Netherwood (20 page)

‘Anyroad, it bein’ a Friday, ’is lordship ’elps ’imself to a piece o’ your pie,’ said Harry.

‘I see,’ said Eve. This story could go either way, she thought.

‘Well, ’e eats one piece, then reaches for another, then straight off gets another again,’ said Harry. ‘Now, any other bugger, and I’d ’ave told ’em where to get off. But this bein’ t’earl, I just says, “Glad to see you’re enjoyin’ t’pie, your lordship,” and ’e says …’ Harry, practised in the art of storytelling, paused for dramatic effect.

Eve waited, fascinated in spite of herself.

‘… An’ ’e says, “My good man, this his the finest pork pie hi ’ave ever tasted,” just like that.’ Harry, using his toff’s voice, was getting aitches in all the wrong places. ‘Then ’e says, “Where did you buy hit?” an’ I told ’im it were from you, an’ ’e says ’e’s of a mind to buy some for ’imself.’

Eve, delighted, nevertheless felt compelled to underreact.

‘Well, that’s as maybe,’ she said. ‘But since when ’as Lord ’oyland done his own shopping? If they buy a pie for t’big ’ouse, it’ll not be t’earl carrying it back.’

‘Aye well, that’s where tha wrong,’ said Harry, with the air of a man who had saved his best for last. ‘Lord ’oyland ’as
an interest in thee, Eve Williams. Lord ’oyland said to me’ – he cleared his throat again, ready for his flawed rendition of the earl’s received pronunciation – ‘’e said, “Hi shall visit next Friday, see ’ow Missis Williams his getting on, and purchase one of these excellent pies.”’

‘’e said that to you?’ said Eve.

‘Well, as good as,’ said Harry, ‘’e said it to Jem Arkwright, but I was stood there an’ all.’

Eve remembered what Arthur used to say about Harry Tideaway: ‘Tell ’im nowt, an’ ’e’ll ’ave it in t
’Chronicle
by Friday.’ She could almost hear him saying it now, quietly, from somewhere unseen. And then round the corner came Betty and Doris Ramsbottom, spinster sisters from Tinker Lane, here to buy their Friday treat of Eve’s pudding, so Harry took his leave and Eve forgot all about their conversation until later that day when Lord Hoyland did indeed appear at her front door, asking for a pork pie and leaving her speechless with the surprise and honour of it.

By the close of business on that felicitious Friday, Eve had agreed to bake forty raised pork pies for Netherwood Hall on the occasion of Tobias Hoyland’s twenty-first birthday party the following month. She would be paid in advance, enabling her to order and buy the great quantity of flour, lard and pork needed for such an undertaking, and she was to report to the kitchens of the great house the evening before, and work through the night there to fulfil the order. The earl had bought a pie from her and asked after her family, and had behaved so entirely like an ordinary person that Eve began to wonder if the tales concerning his extraordinary fortune might be exaggerated.

‘What did you imagine?’ said Anna, later. ‘That rich people
don’t eat pies?’ The daughter of an affluent man, she felt no awe in the company of wealth. They were sitting on the back doorstep, enjoying the late afternoon’s warmth, mulling things over. A noisy mob of swifts ducked and weaved in the sky above the yard.

‘No. Well. Yes,’ said Eve. ‘I suppose I wouldn’t expect Teddy ’oyland to eat t’same as Clem Waterdine.’

‘Well the difference is, Clem has no choice. Your earl can eat caviar one day, pie next.’

‘’e rolled up in that big car,’ said Eve. ‘It drew up outside in Beaumont Lane and everybody stopped to watch. And there I was, in yesterday’s pinny and my hair all any’ow. I should’ve ’eeded ’arry Tideaway and put my good frock on.’

‘And if you had, he would have ordered eighty pies, perhaps?’ said Anna.

‘Fair point,’ said Eve. ‘But still, even if ’e’s not interested in what I’m wearin’, I might ’ave felt a little bit less foolish if I’d smartened up.’

‘Well foolish or not foolish, you’re now most famous pig pie maker in Netherwood, so –
na zdorov’ya!’
She raised her cup of tea, and leaned in to clink it against Eve’s.

‘Cheers,’ said Eve. She smiled, then looked suddenly grave. ‘I couldn’t do any of this without you.’

‘This I know,’ said Anna. She smiled. ‘But you don’t have to, do you?’

T
obias leaned against the casement of his bedroom window and took a deep, therapeutic drag on his first cigarette of the day. He was still fully clothed from the night before, eccentrically so, sporting his old punting get-up, cream flannels and a jaunty blazer. This college garb was his current outfit of choice for a night on the ale, and, along with a small selection of other garments – cricket whites, his (stolen) college gown – was all he had to show for his time at Cambridge. He had been sent down from Trinity in his second year, just before the end of Michelmas term, for a persistent refusal to engage with the academic demands of undergraduate life. He had felt no sense of failure or remorse at this turn of events; Toby was a stranger to regret, and in any case had only gone up in the first place to oblige his father. He had enjoyed the japes though: the balls, the dinners, punting along the Backs, and his friends there had missed him after his dismissal.

Below him, wheeling a barrow-load of ivy leaves along the broad gravel path, Hislop, the elderly Netherwood head gardener, happened to glance upwards and did a startled double take. This happened often among the older members of staff, for Toby was the very image of his father’s younger self. At
the same age, Teddy Hoyland had been considered quite the beau and it was said that his handsome face and figure had been almost as responsible as his fortune for capturing the heart of Lady Clarissa Benbury. Now, of course, his penchant for rich food and tawny port had altered Teddy’s appearance, and not for the better. But everyone saw the young sixth earl in his oldest son’s features and they were not the sort of good looks that had gone out of fashion. Add to that his glittering prospects, and Tobias was considered just as much of a catch as his father had been, if he would only allow himself to be caught. But his tastes, thus far, had been for the unsuitable: earthy local girls with high spirits and low morals, offering accessibility without any tedious demands for commitment.

Toby’s suite of rooms were among those which overlooked the main lawns at the front of the house. He had a large bedroom, amply furnished with fine mahogany pieces and a high four-poster bed. Adjoining this room was a small study with a walnut bureau cabinet, its concealed drawers well stocked with paper vellum, pens and ink, none of which Toby ever used. He wasn’t much of a writer. Through a further door was his private sitting room, with two burgundy leather wing chairs placed at angles by the fireplace and a low green leather ottoman between them. There was a bookcase, too, stocked with all the volumes one might expect to find: Shakespeare, Milton, a little Wordsworth and Coleridge, some Thackeray, some Dickens and a rather beautiful first edition of
Gulliver’s Travels.
Additionally, on the bottom shelf, was a row of pink, yellow and buff-coloured paper spines – Tobias’s much-prized collection of Wisden’s cricketing almanacks. Beside them, stacked in a pile and serving as a very effective bookend, were numerous copies of
Horse and Hound.
These, and the Wisdens, were well-thumbed.

He took one last, long, rather desperate drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out carelessly on the window sill, scooping the
remains into the palm of his hand and, from there, blowing it on to the rug. He stayed at the window though, watching dispassionately as members of the household staff secured the guy ropes of one of five vast marquees that were being pressed into service for the celebrations.

He had no appetite for the day ahead, really he didn’t. He rubbed his temples to ease the pain there, the last vestige of a very good night indeed, spent with a crowd of Netherwood lads in the locked tap room of the Hare and Hounds. Tobias, every inch a spoiled young aristocrat, would nevertheless down a pint with any man. This trait, a kind of innocent social democracy, had been roundly approved of by the earl when Toby was small. It boded well, Teddy had thought, that the future custodian of the Netherwood estate was on friendly terms with the under-privileged, and it had warmed his heart to see his son up a tree on the common or sledging down Harley Hill with a gang of local children. Now, however, the earl felt a certain distance between his son and his old friends was necessary – a distance that he had wrongly assumed would occur naturally as they grew up. What was commendable in boyhood lacked dignity in adulthood, particularly when beer became part of the equation. Last night had been a classic, thought Toby now. He’d only staggered home half an hour before and what he needed now was a long sleep, a hot bath and a plate of Mrs Adams’ egg and chips, in that order. Instead, what he faced was all the pomp and ceremony of a Hoyland family celebration with brass knobs on. The very thought of it made him want to weep with weariness: his father’s florid face puffed out with paternal pride and he himself made to smile modestly as he listened to all the damned embarrassing eulogies about his coming-of-age and his responsibilities – what a bloody torment.

Behind him, the door opened softly and a young underfootman crept into the room, staggering slightly under the
weight of a brass coal scuttle. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Tobias, then retreated, closed the door and tapped on it, tentatively.

‘Come!’ said Toby sharply. He didn’t look round.

The under-footman stepped into the bedroom once more, head dipped, eyes cast down. He swallowed anxiously. It was early days in his career in service at Netherwood Hall and he had been expressly instructed by the formidable head footman to remain invisible as he went about his morning duties. He was meant to creep into the room to prepare and light the fire before the young master rose, yet there he was, already dressed, gazing out of the window on to the garden. The bed, he observed, appeared to have been already made. Or possibly it hadn’t been slept in. It was all most irregular, and the boy felt entirely unequal to the situation. However, something had to be done, so he steeled himself and coughed politely.

‘What?’ barked Toby. He turned and his head, which really did ache terrifically, throbbed at the sudden movement. He had a raging thirst too, which had not been helped by the cigarette.

‘M’lord, sorry, m’lord. Should I see to your fire, m’lord?’ The boy was white as alabaster with anxiety, thought Toby. He softened fractionally and nodded.

‘Go ahead, might as well. Bloody June but it’s freezing in here, as per,’ he said.

The boy tiptoed over to the grate and began to shake out last night’s spent coals. It had been chilly for the time of year, and all the family had felt the need for fires in their suites, morning and night. Toby watched the boy for a moment then lost interest and turned back to view the worker bees assembling the trappings for his party. Good God, there was a bloody pennant flying from the tents now, long, with a forked end, like something Henry V might have flown at Agincourt. He had a brief, rather disturbing flashback to Eton.

‘“He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart,”’ Toby murmured, because he hadn’t forgotten everything he’d learned in the schoolroom. Then he barked; ‘Depart! Ha! Fat bloody chance.’

The lad at the fireplace jumped in alarm and to his shame emitted an involuntary squawk. Toby laughed, but not unkindly.

‘What’s your name?’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen you before, have I?’

The boy, encouraged by the young master’s tone of voice but appalled nevertheless at the attention, squeaked his reply.

‘Freddie, m’lord. Thomas.’

‘Well? Which is it? Freddie or Thomas?’

‘Both m’lord. Freddie Thomas, m’lord.’

Toby laughed again. ‘So, Freddie Thomas, I trust you’ll be coming to the party? Roast ox, free ale and pretty girls. You’re not too young for pretty girls, are you?’

Freddie was all confusion, frantic with anxiety that a yes would seem too forward, but a no would appear insolent. However, he needn’t have worried, since Toby wasn’t interested in the answer.

‘Light that then and get yourself off,’ he said. ‘I expect you’ve other tasks to perform before you can join the shindig.’