Easterleigh Hall Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Margaret Graham

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Copyright

  About the Book

  When Evie Forbes starts as an assistant cook at Easterleigh Hall, she goes against her family’s wishes. For ruthless Lord Brampton also owns the mine where Evie’s father and brothers work and there is animosity between the two families.

  But Evie is determined to better herself. And her training at the hall offers her a way out of a life below stairs.

  Evie works hard and gains a valued place in the household. And her dream of running a small hotel grows ever closer.

  Then War is declared and all their lives are thrown into turmoil.

  About the Author

  Margaret Graham has been writing for thirty years. Her first novel was published in 1986 and since then she has written a further thirteen novels, and is now working on her fourteenth. As a bestselling author her novels have been published in the UK, Europe and the USA.

  Margaret has written two plays, co-researched a television documentary – which grew out of Canopy of Silence – and has written numerous short stories and features. She is a writing tutor and speaker and has written regularly for Writers’ Forum. She founded and administered the Yeovil Literary Prize to raise funds for the creative arts of the Yeovil area and it continues to thrive under the stewardship of one of her ex-students. Margaret now lives near High Wycombe and has launched Words for the Wounded which raises funds for the rehabilitation of wounded troops by donations and writing prizes.

  She has ‘him indoors’, four children and three grand-children who think OAP stands for Old Ancient Person. They have yet to understand the politics of pocket money. Margaret is a member of the Rock Choir, the WI and a Chair of her local U3A. She does Pilates and Tai Chi and travels as often as she can.

  For more information about Margaret Graham visit her website at www.margaret-graham.com

  Also by Margaret Graham

  After the Storm

  (previously published as Only the Wind is Free)

  Annie’s Promise

  Somewhere Over England

  (previously published as A Fragment of Time)

  Easterleigh Hall

  Margaret Graham

  For the ‘grands’, Mabel, Josie and Megan

  Chapter One

  Easton Colliery Village, Durham Coalfields, Saturday 3rd April 1909

  ‘D’YOU WANT IT down your back or all over your big head?’ Evie Forbes asked, grinning as she dragged the heavy pan of hot water to the edge of the kitchen range.

  ‘Now, now, I was just asking if it was ready yet, lass.’ Jack could hardly talk for laughing, set her off again as she refolded the cloths she had wrapped around the handles to protect against the heat. ‘You scrub your brother’s back, pet,’ her mam had said, ‘while I do guard duty. It’ll seem less suspicious.’

  Her mam would be on the front doorstep of their terraced miner’s cottage, her shawl wrapped tight against the early April breeze. She would be pretending to watch for young Timmie as he clattered home in his boots from his surface shift at Auld Maud, Easton’s pit. In reality she was waiting to intercept Evie’s employer, young Miss Manton, who was likely to come barging in upsetting the apple cart with the news mother and daughter were waiting for. She’d said nearer three forty-five, but timing wasn’t her strong point.

  Evie snatched a look around the room. Her father was already in his Saturday evening clothes, sitting in the armchair to the left of the range, reading one of the out-of-date Times newspapers he collected free from the Reading Room every Saturday. Jack was standing calf-deep in the tin bath, waiting – for her. The two men seemed to suspect nothing.

  ‘Ready, is it?’ Jack called. Evie gripped the handles. ‘Just right for boiling lobsters so you’ll be good and pink, but screaming’s optional. And you just think on, lad, as to what lass’ll want to be seen with a pink miner on a Saturday night.’

  She eased the pan over the edge of the range, feeling the weight of it in her shoulders, arms and back. The steam not only hurt her eyes but it messed her hair, stripping it of curl. She’d look like the woman with snakes in her hair at the Easton and Hawton Miners’ Gala later this evening, but there was no time to sort it out now with Jack insisting, ‘Hurry it up, Evie. I’ve places to go, people to see.’ He was grinning, his teeth white in his blackened face. The tin bath was only a couple of steps from the range but it was far enough.

  ‘Don’t you hurry, Evie lass,’ Da called. ‘Take your time and be careful.’ He sounded quieter than usual, even more weary.

  ‘I will, Da,’ she said as she staggered under the weight but then Jack reached out and took the bath from her as though it was as light as a feather, his pitman’s hands impervious to the heat. ‘Here, give it to me, our Evie.’

  He tipped it into water already slecky from her father’s bath. Around his waist was a gathering of sacking hiding his crown jewels. ‘Aye, well,’ her mother always said, nodding towards his modesty, ‘we must be thankful for small mercies.’ Jack always replied that there was nothing small about his mercies and then he’d be slapped with the rag which could, if one was an optimist, be called a flannel.

  Aye, these things were what she loved – the family, the continuity, the fun. Could she bear to leave them if it came to it? Would Miss Manton come? What news would she bring about the interview for Assistant Cook that Evie had attended at Easterleigh Hall?

  Jack returned the pan to her before whipping the flannel off the clothes horse that was propped alongside the bath. He was such a bonny lad and he was more than her brother, he was her marra – her close friend, in other words – and she loved him more even than she ached for Simon Preston, and she knew that what she’d done could alter their relationship. But she wouldn’t think of that, couldn’t think of it.

  ‘So, are you meeting young Si?’ Jack teased, settling down into the bath.

  ‘No, don’t be daft. I hardly know him.’ Her voice was crisp. She busied herself taking the pan to the scullery, hoping that she’d see Simon but it would depend on whether Lord Brampton, his high and mightiness, was letting his servants out of their cage. Hang on, lass, she urged herself, because it might just be that she’d be in that same cage next week if she’d passed the interview. She shook her head. No, she mustn’t even imagine that, in case it didn’t happen.

  At the thought she felt almost relieved, for if she didn’t get the position she could stay here with her family and continue to cook for her wonderful employer, Miss Manton, who explained so many things, and took her to the Suffragette meeting every month, and who was so eager for her to improve. She shook her head at that thought. To really improve she must become the cook she, her mam and Miss Manton longed for her to be, the cook who could earn enough to help her family as well as carve a future for herself in the hotel world.

  She wiped around the pan. It was cold and damp in the small back scullery and Jack was calling, ‘Come on, Evie, stop dreaming. I�
�m in a right hurry. I’ve things to do before the Gala. I’ve a life to live, you know.’

  She spun on her heel, hurrying back into the warmth, her hands on her hips. ‘I haven’t, I suppose. I’m just here to scrub your back and clean up you and me da, not to mention Timmie, am I? That’s it, is it? Well, you just wait and see.’ She was smiling, keeping her eyes fixed on Jack, ready to dodge.

  There, she was too quick for him as he flicked water at her. ‘By, lad, you’ll have to be quicker than that.’

  She heard her father laugh along with them, heard the laugh turn into a hack of a cough and for a moment she and Jack stared at one another, but what was the point of letting the sudden tug take hold? They broke eye contact at the same time. Evie reached for the carbolic soap on the stand. It was still slimy from her father’s wash.

  Sitting in the bath Jack hung his head, his knees up. The sacking floated in the sleck. She bent, he gave her the flannel and she washed his back. She hated the smell both of the coal and the soap, and though the carbolic shifted the greasy dust the scars remained, the deep dark blue of twilight too deeply engrained to ever fade. It was like the damned pit shadow that never left them, as potent as the glowing stinking slag heaps and winding engines and gear that loomed over the village.

  She rubbed more fiercely; be pink, damn you, she thought. Her brother eased his shoulders. ‘Hang on, lass, leave me some skin.’ She saw she had knocked off some of the button scabs which formed when the miners scraped their backbone on low seam roofs. The blood was a dirty red. Her father hacked again. Blue-ridged scars, black lung, dirty blood. But no, Da hadn’t got it yet, though he would unless she could get them out.

  She ran the rag gently now. ‘Sorry, Jack.’ Over the ridged skin, gently round the bleeding sores, fear clutching ever tighter at her heart.

  Every single day she wanted them out of the pit, and one day she would make it happen. Miss Manton and her friends at the Suffragette meetings said women could do anything they set their minds to, and Evie’s first meeting a few months ago had opened up a whole new world.

  The water was cooling again and would now have a greater depth of muck. Poor Timmie, but that was the hierarchy of a mining house – father first, eldest next, youngest last. At least Timmie was busy on the surface sorting the shale from the coal, so there was no need to worry about him yet awhile.

  Jack was singing, slurping the water over his chest and his legs where the past cuts left their twilight trail. There was a fresh one across his thigh. It looked red, blue-black and angry. Well, they were all damned angry, weren’t they? Her da hacked again into what passed for a handkerchief. She snatched a look. It was like a nervous tic, this pitman’s look, when anyone coughed. But there was no black phlegm, not yet. ‘What’s your mam doing on the step?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s waiting for the bairn.’ Jack rubbed his face, removing the coal dust.

  ‘Aye, standing on the step talking to her next door more like. She knows he’ll come in from the back alley as usual.’ The two men laughed.

  ‘How’re the pigeons, Da and what’s in the paper?’ Anything to move the conversation on. It did. Her father said, ‘You’ll read it yourself in a moment but as for the birds, I’m right worried about Alfie.’ He droned on, and her shoulders sagged with relief. She slapped Jack on the back. ‘You’re done.’

  Every day her mam insisted the bath came out. It meant heaving in full buckets from the communal back-alley tap when Evie came in from her work, but it saved on the bedding. Her mam was not about to put up with any nonsense such as ‘never wash the back or you’ll let the strength out’. ‘Bugger that,’ she’d say, ‘and into the bath with you.’ Evie grinned at the thought. Her mam also made them read the newspaper before passing it to their neighbours, and agreed wholeheartedly with Miss Manton that education and training were the way up. She wrung out the flannel and draped it on the side of the bath.

  ‘Now you’re as clean as a whistle so you can get yourself ready for whatever it is you’re up to at the Gala, my lad. Which poor girl will go on the swing boats with you tonight?’

  She straightened up, easing her back, more glad than she could ever say that Miss Manton had agreed to train her as a basic cook rather than a housemaid, or she could have ended up on hands and knees brushing up the debris from the rugs and brewing a back that would be the bane of her life. Miss Manton was a good woman, a true Christian her mother said, but then added that she had to be, putting up with the sermons of that parson brother of hers.

  Jack patted himself dry with sacking while she picked up his clothes from the floor. They were stiff enough with coal and dirt to walk to the scullery on their own but she helped them on their way, adding them to her da’s pile. It was good to have Gala day to think about. It was this she’d concentrate on, as worrying never boiled a kettle, her mother always said. These sayings would lead everyone in the vicinity to commit group strangulation one day, but today the thought of them made her want to cry. She didn’t want to leave. How could she? She stared at the men’s clothes, still holding the shape of the bodies that had been within them. She picked up Jack’s hobnail boots which she had cleaned and greased earlier and took them to the range. She touched his clean trousers on the clothes horse.

  ‘Your clothes are warm, bonny lad.’ She knew her voice shook. No one noticed. She patted the clothes horse, looking around the room to give Jack his privacy as he dressed, studying the pictures of the Northumbrian coast painted by Ben, her da’s marra. It was as though they’d been joined at the hip since school, her mam always said. Ben had joined a pitmen painting group that met in a nearby hut. Well, it made a change from leeks, whippets and pigeons. She looked at the oil lamps, and the dresser displaying her mam’s best plates which were only used at Christmas, the proggy mat in front of the range. She loved every bit of their home, but it wasn’t their home, was it? It was the colliery’s, Lord Brampton’s in other words.

  She listened to the crack, spit and hiss of the fire. They had a free ton of coal every month along with the other miners as part of their wages. It was dirty coal, too full of shale to be marketable, still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. She banked the range again, though it was unnecessary. Her father was watching, but it was as if he wasn’t seeing. ‘Da, are you right grand?’

  Her da just returned to his paper, rustling it. She tried again. ‘That wind’s sharp today, Da. The parson went to Fordington and he said the surf was strong and tumbling.’

  Her father said from behind the paper, ‘Good, it’ll bring up the sea coal. We’ll take out the cart tomorrow after dinner. The wholesaler will be there, he’s offering good prices so we can put more into the savings. We’ve got to remember that everything we do is for the savings.’ His voice was fierce suddenly, and strange. ‘Are you coming with Timmie and me, Jack?’

  Da looked over his newspaper at his son, who was singing again as he did up his braces. Da’s voice wasn’t right yet. Could he know about the job interview? She concentrated on Jack, not on anything else.

  ‘Always do.’ Jack reached for his shirt, dragging it on, buttoning it up. ‘But right now I’m off to Numpies to get a shave.’ He ran his hand over his stubble, and his dark brown eyes seemed to grin all on their own. The young men went to Numpies, the old ones did it themselves. No one shaved during the week.

  As Jack put on his boots Evie took the flannel through to the scullery, checking the grandfather clock to the left of the range. It kept good time and was useful for pawning. Three thirty. Please don’t come yet, Miss Manton. Make it when the men have gone, Jack to the barber, Da to his pigeon loft at the bottom of the yard. Then, if she had passed her interview she would wait until the men were mellow from the Gala and break it gently that she was to be working for the owner they loathed. It was crossing the line, it was betrayal, but necessary, as it was the only establishment that could give her the training she wanted within easy distance of home, of her family. And why shouldn’t Bastard Brampton pay for their escape fr
om his bloody pit?

  She opened the back door, shaking the flannel vigorously. She dadded the coal-drenched shirts and hoggers, the short miners’ trousers, against the wall again and again, coughing all the while as the dust caught in her throat. There was a blue sky but the wind was sharp. There were nails banged into the wall further to the right where they’d hung their pit jackets, which she dadded as well. Her hands were black. What about their lungs? She would sort out Timmie’s clothes when he came home. This might be the last time.

  She reran yesterday’s interview in time to the beating of the clothes. Miss Manton’s former cook Mrs Moore worked at Easterleigh Hall, and she had promised Miss Manton she’d contact her if a position ever came up for Evie as kitchen assistant or even better, assistant cook. During the week the assistant cook was discovered to be pregnant and cast out, back to her family who thankfully had taken her in. Miss Manton had driven Evie in her trap for an interview with Mrs Moore after which she had been passed to the butler, who then led Evie upstairs to Lady Brampton.

  Evie had never seen such carpets, such curtains, such opulence. She had never been spoken to with such disdain. For a moment Lady Brampton had diminished her, made her falter in her plans. But only for a moment. She had previously been told by Mrs Moore to back out of the drawing room, for it would offend her Ladyship to do otherwise, and at that point Evie had promised herself that one day, when she had completed what she considered a paid training, she would take great delight in offending her Ladyship good and proper.

  Miss Manton was to deliver the result before the Gala. If she had been accepted it would be to start tomorrow in the afternoon, as further references would not need to be pursued in the face of Miss Manton’s and Mrs Moore’s recommendations.

  ‘What do you think then, Evie? Smart enough for the lasses?’ Jack was standing at the entrance to the scullery. Evie stopped dadding and smiled. ‘I told you, you’re a bonny lad.’ She noticed the bag he was carrying and her heart sank. So, he was bare-fist fighting tonight, she should have known. The purse would be good with the Gala and all. She looked at him. ‘Be careful,’ she whispered. ‘I will,’ he mouthed. ‘There’s a five-guinea purse. It’s a fortune. The bets are coming in from everywhere. I have to do it.’