Stolen Moments Read online

  Her heart bursting with joy, she began to murmur aloud a poem she had learnt at school.

  ‘When wintry weather’s all a-done,

  An’ brooks do sparkle in the zun,

  An’ naisy-builden rooks do vlee

  Wi’ sticks toward their elem tree;

  When birds do zing, an we can zee

  Upon the boughs the buds o’ spring—’

  ‘Then I’m as happy as a king.’

  Kate looked at her companion sharply as he spoke the next line.

  ‘That’s one of my favourite poems, too,’ he smiled.

  ‘It was taught to me by Schoolmaster Barnes from Mere.’

  ‘And written by him, too. Did you know that?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted shyly. ‘He wrote lots more that I know by heart.’

  ‘Since I have been at university I have read every word William Barnes has ever written,’ he told her, solemnly.

  ‘University!’ Her eyes widened in amazement. ‘Are you a teacher?’

  ‘No. I’ve been studying at Oxford University, though, for many years. I’ve sometimes thought I’d like to be a teacher.’

  ‘Oh, so would I,’ she gasped. Then, blushing at her own temerity, added quickly, ‘I thought you’d come to live at the Manor.’

  ‘No, I was merely paying a duty call the morning I bumped into you. I was staying at Bramwood Hall.’

  ‘Oh! You’re a friend of Sir George Sherwood.’

  ‘I’m his brother-in-law. I often come and visit them during my vacations. My name’s David Owen. You can call me David.’

  ‘I daren’t call you that!’ exclaimed Kate, aghast.

  ‘Of course you can. If we are going to be friends then you must call me David, and I shall call you Kate.’

  ‘Cook would skin me alive if she heard me call you that!’

  ‘Then we must make sure she never does.’

  ‘However can we do that?’ Kate asked in confusion.

  David’s smile widened. Then he patted her hand and placed a warning finger across his lips.

  She had been half an hour late arriving at her grandmother’s cottage that day. And had started back for the Manor ten minutes early.

  She hadn’t been disappointed. David Owen had been waiting in the lane to walk with her, just as he had promised.

  They met often after that. Snatched moments. Brief encounters. She never knew when or where he might appear. Sometimes they could only smile at each other from a distance, but it was enough to set her heart thudding.

  On her birthday, David had given her a slim, leather-bound volume of William Barnes’ poetry. She treasured it greatly, wrapping it in tissue paper and keeping it hidden at the bottom of her clothes box. Each night before she put out her candle, she would read one of the poems. And before she closed the cover, she would study the inscription written on the flyleaf: ‘For my dear friend Kate.’ And it was signed ‘David’.

  Those words meant even more to her than the poetry.

  * * *

  It was David’s idea that she should move to Bramwood Hall.

  ‘My sister needs someone to look after their two girls, Beth and Mary,’ he told her.

  ‘As a lady’s maid?’

  ‘No… I don’t think they’re old enough yet for a personal maid,’ he frowned.

  ‘You mean as a governess?’

  ‘No, not exactly. She’s looking for a nanny… a sort of companion for them. It’s a position that would suit you.’

  At first, she dismissed the idea as being beyond her capabilities and therefore utterly impossible.

  ‘I’d jump at the chance, but I’ve no training for such work,’ she told David ruefully.

  ‘You don’t need any,’ he assured her.

  ‘Are you quite certain about that?’

  ‘Positive. I’ve already spoken to Helen and she is quite agreeable to taking you on.’

  ‘Oh, David!’ Delight left her speechless.

  ‘It will be a chance for us to spend more time together. Bramwood Hall is like a second home to me.’

  ‘And where is your first home?’ she asked, curious to know more about him.

  ‘In Wales.’ His mouth tightened, a nerve twitched along his jawline and it seemed to her that the question had annoyed him in some way.

  The idea of becoming a nanny, to break free from the drudgery of domestic service, excited her. It was the sort of opportunity she had so often dreamed about. She wanted to get on and better herself; she wanted so much more out of life than Phoebe Mullins or Carrie Withers did.

  They were content to serve in their appointed role, just as parson told them they should, but she wasn’t. She didn’t want to end up marrying a farm labourer, struggling to make ends meet.

  William Barnes had opened her eyes to the power of words and learning. He’d fired her ambition to be a teacher and someday, she was determined, she’d achieve that goal.

  She knew she’d been fortunate to have been able to stay at school until she was fourteen. At the time, though, her grandmother’s insistence that since she could read and write fluently the time had come to put away her books had seemed unreasonable. Now she was older, she understood better her grandmother’s concern that she should be able to earn a living.

  She often wondered if life would have been different if she had not been an orphan. Her father had been killed at Peterloo and her mother had died when she was very small, so she had never known either of them.

  Perhaps her parents would have listened to Schoolmaster Barnes’ suggestion that she should stay on as a pupil teacher, Kate thought wistfully. By now she would have been fully qualified, perhaps even in charge of a village school.

  Whenever she asked her grandmother about them the old lady was evasive and made it plain it was something she didn’t want to talk about.

  ‘Don’t you worry your head about the past, m’lovey,’ she would answer and then change the subject to other things.

  She’d tried asking Uncle Charlie, but he would always shake his grizzled head and tell her to ask her grandmother.

  When she’d started work at the Manor she’d refused to be fobbed off and insisted her grandmother should tell her about them.

  ‘Nothing to tell ’ee. She were in service in Mere. Your father were killed at Peterloo afore ’ee were born, so ’er brought you back to live wi’ me. ’Er didn’t live all that long after. Just a couple of years. Died of a broken ’eart, I reckon.’

  Kate had tried once more after that to persuade her grandmother to talk about them but without much success.

  ‘One thing I will tell ’ee, m’lovey, you’m the spittin’ image of your mother, ’cept she were a bit plumper. Tall though, wi’ jet dark hair and eyes like blue speedwell, same as your’n. It’s been like having my little Annie with me all over again, you bein’ around the place.’

  Chapter 3

  It was a Saturday morning in July when Uncle Charlie called at Bramwood Hall to tell Kate that her grandmother had died in her sleep almost a week before, and had been buried that morning.

  Kate was supervising a game of croquet between Mary and Beth, fascinated by their skilful manoeuvres, and the elegant way they both used their mallets to hit the ball neatly through the hoop.

  She felt a great sense of pleasure in their company. Both girls had accepted her wholeheartedly, intrigued by the novelty of a nanny, feeling it was so much more sophisticated than having a nurse and less restrictive than a governess.

  Kate had been concerned to discover that she was only a few years older than Beth, worried in case the girls would not respect her authority, but those fears had soon vanished. Fourteen-year-old Beth was a sweet-natured girl and Mary, two years younger, followed her sister’s lead in everything.

  They had their mother’s looks and nature, fair and placid, with round faces and hazel eyes. They were eager to be friendly and always obedient when it was necessary for her to exercise discipline.

  Such occasions were rare indeed. For
most of the time she supervised their reading and music practice, helped them with their sewing and embroidery, and escorted them on walks. She shared the girls’ passion for reading and the Sherwoods’ extensive library was a treasure-house of poetry, biography and history books.

  When she first arrived at Bramwood Hall a year ago Kate knew nothing of games like tennis and croquet. Beth and Mary soon instructed her in the rudimentary rules so that she could partner them or act as umpire. David sometimes joined them and then all four played tennis, with more vigour than skill, until they all collapsed, exhausted, into wicker chairs.

  As she summoned Polly to bring them ice-cold lemonade, Kate was sharply aware of her own changed circumstances. Her new mode of life seemed to be one of unending leisure.

  She wondered how long it could last.

  Charlie’s news momentarily stunned her.

  ‘Why didn’t you let me know she was ill,’ she demanded.

  ‘’Er didn’t feel ill, leastways not so as ’er mentioned to me,’ he told her, passing his hand over his chin.

  ‘Didn’t she say anything at all?’

  ‘No. Went off up to bed same as usual. Next mornin’ when I came in for breakfast I knew somethin’ was up because the table was bare and there was no fire in the grate. I called but ’er didn’t answer and so I went up to ’er bedroom and there ’er was… dead.’

  ‘Why didn’t you send for me then?’

  ‘Not much point. Doctor said ’er was a gonner.’

  ‘I should have been there to help see to things.’

  ‘I had ’er laid out and fetched undertaker.’

  ‘And even then you didn’t think to let me know so that I could be at her funeral,’ Kate snapped angrily.

  ‘Didn’t see the sense of it… you bein’ a woman.’

  ‘I should have been there,’ argued Kate, stubbornly.

  ‘Men’s job to do the buryin’. ’Twas all over tidy and quick. No fuss.’

  Kate stared at her uncle in exasperation. His great florid face was red and sweating, his small pale eyes watching her shrewdly. She had never hated him more than at that moment.

  Her grandmother had meant so much to her. She’d been mother and father, confidante and friend. She may have looked old and wrinkled on the outside, but Kate knew her heart was warm, her mind sharp, and that she was full of loving wisdom. No one could ever replace her.

  Not to have been there when she was dying, not to have had the opportunity to pay her last respects by attending her funeral and laying flowers on her coffin, was a cruel blow.

  ‘’Ere, I brought these over for ’ee,’ muttered Charlie, thrusting a bundle into Kate’s hands. ‘Thought as how ’ee’d like that shawl as a kind of keepsake, seein’ as ’ow it be made from goat’s hair and you bein’ a nanny,’ he guffawed.

  ‘Thank you, Charlie!’ Tears filled Kate’s eyes as she pressed the blue cashmere shawl to her cheek. It had been her grandmother’s most treasured possession, worn only on special occasions.

  ‘T’other stuff she’d put to one side wi’ your name on it,’ he said, handing her a small parcel.

  Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a gold-rimmed cameo brooch, the only piece of jewellery Mabel Stacey had owned, and a framed painting of a young woman in her twenties.

  Kate gasped. It was like looking into a mirror. She noticed that over her mother’s shoulders was draped the same blue cashmere shawl that she was holding in her hands.

  ‘Thank you, Charlie. It was good of you to bring them.’ With the back of her hand she brushed away the tears that misted her eyes.

  ‘Well, ’er wanted ’ee to have ’em. Put ’em on one side ready after your last visit. Must ’a sensed ’er were goin’.’

  ‘Yes. I wish I’d known.’

  ‘’Ad a good innin’s, mind. Close on eighty.’ He shook his grizzled head.

  ‘I should have been with her…’

  ‘I’ve cleared the old cottage out. Movin’ in wi’ Widow Greenslade over to Kilmington.’

  ‘You’re doing what?’

  Kate’s exclamation of surprise seemed to ruffle him.

  ‘’Tidden no good stayin’ on at Bramble Cottage, now, be it? ’Tidn’t as though you’m ever likely to come a visitin’.’

  ‘No.’ She gave him a long, cool stare. ‘No, that’s true.’

  ‘Well then, I’ve done what I thought best. You’ve got your bits and pieces so I’ll be on me way. Don’t suppose our paths ’ull cross again. You’m nicely set up ’ere by the looks of things,’ he muttered, his slack lips twisting into a sneer.

  Kate was so engrossed in her own private world after Charlie left that she was unaware anything was amiss until she heard Sir George’s voice raised in anger.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’

  She looked up, startled, to find him towering over her, his face red with anger.

  ‘How dare you permit Beth and Mary to behave in such a manner.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I want no excuses for your laxity. Daydreaming when you should have been supervising my daughters.’

  ‘It wasn’t Kate’s fault, Papa,’ Beth protested.

  Outraged, he ordered them indoors.

  After the storm died down and both girls had dried their tears, Kate learned that Beth had missed the ball and caught Mary on the ankle with her croquet mallet. Their father had overheard their unladylike expressions as he approached the house on his way from the stables.

  ‘We didn’t see Papa, he was hidden from sight by the yew hedge,’ explained Beth.

  ‘I only called Beth a pig,’ grumbled Mary.

  ‘And hit me with your mallet!’

  ‘You squealed before I touched you.’

  Complying with Sir George’s instructions, Kate kept them confined to the conservatory for the rest of the day. Subdued after his lecture on their behaviour, they spent the time reading. Kate, too, sat with a book open on her lap, but she wasn’t reading, she was remembering the past, and how much she was going to miss her grandmother. Now there was no one who really cared about her… except David.

  Closing her book, she thought ahead to dinner. David would be facing her across the imposing mahogany table with its crisp white napery, gleaming silver and sparkling glassware. It was another reason why Beth and Mary’s indiscretions had been so unfortunate. Sir George, outraged by their behaviour, had forbidden them to come down to dinner.

  Kate regretted the whole incident, but put the matter from her mind as she escorted the girls upstairs. She left them to entertain themselves while she changed into her new spotted pink muslin dress. It had once been Lady Helen’s and she’d had to take in the bodice to make it fit. Studying the result of her handiwork in the cheval mirror she was conscious of how it emphasized her waist. The neck had been very low cut so from a sense of modesty she’d added a muslin tucker. The result was extremely flattering, she decided, as she twirled, admiring the drape of the skirt.

  Sitting in front of her pretty, chintz-draped dressing table she began to unpin her hair, releasing it from the formal chignon and letting it fall in a dark cascade on to her shoulders. With long, sweeping movements, she brushed it back from her brow and twisted it into ringlets so that it framed her face in the same style as in her mother’s portrait.

  She waited patiently for the girls’ meal to arrive. She knew Cook would send it up in advance of serving dinner since both maids would be needed to wait at table. Once Beth and Mary were settled she could go downstairs. She might even have the opportunity to talk to David before they all sat down at table, she thought hopefully.

  Polly’s arrival, puffing under a heavy tray, cut short Kate’s musings.

  ‘Dinner for three,’ Polly announced, dumping the tray on the table with a clatter. ‘Cook was told to dish everything straight out on to plates and not to trouble with any tureens.’

  ‘I think there is some mistake, Polly,’ Kate told her. ‘You should have brought up only two meals.’

  �
�No, miss.’ Polly’s grin widened. ‘Sir George told Cook to send up three. He said you was to have yours up here along with the girls.’ She eyed Kate’s dress and her carefully styled hair with a smirk. ‘I heard him say it, miss!’

  ‘Very well, Polly, then you may leave the three,’ Kate said coolly.

  ‘And Cook said you was to make sure that all of you ate every bit, ’cos you won’t be getting no dessert.’ She grinned cheekily as she deftly laid out a knife and fork beside each plate.

  Kate felt furious but bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself saying anything further, knowing that every word would be relayed back to the kitchen and gloated over. It had never entered her mind that she would be expected to share Beth and Mary’s punishment. Her cheeks burned with anger over such humiliating treatment. She suspected that Sir George was subtly reminding her of her place.

  Of late, he had remarked several times in her hearing that David was becoming a much more frequent visitor to Bramwood Hall, and there had been no mistaking his implication.

  Kate sighed. How would it all end?

  It was all very well for David to say that his sister accepted their friendship, but to someone in Lady Helen’s position there was a distinct class divide between employees and family.

  From what she had overheard during her first few weeks at Bramwood Hall, Kate knew that Sir George had not approved of her appointment.

  ‘Hifalutin nonsense, my dear. If the girls are too old for a nurse then a governess would have been a much more satisfactory arrangement,’ he had said abruptly when Lady Helen had explained Kate’s presence.

  ‘They already have an excellent visiting tutor,’ Helen had told him, spiritedly.

  ‘Then why do we require the services of a nanny?’

  ‘They need someone to take charge when I am not free to be with them.’

  ‘Humph! And where was she nannying before she came to us?’

  ‘She is here on David’s introduction.’

  ‘You mean you’ve taken her on without references?’

  ‘Schoolmaster Barnes from Mere speaks very highly of her. And so, too, does your mother, so let’s give her a chance to prove her measure.’