Eppie (69 page)

All upon the mill rooftop had sought refuge, save one. Madness
in his voice, Crumpton stabbed his sword through the tempest. ‘Slay them, every
one! Men, women and children!’

A flaring torch ignited the barrels of oil stored on the
floor beneath him. In the ensuing explosion, the crate of
Mining Corporation
Dynamite
, upon which he was mounted, like an exhibit, was blown sky high. The
bloodthirsty overseer was no more.

Genevieve opened her eyes upon a
world of beauty.

Heads touching, arms
outstretched, so that they were like a magical triangle, she, Gabriel and Talia
lay in the clearing beneath the Crusader Oak. A blackbird perched in the tree, its
song expressing its delight in the loveliness of the day; the warm sunshine, indolent
clouds, and fresh country air.

Upon their arrival at Tunnygrave Manor, on the evening
following the devastation at the mill, there had been great rejoicing amongst
the servants, not only to discover that Gabriel lived, but also the added
thrill that Eppie was his sister.

The centre of attention as maids gathered around, twittering
with excitement, Genevieve was overcome with an uncomfortable shyness, lost for
words that could express how it felt to be the lady of the manor. 

Even the housekeeper was in raptures, delighted that Thurstan
was not to remain as master. ‘The first thing he said to me when he stepped
over the threshold was, Mrs Bellows, you are to conduct yourself as quietly as
a sister of the Holy Order. I want none of your stomping around. Can you
believe it! And I found him ransacking his lordship’s clothespress. He made the
valet help him try on your father’s best tailored coats and wigs. That shows no
respect for the departed.’

‘He didn’t even give your
father a decent funeral,’ Hannah agonised. ‘The Good Lord alone knows what your
cousin has done with the body.’

Martha and Lottie had come to live at the manor with
Genevieve. Martha was happy with the way things had turned out for Genevieve
and was content to slip into the background. Though Gabriel told her and Lottie
that they need not work, they preferred to keep busy, doing the occasional
chore.

Betsy had also joined the household. In the poorhouse, work
had been an integral part of the regime, cooking being a task performed by the
paupers themselves, and Betsy was keen to continue with making herself useful
in the kitchen. Though the food she rustled up was plain compared to what
Hannah had been used to preparing for Robert and Thurstan du Quesne, it was
much preferred by Gabriel and the others, who had no stomach for rich food.

Mr Grimley and Priscilla were staying
in Malstowe, at the home of Judge Baulke, where they settled as best they could
whilst awaiting news of Rowan and Dawkin. 

The following morning, revived after kippers and
hot-buttered muffins, Genevieve explored the manor. In the Brown Room, she
prodded the wooden, red-painted tongue of a stuffed lion. She imagined her first
cry in the lying-in room, where she discovered a velvet-upholstered birthing
chair. She tumbled upon the Porcelain Chamber, with its resplendent display of
blue and white china. And, upon discovering a Cabinet of Curiosities, she gazed
at a strange array of beetles, tinkered with seashells, and wondered who had
last worn the metal nose.

To one side of a lawn she came across a duck pond and an
orchard where chickens roamed. Warmed by the sunshine, apricot trees were trained
up brick walls which surrounded a fruit and vegetable plot. In a field beyond,
longhorn oxen stood idle in pools of shade beneath hawthorn trees.

A heat haze dazzling over the track-way, Genevieve and Dick made
their way to a paddock to choose a horse for her to ride.

Working alongside Clem, Dick was settling into his duties in
the stables. ‘Goddess, that grey, looks a sweet thing; swift and light, a perfect
mount for a lady,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask one of the footmen to be your chaperon.’

‘I am grateful for your concern, Dick, but I prefer to keep
my own company,’ Genevieve replied.

Men laboured in the fields, laughing and singing, all
working with a good will in the knowledge that Gabriel had returned. Their
light-heartedness communicating itself to her, Genevieve hummed as Goddess
trotted along.

Blue damselflies dipped and dived over the chattering waters
beneath Miller’s Bridge. It was not only the delights of nature for which
Genevieve had eyes. Dank Cottage, crouching beside the streamside, was so much
a part of the landscape that it appeared almost to spring from the garden, a
garden bursting with cabbages, their leaves shrivelled in the quivering heat. 

Dismounting, she rested her hand upon the picket gate. The
lock was still broken, and the gate swung open as though inviting her in. It
was tempting to walk up the path and rap on the door. She knew she would not; seeing
another family dwelling in her old home would be too hard to bear. 

Jacob waved potato leaves at her. ‘Tis empty. It has been for
weeks, ever since the weaver and his family left for Malstowe.’

Still, she could not summon the courage to enter the
cottage. She felt caught between two worlds. Knew she must tread another path. She
led Goddess across the lane.

‘I’ve lost Sarah. Our Edmund and Kizzie live with me now.
After you and your ma, beg pardon, your ladyship, I mean Mrs Dunham, was gone,
a proper turnpike lodge was built in front of The Fat Duck. I weren’t sorry to
give up me job as gatekeeper; folk never gave a thought to the nuisance it
caused me with their outcomelings. You off for a jaunt?’

‘It is such a sunny day. I hate to stay indoors.’

Children, huddled before rickety palings, clutched their
mothers’ skirts in shyness as she rode past their cottages. Though she wished
the women a fine morning, knowing most of them, many were too bemused by her
changed circumstances to utter a reply. This only served to fuel her sense of
estrangement. Needing to be alone, to find herself, she spirited her steed to
ride fast, past the tavern and on to the wild lands, as Martha called them.

Ancient woodlands cloaked the landscape beyond the
sheep-beaten paths and hillocky ground which bordered the river.

Fording a stream, Goddess
kicked up sparkling waters. On and on Genevieve rode, wearing away the day,
until she came to the brink of a cliff. Opened up before her was an enchanted
prospect of woods, hills and water, a scene so superb with its verdure of hollows
and lofty rocks that her heart leapt into her throat with pleasure.

Though the first few weeks drifted by happily for the
servants and the labourers, Gabriel and Genevieve, distracted by the absence of
their loved ones, found it hard to move into their new roles as lord and lady
of the manor. It was as though they were only half alive, their bodies here but
not their heads, which felt as though they had burst with torment about what
had become of Rowan and Dawkin.

For the present, the only contentment they found in life was
when they reverted to their childhood ways. They were never happier than when
roaming in the woodland, fishing, or trekking on horseback to remote areas
where they could hide themselves, eking out what contentment they could,
together.

Mrs Bellows had taken it upon herself to become their substitute
mother. She was like a mother goose, they the wayward goslings. After pecking
at their breakfast, they would scoot off to the woods when her back was turned.

Even though her worries were no less than her brother’s,
seeing Gabriel finding it so hard to cope with his distress about Rowan,
Genevieve’s thoughts were occupied with how to help him through this difficult
time. Always, she tried to be cheerful for his sake, though she was plagued
with anguish wondering what had befallen Dawkin.

They knew they could not exist in this state of limbo for
much longer. They were living on borrowed time, shirking their manorial
responsibilities.

It was not as though Gabriel had not tried. More than once
Genevieve found him buried in the library, grappling with weighty tomes, such
as
Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandry
, or
The New Horfe-Hoing
Husbandry
, or with his nose stuck in a heap of business ledgers.

‘In some ways it’s as hard
having money and responsibilities as it was when I was in London, worried where
the money was coming from to pay my rent,’ he said. ‘Learning how to run the
home farm, trading, and handling father’s affairs is so daunting.’

In a way he was the instigator of some of his own worries
for he had not been slow in eradicating Maygott, the menace of the labourers,
thus leaving him without an estate manager.

Shortly after the Dunhams had left for Malstowe, Bill had
been made muck-man, a job he reviled.

On the first morning after he and Genevieve returned home,
Gabriel had ridden into the fields to greet the labourers.

Maygott rode towards Bill. ‘Hix! You have been deliberately dumping
dung in the ditches again.’

Drawing apart, the labourers exposed their master who stood
amidst them.

Exuding confidence, Gabriel stepped forward. ‘From now on, I
intend to run the farm. These workers will answer to me alone.’

‘What are you saying, sir? You cannot dismiss me!’

‘Then I must find you some
other living. How does the idea of pulping mangel-wurzels for toothless old
cows appeal?’ 

Gabriel had eased the lives of villagers in other ways. They
needed somewhere to run their livestock and grow hay to feed their beasts over winter,
so he had provided the cottagers with shared fields for their own use.

Individual families benefited from his kindness. Whilst
tolling the bell at a funeral, a lightning bolt had killed Blinkinsopp, the
sexton. At the time of the tragedy, two villagers standing nearby had been
paralysed from the waist down, and forced to live off the meagre offerings of
the poor-rate, until Gabriel stepped in.

Hearing from Samuel how Sovereign, one of Robert du Quesne’s
deerhounds had lost a leg in a mantrap, he even ordered Amis, much to the gamekeeper’s
annoyance, to remove the poachers’ traps from the woodland. Precautions were
also being taken to ensure that badgers on the estate were safe from baiting.

Sheep dipping was in full swing when
Genevieve and Gabriel arrived at Horseshoe Field.

Secured in wattle pens, dozens of sheep awaited their fate.

Clutching a pole, Edmund guided the next fretful victim into
the stream.

Tom, his face almost hidden by a moustache and plaited
beard, seized the sheep. He plunged it, legs upwards, whilst another man gave
its fleece a thorough scrubbing. ‘When d’ya reckon Wake will be coming home,
Eppie?’

She hesitated before answering. Though she had no reason to
believe something untoward had befallen Wakelin, a mountain of unease pressed
upon her thoughts. Months had passed since she had last seen him. ‘Soon, very
soon, I’m sure.’ Constantly she pondered what had become of Wakelin. Surely he
would have heard that she had returned home? Even knowing his life may be in
danger from Thurstan he might think to visit, secretly.   

Gabriel was keen to get involved with the sheep dipping. He
handed Genevieve his hat and coat, and threw off his boots. ‘This is something
I have always longed to do,’ he said, wading into the brimming stream.

From her limited experience, Genevieve realised that silk
pumps were wholly inadequate footwear for traversing pasture. Though she wore a
fashionable high-waist frock with short puffed sleeves, a sunbonnet and silk
shawl, she did not inconvenience herself with the long gloves and, as now,
preferred sturdy footwear.

Genevieve stood with the wives and children of labourers,
marvelling at the kicking strength of the tormented sheep, laughing with Gabriel
as a struggling beast gave him an unexpected dunking. The unfortunate sheep
raced to join its fellows, grazing on the grass, its fleece barely scrubbed.  

A carriage drew up at the lane-side, upon its roof an
assortment of boxes.

Recognising the travellers, a middle-aged woman and her
daughters, both handsome and of marriageable age, Gabriel surged out. ‘Lady Wexcombe,
it is many years since our paths crossed.’

About Lady Sophia Wexcombe’s voice was a distinctive French
lilt. ‘My daughters and I have been turned out of our home, this very day no
less.’

Gabriel wrung water from his shirt sleeves. ‘How so?’

‘You may know that my husband recently passed away. Shortly
after his death it came to my knowledge that wicked men had attacked Saint
Peter’s church, where he lay, and carried away the dead that slept within and
without. I consider it most remiss of my husband to lose his body. He did not
consider the grief it would cause my daughters and I.’

Genevieve was shaken by the memory of the bodysnatchers and
recalled the awful bump when Lord Wexcombe was flung into Thurstan’s carriage.   

‘Since I have no son, our family home, Helsell Hall, has
been settled to Lord Lupton, my late husband’s cousin. The odious gentleman has
no filial scruples.’ She gazed at Genevieve as though surveying a moth
exhibited in a lepidopterist’s collection. ‘And who might be this creature
beside you?’ 

‘Give me leave to present my sister.’

‘I had no knowledge of you having another sister.’

‘She has only recently been re-joined to my household.
Genevieve, might I introduce Lady Wexcombe and her daughters, Hortence and Permelia.’

Dark-haired, the sisters shared their mother’s insipid
complexion.

Genevieve remembered seeing the Wexcombes in the animal tent
at the fair. Curtseying, she felt unnerved by the sisters who cast circumspect
glances at her rough shoes. ‘How do you do, ma’am’s.’