The American Heiress (52 page)

The Duchess glared at her son but the Prince of Wales laughed so much that she was forced to join in and her smile did not waver when the Prince said, ‘Hard to believe that you are a grandmother now, Fanny. You will always be a slender young thing to me.’

The Duchess put her hands to her tightly corseted waist and said, ‘I hope so, sir,’ and sighed theatrically. But there was no way back to her previous position and she was obliged to look on nobly while Sybil chattered to Cora about bridesmaids and veils.

The Prince took his leave after the tea; he was taking the overnight train to Balmoral. As Cora walked him to his carriage, he paused to look across the hills to the horizon softening in the evening light. ‘It’s a glorious spot, Duchess. It has always been a favourite of mine and now that you are here, I find I apprrreciate its charms all the more. I look forward to coming back.’

Cora smiled and curtsied, but when the carriage had at last driven out of sight, she felt herself go limp and if Ivo had not been standing behind her she would have fallen to the ground.

‘What was the Prince whispering to you just now, Cora, that made you go weak at the knees? I hope he knows that this Duchess of Wareham, at least, is not his to command. Or were you tempted by Tum Tum? Although judging by his performance on the bicycle today, I doubt that he has much to offer.’ Cora knew that Ivo was teasing her but there was a bitterness to his tone that jangled. Surely he could not be jealous of the Prince?

She pulled away from him and said, ‘I have a headache, Ivo, I am going to lie down. I am sorry, but you will have to manage without me this evening.’

‘Don’t worry, I am sure my mother will be only too happy to resume the role of chatelaine. Or shall I ask your mother? What a prospect.’ Ivo put his hand against her cheek. ‘Shall I send for the doctor, I don’t think I can manage without you for long.’

‘No, I’m sure I will feel better once I have rested. It has been a long day.’

‘The longest,’ said Ivo and took her arm as they walked up the steps to the house.

Bertha was just about to join the upper servants who were gathering for their own version of the christening tea when the hall boy stopped her in the corridor, holding out a parcel.

‘Miss Jackson, Miss Jackson, this came for you.’ He shook it. ‘I think it’s from America.’

Bertha took the parcel from him. The parcel had been redirected many times. It had gone to New York, to London and now here to Dorset. The return address was the Rev. Caleb Spragge, South Carolina. She felt her mouth go dry. She took the parcel into the pressing room and put it down on the table. She found a pair of scissors and cut the thick twine that held it together. She pulled away the brown paper to reveal a cardboard box about two feet long and one foot wide. Bertha could hear the bustle and clatter of the housemaids in the corridor, she wanted very much to walk out and join them, she did not want to open the box. But then she saw the pile of string and the elaborately tied knots and she knew she could not ignore what lay inside.

She lifted the lid. Inside was a letter and something that looked like clothing wrapped in tissue paper. She opened the letter – the date was 12 March, four months ago.

My dear Bertha,

It is with great regret that I write to tell you that your mother passed away yesterday. She had been sickly for some time and I think she was happy to go to her Maker in the end. She spoke of you often and she often said how proud she was that you were making your way in the world. In the last few months she started to make this quilt for you. She finished it a day or two before she passed. It was evidently a labour of love.

I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news but be comforted by the thought that your mother is in a better place.

Your affectionate friend,
Caleb Spragge

Bertha leant against the table for a moment. She had known, of course, when she came to England that she would never see her mother again, but the fact of it still made her faint with loss. She folded back the shroud of tissue paper and took out the quilt.

It was not so big, perhaps the size of the table in the cabin, twelve squares, four by three, of interlocking strips of material around a central motif. With a lurch of her heart she saw a strip of blue and white striped cotton from her mother’s skirt, and opposite, a scrap of paisley from the shawl that Bertha had sent her. In every square she found some memento of the life she could only dimly remember, a faded strip from some overalls, a scrap of material from a flour sack with the letters
ash’s finest flo
. Bertha recognised in the centre of one square a piece of the red and white bandanna that her mother had used to tie back her unruly hair. The stitching was fine and even in some parts of the quilt, but in others the sewing was erratic, rushed as if her mother was desperate to get to the end. She was sending her daughter a message and she would not go until she had finished it. She could not read or write, so this quilt was her last will and testament, her parting gift to her only child. Bertha held it up to her face, feeling her mother’s hands on the warm soft fabric. For the first time since she had left South Carolina ten years before, she allowed herself to cry.

A bell rang and Mabel came in.

‘The Duchess is down, Miss Jackson. You’re wanted upstairs.’ She saw Bertha’s face and stopped. ‘Are you all right? Was it bad news?’ She seemed eager for details

Bertha nodded. ‘Yes, it was bad news, but it was a long time ago.’

She folded the quilt carefully and wrapped it up in the tissue paper. She went upstairs to her bedroom and laid it out. Only then did she go down to Miss Cora.

Cora was sitting in the window seat when Bertha came in, her face pressed against the glass. She had taken her hair down and the russet weight of it fell over her shoulders like an animal pelt. She had lost her Duchess look, Bertha thought.

‘Oh, there you are. I have got such a headache, Bertha.’ Her voice sounded weak and uncertain.

Bertha poured some eau de cologne on to a flannel and pressed it to Cora’s temples.

‘Thank you.’ Cora looked up at her for a moment, as if deciding something, and then said, ‘Bertha, have you ever been in love?’

Bertha stiffened, she wondered where this was leading. ‘I couldn’t say, Miss Cora.’

Cora shook her head. ‘Well, have you ever known someone who is nice
and
nasty, who makes you love them one minute and hate them the next? Who makes you feel wonderful and terrible and you never know which one it is going to be?’

Cora’s hands were twisting through her hair, rolling it around her fingers so tightly that they went white from lack of circulation. Bertha thought that the only person in her life who fitted Miss Cora’s description was Miss Cora herself, who did an excellent job in being nice and nasty. But that was not a thought she could utter. She knew that her mistress was talking about the Duke, so she kept her answer as non-committal as possible.

‘I guess the world is full of contrary folks, Miss Cora.’

‘Oh, but he’s not just contrary, Bertha, it’s as if he wants to unbalance me.’ Cora stopped. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you about this, you’re my maid and he’s my husband but I don’t know what to think any more.’ Bertha saw that one of Cora’s fingers was turning blue and she gently disengaged it from the hair.

‘Why don’t you talk to Mrs Cash? She knows a lot more about married life than I do, Miss Cora.’

‘Oh, I tried that. All Mother wants is a duchess for a daughter. She doesn’t care how I feel.’ Cora knocked her head against the glass.

Bertha could say nothing to this as she knew it was true.

‘I just don’t know who Ivo
is
any more. Sometimes I think – no, I
know
– he loves me but then the next moment he is someone else entirely. Last night, just before Odo made that scene, I saw something between Ivo and Charlotte. I know there is something there, some feeling that I can’t be part of. Yet when Ivo says he loves me, I believe him, but he can’t love us both, can he?’ She looked at Bertha in entreaty as if the maid’s answer had the power to decide her fate.

Bertha wanted to wipe Cora’s face clean of worry, but she could not lie to her. She knew that Jim would be angry with her for what she was about to do, but she could not stand by while Miss Cora tortured herself.

‘Miss Cora, if I tell you something, do you promise not to be angry with me?’

Bertha sat down on the window seat opposite her mistress so that she could look directly into her eyes.

‘Of course, why would I be angry with you?’

‘Because you won’t like what I have to say. Do you want me to go on?’

‘Yes, yes, I promise that nothing you say can be worse than I have imagined.’ A tear slid out of Cora’s eye, but she did not appear to notice.

Bertha fumbled in her bodice and drew out Jim’s pearl from its resting place next to her heart.

‘Do you recognise this, Miss Cora?’

Cora picked up the pearl and rolled it around her palm. ‘This looks as if it could be from my necklace, but it can’t be, unless someone has broken it…’ She looked over at her dressing table in alarm.

‘No,
your
necklace is quite safe. This pearl came from another necklace, just like yours.’

Cora tested the pearl against her front teeth. ‘It’s real enough, but what’s it got to do with me?’ She held the pearl in one hand and with the other she rubbed her neck where the necklace would have sat. She thought of Ivo fastening it for her that afternoon in Venice.

‘All I can tell you, Miss Cora, and I am sorry to be the one to do so, is that Lady Beauchamp had a necklace of black pearls just like yours. It broke one night when we were staying over at Sutton Veney and I…’ Bertha paused; she did not want Cora to know that it had been Jim who had stolen the pearl. ‘It was the night you didn’t come back from the hunt. She was wearing it at dinner and it snapped. I guess she picked them all up except this one.’

Cora spoke slowly as if she was trying to add things up in her head. ‘Are you saying that Ivo gave Charlotte a necklace like mine?’ She frowned.

‘Yes, he did.’

Cora stood up and went to the dressing table. She took her necklace out of its green morocco leather box. She compared her pearls to the one in her hand.

‘Identical.’ She turned and looked at Bertha.

Bertha stood up to face her. She could not tell from Cora’s expression whether she was to be blamed for what she had said. She had broken through the invisible wall of deference that lay between them by speaking out. But then she thought of all the things she had never said to her mother and she decided that she could not stop now. She had gone against Jim’s advice, her own self-interest even, to tell Miss Cora something that she might very well decide not to hear. But then she remembered how certain and bright Cora had once been and how dim she seemed now. She was only her maid, but Cora mattered to her. She would not just be a bystander.

‘There’s something else as well,’ she said. ‘Just before your wedding, you got a letter from Mr Van Der Leyden. Your mother didn’t want you to read anything that might upset you so I kept the letter. I didn’t read it, and I didn’t give it to the Madam, but I thought you should know.’ Bertha hoped that Miss Cora would not ask her for the letter, but her mistress did not seem to have heard what she had said. She was rolling the pearls between her fingers.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’ She gestured with the pearls.

Bertha hesitated. ‘It wasn’t my place to, Miss Cora. So long as you were happy, what good would it have done?’

‘So why are you telling me now?’

‘Because now I think you need to know the truth, Miss Cora.’

The pearls clattered against the wood as Cora dropped them on the table.

‘Yes, I suppose I do.’ She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them wide, pulling back her shoulders as if she was rising from a long sleep. She looked at herself in the pier glass and made a face. ‘I need you to put my hair up again.’ She sat down at the dressing table and handed Cora the brush. Her eyes met Bertha’s in the mirror. ‘And then I want you to find out whether Lady Beauchamp has gone to bed. I think it’s time I paid her a visit.’

Bertha nodded and began to brush the conker-coloured hair, which crackled to life with every stroke. When her hair was fully alive like a crown of flames, Cora put her hand on Bertha’s.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

Chapter 29

‘Taming a Sea Horse’

C
HARLOTTE BEAUCHAMP’S ROOM WAS IN THE MEDIEVAL
part of the house in one of the towers above the long gallery. Cora had not wanted to put her there, as this part of the house had not yet been modernised, but when she had been discussing the accommodations for the house party with Bugler, the butler had said that Lady Beauchamp preferred the tower room. And when Charlotte had written to her accepting her invitation to the christening, she had said, ‘Please can I sleep in my old tower bedroom, Cora? It was my room when I lived at Lulworth and it always reminds me of those happy days.’ At the time Cora had thought nothing much of it, besides surprise that anyone would choose to sleep in the coldest part of the house, but now as she walked up the worn stone steps to the tower, she realised that Charlotte had been claiming her territory. It was also true that the tower bedroom’s isolation meant that Sir Odo had been housed some distance away.