The Moth, page 12
The sensation he had experienced when he first saw her again ran through his body, not so much at the sight of her now, but at what she had said. They were the same words as when he had imagined she had come over the bottom of the couch at him: ‘Oh, I’m glad you’ve come back.’
Why had he come here? God knew . . . he wished he did.
As he went past the foot of the stairs the older one was almost dragging her sister back up to the landing and the girl was protesting loudly, ‘I just want to talk to him. He’s nice.’
Two days later he was installed in a room above the stables. His orders with regard to the garden he took from Arthur Bloom; those with regard to mucking out the horses and grooming from Greg Hubbard. But they both seemed to take their orders from Dave Waters, for it was this man, Robert realised, who ran the place and apparently had done so for years.
The boss, Hubbard said, rarely troubled them; and when the sons were home, it was young Master Stanley who apparently took over and did what bossing there had to be done. But even so he, too, seemed to defer to Waters. And Greg Hubbard warned him, keep away from Miss Millie, and that if she were to come trotting after him he should get into the open, for if Waters found her in any enclosed place with a fellow he seemed to go berserk. Sometimes, Hubbard said, you would think he was her father. As for Miss Agnes, Hubbard’s opinion was that she was all right, a bit stiff but all right at bottom, and nobody envied her her job because if anyone saw to the running of the place, that was, anyone above Waters, it was her. She was almost a skivvy, the things she had to do, and worse off than the staff, so Maggie said, as she wasn’t paid. What they would do when she left to get married, the Lord only knew.
The room above the stables was cramped. It had no heating except what came up through the floor from the horses. It had one small window and the whole place stank. Whoever had lived up here before had evidently forgotten what soap and water were for.
In his routine he rose at six and helped Hubbard to water and feed the horses, then helped with the strapping of them. All this was new to him. He had never imagined that a horse needed so much care and attention, nor that it needed so many bits and pieces of harness before it was ready for the road, nor that the gear, as Hubbard referred to it, required so much spit and polish. And of course, there was the mucking out. Following this he saw to the boiler for the pig swill and the hen crowdy. There were six pigs, one in litter, and four dozen hens.
At seven o’clock he went over to the kitchen with Hubbard and there, together with Arthur Bloom, they were each given a mug of tea. Following this the pigs were seen to, the hens let out and eggs gathered, the yard swept, and, what he hadn’t bargained for and which Dave Waters hadn’t mentioned in his list of duties, was the emptying of a row of slop buckets that Maggie and Ruthie placed outside the side door. These had to be carried down the back garden to the cesspit. The first time he did this it turned his stomach and left him in no fit state to enjoy the communal breakfast.
Following the breakfast he was detailed, weather permitting, to turn and weed different plots in the garden. Should it be raining he was told he would work in the greenhouses.
Before the end of the first week he was repairing doors around the courtyard and renewing floorboards here and there. By six o’clock at night when he went into the kitchen for the last meal of the day he was so tired that afterwards he could not bother to get dressed and take a ramble, although he knew he should sometime go to The Bull, if only to tell the Taggarts how he was faring and to thank them once again for their kindness to him.
During the first week he had come across the mistress of the house only once, when she had come to the stables to tell Hubbard to get the trap ready as her father wished to go into town.
On that occasion she had paused for a moment before him, saying with some diffidence, ‘How are you getting on?’ To which he answered, ‘Slowly, I think, miss.’
He noticed that she had a habit of blinking her eyelids which to him indicated some inner confusion, and when she said, ‘It’s not work you have been used to,’ he replied, ‘No; quite different, miss.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ She had turned away without further words, and he watched her walk out of the stable, thinking she was stiff-necked, definitely the county lady and not letting you forget it. Yet there were all types of county ladies. There was that one who came into The Bull. The Taggarts thought the world of her. She sat in the back kitchen and drank with them. An earl’s daughter, they said she was, who had married a farmer. But he was a gentleman farmer. Oh aye, he smiled to himself as he remembered the Taggarts emphasising this, he was a gentleman farmer, with near two thousand acres.
There was one thing he had been made definitely aware of from the beginning, he wasn’t accepted in the kitchen, at least not by Mr and Mrs Waters. Their daughter Ruthie was civil enough, and Betty Trollop an’ all, she was a canny bairn. As for Maggie. Oh, Maggie would be civil to the devil. She was a lass, was Maggie. He had never known anyone with such a happy nature. Even the atmosphere in the kitchen couldn’t quell it. She came out with things at the table that made the others splutter, all except her uncle, and she treated everybody alike. Last night he had wanted to hoot when her aunt pulled her up for her way of speaking without deference to Miss Agnes, and she had replied to the effect that of course she had respect for Miss Agnes, she respected her as she did all human beings, but she had no respect for animals because they hadn’t souls. He hadn’t been able to cover up his laughter and she’d put her hand towards him as she had cried, ‘There. There, he understands what I mean, he knows I can’t stand horses. I told you, didn’t I? Things without souls can kick the daylights out of you.’
He could listen to Maggie for hours. She was a natural-born comic, but she didn’t know it. That was her gift, she didn’t know it.
It was in the early July when he had been at Foreshaw a few weeks that he was ordered to see to some sash-cords in the library windows, and he was busy on the job when he heard raised voices coming from behind a door that led into the drawing room and he recognised them as those of the master and Miss Agnes, and although he knew it was her speaking he could hardly believe his ears for her voice was almost a bellow. Except that her tone was cultured it could have been that of any woman in Foxglove Road having a go at her man, or a neighbour, for she was yelling, ‘You’ve got to listen to me. Soon the tradesmen won’t be delivering at all. There’s a stack of bills that you haven’t looked at for months. The only one you have thought fit to see to is the wine merchant. And then there is the insurance on the furniture. It’s lapsed . . . ’
‘Shut up, woman!’
‘I won’t shut up, Papa; this is serious. You’ve got to face facts, and the fact is we soon won’t be able to eat unless we kill off the pigs and hens. And what is more, Dave and Peggy have never been paid for almost six months now. They put up with it, but the others won’t. And what about when the boys come home? Arnold would be here now if it wasn’t for exams. And Roland and Stanley have had the good fortune to be invited to friends, but it’s only for the next two weeks. What about when they are all here for weeks on end during the vacation?’
‘In the next two weeks, madam, things will be different, because I’ve got news for you, and listen carefully to it: I intend to marry again.’
There was a dead silence. Robert looked towards the far door and in his mind’s eye he saw the look on her face, lids fluttering and her mouth partly open.
And that’s exactly how she did look, for as Agnes stared at her father and saw his bloated face, his nose already showing signs of his indulgence, she thought to herself who . . . who would marry him? And when his voice came at her yelling, ‘That’s surprised you, hasn’t it? Taken the wind out of your sails,’ she made no answer for a moment. When she did reply it was in a moderate tone, each word bearing weight: ‘I am glad to hear it,’ she said, ‘and I wish your future wife luck in her position, for now I can be free to leave and lead my own life, free to marry. I only hope she brings with her enough money to engage a nurse for Millie.’
‘A nurse for Millie?’ He was screaming now. ‘That’s something else you’ve got to learn, miss. That one is going to be put away; I’ve already set the wheels in motion. I’m bringing no woman into this house to have to suffer that, by God, no!’
‘You can’t.’ Agnes clasped her hands tightly together in front of her waist, her nails digging into the flesh. It was the only way to stop them thrusting out and tearing at this man’s face, for in this moment she was consumed with hate of him. The feeling had been pressed down under a cover of dislike for years, but now, for a moment, she too felt insane with the intensity of it. That he meant what he said she knew only too well. And she also knew only too well that it could be brought about, especially if doctors were brought here to see Millie as she was at the present moment, for she was in one of her turns. As a rule these lasted only a couple of days, but for the past three nights she’d had to sleep in her room to prevent her wandering, and to try to still her constant talking.
‘You can’t do it! You won’t do it!’
‘I can’t? Oh, but I can and I will, and I am going to. But there’s one alternative, miss. You’re always yapping on about getting married, aren’t you? Well, go to your James and ask him if he’ll accept another partner into the marriage. I’m sure his mother will welcome her with open arms.’
She glared at him, unable to speak now, but his jest had brought an idea flashing into her mind. The estate of Haughton Manor where the Crockfords lived was small, but there was a hunting lodge at the far end of the grounds. It had been unoccupied for years. Millie could live there with a nurse in attendance. But would James allow it? Yes, yes, she could persuade him. And she would talk to Grace and Marie; they were very amiable girls and they had liked Millie . . . His mother? . . . Oh, James would persuade her. He must. He would. She had never asked anything of him before.
She drew in a long breath. She would best him. She would best this man who had never in his life shown her any love and affection, and very little too for her mother. She said now, ‘I hope your wife will be able to supply you with enough money to support your mistress.’
His lips moved upwards and away from his teeth, the upper one quivering in a sneer as he said, ‘There won’t be any need. In fact, there never has been any need; she’s not that kind of a mistress. It may surprise you to know that at one time she was a close friend of your mother’s . . . Ah, yes, that does surprise you, doesn’t it, madam? She was widowed young and left very warmly off, so once she is established here as my wife, there’ll be no worry about us not eating’ – he stressed the word – ‘the only reason why she hasn’t been here before now is the vital sore point in my life, which whether you know this or not is none of my flesh, for I never fathered an idiot.’
‘I hate you. Do you know that? I hate you. And this moment I too wish I wasn’t of your flesh, which to my mind is rotten . . . ’
When his hand came out and caught her across the side of the face, she cried out as she staggered back and, grasping at the arm of a chair, she fell sideways on to it; and his voice came at her, yelling, ‘For the rest of the time you are under my roof I shall certainly give you plenty cause to hate me. You’ll see that, madam.’ And with this he stalked out of the room, banging the door behind him . . .
When Robert heard the sound of the slap and the cry that followed it, he left the window and moved towards the communicating door. But there he stopped, telling himself that if he went in there, it would likely mean the end of his job here. However, when he heard a further door clash closed and the sound of a low moan, his hand went out to the knob and, turning it quietly, he pushed the door ajar. And there he saw her huddled in an armchair, her body shaking with her weeping. Slowly now he advanced into the room and when he stood opposite her he said quietly, ‘Can I help, miss?’
Agnes took her hands from her face before turning swiftly from him, saying, ‘Go away. Please go away.’
He went away, not by the same door, but through into the hall and then on to the kitchen. Going straight to Peggy, where she was lifting a shelf of loaf tins from the oven, he said, ‘I . . . I think you should go and see to Miss Agnes. There’s been a do in the drawing room. He hit her.’
The loaf tins were slipping from the shelf before it reached the table and, her hands still on it, she turned to him and said, ‘What? What did you say?’
‘The master and Miss Agnes, I heard them from the library where I was working, they were having an argument. He hit her, and she’s crying her eyes out.’
Without a word, she sped up the kitchen, leaving him looking at Maggie who was now turning the bread out of the loaf tins and tapping the bottom of the loaves with her knuckles, and as she did so she talked as if she were addressing the loaves, saying, ‘I’m not agenst a man drinkin’, I even like a drop of port meself, but he’s been washin’ himself in it these last few weeks I would say. Begod! The money he swilled down his neck just last night would have pacified the coal man the day.’ She now looked up at Robert, adding, ‘Did you hear the rumpus in the yard? Wasn’t going to leave the load, he wasn’t. If it hadn’t been for Uncle saying he would see to the bill if it wasn’t settled within the week, just for this load like, not for the rest, he would have turned his backside and that of the horse on us and yanked it all back, and then where would we have been? Burnin’ wood I expect. There’s plenty of it, but it’s a shame it is to cut down trees. What did he hit her with? His fist or did he throw somethin?’
‘I think he slapped her face.’
‘Oh—’ She turned from him and went to the oven, saying now, ‘I wish I was a man. Oh, the times I’ve wished that. I sometimes think they only left one part off me when I was born, because in spite of all me good humour I have urges to hit out meself.’ She turned and looked at him over her shoulder. ‘Would you believe that now?’
He had to smile, and he said, ‘I’d believe anything you say, Maggie, anything.’
‘You’re a nice man. I said it from the beginning. No matter what t’others think, you have me opinion, you’re a nice man.’
There was no smile on his face now, but his voice was gentle as he said, ‘Thank you, Maggie,’ then added, ‘I’d better get back to me work.’
‘I would if I were you, but go t’other way, not the way you come.’
‘Of course. Of course. I never ask for trouble.’
‘I don’t meself, but with me it never waits for the askin’, it nearly always gallops halfway to meet me.’
He went out to the sound of her laughter. Nothing seemed to down Maggie. She was a great spirit. She seemed the only bit of lightness in this tormented house, except for the poor creature that was the centre of the trouble.
He had seen Millie at close quarters only twice since he came, but both times she had been accompanied, once by Miss Agnes, the other time by Mr Waters. It was strange the affection that old fellow had for her. His whole manner changed when he looked at her: it was as if he were indeed her father, and a loving, caring one at that. In a way, he was another like his uncle, but not so obsessed he hoped . . .
The window sash was back in place and he was gathering up his tools to move further along the room when the far door of the library opened and who should come in but the young creature herself. She was dressed in a blue print dress; her hair hung slack down her back, tied loosely with a blue ribbon that finished in a bow on the crown of her head. For a moment she seemed surprised to see him; then coming towards him, she said, ‘Are you working?’
‘Yes, miss. I’m putting in window sashes.’
‘You call them sashes?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘I thought only dresses had sashes.’
‘Well, these are a different kind of sash, miss.’
‘It’s a very nice day, isn’t it, Bradley?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘They say I’ve got to call you Bradley, but I like Robert. Still that is your name, isn’t it . . . Bradley?’
‘Yes, miss. That is my name.’
‘Do you mind if I sit and watch you work?’
He paused before he said, ‘No, not at all, miss.’ And as he eased off the old frame of another window he wondered whether any doctor would dare to certify a lass that was talking as calmly as this one was. The only odd thing about her so far was that she wanted to sit and watch him work.
‘It’s a very nice day, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is, miss.’
‘Strange, isn’t it, Bradley? But I have no desire to take walks in the daytime. I do go for walks but then it’s mostly with Aggie or Maggie or one or other of them. But I like to walk at night-time, because the world is quiet at night-time. The birds are asleep, except the owl and the bat; they too like to come out at night-time. I know a story about why the owl and the bat come out at night-time. Do you like stories, Bradley?’
‘Some, miss.’ He took part of the framework down and laid it along the bare boards that edged the carpet all round the room.
‘I can’t read or write, Bradley. Do you think that is strange? I am seventeen years old. No, Aggie says . . . eighteen . . . now, yet I can’t read or write. Aggie reads beautifully. Do you read, Bradley?’
‘Yes, I read a lot, whenever I can.’
‘Oh, that is strange.’
‘Why is it strange, miss?’
‘Because Dave says I hadn’t to worry about not reading or writing because most people can’t read or write, like servants. And you are a servant, aren’t you, Bradley?’
