Chapter 6 Getting to Know the Rutherfurds #2
So I did, with growing interest. Margaret wrote all too honestly.
She didn’t like her boss, John Rutherfurd, one bit.
He was charming to his customers and anyone else he thought important, but behind the scenes he squeezed every effort out of his workforce and docked their wages for the smallest of faults.
‘Betty Hayes’s husband Eric also worked there and when Betty was ill for a few days, he asked for time off to be with her, but Rutherfurd wouldn’t have it,’ Margaret wrote.
‘Poor Betty wasn’t the same when she came back, and soon after, she left.
I think that was a shame for her, but it was good for me because I got her job.
That was 1938.’ The year my gran was born, I thought.
Was that why Betty left, because she was pregnant? Margaret didn’t say.
I read on and came to the bit that must have interested Kyle.
By 1938, John Rutherfurd’s son Andrew was also working at the brewery.
He’d been away at university, but his father wanted him in the business.
‘I could see that Andrew hated the work,’ Margaret wrote, ‘but he wasn’t given the choice.
That’s how things were in those days. Andrew had two younger sisters and their father bullied them, too.
They were Diana and Esme, who was known as Bird.
Farthington House was not a happy place.
My mother said John Rutherfurd was a tyrant.
Everyone had to do what he said. Bird was his favourite though. ’
I turned the page, but Margaret had nothing more to say about the Rutherfurds.
‘That’s it,’ Kyle confirmed. ‘Early in 1939 she left the brewery and went to work in the office of a factory near Norwich where they’d started to make war planes. Later she trained as a librarian then became a Labour councillor in Norwich. The book finishes in 1980 when she retires.’
‘I supposed she’s passed away by now,’ I said, working it out. ‘Or she’d be a hundred and seven! But you’re right, she’s given us a few clues about your family.’
‘And yours, it seems!’
We looked at each other and I felt a sudden strong connection to him. Whatever the secrets of the Rutherfurd family, I was beginning to sense that they affected both of us. I told him about my own research and my visit to the church. ‘Where do we look for clues next?’ I wondered.
He stared at the blank TV screen and shook his head. ‘I’m not sure, but after reading Margaret Jary’s book yesterday, I went to confront Aunt Julia.’
‘And how did that go?’
‘Fairly useless.’ He looked at me with a grin. ‘Stubborn as a mule!’
I smiled grimly, then a thought occurred. ‘Would you like me to go and try again? She might feel more at ease talking to another woman.’
‘Are you sure?’ His face lit up then quickly clouded with doubt. ‘She knows you’re a journalist so she might not be willing.’
‘I’m used to getting information out of people,’ I said with more certainty than I felt.
He laughed then said in a teasing voice, ‘What have you got out of me then?’
I looked round, noticing an abstract painting on the wall and a shelf of books. ‘I can tell a lot from your home. You have modern tastes, but like reading history.’
‘That’s easy, I’ve just renovated a Victorian house!’
‘The modern bit is a contradiction,’ I smiled, easing myself more comfortably onto the sofa. ‘We haven’t talked about your own birth family, how you came to inherit the house.’
His smile vanished. ‘My dad died suddenly a few years ago.’
A brief silence. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘So did my mum.’
We could not look at one another for sadness, but I heard him swallow. Finally, he said, ‘It’s hard, isn’t it.’
‘Yup.’ I brushed a piece of fluff from my jeans.
We talked about our loss for a while and I was amazed at the ease of it.
Dad found it very difficult to talk about Mum and always put a brave face on for the world.
Kyle’s mum had found a new partner and absorbed herself in a new life.
He had an elder sister, who’d married and moved away with her young family.
‘Dad never mentioned Farthington House,’ Kyle continued.
‘We had no contact with that side of the family. Stephen’s son Arthur, my great-grandad, only knew his dead father as a faded photograph on the mantelpiece.
Tragic, isn’t it? Then Arthur himself died in battle in 1944.
He was only twenty-six. So you can see how the connections were broken. ’
‘It was a shock then, when you were told you’d inherited this place.’
‘A solicitor got in touch shortly before Christopher’s death.
Christopher knew he was dying, you see.’ He paused briefly.
‘To say I was surprised is an understatement. I was living with my girlfriend at the time in her one-bedroom flat. I was paying Sophie rent and wondering where my life was going. And all of a sudden, I was about to inherit a big house! Sophie and I discussed it endlessly, whether I should sell it, where we might live. It should have solved all my problems, but I was upset about Dad and I became pretty miserable to live with.’
‘You broke up?’
He nodded. ‘Christopher had died by then and once all the legal stuff was sorted out, I made the move. I’d fallen in love with the house, you see.’
‘And you haven’t looked back,’ I said brightly.
‘Yes, I have, actually. I like Farthington.’ He paused. ‘But it’s been lonelier than I expected.’
We were silent again. I knew about loneliness. Moving from London to Cambridge had been freeing in many ways, but I hadn’t yet made a network of friends there and now, of course, I was staying with Dad.
Kyle was glancing at his watch and I gathered up my things, worried I’d overstayed my welcome. ‘I’ll pop over and see Julia now, shall I?’ I asked.
‘Do you mind making your own way? I’m afraid I have another Zoom call to make. A magazine I’m designing; the client is very demanding.’
I thought about Amaya’s perfectionism with Our Heritage and smiled. ‘I’ll let you know how I get on,’ I promised.
As he was showing me out, he said softly, ‘Hey. Thank you. I hope I haven’t bored you. It’s been good to talk.’
‘Of course you haven’t bored me!’ I said, dismayed that he’d even think it. I thought we were becoming more relaxed with one another and realized with surprise that this was important to me.