Ravenscliffe

by Jane Sanderson

  His mind emptied of all thoughts but that a pony, a grey mare, stood directly in his path and he was driving at speed towards her.

  She stood as if rooted, her stocky little mass filling the space between the hedgerows, her head turned so that her eyes were fixed on the approaching vehicle. Lord Netherwood, anxious for the pony’s welfare, careless of his own, swung the steering wheel violently to the left, though a small, rational part of him knew there was no escape from impact. The Daimler’s front wing rammed into the pony’s right flank, slicing into her solid flesh and inducing an instant reaction of wild-eyed panic. She reared to escape the pain and crashed down with her front hooves on the bodywork of the motorcar, producing a thunderous sound that the pony couldn’t understand, driving her wilder still. He couldn’t see what held her there, in the lane, though evidently she was unable to break free. If he had been able to stand, the earl might have calmed her; there were tricks of the hands and the voice that those who understood the language of horses could use to ease a frenzied beast. But, trapped in his seat, the earl felt stupid and helpless, pinned in by the heaving bulk of the pony, his arms wrapped above his head for scant protection. The motorcar’s left front wheel was in a ditch and the vehicle listed hopelessly so that remaining upright in his seat, without his hands for support, was an appalling effort. The pony seemed intent on the destruction of either him or the Daimler, thrashing and tossing her head in an agony of pain and panic. Why couldn’t she run? If he’d had a rifle, he would have shot her in an instant, for both their sakes; the mad whites of her eyes were close enough to put a bullet clean between them. But he had no gun so he dropped his arms from their defensive position and attempted awkwardly to shift across to the passenger seat, away from the violent range of the pony’s hooves. Again and again the creature reared, whinnying maniacally, baring long yellow teeth, smashing down with all her considerable might onto her tormentor.

  For a split second they looked directly at each other, the earl and the pony, each eyeing their tormentor. Instinctively he shook his head as if to say, you have the wrong man; but he knew this was a kind of madness of his own. He tried to lunge sideways, his plan being to haul himself out of the motorcar and into the embrace of the hawthorn hedge on his left. The pony, foaming now, sodden with sweat, near exhausted from her own pointless exertions, hauled herself upright once again, rising on her hind legs and screaming with a kind of desperate, unearthly triumphalism. The earl, his legs twisted and trapped by the steering wheel, was nevertheless almost clear of her reach, but then she plummeted back down, and with entirely accidental accuracy she struck him a devastating blow to the head.

  He knew nothing more. Senseless, he slumped sideways in the seat. The pony, with no sense of a battle won, continued to rise and fall against the Daimler. Her hooves, when they struck the earl, provoked no further reaction.

  Seth, running home from New Mill Colliery, heard the crazed pony before he saw her, and he followed the sound, driven by curiosity rather than alarm. He approached the scene from the common, and at first the hawthorn hid the motorcar so that all he could see from the wrong side of the hedge was the old pit pony, the grey – a gentle mare, he knew her well – occasionally and desperately throwing herself upwards, as if she was struggling to get clear of something. He jogged closer, looking for a way through the hedgerow and then he saw flashes of yellow and chrome through the gnarled and knotted interior; one of the earl’s Daimlers, no question about it. He couldn’t, from this inadequate vantage point, see the earl, and he walked up and down quite calmly, looking for a gap large enough to squeeze through, and far enough away from the pony to be safe. She was tiring now anyway, the poor old thing. She must be fast on something. The driver of the car must have gone for help.

  He was still in his finery. He placed the top hat carefully, responsibly, on a grassy mound, and then pushed his way – backwards to protect his face – between the branches in a section of the hedge that seemed marginally less impenetrable than any other. The thorns dragged at the skin on the back of his neck and he cursed like a pit man as he emerged, backside first, on to the lane. And then, of course, he saw the whole picture: the pony, blood the texture of treacle oozing from a gash in her flank, a crudely made wire trap pulled tight around her left hind fetlock, her head and neck hanging low now over the badly dented bonnet of the Daimler, which lay at a tilt in the ditch. And in the car, Lord Netherwood, bleeding from the temple, lying at an unnatural angle across the front seats, making no attempt to speak or move.

  Seth ran, powered by fear and the certain knowledge that alone he could do nothing to help. He pelted down the last leg of Harley Hill and, seeing no one to the right or the left, he flew over the road and burst into the taproom of the Hare and Hounds, where his startling appearance brought all conversation and a game of cribbage to an instant halt. He stood for a moment, panting extravagantly, scanning the faces before him, looking for someone useful, and his eyes alighted on Jem Arkwright, who stepped forwards as if he had known he would be needed.

  ‘Well, lad?’ he said.

  ‘It’s Lord Netherwood. I think ’e’s killed.’ The cribbage players – Sol Windross, Clem Waterdine, Percy Medlicott – carefully put down their pints. Jem started for the door.

  ‘Where is ’e?’ he said.

  ‘Just up ’arley ’ill. There’s a pit pony. And—’

  ‘Show me,’ Jem said.

  Seth began to run again, a fierce heat in his chest, his heart pounding, his throat tight and dry. At the foot of Harley Hill he began to flag so Jem ran on ahead and by the time Seth reached the scene the land agent had already opened the driver’s-side door of the Daimler, and was tenderly lifting the earl out of the car. The pony was on its knees and its eyes, though open, were clouded with distress.

  ‘It’s caught on summat,’ Seth said, his eyes full of tears now there was an adult on hand.

  ‘Rabbit trap, by looks o’ things.’ Jem had the earl in his arms as if he was no heavier than a child.

  ‘Is ’e dead?’

  ‘No,’ Jem said.

  He set off down the lane and Seth stood by the pony, unwilling to leave it. Gingerly he placed a hand on her withers; her coarse hair was cold and damp and she shook under his touch.

  ‘Mr Arkwright! What about—’

  ‘Fetch a gun an’ shoot ’er,’ he said, without looking back.

  ‘No,’ Seth said to the pony, not to Jem. ‘I shan’t.’

  Jem carried the earl as far as Sheffield Road, where Sol Windross caught him up with the rag-and-bone dray. He made a rudimentary bed from hessian sacks and Jem placed Lord Netherwood onto these, then climbed up beside him, holding his head steady between his big hands and feeling, from time to time, for the faint beat of a pulse in the earl’s neck.

  And this was how he arrived back at Netherwood Hall; in the tender care of his land agent, on the back of Sol’s cart. They drew up not in the rear courtyard but outside the great colonnaded entrance and the footmen stood useless with shock as Jem lifted the earl and carried him into the marble hall where Parkinson, alerted almost by instinct to the emergency, met him on his progress and led him up the sweep of stairs to the earl’s private rooms, where Lord Netherwood’s inert body was gently laid upon the silk counterpane of the bed.

  Chapter 37

  Word spread and the story grew, as stories do, in scope and substance, until Lord Netherwood had been crushed to a lifeless pulp under the merciless thrashing hooves of a rogue pony. Of course, only the earl knew the actual sequence of events, though Seth had a fair idea; he had pieced together the likely scenario while he knelt by the little mare and cut her free from the rabbit snare. The pony had blocked the lane, the car had smacked into her flank and veered into the ditch, the earl had taken a blow to the head from the pony’s hooves. The car had taken a beating too; its long yellow bonnet was badly dented and the windscreen smashed. There was blood on the cream leather passenger seat. Blue blood, Seth thought, staring at it; but it was red,
like his own. By now the pony was spent, defeated by her ordeal, her fear replaced by a passive indifference to her fate. Seth had run to Ravenscliffe and come back with a length of rope and wire cutters and, once she was free of the trap, he looped the rope about her neck and tugged gently to coax her to her feet. She was wary of the motorcar, wouldn’t edge past it; he took off his tail coat and covered her eyes and then her years in service underground began to tell at last, and she did as she was bid; they walked uphill for a short while until they came to a five-bar gate and then, passing through, they continued on home.

  Anna, who had seen Seth come and go all in a tearing hurry, was looking out for him.

  ‘What on earth?’ she said, with some alarm. She didn’t like the ponies. They came too close to her when she walked on the common and their proportions seemed all wrong: heads like stallions and legs no longer than a big dog’s.

  ‘She’s ’urt. Jem said I should shoot ’er but I think ’e was just mad because t’earl got knocked senseless.’

  As an explanation, this was hopeless.

  ‘Tie pony on gate post, then tell me again,’ Anna said. She stayed on the doorstep, watching from a distance.

  ‘We need salt water for this gash, look,’ Seth said. ‘She might need stitching.’

  Anna thought of her needle and thread pulling in and out of the pony’s flesh, and she shuddered.

  ‘Not you,’ Seth said, seeing her. ‘Vet’nary.’

  He fussed a little longer around the mare, clucking and tutting until Anna, fatigued from the day, told him to look sharp and tell her exactly what had happened. He stayed by the pony but told Anna what he knew, and she sat heavily on the front door step, one hand at her mouth.

  Seth said: ‘Oh don’t fret. Jem’ll ’ave ’im ’ome by now. Mark my words, ’e’ll be right as rain.’ He sounded so sure of himself that Anna forgot that he was only twelve, and she believed him.

  Dr Frankland had been called to Netherwood Hall and was in attendance with the earl. Lady Netherwood, ashen and tiny, remained in the drawing room with her children about her. She had dismissed the footmen, preferring in this crisis to be unobserved, and they sat together, all of them silent, keeping vigil. Below stairs, at the great oak table of the servants’ dining hall, the butler and the housekeeper sat quietly too. Parkinson had been arranging the luncheon table when Jem Arkwright had strode into the house, the metal segs on the soles of his boots ringing out on the marble floor. An extraordinary sight, one man in another man’s arms. He had followed the butler upstairs and placed the earl on the bed not in a rush, with relief, as one might expect, but carefully, almost reluctantly, as if he would have preferred to keep hold. Parkinson tried to explain.

  ‘He held him like this,’ he said, making a cradle of his arms. ‘As if the weight was nothing.’

  ‘We have hidden resources,’ Mrs Powell-Hughes said. ‘We don’t know how strong we are until we’re called upon.’

  Parkinson nodded.

  ‘Jem likely saved his lordship’s life,’ she said.

  Parkinson, who had seen the earl’s injury and his pallor, couldn’t reply. The great kitchen clock ticked on, filling the silence between them.

  ‘I think I’ll go up,’ Parkinson said.

  Mrs Powell-Hughes looked at him and nodded. It was as well to be on hand, she thought.

  ‘See if I can be of any use,’ the butler said. ‘At least then I’ll hear when … if … that is …’

  The housekeeper said: ‘I know.’

  Daniel and Eve lay in bed. One night at the Royal Victoria Hotel in Sheffield was all the time away they could manage, and Daniel said they weren’t going to spend it minding their manners in the dining room or taking afternoon tea in the drawing room. So they had gone to bed, even though it was only one o’clock and they had to draw the brocade curtains against the daylight. He was desperate for her; he undressed her gently enough, but he fell on her like a hungry man at a feast when, finally, she stood naked before him. Afterwards he pressed her to him, rolling over so that he was underneath, and with his face in her hair he breathed her in. She traced a line with her finger from his shoulder to his elbow and laughed.

  ‘What?’ He spoke without moving his head and his voice sounded different, muffled.

  ‘Your arm’s pale as mine to here.’ She drew a line again, shoulder to elbow. ‘And brown as a berry to here.’ Elbow to wrist. Her nail drifting across his skin felt exquisite.

  ‘And you,’ he said, rolling again so that now they were on their sides, face to face, ‘are cream-coloured from head to toe. Every inch.’ He shifted his weight and lowered his head to kiss her. Tiny, fluttering kisses moving down her neck and over her breasts, beyond them to her belly, grazing softly against her thighs. He nudged open her legs, kissing her still, and she thought she should feel some shame at this intimacy; curtains drawn in daytime, respectability abandoned in the pursuit of new ecstasies. But there was no shame, not even a shred. Don’t stop, she thought; oh, please don’t stop, though she would have never said it out loud.

  Daniel ordered cheese sandwiches and a jug of lemonade, standing stark naked at the table and dialling the big black telephone, speaking with a mysterious authority, as if he was used to hotel trysts and room service. It should be champagne, he said, not lemonade, but Eve was thirsty and anyway, she thought champagne was overrated. She watched him from under the covers, amused by his lack of self-consciousness.

  ‘You’ll put summat on, when t’food comes?’

  ‘Might do,’ he said. He smiled at her and her heart flipped. ‘You look a wee bit tousled there, Mrs MacLeod.’

  She blushed, and he laughed.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s allowed.’

  ‘Perhaps we should show our faces downstairs, though. What’ll they be thinking?’

  He laughed again.

  ‘Eve, it’s a big hotel, they don’t log our comings and goings.’

  ‘Still, though.’

  ‘Still nothing. You’re staying right there on that bed. I’m not finished with you yet.’

  They grinned at each other.

  ‘Do you suppose there’s time, before the sandwiches?’

  ‘Daniel!’

  ‘No, you’re right. A man can’t work on an empty stomach.’

  She threw a cushion at him; they were dotted about the bed, plush red velvet, serving no purpose except to add to the opulence of the room. It was very fine, if a little overblown. She thought of Anna, moving through Ravenscliffe working her magic. Anna would pare this room back to its essential elegance. Where there was velvet, she would put muslin or linen. Where there was heavy flock paper, she would put paint in a soft, surprising colour. Daniel hadn’t seen the bedroom yet, the one they were to share at Ravenscliffe. Under Anna’s influence, it was as if the sun shone in it all day long: palest yellow, cream, white, and then the bedspread was cornflower blue. When Eve had talked about it, in the kitchen up at the mill, Ginger had raised her brows and asked, wouldn’t it be peculiar, the three of them up at Ravenscliffe; shouldn’t Anna be moving out when Daniel moved in? Eve had looked up from her task, her hands suspended under warm, sudsy water in the sink.

  ‘Why?’ she’d said.

  ‘Like I said, it might look peculiar.’ Ginger had sounded a bit uncomfortable. She hadn’t meant to cast aspersions.

  Eve had said: ‘I don’t think so. Not to us, anyroad.’ She had pulled a saucepan out of the sink and begun to scrub at its insides.

  ‘Well, you don’t want to pay attention to what folk say,’ Ginger had said and Eve had tossed her a look and said: ‘No, and you don’t either,’ in a tone that signalled the end of the exchange. Anna’s place in Eve’s life was a given; certainly Daniel understood this, and it had never crossed his mind to question it.

  Now he took a running jump and threw himself back onto the bed beside her. The bedstead rocked and the springs protested but he just lay there, flat out with his hands behind his head, a great, contented smile on his f
ace. She leaned across and kissed him chastely on the cheek.

  ‘We’ve so much to look forward to,’ she said. ‘So much ’appiness ahead.’

  ‘We have,’ he said.

  ‘I can hardly wait to be back. I mean, this is grand, being ’ere. But to be at Ravenscliffe knowing you’re coming back at t’end of each day, waking up with you every morning …’

  ‘I know. Waking up with me every morning – there’s women would kill for the privilege.’ He winked at her and she pulled a face.

  There was a crisp rap at the door.

  ‘Hello?’ Daniel said, still prone on the bed.

  ‘Your refreshments, Sir.’

  She looked at Daniel with startled eyes and he laughed.

  ‘Och, all right then. Just for you, I’ll pull my trousers on.’

  Dr Frankland had been with the earl for almost two hours before the countess and her children heard his step on the stairs. Brisk and businesslike, thought Henrietta; the footsteps of a man coming to tell them that all was well, her father was recovered; he was sitting up in bed waiting to see them all.

  The door was ajar and he pushed it fully open and entered the room. His expression was exceptionally grave. The countess stood.

  ‘I am so very sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Is my husband unwell still?’ said Lady Netherwood.

  ‘Mama,’ said Tobias gently, taking her arm, holding it tight.

  ‘Lord Netherwood has passed away, your ladyship,’ said Dr Frankland with infinite sorrow. He had never shirked from the difficult aspects of his profession, but to be the bearer of this news was painful to him. He knew this family intimately, all of them; the countess had suffered over the years from every fashionable illness and he had attended the births of all her four children; he had seen them subsequently through the ailments of childhood – had, on occasion, feared for their chances in the torrid grip of a fever. Their father, however, had rarely called on the doctor’s services, and yet now he lay dead upstairs, victim of a strange and terrible twist of life’s path.