Daisychain Summer

Yet if Elliot knew – or even suspected – why had he kept a still tongue? Was he ashamed of what he had done, that early spring evening in France, or would he, one day in a future so distant that they would have all completely forgotten about it, claim Drew as his own?

She lifted her chin, setting her mouth tightly. He would not, could not claim Drew. Drew belonged to Rowangarth and there was nothing Elliot Sutton could do about it!

Gently, she touched the sleep-flushed cheek. Drew was hers, the child she and Andrew had never made together, and she would go to any lengths to keep him.

‘Goodnight, little one,’ she whispered – and why, oh why, should even the sight of her cousin evoke such revulsion inside her, make her wish, passionately, that he too had been killed. ‘Any lengths at all, Drew, I promise you …’

Tom gave his best boots a final rub, then clasped on his leggings. To be summoned to Windrush at all was unusual; to be sent for in such haste at nine o’clock at night made him wonder what the blazes Mr Hillier was about.

But doubtless it was about a new gun his employer was eager to buy or some such matter that could well have waited until morning, truth known.

‘Won’t be long, love,’ he smiled, kissing Alice’s cheek. ‘I’ll be back to rock Daisy off, once you’ve fed her …’

‘Come on in, Dwerryhouse and sit you down!’ Ralph Hillier called as the footman closed the door behind him.

‘Sir?’ Tom frowned, unused to being invited to sit in his employer’s presence.

‘Sit down, man,’ he ordered irritably. ‘I’ll not keep you. Just wanted a word about things in general – and maybe get to know what’s going on in the hut at Six Oaks. I saw a light in it. Didn’t go to investigate – that’s your job. Was it you, in there? Didn’t know you’d started night patrols, yet.’

‘With respect, sir, if I’d been on the lookout for poachers, I’d not have lit the lamp in the hut,’ Tom laughed. ‘Don’t go letting them know I’m around!’

‘So you weren’t out after poachers?’

‘No, Mr Hillier, though if there were any about, I hope they saw that light – worry ’em a bit! Fact is, there’s a roadster in the hut – a decent man to my way of thinking,’ he hastened. ‘Down on his luck and tramping in search of work – if tramp you can call it, with one foot injured bad.’

‘War wounded, was he?’ Ralph Hillier had not fought in the war; his lame leg had seen to that.

‘Aye, though without a pension to help keep him. Seems the brasshats decided he’d done it deliberate and didn’t deserve one.’

‘And had he?’

‘He said not, and I believed him. The man was once a keeper. If he’d wanted to work his ticket home, he’d have done a neater job on his foot, to my way of thinking.’

‘So you said he could sleep in the hut?’

‘Only for a couple of nights – cook the rabbit he’d taken. Thin as a rake – nothing of him – and a wife and bairn back home in Cornwall. I hope I did right.’

‘You did, though you might have thought to mention it, first. Skin and bone, you said?’ Ralph Hillier had a guilty conscience about the war. Not only had he not fought in it, he had made a lot of money from it, buying and selling army supplies. ‘Hungry, was he?’

‘Half starved, from the looks of him. I gave him my sandwiches to tide him over till he got the rabbit in the pot.’

‘A job,’ Ralph Hillier frowned, rising impatiently, standing back to the fire. ‘There’s no one going to employ a man that’s lame, now is there?’

‘There isn’t, sir – unless it’s a gentleman with a bit of compassion in him, like.’

‘Now what kind of job could I give him, Dwerryhouse? Cleaning shoes? Running errands? Dammit – that wasn’t the right thing to say, was it?’

‘Yon’ Purvis won’t run anywhere again.’

‘Purvis? You got his name, then?’

‘I did. He was on my beat – it’s my business to get it.’

‘It is. And you’d say he was all right?’

‘I don’t know about him being all right, sir, but I believed what he told me about his wife and bairn and about the army cheating him out of a pension. But I’ll move him on in the morning, if that’s what you want.’

‘I don’t want it, and you know it!’ Ralph Hillier snapped. ‘If the man is genuine then it’s my duty to do something for him. If I gave him a couple of pounds to help him on his way, d’you think he’d spend it in the nearest ale house?’

‘That I can’t say, though if you’ve got a pair of boots you’ve no need of, I think they’d serve him better. The ones he’s wearing aren’t a lot of use.’

‘I see.’ He gazed long into the fire before he said, ‘And if you were me, Dwerryhouse, what would you want to do for him?’

‘I’d want to set him and his family up in Willow End Cottage and give him a job as dog boy.’

There now, he’d said it. He looked down at the toes of his boots.

‘You would, eh? But then, you’re a crafty devil, aren’t you, Dwerryhouse. In need of another keeper, aren’t we? Is that what you’re getting at?’

‘No, sir. If I’m to speak truthfully, I can manage this estate nicely on my own – well, near as dammit. I could do with a hand, though – especially at rearing time. I’m not one for buying fancy feed for chicks; like to make my own. Someone to see to the dogs and mix the feed – help generally with the rearing – would suit me nicely. And him once being a keeper, he could school your dogs – keep ’em in form.’

‘Ha! And how’s that little girl of yours, eh?’

‘She’s grand, thank you kindly. Smiled, this morning, for the first time.’

‘I see. And is that usual?’

‘Alice says it is. Next thing, she’ll be chuckling, I’m told,’ Tom grinned, eager to talk about Daisy yet sad his suggestion had fallen on barren ground. ‘I was doing a blackbird for her – you know, that tock-tocking they give out when they’ve been alarmed. It must have tickled her fancy.’

‘A blackbird?’ Tock-tocking, whatever that was? ‘Willow End Cottage, did you say? But it’s in a bad state, or so I’m told.’

‘Don’t you believe it, Mr Hillier. Nothing that a good scrub out and a lick of paint won’t put right – and fires lit, regular, so it won’t go damp.’

‘Hmm.’ Again the gazing into the fire. ‘All right, then. I’ll hold you responsible for his good behaviour since he’ll come without references. He can have Willow End. Ten shillings a week as dog boy, all the fallen wood he can gather, and the usual rabbits. One month’s trial, after which he can send for his family. Is that all right?’

‘I’d say, sir, it’s a fine and kindly gesture and he’ll thank you for it. And Alice’ll be glad, having another woman living within earshot, an’ all – especially when I’m out nights watching the woods.’

‘Right, then. You’d better tell him in the morning. And don’t forget to let them know in the estate office!’ Abruptly, he picked up his newspaper, the interview over. ‘And not a penny more’n half a sovereign, remember!’

‘Right you are, sir. I’ll see myself out – and I reckon Purvis will do all right for Windrush.’

A bit of a come-down, Tom pondered, from keeper to dog boy, but ten shillings a week, a roof over his head and firewood and rabbits was more than a lot of men had, these days. And with luck there’d be a pair of boots thrown in, an’ all!

Not a bad bloke, Mr Hillier – for an employer, that was. A bit abrupt in his speaking, but he’d pulled himself up from nothing, talk had it, and didn’t have the easy way with words that real gentry were born with, Tom allowed.

He wished his father were alive, could tell him what had happened between him and Ralph Hillier. ‘The job of keeper is yours, Dwerryhouse,’ Mr Hillier had said. ‘I owe your father a favour from a long way back, though you might not know it. If your references are all right, you can start at once.’

That had been two years ago, though what the favour, nor when, Tom had never discovered. Sufficient that a deserter should get a job so easily, he’d thought gratefully and left it at that.