‘Oh, is this Buttons and Polly?’ Hannah crouched down, stroking Buttons’ sleek grey fur. ‘Buttons was always my favourite kitten, Naomi’s too. Although she was the runt of the litter she was such a funny, determined little thing. She seems very happy here.’
‘She should be, the pair of them have the life of old Riley. We tried them outside with the other farm cats when they first came but that didn’t work, they were always waiting on the doorstep to nip into the house. The others earn their keep mousing and ratting but these two . . .’ Jake shook his head in disgust, but Hannah noticed he bent down and fondled Polly’s head before walking to the far door. ‘They wouldn’t have been allowed in when Bess - Mrs Shawe - was alive. She had a couple of budgies she was fond of. She was very houseproud, was Bess, but there was never a word said about all their feathers and seeds puthering everywhere.’
He smiled and Hannah smiled back. She thought to herself that the farmer’s wife would have had something to say about the state of the kitchen if she could see it now. The brass didn’t look as though it had been cleaned for years, the black-leaded range was as bad, dust coated every surface, and the floor was filthy. Her fingers itched to spring-clean everything.
‘Farmer Shawe’s in the study.’
Hannah left Buttons and followed Jake into the hall, passing a stone step into what appeared to be a scullery on the right side of the kitchen as she did so.
The hall was a narrow passageway with two doors on the opposite side to the kitchen. The first Jake passed, saying, ‘In there’s the dining room,’ before stopping at the second. ‘This is the study. The sitting room is on the first floor.’ At her look of surprise, he added, ‘The layout seemed a little strange to me at first but that’s how the house was built a couple of hundred years ago.’
Hannah glanced at the substantial staircase leading to the upper floors. Like everything else in the house, it needed a good polish but the open treads looked solid and strong. It was grand. The whole house was grand. But neglected. It needed a woman’s touch. She could see now that Jake hadn’t just been being kind when he said they needed a permanent full-time housekeeper.
This thought was heartening but her stomach still turned over when after knocking on the study door Jake opened it, saying, ‘Seamus, I’ve brought Hannah to see you,’ before standing aside for her to enter the room.
A stout, bulbous-nosed individual was sitting facing the door behind a large mahogany desk. A crackling log fire was blazing in the fireplace despite the hot day. The farmer looked up from the papers in front of him. ‘All right, come and sit down.’ He nodded at a straight-backed chair positioned at an angle to the desk. As she walked across the room and sat down, Jake shut the door, leaving the two of them alone. ‘So.’ Blue eyes as hard and clear as glass looked her over. ‘Jake tells me he’s offered you the job of housekeeper.’
As she stared into the creased face, Hannah deliberated whether to say yes or not. After a moment, she said cautiously, ‘Mr Fletcher said there might be a job available, that’s all.’
‘That’s what Mr Fletcher said, is it?’ Seamus nodded. He had been more than a little put out when Jake had told him what he’d done, it was so out of character for one thing. He was convinced there was more to this than met the eye. This lass was a friend of Jake’s sister; had she decided that Jake would be a good meal ticket? Was that it? She was pretty enough to turn a man’s head, especially with Jake looking as he did. He didn’t have lasses falling over themselves to walk out with him. And that was all well and good, but what if she decided to give him the old heave-ho after a while? Break his heart most likely. But he was running away with himself here. He needed to find out a few facts. ‘How old are you?’ he asked abruptly.
‘I was sixteen in March.’
‘And what have you been doing since you left school?’ And then he answered his own question by saying, ‘Working in a shop, Jake tells me. How do you think that qualifies you for taking on a housekeeping post?’
He didn’t like her, thought Hannah. Well, that was all right because she didn’t like him. Her body held stiffly, she said, ‘It was my uncle’s shop and my mother and I lived above it in a flat with my uncle and aunt. My aunt’s bedridden and from an early age I’ve been helping out with the cooking and things like that.’
‘Helping out?’ Seamus snorted. ‘That’s a mite different to taking on the running of my house, let me tell you. Did Jake mention you’ll be seeing to the lunches for the workers during harvest?’ Hannah nodded. ‘And there’s plenty of other things you’ll be expected to do. Washing and ironing our clothes, mine and Jake’s; seeing to the hens, stocking the storeroom off the scullery - you know how to make jam and preserves?’ he finished sharply. ‘Crab apple jelly, gooseberry chutney, rhubarb jam?’
Hannah looked at him. She could lie but she wasn’t going to. ‘No, we had things like that from my uncle’s shop but it doesn’t mean I can’t learn to make my own.’
‘And when we kill a pig, what about making the sausages and brawn and what have you? You ever boiled a pig’s head and made brawn?’
He knew full well she hadn’t. ‘No.’
‘And when Isaac Mallard drops by a few rabbits his whippets have caught, can you skin and gut ’em for the pot, along with plucking a pheasant ready for the oven?’
Hannah’s eyes narrowed on this thoroughly objectionable man. ‘I can learn to do the rest but I won’t pluck a wild bird,’ she said flatly. And if that statement lost her the job, so be it.
‘You won’t, eh?’ He peered at her. Then he said quietly, ‘And why is that then?’
She raised her head a fraction higher.‘Because there’s enough food on a farm without killing birds, wild ones. Or at least that’s the way I see it.’
Seamus settled back in his seat. ‘You’ve never gone hungry, lass. I can see that.’
‘You’re right, Farmer Shawe, I haven’t.’ She swallowed. ‘And I’ve nothing against folk doing whatever it is they have to do when they have bairns to feed and nothing in the cupboard. But like I said, a farm like this one doesn’t need to put wild birds on the table.’
Seamus stared at the young bit of a lass Jake had brought in. She was bonny. Bit too thin perhaps but then she hadn’t the curves of full womanhood filling her out yet. ‘You’re no country lass, that’s plain to see.’
Hannah had no reply to this and so she remained silent.
‘My wife was from the town too, did Jake tell you that?’
‘No.’
Seamus made a sound in his throat that could have meant anything. He reached for his pipe and filled it from a pouch of tobacco he brought out of the pocket of his jacket. When the pipe was lit to his satisfaction and he had puffed away for a few moments, he said, ‘Well, she was, and like you she’d got some funny ideas. It was her who insisted on us having a garden at the back of the house. Not for vegetables or owt like that, but for flowers. Flowers,’ he emphasised. ‘She got the lads to make some seats an’ so on and a bird table or two. She liked seeing ’em come to feed. Daft, I called it.’ His voice had softened, belying his impatient words. And then it changed again as he asked aggressively, ‘I suppose you’d disagree?’
‘That it was daft? Yes, I would.’
‘Aye, I thought so. Never mind that the farm cats got wily enough to make sure they had a change from mice in their diet now and again, I suppose?’
Hannah blinked. She really, really disliked this man.
‘Got me building a contraption at the end of the garden, she did, all netted round so the cats couldn’t get in. Laughing stock I’d have been if anyone had found out. Didn’t think of that though, did she?’ He scowled at her. ‘Course it’s got all overgrown since she went. Haven’t got time for such things on a farm.’
She stared at him, wondering how her feelings could change in the space of a second. Softly, she said, ‘I’m sorry your wife died, Farmer Shawe.’
His scowl deepened. His voice little more than a growl, he sai
d,‘What’s made you want to leave the town and come to work on a farm anyhow?’
She hesitated. She didn’t have to tell him, Jake had told her she didn’t. But somehow, as with Clara, she felt she had to. Quietly she told him the bare outline of what had occurred, her hands tightly gripped between her knees and her head bent.The silence stretched for some moments after she had finished. Then he fiddled with his pipe, which had gone out, before standing up and walking over to the window where he stood looking out into the stone-flagged yard, his back towards her. ‘Aye, well, you’d better get Jake to show you where everything is,’ he said gruffly. ‘I haven’t got all day, you know.’
‘You mean I’ve got the job?’
‘Aye.’ He turned. ‘And it’ll be no easy ride, mind. Tomorrow least of all.We’ll start proper once the harvest is finished. It’ll be enough for you to do to see to the lunches midday and get a bite for me an’ Jake come nightfall till then.’
‘Thank you, Farmer Shawe. Oh, thank you. I’ll work hard, I promise.’
‘Promise, do you? Aye, well, we’ll see. Like my old mam used to say, some promises are like piecrust, made to be broken.’
‘Not mine,’ said Hannah strongly.
The shadow of a smile touched the tough old face but his voice was still brusque when he said, ‘It takes more than words to dig a ditch, lass. Still, like I said, we’ll see. One thing’s for sure, you’re no businesswoman. You haven’t asked what wage I’m offering yet.’
She stared at him. It had been the last thing on her mind.
‘What did your uncle pay you for working in his shop?’
‘I didn’t get a wage as such. He’d taken me and my mother in when I was a baby and so I was sort of repaying him . . .’ Her voice trailed away at the look on the farmer’s face.
‘By, lass, your uncle’s a wrong ’un in more ways than one. I can’t abide a skinflint at the best of times. Strikes me he’s long overdue a good hiding.’
‘Mrs Wood, Mr Fletcher’s mother, she said Mr Fletcher hit him last night.’
‘Did he? Good on him.’ They looked at each other for a moment. ‘Well, as you’ll be living in, shall we say ten shillings a week to start with? We’ll see how you do ’cos one thing’s for sure, you’ve plenty to learn.’
‘Living in?’ Hannah repeated uncertainly. Something made her think he didn’t mean she would be staying with Clara and Frank.
‘Aye, here, in the farmhouse. If you’re going to take on being the housekeeper proper I don’t want you back and forth umpteen times a day. I might as well keep Enid otherwise. Me and Jake have got rooms at the top of the house but there’s two bedrooms on the first floor an’ all. Take your pick out of them. The wife had the whole house done up when she first came here, liked things just so, she did. We thought there’d be bairns to fill every room but in the event we only had our Terence.’
He paused, sitting down at his desk once more. His head bent, he began to sort through the papers in front of him. ‘You’d better get Enid to talk you through everything, she knows what’s what, all right?’
Sensing the interview was at an end, Hannah walked to the door. She opened it before saying, ‘Thank you,’ but apart from a grunt the farmer did not speak or raise his head.
In the hall, Hannah stood for a moment. Her heart was racing and she put her hand to her chest. She was going to be the housekeeper in this beautiful farmhouse. Could she do it?
The steady ticking of a grandfather clock to one side of the enormous front door brought her eyes to its benevolent face. Nearly three o’clock on the first day of her new life. And that was what this was, a new life, and she would make it work no matter what she had to do. It might take a while but she’d have this place spick and span, and she’d sort out Mrs Shawe’s garden too. She would work till she dropped to make sure Jake didn’t live to regret bringing her here.
Chapter 10
‘I don’t understand why she’s took off like this, that’s what I’m saying. Miriam’s gone on at her more times than I can remember but it’s never caused the lass to walk out and stay away.’
‘Aye, well, perhaps this was one time too many.’
‘But to leave without saying goodbye to you and me? Something isn’t right, Edward. Are you sure Miriam’s telling us all of it?’Agatha stared at her husband. He was hiding something. She knew him far better than he thought she did and she’d bet her bottom dollar he was hiding something. She had sensed something was afoot last night when he’d come to bed. There had been a lot of what she could only term coming and going before he had come into the room, and then he had been strange, over-solicitous. She always knew when he’d been with Miriam because he acted in a similar way, but this had been different. If it wasn’t ridiculous she could have imagined he was frightened. And all this about having tripped over a crate in the yard and banged his face. She wasn’t sure if she believed that either.
‘Miriam told you they had an argument, didn’t she? That’s as much as I know. Apparently Hannah got so worked up she walked out and went round Naomi’s, and the next thing Jake Fletcher is on the doorstep demanding her things and saying she’s going to work at the farm. She’s over sixteen, Aggie. I couldn’t stop her, now then.’
‘No, I see that, but are we sure it’s all above board, him taking her to that farm? She’s a bit lass, Edward, an’ a bonny one at that.’
‘It’s a farm, lass, not a house of ill repute.’ Edward smiled, but when he saw his wife wasn’t having any of it, he added quickly, ‘Now come on, Aggie, stop worrying. Hannah’s not a bairn any more and she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. She knows where we are if she wants us.’
‘I don’t like it.’ For once, Agatha had the bit between her teeth. ‘And I’d like to know exactly what Miriam did to make the lass leave like that. She’s never been what I’d call a mother to Hannah, you know that.’
‘Aye, well, they’re still mother and daughter and what went on is between them, the way I see it. I know you’ve always been fond of the girl but she can be a handful at times. You don’t see it, confined to bed as you are. She always puts on a good show for you.’
Agatha looked at him in such a way he moved from one foot to the other and rubbed his nose with his thumb. He turned and walked to the door. ‘Now you sit and read that People’s Friend I’ve brought you.You’re following the serial, aren’t you? And don’t worry about Hannah. Likely she wants to spread her wings a bit, it’s only natural at her age. Just let things be and they’ll work out all right.’
Outside the room, Edward leaned back against the bedroom door for a moment, his eyes shut and his teeth clenched. Straightening, he walked through to the sitting room where Miriam was sitting waiting for him. ‘Well?’ She arched her thin eyebrows. ‘Still going on about Hannah, is she? She’s given me gyp all day on and off, driven me mad. Thinks more about that madam than you or me, that’s for sure.’
Edward didn’t miss the covert message in the words. Miriam had him over a barrel and he knew it. He also knew his mistress was fully aware of the truth of what had occurred in the backyard and was choosing to ignore it - for a price.
This was confirmed when Miriam stood up and draped her arms round his neck. ‘Don’t fret,’ she said softly. ‘Hannah’s gone, and Aggie thinks it’s because of a row with me like we decided. Even if someone said otherwise, if you and I keep to our story it’ll be all right. I love you, Edward. You know that.’
He swallowed hard, wishing he could extricate himself from her embrace but knowing he didn’t dare. ‘I didn’t touch the girl,’ he mumbled weakly.
‘I know, I know.’ She smiled. ‘Of course you didn’t. Why would you, when you’ve got me? And I’ll always do what you want, you know that, because we love each other. We do, don’t we, Edward? We love each other.’
‘Aye, aye.’
‘Say it. Say we love each other.’
Again he swallowed. His voice flat, he said, ‘We love each other.’
‘
And we’ll forget all this with Hannah. She’s gone now, she’s out of our lives and she can rot at that farm, for all I care.You can get someone else to help you in the shop, a lad this time, I think. There’s so many out of work, after all.Young Bart Crawford’s just left school, you could have him.Yes, Bart will do very well, I think. I’ll have a word with his mother tomorrow. She’ll be pleased, what with her husband and Bart’s brothers being laid off from the pit months now. Aye, all in all, Hannah going is no bad thing, Edward. Look at it like that. Now come and sit down and put your feet up and I’ll get you a beer. Dinner will be ready in half an hour and it’s your favourite.’
Edward sat down. In his mind’s eye he could see the years stretching out, full of evenings like this one. Him and Miriam. Together.
A few yards down the street Hannah was also the topic of conversation in the Wood household. The twins were already in bed in the room they shared with Stephen and Peter, but the rest of the family were sitting round the kitchen table. The evening meal had been sparse and had consisted of a broth made with a ham shank and vegetables Jake had brought at the weekend. Even the thick wedges of stottie cake had been baked using flour from the farm.
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