by Faith Martin
‘But I bet she never gave you the chance, hmm?’ Sid said, his smile going, the twinkle in his eyes fading, leaving them looking dull and cloudy.
Jenny felt her own good mood vaporize. ‘She looks ill,’ she said, by way of explanation as well as excuse. Not for anything would she tell Sid about Mrs Jarvis’s tirade against his brother. For one thing, she’d never betray another woman like that. Besides, it would hardly be diplomatic.
But Sid didn’t need telling. Instead, he reached for his spoon and began, unnecessarily, to stir his tea. For a long moment, the only sound was that of his laboured breathing. Once more, Jenny felt herself being drawn into the drama of the Kelton family saga, and opened her mouth to tell Sid that she really didn’t want to know.
But she’d left it too late.
‘Mrs Jarvis was widowed recently. A few months back, in fact. Her husband, Tom, had a smallholding just over in The Dell. A fair few acres, some sheep, goats, free-range chickens and eggs, that sort of thing.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Jenny said sadly. It was not illness, as such, that had drawn the lines of defeat on Mrs Jarvis’s face, or scored the wounds deep in her soul.
‘The thing is,’ Sid continued diffidently, ‘she blames Stan.’ He sighed heavily, and shrugged his painfully thin shoulders. ‘So does everyone else, for that matter,’ he added, with determined truthfulness.
Jenny felt a cold hand snake up her back. ‘Oh?’ she asked warily. ‘Why’s that?’
Sid looked up and met her eyes. He looked pretty defeated himself. ‘Because he was to blame, I expect,’ he admitted quietly. ‘The Dell adjoins Kelton land. It’s good grazing, and the big barn Tom Jarvis had built near the spinney was ideal for an over-winter feeding place and shelter for our own flocks. But Tom Jarvis didn’t want to sell. And,’ Sid sighed, forcing himself to face up to facts, ‘I daresay Stan wouldn’t really have offered him a fair price.’
So Delia was right, Jenny thought glumly. Stan Kelton did own the farm in all but name. He did the buying, the selling, and no doubt everything else as well.
Sid stopped stirring his tea and looked up. ‘Things began to happen after that.’ His voice was flat and curiously lifeless. ‘The river got mysteriously dammed and flooded the lower pasture of The Dell — Tom lost his whole flock of sheep. Then, at market, Stan began to undercut him, selling at a loss to himself just to ensure Jarvis, too, lost money. He was forced to take out a bank loan . . . and they foreclosed on him,’ Sid continued grimly. That he felt guilt and remorse over what had happened to his neighbour was obvious, even though it was none of his own doing. That his brother Stan felt neither was a foregone conclusion, lying heavily between them. ‘There was a rumour that Stan was threatening to take Tom to court over every little thing, knowing that Tom wasn’t much for forms and letters and such, and couldn’t afford a solicitor anyhow.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It was probably true,’ he acknowledged, his papery voice little more than a whisper now. ‘It’s just the sort of thing he’d do. But, whatever was said or not said, the result was that Tom Jarvis died of a heart attack brought on by all the stress, and Stan got the land cheap from the bank, just like he wanted.’
Delia’s impassioned speech of less than an hour ago suddenly flooded back into Jenny’s mind. Stan Kelton always got what he wanted. A leech, living off the blood of others . . .
‘But why on earth is Mrs Jarvis working here?’ she asked, instead of asking why Sid Kelton let his younger brother get away with such things. For she already knew the answer, as must everyone else: Sid was simply no match for Stan. He probably never had been. And yet, she couldn’t find it in her heart to think less of Sid. Instead, she found herself despising Stanley Kelton all the more.
Sid shook his head, his skin stretched tight across his face, his eyes seeming to sink ever deeper into his head.
‘Their cottage went with the land,’ he explained. ‘Poor Gladys was facing eviction. But my brother didn’t really need the cottage — our shepherds and farmhands all live in estate cottages already. Plus we own a fair few properties in the village itself. And, I daresay, not even Stan had the nerve to throw a widow out onto the streets. He may not care what people think of him, but even Stan knows he has to live in these parts. And there are some limits, even for him.’
He sighed and drained his mug of tea. He didn’t look any the better for it.
‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘Stan has an eye for a bargain. He let Gladys stay on at the house, provided she came and worked here. Delia never was much of a housekeeper, and of course, he doesn’t have to pay Gladys anything like a decent wage. He takes half her pay before she even gets it, as rent for the cottage. Yep, always had an eye for a bargain has Stan.’
When he finished, he looked and sounded exhausted. In silence, Jenny collected their mugs and took them to the sink. What could she say? What could she possibly say?
The devil, poor Gladys Jarvis had called him. Playing evil tricks.
How right she was, it seemed.
CHAPTER THREE
The dog had stayed on in the kitchen when Sid returned to his place by the fire in the living room. Obviously the mutt knew better than to enter the inner sanctum of the house, even with Sid for protection. Now he lifted his head and shot to his feet. His ears, which had been flopped lazily over his nose, sprang to quivering attention. In a flash he shot like a black and white streak of lightning to the big Welsh-style dresser, which stood about four inches off the floor on sturdy square legs.
There, before her astonished eyes, the dog did a trick worthy of any stage magician (or octopus) and flattened his flanks and rear end enough to sidle into the tiny space. Even so, his spine scraped along the top of the wood, making her wince in empathy. His shining eyes disappeared into the gloom and the last bit of all to disappear was his plumy tail, withdrawn into the cavity like a mouse going down a hole.
Jenny fought the sudden urge to applaud and quickly turned away from the dresser. After a performance like that, she was not about to give the animal’s position away. She’d just picked up a spoon with which to stir the gravy when the door opened on the now-familiar blast of snow-chilled wind. She was already reaching resignedly for the mop by the time the last of them had straggled in.
Bill, the younger of the sons, gave her a guilty look as she quickly eradicated his soggy and muddy footprints from the floor, along with all the rest. Bert, she noticed, headed straight for the table and sat with the quick and grateful slump of a truly exhausted man. Yet he looked fit enough. It was not the actual work, she thought wisely, that was sapping his energy.
Like a king ascending his rightful throne, Stan Kelton sat in the head chair and unbuttoned his coat. His hands were huge and dirty, and Jenny wondered how many sheep he had dug out of the snowdrifts that day.
She came and stood by the table. ‘Are you going to wash your hands?’ she asked him bluntly, and what little desultory conversation there had been, mostly Delia asking Bill if the road to the village was cleared yet, stopped abruptly.
Stan Kelton met her eyes, then glanced down at his hands. ‘Later, perhaps,’ he growled, bristling at her challenge. ‘Why?’ He thrust his whiskered chin forward, brows beetling in anticipation of her defiance.
Jenny pursed her lips. ‘You can eat straight after you’ve been rolling about in manure and clearing out the chicken pens for all I care,’ she conceded loftily. Her voice was now as cold as the snow outside, ‘So long as neither I nor my food are blamed for it if you come down later with the galloping gut-rot.’
She straightened her back and met his eye, which was not easy since she stood at six feet one inch tall. She didn’t even so much as blink. One way or another, she’d had a lot of practice at this sort of thing. She’d once had a lot of trouble over just this issue, concerning a canal engineer she’d once cooked for, and his very inquisitive pet rat. That unfortunate alliance had resulted in a truly lamentable incident that had left a rather queasy feeling in her stomach for quite a few weeks afterwards.
&
nbsp; She had learned from that very hard lesson to get things straight about matters of hygiene right from the start.
Stan held her gaze for a moment, then grunted. She took that to mean an acknowledgement, nodded once and returned to the oven. Once there, she dished up the meal in silence, served it, and in silence it was eaten. After a few tentative bites, Bill, Delia and young Jeremy, Bert’s son, dug in heartily, the young nearly always being the most ravenous. It did her heart good to see such sturdy appetites.
Bert ate with a stolid resignation that was painful on the eye. Jenny hated to see anybody eat and not thoroughly enjoy the experience. Indeed, it was so totally unnatural it gave her goosebumps. She eyed him thoughtfully over the mashed potatoes.
Stan Kelton himself ate everything with gusto, in painful contrast to his older brother, who could only manage a small portion of his food. This Jenny also found distressing, but forgivable, since poor Sid looked physically incapable of eating a hearty meal.
She found the silence oppressive, but knew better than to break it. Only after the last plate had been pushed away did someone speak, and then, predictably, it was the tyrant himself.
‘Well, that was all right, Miss . . . er. . . ?’
‘Starling.’
‘Right. Starling. But a bit plain. I expected something fancier from a professional cook.’
Sid coughed. ‘I thought it was delicious, my dear. I only wish I could have eaten more. I do like my potatoes like that. Parsley and herbs sprinkled on them before they go into the pan, yes?’
‘Yeah, nice grub,’ Bill suddenly said, his shoulders hunching, as if expecting a blow. His eyes, however, blazed defiance, and when they met the gaze of his father, they refused to drop.
‘And what would you know?’ Stan sneered at him, his large body stiffening at this unexpected show of rebellion. ‘You’re as green as a cabbage, boy. And about as useless.’
Jenny stared at him in astonishment. For a start, she couldn’t believe that Stan Kelton felt the need to even reply. It was such a small thing to get riled about. Surely the man wasn’t such a megalomaniac that a mere comment about food would need to be trampled on so thoroughly?
No, she was sure that wasn’t the issue. As Bill glowered and turned red, she suddenly understood that this argument had nothing to do with her food. Which was a relief, to be sure. No, this had been brewing for some time by the looks of it. It had only needed Bill to work up the nerve to go against his father, even in so small a way, for the floodgates to open.
As Sid reached out and laid a warning hand on Bill’s arm, Stan Kelton got to his feet. His fists, Jenny noticed, were clenched at his sides. He looked ready to explode.
‘I’ve made an apple and cinnamon tart for pudding. With custard, of course. Who wants some?’ she asked quickly. She hated scenes. People, she thought grimly, really should have more sense than to go out of their way to create them. Especially at mealtimes!
‘I do,’ Bill said quickly, his ruddy, handsome face darkening still more as he continued the pointless defiance. ‘I can’t think of anything else I want more,’ he added, just in case he hadn’t made it plain enough.
Stan Kelton laughed. It was as dismissive and derisive a laugh as the cook had ever heard. It made even her teeth clench together, as if someone had just scraped a long hard nail against a blackboard — and she wasn’t even the recipient of it.
‘Have your apple pie, lad,’ Stan sneered, relegating Bill from thirty-six to sixteen with contemptuous ease. ‘It might put some lead in your pencil, though I doubt it.’
Bill at once reared to his feet like an angry lion. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ he challenged, blue eyes blazing.
His father’s implacable brown eyes stared back at him. ‘I mean, boy, that it’s Bert who’s had to be careful. And he was, more praise to him. He had young Jeremy there in proper wedlock.’
Jeremy, a young lad who seemed to have the ability to disappear into the wallpaper, since Jenny had hardly noticed him at all, blushed like a beetroot, and ducked his head. He was a handsome boy, with rich brown hair and the dark gentle eyes of a deer. His natural shyness would have made him easy cannon fodder for his grandfather, Jenny guessed, with real pity. But, fortunately for him, it was his uncle Bill who was standing against the firing squad wall at this particular moment in time.
‘You were always free to go about and sow your wild oats where you liked,’ Stan continued, his sneering voice grating on everyone’s nerves. And under the dresser, even the mutt shivered. ‘But I don’t see much evidence of oats around here. What’s the matter, lad? Not capable?’
‘Enough of that!’
The voice was weak, for it came from Sid, but the tone was surprisingly forceful. It stopped both Stan and Bill in surprised mid-threat.
‘Aye, enough,’ Stan said quickly, before Bill, who was staring at his uncle in astonishment, could respond. ‘Let’s sit down and all have some of this here tart. It’s what I’ve paid hard-earned cash for, anyways.’
Jenny turned to her oven, lips pursed. Paid for, indeed. Anyone would think he’d forked out a fortune instead of just the going wage. She had a good mind to give him mince tomorrow — and as greasy as she could make it. But pride forbade it. She wouldn’t serve greasy mince to the sheepdog let alone a human being — even if said Homo sapiens was named Stan Kelton.
She took the huge jug of creamy and steaming custard, flavoured with rum, to the table, and cut the large tart into generous portions.
Delia, she noticed, had the grace to blush as she met the cook’s eyes. But, like her brother, she too seemed hell-bent on rebellion, and Jenny still couldn’t see Stanley getting any cooked meals from his daughter when her own two weeks here were up.
Now wasn’t that a shame?
* * *
‘You’d better come with me and pick out the goose,’ Bert said to her an hour or so later. The kitchen was cleared of both debris and inhabitants, and his unexpected presence just behind her left shoulder made her jump in surprise.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, taking a shuffling step back. Close up, he looked even more tired than before. His skin was striving to match his greying hair.
‘Goose?’ she echoed blankly, then nodded. ‘Oh, goose. I didn’t see any as I came in this morning.’
‘They’re probably still in the barn. Delia’s supposed to let them out first thing, but I daresay she forgot.’ He walked towards the door, pausing by the dresser as he did so. ‘Come on, out of it.’
No movement.
‘Pooch!’ he growled, his no-nonsense tone causing one white paw to emerge, followed by a black nose. Like a snake, the dog wriggled out into the open and gave Bert his most impressively pathetic look. ‘Come on, out,’ Bert said, but managed a bare tilt of his lips.
‘I’ve never seen a dog get into such a small space before,’ Jenny said, unaccountably moved by the man’s smile. She wondered how long it had been since he’d smiled last.
‘You’d be surprised,’ Bert said, glancing down at the droop-eared, droop-tailed dog. ‘He hates sheep, you see, that’s his problem. He’ll do anything to get out of coming into the fields with us. Never known a sheepdog like him. Oh, he can do the job, but you can almost hear him muttering and complaining about it under his breath as he rounds them up. And he hates sleeping in the barn at night. I’ve had to search the house many a night to find his hiding place. If Dad catches him in the house, even once . . .’ he let the sentence trail off, but frowned down at the dog.
The mutt wagged a hopeful tail.
‘Stupid hound,’ Bert muttered, but absently stroked the dog’s silky head before turning back to look at the cook. ‘I should get your coat, if I were you,’ he advised her. ‘It’s perishing out there. More snow to come, I reckon,’ he added. And as he looked at her, his eyes seemed to focus on her properly for the first time. And he was not the first man to realize that the Amazonian cook was surprisingly attractive.
Jenny agreed with his assessment of the
weather a few moments later, as she stepped out into the dark courtyard and shuddered in the cold. The dog slouched by Bert’s side as they headed across the yard, their boots crunching deep in the snow, the light from the kitchen window giving the night a lovely orange glow. Running alongside one wall of the house was the ramshackle corridor that led to the stables. It was probably bitterly cold in there as well, but at least it gave anybody going from the house into the stable block shelter from the elements.
As soon as Bert pushed open the door to the barn, something flew out of the darkness from within — something white, spectral and honking.
The dog gave a yelp of alarm and shot off into the gloomy interior, haunches a bare few inches off the ground, tongue lolling from his mouth in silent terror, the honking spectre fast on his heels.
By her side, Bert gave a low chuckle. ‘That gander hates Pooch with a vengeance. Mind you, that gander hates everybody. The geese are further on in.’ He turned and lit a small old-fashioned paraffin lamp that had been hanging on the doorjamb. ‘Just point out the bird you want, and I’ll see to it for you.’
Jenny wondered if the Keltons were so hard up that they couldn’t afford to have electric light laid on in the outbuildings, then decided that it was far more likely that Stan Kelton was so mean that he didn’t see why he should bother when sixty-year-old lamps still worked. And worker safety or risk of a fire be damned.
Jenny sighed and followed Bert inside. From somewhere came an outraged, terrified yelp that indicated the gander had scored a direct peck on Pooch’s posterior. Off to her left, the mutt quickly scrambled up a wide wooden ladder that led to the loft above, and for a moment the thwarted gander paced at the bottom, honking angrily.
No doubt he did so every night, frustrated by his inability to climb. Bert, or whoever was in charge of the geese, must keep their wings clipped, thus preventing flight. How annoying it must be for him, Jenny thought sympathetically, and turned to peruse the geese, her experienced eye picking out a young, tender-breasted bird.
