Netherwood (38 page)

‘Eve,’ he began. ‘For a long while now I’ve—’

She cut in, frantic to protect him. ‘Brrrr, it’s cold now t’ sun’s dipped,’ she said, too loudly and with an exaggerated, fake shudder. ‘Time I got back to t’bairns.’

He looked up now, read the message in her face, and ploughed on regardless, abandoning his mental script in favour of speaking from the heart.

‘I love you, Eve,’ he said, simply and helplessly. ‘Will you marry me?’

It was beautifully done, but he knew the answer, even before he had finished speaking. She stepped towards him, but he moved back.

‘Ni’ mind,’ he said. ‘Forget I spoke.’

‘Oh, Amos,’ she said. This was terrible, cruel. He had the look of a deer brought down by an unseen arrow, bewildered, mortally wounded.

‘It’s not that I don’t love you,’ she said, struggling for the right words. ‘I do. You feel like part of my family now. But I don’t feel for you as a wife towards a husband, do you see?’

He held up a hand. ‘Enough,’ he said.

‘I’m so sorry, Amos.’

‘Don’t say that. Don’t pity me.’

‘No! It’s not pity, it’s—’

‘I said, enough.’ His voice was harder now, his priority self-preservation. He couldn’t salvage his happiness from the wreckage of this sorry situation, but he could save his pride.

‘I spoke when I perhaps shouldn’t ’ave,’ he said. ‘I misread your feelin’s. No matter. I’m just as well alone as wed.’

She heard him out, mired in abject misery.

‘I’ll bid you goodnight,’ he said, raising his cap in a formal gesture that made her feel sadder still, as if there was already a distance between them that hadn’t existed before. ‘Tell Seth I’ll see ’im tomorrow.’

‘Aye, I will,’ she said to his retreating back. She watched him turn out of the courtyard under the arch. She wished she could have run after him, calling his name, telling him she’d been wrong and that yes, of course she would marry him. But she didn’t, because it would have been a lie, and Amos deserved better. Nevertheless, when she walked home alone later that evening she felt weary and careworn, and the weight of his disappointment dragged around her like a physical burden.

T
he coachman’s name was Samuel Stallibrass. He was a Lancastrian by birth, and a friendly soul, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at him. Certainly when Eve stepped down from the train at the private railway halt a mile or so north of King’s Cross, her heart, already heavy with goodbyes, sank a little further still. He stood waiting on the platform, all top hat and whiskers, arms crossed, legs firmly planted, beefy and forbidding; he looked as if a tornado wouldn’t budge him. He didn’t shift, either, when Eve’s trunk was handed down, followed by five baskets of soft fruit from the Netherwood glasshouses and one full of vegetables from the kitchen garden. As if going to London on the Earl of Netherwood’s private locomotive wasn’t surreal enough, Eve had thought, she had Jersey Royals and spinach leaves as travelling companions. And they were just as comfortable as she had been, nestled in their wicker hamper, cosseted on a bed of straw.

So Eve and the edibles disembarked and three liveried lackeys whom Eve didn’t even know had been on the train hopped down, picked up the baskets and jogged off with them, two apiece, towards the waiting brougham. A fourth man heaved the trunk on to a wheeled contraption and followed them.
Only then did the coachman come to life, and as he approached her she spotted a broad smile behind the whiskers, and his handshake was warm and genuine. He reminded her of Sol Windross, without the scowl or the smell.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said. His accent had the slightest hint of the north. ‘Have to hang back or the buggers leave me with the baskets. Samuel Stallibrass, at your service.’

‘Eve Williams,’ she said, and smiled back at him. His easy manner made her feel more cheerful. Until he spoke, she’d feared she might cry, like a bairn sent off too soon into service.

‘Oh, I know who you are,’ he said. ‘There’s been talk of nothing else below stairs.’ He set off for the carriage, and she followed, making three steps to his two to keep abreast with him. ‘Eve Williams, pie-maker to the earl. That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘Summat like that,’ she said, anxiously. Among all her worries regarding this adventure, and they were legion, had been the conviction that the kitchen staff would hate her for landing like a jumped-up cuckoo in their nest.

‘Oh yes,’ said Samuel. ‘There’s great curiosity in the kitchen as to what …’ – he paused, searching for the right words – ‘culinary magic you’re capable of.’

‘Oh dear.’

Samuel laughed. ‘Fret ye not,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep an eye on you.’

This wasn’t particularly reassuring; the idea that someone might need to keep an eye on her compounded, rather than alleviated, her concern. But how to express this to a stranger, however well-meaning he might seem to be? A stranger, moreover, who was now fully engaged in issuing directions to the basket-carriers who, having reached the brougham, were making a hash of the business of loading up. An unsteady pile of empty baskets waited by the carriage for the return journey.

‘Gormless buggers,’ said Samuel. ‘Twice, maybe thrice a week they come down, from May to August, and they still
haven’t worked out how to load the bloomin’ baskets. Haven’t got the sense they were born with.’ He was speaking to Eve, but she made no comment; it was awkward, with the porters right there, taking the verbal abuse. She felt hardly in a position to criticise anyone, standing there mute, knowing nothing about anything.

‘Get that out, look,’ Samuel said, tugging on Eve’s luggage, which currently rested at an angle on top of a hamper. ‘Lay this one underneath. Who’d put grapes on the bottom of the pile? Trunk first, then spuds, come on, soft fruit on top. Lift the lids, see what’s what.’

Eve stood and watched the palaver as the hampers were reloaded. I’m sitting up top then, she thought; there was barely room for another grape to squeeze in the carriage when they’d finished, let alone her.

‘You’re by me,’ said Samuel, confirming the obvious. He clambered up into the driving seat, then leaned out precariously to help her join him, pulling on her with a powerful arm so her feet left the ground almost before she was ready. ‘Better that way,’ he said. ‘See the sights. We’ll take the scenic route.’ The porters, carrying the empty baskets from the last delivery, sloped off towards the waiting train with dark looks and muttered asides, and Samuel clicked his tongue for the horses to head off.

‘Bloomin’ halfwits,’ he said.

‘Three times a week?’ Eve said.

‘Some weeks, yes. Depends how many of ’em are in residence. And the countess can’t do without her exotics, y’see. Grapes, figs and whatnot. Breakfast and dinner.’ He grinned at her, wickedly. ‘Keeps her regular,’ he said, and winked.

Eve laughed. She supposed Lady Hoyland did have the same bodily functions as the rest of the human race, but it was an unlikely image all the same, and not a welcome one. The carriage behind them swayed a little then settled as Samuel
drove the horses out of the cobbled station yard and into the road. Eve swayed a little too; she was higher than she would have liked to be, and there was nothing to hold on to. She sat on her hands, for fear that she might instinctively reach for Samuel’s arm and die of mortification.

All around her, this nondescript area of north London got on with its day. It wasn’t at all how she’d imagined; before she arrived, all she knew of the city were the colourful facts she’d learned at school. Black death, rats and pickpockets, bodies piled in hand carts, the grim tolling of bells, scaffolds for the beheading of queens, bonfires for the burning of heretics, and the occasional palace or park for light relief. But this looked, just a little, like Sheffield, though the houses they passed were taller and the folk better dressed. The sky, what meagre strip was visible between buildings, was the same dreary shade of chimney-smoke grey as at Netherwood, and the smell of it carried her thoughts homewards; half-past two, Saturday afternoon. Seth and Eliza would be home, and the house would be empty because Anna would still be at the mill and Ellen and Maya would be in a mutinous mood at Lilly Pickering’s, longing for Anna to get home and rescue them. She felt a sudden yearning for Ellen’s hot, fierce embrace, her plump little hands clasped behind Eve’s neck for a stronger hold, and her face pressed into her mother’s cheek. She was losing her independent streak, Eve’s little girl. She no longer seemed destined to run the country, wanting her mother all the time now that she couldn’t have her. And now look how things stood. She wasn’t just busy at work and not home until bedtime. She was many hours and many, many miles away from everything that mattered to her, to make fancy food for a countess who always got her way. A lump formed in Eve’s throat. She concentrated hard on what she could see around her. It wouldn’t do to arrive with eyes red from weeping.

They turned, quite sharply, into a much wider and noisier
thoroughfare, busy with carriages and pedestrians, all pressing on to their destinations with a collective air of urgency and importance. None of them so much as glanced at a newspaper seller, who stood by his wooden cart, yelling his best headlines in an accent Eve couldn’t understand. She stared at him as they passed, meaning no offence, but he leered back at her with an ugly, open mouth, showing brown teeth and a wet tongue. Eve looked away, horrified, and shrank back in her seat. She felt obscurely guilty, as though she’d broken one of London’s laws – thou shalt not show curiosity – and slid a glance across to Samuel, wondering if he’d witnessed this encounter. He was oblivious, however, watching the road ahead and whistling ‘Rule Britannia’ through his teeth without a care in the world. In profile, his bushy moustache protruded further than the end of his nose, and twitched in time to the tune. Eve envied him his ease and familiarity with this place; she herself felt like a mouse in a barn full of cats. As her thumping heart settled, she made a fervent little vow to cherish the ordinary when next she returned to it.

The carriage moved slowly now, impeded by the crush and press of other vehicles. Truly, thought Eve, she could have walked faster. She had plenty of time for gazing, though, and the buildings around her had suddenly become much more imposing. One in particular caught her attention; it was long and high, and dominated the outlook with its towers and spires and multitude of windows. Eve, perking up, said, ‘Oh! Is that Buckingham Palace?’ and provoked in Samuel a roar of amusement loud enough to startle a pair of passers-by arm in arm on the pavement just beside them, the lady squealing at the assault and the gentleman scowling in the direction of the bellow. Unabashed, Samuel let his laughter run its course. Eve knew she must be feeling better, because a rush of irritation made her sit up straighter in her seat. It really wasn’t that funny. She’d like to take him to Barnsley, see how clever he was there.

He wiped his eyes. ‘Ah, dear me, best laugh I’m likely to have all day,’ he said. ‘The thought of ’is nibs living cheek-by-jowl with King’s Cross station. King certainly would be cross if he had to do that.’ He shook with more mirth at his own quip, then finally looked at his passenger and realised she wasn’t amused.

‘Sorry, sorry, don’t mind me,’ he said, regaining control and chiding himself for putting her out. ‘It’s the Midland Grand,’ he said. She looked blank. ‘Hotel,’ he added, by way of clarification. He indicated backwards with his crop, because the great building was now behind them, and in a tour guide’s carrying voice said, ‘A marvel of British engineering. Revolving doors, ascending chambers, gold-leaf on the walls, three hundred bedrooms – pity the maids, that’s three hundred chamber pots as well. Twenty shillings a night they say, if you fancy staying there. Breakfast is extra. Shall I drop you off?’

He roared with laughter again. Couldn’t help himself.

Eve gaped, and strained back over her shoulder for another look. She wondered what kind of night’s sleep 20 shillings bought a person. A much deeper, warmer, longer kind than she was used to, she supposed.

‘I can drive you by Buckingham Palace though,’ Samuel was saying, trying to make amends and win a smile. He turned right, and Eve saw trees and the promise of grass. ‘Bit of a tour, why not? We can trot through Regent’s Park here, down Regent Street and Piccadilly, round Green Park then off down to wave at the king. The flag’s flying, so he’s receiving visitors. Practically neighbours, we are.’

She nodded, and gazed at the elegant white terraces they were now passing. Any one of those houses would do for a town hall in Netherwood, she thought. She sighed, involuntarily and mournfully, thinking of home again and Samuel glanced across at her. ‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘Left kiddies behind, have you?’

She nodded again, though she didn’t speak, not wanting to risk opening the floodgates. Let’s stick to the sights of London, she thought. Much safer territory. Samuel was no mind reader, but he knew a woman on the verge of tears when he saw one. He had just the antidote though; he hadn’t yet had a lady passenger new to the capital who wasn’t bowled over by the shops on Piccadilly. He picked up the pace, all the quicker to get there. This, he felt, was something of an emergency.