The clatter of children’s feet running up and down the stairs added to the atmosphere of anticipation. The need to gather everything together to show their father on his arrival sent the children into a bustle of activity. Questions and demands were hurled at Kate. ‘Where’s my picture of Mamma in her green dress? We can’t find our new colouring pencils. My new shoes want cleaning.’ Even Thomas, usually so measured in his responses, became excited about showing his father his new microscope and collection of pinned butterflies. The twins collected arms full of their drawings, none of which could be thrown away, and had practised their cup and ball skills to perform.
As soon as the initial excitement of Mr Winton’s arrival was over, Kate was shocked to receive a summons to the study almost straight away. There was hardly time for the family to greet him properly before the children were packed off back to the nursery and Eliza told her that they had finished their tea and she was to report to the master immediately. Clara was already in the room when Kate opened the study door.
There was no greeting from the master and Clara avoided looking at her, her head bowed. Hanging loosely from her hand was a handkerchief which had clearly been needed, for Clara’s cheeks were wet with tears. Mr Winton’s expression was severe. He told Kate to stand beside Clara and proceeded to wave a paper in front of them.
‘I’ve already read the contents of this letter to my daughter,’ he said, in a sharp, clipped tone. ‘Now I shall tell you that you are a very lucky, young woman, that both my wife and my daughter have pleaded for my mercy with regard to your punishment and I have listened. If I had my way I would be sending you packing, but they have said that your services are invaluable to them, so I have decided you will be allowed to stay. I don’t believe that either of you could have acted in such an irresponsible way if youhadn’t had your heads turned and filled with such nonsense as you have been subjected to by these misguided women.’
Kate felt every word stab into her as Mr Winton’s anger surged through him. His attempts not to lose complete control made his lips tighten and his face redden as he spat the accusations at them. What would happen to her and Clara? What would their punishment be?
Kate noticed Clara’s head lift and she feared she was about to try to defend what they had done, but Clara simply looked at Kate with a sadness that made her shudder. If Clara was despairing then what chance had she?
‘My decision about what is to be done with you both in the long term must wait. You will both be told what my intentions are when I am ready. I will write to Mrs Hargraves and thank her for her concern but tell her she need no longer concern herself over your reputations. In the meantime, you will both keep away from these women and put this ridiculous idea of suffrage out of your minds. Your mother and I agree—’
‘But Mother believes—’ Clara began.
‘We will not discuss what your mother believes, Clara. That is a matter between your mother and myself. What this will do to your reputation and the proposed arrangement with . . .’ At this point Mr Winton gained control of his anger and stopped short although Kate knew what he was referring to.
‘Kate, you may leave us,’ Mr Winton said.
As she closed the door, Kate could hear Clara’s voice continuing to try to reason with her father, but Mr Winton had the last and most powerful word.
‘Enough!’ he shouted, and Clara emerged from the room to run upstairs. Kate stared at the open study door and wondered what Mr Winton would do. She worried for Clara, but she worried more for herself.
Chapter Thirteen
October 1913
The house was quieter without Clara. She’d been sent to finish her education at the Lawnside School for Young Ladies in Great Malvern. Kate didn’t get to say much more than a secretly snatched goodbye, as the two young women had been instructed to spend no further time in one another’s company before her departure. The whole arrangement was speedily attended to. Clara was to spend a few days with an aunt in Tewkesbury and from there she would travel to the college.
How quickly things could change! Master Philip had tried to reassure her, when he came home from Cambridge for a short while, that it would soon all blow over and be forgotten. Kate wasn’t so sure.
The post box had been cleaned up and there was no trace of what had happened that day, but, whenever Kate walked by it with the three children, she felt that the fire had left an invisible scar inside her. She couldn’t suppress a sense of regret. But what was she regretting? That she had ever got involved in the protest in the first place, that she had lost Clara, or that she had even come to Woodland House at all? She might have talked to Eliza about her feelings, but Eliza could only think about herself right now and what was happening in her own life. Eliza’s wedding date had finally been set for December. It was all planned; Eliza had given her notice but would stay to help prepare for the family move. Mrs B and Kate were to go with the family to London, but a new kitchen maid and a butler would be employed for the new London house. The move was set for early November.
Kate was pleased for her but would miss Eliza terribly. It would be like starting all over again, but there was nothing shecould do about it. Things could never stay the same. Mr and Mrs Tommy White would take up their new positions as Head Butler and Cook at ‘The Laurels’, Dorchester Road. Kate would be alone. No Eliza to joke with, no Clara and no Philip to . . . to what? Whatever did she think was going to come of any of it? They were far above her and far away from her. She must concentrate on doing her job.
* * *
The packing and preparing was interminable. Every way Mrs B, Eliza and Kate tried to suggest organizing things, Mrs Winton disagreed. One day she instructed them to pack the best china and the next she said they must unpack it again for she couldn’t possibly serve dinner to her sister and family on the second-best dinner service. They were coming to take the children to stay with them temporarily so that all the staff could concentrate on the removal arrangements. Kate spent a good deal of time telling the children that the days would soon pass and they would all be together again in London ‘in the wink of an eye’. Thomas, now approaching eight years old and very grown up, was very matter of fact about it all, and said he was looking forward to it for he would be going to one of the best schools in London, Dulwich College, and Father had said there would be a science laboratory with microscopes and petri dishes. The twins weren’t so sure.
They were to be separated for the first time. Simon was to join his brother but Sophie would be attending James Allen’s Girls’ School, a short distance away. They, like Kate, had little choice in any of these matters and were obliged to do as their parents bid them.
The whole performance was gradually ended and the move took place in early November. Thankfully it was a dry day and not too cold. As Kate lifted her bags into the hansom cab that was to take her and Mrs B to the station, she looked back at thehouse. The windows looked back at her with the sadness of a child abandoned. What waited for her in the city was a mystery to her, for the closest she had ever come to the capital was through the descriptions given by Clara and Philip, and through photographs glimpsed in the papers. When she would see her family in Micklewell again, she had no idea. She had expected to be able to go back home to say her farewells but Mrs Winton had said she couldn’t possibly spare her and there would be time enough once they had settled.
Kate tried not to think about such things and set her mind on what awaited her, but it kept drifting back to Eliza’s laughter and Clara’s determined frown. She knew that she would probably never see Eliza again. As for Clara, she wondered how long the master and mistress would keep her in isolation in Gloucestershire and if their plans to marry her off to some wealthy curmudgeon had only been delayed, not dismantled. These were questions that could only be answered in the fullness of time. She must have patience and fortitude. She found that recently the former was somewhat harder to achieve for she had been given a taste of what life could become, even for women in service such as her and she so wanted for change to come sooner rather than later. She could feel her pulse quicken at the thought that she was living and working in such times. Surely in London there would be opportunities. She hoped Miss Clara would be allowed to return, and that they could explore those opportunities together. She could never enter the sector of society that Clara belonged to, but they could both, in their own separate ways, ensure that they would not give up their right to strive for a better future.
Part Two
Chapter Fourteen
November 1913
As the train click clacked on through the Hampshire countryside and towards the city, Kate wondered what her new life would be like. She had never travelled any further than Andover and she had certainly never expected to be journeying on a train towards the capital.
‘It’s not the city proper, you know,’ Mrs B had informed her. ‘If you think we’re going to be seeing Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard, you’d better think again. Besides which we’re not likely to see much holed up inside the new place, there’ll be too much to do. And you can forget going home any time soon, young lady. We’ll be busy getting everything straight, the way the mistress likes it. She’s decided already that we shan’t be doing any entertaining this Christmas. Wants to keep it just a small family event this year she says, to make it easier on me. I have my suspicions there’s other reasons, though, like moving house and coping with a wayward daughter and a demanding husband is all too much for her. She’s arranged for Miss Clara to stay with her aunt down in Gloucestershire and Master Philip is going to the Carnforth’s apparently.’
Kate knew she could always rely upon Mrs B to be forthright. She was never one for over-egging the pudding. She was disappointed to hear that both Philip and Clara would not be coming home for Christmas but there was little she could do about it. She was here, travelling to London and life was going to be very different from now on.
Kate took a long look as the fields and farms flicked before her eyes, a kaleidoscope of greens and yellows and browns. The undulating ground, veined with tracks and roads, connecting the hamlets and villages together. Her heart took a sudden tumbleas she realized the chasm that was opening up between her and all that she was familiar with, her homeland diminishing into the distance until it became a tiny spot on her memory. How would she ever find her way back? She closed her eyes for a moment to picture Micklewell. Her birthplace lay some distance from the train track but as they passed Hook station, she took herself on a mental journey. She could almost see the white signpost on the outskirts of the village indicating Nately Scures and Up Nately, the row of thatched cottages on the banks of the stream and the smithy where the furnace was glowing. She smiled as she imagined the Taylor sisters out tending their garden and old Nethersole mending his bicycle. She shivered at the thought of the adder catcher, Brusher Mills, outside the Queen’s Head Inn with his bag of wriggling cargo, his guarantee of payment for clearing the grounds around Micklewell House.
