Sarah, calmly, said she wouldn’t know. ‘We don’t even know where he comes from.’
Mr Groom gave a muttered aside to his son. ‘Obviously not from Viking stock.’
Attention was turned on Peggo, Albert’s mother expressing more surprise on learning that he was a publican. Monty, offended, would not have his friend maligned. ‘There ain’t a kinder man in this village – even if he do deal in drink.’
Throughout the meal Mrs Feather and her helpers constandy reappeared with more platters until they were satisfied the guests were replete. Only then were the impatient children allowed to leave their table with the warning that they must not get too wild – it was after all Sunday.
Owen waited until the plates were cleared before asking Albert. ‘Does tha smoke, love?’
Unaware that the men of these colliery villages used this endearment to each other, Albert regarded this as an affront to his manhood and a blush of offence rose to his cheeks. Embarrassed, Amelia answered for her husband. ‘No, he doesn’t!’
‘Aye, a bad habit.’ Owen himself had only taken up smoking to be different from his brother. Unconcerned that he had caused offence, he went on to ask the other men at the table, some of whom accepted his offer of tobacco for their pipes.
The seating was less formal now, guests changing seats to chat beside one person before moving to talk to another. The conversation between the two families had become rather stilted but was saved by a bunch of children who thudded across the bare boards to besiege the adults. Owen’s little boy clambered on to his mother’s lap and sucked his thumb.
‘What’s a honeymoon, Mother?’ asked Alice.
‘No use asking me,’ replied Sarah somewhat tartly, envisioning herself as a new bride lumbered by a ready-made family.
‘I’ve just told her!’ Ethel was stern. ‘It’s a holiday the bride and groom go on after they are married.’
‘And do they have to eat honey?’ Alice looked concerned. She was told that they probably did in the olden days. ‘I don’t want to get married then. I hate honey.’
‘Tha can eat fish and chips if tha wants.’ Owen puffed on his pipe.
Unaccustomed to such indulgence, the children made the most of it, each clamouring for attention. ‘Where did you go on your honeymoon, Uncle Owen?’
‘Timbukthree.’ Owen remained serious. The children wanted to know where this was. ‘It’s near Timbuktu but just a bit further away – don’t they teach you owt at that school?’
Six-year-old Wyn, who had been tugging at various sleeves, jumped in with a question of her own. ‘Uncle Owen, what’s a farleymelow?’
Owen frowned and looked around the assembly for an answer. ‘Nay, you’ve got me stumped there.’
Kit asked the child to repeat herself.
‘A farleymelow – it’s in a song Miss Ellerker taught us at school.’ Seeing her aunt’s bafflement Wyn broke into song: ‘Early one mo-orning, just as the sun was ri-ising, I heard a maiden si-ing in the far-ley-me-low—’
Kit feigned a choking fit, blaming the bun she was eating, whilst trying desperately not to laugh and so humiliate the child.
‘I thought it might be some kind of privy,’ ventured Wyn, ‘because Mrs Smith sings in the privy really loud.’
Kit continued to clear her throat for some seconds, then wiped her eyes and tried to deliver the answer in calm tone – which was difficult as adults in earshot were not so sparing of Wyn’s feelings and were laughing quite openly. ‘Oh, dear, sorry about that, Wyn. A crumb went down the wrong way.’ She explained that Mrs Smith was a nervous sort of person and she sang to prevent anyone walking in on her, there being no bolt. ‘I think if you listen carefully to the song you’ll find it’s “the valley below”.’
Angry at being the butt of adult laughter, Wyn flounced off, allowing Kit to release her own mirth. She wiped her eyes. ‘Aw, poor little thing. I’m almost wetting meself!’
Gwen was unusually jocular. ‘Better get yourself along to the farleymelow quick sharp then.’
Kit agreed and made to leave the laughing group. Beata said she would accompany her.
Gwen, suddenly noticing that her sons were missing, called, ‘Have a look for those boys o’ mine while you’re out, would you? I told them not to go outside. Their father’ll skin them alive if they dirty their new suits.’
Kit acquiesced as she and Beata left the hall, though her consequent surveillance amounted to nothing and she had so much news to divulge that by the time the pair reached their destination they had put the boys from their mind.
The privy was one of the few places where the girls could enjoy leisurely conversations, sitting side by side on the wooden bench and letting nature take its course whilst mouthing their dreams and ambitions. There was something comforting about the dark interior despite its insalubrity and the buzzing flies
‘So tell me, I’m dying to know,’ begged her niece, ‘how is that dreadful Algy?’
‘Good-looking, and he knows it,’ came the disdainful reply. Then Kit relented. ‘Oh, he’s not so bad once you get to know him – no, it’s Master Wyndham that’s my bugbear.’
‘Aw, is he still at it?’ Beata’s cheeks burned with embarrassment, trying somewhat perversely to imagine what such an assault must feel like, for she herself had no breasts to speak of.
‘Yes, and I can’t do owt about it or I’ll get the sack. Amelia’s well out of it. She looks lovely, doesn’t she? It’s been a grand do.’ She tutted. ‘Apart from bloomin’ Gwen! She can’t even let me get through an afternoon without telling me I’ll always be a spinster.’
Beata dismissed this. ‘She’s blinkin’ puddled. I wish I were as bonny as you – anyroad, I’m not sure I want to get married. I mean, it’s really only another form of slavery.’ Asked what she would really like to do if she got the chance, she tilted her chin. ‘I’d love to do something artistic. Be a painter – if I could paint. Or a musician – if I could musish. I wish me dad’d let you go on t’stage. You’d be right good.’
Kit’s smile turned to wistfulness. ‘All I really want is a family.’
‘Haven’t you had enough to put up with, looking after us lot?’ asked Beata, considering it unfair the amount of childminding that fell to Kit. ‘Mother’s the one who gave birth to us all, yet it’s you and me who get the responsibility of looking after them. Oh, I know it’s mean but sometimes, just sometimes, I’d like to be able to have some time to myself. This is the only place I can come for any peace.’
‘I promise that when I have enough money I’ll take you to live with me.’ Whilst harbouring every good intention of saving for a little house of her own, Kit just could not help spending her wages as soon as she got them, not just on herself but on others. ‘It won’t be anything like Cragthorpe Hall, though – my, the work in that place!’ She went on to tell Beata all that had happened this month, unaware that whilst she sat gossiping a man hopped from foot to foot outside.
Inevitably, the conversation came back to the subject of marriage. Beata wondering what actually happened on one’s wedding night. ‘I mean, I know it’s summat to do with down there,’ she mouthed the last two words, ‘but I just can’t fathom what it could be.’
Kit said that it somehow involved a man’s thing. She giggled. ‘I wonder if you have to look at it?’ Both girls squirmed in horrified laughter.
Each then listed the finer qualities they would look for in a husband, not really believing that anyone would ever want them. Kit wondered out loud what qualities a man looked for in a wife. In Mr Dolphin’s case it was not education or intelligence, for his spouse’s mispronunciation of words was an obvious embarrassment.
An eye appeared at the peephole and an urgent enquiry was hissed. ‘How much longer are you lasses gonna sit there gasbagging?’
‘Nearly finished, Mr Wrigglesworth!’ Kit barely diverted her attention from the conversation with Beata and in seconds was rattling along again. ‘So anyway, Mrs Dolphin says yet again, “That is not reve
lant” – can you believe it! In front of guests! So …’
Neither she nor Beata heard the trap door at the rear being shifted, nor the giggles. But when each pair of buttocks received a smart thwack with a stick, both leaped up with yells of protest.
‘That pizzock Donald!’ Hauling up her drawers, a furious Kit barged out of the closet almost flattening the poor man who had been hopping about outside, and raced around the corner just in time to see her two nephews tearing down the slope. Remarkably light on her feet, she immediately set off after them. Still giggling, the culprits threw a look over their shoulders and were amazed to see that their hefty victim was pursuing them. A look of horror crossed each face. They tried to increase their speed but Kit was gaining fast. She had almost caught up with them when the younger one tripped, fell heavily and began to bawl. Instantly, Kit bent to comfort him and tend his bloody knee, tying her handkerchief around the wound, all mischief forgotten.
‘I should be saying that serves you right!’ But her scolding was mild as she wiped his tears with a brisk palm.
‘You won’t tell me dad, will you, Aunty Kit?’ Eight-year-old Brian, who remained uninjured, asked anxiously.
‘We ought to!’ Kit glanced up as her breathless niece arrived. ‘Oughtn’t we, Beat?’
The other agreed. ‘I don’t know what your parents’d say if they heard you were up to such disgusting behaviour.’ Wheezing, she leaned against a wall for support.
Leaving the boys in suspense, Kit and Beata escorted them back to the reception where their mother made a fuss over their dishevelled appearance.
‘Oh, deary me, let’s have a look at ’ee – why, Donnie, you’re bleeding!’ Pulling away the handkerchief, Gwen winced at the graze on Donald’s knee, then hugged and patted the sufferer, asking how he had done it.
‘Running, I’ll bet!’ barked their father, Roy, less concerned about the injury than the state of his son’s clothes. ‘What did I tell thee before we set out? I want to see that suit as neat and tidy when you go home as when you put it on. Didn’t I say that? Barely closed me wallet after paying for it and now look at the state of you!’
‘Never mind, it’ll wash,’ calmed Charity, this response having become a personal catchphrase over the years.
‘How? He looks as if he’s been dragged through the midden!’
Dangerously close to a hiding, both boys sneaked a plaintive look at their Aunt Kit.
‘It wasn’t Donald’s fault.’ Although incompatible with her nephews, Kit chose not to betray them. ‘He tripped over a loose flag. Didn’t he, Beata?’ The other nodded.
It cut no ice with Roy, who retorted that this did not explain Brian’s disarray.
But his wife jumped in with loud accusation, ‘Wretched Corporation, letting things go to rack and ruin. Why, the poor child, he could have broke his neck!’
All those in earshot agreed, even though they knew from experience that the boys must be guilty of some mischief, none of them wanting the wedding to be overshadowed by corporal punishment.
However, once the bride and groom had departed there was no such need for restraint. At the end of the day when Amelia and her groom embarked on their new life and shoes were thrown to wish them luck in their travels, Donald’s over-enthusiastic participation resulted in Meredith suffering a gash to the head from one of his boots and finally Gwen’s brat got the good hiding he deserved.
Later that evening, Kit packed her belongings, kissed each and every one of her nieces, gave baby Probyn an extra cuddle and, with a sense of anticlimax, returned to Cragthorpe Hall. With no prospect of a wedding, the only vision she received of her future was months, perhaps years, of drudgery.
9
Yearning for excitement, Kit was to suffer a similar routine for the rest of the year, attending at table, endeavouring to place the vase of flowers at the strategic point that would screen poor Tish from his mother, being coached by the mistress into more ladylike behaviour and in the next breath accused of assuming the airs of a lady in her mode of dress.
However, things were not all so dismal, for Master Wyndham had gone back to Rugby and the staff had become a little kinder to her, and once she was over her homesickness Kit was to discover that Christmas was a splendid time at Cragthorpe Hall. Mr Dolphin arranged a party for the servants in the great hall whence to her delight Kit was able to indulge her penchant for dancing – she even danced with the master! Never had she enjoyed such a celebration, for the Kilmasters set little store by Christmas, other than providing a good feed, a visit to chapel and a few nuts for the children. Her brother’s house bore none of the gay trappings of the Dolphin residence and, after a trip home with her quarterly wages, Kit was for once quite glad to leave the spartan little house and return to the grand mansion bedecked with holly and mistletoe.
After the constant round of visitors, the trips to the workhouse with gifts for the inmates, the feasting and general merrymaking, the last days of January descended upon the house like a shroud. A mere irritation in summer, the ghastly cry of the peafowl became a macabre echo on the wintry air, heralding a distinct change in Mrs Dolphin’s mood. There were more complaints, more nervous little pacings about the drawing room. Indeed, the mood was contagious and Kit found herself feeling increasingly glum as the month wore on.
The dark mornings were an extra inducement to stay in bed. Coming round to another pitch-black morn with no birdsong, no noise at all, Kit fought the impulse to turn over and instead forced her eyes to remain open even though there was naught to see. An unpleasant smell pervaded her room. It was gas – someone must have turned on a lamp and forgotten to light it! Leaping up, she threw on a shawl and rushed along the landing to the staircase, for there were no gas brackets up here.
The smell grew stronger. Impeded by her nightgown, her bare feet beginning to feel the cold, Kit padded along the corridor towards the kitchen, pausing only to check every wall bracket as she passed.
She reached the kitchen, opened the door and ran in – tripped over something on the ground and fell headlong to the hard stone floor, calling out in distress.
Others came running too, one of them hauling on a rope that worked the louvres in the ceiling and casting a modicum of light on the situation, enabling Kit to see that she was not the only person on the floor.
‘Heaven preserve us, she’s done it again,’ muttered Mr Todd, and immediately went to the unconscious person’s aid, lifting her head gently from its pillow in the gas oven and calling to Algy to turn off the gas and assist him. ‘Mrs Grunter, for pity’s sake, we’ll all be blown to bits!’ The housekeeper had been about to strike a match. ‘Get all the doors and windows open!’ Several maids complied. ‘Ivy, wake the master! Algernon, take Mrs Dolphin’s legs!’
Every vein in her body pulsating with shock, Kit spared no thought for her own bruises, concentrating instead on Mrs Dolphin’s nightgowned form that was being lifted off the floor and carried into the servants’ hall. With no one the least bit interested in her welfare, Kit jumped up and hurried after the procession, trying to solicit an answer as to what on earth was going on. Not until the mistress had been brought round with a few slaps to the face, the master had arrived to take charge and Mrs Dolphin had been carried upstairs to more comfortable quarters, was Kit granted an explanation.
‘She always gets melancholy at this time of year,’ explained Mrs Hellawell, as if the attempted suicide were commonplace, waddling over to shut the oven door and wafting the air distastefully at the residual smell of gas, the great rolls of fat trembling under her nightdress. ‘Can only stand Yorkshire in small doses – well, there’s nowt much for her to do, you see.’
‘I could find her summat,’ replied one of the overworked kitchenmaids to her companions. All were clad in their night attire, with tousled plaits and swollen eyes.
‘How awful!’ Kit marvelled that she seemed to be the only member of staff perturbed by the affair. ‘I could never contemplate taking my own life. It’s wicked.’ Despit
e her agitation, she noticed that Algy was eyeing her own nightgowned form rather too closely and wrapped her arms across her breasts. Mr Todd noticed too and ordered everyone to go and get dressed.
Making her way from the kitchen, a shivering Kit understood now what Lily had meant with her cryptic comment about Mrs Dolphin not buying the gas stove to cook on. Recalling Mr Todd’s exclamation upon finding the victim, she tendered, ‘The mistress’s done it before then?’
‘Oh aye, dozens o’ times,’ came the casual reply. ‘We’ll have to keep an eagle eye on her now till the start of the Season.’
* * *
This prediction proved to be correct, for Kit was to smell gas twice more until, thankfully, spring arrived and the Dolphin family, minus Tish, drove off for their London residence.
Bitterly disappointed not be taken with the other servants, Kit nevertheless found compensation in the lessening of her workload, this in turn granting time for other more interesting pursuits. Though strictly out of bounds the wondrous garden, hitherto experienced only from the kitchen window, was too great a lure for one with adventurous heart and Kit discovered a way of sneaking out there on her afternoons off. Parts of the garden were sectioned into rooms by stone wall, hedge and trellis, shielding her from any superior’s prying eye and allowing her to avoid the army of gardeners who lurked within the grounds – for they paraded their territory like soldiers. So often did Kit dally here amongst the milk-white drifts of snowdrop and narcissus that she began to imagine that it was her own, resenting any sudden interruption of her happiness by means of a gardener’s voice or an approaching footfall, for then she would be reminded that the garden belonged to someone else, and would have to make a rapid escape.
Kit’s success in this field provoked other liberties. With no steward in the house, and the rest of the staff reduced in number, she was able to sneak unobserved into Mr Dolphin’s library and browse to her heart’s content. Most of the tomes were far beyond her capabilities, but many were not, and Kit took to borrowing one occasionally, spiriting it up to her room for half an hour’s enjoyment before she went to sleep. Even more daring, the absence of both lady’s maids meant that she was free to rummage through Mrs Dolphin and Miss Agnes’s wardrobes and, although she could find no dress to fit her, there were feathered hats and beaded bags and silken shawls and stockings to play with.
A Sense of Duty Page 17