скачать книгу бесплатно
‘One particular young doctor,’ Julia laughed. ‘So are you going to be on my side, Hawthorn? Are you going to help me and never, ever, say so much as a word about him until I say you can?’
‘I’m on your side, miss. I’ll never ever tell on you and anyway, it isn’t likely you’ll ever meet him again, is it?’
‘Never again? Oh, Hawthorn!’
She smiled, and all at once the bruises didn’t seem to matter, because all at once Julia Sutton was beautiful, just like Mrs Shaw said she would be if only she’d let herself.
‘See him again!’ Alice gasped. Oh, my Lor’. Miss Julia was in love!
Elliot Sutton left the house by the conservatory door, walking quickly across the croquet lawn, making for the kitchen garden and the birch wood that lay beyond it. He should, he thought viciously, have brought a gun. He felt like blasting at something; felt like killing. But there was no shooting until August – only vermin, and that was for keepers.
Moodily, he kicked at a cobble. He was sick of Holdenby; sick of Mama who held her Ironmaster’s money over him, an ever-present threat. But she’d never leave it to Nathan, his holier-than-thou brother, though she’d said, more than once, that she would.
He could never be sure of his mother; never certain when she would open her mouth and let him down. Most times, of course, she carried her corn well, but when angered or defiant, her Pendennis temper showed through and her Pendennis tongue too.
This morning, he thought with savage disdain, she had screeched at him like a fishwife, showing a side to her not all the iron gold in the world had been able to breed out. There was a defiance about her that screamed, ‘All right, my fine aristocrats – so you’ve got the breeding, but I’ve got the brass, and don’t ever forget it!’
He was ashamed of her, of his own mother; ashamed of the half of him that came from trade, even though his other half – his Sutton blood – was without equal. It was a pity his father could hardly bear to be in the same room with him, let alone treat him like a son to be proud of, because he, Elliot, was tall and handsome, and charming too, when he needed to be, and could get any woman he wanted with no effort at all. He was rich as well, and would be richer one day, so why did everyone seem to prefer his younger brother? Why did Julia show preference for Nathan when she knew he’d end up a parson, with nothing in his favour but his sick-making goodness?
But Albert had had the right idea. Albert had found himself a well-heeled old woman – and the best of luck to him! His youngest brother had struck it rich, and lived a life of luxury in the best hotels and on the most luxurious liners in the world. Clever young Albert!
Elliot climbed the boundary fence, making for the rising ground and Holdenby Pike. There would be a wind up there, even in May, that would blow away his black mood. Up there he could look down on Pendenys Place and wonder how long before it was his; could wonder, even, what it was like to bed an old woman, for his brother’s wife must be well into her forties. Did Albert, on such occasions, close his eyes and think of the money that would one day be his? Come to that, would he, Elliot, have to close his eyes too when he wed the ugly daughter of a penniless peer, and think instead of Maudie’s soft, warm lips, her small, round breasts, her eager thighs?
He wished, sometimes, that he belonged to the working class and could marry any Maudie he pleased, but the working classes had to work, it was as simple as that. He would marry fairly soon, he supposed; some simpering, well-bred virgin bitch with more titles to her pedigree than was decent. She might even have one in her own right. Mama would like that; she’d envy it, but still she’d like it.
But there would be no title for Elliot Sutton. That had eluded him. All Mama’s money had failed to buy the knighthood she so desperately wanted for her husband – to pass down to her son, of course. The Garth Suttons had that. Cousin Robert, just one year older, had inherited the baronetcy at twenty-four, then hared it back to Assam to his precious tea garden. And even supposing Robert never married, never got a son, then Giles would inherit the title. It would remain at Rowangarth for another three hundred years, like as not. Only if his cousins were to vanish from the face of the earth would his father get lucky.
God! Imagine Mama; Lady Clementina at last! She’d be good for a touch, then; would even forgive him his Maudies, provided he kept them quiet and didn’t rock the boat. Yet it would never be, he knew it. The Garth Suttons would hang on to what they had. Though they were nowhere as well-off as the Suttons at the Place, they had the esteem of the entire Riding, which was better than riches.
Temper spent, he flung himself down on the grass, lit a cigarette, then gazed down on Pendenys. He felt badly done by, and bored, misunderstood and miserable. He would go to London, keep out of Mama’s way until the edge had worn off her temper. His allowance had just been paid into the bank – where better to spend it?
Or maybe Leeds? Mama had said it, hadn’t she? Take yourself off to London, or Leeds even. Maybe she was right. Women were cheaper there, easier to find. The better-class whores frequented the music halls; were always available in the promenade area at the rear of the theatre. Buy one a drink and a deal was struck almost before she’d had time to say, ‘Cheers, young squire!’
He would go to Leeds. Now. He could be there before dark if he shifted himself. For once, he’d do exactly as he was told.
‘You look lovely, Miss Julia.’ She did. Really, really beautiful. And not just the long dress nor the pink shoes peeping out beneath it, nor the hat. She was beautiful all over; her eyes, her smile – even the way she walked. And all because of Andrew MacMalcolm.
‘You’d better take this.’ Alice offered a parasol.
‘Oh, no. I won’t need a sunshade.’
‘You take it. Never know who you might meet. You can always hide behind it if you have to.’
‘But why should I hide? You’ll be with me, all perfectly correct …’
‘No, miss. I shall come with you as far as the bandstand and wait with you, till he comes. Then I shall have to excuse myself. There’ll be the tea to see to and things to do and I’ll expect you –’
‘Hawthorn! You darling; you absolute love!’ She grasped Alice’s hands and swung her round in a little dance. ‘I promise I’ll be good. I will.’
‘And you’ll be back here at half-past three, prompt, for tea,’ Alice ordered grimly, “cos if you aren’t, I’ll come looking for you, and I mean it!’
‘Then I promise we shall be – word of a Sutton. But what if he doesn’t come? What if something goes wrong and he’s needed at the hospital and we wait and wait …’
‘Then the bandstand is the best place to be, isn’t it, because we can sit there as if we’re waiting for the music to begin and nobody’ll know that – well – he’s –’
‘Left me in the lurch.’
‘Exactly. But he won’t, so take your parasol and let’s be off. Don’t want him waiting there, thinking you’re not coming, now do we?’
He was waiting. He was there, looking handsomer than ever, and his smile as he walked to meet them set Julia’s heart thudding deliciously.
‘Miss Sutton. Miss Hawthorn.’ He raised his hat, giving each a small, polite bow, and Alice could see why Julia Sutton had fallen head over heels, because if it hadn’t been for Tom she could, quite easily, have done the same.
‘Shall we walk, ladies, or shall we listen to the concert? The choice is yours.’
‘I thank you, sir, but I find,’ Alice said primly, trying to say it as Miss Clitherow would, respectful yet genteel, ‘I find I’m not able to accept your kind offer. I – I have things to do, but the kettle will be on,’ she looked directly at her employer, an eye to eye gaze that allowed for no misunderstanding, ‘at three-thirty, if you’re of a mind to take tea.’
‘Then I thank you, ma’am.’ Andrew MacMalcolm tipped a finger to his hat, his face serious, his eyes bright with merriment. ‘And I shall take good care of Miss Sutton and bring her safely home on the dot of half-past three.’
‘Thank you, sir. Bid you good day, then.’ For no reason she was sure of, but maybe because her warning had been a little too blunt, she bobbed a curtsey which put her back in her place again, and made everything all right.
‘Isn’t she a dear?’ Julia smiled as they watched her walk away.
‘You’re fond of her, aren’t you?’
‘Very fond.’
‘And she of you, Miss Sutton. It’s easy to see.’
‘Hawthorn is fond of the whole wide world,’ Julia laughed, ‘She’s in love – walking out seriously.’
‘And you? Are you walking out?’
‘No. I’m a free spirit, doctor.’ But don’t ask me if I’m in love, for I couldn’t look at you and say I wasn’t.
‘Then shall we listen, or shall we walk?’ Gravely he offered his arm. It was the wrong arm, for when she took it, she realized that every time he turned to look at her, her bruised and puffy eye would gaze up at him like a blot on the landscape of her adoration.
‘How do you feel today?’ He asked it as if he could read her thoughts. ‘Is your eye less painful?’
‘Almost no pain at all.’ She withdrew her hand from the crook of his arm and touched it with anxious fingers. ‘But oh, isn’t it a sight?’
‘I’ve seen worse,’ he smiled, taking her hand, tucking it gently back. ‘Much, much worse …’
‘Oh, Hawthorn.’ Eyes closed, Julia swayed back and forth in the kitchen rocker. ‘What am I to do? Two days more, then we’ll be on our way home. Two days, that’s all.’
‘Did he ask you?’ Carefully Alice wrapped the remainder of the cherry cake in greaseproof paper and returned it to the tin. ‘To meet him again, I mean.’
‘Yes. Tomorrow – same place – but after that there’ll only be one day and he hasn’t kissed me yet; hasn’t even called me Julia and I don’t –’
‘Hasn’t kissed you? Indeed I should think not! For him to try wouldn’t be right, and for you to let him would be common – first time, that is. Second time, an’ all. My Tom didn’t kiss me for ages.’
‘But you and Tom had – have – all the time in the world, and we haven’t. He’ll be in London and I’ll be miles and miles away and not knowing when we’ll meet again; not knowing, even, if we’ll be able to write to each other.’
‘You can always have his letters sent to me, though there might be talk about them, so I’d have to tell Tom. But why shouldn’t you write to each other openly?’
‘Because we haven’t been properly introduced. What do you think my mother would say? She wouldn’t like it at all. Mind,’ she frowned, ‘when next I go to London I could tell Mama that Aunt Sutton had introduced us and that would make it all right. Aunt Sutton would do it for me, I know she would. But what do I do in the meantime?’
‘We’ll think of something, though I still think you should tell her ladyship everything – right from the start.’
‘And land you in bad grace, Hawthorn? No, we’ll have to be careful; very careful. And anyway,’ she whispered, her face suddenly sad, ‘who’s to say he’ll want to write to me?’
‘He’ll want to. I know he will. But one day at a time, eh? And you haven’t told me where you went nor what you talked about.’
‘I know.’ And she did so want to talk about him. She wanted to tell the entire Mews that Julia Sutton was in love; climb to the top of Holdenby Pike and shout it out to the whole of the Riding. ‘But will you come upstairs and untie me? I feel so jumpy, so anxious, and these corsets are getting tighter and tighter. Be a dear, then I’ll put on a wrap and I’ll tell you all.’
She let go a sigh of relief as Alice untied the knot and eased open the back lacing of the torturous garment. ‘I swear that when we have the vote and can send a lady to Westminster, I shall agitate for an Act to be passed, outlawing corsets. I will!’
‘Oh, miss – you and your votes. Now get into your wrap and pop your feet into something more comfortable, then tell me all about it. All. Nothing missed out.’
And because she was so besotted, so suddenly, shiningly in love, Julia did just that. In truth there was nothing about their meeting which could be deemed shocking – other than meeting a young man unintroduced and unchaperoned, that was. But oh, the delight of it all: the brilliance of the sun, the most beautiful, sweetly scented flowers she had ever seen or smelled; even the London park-sparrows were the cheekiest, the most endearing little birds in the whole world.
‘And Andrew – Doctor MacMalcolm – told me about Scotland, where he was born, and how hard he’d had to work to become a doctor because he did it all on scholarships, Hawthorn, and but for the money an aunt left him, he couldn’t even have bought the books he needed, let alone eat.
‘His father was a miner, you see; injured at the pit. He suffered a lot before he died. Then his mother took consumption and she died too. There was only his aunt left after that. She wasn’t well off, but she gave him her savings. He’s very sad she died before he qualified. She would have been so proud of him.’
‘Proud. Yes.’ And Miss Julia’s doctor had no one, no background, except that of a miner’s son who had risen by his own efforts.
‘He can’t afford his own practice, either. Not for years will he be able to – not even buy himself a partnership. But he’s a brilliant physician, Hawthorn.’
‘He said so?’
‘No, of course he didn’t. But I know he is. Life’s very unfair, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’ Alice offered daisy-printed satin-quilted slippers. Unfairer than she knew, because how was the daughter of a baronet ever to be allowed to marry the son of a man who had dug coal? The world she lived in didn’t, wouldn’t, allow it.
‘He was determined to be a doctor – after both his parents had suffered so. And, Hawthorn, he believes that women should have the vote – well, responsible women, that is.’
‘Then it couldn’t be better, could it?’ Alice poured water into the papier mâché bowl kept especially for the washing-up of the best china, adding cold water and flaked soap, concentrating hard on making it into a sud so she might think, uninterrupted. Because what Miss Julia had just told her was what she wanted least to hear. Not that the young doctor wasn’t the worthiest of gentlemen, but wouldn’t it have been better for all concerned if he’d found himself a nice, genteel nurse to marry? Such a woman would have made a better wife for a young physician on his climb to the top. How could he ever hope to support the daughter of a gentleman? And would he be acceptable, even if he could?
Mind, Mrs Clementina had come from trade, and she had married into the gentry; Alice supposed trade was all right. Anything was all right if it brought money into the family. But the doctor could barely support himself, it seemed, let alone a wife. Doctor MacMalcolm had nothing to commend him at all but ambition and good looks, she sighed. Yet folk didn’t choose where to love; not penniless young physicians nor young society ladies, it seemed, and oh, deary me, what had Miss Julia gone and done?
‘Hawthorn?’ Julia snapped her fingers. ‘You were miles away. Thinking about Dwerryhouse, were you?’
‘No, miss. If you want the truth I was thinking that Doctor MacMalcolm having no family, so to speak, and having no means yet of supporting a wife, changes things a lot. Once, I thought it would be best if you told her ladyship all, hoping she would understand. But him having nothing, so to speak, even if there’s all credit due to him for getting to be a doctor, won’t go down well with her ladyship. Now I’m beginning to wish I’d been more firm; hadn’t let you –’
‘Hawthorn – nothing you could have said or done would have made a scrap of difference. I told you that one day I would meet the man I wanted to marry, and two days ago I met him. And it’s all right. Whatever happens, I won’t involve you. I’ll just have to find a way out of it – or round it, won’t I? And I will.’
‘Then I wish you luck, I really do. Tomorrow, when you meet him, you will be careful? You won’t make any promises or get any hare-brained schemes into your head, will you?’
‘I’ll go carefully, I promise you.’
She would have to, she thought, for so much was at stake that one wrong move, one wrong word even, could be the end of it for them both, and that could not, must not, happen. And she would go carefully, because Andrew MacMalcolm was the man she wanted to marry. She had known it yesterday when he opened his door to her, and no one else would do.
Andrew, or no one.
Alice pulled out the oven damper, then gave her full attention to the scones she was baking. She had been unable to get to shop to buy a cake, and since Miss Julia couldn’t offer the cherry cake again – to offer a cut-into cake would suggest they were nothing short of poverty-stricken – she had left a note asking the milkman for cream. This afternoon they would eat fresh scones with cream and jam, though to be truthful, neither would notice if she served a slice from yesterday’s loaf, gone stale.
Oh, miss, she mourned, sniffing the milk to make sure it was good and sour – only sour milk for scones, Mrs Shaw always said – why did you have to go and fall in love? No, that wasn’t what she meant, for every woman had the right to fall in love. What she really meant, she supposed, was why had she fallen in love with someone she could never be wed to. Because it wouldn’t do; it really wouldn’t. Doctoring was the most desirable of professions, but when it didn’t come hand in hand with money, then there was nothing more to be said.
It was then, and for the first time, that Alice acknowledged how very fortunate she was. Fortunate to be a nobody, to have nothing, and no one to forbid her marriage to Tom, save an aunt who wouldn’t care if she wed the midden-man. And how very fortunate that Tom loved her in spite of the fact that she had nothing; loved her for herself – his buttercup girl.
‘Tom,’ she whispered to the rolling-pin. ‘I’m glad that in two days’ time I shall be getting off that train back home.’ Glad she’d be taking Morgan for his afternoon walk and that Tom would be there. And he would tilt her chin with his fingertip and bend and kiss her. Tom, her love. Thomas Dwerryhouse, whom one day she would marry. For they could wait. They had all the time in the world – not like Miss Julia and her doctor, because after today they might never meet again.
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ she muttered, flouring the rolling-pin. And who, she demanded with amazement, would ever have thought that the day would dawn when she would pity Julia Sutton. Because she did. She pitied her something awful.
Julia walked slowly, her hand in Andrew MacMalcolm’s, speaking little, for there seemed nothing more important than being together. Their talking had been done, their plans made, promises asked and given.
‘After today, Andrew,’ she had used his name without thinking because it was beautiful to say, ‘I won’t be able to meet you. Tonight, Aunt Sutton’s maid returns from Bristol, and my aunt will make the overnight crossing and be in London before Hawthorn and I leave.’
‘So it’s goodbye, for a while.’
‘For as short a while as I can make it,’ she had whispered, knowing she was being forward, yet being so only because there was so little time. ‘I shall come back as soon as I can, but I shall tell Aunt Sutton about you and you must leave your card at her house. And I’ll beg her to receive you so she can say to my mother that she knows you, and approves.’
‘She’ll approve, do you think?’ He smiled down and she smiled back, without embarrassment. ‘She’ll take a wee rubber approval stamp and plonk it right in the middle of my forehead and that’ll make it all right?’
‘No, but it’s the way it’s got to be, so we must accept it.’
‘Why must we,’ he asked softly, ‘and, come to that, why must it be?’
‘Because –’ She glanced up quickly, alarmed, but saw no rancour, nothing in his face to warrant her fear. To him, she supposed, it was as simple as being in love, because he was in love, too; she knew it. ‘Because – well – that’s the way we do it. Being properly introduced, and all that sort of thing.’
‘But, Julia, you and I weren’t introduced, yet here we are, miserable because we’re parting, wanting to see each other again, both of us –’ He stopped, asking the question with his eyes.
‘Both of us knowing we might fall in love?’
‘Have fallen in love, and against all the rules and conventions. We know all we need to know about each other; that my father dug coal and your father burned it; that I am a good physician and intend to be even better; that you and I met three days ago and knew –’
‘Just as my parents knew,’ she whispered.
‘Aye – that we were right for each other and that we must be back, soon, or your Hawthorn will be glaring at the clock, thinking I’ve run off with you.’
They had turned then, and retraced their steps, and because she did not at once place her hand back in his, he reached for it, holding it tightly for several seconds before he tucked her arm in his own.
‘How old are you, Andrew?’ She knew so much about him, yet so little.
‘I’ll be twenty-six in August.’
‘And I shall be twenty-one, soon.’
