Sandringham Rose

by Mary Mackie

  ‘It’s already forgotten,’ I replied. ‘How’s your wife?’

  He stared at me for a long moment, his face clenched against some fierce emotion. ‘Better,’ he managed at last. ‘Praise the Lord, she’s turned the corner and come back…’ The words trailed into husky silence as tears welled in his brown eyes and he turned away, muttering, ‘Good night, Miss Rose.’

  My own eyes were misty as through evening light I watched him go, watched the familiar lop-sided gait that looked so awkward and yet swung him along at speed. He was a fine man, tall and strong, honest, true and faithful. I hoped his wife knew how lucky she was.

  * * *

  Whilst my own marriage was not ideally happy, most of the time we managed to rub along contentedly enough. I was fond of Basil; certainly I was grateful to him. But I obviously wasn’t the wife he had expected, nor was he the companionable kind of husband I had hoped for. He was often away, and when he was at home he never sat close beside me, took my hand, put his arm about me, or kissed my cheek – except when we were in bed, and then his attentions were designed not to comfort but to rouse me. Still, I tried to appreciate the good things we shared.

  Though Basil had enjoyed the visits of the Chilvers children, he could not be persuaded to show a similar interest in the fox-cubs, whose care devolved mainly on me, though Jack Huggins did his share too. As the cubs grew they became ever more troublesome and, having too much work already, I hoped that Johnny might take over the chore during the summer.

  My brother, however, elected to spend most of his holiday at Weal House, though I discovered he often took the train out along the coast. ‘To visit his friends at Esham,’ Aunt Beatrice said. ‘He likes to sketch the countryside, and the birds. You should see his notebooks – crammed with lovely little drawings, and notes about nature and farming. The Lord gave him a lot of talents. I hope he’ll use them for good.’

  However, when I saw my brother and expressed a desire to see his sketches, he said, ‘They’re not for public viewing.’

  ‘I’m not the public – I’m your sister.’

  ‘Half-sister,’ Johnny said with a look that raked me, and went away, closing the door in my face.

  He wouldn’t let me get close to him.

  But I didn’t begin to suspect just how secretive he had become until one day in July.

  Basil and I drove over to Ingoldisthorpe in the trap to visit his aunt, Eliza Pooley, who was unwell. On our way, we encountered a hay wagon. It pulled aside and stopped to let us pass, the youthful driver jumping down as if to adjust the load, putting himself out of our sight. Basil called a greeting and a mumbled reply came from behind the load of hay. Then as we drove on I looked back, puzzled, and saw the youth emerge from hiding and climb back to his perch, keeping his hat well down.

  ‘It’s Johnny!’ I exclaimed. ‘Driving that wagon… It’s Johnny.’

  ‘Can’t be,’ Basil argued, turning to squint over his shoulder. ‘Same build, maybe.’

  ‘I think I know my own brother! He was hiding from us.’

  Basil’s uncle, with a deal of head-scratching and earpulling, admitted that, ‘The boy do come some days. Well, he’s welcome. Good hand he make.’ I didn’t mind that. George Pooley had helped both my father and me learn about farming, so why shouldn’t he also teach Johnny? It was the secrecy that hurt me – the fact that Johnny was happy to spend his time with Pooley, but he wouldn’t come home to help at Orchards. At Christmas he had seemed eager to do just that.

  I couldn’t ask Johnny straight out about it, however, for fear of having him rebuff me again, and so, when next I saw him at Weal House, I remarked that I missed him, and that Mama, returned from Thetford, would enjoy his company.

  ‘You don’t want me there,’ he retorted.

  ‘Of course we do.’

  ‘You don’t need me to help when you’ve got Basil Pooley.’

  ‘Basil doesn’t help on the farm.’

  ‘But he’s the tenant!’

  So that was it – in his eyes, Basil had usurped his place. ‘Only nominally. I run the farm. We keep it separate from Basil’s concerns.’

  ‘Then why is he buying a steam engine for Orchards? You never told me about that.’

  ‘I was going to tell you. That’s one of the reasons I came into town today. Oh, how does tittle-tattle fly so fast? I suppose you heard it from Uncle Jonathan?’

  ‘Uncle Jonathan never tells me a thing. Time enough for that when I’m of age – so he always says, the pompous ass.’

  ‘Johnny!’

  ‘Well, it’s a fact. It’s true about the engine, then?’

  ‘It’s true that Orchards is to have an engine, but not that Basil’s buying it. He’s extended a loan at minimum interest. We shall pay him back over two years. Oh, why won’t you try to understand? I married Basil in order to keep Orchards in the family. I did it for you, Johnny.’

  ‘No, not for me. You did it for yourself. You always wanted to run the farm, Rose. Well, you’ve got it. For now. But I warn you, when I’ve finished my education, then I shall come home and I shall take over. That’s what Father planned. You’re only acting “in locum ego”.’

  The ferocity in his voice made me blink. ‘In what?’

  ‘It’s Latin,’ he said, flushing. ‘It means “in place of me”. So don’t get too settled, Rose. Your place at Orchards is temporary.’

  He didn’t mean it, I told myself. He was hurt and angry. When he was older, he would come home and we would run the farm together. He would need me there to advise him. He didn’t mean he was going to put me out, did he? Oh, of course he didn’t. He was only seventeen. He didn’t know what he wanted.

  * * *

  As the summer drew on, I became aware of strain between McDowall and Ned Plant. It had started over the haying, when Plant had agreed with me that we ought to delay but McDowall had said we should make a start: ‘Who’s the manager here – me or yon Norfolk dumplin’? Ye’re undermining my authority if you side wi’ him.’ So I had given in and the hay had been cut, still green in places. (One of the stacks went sour and rotted, I recall.) Now my manager complained of Plant’s insubordination; he threatened to dismiss the man if his attitude didn’t improve. But when I tackled Plant about it all he would say was, ‘If you tell me to leave, I’ll go, Miss Rose.’

  ‘I don’t want you to leave,’ I told him. ‘You’re the best man we’ve ever had. Why don’t you get on with Mr McDowall?’

  He wouldn’t tell me. When I asked Benstead, he said he’d not noticed anything amiss, except, maybe, that Mr McDowall was a bit picky with Plant and criticised everything he did. I told McDowall that Ned Plant would be staying, and they had better find a way of settling whatever differences they had.

  The problem didn’t go away completely but I heard less about it as we all concentrated on the summer’s work. August and September proved wet; harvest lasted into October. Weeds grew riot and soft fruit went bad before it could be picked. Every day brought more headaches, and our battles with the hares continued – crow-scaring in spring was a regular chore; at Orchards we now had hare-scaring all through the summer.

  Afflicted by a hundred different worries, I was relieved when Mr Beck called to inspect the young foxes and directed that they be turned out to a brick earth on the edge of Poacher’s Wood, in a covert thick with gorse and swarming with young rabbits. There the cubs could learn to hunt and fend for themselves. I was to keep an eye on them, but they were no longer such a daily responsibility.

  * * *

  Sandringham Hall being uninhabited due to prolonged rebuilding and renovation work, that autumn the Prince of Wales rented distant Gunton Hall and moved in with his family. From there he held his regular shoots, using Gunton’s preserves, sometimes bringing parties by train to his own estates, or visiting neighbouring squires to sample their sport. When the prince was expected locally I took care to keep my head down lest sight of me remind him of past differences. I was beginning to hope he had forgotten that
I existed.

  Perhaps he had, but he was about to be reminded.

  The first I heard of it was farm gossip. In the yard, with the thresher going full throttle, the belt rattling and clanking with its burden of sheaves, the air full of dust and flying bits of straw, the men were saying something about a big fuss among the Sandringham gamekeepers over some trouble with the pheasants. I didn’t pay much heed. I was still too nervous of engines to want to stay around the yard while ours was working.

  That evening, when McDowall came up to the farm office for his orders, he told me of the consternation over what appeared to be a major calamity. ‘Hundreds of birds gone, so they say.’

  ‘Poachers?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Who knows? Mebbe so. Mebbe we have a gang moved into the area. We’ll all be murdered in our beds next.’ He was implying that I was a foolish, frightened woman, jumping at shadows. ‘So… I’ll send Plant off tomorrow with that load of barley and get Ward to make a start on drilling the Upper Half’un. It’s gae wet down at Batty’s Bottom.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed.’

  ‘Aye, I was sure ye would have.’ It was spoken with just enough sarcasm to grate on my nerves.

  We talked of the weather, the sale of our last lambs to the butcher, the pig-sticker’s imminent arrival, the digging and carting of beet and carrots… but all the time I was aware of his subtle insolence: he didn’t ask me, he told me; he failed to say please or thank you; and, if he no longer patronised me as ‘lassie’, neither did he afford me the courtesy of ‘Miss Rose’ or ‘Mrs Pooley’ – he didn’t address me by any name or title. Trivial things. Petty things. Basil told me I was looking for insult when none was intended, but McDowall’s discourtesy remained an irritant.

  When he was gone, I rubbed my aching eyes and stretched my shoulders, wondering whether to strain the first with household accounts or the second with checking on the summer curtains that had been washed and now hung in the drying-room awaiting inspection. The curtains had been waiting for two days, but the accounts were urgent if bills were to be paid. Perhaps they took priority. I could do the curtains later, having no other call on my attention. Mama had gone early to bed and Basil was away again.

  The accounts took me some hours and I had no idea what time it was, except that it was late, when I heaved myself away from the desk. Then as I left the office I heard a disturbance in the front hall, where a visitor was trying to force his way past a protesting Swift.

  ‘Really, sir, I can’t let you in without announcing you.’

  ‘Oh, of course you can, woman!’ came the impatient reply. ‘You know me. What do you suppose I’m g-going to… Ah, there you are, Mrs Pooley.’

  The visitor was Geoffrey Devlin, top hat in hand, wearing evening dress beneath a long cloak.

  ‘Oh, Miss Rose!’ Swift turned to me in distress. ‘I’m sorry, I did ask the gentleman to wait, but he said—’

  ‘That’s all right, Swift,’ I soothed her. ‘It’s not your fault. After all, Mr Devlin is his father’s son.’ The flash of Geoffrey’s eyes said the barb had gone home, but I kept my chin up, assuming a poise I did not feel. ‘What may I do for you at this late hour?’

  ‘I need to t-talk to you.’ His face betrayed his frustration at not being able to control that stammer, though to me the stammer itself was revealing – it always got worse when he was agitated. ‘I know it’s late, but I thought you should know… Seventy-one pheasants were killed in the Sandringham plantations last night.’

  ‘Only seventy-one? I’d heard it was hundreds. If that’s what you came to tell me—’

  ‘It’s not!’ He stared at me, torn between temper and concern. ‘What I rode thirty miles to t-tell you – t-to warn you, is… The head keeper claims you’re responsible for the deaths.’

  Shock doused me like icy water, driving away my weariness of mind. Aware of Swift hovering, I bade her, ‘Bring some apple wine, Swift. Mr Devlin, there’s a fire in the parlour, if you’d care to…’

  I led the way into my familiar, homely parlour, where I began to turn up the lamps with a hand that shook. Too upset to think straight, I resorted to chatter. ‘It’s not the best place to entertain visitors, but the drawing-room’s cold at this time of year and—’

  ‘To Hades with that!’ Geoffrey caught my wrist, forcing me to look at him. ‘Did you hear what I said? Do you know what it means? The prince is spitting fire. He believes you deliberately slaughtered those birds.’

  Three

  I hardly knew whether to lose my temper, laugh hysterically, or weep with frustration. Just when I had thought I might win my way back into favour, malign fate had turned the prince against me yet again.

  ‘He can’t believe it!’ I exclaimed. ‘Seventy-one pheasants? How am I supposed to have killed them – with a shot-gun? Or was it poison? Maybe I tore their heads off with my teeth. Or does he think I cast a spell and bewitched them all to death?’

  ‘The keeper said you let your foxes loose.’

  I stared at him, feeling stricken, my stomach churning with acid. ‘He said what? Dear heaven…’

  ‘It’s not true, then?’

  ‘What?’ I became aware that he was still holding my wrist, standing so close to me that his nearness threatened to swamp my sanity. ‘Of course it’s not true! You surely don’t think I’m petty enough to…’ I wrenched away, putting space between us, my reason returning as I faced him from behind the defence of the velvet-draped table. ‘It can’t have been my foxes. My cubs wouldn’t stray that far away from home. They’re amply supplied with rabbits right on their doorstep. Oh, this must be Beck’s doing – another lie to discredit me! But nobody in his right mind would believe it.’

  ‘The prince believes it.’

  ‘Then the prince is a fool!’

  Swift, arriving with the apple wine and glasses on a tray, gave me a pop-eyed look at this piece of treason, but said only, ‘Will that be all, miss?’ and took herself away, no doubt to recount the tale to Howlett.

  Into the silence, Geoffrey observed, ‘They still call you “miss”.’

  ‘It’s habit.’

  ‘She said Pooley’s away.’

  ‘Yes, that’s so.’

  ‘And your stepmother?’

  ‘In bed. Fast asleep by now, I trust.’

  ‘Good.’ He put down his hat, threw off his silk-lined cloak and swirled it across a chair. ‘Then we can talk in private. We can work out a strategy.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘You’re going to need allies. There’s to be an enquiry into this b-business of the pheasants.’

  Closing my eyes tightly, I faced the prospect of more notoriety. It frightened me, it made me feel helpless – and that angered me into wanting to fight. ‘Will you sit down? Will you have some apple wine?’

  ‘Thank you.’ He chose an armchair by the fire and, when I had poured us each a glass of the amber liquid which Mrs Benstead and I had fermented the previous year, I placed myself opposite him, perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair, while he told me what had happened at Gunton Hall.

  The Prince of Wales had been entertaining his guests after a day’s shooting when his head keeper had arrived and, in front of the entire company, made his allegations. Prince Albert Edward, who always believed the first story he heard and seldom fell prey to second thoughts, had leapt up, ranting and raving, shouting curses on my head. But thankfully some of those present were friends of mine – the Reverend Mr Lancaster, for one, and dear old General Hall, who had known Mama’s father and who often came by Orchards for a chat. They had both spoken up for me, as had my uncle Henry. But the prince wouldn’t listen until others of his guests, disinterested parties, had argued that in the cause of fairness I ought at least to be given a chance to defend myself.

  ‘The prince was wavering,’ Geoffrey told me. ‘Then the Duke of Cambridge settled the matter by suggesting a formal enquiry. They’ve selected Mr Lancaster to question you and write a detailed report to General Hall.’


  ‘What – so that Beck and the gamekeepers can brand me a liar as I’m carted to the Tower? I’m already an outcast. Who’s going to listen to me? I’ve made too many enemies.’

  ‘You also have friends. Good friends. But for them, you wouldn’t have been given even this small chance of defending yourself.’

  When I thought about it, I realised how much courage it must have taken for any of them to speak out for me against the prince’s rage. The good old soldier, the gentle rector, my uncle Henry, and…

  From the corner of my eye I surveyed Geoffrey’s evening attire. ‘How did you get away? He doesn’t like his guests to leave early.’

  ‘I said I was unwell.’

  ‘Ah.’ So he had lied for me. ‘And then you rode thirty miles from Gunton.’

  ‘I had to come and warn you.’

  ‘You were taking a risk.’

  ‘The game seemed worth the candle.’

  All at once the air felt alive between us. The room sang with unspoken nuances that made my chest tight and my heart unsteady.

  ‘I think you ought to go.’ I got to my feet in such haste that I slopped my wine and jumped back, away from the drips that plopped to the carpet.

  Placing his own glass in the hearth, Geoffrey too rose, his eyes on me saying he understood my unease. He draped his cloak over his arm, picked up his hat. ‘When Mr Lancaster comes… you won’t…’

  ‘I won’t mention that you were here.’

  ‘No. Thank you.’ He turned to the door, stopped, looked back at me with dark, unhappy eyes. ‘I owe you an apology. Several apologies. That day at Willow Cottage… I had no right…’

  ‘It’s not important. Don’t speak of it.’ I didn’t want to remember that day. I was already remembering far too much. ‘I never lied to you, Rose. Between us, only truth… something apart…’ I wanted him to go before one of us said or did something that would threaten the balance of all our lives.