The Tulip Girl Read online

  Nick smirked and tugged his forelock in mock obedience. ‘Right you are, sir. Sorry, I’m sure, sir.’

  Maddie sat down on the low, three-legged stool and rested her forehead against the cow.

  ‘I think you’d do better if you rest your cheek against her with your shoulder sort of almost underneath,’ Michael advised. ‘You might be able to reach a bit further that way.’

  ‘But I can’t see what I’m doing then.’

  Michael chuckled and winked. ‘You’ll have to feel your way, love.’

  As Maddie giggled at his cheeky remark, she heard Nick clash the buckets together and Betsy moved restlessly at the sudden noise, jerking her back leg sideways and pushing Maddie off the stool so that she fell backwards onto the cobbled floor of the cowshed.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ Michael shouted at Nick as he stooped to offer a helping hand to her.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Frank stood in the doorway and then, as he glanced from his son towards the figure of Nick making his way along the line of tethered cows to the far end of the cowshed, he gave a quick, irritated shake of his head. ‘Oh, you two at it again, are you? Give it a rest, Michael, and show this lass what to do.’

  ‘I was doing,’ Michael muttered. ‘If others’d leave us alone.’

  But Maddie noticed that he kept his voice so low that his father could not hear his words. Only she, close to him, heard.

  ‘Now the milking’s done, Nick,’ Frank said, ‘we’ll show Maddie around. Where we’re standing, lass, is the crew-yard and besides the cowshed . . .’ Frank gestured towards the buildings on two sides of the yard, ‘there’s Rajah’s stable in the corner and then pigsties down that side. We’ve only two pigs just now. Then, in that far corner, is the boiler house. We use it in winter to heat the hen-house. That’s that long building over yonder.’ He pointed beyond the yard. ‘Come on, I’ll show you my battery house, but you must never . . .’ for a moment his expression was stern, ‘go inside it. I’m only just teaching Michael how it all works.’ His expression lightened a little. ‘I’ve promised Nick that I’ll show him too, when he’s older.’ Now Frank smiled. ‘But even he’s banned at the moment.’

  Frank led the way towards the lean-to barn at the side of the house. From his trouser pocket he pulled out a bunch of keys on the end of a long chain attached to his braces and inserted a key into the Yale lock.

  ‘You stand there,’ he said firmly. ‘Both of you.’

  As he stepped into the dark interior and switched on a light, Maddie and Nick leant against the door jambs, peering inside.

  ‘This is a Lister engine,’ Frank explained. ‘It drives this generator that’s linked to these batteries.’

  The engine and the generator were set on a concrete plinth in the centre of the barn, but close by, set against one wall, was a wooden rack holding three rows of glass containers with lead plates suspended in each one and with cables running between them.

  ‘These are full of sulphuric acid,’ Frank warned. ‘And the current is what they call direct current. Very dangerous.’ His face was serious. ‘It might kill a person if they touched the bare wires and the acid would burn if you got any on you. So promise me, lass, you won’t ever come in here on your own. You’ll hear us start up the generator about once a week to charge up the batteries, but as long as you do as I say, there’s nothing to worry about. And this . . .’ He was pointing to one side of the rack of batteries now. ‘Is the control panel.’

  It seemed to Maddie to be a confusing array of dials and switches. ‘What’s it all do, Mr Frank?’ she asked, mystified, yet intrigued.

  ‘It generates the electricity that feeds the house and all the lighting.’

  He switched off the light and stepped out of the barn, closing the door carefully behind him and checking that it was locked. ‘See these?’ He pointed to cables running above them from the corner of the barn across the yard to the hen-house and the buildings around the crewyard. ‘They’re connected to lights in all the buildings.’

  ‘It’s very clever,’ Maddie said with genuine admiration.

  ‘Well, we’re too far out for mains electricity. A lot of farms out in the countryside have their own system. It’s not so unusual.’ Frank smiled down at her, touched by her ingenuous praise. ‘Now, let’s show you the front garden and then, except for the rest of the fields, you’ve about seen it all. I’m sure Mrs Trowbridge will have our breakfast waiting. I bet you’re hungry, lass, aren’t you?’

  It took a week for Maddie to learn how to milk properly and, even then, she was much slower than the experienced Michael and even the younger Nick. Between milking, she was expected to help in the dairy, churning the butter, and in the house helping Harriet, who was, Maddie had now learned, the housekeeper. She and her son were treated like members of Frank’s own family and Maddie’s mistake had been a natural one to make. To outsiders, Harriet had all the appearance of being the farmer’s wife. Only those within the walls of the farmhouse knew that Frank Brackenbury and Harriet Trowbridge went to their own bedrooms each night and, as far as the young girl was aware, stayed there.

  Michael, Maddie learned, was in charge of the milk round. After milking each morning he would set off with the horse and cart and with three or four milk churns on the back.

  ‘You’ll have to come with me one day, young’un,’ he told Maddie. ‘I could do with some help some mornings. All this traipsing up and down folks’ paths to fetch their milkcans and then all the way back to the door to deliver it.’ He sniffed. ‘Time was when they’d come out to the cart and fetch it themselves. Folks is getting lazier I reckon.’ He winked at her. ‘I blame the War.’

  Maddie laughed. ‘I’ve heard that before. Mrs Potter was always saying it.’

  ‘Who’s Mrs Potter?’

  ‘The matron at the Home.’

  The young man’s face sobered and there was pity in his dark brown eyes. ‘Were you happy there?’

  Maddie shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘Dunno,’ and added wisely, ‘it was all I’d ever known really . . .’ She paused, omitting to tell him of her brief times of trial in foster homes. ‘I’ve never known anything different.’

  ‘Are you happy here?’

  Her smile broadened in genuine pleasure so that he smiled too. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘So you don’t miss your old home, then?’

  Now a tiny cloud shadowed her face. ‘There’s only one person I miss. My friend, Jenny.’

  ‘Who’s Jenny?’

  Maddie told him. ‘I promised to write, but – but I haven’t had the chance.’ She hesitated, not wanting to sound ungrateful.

  He grinned. ‘We’ve kept you too busy, you mean?’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s . . .’ She stopped.

  ‘Go on,’ he prompted.

  ‘I – I haven’t any writing paper and envelopes or – or a stamp,’ she blurted out.

  ‘Ah,’ was all he said as he turned away, but the following day, when Michael returned from his milk round he handed her a brown paper bag.

  ‘There,’ he said, smiling down at her, his brown eyes teasing, ‘now you’ve no excuse not to write to your little friend.’

  Opening the bag, Maddie found a pad of writing paper, a packet of matching envelopes, six postage stamps and even a fountain pen and a bottle of blue ink.

  ‘Oh thank you, thank you,’ she said gazing up at him, her eyes filling with tears.

  Maddie March had never known such kindness.

  As the young man nodded, winked and then turned to stride away across the yard, Maddie watched him go, adoration in her blue eyes.

  Six

  ‘I meant you to buy new clothes for the girl, Harriet. Not someone else’s cast-offs from Mother Topham’s market stall. She’ll look like a ragamuffin.’

  ‘That’s just what she is.’ Harriet’s voice was shrill. ‘A wilful little ragamuffin bastard that nobody wants.’

  ‘Harriet!’ Frank was shocked. ‘I never thought to hear such words pass yo
ur lips.’ Now there was sarcasm in his tone. ‘And you, a good Christian woman. Besides, how can you say that about her? She’s only been here five minutes and I certainly haven’t seen any sign of wilfulness. Have you?’

  ‘You didn’t see that matron at the orphanage, Frank Brackenbury. Couldn’t wait to get rid of Miss Madeleine March. Why, she even helped load the girl’s box on to the cart herself. Oh, I could tell all right. I dare bet you – and as you’ve just pointed out I’m a good Christian woman who doesn’t believe in gambling and the like – but I dare bet you a week of my wages that girl has been in and out of that orphanage to different folks and been sent back a dozen times. Well, I’ll tell you summat, Frank. She’d better mind her P’s and Q’s with me, else I’ll be sending her back an’ all.’

  Maddie hadn’t meant to overhear the quarrel. She had come into the wash-house by the back door and was removing her boots when she heard the raised voices from beyond the kitchen door. Now she stood immobile, not knowing what to do. She certainly didn’t want to go into the kitchen and if she went outside again, they might hear the door open and close this time and know that she had been eavesdropping.

  ‘I never liked the idea of having a girl here, anyway. It’s not right with two young lads in the household. Who knows what might happen. I can’t keep me eye on the little madam all day.’

  Maddie frowned. Why, then, if she didn’t want her here, had Mrs Trowbridge been the one to come to the Home to pick her?

  ‘I just thought a girl would be more use to you, Harriet,’ Frank was saying, ‘in the Dairy and helping with the housework. You seemed quite keen on the idea when I first suggested it and it was you proposed approaching the Orphanage, if I remember. I thought you wanted to give some poor lass a proper home.’

  ‘Huh! That wasn’t me reason.’

  ‘Then what was?’

  ‘Oh I – er – well . . .’ For a moment, even to Maddie listening beyond the door, the woman seemed flustered. ‘I thought she’d be less trouble if there are no parents to come banging on the door making sure we’re not working her too many hours or making her do work that’s too heavy for a girl.’

  Maddie heard Frank’s gasp. ‘I’d never do that anyway, Harriet. You know that.’

  ‘Mebbe so,’ the woman said tartly as if she did not agree. ‘But we’ll have no trouble from Mrs Potter, I can tell you that. Pleased to be rid of the little baggage, she was.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve got against the little lass. She’s a bit slow with the milking, I’ll grant you, but she’s careful and gentle with the cows.’

  ‘She’s a wilful little tyke. Mebbe you don’t see it, Mr Frank, but I tell you she’ll likely bring trouble on this house ’afore she’s done.’ She paused and then added ominously, ‘There’s bad blood in her veins, you mark my words.’

  ‘I’m sure Maddie is quite safe in my household.’ There was a slight emphasis on the word ‘my’, but Harriet did not agree.

  ‘Well, I can vouch for my Nicholas, but I can’t say the same about your lad. He’s a one for the girls if the village gossip is to be believed. And if she leads him on . . .’

  ‘He’s just a normal seventeen-year-old.’

  ‘Are you implying that my son isn’t?’

  Frank’s voice was heavy now, tired of the argument. ‘No, no, of course I’m not. He’s only fifteen. Plenty of time for him to . . .’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind him meeting a nice girl. Of course I wouldn’t.’ Her tone implied the opposite. ‘But he’ll not be mixing with the village girls, I can tell you that. Oh no. If I let him even think of getting married some day, she’d have to be from a decent family. A girl who knows just who her parents are.’

  ‘I think you might find, Harriet, that you have no say in the matter.’

  ‘Oho, won’t I, indeed?’

  ‘The Victorian age has gone, my dear. And young men not much older than our sons have just been through another dreadful war. Do you really think they are going to allow their parents to dictate to them how they should run their lives? We haven’t made a very good job of this century so far, now have we? We’re not even halfway through it and yet we have allowed the flower of our youth to be decimated by two disastrous World Wars. No, Harriet, we owe it to those that are left to allow them to forge their own future out of the ruins we have left them. I don’t envy them their task.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr Frank,’ Harriet said impatiently. ‘You talk as if the War were our fault.’

  ‘Well, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t. It was the Government’s. Besides, what did you expect them to do? Let that Hitler walk all over us?’

  ‘It was our generation’s fault, Harriet. That’s what I meant.’

  ‘Oh, you’re getting too deep for me and changing the subject. We were talking about that little madam and the trouble she could cause living here. I still don’t know why you wanted a girl here in the first place. But, that said, she’s not worth spending a lot on. She might not be here long.’

  The argument had come full circle and when there was no reply from Frank now, Maddie was terrified that the door would open and she would be discovered.

  Suddenly, she had an idea.

  She crept forward and opened the back door. Then she slammed it as if she had just come in. Then, humming the tune of her favourite hymn, ‘Rock of Ages’, she stamped her feet on the mat and clomped across the floor towards the coat pegs. She heard the kitchen door open behind her and plastered a smile on her face in readiness.

  The smile became genuine when she saw who it was.

  ‘We’ve finished the milking, Mr Frank. I reckon I’m getting the hang of it now.’ She giggled at her own pun. ‘Michael’s gone on the milk round and Nick and Ben are taking the cows back to the meadow.’

  ‘Good lass,’ the man said kindly though Maddie, knowing what had just taken place, could still see the anger in his eyes even though he was trying to hide it behind a smile. ‘Come and get your breakfast and then I’ll show you what I want you to do in the Dairy. It’s time you started learning that side of things now.’

  Divested of her outdoor clothing, Maddie stepped into the kitchen to see the housekeeper standing at the stove vigorously stirring a pan of porridge, her back rigid with righteous indignation.

  Maddie had never witnessed a row like that before. Not between two adults, who, though employer and housekeeper, seemed to be on almost an equal footing. She had seen the staff at the orphanage in trouble with Mrs Potter, but they, like the children in her charge, had been obliged to just stand there and take it. She had even, once or twice, heard the younger members of staff threatened with the dreaded cupboard under the stairs, the ‘prison’ as the children called it, where Matron locked them in the spider-ridden dark for the slightest wrong-doing.

  But Harriet Trowbridge, it seemed, did not have to stand there and take it, not even from her employer, and whilst the quarrel had ceased now, Maddie knew instinctively that the animosity between the farmer and his housekeeper was far from over.

  And she was the cause of it.

  ‘I’ve got another little present for you, young ’un.’

  ‘For me?’ Maddie’s blue eyes widened in genuine surprise and delight.

  ‘Er – yes.’ Michael seemed doubtful now and strangely unwilling to hand over the small package. ‘I hope you won’t take this the wrong way?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Well . . .’ He paused and she saw that he was glancing at her hair. Self-consciously, she touched it.

  ‘I thought . . .’ he went on haltingly. ‘I mean, you don’t seem to have any proper shampoo. You use soap to wash your hair, don’t you?’

  Maddie nodded.

  ‘Well, see – proper shampoo would make your hair shine. You’ve got pretty hair. At least . . .’ He faltered again and his voice fell away.

  Maddie smiled at him warmly. ‘Thanks,’ she said, reaching out for the brown paper package. ‘I
’ll try it on Friday night when I’m allowed to use the bathroom.’

  He grinned back. ‘And you’re not offended?’

  ‘’Course not.’

  The first time Maddie used the shampoo, she used far too much and lather spilled out over the washbasin and onto the linoleum. But after she had rinsed and rinsed the soapiness away her hair squeaked with cleanliness.

  As she stood up and towelled her hair vigorously, she jumped as Harriet spoke from the opening on to the landing. ‘You’re running far too much water, girl. And just look at that mess on the floor.’

  Maddie was incensed as she felt the woman’s glance lingering on her nakedness.

  ‘Go away,’ Maddie said. ‘You’re not allowed up here either. Leave me alone.’

  Harriet’s face twisted into a sneer. ‘And what do you think you’ve to hide, miss? Just get on with your bath and don’t use much water now. There’s others need hot water after you and there’ll be none left.’

  If she hadn’t known that it would be Michael who wanted to take a bath later, Maddie would have run and run the hot water all away to spite the woman. But knowing the two boys followed after her, she did as she was bade and only used six inches, the regulation depth that had so been instilled in them all in the orphanage.

  Later, as she towelled her hair dry, she could tell the difference even after using the shampoo only the once. It felt clean and silky. In the privacy of her bedroom she picked up the pair of scissors she had found in the kitchen drawer and had earlier smuggled up to her room. Combing the hair forwards onto her face, she carefully snipped and combed and snipped again until she had a fringe and wisps of hair drawn forward onto her cheek. In her thin face her blue eyes looked enormous and now, with the blonde hair framing her face, she looked like a little elf.

  ‘Why,’ Maddie whispered to herself, marvelling at her own reflection though without a trace of conceit. ‘I look almost pretty.’

  She got into bed and turned out the light to lay in the semi-darkness listening to the sounds from the bathroom beyond her bedroom wall.