Old Sins Long Shadows (24 page)

‘
Damn him!’ she swore under her breath as she dropped the sandalwood scented soap back into the basket in frustration. His presence had even followed her into the shop. She would have to go to speak to him, she hated the tension between them and she felt it all the more keenly seeing him so friendly with another woman. Without further hesitation she left the shop, the clang of the doorbell marking her exit, and walked briskly towards him, her cape flowing behind her, much to her annoyance, like the black wings of a rook. However it was too late to turn back, he had seen her and he was bracing himself for her approach.

He knew the answer to his question as soon as he realised she was walking towards him
. The physical attraction he felt towards her pulled at his gut like an invisible rope and Sally was instantly forgotten. Janey’s brown hair shone in the afternoon sun and reminded him of the deep sheen of freshly husked conkers. A stray strand of hair bounced against her cheek at her rapid approach, he wanted to be able to tuck it behind her ear and the gesture to be an acceptable intimacy between them. Her skin glowed with a natural freshness and he wondered, not for the first time, how she would smell today if he was to bury his face in the crease of her neck. Suddenly his behaviour of turning his back on her the last time they met seemed childish and sulky and he felt like a school boy about to be reprimanded by the school teacher. He felt his body tighten in readiness to defend himself against a verbal onslaught that only a woman could give. He, unknowingly, prepared himself in the same way he had done ever since he was a child. He scowled at her.

‘
Good afternoon, Mr Kellow. Lovely weather we are having.’ She was standing in front of him acting self assured but the nervous twisting of her basket gave away the tension she was feeling. He became instantly suspicious and said nothing. ‘Of course, it could rain tomorrow. Spring weather can be very changeable.’ Again he said nothing, watching her squirm he took a perverse pleasure in seeing her stumble to make conversation. Daniel had no interest in small talk but as she started to look about for an escape as a result of her failure to engage him in conversation he suddenly realised she might leave. Although he was confused, angry and hurt by this woman, he knew for one thing, he didn’t want her to leave.

‘I see you are still in mourning,’ he replied gruffly nodding to her attire. She blushed, pulling at the cape’s collar.

‘
Not my favourite colour but Lady Brockenshaw wishes me to wear it.’

‘
It was the first funeral in the village where half the immediate family were missing.’

‘
They have used the telegraph and left messages at a number of Master Brockenshaw’s friends but they have not tracked him down.’

They both fell into an awkward silence at James’ name but his name could not be unmentioned and Janey eventually spoke to tackle the subject.

‘That day - in the barn. It was not how it appeared.’

‘
I know what I saw. One day you are kissing me, the next time I see you kissing him.’

‘
He was kissing me.’

‘
His hands were all over you, lifting your skirt.’

‘
I tried to stop him!’

‘
Not hard enough it seems!’

‘
It’s difficult. He is my employer.’

Daniel shook his head as if to shake away her protest
s.

‘
Say no! It is not hard to do. If he is such a gentleman he would stop. You were alone in a secluded building….
my
building for God’s sake!’

‘
You have no idea what it’s like as a woman, as a servant whose home and income depends so much on your job. You are a man, beholden to no one. You own your own house and your own farm. Don’t you dare lecture me on what I should do. You have no idea. Do you not realise that if I lose my job and home I could end up in the workhouse?’ 

Daniel didn’t want to hear her case
. In truth he knew it was difficult for her but he couldn’t bare the thought that she had allowed Brockenshaw to grope her.

‘You seem capable enough to take charge of all the servants when the fever took hold so I don’t buy your story of not being able to tell a lecherous dandy to keep his grubby hands off you!’  Beneath his stoney composure, anger and frustration was boiling up inside him. Images of Janey and Brockenshaw together played in his mind as clearly as if he was seeing them before him now. Her calm voice broke his thoughts.

‘
You seem to know a lot about me?’ she said, watching him coolly. Daniel felt like a child caught stealing sweets.

‘
Matt prattles on sometimes whether I want to hear it or not…which I don’t.’

‘
You also seem overly concerned with my virtue.’  Daniel humphed as if her virtue was the last thing he was bothered with, ‘Yet other woman’s virtues… or lack of them,’ she added pointedly nodding towards the road Sally had walked down, ‘do not seem to bother you at all!’

‘
She’s a good woman.’

‘
I hear she’s very good at what she does…she’s just not too fussy with whom.’ Daniel turned, not quite believing what he had just heard.

‘
You disappoint me. I didn’t think you would listen to gossip.’ Janey blushed again. He saw instantly that she felt terrible about what she had said and she didn’t need his barbed retort to make her feel ashamed. If he didn’t know any better he would have thought jealously had driven her to make it. ‘Have you ever spoken to Sally?’

She shook her head
. Suddenly he felt like the teacher and she was the school child waiting for punishment. He softened his voice,

‘
Do you judge everyone based on gossip? Do you judge me?’

Janey sighed,
‘I’m sorry. It was a wicked thing to have said. I don’t know what came over me.’  Silence hung heavy between them until Janey eventually added, ‘I came to build bridges and instead I have turned into a spiteful shrew. I’d better go.’ Again, Daniel didn’t want her to leave. He realised he would rather be here arguing with her than not with her at all. She was already walking away from him and he had to stop her. Say something, he told himself, say anything to stop her walking away!

‘
Matt told me,’ he blurted out, she turned to look at him, waiting for him to speak, ‘that you are helping Mary to apply for nurse training.’

‘
She will make an excellent nurse,’ Janey replied, adding softly, ‘It is a shame I am not more successful for myself.’

‘
Mary, who
- likes no one but herself
.’ They had spoken at the same time, both remembering the words he had spoken as they had ridden back to Bosvenna Estate together after the harvest dance. They both smiled, a moment of togetherness born by a remembered phrase of words. A gentle intimacy briefly formed giving a fleeting vision of what might be. For the first time today Daniel wanted to be generous to her.

‘
You saw something in Mary that no one else did.’  It was a compliment and they both knew it.

‘
Perhaps, Mr Kellow, I don’t always judge people based on gossip.’

Daniel smiled, again not quite believing what she had said,
‘Are you calling me a gossip?’

‘
I wouldn’t dare,’ she said smiling. He enjoyed seeing her face bright and relaxed but something she had said earlier came to his mind like a jab of pain.

‘
Are you applying for another position?  Are you leaving?’ he asked. Her smile faded.

‘
I was thinking about it but as you said…if I can address a roomful of servants then perhaps I can clarify my own position.’

So, he thought sadly,
she was going to ask Brockenshaw to set her up in a house and become his mistress. She eased the neck of her cape and Daniel saw for the first time the raw areas on her neck made by the hideous cape.

‘
You should be in colour, not widow’s reeds. Tell her ladyship it doesn’t fit.’

‘
I couldn’t. It would disappoint her.’

He watc
hed her walk away, the perfect lady’s maid, perfectly turned out, carrying out her duties perfectly. Suddenly something dawned on him

‘
It’s not your fault, Janey,’ he blurted out. Janey turned to look at him, her head tilted quizzically to one side. ‘It’s not your fault that your sisters caught scarlet fever from you. It’s not your fault your father left. You don’t have to be perfect all the time. Just be you. You are good enough. Believe me you are good enough.’  She blinked and faltered and he realised his words had hit home. In what he hoped was a more comforting tone he added, ‘Tell her the cape hurts, she will understand.’ He watched her walk away, the words were out and he couldn’t take them back, but at that moment in time he had seen deep inside her mind and her eagerness to please. Her prim little steps echoing on the road surface, her basket, which had until now been held firmly in the crook of her arm, dangling precariously from her fingers. Any further shopping long forgotten as she relived his words in her head.

Daniel watched her until she disappeared from sight
.
Just be you
he had said and he had meant it for he was sure he had seen the real Janey Carhart. She was the girl that had sighed with delight at the beauty of the moors when he had first seen her. She was the girl that in a furious temper had thrown stones at him. She was the girl that blushed so easily when embarrassed. She was the woman that he wanted. He made for home knowing he would not be visiting Sally tonight or any other night for Janey, unknowingly, still had a hold on him.

Janey blindly walked away, Daniel
’s words still echoing in her head. She felt as if he had stripped her bare and seen into her soul more clearly than she knew herself. Even now she still wrote regularly to her mother, sending her money despite not receiving one reply. Trying desperately to make up for the guilt she felt at her father’s late night departure. She had always believed she must have been a horrid daughter for her father to leave her. She had spent the rest of her life trying to be the best she could be, the perfect daughter, the perfect kitchen maid, the perfect lady’s maid. Always striving to be perfect and therefore not risk rejection and today Daniel had seen it all and confronted her with the truth - a truth that she wasn’t quite ready to face. The cape dug into her neck like a tourniquet and in her blind confusion she bumped into an old man who had been tending his garden.

‘
You better watch him, Miss,’ he said nodding across to Daniel’s retreating back. ‘They say he killed a man once. I’d stay away from him if I was you.’

‘
Don’t worry,’ she mumbled back, ‘I intend to.’

Lady Brockenshaw’s hand, laced with blue veins under translucent skin, felt along the collar of the cape where it’s material and stitching had become stiff with age. She lifted it off her lap and handed it out to Janey.

‘
I quite understand, you should have told me sooner, Janey.’ Janey took the offending article, ‘throw it away. I appreciate your honesty. Any other maid would have taken advantage of my blindness and just not have worn it.’ Charlie padded across the room and snuggled himself upon her feet like a pair of living slippers. Her mistress sat patiently while her maid started to unpin her hair and prepare her for bed.

‘
I have something to confess, Miss,’ Janey said, stroking the brush though her hair. She took a deep breath, ‘Some time ago I broke an ornament of a woman crying. I should have told you but I was frightened. I was led to believe it was very expensive and I could lose my position. I feel terrible and I will understand if you wish me to leave.’

‘
I remember the ornament. You should have told me, Janey, but as it is it was not important to me. My husband hated it.’

‘
But Master Brockenshaw…’

‘
Don’t worry about him. He knew we didn’t like it.’

‘
But I was led to believe that…..’

Lady Brockenshaw took her hand and patted it affectionately,
‘Janey, am I such an ogre that you are too scared to tell me something?’

‘
Of course not, ma’am.’

‘
Then let’s say no more about it.’ She sat quietly for some moments in companionable silence while Janey rhythmically brushed her hair. Finally her mistress spoke. ‘He should be here with me now, looking after the estate, being by my side at his father’s funeral.’ Janey said nothing. ‘If my daughter had lived she would be with me and I would not be alone in the house.’

Janey tried to comfort her,
‘You are not alone.’

‘
True loneliness can be felt in a crowded room. I might be in a house full of staff but my son is not here and he should be.’  Janey started to lay out her night gown. ‘My brother has traced him.’ Janey looked up and saw the reflection of her mistress in the mirror, seeing for the first time her mistress’ eyes brimming with tears. ‘He has been in America.’ She laughed with no joy, ‘No wonder he stopped writing, chasing another dream, no doubt. As a little boy he would become obsessed about something or other, a new toy, a horse, something he would scream and scream for, yet once he got it he would lose interest.’ Responding to Janey’s guidance Lady Brockenshaw stood and lifted out her arms while she was undressed. She continued her monologue, ‘We spoilt him as a child. We felt guilty, you see, that he had no siblings. But James has grown into a spoilt man who gives no thought to anyone. He should have let his parents know he was leaving the country. He should have told us.’  She stepped out of her gown and her night dress was placed over her head. ‘His ship docks in Bristol next week. My brother is going to meet him and break the news of his father’s death and demand he returns home. I just hope to God that he will finally show an interest in the estate and be responsible.’