Sons and Daughters (2 page)

‘No women,’ Osbert Crawford had instructed harshly. ‘I don’t want unseemly weeping and wailing. My wife’s funeral will be conducted with dignity.’

So even the faithful Mary, who’d come to Buckthorn Farm ten years earlier when Osbert had brought his bride home, was not allowed to attend her mistress’s funeral.

Two years after Mary’s arrival, Edward Morgan, already employed at the farm, had asked her to marry him. At first, Osbert had forbidden the match, but when both had threatened to leave, he’d been forced to capitulate, aware that good and loyal servants were hard to find for the lonely farm set amidst the flat Lincolnshire marshland near the Wash.

So, Edward and Mary had married and continued to live at Buckthorn Farm, serving their strict master and caring for his lovely, dutiful bride. And so it was Mary Morgan’s hand that Charlotte now grasped as she watched her mother leaving home for the last time.

All the other men and boys who worked on the farm lined up behind Harry and Joe Warren. Charlotte knew them all and they all knew her. They always smiled and waved and raised their caps to her when they saw her. But today, they were not smiling or waving. They were walking with their caps in their hands and their heads bowed. Today, they didn’t even look up at the window.

‘Come, child,’ Mary said, trying to pull her away from the scene below, but Charlotte stayed, obstinately watching until she could no longer see the procession. Only then did she allow the woman to lead her downstairs to the comforting warmth of the huge kitchen.

And through all her growing years it was the only place she was ever to find warmth and comfort and affection.

LADY DAY, 1926

Peggy Warren straightened up from bending over the range and turned towards her husband as he sat down heavily at the table. As she placed his dinner in front of him she sighed. ‘Not another one!’

‘Aye.’ Joe picked up his knife and fork. ‘But who can blame ’em, eh?’

Peggy sat down before her own meal. ‘Not me, for one.’

Joe chuckled. ‘Don’t fancy havin’ a go yarsen, then? Earn yarsen a bit o’ pin money?’

Peggy stared at him. ‘Joe Warren, have you taken leave of your senses? Haven’t I enough to do looking after you and your two strapping sons who refuse to find themselves wives and leave home? To say nothing of your poor old dad, who can hardly get out of his bed these days. And then there’s Lily, who still comes home now and again from her job at the manor, and as for our Tommy – ’ Peggy cast a despairing glance to the whitewashed ceiling. ‘Always in some scrape or other.’

At seven, Tommy was the youngest of the Warren family. His arrival had been a ‘surprise’ to the 44-year-old Peggy, who’d thought her childbearing days were over. Indulged by his parents and three older siblings, the boy ran wild.

Joe’s smile widened. ‘I was only teasing, lass. I wouldn’t want you working in that miserable place.’

Peggy was thoughtful. ‘If things were different, I wouldn’t mind. Me an’ Mary Morgan have been friends ever since she came here. We’d work well together, I know. And Edward’s a lovely feller. Still,’ she sighed, ‘I can’t and that’s that. Has his lordship – ’ this was Peggy’s scathing nickname for Osbert Crawford – ‘gone into town today to hire someone else?’

Joe glanced at her briefly. When he’d swallowed a mouthful, he said shortly, ‘No. Rumour has it, he’s expecting Miss Charlotte to do the work.’

Peggy’s fork clattered on to her plate as she gaped at him. ‘Miss Charlotte? You’re joking.’

‘I only wish I was.’

‘His own daughter? Working as a kitchen maid as well as all the work she does on the farm?’

‘Daughter, you say? Huh! Now tell me, Peg – ’ he waved his fork at her – ‘has that man ever –
ever
– treated that lass of his as a daughter? A
proper
daughter?’

Peggy sighed. ‘No, he hasn’t. But that’s just it, isn’t it, Joe? It’s because she
is
a daughter . . .’ She paused and, as she met his gaze, whispered, ‘And not a son.’

Joe placed his knife and fork neatly together on the empty plate and leaned back in his chair. ‘Aye,’ he said softly. ‘That’s the tragedy of it. Poor Mrs Crawford miscarrying three bairns, all boys, and the first two in the same years as our lads were born.’ He shook his head. ‘That must have hurt. Seein’ his farm worker the proud father of two healthy lads and him havin’ to bury his sons in the churchyard. You’ve got to feel sorry for the feller, Peg.’

‘I suppose so. The last one – two years after Charlotte was born – went full term, but he was stillborn. Poor little mite. Mary told me once, he was a bonny baby – just perfect. But he never even drew breath.’

‘Aye, the master was distraught, they said. Locked himself in his room for days and wouldn’t come out.’

Peggy rose and gathered the plates, clattering them together with swift, angry movements. ‘But he’s got a daughter. A lovely girl, if only he’d see it. But d’you know summat, Joe.’ She stood very still for a moment as she added quietly, ‘I reckon he’d willingly sacrifice her if it’d give him just one of his sons back.’

‘Poor lass,’ Joe sighed. ‘She hasn’t got a lot going for her. Plain little thing, isn’t she?’

‘Not so little now, Joe. She’s twenty-six next month. But she doesn’t make the best of herself, I’ll grant you. Shapeless, drab clothes; round, steel-rimmed spectacles; and her shining black hair always scraped back into a plait and covered with an old-fashioned bonnet. And have you seen the shoes she wears? They’re like a man’s.’

Joe grinned. ‘Well, not all lasses can be as pretty as you, my love.’ His tender glance roamed over Peggy’s face, as lovely to him as the day he’d married her despite the fact that she had borne him four children and led such a busy life. There were only a few strands of grey in the curly brown hair and her figure was as slim and lithe as a young girl’s.

‘But he treats her like a boy,’ Peggy was still preoccupied with thoughts of Charlotte. ‘Worse than a lad, if you think about it. He never lets her out to enjoy herself. She’s never even been to the annual Harvest Supper at the manor, now has she?’

After her mother’s death, Mary and Edward had cared for Charlotte. She’d been kept firmly within the confines of Buckthorn Farm, not even allowed to attend the local village school. A governess, Miss Helen Proudley, had taken care of her education. Living in, even sleeping in the same large bedroom, she’d become a companion to the girl too, but it’d always been Mary who’d mothered Charlotte and she who was the constant in the girl’s life. At fifteen, Charlotte’s formal education had ended.

‘You’re old enough to work now,’ her father had said, dismissing the governess at the end of July 1915. ‘With all the young men off to war, you’d better help about the farm.’

From that day forward, Charlotte had spent most of her waking hours out of doors working alongside Joe and his two sons. Now her education was the farming way of life. In her bedroom at night, she would write in a journal all that she had learned that day from old Harry. Though retired through ill health by that time, Harry still lived with his family in the cottage at the end of the track where it joined the long lane running from the sea to the small town of Ravensfleet. Before long, Joe, who as expected had taken his father’s position as foreman, could be heard telling anyone who’d listen that Miss Charlotte knew as much as he did about the workings of the farm. ‘Though mebbe not quite as much as me dad,’ he would add in deference to the man who’d taught him, ‘but, you mark my words, she’ll be as good as any lad when her turn comes to tek over the farm.’

It was the greatest compliment Joe could pay Charlotte and he said it again now as he rose and kissed Peggy, adding, ‘I’d best be off. Doesn’t do for the foreman to be seen slacking.’

Peggy laughed. ‘That’ll be the day any of us on Buckthorn Farm is seen slacking. Not even Miss Charlotte. Poor lass.’

‘Aye, poor lass indeed.’

At that moment, the ‘poor lass’ was laughing her head off in the farmhouse kitchen.

‘Stop it, Jackson Warren. You’re making my sides ache.’ She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. ‘I’ve got work to do in the dairy. Butter won’t churn itself.’

Rolling pastry at the table, Mary Morgan chuckled too. It was good to see the girl laughing and her kitchen was the only room in the house where merriment was ever to be found. The older woman watched as the young man stood by the table looking down at Charlotte.

‘You know, you’ve got pretty eyes, miss. Violet, they are. Shame you have to wear them specs. They hide them.’

‘Go on with you, you and your flirting.’ Charlotte perched the spectacles back on the end of her nose and looked at him over them like a severe school marm. ‘I’ve heard about you and all the village girls. And I’ve seen you after church on a Sunday, walking with your arm round the waist of some unsuspecting lass.’ She chuckled and glanced at Mary. ‘I think we should put up a warning notice to all the town’s maidens, don’t you, Mary?’

‘Oh, I think they all know about Jackson Warren. That’s why he can’t find himself a nice girl to settle down with. Not like his brother.’

Jackson threw back his head and laughed heartily. ‘Our John? Get married? He’s been walking out with Grace Whitehead for years. Why she dun’t give him the boot, I don’t know.’

‘They’ll marry when they’re good an’ ready.’ Mary nodded wisely. ‘It dun’t do to rush into things.’

‘I don’t call five years courting rushing,’ Jackson countered. ‘He’s thirty next month and Grace must be twenty-six if she’s a day. She’ll be an old maid if she dun’t watch out.’

Charlotte’s smile faltered.

‘You mind your tongue, Jackson Warren,’ Mary said tartly. ‘And you’d best be off about your work. If the master hears all this noise—’

‘I’m goin’, I’m goin’.’ He pulled on his cap and touched it in farewell to both women. ‘Thanks for the tea, missus. And you, Miss Charlotte.’

They both nodded acknowledgement at him, Mary with pursed lips and Charlotte with the ghost of a smile.

After the back door had banged behind him, there was silence in the kitchen except for the thumping of Mary’s rolling pin.

‘That boy,’ she declared, ‘will be the death of his poor mam! Unless, of course, their Tommy gets there first.’ She laughed wryly. ‘And that wouldn’t surprise me one bit.’

‘Jackson’s all right,’ Charlotte said softly. ‘He’s a lot of spirit about him. I like to see that. And young Tommy has, too. He’s very like Jackson.’

‘Aye well, mebbe so. He’s a little scallywag, that Tommy. But then, so was Jackson at the same age. But now it’s spirit that’s mostly out of a bottle on a Saturday night in Jackson’s case, so I’ve heard tell.’

‘He’s only young.’

‘Twenty-eight. He’s ready to call others, but he doesn’t take a look at himself and realize it’s high time he settled down an’ all.’

Now Charlotte laughed. ‘Peggy looks after him far too well for him to leave home. And as for settling down, I doubt he ever will. He’s having too much fun.’

‘And whose fault is that, might I ask? Them silly girls who let themselves be charmed by his flirting ways. I just hope none of ’em gets themselves into trouble ’cos it’d break poor Peggy’s heart if her lad were to be chased with a shotgun by an angry father.’

She glanced at Charlotte, who was still sitting pensively at the table, lost in thought, scarcely listening to the housekeeper’s chatter.

‘Don’t you mind now, lovey. What he said. He dun’t mean no harm. He didn’t stop to think what he was saying.’ She sniffed disapprovingly. ‘He never does.’

Charlotte sighed. ‘I know. I’m quite resigned to the thought that I’ll never get married. I’ll be here in this dusty old house, dreaming of a wedding day that never happened and was never going to.’ She chuckled suddenly. ‘Another Miss Havisham – that’s what I’ll be. No, it’s not that. It’s just – it’s just that when Jackson talks about all the
fun
he has, I – well – it’s only then I feel the loneliness.’

‘But you’ve a busy life. All the kiddies at the Sunday school love you. And you’re always out an’ about the farm – you laugh and joke with the hands, now, don’t you?’

‘I know, I know. Everyone’s very kind, but there’s always this sort of – barrier, you know. I’m their master’s daughter. They’re always so polite.
Too
polite, if you know what I mean. And—’

There was a pause before Mary prompted quietly, ‘Go on. What is it?’

The words came out in a rush. ‘I think they feel sorry for me.’

‘Oh lovey, no!’ Mary dropped her rolling pin with a clatter and moved to put her arm round the girl’s shoulders, leaving a floury smudge on Charlotte’s grey dress. ‘That’s not true.’

Charlotte turned slowly to look at the woman who’d brought her up from the age of five. It was a kind face; round, with soft, smooth skin, though there were a few wrinkles there now and grey strands in the once dark hair. Her hazel eyes were honest and direct – and Charlotte trusted her with her life. Now she smiled. ‘Mary Morgan, you are one terrible liar.’

Mary swallowed hard. Oh my dear girl, she was thinking, if only you knew the terrible lie I’ve been forced to live all these years.