Off the Rails

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘I don’t doubt that neither,’ his uncle said. ‘You’re a good lad, George. Hard worker. I likes a worker. You’ll go far. I’ve allus said so. That other lot ne’er do nowt except come at me with their hands out ready to pick my pockets. Oh, I’ve got their measure, don’t you worry.’

  So the bargain was made and the two men shook hands on it. And later that day Rebecca was forced to accept that her future brother-in-law was going to be her business partner too. She delayed until February, when the deed of partnership was drawn up, and made sure that George would agree to pay her £35 a year to rent the flat above the shop, but by 17 February the document was signed and George was on his way to riches at last.

  Now nothing else remained to be done but to arrange his wedding, which took place five months later, in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Goodramgate, with Richard Nicholson, looking extremely elegant, and his own brother William and his sister Mary as witnesses.

  The bride wore a Turkey red gown printed with sprigs of yellow and green that didn’t suit her at all and she was so happy and flustered that her cheeks were as red as her dress. The groom was in a new suit of clothes that were very well cut and suited him to perfection. He smiled when he thought the occasion demanded it and looked serious while he was making his vows but as he stood at the altar rail, watched by the impassive saints in the altar window, bright and ancient in their strawberry pink and cobalt blue and their saintly touches of gold, his thoughts were elsewhere, spinning with ambition and the certainty of a rich life. As he and Lizzie were pronounced man and wife, he looked down at the tombstone under his feet and read it idly. ‘Here lyeth Wm Richardson Lord Mayor of York 1671 died 1679,’ it said. Just you wait, William Richardson, he thought. I’ll be Lord Mayor of York too, you just see if I won’t, and I’ll be a sight more powerful than you’ve ever been.’

  7

  BEING DISMISSED CAME as a shock to Jane Jerdon even though she thought she’d prepared herself very well for it. Mr Glendenning told her kindly enough that he’d found her a position as housekeeper to one of the richest men in York but his courtesy only made things worse. She’d accepted that Felix would soon be sent away to school and it had been obvious for some time that the girls would be whisked off to London for the next social season but now that the moment of parting had actually come she was miserable with loss, for during the last six years, as she dried their tears and shared their dreams, nursed them through coughs and colds and patched up their quarrels, she’d grown to think of these three children as her family.

  Sarah and Emma had no qualms about leaving her at all. They’d been chirruping with excitement ever since their father announced that they were to have their first season.

  ‘They say that London is a splendid place,’ Sarah confided and Jane agreed that she was sure it must be.

  ‘Do you think I shall find a husband straightaway?’

  ‘You might well, my lovey,’ Jane said, ‘but I wouldn’t rush if I were you.’

  ‘Oh, I mean to marry as soon as ever I can,’ Sarah told her, tossing her ringlets. ‘You just see.’

  ‘Then be sure you choose a gentleman,’ Jane said.

  But Sarah was seventeen and in no mood for caution.

  When the dressmaker arrived to measure them for their new city clothes and their mantuas and petticoats and ballgowns, Jane was there to help them in and out of their clothes and, when the gowns were finally finished and carried carefully into the nursery to be fitted for the last time, she was there to admire. And truly they both looked very fine in their pretty muslins and their grand silks, even if the sight of them made her heart ache because it showed how soon she would be parted from them.

  But if she grieved to think of losing the girls, she wept when she had to say goodbye to her poor little Felix, for he had nothing to look forward to except the rigours of a school he didn’t want to attend for, although his father told him it would be a fine thing to be a scholar at Eton, which was the best school in the land, it made him withdrawn and unhappy to think about it. He was such a little chap even if he was nine and he looked so frail, standing there in the nursery saying goodbye.

  Milly wept and hung about his neck and made him promise ‘see it wet, see it dry’ to write to her ‘every every day’ and he promised valiantly, struggling to play the man and be controlled. But when he put his little thin arms round Jane’s neck and kissed her, his tears overwhelmed him and he cried for a very long time and was still sobbing when Mr Glendenning arrived to tell him that his carriage was ready for him.

  ‘I will see you again, won’t I?’ he said, turning to look at her for one last time as he left the room.

  ‘Yes,’ Jane said. ‘Of course.’ But she knew it was an empty promise for he was off to another life and it was one she couldn’t share.

  Then Mrs Denham arrived with last-minute instructions for her and her trunk was being carried downstairs and she and Milly were climbing into the dog cart and waving goodbye.

  ‘I hate York,’ Milly said, as the cart rattled through Sir Mortimer’s imposing acres. ‘I shall hate it for ever an’ ever an’ ever.’

  Jane tried to be reasonable because she was none too pleased to be going to the city either. ‘There’s a daft thing to go a-sayin’, Millikins,’ she said. ‘How can ’ee know? Nanna says ’tis a fine place wi’ shops an’ theatres an’ all sorts. She were tellin’ me only last Sunday. We shall have a fine ol’ time there. You see if we don’t.’

  ‘I shan’t be with Felix,’ Milly said doggedly, ‘and there’ll be no pony for me to ride and I shan’t see Sarah and Emma ever again, and it’ll all be horrid. I don’t care what Nanna says.’

  ‘Oh well,’ her mother sighed, ‘if tha’s made tha mind up to it there’s nowt I can say.’

  ‘And it’ll be a horrid house. You just see.’

  Jane was beginning to get cross. ‘How can ’ee possibly say such a thing?’ she said. ‘Tha knows nowt about it.’

  ‘I do so,’ Milly said haughtily. ‘Sarah told me. She says there are no proper houses in towns. They’re all nasty and pokey and they don’t have any grounds or proper stables or anything, except in London.’

  ‘Now look ’ee here, miss,’ Jane said, sternly. ‘I’ll not have ’ee speak so. You’re repeating tittle-tattle, that’s what you’re doing, what’s a fool’s trick an’ I’ll not have it. Mr Bottrill is the richest man in the city and he’ll have one of the richest houses, you can depend on it. Rich men don’t live in pokey houses. Anyroad, we’re to live in his house now, whether you like it or not. We’re not in the great house no more, so if you’ve any sense, you’ll mind your manners and keep a civil tongue in your head.’

  Milly made a face and didn’t answer.

  They were so cross that they didn’t speak to one another until the cart stopped in front of Mr Bottrill’s undoubtedly fine house in Monkgate and by then the weather had changed and it was beginning to spot with rain. They jumped down onto the cobbles and scampered into the house as quickly as they could, leaving the driver to carry their trunk in after them. There was a man in imposing green livery and an old-fashioned white wig waiting for them in the hall.

  ‘Name of Josh,’ he said to Jane, ‘and you’ll be Mrs Smith, I daresay. Follow me and I’ll show you to your rooms.’

  There were two of them, right at the top of the house, a bedroom with a high bed, a linen press and a washstand, and a parlour that could be a cosy place with a bit of rearrangement. There was a sizeable fireplace there and a dresser and two comfortable chairs on either side of the fire. We shall do well enough here, Jane thought. But before she settled in, she must go down to the kitchen and meet her staff.

  ‘You stay here,’ she said to Milly, ‘and unpack the bed linen and hang the clothes in t’cupboard. When I’ve had a bit of a look round I’ll come back and we can make up the bed. They’re good-sized rooms.’

  Milly put her hand on her mother’s arm. ‘I’m sorry I was ratty, Ma,’ she said.

  ‘W
e were both ratty,’ Jane said. ‘’Tis a hard thing to leave home.’ She was remembering how unhappy she’d been when she’d had to go and live with Aunt Tot. She put her arms round her poor woebegone child and gave her a hug and kissed her. ‘I’ll not be long,’ she promised.

  But in fact it took her the entire morning to check how the house was run and what she discovered didn’t please her at all. She started in the kitchen, which was a large room and well equipped but none too clean and very untidy. She would have to do something about that. The cook, who said she was called Mrs Cadwallader, was a rather slatternly woman in a dirty apron. She told Jane that Mr Bottrill dined at three but that she never asked him what she was to cook ‘not since Mrs Bottrill died, poor lady, on account of the housekeeper done that – the one what was here afore you, ma’am. I jest does as I’m told.’

  ‘Has he been asked today?’ Jane said, brisk and businesslike.

  ‘No fear!’ the cook said. ‘She was up an’ gone yes’day art’noon and you wouldn’t catch me upstairs with old Curmudgeon, not for all the tea in China.’

  ‘Then I will do it,’ Jane said, ‘and I will do it now or you’ll not have time to send someone out to market. Get the scullery maid to scrub that table while I’m away. It looks overdue for a good clean. Now where would I find him?’

  Then cook sniffed. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she said. ‘I got enough to do wi’out wondering where the master is. Let sleeping dogs lie. That’s my opinion of it. You’ll have to ask Josh.’

  Jane kept her patience with an effort. ‘Then where would I find Josh?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ the cook said again. ‘Could be anywhere.’ But when Jane gave her an Aunt Tot scowl, she offered, ‘You could try the butler’s pantry, I suppose. He offen in there.’

  Josh had tossed his wig onto a row of empty bottles and was helping himself to a large glass of red wine – and he wasn’t the least bit abashed to be caught in the act. ‘’Tis to keep out t’damp,’ he explained. ‘I suffers chronic with damp. An’ when I suffers I’m neither fit for God nor man. What can I do for ’ee?’

  She scowled at the wine glass to show that she didn’t think much of his behaviour. ‘You can tell me where Mr Bottrill is, for a start.’

  ‘I’ll just finish this,’ he said, swirling the wine in the glass. ‘Be a pity to waste it. Then I’ll tek ’ee there. Be warned though. He’s in a rare ol’ paddy this morning.’

  He was also still in his nightclothes, slumped in a musty bedroom – don’t they ever clean anything in this house? – squinting at his newspaper. He didn’t look up and he didn’t speak.

  ‘Give ’ee good day, Mr Bottrill, sir,’ she said, carefully polite. ‘I am your new housekeeper.’

  ‘Speak up,’ he said tetchily and without looking at her. ‘Can’t hear a word if you mumble.’

  She repeated her message in a louder voice. ‘I’ve come to see what you would like for your dinner.’

  He looked up at her sideways. ‘What’s it to me what I have?’ he said. ‘I shan’t eat it.’

  ‘A meat pie,’ she suggested. ‘Or a little pork chop. I could serve it with a dish of baked apples, being they’re in season.’

  ‘Cook what you please,’ he said. ‘I shan’t eat it. All this nonsense in the papers. Have ’ee seen it?’

  ‘No, sir,’ she told him. ‘I’ve not had time for reading papers this morning. I’ve only just arrived from Foster Manor.’

  ‘We’re to rush about the country in carriages on rails, if you ever heard such nonsense,’ he said, shaking the paper at her. ‘Railways, they call ’em. All crammed in together, whether we will or no. All going the same way at the same time. I never heard the like. Some mad man called Stephenson wi’ a bee in his bonnet. That’s how ’tis. Invented an engine, so they say, what’ll pull carts and carriages instead of horses. And what’s wrong wi’ horses? You tell me that. Good strong reliable beasts if you treats ’em right. We don’t need engines. But we’re to have ’em, seemingly, whether we will or no. Bad enough when they were planning to use the dratted things a-pulling coal – I didn’t think much to that but t’government thought different – but now, look ’ee here, they’ve lost their senses. I never heard such folly. Engines carrying human beings. Human beings I ask you. Men and women – and children, for all we know – carted about from place to place like corn sacks or coal or barrels of ale. And do ’ee know what speed they’ll be travelling at in their damn fool contraptions? Twenty miles an hour! Twenty miles! Did ’ee ever hear the like? We shall all be shook to kingdom come. I don’t know what t’world’s coming to, I truly don’t.’

  ‘Meat pie with egg custard to follow then,’ Jane said and left him to grumble on his own.

  It took her until three o’clock that afternoon before the kitchen was cleaned to her satisfaction, the meat had been purchased and the meal cooked. She climbed the back stairs to her parlour feeling decidedly weary and not a little guilty, for now that she had a minute to think about it she knew she’d been unkind to have left her Milly for so long, especially when she’d been so upset at leaving the Manor, poor girl. Ten was no age to have to leave home. But she needn’t have worried. Milly had been busy too and was well pleased with what she’d done. The bed was neatly made up, both rooms had been swept and dusted and, when her mother came into the room, she was cleaning the windows.

  ‘What do ’ee think?’ she said.

  ‘I think you’re a dear good girl,’ Jane told her, ‘an’ you’ll need a good nourishing meal inside you after all this work, what we’ve got all cooked and ready. And after that we’ll have a fire set, being it’s so cold, and we’ll sit beside it in our nice comfy chairs and read stories to one another.’

  Milly made a sad face. ‘We haven’t got any books now,’ she said.

  ‘Then we will buy some,’ Jane told her. ‘There are bound to be book sellers hereabouts, given the size of the place. We’ll go a marketing on my first afternoon off and see what we can find. Now how about that meal?’

  ‘I’ll just wash my hands,’ Milly said, and beamed at her.

  They walked down the stairs arm in arm, telling one another about their morning. ‘We’ve made a good start,’ Jane said.

  They made a good meal too for despite her untidy appearance the cook was a dab hand at meat pies and egg custards, as Jane was happy to tell her, and as the entire staff was gathered about the kitchen table, she had a chance to meet and observe them as they ate. There weren’t very many of them for a place this size: a man smelling of horses who said he was ‘groom, coachman and God knows what besides’, a stable lad, four maids of all work, a scullery maid, Josh, Mrs Cadwallader and a small pale boy, who made her think of Felix, who said he ‘done the boots, ma’am’.

  ‘Does Mr Bottrill entertain much?’ she asked as Mrs Cadwallader served the custards.

  ‘Don’t entertain at all,’ Josh told her. ‘Not since his wife died. He has plenty of company though. We’re never short of that. There’s nepheys and nieces in and out all the time. After his money so he reckons. He complains about ’em non-stop. You’ll hear him. But they don’t get entertained. They just comes in and smarms all over him – ‘Uncle this and Uncle that’ – and goes away again.’

  ‘Except for that Mr Hudson,’ Mrs Cadwallader said. ‘He gets tea sometimes. Or a glass of Madeira wine.’

  The name gave Jane an unpleasant cramping sensation in her chest as if someone was squeezing her heart. ‘Mr Hudson,’ she said, keeping her voice as noncommittal as she could. It couldn’t be George, surely. ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Another nephey,’ Mrs Cadwallader told her. ‘Very attentive he is. In and out all the time. Worse than all the others put together.’

  ‘Does he live hereabouts?’ Jane fished.

  ‘He’s the draper in Goodramgate,’ Josh told her. ‘Hudson and Nicholson. What used to be Nicholson and Bell afore he took it over.’

  Jane went on fishing. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘A deal too full of hisself,�
� Josh said. ‘Jumped up. Thinks he’s God’s gift to the town.’

  That sounded like George. She had a sudden painful memory of him holding her face between his hands, urging her, ‘Let me. Let me. Tha knows tha wants it.’ A deal too full of hisself. Allus were. Happen it was him. ’Twould be a rare piece of luck if it were. George Hudson delivered up to her all neat and unknowing, ready for her revenge.

  ‘You’ll see him in church a’ Sunday,’ Mrs Cadwallader told her, ‘up in t’front pews with t’nobs, a’ course. He’s very grand when he goes to church. No one can miss him. I’ll point him out to you, if you like, bein’ as you’re interested.’

  ‘That would be kindly,’ Jane said, and she smiled as she passed her empty plate to the scullery maid. And sitting there in her warm, newly cleaned kitchen, surrounded by all these people who were going to be her staff, she wondered whether this pushy man really would turn out to be George Hudson and, if he was, whether he would remember her.

  Lizzie Hudson was in the little room that was now the nursery trying to coax her son into his petticoats ready for church. It was a difficult job because although he was only fifteen months old he had a will of his own and was making it just a little too clear that he didn’t want to be dressed. She’d had a terrible tussle with him and she was beginning to feel cross and weary. If only they could hire a nursemaid they could leave him at home to play with his toys and go off without him, which would be the sensible thing to do. She’d tried to suggest it to George but he’d been quite brusque with her and told her they couldn’t afford it, not when they’d only the one child, which had hurt her feelings terribly – for, after all, it wasn’t her fault that her poor little James had taken ill and died – although of course she couldn’t say so. There were times when it wasn’t sensible to say anything much to Mr Hudson, particularly when he was busy with business matters. As he was that morning. He’d been sitting at the breakfast table reading the paper for over an hour. About the new railways, of course. He was passionately interested in railways and forever telling her that someone was going to make a mint of money out of them. But railways meant nothing to her. Her life was babies and praying to keep them alive.