Ravenscliffe (56 page)

‘Indeed,’ Henrietta said. ‘And I’ve never considered it a difficulty until very recently.’

‘Well, for what it’s worth, and knowing what I know of your suffrage pals, they won’t ’old it against you.’

She really didn’t know what to make of him. Here was a man who, were she in Netherwood, she would expect to doff his cap as she passed – not, she told herself sternly, that he should have to. Yet he was so casually self-assured, so entirely unfazed by her rank and title; sympathetic, even, as if he was sorry for the burden she carried.

‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘it’s what you do that counts, not who you are.’

She nodded. She remembered how, in the week before he died, when she still imagined her father would be always there, Teddy had quoted an English philosopher at her – an attempt to express his own new
modus vivendi
. She couldn’t remember the philosopher, but she could remember the words.

‘I have always thought,’ she said, ‘the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.’

‘John Locke,’ Enoch said at once. ‘A fine mind.’ They smiled at each other and then he said, ‘I shall be seeing you, then, Miss ’oyland.’

‘You shall, Mr Wadsworth. And thank you for your discretion.’

‘Any time. If I were you, though, I’d nip out quick before they all spot that liveried coachman waiting for you on t’doorstep.’

Now, eating kedgeree and drinking tea poured from a china pot, not a saucepan, Henrietta felt buoyed by possibilities and purpose. A new world had presented itself last night: a world where she might become someone else and, by so doing, be more herself. Thea, next to her at the table, placed a bold, proprietorial hand on her shoulder, caressed her neck, trailed her fingers down her back. These were the actions of a lover, but here in the dining room, under the unsuspecting eyes of the family, their significance was lost.

‘Will you come to my room?’ Thea said. ‘I need your undiluted company.’

‘Oh, pardon us for spoiling things,’ Toby said.

‘Pardon granted,’ said Thea. She stood and held out a hand. ‘Henrietta?’

‘Not now,’ said Henrietta. She smiled, though Thea looked
stunned, as if she’d been slapped. ‘I’ll join you presently,’ Henrietta said, gently.

‘Very well,’ Thea said. ‘Though I may be gone.’

‘Oh?’ said Toby. ‘Anywhere interesting?’

She glared at him. ‘Would you like an itinerary of my movements?’ she said.

‘Dorothea,’ said Clarissa, looking up from her grapes. ‘Before you leave, there’s something I have to say, and it may as well be now.’

Everyone turned to her. Thea sighed, as if inconvenienced beyond belief.

‘I am to be married. I shall wait until next year for the sake of form, but then I’m to be married.’

The silence was almost comical, and indeed a bubble of nervous laughter floated up from somewhere inside Bryony; she clutched her hand to her mouth, appalled. Beside her, Isabella took immediate refuge in tears, though they had no impact on anyone, least of all her mother, who popped the last morsel of grape into her mouth and smiled benignly at the table in general.

‘Mama!’ said Henrietta. ‘Who to?’

‘Archie Partington.’ Clarissa wiped her fingers fastidiously on her napkin and set it carefully down beside her plate. ‘He has been kind enough to propose and I have been’ – she paused, searching for the right word – ‘generous enough to accept.’

Again, silence. The older siblings looked at each other for enlightenment, but found none.

‘You don’t mean the Duke of Plymouth?’ said Henrietta at last.

‘I do, as a matter of fact. And furthermore, I find your tone impertinent.’

‘Sorry, Mama. But you must permit me to at least show surprise. He’s rather …’

She tailed off, daunted by the challenge in her mother’s eyes.

‘Ancient,’ said Dickie. ‘Archie Partington is ancient.’

‘He’s sixty-two, in fact,’ said Clarissa. ‘But, yes, rather older than I am.’

‘I say, Ma,’ said Toby, ‘you’ll be a duchess.’

She smiled at him. ‘Darling boy,’ she said. ‘I knew you’d understand.’

A
nna, walking along King Street on her way home from Netherwood Hall, saw Hugh Oliver before he saw her. He was strolling in his characteristic, unhurried fashion, but he was looking down rather than ahead, so that when she said, ‘Good evening, Hugh,’ he jumped and she laughed.

‘You have paint in your hair,’ was the first thing he said to her and then: ‘Forgive me, good evening, Anna,’ which made her laugh again. It was months since he’d last been in Netherwood and she’d forgotten how much she liked him. He offered his arm and she reminded him that until they’d met, he had been walking in the opposite direction to her.

‘But aimlessly,’ he said. ‘For want of anywhere to go.’

‘Then you must come back with me to Ravenscliffe,’ she said and he nodded his approval at the suggestion.

‘I should be at Dreaton Bridge,’ he said as they began to walk. ‘I should be staying this evening at the Bridge Tavern.’

‘And yet here you are.’

‘Indeed. Have you ever been to Dreaton Bridge?’

She shook her head.

‘Never have I seen a bleaker place,’ he said.

‘It can’t be worse than Grangely,’ she said. ‘Grangely is
worst place I’ve ever seen. I lived there, you know, with Leo, when Maya was born. Grangely killed my husband, though everyone said it was tuberculosis. I was lucky to leave when I did, or Maya might have been next to die.’

She looked so pale and grave and his heart went out to her. He had thought about Anna a good deal since leaving Netherwood for Bristol. Her spirit and her confidence had remained with him, and from time to time he had heard her voice in his head, her very particular way of speaking. Occasionally and – he told himself – irrationally, he had imagined a life in Bristol with her by his side. Nothing that had occurred between them in his last visit had given him encouragement, but he needed no more, it seemed, than what he’d had: lively conversation, shared laughter, and the surprisingly stirring sight of Anna in the wind, bringing in sheets from the washing line. This chance meeting now was serendipitous, perhaps: Lady Luck had diverted him from Dreaton Bridge and directed him instead to King Street in Netherwood. Thus ran the dialogue in his head as they walked out of town towards the common, talking back and forth in friendly fashion. Only when she asked why he had come did the mood – inexplicably, to him – alter, and not for the better. He was back from Bristol, he told her, because Silas had returned to Jamaica and there were concerns about the smooth running of Dreaton Main. His function, he said lightly, was simply to cast the shadow of management over the pit yard to be sure everything was as it should be. Beside him, Anna stiffened and withdrew her arm, and he stopped in surprise.

‘What is it?’ he said.

‘You do his dirty work, then,’ Anna said.

‘I don’t see it that way. I’m second-in-command, after all.’

‘You know he sacked that young boy?’

‘For breaking colliery rules, yes.’

Anna laughed bitterly. Hugh, anxious to swing the
conversation back to its pleasant beginnings, said: ‘Look, it’s just business. Tell me what you’ve been up to, to end up with blue paint in your hair.’

She ignored him. ‘Silas sacked Edward Wakefield to hurt Amos Sykes,’ she said.

‘Well, yes, it was partly to teach a lesson to all concerned.’ Hugh, desperately underinformed where Anna’s love life was concerned, sensed no danger.

‘Amos was attacked, did you know that? Attacked by Edward’s father. This, too, was because of Silas.’

‘Well, yes, indirectly. But if Sykes had stayed away, it wouldn’t have happened.’ Hugh’s voice was level, reasonable; what he said couldn’t be denied, and even Anna – after the event, when she first saw his damaged face – had wondered at the sense of Amos walking into the lion’s den of Dreaton Main, courting controversy and confrontation with Eve’s brother. But still she bridled at Hugh’s calm assessment; he had no notion of the complexity of the situation, no understanding of the welter of emotion. Amos may have been rash and ill-advised, but he was a passionate, principled man, driven by a desire to fight injustice. She was proud of him and would defend him, always. With her silence now, she hoped to convey this. Hugh, silent too, watched her warily.

They were at the gate to Ravenscliffe now, and Anna wondered if she could withdraw her invitation to come inside. Then the front door was flung open and Eve was there, all smiles of surprise and warm greetings for Hugh, offering him dinner and a bed for the night, and there was nothing to be done but to follow Eve into the kitchen where the children, seeing who accompanied her, fell into a tumult of excitement at the unexpected arrival of the charming, affable, handsome Hugh Oliver. There was roast chicken just out of the range, and a salad so fresh from the allotment that Ellen triumphantly plucked a caterpillar from the underside of a lettuce leaf and
Maya began to clamour because she didn’t have one too. It was a merry scene, and Anna’s anger subsided under the relentless balm of Hugh’s warm, good-natured conversation. He had the children rapt with a story of a cargo of animals sent in crates from Africa; they were unloaded at the Avonmouth docks and a crowd gathered to see the spectacle. In the first crate, he said, was a zebra.

‘But when they opened it the poor beast was almost dead,’ he said. ‘It couldn’t support itself and when the sides of the crate fell away, it simply slumped to the ground.’

Eliza, eyes instantly full of tears, stared at him.

‘What was wrong with it,’ she said. ‘Was it seasick?’

Seth tutted and said, ‘Dehydrated, I expect,’ and Hugh nodded at him. ‘Correct,’ he said. ‘The zebra was thirsty. A young man from the zoo knelt by its side and dripped water into its poor, dry mouth.’

‘Poor zebra,’ said Ellen.

‘Poor zebra,’ said Maya at once.

‘And did it do t’trick?’

This was Eve, as engaged as the girls by the zebra’s fate. Hugh nodded.

‘Eventually, though it lay there for a long while first. There was a camel too, and a pair of lions, male and female. All on the dockside, not in cages, not even tethered.’

Seth said: ‘Too weak to attack anyone, were they?’

‘Indeed. Nearly dead, all of them. The shipping company loaded them up in the hold in Africa, then practically forgot they were there.’

‘Are they in trouble now?’ Eliza said.

‘No, since all the beasts pulled through. Poor show, though.’

‘I want to see t’docks at Bristol,’ Seth said. It sounded to him like a place where reality met fantasy.

‘Did you know Anna’s getting married?’ Eliza said, in the way she had of taking a conversation and making it her own.
Hugh put down his knife and fork and the smile left his face, only for a second, but long enough for Eve and Anna to register the meaning.

‘Are you?’ he said, steadily. ‘To whom?’

‘Amos,’ Anna said.

‘I’m to be bridesmaid again, aren’t I, Anna?’

‘You are, Eliza, yes.’

‘Anna,’ Hugh said, after a moment’s pause. ‘I wonder if you’d mind coming outside with me for a moment? I need your advice on a personal matter.’

Eve and Anna glanced at each other across the table.

‘Of course,’ said Anna, for, with the children all about them, there really wasn’t much else she could say.

He held open the door for her and they stepped out into the garden. He walked towards the gate, as if he meant to go out onto the common, but she stayed put on the doorstep, arms folded, so he came back towards her. The June evening was warm and light and the scent of roses – Amos’s roses, planted last summer – was all around.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘If I’d known, I wouldn’t have spoken about Mr Sykes as I did. The last time I was here, I don’t think there was even a suggestion of romance between you and him.’

She raised her eyebrows; what did he know of the secrets of her heart? She remained silent though, letting him speak.

‘Is the date set?’

She shook her head, no.

‘Then I shall take that as my one, slender hope that I haven’t yet lost you.’

She was shocked now into speaking. ‘You cannot lose something you didn’t have,’ she said.