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Joshua glared at the spot she had been minutes before. William was supplanted by a more urgent consideration. ‘About Elizabeth…’
Alice sighed inwardly. What about Elizabeth? she asked herself. She seemed unable to exercise control over the girl. Her father should be the one to hold her in check, but his fondness kept him from any meaningful restraint.
‘Surely, woman,’ he was saying, ‘it can’t be beyond your wit to keep watch over her. Keep her amused so that she doesn’t feel the need to stray.’
‘It’s not amusement that Elizabeth needs, Joshua. It’s purpose. A finishing school would have helped,’ she couldn’t stop herself adding.
She waited for the next outburst, but instead he seemed deep in thought, prodding so savagely at the lawn with the briar stick he carried that Alice feared the gardeners would be called on to lay new turf.
‘There are times,’ he said heavily, ‘when I wish we had stayed in Birmingham. Elizabeth would have had purpose there. The women were… different. More serious. The wives and daughters of the men I knew – they would have been her friends. They would have kept her busy, interested in the world. Given her something beyond dabbing at canvases in an attic. And they would have found her the right husband.’
This final shot went over Alice’s head. In her mind, she was back in Birmingham and hating it. Fifteen years she’d lived there, and for the entire time she had felt adrift. The friends, the contacts, Joshua spoke of were industrialists, factory owners like himself. They inhabited a world wholly foreign to her and had wives who were just as foreign. Women who gave gossipy and uncomfortable tea parties or, worse, were terrifyingly intellectual. Joshua had taunted her that she was too great a lady, too conscious of her family name and thought herself above their company. It wasn’t so but she could never have told him the truth. She was scared of the women, thoroughly scared. Her meagre education, the narrow vision with which she’d been raised, the privileged life she’d led, were poor preparation for holding her own with females who thought nothing of conducting literary soirées in their homes or debating the latest philosophy. They were wives who joined the Women’s Slavery Society or attended public meetings on women’s suffrage and urged her to accompany them. They made her feel stupid and pointless.
And Joshua had not helped. He’d been incapable of understanding her plight and treated her with a growing abruptness. Even when she’d given birth after years of disappointment, she had been made to feel a failure. A girl rather than the boy that was expected. In time, of course, things had changed. Joshua had grown to adore his daughter and to dismiss the son when he arrived, as hardly worth his attention. His partiality was understandable. She thought Elizabeth too headstrong for her own good, but the girl’s spirit and energy were a true echo of her father’s.
When her husband had finally gained ownership of his Sussex acres, she’d felt blessed. For weeks, she had sailed aloft on a tumultuous wave of relief. Until she’d returned. Then came the realisation that she’d find no more congenial company in the countryside of her birth. Her brother had made sure that neither Joshua nor she would find a place in county society. The great and the good had decided for themselves that Joshua was unbearably vulgar, but her brother had made sure with a whisper here and a nudge there that he was seen as dishonest too. A counterfeit. She had buckled beneath the assault, but Joshua hadn’t. He was a strong man and he’d needed his strength. He’d used it to shrug off the mantle of social pariah and create instead the most magnificent gardens in Sussex. They were his triumphal fanfare, a declaration that he had arrived.
Her thoughts had been wandering badly. Joshua was still complaining and she had heard barely a word. She struggled to look suitably abashed when Ivy saved her the trouble by appearing at her shoulder. ‘Beg pardon, ma’am. But you have a caller.’
‘I know,’ she said shortly. ‘The doctor.’
Why could people not leave her alone? First, Elizabeth, then, Joshua, now, Ivy. Her hand crept to the back of her neck. She had the strangest impulse to tug hard at her hair and bring the whole magnificent edifice tumbling around her shoulders. An attempt to break her bonds? she wondered. If it was, it was far too feeble and very much too late.
‘No ma’am. Dr Daniels left ten minutes ago. He said not to bother you or Mr Summer, but he’d be back to check on Master William next month. It’s Mrs Fitzroy that’s in the drawing room.’
‘Mrs Fitzroy?’ Alice looked blankly at the maidservant.
‘You can go,’ Joshua growled. ‘She’s your sister-in-law, not mine. I’ll have nothing to do with that family. In any case, I need to see Harris. I want to talk to him about plants for the fête. The more exotic, the better. And cut flowers – vases and vases of cut flowers. We must make sure the whole of Sussex will be talking about the event for months.’
He would take a grim satisfaction in greeting the county’s old families and rubbing their noses in his wealth. They might own more land, but that was their only source of treasure, and its value had depreciated hugely over the last twenty or thirty years – ever since the great depression. There was no money to pay taxes, no money to pay the new threepence a week insurance for each of their dwindling band of servants. Joshua had the upper hand.
She supposed it was some kind of poetic justice, though one that left her indifferent. He had ploughed thousands into the estate but had garnered back as much money and more. Under his management, the once failing Home Farm of the Fitzroys was a thriving enterprise, producing all its own livestock and cereals. There was honey, too – she could vouch for its excellence. And wax from the hives and building timber from the coppiced area he’d planted. There was no doubt he’d proved as successful at farming as he had at button-making, and the estate had grown rich as a result. Now his moment of glory had come: Summerhayes would be a showcase of all he stood for.
She watched him stomp away to consult the head gardener. It would be an interesting conversation. Joshua might be allowed to design pleasure gardens but when it came to produce – the vegetables, the herbs, the soft fruit and flowers – Harris’s word was law, and his master knew it. Reluctantly, she made her way back into the house and had barely reached the drawing room when she was met by Louisa teetering on the threshold. Her sister-in-law was wearing yet another rich ensemble. She blinked in surprise at the shirred silk taffeta hat with its large jet ornament and two huge black plumes that on their own must have cost a fortune. Where did her brother get the money to pay for Louisa’s falderals?
‘I was just coming to find you.’ The woman sounded petulant. ‘I thought that maid of yours must have forgotten my message.’
‘Ivy has just spoken to me,’ she said calmly. ‘What brings you here, Louisa?’
‘It wasn’t you that I wanted to see, in fact. Though, of course, it’s always a pleasure,’ her sister-in-law added rather hurriedly.
‘Is it?’ She would not normally have spoken so bluntly, but the longing to be alone was becoming unbearable and Louisa was the least welcome of visitors. The appalling scene in the churchyard was still vivid in her mind.
She found her sister-in-law advancing on her, a determined smile pinned to her face. The woman reached out and clasped both of Alice’s hands between her gloved fingers. When she spoke, there was an attempt to infuse warmth into her words. ‘I know there are problems between our families, Alice, but there is no need for us to be at odds. It’s really the men who have the problem, isn’t it? We should not allow their disagreements to spoil our friendship.’
She had not been aware of a friendship. Louisa had married her brother the year they’d moved to Summerhayes, or what would become Summerhayes. From the start, she had been aloof. After all, she had married a Fitzroy of Amberley, while poor Alice had had to settle for a Birmingham factory owner. That was fourteen years ago and the situation remained unchanged. At best, it had been an uneasy relationship. She always felt tense in the other woman’s presence, as watchful of Louisa as she was of Henry. She had a premonition that if ever she relaxed her guard, her family would suffer the consequences. Joshua was intemperate, his actions hasty and ungoverned, and it was up to her to protect her children. Her husband could lead them into disaster. He did not know her brother as she did, he did not truly appreciate, even after all these years, the damage that Henry could do. Her brother had hurt more people than she could remember – the servants he’d told tales of, the friends who’d mistakenly thought him an ally – wreaking havoc with a smile and a nod and a quiet word. And sometimes worse. Right now, he would be brooding long and hard. He would not let this latest incident – the breaking of the dam – go by. He would repay the insult. Eventually.
Louisa had released her hands and was holding her at arm’s length. ‘What on earth is the matter, Alice?’
She realised then that for a long time she had been standing silent and dazed. She must pull herself together. It was happening too often these days. ‘If you didn’t come to see me—’
‘I came for the doctor,’ Louisa interrupted. ‘He promised to send a prescription to Amberley, but it must have slipped his mind. My nerves have never been good, you know that, and since this recent trouble between our families, they’ve been completely on end. But Veronal always does the trick.’
‘I’m sorry to hear you’ve been unwell.’ Alice doubted the truth of this, but in any case what was her sister-in-law doing chasing across the countryside to find Dr Daniels? ‘Would it not have been an idea to call at the pharmacy? They’re sure to sell Veronal.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Louisa huffed. Her nerves seemed to be getting the better of her once more. ‘I’m sure they do sell it, but that wretch – the new pharmacist – insists on a prescription. I sent my maid to the surgery to collect one, but she is utterly useless. By the time she got there, she’d forgotten what it was I needed. I’ve been forced to come looking for the doctor myself. Is he here? I heard in the village he was heading this way.’
‘He was, certainly, but he left a while ago.’
Louisa looked disconcerted. She walked over to the window and glared into the distance. Then, as suddenly, her face cleared and she turned back to Alice, who had remained standing in the doorway.
‘Did you call Dr Daniels? I hope you’re not ill yourself. Or is it Joshua?’ For a moment, she seemed truly concerned.
‘We are both well, thank you. The doctor was here on a trivial matter. A brief check on William, nothing more.’
As soon as she said it, Alice wished she hadn’t. She had never spoken of William’s weak heart to anyone, not from the moment he was born in this very house.
‘William? But he’s the picture of health.’
‘He is, isn’t he?’ She could not prevent a surge of pride. ‘And that’s how we wish to keep him.’
‘So why does he need Dr Daniels to visit?’
This was the reason she should have said nothing. To reveal vulnerability in the family was foolish. But Louisa was looking directly at her, her brow creased into small furrows, and she could think of nothing to say but the truth.
‘William has a weak heart, or at least he used to have when he was a baby. He seems nowadays to have grown out of it, or so the doctor thinks. But we like to make sure that everything continues well.’
‘But, of course. My dear, what a worry that must have been for you. You’ve never said a thing about it.’
Alice was already regretting her words. Even if she had been close to Louisa, she knew she would have said nothing. The boy’s fragility was real, whatever Joshua might argue, but that was not something the world or the Fitzroys should know. William would inherit the Summerhayes estate and with it everything his father had worked for. He was gentle, breakable, and as unlike Joshua as it was possible to be. But he would need to be strong, or appear strong, to hold what was his against a covetous uncle.
She schooled her face to lack expression. ‘I’ve not mentioned it before because we have never wanted William to feel in any way a special case. And it has worked. He is a strong boy now. I hope you will keep to yourself what I’ve told you, Louisa.’
‘Of course, my dear. You can trust me.’ But even as she said this, Alice knew that word would be travelling back to Amberley in a very short while. Louisa was Henry’s creature.
‘I’m glad I came,’ her sister-in-law continued. ‘I’ve been thinking about this stupid disagreement between our husbands. Could we not do something to stop it?’
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘If I were able to persuade Henry to attend the fête at Summerhayes perhaps…?’
For a moment she was genuinely touched by the other woman’s concern, but then common sense reasserted itself. There would be a good reason behind her suggestion. The crafty look on Louisa’s face told her that: her sister-in-law did not do plotting very well. But it was possible it could be turned to Elizabeth’s advantage.
‘I suppose that might help,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Your brother is obviously unhappy,’ Louisa continued in queenly fashion, ‘but Joshua was quite right when he said that Summerhayes is the better venue. Henry will need some persuading, as I’m sure you know, but I will do all I can. If I’m successful and he agrees to come, can you persuade Joshua to meet him halfway? It could be very helpful to you. I know you are both concerned for Elizabeth’s future, and I would like to think that together we can manage an excellent marriage for her.’
It was surely worth a try. If Louisa could smooth the way, then it was possible the right husband could still be found. Elizabeth’s marriage was not something she could dismiss as easily as Joshua, and since this latest quarrel with the Fitzroys, she had been nagged by a sense of inadequacy. Every day she had begun to think the matter more urgent. A moment ago, Joshua himself had seemed to realise his daughter enjoyed far too much freedom. It might persuade him to meet Henry in a more conciliatory mood.
‘It sounds an admirable plan,’ she said, her voice infused with a new energy, as she ushered Louisa to the front door.
‘Splendid.’ Her sister-in-law beamed approval.
In retrospect, Alice was not sure how comfortable that made her.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_082eac30-c995-5f5e-b6b0-86b187f6f13f)
Ivy always knew where to find her sweetheart, but for once he was not tending his beloved Wolseley, but cleaning shoes. The boot boy must be ill, and it was just like Eddie to help out.
‘Are you sure it will be all right?’ she asked without preamble. He’d promised to ask Mr Summer if they could put fresh paint around Eddie’s apartment.
He gave her a lazy smile. ‘Don’t fuss, Ivy. It will be fine.’
‘You haven’t asked him, have you?’ She didn’t want to sound cross but she couldn’t stop herself.
‘Not yet, but I will. In any case, why would he mind us making the old place look better?’
‘He’s got fixed ideas of what he likes and don’t like,’ she said darkly.
‘Three rooms above a motor house? C’mon. It’s not likely.’
‘Then why haven’t you asked him?’ She felt her arms rising to her hips to rest akimbo. Like an old fishwife, she thought, annoyed with herself.
‘There’s not been the opportunity, honest. I’ll drop it into the conversation, casual like, when I can.’
‘And when will that be?’
‘I’m driving him to Worthing this morning. He’s off to collect some antique he’s bought – a Japanese vase, Imari, or something like that. He’ll be in a good mood. I’ll do it then.’
‘And mebbe at the same time you could ask for a couple of days off after the wedding?’ Her voice was gentler now.
He put his polishing cloth down and got to his feet. ‘You don’t stop, do you?’ He grinned down at her, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. ‘I’m beginning to wonder what I’m marrying. I’ll be pecked to bits before I even get to the altar!’
‘I’m sorry, but I get anxious.’ She looked around then, and seeing the coast clear, reached up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I don’t mean to nag, Eddie, really I don’t, but I get that worried things won’t work out for us.’
‘Why shouldn’t they? We’ll have a bang-up wedding and a bang-up home. The jammiest, you’ll see.’ He narrowed his eyes against the sun. ‘And I’ve a mind to ask an extra favour.’
‘Yes?’ Her gaze widened with anticipation and that made him laugh.
‘Don’t get too excited. But I’ve been thinking. My ma can’t come to the wedding, you know that, but what if we went to my ma?’
Her face fell. ‘How would we do that? She lives miles away.’
‘How else?’ He turned and pointed at the sleek green beast dozing in the wedge of sunlight.
Ivy gasped. ‘You’d never dare to ask!’
‘Watch me, girl. For you, I’d dare anything.’
He laughed again and his arms went round her waist, cradling her tight, and swinging her so high into the air that he lost his footing and they tumbled to the ground, landing on the cobblestones in a giggling heap.
‘You’ll want to keep your jobs, I’m supposing.’ It was Ripley glaring at them from the rear door.
Hastily, they scrambled to their feet. ‘Yes, Mr Ripley,’ they said in unison.
*
Elizabeth looked wistfully out at the busy scene below. A large marquee had already been erected on the huge spread of lawn and a stiff breeze was whipping to a frenzy the flags flying proudly at each of its corners. A sprinkling of smaller tents, too, had begun to lace the perimeter of the grass, the noise of mallets on wooden staves sounding clearly through the first-floor window. If she pressed her forehead hard against the glass, she could just make out Cornford working at his bench, sawing the planks with which he’d construct a temporary dais. And to her right, Mr Harris teetering on the tallest of ladders with one of his boys holding its feet, while he strung bunting from tree to tree. There were men everywhere, it seemed – scurrying, carrying, calling to companions. A few women, too, who had come from the village and were setting up stalls from where tomorrow they’d sell toys and fruits and home-made sweetmeats.
This morning her mother had insisted on her company in the morning room, and she had spent the last few hours reading while Alice sewed. But every so often, she had laid aside the book and glanced longingly through the window. If she were not allowed to escape completely, at least she might do something practical. Perhaps join the scene unfolding below. She could run errands for the women on their stalls or organise refreshment tables for the big tent. Mrs Lacey was busy enough without having a marquee foisted on her – the housekeeper would welcome her help, she knew. But she was not allowed to be useful. Her function was purely decorative and her mother’s morning room was where she must spend the day.
Her spirits had been high when earlier she’d watched Joshua leave for a drive to Worthing. He had wanted her to go with him, but she’d excused herself on the pretext of a lengthy journey. His pursuit of another precious vase for his collection was likely to take some time. With her father absent and the gardens filled with noise and movement, she’d hoped to slip from the house and make a swift visit to the temple. But her mother had swooped on her directly they rose from the breakfast table, and she’d had no opportunity. She wanted to speak to Aiden, wanted that he attend the fête tomorrow, for amid the hustle of the fair they could surely meet and talk unnoticed. She had barely seen the young man these last few weeks, now that her walks had been curtailed and Joshua’s presence constant. Her father seemed always to be just out of sight but sufficiently near to be aware of her every move.
Unless she could get a message to the young architect, he wouldn’t come. Perhaps it was as well that he didn’t; she found herself wanting to see him a little too much, and it worried her. Last year, she’d returned from London clear in her mind that her world needed no man. She certainly didn’t want to marry. She looked at the Pankhurst women – they led splendid lives, lives of power and excitement, and not a man in sight. And really, why should she want to see Aiden Kellaway so much, since she’d met him for a matter of minutes only? Yet she knew she did.
She was fascinated. He was like no other man she’d encountered: not the awkward boys at the few local dances she’d been permitted to attend, or the fulsome young men of the London Season with their smooth tongues and uncaring hearts. Aiden stood apart and his difference entranced her. She loved his misty green eyes, his soft brown hair, the lilt in his voice. Or was it his intelligence, the way he could cut through pretence and divine what was real, what was important? He was clever, that was certain, but it wasn’t that either. Was it then his enthusiasm for life? Or the sadness she’d glimpsed behind the things he didn’t say? Perhaps it was all those things.
She had drifted through the past few weeks wearing what she hoped was an impassive face, but all the time she’d been fighting a joy, that despite her best efforts, bubbled within. It was silly, ridiculous, but oddly liberating. Liberation, though, could play false, and her new sense of freedom might well end in disaster. If she doubted the danger, she had only to remember that the friendship with Aiden was not one she could admit to, let alone proclaim. She would do well to stay heart whole.
‘Come away from the window, my dear,’ Alice urged. ‘If you lack employment, why not work on your embroidery? It’s an age since you last took it up.’
She looked with dislike at the half-finished tablecloth tossed to one side. French knots and satin stitch had long ago lost their appeal and she couldn’t prevent an audible sigh.
‘What is it?’ Her mother was immediately anxious.
‘Nothing, Mama. I am a trifle tired, that’s all,’ she lied.
Alice was nested comfortably deep in the wing chair that was her favourite, but at this she put aside her crochet work and folded her hands in her lap. She is preparing to offer me unwanted advice, Elizabeth thought in irritation, but still she could not prevent a stab of pity. Her mother looked old and careworn beyond her years.
As a child, she had instinctively sided with her father. He’d been the one to pet her, to buy her the most expensive toys or take her to the most exciting places. Once, when they’d been living in Birmingham – though now she could hardly remember it – he’d taken her to a factory he owned. The noise of the machines had been like thunder in her ears but it was a thunder that produced miracles – the smallest, most beautiful buttons she had ever seen: tortoiseshell and jet, ivory and glass, silk and abalone, the latter hand-crafted from the fragile Macassar shells fished from East Indian seas. She still had a linen bag full of Joshua’s exquisite designs. No wonder she had thought him king of the world.
It was her mother who had been the enemy, who had made her do things she didn’t want to do, or stopped her from doing things she did: Pull up your stockings, Elizabeth; Smooth out your dress; stop running; sit quietly. For years, her mother’s unhappiness had barely touched her. Until lately. Lately, she had begun to realise just how much Alice had suffered.
She picked up the hated tablecloth, hoping to deter any homily, and had placed just one listless stitch when the door flew open and her father marched into the room. He was back already. The excursion to Worthing had been unusually swift and this visit to her mother’s morning room even more unusual – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him here. Almost certainly, there was more trouble brewing. She had a moment of panic, thinking someone had told him of the few meetings she’d had with Aiden, a chance observer that neither had noticed.
It was not the young architect, though, that was on her father’s mind, but Henry Fitzroy. Joshua strode across the room to glare down at his wife. At any moment, she thought, Alice might disappear from view, shrinking into the very fabric of the chair.
‘He’s coming, did you know that?’ When his wife did not answer, he raised his voice. ‘Henry Fitzroy. Your dear brother. He’s coming to the fête.’
‘That is surely good news,’ Alice said at last. There was only the slightest tremor to her voice.
‘And how do you come to that conclusion?’
‘If Henry attends, it will say he is happy for us to hold the fête. It will be an endorsement. An approval of Summerhayes.’
‘What kind of rubbish is that?’
Alice blinked. ‘It’s hardly rubbish. If Henry attends a fête that his family has hosted for centuries, he will recognise our right to be here, your right to create the gardens. Recognise that it’s just for us to take water from the stream.’
