The Woman From Heartbreak House

by Freda Lightfoot

Lucy explained it as best she knew how, even offering a few recipes she’d discovered in one of her Ladies At Home magazines. ‘I would also like Bombay duck, Tandoori chicken, kebabs and meat balls, lots of rice of course. Oh, and you’ll need to buy ginger, cumin and turmeric powder and a dozen other spices in order to make them. Here they are, all listed, the recipes plainly set out. All you have to do is to follow them carefully. I’m sure even you can manage that.’

  Mrs Petty read through a recipe for cashew rice, one for coconut chutney, others for devilled eggs and a bewildering variety of curry dishes, with increasing horror. ‘You want me to grind and pound all these spices, assuming I can get me hands on such fancy stuff in Kendal? All this fuss and bother for one meal? Nay, and it’ll be that hot and spicy, nobody’ll like it. Why don’t I make a nice hot pot? Always goes down a treat does my hot pot.’

  ‘You’ll cook exactly what I tell you to cook, or take two weeks’ notice.’

  Mrs Petty drew in a long breath, swelling her already generous figure to balloon-like proportions. ‘Begging yer pardon, madam, but I’m not accustomed to being so dictated to. I’m a professional cook, used to finding me own receipts, if ye don’t mind. The first Mrs Tyson always let me have a say in choosing the menus.’

  Lucy was almost scarlet with rage by this time, a hot tide of fury bubbling within her. ‘I am not the first Mrs Tyson, and certainly not the second so don’t start quoting me what your darling Kate allowed you to do either. I’m in charge now, and intend to remain so. We will have curry, samosas and everything else on this list, because I say so. Is that clear?’

  Mrs Petty allowed the silence to hang for quite some moments before giving her response in a voice barely above a hiss. ‘Or I get me notice, is that the way of it?’

  ‘That is very much the way of it. Take it or leave it.’ Having resolved the matter to her satisfaction, Lucy turned to leave, but was halted in her tracks by Mrs Petty’s next words.

  ‘Then I’ll leave it, if it’s all the same to you. I’ve had enough being bullied and bandied about. I’ve worked for this family for forty year or more, and never been so treated. Ye can stick yer two week’s notice! Have me pay packet ready by noon. I’m off to me sister Annie’s on the Fylde coast. She’s been begging me to go and help with her boarding house for years.’ So saying, Mrs Petty untied her apron strings, shoved the stained garment into Lucy’s shocked face, and marched out of the door.

  ‘I’ve had an idea.’ Toby caught up with Callum one afternoon as he pulled his bike out of the shed at the end of his shift. Grasping the boy by the elbow, he propelled him through the crowd of workers making their way home, to a place where they could talk unobserved.

  ‘Since Kate wasn’t committed by the magistrates, presumably this private asylum has to be paid for?’

  Callum gave a sarcastic grunt. ‘Aye, Mam will be paying for her own incarceration, one way or another.’

  ‘Be that as it may, there must be bills, accounts, invoices, some form of demand for payment, which will come regularly, perhaps every month. And on that bill there’ll be an address.’

  Callum’s eyes lit up. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? But where would she keep it? Happen in Eliot’s study. Lucy seems to have taken that over as her own. She calls it the library or summat equally daft. I’ll have a look around, see what I can find.’

  ‘Take care. Don’t let her catch you snooping or she might move Kate somewhere else, and then we’d really be in trouble.’

  ‘Aye, she’s good at tricks of that sort.’ Callum frowned, remembering how Lucy had done exactly the same to him as a child, moving him from the Union workhouse where she’d first put him, to Mr Brocklebank’s farm in the Langdales where no one would ever think to look. Kate had told him how she’d thought of the workhouse eventually and gone there to look for him, only she’d been too late.

  ‘Leave it to me. If there’s a bill there with the address on, I’ll find it.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  A new cook was hired at once for the weekend party, with strict instructions that she was on a month’s trial and would only be given permanent employment if she suited. Two new maids were also taken on, Ida having likewise handed in her notice and quit. She certainly had no intention of carrying on without her good friend. Unthinkable! Fortunately, Mrs Petty had made it clear she was more than welcome to join her in Blackpool.

  ‘I reckon our Annie will be glad of another pair of hands, even though you do cost a fortune a feed.’

  ‘I could try to eat less,’ Ida promised, suddenly fearful she might be left behind.

  ‘Huh, was that a pig flying by, or a pink elephant? Still, I expect we’ll manage, as we always have,’ the cook said with a wry grin.

  ‘Ooh, ta ever so, you’ve been a right good friend to me, Mrs P,’ Ida said, pink-cheeked with gratitude.

  ‘Well, somebody had to bring you up right, didn’t they? You’d never have managed it on yer own.’

  Callum and Flora were devastated to lose them both. It felt as if their last link with their mother had been severed. At least with Mrs P and Ida around they’d felt that somebody cared about them. Now they felt bereft, abandoned, and not a little scared. Who would curb Lucy’s excesses now? Who would check the food served to them? Who would give Flora a loving cuddle, or tend Callum’s bruises when dear old Mrs P had gone? She’d cleaned Callum up following his dust-up in the pub after the skittle match, urging him with her usual banter to pick someone his own size next time.

  ‘Or you could always join the Temperance League,’ she’d suggested, with a sly wink. Callum had the grace to look shamefaced.

  There’d been a tearful farewell, Mrs Petty promising to visit, although they all knew she would never be allowed to set foot in Tyson Lodge ever again.

  ‘And you two poppets can come and visit us on the Fylde coast. We’ll be right glad to see you any time. Me sister Annie has this boarding house in Blackpool. Twelve bedrooms it has, up by the north pier.’

  ‘Oh, do you think we could?’ Flora asked, desperate for some glimmer of hope in what seemed like a bleak future.

  Callum mumbled, ‘She’d never let us go.’

  ‘Don’t you fret, love. We’ll work summat out to get round madam. Our Annie is the wily sort and not easily defeated. I’ll write with the address.’ Then turning to Ida, ‘Will you dry them tears, lass, you’ll be peeling spuds in sight of the sea tomorrer. Come on, we’ve a train to catch.’

  After the pair had gone, marching off arm in arm into a cold, misty October morning carrying their carpet bags to Kendal station to catch the Preston train, Flora cried for hours, huddled in misery on her bed, and nothing Callum could say would cheer her.

  ‘Who will care for us now, Callum? Where’s me mammy? I want me mammy.’

  Callum had no comfort to offer his young sister.

  The year was dying and so was she, little by little in this dreadful place. Occasionally they were allowed out into the garden for exercise, sometimes for as long as thirty minutes at a time. The leaves were turning gold and crimson, purple heather ablaze on the hills beyond, rowan berries hanging like drops of blood from their fragile branches. Kate ached to be allowed to walk over the mountains as she had on that very first day almost a year ago, but it was not to be. Elvira had allowed her to go then because she wished to allay any suspicions Kate might have felt about where she’d been brought, quite certain she would return in time for the promised dinner. Now the staff knew that she, along with many another patient, would abscond given the least opportunity.

  Kate made no attempt to escape. She hadn’t plucked up sufficient courage for such an undertaking yet, not knowing the area well enough and aware that it was a long walk to the nearest village. But she was working on a plan in her head.

  On their journey here she remembered passing a couple of farms, just down the road, and had it in mind that if she could smuggle a letter to one of these, beg the farmer or his wife to post it for her, she might be able to circumv
ent whoever was blocking the correspondence between herself and her children. It was worth a try.

  Peggy disagreed. ‘She’s giving you enough gip already. She watches you like a hawk, more than she does anyone else. If Elvira catches you outside these premises, beyond the gate, you’re done for. It’ll be manacles and shackles for you after that.’

  Kate laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! She’d never dare. Sure and this isn’t a prison.’

  Peggy’s eyes widened in disbelief at such casual unconcern. ‘Ye think not? Then why have I been here locked up five years for the so-called crime of my lovely babies dying? Because they think I killed them and this is my punishment.’

  Kate was instantly contrite. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound flippant or uncaring. Oh, but I must get a letter to me own children! I’m desperate, so I am. I haven’t heard from them in months.’

  Always touched by the plight of mothers with children, Peggy’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ll take it for you, love. I’ve been here that long they pay little or no attention to what I do these days. Anyroad, the government pays Elvira to keep me locked up and where else do I have to go? She knows I’ve no home, no husband or family waiting for me outside. My parents are both dead, of grief I shouldn’t wonder, and me husband – well, he gave up and ran off with someone else long since. Give the letter to me, I’ll see it gets posted properly.’

  ‘No, no, I wouldn’t hear of it. You mustn’t put yourself in danger for my sake, Peggy.’ They argued for some time but despite Peggy’s protests that she’d nothing to lose, that they’d never even notice she was gone, Kate was adamant. She would allow no risks to be taken on her behalf.

  Kate stowed the letter away under her mattress and went to sleep, dreaming and planning how she might manage to break free of the staff and reach the nearest farm.

  There was generally some game or other played during the exercise period. She’d slip away then, when everyone was occupied and the nurses engaged in having a quiet smoke.

  But when the time for afternoon exercise came round the next day, Kate could find no sign of the letter anywhere. It had gone from beneath her mattress. Only then did she realise that Peggy too had vanished. She must have taken it and slipped out while the nurses were doing their chores after lunch.

  Dear God, Kate could only hope and pray that neither Elvira nor her stalwart band of warders would miss her.

  Her hopes were soon dashed. An hour or two later, a hullabaloo from outside alerted her, confirming her worst fears. Two of the nurses held Peggy grasped between them in an arm-lock, her body bent over and her head pushed forward.

  ‘Peggy!’ Kate dashed over to her instantly but, despite the awkwardness of her position, her friend lifted her head with a sideways twist, her eyes blazing a silent warning. Don’t come near. Say nothing! The nurses shouted for her to stay well clear and Kate was left helplessly standing by as a third nurse ran to help and Peggy was marched briskly away.

  Kate didn’t see her again for three days. All that time Peggy was kept in isolation in a padded cell with no light and no sustenance beyond a glass of water twice a day. All the other patients were made aware of her punishment and this knowledge subdued them to a mumbling silence, everyone fearful of saying or doing anything which might put them in a similar predicament.

  When Peggy finally emerged, blinking in the pale wintry light of the hospital garden, she smiled weakly as Kate ran to her. ‘I did it,’ she said, her voice cracking against her dry throat. ‘I bloody did it!’

  Elvira, wise to the ways of her patients and Peggy’s friendship with Kate, made a point of asking her staff where she’d been found. Wary of the reason for Lucy’s sudden desire to visit and the likely loss of income resulting from Kate’s removal, she decided that a visit to the nearby farms would be no bad idea.

  The farmer’s wife was easy to convince that a patient had run wild, and the letter to Callum duly handed over. Elvira took it back to her room and dropped it into the flames of her fire, then poured herself a whisky and seated herself comfortably to watch it burn.

  Lucy was enjoying a late breakfast with Teddy in the new conservatory she’d had built when a letter from Elvira Crombie was brought to her in the morning’s post. Ripping open the blue envelope she found that an appointment had been made for her to discuss Kate’s future, as requested, on the following Sunday morning. A highly inconvenient time.

  ‘Drat! I was planning to go to Chubby Jackson’s do next weekend. Now I’m going to have to nip up to Scotland.’ She glanced across at Teddy, slumped opposite her, sipping black coffee and looking very much the worse for wear. ‘You wouldn’t care to come with me, Teddy darling, would you?’

  He gazed at her, bleary-eyed, across the marmalade. ‘Scotland, old fruit? Always full of bloody midges.’

  ‘Not in February, sweetie. If you don’t come then I shall have to drive myself, all that way. I must go, you see, arrangements to make for my poor sick sister-in-law. It won’t take long. You could drop me off, do some fishing or something, and we could meet up afterwards at a lovely hotel I know. Have the entire weekend all to ourselves. Blissful! Don’t you think that would be too delightful?’

  ‘Sounds damned boring to me,’ said Teddy, and knocking the marmalade pot over as he got up from the table lurched away, steadying himself against the door frame as he went out.

  Amongst the post was another letter which she recognised as coming from the bank manager. Lucy quickly read it then ripped it to shreds.

  ‘Drat! Drat! Drat! Damn men to hell.’ She picked up the marmalade pot and flung it at the wall where it left a smear of orange all down the pristine white woodwork. ‘No matter what, I can’t not go to Scotland. I simply must get rid of that woman once and for all!’ Lucy screamed, though there was no one left in the room to listen. No one, that is, but Callum and Flora who’d been about to enter from the hall. Changing their minds, they headed for the kitchen instead.

  It didn’t matter how much he cuddled her, or urged her to be a brave girl, night after night Flora would sob as if her heart were broken. Callum realised, in such moments, how very important Mrs Petty had been to her. Flora had adored the old cook who’d been like a surrogate mother to her, assuring the little girl that her own mammy would come home safe and well one day soon, and in the meantime, didn’t she have dear old Mrs P to care for her? Now this last remaining buffer of protection and security had been taken from her by Lucy’s vindictive nastiness. Finally, too exhausted to cry any more, Flora would fall asleep.

  On this particular night, Callum sat on for some time, stroking his young sister’s head, his mouth set in a grim line of determination, wondering what exactly had arrived in the morning’s post to so upset his aunt. Time was surely running out. Their plan had to be put into effect soon. He could dally no longer.

  He’d behaved like a fool, had allowed himself to be duped by a perfect stranger who’d robbed him of his week’s wages, and now they’d lost Mrs P and Ida as well. He wished Bunty were here to help him, at least to talk things through with him, but she wasn’t, and still no letter had come from her.

  He was beginning to think that perhaps she really had finished with him after all. The thought was well-nigh unbearable. But in the meantime he had Flora to think about and care for. Callum knew he must find his Mam and bring her home. Who knew what she was up to, what malicious scheme Lucy would come up with next? No doubt she’d try to dispatch Flora to some dreadful school, far worse than the one Bunty was attending, and Callum himself would be booted out to survive on his wits as best he may.

  He didn’t trust Lucy an inch. Things could only get worse.

  He wished he were years older instead of only seventeen, with a man’s experience and strengths to call upon. He wished he were old enough to make his own way in the world, free to marry the girl he loved, as well as earn a good enough living to care for his sister too.

  That evening, Lucy was having yet another of her dinner parties and with little left
to lose, Callum chose the early hours of the morning as the best time to begin his search. Her loutish friends would either be in bed with each other, dead drunk, or both. Making certain that Flora was still sleeping peacefully, Callum crept downstairs.

  Loud snoring emanated from the drawing room and a peep inside revealed the Bennet brothers sprawled senseless, one on Lucy’s new sofa, the other on the Persian rug. Callum sincerely hoped that they would vomit on both.

  Quietly turning the knob of the study door, he slipped inside. The catch made a loud click in the darkness as he eased it closed, making him nearly jump out of his skin. Callum could hear his own heart pounding loudly in his ears and then another sound, that of heavy breathing. Someone was in here. He pulled out his Ever Ready electric torch and flicked it on, shielding it with one hand so as not to wake whoever it was.

  A man and a woman lay entwined together on the leather couch, slumped in a drunken stupor.

  Fearful of waking them for all they appeared utterly senseless, Callum made his way over to the desk, walking silently on the balls of his feet. Keeping the torch carefully pointed down to the floor, he sat in the swivel Captain’s chair and began systematically to go through the drawers in the desk.

  They seemed to be stuffed with bills of every sort, from the butcher, the baker, the dressmaker and milliner, and no doubt the candle-maker too, since the place had been decorated out like a sultan’s harem, or an Indian princess’s palace. Callum’s heart sank, knowing it would take hours for him to go through this lot, item by item. He opened another drawer, fumbled about deep inside. Yet more bills. And then his hands closed upon a leather folder, tucked right at the back. Drawing it out, he opened it up and swiftly riffled through the contents.

  Eureka! Here it was, not one but two envelopes, each with a Hawick postmark. One did indeed contain an invoice for his mother’s care and, impatient now, he ripped open the second and looked inside. It was then that the young man on the couch woke up.