Netherwood (27 page)

Teddy stooped to slap his dogs heartily on their glossy, muscular haunches. ‘Always a red letter day when the old girl takes off, ey?’ he said to them. He was fond of the countess, but fonder still, on balance, of his labradors. Fortunately he had never been forced to choose between them, and found
that the way Clarissa organised her life meant that he managed to spend more time in canine company than in hers. They had both realised, soon after their marriage, that a prolonged period together was good for neither of them, since the more time they spent in each other’s pockets, the less they seemed to have in common. Once upon a time, many years ago, they had at least shared a physical attraction for each other, and Teddy’s bedtime visits to her rooms had been frequent and mutually fulfilling not to mention extremely productive, having provided an heir, a spare and a brace of lovely daughters. But that was then. These days, the earl was stout and occasionally gouty, and he neither sought nor received encouragement from his wife. When he needed it he found sexual relief with a discreet widow in Bloomsbury, whose clients were only of the very best kind, and in Netherwood he managed perfectly well without. There was enough on the estate to occupy him, frankly. And in any case, if he was honest, the quest for sexual ecstasy was proving increasingly exhausting. All that thrashing and straining seemed barely worth the goal.

None of this, of course, was passing through the earl’s mind as he fussed his dogs and inhaled the restorative garden air. Jem Arkwright was usually to be found at his desk even on a Sunday, so the dogs sprang down the steps followed a little stiffly by the earl who crunched round the gravel sweep to the courtyard at the back of the house, a cobbled quad made up of stables and coach houses on two sides, and by estate offices on the other. Dickie had announced his intention to ride after church and his stallion, Marley, was saddled and ready in the yard, and, judging by the strenuous efforts of the little groom who held him, in a state of eager anticipation. The earl nodded to the boy, who stood to attention like a private on parade, while still hanging on to Marley’s halter.

‘Walk him round the yard before he makes a bolt for it,’ said Teddy. The boy nodded respectfully.

‘Yes m’lud,’ he said, although he didn’t move from where he stood. There was a whisper among the stable hands that the master’s head had been turned by motor cars and his judgement skewed when it came to the horses. It was nonsense, of course, a theory borne out of resentment that the coach and horses often lay idle while the Daimler was pressed yet again into action, but nevertheless Marley, just short of seventeen hands high, was a headstrong, restless beast and the young groom knew that once he was saddled he really needed the weight of a rider to keep him in check. If he set off with him round the yard, the horse would be halfway to Lancashire by the time Master Dickie had pulled his riding boots on. Groom and steed watched the earl warily but, having issued his instruction, the earl didn’t linger to see it carried out because Jem was emerging from his office, shrugging his broad shoulders into a mud-spattered waxed jacket, and greeting the earl heartily. The two men swung in unison out of the yard, followed by the dogs.

Teddy had hoped that Tobias might join them. By his age the earl had known the features of his land better than he knew his own reflection in the looking glass; he’d been walking the estate since boyhood, and there was no aspect of its maintenance, improvement or upkeep that didn’t fascinate him. Toby, on the other hand, showed a lamentable indifference; he just wasn’t interested. He knew nothing about the collieries either, nothing about coal production, nothing about the workforce. Not once in his twenty-one years had he asked a sensible question about anything relating to estate matters. Henrietta, now, was a different story. Damned shame she was a girl, because she would have made a splendid heir. But there was no altering the order of things. The title would be Toby’s, and he would have to be made to face his responsibilities. He was a slippery customer though, thought the earl, as he and Jem strode out towards the Home Farm. This morning he had
declined his father’s invitation with such charming and courteous regret that Teddy had quite forgotten he meant to insist.

‘We shall ’ave to dig new soakaways, run the water off the grazing land,’ said Jem. His words brought Teddy back, most willingly, from the vexing issue of his first-born son, and he gave his full attention to the poor drainage in the lower fields and Jem’s fascinating theory that if the trenches were this time dug in a herringbone pattern, the matter might be resolved once and for all.

It was always cold in the dairy, necessarily so, considering the purpose of the place, and always, lingering in the air, was the smell of cheese. Sour, but not unpleasantly so. Even at the height of the summer the sun never fell directly on to this building, thanks to its clever positioning, and all along the walls, one inch from the floor, little openings let in air to further cool the cream and the milk and the cheese. The floor was made of stone flags, the walls were roughly plastered and whitewashed and the single small window had slatted shutters, which today were closed, though not for shade but for privacy.

Tobias lay spent and spreadeagled on the floor. His britches and long johns were round his ankles, and the flagstones were cold against his bare buttocks, though the rest of him was warm enough. Betty Cross knelt astride him, fully clothed except for her drawers, which had been pulled off and tossed aside half an hour earlier. She smiled at him lazily and squirmed, fractionally, from side to side. Tobias moaned, half in ecstasy, half in pain, as his newly flaccid penis registered the movement. He watched her through hooded, sleepy eyes; her fingers slowly unlaced the ties of her coarse cotton chemise to reveal more of her breasts, then she leaned forwards, supporting herself on her arms and hanging over him, dropping low until his
mouth was so close to her flesh that, had he wished, he could have taken a bite.

‘Well, well, Lord Fulton,’ she said in a mocking tone. Her breath smelled of Parma violet, and her teeth were sharp and white, like a cat’s. Her eyes were feline too, and they gazed directly at him, bold and challenging. ‘What business do you ’ave on t’dairy floor?’

He smiled back, then with a practised manoeuvre he heaved to the side, tipping Betty over and round and supporting her with one arm until she was underneath him, grinning up at him now rather than down.

‘The same business as you, Betty Cross,’ he said. He felt her legs widen and her pelvis tilt, inviting him in. She was bold and greedy, and Toby marvelled at her brazen desire. This was his kind of girl. Her face was flushed, but her throat and breasts were the colour of cream. He’d noticed this about girls who worked in the dairy and wondered vaguely if there was a connection but the question for now remained unanswered, as the blood rushed away from his head and robbed him of rational thought.

H
arry Tideaway had pushed on with his plan to open the Hoyland Arms on Sundays, but it hadn’t yet become the money-spinner he was hoping for. Sometimes he would stand behind the bar on the Sabbath, drumming his fingers and watching the hands creep round the clock face, while old peg-leg Bill Whitlow made a half of best last until the bell rang for time at half-past two. Still, he told himself, it was early days, and there was a regular handful of reliable Sunday drinkers who just about justified the trouble of sliding back the bolts on the big front door at midday. The fact that one of them, more often than not, was the earl meant he had moral authority on his side too – Lord Hoyland’s endorsement being as good as a legal document in these parts.

It was almost closing time this Sunday when Lord Hoyland entered the public bar, followed by his dogs and Jem Arkwright, and their appearance caused a small ripple of respectful interest. Harry Tideaway stood a little straighter behind the bar and rolled down his shirt sleeves, fastening them quickly at the cuffs with the studs he kept handy in a dish. Agnes smoothed her apron and looked down at her clogs. The assembled customers, few as they were, tipped
their caps and murmured a collective greeting and in response Teddy boomed a general hello around the room, addressing no one and everyone. In any case, it was difficult to make out individual faces in the gloomy interior: dark-brown paint on the upper walls, dark-brown panelling on the lower portion, a warm fug of tobacco smoke suspended permanently in the air.

‘Good day to you, Mr Tideaway, Miss Tideaway,’ said the earl, full of fresh air and
bonhomie.
‘Two pints of best, if you please.’

Harry was already filling the pewter tankard reserved for Lord Hoyland’s exclusive use.

‘Down the hatch, gentlemen,’ he said.

They drank, silently, intently, then sighed in unison as their initial thirst was slaked. Jem wiped the foam from his whiskers.

‘By God,’ he said. ‘That ’it t’spot.’

Harry, still standing before them on his side of the bar, said: ‘Grand do last week, yer lordship.’ Apart, he thought, from the injury to my bollocks – an insult that still seethed, unredressed, in his private musings.

Jem scowled. He had earned his own familiarity with the earl through fifteen years of loyal service and shared interests, but Harry Tideaway was a johnny-come-lately and had no business being so forward. Teddy, however, rarely pulled rank. Also, he was rather proud at the way Tobias’s party had passed off.

‘Good show, good show,’ he said, which was rather meaningless, but inspired further confidence in Harry, whose broad face now beamed at the earl with a significant smile.

‘I gather that lad o’ yours ’ad t’time of ’is life,’ he said.

Jem bridled. The earl looked at Harry, askance.

‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

Dismissive as he generally was about the complexities of the social pecking order, there was something in the cut of
this fellow’s jib that Teddy found impertinent. Jem stared hard at Harry; he considered speaking out, then decided to let the landlord go hang himself, which he duly did.

‘T’young lord,’ he said. ‘I gather ’e was scooped up and carried off in t’cart with t’drunks by accident.’

He gave a hearty bellow which rang out in the room, loud and inappropriate.

Teddy said, ‘Is that so?’ in a perfectly pleasant tone of voice, but the ticking of the big wall clock was suddenly the loudest sound in the pub.

Agnes looked up from her clogs, and gazed at her father, mute but appalled. Harry, uncomfortably aware now that he had misread the situation, tried to regain lost ground. It was only idle gossip, he said, and it was almost certain to be unfounded. Foolish of him, really, to repeat it, and could he refill that tankard?

But the damage done was beyond repair. Harry Tideaway had unwittingly broached the one subject on which Teddy Hoyland had no sense of humour. He left his unfinished beer on the bar, snapped his fingers irritably at Min and Jess, and stalked out of the pub. The door swung shut behind them, and all eyes were on Harry.

Jem drained his glass of beer then said, ‘Tha’d do well, ’arry Tideaway, to take a leaf out o’ thi daughter’s book and keep thi gob shut.’

Then he walked out too, though he judged, rightly, that his company was no longer required, and he set off back on an alternative route to the one taken by the earl. Harry, perspiring slightly, watched him leave then turned to Agnes.

‘What you bloody staring at?’ he said, nastily, and she shrank from him like a whipped cur.