The Sleeping Sword (69 page)

‘Somebody must cover all this high life for the
Star
,' Liam told me, ‘and I can't do it, Grace.'

‘What are you going to wear?' asked Blanche. ‘White for me, I think, although I will check first with mamma, for she is fond of white, too, and there is no need to encourage people to tell us how alike we are. The Madeley-Brown will cut a dash, of course, with that quite stupendous diamond Gideon has given her, and I have no intention of being put in the shade. I think, between us, Grace, we can make short work of her. So—white for the journey and the luncheon and the walking about the promenade they are sure to make us do, and for the dance I really wondered about black, cut very low since my shoulders are still worth looking at—and pearls. Yes—that's exactly right. Now what about you, Grace? Something the Madeley-Brown will remember.'

‘You will naturally want to stay with me,' my Grandmother Agbrigg wrote from Scarborough. ‘I shall have your room ready.'

‘Please come,' Gervase wrote on the corner of my official card of invitation.

‘I can't think of any reason why you shouldn't,' said Liam. ‘Can you?'

There was no reason I would admit and that evening I forced myself to take out my ‘London' clothes and selected an ice-blue taffeta walking-dress that would exactly suit a warm July day, a pale blue velvet parasol with white lace edging, the blue velvet hat with the blue satin roses and the spotted net veil I had bought for my first visit to Gervase. I had an evening gown I had never worn, cream tulle over pale gold silk, and another, worn only once, a cream satin skirt embroidered here and there with a single crimson rosebud, a crimson velvet bodice with tiny puffed sleeves. Either one would take me creditably to the Grand Hotel. And in my jewellery box, in the lower drawer that I never opened, I had a diamond too, given to me by Gervase, and the bracelet of fine gold chains scattered with tiny amethysts from Gideon.

But that bracelet and that ring were a world away and I must make it my business to see that they stayed there. I would go to Scarborough in fitting fashion, as the guest of my former husband, and as Grace Barforth of the
Star
.

The banquet at Low Cross was held on the second and warmest Friday in July, all the Barforth mills, including the one belonging to Sir Blaize, being closed for the occasion; and the following morning early we boarded that special train to Scarborough, to the accompaniment of Cullingford's brass band and the good wishes of her Mayor and Corporation. The journey, which I made in the company of Gervase, Noel and Blanche, was unexacting, even rather pleasant—the train being amply provisioned, in accordance with Gideon's grandeur, with hampers of cold chicken, little savoury delicacies and champagne—until we reached our marine destination, where my Agbrigg grandparents, another brass band, and—by express command of Mr. Nicholas Barforth—Camille, were waiting to greet us.

Camille had not made the journey to Cullingford for the opening of the mill, fearing, she said, to give Duchess Caroline an apoplexy, but as her august lover got down from the first compartment she came forward to greet him with the composure of an empress, a performance she had been rehearsing for weeks in front of her mirror and which, for all her good intentions, lasted but a moment, melting clean away in her gladness to have him home again; a show of emotion which wrinkled the nostrils and quite visibly curdled the sensibilities of Aunt Caroline. Yet because Mr. Nicholas Barforth required it, and because his was the power, the authority, the title-deed of Tarn Edge, she forced her mouth to smile, her tongue to pronounce a stiff but audible ‘How do you do, Mrs. Inman', choosing, as she had always done, to sacrifice her own beliefs, her own pride, very nearly her own moral values, in the best interests of her sons.

We were driven to the Grand Hotel in solemn procession, Sir Blaize and Mr. Nicholas Barforth in the first carriage with their mother and their sister, Aunt Caroline, the Duke of South Erin being now so frail that it was thought unlikely he would ever make the journey north again. Camille and Aunt Faith came next with my dainty little Grandmamma Elinor, who had been Sir Joel Barforth's sister and was worldly enough to appreciate that a mistress could be every bit as valuable and powerful as a wife; while behind them came Sir Joel's other sister, my Grandmother Agbrigg, my grandfather, who had been Sir Joel's mill-manager and Cullingford's first mayor, followed by my father and my very good friend, his wife. The next carriage should have carried Gideon, Miss Madeley-Brown and Gervase, but finding a large and determined
Mrs
Madeley-Brown occupying her own place and half of the one reserved for him, he gracefully withdrew and got in with Noel, Blanche and myself and a delightfully frilled and beribboned little doll called Claire Chard who had just been retrieved from her nurse. And so we set off, the Barforth managers and their well-dressed, self-conscious wives coming behind us, their quick, keen glances leaving us in no doubt as to how much we, the Barforth women, were on display. We were served a light but delicious luncheon, the menu certainly chosen by Gideon, who I knew would have come over to the Grand several times in person to make his requirements known, although the rather casual arrangement of the small tables which allowed us to seat ourselves was not to the taste of his mother, Aunt Caroline, who clearly felt that even at so informal a meal as this some distinction should be made between her son, who was the managing director of this company, the man responsible for the continuing prosperity which we had come to celebrate, and her brother's son, a director in name only, accompanied by his former wife who, in Aunt Caroline's further opinion, should have had sufficient good taste not to come at all.

‘I trust we shall be more formally arranged at dinner,' she said, intending to be heard, her sharp eyes rapidly calculating that the table occupied by Gervase—and, to her intense indignation, by me—was at least six inches nearer to Mr. Nicholas Barforth than the table where Gideon had calmly seated himself with his golden young fiancée.

‘Poor Aunt Caroline!' murmured Gervase. ‘She believes the most arduous task I perform in a twelvemonth is to go down to Nethercoats on the due date to collect my dividend.'

‘But you are always there, I suppose—on the due date?'

‘Ah yes, with not a moment to spare. But let me remind you, Grace, of the hard life of a working farmer. Noel here will confirm it.'

‘My son's position is most awkward,' I heard Aunt Caroline explaining to Mrs. Madeley-Brown, ‘for when father and son are present he feels unable to put himself forward.'

Nevertheless, when the meal had reached its coffee and brandy stage and neither father nor son seemed inclined to make a move, Gideon got up and went from table to table speaking an appropriate word to every manager and his wife, the length of time he devoted to each one being regulated by the fine social instincts of Listonby, so that all were satisfied. He spent a longer moment with my Agbrigg grandparents, paying his respects to my rough-grained but mayoral grandfather with a warm double handclasp, exchanging a brief but pleasant word with my father, a slight inclination of the head and a smile conveying a different sort of respect entirely for my father's wife.

He kissed Lady Verity Barforth, his grandmother, on her hand and her cheek, and seeing that Grandmamma Elinor, with her notorious fondness for tall, dark, youngish gentlemen, expected the same treatment he kissed her too. He took Camille's hand and held it long enough to prove himself a man of the world who could well understand—could even envy—his employer's obsession with this luscious woman. He whispered something in Aunt Faith's ear that made her smile, chatted with Uncle Blaize and Mr. Nicholas Barforth pleasantly but without the slightest hint of subservience to these two powerful men of affairs, letting it be seen that, although he respected their opinions—which had made them several fortunes apiece—he had opinions, and perhaps fresher ones, of his own.

He came to our table too, slapping his brother Noel companionably on the shoulder, ruffling the hair of pretty four-year-old Claire Chard who after all was supposed to be his daughter and who tugged at his sleeve with more familiarity than I had expected her to show.

‘How goes it, Gervase?'

‘Not bad—not bad at all.'

‘You're managing to rear your young stock, then?'

‘So I am.'

He sat down, took brandy, discussed stirks and heifers with Noel and Gervase, told Claire to be a good girl, told Blanche she was looking beautiful. He stood up, lingered a while longer with his hand on the back of Noel's chair, describing the arrangements for the rest of the day. He ruffled Claire's curls again, made some remark to a passing waiter, walked away. And he had not spoken one single word to me.

At Lady Verity's request there were to be photographs after luncheon, a camera having been already set up on the terrace, and knowing how awkward this might be—for Aunt Caroline was not the only one to feel surprised at the sight of Gervase's hand on my arm—I would have made my escape, as Camille swiftly made hers, had not my Grandmother Agbrigg detained me with an imperious command to ‘Come here, my girl, and sit beside
me
', and an equally imperious request that I should put an end to the rumours about my involvement with Liam Adair.

‘You would do well to go back to France with Elinor,' she told me. ‘In fact I have had a word with her and she is more than willing to take you. I have had a word with your father about it, too, which may surprise you—the first word I have had with him in many a long year—and he gave me his gracious permission to put my suggestion to you for your consideration. Now what sort of an answer is that?'

But luckily she was called away by that other imperious lady, Aunt Caroline, to have her portrait taken, the first group consisting of the older generation, Sir Joel Barforth's wife, Lady Verity, and his two sisters who were both my grandmothers; just one male survivor of those harsher, elder days, hollow-chested, hollow-cheeked Mayor Agbrigg, the pauper brat brought up to Cullingford in a consignment of a hundred half-starved little factory slaves, who, from such meagre beginnings, had outlived both of Grandmamma Elinor's husbands, my refined grandparent, Mr. Morgan Aycliffe and the charming Mr. Daniel Adair; and Sir Joel Barforth himself.

Lady Verity was next positioned between her two sons, then alone with her daughter, then all four of them together. Her eldest son's wife, Aunt Faith, was next added, a perfectly proper procedure until Lady Verity, her sweet and knowing smile passing from her daughter Caroline to her son Nicholas, said very clearly, ‘If this is to be for daughters-in-law, then surely we should include Camille, who is my daughter-in-law in everything that matters. Yes, certainly we must have Camille. My other daughter-in-law, dear Georgiana, who could not be present, would say the same.'

‘Mother!' Aunt Caroline muttered, much shocked, hoping the Madeley-Browns had not grasped the significance of this, trusting she could plead her mother's age and long sojourn in France if they had. But Camille was sent for, placed between Mr. Nicholas Barforth and his brother, Uncle Blaize, Aunt Faith greeting her warmly, Aunt Caroline obliged—as she so often was obliged these days—to make the best of it.

Lady Verity's grandchildren were then required to come forward, or such of them as were available, Noel, Gideon, Gervase, Blanche in her cascade of lace-edged white frills with a flower-garden of pinks and apricots and mauves in her hat, biting her lip as she remembered Venetia—as I remembered Venetia—and then frowning, biting her lip even harder when Aunt Caroline, not thinking of Venetia at all but simply wishing to compensate herself for the effrontery of Camille, called out ‘Hortense dear, do come and pose for this—here, between Noel and Gideon, with Blanche on Gideon's other side—and Gervase, oh—at the other side of Noel, I suppose. Yes, Hortense, do come—you don't mind, mamma, I know, since after all she will be your granddaughter quite soon now. And since Dominic cannot be here—simply could not get away—we are one short.'

Miss Madeley-Brown got up, parting her lips in her wide, brilliant smile and came forward, quite splendid in a yellow gown that might have been painted on to her full-breasted, long-limbed figure, her shoulders as broad, her back as strongly arched as an Amazon queen. Her hair, beneath the chrysanthemum colours of her hat, looked like spun gold, she had swinging drops of topaz on her ears, that huge diamond on her hand, no idea at all of the hornets' nest into which she was so obediently and so elegantly stepping.

‘Blanche!' Aunt Caroline said sharply, expecting no defiance from this quarter. ‘Move over to make room for Hortense.'

‘I thought this was to be grandchildren only, Aunt Caroline—that's what you said a moment ago.'

‘Blanche, don't make a fuss!' Aunt Caroline gave warning.

‘Oh, I am not in the least inclined to do that. I am just trying to be helpful, Aunt Caroline—just trying to get it right—and since we are rather more than
one
grandchild short, I suppose Claire is the best person to take the place of the other one we are missing. Claire darling, do come over here—yes, nurse, just give her ringlets a little shake and straighten that ribbon. Oh, good. Now then, Aunt Caroline, where would you like little Claire Chard to stand?'

She stood, in the end, beside her Uncle Noel, having found his presence the most reassuring, her rosy little cheek pressed against the hip he had damaged at Ulundi, Blanche still most uncharacteristically scowling, Gideon looking as if he had noticed nothing amiss, Miss Madeley-Brown, who really had not noticed anything, smiling until she was told to stop, Gervase, who had been pushed into the background by Aunt Caroline and then dragged forward again by Blanche, appearing much amused. Yet Venetia had been his much-loved sister and it was no doubt in tribute to her memory that when the photograph was taken he shook his head and told Aunt Caroline: ‘We have still not got it right, you know, for we did not include Grace.'