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‘I said fetch a doctor!’ Alice yelled. ‘And give her some air. Don’t stand there, gawping!’
‘Let me through. And do as the young lady asks. I am a doctor. I’ll see to her, and the rest of you be away to your homes – at once!’
And not, if she lived to be a hundred and one, Alice thought fervently, would she forget her relief as the young man took off his hat and removed his gloves, then felt with sure, gentle fingers for the pulse at Julia’s wrist.
As if they had never been, the women were gone. Only the policemen remained, dusting down their uniforms, retrieving lost helmets, returning truncheons to back pockets.
‘Is there any need for you to stay, sergeant?’ the doctor asked quietly.
‘If you think she’s all right, doctor; not badly hurt, I mean?’
‘She’ll do, but I’d like to get her home and have a look at her. Do you know where she lives?’ he asked of Alice.
‘Yes, sir. Not far away – the other side of the park.’
‘Then if I could have the use of your – er – conveyance, officer, to get her there, I’d be obliged. I take it she isn’t under arrest?’
‘No. I’m prepared to look the other way this time.’
‘And when she comes round,’ Alice gasped, ‘I’m sure my young lady will be prepared to do the same.’
But it was all her fault, she admitted silently. She shouldn’t have pushed the big policeman quite so roughly, even though he’d been a threat to Miss Julia and the young mother. Oh, what a mess they were in, and when would Miss Julia open her eyes?
‘There now – that’s better,’ said the strange young man, who shifted and swayed into focus as Julia blinked open her eyes.
‘Who? Where …’
‘You are safely home, ma’am, and I am a doctor.’
‘Oh, my head …’ The room tilted, then righted itself. ‘And the blood!’
‘It’s all right, miss. It’s stopped, now.’ Alice whisked away the offending bowl and towel. ‘You hit you head – knocked yourself out, and the doctor had you brought here – in the police van.’
‘That poor woman,’ Julia fretted. ‘They’d no right … Was there any trouble?’
‘No trouble. I think Miss – er –’
‘Sutton,’ Julia supplied.
‘I think, Miss Sutton, that there was fault on both sides, so there’ll be nothing further said about it – this time.’
‘And the girl who threw the cricket ball?’
‘She scarpered, miss,’ Alice breathed. ‘Well, with the doctor wanting their carriage for you, there was nothing to cart her off in.’
‘Good. I’m glad she knocked his helmet off.’
‘Madam! You are completely without shame – but at least you appear to be recovering.’
‘Shame? Yes, I suppose I am.’ There was a silence as Julia looked, as if for the first time, into the face of her deliverer. Then, grasping the chair arms firmly, she rose unsteadily to her feet. ‘I am grateful to you, doctor, though I’m still not sure what happened.’
‘Nor I, Miss Sutton, though from a distance you appeared to take a flying leap at a policeman. Luckily I was there, though your injuries appear worse than they really are. The abrasion to your forehead, though slight, bled rather a lot, and you will have quite a bruise in the morning. I can well believe that your head aches, too.’
‘Aches!’ Alice whispered. ‘She went down with such a bang I’m surprised it’s still in one piece!’
‘Well, I think she’ll be all right now, with your help, Miss –’ He smiled.
‘Hawthorn, sir. I’m Miss Julia’s maid, and I’ll see to her.’
‘And you’ll call a doctor at once, should Miss Sutton develop a sudden feeling of sickness or coldness or clamminess of the skin. Is there a telephone in the house?’
‘There is, sir. But she will be all right?’
‘I’m almost certain she will. And take a powder if the headache prevents you from sleeping, ma’am.’
‘But where will we find you, if –’ Julia stammered.
‘I’m afraid I’m not on call, Miss Sutton. I’m not in general practice. I work at Bart’s. But your local doctor, perhaps …’
‘I’ve been a terrible trouble, haven’t I?’ Julia whispered contritely. ‘How can I thank you?’
‘By thinking no more about it. I’m only glad I was there in the park to – to get you out of trouble.’
Gravely, he made a small, polite bow; smiling, he left her.
‘Do you think he’s married?’ Julia demanded when Alice had handed him his hat and gloves and bobbed a curtsey before closing the front door behind him.
‘Married, miss? The doctor? Whatever put such a thought into your head?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I think it must be the bump to my forehead. And I don’t know why I’m making such a fuss, because I won’t ever see him again, will I? He didn’t even tell me his name.’
‘No, miss, he didn’t.’
‘Just my luck to meet someone like him, then find he isn’t interested,’ Julia whispered soberly.
‘Well, miss, the way I see it is this. Tonight you were his patient, so it wouldn’t have been proper for him to be interested, would it? And he didn’t need to tell you his name, because he gave me his card – just in case, he said – before he left. And if you’d like to know it says his name is Andrew MacMalcolm, and if you want my opinion I’d say definitely that he isn’t married.’
‘Isn’t?’
‘Not a chance. Married men have all their shirt buttons. Doctor MacMalcolm had two of his missing.’
‘He did?’ A smile lifted the corners of Julia’s mouth and a distinct sparkle lit her eyes.
‘Oh, yes. A sewing-maid always notices such things.’
‘Hawthorn! What a dear, clever person you are. Do you know, I’m really glad you came to London with me. It wouldn’t have been half as much fun with Mary or Bess. And I think I’ll go to bed now. It’s been a funny sort of day, hasn’t it, and all at once I’m a little tired. Be a dear, and untie my corset laces? I can manage on my own, if you’ll do that for me.’
All at once, Julia wanted to lie quietly in her bed and think about the young doctor and the height of him and the broadness of his shoulders – and those grey, thicklashed eyes – or were they green? – that laughed, even when he was scolding her.
‘I’ll do that,’ Alice smiled, ‘and when you’re settled down I’ll bring you up a drink of milk. And you won’t be cross with me in the morning, will you, when you find you’ve got a terrible ugly bruise?’
‘Of course not. Why should I be?’
‘Because it was my fault, really. All of a sudden I didn’t see why I shouldn’t join in too, and I gave that big policeman such a shove from behind, though if I’d known he’d land slap-bang on top of you I’d never have done it. I wouldn’t – honestly.’
‘Why, Hawthorn – and you pretending to be such a sober-sides! And I’m not the least bit cross with you.’
‘You’re not?’
‘Honestly. I’d even go so far as to say,’ Julia smiled, ‘that I wouldn’t have missed tonight for anything.’
Nor missed meeting Andrew MacMalcolm and gazing, bewildered, into those wonderful green – or were they grey? – eyes. And wanting, very much, to meet him again.
3 (#ulink_b80a5ca9-fe18-5c54-8061-e1dcc8047751)
Clementina Sutton’s heels tapped angrily across the floor. She had had enough, more than enough. This time Elliot had gone too far! She pulled on the bell handle, then pulled again. She was hurt and humiliated and near to tears. Debasing, it had been, and to hear it in such a way had been nothing less than mortifying.
How often, in the hope of an invitation, had she left her card at the home of Mrs Mounteagle; how many times had she been ignored – snubbed – and by a lady related by blood or marriage to half the gentry in the Riding. Yet this morning Mrs Mounteagle had finally acknowledged the existence of the mistress of Pendenys Place and had called, actually called, to a joyful reception.
Yet why had she come? Only to put her down; to humiliate Clementina Sutton. Not only to thrust in the knife of humiliation, but to turn it excruciatingly; to let it be known that Elliot was the subject of gossip of the worst possible kind and that his mother need only visit Creesby to learn the cause of it.
Then Mrs Mounteagle had risen to her feet and left at once. The coveted visit was over in less than four minutes and the lady had indicated, with the absence of even the slightest departing nod from her carriage window, that Clementina Sutton could never again expect to receive another call.
But this was the last time, the very last time she would brush Elliot’s affairs under the carpet. She would not be cheapened; not in Holdenby nor Creesby, nor anywhere! She began to pace the floor, eyes on the door, ears straining for the irritatingly unhurried step in the slateflagged corridor outside.
Below stairs, in the long, draughty passage where the bellboy spent his days sitting on a stool, the third bell in a row of twenty began its ringing and he was on his feet in an instant, hurrying to the kitchen.
‘Three,’ he called. ‘Number three!’ and the under-housemaid sighed, then ran to fetch the butler who had just taken his newspaper to his sitting-room and would bite her head off when she told him the breakfast-room bell was ringing.
It wasn’t as if, Clementina reasoned to her reflection in the wall mirror, there was any need for this kind of thing. Not hereabouts, anyway. Granted, young gentlemen always took their pleasures, and her own son was no exception. But not on their own doorstones; not where they were known. Elliot was a fool! Women in London were eager and willing, yet her son chose to pleasure himself not five miles away with the daughter of a butcher!
Her hand hovered over the bell handle, then fell to her side. He was coming, his tread measured, and he would open the door sedately, turn slowly to close it behind him with annoying quietness, then look down his nose and say, as he was saying now, ‘Mrs Sutton?’
‘What kept you?’ she hissed.
‘Madam?’ Didn’t she know a butler walked slowly; must never, ever, lose the dignity that years of butling for the quality – the quality, mark you – had bred into him, the dignity that rich Americans would pay good wages for, were he to put himself on offer.
‘Fetch me Mr Elliot!’
‘I will try to find –’
‘Now. This instant!’
He closed the door behind him, walking disdainfully, slowly, across the great hall – eighteen measured steps, it always took – to the door of the smoking-room, there to shatter the self-satisfaction of the young buck who would be filling it with the stink of Turkish tobacco.
She’d heard, then, about the butcher’s daughter? Did she, he wondered with distinct pleasure, know that the talk had reached Holdenby, too? My, but he’d like to be a fly on the breakfast-room ceiling, though they’d hear, like as not. Mrs Sutton in a fury could be heard the length of the house. Pausing briefly to remove all traces of smugness from his face, he drew a deep breath then opened the double doors with the aplomb of long practice.
‘Mrs Sutton asks that you join her in the breakfast-room,’ he murmured.
‘Oh, God.’ Elliot Sutton removed a leg from the chair arm. ‘What does she want now?’
‘The mistress did not tell me.’ But if I were you, laddie, I’d shift myself. He opened the doors wider, inclining his head as the young man slouched through them. And I wouldn’t be in your shoes for all the port in the cellar. Oh my word no – not if they threw in the Madeira, too!
‘Well?’ demanded Clementina of her son.
‘Well what?’
‘You know damn well, and don’t light a cigarette in here,’ she warned as his hand strayed to his inside breastpocket. ‘Creesby, that’s what. And stand up. I didn’t give you permission to sit!’
‘Oh – Maudie.’ He remained seated.
‘Maudie! I got told it this morning, and it wouldn’t surprise me if half the Riding doesn’t know, an’ all!’
‘Mother!’ He sucked air through his teeth, wincing at her directness. ‘Keep your voice down. Do you want the servants to hear?’
‘Hear? I’ll wager they know already. Aye, and the best part of Holdenby, as well.’ Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparked outrage. ‘Why can’t you take yourself off to London or to Leeds, even? Why must you shame me? This is going to cost me – but you know that, don’t you? It cost me plenty for your last brat!’
‘Mother!’ He lifted his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Must you talk like a fishwife?’ But then, every time Mama got into a rage she reverted to type. ‘Or a washerwoman …’
‘Damn you, boy!’ It was the ultimate insult. She lifted her hand and slammed it into his face. ‘And where ‘ud you be today, eh, if it hadn’t been for a washerwoman? Well, you can get out of this one yourself, because I’ll take no more of your arrogance! Pay her off out of your own pocket; I’m done with you. Done, I say!’
Tears spilled down her cheeks and not all Elliot’s sorries nor back-patting could stop the sobbing that could be heard all the way down the corridor and half-way across the great hall.
In the library, which was so vast that it needed two fireplaces to heat it, Edward Sutton laid down his pen as sounds of the confrontation in the room next door reached him.
Elliot, he sighed. Elliot upsetting his mother again so that the whole house would suffer for a week, at least. Why couldn’t Nathan have been their firstborn; that second son who would have made Pendenys a happier place, a home. Nathan was serious like himself, and in his final year at Cambridge; though what would be left for him afterwards but the Church, heaven only knew. But Nathan was a Sutton; Elliot was his mother’s son, and it would be to Elliot one day that Pendenys would pass, and Clementina’s influence would still be on him from far beyond the grave.
He looked around the ornate room, longing for the library at Rowangarth and the homeliness that once had wrapped him round. Rowangarth was where he’d been born, was still home to him. Pendenys was where he lived out his days.
A slamming door and hurrying footfalls caused him to close his eyes briefly. Elliot was in a rage, and soon Clementina would be here, pouring out her anger, pacing the floor, complaining about ‘your son’. Elliot was always his son, Edward smiled thinly, when he was in trouble, and his mother’s at all other times.
Well, this morning he would not take the backlash of her temper, be the whipping-boy for Elliot. He would walk to Rowangarth and be invited, hopefully, to lunch with his sister-in-law. Helen would be missing Julia and be glad of his company.
Julia. In London at his sister’s house and having the time of her young life, he shouldn’t wonder. Julia could have made a fine wife for Elliot, cousin or not, but she did nothing to hide her dislike of his elder son, and who could blame her? Julia, if she married into Pendenys, would be more inclined to Nathan, were she to choose, though that could never be. His second son had nothing to offer but kindness and goodness, and neither of those commendable graces paid bills.
Carefully he opened the long, low window. Like a schoolboy playing truant, he stepped out. Helen and Rowangarth would soothe him. Helen and Rowangarth always did.
Alice jabbed the last pin into the bun at the nape of her neck, then set her starched white cap primly upon it. Her hair, she supposed, was quite nice, though it went its own way at the sides and front and curled where it fancied and never, despite her efforts, where she wanted it to. But this was eight o’clock on a bright spring morning, and the whole of London was beckoning. Smiling, she picked up the tray.
‘Mornin’, miss,’ she called, drawing back the curtains. ‘Here’s a nice cup of – oh, my goodness!’
‘Hawthorn?’ Julia’s fingers moved reluctantly to her forehead. ‘Is it …?’
‘It is.’ There would be no covering that up with vanishing cream and face powder. ‘Your eye, an’ all. What on earth do we tell her ladyship?’ she whispered, reaching for the hand mirror.
‘That I tripped and fell, of course.’ Critically, Julia surveyed the bruising.
‘With a big fat policeman on top of you?’
