Forever Yours (14 page)

‘Who?’ His voice could have come from the depths of a cavern. ‘Who was it? Or was there more than one?’ He swung round as he spoke, catching her unawares, and the look on her face before she brought indignation to bear was all the confirmation he needed. It made her play-acting all the more infuriating.

‘What are you accusing me of?’ She hitched herself into a sitting position, her back against the wooden headboard. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You understand all right.’ He had never had the urge to strike a woman in his life but now he had to ball his hands into fists at his side to prevent himself doing just that. ‘You’ve been with someone. Who was it? I want his name.’

‘I haven’t. How dare you say that? You’re the first.’

‘Tell me, Tilly. I’m warning you, don’t try my patience.’

‘You’re mad, there’s been no one but you.’

He wasn’t mad. And she hadn’t been with the man just the once either, his gut instinct was telling him that. Was it before she’d taken up with him? It had to be. But he didn’t think she’d had a serious suitor before him. Obviously he was wrong. What else was there he didn’t know? Suddenly he grabbed at her, shaking her shoulders until her head bobbed like a rag doll. ‘Tell me his name or so help me I’ll shake it out of you.You’ve lain with someone, you’ve been used.’

When she brought her hands up and pushed him so hard he fell backwards, he was amazed at her strength. She was kneeling on the bed now, hissing, ‘Don’t you lay your hands on me. I’m not having any of that. And I tell you again, there’s been no one but you. You can go on all you like but that’s the truth.’

‘You’re lying.’ His face was suffused with rage.

‘I’m not lying.’

She was lying. She’d played him for a sucker with all her talk about keeping herself for the wedding night and he’d been duped into believing every word. Had she thought he might guess if she went with him before she had the ring on her finger? Well, she would have been right.

He ground his teeth together, glaring at her as he bit out, ‘I was straight with you, I didn’t pretend I hadn’t sown a few wild oats. You could have told me at any time over the last year.’

‘Oh aye, and it was all right for you to have a bit of fun with those lasses, was it? Never mind you left them and went on to the next obliging fool. It’s one rule for you and one rule for a lass in your book, is it? Like all men.’

Immediately she knew her temper had led her to say something that further damned her in his eyes. ‘So that’s how you think? That a lass can act that way, the same as a lad?’

‘Of course I don’t. I don’t. And I haven’t.’

‘You’ve lied to me. All these months you’ve lied to me whilst acting the virtuous maiden. Does he know? The one who had you? Has he been cocking a snook an’ all?’

He’d taken her aback, and in the split second before she regained control he read the truth in her face.

When he pounced on her again she fought him with fists and feet, but even before her knee made contact with his groin he was telling himself to get out of the room. He wanted to hurt her, really hurt her, and the madness she had accused him of earlier was there in the red mist before his eyes. Stumbling over to the wardrobe, he pulled out one of his working shirts and his trousers. His mother had insisted on washing them after his last shift the day before and dried them ready for him to drop off at the house first thing that morning with his other clothes and bits and pieces, before he went home to get ready for the service.

Tilly said nothing as he pulled them on, but as he went towards the door her voice came to him, trembling and low. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this and you’re wrong, do you hear me? I haven’t been with anyone else. I swear it.’

Without a backward glance towards the bed, he growled, ‘Shut up or so help me I’ll come over there and shut you up.’

Once on the landing he stood for a moment, breathing easier as the pain in his loins where she’d kneed him began to subside. It was quite dark now and the landing was in blackness, but all the houses in the Cross Streets were identical and he had no trouble walking down the stairs and into the kitchen.

The kitchen felt strange; at home the range would have been emitting a warm glow and the faint smell of food would be in the air. As yet they hadn’t lit the range but it was black-leaded to within an inch of its life. Tilly and her mother had spent hours scrubbing and cleaning every inch of the place when they had first picked up the key from the agent.

Barefoot, he walked over the stone flags and stepped down into the tiny scullery, opening the back door and standing on the threshold where he gazed up into the sky. The humidity was fierce and the stars were hidden by stormclouds. Even as he watched, the first fat raindrops began to fall, bringing with them that distinctive smell peculiar to rain on parched earth.

He closed his eyes, his teeth grinding into his bottom lip, hardly able to take in the enormity of what had happened. And she had insisted the
bed
couldn’t be secondhand. What had she said? Oh aye, she didn’t want to start their life together where someone else had been. Damn it.
Damn it
.

What was he going to do? What
could
he do? She was his wife. They were married before the sight of God and man, besides which he’d be the laughing stock of the village if he left her and the truth came out. He’d never live the humiliation down, it’d follow him to his dying day. No, she’d sewn him up like a kipper. But how could they live together after this?

Who the hell was the man? His mind brought up and rejected one name after another until his head was throbbing, and all the time the rain got heavier until it was a solid sheet, drumming on the roof and hurtling down on to the slabs in the backyard so violently it shot several inches into the air again.

He’d stood there for a full fifteen minutes before he allowed Constance into his mind, but when he did so the pain she brought caused him to groan out loud.

Was there ever such a fool as him? he asked himself bitterly. Such a blind, stupid fool? He’d known that day in her grandma’s kitchen; it was as if he’d been seeing her for the first time, and he’d been bowled over by the sheer wonder of her.

And now the agony of mind that was tearing him apart was less to do with the betrayal by the woman he’d taken as his wife, and more the loss of a golden-haired child-woman whom he’d been too proud to seek out and bring back home.

Constance had been at Grange Hall for six months, the first few weeks of which she had described to herself as hell on earth. Gradually though she had begun to understand the routine, cope with the overwhelming tiredness that often saw her falling on her bed fully dressed at midnight and waking while it was still dark to begin her duties, and even make friends among the other girls. One thing that had helped her begin to settle was realising that Florence’s brusque attitude towards her wasn’t personal; she was the same with everyone. Florence ruled ‘her’ kitchen with a rod of iron and all the girls both admired and feared her. Being a senior servant, her word was absolute and she gave no quarter, but she wasn’t a spiteful woman, merely a perfectionist. And as Constance became accustomed to the working of the house, she understood that a cook’s position in an establishment such as Grange Hall was a privileged one with a very comfortable way of life.

All the plain cooking and the cleaning and scouring of the kitchen, scullery, larder, passages and kitchen utensils were done by the kitchen – and scullerymaids. When Florence cooked the morning pastries, jellies, creams and more fancy dishes, Agnes prepared all her ingredients and one of the other kitchenmaids waited on her. As the most junior member of the kitchen staff, Constance took a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits up to Florence’s private quarters every morning at seven o’clock, before Cook got up to supervise the making of the dining-room breakfast for the family. And every afternoon, unless there was a dinner party to prepare for, she took her ease, either in her room on the floor beneath the attics or in the kitchen where she could keep an eye on her staff.

The evenings were always hectic – five or six perfectly presented courses had to arrive in the dining room piping hot and at exactly the right moment – and this was the only time Florence was known to lose her temper. And Florence in a temper was something to be feared and avoided at all costs. Consequently the kitchen staff’s nerves were fraught, come nightfall.

It was in Constance’s second week at Grange Hall that Agnes explained to her about Cook’s ‘perks’, after a rag and bone man had knocked on the back door and money had changed hands between him and Florence. It appeared that all the rabbit skins, feathers and bones were bought by the rag and bone man and the money went into Florence’s pocket, along with the proceeds of the sale of dripping to itinerant traders who resold it to shops or at cottage doors. There were other perks too, along with beer money to help Cook cope with the heat of the kitchen, especially in the summer.

‘Most cooks leave their family with enough money to buy a nice little cottage somewhere and live comfortably in their old age,’ Agnes had whispered as she supervised Constance’s first attempt at plucking a pheasant. ‘I was thinking of that once, before me and Cuthbert started walking out.’

Cuthbert was the second gamekeeper, the son of the head gamekeeper, and he and Agnes had been courting for ten years. It was evident Cuthbert would have been happy for this state of affairs to continue indefinitely, but after some pressure from Agnes who, at twenty-eight years old, was conscious she wasn’t getting any younger, they had agreed to get wed at Christmas. A cottage was under construction for them close to the head gamekeeper’s, a concession by the master who often went shooting with Cuthbert and his father, and who didn’t want Cuthbert to move on elsewhere for a position as head gamekeeper.

The days were long, especially when the summer came and the dining hours of the family got later. Any time off due to her Constance spent sleeping in the early weeks, but as her body and mind adjusted to the exhausting grind she sometimes went for a walk on her half-days in the company of Patience and Teresa whose free time corresponded with hers. They were both lively, intelligent girls and the three of them got on well, although Teresa – being very aware of her position as second kitchenmaid under Agnes – sometimes tried to lord it over Constance.

The highlight of Constance’s week was the letter from her grandma. This arrived from the post office in a leather mail bag which went to Mr Rowan, and he then passed letters for the kitchen staff to Cook. It was not unknown for Florence to demand to know who the writer was, should she suspect one of her staff had an admirer, and then veto any further correspondence accordingly.

Constance’s last letter from home was under the lumpy flock pillow on her bed, her grandma’s large round writing smudged with Constance’s tears.

It was a bonny wedding
, her grandma had written,
and Tilly looked a picture. Your Aunt Ruth and Tilly’s mam did us proud, I’ve not seen such a fine table for many a long day. It was such a shame you couldn’t be there, hinny, but needs must, and you’re better where you are.

Constance knew the letter off by heart now and as she stood peeling the sack of potatoes the gardener’s boy brought to the kitchen door every morning, she told herself fiercely that she wasn’t going to cry any more. Matt and Tilly were wed. It was done. She had known it was going to happen and now it had.

She looked across at Gracie who was sitting on a stool plucking several teal. The small freshwater ducks looked so pathetic once they were featherless; she hated plucking or skinning anything and always plumped for peeling the potatoes or the huge barrel of vegetables they got through each day if she could. Gracie was feathering into a deep bucket to try to prevent the feathers floating about, but every so often she gave a sneeze as the fine down irritated her nose.

Agnes and the other kitchenmaids, even Gracie, seemed perfectly happy working in the kitchen, but Constance couldn’t bear to think this would be her life for years to come. She knew that was ungrateful and that she had been lucky to be taken into service at Grange Hall, but sometimes she longed to take off her apron and heavy thick boots and leave the house and just run and run for miles in the wild and beautiful countryside surrounding the house. Every hour, every minute here was ruled over by Cook. The natural freedom the children of the village had always taken for granted was now, in hindsight, an infinitely precious thing.

She’d tried to explain how she felt to Teresa and Patience on their last walk, but the pair of them had looked at her in amazement. ‘But look at the food we eat,’ Teresa – who was already turning into a roly-poly – had protested. ‘Where else would you have as much as you want? I’d never tasted ice cream or meringues or French pastries before I came here. Had you?’

Constance had to admit she had not.

‘And the master and mistress aren’t stingy like some. Look at Christmas, we all had a present and a party in the servants’ hall and a supper and a ball on Twelfth Night. The master led off the dancing with Mrs Craggs and the mistress with Mr Howard.’

‘The master danced with Mrs Craggs?’ Constance repeated in astonishment. Mrs Craggs, the housekeeper, was a dour individual with iron-grey hair and a moustache any man would be proud of. As Cook had her kitchen – and scullerymaids, so Mrs Craggs had her own parlour – and housemaids. Under her direction, besides seeing to the smooth running of the house, they worked in the stillroom off the housekeeper’s quarters. Constance had never stepped inside this exalted place, but she understood from Agnes that the room held a range and a confectioner’s oven, and here Mrs Craggs and her staff bottled fruit, made jam, crystallised fruits and flowers from the estate and created sugared novelties.

The housekeeper’s rooms also had cupboards from floor to ceiling, and in these were stored preserves made from the fruit off the estate and pickles, spices and sugar. She also had charge of the soap and candles for the house, along with bulk goods such as flour, rice, dried fruit and tea and coffee. Every Monday morning Agnes would take Cook’s order for the week to Mrs Craggs, and later in the morning two of the housemaids would deliver it to the kitchen.