The Wages of Sin Page 5

  I was up at first light, despatching Dan, my stable lad, to the House with messages for the grooms there to despatch to all the tenant farmers and labourers. Maggie had been lost, on her own, for at least thirty-six hours now. The odds were not in her favour, but as Dr Page, riding alongside me in the sweep through the woods, remarked, country people were tough.

  ‘They have to be,’ I flashed, too quickly for politeness.

  His eyebrows rose, but not, I thought, in offence, more to express agreement.

  No more words were said. We rode on, occasionally standing high in the saddle the better to scan the undergrowth, even now being lifted then beaten flat by the farmhands, many of whom had been toiling for four hours now.

  As for me, I had long since emptied my water bottle, but I refused to touch the spare one in my saddle bag. If the child were still alive, water would be the first of her needs.

  Suddenly I heard a female voice, and was ready to raise my own in delight. The call was not one of despair, but of encouragement. A group of women had gathered at the far end of the ride and were waving to us. Did we dare hope?

  All too soon I realized we were being called for another reason altogether. But I could not fault the reason. Mrs Arden and some of the kitchen and scullery maids had set up station around two trestle tables. An urn bubbled on a spirit stove and a large barrel stood invitingly on a stand. Between them, on a cloth so snowy that it would not have disgraced her ladyship’s own table, were bread and beef, cheese and ham.

  Mrs Arden waved aside my thanks – indeed, my congratulations. ‘There’s small beer, Mr Rowsley, like we serve at harvest. Or there’s tea if you prefer. Some of her ladyship’s special coffee, too,’ she added in an undervoice. ‘Mrs Faulkner said you were partial to it. She should have been a general, Mr Rowsley, the way she’s organized this. We’ve been up since dawn, both of us with our sleeves rolled up as if we were skivvies again. The footmen were dragooned into helping set up tables all round the estate so no one will go hungry or thirsty.’

  ‘It’s my belief, Mrs Arden,’ I said quietly, watching the men tucking into their repast, ‘that most of them never see such quantity – and indeed quality – of food in the whole of their working lives. The farmers, yes, and the House servants, but no one else.’

  ‘Save at Harvest Home and Christmas,’ she agreed. ‘And it has to be said that his late lordship never stinted.’

  ‘I trust the tradition will be maintained,’ I said. It would, even if I had to fund it out of my own pocket.

  She gave me a sharp sideways glance, as if reading my thoughts. Then she said, ‘When you’ve all finished here, tell me where you’ll be looking next, and I’ll make sure that’s where I’ll set up.’

  I was afraid I might have to urge the men on, a latter-day Roman centurion urging his foot soldiers into battle, but I was mistaken. Each man toiled as if for his own child, some ready to make their lunchtime rations into rough sandwiches so that they might eat on the march. At three, however, one of the gamekeepers broke from the line, suggesting, with a jerk of the head, that I should join him.

  ‘What is it, Purvis? Have you seen something you don’t want the others to see?’

  ‘No, gaffer, ’tis that I’ve seen nothing all day that makes me think anyone would have strayed this far from the House. And I’m a-thinking there may be a reason. I’m not saying she did, mind, but if a young maiden like her was in any sort of trouble, sir, if you get my meaning, mightn’t she be walking somewhere else?’ He looked meaningfully over my shoulder at a mound of lake mud. ‘She’d not be the first, nor, alas, the last, to seek that way out.’

  ‘You think we should drag the lake, Purvis? It’ll break the men’s hearts if they see us doing it.’

  He rocked his head. ‘Is it better to do it at the end of the day, when we’re all fair worn out, or to set a small party on to it now? Better while it’s light, and before that thunderhead brings trouble to us all.’ He looked anxiously to the horizon, where I’d seen nothing but what I thought was fair weather cloud.

  I nodded. ‘Thank you, Purvis. You’re quite right. Can you carry on as before? I’ll gather together a team – but first I’ll warn Mrs Billings what we plan to do.’

  He knuckled his forehead, giving a smile I suspected was rare, and all the more valuable for that.

  ‘No.’ Mrs Billings’ response to my information was that simple flat negative. At last, in the face of my silence, she added, ‘There’s no need, sir.’ She shifted awkwardly, as if in physical pain as well as embarrassment. But she kept her head averted, so the brim of her ugly bonnet almost shrouded her face.

  I inclined my head, the better to hear: the poor creature had virtually no teeth and an ugly sore at one corner of her mouth must have made it hard to move her lips. How old might she be? She still had a babe on her hip, or I would have taken her for seventy. ‘How so, Mrs Billings?’ I asked gently.

  ‘Her’s gone. Her and the babe within her. Skipped off – her and her fancy man, as far as I know. Walked out of those very gates, proud as a peacock. I promised on the Bible to tell no one, though. No one at all. But I didn’t know it would cause all this trouble.’ She dabbed at the sore with the corner of her sacking apron.

  Half of me believed her – perhaps the whole of me, had she not referred to the Bible. How did a family as poor and almost certainly as unlettered as this come to possess one, let alone retain one, when any item of value – and some of none at all – would be sold or used to barter for necessities. But I confined myself to saying sternly, ‘You have indeed put a lot of people to a great deal of trouble, Mrs Billings, and I am very disappointed in you. For now I must go and call off the search, but I may wish to speak to you later – about the identity of that fancy man, who I assume got her with child?’

  ‘Silly girl, to be so taken in! But tell his name she would not, and so I cannot either,’ she said, all in a rush. ‘Sir,’ she concluded, rather belatedly, with a stiff curtsy.

  She was hiding something I was sure. But what could I do? Shake the information out of her?

  ‘Are you sure you have nothing else to tell me?’ I asked, trying to sound as if I was speaking more in sorrow than in anger.

  Her reply was a silent withdrawal into the lodge and a quiet but firm closing of the door.

  I rode briskly to dispel my anger and irritation, and I was able to deliver the news with a wry smile. It was received with obvious relief; most of the workers must have known her or her family, and though no one could approve of the pregnancy and the apparent elopement, there was an undercurrent of hope that all could yet end well – better than the alternative for which they had been bracing themselves, to be sure. As for the men, they had been royally fed, and the women had been able to emerge from their sunless, housebound existence into the blessed open air. All had had a chance to mix and gossip – even flirt.

  ‘If only we had a decent man of the cloth to serve the parish,’ Mrs Arden said, allowing Tim to pour her another glass of wine. ‘And you didn’t hear that, young man – understand? Is everyone else’s glass filled? Good lad: off you go.’ She waited till he had closed the door. ‘You mark my words, next Sunday he’ll be up there in his pulpit, preaching fire and brimstone and cursing womankind for being temptresses. Jezebels! Do you see young Maggie as a Jezebel, Mrs Faulkner?’

  Mrs Faulkner’s face was tight. ‘Indeed, I see her as a poor child with scarcely two thoughts in her head capable of forming an idea who has been led astray by someone who should have known better – whoever, whatever he is! A child, Mr Rowsley – you’ve seen her. And though she’s pretty – and prettier since she’s been with child – I can’t imagine a man being charmed by her for long. It’s to be hoped she’s already wed, or you know what happens to girls who are not. And their children, poor innocent babes!’

  ‘The workhouse! Work? Slavery more like. And the children torn from their mothers’ arms, and given an education worth this much.’ Mrs Arden snapped her fingers. ‘Forgi
ve me, Mr Rowsley, my feelings got the better of me.’

  I pointed to the ceiling, and smiled. ‘The rose that only we can see guarantees my word that I will say nothing of this conversation. And indeed, it is only what my parents and my godparents say, and I would say myself.’

  Mlle Hortense, who had sat in what seemed an apprehensive silence throughout the exchange, suddenly smiled, and mimed applause. But before she could speak the words on her lips, her bell rang, and, with a last sip of wine, she excused herself and returned to her mistress.

  The three of us sipped in companionable silence, until it was time for me to walk home through the balmy evening. I had half a mind to turn back and invite both ladies to take a turn with me around the formal garden, but the moon went in, and suddenly the estate looked less inviting.

  V

  Although none of us can read, we all open our Prayer Books and sit with dutifully lowered heads as if we can follow every word. The paper is very thin. The print is very small, not like that in the books in the nursery. I mouth the words, because I know them by heart, of course; we all do, though deaf Jenny always gets some of them wrong.

  The sermon is about one of Christ’s miracles. I would love to ask the vicar if he thinks there are still things like miraculous draughts of fish, or blind people being given sight by a mixture of spit and dirt. I might have asked kind Dr Martin. Why is he called a doctor when he is not a medical man? But Mr Sproggett is not the sort of man a girl would wish to speak to on such a matter. So in a quiet moment, I ask God if I might have a miracle, like getting that blue ribbon back again to keep forever.

  Perhaps I haven’t prayed hard enough. It doesn’t appear before my eyes.

  And then – and then! Yes, a strange thing does happen. I see the words I have been so carefully copying in front of me, on this very page! I trace them with my finger, and Mr Sproggett and all around me are saying them: Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name.

  I follow each and every word for the rest of the prayer.

  This is better than a blue ribbon. This is the key to everything.

  SIX

  Still in the cricket whites favoured by about half the men, I sipped ale with the other members of Thorncroft village team, including both the Kenton brothers, on benches outside the village inn. The Royal Oak might well have dated to the time of King Charles: the building walls were so far from the vertical that it seemed impossible that it should not have collapsed years ago. It would have entranced an artist with a taste for the romantic, as would much of the village, which straggled along the road, on to which some front doors opened directly. Set back were the grander ones, such as Dr Page’s. Although it still lacked a school, there was a post office and a couple of tiny shops. The village green sat at the heart of it all.

  At first, talk was all about the match: how badly some of the players had fared, so that we got very few runs, and how it looked as if we had no hope of saving the game.

  ‘Until you came on to bowl, gaffer,’ said Alf Hargreaves, his lordship’s pig man, supping from his tankard, ‘and showed us all how to do it, in a manner of speaking.’

  ‘But it was your fine catches that brought about their downfall,’ I countered, truthfully, swatting a gnat. ‘Yours and young Elias’.’

  ‘Ah, I reckon he catches them with those whiskers of his,’ Alf snorted, smoothing his more modest moustache. ‘If ever Shropshire gets round to having a proper county team, I reckon he should be in it – though they’ll choose gentlemen over any working lad, no doubt.’ He spat, copiously, then waved a brawny arm. ‘Bring Granfer Hawkins over – not him, so much as his pipe. Foul it may be, gaffer, but the thing is, the damned midges and gnats – begging your pardon, gaffer – can’t abide it. Now, gaffer, Granfer there is uncle to John Coachman.’ He drank again. ‘My lad Luke’s gone up in the world, compared with me – his lordship’s valet, see. Imagine, me, the pa of a valet! I never leave here, where I was born and raised, except when we’re playing another village, but he’s jauntering round all over the county, aye, and further afield too. Sometimes without a moment’s notice, too – not like the old lord, who liked to plan things to the nearest milestone, or so it seemed. He gets an invitation and – pff! – off they all go. And just when you think he’s going to be all quiet and reasonable, blow me if there isn’t blood for supper if Luke forgets a favourite necktie or set of studs!’ He looked from left to right and dropped his voice. ‘There’s things young Luke has to turn a blind eye too, mind, like—’ He clapped a hand over his mouth, as if it suddenly dawned on him that he was not being tactful. ‘Begging your pardon, gaffer.’

  ‘Luke always strikes me as a very efficient and well-presented young man,’ I said smoothly. ‘And now, if I’m not to be bitten to death, or veritably kippered by Mr Hawkins’ pipe, I must be on my way. But I’ve left enough with Marty Baines for you all to have another half.’ Marty Baines, the landlord, was an amazingly sober man, rumoured to be more Chapel than Church, who could be relied on not to let anyone get fighting drunk. He’d shown me the pump at the back, useful for making men quietly presentable to their wives. He wanted no violence laid at his door.

  Alf tugged his forelock. ‘You’ll be playing for us regular, will you, gaffer, from now on?’

  I smiled as I thought of the unalloyed pleasure I’d had this afternoon. ‘If you’ll have me, I’ll be there as often as my work with his lordship permits.’

  To my surprise, he got up and fell into step with me, just until we were out of earshot. ‘This is a bad business for the Billingses, gaffer. Who’d have thought a quiet young maiden would be so foolish?’

  ‘Foolish she may be, but then she’s little more than a child,’ I said, not quite mildly. ‘And there’s a young man in the case too. Have you any idea who he might be?’

  As if puzzled by my attitude, he shook his head. ‘There’s always gossip. Word is, gaffer, it’s someone from the House, not an outside man. But I’ll have to wait till young Luke comes back before I know anymore, won’t I?’

  ‘You underestimate yourself, Alf. You’ll pick things up that I never will.’

  ‘But not as well as Marty. He’s the eyes and ears round here. But not the mouth, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘I do indeed. But maybe even a discreet man might talk to you. And you know where to find me, don’t you?’ I slipped him a florin.

  He looked as if he was about to protest, but pocketed it nonetheless.

  My walk back took me past the little row of cottages, all belonging to the estate and none as well-maintained as I liked, though most of the gardens showed the pride and effort that went into them. Some women were catching the evening sun as they weeded the flowerbeds; others were simply chatting across garden fences – all in all, an idyllic sight such as my imaginary artist might want to paint. But how many of the women were as prematurely aged as Mrs Billings? I knew Mrs Faulkner was always ready to help in an emergency, doing the work that many other dowagers in Lady Croft’s position would have thought an essential part of their duties – indeed, in many cases, the only part of their duties. My mother would have been horrified by what she would have considered idle inertia. I recalled her setting up a sewing class and teaching women about growing herbs and vegetables, hitherto in our village an exclusively male occupation. Mysteriously she always discovered a glut of fruit and an apparently endless supply of sugar so that every household had a supply of blackberry jam and preserved plums, damsons and greengages. She would have approved whole-heartedly of Mrs Faulkner’s still-room, and been delighted to know that the contents were not kept for the Family’s use alone.

  I had hoped that Mrs Faulkner would be able to spend the day at leisure, giving her injury a chance to recover; many a woman would have taken to her bed. But here she was, strolling through the park, wearing another of those pretty little hats to shade her eyes against the westering sun, which cast a rosy glow across her features. It was easy to fall into step with her. I enquired after her health.


  Her voice was bracing. ‘I find a good walk will cure most ills, Mr Rowsley, backs included. Now, I’m afraid that with all your play and probably your ale with your teammates you have missed supper. But Mrs Arden has a soft spot for you and I believe you will find a shepherd’s pie awaiting your attention if you call round to her kitchen.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m sure my feet will find their way there in a few minutes. But I’ve just seen young Harry Kenton in his brother’s garden. It’s time I spoke to him about Maggie. I know they were no longer walking out together but he might know who replaced him in her affections.’

  Briefly she touched my arm. ‘Unlike his brother, Harry has a temper, I hear – especially when he has been to the Royal Oak.’

  ‘Yes, I saw him there, but I did not want to speak to him in front of anyone else, particularly as he had just taken a magnifi-cent catch which brought me my third wicket. And this might be a good time to talk, since we still share the golden glow of sporting success. I’m sorry, Mrs Faulkner, that you could not be there. We managed a famous victory – and they’ve invited me to be part of the team for the rest of the summer.’ I must have sounded like a silly schoolboy.

  ‘Perhaps one good thing to come of his lordship’s improvements will be that I have a chance, very casually, very accidentally, to watch while I supervise the team teas.’ Her words were mild enough, but I could feel the anger behind them. She turned her face away.

  I thought of my mother’s words: It seems to me that as the years go by we are determined to cast a veritable corset round women’s activities, just as we put them round our bodies. All this fainting and fading – cut our stays and give us less to eat and we’d be ourselves again.

  ‘I truly hope so. How, why, did we forget that once girls were encouraged to climb trees and play? At least Jane Austen would have us believe that they did.’