The Runaway

by Audrey Reimann

  ‘I’m leaving the estate, Tommy. I can’t stop here,’ Oliver told him. ‘I don’t want to leave you but I’ve got to go. I only stayed to help Dolly; to save us from the workhouse. She doesn’t need me now she’s got Wilf.’

  Oliver saw the hurt in Tommy’s face but he didn’t know how to tell his brother kindly that eleven years of closeness were over. ‘I don’t know how she can do it,’ he added bitterly. ‘How can she want Wilf after being married to Dad?’

  ‘When are yer going?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘Take me an’ all.’

  ‘I can’t, Tommy. It’s too dangerous. They’ll come after you. But I’ll come back for you one day. Get you away from Wilf.’ Oliver wanted to console the youngster whose eyes were filled with pain at losing his big brother.

  ‘She’ll maybe not marry him,’ Tommy said in a trembling voice.

  Oliver sent a handful of pebbles skimming over the water, cracking sharply against the stepping stones. ‘Hard to say. Meself … she can do as she likes. I’ve had enough of her!’

  ‘So’ve I, Oliver.’ Tommy was near to tears.

  ‘You can’t have. She’s your own ma. But she’s not mine. I can go.’

  ‘Suppose she sends Wilf after yer? He’ll kill yer when he finds yer.’

  ‘He’ll not. He’ll be glad I’ve gone.’ Oliver spat out the words, hatred in every syllable. His blue eyes narrowed in concentration as he told Tommy. ‘I’m going to run when they go upstairs. Wilf takes his clothes off and leaves them on the settle. We’ve seen him do that, haven’t we?’

  Tommy grinned weakly, recalling the night they sat on the stairs, not four feet from the gin-soaked pair, taking turns to squint through the cracked door, which opened into the living room.

  ‘I’m going to creep down and take his britches and his boots.’ Oliver’s mouth twitched with pleasure at the thought of Wilf’s face when he discovered the theft. ‘The boots were Dad’s anyway.’

  ‘Oh, Oliver. Don’t let ’im hear yer. Where are you headin’ for?’ Tommy looked taken aback with the effrontery of the plan and had lost his desolate look. ‘I won’t tell.’

  ‘I know you won’t. I’m going to Middlefield.’ He gave a laugh of derision. ‘Where the Mawdesleys are going to live.’

  ‘Who’s the Mawdesleys?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘Sir Philip’s daughter and his granddaughter. The ones this big garden party’s for.’

  ‘They ’ave a garden party every year. Yer know they do.’

  ‘Aye. But this time they’re going on all night with it. Dolly says there’s goin’ to be a dinner and musical concert an’ all. Then they’re going to live in’t biggest house in Middlefield.’

  ‘What’s wrong wi’ that?’ Tommy said. ‘They can do what they want. It makes no difference to the likes of us.’

  Oliver felt anger rising in him. ‘They’re no better than us, Tommy. Our dad’s lying under tons of stone in their blasted quarry. And they’re feasting and larking. It takes ten of us to serve every one of ’em. And they’re not worth it.’ He turned his head away and spat into the stream. ‘I’m doin’ no more of it.’

  ‘Where will yer live?’ Tommy’s voice was shaking again.

  ‘I’ll get work in one of the mills and find a place to lodge. I’ve got four shillings hidden. Come on.’ Oliver pulled his brother to his feet and together they crossed the stones and made for the path.

  ‘Why won’t you ask for a job at t’quarry? It were good enough for Dad. Old man Jessop’s a good boss and they don’t pay bad,’ Tommy asked him as they went back to the house.

  Tommy still didn’t understand, after all the explanations. Oliver took his brother by the shoulders and turned him gently in the direction of the quarry.

  ‘They’ll not kill any more Wainwrights,’ he said, his eyes hardening, his voice low and intense. He tightened his grip on Tommy’s thin shoulder.

  ‘We’re as good as them, Tommy. Me mother worked right up to her time, on her knees in their damned kitchen. That’s what killed her. It wasn’t having me as killed her.’

  He let go his hold. ‘It’s not just Jessop and Wilf. They’re only lackeys. It’s them – Sir Philip and Lady Oldfield and all like ’em. I’ll never raise me cap to them again. Never!’ He looked into Tommy’s face. ‘I can’t stop here, lad. You see that don’t yer? The Oldfields can’t take one generation after another and have ’em drop dead in their service. I’m not one to start a riot or set their workers against them. I want better for meself, like Dad did. Dad got to be quarry-master. We lived in the village in the quarry-master’s house. When Dad died they threw us all out – Dolly, you and me. They gave us the cottage we live in so long as Dolly worked in their kitchens. You were a baby and I was five. Dolly was glad of the work and a roof over our heads. I don’t hold with it; one man owning another; his house, the work of his hands. They’ll never own me.’

  Tommy didn’t understand. He was only eleven. So Oliver went on, ‘Dolly – I mean your ma – has always worked hard. She gives back a lot more to them, by way of her work. But I never felt like her real son. And I don’t feel bad about leaving her. Not now she’s got Wilf.’

  Tommy was listening intently. Oliver put an arm about his shoulders. ‘We’re nearly home. Say nowt to your ma when I go. Tell them you were asleep when I went – if they ask.’

  Tommy began to cry, jerking his chin in an effort to control his tears. ‘Take me. Take me with yer,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Listen.’ Oliver tightened his hand round his brother’s shoulder. ‘I’ll do all right. I can work, I’m strong and I’m quick. And I’m clever. I’m cleverer than all of them. One day I’ll have it all. You’ll see. I’ll have a proper home, with carpets and things and I’ll come for you as soon as I can and I’ll take you away with me. And we’ll be rich, Tommy. Richer than the whole bloody lot of them put together.’

  Chapter Two

  Dolly Wainwright, assistant cook, red-haired and quick-tempered, stabbed at the lemon, over and over, put it inside the prepared goose and heaved a sigh of relief. She was a small, good-looking woman with fine, chiselled features, a sharp, sometimes waspish manner and a habit of scowling when she was upset or angry.

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon and she’d been working in the kitchen of Suttonford House since five that morning. Not that she was the only one who was tired, of course, but there was only young Bessie in the kitchen with her at the moment. The others were all in the garden, waiting-on. They were run off their feet as well, but Dolly had not had a minute away from the heat of the stoves all day.

  The results of her handiwork were spread out before her on the scrubbed deal table; a galantine of beef to be eaten cold, glistening on a dish of freshly pulled young lettuce. Tiny cold potatoes thinly coated in parsley butter were piled high on china plates. Crisp salads; a poached salmon, its pink flesh coated in a creamy sauce; fruit compotes of glowing late strawberries and ripe yellow peaches from the estate glasshouses; fruits she had preserved in syrups and brandy, thin almond fingers, macaroons, bread and cakes to last three days.

  ‘What the hell can Sir Philip want with me, Bessie?’ she asked the new kitchen maid. ‘On a day like this, with his garden party goin’ on. You’d think he’d have enough to do without sending for me in the middle of it.’

  In their basement kitchen the heat was unbearable. The range had been lit since five o’clock that morning. The oak dresser was almost bare of the piles of plates and dishes it normally held and the sounds of scurrying feet and the clattering of crockery in the side kitchen told of the fevered effort that four kitchen maids, ten housemaids and two footmen were making to serve the guests outside.

  ‘With a bit of luck we’ll not need to light the big fire tomorrow,’ Dolly declared, before hooking a length of butter muslin from the rack high overhead in the old beams. ‘If it’s warm like this they’ll not want hot food.’

  She wet the cloth under the pump, then carefully, using upturn
ed ewers as supports, draped it over her day’s work. Taking the window pole, she fitted its brass hook into the top sash and pulled, letting a little more air into the stifling kitchen. Even the stone-flagged floor was warm. Dolly pumped water into the deep brick sink, her plump arm working the handle hard and fast.

  Cold water gushed up from the well beneath the kitchen and she splashed her face, cupping the water in her strong, square hands, letting it run down her forearms. Then she ran wet fingers inside the tight, clinging collar of her grey working dress.

  ‘Good job Jackson’s in ’is pantry, eh, Bessie?’ she said. The girl didn’t answer. Dolly knew that Bessie would be shocked into silence by her offhand way of referring to the dignified old butler. ‘He can’t abide us washing at the sink. Silly old fool.’ She laughed aloud. Bessie’s eyes had flown to the door, afraid Mr Jackson might have overheard.

  Dolly carried the goose on its iron skillet to the blackleaded range and placed it carefully in the big oven, adjusting the draught control so as not to let the fire get too hot.

  ‘There! Take it out in an hour and put that ’erb stuffing inside. The lemon will have soaked up some of the grease by then, see? And mind yer don’t break it up! Cook will be ’ere in a minute but Sir Philip wanted me to do the goose, particular.’

  ‘He says no one can do them as good as I can!’ she added with satisfaction as she pulled off the coarse blue apron, set her cap straight and made towards the door. ‘I hope it’s not our Oliver he wants to see me about.’

  Dolly, of the sensuous hips, narrow waist and full breasts was, at thirty, becoming impatient with the toil that had been her life until now. She had rediscovered passion and shameless delight in the attentions of Wilf Leach and the reproaches and wilful contempt of him by her stepson, Oliver, and her own son, Tommy, angered her.

  She knew they hated Wilf but they didn’t understand how it was for a woman without a husband. Wilf might not be as good a man as Joe, their own father, had been. Wilf was a drinking man but he was better than none. He earned good money and could keep a woman happy in bed. And in time they would be given a farm manager’s house in the village, once Wilf had married her.

  ‘There’s plenty as’d swap places wi’ me to get a man and his wages,’ she told them often enough. ‘Believe me, there’s a few women in the cottages as’d like to be in my shoes.’

  Sir Philip Oldfield’s office overlooked the kitchen garden at the back of the great house; a small room, one-third taken up by a big oak bench, piled high with heavy leather-bound ledgers and estate records.

  Dolly saw the tall man with craggy features and greying fair hair as an aristocrat whose world was bounded by the stone wall, which enclosed his two-thousand-acre estate. He owned everything his stone boundary walls encompassed; Suttonford House, the farms and Suttonford village, the quarry where her husband’s body still lay beneath a hundred tons of stone. Plus, rumour had it, Sir Philip owned most of the nearby town of Middlefield as well.

  Normally the housekeeper or even Lady Oldfield attended to the domestic servants so it had to be something important for Sir Philip to send for her.

  She stood before him, ginger curls springing out beneath her tightly drawn mobcap and her face pink and perspiring. Once, she had been told by the butler that she had a singularly disrespectful manner but since she did not know what the long words meant, believed she had been flattered. ‘Did yer want me for summat?’

  ‘Close the door, please,’ he commanded.

  Dolly ignored him and stood, head to one side, impatient to know the worst. ‘It’s not Oliver, is it? Has he been doin’ summat? He’s a wayward lad, sir. I can’t do nothin’ with ’im.’ In Dolly’s book attack was the best line of defence. She had practised the art for so long now that she knew no other way and found, in consequence, that she was seldom challenged.

  Sir Philip looked down his aquiline nose at her. ‘I am taking the unusual step, Mrs Wainwright, of speaking to you directly about your stepson’s behaviour. I thought highly of his father. Joe Wainwright was killed on my estate. He was a good father and a fine man.’

  Dolly’s lips tightened into a hard line. She had no intention, five years later, of listening to hymns of praise to her dead husband. Soon she’d be Mrs Leach. It was time to forget the past. Life was for living and Wilf was bringing her to life again. She felt a thrill, anticipating the night ahead. ‘What’s he been up to, sir? He’s too much for me. He is that!’

  Sir Philip continued. ‘He was seen by one of my workers, taking duck from the lake, here at Suttonford. I don’t allow labourers or their families to come into the garden grounds. They must keep away from the house unless they are ordered to work here. If I send for him I shall have to punish him but I mean to let it pass this time. Does he work?’

  ‘Yes, sir, but he …’

  ‘Here? For me?’

  ‘On the farm, sir. But he won’t take orders from Wilf Leach. That’s the trouble. Me and Wilf’s gettin’ married soon but Oliver thinks he’s the head of the house and he doesn’t want Wilf in it. That’s why he’s behavin’ bad.’ She knew that Sir Philip saw plenty of wicked youths. They came before him twice a week at the bench. He’d not wish to see any of his own workers brought before the court.

  ‘Send him to Mr Jessop in the quarry. Five o’clock sharp tomorrow morning. He can work where his father did.’

  Sir Philip had seemingly done all he intended to do for Oliver. ‘That will be all, Mrs Wainwright.’

  ‘Do you still want me in the kitchen?’ Dolly asked brazenly. Nobody else dared to speak to Sir Philip as she did. ‘The new cook’s here now but you was glad enough for me to do it when old Mrs Gunnel took bad.’

  Sir Philip was losing patience. ‘Mrs Wainwright, you are an exceptionally good cook. Had your manner matched your skill then you could have taken on Mrs Gunnel’s job. You are the second cook. You are to work in the kitchen from five o’clock until four in the afternoon.’

  He held the heavy door aside for her but Dolly, unused to courtesies, darted past him, almost breaking into a run as she descended the stair to the kitchen.

  ‘I’m goin’, Bessie. I’ll catch ’im one!’

  ‘Young Oliver?’ Bessie asked.

  ‘Yes. He’ll cop it when I get back,’ Dolly replied. She untied the mobcap and pushed it roughly into the pocket of her grey dress and folded the blue apron for tomorrow. It was clean on today and it would do another turn.

  Dolly went out the back way, glancing quickly about her as she slipped through the gate into the kitchen garden. There was nobody about today, they were all at the front, but just to be sure she pretended to sit and rest for a moment while she edged nearer a small heap of carrots that lay on the end of a row. There was so much in the garden – so much went to waste it was wicked not to use it. She’d tell them so, if they caught her.

  There were bunches of onions drying on a fencepost and she knew she could snatch a few of those as she went. The vegetables safely under her skirt, Dolly, well pleased with her haul, went on swift feet away from the distant sounds of music and voices, behind the glasshouses and onto the track that led to the cottage. She had a parcel of food for Wilf’s baggin, which she’d also concealed under her skirt. He’d be working until it was dark and he’d be glad of a bite.

  As soon as she unlatched the door she saw the duck. Oliver had been poaching then. She’d better not say anything to Wilf. Outside she could hear Oliver and Tommy rolling in the sun, armlocked in Tommy’s impossible challenge to his idol.

  She peered through the window and watched Oliver flatten her son on the ground, heard Tommy start to whine.

  ‘Why don’t yer let me win for once?’ he pleaded.

  ‘Because if I do, you’ll take on someone bigger than yerself,’ Oliver was laughing, ‘and get a pasting for yer cheek.’

  ‘Tell us what yer did then, our Oliver.’ Tommy’s high-pitched voice was muffled under his brother’s chest. Dolly saw Oliver spreadeagle himself, laughing, over t
he lad, pinning his wrists to the baked hard ground.

  ‘Then I hit him, Tommy. I hit Wilf Leach hard, right in the mouth. I broke what’s left of his dirty brown teeth in his ugly mouth and I told him what he’d get if he came round our house again. I said to Wilf, “If you ever show yer face at our house again, Wilf Leach, me and Tommy’ll string yer up from the rafters.”’

  ‘What did he say?’ Tommy squeaked. ‘You’re a liar, aren’t yer?’ Tommy struggled and kicked, but could not dislodge Oliver.

  ‘Aye. But I wish I had hit him.’ Oliver stopped laughing and pushed himself up on to his knees. ‘And if I don’t go soon I’ll probably kill him …’

  Dolly heard him. She flung open the cottage door. ‘Oliver! There you are, you lazy devil.’ She could feel her face suffuse with anger as he came insolently towards her.

  ‘I heard yer,’ she said. ‘Go where? You’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘I’m not stoppin’ ’ere. I’ll not live wi’ you and Wilf Leach,’ he answered her and she saw the defiance in his eyes.

  ‘Yer will. And you’ll have to change yer name. You and our Tommy. You can start calling yerselves Leach from now on, like I am.’ That was the best way, just tell them to do it.

  Oliver’s eyes were full of scorn for her and she saw that his hands were clenched as if it was all he could do not to raise them against her. ‘You can call yerself Strumpet for all I care,’ he said. ‘But I’ll not answer to Leach . . . nor will Tommy. I’m leaving.’

  ‘You’ve got to stop ’ere. You belong to the estate. Like we all do,’ she told him. ‘You have to work …’

  ‘They don’t own me, woman!’ He was shouting.

  ‘They do!’ She hesitated for a moment before adding, triumphantly, ‘You’re articled … apprenticed … and yer can’t get away from that!’