The Silver Locket (36 page)

‘He’s probably delighted we’re so happy. Come on, let’s get up. I have to go to work today.’

‘Why, what are you doing?’

‘I’m still in the army, don’t forget, so I have to do a stint in barracks now and then.’

‘In Dorchester?’

‘Of course.’ Alex shrugged his shoulders. ‘But there isn’t much to do, so I get home quite often.’

‘Good.’ Rose bit her lip. ‘I suppose I ought to go and see my father.’

‘Yes, you should.’ Alex grinned and shook his head. ‘I’m sure the village hags have been their usual busy selves, so Sir Gerard’s bound to know you’re back.’

Rose left it a few days, then she found she couldn’t leave it any more. She took the path that led her past the Minster.

The convalescent officers were long gone, and the great, golden house was full of workmen, cleaning, painting and re-polishing the scuffed and pitted floors.

No one challenged her, so she walked upstairs to her old bedroom, where once she’d schemed and dreamed – it seemed like half a century ago. She stood and gazed towards the distant headland, towards the sunlit Channel.

‘May I help you, madam?’ said a woman’s voice that held the warm, familiar Dorset burr.

‘Polly?’ Rose spun round to see her former maid, who carried a pile of dust sheets and was frowning. The frown soon turned to recognition, and Polly’s face took on a look that Rose could not interpret.

Then she realised that thanks to Henry’s servants, her amatory exploits must be common knowledge in the village, and Polly’s expression must be one of scorn.

‘I was on my way to see my father,’ Rose said, lightly, ‘but I thought I’d look in here first.’

‘The poor old Minster, it’s not a pretty sight.’ Polly laid the dust sheets on the bed. ‘Those soldiers were a very grubby lot. The nurses weren’t much better. Miss, you should have seen the bathrooms. I’ve never been so disgusted in my life! It’ll be years before we’re straight again.’

‘Where’s Sir Gerard, Polly?’

‘He’s still living at the Dower House, miss. He hasn’t got the heart to move back here, where he and your mother – well, you know.’

‘I hope he’s well?’

‘He had a couple of colds last winter, but now summer’s coming I hope he’ll be all right.’ Rose saw Polly looked embarrassed now. She was pink and blushing, and her hands were twisting nervously. ‘M-miss Courtenay?’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t want you to hear this in the village, so I’ll tell you myself.’ Polly looked past Rose’s head. ‘Miss, I hope I’ve always known my place?’

‘Polly, of course you have. But nowadays–’

‘It’s just that – well, your father is a very lonely man. After you went to be a nurse, and poor Lady Courtenay passed away, he – he had nobody.’

‘I’m back now, Polly,’ Rose said softly. ‘I’ll make it up to him, I promise.’

‘Miss, it isn’t that, and whatever Mrs Sefton says, I’m not a fallen woman! I don’t want his money, or to come between him and his daughter. I love you both too much for that. But Miss Courtenay, poor Sir Gerard–’

Polly was bright scarlet. ‘Them awful, spiteful things I said to you, Miss Courtenay – I’ve thought about them often, and I’m so ashamed.’

‘It’s all right, Polly.’ Rose finally understood. ‘I don’t mind,’ she added, remembering Elsie’s words. ‘I know as well as anyone that we don’t choose whom we love.’

When Rose called at the Dower House, her father wasn’t there. Or he wouldn’t see her, but she didn’t force the issue with the nervous-looking maid.

By the time she returned to Henry’s house, she found that Alex had gone out, but not to work, apparently.

‘He had a phone call, and then he went off somewhere in my car.’ Henry was bumbling round his rotting orangery, tending his collection of dusty-looking cacti and other spiny, predatory plants. ‘I’m just about to have a spot of luncheon, if you’d care to join me?’

‘You’re looking well,’ said Alex, as Chloe leaned her powdered cheek towards him and he kissed the air obediently.

‘
You
look awful.’ Chloe stared at him. ‘I used to think you were so handsome. But you’re not handsome now.’

Alex was determined not to let Chloe rile him. He ushered her from the street into the inn where he had booked a private dining room.

He ordered all three courses to be brought and left in chafing dishes. Then he sent the man away, saying he and Mrs Denham would serve themselves.

‘Why did you want to see me?’ Alex asked, as Chloe started on her soup. Then, when Chloe didn’t reply, he added, ‘Chloe, I’ve been thinking. If you could see a way to let me go–’

‘So you can marry the harlot?’ Chloe sniffed and shuddered. She stroked the collar of her new and clearly very expensive jacket with one smooth, white hand.

‘I think it would be best for all concerned if you and I admitted we’re not suited,’ persisted Alex.

‘
You
can admit whatever you choose,’ said Chloe. ‘
I’ve
done nothing wrong.’ She glared at him, her pale eyes narrowed. ‘You do admit desertion, adultery and cruelty?’

Alex shrugged.

‘Very well, if you agree you’re in the wrong, I’ll go and see my solicitor tomorrow.’

Alex stared, astonished. What solicitor? Why was Chloe being so decent? Why was she agreeing to let him go? Carefully, go carefully, he told himself. ‘The fault will all be on my side,’ he murmured.

‘Well, I should hope so, too.’ Chloe’s eyes were slits. ‘I don’t suppose any woman had a husband worse than you!’

‘How will you manage?’ Alex asked, aware that he was holding a box of live grenades which threatened to go off all at once. ‘I mean financially?’

‘You’ll have to make a settlement on me.’ Chloe’s blue eyes glittered. ‘My lawyer’s already given me some good advice on settlements.’

‘Chloe, who
is
your lawyer?’

‘Mr Reade of Reade and Makepeace, not that it’s any concern of yours, I’m sure.’

‘That’s the Easton family’s firm,’ said Alex, and the smell of rats was suddenly so strong and all-pervasive that it overpowered Chloe’s expensive scent of roses.

‘So now they’re
my
solicitors, as well.’ Chloe’s eyes were icicles of malice. ‘You and that woman – you’re going to be so poor, you know. So very, very poor.’

Alex sat there silent, not knowing what to think – let alone to say. Chloe couldn’t afford the services of Reade and Makepeace. She couldn’t afford expensive clothes. What was Michael Easton up to now, and how was he involved in this?

He pushed his soup aside, got up and left the inn.

‘Let them do their worst,’ said Rose. ‘They can’t take your money, because you don’t have any money. They can’t destroy your reputation. Michael has no influence in the army, and even if he tried to do you down, your commanding officers would all stick up for you. What else is there to fear?’

‘The worst thing – losing you.’

‘Well, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.’ Rose stroked his hair back from his forehead. ‘Please stop frowning, it makes you look so grim.’

‘I want to marry you, and make a decent life for both of us, but if Chloe ruins me financially, how are we going to live?’

‘You’ll think of something, Alex. You always do.’ Rose shrugged her shoulders. ‘I could take in washing.’

‘It might come to that.’

‘I don’t care, as long as I have you.’

A few days later, Alex told Rose he had to go to London for a week.

‘Why?’ asked Rose, and followed him upstairs into their room.

‘I have some things to do, people to see.’

‘May I come, too?’

‘It’s only boring army business, darling.’ Alex threw his shaving things into a battered case. ‘It wouldn’t interest you.’

‘But why are you going to London? I thought you were based in Dorchester?’

‘London’s where I’ll find this chap I need to go and see. I’ll soon be home again, don’t worry.’ Alex grinned at Rose. ‘You haven’t seen the last of me.’

Rose saw Alex off at Charton station. Then, mainly to distract her from her fretting, she started cleaning Henry Denham’s house, chivvying the elderly female servants and geriatric butler into taking down the curtains for an airing, cleaning all the filthy, fogged-up windows, and beating all the grime-encrusted carpets on a line.

Two days later, when she’d finished and Henry hadn’t even seemed to notice, let alone be pleased, she wondered why she’d bothered. She looked around for something else to do.

Eventually, she decided she couldn’t put off seeing Sir Gerard any longer. She walked up to the Dower House, prepared to insist on seeing her father, pushing past all his servants if this proved necessary.

But she was admitted straight away and shown into Sir Gerard’s drawing room, where he sat in an ancient dressing gown, drinking his morning coffee.

‘Sit down, Rose,’ he said.

She sat, and saw he looked much better than when she’d seen him last. Polly must be doing him good, she thought.

‘You’ve come to your senses, then?’ he asked.

‘I beg your pardon, Daddy?’

‘You’ve come back home, and you’ve decided you will do your duty?’

‘My duty?’

‘You’re going to marry that young man who always did
his
duty, and who loves you still.’

‘I haven’t seen Mike since I got back,’ said Rose.

‘Then I suggest you do, before he decides to make any alternative arrangements.’

Sir Gerard stirred his cooling coffee with a silver spoon. Rose looked at the carpet and wondered what to say – should she tell her father what had happened, how Michael had behaved in Russia, tell him the village gossip was all true?

She didn’t think he’d believe her – or the village.

‘I saw our Mr Heatherley on Tuesday,’ said Sir Gerard.

Rose looked up at once, wondering why he’d seen the family’s lawyer, and suddenly afraid her father must be ill, or even dying.

‘I’ve settled all my affairs,’ he said. ‘Rose, you know that Charton has been in our family for a thousand years, or thereabouts?’

‘Yes, of course, but I–’

‘I have no male heir, so I have had to make some hard decisions.’ Sir Gerard shrugged. ‘You’ve proved yourself to be the usual kind of female flibbertigibbet, so I’ve made sure you’ll have some proper guidance when I’m gone.

‘Rose,’ he continued earnestly, ‘forget this man you’re seeing! Marry someone worthy of you! Marry a man who’ll care for you, look after you?’

Rose didn’t trust herself to speak.

‘I’m gifting the whole estate to Michael Easton,’ said Sir Gerard. ‘I have no plans to marry again, and in default of any male succession, it appears I can do this.’

So Michael Easton would inherit Charton. Rose felt as if her father had punched her in the stomach, or hit her with a hammer. But she wouldn’t beg, she wouldn’t plead, she wouldn’t grovel, and she certainly wouldn’t marry Michael Easton.

‘In that case, Daddy,’ she said stiffly, ‘I’d better tell you now. I’m going to marry Alex.’

Sir Gerard shrugged. ‘If you marry a man who’s been divorced, I won’t be able to see you any more.’

Rose could see he meant it. The choice was Michael, misery, wealth and comfort, or Alex, happiness and poverty.

There was no choice.

She stood up, kissed her father on the brow and left the room. As she left the Dower House, she knew she couldn’t blame him, for he was a product of his class, of prejudice, of narrow-mindedness handed down the Courtenay generations for a thousand years.

In shock, but knowing deep down that she’d expected something like it, she went into the village to see Daisy.

After several visits to the cottage, Daisy got used to Rose, and even started looking out for her, so Rose began to take the little girl for walks or outings in Sir Gerard’s ancient gig.

Rose and Mrs Hobson got on well. By June, she was no longer stiff
Miss Courtenay
, the landlord’s well-born daughter, but plain and simple Rose.

She often took Daisy to the shingle beach, where they had impromptu sandy picnics, and looked for whelks and fossils.

‘She’s such a little poppet,’ Rose said wistfully, as she returned the sleepy infant to her foster mother at the end of yet another lazy, lovely day spent watching fishing boats go out, and paddling in the surf.

‘She’s my little precious.’ Mrs Hobson took the dozing child. ‘She ain’t my blood, I know. But I loves this baby like my own.’

It was as if the war had never happened. Alex was still based in Dorchester, where he was adjutant to the colonel, doing paperwork all day and grumbling he’d have joined the Civil Service if he’d wanted to be a clerk.

When he was on leave, he joined in Rose’s and Daisy’s expeditions, and Daisy got to know him, squealing with delight whenever Alex picked her up and swung her round, and fishing in his pockets for sweets or little toys.

‘She’s such a flirt,’ said Rose, as Daisy whispered into Alex’s ear, or smiled from underneath her long, soft lashes, coyly looking up at him. When Alex smiled at her or spoke, she blushed and hid her face, then peered round Rose’s skirts and beamed, her lovely blue eyes bright.