Chapter Twenty-Five

Dorothy pronounced herself delighted that their first week together was spent almost exclusively alone.

‘It won’t last,’ Helena warned her. ‘Once Oliver returns from London, you will not only be introduced to worthy neighbours but be forced to listen to me at the piano. Of course if you wish to sing to entertain our guests …’ She laughed at her friend’s look of horror. ‘Then of course there will be a weekend house party just before you leave.’

‘You feel well enough for all that excitement?’

‘Don’t you start. I get more than enough fussing from Oliver. Honestly, you’d think I was carrying the heir to the throne!’

‘At least you’ve proved yourself. Papa’s always trying to stop me studying; he believes too much thinking uses up a woman’s limited physical resources and makes her womb wither.’

Helena broke into a peal of laughter. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘He won’t even consider my undertaking a university education, although I know I could get a place at Girton College. But even if I did go to Cambridge, I would have to ask permission to attend lectures and wouldn’t be able to take a degree.’

Helena stared at her in disbelief. ‘Why on earth not?’

‘Because I’m a woman. Honestly, anyone would think it was a sin! In my opinion it’s just another way of keeping our sex in servitude. Oh you and I may have silk dresses and live in fine houses, Helena, but we’re equally at the mercy of men as the poorest drudge in the land, just more comfortable, that’s all.’

They were relaxing in the rose garden, although the sun was beginning to be obscured by clouds. Helena glanced sideways at the tall young woman next to her, at her serious face, her dark hair drawn back almost severely into a chignon. Dorothy despised frills and laces, and her white blouse was plain, the high collar devoid of even a subdued brooch.

‘Do you not think of marrying at all?’

‘Not unless it was to someone who treated me as an equal, although Papa is rather beginning to pressure me.’ She turned to Helena. ‘Tell me the truth, do you find that your own wishes are subservient to those of your husband?’

Helena hesitated. ‘I can’t deny it, but then my father’s wishes were always paramount too. Aren’t we all conditioned from birth to accept it?’

‘And in whose interests is it? Helena, I rest my case.’

Helena laughed. ‘Dorothy, I don’t think you have any idea how much I’ve missed you.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She glanced in the direction of Helena’s stomach. ‘I think you’ve been pretty busy!’

‘Dorothy!’ But Helena was laughing again, a frequent sound during the past few days. ‘It’s becoming a little chilly, I think we should go indoors for a while. Besides, there’s something I’d like to show you.’ Even she could hear the change in her tone and she sensed rather than saw her friend glance sharply at her.

‘I am intrigued.’

‘I think you may well be.’

Once they were back in the house, Helena rang for some lemonade and when they were refreshed, she led the way up the broad staircase, turned left into the Long Gallery, through a door at the end, which led into another corridor, and then paused. ‘I discovered this only about three weeks ago.’ The dark oak door opened with a slight creak and they stepped into a dim and darkened room. ‘Please – you wait there.’ She went forward to the tall windows and unfastened the shutters.

As light flooded the room, Dorothy drew an intake of breath.

‘Heavens, even more portraits. How many ancestors can one man have?’ She began to wander along the right wall, peering at the faces, then with a thoughtful expression crossed to the other wall. Helena waited.

Eventually Dorothy turned to her. ‘I confess to some puzzlement. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that all of these have one thing in common. But what I find mystifying, is why they are shut away here and not with the others in the Long Gallery. If I recall, there are several spaces.’

Helena’s voice was quiet. ‘And what exactly do they have in common, Dorothy?’

‘It would seem that each has some sort of blemish.’ She indicated a portrait of a young woman who bore a strawberry birthmark on one cheek. ‘Although one would have thought the painter might have disguised such a thing.’

‘Perhaps she wished a true image,’ Helena said.

‘In which case, I am full of admiration for her lack of vanity.’

Dorothy went over to another painting. ‘And this man has a pendulous wart at the side of his eye … and the others … I don’t wish to be unkind, but they are prodigiously ugly.’

‘Tell me, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary about the staff here?’

Dorothy turned to her, her brow wrinkling. ‘Do you mean that there’s not an elderly face, or even a homely one? I did wonder about that.’

‘That’s right. And these’—Helena waved a hand at the portraits—‘are in my opinion hidden away so that Oliver doesn’t have to look at them.’

Dorothy stared at her. ‘That seems rather odd. Have you never questioned him?’

Helena shook her head. ‘I haven’t mentioned that I’ve seen them. I did query once about the staff and his explanation was that he preferred to be surrounded by pleasant countenances, so I suppose that’s the reason.’ She paused, and then related Oliver’s reaction to Annie’s scarring. Sometimes Helena wondered whether her husband’s reticence about seeing his own wife’s body was because he feared a physical flaw. But of course she could not mention something so private, even to such a close friend.

‘Sounds like a fetish to me,’ Dorothy said. ‘Men do have some strange ones, you know. Papa has never read any of the volumes in the library at home so he has no idea what depravity is described in some of them. However, as Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is power.”’ Her lips twitched. ‘Besides, it certainly livens up a rainy afternoon.’

Helena spluttered. ‘You’re impossible!’ She went to close the shutters. ‘I’ll show you the Chinese room on the way back. There are some lovely hand-painted silk panels, they’re extraordinary.’

‘From what I am learning about Oliver,’ Dorothy said, ‘I think he is too. What will he do when you lose your looks – banish you to a locked room and find his own Jane Eyre?’

Again, Helena laughed, but Dorothy did not. ‘Seriously, Helena, this is all a little disturbing. You are happy with him?’

‘I’m his wife. Isn’t it my duty to be happy?’

Helena’s piano recitals received lavish compliments and on the Saturday evening of the weekend house party, once again Oliver congratulated her. ‘An excellent choice of programme, my sweet. I always think that Mozart appeals to most tastes.’

He now seemed completely at ease in the music room and Helena hoped that the unpleasant incident with James Longford was firmly behind them.

‘I see that neither Dorothy nor Johnnie seek each other’s company.’ She glanced over to where they were seated, several chairs apart. ‘And I can’t see him taking an interest in either of the Redfern girls either.’

Oliver had his own views on the reason, concerns too. From what Johnnie had told him the previous evening, this girl Cora was an avaricious bitch. Oliver had refrained from pointing out that Johnnie had been a fool to agree to her financial terms, which were outrageous, far more generous than his own had been with Sybil. The man was so besotted there would have been no point in antagonising him.

Helena invited their guests to return to the drawing room where four of the men began to play bridge. Aunt Beatrice sat near to Mrs Shirley, a sweet-faced widow, while Jacob stood conversing with the guest Oliver had invited especially for him to meet, Peregrine Hurst, the new Liberal MP and the youngest member of the House of Commons. He had arrived just before dinner.

Helena strolled over to where Dorothy was lingering in front of one of the watercolours. ‘I must say, our late guest is rather good-looking.’

Dorothy smiled. ‘I suppose you could say that.’

‘And you can’t say this one hasn’t got a brain, otherwise he wouldn’t be in the Government.’

Dorothy’s peal of laughter turned several heads. ‘Helena, there are more dunderheads in that place than there are in Bedlam, surely you realise that!’ She glanced across to where the tall, dark-haired man was talking earnestly to Helena’s father. ‘But I must admit he seemed reasonably intelligent over dinner.’

‘Then I shall make sure you two are brought together, after all one never knows … But remember Oliver’s rules?’ Helena had not been surprised to discover that her husband was scornful of the idea of women having the vote. He had also stressed that Dorothy should not use Graylings as a platform for her political views.

Dorothy sighed. ‘I know. But surely they don’t apply to a private conversation between two people.’

Helena shook her head. ‘I don’t see how even Oliver could control that.’

Several minutes later, she had gently persuaded Aunt Beatrice that she needed to circulate, and with raised eyebrows hinted to Jacob to entertain Mrs Shirley. Dorothy, with a grateful smile to her friend, strolled casually over to talk to a rather amused young man, and Helena heard her say, ‘I see you saw through that strategy.’

Oliver and Johnnie had eventually gone to stand by the tall windows, which despite the late hour were open. ‘It’s been jolly hot this summer,’ Johnnie complained. ‘It saps a fellow’s strength, if you know what I mean?’

I wish I had the chance to find out, Oliver thought with irritation. He lit a cigarette.

Helena came over to join them. ‘I love the night air, don’t you?’

Johnnie grinned at her. ‘I don’t suppose there are more gems like you in Staffordshire?’

‘I’m sure there must be. Shall I ask Aunt Beatrice to begin matchmaking for you?’ Seeing his look of horror, Helena began to laugh. ‘I’m only joking, you idiot.’ She turned to Oliver. ‘I came to tell you that the Spencers are about to take their leave.’

‘In that case, we had better go and wish them God speed.’

Helena stared at him, feeling that it was an odd expression for an atheist to use, but then Oliver never failed to astound her.

Dorothy was the last guest to leave on Sunday, and made Helena promise to let her know if she heard any news of Peregrine Hurst. ‘Honestly, Helena, whatever could have been so urgent that he had to leave before breakfast?’

‘I’ve told you, that was always his intention.’

‘Just when I actually find someone with a measure of influence who believes in our cause, he disappears. Of course I could always write to him.’

Helena frowned. ‘I’m not sure. I think to follow up your meeting him at Graylings with political pressure might be …’

‘Yes, I suppose you’re right, it could be interpreted as taking advantage of Oliver’s hospitality. What a nuisance.’

‘But if we could find some way of your meeting again … I mean from where I was standing, didn’t I detect a sort of frisson between you two?’

‘Helena, will you ever stop being such a romantic?’ She laughed as she saw her friend’s colour rise. Dorothy’s tone became brisk. ‘Now I don’t suppose there’s much point in asking you to write letters for the WSPU during your enforced waiting period? We need all the helpers we can get.’

Helena gave a shrug. ‘The spirit is willing, there’s just one problem.’

‘Don’t tell me, I can guess. Oliver?’

She nodded. ‘He would only say that I was tiring myself.’

Dorothy gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘You should stand up to him more. Don’t fall into the trap of losing your identity, Helena, as seems to happen to so many women when they marry.’

Helena smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t always let him have his own way.’

Dorothy gazed at her. ‘I’m giving you what my mother calls an “old-fashioned look”.’

Helena laughed. ‘And I’m not saying another word!’

However, while she was sorry to see Dorothy go, she was even more reluctant to say goodbye to her father and Aunt Beatrice. ‘Good luck in the by-election, Papa.’

He nodded. ‘As it’s considered a safe seat I have an excellent chance. I hope so, how else can I introduce some common sense into politics? One of the problems in this country is that far too many people in government come from the ruling class. They have little if any experience of industry, nor of earning a living. I am hoping to make a difference, Helena.’

‘I’m sure you will, and I shall be so proud of you.’

‘Make sure you take care of yourself, Helena,’ Beatrice said, ‘and I shall come again soon.’

Helena stood outside Graylings and after watching the chauffeur-driven motor vehicle drive along the tree-lined avenue until it disappeared, went slowly back into the large hall, whereupon a footman closed the heavy door behind her.