Alexander walked briskly up the steep track, whistling as he went. A group of low-lying stone cottages came into view around the corner, their lintels obscured by honeysuckle. The sweet scent permeated the warm air. A be-capped gardener was helping a young woman out of a cart. Alexander caught a brief glimpse of a fair curved cheek under a large straw hat and a flash of stockinged ankle as she dismounted.
‘Afternoon!’ he called, touching the brim of his hat with his cane, thinking that the ruddy-faced man looked familiar.
The man pulled at his cap in reply, then a red-haired boy bounded out of the cottage and took his attention.
‘Look, look! I’ve got a duck’s egg. Look, Cousin Kate!’
‘Let the lass down first, Alfred,’ said his father.
Alexander grinned at the boy, whose exuberance reminded him of himself at that age, and walked on.
Kate, holding on to her Uncle Peter’s earth-ingrained hand, jumped down from the small cart. She glanced at the walker’s retreating back. He was tall and broad-shouldered, in a smart coat and hat, with thick, wavy hair that touched the back of his collar. Strangely, for a gentleman, he was carrying his own suitcase and seemed to have emerged from out of the woods. But in a few long strides he was gone, with a flash of silver-topped cane and a lusty tuneful whistling, and Kate wondered about him no more.
She turned to hug her young cousin. ‘Hello, Alfred. Let’s see this egg, then.’
The boy dragged her into the cottage, his boots clattering on the stone flags. The kitchen floor was covered in unwashed clothes and the table with dirty dishes. There were trails of dried mud across the rag mats and the range was dull and soot-encrusted. Kate looked around in dismay. Suddenly a pheasant came darting and squawking through the kitchen, making her start in fright. The bird fled out of the open door.
‘That’s Edward - he’s called after the new king,’ Alfred explained. ‘He comes here for his dinner.’
A ginger cat yawned and stretched on a pile of straw near the hearth and fixed an interested gaze on the retreating bird.
‘That’s King Rufus,’ said Alfred, running over to grab the cat. ‘Our George learnt about him in school - said he had ginger hair.’
‘What a lot of royalty!’ Kate laughed. ‘Didn’t know I’d be living with all these kings.’
‘I’ll have to be gettin’ back to work,’ Peter said, his look harassed. ‘George’ll be back soon to help. Your aunt’s in there.’ He nodded towards a closed door. ‘Make yourself at home.’
He raced out of the cottage like the pheasant, leaving her basket by the door.
‘Ta for the lift, Uncle Peter,’ Kate called after him, but he was gone.
Alfred was quite absorbed stroking the cat, but the creature objected to being grappled in his small arms and leapt down, padding quickly after the others.
Kate untied her hat and then wondered in all the mess where to put it. Holding on to it she said, ‘Well, shall we go and tell your mam I’m here?’
‘Yes!’ Alfred cried, having already forgotten about the duck’s egg. He ran to the closed door, jumped at the latch and flung it open. ‘Mammy! Kate’s here. Wake up, Mam!’
Kate stepped into the bedroom and peered into the gloom. ‘Aunt Lizzie?’
A sneeze erupted from the depths of the high bed next to the tiny casement window. ‘Kate? Is that you, hinny? Come closer.’ Her voice was laden with cold.
Alfred had already scrambled on to the bed. ‘Aye, it’s Cousin Kate.’
‘Ow, mind me leg!’ Lizzie cried in pain.
Kate went quickly to her aunt’s side, taking hold of her hand. ‘How are you, Aunt Lizzie? We’ve all been worried -Mam especially.’
‘Mammy’s leg looks like a tree trunk, that’s what me da says,’ Alfred chirped.
Lizzie groaned in frustration. ‘I cannot move out of bed without Peter’s help. And now I’ve caught a cold. I was that worried about what to do until we got your note.’ She gave a weak squeeze of her clammy hand.
‘You don’t have to worry,’ Kate assured. ‘I can stay as long as you need me.’
‘This place is like a pigsty since I took to me bed.’
‘Don’t fret. I’ll get it put right,’ Kate smiled.
‘You’re a good lass,’ Lizzie coughed.
‘Haway, Alfred,’ Kate said, pulling her young cousin off his mother, ‘you said you’d show me that duck’s egg.’
At the sudden reminder Alfred scrambled to the edge of the bed and slid off. He dashed out ahead of Kate.
‘I’ll bring you a cup of tea in a minute.’ Her aunt sneezed in reply and Kate closed the door.
She moved around the unfamiliar kitchen, trying to bring a measure of order to the chaos, tidying and sweeping and trying not to step on Alfred’s collection of eggs and berries and feathers. She cleared the grimy clothes into a pile by the back door and searched the pantry for something to make for tea. At least that seemed well stocked, with baskets of carrots, beans and eggs, a wooden platter of butter, earthenware jars of sugar and flour and a china pail half full of milk. Tomorrow she would tackle the washing and scrub the stone floors.
George, a stocky boy of twelve, returned, eyeing her cautiously from the open front door. He was bashful and sandy-haired like his father, and replied to her questions with grunts. Alfred interpreted for his older brother.
‘He walks the long way back from school looking for birds’ eggs. He got me this,’ the small boy said, cradling the duck egg in his warm, dirty hands. ‘George won’t eat them, but he likes pigeon pie. And he’s got a sweet tooth. Likes Mam’s fruit pies best.’
‘Shurr-up,’ George growled in embarrassment and aimed a boot at his brother’s leg.
Alfred squealed and kicked back. George shoved him, knocking the duck egg from his hands. It splattered over the stone floor. Alfred howled and flew at his older brother, kicking and punching.
Kate intervened, grabbing Alfred round the waist and pushing George away. She was strong-armed and used to separating Jack and Mary from fighting. She stood between them.
‘Stop it! I’ll have no such carry-on while I’m in charge.’
George scowled. ‘You’re not me mam.’
‘No I’m not.’ Kate was sharp. ‘Your poor mam is lying in there trying to sleep. And while she’s laid up, you’ve got me. So you can like it or lump it. Now start clearing up that mess you’ve made.’ She turned to Alfred, who was crying. ‘George’ll find you another one, kiddar. You get a cloth and help an’ all.’
They set about it in sullen silence while Kate got on with tea. By the time Peter came home, they were sat at a cleared table, their hands scrubbed and ready to eat. George had not uttered another word to her, but Alfred could not remain silent for more than a minute and was chattering about frogs and dung beetles.
‘See you’re settling in just grand.’ Peter’s sunburnt face smiled in relief. He wolfed down his tea, grabbed his cap and headed out the door once more. George licked his fingers, pushed back his chair and followed without a word.
She looked at Alfred. ‘Where have they gone?’
‘To put the garden to bed,’ he said simply.
‘Oh. How do they do that?’
Alfred considered this a moment. ‘They water the plants and shut the hothouse windows.’
‘Does that take long?’
‘Till it’s dark. Sometimes I’m asleep. Can I gan out now?’
‘Aye, but not far else I won’t know where to find you.’
Kate cleared the table and heated up water to wash the dishes. She found a tin tub and scrubbed them in front of the fire, leaving them to drain on the hearth. For a while she went into the bedroom and sat with her aunt, giving her news from the family and Jarrow. But Lizzie tired quickly and she made her comfortable for the night.
&
nbsp; Taking out the chamber pot to empty in the midden, Kate had a yearning to explore her new surroundings in the mellow evening light. But she knew it would be foolish to wander off not knowing her way. Besides, she had Alfred and Lizzie to look after. That was why she was here.
Reluctantly she went in search of the young boy, calling him in for the night. She found him swinging from a low branch of a sycamore tree, his dirty impish face glowing in the twilight. For a moment she was reminded of Jack and had a brief pang of homesickness. But it did not last.
Tonight she would be bedding down on a borrowed truckle bed by the kitchen fire with a cat and a pheasant for company. There would be no Mary digging her in the back with her elbows, or the fear of Father’s volatile moods. She would fall asleep knowing she was safe from sudden drunken shouting in the night or being roused from bed to sing for her drink-maddened stepfather.
‘Haway, it’s time for bed.’ She smiled up at Alfred and held out her arms. ‘Tomorrow you can show me all your hiding places.’
The small boy allowed himself to be lifted down.
‘Are you going to stay for ever, Cousin Kate?’
‘Not for ever.’
‘More than a week?’
‘Aye, more than a week.’
‘Good,’ he said, then yawned, his breath warm on her neck. ‘I like you.’
She kissed his unkempt mop of curls. ‘I like you an’ all,’ she smiled and carried him home.
Chapter 5
To Alexander’s delight, Lady Ravensworth returned from the South of France the following week.
‘It’s far too hot there now and I didn’t want to miss the Coronation celebrations,’ she told her dinner guests.
‘They say that won’t be until August,’ Alexander said.
‘We’ll have a grand ball and invite the whole county,’ she enthused. ‘You will stay, won’t you?’ She put a bejewelled hand on his arm.
‘I have business abroad.’ Alexander gave a shrug of apology.
‘Oh, you must stay! Henry, tell him he must,’ she called down the long gleaming table to her husband.
‘What was that?’
She raised her voice almost to a shout. ‘Tell Alex that he can’t leave till after the Coronation ball.’
‘What ball?’
‘The one we’re going to have for the King.’
‘Kin?’
‘Oh, never mind.’ Emma waved her hand with a laugh and turned back to Alexander. ‘You’ll just have to delay your boring old business trip. It’s your patriotic duty to stay. You simply can’t leave the country at a time like this.’
‘Not even for the Riviera?’ Alexander teased.
‘I came back, didn’t I?’ She pouted in mock offence.
‘To everyone’s delight,’ he smiled.
She laughed and patted his hand. ‘You are a terrible charmer. It’s time I put my mind to finding you a wife.’
Alexander rolled his eyes. ‘My father thinks of nothing else. He’s scouring the North of England for someone suitable.’
‘Oh, how depressing. You don’t want suitable. You want someone to match your good looks and your tastes in life. Otherwise you’ll be bored in a year.’ She raised her voice again. ‘Isn’t that right, Henry? Alex must marry for love.’
‘Alexander’s getting married? Do we know her?’
‘No, we have to find her first!’ Emma laughed. She rose. It was the signal for the other women to retire to the drawing room and leave the men to their port.
Alexander gave a wistful look at the departing group, wishing he could carry on his flirtatious conversation with Lady Ravensworth and her friends rather than talk business or hunting with his aged cousin. But he was content to while away the evening drinking the dark port out of crystal glass in the glittering candlelight of the large dining room with its gilt-edged portraits of his ancestors.
He could string out his business at the estate and the surrounding mines for a couple more weeks and delay his voyage until mid-August. There was a weekly steamer from Newcastle to Gothenburg and he could accomplish his business in Sweden and elsewhere long before the Baltic ports became ice-bound.
In the meantime he would enjoy riding out among the Durham hills and roaming the estate and beyond with his sketch book and pencils. It amused Lady Ravensworth to see his cartoons of her neighbours and his drawings of life around the area; men supping beer in a tap room, children playing with hoops, girls in summer bonnets. That was what intrigued and entertained her. A memory of a young woman stepping out of a cart with a flash of stockinged leg flitted through his mind. Lady Ravensworth would approve of that.
At home, his widowed father thought nothing of his artistic efforts, believing them a waste of productive time.
‘You’re a man of business,’ he would protest. ‘You’ll never make a living from paper and paints. Leave that to artists and those leisured folk with nothing better to do.’
But Alexander yearned to be among the leisured; it was in his blood. He daydreamt of being an artist, pictured himself as a highborn aristocrat doing the Grand Tour through Europe and the Levant, painting as he went. Or maybe he would sail to some exotic paradise like Gauguin, live by the warm seas and paint the native people in vivid colours.
After an hour, the men rejoined the women at the far end of the vast drawing room. They were gathered around an elaborately carved fireplace in which a log fire blazed even on this warm summer’s evening. Alexander strolled to one of the long windows and gazed out on to the wide terrace and the sweep of lawns beyond. The last blush of dying sun lit the high tops of the beech trees, which cast bulky shadows across the ornamental gardens.
How he loved being here! In his boyhood it had been a place of enchantment. He had distant memories of being brought here as a small child from smoky, dirty Tyneside, where he was living with Liddell cousins after his mother had died. He had kicked and screamed and run away at the end of the visit rather than be taken back to the dingy, damp rectory that was his temporary home.
‘Would you like a breath of air?’ Lady Ravensworth broke into his reverie.
‘If you would come with me,’ he smiled.
She took his arm. ‘We shall inspect the gardens. Anyone else want to come?’
But the other guests, elderly friends of Sir Henry, took this as their cue to say farewells and call for their carriages, after which their host retired to bed.
Out in the twilight, the air was still warm and heavy with the scent of roses and mown grass. Alexander and his hostess strolled to the end of the terrace and took the steps down towards the walled garden and the path that meandered all the way to the boating lake. Emma kept him entertained with witty descriptions of her French travels and gossip about her fellow travellers.
‘And what’s been happening here in my absence?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t been to Ravensworth since the turn of the year. Father has kept me busy in the south of the county. Now I’m to journey on to Sweden. So I’m quite useless in providing you with the local gossip, I’m afraid.’
‘Poor boy. I think your father is trying to keep you away from us.’
Alexander grunted. ‘He’d certainly rather see me chained to his office desk.’
They stopped by the lake and gazed into its purple depths.
‘And what is it about Ravensworth that so concerns Mr Davies?’ she asked with a note of laughter in her voice.
He looked down at her delicate face, the hair just beginning to grey at the temples, the lines around her blue eyes softened by shadow. If she had been twenty years younger...
‘Too many temptations,’ he answered in a low voice. ‘He’s jealous that I prefer to be here than anywhere else.’
She reached out and touched his face with a gloved hand. Such a strong face, wit
hout an old man’s soft jowls, she thought. And those restless tawny eyes. She suspected a deep passion lay behind his guarded look. He had been a tempestuous small boy, by all accounts.
Alexander slipped his hand up to hers. He gripped it in his warm hold and kissed her scented gloved palm.
Quickly Emma withdrew her hand. What was she thinking of? She must not be tempted.
‘You are a sweet boy,’ she laughed, and drew away. ‘But it just wouldn’t do, would it?’
Alexander flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘No, no,’ she hushed him, ‘we’ll blame it on too much wine at dinner and the smell of a summer’s night.’ She linked arms and led him back up the path. ‘Did you know that we’re growing oranges in the hothouses now? And the peaches this year are delicious -just like French ones. Come, let me show you.’
Alexander cursed himself for his impetuous kiss. The last thing he wanted was to endanger his position with his relations. But she seemed to think it of no account, as if it were the act of some foolish youth. This rankled too.
They mounted the steps once more and rounded the walled garden to the sheltered glasshouses. It was almost dark and Alexander held her arm to stop her tripping on the uneven flagstones. As they approached, a light became visible from inside. A youth was holding aloft a lantern while a thick-set gardener worked a pulley to close the high windows. They were illuminated behind the glass like players on a stage.
Then a young woman carrying a small boy in her arms stepped into the light. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the glasshouse and her mass of brown hair was escaping its pins. She was smiling at the others, saying something then laughing, kissing the top of the sleepy boy’s head. It was a charming domestic picture, Alexander thought with a stab of envy. Once again he felt the outsider, put in his place by the unreachable woman at his side and just as much excluded from the simple family scene in front. He belonged to neither, had never been part of such a family.
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