House of Angels

by Freda Lightfoot

  Livia watched as the wide mouth with its full lower lip curled at one corner into a wry parody of a slow smile as each measured the other with studied carelessness.

  In his turn he saw a woman who was tall and slender, shapely rather than the waif-like fragile females common among her class. No milksop beauty this, but strong and spirited, matching the fire that undoubtedly burnt within and revealed itself in the glossy glory of her titian hair. She possessed the most beautiful gentian eyes he’d ever seen, deeply fringed by dark lashes fanned out in starlike wonder as if she could see into a future she clearly intended to plan for herself. Her mouth was wide and softly curved as if smiling at some secret she held close to her heart. A woman you might like to dominate but could never own. And one who would most certainly never be dull.

  ‘I’m afraid I have no recollection of our ever having been introduced,’ Livia tartly informed him. To her shame she realised that her response was really quite rude, sounding more like Ella in one of her pets than the supposedly more mature, sensible Angel sister. But the man’s attitude had, for some reason, rubbed her up the wrong way. His entire demeanour loudly proclaimed that he had no time to waste on niceties, and he clearly didn’t believe in showing respect for his betters.

  The stranger stifled a snort. ‘Your father knows me well enough, since I’m a tenant of his. So if you wouldn’t mind telling him I’d like a quick word.’

  It came to her then in a flash of inspiration who the man was, the facts rushing with clarity into her mind. Jack Flint had led those very same tenants of Fellside into a riot only last year – had, in fact, threatened to burn the place to the ground unless her father saw fit to reduce their rents. The riot had quickly petered out when Josiah had called the police, whereupon the rebels had scurried like rats back into their holes.

  Livia was only too aware that her father was not a good landlord. No doubt his poor tenants had a just cause in that he was again threatening to raise their rents to unprecedented levels, but she could not approve of riot and arson. Such criminal acts achieved nothing.

  She lifted her chin, stiffened her spine and looked the man straight in the eye; a gesture that took some effort on her part since he was considerably taller than herself. ‘You may not be aware, Mr Flint, but this is a private celebration. I don’t believe you were invited.’

  He gave a low chuckle that sounded very like a growl deep in his throat, and Livia realised that he was dangerously close to laughing at her.

  ‘I reckon you’re right there, but I’m sure you can forgive the inconvenience, since this could be termed a matter of some urgency. So go and tell him I’m waiting, love. My time is limited.’

  Livia blinked. How dare this man, this rapscallion with bad manners and dubious origins dare to issue orders to her, never mind address her in such a familiar manner? Oh, dear, now she really was turning into snobby Ella. But if Father ever got his hands on this villain, he’d have the interloper thrown in jail.

  ‘I would not advise disturbing my father at this precise moment,’ she announced, cool but studiously polite. ‘You may be surprised to learn that he has far more important matters to attend to on this, his daughter’s wedding day, than to speak to the likes of you. And I am not your love.’ She couldn’t resist adding this last, although instantly wished she hadn’t when she saw how the remark made him smile.

  ‘So it’s not your wedding then, even though you are the eldest?’

  Livia found herself flushing. ‘It’s my sister Ella who is getting married today, if that is any of your business.’

  ‘My congratulations. I’m sure you’re delighted for her. Never mind, your turn next, eh?’

  ‘I have no plans for matrimony,’ Livia snapped, before she could quite stop herself, which again caused him to snort with suppressed laughter.

  ‘Is that because you haven’t yet found anyone who quite suits? Or because you haven’t received any offers?’ he teased, that wide mouth lifting at one corner into a smile of pure amusement.

  Livia was appalled to find that the heat in her cheeks had actually increased, and came swiftly to the decision that she must put an end to this embarrassing conversation forthwith. ‘To answer your enquiry, I can only repeat that my father is unavailable. Whatever cause you are fighting will have to wait for a more suitable occasion. Were one ever to arise,’ she finished, somewhat caustically.

  ‘I cannot argue with your sound common sense,’ Jack Flint blithely agreed, with a sad shake of his handsome head. ‘Perhaps I should beg your pardon for intruding?’ The words hinted at an apology, yet he posed them in the form of a question, and his tone bore not the smallest degree of remorse, which stoked Livia’s ire all the more.

  ‘Unless you take your leave now, Flint, I shall be obliged to call for assistance.’

  ‘Flint now, is it? Oh, dear,’ he tutted softly. ‘I rather liked the way you called me Mr Flint. Yet it seems all civilities are now gone, eh? Kid gloves off,’ glancing at the one she held in her hand. Then he slid his own hands, the skin rough with calluses although surprisingly clean and scrubbed, from his pockets, and moved closer. He was near enough for her to feel the heat of him, to note the perfect conformity of his handsome face, and for that non-quantifiable element that marked his masculinity to assail her nostrils. She’d rather expected him to smell of – well, something unclean – instead there was the unmistakable tang of soap mixed with the scent of peat smoke from the old musty jacket, as if he’d taken some trouble before coming out.

  ‘I would recommend, Miss Angel, that for his own good, you should warn your father that Jack Flint intends to pay him a call, at my convenience, not his. I wish to speak to him on a most delicate and important matter, and it would not be wise for him to refuse.’

  Touching his forelock in a mocking salute, he turned and strolled leisurely away. Rooted to the spot, Livia watched him go, the sound of his low chuckle sending a thrill of emotion rippling through her in a most unexpected and startling manner. Goodness, was she turning into a romantic now as well as a snobby harridan? She, who had turned her face against matrimony and eschewed men completely? But then, she’d never met a man like this before, had she?

  ‘Who was that you were talking to?’ Maggie wanted to know when Livia returned to her sisters, slightly out of breath. She looked out across the gardens at the rear of the house but saw no sign of him, and shook her head.

  ‘No one. No one at all.’

  ‘It’s all coming to an end, isn’t it?’ Ella said, clutching tightly to their hands.

  ‘Never!’ Livia protested, as fiercely protective as ever. ‘We’re still the Angel sisters, and always will be. Nothing and no one can ever change that. I promised Mama I’d look after you, Ella, and I will, even if you do now have a husband to do the job. Just remember that you can still turn to me, if needed, and you’ll surely visit Kendal every market day with…with Amos. We’ll have such a lovely gossip.’

  ‘And at least you get to be free of Father,’ Maggie added, with a hint of envy in her tone.

  Out on the lawns they kissed and hugged one last time, and helped Ella to climb up onto the farm cart while Father stowed her box behind. Then, as Amos clicked the reins and told the horse to walk on, Livia stood at the gate with family and friends to wave the pair off on their new life together. The last view they had of their dear sister was when Ella turned to look back, one hand clutching her hat with its frivolous fur flower, the other holding tightly to the edge of the cart as it bumped down the rough drive towards the road and the open fells. Never had she looked more vulnerable and alone.

  Chapter Six

  It was a long, uncomfortable journey, the cart bumping and bouncing over stony tracks that seemed to lead forever upwards into an empty wilderness.

  Kendal, and Ella’s childhood home, slipped further and further behind, becoming ever more distant until the town was nothing more than a huddle of grey houses in the valley. And with each extra mile Ella’s heart sank further.

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nbsp; Amos drove the cart onward through the village of Staveley, where he stopped at a shop, Threlfall’s Grocers, to buy provisions and animal feed. There were other items in the cart too, as if the trip to Kendal for his wedding needed to be made more worthwhile. Ella would have liked to get down from the cart and visit one or two of the other shops, perhaps take some refreshment at the Fat Lamb Inn. But when she asked about this, you’d have thought she’d suggested stepping into the jaws of Hell by her husband’s icy response.

  ‘I never set foot in a public house,’ he coldly informed her. ‘I’m a member of the Staveley Abstinence Society. We meet at the Temperance Hall on Station Road, and campaign tirelessly against strong drink. We don’t stand for any rowdiness or drunken behaviour.’

  Having been put firmly in her place, Ella waited patiently in the cart while her husband loaded it with sacks and boxes. My goodness, was he always so righteous?

  Leaving the village behind them they continued alongside the fast-flowing River Kent, which drove the machinery of the bobbin mills in the district. Ella spotted a heron standing on the weir, keeping an eye out for an easy supper. Her own hunger had completely gone now as her nervousness increased with each mile. The road into the dale beyond became little more than a track, rough and stony as it progressed along the narrow valley of Kentmere.

  ‘St Cuthbert’s Church,’ Amos suddenly announced with pride in his voice. ‘It’s thought it was built here to commemorate the place where the monks of Lindisfarne rested on their escape from the Viking oppressors.’

  ‘Oh!’ Ella wasn’t much interested in churches, or their history, but she gazed politely upon the small cobblestone building set on a hummock from which protruded a scattering of gravestones surrounded by a dry stone wall.

  ‘I’m a local preacher and attend both the Primitive Methodist in Staveley and St Cuthbert’s, which is more convenient. It’s a close community, and you will of course be expected to join. You’ll meet everyone, come Sunday.’ He clicked the rein to urge the tired horse to walk on, following the curve of the track.

  Ella cringed at the thought, wondering what was involved in being the wife of a lay preacher, who these people might be, and whether any of them would become her friends. It puzzled her where they could all live in this empty landscape, as there were precious few farmhouses visible in the scattered hamlet. It seemed desolate, for all it was the most spectacular setting.

  Ella found the silence oppressive, broken only by the sound of gushing water from the many rivulets that came down from the mountains, spilling into the Kent and the Gowan. How much longer would this journey take?

  She hadn’t slept well the night before and she felt tired and bruised from bumping up and down on the hard wooden seat, her bladder near to bursting. Deep inside she nursed an increasing sense of outrage that this should be happening to her. What right had her father to bully her into marriage with a man she neither knew nor liked? Hadn’t he always dubbed her his favourite, the one daughter who was spared the worst of his punishments? Until now.

  In these last three weeks, caught up with the sewing of her dress and trousseau, she’d tried not to think about the future. The arrangements for the wedding had been made with shameful haste, and throughout all the preparations Ella had felt as though she were standing outside herself, watching events from afar.

  Reckless to the last, she’d gone on seeing Danny. How could she resist when she loved him so? Their opportunities to meet had been necessarily scarce since he was no longer employed by the family, but she’d told not a soul about their trysts, not even her beloved sisters. Ella would slip out at night while everyone was asleep, and creep up to the woods behind the house where they’d kiss and weep and swear undying love for each other.

  On the night before her wedding Ella had forsaken her pride sufficiently to beg him to take her and make her his. Panicked by her desperation, Danny had refused, claiming he respected her too much. They both knew, of course, that his reluctance was really because he was too afraid of her father.

  But he promised to keep a look out for her on market days, when Ella hoped to come into Kendal town with her husband and visit her sisters. They would most definitely see each other from time to time, he assured her, even if they could never again meet like this. Which only made her cry all the more. Where was the point in Danny continuing to love her, if she was married to another man?

  A thin cold rain began to fall as the cart bumped along through marshy ground following the river, Amos naming the mountains as they passed: Rainborrow Crag, Ill Bell and Froswick ahead, and on the opposite side, Kentmere Pike and Harter Fell. The sombre line of hills seemed the physical embodiment of all her childish nightmares. The light was fading and the long narrow valley felt claustrophobic, hemmed in by its ridge of hills on all sides, and the huge slabs of rocks and boulders jutting out of the boggy earth.

  They drove on past an area where local slate and stone were quarried. Amos pointing out the barracks where the men were lodged. He followed this with a stern warning about the dangers of the quarry workings, ordering her to keep well clear.

  ‘They are the sort of men who visit the Fat Lamb the minute their wages are paid at the end of the month.’

  Ella smiled to herself, not certain whether her new husband was more concerned that she might get caught up in the explosions or run off with one of the lively young men seeking solace after a hard month’s labour.

  Her feet itched to jump down from this hateful cart and run home. She wanted to keep on running, back to Kendal, or over the mountains to Windermere, and never look back. Even as the thought sprang into her head it died at birth, knowing she was trapped, with no hope of escape. It was too far, and it would be quite impossible for her to find her way over these lofty mountains alone and on foot. She had no choice but to face whatever fate had in store for her.

  Nevertheless, as they approached the reservoir at the head of the dale, its surface as black as her father’s heart, Ella made a private vow. If she did not care for her new home, did not grow to like her new husband, then she would refuse to remain in this dreadful place. She would demand to be released from this marriage and insist he take her home, no matter what scandal might ensue. Livia would protect her.

  Before her stood a long, low farmhouse, its thick, whitewashed stone walls built to withstand the harsh Lakeland weather. A storm porch enclosed the front entrance with one shuttered window on each side of it and three above, signifying, she assumed, the same number of bedrooms. Attached to its west wall stood a ramshackle pele tower, two stories high and in a more ruinous state even than the one at Kentmere Hall. These were said once to be used as a fortification against the marauding Scots. Ella was to learn later that it housed the dairy, where she would spend many long freezing hours in the coming months.

  Without doubt the old house had seen better days, was smaller than she’d imagined, and for all the magnificent grandeur of its setting, her heart quailed at the prospect of living here alone with a man who was little more than a stranger.

  No one came to the front door to welcome them as Amos jumped down from the cart. Neither did he make any attempt to assist Ella from her seat. He swung her box on to his shoulder and, with a jerk of his head, indicated that she should follow him as he set off round to the back of the house.

  Ella was outraged. She was wet, cold and tired, and never in her entire life had she entered a house by the servants’ entrance. She certainly had no intention of starting now. Stubborn and cross over this rude reception, she flounced down from the cart and stood by the front porch, clutching her umbrella and tapping one small foot in annoyance. The rest of her belongings were scattered about her.

  When no one came running to her assistance, and the thin drizzle turned into a downpour, she finally admitted defeat. Ella snapped shut the umbrella, gathered up her bags as best she could, and followed the path in the direction Amos had taken. It was difficult carrying all her baggage when she was obliged to also lift her ankle-l
ength skirts, and tiptoe carefully to avoid getting mud on her new shoes.

  As Ella finally entered the kitchen her heart quailed with foreboding. She was instantly appalled by the overpowering smell of livestock, and the stink of peat smoke from an open grate where a kettle hung from an iron crane. Cold struck through her thin shoes from the slate flagged floors, and the thick stone walls seemed to press in upon her as she regarded her new home with something like dread.

  Her gaze took in the paucity of her surroundings at a glance, the cavernous fireplace that took up one entire wall and from which hung a great pan suspended by a hook like some sort of witch’s cauldron. Blackened oak beams seemed to press down upon her from above, and the panelled walls might be elaborately carved, with a wooden settle either side of the fire, but they were black with smoke and pitted with age. Two grubby children with snot running from their noses sat on a pegged rug playing with a mangy kitten. A young girl of eleven or twelve stood washing dishes at a stone sink, and an old crone with a wizened face and no teeth was muttering something to Amos about a ewe having been cast during the day, whatever that might mean.

  None of them paid her the slightest attention, save for an old dog, which raised its head for a moment before sinking back to sleep again on a sigh.

  Ella dropped her bags and umbrella, folded her arms across her chest and waited with undisguised impatience. It was growing quite dark outside and she could hear the wind whistling through the cracks around the door and windows, despite them all now being closed. And having eaten barely a crumb at the wedding breakfast, she was cold, hungry, and tired beyond endurance, as well as bursting to relieve herself. What kind of welcome was this to give to a new bride?

  Her eyes came to rest upon a plate of oat cakes and clap bread, a chipped blue milk jug and a wedge of yellow cheese on the none-too-clean wooden table which stood in the centre of the bare, comfortless kitchen. Not much hope there then.