Tall Chimneys: A British Family Saga Spanning 100 Years

by Allie Cresswell

  ‘You are lucky,’ he stated, heavily, to me, ‘that your brother and sister in law are prepared to accommodate you here. Many girls in your situation would have been placed elsewhere and expected to make their own way. Perhaps in the end you will think it might have been preferable.’

  I told him in a quiet but prideful voice that I felt my good fortune. I would make the best of being allowed to return home.

  ‘One wonders,’ he mused, swilling wine around a heavily embellished goblet, ‘why they did not accommodate you in town. Perhaps,’ he gave a twisted, almost suggestive grin, ‘they consider the tone there unsuitable. They do entertain some rather… outré guests.’

  I made no reply to this observation.

  ‘The house is sadly depleted since you were last here and George is here but rarely,’ Ratton went on to observe. ‘You will lack for company. You will be lonely. It is hardly suitable. Some might say it is hardly respectable. You ought to have a female companion.’

  The idea of the smug, porky individual at the far end of the table posing any kind of threat to my maiden reputation was laughable, but I restrained myself from saying so. It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest that, if he felt the delicacy of my situation so keenly, he ought to move into the agent’s quarters which I knew were provided for him above the estate office. ‘I will use the time to improve myself,’ I said instead. ‘I shall enjoy the outdoors when the weather is fine. When it is not, the library is well-stocked.’

  ‘Indeed.’ He nodded. ‘No doubt your education has left you lacking in real knowledge. Girls are taught accomplishments, merely. I cannot think your schooling will be much use to you here.’

  I felt stung. This accusation was unfair; my schooling had been pretty thorough in arts and humanities although rather coy on the subject of science.

  ‘While your brother is from home, I run the house very frugally,’ he told me. ‘I told Jones to serve dinner tonight to celebrate your arrival, but after this we will take it separately, in our rooms, unless there is company. You will not find it very convivial.’

  I wanted to laugh at Ratton’s idea of a celebratory meal; nothing could have been colder or less hospitable than the atmosphere at table. The prospect of dining alone, even in my rooms, which were dour enough, was a preferable prospect.

  ‘Of course,’ I agreed. ‘I shall try to incommode your arrangements as little as possible.’

  Clearly, having gained his object, Mr Ratton lapsed into silence.

  We soon settled into a mutually exclusive routine; I took my breakfast in my rooms and my dinner also, as prescribed. I appropriated a small morning room in the east wing where I could not possibly be in Mr Ratton’s way. Lunch was not served at Tall Chimneys unless there were guests. Mr Ratton and I took tea together in the library in the late afternoons as a gesture towards polite sociability, before each recalling some important errand or job of work which brought the encounter to a speedy close.

  Almost in defiance of Mr Ratton’s predictions of gloom and doom, I set out determined to make the best of my situation. I made acquaintance with the rector in the village, his wife and three daughters, walking there several times a week in search of company and sometimes receiving them for tea at Tall Chimneys. I volunteered to help Mrs Flowers, housekeeper, a harried woman given to an excess of nerves, initiating a programme of dusting and airing the unused rooms and protecting the house’s more valuable artefacts from the carelessness of the builders who came and went. I persuaded one of the grooms to teach me to ride, which he was glad to do; the horses got hardly any exercise now George had bought a motor car to fetch him from the station. I wanted to learn to drive it but Ratton vetoed this plan. The rest of the time I read books from the library in an effort to improve my mind and wrote long letters to my niece Joan in India. Her letters were full of romance and glamour - balls at the Embassy, cards and cocktails at the Club, a thrilling elephant ride. Occasional letters from other school friends told the same story; dances and parties or interesting work in busy offices where they took shorthand and typed letters or operated the telephonic apparatus. Through them I heard about other classmates - qualified as teachers or nurses or working in laboratories. They all seemed to exist in a world which was running in parallel to mine, across a gulf I could not cross. All I could do was idle my days away in the silent rooms of Tall Chimneys and roam the grounds in much the same way as I had done as a child.

  When my brother did return to Tall Chimneys he brought with him large parties of socialites, many titled, from illustrious houses, also fashionable writers and artists, and rising men of industry. We often got little notice of these visits. Mrs Flowers and I were thrown into a frenzy of cleaning and bed-making to get the rooms ready and the cook needed much chivvying in sorting out menus and ordering supplies. Mr Ratton played no part in these proceedings, obviously, other than to indulge in lengthy converse and much sampling with Jones, the aged butler, on the subject of wine. Although stepping somewhat into the background for the duration of these house-parties, Mr Ratton did not disappear altogether as, perhaps, would have been proper. He appeared at dinner wearing a cheap, off-the-peg dinner suit, and presented himself for excursions and shooting parties as though one of the guests or, more accurately, one of the family. George allowed it without comment. I too, was included, but I kept myself at a distance from the heavy-drinking and hi-jinks which invariably characterised those affairs, retiring to my room as soon as I could, ignoring the leering innuendo with which I was often addressed and keeping the groping hands at bay. My early explorations in the house served me well; I was often able to evade the lecherous intentions of Viscounts and mining magnates by slipping down the little-known passageways of the house, losing them in linen rooms and the labyrinthine by-ways of the servants’ corridors.

  Apart from being tiresome in themselves, these assaults had another negative impact in that they changed Mr Ratton’s attitude towards me. It seemed to dawn upon him that he might have missed an opportunity, with me. While never deigning to show me any attention while George was around, he became positively predatory at all other times. I would come across him lurking on my favourite walks or saddling up a horse just as I arrived at the stables for my ride, forcing us to walk or ride together. He lingered over tea, asking for more, sending for additional crumpets. He suggested we invite the rector and his family to dine for all the world as though we two were lord and lady of the manor. He invaded the sunny morning room I had adopted as my own, to read the newspapers, when he should have been out and about on estate business. I would not have cared if his conversation had been worth the having, or his person more attractive, but he made little attempt to be personable, only watched me, narrowly, through those lashless eyes, in a way I found unnerving and disgusting.

  My walks took me further afield in an effort to avoid him and I had to use increasing ingenuity in the routes I took, rediscovering the shady groves and secret pathways Weeks had shown me all those years before. One day I found myself at the gatehouse and was swamped with nostalgia for the kindly couple who had looked after me there. I wondered where they had gone to and determined to make enquiries. In the meantime I walked round the odd little building. The windows were boarded up, the once neat garden swamped by invading bramble. Nobody used it now, and it occurred to me it could become, once more, a kind of refuge to me. Recklessly, I broke the flimsy lock of the kitchen lean-to, swept away the inveigling leaves and looping cobwebs and brought the Weeks’ furniture back into service. I worked hard at it for most of the day, getting myself filthy in the process but happily occupied as I had not been for some time. As the afternoon drew on I surveyed my handiwork. The floor was clean of moss, the greenish slime scrubbed away from the sink in the lean-to. A dull shine reflected off the patina of the table. The window sills were empty of dead flies and desiccated butterflies. As long as no light shone through the chinks in the boarded windows, and I did not light the fire, I reasoned to myself that while the summer prevailed I coul
d spend many happy hours there un-accosted by Mr Ratton, reading my books and writing letters to my heart’s content.

  And so I did. I augmented my comforts at the gatehouse by carrying provisions and further luxuries thither as I had need; fruit from the orchard and left-over pie from the pantry, a rug, a cushion, a blanket. I unearthed a little oil stove from an outhouse, found a battered old kettle and a chipped teapot, so I could make tea. I discovered a cracked ewer in a little-used guest room, and used it for bouquets of wild-flowers which I gathered on my meanderings. Smuggling these things up to the gatehouse without arousing suspicion became a sort of challenge. Mr Ratton and I were playing a clandestine game of cat and mouse, both pretending it was not so and yet each of us keenly aware the ‘accidental’ encounters and his sudden propensity to spend time indoors, likewise my ridiculous tendency to travel from one place to another via bizarre circuitous routes, my sudden yen to inspect a far-flung gazebo or to visit the ice house, were anything but unintentional. Before long I had moved my favourite books and writing materials up to the gatehouse. I stopped using the morning room altogether.

  In pursuance of my determination to ask after the Weeks, I walked, one day, along the ribbon of roadway which crossed the moor at its narrowest point, and into the village. The place was little more than a gaggle of cottages, farms and utilitarian buildings which lined the road. At the near end the little grey church, a squat school house and the large, Georgian Rectory were Tall Chimneys’ closest neighbours. Further along I passed an untidy farmyard where cows waited to be milked. Then, a public house, The Plough and Harrow, which I avoided, having the idea these places were disreputable. I sought out instead the little grocery store which provided villagers with tinned and dried provisions, tobacco, sweets and acted also as the Post Office. A delicious smell of freshly baked cake wafted from a room behind the counter when I opened the door. A woman hurried through the rear door at the sound of the shop bell, brushing flour from her apron as she did so. She was small and rather thin, with bony wrists and a head of red hair. She was friendly enough until I introduced myself, whereupon her demeanour soured.

  ‘I’m enquiring about Mr and Mrs Weeks,’ I explained. ‘They lived in the gatehouse when I was a child. He was the gardener. I think she helped with the laundry. Have you any idea where they might have gone to?’

  The woman sniffed. ‘I don’t remember them,’ she said, ‘my Kenneth might. He worked down there for a while, until he was dismissed. I don’t suppose you remember him? He was the stable lad.’

  ‘I do remember him, very kindly,’ I exclaimed, although, to be truthful, until that moment I hadn’t recalled the sandy-haired boy I had known so briefly. ‘He was dismissed? I didn’t know. I assumed he’d gone off to war.’

  ‘He was dismissed for fraternising with the family,’ she gave me a sharp look. ‘Too nice for his own good, my Kenneth is. He did go to war, shortly after. What else was he to do? He was too young, of course.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I stammered. ‘Did he..?’

  ‘Come back? Yes.’ She sniffed again. ‘It ruined him, though.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again, more genuinely this time. I had seen wounded soldiers on station platforms going to and from school; broken pieces of humanity you couldn’t help feeling sorry for but who, at the same time, had been rather frightening to a young girl.

  ‘He does odd jobs,’ the woman told me. ‘Think of him, if you need anything done down there. Ratton won’t give him a look-in, but if you were to ask. You owe him that much, at least.’

  Whatever idea I had of the young ex-service man - Kenneth - scarred, amputated, disfigured, it was not realised in the man I caught sight of in the yard behind the shop as I passed on my way. He was whole, tall, wirily thin and generally rangy, with shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal freckled arms and that same cowlick of sandy hair falling into his eyes as he worked on some piece of machinery he had stripped down. He looked up as I passed, and I half raised my hand in greeting. I saw a glimmer of recognition light up his eyes for the briefest second before he turned his back and disappeared into the gloom of a tumble down workshop.

  I walked to the end of the village and back again, encountering nobody else who could give me any information about the Weeks.

  ‘Oh well,’ I sighed to myself as I started the walk back across the moor towards Tall Chimneys, ‘back to the game of cat and mouse.’

  Mr Ratton was clearly both perplexed and infuriated by my absence that day and on others as I took refuge in the gatehouse. I know he watched me, followed me, as I loitered with a seeming lack of purpose in the gardens or chatted with the grounds men or the grooms, then, the moment his back was turned or his attention momentarily distracted, I would disappear, streaking through the stables and back into the house, through a side door and into the shrubbery on the other side of the building, then slipping through the lower branches of the plantation into the darkness of the wood. Or, from the kitchen garden, taking a route behind the greenhouses and through a narrow door in the wall kept hidden by a thick curtain of ivy, leaving Mr Ratton slack-jawed with amazement, as though he had just witnessed me disappear into thin air! Without a word ever being said on the subject, the servants became complicit in my evasions, denying having seen me all morning, claiming I had mentioned a trip to the village when they knew I was, in fact, crouched in the tack room with both hands over my mouth to stifle my giggles. I took care to use a variety of circuitous routes to and from the gatehouse, melting into the woodland at various points, emerging again at others, or arriving home down the drive as though from a visit to the village. Mr Ratton questioned me closely about how I had spent my day, standing proprietorially by the library fireplace with his cup balanced on the mantle and a dribble of butter down his chin while I sat at the table and arranged the tea things, and made vague responses to his enquiries.

  I did not, however, forget my obligation to the Post Mistress’ son, and requested that Ratton should find him work.

  ‘He is a veteran,’ I said, ‘as well as a former employee here. We ought to find him something.’

  ‘I know the lad,’ Ratton sneered. ‘A stuttering fool, reclusive and peculiar.’

  ‘He seems good with his hands,’ I persevered, ‘even if he isn’t very communicative. I’m sure my brother would want you to help him.’

  Ratton humphed, and bit into another muffin. ‘Where did you say you went today?’ he asked, with his mouth full.

  These shenanigans were curtailed pending another protracted visit by George, Rita and a posse of guests including a number of artistic types who cluttered up the hallway with their easels and bored me rigid each evening with lugubrious recitations of their over-worked verse.

  I had a particularly hard time of it evading an emaciated, earnest young poet called Josiah Morely, who made no bones about his desire to ‘break the holy hymen and enter the citadel of ecstasy,’ and thereby ‘release the inner bird, trapped and faint, to fly in rapturous crescendo.’ I had several crumpled and ink-stained odes pressed into my hands or slipped under my door to that effect. Mr Ratton, inflamed by Morely’s unambiguous language and intent, ratcheted up his own assaults, claiming me as his dinner companion and ensuring I took a seat next to him in the motorcades in which we travelled to various scenic waterfalls and panoramic view-points in the county in search of artistic inspiration. Both men were manageable, with cold, monosyllabic responses and withering looks, during the daytime, but as evening drew on, and their consumption of my brother’s wines eroded their restraint, it became more difficult to handle them.

  One evening Morely accosted me in the billiard room, pressing me up against the panelling with more strength than I had expected him to be able to muster, thrust his tongue into my mouth and his hand between my legs. In my struggle I knocked a marble bust from a plinth. Ratton was the first to arrive. He soon gathered what had taken place and while he took Morely to task, I slipped away and headed for my rooms. Unfortunately, Ratton gave chase, ca
tching up with me on the landing of the north wing where my rooms were situated, a remote region of the house not used for guests because of its unappealing view over the stable block and kitchen gardens and a tendency to draughts in winter. It seemed unlikely help would come. I knew, by the dilated look in his eye and the lascivious pout of his full, rather womanish lips, what his intention was. He lunged at me without preamble and we tussled, briefly.

  ‘Mr Ratton,’ I protested, fending his fat little hands off my body and straining my neck in an effort to avoid his panting mouth, ‘you will think better of this, if you calm yourself.’

  ‘I’ll bring you to heel, Miss Evelyn. This game has gone on long enough,’ he said, hoarsely, snuffling into my neck. ‘You’ll be glad of it, when I’ve broken you. What Morely has begun, I will finish, and better than he could.’ He was flushed and aroused, his pupils shrunk to pin-pricks, his tiny, doughy nose moist with rapid, shallow breathing. The smell of brandy on his breath was acrid. As Morely had done, he pressed me against the cold wall, his knee up hard between my legs, one hand firmly clamped onto one of my breasts while the other groped behind me for the handle of my door. If he managed to open it, and push me inside, I knew I was done for.

  Help came from a tall, dishevelled man I had not seen before. He emerged from some room further along the landing where, I was later to discover, he had been ensconced for the duration of the visit painting a large and experimental canvas commissioned by my sister in law. He had been having trays of food sent to his rooms where he had worked feverishly day and night, taking no part in the entertainments and excursions organised for the other guests. His shirt was partially undone and smeared with paint, his hair unkempt, dark and unruly. He didn’t look as though he had washed, let alone shaved, for days; a shadowed growth bristled on his chin and cheeks. His eyes were dull, clouded with fatigue or perhaps dazed by artistic frenzy which my scuffle with Ratton had disturbed. His feet were bare. He hoisted Ratton away from me and flung him without ceremony onto the landing, which was uncarpeted and probably rather dirty. Ratton scrambled to his feet and scurried off with his tail between his legs.