The Cuckoo's Child (6 page)

And what –
what
in God's name was he doing, bringing this girl from London to catalogue a roomful of dry, dusty books that neither he nor anyone else in living memory had ever touched?

In his first words to her, Ainsley Beaumont supplied Laura with the reason why he had walked away from the scene of the attack upon her by his dog. ‘Put yourself directly in front of me when you speak, if you please,' he said to her without preamble when she presented herself to him. ‘I'm going deaf as a post in my old age. It's no use you shouting, there's not a thing I can hear, but I manage well enough at lip-reading.'

He shook her hand firmly and told her to sit down, and then, regarding her with a steady look, said nothing more for a long time. Whether he had been entirely unaware of what had taken place out there on the moor or not, it was impossible to say. If he had, he was making no effort to apologize.

He had been, and still was for that matter, a handsome, if heavily built man, unsmiling, short-necked, with a dark, strong-willed face, blue-jowled and with an obstinate cleft chin. Though his close-cut hair was plentifully sprinkled with grey, his thick eyebrows were still fierce and dark, and from under them his shrewd eyes regarded Laura steadily for what seemed like a very long time. She did not find the regard comfortable, but she did not flinch.

‘So,' he said at last, ‘you are Miss Laura Harcourt.' As with many deaf people, his voice was pitched low. A pleasant voice, though his vowels, his turn of phrase, remained uncompromisingly northern. ‘Well, well, and what makes you want to come here? I hear you're one of these over-educated young women we hear so much about nowadays.'

‘I have just completed a three year course at the Royal Holloway College, if that's what you mean,' Laura replied coolly.

‘Overqualified to sort out a few books, aren't you?'

‘It makes a change until I get my bearings. I'm not quite sure what I want to do in the way of work, yet.'

‘Aye, that's it nowadays, isn't it? Work, as if looking after a man and a family wasn't work enough! I suppose you think you're entitled to the vote, as well, like our Una? No, don't answer that . . . it seems we never do get the better of you young women, going down that road, and I don't mean us to get off on the wrong foot.' He allowed himself a slight smile. Laura, not to be drawn, swallowed a retort and said nothing. ‘You'll soon get used to me, Miss Harcourt. Don't take offence.' After a moment he added, ‘So, what did Mr Carfax tell you?'

‘Nothing more than you need your books cataloguing, and the fees you've offered.' Which had not, she reflected, been exactly generous, and might have affected her decision, had she been in need of something better paid, and not least had she known what sort of employer she was to have.

He made no reply, his hands on the silver knob of his stick. Driven at last by a scrutiny she did not intend to allow to become unnerving, Laura said, ‘Perhaps it would be as well, Mr Beaumont, if you gave me some idea of exactly what you need me to do here.'

‘Books, as you said, that's the long and short of it. There's a lot of ‘em, mind, but seeing as you're a bit of a bluestocking, sorting ‘em out shouldn't worry you.'

‘What does your library consist of?'

‘My library?' He gave a short laugh. ‘Well, I reckon it has to be mine on account of I own it, but I've never opened a book out of it yet, or out of anywhere else much,' he said, not without pride. ‘
Huddersfield Examiner
and
The Leeds Mercury
are fgood enough for me.'

‘Forgive my asking, then, but why do you need them cataloguing?'

‘They came with the house when I bought it, lock, stock and barrel, twenty-odd year back, from my wife's father. They've never been touched since. Happen it's time they were seen to.'

An explanation which left much to be desired, Laura thought. ‘Are there many?'

‘A few hundreds? A thousand or two? I can't rightly say. I've never counted. Not all that many, I shouldn't think.'

‘In that case, since I don't like time hanging on my hands, I dare say I shall soon be finished.'

‘Take your time. There's nowt got with rush and kick.' As if it suddenly occurred to him he might have been less than welcoming, he added gruffly, ‘If I said little in my letters to Mr Carfax, Miss Harcourt, it's because there's little to tell. I shan't bother you much, I'm mostly down at the mill, and we're not a big household – there's only my grandchildren, the twins, and their mother. You'll be treated as one of the family while you're here.'

‘Thank you. I've already met your granddaughter.'

‘She's got some funny ideas just now, Una has, but she's a good lass, at heart, I suppose.' He added abruptly, ‘But there's one more thing. My daughter-in-law, Amelia, Mrs Beaumont – their mother, that is. You might consider her a bit – funny in her ways, like.'

There was a pause. The fire collapsed in a flurry of rosy ash.

‘You mean she's mad?'

He gave another short bark of laughter as he leaned forward to pick up the poker and rearrange the coals. ‘You're a young woman after my own heart, Laura Harcourt, you speak your mind. No, she's not mad. Saner than most, I reckon, except she likes her own way a sight too much and isn't slow to say so. But I mustn't grumble. I'm nearly seventy and she's taken a lot off my shoulders since my son died . . . she's run this house for nigh on twenty year, so I reckon we can all put up with a bit of stick. But take no notice of what she says, if you can, and don't let her frighten you away.'

He leaned forward for the tongs and replenished the fire with another lump of coal. Sparks flew, as a tall grandfather clock ticked away in the corner, its silvery chime, when it came, identifying it as the one Laura had heard in the hall. The shadow of the old man's profile, thrown on to the wall by the lamp burning on the desk by his elbow, had a fierce, patriarchal cast. He might be the sort of person who would overwhelm one, on the other hand he might be kind. He had his little vanities – and not inconsiderable ones. His good suit was of grey worsted, his brown boots polished like conkers, a heavy gold watch-chain spread across his waistcoat and from it depended a circular gold sovereign case and a gold fob seal.

She stood up, sensing the interview was at an end, and rather glad that it was. ‘I'll start first thing tomorrow morning, Mr Beaumont. I promise I won't prolong my duties and subject you to any unnecessary expense.'

‘You wouldn't be here long if you did, lass.' He smiled grimly, then gave her one of the long, penetrating stares she was becoming used to. ‘Aye,' he said eventually. ‘I reckon you'll do well enough, Laura Harcourt. You'll do.'

As if on cue, the doorknob rattled and Una came into the room. ‘Have you finished putting Miss Harcourt through the third degree, Grandpa?'

‘If you mean have we done talking, we have.'

There was a challenge in the way their eyes met before Una turned to Laura. ‘Then come and meet the rest of us, Miss Harcourt.'

Five

When Una pushed open the door to her mother's sitting room, it at first appeared empty, a low-ceilinged room cluttered with too much furniture. Only a single lamp burned, shaded in dark red, and the last of the daylight was further dimmed by ferns, potted palms and heavy plush curtains of a deep plum colour, which were half-parted across the mullioned windows. But as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Laura saw that a trousered leg hung over the arm of a wing chair and a woman slept by the fire. It seemed to be a room created for somnolence, a room that spoke of long hours of stifling ennui, of occupants who had long since ceased to have anything to say to one another, where the mantel clock chiming the quarters and the fall of a coal in the grate, the turning of a page or the click of a thimble placed on a table would be the only sounds to break the silence.

Una broke it now by saying, ‘Well, is anyone at home here?'

The leg disappeared, and a young man immediately sprang up from the depths of the chair and made his way with a dexterity that could only have come from long practice between balloon-backed chairs and spindly tables laden with knick-knacks.

‘My brother Gideon, resting from his labours at the mill, as you see . . . Miss Harcourt,' Una introduced them dryly, bending to adjust the lamp so that it burned more brightly. She turned and looked appraisingly at Laura. ‘No, I don't think that's going to do. Everyone else calls me Una and I should be mortified if you did not, and I was compelled to call you Miss Harcourt . . . Laura?'

She smiled, very briefly, but it transformed her. Una Beaumont might not, perhaps, be the cold, sarcastic girl she seemed; or at any rate, not a person to be judged by first impressions – any more than her brother, who looked nothing like someone who had just returned from work at a mill, albeit his appearance was somewhat dishevelled: his high collar was slightly askew, his hair flopped towards his eyes and looked as though he had run his hands through it, more than once. But his tie held a pearl pin, and like his grandfather he had on a suit of the best worsted, which he wore with elegance. He seemed friendly, and his tone was slightly amused as he asked, with a faint drawl, ‘Well, then, Laura, and how did you get on with the old man?'

‘Mr Beaumont? I'm not sure, but he seemed to think that “I'll do well enough.”'

She had evidently correctly caught Ainsley Beaumont's tone. They both laughed.

The woman by the fire, wakened by the sound, sat up with a jerk of her head. Caught napping, she looked affronted at the loss to her dignity, but in a moment she had smoothed her hair and her skirt and was sitting upright, as stiff and unbending as though sleep had never been further away. ‘Well,' she demanded, discerning the newcomer, ‘and who do we have here then?'

‘Come and meet my mother, Laura,' said Una.

Amelia Beaumont sat without moving but after a moment offered a handshake. She had been lying in front of the fire, and yet her hand was cold as a frog's. A heavily built woman in middle age, her curves firmly disciplined in whalebone, she was a commanding figure, handsomely dressed in a snuff-coloured blouse and skirt discreetly trimmed with heliotrope velvet bands. Her dark brown hair, dressed wide, emphasized a skin pale as her daughter's. Otherwise, there was little resemblance between them, or between her and her son, for that matter. She might once have been considered handsome and might still have been, were it not for the uncompromising set to her mouth and the strange, opaquely dark eyes which now fastened on Laura with a long, considering gaze. ‘So you're the young woman from down south?'

‘Yes, I'm Laura Harcourt, Mrs Beaumont.'

Until her other clothes had been shaken and pressed free of their packing-induced creases, there had been no question for Laura of changing anything but her travelling shoes for bronze-coloured slippers and removing her coat, and Mrs Beaumont's gaze travelled over her, from the shining mass of her wavy hair to the row of tiny, lapis-lazuli buttons on her ivory crêpe-de-chine, French-made blouse. ‘Hmm.' Her look made it clear that she did not approve of what she saw, and Laura was inclined to think that disapproval was the least of it. She was taken aback to see an almost palpable flash of dislike in those opaque eyes.

‘So what are you doing up here, then, miss?'

‘Well, of course, I'm here to sort out Mr Beaumont's books for him.'

‘And about time too – that room's a disgrace,' she returned bluntly. ‘But that's not what I meant . . .' She considered Laura again, but the black marble mantel clock chiming six interrupted whatever else she had been going to say, and she put an end to the conversation by pressing large, capable hands on the arms of her chair and standing up in one direct movement. She needed no assistance from the hand her son put out to help her. ‘It's teatime.'

Everyone immediately made an obedient move towards the door.

It was strange eating without the strong light of gas or electricity, but lamplight was gentler, kinder, warmer, leaving the edges of the sombrely furnished room in darkness while its golden, flickering light lit the faces of those around the table. There were just the four of them. The carver chair at the head of the table was empty, though a place was laid. It seemed the head of the house at Farr Clough had decided not to join them on this occasion.

Amelia Beaumont, absorbed in her meal, said little, though her presence dominated the table. Once or twice as they ate, Laura looked up and caught those curious eyes on her, and felt again that she was being judged, and found wanting. She had never before encountered what she could not but feel was unwarranted dislike, and for a while she tried to overcome it by drawing the older woman out, but her efforts were met with such indifference that her pride would not let her carry on. Perhaps she was imagining the animosity. Yet Laura could not suppress a slight shiver. A feeling that behind those secret eyes, the tight mouth, there was passion, and perhaps something darker, held in.

She's clever, this girl – or perhaps just socially accomplished – thought Una, watching Laura try to draw out, first her mother, then Gideon, who responded warmly as they sat down to the usual knife and fork affair of cold meats, tinned salmon and salad, buttered plain teacake and a great array of sweet-stuff, washed down with many cups of strong, dark tea, doubtless not the sort of meal someone from London was used to. Una herself never had much appetite, either, for this vast array of food, especially not after the heavy midday dinner that was always served here at Farr Clough, rain or shine. But no one dared break with tradition, at Farr Clough Grandpa upheld it and was usually here at teatime. It was too bad of him – Una hesitated to say perverse, though that was the thought that passed through her mind – not to appear today, seeing that Laura Harcourt being here was his idea.