The Wages of Sin

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Exactly,’ Harriet said, to both her words and her unspoken fear. ‘As you may know, the only person who can dismiss Matthew is his lordship – and he probably has to be in his right mind to do it. So another suggestion comes to mind.’ Carefully she did not say whose mind. ‘The House is big, is it not? Most rooms are never occupied, nor were even when we had company. So it would be possible to seal off one wing – to make it as safe as an asylum. Dr Page would bring in specialist staff to care for him, and also, we could ensure, the very best doctors – not necessarily to stay here but to visit from time to time to make sure he is being treated properly and in the most up-to-date way. Of course we would not need nearly so many staff, but at least a few could keep their jobs – and with Matthew holding the purse-strings I think we can assume that no one would be dismissed out of hand. The estate could pay pensions to people feeling they were too old or set in their ways to find a new employer.’ She took a breath, as if to steady her voice. ‘Those afflicted with his lordship’s disease would also find money and if necessary a refuge here.’

  Samuel gave me a harder stare than I was expecting. ‘Would this be legal? You might be feathering your nest for all the Law would know.’

  ‘I might. Samuel, half of me would love to abandon the Family to its fate. But like you I feel the burden of responsibility on my shoulders. Responsibility not just to you, my friends, and everyone in the servants’ hall, not just to the estate workers. You know I’ve long wanted to improve the estate houses and rebuild Stammerton. That way his lordship would leave a wonderful legacy of hope, not despair. And the building and furnishing would provide work for those who may have lost their jobs.’

  ‘Save them from the workhouse, you mean?’

  ‘Samuel, I would do almost anything to save anyone from the workhouse, having seen the conditions in even the best ones. We agree that all our colleagues here, great and small, are human? Let them not be treated inhumanely, then.’

  ‘What about Mr Pounceman? Won’t he shove his oar in?’

  Harriet produced a sweetly malicious smile. ‘I suspect that if Matthew’s proposals are accepted, the family lawyer will suggest a board of overseers, such as workhouses have. If he were one of them he might be less inclined to gripe.’

  If she had murdered four archbishops and seven babes in arms, I would still want that woman to be my wife. I said, ‘We must also ask the lawyer to institute a search for the heir to the title and the estate – to the best of my knowledge, he is a second cousin, currently living abroad. He must be informed; with luck he’ll be wise enough to return so that he may learn how an estate like this functions.’

  At this point Tim knocked the door. ‘Sir, the people the doctor asked to come have arrived.’

  Samuel rose to his feet. ‘Mrs Faulkner, I think you and I should escort them to the rooms concerned and discuss where they may be best accommodated.’

  I nodded. ‘And I must send a note to Elias to tell him that his lordship has returned home safely, with Luke, but is too unwell to explain any more. Harriet – that book you recommended. Might I borrow it now, and read it in my office? Then I can return it to you and perhaps see if we come to the same conclusions about it before I leave for my house.’

  She bowed and smiled, though she was white to the lips. ‘Of course. I have some accounts to complete before I retire for the night so please feel free to disturb me.’

  XXXI

  He is knocking at the door. My hands shake so much I can barely lift the catch. When your whole world revolves on one man’s decision, it is hard to be calm.

  His face is pale. Haggard.

  He kneels at my feet. ‘My dear, I am sorry …’

  He has read my diary and cannot …

  I am lying on my bed. My pillow rises, and brandy slips between my lips. I open my eyes. Gradually I focus on his face. He smiles, supporting my shoulders, urging another sip upon me. Replacing the glass on the table, he strokes my hair from my brow.

  ‘I should have run to you with joy, proclaiming my love from the roof-tops,’ he is saying, ‘and urging you to marry me tomorrow! Instead – you thought … How could you have doubted me? Men have been so wicked to you: that was what I was sorry for.’

  ‘You can’t apologize for someone else’s actions,’ I say gently. ‘But—’

  ‘Can you imagine, having known me run to the defence of that unknown child in Oxford, I would find it possible to feel anything except guilt for my sex and love for you, a child victim of an evil arrogant man?’

  I take his hand, and shake my head.

  ‘Have you seen him since, to shame him?’

  ‘Never. But I have read about him, in the reports in the newspapers of trials at the Old Bailey. He is a distinguished judge, Matthew: I try to relish the irony, but I don’t always succeed.’ I make myself continue. ‘Every bride is supposed to be a virgin, and now you know I am not.’

  ‘If there had ever been a Mr Faulkner, who had conveniently died and left you an eligible widow, society would have cooed in delight had you consented to marry me. Please, please consent to marry now.’

  ‘What will people say?’

  ‘What a strange question! Ah, you assume everyone will know that you have a secret. Let me see, how many people knew – when you were a child, that is? Four at most?’

  ‘The girls who bullied me—’

  ‘Oh, forget them! More important are the women who looked after you. Are they still alive? If they are dead, you need not worry about their gossip. And if they are alive – heavens, Harriet! – they cared for you so well I would like to kiss them on both cheeks and invite them to our wedding. When shall it be? Soon, please!’

  I have to say it: ‘We have a funeral to arrange first, immediately in fact, since the men say it will be hot by the end of the week. Then there must be proper time allowed for mourning.’ I suppress – because it would make him laugh – a desire to quote from Hamlet.

  ‘But a very quiet wedding ceremony—’

  ‘Can you imagine that? Not if we held it here. And our friends have the right to celebrate with us – heavens, Matthew, there is not much joy for people here, not much innocent pleasure. Don’t deny the women the chance to deck the church, the men to feast themselves silly – what have I said?’

  He actually blushes. ‘I have this most inapposite allusion to Hamlet forcing itself upon me!’

  ‘Not “The funeral baked meats!”’ We collapse in childish giggles in each other’s arms.

  So here I am, wishing he did not have to leave me and return to his house. In any other circumstances I would have had a bedchamber prepared for him. But there is so much joyous tension between us this perfect summer’s night it would have been even harder to have him sleeping nearby than to wish him goodnight and send him on his way.

  THIRTY-TWO

  A very few weeks later, sleek in his city-smart clothes, Mark stood beside me as my best man. My father, granted permission to marry us in Pounceman’s church, stood before us, smiling whenever our eyes met. He had discreetly rewritten the usual vows: not for anything would I ask Harriet to obey me. Behind me as many of the servants as possible were crammed into the pews alongside Ianto Davies, his wife and Marty Baines. Luke and Dr Page were sidesmen. Beatrice sat beside Samuel, her face alight with joy and fun, Samuel’s a little disapproving – though that might have been an illusion caused by the remains of his bruising.

  Soon she would come.

  I heard Mama’s voice in the porch: she insisted that Harriet having no father to give her away she would act as mother and father and friend and lend her her arm up the aisle.

  There was a murmur – she was there. I heard everyone get to their feet.

  I turn – and this extraordinary woman picks up her skirt and runs towards me.

  Matthew Rowsley will return in

  LEGACY OF DEATH

  to be published in 2020

  Turn the page to read an

  exclusive first chapter.

&n
bsp; ONE

  My daily walk takes me to the site of the new model village: it always pleases me to see how fast the work is progressing, despite the shortness of the winter’s day. But today something is wrong. The labourers are resting on the handles of their picks and shovels. Thomas, the foreman, is wiping sweat from his brow.

  He scrambles out of the trench as I appear, and comes towards me, waving his hands as if I am a sheep that has gone the wrong way. I almost expect him to say, ‘Shoo!’

  But his eyes are full of fear. ‘No, Mrs Faulkner. Mrs Rowsley, I mean. No, don’t look, ma’am. ’Tis not fit for a lady’s eyes. ’Tis a body, ma’am! A dead body!’

  Mr Wilson cast his eyes around Thorncroft House’s red dining room, where we had gathered round the long mahogany table, watched from the walls by his lordship’s ancestors. None of them was welcoming, with two portrayed by Lely particularly disdainful. ‘Welcome to this, the first meeting of the trustees of Lord Croft’s estate, convened to oversee both its day-to-day and its long-term needs. I believe we are all here now, gentlemen – and ladies, of course,’ he added with a patronising smile that could not fail to raise the hackles of at least two of those present, though they both responded with dignified nods.

  Irritated though I was – had I not clearly explained to him that all, regardless of rank and sex, must be accorded the same respect? – rather than interrupt, I resolved to speak to him as he left.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Wilson continued, as unctuous as it was possible for a solicitor to be, ‘in view of the solemnity of our business, before we are seated we might open with a prayer. Mr Pounceman?’

  That was an invitation the Reverend Theophilus Pounceman would never decline. A severe attack of mumps in the summer had left him somewhat thinner, but had by no means dented his elegant carapace. In another milieu he might have been a dandy; in the environs of the Church he dressed and lived like a prince, though he was simply the village rector, the generous living bestowed on him by the previous Lord Croft. In his late thirties, his good looks and excellent prospects might have made him seem very attractive as a potential husband, but I had not yet met a woman who even liked him. As for him, he disdained what he always referred to as ‘the weaker sex’.

  The long exhortation to the Almighty to restore Lord Croft to health was countered by a plea that we might enjoy a long and profitable association. Perhaps I was not the only one who registered a word that was decidedly suspect: as land agent I wished to be visibly meticulous in a role I had always performed with the clearest of consciences, never taking more than my contractual salary. Hence my discussions with the Family’s solicitor, Montgomery Wilson, respected for his probity and probably even his pomposity throughout Shropshire, who had agreed my suggestions for people who were eligible by dint of their closeness to the Family or as noteworthy members of the village of Thorncroft. In addition to Pounceman were our village doctor, Ellis Page; Tertius Newcombe, a prosperous farmer; Samuel Bowman, the butler who had dedicated his life to the Family; Mrs Beatrice Arden, the cook; and my dear wife Harriet, once Mrs Faulkner, the housekeeper.

  ‘I have received an apology for absence from Mr Martin Baines and my clerk has taken note of those attending,’ Wilson said. ‘So we can proceed to the first item on the agenda: conversion of the family wing to a lunatic asylum for his lordship and his mother.’

  Samuel Bowman writhed. After some fifty years in service, he was, however, so used to waiting until he was spoken to that he could do no more than stare at me.

  ‘I think most of us would prefer a term that carried less opprobrium,’ I said. ‘Her ladyship is not far from death, I believe?’ Dr Page nodded his agreement. ‘And his lordship’s disorder might well be a result of not his own but his father’s indiscretions—’

  ‘Let us call them by their correct name,’ Pounceman declared. ‘Transgressions! Sins of the flesh!’

  ‘His late lordship, Mr Chairman, is not here to defend himself,’ Harriet said with such quiet assurance she might have been speaking at formal meetings like this all her life. ‘But I agree, as I think we all do, that we should perhaps refer to the family wing by another term than lunatic asylum. Mr Bowman was speaking of this earlier.’ She nodded across the table to her colleague, her beautiful hair, confined under a much less un-flattering cap these days, gleaming in the candlelight.

  Wilson might have been as surprised to hear her speak as to hear her chair burst into song, but after a moment’s hesitation he took his cue, and nodded towards Samuel. ‘Mr Bowman?’

  ‘All of us servants have always called it the family wing. We don’t need to change its name, Mr W— Mr Chairman. There are new locks on the doors; there are bars at the windows. It is safe. It does not need to lose … to lose its dignity.’

  Wilson nodded. His clerk, a sad-faced youth in a suit a size too large, scratched at his paper.

  ‘Family wing it is,’ Wilson declared. ‘And the changes to the fabric, Mr Rowsley? I believe Mr Bowman has already alluded to some of them.’

  ‘Indeed. The estate carpenter has also installed some extra doors for security. He has gone to great pains to ensure they are in keeping with the House. However, he assures me that as and when it is safe to remove them, it can be done with no major damage to the fabric.’

  ‘So all is well on that front. Does anyone have anything else to add? Very well, let us proceed to the next item: guards – or do you prefer another name, Mr Bowman?’

  How would he react to the sarcasm?

  ‘The staff all refer to them as attendants or nurses,’ Samuel responded with a slow dignity that matched his best attire. ‘After all, many of them used to be in regular service here, as footmen or maids. Dr Page has had them trained.’

  Page was not going to wait to be patronised. ‘As a country doctor, Mr Chairman, I did not consider myself sufficiently au fait with current developments in the treatment of such illnesses, so I invited experts from the county asylum and Royal Salop Infirmary to instruct those who volunteered for new roles.’

  Wilson, outgunned, nodded. ‘And the rest of the staff?’ He looked at me.

  ‘I can tell you that all the outdoor staff have remained in place, with the exception of the Family’s personal grooms, both of whom have sought and found employment elsewhere. They will be discreet,’ I added. ‘As to the others, Mrs Rowsley is responsible for the maids, Mrs Arden for the kitchen staff and Mr Bowman for the footmen.’

  Harriet and Samuel, despite his initial anxieties, reported confidently on changes, only Beatrice Arden showing any sign of nervousness. She too sported a less ugly cap.

  ‘So many staff still employed!’ Pounceman jumped in. ‘Really, Rowsley, how can you possibly justify that?’

  This from a man who employed at least eight servants to nurture him! For answer I looked at Wilson, who peered over his spectacles. ‘Mr Pounceman, I would be more than grateful if you would address all your comments through the chair. There would appear to be a large number of people still drawing wages, Mr Rowsley.’

  For answer I passed him a copy of the wages bill for the last three years. ‘As you will see, the servants, whatever work they are doing, are not highly paid. The fabric and fittings must be preserved in the best possible state, and to do this we must rely on their expertise. Such a building is not for the present occupier alone: it must be kept in trust for his heir. As and when staff find new employment elsewhere, the posts they leave vacant may or may not be filled – that will be at the discretion of those directly supervising them, or this committee if the members prefer.’

  ‘My opinion, for what it is worth,’ Wilson said, ‘is that such decisions might well be left to those with the requisite knowledge and experience. Are we all agreed? Ah, Mr Pounceman.’

  ‘We are trustees for a reason, sir. We are to oversee what is done so no one takes advantage of a delicate situation. How are we to know that there is no nepotism, no other sort of favouritism?’

  Dr Page raised his pen. ‘Mr Chairman, I shou
ld imagine that these loyal employees around the table with us have never had much in the way of supervision from anything except their consciences, with which, to the best of my knowledge, they have imbued their underlings. Perhaps, if any exceptional remuneration is to be made and they are in any doubt, they should report to Mr Rowsley as land agent?’

  ‘Although that has always been the case, Mr Chairman, I am more than happy to pass my powers of approval to those of us gathered here.’

  ‘I still believe we should approve all the accounts, not just wages but other expenditure. We do not want the estates to become Rowsley’s milch cow, do we? I see that he has appointed a clerk to assist him.’

  I had. A bright lad once the stablehand at the village pub. Harriet had taught him to read, and though I paid him in shillings, not pound, at the moment, I was sure he would one day become a professional man in his own right.

  ‘Mr Pounceman, I would remind you that it was at Mr Rowsley’s personal suggestion that this board was formed. I think you might keep such insinuations to yourself in future.’ Wilson rocketed in my estimation. ‘You will note that he is required by our articles to submit his accounts to us, once they have been scrutinised by one of my more expert colleagues. Now, I fear we have wandered from the agenda.’

  Pounceman raised a hand. ‘I would like to table a motion.’

  Wilson shook his head. ‘Then you must raise the topic in Any Other Business, sir. There is something else to be raised then too, so let us turn our attention to the next item,

  rebuilding Stammerton.’ He contrived to ignore Pounceman’s raised hand. ‘Mr Rowsley: thank you for submitting these drawings and estimates to us all in advance. Our discussion can now be informed, not a matter of speculation. I am sure you would all like to comment, but I must remind you to comment through me, as chairman. My clerk will take note of everything you say. Dr Page?’

  Page acknowledged the invitation with a nod. ‘There are those who may consider such a wholesale change an extravagance. However, as a doctor who regularly sees the effects of living in such hovels as pass for cottages, the effects of not eating because there is no food available, I support Mr Rowsley’s proposals wholeheartedly. If the foundations could be dug tomorrow it would not be too soon for me.’