Christina Hollis (21 page)

With that she swept past him, up the pretty red staircase and on to her room without a backward glance.

Madeleine did not see him again all day. It had pained her to turn him down, but she knew there could have been no lasting happiness for either of them through one brief, forbidden assignation.
        The usual shopping trip next morning started in almost unbearable silence. Neither Philip nor Madeleine had much to say to Mistress Constance, and nothing to say to each other. When they reached Bath, Philip was all too eager to go about his own business, Madeleine noticed. He must have thought of some diversion and found enough cash for it, she thought ruefully.

He did not look at Madeleine as he left them, which she took as a sign of his guilty conscience. At his mother’s insistence he did at least make a grudging agreement to meet them for coffee and cakes at three o’clock, then disappeared into the milling crowds.

As bad luck would have it, at two minutes to three Mistress Constance was still weighing the virtues of sprigged muslin against those of watered silk.

Madeleine was daydreaming as usual, and looking out of the window. All at once she saw the tall figure of Philip strolling towards the coffee-shop nearest the abbey. He was engrossed in conversation—with Kitty and Mr Pettigrew.

‘Perhaps we had better hurry, madame. Master Philip is already on his way...’

‘Oh, wouldn’t you know it?’ Mistress Constance sighed with regret. ‘And just as I was beginning to enjoy myself. Go and fetch him, Madeleine. Perhaps I should have given him the benefit of the doubt after all—his dress sense might have improved. If not, he can amuse us with his dull tastes!’

Madeleine didn’t need to be asked twice. She had been waiting for the chance to talk to Kitty, and this was it. Slipping out of the shop, she crossed the abbey courtyard to where Philip was being leaned against by Kitty in a most familiar fashion.

‘Master Philip?’ Madeleine bobbed a curtsy to the group.

‘Ah, little Madeleine!’ Albert Pettigrew sweated at her with a smirk that made her shrink. ‘Looking a treat, eh, Philip?’

Philip looked at him as though that was not quite the right thing to say in Kitty’s presence, and quickly changed the subject.

‘We were discussing the forthcoming entertainment, mademoiselle.’ He spoke to the passing pigeons, and certainly not to Madeleine. ‘I was relating the time and trouble it has taken to find you a suitable outfit—’

‘Oh, I never have that trouble.’ Kitty squinted up at him prettily in the sunshine. ‘I can always seem to put my finger on exactly what I want first time, can’t I, Papa?’

‘Of course, my little pet.’ Pettigrew closed in on Madeleine, taking her arm and the opportunity to admire her decolletage at the same time. ‘Gets her good taste from her mother, I reckon. What d’you say, miss?’

He surreptitiously tweaked the thin skin of Madeleine’s inner arm. Wondering what the reaction would be if she felled Pettigrew with a quick rabbit punch, Madeleine decided it was probably not worth the candle. Instead she fluttered and flustered and simpered coyly, saying, why, wasn’t Mr Pettigrew himself the very model of quite unique taste? Everyone laughed, whether genuinely or not, and this gave Madeleine a chance to turn the conversation.

‘I was hoping that Miss Kitty might come and look in the shop with me.’ She smiled first at Philip, then Kitty. Kitty opened her mouth as though to refuse, then realised that her proposed escort was gently detaching himself from her.

‘A splendid idea,’ Philip said, his next move being to prise Madeleine’s arm from Pettigrew’s grasp and hand it to Kitty.

Outflanked but unwilling to sulk in front of Adamson and her father, Kitty pursed her lips and linked arms with Madeleine. They set off to the drapers, with the men close behind.

Madeleine did not find keeping close order with Kitty a particularly pleasant sensation. The girl would only take silly, mincing little steps, and tended to hang heavily on Madeleine’s arm like some sort of unlucky charm. Soft and pink and white, Kitty reminded Madeleine of the little tea-time marshmallows at Willowbury. She found herself wondering if Kitty would bounce, like they did when accidentally dropped from the tea plate.

‘Ah, Kitty! What a pleasant surprise!’ Mistress Constance lied all too plainly through her teeth.

‘I’ve come to help dear Madeleine choose her materials,’ Kitty mewed prettily.

‘Oh, what a shame—just as I’d nearly decided on this watered silk...’

‘Aha!’ Kitty gave a little giggling shrug. ‘What a pretty choice! Look, Philip—exactly the same shade as my eyes!’

I could soon fix that, Madeleine thought blackly, then remembered that the sooner she extracted what she wanted from Kitty the sooner she could ignore her completely.

‘Never mind, Miss Kitty—I shall need ribbons and threads—you can come over here and help me choose those...’ Madeleine led her to an open-topped counter packed with buttons, swansdown and other bare necessities. Well away from the cutting and packing of materials and the conversations of their elders, Madeleine wasted no time in coming straight to the point.

‘I need your help,’ she breathed as the two girls looked over the delicacies.

Kitty said nothing, and, although Madeleine pretended to be engrossed in ribbon samples, she felt the other girl studying her intensely.

‘Let me have Michael’s address. It’s cruelty itself to force Master Philip into running Willowbury. All he wants is to go back to his studies. It isn’t fair, when his brother sounds so suited to the farm...’

‘I don’t know where he is,’ Kitty said sullenly.

‘Oh, but I think you do, Miss Pettigrew!’ Madeleine looked up and smiled innocently.

Kitty had a piece of corded frogging in her fingers, turning it about. ‘He jilted me. He went away and I haven’t seen him from that day to this.’

The frogging started to rotate a little faster between her fingers.

‘I don’t believe you.’

Kitty stared openly at Madeleine, with insolence behind the hard blue innocence of her eyes.

‘Michael doesn’t want me anymore. Actions speak louder than words.’

Time was running out. There might not be another chance to buttonhole Kitty so neatly.

‘How’s the baby?’ Madeleine hissed desperately.

The effect on Kitty was immediate. Her face froze into a terrified mask, and she gasped.

‘Ssh!’ Madeleine knew she had to work fast. Grabbing Kitty by the elbow, she half dragged her out of the shop. The grey horror on the girl’s face was proof enough of a threatened faint.

Once outside the stuffy little draper’s shop a miraculous change came over Kitty. Any air of hardened sophistication crumbled away. For a moment she looked as frightened as Madeleine felt.

‘He said he wouldn’t tell anybody—ever—ever—’

‘Don’t panic,’ Madeleine said, panicking. ‘I don’t count as anybody—if you do as I say.’

‘Why?’ Initial fear fading, Kitty started to look suspicious. ‘Oh, I know—blackmail. This place is full of your sort.’ She wrenched her arm from Madeleine’s grasp, but it was seized again.

‘No—far from it. Why don’t you and Michael finish what you began? Marry, and bring the baby back to settle at Willowbury?’

‘Nothing would give Father greater pleasure than to see me at Willowbury.’ Kitty regarded her, frost creeping back into her eyes. ‘And only two things are in the way. One is little Benjamin Arthur Edward, as you well know, but the most damning thing is Mickey himself. He really has cast me aside now, mademoiselle.’

Madeleine hadn’t thought of that possibility. In her desolation she forgot all about tact.

‘What happened?’

Concentrating on the ruffles of swansdown around her cuffs, Kitty had to swallow hard several times before speaking.

‘I didn’t know what to do—the baby would keep crying, and I was alone there with nobody but Aunt Izzy. Mickey was away working for weeks at a time— that’s all he ever thinks about—and I didn’t have anybody to talk to...Madeleine, it was horrible...’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake don’t cry!’ Madeleine whispered desperately. She could hardly be seen making Kitty feel worse.

‘The first—the very first time I went out, from the time I left England, was the night of the sub. When you saw me.’ Kitty sniffled into her handkerchief. ‘I—I’d forgotten what it was like to have fun, and laugh...While I was out, Mickey arrived at Aunt Izzy’s for a surprise visit. When I got back, he’d been waiting for hours. He said...horrible things—that he hadn’t walked twelve miles to come and visit me, only to find that I was out playing fast and loose. He said I wasn’t fit to be a mother, and it’s true...I’m not...’

Madeleine put her arms around Kitty and hugged her. It was the only thing to do.

‘If he’d walked twelve miles after working himself into the ground I shouldn’t think he would have been in a mood to be civil to anyone. Jack Pritchard was telling me how fond Michael always was of you, Kitty—I expect it was just a silly argument, like everyone has at times.’

Kitty had recovered a little, but a shadow passed over her china-blue eyes as she shook her head. ‘No. He left us in a furious rage. Next morning I went to the room he rented when he came on visits, but he wasn’t there. The streets were full of ruffians, and people drinking, and shouting...I was so frightened, Madeleine! I threw a few things into the coach and went to the little farm that Mickey had bought for us. He wasn’t there either. I waited for him, but he never came. In the end, I panicked. I didn’t know what I was doing. All I could think of was to run back home to Highlands...’

‘Will the baby be safe?’

‘Oh, yes—Aunt Izzy did most things for it anyway. I was such a hopeless idiot.’

‘I’m sure you weren’t, Kitty. Little Benjamin would rather have your honest love and kisses than all the skill in the world.’

‘You sound just like Philip,’ Kitty said, starting to shimmer with tears again. ‘Mum says I’m to forget all about Benjy and Mickey, and start again. Dad doesn’t know about...well, he thinks I got over Mickey ages ago, so he’s expecting me to be my old self again. I have to put on this act for him...it’s horrible, mademoiselle’

‘I know.’ With a sigh Madeleine put on a hopeful look. ‘We might be able to help each other, though— you and I. If you were to write to any addresses you might have for Michael—’

‘No! Oh, no—I couldn’t! He’ll never want to hear from me now that I’ve really abandoned poor little Benjy...’

‘Give me the addresses.’ Madeleine said with force. ‘I’ll sort something out, Kitty. Don’t you think Michael at least deserves to know why you ran away?’

Kitty pleated her handkerchief in distraction. ‘I tried to tell him how lonely I was. He wouldn’t listen...’

‘He might now, if it comes from a friend. If we keep it our secret, Kitty, nobody need know until you’ve found out one way or another, need they?’

Kitty’s rosebud mouth suddenly bloomed into a smile. In an instant she was scrabbling around in her purse and pressing a much-handled piece of paper into Madeleine’s hands.

‘Here—take it! But don’t tell a soul, will you? Dad’s so keen that I should make a good marriage—I don’t want to upset him—’

There was increased movement from inside the shop. Things seemed to be happening. Kitty slipped her arm into Madeleine’s and leaned against her confidingly. At that moment Philip himself opened the shop door and looked out to find them. When he saw the girls were apparently wrapped up in conversation he smiled warmly.

‘Mother has finally decided upon the blue silk. If you have any strong objections to it, mademoiselle, I would urge caution. There is very little time left before the entertainment. Do you really wish to spend it all in shopping expeditions?’

‘No...no, Master Philip! I’d be more than happy to accept her choice...’

Madeleine found that she could no longer look him directly in the eye. The thought that she was gambling with his future happiness affected her more deeply than she liked to admit.

The coming entertainment provided a good excuse for Madeleine to visit Jack’s sister for more dancing lessons. Not only gavottes and minuets took place on the first occasion—Mistress Charlotte and Madeleine spent most of the time composing a secret letter to Michael Adamson.
        Madeleine poured out details of poor Kitty’s distress at losing him, how Mistress Constance missed him so dreadfully each and every day, and, most importantly, how Philip was managing to work himself to death and go into a decline at one and the same time.

Charlotte reduced everything to the sort of polite English that wouldn’t give Michael instant heart failure. Without much hope of a reply, Madeleine put two letters on the afternoon coach herself, one copy to Michael’s farm and the other to his lodging in Paris.

She swore the long-suffering Charlotte to total secrecy, unable to bear the thought of raising Philip’s hopes without good cause. All that was left to her then was to wait.

And wait.

As the great day drew nearer, Higgins was sent over to Highlands with tickets for the county ball. The Pettigrews were delighted with the gift, and sent back a basket of peaches in return.
        ‘Ostentatious,’ Mistress Constance sniffed, rationing Madeleine to one fruit and putting the rest aside for conserving. Madeleine had only tasted spoiled peaches thrown from market barrows before, and the plumply fragrant fruit in its velvet jacket was a delight.

She saved the peach until that afternoon, when Jack arrived and they all went out into the garden for an hour. Here Madeleine soon discovered that there was even a right way, and a dreadfully wrong way of eating fruit. With some careful prompting from Jack, and Higgins on hand with a damp flannel, she took care to slice the remainder of her fruit and relish every slice rather more politely.

The slow crunch of gravel announced that Mistress Constance’s circuit of the garden was coming to an end. Rich fragrance burst from trailing herbs edging the path as Philip brought his mother back to the long, sun-warmed bench.

‘I see that you are keeping Mademoiselle Madeleine amused, Jack,’ he said distantly. The look he gave Madeleine as Jack handed her a napkin seemed no warmer. She remembered the passion he had once shown towards her. Their kisses in the orchard seemed so long ago now, but she still blushed.