‘An’ speaking of bein’ locked up.’ Peg now nodded at her mother. ‘That’s what she’s tried to do to his lordship. The coachman said she’d had a doctor there to have him put away, in fact two of them, but the old boy talked so sensible like an’ acted the same way that the doctors were flummoxed an’ said they could do nothing until he became dangerous, an’ dangerous he’s become if the rumour is right.’
‘What rumour?’
‘Well, the coachman said the old fellow’s taken to ordering the coach practically every day and he takes his shotgun with him. He’s known all along about her carry-on, but till now it’s just seemed to slide off him. But since the doctors came he’s changed. The coachman said it was funny ’cos although he seemed to talk more sensible like he acted more mad, if you know what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t.’ Biddy now took the strainer and threw it over into the sink as she called into the scullery, ‘You, Betty! These dishes will be walking out to meet you if you don’t clear the sink . . . and now!’
As the voice from the scullery shouted, ‘Comin’ Mrs Drew, comin’,’ Biddy walked to the far end of the kitchen towards a round baking oven set in an alcove, and opening the door gently she peered in before closing it as gently again. Then turning to find Peg at her elbow and sensing that she was intent on imparting something of a private nature, she asked under her breath, ‘What is it?’
Peg now glanced down the long kitchen towards Betty and she waited until the girl had scooped up an armful of dirty dishes and disappeared into the scullery again before she said, ‘I hear they’re startin’ on about Tilly again . . . in the village.’
‘Startin’ on about Tilly! What now?’
‘About the little one.’
‘Well, what about the little one?’
‘Aw, Ma!’ Peg’s voice was a mere whisper now and she shook her head from side to side before she added, ‘Well, you know Tilly says she’s well on past four, but I ask you, does she look it? She’s so tiny and she hardly looks on three. Of course, she talks older but that’s with being a foreigner and learnin’ her English from Tilly.’
‘What you gettin’ at?’
‘Well, Ma. Aw, don’t you see what they’re sayin’? They’re sayin’ it’s hers.’
Biddy drew her head back away from her daughter’s and into her shoulders and said, still in a whisper, ‘Don’t be so bloody soft.’
‘I’m not, Ma, I’m not soft. And don’t put on so much surprise either, ’cos hasn’t it occurred to you it’s funny that she should bring such a bairn back with her? Even our Arthur said the other night, white people don’t do that kind of thing, pick up Indian bairns, I mean adopt them when they’ve got one of their own, and he says by what he hears from fellows who’ve been over there that the Indians are looked on worse than the niggers.’
‘But the bairn’s not Indian, just Spanish or Mexican or some such.’
‘Aye, you’ve said it, Ma, some such. Mind, not that I’m blamin’ Tilly. She could have been raped. Aye she could by all I hear, ’cos, as our Arthur said, women are classed no better than cattle over there. And he’s worried about our Katie.’
‘He’s not the only one.’ Biddy turned and went back down the kitchen with Peg close on her heels. But at the table she stopped and, her face grim, she looked at her eldest daughter as she said, ‘This business about the little dark ’un being Tilly’s, well, I’d stake me life on it there’s not a ha’p’orth of truth in it. Why, seein’ how Master Matthew doted on her he would have murdered anybody who touched her.’
‘Perhaps he did, Ma. How are we to know anything? She doesn’t talk about what happened out there. The only thing we can gather is it must have been pretty awful to turn her hair white. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what we think, it’s them villagers, you know what they’re like, nothin’ seems to change them, father to son, mother to daughter. The witch business still clings to her.’
‘What’s that?’ Biddy cocked her ear to the side and Peg said, ‘It’s the little ’un screaming; you can hear her a mile off.’
‘Well, I’ve never heard her from down here afore. Look, get yourself upstairs and see what’s afoot.’
As Peg hurried out of the kitchen and into the hall Tilly came out of the library and they looked across at each other before both running to the stairs and up them. As they reached the gallery the screams came louder, mingled now with Willy’s childish crying and the voice of Connie Bradshaw.
Tilly was first up the nursery stairs and as she rushed through the open door into the day room she stopped for just a second to take in the scene before her. Willy was lying on the floor nursing his hand and crying loudly, but in the far corner of the room Connie Bradshaw was shaking Josefina in the same way a terrier would shake a rat, and the child was screaming and kicking out with her feet.
‘Put her down this minute!’ Tilly’s voice thundered through the room, and Connie Bradshaw actually dropped the child to the floor, and Tilly, rushing forward, picked her up and cradled her in her arms while she glared at the nursemaid, crying, ‘How dare you! How dare you!’
‘She tore at me, she tore at me face. Look!’
Tilly looked at the girl’s face. There was a long scratch down one cheek, and it was actually bleeding.
‘You must have done something very bad to her that she should react in that way,’ Tilly said emphatically.
‘Ma-ma. Ma-ma.’ Josefina had her hand on Tilly’s jawbone stroking it rapidly – it was a gesture she always used when she wanted her whole attention – and now through her crying she spluttered, ‘Beat Willy. Beat Willy, Mama.’
‘I didn’t, I didn’t, you little liar, you!’
‘Be quiet! And don’t you come out with such terms here.’
‘Mama! Mama!’
Peg had picked Willy up from the floor, but pressing himself away from her hands, he groped towards Tilly, crying, ‘Your box. Your box. I was looking at your box.’
‘What box, dear?’ Tilly now put Josefina down and picked up her son and again said, ‘What box, dear?’
‘From the toilet, on the table, Mama, the pretty box.’
‘In her pocket, Mama, box in her pocket!’ Josefina was screaming the words now as she pointed at the nursemaid, and Tilly, looking at the girl, demanded, ‘Show me what you’ve got in your pocket.’
The white starched apron that reached from the girl’s waist to her ankles and which had a bib with the straps crossing over her back and buttoning on top of her hips, had two large pockets. Connie Bradshaw now stuck her hands into them, saying as she did so, ‘I’ve got nothin’ in me pockets but what’s me own.’
‘Then you needn’t be afraid of letting me see what belongs to you.’
The girl’s jaw tightened and she thrust out her chin as she said; ‘I’ve got a right to what’s mine. Me ma says everybody’s got a right to what’s theirs. I know me rights, you can’t search me, I’ve got nothing belongin’ to you. You’ll get wrong if you accuse me I have.’
Tilly now looked towards Peg and said, ‘Ring the bell for both Peabody and Biddle, please.’
Peg now went to the corner near the fireplace and pulled the rope twice before pausing and pulling it again three times.
It was Biddle who entered the room first and he stopped within the door and stared at his mistress, then at the scene before him; but he said nothing, and neither did Tilly. Presently, the butler arrived puffing slighty, and he, too, stood without speaking for a moment. When he did speak, all he said was, ‘Madam . . . you rang?’
‘Yes, Peabody. I want you to witness Peg searching this girl.’
As Peg moved towards the nursemaid, Connie Bradshaw backed from her, saying, ‘You lay a hand on me and I’ll scratch your eyes out.’
‘We’ll see about that.’ As she spoke Peg’s hand came out and caught the girl a ringing slap around the ear, and before she could retaliate Peg had her up against the wall and was thrusting her hand into one of the pockets. Then she pulled out a small en
amel trinket box. It wasn’t more than an inch across and about the same in depth, and as she handed it on her open palm to Tilly she said, ‘’Tis off your table, ma’am.’
Taking the box, Tilly stared at it; then shaking her head, she said, ‘No, this one is from the china cabinet, surely; in the drawing room?’ Turning now, she said, ‘Biddle, will you please go across to this girl’s room, take Peg here with you, and search her belongings.’
‘I’ll have the pollis on you, yes, I will. I didn’t take that box, I didn’t. It was that little black sod picked it up from off the table, and I took it from her and was gona take it back, I was.’
‘Do as I ask.’ Tilly nodded from Peg to Biddle, and they left the room.
She herself remained standing awaiting their return, the children pressed tightly against her skirts, and Peabody, standing apart, kept his gaze on the still defiant girl as if he were viewing something that smelt.
The five minutes seemed endless before Peg and Biddle returned, when the footman, holding out his hands to Tilly, said, ‘She had made a hole in the underside of the mattress, ma’am. These were in it.’
Slowly Tilly picked up from his palm the locket and chain that Mark had given her years ago; it was one of the few pieces that his wife hadn’t managed to take with her. The locket was silver with a gold filigree surround, the chain supporting the locket was of fine gold. She hadn’t missed it because it was kept in a box among other trinkets in the bottom drawer of her dressing table. From his other palm she took up, first a miniature portrait of a baby. It showed Mark’s father at the age of one year. It had lain from the time it was painted until now in one of the cabinets downstairs. Next and lastly, she took from his hand two gold rings and a brooch. The rings had been presents from Matthew. They, too, had lain in a box, or rather in a velvet case, at the back of the top drawer of the dressing table.
She turned slowly and looked at the girl. She must be stupid. How did she expect to get away with this? But then of course, anyone with access to the bedroom could have been blamed, Peg or Fanny, Lizzie Gamble or Betty. On Sunday, which was her half-day, she would have taken the things home and her mother would have disposed of them, and she would have returned as brazen as brass. No, she wasn’t stupid, she was cunning.
‘Do you wish to call in the law, madam?’ Peabody did not say ‘the police’ or even ‘the pollis’, but the ‘the law’, and she looked at him for a moment before saying, ‘No, Peabody; we won’t call in the law but I would ask you and Biddle to go into her room again to make sure there is nothing more there.’
‘Very good, madam.’
Both men inclined their heads towards her and left the room; and now Tilly, looking at Peg, said, ‘You will stay with her, Peg, until she is outside these gates.’
‘I want me money afore I go; I’ve been here over three weeks.’
‘You have forfeited any right to your probationary wages; you are lucky you won’t find yourself in the house of correction this night.’
‘Aw, you! I’ll have me ma on you for me six shillings, she’ll sort you out. Anyway, I wouldn’t have stuck it here. Me ma always says you shouldn’t work for them worse than yersel’.’
The girl moved from where she had been standing against the wall down towards the nursery table and as she went to pass Tilly she glared at her as she said, ‘It’s right what they say in the village about you; not satisfied with havin’ a blind bastard you had to go whorin’ with a bloody nigger.’
For a moment Tilly seemed to stop breathing. Then there rushed through her body a torrent of anger. It was like fire in her veins. She was facing Alvero Portes again, diving at him, tearing at his face; she was firing point blank at the Indians. The girl before her seemed to sprout buffalo horns, her face was painted, and she sprang at her, delivering a blow first to one side of her face, then the other. What she would have done next she didn’t know had not Peg torn her back from the girl and thrust her down into a chair before almost flying to where Connie Bradshaw was leaning against the wall holding both sides of her head with her hands and with tears now raining from her eyes, and she shouted at the girl, ‘Out! Out!’ and swinging her round, she pushed her out of the door and onto the landing; and there, meeting the butler and the footman, she cried at them, ‘She went for the bairns!’ and then added, ‘and . . . and the mistress.’
‘She did?’ Peabody drew himself up to his full height and, looking down on the spluttering girl, he said one word, ‘Scum!’
The word seemed to return the girl to her defiant self and she yelled at him, ‘I never did! I never did! She hit me. Like a mad ’un, she was, crazy. But I’ll have her. Me ma’ll have her for it, you’ll see . . . Aye. Aye, just you wait ’n’ see.’ Her voice trailed away as Peg pushed her down the stairs.
Peabody and Biddle entered the nursery, and the sight of his mistress sitting at the table, her head held in her hands while the children, crying loudly, clung to her waist, caused the butler to become ordinary and human and to say softly, ‘Come, madam, come. Don’t distress yourself. You, Biddle’ – he turned to the footman – ‘take the children downstairs; Mrs Drew will see to them. Put them in the servants’ hall.’ Then turning to Tilly again, he said, ‘Take my arm, madam. This has been a most unfortunate occurrence.’
‘I’m all right, thank you. I can manage.’ Tilly rose from the chair and stood supporting herself against the table for a moment; then she looked at the elderly man and said, ‘Thank you, Peabody. I . . . I think I will go to my room. And yes, if you would see me there I should be grateful. And then would you ask Mrs Drew to come up to me, please?’
‘Certainly, madam. Certainly.’
As she walked, with the aid of Peabody’s arm, she felt that her legs were about to give way beneath her. Those waves of rage always had a weakening effect on her. Dear God! What she might have done to that girl if it hadn’t been for Peg. But the knowledge that the village had started on her again had made her lose control. Would anybody believe her now if she were to say that the child was Matthew’s, his flyblow? No. The only one who could speak the truth was Katie; and it wasn’t likely that she would ever come back to this country again. Although she had promised Biddy that Katie would come on a holiday some time, she knew in her heart there was little chance of it. Katie could not endure the sea and Doug Scott could not endure to be away from the life to which he had been bred.
Scandal had touched her once again and this time it would be worse than before. To brave the scandal of a white bastard had been bad enough, but to have a dark foreign one added to her score was something she didn’t know how she was going to contend with. Matthew had been right. Oh Matthew! Matthew!
Six
‘Bloody trollop! Put the devil on horseback an’ he’ll ride to hell. Never was a truer word spoken. Bash me daughter, would you, you dirty trollop! Come out o’ there an’ I’ll sort you out!’
Peabody was at the hall window looking over the terrace down onto the drive where stood the drunken woman, and as Biddle came hurrying up to him, he turned his head towards him and said, ‘It’s that girl’s mother and she’s as drunk as a noodle. What do we do with her?’
‘Get her away before the mistress hears her, I hope.’
Biddle made towards the front door. Biddy came hurrying out of the kitchen and across the hall, saying, ‘Hold your hand a minute. Leave her to me; I can deal with the likes of her. You go out there an’ she’ll have your fancy toggery off your back quicker then it took you to put it on, I can tell you that.’
‘But she sounds a vicious woman, Mrs Drew.’
‘Well, what am I just telling you, Mr Peabody? But if she starts any of her games with me my two lads will be behind me, and they’ll give her the Highland fling down the drive and out of the gates, I can assure you of that. But I’ll be obliged, Mr Peabody, if you’d see that the mistress stays up in the nursery until the coast’s clear.’
‘As you say, Mrs Drew. As you say.’
There was no doubt who
was in charge of this situation and when Biddy pointed towards the door, Biddle almost jumped to open it. And then she was standing on the terrace looking down on the bloated face of the prancing, shouting and gesticulating woman.
‘Aw! She sent ya out, has she? Frightened to face me, is she? The dirty, whorin’ upstart!’
‘I’ll give you two minutes to turn an’ get yersel’ down that drive and out through them gates, Bessie Bradshaw. And if you don’t make a move I’ll have you carried out.’
‘My God! Look who’s talkin’.’ The woman put her head back and laughed loudly. ‘Daft old runt! You know what they say in the village about you? You close your eyes to the goin’s on to keep your family set in. But I’ll not close me eyes, no, I’m goin’ to the pollis. She battered my lass. You should see her face.’ She slapped at her own cheek now as she ended, ‘Out here.’
‘Your girl attacked her.’
‘Bloody liar!’
‘There are witnesses. And let me tell you something, Bessie Bradshaw, if it wasn’t for the mistress your lass would be in the house of correction this minute for the stuff she stole.’
‘What!’ The woman now stood swaying, her head poked forward. ‘What you say? My lass stole? You’re a damned liar!’
‘I’m no liar. Two of the staff – and they weren’t my lot either – searched her room and found a number of valuables stuffed in the mattress.’
‘My lass stole?’
It was evident to Biddy that this news had come in the form of a shock to Bessie Bradshaw, for the woman screwed up her face as if in protest, then said, ‘You tellin’ the truth, Biddy Drew?’
‘Aye, I’m tellin’ the truth. And there’s those inside there’ – she jerked her head back towards the house – ‘who would go to court an’ swear to it an’ all. And it would be nothing less than three years she’d get, and lucky at that.’
Tilly Trotter Widowed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Page 6