The Flight of Swallows (42 page)

Trams rattled past, for the electric tramway had recently started operating and the Bull Ring was busy and bustling with carriages, riders on horseback, bicycles and delivery wagons. A row of horse-drawn cabs waited in line for custom, the horses with weary heads hanging down, some with nose bags munching patiently. Charlotte was enchanted, since it seemed she had chosen the right spot for her young business enterprise.

There were many smart carriages bearing ladies on a shopping expedition, all with their hoods down, for it was a sunny day though cold, all except one which was closed. In it crouched a man in a tall top hat who stared with venom at Charlotte and Brooke as they crossed to the pavement in front of the shop, arms linked, laughing up at each other. The man’s lips curled and he whispered something to himself before rapping smartly on the roof to tell his coachman to get a move on!

27

It was intensely cold but bright. The hoar frost was so thik on the lawn the gardeners’ feet sank an inch into it as though it were a layer of snow and their breath hung in a hazy cloud about their heads. The trees were black and deep maroon against the sun, a round pink disc hanging motionless behind them, but every branch of the trees and every twig on the bushes were outlined in a silvery white tracery against the pale pink of the winter sky. Masses of red berries hung on the holly bushes and the birds hovered waiting for the coast to be clear before they descended on the feast. The sun was palely beaming and the grass, crisp and stiff, was tinted a pale pink. The cold hurt your chest as you breathed and Charlotte wondered whether it would be wise to take the children out in such a biting chill. She herself was well wrapped up in a fleece-lined jacket and an ankle-length heavy woollen skirt and she wore her riding breeches underneath, as well as stout boots and thick woollen stockings. Round her neck was wound a hand-knitted scarf worked for one of the boys by Kizzie. She wore no hat as she sauntered down to where John and Ned were contemplating the frozen ground with gloomy expressions. They turned when they heard her approach and whipped off their caps.

‘No digging today I shouldn’t think, John. The ground is as hard as a rock.’

‘Aye, tha’s right there, Mrs Armitage. Me an’ Ned was thinkin’ o’ puttin’ in the celery at back o’t’ouse in’t rows we got ready a few weeks back but us’ll not get us spades inter’t ground terday, I reckon. An’t bairns’ll be stuck indoors, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Taddy, who had followed the men from the back of the house, leaped about her skirts, his tail going nineteen to the dozen, then he began to forage under the holly bushes, following some scent his keen nose had picked up, probably that of a fox who had crept out in the night. Chickens were kept in a hen coop at the rear of the vegetable gardens but they were secure in their well-built abode and the fox would have gone hungry. Nevertheless the young dog chased off on his trail.

‘Well, I should stay cosy in the kitchens if I were you, men,’ Charlotte told them and they nodded smilingly, though they could not see themselves getting under the feet of the maids. There would be indoor jobs to be done in the workshop, which was where they finally headed.

Percy was surprised when the missis appeared by the stable door where he and Arch were mucking out and with a bright ‘good morning’ she walked by, stroking and patting the soft noses of the horses who peered curiously over their stall doors. Magic whickered a welcome, nudging her shoulder and the men watched her with as much interest as the horses.

‘I think I’ll take her out today, Percy, if you’ll saddle her up for me,’ she began, but he protested at once.

‘Nay, ma’am, not in this weather. Ground’s that ’ard if tha’ fell tha’ could be ’urt bad, not ter mention Magic. Break ’er leg tha’ could an’ tha’ know what would ’appen then. When a ’orse breaks a leg there’s only one way . . .’ His voice was anguished, for Percy loved horses. A horse could be talked to and would respond. A horse was intelligent and all those in his care were well looked after, treated with affection, and even if he had to fight the mistress he’d not let her take out the mare in today’s weather.

Charlotte sighed. ‘You’re right, Percy, I don’t know what I was thinking of. I’ll wait until the thaw comes but it’s . . . well, never mind. Sorry, Magic, I know you’re as restless as me and would love a gallop.’

Percy sighed with relief. ‘Good lass,’ he said, forgetting he was speaking to the wife of his master, or perhaps he was talking to the mare.

Charlotte wandered from the stable and across the yard. It was Sunday. The shop was closed, the girls who lived in the Dower House were all ensconced by the fire enjoying their day of rest, nursing their children or, those, like Jenny, who wanted their offspring to have a better childhood than they had had, were reading to them, or teaching them to read for themselves. Rose, Jenny’s daughter and the eldest, was already identifying the letters of the alphabet and in the small cottage which she and her mother shared with Todd, was nestling on her new father’s knee, while in the bedroom Jenny was giving birth to Todd’s son.

Up in the nursery Lucy, Ellie and Toby were enjoying a game of lions and tigers that Brooke had invented in which he hid under the plush tablecloth that covered the nursery table and then pounced out roaring while the children screamed hysterically, not sure whether to be frightened or delighted. Toby was barely aware of what they were doing but joined in enthusiastically. He had pulled himself up on to unsteady legs a week or so ago and was walking after a fashion. Charlotte had left them to it, raising her eyebrows at the two nursemaids as though to say she’d had enough and without Kizzie to chide her, had dressed in her warmest clothes and ventured out, calling to Mrs Groves as she went through the kitchen that she was just going to get a breath of fresh air.

‘Daft besom,’ Mrs Groves murmured as the door closed. ‘She wants to stay where it’s warm on a day like this.’ Nobody disagreed!

Charlotte opened the gate and sauntered down to the empty paddock, her mind brimming with the steady progress made by the Carpet Shop. They were busy from first light until early evening. She had purchased from the Wilton manufacturers several carpets to start her off, having them made to Jenny’s design, and showed them on a special display in the shop. Every week the window was changed with a new carpet and furniture filched from King’s Meadow, one week a dining room, the next a drawing room or even a bedroom. In the second window she and Jenny had draped the beautiful handmade quilts which, quite by accident, Josie Garth, who lived in the village and took the new tram each morning into Wakefield, mentioned casually that her grandmother made. Her grandmother, who had been making quilts since she was a girl, not only made them by hand but designed them too. Each quilt required many small pieces of material of every colour imaginable which were carefully pieced together with a running stitch into patterns of breathtaking beauty and sewn on to a backing, beginning at the middle and working outwards. Charlotte was now providing her with the materials needed and Josie’s grandmother was delighted to be paid for work that she loved. She had often sold her quilts, of course, since they were much in demand but now she had a ready market, sitting by her fire in her cosy cottage and patiently working to the designs Jenny passed on to her.

Charlotte sauntered beside the paddock then, picking up her pace as it was not a day for sauntering, tramped briskly into the denuded woodland known as Beggers Wood. It was quite enchanting. The sun was stronger now, highlighting the frozen trees to a fairyland of white and silver, still, silent, apart from an occasional crack as a frozen strand of bracken snapped. Tracks indicated where the fox had ventured, probably the one Taddy had scented and as though she had conjured him up with her thought, there was Taddy, frolicking by her side, stopping to sniff the frozen air, one paw raised, then rushing on ahead, his nose to the ground.

Suddenly he stopped and began to growl, his muzzle lifting back from his teeth. She moved towards him, startled, for what could be hidden in this frozen woodland to alarm him? When the man stepped out from behind a group of lacy saplings she froze, then backed away nervously. The sun silhouetted him against the dazzling frost-laden branches and when she saw who it was she became quite still, like a young animal that senses a trap and she was deathly afraid.

‘Well, daughter,’ the man said, ‘here we are at last. After all this time we meet again. You are well, I trust. You look quite blooming with your cheeks so pink and your eyes like blue stars. I must say—’

‘What do you want?’ She almost called him ‘father’, the habit of a lifetime hard to break. But he was no father to her or his sons, for a father was warm, loving, protective and not one such as this man. Her voice was as icy as the weather and though she feared him dreadfully, it was steady. She was furious with herself for venturing so far into what was a deserted fairyland with no one to hear should she cry out, but she would not let him see it. Taddy continued to snarl, his tail tucked between his legs, huddled against her skirt, wanting to protect his mistress but he was small, a young dog who was trying to be brave despite his fear.

‘Now, Charlotte, is that the way to greet your loving father?’ His smile was lazy but his dark brown eyes raked her from head to foot and his voice was thick with menace.

Her heart was thudding furiously but she managed a defiant answer.

‘Loving father! When have you ever been that to me or your sons?’ The memory of their last meeting was sharp in her mind. The implication of what he had said to her then rang still in her ears and she wanted to run, pick up her skirts and take to her heels in the direction of the house and safety but her pride would not allow it.

He sensed what she was thinking and smiled playfully. ‘So at last we are alone and time to tell you exactly what you are to do or the consequences for you and that idiot husband of yours will not be pleasant. Tell me, how has that business of yours fared since last we met? It has been a long time, has it not, and I should think you imagined it was all over. Your punishment, I mean. Believe me it is not. Do you know where I have been these last nine months?’ His teeth glinted between his lips, not in a smile this time but a rictus of venom. ‘Do you, Charlotte? Well, let me tell you. I have been confined to my bed, to my house and all because of you. Oh, yes, I know it was you or that husband of yours who arranged for me to be beaten, to have my bones broken, to be confined to a wheelchair then crutches. I have been unable to do all the things that make life pleasant. I cannot ride my horse, nor even get to my club and it is all due to you and—’

‘No, no, you brought it on yourself with your perverted ideas and by your threats to take Ellie to live with you and treat her as you treated us, my brothers and myself. You are cruel and—’

‘You have no idea how cruel I can be, daughter . . .’ And it was then that Charlotte realised that her father had slipped over some invisible line between viciousness and into madness. His eyes continued to flicker over her and a fleck of white frothed at the corners of his mouth. He was sweating and his face was scarlet with some inner rage. It was then she noticed that he leaned heavily on a walking stick. He saw her eyes move and he laughed as though at a huge joke. ‘Oh yes, you would easily outstrip me if you bolted for it but there are other times as I grow stronger. I have a man who comes in each day, funnily enough recommended by your Doctor Chapman, who massages and manipulates me and I grow stronger weekly. Strange, is it not, that if you had not insisted that he was the better man I might still be confined to the house by that old fool who first attended me. Life is ironic, is it not, Charlotte?’

He smiled benignly as though they were discussing the state of the weather, then made a sudden lunge and at her side Taddy backed away, turned and fled in the direction they had come.

Arthur Drummond shook his head as though at some puzzle. ‘Perhaps you had better keep a braver dog by your side when you venture out and those girls of yours had better watch their backs.’

Charlotte stood before him, her loveliness illuminated by the sunlight and the reflection from the frost that hung from every tree and sparkled on every stalk of sleeping bracken. Her hair, a tawny gold and silver, lay down her back, unconfined and streaked by the light, her startlingly blue eyes glinted and her skin, touched by the cold, was rose at her cheeks and as flawless as porcelain. Her beauty had matured since she had married Brooke and become the mother of two children, three if you counted Ellie. She was desperately afraid and it passed snake-like through her mind that it might be the best thing to allow this madman who was her father to have his way with her. It might protect the others, her beloved children, the girls who worked so hard for her,
their
children and even Brooke, for this man was capable of anything. All these months he had brooded on what had been done to him and what he would do to exact revenge and now it was to begin again.

Just as suddenly as he had appeared he turned and vanished between the trees. For several minutes she stared at the spot where he had been, beginning to tremble, not realising how rigid she had kept herself, the trembling spreading and spreading until she shook like an aspen tree. Then she turned and her legs flashing in a gathering of speed she ran in the direction of the house. But she could not enter the kitchen because the servants would know that something had happened to her while she had been out. The men in the stable yard would stare in astonishment, for how was she to contain herself and act normally as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened to her? And what about Brooke? He would sense at once what had happened, or that
something
had and would shake it out of her and before she could stop him would gallop over to the Mount, probably taking a couple of their men with him, and beat her father to pulp. Perhaps kill him and end up in gaol. Dear God . . . Dear sweet Jesus, what am I to do? God in heaven, what am I to do?

Without coherent thought she found herself at the door of Jenny and Todd’s cottage – and Kizzie. Who else was she to turn to but the woman who had loved her, guarded her, comforted her, held her while she wept, followed her since she was ten years old, guided her through girlhood and brought her to the safe harbourage of her marriage to Brooke? And was still there, still shielding her back, ready to die for her.