Summer's End (3 page)

Caroline caught Reggie winking at her, while apparently staring straight ahead with a solemn face. Lady Hunney smiled at her with honeyed sweetness. ‘Beware the jaws that bite, the claws that catch …' Caroline thought, gracefully inclining her head to the Jabberwock, before grinning at Eleanor. Eleanor was wearing her new royal blue costume which they had chosen at Debenham & Freebody's, and it suited Eleanor's pleasant looks better than the usual nondescript shades she wore. No doubt Caroline was getting the blame for this radical move. Only Lady Hunney was permitted the height of fashion, having long dismissed nineteen-year-old Eleanor (Caroline suspected) as a non-runner in the social race.

‘Christ the Lord is risen again …' She sang out in happiness as the hymn began.

The Easter Service is glory, all glory … Mrs Thorn got her way over the altar linen – no lace. That meant sometime in the future Mrs Lettice must be appeased … What would the future hold for her sisters, and George? Would they marry? Would
she
marry?

‘Alleluia!'

Caroline quickly offered an apology to God. How could she take Communion with such secular thoughts on her mind?

Elizabeth rather liked Edith Swinford-Browne, or perhaps it would be more truthful to say she felt sympathetic towards her. She knew Edith was feeling out of her depth in the Rectory drawing room. The high puffed coiffure, the over-ornate Magyar sleeves, and the inappropriate velvet bag all testified to her ordeal. It wasn't at all like The Towers in Station Road into which she and her husband William had moved five
years ago; William was the biggest landowner in the parish, rivalling even Sir John Hunney of Ashden Manor, and he set out to ensure that the village knew of and benefited from his enormous wealth. All except the Rector. Elizabeth was quite convinced, despite her husband's refusal to discuss the issue, that Swinford-Browne deliberately undervalued his yields for the purposes of the tithe rent charge, on which the Rector depended for his income. He was a self-made man, as he proclaimed modestly, a phrase which had caused much mirth in the Lilley household.

However, the Rectory, not the Manor, was the key to village approval, and Edith knew if she could but grasp the intangible thread that led to this, she need fret no more. Yet here she looked lost, as if she was longing for the moment when the gentlemen – William, Robert and the Rector – would emerge from their little talk to rescue her. Not that she was shy. Far from it. But she obviously liked to know where she stood, and here she did not.

Elizabeth watched her, pityingly.

Poor Edith would see only that the Berlin-worked tapestry on the chairs was well-worn, the piano long past its prime, the rosewood what-not battered, the souvenirs from Worthing and Brighton cheap and chipped, the frames of photographs and sketches crammed together, and the books left lying on tables and chairs, instead of being placed decorously back on their library shelves.

Edith was obviously searching for a comment. She found one.

‘It's the servant problem, isn't it?'

Elizabeth agreed with her warmly, as sympathy oozed from her guest's voice. ‘Indeed it is.' Then, unable to resist temptation, she added: ‘I should be quite distraught if any of our efficient servants left, now I have fully trained them.' She felt she was being unfair to Edith, who had done nothing to deserve such a put-down, even if she would never recognise it as such.

‘I wonder,' Edith asked brightly, ‘if you would care to join my Committee for the Relief of Fallen Women, Mrs Lilley? We meet at the Pump Room in Tunbridge Wells.'

‘I regret not.' Elizabeth gave her slow, warm smile. ‘I never join committees. It sets such a bad example.'

Edith stared at her nonplussed, as Elizabeth knew she would be. ‘Oh, quite,' she said weakly.

Elizabeth was the daughter of a Kentish hop farmer. What extra
money there was at the Rectory had come from her, not Laurence, for all that he was a son of the Earl of Buckford. He had only the money from his living, a sum of £490 a year, greatly diminished over the last thirty years owing to the general agricultural depression, and always at the mercy of late payers and deliberate avoidance, sometimes to Elizabeth's fury, by those who so officiously carried out Church duties. It was love, not money, however, that had brought about her marriage to Laurence. She knew Ashden found her puzzling as a Rector's wife, for she did not move among the cottagers unless the need was great. Her parish was the Rectory, her parishioners her family, and through her ministry her husband and her children prospered. Why waste time on a thousand essentially useless missions?

With relief, she heard Agnes beat the gong inside; it seemed a fanfare of release – until she remembered what was to come.

Thank goodness Reggie arrived promptly at the Rectory. Luncheon had been a nightmare. Caroline was aware she had not behaved well, though better than Phoebe and George, who had giggled together whenever Mother's eye was not on them, aided and abetted by the frightful Patricia Swinford-Browne, who was not above mocking her own mother, Caroline noticed. The tradition of eating the first lamb of the year at Easter persisted in the Rectory despite the fact that modern farming meant they could enjoy it in January if they wished. Now that treat had been spoiled, and so had that of the primrose pie. How could one
enjoy
such delights while having to entertain Robert Swinford-Browne, who was sitting next to her? He was tall, good-looking in a vapid kind of way and, to her at least, as interesting as a tailor's dummy. She liked him, but she found him hard to talk to, since he seemed to have no purpose or interests in life – save tennis, of course. She had obligingly raised the subject of Anthony Wilding and his prospects at Wimbledon, about which she knew little, and he, unfortunately, knew a great deal. ‘He's like Brookes, he can play from any position on court. Of course, Brookes' horizontal volley …'

And
then
it
had
happened.

‘Reggie, what do you think?' Caroline could wait no longer. She had hardly taken in a word Reggie had been saying, so full was she of the thunderbolt that had struck at luncheon. They had reached the wicket
gate of Crab's meadow and Pook's Way, the track which led to the nearest gate into Ashdown forest, before she could contain herself no longer.

‘She's a stunner!'

‘Who?' Caroline was thrown.

‘Penelope Banning, of course, Caroline, you never listen, that's your trouble. I've been in love with Penelope for three whole months now. Why do you think I've dragged you out today? I need your advice and I'm blowed if I'm going to have the whole of your blessed family chipping in on my romantic life.'

‘
Your
romantic life, Reggie,' she replied, nodding to Alf Tilbury as he painfully hobbled down the garden path of Whapples Cottage, ‘can wait for once. I have something much more important to tell you. Now
listen
.'

‘It's hard to listen when you're stumbling over stones and
your
dog is intent on seeing me come a cropper. What do you think horses were made for? Why wouldn't you ride? Smith needs exercise too, you know.' Smith was his hunter.

‘Because shouting at someone on horseback is not conducive to having a serious conversation. Besides, Poppy isn't mine, she belongs to all of us, and Felicia wanted to ride this afternoon.'

‘Mother would have lent you her mare.'

Would she? Caroline doubted it. Lady Hunney's famous charm seemed to have a steel edge where Caroline was concerned. Isabel called her Aunt Maud, but there had never been any suggestion that Caroline should adopt the same informality. It had occurred to Caroline that since she got on well with Reggie, Lady Hunney might fear she had designs upon him, something that would not look well in her social book. The second daughter of the third son of an earl, and an impoverished one at that, was the kind of catch that Lady Hunney would immediately throw back in the sea.

To her annoyance, he continued to talk non-stop of the wonders of this Penelope Banning as they strolled into Five Hundred Acre Wood. The Forest – a misnomer now that much of Ashdown Forest was open heathland – was heaving with signs of spring and the sun had chased away the clouds of the morning. Yet Reggie hardly noticed. Couldn't he feel, as she did, the magic of this place?

‘Oh, Reggie, do stop to
look
.' Caroline was momentarily side-tracked from her impatience at not being able to impart her news.

‘What is there to look at? Trees, flowers, birds.' There was all the gloom of the frustrated romantic lover in his voice.

‘That's a Dartford warbler,' she said crossly. ‘Very rare. What more could you ask?'

‘Penelope.'

‘Reggie, pretend I am Penelope, and
listen
to me.'

‘All right. What is it? You overboiled the jam again?'

‘No,' she said scathingly. ‘
Real
news. Isabel is engaged.'

‘What?' He staggered around, clutching his brow. ‘My secret hopes blighted.'

‘Don't be an idiot, Reggie. It's Robert Swinford-Browne.' The awfulness of it engulfed her again. It had seemed unbelievable at first. Father standing up and making the announcement in his ‘parish' voice, so she knew he wasn't happy about it either; then William Swinford-Browne opening bottles of champagne which he'd brought with him … and all the time Isabel, sitting there nakedly displaying not dewy-eyed love, but a kind of triumph – or so it seemed to Caroline. Perhaps that was just the champagne which had made her head swim, and Isabel suddenly seem a stranger.

‘By Jove, she kept quiet about that.'

‘Exactly what Phoebe said. Perhaps Isabel didn't want it to be known in case we teased her, but if she loves him –'

‘Aha. Did I note an “if”?'

‘Oh, Reggie, I can't believe she does. Robert's not like his father, but marry him? It would be like marrying Fred Dibble. I'm not being unkind,' Caroline added hastily.

He glanced at her bright hazel eyes and the light brown hair leaping out as usual from its restraining pins, saw that she was indeed worried, and began to take the matter seriously. ‘You're never unkind. But it's not the same. Robert's got his own mind – somewhere. He's a decent chap, is Robert. Handy with a racket, too. And a lot of money.'

Caroline sighed. ‘You know Isabel. Once she gets her way, she no longer wants it. I suppose I shouldn't say that either.'

‘It's only me, Caroline. You're not being disloyal.'

She looked at him gratefully. ‘After she came home from finishing school and got presented at Court, and after that man backed out of marrying her, I think she grew obsessed with marriage.' There had been two men, in fact, one who backed out and one highly unsuitable one (if rich) whom Father had chased off.

‘It's always the same with you girls that have got no money,' Reggie said encouragingly. ‘Family isn't everything these days.'

‘How nice of you to put it so tactfully. Isabel obviously agrees with you, or I can't believe she'd be marrying into the Swinford-Browne family.'

‘Perhaps the patter of tiny feet will change her.'

‘It wouldn't me.'

‘It would most women.'

She fell silent. Did he mean she was not a womanly woman? Not like her mother? She wanted to be like Mother, only there was a restlessness in her that made her suspect she could never be so.

‘Look,' he continued, ‘even you and Isabel have more choices than me. I didn't ask to be the eldest son, after all. Yet here I am, and as soon as the old man dies, I'm lord of the manor and the Ashden estate whether I like it or not.'

‘Don't you want to be?'

‘Of course I do. It's an honour to carry on the torch like that, I love the old place, and I love the village. There have been Hunneys at Ashden for over three hundred years. But just once in a while, I feel like cutting loose.'

Caroline had never questioned Reggie's attitude to his heritage before, and now she wondered why. The established order must continue under Reggie. Daniel, his younger brother, would be off travelling the world as soon as he came down this summer from Oxford, but Reggie had had no hope of taking up a full military career after his degree, despite his time in the university officers' training corps, and his periodic visits to something called ‘camp'. His father had been called back to Whitehall to assume his formal title of Major-General Sir John Hunney, on the Balkan troubles in 1912 – ‘Just an army desk job' was all he said about his duties there. Since then Reggie had had to take his place running the estate. He ran it well. The bailiff was a good man, but Reggie was the one the village turned to. He may be young, but he was a Hunney.

‘But I'm a woman. How can you say I have more choices than you?'

‘You chose not to go to finishing school. You're helping your father.'

Helping, Caroline wondered? Was what she did now worth those rows, first with her grandmother when she refused to go to the Paris finishing school, for which Lady Buckford was so generously paying.
Instead she had remained at St Margaret College in East Grinstead, and then taken up her duties as the Rector's daughter. Just like Reggie. Little by little, she had gained ground in expanding her role, first writing the parish magazine, and then helping her father by copying and making sense of old decaying registers; now she also worked in the Ashden Manor library – Reggie's suggestion – cataloguing and repairing volumes. Interesting, but ultimately stultifying. In return for this, she sometimes took the Rector's wife's traditional place at the Mother's Union, and in organising flower shows and fêtes. Recently she had done some teaching at the village school, which was Church of England controlled. But at times, particularly now in spring, none of this was enough. Much as she loved home and Ashden, she felt her life was straining against a liberty bodice that had grown too small.