The Price of Beauty

by McCabe, Helen

  She heard the girlish voices again a moment later and Lydia stood stock still beside the tall potted palm. One of the two was undeniably Sarah, her maid.

  Lydia stepped forward, about to scold the girl for wasting time, but then suddenly froze, instinctively drawing back into the shadow of the palm, all poise gone. A man’s name had caught her attention! A name that immediately turned a refined young lady like Lydia Annesley into nothing more than a furtive eavesdropper - the name of Caleb Vyne!

  “Oh, yes, Bessie - and Mr. Vyne --” It was Sarah’s whispered sigh that Lydia could hear and she held herself very still. She strained her ears but the whispering voices became muffled and Lydia could pick out only the odd, broken, sentence as the two girls gossiped on.

  “Amy Blacket tells me he’s a devil for the women,” came the answering excited undertone of Bessie the kitchen maid.

  “Well, Amy saw --” more whispers then, “ -- up by Ravens’ and she says the two of them together--”

  The voices rose and fell querulously until they became no more than confused giggles, dropping even lower until Lydia could hardly hear a thing. She held her breath, waiting, until the sounds became audible once again...

  “Tell me what happened, Sarah?” It was Bessie again.

  More sounds. “ -- that Sally Shrike needed money. Oh, how could she let young master --?”

  Again the words lowered tantalisingly out of Lydia’s earshot. Then, suddenly angry at herself for sinking so low to eavesdrop like this - or perhaps from the little she had heard - Lydia drew herself up. A deep rage fired inside at her unbecoming furtiveness and, taking a deep, uneven breath, she stepped briskly from behind the palm and into the hall.

  “Sarah!” she called with a rare imperiousness. “Sarah! I know you’re there! Come out from behind the stairs!”

  Sarah’s surprised pink face emerged from behind the banister’s twisted rails, “Yes, miss?”

  “Sarah! Stop what you are doing at once and bring my black leather gloves from my dressing-table!”

  “Yes, miss.” The maid scrambled to her feet and, with a little bob, she flew upstairs.

  “And you, Bessie! Back to the kitchen with you!”

  “Yes, miss.”

  The flustered kitchen maid flew past her across the hall and, with her cheeks flaming and her head erect, Lydia Annesley hurried quickly out of the house.

  *

  Blanchard had been Miss Lydia’s most staunch and faithful companion since the day she had saved him from Caleb Vyne’s biting tongue that day at the park. And although he was exhausted by his young mistress’s unabated love of riding, he didn’t openly complain.

  He led the mare, and his own equally weary and overweight gelding, from the stables for the second time that day, his expression showing nothing of his desire to put his feet up and sleep away the afternoon.

  “Blanchard, I think we’ll go another way this time.”

  Blanchard sighed inwardly, helping Lydia on to her side saddle. “Yes, miss.”

  “Can you suggest somewhere?”

  “Wherever you like, miss - it’ll be dark inside two hours so it mustn’t be far.”

  They trotted out of the gates. For the first time Lydia didn’t feel like riding and she tried to quell her apprehension. Aunt Elizabeth looked so frail. But Lydia’s pleas to take over more responsibility while her aunt took more rest had, as always, fallen on deaf ears.

  Her troubled mind was also reeling from the disjointed gossip she had heard from the two maidservants. It made her cross to think she had deliberately set out to overhear what was, after all, nothing more than downstairs gossip!

  But she had not liked what she’d heard! She had held her own doubts about Caleb Vyne, but was he really such a monster as they had made him out to be?

  Recalling the girls’ conversation again, Lydia decided that perhaps she wasn’t surprised to hear such things. After all, he was too good-looking for his own good - arrogant and, probably, a bully! Doubtless, he had all the girls in Upwych after him! That kind of man usually did!

  She would dearly have loved to ask Blanchard more about him, but of course, she couldn’t do that. Inwardly, Lydia sighed. It was not easy being a woman. If she asked the questions she wanted to, it would put her in a very difficult position indeed. As the young lady of Annesley House, it was most unseemly to be so curious of others, and so, for the sake of propriety, she was compelled to remain silent about the one subject that intrigued her most.

  They approached the hill’s brow. “I rather fancy following the river, Blanchard,” Lydia said as they reached the bridge at last. “We’ve never gone that way, have we?”

  “No, miss, but we mustn’t go too far.”

  “No, Blanchard, I agree, we mustn’t go far. I have no wish to leave my aunt any longer than necessary.”

  “No, miss.”

  Taking the river’s path was a good choice - a prettier ride could not be found. The path followed the Salwarpe which, in its winter fullness, was not the sleepy water of summer days. It tumbled and rushed over its spine of boulders before eddying and whirling into dark pools, silent beneath its ranks of spider web hawthorn and willow.

  The two unlikely companions rode in silence for over half an hour until they reached a high bank. Here, they stopped and Lydia gazed around to see the river winding on towards Worcester and the mighty Severn. And, further on, turning from the foaming Salwarpe and looking beyond the trees, she suddenly caught sight of the house.

  It stood in shadow, black and white, its twisted chimneys half hidden by the trees. And it held such a forsaken look that Lydia’s heart suddenly chilled as she asked, “What place is that, Blanchard?”

  “That’s Raven’s Mill, miss,” the coachman told her gruffly.

  Lydia turned her head back to the house, strangely drawn by an invisible cord of foreboding. Raven’s Mill seemed to hold a cloak of great unhappiness around it, as though sighing a lament for happier days and, as her eyes followed the mish-mash of wooden buildings that straggled around it, she caught sight of the huge wooden water-wheel that threshed and flailed at the spuming river.

  A timbered bridge spanned the narrow stretch of Salwarpe and, as her gaze came back to the house, it rested reflectively on the rows of brine huts.

  A cold premonition gripped her. “Who could live in a place like that?”

  “Why, miss, don’t you know?” And when Lydia shook her head, eyes wide with curiosity, Blanchard told her, “It belongs to Mr. Caleb and the rest of the Strettons.”

  Her gaze spun back to the house, this new disclosure causing her even more unease. So this is where he lived! This was where the Stretton salt came from! Was it possible she would find out more about him after all?

  “Mr. Caleb?” Blanchard heard Lydia’s quick, indrawn breath. “Tell me, Blanchard, why is there such bad feeling between my family and his?”

  The coachman shook his head, looking away. He’d rather not be here at all. Miss Elizabeth did not approve of Annesley people being so close to Stretton land - and especially to Raven’s Mill! And Miss Lydia was being far too inquisitive for his liking.

  Lydia waited, her eyes half-trepidation, half-defiance. “Well, Blanchard?”

  “It goes back a long time, miss,” the coachman mumbled. “The old folk don’t talk about it so much now.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  Blanchard shrugged, pulling the brim of his hat further over his eyes, conceding reluctantly, “Some say ’twas when the Strettons went over to Cromwell, and they betrayed the Annesleys to the Parliamentarians. The Strettons took Annesley land and used it to dig brine-”

  “You mean they stole our salt?”

  The man nodded slowly. “That’s how folks saw it, though it were legal enough, so to speak. The Strettons have been banished by the Annesleys ever since, and many of their tenants, too. King Charles had strong support round these parts and the battles split many a family.”

  White-faced and astonished, Lydia
countered, “But those times were so long ago - two hundred years!”

  “Aye, miss.”

  “Surely, it must be more than that!”

  Blanchard nodded his agreement. “Mebbe so, miss, but folks have long memories and don’t forgive.”

  Lydia let out a long, despairing breath, colour ebbing from her cheeks. “Then it’s time they did!”

  “Aye, perhaps it is.”

  She glared back at the house called Raven’s Mill. “And what about Caleb Vyne? Does he make a good master?”

  “He ain’t master at all, miss,” Blanchard answered slowly.

  “Not master?”

  “No, miss. But there’s many says he should be.”

  “Then why isn’t he?”

  “It’s known that old Mr. Stretton fancies his brother.”

  Lydia glanced again at the cold façade of the house. She could well understand that, but she was still burning with curiosity. “Why, Blanchard? Is Mr. Vyne such a hard taskmaster?”

  Blanchard shrugged, liking this less and less. He was hoping that his young mistress would soon tire of her questioning and start on their ride again. Besides, it would be very wrong of him to tell this young girl of the tangles around the Stretton family. “Dunno, miss,” was his unhelpful reply at last.

  But Lydia persisted. “The Strettons have as many workers as us, haven’t they?”

  “Indeed they have, miss. And a very powerful family they be.” Blanchard threw Lydia an uneasy glance, watching her face. Would she never take her gaze off Raven’s Mill?

  A strange light was heightening the green eyes. Raven’s Mill! Silent, mysterious, forbidding. How well the house suited him!

  She stared at it a few moments longer, knowing the coachman was growing impatient. “I’m ready to leave now, Blanchard,” she said finally, turning the mare’s head and moving away.

  There were so many more things she longed to ask. Chief among them was the simple question, What kind of man is Caleb Vyne? But it would be wrong - foolish and unfair - to ask such things of Blanchard at this time.

  To the coachman’s relief she questioned no more and, with a slight kick to the mare’s ribs, Lydia started off again, following the river’s bend.

  The ride on the sluggish ground was a slow one. It was a bitter cold day and, although she wore her gloves, the slight wind seemed to blow right through them. They must turn back soon. She mustn’t jeopardise Blanchard, or her mare and, after half an hour, Lydia suggested they head for home.

  Lydia, half-listening to the crunching steps of the horses’ hooves and gazing thoughtfully ahead, gave Sophie the barest more rein, letting her mare move just a little more quickly.

  Her thoughts were with her aunt, and how glad she would be to back in the warmth of Annesley House. But her absent-mindedness was soon distracted as her attention was caught by a movement below to her left. She glanced in the same direction and her sharp eyes saw the movement of figures, walking closely together along the lower path.

  There were two of them. One, a girl, whose long black hair flowed to her waist and crowning a thin, white face, and a lad, an inch or two taller, and with what seemed a thatch of white feathers for hair.

  Lydia turned her head quickly to Blanchard but he had already anticipated her question. “Salters, miss.”

  “From Raven’s Mill?”

  “No, miss. They’re two of yours.”

  Lydia’s astonished eyes darted back to the two figures below. Their clothes were in rags, and their faces blue from the cold. How could they possibly be Annesley salters?

  Why, even from here, they looked little more than wraiths, and especially the girl. Her threadbare shawl was useless against the biting wind, tied around her thin shoulders into an untidy knot. And, even from the distance between them, Lydia could see beneath it the sharp outline of her angular bones.

  “What are they doing here?” she asked quickly.

  Again, Blanchard shrugged. “They may be sick. Doctor May ain’t far from here.”

  Lydia stared again at the couple as they walked along the path. They were nearer now and Lydia’s fears were confirmed. They were salters all right. Not only had the salt encrusted their inadequate clothes, but their skin as well. And they looked so poor. Lydia vowed she would ask Aunt Elizabeth when she got home, just how much the salters were paid.

  “If they’re sick and they’re our workers,” she murmured unhappily, “then perhaps I’d better speak to them myself. Call them, Blanchard.”

  “Better not, miss.”

  “Call them!”

  Blanchard sighed, cupping his hands around his mouth and calling loudly, “Hold on, you two!”

  The pair paused. Then, looking up and recognising Lydia, the man touched his forehead while the girl, head hanging, dropped a quick curtsey.

  “Come here, both of you,” ordered Blanchard, wishing he was back in his snug little hideaway above the stable and not a part of this undesirable meeting.

  The pair scrambled up the bank, standing silently together and waiting. Close to, Lydia saw that the man’s face was ashen. His thin shoulders were stooped and his face was lined and drawn. He seemed old, yet she felt he could not have been more than twenty five.

  Her eyes rested on the girl. Her dark beauty was fragile, and the eyes were fierce in her tear-stained face, tears not from the salt, but from weeping.

  Lydia’s hands shook a little and she sucked in her breath. Instinctively, she knew they were in some sort of trouble and her heart went out to them as she heard Blanchard mutter, “Miss Annesley, this is Sam Shrike and his sister Sally, two of your salters at the Upwych works.”

  Shrike! Sally Shrike! Where had she heard that name before? Then she remembered, and she regarded the girl more closely. So this was she! So this was the Sally Shrike who attracted Caleb Vyne’s attention!

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Shrike.” Lydia composed herself, holding her slender body erect in the side saddle and making an attempt at a tight little smile. “And to you, Sally.”

  “Ma’am.” Their response was little more than a murmur.

  “You are on your way home?”

  “No ma’am,” Sam answered. “We’re on our way to the works.”

  “Aren’t you a little late for that?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am.” The agonised despair in Sam’s response tugged at Lydia’s heart. “We always make our time up, you need have no fear of that.”

  “I have no fear of that, Sam,” Lydia responded quietly. “My aunt has told me of your loyalty.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “You’re one of our pit men, I believe.”

  “I work in the brine, ma’am.”

  Lydia glanced again at Sally, “And you, Sally, do you also work in the brine?” She had hoped the girl would speak; would lift her head so that Lydia could see more clearly into the distressed face.

  But Sally Shrike remained silent, nodding her head in acquiescence and keeping it bowed, leaving her brother to answer for them both.

  With a deep sigh, Lydia smiled again. “What are you doing so far away from Upwych? Is one of you ill? Have you been to see the doctor? I hear he’s nearby.”

  She was aware of Sally Shrike’s long, shuddering sigh as she gripped her brother’s hand even tighter, but the only response came from Sam, urgent and frightened. “It’s- it’s nothing, ma’am, we’d best be back at the brine.”

  “You would fare better if you let me help.”

  But Sam Shrike smiled wanly, the smile not reflecting in his pale eyes. “No - no, ma’am. There’s no need.”

  A silence fell and Lydia looked thoughtfully down at Sally Shrike. That the girl was suffering was as clear as day, but it was also just as clear that she would get no more from either of them, no matter how hard she tried.

  Presently she shook her head. “Then I’d better not keep you. Go on your way.”

  The two respectfully bowed their heads once more before running off down the bank. Once on the path the
ir pace quickened and Lydia watched them as they disappeared around the bend.

  Soon they were gone, two grey shadows in the receding light, but not before she had seen the girl clutching at her side, clearly in agonising pain.

  Lydia turned to Blanchard, withdrawing from her riding skirt a small leather pouch. “Blanchard, I want you to do something for me.”

  “Yes, miss?”

  She held out some coins. “Here, take these. Catch up with the Shrikes and give them this money.”

  “But - miss, --” His eyes widened disbelievingly as he took the coins. “-- that’s too much --”

  “Do as I say.” Suddenly out of his depth and knowing now that it was useless to argue with Miss Lydia when her mind was set, the coachman touched his cap and turned his horse. “Oh, and Blanchard--”

  “Yes, miss?”

  “When you have done that, don’t bother to come back for me. I’d like to ride alone for a while.”

  Blanchard was horrified. “No, miss, I can’t let you do that!”

  Lydia smiled at him. “Why ever not? As we are so near to them, are you afraid that perhaps I’ll catch sight of our rivals, the Strettons?”

  “That, you could easily do around here, miss!”

  Lydia shrugged, her smile broadening. “Then I may get the measure of them.”

  Blanchard was clearly agitated. “But Miss Elizabeth would not like that one bit.”

  “Miss Elizabeth must not know, Blanchard, and she will not if you don’t tell her, and I certainly won’t. My aunt is not strong these days, and we don’t want her troubled by something that may not happen, do we?” Blanchard shook his head. “Now, be off. I guarantee that by the time you have caught up with the pair, I’ll be behind you.”

  “But - but I fear there’s another rider about, miss, I can’t leave you alone here.”

  Lydia smiled again. Moments ago she had heard a horse’s whinny, too, and was curious as to whom it could belong and who the rider could be. “Nonsense, Blanchard,” she responded sharply. “I can take care of myself. Now, get after the Shrikes before it’s too late!”

  Blanchard bit back his reply, moving off slowly and turning again to Lydia in dismay. Impatiently, she waved him on and, after another moment’s hesitation, he went off on his way.