Chapter 5

To Alexander’s delight, Lady Ravensworth returned from the South of France the following week.

‘It’s far too hot there now and I didn’t want to miss the Coronation celebrations,’ she told her dinner guests.

‘They say that won’t be until August,’ Alexander said.

‘We’ll have a grand ball and invite the whole county,’ she enthused. ‘You will stay, won’t you?’ She put a bejewelled hand on his arm.

‘I have business abroad.’ Alexander gave a shrug of apology.

‘Oh, you must stay! Henry, tell him he must,’ she called down the long gleaming table to her husband.

‘What was that?’

She raised her voice almost to a shout. ‘Tell Alex that he can’t leave till after the Coronation ball.’

‘What ball?’

‘The one we’re going to have for the King.’

‘Kin?’

‘Oh, never mind.’ Emma waved her hand with a laugh and turned back to Alexander. ‘You’ll just have to delay your boring old business trip. It’s your patriotic duty to stay. You simply can’t leave the country at a time like this.’

‘Not even for the Riviera?’ Alexander teased.

‘I came back, didn’t I?’ She pouted in mock offence.

‘To everyone’s delight,’ he smiled.

She laughed and patted his hand. ‘You are a terrible charmer. It’s time I put my mind to finding you a wife.’

Alexander rolled his eyes. ‘My father thinks of nothing else. He’s scouring the North of England for someone suitable.’

‘Oh, how depressing. You don’t want suitable. You want someone to match your good looks and your tastes in life. Otherwise you’ll be bored in a year.’ She raised her voice again. ‘Isn’t that right, Henry? Alex must marry for love.’

‘Alexander’s getting married? Do we know her?’

‘No, we have to find her first!’ Emma laughed. She rose. It was the signal for the other women to retire to the drawing room and leave the men to their port.

Alexander gave a wistful look at the departing group, wishing he could carry on his flirtatious conversation with Lady Ravensworth and her friends rather than talk business or hunting with his aged cousin. But he was content to while away the evening drinking the dark port out of crystal glass in the glittering candlelight of the large dining room with its gilt-edged portraits of his ancestors.

He could string out his business at the estate and the surrounding mines for a couple more weeks and delay his voyage until mid-August. There was a weekly steamer from Newcastle to Gothenburg and he could accomplish his business in Sweden and elsewhere long before the Baltic ports became ice-bound.

In the meantime he would enjoy riding out among the Durham hills and roaming the estate and beyond with his sketch book and pencils. It amused Lady Ravensworth to see his cartoons of her neighbours and his drawings of life around the area; men supping beer in a tap room, children playing with hoops, girls in summer bonnets. That was what intrigued and entertained her. A memory of a young woman stepping out of a cart with a flash of stockinged leg flitted through his mind. Lady Ravensworth would approve of that.

At home, his widowed father thought nothing of his artistic efforts, believing them a waste of productive time.

‘You’re a man of business,’ he would protest. ‘You’ll never make a living from paper and paints. Leave that to artists and those leisured folk with nothing better to do.’

But Alexander yearned to be among the leisured; it was in his blood. He daydreamt of being an artist, pictured himself as a highborn aristocrat doing the Grand Tour through Europe and the Levant, painting as he went. Or maybe he would sail to some exotic paradise like Gauguin, live by the warm seas and paint the native people in vivid colours.

After an hour, the men rejoined the women at the far end of the vast drawing room. They were gathered around an elaborately carved fireplace in which a log fire blazed even on this warm summer’s evening. Alexander strolled to one of the long windows and gazed out on to the wide terrace and the sweep of lawns beyond. The last blush of dying sun lit the high tops of the beech trees, which cast bulky shadows across the ornamental gardens.

How he loved being here! In his boyhood it had been a place of enchantment. He had distant memories of being brought here as a small child from smoky, dirty Tyneside, where he was living with Liddell cousins after his mother had died. He had kicked and screamed and run away at the end of the visit rather than be taken back to the dingy, damp rectory that was his temporary home.

‘Would you like a breath of air?’ Lady Ravensworth broke into his reverie.

‘If you would come with me,’ he smiled.

She took his arm. ‘We shall inspect the gardens. Anyone else want to come?’

But the other guests, elderly friends of Sir Henry, took this as their cue to say farewells and call for their carriages, after which their host retired to bed.

Out in the twilight, the air was still warm and heavy with the scent of roses and mown grass. Alexander and his hostess strolled to the end of the terrace and took the steps down towards the walled garden and the path that meandered all the way to the boating lake. Emma kept him entertained with witty descriptions of her French travels and gossip about her fellow travellers.

‘And what’s been happening here in my absence?’ she asked.

‘I haven’t been to Ravensworth since the turn of the year. Father has kept me busy in the south of the county. Now I’m to journey on to Sweden. So I’m quite useless in providing you with the local gossip, I’m afraid.’

‘Poor boy. I think your father is trying to keep you away from us.’

Alexander grunted. ‘He’d certainly rather see me chained to his office desk.’

They stopped by the lake and gazed into its purple depths.

‘And what is it about Ravensworth that so concerns Mr Davies?’ she asked with a note of laughter in her voice.

He looked down at her delicate face, the hair just beginning to grey at the temples, the lines around her blue eyes softened by shadow. If she had been twenty years younger...

‘Too many temptations,’ he answered in a low voice. ‘He’s jealous that I prefer to be here than anywhere else.’

She reached out and touched his face with a gloved hand. Such a strong face, without an old man’s soft jowls, she thought. And those restless tawny eyes. She suspected a deep passion lay behind his guarded look. He had been a tempestuous small boy, by all accounts.

Alexander slipped his hand up to hers. He gripped it in his warm hold and kissed her scented gloved palm.

Quickly Emma withdrew her hand. What was she thinking of? She must not be tempted.

‘You are a sweet boy,’ she laughed, and drew away. ‘But it just wouldn’t do, would it?’

Alexander flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘No, no,’ she hushed him, ‘we’ll blame it on too much wine at dinner and the smell of a summer’s night.’ She linked arms and led him back up the path. ‘Did you know that we’re growing oranges in the hothouses now? And the peaches this year are delicious -just like French ones. Come, let me show you.’

Alexander cursed himself for his impetuous kiss. The last thing he wanted was to endanger his position with his relations. But she seemed to think it of no account, as if it were the act of some foolish youth. This rankled too.

They mounted the steps once more and rounded the walled garden to the sheltered glasshouses. It was almost dark and Alexander held her arm to stop her tripping on the uneven flagstones. As they approached, a light became visible from inside. A youth was holding aloft a lantern while a thick-set gardener worked a pulley to close the high windows. They were illuminated behind the glass like players on a stage.

Then a young woman carrying a small boy in her arms stepped into the light. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the glasshouse and her mass of brown hair was escaping its pins. She was smiling at the others, saying something then laughing, kissing the top of the sleepy boy’s head. It was a charming domestic picture, Alexander thought with a stab of envy. Once again he felt the outsider, put in his place by the unreachable woman at his side and just as much excluded from the simple family scene in front. He belonged to neither, had never been part of such a family.

‘We’ve come just in time,’ Lady Ravensworth said, quite unaware of his resentment, steering him forward through the open door.

A blanket of warm air hit them and a delicious heady scent of fruit: spicy orange mingled with the soft fragrance of peach. The gardener turned to them and pulled off his cap, flustered by their arrival.

‘Ma’am,’ he mumbled. Alexander suddenly remembered him, or rather he was struck by the likeness to his son.

‘It’s Peter Bain, isn’t it?’ he exclaimed. ‘You used to chase after me for climbing the apple trees!’

The man gawped at him a moment, then realisation dawned. ‘It’s Master Alex! How do you do, sir?’

Alexander stepped forward and wrung him by the hand. ‘Very well. And you?’

‘Champion, sir,’ he blushed.

‘I can tell this is your son, Peter; he’s your double.’ Alexander grinned at the older boy. ‘Hope you don’t give your father as much trouble as I did when I was your age. Threatened to make a scarecrow out of me if I didn’t stop trampling over his flowerbeds.’

‘No, sir!’ Peter protested. ‘You were no trouble.’

‘I can just imagine what a naughty boy he was,’ Lady Ravensworth intervened with a laugh. ‘You don’t have to worry. Now I just wanted to let Mr Pringle-Davies pick one of your wonderful peaches.’

‘Please, allow me to show you, ma’am.’ Peter took the lantern from George and held it aloft. ‘Follow me, Master -er - Mr Pringle-Davies.’

He led them to the far end of the hothouse, to a row of trees planted in huge wooden barrels, where the scent of sweet fruit was overpowering. Peter plucked a ripe peach and handed it to Alexander.

Alexander at once bit into the soft furry skin. Juice dribbled down his chin as he ate.

‘Well, what do you think?’ Lady Ravensworth demanded. ‘Aren’t they the best peaches outside of France?’

‘Umm,’ Alexander agreed, wiping his chin and licking his fingers, ‘and as heavenly as their owner.’

She laughed. ‘You are incorrigible!’

They thanked the gardener and turned to leave. Peter led them back with the lantern held high.

‘George will see you back to the house with the lamp, ma’am,’ he insisted.

‘Thank you,’ Lady Ravensworth accepted, slipping her arm once more through Alexander’s.

‘What about you, Peter?’ Alexander turned to ask, aware of the shadowed figure of the girl and her young bundle standing behind the gardener. The young boy was stirring and fretting about the dark. The girl hushed him hi a soft voice, but Alexander could not make out her face.

‘We know these paths blindfolded, sir, and George will catch us up with the lamp.’

So Alexander nodded at them and bade good night.

Kate watched the handsome couple disappear arm in arm into the dark towards the black towering bulk of the castle.

‘Was that Her Ladyship?’ she gasped.

‘Aye,’ Peter nodded. ‘Lady Ravensworth likes her fancy fruits.’

‘And the man?’ Kate asked. ‘Was he one of the family?’

‘Distantly.’ Peter pulled the door shut behind them as if that was all there was to say. But Kate wanted to hear more.

‘But you knew him?’

‘Aye. Used to stay here as a boy now and then - troublesome as a wild pony, but a canny lad with it.’

‘He seemed very friendly with Lady Ravensworth,’ she ventured.

‘Aye,’ Peter grunted, ‘she has many admirers.’

Alfred started whimpering that he wanted his bed. He was growing too heavy for Kate to hold.

‘Can you walk, kiddar? It’s not far.’

‘I’ll take the lad,’ Peter said, holding out stout arms.

They walked home in silence, George catching them up where the path joined the back drive.

‘Did they say anything else to you?’ Kate asked.

George shook his head. ‘But the man gave me sixpence,’ he said with a note of glee.

‘Did he? That’s canny!’ Kate exclaimed. But the others simply nodded and said no more.

That night, Kate lay on her narrow truckle bed, gazing through the casement window at a dusting of stars above the black woods and thought about how close she had stood to Lady Ravensworth in her shimmering evening dress. And the tall gentleman with the mane of hair that glinted like bronze in the lamplight. His deep voice had sent a thrill through her as she stood mute and overawed. She could have listened to him speak all night. If only she had managed to see his face more clearly. But it had been largely in shadow as he stood taller than George’s lantern. Still, it was this face, half-shadowed and mysterious, that filled her thoughts as she drifted off to sleep in the quiet cottage.

***

Alexander stood at the open mullioned window of his bedroom, high in the east tower, and gazed out at the blackness. The night was warm and muggy, with few stars glinting above the solid mass of trees. He heard the haunting cry of foxes from far off and saw an owl flap out of the woods and swoop out of sight. It was too stuffy in this small high room to sleep. He had a mad notion to rush to the stables, saddle up and ride out on to the moors where the air would be cooler. But he curbed the desire. He must not cause his cousin Henry any embarrassment.

Alexander flushed to think of how close he had come to losing his head and kissing Lady Ravensworth by the tranquil lake. She was old enough to be his mother, yet she dazzled him with her looks and wit and experience. He felt restless, the taste of sweet peach still on his lips. Leaning his head on the cool glass pane, he tried to rid himself of thoughts of her.

That was when the memory of the silent young woman in the hothouse came back to him. She had been chatting and laughing before their arrival, then fallen into the shadows at their approach. He had the impression of rounded pink cheeks, soft as peaches, and tumbling hair, but nothing more.

Quickly, he turned and strode across the room to the table by his bedside and pulled a piece of paper under the pool of lamplight. He sketched swiftly, a girl’s oval face bending over a small boy’s. Something about the drawing, the curve of the cheek, reminded him of something else. Suddenly it came back to him. A young woman with a large straw hat stepping down from a cart. It had been Peter holding the pony. And the small boy had rushed from the cottage in greeting. A visitor, not his mother or sister then, Alexander mused. He wished he had taken a closer look at the girl this evening. He tried to conjure up her face but it eluded him.

He turned over the paper and started again. A half-hidden face under a rim of hat, the hint of a smile. A boy running towards a cart. And a black woollen stocking showing beneath a hitched skirt, a shapely ankle. Underneath he gave it the title The Mystery Girl.

He smiled and lay down on the bed. Tomorrow he would go sketching, capturing the folk of Ravensworth going about their work. The place where he felt most at ease, among the people with whom he felt most at home.