The Wages of Sin Read online

  ‘She’d make a fine MP, wouldn’t she?’ Mr Davies said proudly, jerking a curly thumb in his wife’s direction.

  She did not see it as a joke. She spat out the words, ‘And I can’t even vote!’

  Her husband patted her hand. ‘No. It’s not enough you tell me where to put my cross! But when I hear Ethel speak like that, I do wonder, gentlemen, I do wonder …’

  Mr Baines was shaking his head disapprovingly, but I had already jumped in. ‘Exactly what so many of my friends are saying. One day, one day – though we may not live to see it – people like you, Mrs Davies, and my mother may get their chance on something other than the domestic stage.’ People like Mrs Faulkner too – I wondered what her views would be on the subject. On the other hand, there was Mr Pounceman … ‘Though I know people whom I admire and respect disagree with me.’ There was no point in annoying Baines unnecessarily.

  It seemed that the business in Wolverhampton Mr Baines had spoken of was a fiction. Certainly he headed nowhere but back to Queen Street Station, one, confusingly, of two stations in what was still but a middle-sized town. Had his business been to see me living up to my word? Or to introduce me to Mr and Mrs Davies, who would both keep an eye on Maggie? – I could not imagine Mr Davies being allowed to operate on his own in such circumstances. Perhaps he simply wanted a day’s holiday in someone’s company.

  Having established that we both felt Maggie would be safe under the Davies’ supervision, and lamented the promise given to Ianto that we would say nothing to the family till he considered it right, we needed to find something else to talk about. As we headed into the cloudless blue skies of the countryside once more, it was easy to find one we could both enjoy. Cricket, and the following day’s match.

  The mood of the Room was subtly lightened by my good news. It was as if with the responsibility at least for the time being in someone else’s hands, everyone could start to live their own lives again. But something clearly caused Bowman a little unease; at one point he left the room quite suddenly, before returning to his place without a word. Then as if nothing had happened, he joined in the general conversation until the convivial evening ended. I was sure that Mrs Faulkner must be at least as conscious as I was of yesterday’s interrupted conversation, but she was as calm and quietly witty as usual. For both our sakes I hoped my demeanour matched hers, though I was desperate to catch at least a few moments’ private conversation with her as I left. It was not to be. As we rose, Bowman surged towards me. Taking my arm, he edged me out into the still warm evening air, where he produced a cigar.

  ‘This is not a question I would like to put before the ladies,’ he began, once it was alight. ‘But the money for Maggie’s welfare must have come from somewhere, and I do not think, Rowsley, that you would take it from his lordship’s petty cash. Am I right? Am I, man? Yes or no.’

  ‘This is strictly between us, then, Bowman. I am a bachelor with very little claim on my resources—’

  With a laugh somewhat spoiled by a coughing fit, he clapped me on the shoulder. ‘I thought so. You’re as straight as a die, aren’t you! Which is why I wished to give you this.’ He pressed an envelope into my hand. ‘No, don’t open it now, and by no means seek to return it. I am in the same fortunate position as you, young man, and have the pleasure of receiving some very generous tips when we have guests. I have known Maggie ever since she joined us, and am fond of the … the young woman, I suppose we must now call her. Would you fancy one of his lordship’s best cigars, Matthew?’

  Moved more than I could explain, I put out my hand and shook his heartily. ‘I will make sure Maggie receives every penny of this. As for the cigar, Samuel, I thank you, but would rather you kept it for the day we hear she is safely delivered of her baby.’

  He nodded, almost absently returning to his pocket. We talked a little about the next day’s weather and about the cricket match – an away one against Eaton Parva – and then bade each other a cordial goodnight. At least I hoped I sounded cordial: our meaningless chatter meant it was now far too late to speak to Mrs Faulkner.

  Having spent Friday on what was arguably my own business, not his lordship’s, I resolved to spend Saturday morning ensuring that every last piece of office and outdoor work was up-to-date.

  My stint indoors completed by nine, I set off on Esau to check that all my instructions had been carried out to the letter. It wasn’t until I was satisfied that even the most carping of employers – and I did not lack experience with such men – could find nothing to complain about that I could look forward to the cricket match.

  My colleagues and I were to travel to Eaton Parva on farm wagons, both of which were provided with barrels of beer. For the first time since I’d played for the village, I was anxious about my company. For the sake of the team I did not want them drunk beforehand; for the sake of my working relationship with my teammates, most of them estate workers, I did not want them drunk afterwards. Equally I did not want to stop them enjoying themselves. There was an easy answer: it was better to appear stand-offish than a spoilsport, so, claiming I had forgotten something, and would catch them up, I ran back to my house, summoned a disconcerted Dan, who was clearly just about to go off and enjoy his usual Saturday afternoon free time, to saddle Esau. I flipped him an extra coin by way of thanks – enough to make him blush and tug his forelock as he muttered his thanks.

  The schoolboy lingering in my body would have loved to join my team in a roistering celebration of a famous victory over an old rival, but after standing the first official round of cider and ale at the Eaton Parva inn I slipped quietly away. In truth, I was looking forward to responding to Mrs Faulkner’s wistful but mocking enquiry as to how I had acquitted myself with the news I had taken five wickets and actually scored fifteen runs.

  XII

  All these books. So many books. Apart from the windows overlooking the garden, each side of the room is covered with shelves, running from a low wainscot to the ceiling. Some shelves are covered with a metal grille. Others are not. There are books with titles I can read, with what I think is the name of the person who wrote them under the title. Others have writing on them that doesn’t make any sense to me. What a world must live between all those covers! A thousand worlds! How clever, how wise must be someone who can read and understand them all.

  I am to use a feather duster to clean them – yes, even those on the top shelves, which I must climb up to on a ladder that runs from side to side of the room.

  But I must not touch them, and I must never ever try to read them.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘Her ladyship is back, gaffer!’

  The stable lad’s shout as he dashed across the cobbles in front of me was almost unnecessary, given the bustle in the yard. Despite the estate having its own station for the train travel that Mr Baines and I could testify was swift and agreeable, her ladyship still preferred a horse-drawn carriage, followed, in this case, by another carriage, which was even now being unloaded by a team of footmen, while the horses were being led one by one into their stables.

  Perhaps I expected similar haste and anxiety in the kitchen and servants’ hall. In fact, knowing the preparedness and efficiency of my colleagues, I should have been ready for what I found: purposefulness, yes, but no apparent haste and certainly no anxious scurrying.

  But one footman approached me with a bow. ‘Mr Bowman’s compliments, sir, but servants’ supper has been put back half an hour. If you care to wait in his room, you will find a decanter and biscuits waiting for you.’

  Though it was a dispiriting enough place, furnished with cast-offs, and few enough of them, I did care, but I asked him to bring me a tankard of small beer.

  My reward was a grin. ‘It’s all round the staff, sir, your triumph at the cricket.’

  ‘Not such a triumph. Eaton Parva seem to be a team of old men and young boys – not a strong young man in sight.’

  His smile was somehow ambiguous, but he said politely, ‘I’ll bring the beer forthwith,
sir.’

  It was good to settle down with a newspaper, but even better to reflect on my good fortune in keeping beforehand with all the estate and household work. Should her ladyship wish to speak to me, I would be able to report on George’s success in marshalling a team of carpenters ready to work as soon as I could give the order, which I felt I could not do till I had discussed both the expenditure and the possible inconvenience with a member of the Family. I would not mention the Maggie Billings affair until she raised it. Nor the Stammerton business – and certainly nothing of my contretemps with Pounceman, though I suspect he would be swift to put his side of it. Forewarned was forearmed. I abandoned the prospect of beer till, in my office, I had checked one more time the plans, the costings and arguments for and against developing a model village. On impulse, I did what I never did: I stowed all the documents concerning that and indeed even other important matter in the safe, locking it and pocketing the key. A Chubb. For some reason I was pleased by the fact that the beautiful precision engineering was the work of people from Wolverhampton. When at last I sank back in the less comfortable of Mr Bowman’s two armchairs, I actually raised my glass of beer in toast to them.

  The reappearance of Mlle Hortense at the supper table changed the atmosphere quite radically. Bowman had hinted heavily, when he finally returned to his room before supper, that it would not be appropriate to mention Maggie.

  ‘But surely all the other maids will tell her everything they know.’

  ‘Which is what Mrs Faulkner and Mrs Arden have chosen to tell them – just as I have informed the male staff that she has been found safe. We agreed, the ladies and I, that that was all they needed to know. I hope you agree.’

  Personally I saw no need for such discretion. Nonetheless, though I was inclined to feel resentful that they had made the decision without consulting me, I did not argue – they knew their charges better than I did, after all.

  Her sojourn away from the House did not seem to have suited Hortense: she pouted with discontent, and freely admitted she was looking for another post. ‘Another day of the company of catty old invalids I will not, cannot, stand! I had thought we would stay at a nice house belonging to a friend of the Family, but no, we were trapped in a hotel, with us maids herded together in ugly dormitories – poor food and not a scrap of comfort or privacy. And her ladyship ringing for me at all hours, the way the treatment made her feel – her joints, her stomach, her head – I don’t know where and what she didn’t complain about. And she kept on saying she didn’t know why she’d gone in the first place. But when I said she could just come back home, she said she would stick it out, no matter what. Touched in the head, if you ask me.’

  ‘Even if you did ask us, you shouldn’t refer to her ladyship in those terms,’ Bowman said sternly, adding, as he pointed at the line of bells on the furthest wall, ‘You may wish to leave, Mademoiselle, but if you don’t answer that bell forthwith, you may have to – and without a reference, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  The response was a magnificent flounce from the room. I thought Bowman might burst.

  Mrs Faulkner said, some amusement in her voice, ‘I fancy she may already have found a new post.’ She turned to me. ‘Sometimes servants do that: they are ready to move but believe that if they get dismissed they may get an extra month’s wages in lieu of notice.’

  ‘Good luck to them, say I,’ Mrs Arden put in. ‘All the fuss some of these young women put up with for less than twenty pounds a year.’

  Mr Bowman stared. ‘Indeed, she gets all her ladyship’s cast-offs!’

  ‘And what can she do with them, all that rich silk and satin? Wear them? It takes hours of work and a lot of skill to make them fit, and even if they ever looked exactly right, what occasion does she have to wear finery? The Christmas party and the Harvest Home? I would not do her job for twice what she earns, let me tell you. Not unless I worked in a great city,’ she added reflectively, ‘with places to go in my time off, assuming I ever had any.’

  Mr Bowman glowed with fury – with possible apoplexy, I thought. Mrs Faulkner was steadfastly refusing to meet anyone’s eye. Mrs Arden didn’t even look defiant, just relaxed, almost amused, like any of my mother’s friends making a reasonable point. What was her real motive, apart from the obvious one, with which I for one could not argue? Was it, perhaps, a desire to shock Bowman so much he would no longer wish to propose to her, possibly embarrassing both of them?

  It was time for me to step into a growing pool of silence. ‘Now his mother has returned, what are the prospects of his lordship doing likewise?’ I asked the table at large.

  ‘Her ladyship has indicated that he may return in the future, possibly with some companions.’ Mrs Faulkner’s voice was entirely devoid of emotion.

  ‘Possibly? How can you all plan for that?’

  ‘It is a matter of pride that we are always prepared,’ Bowman reminded me repressively.

  ‘But for a party of young men? Without even female companionship to … to leaven the lump?’

  Mrs Faulkner laughed out loud. Encouraged, perhaps, so did Mrs Arden.

  But Bowman, already irritated by Hortense, no doubt, stared at me. ‘I would have expected better of you, Mr Rowsley. It is bad enough to endure young Hortense’s levity, but you of all people should not be stooping to that sort of expression about your employer.’

  ‘I believe,’ Mrs Faulkner said delicately, ‘that Mr Rowsley was speaking not of his lordship but of his lordship’s friends, many of whom have in the past given us much cause for concern. All of us,’ she added firmly. As Bowman continued to huff and puff, she added, ‘Dare I remind you of the time some young blood scaled the flagpole and broke it, endangering both himself and those below him urging him on? Of the assaults – yes, I use the word advisedly, though some sort to hush it up with the term “horseplay” – the assaults on a number of young women about the house? And even on one of your young footmen? Yes, young Simon, who was so distressed he left as soon as he could. On his own his lordship is biddable, and I have no doubt that Mr Rowsley will encourage him to respect his inheritance and indeed leave a fine legacy for future generations. But with some of his friends—’

  ‘He’s like a badly trained dog,’ Mrs Arden put in, with an air of finality. ‘Mrs Faulkner, gentlemen: will you excuse me if I withdraw now? Although, as you rightly say, Mr Bowman, we are always prepared for the Family’s return, I would like to make sure that nothing I send up tomorrow will displease her ladyship if she is not feeling well.’ She rose, curtsying with a hint of irony as she left the room.

  Mrs Faulkner got up too, belatedly clutching her back. ‘I am in some pain, gentlemen. I fear it is laudanum for me tonight.’ She looked me straight in the eye. I was to understand that she was lying. And also that I was to get rid of poor old Bowman for her.

  I did. Much as I hated cigar smoke, I suggested we blow a cloud together, resolving to keep any conversation both short and neutral.

  In the event, it was neither. Far from denying that his lordship had a poor choice of friends, he told me some of the horseplay they had got up to, some amusing, some, such as when drunk on communion wine urinating in the church font, markedly less so. ‘Anyone would think it was like the days my father spoke of, when gentlemen were expected to do wild things in their cups … when people bet huge sums on which raindrop would run down a window first, or which young blood might ride a horse up the main stairs. I recall myself as a young footman dodging a boot as I carried hot water to one lord’s bed-chamber to find his bed occupied by another lord’s wife. We laughed, in those days. Some of his lordship’s friends still do. But now we cannot find anything funny in such antics. It is natural to be irritated by them, to judge the perpetrators badly. Have you ever thought we are becoming puritans again? Losing our sense of humour in our desire to be pious?’

  It was a discussion worth having, but I wished to keep to the subject in hand. ‘If so, clearly the young man who assaulted one of our colleagues hadn’t cau
ght the mood of the times.’

  ‘Ah, that was a bad business. Between ourselves, Rowsley – I’d hate the good ladies with whom we supped even to suspect this – it was far worse than an assault.’ Looking round, he continued in a whisper, ‘The lad was raped. Like an animal. In front of other young gentlemen who cheered and stamped as the deed took place. In this house! One of my young men, whom I think of as sons!’

  I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘That is truly shocking. Criminal. I would like your word, Bowman, that if any of those evil brutes ever return here as guests you will let me know. I have no idea what I can do about them, but I am sure that you and I are stronger together than separately.’ I paused. ‘I have to ask, my friend: have you ever known his lordship … you said he had tantrums …?’

  His face betrayed an internal battle; loyalty to the family won. ‘You must excuse me, Rowsley. He is my employer. And yours,’ he added, over his shoulder, as he walked back to the House.

  Must I return to my own home? The prospect was not exciting. After the high spirits of our cricket victory, I now felt ill-at-ease, angry and disturbed and suddenly furious that once again I had had no opportunity to speak to Mrs Faulkner alone. Could I go back? It would outrage decorum if I did. So I turned and strode the shortest route, through the shrubbery, kicking anything in my path. I disturbed something. I felt it rather than saw it. My fingers closed around it. A button. I almost threw it away. Instead, I stowed it in my pocket and finally headed for home.

  XIII

  I am to dust, not even look at any of the books. But one lies open on a sort of pillow in the middle of the huge desk. It is as big as the Bible in church.

  I run my feather duster lightly over the edge of the cover, but take care not to touch the pages. The printing is like printing I have never seen before – all thick lines and sharp angles. Some of the letters are surrounded by amazing patterns in colours that glow despite the dimness of the light. That looks like a dog – or is it a snake?