The Passions of Bronwyn (3 page)

There was a huge hall with a main staircase which was used by the family.  It had family portraits on the walls going up to the first floor bedrooms where the family slept.  There was a further staircase leading up to the second floor and the former nursery rooms.  The staff used the stone staircase hidden behind a green baize door in the hall to go down to the staff dining rooms, the cellar, utility area and kitchen.  The servant’s bedrooms were up a steep staircase leading off the kitchen.  In the basement was the kitchen which had red tiled floors with a carpet hearth rug, two ranges, one for spit roasting and one for baking and boiling, a dresser, a long table, a couple of chairs and a clock. The kitchen walls were painted blue as it attracted flies and kept them away from the food.  Next door to the kitchen was the scullery where the meat and vegetables were prepared.  There were copper utensils and two larders, one to store raw meat, the other to keep cooked meat and pastry.  Wyn and Betty looked at all of this with awe and thought to themselves that they would never be able to find their way around the house.

After the tour Mrs Danvers told them that they could rest until the morning but would have to be in the kitchen by 5 o’clock the next day to start work.  Wyn and Betty jumped with joy at the unexpected break and ran upstairs to their bedroom to get changed out of their uniforms.  Once they were dressed they ran down the back stairs to the kitchen door and out into the sunshine.  ‘Which way shall we go?’ asked Betty. 

‘Let’s head towards those trees and see what is on the other side,’ replied Wyn. 

They ran towards the trees and stopped.  On the other side of the trees was a path across a field which lead to a small village.

It was the beginning of spring and there was green wheat in the fields, violets under the hedges and willows beside the small stream that ran alongside the edge of the trees.  They walked across the field into the small village.  They could see a few cottages near the inn.  A little further away they saw the church and a schoolhouse.  The cottages had thatched roofs, whitewashed walls and paned windows.  The majority of the houses were constructed of stone or brick and had slated roofs.  As it was a warm day, all the windows were open to let fresh air in and there were pies cooling on the window sills of a couple of the houses. 

‘You don’t see that in London,’ remarked Betty. 

The road carried on round the corner where there was a market place. It being a Sunday there were no stalls out and the whole village was quiet.  There wasn’t a soul around that Wyn or Betty could see. 

‘Well,’ said Wyn, ‘this is going to be a quiet summer if this is what this place is like.’ 

‘You’re right,’ replied Betty, ‘what are we going to do on our days off?  Let’s just carry on walking and see what’s outside the village.’ 

They carried on walking down the road past hedges thick with berries.  There were trees over hanging the road which gave the road a dark shady look.  Although it was quite a main road, there was very little traffic although they could hear a train in the distance and could just see a wisp of smoke rising over the trees.  They could see the rabbits running in the fields and caught a glimpse of a fox as it ran nervously into the undergrowth.  These were sights that Wyn hadn’t seen since she had left her home and it was making her feel very sad. 

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Betty. 

‘I’m just missing my home and my mother,’ replied Wyn, ‘it’s just making me want to go home.’ 

Betty gave no reply, just put her arm around her and carried on walking.

They walked past a clearing in the trees and could see the tops of caravans there. 

‘Oh Betty!’ exclaimed, ‘who’s that?’  ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before.’ 

‘They’re gypsies,’ replied Wyn, ‘we used to get them at home.’ 

‘How exciting,’ said Betty, ‘let’s go and see them.’ 

They walked towards the three painted caravans.  There were three men sitting around a fire smoking and making the clothes pegs they took to the market and tried to sell and the women, who were obviously their wives, were sitting further away and were making cabbage nets.  There were children running around screaming and dogs barking. 

‘What do you want?’ they were asked. 

‘Do you want to buy some pegs?’ the man asked and showed them the pegs he had made. 

‘No thanks,’ replied Betty.  The gypsy man’s face darkened threateningly, ‘but we will buy some lucky heather,’ said Wyn quickly before he could say anything.  She had had experience of their dark side before.  Wyn handed over the money and took the heather from the gypsy woman. 

‘Come on Betty, she said we have to get back now. 

They turned and ran back the way they had come.  After a while they stopped to get their breath. 

‘That was an experience I’ve never had before,’ said Betty. 

‘Now you know to stay away from Gypsies’, Wyn told her.  ‘They’re a bit on the scary side, they have their own way of living and don’t understand ours.’

It was starting to get dark and they were both a bit frightened now because they weren’t sure where they were.

Do you recognise anything?’ Betty asked Wyn. 

‘No,’ replied Wyn, ‘but this must be the way we came. We didn’t turn round.’ 

They started seeing shadows in the trees and there were strange animal calls that were making them jump.  Suddenly a hand touched Wyn on the shoulder and she screamed. 

‘It’s only me,’ laughed William, ‘I didn’t mean to make you jump.  Mrs Davis sent me out to look for you as it’s getting dark and you hadn’t come back.’  

When Wyn’s heartbeat had finally returned to normal, she slapped William on the arm and told him that he had scared the life out of her. 

‘Me too,’ said Betty. 

‘Sorry,’ he replied, ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.  Come on, it’s this way.’ 

By the time they got back to the house it was time for dinner. 

‘Where have you been?’ asked Mrs Davis, ‘I thought you were going to miss dinner.  Sit down all of you before my cooking gets cold.’ 

‘We’ve been exploring a bit,’ replied Wyn. 

‘Yes and we saw some gypsies,’ said Betty.  ‘See the lucky heather we bought.’ 

‘Lucky heather, that’s a joke,’ said Mrs Davis.  ‘Bet nothing good comes of having that.’  They told them all that they had seen and done. 

‘Next time we’ll all go,’ William said.  ‘I fancy having a look around myself, especially at the inn.’ 

‘Don’t you take these girls in there,’ Mrs Davis told him.  ‘They’re too young.’

William just winked at Wyn and didn’t reply.  ‘Right,’ Mrs Davis said, ‘it’s time you took yourselves off to bed. I want you both down here at 6 o’clock sharp in the morning, so get some sleep and don’t be late, there’s a lot to do even if we are in the country.’

At 6 o’clock the next morning the two girls were downstairs ready for work.  As there were fewer servants in the country house, they had to double up and do the duties of a parlour maid as well as their own.  After they had finished lighting the kitchen fires and had cleaned the kitchen, they had to go and sweep and dust the upstairs rooms as well as make the beds of the rest of the household.  They also had to make sure each room had soap, towels, writing paper and candles.  One of the rooms Wyn went into was where Catherine Brompton slept.  She was the nineteen year old daughter of Hester and Charles and was very outspoken and strong willed.  The servants of the house had been instructed to call her Miss Catherine.  Her bedroom was always very messy with clothes thrown everywhere.  She always insisted in walking outside alone, even to the village, although she knew she should have a chaperone.  She had the very fashionable seventeen inch waist and her clothes were of the latest fashion of fragile gauze dresses covered with bows or flowers. Wyn couldn’t understand how she could only wear them once or twice and then throw them away.  It just didn’t seem right but then that was typical of a spoilt rich girl.

The room next to hers was used by her Mother, Hester.  Wyn liked this room it always smelt of lavender and was neat and tidy.  All she had to do in there was change the bed and take the dresses left out down to the laundry so they could be pressed.  Hester’s clothes were generally ready-made and were dresses made of satins, silks, and heavy velvets.  My mother would look good in these Wyn thought although she knew that would never happen.  These sort of clothes were only for the rich not for the wife of a Welsh fisherman.  She sighed and moved on to the next room.

This was the room of Charles Brompton.  This was as bad as his daughter’s room.  There were clothes strewn everywhere.  Like his wife and daughter, he was also dressed in the height of fashion.  During the day he wore a Norfolk jacket with tweed or woollen breeches.  He also had the current facial fashion of being clean shaven.  He wore a dinner jacket in the evenings and was considered to be a very smart fashionable man.  Wyn quite admired the way he looked although he did frighten her with his sharp tongue on occasions.

When Wyn had finished in his room she walked out onto the landing and bumped into William.  ‘Well hello,’ he said.  ‘I haven’t seen much of you today.  I missed you.  When are you having a break?  We could meet up for a cuddle.’ 

He said this with twinkle in his eye as he knew it embarrassed her.  

Wyn just smiled shyly, ‘I don’t know, we are so busy today,’ she replied. 

‘Just come and find me,’ instructed William, ‘we can sneak off somewhere for a while because I want to find out more about you.  You’ve got some sort of a secret in your life and I’m curious. Why did you have to leave Wales when you were so young?’ 

Wyn just smiled and walked down the stairs to meet Betty. 

‘What was that all about?’ asked Betty.  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ replied Wyn, as they heard Mrs Davis shouting them and they had to run the rest of the way to the kitchen.  It was lunch time so the kitchen was very busy.  As Wyn was the scullery-maid she had to help Mrs Davis by peeling all the vegetables and there always seemed to be a lot of them. She was lucky she had a good friend in Betty, the kitchen maid, and a kindly cook in Mrs Davis as they were teaching her to do more of the cooking so that she could get a better position and have a much easier life. As there was less staff for the house Wyn and Betty had to wait on the other staff in the kitchen before they could sit down and have their own lunch.  This was a small break for them because after their lunch they had to help clear away all the dishes from the upstairs dining room and wash and dry them.  The floors in the dining room then had to be swept and cleaned again.

When all the work was done and Wyn and Betty had a few minutes break, Betty turned to Wyn and asked her what William was talking to her about earlier. 

‘He thinks I have a secret reason why I went to London and started work so young,’ replied Wyn. 

‘Well have you,’ asked Betty. 

‘I can’t tell you, it’s too horrible and I don’t want to talk about it,’ replied Wyn. 

‘So there is something,’ said Betty.  ‘You can tell me.  I’m not likely to tell him am I.’ 

Wyn just shook her head. 

‘Alright,’ said Betty seeing the tears in Wyn’s eyes, ‘but I’m here if you need me.’ 

Betty wasn’t the most intelligent of people but even she could see how upset Wyn was becoming.

They were busy with their jobs for the rest of the day and it wasn’t until after dinner was finished that Wyn had any more time to herself.  It was a nice warm evening and she went outside into the courtyard to get some fresh air.  William found her there and pulled her into the shadows where no-one could see them.  He pulled her close to him and started kissing her.  The warm tingling feeling started travelling up her body again. 

‘Don’t,’ she said, ‘we can’t do this it’s wrong.’ 

‘Why?’ William asked.  ‘How can anything that feels this nice be wrong?’ 

‘It just is,’ replied Wyn.  ‘I have to go inside.  Mrs Davis will be looking for me.’ 

Sure enough they heard Wyn being called in.

‘Until next time,’ said William ‘giving her another quick kiss.’ 

That night in bed Wyn told Betty what had happened with William again. 

‘You have to keep saying no to him,’ she said.  ‘You can’t give in, you could end up in big trouble.  You don’t want to end up in the family way do you?’ 

‘No,’ replied Wyn, ‘I certainly don’t.  My mum and dad are decent people and they would be so disappointed in me if that happened.  My half- brother Henry has already disgusted my dad, although mum doesn’t know about him.’ 

‘What did he do?’ asked Betty. 

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Wyn, ‘we should get some sleep now.’ 

Betty lay in the dark and tried to imagine what could have happened in Wyn’s family.  She gave up after a while and thought that Wyn would tell her when she was ready.

CHAPTER FOUR

Wyn admired Miss Catherine, she was a very pretty girl with shiny reddish brown hair and a slim curvy body.  She was very spoilt and treated other people with total disdain.  She would go down to the stables every day to ride her horse Crumpet.  She had become very close to the groom Frank Cooper who was twenty years old.  They spent a lot of time together as her parents didn’t really notice or care what she was doing. 

One day Wyn was passing the stables on her way to collect some eggs from the chicken houses when she heard giggling coming from inside.  She crept to the door and saw Miss Catherine.  She was looking at Frank with a provocative, challenging smile. Frank was a man who was used to being in control, certainly as far as women were concerned, but Wyn knew that he wouldn’t be able to or want to resist Catherine. The attraction was just too strong. She wanted him and he wanted her, and damn the consequences.  Wyn knew she should move away but just couldn’t.  She had to know what happened.  Catherine leaned back into Frank's embrace. Frank let his hand rest against hers, judging her reaction. She moved her fingers slowly until they were intertwined with his. He dropped her hand then slowly lowered his face to hers to kiss her. As they kissed she slipped her hands under his jacket and around his waist, pulling him closer. She moaned as he explored her mouth with his tongue.  He moved his hands over her body through the material of her riding clothes until he reached her breasts, tickling her nipples with his fingers. At this point Wyn decided she had seen enough.  Oh my, she thought this is not good.  There’s going to be trouble when this comes out.

Wyn picked up the eggs and went back to the house. 

‘Where have you been?’ asked Mrs Davis.  ‘Did you lay them yourself? You have been gone so long.’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ replied Wyn, ‘I just got carried away by the sight of the sunset and forgot the time.  I could only find seven eggs.  They’ve hidden them well this time.’ 

Betty walked past Wyn and gave her a puzzled look.  ‘Were you with William?’ she asked.  ‘No,’ replied Wyn ‘wait until I tell you what I saw out there.’ 

‘What?’ asked Betty. 

‘I’ll tell you when we’re in bed,’ said Wyn. 

Later that night when they were in bed, Wyn told Betty what she had seen in the stables.

‘Oh lord,’ said Betty, ‘that means trouble.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ replied Wyn.  ‘What should we do?’ 

‘Nothing,’ exclaimed Betty.  ‘We know absolutely nothing about it, although we’ll watch what they are doing. Forewarned is forearmed after all.’

‘They looked like they were feeling such passion though,’ said Wyn, ‘just like in books.  I want to feel like that one day.’ 

‘Don’t you ever touch yourself down there?’ asked Betty.

Wyn looked at her with a shocked expression. ‘No, of course not.’

‘You should try it,’ Betty told her. 

She threw back the bed covers and pulled up her night gown.  Just put your finger on this bit here and move it round in circles.  She started moving her finger on the nub of her sex and moaned.  Wyn felt a strange excitement go through her and pulled her own night gown up.  She put her finger where Betty had shown her and started moving it around in a circle.  Oh, she thought, that feels so nice.  She could hear Betty moaning louder and it made her move her finger faster.  Betty cried out one last time and Wyn could feel her own body starting to tense and then it exploded in a mass of pleasure. 

‘Oh my,’ Wyn said, ‘I didn’t realise that could happen.’ 

Betty was lying back with a smile on her face.  ‘That’s just the best feeling,’ she said, ‘I love doing that.  You can’t get into trouble doing it either.  Go to sleep now.  We have to be up early in the morning.’

The next day it sounded like a bomb had gone off somewhere.  Charles Brompton was shouting and when Wyn and Betty ran outside they saw Frank lying prone on the ground.  Charles was standing over him with a shotgun.  Miss Catherine was there screaming and crying, ‘don’t kill him daddy please, I love him.’ 

‘Get away from here,’ Charles shouted, ‘I’m going to teach him a lesson for touching my daughter.’ 

Hester Brompton ran out and told Wyn to quickly go and find William, ‘tell him to come now, I need him.’ 

Wyn quickly ran off and found William in the kitchen having a cup of tea. 

‘Come quick William,’ said Wyn, ‘there’s trouble outside.’ 

William ran out and Hester told him to pick Frank up and take him to the stables.  Wyn and Betty were to go with them as they might be able to help.

‘No,’ shouted Charles ‘you’re not to take him, I’m going to kill him, he dared to touch my daughter.’

‘Don’t be silly Charles,’ said Hester, ‘you can’t do that in front of so many people.  Come inside, we’ll decide what to do with him and Catherine.’

William carried the prone Frank into the stables. Wyn and Betty walked in behind them.  William put Frank down on the table and stripped his jacket and shirt off.  There were deep cuts to the upper part of his body and a huge bruise on the top of his head.  Wyn went to the water butt and soaked the piece of cloth she had found.  As she went back to the table Frank  started coming round.  He tried to get off the table but William held him down. 

‘Stay there you idiot,’ he told him.  ‘You’re lucky that Mrs Brompton stopped him shooting you.’ 

‘Where’s Catherine?’ Frank asked. 

‘She’s in the house with her parents,’ said William.  ‘If I were you I wouldn’t even think about her any more.  You’ve been an idiot.  

‘But we love each other,’ said Frank. 

‘Don’t be so stupid,’ replied William, ‘if you think she’ll give all this up for you, you’re greatly mistaken.’ 

Wyn and Betty had cleaned Frank up the best they could when Hester Brompton walked into the stables.  ‘Could all of you please leave,’ she asked, ‘I want to talk to Frank.’  They didn’t know what was said but twenty minutes later Hester walked out followed slowly by Frank.  ‘I’m leaving,’ he told them.  ‘They’re sending Catherine away to a Finishing School in Europe and I’ve been dismissed.’  He groaned and cried out, ‘I will never see her again.’  He went up to his room above the stables and came down with his possessions about forty minutes later. 

‘Where will you go?’ asked Wyn. 

‘I’ve a brother up north,’ he replied.  ‘That’ll be a start.  Be seeing you.’  Then he walked away.

Wyn, Betty and William went back to the house.  As they entered the kitchen they could hear Miss Catherine crying and shouting at her mother. 

‘I’m not going,’ she was saying.  ‘I want to be with Frank.’ 

There was the sound of a slap as the screaming got hysterical.  Mrs Brompton came down to the kitchen as she knew there was laudanum in the chest down there.  She asked Betty to take it upstairs and give a small amount to Miss Catherine to try and calm her down.  When Betty came back she said, ‘Miss Catherine is in a real state, all red and blotchy where she has been crying so much, but she’s calming down now she has had the laudanum.’

When they got up in the morning they were all asked see Miss Catherine off after breakfast as she was travelling to Europe straight away.  They all stood at the bottom of the stairs as Miss Catherine came down.  She walked past them with her head lowered.  William was taking her and her mother to the station where she was being put onto a train to London.  She was to be met by Charles Brompton’s spinster sister who was going to accompany her to Europe.

‘She looks so sad,’ Wyn commented to Betty as she walked past them. 

‘Embarrassed more like,’ replied Betty.  ‘She thought she was so much better than us but now knows she isn’t.’

‘I don’t think it was like that,’ Wyn told her, ‘I think Miss Catherine really loved Frank.  She’s not as snobby as the rest of her family.  I think she genuinely liked me.  We got on really well.  I do feel sorry for her.’ 

‘You’re such a romantic idiot,’ Betty exclaimed, ‘she would never have given up her pampered life to live with a groom.’ 

When they were in bed that night, instead of just pulling up her own night gown, Betty turned to Wyn and started kissing her.  Wyn sat up shocked, ‘what are you doing?’ she exclaimed.  Betty pulled her back onto the bed, ‘instead of us just doing it to ourselves, why don’t we try doing it to each other?’ she asked.  ‘We can’t have a man, so this might be the next best thing.  She kissed Wyn again.  Wyn opened her mouth to let her slip her tongue in.  Betty started exploring with her tongue and at the same time she started touching Wyn’s nipple.  ‘Ooh,’ Wyn moaned, ‘that feels nice.’ 

‘Touch me as well,’ Betty whispered. 

Wyn took hold of one of Betty’s nipples and squeezed.  Betty moaned and moved her hand further down Wyn’s body.  Wyn moved around to give Betty better access.  They were passionately kissing and touching each other by now.  They both could feel the waves of pleasure starting to rise and just let it wash over them. 

‘Oh that felt so good,’ Wyn told Betty ‘but is it really bad of us?’ 

‘Yes it did,’ replied Betty ‘and who cares if it’s bad, we can do it whenever we want and it makes us feel really nice.  Who’s going to know?’

The following day Wyn was in the kitchen as normal when Mrs Danvers the Housekeeper walked in. 

‘Where’s Mrs Davis?’ she asked. 

‘She’s in the herb garden,’ replied Wyn. 

‘Can you tell her we need to discuss the menus for the Mayday Hunt.  The family are expecting several guests that day and after all that has happened recently, we need to put on a good show,’ said Mrs Danvers. 

Wyn nodded and carried on peeling the potatoes for dinner.  That sounds exciting she thought, I wonder how much of the hunt we will be able to see.  She had seen a hunt before in Wales and knew how exciting it could get.  She said to Betty, who had just walked into the kitchen, ‘we are going to have a hunt for Mayday.  Don’t you think that is exciting? 

I’ve never seen one,’ said Betty.  ‘You don’t get many of those in the east end of London.’  ‘You’ll love it,’ said Wyn.  ‘It will give everyone something else to think about.’ 

When Mrs Davis came back with the herbs she needed, Wyn told her what Mrs Danvers had said. 

‘I’ll go and see her now,’ she said.  ‘Carry on with the rest of the vegetables until I get back.’  William walked into the kitchen and Wyn told him about the hunt. 

‘What will you have to do?’ she asked him. 

‘Just look after the guests,’ he said.  ‘The groom has most of the responsibility during a hunt so they better find a new one soon.  We might get a chance to go off on our own.’  He winked at her and walked out of the kitchen.  Wyn felt a shiver go down her body at the thought of being alone with him.  Get a grip of yourself she thought, it won’t do to keep thinking like this.

Later that day Wyn saw a lot of activity around the stables.  Betty told her that Mr Charles was seeing possible grooms.  ‘I’ve seen some very nice lads milling around.’  They slipped out of the kitchen and crept round the side of the house heading towards the corner of the stable block to try and see what was happening.  They saw Mr Charles with a man of about twenty years old.  He had curly blond hair and a rugged face.  His body looked very fit and muscular.  He wasn’t very tall but then most grooms weren’t. He mounted Mr Charles’s horse Nero who was a very large stallion with a lot of spirit and a mind of his own.  He needed a lot of controlling.  As the man mounted him, he took off towards the field at high speed. 

‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Wyn, ‘he’s going to fall off.’ 

Just as she said that the man got Nero under control and brought him back to Mr Charles.  ‘Well done lad,’ Mr Charles said, ‘you did very well with him.  You have the job if you want it.’ 

‘Thanks,’ said the man, ‘I’d like that.’ 

‘Right,’ Mr Charles said, ‘I’ll get William to show you where you sleep and anything else you need to know.’

Wyn and Betty got back to the house just as William was bringing him inside. 

‘This is Ned Broom,’ he said.  ‘He’s the new groom.’ 

Ned looked at them, ‘it’s nice to meet all of you,’ he said.  He looked at Betty in such a way that her cheeks started turning a pink colour. 

Wyn nudged her and whispered, ‘he likes you.’ 

‘Don’t be daft,’ replied Betty, ‘he’s just got here and is getting his bearings.’ 

‘If you say so,’ replied Wyn with a smile.  ‘This summer just got even better.  We could all go around together.  Four is safer than two.’ 

Betty just looked at her and exclaimed, ‘you’re daft you are.’