‘Widow Brown and her daughter will be coming up first light tomorrow. The rat catcher can’t come until Wednesday, but he’s bringing his dogs and a boy, so they’ll do the house and the stables and all. And my dad says, I ought to do the chimneys for you.’
‘There’s a good boy.’ Donna put a platter of bread and cheese in front of him and he set to with a will, talking with his mouth full.
‘I got the provisions from Berkhamsted, my mum saying I should, you being quality, like. Everyone is pleased to hear the Hall is occupied again. I ’spec you’ll have lots of tradesmen come calling.’
Antonia went outside leaving Donna pinning old sacking over the fireplaces while Jem readied a motley collection of brushes and sticks to attack the chimneys. The sunshine was warm on her shoulders and she slowed to a stroll until, after a few minutes, she found the gate into the kitchen garden.
The warm brick walls still supported their trained fruit trees, and the shape of the beds could be traced under the rank growth of weeds and long-dead vegetables. Antonia walked up and down the brick paths, hopeful of finding something edible, but she could recognise nothing except some mint and thyme. The fruit trees needed pruning, she thought, but the new growth on the fans was vigorous and were promising for later in the year.
That exhausted her sum of horticultural knowledge, which was a worry, because a flourishing kitchen garden would make all the difference to their meals.
When she returned to the house she found Jem outside the kitchen door shaking soot out of his hair. ‘ls there anyone in the village who could 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, he’s still alive, Miss. He’s got the rheumatics something awful – leastways, he moans about them enough – but he knows what he’s doing 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.’ Donna came out behind him, broom in hand. ‘I do not think we would want to employ someone of that kind.’
‘Was only poaching, Miss. Caught red-handed, he was, and him up at Brightshill sent him down. He’s devilish hard on poachers, is himself. Bit of a shock, really, ’cos he’s not usually around long enough to make life difficult that way.’
‘The Duke, you mean?’ Antonia felt her colour rise at the memory of her own experience of Renshaw’s treatment of poachers. When Jem nodded, she asked, ‘Is poaching much of a problem around here, 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,’ Jem said confidently. ‘There’ll be work again on the land and the grounds and in the house, I’ll be bound.’ His cheerful face screwed up and for a moment Antonia thought he might be about to cry. ‘But all your tenants have had it hard the last few years, Miss. A lot of families would have starved if it hadn’t been for the odd pheasant or rabbit off your land or himself’s.’
Antonia was shaken by a blaze of anger against her father and brother for their negligence, their uncaring, profligate behaviour. She had been all too aware of the effect their ruinous ways had had on the family fortune and name and on her own prospects. Now she realised just how they had betrayed their responsibility to their tenants. People were on the verge of starving at the very gates of the Hall.
And as for the Duke of Allington, 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 is inhumane, there is no other word for him, she fumed. She knew that all landowners took a hard line over poaching, as they did over any offence against property, but surely a rational man could show some leniency when people were in need?
Jem edged away from her and she realised she must be frowning. With a smile she found some coppers from her reticule for his day’s labours and sent him off home with an apple to munch and a reminder to approach the old
gardener in the morning.
After supper Donna set-to 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, looked up. ‘Another heavy sigh, my dear. What are you doing? It cannot be good for your eyes and it certainly seems to be giving you no satisfaction.’
‘I am reviewing our financial position. You recall we calculated 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.’
Donna removed her spectacles and polished them carefully on her apron. ‘I applaud the sentiment, my dear, but I do at least think you should have a maid to lend you some consequence and to answer the door. It is going to make receiving guests most difficult and what any prospective suitor would think to find one of us answering the knocker, or a charwoman…’
‘It will give any prospective suitors a very clear idea of my true position,’ Antonia said briskly. ‘I hardly feel, in view of my father’s reputation locally, that the local gentry will be beating a path to my door.’ Let alone suitors. At her age and in her financial position, the sooner she resigned herself to spinsterhood, the better.
‘That is true,’ Donna agreed with a shake of her head. She put the spectacles back firmly on her nose and glared at the torn sheets. ‘It is such a pity that the Duke is unmarried. His wife would be just the person to introduce you to local Society.’
‘She would, if a duchess were to condescend so far. And if Renshaw were married, I am certain his disposition would be considerably more conciliatory.’
Donna opened her mouth as though to say something, then shut it with a snap, folded her sewing away and rose from her seat by the fire. ‘I think we should retire, my dear, we have another long day ahead of us tomorrow.’
‘Antonia, what are those chimneys over there through the trees?’ Donna’s voice floated faintly down the stairs from the servants’ attics. A week after they had arrived they had settled into a routine of cleaning and the upper storeys had been left until later.
‘Which chimneys? And what are you doing up there?’ Antonia called back, 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 Donna’s voice.