Tilly Trotter Widowed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Read online

  She paused a moment, staring at him, then said, ‘Yes, perhaps you could help. If once you could get the gun away from him he’d be easy to handle, but whatever you do don’t let on that you work at the pit. Miners in his estimation are the lowest form of life and it’s because he thinks his wife has’ – she lowered her chin whilst keeping her eyes on him – ‘an association with one such that has created the last straw.’

  ‘Oh!’ He raised his eyebrows while making a small nodding motion with his head as he said in mock politeness, ‘Thank you very much for telling me, Tilly.’

  She smiled wryly at him now. ‘He’s just finished his second large brandy and he’s in the state that he might have thrown it over me had he been told that I, too, once worked with the lowest form of animal life.’

  ‘Yes. Aye’ – Steve’s face became serious – ‘that takes some remembering. I can’t imagine you ever being down below, Tilly.’

  ‘Oh I can. I can remember every moment of it vividly still. But come on—’ again she smiled at him and made her first attempt at a joke for many a long day as she said, ‘I do hope he hasn’t shot Peabody, we were just beginning to understand each other.’

  ‘Aw, Tilly.’ He pushed her lightly on the shoulder and they stopped for a moment and, looking at each other, laughed quietly; then, her voice serious now, she said, ‘I don’t see how I can find any amusement in this situation.’

  ‘It’ll be a bad day when we don’t see the funny side of things, Tilly.’

  She nodded now and led the way out of the dining room, across the hall and into the drawing room, and it was immediately apparent that Lord Myton was giving Peabody a lesson on his long sporting gun. It was evident too that their presence was very welcome to Peabody for, moving quickly out of range of the pointing gun, he glanced from one to the other as he almost stammered, ‘W . . . will I serve some re . . . refreshment for the gentleman, madam?’

  ‘No, thank you, Peabody; I’ll call you if I need you.’

  Bowing slightly, the butler made his escape, and both Tilly and Steve looked towards Lord Myton who was sitting leaning forward, his left hand cupping the long barrel of the gun, while the forefinger of his right hand stroked the trigger. He was looking towards the fireplace as if aiming at the banked flowers stacked there.

  ‘Would you care for another drink, milord?’

  ‘Oh. Oh’ – he looked at her – ‘It’s you. No, no; I don’t think so. No—’ he smiled a toothless smile now as he added in a normal tone, ‘If I start on it too early I don’t enjoy me dinner and I do like me dinner. Never lost me appetite. Strange that, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, not at all; I’m very glad to know you still have a good appetite. Would you care to stay and have a bite with us?’

  He seemed to consider for a moment, then said, ‘Well, yes, ma’am, yes, and thank you kindly. What are you having today?’

  What were they having?

  Oh yes, yes; she recalled quickly, then said, ‘It’s rather a plain meal but very appetising; there is spring soup, saddle of mutton, asparagus and the usual vegetables’ – she nodded at him – ‘and we’ll finish with baked gooseberry pudding and cheeses.’

  ‘Sounds nice, very nice, not wind-making.’

  Tilly swallowed and glanced at Steve before she said, ‘I don’t think it’ll be wind-making.’

  ‘Strong digestion. Always have . . . Who’s this?’ The question was addressed pointedly at Steve, but before he could answer Tilly said, ‘He’s a friend of mine, milord, a . . . a lifelong friend.’

  ‘Workman?’ He turned his eyes on her. ‘Lifelong friend?’

  ‘Yes, milord, a lifelong friend. I was once a working woman, you remember?’

  ‘Oh aye, yes,’ he chuckled; ‘from the kitchen, from the kitchen. Yes, yes. Don’t sound it though.’ Of a sudden his joviality vanished and he demanded, ‘Where the hell is she? She’s not going to make a fool of me this time. Where’s she, eh? Her fancies have caused her to stoop low in the past but not as low as this, no, no.’

  As his left hand jerked the barrel upwards Tilly said softly, ‘Would you like to rest, milord, before you eat? There’s a comfortable couch in the little sitting room off the . . . ’

  ‘All right here. You want me out of the way?’ His white brows were beetling.

  ‘No, no, no, of course not, milord.’

  ‘Pleasant woman.’ He turned now and addressed Steve. ‘Pleasant woman. I like pleasant company; but one can’t always be laughing. What do you say?’

  ‘You’re right, milord; one can’t always be laughing.’

  ‘You sound like a workman.’

  ‘I am a workman, milord.’

  ‘What are you?’

  ‘I am an engineer.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, engineer?’ The old man’s eyes widened, the wrinkled skin stretched as his head bobbed. ‘Engineer. Bridges?’

  ‘Er . . . yes, milord, bridges.’

  ‘Oh indeed! Bridges. Railroads; they need bridges over and under. Oh yes, yes.’

  ‘Could I help you into the next room, milord.’

  ‘Help me? Why do you want to help me, you’re not of my household, are you?’ He now narrowed his eyes at Steve, then shook his head, saying, ‘No, can’t recollect seeing you before. No, of course not, you’re the workman, engineer, building bridges, yes. Aye.’ He now swung the gun round and laid it across his knees, where his greatcoat had fallen open exposing more of his nightshirt. Then raising his head, he looked at Tilly and in the politest of tones he now said, ‘Would you please leave the room, madam, I wish to go to the closet?’

  Tilly showed no surprise, she neither blushed nor swooned, the reactions one would have expected from a lady of the manor, but what she said was, ‘The closet is at the end of the corridor, milord. If you would allow my friend to assist you, I will show you the way.’

  The old man stared at her again, then made a chuckling sound in his throat before saying, ‘Ain’t no lady, that’s evident; no lady’d show me to the closet! Funny, but that whore of mine could sport naked, oh aye, aye’ – his head was wagging now from side to side as if throwing off denial – ‘I say, an’ I know, sport naked she could, but throw up her hands in disgust if she opened the door and saw me on the closet. But you wouldn’t, would you, ma’am?’

  ‘No, milord.’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t.’ He now nodded to Steve, but just as Steve was about to make some remark his attention and that of Tilly’s also was brought to the door from beyond which there came the sound of an altercation. But it didn’t penetrate to the old man until the door was thrust open and there, seeming to fill the whole frame, stood his wife. She was arrayed in a plum-coloured riding habit, a high velour hat perched on the top of her dyed hair. Her face looked suffused with anger. Behind her were standing two men, their heads and shoulders alone visible to those in the room until she moved forward; and then their sober dress proclaimed them to Tilly immediately as doctors.

  The old man did not move from his seat except to turn his head in his wife’s direction; that was until she marched forward crying, ‘Stop this capering and come on home this very minute!’ and then he spoke, his voice sounding so ordinary and sane that Tilly’s eyes were drawn from his wife and on to him as he said, ‘Stay where you are, Agnes! Stay where you are!’ and as he spoke he slowly moved the gun into a position in which it was pointing straight at her.

  When the two gentlemen accompanying her now made a move towards him, he said sharply, ‘You, too!’ and he shifted the barrel of the gun just slightly but enough to encompass the three of them. Then he spoke to the nearer one, saying, ‘Brought the papers with you, all signed and sealed, eh, to put me in the madhouse? Is that it?’

  ‘Now, sir.’ The voice sounded oily. ‘We just want to see you well settled in your bed, nothing more.’

  ‘You’re bloody liars, sir. And don’t move! I’m warnin’ you. You see, what you’ve all forgotten is that I’ve nothing to lose; I’m near me end and I know it. But I thought
to go out of life as I’ve lived it, laughing at it on the side. And I would have done, but she went too far. Pit fella. She took a pit fella. Me grooms I’d tolerate, but a dirty pit fella! And you threw him in me face, didn’t you? Bragged you could get ’em from the top to the bottom.’

  As the old man’s lip curled, Steve drew in a long breath and cast his glance down towards the floor; but his head jerked upwards almost immediately as Agnes Myton’s voice, screaming now, cried, ‘You’re mad! You don’t know what you’re saying. Doctor—’ she turned to the man at her right hand, crying, ‘This is what I’ve told you about, delusions, delusions, accusations, all lies, lies. He’s got to be restrained; I can’t stand any more of it.’

  ‘Did you hear what she said?’ The old man now turned his head slightly towards Tilly, while keeping his eyes on the three in front of him. ‘She said she can’t stand any more. Ain’t that funny? By the way, I wanted to go to the closet, didn’t I?’ He paused, then gave a sound that was like a high laugh before he added, ‘Doesn’t matter, not now, doesn’t matter. Wind ’n’ water, that’s all we are, wind ’n’ water.’

  ‘Give me that gun.’ His wife was stepping slowly towards him now and he said, ‘Yes, I’ll give you the gun, Agnes. Aye, yes, I’ll give you the gun ’cos I’d hate to enter hell alone.’

  Tilly heard herself scream out as she saw the quivering finger pressing the trigger, then at the moment the explosion rocked the room she watched Agnes Myton clutch with both hands at the bosom of her habit. She watched her mouth open wide as if in amazement. She watched the woman’s head move from one side to the other as if to look at the doctors as they held her, then slowly slump in their embrace. But they had hardly laid her on the floor before there came another report, and as Tilly looked towards the old man she again screamed for she was back in the Indian raid. In a way she was seeing what she had imagined Alvero Portes to look like after the Indians had finished with him, for Lord Myton had placed the gun under his wrinkled chin before firing the second barrel.

  Eight

  Well, it was to be expected, wasn’t it? Wherever she is somebody dies. Two of them this time. A lord and lady, a murder and a suicide. Well, as they all said in the village, it proved it, didn’t it? There was something odd about her. It went right back on her great-granny’s side; they’d all been touched with witchery.

  They counted up the deaths and tragedies that lay at her door, they recalled her immoral doings, they reminded each other that she had ruined Farmer Bentwood’s first marriage, then when his wife died and he didn’t ask her to marry him she had put a curse on him that turned him to drink and whoring. Now he was married again with a little daughter of his own and had gone steady these past three years. Well, he had done right up to the time Tilly Trotter, or Sopwith as she was now named, returned from the Americas. And what had happened? He had gone on the spree again. Oh yes, there was something about her, something bad, and folks were wise to give her a wide berth.

  And those sentiments were also expressed by old Joe Rawlings’ daughter to the second Mrs Bentwood herself. Peggy Rawlings had called at the farm for some milk and in a roundabout way had brought up the tale of the coroner’s inquest last week on the two dead gentry. ‘Miscarriage of justice, that’s what me dad says, Mrs Bentwood. He said they should have brought that madam up for indirect murder like she should have been brought up years gone by, for people die like flies when they’re near her. It’s witchery me dad says.’

  The second Mrs Bentwood had surprised Peggy Rawlings by saying, ‘I don’t believe in witchery, witchery is just ignorance.’

  As Peggy said to her dad later on, ‘She was a bit snotty, so I got a bit snotty with her and I said to her, Farmer Bentwood believes in witchery, her witchery. He suffered from it, and you watch out you don’t an’ all.’ Then she had added, ‘She looks the quiet sort, his second wife, but I think she’s deep under it. Well, I’ve warned her, so it’s up to her . . . ’

  Later that night Lucy Bentwood, looking at her husband across the supper table, said, ‘What happened at the inquest last week?’

  ‘What happened? How should I know?’

  ‘You went; I know you went.’

  ‘All right, if I did, what about it?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ she smiled at him. ‘I just want to know what happened.’

  ‘What always happens at inquests, they prove the people dead.’

  His wife continued to stare at him for a moment before resuming her eating and she wasn’t surprised when he pushed his plate away from him before he had finished his meal and without an excuse got up and left the table. She watched him through the open door making for his office at the other side of the small hall, and she herself stopped eating and sat with her hands folded on her lap.

  She loved this man and she had imagined that he loved her, not that she thought for a moment that she was the be-all and end-all in his life. She knew that he’d had other loves, many of them, if all the hinting tales were true, but this Mrs Sopwith, Tilly Trotter as she once was, seemed to have been the first love in his life and she’d always had a strange influence on him, being responsible, so she understood, for turning him from a kindly, generous-hearted man into a drunken, roistering boor. Yet since they had met on that momentous night outside the theatre in Newcastle when she had slipped on the icy pavement and he had caught her and held her, he had become for her the man he once was, kindly, thoughtful and loving. He was ten years her senior and she had known that she was past the acceptable marriageable age; but he had treated her like a young girl, and she had felt like a young girl and given him a daughter. And this had seemed to bring an added joy into his life, that was until two months or so ago when Mrs Sopwith returned to the manor, a widow now.

  Three times in the last month he had got drunk. Could there be any truth in the tales of her power? Had she put a curse on him?

  She almost overbalanced her chair as she sprang up from the table. She was no ignorant villager, she was well read, thanks to her parents’ care; also she was sufficiently cultured to pass herself quite well on the piano and at the embroidery frame. She wasn’t going to let such stupid thoughts get a hold in her mind. If Simon was returning to drink, then there was a reason for it, and it would have nothing to do with witchery . . .

  Simon, sitting in the office and drawing hard on his pipe, might not have agreed with his wife at this stage in his life. Years ago as a young man he had defended Tilly Trotter against the accusation, but having experienced the effect she had on men, particularly himself, he was beginning to think along the lines of the villagers. There was some strange quality in her that upset a man’s life. All those years she had been Mark Sopwith’s mistress he himself had gone through the tortures of the damned; and when Sopwith died and she was turned out of the manor, her belly still full of him, he had offered to father her bastard. And what thanks had he got in return? Scorn. Yet at one time she had loved him; oh yes, he was sure of that, she had loved him. When he looked back he realised that she had loved him even before he had come to the knowledge of his love of her. He had imagined that his feelings were merely those of a big brother protecting the young sister, but on the very night of his first marriage, to Mary, his eyes had been opened, and he hadn’t been able to close them since.

  He had just about managed to face up to that situation when she was shameless enough to marry the son of her late keeper, and her six years or more older than him! By! That had shaken him to his very core. What he would have done if she hadn’t gone off to America right away he dare not think. Gone and set the whole bloody manor on fire likely because he had seemed to go mad at the time. Then he met Lucy and he had to admit that Lucy had resurrected some remnants of decent manhood in him. Under her love he saw reflected the man he had once been, the young, outspoken, upright farmer who would do a good turn for anybody; and then when she had given him a daughter life had taken on a new pattern, a new meaning. He had sworn on the day his child was born that he would cut out d
rinking altogether, and he meant it. But what happened? Tilly had to come back, a widow now, and free to marry again; that was if anybody would take her with a second bastard at her skirts. The tale that the black piece was older than her son wouldn’t carry water. It was rumoured that young Sopwith had died through the wounds he got in an Indian raid. That, too, was just hearsay; likely he died fighting over her as other men had.

  God in heaven! He rose from the chair and began to pace the small room. Why couldn’t she have stayed where she was over there? What was it in her that got into a man, turned his brain?

  When he had heard the rumour that her hair was white, as white as the driven snow, he had thought with some comfort, Well, she’ll look like an old woman now, but last week, standing at the back of the crowd as he had done many years ago when she had appeared in another court when the judge had asked if she was a witch, he had seen her come out on the arm of the young Sopwith, and her hair was indeed white, but she was no old woman. If anything the whiteness had added to her fascination. He had never thought her really beautiful, she was too tall to be beautiful, taller than most men, yet there was something in that face that outstripped beauty; there was a magnetism about her eyes that looked at you yet didn’t seem to see you for they were looking through you, into you, and beyond. And who should be walking behind her but young McGrath. He still thought of him as young McGrath, yet he was a man, taller and broader than himself now, except round the middle. He had always been her shadow, had Steve McGrath, since he was a youngster spewing his calf love all over her. Was he in the running now? No; Master John Sopwith wouldn’t, surely, tolerate that association. And yet what, after all could Sopwith do? She was mistress of the whole place, and she must have come into quite a packet too from her husband. It was incredible that she, Tilly Trotter, whom as a child and young lass he had at one time kept from starving, should now be in this position. It maddened him, really maddened him.