Angel Meadow Read online

  Breathing heavily his father had glared at him, drumming his fingers on the desk in an ecstasy of rage.

  “Well, as you so succinctly put it, there’s not a lot I can say, is there, sir? I am condemned before I have had a chance to speak a word in my own defence.”

  “Are you telling me you are not the father of the slut’s brat?”

  “She is not a slut but a young girl,” keeping his temper with great difficulty.

  “Who dropped her drawers for the master’s son and God knows how many others.”

  “No, Father, only for me and . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I think I should marry her. She comes from a decent family.”

  “A labourer’s daughter!” His father was slack-jawed in amazement. “A decent family! You must be mad. You seem to have lost your mind along with your ability to show restraint. Dear God, lad, could you not do as other men do and go to some decent place where the women know exactly what is expected of them and are a trouble to no one. But let’s get one thing straight. There’ll be no talk of marriage, d’you hear? Your mother is distraught enough as it is. Can you imagine how she would react if I went to her and told her she was to have some common labourer’s daughter, her own laundry-maid, as a daughter-in-law? No, I won’t have it.”

  “I don’t see how you could stop me, sir. I am over twenty-one, after all, and can do as I like.”

  His father had become quiet then, his face like cold, grey granite, his mouth so tightly clamped he could barely speak.

  “Is that so?” he managed icily. “Well, my lad, you’re right, you can do as you like and so can I. Let me warn you that trollop will never come over my doorstep as your bride, and neither will you if you marry her. I have another son, Joshua Hayes who, though he is still young, can take over from me in time, for there’s nothing surer than the truth that you won’t.”

  His face had softened then and his voice too, ready to implore his lad not to give up all he had for nothing more than a bit of “sport” which, he supposed, all young men indulged in. He’d done it himself at the same age and even now he had a pretty young woman set up in a smart little villa on the outskirts of Newton Heath, far enough away for discretion and yet near enough for him to visit whenever he had the need. Mrs Hayes, of whom he was very fond, did not care for that side of marriage which was what he had expected when he married her, for she was a lady. She had given him his two sons and a daughter and he had left her alone after that.

  “Son, I know you think you are obliged in some way and it does you credit but you are . . . you need not feel responsible. She can be taken care of. Like the other one. A husband will be found for her, if that’s what she wants but I’m sure you will discover that she will settle down among her own sort, who, let me add, are not at all as particular as you seem to think about the need for marriage. If you feel the urge to help her and the child then that’s up to you, perhaps a cottage of her own and money to support her, but surely you can see that marriage between you would be disastrous, and not just for the pair of you who have nothing in common but for your family. How do you think she’d fit in here in our home among women with whom she was once a servant? And even if your mother and I were to accept her no one else would. We’d be shunned. Your mother and sister would no longer be welcome among our own kind. Your sister’s marriage prospects would be seriously harmed. So you see there is not just yourself and . . . and her to consider.”

  The more his father placed before him the good, logical reasons why he should desert – he could think of no other word – Evie, the more reasonable it all seemed. But still he could not forget her woebegone face, her dragging figure, the slump to her shoulders, hampered by the bundle of her clothing as she set off across the fields towards her father’s cottage. He wished now that he had gone with her. Would he beat her, her father? God almighty . . . he couldn’t stand the thought nor the picture his father painted of the treatment his mother and sister would suffer at the hands of their acquaintances should this get out. Nor could he cope with the idea that his father, who always kept his word, would totally disinherit him if he followed Evie across those fields. He was just beginning to get a good grip on the business and he revelled in his own growing knowledge and expertise. He was to go to America in the autumn and there was talk of markets in other parts of the world where Hayes cotton might be sold and he was to go and look for them. His father was giving him more and more freedom to make his own decisions, trusting him, and he found he liked it.

  Edmund Hayes sensed the indecision in his son. Josh had been foolish and Edmund had been furious, but at the same time he did not want to lose him. He was becoming an asset to the firm and he would miss him, apart from any family ties which would be painful if they were broken. He watched his son’s face and, like the clever adversary he was in all matters to do with business, he drew back a little, not pressing any advantage but letting it simmer quietly.

  “Don’t do anything hasty, lad. Give it a day or two. Let it settle, then, if you think it necessary you can ride across to . . . to her home and do as you please with her. But think about it first. You’ve a lot to lose and I promise you she’ll be well looked after.”

  So, taking the coward’s way out, he was well aware, he had done what his father asked and was rewarded, not only by his mother’s discreetly whispered but nevertheless heartfelt relief and gratitude at his sensible view of the matter but by his father’s approval. A weekly sum of money was to be settled on Evie so that if she felt the need she could be independent of her family but he had been told that she remained with them and had been seen laughing in the lane outside the cottage with a labouring man.

  There was a path of sorts but it was hot in the midday sunshine so Josh took the mare to the shade of a group of trees and tethered her, though she was not pleased. She snorted and sighed dramatically, then, as her master drifted away from her, as though sensing his abstraction, she bent her head and began to crop the thick grass.

  Josh slowly sank to his haunches, his arms round his knees and stared into the slow, clear water of the stream, watching intently as though his life might depend on his description of it as a small twig floated by in the tiny ripples. The child was due any day now, so he had been told by a sympathetic Mrs Cameron who was cook to the Hayes family and who had made it her business to keep in touch with Evie of whom she had been fond. A nice little thing Evie had been in her opinion, good-natured and kind-hearted which was probably the reason she was in this pickle. But she had known the consequences of making free with the young master of the house and should have kept her hand on her halfpenny, a thought Cook had kept to herself. None of them blamed Master Josh for not marrying her; the very idea was ludicrous and surely even she had not expected it of him. She wasn’t the first to become involved with the young man of the house and wouldn’t be the last and in one way she was lucky in that she was to be looked after financially by the family, which didn’t happen to most. Turned out by employer and family alike, many of them drifted away and into menial jobs until they could no longer work, then took up prostitution as the only way to support themselves and their infants. At least poor Evie had been spared that.

  He sat for an hour or more while the sun moved across the sky and the shadow cast by the trees crept over him and dappled the water in shades of pale blue and grey. Copper blew noisily through her nostrils then stamped her feet impatiently, shaking her bridle as though to say what the hell did he think he was up to hanging about in this place and her longing to be free and galloping across the fields.

  “All right, lass, all right, I know you want to be off so let’s have a good gallop and then make for home. I’ve some papers to go over with the old man so we’d best make a move.”

  He raced through field after field, going north, taking hedges and fences and even five-barred gates as though they were no more than a foot high, tearing on until great drools of spittle fluttered and trailed from Copper’s mouth, her heart pumped and
her flanks heaved. As they galloped over a rocky stretch at a place called simply Hill Top, her hooves dashed like great hammers against an anvil, sparks flying. It was as though devils were after him, devils of remorse and guilt and sadness, for he knew he had used innocent little Evie Edward for his own pleasure and yet had not been asked to pay for that pleasure, as she was paying. It was a man’s world his father was fond of telling him, but surely a modicum of compassion . . . Dear sweet Jesus, was he never to let up on himself? Was he never to forget sweet Evie and get on with his life as his father had advised? He must and, he supposed, he would in time but it was bloody hard. Why could he not just put it behind him, forget Evie and her predicament, which after all, he was putting right as far as money was concerned, and let up on himself?

  He arrived in the stable yard an hour later. Charlie ran to take Copper and on his face was a mixture of emotions, the first being massive disapproval, for what man, what horseman would treat an animal as the mare had been treated.

  He spoke up before thinking. “Nay, Master Josh, what in hell’s name ’ave yer done ter’t beast. Poor lass . . . poor lass. Look at ’er, she’s all of a dither and can yer wonder. I’m surprised at yer, I really am. I thought yer knew better. Come wi’ me, my lass,” he said tenderly to the mare, then, as though Josh’s treatment of the animal had taken all thought from his head, but which had now returned, he turned from the mare and faced his young master. Another expression had come to replace the first, one that Josh could not read.

  “What’s up, Charlie? Apart from Copper, I mean, for which I’m truly sorry. I just got carried away and kept on going. I’m sorry.”

  “Eeh, Master Josh, there’s such a to-do up at th’ouse.” Charlie shook his head in what seemed to be sad bewilderment, a bewilderment that his own simple soul could not unravel.

  “A to-do! What sort of a to-do?”

  “Yer’d best get up theer, Master Josh. Eeh, I’m that sorry . . .”

  “Sorry? What the devil for?”

  “Nay, ’tis not fer me ter say, sir. ’Tis not my place.”

  “Bloody hell, man, you’re beginning to alarm me.”

  Charlie shook his head sadly then turned away and began to lead the exhausted horse back towards the stable and Josh had no choice but to let him. He began to run. He was himself soaked in sweat, his hair sticking about his forehead and ears in wet spikes. His shirt clung to his back and chest and even his breeches were sweat-stained. Should he go directly to his room, which had been his first choice, get washed and changed before facing whatever “to-do” had taken place in his absence or should he go straight to his father’s study, for if some drama had exploded while he was out his father would know all about it? He did not want to upset his mother if . . . if what? What could have happened in the few hours he had been riding like a whirlwind so to distress even the bloody groom, for goodness’ sake?

  His boots clattered across the cobbles in the yard. The door to the kitchen stood open to let out some of the heat, for the preparation for the evening meal was well under way, but as he almost ran into the enormous room which was always filled with some activity, even if it was only Cook making work for idle hands, as she called it, he was struck full in the face and chest by the absolute lack of any movement or sound. The maidservants were in a huddle, some with their arms about one another as though for comfort, one or two weeping silently and the most terrible fear gripped him, for surely, while he had been out trying to rid himself of his own ghosts, death had come into the house and helped itself to one of the household.

  “Dear Lord,” he whispered. No one heard him say the words but as one they turned and looked at him, their faces blank and shocked, even that of Mrs Harvey who, he would have said, had no feelings at all. Cook leaned with what appeared to be a great weakness against the enormous dresser where the everyday crockery was kept and with her face pressed into Cook’s full, maternal bosom a little girl sobbed and sobbed. But all with no sound.

  “What is it? Dear God, what has happened? Mrs Harvey . . . Cook . . . what . . .”

  Mrs Harvey found her voice but it sounded hollow and toneless.

  “You’d best go through to the study, Master Josh. Your father’s there and . . . your mother.”

  “But won’t someone tell me what’s happened. It’s . . . it’s not Arthur, is it?” His young brother was away at boarding school but perhaps some awful thing had happened to him, word reaching his father while Josh had been galloping about the countryside filled with his own self-pity.

  Cook lifted her head from that of the little girl – was she the scullery-maid? – and spoke sadly.

  “No, lad, not Master Arthur.”

  “Thank God. I’ll go and . . .”

  “Aye, Master Josh, you go an’ . . . well, your pa’s waitin’ for you in the study.”

  He strode across the kitchen, aware that one or two of the maids scurried to get out of his way as though afraid he might touch them. As he opened the door that led into the passage and the front of the house he noticed there was a basket on the table over which several of the housemaids were beginning to hover. With the part of his mind not harrowed by fear he wondered what was in it to arouse their strange interest.

  Two days later he announced his intention of going to the funeral, though his father threatened him with the hobs of hell if he went.

  “Can you not see, lad, that it’s an admission of guilt if you go.”

  “I am guilty, sir. I killed her. She was bearing my child when she died and I can do no more for her than go to her funeral.”

  “But what will folk think, lad?” his father pleaded. “What of your mother and sister?”

  “Don’t threaten me with that again, sir. I’m sorry if they are to be made to feel social outcasts just because . . . Sweet Jesus, will you listen to me? I was going to say just because a working girl has died, as though she were nothing. We . . . I did her a wrong and if the admitting of that wrong is to hurt me then so be it. I . . . I have a son.”

  “And that’s another thing. An illegitimate child can’t stay here under the same roof as decent folk.”

  “He’s three days old, sir, and can harm no one and as for his being illegitimate I shall adopt him and make him my legal son.”

  “Goddammit, I won’t have this, I won’t. Your mother is on the verge of a breakdown and your sister won’t come out of her room for the shame of it. You realise it’s all over Manchester by now.”

  “You must do as you think fit, sir, as I must. Mrs Cameron has found me a nurse.”

  “Mrs Cameron?”

  “Your cook, Father, who was friend to Evie Edward and—”

  “The bloody woman will be sacked.”

  “For what? For finding someone who can feed the child who would surely die like his . . . like his mother if . . .”

  He nearly broke then, the youth who had grown up overnight and become the man. He wore black. His face was gaunt and haunted, even the warm amber tones of his skin, put there by his outdoor pursuits, seeming to have faded. His eyes, a soft smoky grey once, had become flinty, deep, his feelings hidden, his grief hidden, his guilt, which racked him hour after hour, hidden from those who could not understand his madness.

  From that appalling moment when he had entered the study to find his mother wilting in hysterical tears and his father like a man demented, he had been the same. When he was told that gentle Evie Edward had died of a haemorrhage, the tide of which her own experienced mother could not stop, he had for a moment gone wild, flinging himself dangerously against hard objects in the study until even his father had been afraid. His mother had screamed and Billy, one of the grooms, had been sent hell for leather for the doctor. Wrapped tenderly in a basket, his rosy, pursed lips sucking hopefully on nothing, Evie’s son, his son, lay where his maternal grandfather had laid him on the kitchen table, to the consternation of the kitchen-maids.

  “Theer’s nowt us can do fer ’im,” he said, absolutely no emotion in his voice, thoug
h his face was grey with grief, “so I reckon ’is pa’ll ’ave ter see to ’im.”

  Without another word he had turned on his heel and left and though Edmund Hayes had sent Jack from the stables to fetch him back he had refused to come and that was that.

  “If you keep this child it will kill your mother, you know that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t believe that, sir, and if he offends you I shall arrange that he and I will live elsewhere.”

  “Christ, Josh!” His father was appalled. “You can’t do that to us, you can’t. Keep the boy by all means but put him with some decent woman who will look after him. You can visit when you want and though it will cause talk . . .”

  “I mean to have him with me, sir,” his son said quietly. “I killed his mother and surely every child deserves one parent. He is a healthy lad, so the doctor, whom I took the liberty of asking to look him over, tells me, and he is handsome too.” There was an astonishing expression of pride in his voice. “If you won’t allow me to put him in the nursery upstairs . . .”

  “What! ” His father’s bellow could be heard all over the house and Clara, the kitchen-maid who was nursing the baby by the kitchen fire, pulled the blanket up protectively about his head which was covered in tiny whorls of dark brown hair. For the moment, and Edmund Hayes had made it very clear it was a temporary thing, the child was spending his nights in his basket beside Clara’s bed and his days beside the kitchen fire, the wet-nurse, who had several bairns of her own to see to as well as her new babe, coming in every four hours to feed him and he seemed to be content enough. Well, there were enough of them to nurse him, weren’t there, Cook said, and all fighting with one another over who was to hold him whenever he so much as whimpered.