The Hidden Years (60 page)

'But he spends so much time alone…'

'Again, he's happy solitary, although that's bound to
change once he's off at school.'

This was another small bone of contention between Edward
and herself, Liz reflected. Edward wanted to send David to the small
public school he had attended, but she was concerned that seven was far
too young to send a child away from home. Here again it seemed that
almost everyone else totally opposed her view. The vicar's wife said
sympathetically that she had hated sending her two away, but that boys
really did need the discipline of a good school. Edward had told her
that it was at school that David would make the contacts, the friends
which would establish his position in adult life, and, although nothing
else was said, for the first time she felt as though Edward was subtly
reminding her of the fact that her own birth had been into a far
different way of life from his.

The last thing on her mind when she had married Edward had
been any idea of elevating herself socially, but she was not a fool,
and even now in these post-war days deference was still paid to people
with the right accents… the right backgrounds…
They could just afford to pay the fees, but Liz knew she would have to
make some savings in their household expenditure.

When challenged, she was forced to agree that of course
she wanted the best for David. David himself, when she discussed it
with him, seemed quite happy with the idea of going away to school. He
was a pragmatic, sunny-natured child, who gently reassured her that he
would not be lonely or unhappy… Much as though she were the
child, she thought wryly.

For all that she had achieved at Cottingdean, for all the
work she had done, it irritated her at times that she should still be
subtly so much under the domination of the men in her life.

Edward had made it plain to her that he thoroughly
disapproved of the idea of her reopening the mill. It wasn't fitting,
especially not for a woman, he had told her, but something in her
rebelled. She owed him so much, everything really, and she had repaid
him as best she could. She had a lovely son, a home which she was
coming to cherish and love, and if they were not well off financially,
well, at least they were better off than many. The vegetable garden was
productive enough to make sure that they were never without fresh fruit
and vegetables; they kept enough livestock for their own needs, hens
for their eggs, and with careful management they were actually able to
live well within Edward's pension and the money coming in from the rich
arable fields they let out.

It was true that the process of refurbishing the house was
a slow one, but Liz had a good eye for a bargain, and since that
unscheduled stop on the way back from Southampton she had spent many a
happy hour rummaging through the sale rooms and attending country house
sales.

The latest one had provided the very handsome brocade
curtains which now covered the drawing-room windows. She had bought
them for next to nothing, and had brought them home and cut them down
to size for their own drawing-room, which was much smaller than the
crumbling double-height ballroom they had originally been made for.

The success of their subtle colouring and the richness of
the fabric, which she suspected had originally been woven when Victoria
was on the throne, and which far surpassed anything she could have
bought even if she had had the wherewithal to do so, had made her
consider repainting the drawing-room in its entirety.

The original paint had faded to a dirty indeterminate
colour, but the library—now with the books carefully placed
on the shelves which had received the loving attention of Chivers's
linseed oil and then some homemade beeswax polish—had yielded
a set of original design details for the drawing-room, from which she
had discovered that the walls had originally been painted a soft
yellowy green which she suspected would have gone beautifully with her
gold brocade curtains.

White distemper could be obtained, Chivers had informed
her judiciously, but as for staining it…

Undeterred, she had been experimenting with various
vegetable dyes, keeping to herself the fact that already, in her own
secret plans, she was looking ahead to the day when such knowledge
would not just enable her to find an economical way of dyeing
distemper. What she had in mind were the subtle colours of some of Lady
Jeveson's hand-me-downs; the soft muted tones of her Scottish tweeds, which had none of the harshness of modern
wools.

Liz had a very clear idea of what she wanted from her
mills. The best and only the best would be good enough to carry the
Cottingdean label.

At one of her house sales she had been standing next to a
party of American tourists and their conversation had been
illuminating. These people had quite obviously been very wealthy and
very discerning. They had been on an antique-buying trip, and had
snatched a very pretty
bonheur du jour
from right
under her nose at a price that made her sigh with slight envy. These
were the people who would one day buy her wools…

Let the others tease her, and gently mock her
dreams… she knew that one day she would be proved right. She
knew, but being Liz she held her peace and smiled pacifyingly while
making her plans. She didn't want to antagonise Edward to the extent
that he refused outright to allow her to continue. The mill was, after
all, his. property and not hers, and besides, she had genuinely come to
like him… to want to make his painful life as easy as
possible.

She would have been surprised had she known how many
people who knew them marvelled at her patience with him, and not just
her patience, but her obvious devotion. Especially Ian Holmes.

As he regularly remarked to his wife, it was no life for a
young woman… He knew of course that David was not Edward's
son, and initially in the early days of their return to Cottingdean he
had half expected that eventually nature would take its course and that
she would take a lover. He would not have blamed her if she had. She
was a beautiful woman, not just physically but mentally as well, and in
the end it was Ian who persuaded Edward to allow her to go ahead with
her plans, simply by pointing out to him that a young healthy woman
needed a natural outlet for her energies, needed something on which to
hook her dreams, needed something to plan for.

Edward had given him a sharply suspicious glance and for
the first time in their long friendship had treated him with the same
almost childish silence which Ian had so often helplessly watched him
use against Liz. But at heart Edward was a fair man, a caring man, and
if it was his love for Liz, his insecurity, his fear that a woman like
her must surely one day grow bored with him, must surely one day leave
him, that made him sometimes unkind to her, he was honest enough to
admit that his doubts were self-inflicted and that no man had a more
devoted wife than he.

And so, reluctantly, he agreed that maybe—some
time in the future, finances permitting—they could consider
reopening the mill.

Finances permitting. Liz kept her thoughts to herself. She
had her own plans for raising that much needed money. Following upon
Vic's advice to her before he left for Australia, she and the new
shepherd had been diligently and selectively cross-breeding their stock
with the purpose of producing prize-winning rams, not to sire flocks
for wool which their own flocks would produce, but to capitalise on the
sudden demand for lambs for meat.

Just as the war had bred in people a hunger for a new
richness, a new luxury, so it had also bred in them a different kind of
hunger—a hunger for food, for a diet that was not pared down
to absolute necessities, a diet that tempted the taste-buds and the
eye. Farmers all over the country were busy raising stock to meet these
new demands, and Liz with her far-seeing intelligence was steadfastly
working towards her own goals.

Edward had been angrily opposed to it when she had first
mooted the idea of showing their young tups at some of the local county
fairs. She could almost see his aristocratic nose quiver a little in
disgust, and she had had to subtly remind him that there was a great
English tradition to support farming as a suitably gentrified pursuit.

Reluctantly he had given way, and so, slowly, carefully,
never overreaching themselves, Liz and her shepherd had begun to make a
name for themselves and for their rams.

So much so that at Smithfield this last year they had
taken the Best of Breed award for one of their tups, and it was his
male progeny which, when sold, would start to produce for her the
capital she needed to start work on renovating the mills:

Secretly, she had already been round it many times, trying
to see, not its dilapidation, but its advantages.

If she was honest its only real advantage was that it was
slap bang in the middle of the village, and in an area where work was
hard to come by. For that reason and that alone, her plans might just
find favour with those in authority. Men who fought for their country
did not take kindly to being without jobs, without money…
Anyone who could guarantee to provide work, especially in such a rural
area, was already in an advantageous position.

Ian Holmes was on his way to visit Edward, not a social
visit this time but a professional one. Several times a year he
examined Edward and tried to talk to him about his condition, but
Edward wasn't the kind of man who found it easy to confide in others,
and he tended to become brusque and withdrawn on these occasions, no
matter how tactful Ian tried to be.

At least he had been successful in persuading Edward to
look more favourably on Liz's new business venture. It had been at his
suggestion that Edward had on Liz's behalf approached some of his
contacts among the local county fraternity, including the Lord
Lieutenant, a hard-hunting man and a good landlord, with considerable
influence at Whitehall.

Liz was beginning to know how to play the game.
Officially, now, the mill was Edward's idea—she was simply
his mouthpiece, putting forward his views, since his own poor health
made it difficult for him to attend long, wearying meetings.

It was through the Lord Lieutenant that Liz had managed to
obtain an introduction to a small private merchant bank looking for new
investments. Ian ad-mired her and sincerely hoped that the mill would
succeed. She needed something in her life after all, poor girl. David
was now away at school, and as for Edward…

He frowned to himself as he drove up to the house.
Edward's increasingly frequent bouts of depression were beginning to
worry him, all the more so because the other man refused to admit that
they existed.

Ian had tried to suggest to him on several occasions that
it might be a good idea, both from his own point of view and from
Liz's, for him to spend a week or so in one of the new private
convalescent homes being organised for men like himself, men who had
been grievously injured by the war, but he had refused point-blank to
even consider it.

The strain of looking after him was beginning to tell on
Liz; it couldn't be very easy for her, after all, a young, healthy and
very beautiful woman married to a man like Edward. Liz was always
remarkably patient and gentle with him, but he had been there on
several occasions when Edward's behaviour towards her had made him long
to intervene and to point out to the other man that his jealousy had no
foundation whatsoever.

Poor Liz. He wouldn't have blamed her if she
had
taken a lover.

Liz was out on business to do with the mill, Chivers told
him when he admitted him. For once Chivers seemed to have lost
something of his normal calm. He looked disturbed and unhappy, and just
before he showed Ian into the library, he asked hesitantly, 'If I could
have a word with you, sir…?'

His formality, as much as his request, made Ian frown.
'Yes, of course you can, Chivers,' he responded immediately. 'What's
the problem?'

In reality he ought perhaps to have told Chivers to make
an appointment and come down to the surgery, but Ian knew quite well
that many of his patients found the surgery atmosphere intimidating and
preferred to confide their problems somewhere where they felt more
relaxed and secure.

'Well, it's the Major, sir,' Chivers told him unhappily,
surprising him. He had assumed that Chivers wanted to discuss a more
personal problem with him.

'Yes?' he encouraged calmly.

'Well, you know how he has these moods, sir? Can't blame
him for that. The pain he suffers is something chronic. No one can
blame him for that, but recently… Well…' Chivers
paused. 'I don't rightly know as I should be the one to tell you this,
sir, but someone has to, and madam, well, she'll never say a word, and
like I've tried to say to the Major myself, it isn't right…'

Ian tensed, and questioned, '
What
isn't right, Chivers?' But his heart was sinking and he suspected that
he already knew the answer.

'Well, it's the Major, sir… Gets in a proper
paddy sometimes, as you know. Says things we all know he doesn't really
mean… After all, it's hard on a man in his
position… And madam… well, she's like a saint
with him. Always gives him a sunny smile and coaxes him out of it,
cosseting him, telling him there's nothing for him to worry about. But
recently…' He hesitated and said anxiously, 'I hope you
don't think I'm speaking out of turn, sir. Gossip never has been and
never will be something I've ever lowered myself to, but when it comes
to standing by and watching…' His mouth compressed for a
moment as he struggled to find the words to express himself.

Patiently Ian waited, not wanting to put words into his
mouth.

'The thing is, sir, that recently the Major's temper,
well, it's got a lot worse… Some of the things he says to
madam, they're things no lady should hear, but she says it's all on
account of his pain and not to pay any mind to it… But the
other week she was late getting back from some meeting or other. She
took the Major's supper up to him. I could hear him raging at her, and
so too could Master David…' His mouth compressed again.