Chapter Three
THREE
‘NEED ANY HELP with that?’
Tom looks up at the sound of my voice, head swivelling round till he locates me leaning on the orchard gate.
He’s been in with the fruit trees all morning, picking up the last of the windfall apples and chucking them into a wheelbarrow.
They’ve made quite the heap – a glorious tumble of reds, golds and greens.
Tom’s now seated before them on a three-legged milking stool, pawing over his spoils and variously throwing them into one of a trio of large tin tubs.
‘Well, if you like.’ He nods me over. ‘Always happy for the company.’
‘What’re you doing, then?’ I ask.
Tom bumps the nearest bucket with his foot. ‘Freshest ones for eating,’ he says. Bumps the next. ‘Manky ones for juicing.’ Then the third. ‘Rotten ones for the compost.’
‘Got it.’ I squat down, waving away a sudden spate of charity in Tom that makes him offer me the stool. Take an apple from the barrow. Not too bad. I put it in the ‘eating’ tub. ‘What do you do with the ones for juicing?’
‘I’ve got a cider press in the shed,’ says Tom. ‘I’ll show you later, if you like? It’s a bit of fun.’
‘Go on, then.’ Working like this with Tom reminds me of my Land Army days; the easy companionship that springs from shared labour. He’s less to look at than those girls, though! ‘And what about the ones for eating? Good fresh, are they?’
‘More for cooking,’ says Tom. ‘Nora does a lovely crumble.’
Mrs Allen hasn’t brought up my spying since she caught me last week, and I’m not sure if she’s mentioned it to Tom, though I think most likely not. Still, I have a suspicion I haven’t heard the last of it from her. ‘Can I ask you a question, Tom?’
Squelch of an apple landing in the compost tub. ‘Whenever you like.’
‘Have I done something to upset Mrs Allen?’
He looks confused by this, a furrow appearing on his sun-tanned brow. ‘I can’t see how you would have.’
I flick a wasp away from where it’s investigating my hands. ‘I get the sense she isn’t that pleased to have me here, is all.’
‘Nora? Nah.’ Tom shakes his head. ‘Tell you what, if it’s anything, it’s that she just weren’t keen on having another live-in – she wanted someone daily from down the village.
Mr Reacher and her had a bit of a disagreement over it.
But fact is, nobody from the village wants anything to do with us anyway. ’
Reacher had also said no one wanted the job. But if that was the case, there’d be no reason for Mrs Allen to hold it against me. I can’t help thinking there’s more to the story. ‘Why’s that, then?’ I ask.
Tom scratches his chin with one thumb. There’s a little scab from where he’s nicked himself shaving.
‘Now, I’m not one for gossip’ – not the impression I’ve got from him so far – ‘but let’s just say that them lot in the village haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with the Lascys.
I told you about his Lordship – Henry Lascy, that is – selling off all that land.
Most of it went to this chap called Gerrish, who rents it back to them at an increased cost – and even the farmers who had enough to buy their own patch off Lord Lascy outright are struggling now, what with everything.
’ I know the headlines: plunging post-war land value, food prices pushed down by import, repeat foot-and-mouth epidemics wiping out the livestock.
‘Folks don’t forget, and they blame the Lascys for it, like his Lordship knew what was coming when he sold up.
’ Tom shakes his head to show he doesn’t buy into this himself.
‘But it’s not fair to hold that against Lady Lascy, either way, especially after all her hardships. ’
‘Hardships?’ I ask, setting aside another apple for the compost. So many of them already gone to rot.
‘She’s had a bad run of it,’ sighs Tom, expression solemn, but a twinkle in his eye to say he was hoping I’d ask. ‘Her poor parents passed back in 1911 – an unfortunate accident in the lake – and since then, Lady Lascy’s also lost all four brothers. A tragic waste, it really is.’
The manor house seems even larger for a moment: all those people missing from its rooms. ‘That can’t have been easy for her,’ I say.
I haven’t told Tom about the strange needlepoint.
There’s a faint impulse to keep it private, as though it’s a secret I share with my reclusive new employer.
‘What were they like, her family?’ I ask instead.
‘I’ve been here for thirty-odd years, and they’ve always been good to me. I had some of my own family trouble a while back, you see. My brother … He passed away. Wife and three kiddies left behind.’
I mumble a noise in sympathy.
Tom shakes his head. ‘It was a hard time for us all, but the Lascys were the first to offer their help – his Lordship paid for the funeral. Even gave me a bit of extra money to put aside for the young ’uns.’
‘And her Ladyship?’
‘Oh, she’s been very decent to me, too. Still had my job for me after the war, and not all the men who came back could say the same.’ He pauses to flick a small spider from his sleeve. ‘I owe them a lot, I really do.’
Once all the apples are sorted, Tom goes to fetch the press out of the shed.
We start off with me quartering the apples and Tom mulching them.
He’s produced yet more buckets to place under the press spout, gathering the juice as it overflows.
Then we swap over, Tom showing me how to work the machine.
It takes more force than it looks: I have to turn the crank round and round against increasing resistance as the apple flesh compresses, and the whole contraption is rickety with age and prone to losing its balance if shoved too forcefully.
But the hard work is rewarded quickly with the froth and dribble of juice.
A cloudy, deep amber-brown liquid, filled with swirling murk.
‘We’ll strain that right out,’ says Tom.
‘Bit of cheese cloth. No problem.’ We’ve both worked up a sweat, hair clinging damp to our foreheads.
Tom pats himself over for a hanky. ‘Ah, that reminds me.’ Pulls a small, silver picture frame from one of his pockets.
He must have fetched it when he was off looking for the press.
‘Thought you might like to see this, as you were asking.’
I wipe my pulp-covered hands on the grass before reaching out to take it.
A photographic portrait of a family posed in a garden.
After a moment, I recognize the location as the west lawn here at Harfold, the lake and boathouse in the background.
There’s a pompous-looking man in a suit and tie, seated at the centre.
Bareheaded, squinting as if in bright light.
Large gut and a face that melts into beard.
A woman sits beside him, one hand touching his elbow.
She wears a light summer dress, high-necked with long, lace sleeves, and a floral sun hat.
Pearls at her throat. She seems to be smiling, but trying not to, as if the formality of Victorian portraits is still on her mind.
Standing around this couple are six younger people, ages spanning from childhood to early adulthood.
To the left are four larger boys – men, really.
One has almost succeeded in growing a thin moustache.
Then, to the right-hand side, another boy – definitely the proper word this time – around twelve or so.
He has the gangly, awkward look that comes after a growth spurt and before bulking out.
Thick eye-glasses. A young Maurice Reacher, I realize.
Then finally, standing a little distance from him as if she doesn’t appreciate the placement, a girl.
Perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Her hair is dark, worn up in an adult woman’s pompadour, and she sports a raffish necktie.
Though she’s barely more than a child, her self-possession sings clear from the print.
‘That’s her, is it?’
Tom nods. ‘And there’s Rex, Harry, Stephen and Charlie. And Mr Reacher, of course.’
But my attention stays caught on the girl – the same person, maybe, as the one who stitched my portrait, who sneaked into my cottage. It’s only when Tom clears his throat that I see he has his hand out to take back the frame. I have been too busy staring at her face to notice.
At the north of Harfold’s grounds, the stretch of woodland leading up to the main road fans out on either side of the driveway, spanning as far as the orchard wall to the west and the river to the east. This acreage is largely Tom’s to look after, but a shaded footpath from the statue garden leads to a little clearing with a wildlife pond, which it’s my job to oversee.
Unlike its tidy counterpart in the water garden, this pond is rugged and full of character.
Leaving behind the apple juicing, I head up here to cut back and divide the plants from the water’s edges: yellow flags, marsh marigold, golden sedge, water mint and reedmace. The day’s cooler here under the thick leaf cover. A dragonfly drifts past my face. A calm spot.