‘Sir.’ She beckoned him. ‘Do you think you could reach those ones higher up, please?’
He stopped to help, leaning his stick against the railings. The day was still warm and he was flushed and perspiring in his dark clothes.
‘I’ve lemonade in the bottle. Would you like some?’
Herbert nodded and sat on a nearby seat, swigging thirstily. Clarrie carried on snipping roses and dropping them into her basket, glancing at him each time she did so.
‘Go on,’ Herbert said, eyeing her. ‘You’ve something to tell me.’
Clarrie gave him a guilty look, and then laughed. ‘How do you know?’
Herbert grunted. ‘You have that determined look in your eye, as if you’re taking a deep breath before tackling something unpleasant.’
Clarrie smiled and put down her secateurs. ‘You don’t miss much, do you, sir?’
‘Come and sit beside me, Clarrie,’ he ordered. ‘Is it Bertie who’s sent you?’
Clarrie sat down carefully, her hands clasped in her lap, and nodded.
‘I won’t be swayed,’ Herbert said firmly.
‘I didn’t think so.’
‘But you think I’m wrong about this nursery business?’
‘No,’ Clarrie said gently, ‘there’s no right or wrong to it.’ He waited for her to go on. ‘I just wonder what — what Mrs Stock would have wanted for her first grandchild.’
Herbert said nothing. When she slid him a look, she saw that his jaw was clenched and his eyes were glistening.
‘I just can’t,’ he whispered, his voice cracking. ‘It’s too soon.’
Instinctively, Clarrie put out a hand to touch his. ‘I understand — my father was the same about my mother. He couldn’t bear to sleep in the same room ever again after she died.’
Herbert let go a small groan and a tear rolled down one cheek. Clarrie said, ‘If you can’t bear the thought of a baby in the house, why don’t you make it possible for Mr Bertie and Miss Verity to have a place of their own?’
He turned to look at her, frowning. Swiftly she withdrew her hand. As usual she had been too forthright.
‘I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn.’
‘No, Clarrie, I’m glad you did. I never thought of it. But you’re right — now that they are embarking on a family it’s high time they had their own home.’ He regarded her. ‘Where does such wisdom come from in one so young?’ he mused.
Clarrie gave a rueful smile. ‘Not always so wise, I’m afraid.’
‘And what of your future, Clarrie?’ he asked unexpectedly. ‘Are you still being courted by Mr Milner’s lad?’
She flushed. ‘No, sir. We had a misunderstanding.’ She stood up.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, watching her as she collected her basket. Clarrie nodded and hurried inside, before he asked any more. She had not seen Jack to talk to since the previous year. He came fortnightly rather than weekly now and sometimes she watched him approach. He had grown a moustache. Recently he had traded up to a larger van and wore a new suit. Business was certainly blossoming. But she never asked Olive about him and her sister never mentioned his visits for fear of upsetting her.
To Clarrie’s delight, news that Bertie and Verity were house-hunting spread below stairs in a matter of days. Lavender thought she was the first to hear about it and break it to the others.
‘Madam has expressed a preference for living in Jesmond.’ She aped her mistress’s words. ‘Such a pleasant area yet still handy for the town.’
Clarrie and Olive shrieked with joy once the woman was out of earshot.
‘I can’t believe we’ll be rid of her so soon!’ Clarrie cried.
Soon Olive was worrying. ‘But what if Mr Stock doesn’t need us once they’ve gone? He might manage with just Dolly and Sarah.’
Clarrie smothered her sudden doubt. ‘I’m sure he’ll take care of us.’
A large, double-fronted house in Tankerville Terrace was chosen and quickly purchased. Verity spent the following month being driven to and fro to oversee its decoration. They were to move in November, the month before the baby was due, in time for her confinement. Two weeks before their removal, she summoned Clarrie to her sitting room. She was propped up in an armchair against a wall of cushions, looking large-bellied and uncomfortable. The room was stuffy from the blazing fire.
‘Belhaven, I’m drawing up a list of staff that I’ll need at Tankerville,’ she said, waving a sheaf of notepaper. ‘I want you to help me.’
Clarrie looked at her in confusion. ‘Me, ma’am?’
‘Yes, you,’ Verity said irritably, fanning her flushed face. ‘As my housekeeper it’s important that you have some say in the servants I choose.’
Clarrie’s heart sank. ‘Y-your housekeeper?’ she stammered.
‘Yes,’ Verity said loudly, as if she were stupid. ‘You’ll be coming with me as my housekeeper.’
‘But I work for Mr Stock,’ she protested.
‘It’s all arranged with Mr Stock,’ Verity said, waving the papers impatiently. ‘Now come on, help me.’
Clarrie stood rooted in disbelief. She had not even been consulted! She would not be passed around like a piece of furniture. And what would happen to Olive?
‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ she said defiantly, ‘but I’m not leaving Summerhill. Not unless Mr Stock sacks me.’ With that she turned and left Verity open-mouthed with incredulity.
It turned out that it was Bertie who had highhandedly tried to appropriate Clarrie as housekeeper without his father’s say-so. When Herbert discovered what was going on, he took Bertie to task.
‘You can’t treat the Belhaven girls like that; they should have been consulted and so should I.’
Bertie tried to brush it off as a misunderstanding. ‘You’re right, of course, Papa. It’s just that our needs are greater than yours as regards servants. Verity thought you wouldn’t mind.’
‘But I do mind.’ Herbert was indignant. ‘If Clarrie and Olive wish to stay here, then they shall.’
The sisters were greatly relieved, but it marred the final days of Verity’s rule. She made spiteful comments within their hearing and had both of them running after her with all kinds of demands right up until the day of departure. Sarah, the kitchen maid, went to the new household to train as a parlour-maid.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said brightly. ‘Working for Miss Verity’s a picnic compared to running after me family.’
A week before Christmas, Will came home and Verity gave birth to twins — Vernon and Josephine. All the Stocks and Landsdownes gathered for Christmas at Tankerville, Verity and Bertie keen to show off their new house and babies. Dolly went home to her family for three days, and after church Clarrie and Olive were left to themselves.
They decided to take a picnic and cycle out west until the armaments factories and terraced ranks of Benwell and Scotswood petered out into fields. It was sunny and mild and Olive sketched the bare trees and vivid outlines of brown hills against pale blue sky.
Clarrie gazed north. ‘Someday soon, we’re going to go and look for Father’s farm,’ she said. ‘I won’t feel a part of this place until we do.’
Olive was absorbed in her drawing and Clarrie did not think she heard. But when they packed up to go, Olive said, ‘It’ll just be a farm.’
Clarrie looked at her in surprise. ‘Aren’t you the least bit curious to see where he came from?’
Olive shrugged. ‘Not really. It’ll be smelly and clarty and a long way from shops.’
Clarrie laughed, a little shocked by her sister’s indifference. It also struck her for the first time how Olive was picking up a local accent, using words that Dolly and Sarah would. ‘You have turned into a town lass, haven’t you?’
Olive gave it some thought. ‘Aye.’ She smiled. ‘I have — long as it’s the posh end.’
It was dark when they arrived home. They had just stoked up the fires when Herbert and Will came in. Clarrie offered to bring them up a light supper, but Will groaned. ‘Could
n’t eat another thing.’
‘That must be a first!’ Clarrie teased.
‘There was enough to feed the whole of Tyneside,’ Herbert grunted. ‘Just a cup of tea would be fine.’ As Clarrie and Olive took their coats, he added, ‘Why don’t the pair of you join us in the study? Unless you have other plans,’ he added bashfully.
‘We could play backgammon,’ Will enthused. ‘You’ll never beat me now, Clarrie, I play all the time at school.’
‘Good to see your expensive education is being put to good use,’ Herbert said drily.
Clarrie laughed. ‘I accept the challenge.’
‘Olive, please bring your violin,’ Will urged. ‘Then we can play together.’
The four of them spent the evening by the study fire, Clarrie and Will playing board games while Herbert and Olive read, then Herbert and Clarrie listening while Olive and Will played their instruments.
It was the nearest thing to winter evenings at Belgooree with her parents and Kamal that Clarrie could remember. She felt deeply grateful to the liberal-minded Herbert and his affectionate younger son for allowing them a taste of family life.
The next day, Herbert was back working at his desk and Will went off to visit Johnny.
‘Why don’t you invite him here?’ Clarrie suggested. ‘We’d be happy to cook whatever he likes.’
Will was enthusiastic and Clarrie realised no one had ever suggested such a thing before. It would never have occurred to his father, and Verity would have been against having an extra tiresome youth under her feet.
Johnny Watson was a lively dark-haired boy who giggled as much as Will and spoke with a trace of a Scottish accent. At Will’s request, Clarrie and Olive made them Indian dishes of curried lamb and chickpeas with rice, with flat unleavened bread that the boys helped them fire on the stove hotplate. Johnny was agog at such daring and Will’s familiarity with the servants, but joined in with enthusiasm. Clarrie showed them how to scoop up their food with the bread.
Herbert found them sitting at the kitchen table eating and Clarrie jumped up guiltily.
‘I’m sorry, sir. I thought you were at the office.’
He hesitated, frowning at the boys.
‘It’s very good, Papa,’ Will said, mouth crammed with food.
‘Smells it,’ Herbert agreed, pulling out a chair. ‘May I have some?’
Clarrie grinned in relief. ‘Certainly, sir.’
***
All too soon, Will and Johnny were returning to school and the house seemed forlornly empty again. As 1909 progressed, Clarrie even looked forward to duty visits from Verity. She would come on Thursday afternoons — ‘she doesn’t realise Jack’s broken off our courtship,’ Clarrie said drily to Olive — and bring the twins to see their grandfather. Herbert would return early from the office to see them and to everyone’s amazement appeared to dote on the babies. He would tickle their chins and pull faces, and carry them about the room jiggling them vigorously until they cried. Often Clarrie would be handed a squalling baby to pacify and she would swaddle it to her front and carry it until it was lulled asleep, as she had seen Ama do in her childhood.
One summer’s afternoon, when the study door was left open to allow a breeze, Clarrie heard Bertie’s raised voice.
‘… too many! You don’t need all three.’
‘I don’t interfere in your household so don’t interfere in mine,’ Herbert growled.
Clarrie, bringing up a jug of fresh water, realised they were talking about her, Olive and Dolly. She stopped on the stairs, uncertain.
‘We on the other hand could do with more servants; Lavender can’t cope on her own with the twins. She’s too old. Perhaps Belhaven could come to us for a while until they settle, Papa.’
Herbert snorted. ‘Until they’re off to boarding school, you mean. Once Verity’s got her, she’ll not hand her back.’
‘What difference does it make?’ Bertie asked. ‘You can keep the musical one. You don’t need both.’
Clarrie stood on the stairs, indignant. If Herbert gave in, she would hand in her notice there and then.
‘Please, Papa, at least consider it. Verity’s really quite insistent that it should be Belhaven senior. She has a knack with the twins, it seems — a born nursemaid.’
‘Very well,’ Herbert sighed, beginning to give way, ‘I’ll give it some thought.’
‘We’ll pay her well, if that’s what’s worrying you,’ Bertie assured him.
Clarrie could not face them. Furious at being discussed in such a way, she turned and stalked back to the kitchen. Olive was alarmed when later that evening Clarrie blurted out what she had overheard.
‘They can’t split us up,’ she cried, ‘they just can’t.’
‘They won’t.’ Clarrie was adamant.
‘And I don’t want to go and work for that awful Verity,’ Olive fretted.
‘Neither do I. We’ll go somewhere else. We’re very employable now,’ Clarrie said proudly. ‘There are agencies we can go to who’ll find us work. I didn’t know such things existed when we first came over, or I’d have got us out of the pub a lot sooner.’
Clarrie steeled herself for a summons to Herbert’s study. It was the end of the week before he plucked up the courage to confront her, by which time she was in such a state of anxiety that she could hardly speak two words to him for fear of being rude.
He was standing in his customary defensive position by the window behind his desk, his hands clutched tightly on his walking stick.
‘Clarrie,’ he began, ‘please sit down.’
‘I prefer to stand, sir,’ she said, tight-voiced.
He shot her a wary look. She stared back at him defiantly. He glanced away and looked out of the window, his fingers clenching. She felt a sudden stab of pity. This was as difficult for him as it was for her. Then she hardened her heart. He was about to get rid of her because he was too weak to stand up to his demanding son and selfish daughter-in-law.
‘I know what you’re going to ask,’ she said sharply, ‘and the answer’s no.’
He swung round and gaped at her. ‘How could you possibly?’
‘I happened to hear you and Mr Bertie talking about it.’ Clarrie blushed. ‘I wasn’t eavesdropping; I was on my way upstairs and the door was open.’
Herbert stepped quickly round the desk towards her. ‘I’m sorry—’ he began.
‘Well, we won’t go. Me and Olive. And we won’t be separated. If you don’t want us here, we’ll find somewhere else — somewhere we’re appreciated.’ Clarrie glared at him, the indignation she had kept at bay suddenly spilling out. ‘It may be a petty matter of domestic economics to you and Mr Bertie, but for me and Olive this has been our home for over three years. And we’ve grown to care for it — for Master Will—’
Dropping the stick, he reached forward and grabbed her hands. ‘Clarrie, stop!’
She broke off, trying to control herself. He had never touched her before. She could see how agitated he was by her outburst, but she would not go without telling him how she felt. ‘All I ask is that you give us a good reference,’ she said stiffly, pulling her hands away.
He stared at her with troubled eyes, his gaunt face strained.
‘No, Clarrie,’ he said, his jaw clenching.
‘No?’ she repeated, anger curdling inside again. ‘Why not? It’s the least you could do, sir.’
‘Because I don’t want you to go!’ he cried.
She stared back, unsure. ‘You don’t?’
‘No! I want you to stay. I want your sister to stay,’ he said impatiently.
‘But sir, you said to Mr Bertie—’
‘Forget what I said,’ he snapped, ‘and just listen to me for a minute.’
Clarrie gulped. He seemed furious with her now. She had spoiled things between them by speaking her mind and she need not have said anything. He was not going to send her to Verity’s after all.
She saw a pulse throbbing in his temple as he struggled to master his temper.
‘I did consider giving you the chance to work for my son. You are young. It would be a livelier household. A more prestigious position. All this I considered with your welfare in mind.’
‘Thank you, sir, but—’
He held up a hand to silence her. ‘But I had another reason for sending you away.’ He gave her a stern, penetrating look. Clarrie went cold inside. She had a sudden wild thought that Herbert had somehow learned of the incident in the garden with Wesley, that he had heard damaging gossip about her.
‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I’ve grown to care too much for you — more than a man should for his housekeeper.’
She stared at him, wondering if she had heard correctly.
‘You’re shocked, aren’t you?’ he said grimly. ‘I know I’m old enough to be your father and that my feelings are not reciprocated. But I can’t help it. My admiration for you has grown into something far warmer. I could not have got through these past terrible years without your help. Just to hear your footstep on the stair or your voice calling from below has been a comfort, Clarrie. I cannot imagine what this house would be like without you in it.’
‘Sir?’ Clarrie said in bewilderment. ‘How can I stay here now you’ve told me this?’
His look grew urgent. ‘Clarrie, I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay and …’ He struggled with his words. ‘The question I wanted to ask you before …’ He took her hands in his again. ‘Will you marry me?’
Clarrie jolted in shock. ‘Marry?’ she gasped.
He nodded, his expression anguished. ‘I know it wouldn’t be for love on your part, but I can offer you much. This house and a secure future for you and your sister. Olive could take up her music again, and her painting. I could help you finance the tea room that Will says you’ve always wanted.’
Her heart hammered. As Mrs Herbert Stock, both she and Olive would never be homeless. They would have social standing. They would never have to scrub another hearth again, or do another’s bidding. Olive could resume her music lessons. And her own tea room! That would make the Veritys and Wesleys of this world sit up and take note. Instantly her excitement deflated. Herbert’s family would be furious; they would stop it. Her anxiety showed.
THE TEA PLANTER'S DAUGHTER:A wonderfully moving story of courage and enduring love: First in the India Tea Series Page 22