‘Them as makes it,’ added Eva in an attempt to make matters clear. ‘I’ve shut the shop. Your granddad’s famous.’
Agnes glared at the personification of fame – dirty overalls with an off-the-shoulder touch of fashion at one side, hair full of sawdust, eyes as wide as a frightened rabbit’s. ‘Granada?’
He nodded, causing a shower of fine wood shavings to abandon his person. ‘Making a series called Man at Work. It’s about retired folk doing crafts and stuff. They say my houses are in a class of their own. Somebody up Chorley New Road ordered a Tudor mansion, then, after seeing the plans, went and phoned these here Granada folk. I’m going on the telly. They’re doing an OB on me.’
‘Isn’t that a medal?’ asked Agnes with feigned ignorance.
‘That has an E fastened to it,’ said Fred. ‘OB is outside broadcast and they cost money. They want to see me in my natural wotsername.’
‘Habit,’ said Eva.
‘Habitat, you daft lummox.’ Fred sighed. ‘We’ve even shut the shop to come and talk to you.’
‘Yes, Eva said so before,’ said Agnes.
‘What’ll I do?’ Fred looked truly frightened.
‘Nothing.’ Agnes placed her cup on the table. ‘They ask questions, film your houses, you just give answers. You don’t know what they’ll ask, so you can’t practise for it.’
‘Can’t practise,’ said Eva.
Fred jumped up. ‘What are we doing here?’ he asked his bemused wife. ‘I’ve carpets to fit and lights to install. Come on.’ He rushed out of the house. ‘Where did I put that box of doorknockers?’ The final words grew fainter as he marched up the street.
‘I hope this doesn’t make him ill again.’ Eva walked to the door. ‘He’s getting all worked up.’
Agnes sighed and shook her head. ‘For better or worse, Eva. Just let it all happen. It’ll happen anyway. Enjoy it. He’ll be all right. If he isn’t, send him back. You’ve a twelve-month guarantee for parts and labour on that item.’
Alone at last, Agnes put her feet up and waited for her stomach to rise, but her indigestive system seemed to have made up its mind to take time off for good behaviour. She kept the bowl nearby, just in case, but minutes passed without the need to leave a deposit.
‘Let’s hope I’m finally on parole,’ she told her feet. ‘Because the three of us – not including toes – have to get moving – literally. Skirlaugh Fall, here I come.’
Skirlaugh Fall was a village consisting of a group of houses that clung together for support at the bottom of Skirlaugh Rise. The big house sat on top of the Rise, as if it oversaw movements among serfs condemned to live lower down both social and geographical scales. It was a pretty place and Agnes had always loved it. She was excited. Nuisance, too, seemed impressed, though it was too soon for him to start kicking and Agnes put the flutters down to wind or imagination.
On all sides, moors swept towards every compass point, so the Fall could be a bit damp, but that fact made it all the greener. It was a fresh, wholesome place that made her think of the hymn ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. The cottage was a bit small, but no one could have everything. There was no scullery, though the kitchen, which ran the full width of the building, was big enough to double up as a second living room. ‘Nice,’ she told her husband. It was more than nice. It was cosy, with wonderful views, clear air and decent neighbours in the form of Kate and Albert Moores. This was a splendid place in which to raise a child. There was a school within easy reach, there was clean oxygen to breathe, and there were playgrounds in the form of lush, green fields.
Inside the cottage, they had found a welcoming bunch of orange flowers in the grate. Agnes declared this to be a thoughtful gesture, as it gave colour without heat and made the place seem homely right from the start. ‘They’re from Mr and Mrs Moores,’ she told her husband. ‘That was a friendly thing to do, very thoughtful.’
‘She’s all right, is Kate Moores,’ he declared. ‘Solid as a rock and no nonsense. Her husband works the land, but he’s semi-retired these days. She’s run off her feet. Wife the Second up at the house wants more servants. Most round here would kill the judge before they’d work for him, so Kate’s having to look further afield. It’s all new curtains and rugs up yon. Mrs Spencer’s a fresh broom, but she’ll not do her own sweeping.’
‘They never do. Denis?’
‘What?’
‘Come in the kitchen – Mrs Moores has left us new bread and butter, some cheese and a pot of home-made strawberry jam. She’s got willow pattern plates. I’ve always wanted some of those.’
‘And I grew the strawberries.’ He came to stand by his wife at the kitchen window. The mock-Tudor mansion was clearly visible from this position. ‘They’re getting on too well for the old bugger’s liking,’ he said. ‘Mrs and Miss are busy footling round Manchester, Chester and Liverpool, separating him from his brass, I shouldn’t wonder. He’s not saying much, but he’s aged about ten years these past few weeks. Mrs is there just to produce a son and heir; Miss is staying put because she won’t be shifted and I can’t say I blame her. But the new wife’s done her a lot of good, I must say. No, I can’t blame either of them.’
‘Me neither,’ agreed Agnes. ‘It’s lovely here, Denis, but I don’t like being near him. If there’s a devil, he’ll look just like Judge Spencer.’
‘Well, I can’t disagree with that. Now. Where are we putting all our stuff? The van’ll be here in a minute, so we’d best decide.’
‘I don’t care,’ she sighed happily. ‘I’d sit on orange boxes if necessary. Nothing matters but this baby and that view. Not Lambert House – the rest of it out there.’ She wished that they didn’t have a view of her husband’s place of employment, but it had to be accepted. ‘Denis?’
‘What?’
‘Can we afford a television set? Just a small one?’
He smiled. ‘We might be able to manage that. You want to see your granddad flummoxed in front of the nation, don’t you?’
Agnes laughed. ‘Flummoxed? He’ll be in his element. As soon as he gets talking, they’ll have trouble shutting him up. Camera shy? Not him. He’ll be like a dog with five tails and a thigh bone to chew on. Yes, I want to see him on TV, bless him. That stroke and Nan dying – he deserves a good life, what’s left of it. So does Eva, come to that.’
Denis chortled. ‘She’s getting herself painted and decorated all the way through – even the bedroom. The back bedroom’s for storage, but she was going to empty that for painting till Fred put his foot down. He said he wasn’t carrying that load of stuff downstairs, not even for bloody Granada. I wouldn’t mind, but the TV folk’ll be setting up in the shed. The only thing that’ll bring them inside is tea and Eva’s scones. Honestly, the way Pop’s carrying on, you’d think it was going to be a Hollywood film.’
Leaving Denis to wait for the removal men, Agnes went for a short walk. These were proud cottages, each with a well-kept front garden and decent curtains. She found the post office, which doubled as a grocery, a tiny pub and cottage industries advertising eggs or bedding plants for sale.
She placed a hand on her belly. ‘We’ll be all right, Nuisance. You, me and your dad can make a fine life out here, just you wait and see.’
Two women were walking towards her, and she recognized one of them. Miss Spencer was in the company of a small, dark, attractive woman. This must be Wife the Second, then. Agnes stopped and pretended to study marigolds in a cottage garden.
‘Is that Mrs Makepeace?’
Agnes turned. ‘Hello, Miss Spencer.’
‘This is Mrs Spencer – my stepmother.’ Both women giggled. ‘She’s not old enough to be a wicked stepmother, is she? We’re playing truant – we’re supposed to be interviewing staff for the house, but we escaped. Kate will keep them in order – won’t she, Louisa?’
‘She keeps me in order.’ The judge’s wife smiled. ‘She has a face that could stop a tram in its tracks. Mind, she does work hard.’
Agnes bid
them a polite good day, then walked on. In her soul, she was chuckling, because those two ladies were in cahoots, if she wasn’t greatly mistaken. From what Denis had said, Agnes knew that Spencer wanted the house to himself and his wife, that he longed for Helen to leave, but this unexpected friendship would leave his plans in tatters. Which was exactly what the old goat deserved, Agnes believed. He was always sending for Denis. Denis was expected to have no life beyond the judge and his needs. Well, with a new baby, things would have to be different.
She walked along tracks that bordered farmland, watched cows and sheep grazing, saw a donkey resting his head on a dry stone wall. It was another world altogether. No deposits from the Industrial Revolution were visible from here. Cotton mills? What were they? Yet the houses in the village had been built for one purpose only, to accommodate weavers and spinners before cottage cotton died.
At the top of a lane, she stopped and looked at Lambert House. It was massive. She would wager that three people could live in there for months without seeing each other. There was water nearby, so the house might have been the property of a fulling miller in the days of homespun yarn, but she doubted it. The mansion had been built to look old, was a pale imitation of Hall i’ th’ Wood, the place in which Crompton had invented the spinning mule. That had been a waste of a life, she mused, because the rights had been virtually stolen from him. Cotton and coal, she said inwardly, had been the two biggest killers in Lancashire since time immemorial.
It was time to go home. Home. She grinned broadly. Home was where the heart lived. Denis was her home. For the first time in weeks, her stomach was happy and she felt hungry. She wanted bacon and eggs followed by a nice custard tart. No – new potatoes with the bacon fat dripped onto them in the grill pan. Strawberry tart with thick clotted cream, a banana with ice cream, some Lancashire cheese on crackers. She smiled again. Greedy for food and hungry for life, she walked homeward to the man she loved.
Judge Spencer was not best pleased. Louisa – his Louisa – was spending all her spare time running to town and visiting Helen in the library, or carting Helen off all over the place to look for rugs and furniture. Like conjoined twins, they were welded fast together and he was not equipped to separate them.
Helen’s suite of rooms was almost ready, as the two women had laboured most evenings and weekends in order to finish it. Louisa, who had turned out to be a compliant and dutiful wife, would not shift in this one area – Helen was her friend, and there was nothing he could do about it. He watched them ambling arm in arm up the drive, both grinning, no doubt sharing a joke. Was he the joke? Surely not. Louisa was affectionate and pleasant, yet he was barred from membership of their exclusive club, and he would never become eligible, because he was male. They were females of similar age and seemed to be stuck one to the other like two pieces of iron soldered and shaped straight from the furnace.
He poured himself a large whisky, sat behind his desk and brooded. Since the day of George Henshaw’s wedding to Lucy Walsh, Helen’s demeanour had changed. She spoke to him at dinner, an institution ordered by his wife, was outwardly supportive of his views, seemed happy to chatter away with Louisa. It was her eyes, he decided. There was a look of damped-down challenge in their depths whenever she looked at him. Helen was clever. He should have noticed a long time ago that his daughter was a bright woman. She was thinking of writing a book. The hairs on his neck bristled when he wondered about the content of such a volume. She had not known a mother, while he had been too busy to pay much attention to her. Would she produce a Dickensian melodrama on the subject of lonely and motherless childhood? She might very well make him the villain, he supposed. Such a character would be veneered, yet all who knew him would recognize the model on which she had based her parody.
He could hear them in the drawing room. Helen would be dressed in some of the smart clothes chosen for her by Louisa. Their conversation was probably about fabrics or wallpaper, but he was excluded, as he had no opinion on such matters. Should he develop one? He was an old dog. New tricks had never been his forte, and he would probably not change now. About women’s clothes he knew nothing, had no comment to offer on the height of heels or the breadth of a belt.
Louisa came in. ‘There you are, darling. We had a nice walk. Now we are going to interview applicants for positions in the household.’ Bequeathing him a dutiful peck on the cheek, his wife returned to her bosom ally. She almost danced away from him, feet patting the carpet lightly, face aglow in anticipation of another hour in the company of Helen.
He seethed inwardly. Louisa was planning an opening-up party to celebrate Lambert House’s new lease of life. He could not fault her, was unable to nominate one single crime of which she might have been guilty. How could he berate her for becoming friendly with his only daughter? None of this had worked out in the way he had foretold. Helen was supposed to hate her stepmother for invading the domain, but Helen refused to play the Cinderella he had imagined. There was a deep unease within him; nothing good would come of the current situation.
He topped up his glass and scanned forthcoming lists. Harry Timpson’s name cropped up among a dozen others. What had she said? Beard the lawyers in their den. Show some compassion and confuse them all. With a gold-plated pen, he tapped on his blotter. His colleagues despised him because of his conservative views. Was Helen on his side? Her words showed allegiance, but her eyes did not. It required thought, so he downed his drink in one swallow. Thought needed fuel and he needed sleep. The energy expended in trying to impregnate Louisa was taking its toll. He was not a young man; he should have remarried years earlier.
Ten minutes later, he was snoring, his head resting on a wing of the leather chair. Asleep, his dreams were of Louisa and Helen smiling at him, agreeing with him, stabbing him in the spine. On leaden legs, he tried to flee from these twin enemies, but he failed. As the knife pierced his innards, he heard their voices. One told him to alarm his fellow lawyers; the other pledged eternal love and loyalty. All the same, the knife twisted and he woke in a sweat. ‘Nonsense,’ he told himself aloud. Then he poured a third drink to chase away the nightmare.
Denis brought the invitation home. It was encased in a heavy cream envelope and the card it contained was gilded along its deckled edges. ‘Bloody hell,’ cursed Agnes after opening it. ‘Do we have to go, love?’
‘We do,’ he replied resignedly. ‘It’s a bit like being invited to Buckingham Palace – a refusal is not acceptable unless accompanied by a doctor’s note or, better still, a death certificate.’
She placed the card on the mantelpiece behind the clock. ‘I don’t want to look at it. I don’t want it hanging over my head for weeks. Will you be working at the party?’
‘No. They’ve drafted in a load of casual workers to pass the plates round. I know how you feel – I’m the same. I’d rather sit here with my cocoa and biscuit, thank you very much.’ It could have been worse, he told himself inwardly. At least Wife the Second had distracted Helen Spencer – she was no longer looking at him all the time when she was at home.
‘I’ll need something to wear. I’d borrow from Lucy, but my waist’s started to expand. Why do they want us there? You’re a servant and I’m a servant’s wife. It doesn’t seem right.’
It didn’t seem right to Kate Moores, either. She arrived a few minutes after Denis’s return, another cream envelope held gingerly between forefinger and thumb of her left hand. She carried the item away from her body, as if she half expected to catch some contagious disease from its contents. ‘This is her doing,’ she announced. ‘She’s at the bottom of it – I’d wager my best shoes and a fortnight’s wages.’
‘Miss Spencer?’ asked Agnes.
‘No, the other one, the new one. She talked about egalitari summat or other.’
‘Egalitarianism,’ said Denis. ‘And appreciation for loyal service.’
Kate blew out her cheeks. ‘They expect me to get my Albert in a suit? That’ll take an anaesthetic and five big lads. When we’ve
been to weddings and funerals, he’s always stood there with his finger down his collar doing an imitation of a goldfish out of water. I can’t be doing with this. I’m the one who has to get him dressed. A corpse would be easier.’
‘Say he’s ill,’ Denis suggested.
‘Ill? He will be ill when he cops a look at this. And in this village, there’s no point pretending to be poorly – they all know if somebody’s poorly, because they start forming an orderly queue at the door with beef tea and home-made remedies.’ She sat down. ‘Denis – you’ll have to break it to him. I’ve enough on with game pie and bloody caviar. Thank God they’ve got caterers for most of it. As if I hadn’t enough to do already, up comes bloody caviar. And up’s where it should stay – it tastes like cod liver oil.’
Denis smiled. ‘All right, I’ll tell Albert. But if he starts throwing things, I’ll be out of there like a mouse in front of the cat.’
‘Oh, he’s not violent.’ Kate cast her invitation onto a small table. ‘Sometimes, I wish he would kick the walls or something. He sulks and moans. I can’t be doing with sulking and moaning when I’ve pastry to manage. Picture the scene – me, you and Agnes lost among a heap of rich folk, and my Albert in a corner threatening to take his tie off. We need a committee, then we can take turns to stop him undoing his clothing.’
Denis started to laugh. He owned a deep laugh that seemed to travel through his whole body. Agnes grinned. Denis’s humour was one of her reasons for marrying him. When he regained his composure, he came up with an idea. ‘Mrs Spencer’s getting her dog next week – a great big Alsatian. We can set that to guard Albert and his clothes.’
‘Oh, he’d only sulk and moan at it. What I need is a small padlock. I could do up his top button, lock it and hide the key. Eeh, I don’t want to go.’
None of them wanted to go, but they had to pay the price for being allowed to work for the Spencers.
‘It’s changed since she came,’ pronounced Kate. ‘His royal highness is not in the best of moods – I don’t think he reckoned on his new missus and his daughter getting on so well. If he wanted another family, he should have wed years back – his lower storey might not be up to the job.’
The Judge's Daughter Page 14
