Flint and Roses (34 page)

‘Yes, Mrs. Agbrigg is my sister. She has always been frail.'

‘Oh—I do beg your pardon. I find these names and these relationships so confusing, and I know how important it is to get them right. It was so simple at home, you see. One knew exactly which Tempest had married which Chard, and who was related to the Floods and the Ramsdens and in which degree, because one had grown up knowing it. One had attended all the christenings and the weddings and listened to all the back-stairs gossip. One knew not to mention Lady Winterton in Lady Bardsey's hearing, since Sir Morton Bardsey had mentioned her once too often—that sort of thing. Whereas here, with so many Hobhouses and Battershaws—such strange names—I have no idea what errors I may be committing. Really, sometimes I am quite lost, absolutely at sea, for I was taught never to mention money, never, never, never to ask how much anything cost or to tell what one had paid—never, never. Yet here they talk of pound notes quite openly, all the time. I was quite shocked when I heard a lady just the other night announce how many thousands she had spent on a seaside home, and I expected everyone else to be shocked too. But, in fact, I believe they were impressed. I suppose it is because they
earn
money, as we do not, which makes them so familiar with it.'

Amused in spite of myself by her puzzled manner, her frowning, little-girl concentration, as if all Hobhouses looked alike to her and she despaired not only of learning their language but of ever distinguishing one from the other, I leaned slightly towards her and smiled, feeling older, although in fact I was slightly the younger, feeling that the task I had set myself might prove less difficult than I had feared. I had come here, certainly, to satisfy the conventions, to test the strength of my own resolution, but I had also come—as I did everything else these days—because of Giles. I was not certain how much he knew of my relationship with Nicholas, simply that he must know something, and what better way of easing his mind than to offer my friendship to Nicholas's wife?

‘It was all so simple at home,' she had said, quite touchingly, for, although Galton was but a few miles distant, I well knew that in spirit it was another world. And, telling myself that she, at any rate, had not chosen to harm me, was apparently unaware that harm had been done, and must be kept in ignorance of it, I smiled again and said, ‘You will soon grow accustomed to us, Georgiana.'

‘Do you think so?'

‘Oh yes, I am sure of it. If Aunt Verity's friends seem stiff, it is only because they are minding their manners too hard, which surely won't last. And if you are bored at dinner-time when the Hobhouses and the Battershaws—and the Barforths—can talk of nothing but warp and weft, and their lustre cloths and shalloons, well, I have been hearing of such things all my life and I can still neither understand them nor bring myself to care.'

‘Oh my word!' she said, flashing me her sudden smile, her pointed face alive with a surge of vitality. ‘Can that be true? No, of course not, for I am quite certain you know exactly what constitutes a lustre cloth and are merely denying it to put me at ease. But it was kindly done. Mrs. Ashbum—cousin Faith—I believe you are sent to me from Heaven. Shall I ring for tea? At home we are obliged to go and shout down the passage, since we have not a bell in working order, and even then our old Honiman is so deaf, or does not choose to hear, that one can sit and play a guessing game—for money, if my brother Perry is about—as to whether or not tea will come.'

But there were no such games of chance at Tarn Edge, and when she had greeted the silver cake baskets, the trays of muffins and hot bread and butter with a slight shake of her head, as if with the best will in the world she couldn't help finding such over-abundance a trifle vulgar, she frowned suddenly and said, ‘Tell me, cousin Faith, what do you do all day?'

‘What do I do? I suppose—a hundred things.'

‘Then I wish you would tell me their names, for I imagine your husband must go out a great deal, and Nicky is never at home. I simply did not realize that these mills were so greedy of a man's time. I have heard Nicky talk of his managers and I supposed they handled his affairs, as the land-agent at Galton handles ours. But not a bit of it. Nicky must be at the mill every day, all day, and half the night sometimes. Even Mr. Barforth spends most of his time there, which my mother-in-law seems to find quite natural. Yet it is very strange to me. My grandfather attends Quarter Sessions, naturally, since he is Chairman of the Bench, and holds Petty Sessions regularly enough in the back parlour at the Abbey, and he is always out and about the estate. But he doesn't live his life by the clock, as they do. How can they bear to shut themselves up in this glorious weather? You do not ride, do you, Faith?'

And when I shook my head she said sadly, ‘No. No one does. To the mill and back, to the train and back—Oh dear, Nicky has given me the most magnificent chestnut mare, the loveliest lady you can imagine, and what am I to do with her? He will not allow me to ride out alone. He says it would not be understood. I could not bring a groom from Galton, since we have but the one, and these fellows in the stables here simply cannot keep up with me. So there she stands all day in her stall, just a tame little canter every morning and home again. Well, he must take me to Galton at Christmas, for if I cannot hunt on Boxing Day I shall die of it—especially now that Matthew has succeeded his uncle as Master, for Sir Richard was a dear man but so dreadfully old-fashioned. He
would
persist in setting off too early in the morning, before one could hope to unkennel a fox that was fit to run.'

I left soon afterwards, having promised to come again and to escort her to such entertainments as Cullingford could provide, and that evening Blaize called briefly to thank me for the care I had taken.

‘It was good of you, Faith.'

Alone with him in the silent house, stung by his accurate knowledge of my situation, I said sharply, ‘Why?'

‘You know why. I am sorry to see that it still hurts you.'

‘You see nothing of the kind.'

‘Good. I am delighted to be mistaken. You are married to the best man in the world, you know.'

‘I don't need you to tell me that, Blaize Barforth.'

‘No. I see. Good-night, then.'

‘Good-night. Blaize?'

‘Yes?'

‘Are they happy?'

‘Possibly. She depends on him, since she feels everyone else to be against her, and he is still quite wildly attracted to her. She enjoys that, of course—why should she not?—and I think she appreciates him in other ways and is rather grateful. You should understand that, Faith.'

‘Good-night, Blaize.'

‘Quite so. And if that means “Don't call again” I shall take no notice. You'll forgive me—you always do. And you need my light touch in this heavy world. Giles won't object to your gratitude,
I
shouldn't. One has to start somewhere, after all, and it's not a bad beginning. Without making the slightest effort I can think of a hundred ways in which a woman's gratitude could be really very agreeable. And you've got all the time in the world, you know, to fall in love with him. Let it come over you gently. It's bound to happen.'

And, kissing my cheek, his mischief entirely without malice, he tipped his hat to me and strolled nonchalantly away.

There was a year of peace and quiet content, a year that would serve as a model. I believed, for all the other years of my life, a deep, slow-moving river with no sudden, diamond-scattered cascades, no sharp, unexpected twistings and turnings; but with no stagnant, murky pools, no dried-up, stony places—a clean, deep water.

Caroline, who had been eight-months away, came home at the end of a crisp, white January, requiring my immediate attendance at Listonby, so intent on her plan's for improving the house and filling it with the grand acquaintances she had made on her travels that when I inquired her husband's whereabouts she said absently, ‘Matthew? Oh, I suppose he has gone out hunting. That is what he usually does, at any rate.'

But Caroline, seated before the log fire burning brightly, in the massive stone hearth, the stone-flagged pavement of the Great Hall covered with the first of her deep-pile rugs, was intensely happy, showing not the slightest trace, of Georgiana's confusion and loneliness.

‘That old housekeeper of Matthew's will have to go,' she told me, before the upright little woman, whose breeding perhaps was a shade more genteel than our own, was barely out of earshot. ‘He can just pension her off with a cottage on, the estate somewhere, which seems to be the custom, and will be a great kindness in her case, for she is far too frail to cope with the way I mean to go on. I interviewed one or two likely persons on my way through London, and I must have someone with style and experience and a great deal of endurance, for the people I mean to invite are accustomed to certain standards, and it won't be enough to merely give them what they are used to. Oh no—I mean to offer something better, something that will really make their journey worthwhile. My father has always operated that way, and I absolutely agree with him. I can do very little at the moment, of course, because it is going to be chaos until the alterations have been made—there is that huge upstairs chamber to turn into a ballroom, which means a new floor, certainly, and new plasterwork, and the Long Gallery to renovate, before I can decently invite anyone to dance; and bedrooms and dressing-rooms to see to—and it seems I am expecting a baby, by the way. But, once all that is done with, I know exactly what I mean to do. House-parties, of course, throughput the hunting season, one after, the other, since it is the, surest way of keeping Matthew out of Leicestershire. He may think it the best hunting country in the world, but his house there is quite mediocre. I have no mind to sit in it half the year while he goes tally-hoeing about the countryside, and so I shall bring all his friends to do their hunting here. We have stabling enough; carriages with champagne picnics in hampers for the ladies who do not care to ride; everything. I shall give a hunt ball, needless to say, which will attract absolutely everybody—not just provincials, but people from the shires and London—and a harvest ball too, I think, with a marquee on the lawn for the tenants. And my Christmases are going to be altogether spectacular. Naturally I
want
to do all this but quite frankly I feel it is expected of me in any case. I shall give a servants dance too, which didn't seem such a good idea to me when I first heard of it, but I attended one in Shropshire and found it rather entertaining. It gives one's staff something to look forward to, at any rate—rather like the bonuses at Tarn Edge.'

‘And how did you find Matthew's friends?' I asked her, remembering Georgiana's bewilderment with manufacturing ways, supposing Caroline, in reverse, must have felt it too. But, unlike her sister-in-law, she seemed more inclined to mould her new environment to suit herself and was apparently unaware that anyone could expect her to change.

‘They were all extremely civil and glad to know me, which was very pleasant, and put themselves out to see that I was suitably entertained, although, strictly between ourselves, some of them are not nearly so grand as I had supposed. Matthew's aunt in Shropshire is, after all, an earl's daughter, her husband is Lord Macclesworth, which should count for something, and they are not short of money. Yet she has nothing in her wardrobe that you or I would care to put on, and leads a most quiet existence—my word, I was positively dull in her house. Acres of the most magnificent reception rooms and nothing in them but weaponry all over the walls and empty floor space. And some of the others—well, Faith, this is very strictly between ourselves, but at one house I visited it was known, and apparently accepted, that one of Matthew's cousins had been—well—intimately involved for years with a man who was not her husband. My dear, absolutely everybody knew, about it. The man was there, welcomed like any other guest, and arrangements had even been made to give them bedrooms on the same corridor, so they might have easy access. Yes, you may well look startled, for so was I when I discovered it, although Matthew laughed at me and said it was nothing to make a fuss about—if the woman's husband didn't mind, then why should he—or I? Goodness! Can you imagine my mother tolerating such a thing at Tarn Edge—or anyone else we know? And I shall not have such goings-on here, I can tell you. Naturally I am not a schoolroom goose. I realize now that such things do happen in the world, but those who commit such indulgences should have the decency, at least, to conceal them. Matthew may call it hypocrisy, but if I gave them adjoining rooms in my house I should call it encouragement, and one has one's standards after all. And some of the younger Chards, and the rest of them, are fearful gamblers—positively silly where money is concerned. I am not at all surprised so many of them are in difficulties. But, apart from that, I have no complaints to make. Well—I must have this baby first, and then we can start talking clothes again, Faith. No baby for you, that is very obvious, for you are really very smart and so slender. I suppose you know that Georgiana is to have one too? Oh yes—and my mother is quite frantic because she will insist on taking that horse of hers over to Galton every Friday to Monday, tearing up the countryside and leaping her six-barred gates, which is very unwise. You should ask your husband to speak to her.'

But Georgiana, intent on making her escape to Galton at every opportunity, had not endeared herself to Cullingford and I—occupied almost totally with Giles—saw her very rarely. I sat a few places away from her on one or two occasions at Aunt Verity's table, large, formal dinners where she, having been warned, perhaps, that neither her hunting stories nor her tales of her brother's rash exploits both in and out of the saddle would be much appreciated, sat quite still, a little girl, I thought, dressed up in finery she found uncomfortable and which did not suit her, listening blank-eyed with boredom to this new language of profit margins, cash flows, the weaving of double-twills and silk warp alpacas, of paramatta cloth and mohair lustres, turning her head occasionally with the startled swiftness of a bird to look at Nicholas for a reassurance he seemed willing to give. But Aunt Verity caught a chill that winter and my uncle, obsessively anxious on her account, whisked her away to the south coast to await the better weather, returning himself only intermittently to clear up his sons'mistakes—as he put it—and to prevent them, in the flaring of their black Barforth tempers, from beating each other to death. Nicholas with his fists, Blaize with his needle-sharp tongue.