Between Friends Page 23

  She lay awake in the night and dwelled on the menace of it, a hundred times telling herself that it had been an idle threat, something Harris had brooded over during his months in prison, then, in a fit of rancour, taken it into his head to blame her for it. Bitter and resentful at what had been done to him he had waylaid her, the one he believed was the cause of it, in the spinney, but now, surely, he would be long gone from the district, the incident, if not forgotten, at least one he was no longer obsessed with. But dare she take the chance? Dare she?

  She would toss about on her narrow bed at night, shifting from the certainty that he had left Liverpool where his past would haunt him, gone to greener pastures, she was positive, to the dreadful doubt that he hung about the estate waiting just for her! They would not let her rest, the misgivings crowding to her mind the moment she put her head on the pillow. They would not allow her to go far from the house and yard alone. She longed to beg Tom to be careful – about what, he would ask – and they separated her not only from her young, fellow maidservants but from Tom himself. The girls with whom she worked had accepted her as ‘stuck-up’, unapproachable, a good worker, mind and always willing to give a helping hand to anyone who was behind but not someone to have a laugh or a ‘natter’ with to make the deadly routine of the day pass more quickly. They let her alone, some of them resentful at her rapid promotion from scullery-maid to the drawing-room of Mrs Hemingway herself, and envious – now that her growing beauty was fully revealed by the stark black and white simplicity of her ‘afternoon’ uniform – of the attention she received from the men servants!

  She was not aware of it. She did her work well and was recognised by Alice Hemingway who made a note to speak to her husband about it when he came home. That winter he and Hunter had spent most of their time in America where, on the long straight stretch of smooth sand at Ormond-Daytona Beach, Florida, Fred H. Marriott in his Stanley steam car which looked rather like a canoe with wire wheels had made a new flying record of 127.57 miles per hour, outstripping the great names of racing, Hémèry, Lancia and Satori in their petrol driven motor cars! Mr Robert had set his heart on his protegée and the sleek-lined ‘flyer’, beating this record but though Martin and his machine spent many hours of each day skimming the miles of straight course in practice he could not better the record.

  They had raced at Grosse Point horse-racing track in Detroit and in the American Grand Prix at Savannah and the ‘Hemingway Flyer’ had acquitted itself well and the blighted hopes at Ormond-Daytona Beach had been somewhat made up for. As Mr Robert said, Martin was young yet, a novice but just let that daredevil Marriott wait a year or two and young Martin Hunter would make mincemeat of him!

  They attended the Paris Motor Show before returning to England, ‘to see the opposition’, Mr Robert said, tapping the side of his nose slyly and were impressed by the vast multitude of European and American motor cars assembled there. They rubbed shoulders with the élite of the motoring world. Vanderbilt, Rolls, Royce, Marriott and the great S. F. Edge, famous for his twenty-four hour record on the newly opened Brooklands Track. There were more than a few minor royalty of Europe present since the growing world of the motor car and the racing of one machine against another, the gaining of ‘speed’ records which was their obsessive goal, was fascinating to many others beside the Hemingways and young Martin Hunter.

  They had returned home at the end of February, ready, they said, to tackle the French Grand Prix on the Dieppe Circuit, the Tourist Trophy in the Isle of Man, a speed meeting which was to be held on the promenade at Blackpool, the Welsh and Irish Trials and the Ironbridge Hill Climb. Robert Hemingway described it all to his Alice and was barely interested, listening with only half an ear as she pronounced on the great success of ‘that child’ he had brought into their house last year and, his attention taken up entirely with the latest edition of the motoring magazine The Autocar which he had missed whilst he had been abroad, an odd word here and there was all he heard.

  ‘… and she really is most diligent, Mr Hemingway. Her movements are so neat and graceful with none of the nervous clumsiness usually shown in a new parlourmaid. Her manners are perfect and her appearance is delightful. Mrs Stewart cannot speak highly enough of her. She says she is sensible too, and can be trusted to do any job she is asked without supervision.’

  ‘Really, that is most gratifying.’

  ‘… and the young man also …’

  ‘How splendid.’

  They were sitting companionably together, their wicker chairs side by side in the humid warmth of the late Lucinda Hemingway’s winter garden. A ‘tunnel of flowers’ it had been described as and so it was and the old couple sat at its far end. Alice gazed out serenely at the glory of the early daffodils which blazed in her garden clustering about every tree trunk, and wildly carpeting the lawn; at hyacinth, anemone and crocus, lining every path with a riot of colour as far as the eye could see. Men laboured diligently at each bed, weeding and hoeing. A path of crazy paving led away from the door of the winter garden, not straight and purposeful, but meandering gracefully through the flower beds towards the lawns which stretched to the stand of trees and beside it a tall, bright-haired young man was bending to something on the path.

  ‘Look! There he is now.’

  ‘Who dear?’

  ‘The young man I was speaking of.’

  ‘Which young man is that, Mrs Hemingway?’ Robert and Alice were of the generation which never, except in the privacy of their bedroom, addressed one another by their Christian name.

  Alice Hemingway sighed resignedly.

  ‘The young man who was involved with Megan in the fire at the emigrant house. You remember him! He worked as boot boy and then …’

  ‘Oh yes … John … or was it Jack …?’

  ‘Tom, I think. Atkinson tells me he has a real feel for the garden.’

  As they watched, their old faces nodding in gentle interest over the quite ordinary pursuits of their gardener, Alice and Robert Hemingway were surprised when the young man rose slowly to his full height, glanced furtively about him and with the definite air of someone who is up to something he shouldn’t, darted swiftly into the stand of trees.

  ‘What’s up with our Meg, Mrs Whitley? Has she said anything to you? I just can’t make her out these last few months. Every time I speak to her she jumps a foot in the bloody air – sorry Mrs Whitley – and all she seems to care about is the colour of the curtains in the sitting-room and the charming arrangement – her words, not mine – of the ornaments. She’s got nothing else in her head and when I do get her on her own, which is difficult, that’s all she seems to want to talk about. She won’t even come over here unless I practically drag her!’

  Tom paced the small crowded room which had become the centre of Agatha Whitley’s contented world in the year she had lived on the Silverdale estate and his tall, rangy restlessness made it appear even smaller and more cluttered. Mrs Whitley watched him anxiously, turning every now and again as if to consult the other occupant of the snug kitchen, her face, plump and rosy in the glow from the fire, begging for understanding.

  ‘She seems alright to me.’ Martin spoke with the lazy indolence of one who is convinced the whole conversation and its contents was a storm in a teacup. ‘Keen to get on, I’ll grant you but what’s wrong with that. Mrs Stewart told me the mistress has got her eye on her and you know what that means in a house that size. Even old Ferguson can’t fault her. In fact I’d have said she’s fallen on her feet has our Meg, as we all have …’

  ‘You’ve been away too long, Martin, that’s your trouble and you’re so taken up with them machines you can see no further than what goes on under their damned bonnets. Can you not remember how lively she was? Jesus – sorry Mrs Whitley – it’s only been just over a year! She used to drive us all barmy with her joking and her everlasting poking her nose into everybody’s affairs. Questions! She never stopped and if she thought there was a day out in the offing she’d never let up until she was
included …’

  Mrs Whitley nodded her head sagely. ‘It’s true, Martin.’

  ‘… and now all she has to say is what lovely carpets there are in the drawing-room …’

  ‘Well, it’s true …’

  ‘That’s not the bloody point and you know it. She refuses to come into town with me on her day out and that’s not like her …’

  ‘She’s growing up, that’s all. She’s sixteen and girls are funny at that age. Besides she feels she has a position of responsibility she told me and …’

  ‘Balls!’

  ‘Tom! I’ll not have language like that in my house …’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Whitley but he makes me so wild. If he can’t see the change in her then he must be blind! Still, what can you expect? All he ever thinks about, cares about, talks about is motor cars and circuits and speed and chaps with names we’ve never even heard of and we’re supposed to be interested but when you ask him to discuss something important like our Meg he …’

  The lounging length of Martin Hunter rose unhurriedly from the depths of Mrs Whitley’s best armchair, the one in which only she usually sat. His sun-browned face, warmed by hundreds of hours in the fierce sunshine of Florida was deceptively mild but his eyes had darkened to the deep colour of treacle and the muscles in his jaw clenched ominously. He was smartly, even ‘nattily’ dressed in what was known as a ‘lounge suit’, the very latest in fashion with broad shoulders which needed no padding on his well muscled frame. He might have been taken for one of the Hemingway’s select circle of acquaintances and not, as he really was, a servant, since he mixed with the cosmopolitan and wealthy assembly into which his situation as Robert Hemingway’s skilled racing driver and favoured protegée had placed him. There was beginning to be a certain polish about him, a style, a confidence he had always had but which was now to do with his growing knowledge of good hotels, fine food and wine, the conversation and company of those whose education had been gained not only at the public schools most had attended but in the privilege and birthright of their class. He was almost nineteen years old but looked older, his maturity far outstripping the boyish, unfledged youthfulness of Tom. Side by side it was difficult to remember that they had grown up together and had been tutored in the same rough school of life. If Martin was the almost complete confirmation of young manhood, Tom was a rough draft, an outline of what one day he would finally become!

  They faced up to one another now, exactly the same height but where Martin was powerfully built, the strength and breadth of his arms and shoulders developed in the constant wrestling with the steering wheel of the ‘Hemingway flyer’ and the boxing bouts he had fought as a boy, Tom was still slender, rangy, with the awkwardness of boyhood which he had not yet outgrown. He worked as a manual labourer and though, as Mrs Glynn put it, he ate like a horse, his body took on no weight. But his increasing strength of character, not yet completely formed and more than likely to break into helpless, youthful laughter on the slightest provocation, showed now in the truculent face he thrust into Martin’s. He was artless, unsophisticated, candid but he would not back down from anything in which he believed and now he believed there was something troubling their Meg and could hardly contain his outrage that Martin, their Martin who had always been the first to defend her could not see it too. Martin might be some big-shot with his growing reputation as an up and coming young racing driver but it seemed his continued absence from Liverpool, and the lives that Tom and Meg led meant he was slowly becoming cut off from the world of his two childhood companions.

  ‘Look here, lad,’ Martin said now, quite softly but very dangerous. ‘Are you saying I care nothing for Meg any more because if you are you had better be prepared to back your statement up with more than just words …’

  ‘You look here, lad! Don’t you come the high and mighty panjandrum with me. You’ve been across the bloody ocean and played about with them motor cars of yours and might have sat down to dine with the bloody Emperor of China for all I know but don’t you tell me you give a damn about the change in our Meg. Your head might be filled with … with crankshafts and … and whatever it is you fiddle with all day long but I’d like to give you credit for seeing what’s under your bloody nose! Trouble is I can’t! You’re too full of what you’ve done to be concerned with her. Damnation Martin! Just because she sat and listened to your tales of all the wonders of your life doesn’t mean she’s the same girl. Can’t you see it? I agree she’s fallen on her feet and I agree she’s made a good impression on Mrs Stewart and the Hemingways an’ all but … but she’s not the same girl she was!’

  They had eased away from one another in a gradual lessening of tension as Martin recognised the distress in Tom, and Mrs Whitley took her hand away from her mouth when she had held it in appalled horror. Her lads fighting and over something as important as their Meg who, she had been made aware herself, had altered these last few months. She was as concerned, as caring of Mrs Whitley’s comfort and happiness as she had always been, coming, she said, as often as she could to visit her but she was not the same and Tom was right. Some lovely sparkle in her seemed to have been quenched. The irrepressible mischief, the warm readiness to take an interest in everything about her had gone and a young lady, serious and concerned, it seemed only with her own future career had emerged. She was to ‘get on’ in the Hemingway household, Mrs Whitley could see that. Two promotions already and the mistress’ eye on her. Head parlourmaid next, perhaps Cook, if she was allowed to show what she could do or even the exalted position of housekeeper, the highest peak she could attain in Agatha Whitley’s opinion!

  Tom turned away slouching to peer out of the window across to the gatekeeper’s lodge which stood on the opposite side of the long, curved gravelled driveway. His young face was set in moody lines, a far remove from its usual engaging openness but he appeared to have backed away from his confrontation with Martin.

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ he muttered. ‘I only slipped away while Mr Atkinson’s back was turned for a minute and if I don’t get back before he misses me he’ll have my job. Jenny said you’d told her you were coming over here so I thought …’

  He turned, his face earnest and pleading. ‘Have a word with her, will you Martin? See if you can get it out of her what’s bothering her, if anything is.’ He looked confused now, uncertain, longing to be told he was wrong. ‘Perhaps you can see better than me, being away an’ all. Happen she is growing up and that’s all it is but she might talk to you, tell you what’s in her mind. I get no chance now what with me working outside and her indoors. The only time I get to see her is if I catch her here with Mrs Whitley and then she’s always in a dash, she says, doesn’t she, Mrs Whitley?’ He turned his worried gaze to the old lady who nodded in agreement.

  ‘It’s true, Martin. I know you’re to be off again soon. Scotland, is it? Oh my!’ Her face was suffused with pride in this, her cleverest chick, her expression said, who travelled about the world as though it was no more concern than a trip to the corner shop but her eyes were anxious, clouded from their usual bright gooseberry green alertness to the haze of old age and her worry over their Meg whose well-being she cared about more than anything in this world. The lads were lads and could see to themselves but Meg was nought but a lass and needed someone to look out for her. ‘Get her to go to town with you. Take her to the Music Hall and give her a laugh, there’s a good lad. She needs taking out of herself and perhaps if she was to get away from Silverdale – d’you know she’s not been off the grounds since I can’t remember when – she’d open up and tell you what’s in her mind. Dear Lord, I can remember the day when she never stopped talking, always at you with what she was going to do and with her nose in everything that didn’t concern her and look at her now. Scarce a word for anyone and then it’s all to do with her work!’

  Mrs Whitley’s eyes welled at the fond remembrance of the past and Martin knelt at her feet as he had done so often before. Then he had been begging for a favour, an outing pe
rhaps or an hour off to slip down to Mr Hales to see his beloved machines. Now he did it to comfort, smiling his warm, affectionate smile into her tremulous face. He sighed inwardly for he had made arrangements to entertain and be entertained by a certain pretty young housemaid who was vastly impressed, not only with his masculine charms but his elevated position in Mr Hemingway’s home. He had meant to dine her at the ‘Adelphi’ and then, when she was soft and sighing, completely enraptured as most women usually were in his increasingly experienced hands there was a certain room, above the garage, the one which was kept just for himself when he was home and in which … aah well! There would be other nights and other pretty young women …!