The Silver Locket (3 page)

Then they had a race. Alex shouted
go
, and Charlotte and the dog shot forward. A few moments later, Alex started running, soon caught up with them, but then he stumbled, grabbed Charlotte by the arm, and they both fell over on the sand, rolling over and over and over as Charlotte squealed with laughter, and the dog went wild with joy again, and jumped all over them.

They were soon on their feet again, and started playing what looked like tag. Alex dodged and feinted, laughing as Charlotte ran and tried and failed to catch him, and was easily caught when it was his turn to chase Charlotte.

Rose could see quite well that all of this was merely horseplay, and nothing at all improper was going on. But she still felt her face grow hot, and wished
she
was down there on the beach, that Alex Denham had chased and caught Rose Courtenay, and – kissed her, maybe?

God, what was she thinking?

She shut her eyes and frowned, determined to put all thoughts of Alex Denham right away.

She was so wrapped up in contemplation she didn’t hear Alex and Charlotte coming up the cliff path, and the first she knew of it was when Charlotte’s spaniel came bouncing up to Boris to greet the older dog.

She felt very silly and at a disadvantage, sitting there all prim and solitary in her new spring coat and matching hat and gloves, while Alex and Charlotte laughed and gasped and panted as they climbed the last few steps that were cut into the cliff.

As they came into view, Rose wondered if she ought to speak to them. She supposed she’d better – it would be polite.

But what on earth was Alex wearing? It looked like one of Henry Denham’s horrible old suits. She shuddered, waiting for a moth or several to fly out of it, and she was still wondering what to say when Charlotte beat her to it.

‘It’s Miss Courtenay,’ she began, and ducked her head respectfully at Rose. ‘Good morning, miss.’

‘Good morning, Ch-ch-charlotte,’ Rose choked out.

‘Miss Courtenay.’ Alex nodded too, and when at last Rose managed to meet his gaze, she saw his dark brown eyes were shining and he looked full of – mischief, devilment?

She’d been about to make some pointless comment about the weather, but now she changed her mind.

Alex just stood there, and now he was staring out across the English Channel, humming something to himself.

‘My mother had a note from you this morning,’ said Rose eventually, still looking up at Alex and wishing the sun would go behind a cloud, because at the moment it was in her eyes. ‘She says you write a charming letter.’

‘She gave a charming party. I enjoyed it very much. It was very kind of her to make me feel so welcome.’ Rose didn’t quite like the sound of that. Alex didn’t sound at all sincere. But he was smiling, his actual smile seemed genuine enough, so she supposed perhaps he’d meant it.

‘How long will you be staying in Dorset?’ she asked him somewhat stiffly, aware she sounded like a dowager duchess speaking to a groom, but totally unable to do anything about it.

‘I’m here until Friday, when I go to Ireland.’

‘Mr Denham will miss you.’

‘I’ll miss him.’

‘My mother will be wondering where I am.’ Charlotte clicked her fingers at the dog. ‘Dancer, heel,’ she said. ‘Miss Courtenay, Mr Denham.’

‘I’m coming your way, too.’ Alex nodded again to Rose, then he and Charlotte Stokeley turned inland and walked away, and Rose could hear them chattering and laughing.

As she sat there alone, she felt like crying.

The spring of 1914 kept its promise. Although the first weeks of May were cold and damp, and no one walked along the shingle beach that lay beyond the manor house – for there the grey-green sea rolled up the pebbles, foaming white and lashing the black rocks with salty, wind-whipped spray – the summer was a golden dream.

At Charton Minster, the sunny afternoons were filled with tennis tournaments, garden parties on the sloping lawns, and games of croquet. There were picnics on the headland, bathing parties on the beach, and drinks served on the terrace as the sun went down.

Rose was not to go to Somerville. Lady Courtenay was adamant, and Sir Gerard liked a quiet life, so when Rose asked him to intervene on her behalf, he’d refused to argue with her mother.

‘I dare say you’ll be getting married soon,’ he’d added, smiling. ‘That young Easton fellow – Mummy and I think very well of him.’

Rose hardly thought of him at all.

A year ago, before she’d dared to hope that she might go to Oxford, before she’d realised there was another world outside her social circle, becoming Mrs – and in due course, Lady – Easton would have been the height of her ambition. If Michael had proposed, she would have accepted him.

But nowadays she was restless. She was longing for adventure. In search of inspiration, she read all the newspapers the butler laid out every morning in the library. They predicted conflict, most probably in Ireland. But Austria was looking dangerous, too.

She saved up her allowance, and by the end of June she was quite rich. ‘The papers seem to think there’ll be a war,’ she said to Boris, who was as usual chewing at a rug. ‘So if the men go off to fight, women are going to have to do their work –
and
look after any who get hurt. I don’t suppose they’d let me be a nurse…’

‘Sir Thomas and Lady Easton will be motoring over here for luncheon,’ Lady Courtenay said at breakfast, one hot morning in July. ‘Michael and Celia are coming too. I was thinking you young people might like to take a picnic to the beach.’

‘I’m going to the village.’ Rose put down her fork. ‘Polly said the church hall’s being turned into a cottage hospital. The Red Cross is collecting sheets and blankets. Marjorie and Polly are going to wash the china that people have donated, and I’m going to help them.’

‘I don’t think so, Rose.’ Lady Courtenay frowned. ‘You would meet some very common people.’

‘Mummy, I’d meet the people from the village. I’ve known them all my life!’

‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ said her mother. ‘We don’t know them socially. In any case, I don’t think you should do that sort of thing.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘You’d ruin your lovely hands. Now, what about this picnic?’

‘It’s far too hot,’ said Rose. ‘In any case, I have some things to do.’

‘My dear, Michael and his sister–’

‘May talk to you and Daddy, have a game of croquet, eat potted shrimps and strawberries – I’m sure they don’t need me to entertain them.’

But when Michael Easton and his family arrived, Rose dutifully went downstairs to greet them.

‘My dear child, you grow prettier every day,’ said Lady Easton, as she offered Rose her cheek to kiss.

Rose couldn’t say the same for Lady Easton, who was heavily pregnant once again, with her twelfth or possibly thirteenth child – Rose had long lost count. Michael was grown up, Celia would be coming out next year, but still at boarding school and in the nursery was a swarm of children, eating their parents out of their dilapidated home.

Rose knew Michael had some money left him by an uncle. But the other children would have nothing, or maybe less than nothing. As his farms and cottages decayed, as his fields grew crops of thistles and the equinoctial gales blew masonry from Easton Hall into the English Channel, Sir Thomas bought motor cars he couldn’t drive and often crashed, and gambled his inheritance away.

But, reflected Rose, Sir Thomas was a baronet. The Courtenays might be rich and long-established in the district, but were mere country gentry all the same. Sir Gerard’s knighthood, his reward for sitting as a magistrate for almost thirty years, was only six months old.

‘Rose, what a lovely dress.’ Celia Easton, plain and gangling in a faded cotton print, looked at Rose’s pale green watered satin enviously.

‘Green has always suited Rose.’ Lady Easton smiled, and Rose saw she’d lost another tooth. ‘She looks like a water-nymph in green.’

‘Yes, indeed she does.’ Lady Courtenay smirked complacently. ‘But that colour is quite hard to wear. It wouldn’t do anything for Celia. She would look washed out.’

Rose blushed pink, embarrassed by her mother’s tactlessness. Celia was too tall, too thin, too awkward, and she never had any pretty clothes.

‘Have you done any of your lovely paintings recently?’ Lady Easton gazed around the drawing room as if expecting to see Rose’s latest watercolour hung in pride of place. ‘You’re such a talented little artist. I was saying to Michael yesterday, Rose is such a clever girl, she can paint and draw so beautifully–’

‘It seems we’re going picnicking,’ interrupted Michael, who looked very handsome in comfortable flannels and a plain white shirt that set off his light tan. ‘Celia, Miss Courtenay and I are going to walk along the beach, so you go round the headland.’

‘Why can’t I come with you?’ asked Celia, pouting.

‘We have things to talk about, that’s why.’ Michael Easton handed Rose her hat. ‘We’ll see you at the usual place, so now be a good fellow and buzz off. You could take the basket, actually.’

‘You didn’t have to be so mean to Celia,’ said Rose, as she and Michael walked along the tide line, where the sand was firm.

‘Actually, I did.’ Michael skimmed a pebble and it bounced across the waves. ‘She’s so jolly nosy, and she couldn’t keep a secret if she tried. I say, Miss Courtenay – may I call you Rose?’

‘Yes, of course you may.’ Rose smiled at him. ‘You always did. I’m not sure why you stopped.’

‘But you’ve come out now, so I thought it might seem disrespectful.’

‘I don’t think so, we’re old friends,’ said Rose. ‘What’s this secret Celia couldn’t keep, and why do you want to talk to me?’

‘Your father’s been discussing things with mine.’ Rose saw Michael flush beneath his tan. ‘They talked about my trust fund, and the settlement Sir Gerard means to make on you.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Rose had always known that as her father’s only child she would make her husband an extremely wealthy man. ‘Michael, let’s not spoil–’

‘Please, Rose, hear me out!’ Michael cleared his throat. ‘We’ve known each other all our lives. I’ve always thought you were a splendid girl. We had a lot of fun together as children, and now we’re both grown up we get on famously. The parents are all for it, so why don’t we get engaged?’

The third battalion of the Royal Dorsets had almost finished its short tour of duty in Belfast. After some embarkation leave, it would be going to India, where Alex meant to make his fortune.

But just now he was lying on his bed, wishing it was not so hot and he was not so bored. He screwed the letter he’d been reading into a tight ball, then lobbed it at the bin.

He didn’t intend to write to Charlotte Stokeley, who’d written in her childish schoolgirl’s hand to confess undying love for him.

Charlotte was too young to know the first thing about love, and now he wished he’d never said hello, or passed the time of day with her when he’d been in Dorset, or played those games down on the beach.

He was sure he’d never encouraged Charlotte to think of him romantically, but now it seemed she’d needed no encouragement, and that she had a major crush on him.

He watched a puzzled wasp climb up the inside of the open window. He thought about the heiress, as he always called her, mainly to remind himself that even if she’d liked him – which of course she didn’t – he wouldn’t stand a chance.

It was four months since he’d seen her last, the day after her mother’s awful party in the spring, when he had got so drunk he’d managed to ask her if she’d dance. It was just as well she had refused. She would have had to hold him up.

She’d grown so beautiful it had offended him to see her in that dress, run up by some provincial seamstress in the most hideous shade of giblet pink, and sewn all over with ridiculous glass beads.

If she married a man who had some taste, her dress sense might improve. But she’d probably marry Michael Easton and bury herself alive at Easton Hall, a decaying pile that made Henry Denham’s shabby house look like a palace.

Men off duty dozed, others drilled or marched in perfect columns across the barrack square, and Alex wondered if there’d be a civil war in Ireland. He didn’t like the thought of dying on the dirty streets of Londonderry or Belfast, just because the Ulster people didn’t want home rule for a united Ireland.

Reaching for the silver case Henry had given him when he’d joined the army, he found that he was out of cigarettes. But his servant wasn’t around, so if he wanted any he would have to go and buy his own.

He was crossing the parade ground when someone called his name, and so he stopped and turned to see who wanted him. ‘Oh – hello, Chloe,’ he began.

Chloe Jarman, the daughter of the quartermaster sergeant, looked pleased or possibly it was relieved to see him. ‘W-where are you going?’ she gasped, as she caught up with him.

‘I need some cigarettes.’

‘I’m going to buy some thread.’ Chloe fell into step beside him, hopping and jumping now and then to match his longer stride. ‘May I walk with you?’

‘Yes, of course you may.’

Alex was quite fond of Chloe Jarman, who was a gawky, colourless blonde with sallow cheeks and staring, pale blue eyes. When he had first arrived in Ireland, still grieving for his mother, in a subaltern’s uniform that was stiff and sharp and rubbed him raw, she had befriended him.