Softly Grow the Poppies (31 page)

The newly wedded couple lazed in bed the morning after the wedding, making love, making plans, at peace with the world and each other, and the servants smiled knowingly, for it was only natural for newlyweds to hide from the rest of the world and Rose and Sir Harry had waited a long time for this day.

But Dolly said anxiously to Nessie they couldn’t keep it from her much longer. Miss Rose and her new husband must be told. Preferring Tim, nevertheless the boy had gone off with Charlie, reluctantly, for Charlie was not his first choice as a companion.

But this morning would have serious consequences and they, who were only servants, didn’t know which way to turn. Dolly was ready to weep, the hard tears of the old, and Nessie, who wasn’t much younger, didn’t blame her.

‘What are we ter do, Tom?’ she asked her husband who hung about at the back door. ‘It might be somethink and nothink with Miss Rose knowing all about it but then there’s this letter. I really think we should do summat. You’ve bin over to Summer Place and no one there knows anything about it.’

‘Yer’ll have ter go an’ wake them, lass,’ Tom said quietly. ‘Summat’s wrong an’ Sir Harry should be told. That little lad’ll be back soon and then what?’

‘Eeh, I don’t like – not this morning. Not with them only wed yesterday.’ She put her pinny to her face and Tom patted her arm.

‘You must do it – or Dolly. Dolly knows ’em best.’

They were dozing, Sir Harry and Lady Summers, quite exhausted but in a satisfactory way, when someone tapped on the bedroom door. They had stayed the night at Beechworth since it was more convenient just to drift upstairs after the small party to the lovely, fire-lit, candle-lit bedroom and the double bed where Rose slept. Besides, Beechworth’s rooms, upstairs and down, were in a well-kept state compared to Summer Place where Alice was supposed to be mistress. Alice had been allowed to run somewhat wild at Weatherly House, indulged by her father, and had not been trained to be in charge of a large house. She was careless in the running of Summer Place and though Mrs Philips and her maids – for they could now afford more than two servants who did their best, a household soon becomes slack without a proper mistress to oversee its running.

Rose lifted her head from her husband’s chest and snapped, ‘What is it?’ She was only just catching her breath after the last passionate encounter with her new husband and was contemplating rousing him again in the way he had taught her and here was someone disturbing this dream world she could still hardly believe in and in a most annoying way.

‘Miss Rose, oh, I’m sorry, but Rosie, sweetheart, you must get up. Me an’ Nessie don’t know what to do. Tom’s bin over to Summer Place but it were no good. Oh please, lass, please . . . an’ sir, please . . .’

‘Dolly, what are you babbling about?’ Rose yelled, at the same time turning one full breast to her husband’s mouth, then giggled as his hand found its way to that hidden place at the base of her belly.

‘Please come out, lass, ’cos if yer don’t I’m coming in,’ giving them time to make themselves decent.

‘Don’t you dare, Dolly Davenport. Oh, God in heaven, what on earth . . .’

‘You’d better go, my love,’ Harry murmured, making it no easier for her by licking her swollen nipple.

‘Goddammit!’ Rose reached for her robe, detaching her throbbing flesh from Harry’s seeking lips.

‘Well?’ she demanded of the trembling housekeeper, then frowned at the distraught woman who had been a mother to her all her life. She pulled Dolly into her arms and patted her back as folk do to comfort those in distress.

‘What is it, Dolly? What’s happened?’

Harry sprang from the bed and pulled his dressing gown about him but not before Dolly had got a horrified look at the shaft between his legs.

It was a lovely July day and the sun had warmth in it, sidling into the bedroom and reflecting on the well-polished furniture. It revealed the rumpled bed and Dolly, even in her distress, had time to think that there had been high jinks in it that night.

‘It’s Miss Alice – Mrs Summers – and Mr Tim . . .’

‘What about them, darling?’ Rose peered into the tearful, crumpled old face.

I’m getting too old for this, Dolly thought as she shrank into Rose’s strong young arms.

‘They’ve gone, lass, gone . . .’

‘Gone? Gone where, Dolly?’ But there was something in Dolly’s voice and manner that told Rose all she needed to know. She’d seen it coming and in her own joy had chosen to ignore it.

‘Nay, I don’t know.’

‘Are their horses in the stable, Dolly, or at Summer Place? Has Eddie—’

‘Their animals’re still there, Rosie, but—’

‘What?’ Rose was ready to shake something from Dolly though what she didn’t know.

There was a pause then, ‘There’s this,’ and she held out an envelope with the names of Rose and Harry on it.

‘Where did you find it and when?’

‘Just now. Eddie said it were pinned to’t stable door.’ Dolly was ready to collapse and might have done so had Rose not held her firmly.

Rose stared at it then took it from Dolly’s shaking hand. ‘Thank you, Dolly. Now you go downstairs. Sit by the fire, you and Nessie, and have a cup of tea. Harry and I will be down shortly.’

The old lady wiped her nose on the edge of her pinny then turned away to totter to the top of the stairs.

They read the letter together.

Rose wept bitterly in Harry’s arms while he talked quietly to her. ‘It’s true what she says, my darling. At eighteen Alice saw Charlie as a knight in shining armour. In a magical haze she married him, already expecting his child. But as a child herself she was incapable of coping with life when her father threw her out into the snow.’

‘It wasn’t snow,’ Rose sniffed.

He smiled sadly. ‘I know, sweetheart. She came to you who cared for her but her obsession to find Charlie was part of that young girl’s ingenuous character. I don’t mean she was insane but nobody in their right mind would do what she did. But when at last she and Charlie were together again with their child her dream finally shattered and became reality. Tim found her like that and put her together again. I was aware of their growing attachment, and, I think, so were you.’

He lifted her chin and looked into her woebegone face. She nodded then collapsed in a torrent of tears against his shoulder.

‘We must go down and speak to our friends; yes, they are servants but they have been friends to us.’

Charlie and Will had gone off somewhere riding Pixie and Molly and had they been there they would have been more than distressed, at least Will would, so while they were absent Harry gathered the servants into the kitchen at Beechworth where they were crammed like sardines in a tin. Dolly and Nessie were huddled in their own special chairs in which nobody else was allowed to sit, with their scullery-maid, Polly standing behind them. Harry had sent a message to Summer Place asking Mrs Philips to come with the rest of the staff. She was mostly in charge of the household since young Mrs Summers had taken little interest in running it as a wife should. In her previous employment she had had daily discussions in the drawing room with the mistress of the house on menus for the day and the ordering of groceries and other foodstuffs. But Mrs Summers, Mr Charlie’s wife, had carelessly told Mrs Philips to do ‘what she thought best’ which Mrs Philips had tried to do to the best of her considerable abilities. She had three housemaids, Maggie, Mary who was not actually a housemaid since she did the laundry (and Beechworth’s as well since the death of Bertha) and Martha. Summer Place was a much bigger house than Beechworth but had fewer servants.

These, though bewildered, walked across to Beechworth, wondering whether they should have changed into their ‘best’ but Sir Harry had said at once so here was Mrs Philips still wearing her capacious white apron and Martha with her comical ballooning maid-of-all works cap hovering about Dolly and Nessie, their expressions asking what the dickens this was all about. And squashed against the far wall and on the doorstep were the men – servants from the two houses: Eddie and Ned who were stable lads, Tom and Jossy and Mr Ambrose from Summer Place who tended the gardens, longing to smoke their pipes, lifting their caps and scratching their perplexed heads.

Sir Harry and Lady Summers, looking drawn, but steadfast, Lady Summers biting her lip, stood at the head of the table, shoulder to shoulder.

Sir Harry spoke.

‘You will all be wondering why you have been summoned, all of you who work in these two houses of ours so to set your minds at rest let me first say no one will be dismissed.’ He smiled, or rather grinned and looked so like his brother as he once had been, they all relaxed and smiled too.

‘I’m not sure how much you have heard about . . . about . . .’ His face clouded and his wife rested her head momentarily on his shoulder. He bent his head and placed a kiss on her bright hair.

‘Well, Mr Tim, Tim Elliott, has left us and taken’ – here he was seen to gulp – ‘our Miss Alice with him.’ There was a concentrated gasp and appalled glances were exchanged and Polly began to cry. Maggie put her arms about her.

‘So the plan is this, Rose, my wife’ – twinkling down at her for a moment and they all smiled, even Polly through her tears – ‘and I are to live at Summer Place and you are all to come with us.’

Another gasp and a great deal of shuffling of feet among the men. Tom took off his cap and turned it round and round between his big, work-scarred hands. His weather-beaten face took on a truculent expression but when Nessie, who had been told earlier about the plan, stood up from her chair and shot over to him, taking his hands between hers, he calmed down.

‘I know this will be an important decision for you all to make though you will be doing the same jobs but in a different place. Dolly and Nessie have agreed to work part-time under Mrs Philips who will be in charge and the maidservants’ – smiling his engaging smile at them – ‘will continue as they do here. There are many more rooms at Summer Place than Beechworth so more household staff will be taken on and you will all get a rise in your wages. Summer Place gardens and surrounds really need at least three more gardeners to bring them back to what they were, so Tom and Jossy with others we will employ will take over with Tom as head gardener. Mr Ambrose has indicated he wishes to retire and a cottage is waiting for him and his wife.’ He nodded at the white-haired old gardener who had loyally tried to keep up the Summer Place grounds without any help. ‘The stables which at the moment house Corey, my stallion, will easily take Pixie, Molly and Foxy.’

Sir Harry continued. ‘There is plenty of room for all of us, people and animals, so, after some refurbishments to the house, we will move in September. Now then, has anyone anything to say?’

He looked about the kitchen at the puzzled faces of his and Beechworth servants who, he realised, were bowled over and, naturally, worried about their plans. After much clearing of throats and exchanging overwhelmed glances, Tom spoke at last.

‘Er, what’s ter ’appen ter Beechworth, sir? I’ve got a grand bed of asparagus waitin’ ter be picked . . .’

‘Me an’ Tom ’ave allus ’ad us cottage to usselves.’ In their anxiety Nessie, as Dolly had done, reverted to the broad Lancashire accent she had almost lost.

Harry held up his hands. ‘Married couples will have their own places. Nessie and Tom, you will have first pick of the empty cottages and Tom, you will design and plant whatever you care to in the grounds and take care of the woodlands with the other gardeners. We will employ a gamekeeper for the moorland and between you you will be in charge of outdoors and any more men you think are necessary. And as for Beechworth itself . . .’

They all turned to Rose, for this was her home after all. ‘We are to let it as it stands to a respectable, responsible family. Only the house and gardens, of course. The farmland, woodland, moorland will remain with us. Oak Hill Farm, Ashtree and Top Bank will continue in the same hands as our tenants. Beechworth House itself and the gardens surrounding it will be in the hands of whoever rents it on a lease from my wife.’

There was a stunned silence, no one knowing what to say or do but Harry and Rose looked at one another with the feeling that on the whole the news and the plans for the future had been well received.

‘Let me just say that if any one of you is not satisfied with the new arrangements they are perfectly at liberty to leave and go elsewhere with a good reference and a month’s wages. Now, Lady Summers and myself will be in the estate office until lunchtime so feel free to seek us out with any queries. And’ – here he paused, his face as kind and gentlemanly as he had always been – ‘we sincerely hope that none of you will leave us. You are part of our family. All of you.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Now, no tears, my love,’ and led her from the room.

No one came. The younger members of staff were excited, thrilled with anything new as the young usually are, and talked of nothing else for days to come. Nessie and Tom inspected one of the little cottages to the rear of Summer Place and agreed it was quite as good as the one they lived in at Beechworth. In fact it was bigger with a stillroom where Nessie could ‘mess about’ as Tom called it with her herbs and plants from which she made up her homely remedies for coughs and colds, boils and scratches, minor ailments with which the servants trusted her.