The Reckoning (24 page)

She could not quite understand him. He talked to her with a degree of intimacy she had never experienced from a man,
but his manner was not lover-like, and though he sometimes
told her scandalous things to shock or amuse her, his conver
sation was often about his mills, about manufacturing and
Parliamentary reform. These were hardly the topics of court
ship.

‘
Do you realise that despite the huge population of
Manchester, it hasn't a single Member of Parliament?' he said
the last time they had danced together. 'It's the same with all
the manufacturing towns — because they're new growths, they
have only their historic representation, which might have
been appropriate to a village, but will certainly not do in these modern times.’

Rosamund had done her best to understand his fervour
and to keep the steps of the dance at the same time. 'Why do
you want Manchester to have a Member?' she asked. 'What
difference would it make?’

He crossed his hands to her and they swung about before
he answered. 'Manufacturers need a voice. They have special
requirements, special interests. They need a spokesman in
Parliament.'

‘
Why doesn't one of them become a Member, then? He
could stand for some other place, couldn't he?'

‘There's still the property qualification. To be a candidate
for the House of Commons, a man must own, or be heir to, a
rental of three hundred pounds per annum from landed
property. Mills and manufactories don't count. Even old
Samuel Ordsall couldn't have stood for Parliament, though
he was rich enough to have bought half of Lancashire. And if he had bought himself the qualifying property, he would still
have been kept out of the House by interest.'

‘
Interest?' Rosamund said, moving up a place and clapping.

‘
The votes of the voters, my dear ma'am, are all owned.
There are so few of them, you see, and a rare commodity will
always command a high price.’

They reached the head of the set and danced down, and at
the foot Rosamund waited with an inward grimace for the
tirade to be resumed. But Farraline's thoughts had moved off
on another tack. As they began the long process of working
back up – the traditional opportunity for conversation
between young people of the opposite sex – he said in softer
tones, 'And are you really leaving us tomorrow?'

‘Really.'

‘
It seems an odd decision, to be leaving just when everyone
else is arriving. Lady Tredegar came in yesterday for her
annual cure, and she's a notable hostess, besides being an
intimate friend of Mama's. I wish you might stay – there will
be all sorts of parties and balls and routs.’

This was more hopeful. 'We are wanted at home,' she said.
‘Sophie in particular is much missed by her family. And we
have stayed, in any case, longer than was first planned.’

Not long enough for some of us, however,' he said. 'What
shall I do for company?'

‘But you will be going soon yourself, I imagine,' Rosamund
countered. 'You really cannot pretend any longer that there is
anything wrong with your arm. Sophie tells me you and Mr
Hawker were playing tennis yesterday, and you beat him
soundly.'

‘
That's true. Tennis is not Hawker's game, of course ...
But I'm staying now chiefly for Mama's sake – she dreads
going back to Grasscroft alone.’

Will not you be going with her?'

‘
I go to Cheetham Hill to supervise my building project. I
want to have my house finished this summer. I may find time
to take her down to London in October, however, though I
dare say I shall not be able to stay above a few days. If I do
come, shall I see you there?’

He smiled into her eyes, and she felt the familiar weakness
creeping over her limbs. Yet his words had proved him indif
ferent to her. He liked her, but meant nothing serious by his
attentions, or he could not have spoken so lightly, or regarded
their separation as so little important. He would not rescue her from her fate – and in truth, she wondered whether she
would have wanted him to. He attracted her very much, but
she doubted whether she could live happily in such a place as
Manchester, or with a person so single-mindedly attached to
the processes of steam mechanism.

‘
I am sure you will,' she said, with a bright smile. 'I am
sure to be a great deal in London this autumn. I expect soon
to be married, you know.’

Did his eyes become watchful for an instant? 'To Chelms
ford?' he asked abruptly.

‘
Yes.'

‘
Ah!' The music was silenced, and they were alone together
in one of those cessations of time which he seemed to be able
to conjure about them. She felt her skin ripple like the fur of
a stroked cat under the touch of his eyes. 'Then we shall
certainly meet again,' he said. Then, 'I like Chelmsford very
much, and you will do him a great deal of good.' The music
had come back, loud and suddenly jarring. Surely one of the
fiddles was out of tune? She watched his lips moving, and
forced herself to understand what he was saying. 'He needs
firm handling – he is not strong-willed like you and me. I
suppose with a mother like his, he could hardly have deve
loped independent options. I don't envy you your mother-in-
law. But you will see her off. I don't believe she's a match for
you, Lady Rosamund!’

*

Rosamund shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she remem
bered it all. She had to struggle with the feeling that she had
made a fool of herself in Scarborough, though she told herself
again and again that to an outsider's eyes she had simply
enjoyed an agreeable seaside flirtation with a handsome
young man. Yet inwardly it felt as though she had asked and
been rejected, and that was not a pleasant sensation. Her
pride had been touched, and needed restoring. It was as well,
perhaps, that she was going back to Wolvercote and out of the
public eye.

Lucy always stopped in Grantham on her journeys to and
from Yorkshire, at the George, a large, busy, dull and
respectable house. It was evidently where Parslow expected
Rosamund to stay, too, to judge by his anticipatory move
ments as they rattled over the cobbles of the town. Here was
an opportunity to assert herself, to shew that, young as she
was, she was the captain of her own ship.

‘
We'll take a change here, Parslow, and go on to Stamford,'
she said loftily as they pulled under the red-brick arch into
the yard.

‘Stamford, my lady?'

‘Yes. The Angel. See to it, will you?’

Parslow was too good a servant to argue with her, or even
to display surprise, but Rosamund could sense his disap
proval, and was satisfied. She didn't know the Angel, of
course, but she had heard of it as a smart and fashionable
place – much more in her style, she thought, than the
ponderous old George. Parslow climbed down from the
carriage to pay the boys and order the change. The new team
was led out and poled up, and in five minutes they were on
their way again. It was an easy triumph.

But as soon as they pulled out onto the road south Rosa
mund regretted it. It was another twenty miles to Stamford,
and she was already stiff and weary from travelling, and
growing hungry. She had just let herself in for another hour
and-a-half on the road at least, and by the time they arrived
it would be very late. The servants said nothing, of course,
but Rosamund felt bad about them, too.
Do right by your
servants, and they'll serve you well
was one of her mother's
dictums, and most of her mother's servants had been with her
for twenty years.

The flat countryside reeled by monotonously, and Moss fell
asleep with her head against the corner squab. Rosamund
glanced at her, and then caught Parlow's eye. 'I'm sorry,' she
said meekly.

Parslow's lips curved slightly into the ghost of a smile. Tor
what?' the smile seemed to say. The low sunset light shewed up a line of bristles above his top lip and around the edge of
his jaw, grown since that morning's shave. They were grey
like frost; but above his lean cheeks, over his cheekbones,
were the places where no whiskers grew, and there the brown
skin was smooth, almost shiny. She suddenly had an intense
and almost embarrassing sense of him as a person, as a man,
together with the more familiar feeling of old affection. He
sat very still, with the restfulness about him of the man who lives with horses – restful but alert, ready at any moment to
cope, to care for, to be kind. His hat was on his knees, and his
quiet hands rested on top of it. But she didn't want to look at
his hands: she thought it might be too personal.

Moss sighed and settled in her sleep. Suddenly Rosamund
said, 'Parslow, do you think I should marry Lord Chelmsford?
I think he's certain to ask me when I get back.'

‘
I think it very likely, my lady,' he said, pitching his voice
low, as she had, not to wake the maid. 'He and his mother
and sister will be among the guests at Wolvercote.' Rosamund
raised an eyebrow. 'I saw the list when Mr Hicks was
consulting me about stabling for the guests' horses.'

‘
Ha! Well, theirs won't take up much room, unless Lady
Barbara has decided to set up her carriage at last – and
frankly, I'd give you better odds on the end of the world
arriving tomorrow.'

‘
I believe they are coming by post-chaise, my lady,' he
affirmed.

Rosamund met his amused eye. 'Well, then? Do you think I
should accept him? And don't say "It's not for me to say, my
lady", because I've asked you, and you've more sense in your
little finger than most people have in their whole heads.’

He regarded her in smiling silence for a moment, and she
thought he was going to refuse. But he said, very quietly, 'In
confidence, then, my lady?'

‘In confidence.'

‘No, I don't think you should.’

As soon as she heard it, she realised she had expected him to say yes, and it surprised her into wondering why. Had she
expected him to say yes because she had wanted him to? Ah
yes, but why was that?

‘Why?' she asked him bluntly.