The Flight of Swallows (46 page)

Brooke allowed his wife to draw him away. He was nearly out of his mind with fury but was sensible enough to know that if the manager called the police they would be forced to make some sort of enquiry. He might be taken to the police station and where would that leave Charlotte and the children? Unprotected, that’s what!

‘Come, darling, come,’ Charlotte was murmuring softly as though she wanted no one but him to hear. Her father was still shrieking that he would have justice but he too was beginning to realise that this public display of his family’s affairs was doing his own cause no good. He wanted Charlotte to fall in with what he had whispered in her ear but not for the whole world – their world – to know about it.

Reluctantly but quietly, much to the relief of the manager, Mr Armstrong let himself be led across the lounge and through the entrance hall into the street. Holding her tightly to him he crossed the Bull Ring and entered the Carpet Shop. Percy followed respectfully, wondering what the hell was to happen next. The motor stood idling by the front door of the hotel, the engine still running, surrounded by a group of awed spectators, small boys trying to get up the courage to touch the shining machine, a policeman moving slowly towards them, for the sight of one of these incredible machines impressed them all. Not many were seen in these parts. Obviously whoever owned it would not like a bunch of youngsters climbing all over it; besides, it was causing a bit of a traffic hold-up.

‘We won’t be long, Constable,’ Brooke said firmly from the doorway then, turning to Charlotte, told her to get her hat and coat.

‘I’ve got them on.’

‘Right then, whatever else you may want to take home.’

‘I’m not going home, Brooke. He—’

‘You are coming home, Charlotte, and you are staying there until this bloody matter is resolved. Hurry up, or the constable will—’

‘I can’t just leave.’

‘You can and you will. You will stay where you are safe under the protection of the men I employ. I was mad to let you come here,’ sweeping his arm round the shop as though they were in the wilds of the new world surrounded by savages. ‘No wonder he just walked in and forced you to accompany him wherever he fancied taking you. Thank God it was only into the coffee lounge. God alone knows what you would have done if he had demanded you get in his carriage.’ His voice almost broke and he took her roughly in his arms to the embarrassment of Jenny and Mr Joseph. ‘My darling, do you know how precious you are to me, how fine. I love the very bones of you, and our children, and if I have to keep the lot of you safe by chaining you in the cellar I’ll do it. Now then, come home.’

Still she resisted. ‘Jenny cannot manage here on her own.’ Her face was muffled against his chest. ‘I cannot run it from—’

‘Then we’ll shut the blasted place. I mean it, Charlotte. I’ve allowed it because—’

She dragged herself out of his sheltering arms, her face bright with indignant pride. ‘
Allowed
it! Brooke, Queen Victoria is dead. Women are fighting for the vote. We are independent or wish to be and most have husbands who are in charge of them as though they were children who could not decide for themselves. My love’ – as he pulled away from her, as indignant as she was – ‘you are not one of them and I know it is only this present danger that made you speak as you did, but I cannot just close the shop and—’

‘Charlotte, how can you ask me to let my wife be threatened as your father threatens you? He is not in his right mind, you know that, and is unstable and the devil knows what he will do next. The children are not safe even in the confines of the garden. The men do their best but he is unpredictable, clever in his own mad way and I dare not,
will not
take the chance that he will trap you in Wakefield. I have nothing with which to go to the law in order to protect you. He is, so far as they know, a respectable, law-abiding citizen and it is your word only—’

‘And Kizzie’s.’

‘Kizzie is not of his class and her word would not count against his. You must see that.’

She sighed and turned away. ‘Very well, I will stay at home and do my best to keep the place running under Jenny’s guidance. We can communicate by telephone if there are any problems and Mr Joseph is experienced in the manufacture of carpets. He will do the buying, I suppose, but . . .’

She turned and moved towards the small, glassed office at the back of the shop to which Jenny and Mr Joseph had tactfully removed themselves. She spoke to them briefly and though Brooke could not hear what she said he could see them turn to look at one another in consternation. Then briefly they nodded. Charlotte returned to him and with obvious reluctance took his hand and moved with him out of the shop and into the Mercedes. Percy had not dared to climb into it as he waited for his master and mistress but stood at attention as though guarding it from the slack-jawed onlookers who were not only astonished by the machine but by him, who looked what he was. A working man who was more used to mucking out stables than riding in a motor car.

Thankfully he climbed into the back seat when told to do so by Mr Armstrong and with great relief, at least on his part, they headed for home.

It worked in a fashion. Charlotte spent some time in the workshop at the Dower House, for Wallace Chapman continued to send abused and injured girls to her, most of them for a rest before moving on.

‘I have no space for any more, Wallace,’ she told him, ‘nor the work. I can give them some place to recover from their injuries, that I promise, but unless I extend the roof space in the workshop there is not room for them all. Kizzie keeps them busy and Miss Seddon at the village school is always glad of a bit of help, though without pay, I’m afraid. I know they will probably return to their profession . . . oh, really, it is too awful what men do to women and what women put up with. D’you know I’ve half a mind to join the Huddersfield branch of the Women’s Suffrage Society. Women’s suffrage knows that the lot of women will not improve until politicians are made accountable to a female electorate—’

‘Whoa, whoa.’ Wallace laughed. ‘You sound like my wife and if you feel as you do why don’t you come to one of her meetings? Someone like you could have much influence with a husband as liberal as yours.’

‘I didn’t know she had one. A meeting, I mean.’

‘Well, she doesn’t approve of a militant organisation like Mrs Pankhurst’s, at least not at the moment but they seem to be getting nowhere whatever their beliefs. Anyway, this isn’t solving your problem, which is that of your father’s determination to disrupt your life as much as possible.’

‘If there was something you could do . . .’

‘I never see him now, my dear. He has recovered from his . . . ’er, injuries and no longer needs my attention.’ He stood up and made his way towards the door. He had been checking on Hetty and her newborn son and he liked to look in on all the girls who had passed through his hands.

‘What you do for these young women is very worthwhile, Charlotte. I know it must seem like a drop in the ocean to you, as it does to me, but it is all we can do. Now, I must go. I am due at the Clayton. I have a colleague interested in neurology – medicine of the mind, he calls it – or a new word, schizophrenia. I believe it means a mind that is split but I am no expert in the field. Now if there is anything I can do let me know.’

She sat for an hour in the drawing room after Wallace had gone, pondering on the possibility that what he had said might have some bearing on the state of her father’s mind. He seemed perfectly normal to other people, to his friends, those with whom he dined, but he had this fixation on her, his own daughter which, if they had known of it, they would not believe.

She stood up and moved to the window to look at the children and the dogs romping on the lawn under the watchful eye of two gardeners and one of the men who carried rifles broken over their arms. He was almost hidden on the edge of the treeline beyond the lake, since he did not wish to frighten the children who were not really old enough to understand anyway. Toby was walking quite steadily now but without taking his eyes from the ground so that he would not miss the smallest object. A daisy, a beetle, a scurrying line of ants, a coloured stone, any of which would stop him and instantly absorb his baby interest. As she watched he crouched down, his head between his plump knees, then, leaning forward, he trapped whatever it was between his thumb and finger. His tongue protruded from his mouth and as babies had done from the beginning of time he put whatever it was in his mouth. Aisling let out a cry and ran forward, picking up the child, for he had been known to crunch a snail between his teeth. Prising open his mouth, much against his will, she scraped it out, ignoring his indignant cries. Taddy bounded exuberantly across the grass and ran full tilt into Aisling and knocked her and Toby over but they were both laughing by now and when she stood up the nursemaid threw Toby into the air and caught him expertly, then ran down the garden followed by Lucy and Ellie, begging to be told what it was Toby had eaten this time.

Her babies, her precious jewels, the bright stars in the sky of her life, her sunshine, the centre, with her husband, of her whole life, and that bugger of a man, the man who had given
her
life, was doing his twisted best to destroy it all.

She would kill him first!

30

The dry-stone walls meandered along both sides of the deserted lane, a focus of wildlife and a delight to the eye. Everywhere was a variation of form and colour and the walls themselves were a symbol of the passage of the seasons, the symphony of green mosses and lichens that mark the end of winter but in the summer are progressively submerged by a rising tide of growth. Sweet cecily, fragrant with the scent of aniseed, standing waist-high, almost blocking the sunken verges at each side with full green foliage and luxuriant blossoms, unlike any other white flower. Hedge parsley, dock and nettle, succeeded in the autumn by meadow cranesbill, ragwort, foxglove and willowherb. Others flourished on the stones themselves, like stonecrop and feverfew, a boon to the arthritic, it was said, but it was not any of these that the woman sought. She was tall, wide-shouldered, with bright nut-brown hair that glowed in the sunlight, bending forward as she walked, peering into the damp ditches and at last she found what she was seeking. The vivid yellow of the lesser celandine! Picking a great bunch of the pretty flower she placed it carefully in a canvas bag and, turning, sauntered back the way she had come until she came to a cottage. She passed through the white gate and entered the kitchen at the back of the cottage.

‘Are yer there, Mam?’ she called but there was no one at home. At once she began to strip the fresh leaves and stems from the plants she had gathered, put them in an old pan that she had brought with her in the bag, added a pint of water and, placing the pan on the fire, brought it to the boil. Leaving it for just one minute she snatched it from the fire and poured the decoction into a jar that she took from her pocket. She slipped the pan and the jar into the bag that had contained the plants and left the cottage, walking quickly towards her workplace. Before she got there she looked about her for several moments to make sure she was unobserved, then, fetching a small trowel from her pocket, she dug a fairly deep hole, buried the pan and hurried on until she reached her destination.

Everyone agreed that Toby was a little so-and-so, bless him. Take your eyes off him for a minute and he was off, his sturdy legs carrying him incredible distances, usually with one of the dogs at his heels, for they seemed to regard him as part of their pack and to be protected. They were the same with the little girls, of course, but Lucy and Ellie were not quite so adventurous, happily playing on the lawn with their dolls, old Ginger and Dottie panting at their side, their tongues lolling out, their eyes closing and opening, keeping an eye on them as Aisling and Rosie did. Taddy, for once, lay with them in the warmth.

This day Charlotte was sitting in a basket chair, Ellie and Lucy curled against her as she read from a book of nursery rhymes which they loved, but which bored or were probably not understood by Toby.

Blow, wind, blow! And go, mill, go!

That the miller may grind his corn;

That the baker may take it

And into bread make it,

And send us some hot in the morn.

‘That’s for our breakfast, you see, my darlings, when we make toast.’

‘Winter has come, Mama,’ they begged. ‘Say winter . . .’

‘Very well, but this must be the last.’

Cold and raw the north wind doth blow,

Bleak in the morning early,

All the hills are covered with snow,

And winter’s now come fairly.

‘Will we play in the snow, Mama?’

‘Yes, my darling, when the winter comes, but now it’s time for tea.’

John and Ned were deadheading the roses and for several minutes none of them noticed that Toby and Floss had vanished, but as Charlotte lifted her head to call to her son her heart missed a beat for he was nowhere in sight. But then was that not typical of the engaging toddler who was everybody’s friend? He had been known to escape from the nursery, slide down the stairs on his plump bottom and make his way to the kitchen where a great fuss was made of him. They all loved him, indulged him and were always pleased to see him, which he knew, the little tinker!

She stood up so abruptly both little girls spilled to the grass, protesting loudly. ‘John, where’s Toby? Is he with you?’ But she could see he was not, wondering at her own foolishness.

The gardener looked about him and Ned moved slowly towards the lake. ‘’Appen ’e’s gone round t’back, ma’am. I’ll run an’ see.’ And run he did at such a speed that the three dogs who had leaped to their feet, alert at once to the panic, could not keep up with him!

Brooke was out doing the rounds of the estate, calling at each farm as was his custom, but the rest of them, even overweight Mrs Groves, ran about like ants spilled from an anthill, getting in each other’s way, searching the same place twice. Ned, who was young and strong, plunged into the lake, wading up to his waist, brushing aside the reeds and lily pads, causing the ducks to protest loudly.