The Workhouse Girl (28 page)

‘It's a chance we'll have to take.' Grey took her by the hand. ‘We might have to wait days for a safe passage, but at least we'll have a roof over our heads.'

There seemed little point in arguing, but she had been pinning her hopes on seeing Davey and the children and now she would have to wait a little longer. ‘You need to get away quickly. I'm not sure I trust the man who brought us here to keep his mouth shut, especially if your uncle offers a reward.'

Grey's eyes danced with amusement. ‘I don't think I'm worth anything to George. He just wants me out of the way.'

‘I don't know why you're laughing. It's not funny.'

‘You'll feel better when you've had something to eat,' he said cheerfully. ‘There's a farm nearby.'

‘I know that. I went there once with Elsie when she took medicine for the farmer's wife.'

‘Then I'm sure they'll be pleased to see you.'

She held out her hand. ‘I haven't any money.'

‘I'll come in with you.'

‘Are you mad? These people know me but if they see me with a stranger it will be all round the village before you can blink.'

‘Be careful then.' He took a leather pouch from his pocket and gave it to her. ‘Don't tell them anything.'

‘Wait here. I'll be as quick as I can.' She opened the gate and started off along the track that led to the farmhouse. As she drew nearer she saw the farmer's young daughter feeding the hens. Maud had been one of her pupils in the school and she felt a surge of pleasure at the sight of a familiar face. She waved her hand. ‘Maud, it's me. Miss Scrase.'

The child stared at her for a moment and then she dropped the plate of scraps and fled. Sarah followed her to the farmhouse door. ‘It's me, Maud. There's no need to be afraid.'

‘It's a ghost, Ma,' Maud cried, running to bury her head in her mother's skirts. ‘Miss has come back from the dead.'

Sarah hesitated in the doorway. In the old days she would have received a warm greeting but the farmer's wife picked the child up and backed away. ‘It's all right, Mrs Bonney. I'm no ghost. It's me, Sarah Scrase. I used to teach Maud in school.'

‘But you was burned to death in the fire along with the witch.'

‘Miss Elsie wasn't a witch. She gave you medicine when you fell ill and she cured one of your cows when it went dry.'

‘So you ain't dead then?'

‘No, ma'am. I'm very much alive, but I'm sorry to say that Miss Elsie died of her injuries.'

Mrs Bonney crossed herself. ‘I don't know where heathens go when they pass on, but God rest her soul, anyway.' She gave her daughter a gentle push. ‘Stop being silly, Maud. Go and finish feeding the hens.'

‘She looks like a ghost,' Maud said as she sidled past Sarah and ran out into the yard.

‘I must look a sight,' Sarah said, her hand flying to her hair, which hung loose around her shoulders. ‘I've had a long journey, and I wondered if I could buy some eggs and perhaps you could spare a loaf of bread. Miss Elsie always said you were the best cook in Blackwood.'

Mrs Bonney puffed out her chest. ‘I've heard it said often, Miss Scrase. Of course I can let you have anything you need.' She stared at Sarah's shabby clothes. ‘You can pay, I suppose.'

Sarah took the purse from her pocket, giving it a shake. ‘Yes, indeed.'

‘Come into the house and I'll see what I can find.'

In the farmhouse kitchen Mrs Bonney took a loaf from the cooling rack and wrapped it in a piece of butter muslin. ‘So where will you stay, miss? There's nothing left of Miss Elsie's place but a pile of ash and charred wood.'

‘I'll find somewhere in the village. I doubt if I'll be staying very long, but I wanted to look up old friends.'

‘Everyone thinks you died in the flames,' Mrs Bonney said, sorting eggs into a rush basket. ‘Will you have some butter and a piece of cheese?'

‘Yes, that would be nice, thank you.'

‘The Hawkes children was very upset, and young Davey was beside himself by all accounts.'

‘But I sent him a note, telling him that I'd gone to London.'

‘I don't know nothing about that, miss. But you'd best be careful if you're intending to go into the village. Some folks might drop down dead with fright if they think you've come back to haunt the place.'

Sarah paid for the produce but her thoughts were elsewhere as she left the farm and hurried off to find Grey. She could only imagine how Davey must be feeling if he had not received her brief letter explaining her sudden departure. It had never occurred to her that people would assume that both she and Elsie had been consumed by the flames. She was out of breath and angry when she rejoined Grey.

‘What's the matter?' he demanded, frowning. ‘Have you been crying?'

‘You didn't send it, did you?'

He stared at her open-mouthed. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘Young Maud thought I was a ghost. Everyone in Blackwood assumes that Elsie and I were killed in the fire. I gave you a note to send to Davey.' His guilty expression confirmed her suspicions. ‘Tobias Grey. How could you?'

He took the basket from her. ‘I gave it to a boy and tipped him a penny to deliver the note. I can't help it if he didn't carry out my instructions.' He walked on. ‘It's too late to do anything about it now.'

She ran after him. ‘But they all think I'm dead. How am I to contact Davey if I can't be seen without causing a stir?'

‘We'll think of something. The most important thing now is to get off the road before someone sees us.' He hurried onwards and she had to run to keep up with him.

‘I wish you'd tell me where we're going.'

‘Have you ever been to Blackwood House?'

‘Of course not,' she said breathlessly. ‘But I know where it is. Everyone in the village knows about the haunted yew tree tunnel that surrounds the house.'

‘That's the story that was put about to keep people away.' He stopped outside a pair of rusty wrought-iron gates. ‘It obviously worked.' He tugged at a bell pull. ‘Let's see if Parker is still here.'

‘Who is he?'

‘He used to be the gatekeeper. He got me out of scrapes no end of times when I was a boy, but he must be getting on a bit now. I don't even know if he was kept on after my grandparents passed away.'

‘Your family owns all this?'

‘Grandfather chose to leave Spitalfields and live in the country. My mother, George and Elsie grew up here and I visited quite often when I was a child. Elsie was a lot younger than my mother. She was only eleven when I was born and she used to boss me around, but I didn't mind too much because she taught me to fish and to climb trees and she had a tame fox that she had reared from a cub. Then she went away and I didn't see her again until I was a grown man. I heard the whispers about her in the servants' hall, but I never took much notice of them.' His voice broke and he turned away, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. ‘She didn't deserve to die like that.'

‘I'm sure her spirit is still here,' Sarah murmured, peering through the gates at the avenue of overgrown trees, some of which had fallen across the drive and been left to rot. ‘What's that?' She pointed at a tangle of dark green foliage above which she could just make out the upper storey of a building cloaked in ivy.

‘The yew tree tunnel,' Grey said with a wry twist of his lips. ‘It's supposed to be over seven hundred years old, planted when the house was built by a Knight Templar returning from the Holy Land, although I think that's just a story.' He rattled the gates and flakes of rust showered down on them. He tugged at the padlock and chain. ‘It doesn't look as though Parker survived,' he said, bending down to pick up a large piece of stone. The lock succumbed to one sharp tap and the gates screamed on their hinges as he pushed them open. ‘Welcome to Blackwood House.' He closed the gates behind them and replaced the chain so that it appeared intact. ‘Come along, Sarah. We can stay here for a day or two. I can assure you that no one will bother us.'

They made their way along the leaf-strewn carriage sweep, dodging fallen tree trunks and kicking aside broken branches. As Sarah had seen from the road, the yew tree tunnel began at the end of the drive and twisted in a serpentine fashion around the side of the house. The gnarled old trees were in desperate need of pruning, and it would have taken a brave person to negotiate the narrow gap beneath their intertwined branches unless armed with shears and a hacksaw. Even so, the sight of it sent a shiver down her spine and she was relieved when Grey took the gravel path that led to the back of the house.

They came to a paved area pockmarked with weeds, and beyond a stone balustrade was a wilderness of tall grasses. ‘That was once a croquet lawn,' Grey said, following her line of vision. ‘And what looks like a jungle was the shrubbery where I used to hide from Elsie.'

‘I wish I'd known her then,' Sarah said, staring at the tangled mass of vegetation with a practised eye. The stone urns that once must have been filled with flowering plants were now strangled with bindweed, but she could see many of the plants and herbs that Elsie had used in her potions. She recognised cleavers, a common enough weed that rampaged unchecked and was the basis of many of Elsie's favoured remedies for everything from eczema to insomnia. ‘It's a shame she's not here now. She would have loved all this.'

‘You're the only person, apart from her, who would look at all this and see something other than gross negligence.'

Sarah rested the basket on top of the balustrade. ‘She taught me well.'

‘And if I fell ill I'm sure I'd be grateful for a garden filled with weeds, and a budding apothecary to cure me.' Grey glanced up at the louring clouds. ‘It looks like rain. We'd best find a way in.' He tried the door, and to Sarah's amazement it opened. He stepped inside. ‘Come on. I promise you that the ghosts are friendly.'

The sky had darkened suddenly and large spots of rain splattered onto the paving stones. Sarah snatched up the basket and hurried after him. The moment she entered the room she felt the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. The air was thick with mustiness and the smell of decay. The furniture was shrouded in dust sheets and silence hung in a pall over the sleeping house. If there were ghosts, she thought nervously, they were in hiding, but she felt a tangible presence and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was standing close to Grey. The scent of the outdoors clung to him, but there was the pervading odour of an unwashed human body in the room.

She felt Grey stiffen and she felt instinctively for his hand. She wanted to run but she found that she could not move and then, without warning, a figure sprang from the gloom, yelling like a banshee and brandishing an axe.

GREY STOOD HIS
ground. ‘Parker, is that you?'

The axe fell to the floor and the sound reverberated round the room, bouncing off the walls and causing flakes of plaster to rain down from the ceiling. ‘Who is it?'

Grey took a step forward. ‘It's Toby Grey, Parker. You remember me.'

‘Master Toby? You was just a boy when I last saw you.'

‘You're right. I haven't been near the place for ten years or more, but now I've come home.' Grey moved swiftly to shake Parker's hand. ‘I didn't know you were still here, but it's good to see you.'

‘I thought you was a robber, sir,' Parker said apologetically.

‘Is there any chance of something to drink? The young lady and myself have been travelling since yesterday.'

‘That's not Miss Elsie.'

Sarah stepped forward. ‘My name is Sarah and I was Miss Elsie's ward.'

He stared at her as if attempting to assimilate this information. ‘I haven't seen her for a long time. She used to bring me vittles, but she stopped coming a while ago. You aren't going to turn me out, are you? She told me that everything would be all right.'

‘And so it will,' Grey said, picking up the axe and placing it out of Parker's reach. ‘I can see that you've done a good job in looking after the house, but it's a big place for you to manage on your own.'

‘I done me best, sir.' Parker made a move towards the door. ‘I'll light a fire in the morning room if you'd like to take the young lady there, and I'll bring you some tea.'

‘Better still,' Grey said gently, ‘we'll have tea in the kitchen.' He followed Parker, pausing in the doorway to beckon to Sarah.

She hurried to his side. ‘The old man's mind is wandering,' she whispered. ‘You'll have to tell him about Elsie.'

‘Not yet. It might be too much for him to take in. I don't know if it's simply his imagination playing tricks or whether Elsie did keep him supplied with his day to day needs. Did she ever mention the house or her visits to see Parker?'

She shook her head. ‘No, she didn't. Neither did you, for that matter. All these years I've thought that you were poor and that's why you fell in with Trigg.'

‘It's quite true that I was desperate for money. My father was a gambler and he left nothing but debts.'

‘And you naturally turned to a life of crime.'

He ushered her into the kitchen. ‘It didn't happen like that. I tried to earn an honest living, but then I began to take risks and you know the rest.'

‘There's just enough tea to make a brew,' Parker said triumphantly. ‘But as to food, I'm afraid there's only nettle soup. I've been living off that for days while I waited for Miss Elsie to come with provisions.'

Sarah placed the rush basket on the table. ‘You'll eat well tonight, Mr Parker.'

‘You mean that Miss Elsie hasn't forgotten me?'

Sarah was about to tell him the truth but Grey was frowning at her and shaking his head. ‘Yes, that's right. You could say that this comes from Miss Elsie.' She glanced around the large empty kitchen which once would have bustled with activity. She had no idea how many servants would have been employed in a house of these proportions, but she could see from the size of the range and the battery of copper pots and pans that there must have been a significant number of women cooking, cleaning and attending to all the needs of the wealthy Fitch family. Mrs Burgess would think herself queen of all she surveyed if she had a kitchen such as this and a full complement of staff to organise.