Stolen Moments

by Rosie Harris

  ‘My brother-in-law has very rigid opinions and obviously objects to our friendship.’

  ‘If he has asked your father to summon you home in order to separate us, then surely you can refuse,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘That is the damnable part of it. Unless I comply, my allowance will be stopped. My father feels it is time I shouldered my responsibilities,’ he explained with a shrug. ‘It seems there have been a great many problems of late and he feels I should be there helping to deal with them.’

  ‘What sort of problems?’

  ‘You would hardly understand. Discontent among the miners over their working conditions. My father is hoping that I can dissuade the men from joining the Rebeccas, a trade union which is part of the Chartist movement.’

  ‘But why should they listen to you when you have no experience of such things?’ Kate asked in amazement. ‘Surely it is a question of improving conditions, not just talking?’

  ‘Look, Kate, you can’t possibly comprehend these matters, not even my sister does and she was brought up in Wales…’

  ‘Oh, but I do, David!’ She suppressed a shudder. ‘I know all about the terrible conditions the miners and their families have to endure. Women stripped to the waist, crawling on all fours like animals, dragging heavy trucks of coal…’

  ‘Kate, where did you hear such things?’ interrupted David in shocked tones.

  ‘I read about them when I worked at the Manor.’

  ‘Read about them?’ he looked puzzled.

  Her seriousness vanished into a grin.

  ‘You remember how I used to have to light the morning fires for Cook… you should do, since we first met when you helped collect up the kindling I dropped when I slipped over one morning.’

  ‘What has that to do with it?’

  ‘The newspapers were always sent down to the kitchen after Lord and Lady Sherwood had finished with them, and it was one of my jobs to roll them up into spills ready to start the fires. Sometimes I could hardly believe what was written there.’

  ‘Kate, really! I…’

  ‘In the towns, streets full of rubbish and the gutters running with filth. I read once that the smells were so foul that even in the hottest weather people had to keep their windows shut because of the stench and fear of the plague. I read about young children working ten hours a day in factories. And there was a report of one poor girl whose hair caught in the driving belt of one of the machines and her entire scalp was torn off, and another…’

  ‘That will do, Kate! You obviously scoured the printed page for the most sensational reports you could find,’ he frowned. ‘I will not be dealing with anything like that, merely persuading the men who work for my father that it is not in their interest to join a trade union.’

  ‘And what if they won’t listen to you? Will they be deported to Australia like those farm labourers from Tolpuddle were four or five years back?’

  ‘This is no time to talk of such unpleasant matters.’

  His lips sought hers and as she returned his kiss with a passion that equalled his own, her anger that there was so much injustice in the world was forgotten. All that mattered was their love for each other.

  The thought that they were to be parted filled her with dismay. Once more she pressed him to tell her when he hoped to return so that at least she would have something to look forward to. It was the vague uncertainty that she found so hard to bear.

  ‘How can I know until I find out what is required of me?’ he said diffidently.

  ‘Then promise you’ll write to me, David,’ she begged, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

  ‘I’ve already told you it is out of the question!’ he exclaimed tetchily. ‘I will try and keep in touch through Helen, but we must be discreet. You understand?’

  She felt defeated. Had she read too much into his kisses, caresses and tender words of love? she wondered. Once again it seemed she was sighing for the moon.

  Chapter 5

  As he was driven away from Bramwood Hall, David Owen looked back with mixed feelings at the three figures waving goodbye to him.

  He was sorry to be leaving. Helen, because she was several years older than he, had taken his mother’s place in his life and, as he had once told Kate, he thought of Bramwood Hall as his second home.

  He felt a moment’s unease as the carriage reached the curve in the drive, knowing that any moment now the house would be hidden from view. He was surprised that only Helen and the two girls had come to see him off and wondered why Kate had not joined them. He had hoped that he would have the opportunity to remind her how important it was to be discreet about what had taken place between them. It was unfortunate she had heard gossip linking his name with Penelope Vaughan. Women could be so unpredictable when assailed by jealousy.

  He congratulated himself on how skilfully he had handled their parting. There had been no recriminations, no tears, simply a plea that he should keep in touch. It had been flattering to know she was so taken by him, since he was fond of her and had enjoyed her company over the past months.

  Her suggestion that they should correspond with each other was out of the question, of course. He could imagine his father’s reaction if he chanced to intercept a letter from her. Or George’s if he wrote to Kate under cover of correspondence to Helen.

  He sometimes felt that George resented the special affinity between himself and Helen and only tolerated him out of politeness and was glad to see him leave. They certainly had very few interests in common.

  George was a dyed-in-the-wool country gentleman with a strong preference for open air activities: horses, hunting and shooting. He had no time for the arts and although there was an extensive library at Bramwood Hall, George rarely read anything other than official documents relating to his estates and his daily copy of The Times. David suspected that George regarded him as a dilettante, looking upon his love of literature and extended studies at university as effete.

  They were exact opposites in looks as well as taste. George had a heavy-jowled, florid face. His shaggy speckled eyebrows almost hid his watery, light-blue eyes. His sandy coloured hair was brushed to one side over a high forehead. Beneath his thin-lipped mouth, the lower half of his face was covered by a speckled beard.

  David considered George to be boorish, callous, bigoted and pompous, particularly in the way he treated his staff and family.

  Over the years, he had seen Helen change from a high-spirited, carefree girl into a woman whose life was ruled by her overbearing husband. He could remember when her fair hair had flowed free and, light of foot, she would race him along the riverbank near their home in Wales. Now she was a plump, staid figure, her hair parted down the middle and drawn back into a bun. She had lost her sparkle, her hazel eyes had an anxious look and her manner was hesitant, as if she was afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing.

  It wasn’t so much the fact that she had two daughters who were almost ready to leave the schoolroom that gave her such a matronly look, as her subdued manner. Sometimes she seemed to be almost afraid to express an opinion. Yet he could remember, in the days before she was married, how she would argue vociferously, priding herself on her individuality. David was sure that behind her apparent placid exterior his sister still held strong views about many things but was scared to voice them.

  Although Helen never complained, David was sure she wasn’t happy. The shadow that darkened her hazel eyes when George raised his voice in anger, her concern when either of the girls irritated their father in any small way, her unease if a meal was a few minutes late, or one of the maids made some slight mistake when serving at table, were not those of a happy, confident woman in charge of her own domain.

  Their father had considered her marriage to George Sherwood a brilliant one because George had a title and was also extremely wealthy. Loss of personal liberty seemed a high price to pay for social standing, thought David. This was the main reason why he absented himself so often from his home in Wales. He found the constant
pressure for him to marry Penelope Vaughan and produce an heir quite unbearable.

  He didn’t want to lose freedom of thought and action as Helen had done. Her so-called brilliant marriage had brought her under the domination of a bigoted, overbearing tyrant; a man who was similar in many ways to their own father.

  David felt sure one of the reasons Helen always made him so welcome was because she understood why he was reluctant to bow to their father’s wishes. Marrying Penelope Vaughan meant he would become involved in her family’s ironworks as well as his father’s coal mining. He knew coal and iron were both essential to industry, but the methods used to obtain them appalled him.

  He recalled his first visit to a colliery when he’d been about ten. He and his father had arrived at the mining offices just as a shift was ending. The miners, coated in thick black dust, their faces white smudges, their eyes gleaming slits screwed up against the dazzle of daylight, had stumbled from the lift cages that had winched them up from the bowels of the earth.

  They had looked like strange animals as they stood there swaying and gulping in fresh air, before staggering away to the terraced cottages that ringed the lower slopes of the nearby mountain.

  Even worse was when he had been taken underground. Not by his father. Tudor ap Owen preferred to delegate such menial tasks. Perri Jenkins had been his guide. Perri had worked underground since he was seven. A twisted, wizened little man, with a coal-pocked face and one arm missing below the elbow, he had survived four explosions and two cave-ins.

  ‘Lucky, see,’ he told David. ‘That’s why they’re putting you in my care!’ His coal-grained face had creased into a smile. ‘Like a cat, see. I’ve got nine lives, I suppose. Come on, then, into the cage with you.’

  The jolting drop to the floor of the mine had churned David’s stomach. Shaking with fear, he had followed the hunchbacked little man along the narrow, coal-dark, underground tunnel for almost a mile, before they reached the seam where half-naked men, women and children, their bodies streaked with sweat and dust, were working.

  Kate’s words had brought all this back and reminded him of the grim realities of the life that lay ahead.

  While he had been at Oxford his time had been fully occupied with studying and pursuing his literary interests. There had been papers to be prepared for debating societies, discussion groups or poetry readings. There had been fellow students, dons and professors to entertain, visits to the theatre, lectures to attend and a thousand-and-one other enjoyable activities to fill his days and nights.

  Since meeting Kate he had spent his vacations at Bramwood Hall. There in the idyllic Wiltshire countryside, with Helen and her two girls, it was easy to put the less pleasant memories of life in the South Wales coalfields from his mind.

  Now it was all coming back.

  Once again he was being haunted by the memory of women, stripped to the waist, hauling trucks through passageways and tunnels so low that it was impossible for them to stand up. Men streaked with sweat, crouched down, hewing and chipping at the shiny seams of black gold, knowing that an unlucky blow could bring thousands of tons crashing down, smothering them in putrid dust, entombing their bodies for ever. Young children, their faces pitted with coal-induced scabs, scrabbling to fill the trucks with the smaller lumps of second-grade coal, or leading the pit ponies that lived permanently underground in the semi-darkness, and which were used to haul the larger trucks.

  Given the choice, David would never have returned to such an industry. He would have much preferred to surround himself with books and involve himself in the academic world where he could compose poetry or write essays.

  He thought enviously of the idyllic life William Barnes led, running his small school in the Chantry House behind the church at Mere. Free to think, free to write his poetry, free to enjoy the rustic beauty around him. There were no man-made scars, no blackened pit workings, no great chimneys belching smoke in that corner of Wiltshire. The only industry there was the linen factory at Lords Mead Mill. Men and women went into service or worked on the land as farm labourers. Their hours were long and their pay low but at least they breathed good clean air.

  He took one last look back at Bramwood Hall as the carriage reached the final curve in the drive, wondering when he would see it again. As he did so, he saw Kate standing slightly apart from the Sherwood family, a slim figure in a neat blue dress, her dark head held proudly.

  Sweet Kate. He would miss her company. She was different from most servant girls. She had benefited greatly from the schooling she’d received from William Barnes. Her soft, low voice had an unusual refinement. She was polite without being obsequious. Yet she was not without spirit.

  He had wanted her from the moment he’d seen her at the Manor. Persuading Helen to engage her as a nanny had been a brilliant stroke, he thought smugly.

  For him, seducing her had not been mere sport, as it was with so many of his contemporaries. He couldn’t stand the thought of raping a girl, not even a servant. Had he stayed on at Bramwood Hall he would have enjoyed continuing his relationship with Kate.

  Now, with Bramwood Hall behind him and out of sight, he viewed the matter more pragmatically. Perhaps one day, if he was ever in a position to be able to afford to do so, he would set her up in an apartment somewhere so that he could visit her whenever he wished.

  The vision pleased him, but he wondered how Kate would react to such an idea. She would certainly enjoy the independence of no longer being at other people’s beck and call. But what of the moral implications, he wondered. Despite her fierce pride and self-confidence, would Kate be content with a clandestine affair, or would she expect the security of marriage?

  Compared to Kate’s slim shapeliness, Penelope Vaughan was unattractive, he thought pessimistically. Her features were as bold as those of a man. She had a strong chin, a deep forehead and a thin, determined mouth. Her green eyes were shrewd and she had a temper to match the fieriness of her red hair.

  From childhood she had been spoiled, her slightest whim indulged and, like George Sherwood, she enjoyed active outdoor pursuits.

  He sighed. There was little chance of escaping from marriage with Penelope Vaughan because the outcome would be so advantageous to both their families. The large tracts of land owned by the Vaughans contained valuable seams of coal and they were anxious for its potential to be fully exploited. A marriage that united the two families was the most satisfactory method of consolidating such an arrangement.

  He was being sacrificed in the same way that Helen had been. Power was of paramount importance to his father and meant far more than their individual happiness.

  Arrangements for Helen’s marriage to George Sherwood had been made by their father without any consultation at all with Helen. She had been inconsolable when she was told about it and had shut herself up in her room refusing to eat or talk to anyone. Tudor ap Owen had remained adamant.

  David would never forget the day when he had tried to speak up for Helen, to explain to his father that she didn’t love George Sherwood and shouldn’t be forced into marrying him.

  ‘What does an eight-year-old know about such matters!’

  ‘Helen doesn’t even like George Sherwood.’

  ‘Poppycock!’

  ‘Helen wants to stay here with us.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘I know she does. That’s why she’s crying.’

  His father had ridiculed him.

  ‘It’s not fair to make her go and live with George Sherwood. He’s old and ugly,’ David had protested.

  ‘You’ve said quite enough,’ thundered his father.

  ‘But…’

  ‘Go back up to the schoolroom and stay there. Stop trying to interfere in matters you are too young to understand.’

  David would never forget the scene that followed. In defiance, he had gone to Helen’s room. His father had followed him and had ranted and raved before locking him in his own bedroom.

  ‘You’ll stay there until I
give you permission to come out,’ he ordered. ‘And don’t attempt to speak to your sister again.’

  The following week he had been sent away to boarding school. To his surprise, once he was over the strangeness of being away from home, he found he enjoyed it there. Not only did he have the opportunity to study but he was encouraged to do so. He chose friends who were more interested in poetry and learning than in boisterous games.

  The next time he had seen Helen, she had been walking down the aisle of their church on the arm of her new husband, Sir George Sherwood.

  He could still remember the look of triumph on his father’s face as he addressed the guests at the reception; his overbearing smugness because the deal had been successfully completed. Now, he was sure, his father was planning to treat him in exactly the same ruthless manner as he had Helen; without any consideration for his feelings.

  It was his turn to obey.

  Chapter 6

  Bramwood Hall seemed desolate after David departed.

  The weather had turned damp and chilly and neither of the girls wished to venture out of doors. Feeling restless, Kate walked to the end of the drive and back on her own one mid-morning. She felt dispirited, as if part of her very soul had been dragged from her and transported she knew not where.

  It was with considerable effort she carried out her duties for the rest of the day, trying to make herself amenable although her thoughts were far away.

  There was nothing unusual in the fact that Sir George barely acknowledged her when they met at dinner. He had never shown any real warmth since the day she had arrived and the incident over the croquet squabble between Beth and Mary had not improved matters.

  What did worry Kate, however, was that Helen also seemed cool and distant. She hesitated to ask what was the matter because she had the uneasy feeling that she wouldn’t like Helen’s reply.

  A week later she had her answer.