Lakeland Lily (4 page)

Edward Clermont-Read gazed down upon his wife with appalled disbelief registering on his usually pleasant, moustachioed face. ‘Nay, Margot, the loss of a young man’s life is worth far more than a few pots.’

‘They weren’t pots, they were the finest bone china. Please don’t use such common expressions.’

Edward stood corrected. ‘Even so. That poor young man...’

‘We cannot be blamed.’ The pitch of Margot’s voice rose as she struggled to hold on to her quick-fire temper. ‘He was standing in the boat, like the fool he evidently was. I saw him with my own eyes. If he’d been paying proper attention to what he should have been about, he could easily have got out of the way.’

‘Now don’t get yourself into a lather.’

‘I’m not in a lather!’

‘Well, I’m sure George will be heartened, if a little surprised, that you champion him so adamantly, my love,’ Edward said with some asperity.

‘George?’

‘He’s the best chauffeur-engineer I’ve ever had, and devastated at having caused such a tragedy.’

Since it had never entered his wife’s head to defend the man, a servant after all, who had actually skippered the steam-yacht
Faith
into disaster, Margot opened her mouth to say as much and then snapped it shut again. Edward could be ridiculously egalitarian. He never had managed to shake free from his roots.

She rose with self-conscious elegance from the chaise-longue in the drawing room of Barwick House to which she had repaired after the accident and jerked the bell rope that hung by the marble fireplace. ‘I long for a restorative cup of tea. I’m surprised you didn’t think to order a pot for me when you saw how dreadfully upset I was.’

‘I saw you were concerned for your crockery,’ he said tightly. Her eyes glinted beneath narrowed lids.

‘Make fun of me if you will, you dreadful man, but that service was especially commissioned and monogrammed with the
Faith’s
name. It cost a small fortune, and are you not always telling me to watch the pennies, as if we too were st-silly peasants?’ She’d almost said ‘still poor’.

Edward gazed upon his wife in helpless despair. How could he go on loving such a selfish, snobbish creature? Yet he did. He adored her. He loved every hair on her beautiful and expensively coiffured head. Every gesture of her plump, ringed hands. Every movement of the exquisitely gowned and, though she might deny it, increasingly matronly figure. She may no longer be the fresh, slender, eager young girl he had married all those years before, but she had nerves of steel, had been as ambitious as he and as anxious to drag them, step by painful step, up the ladder of success. In short, the best helpmeet a man in his position could have had. He’d been damned lucky to have her and he knew it.

Not once had she complained, no matter how hard he’d had to work, however many long hours he’d put in at the warehouse. There’d been times when they’d wondered if his freight business would survive a harsh winter or a particularly bad debtor. Yet not for a moment had she doubted his ability to succeed; never been anything but impeccably dressed and, in his eyes at least, gloriously beautiful.

Building this fine house on the shores of Carreckwater had been the pinnacle of their joint achievement. It proved they’d arrived. They’d often rented a place on the lake, as was fashionable, for the entire summer, but now that they owned their own small mansion, Edward didn’t mind in the least commuting to Manchester from Windermere every Monday morning when he could return each Friday to this proof of his success.

So if his wife was now hell-bent on being accepted into the highest echelons of society which Carreckwater, and the County, had to offer, could he blame her?

Dear Margot would permit nothing to stand in her way, certainly not a distinct lack of return invitations from the local arbiters of social acceptability.

The
Faith,
now sadly battered, had been the key meant to open many doors, since it admitted them as members of the exclusive Carreckwater Yacht Club. Edward was even considering sponsoring a prize himself at next year’s regatta.

He had taken great pleasure in designing the craft and believed it to be a fine vessel, if he said so himself. Not a steamer on the lake possessed a taller mast, even if he rarely ran a sail up it. But then, he knew a thing or two about boats. They’d been his passion for years. He also owned a neat little launch in Liverpool, and was considering buying himself a small sailing yacht on the Isle of Wight one of these days, exactly as Ferguson-Walsh had done.

He’d naturally left Margot to choose the furnishings and fittings: blue leather upholstery, blue and cream silk panelling, and all the tasteful fol-de-rols considered essential for gracious living aboard a yacht.

He watched her now, pacing her drawing room, fretfully folding and unfolding her hands, and knew it wasn’t so much the china which bothered her as her injured pride. Margot cared deeply what other folk thought of her. Too much so, in fact. And if the Gowdrys, the Dunstons, and most of all the Mrs Lindens of this world should decide that it was the Clermont-Read’s vessel which had breached the unwritten code of the lake and caused the terrible tragedy, all hope of attaining the status Margot craved, not to mention a suitable catch for her wilful daughter, would be gone. Even now he could hear the two of them discussing the effect of the tragedy upon their social lives. ‘We really haven’t time to sit here endlessly talking round the subject,’ Margot was saying. ‘We’re expected for lunch with the Ferguson -Walshes.’

‘Damn it, Maggie, we can’t go out to eat ham and fancy salads with the Ferguson-Walshes as if naught has happened.’

‘Don’t be coarse, Edward. We can’t let them down. It wouldn’t be polite. And don’t call me Maggie.’

‘There might have to be an enquiry,’ he said, desperate to escape this particular duty. He couldn’t abide Clive Ferguson-Walsh, for all he strove to match his wealth. The man thought he owned the town just because he was a J.P. and had been Mayor more times than any other member of the town council.

Margot stared at him. ‘Enquiry? What are you talking about?’

‘I’m saying there’ll no doubt be an enquiry.’ Once having got the idea into his head he was reluctant to let it go, although privately Edward doubted anyone would have the nerve to tackle him on the subject when it came to the point. He may not yet have reached Ferguson-Walsh’s stature but nevertheless was recognised as a man of substance these days. But if he could use the threat gently to browbeat his wife into obedience for once, he would do so.

‘What sort of an enquiry?’ Anxiety sharpened her features and she looked, in that moment, all of her forty-three years.

‘To see who was at fault. We’ll have to stop in. The police may call.’

‘Police? In my
house
?’

‘In any case, we’d be best to lie low for a day or two. Out of respect.’ Edward moved to his humidor and, lifting the lid, took his time selecting, sniffing and rolling a cigar between thumb and forefinger while his wife and daughter struggled to curb disappointment and mounting hysteria as all their plans fell about their heads.

‘We have the firework party tonight.’

Edward frowned. ‘I don’t believe you’re listening to a word I say, the pair of you. I reckon I’m still master in my own house, and I say it wouldn’t be right.’

Selene got shakily to her feet, and her voice when she found it was oddly shrill. ‘But what about the ball tomorrow? I must attend that. I’m perfectly sure that Philip Linden will sign my card for every dance which etiquette permits.’

‘But of course you must attend, darling,’ Margot reassured her. ‘I wouldn’t hear of anything different. Nor would your father.’ She threw a challenging glare in Edward’s direction but he merely clamped his teeth about the butt of his cigar and drew gratefully and deeply upon it. She was indeed the most vexing of wives, yet he couldn’t help but admire such single-minded resolve.

But then his darling Margot had worked as hard as himself over the years and deserved her reward. If it meant he had to suffer, and pay for, all manner of balls and picnics, gowns and gee-gaws, for eighteen-year-old Selene to find the right husband, so be it. Only not now, not after this accident. Never let it be said he wasn’t a man who knew what was right and proper.

‘I know what’s right and proper,’ he said, needing to air his thoughts. ‘It might do us damage.’

And if his only son failed to appreciate the worth of his achievement, or the effort required to keep his fortune intact, choosing instead to idle away his days, then ... No, that was a worry he hadn’t the strength to face today. He had enough on his plate with this pantomime. By which he meant the behaviour of Margot and Selene. You couldn’t class the death of a fine young man, for all he came from the poorest district in the locality, as anything but a tragedy.

Pictures of the horrific scene had scarcely left his head since it happened and Edward doubted they ever would. Was it only an hour since? It felt like a lifetime. There was no doubt the young man’s carelessness was largely responsible for the tragedy. He’d been far more interested in his young companion, which Edward did not wonder at, since she had an unusual and striking beauty about her.

‘Edward, I really do not think you appreciate how much effort we have put into preparing for this ball.’

‘That girl...’ he managed.

‘Never mind the dratted girl, I’m talking about our own darling Selene!’

There was a furious rustle of skirts from the window-seat where Selene had slumped, to gaze morosely out upon the ruin of her dreams.

‘Did you see the surprise in that girl’s eyes as her half of the boat sank?’ she said now with peevish satisfaction. ‘I swear it was the funniest thing I ever…’

‘
Selene
!’
Much as he might love his family and make allowances for them, even Edward’s patience had its limits. ‘Have you no sense of decency, girl? No taste?’

‘Don’t turn on your daughter simply because some careless young man has scraped our new yacht and damaged not only our best tea service but probably our place in society. We are
ruined.
’

As Margot defiantly lifted her plump chin, she caught Edward’s ferocious gaze. She had never been a woman to resort to sal volatile and didn’t intend to start now. Even so, there were times when a little assumed weakness could pay dividends, so she lowered her head and sniffed dramatically into her lavender-scented handkerchief. ‘I grieve for the young man’s poor mother, of course, Edward, but refute the charge that we are to blame for the accident.’

‘We must bear some of the responsibility. We were the other party involved.’

‘The innocent party.’

‘How can you say so, until there’s been an enquiry?’

‘There’ll be no enquiry, you silly man. Who would
dare?
Damn you, Edward, I believe you wish to make me ill.’

There was a long and dreadful silence in which nothing could be heard but the doleful ticking of the grandfather clock. Then the door opened, very slowly, as if whoever entered had waited an age for this very silence to give her leave. Betty Cotley, their youngest and newest maid, crept in with a huge silver tray, crossing the room as if it were a desert and she longed only to drop her load and scurry back to the sanctuary whence she’d emerged.

‘Shall I pour, ma’am?’

‘No. Leave it. A cup of tea is the last thing I need. That isn’t going to solve anything.’

‘Very good, ma’am.’ But when she was about to take the tray away again, Margot slapped at her hand and the maid did indeed scurry away.

‘We’ll have to attend the funeral, of course,’ Edward said into the yawning silence.

‘Indeed we won’t.’

‘It’d be the proper gesture. In the circumstances.’

Margot, for once, poured her own tea, hoping it would soothe her nerves. ‘They’ll say it proves our guilt. That we are admitting blame.’

‘Balderdash! We must send a wreath and a card. Show due respect to an innocent young man.’

‘That innocent young man, as you call him, was alone in that boat with a young woman. Some hussy or other. And no doubt they’d been drinking.’ She handed her husband a cup.

Edward sighed. ‘It was barely ten o’clock in the morning, Margot. How on earth could you conclude that they had been drinking?’

‘Why else would he be cavorting about if he wasn’t drunk? He’d have seen us otherwise. It’s not as though we are small. The
Faith is
the largest steam yacht on the lake.’

‘Apart from Mrs Linden’s,’ Selene reminded her.

‘Very well, yes, apart from hers.’ Irritated by her daughter’s untimely reminder, Margot’s temper flared hot and acid. ‘I’ll not be told what to do by a clutch of stupid peasants who spend their time drinking and forn--’ She stopped, rouged cheeks shot crimson with horror at the crudity she’d been about to utter.

For a second she’d forgotten that she was no longer Maggie Read, only daughter of a humble tailor, but the scented Margot, beloved wife of the once up-and-coming and now splendidly arrived and well-to-do merchant, Edward Clermont. Together the Clermont-Reads made a formidable partnership which neither had regretted making.

Not that she had ever been as poor as that young man and his flighty piece clearly were. They positively reeked of poverty. You could almost smell it in the limpness of the girl’s cotton frock, bought no doubt from one of those dreadful hand-me-down rag stalls. Goodness knows when it had last been washed. The poor, in Margot’s opinion, should be locked up or have the decency to keep indoors out of sight of decent folk. The girl’s straw bonnet looked as if it had been sat upon, and no sign of a parasol. Even from the deck of the
Faith,
Margot could see quite clearly how outrageously the girl had flirted with the young man, lifting her skirt to reveal
bare
ankles, would you believe, above common black boots. No better than she should be, that little madam. Dear me, no. She and Edward may have had their hard times but they had never lacked for taste or propriety.