A Handful of Ashes

by Janet Woods

  What was worse, during the day Daisy still had to do some lessons, seated at the table in the stuffy front parlour. Sometimes, Mr Dennings came in to read the newspaper.

  ‘Oh, my pardon, ladies,’ he always said, as if surprised to see them there. The curved points of his moustache would waggle dashingly as he smiled at her tutor. Miss Edgar would give a pursed-up little smile, go pink and pretend to be severe. ‘Do stop coming in to disrupt Daisy’s lessons, Mr Dennings.’

  Then he’d wink at her and she’d turn red again. ‘Not in front of the child, please. She might get the wrong idea, altogether.’

  Daisy didn’t mind having her lessons disrupted. She knew Miss Edgar and Mr Dennings were sweethearts and hoped that eventually they’d get married. She liked being a bridesmaid. Daisy secretly recorded her observations in a daily journal she kept, writing down everything interesting she saw, following the progress of the romance closely.

  Josh and Mr Dennings went out a lot, visiting the properties available for sale and discussing them in the evening. One particular evening, Mr Dennings said to Josh, ‘I thought the building we looked at today was over-tenanted. The way I see it, this city is going to keep expanding. We’d be better off buying something further out where it’s cheaper.’

  ‘But the building is right in the middle of the business district. Londoners are used to being crowded, from what I can see. That building is fully tenanted. Besides, it’s only a mile from that new monument of Nelson. They wouldn’t put a tribute to a hero in the area unless the value of it was set to increase. More importantly, the investment will start earning us money straight away. In a couple of years’ time that building will be worth twice what we paid for it, then we can use the profit to invest in longer-term projects.’

  ‘When can we go and visit Goldie?’ Daisy got in when Josh paused for breath.

  ‘As soon as Giles and I have finished our business here.’

  ‘Well, please hurry up and make up your mind, Mr Dennings. Everyone says Josh is clever about buying vestments and somebody else might get the place. Besides, you promised to take me and Miss Edgar to the theatre. If you don’t hurry we won’t have time to go.’

  ‘Investments, dear,’ Miss Edgar corrected.

  The deal was settled the next day. Afterwards, they did some sightseeing, using one of the horse-drawn omnibuses to go from place to place, most of which were hot and crowded. Josh took her to all the boring places he wanted to see first, then they visited Kew Gardens. Daisy thought the place wasn’t a great deal better than the gardens of Rivervale House.

  It was with great excitement that Daisy and Josh found Sebastian Groves’s print shop the next day. There was a sign on the door saying it was closed. Josh, trying to peer through the window, reported he could see nothing through the grime and advertising posters. However, when he tried the door handle the door swung open. A bell held by a spring rang merrily when they advanced into the dusty interior of the shop.

  A girl of about Daisy’s age came hurrying through from the room at the back. ‘Can’t you read? The sign on the door says we’re closed, don’t it?’

  ‘Doesn’t it,’ Daisy corrected in Miss Edgar fashion, and the girl gave her a hard stare. Daisy stared right back.

  An older man came through. ‘That’s enough, Alice. You shouldn’t be after talking to customers like that.’

  ‘This is my ma’s shop now, Zeke Palmer. If you want to keep your job, do as you’re told. Alice seated herself on a stool behind the counter and propped her head on her hands. ‘Seeing as you’re in, watcher want, then?’

  Josh stooped to look her in the eye. ‘To start with, you can watch your bleddy lip, missy, else you’ll get my hand across your arse, quick smart.’

  Daisy smirked when the girl flushed a dull red.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Zeke said. ‘The girl didn’t mean anything by it. How can I help you folks? We print leaflets, calling cards and . . .’

  Poking her tongue out at Daisy, Alice whispered, ‘What d’you think you’re looking at, then?’

  Daisy’s hands went to her hips. ‘A smelly pig?’

  Josh gave her a stern look. ‘My sister and I have come to call on Sebastian Groves.’

  Alarm came into the girl’s eyes. ‘Ma!’ she yelled.

  Zeke ran a tongue over his lips. ‘Sebastian passed away a few months ago. Set upon, he was. A shame, for he was a nice young man.’

  ‘Then I want to see Goldie,’ Daisy said, not taking her eyes off the girl, who was now making faces at her.

  ‘Goldie went home with her pa.’

  ‘No she didn’t, else I would have seen her, since she’s my sister.’ When the girl paled Daisy turned to Josh. ‘She’s lying, Josh. That girl is wearing the bracelet I gave to Goldie. And that’s Goldie’s dress she’s got on.’

  ‘When the girl tried to hide her arm, Daisy grabbed it and held it fast. ‘You dirty, thieving little rat.’

  Alice’s other arm shot out. Grabbing Daisy’s braid in her fist she yanked hard on it.

  ‘Eeow!’ Daisy yelled, and promptly smacked one across her protagonist’s ear. She then got a grip on her collar with both hands and dragged her across the counter to the floor, sending paper flying everywhere. Throwing herself on to the girl, Daisy pummelled her, both fists flying.

  But Alice was used to defending herself and soon tossed Daisy off. They rolled around in the dust, their drawers on display, their skirts flying, scratching and screaming at each other like a couple of alley cats.

  Josh exchanged a grin with Zeke and they both moved forward together. Between them, they plucked the struggling pair apart.

  ‘What in hell’s name is going on down here?’ a voice bawled from the doorway. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Joshua Skinner. I’m looking for Goldie Matheson. Where is she?’

  The woman gave him a flat stare. ‘How the hell would I know? Scarpered, most like. Sly little devil, she was. She took off after her brother died. I reckon she killed him, ’cause he was found with his head stove in not far from ’ere. We haven’t seen the girl since.’

  ‘That’s not what you told me, Betty Groves,’ said Zeke. ‘You said her pa had come for her.’

  ‘My sister wouldn’t kill anyone,’ Daisy yelled at her. ‘And that horrible girl is wearing her clothes and her bracelet. I’m going to find a constable and tell him.’

  Hastily, the woman said, ‘Er, there’s no need to involve the law. I reckon the girl took fright when her brother got killed, and ran away. She said she wanted to go ’ome. We did look for her for a while, but if she stayed in the city she most likely got picked up and took to the workhouse.’

  ‘She stole Goldie’s bracelet.’

  ‘The girl left it behind. Alice was wearing it for safekeeping. Alice, give the girl the bracelet. As for the clothes, that dress got stained with ink and Goldie gave it to my Alice, so don’t you go accusing her of stealing it, unless you can prove it.’

  Daisy snatched the bracelet when it was reluctantly offered, sliding it on to her own wrist. ‘Goldie wouldn’t want the dress back after you’ve been wearing it, anyway. I expect it’s got fleas in it now.’

  ‘I hope they bite you, then.’

  The two girls offered each other hard, challenging stares, while Zeke said to the woman again, only louder this time, ‘You told me Goldie’s pa came for her, Betty.’

  She gazed at him in irritation. ‘What if I did? What’s it got to do with you, anyway?’

  ‘I worked for Sebastian and his uncle before him. A right decent lad he was, till you got your clutches on him, pretending there was an infant on the way. I can’t see no sign of it now.’

  ‘There was a baby. I lost it.’

  ‘Got rid of it, more like. I reckon you did young Goldie in. She was a sweet, well-mannered young lady. There was a wet patch, where you scrubbed something from the floor. I thought that suspicious because you’re a slattern who wouldn’t take a scrubbing brush to anything. But you left blood
between the cracks. What did you do with the girl? You’d better tell us, else I’ll fetch the constables myself.’

  Betty began to look sick. ‘I didn’t harm a hair on the brat’s head. I told you, she ran away. My brother will pay you a visit you won’t enjoy if you spread gossip about me. Now, get out of here, the lot of you. As for you,’ she said, stabbing her finger at Zeke, ‘printer journeymen are fifty to the dozen in London, so don’t you bother coming back.’

  As soon as Josh released Daisy, as quick as a flash she sprang at the other girl and fetched her a clout that sent her reeling backwards. ‘If anything awful has happened to my sister, I’ll send Spring-Heeled-Jack around here to eat you.’

  Alice clutched her flaming cheek and screamed abuse at her.

  ‘Smelly fishwife.’ Her hackles still raised, Daisy flounced from the shop, her hat hanging to one side and six inches of torn lace dangling from her petticoats.

  Grinning at this unexpected display of aggression from Daisy, especially since she and Goldie had always been at loggerheads, Josh followed her out of the shop with Zeke trailing after.

  ‘That’s me done for,’ the printer said. ‘I’ll never get another job at my age.’

  ‘Yes, you will. To start with, I’ll need a guide around the London workhouses. I’ve got to find Goldie. When we’ve done that I might be able to fix you up with a job. It stands to reason that you must be good with letters and numbers and stuff, since you’re a printer. I’ll have to consult with my partner first, but we have an office building that will need managing, if that would interest you.’

  Daisy suddenly burst into tears. Miserably, she said, as she clung to her brother’s waist, ‘What if Goldie’s dead?’

  Josh took her hands in his. ‘Goldie isn’t dead, I know it. Don’t you worry. I’ll find her.’

  Daisy sniffed. ‘Promise?’

  ‘When did Josh ever let you down? I’ll stay in London until I do find her.’ Handing her his handkerchief, Josh grinned cheerfully at her. ‘Here, blow that snout of yours if you want to look ladylike. It’s dripping on my sleeve. By crikey, you’re a right little tiger cat when you’re roused, aren’t you? I’m thinking about putting you in a travelling side-show in the boxing tent.’

  Daisy, who didn’t know what a boxing tent was, and didn’t really care, gazed forlornly at him. ‘When’s Siana coming home? I miss her. I want everything to be like it was before.’

  Josh’s smile faded. ‘Soon, I hope, Daisy love. Soon.’

  An exceptionally wet spring had been followed by a perfect summer, which had drawn from the soil a crop of magnificent abundance. When the earth had handed out her blessings she’d been particularly generous with the Cheverton Estate, Marcus thought.

  Marcus was fit and tanned. He was spending long hours working as part of an itinerant team of labourers, filling the place of a team worker who’d trodden in a rabbit hole and was forced to rest his injured ankle.

  His agent, the hard-working and deceptively jovial Phineas Grundy, a man Marcus had met on his travels and who he trusted implicitly, had seated the injured labourer at the whetstone. Thus he’d be gainfully employed, keeping the sickles and scythes sharpened until he recovered sufficiently to take his rightful place in the line.

  One Ben Collins had been appointed overseer of the teams of itinerants. He was a large and generally genial man of local birth, with an older wife and a handful of youngsters. His son George, aged about eleven years and already solidly built, worked alongside his father, keeping a tally of the stooks and who cut what. He was quick and accurate.

  The sharp-eyed lad was the nephew of Josh Skinner, who had an eye on him for a clerkship working under Giles Dennings. Besides the tally, George fetched drinks for the workers and carried armfuls of wheat to soak in the brook to keep it pliable. The soaked wheat was then woven into bands by the children, to bind the wheat sheaves with before they were placed in stooks.

  At first, the labourers had been suspicious of Marcus, and awkward in their approach. Gradually they’d relaxed and accepted him, going so far as to laugh at his initial inept strokes with his labouring tools, and gently teasing him about his inadequacies.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, you be cutting corn not chopping down a tree. That there sickle needs to have a keener edge and thee needs to get some rhythm into your strokes.’

  Enjoying himself, Marcus joined in the laughter. Gradually, he fell into the way of cutting, rotating from the spine in measured swings to build up an arm. After the first day his hands were covered in blisters and his back was so painful he could hardly stand upright.

  His housekeeper, Maisie Roberts, applied salve to his palms and bound them with linen strips. ‘If I can be so bold, sir, you be like the old squire in his workin’ ways. He liked to get his hands dirty. He said it kept him young, and a fine upright man, he was, until the end of his days. But don’t you go overdoing it. Get into it gradually.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Roberts. I’ll certainly take your advice.’

  One of the labourers gave him a stick fashioned from a tree limb the next day. ‘Best go back to your bed, sir. Thee is as bent and creaky as a tree in a gale.’

  Marcus persevered, and as his back muscles strengthened he grew a fine set of calluses on his hands. However hard he tried, he couldn’t quite match the speed of his workers. He earned their respect, though, and enjoyed their rough camaraderie, learning many things he normally wouldn’t have been privy to, as they relaxed in his company.

  One said, ‘The old squire didn’t mind getting a bit of shit on his boots. “Shit grows vegetables,’ says he. ‘We eats them, then turns it back into shit again. I make a bit of money during the process.” He allus used to work in the fields alongside us when he could. He had a strong heart and could work all day once he set his mind to it.’

  Another answered, ‘The old squire was a farmer at heart. He was tight-fisted, but a fine gentleman nevertheless, ‘cepting when his dander was up, then he thought nothing of handing out a flogging.’

  Marcus thought he might have liked Squire Forbes, had he met him.

  ‘He were a devil with the women. Shocked the gentry by getting hisself wed to a fine bit of peasant stuff afore he was called before his maker, her who be married to the doctor now. No more than eighteen years of age at the time. A man could die happy with someone like that in his bed.’

  Marcus couldn’t help but join in the laughter when he heard Siana discussed in this good-natured way. He wouldn’t mind having her in his bed himself – he wouldn’t mind it at all.

  ‘You remember that Patrick Pethan,’ one said to the other one day. ‘I hear it was him died in that cottage fire last season.’

  ‘The damned fool must have had a skinful and knocked the candle over.’

  ‘What happened to his team?’

  ‘Two of them split off from Henry Ruddle, reckoned he was bad news. I don’t know what happened to them.’

  Twitching an eyebrow, Marcus smiled to himself. He did. They were buried in Cornwall. The pair had been the first to face his justice. Officially, they’d fallen down the shaft of a silver mine and broken their necks while under the influence of strong liquor.

  ‘I hear Silas got a girl into trouble and went to sea because her brothers were after him.’

  ‘Silas would have been no prize, him being a light-fingered cur, and all. And Henry Ruddle got hisself transported to New South Wales for life after forcing himself on a girl then killin’ her, I hears.’

  Marcus’s ears pricked up in case Ruddle’s whereabouts or circumstances had changed.

  ‘Best place for him too. Henry was allus bragging about the women he’d had. He reckoned he took ’em by fair means or foul. God help any woman who fell into his clutches, I say, for he was a bad bugger who was too handy with his fists.’

  His eyes narrowing, Marcus experienced rage scalding his insides. Sucking in a deep breath he gradually let it out, barely squashing his fury. Henry Ruddle wouldn’t escape h
is clutches, however far away or well-guarded he was. He would wait until he was ready, then he would find him.

  They covered the fields slowly but surely, the men pitting the might of their muscle against each other. There was a deceptively unhurried pace to life. The sun was hot on his back. Marcus’s body grew stronger and fitter for the toil and, even though the sweat itched and chaffed at his skin, he fell into bed each night to sleep the sleep of the exhausted, and to rise in the morning eager for another day of it.

  His tragic Maryse was company to his thoughts in the wakeful hours. Without success, he tried to block from his mind the broken and bloodied, sea-soaked girl whose body had flopped limply in his arms like a bundle of wet rags. The grey of her eyes had turned purple with blood, like clouds full of storm and thunder. Her body had been empty, her soul gone to where he couldn’t follow. The thought of her kept his resolve strong, but he was thankful for those deep, dreamless nights.

  Sometimes he felt guilty, because he knew Maryse hadn’t wanted to marry him. He’d exerted as much pressure on her to change her mind as her relatives had. More, in fact, because he knew she was troubled and knew why and he’d manipulated that to gain his own ends. He’d thought his love for her would sustain and protect her. Maryse had trusted him and he’d failed her. The need to avenge her rose like bitter gall from time to time. His veins pounded with the fury of it.

  But as surely as night follows day, Maryse was beginning to slip from him, as his body began to crave a more lusty pursuit. Marcus was a man in his prime with an appetite to match. Here in the fields he was brought closer to the baser of a man’s instincts. The sight of the country wenches with their nut-brown skin and their sweat-stained bodices, their hips swaying as they walked, inflamed his libido.

  He’d been celibate since Maryse died, discarding his casual liaison with the widow. Now, he badly needed a woman. He must have given out signals, for an itinerant girl of about eighteen years, one who’d previously given him the eye, found him when he was seated in the pavilion in Maryse’s garden, contemplating his future without his love.