Obsession (6 page)

Hearing Harriet laugh, Brook breathed a sigh of relief. He had been minding Harriet’s distress at his forthcoming departure far more even than his own. As Harriet had pointed out, he would not be leaving her for very long and their reunion would be the greatest joy.

His thoughts were interrupted by the footman announcing that dinner was served. Taking Harriet’s arm, he led her into the brightly lit dining room not doubting that the evening would end with him showing her, in other ways, how much a husband could love his wife.

H
arriet was counting the days until Brook’s likely return but as yet she had had no letter advising her of the date. When at last a letter arrived with the breakfast tray Bessie now always brought her in the mornings, she was so happy to see it she nearly knocked the tray over as she waved the letter in the air. Her eyes shining, she scanned the first page. Bessie’s smiles as she looked at her young mistress’ excited face changed to alarm as she saw the colour leave Harriet’s cheeks and her hands holding the letter start to tremble,

‘The master’s not ill, is he?’ she asked anxiously.

Harriet shook her head. Tears now trembled on her cheeks as she whispered, ‘He isn’t coming home … not yet … not for weeks and weeks …’ She broke off, the tears of disappointment now flowing. Bessie removed the breakfast tray from her lap and handed Harriet a handkerchief.

‘Don’t upset yourself so!’ she said. ‘The master wouldn’t want to see you crying like this!’

Harriet blew her nose. ‘I know, Bessie!’ she whispered. ‘But he won’t be coming home for MONTHS …’ Her voice rose. ‘Not for four months – maybe even six …’

She broke off, the tears flowing again. Bessie regarded her anxiously. Six months – half a year … It was a very, very long time.

She found another handkerchief for Harriet to replace the wet one, wondering as she did so how she could possibly find something comforting to say.

‘Does the master say what’s doing out there to keep him, Miss Harriet?’ she asked.

In a choked voice, Harriet replied, ‘The man who was managing the plantations has been shot and killed. There’s been trouble amongst the Jamaican people and it’s gone on despite the slaves being given their freedom thirty years ago. Brook says his workers are all loyal, but the plantations are at risk and he will have to find a new manager and see him settled in and make sure the danger has passed before he dare leave the country.’

‘Six months is an awful long time!’ Bessie said, sighing. Then her expression brightened as she added, ‘I’m sure as how he’ll come back just as soon as ever he can, Miss Harriet, I never did see a husband as devoted to his wife as what the master is to you!’

Harriet attempted a smile. ‘Even four months more without him is almost more than I can bear to think about!’ she said. ‘I miss him so, so much!’

‘I know you does, Miss Harriet but …’ Bessie had another thought. ‘You’ve the time to make that visit to Miss Una now. You said as how it was too long a journey to go for a short while: now you could stay for several weeks, couldn’t you?’

Harriet drew a deep, shaky sigh. It was small consolation, but she could do as Bessie was suggesting. Una had been so disappointed when she’d declined to go before. She would take Bessie with her, of course. She had always wanted to go abroad again ever since her honeymoon. If they left for Ireland at the beginning of October she could stay at least six weeks with Una and still be home long before there was any chance of Brook’s return.

Bessie replaced the breakfast tray in front of Harriet and went downstairs to get her a fresh pot of hot chocolate. Dry-eyed now, Harriet ate her breakfast as she considered the implications of her proposed absence from Hunters Hall. There were a number of invitations she had accepted which would now have to be refused. Harvest festival was in a week or two’s time and a basket of fruit and vegetables from their garden would have to be taken to the church for the parish. There was a garden party too, and she would miss the annual cricket match on the green. Brook usually took part while Harriet gave the prize to the winning team. She had also agreed with Felicity Goodall to spend a few days at her brother, Paul’s, house in London next month and go to an opera and a concert with them. That, too, would have to be cancelled or postponed.

Although nearly ten years older than herself, Felicity had proved to be a welcome companion in Brook’s absence. Brook had suggested before he left that Felicity Goodall’s desire to be included in their coterie of friends might have something to do with the Denning family’s ambitions to raise their social status as they were still not accepted by all their neighbours, such as Viscount Harrogate and his wife and Lord and Lady Bancroft. Nevertheless, Harriet had begun to liken her to one of her older sisters who, regrettably, she seldom ever saw now because of their busy lives in distant parts of the country.

When Bessie returned, Harriet was dry-eyed as she discussed with her how they would travel – not by one of the new trains, she said, because not only would they have first to go by coach to the nearest railway station at Leicester, but the train’s carriages would be cold and dirty. They would travel in their own coach.

‘We can stop on the way and spend a night at one of the inns,’ she said. ‘You could go down to the village this morning, Bessie, with Jenkins, and find out more details about such a journey. I will write to my sister and advise her of our arrival …’

When Bessie had left, Harriet lay back against her pillows, thinking of the letter she would write that morning to Brook. She must not let him know how upset she was, but write of her plan to go to Ireland. She would also go up to the nursery with Bessie and pack a basket of toys for Una’s many little ones – toys she had bought when she thought that she herself would be having a baby, and which she had hidden away after that first miscarriage.

There had been that moment about a month before Brook’s departure when she’d thought she might have been pregnant again. She noticed she had put on a little bit of weight, but Brook always insisted on having all his English dishes and following them with cream trifles and cook’s chocolate truffles with macaroons and whipped cream from the farm, as well as insisting upon spoiling her with her favourite violet creams, so it was small wonder her waistband was tight. However, she had no signs of the morning sickness which had beset her throughout those past pregnancies, and although she had been momentarily sad to realize this was not now the case, she thought it was perhaps as well, since Brook would not be there to share her hopes for the survival of the next baby. At least now, she reflected, she could undertake the journey to Ireland without risk, something she would not otherwise have done.

Four weeks later, Harriet and Bessie departed in the comfort of the well-sprung coach, leaving Hunters Hall behind them. The household staff had been instructed to make an early start on the spring cleaning whilst she was away so that everything would be pristine and orderly by the time Brook returned. The clothes the two travellers needed on their visit were packed and strapped securely to the back and on the roof of the coach. Harriet’s dressing case was placed on the seat by Bessie for safekeeping.

It was a cold, blustery morning as they set out early on to the road to Derby. It was their intention not to stop there but press on to Ashbourne for the night. Jenkins had every confidence in the horses, and knew of the various stops they would have to make to exchange them for fresh ones. After a night in the Green Man, a well-respected coaching inn, they would have another long day travelling to Knutsford, where they would spend the night in the Rose and Crown, and then the final leg to Liverpool.

Reaching Ashbourne by nightfall, they stopped at the Green Man and were glad of a hot meal brought to them in a private parlour and afterwards a comfortable bed. Both Harriet and Bessie were a little stiff after sitting for so long on the otherwise trouble-free first day of their journey. Bessie shared Harriet’s bedroom, sleeping in a truckle bed at the foot of the large four-poster.

They breakfasted on slices of ham – cured by the landlady herself, they were told proudly – devilled kidneys, and hot bread freshly baked that morning, and were joined by a woman on her own also travelling to Liverpool. Harriet invited her to ride in their coach but she said she preferred to go more quickly by train, even though it was less comfortable.

They were obliged to make another stop when one of the horses went lame, but arrived safely in Liverpool the following evening without further mishap. Having missed the evening ferry, Harriet said they would sail for Dublin the following morning.

The St George
coaching inn was bustling with travellers, a mail coach and three private coaches having not long since arrived. However, the landlord said he had one remaining bedroom he could let Harriet and Bessie occupy, not the most comfortable as it was over the tap room, but warm from the fire below. He assured Harriet there would be a hot meal available and that there would be no difficulty next day obtaining a hackney cab to take them and their luggage to the docks. This being the case, Harriet told Jenkins and the groom that they could return home as soon as they pleased.

Despite the noise, clatter of dishes, and smoky atmosphere in the rather dark, low-beamed dining room, the food was hot and well cooked, and, never having eaten or stayed in such a public place before, Bessie enjoyed the experience. Harriet found it not dissimilar to the coaching stops she and Brook had made on their honeymoon, although the food had been very different and the quantity of it not so hearty as that now provided by the landlord’s wife.

That night, as Bessie helped Harriet out of her clothes and they prepared for bed, she was agog with excitement. Tomorrow, she said to Harriet, she would sail across the sea for the first time in her life – indeed, she had never seen the sea before. She looked anxiously at Harriet as she tucked her into bed and prepared to blow out the candles.

‘’Tis terrible noisy!’ she commented, listening to the chatter and laughter from the tap room below. ‘They’s having a few too many glasses of ale if I’m not mistook!’

Harriet laughed. ‘Believe me, Bessie, I am tired enough to sleep through anything!’ she assured her, little knowing that were she to do so, she might not be alive the next morning.

B
essie was the first to awake. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and coughing. She could see through a gap in the curtains that it was still pitch dark outside and, normally a very sound sleeper, she wondered if it was her coughing which had woken her.

That was the moment she smelt smoke. Clambering out of her truckle bed, she ran across the room in her bare feet to look out of the window. To her surprise, there was no sign of a fire. Turning back to the room, she saw it – a thin drift of smoke coming up through a gap in the oak floorboards.

For a minute, she stood staring at it, wondering if she was dreaming, and at that moment, the shouting began: ‘FIRE! FIRE!’, followed by the sound of pounding feet on the staircase and a woman screaming.

Wasting no more time, Bessie hurried to Harriet’s bedside and shook her shoulder. ‘Wake up! Oh, do wake up, Miss Harriet!’ she urged. The smoke in the room was intensifying and it seemed to Bessie that she could feel heat on the soles of her bare feet.

‘Oh, please, please hurry, Miss Harriet,’ she begged. She reached for Harriet’s dress and mantle, fearing as she did so that there might be no time to rescue all her petticoats.

Wide awake now, and aware of the smoke, Harriet instructed Bessie to see to her own clothing as, ignoring her cashmere stockings, she struggled into her buttoned boots. Neither girl was now in any doubt that the fire below was a serious one. Outside the window they could hear shouts and see buckets being carried from the water butt by the stables, and ladders put up to the windows.

Bessie dressed quickly, her voice shaking as she said, ‘I’ll see if it’s safe to go downstairs, Miss Harriet. I don’t fancy you having to climb down one of them ladders!’ Not least, she thought, because her mistress had no underclothing on. Shoving her feet into her boots and not waiting to tie the laces, she hurried to the door. Somewhat to her surprise, only a slight haze of smoke was drifting up the stairs. The fire, she thought, must be down below in the dining room on the opposite side of the building. Men and women were emerging from their rooms and were hastening down the narrow staircase. Seeing Bessie hovering on the landing, one of the men stopped and said, ‘Best make haste, miss. This place is built of wood – it’ll go up like tinder if it gets a hold.’

Then he disappeared down the stairs. Bessie hurried back into the room and pulled Harriet away from the portmanteau into which she was attempting to pack some clothing alongside the presents she had brought for Una.

‘Leave it, Miss Harriet!’ she said. ‘We can get everything later once they’ve put out the fire. We’ve got to be quick.’

With Bessie holding tight to her arm, Harriet hurried after the men and women down the wooden stairs. The smoke was stinging their eyes and causing them to cough continuously. As the man had warned, the old inn was entirely constructed of oak, and whilst its former occupants now stood shivering in the cobbled yard, they watched the flames reach the roof and heard the sound of horses’ hooves clattering down the cobbled street bringing a fire engine and firemen. Despite the men’s efforts to quench it by throwing water on to the flames, it soon proved impossible to save the building.

The heat from the blaze was intense, but Harriet was shivering as she pulled her blue plush mantle more tightly around her. Bessie, she saw, was weeping. She put an arm round her. ‘We may have lost our belongings, Bessie,’ she said gently, ‘but we have not lost our lives. See over there – it’s the landlord’s wife. She will tell us of the nearest inn we can go to …’

She broke off, realizing that in the haste of their departure, she had not brought the most important item of all – her purse.
They were without money
. Then, her heart beating swiftly in relief, she remembered the sovereigns Bessie had insisted upon sewing into the hem of her dress. She had laughed when Bessie insisted on doing so, saying her father had told her it was never safe to travel anywhere without a hidden amount of money to pay for the journey home.