In Distant Fields

by Charlotte Bingham

  Pulling a hopeful face, he held up crossed fingers to Tinker, who by now had taken refuge behind the debris at the back of the cupboard, a sanctuary she knew would be only too short-lived if Mrs Coggle opened the door and found Tommy standing like a lemon with his cravat undone and his hair all mussed.

  ‘Oh Lawd!’ to their great relief they heard the housekeeper exclaim. ‘We not got the rats again?’

  ‘Just caught two o’ the brutes!’ Tommy returned cheerfully. ‘Would ’ee like to see ’em?’

  ‘Would I just!’ Mrs Coggle all but shrieked. ‘You don’t know me and vermin!’

  A moment later she was gone and the coast was clear, allowing Tinker and Tommy to slip out unnoticed and make their way to a now deserted part of the sculleries where Tinker tidied Tommy up and Tommy did up the top buttons of Tinker’s uniform.

  ‘Do you really think your brother will take you on in his garage, Tommy?’ Tinker whispered to him, brushing the last lock of his brown hair back into place. ‘It’s not as if you knows anything about motor cars.’

  ‘Dick says it don’t take much learning, Tinks,’ Tommy replied with a grin, unable to resist giving her one more kiss on the cheek. ‘You got such soft skin, do you know that?’

  ‘I should do, Tommy, You’re always telling me. But look – look, suppose Dick does take you on and all, and we was to get married—’

  ‘Which we will, my girl. Make no mistake about that.’

  ‘I’m not marrying you nor no one, Tommy, unless I got the future sorted. Catch me ending in the poor house. I’d rather stay here until I’m too old to do my duties than starve to death on the streets. Least they’d look after me here.’

  ‘Yeah? For how long, you reckon? Till your knees give in from all the scrubbing you did as a housemaid, or your fingers get all gnarled up like Molly Crabbe’s did from all the sewing and stitching, till she weren’t no use for anything. There’s not much use to be had from a servant who can’t do nothing, Tinks. So better by far to be married to me who’ll look after you till your dying day, and that’s a promise.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tinker suddenly agreed, smiling at him with real affection. ‘Yeah, who gives a fig about all that, Tommy? Long as I got you.’ Reaching up, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him briefly but sweetly. ‘I do love you, Tom,’ she whispered. ‘Honest I do.’

  ‘And I love you too, Tinks,’ Tommy whispered back. ‘And I always will. Till my dyin’ day.’

  Now Tom put his arms around Tinker to kiss her once more, which he did equally sweetly.

  “Ere!’ came a stern voice from behind them. ‘And what you think you two lovebirds is playing at?’

  Jumping apart like frightened rabbits, they found themselves face to face with a grinning Tully.

  ‘You do that again, Tully Tuttle,’ Tom warned him, half amused and half furious, ‘I’ll pull your stupid ears off.’

  * * *

  ‘Sit up,’ Cecil growled down the table at his daughter, who was sitting looking down into her soup bowl rather than up at her father. He then addressed his wife. ‘I have told you time and again, Maude, I will not have children of mine round-shouldered. It’s particularly unattractive in a girl, especially a girl such as her, who is going to need everything in her favour if she’s going to find a husband. Sit up!’

  Elizabeth sat bolt upright, pushing her shoulders back in an exaggerated fashion.

  ‘And where the devil is Cuthbert?’ Cecil continued, using his usual dog-training voice.

  ‘I did tell you, Cecil, he is seeing Hughie off at Southampton.’

  ‘This soup is almost as painfully thin as you, Maude,’ Cecil bellowed back, determined to ignore any reference to Hughie’s departure. ‘Take this soup away,’ he commanded one of the servants. ‘This is fit only for the poor house. And you can tell Cook I said so.’

  ‘Cook is indisposed, Cecil,’ Maude called down the table.

  Cheeseman took his master’s soup from the footman, rolling his eyes behind his back, while Cecil waited for the second course. Nodding to the footman to help him to more burgundy, Cecil turned his attention back to his luckless only daughter.

  ‘What have you been doing? Sitting in an attic teaching a parrot to speak, no doubt.’

  ‘I don’t have a parrot, Papa.’

  ‘Still sitting about like a wet Wednesday.’

  ‘Elizabeth has been helping to repair the church vestments, Cecil. She is a fine needlewoman. The vicar is most grateful for her hard work, I do assure you,’ Maude stated.

  ‘Needlework!’ Cecil snorted. ‘Maid’s occupation, sewing – that’s what that is, a maid’s occupation.’

  All of a sudden he drained his glass of burgundy, flung his napkin down, preparatory to storming out of the dining room.

  ‘You have not finished your dinner, Cecil?’ Maude called to him as he passed her by.

  ‘Have something sent to my study,’ he replied.

  Elizabeth looked down the table at her mother.

  ‘I wish I could go with Hughie to America, Mamma. Then I should not annoy Papa so much, should I?’

  Her mother was silent for a second. ‘I wish we all could,’ she finally agreed.

  ‘Maybe we all should, Mamma. Maybe we could run away together?’

  They smiled in sudden sympathy at each other.

  ‘One day, darling,’ Maude murmured, while Cheeseman busied himself at the sideboard, pretending not to have heard.

  The following morning, Jossy drove Partita and Kitty to the Halt for Kitty to catch the 10.30 train to London. The two friends bid each other the fondest of farewells.

  ‘I wish you were not going, Kitty. I shall miss you so.’

  Partita was wearing her lost-puppy expression.

  ‘It won’t be for long,’ Kitty assured her. ‘After all, the new term starts in two weeks’ time.’

  ‘Yes, and after that you can come back up again for Easter.’ Partita’s voice was becoming lost as a whistle from up the line signalled the arrival of the train, which steamed into the little station, clanking and spewing as it signalled its arrival, brakes screaming and protesting, until it finally came to a stop.

  Kitty climbed into the Ladies Only carriage, followed by Bridie, who immediately took out her rosary beads and started tolling them.

  Partita stood waving to the departing train long after it had left the station.

  ‘Come on, Lady Tita,’ Jossy grumbled. ‘You can’t spend yer whole life at the Halt.’

  The two girls were not the only ones to be happily anticipating the new school term. Now that all the excitements of the Christmas balls were over, and her house guests had returned to London, Circe was once more looking forward to going back to town, to enjoying her little circle of artistic friends, to attending the theatre and the new art exhibitions. While she loved her garden in the summer, in the winter, once a Bauders house party was at an end, there was really not quite enough to occupy her intelligence, as a result of which she had often felt at a loose end in the early part of the year.

  The Duke knew this of his wife and although he would have dearly liked to have her join him three times a week in the hunting field, imagining as he often did just how beautiful his Circe would have looked turned out to within an inch on a spanking dappled grey gelding, nevertheless he contented himself with the fantasy rather than the reality. This year, however, his sense of unease was such that he wanted her to stay at home with him, if only so that he could catch a glimpse of her moving through the routine of his life.

  ‘I was thinking,’ he announced suddenly, before Circe had time to think of packing up her portmanteaux, of making sure of her London clothes, hats trimmed, furs cleaned. ‘I was thinking, dearest, that it would be a very pretty idea if you were to mount a musical entertainment here this year.’

  Circe, who was busy noting that since Kitty’s departure Partita had been wearing an expression of unadulterated gloom, looked round at her husband with sudden interest.

  ‘A music
al entertainment, John? But how original of you to think of such a thing. A musical entertainment – say a play with music?’

  ‘You could do it so well, my sweet,’ the Duke went on, not quite looking Circe in the eye. ‘You know how musical you are, and it would be capital fun to see all our friends on stage, don’t you think?’

  Circe started to look excited. ‘So many of them are so musical, and so many love the theatre.’

  ‘Exactly my thoughts, my dear, and it would keep all the maids and the rest busy, sewing costumes and I know not what. Such a grey time of year otherwise, this time of year, so grey.’

  Circe stood up and went down the library to where her three daughters were seated, dutifully sewing.

  ‘Papa has had such a capital idea. We are to put on a musical here at Bauders, for the entertainment of the neighbourhood and for everyone who wants to take a part. Isn’t that a splendid idea?’ she asked of each of them, but paying most particular attention to Partita, whose face by now had become a study in misery.

  ‘I was thinking about The Pirates of Penzance,’ the Duke announced, coming across to join them. ‘One of my favourites, you know. I would, I would be a Pirate King,’ he murmured.

  ‘The Pirates of Penzance!’ Partita exclaimed, her depression lifting at once as she flung down her stitching. ‘I love The Pirates of Penzance.’ She started to hum ‘Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes’.

  ‘That’s The Gondoliers.’

  ‘Oh, yes, so it is.’ Partita went on humming the tune nevertheless.

  Circe moved away, her mind already filled with the thought of the excitements ahead.

  ‘We have the Great Hall here; it will make a most splendid theatre. We can have the estate carpenters build us a platform, and the orchestra can be on hand for full rehearsals. We must send to London for the musical parts at once.’

  Partita stood up to follow her down the room.

  ‘But, Mamma, what about school—’

  Before she could go on, Wavell entered the library with a telegram, which he presented to the Duchess on a silver salver.

  ‘This is not for me, Wavell,’ Circe remarked, on seeing the name on the envelope. ‘This is for Miss Rolfe.’

  ‘Miss Rolfe has left for London, Your Grace.’

  ‘Then – then I dare say – I dare say that I must open it in loco.’

  Circe went to Partita as soon as she had read the message: ‘Order your immediate return. Papa.’

  ‘What does this mean, Tita? Do you know what this means?’

  Partita stared at the telegram, feeling suddenly ashamed that she had always thought it such an adventure to have a notorious father. Kitty must be very brave to live with such a man. But why would he be ordering her home as if she was a flunkey?

  ‘It must be something horrid for her father to send such a telegram,’ Circe said, looking troubled.

  ‘Something really horrid,’ Partita agreed.

  They stared at each other.

  ‘We will soon know, when we return to London.’ Circe folded the telegram, and then stopped. ‘But of course. We won’t be returning to London now, will we, John?’

  ‘What’s that, my dear?’

  Circe went up to her husband. ‘If we are to do a musical here, we won’t be returning to London, will we?’

  ‘It might be difficult,’ the Duke agreed, looking both kindly and vague at the same time.

  Circe frowned. ‘Partita will have to go back to being schooled here. We will have to find someone new for her.’

  Overhearing this, Partita started to protest.

  ‘Now, darling,’ Circe told her firmly, ‘don’t be foolish. Do admit we will have the most tremendous fun here helping stage The Pirates of Penzance.’ The Duchess lowered her voice so that the Duke would not hear. ‘More fun, I am sure, than you would ever be having in London at Miss Woffington’s Academy, which you were already finding a little on the dull side – so many spelling bees your head span, you said.’

  ‘But what about Kitty?’

  ‘Kitty can come here. I am sure she is musical, and even if she is not, she can help with everything and when that is at an end, well, she can stay on, or do as she wishes. Never mind about her father and the telegram, it is of no matter. I will explain everything to her mother.’

  The Duchess patted Partita on the arm and moved swiftly away from her. She did not like her children arguing with her. Not that Partita was arguing, but she was fussing her.

  ‘I will write to her mother at once.’

  Kitty stared at her father, unable quite to take in what she had just heard him say.

  ‘What was that you said?’

  ‘I said – your mother has bolted,’ Evelyn stated for a second time. ‘She has run off somewhere and with someone. When I find her I shall wring her neck like a chicken, that I promise you.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Papa,’ Kitty said blankly, sinking down into a chair while trying to collect her thoughts. The idea that her mother might have run off with another man was a nightmare. Her mother was a pillar of strength, virtuous to a degree. She would not do such a thing. Kitty’s eyes strayed to the decanter at her father’s elbow.

  ‘I was at Biddlethorpe for Christmas and the New Year and so on; now on my return in the New Year what did I find? I found a note. Like something in the music halls. Here’s the very note – this is what she wrote.’ He waved a letter in his daughter’s direction before continuing. ‘Left it on the mantelpiece your mother did – hadn’t even the courage to tell me face to face.’

  Kitty took the letter, wondering whether her father was really stupid, or just drunk, or both? He must know that if her mother had dared to tell him face to face that she was leaving him after nearly twenty years of marriage, she would have been carrying the bruises for months.

  ‘You’ll see from that note you’re to contact some solicitor or other,’ Evelyn Rolfe said, pouring himself another large whisky. ‘Don’t know what the hell’s going to become of you, but that’s not my business. No doubt the solicitor has instructions or some such because this is all your mother’s doing and I dare say you’ve long had wind of it.’

  ‘No. I can quite truthfully say that this is as great a shock to me as it is to you.’

  Kitty put out a hand to the back of a nearby chair, feeling all at once sick and faint. As she did so, she dimly heard her father saying, ‘I doubt that you are shocked. Mothers and daughters. You two were thick as thieves.’ His tone was sarcastic.

  ‘I knew absolutely nothing about this whatsoever, I promise you,’ Kitty stated absently as she read the letter and discovered that she was to proceed to notify some solicitor or another at his offices in the Strand, as soon as she returned home.

  ‘As I said, I have no idea what is to become of you. Never had any intention – never had the slightest idea what to do with you at the best of times, let alone the worst of times. So it’s up to your mother to sort all this out,’ Evelyn concluded, draining his glass, throwing his finished cigar into the fire and standing up. ‘When the divorce papers are through I shall be selling this house so perhaps much the best thing is for you to find some employment or other. You certainly will not be returning to that ridiculous forcing house for young ladies, whatever it’s called – Miss Willington or Wolfit, or whatever it is, that is for certain. If you need me for anything leave a message at White’s.’

  ‘I take it I may continue living here for the present?’ Kitty asked a little formally, wishing she had the courage to pick the poker up and hit him.

  ‘Do what you wish. I shall be using the house from time to time, until other arrangements are to hand, so do as you please. A lot will depend on what your mother has in mind for you. As I said, Katherine, you are entirely her business. I didn’t want you in the first place.’

  Later that day Kitty arrived at the offices of Collingwood, Skells and Rathbone. The doubtless worthy firm of solicitors were housed in cramped offices in an alleyway off the Strand.

  ‘W
hom may I say it is?’ demanded a clerk, wiping his beaked nose slowly on a large handkerchief, which he promptly pushed into a shiny trouser pocket.

  ‘Miss Rolfe,’ Kitty told him quietly.

  Eventually he returned.

  ‘Follow me, Miss Wolfe.’

  ‘Rolfe.’

  ‘Just as you wish.’

  He pushed open a door at the end of a short dark corridor and Kitty walked through it straight into her mother’s arms.

  ‘I am sorry, dearest. I had to ask Mr Collingwood to write to you so that I could be here to explain. I could not let your father know of my whereabouts.’

  For a second it looked as if they might both give way to tears, but finally Violet held Kitty away from her for a second, and then walked to the window of the office. Kitty found she was watching her mother as if she was watching someone she had never known. Part of her was admiring and appreciative of her courage, and yet another part of her was ashamed. How could her mother run off with another man? And who was the other man?

  ‘Dr Charles and I …’ Violet began, knowing that Kitty was waiting to know, wanting to find out, more than anything, whom it could be that had given her mother the courage to leave her father.

  Kitty went to say something and then stopped. She could not imagine anyone less suitable, to her mind, than Dr Charles. Her mother hated even a mention of disease, was terrified of germs, and although kindly enough if you were ill, most reluctant to visit the sick room.

  ‘Dr Charles? Dr Charles?’

  ‘Yes, Kitty, Dr Charles.’

  Richard Charles had looked after Kitty since she was born. He was like an uncle, certainly like a member of their family. It was almost horrible to think of her mother and her doctor together, kissing and fondling each other, perhaps even lying in each other’s arms.

  Violet turned away, not wanting to see her daughter’s shock.

  ‘He is such a decent, honourable man, Kitty, so different from Evelyn.’

  They both knew how different, but still Kitty found herself at a loss for words, for now not only did she have to digest the fact that her mother had left her father for another man, but that the man in question was their doctor. Doctors were meant to be like vicars: they were sacred, full of kindly wisdom, practically without sin. It seemed to be such a breach of trust that all the time he had been attending them whenever their health required, he had obviously been availing himself of the chance to become acquainted ever more intimately with her mother.