The fog followed us into the house, stinging my eyes and catching my throat. We entered by a small door facing the jetty. Luke’s ring had been answered promptly by a young footman, and a few steps along a corridor brought us into the main hall of Edenhythe.
It was very spacious, on a grander scale than I had anticipated. The black-and-white tiled floor gave a general air of severity and chill that even a large coal fire could not dispel. A wide staircase with an elaborate cast-iron balustrade curved upwards, turning out of sight. Lining the walls were tall-backed chairs, stiff as guardsmen, and above them frozen statues stared down from their niches.
A blazing fire was an unfamiliar sight to me. With the damp cold still clinging to my cape, I crossed eagerly to the hearth. Luke was speaking to the footman, giving instructions in an undertone.
As I waited, thankful for the warmth, a bell jangled sharply. At the same instant the front door burst open and a tall man in a long tweed greatcoat strode in importantly. Through an archway under the stairs a second manservant appeared at a rapid pace, and from his formal black tails I guessed he was the butler.
‘Ah, Portman, get rid of this coat, there’s a good man. And bring me a whisky in the library. It’s damned raw outside.’
‘Yes indeed, sir,’ agreed the servant, taking the overcoat, the hat and the gloves.
This could only be Esmond Harwood, the master of Edenhythe. I was perfectly certain he had seen me, but he gave no sign of it. Abruptly, he swung round on his heels and made for a door on the right.
Luke called out to him. ‘Esmond! Hang on a minute. Rachel has just arrived.’
The broad back was eloquent of reluctance. But when he turned towards me he was entirely collected. It was a strong face, and arrogant. Every feature—the wide forehead, the straight high-bridged nose beneath dark brows, the firm-lipped mouth—all combined into an expression of cold disdain. And this was not merely a measure of my own impoverished status. Though he was clearly a man who would attract women powerfully, I guessed that he regarded the entire female sex with a certain contempt.
‘How do you do, Rachel?’ he said crisply, with a small stiff bow. He paused momentarily while he scanned my features. Then he added, ‘Doubtless you will wish to go straight to your room after this unpleasant introduction to a London fog.’
Luke said quickly, ‘I’ve told Joseph to send a girl at once.’
‘Good.’ The searching eyes returned to me. ‘Then we will meet again later, Rachel, when you feel more composed.’
That was all. He went on his way briskly, disappearing into the library. The hurrying butler followed him with whisky things on a tray. The door closed upon them.
‘You mustn’t mind Esmond too much,’ Luke remarked quietly.
Was this a warning that I could always expect such offhand treatment from his brother? It seemed that my husband’s opinion of Esmond was already borne out.
As there was really no answer I could properly make to Luke, I stayed silent.
A young maidservant had appeared from nowhere and was waiting to be noticed. Her pink round face was much less starched than her white apron. I smiled at her, and Luke grinned.
‘Hallo, Alice my love. Here is Mrs. Jonathan for you to look after.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She bobbed a curtsey to us both. ‘Pleased to meet you ma’am.’
‘Good evening, Alice.’
Luke nodded to me reassuringly. ‘You’ll be all right now, Rachel. I’ll see you again before dinner, no doubt.’
I followed the maid upstairs. My bedroom was a medium-sized apartment with again a fire burning in the grate. The cheerful glow picked out the reds of a turkey carpet and the heavy brocade curtains.
The maid lit a pair of gas brackets above the mantelpiece.
‘Dan’l Dobbs ’ll be bringing up your baggage in a minute, ma’am.’
‘Thank you, Alice.’
‘Would you like me to fetch you some tea, whilst you’re waiting?’
‘That would be most welcome.’
I took off my hat and cape, leaving them over the bed-rail for a moment while I wandered around the room. A button-backed armchair covered in soft blue velvet was placed invitingly near the fire, with an occasional table beside it. On the walls were many pictures, which I looked forward to studying more closely; some water colours of London scenes were grouped above the mantelpiece, and a number of delightful French engravings occupied the bed wall. The total effect was of ease and quiet comfort. There were even two bell-ropes, one over the bed and the other beside the fireplace.
Pausing by the window, I pulled aside a curtain. Outside there was only a blank wall of yellow-grey darkness. Through the fog came the low sighing wail of a ship’s siren.
Without warning the door was flung open, and I swung round in surprise. Daniel Dobbs was carrying in my trunk.
‘I didn’t hear you knock,’ I said pointedly, rather put out.
‘Begging your pardon, ma’am, I’m sure,’ he said with deliberate impertinence. He humped the box to a corner, and stood looking at me. Still enormous in his reefer, he overpowered the room.
‘Put a proper spanner in the works, that man of yours snuffin’ it. What ’appened?’
‘Perhaps you will fetch my other luggage immediately,’ I said coldly.
He shrugged. ‘Hoity toity! Don’t forget there’s some of us that knows things, me fine young lady!’
I was on the point of demanding what he meant by that extraordinary remark, but I knew I shouldn’t encourage the man. Besides, I had a sudden and uneasy feeling that what he might say would not make good hearing. Instead, I once more asked him icily to fetch the rest of my luggage.
If he had refused to go, I would have found the situation difficult to handle. But fortunately Alice came in then with the tea tray. Dobbs, after a moment’s further hesitation, stumped out of the room.
I had tea by the fire, and Alice unpacked my clothes. There was not a great deal for the girl to do, for I had brought only those things suitable for mourning. The smart, gaily-coloured gowns that Jonathan had liked to see me wearing were left behind in Sarawei. I could not imagine ever bringing myself to put them on again.
While she shook out my dresses and put them away in the wardrobe, Alice kept up a flow of chatter. She was a pleasant girl of about seventeen or so, with a lively expression and an eagerness in her voice.
‘Is it far away, ma’am, where you lived? Cook says it’s hundreds and hundreds of miles.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ I told her, ‘Sarawei is almost eight thousand miles from London.’
Discreetly, her eyes took leave to doubt such an improbable statement.
‘We was wondering if you’d be bringing your own maid, ma’am. But Mrs. Portman—that’s the housekeeper —said that if you didn’t then I was to help you while you were staying here.’
If the housekeeper’s words were accurately quoted, the outlook for me was ominous. Apparently I was not expected to be staying for long at Edenhythe. And what then? Perhaps Jonathan’s family did not realise that his death had left me almost penniless.
Surely they would not turn me away? They could not if they knew the whole truth of the matter.
Trying to smile, I explained to Alice: ‘My maid in Sarawei was a Malaysian girl. She would not have been at all happy to come to England.’ I refrained from adding that I could not have afforded to bring her with me, in any case.
To change the subject, and also because I was curious, I asked her about the man Dobbs. Alice was indignant, guessing he had been rude to me.
‘Dan’l Dobbs gets above himself, if you ask me, ma’am. He’s only the boatman, though the way he acts so high and mighty sometimes you’d think...’
‘Yes, Alice... ?’ I prompted.
She was folding a petticoat and putting it away in a drawer. ‘Oh nothing, ma’am. Not really ...’
At that moment Dobbs came in with some more of my things. As well as the hatbox and the Gladstone bag, he had my large black box humped on his shoulders. Leaning forward, he tipped it carelessly to the floor.
‘Oh, please be careful with that,’ I cried out.
‘Lawks!’ Alice exclaimed. ‘Is it something breakable, ma’am?’
‘Yes ...’ I said. ‘At least, not exactly breakable. It contains my paintings, and they are very precious to me.’
Dobbs was thumping out of the room again, taking no notice of us. Alice looked disgusted.
‘You can’t trust him, ma’am,’ she said as soon as he had gone. ‘There’s something about him. I don’t know...’ She became brisk. ‘Shall I unpack the box for you?’
‘No, I don’t think so—not at the moment, anyway. But please put it where I can get at it easily.’
I wanted to question Alice about the family I was to face up to shortly, but I was ashamed to admit to my lack of knowledge. I had met both the Harwood brothers, and each seemed to fit Jonathan’s description. Luke was friendly and approachable, but apparently without real influence. Esmond, the autocratic power on the throne, was remote and coldly indifferent to me. I wondered about the grandmother whom Luke with cautious qualification had said I might find sympathetic. And were there any others?
Perhaps Luke would prove my one and only friend here. Jonathan had spoken well of him—and only of him.
I thought it prudent to ask Alice about mealtimes, and she told me dinner would be served promptly at eight o’clock. I decided to be ready for a summons at any time after seven, and that fortunately enabled me to make a leisurely toilet.
The call came at half-past seven. A footman brought a message that wine would be taken in the drawing-room. I was quite ready, so I followed him down and was ceremoniously shown in to meet the assembled Harwoods.
To my dismay they were grouped solidly together as if for a formal family portrait at a photographer’s studio; two women side by side on a sofa, three men standing behind. Esmond was as stiff and unbending as when I had met him in the hall, but Luke had a smile for me.
The third man, who was dressed with a dandified fashion-consciousness his thickset frame scarcely justified, came forward quickly before anyone else made a move. He greeted me with a smirk on his plump pink face, fingering his full moustache.
‘How do you do, Cousin Rachel. I am Albert Fox...’
‘Bertie!’
His aplomb deserted him. He glanced round in surprise at the little old lady who interrupted him so curtly.
‘Yes, Grandmama?’
‘Kindly leave Esmond to attend to the introductions.’
Albert Fox looked crestfallen. ‘Yes, Grandmama.’
Esmond had moved round from behind the sofa. Without any easing of his expression, he began, ‘Rachel, may I present my grandmother—Lady Lavinia Harwood…’
I was taken aback. Jonathan had told me so little about his family that I had not even known there was a title. Lady Lavinia was a very tiny old lady with a small round head, the skin of her face brown and crinkled like a dried peach.
Two beady eyes surveyed me piercingly. Like myself she wore black, but she was not in mourning. None of them were. Her gown was of stiff silk, elaborately embroidered, and she sparkled with diamonds. I noticed a silver-headed cane propped beside her, and wondered if she were crippled. Then I saw the answer in the hand she extended for me to kiss; the fingers were plainly arthritic.
I went forward awkwardly. ‘Good evening, Lady Lavinia ...’
She cut across me curtly, though not altogether unkindly,
‘You had better call me Grandma, like the rest of them.’
The other woman was younger, scarcely thirty perhaps. I learned that she was Ellen, sister of Esmond and Luke, and wife of Albert Fox. She was pretty in a way that was too little-girlish for someone of her age. Her hair hung in ringlets and her silk gown was a bright yellow. She nodded to me, but didn’t speak.
Esmond completed the formalities briefly. ‘Albert has already introduced himself.’ The contemptuous tone told me a lot about Esmond’s opinion of his brother-in-law.
Lady Lavinia indicated that I was to sit next to her on the sofa, brusquely despatching her granddaughter to find herself another chair. Though Ellen obeyed without demur, I could tell she resented the offhand treatment. Or perhaps it was me she resented.
The butler, Portman, made a dignified entry with a tray of glasses, and proceeded to offer them round. I found the cool dry wine much to my taste, but Albert had a different opinion.
‘They always serve cocktails at the Fortescue’s these days,’ he remarked pointedly.
Ellen giggled. ‘Why don’t we have them, Grandmama? They are really terribly good.’
‘Nasty American concoctions!’ Lady Lavinia retorted. ‘I simply will not tolerate them.’
I was to learn that there were a great many things that the old lady simply would not tolerate.
The family asked me polite questions about my journey, and I pretended to an equally polite fiction that I had enjoyed the sea air. Going on to enquire about my life in Sarawei before I met Jonathan, they seemed astonished to learn that my father had been a man of some eminence.
Lady Lavinia’s wrinkled face was contorted in surprise. ‘You mean to say he was the consultant to the Sarawei government on their civil engineering projects?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, that is so.’
The old lady exchanged a glance with Esmond. ‘I must say it seems highly reprehensible,’ she remarked scornfully, ‘that a man in such a good position was unable to provide for his daughter.’
‘Oh, but he did.’
‘But not very adequately, it seems.’
Her shrewdly piercing eyes cut through to the poverty lying behind the good quality bombazine I was wearing.
I believe she knew very well that I would never have accepted Esmond’s grudging invitation to come to Edenhythe if there had been any other course open to me.
Now that all my few assets had been realised, all my many debts settled, I doubted if I had sufficient to keep myself for as long as three months. And Jonathan had been responsible for that state of affairs. I had come to him, if not a rich woman, then at least with a competency. My father had made provision for me, and after my marriage I had not once questioned Jonathan about my modest fortune. I was certain that in his hands it was quite safe.
Alas, it had gone the way every penny of his own had gone—to pay gambling debts of a size that staggered me. I had known how he enjoyed a ‘flutter’, but I never guessed he had gambled away everything we both possessed.
The truth had come to me only after I was widowed. Had I known before, I might have saved something from the wreckage. I could surely have influenced Jonathan away from such a headlong rush to bankruptcy. Beneath this weakness of his I felt certain there lay a basic sense of what was right. At heart Jonathan had been a good man.
With my money gone, all I had left in this world were my memories. The years of smooth contentment with my father, and then those brief ecstatic months with Jonathan when I discovered the joys of love between a man and a woman. I had to treasure the past. I could never surrender my husband’s good name, not even to his own family. They would not learn of his reckless prodigality from me.
Being unable to reply to Lady Lavinia’s acid comment, I curbed my pride and humbly thanked Esmond for his invitation. ‘It was extremely good of you to suggest I should come to Edenhythe.’
He bowed gravely, making no attempt to contradict me. With a small smile that had nothing pleasant about it, he said, ‘It is impossible for us not to feel a certain degree of responsibility for Jonathan’s shortcomings.’
‘I don’t think I understand you,’ I said carefully.
‘I am sure you understand me very well, Rachel. Whatever the circumstances may have been, however it was that Jonathan and you came to marry, a man has an inescapable duty to see that his wife is adequately ...’
I interrupted him in quick anger. ‘I should prefer it, Esmond, if you did not criticise my husband. If he were here to give lady you his own answer, that would be another matter.’
‘A very proper attitude,’ commented Lady Lavinia, nodding her head vigorously. I seemed to have gained a point in the old lady’s estimation. She did not want me meek and mild, apparently. She did not expect my gratitude for their charity to override my pride.
Esmond said coldly, ‘I only stated a simple fact.’
‘Nevertheless, it would have been better left unsaid.’ Lady Lavinia turned to face me again. ‘Dear Jonathan could be a wayward boy at times, and I am sure you must know that as well as anybody. But we do not all of us share Esmond’s censorius view of him.’
Ellen broke in unexpectedly. ‘Poor Johnnie! He was aways terribly misjudged.’
But clearly whatever warm feelings she may have felt for her cousin were not extended to his widow. In the chair opposite, she sat watching me with hostile eyes.
‘Jonathan was bitterly unhappy about being sent to Sarawei,’ I remarked, seeing no reason why I should spare Esmond’s feelings any more than he was troubling to spare mine. ‘I often used to ask him why he stayed there.’
Esmond asked in a voice heavy with sarcasm, ‘And I wonder what answer he gave you?’
‘He told me...’ I hesitated, and felt the attention of everyone in the room poised for my next words. I had a sudden urge to speak plainly and let Esmond Harwood know Jonathan’s true opinion of him. And if there had been only myself to consider, I would have done so, heedless of the consequences. I would have torn off Esmond’s complacent mask, and revealed him as a self-seeking plotter. I would have exposed to them all his underhand manoeuvrings to get Jonathan removed from any position of influence in the family firm.
But I could not afford such self-indulgence. I was not alone in my dependence upon Harwood charity. So I avoided Esmond’s offensive question, and began again.
‘I think Jonathan was too sophisticated a person to settle happily in a place like Sarawei. It seemed to him a barbaric country ...’
‘Barbaric?’ The desiccated little figure beside me was suddenly shaking with laughter. ‘He should have known Sarawei when his grandfather and I first went out there. It was really barbaric then. We lived on the boat most of the time because it was the only place where we felt really safe. People talked of the wild men of Borneo, and with good reason. They went in for head-hunting then, did you know that?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and it still goes on to some extent, even now. Though of course the authorities are trying to stamp it out.’
I was conscious of Esmond’s dark eyes upon me. Standing with his back to the fire, feet astride, his tall figure dominated the whole room. As I glanced round at him, I saw his lips curl in sardonic amusement.
‘I’m afraid, Grandmama, you will have to bow to a new authority on Sarawei. Rachel, I gather, has lived there most of her life. She will know conditions in the country better than any of us.’
The old lady gave a little exclamation of impatience.
‘Nowadays,’ she said scornfully, ‘it will all be very different. The Rajah’s government will have put a stop to the sort of trouble we knew in our day. I’ll warrant Sarawei is as comfortable and civilised as England itself.’
‘I’m afraid it is scarcely that,’ I said quietly. I was torn between my own love for Sarawei, and the need to defend Jonathan’s dislike of it. ‘To someone not brought up out there, living conditions would seem very primitive. And of course there is always the danger of an uprising.’
‘Indeed?’ said Esmond, raising his eyebrows. ‘I understood that things were settling down at last.’
Before I could contradict that, Luke intervened. More tactful than Esmond, he saw that Lady Lavinia was not at all interested in Sarawei as it was today, but only in her own reminiscences.
‘Grandmama had the most fascinating adventures in Sarawei when she was young, Rachel.’ He rested his hands upon the old lady’s frail shoulders in a gesture of affection. ‘You really must ask her to tell you about them, sometime.’
Albert had been quietly helping himself to more wine.
‘Give me dear old England every time,’ he declared with a guffaw. ‘Fella knows where he is here. Not liable to have the jolly old napper chopped off when he’s not lookin’...’
Ellen was tittering. ‘Oh Bertie, you do talk nonsense. But don’t you ever go gallivanting off to such heathen places, will you? I should be terrified out of my mind.’ Her eyes came to rest on me, as she added, ‘I don’t fancy being a widow—not just yet.’
Albert leant over his wife and kissed the tip of her ear. ‘Don’t you go worrying your pretty little head about that, Ellie my love. What happened to old Johnnie is enough to put a fella off, eh? He didn’t last long out there.’
‘Hold your tongue, Albert!’ said Esmond sharply. But his apologetic glance in my direction was entirely impersonal.
Luke too was frowning. Albert looked from his one brother-in-law to the other in puzzled dismay.
‘Put the old foot in it again, have I? Oh well ... sorry and all that...’ He drained his glass and slid it on to the mantelpiece. ‘There’s one good thing come out of this wretched business, anyway. It’s an ill wind, as they say.’ He stood there rubbing his smooth plump hands together in satisfaction.
‘What a dreadful thing to say, Bertie!’ exclaimed Lady Lavinia, shocked by his total lack of regard for my feelings. ‘Please don’t be upset, Rachel, my dear. Bertie doesn’t think before he speaks.’
‘But I don’t understand what he meant,’ I said unhappily.
‘He meant nothing!’ Esmond’s dark eyes were glowering at Albert. ‘My brother-in-law talks for effect, that is all.’
‘But I say, old chap...’
‘Be quiet!’
Esmond’s open anger finally silenced Albert. But I could not allow such a weighted remark to pass unchallenged. To speak of my husband’s death in such frivolous terms certainly called for an explanation.
Trying to ignore Esmond, I stood up and faced Albert. ‘Will you please tell me what you meant.’
I honestly believe he had already forgotten what the fuss was all about. He looked quite lost, and I had to prompt him.
‘You were saying, apropos Jonathan’s death, that it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.’
Albert went a deep pink, a flush that came boiling up from beneath his collar and quickly spread across his face. He stared at me, stuttering incoherently.
Esmond said curtly, ‘Will you please put the incident out of your mind, Rachel. I have already explained.’
‘I’m sorry, Esmond, but you have explained nothing.’
‘It was merely a tasteless remark of Albert’s.’
‘But one with a very real meaning.’
Luke broke in on us. ‘Don’t you think, Esmond, that you had better explain to Rachel? If she doesn’t know already, it will not be long before she discovers what Bertie was getting at.’
Esmond frowned. He shot me a penetrating look, summing me up.
At last he said, ‘Do you really not understand, Rachel?’
‘I would not ask if I did,’ I pointed out coldly.
Again there was a silence, which nobody dared to interrupt. Then Esmond asked, ‘Did Jonathan never speak to you about his mother’s legacy?’
I shook my head, bewildered. ‘I know nothing of any legacy.’
‘It was a relatively small sum. But since my aunt’s death the discovery of diamonds in Sarawei has increased the value of her shares many times over. They are now worth a good deal.’
Fleetingly, I thought that fate was handing me back in another form the lost inheritance from my father—the money Jonathan had squandered. I had visions of the independence I so longed for.
But I found soon enough that I was quite mistaken.
‘The shares were not left to Jonathan himself,’ Esmond explained. ‘His mother’s will laid it down that they were to be held in trust for Jonathan’s first male child.’
‘Jonathan’s first male child ...’ I repeated faintly, scarcely taking in what he meant.
‘But in the event of Jonathan dying without a son,’ Esmond continued, ‘the bequest was to be divided equally between his three cousins.’
Shaking my head, I said dully, ‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t understand you at all.’
‘It means,’ said Esmond, with careful emphasis, ‘it means that my aunt’s diamond shares are now to be divided between my sister, my brother and myself.’
Stupidly, I went on staring at his challenging, rock-like figure. Arms folded across his chest, his attitude suggested finality. To him there was nothing further to be said on the subject.
As if his words had been in some difficult code, it required an immense effort for my brain to translate the message. By the time I had grasped the full significance of what he had told me, Esmond seemed to be a long way off, the drawing-room growing curiously wider and wider. I heard a loud rushing noise in my ears, and I was all at once unbearably cold.
From a vast distance I heard an imperious voice giving orders.
‘Quickly, Ellen,’ cried Lady Lavinia. ‘The girl is going to faint. Help me lie her upon the sofa.’
After that an utter blackness came down.