Francesca Shaw - The Unconventional Miss Dane Read online

  Antonia returned the shrewd glance with a guilty smile. 'l know, Donna; it is pride, Ihm afraid, the pride of the Danes, I cannot bear to have people know to what straits we have been reduced. And after that humiliating encounter yesterday. -. "

  Miss Donaldson was too wise a woman to pursue the topic, but as she gathered up the teacups, she thought that there must have been more to yesterday's events than had been recounted to her. There was atension that was almost palpable between that man and her young friend.

  "At least we now have two rooms that are habitable and we can eat and sleep in cleanliness and relative comfort." Antonia replaced the tea cups on the ~reshly scrubbed oak dresser. "Let us undertake a complete survey of the house and see what we have in the way of furniture and linen."

  It took them until three in the afternoon to complete their tour, Antonia was sitting at the kitchen table, sorting the disappointingly short lists of furniture remaining, while Donna sliced bread and butter for their belated luncheon.

  "Father must have either sold a great deal or it has had to go to satisfy the creditors," she sighed sadly. "All the lovely French pieces from my mother's chamber and the blue drawings room have gone.

  By the time we have thrown away the pieces that are too full of worm to keep, we will be rattling around like two peas in a drum."

  Miss Donaldson aid down a platter and paused on her way to fetch the butter to con the lists. "You know, my dear, this list would be quite adequate if only we were in a modest house. I do not say that everything is of the first height of elegance, but it will be passable with polishing and some repairs. The linen needs darning, but' it is of good quality." '

  "If wishes were horses, Donna... We are in a mansion with twenty-two rooms, to say nothing of the servants' quarters, Unless we move into the stables, there is no smaller accommodation." Antonia cut a piece of bread and butter, her brow furrowing in thought.

  "The one saving grace i~ that, with the exception of those few slates off on the west wing, the fabric of the house appears remarkably sound, It needs cleaning and many minor repairs, but nothing beyond the skill of the village craftsmen. We must fashion ourselves a small suite of rooms and close up the rest of the house,"

  Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of young Jem looking mightily pleased with himself. He was laden with two wicker baskets, one Of which was brimful of provisions, the other spilling over with kittens.

  "Good heavens, Jem! I asked for one cat, not every stray in the village!" ~ ~

  The boy extracted a fine tabby from the centre of~e basket. "But she,s just had kittens, miss, and she's a good mouser. With all the kittens she'll work even harder, miss, and when they grow t~p, they'll be catching, too,"

  "Well done, Jem, that is a sensible thought," Antonia praised him.

  "There are certainly enough mice in this house to feed such a hopeful family. Put the basket in the scullery and find her a saucer of water."

  Donna inspected the shopping while the cat was settled

  3! into her new home. "This is excellent, Jem." As she sorrel through she asked, "Did you manage to engage the char women for us? And the rat catcher

  "Widow Brown and her daughter will be coming in first light tomorrow.

  The rat catcher can't come until Wednesday, but he's bringing his dogs and a boy, s they'll do the house and the stables and all. And my da says, I ought to do the chimneys for you."

  The lad gratefully accepted a platter of bread an cheese from Donna and set to with a will, talking wit his mouth full. "I got the provisions from Berkhamste my mum saying I should, you being Quality, like. Ever) one is pleased to hear the Hall is occupied again, I 'spe you'll have lots of tradesmen calling..."

  Antonia left Donna pinning old sacking over the firm places while Jem readied a motley collection of brush~ and sticks to attack the chimneys. The sunshine was warm on her shoulders as she found the gate into the kitchen garden. The warm brick walls still retained the trained fruit trees, and the shape of the beds could ~ descried despite the rank growth of weeds and dead vegetables.

  She walked up and down the brick paths, looking hopefully for anything edible, but could recognise nothin except some mint and thyme. The fruit trees needed pruning, but the new growth on the fans was vigorous a~ were promising for later in the year. That exhausted 1~ sum of horticultural knowledge, which was worrying, for a flourishing kitchen garden would make all the difference to the degree of comfort they could expect.

  Jem had just emerged sootily from the kitchen chimn~ when Antonia returned to the house. "Is there any or in the village who would tend the kitchen garden for us, Jem?"

  He stood fidgeting on the piece of sackcloth to which Donna had banished him whilst she swept up his sooty footprints. "Old Walter Johnson, who used to do the gardens here, is still alive, miss. He's got the rheumatics something awful, but he knows what he's doing right enough, and he could bring a lad with him for the heavy digging."

  "That sounds excellent, if you think the old man can manage."

  "He'll do right enough, and be glad of the money. You could have had his eldest son, but he's in Hertford gaol."

  "Goodness!" Miss Donaldson exclaimed. "I do not think we would want to employ someone of that kind."

  "Was only poaching, miss. Caught red-handed, he was, and his lordship at Brightshill sent him down. He's devilish hard on poachers, is his lordship."

  "Lord Arlington, you mean?" Antonia enquired, flushing 'at the recollection of her own experience of his lordship's treatment of poachers. When Jem nodded, she asked, "Is poaching much of a problem around here, then, for him to be so strict?"

  "It has been--folks have got to eat, when all's said and done, but it'll be all right now you are here, miss," said Jem confidently.

  "There'll be work again on the land and the grounds and in the house, I'!1 bet bound But all your tenants have had it hard the last few years. A lot of families would have starved if it hadn't been for the odd pheasant or rabbit off your land or his lordship's?

  Antonia was suddenly consumed by a great blaze of anger against her father and brother for their negligence and profligate behaviour. She had been aware of the effect their ruinous ways had had on the family fortune and name and on her own prospects. Now she was reminded how they had betrayed their responsibility to their tenants, who seemed to be starving at the very gates of the Hall.

  And as for Lord Arlington, how could one defend a man who was willing to imprison breadwinners for putting food into the mouths of their children? It was iniquitous! The man was inhumane, there was no other word for him, she frowned inwardly. She knew that all landowners took a hard line over poaching, as they did over any offence against property, but surely a ratibnal man could show some leniency where people were starving?

  Looking uncharacteristically grim, she found Jem some coppers from her reticule for his days labours and sent him off home with an apple to munch and an injunction to approach the old gardener in the morning.

  After supper, Donna sat placidly cutting up hopelessly worn sheets to make pillowcases while Antonia remained at the table with a pile of papers and a quill pen.

  After an hour Donna, tired of hearing her heavy sighs, enquired, "What are you doing, my dear? It cannot be good for your eyes and it certainly seems to be giving you no satisfaction."

  'l am reviewing our financial position. You recall we agreed that we should be able to afford to engage a maid, a footman and a cook? "

  "Indeed. Were we mistaken? Do we have less money than we thought?"

  "No, we were accurate in our calculations. But, Donna, how can we in all conscience bring in smart town servants to look after our comfort and consequence when the people on the estate are in such straits? We must spend the money on charwomen and gardeners and men to do the repairs; then, at least, the money will be going to as many families as possible. You and I must look after our own clothes and do the light cleaning and the cooking."

  There was a short silence after
this outburst while Miss Donaldson removed and polished her pince-nez. "I applaud the sentiment, my dear, but I do at least think you should have a maid to end you some consequence and to answer the door. It is going to make receiving guests most difficult and what any prospective suitor would think..."

  "It will give any prospective suitors a very clear idea of my tn~ position!" Antonia responded briskly. "I hardly feel, in view of my father's reputation locally, that the ~ gem~y will be beating a path to~my door? She left unsaid the thought that, at her age and in her financial position, the sooner she resigned herself to spinsterhood, the better. :

  "How true," agreed Donna, " It is such a pity that Lord Arlington is unmarried. His wife would be just the person to introduce you to local, society. "

  "I agree; and if his lordship were married, I am certain his disposition would be considerably more conciliatory."

  It was on the tip of Miss Donaldson's tongue to reply that she found Lord Arlington quite agreeable as he was, but a glance at Antonia's stubborn face persuaded her that this was best left unsaid. She folded her sewing away and rose from her seat by the fire. "I think we should retire, my dear; we have yet another long day before us."

  Chapter Three

  "Antonia, what are those chimneys over there through the trees?"

  Donna's voice floated faintly down the stairs from the servants' attics.

  "Which chimneys? And what are you doing up there?" Antonia responded, puzzled. She pushed back a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, put down the polishing cloth with which she had been attempting to restore some lustre to the newel posts of the main stair, and climbed towards the sound of her companion's voice.

  Miss Donaldson was leaning on the sill of one of the dormer windows that looked out across the leads to the woods lying to the west of the house. "How verdant the count~ side has become in the three weeks we have been here! I feel spring has come at last--it quite fills one with hope for the future."

  Antonia looked at Donna's thin cheeks, usually so sallow, now touched with colour, and realised her friend was flourishing in the face of this new challenge. The daughter of an impoverished India army officer, she had had no choice after his death, when she was in her early twenties, but to become a governess.

  Although she had spoken little of her previous employers, Antonia knew she had not found the role a congenial one. Becoming companion-governess to the fourteen-year-old Antonia had better suited her temperament and the two had soon become fast friends.

  "Yes, it is lovely." Antonia came to lean on the ledge next to Donna, and for a moment neither spoke as they breathed in the fresh smell of the breeze wafting softly across the beech woods from the Downs. "What brought you up here?"

  "It occurred to me that we gave these rooms only the most scant scrutiny that first day; I wanted to see if we had missed anything, but there is only a chair with a broken leg and another damp spot we had failed to notice. But then I noticed those. chimney stacks--see?"

  Antonia followed the pointing finger to where ancient twisting brick stacks just broke the treeline. "Good heavens! The Dower House! I had quite forgot it. The last time I was there, I must almost have been a babe in arms: my father's elderly cousin Anne lived there for years but, since they had quarrelled violently long ago, we never visited. She is long dead now."

  "Will the house be yours, then?" Donna enquired, the germ of an idea growing in her mind.

  "We!!...yes, it must be, for it is part of the estate." She met Donna's eye and they thought and spoke as one. "Furniture!"

  "Of course, it may have been cleared out by your father and sold when his cousin died," Donna said with the practical air of someone who was determined not to be disappointed.

  "Perhaps not." Antonia thought out loud. "They were on such bad terms and he had other things to occupy him..."

  "Such as his wine cellar," Miss Donaldson supplied waspishly. "Well, we must go and have a look, and the sooner the better. Just let me look in at the kitchen first, I left Widow Brown preparing the vegetables for dinner."

  A scene of chaos greeted them as they stood on the threshold. The. charwoman was chasing the tabby cat round the kitchen with a broom, a badly mauled, skinned rabbit was bleeding damply on the hearth rug and a pot of giblet stock boiled over on the range.

  ~"Mrs. Brown, whatever is the matter?? Donna demanded.

  The charwoman grounded the broom and stood panting red in the face.

  "Dratted cat, miss! It's the rats it's meant to be eating, not what's in the pantry!" The cat, seizing its opportunity, dragged the rabbit off into the scullery and Antonia darted across to save the stock pot before it boiled dry.

  "Oh, dear," lamented Donna. "I fear that rabbit was all that is left of our dinner. Did the boys leave any other ~this morning, Mrs.

  Brown?"

  Shortly after they had arrived, Antonia had had the notion of encouraging her tenants to 'poach' the plentiful game that infested her neglected lands. She had smack a bargain: she would take a cut of the animals they snared or shot; in return, they could keep the rest to feed their families. She had aid down the strict condition that they did not stray by so much as a toe into Brightshill or any other estate in the neighbourhood.

  The scheme was already starting to work well. Her tenants would be better fed and she felt confident that they were now safely removed from all temptation to run foul of the law--or Lord Arlington's gamekeepers. In return, she and Donna dined well on rabbit, pheasant, pigeons, and on one occasion, venison. They had become adept at plucking, skinning and stewing to the great benefit of the housekeeping account and, perhaps more importantly, had begun to heal the rift between landlord and tenant that her father's dissolute and neglectful behaviour had opened. Whenever she met any of her tenants, Antonia had been warmed by their obvious gratitude.

  And there was still the river and the lake to consider; Antonia had looked at her late brother's fishing rods, but after becoming entangled in hook and line when removing them from the cupboard, had regretfully decided she needed lessons before threatening the local pike and perch.

  "I believe there is still a brace ofwoodpigeons,? Donna peered into the larder. " But I had better stay here and see what I can retrieve; will you go on to the Dower House without me, Antonia? Now, Mrs.

  Brown, let us see what we can do here. "

  Antonia, glad to escape from the smell of burnt stock, slipped out of the hack door with relief. Rain earlier that day had given way to sunshine, although she had to watch her step with the mud as she picked her way across the freshly gravel led paths through the walled vegetable gardens.

  Old Johnson was hoeing between lines of seedling vegetables, grumbling without bothering to straighten up at the skinny lad who was putting in pea sticks along newly dug trenches. Knowing full well that the gardener could--and would---hold forth at length with incomprehensible gardening questions if she gave him the opportunity, Antonia gave them a cheery wave and went out through a wicket gate into the rains of the pleasure grounds beyond.

  She negotiated clumps of brambles and nettles, remembering with sadness the smooth sweep of lawn and well-tended shrubberies that had once occupied the area. Her mother had loved to stroll in the cool of the evening in the formal rose garden she had created: now Antonia could not even recognise where they had walked together ann in arm.

  She swallowed hard against the almost physical pain 'of remembering and resolutely walked on to the-belt of trees that fringed the pleasure grounds, separating them from the gardens of the Dower House and the pastures beyond;

  A small group of fallow deer started away; almost under her feet, reminding her that the fences must be in disrepair. The animals were lovely to watch, but would swiftly lay to waste any efforts to civilise the gardens, Gloomily Antonia walked on, attempting to calculate how much fencing would cost, not only for the grounds but; more importantly, the fields and pasture land,

  The Dower House was hidden behind a rampant hedge of briar and thorn, talle
r than her head. Approaching as she was the rear of the house, Antonia came first to the garden gate, which hung crazily from one hinge, the-wood quite rotten and covered in lichens. Antonia lifted it aside gingerly and walked through, finding herself in a paved yard with a well in the middle.

  The house had been the original farm on the estate. Built in the reign of the first James, it was a two-storey building of two wings constructed of local red brick, under a tiled roof capped by the twisting chimney stacks

  Donna had espied from the attic that morning.

  The yard in which she now stood had once been the farmyard, but when the house had become the Dower House and the new Home Farm was built, the outbuildings were demolished and the yard became part of the gardens.

  The small mullioned windows reflected only dully, despite the bright sunshine; as Antonia approachcd~ she saw the leaded panes were thick with grime and festooned with cobwebs. There was a low back door under a heavy porch; she tried it and found it, not surprisingly~ locked. She hesitated, realising she would probably have to ask young Jem to break in, for they had found no keys that could belong to this house up at the Hall.