Mistress of Greyladies (3 page)

He didn’t respond to that. His mother didn’t seem to realise that modern warfare and weapons would cause a far greater number of casualties and there would have to be places where they could recover. ‘Selwyn must have started drinking early. His speech was slurred.’

‘He’s been pouring whisky down non-stop since he arrived, and he’s been rude to everyone. I’ve seen very little of him in the past few years, but Thomas says he’s still gambling. I doubt the house will stay in the family for much longer. William was wrong to leave it to Selwyn. Even you would have made a better owner than him.’

She seemed quite unaware how insulting this was, but Joseph didn’t protest. He was quite accustomed to the way his family underestimated him. If he told his mother how much money he’d made from his small inheritance during the years since his marriage, or how well he’d managed the annual income from the Greyladies Trust, she’d find it hard to believe.

As he ate his meal, he endured the direct insults of his eldest brother without responding, then went to bed early, pleading tiredness.

He was glad when Thomas arrived the following day. Since his next brother was in banking and knew about
Joseph’s improving financial situation, they usually had plenty to talk about. He got on best with Thomas, but it made him sad that he didn’t feel truly close to any of his brothers, and his sister was like a complete stranger. None of them had made any attempt to get to know him better, not to mention avoiding contact with Harriet because she’d once been a housemaid.

Joseph doubted he’d come back here again after the funeral, even though he was fond of his old home – well, more than fond, he loved the place and was the only one who knew its history. But the house belonged to Selwyn now, Joseph had a new home and life, and that was that.

He sighed and admitted to himself that sometimes he ached to be back at Dalton House. Perhaps you always had a special feeling for your childhood home. He hadn’t let Harriet know how he felt, though, and never would.

When Phoebe Sinclair was sixteen, she had to grow up quickly because her mother became too ill to work. A failing heart, the doctor told them, and nothing could be done. From then on, Phoebe took charge of their little cottage in the village of Knightsford Bassett and cared for her mother as she grew weaker.

At first she did odd jobs to earn money, cleaning, laundry work or helping on nearby farms at busy times. They scraped together enough to live on, because they had free eggs from their own hens, and bits and pieces of farm produce from her mother’s cousin, who lived just outside the village with his second wife Janet.

Horace Reid had no children of his own, even though he’d married a second time soon after the death of his first wife, because a farmer needed a wife. Janet already had a son from her first marriage. Frank Hapton was a surly lad, who refused to take his stepfather’s name and made it clear that he hated living in the country and wanted nothing to do with dirty, smelly animals.

He’d moved away from the farm as soon as he turned
fifteen, by which time he looked like a man grown. He hadn’t even told his mother he was going and just vanished one day, sending a postcard now and then to say he was all right, but not giving his address.

Phoebe was glad Janet’s son didn’t live at the farm any longer. She didn’t like Frank. He was a big fellow, but very lazy, and seemed to push his way through life, with no regard for others. She was sorry when he started coming back for visits, because now she was older, Frank had begun to look at her in what she thought of as ‘that way’. A couple of times, he’d kissed her, laughing when she tried to fight him off. She didn’t like to complain to Janet, so avoided going to the farm when she knew he was there.

As her mother’s health grew worse, life became difficult. Phoebe couldn’t leave her mother on her own all day, so jobs were limited. They’d used up all their savings and she had to start selling or pawning their possessions.

Thank goodness Horace and Janet continued to help them. Without the food from the farm and what she could grow in the garden, she’d have had to get her mother admitted to the workhouse, a place no one went into, except as the very last resort.

It was a relief as well as a deep sadness when her mother died.

The day after the funeral, which had been paid for by Horace, Phoebe begged a lift into Swindon from a nearby carter, determined to find herself a job. She walked round the streets, enjoying being among smiling, bustling people.

At one point, she tripped on the uneven pavement and stumbled against the window of a shop making curtains. A white card said:
Help needed, general duties
. It seemed
meant to be and she walked inside to ask about the job. She didn’t know anything about making curtains, but she was a good needlewoman. They could only say no, after all.

The Steins, who owned the shop, were foreigners, Austrian, she found out. They asked her some questions, then offered her the job. They seemed so nice, she accepted it without hesitation. ‘I’ll have to find lodgings first, though, and sell my mother’s furniture. She died last week.’

Mrs Stein exchanged glances with her husband, and said in her heavily accented English, ‘We hev two little rooms in the attic here. You can live there rent-free, if you clean the shop each evening after it closes.’

Mr Stein nodded vigorously. ‘Show her, Trudi.’

Phoebe was shown two tiny bare rooms. She could use the smaller one with the sloping ceiling as her bedroom, and the other as her sitting room. It had enough room for her bookcase, armchair, a table and two upright chairs.

There was an outside lavatory in the yard downstairs and her employers would let her cook in the kitchen behind the shop, which had a modern gas cooker, used to warm up Mr Stein’s dinners at lunchtime. That would be wonderfully easy to use after the wood-burning stove Phoebe had in the cottage.

‘We won’t charge you for the gas,’ Mrs Stein said. She waved one hand dismissively. ‘One girl, not much cooking.’

As the weeks passed, Phoebe realised how lucky she’d been. She had an interesting job, with a lot to learn, good employers
and
somewhere of her own to live.

She didn’t have the time or energy to make many friends. The library had plenty of good books to entertain her in the evenings, and she occasionally went to see a moving picture at the Country Electric cinema with Edith, who also worked
for the Steins. The two women marvelled at what they saw, enjoying the pianist who played suitable music while the film was shown.

After the years of nursing her mother, Phoebe wanted only to lead a quiet, restful life. One day she’d look for more, but not yet.

Two years later Phoebe was sent to buy a few groceries for her employers because their housemaid had left them abruptly a day or two ago. She was happy to do this instead of working in the shop, since the errand took her out into the fresh air.

As she walked along the narrow streets of Swindon’s Old Town, she lifted her face to the early morning sunshine of what promised to be a glorious summer’s day. She’d turned twenty-one a couple of weeks ago, and was now officially an adult, but hadn’t told anyone it was her birthday. She smiled wryly. It always felt as if she’d grown up when her mother fell ill.

The Steins were such good employers, she wondered as she walked why the maid who’d been with them for several years would just up and leave without giving proper notice. Perhaps the poor woman had family problems, but she could have explained, surely?

Phoebe enjoyed the bustle and didn’t mind queuing in the shops after the quiet of the countryside. She’d recently come back from her annual holiday week, which she’d spent quietly with Horace and Janet on the farm. She’d helped out, because there was always work to be done, and anyway, she’d enjoyed the change of scene and the different tasks.

Janet said Frank had a new job, buying and selling things at the markets, but she didn’t know any details, just that
her son seemed to be making a better living from it. She wished he’d marry and settle down, was sad to have no grandchildren, and him twenty-five.

Phoebe passed Frank in the street in Swindon sometimes, but did no more than nod to him. He still made her feel uncomfortable because his eyes always lingered where they shouldn’t. She’d never seen him at the markets, though, and wondered why he’d told his mother he worked there.

As she went from the brilliance of the sunshine into the dimness of the shop, she sighed. By afternoon, the row of shops was in the shadow of some taller buildings and they had to light the big gasolier that hung from the centre of the ceiling.

Mr Stein was polishing the inside of the shop window. He was very fussy about that sort of thing, insisting everything must look sparkling clean and inviting. He stopped work to smile at her.

‘
Guten Tag
, Phoebe.’

‘
Guten Tag, Herr Stein. Wie geht es Ihnen?
’ She always tried to answer him in his own language, and he was teaching her a few words of German every day.

‘
Sehr gut, danke
.’

He always said he was well, but he was past sixty and not in the best of health, and she could see how tired he became by the end of the day. The Steins had fled from Austria to live in England a few years ago, she didn’t quite understand why. It must have been difficult for them to change languages as well as countries. They didn’t have children or close family, but some good friends had helped them settle into their new country.

Phoebe went through to the rear workroom, where they did the cutting and sewing, to tell Mrs Stein she’d finished the errands. She handed over their house key. ‘I’ve left the
things in the kitchen and pantry, as you asked.’

‘Thank you, dear. You can make a start in the workroom now. Edith is very late today. I hope she’s not ill.’

Phoebe nipped up to the second floor and hung up her coat and beret, then hurried down to the shop. She was surprised not to see her co-worker yet. Edith had been there for years and was always at work long before this time. They had several orders for curtains waiting to be filled and customers didn’t like to be kept waiting.

Phoebe put on a clean overall, more to protect the curtains than herself, and continued hemming a set of drops she’d started work on the previous day. She could handle the sewing machine now and do the straight seams and simpler hand finishing, but some of the draping and curtain headings were complicated, and beyond her skill. Mrs Stein and Edith usually did those together.

The materials came in such a lovely range of colours that she often leafed through the sample book, rubbing her fingertips over the rich velvets and heavy silks, loving the feel of them.

Half an hour later, Edith came hurrying in, looking as if she’d been crying. Mr Stein followed her in from the shop, his face crumpled with concern, and Mrs Stein went to put an arm round her employee, which made Edith start sobbing loudly.

‘Vat is wrong, Edith, dear?’

‘Dad says I have to give notice.’

Everyone stared at her in shock.

‘I don’t want to, but he says he’s not having me working for Germans and if I don’t leave here, he’ll throw me out of home. I can’t give up my family, I just can’t.’

‘But ve aren’t Germans; ve’re Austrians,’ Mrs Stein protested.

‘Dad says it’s the same thing. He wanted me to finish today, but I persuaded him to let me stay on till the end of the week. I’m so sorry, Mrs Stein. I really hate letting you down. I’ve loved working here. I’ll work twice as hard to finish the orders before I leave.’

‘Thenk you.’ Mrs Stein’s accent had become more marked, as always when she was upset. ‘Ve vill give you an excellent reference, of course.’

Edith hesitated. ‘Could you sign it “Stone”, do you think? That’s what Stein means, isn’t it, so you won’t be telling a lie, exactly. Only, well, people won’t want a reference from someone with a German name, not the way things are looking.’

She took a deep breath and added, ‘You should change your name and put Stone on the shop front, too. Do it quickly. This week if you can.’

Phoebe stared at her in astonishment. She’d read about people acting nastily towards Germans living in England, but couldn’t see why anyone would attack the Steins. They were well known and liked in Old Town, and their curtains were beautifully made. All their neighbours knew they were Austrian and had had to leave their country to take refuge here.

Only … Edith’s father hadn’t accepted that Austrian was different from German, even though his daughter had been working for the Steins for several years. If he thought like that, others might not realise the difference, either.

Or they might not want to admit there was a difference.

People everywhere were talking about the prospect of Britain going to war with Germany and many were upset, especially those who’d lost family members in the Boer Wars at the turn of the century. Phoebe had heard talk of the possibility of war in the shop, at the market and on the streets.

Wars were terrible things. But what good would it do for people to take their anger out on innocent people like the Steins?

She shivered. She’d seen mobs in action when she was a child. Her family had lived in Northumberland, where her father had been born, and there had been unrest in the mines. She’d been terrified by the crowds of men with dirty, angry faces who’d shouted and broken windows.

Later, her father had been killed in a mine accident. The owner had paid her mother some money in compensation and they’d moved south to Wiltshire, to be near her mother’s family, especially Cousin Horace.

But money couldn’t compensate you for losing a much-loved husband and father. Phoebe still dreamt about her dad and her mother had turned down two offers of marriage, saying no one could replace her dearest Rick.

And the money hadn’t lasted, had it? Not after her mother fell ill.

After Edith left, business slowed down dramatically at the Steins’ shop, and Phoebe was terrified it would have to close down. What would she do then?

What would the Steins do?

She heard her employers discussing closing it once or twice, trying to calculate whether they would have enough money to manage on. She couldn’t help overhearing them because Mr Stein spoke rather loudly, which she’d noticed sometimes with other older people who were a bit deaf.

She didn’t know what to think, only that she didn’t want her life to change. If the shop closed, she would not only lose her job but her home, and it wasn’t easy to live on women’s
wages, which were much lower than men’s, nor were clean jobs like this one easy to find.

To her surprise, Frank stopped her in the street the next time he saw her.

‘You should look for another job and get out of that place you’re living in, Phoebe.’

‘I like working there and I’ve still got a lot to learn about making curtains.’

He gave a scornful snort. ‘Curtains! There’s going to be a war, you fool. Who’s going to care about new curtains then? And it’ll be a war with Germany. This is
not
the time to be working for Germans.’

‘They aren’t Germans; they’re Austrians.’

‘What’s the difference? They speak the same language, don’t they?’

‘The Steins had to leave their country because they were being persecuted, so they’re on our side now.’

‘No, they’re not, and they never will be. They’re probably spies. And even if they’re not, everyone says people like them should go back to where they came from while they can, or else go and settle in America, out of the way. I’m warning you, Phoebe. You need to get out of that shop while you can, for your own safety.’

‘I’m not leaving them. They’re good employers. Anyway, I live over the shop. Where would I go?’

He grinned and put an arm round her. ‘I could always put you up. I have a nice double bed.’

She shoved him away. ‘I don’t think that’s funny!’

‘Oh well, suit yourself. Your loss. But don’t say I didn’t warn you: you
are
in danger there.’ He turned to walk away, then stopped and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket,
scribbling on it with a pencil stub and thrusting it into her hand.