The Care and Management of Lies E-Book

Jacqueline Winspear

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 495

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

By July 1914, the ties between Kezia Marchant and Thea Brissenden, friends since girlhood, have become strained - by Thea's passionate embrace of women's suffrage, and by the imminent marriage of Kezia to Thea's brother, Tom, who runs the family farm. Yet when Tom enlists to fight for his country and Thea is drawn reluctantly onto the battlefield, the farm becomes Kezia's responsibility. Each must find a way to endure the ensuing cataclysm and turmoil. But will well-intended lies and self-deception be of use when they come face to face with the enemy.

Leseprobe

THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF LIES

JACQUELINE WINSPEAR

To Amy With love and gratitude, always

Every intelligent person in the world knew that disaster was impending, and knew no way to avoid it.

H. G. WELLS

The home front is always underrated by generals in the field. And yet that is where the Great War was won and lost.

PRIME MINISTER DAVID LLOYD GEORGE,WAR MEMOIRS

What is certain, is that war will not leave us as it found us.

WOMAN AT HOME, February 1915

Contents

Title PageDedicationEpigraphCHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER FIVECHAPTER SIXCHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER EIGHTCHAPTER NINECHAPTER TENCHAPTER ELEVENCHAPTER TWELVECHAPTER THIRTEENCHAPTER FOURTEENCHAPTER FIFTEENCHAPTER SIXTEENCHAPTER SEVENTEENCHAPTER EIGHTEENCHAPTER NINETEENAUTHOR’S NOTEACKNOWLEDGEMENTSAbout the AuthorAlso by Jacqueline WinspearCopyright

CHAPTER ONE

June 1914, London

A tactful woman is one who will never hurt another’s feelings. She will always respect the little foibles of her friends and refrain from holding them up to ridicule.

– THE WOMAN’S BOOK

by Florence B. Jack, first published in 1911

The country was in the early weeks of a summer that would become memorable for its warmth and, despite worries farther afield, there was a sense of being cocooned in Englishness. If ever the natural world conspired to create the perfect summer, then this was the beginning of a charmed season. People – country people – would reflect on this time and remember cricket on the village green, with ladies seated, drinking tea, while men and boys ambled back and forth between the stumps, the ricochet of leather on willow accompanying a run here, a sprint there, followed by light applause from members of the audience not already lulled into an afternoon doze on the pavilion veranda. A gentle sound, as if small glass beads had been run across fine writing paper, would on occasion fill the air when a light breeze caught leaves so fresh they might have unfurled especially for these days. In London, the heat became oppressive as it wafted down into the subterranean tunnels of the Underground. On the street, horses grew impatient with their sweat, stamping their feet when required to stand. Cabbies, too, were becoming ill-tempered – well, perhaps no more ill-tempered than usual. Women might have perspired, but only to the extent that embarrassment could be dealt with by an extra handkerchief well placed and a parasol set just so. It might have been possible to forget, for a moment, that the country had been beset with strikes, and that the government was at the time preoccupied with ‘The Irish Question’. A stench from the Thames, her tributaries and canals, would be intolerable within a month, and for the poor there was at least no fog, no pea-soup smog, and no biting winter to endure, though hardship and disease still cast a pall over their lives. The city’s poor lived a different life, remember.

Kezia Marchant had been staying for a few days with her most beloved and dearest friend, Dorothy Brissenden, at Queen Charlotte’s Chambers, the women’s boarding house close to Russell Square where Dorothy had lodged for some five years. Both women were twenty-seven years of age, and in late afternoon were comfortably seated by a sunlit window in the confined quarters Dorothy – Dorrit, to her family and those who had known her since childhood – had lately referred to as her ‘gaff’. This was a new locution for Dorrit, once so correct and unassuming – or so it might seem, at first blush – even for a farm-born country girl. Having spent the earlier part of the morning window shopping for items they could not afford and would consider it profligate to indulge in anyway, they’d had tea and were lazily leafing through a pile of women’s monthly books a fellow boarder had given Dorrit. Though a picture of idleness, each woman offering a comment here or an observation there as she licked a finger to turn the page, they were endeavouring to re-establish the companionship enjoyed in earlier years. Kezia was distracted by considerations of marriage – she would be wed to Dorrit’s younger brother, Tom, in just four days, and since her engagement eighteen months ago this past May, her thoughts had been peppered by a commentary that became ever more resonant as time passed. ‘In a month, I will be a married woman.’ Or, ‘By the time I wear my winter coat again, I will be wed.’ Or, ‘When I walk into this shop next time, I will be Mrs Tom Brissenden.’ This propensity to reflect upon her anticipated status would continue until the day of her wedding.

Though the two women appeared to be animated by their connection and intermittent conversation, the more intuitive onlooker might have detected something amiss, which further consideration would reveal to be the bonds of friendship loosened by choices each had made, as if one were a boat and the other the harbour. It is the nature of the vessel to set sail, and of the harbour to remain solid, waiting until the boat returns laden with tales of travel and experience, of rough seas and calm. If this thought had crossed her mind, Kezia Marchant – at this point Marchant for just four more days, mind – would have recognised she was the harbour. She was a well-read, academically adept woman, and of late she had felt – but not consciously acknowledged – an irritation blended with sadness at this turn of events. The once mild yet solid Dorrit had changed.

They had been friends since girlhood, from their first day at the prestigious – and in this instance prestigious also meant expensive – Camden School for Girls in Tunbridge Wells, where both were recipients of a scholarship to fund an otherwise unaffordable education, plus their keep as boarders. Kezia’s father, a vicar in a small town at the London edge of Kent, had always been a staunch supporter of his daughter’s education and took delight in her intellectual gifts. Such was their love that she had seen herself as the adored Margaret to his Sir Thomas More. But Reverend Marchant – whose family lived in an ivy-clad Georgian rectory with a housekeeper, scullery maid and cook, as would befit a man of the cloth in safe tenure – had not the funds to finance his daughter’s attendance at Camden, so was overjoyed when news of the scholarship was received.

Jack Brissenden farmed land deeper into Kent, outside the town of Brooksmarsh and not a mile from the village of Turndene. His father and grandfather before him had worked the same land until their hands were raw, until they were bent and spent and the earth was ingrained in the folds of their skin. He was not short of a bob or two, but could see no point in spending good money to further his daughter’s learning. A scholarship amounted to free coin, however, and was therefore not to be turned down. Jack knew that his son Tom – Dorrit’s brother and, more recently, Kezia’s fiancé – would in time take over the farm. So as far as Jack was concerned, investment in the broadening of Tom’s mind, of his view of the world – especially that of commerce, of buying and selling for market – was not such a bad thing at all if the family were to continue this run of prosperity, which was the cause of some envy among others of his ilk. Thus, unlike that of many local young farmers in the making, Tom Brissenden’s education had extended beyond apprenticeship to his father. He had been sent to the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, so that from beyond the borders of his Kentish home, he might open his mind to fresh ideas about working a holding of not inconsiderable acreage. He would gain, as Jack suggested when he announced Tom’s departure, ‘a new perspective’ on a farmer’s life. He pronounced it ‘’spective’. Tom would return to the business of running the farm, which, it was predicted, he would manage a good deal more efficiently than even his father, in time. This had been the forward-thinking Jack’s intention, though the patriarch could not have known just how forward-thinking his plans were, or that by his forty-fifth birthday he would be dead, his life shortened by a heart attack. Jack had been predeceased by his wife, Mary, who had passed away just one year earlier, having ignored a lump on her breast until such a time as saving her life was well beyond the skill of any doctor, even if Jack had been disposed to withdraw sufficient funds from the bank to take her to a good hospital.

Kezia and Dorrit had been inseparable from the day they were allocated neighbouring beds in Camden’s austere Austen House dormitory. Austen House was one of four ‘houses’ to which girls were assigned for all sporting endeavours, for academic competition, and to instill a sense of camaraderie among pupils. Dorrit had expressed more of an allegiance to the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell and had rather hoped to be assigned to Gaskell House, though Kezia had idolised Jane since first reading Persuasion. It was later, during a visit to the farm at Dorrit’s invitation, that Kezia met Tom, to whom she would soon be wed. In fact, if she had glanced at the clock while Dorrit was speaking, she would have known that at that very moment in four days she would have already walked down the aisle of her father’s church, where the vicar from a neighbouring parish had officiated so that her father could give her away.

Upon matriculation from Camden – ‘old girls’ referred to themselves as ‘Cammies’ – both Kezia and Dorrit had commenced further studies in London at a teacher-training college in Chelsea, again with scholarship assistance in pursuit of their chosen calling, the education of children. And from there they parted ways; Kezia accepted the offer of a position as English mistress for the upper school at her beloved Camden, while Dorrit remained steadfast in her refusal to leave the city. Dorrit’s choice was made in defiance of her father, who thought the village school more than good enough for a young woman in wait for a husband, who – if Jack had pressed his preference – would one day be a son of farming Kent. She was employed at a private academy close to Regent’s Park, where her daily charges were the younger sons and daughters of the better-off. She assuaged her guilt – Dorrit had acknowledged within herself a sharp leaning towards the establishment of a more equitable society – by taking food parcels to the East End poor. She suspected that those in receipt of her largesse thought she was a bit stuck-up. Dorrit, in turn, could not understand a word the East Enders said, outside a grateful, ‘Fanks, miss.’

The nub of Kezia’s doubt regarding Dorrit had for some time been the latter’s immersion in the world of suffrage. Not that Kezia disapproved of the vote for women, but she had noticed Dorrit becoming more forceful, and suspected her friend was being sucked into something quite dangerous. It was one thing to march; one thing, even, to clamour for the attention of politicians, and to wear a green banner across her chest while pressing pamphlets into the hands of passers-by, all to further the cause of ending the disenfranchisement of women. But Kezia considered it another thing altogether when Dorrit’s language became increasingly belligerent; the word fight spiced with the venom of a viper. Whenever Kezia visited Dorrit in recent months, she departed with the sense that something was being hidden from her, as if soiled laundry had been shoved under the bed to make room on a chair for an unexpected guest. As a further surprise, Kezia’s very best friend had announced on Friday evening that she would be known as Dorrit no longer. With her father dead and buried, she explained, there was no longer any reason for her to endure her family’s obsession with Charles Dickens, a trait inherited from her grandfather, who had named every field on Marshals Farm in honour of the author’s work – Marshals itself being an abbreviation of Marshalsea, the debtors’ prison where Dickens’s own father had languished. The family had suspected the chosen name was by way of a warning – unless they worked hard and took care with money, a similar fate might await them. Jack’s mother had put her foot down upon becoming mistress of the house, and insisted upon the alteration that changed the farm’s name, stating that it was enough to be stuck in the kitchen all day; she would not have the shadow of a prison thrust upon her home. Had Jack Brissenden prevailed at the time of his son’s naming, Kezia would be engaged to a young man named Pip.

Dorrit had informed Kezia that she was in future to be known as Dorothea – abbreviated to ‘Thea’ for friends – and she would be grateful if Kezia would pay tribute to their friendship and address her as such. In fact, if she heard the name Dorrit from any quarter, she would ignore it. Though it might seem that her social leanings would have caused Dorrit to cherish her given name, in truth she was glad at last to be rid of it.

Kezia felt as if she were in mourning, as if she had lost something very precious. How she had admired Dorrit – Thea – even from those early days at Camden. Though Thea was a quiet girl then, it had seemed to Kezia she could do anything, drawing upon a solid strength from the land that raised her. The Dorrit she loved as if she were a sister could ride a horse like the wind, and knew how to light a fire without a match. Dorrit would not draw back from the task of cleaning a pheasant or pulling the neck of a chicken, and would march across muddy fields as if the ground beneath her feet would never give to her step, for she owned it. Now she had become this woman of the town, a strident Amazon who peppered conversation with the word fight more times than she may have realised.

If Kezia continued to feel a little sorry for herself, blaming the fissure on Dorrit – how could you suddenly begin calling someone by another name, she thought, unless that is, it were the surname you were changing? – then Thea, as she would now forever be known, or ignore all attempts to gain her attention, also felt pushed aside. When was it, exactly, that Tom and Kezia looked at each other and saw themselves as joined, without her in the middle to reflect one to the other? At what point had she become unnecessary, ceasing to be Tom’s first confidant, and Kezia’s dearly adored sister – of the heart, if not in name? When had Tom grown up enough for Kezia even to have noticed him? Had he always loved her, since she first came to the farm, sitting down at the kitchen table as if she were a visitor from another world? And she was. Jack Brissenden had never held with the church – especially a town church. He considered churches, with their spires and towers, with their buttresses and chancels, naves and narthexes, as useful only for the official naming of children, for the joining of two people in matrimony, and, of course, for the burying of the dead. Thea wondered how he might have felt about that now, having been committed to the cold earth not six months past.

Thea often felt an acute sense of unfairness when she considered the features that marked Tom and herself as brother and sister, an unequal division of the shared traits in appearance and demeanour that seemed to bless him while rendering her less attractive – in her estimation, at least. Their mother’s fair hair was light and sun-kissed on Tom, even in winter. Yet on Thea, that same tone became straw-like by late spring, and dull and mousey in the dim light of shorter days. Dark eyebrows, long lashes, and hazel eyes gave Tom’s face definition. Thea considered those lashes to be wasted on Tom – why had she not been blessed with such bounty? And how she hated those same brown eyebrows on her own face, so much so that as a girl at Camden, she had filched a pair of tweezers from the school infirmary to rectify the situation. Her error had been in allowing Kezia and another friend to pluck away the offending hairs. It was some time before her eyebrows grew back enough to allow another try at shaping them.

Tom was a good height for a man, but Thea was three inches shorter than Kezia, who was in turn just one inch shorter than her husband-to-be, though of the two women, Thea was the physically stronger and more adept. Even in childhood, as Tom’s accomplishments were lauded by their mother and father, Thea pushed herself to match him, and surpass him if she could. The scholarship to Camden was a blessing, though it was a sword with two edges. One neatly cut away the moorings tying Thea to her family, allowing her to leave the farm and begin to establish a sense of herself. The other side of the blade separated her from Tom. For all her moments of resentment when she considered evidence suggesting Tom was the more favoured child, it was obvious as he grew that she would have fought battles to protect him, and might even have given her life for him, because Thea loved her brother beyond measure. And in return, Tom had nothing but adoration for his older sister, and had understood how his parents’ preference had wounded her. He would wink at Thea across the table when his father admonished her for not being as good as Tom with the sheep, or the horses, or he would come to her later and ask for her help with some task on the farm, or enquire if she would like to walk down to Micawber Wood. It was as if he were putting a precious piece of china back on a high shelf after it had been knocked down, handling it with care in case the crack might become a break. Tom had missed Thea with a terrible ache when she went away to school, even though there was little discord in the farmhouse during her absence, and he liked the calm.

Thea’s irritation with the forthcoming union between her best friend – was Kezia still her best friend? – and her brother had rendered her less than generous in her wishes for them. She could not see Kezia as a farmer’s wife, and neither could her late mother, who had maintained from the first indication of a courtship she would not share her kitchen with another woman, even if that woman was dear Kezia, who had first visited the farm when she was but thirteen years of age. Of course, such potential discord never came to pass. However, it was under the influence of this prejudice that Thea had bought her friend a gift in advance of the wedding. It was a book chosen – if truth be told – for the title alone. Thea leafed through only two or three pages at most before paying for the heavy tome, knowing she could pass it off as a worthy offering from the bridesmaid to the bride.

The seemingly benign offering represented a dig not lost on Kezia, who accepted with grace, kissing her friend on the cheek. ‘Dear Thea, how thoughtful of you.’ The book was laid bare of its wrapping. ‘Oh. How … nice. The Woman’s Book.’ She leafed through the first four pages. ‘Well, this has everything, doesn’t it? “Contains Everything a Woman Ought to Know”.’ Kezia looked up from the book and smiled at Thea, unshed tears pricking her eyes. ‘Now you can be assured I’ll be the perfect wife for your darling brother.’

‘I thought it might be something you could use – it has all you might need to learn about being a woman in the home. There’s a section on cookery, though I think you’ll find my mother’s old copy of Mrs Beeton somewhere in the kitchen, just in case. She was a fair plain cook, so I doubt she ever needed it.’

‘Then there will be nothing missing in my reference library of housewifery.’ Kezia closed the book and patted the cover.

‘And there will doubtless be times when this will be a lifesaver,’ she said, setting the book to one side, her smile forced.

She knew the gift was Thea’s comment on her life to come, as if any depth of intellectual enquiry on her part would henceforth extend no further than a list of ingredients for the next meal or the best way to black a stove. The book had hurt her pride, though she knew very well that Thea – she had a mind to call her Dorrit again, to get under her skin – was more than aware of her Achilles’ heel. Kezia had never had reason to cook, or clean, or tend house. Even while lodging in Tunbridge Wells after she’d taken up her position at Camden, every meal had been prepared for her, and at school she took her meals in the staff dining room. After she was married – in threedays, nineteen hours, and fifteen minutes – and became mistress of Marshals Farm, the feeding of men and boys would be up to her. She would be stoker of the farm’s engine.

Thea thought Kezia saw the land through rose-coloured glasses, never having paid attention to the running of the farm. For a farmer’s wife there was only toil from well before the first light of dawn, until the wick was turned down at night – even with help from Ada Beeney, the girl who came in from the village to light the fires, scrub the floors, and fetch and carry, it was a hard life. Kezia was an intelligent, educated woman; Thea knew that, and cherished the well of conversation that had been a hallmark of their friendship. But Kezia was also a dreamer. Once that ethereal quality had enchanted Thea – she had never met anyone like Kezia. Now her friend’s naïveté festered under her skin. It was as if Kezia saw her future on the farm in a bubble, a life in which she would spend her days with daisies in her hair, wandering across sun-drenched fields bringing bottles of fresh lemonade and warm scones to her strong farmer husband, her one true love, who would sweep her into his arms with joy and gratitude.

‘By the way,’ said Thea, flicking newspaper pages as if to underline the fact she had better things to think about than white lace, and no need for books on keeping proper house and being a woman, ‘did you read about this business going on with Austria and – where was it? – yes, Serbia. It’s all to do with the archduke and his wife being assassinated in Sarajevo. Anyway, I do hope any trouble blows over before August. I don’t want my walking tour of the Alps ruined – Edith, Avril, and I have been planning it for such a long time.’ She turned another page, having recited the names of her new friends to accentuate her separation from Kezia. Indeed, Thea had no real interest in what happened in the Balkans, or anywhere else on the other side of the English Channel, but the news gave her an opportunity to test Kezia. ‘Of course, what happens on the world’s stage won’t worry you, will it? After all, by the time I’m picking edelweiss, you’ll be dealing with that noisy coterie of women from the village who come to wash and mend pokes ready for the hops. There’ll be a multitude of piece-workers swarming the farm to put up with. And it’ll be down to you to keep the farm books – that’s after making breakfast for the men at half past five in the morning. Fortunately for you, they bring their own dinner, the men, which is just as well, because Tom’s like my father, ready to eat a horse when he comes in for his tea at six o’clock. You’ll need the best part of the afternoon to prepare a meal fit for a king.’ She sighed. ‘I sometimes wonder whether you’ve ever grasped just how much hard work it all is. Three meals a day to be cooked, on top of everything else on your plate. Anyway, it’s a pity you’ll have your hands full – you might have liked to come to Austria. That is, if Tom would allow it. They say the Alps are beautiful beyond measure.’

Kezia, who was herself not above needling, picked up the book again, resting it on her lap. ‘Oh, I’ve seen the Alps, Thea – don’t you remember? I went with my dear father and mother when I was fifteen. For the whole summer. You might recall that you were invited to join us, but your father put his foot down – I think it was because my father’s a man of the cloth and we were the guests of an Austrian parson, an old family friend.’ She smiled. ‘Anyway, Tom and I will be so thrilled to see you again when you come home – and when you come to stay, we’ll have your old room ready and waiting.’ She paused and patted the book’s cover. ‘Do you realise that in four days you’ll be raising a glass to Tom and me? To our future, to the happiness we bring to the farm again, and the home we build together. The two of us making the house a home again.’

Thea turned away at the word again.

Kezia lay back on the narrow bed in her room, watching fronds of lilac blossom scratch against the window, framed in dawn light. A cotton robe was loose around her body, naked and still warm from her bath. She ran her fingers through her hair, free of pins and splayed across the pillow, and looked at the white dress upon its hanger, hooked on the picture rail. It was a fine piece of stitchery, with lace laid across soft lawn and petticoats underneath, cut to accentuate her slenderness. A high neckline embellished with pearls would draw attention to her prominent cheekbones, though she hoped a tiny scar at the side of her left eye, reminder of a childhood accident, was not too visible. In time her mother would come to wake her, though she must know that her daughter had hardly slept. Soon Thea, dear Thea, her best friend, would knock on the door, ready to be her maid of honour on this day, when she would be wed to Tom Brissenden. In six hours, I will be wed, thought Kezia. And in the silence of her room, her childhood room in her parents’ house, she loosened the robe and allowed her fingers to trace a line across her breasts, then downwards, traversing her belly to her thighs. Before this time tomorrow, before twenty-four hours had passed, Tom’s hands would grasp her, and his body would press against hers, and at last it would be done. She would belong forever after to Tom, beloved Tom whom she had known for years, even before it seemed they had seen each other at last. Until that moment, Tom had always been Thea’s younger brother – young Tom, capable Tom, sensible Tom. Tom who worked the farm, who brought home from college fresh ways of drawing income from the land, and who had toiled to win the respect of workers who were his father’s men. Tom who had a laugh like sunshine, and who had kissed her for the first time when he was twenty-three and she two years older, would be her husband, her spouse, her helpmeet and lover. Kezia rolled over on the bed and closed her eyes. This was the body she would give to Tom – the man who was still a boy when she’d first come to Marshals Farm. But Tom, now tall and capable, with hands callused and worn and shoulders broad from working the land, was her Tom, dear Tom whom she would love for the rest of her days.

Tom and his best man, Edward – Edward was a farmer in Sussex; they had met at the agricultural college – were staying at a local inn. He would have preferred to be married from the farm, but he could not argue with custom – and it was custom that the marriage took place in the bride’s parish. He had tried, once, to press his point, arguing that Kezzie – he had called her Kezzie, it seemed, since they first met – had lived most of her life in Kent, attending school and working at Camden after college in London. And though he knew she too would have chosen the village church, he did not wish to cross either her mother or her father, for to do so would be tantamount to arguing with God, and though he was not a churchgoing man, he wouldn’t take a chance on anything untoward coming to pass on the big day. Now, while Kezia was awake, imagining the hours ahead, Tom slept. There were few days for him to call his own, but today he would rest his head until at least half past nine. Edward would wake him. In time, with Tom dressed in the suit he had bought for his father’s funeral, the two men would walk to the church to await his bride. Tom was not nervous; he had no qualms regarding his choice of the woman he would lie next to every night for the rest of his life. Old head on young shoulders, they said about him. When all was said and done, even Thea – grudgingly – agreed they were a good enough match. Despite Kezia having few skills to prepare her for keeping a house and being a farmer’s wife, the foundation of their union would be Tom’s solid nature and Kezia’s ability to lighten their days.

It might seem to some that Tom was one who kept his thoughts to himself, who would never be caught supporting this opinion, or that argument. He was solid even as a boy, someone who knew what he had to get on with, so proceeded to get on with it. The men who worked for his father had come to respect his straightforward manner, and – increasingly – the finality of his decisions. No one, not even Edward, not even his mother, who swore she could read both her children blind, had intuited the depth of his enchantment with Kezia Marchant.

At first it had been a crush, a boyish beating of the heart first experienced when his sister brought her friend home to the farm and introduced her to the family. His babyish name for Thea was Dorry, for that was all he could pronounce when he first began to form words, so the name had been kept, albeit with a Dickensian twist. Of late Tom had felt rather put out when asked to call his sister Thea. It seemed as if the childhood bond was lost, as if someone had snipped the fine yarn that had joined them from the moment he reached for her hand to steady his attempt at walking, saying, ‘Dorry, Dorry.’ But Tom was not a complainer, so he called her Thea and referred to her as such ever after.

He had looked forward to Kezia’s visits to the farm, anticipating her noticing him, drawing him into the conversation.

‘Hello, Tom. Dorrit tells me that you’ve your own flock now – you’ll have to show me.’

The boy had flushed; the mother noticed, and the father raised an eyebrow as he cast a glance towards the girl who would one day become his daughter-in-law, though he would not live to see the day. When the engagement was first announced, he accepted it with a smile, slapping his son on the back, though without obvious enthusiasm.

If Tom had been asked to explain, to describe to another, why he had chosen Kezia for his wife, he might – predictably – have shrugged his shoulders and said he had better things to do than talk about private matters. But in his heart and soul, he knew very well why he wanted Kezia by his side. The childhood crush, a time when a single look from Kezia, just a comment of interest or observation, would flood his body with warmth, had developed into something more over the years. He admired Kezia; he took account of the way she held herself, of her confidence. Her dress was neither ostentatious nor plain, but always drew attention from passers-by – a second look by a woman, the raising of a gentleman’s hat. Her features might have seemed sharp on another woman – eyes that moved quickly from person to person in a conversation with family and friends – and she had dexterous hands, large hands, really, for a female; yet in her movements she was deliberate and thoughtful.

Whether walking on the farm or meandering around the shops in London, Kezia would stop to peruse anything that caught her eye, and would not be rushed. Thea had found this trait annoying at times, cursing Kezia as their bus pulled out in the distance or as they arrived late at the cinema, forfeiting the first fifteen minutes of the picture on account of something Kezia just had to see. Later, though, Thea found she missed those little things about Kezia that had once been the source of some frustration. Kezia had a throaty laugh that, when she came to know the family, seemed to have no governor. Jack Brissenden would laugh with her, and Tom would notice the sparkle in Thea’s eyes as she tried not to giggle, at which point he could not help but laugh. Only his mother executed control – her cheeks twitched, but her stare was less than warm. Tom knew then that his mother was jealous of Kezia, for it irked her that all her family was in love with this girl who seemed to know little of the country, and nothing of the farm.

What Tom knew, now, was that he wanted Kezia by his side. His work was hard, and despite his apparent success in managing without his father’s guidance, he often felt as if wolves paced the perimeter of his land. Not only had he been fortunate in his inheritance, but his father’s foresight had bolstered his chances of running a good farm in what were proving to be troubling times. Jack had realised Tom would need more tools to serve the land than he had ever had in his day, if the land were to serve him in turn, and his son after him, God willing. He might have the theory of agricultural college under his belt, along with a deep innate understanding of the soil, but the days were long, and a farm could take its pound of flesh in return for a good harvest. Tom wanted to come home to a warm, fragrant kitchen, a fire in the hearth at night, and a woman with whom he could share his joys, his worries, his laughter – and he so wanted laughter. In truth, his parents had thought Kezia unsuitable, and would have preferred to see him paying court to a daughter of the countryside, to a girl who understood what it was to put her apron on in the morning and take it off at night only when her spouse had made his way up the creaking farmhouse stairs to the room above. She would bank up the fire, swab the red tile floor just one more time. Not before she had settled the wicks in flickering lamps would she take to the staircase and then to their bed. In marrying a Brissenden, Tom’s mother had set aside a desire to continue her education, and devoted her heart to the farm, had given her spirit to the business of her husband, her complexion to worry, and her hands to hard work. Though her formal learning had ended early, she had been a steady reader in her day, and now she harboured envy that Kezia, with her light touch in the world, the way she skimmed across the surface of concern, might find the softer way of being a farmer’s wife that had eluded her.

Edward nudged Tom as the organ bellows wheezed, drew breath, and exhaled fresh energy into the ancient church. The ‘Wedding March’ filled the rafters with joy. Tom felt a line of perspiration run down his neck and along his spine, and fingered the starched collar that would leave a red horizontal stripe on his skin. He felt a warm blush reach his cheeks and ears, and thought the entire congregation must see this sign of his delight, fear, anticipation, and – yes – excitement. Edward nudged him again. And again.

‘Look, you bloody fool. Look and remember. She’s right beautiful.’ He pronounced the word ‘boodiful’ in his rounded rural Sussex brogue.

So Tom turned his head, and at once a shaft of light seemed to render all others invisible as Kezia walked towards him, one hand on her father’s arm, the other clutching a bouquet of white garden blooms – her mother had begun to cultivate a bed of white flowers next to the house on the day Tom had called to ask for Kezia’s hand. No veil could keep the bride’s wide smile from captivating her groom, and no crown of orange blossom could shadow the coppery nut-brown hair drawn back in a braided bun. Kezia had been the wife of his heart for years, long before the minister asked who giveth this woman and her father lifted her hand towards his; long before he set a ring of gold upon her finger, and long before the bells pealed and they walked past a blur of faces as man and wife. And she would be his wife for as long as they both might live. God willing.

CHAPTER TWO

A good housewife will not rest content with the fact that the meals in her house are well-cooked. She will also see to it that they are well-served, knowing that dainty table equipment and skilful service does much to enhance the enjoyment of the fare provided.

– THE WOMAN’S BOOK

Tom looked up from his plate and began to laugh. ‘What’s the matter with it?’ asked his wife of two-and-a-half weeks, herself smiling, unable to resist her husband’s apparent amusement.

‘Kezzie, love, what have you done with this cauliflower?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Kezia Brissenden, rubbing her hands on a pinafore still bearing the crisp creases of newness amid a garland of stains. ‘What’s wrong with the cauliflower?’

She leant across to look at the food she had set before him. There was a meat pie; admittedly, she’d had some trouble with the pastry, and it seemed pockmarked. The mashed potato was quite well divested of the lumps she’d fought against earlier, and the cauliflower appeared well cooked. Tom liked his vegetables well cooked, colour drained from the green to the extent it appeared bleached, with creamy white florets almost indistinguishable from the mash.

‘I just wondered why there was string in it.’

‘Oh, dear, you’ve got the string. I didn’t see it when I dished up. Here, allow me …’ Kezia leant towards him, pulled at the string he’d lifted with his fork, and removed it with a flourish. Gravy splattered the tablecloth. She giggled as she carried the length of twine towards the sink to wash in cold water and hang to dry on a pipe running from the copper at the side of the stove, which supplied hot water to the tap. ‘Waste not want not. Your mother would be proud of me!’

‘I daresay she would, but why did you cook the cauli with string in the first place?’

‘To keep the bits in, silly. All those little flowery bits might drop off, if you don’t tie them up.’

And with that Tom shook his head, tried not to laugh, and slipped his fork into the pie. They were in the first flush of marriage, and this was another source of fascination for the young husband, that this wife of his had no attachment to her prowess as a cook. She didn’t seem to care that pastry might be underdone, meat overdone, that bread was too doughy in the crumb, too hard on the crust, or that the men looked at their eggs and bacon and then at each other every morning. She seemed like a sprite assigned to a factory job, flitting from stove to table, then out to the kitchen garden, cutting rosemary to garnish an egg on toast – and not one of the farmworkers had ever seen garnish, nor would the word be part of their vocabulary.

Other women, Tom knew, set stock by their accomplishments in the kitchen, as if their identity, their essential wifeliness, were attached to the range, the mixing bowls, knives, crockery, and cutlery. His mother had entered her rich eggy sponges in the annual show, though at home cake baking was generally left until Saturday so that Sunday tea might have something special about it. She’d had a limited repertoire, his mother, though the food she set upon the table was good and hearty, each day assigned a menu that never changed. You knew it was Monday when pie topped with mash was dished up, the meat minced and left over from the Sunday joint. Tuesday toad-in-the-hole, Wednesday hotpot. And so on. No fish on Friday, though, unless one of the men had brought trout from a summer’s eve spent with rod and line. Experimentation was not his mother’s forte; setting up a good table for hungry men who showed appreciation with the doffing of a cap or a nod in her direction as they set off for their day’s work was good enough for her. She did not ask for more.

But Kezia had taken to heart a nugget of advice discovered in a hardly used recipe book found in her late mother-in-law’s larder:

Never omit that trifling touch of decoration which makes the simplest dish seem appetising, and the homeliest table attractive. Even a jar of woodland or hedgerow blooms makes all the difference – a meal at once appears, something more than merely eating to satisfy the wants of the body. It becomes a pleasant affair, beneficial and a tonic to the soul.

So she set the table with best silver brought from the parlour for men who tied their trousers in place with rope. On her first day as the farmer’s wife, she’d put out fresh linen towels on the kitchen draining board as the men walked in through the back door, and soon it became a habit for them to form a line at the sink as they waited to wash their hands. At first they looked at Tom in dismay, wondering what life must be like with this woman who didn’t appear to know her place, who pulled up a chair to the table, her mug of tea held with both hands, asking them questions about their wives, their children, and what they thought of this or that, when the only thinking that engaged their minds was whether cows were to be moved from Barnaby to Pickwick, and whether their wives might get a bit of work, pin money earned darning pokes up in the oast house, still bearing the spicy must of last year’s hop-picking season. But soon there grew among these men something akin to envy. Though not a soul could articulate such feelings, it was clear the farmhouse had been bathed in new light, as if it had been given a stark coat of white paint – and they wouldn’t put that past Mrs Kezia Brissenden, Miss Marchant, as was. They could see that Tom had a freshness to him too, as he left with his workers to go out into the fields each morning. And it wasn’t that Kezia didn’t respect her role, or Tom, or the farm she had married as much as the man. She took it as it was, loved it for what it would forever be, just as she loved her husband. Kezia was Kezia, and nothing, it seemed, would change who she was, or who she might be in her world. Tom knew all this, could see and feel her establishing her place. She was not simply filling the role of another woman before her. It entertained him, this Kezia-ness that was enveloping Marshals Farm, named for a dark prison in Dickens’ day. And it never bothered him; he knew that at the centre of Kezia’s rural life, they stood together, hand in hand, and all else would grow from there.

It was when they had been married precisely twenty-four days that Kezia realised she had become somewhat disengaged from life beyond Marshals Farm, and decided to venture out beyond her immediate wifely domain of the house, the kitchen, garden, or the village shop. She had been thinking about her mother. Mrs Marchant had supported her husband in the many ways expected of a parson’s wife. She was active in the parish, with coffee mornings, flower arranging, visits to the sick and bereaved, and committee work. But she took her ‘days out’ without apology or explanation, and Kezia could never remember a time when she had questioned where her mother might have gone at those times, or when she would return. Was it weekly that this happened? Or every fortnight? She wasn’t sure, but she supposed her mother had taken the train to London, or to the coast. A visit to an exhibition, or to Whitstable, where she might enjoy a plate of oysters, a cup of tea, and a walk along the sea-front. On the morning of Kezia’s wedding, Mrs Marchant came to her daughter’s room – not, to Kezia’s surprise, to give a lesson on married life, on what might be expected in the kitchen or the bedroom, but to slip into her hand the grand sum of ten pounds.

‘Keep a nest egg, Kezia, your private money. Keep it safe and add to it, if you can, but never let it go. A woman needs money of her own, as much as she requires time beyond the home. Start as you mean to go on, Kezia, dear. Claim what you require at the beginning with no explanation, and beyond that day you will never have to account for yourself, as long as the house is a good house, the food is on the table, and your husband sleeps well at night.’

Then she kissed her daughter, placed her hand on her cheek, and left.

Kezia had a nest egg of her own, held safe in the bank – money earned while working at Camden, together with a small bequest from a maiden great-aunt. But she took her mother’s advice, and kept a tin in the bottom drawer of her dressing table, into which the ten pounds was duly placed.

On this, the first day that Kezia claimed for herself, she dressed in a sturdy walking skirt, her stout leather boots, and an old cream linen blouse that had seen better days – all good enough for what she planned. She packed a sandwich, placing it in a knapsack along with an earthenware bottle of lemonade. She took a book and a bound journal – she had kept such a daily record of her life since childhood. Kezia left Ada to the kitchen and the cleaning, and upon the table set a fresh pork pie and a loaf of crusty bread – probably too crusty, again – along with a wedge of cheese, two tomatoes, and an apple. She added a jug of lemonade covered with a doily, and set off. Tom might expect a cooked dinner at noon, with a pot of strong tea, but Kezia knew there was enough food to see him through the rest of the day. She would be home in time to prepare a hearty tea and have it ready when he walked through the door at six. It was coming on harvest time, and he would go out again later. There was always more work to be done on a summer’s night.

Kezia had no idea where she was going, only that she would set off towards what she believed to be the perimeter of the farm beyond Micawber Wood, and then along the edge, which she expected to be marked with a fence. She planned to explore the forested acres flanking Twist, the largest of the hop gardens, where the spicy hops with their dense, green, and pungent fairy-wing petals lay heavy on the bine. She thought she would even ramble to the edge of the Hawkendene estate. She knew little of the property abutting Marshals Farm, only that there was a wealthy man and his wife, their son – older than Tom, or Kezia – and a host of lackeys to do their every bidding. The family opened their gardens once a year, in late August. Trestle tables would be set up with linen tablecloths rippling aimlessly in a light breeze, like sails on a ship becalmed. There would be triangled sandwiches and small fancies with pastel icing. The tea would have a fragrance to it, and at least one of the villagers would be heard to comment – in a low voice, of course – that the lukewarm beverage was only fit to dab behind the ears, and wouldn’t set you up for anything, of a morning. When Kezia went into the village, it seemed everyone was talking about the party, even with a month to go before the anticipated day. Thea had written to her – since the wedding, they were both endeavouring to nurture the friendship, for weren’t they now joined as family? – and told her that she should not go. She maintained that this inequity, this fawning on the rich by the poor, should have died with the old queen. Kezia thought she had a point, but at the same time found herself getting caught up in the excitement. She wondered, though, as she jumped over a stile as if she were a schoolgirl, if her enthusiasm was due to the fact that the people who set such store by the party were referring to her as ‘Mrs Brissenden’ for the first time. After almost a month she was getting used to her new name, and in the village shop now ceased to look round when greeted, in case the ghostly spectre of her late mother-in-law had appeared behind her.

Hawkendene Lake was still, the summer sun reflecting surrounding trees into the water as if copied there with oils. Kezia chose her spot, a place at the foot of a giant oak where thick roots reared up from the earth, providing a place for her to sit and rest her head. She pulled a square embroidered cloth from the knapsack, setting out her repast. She closed her eyes and sighed. This was it, a perfect place. Across the lake, just visible, the house in which the Hawkes family lived appeared to lounge amid perfect lawns and pruned hedges. It was, she thought, somewhat intimidating. Spires rose up from rooftops, poking their way skyward as if in competition with the pines. It was a tableau to be painted, one day, this image now scored into memory; the house, the woodland, the lake with water lilies in bloom. The light buzzing of worker bees toiling in the fields behind her seemed to settle her soul. Bliss, she thought. For two hours, perhaps more, she would read her book and pen whatever thoughts came to her. Soon, though, despite her best efforts to resist the heat of the day, the gentle swoop of birds across the lake, and the meadow fragrance, her eyelids grew heavy and she slept.

‘Did you know you’re trespassing?’

At first the voice seemed to come from far away, and, she thought later, had even entered her dream, though she could not remember any detail of that slip into another world. But then, when she realised she was no longer alone, Kezia’s eyes opened in a snap. She shook her head and leapt to her feet, only to find herself looking down at a man who had, it seemed, been sitting alongside her for some time.

‘And who are you, sir?’ She felt as if she had fallen down a hole marked ‘Slumber’ and was struggling to grapple her way out.

The man laughed, leaning back on one elbow. He was dressed in twill trousers, his white shirt open at the neck and a kerchief tied at his throat. He wore a brown weskit and leather shoes that appeared to have been polished to a shine before he set off across fields of hardened ochre Kentish clay soil, picking up dust along the way.

‘It’s all right, I’m not going to take you to the constabulary. I just wondered if you realised you had encroached beyond your land.’

‘How do you know what or where my land is?’ Kezia leant forward, her hands on her hips as if to establish an impression of importance.

Splaying his fingers on the ground to steady himself, the stranger stood up and faced her. He rubbed his earth-soiled hand on his trousers and held it out towards her.

‘Edmund Hawkes. You’re in my favourite spot – since I was a boy, actually – but I won’t scold you for it.’

‘How long were you there?’

‘And you are?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir.’ Kezia took the proffered hand. ‘Kezia Mar … I mean, Kezia Brissenden.’ She felt her cheeks redden. ‘Mrs Tom Brissenden. From Marshals Farm.’

‘Yes, I know that much – Tom’s new wife. I guessed who you were, but I didn’t know your name. Congratulations, Mrs Brissenden.’

‘Thank you. I apologise for the encroachment. Now I must be on my way. I will be sure not to come here again.’

Kezia turned and knelt to pack away her book, her journal, the spent bottle, and the white linen cloth in which she’d wrapped a sandwich. Hawkes knelt next to her.

‘It’s all right, I can do it,’ she said.

They stood, facing each other.

‘Look, don’t worry – if you want to visit the lake, please, be my guest. You’re not hurting anyone,’ said Hawkes. ‘It gives me pleasure, knowing that someone else enjoys my spot.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Hawkes. But I think in future I will find plenty of interesting places within the boundary of Marshals Farm. Now I have to be on my way.’

They shook hands once again, and Kezia set off at as fast a clip as she could manage across the field towards the stile. She turned, once, to look back. Edmund Hawkes had not moved, and was staring in her direction.

Two days later Kezia had all but forgotten the meeting. She was in the kitchen, leaning across the table, wiping it dry following another swabbing. The top was a thick, solid piece of wood akin to the block upon which the butcher would swing his cleaver to chop through flesh and sinew into bone. It was more part of the kitchen than Kezia, or her mother-in-law before her; it had been in its place for generations. Now it had been scrubbed twice this morning, ready for Kezia to knead a lump of pastry dough into topping for a meat pie. The mix was too dry, but she had yet to get the feel of different types of dough in her hands. Meat pie had become her stalwart friend, a dish she could execute without too much ado. Execute might have been an appropriate verb to describe her skill, though her dexterity in the kitchen had improved. She had studied the recipe, and was confident in her ability to prepare the dish for her husband’s tea.

She was using leftover meat taken from a joint of beef, which she cut into cubes, pressing them into the meat grinder as she turned the handle. The grinder was screwed onto the table for this part of the job, and Kezia could never quite turn the nut tight enough on the screw – the grinder wobbled a good deal, so crumbs of meat dropped onto the floor. She fried onion and celery, along with grated carrot – her mother-in-law would never have grated the carrot, but would have instead cut root vegetables into small cubes. She added thyme and savoury to the mix, along with the meat, onto which she poured some gravy.

The one ingredient not specified that Kezia added to each meal, and in copious amounts impossible to be weighed on the kitchen scale, was a love for her husband growing beyond affection, beyond the familiarity that led her to accept his proposal. It must be mentioned that there were those – both in the village and farther afield among others familiar with the Marchant family – who wondered if, and therefore, why, Kezia Marchant had married below her station. There was speculation that she might have envisaged spinsterhood looming and rushed into marriage at the first opportunity – though the long engagement would suggest not; indeed, the young couple had been putting money by for their future. Others thought Kezia had ‘settled’ or that the Brissendens were attempting to better themselves. The truth was perhaps more simple. Each recognised the honesty in the other and felt – with an acknowledgement that had no need for spoken confirmation – that their trust was well placed. Their love was thus seeded in the rich soil of mutual understanding.

While kneading, rolling, and lifting the pastry to line the pie dish, Kezia could think only of Tom, imagining him in the distance, a moving speck against the plane tree on the hill, walking down towards the farmhouse and along the road, his jacket thrown over a shoulder and held by a single finger. Tom’s hands were working hands, broadened by shovel and pick, by steadying the harness and driving a saw to coppice a few acres of woodland. Soon the kitchen would be filled with the fragrant heat of pie blended with the aroma of vegetables overcooked. With the meal almost ready, Kezia kept an eye on the window, a vigil for her spouse. When she saw him, off came her pinafore, consigned to the hook on the back of the kitchen door. She pushed back a stray hair and quickly checked her appearance in the mirror on the back wall, to ensure no flour had rubbed off on her face.