But today, Elizabeth was helpless and Gordon needed Ruth. He had begged her to stay and help Nanny Taylor look after Elizabeth. Ruth could not risk damage to her reputation. Mike Hamilton must be made aware of his place. She said, ‘Where were you last night? Anyone could have seen me. You left me hanging around the stables like some little floozy.’
‘I canna get awa’ in the middle of harvest.’ He made a move towards her and smiled. ‘Anyway, there’s nobody about on the estate at night. Nobody but you, looking to your horse. Nobody suspects. I’ll see ye tonight, after dark.’
She side-stepped him and gave him an icy look. ‘I’m not here to ask if you are cooling off, though I warn you – nobody takes me for a fool.’ She put her head back and looked him in the eyes. ‘I spent last night going through the wages book.’
Mike Hamilton’s eyes blazed. ‘You did? What the hell for? Ye’re not the mistress of Ingersley.’
‘I came to Ingersley to be my sister’s companion,’ she said. ‘She cannot be left alone for a moment in case she has blackouts.’ The riding accident had left Elizabeth epileptic and though Elizabeth pretended it was not so, she was slowly going blind.
‘Blackouts? Give it its name, woman. Your sister has fits. Full-blown fits. I’ve seen her.’
‘Fits, then. I’m not her keeper,’ Ruth answered sharply. ‘Elizabeth has Nanny, a trained nurse, as well as myself.’ Yesterday Elizabeth had confessed that though she could see faces, her close vision was going and she could not do the accounts, which, since the estate could no longer employ a bookkeeper, had become a duty of the wife of the master of Ingersley. So Ruth had done them for her. Now she said, ‘You are getting above yourself, Mike. Sir Gordon has asked me to take on some of Lady Campbell’s duties.’ ‘Don’t come your English airs and graces wi’ me. Gordon Campbell and his wife dinnae use their titles.’ His face was dark with fury. ‘I’ve known Gordon all my life. We were next-door neighbours. We were never as rich as the Campbells, who could waste a hundred acres of their good arable land on park and pasture. But my father’s still farming. And making a profit.’
‘And you’ll make your profit here. I know what you are up to,’ she said in a controlled voice. ‘You are drawing money for workers who don’t exist. You want us to think that there are thirty casual workers.’
‘Us? Speaking for the family, are you?’ Hamilton said in a fury.
‘I am making myself indispensable. Everyone on this estate will be here because I trust them.’ Ruth felt a quick thrill of satisfaction at the prospect of being the chatelaine of Ingersley. ‘I warn you, Mike. Make good that money or I’ll have no choice but to tell.’
‘You bitch!’ Mike came close again and put his face so near to hers that Ruth had to flinch away. ‘I do the extra work meself. Making a few bob this way is an accepted benefit of the manager,’ he said. He was so close that she could smell the sweat that had broken out on him, feel the heat of his breath on her face. He said, ‘What if I tell Gordon that you aren’t the good, church-going girl he thinks you are? If I tell Gordon that his sister-in-law warms the factor’s bed …?’
Mike Hamilton was too sure of his power over her. The dangerous thought that he might tell made rage rise in her, concentrated her mind sharply and brought two high spots of colour burning on her cheeks. But she replied coolly, ‘You dare threaten me?’
‘I’m remindin’ ye.’ He almost spat the words out. ‘Ye’ll be back for more.’ Then he grabbed her by both arms and pulled her up hard against him. His eyes narrowed. ‘Ye’ll come crawling,’ he said. ‘Ye’ll be crying for me to hurt and bruise ye.’ He forced her arms down to her sides then twisted them quickly until with one hand he held both wrists behind her back.
Ruth snorted her contempt of him and did not struggle. She enjoyed the rough handling, the callused hand that was dragging her thin blouse open. She enjoyed the feel of his unshaven chin scraping down her neck, his open mouth fastening over her breast and the pink nipple that was distended with anticipation.
Mike Hamilton was as needful as she. He had to have her. She delighted in her wild sexuality. Her riding master had whipped her into shape when she was fifteen and had introduced her to the new rubber protection – the Dutch cap – a few years ago. Their affair had continued until she was called to Ingersley. And she’d been at Ingersley barely a month when she’d singled out Mike, estate factor and farm manager, and introduced him to practices he had before only dreamed about. Now, delicious sensations were thrilling and spreading about her loins as she said in a low, throaty voice, ‘If you make a mark on me, Mike Hamilton, I’ll have you thrown out on your ear.’
He let her breast drop for a moment and a tight little smile came to play around the corners of his full, sensuous mouth. ‘Ye canna do that. Ye dinnae have the power.’ He tightened his grip on her wrists, making her gasp. The cold morning air was chill on her hot, attar-of-roses-scented skin as he brushed aside the silk, exposing the other breast, and slowly brought his mouth down again, hearing the in-drawing of her breath as she felt the increasing suction and his teeth biting into her soft flesh. He stopped, released her and said, ‘Show that to Sir Gordon Campbell. And ye can tell him that his little angel of mercy is nae better than a bitch on heat.’
Before she could strike him, for sensation was only just tingling back into her hands, he was through the open doorway and out in the yard. She did not stop to pull the blouse around her exposed, reddened breasts. She followed him to the door and saw that he was heading for the milking shed. She called out, ‘Pay that money back. Today. Or I’ll …’ She stopped. A young man, the cook’s son, was flattened against the wall. Ruth saw his alarmed glance travelling to her breast then, blushing, to her face as she pulled the cardigan about her. She demanded, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing, miss.’ He pretended nonchalance. ‘I’m going to the field.’
‘Labourers are not allowed in the yard.’
‘No, miss. I was late.’
‘So you broke the rules.’ She could not let it go. Suppose he had heard it all? He most certainly had heard her own last words. This young man, Andrew, had come to her attention before as too clever and proud to make a docile servant. ‘We can’t keep you after this. I will report you.’
The boy had an insolent look. He put his head back, looked down on her and said, ‘If you will, you will,’ then went past her to the beech hedge, which, without even speeding his pace, he vaulted as easily as a young colt.
Later, Andrew, waist deep in the cornfield, pitched his fork under the last cut on the end of the row and turned it expertly and gently so as not to damage the ripe ears of golden wheat. A couple of hours of this heat and breeze was needed to dry it, then the casuals – women and girls from the town – would tie the stooks. The corn would then be ready for the threshing machine and this year’s harvest would be safely home. His tanned arms were aching and the muscles were stretched tight at the back of his strong legs. Slowly he straightened and called out to Shuggie, the simple lad who helped out when the farm needed extra hands, ‘Shug. Dinner. Finish that row.’
‘I didnae hear the whistle,’ Shuggie said. ‘Master said, “Wait for whistle”.’
Andrew pushed the curly dark hair back from his damp forehead and shaded his eyes to look over towards the farm buildings. The sun was high. They had been toiling since six with nothing to sustain them but water from the carrier that had been carted to the fields a few days ago. ‘He’s a bad bugger,’ Andrew said quietly, of Mike Hamilton. The heat haze made distances appear greater and he could only just make out the long line of Irish reapers who were scything at the far end of the next field. He could not see Mike Hamilton amongst them. But he ought to be here blowing his damned whistle. It was well past midday and time for their break.
He was hungry. Ma would have the food laid out on trestle tables in the barn; soup and bread, cheese, cold cuts of meat and a barrel of ale. Andrew scratched fiercely at his chest. He had taken off his vest earlier in
the day and tiny harvest flies had irritated and bitten him in the damp places – the inside creases of elbows and knees and under the curly black hair on his chest. He’d have liked to take a picnic down to Ingersley’s private beach. The beach was a half-mile of flat sand under the cliffs that sloped away to a little sheltered bay that could only be reached on horseback or on foot by someone who knew the trail through the buckthorn bushes as he did. But the beach was out of bounds to all the field and house servants, though this was another rule that Andrew liked to break. How could a family own a beach and prevent anyone from walking along the seashore?
He screwed up his eyes and looked towards the lane beyond the field gate to see if Hamilton were near. He was not. Andrew stuck his pitchfork into the ground and called out again to Shug. ‘He must be busy. Leave your fork there.’ He grinned. ‘Are you hungry?’
Shuggie threw the pitchfork on to the ground and his uncontrolled features broke into a grin. ‘I’m goin’ hame for dinner.’ His old father, whom the lad loved, was crippled with arthritis from fifty years’ work on the land. They depended upon Shuggie’s money. ‘Dad needs ma wages.’ The farm hands were paid on Fridays, at midday. Shuggie earned fourpence an hour, and though he could neither read nor write he knew to the last halfpenny how much he was due. ‘I get one pound four shillings today.’
Andrew grinned back. ‘Don’t leave your fork lying on the ground. You’ll never find it again. Look.’ He demonstrated for Shuggie as he did every time – pitching the two prongs into the hard ground – and when Shuggie had done the same they left the fields, Andrew striding, Shuggie stumbling beside him along the rutted, stony lane, the red dust from the clay soil powdering their boots and the string-tied ends of their trousers.
They were in sight of the barn when Andrew saw Mike Hamilton approaching down the lane, loose-limbed, arms swinging at his sides. ‘Where are you going?’ Hamilton shouted. ‘Who told you to stop work?’
Andrew stood and waited for him. ‘You know where we’re going,’ he said. ‘You should have blown your whistle half an hour ago.’
Shuggie hopped from one foot to the other. ‘Where’s my wages? My one pound four shillings? I get my wages today.’
‘No pay for you,’ Hamilton raged. ‘Ye’re no’ worth it.’
Shuggie’s jaw dropped and he began to pant and whimper like a beaten puppy. ‘But I’ve worked all week. Twelve hours a day. Fourpence an hour. That’s one pound four shillings.’
Hamilton came a step closer, raised his hand to Shuggie and spat out, ‘Get off with ye! Don’t answer back, ye stupid …’
‘Come off it!’ Andrew would not stand for this even if Shuggie didn’t defend himself. Cool excitement filled him as his fists closed and he stood up to Hamilton. ‘You can’t do that. The lad works twice as hard as anyone on the payroll. He’d earn six and six a day on a good estate.’
‘It’s none to do wi’ you.’ Hamilton turned on Andrew. ‘Shut your mouth. I’m warning ye. Any more from you and ye’ll be signing on the dole every day – wi’ your daft friend.’
Hamilton was a good half-head shorter than Andrew, though more powerfully set. This morning Andrew had stood meek and apologetic while Ruth Bickerstaffe threatened him with dismissal over what he’d seen and heard. Hamilton thought he could do the same to him, did he? Well, he could have another think. The Commander said everyone would be treated honestly. Sir Gordon was a man of his word. And Andrew was a man of his. He would not stand for lies or unfair treatment of Shuggie who knew nothing about the new order. He stepped back, the better to swing his fist if need be. ‘Be signing on, will I?’
‘You’ve just lost a day’s pay, Stewart,’ Hamilton said, but he backed away.
Andrew’s left hand shot out and grabbed Hamilton’s shoulder. His muscles tensed as he held the brute at arm’s length. Hamilton stood stock still, surprised into inaction. ‘If we’re going to lose our bloody wages, Shuggie,’ Andrew said through clenched teeth to the weeping lad, ‘watch this!’ He brought his right fist up hard under Hamilton’s jaw. There was a satisfying crack and a sharp pain in his knuckles as Hamilton fell to his knees, roaring, clutching his face, blood streaming from his mouth.
‘Come on, Shug.’ Andrew took hold of Shuggie’s shirt and pushed him into a run. ‘I’ll see about your wages. You’ll get paid.’
He hared off up the dusty lane, Shug stumbling, crying, behind him. And as he went, Andrew knew somehow that he had become a better man. He was not ashamed of himself. He didn’t care if they gave him his books – his marching orders. He couldn’t stand cheats and liars. And he couldn’t stand by and watch a poor underdog getting beaten.
He ran up the lane, leaving Mike Hamilton holding his bloody face, and made straight for Ingersley House. He would test the new order. The kitchen was deserted. Ma would be down at the barn. There was nobody about in the servants’ hall. Andrew untied the cords on his trouser bottoms, stamped his feet to get rid of the dust and wiped his boots on the damp floor cloth that hung on the waste pipe under the sink. Then he took a quick glance at himself in the looking-glass that hung near the green baize door, placed there under the old regime so the servants could check their appearance before waiting on the family.
He looked fierce. His brows were drawn together and his hair was curly and damp from his efforts. It was Lady Campbell he wanted to see – the sweet, gentle woman who had taught him to play the piano. He ran a hand over his hair to flatten it and at last gave a rueful smile.
There was a new electric lift which went from the top, attic floor down to the kitchen, with stops on every landing. It had been installed for Lady Campbell’s benefit so she could get about the house in safety without the risk on the grand, sweeping main staircase of having what the servants called fits but they were told to call turns or blackouts.
Andrew would not dare to use either the lift or the main staircase, so he ran up the steep servants’ stairs – a stone spiral in the west wing tower. He was breathless when he reached the drawing-room floor and stood for a moment, wondering whether he might knock at the drawing-room door or try the study. Then he heard the lift coming down at the far end of the landing. It was Lady Campbell with the Commander’s old nurse, Nanny Taylor.
Nanny Taylor was a strait-laced, straight-backed woman who had always looked old to Andrew. She had been only twenty-three when she first came to Ingersley as trained midwife, nurse and nanny to the baby Gordon. Over the years she had delivered all the babies on the estate – was even known to them all by the name of Nanny – as well as having sole charge of Gordon after his mother died when he was five years old. When Gordon joined the Royal Navy, Nanny Taylor spent a few years with a sister in Canada, returning when Elizabeth and Gordon’s first baby was expected. She was very sharp in her mind – though it was rumoured amongst the servants that she was a secret tippler.
Nanny, dressed as usual from head to toe in working grey, waited to close the lift gates after Lady Campbell. Lady Campbell, wearing a close-fitting dress of blue silk, was tall and stately, perhaps not as pretty as her sister Ruth but in Andrew’s eyes a hundred times more attractive. She was approachable and took a personal interest in everyone who worked for her and was so feminine that every man on the estate went weak at the knees in her company, though she was seldom seen about the estate since she was dependent on help.
Nobody knew how little Lady Campbell could see. Her eyes looked normal as they went from speaker to speaker but today, Andrew knew, she had not seen him, for she started to talk with indiscreet excitement. ‘I’ll wait for Gordon in the drawing room. Leave us alone when he arrives, Nanny. Gordon likes us to go to the bedroom after the court sessions. They are a terrible strain. He needs me.’
‘Of course I’ll leave you alone. I know better than to be a gooseberry!’ Nanny stopped here, for she had seen Andrew. She put a finger to her lips to indicate that he must not let Lady Campbell know of his presence.
Andrew stepped back quietly into the shadows of the study d
oorway as Lady Campbell came down the landing, one hand placed on Nanny Taylor’s arm, her feet as light as a dancer’s, saying as she came, ‘Did Gordon say what time he’d be home?’ She passed within a yard of Andrew, without a flicker of recognition of his presence, a beautiful, scented woman who longed to be in her husband’s arms.
Nanny Taylor looked at him and put her fingers to her lips again. She replied, ‘I’ll ask Ruth, dear,’ as she led the way into the drawing room.
A heady French scent lingered in the air and Andrew wondered at Lady Campbell’s not having noticed his own sweaty, reaped-corn and earthy odour. He waited a couple of minutes before he heard Nanny say, ‘Was that a knock at the door, Elizabeth?’
‘Was it? I didn’t hear.’
‘Yes. It was. I’ll go.’ And the old nurse came to the door and said in a loud, surprised voice, ‘Ah. One of the workers. Is there anything?’
Andrew squared his shoulders. ‘It’s important. Or I wouldn’t ask.’
Nanny’s quick smile flashed off before it could light up her face. She said, ‘Come in. Lady Campbell will see you.’
Andrew found Lady Campbell seated by the centre one of three tall windows on the long wall, opposite a marble fireplace whose hearth was filled with jardinières containing ferns and aspidistras. The rooms were all spacious, with high ceilings and tall windows. From the front the house appeared to have four storeys, but because it was built on sloping ground, the garden floor, which housed the servants’ entrance and quarters, had no windows on to the front and was two floors below the room where Lady Campbell now sat, waiting to hear Andrew.
Andrew was embarrassed by what he’d heard and irritated by this charade, but understood well enough that the nurse was colluding with Lady Campbell in her pretence of being able to see. She put out her hand and said in a soft, soothing voice, ‘Please, sit down,’ then whispered to Nanny Taylor, who had gone to stand behind her chair, ‘Who is it?’
Flora's War Page 3
