Gamekeeper's Daughter

Emma Bawden

Description

It is 1919, and as the First World War draws to an end, 15-year-old Emily Parish is poised to follow her mother into service. Her father, a gamekeeper on the Melham Estate, has become a victim of the war, like many others, lost in the fields of France. A new young teacher, Kitty Bell, arrives at Melham village school and enters Emily for her scholarship to Brammerton High School against her mother's wishes and with the aid of Lady Louise Grayson, a young widow at Farnwell Hall, uncovers the mystery of Emily's parentage and finds the love that has previously eluded her. Emily's mother, Annie Parish, is offered the position of cook in the newly renovated Farnwell Hall, the old seat of the Graysons, now occupied by Vivienne Stratton-Smith, Louise's sister-in-law, an inveterate fighter for women's rights and her husband, a liberal MP.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 13 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528944403
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Gamekeeper’s Daughter
Emma Bawden
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-02-15
The Gamekeeper’s Daughter About the author Frontispiece Copyright Information Epigraph Prologue Emily Chapter One Extracts from Miss Bell’s Diary 7th May 1918 17th May Chapter Two Emily Chapter Three Extracts from Miss Bell’s Diary July 1918 1st September 12th September 24th September Chapter Four Emily Extracts from Miss Bell’s Diary: October November Chapter Five Emily Chapter Six Louise Chapter Seven Louise Chapter Eight Emily Extracts from Kitty Bell’s Diary: Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Emily Chapter Eleven Louise Chapter Twelve Kitty Chapter Thirteen Emily Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Extract from Kitty Bell’s Diary January 1919 Chapter Sixteen Emily Chapter Seventeen Emily Chapter Eighteen Extracts from Kitty Bell’s Diary February 1919 March 1919 Chapter Nineteen Emily Chapter Twenty Extract from Kitty Bell’s Diary March 1919 Chapter Twenty-One Emily Chapter Twenty-Two Emily Chapter Twenty-Three Emily Chapter Twenty-Four Emily Chapter Twenty-Five Emily Chapter Twenty-Six Emily Chapter Twenty-Seven Extract from Kitty Bell’s Diary August 1st 1919 Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Emily Chapter Thirty Emily Chapter Thirty-One Emily Chapter Thirty-Two Emily Chapter Thirty-Three
About the author
Emma Bawden is a feminist. An ardent advocate of women’s rights.
Frontispiece

illustration by Suzanne Conn
Copyright Information
Copyright © Emma Bawden (2019)
The right of Emma Bawden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528941525 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528944403 (E-Book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Epigraph
Winter’s harsh grip
slackens
darkness recedes
and the bright
early sun of spring
brings hope anew
with each budding leaf.
Prologue

Emily
I suppose it must have been Rebecca Crawford who first made me ask questions of myself; innocent question that led me to suspect that I was different, but then, the concept of difference can only be measured against opposites or normality and what after all is normality? Love and desire coupled with childish innocence is all powerful and stretches beyond such concepts.
At the dawn of 1919, the year when I first met Becky, I had been in love with my teacher, Katherine Bell, but as I discovered later when I won a scholarship to Brammerton Girls High School, it was not at all unusual to have a crush at my age on an older girl or even a teacher, for while I was there during the early twenties, the air was rife with rumours and secrets – a hotbed of young romantic hearts and older emotionally deprived women.
But Becky, The Hon Rebecca Crawford, uncovered emotions in me that were not altogether clear at first; complicated, deep, dark emotions. They left me with unresolved desires and strange restless longings that were nothing like the simple love and adoration that I had felt for my school friend, Catherine Ashton, and later my new teacher, Miss Bell.
In November 1918, my mother and I moved to Farnwell Hall two miles from the village of Melham where I had been born. I was fourteen. Farnwell Hall, after being empty for many years, was being renovated and the Stratton-Smiths from Wiltshire were moving back to the old Grayson family seat. My mother was taken on as cook and it seemed inevitable that I would eventually follow her into service.
We had lived in the gamekeeper’s cottage on Melham Estate, but my father, like many others in the village, had failed to return from the war.
Six months earlier, in the first week of May 1918, Miss Bell had arrived at our village school to replace Miss Daines, who had reached retirement age.
Chapter One

Extracts from Miss Bell’s Diary

7th May 1918
My first day at Melham village school. It was not as bad as I thought it might be. There are forty-five children of various ages from eight to fourteen. The infants are cared for by a widow, Mrs Allen, in an adjoining cottage. The children seem well behaved, indeed a little subdued, more that I would wish them to be.
Miss Daines hovered around all morning showing where everything was kept, including a vicious looking cane which I have no intention of using, although I dare not tell her that. It was kept in a cupboard next to the blackboard and she advised me to take it out every morning and place it in full view of the class; that way, she says, I will get no nonsense. Her advice was to use it at least once a week; one can always find some excuse with the boys, she said. No wonder the poor mites are subdued! I have put it at the very back of the stock cupboard and am determined that it shall not see the light of day while I am here.
The children are poorly dressed but healthy and clean; quite robust as one would expect country children to be, especially some of the older boys whose attendance, Miss Daines informed me, leaves a great deal to be desired.
I do not think that they suffer the deprivations of town and city children. There are, I expect, sufficient crumbs from the tables of the rich to feed them and there are always the fruits of the country to hand; most villagers grow their own vegetables and keep chickens and a pig; the hedgerows are a marvellous source of food for the enlightened and rabbiting is not frowned upon by the Melham gamekeepers.
Although there is little or no independence from their landlords, the landed gentry, at least they seem to be well looked after, and one cannot yet say that of their city cousins for all the social reforms and good works.
There is one girl that stands out from the rest in a most unexpected way, not only because she has the most beautiful green eyes, thick, black hair, a sweet, little nose and such angelic lips but she is also highly intelligent and surprisingly well spoken. The boys, understandably enough, are rather in awe of her. Her mother, Anne Parish, works up at Melham Manor and her father is dead, so Mrs Allen informed me – killed in the war, like so many others in this village; fifteen so far, I was horrified to learn.
Emily, for that is her name, has a sadness about her. It lies on her shoulders like a cloak. I have a feeling that she is grieving for more than just her father, and feel strangely akin to her as if by some unspoken word we understand each other’s loss. Yet I know this to be a mere fantasy. She has a smile which melts my heart; an almost imperceptible lift of her lips and a brightening of her eyes; a shy sad smile that speaks volumes.

17th May
Into the second week and it is all much easier than I expected. Since Miss Daines has left, the children have blossomed like the fruit trees in the village gardens and the beautiful white hawthorn hedges that border the fields. Miss Daines has gone to live with her sister in Bournemouth so I have no worries of her looking over my shoulder. The older boys help out on the land when needed. It is all part of the pattern of local economics and I think best left alone.
As Emily Parish is by far the most intelligent child in the class, I have made her into a monitor and set her helping the younger children. I do not believe that it will hinder her progress as she is so far ahead of the others any way and is very capable of working on her own. The little ones adore her and she has such love for them. She seems to sail above the petty jealousies of the other girls and is not drawn into arguments with the boys.
I can see how easy it would be to settle down to such a life. Eventually, the seasons would slip by almost unnoticed, children coming and going. I wonder how many Websters have been through Miss Daines hands. At least three have perished in this war – two brothers and a cousin; they all sat at these desks not so long ago. Frank Webster tells me that his uncle was killed in the Boer War; it appears that Miss Daines – a young Miss Daines of twenty-two, just a little older than I, set him his lessons and no doubt wielded the cane just as efficiently and methodically then, despite her tender years.
How awful though, to spend all those years teaching and feel so unfulfilled at the end of it as Miss Daines obviously did. I wonder what I will be like at her age; lonely and dried up? Oh, I hope not. I cannot imagine it and am determined not to contemplate it further. There seems so much to do and overcome, and besides, there is the prospect of the post at Brammerton High School next year and the joy of teaching English to bright eager young minds, or am I being blindly idealistic?
What of love? That seems to be left far behind at Girton. Suffice to say that I am determined not to be embittered. There is no sweetness without pain; no light without shadows. Luckily, I have little time to think of Elizabeth. I am so tired by the end of the day that after I have eaten, I fall asleep almost at once in my room.
My accommodation leaves a lot to be desired. There is a purpose-built school annex off the one large classroom; a small bedroom adjoining the sitting room with a tiny kitchenette, a gas cooker, a washstand and jug and a Primus stove. The gaslights are quite ancient and I am very nervous of using them. Electricity will come into the village next year they say, but there are plenty of paraffin lamps which I think I will favour over the gas lighting once the evenings draw in. I try