Eliza was happy in the knowledge that Connie, beloved Connie, was emotionally provided for. Financially, of course, she already had more than enough money. She was a well-off little girl with a house of her own, for the not inconsiderable fortune of John Yetman had been left exclusively to her.
Maybe if he had thought a little more about it he would have altered his will after Ryder’s death, so that some of his fortune went to his son’s widow and children. But by that time he was a sick man, anxious about his young motherless daughter, his mind already on the afterlife.
In the months after Ryder’s death Eliza grappled with the difficulties of her life as a widow, a woman of small means with a household she was entirely responsible for.
Margaret tried to help, but Eliza would never accept money from the Woodvilles. Prosper Martyn offered help, but she was even less inclined to take charity from him.
She cut down her staff by three-quarters, two maids would do where there were four before. Cook was indispensable, and so were Beth and Ted, who, in any case, were part of the family. Beth offered to take in washing for other people and Ted to do odd jobs, but Eliza wouldn’t hear of it. She got rid of a carriage and several horses.
She then set about thinking what else she could do to make ends meet.
Eliza was left a widow at the age of thirty-three. It seemed a very long time from now until the grave, which was sometimes where she wished she could be, lying alongside Ryder. Like Queen Victoria she felt she would never get over the death of her mate, a man so beloved that he still occupied her thoughts night and day.
Her bedroom was a lonely place. The bed was especially solitary. Sometimes she would lie there imagining that he was by her side, and she would reach out in the hope that the dreadful thing that had happened had been a dream, that his comforting form would be there. But the place beside her remained cold and empty, and that was how it would be for evermore.
Also like Queen Victoria she blamed herself for that premature death as though, by some act of foresight, she could have prevented it.
One morning shortly after Connie went to live with Miss Fairchild Eliza lay in bed listening to the sounds of birdsong in the garden. It came filtering in through the window, the plaintive song of the blackbird, the cheerful chatter of the chaffinch. Often at that hour in the morning she and Ryder would make love because it was a quiet tranquil time of the day, a good time for them to be together, before the house came alive and all the bustle started.
Eliza felt very lonely in her large bed, and she wondered if the whole house were not after all too big for them. If it might be wiser to live elsewhere, and let the brothers do as they would. Their shadow would be permanently over her. Whatever they said, she did not trust them. Tomorrow, or next year, or in five or ten years, they would want the house back.
But no, to move would be to give in. She raised her head as she heard a tap on her door, and called out cautiously ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Laurence, Mother.’
‘Come in, darling,’ she called and held out a hand from the bed as he crept across the room towards her in his nightshirt. ‘Oh, darling,’ she said gazing at his wistful face.
He stood looking at her shyly, and then, impulsively, she flung back the bedclothes and with a whoop he leapt into bed beside her. Laurence was a tall, well-built boy and the bed shook so much that, for a moment, Eliza feared it was in danger of collapsing.
It was a long time since, disturbed by nightmares, he had crept in in the small hours of the morning and stood by the door, finger in his mouth, watching, waiting, trembling a little with fear while his parents slept. Sometimes when they woke up they didn’t know how long he’d been standing there and shivering, blue with cold, and he would be helped into their bed and would snuggle up between them to get warm.
Now, much older and the man of the house, he lay very timidly beside his mother. Eliza put her arm around him and drew him towards her.
‘What is it Laurence? Are you unhappy?’
Silently he nodded, and in the light of dawn she could see how pale and grave his face was, a suspicion of tears in his eyes.
‘What is it, darling? Anything in particular?’
‘It’s about going to school,’ he said.
‘What about it?’ She pressed him even closer to her and laid her chin on his head.
‘I would like to stop going to school, Mother, so that I can be of help to you. Some boys leave when they’re fourteen, and I nearly am.’
‘But Laurence –’ she pushed him slightly away and looked at him in dismay ‘– you can’t leave school at fourteen! Your father would be horrified.’
‘Father’s not here, Mother, is he? I can see you’re worried about money. Half the staff have left. We haven’t much to live on, have we, Mother?’
‘No, we haven’t,’ she said after a pause, aware that her son, despite his youth, was now conscious of his responsibilities, aware of his duty to take his father’s place. ‘But I don’t want it to worry you. We have enough if we live carefully. It certainly mustn’t affect your education.’
‘But I don’t like school, Mother.’
‘You always did.’ She looked at him doubtfully. ‘I thought you were going to be the scholar of the family. Are you just saying this to try and help me?’
‘No. I mean I would like to try and help you, but I really don’t like school.’
‘Then what would you like to do?’
‘I’d like to learn the building business, like Father. I’d like to start up Yetman’s again and make it successful.’
‘Would you like to work for your uncles?’ she enquired with a note of irony in her voice.
‘You know I wouldn’t like that, Mother,’ Laurence replied gravely. ‘But maybe we can rescue something from them? Maybe we can build up the business and make it successful like it was before.’
Eliza leaned back against the pillow, and suddenly a great burden seemed to have been lifted from her. Her son was a man, and they would survive.
Julius Heering looked round the empty hall of his large house, aware of the echo of his footsteps every time he moved. He could even hear himself breathing, the thump of his heart in his chest.
He had walked from the bottom to the top, gone round the circular gallery and then slowly down again, entering some of the bedrooms, the modern bathrooms, the large, beautiful reception rooms with the hand-built furniture and works of art, the airy, well-appointed kitchens.
He had sat in the conservatory admiring the hothouse flowers that grew in its south-facing aspect, and then he had been to the basement and toured the cubicles of the Turkish baths, the hot and cold water jets waiting to be turned on.
It all seemed now, in retrospect, the folly of a madman. Was that because it had cost a human life?
He had stood for a long time looking at the roof of the cottage from which Ryder had fallen to his death only a few months before. It was not hard to imagine that bright summer day, the two men working on the roof, the boy falling, the older, experienced man reaching out to help him ...
Suddenly he turned on his heels and flung open the great front doors. He walked resolutely on to the pillared porch with its fine view of the curving drive, the great wrought-iron gates a either side.
Then, putting on his hat, he closed the doors firmly behind him, locked them with the key which he popped into his waistcoat pocket, and ran lightly down the stone steps.
He knew he would never visit the place again. He would put it on the market, or keep it as an investment. Just now he wasn’t sure which. He was in no hurry.
Julius’s carriage was awaiting him in the drive, and he was about to enter it when he saw a movement in the wood behind him. He stood still, expecting the figure, lurking behind the trees, to appear.
But no one came forward, and thinking it was a poacher Julius was about to give his driver the command to proceed when he had second thoughts.
He jumped out of his carriage and, telling the driv
er to wait, strolled towards the wood, hands in his pockets. Still there was no movement, but he knew it had not been an illusion. Then he felt a prickle of fear. He was unarmed, unprepared ... He looked behind him, but his coachman, who was elderly, was dozing in his seat.
Suddenly from behind a tree appeared a familiar figure who, cap in hand, stood awkwardly in front of the owner of the house, obviously aware that he was trespassing.
‘Good morning, Mr ‘Ering, zur,’ the man said. ‘Forgive me, zur, for being on your premises.’
‘Why, it’s Adams,’ Julius said, putting up a hand to shade the sun from his eyes. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’
‘I was looking around the place, zur,’ the man said. ‘Thinking of old times. I like to come here occasionally and look at the cottage where the master died. I like him to know that I’m thinking of him.’
‘Well,’ Julius awkwardly put a hand on the man’s arm, ‘ that’s very good of you, Adams. I’m sure Mr Yetman would appreciate it wherever he is.’
‘He’m up there, zur,’ Perce Adams said, pointing to the sky. ‘Of that I have no doubt. Despite what people do say, I think he was a good man I know it.’
‘What do you mean “despite what people do say”?’ Julius looked at him curiously.
‘I didn’t mean to speak out of turn, zur. Fact is I have no work to do, and I does a lot of thinking.’
‘You’ve no work to do! You mean you’re unemployed?’
‘I haven’t worked since Mr Yetman’s brothers took over, zur, and ran the business into the ground. There is no business now. No Yetman’s left. And they did that in such a short time, zur, only a few months. They sacked all the workers, they stopped all the building as was in progress. They knew nothing about it you see. They’re city folk.’
‘Is the business up for sale?’ Julius asked. He beckoned to Adams. ‘Come and sit in my carriage for a moment and we can talk there.’
Perce Adams put on his cap and followed Julius, their feet crackling over the dead twigs and leaves until they came to the gravelled drive where the carriage still stood, the solitary coachman and his solitary horse still slumbering in the sun.
Perce Adams had been Ryder’s right-hand man – an indispensable worker, ally and friend. Perce had drunk on Fridays with him at the Baker’s Arms and not infrequently had to be escorted home to bed. He had been inconsolable when his master died. Like Ryder he had trained as a builder and could do every job he asked his men to do. He had been with John Yetman since he was a boy, and he was now a man of about forty-five, tough, weather-beaten, used to hard work: a Dorset man, a countryman through and through.
Julius got in first and Perce climbed in after him, thoughtfully dusting the bottom of his trousers so that he did not soil the plush seat. He was clearly ill at ease, and sat very stiff, cap in hand, waiting for Julius to speak.
‘Now, Perce,’ Julius said, ‘what you say is very interesting, also very sad. There is no business left, you say?’
‘Soon won’t be, zur. They be selling everything like hot cakes. They be selling the buildings, and taking the money. ‘Tis a terrible sorry state of affairs, zur.’
‘It is a terrible sorry state of affairs,’ Julius reiterated in his soft, Dutch-accented voice. ‘A good business gone to ruin. Now –’ he paused and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully ‘– what’s this that you’re saying: “despite what people say about Mr Yetman he was a good man.” What does that mean, Perce? I presume you mean Ryder and not John Yetman?’
‘Oh yes, zur,’ Perce said earnestly. ‘I baint never heard nothing but good of his father.’
‘And you hear bad of him?’
‘I heard bad of him, zur, and I didn’t believe it. I still don’t, though there was the evidence of me own eyes ...’
‘For goodness’ sake, man,’ Julius exclaimed irritably, ‘can’t you be more specific, whatever it is you’re trying to say.’
‘I can’t speak no ill of the dead, zur.’
‘Then why did you mention it at all?’
‘It slipped out.’ Perce shut his mouth firmly as though to indicate that his error would not be repeated.
‘How would you like your job back, Perce?’ Julius said after a pause during which, hand on the top of his cane, he had sat gazing moodily in front o£ him.
‘How do you mean, zur?’ Perce’s hat went from one hand to the other like a ball.
‘Would you like to be in the building business again?’
‘Would I not, zur!’ Perce’s eyes gleamed excitedly.
‘When Mr Yetman was alive I tried to persuade him to come into partnership with me and his wife’s uncle. There was no secret about it; but Mrs Yetman, Eliza, was against it. The matter was only broached once more a short time before his death. Alas, if it had only happened ...’ He looked sharply at the man next to him. ‘Now what’s this about Ryder Yetman? I must know or else I can go no further. You understand that, don’t you?’
‘I understand it, zur.’ By the expression on Perce’s face he seemed to be undergoing the torments of the damned. ‘It is just that I don’t like to hear no gossip of the dead, zur.’
‘What is it, man?’
‘Well, zur ...’ Perce went bright red. ‘They say Mr Yetman was after the barmaid at the Baker’s Arms, zur – Annie McQueen. That it was on account of her that he died, and that she is having a child ...’ Perce paused thoughtfully for a moment. ‘They do say the baby she’s carrying is his.’
Eliza sat with her hands folded in her lap; her face, though pale, was composed. Julius, who had probably been a little in love with her for a long time, felt that too often recently he had seen her unsmiling, stricken. She had not recovered from the death of her husband or that of her father-in-law following almost immediately upon it. And now this – perhaps the cruellest blow, the unkindest cut of all.
‘I am sorry to bring you such bad news,’ he said, ‘but I thought it better you should hear it from me than as gossip from the village.’
‘It is still gossip from the village,’ she said bitterly, kneading one hand into the palm of the other. ‘That’s all it is.’
Yet as she spoke, those fears that had resided in the dark, nethermost reaches of her mind seemed to surface. Annie, who had brought the news of Ryder’s death; Annie, who had stood clad in black from head to foot, her face tear-stained, at the back of the church during the funeral service. As the hearse passed her she and Eliza seemed to look deep into each other’s eyes, the one asking a question, the other unable, or unwilling, to answer it.
‘I questioned Perce very closely.’ Julius longed to take her hand in his and comfort her, but did not dare. ‘He said that Ryder had become accustomed to going into the bar of the Baker’s Arms every Friday after he had paid his workmen. He would take them for a drink and he was often the last to leave. He and the barmaid, Annie McQueen by name, spent a long time conversing with each other. The men would joke about it among themselves.’ He paused, and looked at her gravely.
‘Gossip or not I can’t say, but they thought he was having a flirtation with Annie McQueen. They seemed to have very little doubt about it.’
‘I find it most despicable that you should indulge in this kind of talk with my late husband’s employees,’ Eliza said, brusquely turning her face away from him.
‘My dear, I consider myself a member of your family.’
‘You are not my family,’ Eliza replied with emphasis. ‘You may be related to my sister-in-law and my brother, but not to me.’
‘Oh, I see. Forgive me.’
‘And forgive me if I sound unkind,’ she said, turning round. ‘I did not mean to be; but you can imagine how humiliated I feel hearing news of this nature from you.’
‘Please don’t feel humiliated.’ He went towards her. ‘I am a friend. I have only your interests at heart. Now, if you hear this news from elsewhere you will be prepared.’
‘You don’t know Wenham,’ Eliza said with a bitter laugh. ‘Everyone will know, or t
hink they know; but they will not tell me, and I will not ask them. Annie McQueen has a bad reputation in this town, and I refuse to believe Ryder was the sort of man who would ever have associated with such a person. Now, please, never refer to this matter again.’ She rose as if to dismiss her caller, whose unwelcome news had in fact caused her deep distress. But he had taken up an attitude by the window, hands deep in his pockets.
‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but there is one other thing, and this I hope you will not take exception to. Perce Adams also told me that he would like to go into the business again. The Yetman name will fade altogether as your husband’s brother’s dispose of the assets. I told you they would.’
‘Oh, you know everything, don’t you, Mr Heering?’ Eliza exclaimed bitterly. ‘Is there anything you don’t know, or is there more to come?’
‘I merely offered,’ he stammered, shocked almost to speechlessness by her outburst, ‘that is, if he would like the capital to start up again I am willing to provide it.’
‘And the next thing you will tell me is that you warned us ages ago about all this. You said if anything happened to Ryder it would be bad for me, and, of course, you were right. You are a very clever man, Mr Heering. No wonder you are so successful in the City. What must you think of us country bumpkins?’
Almost as soon as she had spoken she regretted it, but it was too late. Julius went across to the far side of the room where he had put his hat and stick and, picking up both, he turned to her and bowed.
‘Good day, Eliza. Forgive me for offending you. I am deeply sorry.’ He seemed about to go and then changed his mind. ‘I do mean it when I say that if ever you need me you have only to ask, and, please, forgive me for bringing you such grief today. God, how I wish I had not spoken, because then I would still be your friend.’
The children and the rest of the household were long in bed, yet still a light burned in the drawing room. Beth, who always looked in last thing at night to be certain everything was all right, stood timidly for a long time outside the door before knocking on it.
The People of This Parish (Part One of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 40