The American Heiress (42 page)

Bertha strolled slowly down the village street. She had not been to Lulworth more than once or twice since they had come to the house. On her rare days off she preferred to walk in the park or stay in her room and read illustrated magazines. It was a pretty enough street, the houses all built from the same grey stone, their roofs mostly thatched although some of the larger ones had slate roofs. Bertha had been amazed when she first saw the thatched cottages. Miss Cora had called them quaint but Bertha thought they looked shabby. She thought that the overhanging eaves looked like the hairy eyebrows of old men. She twirled her parasol. Its colour exactly matched the cream of her blouse. Miss Cora had ordered them at the same time; she would only carry a parasol that matched her dress.

Bertha was aware that she was being watched as she walked down the street. There were a few women hanging up washing, as it was a fine day, and the bench in front of the Square and Compass was, as usual, filled with old men. She had been surprised when she had first come to Dorset by how small the villagers were. At home she was tall, but not excessively so, but here in the village she felt like a giant. She regularly saw men, working in the fields, who only came up to her shoulder. Bertha looked at the cottages with their frowning roofs and low doors and wondered whether their inhabitants simply had no room to grow. As she walked past a line of washing, she saw how patched and worn the smocks and petticoats were, they reminded her of the washing lines back in South Carolina. She smoothed her skirts, the silky material reminding her that she had escaped that threadbare existence. If it hadn’t been for the Reverend and Mrs Cash, she would have been like those women hanging out rags. She wondered if her mother had got the last letter she had sent her and the money. She had sent her twenty-five pounds, that was a hundred and twenty-five dollars. How many mothers had daughters who could send them that kind of money? That thought, along with the swish of her silk skirt, distracted her from the knowledge that she had not heard from her mother since she had come to England and the realisation that, no matter how hard she screwed up her eyes, she could no longer visualise her mother’s face.

She turned and walked back to the post office. Mr Veale was standing in the doorway waving at her.

‘The answer has come through, Miss Jackson.’ He handed her the cable. ‘Will be on the 5 o’ clock train, Julius Sercombe.’ Bertha felt her shoulders fall in relief and she put the paper in her pocket.

‘Will that be all, Miss Jackson?’ Mr Veale hovered curiously.

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘I trust everything is well at the house. There must be great excitement about the Duke’s return.’

Bertha nodded and took up the reins of the donkey cart, aware that Cora would be counting the minutes till she came back. The postmaster cleared his throat nervously.

‘Please convey my respects to Her Grace and tell her that we would be honoured if she were to visit the post office. I would be most happy to show her the telegraph machine at her convenience. It is the latest model, quite the equal of anything in the metropolis.’

Bertha said, ‘I will do that, and now if you’ll excuse me,’ and she flicked her switch across the donkey’s broad back. Why on earth did that man imagine that Miss Cora would want to poke around his post office? Perhaps he thought there would be money in it.

She set off along the road that ran up from the station to the gates of the house. She heard the church bells strike quarter to – she had been gone for an hour and a half. She hoped Miss Cora was managing. She gave the donkey another flick. She could see a man a few hundred yards ahead of her, walking along the side of the road. He was moving energetically, his arms and legs pumping, his head held high, so different from the old men shuffling outside the pub. He was smartly dressed too, wearing a dark jacket and a bowler hat. A delicious suspicion ran through her as she shook the reins and urged the donkey to move faster. As the distance between them narrowed, she felt a lurching in her stomach and blood rushing to her cheeks.

‘Jim,’ she called, her voice cracking with excitement. The man stopped and turned round. For a moment she thought perhaps she had been mistaken, he was so brown and his face was much thinner than she remembered. But then he took off his hat and ran towards her.

‘I was just thinking about you,’ he said and he smiled. There were new creases around his eyes and mouth, but she remembered the look he was giving her now. She smiled back and put out her arms.

After a few minutes he said, ‘What a stroke of luck meeting you on the road like this. I’d been thinking all the way down here how I could get you to myself.’ He had climbed up on to the cart and was sitting next to Bertha, leg to leg, their hands touching as she moved the reins.

He breathed into her ear, ‘Why don’t we pull up in the woods for a bit before we go up to the house? Oh Bertha, it’s so good to see you again.’ He put his hand over hers and she felt his touch flood through her. She leant against him and allowed him to take the reins. He steered them into woods at the edge of the park. She watched as he jumped down lightly and tied the reins to a tree. His skin was much darker than she remembered, and his hair was fairer, but his expression was still the same, his blue eyes eager and shining. He held out his hand and she hesitated for a second, thinking of Cora’s white face, but he was pulling her down now and there was no space in her mind for anything else but the fact of him.

She pulled away from him at last. ‘We can’t, not…not now.’ She tried to push him away as he leant forward to kiss her neck.

‘I’ve waited so long for this…’ Jim’s voice was muffled in her hair.

‘I know, but Miss Cora’s baby is starting and there is no one with her. I must go back.’

But Jim did not release his hold on her. ‘Stay with me, Bertha. She’s got a husband and a houseful of servants. I only have you. You don’t know how much I’ve wanted you.’ She could feel his fingers fumbling with the buttons at her collar.

She arched away from him and looked at him full on. ‘But the Duke’s not there and she doesn’t want anyone else to know until the doctor comes.’

Jim’s fingers stopped trying to tease the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons through the tight little loops.

‘The Duke’s not at Lulworth?’ he said reluctantly.

‘He sent a cable to say he would be here this evening. You mean you thought he’d be here?’ Bertha felt nervous. Had Jim quarrelled with the Duke, lost his position even?

‘I thought he must be. When he didn’t come back this morning, I thought he must have come down here and forgotten to send for me.’ He frowned. ‘His Grace won’t be pleased if he goes back to the club and finds I’ve packed up and brought everything down here. Still, it can’t be helped.’ He smiled at Bertha. ‘I’ll just tell him that I couldn’t stay away from you a moment longer. He’ll understand.’

Bertha felt warmed by the smile, but she could not suppress the twinge of pity she felt for Cora. She shook her head. ‘I have to go back, Jim. It’s her time and she needs me.’

But Jim pulled her to him and held her fast. ‘Oh, she doesn’t need you like I do.’

She could hear his breath coming fast and strong. She could smell the starch from his stiff collar melting. She let herself relax against him for a moment, remembering how well they fitted together, but then she twisted away from him and jumped up on to the donkey cart. She did not trust him to let her go willingly, and she knew it would take so very little to make her stay.

Chapter 23

‘A Bough of Cherries’

B
ERTHA DID NOT KNOCK. SHE WALKED STRAIGHT
in and found Cora leaning against the fireplace with her hands outstretched, her face contorted with the effort of not screaming. Sybil was standing next to her with a handkerchief soaked in eau de cologne.

She was saying to Cora, ‘Please, Cora, let me fetch Mama.’

Cora gasped, ‘No – I – do – not – want – her – to interfere.’ And then the spasm passed and she stood up and saw Bertha.

‘Sir Julius is coming, Miss Cora. He’ll be here soon.’ Bertha would have liked to touch her mistress’s arm, to reassure her, but she felt constrained by Sybil’s presence.

‘Oh, thank God. I don’t how much more of this I can bear.’ She winced as another contraction began.

Bertha said, ‘Excuse me a moment, Miss Cora, I think I know what will help with the pain.’ She rushed down the corridor to the servants’ staircase where she clattered down the uncarpeted stairs to the warren of offices behind the servants’ hall. She knocked on the pantry door where she knew Bugler would be. He was in his shirt sleeves polishing a silver candlestick.

‘Mr Bugler, the Duchess needs the key to the poisons cupboard.’ She held out her hand. As soon as she did so she realised that this was a mistake. Bugler did not like the presumption: the poisons cupboard was his responsibility.

‘Indeed. May I ask why the Duchess did not ring for me herself?’

Bertha swallowed. ‘She is indisposed, Mr Bugler. She does not wish to see anyone just at the present.’

Slowly, Bugler put down the candlestick and motioned Bertha to leave the room with him. She hoped that he would not fully understand the significance of her errand. When he opened the poisons cupboard, which was underneath the cabinet where all the most valuable plate was kept, she walked towards it, hoping to see the bottle straight away, but Bugler was too quick for her. He positioned himself in front of the cabinet, forcing her to ask him for the bottle of Hallston’s patent cough medicine.

He handed it over grudgingly. ‘You will bring it straight back when Her Grace has finished with it, Miss Jackson. I don’t like to leave these preparations lying around. Some of the maids can be very foolish.’ He looked directly at Bertha. But she kept her eyes lowered and took the bottle as respectfully as she could; she found herself even giving a little placatory bend of the knees. It worked, evidently, as Bugler said nothing more, and turned his back to her, making a great show of locking up the cupboard again.

Bertha walked as quickly as she could without actually running along the corridor to the servants’ staircase. As she passed the door to the kitchen, she could hear a clamour of welcome surrounding Jim. He was very popular with the other servants – a local boy who had achieved great things. They would not be so welcoming, Bertha thought, if they knew that she was his sweetheart.

As she scurried crab-like up the stairs – her petticoats wouldn’t let her take them two at a time – she misjudged a step and tripped, the bottle falling out of her hand. For a frozen second she thought it would shatter on the wooden boards but the sturdy brown glass was clearly designed to be proof against trembling fingers and had landed unharmed. The cough medicine was famous for containing large quantities of ether which, according to the legend on the front, dulled all pain and blunted all aches. Bertha had taken some for a toothache when she first arrived in England and had been amazed at the way the sharpness of the pain had been reduced. She had not been tempted to go back for more after the initial pain had faded away but she knew that there were many girls who kept a bottle under their mattress. One of the housemaids had taken so much that, before Christmas, her eyes glassy and her hands wet with sweat, she had dropped a whole tea service on to the scullery floor. The girl’s wages for a year were a fraction of the tea service’s worth so she had been dismissed. When her room was turned out they had found ten empty bottles of Hallston’s patent cough medicine under the mattress. Since then all patent medicines were kept in the poisons cupboard.

Cora was pacing up and down holding on to Sybil when Bertha got back. She wrinkled her nose as she drank the medicine but within a few moments Bertha could see her mistress’s eyes begin to lose their focus. Sybil led her to the chaise longue and once she was lying down, Bertha began to loosen the ribbons and laces of her tea gown and to undo the buttons on the patent kid boots.

When the ether began to wear off, Cora noticed what her maid was doing.

‘Bertha! I want to look nice for my husband when he comes. You will make sure, won’t you?’

Bertha smiled. ‘Don’t worry about that, Miss Cora.’ Cora held out her hand for some more of the medicine.

The arrival of Sir Julius from London some four hours later confirmed the rumours flying around the village that the Duchess had gone into labour. Outside the Square and Compass the long view taken by the clay-pipe smokers was that a healthy boy could only be good news, as money would have to be spent on improving the estate if the heir was to have anything to inherit. They had all heard of the fabulous wealth of the new Duchess but so far they had seen no evidence of it in repairs to their houses, the draining of ditches or the replanting of hedgerows. In the general store, the talk was more short term, concentrating on the new dresses to be worn at the tenants’ dinner traditionally held to celebrate the birth of an heir to the Dukedom. There were mothers who wondered if their daughter might be chosen to work in the nursery and fathers of large families who hoped that their wife might gain employment as a wet nurse. Weld, the stationmaster, anticipated a royal presence at the christening and thought about floral displays, and the churchwarden considered which of his team of bell ringers deserved the honour of ringing in the news.