The Silver Touch (29 page)

‘No, Miss Bateman. He has gone.’

‘Gone? How long since?’ Five minutes? Ten? She was ready to fly back out of the door, unable to conceive how she could have missed him.

‘He left yesterday morning — shortly after dawn I was told.’

She set her face for the library and hoped her legs would carry her there. He would have left a letter for her on the library table telling her where to find him in the city. She had always heard that shock could make the teeth chatter and it was happening to her. Once inside the library she rushed to the central table. It was bare of everything but a lighted candle. As if she had been let out of Bedlam, she pulled open the table drawers as if crazed and rummaged in the cupboards which held only the red leather-bound volume of his cataloguing.

Slowly she sank down on to her knees on the floor and pressed her stricken face against the side of the table, her eyes shut tight on the realization of his lies, her mouth hanging open while wave after wave of anguish crashed through her. She had known as soon as she heard he was gone that there would be no letter, but the slight possibility had kept her from bursting into screams of pain from her breaking heart — there in the hall where she would have brought everyone running, her parents included. Gradually she became aware of awful sounds of another kind rising from her chest and realized that dry sobs were choking her throat. Dear God, she must not be heard. She put shaking hands over her mouth and struggled to suppress the noise. No one must know! How well Matthew had read her character as she had never learned to divine his. Even now he must be as certain as if she had told him herself that she would never divulge the humiliation of this night to anyone, least of all to her own family, for the burning coals of their sympathy would be an intrusion into her most private self that might drive her insane.

Stumbling to her feet, she gripped the edge of the table and set her shoulders back, her torment no longer audible. As she left the library she took a book at random from a shelf and held it to her as evidence for her visit. In the hall the same manservant on duty opened the door for her and she went out into the cool night. As if in a trance she recovered her valise and turned homewards. Indoors she went up to her room, took the letter from her pillow and held a corner of it to a candleflame until she had to drop the last scrap and stamp it out. She unpacked and put her things away. Then she washed her face in cold water and prepared for bed. In the comfort of her pillow the tears finally came, gushing forth as if some inner dam had burst. She wept far into the night, long after she had heard her parents’ whispers when they went quietly past her door. As the numbness of initial shock wore off her agony became steadily worse.

In the morning, she pretended to have an inflammation of the eyelids and her mother bathed them for her with a gentle herbal solution. After that she did not cry again until the day of her sister’s marriage. It was a grand affair with a packed church and Letticia a radiant bride. Ann could not stop the tears running down her face throughout the ceremony, but nobody thought anything amiss. After all it was usual for women to cry at weddings.

Ten

In spite of Mary Esdaile’s continued opposition to spending part of every year at the mansion, three more summers saw them in residence there. During that time the Batemans continued their busy lives, never without work on the benches and drawn into social contact with the Esdailes for three months of every year.

John’s only reservation about this pleasant disruption of routine was that James made no attempt to hide his attachment to Hester, which he found increasingly irritating, while accepting in his own mind that it was satisfying to the ego to be married to a beautiful woman whose fidelity was without question. Unfortunately he was often sharp with her after an evening with the Esdailes. She was extraordinarily patient with him these days, her temper rare, whereas he flared up constantly in a manner that would previously have been alien to him. At times he wondered if it was a symptom of what ailed him, for he was not in good health and tried to hide it from Hester to spare her worry. Whenever his cough troubled him he took the syrup she had made, always with good effect, and on days when tiredness threatened to overcome him at the work-bench, Joss always seemed to read the signs and would relieve him of any heavy chore. To his relief Hester never seemed to notice.

In his home life he had nothing to trouble him, although he wished that Ann would come out of her shell. Nearly twenty, she had never to his knowledge had a beau and adopted a severe hairstyle that even detracted from the lustre of her gentle eyes, her clothes always plain and without adornment. Letticia had offered an indefinite stay in London, wanting to pretty her up and find her a husband, but Ann had firmly declined. She seemed to want nothing more than to run the household, leaving Hester completely free for silversmithing, and to read in whatever time she had to herself, the library at the mansion her greatest source of pleasure.

The two youngest boys now attended a charity school set up in the neighbourhood and Ann was prompt to extricate William from trouble if it lay in her power, for his schooldays were punctuated by punishments for fights and escapades. She was always sharp with Jonathan, whose devious ways enraged her as never before. ‘Don’t try your sly tricks on me!’ she would admonish with a wagging finger. ‘I can read you as well as any book. Turn out your pockets! There! It
was
you with the catapult! I knew William hadn’t broken that window this time.’

It was to Ann, to whom he had always felt close, that William confided his ambition to be a goldsmith. Together they were feeding the remainder of Peter’s rescued birds and animals that would never be fit to survive in the wild again, a task they had willingly taken on when their brother had left on his fourteenth birthday to take up an apprenticeship with Richard shortly after the wedding day. For a moment Ann was at a loss how to answer and busied herself spooning out the raw meat for an owl. William was virtually barred from the workshop for his boisterous clumsiness which had caused expensive damage on several occasions. Their mother, who always tried to be fair, had given him some instruction since she had done the same for Jonathan, but her interest had not been there and he must have known it.

‘Are you sure that’s what you want to do, William?’ Ann asked carefully. ‘I always thought you would like to follow a career in the open air. As a sea-faring man, perhaps. Or training horses to race.’

‘No.’ His young face was fervent, the square jaw determined. ‘It’s gold I want to shape, Ann. Silver if and when I must, but it is gold first with me. Sometimes when I see a disc of it on the bench before work begins, my fingers ache to take hold of it and put something of myself into its shaping.’

His eloquence did not surprise her. He opened up to her as he never did to anyone else in the family. She took one of his hands into hers and looked at it. Grubby and scarred with dirt under the fingernails, it would have presented an unprepossessing sight to anyone else, but she observed the strong mobile fingers and the broad palm.

‘You have a craftsman’s hands, but can you develop a craftsman’s mind? That has to accept discipline in all its forms.’

His smile with its charming lift was rueful. ‘That will be the hardest part.’ Then his eternal optimism showed through and he jerked up his chin in a cocksure manner. ‘But I’ll learn.’

‘You’ll have to convince others about that — our parents as well as Joss, whose workpiece you dented two weeks ago, and whoever you want for a master for your apprenticeship.’

‘I know that. Will you stand by me when the time comes?’

‘If you’re still of the same mind I’ll do what I can. Take Peter as your example and try to be more like him in the short years left to you.’

If he took notice of her words, then they were soon forgotten, particularly one afternoon in late August when he had decided to make the most of the time left to him before starting back at school again. It was some while later that Hester, having just completed an intricate workpiece, came out of the workshop to take a breath of air and rest for a few minutes. It was a stifling hot day and she pulled off her cotton cap to comb her hair through with her fingers as she reached a garden seat in the shade and sat down on it.

It was then that she heard a distant shout. She straightened up, listening intently, and it came again on an unmistakable note of distress. It was William, she was sure of it! What had he done now?

With her apron flying, she rushed down a path at the side of the house to reach the lane. Dust flew up around her skirt-hems as she came to a halt, listening again. Another shout echoed and she judged it to come from a nearby copse. Had William fallen from a tree? She had a terrible image of him lying with broken bones as she flew across the lane and plunged into the cool shadows of the trees.

‘William!’ she called out frantically. ‘Where are you?’

Suddenly the explosion of a gun burst the silence and sent birds flying out of the branches overhead. She gave an anxious cry and rushed out of the trees into the meadow beyond where a terrible sight met her. James, the smoking pistol in his hand, had just put out of its misery a fallen horse, saddled and bridled, that had broken its fetlock. The culprit rider, the whip still in his hands, lay face downwards, prostrate in the grass, close to the gate that had brought about the fall.

‘Oh, William,’ she shuddered under her breath, knowing that his shouts had been of anguished protest that the handsome animal must die. For a matter of seconds she could not move, knowing what this tragedy would have done to him with his love of horses. She did not have to see his face to know that he was sobbing. Then, just as she was about to hurry forward, James, in a towering rage, strode across to William, snatched the whip from his hand and hauled him to his feet. Then he began to lay the whip about the boy with furious ferocity.

‘No!’ she cried out, breaking into a run. ‘Don’t, James! Please! It was an accident! My son was injured too!’

He did not hear her until she was quite close. Then he flung William away and shook the whip at him. ‘Get out of my sight! Never let me see you near my stables again.’

William did not look at his mother. His face was ravaged by grief. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

‘Go home, William,’ Hester urged. ‘I’ll speak to you later.’ As he went off at a run, his head down in dejection, she turned fiercely to James.

‘You had no right to whip him! You know what horses mean to him. You wouldn’t have whipped a groom for a similar accident.’

James stepped close to her, breathing heavily, a hard glitter in his eyes. ‘I would if the fellow had taken the horse against my orders not to ride it.’

She was aghast. ‘You mean William didn’t have permission?’

‘That is correct. The horse was too strong and wilful for him to manage. I had told him that and so had the grooms, but he took it when their backs were turned.’

‘He shall be punished on principle, although the horse’s death on his conscience will be more than enough, but I still say that beating him was wrong!’

James seized her by the shoulders and thrust his face close to hers. ‘Don’t rile me further, Hester! I’ve taken all I can endure from you! Why do you think I put up with Mary’s tantrums every year about coming here?’

‘Don’t say any more,’ she gasped, trying to draw away.

He shook her in his frustration and shoved her backwards against the trunk of an oak where she was trapped by his tremendous strength, his arm about her shoulders and his hand spread across her breast. His breath came warmly into her face. ‘I’ve wanted you since I first saw you in the herb garden and since then I’ve come to love you! I didn’t keep the herb garden as it was through any sentimental memory. The past is gone and what I choose to remember is private to me. During the changes made to the grounds, the herb garden was preserved in its original form for you and you alone! Because you liked it as it was. It was my tribute to you. My silent declaration, if you like.’

‘Do you think I didn’t come to realize that with time?’ she burst out. ‘But I chose to interpret it as friendship. That was what had formed between us and I wanted it to stay that way. Don’t destroy all that has brought happiness to us both!’

The appeal in her voice evaporated the anger in him. He let his hands fall to his sides and stepped backwards from her. ‘I could have taken you here and now in the copse if that was all I wanted from you, but as you said there is a special feeling between us that I wouldn’t want to lose.’ A dry note slipped into his voice. ‘After all, lifelong friends are hard to come by.’

He turned and walked away from her, back in the direction of the mansion. She stayed by the tree, attempting to put her dishevelled appearance to rights. The force with which she had been shaken had caused pins to drop from her hair and one long strand lay across her shoulder. As she entwined it back into place as best she could manage without a looking-glass she watched James out of sight, filled with sadness for him. Then with a heavy sigh she set off for home herself.

As she went she recalled her intense anxiety as she had come in search of William and thought bitterly that she should have known that he would emerge unscathed from whatever escapade in which he had involved himself. It was always other people who suffered as a result of his foolhardiness and in this case a beautiful animal as well. Greatly upset by the whole incident, a long-suppressed hostility towards her son rose sharply in her. It was as if the clock had suddenly been turned back. She liked him no more now than on the day when he had been put into her arms for the first time. All that had grown up in between seemed now to have vanished. She told herself firmly that she was in shock and this dearth of maternal feeling would pass, but inwardly she knew some terrible damage had been done that might never heal.

She saw James again two days later at a supper party at the mansion and they both behaved as if his heated words had never been said and outwardly everything was as it had always been. It was the same during the remaining social events until in September the Esdailes said their goodbyes and left for the city.

When summer came round again, Hester was the only one not surprised to hear that the Esdailes had gone to spend it at Great Gains and that a new country house was being built for them in another county. In contrast to James’s absence before his marriage, there was an end to the upkeep of the mansion and its grounds. Tom Cole and his wife were dismissed as groundsman and caretaker; weeds and dust were allowed to have their way.

Hester read into it a severing between James and herself of what he had hoped for and which for her could never have been. He had left her with the key of the mansion that she had had for such a long time and she retained the responsibility of locking and unlocking for Ann to use the library, even though she knew her daughter to be as reliable as herself. She rarely entered the house, making a habit of returning after an allotted time to meet Ann in the porch. It saddened her to see the beautiful furniture shrouded in dust-sheets and silence reigning again where there had been such warmth of hospitality.

But she had more to occupy her thoughts than the fate of a deserted house. During the past winter John had caught a chill that had taken a long time for him to shake off. Since then he had visibly lost weight and energy. At her persuasion he had finally consulted a doctor, refusing to let her go with him, and had returned with the information that he had developed a weakness of the chest and with a bottle of physic that she eyed suspiciously. Removing the cork, she had smelled the foul contents and did not dare to think what it might contain.

Nevertheless John had drunk it stoically. Afterwards she could see no difference in him and set about her own cures to restore his appetite and strength. It was for that reason that she kept the Esdaile herb garden in trim amid the jungle that was taking over the grounds, for some rare herbs grew better in the soil there than in her own garden. Her conviction that it was simply a matter of time before she discovered the exact blend of herbs that would effect a complete cure became an obsession with her.

‘There’s nothing the matter with your father that time and my herbs won’t put to right,’ she replied confidently to Letticia, who had expressed concern about him on a visit home.

‘Are you sure it’s not consumption?’ Letticia ventured, deeply worried by a transparent look to her father’s features. She saw stark fear fly across her mother’s face before it vanished as swiftly as it had come.

‘Nonsense! What an idea!’ Hester shook her head chidingly on a little laugh. ‘Pregnant women get strange fancies sometimes and you are seeing something far more serious in your father’s condition than exists. I’ve known for years that he had a weakness of the chest.’