Lucy arrived in fine fettle. She and her new husband were selling their bungalow and buying a barn just a few miles from Agnes’s house. ‘It’s huge,’ she crowed. ‘We can have visitors to stay and there’s loads of land.’ She paused. ‘Where’s Helen Wotsername?’
‘Coming.’
‘Remember the fit she threw at the party? Everybody in the legal community talked about it for weeks.’
‘Then they’ll be leaving some other poor soul out of the gossip while they deal with her.’
‘What’s the matter, Agnes?’ Lucy sank into a chair. ‘It seems ages since I saw you and you’re in a mood.’
Agnes told the tale of the move to Bamber Cottage. ‘It was hell,’ she concluded. ‘Hot day, pregnant, Pop on one of his hobby horses, Eva too big to get past the furniture – it was a farce. Helen Spencer sorted it.’
‘Ah.’
Agnes dropped into the chair opposite her friend’s. ‘There’s a terrible sadness in her. She spoke to Denis and he says she thinks it’s something that happened, but she was too young to remember it. What’s more, she seems to believe it was something too bad for a young child to cope with, so it’s in a parcel at the back of her head.’
‘Well, let’s hope it’s not in the lost property department at the post office.’
‘It’s not funny, Lucy. She’s got a terrible life.’
Mags arrived. The other two were repeating their approval of her new face when Helen knocked.
‘Come in,’ said Agnes. ‘Denis is at the pub with Pop. I don’t know who to feel sorry for – Denis or the landlord.’
They settled into seats, picked at food, drank tea.
‘I’m grateful to you,’ Agnes told Helen. ‘Goodness knows what we would have done without you.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing. We’ve huge cellars and Father’s wines take up a very small part. I thought your grandfather was very amusing.’
Agnes snorted. ‘You can say that when you’ve lived with him for twenty years. I love him to bits, but he would make a saint swear. Nan could manage him – she just gave him a certain look when he went too far. I’ve borrowed Nan’s selection of looks, but he doesn’t take much notice of me. Thank God he’s over the stroke. If it wasn’t for his funny walk, you’d hardly know he’d suffered. Now, everybody else suffers. Since he was on that Granada programme, he’s decided he’s in charge. Honestly, he couldn’t run a bath, let alone a business. Thank God again for Eva’s acumen – and Pop’s near enough to us now, of course.’
A small silence hung over the room.
‘I know,’ said Mags eventually. ‘It’s a lovely evening – why don’t we go for a walk?’
They left the house in two pairs, Lucy with Agnes, Mags with Helen. At the top of the main street, Agnes got one of her ideas. She pointed to the pub. ‘Let’s go in.’
Helen looked at Mags. ‘I’ve never been in a pub before.’
‘Time you got educated, then,’ Mags answered before grabbing her companion’s arm and following the other two into the Farmer’s Arms. ‘You’ll enjoy it,’ Mags promised.
Denis and Pop were playing darts. The pub was about half full, and many of its occupants became silent on seeing Helen Spencer in their midst. Agnes marched up to her husband and her grandfather. ‘Three teams,’ she said. ‘Two in each. You and Denis, me and Lucy, Helen and Mags. Lowest scorers buy the drinks.’
‘I never played darts before, either,’ Helen whispered to Mags.
‘Just pretend the board’s your dad. Don’t kill any customers and watch Denis – he’s silent but deadly when it comes to darts.’
It was a hilarious evening. Nobody died and Helen managed to hit the board on most occasions. There was a small contretemps when Fred was accused of overstepping the line before throwing, but all ended well. Mags and Helen, the losers, bought the drinks, then they all crowded round a table and argued about the game.
‘I haven’t had much experience,’ said Mags.
‘I’ve had none,’ added Helen.
Fred guffawed and declared that darts was a game just for men. Agnes battered him about the head with his cap, Fred complained of ill-treatment by his own granddaughter, Lucy pretended to smile. There was in Lucy a reluctance to accept Helen Spencer, Agnes thought. Helen was older than the others, was quieter and less easily drawn into fun. But Agnes liked her. In spite of the Denis business, in spite of her reticence, the woman was all right in Agnes’s book.
The women left the men to their drinking, Lucy driving Mags homeward as soon as they reached the Makepeace cottage. It was sad, Agnes thought, that Lucy could not even try to accept the new addition to their group. After waving off her friends, Agnes took Helen into the house. ‘That’s the last time I play darts in heat like this,’ she declared.
Helen smiled in agreement. She felt strangely comfortable in the company of Denis’s wife. She had expected Mags Bradshaw to be a closer friend, but there was in Agnes a dependable and supportive nature that was much admired by Helen. Agnes knew how to join in, where and when to have fun, how to speak up for herself. There was no fear in Mrs Makepeace, but there was respect for all around her.
‘Do you like living here?’ Helen asked.
‘I do. We both do. I don’t know how we’ll go on with Pop so near – he’s a caution. I love him dearly, but he can stretch my patience from here to Manchester and back. It’s even worse since his stroke. I always knew we’d get him well again, because he’d the devil in his eyes even when he was flat out and unable to speak. He’s the same, but different. Everything has to be done now and in a great hurry.’
‘That’s because he’s looked Death in the face,’ said Helen.
‘Maybe.’ Agnes sighed. ‘If he carries on as he is, he’ll die a rich man. There’s a long queue for his houses and he’s branching out into bigger things, Lord help us.’
‘Oh? What’s he doing?’
‘Play houses for back gardens – Wendy houses, I think they’re called. Eva just says yes to everything he suggests. Meanwhile, the grass at the back of his house is dying, because he has bigger pieces of wood for the outside houses and he covers them in tarpaulin.’
‘Oh, dear.’
‘Yes. Eva’s not been married to him for more than a few weeks and she’s under his thumb already.’
Helen nodded thoughtfully. ‘He must have a big thumb.’
Agnes laughed heartily. ‘He likes large women. Nan was big till near the end. He says a big woman’s the best hot water bottle available to man.’
Helen stared through the window at a darkening sky. ‘You are so lucky, Agnes.’
‘I know.’
‘You love people.’
‘Not all people.’
‘But you approach them with an open mind and heart. I am . . . closed down, I suppose.’
‘Your father.’ This, from Agnes, was not a question.
‘Yes. Lately, though, I have changed. In a sense, I appear to have woken up, yet in another I seem to be grabbing a childhood I never had. Control slips away from me at times.’
‘Yes, I saw that at the party.’
Helen told the tale of the wedding reception, including the part played by Denis. ‘I’ve stopped drinking,’ she said. ‘The expression on your husband’s face on seeing me drunk would have stopped a bull smashing a gate.’
Agnes could almost taste the woman’s misery. She wanted to jump up and shake her, wanted to drag her away from Lambert House and the man who had spoiled her life, but it wasn’t her place. ‘I’m always here, Helen,’ she said. ‘When it gets too much, come to me. Don’t suffer by yourself, because you do have friends.’
Helen turned her head slowly and faced Agnes. ‘There’s Louisa. Louisa is the reason I am staying.’
‘She married him with her eyes open,’ said Agnes.
Helen nodded. ‘The sighted make as many mistakes as the blind. She knows now that she is just an incubator. He wants a son.’
‘Yes, Denis said.’
‘
Once he has his son, Louisa will be of no further use.’
Agnes wished that her visitor would cry, but it was clear that some of the hurt went beyond tears. No one liked Judge Spencer, and his daughter had travelled past dislike and was walking alongside hatred where her father was concerned. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’ve lived for over thirty years with my father, Agnes. Yet it’s as if I was born again just recently. There’s something . . .’
‘What?’
‘Just something. Tell me, Agnes – what’s your earliest memory?’
Agnes pondered. ‘I remember sitting outside the house – presumably in a pram. And being held over a tin bath in front of the fire while my hair was rinsed – I remember that. Don’t know how old I was.’
Helen bit her lip. ‘I have a not-quite memory. It’s similar to a dream that’s forgotten the instant you wake. Sometimes, I grab the edge of it, but it unravels like a badly knitted sleeve as soon as I try to concentrate. There was noise. I do know there was a great deal of unusual noise.’
‘And then?’
‘Nothing.’ Helen looked down at her folded hands. ‘Like Louisa, you make me feel better. Almost normal.’
‘You are normal.’
‘Am I? Is it normal to imagine yourself in love with a married man? Or to stand in the middle of a social gathering and decry the host – my own father? Is it normal for all those people at the party to disappear from my sight and slip beyond hearing while I have a tantrum worthy of a two-year-old?’
‘You are not mad,’ Agnes insisted. ‘You are damaged. I know he’s a tartar. I’ve seen and heard him for myself. Kate Moores, too, knows that life hasn’t been easy for you – so does my Denis. Helen, look at me. I’ll be here, Denis’ll be here, Kate and Albert will be here – even my Pop and Eva will be here. You know where to run.’
‘Thank you.’ At last, the tears flowed.
Agnes, hanging on tightly to the tense body of Miss Helen Spencer, wondered whether she had bitten off more than she could chew. This lady had more than a chip on her shoulder – she carried a whole yard of lumber. What on earth had happened to reduce Helen to this? Why had she no friends and why didn’t her father love her? And could Agnes be what Helen needed? Was a special doctor required?
Helen straightened. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I like you.’
‘And I like you. Look after that stepmother of yours, but come to us if it all gets too much. We’ll be here. We may not have much, but you’re welcome any time.’
When Helen had left, Agnes sat very still in a chair by the window. Dusk was falling fast, but she didn’t bother with any lighting. In her heart, she walked every weary and unwilling step of Helen Spencer’s homeward journey. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she swore aloud. ‘I’ll try to make a difference.’ Nan had always said that life was about making a difference, preferably for the better. Wisdom from the mouths of the uneducated was often raw and special. ‘I’ll try, Nan,’ she repeated. Helen Spencer needed saving. She deserved to be saved.
Denis arrived home with Fred in tow and began to make cocoa. Pop was enthusing about his Wendy houses while Denis was quieter than usual. He left the older man to heat milk while he sat with Agnes. When he asked why she had been sitting in the dark, she replied, ‘Helen Spencer lives in darkness, love. She thinks she’s mad, but I think she isn’t.’
‘When did you pass doctor exams, sweetheart?’
She shrugged. ‘She’s not mad, Denis. I need to do something and I’ll start with Kate.’
‘You what?’
‘There has to be somebody still alive who knew the judge and his first wife. They had more servants then. Whatever’s in her head wants finding. Until she can get it out, she’ll not cope. While she’s not coping, she’ll give her dad loads of excuses to lock her up. She’ll not get better till she gets to the bottom of whatever it is.’
Denis swallowed. ‘He won’t go that far, will he? Locking her up, I mean. Madness in the family would reflect on him.’
But Agnes suspected that Judge Spencer would go to any lengths to rid himself of his difficult daughter. It would be relatively easy to lie, to say that Helen had gone abroad for a rest cure or was on an extended holiday in Europe. ‘Judge Spencer will find a way to get what he wants. You know that, Denis.’
Fred entered. ‘Nowt wrong with that lass except for the man who fathered her. She’s nowhere near mad. I know what happened at the wedding and at the house party – I’m not as deaf or as daft as some folk want to believe. Helen Spencer’s a gradely lass. You do right, our Agnes. Find out what you can, but don’t get wore out. I don’t want owt happening to that great-grandchild of mine.’
The back door rattled. Sighing, Agnes went into the kitchen. The miscreant had visited three times in one week, and Agnes was in several minds. ‘Stay sitting down, or you’ll be knocked over,’ she ordered her menfolk before opening the door.
Louisa Spencer’s puppy, Oscar, shot in like a furry missile from a powerful cannon. He jumped first on Fred, then on Denis, before launching himself at the woman of the house. A long-haired Alsatian, Oscar had a happy temperament and a bottomless appetite. He knew already that women meant food, so he concentrated on the female of this malleable species.
‘Going to be a big bugger,’ commented Fred after managing to save his cocoa. ‘Feet like dinner plates.’
Denis simply laughed. When he was working, the dog was a companion, following him from garden to garden, task to task. Unfortunately, the animal knew little of the differences between weeds and legal residents of a garden, so Denis’s life had taken on a new interest.
‘Here.’ Agnes threw a bone and the dog pounced on it. He settled in front of an empty grate and began to gnaw.
‘He likes you,’ Fred told Agnes.
‘He likes her because she’s soft,’ Denis said. ‘He hates the judge. The feeling’s mutual – Judge Spencer would shoot the poor dog if he could get away with it. Found a hair on his jacket on Tuesday. It had come off that tatty wig, I bet, but he insisted it was Oscar’s fault. As far as I can see, Oscar has no white hair.’
‘Animals have good taste,’ Fred declared. ‘No decent dog ever liked a bad human. Yon Oscar likely had the judge summed up in ten minutes flat.’ He took a sip of cocoa. ‘Hitler had dogs like that one,’ he mumbled sleepily.
‘Go home before you drop off,’ advised Denis. ‘Eva will be wondering where you are.’
Fred stood up, said his goodbyes and left the house.
Denis and Agnes stared at the dog. ‘He’ll have to go home,’ Agnes said. ‘If Louisa misses him, she might get upset.’
Denis found a length of rope and tied it to the puppy’s collar. ‘I’ll come,’ said Agnes. ‘It’s best if I exercise while I still can.’
They set off with dog and bone in the direction of Skirlaugh Rise. Oscar carried his meal proudly, wore the air of the triumphant hunter bringing back his kill. When they neared the house, the dog stopped, placed his bone on the ground and growled deep in his throat. A plume of smoke rising from a small circle of red advertised the judge’s presence. He was having a final cigar before bedtime. Denis urged the dog onward, but Oscar refused to move until his mistress’s husband had returned to the house.
‘Oscar really doesn’t like him, does he?’ whispered Agnes.
‘Hates the bloody sight of him, love. And he isn’t on his own. Come on, let’s get rid of Spencer’s latest victim.’ They put the pup in his kennel, tied the frayed tether to a ring in the floor, then walked home.
‘We’re all living in her nightmare,’ said Denis when they were halfway between Rise and Fall.
Agnes gripped her husband’s arm. Sometimes, he was very wise. She was grateful for that.
Chapter Nine
Agnes Makepeace was exhausted to the core. Her waist was thickening and her patience was shrivelling at a similar pace. Summer continued into September, which wasn’t right in Agnes’s book. Leaves had scarcely started to crisp and, apart from a slight
nip in the air at dawn, the hot weather lingered. She spoke to Nuisance. ‘No more summers with you attached, anyway. After a few more proddings by doctors and a bit of hard work on my part, you are out of there. You’d best look lively and get yourself a job in the pits, because you’ve been hard work up to now. It’s payback time, mate.’
Had she bitten off more than she could chew? She had travelled the length and breadth of Skirlaugh Fall, which, though small, contained a couple of hundred people who might do well if gossip should become an Olympic sport. She knew who had slept with whom, could now nominate at least three people who were ‘bad with their nerves’, was custodian of confidences involving intricate surgical procedures performed on several men and women from here to the horizon. Oh, and there were a lot of folk suffering from piles. It had all been interesting, but not as productive as she had hoped.
The questions relating to the Spencers had been hidden within conversation – or so she trusted. The judge was clever; if he believed that Agnes was working to help the daughter for whom he had no love, repercussions might occur. Agnes had a husband and a baby to protect; should they become threatened, poor Helen would be on her own. Well, not quite on her own, but Louisa, too, was in a position of compromise. Agnes answered her own question. ‘I have bitten off more than I can chew. Let’s hope I never have to swallow any of it. Bloody man.’
One last chance lay with a married couple named Longsight, who lived in the larger village of Harwood. They had worked for the Spencers many years ago, so they had become the final target. What was Agnes seeking? She had no idea. Yet the feeling that Helen had suffered some kind of abuse in childhood remained strong. It had to be more than neglect. The neglect of a child was unforgivable, but Helen’s unreachable memory was of one specific incident. The woman remembered well the occasions on which she had been deprived of space and company, could chatter away about days spent in her bedroom, yet the nightmare continued and Agnes was here to discover the eye of the storm. Or perhaps not – the eye of a storm was quiet and relatively peaceful. Whatever it was that made Helen so agitated was not in the eye – it was spinning around the edges in the company of a million particles of frantic dust. And the storm was no act of God; this was a tornado created by a man who was used to being king in his own arena. Judge Zachary Spencer had probably wounded his only child so badly that she could not allow herself to remember the incident. That was mental trauma, Agnes believed.
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