The Flight of Swallows Read online

  Also by Audrey Howard

  The Mallow Years

  Shining Threads

  A Day Will Come

  All the Dear Faces

  There Is No Parting

  The Woman from Browhead

  Echo of Another Time

  The Silence of Strangers

  A World of Difference

  Promises Lost

  The Shadowed Hills

  Strand of Dreams

  Tomorrow’s Memories

  Not a Bird Will Sing

  When Morning Comes

  Beyond the Shining Water

  Angel Meadow

  Rivers of the Heart

  The Seasons Will Pass

  A Place Called Hope

  Annie’s Girl

  Whispers on the Water

  A Flower in Season

  Painted Highway

  Reflections from the Past

  Distant Images

  Rose Alley

  A Time Like No Other

  The Long Way Home

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Hodder and Stoughton

  An Hachette UK Company

  Copyright © 2009 by Audrey Howard

  The right of Audrey Howard to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN: 9781444724813

  Book ISBN: 9780340895443

  Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW 1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  Also by Audrey Howard

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  About the Author

  1

  She could hear James wailing as she waited her turn outside the door to her father’s study and beside her Robbie began to whimper in anticipation. Her other three brothers had run past one by one, heading for the wide staircase where Kizzie waited to comfort them. She held Robbie’s hand, doing her best to assuage his fear; after all, Robbie was only six years old and inclined to be timid. Who could blame him?

  At last the study door opened and James, seven years old, a year older than Robbie, scuttled into the passage, holding his hand to his behind. His pale cheeks were wet and he cast an agonised glance at his sister.

  ‘James . . .’ Charlotte whispered, doing her best to convey her sympathy, but the boy did not answer, speeding as fast as he could towards the foot of the stairs. He had left the study door open and a male voice sounded from within.

  ‘Come in, Robert,’ the voice ordered and Robbie’s whimper grew louder, turning to cries of blind terror. He clutched at Charlotte’s skirt, unable to move. ‘And be quick about it, child. I am a busy man and have no time to waste.’

  She remembered last summer when they had been waiting in just such a situation as this. There had been a butterfly against the window at the end of the passage that looked out on to the garden at the side of the house. It had been beating its wings frantically against the glass, such lovely colours of smoky brown, flame and pale grey, the flame and grey spotted with white. It had been trying to escape and she had known exactly how it felt but there had been no escape. For her or the butterfly! And today was the same.

  ‘Go on, darling,’ she whispered encouragingly to her little brother. ‘It will soon be over.’

  ‘No, please, Charlie . . . don’t make me . . .’

  ‘Darling, you know I can’t—’

  ‘Charlie, please . . .’

  Charlotte Drummond hesitated, then, the child’s terror bolstering her own courage though she was sadly aware that it would make no difference to what was about to happen, she stepped bravely into her father’s study, her small brother cowering beside her.

  Arthur Drummond stood, feet planted apart, on the rug before the good fire, his back to the arched fireplace with its cast-iron fire basket and fire-back and pretty tiles on either side. Above it was a large mirror which reflected the back of Arthur Drummond’s sleek head and the snug room that was exclusively the master’s domain. Though it was the beginning of the century and new styles were rapidly encroaching in most upper-class homes the Drummond household was not one of them. The house had been in the family for generations, but not until Arthur had married the daughter of a wealthy coal owner had it been modernised to the Victorian fashion which still prevailed. The room was dominated by an enormous leather-topped desk on which stood a heavy silver inkstand, an ornate well-polished brass and frosted glass lamp, a silver cigar box and a photograph of a very pretty lady in a silver frame: the children’s dead mother. Beside the desk was a side table well furnished with decanters and glasses. A globe atlas was set in a brass meridian ring on a stand and on the walls hung prints of hunting scenes, horses and dogs. There were two deep and comfortable leather armchairs, books lined three walls from floor to ceiling and a cheerful carpet of reds and blues covered the floor. Most of his wife’s money had been gambled away but the comfort remained.

  In his right hand Arthur Drummond held a thin, whippy cane with which he casually slapped his right, booted leg. He wore riding boots and pale buff breeches with a well-cut, three-buttoned, cutaway black frock-coat, for he was about to mount his expensive, well-bred horse and join the meet at King’s Meadow, the home of one of his many acquaintances. His silk top hat waited on the desk. He was tall, handsome, lean, with hair the colour of the glossy brown conkers with which his sons played furious duels. His eyes were the same shade but where his hair gleamed in the firelight his eyes were flat, with a strange pin-prick of light which Charlotte, with sinking heart, was aware boded no good.

  He frowned as his son and daughter entered together for they, and his other sons, knew the routine that attended a punishment. One at a time, boys first, in order of age, and lastly Charlotte who, as the eldest, was considered to be the ringleader in any wrongdoing or if not the ringleader should have put a stop to whatever it was before it began. She was expected to listen to the woeful cries of her siblings before submitting to her own chastisement.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ her father asked politely, as though questioning her on some trivial incident that should not have occurred. ‘You know I will see you after Robert. And for goodness sake, stop blubbering, Robert. What a cry-baby it is.’

  ‘Father,’ Charlotte quavered, ‘would you allow me to remain with Robbie . . . Robe
rt . . . during his . . . his . . .’ She wanted to say his ‘beating’, which was what it was, but her father was already irritated by her behaviour and that word would only make it worse. ‘He is so frightened, and really, he took no part in the . . .’ She paused nervously.

  ‘Yes?’ Her father’s voice was silky but menacing.

  ‘He just happened to be there when the boys – after all that’s what they are, no more than boys, and climbing on to the roof of the . . . well, it’s a boy’s trick, isn’t it and—’

  ‘Are you questioning my judgement, Charlotte?’

  ‘No, Father, but their ball had—’

  ‘That is enough. Not another word. Now I would be obliged if you would leave the room and wait in the passage.’

  ‘But, Father, Robbie is—’

  ‘I will attend to Robert, if you please. Now leave us. I will deal with you later.’

  Charlotte’s heart plummeted as she pried Robbie’s hand from her skirt. She looked down into the tear-streaked, woebegone face of her little brother. The child was ashen and Charlotte felt that streak of stubbornness, which she was not aware she had inherited from her father, spring up within her. A storm of resentment against the unfairness of what her father was to do. Well, perhaps not a storm for no one stormed against Father, but a surge that she subdued, since it did no good. Nobody could stand against Father. She could remember her mother who had died when Robert was born which was perhaps why Robbie was as he was. He had never known the comfort and protection of a mother’s love and always appeared to be searching for something he had lacked despite the love she and Kizzie lavished on him. Jean Drummond had been a gentle little woman who had, like them all, been intimidated by Arthur Drummond and who, it seemed, had made no fight to stay alive after the birth of her sixth child. Charlotte had been ten years old and quite devastated by her death, as had the three older boys, Henry and William and John, but at the same time the tragedy had been somewhat alleviated by the arrival of Kizzie, who was to help the nanny in charge of the new baby. Without Kizzie Charlotte often wondered how they would have survived. Not that they were in any sort of danger but she had filled a void left by their mother; was always there when she was most needed – as now – and in fact was considered by Robbie, who had never known his own mother, to be her! She was a bulwark behind which they might hide, a shield to guard them, though she had no power to stand between them and their father. She was just there!

  Charlotte stood in the passage, her hands to her ears, doing her best to shut out the sounds of the swish of the cane and her brother’s distress. Six of them, which was moderate in view of the twelve the older boys had received.

  Like James, he ran past her and scuttled up the stairs and Charlotte waited for the call from her father. It was her turn now!

  ‘Come in, Charlotte,’ he said pleasantly. That was the trouble, he was always pleasant. Sometimes she almost wished he would rant and rave, show a flash of human temper, but then he surely must know that his children’s naughtiness was really only high spirits, which they indulged in when he was not there and certainly not enough to merit his rage.

  ‘Now then, Charlotte, perhaps you would be good enough to explain your recent show of defiance. You know it is my belief that children should be punished for any wrongdoing and to climb on the roof of the conservatory where they could not only have fallen through the glass and seriously injured themselves, but also damaged the building and the rare plants it contains shows a considerable lack of judgement and you, as the eldest, should have restrained them. One of the gardeners could have brought a ladder and climbed up to retrieve the ball and I would have thought you had the sense to see it. Do you understand?’ He paused and hit his boot with the switch and Charlotte realised that he could not wait to begin but she could not help herself from speaking out.

  ‘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.