Joan Wolf (13 page)

I emerged from the beeches and the south wing of the house rose before me, framed by gardens and bathed in the golden light of the late afternoon sun. The gray stone with which the house was built glowed with warmth and radiance, the large many-paned windows glittered, and I remembered suddenly how terrifying Weston had seemed to me the first time I beheld it.

I halted and stood there in the late afternoon sunshine, gazing at the house that had sheltered me since I was eight years of age. The trickle of water in the marble fountain that marked the center of the rose garden intruded into my consciousness, and I turned my head to look at it.

The sunlight caught something bright in the grass to the left of the walk, and I went to investigate. It was a sixpence. On impulse I picked it up, carried it along the flower-lined walkway to the fountain, closed my eyes, made a wish, and threw it in.

The scent of the roses was strong in my nostrils, and I went to sit on one of the four stone benches that surrounded the fountain. The rose garden fountain consisted of a marble basin with three figures of youthful Greek sea gods in its center, each one spouting water into the basin out of a horn held to his lips.

The sun was warm on my back and the scent of roses heavy in my nostrils. I stared at the marble figures in the fountain and thought of Jasper’s words at dinner the other night:
Stephen has found a Cause.

When we were growing up Stephen had always had a cause, but this time would be different, I
thought. This time Stephen was a man and not a powerless little boy. Thanks to his mother’s money and his prospects from his uncle Francis, he now had what he had wanted all his life: a position from which he could command attention and effect change.

If Stephen had decided to commit himself to the abolition of slavery in British territories, I had little doubt that the days of slavery were numbered. His father had not known what he was unleashing when he sent Stephen to Jamaica.

My vision blurred and slowly a picture of a much younger Stephen formed before my mind’s eye. I shut my eyes and bent my head.

And once again I am eleven years old, and Stephen is being sent home from school in disgrace.

* * * *

Stephen had not gone up to Eton until he was twelve. This was unusual, but he had not wanted to go away to school at all, and the earl had allowed him to remain at home because he was a companion to me. The earl and my mother lived a life of relentless sociability, and neither of them wanted to be saddled with the encumbrance of a child (me). I think it was chiefly the earl who felt guilty about the prospect of leaving me alone for months at a time, and this was why he had agreed to Stephen remaining at Weston and continuing his lessons with the rector.

Finally, however, the time had come when the earl felt he could procrastinate no longer, and Stephen had had to enter Eton.

The first inkling the earl had that something was wrong was the arrival of a letter from the headmaster asking him to come up for an interview in regard to his son Stephen. The earl had left a house full of guests in order to drive to Eton, and he had returned to Weston looking distinctly grim around the mouth.

I suppose he told my mother what had transpired between him and the headmaster, but he would tell no one else. This didn’t matter to me, however, as I already knew all about Eton from Stephen’s letters.

The expensive, exclusive school he described sounded like the worst sort of barbarian hell. Approximately seven hundred upper-class boys lived at Eton, and as they were largely unsupervised, the strong preyed upon the weak with a callousness that Stephen described as utterly uncivilized. The tough thrived; the weak lived in fear and misery.

Stephen couldn’t stand it. The sound of a frightened and humiliated child pitifully crying himself to sleep drove him wild. So, being Stephen, he decided to do something to rectify the situation.

He began by making an official complaint to the headmaster. The headmaster was not pleased to be reprimanded by one of his own students, and this was the reason he had sent for the earl.

His father upbraided Stephen for his impudence, and the headmaster had him flogged.

As the term advanced, Stephen continued to stand up for the weak, and consequently he was beaten up regularly by all of the school bullies.

Physical pain never stopped Stephen, however. The next thing he did was write to the prime minister and the home secretary. On his father’s crested stationery.

He threatened the prime minister that he would write to the newspapers.

He was twelve years old.

Eton couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. The earl collected him two weeks before Christmas and brought him home to Weston to stay.

I will never forget what his face looked like as he walked in the door of the nursery schoolroom. He had two black eyes, and his formerly straight nose was badly swollen, and so was his mouth. He was holding one shoulder higher than the other, as if it hurt.

My heart leaped with fierce joy at the sight of him.

“I hope you didn’t get your teeth broken, too,” I said.

He looked up from patting Rags, and though his face was pale under all his bruises, his eyes were blazing. “I don’t care what Papa says,” he said defiantly. “I’m not sorry about any of it. I’m only sorry I couldn’t make them listen.”

I was sitting on the old blue sofa that had been in the nursery for at least fifty years. I said with conviction, “One day they will listen to you, Stephen.”

He stared across the room at me, his cut mouth set into a straight line, and he did not look young at all. “They will, Annabelle,” he said. “One day they will have to.”

I didn’t doubt him. I never doubted him.

I missed you,” I said. “I had no one to talk to.”

He let out his breath in a great gusty sigh and came across the room to sit beside me on the sofa. “I know,” he said. “I missed you, too.”

He reached over and picked up my hand. I noticed that his knuckles were swollen, too. Stephen had always been one to fight back.

I closed my fingers gently around his, and we leaned back on the sofa together, shoulders touching, hands entwined, and he told me about everything that had happened at Eton.

I had been perfectly happy. Stephen was mine once more.

* * * *

The voice of one of the gardeners brought me back to the present. “Beg pardon, my lady,” he said. “I don’t wish to disturb you, but Mrs. Nordlem asked me to cut some roses for the dining room table.”

I stood up. “Go right ahead, Simon. It is time I returned anyway.”

I left him there, bent over the roses, and walked slowly home, telling myself how relieved I was that I would not have to face Stephen over the dinner table.

Chapter Nine

I had under a week to get Giles’s birthday festival organized, and I went to work with all the determination of a general organizing a major campaign. Nell and Aunt Fanny and I spent every morning in my office, making lists of the food and the various other supplies that needed to be ordered. In the afternoon we would separate, each of us attending to the different responsibilities we had assumed.

The weather held good and I prayed it would remain that way. We had never yet had rain on the day of the festival. It was bound to happen eventually, of course, but, Not this year, Lord, I begged.

Of course I said that every year.

The food for the lower orders had always been served in a tent on the lawn, while the family’s private guests dined indoors. This year, however, I ordered all the food to be laid out in the house.

“So many people will be sure to track mud onto the floor, Annabelle,” Aunt Fanny protested when I first proposed using the long gallery, which had French doors leading directly onto the east lawn, where the main part of the festival was always staged.

“We’ll take the rugs up,” I said. “Remember, Aunt Fanny, there will be fewer people at the festival this year than usual, and you know how our tenants will enjoy being entertained in the house.”

“It will be easier for the servants if the food is in the house, Mama,” Nell said in support of my idea.

I gave her an appreciative smile. “None of us ever goes into the long gallery, Aunt Fanny,” I said persuasively. “We might as well put it to
some
use.”

Aunt Fanny finally gave in to “her girls,” as she usually did, and the three of us went along to the gallery in order to decide how we could best set up for serving.

“See how easy it will be,” I said as we stood in the center of the long, narrow room that ran the entire width of the east side of the house. “The doors lead directly out to the terrace and the lawns. The rugs”—I pointed to the three Turkish rugs that were placed at measured intervals down the length of the room—”can be taken up, and then, if the floor gets dirty, it can easily be cleaned.”

“We can place a line of tables right down the middle of the room,” Nell said. “That will enable people to serve themselves from either side.”

“It will be much less crowded than a tent,” I said.

“Yes, you girls are right, it will be easier to serve the food in here,” Aunt Fanny agreed. “We can have people enter by that door”—she pointed to the French door at the south end of the long, windowed wall—”and leave by this one. That will facilitate an even flow of traffic.”

“We must be sure to leave room for people to look at the pictures,” Nell said.

The long interior wall of the gallery was lined with the portraits of Grandvilles, past and present.

“Do you really think anyone will be interested in looking at family pictures, Nell? “ I asked doubtfully.

“Weston people are interested in anything that has to do with the Grandvilles,” Nell said. “I am certain we will have many people who will want to look at the family portraits.”

“They will particularly want to look at
your
portrait, my dear Annabelle,” Aunt Fanny said generously. “Although I still don’t understand why you did not leave it hanging in the drawing room.”

My eyes flicked toward the spot on the wall on which hung the portrait Aunt Fanny was referring to. Lawrence had done it shortly after my marriage, and Gerald had given it a place of honor in the drawing room. I had had it removed to the gallery several months ago, and it now hung beside the portrait of Gerald that had been done when he left Oxford.

“I never enjoyed looking at myself while I was playing cards or drinking tea,” I told Aunt Fanny. “It belongs in the gallery with the rest of the Grandville portraits.”

“Everyone else certainly likes looking at you, Annabelle,” Nell said. And once again I heard that oddly bitter note in her voice.

This time Aunt Fanny must have heard it, too, for she gave her daughter a measuring look.

Nell moved away from us to straighten a picture and said over her shoulder, “Have you notified Stephen about the festival, Annabelle? He is Giles’s guardian after all; it will look odd if he is not here.”

“I did send a note to Uncle Francis’s house, but he and Stephen had already left for London,” I replied.

Aunt Fanny said to her daughter, “There is nothing wrong with that picture, dear, and it is rude to turn your back upon the people with whom you are conversing.”

Nell turned. “I beg your pardon, Mama.” She looked at me. “Didn’t you send to them in London?”

“I don’t know where they are staying,” I replied.

“Surely Mr. Putnam’s servants must know where he is,” Nell said.

“I believe they are putting up at a friend’s house.”

The dogs spied a squirrel on the lawn and began barking to go out. Nell frowned as she went to open one of the French doors for them. After the two spaniels had streaked outside, she closed the door and said with barely concealed impatience, “Well, didn’t you get the direction of the friend?”

“I have no intention of sending my servants up to London in search of Stephen,” I said. “He knows when Giles was born. If he chooses to spend his nephew’s birthday in London, that is his affair.”

Silence descended on the room. This was such an unusual state of affairs when Aunt Fanny was present that I looked at her in surprise.

She was gazing at the rug and refused to meet my eyes.

I turned to Nell, who was intently watching my spaniels as they raced around on the lawn.

“What is the matter?” I said sharply.

“Oh dear,” said Aunt Fanny.

“Surely someone informed Stephen when his nephew was born,” I said. “It was certainly a matter of interest to him that he was no longer Gerald’s principal heir.”

The silence stretched unbearably. Finally Aunt Fanny could endure it no longer. “Stephen knew that Giles had been born, Annabelle.” She met my eyes fleetingly and once again looked away. “He may be uncertain as to the date.”

I stared at my aunt’s averted face. I was beginning to feel grim.

“Why would he be uncertain as to the date?” I said.

“Oh dear,” Aunt Fanny said again. She started to wring her hands. “It was Gerald’s idea, Annabelle. He only did it because Giles was born five weeks too soon and he didn’t want Stephen to leap to the wrong conclusion.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face. I said through stiff lips, “May I ask what was the imaginary birthdate Gerald gave to Stephen?”

“Oh dear. You are angry, Annabelle.”

I supposed I would be angry shortly, but it wasn’t temper that was making my body tremble and my heart thump right now. I swallowed. “It seems to me I have cause to be angry,” I said.

“Gerald was only thinking of your reputation and Stephen’s peace of mind.” Nell’s tilted dark eyes glittered as she turned to face me in the afternoon light. “Gerald knew that Stephen would be upset if he thought his brother had seduced you,” she said bluntly. “It was to spare Stephen’s feelings that we went along with Gerald’s suggestion.”

“
I
did not go to bed with Gerald before our marriage,”
I said between my teeth.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” wailed Aunt Fanny. “Nell, you should not be talking this way! It is not proper for a young girl!” Then, to me, “None of us ever thought such a dreadful thing of you, Annabelle!”