A Time for Courage (26 page)

But now Lady Wilmot was speaking to her and Arthur was smiling as his mother talked, leaning back in his chair and drinking his wine, as Hannah pulled herself back into the room and replied.

‘Yes, it really was a beautiful part of the country, though I found it a little cold around the ice store.’

She heard his laugh and looked at him, beginning to laugh too and his mother did also. Her limbs felt looser still.

She nodded as Lady Wilmot spoke again; her voice was kind, her eyes soft. She looked at the candles, at their flickering flames and then back to the flowers, the paintings, the people, and knew the value of letting go, even if it were only for two days.

And so the lamb gave way to Apple Charlotte and slowly she heard the fire crackling again and caught the smell of the candles, heard Harry laughing and Sir Edward wondering if there would be snow tomorrow and she hoped there would. Fresh and white and clean for miles and miles and she looked at Arthur again and he smiled.

‘Russian caviare, my dear,’ said Lady Wilmot.

The shape was sharp and strong. The grapes which were served afterwards were firm and fresh and the colour of the leaves which were budding on the pear tree. Was Mother all right, was the thought that snatched at her again.

‘They’re from the vine which we saw in the conservatory,’ Arthur told her, his smile back, his eyes unclouded, and she turned from the swaying pear tree back to this flickering room. ‘The head gardener cuts them on a long stem and leaves them for as long as needed in water and charcoal.’

He plucked one from the stem which lay on his plate. His fingers were strong and wet with juice. He sucked it and his lips were full and would taste of grapes if he kissed her now.

And then Hannah heard Esther. ‘You should ask Hannah to tell you what good works she does on her Sundays.’

Hannah looked round sharply, seeing Harry turn also. Lord Wilmot was sitting back in his seat holding his claret between him and the candelabra, narrowing his eyes as he swirled the glass to catch the light. Esther was tapping his arm with her fan.

‘Now, that is something I thoroughly approve of,’ said Lord Wilmot, his voice emphatic, his speech slightly slurred with too much wine. ‘Women going about doing their charitable duty. That’s the way it’s always been, that’s the way it should be. A bit of charity to the deserving poor.’ He stabbed his finger down the table towards Hannah. ‘The deserving poor, mind you.’

Hannah smiled and nodded at him, and then at Esther. Why do you do it, Esther, Hannah wanted to ask. Leave things alone. And what do you mean by the deserving poor, she wanted to shout at the fat Lord who was busy feeding his two chins. She looked across at Harry, her anger showing until he met her gaze with a question in his eyes, and she dropped hers again.

Lord Wilmot was louder now and his wife said. ‘Not now, dear.’

But he continued. ‘That’s the way things should be. All this change is a downright crime. Now that those damnable Liberals have had that election landslide they think they can bring in a clutch of do-gooding reforms when good little women like Hannah have been looking after things quite nicely enough for all these years. You’d think the King would put his foot down but he’s too busy enjoying himself these days.’

Hannah continued to look at her plate because she knew that Harry was looking at her, willing her to meet his eyes.

‘Have another glass of wine, Sir Edward,’ Arthur offered, gesticulating to the butler. ‘Father, would you care for one too?’ He looked across at Hannah and raised his eyebrows and she shook her head. She doubted that he could distract his father.

Sir Edward spoke now. ‘Just one more glass please, my boy.’ Then he turned to Lord Wilmot. ‘You’re quite right of course, David, old boy. It is just damned nonsense to give out old age pensions and bring in National Insurance when what we need are more Dreadnoughts. It’s no good launching just one, they need a fleet to compete with the one the Kaiser’s building up.’ He was leaning forward and Hannah could not see past him.

‘Quite right,’ she heard Lord Wilmot call down the table. ‘Specially after that charade in Morocco when the popinjay Kaiser went parading for all the world as though he thought to challenge the French and our alliance. Damnation, that Lloyd George is a menace. Doesn’t he realise we’ve got to show that we’re up to any nonsense the Germans might care to throw our way. Anyway, the workhouse has always been quite adequate up to now.’

And Hannah sat quite still, seeing Joe at the reins of the cart, seeing Bernie at the door of his cottage, feeling the wind and the spongy moor; seeing the Sunday women who were so tired and ill and who might also go to the workhouse. But no, and she wrapped the napkin round her fingers so that it was too tight and her bones were pushed one against the other. No, she must stay calm, she must not give herself away. She kept the napkin pulled tight.

‘The workhouse is not ideal,’ she heard herself say, but quietly, and only Sir Edward heard and turned to her.

‘But, my dear, not for you or I of course, but the poor are different. They don’t feel things the way we do.’ His smile was kind and his breath heavy with wine now and she wanted to lift him and drag him down to the matchmaker’s room and make him see, for isn’t that what Joe had done with her? But no, she must not think of him now; he was gone.

Arthur was looking at her, his eyebrows raised and a quizzical smile twisting his face. Harry had heard the conversation too but merely looked at her, his face expressionless. She turned back to Lord Wilmot who was talking, his voice loud.

‘Well, if Lloyd George thinks the House of Lords is going to approve any budget which wants to tax the landowners in order to pay for his bits of nonsense, he’s got another think coming. Good God, the world’s going quite mad.’

The servants were removing the wine now and Lady Wilmot was waiting to withdraw the ladies. Conversation had begun again around the loud voice of the host but again he broke in.

‘And as for these Pankhurst women and the trouble they cause; it’s an absolute disgrace.’ He pointed his finger at Hannah again and she felt herself stiffen. ‘We need more like you. Good sense of duty.’

Hannah saw Esther begin to smile and now she allowed the anger to rise in her at the opulence of this house, the ignorance of its people, at the endless handbills, the tame constitutional lobbying of the suffragists, at the government imprisoning the suffragettes on grounds of assault when they stamped on policemen’s feet. Words hot and angry began to form in her mind and she wound the napkin round, tighter still. She looked up and saw Harry watching her again and as her rage seemed to leap across the space between them she saw him shake his head at her sharply and begin to speak.

Did he know what she had wanted to say? How could he know after all these years of not seeing her, not hearing her? She held the napkin tighter still but listened as he said, ‘This will all seem very far away next month when I’m on the ship.’ He looked back at her again. ‘But there should be quite a few Cornish hard-rock miners to keep me company once I arrive.’

Hannah looked from him to Lord Wilmot, who looked confused at the turn of the conversation though Lady Wilmot took it up immediately.

‘A good life-style, too, I should think.’

‘Yes, indeed. All those blacks to wait on you,’ Harry said, looking at Hannah. Thinking that now she could vent her anger on something that was further away from home because he was beginning to realise that the private Hannah was no different at all from the Hannah he had grown up with, and that indeed she had a secret, and one that he thought he knew.

‘They’re slaves,’ Hannah retorted, leaping at the chance to voice an anger which was truly meant but which would not endanger her work or her hopes. ‘That war was fought to give taxpaying foreigners the same rights as the Boers – but what about the natives?’

She was keeping her voice flat, her body still, but her eyes looked directly into Harry’s now and he saw the anger, the fire, and he was glad.

Sir Edward shook his head, his voice kind. ‘Now then, my dear, how can you have rights for people who are basically unequal? That would be mere sentimentality.’

Arthur was leaning back in his chair, his eyes lazily watching her.

‘But why are they unequal? It is their land.’ Hannah still kept her voice quiet and flat.

Lord Wilmot interjected now. ‘Because we beat them. It’s as simple as that. Think of that Darwin you young people are so fond of quoting. It’s the survival of the fittest, isn’t it? They weren’t fit to win, therefore they deserve nothing better.’

Harry lifted his glass and drained it. He glanced at Hannah and smiled, and she knew, as the conversation started around her, that her brother had understood as he had once done and had arranged an opportunity for her to release some of her rage without doing damage to her cause, and for a moment the blank space in her was filled.

The guests arrived for the dance at eleven o’clock. Musicians had not been hired because Arthur wanted to use his new gramophone. He pulled Hannah over to the table which held the wooden box with its convolvulus horn of blue and gold. He turned the handle until he could turn it no more and Hannah watched his face as he pressed his lips together, watching his shoulders as they moved beneath his jacket. He turned the handle until there was a click and then a sound like something breathing; the black circle revolved and Arthur’s steady hand placed the needle on the edge of the disc. As the music rose he took her hand and they drew together.

His arm was round her now and his breath was in her hair and on her neck and as they danced and whirled around his leg touched hers and her body sometimes swung against him.

‘I’m sorry about my father,’ he said. ‘He is so old-fashioned and behind the times.’

She was glad he was there, for she needed someone to hold her and laugh with her and so they danced until their feet were sore and champagne was brought in silver ice-buckets. At one in the morning his parents retired, together with Sir Edward Franks and his wife. Then they danced again and this time Arthur held her tightly and as they neared the curtains which shielded the conservatory he bent and kissed her neck.

He danced her close to the curtain and then through into the dark of the cold glass room with its hanging ivy, its jasmine, which was in bud in this cold spring, and they no longer danced but kissed and the taste of grapes was no longer there.

She held his head between her hands, seeing the oat-coloured hair against her skin, the width of his shoulder, sensing the power in his back, his arms, his legs.

She felt his breath as he talked. ‘I need you and love you, Hannah. You are good for me. You don’t ask too much of me. We are well suited, my dear, both strong, both independent, both undemanding, and my parents do so approve of you. One day we should marry but, as you know, I cannot until I am thirty. Let’s have fun while we wait.’ His mouth was on her eyes, her cheeks, his lips soft, his hands holding her arms. Hannah looked out at the dark night which was dimly lit by the cold distant moon and nodded calmly. She had known somehow that this would happen and it would be good to have Arthur’s easy, laughing company while she waited. And waited. And waited.

The horses had collected at the front of the house, stamping and tossing their heads, responding slowly to their red- and black-coated riders. The morning was crisp and there had been a light fall of snow in the night. Hannah sat side-saddle on her roan mare, black-coated, breathing deeply, glad to be away from the dining-room which had smelt of port and cigars from the night before. Arthur brought his hunter up close. It was arching its neck and she could hear the clink of the bit as the horse chewed and worried it.

‘You’ll be fine on that mare,’ Arthur said, leaning down to take a glass of hot punch from the silver tray that one of the maids was bringing to each rider. His red coat made his hair seem paler.

‘I hope so,’ replied Hannah, taking the warm glass from him, smelling the nutmeg, seeing condensation on the leather of her gloved finger.

‘There are about twenty of the hunt here now. Sir Edward will be sounding the horn in a moment, so drink up. Just follow, come at your own pace.’ Arthur turned and looked over the snow-covered grounds and then the distant hills. ‘You won’t lose us, all this red against all that white.’ He laughed and pointed with his riding crop, silver-headed and stamped with the family crest.

Red against white, Hannah thought, turning her thoughts aside from the words, pushing back the flight of the fox and the hounds that were baying. Thinking instead of the red of lobster against white meat, the red of a cricket ball against Arthur’s hand, the red of Joe’s blood against his skin. She shook her head. No, not that.

The maid stood by her horse, her hand lifted to take the glass and Hannah drank it in two gulps, feeling the sharp heat.

‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling as she bent down.

Arthur was talking to Esther who was reining in to his other side, her riding crop held firmly in her gloved hand, her hair netted and glistening under the black top hat. She laughed at his words, craning forward to tell Hannah.

‘He says the language should be better now that we’re along. Such a shame, darling, we could have learnt a few words to scream at Miss Fletcher’s children.’

Hannah laughed and Arthur put his hand on hers. ‘Don’t take the fences if you don’t feel confident. Go round by the gates. I’d rather see that than see you hurt, my dear.’

Sir Edward was moving towards the front of the riders and the horn began to blow and the hounds to bay and they were off, trotting first, the snow deadening the sound of moving horses as they left the house and followed the drive down through to the open ground. There were riders each side of her. Arthur tipped his crop against his hat and moved forward at Sir Edward’s request. Esther rode well, sitting comfortably, her face alight with excitement. She turned to Hannah.

‘This is so wonderful. To be this rich, to live this life.’

Hannah nodded. ‘Yes, it must be very easy.’ She kept her voice low and wished that Esther would also, because Harry was behind them and he was not rich, he could not offer Esther this life, and Hannah feared for him; but now the horses were into open country and the trot became a canter, the canter a gallop. The field stretched out and Hannah loosened the reins and let the mare have her head, feeling the wind as it rushed past, seeing the snow in drifts against the dry-stone wall, loving the speed, the freedom. Harry kept to the back of the field, holding in his hunter, not letting it get the bit between its teeth. He watched Esther as she lifted her head into the wind, following with his eyes and his heart as she took the low wall, leaning forward, urging her horse on.