by Evie Grace
‘I understand how you feel, and I agree that it’s a burden we could do without, but I can’t have it on my conscience to send them on their way until they are back on their feet. They are your brother’s grandchildren, his flesh and blood, Stephen.’
‘Oh, and don’t I know it! I feel like they’ve opened old wounds by coming here.’
So Mrs Carter had married her sweetheart’s brother, Rose thought.
‘Let’s sleep on it,’ Mr Carter said, and on hearing someone heading up the stairs, Rose rolled over and closed her eyes. The sheets were clean and the mattress was comfortable, but she couldn’t sleep for the hooting owls and whinnying horses, the cacophony of the countryside seeming much more intrusive than the sounds of Canterbury. Everything felt unfamiliar – even the air smelled strange: clean and fresh.
‘Rose, are you awake?’ Donald hissed when Minnie was fast asleep.
‘Yes,’ she whispered back.
‘We did well – you timed those tears perfectly.’
‘They were real,’ Rose said, shocked. ‘Unlike your faint.’
‘That was genius, wasn’t it? I reckon that’s what made Mr Carter take us in.’
‘They haven’t decided how long we can stay – I’m worried sick.’
‘Don’t worry. Arthur will come and find us soon.’
When, though? she wondered. How many years did it take someone to make their fortune?
‘I’ll look after you and Minnie,’ Donald said. ‘Whatever happens, I’ll find a job, and as soon as I have money in my pocket we’ll pay for a doctor to make her well again, if Mr Carter’s idea doesn’t work. We’ll be all right, I promise.’
‘I hope so,’ Rose murmured. They had escaped Willow Place, but she couldn’t help feeling that their trials were only just beginning.
Chapter Fourteen
One to rot
One to grow
One for the pigeons
One for the crow
Rose was woken by the sound of metal hammering against metal. Remembering where she was, she peeked past the curtain, catching sight of a boy outside in the farmyard. He was holding on to a big grey horse while a middle-aged man stood bowed over with its hoof between his knees as he nailed a shoe on to its foot.
Having wished Minnie a good morning, she shook Donald awake and told him to get up, then quickly brushed her hair before walking out on to the landing, afraid they had overslept. She headed downstairs to the kitchen where she found Mrs Carter bringing a basket of eggs indoors, and a maid preparing breakfast: eggs, bread and jam, the sight of which made her mouth water.
‘It wouldn’t be right to throw them on to the parish, Alice,’ Mrs Carter said.
‘No, ma’am,’ the maid said.
‘Or send them on to Faversham to find work in the brickfields. There is plenty of work there, so I’ve heard, except that it’s long and hard, and only for the summer. Ah, there you are, Rose. There’s a bucket and water to wash with out there.’ She pointed towards the door leading into the corridor. ‘Mind you don’t splash your feet when you work the pump – my brother used to tease me to death about it.’ Her husband appeared in the corridor, taking off his boots. ‘Oh, there you are, Stephen. What did she have?’
He beamed broadly. ‘A beautiful colt. He’s perfect. And Stanley has already put a new shoe on the young man’s horse.’
‘Who is he?’ Mrs Carter said as two more men in their late thirties or early forties followed Mr Carter into the kitchen. She quickly introduced them to Rose as her stepsons, Stanley and Matthew, before returning to the subject of the visiting stranger. ‘Didn’t you ask him who he was and what business he had in Overshill?’
‘I didn’t interrogate him as you would have done – he gave me the impression that he wanted to keep himself to himself, but he did mention that he’d hired his mount and ridden this way early from Canterbury to meet with the agent who’s selling Churt House.’
‘Really? That’s interesting. What did you tell him?’
‘Not a lot – he didn’t ask much.’
‘What does he do to afford a place like that?’ Mrs Carter said, rather coldly, Rose thought. ‘It hasn’t been touched in years.’
‘Not since the owner died. What was his name?’ Stanley – the younger of the brothers – piped up. ‘Handley? No, Hadington.’
‘The weasley old lawyer who used to fall out with the squire over the boundaries of their estates. That’s right,’ Matthew said, reaching across the table for a slice of bread. ‘You should have remembered him – we used to shoe all his hunters and carriage horses, didn’t we, Pa?’
‘I sold him a good few animals,’ Mr Carter said, his eyes on his wife who turned away and busied herself with slicing more bread. ‘He was a good customer and a wicked man, but the less said about that the better.’ Mr Carter looked towards Rose. ‘What time do you call this?’
‘I believe that it’s morning, sir,’ she said, unsure how to take him. ‘I’m sorry I’m late up.’
‘It doesn’t matter – I’m not surprised that you’re exhausted, you poor little mites,’ Mrs Carter said.
‘They can’t be described as little when they’re all full grown,’ Mr Carter said, the creases at his eyes deepening. He turned to Rose. ‘My wife has convinced me that we should give you some support. I can’t say I’m happy about it. I was under the impression that we were winding down and our caring days were over.’
‘You never stop caring for your children,’ Mrs Carter said. ‘Look at our Jessie – she’s way past thirty and you still worry about her.’
‘They can stay, but at the first sign of trouble, they’ll be out on their ear-’oles.’
Mrs Carter smiled.
‘They can have the cottage at Toad’s Bottom for a few weeks,’ Mr Carter continued. ‘It’s in a bit of a state – for various reasons we have rather let it go, but they’re lucky to have a roof over their heads at all. And I expect help on the farm and in the house in return. They can pay a small rent, once they’ve earned a bit of money. There are plenty of chores for the boy: mucking out, repairing the fences and filling the buckets and troughs. It’ll be ’op and apple pickin’ soon. Rose could turn her hand to that, although we’ll probably have more than enough workers with the Irish and Londoners turning up.’
‘Minnie can do some sewing and mending when she’s well again,’ Rose said, concerned for her sister, for whom their journey had been too much. ‘I’ve left her in bed for now.’ Minnie had been as white as Mrs Carter’s bedsheets.
‘First things first,’ Mr Carter said. ‘We must eat, then set this broken leg.’
‘Minnie isn’t a horse,’ she said, filled with doubt.
‘Under all the fur and feather, animals are much like us. We are all made from flesh and bone, heart and lung, muscle and guts. Don’t go running down the road to ask Mrs Greenleaf for a cure. She purports to be a wise woman, but she’ll only give you an embrocation of juice of toad and a dose of black pepper and gin.’ He grinned, revealing his broken and worn brown teeth. ‘I would no more rub rotted toad on my own legs, let alone those of my horses.’
Reassured, Rose took food upstairs for Minnie and ate with her before helping her to wash so that she looked respectable. Donald joined them and assisted in carrying Minnie down the stairs and into the parlour, where Mrs Carter opened the curtains to let the daylight in.
They sat Minnie on the chaise and waited for Mr Carter, who turned up with the young lad they’d met at the church the previous day.
‘This is Sam who’s responsible for the tidiness of the yard and garden.’ He moved across to the chaise. ‘May I trouble you to lift your skirts, Minnie?’ he said.
Rose felt uncomfortable. Mr Carter wasn’t a doctor.
‘Don’t worry,’ Mrs Carter said with a smile. ‘My husband’s head has always been turned by the sight of a well-turned fetlock rather than a shapely ankle. He’s treated hundreds of injuries – many people come here to take advantage of his skills.’
‘Did you have plenty of rest after you broke your leg?’ Mr Carter asked as he examined her.
Rose spoke on her sister’s behalf, Minnie having been overcome by shyness.
‘She had no choice but to stay in bed, although our aunt did her utmost to make her get up. She even threatened to send her out begging on the street.’
‘Really?’ Mrs Carter said.
‘All she wanted was the house – our home – and the family business. She didn’t care about us.’
‘You don’t think she will come after you?’
‘I doubt it.’ Rose forced a small smile.
‘She would get short shrift if she came to Overshill,’ Mrs Carter said. ‘What is your opinion, Stephen? Can you fix this poor girl’s bones?’
‘I’m not sure, but I’ll give it a try if Minnie is willing.’
‘I’ll do anything to not be a burden on my sister for any longer than possible,’ she said.
It seemed that Minnie’s quiet spirit had satisfied him. He gave her laudanum and brandy for the pain and ordered Donald and Sam stand in position. It was an agonisingly slow process. Rose and Mrs Carter held Minnie’s hands while Mr Carter stood behind her and took a strong grasp across her chest, bracing her shoulders as he instructed Sam and Donald to take hold of Minnie’s ankle and pull.
‘Harder than that, lads. Put your backs into it.’
‘But it’s going to hurt,’ Donald said.
‘Unfortunately, we have to be cruel to be kind. Now, are we ready? One, two and three …’
Sam and Donald pulled and Minnie screamed like a banshee. Rose had never heard anything like it.
‘Keep the pressure on, that’s right,’ Mr Carter said. ‘Let the muscles stretch.’
Rose felt her hand being slowly crushed between Minnie’s fingers.
‘Keep going! All right, that will do for a minute. You can rest.’ Mr Carter walked round to check on their progress. ‘It’s a shame it’s been left so long. The tissues inside the leg have shrunk and a callus has formed between the ends of the bones. Never mind, we’ll keep trying.’
They repeated the stretching five more times until Rose thought she would have no hand left. Donald was red-faced and tearful at Minnie’s screaming, while Sam looked petrified.
‘I’m afraid we’ll have her leg off, sir,’ he kept saying.
‘That really isn’t helping, Sam,’ Mrs Carter told him. ‘Hold tight, my dear. It won’t be much longer.’
‘One more time,’ Mr Carter said, and Rose had to force herself to stay at her sister’s side as she fought against the restraint, tears and sweat mingling down her cheeks.
‘You heard what he said,’ she whispered. ‘Not long now.’
Mr Carter braced himself once more, and Donald and Sam hauled at Minnie’s leg with grunts of effort, until suddenly the patient went limp.
‘Stop there! She’s fainted, but that’s quite normal.’ Mr Carter moved in closer to examine the result of their efforts as Minnie began to come round. ‘That’s pretty good – not perfect, but it will do. Now, you lads can go while I bandage this up. Mrs Carter, fetch a bucket of water and the plaster of Paris from the stables – it should be in the cupboard with the physic balls and liniments. Rose, stay with your sister.’
When their grandmother returned, Rose watched Mr Carter wrap Minnie’s leg in linen strips rubbed in plaster of Paris, then made wet.
‘That’ll set hard so the ends of the bones will stay in place until they have knitted together,’ he explained. ‘The end result won’t be perfect, but it will be far better than the present situation.’
‘Will she be able to walk and be comfortable?’ Rose asked.
‘It’ll take some time. Minnie’s going to have to stay here until this is dry.’
‘How long must the plaster stay on?’
‘She’s young, so a few weeks will do it.’
‘Weeks?’
‘That’s how long it takes. If you remove it too soon, the good work is undone.’
‘How will you get it off?’ Minnie said, looking alarmed.
‘We’ll have to cut it. Don’t worry, I’ve done it many times before. Don’t let the plaster get wet or it will go soggy and fall apart. No baths, no paddling.’ He looked at his wife. ‘I suggest that you open up the cottage for them for tonight.’ He reached for her hand and Rose heard him whisper, ‘I’ll never forget how you looked after me and the children when Emily passed away, in spite of the pain you must have felt at having had to give up your own child. I owe you this, and more …’
Rose wrapped Minnie in a blanket and sat with her for a couple of hours before Alice took over so that she could accompany their grandmother to the cottage. Mrs Carter picked up her shawl and stick from the hall, and she and Rose set out to walk down the road from the farmhouse.
‘I’m longing to catch up with all your news.’ Mrs Carter’s voice began to falter as she went on, ‘I would like to hear about my dear Agnes, what she was like … I’m sorry, I should have thought. It’s too painful, too raw. Another time.’
‘I’d like to talk about her. It upsets me more when people don’t mention Ma at all, as if she never existed.’
‘I know something of what you’re going through. For reasons I will not go into now, I gave up my daughter for adoption. Agnes was taken in by a wealthy family who lived near Faversham. Her father was the owner of one of the breweries there.’
‘I have been told some of this story,’ Rose said. ‘Why didn’t you come to Ma’s funeral? We thought you would have wanted to pay your respects.’
‘I regret that now, but it’s too late to do anything about it. It’s hard to explain, but when I last saw her to give her the half a sixpence and a chance to ask questions, she didn’t say much. She was shocked, I think, to find out that she’d been born so poor and low. She didn’t want to know me, and why should she?
‘Agnes was wearing white kid gloves, the best – that’s what struck me most. The sight of them reassured me that she would be happy and kept in clover for the rest of her life, but I felt miserable, rejected, unwanted and resentful, and I couldn’t help thinking that I should have let sleeping dogs lie.’ Mrs Carter sighed. ‘What about you? You said that Donald and Minnie aren’t your full brother and sister.’
‘I was told that my father was the son of a baronet, but then Ma met Mr Cheevers, and, well, we thought they were married, but it’s been the cause of much grief to us that it turned out they weren’t – and had never been – joined in holy matrimony. It meant that Pa’s property passed to his sister, Mrs Kingsley, and my brothers lost out.’
‘You said “brothers”?’
‘Yes, I have an adopted brother, Arthur, who’s gone to London to seek work as a bricklayer.’
‘I see.’
Rose returned to the subject of her aunt. ‘Mrs Kingsley moved into the family home and put us to work. You know the rest – we had to leave.’
‘Ah, you have been through the mill, but you’ll survive because you are of your grandmother’s flesh.’ Mrs Carter smiled. ‘Let us give you some respite for a while at least.’
They reached the place where the trees had grown in from the woods, casting shadows across a cottage, which was little more than a one-up, one-down hovel adorned with grass which had taken root in the rotten thatch. The porch was propped up with a chestnut pole which appeared to have been appropriated from a nearby hop garden, and patches of damp had crept up the walls.
‘I’m afraid that it isn’t what you are used to,’ Mrs Carter said, but to Rose it didn’t matter: it was a palace. ‘The gate has been off its hinges since I can remember, and look at those brambles – they need cutting back.’
‘I don’t want to impose on you and Mr Carter,’ Rose said.
‘You mustn’t worry about it – we aren’t poor. Stephen has worked hard all his life and one day I’d like him to retire, but I can’t see that happening in the near future – he is too tied up in his work and the horses.’
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‘You have children and other grandchildren too?’
‘I have three stepchildren – I’m Stephen’s second wife. There’s Matthew and Stanley whom you’ve met, and Jessie, whose husband is an agricultural merchant in Selling, not far away at all. Then we have two of our own: Thomas who married into the family at Sinderberry Farm, and Prudence who is married to the bailiff.’ Mrs Carter smiled. ‘I’ve almost lost count of how many grandchildren there are now.’
She stopped beside the low flint wall that fronted the overgrown garden and exclaimed, ‘Oh, this place is full of ghosts.’
‘What do you mean?’ Rose asked.
‘When I was a girl, the Carters lived here – my husband’s father and family. There were ten of them at one time. Not now, though,’ she said, her voice full of sorrow. ‘Most of them are gorn.’
‘That’s very sad.’
‘Well, it comes to us all, I’m afraid. Mind your step.’ Rose followed her grandmother through a gap in the garden wall where the stones had fallen away, and along a path overgrown with weeds to the front door. Mrs Carter pushed it open. ‘There’s no key – I’ll ask one of the men to fix the lock.’
Standing beside her grandmother, Rose peered into the darkness beyond, her eyes taking time to adjust to the light. Mrs Carter walked inside across the damp earthen floor, turned to the window and opened the shutter, letting the sunlight in.
‘There, it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,’ she said. ‘Have a look upstairs.’
Rose trod carefully up the staircase, which opened on to a tiny landing with a door into the bedroom. The floorboards creaked and bowed under her feet, and the shutters dropped off as she tried to open them.
‘The windows need a good clean. We’ll go and fetch a broom, and dustpan and brush, and some vinegar and carbolic. You’ll need at least one saucepan, spoons and a knife. And I’ll let you have a little tea, and some potatoes, mutton and onions to start you off,’ Mrs Carter said. ‘What do you know about running a household?’
‘A little. I know that one should not stretch one’s legs beyond the end of the coverlet – that’s what Pa used to say. We had a housekeeper at Willow Place and a maid until our aunt moved in with us, then Minnie and I did the cooking and cleaning under her instruction.’
