He arrived at the cart and with a monumental effort heaved himself into it.
‘’Ere,’ he said, slapping a thin bundle of sheets into her lap. ‘Make yerself useful and hang on to them.’
She risked a question, since he seemed so pleased with himself.
‘What is it, Father?’
He took up the reins and snapped them to stir the horse into action, and he smiled broadly before he spoke, though he didn’t look at his daughter.
‘Amos Sykes’s worst nightmare, that’s what it is,’ he said. ‘Amos Sykes’s worst bleedin’ nightmare.’
Instead of heading directly out of Netherwood towards the Sheffield Road, Harry took a most alarming detour, at least from Agnes’s point of view. He turned the cart in a wide arc and set off in the opposite direction, down Stead Lane and out of town past Middlecar. Agnes knew better than to ask where they were headed and she sat, mute, clutching the sheaf of papers her father had entrusted her with. Even when they passed through the gates of Netherwood Hall and headed down the avenue towards the great house, she remained silent, though she wondered at his audacity, bringing their shabby dray with its ungainly load here.
She risked a look about her; it was the first time she had seen the legendary park and grounds. From what she allowed herself to see, it looked to be a marvellous place. How wonderful it would be to work here, she thought. How wonderful to have a place in the household, a uniform to wear, a proper purpose to every day. Agnes, whose external life was barely tolerable, survived by imagining alternatives to her present existence. She cut a surreptitious glance across at her father. His broad face still sported its unsettling smile, as if some grimly amusing memory had come back to entertain him. He drove the dray around past the front of the house – remarkable, thought Agnes, that they had remained unchallenged – and through the grand arch into the courtyard behind. Here, Harry drew the horse to a standstill and disembarked, silently holding out a hand for the papers. Agnes passed them across. He left her sitting there and strode across the flagstones to a building opposite, disappearing into it without so much as a knock on the wooden door.
Agnes could see him in profile, through the window. He seemed to be agitated now, his hands working as he spoke. He was speaking to – or at – another man, who was seated behind a desk. The man’s expression was – what was it? Not startled or alarmed. Disgusted, possibly. Contemptuous. Agnes watched with increasing dismay and her breathing began to come short and shallow. She wondered, even as she knew she never would, if she might run from the cart and into the house, throwing herself upon the mercy of the housekeeper who might hide her, employ her, help her to shake free of him. Inside the building, her father slammed the sheaf of papers down on the desk before him. He jabbed a finger at the man and she could see his face twist with fury. The man, relaxed in his chair with his arms folded, exuded scorn. Now, thought Agnes. If I dropped down now from the cart, I might change my life. I shall begin to count, she said out loud, and if I reach ten I shall go.
But she counted slowly to avoid her own deadline, and had only reached six when he left the office. He stalked back to the dray and climbed up, his face mottled with red rage. He sat, heavily, and she moved a fraction to accommodate him. He turned to her.
‘Take that look off yer face or I’ll strike it off,’ he said. ‘Fuckin’ stupid waste o’ space. You’ – he homed in, menacingly close to her face – ‘drag me down. You’re a burden. And an ugly bitch to boot.’
Droplets of spittle flew from his mouth and hit the back of Agnes’s folded hands. He rested the flat of his hand against her cheek in what might have been a tender gesture, then he pushed hard at her face, jerking her head back painfully. He hawked and spat copiously on the flagstones of the courtyard before turning the horse and cart, eager to leave town now that he had accomplished his mission. Well, whatever that jumped-up bastard Jem Arkwright said, he, Harry Tideaway, had just done the earl a great and lasting service. Part of him was sorry he wouldn’t have a ringside seat at Amos Sykes’s downfall. But most of him was anxious to be long gone by the time Amos discovered who had undone him, and how.
It was late by the time Amos got home. He had gone from the mill to Beaumont Lane, where he’d spent a companionable evening eating with Anna and the children, then lingering a while after they had gone to bed. They found much to talk about; Amos had never been abroad but in his mind he had travelled the globe, and he listened to Anna’s stories of her Russian childhood with unstinting fascination. Anna felt indulged by his interest, and she gave him her favourite memories in return for it. He walked home feeling a personal contentment that was unfamiliar, and at odds with the sadness of the day, but then, as he approached his front door, he saw it was already slightly ajar. Close up, he could see the wood was split around the lock where someone had jemmied it open. Cautiously he pushed it wide. His bulldog, Mac, lumbered towards the door, a sheepishness tempering his usual welcome.
‘Useless bugger,’ Amos said, and the dog shrank against the wall, certain now that he had been found lacking when put to the test. But there was no sound within and no evidence, once Amos entered, of any disturbance. Must be the world’s daftest burglar, he thought, breaking into a house on Brook Lane. He wandered through the rooms downstairs; all was as it should be. Upstairs was the same. Mystified, he returned to the kitchen and put the kettle on, thinking as he waited for it to boil that he’d have to see to the lock tomorrow. Tonight he was done in. He gazed gloomily about the kitchen; even without the grim detail of his jemmied lock, this little house had an unloved air about it. There was never a smell of food when he walked in, or the sound of a kettle already building up steam. Then, as he stood with his back to the range facing his small, bare table, he realised what was missing.
Someone had lifted the papers that he’d left on there this morning. A letter from the YMA, detailing benefits of membership. A list of names of men at New Mill Colliery. A letter Amos had drafted to the membership secretary, requesting a meeting as soon as was convenient. It was all gone. Somebody else might have charged about the house searching high and low for the missing documents, in case in an unconscious moment they could’ve been filed elsewhere, but Amos didn’t move, just stood stock still, staring at where they’d been. He knew what was what, just as he knew, now, what was not. Behind him, the kettle began to let out its shrill call. Right, he said to himself, in his methodical way. Somebody else’ll tell the earl what I was going to tell ’im anyway. That’s no disaster, though it could’ve been better handled. But some bastard hates me enough to put ’imself to this trouble.
And it was that thought, more than the likely consequences of the theft, which squatted leaden and ugly in his mind.
Chapter 51
London was losing its strangeness as time passed, and the days no longer seemed to stretch out before her with their threats of emptiness and inactivity. She had seized her advantage with Mrs Carmichael and requested a meeting with her and the housekeeper, in which she said she preferred to buy in her own supplies rather than waiting for the rest of the kitchen requirements to be ordered. This way, she said, she could speak to the suppliers herself, check the goods for the quality she was after, and – she added, because she could see the women’s faces freezing over – it would get her out from under their feet.
‘Really, it’d be less of a nuisance to you,’ she said, directing this to Mrs Carmichael. ‘And I can order things as I need them, then.’
The cook looked sceptical, but she sensed, correctly, that Eve was telling her, not asking. Mrs Munster said, ‘I trust you haven’t found the quality of our ingredients lacking?’
‘Well,’ said Eve. ‘Since you mention it, t’flour could be better. Shame you don’t have t’Co-op down ’ere.’ What she said was only half true, because the flour she’d used was perfectly adequate. But she needed a reason to get out of the house more, and anyway, the looks on her adversaries’ faces were priceless.
Mrs Carmichael, stung out of h
er stunned silence, said, ‘Dodson’s flour has served us perfectly well for as long as I can remember.’
‘Good,’ said Eve. ‘I wish you well to use it. But I thought I might shop around for somethin’ of a finer grade for t’sweet pastries. T’kitchens at Grosvenor Crescent use McSwain’s. It seemed excellent.’
She smiled sweetly. There was nothing they could say to her. She’d cooked for the king now and while Eve wasn’t generally a person to gloat or pull rank, she found that when she tried it came easily.
‘Very well,’ said Mrs Munster, who was more at liberty to speak since her pride and reputation were still intact. ‘But I shall need all receipts. Bills are settled promptly in this establishment. And I shall need to see the provisions when they come in, to be sure that in weight and measure they agree with the dockets.’
‘Of course,’ Eve said. She stood to leave. ‘Well. T’devil makes work for idle ’ands.’ She thought she’d say it before Mrs Munster got the chance. The two senior members of the household watched her go then looked at each other.
‘She won’t be here for ever, Beryl,’ said Mrs Munster.
The cook pursed her lips. ‘Finer grade, indeed. You’d think she was somebody.’
The Duchess of Abberley had introduced Eve to King Edward. It had been his idea, of course, and it was because of the Yorkshire puddings. She’d made them in the tiny tart tins, so the batter had cooked and risen to about the size of an upturned chestnut mushroom, minus the stalk. She’d used an extra egg white to make them lighter, and they were almost weightless, rising like small brown clouds in the hottest oven the kitchen could supply. She filled the hollows with a dab of horseradish cream and slivers of rare roast beef which were dipped at the very last minute in rich gravy, just enough to help the morsel go down the royal gullet without compromising the crunch. Eve hadn’t known – for how could she? – that beef and Yorkshire pudding was among the king’s favourite food, the dish he turned to when his habitual diet of cream-rich, butter-drenched, truffle-heavy twelve-course dinners had begun to pall. But there it was. And while he had laughed heartily at the rest of the lovely, novelty fare, and eaten with his customary gluttony the tiny pork pies and steak puddings served up by the duchess’s footmen, the miniature Yorkshires had rendered him temporarily speechless with a kind of dazed joy, as if the one thing his indulged and cosseted life lacked had suddenly been given him, without him requesting it or even knowing it had been missing.
He had wolfed down eight or nine of them in rapid succession – he hadn’t acquired his forty-eight-inch waist by exercising moderation in these matters – and then had insisted on congratulating the cook in person. She couldn’t be brought upstairs, but there was nothing and no one capable of preventing his majesty going to her, which he duly did, accompanied by the duchess who had to show him the way. He stalked through the corridors with much the same effect as a beater walking a copse, sending members of the household into a flap like pheasant rising in mindless panic from the safety of their hiding places. There was no time to alert anyone to his purpose; he was in the kitchens before the below-stairs staff could make themselves decent, and to a stunned and dishevelled assembly he boomed out his request to speak to the ‘author of the Yorkshire puddings’.
Eve had been standing over a frying pan at the stove, a bowl of batter in one hand and a teaspoon in the other. The delicate business of forming pancakes no bigger than a shilling was occupying her mind. When Polly – she’d taken her to Grosvenor Crescent because the girl was increasingly indispensable – tapped her on the shoulder and said King Edward was in the kitchen and wanted a word, Eve had laughed.
‘Very funny. Now ’old this ring steady for me while I pour t’batter in.’
Polly had stepped back then in respectful alarm, because the king was right there, opulently clad in a plum velvet jacket and embroidered waistcoat. Polly, undeniably nimble with her fingers and helpful to Eve in many ways, was nevertheless completely unequal to the situation, and she fainted, though quietly and undramatically as if the air was gradually being let out of her. Someone pulled her out of the way and Eve, seeing her slide away from the corner of her range of vision, turned from the hot pan to find the monarch an arm’s length away from her, smiling. She recognised him from the picture on the children’s coronation mugs at home, though he looked more corpulent, and redder in the face. She dropped into a curtsey, still holding the batter and the spoon.
‘His Royal Highness King Edward the Seventh,’ said the duchess, pompously.
‘Yorkshire puddings,’ said the king, without preamble. ‘Absolute triumph. Best thing I’ve tasted in months. I wonder I’ve never eaten them before if you’re with the Abberleys.’
‘I’m with t’Earl and Countess of Netherwood, your majesty,’ Eve said, with the surface calm that can sometimes be triggered by fathomless shock. ‘T’Duchess of Abberley borrowed me.’
He tipped back his head and gave a great bark of laughter.
‘Then when they have you back, you must cook for me again,’ he said. ‘High time I visited Netherwood.’
He nodded at her, then turned and left the kitchen.
‘Did that just ’appen?’ she said to a white-faced kitchen lad, who was gawping from the sidelines. He shrugged, uncertain how to answer. He’d seen the king in the kitchen, certainly, but the evidence of his own eyes didn’t seem enough, somehow, to convince him.
Back upstairs, where he belonged, the king had infuriated his hostess by immediately seeking out Lady Hoyland, who had been trying to catch his eye all evening.
‘Clarissa,’ he said. ‘Time I enjoyed a little Yorkshire hospitality. I’m in Doncaster for the St Leger in September. Let’s say the week after, at Netherwood Hall? My man’ll be in touch.’
Lady Hoyland, who at last had what she had wanted for so long, smiled graciously, though her mind was whirring with what must be done. At least they had some notice. Even so, if they were to be prepared for a royal visit by the end of August, they should probably return to Netherwood sooner than planned. End of June, at the latest. All of this whizzed through her mind at the heightened speed that thought allows, before she said, ‘Thank you, your majesty, we shall be honoured.’
‘Do be sure to serve beef and Yorkshires,’ he said, indicating the now-empty platters of canapés. ‘That is, after all, why I’m coming.’ He laughed, so Lady Hoyland joined in though she was far from amused that the entire room had now heard that the reason the king was coming to Netherwood was to eat more of Eve Williams’s Yorkshire puddings. She said as much to Teddy when they drove away in the landau an hour later, heading for the Royal Opera House.
‘Oh, who cares why he’s coming?’ said the earl. ‘Why does he ever go anywhere? Only because it suits him, for one reason or another.’
‘Still though,’ said Clarissa. ‘It was rather shaming for him to make the entire assembly aware of the arrangement. Not to mention that Eve isn’t actually our cook. Though I’m sure she’ll oblige.’
‘Of course she will,’ said Teddy. He felt rather sorry for his wife. She looked so crestfallen, sitting there opposite him. She wore a silver fox stole around her pale shoulders, and a new gown in midnight-blue satin which clung to her small breasts and flat belly, reminding him of the girl she’d been. Teddy’s tastes these days were for fleshier women, with a proper rump and a bosom you could lose your face in, but Clarissa’s elegance struck him now as a quality he was glad of. Proud of, even. He leaned in and patted her thigh and she gave him a startled look, as if he’d trespassed. Then she softened, and rested her own hand on the back of his.
‘Fact is,’ said Teddy, ‘Bertie’s coming to stay, and we’ll make jolly sure he’s never had a better time anywhere, what!’
‘We shall have to redecorate.’
‘Shall we? Entirely?’
Clarissa nodded. ‘Of course. Top to bottom. And who’ll come, at the end of August? Everyone’s in Scotland.’
‘Clarissa, all will be well. Better than we
ll. All will be excellent. Who declines a house party when the monarch is numbered among the guests? Tantamount to treason, I should think.’
‘Don’t be silly, Teddy,’ she said, but she was pleased with him. He really was a dear sometimes, she thought. Dependable. Reassuring. By comparison, Robin Campbell-Chieveley was quite a slight person. He was already on the wane, though he didn’t know it yet. Clarissa’s passions never lasted long, although even by her standards Robin’s star had fallen rather swiftly. But he could be such a sap, making cow eyes over his cocktail glass and forever trying to push her into closets for a fumble. She thought she might simply cut him tonight at the opera, get it over with. She smiled at her husband, and relaxed, just a little. He smiled back.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘they say that when he stayed with the Norfolks at Arundel he took two valets, three of his own footmen, two equerries with valets of their own, a telephonist, two chauffeurs and a little Arab boy to make his coffee.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Imagine,’ she said. ‘An Arab boy.’
‘Quite. And if he brings the queen, not Mrs Keppel, expect a further eight members of the royal household.’
‘His mother was worse,’ said Clarissa. ‘She hardly ever went anywhere, but when she did she sent her own furniture on ahead.’
They laughed together, united in that moment by the eccentric indulgences of the royal family and the comfortable familiarity of each other’s presence.
Eve finally found Daniel in the still room. He had a great bunch of overblown roses, and was pulling off the petals and laying them on wooden trays. He looked at her as she walked in through the door from the garden, and felt the same wash of love and lust that he did every time he saw her. She smiled at him.
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