Page 62 of A Sense of Turmoil
‘People do not die of shame, Polly. I expect she met her end thanks to a more physical complaint.’
‘Well, I’m not so sure about that. Her friends told her I was no better than I ought to be and that she should turn her back on me.’
‘How very Christian of them,’ Flora said, thinking that is precisely what her own father would have done if Polly’s situation had been hers.
‘Mr Renshaw is one of the few who would still speak to me, him having known me all my life. Of course, no one will employ a maid who has an illegitimate child, even if it’s through no fault of her own. Mr Renshaw said he thought that you might take me on, but I didn’t see how you could overlook such wickedness, what with you being so religious, but I’m desperate, so…’ She spread her hands and allowed her garbled rush of words to tail off.
‘Your mother has passed away and you have nowhere to live and no means of supporting yourself and your child, is that what you are telling me?’
Polly nodded mutely.
‘Are you a good maid, Polly? You aspire to be a lady’s maid, but do you have a way with a lady’s hair? Because I have to tell you, mine has a mind of its own. Not that I intend to entertain or go out much, but still, given that I am likely to shock everyone by living here alone, I really need to look as respectable as possible.’
Polly’s eyes widened and a modicum of cautious optimism crept into her expression. ‘You are not scandalised?’
‘Can you assure me that you did not invite your former master’s attentions?’
‘Indeed I did not, miss! I fought him off several times, and told him that I would give notice if he didn’t leave me alone. But one night he was drunk and caught me unawares, and although I tried to fight and scream, he was so much stronger than me and…well, here you find me in this mess.’
‘Provided you are willing to work hard, I have no objection to employing you, and of course you must bring your child to live here too. A young presence in the house will liven things up, I’m sure. And I am equally sure that the local gossips will soon have the child as mine, and invent a scandal for it.’ Flora could almost hear the dowager countess’s cackle, but maybe it was just a log spitting in the fire.
‘Aw, miss.’ Tears streamed down Polly’s face. ‘I will give the best service in the world, I swear it, and I can definitely help you with your hair.’
‘Well then, it sounds as though we need one another. How old are you?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘I see.’ Flora felt ancient by comparison. ‘Is your child here now?’
‘It’s a little girl, miss, just six months, and I can’t help loving her to death. It’s not her fault the way she was conceived and the thought of having to fall back on the workhouse and have Alice take the blame for something she can’t help was tearing me apart.’
‘It won’t come to that, I’m sure. Can I meet Alice?’
‘Are you sure, miss?’ Polly’s beauty shone through her tear-drenched face. ‘Beatrice said it would be all right if Alice and me had the room off the scullery, just until you decide if you want us here. We’re as cosy as you like in there, and not hungry.’ The last was said with heartfelt feeling.
‘Go and fetch your daughter, Polly.’
Flora smiled as the girl scampered off, already feeling vindicated for starting her tenure here in Lyneham by offering a fallen young woman a position in her household. She sensed that Polly really wasn’t to blame and could easily understand why such a pretty girl would catch the eye of a master with lustful intentions. He was to blame, not Polly. The church’s propensity to condemn such girls, regardless of their circumstances, was one of the many things about the Christian faith that Flora had disagreed with. Flora did the arithmetic. Polly was sixteen, her child six months. Subtract another nine months and Polly could have been as young as fourteen. The church was an ass, she decided.
But now she had the chance for some atonement of her own. Her actions would likely be criticised by the local clergy and respectable families, hampering her determination to overcome their reservations about her living alone, but she simply didn’t care.
‘Here we are, miss.’
Polly cradled a bundle of shy mischief. Flora could already see that the child would be as pretty as her mother. Curious eyes regarded Flora from beneath a mop of wispy blonde curls. Flora smiled at Alice, held out her arms and swept the child onto her lap. Zeus, who had been washing his face in front of the fire, jumped up onto the arm of Flora’s chair. Flora felt a moment’s concern. Zeus could be unpredictable. But when the baby chuckled and held out a pudgy hand, Zeus graciously allowed tiny fingers to tug at his ears. She was astonished by the cat’s empathy.
She handed Alice back to her mother after a few minutes and made her way upstairs to explore her new domain afresh, feeling a great sense of freedom and putting to the back of her mind her heartache at being separated from Luke.
*
Luke stood at his library window, watching his carriage depart, taking Flora with it. He ought to have stepped out and waved her off, much as Mary and Paul had, but he didn’t trust himself to behave with the dignity the situation called for. He felt bereft and fought the urge to call her back and make promises he wasn’t in a position to honour. What was done was done, and there was no going back.
He busied himself for a couple of hours, working his way through the correspondence that awaited him and reading his steward’s never-ending reports. Feeling claustrophobic, he decided to take a ride and blow away a few cobwebs. He whistled to Romulus and the pair of them headed for the stables. He waited for Onyx to be saddled and then mounted up, deciding against the route that would take him to the reservoir, where memories of Flora lurked, ready to torture him at every turn. He took Onyx in the opposite direction and gave him his head. The stallion was fresh and ate up the ground at breakneck speed.
Luke drew rein and despite the damp conditions, dismounted on the river path and sat on a boulder, smiling at Romulus as he darted in and out of the flow, lapping up the clean water. He contemplated the rushing tumble swollen by the recent rains and wondered what the devil had possessed Flora to move as far away as Lyneham. He had been banking on having her closer and encountering her regularly, wondering at the need to torture himself. He suspected Archie’s hand behind her decision to move so far afield and felt a combination of jealousy and relief at his interference.
Damn it, he was like a dog in a manger, wanting what he couldn’t have! Except that he could have achieved his heart’s desire had he found the courage to go against his late father’s wishes. He could admit to himself now that he was committed elsewhere that he was close to being in love with Flora. Perhaps he always had been, ever since she had braved the secret tunnels in his house, despite being petrified of spiders, and emerged in his bedchamber in time to save him from the machinations of a scheming female who was determined to have his ring on her finger.
He and Flora would not have suited, he had managed to persuade himself. She was too independently-minded, too determined to dabble in the occult, to make a biddable wife. But, by God, she would have been challenging and life would certainly never have been dull with her at his side!
