‘And you’re a little lady,’ he said as he led her away. ‘Too good for the likes of them in there.’
Chapter Nine
Nell arrived back at Briargate with Lady Harvey on 23 December, several weeks after Squire Dorville’s funeral. It was nine at night as the cab turned into the drive. The gatehouse was in darkness so Nell assumed Albert had gone to bed, but up at the big house there were lanterns shining welcomingly in the porch.
‘I expect you’re very glad to be home, m’lady?’ she said to her mistress.
‘I certainly am, Nell,’ Lady Harvey sighed. ‘These past weeks have been such a trial. I feel utterly exhausted.’
There had been a great deal of unpleasantness between Lady Harvey and her sisters after the reading of their father’s will. Sir William hadn’t helped the situation by becoming drunk and abusive, then rushing off and leaving his wife to smooth ruffled feathers.
‘You’ll soon recover now,’ Nell said comfortingly. ‘Master Rufus and everyone at Briargate will be so pleased to have you home again.’
Even before the cab reached the end of the drive, Baines came out with a lantern, quickly followed by Rose. Nell wondered if he had sat by the window waiting, because he surely couldn’t have heard the cab from the kitchen.
Baines and Rose took Lady Harvey’s luggage and as they all went into the hall Master Rufus came hurtling down the stairs excitedly.
‘Mama, I’m so glad you are back,’ he said, throwing himself at her. ‘I was so afraid you wouldn’t get here for Christmas.’
Nell smiled at the happy reunion. Rufus seemed to have grown another inch or two since he went back to school in September, and he was growing into a very handsome young man.
She wondered fleetingly why Hope wasn’t hovering in the background to greet them too. But when Baines said he would bring some supper to the drawing room for Lady Harvey she assumed Hope was helping Martha prepare it.
After Rose had taken Lady Harvey’s fur-lined cloak and her hat, mother and son went towards the drawing room with their arms around each other. Nell hurried out to the kitchen; it was so long since she’d had a drink she felt as though her throat had been cut, and she was perished with the cold.
‘Oh, it feels so good to be in the warm at last,’ she said as she went into the kitchen, making straight for the stove and resting her bottom against it. ‘What I wouldn’t have given for a fur-lined cloak on the train coming home!’
Martha was just putting some finishing touches to the tray for the mistress, and she looked up and smiled at Nell.
‘It’s good to have you back,’ she said. ‘Albert stayed on to wait for you, but it got so late he had to go to his bed. But at least he will have warmed it for you.’
‘Where’s Hope?’ Nell asked as Baines came into the kitchen.
He ignored her question and picked up the tray. ‘I’ll just take this in to her ladyship,’ he said.
‘Is something wrong?’ Nell asked after he’d left the room. ‘Is Hope sick?’
‘It ain’t my place to say anything,’ Martha said. ‘Baines will tell you when he comes back.’
Nell knew then that something
was
wrong, and this was confirmed when she saw Rose scuttling towards the servants’ hall, presumably because she didn’t want to be questioned either. ‘Rose! Tell me where Hope is,’ she called out.
‘Now, calm down, Nell,’ Martha said. ‘Baines won’t be long.’
‘She isn’t here, is she?’ Nell exclaimed. ‘Where’s she gone? When did she go?’
Martha’s wooden expression and Rose’s extreme nervousness told her that Hope had most definitely gone, but neither of them was prepared to say why or when.
Nell paced the floor, cold and thirst forgotten in her agitation. The kitchen smelled of cinnamon, cloves and other spices, good smells that reminded her of past Christmases when she’d had family all around her here. Even with all the misery Albert caused her, here at Briargate she’d always been able to put that aside. She hadn’t wanted either James or Ruth to leave, but she never voiced this because she knew it was wrong to stand in their way. But without Hope she didn’t know what she would do.
Baines came in and ominously shut the door behind him.
‘She’s gone, hasn’t she?’ Nell said.
Baines nodded glumly.
‘Why so suddenly? Surely she could have waited for me to get back?’ Nell asked. ‘Is it a good position?’
Baines flopped down on to a chair and put his head in his hands. ‘She ran off with her sweetheart.’
‘Sweetheart! She didn’t have one!’
‘That’s what we all thought.’ Baines looked up at her, his face wreathed with sorrow. ‘But she left a note. Albert brought it up and showed me.’
‘When was this?’ Nell felt as if all the blood had drained from her body and her legs were going to give way.
‘Sit down.’ Martha pushed her on to a chair. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’
Baines explained that it happened back in November about two weeks after Nell left with Lady Harvey. He said there were no warnings or farewells; Hope had been here in the kitchen one minute and gone the next.
‘She must have been planning it for some time,’ he said wearily, pushing back a lock of hair from his face. ‘But I never sensed anything, she didn’t act suspiciously, didn’t even say anything that I might later take for her way of saying goodbye.’
‘She went empty-handed too,’ Martha said. ‘All her things are still up in her old room. We’ve left it all there for you.’
‘But why didn’t you write and tell me?’ Nell asked, beginning to cry.
‘Albert said it was better not to.’ Baines shrugged. ‘He thought you’d get distressed and as you couldn’t leave Lady Harvey that would make it worse.’
‘Did he go looking for her?’ Nell’s voice rose in despair.
‘He went and told your brothers, I know that,’ Baines said. ‘Reverend Gosling came calling and said that they’d been to him and almost everyone in the village to try and find out who the young man was.’
‘And did they find out?’
Baines shook his head. ‘Everyone says the same, that it’s a mystery. There’s been no soldier round these parts.’
‘A soldier!’ Nell exclaimed. ‘She ran off with a soldier?’
The bell rang from the drawing room and Baines went to answer it. Lady Harvey was sitting by the fire, Rufus on the rug at her feet, and she turned her head as Baines came in.
‘Is this true what Rufus has been telling me? That Hope left without a word?’
‘Yes, m’lady,’ Baines said. ‘I’ve just been telling Nell, she’s very upset.’
‘What an ungrateful little minx!’ Lady Harvey said indignantly. ‘After all Nell has done for her! Clearly you are giving the servants too much free time, Baines, if they have opportunities to meet men.’
Baines bristled. It was bad enough that she should think servants weren’t entitled to a private life, but considering every one of them here at Briargate had been doubling up on jobs because Lady Harvey couldn’t afford to hire more staff, he didn’t know how she had the brass neck to say such a thing.
‘With all due respect, m’lady,’ he said, gritting his teeth, ‘Hope had no free time other than her afternoon off which she always spent with her brother and his family. Neither he nor I can imagine how and when she met this man. It was out of character too, she wasn’t a flighty girl, and she is very close to Nell.’
‘Nell may as well go home and talk to Albert,’ Lady Harvey said dismissively. ‘She won’t be any good to me if she’s upset; Rose can attend to me.’
Baines felt a surge of anger at his mistress’s callousness. Nell had worked for her since she was Hope’s age, no one could have a more loyal and devoted maid, and she deserved better than to be told to go home without even a few sympathetic words.
‘I don’t believe Hope left willingly,’ Rufus suddenly piped up.
His mother and Baines looked at him in surprise. His overlong fair curls made him look very young, but his expression was adult. ‘I’d say Albert forced her to go.’
‘Oh, whatever do you mean?’ Lady Harvey said sharply. ‘You told me she left Nell a letter.’
‘She did, Albert showed it to me,’ Baines said.
‘It is quite possible to force someone to write a letter,’ Rufus said stubbornly. ‘I’ve seen boys do it at school. Hope cared too much for Nell to run off when she wasn’t here.’
‘You are just a child, and you were at school when this happened,’ Lady Harvey retorted scornfully. ‘That will be all, Baines, please pass my message on to Nell and Rose. I would like a bath tonight before going to bed too.’
As Baines was leaving the room he heard Rufus speak up again. ‘Mama, you shouldn’t ask Rose to fill a bath for you this late at night. She’s been working so hard today and she must be very tired!’
Baines didn’t linger long enough to hear his mistress’s reply but he was moved by the boy’s compassion. He could also guess that it was Hope who had made him see the unfairness of the master and servant system.
Nell sobbed as she walked down the drive to the gatehouse. Baines, Rose and Martha had done their best to comfort her, but there was nothing anyone could say that would make her feel better about Hope running off.
Nell remembered what she was like at sixteen, so naive, so eager to experience everything, especially the mysteries of courtship and kissing. If it hadn’t been for Bridie suddenly telling her that Lady Harvey was having a baby, she would have gone off that same afternoon to meet Ned Travers in Lord’s Wood.
She didn’t know why she’d never considered that Hope might be just the same as she was then, thinking about lads all the time and aching to have a sweetheart. If only she’d told Hope about Ned it might have encouraged her to reveal her own girlish dreams.
Was it because she’d become so bitter and dried-up that unconsciously she didn’t want Hope to find love and happiness either?
As she opened the door of the gatehouse, she could hear Albert snoring upstairs and there was an acrid smell which could only be from an unemptied chamber pot. Groping her way blindly in the darkness, she came to the table and found the candlestick and matches. As the match flared she saw the room was chaotic and her heart sank further.
By the time she had three candles lit, she felt like turning round and going back to Briargate for the night, for the mess was appalling. Dozens of empty bottles were strewn around. Great clumps of mud from Albert’s boots lay all over the floor, chunks of mouldy bread littered the table and there were unwashed dishes everywhere, many of which she recognized as belonging to the big house.
She hadn’t for one moment expected Albert to welcome her home with open arms, but surely to goodness any man knowing what lay in store for her on her return would try to do something to ease the pain of it. But he hadn’t even had enough respect for her feelings to tidy up for her.
Remembering all the times he’d berated her for the rug in front of the stove not being straight, or the chairs not being pushed under the table, she was suddenly furious with him.
As she stood there looking at the filth her anger grew stronger than her fear of Albert. Taking the candle, she marched up the stairs and kicked the bedroom door open. ‘Wake up, Albert. I want to talk to you,’ she screamed at him.
‘What is it?’ he said sleepily, and Nell wrinkled her nose at the stink of sweaty clothes and the full chamber pot.
‘You filthy wretch,’ she yelled. ‘How could you leave the place like this for me to come back to?’
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘Cleaning is women’s work,’ he said sullenly.
‘Then you should have got a woman in to clean it,’ Nell snarled at him. ‘I saw Martha has been feeding you, so you could have asked her to clean up after you too.’
‘Shut yer mouth, woman,’ he said, and lay down again as if intending to go back to sleep.
‘You pig!’ she exploded. ‘Wasn’t it bad enough for me to get home and find Hope gone, without this too? And where’s the letter she left?’
The question seemed to wake him fully. ‘How dare you come in here screaming at me?’ he said, swinging his legs out of the bed. ‘A working man needs his sleep.’
Nell had always backed away before when he made a move towards her, but she didn’t intend to now. ‘A woman needs her sleep too, but do you expect me to sleep in that rats’ nest?’ she retorted, pointing to the bed. The candle didn’t give much light, but there was enough to see the sheets were dirty. The white counter pane Albert had always insisted must be smooth and crinkle-free was thrown on the floor and had been trampled over with dirty boots. ‘Now, get downstairs and tell me about Hope,’ she insisted.
‘I can’t tell you anything. I didn’t see her go. I only found her note.’
The faint whine in his voice alerted Nell that he was lying. ‘Liar!’ she shouted, the candle jiggling in the candlestick because she was shaking with rage. ‘There’s a lot more to it than that, I know there is.’
His hand came up before she even saw it move and slapped her hard around the face. ‘I will not be called a liar, and I’m glad the bitch has gone,’ he hissed at her. ‘So get out of here. You’ll find the sodding letter on the dresser.’
When he moved as if to hit her again, Nell turned tail and ran back downstairs, suddenly all too aware she was on dangerous ground. She heard the bedsprings creak as he got back into bed, and all at once she was crying as if she would never stop.
She found the letter, and held it close to the candle to read it. There was no doubt it was Hope’s writing; she had a bold, clear hand, the only handwriting Nell had never had any trouble in reading. She read it four or five times, but with each reading she became more puzzled.
Her own reading and writing were rudimentary, and if she had to write a letter she couldn’t manage more than bald statements which never conveyed her feelings or any kind of description. But Hope had always been able to write as if she was speaking. When she wrote to James or Ruth her letters were always vibrant accounts of all the family and village news. This letter could have been written by Nell herself, except there were no spelling mistakes.
‘
I am leaving with a soldier
.’ Hope wouldn’t say just that; even if she were in a hurry she’d have put some kind of reason, a description of him or his name. ‘
Please don’t be angry with me
.’ It wouldn’t be Nell’s anger she’d worry about, only her heartbreak. Where was the sorrow at not saying goodbye, or the knowledge she would be letting everyone down? ‘
You can have my things and the wages owed to me
.’ Hope wouldn’t bother to say that, she would take it as understood. Just as her apology at taking one of Nell’s dresses was unnecessary.