by Rosie Harris
Her years of training as scullery maid at the Manor had given her a thorough grounding in the right way of doing things. With Morgan Edwards’ permission she arranged for Mrs Price to hire some additional daily help and she made sure they all accounted for themselves well.
Kate supervised as curtains were taken down and washed, carpets lifted, taken outside and hung over the clothes line where they were thoroughly beaten. Upholstery was brushed and sponged, wooden furniture polished, ornaments washed and put back on newly polished shelves.
On fine days the windows were opened wide to let in fresh air. Soon the house had a sparkle and freshness that was apparent to even the least discerning eye.
Determined to reorganize the running of Machen Mawr, she studied the general routine, comparing it with the way things had been done at Bramwood Hall. When she was ready to make changes she introduced them gradually, talking them through with Mrs Price, securing her approval and winning the older woman’s support.
Morgan Edwards seemed well satisfied with the way things were turning out. He frequently praised Kate on the smooth running of his home. It was a long time since a woman had graced his table, and he found himself looking forward to his evening meal and the chance to talk to her.
There were exceptions to the air of contentment that otherwise seemed to pervade.
When Brynmor was at home the atmosphere underwent a subtle change. Mathew became edgy and would dissolve into tears at the slightest provocation, and frequently this made Morgan irritable and impatient.
For her part, Kate sensed that Brynmor was watching her, waiting to strike.
On the surface he was polite, but whenever she chanced to glance at him there was a calculating gleam in his small, dark eyes and a curious, leering twist to his thick lips.
She avoided him as much as possible. When he invited her to visit his works and see for herself the wondrous process he had perfected for Japanware, she declined, saying that she was too busy reorganizing things at Machen Mawr, an excuse that sounded feeble even to her own ears.
Once the novelty of her new situation wore off a little, Kate began to lie awake at night in her four-poster bed, fretting for news of David. She considered writing to Helen but was afraid Sir George might intercept her letter.
If only she knew how far it was from Machen Mawr to David’s home. Morgan Edwards or Mrs Price would be able to tell her, of course, but some inner caution kept her from mentioning her close friendship with David.
Kate went hot and cold at the thought that David might agree to marriage with Penelope Vaughan. Surely he wouldn’t take such a step… not now! Not after they had lain in each other’s arms, and he had told her how much he loved her and whispered sweet words of endearment. He must know she wouldn’t have given herself to him so completely unless she believed his feelings for her were as deep as her own for him. He had been her first and only lover.
No one would ever take his place.
Some nights, when her need for David became intolerable, she envisaged leaving Machen Mawr and making her way to the valley that lay between Coity and Blorenge to see if she could find Fforbrecon colliery.
In her fantasy, she could almost feel his arms around her, hear his exclamation of delight when she arrived so unexpectedly. He would declare his love, kiss her tenderly, and promise that they’d never be parted again.
Then he would introduce her to his father and announce they were to be married. There would be no awkward questions about her background or where they had met, just welcoming smiles and joyous acceptance.
To banish such thoughts, Kate concentrated on the changes she was making at Machen Mawr.
‘Every day there seems to be another innovation,’ puffed Olwen Price. ‘The years I’ve been working in this kitchen and never thought to change things,’ she added as they took a well-earned rest.
‘If you don’t like the new arrangement we can always move everything back as it was.’
‘Oh, no! It makes the place look better as it is now.’
‘I think you’ll find it easier when you’re cooking.’
‘Bound to do so. I can reach everything so much easier.’
‘And you won’t be standing with your back to the range when you’re making pastry on the table.’
‘That’s true. So me and Glynis won’t bump into each other all the time when she is stirring something over the fire.’
‘You’ll be able to see if any of the pans are about to boil over without having to turn round.’
Every room in the house benefited from Kate’s attention to detail. She became so absorbed in these changes that at first she failed to notice how quiet and withdrawn Mathew had become. When she did, she dismissed it as being fatigue after his long days at school.
Tired out herself after her exertions, Kate slept heavily until one night she was woken by someone tugging at the bedcovers. It was Mathew, and he was sobbing uncontrollably.
Sitting up in bed, she gathered him in her arms, soothing him with whispered admonishments, trying to discover the reason he was so upset.
It was some time before he was coherent enough to tell her that he’d had a bad nightmare. Only then did she learn that he was being teased and bullied at school.
Knowing how timid and nervous he was, her heart ached for him. She held his trembling body close until his sobbing ceased and the convulsive shudders that wracked him finally eased. He was cold and shivering so she wrapped the blanket and quilt around him, cuddling him until he was asleep. As she lay there wondering if it would waken him if she carried him back to his own bed, she drifted off to sleep herself.
When the early morning household sounds roused her, she realized that Mathew was still cradled in her arms. Without comment, she sent him back to his own room to get dressed.
Two nights later he repeated his middle of the night visit.
‘I’ve had another nightmare, Kate.’
‘It’s over now you’re awake,’ she told him, trying to calm his fears.
‘It’ll come again when I close my eyes, I know it will,’ he sobbed.
‘No, it won’t.’
‘Can I come into your bed,’ he begged. ‘I’m cold.’
‘Only for a minute or two, then.’
She held him close until his sobs abated.
‘Off to your own bed now, Mathew.’
‘Must I…’
‘Come along and I’ll tuck you in.’
Half an hour later, Kate was aware that he had crept back into her bed again. Still half asleep, she let him stay.
They were awakened next morning by Brynmor. He had entered the room very quietly and was standing by the side of the bed before Kate realized he was there.
‘What are you doing here?’ She sat up with a gasp of alarm.
Aware that Brynmor’s gaze was fixed on the open neck of her nightdress, she pulled the sheet high up to her chin, her face flushing with embarrassment.
‘So this is what you get up to,’ he leered, his dark eyes gleaming as he looked down at Mathew still curled up asleep. ‘Does my father know what is going on?’ he queried, raising his dark brows questioningly.
‘Mathew had a nightmare, he needed comforting,’ she told him sharply.
‘Lots of us get nightmares!’ He ran the tip of his tongue over his thick lips. ‘It’s an interesting cure.’
‘Get out… you had no right coming in here in the first place,’ she ordered, her voice quivering with anger.
‘When neither you nor Mathew came down to breakfast I came to find out why,’ he told her, watching her reaction. ‘It is almost nine o’clock.’
‘I don’t believe you!’ Kate stared at him in dismay. She was usually sitting down to breakfast by half-past seven.
‘It’s quite true!’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Fortunately for you, my father left early this morning and asked me to take Mathew to school.’ He dragged the cowering child from under the covers and, placing the toe of his boot against the small of Mathew’s b
ack, sent him crashing through the doorway.
Kate bit the inside of her cheek, struggling to control her anger at his vicious treatment of Mathew.
‘Finding you cosseting him in your bed is hardly the sort of behaviour I expected from a nanny,’ he taunted with arrogant amusement.
‘Mathew was frightened… he needed reassurance.’
Even as she made the explanation, Kate felt resentment rising inside her. There was nothing for her to make excuses about, she had done nothing wrong. And, even if she had overstepped her role as nanny, there was no need for her to account for her actions to Brynmor. He wasn’t her employer.
Morgan Edwards had hired her to look after Mathew and to take his mother’s place. Taking a child into her own bed to try and allay his fears after a bad nightmare was exactly what any mother would have done in the circumstances, Kate told herself.
Brynmor was out to make trouble for her, but she couldn’t understand why. Surely he couldn’t be jealous of Mathew! The child was puny and undersized for his age, fraught with nerves and no match at all for a brother who was ten years older and already a businessman in his own right.
‘Mathew was frightened,’ she repeated, her voice firm, her shoulders squared, her dark head held proudly.
‘I get frightened, too,’ Brynmor answered in a soft, insidious tone. Leaning forward he seized her wrist in a vice-like grip.
Kate tried to pull free but his hand clenched tighter until she was squirming with pain.
‘Next time I’m frightened, can I creep into your bed?’ he asked suggestively.
‘Get out of my room and stay away from me or I’ll tell your father,’ Kate stormed, her blue eyes blazing, her anger so roused that it overcame her fear of him.
‘If you do then I shall tell him about Mathew being in here and see that he is whipped!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Your father wouldn’t punish him.’
‘Are you sure? My father wants Mathew to grow up strong and resilient. The thought of him coming crying to you would make him very angry. Whipping turns a weakling into a man… or didn’t you know that?’
‘You are wrong… quite wrong! In Mathew’s case it would probably bring on an asthma attack.’
‘A fine excuse!’
‘Don’t you realize he is still missing his mother…’ she paused, fighting back the sour taste in her throat as she became aware that Brynmor was regarding her with a contemptuous smile. She felt the flush rising in her cheeks as she realized she was letting him provoke her and saw the mocking gleam in his dark eyes.
‘I hope you can remember all that when the time comes,’ he warned.
‘When what time comes?’ She regarded him blankly, unable to understand the direction his mind was taking. He stood there, a tall, domineering young buck, one hand behind his back, the thumb of the other tucked inside the pocket of his striped red and blue silk waistcoat. The scented oil he had used to control his thick, dark hair and mutton-chop whiskers wafted towards her, sweetly sickening. She noticed that his smooth-fitting black jacket with its long, wide lapels had been padded to emphasize the width of his shoulders. His black trousers were so tightly tailored that they outlined the shape of his thighs. Even his cravat was flamboyant. He had fastened it in a Duke knot and then weighted the end of it to ensure it hung in a precise line.
As she became aware of what a dandy Brynmor was, so her fear of him ebbed away. There was no cause for her to feel guilty over what had happened. She had been hired to be a mother substitute, she told herself again, and she was doing nothing wrong in reassuring and comforting Mathew.
‘You deserve to be reprimanded for this,’ he persisted. He licked his full lips. ‘I know the punishment I should like to see meted out.’
She saw him for what he was, a polished version of her Uncle Charlie. All men are brothers stripped of their frock coats and finery, she thought scornfully. He was cunning and wily as Charlie had been and from now on she would be on her guard.
‘I wish to get dressed, Brynmor,’ she stated icily.
‘Am I stopping you?’ He grinned sardonically.
‘I can hardly do so while you are still in my bedroom.’
He gave a deprecating shrug and turned towards the door.
Kate waited until she was quite sure he had gone before she threw back the covers and slid out of bed. Her legs felt like jelly as she crossed the room and locked the door.
The incident troubled her for the rest of the day.
Mathew, too, seemed subdued when he returned home from school. Kate wondered whether she should talk to him about what had happened that morning or whether it was better to say nothing and treat it as something of no consequence. So much depended on what Brynmor told his father.
When she learned that Brynmor would not be home for dinner that evening, because he was attending a meeting in Newport, Kate decided to put the matter out of her mind.
Later, when she went up to say good night to Mathew, he kept his eyes tightly closed, pretending to be asleep. She sat down on the side of his bed, stroking his hair, wishing he would talk to her. She wanted to assure him that he had done nothing wrong and that he shouldn’t be upset by anything Brynmor had said.
Since he refused to converse with her she began talking in a low, gentle voice, hoping that some of the things she said would make sense to him and help soothe away his fears.
Before she went to bed herself, Kate went along to Mathew’s room again. As she tucked him in she sensed he was not asleep. As she closed his bedroom door, she heard a muffled sob and it took every vestige of self-control not to go back, gather him up in her arms and carry him to her bed.
Kate had no idea how long she had been asleep when she woke to the sound of her bedroom door being opened. She lay still, thinking that it was probably better if she let Mathew think she was asleep.
The bed creaked as a body slid beneath the covers.
Suddenly she was fully awake, her skin crawling with fear. It wasn’t Mathew who had climbed into her bed!
Before she could utter a sound a hand was clamped over her mouth.
‘Not who you thought it was, eh!’ Brynmor sniggered.
Kate struggled violently but she was no match for his strength.
‘Now it’s your turn to have a nightmare!’
Keeping one hand over her mouth, he ripped her nightdress from the throat downwards and she shuddered as he groped at her. As she started to cry out, he whipped the pillow from beneath her head and crushed it down on her face. She struggled desperately but he held it there until she was almost suffocated, until all the flight had gone from her.
She lay limp and inert after he removed it, too weak to fight him off as he squeezed and fondled her, invading every crevice of her body.
His mouth savagely covered hers, silencing her feeble moans. His sexual appetite was voracious and unhealthy and she felt sick with horror at the things he did.
She wanted to die.
When he left just before dawn, her entire body was bruised, battered and bleeding, her mind dazed with shame at the way she had been treated.
Chapter 14
A million thoughts whirled round in Kate’s mind as she stood by the bedroom window staring out across the valley to where countless chimney stacks rent the glowing sky, their smoke a yellowish grey pall against the red backcloth. On the skyline, she could see the great winding wheels of the coal mines, the slag heaps alongside them desecrating the hillsides like enormous warts.
What sort of place was this? she shuddered. Men, women and children descending into the bowels of the earth every day of their lives, seldom seeing the sun or feeling the wind and rain on their faces.
Entire families slaving in the intense heat of furnaces where a splash of molten metal could sear and disfigure or maim them for life. Men labouring in such a fierce glare that it blinded them. Children who could barely walk and talk being taken into these hell-holes to work, older children and women being used like animals to drag
heavy carts.
Was it any wonder if they grew up to be sadists, with minds as twisted as their bodies?
Yet Brynmor had not been raised like that, she reminded herself.
The vile things that he had done to her would remain for ever in her memory. She felt so humiliated and disgraced that she wanted to hide from the world. Even take her own life if that was necessary.
She looked round the room wondering how she could achieve such an outcome. When she had been a child she had heard her grandmother talking about a woman who had tried to end her life by drinking poison. All it had done was to make her violently sick and leave her permanently weak in the head.
Uncle Charlie had told her about a man who had hanged himself from a tree with a length of rope. ‘Swung there in the wind just like a scarecrow,’ he’d told her over and over again. It had frightened her so much that for weeks afterwards she had peered up into every tree she passed expecting to see a body swinging there.
She didn’t have any rope, but perhaps she could tie the sheets together and string herself up to one of the beams and then jump off the edge of the bed. The idea struck her as ludicrous and a hysterical giggle rose to her lips. What purpose would it serve if she did take her own life, she reasoned.
She didn’t want to die!
Resolutely she straightened her shoulders. Why should she give Brynmor the gratification of knowing he’d upset her so much. He’d only gloat with satisfaction and subject his next victim to even greater obscenities. The episode was over and she’d make sure it never happened again.
Once she found David all this would seem like a nightmare, nothing more.
Instead of trying to hang herself it might make more sense if she knotted the sheets together so that she could climb out of the window and make her escape. That way she could put Machen Mawr and the whole incident behind her and never see Brynmor again.