The Flight of Swallows (30 page)

‘When is the funeral to be?’ Charlotte asked her sharply, for she and her brothers must surely attend; this was their father’s wife and they owed him some sort of duty, despite his previous cruelty to them.

‘I’ve not been told, ma’am,’ Mrs Banks answered primly.

Charlotte stood for a moment while Mrs Banks and Kizzie watched her, then, her mind made up, she walked purposefully towards the drawing room door.

‘I will see the child if you please,’ for this was, after all, her half-sister or -brother.

Mrs Banks sprang into life, the hands that had been folded across her apron suddenly waving in denial.

‘I’ll send Dolly up to see if it is—’

‘No, you won’t. Come with me, Kizzie. What I would like to know is where are Nancy and Mary? You seemed to be ill-served. Dolly, if I remember, was kitchen-maid when I was here last and now she is answering the door. My . . . my stepmother surely . . .’

Mrs Banks could have told a few tales of what had been happening here since the young mistress left to marry. The neglect, the total disorder that had prevailed, since it seemed the new Mrs Drummond had not been brought up to run a household and it was well known that the servants of a house without a competent mistress soon learned to drift through the days at their own pace. That was why Nancy and Mary had left, being decent girls with a proper idea of how a house should be run. Then there were the parties, the drunkenness and . . . and other things that Mrs Banks dared not speak of. At first they had disliked their new mistress with her high-faluting ways but gradually they had begun to feel sorry for her as things had gone from bad to worse. She and the master had had terrible rows but the master was the master after all and would have his own way and now the poor lady was dead.

She trailed after Miss Charlotte and the woman Mrs Banks remembered and who, so far, had not spoken, sighing for what they might find in the nursery; even before they reached the closed nursery door they could hear the weak wailing of the baby. Charlotte opened the door with such force the woman lolling by the fire almost fell into it. She had no idea who Charlotte was, obviously a lady, and at first she tried to brazen out her own neglect of the child in her keeping, babbling that it was weakly and would not take the milk offered. She had risen hastily to her feet, pushing them into well-worn shoes. She bobbed a curtsey and made haste to go to the baby in what Charlotte recognised as the family cradle.

‘I were just goin’ ter try an’ feed poor wee mite,’ she declared slyly but Kizzie, with a raised hand, waved her away.

‘Leave t’ bairn,’ she told her peremptorily and the woman fell back, but she had not yet given up hope that this was a temporary interruption and that she could resume her shiftless care of the baby about whom nobody seemed to care.

‘’Ere, ’oo d’yer think you are, tellin’ me what ter do? I were employed ter care fer the babby—’

‘Yer doin’ nowt o’t sort. Now lass,’ turning to Charlotte, ‘sit down by t’ fire and I’ll see t’t child. Mrs Banks will bring yer a hot drink. We’ll wrap bairn up and tekk it ’ome wi’ us. Does anyone know t’ sex of the baby?’

‘Wha’?’

‘Boy or girl, fer God’s sake?’ Charlotte sat down thankfully and pondered briefly on how Kizzie had become so accomplished in the managing of . . . of things. The months she had spent supervising the girls and children and activities at the Dower House had evidently given her an authority she had not had when they lived at the Mount.

‘Girl.’

‘Where’s milk?’ Kizzie asked sharply.

‘Warmin’ in’t pan,’ the woman answered sullenly.

‘An’t’ bottle?’

‘Ont’ dresser.’

‘I’ll have some ’ot water an’ all.’ She rang the bell and when a wan-faced maid whom she and Miss Charlotte did not know appeared at the door ordered her to bring up a kettle of hot water and a cup of hot chocolate for the master’s daughter.

‘Wha’?’ The girl looked bewildered.

‘Jesus God,’ Kizzie blasphemed. ‘Are all t’ servants in this house ’alf-witted?’

‘Wha’?’

Kizzie turned to Charlotte. ‘D’ost think tha’ could nurse baby fer five minutes while I run down to t’ kitchen. This woman ’ere’ – indicating the woman who had had care of the child – ‘can’t be trusted.’

‘Now see ’ere. I’ll not be spoken ter—’

‘Tha’d be wise ter keep tha’ mouth shut, lady,’ Kizzie snapped.

The baby, her half-sister, was placed carefully on Charlotte’s lap while the woman, highly indignant and muttering she had no intention of stopping where she was not wanted, scampered for the door, followed by Kizzie.

Charlotte held her tiny half-sister in her arms, looking down at the wisp of a face and saw there not her father or Elizabeth, but Robbie, Robbie as she remembered him from years ago.

‘Sweetheart,’ she whispered and put her fingertip on the pale cheek and at once the child stopped whimpering and stared with milky, unfocused eyes into the face that leaned over her.

When Kizzie returned, without a word Charlotte took the bottle from her and guided the teat into the little pursed mouth and at once the baby started to suck. Her little hand clenched round Charlotte’s finger and Kizzie watched, knowing exactly what was to happen next.

‘As you said we can’t leave her here.’

‘No. I’ll wrap ’er up and we’ll tekk ’er ’ome.’

She was put in the nursery, her crib next to that of the baby who was her niece, her half-niece, was it, Charlotte wanted to know. As soon as she was settled, they lay side by side sleeping, warm, fed, bathed, and the question of who was to help Aisling with two babies came up.

‘Bring Rosie to me, Kizzie. She has a kind heart and, I believe, a number of younger brothers and sisters. And she’ll take orders from Aisling where the others wouldn’t.’

And all the while Brooke Armstrong slept peacefully, slowly healing and totally unaware of what was happening in his home. Kizzie thought he wouldn’t mind, not with his wife holding him in arms that loved him.

‘Tha’ father might not like yer taking ’is child, Miss Charlotte,’ Kizzie told her as she tucked her, exhausted, into her little bed next to her husband who had not woken once, Nellie informed them proudly as though she were responsible.

Rosie, blinking nervously, stared with wonder at her mistress reclining in the little bed next to the master and wondered, as the rest of the kitchen staff had, what the dickens she had done wrong to be summoned to the mistress’s bedside with the master sleeping next to her. She had not seen him since that awful day when he had been brought home on the gate but he certainly looked better now than he had then.

‘Ma’am?’ She ventured a small bob, wishing she had been told to take off her old pinny before coming up here but they had all been so astounded in the kitchen that it had gone unnoticed.

Missis was very tired, you could see that and Rosie’s kind heart softened as she waited to be told she had got the sack or was to be demoted, though what to she had no idea for she was already the lowest of the low. When the mistress told her she nearly fainted.

‘We have another baby in the nursery, Rosie, and I believe you are the eldest of seven.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Rosie’s voice quavered, wondering if the mistress was out of her wits.

‘Good. Then I want you to work in the nursery as nursemaid to . . . to Aisling who is in charge.’

‘Very well, ma’am,’ Rosie whispered. The mistress, with Kizzie standing protectively beside her, spoke once more. She seemed ready to nod off.

‘Kizzie will show you what to wear and what to do. When I feel stronger I will come up and . . . thank you, Rosie. Now go with Kizzie.’

Rosie bobbed and twittered and bobbed again, barely understanding, but Kizzie, who they all knew to be fair and honest with them, led her away, still in a daze.

On the stairs Rosie turned in some agitation. ‘Miss Kizzie, wha’ about t’ kitchen? Cook won’t like me leavin’ ’er wi’out—’

‘That’ll be sorted out, Rosie. Another scullery-maid’ll be took on. Tha’ must be pleased Mrs Armstrong thinks yer capable of lookin’ after t’ babies. Wi’ Aisling in charge, of course,’ she added hastily.

There was a buzz in the kitchen which died down as Rosie and Kizzie entered and when they were told coolly by Kizzie, who seemed to be running the house, the nursery, the sickroom and everything in the household at the moment, that another scullery-maid must be found at once they were all stupefied. When it transpired that Rosie, who they had all considered half-witted, was to be the new nursery-maid they were speechless. Not that they minded, for none of the girls wanted to work with the trollop from over the way and after all Rosie had the kindest, softest heart. She’d do well with a baby since she had helped her mam with hers!

Kizzie returned to the sickroom after Rosie was installed in the nursery, ‘made up’ as she kept saying, in her new simple gown and snow-white apron and cap, to find the master and mistress lying side by side in their big bed, the mistress with her arm over the master’s chest, both fast asleep. They were smiling!

Charlotte was young, strong and healthy and soon recovered from the ordeal of childbirth and the harrowing experience she had suffered with Brooke’s accident, but Brooke himself seemed unable to find it in himself, despite his own usual good health, to get over his dreadful injuries. The wound refused to heal properly and he was in constant pain which weakened him further. He became irritable. He was an active man and despite the almost constant presence of his wife did not recover as the doctor had hoped.

Doctor Chapman called every day, doing his best to alleviate what he was beginning to believe was a recurring infection that dragged his patient even further down the slope of pain. Privately to Kizzie he said that he suspected some nasty substance from the bull’s horns or Emmerson’s farmyard was festering deep in the wound.

‘I might have to open him up again, Kizzie, and put a drain in the groin. He is not doing really well at all and I suppose you have noticed how much weight he has lost, and muscle tone too. And you know how he looked forward to his daughter’s visits. Now he can scarce be bothered to look at her though I know he tries to . . . well, for Mrs Armstrong’s sake he . . . he . . .’

Kizzie put a hand on his arm. ‘I know, Doctor. Tha’ did talk about a professional nurse at beginnin’. Dost’ think . . .’

‘No, I don’t. There is nothing more healing to him than to have his own wife with him. He watches for her – or did – but now I’m beginning to think he just wants to be left alone.’

‘Yes. Dear God, if ’e gives up ’ope . . .’

The doctor shook his head, turning to look back at his patient who lay passively in his bed staring sightlessly at the window. Mrs Armstrong was up in the nursery spending a few minutes with the two babies who at least were thriving and he knew from Kizzie that she had not gone near the Dower House since the accident. He himself often looked in to check on the inmates but Jenny, supervised daily by Kizzie, was coping very well and had even taken over buying the shoddy for the rugs. Given the right leadership it would make a thriving little business. There were five girls there now, nearly all brought in by himself, and six babies, all well looked after and happy in their new environment, although the rugs they made were piling up uselessly, it seemed, in the storeroom at the back of the workroom. He had even bought one for his own wife, a beautiful landscape of primroses spreading beneath the greening ash trees in the bit of woodland at the side of the house.

There had been a double christening at the small local church several weeks ago, that of Lucy Jean Armstrong and Ellen Drummond, the latter name wrung out of her father on the telephone by Charlotte.

‘I don’t care what she is called, Charlotte,’ he had told her after he had reluctantly been brought to the telephone by Mrs Banks soon after Charlotte had fetched the child back to King’s Meadow. Neither did he care that she had removed his daughter from his house when she was born. His wife had been buried quickly and none of his children had even been told of the funeral, for which Doctor Chapman had been truly grateful since knowing Charlotte she would have struggled to go.

‘But what are we to call her, Father?’ Charlotte had asked diffidently.

‘Elizabeth had talked of Ellen after her mother but I leave it to you, my dear. I’m far too busy at the moment to consider—’

‘She is your daughter, Father,’ Charlotte said sharply.

‘As you are, Charlotte, and since you are related I leave it to you,’ just as though they were discussing naming a new puppy the Armstrong family had acquired. ‘Now I really must go. I have guests . . .’ and Charlotte could clearly hear the sound of laughter in the background.

‘Father, will you not want to see her or . . .’ She meant to ask if he wanted his new baby at home.

‘I’ll let you know, my dear. You can manage for the moment can’t you?’

‘You have a new granddaughter, Father.’

‘So I believe. Now I really must go.’

Charlotte was far too harassed with the care of her husband and the time she spent in the nursery with Lucy and Ellie, as she was now increasingly being called, to argue with her father. The babies were strangely alike, which was not surprising as they were related. Charlotte was driven into Wakefield to the newly opened baby shop where she bought a handsome perambulator big enough for two. It was high with big wheels but very elegant in a lovely shade of maroon lined in grey. Fittings, like the jointed stays that kept the hood up, were made of brass and the grip on the handle was of porcelain. Aisling and Rosie thought they were the last word in fashion as they strolled round the extensive grounds with the babies and even down to the village where everyone stopped to stare. The two little faces, rosy now with rounded cheeks, one with blue eyes, the other with green, lay side by side on their lacy pillows and the gardeners and outdoor men, even from the stable at the back of the house, hung over the perambulator making those strange sounds men and women all over the world make when confronted with babies.

It was the end of February when Doctor Chapman first voiced the idea that he considered it might be better for Mr Armstrong to go into the Clayton Hospital where there was an up-to-date operating theatre where a deeper look at his groin might be attempted.