Ravenscliffe (49 page)

‘In what sense?’ This was so plainly directed at Thea that she looked up.

‘In the sense that I would like to put my stamp on them,’ she said. ‘I feel I’m living in an hotel.’

Clarissa laughed in a show of disbelief. ‘But my dear girl, they were redecorated not quite a year ago, for the king’s visit. The whole house was redecorated. Are you proposing to fritter our money on something so fundamentally unnecessary? You surprise me. I had thought, with your background, that thriftiness would come naturally to you.’

An unpleasant silence descended. The countess and the dowager countess locked eyes and Anna stood, supremely awkward, by the side of them. She coughed, and Thea said: ‘How rude we are, airing our private spats in front of visitors.’ She took Anna’s arm, tucking it snugly against her own. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘I’m just down here, on the right,’ and she moved off, taking Anna with her. The dowager countess called after them.

‘Before you run away, Dorothea—’

Thea stopped and turned her head, glaring at her mother-in-law.

‘Thea!’ she said. ‘I prefer to be called Thea.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Clarissa, mildly. ‘Have you spoken to Monsieur Reynard this morning?’

Thea coloured. ‘No, I forgot,’ she said. ‘But anyway, I’ve no idea what to say to him. I don’t care what we eat.’ She sounded very young again.

‘I see. Then I shall have to see him at once. Goodness, Dorothea, how you overlook your responsibilities, and how fortunate for all of us that I don’t.’

She smiled, nodded at Anna, then glided away down the corridor. Thea and Anna watched her go, then, when she turned and began to descend the stairs, Thea flopped back against the wall. Her eyes had filled with tears, though she wasn’t quite crying.

‘Hateful crone,’ she said. ‘Just hateful.’

‘Should I leave?’ Anna said.

‘Absolutely not. She wouldn’t expect you to, either – she’s just taking a pot shot at me. She never had a taste for blood sports until I married her darling boy. Now she goes for my jugular on every possible occasion.’

‘How very difficult that must be,’ said Anna. She thought of her own small battles with Silas; at least his visits were few and far between. To live permanently, like Thea did, with someone who thought so badly of you that she would humiliate you in front of another person – how could any amount of riches or material comforts make up for that? Anna felt a rush of sympathy for Thea.

‘Come,’ she said kindly, ‘show me your rooms.’

Clarissa summoned Monsieur
Reynard to the morning room where they discussed the menus. She found this more of a tussle than it had ever been with Mrs Adams. There was the language barrier for a start: he was dogged in his refusal to improve his spoken English, and often referred to cuts of meat or types of fish by their French names. Some of these had become familiar enough to Lady Netherwood that she didn’t bat an eyelid –
saumon
was nice and easy, and
truite
– but this morning he had proposed
petite friture
for the fish
course at dinner and she found herself quite in the dark. He had made no effort at all to summon the English word, though Clarissa was certain he must know. She had ended up saving face by pretending it had just come to her – ‘Ah! Yes, of course, lovely’ – so that now she had no idea what she had approved. Quite ridiculous. It was as well Teddy wasn’t here to witness this rigmarole; long after Mrs Adams died he had continued to lament the absence of her good, plain cooking. Pies and mashed potato were Teddy’s idea of culinary heaven. Really, his palate had never developed beyond the nursery.

Also, Monsieur Reynard was dreadfully easily distracted. His mind seemed to wander, mid-conversation. One might even suspect he was bored. He had a way of lolling in the chair that suggested he might nod off at any moment: a most unnerving habit, which quite sapped the confidence of the speaker. He lacked any natural respect for his superiors; indeed, Clarissa wondered whether he in fact regarded himself as her equal. He brooked no objections. What he said seemed to go. If she suggested other than he did, he simply shook his head and said ‘
non
’ – not rudely, but nevertheless emphatically. He made Clarissa feel somewhat surplus.

But then, wasn’t she? She was alone now in the morning room, the chef having loped off with a – frankly – insolent smile and what might have been a wink, though she couldn’t be sure. She sat at the oval table with her dainty chin supported in one cupped hand, and allowed melancholy to steal over her again. She had, she knew, been beastly to her daughter-in-law and would – she knew – be beastly again. It came as naturally to her as breathing. No part of her was ready to relinquish her role in this family to anyone, least of all Thea Stirling, and every unkind word or dismissive
gesture, every carefully enunciated ‘Dorothea’, was Clarissa’s way of continuing to assert her position. She was young still: only forty-four. She was not ready, not at all, to take a back seat. When her arrival had been announced at a small Chatsworth dinner last week as ‘the Dowager Countess of Netherwood’ she had all but looked behind her, to see if Teddy’s old mother had risen from the grave. Of course, by the time Teddy’s father had died, his mother had been quite batty and harmless as an infant, confined to her rooms with a nurse and a bedpan; and earlier countesses had politely died, making the path as clear as possible for their successors. There had never been a Dower House at Netherwood Hall, because there had never been the need, not that Clarissa would have submitted to living in it, even if one existed. But here she was, beautiful, vital, full of health – if one discounted her migraines, and if she was entirely honest they
could
be discounted – and yet she was expected to play second fiddle to the jumped-up, drawling daughter of a small-town American industrialist.

Clarissa sighed now, because her thoughts had drifted to Teddy – or rather, to his absence. It was so maddening of him to get himself killed, and in such a silly, unlikely way, because look where it had left her – a reluctant member of the audience at the Thea Stirling show. Well, she thought, we are
not
amused. And could she bear to continue soldiering on here while Thea played at being a member of the aristocracy, stealing the limelight at every opportunity and charming everyone with her wild ideas and famously fun-loving personality? Clarissa shuddered. No, she thought. She really didn’t think she could.

For a little while she sat on, deep in thought, and then all of a sudden she stood and crossed the room, with the purposeful aspect of a woman with a plan. She reached for the brass
handle set into the marble surround of the fireplace and turned it vigorously, then waited for a footman to appear from the servants’ hall. She would take a cup of coffee, and then, duly fortified, she would take control of her life.

A
t the top of Market Hill in Barnsley stood the elegant stone edifice that was Butterfield’s Drapery Market, the town’s highly esteemed emporium of fine cloth, haberdashery and other quality bits and bobs. There was also a café – ‘Dainty Meals’ promised the advertisement, ‘served in pleasant surroundings’ – and this was where Eve now sat, with Silas, sharing a silver pot of Assam tea and a tiered platter of tarts and triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off. She wasn’t impressed.

‘Yesterday’s bread,’ she said. ‘And I don’t know what this spread is, but it’s not meat paste.’

‘Tastes all right to me,’ Silas said. ‘Mind you, after two months of fried plantain and curried goat, everything tastes ambrosial.’

‘What’s plantain?’ she said.

‘Bit like a banana, but you wouldn’t want to be eating it raw. It’s not half bad, actually, the first couple of times. By the tenth time, you’re going off it. By the twentieth, you’d rather eat your Panama hat.’

‘Well, fried plantain sounds better than goat. Smelly beasts.’

‘Mmmm. Again, quite palatable in small doses. Are you going to leave that?’

There was an abandoned egg and cress sandwich on her plate. She nodded and pushed it towards him, then picked up a lemon curd tart. She sniffed it cautiously, then nibbled at the pastry. Silas laughed.

‘You eat as if you’re tasting for poison,’ he said.

She put it down. ‘It’s an affliction,’ she said miserably. ‘I can’t enjoy food when I’m out. I always think I could do better at ’ome.’

‘And you most certainly could; which is why, dear Evie, you really should open up next door.’

She took a sip of hot tea. ‘That’s a nice brew, anyroad,’ she said.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘Yes, I said I’d think on it, Silas. It’s only been ten minutes.’

‘But it’s perfect. There’s good old Butterfield’s here, with its delusions of grandeur, and Guest’s down the road with their fine groceries. You’d slot in as naturally as the egg in that sandwich.’

‘Thank you, but I don’t see myself as t’egg in anyone’s sandwich.’

‘It’s a pleasant building, currently empty, neither too big nor too small, in a part of town that passes for smart by Barnsley’s standards.’

‘Now watch it,’ she said, wagging a finger at him. ‘No need to be rude.’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s all rather parochial, isn’t it?’

She wasn’t at all sure what he meant, but had no intention of showing it. She ignored him, and sipped at her cup of tea.

‘I’ve always thought you should open up in Bristol. Clifton village would welcome one of your establishments with open arms. But I’m a reasonable man; I can see that might be a step too far for the moment. Market Hill, Barnsley, though
… Close enough to Netherwood to keep a proper eye on, respectable establishments left and right’ – he picked up her rejected sandwich and waggled it – ‘and an obvious demand for your food. What is there to think about? Apart from all the money you’ll make. Now there’s something to dwell upon, because you can raise your prices here in town, with no more expenditure on ingredients …’

She let him talk. He could talk the hind legs off a donkey, this brother of hers. He talked like a man who was used to being listened to, whether or not what he said was interesting, or even right. Hugh Oliver had told her that Silas held weekly staff meetings at Whittam and Co., assembling the workforce – packers, drivers, clerks, delivery boys, no exceptions – in the warehouse and detailing the week’s profits, losses, triumphs and failures, however small, however large.

‘We’re none of us allowed to speak while he does,’ Hugh had said. ‘Even I have to stand there mute, listening to the oracle. Woe betide you if you have to sneeze. Men have been sacked for less.’

Eve looked at Silas now, still holding forth on the ins and outs of the catering trade, about which he knew next to nothing. Well, he might strike the fear of God into his own employees, but she was his big sister and could still put him in his place.

‘Oh, be quiet,’ she said.

He stopped speaking and stared.

‘I shall finish my tea, then go back and ’ave another look,’ she said. ‘I’m minded to take t’lease, but as and when I do, it’ll be my idea, and not as a result of you blethering on.’

‘Charmed, I’m sure.’

She smiled at him. ‘Do you remember coming here once, years ago? We stood in the doorway, too mucky to step inside?’

He nodded, though he was still affronted. He was out of
the habit of being reprimanded; he had lost the knack of bouncing back.

‘We wanted to see t’money whizzing back and forth on t’wires. Do you remember?’

‘Of course I remember.’ It had been a rare trip to Barnsley, he thought. She can’t have been more than eight; he would have been seven. How had they got there? He simply couldn’t recall. He knew, though, that they had no money at all, and he’d wanted to lift a couple of pies from a market stall, but Eve hadn’t let him and then the lady behind the stall, seeing them whey-faced and pitiful, had said, ‘Now then you two, take a pie each, quick, before t’mister gets back,’ and Eve had told him, as they walked off clutching their booty, that God had rewarded them for being good. Silas had thought, what’s the difference? Either way we get a pie. He still thought that, actually; one profits in life by whatever means possible. A stolen pie tastes just as good as a pie gained honestly.

‘Those wires – do you suppose they save time?’

Silas followed her gaze. It was one of the wonders of Barnsley, this overhead network of slender cables carrying metal pots of money at thrillingly high speeds to a hidden cashier. Sent by a shop assistant, they flew across the shop and through a hole in the wall, then emerged a few moments later to hurtle back with a written receipt and the customer’s change.

‘Seems like an unnecessary palaver to me,’ he said. ‘But it’s theatrical, and therein lies its value. I do believe people make purchases simply to watch the drama of the transaction.’ All those years ago they had stood outside, he and his sister, peering in as best they could, to watch the spectacle. They’d been shooed away eventually, and had gone instead to the open doorway of Guest’s to inhale the exotic aroma of coffee beans, tea leaves and cheese. You could feast on that smell if you were hungry enough.

‘Listen to you,’ Eve said. ‘Did you swallow a dictionary?’