Ravenscliffe (45 page)

‘Will you take me on it?’ she said.

‘I thought you wanted to be with all your pals today?’

‘Oh yes. I forgot.’ She looked a little flat now.

‘Tell you what,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll meet you at the foot of the big wheel at two o’clock, for a ride on it together. Then afterwards you can scoot off with your pals again.’

‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’d like that.’ Seth rolled his eyes; she was addled where Daniel was concerned.

Eve came into the room with Ellen and Maya. They liked to wear identical clothes these days, so whenever Anna made a new pinafore for one of them, she would have to make the same for the other. Today they were both wearing their dark red linen, not quite Sunday best, but almost. Saturday best, thought Eliza. Daniel stood to give Eve a kiss and pour the tea, and Eliza scooted along the bench to make room for the little girls.

‘’ere we are then,’ Eve said. ‘May Day Feast, and this year it’s right on our doorstep.’

Anna said: ‘Mixed blessing, that.’ She wasn’t keen on
fairgrounds, either the rides or the people that ran them. A motley collection of dwellings – some little more than covered drays – had laid claim to a patch of land that was too close for comfort, in Anna’s view. She would dry the best linen in the house until the feast had moved on. There’d be no leaving the doors wide open, either.

‘I wish Uncle Silas was ’ere,’ Eliza said.

A pause in activity among the adults, the merest shiver of tension: the child was oblivious, however.

‘Uncle Silas said ’e’d take me to Bristol.’

‘Well, don’t ’old your breath,’ said Seth. ‘Uncle Silas couldn’t be much further away if ’e tried.’ He was in Jamaica, in fact, overseeing operations there. Progress on the hotel had been sluggish, and if he was to advertise this summer, carry tourists there by December, he had to catch the slackers red-handed. This is what he’d told Seth. ‘Jamaicans – lazy buggers the lot of ’em,’ he’d said, flattering the boy with this adult talk. ‘Don’t know the meaning of hard work.’ Seth, who had noted his uncle’s pale, uncalloused hands and white-tipped nails, wondered exactly what hard work meant to Silas. Still though, you didn’t become as rich as he had by sitting idle on your backside.

‘There’s a zoo,’ said Eliza, who wasn’t done yet with Bristol. ‘They’ve an elephant called Zebi and she eats straw ’ats off ladies’ ’eads.’

Eve smiled at her daughter. She fancied a trip to Bristol herself, actually – Silas was always on at her about it, and she’d like to be able to picture him when he was gone. But now, it was awkward. She’d thought she could talk to Anna about most things: but not this, it seemed.

Silas had fallen foul of Amos, or Amos had fallen foul of Silas, depending on whose version of events you happened to hear.
Anyway, it amounted to the same thing; under the stewardship of Silas Whittam, the regime at Dreaton Main Colliery was undergoing a radical review. Timesheets had been scrutinised, wages bills assessed. The manager and his deputy had been sacked, and in their place were two Bristolians, drafted in from Whittam and Co. to apply their accountants’ minds to the boss’s new venture.

‘And what do they know about mining?’ Amos had said: a dangerous topic, this.

‘As much as they need to,’ Silas had replied, his voice pleasant, his eyes like steel.

‘What they know about mining,’ Amos had said, directing his comment now to Anna, ‘could be written on t’back of a Penny Black.’ Anna, sitting across the table from him, had looked blank. ‘A stamp, then,’ he said. ‘A postage stamp. Oh, never mind. Fact is, they know nowt about owt.’

They were all at Ravenscliffe, Silas too; he’d joined them for a Sunday roast before leaving for London, and Jamaica. A family gathering, Eve had said, and it had been lovely, until the children left the table and the talk had turned to Silas’s plans for this latest business venture. He looked at Amos and feigned bafflement.

‘What on earth can you mean?’ he said.

‘Clear enough, I would’ve thought.’

‘Not to me.’ Silas smiled, sat back in his chair, folded his arms. ‘Perhaps you could elucidate?’

Amos, his belly full of Eve’s roast lamb, knew he shouldn’t eat her food then repay her by souring the atmosphere around her table. But it was hard to avoid and, anyway, her brother had no such compunction; he had fixed his sardonic gaze on Amos and was waiting for him to speak. So he did.

‘You’ve sacked two good local men who’re now struggling to feed their families, and you’ve installed in their place two
office clerks who wouldn’t know a pick or a shovel if they fell over ’em.’

Silas laughed. ‘You twist the facts, Mr Sykes, to suit your own version of the truth. Perhaps you’d do very well as a politician, if only you could get yourself elected. What I’ve done at Dreaton Main – not that I feel obliged to account for myself, particularly – is remove two incompetents from their posts and appoint two men whose track record with regard to honesty, hard work and business acumen is unblemished. I aim to make as much money from my colliery as possible. Now that might hurt your socialist sensibilities, but I make no apology for it.’

There was an awkward silence, then Amos stood.

‘Best be off,’ he said. His face was rigid with the effort of not speaking his mind.

‘No, Amos. There’s crumble,’ Eve said. It sounded silly, put like that, but she hated this growing animosity between the two men.

He made an effort and smiled at her. ‘Couldn’t manage another morsel,’ he said, and moved away from the table. He was seething; they could all see it.

Eve looked at Silas, who smiled at her.

‘That was delicious, Evie,’ he said. ‘As always.’ He looked perfectly relaxed; it was his speciality, to always appear entirely unruffled. In professional matters, it had often served him well. Anna thought it a deplorable trait. She stood too, and walked to Amos’s side.

‘I’ll go part way with you,’ she said. ‘I need some fresh air.’

She said this pointedly, as if the air at the kitchen table wasn’t fresh, as if it oppressed her to stay put, then together they left the room. A silence descended in the kitchen. Eve looked dismayed, staring after them with helpless anxiety, and Daniel took her hand and squeezed it. He would take no one’s
side in this but his wife’s, and in any case, both Amos and Silas had a point. They were grown men, when all was said and done; they must find a way of rubbing along together, in spite of their differences. He took a cigarette packet from his shirt pocket and offered one to Silas, who shook his head.

‘You know me,’ he said. ‘Cigar man.’ Daniel shrugged and lit up. The familiar smell of a burning Woodbine filled the air. Eve stood and began to clear the table. Silas suppressed a yawn.

‘I have absolutely no inclination to travel to Bristol after that wonderful meal,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I’ll stay another night.’

‘T’money you waste at that inn,’ Eve said.

She carried a stack of dirty plates to the sink. It was Seth and Eliza’s job, but they’d made themselves scarce and it was less effort to do it herself than to round them up. She turned and looked at her brother.

‘You know you could stay ’ere, don’t you?’

He shook his head. ‘Too chilly for my liking.’ They both knew what he meant.

‘They’re good people, Anna and Amos,’ she said.

‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said.

‘Then can you try to be friends?’

‘Certainly, when that fellow changes his tune.’

‘Well, that won’t happen,’ Daniel said. ‘So perhaps you two could agree to disagree, and keep your differences of opinion to yourselves. Or at least, keep them out of this house.’

He spoke mildly enough, but with considerable authority. Silas acknowledged the reproof with a curt nod of his head, without actually conceding any ground. He rather enjoyed goading Amos Sykes and had no intention of desisting; the man was, after all, so very easy to provoke – these soapbox orators usually were. Anyway, he thought, it was high time that someone took him on. He strutted around the pit yards
like God’s gift to the working man, especially since the old earl kicked the bucket.

‘So,’ he said pleasantly, ‘apple crumble?’

‘Plum,’ said Eve.

‘Even better. And all the more for us now.’

Daniel flashed him a warning look.

‘What?’ said Silas, and to hear him you would have sworn that he meant no harm at all.

‘T
ruly, this is a ridiculous country.’

Thea paced the room, back and forth. Henrietta watched her, like a spectator at a tennis match.

‘I mean, you’re all so … so rigid. So stuck in your ways. So obsessed with the pecking order and so terribly, zealously vigilant about the detail.’

‘Well, perhaps,’ said Henrietta, anxious to placate but at the same time slightly needled. ‘But there’s usually a good reason for the things we do.’

‘Oh, poppycock. It’s all pomposity, a conspiracy to trap the uninitiated. If you don’t know the rules, you can’t join the club. Well, I don’t think I want to be a member, thanks all the same.’

‘Oh, now Thea—’

‘And you’re a turncoat. I don’t expect to be reprimanded by you of all people. Especially in front of an audience.’ Her dander was up, good and proper. She looked so adorable, thought Henrietta, flushed with annoyance like this: quite irresistible.

‘All I said was it’s not quite the thing to leap up and grab whoever you most like the look of.’

‘I don’t see why.’ Thea stopped pacing and stood, hands on hips, facing Henry. ‘What’s the point of being a countess if I can’t do as I please?’

‘Well you can, most of the time. And you do. But if there’s a duke in the drawing room you really mustn’t gambol through to luncheon on the arm of Jonty Allsop. You made poor old Abberley look a perfect fool.’

Thea laughed, in spite of her irritation. ‘Well, that isn’t hard. Honestly, though, Henry. Who would you choose?’

‘You, of course. But since I can’t, I do what’s expected of me.’

This sounded a little prim, a little pious, a little reproachful. Henrietta had followed Thea to her room – recklessly, she felt, abandoning their luncheon guests, doubtless causing awkwardness – because she couldn’t bear any bad feeling to exist between them: she had meant only to amuse with her remark, not to offend, and yet Thea’s expression had frozen with displeasure. She had refused to meet Henrietta’s eye throughout the meal and had leapt from her chair when the ladies rose, bounding upstairs instead of leading them to the drawing room. A very small part of Henrietta disapproved of such childish impetuosity: the rest of her longed to be back in favour with her beloved.

She was perched on the very edge of Thea’s bed and now she leaned forwards and reached out her hands. Thea stepped towards her and took them, though she held her ground when Henrietta tugged.

‘Not that, Henry. Not now,’ she said. ‘I’m too cross.’

Henrietta let go, immediately. She was so wary of making demands: so wary of pushing Thea away with the strength of her longing. She had realised in the course of the past few months that it was her lot to wait patiently for attention, and not to irritate the object of her infatuation by appearing to be, in fact, infatuated. This morning Henry had passed in the
yard her father’s devoted black Labs, Min and Jess, whose fate was now to sit and wait in the hope of a kind word or a soft hand; their situation, Henry had thought, was not so very different from her own.

‘Your mother seeks to expose me constantly,’ Thea said. ‘She considers me gauche and ill-bred and she whispers about me to her cronies. You have no idea how it feels to be constantly judged and found lacking. And it’s not just Clarissa. All eyes are on me all the time. I feel like a butterfly pinned under a microscope. Specimen A, the Lesser-Spotted Stirling.’

Henrietta laughed. ‘Oh darling, this isn’t like you at all. Usually, you don’t give two hoots.’

‘I do, as a matter of fact. But I’m very adept at hiding it.’

‘Thea, you’re absolutely all the rage – if anyone watches you it’s to copy what you’re doing. Did you notice that scarf twisted through Mimi’s hair? She didn’t quite pull it off, admittedly, but she’s desperate to ape your style, and she’s not alone; you have a slavish following. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t utterly love you. Except for Mama. But as for her, well, she’s adjusting. It hasn’t been easy for her.’

Thea rolled her eyes and turned her back on Henrietta. No, it hadn’t been easy for Clarissa and boy, didn’t everyone know it. She might as well have gone the whole hog and worn black crêpe at the wedding: mother of the groom, the very image of fathomless suffering. She had been a good deal less distressed, in fact, at Teddy’s funeral; then, when she might reasonably have been expected to grieve, she had drifted about on Toby’s arm, relentlessly, winsomely, tirelessly charming. Well, Thea had her number all right; her mother-in-law was an artful creature and her vulnerability wasn’t even skin deep.

‘Thea. Please don’t be angry.’ Henry’s voice was wheedling, and it grated. Thea turned on her, as she sometimes did.

‘Oh, just go! You’ll doubtless be needed in the drawing room.’

Yes, thought Henrietta, I doubtless shall, and my presence here is clearly irksome. She stood to leave and risked a tentative smile, and – joy unbounded – Thea smiled back. Emboldened, Henrietta crossed the room. She took Thea’s face between her hands.