Read Online Gates of Paradise by Beryl Kingston - Free Book Online Page B

her goodnight.
    â€˜Maybe we could go for a bit of a walk this evening,’ he hoped, when they met at breakfast the next morning. But he was laughed to scorn again. That night there were stockings to be mended and skirts to be patched and all three housemaids spent the evening sewing in Mrs Beke’s parlour. The best entertainment he could manage for himself was to go mooching off through the mud to The Fox, where he was doleful company.
    He became more and more doleful as the weeks progressed, for no matter how carefully he broached the subject, there never seemed to be a moment when a walk was possible. At first her answers seemed sensible. There wasn’t enough time,it was too cold, or too wet, there was too much work to be done. But when the third Sunday had come and gone without so much as the hope of a hand to hold, he began to feel she was deliberately putting him off, almost as if she didn’t want to walk out with him. That couldn’t be true, could it? She’d allowed him to kiss her and she must know what that meant. The weather
was
bad. He couldn’t deny it. It
was
too wet. But there wasn’t too much work. In fact, there was hardly anything to do in the garden at all, once the beds were cleared, and all the indoor jobs were boring and repetitive – coal to carry, fires to tend, candle ends to scour from the sconces of a morning, errands to run, tables to clear – and none of them took very long. So he was left with plenty of time to think, and the longer he thought, the more troublesome his thoughts became. He mooched about the house, weak with longing for her, aching to kiss her. And oh he
did
so want to, constantly, every time he saw her, every time he thought of her, and in every single night of his dreams. His shirt was soon so sticky with love spillings, he was afraid Mrs Beke would comment on it when it turned up in the laundry, and took a cloth to try and wash the worst away. But there was nowhere to dry the offending garment when he finished with it – or at least nowhere where it wouldn’t be seen – so he had to wear it wet and that gave him a cold and made him feel more miserable than ever.
    Harvest Home came and went without theinvitation he wanted, the winter set in with more and more rain, and on top of everything else, Mr Blake kept bringing up his wretched portrait heads and they were the very devil, nasty heavy awkward things, for they had to be hauled up the stairs to the library, a step at a time, and then either hung according to Mr Hayley’s exacting instructions or, worse, manhandled down the stairs again to be redrawn.
    â€˜I hates the winter,’ he said, as he and Bob, the boot boy, walked down to The Fox. It was miserably cold and the wind was moaning in Mr Blake’s elm tree and scattering the rooks from Dr Jackson’s garden. They fell and tumbled in the darkening air, cawing like handsaws.
    â€˜Be better after a pint,’ Bob said. ‘Porter puts a different complexion on things.’ He’d just turned seventeen and considered himself an expert on matters alcoholic.
    The inn was certainly an improvement on the servants’ hall at Turret House: warm, companionable, booming with easy laughter, smelling of pulled porter and smoked tobacco, of horseflesh and pig sties and a hard day’s sweat. The candle flames glowed like welcoming beacons, the warmth of the coal fire could be felt at the door, the scattered sawdust was soft underfoot. If it hadn’t been for his constant frustration Johnnie could have enjoyed it a lot.
    â€˜Evenin’ young shavers,’ Reuben called from his seat in the chimney corner. ‘We thought you weren’tcomin’. Oi jist been sayin’ to your father, “Where’s that young shaver a’ yours?” Oi said, didden Oi Hiram?’
    â€˜We’re late on account of we ’ad work to finish,’ Bob told him.
    â€˜Work?’ Reuben mocked.