cream and navy – a long, fine-knit jumper over a pleated silk skirt, with a string of pearls almost as long as the jumper. Even angry, and past fifty, she was an elegant and beautiful woman.

  ‘You have to admit, Martha Tubbs, you do have a habit of having illegitimate children with the men of this family.’

  Martha resisted the urge to slap the woman. ‘How dare you! How dare you equate what your husband did to me when I was a fourteen-year-old child and didn’t even know how babies were made, with what I had with Kit. How dare you, you… you cruel woman!’ She stood in the doorway. ‘Your son loved me and I loved him. David was a child born out of love. But you wouldn’t even know what that is.’

  Without waiting for a reply, Martha stormed out of the parlour and towards the front door, her heels clacking on the marble floor of the hallway.

  ‘Stop! Come back.’ Mrs Shipley’s voice echoed through the hall as she followed Martha. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Come back… please.’

  Martha hesitated. Bannister had appeared in the hallway and was standing in front of the door.

  ‘Bring us a pot of coffee, Bannister. Right away, please.’

  Mrs Shipley stretched out a hand and touched Martha’s sleeve. ‘Please come back. I spoke in haste. I was shocked at what you told me. I will help you.’

  * * *

  It took them over an hour to thrash out the details. Initially, Mrs Shipley tried to insist David must stay in the house.

  ‘He can have the nursery. It’s on the top floor and you can have one of the maids’ rooms so you’ll be near him. I’ll hire a nanny. Later on a tutor. And of course when he’s old enough, he can board at Christopher and Percy’s old school.’

  Martha had to summon up all her courage to stand up to the onslaught from Kit’s mother. She refused to entertain the idea of her child living anywhere but with her, and ruled the nanny out of the question.

  ‘As to schooling, David’s only fourteen months old. We don’t need to discuss it at this stage.’ She said it knowing she would never agree to her son being sent to boarding school, but thought it prudent not to fight all her battles at once.

  Edwina Shipley was used to getting her own way but, faced with Martha’s intransigence, eventually agreed to a compromise. They settled on David living with his mother but spending time every day with his grandmother. To Martha’s surprise, Mrs Shipley suggested she and her son might move back into the gamekeeper’s cottage.

  ‘The place has been empty since you left. My son never got round to hiring a new gamekeeper and there’s little point in getting one now since he isn’t here. I can’t very well host shooting parties myself.’

  Martha’s face lit up, her past antipathy for the keeper’s lodge had evaporated after the time she had spent with Kit there. Now it would be a place full of joyful memories, the place where her son was conceived and she had experienced real and lasting love for the only time.

  ‘Mind you,’ Mrs Shipley went on. ‘It’s probably thick with dust and cobwebs and the whole place will need a good airing. Likely damp too as it’s been unoccupied for so long. You’ll have to be prepared to roll your sleeves up.’

  ‘I have no fear of hard work. And thank you, Mrs Shipley. That’s a very generous offer. David and I will be no trouble.’

  ‘Very well. Now I would like to meet my grandson. Why don’t you fetch him here now. You can leave him with me while you get the cottage ready.’

  Martha hesitated, nervous at the idea of leaving this cold-hearted woman in charge of her son.

  ‘I have brought up two sons of my own, Mrs Walters, and it appears you’d agree I did a reas
onable job as far as Christopher is concerned. The baby will be safe with me. I presume he has been weaned?’

  Martha nodded.

  When she returned with David an hour or so later, Martha was shocked at the reaction her son provoked in his grandmother. When Edwina Shipley leaned over the straw bassinet and saw her dozing grandson, her eyes welled with tears. ‘May I hold him?’ she asked.

  She cradled David in her arms and made a little breathy sound. Turning to Martha, she said, ‘He’s beautiful. The living image of his father.’ She held the baby against her, stroking the back of his head and Martha was amazed to see that she was weeping. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Martha. You have made me very happy.’

  The baby stirred and looked up at his grandmother, stretching out one chubby hand. Mrs Shipley hesitated for a moment, then moved her own hand, allowing the child to grab her finger. She smiled to herself as the baby clutched it ferociously, hanging on tight. Martha watched as the older woman lowered her head and brushed her lips over David’s soft cheek.

  * * *

  As the days turned into weeks and months, Mrs Shipley’s unashamed adoration of her grandchild did not abate. The little boy became fond of her too and happily accompanied her and the dogs around the house and gardens. She had endless patience with the child, reading him stories and playing him music on the wind-up gramophone.

  The two women gradually moved from their uneasy truce to mutual respect, united by their love for David. Martha would walk over to the big house every day after lunch and leave her child there in the care of his grandmother, while she herself had taken to joining Fred in the sunken garden in the afternoons. At four o’clock she would duck into the gardeners’ cottage and change out of her work clothes, ready to return to collect David.

  Being in the garden helped her feel close to Kit again. How he would have loved it. The structure of the place was now more apparent, with the gravelled pathways clearly defined, a small chain of ponds linked by a stream that meandered between them, all cleared of pondweed and algae. A variety of different focal points had emerged: some across the wide, open lawns, others through shrubbery or clusters of specimen trees. There was a tranquillity and peace about the place that Martha found restorative.

  Kit’s absence was a constant ache. Everywhere at Newlands made her think of him. Every day she passed by the stable or the paddock and fed a carrot to Hooker, knowing he must be missing his master too. She imagined Kit climbing through dense forests and walking alongside mountain streams, hunting for exotic plants. She pictured him sitting outside a tent or a hut as the day faded into evening, drawing and painting the plants he had seen, or eating a simple meal with his guides. Her sorrow at being apart from him was tempered by her knowledge that he was doing what he loved in the place where he had once been so happy. Martha wondered if he ever thought of her. It saddened her to think that, if he did, it would be a cause for pain – as he would believe her to be with Henderson. If only he knew she were here, that he had a beautiful son and that she longed for him to come home every waking moment. Sometimes she doubted he would ever return.

  Mrs Shipley told her she had received only short letters posted from ports during the voyage out and a couple since he had arrived in Sarawak. The older woman tried to brush off her anxiety, making light of Kit’s failure to make the effort to keep in touch.

  ‘It was the same when he was at boarding school, and at the Front. And last time he was in Borneo I think we had only three letters the whole time he was there.’ She smiled. ‘Nowhere to post letters in the jungle apparently.’

  After her work in the garden, when she went up to the house, Mrs Shipley now expected her to join her for tea, so that she could update her on what she and David had done each day. By now, the child was running around the house as if he owned it and Martha realised that perhaps one day he might.

  Mrs Shipley delighted in David calling her Granny. The cold hard shell of the woman melted completely in her grandson’s company and the respect she had begun to show Martha, over time, softened into a genuine friendship.

  It was obvious that Edwina Shipley had been a lonely woman. Martha recognised and understood loneliness in others, as it had governed her own life until she’d met Kit. They had both been victims of an unhappy marriage, both knew what it meant to grieve for someone, and now, in David, to feel abounding and unconditional love. The other thing that united them was the hole that Kit had left in their lives. But this was at first a taboo subject, Mrs Shipley brushing off his absence as though it didn’t matter to her.

  One afternoon, in late summer, eighteen months after her return to Newlands, Martha walked back to the house from the sunken garden and saw Mrs Shipley sitting on the terrace, while David rode up and down in front of her on his new pride and joy: a wooden tricycle that she had bought for him.

  They sat together in quiet companionship, sipping tea and watching David play. The heat of the summer was softening into a gentler warmth that signalled the coming autumn.

  Several times, Martha thought Mrs Shipley was about to say something, but she remained silent. Martha finished her tea and was about to call to David and head back to the cottage, when the other woman said, ‘I can see now what my son must have seen in you, Martha.’

  Martha was taken aback, tongue-tied.

  ‘Did you really love him as much as I know he loved you?’

  Martha turned to face her. ‘More than I ever thought possible.’ She added, ‘And I love him still. Not an hour passes when I don’t think of him, when I don’t miss him.’

  The older woman nodded. ‘I miss him too. I think the hardest part is not hearing from him. Only those two brief letters since he arrived in Borneo. A few lines to say he had arrived safely and then another to tell me he was setting off into the interior.’ She sighed. ‘Almost two years now. I know he would write if he could, but most of the time he is in the middle of nowhere with no means of sending any post.’ She paused, squinting into the sun. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done if you and David hadn’t come. It has meant so much to me being able to spend all this precious time with my grandson. Thank you, Martha.’

  ‘David loves you, Mrs Shipley. That’s clear.’

  Edwina smiled. ‘I think he does. He is a miracle I thank God for every day.’ She turned to Martha and laid a hand on her arm. ‘Please call me Edwina. I think we have got past the need for formality.’ She put down her teacup and smiled. ‘And I have grown fond of you, Martha. I think of you as my friend.’ She paused. ‘I hope you can forgive me for the wrongs I did to you. I was only doing what I believed to be best for Christopher.’

  Martha felt a rush of emotion. ‘Thank you,’ was all she managed to say.

  Edwina continued. ‘I think you and I are alike in many ways. My marriage was not a happy one but I was blessed in both my sons. My greatest regret is that I didn’t show them the love and affection they deserved.’ She turned to gaze over the rolling parkland. ‘My husband was a bully and a compulsive adulterer. Not that I need to tell you that. He believed any woman was his for the taking. If they turned him down he’d take them by force if they were weaker than him, or find some way of ruining them if they weren’t. I watched it all from a distance. Day by day my resentment grew. I became bitter and angry. And you, dear Martha, you were the butt of that anger. Losing Percy was such a terrible shock to me. So much pain. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Christopher too.’ She closed her eyes, but Martha could see she was close to tears. ‘And now I have lost him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ice froze Martha’s veins. Had she heard some news of him?

  ‘I drove him away. He told me he wanted to get away from me.’ She gulped. ‘I am afraid he will never come back.’

  Martha reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘He will come back. I am sure of it.’ But as she said the words they felt hollow. She bit her lip and choked back her own tears.

  Chapter 30

  The kingdom of Sarawak was an anomaly within
the British Empire – and within the Far East in general. Ruled by the Brooke family, known as the White Rajahs, and now a British protectorate, its current monarch, Charles Vyner Brooke, had succeeded to the throne on the death of his uncle in 1917.

  A land of fertile coastal plains, lush forests and an inhospitable, virtually impassable interior, Sarawak had been home to pirates, Christian missionaries and – hardest of the three for the rajahs to stamp out – headhunters. The hunting of heads was imbued in the culture of Borneo and the indigenous people, the Dyaks, had perfected the art of decapitation, displaying the heads as trophies. Their headhunting was not born of cruelty or savagery – it was a social norm, practised through the centuries to deal with enemies and mete out justice. For the most part, the Dyaks were a friendly and hospitable people and, by now, headhunting was rarely practised in Sarawak.

  For a naturalist, the island was both a paradise and a challenge. Rich in flora and fauna, with many unique species, its interior of mountains and dense jungle was almost impenetrable. The main settlements clung to the coastal areas, while the basalt mountains were steep, slippery and treacherous to climb, with thick pathless jungle, lacking any form of sustenance to the traveller. Those who did persist in exploring the interior needed to carry with them enough provisions to last the entire trip. Progress could be as slow as half a mile a day on the steeper reaches.

  The boat Christopher was travelling on passed houses close to the water’s edge, constructed of palm leaves. Women and children gathered on the banks to watch the steamer’s passage, their chatter drifting across the water to where he leaned against the rail of the deck. Alligators basked in the mud shallows and, as they passed by areas of forest, he could hear the scream of monkeys as they leapt between the branches of the trees. The smell of nutmeg and spices mingled with the scent of hibiscus and gardenia. In the distance, above the trees, the mountains of Matong and Santubong rose, heavily wooded, with the odd rocky outcrop.