by Mary Mackie
She came closer, though she ignored my outstretched hand. She settled on the hearthrug with her arms wrapped about her knees, shivering as she frowned at the fire. ‘It’s cold in here.’
‘It feels warm to me,’ I said. ‘Warmer than riding the train, or walking across the heath in the rain. It was lucky that Ben Chilvers was at the station. He gave me a lift in his wagon.’
‘Ben…?’ Her puckered brow cleared. ‘Oh, you mean Chilvers, the carpenter. You shouldn’t be so familiar with people like that, Rose. They only take advantage.’
‘Ben Chilvers has been a good friend to me.’
‘That’s more than his father was to Papa, by all accounts.’
‘Papa?’ I queried.
She flushed. ‘That’s what my friend Maria Kinnersley calls her father. It sounds more elegant.’
My half-sister was almost eighteen. She had blossomed into a beauty, brown eyes wide as pansies set in a pale oval face framed by shining dark tresses. She was small in stature, with a slender but generously rounded figure. The only thing that marred her looks was a habitual expression of petulance, with excursions into frowns, sulks and tantrums. Grace had yet to learn that the most effective aid to beauty could be a smile. She remained a child at heart – a silly, selfish, yet uncertain child.
‘Dear Grace!’ I murmured. ‘I’m only just beginning to realise how much I’ve missed you.’
The confession brought no response, no ‘We’ve missed you, too,’ nor – what I most feared – any question about the reasons for my absence. Instead, my sister slid me a glance through luxuriant lashes.
‘Now that you’re home, shall you be staying?’
A sigh breathed out of me. ‘I don’t know. I have to decide what to do with my life. I shall probably apply for a position as a teacher, or a governess. But I can’t think about that yet.’
‘I see.’ Grace’s expression was eloquent: she was pleased to hear that I was not intending to remain on a permanent basis.
I closed my eyes again, wishing she were not so transparent.
‘Your hair doesn’t get any easier, Miss Rose,’ Narnie remarked.
‘It still looks like rusty wire,’ Grace said. ‘It sticks out in all directions. And all that brushing’s only making it worse. Narnie, you must have given it over a hundred strokes. Do mine now. Do mine.’
She had leapt to her feet and was pulling at the old woman’s arm. Narnie resisted, counting aloud, ‘Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred! There, Miss Rose. You braid it while I attend to Miss Grace.’
‘Where shall I sit?’ Grace glanced about the room but saw no suitable chair near enough to the fire. ‘You’ll have to move, Rose. That stool’s just the right height.’
Too weary to argue, I went to sit on the bed, watching the ritual. The old woman’s hands, gnarled with arthritis, stroked the wavy, silken strands of my sister’s hair with obvious pleasure and affection. I have to admit to a twinge of the old envy. Grace was still the favourite.
‘I suppose you had that black travelling outfit made when Miss Frazer died,’ she said.
‘Oh… yes.’ I could hardly reveal that I had worn widow’s weeds most of the time I was in Brighton. Aunt Agnes had decreed that I should play a widow’s part to cover my disgrace.
Nostrils and mouth pinched, Grace said, ‘Father’s not letting me have crape. He made Mama order bombazine. Mrs Tubbs came yesterday to measure me for it and take Mama’s best black for alteration. It’s not fair, Rose. I’m to be allowed only one new gown this winter, and now it has to be mourning. I look perfectly hideous in black.’
‘Now, child,’ Narnie put in. ‘You wouldn’t want to be wearing bright colours with your brother lying cold in the ground. Would you?’
A guilty look flicked in my direction as Grace said sullenly, ‘No. No, of course I wouldn’t. Anyway, it’s winter, so we shan’t be going far from home. There’ll be no birthday party – or Christmas party – for me this year. And Mama has had to refuse her very first invitation to Sandringham Hall. It’s the Birthday Ball next week. His Royal Highness had asked Mama and Papa to go.’ She pouted over that thought for a while. ‘Still, next year he’ll probably invite me, too. I shall be almost nineteen then. Oh, Narnie, I shan’t be expected to go on wearing mourning when spring comes, shall I? How long does one have to wear mourning for a half-brother?’
Unable to sit still and listen to her prattling, I got up and adjusted the swathe of black crape at the mirror, draping it to cover the glass more fully, then went to the window to ease an edge of the curtain aside. All was darkness, with worms of rain oozing down the pane, touched golden in the edge of lamplight from the room. I thought of the coffin lying below, and of Father keeping vigil beside his son. My heart ached for both of them as I leaned my forehead against the cold glass and stared out into the night, tears hot behind my eyes.
Behind me the voices went on, Grace’s strident and complaining, Narnie soothing. I was home, but I had never felt so lonely in my life.
Without my willing it, I saw again the shape of the gig that had been waiting in the twilight off the station road. Geoffrey’s gig. Would he have approached me if Ben Chilvers had not come along? And said what? What was there left to say? His letter had said it all – he regretted having become involved with me, and he hoped I would be civilised enough not to cause him trouble because of it. That was the impression that remained with me – that he was afraid I might cause him trouble in the future.
Then why had he been waiting for me tonight? Had he changed his mind? The hope that soared through me made me clutch at the curtain and tremble, afraid of my own weakness.
To counter it, I made myself remember a humid night in June, over two years ago, when the agony of labour had made me will curses on Geoffrey Devlin’s head. Again and again I had striven to bear down, wanting only to expel the thing that pained me.
Then at last the midwife had shown more interest. ‘I can see the head. Push now, Mrs Jones. Push hard.’
My daughter was born at seven-thirty on the morning of 23 June. I saw her, all wrinkled and purplish, with a mass of dark hair, her little body swinging by the ankles from the midwife’s fist. I heard her first gargling cry.
I lay weeping, laughing, drenched with exhaustion, waiting to hold my child for the first time. The women muttered, wrapping the crying baby. ‘Take her,’ the midwife said, and I saw her companion glance at me as she sidled swiftly to the door and away.
The carriage must have been waiting. Moments later, I heard the clop of hooves, the drum of wheels, and only then did I realise what it all meant.
They stilled my weeping with ether.
Now, left even more alone by a cheerless homecoming, I ached for my lost daughter. I longed to hold her, to seek comfort from her small warmth. I could only pray that the home they had found for her was a happy one, where the child would grow up in safety, never knowing her shameful origins.
I seemed to have lost everyone I had loved. Mother, Geoffrey, my baby, and now my brother… With my forehead still resting against the cold pane, I closed my eyes and let the tears seep out.
Eventually, the hundred brush-strokes completed, Grace stood up, stretching and yawning. ‘I think I shall sleep now. I’ll see you in the morning, Rose.’ She came to kiss me lightly, avoiding the wetness on my cheeks, and spun away to the door, where she paused to look back and add, ‘Narnie, don’t forget my hot milk. And make it sweeter this time. Two spoonsful of honey.’
In her wake, after the door closed, I found Narnie watching me as I dried my face. She turned away at once to begin tidying the room, replacing the stool and laying the hairbrush in its tray on the dressing-table. The silence between us was eloquent.
‘I expected questions,’ I said, my voice thick. ‘I’ve been away for three long years, yet my sister isn’t even curious.’
‘Nobody in this house will ask questions. You’d been unsettled, growing up, needing a change. Everybody could see that. So your a
unt took you with her on one of her trips, you met Miss Frazer and decided to stay in Brighton and be her companion. That’s an end to it. It’s over and done. Least said soonest mended.’
The truth had been locked away, the proverbial skeleton in a closet. Even so, I wondered how much more Grace guessed, or suspected.
‘It’s all in the past,’ said Narnie, grunting and blowing with the effort of going down on one knee to settle the fire for the night. ‘Let it stay there.’
When I made no reply, she looked round at me, saying, ‘You’ve forgotten it, haven’t you? Like a sensible girl. Learned a hard lesson. Paid the price.’ She paused, the poker deep in hot coals, her eyes on me as she waited for some response. ‘Tell me the truth, child. That young gentleman’s of no interest to you. Not any more. Is he?’
But which ‘young gentleman’ did she mean? A pang of disquiet shivered through me as I wondered if she had guessed his identity. But no – no, that couldn’t be so. No one suspected that it was Geoffrey Devlin I had been meeting. That was my secret, and his. It was a small consolation.
‘Not of the least concern,’ I said levelly, the pain an icy core buried deep inside me. ‘You may rest assured, Narnie, that foolishness was ended long ago.’
Two
After three years of being soothed by the constant moving of the sea, and being wakened by gulls scrawking, I found the silence of Orchards oppressive. Once or twice I heard a barn owl cry, and then a fox barked distantly. But inside the house all was still. I lay awake thinking of the candle-lit room downstairs, where my father kept his vigil beside my brother’s coffin. The image lay like a weight on me, making breathing difficult, until I imagined that I was dying too, of asphyxiation, and I threw back the blankets and fumbled for matches to light my lamp. Seeing that it was after five in the morning, I set about dressing myself.
I made my way downstairs, lamp in hand, and paused at the door of the room of mourning, wanting to knock and go in, to share the watching with my father. But his bitterness seemed to reach out and ward me off, and so I turned aside and went through the baize-covered door at the rear of the hall, looking for the kitchen.
Instead, I found a side passage, and an outer door beyond which cold air caressed my face, bringing the scent of wet earth and old bonfires. Somewhere a gate closed with a clash of wood, then a dog’s yapping began. Drawn by the familiar sounds of a farm’s stirrings, I stepped out of the house and let my lamp guide me round by a side path to the carriage drive, down to the gateless wall and across the lane into familiar territory – except that the old house had gone. And, when I looked, the shape of the buildings was altered, renovations here, a new arcade with boxes for bullocks, new houses for turnips, chaff and meal…
But the old deep-littered yard where the carthorses spent their winter nights was the same. Four of them stamped there, their breath steaming in the yellow light that glowed from a doorway. The dog – a cross-breed bitch of tan and white – appeared in front of me, standing splay-footed, barking a challenge. It was scarcely more than a pup, probably one of old Nell’s.
‘Hush up, gel.’ Ned Plant, the teamsman, came to see what was disturbing the dog, and stood for a moment peering out at me, until I came close enough for him to see me as I lifted my lamp. ‘Oh, good mornin’, Miss Rose. We heard as you was back. Somethin’ I can do for you?’
‘I couldn’t sleep, so I came to…’ But my motives were hard to articulate.
Plant nodded as if I had made sense, and turned away to get on with his chores. I wandered about the stable, noting the new wooden stalls and mangers, the high windows where cobwebs curtained the corners, the old familiar tackle that Plant took out to the yard, the worn collars that went round the patient necks. Not least, I slapped and petted the bay cob, Harry – Father always called his horses Harry – and white-stockinged Dandy, who seemed restless, as if he knew his master would never be coming to him again, and a pony whose name-plate above his stall read ‘Copenhagen’. There was a boy about the place, too, sweeping out the soiled straw with industrious concentration and ignoring me. The familiar stench of ammonia, the chomping of strong teeth in hay, the clap of hoof on paving, all swept me back to where I belonged. Welcome or not, the farm was where I felt most at home.
Exploring, I found more reminders of the past. Here was the broken paving where Grace had tripped and torn her knee; here the pump with its curling handle, where the men would sluice themselves down in summertime. As I passed the sty, fat pigs thrust their snouts at its creaking gate, grunting, anxious for their morning mash. I paused to scratch their rough heads, aware of the looming bulk of stacks of corn fortressing the rickyards. Familiar scents assailed me – odours of pigs, horses and cattle, crushed grass, mud mingled with ordure, and wet thatch. And from high on the roof of the wagon shed, a cockerel started crowing to celebrate the growing light in the sky.
The glow from my lamp fell on a broad, iron-shod wheel, larger and heavier than any wagon wheel I had ever seen. It lay in a corner behind the barn, leaning against a great shard of metal, and as I went closer I realised, with a shock of horror, what it was. I let my light play over the heap, seeing the twisted ironwork, the sharp fresh edges where the boiler had split as if torn apart by giant hands, and the driver’s seat, all misshapen, smeared and spattered with some dark dried… Oh, dear God. Stomach heaving, I stood there, staring at it, imagining the full horror, remembering how Father had so graphically described it. Then, tears splintering my sight, I turned away, leaving the wreckage hidden by shadows as I fought with waves of nausea.
From behind me, Plant said, ‘Begging your pardon, Miss Rose…’
Pushing my distress to one side with an effort, I tried to make sense of what he was saying.
Apparently Victor’s death had so unsettled my father that since it happened he had failed to appear to give his orders for the day. Such an eventuality was unknown at Orchards. The men were getting restive, especially Benstead, our old yardman, who wanted to know if he should bring the bullocks back from the marshes to the yard for the winter. He had also been asking about his cash prize for preparing the Best of Breed at the county show; my father should have had it through the post by now, but Benstead had heard nothing.
‘That’s typical Benstead,’ I said, glad to know that some things hadn’t changed. ‘Always complaining about something. He doesn’t mean anything by it. Mrs Benstead says he’s just “exercising his jaw”.’
‘She en’t the one what has to spend half the day listenin’ to him,’ Plant grunted. ‘That’s makin’ the others start to grumble, too. And there’s another thing…’ He was in a quandary over what to do about the threshing. Mr Victor had been confident that his steam engine would soon deal with it all; now it looked as though they’d have to make shift to catch up.
Benstead wasn’t the only one to be in a complaining mood. Even the stolid Plant was disturbed by Father’s strange behaviour.
‘You must know what needs doing,’ I replied. ‘You’ve been with my father for years now, Plant. You know how he works.’
‘I know what I’d do,’ he replied, rough hands fastening on the lapels of his shapeless jacket. ‘But it don’t alluss tally with what Mr Hamilton want. If I guess wrong…’
I had no energy for worrying about it, so I placated Plant: ‘You won’t get it wrong. And, if you do, I shall say that I gave you leave to use your own judgement.’
He looked at me askance, but he said, ‘Yes, Miss Rose.’
* * *
When I returned to the house the servants were stirring, raking ashes and shaking coals. In the lamplit kitchen, a lad was breakfasting on bread and cheese under the eye of the placid maid, Swift. She bobbed a curtsey in greeting to me, and made the backus boy get down from his stool to be introduced.
The backus boy was king of the ‘backhouse’, that is to say he did the most menial jobs, cleaned the knives and brought the coals, swept the yards and ran errands – generally, anything that no one else wished to do, wh
ich gave him ample opportunity for loafing about, or pretending to be off about a job for someone else when actually he’d sneaked off after rabbits, or gone fishing. This lad’s name was Jarvis, I seem to recall, though our backus boys changed so many times over the years I can’t be sure. With one or two exceptions, they blend into a single image of miscreance.
Learning that my father was still keeping his grim watch, I had Swift prepare a breakfast tray, which I took to him myself. In the hallway the young maid Howlett, emerging from the candle-lit drawing-room with an empty coal bucket in her hand, jumped as if I were a ghost. Eyes wide in her dirt-streaked face, she sidled around me in a wide circle.
‘Door!’ my father’s hoarse voice rasped. ‘Close the door, girl!’
Evidently frightened half to death by what lay inside the room, Howlett glanced back at the door, and then at me. She seemed relieved when I gestured her on and she scuttled past me into the shadows.
I found Father slumped in an armchair, an empty brandy bottle on the table beside him, his head supported on one hand. As I bent to set the tray down and remove the bottle, he grated, ‘Take it away.’
‘You have to eat,’ I replied.
He looked at me as if he hated me, eyes bright and hard in deep bruised sockets. His face was haggard, cheeks shadowed by a growth of beard. He had neither washed nor changed his linen since Victor died.
But his piteous state failed to move me. I felt nothing. Nothing but a cool, bleak emptiness. For that I was fiercely glad. At that moment I believed he had lost the power to hurt me.
‘Take it away!’ His voice rose in a familiar way – a way that usually made me argue, that usually led to an escalation of our differences. This time, though, I no longer cared. If he wished to torment himself then so be it.
I picked up the tray with the empty brandy bottle on it and, conscious of his animosity boring at my back, made for the door.
‘Bring me another bottle,’ he ordered. ‘And close the door!’