Netherwood (51 page)

Afterwards they stood welded together for a while, letting the yew take their weight, gathering themselves, allowing the tumult of their breathing to settle and quieten. He looked at her with love in his eyes and said her name tenderly once, twice, three times. She kissed him, more gently now that passion was sated. She knew she should feel ashamed but she couldn’t
bring herself to. Peaceful was all she could manage. And happy. Then, at the far side of the garden, they heard the iron gate creak to admit someone else, and they hastily arranged themselves into respectability and walked sedately away. The young student they passed as they left nodded politely at them, and they nodded politely back.

They took a deliberately circuitous route back to Fulton House. Neither of them spoke about what had happened; words, with all their limitations, might diminish it. Eve felt some great human truth had suddenly made itself clear, as if part of her – a feeling part, not a bodily one – had never been woken, until now. She knew her old self would have shrunk from such bold abandon, but her new self understood it was as necessary as it was natural. Under a tree, though! She allowed herself a small, private smile at the scandal of it. The base of her spine felt tender, as if bruised or grazed and she rubbed it discreetly, glad it was there. Daniel, for his part, felt nothing but the blessed relief of claiming her; he had not the slightest shred of doubt that she was his.

They were entwined now, his arm around her shoulders, hers around his waist. They meandered along the Chelsea Embankment, anonymous in the throng of people, watching the industrious bustle of the river’s population. It seemed to Eve that half the country had congregated here, on and by the Thames; she said as much, and Daniel laughed.

‘It’s a good deal quieter than it used to be,’ he said. ‘Canals and railways are sharing the load these days.’

‘Well, it’s busy enough for me,’ she said. ‘I don’t know ’ow you bear it. The crush. The noise.’

‘London’s a wonderful city. Headquarters of the British Empire.’

‘It’s full of strangers. I like to greet folk and be greeted when I walk down t’street.’

‘Aye, right enough, I’ll grant you that one. You have to be happy with your own company in London.’

‘And are you?’

‘I am, yes. At least, I was, at any rate.’ He stopped walking and, without releasing her, he looked down into her eyes. ‘I think, though, that if you leave, I might feel very lonely.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she couldn’t hold his gaze. ‘I can’t stay ’ere.’

He leaned down and kissed her softly on her bowed head, because there was nothing to say. Then he began to walk again, slowly as before, keeping her close beside him.

It was another hour and a half before they wended their way into the square, by which time they had pulled apart and were walking with a respectable six inches of daylight between them. From the end of the street they could see all the kerfuffle of a departure at Fulton House. Samuel Stallibrass was atop the landau, and while they couldn’t see who was inside as it drew away, there was a large leather portmanteau strapped to the back.

‘Someone’s leaving, and not just for the afternoon,’ said Daniel. ‘Strange.’

It seemed no stranger to Eve than anything else that had so far happened since arriving in London, so she felt little curiosity. They turned left into the
porte-cochère,
where a stable lad was busy clearing a pile of fresh manure.

‘Very nice, Frank,’ Daniel said. ‘Another gift for my garden from the horses. Who was that in the carriage?’

The lad ceased his sweeping. ‘Lord Hoyland,’ he said. ‘Called back up north. Eight of his men dead, they say. Accident at his pit.’

All the joyous warmth of the day drained away from Eve with his words, as swiftly and thoroughly as if it had never been there.

‘Which pit?’ she said, in a strangled voice that Daniel didn’t recognise.

Frank, sublimely innocent of the importance of his answer, shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Is there more than one?’

Eve staggered, just fractionally, and Daniel reached for her. She looked at him desperately, as though he could help her, then she looked away in despair when she remembered that of course he couldn’t. He understood entirely.

‘I’ll get the names for you, Eve. I’ll get the name of the pit and the names of the men. Is that what you need?’

Mute and miserable, she nodded. But it was more than that. She was in the wrong place entirely. With every cell and sinew, she wished to be in Netherwood with her family and friends. This was punishment for betraying Arthur’s memory. For pretending she was someone else. She left Daniel, without a word or a glance, and entered the house, with no clear aim except to be alone. Watching her go, he felt helpless in the face of the life she had led without him, as if a yawning chasm had opened between them, and she stood out of reach on her side with the people she loved, in the place she knew best. Whose name, on the list of dead men, did she dread to see? Daniel envied him, this nameless miner with a hold on her heart. For the same honour he felt he would exchange places, whatever his fate.

D
aniel’s great friend in the Hoyland clan was the countess, but he knew her well enough to realise she would know nothing at all about a crisis in Netherwood beyond the inconvenient fact of her husband’s departure. Henrietta, on the other hand, would probably have been briefed by her father and would now be in possession of all the details; for a woman, she made an excellent right-hand man. Therefore it was she whom Daniel sought when he entered the house, hard on the heels of Eve.

He spoke to a footman then waited in the elegant reception hall while his request was conveyed. The flowers he had sent up to the house in a trug, early this morning, rose from a blue china vase in a loose, unstructured arrangement at the centre of a highly polished walnut table. The choice of blooms – cornflowers, poppies, a few sprays of white blossom – had a natural, artless appearance, quite at odds with their formal setting, but all the more striking for that. Not Mrs Munster’s work, then, he thought. She took a more architectural approach, preferring tight floral structures with gladioli and irises – flowers with backbone, flowers more like her.

‘Mr MacLeod.’

The footman, a handsome blond youth of the type favoured by the countess – matching footmen were all the rage in her set – had appeared soundlessly beside him.

‘Lady Henrietta can see you now,’ he said, indicating, as he spoke, the earl’s study. He led Daniel in, announcing him rather more formally than seemed appropriate, given that he was, after all, merely the gardener. Henrietta, however, welcomed him warmly, standing from where she sat at her father’s desk and walking around it to shake Daniel by the hand. She was dressed for riding in a handsome dark-brown habit with a velvet collar, and her hair was tamed and twisted into a thick plait. She rode hardly less in London than she did in the country, though her outings were more sedate in the city, restricted as they were to Rotten Row and other sections of the royal parks.

‘Daniel,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’

He hesitated, suddenly aware that his request for the names of the dead Netherwood miners was going to seem peculiar in the extreme. But he was here now, and it would appear odder still if he backed out of the room without speaking, so he plunged right in, and explained that he was speaking on behalf of Eve Williams, who had learned of the colliery accident but not of the details.

‘She’s desperately concerned,’ he said. ‘She’s been very afflicted by the news and would benefit from knowing the names of the deceased, whatever additional sorrow that might bring. At least, so I believe.’ This was tagged rather belatedly to the end of his speech; he could see from her eyes that Lady Henrietta was wondering what Eve Williams was to him. However she was too kind, and too discreet, to ask.

‘Ah, good – so she’s back?’ she said.

Daniel nodded, feeling somehow wrong-footed.

‘I did look for her earlier, but the kitchen staff were unable to help. Where is she now?’

‘I think she probably went up to her room. She wouldn’t head to the kitchen for comfort.’ This was excruciating. He felt riddled with guilt for keeping Eve away and for knowing where she was now. But Henrietta seemed unconcerned about the whys and wherefores – the last thing on her mind was an inquisition.

‘She must be desperate for news. I shall go directly to her.’

He thanked her, bid her farewell and walked to the door of the study. As he opened it to leave she said, ‘And Daniel?’

He turned. ‘Yes, m’lady?’

‘I shall comfort her, too, if I can. I mean, as well as inform her.’

He was grateful for her understanding and felt a rush of emotion, but betrayed nothing of his feelings when he spoke.

‘Thank you, m’lady,’ he said evenly, and he took his leave.

Eve sat on the edge of her bed, dry-eyed, white-faced. She would wait there, she had decided, until she heard. She could not continue with her day until she knew if Amos was dead, and if he was, she could not stay in London. The notion that she was perhaps being punished for today was persistent, though in her heart she couldn’t feel regret or any sense of sinfulness. She had on her lap the Bible from her nightstand, but it was unopened. Some memory of faith from her past had prompted her to reach for it, but her relationship with the Almighty was complex these days, since he had stood by and watched, as Arthur was smote down. Her fury with God had diminished with the passing of the months – she came to understand it wasn’t a personal vendetta – but still she felt she had turned her back on her old, unquestioning beliefs and had therefore forfeited the right to pray, now, for Amos’s safety. In any case, she thought, he was either
dead or he was alive, and no one’s prayers could influence this fact.

There was a brief knock on her closed door, a gentle, tentative tap tap. She stood and crossed the room to open it, and was astonished beyond words to see Lady Henrietta, who looked almost apologetic to be there on the narrow landing of the servants’ quarters.

‘I feel I’m trespassing,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been this far up before.’ The moment they were out, she wished the words unsaid. Mistress and servant, they seemed to say. Your world and mine.