*
Later, sitting on a bench in the park by the river, Hope held out her hand to Bennett. ‘See how it sparkles,’ she said.
He had bought her a gold chain to hang the ring on, but for today she was wearing it on her finger. Bennett had apologized that it was such a tiny diamond, but to Hope it was something a queen would wear.
‘It doesn’t sparkle as brightly as you,’ he smiled, and kissed the tips of her fingers. ‘You are my love and my life, and I hope you’ll remember that when I tell you what I’ve decided.’
‘That we elope tonight?’ she suggested.
‘No, that wouldn’t be wise, not when I don’t have any money to keep you. But I’ve got a plan to sort that out. I’ve decided to join the army as a doctor.’
Hope’s heart plummeted. ‘Oh no, Bennett,’ she exclaimed. ‘You can’t do that. I would never see you, you might get killed.’
‘Military doctors don’t fight,’ he said, smiling fondly at her. ‘Let me explain it all. Everything is stacked against us while I am under my uncle’s thumb. I haven’t got the means to start my own practice, and if I was to join someone else’s practice as a junior doctor, I’d be worse off than I am at present. But in the army I’d be beholden to no one.’
‘But you’d have to go away,’ she said, tears prickling in her eyes.
‘You could come with me,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t you find that an adventure? We might get to India!’
‘But would I be allowed to go with you?’ she asked.
‘I’m sure you would. But the reality of it now, while there’s no war on, is that we’d be stuck somewhere like Winchester for years and years, with me treating boils and suchlike. What an asset you would be to me! Not many doctors have a wife who is a nurse.’
‘Have you made any enquiries about this yet?’ She looked sharply at him, wondering if he’d really thought it through.
‘No, I wanted to see how you felt first.’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said doubtfully.
‘Once we are married,’ he said, squeezing her hand, ‘you could write home. I mean, you would be married to a soldier, so apart from apologizing for being out of touch for so long, you wouldn’t need to tell them about the real reasons you left.’
Hope smiled because his enthusiasm was infectious. In reality she knew that wouldn’t really work, as her whole family would be furious with her for making them so worried. But she wasn’t going to spoil his moment by saying so.
‘We won’t worry about them for the time being,’ she said. ‘Let’s just enjoy today.’
‘Right. We’ll find somewhere to have some dinner first,’ he said, jumping up and pulling her to her feet too. ‘Then we can look at the sights of Bath!’
A few hours later in the Pump Rooms, Hope was forcing herself not to laugh. The moment they walked through the doors and Bennett sawthe elegantly dressed people congregated there, he pretended to have a terrible affliction. He stuck up one shoulder, hunched his back, grimaced and limped, and made several circuits of the room so everyone would notice him. Some looked offended by his appearance, others whispered together, perhaps in sympathy. Then, when he’d got almost everyone’s attention, he hobbled up to the pump for his glass of the medicinal water.
Hope had remained close to the door, guessing what his plan was. If she’d walked round with him she would have laughed aloud and spoiled the whole thing. But he played the part far better than she had expected, and as he gingerly sipped the water she saw everyone was watching him intently.
As he sipped he made little grunts to keep all eyes on him. His left arm shot up above his head as if it had a life of its own, then he made his left leg shake.
‘’Tis working,’ he shouted out in a broad Somerset accent. ‘Aye, ’tis working. I’s can feel its powers down deep in me innards!’
Hope had to put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. He was jerking, twisting, and gulping down the water so fast it was running down his chin. Everyone was transfixed: some looked scared as if they thought he was having a fit, but the rest were wide-eyed with astonishment, and the only sound apart from the groans and sighs Bennett was making were shocked whispers.
Slowly, he straightened up. He looked down at himself as if in disbelief. He held his face in his hands and walked towards a large mirror as if to check he wasn’t mistaken.
‘Halleluia!’ he exclaimed. ‘I am cured. I am cured.’
There was nothing for it but for Hope to run and embrace him. ‘He’s been twisted and bent since the day he was born,’ she announced in an equally rustic accent. ‘But I must get him home now so our mother can see this miracle too.’
There were tears rolling down her cheeks, but only from suppressing her laughter. As she swept Bennett out through the door she had to bite her lips as the sounds of ‘Did you ever see the like?’ and ‘He was crippled and now he’s cured,’ and other such remarks resounded behind them.
How they managed to get around the corner without doubling up with laughter, Hope didn’t know. But once hidden from viewthey almost exploded with it, clinging to each other and laughing till their sides ached.
‘You are a disgrace to the medical profession,’ Hope spluttered. ‘They’ll all drink gallons of it now and get sick with it.’
Bennett wiped tears from his eyes. ‘Their faces!’ he exclaimed. ‘’Tis a miracle. I am cured!’
‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ Hope giggled. ‘But can you imagine how it will be in a few hours? It will be right round Bath, everyone will be talking about the miracle.’
‘There was a real miracle today,’ he said, pulling her close to him and kissing her. ‘You agreed to marry me.’
‘That was before I discovered how silly you could be,’ she said. ‘Funny thing is, it’s made me love you even more.’
Chapter Sixteen
1853
Lady Harvey stood at her bedroom window looking down the drive towards the gatehouse. Thick frost had beautified the bare fields and trees in the kind of stark winter scene she had once liked to capture in water-colours. But she was barely seeing it now, only aware of the small grey stone cottage in the distance, which until Nell left her, she’d barely noticed.
Wisps of smoke were coming out of the chimney, and she wondered what it was like in there now Albert was alone. To her shame she had never called on Nell while she was with him; she hadn’t even asked if she was comfortable in the gatehouse, or if there was anything she needed to make it more homely.
Today she knew she must deal with Albert. She couldn’t put it off as she might not get such a good opportunity again for months. William was in London, and Rufus had returned to school yesterday morning after the Christmas holiday, so if Albert did make a scene, there was no one to know.
It was six long years now since Nell had left, and Anne’s regrets about that day grew with each passing year. At first it was just the breakdown of comfortable order. But then, she had never before been expected to dress herself or arrange her own hair, far less do laundry, tidy rooms or mend anything, but it soon became evident that Nell’s departure had caused far wider destruction than was immediately apparent.
It transpired that Nell and Baines had effectively run the house between them; they set the standards for the other servants, and made sure their master and mistress never had to concern themselves with how all the many tasks were completed, or by whom.
Baines was the captain, Nell more of a foot soldier, but it had been her energy, pride in Briargate and the warmth of her personality which had created an environment that kept all the staff happy and willing to work hard. Without Nell, Baines soon floundered, his instructions were ignored, and the remaining servants bickered among themselves, all putting the blame for jobs left undone on someone else.
These days meals were often late, rooms were not always cleaned, and a strained, surly atmosphere had replaced the old cheerful and bustling one. As for Albert, he strutted around the grounds as if he owned the
place, and everyone, Lady Harvey and Sir William included, was nervous of him.
Even back in the early days of Nell’s departure, Anne knew she ought to stir herself and take control, but she didn’t. Too late, she saw Nell had been far more than a mere maid; for along with being friend, sister and mother to her mistress, she’d acted as a buffer between her and the harsh reality of life. Without her maid she felt vulnerable, afraid and very lonely. She was also carrying a heavy burden of guilt at not defending or supporting her when she most needed it.
Six years on, Anne still blushed at the memory of how callous she must have appeared when Nell informed her that Hope was her daughter. Her only defence was that she’d been unable to believe that it could be true. Who would credit that a young maid would take a baby and bring it up as her own sister without any kind of reward, just to protect her mistress? And Nell’s insistence that Albert had killed Hope seemed like hysterical melodrama.
In the weeks that followed, Anne remained in a kind of denial that Hope was her child. She veered between rage that her maid had walked out on her, terror that she might spread her ridiculous story far and wide, and a sickening disgust in herself for not foreseeing that a servant who knew too much could be very dangerous.
But as the weeks passed without any scandalous gossip reaching her ears, and with time to reflect on everything Nell had told her, Anne came to see that she’d wronged her. Rumours reached her that Nell had gone mad with grief over her younger sister’s disappearance, yet it was clear she still hadn’t breathed a word about her former mistress. Even in deep distress Nell had remained loyal.
The Reverend Gosling came up to Briargate, incandescent with rage that Nell had brought shame on her family by breaking her marriage vows. He urged Anne to go and speak to her, to make her see sense and return to her husband, or to leave the village for good.
But Anne knew Nell would never return to Albert, and she couldn’t bring herself to suggest the other alternative, or even, if she was honest, face Nell. So she did what she always did when faced with a problem, be that William’s heavy drinking or their rapidly depleting wealth, and tried to pretend that it didn’t exist.
It was a relief when she heard Nell had left her brother’s farm for a new position near Bath. If anyone knew her new master’s name it didn’t reach Anne’s ears, and she did her best to forget Nell.
But Rufus wouldn’t let her forget Hope. Every time he came home on holiday from school his first question was always about her. He claimed that Hope had been his only real friend, admitting how they used to meet in the woods and play together. He took an almost fiendish delight in telling the story of how he was saved from drowning in the pond by her, and took his mother to task for her indifference when Meg and Silas Renton died, leaving the girl an orphan. Anne often wondered how he would react if he found out the girl was his half-sister. Just the thought of it made her tremble with fear.
But worse still was that Rufus seemed to have a much stronger attachment to the Rentons than he had to his own mother. Almost the moment he arrived home for the holidays, he’d rush off eagerly to Matt’s farm. Sometimes he was gone from sunup to sundown, returning filthy dirty with tales of milking cows, collecting eggs, ploughing and seeding.
Anne felt the tragic irony in the fact that the Rentons had taken in her firstborn and brought her up as their own and now Rufus wanted to join their family too.
Perhaps she should have forbidden him to go there, or at least insisted he went less often, but until quite recently his father’s behaviour had been so appalling that she felt her son was better off out of the way.
Shortly after Nell left, William’s drinking had grown much worse, to the point where he was rarely sober when at home. He would shut himself away in his study with a bottle, only to come lurching out later to abuse her and anyone else who tried to remonstrate with him.
Then, without any warning, he would disappear without a word about where he was going, and stay away for days. To her shame, Anne often found herself wishing he’d have a fatal accident so that she’d be set free to go home to her sisters. She knew it was wicked to think such things, but she was at the end of her tether and she had no one to turn to. Even Angus had deserted her entirely. She might have been the one who ended it, but she thought he might have retained enough affection for her to drop in now and then to see how she was.
But then, just when she thought she would never see him again, she ran into him.
It was less than a month ago, three days before Christmas.
She had gone into Bath to get some presents. Milsom Street was crowded with shoppers, a barrel-organ was playing gaily, the shop windows all looked so bright and festive, and the roast chestnut-sellers were loudly exhorting the crowds to buy their wares. The festive sight cheered her greatly and she reminded herself that Rufus was due home the following day, and only the previous night William had admitted he’d been behaving abominably, and vowed he was going to change.
She wasn’t very optimistic about the latter. It wasn’t the first time he’d made such promises, only to break them a few days later, but this time he had buried his head in her lap and sobbed his heart out. He said that drinking was his way of shutting out the anxiety about losing his fortune. He added that he’d let her and Rufus down very badly, that the house was falling into disrepair, and it was all too much for him.
Anne felt she had to try to believe in him again. She’d made the suggestion that in the New Year, he should go to his advisers and check exactly howmuch money they had left; then they could make plans to deal with it, however bad it was.
For now, all she wanted was for them to have a happy Christmas and drawcloser to one another.
She had just bought William a blue silk cravat, and was making her way down the street to buy Rufus some new paints when she saw Angus striding towards her. It was such a shock that she almost stumbled.
He was in his uniform, his blue coat with its gold braid and cherry-red breeches making him look taller and even more handsome than she remembered. He didn’t appear to be equally shocked to see her, for his expression didn’t change.
‘Good morning, Lady Harvey,’ he said, making a formal little bow. ‘I trust you are well?’
She pulled herself together, feeling very glad she’d worn her blue sable-trimmed cape and the matching bonnet, for although it was out of fashion, she knew it flattered her. But she was flustered, for although it was six years since she’d written to him in the aftermath of her father’s funeral, it was eight years since they’d last met face to face, and she knew those years showed on her face.
‘I’m very well, thank you,’ she managed to stammer out, noting that he had a sprinkling of grey hair at his temples and that he’d shaved off his moustache. ‘Are you home on leave?’
She remembered he’d made some kind of sardonic remark about there being no good wars just now, and that soldiers were becoming fat and lazy. She asked if he was staying with his relatives in Chelwood.
‘No, I have had a house of my own for some years,’ he said rather curtly.
‘I am sorry that my last letter was so cold and final,’ she blurted out. ‘I had been having such a difficult time with William, and what with Mother dying, and then Father so soon after, and Rufus going off to school, I was quite beside myself.’
‘I assume that is also your excuse for treating Nell so shabbily too?’ he said.
‘Nell?’ she repeated, dumbfounded not only by his accusation but that he’d even come to hear of her maid leaving Briargate. ‘I don’t know how you came to hear that – Nell left of her own accord!’
‘Damn it, Anne, you left her no choice but to go.’ He raised his voice in his anger, dropping his earlier formal greeting. ‘How could she stay with that blackguard of a husband? I hear he’s still with you too!’
Anne looked around her nervously, afraid someone she knew might see them. She wanted to ask if they could talk somewhere where they would be less conspicuous, but she didn’t
know how to. ‘I would have dismissed Albert, but William wouldn’t have it,’ she managed to say. ‘It was Christmas too,’ she ended lamely.
Angus raised one eyebrow. ‘And as a good Christian you thought it best that the woman who had devoted most of her life to you should be banished to keep the peace?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ Anne was fast losing her composure in the face of his sarcasm. ‘You will only have heard a distorted version of how it came about.’
‘No. I heard the plain and unvarnished truth,’ he said grimly. ‘That Nell believed Albert had killed her young sister, and you and William refused to take her seriously. When I met her and took her home as my housekeeper she was a mere shadow of the able young woman I’d met at Briargate.’
‘Your housekeeper?’ She gasped, astounded that Rufus hadn’t told her this, for surely Matt would have mentioned it to him? Her mind was whirling frantically. Had Nell told Angus he was Hope’s father?
‘Yes, and the best housekeeper any man could find,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘Only a fool would part with such a treasure.’
Anne felt chastened. ‘We are in agreement there,’ she admitted. ‘I have missed her so much. But Angus, we did get the police to search for Hope, they found nothing suspicious. It looked to everyone as if she had truly run off.’
‘Nell cannot believe that, for she feels if Hope were alive she would have contacted one of her brothers or sisters by now. I’m inclined to believe she ran off, but I’m absolutely certain Albert forced her to go. If I had my way I’d take a horsewhip to him and force the truth out of him, so at least Nell could have some peace of mind. But it isn’t my place to do it; it should be done by her family or by William.’
It was clear by that statement that Angus didn’t know Hope was his daughter. He was indignant because he didn’t think she and William had showed enough concern for two loyal and hardworking servants. But if he had known who Hope really was, he’d have been up to Briargate immediately to thrash Albert, and he’d almost certainly feel murderous towards Anne too.
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