Netherwood01 - Netherwood

by Jane Sanderson

  ‘What was Julia like?’ she said now, on an impulse.

  He started slightly and Ellen stirred, up on his shoulders, then settled again.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Eve.

  ‘No, no, yer alright,’ Amos said. ‘It’s just, that’s t’first time in years anybody’s said ’er name out loud.’

  ‘Oh, Amos, that’s so sad.’

  ‘Well, who is there to mention ’er? She’s been dead more ’n twenty years.’

  ‘So what was she like?’ Eve said, again.

  Amos thought about it. It wasn’t easy for him to answer, not because it was painful, but because he’d lived so long without her. He remembered her not as a whole, but in small, disconnected details like the scar on her calf from a childhood dog bite, or the strange fleck of blue in one of her brown eyes. But he had to say something.

  ‘She were nobbut a child when we wed. Just sixteen,’ he said. ‘Tiny, like a little bird. Not a beauty, but she ’ad summat.’

  ‘Like Arthur. Not a beauty, but ’e ’ad summat.’

  They both laughed fondly at Arthur’s unquestionable lack of beauty. And they walked on to Beaumont Lane, where Amos handed over Ellen, somehow heavier asleep than when awake, then said goodnight and carried on alone.

  Inside, in spite of the long day and the lateness of the hour, Anna’s face was alight with excitement.

  ‘What?’ said Eve, with the smallest of warnings in her voice. She was in no mood for revelations, wanting only to sink into a chair and let the healing properties of strong tea revive her for the work still to be done before bed.

  ‘I have idea,’ said Anna.

  ‘An idea.’ Eve corrected her automatically. Anna took it for encouragement.

  ‘Da, an idea,’ she said. ‘You want hear?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Eve.

  ‘Imagine scene. A scene,’ said Anna, correcting herself this time. ‘Small tables with pretty cloths, maybe jugs of flowers.’

  ‘Sounds nice,’ said Eve.

  ‘Set for lunch.’

  ‘Dinner,’ said Eve.

  ‘Or dinner.’

  ‘Tea,’ said Eve.

  Anna conceded, with a nod of her head, that she should perhaps, by now, be using the local terms for meal times, though for her, dinner would always be a meal taken in the evening, while tea was always and for ever a hot drink.

  ‘So. Daily menu, with simple hot meals, served to paying customers who sit at tables,’ said Anna.

  ‘Sounds like t’Central Café in Barnsley,’ said Eve. ‘Oxtail soup, sausage an’ mash, poached egg on toast. Oooh, do we ’ave any eggs? I could murder a couple.’

  ‘So,’ said Anna, ignoring her. ‘As well, we sell usual things at door – pies, puddings – but also feed customers here, at our tables.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Eve, suddenly cottoning on.

  ‘Eve’s Café!’ Anna, like a child on Christmas morning, was wide-eyed and pink-cheeked. She looks like Eliza’s china doll, thought Eve. What a shame it was to disappoint her.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘If you just—’

  ‘Absolutely, definitely not.’

  ‘Why?’ said Anna.

  ‘Because we haven’t t’space. Because we haven’t any tables and chairs. Because folk wouldn’t come. Because we only have one pair of hands each.’

  Anna, her voice beseeching, said, ‘We do have space, if we move things a little. We buy tables and chairs. People will come. They love your food.’

  Eve sat forwards in her chair. ‘Anna,’ she said. ‘We’re managing to run a good little business, but perhaps you ’aven’t noticed that we’re flat out doin’ it. ’ave you heard t’expression “t’straw that broke t’camel’s back”?’

  Anna, a touch sulkily, said, ‘No.’

  ‘But you know what I’m getting at?’ said Eve. ‘Because between us we just manage all t’shoppin’ and choppin’ and stewin’ and bakin’, not to mention t’cleanin’, washin’ and feedin’ of four children. T’very last thing we want to be doin’ is inviting folk in to that parlour for their dinner or their tea. Especially miners in their mucky britches.’

  Anna said nothing. She knew it was a good idea, just as she knew Eve would say no. Now, it was simply a matter of waiting.

  Chapter 26

  On Sunday, after church but before luncheon, the countess and Lady Henrietta left Netherwood for Fulton House in Belgravia, the family’s London mansion. Lady Hoyland had felt in need of diversion since the house guests had dispersed, and London society would provide the perfect antidote to the ennui that had stolen over her since waking on Friday morning. Lady Hoyland craved variety. She liked a diary full of engagements, witty company, pretty garments that were Absolutely the Latest Thing. So she had proposed what she called a ‘girls’ jaunt’ which generally involved the twin pleasures of shopping and tea-taking. Sometimes she went alone to London, in which case she also indulged her taste for elegant gentlemen, whose ardent attentions made her feel younger and more vital, and quite restored her joie de vivre. Pleasures of the flesh, in actual fact, held little real interest for her, though occasionally she would allow one of her admirers an intimate liaison, just to keep them panting. But her excursions to the capital weren’t simply for social gratification, because in London, too, lay all the novelty of recent modernisation; the earl had just spent a fortune on bathrooms and lavatories throughout, and electric lights now performed daily miracles where once only gas lamps and smoky sconces had lit the scene. For all these reasons, Fulton House was absolutely her favourite place to be – that is, until she tired of it, and yearned again for her Netherwood garden.

  The jaunt excluded young Lady Isabella, who was still by and large kept prisoner by her nurse and her governess. She knew her mother and sister would return in a few days’ time with a tantalising collection of tied paper parcels and striped hat boxes, most of which would not be for her and it was a tragedy of circumstance that young Isabella, so much more generously endowed with materialism than Henrietta, was made to stay at home. She had watched them leave, gazing glumly from the rain-streaked nursery window as they processed down Lime Avenue away from the house. Henrietta and the luggage were squashed into the Daimler and they followed behind Lady Hoyland, who refused – at least in this regard – to move with the times and give up the landau. They were heading for the family railway station, a private facility known locally as Hoyland Halt, quite separate to the busy station built by the Midland Railway Company and used by the rest of Netherwood’s population. The fifth earl, Lady Hoyland’s father-in-law, had commissioned the building of the station and the laying of the tracks for the family’s private use and it had remained entirely at their disposal ever since. The intervening years had seen an enormous increase in the comings and goings of passengers, goods and coal trains to the town, but the little station was never used for industrial purposes, and the handsome dark green locomotive bearing the Hoyland crest was ever available for the earl and countess. So much better, even the countess conceded, than rattling and bouncing one’s way south in a coach-and-four. Mrs Adams had packed wicker hampers with a light luncheon for the ladies, and these were loaded on to the locomotive, along with padded baskets bearing produce from the kitchen garden and destined for the Fulton House kitchen.

  The earl, like Isabella, had also watched the ladies leave. His expression was anxious as the Daimler bearing his older daughter juddered into life and set off down the driveway. His anxiety stemmed not from their imminent absence from the family home, however, but from the fact that the last time Atkins had driven the car, its motor had inexplicably failed to start for the return journey, and he’d had to be ignominiously towed home by a couple of plough shires borrowed from the farm. So Lord Hoyland breathed an audible sigh of relief as, now, the vehicle accelerated smoothly then receded, diminished still further, and finally disappeared altogether from view.

  The earl w
as dressed in his shooting tweeds with Min and Jess, his two black labrador retrievers at his side, though all he actually intended to do was take an instructive stroll through the estate with Jem Arkwright, his land steward. There was flooding at the Home Farm again and Jem had some new ideas about improving the drainage. Teddy’s ruddy face bore the expression of a man profoundly satisfied with his lot; there was little he enjoyed more than a long discussion with Jem about the condition of his land, his buildings, his stock or his boundary fencing. All of this and more would be covered in their walk today, which would conclude with a pint of ale at the Hoyland Arms in the full and certain knowledge that, on his return, he would not be required to dress for dinner. He watched a thin plume of smoke rise from the lower lawns and trail into the cloudless sky; Hislop had a bonfire of wet leaves on the go. You could keep your colognes and your potpourris, thought the earl. Bottle that smell and you’d be a wealthy man.

  Teddy stooped to slap his dogs heartily on their glossy, muscular haunches. ‘Always a red letter day when the old girl takes off, ey?’ he said to them. He was fond of the countess, but fonder still, on balance, of his labradors. Fortunately he had never been forced to choose between them, and found that the way Clarissa organised her life meant that he managed to spend more time in canine company than in hers. They had both realised, soon after their marriage, that a prolonged period together was good for neither of them, since the more time they spent in each other’s pockets, the less they seemed to have in common. Once upon a time, many years ago, they had at least shared a physical attraction for each other, and Teddy’s bedtime visits to her rooms had been frequent and mutually fulfilling not to mention extremely productive, having provided an heir, a spare and a brace of lovely daughters. But that was then. These days, the earl was stout and occasionally gouty, and he neither sought nor received encouragement from his wife. When he needed it he found sexual relief with a discreet widow in Bloomsbury, whose clients were only of the very best kind, and in Netherwood he managed perfectly well without. There was enough on the estate to occupy him, frankly. And in any case, if he was honest, the quest for sexual ecstasy was proving increasingly exhausting. All that thrashing and straining seemed barely worth the goal.

  None of this, of course, was passing through the earl’s mind as he fussed his dogs and inhaled the restorative garden air. Jem Arkwright was usually to be found at his desk even on a Sunday, so the dogs sprang down the steps followed a little stiffly by the earl who crunched round the gravel sweep to the courtyard at the back of the house, a cobbled quad made up of stables and coach houses on two sides, and by estate offices on the other. Dickie had announced his intention to ride after church and his stallion, Marley, was saddled and ready in the yard, and, judging by the strenuous efforts of the little groom who held him, in a state of eager anticipation. The earl nodded to the boy, who stood to attention like a private on parade, while still hanging on to Marley’s halter.

  ‘Walk him round the yard before he makes a bolt for it,’ said Teddy. The boy nodded respectfully.

  ‘Yes m’lud,’ he said, although he didn’t move from where he stood. There was a whisper among the stable hands that the master’s head had been turned by motor cars and his judgement skewed when it came to the horses. It was nonsense, of course, a theory borne out of resentment that the coach and horses often lay idle while the Daimler was pressed yet again into action, but nevertheless Marley, just short of seventeen hands high, was a headstrong, restless beast and the young groom knew that once he was saddled he really needed the weight of a rider to keep him in check. If he set off with him round the yard, the horse would be halfway to Lancashire by the time Master Dickie had pulled his riding boots on. Groom and steed watched the earl warily but, having issued his instruction, the earl didn’t linger to see it carried out because Jem was emerging from his office, shrugging his broad shoulders into a mud-spattered waxed jacket, and greeting the earl heartily. The two men swung in unison out of the yard, followed by the dogs.

  Teddy had hoped that Tobias might join them. By his age the earl had known the features of his land better than he knew his own reflection in the looking glass; he’d been walking the estate since boyhood, and there was no aspect of its maintenance, improvement or upkeep that didn’t fascinate him. Toby, on the other hand, showed a lamentable indifference; he just wasn’t interested. He knew nothing about the collieries either, nothing about coal production, nothing about the workforce. Not once in his twenty-one years had he asked a sensible question about anything relating to estate matters. Henrietta, now, was a different story. Damned shame she was a girl, because she would have made a splendid heir. But there was no altering the order of things. The title would be Toby’s, and he would have to be made to face his responsibilities. He was a slippery customer though, thought the earl, as he and Jem strode out towards the Home Farm. This morning he had declined his father’s invitation with such charming and courteous regret that Teddy had quite forgotten he meant to insist.

  ‘We shall ’ave to dig new soakaways, run the water off the grazing land,’ said Jem. His words brought Teddy back, most willingly, from the vexing issue of his first-born son, and he gave his full attention to the poor drainage in the lower fields and Jem’s fascinating theory that if the trenches were this time dug in a herringbone pattern, the matter might be resolved once and for all.

  It was always cold in the dairy, necessarily so, considering the purpose of the place, and always, lingering in the air, was the smell of cheese. Sour, but not unpleasantly so. Even at the height of the summer the sun never fell directly on to this building, thanks to its clever positioning, and all along the walls, one inch from the floor, little openings let in air to further cool the cream and the milk and the cheese. The floor was made of stone flags, the walls were roughly plastered and whitewashed and the single small window had slatted shutters, which today were closed, though not for shade but for privacy.

  Tobias lay spent and spreadeagled on the floor. His britches and long johns were round his ankles, and the flagstones were cold against his bare buttocks, though the rest of him was warm enough. Betty Cross knelt astride him, fully clothed except for her drawers, which had been pulled off and tossed aside half an hour earlier. She smiled at him lazily and squirmed, fractionally, from side to side. Tobias moaned, half in ecstasy, half in pain, as his newly flaccid penis registered the movement. He watched her through hooded, sleepy eyes; her fingers slowly unlaced the ties of her coarse cotton chemise to reveal more of her breasts, then she leaned forwards, supporting herself on her arms and hanging over him, dropping low until his mouth was so close to her flesh that, had he wished, he could have taken a bite.

  ‘Well, well, Lord Fulton,’ she said in a mocking tone. Her breath smelled of Parma violet, and her teeth were sharp and white, like a cat’s. Her eyes were feline too, and they gazed directly at him, bold and challenging. ‘What business do you ’ave on t’dairy floor?’

  He smiled back, then with a practised manoeuvre he heaved to the side, tipping Betty over and round and supporting her with one arm until she was underneath him, grinning up at him now rather than down.

  ‘The same business as you, Betty Cross,’ he said. He felt her legs widen and her pelvis tilt, inviting him in. She was bold and greedy, and Toby marvelled at her brazen desire. This was his kind of girl. Her face was flushed, but her throat and breasts were the colour of cream. He’d noticed this about girls who worked in the dairy and wondered vaguely if there was a connection but the question for now remained unanswered, as the blood rushed away from his head and robbed him of rational thought.

  Chapter 27

  Harry Tideaway had pushed on with his plan to open the Hoyland Arms on Sundays, but it hadn’t yet become the money-spinner he was hoping for. Sometimes he would stand behind the bar on the Sabbath, drumming his fingers and watching the hands creep round the clock face, while old peg-leg Bill Whitlow made a half of best last until the bell rang for time at half-past two. Still, he
told himself, it was early days, and there was a regular handful of reliable Sunday drinkers who just about justified the trouble of sliding back the bolts on the big front door at midday. The fact that one of them, more often than not, was the earl meant he had moral authority on his side too – Lord Hoyland’s endorsement being as good as a legal document in these parts.

  It was almost closing time this Sunday when Lord Hoyland entered the public bar, followed by his dogs and Jem Arkwright, and their appearance caused a small ripple of respectful interest. Harry Tideaway stood a little straighter behind the bar and rolled down his shirt sleeves, fastening them quickly at the cuffs with the studs he kept handy in a dish. Agnes smoothed her apron and looked down at her clogs. The assembled customers, few as they were, tipped their caps and murmured a collective greeting and in response Teddy boomed a general hello around the room, addressing no one and everyone. In any case, it was difficult to make out individual faces in the gloomy interior: dark-brown paint on the upper walls, dark-brown panelling on the lower portion, a warm fug of tobacco smoke suspended permanently in the air.