18 Broken Glass #2
Cal knew the instant he entered Briar House that the boy was there. He couldn’t say how he knew — something different in the air, perhaps. Some swirl of dust when someone had passed by, or a waft of fresh air from an open window, but he was there, without a shadow of a doubt.
He removed his boots and crept through the house and up the stairs to the bedroom that had recently been cleaned. Then, slowly, carefully, he turned the handle and inched open the door.
Timmy was fast asleep, rolled in blankets on the far side of the room. Even when Cal stepped into the room and softly closed the door behind him, the boy didn’t stir. It was only when Cal stood over him, casting a shadow across his face, that Timmy woke with a yell of fear.
“Don’t let them transport me, Mr Garford, sir! Me ma’d be that upset, and I’m all she’s got apart from Sukey, and she’s no use. I ain’t done nothin’, I swear!”
“Nothing?” Cal said, crouching down on his haunches as the boy disentangled himself from the blankets.
“Nothin’ at all! Cept runnin’ away, I s’pose.”
“So why did you run, if you’ve done nothing wrong?”
“They would’ve thought it was me — bound to.
I sleep in the kitchen, so who else could’a done it?
There’s folk about every hour from when Dora opens up the fire first thing to when Mr Froggett checks it’s banked prop’ly last thing, but at night — there’s only me, ain’t there? So they’s bound to think it was me.”
“But it wasn’t?”
“No! I never took no tea, never, I swear it, Mr Garford. You gotta believe me! I’d swear it on the Bible, so I would. Never taken nothin’, cept mebbe a bit of something come down from the dinin’ room and not wanted. When I was hungry. Well, I’m always hungry. But I never took no tea.”
“And you’d swear on the Bible?”
“Aye, I would.”
“Then let’s see if there’s a Bible somewhere about the place.”
It took them more than an hour to scour the various dust-encrusted rooms for a Bible, but they eventually found one in one of the bedrooms. Cal removed the worst of the dust with his sleeve.
“There now,” Cal said, holding the book out towards Timmy. “Place your hand on the Holy Book and swear to me that you never stole the tea.”
“I never!” Timmy said, resting one hand on the Bible. “As God is my witness and may He smite me down if I lie, I never stole nothin’ from Staineybank, no tea, no nothin’. The odd bite of food that would’a bin thrown away, but nothin’ else, I swear it!”
“Then you know what you ought to do?” Cal said.
“What?”
“Go back to Staineybank and say all this to Mr Richard Merrington.”
“I dursn’t!”
“It’s the only way. Tell him you’re very sorry you ran away, but you didn’t steal the tea.”
Timmy chewed his lip uncertainly. “You think he’d take me back?”
“He might. There’s no saying with him, but he won’t if you stay in hiding like this.”
“Will you come with me?”
Cal gave a bark of laughter. “That wouldn’t help you! I’m not the most popular person with Mr Richard just now.”
“Cos his ma’s sweet on you? Aye, he wouldn’t like that!
But us below stairs thinks it’s a good thing.
Widows shouldn’t be sad forever, that’s what Mrs Bright says.
It’s lovely to see how happy she is, she says.
Mr Froggett says we shouldn’t notice such things or if we do, we shouldn’t talk about them, but we do, all the same.
Everyone likes his ma. She’s a kind lady.
She deserves to be happy. So Mr Froggett says. ”
This exchange lifted Cal’s spirits hugely.
He was glad to know that Timmy was innocent of stealing, but he was even more cheered to hear that the servants were not censorious of Cora’s behaviour.
Not that the servants’ opinions would weigh with Richard, but it was, perhaps, indicative of how the world would view it.
He could not persuade Timmy to return to Staineybank that day — ‘I gotta see Ma first, and work meself up to it, see’ — so he walked back alone, stopping briefly at Woodend Cottage to tell Betty what had happened.
“They’ll ’ave ’im up before the magistrate and ’e’ll be locked up, fer certain,” she said at once.
“Not if he swears it wasn’t him,” Cal said.
“Who’d believe ’im, a bit of a boy like that?”
“I believe him, and there will be others. There’s some doubt about whether any tea was taken at all, so—”
“Is there? Why’d they call in Archie Buckley, then?”
“They only wanted everyone to deny it so that if there was a thief, he would know he was being watched and would stop. There was no intention to actually lock anyone up. Tell Timmy that. See if you can persuade him to go back to Staineybank, because he can’t hide away forever.”
“Aye, I’ll try,” she said, but she sounded dubious.
This was not very promising, but Cal could not be downcast, not when he could look forward to Cora’s visit that night. He was beginning to feel secure in the hope that he could always look forward to Cora’s visits. She seemed determined not to be deterred by Richard’s opposition.
In this, Cal underestimated Richard’s determination to put an end to their liaison. When he returned to the hut, Richard was there, sitting on the sofa with a pile of books beside him.
“Mr Merrington,” Cal said, making his bow. “An unexpected pleasure.”
“These are my father’s books,” Richard said, ice dripping from every word.
“Your mother thought they might interest me.”
“She had no business taking them from Leahollow and giving them to you. These are mine.” He pointed to the inscribed flyleaf on the book he held.
“If you want them back, you can have them. I wouldn’t like to take anything of yours.”
“You took my mother!” Richard spat, snapping the book shut and jumping to his feet. “You were not so restrained about that!”
“She’s not yours, Mr Merrington. She’s a free woman.”
“But you are not free. You are an employee on this estate and bound to obey my orders, yet you do not. I told you not to see my mother again and yet you do.”
“Her choice,” Cal said calmly. “She can do as she pleases, I believe.”
“Do as she pleases!” He made an exasperated ‘Ha!’, before pacing across the room and back.
“She is weak and foolish, and doing as she pleases will ruin her. It is for men to protect her from her base instincts, but you — you do nothing! She could have broken her neck the other night falling through that window.”
“That was your doing, I believe, sir. If you had not changed the lock on the—”
“And if you did not entice her into disobedience—!” He again paced across the room and then planted himself in front of Cal, so close that he was obliged to lean back a little, but his tone when he spoke was measured.
“This must end, Garford. I will not have this wilful and malicious disruption to the smooth existence of my family. I want you gone from Staineybank.”
Cal was a good head taller than Richard, so he looked down at him thoughtfully. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure! You have been nothing but trouble since you arrived, and why you are here at all is more than I can fathom. Garth was the one summoned, not you. But you have no business here.”
“I have a contract with the duke — employment, housing, salary all guaranteed.”
“You have breached the terms of any agreement by this unspeakable dalliance with my mother. I stand in the duke’s place while he is in town, and I say you must go, contract or no contract.”
“If you feel it best, then by all means,” Cal said.
Richard’s eyebrows rose slightly at this easy capitulation. “Indeed it is for the best, as everyone rational must acknowledge.”
“It will take me a day or two to organise transportation.”
“Certainly, but no longer. I want you removed from my mother’s vicinity as soon as may be. We are agreed, then?”
“We are agreed.”
Although he still looked suspicious, Richard could hardly argue further. Without another word, he strode out of the hut and left, heading back to the house by way of the woods and the orangery.
Cal fortified himself with a pot of ale, and then set out to walk to the village.