This is very AU; all pairings are as per canon, just in a slightly different environment and few new characters thrown in. Patsy/Delia, Chummy/Peter, Patrick/Shelagh. This is set early 1900s.

Chapter 1

Peter swiped his palm over his sweat soaked face and thumped the spade into the ground, piercing the arid earth with an almighty crunch. He let out yet another hard sigh as he stared up at the bright sun. Its warm rays surrounded him like a blanket and how he wished he had the slightest element of joy in his heart to match the optimism that seemed to evolve around him.

Such a flaming hot day! Not day to be toiling like he was, no. In fact it was just the day to be sitting with ale in your hand and a pretty girl on your knee if you could find one. Mind you, Peter thought, not that anyone except that Lady's Maid was giving him time of day recently. He sighed again. Maybe it was time to move on to pastures new and find a better employ after all. This unsettling feeling at his shoulders that had persisted for weeks now was praying on his mind. He couldn't put his finger on why it had suddenly reared its head after a peaceful few months here in Somerset. These last years, for whatever reason it may be, he had found boredom taking over so easily, restlessness and disquiet. He wished he knew why.

One thing he did know, however, was that he was being watched. He'd been digging over the vast garden for almost two hours know, the Master having sloped off somewhere and now it seemed that the witch had decided to sit on the balcony and observe.

Sipping lemon tea his Mistress was indeed sitting in the shade of the old house, a gentle breeze just catching wisps of greying hair as she watched him. That hair was drawn tight and rigid and parted down the middle like the old Victorian she was. How he couldn't bare her with that supercilious look on her face when she had to encounter the staff. He could tell she was watching him over the magazine she had in her hands. She was checking up on him most probably.

Peter licked his lips, needing a drink – even water would do him now and the ale could wait until that walk home down the hill. He breathed out and drew the spade from the soil again, turning it, disrupting the dried up earth and decided as best as he could to ignore those eyes that were boring into the back of his head.

He had only been in this employ for four months and if he didn't need the money, he may just have walked out on the first day. He had never been one for quitting easily - a trait he inherited from his father - but Lady Browne caught him teetering on the edge and it might be one of those times where push definitely came to shove. Getting him to run around; doing all manner of shifting and carrying when his job was to tend the gardens – no more. He could tell the Master just did what she said for a quiet life and there had been that extra few shillings in the last few weeks' pay, but testing his patience the way she did was worth more than that.

The first time he had counted his money Peter had wondered if he'd got it wrong but he didn't say anything. Why look a gift horse in the mouth? Then the next week, after he had helped shift the dining furniture, those shillings were there again. He would end up wondering for a long time if Lady Browne knew of her husband's greasing of the wheels to keep the peace, or indeed to keep the staff that his wife undoubtedly insulted at every turn?

Peter had also learned early on that the Master and Mistress had children but there was not a single trace of them in the house. No photographs, no old toys and all the upper rooms where they had once inhabited were all closed up and left to gather dust. It seemed so odd to him that they never got mentioned. They were away at school and university and the other staff who had been there far longer than he had barely ever acknowledged them.

It seemed strange that not so long ago there were six children running around. He paused for a moment. Running around? Peter laughed to himself. Maybe perhaps with a mother like Lady Browne those poor kids probably never ran or shouted or just been kids if she could help it. He was sure that Jimmy had mentioned the youngest was about nineteen or twenty; not so far from his twenty-three years it seemed and what a different life they must have had.

Taking a pace or two further down the bed, he saw the man himself marching across pushing a wheelbarrow full to the brim with bulbs. Jimmy might have been younger than him, but he'd been here ever since he was a kid and knew the whys and wherefores of Hill House and the Fortescue-Cholmondley-Browne's more than anyone else.

"There you go my friend!" Jimmy announced, clapping his hands together to dust off dirt. "Ladyship wants 'em all planted. You know the drill…." With a dry laugh he was off.

Peter shook his head and swiped his hand again across his mouth. He'd seen the fury of the Mistress the other week when that other poor lad who worked these gardens had the most fearful of roastings for planting bulbs that were not perfectly perpendicular to the path. Perhaps that's why he had now been landed with the job. Still it wasn't the lad's fault she was such a stickler when she wasn't the one doing the work.

The sun disappeared behind a cloud as he picked up the spade again and in that brief interlude he noticed the witch stand up and turn tail into what he assumed was her sitting room. Clearly he wasn't entertaining enough! Perhaps now she had gone he could slip off to the stand pipe by the greenhouse he thought and with that, and another glance at the balcony, the spade went back into the ground and he trudged off.

Kneeling on the rough path underneath the tap, feeling the water cascade over the back of his head, down his shirt and arms, it was heaven. Pooling water in his hands he threw it repeatedly over his face, drinking in the brief sensation of his body temperature dropping and for a moment, the temper that had arisen slipped away.

A second later, as he went to stand up, he heard a whistle. He knew that sound and a brief smile played across his lips. Pretty little Beatrix - Trixie - the lady's maid seemed to have taken quite a shine to him but to be truthful he was getting bored of her. Too much preening and reading the magazines that Lady Browne had cast into the rubbish had put him off. She was of no higher station that he was but she seemed to think a little blush and a few curls in her hair distracted from the fact she was the blacksmith's daughter!

She'd walked across the garden with a tray in her hands. Two glasses adorned it. "Brought some of that home-made lemonade for you and Jimmy" she smiled. "Madam Lah-di-dah's gone off to the train station".

"Station?" Peter replied, taking up a glass hearing ice cubes clink; grimy hands marring the once clean glass.

"Hmmm" Trixie responded, still holding the tray and glancing back towards the house. "The daughter's coming home today from Switzerland. Spent all day yesterday airing and making up one of the bedrooms for her without a word of thanks". He just nodded once feigning interest. If the mother was anything to go buy, he doubted the daughter would be very much different if she took after her. Two of them watching his every move up there on the balcony would surely tip him into moving on. "I'm going to have another one to run around after now. Home to stay so Cook says til she's forced to get married", Trixie complained, even though she had met young Camilla Browne some years ago and did like her. She seemed different to her mother. "So don't doubt I'll have to do more than usual and won't get paid a ha'penny more for me troubles".

Peter didn't feel interested enough to ask any more. He might have been in service for all kinds since he was twelve but now fast approaching twenty-four he was quickly losing patience with all these people that were meant to know better. Once he found that nice wife he was after he might try his luck in London for one of those fancy houses there instead of the back of beyond running around after Lady Browne. One of his sisters would put him up surely for a little while until he found a nice little spot.

"So what time do you get off today?" Trixie asked, looking at him under her lashes. She'd been watching him from the kitchen window. If bloody whoever-it-was that new Kitchen Maid hadn't interrupted her to help her with the sheets she might have had a few more minutes, thinking all kinds of dreadful thoughts. If he'd have her that way – and by God she had tried - but the best response she'd achieved seemed to be a wink or a smile or an offer to walk her home.

"Whenever that barrow is empty and I've washed the greenhouse windows down", he replied, putting the empty glass back on the tray with a grateful smile.

"I best leave you to it then…." she replied, swinging her hips from side to side, hoping he might just get the hint. "If you want company to walk down the hill when you're done…."

Peter smiled at her out of politeness more than anything else. "I'll bear that in mind!"

So he got on, kneeling on the grass checking just how perpendicular these bulbs were. "Damn things…" he whispered to himself, feeling an ache in his back from bending over. They might look pretty in a few weeks, and yes he was proud of what he did, but did she really have come out here and get Jimmy to measure the distance between them? Was there any need for that? "Probably needs a damn good argument with someone..." he whispered to himself. "That'll sort out that snotty look on her face…" Not that he would be offering this side of forever.

The last bulb almost pounded into the soil he heard a car draw up across the gravel, scraping its way around to the back entrance of the house.

Peter glanced up. The sun had slipped behind the clouds again as it was gone tea-time and still kneeling on the floor he saw the driver's door open and the chauffeur – Turner he was sure he was called - stride out to open the back door of the car. Sure enough, Lady Browne slithered out of the vehicle and into the house with barely an acknowledgement to her staff, but he continued to watch. Why she had to take a car the five minute walk to the train station he would never know. Waste of time and petrol, but if you had the money to burn like she clearly did?

Despite what he said though, he was mildly curious about the daughter if only because she was a new face around here and morbidly he did want to see if she was anything like her mother. It was not, however, like had not tried with Lady Browne. He had. Truly had. Each smile, each nod had been received with a blank stare and even going into hallway of the house required almost military precision to make sure he was not seen where he did not belong.

As he watched he saw the daughter. Tall, dark brown hair pinned tightly to the nape of her neck and sporting a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, stepping out of the car and not really anything much more. He couldn't judge what the rest of her looked like as she was buried under a heavy tweed coat; even in this weather! He only saw her briefly as she smiled at Trixie who had reappeared. "At least she's got the grace to crack a smile" Peter thought as he heaved himself off the ground.

He was sure Lady Browne had seen him watching as her head whipped around as she entered the house. She may have just been looking for her daughter, but who knew? Peter harrumphed loudly, scraping dry earth from under his nails.

Beneath him the perfectly perpendicular bulbs – dahlias as they turned out to be – stared back up at him. Leaning down he deliberately nudged one an inch to the left, slammed the spade into the empty wheelbarrow and decided to knock off for the day.

Those greenhouse windows could wait.