The Flight of Swallows (2 page)

‘But, Father, the boys were—’

‘It is you we are speaking of, Charlotte. Not your brothers. They have been disciplined and now it is your turn. You must learn to think before you act—’

‘But, Father—’

‘And if you interrupt me once more I shall be forced to take further measures.’

Charlotte had some knowledge of what those further measures might be since she had suffered them before. The last time she had been unable to sit down comfortably for a week!

‘Now, miss, bend over, if you please.’

He indicated the leather chair which was already pulled out from the knee-hole of the desk where he attended to household and estate matters. Where he interviewed the butler and housekeeper. He nodded to Charlotte, that curious expression in his eyes deepening. Obediently she leaned over the back of the chair, praying to the God of her childhood that it would not be the worst sort of punishment that she had suffered in the past. She prayed in vain.

‘Lift your skirt and petticoats.’ Oh, gentle Jesus, please not my drawers.

‘Pull down your drawers, if you please. This is a—’

Without pausing to think of the consequences she stood up and whirled about, her skirt and petticoat dropping into place and whirling with her. Her father recoiled in amazement, for a moment not quite knowing what to do because none of his children had ever defied him.
Really
defied him. Then he lifted the switch as though to hit her across the face with it but just in time he collected himself. It would not do to have his daughter going about with a weal across her cheek.

‘What do you think you are doing?’ he demanded in that cool voice he could assume.

‘I’m refusing to . . . to . . . bow to your ludicrous and pointless order; pointless because it will do no good. We are punished for the slightest transgression, ones that we do not even know we are committing. How natural it was for the boys to try to retrieve their ball which was only on the very edge of the roof of the conservatory. It hardly seemed worth it to call the gardeners and Robbie and I were merely watching. Does that deserve the thrashing you have just meted out? Well, you will not thrash me. I am sixteen and will not be exposed to . . . to . . .’

‘How dare you question my judgement,’ her father hissed. ‘I would advise you to obey me at once or you will go to your room and be locked in there for—’

‘Very well, I would rather be locked up than be beaten on my bare . . . my bare flesh. It is indecent, disgusting . . .’

Charlotte watched with horrid fascination as her father’s face turned a dangerous crimson, the colour of it appearing to leak into his eyes, then just as suddenly he pulled himself together. His daughter was almost as tall as he was, a strong and healthy girl, and he did not wish to struggle with her since it seemed in her present mutinous mood that was what she would do. Fight him! She had a splendid figure, deep-bosomed with a slender waist and hips and long legs. She was lovely, as her mother had been lovely, her hair a warm tawny shade, a mixture of her mother’s pale brown and his own chestnut, but where his eyes were brown hers were a deep and startling aquamarine. She spent a great deal of her time outdoors, walking, playing the popular game of tennis and her smooth skin was tanned. She had a full, peach-coloured mouth and perfect white teeth and very soon he knew he would have no trouble marrying her to some suitable landed gentleman, perhaps even titled!

It seemed there was a stand-off. Charlotte was breathing hard in the attitude of a boxer in a ring or a gladiator facing an opponent and he was somewhat at a loss as to what to do next. None of his children had ever refused to bow down to the punishments he meted out to them. The boys appeared to have inherited their mother’s meek and gentle ways, though he had seen signs of defiance in Henry, the eldest at fifteen. It was strange really because he wished his sons to be obedient and at the same time to show some spirit, having no idea that it was he who had made them as they were. Afraid of him, disliking him, wanting to defy him but unable to pluck up the courage to do so. It had been left to this daughter of his who looked quite magnificent as she glared at him. Still, he could not have this, could he? He must make a show of authority.

‘Go to your room and stay there until I give you permission to leave it. I will have bread and water sent up to you and that is all. Talk to no one. I am to go out now and cannot spare the time to deal with you but when I return we will resume this . . . this discussion. I will consider the punishment you deserve and sincerely hope that you will have become calm by then.’

He turned his back on her to show his utter contempt, or so he would have her believe, but the truth was that for the first time in his life as a husband and as a father he had been defied and was not quite sure what to do next. He needed time to think and the hunt at King’s Meadow would give him a chance to do that. The weather was perfect for hunting, a crisp winter’s day, the frost of the night before almost gone. The meet at Armstrong’s place was always a splendid affair and a day’s hunting would put this problem in its true perspective.

Five miles of hard riding, the hounds in full cry, everybody too absorbed in the chase to notice that Arthur Drummond was somewhat distracted. He had to negotiate deep ditches, choose the right place to jump winter hedges crisp with the last of the frost, and keep firm hands on the reins of his hunter who was inclined to be spirited. Jupiter, he was called, bred from a famous line of Arabs said to have been brought back from the Crusades.

By the time the fox was dealt with, a young lady, a house guest of Drummond’s, had been blooded and the riders were making their cheerful way back to King’s Meadow, he had forgotten all about his recalcitrant daughter.

Charlotte sat on the edge of her bed and stared out of the window at the stretch of lawn sloping down to the small lake in the middle of which a fountain sprayed in a shimmering, sunlit haze. Across the garden ran a path to the wood that edged the property with a hazel thicket and dense oaks beyond. Malachy, the gardener, was busy at something on the edge of the woodland, and from almost at his feet, causing him to look startled, a rabbit ran out and bobbed across the lawn. Rooks rose in a black swirl and went trailing off across the deep blue winter sky. Denny Foster, the under-gardener, came striding round the corner of the house, calling something to Malachy and with a nod Malachy stopped whatever he was doing and followed Denny to the back of the house, probably to the kitchen for the hot chocolate Mrs Welsh, the cook, provided for the servants’ elevenses.

There would be wood violets peeping through the winter grass under the trees, the violet roots sending up little green trumpets of new leaves and the elm trees were just breaking into blossom. She had seen them yesterday as she and the boys had been having what Robbie called ‘adventures’, the games the older boys had devised just before the terrible event that had caused so much distress this morning. Sometimes they were swashbuckling Royalists about to take arms against the Roundheads; sword-play which they practised to get used to sudden ambuscades, or an attack when you were carrying despatches. Their imagination was vivid, garnered from the books they read and she sometimes joined in though she preferred to watch the birds, investigate growing plants, pick flowers when there were any to pick or just daydream, as her father would call it.

She sighed deeply, wondering how her brothers were. At least they had Kizzie to comfort them, and as if her thoughts had conjured her, the door opened slowly and Kizzie’s rosy face peeped round it. Her usual beaming smile was not in evidence.

‘Ista orlright, chuck?’ she asked in her broad Yorkshire dialect. ‘Tha’ pa’s gone off on ’is ’orse. ’Untin’, Willie ses an’ won’t be back while dinner. Them lads is upset, especially our Robbie though Harry reckons ’e don’t care. Poor mites’ll not sit down terday nor termorrer more like. ’Ow about you, lass? Did ’e . . .’

‘No, Kizzie, he didn’t beat me, though he tried. I’m afraid I refused to be thrashed so he sent me up here today. By the way, it’s bread and water for me.’

‘Gie ower, great daft loony!’ Kizzie’s red cheeks became even more colourful in her indignation. ‘I’m fetchin’ tha’ summat ter eat right now an’ it’ll not be bread an’ water. Bread an’ water be damned. Tha’ was only lakin’. All bairns lake an’—’

Charlotte stood up and put her hand on Kizzie’s arm as the young woman advanced into the room. ‘No, Kizzie, you know he’ll find out. He always does and then you will be in trouble as well as me.’ She was trying for a bit of humour but she was close to tears. ‘Do you want your “bum” smacked, which is what I was threatened with, or, worse still, do you want to be dismissed? Think, Kizzie, because I couldn’t manage without you.’

Kizzie’s face softened and she put her strong arms about this girl who had come into Kizzie’s life when she was ten years old and Kizzie four years older. Her mother had just died and the nanny the family employed could not cope with six children, one of them a newborn baby. Kizzie, whose full name was Hezekiah, loved and mothered them all, despite being only fourteen. She had come from a big family who lived in Overton where her pa worked on the land. Eleven of them in a tiny cottage, Kizzie being the eldest. Her mam would miss her, she said sadly, but there was no room for them all, and not on what Pa earned. It was either into service or the pit as a pit brow lass and so with Mam being related to Mrs Welsh, the cook, she had got the job at the Mount. Her relationship to Mrs Welsh was very vague, Mrs Welsh being second cousin to Mam’s auntie, but Mrs Welsh was a firm believer in knowing where those who worked in the house came from and Mrs Banks, who was housekeeper, agreed with her.

‘’E’s addled, that pa o’ yourn, an’ I don’t care ’oo ’ears me say it.’

‘Kizzie, be careful. If my father heard you, or even realised what you are thinking he would dismiss you on the spot.’

Kizzie shook her head sadly. ‘Aye, lass, I’m afeared ’e would. ’Appen I’d best keep me gob shut. But tha’ must eat summat. Tha’ pa’ll not be back while ternight an’ tha’ve gorra get summat inside yer. I’ll get Mrs Welsh ter do tha’ some frummenty. ’Ow’s that? It’ll stick ter tha’ belly an’ it’s not what tha’d call real food. An’ if ’e asks me I’ll lie in me teeth an’—’

‘No, Kizzie, no. Lord, I can manage a day without food. What you’d call proper food. Bring me a couple of slices of Mrs Welsh’s freshly made bread and a jug of water.’ She smiled conspiratorially. ‘You can put butter on the bread and ice in the water and when he asks, if he asks, you can say truthfully I’ve had nothing but bread and water.’

Within ten minutes Kizzie was back with a tray spread with a beautifully laundered cloth. On it sat a platter of bread thickly plastered with creamy butter, the bread straight from the oven, the butter from the dairy, and a fluted glass jug with a lid, filled with water liberally speared with ice. There was also a vase filled with hothouse roses, tiny pink buds decorated with baby’s breath.

Charlie felt a lump come to her throat and when Kizzie had placed the tray on the table beneath the window she put her arms about her and hugged her.

‘Food fit for a king, Kizzie. Thank you.’

‘Mrs Welsh sent them flowers, lass. Tha’ knows they’re all wi’ thi’ an’ them lads. Mind, ’e said nowt about them ’avin’ bread an’ water so tha’ve no need ter worry about them starvin’. I’ll tekk ’em up a good dinner. Mekk ’em feel better. Now tha’ get tha’ teeth inter that there bread an’ butter an tha’ll not go far wrong.’ She hesitated. ‘Tha’ knows keys in’t lock. He ses tha’ve ter stay ’ere but I reckon tha’ll need the wotsit so tha’ just ring tha’ bell an’ I’ll be up directly. Eeh . . .’ She shook her head sadly. ‘What’s ter become of us all, tell me that?’ just as though the whole household were in grave danger.

Charlie ate the lovely fresh bread, still warm from the oven, with lashings of the good butter Sally Harper made in the dairy. The iced water was refreshing and she wondered idly why it was that water with ice in it tasted so much better than without it. She wasn’t really hungry. Her mind was too active with the problem of what she would do next. Her brothers, Robbie so vulnerable and James not much stronger; how could they stand up to the life their father imposed on them? It wasn’t as if they went to the local grammar school where at least they would be out of the house for a good part of the day. The older boys, Henry and William and John, could withstand their father’s indifference, his . . . she was going to say cruelty which she supposed it was, though apart from the beatings, which seemed to give him some perverse pleasure, he barely infringed on their lives. They were well fed, clothed and slept in warm beds. The servants were fond of them and did their best to bring some warmth into their lives but they were growing up afraid of their own shadows, always looking over their shoulders to see if Father was watching them, even in the most innocent of pastimes such as the game of football in which the ball had landed on the conservatory roof. An accident.

She sighed and after ringing the bell to be let out of her room to visit the bathroom, this time by Nancy, the parlour-maid, Kizzie being busy with the boys, she changed into her nightdress and allowed Nancy to make up the fire and put her to bed.

‘Sleep well, Miss Charlie,’ the maid said sympathetically, wondering, as they all did, what was to happen to this courageous young girl. It was the first time she had stood up to her father, cruel bugger that he was, though she wouldn’t dare say that in the presence of Mrs Banks or Mr Watson. But the way he treated these children of his was a crying shame, the servants all agreed. She sadly turned the key in the lock before returning to the kitchen.

It was exactly ten thirty the next morning when Arthur Drummond summoned his daughter to his study. He was in a good mood, for he had enjoyed his day’s hunting and his meeting with Miss Elizabeth Parker who, though twenty-five years old and a mystery to her family and friends as to why she was not yet married, had made a big impression on him.

But it made no difference to Arthur Drummond. His daughter must be taught a lesson. She had defied him and it was up to him as a parent to make sure she was made to realise that he ruled the house and his family. Spare the rod and spoil the child had been his father’s motto and he felt the same.