Aftermath by Peter Turnbull Page A

on.’
    â€˜It was then that Jeff’s son, his only son, fell ill while he was in Australia . . . the son that is . . . Jeff had never been more than five miles from Milking Nook in all his days, but when his son was in Australia he fell ill.’
    â€˜Oh . . . long way from home.’
    â€˜Yes, and it was the fact that he fell ill in here,’ Penny Merryweather tapped the side of her head, ‘in here so he did . . . mental . . . and he got locked up in a mental hospital . . . and do you know what Mr Housecarl did?’
    â€˜Tell me.’
    â€˜He only paid for Jeff to go to Australia and bring his son back to the UK, everything, airfare for the both of them plus spending money for food and rail fares and that . . .’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Yes, he did that. It was just like Mr Housecarl to do that for one of his own. He got a lot of loyalty that way. There were other similar things like that he did, but what he did for Jeff Sparrow is the biggest one. The village still talks about it.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜So the staff loved him, they did . . . old army officer type, always in tweeds. If you got a job at Bromyards you were in a good way of employment. He paid fair wages but it was that he cared for his workers, took an interest in us and was really sorry when he had to let us go one by one, and we were sorry to have to go, especially old Jeff Sparrow.’
    â€˜So you left at different times?’
    â€˜Yes, sir . . . at different times over many years . . . it seems as he sort of retreated he let his staff go, old Mr Housecarl, God rest him. I mean at first it was the grounds, so the under gardeners went, then the garden got too much. I mean he had staff to look after the grounds but in here,’ for the second time in the interview she tapped the side of head, ‘I mean in here he couldn’t cope with the grounds. Then he couldn’t cope with the garden in his head, he couldn’t, that’s when he let Jeff Sparrow go. Then room by room it all got too much and so the domestics went, one by one, until I was the last one. He lived in just two rooms by then. Then I heard he just lived in one room . . . lived . . . I mean ate and slept in one room within that huge, huge house. He was the last of his line, you see, no more Housecarls after him . . . not from him anyway.’
    â€˜So we understand.’
    â€˜But he didn’t betray his ancestry, no he didn’t. A proud man he was, sir, principled, a real gentleman of the old school. They say he was camping in the end, cooking on a camping gas stove, getting Meals on Wheels a few days each week and had a nurse looking in on him.’
    â€˜But no one bothered him?’
    â€˜Tormented him, you mean?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜No, sir. The village wouldn’t have stood for it. It kept its own children in check, sir, well in check, you can believe me on that one, and if any youths from another village tried to torment him then they would have been well sorted out. They would have gone home with very sore faces; you can believe me on that one, sir. The men of the village poached his land, sir, tables in this village have all been laid with a roast pheasant or a duck taken from Bromyards, but in return, the poachers kept an eye on him. They would have seen any strangers well off the land.’
    â€˜Poachers?’ Yellich inclined his head.
    â€˜This is the country, sir, poaching happens. You hear shotguns being fired around here each day, they’re not toffs shooting clay pigeons, no they’re not, you can believe me on that one, sir.’
    â€˜Understand that, and I am not going to get anyone into trouble for shooting a pheasant or setting a rabbit snare, but I am interested to learn that men went on to Mr Housecarl’s land at night, and, as you say, kept an eye