The Girl From Poorhouse Lane

by Freda Lightfoot

  Kate felt herself growing hot around the collar, an anger growing inside as she became increasingly enraged by the arrogance of this woman. How dare she march in and start dividing up the spoils while standing over Amelia’s coffin? The poor woman had barely gone cold and already she was pensioning off her grieving husband, itching to get her grasping hands on the company. Kate smoothed down her starched apron and clenched her mouth tight shut, to stop it from saying what was on her mind, though she tried to indicate with a frown how inappropriate was this behaviour. Lucy, however, was oblivious to the expressions and opinions of a mere maid.

  ‘Is Eliot in his study or his bedroom?’ I’ll just go up and tell him not to worry. Charles will deal with everything from now on.’

  ‘The master has made it clear that he is not to be disturbed.’

  ‘I’m quite sure that rule does not apply to family.’

  ‘To be sure it does. It’s more than me life’s worth to allow anyone to go up unannounced.’

  ‘Oh, very well then. Pray tell him that his sister-in-law is below and wishes to speak to him.’

  Kate reluctantly went upstairs, tapped on his door and, unsurprisingly, received the usual response. As she withdrew, to make her way quietly back down stairs again, she found Lucy had followed her up.

  ‘I wanted to make sure that you delivered my message correctly. Is he in?’ Whereupon, to Kate’s utter horror, the woman began to knock loudly upon the panelled door with one neat, black gloved knuckle. ‘Eliot! I know you are in there and not quite yourself, but there’s no need for you to worry about a thing. Charles will take charge.’

  ‘No!’ The voice that bellowed from within was so loud and forceful that Lucy actually took a hasty step back from the door, startled by the power of it.

  The door burst open and there he stood, hair awry as if he’d been tearing it out with his own hands, shirt collarless and open at the neck where the stud should be. His waistcoat hung open and his trousers looked as if he’d slept in them, which he probably had. ‘Charles will do no such thing. You can tell him to leave me alone. Everything is in hand.’

  Lucy was flabbergasted. Kate hid a small smile, gaining both reassurance and a deep sense of pride from his instinctive and violent objection to Lucy and Charles taking control. But then why would they imagine Eliot to be a weak man, simply because he had a heart? Something the rest of his family clearly did not possess.

  ‘Someone in authority should be here to oversee matters. There are matters which need to be arranged.’

  ‘Go home, Lucy. Mind your own business. Kate will see to everything.’

  The look of horror on her face was a picture, and Kate suffered a fit of coughing which served to cover a most disrespectful and inappropriate spurt of laughter.

  ‘I never heard of such a thing. Never in my entire life! A nursemaid dealing with a family funeral? Utterly preposterous! And you have no right to speak to me like that. No right at all. I know you are grieving, Eliot, but I think you have quite lost your mind. If you imagine we will stand by and say nothing while this doxy here . . .’

  ‘Go home now Lucy. This minute, if you please, before I personally despatch you down those stairs.’

  ‘Well, really!’ And turning to Kate, ‘Don’t think you have won, miss,’ she hissed, inches from Kate’s face. ‘You haven’t heard the last of this.’ Casting her a final and furiously withering glare, Lucy marched down the stairs in a huff, clearly intent upon summoning reinforcements.

  Later that night, as Kate was on her way to bed, she heard unmistakeable sounds of weeping coming from the master bedroom. She hovered, undecided for some long moments, wondering whether she should intervene, longing to offer him comfort but fearful of being seen to intrude. Men so hated to be caught out in these private moments, and nothing could be more so than grieving for a much loved wife. At length, she proceeded to her own room but found it impossible to sleep. Kate kept thinking about Eliot enduring his grief alone, but what could she do? She was, as Lucy had quite rightly pointed out, only the nursemaid and shouldn’t really be dealing with such matters as organising a funeral for the mistress, let alone offering comfort to the master.

  And then she heard his footsteps on the landing, and was out of bed like a shot. ‘Were you wanting something, sir?’

  He was standing at the top of the stairs as if he’d set off with some purpose in mind and had quite forgotten what it was. Kate had quickly pulled a robe over her nightgown though the September night was warm. Now she asked if he would perhaps like her to bring him a glass of milk, or a small nightcap of his favourite Irish whisky.

  He shook his head in a dazed sort of way, showing no real indication of having understood or even heard the question, and still seemed undecided about where he was going, or why. Kate went to his side and took hold of his arm. ‘Sure now, ’tis no time to be wandering around the house. Let me see ye back to yer room, sir, shall I?’

  Once back inside the bedroom he slumped into a chair while Kate quickly tidied the bed, which revealed all too clearly what a restless night he’d suffered. The candle on the nightstand guttered and died, and she had to hunt about for a new one, and the matches to light it. When the pillows were plumped, the sheets smoothed and turned back, she went and took him by the arm, giving him a little shake to encourage him back to bed. Eliot made no protest as she led him across the room and sat him down on the feather mattress while she attempted to pull off his boots. He was still fully clothed in his shirt and trousers, although he’d removed the waistcoat. Kate considered it too immodest for her to suggest that he undress properly and get into his night attire, confining her attention to the boots. Kneeling, she struggled with the hooks and buttons in the dark and it was as she got to her feet that he seemed to become aware of her presence for the first time.

  ‘Kate? Is it you?’

  ‘It is so. Now just you lie down and try not to think of anything. Don’t ye need yer sleep, with all you have to face over the next few days?’

  ‘Ah Kate, thank God you didn’t leave me too. What would I do without you?’ He pulled her close, drawing her between his knees and laying his head against the flat of her stomach while his arms encircled her. Kate was stunned but didn’t like to protest, the poor man surely being beside himself with grief. Filled with pity she stroked the dark curls, gently patted his broad shoulders and as she felt them shudder, held him tight as if he were a child. She could feel the power of his thighs pressing at either side of her hips, his hands at her back, smoothing gently up and down in a rhythm that was producing a most odd effect upon her, weakening her already tired limbs and making her heartbeat do odd little stops and starts.

  She was never sure afterwards how it came about but somehow she was sinking on to the bed beside him and he was kissing her: her throat, her eyes, her mouth, with an urgency that was growing more fevered by the second. There was an impatience in both of them, and nothing could possibly have prevented what followed, nor allow them time to consider the rightness or otherwise of their actions. Their need and agony was too great to allow pause for thought, too hectic and flushed with the raw necessity to prove that life would prevail and beat back the shadows of death. The cotton robe and nightgown were discarded in seconds and Kate groaned with pleasure as his hands slid over her bare skin, cupped and fondled her breasts. Hadn’t she longed for this? Hadn’t she ached for him to love her?

  Kate was no virgin and not unused to a man’s attentions but this was a coupling the like of which she had never known before. Perhaps because she wanted him so much, he brought her to a pitch of desire she could not have imagined possible. As he entered her, she wrapped her legs about his waist, instinctively rocking with the rhythm of his body, discovering a new intensity of joy so that by the time he slumped upon her, sticky with sweat and passion, she was there before him. But then hadn’t she loved him for what seemed like a lifetime already?

  It was the first streaks of dawn peeping in through the curtains which woke her
. His arm was still around her, cradling and protecting her, or so it seemed, and yet his head was turned away, sunk into the pillow. In that instance Kate felt such a rush of love and warmth for him it almost overwhelmed her. She longed to reach out and wake him, to bring him to her again but sanity slowly surfaced. What had she done? She shouldn’t be here at all, not in the master’s bed. But then if she’d helped to ease that pain a little where was the harm? Kate looked tenderly down upon the sleeping figure beside her. So long as she had the good sense not to read too much into this. Hadn’t he only made love to her because he was out of his mind from grief over losing his beloved wife? Not for a minute must she imagine that it meant anything else.

  Kate slid hastily, almost guiltily from his bed, fumbled about the floor till she found her nightclothes and snatching them up in her arms, fled from the room, not even pausing to put them on. She was across the landing and into her own room in a trice, quite certain no one had seen her.

  On her way down from the attic to commence her morning duties, Fanny paused when she heard footsteps on the first landing, not wishing to meet the master if he was going to the bathroom to relieve himself. Leaning over the banister she caught a fleeting glimpse of Kate’s fleeing, naked figure, and watched, open-mouthed, as she disappeared from view.

  Reinforcements arrived later that same morning in the shape of the two maiden aunts who moved in lock, stock and barrel, ready and willing to take charge, indeed positively relishing the challenge. There was nothing they thrived on better than bad news. And Vera’s customary funereal black for once was entirely appropriate. Cissie too looked uncharacteristically tidy in an ankle length black coat and large feathered hat. Both ladies were also swathed in fox fur wraps, despite the heat of an Indian summer.

  ‘Good thing they’re here,’ Fanny said to Dennis, as they enjoyed a quick cuddle in the glasshouse while she collected a few tomatoes for lunch. She’d told him what she’d seen earlier, and he’d been as startled as she, though had warned her to keep mum and say nothing to anyone else.

  ‘We’ll keep this under our hats, girl. ‘Oo knows when a bit of useful information like that might come in handy.’

  Fanny, itching to spread this titillating tidbit and announce Kate’s immorality to the world by putting a notice in the Westmorland Gazette, did her best to smother her disappointment. ‘I wouldn’t put it past that little madam to think she can get her feet under the master’s table, as well as in his bed. If that’s the case, the aunts will soon put her right. Selling her child were bad enough, worming her way into becoming the next Mrs Tyson before the mistress is even decently buried, is even worse to my mind. Nasty piece of baggage she’s turned out to be. And if she thinks she can smarm her way round me, she’s another think coming.’

  Gossip flared again among Amelia’s fickle devotees in the tea rooms and shopping halls of Kendal who whole-heartedly agreed that it was far better Vera and Cissie supervise the delicate matter of the funeral and poor dear Amelia’s affairs, rather than that dreadful little guttersnipe from the Kirkland Poor House. ‘Vera will soon lick them all into shape.’

  It was certainly true that as the two maiden ladies swept into the hall, and Dennis staggered after them with their trunks, Gladstone bag, several small brown leather suitcases, and innumerable hat boxes, Mrs Petty was heard to remark: ‘May the saints preserve us. The aunts have come to stay.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  The funeral took place on a typically dismal, wet Lakeland day, with gloomy black clouds and rain hammering on the black umbrellas of the bereaved gathered in the graveyard, and on the shiny roofs of the many carriages. A service, held in the Parish Church, had been planned by the aunts down to the last detail. They discarded most of the hymns Kate had chosen and selected different ones, half of which Amelia had probably never liked, or even known. They permitted only white flowers in tasteful wreaths, and printed a special Order of Service filled with prayers and psalms and lengthy readings. Mrs Petty said that if the service finished before midnight, it would be a miracle.

  Afterwards they partook of ham and a cold collation, laid on by Mrs Petty and her trusty staff, using Amelia’s best Royal Worcester porcelain and her finest lace tablecloth. Nobody, Mrs Petty declared with pride in her voice, and a challenging glint in her eye, could say that the mistress hadn’t been laid to rest with proper dignity.

  Dozens of Amelia’s friends and family, far more than she’d possessed in life, or at least since that fateful Christmas, turned up to remember her in death. Everyone remarked upon how splendid a funeral it was, how suitable was the hymn, O Perfect Love and such a pity nobody had known the words to the other hymns. What a memorable sermon the vicar had given and how appropriate of him to recall the dear departed’s sweet generosity and many acts of charity, and her simple and honest desire to help the weak and unfortunate.

  It seemed that Amelia had ceased even to have a name now, and no one wished to recall her most generous act of all, that of taking a Poor House child into her home to offer him a new life, and then generously taking the mother as well.

  There was one person missing from this solemn occasion. Kate herself. She’d never expected to go since Callum was far too young to attend his mama’s funeral, and naturally she must remain behind with him, in the nursery. When Eliot had called her to his study shortly after breakfast, Kate assumed that was what he was about to say.

  ‘Ah Kate. Do come in.’ She entered with some small degree of embarrassment, unwilling to meet his eye in view of what had taken place between them just a few nights previously. He didn’t offer her a chair but seemed equally reticent to meet her gaze and stood with his back to her at the window while he addressed the rain filled sky. ‘I’ve been thinking about Callum. He’s far too young to . . .’

  ‘I know, don’t worry. I’ve arranged with Mrs Petty that he and I will stay and keep an eye on things in the kitchen while you’re all at the funeral. We reckon that’ll be for the best.’ And prevent all those busybodies from gawping at him, she thought, and gossiping behind their hands.

  ‘Ah, good, good.’ He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, followed by a long drawn-out silence. So long, in fact, that Kate wondered if he’d forgotten she was still in the room, or if she should quietly go now that this matter had been settled. But then he suddenly turned around and made for the door. With his hand on the knob, he again addressed Kate with his back turned to her. ‘About the other night. I’m not sure how . . . I mean I never meant . . . I really cannot think what came over me. I‘ve no wish for you to take all the blame upon yourself. It was quite outrageous behaviour on my part, and after all my promises that you would be safe under my roof. I humbly apologise.’

  He was apologising for making love to her. That somehow seemed the most shaming part of it. He said he didn’t know what had come over him. He half turned towards her and she willed him to look directly at her but he kept his gaze fixed somewhere above her left ear.

  Kate felt as if her heart were sinking to her boots, even as she longed to run to him on a flush of warm sympathy to ease his private torment, to hold him tight in her arms and tell him that it didn’t matter, that she loved him and had wanted him to make love to her. She’d known all along, of course she’d known, that it was all a mistake. How could it have been otherwise? His words cut deep, but what else could he say?

  ‘’Tisn’t anything to be ashamed of. We were both at fault, so we were, so there’s nothing to apologise for. I understand perfectly. It was the pain of – of everything. Of losing your lovely wife.’

  ‘That’s it. That’s it exactly. A momentary lapse. And I swear it won’t happen again.’

  It was Amelia he wanted, Amelia he’d longed to hold in his arms and make love to, but Amelia was dead. And so he’d used Kate instead.

  Oh, but she really didn’t mind. Loving him as she did, Kate had thought of little else since. She would like him to make love to her every day of her life. And she couldn’t help but hope that he migh
t come to feel the same way one day. For all the inappropriateness of the timing, and the acres of differences that lay between them, it had been lovely to have him hold her and love her like that. Blissful, and she’d do it all again, so she would. She didn’t care what anyone thought. She just wanted him, in any way he was prepared to accept her.

  She gave a bleak little nod, unwilling to trust her own voice. After another achingly long pause Kate became aware that he was at last looking at her properly and wished with all her heart that he wouldn’t, not now there were tears threading their way down her face. He pulled open the door, a brisk tone coming into his voice. ‘Thank you for being so understanding. Whatever there is between us Kate, was between us, it can’t be allowed to flourish. It wouldn’t be right.’

  She cleared her throat. ‘No sir.’

  ‘I dare say I should ask you to leave, and, in different circumstances, that probably would be for the best. But since the fault was not entirely yours, and because Callum needs you, I hope you’ll stay.’

  ‘Leave?’ Nothing had been said to her about leaving. Such a thing had never crossed her mind. Why would he send her away because of something neither of them had been able to help? She looked into his face, startled, and it was then that their eyes finally met and she saw in them no warmth at all, rather a coldness that shocked her. The chestnut eyes had grown hard, like a pair of polished pebbles, and there was a cynical twist to the wide mouth.

  ‘The last thing we must do is add fuel to the gossip’s fire, eh Kate?’

  She could think of nothing to say to this. ‘I’d best go and see to Callum, if you’ll excuse me, sir.’

  ‘Yes, Kate, do that.’ And she practically ran from his presence, wincing as she heard the study door crash to behind her.