Chaff upon the Wind

by Margaret Dickinson

  Resolutely, she lifted her chin and said quietly, ‘I’ll come with you, Jack. I still love you.’

  For a moment, he returned her steady gaze, but then he glanced away, gave a grunt, rose from his chair and left the cottage without another word. Kitty stared after him, seeing her life stretching before her down the years, trailing in Jack’s wake, following him wherever he went, having to be content with the crumbs of his brusque affection. Yet, still, she could not bring herself to break free from him.

  ‘Kitty.’

  She straightened up from where she had been bending over the flowerbed, a trowel in her hand, and was surprised to see who was standing at the gate leading into the garden of the cottage.

  They were back in Tresford, in time to help with another harvest. They were earlier this year for it was only July but Kitty welcomed the respite from their nomadic existence and was looking forward to several weeks, even months, in the area. Soon there would be plenty of work here for Jack and they had been lucky that the little cottage was still available. It had not been easy following Jack from village to village with a young child.

  ‘You ought to stay put in one place, Kitty,’ Jack had said irritably. ‘Like Ben’s wife.’

  ‘Oh aye, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Jack? Playing the bachelor again while I stay safely tucked away somewhere.’

  ‘I am a bachelor, Kitty,’ he had said cruelly. ‘And don’t you forget it.’

  ‘I’m hardly likely too, am I,’ she had snapped back, ‘when everywhere I go the finger points at me for the fallen women I appear to be.’

  He shrugged, completely uncaring. ‘It was your choice.’

  Kitty had been silent, knowing he spoke only the truth. But Jack’s next words, ‘I don’t know why you don’t stay in Tresford,’ had stayed with her, and now that they were back once more in the place she called home, she felt she never wanted to leave it again.

  There was only one tiny fear in Kitty’s heart. At any moment they might run into Miss Miriam and she would see her son.

  She smiled a genuine welcome at her unexpected visitor. ‘Why, Master Edward, what are you doing here?’ She dropped the trowel on to the earth and rubbed her dirty fingers on the hessian apron she wore for gardening. She glanced at the child who, walking strongly now on his sturdy plump legs, was pushing a wooden horse on wheels that Jack had made for him. The toddler had stopped in his play and his dark blue eyes were upon the stranger.

  Edward was coming forward, smiling down at the boy. He dropped to his haunches to bring his eyes on a level with the child’s. ‘My word, there’s no mistaking whose boy he is.’

  Kitty’s heart seemed to jump inside her chest. No, no, it wasn’t possible. Surely Edward hadn’t seen a likeness to his sister? So much so that . . . But his next words dispelled her panic.

  ‘He’s his father’s double, isn’t he?’

  Kitty breathed again and managed to smile, but her voice came out a little high-pitched as she said, ‘In looks, yes.’

  Edward looked up at her then and slowly rose to his feet. His gentle eyes searched her face and he gave the briefest of nods as if he understood without the words even passing between them.

  Suddenly shy, she said, ‘Can I offer you something? Tea or lemonade on this hot day?’

  ‘Lemonade, Kitty, would be very nice. Thank you.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to sit on the bench under the apple tree,’ she gestured behind her. ‘And I’ll bring it out.’

  When she returned carrying a small tray with a jug and two glasses, he was not sitting down but pretending to feed Johnnie’s toy horse with a handful of grass. The child was chuckling with delight and plucking at the ground to pull a handful for himself to copy him.

  Straightening up, Edward smiled. ‘He’s a grand little chap, Kitty. You must be very proud of him.’

  Her answering smile trembled a little on her mouth and she swallowed quickly, realizing that, although of course he had no idea of the fact, Edward was little Johnnie’s uncle.

  She set the tray down on the grass and bent her head over it to pour the lemonade. ‘I am, Master Edward. He’s a lovely little boy.’

  ‘Teddy,’ his voice came gently. ‘There’s no one to hear, is there?’

  Looking up and holding out a glass to him, Kitty shook her head. ‘No, there’s no one else here.’

  Edward seemed to relax visibly and patted the wooden bench beside him. ‘Come and sit down, Kitty. I’ve a favour to ask of you.’

  Startled, Kitty said, ‘A favour? Of me?’

  A little hesitantly, she sat beside him, still unable to see him in any light other than as the son of her former employers. But he was smiling at her, as friendly as ever and as if she was his equal. She found herself smiling in return. It had always been easy to smile at Master Edward – Teddy – especially when he had been so ill, a virtual prisoner in his sickroom. Looking at him now, she marvelled at the change in him during the last three years. He had grown, filled out and lost that terrible sickroom pallor. Now he looked the young man of seventeen that he was.

  He was twirling the glass in his hand, looking down at the liquid in it as if he were suddenly nervous. ‘Are you happy, Kitty?’ The words tumbled out suddenly. ‘Is he – good to you?’

  Kitty watched him for a moment before she replied. Now, faced with Edward’s question, she was able to say, quite truthfully, ‘We get along very well together and he’s very proud of his son.’

  Edward nodded and glanced away again. For a moment he did not speak and then, clearing his throat, he began. ‘It’s about Miriam. She – she’s in London and has got in with a very wild crowd. Mother . . .’ He looked straight at Kitty then. ‘Mother can’t handle her. None of us can – except you.’

  Kitty could not hide her surprise. ‘I thought she’d have been married by now to Mr Guy. She told me . . .’ She hesitated a moment, about to say ‘when we came back from Harrogate’. But that was a memory best forgotten. ‘They were going to be married.’

  Edward’s mouth tightened. ‘They were, or rather, they are, but Miriam keeps putting off the day with first one excuse and then another.’ He smiled at Kitty. ‘Poor Mother’s at her wits’ end to know how to deal with her. I tried to find you once before, to ask you to talk some sense into her, but we didn’t know where you were living. I even went to the station house, but your mother said you were always on the move and even she had no address for you.’

  Kitty bit her lip. Edward was the last person she wanted to know what her life had been like over the last eighteen months or so. Sleeping under stacks, the child pressed close to her to keep him warm; cooking in the open air over a fire; washing in a cold stream and always, moving on, moving on, from one place to another to find a day’s work here, another there.

  But for the next few weeks at least, she had a roof over her head and a settled life, so now she lifted her chin and smiled at Edward. ‘But what can I do?’

  Edward took a deep breath. ‘Kitty, would you go to London?’

  Kitty’s mouth dropped open but he hurried on, giving her no chance to protest. ‘Miriam is staying at Sir Ralph’s house in the city and you could go there too. I’ll pay all your fares, of course, that goes without saying and I’ll pay you for going too.’

  ‘But how can I go? I – can’t take Johnnie . . .’ she hesitated, not wanting to say she could not take the boy near Miriam, ‘to London. And I certainly can’t leave him.’

  ‘Couldn’t you leave him with your mother? I mean, he’s almost two now, isn’t he?’

  Kitty nodded. ‘Yes. He’s two next month. August.’ She smiled fondly. ‘But he’s a real handful now. Into everything.’

  She was silent for a moment. She could safely leave him with her mother. July was a quiet time of the year for a thresherman and Jack had already told her that the following week he and Ben were going to a farm several miles away to cut wood and that they would not be coming home each night.

  ‘We’ll get lodgings somew
here in the week and come home on a Sunday,’ he’d said. So, she thought now, as long as she was back by the Saturday, he need never know she’d even been away.

  But there was one other stumbling block. Would her father agree? He had mellowed a little – but not completely – towards Kitty. She was now allowed to visit her mother openly and to take the child to the stationmaster’s house, but John Clegg himself neither spoke to Kitty nor took any notice of Johnnie. He made a point of leaving the house the moment they arrived and did not return until they had left. Kitty doubted very much that he would allow his wife to care for the child for several days.

  Kitty took a deep breath. ‘If my mother would have him, then I could go next Monday. But I must be back by the Saturday.’

  Edward nodded. ‘Good. Bemmy can drive us to the station on Monday and we can go down by train and back later in the week, no later than the Friday.’

  As he rose to go, Kitty looked up at him. ‘Us?’

  He looked down at her and said firmly, ‘Oh yes, Kitty. I’m not letting you go all that way on your own. I’m coming with you.’

  Thirty-Four

  ‘I don’t know, Kitty, really I don’t.’ Betsy plucked at her apron in a nervous gesture that was totally unlike her. ‘Your dad’s been so difficult since – since – well . . .’ She stopped and bit her lip.

  Kitty said sadly, ‘Since I shamed the family, you mean?’

  Her mother nodded. ‘It’s not just you. It brought back all his bitter memories and made him realize that he’s been stuck all his life in a job he hates, just ’cos of me.’

  Kitty was silent. There was nothing she could say. She was sorry that she had brought fresh sorrow to her mother, yet the mistakes of a generation ago were not her fault.

  Suddenly, Betsy smiled, showing some of the spirit Kitty knew so well, the same spirit that was in her. ‘Oh bring the little chap here. I shall love to have him. I miss a tiny bairn about the house. Ne’er mind what your father says.’ She laughed. ‘He’s not likely to turn me out into the street, now is he? He likes me cooking too much.’

  ‘Mam, are you sure? I don’t want to make more trouble, but – but I would like to help the Franklins.’

  ‘Aye, I’m sure. But it’s a rare how-do-ya-do when a little maid can manage Miss Miriam better than anyone else. Better than her own parents or her intended.’

  Kitty grinned. ‘I know. But you see, I stand up to her and no one else does. Though I think Edward might, in time.’

  Kitty did not tell Jack that she would be away from the cottage for most of the week. Because it involved Miriam, she found it difficult to say anything. She thought, too, that he would forbid her to go. Harder even than that was parting from little Johnnie. She hated being away from him for even an hour, never mind almost a week and when she handed him into her mother’s arms, it was like tearing the heart out of her. Yet part of her – like any young woman – was excited at the prospect of a trip to the city.

  There had been one awkward moment when she was standing on the platform beside Master Edward waiting for the London train.

  ‘That’s your father, isn’t it?’ Edward touched her arm and pointed. ‘I don’t think he’s seen us. Do you want to go and speak to him?’

  Kitty glanced along the platform to where her father was standing with his back to them. He was rigidly stiff, almost as if standing to attention, staring down the track in the direction from which the train would appear. ‘He’s seen us, Master Edward – Teddy – but he’s not speaking to me.’

  ‘What?’ There was a silence and then Edward said flatly, ‘Oh, I see. I’m sorry, Kitty.’

  She sighed. ‘I’m not bothered for myself.’ And to her surprise, she was not. ‘It’s me mam I feel sorry for.’

  ‘Mm. But she agreed to have Johnnie for you?’

  ‘Oh yes. She loves him.’

  Edward smiled. ‘Well, I suppose she’ll love having her grandchild around the place for a few days.’

  Luckily, Kitty was saved from having to answer by the whistle of the approaching train.

  London terrified her and as she stepped from the train on to the bustling platform, she clung to Edward’s arm, completely forgetting the gulf of class between them.

  He laughed and patted her hand. ‘Come along, Kitty. We’ll find a cab to take us to Beresford House.’

  Once safely inside the horse-drawn cab, Kitty’s fears subsided a little and she peered out of the window, fascinated by the shop-lined streets, the pedestrians, the buses and the fine horse-drawn carriages.

  ‘Is that the King?’ she asked in awed tones as a carriage with a coat of arms emblazoned on the doors swept past them.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, but you never know. Maybe you’ve set eyes on the King of England, Kitty,’ he teased her gently, but she was still gawping out of the window, determined to miss nothing of the sights and the sounds and the smells of the capital.

  Newspaper boys, with placards about their necks, stood on the corners of the streets, shouting the latest headlines.

  ‘Suffragettes burn church . . .’

  Beside her in the cab, Edward sighed. ‘That’s what Miriam has got herself mixed up in. All this Votes for Women campaigning.’

  She looked at him. ‘I remember arguments between her and the master over the dinner table.’

  Edward grinned, remembering. ‘How I admired her then. She was the only one who could stand up to Father.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Your mother did too. In her own quiet way.’ Feeling his gaze upon her, she turned to look into his eyes.

  ‘You know a lot about our family, Kitty, don’t you?’

  Quickly, Kitty looked away lest he should see far more in her eyes than he ought. With a forced brightness, she laughed. ‘You’d be surprised, Master Edward, just how much servants do know about their betters.’

  And you’d be really shocked, she thought silently, if you knew what I know about your dear sister.

  To change the subject from what was becoming dangerous ground, Kitty said, ‘And what do you think about this Votes for Women then?’

  ‘Me?’ Edward wrinkled his brow. ‘Well, I think women should be given the vote, but I don’t agree with the way they’re going about it. Burning churches, causing riots. One woman even threw herself in front of the King’s horse at the Derby last month. I just think there ought to be a better way than becoming a martyr for the Cause. Any cause.’

  ‘What better way?’

  He smiled wryly. ‘That’s just the trouble, Kitty, I don’t know. I don’t know what the alternative is. Women need something whereby they can prove themselves worthy of being given the vote. Unfortunately, I don’t know what that is. But I’m sure this is not the way.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Kitty murmured, ‘maybe one day we’ll get the chance to prove ourselves.’

  After a ride through what seemed a maze of streets, the cab drew up outside a tall Georgian mansion in a terrace of such buildings.

  ‘Is – is this it?’ she asked, wide eyed.

  Edward leaped from the cab and held out his hand to help her down. While he settled with the driver and collected her one piece of luggage, Kitty stood on the pavement gazing up at the tall, imposing edifice above her. As if by magic, the front door swung smoothly open and she found herself gazing at a liveried footman, thin faced and solemn, who hurried down the steps to take her bag from Edward’s hand. ‘Allow me, sir.’

  ‘We are expected?’ Edward began.

  The footman inclined his head graciously. ‘Most certainly, sir. If you will follow me, I will show you to your rooms.’

  Kitty found it hard to stifle her giggles at the plummy, exaggerated tones of the high-class servant, but, anxious not to give offence, she straightened her features and followed the man while he conducted them up the stairs to the front part of the house and ushered Edward into a guest room.

  ‘If you will follow me, miss, your room is on the next floor.’

  The servants’ quarters, Kitty t
hought, but any resentment she might have felt was dispelled in an instant when she stepped into the pretty room where a fire burned welcomingly in the grate even on this summer’s day. She ran to the window and to her joy found that it looked out over the street.

  She turned back to the man, her eyes large with wonder. ‘It’s lovely. Thank you.’

  The man nodded but still no smile curved his lips. ‘You’ll eat with the servants, miss, of course, but I’ll show you Miss Franklin’s room now if you wish.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again and followed him back down the stairs to the second floor where he knocked on one of the doors. On hearing a ‘Come in,’ the man opened the door, but stood aside for Kitty to enter. Giving him a quick smile of thanks Kitty stepped past him and into the room. As the door closed quietly behind her, she found herself staring into the surprised gaze of Miriam Franklin reflected in the mirror of the dressing table where she was seated.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she demanded without preamble, but before Kitty could even form an answer, Miriam held up her hand. ‘Don’t tell me. Mother’s sent you to “look after me”.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Kitty said carefully.

  ‘Ah. Then it was Edward.’

  Kitty could not deny it. She waited a moment, returning Miriam’s wilful look with a steady gaze. Then she asked quietly, ‘Aren’t you going to ask after Johnnie?’

  Not even the merest flicker of emotion passed across Miriam’s face as she said idly, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea who you’re talking about.’

  With deliberate emphasis Kitty said, ‘My son. I thought at least you would want to know if he was well and thriving.’

  Miriam picked up a silver-backed hairbrush and drawled languidly, ‘And what makes you think that I would be interested in the bastard child of a silly servant girl?’

  Kitty didn’t even flinch as she stepped closer and bent down to stare into the mirror, their reflected faces close together. ‘Of course not, miss,’ she said, her tone laced with sarcasm. ‘How could I, for one moment, have imagined that you would have a thought for anyone else in this world except yourself?’