Eden Falls (46 page)

Well, thought Sarah now, her fingers sore from the sieve, and stained the same reddish-brown as the disintegrating livers, it was an imposition and the greatest of nuisances as far as she was concerned, and it would put them in a proper pickle when the time came to leave for the Isle of Wight. There was enough to be done without firing up the kitchen range and bringing down the bright, clean copper pans to dirty them all over again.

‘You can swear by Parrish’s tonic, though,’ Mrs Powell-Hughes said.

‘Sets my teeth on edge,’ Sarah replied nastily. ‘Mind you, so does spinach.’ She banged a pot on to the hob and sloshed in a measure of Madeira, and something in her manner inspired the housekeeper to find something urgent to get on with, somewhere other than the kitchen.

Jem Arkwright, the land agent for the Netherwood estate, was a bluff, dependable, supremely loyal man, and also the closest Henrietta now had to spending time with her late father. This was how she saw him: Teddy Hoyland’s representative here on earth. For this she treasured him. Certainly he was the only person whose knowledge and understanding of estate matters surpassed her own. He was the only man in the world from whom her father would ever take advice, and together the two men would walk the paths and perimeters of the land twice a week, sometimes three, so that they each knew this acreage – its boundaries, its drainage, its yield – as well as they knew the secrets of their own hearts.

Not that Jem gave much away. His silence was one of his defining characteristics, like his broad barrel chest and mutton-chop whiskers. Spending time with Jem could be much like spending time alone, unless he brought his Jack Russell terrier along; then you might feel you had some company. But Jem’s was a reassuring silence and he would always answer a question, although not often very fully. In any case, Henrietta didn’t mind any of this. She valued his quiet good sense and his total acceptance of her as, if not his superior, then at least as his equal. She had found him as she entered the yard on the big black hunter that Dickie used to ride, and Jem had done the job of the groom, holding Marley’s halter in his gnarled grip and seeing Henrietta safely to the cobbled ground. He agreed, when she asked him, that he was just setting off towards Harley End, and when she suggested she might accompany him he nodded his assent. Could he wait just a moment, until she’d swapped her riding habit for her tweeds? He could. She wanted to visit Mrs Sykes at Ravenscliffe she said, so she would continue on there without him from Harley End. He made no reply to this – for what was there to say? – but simply stood and waited in the centre of the courtyard, peaceful and solid, puffing on his old pipe. Behind him the bailiff’s door opened, and although Jem heard it he didn’t turn around.

‘Arkwright,’ said Absalom Blandford in his peremptory, scolding voice: the one that Jem had never responded to, and didn’t now.

‘Mr Arkwright,’ said Absalom more peaceably, or, at least, as peaceably as his nature allowed. Jem tossed him a glance over his shoulder. ‘Aye,’ he said, as if merely confirming his own identity. A plume of smoke emerged from the corner of his mouth, and although they stood in the open air the bailiff held a handkerchief over his nose. He was afflicted with too powerful a sense of smell, which was unfortunate for a man whose office was adjacent on one side to the stables and on the other to the garaging for the earl’s growing collection of motorcars. He was assailed by fumes, of either a mechanical or organic nature, whenever he set a fastidious foot forth. Jem smiled, very much to himself.

‘Your receipts and invoices for the third quarter,’ said Absalom, ‘appear to be incomplete.’ He trotted closer, taking care where he trod.

Jem took the pipe from his mouth. ‘That’s because they are,’ he said.

‘Are what?’

‘Incomplete.’

Absalom gave a small, incredulous laugh. ‘Then how am I expected to balance the books, without the full cooperation of the land agent?’ he said.

Jem had in his head, and under his feet, all the evidence he needed that the estate – those parts that fell to him to manage – were in fine fettle. The acreage he walked, the fences he mended and the stakes he planted, the coppices he managed, the leases, grazing rights, building rights and trading rights he granted: this was where Jem’s checks and balances existed, not between the black leather covers of an accounts ledger. Sometimes, he was the first to admit, the numbers didn’t quite add up. But Jem said none of this now; he merely blew smoke into the clear sky.

‘Mr Arkwright, may I remind you that, in the business of accounts, the principal object is perspicuity.’ said Absalom. ‘Perhaps you might find it convenient to do as I do and carry a pocket memorandum book at all times.’

Jem said nothing. Across the yard, Lady Henrietta emerged from the kitchen door with two arthritic Labradors in tow. Jem’s terrier zigzagged through their legs and barked, and Henrietta bent down to tickle him behind his ear. ‘Now then little fellow,’ she said to the dog, and then, addressing Jem, ‘I thought I’d bring Min and Jess, unless you think they’ll slow you down.’ They were the late earl’s dogs, trained to the gun, although the soft weight of a pheasant in their mouths was but a distant memory. Now their most useful service was as foot warmers on a winter’s evening, or footstools in the summer. In either case, they would lie still for as long as anyone required them to.

‘Master’s dogs’re allus welcome,’ Jem said. He set off towards the arch, which led to the open countryside and Harley End, and the bailiff clucked with indignation. Henrietta gave him a questioning look.

‘I was querying Mr Arkwright’s inadequate record-keeping,’ he said treacherously.

‘But it’s your job, Mr Blandford, to keep the accounts,’ said Henrietta. She didn’t like the bailiff, or even trust him especially; she believed he had delusions of superiority, and they had had run-ins in the past, when she had had to check his arrogance and put him in his place. But her father had rated him highly, and for this reason he had kept his position; this, and the fact that it would be more trouble than it was worth to dismiss him. The estate properties were numerous indeed, and Absalom Blandford knew the details of every last one: the rents, the tenants, the leases. He looked at her now with his hard, conker-brown eyes, and said, ‘My accounts ledgers bear the closest possible scrutiny, Your Ladyship, but the land agent persistently refuses to oblige me by keeping even a rudimentary tally of expenditure.’

The bailiff was probably right, thought Henrietta; she imagined Jem was as sparing with his figures as he was with his conversation. But she said, ‘Please don’t trouble Mr Arkwright again with such matters,’ which forced him to bow his head and say, ‘Very well, Your Ladyship.’

She set off after Jem, and the dogs plodded single file behind her. Absalom watched the small procession. In his world a goodly number of people fell short of his own high standards, and among them was Lady Henrietta Hoyland. She allowed her heart to rule her head, and she smelled strongly of horse. He again held his handkerchief over his nose and mouth and took a dose of its lavender scent. Thus restored, he hurried back to his office where, from time to time, he was free to imagine Lady Henrietta on her knees in front of him, begging forgiveness for her foolishness and pleading with him not to leave her for the Devonshires at Chatsworth, where his unequalled talents and hawk-eyed acumen would be properly appreciated. In his way, he mourned the passing of the sixth earl more than anyone. The unswerving loyalty that he had always tried to show to Teddy Hoyland now had nowhere to reside.

S
ilas gave Eve his arm and walked her from the car to the hotel with a smile of benign triumph, as if he alone had nursed her back to health. It was lunchtime, and there were chicken wings and pork ribs griddling over the jerk pit; the air smelled of green pimento wood and peppers. Hotel guests mingled on the terrace with tall glasses of rum punch. There was a sense of lively camaraderie and a smattering of music, and in the thick of it all was Hugh Oliver, straight off the boat. He emerged from the throng with his arms wide.

‘I wish your husband could see you now,’ he said, and to his great surprise, this stopped Eve in her tracks. Silas, however, strode on up to Hugh and shook his hand boisterously. ‘As I live and breathe,’ he said. ‘The “and Co.” in Whittam & Co. How the devil are you?’

But Hugh was looking at Eve’s face, which was full of alarm. ‘Why?’ she said.

‘Because he has you knocking at death’s door, my dear woman, and here you are, as palely, beautifully alive as an English rose.’ He had a silken tongue, Hugh Oliver, but it made little impact on Eve, who only stared.

‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ Silas said, loudly and more robustly than seemed strictly appropriate. ‘Full recovery from the nastiest bout of yellow fever I’ve ever seen. We have a fighting spirit, we Whittams: never say die. We should put it in Latin, above our doors.’ He laughed, but no one joined in.

‘But Daniel doesn’t know, does ’e?’ Eve said to Hugh. ‘None of them know, thank goodness.’ She was halfway up the path, and appeared rooted to the spot, so Hugh began to walk down to her. Behind him the music and laughter seemed suddenly at odds with the mood here, on the herringbone path in the fragrant garden. Eve had worked a miracle in his absence; he had shouted for joy when he first arrived and found the staff – the same staff as before, with a few new faces too – greeting guests with wide, Jamaican smiles and a calypso beat. But now some strange, unexpected current ran between himself and Eve: a fundamental failure of understanding or communication. She was rigid with the new anxiety that his words had caused her, and Hugh couldn’t comprehend the reason. Behind him, Silas said, ‘I thought it best to let them know.’ He sounded defiant and defensive. ‘If the worst had happened, it seemed better to prepare them for it.’

‘But it didn’t,’ Eve said. ‘The worst didn’t ’appen.’

‘And aren’t we all deeply grateful for that!’

Eve fixed him with an unsmiling gaze.‘So did you send another telegram, to let them know I was on t’mend?’

On the terrace above her Seth appeared, looking shy and uncertain of his reception. Eve, seeing him, smiled and said, ‘Seth, sweetheart.’

‘Hello,’ Seth said. ‘You look well.’ He would have liked to hug her, but everyone was looking now, including the guests.

‘Seth did, didn’t you Seth?’

This was Silas, addressing his nephew with a confident smile. ‘That is, I asked you to.’

‘What?’ said Seth. ‘Sir,’ he added, not wishing to sound insolent. He had no idea what his uncle was talking about.

‘The telegram, telling the Netherwood clan that all was well; did you deal with it?’

There was a silence, long and uncomfortable, which was broken by Eve. ‘Not to worry,’ she said quickly. ‘Fact is, I’m fine, and we can let ’em all know now, can’t we?’ Seth’s ears were puce-coloured; always, the physical manifestation of his emotions began here. He looked as if he might cry. ‘It’s all right, love,’ she said, and Silas laughed. Seth, confused by his uncle, was angry now at his mother, for treating him like a child. He glowered silently.

‘A mother’s love for her child knows no bounds, isn’t that right?’ Silas said. ‘I was about to be torn off a strip for being at fault, yet now you discover the failing is Seth’s the offence is forgivable.’

Seth, struck mute, tried to remember being asked to dispatch a telegram, but couldn’t. If he had, he would have been forced to ask how to go about it, never having sent a telegram in his life. But it was inappropriate, he felt, to challenge his uncle in front of everyone, on this happy occasion, and in any case Silas was already ushering everyone inside, introducing Eve to some of the new English guests, spreading bonhomie, so the moment for any form of self-defence was lost. His mam didn’t blame him, he could see that, but neither did she realise the truth. She had merely excused his supposed forgetfulness, in a very public and shaming way.

Later that day Hugh showed him how to word a telegram and how to send it via a telephone call to the Western Union in New York City. This made Seth feel a little better, a little less like a hapless dunce. He didn’t know what to say about the injustice done to him by his uncle, so he said nothing at all.

Eve had an afternoon nap with Angus, who had given up the habit in her absence but made an exception in honour of her return. They slept for two hours, holding hands, and then, when they woke, he led her downstairs to the kitchen where, he told her with great authority, Ruby would have jobs for them both. She didn’t, in fact, but to oblige him she sent him down to the entrance gate to wait for Roscoe to return from school, as if, without Angus, her son would never find his way into the hotel. Eve sat down and for a while she watched Ruby moving purposefully around the kitchen, and then she said, ‘I owe you a great deal, Ruby.’ Ruby put down the spoon she had been using and said, ‘You owe me nothing at all.’

‘I don’t know ’ow you make that out. You nursed me and you cared for Angus. I don’t know what would’ve ’appened without you.’

‘I did what any mother would do for another,’ Ruby said, although she knew there had been more to it than that. It had been a sort of devotion. She busied herself at the range, where scallions and tomatoes simmered. She was making codfish fritters, which would be served as canapés before dinner, and now she added two fat cloves of garlic, chopped small, to the skillet on the hob. They popped and hissed in the hot oil and juices, and their particular smell rose up at once, filling the kitchen.

‘Well, anyway,’ Eve said, ‘I’m grateful. I shan’t forget what you did, and I shan’t forget you.’

‘Forget me?’ Ruby said, turning from the pan with an expression of mock astonishment. ‘What an idea! No one can forget the person who first fed them curry goat.’

‘Not to mention callaloo, and ackee with saltfish,’ Eve said, smiling. ‘Can’t get any of that at t’Co-op in Netherwood.’

Ruby turned away again, and with her back to Eve said, ‘When will you go?’ She hardly wished to know the answer.

‘I don’t know. Quite soon, I expect, but it all depends.’