Chaff upon the Wind (13 page)

Biting her tongue between her teeth in concentration, Kitty carried the huge tray bearing the roast leg of lamb from the kitchen into the dining room. The family were all
seated around the long table.

At one end, his bushy eyebrows drawn together in a frown, sat Mr Franklin. As she laid the dish before him, he was thumping his fist on the table making the cutlery bounce upon the white cloth.
‘High time the Government did something to stop this suffragette nonsense. I was reading in the paper this morning that some foolish woman had chained herself to the railings outside Number
Ten. Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous? Women should know their place.’

‘And where is that, Father?’ Miriam leaned her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hand. ‘Sitting on a cushion and sewing a fine seam, I presume? Or scrubbing
floors, like poor Kitty here and her like.’

‘Eh?’ The bushy eyebrows came even more closely together and the piercing eyes were suddenly near to Kitty as she leaned across him to set down the dish. She stood up quickly and
stepped backwards.

‘I thought I told you
that girl
is not allowed anywhere near me?’

Serenely, Mrs Franklin smiled. ‘Kitty is helping out while Sarah is indisposed. The housemaid has a most dreadful cold.’ She paused as if with deliberate emphasis. ‘I’m
sure you would not like her to be serving your meal tonight.’

Mr Franklin’s only reply was a grunt as he picked up the carving knife and fork and began to slice the joint.

Standing at his elbow, waiting to pass the plates round as he served each member of the family, Kitty thought, he really is a handsome man for his age. Mr Franklin still had a good head of hair,
dark chestnut and the flecks of white at the temples served only to give him an air of distinction. The thick moustache that drooped down at either corner hid his mouth, but the mirror of his moods
was in his green flecked eyes. His daughter had obviously inherited his volatile temperament and his colouring too, whereas their son resembled his mother.

Mrs Franklin’s low voice came now from the far end of the table. ‘Only a little for Teddy, Henry my dear. His appetite is not yet quite normal.’ And Kitty saw her mistress
bestow a gentle, understanding look upon Edward that was like a caress.

Mr Franklin gave a snort of derision. ‘Get some good red meat into you, boy. You’ll never amount to anything if you pick at your food like a woman.’

‘Yes – Father,’ he said meekly and, to Kitty’s disappointment, she could already hear the tell-tale wheeze of breathlessness as he spoke.

As she laid the plate of meat before him and picked up the vegetable dish to serve him, Kitty bent low and whispered, ‘Tell me how much you can eat, Master Edward.’

Almost before the words had left her lips, a bellow of rage came from Mr Franklin and close by her, she felt Edward stiffen. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to, girl, and not
before.’ Down the length of the table between them, the master glowered at his wife. ‘Don’t you teach your servants how to behave, Amelia? Give him plenty of greens, girl.
They’re good for you, boy.’

Inwardly, Kitty seethed with anger as the colour flooded up the boy’s neck and suffused his face. She could say nothing, but from the opposite side of the table came a girlish laugh.
‘Stop bullying him, Father,’ Miriam said. ‘Take no notice of him, Teddy. You eat just what you can and leave the rest.’

Mr Franklin’s fist thumped the table. ‘I will not have insolence, girl.’ It seemed, Kitty thought, that the master called no one, except his wife, by their proper name. Out of
the corner of her eye as she continued to serve the vegetables, Kitty saw Miriam calmly return her father’s glare.

‘Stop shouting, Father. It makes poor Teddy worse.’

‘Why, you little . . .’ he thundered, and then suddenly he threw back his head and laughed, a great bellow of sound gusting down the table. ‘
That
’s my daughter.
What a pity you weren’t born the son of the family.’ His laughter died as he looked towards his wife. ‘A great pity. Don’t you think so?’ There was an awkward pause as
he added, his tone heavy with sarcasm, ‘
My dear
?’

‘I wish I had been born a boy,’ Miriam retorted. Kitty almost gasped aloud and glanced up. How could she be so cruel to her brother? But then she saw Miriam give a huge wink towards
Edward and knew immediately that the girl was not, for once, being selfish. Indeed, she was deliberately drawing her father’s attention back to herself and away from him. Kitty shook her head
slightly, thinking Miriam really is extraordinary. Selfish, wilful and demanding one moment, the next, generous and warmhearted towards her younger, more fragile brother. When she saw actions like
the one she had just witnessed, Kitty found it impossible to bear a grudge against Miriam for long.

‘Then,’ Miriam was saying with deliberate provocativeness, ‘I could have the vote. As it is, I shall have to wait until we’ve won it for ourselves.’

‘Never! Women will never have the vote.’

As she left the dining room, Kitty heard the thump of the master’s fist once more on the table. Back in the kitchen, she set the silver salver on the table with a clatter. ‘By heck,
Mrs G, you might ’ave warned me ’ow they carry on in there.’

‘Eh?’ Mrs Grundy was only half paying attention to what Kitty was saying. She was busy turning out a steamed pudding and ensuring that the custard did not go lumpy. ‘What are
you on about, Kitty?’ she said, bustling between the range and the table.

‘You can cut the air with a knife in there. The master looks as if he’s had a mite too much wine already, ’cos his nose is all red. And he was going on at poor Te— Master
Edward.’ She corrected herself just in time. ‘Then Miss Miriam pipes up and I thought she was really in for it. But suddenly, the master burst out laughing.’ She shook her head,
wondering at it all. ‘By heck,’ she said again, ‘the things I missed by bein’ only a kitchen maid.’

‘Aye, and there’s summat else you’ll have to learn now you’re an “upstairs maid”. You don’t ever talk about the master, or the mistress, or any of the
family for that matter, outside these four walls. You hear me?’

Kitty stared at her. ‘Course I wouldn’t, Mrs Grundy. You should know me better than that. After all,’ she added with an impish grin, ‘I’m Betsy Clegg’s
daughter, ain’t I? Me mother’s drilled me about bein’ in service for as long as I can remember.’

As Kitty glanced across at the cook, she saw a strange, reflective look cross Mrs Grundy’s face. ‘Aye,’ the older woman murmured, more to herself than to the girl,
‘you’re her daughter right enough . . .’ She turned away abruptly but, once more, there seemed to be words that she had left unsaid.

Kitty shrugged and began to prepare to take the second course through to the dining room the moment the bell rang. She glanced just once at the white face of the kitchen clock high on the wall
above the range. In another hour or so, when Mrs Grundy put her feet on the fender and dozed in the chair before the fire that burnt in the range winter and summer, and Milly had been sent up to
her bed, she might be able to sneak out of the back door to meet Jack. Oh Jack, Jack. He had to be waiting for her. He just had to be there.

At once, all thoughts of the strange tensions between the members of the Franklin family were swept from her mind.

His kisses were becoming urgent, his fingers pulling at the buttons on the front of her dress, his weight on top of her.

‘No, Jack, no. Not like this . . .’ Kitty pushed at him, but beneath his bulk her strength was futile.

‘You want it, ya know ya do,’ he breathed against her hair, his voice husky. ‘Why do you come out here night after night to meet me, if it’s not for this, eh?’

Through the darkness, Kitty stared up at him. His face was only inches from her but even so, she could not see his features, could not read his expression. But she could hear the growing anger
in his voice, the anger of a man’s frustration.

‘I love you, Jack Thorndyke. That’s why I come to see you. Not ’cos I want a quick roll in the hay.’ She waited, but the words she longed to hear him say did not come. In
a small voice that quavered slightly, she added, ‘You don’t love me though, do you, Jack?’

His arms tightened around her. ‘Course I do. You know I do.’ But she knew that she had dragged the half-admission from him. The declaration had not come from his lips voluntarily and
with true feeling.

She pushed at him again and he rolled away from her on to his back. Kitty sat up. ‘You’ll think I’m easy, if I – let you.’

‘Course I wouldn’t.’ There was a pause before his deep voice came through the darkness to her. ‘If you really loved me, Kitty, you’d say yes. You’d let me
show you how I really love you.’

Angrily she turned on him. ‘That’s what me mam always warned me men say to get what they want. She told me I should get a ring on me finger first.’

His loud laughter echoed through the night air, so loud that she was suddenly afraid someone would hear. ‘Your mam?’ His voice was scathing with sarcasm. ‘Aye an’ your
mam should know, if anybody does, if what I’ve heard is true.’ He laughed again.

Kitty scrambled up to kneel beside him. Roughly she grasped his shoulder and shook him, but he just lay there laughing on the deep bed of hay. ‘What d’you mean? What have you
heard?’

He sat up then and she could see him straining to look at her through the darkness. ‘You mean you really don’t know?’

‘Know what?’ Kitty demanded.

He lay back down again and put his hands behind his head and stretched. ‘Well, I aren’t going to be the one to tell you, Kitty Clegg, else I might find mesen thrown off this land and
there’s a good bit of money coming my way for the work here. I ain’t about to lose it.’

‘Tell me, Jack, please. I won’t say anything to anyone. I swear it. Only, tell me what it is you’ve heard.’

‘Don’t worry about it, young Kitty. It’s likely only tittle-tattle anyway.’

‘But what did you mean about me mam and – and me?’ She was almost crying with tears of frustration now.

‘It’s only that by all accounts she didn’t exactly practise in her young days what she’s preaching now to you.’

‘Oh.’ Kitty sat back on her haunches, shocked. Though she still did not know the full story, she was sharp enough to understand the implication in Jack’s words. There were
people still working for Mr Franklin who must have known her mother and father when they had both worked here. Small communities have long memories and no doubt someone had been gossiping. Kitty
said no more to Jack, knowing that however much she wheedled she would get nothing more out of him.

Tomorrow, she promised herself silently, I shall ask Mrs Grundy.

Jack was hauling himself up and dusting the hay from his trousers. ‘I’ll say goodnight then, Kitty. I’ve an early start in the morning. Looks like being a fine day.’

‘Jack, please, don’t go like this. Don’t you understand?’ She scrambled up and caught hold of his arm, feeling the hard muscles rippling beneath her touch.

There was a bitter edge to his tone as he said, ‘Oh I understand, Kitty Clegg. You say you love me, but it’s all talk with you. Just a young girl’s talk. You still ain’t
woman enough to prove your love for me, are you?’ With that cruel parting shot, he pulled himself free of her grasp and walked away into the night.

Kitty gulped and a sob escaped her lips. She pressed her hand over her mouth to still the sound and sank to her knees on the hay. Burying her face in her hands, Kitty wept.

‘By heck, girl. You look a mess!’ was Mrs Grundy’s greeting the following morning. ‘Have you come down with Sarah’s cold then?’

Kitty shook her head, trying desperately to blink back the tears that welled all too readily. As she avoided the cook’s shrewd, penetrating gaze, Kitty was angry with herself too. Angry
that anyone, any man, could cause her to be so silly. She had never been a crybaby and yet at the very thought of Jack’s mockery, she wanted to burst into fresh tears.

‘Are you in trouble, Kitty? I want the truth now.’

Kitty gasped. ‘No, no. I’m not.’

‘Hm.’ Mrs Grundy still looked as if she did not entirely believe her, adding only, ‘But I expect it’s that young feller . . .’ she nodded towards the stackyard
beyond the garden wall, ‘that’s causing all this.’ And she gestured towards Kitty’s blotchy, swollen face. ‘Well, I did warn you, Kitty. You can’t say I
didn’t.’ She turned away and reached up to the shelf to lift down a heavy copper saucepan.

‘Mrs Grundy,’ Kitty blurted out suddenly. ‘Was my mother – did she
have
to get married?’

The saucepan clattered to the floor, the noise resounding through the kitchen. Mrs Grundy gasped but surprisingly her attention was not on the saucepan, but on Kitty’s face.
‘Who’s been talking? Was it him? What’s he told you?’

Kitty bit her lip. ‘Just – just . . .’ She was in danger of giving away the fact that Jack was pressing her to give herself to him. But there was no one else she could ask. She
could certainly not ask her own mother. Betsy Clegg would soon give her a clip round her ear and tell her it was none of her business. ‘He – he said that in her young days me mam
hadn’t practised what she’s preaching now.’

‘Eh?’ Mrs Grundy looked puzzled, then her expression cleared but only to be replaced by a look of anxiety for the girl herself. ‘Oh, been asking you for that, ’as
he?’

Kitty said nothing but could not prevent the colour rising in her face and giving Mrs Grundy her answer.

The older woman sighed heavily. ‘Kitty, love, do be careful. I’m ever so fond of you, you know I am. I would hate to see you get yarsen into trouble.’

‘Did my mother get into trouble?’ Kitty asked quietly.

Mrs Grundy turned away flustered and flapping her hand towards the girl as if fending her off. ‘Don’t ask me that, Kitty. ’Tain’t none of my business, nor yourn
neither.’

‘But—’

‘No, Kitty. No more questions, ’cos I aren’t answering ’em.’ Picking up the saucepan from the floor, Mrs Grundy banged it into the deep sink and turned the tap full
on, every movement quick with anger.