‘I don’t want to go away,’ he said glumly. ‘I know I’m going to hate it. Would you meet me here again? I like being with you.’
Hope thought maybe the fear of going away to school was at the bottom of all his worries, and perhaps he was lonely too. ‘I could only meet you on Wednesdays,’ she said with a smile. ‘But you’d better not tell anyone.’
Albert went down to the ale house in Chelwood as soon as Hope got home, not even stopping to tell her off for being late because he’d eaten up at the big house. He did that quite often now as Martha, the new cook, always made a fuss of him.
Nell often laughingly said that Albert was sweet on Martha, even though the cook was well over forty and fat, with rotten teeth. Yet ridiculous as that was, Albert did seem to enjoy Martha’s endless admiration for his work in the garden, and the way she kowtowed to him, as well as her cooking.
As Nell wouldn’t be back for some time, Hope sat on the backdoor step to eat some bread and cheese. It was a beautiful evening, still warm with just the softest of breezes, and the air full of the smell of newly cut hay. It was her favourite spot, for Lord’s Wood was on her right, on the left there were acres of fields, and straight ahead was the big house at the end of the tree-lined drive.
The sun was going down, and the house had turned the colour of ripe apricots. She was too far away to see the roses, but Nell had said this morning that the climbing ones were right up by Lady Harvey’s bedroom window, and they filled the rooms with their scent.
The things Rufus had said about his parents were playing on her mind and made her think back to when she used to play with him. She hadn’t been aware of the huge divide between her family and his then. While she marvelled at Rufus’s toys, the fine furniture and Lady Harvey’s lovely clothes, she’d been enveloped in the same kind of warm atmosphere she felt at home. That gave her the idea that Sir William and Lady Harvey were just the same as her parents.
She knew better now. Gentry were a different breed altogether from working people and the warmth she’d felt in Briargate in those days hadn’t come from its owners at all. It came from the servants, three of whom were members of her own family. Lady Harvey hadn’t brought Rufus up, Ruth had. He only spent an hour a day with his mama. With Nell in and out of the nursery all day, and James taking him out for rides on his pony, Rufus probably felt closer to the Rentons than he did to his parents.
This, she realized, was partly why Rufus wanted to meet her again, even if he didn’t know it himself. While the Rentons looked to Briargate for their living, Rufus looked to the Rentons for affection and care. He had never seen Nell or Ruth unhappy, nor were they sour-faced and prim like Miss Bird. James no doubt teased Rufus and played around with him like a big brother. As for Hope, he probably imagined that because she’d been his first playmate, she could now be his friend, confidante and ally.
She sighed, knowing only too well that Nell wouldn’t approve of her having secret assignations with Rufus. She was always reminding her of ‘her place’. Hope knew that if she was to try to explain that Rufus was lonely and sad, Nell would snort and say she was talking nonsense. She wouldn’t believe that a boy with so much could be anything but gloriously happy.
Seeing Nell coming down the drive, Hope got up and ran to meet her. Even from a distance she could see her sister was very tired and hobbling as if her feet hurt.
‘Is Albert in?’ Nell asked as Hope reached her.
‘No, he’s gone to the ale house,’ Hope replied.
Nell nodded as if she was glad. ‘How were Matt and his family?’
Hope passed on as much as she could remember of what Amy had said during the afternoon. ‘I think she might be expecting again. She didn’t say she was, but she had that look.’
‘I thought that too at church on Sunday,’ Nell said thoughtfully. ‘And what about Joe and Henry, did you see them?’
Hope wasn’t going to worry Nell by admitting she’d seen the boys fishing off the bridge, when they should have been working in the copper foundry at Woolard.
‘I saw them from a distance,’ she said, for that much was true, and if Nell chose to think this was at the foundry that would spare her any further anxiety.
Hope made Nell a cup of tea when they got in, and fetched a bowl of water so she could soak her feet. Then she sat down with her and asked who had been there for dinner that night at Briargate.
‘The Warrens from Wick Farm, and the Metcalfes from Bath,’ Nell replied. ‘Lady Harvey wore her new blue satin gown and she looked lovely.’
‘Would you say she was happy?’ Hope ventured.
‘She seemed to be tonight,’ Nell said, wriggling her toes in the warm water and sighing with pleasure at finally getting to sit down. ‘But then she always seems to rally round when the master is at home.’
‘So does she get unhappy when he’s away?’ Hope probed.
‘What a one you are for questions,’ Nell chuckled. ‘Yes, she does. Sometimes, when I know she’s been crying, I want to tell her that I’d be as happy as a pig in clover if Albert was to go away.’
Hope knew from that comment that her sister had had a trying day, for although she’d made the remark lightly, as if she were joking, it was quite indiscreet by her usual close-lipped standards.
Nell had never openly admitted that she regretted marrying Albert, but Hope saw it in her face daily. He might treat her better now, but he never showed the slightest affection towards her, and Nell didn’t even try to engage him in conversation any more. While she still did all the wifely tasks of cleaning, washing and mending, she no longer nipped home during the day to prepare his supper because he’d begun having meals at the big house. It was as if Nell was his servant, for Hope hadn’t seen them kiss or hug since the day they married.
A few months ago when Hope’s courses had started, Nell had explained what it meant, and that she would soon start hoping for a sweetheart. She had warned Hope against allowing any boy or man to take liberties with her, and that the outcome could be a baby.
‘You are so bonny, a great many men will want you,’ she said sternly. ‘But don’t allow yourself to be deceived, Hope, a man who truly loves you will wait for marriage.’ She had fallen silent for a while, and then suddenly caught hold of Hope’s hand really tightly. ‘But before you agree to marry, be sure that it is
you
he wants, your body, your mind, every-thing about you. For some men cannot truly love, they are just empty shells, wishing to hide their affliction by having a woman at their side.’
Hope knew then that this was how Nell saw Albert, an empty shell incapable of love. She had a strong suspicion too that they didn’t do the act that made babies either, or surely Nell would have had one by now.
Miss Bird, Rufus’s governess, left Briargate for good at the end of June to take up a position in Bristol. Ruth and Nell were very pleased to see her go as they had never liked her, but they did express some concern about how Rufus would spend his days until he went away to school in September.
He loathed going out visiting with his mother, but he was bored and lonely at home with no one to play with. He liked going riding with his father, but even when Sir William was home, he rarely took Rufus out with him. James tried to find time to ride with him sometimes, but since the undergroom had left, he had too much other work to do.
Hope justified her weekly secret meetings with Rufus by telling herself she was occupying him so he wouldn’t be lonely. She would first go to see Matt and Amy, but left early to have longer with Rufus. His face would light up when he saw her, and he always said that Wednesday was his favourite day.
Sometimes he brought presents for her, toffee, fudge or ripe peaches, things Hope rarely got to eat. They would go deep into the woods, often to the big pond which was surrounded by bushes and reeds, and on really hot days they took off their boots and stockings and paddled.
Hope found it was as comfortable being with Rufus as it was with members of her own family, but he was far more gentle and sweet-natured than her brothers. He didn’t mind if she just wanted to sit in the sunshine and talk, he didn’t goad her into rough games the way they did.
Although Hope had at first thought she was just being kind to a lonely boy, after the second meeting she was as anxious to see him as he was to see her. She came to see that she had been lonely too, but because she was surrounded by people all day she’d never realized it before. Nell, Ruth and all the staff at Briargate were so much older than her; they talked of nothing but their work or village gossip.
Rufus was very bright. He knew about all sorts of things that she knew nothing about; countries like India, Africa and America. He read books about these places, and would tell her about the customs and the wild animals. He said he wanted to be an explorer and find lands that no other white person had been to. He even made her wish she could go with him.
In return Hope would tell him about the people she’d grown up amongst, and relate funny stories about them.
‘I wish I met funny people,’ he said rather sadly one day after she’d been telling him how Jack Carpenter from Nutgrove Farm couldn’t catch his prize boar when it escaped. He had been hollering at it, brandishing a big stick to try to scare it back in the direction of the farm, when it charged at him and knocked him into the pond. ‘In fact I just wish I could meet any sort of people. Do you know that this year I’ve only spoken to three people apart from everyone at Briargate? Two of those were Miss Lacey and Miss Franklin, the two old ladies who come to visit Mama sometimes. They were really dull, they only talked about how tall I’d grown. The other person was the blacksmith when I rode with James to get the horses shoed. And he only spoke in grunts.’
‘That’s another good reason for going away to school then,’ Hope said. ‘You’ll have so many people to talk to there, and when you come home you can tell me all the funny things about them.’
As the weeks passed, their conversations gradually became more personal. Hope told him about her two sisters dying of scarlet fever, and then how her parents died of typhus. She had never talked about that to anyone since the funeral, not even Nell, but she told Rufus everything: how horrible it all was, how scared she’d been, and that she’d been angry with her mother for giving up and dying once she knew her husband had slipped away.
Rufus was horrified that he’d never been told of how her parents died. ‘How could Ruth look after me and not tell me?’ he said indignantly. ‘Or Nell, or even Mama? Why didn’t they tell me? I could at least have said I was sorry and picked some flowers from the garden for their grave.’
‘You were only little. People don’t tell children things like that,’ Hope said, but she was touched that he wished he could have made some sort of gesture.
‘Did Mama or Papa do anything?’
‘Well, they let me come and help out in the kitchens,’ she said.
Rufus’s eyes darkened. ‘Nothing else? But Ruth’s been my nursemaid since I was born. Nell’s been with us for some seventeen years – surely Mama could have done something more?’
‘What could she do, Rufus?’ Hope shrugged. ‘They’re gentry, we’re just working folk. It wasn’t as if I was homeless; I went to live with Nell and Albert.’
‘But Mama always used to remark on how pretty and clever you were,’ he said in bewilderment.
Hope realized then that however knowledgeable Rufus was about the rest of the world, he didn’t have any real idea of how poor people lived. She began to explain some of it: the tiny houses with bare floors and very little furniture, how she’d never had a real bed, just a sack filled with hay. She told him how most children were pressed into some kind of work almost as soon as they could walk, even if that was only scaring birds from the crops.
‘I was lucky that I went to Reverend Gosling for four years to learn to read and write,’ she went on. ‘None of my brothers and sisters had that long, and most people in the village can’t read and write at all.’
‘But it isn’t fair,’ he burst out. ‘Everyone should have the same chances.’
‘That’s just the way it is,’ Hope said, repeating what Nell always told her when she complained about unfairness.
It was time to go home then, and as she left Rufus at the edge of the wood he walked across the paddock looking very sad and thoughtful.
In the middle of August, Lady Harvey received a letter from her younger sister to say their mother was very sick and asking her to come immediately. Lady Harvey wanted Nell to go with her, but thought Rufus should stay at Briargate because he was due to start at school in Wells in September.
They would be going on the Great Western railway from Bristol, and Hope was very envious because she’d seen pictures of the train and it looked like a very fast and exciting way to travel. She was also nervous at the prospect of being alone in the cottage with Albert, but Nell said she would speak to Baines and ask if she could sleep at Briargate as long as she went down to the gatehouse every day to tidy up for Albert.
It had been very hot for several weeks and at five the following morning when Nell and Hope left the cottage, the sun was already very warm.
‘Please be a good girl while I’m away,’ Nell said anxiously as they hurried up the drive carrying her bag between them. ‘I really don’t think we’ll be back for some time. Even if the old lady dies almost straight away, it will be a few days before the funeral. And we can’t leave straight after, that wouldn’t be right.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Hope insisted, knowing very well Nell was worried about her. ‘Ruth and James are here and Matt’s just down the road. There won’t be so much work anyway with the master away too.’
He had been in London for some little while, but Nell said that Lady Harvey had written to him to ask him to join her at her family’s home in Sussex.
‘It’s going to be miserable travelling all that way in this heat,’ Nell grumbled.
Hope laughed. ‘The train goes so fast it will be cool with the windows open. You’ll enjoy it, you know you will. It’s better to just sit there watching the world go by than rushing about at Briargate.’