Midwinter Manor 2 -Keeper's Pledge (2 page)

“Don’t be so hard on him, Mam,” Danny said, though he’d had half a mind himself to send his brother on his way with a clip ¼round his ear for being rude to their mam.

“Five children I’ve raised, Danny Costessey, you included, so don’t you go telling me how to be about my business. Abigail?”

“Yes, Mam?”
“Table wants setting.”

Danny picked up Toby’s paper and sat down by the fire. No sense trying to talk to Mam now until supper was safely on the table.

L
ORD
,
but it was good to taste some home cooking again. Not that Danny would hear a word said against Mrs. S’s cooking—but meals made by your mam were always the best, he thought as he tucked into the succulent pheasant and bread sauce. “You’ve done a fine job with the meal, Mam,” he said. “Just like you always do.”

“It’s a good bird, this, Danny. You always did have an eye for game,” she praised him right back. “Abigail, you eat that fat up. It’ll do you good.”

“Do they eat pheasant up at the manor?” she asked, her mouth half full. Luckily Mam was looking the other way. “’Course they do, chick. What’d they want so many of ’em for, if they didn’t eat ’em?”

 

“I thought they just liked to shoot them. All the ladies and gentlemen in their smart clothes.”

“Oh, they like that and all. Least, most of ’em do. But Mr. Luccombe’s not one for hunting, in the main. He keeps them to eat, and when there’s too many, as there always is, they get sent to market to bring in a bit of money.”

“Hasn’t Mr. Luccombe got enough money already?” Mary asked.

“Money’s something you can never have too much of,” Danny said wisely. “But he’s doing all right, Mr. Luccombe is.” He couldn’t stop the fondness creeping into his voice.

“Heard about Tom Fisher and the lad from Grover’s farm?” Toby’s chin jutted in the air as he broke into the conversation.

“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me,” Danny said, trying for Mam’s sake to keep his tone even.

“Mrs. Fisher came home yesterday afternoon and found ’em together. Doing unnatural things, they was. Going against God. She threw ’em both out and they an’t been seen since. Good riddance, I say.”

Despite the hot food and the fire, an icy chill formed in Danny’s belly, sending splinters out through his veins.
“Tom Fisher were a friend of yours, weren’t he?” Toby carried on into the shocked silence. Even little Abigail sat as if turned to stone, a forkful of pheasant halfway to her mouth. “Before you got all high and mighty like.”

Danny’s voice seemed to have frozen in his throat. Tom and him had been more than just friends, before he’d known Philip. Did Toby know just how close they’d been?

Mam banged her cup on the table. “Tobias Costessey, I’ll not have you taking that tone with your brother. And at the Sunday dinner table too!”

Her voice melted the splinters. “Is it true, Mam?” Danny asked. “Tom Fisher’s been run out of town?”

She sighed. “It’s him as did the running, love, but it’s true enough. Lord knows what Meg Fisher’ll do now. She won’t be able to keep the smithy going by herself, now will she?”

“Should have thought of that afore she married a man who weren’t no man at all,” Toby muttered into his plate.
Danny frowned. “Toby, if you’ve got something to say, then say it. I won’t have you ruining Mam’s dinner with your insinuations.”
Hate filled Toby’s eyes as he looked up. “Even got you talking like him now, an’t he? Your
friend
Mr. Luccombe, what’s been so
kind
to us all these last few years. You know what they say about you in the village, don’t you? They say you let him use you like a woman—”

“Toby!” Mam stood up so fast her chair toppled over. “You will leave this table now. I will
not
have you talking that way in front of your sisters! Have you no shame, no decency? Get out of my house, and don’t come back until you’ve a civil tongue in your head!”

“Fine! Like I wanted to stay here anyhow, eating his
friend’s
meat.” Toby stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

Danny stood, uneasy, as little Abigail began to cry.

“Don’t you go after him, Daniel Costessey.” Mam’s cheeks were flushed. “You sit down and enjoy your food. I’ll not have him ruining your visit with his bad manners. Abigail, don’t be so silly. Blow your nose and eat your supper.”

“Mam, it’s more than bad manners I’m worried about.”

Mary piped up. “What did he mean, Danny? You’re not a woman!” She frowned, her ten-year-old face still round and childlike. “Does he make you wash his clothes and cook his tea for him?”

Danny managed a weak laugh. “No, love. Toby was just being daft, is all. Mr. Luccombe’s got servants to do all that for him. Like our Edie does for the family she works for.” Edie was thirteen, and recently gone into service over Featherstone way.

“I miss Edie,” Abigail said softly. “Will she come home for Christmas?”

“That’s up to the Stanwicks to say if they can do without her. Fires still need setting on Christmas Day. It’d be a fine thing to have the family sitting down to Christmas dinner in an ice-cold room, wouldn’t it now?”

“They should learn to set their own fires then,” Mary put in. “I’ve known how to set a fire for
years
.”

 

Danny laughed. “And then what would your sister do for a job, eh now?”

Mary’s mouth made a little
O
as she considered this possibility. “She could go to the town and work in a shop,” she said finally. “My friend Gracie says she an’t going into service. She don’t want to be at no one’s beck and call.”

Mam gave her a sharp look. “Your friend Gracie’s full of big ideas. Going off to town indeed. She’ll end up in trouble if she don’t watch out. Now who’s for apple pie?”
“W
ILL
you stay the night, love?” Mam asked, as they sat with a cup of tea while Mary and Abby cleared away the dishes. Toby still hadn’t come back, and for all Mam’s sharp words, there was a worried frown creasing her brow. Danny had noticed she’d left a generous helping of apple pie in a dish by the fire for the lad. “I can have the girls in with me.”

“Best not,” Danny decided. “Reckon there’s more chance of Toby coming home if I’m not here, don’t you?”
“That boy… he’ll be the death of me. You were never so much trouble to me, Danny, love.”
Danny supposed he hadn’t been; he’d been too busy providing for the family after his da had died. Then again…. “Seem to recall you giving me a right earful after I fell out of that tree four Christmases ago.”

“Well, of all the things to risk your neck for. A bit of mistletoe for the mantle….”

“Weren’t the mistletoe I did it for though, were it? All I wanted was to bring a smile to the face of the prettiest lass in the village. That’d be your mam, girls,” he told his sisters.

Mam colored. “Get away with you. Now, do you want another cup of tea?”

“Any more tea and I’ll be swimming back home, not walking. No, I’d best be off. Abby, Mary, you be good for your mother, you hear me?” Danny stood, and with a hug for his sisters and a kiss for his Mam, was on his way.

As he walked along the moonlit lane, the air so cold and thin it was a sharp pleasure to breathe, Danny noticed a darker shadow by the hedge. “That you, Toby Costessey?”

The shadow detached itself from the hawthorn. “Might be.”

“Well, you’re safe to go home—safe from me, that is, although there’s nothing will save you from our mam’s tongue, for all she’s kept some apple pie for you. Or, if you’d rather, you might walk with me a bit.”

Toby didn’t answer, so Danny continued on his way, keeping his pace slow and measured. Sure enough, his brother fell into step beside him. They walked on awhile, the only sound their footsteps on the frozen ground, the rustling of the bushes, and the hooting of a far-off owl.

Danny was first to speak, as he knew he’d have to be. He turned to his brother. Lord, when had Toby grown so tall? He had a good three or four inches on Danny now. “Is it true, what you said before? About me and Mr. Luccombe being the talk of the village?”

There was a long silence, which Danny was careful not to break. “It was Albert Grover as said it.”
“Would it be him as bruised your face?”

“I blacked his eye for him first,” Toby said, his fierce pride showing through his words.

 

“Toby, you don’t have to fight my battles for me,” Danny said.

 

“It an’t just your battle! I won’t have no one shaming my mam and my sisters with their talk.”

 

“Is that what you’re worried about? Mam and the girls? Or are you shamed by me too?”

“Is it true, then?”
“And what if it were? Would you black my eye as well?” Toby didn’t answer.

Danny sighed. “Way I see it, what me and Mr. Luccombe are to each other is no one’s business but ours. Are we doing anyone any harm? No, we’re not. Now, why don’t you go on home and stop Mam mithering herself to death about you being out in this cold weather?”

There was no reply, but a few steps later, the tall shadow peeled itself from Danny’s side and set off back the way they’d come. It was a relief to see him take the sensible course for once, but Lord, what was Danny to do about those rumors?

“Seems as there’s only one sensible course for me to take,” he murmured to himself as he crested the rise on the way back to his cottage. “And that’s to leave a certain person be and not see him no more. But I’m damned if I can do that, and that’s the truth.”

Chapter 2

A
S
P
HILIP
entered the drawing room after his solitary dinner, he could hear the telephone ringing in the hall, its raucous cry irritating his ears. Why he’d had the wretched thing installed he couldn’t now fathom; he must have succumbed to some sort of modernization fever when having the electric lighting put in. At least, thank God, he wasn’t the one bound to obey its insistent whims. He sank into a chair and closed his eyes, grateful for the cessation of the racket as Standish, presumably, answered the thing.

“Sir?”

 

Philip opened his eyes quickly as Standish addressed him. “Yes? What is it?”

 

“Mr. Cranmore wishes to speak to you, sir.”

Philip sighed and heaved himself out of his chair to plod into the hall. He hoped Frederick hadn’t changed his mind about coming to stay for Christmas. Having plucked up his courage to face the necessary ordeal, he really just wanted to be done with it. “Yes? Frederick?” Philip’s tone sounded a touch impatient in his own ears as he spoke into the telephone, but he still felt uncomfortable using the dratted implement.

“Ah, Philip. Hope I haven’t disturbed you.” Frederick’s voice sounded harsh, crackly, and far away, as if it came from a very dusty gramophone record being played at full volume in the next room.

“No, no—I was just sitting down after dinner. How are you, Frederick? Well, I hope?” Philip tried to speak clearly, and a little more loudly than usual. It made him feel wretchedly self-conscious. And this was supposed to be an improvement upon letters and telegrams? Philip doubted it would ever really catch on.

“Oh yes, indeed. Quite well. Now, about this visit of mine—I wonder if I might make an imposition on you? You recall my younger brother, Matthew?”

“Yes, of course.” Philip had a vague recollection of a small, dark boy with a fondness for licorice. He was quite a bit younger than Frederick and had, by all accounts, been something of a surprise to his, by then, rather aged parents.

“Well, the fact is, I’d as soon keep an eye on him. You know he went a bit wild after Father died, got in with the wrong sort, that kind of thing.”

Philip’s mind conjured up visions of young Matthew hanging around with the village youths, throwing stones at the animals and dropping his aitches. “Oh, of course. Yes.”

“So you won’t mind if I bring him along too?”

 

“No, of course not. It was very remiss of me not to invite him in any case.”

“Well, we all know you’re not one for company. Good man, Philip. We’ll be with you on the seventeenth as planned.” He hung up, leaving Philip to ponder ruefully just how well and truly his Christmas was to be disrupted. Not just Frederick and his new wife, but a sister and brother to deal with too. He felt a sudden longing for Danny’s company, but Danny was probably still with his family. Philip could picture them now, sitting by the fire, a cozy, tight-knit group of six—no, five now; the eldest girl was out in service, wasn’t she? Still, it must make for an idyllic scene. There would be no formality in the Costessey cottage, he was sure. All would be ease and comfort.

Philip closed his eyes, fully aware how hypocritical he was being. Lord, scarcely a minute ago he’d been ruing the coming influx of guests, and now here he was, lamenting his own loneliness. “Although there
is
a difference,” he told himself. “They may be family, but I don’t
know
them.”

“Sir?” Standish’s voice, coming from behind his left ear, made Philip start.

 

“Yes?” he asked, a little peevish at having been discovered talking to himself.

 

“Did you want anything, sir?”

 

“No. No, I’m fine, Standish. That will be all. I think I’ll have an early night.”

N
EXT
day, Philip felt himself fully justified in taking a morning stroll down towards the keeper’s lodge. There were guests coming, after all, and no doubt they would expect Philip to provide them with entertainment in the form of shooting parties. At least Philip had some experience in this area: he generally invited some of his neighbors over for a shoot at least once or twice during the season. Admittedly, it had taken some gentle hinting from Danny that he’d like to justify his wages by performing more in the way of a gamekeeper’s duties. It hadn’t, in the event, been nearly so bad as Philip had imagined. No one seemed to expect him to be a particularly genial host, and they all disappeared promptly at the end of the day.

Which would not, alas, be the case with his cousins. But at any rate, if there was to be a shoot, the gamekeeper had to be consulted. Philip smiled to himself as he walked. As if he needed an excuse to visit his lover.

When Danny opened the door to him though, he looked troubled.
“Is something wrong?” Philip asked. “Your mother—is she well? And your sisters?”