The Temptation of Torilla (3 page)

The Countess of Fernleigh’s younger sister Elizabeth had married Augustus Clifford when he was a curate at St. George’s Hanover Square in London.

The Earl of Fernleigh, to oblige his wife, had appointed him Vicar of the small parish of Fernford on his estate in Hertfordshire, and Torilla and Beryl had grown up together.

For the first cousins it had been a very happy arrangement, and although Beryl was two years older than Torilla the difference in their ages had not been obvious.

Torilla was in fact far cleverer than her wealthier cousin, and it had not been so much a case of her trying to keep up with the older girl as of Beryl lagging behind when it came to lessons.

The Countess of Fernleigh preferred to spend most of the year in London and therefore Beryl spent more time with her aunt than she did with her mother.

She had loved Mrs. Clifford and, when she died unexpectedly one cold winter, Beryl had been almost as grief-stricken as Torilla.

Losing her mother had completely changed Torilla’s whole way of life.

The Reverend Augustus had decided that the only possible thing for him to do was to leave the house where he had been so happy with his wife.

He no longer wished to work in the quiet country village where there was little for him to do. Instead, he had applied to be sent to one of the most desolate and poverty-stricken areas in the North of England, and within two months of his wife’s death he had been appointed to Barrowfield.

It had all happened so quickly that Torilla had hardly realised what was going on, until she found herself in a strange, alien place away from everything that was familiar with only Abby to cling to in her unhappiness.

To the Reverend Augustus it was a relief from his misery and also a challenge that no one had realised he had wanted all his life.

Driven by a fervent desire to help those less fortunate than himself and imbued with a crusading spirit, he flung himself wholeheartedly into the problems and difficulties he found in the terrifying squalor of a Northern mining village.

It was as if he took on the hosts of evil entirely by himself.

Only Torilla and Abby knew that in his fervour he would, if they had not prevented him, have gone without food and sleep in his efforts to improve the conditions he found in his new parish.

Every penny of his stipend and the little money he had of his own was spent on the people for whom he worked.

It was only because Abby insisted on his giving her enough money for the housekeeping as soon as the cheques came in that they were saved from starvation.

As she seated herself now at the dining room table, Torilla knew that the real difficulty in getting her father’s permission to go South would be the cost of the journey.

“I have had a letter from Beryl toady, Papa,” she said as the Vicar poured himself a glass of water, and Abby came in through the door carrying the leg of mutton.

“From Beryl?” the Vicar asked vaguely as if he had never heard the name.

“Beryl is to be married, Papa. She begs me to go and stay at The Hall and help her with her trousseau. And she has asked me to be her bridesmaid.”

“Oh,
Beryl
!” the Vicar exclaimed, picking up the carving knife and starting to slice the mutton.

“You will not mind if I go, Papa?” Torilla asked.

“No, no. Of course not,” the Vicar replied.

Then, as he cut a slice and put it on the plate, he added,

“But I doubt if we can afford it.”

“I will go by stagecoach,” Torilla said, “and if I go alone and leave Abby to look after you, it will not cost so very much.”

She had thought at first when Beryl’s letter came that she would be able to take Abby with her, but now she knew, not only because of the expense but because the Vicar would not look after himself, that Abby must stay with him.

Abby could bully him into eating and sleeping more effectively even than she could do.

“I was thinking,” the Vicar said, almost as if he was talking to himself, “that any spare money we have should go to Mrs. Coxwold. She is expecting her ninth child and I am sure the oldest girl has consumption.”

“I am very sorry for the Coxwolds, Papa,” Torilla answered, “but you know as well as I do that Mr. Coxwold goes to the Public House every Friday evening and drinks away at least half his wages.”

“I know, I know,” the Vicar said, “but a man is entitled to spend what he earns.”

“Not when his children are starving,” Torilla retorted.

“The second girl will be five this month and I think they will send her to work in the mine.”

“Oh, no, Papa!” Torilla cried. “She is too young! Don’t you remember how ill the little Barnsby child was after she worked in water up to her knees and contracted pneumonia?”

The Vicar sighed.

“They have to eat, Torilla.”

“And so have you, sir,” Abby said coming back into the room.

She carried two dishes one of which contained potatoes and the other some rather unappetising-looking cabbage.

“I have had enough,” the Vicar said vaguely, looking at the very small pieces of meat on his plate.

“I’m not taking this mutton off the table until you’ve helped yourself properly, sir,” Abby said in the affectionate bullying tones of a nanny talking to a recalcitrant child.

The Vicar picked up the carvers and added two small slices to those on his plate.

Having stood with the vegetables at the Vicar’s side until he had helped himself to two tablespoons of potatoes, Abby waited in the room until Torilla had finished before she said,

“I wonder, Miss Torilla if you would get the suet pudding out of the oven for me? I don’t trust that girl in the kitchen. The treacle is here so all we need now is the pudding.”

“Yes, of course,” Torilla said obediently.

Abby handed her the mutton and she carried it out to the kitchen knowing as she went that Abby would speak to her father.

“Miss Torilla has told you, sir,” Abby said as soon as she had left the room, “that her Ladyship has asked her to go South for her wedding.”

“Yes, Miss Torilla has told me,” the Vicar replied. “The fact is, Abby, we cannot afford it. Stagecoaches cost money and it is a long way to Hertfordshire.”

“But it’s high time, sir, if you’ll excuse me for speaking frankly, that Miss Torilla went back and saw some decent folk for a change.”

The Vicar looked up in surprise and Abby went on before he could speak,

“Do you realise that Miss Torilla’s been here nearly two years and hasn’t exchanged half-a-dozen words with a lady or a gentleman? Her poor mother would turn in her grave if she knew what sort of place you’ve brought her to – and that’s the truth!”

The Vicar looked startled.

“I had not thought of that, Abby.”

“Well, I have, sir! Miss Torilla’s eighteen, and if Mrs. Clifford were alive, God rest her soul, she would be looking out for a suitable husband for Miss Torilla, giving parties for her and having friends of her own age to the house.”

Abby snorted before she went on,

“What sort of people could we invite here? Ragged, dirty creatures covered in coal dust.”

She spoke scathingly, but, as the Vicar put up his hands, she added,

“Oh, I know sir, they’ve souls to save, they’re Christians and they’re the same as us in the sight of God. But you’re not expecting Miss Torilla to marry a coal miner, are you, sir?”

The Vicar looked uncomfortable.

“To tell you the truth, Abby, I had not thought of Miss Torilla as being grown up.”

“Well, she is, sir, and it’s a crying shame – it is really – that she should be buried alive – because that’s what it is – in this dreadful place.”

“I am needed here,” the Vicar said in a low voice, almost as if he was pleading his case in the dock.

“That’s as may be,” Abby replied, “and I’m not saying sir, as you’re not doing the work of God, and doing it well. It’s your chosen profession, so to speak. But Miss Torilla’s not a Parson nor a Preacher, she’s a young woman, and a very beautiful one at that!”

There was no time to say more because Torilla came back into the room with a small suet pudding in the centre of a rather large dish.

She set it down in front of her father and for a moment he did not seem to see it, as deep in his thoughts he appeared to be quite oblivious of her presence.

Torilla looked rather anxiously at Abby.

Then, as the maid changed the plates and placed a tablespoon in the Vicar’s hand, he said,

“You are right, Abby. Miss Torilla must go to Lady Beryl’s wedding. We will find the money somehow.”

It was after he had rushed out of the house, almost before he had finished the last mouthful of the suet pudding, that Torilla said to Abby,

“You made Papa agree! Oh, Abby, I feel so guilty. You could see he was upset at having to spend so much on me. He wanted the money for the Coxwolds.”

“Those Coxwolds have had more than their share of your father’s money already,” Abby said crossly. “That woman’s a whiner and the Vicar, poor man, believes every word she tells him.”

“Yes, I know, Abby, but he does suffer so greatly and this place is terrible. I cannot bear to look at the children.”

There was a little sob in Torilla’s voice, as she added,

“Perhaps it is – selfish of me. If I stay and Papa gives the money to the Coxwolds it might make all the – difference to them.”

“If there are a hundred Coxwolds dying on their feet,” Abby said firmly, “they’ll not stop you from going to stay with Lady Beryl.”

“Perhaps it is wrong of me to leave Papa,” Torilla murmured.

“If you refuse the invitation it’ll be over my dead body!” Abby said. “Now sit down, Miss Torilla, and write and tell her Ladyship you’ll leave here next Monday.”

“But, Abby, that is the day after tomorrow!”

“The sooner the better,” Abby snapped, “and you needn’t worry about your father either. I’ll look after him, you know that.”

“He pays far more attention to you than to me,” Torilla said. “I could never have persuaded him to eat those extra pieces of mutton – and I think he enjoyed them, although he did not say so.”

“That leg of mutton’s going to last us till the end of the week,” Abby said. “What your father needs is more good square meals inside him then he’d not worry so acutely over the poor and the sick.”

Torilla knew that was true, but at the same time her father was not the only one who suffered.

She could not bear to see the small children who worked in the mine and were whipped if they cried or fell asleep. She felt sick when she saw women who by the age of thirty were old and infirm cripples bent double with racking coughs and malnutrition.

She could understand why the men in this dirty soul-destroying existence hurried to the public house every Friday night to forget for an hour or so the dangers of their work in the darkness of the pit.

Whenever there was an accident, her father would come home white-faced and almost in tears, and she would take the broth that Abby made to the women who were ill and to the children who never had enough to eat.

But they had little enough to spare.

If Abby had not bullied her father from time to time into giving her a few shillings to buy some cheap material Torilla knew that she would have gone as threadbare as some of the wives of the miners.

There were pitifully few gowns to pack, but Abby spent the next day washing and ironing, pressing and sewing.

Torilla had also a few clothes left which had belonged to her mother, pretty frocks and evening gowns, which she had had no opportunity to wear in the grime and isolation of Barrowfield.

She was afraid that they were out of date. But she had no way of gauging whether or not this was true for they had no money to waste on
‘The Ladies Journal
or any other magazine which showed sketches of the latest London fashions.

However, Torilla was not really worried about this since she was sure that Beryl would be as generous to her as she had always been.

Wearing a somewhat threadbare cloak over a plain muslin gown and a chip-straw bonnet trimmed with cheap blue ribbons, she left the Vicarage early on Monday morning to catch the stagecoach, which was to carry her on the first part of her journey.

“You oughtn’t to be travelling alone, and that’s a fact!” Abby said as they waited at the crossroads for the coach that started from Leeds.

“Well, we can hardly pretend I am a babe in arms,” Torilla answered with a smile, “and there is no other way we could travel on one ticket.”

“Now don’t you go talking to strangers,” Abby admonished, “and that reminds me – there’s something else I want to say to you, Miss Torilla.”

“What is that?” Torilla asked a little apprehensively.

“For the last two years, dearie, you’ve lived a strange unnatural life for a young girl with nothing but misery, poverty and squalor around you. What I want to say is, don’t you go talking about it too much when you’re with her Ladyship.”

“Why ever not?” Torilla asked.

“Because people don’t want to listen to such things, Miss Torilla. They want to talk about happy things, not miserable ones.”

Abby paused a moment before she went on,

“Do you remember how your mother used to say to the Master, ‘Cheer up, darling, you can’t take all the worries and sins of the world on your shoulders’?”

Torilla gave a little smile.

“Yes, I remember Mama saying that, and Papa used to ask, ‘Am I being a bore?’”

“That’s right,” Abby said, “and since your dear mother passed away that’s exactly what the Master has become, Miss Torilla, to other people.”

“I don’t think him a bore!” Torilla exclaimed loyally.

“No, dear, but other people would,” Abby said, “and that’s why, when you’re away from here, forget what you’ve seen and what you’ve heard, and just go back into the sunshine of life as it was when you were at home.”

She said the last words deliberately and she saw the sudden light in Torilla’s blue eyes.

She knew she was thinking how happy they had all been in the Vicarage that stood in a clean attractive village of thatched cottages with flower-filled gardens.

“You promise me,” Abby said insistently.