Netherwood (53 page)

‘Penny for your thoughts.’

Amos laughed. The familiar phrase, in Anna’s heavy accent, sounded a little sinister. She bridled.

‘What? Have I said it wrong?’

‘No, no,’ Amos said. ‘Spot on.’

‘So? What makes you laugh?’

‘Oh, just that you said it at all. Not what you expect from a Russian.’

‘I am Yorkshire as well as Russian,’ she said. ‘So. What was you thinking about?’

He smiled again, but didn’t correct her grammar. ‘I was thinkin’ about t’cabbage parcels you fed me on Tuesday,’ he said.

She beamed. ‘Come any time,’ she said. ‘Come this evening. I make stroganoff.’

He raised a quizzical brow.

‘Come,’ she said. ‘Then you learn what is stroganoff.’ She leaned in, dropping her voice to a stage whisper. ‘It’s foreign muck,’ she said.

He laughed. She was a good woman – he’d often thought it. Not much of her, but what there was was grand.

T
he Tideaways were on the move, and the Hoyland Arms locked and shuttered until someone else took it on. It wasn’t much of a prospect; Harry’s early enthusiasm and entrepreneurship had withered and died; he would be glad to see the back of it. There was a position at the Lady’s Bridge Brewery in Sheffield, he had heard, and he was confident that he was the man for the job. Nobody knew more about beer than he did. Granted, he’d never brewed it, only sold it, but what did that figure? A fellow of his experience wouldn’t be turned away, of that he was certain. Yes, Sheffield was the place for him. Netherwood was a dead loss and everyone in it could rot in hell.

Their belongings, including the old piano for which he’d had such high hopes, were loaded on to a dray and tied under two great tarpaulin sheets. There was no one there to see them off. This, Harry told Agnes, was because half the town was at the funeral. Agnes, who knew the funeral was already over, nodded. She sat, pale to the point of transparency, on the passenger side of the dray, all wrapped up in wool in spite of the warm sunshine. She was always cold, was Agnes. Thin-blooded, like her dear, departed mother, Harry said. Ada
Tideaway’s thin blood had killed her in the end, at least that was Harry’s story. Agnes, whose white face often bore the imprint of her father’s hand, sometimes wondered if there might not have been another cause.

She was waiting for him now. He had an errand to run before they left, and she was to sit up on the cart and steady the horse until he returned. To be honest, there wouldn’t be a lot Agnes could do to stop the old grey nag if he decided to leave town without Harry, but this was an unlikely scenario; he was a placid steed, too elderly to make sudden, impetuous dashes. Agnes sat, gazing at nothing, wondering where she would be sleeping tonight. Speaking for herself, which was something she never managed to do out loud, she quite liked Netherwood and was sorry it hadn’t worked out. But she and her father had moved many times, so there was nothing new in these feelings. Privately she thought their itinerant life was bad for her health; a plant that never puts down roots can’t be expected to thrive.

She could see her father now, toiling back up Victoria Street. She watched closely, waiting to pick up the crucial clues that would indicate his mood. She shivered, wrapped the shawl tighter around, and swallowed, though she found her mouth was dry. Closer he came with his rolling gait, puffing with the effort required to negotiate the slight incline. He seemed pleased, she thought, with a cautious lift of her heart. She looked on, as he was still a safe distance away. Yes, certainly pleased. There were no tell-tale furrows between his eyes and his mouth was slack, not tight-lipped with anger. He had something in his hand and his progress, though laboured, was purposeful. Agnes, perfectly attuned to the vagaries of her father’s moods, allowed herself to relax, and redirected her gaze to her folded hands before he could catch her eye and clout her for it.

He arrived at the cart and with a monumental effort heaved himself into it.

‘’Ere,’ he said, slapping a thin bundle of sheets into her lap. ‘Make yerself useful and hang on to them.’

She risked a question, since he seemed so pleased with himself.

‘What is it, Father?’

He took up the reins and snapped them to stir the horse into action, and he smiled broadly before he spoke, though he didn’t look at his daughter.

‘Amos Sykes’s worst nightmare, that’s what it is,’ he said. ‘Amos Sykes’s worst bleedin’ nightmare.’

Instead of heading directly out of Netherwood towards the Sheffield Road, Harry took a most alarming detour, at least from Agnes’s point of view. He turned the cart in a wide arc and set off in the opposite direction, down Stead Lane and out of town past Middlecar. Agnes knew better than to ask where they were headed and she sat, mute, clutching the sheaf of papers her father had entrusted her with. Even when they passed through the gates of Netherwood Hall and headed down the avenue towards the great house, she remained silent, though she wondered at his audacity, bringing their shabby dray with its ungainly load here.

She risked a look about her; it was the first time she had seen the legendary park and grounds. From what she allowed herself to see, it looked to be a marvellous place. How wonderful it would be to work here, she thought. How wonderful to have a place in the household, a uniform to wear, a proper purpose to every day. Agnes, whose external life was barely tolerable, survived by imagining alternatives to her present existence. She cut a surreptitious glance across at her father. His broad face still sported its unsettling smile, as if some grimly amusing memory had come back to entertain him.
He drove the dray around past the front of the house – remarkable, thought Agnes, that they had remained unchallenged – and through the grand arch into the courtyard behind. Here, Harry drew the horse to a standstill and disembarked, silently holding out a hand for the papers. Agnes passed them across. He left her sitting there and strode across the flagstones to a building opposite, disappearing into it without so much as a knock on the wooden door.

Agnes could see him in profile, through the window. He seemed to be agitated now, his hands working as he spoke. He was speaking to – or at – another man, who was seated behind a desk. The man’s expression was – what was it? Not startled or alarmed. Disgusted, possibly. Contemptuous. Agnes watched with increasing dismay and her breathing began to come short and shallow. She wondered, even as she knew she never would, if she might run from the cart and into the house, throwing herself upon the mercy of the housekeeper who might hide her, employ her, help her to shake free of him. Inside the building, her father slammed the sheaf of papers down on the desk before him. He jabbed a finger at the man and she could see his face twist with fury. The man, relaxed in his chair with his arms folded, exuded scorn. Now, thought Agnes. If I dropped down now from the cart, I might change my life. I shall begin to count, she said out loud, and if I reach ten I shall go.

But she counted slowly to avoid her own deadline, and had only reached six when he left the office. He stalked back to the dray and climbed up, his face mottled with red rage. He sat, heavily, and she moved a fraction to accommodate him. He turned to her.

‘Take that look off yer face or I’ll strike it off,’ he said. ‘Fuckin’ stupid waste o’ space. You’ – he homed in, menacingly close to her face – ‘drag me down. You’re a burden. And an ugly bitch to boot.’

Droplets of spittle flew from his mouth and hit the back of Agnes’s folded hands. He rested the flat of his hand against her cheek in what might have been a tender gesture, then he pushed hard at her face, jerking her head back painfully. He hawked and spat copiously on the flagstones of the courtyard before turning the horse and cart, eager to leave town now that he had accomplished his mission. Well, whatever that jumped-up bastard Jem Arkwright said, he, Harry Tideaway, had just done the earl a great and lasting service. Part of him was sorry he wouldn’t have a ringside seat at Amos Sykes’s downfall. But most of him was anxious to be long gone by the time Amos discovered who had undone him, and how.

It was late by the time Amos got home. He had gone from the mill to Beaumont Lane, where he’d spent a companionable evening eating with Anna and the children, then lingering a while after they had gone to bed. They found much to talk about; Amos had never been abroad but in his mind he had travelled the globe, and he listened to Anna’s stories of her Russian childhood with unstinting fascination. Anna felt indulged by his interest, and she gave him her favourite memories in return for it. He walked home feeling a personal contentment that was unfamiliar, and at odds with the sadness of the day, but then, as he approached his front door, he saw it was already slightly ajar. Close up, he could see the wood was split around the lock where someone had jemmied it open. Cautiously he pushed it wide. His bulldog, Mac, lumbered towards the door, a sheepishness tempering his usual welcome.

‘Useless bugger,’ Amos said, and the dog shrank against the wall, certain now that he had been found lacking when put to the test. But there was no sound within and no evidence, once Amos entered, of any disturbance. Must be the world’s
daftest burglar, he thought, breaking into a house on Brook Lane. He wandered through the rooms downstairs; all was as it should be. Upstairs was the same. Mystified, he returned to the kitchen and put the kettle on, thinking as he waited for it to boil that he’d have to see to the lock tomorrow. Tonight he was done in. He gazed gloomily about the kitchen; even without the grim detail of his jemmied lock, this little house had an unloved air about it. There was never a smell of food when he walked in, or the sound of a kettle already building up steam. Then, as he stood with his back to the range facing his small, bare table, he realised what was missing.

Someone had lifted the papers that he’d left on there this morning. A letter from the YMA, detailing benefits of membership. A list of names of men at New Mill Colliery. A letter Amos had drafted to the membership secretary, requesting a meeting as soon as was convenient. It was all gone. Somebody else might have charged about the house searching high and low for the missing documents, in case in an unconscious moment they could’ve been filed elsewhere, but Amos didn’t move, just stood stock still, staring at where they’d been. He knew what was what, just as he knew, now, what was not. Behind him, the kettle began to let out its shrill call. Right, he said to himself, in his methodical way. Somebody else’ll tell the earl what I was going to tell ’im anyway. That’s no disaster, though it could’ve been better handled. But some bastard hates me enough to put ’imself to this trouble.

And it was that thought, more than the likely consequences of the theft, which squatted leaden and ugly in his mind.