Rufus"s eyes darkened. "Nothing else? But Ruth"s been my nursemaid since I was born. Nell"s been with us for some seventeen years surely Mama could have done something more?"
"What could she do, Rufus?" Hope shrugged. "They"re gentry, we"re just working folk. It wasn"t as if I was homeless; I went to live with Nell and Albert."
"But Mama always used to remark on how pretty and clever you were," he said in bewilderment.
Hope realized then that however knowledgeable Rufus was about the rest of the world, he didn"t have any real idea of how poor people lived. She began to explain some of it: the tiny houses with bare floors and very little furniture, how she"d never had a real bed, just a sack filled with hay. She told him how most children were pressed into some kind of work almost as soon as they could walk, even if that was only scaring birds from the crops.
"I was lucky that I went to Reverend Gosling for four years to learn to read and write," she went on. "None of my brothers and sisters had that long, and most people in the village can"t read and write at all."
"But it isn"t fair," he burst out. "Everyone should have the same chances."
"That"s just the way it is," Hope said, repeating what Nell always told her when she complained about unfairness.
It was time to go home then, and as she left Rufus at the edge of the wood he walked across the paddock looking very sad and thoughtful.
In the middle of August, Lady Harvey received a letter from her younger sister to say their mother was very sick and asking her to come immediately. Lady Harvey wanted Nell to go with her, but thought Rufus should stay at Briargate because he was due to start at school in Wells in September.
They would be going on the Great Western railway from Bristol, and Hope was very envious because she"d seen pictures of the train and it looked like a very fast and exciting way to travel. She was also nervous at the prospect of being alone in the cottage with Albert, but Nell said she would speak to Baines and ask if she could sleep at Briargate as long as she went down to the gatehouse every day to tidy up for Albert.
It had been very hot for several weeks and at five the following morning when Nell and Hope left the cottage, the sun was already very warm.
"Please be a good girl while I"m away," Nell said anxiously as they hurried up the drive carrying her bag between them. "I really don"t think we"ll be back for some time. Even if the old lady dies almost straight away, it will be a few days before the funeral. And we can"t leave straight after, that wouldn"t be right."
"I"ll be fine," Hope insisted, knowing very well Nell was worried about her. "Ruth and James are here and Matt"s just down the road. There won"t be so much work anyway with the master away too."
He had been in London for some little while, but Nell said that Lady Harvey had written to him to ask him to join her at her family"s home in Suss.e.x.
"It"s going to be miserable travelling all that way in this heat," Nell grumbled.
Hope laughed. "The train goes so fast it will be cool with the windows open. You"ll enjoy it, you know you will. It"s better to just sit there watching the world go by than rushing about at Briargate."
"You shouldn"t talk like that when you know Lady Harvey"s mother is dying," Nell said sharply.
Hope wanted to retort that Lady Harvey hadn"t shown much sympathy when their own mother died. But she didn"t say it; Nell had a blind spot where their mistress was concerned.
Hope kissed Nell goodbye in the kitchens, and clung to her a little more tightly than she usually did.
"Who"s being a bit of a baby?" Nell whispered fondly. "I thought you"d be glad to see the back of me."
"I"ll miss you," Hope admitted, and bit back tears. Nell hadn"t been away with Lady Harvey once since their parents died, but now she was going, Hope was scared.
Nell smoothed a strand of hair back from Hope"s forehead and tucked it under her cap. "Have I ever told you what you mean to me?" she asked in a whisper, very aware that Martha and Baines were standing nearby.
Hope shook her head.
"Everything!" Nell said. "You have done since I first held you as a baby. So you just mind you behave yourself. I don"t want to get back here and find you in disgrace."
Once Lady Harvey had left for Suss.e.x, Briargate seemed to slip into a kind of torpor.
With no more meals to prepare for the dining room, no fires to be lit, less cleaning, laundry and all the countless other tasks they were relieved of now neither the master nor the mistress was in residence, the servants could relax. Martha mentioned making some jam with the last of the black currants from the garden, but looked as if she was in no hurry to start. Even Baines settled down in the servants" hall to read the newspaper.
Martha sent Hope down to the orchard later in the morning to pick some plums. Hope took her time, stopping at a small terrace just above the orchard to look around her and savour the beauty of the scene. All the fruit trees were laden voluptuous purple plums, pale green pears and red shiny apples, all so perfect and luscious. Fat b.u.mblebees buzzed lazily in the sunshine, a thrush was singing his heart out, and the air was laden with the smell of fruit and the lavender at her feet on the terrace.
Beyond the orchard down into the valley and up the other side great swathes of golden corn waved seductively in the light breeze. The harvest had begun; Hope could see silver flashes of sunshine on scythes as the men moved methodically across the fields. Matt would be among those men who looked no bigger than specks, maybe Joe and Henry too, and they would toil until the sun went down, praying that the good weather would last until it was all gathered in.
Hope ate a few of the plums as she filled her basket. They were warm and juicy, so sweet they made her almost delirious with pleasure, and she was glad she"d thought to put on the ap.r.o.n she wore for rough work as the juice ran down her chin in streams, staining it a deep, dark red.
She took her time going back to the house, stopping frequently to admire the many majestic old trees that had been planted when Briargate was built, and the new flowerbeds Albert had created in the last few years.
As she turned by a large horse chestnut, she saw him cutting the long gra.s.s around some bushes and she paused, suddenly struck by how handsome he looked with his face and forearms as brown and shiny as a conker, his thick black hair, well-proportioned nose and muscular but graceful body. Although she was usually afraid of him, here he didn"t look threatening for he was entirely at one with his surroundings, wielding his scythe with effortless precision.
"The garden looks beautiful," she said nervously, expecting him to order her on her way. "That bed there is so bonny!" She pointed towards one planted with tall white daisies and a purple starry flower she didn"t know the name of, standing behind a ma.s.s of marigolds.
Albert stopped his work and gave one of his rare smiles, showing very white teeth. "Aye, that one has done me proud," he said with surprising warmth. "But the rest is getting past its best now."
Hope moved nearer to him and held out a plum. "Try one, they"re delicious."
He looked at her stained ap.r.o.n and she expected that he would pa.s.s one of his more usual sarcastic comments, but he didn"t, just took the plum and bit into it, and smiled as juice spurted out.
"Umm," he said appreciatively. "We"d better get them all eaten before the wasps find them."
Delighted that for once he wasn"t being unpleasant, Hope handed him another. "You"ve made a fine job of the garden," she said.
He looked pleased at her compliment but made no comment.
"It takes an artist"s eye to pick colours and shapes that blend so well together," she said shyly.
He smiled at that, and leaned on his scythe to mop the sweat from his brow with a piece of rag.
"You look very hot," she said. "Shall I bring you out a drink?"
"I"ll come up to the house myself soon," he said. "But thank you for asking."
Hope went on then, but she felt a little glow inside her because she felt they"d at last made some sort of connection. She thought that when she went down to the gatehouse in the afternoon she"d leave a few of the plums in a bowl for him, and perhaps put a few flowers on the table. Nell would like it so much if she came home to find they were getting on better.
Ten days later, Ruth came into the kitchen from the stable yard, looking worried. "I can"t find Rufus," she said.
Martha and Hope were preparing supper. "He was with James in the stables," Martha replied. "At least, he was a while back because I heard them laughing."
"He"s not there now. James said he thought he"d come back in here. But he"s not in the house anywhere. I"ve looked everywhere in the gardens. I don"t know where else to look."
"He"ll turn up, Ruth, he"s not a baby any more," Hope said.
"But he"s my responsibility while his mother"s away," Ruth said, her voice cracking with anxiety.
Only the previous day Ruth had claimed she wouldn"t mind if the master and mistress never came back, for the weather had remained hot and sunny, and she, like all the servants, had been very relaxed, doing only the bare minimum of work.
Yet for Ruth it had been an almost complete holiday for right from the first day his mother left, Rufus had insisted he wanted to eat with the servants, and now, a week later, the only time he went back into the nursery was to sleep.
In the mornings he was up early helping James with the horses, and later he"d come into the kitchen and offer his help there. His sunny nature and obvious delight at being let into the servants" world affected everyone. All the normal rigid structure of the day had collapsed, work was done in the early mornings or evenings when it was cooler, meals were far simpler. A table and chairs were taken out into the stable yard, and even Albert, who normally only came in for a drink, gulped it down and left, now sat down at the table and joined in the conversations.
Hope could not remember ever hearing so much laughter at Briargate. One afternoon Baines had taught her, Rufus and Ruth a new card game, on another Rose had instructed them all on making corn dollies. But what Hope liked best of all was that she and Rufus could be together.
At first they were careful to behave as though they barely knew each other, but as the days pa.s.sed no one seemed to notice or care about any over-familiarity. Baines did point out one Sunday morning when they were going to church that Hope should walk sedately and not run with Rufus like a hoyden, but it was only a very gentle reminder of her position, not a real rebuke.
"He"ll be hiding somewhere hoping one of you will come past so he can jump out on you," Hope said. "I"ll go and look for him."
She left the kitchen quickly, because she was pretty certain of where Rufus might be, although she just couldn"t imagine why he"d gone there now when it was nearly suppertime.
Once over the paddock fence, Hope picked up her skirts and ran to the woods. On Wednesday Baines had let her go off at eleven in the morning. Matt and Amy had been busy with the harvest so she"d only stayed with them for a couple of hours and met Rufus in the woods much earlier than she normally did. They"d found an old boat among the reeds around the pond, and they"d spent much of the time trying to get it out. Rufus had talked excitedly about bringing some tools down so they could mend it and use it on the pond.
She guessed that was exactly what Rufus was doing now, hoping to surprise her and not noticing how late it was getting.
It was much cooler in the woods, and the paths that had been so well defined earlier in the year were now overgrown with weeds and brambles. Hope knew every inch of the woods, but in places it was hard to get through, and in her haste the brambles caught at her hair and scratched her cheeks and hands.
She called to him as she hurried along, urging him to come out because she guessed Ruth would soon send James or Albert down this way. But Rufus didn"t answer, and when she stood still for a moment to listen, she couldn"t hear anything other than birdsong.
By the time she got to the pond she was out of breath and very hot. Once again she called and listened, but she could hear nothing. Almost the entire surface of the pond was covered with weed and water lilies and teeming with midges which bombarded her as she drew nearer the water. She couldn"t see the boat as it was tucked up in reeds on the far side of the pond, but if Rufus had been there, she surely would have been able to see or hear him.
She stood there for a few moments, undecided what to do next. The voice of reason told her she was mistaken in thinking he"d be here and she should go back to Briargate, but a cold feeling at the pit of her stomach urged her to go round the pond and make absolutely certain.
They had found the boat when they had approached the pond from the other side, but it was very difficult to get round there from where she was now. In winter the stream which fed the pond was often a raging torrent; now it was nothing more than a trickle. But reeds, weeds and brambles had covered the still-damp mud, and she had to pick her way carefully through them. She could hear Albert and James shouting out Rufus"s name in the distance too, coming down towards the wood, so she had to be quick for if they found her here she"d have a lot of explaining to do.
Finally she reached the boat, and saw it was half-turned on its side, the keel towards her. She knew then that Rufus had been here for it had been lying flat on Wednesday.
Fear clutched at her innards, for she sensed that he"d either got into the water to try to move it, or slipped from the reed bed as he worked the boat loose. He couldn"t swim, he"d told her that the first time they"d come here. And even a good swimmer would have difficulty in water choked with reeds.
Hope wrenched off her boots, dress, petticoat and stockings, and wearing just her chemise plunged into the water and went round the prow of the boat.
She saw him then, completely submerged but for his head which appeared to be resting on reeds. There was an angry gash on his forehead.
Panic made her forget she didn"t know how deep the water was and that she couldn"t swim either. Suddenly there was nothing beneath her feet and she sank under the water. She thrashed her arms and legs and managed to get her head above the surface again just long enough to reach out for the side of the boat. Spluttering and spitting out pond water, she managed to work her way along the boat till she reached Rufus.
The way he looked was all too reminiscent of her father when she found him dead. "Rufus!" she pleaded with him, splashing some water on his face. "You can"t be dead! Wake up and speak to me!"
But there was no response, and hearing James and Albert calling somewhere nearby, she put back her head and screamed out to them to come to the pond.
As she heard their footsteps thundering towards her, twigs cracking, birds flying off in alarm, she hooked her free arm under Rufus"s head and drew him closer to her.
All the warnings she"d had from her parents and older brothers about playing by water came back to her in those long moments while she waited for James and Albert to reach her. She should have pa.s.sed those warnings on to Rufus. He was younger than her, and what could he know about dangers when he had spent all his young life in a safe nursery or driving in a carriage with his mama? She"d brought him here. She was responsible for his death.
Sobbing, she still held on to him, kissing his face, begging his forgiveness for not protecting him. She barely felt the cold water or the midges biting her, she was entirely focused on his sweet young face, and all that they had become to each other.
"Hope!" she heard James yell from the far side of the pond. "Where are you?"
"Over here," she shrieked back. "Rufus has fallen in by an old boat in the reeds. I"m holding him up."
There was a loud splash as James plunged in, and all at once she saw him swimming through the tangle of water lilies, dark hair slicked back from his face and his eyes mirroring her own terror.
"I think he"s already dead," she managed to stammer out. "His face was out of the water when I found him but he"s. .h.i.t his head."
James trod water as he looked at Rufus, then he began to swim away on his back, taking the boy with him, supporting him with a hand on either side of his head. "Hold on tightly, Hope," he called out. "I"ll be back for you."
He disappeared from her view, but she heard Albert"s voice and further splashing as the two men got Rufus up on to the bank.
It seemed a very long time that she waited. Both men"s voices were muted, and it looked to her as though they were so distraught about Rufus that they"d forgotten her. Fear and the cold water made her teeth chatter. It wouldn"t just be her who would be blamed for this, but all the servants. Yet terrible as that was, the thought of Lady Harvey"s grief at losing her only child was worse.
She couldn"t bring herself to call out to remind James she was there and she was too frightened to try to reach shallow water by herself. But all at once James was back, reaching out for her just as he had for Rufus, telling her to lie still and not struggle or she"d pull him under.
Albert"s big hands came under her arms and she was plucked from the water and put down on the bank beside Rufus.
After the cold water, the sunshine felt very hot. "Is he...?" she asked, but found herself unable to finish the question because James and Albert were looking down at her so intently.
"He"s fine, thanks to you," James said. "The bang on the head knocked him out. But if he"d been there much longer he"d have sunk right in and drowned."
Hope could hardly bear to turn her head to look at her friend; she was sure James was trying to spare her feelings. But as her eyes finally fell on Rufus"s bare legs and feet, and she saw one move, she felt bold enough to turn completely.
Albert was washing the wound on his forehead and she could hear Rufus whimpering.
"Oh, thank G.o.d!" she exclaimed. "I thought he was dead."
James went round the pond and found her clothes and boots, but he had to put her dress on for her as she was shaking too much to do it herself. Albert picked Rufus up in his arms and carried him, and she and James followed on silently behind.
James"s silence on the way back was all the confirmation she needed to know that she was in serious trouble. She would surely be dismissed now, for she was to blame even if Rufus had survived. She had never needed Nell more, and although Albert had not yet laid into her, she was sure that was only because he was distracted by taking care of Rufus. Once they got back to Briargate he was certain to give her a beating.
Martha, Ruth, Baines and Rose all crowded round Rufus once they were back in the kitchen. They had wrapped him in a blanket and given him a hot drink, and Baines was telling him what a scare he"d given everyone.
"It were Hope who found him," James declared as Ruth began to praise him. "She stripped off her clothes and went in to get him. If she hadn"t held his head out of the water he would have drowned. What a brave la.s.s she were, she can"t swim either."
Suddenly everyone"s attention was turned on Hope, but although this much of the story was true, she couldn"t bask in their admiration. She knew it was only a matter of minutes before Rufus spilled out about their secret meetings and how they had found the boat.
Martha put a cup of tea in her shaking hands, and smoothed her wet hair back from her face. "How did you know where to look for him?" she asked.
"I don"t know," Hope whimpered.
Ruth put some pans of water on the stove to heat for a bath for Rufus, and Hope saw how badly shaken she was for her face was white and her movements jerky. She let Baines dress the wound on Rufus"s forehead, but she took his hand in hers and asked in a plaintive voice why he"d gone to the woods.
At that Hope felt really sick because she realized Ruth thought her job was in jeopardy now: she was the nursemaid and she"d let the young master go off on his own. All at once Hope was sobbing; she could bear punishment herself, but not the thought of Ruth or anyone else in the room being blamed for something she"d done.
"Why is Hope crying?" Rufus asked, his clear, high voice ringing out.
"Because she thought you were dead, Master Rufus," Baines replied. "You might very well have drowned if it hadn"t been for her."
"Let me see her?" Rufus asked, and nudging Ruth away from him, he came padding over to Hope, still wrapped in his blanket.
"Don"t cry, Hope," he said, using a bit of the blanket to dry her eyes. "Look, I"m fine. You were very clever to find me, and I"m sorry if I frightened you."