Chapter 8: Harvest

The only light in the dining room was from the LED strip over the sideboard, so it was a few moments before I became aware of Angie and Audrey standing together just beyond the bottom end of the table. Angie had her head down with her hair fallen forward so that only her chin showed, pale against her dark clothing. Audrey was glaring at me with a mixture of anger and contempt. She was half-carrying Angie as they shuffled towards me on their way to the door. As they came closer to the light, I could see tears forming drops on Angela’s chin, dropping unheeded onto her blouse.

As they reached me, I pushed my hand under her hair and laid it gently on her cheek.

“The greenhouse is still yours. If I’m forced to leave, I’ll break every pane of glass and upset very tray of seedlings.”

She turned her head to plant a moist kiss on my palm. Audrey put her free hand round my neck and pulled me in to put her mouth on mine. True to her nature, she briefly pushed her tongue between my lips before helping her friend out the door. I could hear them make their way upstairs before I turned to the other three. Gerry was on his feet, urging Belle to rise. He gave me a sickly grin as he eased her towards the door:

“Cherry wants a word.”

He closed the door after them leaving me alone with Cherubim who had not moved a muscle since I entered the dining room. It was only after I took Belle’s seat at the head of the table that she turned her head to look at me. The light fell on one cheek, and it was difficult to read her expression, but it was certainly not remorseful.

“Ready to admit defeat, Bill? I admit that we underestimated you, but I don’t have any hard feelings. Christine wants to bury you - after she’s flayed the skin off your back, of course.” Cherry laughed, savouring the image of my bleeding body, no doubt. “I think you’ll suffer more from seeing chalets being built where you were growing vegetables. You have no idea how much I loathe vegetables after spending nearly two years selling them from a market stall.

“The icing on the cake for me – the Cherry on the top, you might say – is that your girlfriend is running off with the guy you brought in to thwart our plans. Your problem is that you keep trying to build bridges to cover up character flaws. It’s much easier to drive a wedge in to make them wider. My mother wants everyone to be happy, so I show her how to do it; she’s too lazy to work out that Angie will suffer. Too late for you to do anything, you know: all the contracts are signed.

“Your stupid girlfriend wants a bit of excitement and let’s face it Bill, you’re dull. Tricky Dicky Arbuthnot will wine and dine her until he gets her in bed and then he’ll dump her. And the best part is that you can’t compete because you haven’t the price of a meal until all the crops are harvested. Since that’s not going to happen, you will still be broke when you drag yourself back into the gutter.”

It was like watching someone vomiting: I felt some sympathy that anyone should be so bitter, but I wanted to leave her to recover without my help. I was becoming accustomed to the light, and I could see that she was waiting for me to respond to her attack. I wanted to get away and think about everything she had said. I was certain that she would not have told me so much unless she was completely sure of her facts, but I could not accept that Belle had sold-out so abjectly without talking to me.

It was hard to believe that the determination she had shown when she hired me had been utterly forgotten, especially as we had gone so far towards meeting her aspirations to build a viable market garden in memory of her late husband. Cherry was squirming in her seat, becoming restless as I allowed the silence to continue. She read my mind.

“You’re wondering how we got mother to accept the logic of our proposals? It was easy: we just showed her a home-movie of Chris disciplining her husband. I admitted that I was fascinated by punishment and Chris went into her wicked witch mode and threatened to do to me what she did to Maurice. Most people think of whipping across the body. Mum was certainly surprised at the lash along the body; Chris can do it so that the tip lands right on his nuts. Mum was prepared to do anything to prevent the lash hitting me, smashing into the vagina of her innocent little daughter.

“She thinks I am under Chris’ spell,” Cherry giggled. “Ralph drew up all the legal documents, so you’ll not be able to find a flaw – he’s a good lawyer even if he is an arsehole. Mother hesitated about signing over the dower house to Chris until she saw the movie where Maurice passed out from the pain and lay twitching for five minutes before Chris pissed on him to wake him up.”

She stopped again, looking expectantly at me. My mind had been going over all the possibilities, while I listened. I would have to talk privately to Belle after I had calmly considered the possible effects of her betrayal on Audrey and Angela, on Gerry and Jenny, the friends I had made who had put their trust in me. Then I had the cheering thought that Mr. Sanderson, the lawyer for the estate had given me his home telephone number for emergencies. I thought he would agree that the present situation was exactly that.

“Cat got your tongue?” Cherry taunted.

“I was just thinking of the change since I first arrived. It was so hard to believe that you and Angela were twins. She looked about fifty while you could easily have passed for thirty-five.” Cherry smiled and preened. “Now she has got rid of Graham and has a job she loves, she looks ten years younger, while you have aged at least fifteen years.”

She had thrown herself at me, fingers extended like claws, before I finished speaking. I had been half expecting the attack and was on my feet, the scrabbling hands raking my shirt rather than my face. I retreated, waiting for a further onslaught but she burst into tears and rushed out the door, running upstairs to slam her bedroom door closed behind her.

I slumped back into Belle’s seat at the head of the table, contemplating a bleak future. She had accused me of indifference when I first agreed to transform her late husband’s dream into a reality. I had certainly been less than fully committed to my work in the past, seeing it as no more than a means to an end. But, in the weeks I have spent here, I have thrown myself into the task of improving the lives of the women with as much energy as I have given to tilling the soil.

There have been times when I became frustrated that their behaviour worked against their best interests, of course, but I felt that I was making progress with Angela and Audrey. I became so convinced that there was a real future for me in this farmhouse that I extended my protection to Gerry and Jenny. Especially at first, they had been unreliable allies. Even now, Gerry is torn between his loyalty to me and to Belle, not that I blame him, since she does pay his wages, as she reminded me earlier in the day. I cannot think about Jenny – she must know how I feel about her, and yet she throws herself at a worthless man even older than me.

What has totally destroyed me is the betrayal by Belle. She was the one who wanted to develop the market garden, All the money is under her control and the pressure on her to spend it on the four daughters and stepdaughters was the same at the outset as it is now. She made it clear that she would rely on my strength to see the project through to completion. Surely my actions in the weeks I have toiled to make the garden fruitful must have encouraged her to continue to defy their greed. Less than two weeks before, she had insisted that I take the position of general manager that Geoff had claimed for himself in his proposal.

As I sat, slumped in her chair at the dining table, I went through everything that had happened since we met beside Cherry’s market stall. I could think of nothing that had hinted at the total collapse she had calmly announced this afternoon. Suddenly, I sat upright, remembering that I meant to call her lawyer who had given me his home telephone number, insisting that I call him day or night in the case of emergency. Belle turning her back on the market garden was the biggest emergency I could contemplate.

I was on my feet, pacing, while I scrolled through the contacts on my company phone, too excited to sit still. He answered after no more than a couple of rings and seemed to be cautiously welcoming when I identified myself and told him there was an emergency. He told me to give him all the details.

“Belle has been signing deeds giving away the gardens to Christine so she can build chalets on the potato field.”

“Yes, we’ve had a few papers from young Ralph in the last few days. I don’t see the problem.”

“But it undermines everything we’ve been working for!” I was irritated: the stupid old man must see that our whole house of cards was destroyed.

“Look, Bill, I can’t talk now. We have people coming for dinner and my wife will flay me alive if I don’t open the wine so it can breathe properly. I’ve a golf match at one tomorrow. I’ll go into the office beforehand. Give me a ring at about eleven. Have a great evening, my boy.”

I found myself standing at the bottom of the stairs, the mobile phone in my hands. It was six-thirty on Friday evening, and I was alone in the world. Lights were blazing throughout the house but there was no sound either above or below stairs. All over the world, the working week was over, and men and women were getting ready to go out to enjoy themselves. In the early days, Hazel and I would get ourselves dressed up and go to the cinema or to a dinner and dance.

That brought me to my senses. If I did not move soon Jenny would come tripping down the stairs, dressed for seduction, looking gorgeous for another man. That was more than I could face. If I saw her, I would say something nasty – and if I saw or heard her partner I would likely end up in prison for assault. My first thought was to seek the sanctuary of my own room, but Enid would not respect my privacy. I could just imagine her enthusiastically coming in dragging her mummy with her so I could admire the trouble she had taken to look irresistible for another man.

I could go and join Audrey in consoling Angela, but there was nothing I could say to reassure either of them. I had spent a lot of time building her confidence only to have everything ruined by the return of her twin sister. I promised that she would remain in charge of the greenhouse, but that promise was worth nothing if the field was to be built on. I had several offers of employment but nothing that would allow me to take Angela and Audrey with me, at least in the early days. I would have to abandon them, and they must be aware of that fact.

Jenny deserved everything nasty that happened to her, but that left Gerry. I would go and talk Belle into keeping him on as handyman after I left. She was obviously fond of him so it seemed likely that she would at least give me a hearing. Once we were talking, I might be able to find out why she had such a change of heart. I took the stairs two at a time, suddenly anxious that I would be caught in the open by Jenny or the kids.

I had not been asked to get them to bed as on her previous assignation with Arbuthnot. I assumed that Gerry had the task, although I was certain that Enid would be with her mum, gawping over the transformation to fairytale princess. I had no wish to spoil the pleasure of the little girl, but it would be hard to pretend enthusiasm: if I was closeted with Belle, I would not have to see Enid until morning. These considerations gave me the courage to knock on Belle’s door without further hesitation.

That began two hours of bizarre miscommunication. I had known from the outset that Belle was reluctant to face unpleasant facts and would certainly avoid dealing with them. Her actions over the last ten days had put the future of the market garden in jeopardy and I really wanted her to tell me why she had deserted a cause that I thought was dear to her heart. Perhaps it was no more complicated than her finding a new love. She had determined to restore the garden in memory of her late husband: now she had found Gerry, and the memory of past obligations was simply fading.

“I’m glad you popped in, Bill. I’ve wanted to explain why I took Gerry away the other day.”

That gave me the opening I needed: “Think nothing of it, Belle. My only concern is that he and Jenny will have jobs after the dust settles.”

“The only thing that bothers me is that rat Arbuthnot. He told my third husband I was having an affair just because I turned Tricky Dicky down when he tried to force himself on me. I didn’t realise he was the architect you selected until he arrived here. I trusted you, Bill, and I felt betrayed when I saw him pawing the girls.”

“Believe me, Belle, no one regrets bringing him here more than I do, but he is a very good architect. My mistake was in thinking that Audrey and Jenny would see through his facile charm to the snake underneath.”

“Oh well, he won’t be around for long. Ralph’s friend John has asked if he can have the construction contract. The girls will be safe enough with him.”

“You seem to be making a lot of decisions now without mentioning them to me.”

“I’ve just been so ashamed for lying to you about escaping from the dower house. To tell you the truth, I’ve been avoiding you.”

This sort of elliptical conversation continued until after nine o’clock, when Belle announced that she was tired.

“I’m so glad we had this little talk to clear the air, Bill dear. I do value your opinion above everybody else – even old Sanderson.”

Back in my own room, I got ready for bed and then sat going over what Belle and I had discussed. Every time I tried to steer the conversation to her betrayal, she had diverted me by apologising for something trivial that she claimed was on her conscience. Listening to her, I had become more and more despondent. I could have lost my temper and demanded answers, but in the end, the money is hers and she has the right to dispose of it as she wishes. The odd thing is that she means it when she praises me, telling me that she respects my judgement.

I finally fell asleep convinced that she has forgotten that I have been paid nothing for my efforts. Now that she appears to have surrendered control of the estate to Cherry and Christine, I will do well to hang on to the gifts of clothing she has given me. This had certainly been the worst Friday of my life so far. I wondered if I would hear Jenny return from her date – if she bothered to come back before morning.

Jim shook me awake. It took me several seconds to gather my scattered wits and focus on the little boy standing by my bed, tears running down his face and clutching a nappy in the hand that was not punching my shoulder. The only light was spilling through the open door from the corridor and from my bedside clock which was reading two-thirteen. Once he had my attention, Jim showed me that the tape which should hold the nappy closed was no longer adhesive.

“I needed pee-pee, but it broke,” he sobbed.

It took some minutes to console him to the point where he could tell a coherent story. Since he learned to use the toilet several days before he had been wearing pull-up pants that still had some of the absorbent properties of a nappy. I assumed that he would go straight to mini boxers or tighty-whities, but the ladies insisted on the half-way house in case of accidents. Jim did not mind – in fact he rather enjoyed pushing them down to his ankles and pulling them back up after one of his frequent visits to the toilet.

Jenny insisted that he wear a proper nappy at night. Jim had wakened this morning needing to go, had climbed out of his cot and pushed the nappy down to perform his pee-pee. Unfortunately, one of the tapes pulled apart as he pushed the nappy down and would not fasten when he tried to restore the status quo ante. He is a brave little lad, but he did not quite have the courage to waken his mother to explain his plight. Instead, he brought the problem to me.

The problem is that, in typical masculine fashion, he had no idea where the pull-up pants were stored. “Mummy keeps them,” was his perfectly logical response when I asked. She lays a fresh pair on her bed and all Jim has to do is pick them up and put them on. I remembered that there was strong masking tape in the drawer of the kitchen table, and we were just about to creep down to repair the nappy when Enid appeared.

Predictably, she knew exactly which drawer housed the trainer pants. She cautioned us to wait quietly while she returned to her room and found a pair. She had wakened to find Jim missing and deduced that he would have come to my room. She is quite scarily smart. Jim is no dummy either, although his intelligence is more physical than intellectual. I had seen him climb out of his cot but had assumed, for some reason, that he would not be able to climb back in. He gave me a look of withering scorn when I suggested that!

Enid returned, and we handed the absorbent, pull-up pants to Jim. Crisis over: well, not entirely. I wanted the kids to return to their own room while Enid argued that it would probably disturb mummy which would be unfair. We were talking in whispers for some time before she giggled and pointed behind me at the bed. Jim had taken direct action and was now perched in his favourite position on my pillow gently snoring.

There is no shame in surrendering to overwhelming force, So I climbed into bed. Enid, to do her justice, tried to hide her triumphant grin as she snuggled in at my back. On a farm, Saturday is a day like any other, so I was up and dressed at ten minutes before six o’clock. Easing my door open to avoid disturbing the kids, I almost bumped into Jenny, her hand already raised to knock on my door. She was wearing a raincoat, and I briefly wondered if she was just returning from her date.

“Have you seen the kids?” she whispered, her face taut with anxiety.

I jerked my thumb towards the bed and watched as the tension drained to be replaced by a look of tender love. It was then I looked at her more carefully: the coat was thrown over pajamas, her hair was tangled, and she wore no make-up. It was clear that she had wakened to discover that Jim and Enid were not in their beds. While I was reading these clues, her expression changed to anger, as she turned from the children to glare at me.

“How dare you come into my room and steal my children!”

I pulled the door closed, turning the handle to stifle the click as the lock engaged. I wanted to yell at her that they had come to me; I also wanted to take her in my arms and comfort her, assuring her that I would never hurt her or her children. I wanted to explain everything, including the pain I felt at her disloyalty. Jenny was watching my face as I spoke, and I suppose she had no difficulty in reading the emotions racing through my mind. I was composing speeches and discarding them, without finding a single word to say.

It came as a surprise to find myself at the foot of the main staircase, Jenny by my side still looking at me with an unreadable expression. I had my hand on the kitchen door when I found my voice.

“Jim is too big for that cot. He needs a proper bed.”

Belle was at the stove cooking breakfast, and she said something about finding the kids, but all I was aware of was Jenny touching my arm and laughing up at me. I leant forward conscious of nothing but her lips waiting to be kissed before reality set in:

“Did he climb out again?”

So, I told her the whole story of the damaged nappy and Enid appearing like the Fifth Cavalry in an old Western movie. By that time Audrey had drifted in wanting me to tell the whole story again. She was wearing a rather magnificent dressing gown. She suddenly demanded to know why Jenny was wearing a disreputable old coat.

“I’ve a spare dressing gown but it would drown you. Mum, why don’t you give Jenny one of yours?”

Jenny explained that she had spent her first wages on things that the kids needed. Gerry was sent to bring a peignoir from Belle’s room and Jenny, reluctantly, stripped off the old coat to don a confection of ribbons and lace. Angela came in accompanied by the children who were enraptured by their mum’s new attire. There was general agreement with Enid’s description of her as a princess. It was only after we were all seated that I noticed that Cherry had joined us.

After we were all served, Belle added her voice to the demand to hear the story from the beginning. Enid and I shared the tale. At one point Jenny wanted to know why Jim had not wakened her to deal with his problem. Enid looked at her for several moments, clearly pondering on the problem, but then her face cleared:

“It was daddy who taught Jim to use the potty. Who else would he go to with a problem?”

I was tying the laces of my work boots when Jenny asked Jim why he had wakened in the middle of the night. He, predictably, said nothing and even Enid had no suggestion to make.

“Perhaps you disturbed him coming home from your date,” I remarked.

“I was in bed by nine. What makes you think I was on a date?” Jenny sounded more hurt than angry.

I looked at Cherry who looked dismayed for a moment before she became defiant: “Richard asked you out, didn’t he?” she snarled, before she got up and made a speedy exit.

There was complete silence in the kitchen for a few minutes. I cannot speak for the others, but my heart was singing at the news that Jenny had turned down the offer of a date with handsome, debonair Richard Arbuthnot.

“I’ll hang this old coat up in the barn,” I chortled. “You can use it for feeding the hens.”

“But we don’t have hens,” Angie pointed out.

“We have to get some – if only to do proper honour to this coat,” I threw over my shoulder as I made a hasty exit.

I inspected my garden with a silly grin on my face until I remembered that I had done nothing to make me so euphoric. It was true that Jenny had turned him down for a single date, but I had not so much as hinted that I wanted her for myself. The best I could claim was that the threat from Arbuthnot had receded.

Gerry followed me out and I sent him off with a trug and a broad-bladed fork called a grape, to sample the early potatoes. If they were ready to harvest, he could spend the morning finding a buyer for the crop. I wandered over to the area where the old raspberry canes were beginning to fruit; The best we could hope for this year was that they would be good enough to sell for jam making. I began to explain my thinking when Audrey joined me, but she had other things than soft fruit on her mind.

“You’re an idiot, Bill. Did you really think that Jenny would go on a dinner date alone with Richard Arbuthnot?”

I mumbled something about his charm and good looks having a devastating effect on the female of the species homo sapiens. She laughed.

“Do you remember what Jenny was doing before you lured her to this rustic paradise? She was a waitress. I’ve been there, done that, and still have the bruises on my bum!”

Waitresses spend much of their time standing too close to seated customers, Audrey told me. They do their best to stay out of range but there is no sure defence against ploys like pointing to an item on the menu when ordering a meal. The server is forced to come within range of busy fingers seeking contact with her bum and, if she leans a little forward, a swift turn by the customer can bring his cheek into contact with her boob. I protested that not all men were like that. She laughed again.

“If you were out drinking with your mates, you would be the only one who noticed the colour of the barmaid’s eyes.”

The first thing a waitress learns, according to Audrey, is that you must accept greater liberties from customers than you would from a boyfriend. Not only will you lose tips if you protest at inappropriate touching, you will probably lose the job as well. The very first glimpse Jenny had of Arbuthnot would have put her on full alert. In Audrey’s considered opinion only someone who had spent twenty tears in a nunnery would be taken in by the architect’s posturing.

“That first day he behaved well until you appeared. That was when he put his arm around our waists. Ten seconds after you had turned away, we had freed ourselves. We got our revenge by letting him buy us an expensive dinner while denying so much as a touch of the hand. The next day he drove to Birmingham to take us for lunch; when we got the text from him telling us he was there, Jenny left the exhibition to join Belle and Angela in town. I waited because I was chatting to a dishy exhibitor.”

Gerry had arrived in time to hear the end of my course of instruction.

“You’re a Boy Scout,” he chortled. “Jenny’s been fending off unwanted suitors since she was fourteen. I’m not saying she’s any good at picking the lads she dated but she certainly knew how to cool the ardour of the men she didn’t like.”

He and Audrey went off together leaving me elated that Arbuthnot was no threat to me, but despondent because my own pursuit of Jenny was no further forward. My new worry was that she had a reputation for picking unsuitable partners. If I wooed and won her would that mean that I was the wrong man for her? I had just resolved to do nothing for the present when I was hailed from the archway.

It was Audrey who had shouted and, when I looked up, she was standing beside a sporty-looking gentleman. It took me a moment to recognise Belle’s solicitor; I had only ever seen him in an old-fashioned business suit. I recalled that he had spoken of going golfing when I had telephoned to him the previous evening. He had been fairly short with me, dismissing my concerns as rather less important than giving the wine he proposed to serve his guests time to breathe. He had rather reluctantly offered to talk to me this morning before he played golf.

He had been deeply suspicious of me when Belle first introduced me, and I sensed that he still had reservations. In my most recent meetings, he had been affable but rather reserved. Last night on the phone he had clearly shown his exasperation at being interrupted by me. I knew that Belle’s estate was important to him so his reaction must have arisen from his low opinion of me. So why was he here at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, I asked myself, as I walked to meet him.

“My dear chap I owe you an abject apology,” he began as soon as I came within range. “Beatrice Fairbairn - you know, the lass who is handling the dissolution of your marriage – was our dinner guest last night and I mentioned your telephone call. Unfortunately, it was not until late in the evening and my dear wife would not permit me to telephone you. On reflection, I thought it better to face you man to man, so to speak, so here I am, my dear boy.”

“I probably panicked a bit,” I concede, before he held up an imperious hand to stop me.

“It was entirely my faut, as Beatrice told me, in no uncertain terms. My wife called me an old fool, and I am compelled to agree with her. Anyway! I am so glad that it is all cleared up. I can enjoy my round of golf with a quiet mind. Thank you, my boy.”

I had no idea what the old man was talking about. I was searching my memory for some clue and trying to frame a question that would encourage him to elaborate, when Audrey stepped in.

“Are you two speaking in code or can you explain what is going on, because I haven’t a clue?”

“Bill, - I may call you Bill? – did not know until this very minute that he is the executive trustee of Belle’s trust. We set it up some weeks ago, but he has not had the opportunity to read the documents.”

While Angela was arranging her divorce with Ms. Fairbairn, Mr. Sanderson had me sign a number of papers. I left his assistant witnessing and notarising my signature when I took my turn with the divorce specialist. In the rush of events, I had not bothered to read the documents I signed. Without knowing it, I had accepted the position of executive trustee of all Belle’s wealth which had been converted to a trust fund. Belle and Sanderson are the other trustees. Not a penny could be spent without written authority signed by me and one of the other trustees.

The lawyer reached into his car bringing out an envelope which he handed to me.

“These are copies. I should have made sure you got them at the time, but you really must read them now.”

Audrey threw her arms around his neck, kissing him lingeringly on the lips. His sallow cheek flushed but he appeared to be having difficulty disengaging himself – not that he appeared to be trying too hard. When she finally let him go, he collapsed into the driving seat, stalling the engine as he tried to pull away.

“I’ll get you to sign an order for a new car,” she trilled, clutching my arm after he had gone.

“You need another trustee to countersign,” I reminded her.

“Belle’s a pushover: she’ll sign anything to avoid an argument.”

Believe it or not, it was not until that moment that I fully appreciated my position. All the carefully worded legal documents that Ralph had prepared, all the devious schemes by Cherry and Christine to have Belle endorse them, were worth nothing without my countersignature. Now that particular dam was breached, my mind flooded with the consequences. The polarity of my world had just been reversed and I needed time alone to consider the future.