Chaff upon the Wind

by Margaret Dickinson

  Kitty scrambled up to kneel beside him. Roughly she grasped his shoulder and shook him, but he just lay there laughing on the deep bed of hay. ‘What d’you mean? What have you heard?’

  He sat up then and she could see him straining to look at her through the darkness. ‘You mean you really don’t know?’

  ‘Know what?’ Kitty demanded.

  He lay back down again and put his hands behind his head and stretched. ‘Well, I aren’t going to be the one to tell you, Kitty Clegg, else I might find mesen thrown off this land and there’s a good bit of money coming my way for the work here. I ain’t about to lose it.’

  ‘Tell me, Jack, please. I won’t say anything to anyone. I swear it. Only, tell me what it is you’ve heard.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, young Kitty. It’s likely only tittle-tattle anyway.’

  ‘But what did you mean about me mam and – and me?’ She was almost crying with tears of frustration now.

  ‘It’s only that by all accounts she didn’t exactly practise in her young days what she’s preaching now to you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kitty sat back on her haunches, shocked. Though she still did not know the full story, she was sharp enough to understand the implication in Jack’s words. There were people still working for Mr Franklin who must have known her mother and father when they had both worked here. Small communities have long memories and no doubt someone had been gossiping. Kitty said no more to Jack, knowing that however much she wheedled she would get nothing more out of him.

  Tomorrow, she promised herself silently, I shall ask Mrs Grundy.

  Jack was hauling himself up and dusting the hay from his trousers. ‘I’ll say goodnight then, Kitty. I’ve an early start in the morning. Looks like being a fine day.’

  ‘Jack, please, don’t go like this. Don’t you understand?’ She scrambled up and caught hold of his arm, feeling the hard muscles rippling beneath her touch.

  There was a bitter edge to his tone as he said, ‘Oh I understand, Kitty Clegg. You say you love me, but it’s all talk with you. Just a young girl’s talk. You still ain’t woman enough to prove your love for me, are you?’ With that cruel parting shot, he pulled himself free of her grasp and walked away into the night.

  Kitty gulped and a sob escaped her lips. She pressed her hand over her mouth to still the sound and sank to her knees on the hay. Burying her face in her hands, Kitty wept.

  ‘By heck, girl. You look a mess!’ was Mrs Grundy’s greeting the following morning. ‘Have you come down with Sarah’s cold then?’

  Kitty shook her head, trying desperately to blink back the tears that welled all too readily. As she avoided the cook’s shrewd, penetrating gaze, Kitty was angry with herself too. Angry that anyone, any man, could cause her to be so silly. She had never been a crybaby and yet at the very thought of Jack’s mockery, she wanted to burst into fresh tears.

  ‘Are you in trouble, Kitty? I want the truth now.’

  Kitty gasped. ‘No, no. I’m not.’

  ‘Hm.’ Mrs Grundy still looked as if she did not entirely believe her, adding only, ‘But I expect it’s that young feller . . .’ she nodded towards the stackyard beyond the garden wall, ‘that’s causing all this.’ And she gestured towards Kitty’s blotchy, swollen face. ‘Well, I did warn you, Kitty. You can’t say I didn’t.’ She turned away and reached up to the shelf to lift down a heavy copper saucepan.

  ‘Mrs Grundy,’ Kitty blurted out suddenly. ‘Was my mother – did she have to get married?’

  The saucepan clattered to the floor, the noise resounding through the kitchen. Mrs Grundy gasped but surprisingly her attention was not on the saucepan, but on Kitty’s face. ‘Who’s been talking? Was it him? What’s he told you?’

  Kitty bit her lip. ‘Just – just . . .’ She was in danger of giving away the fact that Jack was pressing her to give herself to him. But there was no one else she could ask. She could certainly not ask her own mother. Betsy Clegg would soon give her a clip round her ear and tell her it was none of her business. ‘He – he said that in her young days me mam hadn’t practised what she’s preaching now.’

  ‘Eh?’ Mrs Grundy looked puzzled, then her expression cleared but only to be replaced by a look of anxiety for the girl herself. ‘Oh, been asking you for that, ’as he?’

  Kitty said nothing but could not prevent the colour rising in her face and giving Mrs Grundy her answer.

  The older woman sighed heavily. ‘Kitty, love, do be careful. I’m ever so fond of you, you know I am. I would hate to see you get yarsen into trouble.’

  ‘Did my mother get into trouble?’ Kitty asked quietly.

  Mrs Grundy turned away flustered and flapping her hand towards the girl as if fending her off. ‘Don’t ask me that, Kitty. ’Tain’t none of my business, nor yourn neither.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No, Kitty. No more questions, ’cos I aren’t answering ’em.’ Picking up the saucepan from the floor, Mrs Grundy banged it into the deep sink and turned the tap full on, every movement quick with anger.

  Kitty sighed. However much she pleaded, cajoled, begged, she knew there would be no budging Mrs Grundy in this mood. She would learn nothing more from her.

  Then who? she pondered. Who would tell her the truth? One day, she promised herself, I will find out, somehow. But for the moment, her mind was filled with the handsome Jack Thorndyke and the dilemma he had put her in. She loved him so much and yet what he was asking her to do was against everything her mother had taught her.

  Even so, her rebellious, nubile body longed to succumb to his desire.

  For three nights Kitty waited in the draughty darkness of the stackyard in vain. Jack did not appear. Had he gone away, left the district without telling her? she anguished. The threshing set was long gone from the stackyard at the Manor as Jack trundled it from farm to farm. But until now, he had always returned here to sleep – and to see her. At least, that was what Kitty had believed.

  By the fourth day even the self-centred Miriam noticed that there was something wrong with her maid. ‘You’re a real misery these days, Kitty. Whatever’s the matter with you? I didn’t think you were the weepy kind.’ She sniffed derisively. ‘I suppose you’ll be handing in your notice because you can’t stand me.’

  A spark of anger made Kitty’s chin rise and rashly she said, ‘It isn’t you, miss. I can handle you all right.’

  ‘Oh really?’ An amused smile twitched at the girl’s mouth. ‘Well, I’ll have to see what I can do about that.’ There was a light note in her voice and Kitty knew she was only teasing, but her words at least made a smile come to Kitty’s lips.

  ‘That’s better,’ Miriam remarked. There was a pause before she asked, with surprising concern, ‘You’ve not had bad news about your family, have you?’

  ‘No, miss.’ Kitty bit her lip. Miss Miriam’s probing was getting a little too deep.

  ‘I expect it’s some man then, is it?’ Miriam said airily. When Kitty did not answer, she added, ‘Ah – I see I have hit the nail on the head.’

  Kitty turned away from her, busying herself folding Miriam’s discarded garments which she dropped wherever she took them off.

  With an unexpected note of understanding in her voice, Miriam said, ‘You can talk to me about it, Kitty, if you want. I certainly don’t mind you having a young man and I won’t tell Mama. In fact,’ she giggled, ‘in my boring life, I’d find it quite diverting.’

  Kitty wasn’t sure she liked the idea of her love life being a ‘diversion’ for Miriam, but she merely said, ‘That’s just it, miss, there isn’t much to tell.’

  Still, she didn’t want to risk telling her about Jack. She wasn’t sure how safe her secrets would be with Miriam, who had such a careless disregard for the feelings of others. She couldn’t risk word reaching the master’s ears and Jack losing his contract at the Manor Farm.

  ‘Oh.’ Miriam stared at her for a moment and then said, ‘Oh, I see. Poor Kitty.’ Then losing interest, she said, ‘Can you lay
out my riding habit? I may ride over to the Hall this afternoon. I think Guy will be home.’

  Without stopping to think and with a note of resentment in her tone, Kitty said, ‘I think your love life is far more exciting than mine, miss.’ Then added quickly, ‘If you’ll pardon me saying so.’

  Miriam only laughed. ‘Maybe,’ she murmured, her eyes sparkling. ‘Maybe so, Kitty.’

  ‘But where is he?’ Kitty shouted above the noise of the throbbing traction engine. It was November and the team had arrived back at the Manor House to do the promised threshing for Mr Franklin.

  Jack’s workmate, Ben Holden, shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Ah dun’t know, me love. He disappears every afternoon now for an hour or so.’ He glanced at her and Kitty had the impression that the man was a little embarrassed. He kept glancing at her and then looking away as if there was something he would like to say, something he would like to tell her, and yet he did not know quite how to do it. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the copse two fields away. ‘I saw him walking across yonder . . .’ He stopped and then added, ‘Of course, he might be going to other farms to check if they’re ready for us when we finish here.’

  ‘You – you’re not staying long, then?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘The mester only wants a couple of days this time.’ He reached out and touched her shoulder gently. ‘I’m sorry, lass, but – but I’ll have to go. Meks it harder work when he goes off on one of his jaunts.’

  He seemed, Kitty thought, to be apologizing for more than just being unable to stand and talk to her.

  ‘I’m surprised at him leaving you short-handed,’ she said.

  The big man laughed. ‘Oh we’re used to him and his ways and there’s not a lot we can do about it, seein’ as he’s the boss, now is there?’

  Mutely, Kitty shook her head.

  ‘D’ya want me to give him a message for you, love?’ The man, a little older than Jack and happily married with children, smiled kindly at her.

  She swallowed and shook her head. ‘No, it’s all right.’ She turned away, sick at heart, and walked back past the stables to the back door of the house so that she could not be seen from the windows.

  ‘Master Edward’s asking for you, Kitty,’ Mrs Grundy greeted her. ‘Go and see what he wants, will you?’

  ‘Why do I always have to go?’ she grumbled, her thoughts still on Jack. ‘Why can’t Sarah or even Milly?’

  ‘Sarah’s with the mistress and I aren’t letting young Milly above stairs yet. She’s not half trained. Go on with you, girl. Miss Miriam’s out, so you’ve nowt else to do. Go and keep the poor lad company a while.’

  Sighing, Kitty made her way upstairs.

  He was fully dressed and sitting by the window. As Kitty entered the room, Edward turned to see who it was and a smile lit his pale face and sparked briefly in his eyes.

  ‘Kitty!’ he said. ‘Come and sit down.’

  Still nervous of being found chatting to the boy during working hours – or at any time if it came to that – Kitty stood awkwardly near the window. Below her, the back garden stretched to the wall and beyond it she could see the stackyard. Even through the closed window she could hear the chug-chug-chug of the traction engine and see the dust and chaff misting the air.

  ‘I love threshing time, don’t you?’ Edward said softly. Kitty kept her face turned away from him, concentrating on looking out of the window, though the scene blurred as her eyes filled with tears. She swallowed the lump in her throat. I used to love threshing time too, she wanted to tell him. I used to count the days to when I would see Jack again. And now . . .

  Edward’s voice came gently, almost soothingly. ‘I see an awful lot from this window, Kitty. People think that because I’m young and sick, I don’t know what’s going on. But I do. Inside the house and outside of it too.’ He paused and then sighed. ‘Miriam’s gone riding . . .’ he waved his pale hand indicating the way across the fields to the far distance, ‘again. I just hope she knows what she’s doing.’

  Startled now into forgetting, for a moment, her own misery, Kitty turned to face him. ‘Why? What do you mean? She’s ridden over to the Hall.’ As she saw the doubt on Edward’s face, Kitty added, uncertainty in her own tone now, ‘Hasn’t she?’

  Steadily, Edward’s gaze met hers. ‘Well, yes, maybe she has.’ His young face was troubled and, fleetingly, he seemed much older than his fourteen years. ‘But she shouldn’t be going out alone, even to the Hall, unchaperoned.’

  Kitty was silent. It was not her place to probe into the lives of her betters. It was her duty only to serve them and to give them her loyalty. But it seemed as if Edward had other ideas. ‘Kitty, couldn’t you speak to her? She might listen to you.’

  Appalled, Kitty’s eyes widened. ‘Me, Master Edward?’

  ‘Teddy,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Oh I couldn’t – Teddy. Besides . . .’ A small smile twitched her mouth at the thought of her strong-willed young mistress. ‘I don’t think she’d take a scrap of notice of me anyway.’

  Edward sighed. ‘No, you’re probably right. But will you just promise me one thing, Kitty?’

  ‘I will – if I can.’

  ‘That whatever happens, you’ll stick by her. You’ll not – not turn against her.’

  Kitty searched the boy’s face. Deep in his eyes she could read the anxiety. ‘You really do think she’s doing something she shouldn’t, don’t you?’

  Slowly, he nodded. ‘I’m very much afraid she is, yes. I know my sister. She’s bored with life in the country. She’s searching for excitement. But if she’s not careful she’ll find more drama than she bargained for.’

  Now Kitty did lean closer to him. ‘But Master Guy loves her. He wouldn’t – wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.’

  For a moment, there was a strange look on Edward’s face as he stared into Kitty’s. He tried to smile and reached out and touched her hand briefly, but it was more as if he were trying to reassure himself rather than her. ‘No, you’re right, of course. Guy Harding is a gentleman and, as you say, he loves Miriam and would never do anything to harm her.’

  Suddenly his attention was caught by some movement beyond the window, in the far distance across the fields. Following the line of his gaze, Kitty saw a tiny figure emerging from the trees. Even from here, the broad-shouldered figure of Jack Thorndyke was unmistakable.

  Kitty’s lips parted in a gasp and she sprang to her feet, Edward forgotten. So, was that what Ben Holden had been trying to tell her, but had not known how to put it into words? Jack was slipping away to the copse to meet some girl, some trollop from the town, no doubt, or a maid from the Hall, which, across the fields, was only a mile away. Well, she wasn’t going to stand by and let some other girl get her claws into him. Jack Thorndyke belonged to her and no one else was going to have him.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Kitty muttered and, whirling round, she ran across the room, dragged open the door and fled down the stairs, out of the back door and down the long straight pathway towards the door in the garden wall leading into the stackyard, not caring who saw her now.

  ‘Kitty, no, don’t . . .’ he began, but she was gone.

  From his window Edward watched her go, his young heart breaking.

  Seventeen

  Kitty was running pell-mell across the field towards him, mindless of the rough stubble beneath her thin shoes. She trod awkwardly and her ankle gave way, twisting painfully, and she fell, the sharp spikes of the short-cut crop digging into her hands and knees. Breathlessly, she sobbed, but more from the pain in her heart than the physical injury.

  He was bending over her then and picking her up. Kitty struggled against him, hitting him with her clenched fists. ‘I hate you, Jack Thorndyke. I never want to see you again as long as I live.’

  Hardly seeming to notice her blows, he hoisted her into his arms and carried her. ‘Now, now, young Kitty. What’s this all about, eh?’

  Giving way to the misery that had engu
lfed her for the past few days, Kitty buried her face against his neck and wept.

  ‘Hey, what’s all this?’ Gently, he set her down on the ground but he kept one arm around her and with the other he cupped her chin in his strong fingers, tipping back her head and forcing her to look up at him. ‘I never had you as the weepy kind, Kitty. Now, what’s the matter?’

  ‘You,’ she sniffed and added belligerently, ‘you are. You’re what’s the matter.’

  ‘Me? Why me? I ain’t done nothing.’

  ‘Oh no? You’ve got another girl, ain’t ya? You’ve been meeting some trollop from the town. Up in them trees . . .’ Wildly, she flung her arm out towards the copse two fields away. ‘And don’t try to deny it, ’cos I saw you come out o’ there just now.’

  Jack Thorndyke threw back his head and laughed. ‘Why, Kitty Clegg, I do believe you’re jealous. With those huge brown eyes, I never took you for a little wildcat. Come here.’ He tried to pull her closer, but she held herself stiffly away from him.

  ‘Where have you been then, if not to meet a girl?’

  ‘Not that it’s any business of yours where I’ve been, but I went to the next farm to see what needs doing when we leave here tomorrow. I’m not going a hundred miles away, Kitty,’ he said softly. ‘We’re only going to Home Farm on Sir Ralph’s estate. I can easy come back – at night. You know you’ve only to say the word.’

  Kitty bit her lip. ‘I – I thought you were meeting someone else, ’cos I’ve waited the last three nights and you never came.’

  He hugged her to him. ‘Oh Kitty, you’ve a lot to learn about men. I’m a healthy, lusty male and if I keep meeting you every night, I’ll – well, I’ll forget mesen.’ His eyes darkened. ‘I want you, Kitty. I want you so badly that I can’t trust mesen to be near you.’

  ‘Oh Jack,’ Kitty breathed and she felt the tingle of excitement low in her groin. He did love her, she thought ecstatically. He loved her so much, wanted her so much, that he had kept away from her out of respect because he knew she didn’t want to give herself to him. But if he loved her so much, she told herself, then it couldn’t really be so very wrong, could it?