Alone Beneath The Heaven

by Bradshaw, Rita

  Not that things hadn’t been better under the new matron for her remaining years at Hatfield; they had, much better, and she had sensed most of the Mothers were secretly relieved that Matron Cox was safely locked away in the lunatic asylum where she could no longer terrorize children and staff alike. Her worry of being supplanted in Rebecca’s affections, brought about by her low physical and mental state after Matron’s attack, had been groundless too; from the day she had returned to Hatfield Home after her stay in the Sunderland infirmary, she and Rebecca had been as close as ever. So why did she feel so adrift, alone, at times?

  She rose now, walking to the end of the room where a tall thin rectangular mirror had been fixed to the wall one side of the bed, and stood quietly gazing at her reflection before moving closer, her eyes searching the delicate features for long moments. There was no vanity in her inspection, and she couldn’t have explained to anyone why this scrutiny was a regular practice, but she just felt she needed to know each contour, each eyelash.

  When she turned away from the mirror and faced the far door again her head was drooping, but within seconds her shoulders were back, her posture straight, and her chin uplifted, as she prepared to face the world outside this little oasis.

  Chapter Six

  There is always a serpent in Eden, and when Sarah came face to face with Sir Geoffrey Harris, a few weeks after she had taken up the position as housekeeper to his mother, she recognized the tall broad man in front of her as such.

  She had acquired the habit of an afternoon sojourn in the small but pleasant wooded park across the street to Emery Place, often taking the opportunity to sit down and read the latest letter from Maggie and Florrie or Rebecca in the peace and quiet of the fresh air. On this particular day she had almost fallen into the hall on her return to the house, a gust of wind from the tempestuous November day helping her through the doorway and whipping the envelope containing the letter she had received that morning from Rebecca out of her hands.

  ‘Dear me, dear me.’ Sir Geoffrey had been about to enter the drawing room but swung round at her boisterous entry, and as Sarah quickly smoothed a few tendrils of hair into place which the wind had teased from the confining chignon at the nape of her neck, he bent down and retrieved the envelope. ‘Here.’ His speckled eyes slid over her flushed face as he handed her the letter. ‘You must be the reputable Miss Brown I’ve been hearing about. You came highly recommended. I am Sir Geoffrey Harris.’

  ‘How do you do, Sir Geoffrey.’ She had expected Sir Geoffrey and Lady Margaret to arrive the following day - the family had seats in Westminster Abbey for Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh’s wedding three days hence on the twentieth of November - but they had obviously decided to arrive a day early from the country. She was finding it an effort to maintain her polite smile; she hadn’t liked the patronizing note in Sir Geoffrey’s voice, but it was more the way he was looking at her that bothered her. Not that she wasn’t used to men looking at her. Maggie had told her long ago, just after her thirteenth birthday when the changes in her body had come to full fruition, that as long as they just looked she had no cause for worry. But this was different somehow. There was a quality to the heavy-lidded gaze that made her uneasy, something almost . . . reptilian, and the pale, full-lipped face and big heavy figure were faintly repulsive.

  ‘Miss Brown?’ As Lady Harris called from the drawing room she walked quickly towards the open door, and she noted Sir Geoffrey turned to allow her to pass him just a fraction too late, his shoulder brushing the side of her bosom under her coat, the contact slight, but - she felt uncomfortably sure - intentional.

  When she entered the room she saw Lady Harris was not alone. A plain thin woman, whom Sarah took to be Sir Geoffrey’s wife, was seated next to her employer on one of the blue velvet couches which had been drawn close to the blazing fire, and two equally thin and plain children, a boy and a girl, were sitting in one of the deep-cushioned window-seats which overlooked the street. All three glanced at her as she came into the room, the children without interest, the woman with keen regard.

  ‘Miss Brown, my son and his family have arrived a little early.’ Lady Harris’s voice was expressionless but Sarah felt sure she was put out. ‘Perhaps you would be so good as to advise cook that there will be five for dinner? And could you ask Peggy to light a fire in the appropriate bedrooms. She will know which ones.’

  ‘Certainly, Lady Harris.’ Sarah was aware Sir Geoffrey had come into the room behind her but he hadn’t moved into her vision, and now, as she turned to leave, it was to see him holding the door for her.

  It wasn’t until she was in the hall again and the sigh left her in a silent whoosh that she realized she had been holding her breath as she passed Sir Geoffrey, and now she sped along the passageway to the kitchen as though she had wings on her heels, and not at all like the sedate, composed Miss Brown the household had seen thus far.

  Peggy and Hilda were setting the tea trolley when she entered, the former unusually subdued and the latter tight-lipped, and it was Peggy who said, ‘Do they want the fires lighting now, miss?’

  Sarah nodded, turning to Hilda and saying, ‘It will mean five for dinner, Hilda. I think Lady Harris was annoyed Sir Geoffrey didn’t let her know they were coming earlier than planned,’ before she added, ‘Lady Harris said you would know which rooms the family use, Peggy?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ll see to it, miss.’

  Peggy left the room as though she was glad to escape, and Sarah raised her eyebrows at Hilda when the two of them were alone. In the few weeks she had been in Lady Harris’s employ the two of them had become friends, in spite of the cook being as old and idiosyncratic as her mistress.

  ‘I’ve just warned her to behave herself.’ Hilda answered the silent enquiry with a frown and a disapproving sniff as she added, ‘Bit too free and easy in some quarters, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘I don’t think I do.’

  ‘You’ve met Sir Geoffrey?’ Sarah nodded. ‘And his wife?’ She nodded again. ‘And Peggy is young, very young, and impressionable.’ Hilda’s chin went down into her neck as she eyed Sarah.

  ‘You mean she . . .’ Sarah didn’t quite know how to continue.

  ‘Let’s just say I’ve known Sir Geoffrey since he was in his cradle and he’s always had an eye for the ladies, only lately it’s the younger the better. Of course Lady Harris is blind to any goings-on, Sir Geoffrey is her weak spot, always has been, but his father used to keep him in check pretty well. It was he who insisted on the marriage some nine years ago now, a good match to the only daughter of Lord and Lady Havistock of Cheshire, you know?’

  Sarah didn’t, but she nodded again anyway.

  ‘I think he thought marriage would calm Sir Geoffrey down, and of course the association of the two families wasn’t to be sneezed at either, but it took a while to bring Sir Geoffrey up to scratch.’ Hilda’s voice was reflective. ‘I felt a bit sorry for him at the time to be honest, I mean she’s no oil painting is she, but I have to say that of the two I think he got the best of the deal. According to the staff at Fenwick there are high jinks at times with his philandering.’

  ‘But doesn’t Lady Harris disapprove?’ Sarah couldn’t imagine her principled, idealistic employer countenancing such behaviour from her own son.

  ‘He pulls the wool over her eyes most of the time,’ Hilda said shortly, gesturing with her hand as they heard Peggy’s scurrying footsteps in the passage outside. ‘Dab hand at it, he is. Had a lot of practice.’

  Over the next three days - busy, hectic days as far as Sarah was concerned, as Lady Harris and the family prepared for the royal wedding - Sarah often mused on Hilda’s words as she went about her daily business and observed the family whilst doing so.

  That Sir Geoffrey fooled his mother was in no doubt; she clearly worshipped the very ground her son walked on. His wife was a different matter, however; Sarah could feel the other woman’s eyes on her every minute they were in the same room, and it w
asn’t pleasant. That Peggy felt the same was of little comfort. The girl was young and silly, and if Hilda was to be believed, had been both flattered and overawed by Sir Geoffrey’s attention on his last visit, no doubt attracting Lady Margaret’s ever-suspicious gaze in the process. But Sarah couldn’t help feeling indignant at being tarred with the same tawdry brush.

  She said as much to Hilda on the evening of the royal wedding day, when the two of them were alone in the kitchen enjoying a quiet cup of tea. Peggy had gone to bed early, tired out with the furore of the day, and the family had just retired for the night, equally exhausted. It had been a wonderful day for them all, but Sarah had a sneaking suspicion that she and Peggy and Hilda had had more fun than the family, in spite of their prestige seats in the Abbey.

  Lady Harris had given them all permission to go into the heart of London straight after breakfast, where much of the crowd who thronged the Mall and down Whitehall fifty deep had slept out overnight despite the cold and the rain, and they had all cheered wildly and waved little Union Jack cloth flags as the King and his daughter had driven by on their way to Westminster Abbey. The beautiful tasselled and bedecked Irish state coach, escorted by the Household Cavalry resplendent in scarlet tunics on black horses, had been breathtaking, and she and Peggy had even caught a glimpse of the bride’s ivory dress embroidered with flowers of beads and pearls, and her tulle veil hung from a circlet of diamonds, as the coach had driven past with Princess Elizabeth waving to the crowds.

  A group of pearly kings and queens, salt-of-the-earth cockneys in their full regalia, had made way for them to squeeze to the front of the crowd as the coach had approached, although Hilda, fearing the crush, had stayed at the back. And then, once the happy pair were married and had emerged from the Abbey to half of London cheering and waving, there had been dancing in the streets with roast chestnut stalls and other vendors doing a roaring trade. Sarah had bought a decorated mug each for Maggie, Florrie and Rebecca, along with a little flag and beautifully painted plate with Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth’s heads on, entwined in a heart-shaped ribbon with the date.

  Yes, it had been a wonderful day, but once back at Emery Place she had again been conscious of Lady Margaret’s watchful gaze, and it had irked her more than ever after the magic of the last few hours.

  ‘It’s since that do with little Alice, the kitchen maid at Fenwick, that she’s been like this,’ Hilda said in answer to Sarah’s protest that she hadn’t done anything to incur Lady Margaret’s obvious mistrust. ‘Lady Margaret isn’t daft, she puts on a brave face most of the time but she knows what’s what all right. They sleep separately since the Alice affair anyway.’

  ‘But hasn’t that made Lady Harris ask questions, if nothing else?’

  ‘Probably, but mothers tend to believe what they want to believe about their precious offspring, don’t they?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’ She smiled as she said it, her voice light, but the familiar pain stabbed swiftly and it was to combat that more than anything else that she said, ‘But Peggy is such a child in many ways, far younger than her years, and there is something about him I don’t like, Hilda. I’m worried.’

  ‘Tell her then, she’ll probably take more notice of you. She clearly considers me an old fuddy-duddy who’s out to spoil her fun, and I have to say my patience with the silly girl is wearing thin. If there’s one thing I don’t need at my time of life, it’s all this aggravation, and there’ll be hell to pay if Lady Margaret finds out about any carryings-on. Have a word with her, Sarah.’ Hilda nodded at her encouragingly. ‘The sooner the better.’

  Sarah pondered on Hilda’s words over the next day or two. She didn’t want to put ideas into Peggy’s head, give solid form to any notions that might be nothing more than her imagination. It was one thing for the fifteen-year-old maid to be flattered, and quite another for her to do anything concrete about it should the opportunity present itself. For all she and Hilda knew Peggy was merely indulging in a spot of harmless hero-worship or something similar. She was disabused of this idea, and her mind made up for her in the process, on the morning of the sixth day of Sir Geoffrey’s visit, when she happened to be on the second floor early in the morning taking fresh towels along to the children’s rooms, one of them having been sick in the night.

  She was just passing Sir Geoffrey’s suite when the door opened and a flushed and dishevelled Peggy exited, her cap askew and her eyes bright; but it was more the look on the girl’s face as she saw her that convinced Sarah something would have to be said.

  ‘Oh, hallo, miss.’ After swiftly closing the door behind her, Peggy said, ‘I was just seeing to Sir Geoffrey’s fire. He - he rang down to say it had gone out.’ ‘Did he?’ Sarah’s voice was cool and her glance full of meaning as it passed from Peggy’s hot face along to the end of the corridor where Lady Margaret’s rooms were situated.

  ‘Yes. I’d better scoot, miss, Cook wanted me to start the boiler—’

  ‘I would like to have a word with you later, Peggy.’ Her voice was still cool and she didn’t smile as she added, ‘About lighting Sir Geoffrey’s fire.’

  ‘I . . . I had to come if he asked, didn’t I?’ For the first time a touch of bravado showed through. ‘I mean—’

  ‘Of course you have to attend to your duties, Peggy.’ Sarah allowed a slight pause before she added, ‘And I would still like that word later. Now, hadn’t you better see to the boiler?’

  After an ensuing few seconds of staring at each other, Peggy’s eyes dropped away, her voice tearful as she said, ‘Yes, miss.’

  Oh, there was trouble brewing here. Sarah’s stomach was churning as she hurried along the richly carpeted landing to the children’s rooms. What on earth was that silly little thing thinking of? Couldn’t she see what sort of a man Sir Geoffrey was? What if it had been Lady Margaret on the landing? What then? Well, she’d lay it on hot and strong when she spoke to her later. It was up to Peggy to nip this in the bud, and if Sir Geoffrey didn’t accept defeat gracefully she’d speak to him herself. She had made it very clear over the last few days exactly how she expected to be treated, and although she was aware he didn’t like it he seemed to have acknowledged her repudiation of any familiarity without rancour. Oh, Peggy, Peggy . . . Her irritation was high as she replaced the used towels with fresh ones and checked on the children, both of whom still seemed unwell.

  When Lady Harris and the children’s mother both succumbed to nausea later that morning the doctor was called.

  ‘Food poisoning.’ The diagnosis was immediate, and as he straightened from examining Lady Harris, the doctor said, with a smile at Sarah, ‘Please tell me they ate out somewhere yesterday, or Hilda will have my guts for garters.’

  ‘Yes, they did.’

  She smiled back as Lady Harris weakly expostulated from the bed, ‘I can still speak for myself, Charles, I’m not dead yet.’

  ‘Not for a long time I hope, Geraldine.’ He winked at Sarah, his eyes twinkling, before turning back to his patient.

  How was it, Sarah silently asked herself, that one man could smile and wink and you would know immediately there was nothing more behind his friendliness than a desire to make you feel comfortable and included, and another, with just one glance, could make your flesh creep? And Sir Geoffrey made her flesh creep, oh, he did, and it was that more than anything else that made her determined to talk to the young fresh-faced maid who had her whole life in front of her.

  Unfortunately, with four invalids in the house - Sir Geoffrey not having partaken of the salmon starter the day before which seemed to have caused all the trouble - the opportunity to talk to Peggy didn’t arise, the staff being run off their feet as the patients got worse before they got better. However, by late evening all four were quietly sleeping, exhausted by the unpleasant manifestations of the virulent bug, and as Sarah sat in a state of semi-stupor in the kitchen, having sent Hilda and Peggy, both asleep on their feet, off to bed some minutes before, she found her mind wouldn’t let her bo
dy - tired as it was - rest quietly.

  She would have to talk to Peggy before she went to sleep. She nodded to herself in the quiet of the night. She wouldn’t get a wink of sleep otherwise, not with this uneasy feeling gripping her so strongly. It was clear that Peggy had been hopelessly dazzled by a title and the allure of a few affectionate, and no doubt well used trite phrases, because she was sure that’s all it was. The little maid was nothing more than a young nubile body to the man who would use her to service him and then discard her without another thought. Sarah shook her head at the prospect, then rose wearily from the chair. Peggy wouldn’t appreciate being told the truth. What fifteen-year-old would? Although how any female could let that man touch her of her own free will . . . Her lips drew back from her teeth at the thought. She’d rather die, she would really.

  After leaving the kitchen she checked all the doors and windows on the ground floor, her last job each night, before switching off the lights and slowly ascending the staircase to the upper floor. She wasn’t looking forward to the coming confrontation. From Peggy’s attitude that morning it was clear the girl was flirting with danger, and just as clearly didn’t want to admit it. But apart from concern for Peggy herself, it was part of her job to control the other staff, be there one or twenty-one, and she couldn’t shirk her responsibilities.