In Distant Fields (2 page)

Once in her room, Kitty felt safe because she knew her father would always be either too lazy, or too drunk, to walk up so many stairs to the third floor. Fortunately, because the lure of the gaming tables took him away to play in the houses of the newly rich for long periods, he was rarely at home for more than a few days at a time, which meant that Violet and Kitty were left to pursue their own little economies, work out
how best to bring their dresses up to date, and manage their lives as thriftily as was possible.

‘The problem – as always – is going to be keeping secret from your father anything Aunt Agatha may care to send you,' Violet murmured. ‘Let us pray that if Aunt Agatha does choose to remember us, it is at a time when we have the house to ourselves, Kitty.'

But the fates deemed otherwise, for on the morning that Violet found the much-longed-for envelope, postmarked Suffolk, among the letters on the salver in the hall, Evelyn Rolfe threw open the front door.

Violet was no actress but she did her best to try not to look as anxious as she felt, as she quickly hid the letters behind her back, while staring at her dishevelled husband with frozen fascination.

‘Good morning, Evelyn. Have you had breakfast? Because if you have not I will call down to Bridie—'

‘I had breakfast at the club, before coming on,' Evelyn interrupted curtly. ‘Where's the post, Violet? There's an IOU due.'

‘The post?' Violet hesitated. ‘Let me see – I think Bridie might have taken it through to the dining room, thinking you were expected for breakfast. Would you like me to fetch it for you?'

‘I need the post immediately it arrives,' Evelyn replied, walking slowly past her into the drawing room, leaving a trail of alcoholic fumes behind him as he did so.

Once he had disappeared from view, Violet began to sort feverishly through the Christmas letters.

‘You were wrong, of course,' Evelyn remarked, returning almost at once. ‘Bridie has not left—' He stopped. ‘Which is hardly surprising since I see what post there is, Violet, is in your hands.' As Violet stared at him, he went on in lightly sarcastic tones, ‘There is a mirror right behind you, Violet. I can see the letters.'

‘I was just sorting through them,' Violet stammered. ‘I didn't want you being upset by seeing so many bills, Evelyn.'

But Evelyn was intent on ignoring her.

‘Give them to me.' He rifled impatiently through the letters. ‘Is this all there is, Violet?'

‘As far as I know, Evelyn, yes …'

‘Well, in that case you don't know very much, Violet, for there is a letter on the floor over there.' He stared past her as if he had seen a mouse scuttling by.

‘I don't think so, Evelyn,' Violet said, turning as if to look, in the wild hope that she could nudge Aunt Agatha's letter out of sight.

‘Hand it to me, Violet,' he said, in a tired voice.

Violet frowned, pretending to be surprised by her discovery. ‘It's nothing. Just something trivial for me, I think, Evelyn, notification of a doctor's appointment.'

‘Give it to me.'

‘But it's addressed to me, Evelyn. So it really cannot be the IOU you were expecting.'

But he had snatched it from her hand and was now examining the postmark.

‘Suffolk, I see,' he muttered. ‘From your ghastly aunt, I dare say.'

‘No, no, probably it is just the recipe for damson cheese that she promised me.'

‘Well, we'll soon see, won't we, Violet?' Evelyn returned. ‘As I remember it, your aunt can be quite munificent at times, can she not?'

Evelyn eyed Violet while he slowly unstuck the back of the letter, trying to remember, perhaps for the thousandth time, why he had married Violet Almondsbury. There must have been some good reason – but for the love of him every time he came home and saw her he could never remember what the devil it was that had made him think that marriage to her would turn out to be a good bet. It was not as if she had been a famous beauty, or an heiress. Indeed, it was difficult to see what the attraction of a slender, pale-faced girl who stood to inherit nothing could possibly have been to a scion of the ancient family of Rolfe.

He tore at the envelope, then threw it to the floor.

‘I'm going on to Biddlethorpe Hall, Violet,' he told her slowly. ‘I'm in for a change of luck – I am sure of it.'

Violet remained silent as always when faced with Evelyn's predictions as to his change of luck, but also because he had opened her letter and found her Christmas present from Aunt Agatha.

‘Ah ha,' he said, without humour. ‘It would appear my luck is turning already, even as I speak. Ah ha.' He looked up at Violet and the smug triumph in his face was worse to her than the fact that he was actually holding the means for Kitty's escape to a better world. ‘
Voilà
. Manna from heaven, so to speak. Shan't have to wait for the IOU now, Violet.' He waved the cheque at her. ‘Generous old bird, Aunt Agatha,' he added, without a trace of a smile.

‘I think that is for me, Evelyn,' Violet said quietly. ‘If you wouldn't mind.'

Her husband stared at her outstretched hand and laughed. ‘What is yours, my dear, is mine,' he said. ‘Remember your marriage vows?' He folded the cheque carefully and put it in his top pocket. ‘I shall deposit it in my account later. In the meantime, be good enough to tell that idiot maid that I require some coffee.'

‘Evelyn,' Violet pleaded. ‘Evelyn. Please, please don't take that money. It is meant for Kitty. You know what an interest Aunt Agatha takes in her – and that money is to help towards paying the fees at Miss Woffington's. Please don't take what is not meant for you, just this once.'

Evelyn, who had been walking away in the direction of the dining room, stopped and swung back round. As soon as she saw the look in his eyes Violet retreated from him.

‘I've done me money, Violet – do you understand me? Now tell that girl who pretends to be a
maid to bring me my coffee – and then go up and sort out some fresh linen for me. I shall be leaving as soon as I am changed.'

Violet watched him go through to the dining room and then she turned and put out a hand for the newel post of the narrow Regency staircase. Baccarat, that rakehell gambling game that destroyed so many, had Evelyn in its embrace, and it was a fiercer tie than any woman could ever be. She hurried through the green baize door to order Bridie to bring the coffee through.

As she slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom she thought she could once again hear her father's voice warning her not to marry Evelyn Rolfe.

‘They're a bad lot, the Rolfes, Vi. They've bad blood, and nothing to be done about it. They might be an old family, they might be aristocratic, but they're rotten on any level – gamblers and wastrels, all of them …'

But of course Violet had known better. She had been swept off her feet by the dashing, handsome Evelyn, and no one could talk her out of him. She had paid the penalty for her obstinacy, and doubtless would spend the rest of her life doing so.

‘Mamma?' Kitty's voice called from what seemed a great distance, but was actually only from the hall.

Violet hurried back down.

‘Ssh, Kitty. Your father is home.' Violet nodded towards the dining room, where breakfast and
the
Morning Post
were always laid ready for Evelyn, no matter what.

‘Oh …'

‘You might well say “oh”, Kitty,' Violet replied in a low voice. ‘And he has Aunt Agatha's letter.'

Kitty stared at Violet, who looked suddenly quite faint.

‘Then I shall go and ask him for the letter back.' Kitty looked momentarily indignant. ‘That letter is addressed to you and me, or at any rate to you, not to him.'

But her mother drew her into her small study, and half closed the door behind them.

‘Don't go near your father, Kitty. Please. He is not – well, he is not himself. He will be leaving soon for Biddlethorpe Hall, so it is of no matter if we leave him to his own devices.'

Kitty stared at her mother, who had begun to remove her diamond engagement ring.

‘What are you doing, Mamma?'

‘Take this to the shop on the corner, Kitty. He will give you a good price.'

‘But, Mamma—'

‘
Quickly
. There simply is no time for argument. I will go in to him, as you go out.'

‘You can't pawn this, Mamma. This is your engagement ring. Papa will most certainly notice.'

‘You can leave your father to me, Kitty,' Violet insisted, steering her daughter out of the study. ‘I can handle your father – or at least I can try. Now do as I say. Go on with you, Kitty – go on.'

Kitty put the ring in her skirt pocket and
started to hurry across the hall, only to find herself confronting her father.

‘Good morning, Papa,' she said, curtsying, all filial submission, at the same time plucking at her coat, which she quickly pulled on while maintaining her dutiful expression.

‘Where the hell is the coffee?'

‘Bridie is just making it, Papa. Oh, look,' Kitty quickly pointed out of the window. ‘Look, Papa, there's the Earl of Caulfield's Rolls-Royce. How smart it looks, wouldn't you say?'

Her father turned quickly and without a word went back into the dining room, shutting the door behind him, and Kitty slipped quickly out of the front door. What a boon for her to know that her father still owed the Earl of Caulfield a great deal of money.

She shot out of the front door and started to walk at breakneck speed towards the pawnbroker's shop, always and ever known discreetly in their house as the ‘shop on the corner'. Pawnbrokers always gave a better price than jewellers. She would always loathe going there, but this morning she cared less, for if Mr Trinder would give her enough money to go to stay at Bauders Castle, she would be only too grateful.

‘
Good
morning, Miss Rolfe. How nice to see you again.'

Mr Trinder was tall, with an ample figure that Kitty always thought must be a direct result of all the money he had made from everyone else's misfortunes.

‘Good morning, Mr Trinder.'

Kitty seated herself on the gold chair by the counter, placing her mother's diamond ring on the cushion in front of them both. As soon as he saw it Trinder took out his enlarging glass and studied it, before wordlessly disappearing into the back of his premises.

Kitty waited. She knew the ring was worth a great deal of money. It had the blue glow that valuable old diamonds always had. Mr Trinder returned shortly, looking poker-faced, if slightly pinker.

‘Just remember I am not a bank,' he said with a sigh, stroking his double chin slowly and pretending once more to smile. ‘Everyone hereabouts thinks I am but I simply trade on interest. I hardly make a thing on the gewgaws people bring to me. I hardly make a farthing, let alone a penny, let alone a shilling.'

He laughed rather too loudly at the thought of making a shilling, shaking his head slowly while all the time carefully watching Kitty.

‘Hmmm,' he said as he replaced the ring on the cushion. ‘This is a delightful piece. Quite delightful. It will be an honour to have this in my case.'

He smiled again, and Kitty wished for perhaps the twentieth time that he would not. Mr Trinder's smile was not a pretty sight.

‘I am quite sure it will be an honour,' Kitty told him primly. ‘It is a beautiful diamond.'

‘Yes, yes,' he said. ‘As I am saying, this is a
delightful piece, most delightful. And I dare say you are expecting a sizeable loan on this, are you not? I most certainly would be, on such a delightful piece of jewellery, most certainly. So today I might have to be even more generous than is my custom. Particularly since it is soon to be Christmas, and the time when we should be thinking of others – and doing our best to put our good feet forward. Do you not think so? Most certainly I do, most certainly. So shall we perhaps say this? Would that be satisfactory, young miss?'

Having written a sum on a pad on the counter, Trinder turned it round so that Kitty could see. Fortunately Kitty had been brought up by her mother to cope with the Mr Trinders of this world, tradesmen who presented their accounts twice, and all manner of other tricks.

‘That will not be enough, Mr Trinder, and you and I both know it.' Kitty did her best to look stern and unyielding.

‘You are, of course, right, Miss Rolfe. Perhaps we may settle on my second figure? I do hope we may.'

Kitty stared at the second hastily written figure, and then at Mr Trinder.

‘Very well, Mr Trinder, plus, I think, a little more, don't you?'

Some minutes later Kitty left Mr Trinder's premises, an envelope full of more money than she would have ever hoped to possess stuffed in her coat pocket.

Afraid of going home and bumping into her father before he left for Biddlethorpe Hall, she headed for the park, for the sight of the ducks and the swans, the other people, their dogs and their children, all the time grasping the envelope in her pocket so tightly that it might almost have been a helping hand held out to her, which in so many ways she knew it was.

By the time she allowed herself to return home, her father had left for Biddlethorpe Hall, and her mother had hastily written to accept Lady Partita's invitation to catch the Thursday afternoon train to Bauders Castle.

‘Have you ever seen so much money, Kitty? Have you ever, ever seen so much money?'

Kitty shook her head.

‘And now all we have to do is spend it!'

Half an hour later the two women, dressed for the winter weather, umbrellas over their arms, expressions as bright as the sky above them was grey, left for the shops, where they spent the rest of the day, not to mention the following morning too, buying everything that Kitty would need for her visit.

At last Thursday dawned, and the little household was up at dawn, packing and preparing for the journey ahead.