Ravenscliffe (42 page)

‘I saw Mrs MacLeod, leaving the bailiff’s office,’ said Mrs Powell-Hughes.

Parkinson was polishing the silver plate with a linen rag. He rubbed as if he might reveal another colour altogether if only he worked hard enough.

‘Can’t Abel do that, Mr Parkinson?’ If indeed, she thought, it must be done at all.

‘Not as well as I can,’ said the butler. ‘Anyway, he’s needed in the cellar.’

Truly, life goes on, thought Mrs Powell-Hughes.

‘I wonder what business she had there,’ she said. Parkinson looked up from his task.

‘Who?’

‘Mrs MacLeod. Mrs Williams-as-was. With the bailiff.’

‘There are all manner of possibilities,’ he said. ‘I suppose she’s concerned for the business. His lordship was very involved.’

‘Mmmm. So many people affected. So many ramifications. Not just the immediate family, though heaven knows they’ll feel the loss for years. That little girl …’

She meant Isabella, whose condition had now usurped her mother’s as the principal cause for concern to Dr Frankland.

‘No improvement?’ said Parkinson.

‘None. Hysterical, poor mite. I wonder she has the energy to continue at it, wailing and carrying on. Maudie’s been billeted in her bedroom to keep watch over her. Lady Henrietta’s sharing Flytton.’

Parkinson tutted sadly. Such upheaval. Lady Netherwood seemed to have rallied, at least, and to everyone’s immense relief had stopped insisting that the earl was merely sleeping. Almost herself again, although still not quite; she had about her a disconnected air and she certainly hadn’t risen to the challenge of the funeral arrangements, which were being managed entirely by Lady Henrietta, who sat in her late father’s study as if she belonged there. Tobias, heir to the earldom, showed little interest in the proceedings. He had wanted the funeral to be held in London for reasons that Parkinson suspected were entirely selfish, and the moment his petition had been quashed by the rest of the family – not to mention the weight of tradition – he had grown petulant and obstructive, and could never be found when his presence was required. Parkinson knew that he must strive to correct his own tendency to opprobrium; it was not his place to judge the new master and find him wanting. But the butler deeply mourned the late earl. He was not ready, quite, to submit fully to a new regime. He had been in the room with Tobias, Henrietta and Dickie when a London burial was mooted: so much easier for everyone to attend, Tobias had said. Parkinson, one hand frozen above the silver coffee pot, might
have shocked everyone – including himself – by vehemently protesting, had Lady Henrietta not done so first. Disingenuous, she had said. Tobias mustn’t use their father’s death as a convenient excuse to see Thea. All in good time, she had said. She was little more than a year older than her brother, but she had spoken as an adult to a child. How safe the reins of Netherwood would have been in her hands: how very uncertain in her brother’s. Parkinson allowed the thought to form, then instantly dismissed it. No good could come from insubordination, however private it might be. And he could take comfort from the fact that Lady Henrietta had triumphed, easily and swiftly, in the matter of a Yorkshire funeral. Anything else was utterly out of the question, of course. The late earl had always loved his Yorkshire home; Netherwood was his pride and his passion. It was absolutely right that he should rest in peace here, among his forebears, where he belonged. Tears sprang into the butler’s eyes. He dipped his rag into the jar of paste, picked up another candlestick, and began to rub.

‘S
o you’ll let it lie?’

‘I shall, yes.’

‘Then you’re a fool.’

Eve gave Ginger a hard look.

‘I’m sorry, Eve, but this business should be yours now, and you’re lettin’ that lizard get t’better of you.’

‘I can see ’ow it looks, but what am I to do, Ginger? Stand on t’town ’all steps and call ’im a liar?’

Eve banged down her rolling pin on the mound of pastry and sent up a small cloud of flour from the worktop. The pie lid could take the pasting she should have given Absalom Blandford. You weren’t meant to bake when you were cross, but Eve was no longer convinced of the truth of this old wisdom; she was getting through these pastry lids like nobody’s business, and the glorious smell of those already in the oven suffused the kitchen. As much as anything, she was cross that Ginger had so easily winkled out of her the cause of her ill humour. She’d vowed to keep it to herself – well, herself, Daniel and Anna, and Silas was going to have to be told in due course – but Ginger had a sixth sense when it came to matters such as these, going after the truth like a ferret down a rabbit hole. Now that she
knew, she’d been sworn to secrecy and Ginger wasn’t known for spreading tittle-tattle, but it seemed to Eve that the more people she confided in, the more likely it was that soon everyone would know. Daniel had said: ‘So what? Where’s the harm in folk knowing that Blandford’s a treacherous bastard?’ but Eve had shushed him; she felt differently about this. It was, after all, her word against the bailiff’s and while he wasn’t much liked, he was also known to be a loyal foot soldier to the late earl. Also, the offer to her had been wildly extravagant – she’d been barely able to credit it herself, even as he insisted. What likelihood was there that anyone would believe her? There were enough people in Netherwood who thought Eve had already climbed too far above her station in life: she’d find little sympathy if she went around crying injustice now. No, she had said to Daniel; the earl’s promise to her had evaporated when he died.

‘Does your brother know owt about it?’

Ginger was a canny soul. She looked at a problem and saw its component parts, the numerous small difficulties that added up to the whole. Eve thought about her brother’s feverish excitement at the wedding party, and felt dull dread at the knowledge that she would have to disabuse him.

‘Only ’alf of t’story,’ Eve said.

‘I see. Wrong ’alf, I suppose?’

Eve nodded.

‘Well I’ll tell you this much for nowt, your Silas won’t like it.’

‘No, well, if I can bear it, I’m sure ’e can.’

Eve paused to drape a sheet of pastry over another dish of meat and potato. She crimped its edges, snipped the top twice, then pushed it to one side.

‘Anyroad,’ she said. ‘It’s not Silas’s business, is it?’

‘’appen not,’ Ginger said. ‘But ‘’e’ll take a view.’ She left it at that, but her expression suggested she had more to say on the subject of Eve’s brother.

‘What?’ Eve said.

Ginger opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. ‘Nowt,’ she said.

The condolences were flooding in and everyone was so kind. Clarissa had written almost fifty restrained and elegant replies – ‘your thoughts and words are such a comfort, yours in sorrow and friendship, Clarissa Netherwood’ – in spite of the fact that Henry kept telling her there was no need. No one expects a reply to a letter of sympathy, she said. Perhaps not, her mother had said, but how lovely for them to know the value and beneficial effects of their letter.

This new Clarissa, the one that had emerged from the dark days immediately following her husband’s death, seemed a veritable saint. Widowhood suited her – quite literally, since she wore black lace or charcoal-grey organza and her ethereal beauty was somehow enhanced by it. She had relinquished the reins of power gracefully, readily, allowing Henrietta and Tobias to argue over the details of what remained to be done, while she drifted about the house and grounds in a state of heightened sensitivity to kindness and loveliness. Daniel, overseeing the meticulous edging in local stone of the Grand Canal, had found he missed the cut and thrust of their old exchanges when she paid him a visit, swathed in sable against the late October day.

‘Thank you for working so hard, Daniel,’ she had said. ‘Your progress has been quite remarkable.’

He had been on his knees pegging plumb lines and hadn’t heard her approach. When he stood, wiping dirt from his palms, she had said: ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you. You must think me an awful nuisance.’

‘Not in the least, your ladyship,’ he said. ‘I’m glad to see you.’

She had looked about her and then down into the yawning chasm at her feet.

‘How magnificent this will be. Such a grand and noble scheme.’

He had looked at her sideways, suspecting her of sarcasm, but all he saw was an expression of serene joy.

‘And how are you faring, your ladyship?’ he had said. He felt some real concern for her; she seemed to him quite altered.

‘Me?’ she said, with some surprise. ‘Oh, quite well. Everyone is being so very careful with me, but I am quite well.’

‘A difficult time,’ Daniel said. ‘Your loss must be hard to bear.’

Again, a look of surprise. ‘On the contrary, I find I can bear the loss of Teddy,’ she had said. ‘We were less and less in each other’s company, though he was a dear thing and perfectly lovely over all the ruckus of the king’s visit. But what I find unsettling, Daniel’ – here she paused and lightly touched his arm – ‘is the uncertainty. One has always known one’s place. Now I find myself unexpectedly adrift.’

Their conversation had ended there and Daniel, who anyway had been rather lost for words, had watched her weave her way down through the grounds, away from the house. Now, in the kitchen at Ravenscliffe, he described the scene to Anna.

‘Peculiar,’ he said. ‘As a rule she’d be berating my manners, my gardening, my dirty britches – you name it, she’d take issue. It was fine, mind; it was what I was used to. But today – I don’t know. She doesn’t seem particularly sad. Just different.’

‘I expect she’ll be all right,’ Anna said, in a voice that invited no further discussion. She was out of sorts and she hadn’t quite worked out why, but in any case, even in the best of humours she thought the countess a vain and silly woman. She’d only ever spoken to her once – and that a year ago, at
the grand opening of the mill – but it was enough to form a poor opinion. It was possible, of course, that Amos’s prejudices had squirrelled their way into her mind and coloured her own opinions, but she didn’t think so. Any woman who wore pink chiffon flounces beyond the age of seventeen was of suspect character, in Anna’s view. Daniel sensed stony ground and let the subject drop. He took a slug of strong, black tea and eyed her cautiously. Something was definitely up, judging by the way that iron was being handled. He watched as she shoved it back into the heat of the fire then stood, her small foot tapping an irritable tattoo on the flagged floor as she waited for it to be ready. Daniel, who was really only waiting for Seth, considered pinning a note on the front door and heading off up to the allotment alone, but suddenly from down the hallway came the sound of the front door slamming shut and Seth, his cheeks ruddy with fresh air, barged into the kitchen like a small bull, shoving open the kitchen door with one shoulder so that it swung wide and slammed all the way back against the wall; the brass knob had already made a dent in the plasterwork from previous incidents, and Anna issued one of her loud Russian expletives, the meaning of which they could only ever guess at, since she always refused to translate.

‘My ’ands are full,’ said Seth.

He was holding the slender shaft of his dad’s old knur and spell pummel, and nothing else. She gave him a look.

‘I mean, sorry,’ he said. He prodded ineffectually at the dented plaster and flecks of blue paint dropped off the wall onto the floor.

‘Leave it be,’ she snapped. She seized the iron and slammed it down onto a grey school shirt, which lay stiff as cardboard on the ironing table, having dried to a crisp on a rack above the range. Seth grimaced at Daniel, who winked at him.

‘I saw t’pony,’ Seth said to Daniel. ‘She weren’t even lame.’

‘Well, there’s one happy ending, then,’ Daniel said. The
boy had nursed the injured pit pony back to health without the assistance of a veterinary surgeon, for whom, anyway, Eve hadn’t wanted to pay, feeling it a sort of betrayal.

Anna looked at the two of them, the iron poised in mid air as if she might hurl it. ‘That pony is bane of my life,’ she said, her voice fraught with irritation. ‘Always there, looking for food. You must stop feeding it, Seth.’

Seth dropped his eyes, his good mood ebbing inexorably away. Daniel took action.

‘Come on, sonny,’ he said, ‘we’ve pineapple plants to tend.’

Seth flashed him a furtive, grateful smile and they left, united against the injustice of feminine wrath. Anna, watching them swap significant looks as they sauntered off, banged the iron down once more into the fire because it was no sooner hot than it was cold again.

But this wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. She bent down again and, taking up a poker, knocked the iron away from the heat. Unceremoniously she dumped the remaining pile of ironing on the kitchen table, and, grabbing her hat and coat from a hook on the back of the door, she left the house. Eve would be home with the girls by six; Anna would be back before then, she was sure of it.