Authors: Janice Robertson
‘It probably did. It was awful when Fur fished out a dead newt
from that pennyworth of Loomp’s mixed pickles.’
Martha shuddered at the thought. ‘I’m glad those days are
behind us.’
To drown out Genevieve and Martha’s chatter, Hortence sang
in a high-pitched voice, squawking like a crested cockatoo, rarely hitting the
right notes.
‘It is your turn, I believe, Mrs Psalter,’ Lady Wexcombe
prompted. ‘You are red.’ In between turn-taking she spoke to Betsy upon her pet
topic, her wish for her daughter’s future happiness. ‘Permelia has many
admirers. If the right gentleman came along I am sure that he would sweep her
off her feet. Hortence, darling, your singing enthrals me immeasurably, but do
stop. I have such a headache tonight.’
‘You’re not the only one,’ Martha murmured.
Genevieve was tired of these nights of refined entertainments.
Of Lady Wexcombe’s conniving to marry Permelia off to Gabriel, and Hortence’s
vindictive words about Martha and Betsy. So she tried harder to agitate the Wexcombes,
though, somehow, the fun had gone out of it. ‘Do you recall that terrible
winter, when poor Mrs O’Ruarc died? The ground was so hard that it was
impossible to dig fresh graves. Wakelin hung her body in a sack from the
rafters to ward off the rats.’
‘Oh my!’ Lady Wexcombe fanned herself rapidly.
‘How dare you aggravate my mother with your coarse words?’ Hortence
cried. ‘In the asylums they chain the mentally insane to the walls. It is so
enthralling. We really must pay another visit.’
‘Are you implying that Eppie is mad?’ Martha cried. ‘For if
you are, I warn you … ’
‘It is of no consequence, Mam.’
Gabriel was taking the banter lightly. He prodded an
interesting article in his newspaper. ‘It says here that, until home-grown
grain reaches a minimum price of eighty shillings a quarter, the import of
foreign grain is virtually banned from Britain.’
‘Not blue! Red! Red!’ Lady Wexcombe cried, frustrated by Betsy’s
forgetfulness. ‘It is useless to continue.’
‘When I lived at Pear Tree Cottage I had a nice set of bone
dominoes,’ Betsy said.
‘There’s a fine set in the breakfront,’ Gabriel said,
indicating to a mahogany sideboard with brass swan-drop handles. Finishing off
a roast chicken leg, he left the bones on a side table, whereupon Sovereign clawed
eagerly across the floral rug and lost no time in alighting on them.
Beside a clutter of silver fox-head stirrup cups in a drawer,
Genevieve found a carved ivory barrel. The engraving on the front showed two
people sitting on a bench, playing dominoes. In the background was a tree. It
reminded her of the jolly games that she and Betsy had had whilst seated
beneath the mulberry tree.
Happy at last to play a game that she enjoyed, she flipped
open the top of the barrel and tipped the ebony and bone tiles onto the table.
As the play went round the table, Betsy became irritated
with Lady Wexcombe’s persistent slowness. ‘Hurry up, hurry up!’
Befuddled by Betsy’s insistence, Lady Wexcombe misplaced a
domino.
Betsy pressed her face close to Lady Wexcombe’s, her nose
and chin jutting c-shaped like the open beak of a sparrow. ‘If you can’t play
you’ve got to draw a tile from the boneyard, you stupid haycum.’
Hortence sprang to her feet. ‘You wicked hag!’
‘Don’t you dare call Betsy names!’ Martha cried.
‘I’ll call her whatever I deem fit,’ Hortence retorted, ‘like
I would call you a trollop, for throwing yourself at the first farmer that called
on his lordship.’
Martha gaped in disbelief at what she was hearing.
Genevieve was quick to come to her defence. ‘You don’t know
o’t about my mam, or the life we led before.’
‘I know that your
mam
, as you persistently call her,
is the mother of a thief. Living here she is nothing short of a beggar, and
this withered crone in tow with her.’
Martha could take no more.
Rushing to her bedchamber she threw together her few
belongings and thrust them into a stuff sack.
‘What are you doing?’ Genevieve cried, trailing her back and
forth from the clothespress to the bed.
‘I shall take Betsy with me; she can’t look after herself. Lottie
has made friends with the servants and is content working here.’
She hung onto Martha’s arm. ‘You can’t leave!’
Hortence hovered in the doorway, revelling in Martha and
Genevieve’s shared distress.
‘Wait! I’ll pack my bag.’
Unsettled by Hortence’s presence Martha had no time to
reflect upon her choice of words. ‘Don’t be silly, Eppie. You are where you
belong, with your sort of people.’
Genevieve was hurt almost beyond endurance. ‘With my
sort
of people? How can you say that? You’re my mam, not in blood, but you are my
mam nonetheless. You can’t simply throw me off.’
Martha hurriedly tied the bag.
‘Please stay, Mrs Dunham,’ Gabriel said, coming to her side.
‘Lady Wexcombe and her daughters will soon be gone from here. After that we can
all live contentedly together.’
‘Thank you for your kind words, Gabriel, but Hortence is
right. Betsy and I have no right to continue as guests in your home.’
‘Where will you go?’ Genevieve asked.
‘Eppie, I should have told you before; I was just waiting
for the right moment. Sam has asked me to marry him. I shall go to his farm.’
Genevieve had expected as much, knowing how dearly Sam and
Martha loved one another. ‘I’m invited to the wedding? I may visit you?’
Martha took her by the hand. ‘No, Eppie. It is time that we
went our separate ways.’ Though close to tears, she would not give them vent. ‘Things
have changed and we have to accept that we can’t hold onto one another no more.
You have to let me go. I have to give you up.’
‘I will accompany you in my carriage,’ Gabriel offered. He
took up Martha’s bag and they left.
Falling to her knees beside the bedstead, Genevieve cried
her heart out. She was still sobbing long after Martha had gone from her.
Genevieve struck out for the river where she planned
to spend the entire afternoon.
Enjoying
the warmth of the sun’s rays filtering through breaks in the clouds, she
unpinned her chignon and let her golden hair tumble about her shoulders.
So
motionless did she stand, happy to be at one with nature, that creatures came
close. A yellow wagtail, wings flicking, chinked water as it flitted from stone
to stone. Talia reclined upon the meadow at the water’s edge. Swans and their
cygnets drifted past.
Gabriel
was staying in Malstowe for a couple of days with Mr Grimley, though Genevieve
guessed it was more an opportunity to escape from the Wexcombes. It was now
obvious to everyone that Permelia was head-over-heels in love with him and
clung to the dream of wedded bliss. Gabriel, who had become morose and silent
of recent, was too polite to voice his rejection of her.
Plaiting
horsehairs for a fishing line, she knotted them onto a hazel-wand and hooked a
berry to the thread. A water vole slipped into the river with a sucking gloop
to investigate the feather marker bobbing upon the sluggish waters.
Having
had moderate success, a silver trout dangling from her stick, she trekked to
the clearing before the Crusader Oak. Recalling how Gabriel had once made a
smoker, she attempted to do likewise, whittling away at twigs with a knife, and
igniting moss from a tinderbox.
Whilst
waiting for the fish to cook, she clambered up the hollow tree. On the rough,
knobbly platform she found the remains of green velvet cushions, thick with
mildew, stuffing spewed from where birds had pecked them for nesting material. Prising
the lid off Gabriel’s biscuit tin she was astonished to see gingersnaps left
there from their childhood days.
The
thought of spending interminably long hours with only the Wexcombes for company
filled her with dismay and so she prolonged her time in the woodland,
collecting faggots in preparation for an evening fire.
Darkness
crept around, the full moon enchanting the still air of the autumn night.
Enthralled
by the semblance of the blaze to a sacred entity, she stretched her arms to the
spirit in the sky and danced, barefooted, around the leaping flames. A nightjar
answered her chants. Beside her skipped Talia, her ghostly skirts whooshing
like a whimsical breeze before a sea-storm. Once, the yielding brush of her
sister’s hand passed through her own. It gave Genevieve an eerie, tingling feeling
and she laughed with pleasure.
Close
by, a fox howled.
Spinning
round she glimpsed a man, dressed in a rough coat, vanish into the undergrowth.
Shaken
from her reverie, fear of Thurstan, stalking, gripped her, and she ran.
It
was late when she returned, to a hallway swelling with raised voices, Mrs
Bellows’ dominating all.
Setting eyes on
Genevieve she let out a cry of relief. ‘I was about to send Captain Catesby in
search for you.’
Arriving
earlier in the evening, Catesby had been entertained by Lady Wexcombe and her
daughters.
‘You
smell like a bonfire,’ Lady Wexcombe said. ‘Where have you been?’
Genevieve
no longer cared what they thought of her. ‘Dancing with the dead.’
‘What
did I tell you?’ Hortence said. ‘Lady du Quesne is quite out of her senses.’
‘Woe
that the girl never benefited from a mother’s firm hand,’ Lady Wexcombe cried.
Hannah
was less perturbed by the appearance of Genevieve’s smoke-blackened nose and the
sight of her hair tousled over her eyes. ‘I think your ladyship’s complexion is
much brightened by the exercise.’
‘And
that dreadful frock!’ exclaimed Lady Wexcombe. ‘What on earth can the villagers
think, seeing you running around in a coarse brown gown that is nothing more
than a rag?’
‘It’s
sensible. Betsy made it for me before she went away with mam. She calls it my country
weeds because it doesn’t show the grime from the woods.’ Genevieve bent to
untie her striped cotton bootees, filthy from slopping and scrambling beside
the river.
‘If
Gabriel were here he would be frightfully annoyed with you,’ Permelia said
contemptuously.
‘That
comment shows how little you understand Gabriel,’ Genevieve replied brusquely.
‘Why
would you choose to leave the house for such a length of time, anyway?’ Permelia
asked.
‘I
needed space,’ Genevieve answered, plucking a dead leaf from her skirt.
‘Why
can you not be content with promenades in the long gallery?’ Lady Wexcombe
asked.
Genevieve
adored the long gallery. She recalled Gabriel once telling her that, because it
had windows down both sides, he found it distracting to look at the birds when
he was trying to read. But, as to spending hours simply walking up and down
indoors, like the Wexcombes did on a daily basis, well, that was quiet out of the
question. Tossing off her bootees, she was about to head towards the stairs
when Catesby came to the fore of the women.
‘My
lady.’ Feet together, he bowed. Around his neck he wore a black cravat. His
moustache was bolstered by heavy whiskers.
‘You
visit frequently,’ she said brazenly, knowing full well the reason why he
called.
‘Driven
here by my adoration for you,’ he said, grinning.
Aware
of the others listening to their conversation, Genevieve felt her cheeks flush
with embarrassment.
‘I
came here tonight, however, to give you news of our search.’
At this her mood changed to one of eagerness. ‘You’ve found
Rowan!’
‘No.’
‘I am weary and wish to retire.’
In the Swan Chamber a welcoming fire burnt brightly in the
hearth.
Her hands gloved, and a white apron tied around her waist, Lottie
had followed Genevieve upstairs to prepare the bed. ‘Take no notice of ‘em foolish
lot.’
The flicker of a smile played upon Genevieve’s lips, glad,
at least, of Lottie’s comforting words.
Although Lottie had closed the window, after she had gone
Genevieve threw it open to let in the fresh air. There on the lawn were two white
and brown shapes, one like a large sugared bun, the other a tiny one. ‘Come in Prince
Ferdinand and Ophelia,’ she said softly. ‘It’s bedtime.’
The following week the house was
turned upside down with a flurry of arrangements for the ball.
Seventy-two visitors, most of whom would bring their own
servants, were expected to converge on the manor. Many were friends of Permelia,
keen to set eyes upon her betrothed, as she now referred to Gabriel. Long closed-off
rooms were aired for those desiring over-night accommodation. Dressmakers
arrived with boxes and bales of silks to make ball dresses for Genevieve and
the sisters.
Maids scrubbed the floor of the Great Hall with milk, and
polished it with beeswax and turpentine until it shone, for here the company would
dance long into the night. The path leading from the coach-house to the manor
was swept and fresh herbs scattered where ladies would tread. Even the yard had
been scrupulously mopped. ‘No odour of the vulgar farm must be imparted to the
visiting gentry,’ Lady Wexcombe said, for this was to be an evening bent purely
upon pleasure.
The house hummed with excitement. Many guests arrived early
and were shown to their chambers, their doors opening and closing as they rang
bells for assistance with their attire.