Hope - Lesley Pearse [164]
But they were wrong. First Martha the cook left, giving no explanation other than that she wanted a change. Soon afterwards Rose went too, saying she had found a position in a more lively household. Both Sir William and Lady Harvey had no doubt that Albert had a hand in persuading Cook to leave, and he doubtless knew that Rose would soon follow because she would be lonely without another female servant for company.
Loyal, dependable Baines had stayed; nothing Albert could have said, or offered him, would have induced him to leave. But it would have been difficult for him to obtain another position as he was in his seventies and becoming very frail.
Lady Harvey had taken on Mrs Crabbe, a widow from the village, and Polly, her fifteen-year-old daughter, but both were slovenly and insolent. Sadly, Lady Harvey had to accept that gentry who had fallen on hard times couldn’t expect to find good servants, and as there was no one else available, she had to live with lowered standards.
But Albert remained like a malevolent spirit, spoiling all that was good. While he still took great care of the grounds, he did it in a way that implied ownership. And he had many ways of showing the Harveys he considered himself to be the new master of Briargate.
Pissing on the coal for the study was just one of his many nasty tricks to intimidate them. In the past they’d been subjected to a grass snake and a dead rat in the coal bucket too.
He would disappear for days on end, especially in the winter, and each time they hoped he was gone for good. But he always came back, tearing into cutting down a tree or making a new flowerbed without ever consulting them first. And he had demanded higher wages too, testing them to the limit.
*
‘I thought I could ask him to come shooting with me,’ William said, breaking into Anne’s dejected reverie. ‘I could shoot him and say it was an accident.’
Anne doubted very much that he could really shoot Albert, however much he’d grown to hate and fear him. But it was touching that he was looking for a way to end this horrible situation.
‘He’s too clever to be caught like that, he’d sense what you were intending,’ she said more sharply than she meant to. ‘The only real way out is to stand together and call his bluff.’
‘I don’t think I’m strong enough for that,’ William said, hanging his head. ‘He’s evil, Anne, you know that.’
‘But he can’t say anything about you without incriminating himself,’ Anne retorted. ‘We could just deny my affair with Angus. No one likes Albert, they wouldn’t believe a word he said. Nell would never stand with Albert against me, and neither would Angus.’
‘Nell may have told him the truth about Hope by now,’ William reminded her. ‘That might well change his view.’
‘If he did know Hope was his daughter he’d be even more likely to support us against Albert,’ Anne said wistfully. ‘I just wish that I’d told him myself that day I met him in Bath. He would have come round here and dealt with that fiend straight away.’
‘How strange it is how things turn out,’ William said thoughtfully. ‘I met Angus when he was just a small boy staying with his relatives in Chelwood. He used to look up to me, and mostly I was unkind to him because he was a few years younger than I was. He was always pestering me to let him come out riding with me. Maybe if I hadn’t given in and lent him a mount, he would never have bothered to come back and look me up after he got his commission in the army. Then he would never have met you.’
‘If you asked for his help in getting rid of Albert, I’m sure he still retains enough affection for you to give it willingly,’ Anne said.
‘I couldn’t bear him of all men to find out what I am,’ William said in a small voice. ‘And you know Albert would delight in telling him.’
Anne realized he was probably right about that. ‘What I can’t understand