The Unshaken Loyalty

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

When the Farrington family advertised for a cook-housekeeper they didn't expect an applicant as young, pretty and efficient as Helen Maye. Helen becomes intrigued by her new employers, especially their half-brother Johnny, who has been a stranger to his home for so long...

Release date: March 27, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 224

Sample

It was not like Helen to be nervous. At twenty-one she was a calm resourceful sort of girl; rarely shy with strangers. But when the old station taxi which had brought her from Grange-over-Sands through the village of Cartmel to this isolated estate on the fringe of Cartmel Fell, stopped, and she looked through the wrought-iron gates up the drive which led to Higher Fell Hall, she had to confess to a certain and very sudden qualm. Almost she turned to tell the driver to take her back to the station.

Then she paid him the fare and shrugged her shoulders as though to tell herself not to be stupid. After all, she had taken that long railway journey, and when she had left Euston she had felt full of confidence. Over and over again she had read the advertisement from the Personal columns of The Times which she had answered:

COOK-HOUSEKEEPER wanted for country house near Cartmel. Lancs. Must be first-class cook. Comfortable home for right person.

Apply: Box No.–

Mummy had said:

‘But I can’t have my daughter doing such a job. You weren’t brought up to be a cook.’

Only Daddy seemed intelligent about it, saying:

‘That may be true, dear, but she is a first-class cook with a diploma in domestic science. There’s nothing our Helen likes more than that sort of work. Why not benefit by it?’

Mummy had argued but finally given in. For things were bad financially, at home. Mr Maye, much older than his wife, had retired from his job as a dentist. He had been in the Army during the war. It wasn’t going to be easy for him to support them now on his savings. It was essential that Helen should get a well-paid job. It seemed to her that the very best kind today was a living-in one, which meant you had no expenses to come out of your salary.

The letter that arrived from Mrs Farrington had decided Helen. A rather dreary complaining letter in a way, but indicative of the fact that the writer was the completely helpless type. Helpless things always appealed to the independent girl. When Helen was a child her mother used to complain that she could never get Helen past a weeping baby, a stray dog, or old people in need of assistance.

Mrs Farrington seemed very much in need of assistance.

There are four of us, she had informed Helen, my husband and I and my son and daughter, but we do a lot of entertaining and as we live in the wilds of the country we have to have what village help we can get which is spasmodic, and I have only a young Spanish girl who lives in and does parlour work. I am always busy and not very well and I simply must have a reliable cook-housekeeper. I am willing to pay whatever you ask. You don’t say how old you are but your writing seems youthful and you say you are strong and want to settle down. I enclose your fare. Please come up and see me at once. I cannot tell you how thankful I shall be … etc.

But now Helen wondered if she had been mad and if she would be turned away at once because of her youth and inexperience. She couldn’t even give a proper reference – only a letter from the Vicar who had known the Maye family during the twenty years they had lived in Richmond, and her godmother (who actually had a title and was one of Mummy’s ‘snob’ friends!)

‘You staying awhile at Higher Fell,’ the taxi driver asked, smiling at the young girl who had given him a generous tip. Everybody smiled at Helen. She had such an engaging kind of face and a very lovely figure. On this warm May afternoon she looked fresh and cool, despite the long journey, in dark blue and white, and with a white piqué beret on the chestnut curls. Already, there was quite a summer tan on a face full of character. She had that sort of wide-eyed look – soft dark hazel eyes, thickly-lashed – which at once gave an impression of sincerity. The mouth was a little serious, with fine-cut lips, and there was a stubbornness about the firm dented chin which belied the softness of the eyes. Helen Maye had a will of her own – that was obvious.

Before she could answer the driver, he continued to talk with his North country drawl, jerking a thumb in the direction of the gates.

‘What you might call the last of the landed gentry type, lass. They Farringtons have lived at Higher Fell coople of hundred years. My Dad remembers old grandfather Farrington. Mr Edward dropped a bit on death duties but his son – young Gordon – he’ll drop a proper bit more.’

‘I expect so,’ murmured Helen.

‘Proper good-looking lad, and one for the lassies, he is. We don’t mind him, though he gets a bit plastered now and again in the local–’

‘Well, I think I’d better be going,’ interrupted Helen, feeling that she ought not to listen to this volunteered gossip. The driver, however, seemed anxious to inform.

‘The young lady – Glorita they call her – she’s a stuck-oop lass. I was only saying to my daughter, none of ’ems what Mr Johnny used to be.’

‘Mr Johnny?’ broke in Helen mystified, ‘but I thought there was only one son in the family.’

‘There was two but you’ll get to hear about Mr Johnny, no doubt. He’s been gone these many years,’ said the driver.

Helen did not wait to ask what the ‘gone’ meant. Perhaps ‘Mr Johnny’ had died. She turned and began to walk up the drive between rows of the most wonderful rhododendrons and azaleas she had ever seen. Great bushes of pink, scarlet and white. And what a glorious day! The air up here in Lancashire was cool and crisp. Rabbits scuttled through the thicket.

Most of Helen’s life had been lived in Richmond. She was used to the beauty of the great Park there. But she was at heart a lover of real country and here it was in all its magnificence. Wild fells and green valleys. The Lake District that she had always wanted to visit and Cartmel was only four miles from Lake Windermere.

She was never to forget her first glimpse of Higher Fell Hall. A long low house built of grey Lancashire stone, here and there concealed by the purple and pale green of wistaria, clematis, and climbing roses soon to break into bloom. It seemed to her a very big place. It stood high on the hill overlooking the Fell away to the River Winster. The front lawn was beautifully mown and rolled. The flower beds were full of bright tulips, wallflowers and a border of purple and yellow pansies. As Helen approached the portico, the door opened. Two dogs rushed out barking furiously. They were called back by a peevish feminine voice.

‘Oh, come here, come here, Tuppence – Penny, shut up!’

Then a girl wearing well-cut slacks and a canary coloured polo-necked sweater, appeared in front of Helen who had bent down and held out a hand to the dogs.

‘I shouldn’t touch them if I were you,’ said the other girl in rather a surly voice. ‘They snap at strangers.’

Helen looked with interest at the little rough-haired dogs with the pointed ears and tan-masks.

‘They’re Australians, aren’t they?’

‘Yes. They’re my mother’s. I can’t stand them. I like big dogs like Boxers.’

The two girls sized each other up. This must be Glorita Farrington, thought Helen. Not bad-looking, but too thin, and her big mouth was as peevish as her voice. She had long blonde untidy hair and long-lashed blue eyes. Helen said:

‘I’m Miss Maye. I think Mrs Farrington is expecting me.’

Glorita Farrington’s eyes now stared quite rudely.

‘Good lord, don’t say you’re the cook-housekeeper.’

‘Yes, that’s me,’ said Helen with a short laugh.

Glorita raised eyebrows that had been too well plucked. They gave her face a hard mask-like look. She was, Helen thought, possibly about eighteen, and rather a poor imitation of a film star.

‘Well, really,’ exclaimed Glorita, ‘you don’t look like a cook. I’m sure you won’t do.’

That challenged Helen who at once decided to get this job if she died for it. She didn’t very much care for this ill-mannered young woman and hoped she wasn’t typical of the rest of the family.

‘Well, I hope to be able to persuade Mrs Farrington that I am what she wants,’ Helen said coolly.

‘I’m sure you’re too young,’ said Glorita. What she meant was ‘Too pretty. You’ll cramp my style!’

Once more Helen stooped to the little dogs who were now edging towards her. One licked her hand.

A moment later she was in Mrs Farrington’s bedroom. The mother was repeating the daughter’s words:

‘You look much too young. I never dreamed that the Miss Maye who wrote that letter was such a young girl.’

‘I was twenty-one last December and I assure you I’m perfectly capable,’ said Helen, flushing. Her hazel eyes looked very determined like her square chin.

She was almost overpowered by this room. An electric fire – both bars full on – sent out a heat that Helen thought unnecessary considering that the sun was shining on this late spring afternoon. But Rina Farrington adored heat and was madly extravagant with the electricity. If she had had her way she would have had the central heating on the whole year round. Mr Farrington was an extremely wealthy shipbuilder with a big business in Barrow. He complained that taxation left him penniless, nevertheless the Farringtons were still considered the rich people of the district – and they were.

Helen had never in her life seen anything like this huge bedroom, with the three windows overlooking the gardens. She could look down from where she now stood, on to an exquisite miniature lake flanked by cypress trees – reminiscent of Italy. She saw clipped yew hedges, formal rose beds, well-stocked orchards, and old stone walls mellowed by time. The pink almonds and white cherry blossoms were soon to sprinkle the earth with their petals. What a view, thought Helen; one of the real stately homes of England, this! And inside, a London elegance. Pale grey-papered walls, pale grey carpet into which one’s feet sank. Lemon-coloured expensive chintzes. A huge double bed with a vast yellow head-board. Quite the untidiest of rooms, too – clothes and books and papers lying around in bewildering disorder.

In the centre of this bed, looking rather small, lay Mrs Farrington who must, Helen judged be nearing fifty. A little like Glorita with her huge blue eyes, but not so surly-looking. She had golden-red close curled hair now plentifully streaked with silver, and a charming smile. Now Helen knew why she had written in that helpless vein. She looked helpless, with exquisitely manicured hands and fragile build. She obviously did no gardening nor any other kind of manual labour. She was smoking a cigarette in a long holder. There were several rouge-stained stubs in the ash tray on a gilt-painted table beside her. The whole place was fragrant with expensive French perfume.

‘A bit different,’ Helen said to herself, ‘from Mummy’s and Daddy’s bedroom at home.’

And she had a quick mental picture of that fresh unscented room with the inexpensive oak suite and cretonne curtains. ‘Home’ for Helen meant a small Edwardian brick house in a row of other houses in an avenue leading off Richmond Hill. Comfort without luxury. A small pleasant garden, and Daddy’s Ford Anglia in the garage. (But she would like to bet the Farringtons had a Rolls!)

Mrs Farrington said in a distressed voice:

‘I can’t tell you how this upsets me. I was looking forward to seeing a nice stout Miss Maye, with spectacles, who would take all responsibility right off my shoulders. Oh, dear! I’ve been through such an awful time …’ and before Helen could reassure Mrs Farrington on her capabilities, there followed a pathetic account of the last three cook-housekeepers engaged by Rina Farrington. The first had gone off with the family silver. (It had only just been returned by the police). The second had been so dirty that it had taken two ‘dailies’ a week to clean the big kitchen. The third, an excellent Austrian cook, had been so homesick that she had packed and departed at the end of three days.

Mrs Farrington finished on a wail:

‘I keep telling Edward – my husband – that he ought to sell this place and take a much smaller one. But he won’t leave it because it’s the family seat. I do adore it but I can’t cook and I’m afraid Glorita is just as inefficient. I ought to have had her taught cooking instead of sending her to a finishing school in Paris. But it’s too late now. The place drives me mad. If it isn’t Edward’s or my friends – it’s Gordon’s–’ she broke off and raising herself on one elbow said: ‘I’m subject to fearful migraine and heart. I just can’t see out of my eyes today …’ She pressed the bell beside the bed. ‘You must be famished, Miss Maye, I’ll tell Benina to bring tea. It’s about all she can do – make tea or coffee. Mrs Wrigley had been cooking the dinner but it means Gordon driving her home after she’s washed up because she lives in Cartmel. We can’t go on like this and now look at you – just a child – how maddening!’

‘Oh, wait Mrs Farrington, please,’ broke in Helen breathlessly. ‘I’ll prove to you that I can do the job, honestly.’

‘But with your education and good looks – you’re so pretty – you can’t want to bury yourself here in our kitchen!’

Then Helen set to work to explain how hard up they were at home and just why she needed this job; that if she could get four pounds a week, and her ‘keep’, it would be well worth while and that she didn’t crave for excitement and that she was mad about cooking and could present a lovely cocktail or dinner party. She’d even stay here tonight, if somebody would lend her a nightgown, and she would cook the dinner in order to prove how good she was.

Rina Farrington lay back on her pillows and stared.

Heavens, she thought, in another moment this little thing is going to convince me that she can do the job. I don’t know what Edward will say if I engage such a child. And I wonder if it’s safe for Gordon. She’s got a better figure than Glorita’s, too, which will upset her!

But by another half hour, (as Helen told them all at home) she had virtually mesmerised Mrs Farrington into giving her a trial. Benina, the smiling plump dark-eyed Senorita who waited at table, and was a kind of half-trained parlourmaid, brought in tea. Soon Mrs Farrington knew all about Helen and felt the calm authority that seemed to emanate so strangely from the hazel-eyed, bronze-haired young girl. After that things happened rapidly. Helen asked if she could put a trunk call through to her Richmond home. When she offered to pay for it, Mrs Farrington waved a hand and said:

‘For goodness sake don’t mind about our phone. It never stops ringing in this house. Everybody uses it, although I must say my husband kicked a bit when Glorita started telephoning her girl-friends in Paris …’

Helen was soon to learn that all the Farringtons with the exception of the master of the house, were extravagant and slightly mad; and that nobody could speak to each other for ten minutes without starting an argument and an acrimonious one at that.

‘Mrs Farrington is charming but quite hopeless and spoiled. Glorita is a little wretch – as egotistical as you can make them – but it might be quite amusing living here,’ she told her mother.

Hard work, yes, but fun; and in surroundings so beautiful that they took her breath away! She fell in love with the wild countryside of Lancashire on that May day – and never fell out. And that night she stayed ‘on trial’ (on both sides) and brought off a personal triumph, just as she intended.

Never had the Farrington family eaten such a dinner in this house. For Helen had taken a Cordon Bleu course and her French cooking was delicious. She served up a cheese soufflé that decided Mr Farrington (who liked his food) that the young woman was to remain whether she was too young and too pretty or not. And even Glorita, who was all against it, had to admit that Miss Maye had walked into a disorderly kitchen and put order into it during the first hour.

Gordon Farrington did not come home for dinner that night. He was dining in Manchester with one of his girl friends. He came back on a late train, but as he passed his mother’s bedroom she heard and called to him:

‘Miracles sometimes happen – we’ve found a treasure, darling – a superb cook. Clean, quick and English. She doesn’t seem to think it will be too much for her – no matter how much we entertain. In fact she likes parties.’

‘There must be something wrong with her,’ said Gordon Farrington, who at twenty-four was handsome, cynical and the most egotistical of all the Farringtons. But his mother worshipped him. Gordon had inherited her large blue eyes and her red-gold hair. If he drank a little too much and treated his girl friends abominably and seldom, if ever, spoke the truth, Mrs Farrington blinded herself to these unpalatable facts.

‘There must be something wrong with our Miss Maye,’ he repeated.

‘Well, I don’t think so because I heard her talking to her mother and it all sounded perfectly in order. She’s got a letter of recommendation from the local parson, too, and her godmother lives in London and is a Lady Something. I can get a personal call through to her tomorrow, if I want to satisfy myself that Miss Maye is all she appears to be.’

Gordon yawned. He was not particularly interested in the new cook. He was too concerned with his personal troubles. That girl – a Manchester dress model – whom he was now taking out – had expensive tastes. Gordon earned a good salary in his father’s firm but spent well beyond that income. His father had paid his debts twice and refused to help again. His only hope was to borrow from his mother. He decided to spin a ‘hardship yarn’ in the morning, kissed her good night and went to his own room. He needn’t really worry, he reflected, Mum would ‘play’. She’d always given him everything.

Most women gave things willingly to Gordon. There was no one he need be jealous of – even Glorita.

There had, of course, been a time when he used to feel jealous of Johnny. John was Mr Farrington’s son by a previous marriage – three years older than Gordon, and once the heir to this estate. But all that was over. He, Gordon, had stepped into Johnny’s shoes (at least he thought so!) Mr Farrington had decided that if they had not heard from Johnny by this time next year he must be presumed dead. He, Gordon, would one day inherit the whole Farrington fortune which, even after subtracting death duties, would still mean a quarter of a million.

Higher Fell Hall dreamed in the bright May moonlight. The inmates slept. Only one of the terriers stirred in the big double basket as an owl hooted. Then a dozen or more owls answered from the distant Fell.

Helen woke up to a typical Lancashire summer morning of thin drizzle and cool temperature. But she had slept well. It was most comfortable in the housekeepers’ room with its spring bed, nice green carpet and fresh apricot chintzes. It even had a tiny bathroom of its own. There was also a radio, an armchair and a desk. No reason why the Farrington’s cook should not live in luxury.

As she dressed, Helen remembered her elation because the soufflé had turned out so well last night. Mr Farrington had congratulated her. She liked him. A stolid square-jawed Lancastrian, whose education at Eton and Oxford had not made him impervious to the benefits of a welfare state. She was sure he was popular at the dockyard with his men. He had a mop of iron-grey hair and bright blue eyes. He treated his wife with generous affection coupled with faint irritability but seemed on good terms with her. He did not pretend to understand his selfish young daughter too modern for his liking. He seemed even less fond of his son.

As well as doing the cooking last night, Helen had had to take the food into the dining room because Benina, who had complained all the afternoon of headache retired to bed with a slight temperature. Glorita started to grumble and Mrs Farrington got up and dressed and came down to the kitchen to see Helen. The lady of the house looked tiny and exquisite, thought Helen, in palest blue, with six rows of pearls around. . .