Ravenscliffe

by Jane Sanderson

  Chapter 27

  On polling day in Ardington, the Liberals and the Tories ran their supporters to the polls in gigs and carriages, and Anna made Amos laugh by cursing herself for not borrowing Sol Windross’s rag-and-bone cart. As it was, they did their best, knocking on doors – again – to encourage their supporters to come out and place their cross by the name of Sykes for the Independent Labour Party. All the time, though none of the people he spoke to would have guessed it, Amos knew he would lose; this was valuable experience, but it wasn’t going to make him an MP. He had known this even before the campaign began, and the weeks of hard slog had only confirmed it as a certainty. Mind you, he thought, it beggared belief that so many of these good working people would turn out in high numbers to vote for the wrong party. The previous member for Ardington had been swept in to Parliament on a massive majority in the general election of 1900; he was a wealthy manufacturer, a Liberal and pleasant enough, but with no interest in the town beyond its usefulness to him in gaining entry to the elite gentlemen’s club that was the House of Commons. He had died of a heart attack – too much access to butter and cream, Enoch surmised – and the Liberal candidate chosen to replace him was of the same breed: affable, arrogant, his belly asking too much of his waistcoat, his thoughts turning to luncheon the moment breakfast was finished. His name was Webster Thorne and he was just the sort of Liberal that Amos loved to hate: the sort of Liberal who, with a private fortune and a large house in London, had little interest in improving the lot of anyone else. They were a sorry lot, Amos said to Anna: trotting out reasonable, even thoughtful, political aims, but fulfilling none of them because of an innate and crippling smugness.

  ‘Well, be fair. They’re only in opposition,’ Anna said.

  Amos snorted contemptuously. ‘All talk, no action,’ he said. ‘Every vote that might have some bearing on t’ lives of ordinary folk gets dodged.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as a working wage for MPs. Now – that’s summat that’d change t’very core of our political system, but time an’ again, t’Liberals in Parliament duck that issue. And why? Because if they’re honest, they don’t think Westminster is any place for a working man.’

  ‘And yet, here they come, these working men, to vote for Liberal Party,’ Anna said. They were standing outside the church hall, made into a polling station for the day, and they were forced to step back to make way for yet another carriage, which rattled up to the door and disgorged six more men for Webster Thorne. Anna shouted ‘Vote Sykes for working man!’ and they looked a little startled. Three of them, all miners, greeted Amos as they passed. At least they had the decency to redden, he thought.

  ‘See? It’s nowt personal,’ he said to Anna. ‘Better t’devil they know. That’s ’ow they see it, anyroad.’

  ‘Speaking of devils you know, it must be very hard for you at moment.’

  ‘What must?’

  ‘Trying to keep hating Earl of Netherwood when he is busy with all his good works.’

  He raised an eyebrow at her and she raised one back: she was a regular thorn in his side, always poking at his principles to see if he might give them up.

  ‘Long way to go before I’ll doff my cap at ’im,’ he said, though she was right, in a way. He had nurtured his savage resentment towards Lord Netherwood for so long now that, in truth, it was more habit than emotion. Amos’s dislike and mistrust of the earl went back years, but had been heightened and honed by a conviction that Lord Netherwood had somehow stood between himself and Eve – that his great wealth, his influence, his power to help her on her way had taken her out of Amos’s reach. This particular beef had diminished into irrelevance since she’d sprung Daniel MacLeod on them all, of course. Still, there were plenty of other reasons to keep a nice level of antipathy simmering away on the back burner: iron winding gear and electric coal-cutters were all very well, but where did the benevolent earl stand on the eight-hour day? Where did he stand on sick pay and widows’ pensions, on injury compensation and the right to paid holidays, on a minimum wage to guarantee every miner in the land a decent living? These questions were what stoked the fire at the heart of Amos’s political credo; these questions – and the lamentable lack of satisfactory answers – were why he would rather lose as a Labour candidate than win as a hamstrung Liberal.

  He looked at Anna, his diminutive, feisty foot soldier on the Ardington battlefield. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s nowt more we can do ’ere. ’ow d’you fancy a glass o’ milk stout an’ a pickled egg?’

  ‘How charming,’ she said with full Rabinovich hauteur. ‘I’ve walked until my feet bleed for pickled egg?’ But then she smiled at him, and she couldn’t have looked happier.

  It was a mystery to Absalom Blandford that he had ever found Eve Williams desirable. Whenever he saw her these days – which was far more often than she realised – he was filled with an almost visceral revulsion; the same physical qualities that he had once convinced himself he wanted were now utterly repugnant to him. It was as if she emitted a repellent odour, the intimate origins of which were unknown to Absalom, but which radiated out from her towards his delicate nostrils whenever he was within range. He would watch her, unseen, and his face would contort with disgust. After these encounters he would have to bathe in the evening with extra care, scrubbing at his skin with a nailbrush so that the smell of Eve didn’t revisit and torment him in his sleep. This phenomenon wasn’t unique to Eve Williams, however; he could detect a different aroma around anyone who came into his orbit. This gift – or curse – was the latest manifestation of his personal fastidiousness, and like a bear or a bloodhound, he could sniff the air and know, without looking up, who had walked into his office. Jem Arkwright was filthy, unwashed; he carried the scent of horse manure and human waste. The earl, for whom Absalom had a cringing, obsequious respect, nevertheless bore permanent traces of the smells of engine oil, pipe tobacco and smoked fish. But these various personal aromas had obvious, traceable outside sources. What disturbed Absalom about Eve Williams was that the source of her musk was hidden, tucked away somewhere in her folds of female flesh. He wondered that anyone could bear to be near her. He wondered that the new gardener, believing they were unobserved, could press up against her in his desperate, pitiful need without recoiling at once in horror at the stink.

  Absalom watched her now. She had come out of the kitchen and into the courtyard of the mill, where she seemed to have nothing better to do than trail around the tables and chairs with a half-smile on her face as if she were party to a joke that no one else had heard. She stopped at the fountain, bending at the waist to pick fallen leaves from the grist mill, and the dark shadow between her breasts was suddenly on display to him where he stood, closer to her than she could possibly imagine, in one of the hiding places he used for this sort of surveillance. He considered stepping out into the open, simply to startle her out of her complacent happiness, but rejected impetuosity in favour of the sensible option: remaining hidden from view, remaining vigilant, watching and waiting until his mental dossier on Eve Williams amounted to something incriminating. If it were in his power, he would collapse the trappings of her life around her right now. He would throw her out of the mill, withdraw the tenancy agreement of Ravenscliffe, reveal her to the world as the whore he knew her to be. But it wasn’t in his power to do any of these things, because she was a cunning and dangerous prey: she had used her harlot’s tricks to win the trust and affection of Lord Netherwood, and this kept her safe. But it would not always be so: this, Absalom knew.

  He was back in his office, scratching at the ledger like a man with an itch, when Daniel MacLeod knocked on the door. He made the gardener wait for longer than was comfortable, then raised his head from his work.

  ‘Come,’ he said with little encouragement, and the gardener entered, first kicking his feet against the step to dislodge the mud. Absalom pointedly studied his fob watch to indicate the relentless march of time and to make it clear, if it wasn’t alr
eady, that whatever Mr MacLeod’s business, it was bound to be petty and tiresome compared to all the bailiff’s other duties.

  ‘Afternoon,’ Daniel said affably, his Montrose burr strange and startling to the ears of the bailiff, who didn’t return the greeting. The rank mingled smells of rotting vegetation and potash invaded Absalom’s extraordinary olfactory system and, resting an elbow on the desk, he casually covered his nostrils with the fingers of his right hand. Daniel was oblivious to this defensive manoeuvre. He had had no first-hand dealings yet with Absalom Blandford, though Eve didn’t like him, he knew that much. She had described to him the bizarre occasion when the bailiff had dropped to one knee at the railway station and asked for her hand in marriage, having shown no previous attachment to her whatsoever. A supremely awkward moment, Daniel imagined, yet the fellow could hardly have been heartbroken at her refusal. A rash, ill-considered impulse, no doubt, but quite understandable; it amazed Daniel that he had found Eve before anyone else had claimed her, and the fact that the bailiff had once thrown his cap into the ring made Daniel more, not less, inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘I’d speak to Lord Netherwood, but I gather he’s away up to Glendonoch, lucky man,’ Daniel said. ‘No better place to be than a Scottish moor at this time of year.’

  There followed a stony silence relieved only by the monotonous tick-tock of the wall clock. Absalom had the unblinking gaze of a lizard, and he was never the first to look away.

  ‘So, I’ll get to the point,’ Daniel said, realising immediately that he was not in the company of a pleasant man and fighting an urge to edge closer to the door. ‘We – that is, Eve and I – would be honoured to accept the earl’s offer of the use of the chapel on October the twenty-second. She wants Samuel Farrimond to officiate, though. He’s the minister at Grangely. Would that be all right, do you think?’

  Absalom stared. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said. His voice conveyed nothing of the outrage he was feeling on the earl’s behalf.

  Daniel laughed. ‘Should I repeat it all? Or just the last bit?’

  ‘I heard you, in actual fact. I was merely expressing my amazement at your audacity.’

  ‘At my—?’

  ‘Audacity, yes,’ Absalom repeated levelly. ‘You are either much mistaken or sadly deluded. The Netherwood Hall chapel is for the exclusive use of the Hoyland family and has been since the house was built almost two hundred years ago. Your mission here is simply preposterous and I must insist you leave.’

  ‘Now, just hold your horses, Mr Blandford,’ said Daniel, more stunned than angry. ‘I’m not seeking your permission for anything. I’m merely informing you of a kind offer made to Eve by the earl, evidently without your prior knowledge.’

  The bailiff held up one hand as a barrier against Daniel’s words.

  ‘Mr MacLeod,’ he said. ‘Your – intended – cannot possibly have been offered the use of the family chapel. It would be inappropriate in the extreme. A gardener and a cook? I hardly think so.’

  ‘Why, you miserable, jumped-up Sassenach bastard!’ Daniel, all restraint and decorum abandoned, stepped forwards and placed his two large hands on Absalom’s desk, the better to hold a steady, hostile gaze. ‘I should knock your prissy wee head off your shoulders, except you’re not worth the trouble it would cause me. But let me tell you something. Eve Williams and I will be wed wherever on God’s earth we wish and if you have a problem with that then I’m afraid you’re going to have to swallow it.’

  He moved back, away from the desk, towards the door. Absalom, briefly alarmed for his own safety, relaxed marginally.

  ‘Get out,’ he said, full of bravado now Daniel was leaving. ‘Or I shall throw you out.’

  Daniel laughed. ‘I should like to see you try.’ He threw a final look of naked contempt in the bailiff’s direction then stalked out of the office, shoving open the door with such force that it swung violently back on to the brick wall outside then slammed shut again with the momentum. Absalom shuddered. The man was an animal, with an animal’s appetites and responses. He and the whore were well suited.

  The Liberals took it, as everyone had known they would, but Amos was still the story in the following day’s newspapers, because he had given Webster Thorne an extremely anxious few hours when a recount was ordered because the result was too close to call. In the end, Thorne’s margin of victory was forty-five votes. The Tory candidate was never in the running, but everyone knew that it wasn’t his votes that Amos had so audaciously poached. On the makeshift stage in Ardington church hall, Enoch raised Amos’s arm in a victory salute and the small crowd of Labour supporters who’d stayed on for the recount – Anna among them – whooped and hollered their approval as if their man had been elected.

  ‘Next time,’ Enoch shouted at Amos over the racket. ‘Next time.’ And a small part of Amos believed his friend might actually be right.

  Chapter 28

  ‘By any normal person’s standards, I’m an abject failure,’ said Henrietta cheerfully. ‘Even Isabella pities me, and she’s only twelve.’

  Thea ceased her rowing, allowing the little wooden boat to temporarily pick its own course through the steel-grey waters of the loch. Henrietta had been coming here to this stretch of water on their Scottish estate since childhood; she was happy, now, to be sharing it with her friend. The day was cold, and Henrietta sat wrapped in fur with her back to the prow, but Thea had cast off her coat and her face was flushed with exertion.

  ‘Well, snap,’ she said. ‘My parents have practically disowned me. It was their idea that I travel to England. They needed a break from the embarrassment I cause them.’

  ‘Did the Choates know what a flop you are?’

  ‘The Choates are darlings. Much more free-thinking than my folks. Caroline is all for girls learning Latin and math.’

  ‘Even so, I think she finds you a little wild.’

  ‘Oh, sure. And she’d much prefer it if I wore a girdle.’

  ‘Well, since you mention it, why don’t you?’

  ‘Why should I? I want to be able to move. You should follow my lead and liberate your body.’ These last words she yelled, sending them out across the water so that they bounced back at them in duplicate from the hills beyond. Henrietta laughed.

  ‘My mother’s great fear, when she first met you in London, was that you were a suffragist.’

  ‘Was it?’ Thea looked immensely interested. ‘And do you know, that’s one thing she needn’t have worried about at all.’

  ‘I’d rather like to be able to vote,’ Henrietta said. ‘I think if I knew I could influence the outcome, I might take an interest in politics.’

  ‘Couldn’t much care either way,’ Thea said. ‘If someone gives me the right, I suppose I might. But I’m not waving a placard about it.’

  ‘Selfish girl,’ said Henrietta, but Thea just smiled at her and reached for the oars, which had, while they talked, lolled useless in the rowlocks. For a few moments they fought her, resisting her efforts to right them, but soon she had them tamed and began to draw them through the water. She was surprisingly adept at this, keeping a steady pace, cutting a straight and confident path back to the jetty.

  ‘If I could just bring myself to marry,’ Henrietta said in a musing voice, leaving her unfinished statement hanging in the air between them.

  ‘Have you been asked?’ There was no malice or judgement in Thea’s question, only genuine interest.

  ‘Well, no. I seem to sort of stop would-be suitors from pursuing romance. When I sense it coming I start to talk loudly about mining or duck shooting. It’s an affliction of mine, like an unfortunate birthmark or a nervous twitch. Quite beyond my power to cure it.’

  The boat glided smoothly alongside the jetty and Thea leaned out over the side for the rope to haul them in and secure the vessel.

  ‘Do you know that house on Netherwood Common?’ she said.

  Henrietta, surprised by this conversational about-turn, thought for a moment then said: �
�Ravenscliffe, do you mean?’

  Thea nodded. She looked directly at Henrietta, who thought what a startlingly wonderful-looking girl Thea could be, and was, in this light, in that blue dress, with a light bloom of perspiration on her face and her eyes the fathomless green of the sea in summer. Her beauty was of the quiet kind: hidden initially by its imperfections, it stole up on you by degrees.

  ‘I saw it when Toby and I walked up there,’ Thea continued. ‘There was a woman outside, up a ladder, painting her own front door a beautiful shade of grey-blue, and I was so startled and – well, charmed, I guess.’

  ‘Probably Anna Rabinovich,’ Henrietta said. ‘Was she small and very blond?’

  ‘Her hair was hidden by a scarf. But she seemed so capable. So independent. Imagine, Henry, taking up a paintbrush to change the colour of your own door.’

  Henrietta shrugged. ‘Not sure I’m following,’ she said.