Tall Chimneys: A British Family Saga Spanning 100 Years

by Allie Cresswell

  The man and I looked at each other. He nodded, and gave a distracted smile, then turned and strode away. Neither of us spoke a word.

  Ratton was away for the next few days, looking after George’s business interests further north. In his absence I tried to broach the subject of his behaviour with my sister in law Rita, but she dismissed me with a wave of the hand. ‘A harmless upstart,’ she declared. ‘Any woman worth her salt can handle men like him.’ The house party came to an end and everyone departed. For a few days I had the house to myself. Mrs Flowers and I supervised the housemaids as they stripped the beds and put things back to rights.

  A cracked pane of glass in one of the rooms gave me the excuse I needed to send for Kenneth to fix it. ‘While he is here,’ I told Mrs Flowers, ‘give him a list of other repairs you want done before the winter.’

  ‘He’s an odd young man,’ she reported back to me, ‘hardly speaks a word. Is he dumb?’

  ‘Just shy, I think,’ I said. ‘Be patient with him.’

  It was the end of the summer. September came in with squally showers. The housemaids had no end of trouble getting the linen dry. I returned to my cosy morning room, where I had the fire lit, and wrote a long letter to Joan describing all my adventures but fearing they would be plebeian indeed compared to hers.

  Then Mr Ratton came back, and we were back to square one. My morning room was not my own, my walks intruded upon, my rides made burdensome by his company. He made no reference to what had occurred on the north wing landing but I knew from the way his eyes lingered on my person that he thought about it often, and more with frustration than with any shame or regret.

  One afternoon, as we took tea in the library and rain like pebbles hurled itself against the window, precluding any escape outdoors, he began, uninvited, to tell me something of himself; the youngest of many, like me, of a respectable but somewhat impoverished family who had nothing to offer the youngest child. He had been well-educated but not at one of the illustrious schools, then forced to make his own way which, he flattered himself, he had done with some credit. ‘You,’ he said, with some significant emphasis, ‘you must understand entirely my situation, sharing it as you do. Youngest children like us, even of good families, must be prepared to make their own way. I’m sure it has occurred to you, that before too long you’ll have to look to your own resources?’

  I looked at him at a loss. I had had no such thoughts.

  ‘You cannot imagine remaining here indefinitely,’ he observed. ‘This spot is so very retired, so backwards, when out there, in the world, things are moving on at such a pace, especially for women.’

  I felt his comment as a severe deprecation - it made me cringe with shame - but I made no response.

  ‘Goodness, yes,’ he mused aloud, ‘one wonders what doors will not be open to them in future. They admitted a woman to the Bar a few years ago,[2] and now a woman is governor of the BBC[3]. Whoever thought such a thing? But even if you do not aspire so highly, there are jobs for women in offices, as nurses, even attached to the military although, naturally, not in a combative role. I met your brother in the military, as it happens,’ he went on, helping himself to another buttered teacake. ‘We were comrades in arms. I saved his life. Has he ever mentioned that to you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No? Well, there’s a debt owed, let’s leave it at that, and George is conscious of it. He has promised me advancement. I’m wasted here, in this god-forsaken county, as you are. George knows it. There are things abroad he wants me to set up for him. His father in law will help. America is a land of great opportunity for those with a nose for business and a respectable name.’

  It occurred to me that Mr Ratton was announcing his imminent departure from Tall Chimneys. I could only rejoice, but I kept my jubilation to myself. ‘It must be very gratifying to my brother,’ I murmured, ‘to have people he can rely on, if he intends a new business venture. The Americas are a very exciting prospect, I’m sure.’

  ‘Indeed yes,’ Mr Ratton enthused. ‘You see the situation exactly. A scion of an ancient English family, no matter how minor here, is counted as very splendid there. Anything English is bound to be successful. I’m assured we will be made most welcome, doors will open up to us on every side. We’ll play the family card very heavily, meanwhile I’ll attend to all the business. We cannot fail to achieve our aim.’

  It gradually dawned on me he had ceased speaking of himself, singular, and was now speaking in the plural: what ‘we’ could expect; openings and introductions which would be made available to ‘us.’

  ‘Will George be an active participant, then, in the venture?’ I enquired. Perhaps Tall Chimneys would be moth-balled if George and Rita were going to America. Where, I wondered, would that leave me?

  Mr Ratton gave a strangled cough and, I thought, almost blushed, but it could have been the heat from the fire. ‘That will hardly be necessary,’ he said, with a sort of lewd coyness I didn’t understand. ‘I’m sure I can manage all aspects of the matter very well without George’s assistance.’ He gave me a straight look, one eyebrow slightly raised. ‘No,’ he concluded. ‘George won’t accompany us, but he is in favour, if you are willing. I have that most certainly from his own lips. He is in favour. I have his backing and, not to put too fine a point on it, in this day and age, for people like us, well, we could both do a lot worse.’

  Realisation came upon me like a bucket of ice cold water. His proposal (for such, I gathered, it was) appalled me. ‘I am not willing,’ I said, coldly.

  He put his cup back on its saucer, not one whit deterred. ‘We will see,’ he said.

  The weather continued inclement and even deteriorated; walking and riding were both out of the question. We were both trapped inside the house. I found Mr Ratton was frequently in my way apparently by accident, or actively sought me out. He behaved toward me with open familiarity, calling me by my first name or ‘my dear’, leaning cosily over me as I wrote or read, sniffing me, touching me, even kissing me, once, with wet, flaccid lips. I was denied the respite of taking dinner in my room; Mr Ratton commanded it should be served formally, in the dining room, Jones and a footman in attendance, and that I should dress and come down for it as I had done when the house guests had been with us. As then, cocktails would be served in the drawing room. He spoke constantly of ‘our life’ in America, leaving out books of American history and geography in the library and sending for American newspapers. My protestations and denials were ignored, or treated with indulgence, as though I were a child who would be brought to heel in due course either by persuasion or a good whipping, and, of the two, it was plain he would rather prefer the latter.

  The house, as large and rambling as it was, became a prison for me. Mr Ratton became as adept as I was in negotiating its remoter passageways and disused rooms. There was no escape from him. He took an eerie kind of joy in stalking me; it was a game to him; he was the hunter and I was the prey. I sent off to London for some stout boots and a waterproof coat but they never arrived. Likewise a letter to George pleading for his intervention went un-answered. I suspected my letters had been intercepted. For my own safety I began to spend more time with Mrs Flowers; we commenced an inventory of linen which would be of no earthly purpose or use but made an excuse for us to be closeted together in her cosy parlour. I haunted the kitchens, refreshing my distant memory of Mrs Weeks’ lessons in pastry and bread-making. I helped with the bottling of the season’s fruits and the pickling of vegetables. I insisted on being inducted into the workings of the water pumping station and began to understand the way the ice house was used for the preservation of meats. If the servants were surprised at my sudden involvement in these tasks which would, ordinarily, have formed no part of a family member’s duties or concern, they did not express it. Indeed, they rallied round me. They must have known, amongst themselves, how vulnerable I was to Mr Ratton’s predation.

  My friend the rector called, with his daughters. I served them tea. Mr Ratton, of co
urse, was present, ensuring no private conversation could be had. The rector expressed concern: they had seen nothing of me, my visits had ceased, was I unwell? I shrugged and blamed the weather. Of course there was no reason at all why I could not have summoned the motorcar and been driven to the village, but I would not have been allowed to do so unaccompanied and the idea of being cooped in an even smaller space with Mr Ratton was insupportable. Mr Ratton talked gaily of a ‘change of scene’ likely to bring me back to health in the near future with an implication of intimacy which sickened me. The girls giggled, nervously. The rector gave a doubtful smile.

  Kenneth was frequently at the house, these days, hammering reinforcement onto a hencoop, fixing a mangle or coaxing the generator which supplied our electricity into greater reliability. He was always dressed in clean overalls and his boots were well-polished - I saw his mother’s hand at work there. He had a pleasant face - narrower than the one I remembered as a child, with a strong chin and wide-set, hazel eyes often curtained by the flop of his fringe. I always said hello when I encountered him but he would veer off into a workshop or duck into the pigsty, or suddenly discover the need of an important tool at the bottom of his box, and thus avoid the need to reply.

  I understood, from what his mother had said, the war had had a severe impact on him. How could it not? He had been too young, and the horrors he must have witnessed were beyond my imagining. That terrible gulf of experience and suffering stood between us as it had not when we had played in former years. But, somehow, just knowing he was about the place, my old playmate, helped me feel less forlorn then as he had done so many years before.

  At last the weather cleared and it was possible to go out. I told Mr Ratton I was going to spend the morning with Mrs Flowers and the cook supervising the organisation of preserves in the pantry and slipped out of the house as soon as he disappeared into the estate office, where a queue of tenants waited to see him. I ran across the lawns and past the fountain, entering the plantation and lumbering up the slope like an animal in fear of its life heading for its lair. The gatehouse represented my only refuge, safety, home.

  To my absolute horror, someone was in residence. A saw-horse and a scanty pile of wet wood stood in the rear garden, the planks had been removed from the front windows, a wisp of smoke rose from the chimney. The kitchen door stood open, admitting an envelope of sunshine on the worn sandstone flags of the floor. I almost wept, standing there on the threshold which should have been mine, on the brink of sanctuary and yet denied admittance. My smothered wail of despair must have drawn attention to my presence. I heard the scrawp of a chair, the rattle of crockery on the table, footsteps.

  My rescuer from the north wing landing stepped into view. He was cleaner, shaved, his hair had been cut. He wore shoes, now, but his shirt was the same, open at the neck and daubed with paint.

  ‘Miss Talbot,’ he exclaimed, taking in my distress at a glance. ‘Let me help you.’ He pulled me into the house and placed me on a chair. ‘Tea? I’ve just made some.’ He indicated the little tea pot which I had provided earlier in the year. ‘There seems to be a knack to making it which I haven’t quite got. Who could have supposed such a commonplace thing could be so difficult? Coffee I can manage quite well, after three years in Paris, you’d expect no less, but there isn’t any here and anyway...’ he wittered on in this vein, as much to give me an opportunity to collect myself as to impart any useful information, pouring tea from the pot, arranging and rearranging the pathetically inadequate crockery as though he could get it into some configuration which would make it more, or more satisfactory. I accepted the cup from him and took a sip, suppressing a shudder – it was much too strong – and he handed me a handkerchief (almost clean) with which I could mend my face.

  ‘I’m John Cressing,’ he said, holding out a belated hand.

  ‘Evelyn Talbot,’ I muttered.

  ‘Ah yes, that much, I know,’ he said, ‘and I feel I must apologise at once. I’m intruding here. I saw at once the gatehouse was in use, not the derelict little bolt-hole George and Rita promised me at all.’ He explained he had been offered the gatehouse by them as home and studio both, while he worked on a number of canvasses which were to form an installation at their new house in London. ‘Of course they offered me room in the house, but I declined. That man... insufferable.’

  I nodded, glumly. Insufferable indeed. Before I knew it I was pouring out my woes.

  When I had finished John said ‘I had no idea you were in permanent residence here. To think of you being subjected to that kind of treatment all the time George and Rita are away from the place! I wonder George sanctions it. Do you think he knows?’

  ‘Mr Ratton says George has given his consent,’ I replied, miserably.

  ‘No wonder you’ve taken to using this place. Any asylum from that odious article.’ He took my hand. It was a gesture of pure human sympathy, completely unweighted by the undertow of lascivious intent which characterised all of Mr Ratton’s unwelcome, clammy caresses.

  I fell, as though the floor had opened up to a bottomless chasm. I fell helplessly and entirely, in love.

  The next period of my life was one of the happiest I can remember. With John’s full agreement I visited the gatehouse every day. Having an ally, someone on my side, made all the difference. It gave me courage I had not had before. I made no secret of my destination to Mr Ratton, striding up there in plain view with a basket of provisions on my arm, telling him I was making sure my brother’s tenant had everything he needed. Of course Mr Ratton imposed his company upon me at first, but John did not make him welcome. The bad blood between them on account of the business on the north wing landing remained very apparent. John treated Mr Ratton with stiff disapproval and a distant disdain, as though he were something unpleasant stepped on by mistake. He referred often and not very obliquely to ‘certain caddish behaviour,’ which made Mr Ratton cringe. He lost no opportunity of rubbing salt in the wound of Mr Ratton’s situation at Tall Chimneys by calling George his ‘very good friend’ but, pointedly, only Mr Ratton’s ‘employer’ or sometimes even ‘benefactor.’ The visits to the gatehouse soon became too uncomfortable for Mr Ratton, and he desisted from accompanying me there. He stood under the portico and watched me climb the drive each day, a chill, avaricious light in his eye.

  Of course he took his revenge, accusing me roundly of neglecting what he called my ‘duties’ at the house. Failings in housekeeping were blamed on my absence and Mrs Flowers and the other staff used as scapegoats. He would strut around the kitchens tearing strips off them all until every one of them had been reduced to tears or, in Mrs Flowers’ case, jibbering hysterics. He found some cause for complaint in Kenneth’s maintenance of the water pumping system and dismissed him on the spot. I happened to be looking out of an upper window and saw the incident. Ratton stood in the centre of the yard and yelled at Kenneth, an assault so violent I felt sure they would come to blows. But Kenneth offered no resistance whatsoever, taking up, instead, a rigid stance with his arms clasped to his sides and his face set with stoical resignation, eyes semi-closed, brow furrowed, as though being repeatedly drenched in cold water. When Ratton had exhausted himself - and got, as perhaps he had hoped, no reaction at all which could have excused him taking his fists or even a nearby horsewhip to the man - Kenneth simply gathered up his tool bag and his jacket and stalked away. What inner wounds - what hurt pride, what injured spirit - he might have suffered I could not imagine, but his stiff back and jutting chin showed immense dignity.

  Ratton’s cunning emotional blackmail saw me curtail my daily visits to the gatehouse until all the chores were done for the day. The staff was all compliance and helpfulness, as eager to avoid further recriminations as I was. Knowing the agent could not possibly find anything to complain of made me easier in my mind as I skipped up the drive to the gatehouse, although, to tell the truth, its draw on me was so powerful I am not sure a wailing chorus of distraught housemaids could have kept me away.

 
; When I arrived, John would be on the look-out for me. ‘You’re late,’ he would say. ‘I thought something had happened.’

  When at last I explained Mr Ratton’s latest tactic he was furious. ‘I’ll put a stop to this,’ he said.

  A few days later Mr Ratton received a long letter from George. He received it in the morning room, where I was busy putting the final touches to the week’s menu and grocery order. Mr Ratton grew almost puce as he read his letter, starting up from his chair and pacing backwards and forwards in front of the French windows muttering imprecations and apostrophic grunts of outrage. At last he screwed the pages up and hurled them into the fire, before storming out of the room leaving the door open. I’d like to tell you that reading someone else’s mail is beneath me but it would be a lie. I lifted what remained of the pages from the grate and tried to make out their contents. Not much was legible, but I made out the phrases ‘in debt to my friend Mr Cressing’ and ‘wounds me to have to remind you of your place’ and ‘by no mean press your suit if my sister…’

  As unpleasant as the letter must have been to Mr Ratton’s sense of self-importance, its message, at least partly, went home. Overt matrimonial references and all mention of any impending trips abroad were dropped from his conversation. They were not, however, dropped from his intention. His eyes continued to speak the words his mouth could not; they lingered on me with a possessive gaze. He brooded and sulked. His resentment against John redoubled although he was powerless to wreak any effective revenge.