Easterleigh Hall (34 page)

She heard Simon say, ‘Dottie, can you go and fetch Mrs Moore, quickly.' There was something in his voice that she had dreaded. She held the rolling pin absolutely still. If she kept it still nothing would have happened. Absolutely still. Nothing will have happened at all. He was beside her now, reaching forward, trying to take her hands from the rolling pin. He mustn't. Mustn't. She slapped him away. ‘No,' she whispered. ‘No.' She shouted.

He wasn't listening, but was taking the rolling pin from her because she was hitting at him. Hitting at her wonderful Simon, and his cheeks were wet, his eyes red, his lips trembling, and now Mrs Moore was here, pulling her down on to the stool. And Lady Veronica came then, looking from person to person. Mrs Moore was talking to her. ‘No,' Evie said, and stood. ‘No,' she repeated, beating Simon away.

It was a bloody circus and she still didn't know who was hurt because no one was speaking and she was reaching for the rolling pin, again and again.

Then there was a voice calling, quite gently, but firmly. ‘Evie, I insist you sit down and sit still. Do you hear me?
Sit still
.' It was Lady Veronica. The authority was absolute. She sat still and watched as Lady Veronica took a cup of tea which Mrs Moore must have just made. So the kettle had boiled? Yes, it must have. Lady Veronica would need a plate for her fancies, but nothing worked. Her hands stayed still. She should find a plate.

Lady Veronica was handing Simon a cup of tea. ‘You will drink this, Evie. You will drink this.' Simon held the cup to her lips. It was bone china, for upstairs. She couldn't drink from this. She shook her head. Mrs Moore said, ‘Drink it now.' She drank. It was sweet. She hated sweet tea.

Lady Veronica said, ‘Simon, when you have finished you will share your news with her. I will leave you now. Mrs Moore, I'm sure you can manage with Dottie today because Evie will need to be elsewhere.'

Calmly she awaited the answer. Evie watched them both, and their faces were sad, indescribably sad. Everyone was so sad. Simon said, ‘Drink again.'

Mrs Moore said, ‘Of course, my Lady.'

‘Very well, I will come again in thirty minutes.' She left.

The tea was sweet. She gagged. ‘Drink it.' There was firmness in his voice. When the cup was half empty she shook her head, her eyes fixed on his. He nodded and still his lips trembled. ‘Da?' she asked.

‘He's in the infirmary. Broken leg.'

She sagged with relief. Only a broken leg, that was all, just a leg and so everything was all right, but it wasn't. She knew that really, because Si was so sad, so terribly sad. She knew it because so was everyone else. Simon held her face, held it and drew close. She said, ‘Jack?'

‘Jack's fine but Timmie's dead.' He said it quickly as though that would help. His arms were round her now, holding her tightly, stopping her from falling from the stool as though she had no bones in her body and everywhere was so dark, so quiet and dark.

Lady Veronica insisted that her trap should be used. Simon had been given leave to drive her and it was as though she was floating way up above the ground, just floating with bits of black overwhelming her now, then again, then again. Simon sang softly to her but she didn't know what, all she knew was that he was here and she clung to him and would never let him go.

They drew up at the house. He lifted her down and she still wouldn't let him go, but whispered, ‘You will never be a pitman, will you? You must always be safe. I can never lose you. I can never lose Jack. How can I bear to lose Timmie?'

He kissed her forehead, her cheeks. ‘You never will lose me. We'll never lose one another.' His arms were tight. He said nothing about Timmie.

In the house her mam was mashing tea, Grace was sitting with Millie, who was crying. When was she not? Jack was sitting at the kitchen table painting the remaining lead soldier. He didn't look up, or speak except to say, ‘He didn't suffer, Evie. Don't you worry about that, pet. He didn't suffer.'

Evie sat with him at the table. Her mam brought more tea, sweet. Why? It didn't help. She drank it. Her mam said, ‘I don't know why you're doing that, Jack lad. Leave it now. Rest.'

Evie knew why. She always knew with Jack. ‘They need to be finished because Timmie will need them with him,' she said, and then she went to the front room to her lovely boy. But he was closed in his coffin because he shouldn't be seen, so how could he have felt nothing?

Jack watched Grace rise from his da's chair at eight in the evening. ‘I'll leave you now. Millie, can I help you up to bed? Perhaps the family need to be alone?' she said.

Mam was sitting on the sofa with Millie. ‘She can stay here, not just now but later, and be family. We'll need the laughter of a bairn.' Her voice was quite steady, her tears were done for now, but then she'd had a lifetime of waiting for this to happen, they all had. Jack had finished the last fusilier. It would be dry by morning. He followed Grace to the front door, opened it, and held it while she passed close to him, and out into the dark and cold. He was calm, he was dead. He seemed strong, but that was expected, and tomorrow he'd be back in the pit, because he was a pitman and they still needed food on the table and savings for the hotel.

He followed her to the gate. She smelt as she always smelt, of lavender. He held the gate as she passed through, and followed her. She had brought her bicycle; would she be safe? The moon was full and lit the track. She mounted and pedalled slowly away. What if she fell? What if she was hit by one of the few automobiles, or a cart galloping, what if . . .

The tears were coming now, and they couldn't be stopped and it didn't matter because the family couldn't hear and she was on her bike and neither could she, but then there was a clatter, and the sound of running, and then she was here with her arms around him. ‘Cry all you like, Jack Forbes. Cry for your lovely brother.'

Her arms were strong, and she was stroking his back, his hair, and he sank his head against the top of her head, her glorious hair, and let the tears run and run and his breath come in gulps, and he knew his body shuddered but he couldn't stop, and all the time she stroked his head, his back, his hair. Slowly, slowly he quietened, his breath grew deep, and his tears finally ceased, but still they held one another and it was where he had wanted to be for so long, and where he wanted to stay for ever.

The retirement house door opened and a dog was called in. Jack withdrew, standing straight, looking deep into her eyes. ‘Thank you,' he said, ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Never be sorry,' Grace replied, her voice fierce, her cheeks wet with her own tears. ‘Never, bonny lad. I'm here whenever you need me.'

She was so close, so very close. He reached out and took her hand. He kissed the gloved palm. There was so much he wanted to say, but never could. Not to a woman like her.

He dropped her hand. She turned, then swung back and held her hand to his cheek. ‘You remember, if you ever need me, I will always be here.'

Grace picked up her bicycle which she'd let crash on to the track and cycled away. If she had stayed she would have said too much and what sort of a fool was she, to love a young lad. How could she have taken advantage of his grief, she was an embarrassment to herself, to women, and it must stop, this minute.

At Easterleigh Hall Lady Veronica had paced in the drive while Raisin and Currant chased one another around the cedar tree, waiting for Auberon. She didn't have to wait long before he trotted up on Prancer, saluting her with his whip, calling, ‘I'm late for tea, but not too late I hope?' He eased his boots from the stirrups and dismounted. She walked with him towards the stables, the gravel crunching beneath their feet. She said, ‘There's no tea today.'

‘What?' He turned, annoyed. ‘But I left deliberately. Why not?'

‘Evie has had to leave for a few hours, a death in the mine, and so the kitchen is short-staffed.'

They were in the stable yard and Auberon handed Prancer to a groom, but he himself slung the stirrups over the saddle, undid the girth and carried it to the tack room. Veronica followed and watched her brother's thought processes grind painfully slowly round and round. He walked towards the front steps. ‘In Auld Maud? But there's only been one death today and that was a Forbes. Yes, a couple of injuries, but only one death which makes it pretty much par for the course.'

She stopped as the dogs ran ahead and up the steps and then hesitated, turning back and running to her. She held Auberon back, wanting to talk to him out here, away from the servants' ears and her stepmama. ‘So, tell me again just who was it who died today, Aub?'

He shifted uncomfortably at her side. ‘Timmie Forbes.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘So work it out.'

She reached down to stroke the dogs. He said, ‘You mean . . .'

‘Indeed I do. Evie was too scared to admit to being a Forbes as she felt she would lose her job, if she was taken on in the first place, with a name like that, a brother like Jack. You kept that boy in a poor place out of spite, and why? Because you could, Aub, and now he's dead. I should have reminded you. That's my fault. The cavil was reinstated too late.' He was slapping his boots with his whip. She waited. He said, finally, ‘What have I done?'

She walked ahead. ‘Abused your power, and I have allowed it. We must learn from it and not let this boy's death be wasted.'

MILLIE'S SON WAS
born early, four months after Timmie's death, on 2nd May 1913. She named him Tim and it brought comfort of a kind to the family. Roger stopped Evie a month later as she was walking in the arboretum during her rest period. ‘He's mine, you know, that child your family's taken in. I have a right to him, and besides, the minute I crook my little finger she'll be back, so don't get too attached.'

Evie muttered grimly, ‘Excellent, nothing would please me more. Then the child will have a father to provide for him.' It was clearly not the answer he expected because he strode off, or did he strut off? She watched him for a moment as he disappeared amongst the chestnuts, but nothing mattered anyway.

The months passed in a dark blur. The kitchen teas had long since ceased and she was glad, because she didn't want to see Mr Auberon, didn't want to bake cakes or fancies for the man who had killed her brother. Simon was in her life, there for her, always, and that began to matter again and they talked of marriage, but not yet, because she couldn't stop work when her family needed the hotel even more now her da's leg was healed, but stiff. He had been back at work within six weeks, but his mobility was restricted and she expected him to have been dismissed, but instead he had been given easier areas and didn't have to squeeze into low-roofed seams. Perhaps Mr Auberon was sorry. He should be.

In January 1914 Grace came for tea with Evie at her mam's house on her Wednesday afternoon off. She and Grace helped with the proggy rug, and as Grace pushed through a slip of red material she smiled at Evie. ‘I'm going to the meeting of the suffrage group that has set up in a smaller hall in a poorer district of Gosforn. It's based on the policy of Christabel's sister, Sylvia Pankhurst's socialist East London Federation Suffrage. They're not in tune with the arson and the damage to property, and they want votes for everyone, not just for the financially established few, or those middle-class women who are married. Come with me, it's what you've argued for. It's time, Evie, it's been a year. You must start doing more than existing. I will meet you at the crossroads.'

Evie said, ‘That sounds like a speech you've been preparing for a while.' She stroked the rug. ‘It's going to be grand, Mam.'

Her mam nodded. ‘Don't change the subject, our Evie. Take it up again, you need it and it needs you.'

Evie looked at Millie sitting on the sofa, her feet up on the footstool, with Tim suckling while she ate a cake. ‘Would you vote if you had the chance, Millie?'

Millie shoved in the last of the cake and stroked Tim's head, or was she wiping her hands on his hair? You never knew with this young woman. She seemed to be reverting to type, if indeed she'd ever left it. ‘What's any of it got to do with me, Evie?'

Evie looked at Grace. She'd felt no emotion for such a long time, but now irritation was niggling. How many felt like Millie when it had everything to do with them, and was she really wiping her hands on her child? Shut up, don't be absurd.

She had to go, had to breathe fresh air, now. She stood and hurried from the room, out of the front door, standing in the crisp cold, staring out at the snow-covered fields. The clouds were a grey-blue, with pink at the edges. They were beautiful but she was unmoved. ‘What's the point?' she murmured, her breath visible. There was little wind. The smoke from Grace's houses went straight up and she watched until it dissipated. Had Timmie dissipated? No. He was still here. She felt him all around.

Grace called from the hall and joined her, bringing a shawl which she placed round Evie's shoulders, speaking low and firmly. ‘We have work to do. We need to reach people like Millie. If they had a stake in how they are governed it would enthuse them, motivate them, surely. Come with me on Sunday.'

Evie really didn't care, one way or the other, so why not?

Grace collected her at the crossroads. Sally, the bay mare, was sweating lightly, and Evie gave her a carrot, courtesy of Mrs Moore. There had been further flurries of snow since Wednesday but today the sky was blue. Evie climbed into the trap and settled down opposite Grace, who clicked Sally on. Neither spoke as they trotted through Easton and out on to the Gosforn road. Evie didn't chat these days. It took too much effort. Grace didn't chat either. Evie looked at her. Grace smiled, but in a weary and sad way. They seemed to have no need for words, and gone was the gulf of older and younger, employer and employee. The bloom that had settled on Grace had gone. The joy inside Evie was gone.