448 Mallow Manor Part 6

The following Tuesday the ladies forwent the afternoon together it being Marys wedding, as was the local custom a wedding meant a drink or three for the villagers most of whom worked for or were linked to the manor directly or indirectly in some way, so after a simple ceremony in the afternoon, attended by the few who were not busy working, the couple returned to the manor, as man and wife to dine royally at the manor table, a rare privilege,

After the evening meal the pony and trap driven by Hodges took the couple and the cook to the village hall, where a barrel had been provided, the empty trap returning for the lady of the manor, and her son, to grace the proceedings with their presence for an hour or so before things descended, as these things do, to a drunken binge.

Hodges still sober, driving them home in the reverse order of going. Pouring the groom and his wife from the trap to carry his bride up over the threshold as it were and putting the pony away in its stall heard the distant midnight bell chime.

Thursday was the next time the ladies were together, over afternoon tea, taken in the drawing room, as they now felt their secret was out and there was no need of privacy from the menfolk, they discussed first the wedding, and whether Mary would still have her virginity, though Bessy reckoned, “Mike might be a bit slow but probably was not that backward and most men however dim tend to have instinct!” and then there was last games night, Muriel wanting to know, “if that last stroke had done as much for her friend as it had stimulated her!” Laughing the big lass said, “that son of yours managed to hit the spot every blessed time all damned night!” they laughed, then Bessy said “and Barry, was he up to your needs, he certainly has come out of his shell nowadays, last night the beggar even enjoyed spanking me over his knee!” Muriel laughed said it had been, “a memorable night, and that he had had her both ways on Saturday night and by the way she was leaking all day, back and front he couldn`t have had a lot left for you on Sunday!” they were laughing when Barry suddenly appeared saying he had just seen the constable coming up the drive and he would not be coming for nothing, Quickly the two ladies tidied the tea things away, Bessy returning to the kitchen and Hodges going to meet the lawman, red faced from his exertions.

Ushering the overweight village constable into the drawing room they bid him take a seat, and to get back his composure, the rushed long uphill from the village having rendered him speechless. A stiff drink restored his faculties, and he began by saying he “was sorry maam to be the bearer of bad news but, your ex estate manager old Maycroft, has been found having hung himself madam!” he went on “he was found a couple of hours ago, an as soon as the formalities was over, so I do come up to tell you maam.” another drink for the ageing constable was offered and quickly consumed then the old lad went on “ he left a note and a letter addressed to you, personal like and the house key,” he handed her an envelope with her name in flowing handwriting on the front, then touching his fore-lock he tottered to the door having done his duty and feeling the strength of the brandy which he was so unused to.

Outside in the fresh air he mounted his bike and literally wobbled away thanking the lord it was down-hill om his way homeward. Stunned she watched the messenger till he was out of sight before opening the letter. Maycroft, she had known, ever since she was a young schoolgirl, it was he had taught her to ride, had taught her to handle a pony and trap, and he been a father figure her own father spending time in the city each weekday. The butler excused himself saying he was going to enlighten the staff,

She read the note with misty eyes, the writer a solid and reliable friend, expressing his feelings in a way he would not have felt appropriate in life, declaring his love for her since first he held her as a 14 year old maiden as he learnt her to ride that first pony, but being of low stock he had not ever dared speak of his hidden love. It was touching and to the point, but it also said that since he was retired his life had become pointless. That he had missed even the daily conversations around the estate that he had with her that kept him sane.it ramble about personal memories they had shared and It finished by saying that by the time she read this letter he would be gone from this world and that all his worldly possessions he bequeathed to her personally with his love and that he would wait on her in the next life.

it was signed, With all my love

John Bartholomew Maycroft.

Tears flowed, she poured herself brandy and became silent and withdrawn excusing herself for an early undisturbed night.

Next day she had Mike drive her to the gatehouse, the huge and ornate gates only symbolically shut for one day each year now just to say it is no public right of way, they now stood silently open tin the sunlight he cool breeze not strong enough to rattle them in there clips. She dismissed Mike sending him to the village to tell one of the part time cleaners, a recently wed young woman called Daisy, to fetch her husband a worker at home farm, to visit her at 11 next day but told him as she had papers to sort and not to return for a good hour.

She opened the door, and slowly entered, the silent hall, she could imagine the old chap here, his coat behind the door, his cane in the stand, with a shotgun, tidy just as he always had been though, she`d never before set foot ,but she found the place homely if echoing emptily . It had a simple kitchen, a parlour and two bedrooms. Oil lighting and log fires, a well supplying the water, but it was homely, tobacco and his pipe lay on the mantle-shelf, a book beside his rocker and the remains of a fire in the grate.

Upstairs she found beside the neatly made bed, a wardrobe and a dresser held his few clothes, a book rack with perhaps a dozen books, and his bureau, in it letters from his only brother who she knew had died the previous year and his diary`s for the last few years, all entries in his copperplate hand, his simple accounts, such as they were and little else. It, was sad. The spare bedroom had a box neatly tied with a cord and a label addressing it to her, a single bed, and a wash stand all neat, and ready for a visitor that he knew in reality would never come.

She heard the trap returning, she had Mike, load the trunk, the shotgun and the diaries, then before they locked up she sat in the rocker, and had Mike sit opposite her, and in this melancholy little place, saying “that they spent little time talking and she liked to know how her staff were getting along” she first if he was happy, to which he said “he was” so she asked, “how things were with Mary.” His broad smile said the first flush of marital sex had not as yet warn off. But He thanked her again for her generosity when he needed it most and she with a chuckle rather pointedly asked if Mary was “good in bed?” Blushing he said, “perhaps they were both still learning, though his mother had taught him fairly well!” Her ears picked up, and she asked him, “Did mother give him practical lessons then or was it just theory?” he blushed then said, “ well she explained it all to I afore dad passed on, but after he`d gone a while her did give I a lesson or two tis true, most of the women in the village taught their sons, but told them not to talk of un, and it was never mentioned of course!” she smiled, “and did you have any others then?” he grinned, “well, they say I am bigger than most of un and the word must have been passed a bit so I have had one or two, maam, Maisy the one as does a bit for e in your kitchen now an then, she was helpful once or twice and little Daisy, who I went to today, long afore she were married to Brian of course,” The sad moment had past, and grinning she asked, “if it was offered now he was married would he still have any of them?” he blushed and said, “well us only live once, if they want it who am I to argue,” he went on to say “Mary, knew and he doubted if she`d mind as he was putting up with Hodges helping her out each week, “though how he`s not satisfied with that big lump of a cook lord only knows!” Muriel seized on that, “you mean Hodges my Butler is tupping your wife now and again?” “Why yes maam, us thought you knew, once a week he`s been, and he`s good, she likes it, she says. He`s not as big as I of course but he has her the tother, way as he says it`s tighter. She says ‘e has been doing it a long time… well ever since she started here that’s definite!” she muttered under her breath, “the crafty bastard,” then to Mike she said, “If I asked you to tup me, would you do so and keep quiet about it?” he said he would “love to oblige youm good looking for an old un an you’ve been good to us” and that “I know how to keep quiet about it too, haven`t I done so about the school teacher and the doctors wife too?” she laughed, nodded, stood and taking his hand and they went up to the bedroom. He kissed her, a little clumsily but with passion, his big rough hands holding her close, as they fell back on the bed, locked in an embrace, his hands soon reaching under her clothing, rough fingers finding and caressing the wet sex and he muttering about her readiness and how naked she was under the dress. Their lips met again, then his trouser fly within seconds was opened and the biggest human prick on the whole estate was in her hands, the biggest she personally had ever seen.

She knew she would be hard put to accommodate such a tool, thick as well as long the thing was like a baby`s arm, and he soon proved a capable and gentle lover, his mother had taught him well! By the time they set off for the manor house, she was walking straddle legged and had had her fill of his seed twice over, each fill massive and for him effortless and a joy. A good hour had been spent at the old game, the bed seeing more action than it ever had from Maycroft, though she mused, if she had known of his adoration perhaps that may well have been different though it was too late now…