The captains daughter, p.20
The Captain's Daughter, page 20
Janey slowly opened her eyes to find herself sitting in a large, soft chair, with a blanket tucked snugly about her body. Before her was a comforting fire and on an iron trivet bubbled a pan of fragrant stew. She looked around at her surroundings. It was a cottage. Large slabs of slate formed a floor whilst curved wooden beams split along the grain lined the ceiling. In the far corner, lit by the light from the fire and an old oil lamp, sat an old woman darning a sock as she watched her.
For some minutes they stared at each other, neither speaking, the stabbing of the needle and the pulling of the thread the only sound in the room. The woman was old and hunched, with a weather-beaten face, a large hook nose and a scowl that showed her suspicion of the new woman in the house.
Finally Janey spoke. ‘Where am I?’ she asked, surprised at the weakness of her voice that was barely louder than a whisper.
‘Daniel Kellow’s ’ouse.’ Janey’s eyes widened. ‘Scared are yea?’ asked the old woman, biting her thread in two with the few brown misshapen teeth she had left. ‘You should be. ‘E’s some mazed with yea.’
She set her sewing aside, pushed herself to standing and hobbled over to the bubbling stew. She gave it a brisk stir, tapped the spoon on the pan’s edge and set it aside, grumbling away to herself in what Janey supposed to be the Cornish language. Janey did not understand her, as it was rarely used now and she was too tired to care. Gradually she drifted off to sleep to the old woman’s lyrical tones. For the first time in months her dreams were no longer tormented by nightmares and she fell into a fitful sleep.
Janey heard his voice first. It coaxed her from her dreams to find Daniel standing in front of her. He looked tired – and he looked angry.
‘Edna says you’ve not eaten.’
Janey felt small next to his tall body that radiated strength. She repositioned herself in the chair to look up at him.
‘I’m not hungry.’ It was true; she had no appetite and felt sick at the thought.
‘I don’t care. You must eat.’
‘I really don’t feel like any—’
He pulled her to her feet.
‘I don’t care what you feel like. You’ve got to eat.’ Taking her by the shoulders he roughly guided her to a chair at the table and sat her down.
‘I’m not hungry, Daniel,’ she protested.
He ignored her and signalled to Edna to bring over some stew. The old woman hobbled over with two laden plates and carefully placed one before him. She shoved the other toward Janey.
Janey smiled, not wanting him to discover the full extent that her life was falling apart.
‘Thank you for finding me and taking care of me, but I really don’t feel like eating.’
Daniel did not return her smile.
‘You don’t have a choice,’ he said, picking up a fork and pinning her with a stare. ‘Now eat.’ Janey pushed the plate away. ‘Eat,’ Daniel repeated, barely controlling his anger.
Edna’s beady eyes darted from one to the other.
‘I don’t feel like eating,’ said Janey, her anger beginning to build. To her surprise Daniel casually dropped his fork.
‘Well, if you don’t eat, I won’t either,’ he retorted. The old woman beside them gasped.
‘You’ve got to eat, boy. You put in a full day’s work, seven days a week to keep this farm going. You can’t do that on air and water alone.’ She turned angrily to Janey and pointed a knurled finger at her. ‘See what you’ve done! People depend on Daniel. ’E’s a working man, ’e needs ’is food!’ In her anger she reverted back to her Cornish language, spewing forth a string of words some of which sounded like insults and curses.
Daniel sat back with his arms folded, amusement glinting in his eyes as he watched Edna bombard Janey until she could stand it no more and conceded.
‘All right, I will eat something.’ She lifted a fork in annoyance and waved it at Daniel. ‘Go on, you eat something too.’
He picked up his fork again. ‘I’ll eat when you do.’
They glared at one another, each holding a fork with two plates of stew steaming before them, and an old woman standing over them. Daniel took his fork and speared a cube of meat. He lifted it up between them and turned it in the light but instead of placing it in his own mouth he held it to her lips. Edna gave a toothless grin at the spectacle.
‘Eat,’ he ordered. She kept her mouth closed so he touched her lips with the meat, its gravy marking her lips, inviting her to lick them clean. ‘Eat,’ he said, more gently.
She hesitated for a second then opened her mouth and took the food. He watched, captivated, as she slid the tender mutton from the fork and ate it, finishing with a lick of her lips. It had been a long time since she had eaten a hot meal and it surprised her to find its taste made her aware of the hunger growing in her belly. Since her attack she had had no appetite and the less she ate the less she wanted. Now, tasting the meaty gravy and feeling the tenderness of the braised mutton, it awakened a desire for more. Yet Daniel had not eaten for some time and she wanted him to now join her. A silence filled the room; even Edna had become quiet. Janey lifted her fork, stabbed a piece of meat and held it out to him.
‘Now you.’
He grabbed her wrist and glared at her, annoyed she had taken to imitating him, however he only saw sincerity in her eyes. He loosened his grip slightly and brought the fork she held in her hand to his mouth. Opening his lips he slid the mutton from the fork as Janey felt herself blushing as she watched his mouth move. The old woman broke into their thoughts.
‘That’s enough you two!’ she admonished them. ‘It’s unseemly behaviour! Eat your own food an’ be done with it or I will give yea both a clout behind the ears. Never in me life ’ave I seen a man an’ woman behave in such a way,’ she grumbled. ‘No better than childers!’
She hobbled back to her seat, picked up her mending and returned to her sewing, her beady eyes darting between them as she sewed. Janey did as she was told and ate the rest of her stew in silence, as did Daniel. They occasionally glanced up at one another, then looked away. Janey felt a spark in the air and it wasn’t coming from the fire.
The rape, and the months that followed, had left their mark on Janey, not only by the child growing in her womb but the night terrors she had endured which exhausted her. It had become a life of contradictions. She had existed but not lived, living on her nerves yet with her emotions frozen and with her deep shame forever present in her mind. Yet for the first time since that awful afternoon, with her belly full of food and a warming fire beside her, she fell into a deep sleep.
Daniel’s voice, for once tender, woke her for a second time. She listened to his voice as he spoke to Edna in the next room. It intrigued her to hear him as their conversation resembled that of an adult son taking care of his stubborn mother. She smiled as she listened, comfortable and warm by the now dying fire.
‘You need a new coat, old woman,’ he said, with affection.
Edna argued back. ‘This coat is just fine. Don’t you go bothering about me, boy.’
‘But it’s so old. Let me buy you a new one.’
Edna would have none of it. ‘Pah! This ’ere coat will see me out, an’ you too, no doubt. Stop your fussing, boy, an’ take me ’ome.’
‘I’m going to buy you a new one anyway.’
‘Don’t waste your money. I won’t wear it.’
Janey could hear Daniel’s soft laughter as he left the house. The old woman appeared at the door, dressed in an old worn coat and a scarf wrapped around her head.
‘There’s a bed made up for ’e in the room at the top of the stairs.’ She flicked her eyes upwards indicating its location. ‘Best sleep in a bed tonight or you’ll be stiff as my knees in the morning.’
The realisation that she was going to be alone in the house with Daniel suddenly frightened Janey.
‘You are leaving me?’
Edna turned to go and for a moment took pity on her. ‘You’ve nothing to fear from Daniel. ‘E’s already put a lock on your door so you will feel safe.’
She was gone before Janey could argue and soon her grumbling voice, mixed with Daniel’s sombre tones, grew quieter as the horse and trap carried them away. For a few moments Janey did not move. She had been in service since the age of thirteen and had never been on her own in a house. She had often felt lonely but there was always a servant somewhere within the walls. In this homely farmhouse she felt like an outsider and was alone, yet strangely not lonely. Apart from the room she sat in and the time when the old woman had shown her the water closet, Janey had not seen the rest of the house. She had spent so much of the day sleeping that she didn’t even know where to fetch water for a drink. She had never felt so helpless or without a routine of chores to mark her day.
The fire still glowed but the flames were much lower now. As she watched the fire she realised she didn’t even know whether to feed it or let it go out. Daniel’s routine was unknown to her, as was his life here. She stretched out her stiff legs from underneath her and moved her ankles, testing their flexibility and, finding them satisfactory, she stood up. The room she had spent her time in was typical for a worker’s cottage. At one end stood the granite fireplace with its clone oven for baking built into the side of the chimney, chairs positioned around it, at the other end a large table for preparing food and eating. The curtains were dull and in need of a wash to freshen them and their wooden frames were dusty. The windows were set deep in the two-foot thick granite walls, providing slated covered sills to sit upon. Despite the fading light Janey could see the garden outside. It was slowly emerging from the melting, crisp white snow, but despite the neat path which led up to the front door, the garden itself was neglected and in need of flowers and shrubs to bring it to life. Janey could see it transform in her mind, bursting with colour of flowers that she would plant if the garden were hers. She turned away and left the room to explore further. There was no point in her imagining such things, tomorrow she would leave for the workhouse.
To her surprise the second room she entered was a large kitchen, making her initial assumption that the farmhouse was like any other traditional worker’s cottage quite wrong. At the far end was a black Cornish range; new and untouched, it provided a focal point in the room. Janey couldn’t help running her fingers across the front, its coldness evidence that Edna preferred to use the method of trivet and cooking pot than a wood burning range. It seemed such a waste that the beautiful range was not brought to life with heat and the smells of pies and casseroles cooking in its belly, while a kettle boiled on its top. In fact, the whole kitchen looked newly built and equipped, waiting for the woman of the house to make use of it, and it seemed all the more sad that the old woman did not seem to appreciate its qualities. It had a large pantry but the shelves were bare of preserves that should have been made in the autumn to last the winter. It seemed that Edna came to make a meal and mend but the planning and running of the home fell to Daniel, who was too busy working the land.
Janey found the stairs, which led to the first and only landing. The walls of the farmhouse were bare of pictures and lacked the knick-knacks that make a house a home. She easily found the room assigned to her as it had her carpet bag placed at the foot of the bed and was the only room with a bolt. However she did not enter it but passed it by to look at the other rooms on the landing while she was alone to do so.
There was another bedroom similar in size to hers and then, at the far end, was Daniel’s. The door was ajar; she stood at the threshold with no plans to enter it but only to observe. His bed was unmade and boots lay untidily on the floor. It lacked any feminine presence, was basic and needed airing. The curtains were half drawn and a shirt had slipped onto the floor from a chair. Without thinking she entered the room and picked it up, folding it and laying it back over the chair it had fallen from. She opened the curtains and looked down on the snow covered garden beneath her and noticed for the first time a vegetable patch to the side. Neatly dug, the garden lay waiting for spring and a selection of seeds to be sown in its rich soil. It did not surprise her to learn that Daniel grew his own vegetables, most people did in the village and he was a farmer after all. She dragged her eyes away and saw the view from the bedroom window for the first time. Beyond the hedge that shielded the house from the moorland weather was the snow covered moor itself. It spread out like a white carpet for miles ahead and as the sun set in the west it cast a red fiery glow across the sky. The silhouette of a flock of birds flew across the dramatic red backdrop and Janey marvelled at the sight. The scene was beautiful and breathtaking all at the same time and Janey felt she could happily sit on the sill for the remainder of the day and watch until the sun disappeared below the horizon. She abruptly stood up from the sill she had unconsciously sat down on. She could not linger in this room, she thought, Daniel would soon be back.
She smelt the familiar smell that she had come to associate with him and turned to see his washstand and a bar of sandalwood soap in the dish. She was about to reach for it when a white figure caught her eye as it passed the doorway. It made her jump with surprise and set her heart racing as she listened to light footsteps running along the corridor and down the stairs.
Gathering her courage Janey followed to see who had been watching her but despite her best efforts the ghostly figure had disappeared and the house was empty. Her heart still beating loudly in her chest, she returned to her room and was relieved when she finally heard Daniel return and his heavy booted footsteps on the slate floor below. She sat and waited, listening to his foot tread enter each room until he finally climbed the stairs.
‘I’m back,’ he said, simply, as he paused at her door. He still wore his boots, which were dusted with snow that had already started to melt, forming a puddle on the floor. ‘Do you like what you see?’ His hair was ruffled from the wind outside and he still wore his outside coat, turned up at the collar. His eyes were black as coal and his dark brows were knitted together in a serious frown.
‘The room?’ she asked.
‘The house,’ he answered.
‘It’s very nice,’ she replied, unsure why he should care what she thought.
He was silent for a moment, then nodded, satisfied.
‘Bolt your door,’ he said, abruptly. ‘I know what they say about me in the village and while we are alone I don’t want you to worry unnecessarily. It’s not good for you, you need your rest.’
Suddenly he was gone and Janey was left alone once more. She closed the door and quietly slid the bolt across, but it wasn’t Daniel that made her fingers tremble. The figure she had seen earlier had shaken her, yet Daniel had said they were alone. The figure was, she felt sure, of a young girl no older than ten or twelve. She had disappeared into thin air as silently as she had appeared, just like an apparition. The figure, which looked just like herself as a child, haunted her mind until she fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter Fifteen
Janey woke with a start. She lay for some moments not sure if the laughter she had heard was in her dreams or from the room downstairs. The house was silent, broken only by bird song from outside the window. The position of the sun told her she had slept late. She washed and dressed, pausing only briefly to observe the swollen curve of her belly in the mirror before disguising it with a shawl around her waist. It seemed, as a result of rest and good food, that her body had finally relaxed and showed her pregnant state.
She packed her belongings as she planned to leave today. She wanted to be gone before her shameful secret was out and Daniel learned of her fallen state. Through habit she finally twisted her hair in order to pin it up, a style she had used ever since entering service. She halted in the act to view herself in the mirror. Today was the first time since she was thirteen she was no longer a servant. For once in her life she could wear her hair as she wanted and wear what she wanted. Yet this independence had come at a price. She let her hair fall from her fingers to lay loose about her shoulders, got up and made her way downstairs.
The house was empty, yet evidence of its recent occupation was everywhere. A basket of freshly collected eggs lay on the table, recently washed plates and mugs lay drying on the drainer and the smell of a cooked breakfast hung in the air. She felt like an uninvited guest walking through the remnants of a now extinguished party and she wished she had woken earlier and been part of it. She had not wanted to mix with company in recent times and the feeling of wanting to seek company surprised her.
Edna arrived at the house. She took off her coat, hung it on a hook and made her way over to the basket of eggs. Ignoring Janey, she proceeded to clean each egg with care as she mumbled to herself in Cornish. Janey watched her knurled hands work with the speed of experience, turning each egg and wiping the shell with water and soap before placing each one on a cloth to dry.
‘I will be leaving today,’ Janey said, gently.
Edna abandoned the eggs, cut some bread and spread it with butter and jam, and dropped it on a plate before her. ‘You’d better eat something then,’ she muttered, returning to her work. ‘Don’t want you to be taken ill before you ’ave a chance to be off.’
The old woman had made her position plain. Janey was not wanted at the farm.
Some time later Janey carried her bag down the stairs and placed it on the floor. Edna avoided her eye contact, preferring to busy herself with making bread. The woman may not want to exchange words, thought Janey, but she owed it to Daniel to thank him for his help and to tell him she was leaving.
‘I am ready to take my leave,’ Janey told her. ‘I would like to speak to Daniel before I go.’
The woman stopped her kneading. ‘Tell me what you want to say and I will tell ’im,’ said Edna, craning her head up from her rounded stiff neck.
