Heir to Greyladies (23 page)

Harriet beamed at her. ‘We’d be happy to have you here.’

‘You need permission to marry. You’re under
twenty-one
,’ Dalton said. ‘You’ll have to wait anyway. That’ll give you time to see whether this … this
thing
is going to last.’

‘Don’t interfere, Father!’ Joseph said sharply.

Greenlow had been listening indulgently. Now he cleared his throat to gain their attention. ‘My fellow magistrate and I held a sitting just before this happened, and we decided to give Harriet permission to marry.’

Joseph turned to his fiancée, a glowing smile on his face.

William opened his mouth and Sophie nudged him. ‘Shut up. Have you ever seen your son look as happy?’

He sighed and subsided like a punctured football. ‘No.’

She lowered her voice to add, ‘And she has money.’

He sighed again and made no further protest.

Joseph wasn’t even looking at them. ‘Do you want a fancy wedding, Harriet, my love?’

‘Goodness me, no.’

‘Then I’ll go into Swindon on Monday and get a special licence. We’ll be married within a few days.’

‘I’d be happy to help you with the details,’ Mr Lloyd said at once. ‘I’m only sorry Harding got away. If ever a man deserves to be imprisoned, that one does.’ He stared at Winifred, sitting on a hard chair in the hall. ‘As do you, ma’am.’

She shrugged. ‘As long as my Norris gets away, it’ll be worth it.’

When he got near the village, Norris cursed and slowed down. There was a bunch of women standing in the middle of the street. He hadn’t even got a hat to tip as he passed them, so nodded his head politely and tried to hurry on. But they moved to block his way, damn them.

‘I reckon this is one of them,’ Mrs Pocock said. ‘Look at that split lip. He must have been fighting.’

They surrounded him and when he lunged sideways, trying to get out of the circle, a plump young woman raised her arm and walloped him over the head with something very hard and painful.

He staggered, trying to keep running but failing as his legs gave way and everything blurred round him.

‘I’ll fetch my wheelbarrow,’ one woman said. ‘Good enough for my potatoes, good enough to wheel rubbish like him in.’

‘We’ll take him to Greyladies,’ Mrs Pocock said. ‘Well done, Lucy. You walk next to him and if he moves so much as a fingertip, hit him again … harder.’

Norris came to and found himself threatened by a large young woman brandishing a spade. He felt sick and dizzy, so lay back, trying to gather his strength for an escape the minute his head stopped spinning.

They went by way of the lane and the drive, and Lucy put one hand to her mouth and whistled loudly as they got near the house, then yelled, ‘Come and see what we’ve found!’

People came running out and stood gaping as the women dumped Norris out of the wheelbarrow and stood in a semicircle round the figure sprawling across the gravel.

Norris groaned, trying desperately to pull himself together, but feeling too sick and dizzy to do more than lie there.

‘You missed one, dear,’ Mrs Pocock told her husband with a grin.

He grinned back at her. ‘Well, we had to let you ladies have a bit of fun too, didn’t we?’

Joseph chuckled, and even Mr Dalton was smiling.

‘Won’t you all come in?’ Harriet asked. ‘I’m sure Livvy can make some cups of tea.’

The blacksmith went down the steps and grabbed Norris by the front of his jacket, frogmarching him into the house and throwing him to the floor.

Everyone crowded round the sides of the hall to watch the show.

‘Pity he hasn’t tried to get away,’ Lucy said regretfully. ‘I’d like to hev hit him again.’

‘Hit him anyway,’ Mrs Pocock said.

Norris yelped and cowered back.

‘No need to hit him. Just tie him up carefully,’ Mr Greenlow ordered. ‘You know, Murborough, we really do need a village constable here. You, fellow! You’re under arrest for—’

As he paused to consider, Winifred edged round behind the other women, seeing her son watching her. She knew her son. Norris wasn’t as woozy as he was pretending.

She got to the end of the line of people, standing near the door, and suddenly yelled, ‘Run!’ She shoved the woman next to her hard and lunged across to stop a man going after Norris.

But Joseph had seen what she was doing and had wheeled his chair quietly along the back of the row of standing people. As Norris rolled to one side and surged to his feet, Joseph moved the chair in front of him.

Cursing, Norris tried to get past the wheelchair, but by that time two men had grabbed the would-be fugitive.

Norris struggled and fought like a madman, but they subdued him and tied him up, while two of the women held Winifred, now sobbing.

‘Well done, son!’ Mr Dalton said in surprise.

But Joseph was back holding Harriet’s hand.

Harriet stared at herself in the mirror. ‘Do I look all right?’

Miss Bowers smiled. ‘You look beautiful, my dear. As a bride should.’

Since Norris and his mother were now in jail, they’d delayed the wedding a few days to allow the village seamstress to make Harriet a new outfit. She’d chosen a skirt in one of the new fitted styles, in a subtle green wool, with a matching green three-quarter-length jacket, and a blouse in cream silk and lace, with the fashionable high collar.

Miss Bowers and Mrs Greenlow had taken her shopping to Swindon for a new hat, but after one or two, she’d refused to try on any more of the huge hats, which might be fashionable, but made her feel ridiculous and top-heavy.

Eventually they agreed on a neat felt with modest four-inch brims, worn at a slight tilt. It had a cream satin ribbon around the crown, with a spray of silk flowers to one side and a smaller spray under the brim at the raised side.

She still felt it was too much, but it
did
flatter her.

Since Joseph already had smart clothes, tailored to his needs, he had asked only for them to bring him a new shirt, which he wore with a black frock coat and trousers, top hat and a roll-collared waistcoat in beige. His grandfather’s gold watch chain was draped across the front. It wouldn’t now need to be sold and he could give the jewels he’d inherited to his wife – though he doubted Harriet cared about jewellery.

He spent the night before the wedding with the Greenlows and arranged to meet his bride at the Registry Office in Swindon.

He went there in his wheelchair, though it had to be carried up the stairs. But he insisted on getting out of it in the waiting room.

When Harriet appeared in the doorway, stopping to gaze round shyly, he got to his feet and simply held out his hand to her.

Her nervous expression vanished and she gave him a glowing smile.

‘Y’know,’ William Dalton whispered to his wife, ‘I’ve never seen Joseph look as well.’

‘He’s happy. And well provided for. What more can anyone want for him?’

He nodded. ‘I suppose so. And she doesn’t look like a maid when she’s properly dressed, does she?’

‘Oh, you! She looks absolutely lovely.’

On the other side of the central space between the rows of wooden chairs, Harriet was watched by Miss Bowers, the Lloyds and the Greenlows. Doris Miller was sitting next to Miss Bowers, who had agreed to keep her company when Harriet assured her that the former housekeeper might have a sharp tongue but was nothing like her relatives.

The servants from Greyladies were sitting in a row at the back, because Harriet had insisted that they attend as well, and there were a few people from the village who’d not been invited but had come anyway, since Joseph had hired a motor charabanc to bring as many as wanted to attend.

They’d ordered a private room and special luncheon at a hotel in Swindon, then Joseph and Harriet would go back to Greyladies with their servants in the charabanc, and leave the motor cars to his parents and the Greenlows.

That evening Joseph limped into the bedroom wearing his dressing gown over a nightshirt, to find his bride sitting bolt upright in the bed looking scared.

‘My dear, don’t look so frightened. We needn’t do anything if you don’t want.’

Harriet gave a start and then relaxed a little, smiling at him. ‘I was just remembering Norris attacking me.’

‘You know I shan’t do that. In fact …’ he hesitated, then added, ‘I’ve never done this before, so we shall have to find our way together.’

She relaxed even more, turned back the covers and patted the space beside her. ‘I like the thought of that.’

He took her in his arms and they lay for a while, talking then kissing.

‘Was that kiss better than your previous experiences?’ he teased.

‘I loved it.’ She leant forward to pull him towards her and kiss him again.

When she nestled more closely against him, he said softly, ‘With you, darling, I don’t feel like a cripple.’

‘I don’t think of you as one. You’re just … my Joseph.’

‘And you’re my Harriet. Aren’t we lucky to have found one another?’

But she was eager for another kiss and after that they didn’t talk for quite some time, as they discovered how wonderful it was to love one another.

On the landing outside their bedroom a lamp was burning low near the big portrait of Anne Latimer. Anyone passing by would have sworn she was smiling.

A
NNA
J
ACOBS
is the author of over fifty novels and is addicted to storytelling. She grew up in Lancashire, emigrated to Australia in the 1970s and writes stories set in both countries. She loves to return to England regularly to visit her family and soak up the history. She has two grown-up daughters and a grandson, and lives with her husband in a spacious waterfront home. Often as she writes, dolphins frolic outside the window of her study. Inside, the house is crammed with thousands of books.

www.annajacobs.com
 

Heir to Greyladies

Cherry Tree Lane

Elm Tree Road

Yew Tree Gardens

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