A Woman’s Fortune. Josephine CoxЧитать онлайн книгу.
poor thanks I’ve had for it. I’ve seen pigs keep themselves cleaner. You can stew in your own muck. I deserve better and I only took what should have been mine. I’ve had enough!’
She picked up an ornament from a side table beside the door and hurled it back down the hall. Evie and Jeanie heard the tinkle of shattering china and unconsciously they clutched each other as the harridan, oblivious, stomped past them, down the steps and through the gate, leaving it open in her wake.
Evie’s heart was pounding as she turned to see her mother was white with shock.
‘Oh, Mum, whatever can have happened? I think we ought to go. I don’t like it here at all.’
‘Me neither, Evie. Come on …’
As they began to retrace their steps a calm and educated voice called behind them, ‘Please don’t mind Mrs Summers. She can be a bit ill-tempered, though, truth be told, she was a very good cleaner. Pity she wasn’t a more honest one.’
Jeanie quickly tried to gather herself as she turned back to see who had spoken.
He was a tall, very lean and good-looking man in his fifties, his greying dark hair in need of a cut. He was wearing a moth-eaten old cricket pullover, and a kerchief – such as a pirate might wear in an adventure story, thought Evie – knotted round the frayed neck of his collarless shirt. Jeanie looked him up and down in astonishment and thought without a doubt that he was the most untidy – and the handsomest – man she’d ever seen.
‘Mr Bailey?’ she asked, suddenly feeling strangely breathless.
‘I am Frederick Bailey,’ the tall man replied with astonishing dignity considering what his ex-cleaner had just called him in front of strangers.
‘Er … I’m Ginette Carter, and this is my daughter, Evelyn.’
‘How do you do,’ said Mr Bailey. ‘How can I help you?’
Oh dear, he doesn’t seem to have heard of us. Living at Pendle’s is all an awful mistake. Or maybe this is the wrong person and we should be at the other Bailey’s house? As this thought flashed through Evie’s mind she saw her mother’s puzzled face reflecting the very same thing.
‘I … I’m wondering if you might be our new landlord,’ Jeanie persevered. ‘Pendle’s? In Church Sandleton?’
‘Yes, I suppose I must be, if that’s where you’re living,’ Mr Bailey replied vaguely. ‘Come in, please …’
He stood back to let Jeanie and Evie pass through the smart front door and into the hall where shards of pink and white porcelain lay strewn across the floor.
‘Pity about the shepherdess,’ he said. ‘I’d got a buyer lined up for her, too. Still, there we are …’
Evie caught Jeanie’s eye behind the man’s back and shrugged nervously. This man wasn’t like anyone she had ever met, and though the coarse, shouting woman had gone she still didn’t feel at all comfortable here.
Jeanie, too, felt out of place in this strange house, with this odd man, but as she looked around the elegant little hallway Mr Bailey turned to her and smiled, and it was a smile she understood.
Frederick Bailey showed Evie and Jeanie into a beautifully decorated room overlooking the square. Evie realised she was gaping at all the ornaments on every surface and quickly closed her mouth.
‘So, Mrs Carter … Pendle’s. I do hope everything is all right. I haven’t been over to the old place for a long while. I’ve a man who sees to things like that for me.’
‘Oh, yes, I haven’t come to complain,’ said Jeanie, sitting down in an armchair that Frederick Bailey indicated. ‘But we’ve been there more than a week now and hadn’t heard from anyone, and I was wondering … that is, we wondered … about the rent …’
When her mother seemed to have ground to a halt, Evie continued, ‘And my grandmother is a very talented seamstress and wants to open a sewing business in the shop part. We thought we’d better make sure that was all right … that you’d allow it and that we can paint the place and make it more suitable.’
‘You may do as you like,’ Frederick Bailey said. ‘I’m not a man for strict rules and regulations.’
‘So we can go ahead?’ asked Evie eagerly. She couldn’t help her wide grin – this was exactly what she had hoped for. ‘Thank you.’
Mr Bailey laughed. ‘Well, I’m glad about that,’ he said.
‘What about the rent?’ prompted Evie. She looked sideways at her mother but Jeanie seemed lost in thought and was gazing around the room with real interest. ‘We mean to make a go of the sewing, and my dad has a job, too, so we can pay what’s fair.’
‘Ah, so there’s a Mr Carter … I was wondering about your father,’ said Mr Bailey. ‘What is it he does?’
‘He works at Clackett’s market garden, across from Pendle’s.’
‘Does he indeed?’ Mr Bailey paused to think. ‘Well, how about ten shillings a week? How does that sound?’
‘Oh, Mr Bailey, that’s marvellous! Ten shillings? Are you sure that’s all?’ gasped Evie. Again she looked at her mother, but she was still distracted by the unusual room and gave no reaction.
Frederick Bailey waved a hand as if to dismiss the subject. ‘I’ll have my man, Jack, collect the payments.’
‘Jack? Would that be Jack Fletcher? We haven’t met him yet but it was he who arranged for us to come to Pendle’s.’
‘Yes, Jack Fletcher works for me. No doubt you’ll meet him soon. There’s nothing for you to worry about, Evelyn.’
‘It’s all becoming clearer now.’
Evie realised how anxious she’d become about their new home and these people none of them had met. What a relief it was to have it all sorted out. Coming here today had been exactly the right thing to do.
‘Thank you, Mr Bailey,’ she said. She nudged her mother, who was still occupied with her own thoughts. ‘Mum …?’
‘Thank you, Mr Bailey. That’s right good of you,’ Jeanie said, smiling up at him.
‘Please, call me Frederick. Now, forgive my manners, I should have offered you tea, but I’m without Mrs Summers, as you know only too well.’
‘Let me help,’ Jeanie said without hesitation, throwing off her distraction. She was on her feet instantly.
‘That’s uncommonly kind of you, Mrs Carter.’
‘Jeanie, please.’
‘Jeanie. Why don’t we all go down?’
He led the way into the hall, pushing fragments of the broken ornament aside with his foot, then down a curving staircase at the end to a basement kitchen that looked old-fashioned and equipped very much as Mrs Russell’s was, to Evie’s eye. She could imagine Annie being quite at home here, though Annie wouldn’t have had the dirty breakfast crockery piled up in the sink. The cups Mr Bailey set out were a strange mix: a pot mug and a couple of delicate teacups of different sizes with mismatched saucers. Didn’t he have a tea set to use when visitors came, Evie wondered.
‘This is pretty,’ she said, taking up one of the fine cups to admire it while her mother saw to the kettle.
‘Yes, but almost worthless without its own saucer, I’m afraid,’ said Frederick. He searched absent-mindedly for the tea caddy, which Jeanie found in an obvious cupboard next to the stove, then asked his two visitors about their plans for the sewing business while the tea was brewing in a brown Bessie pot, just like the one at