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Skirmidge House
Stoke St. Milborough
28 August 1902
Dear Louisa
Thanks so much for your last. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to reply, but we have been at sixes and sevens with Jonty’s wedding for the last two months. You won’t be surprised to hear that he took next to no part in the preparations and saw no reason why it should cause him any inconvenience. Brothers are wonderful creatures.
Thanks also for your congratulations on the Championship. Modesty aside, I am pleased with myself even now, and the trophy sits well-polished on my mantel.
It won’t be mine for long (the mantel, not the trophy) as I have concluded it is best to set up my own household now that Jonty is married, and I will thus be leaving home. It is rather a wrench, but needs must. I am not quite sure of where I shall settle as yet, but letters to Skirmidge House will find me, once Jonty troubles to forward them.
I have a treat in store first. Do you recall Jimmy Yoxall—the Hon. James, Lord Witton’s son? I shall be making one of a shooting party at his family place up in Northumberland for the start of the partridge season. It is to be a very small party: only the Wittons, myself and Bill, and another friend of Jimmy’s. Needless to say, I attend as a gun rather than a lady: you know my views on the practice of leaving women at shooting parties to kick their heels, read novels, and organise jumble sales, but Jimmy is an old friend who respects marksmanship. A few weeks in the fresh air will do me a power of good.
Your sister’s teaching work is admirable. Do send her my love and congratulations. I’m so glad that all is well for you and Hugo, and the house sounds beautiful. I must catch the last post now, as I leave for Rodington Court tomorrow. I shall write again from there, and send you both a brace of partridge.
Yours ever,
Pat
***
RODINGTON COURT, FAMILY seat of the earls of Witton, was a very long slog from Stoke St. Milborough. The journey involved several changes of train, a considerable inconvenience since Pat was travelling without a maid or companion for the first part of it, and she wasn’t able to sit back and relax until she found herself on the train to Manchester, where she would meet Bill.
She was looking forward to the shooting party intensely, in part because she was, unusually for her, tired. The last couple of months had been consumed with preparations for her oldest brother’s wedding, putting the family home in order for his new bride, and working out what she might do with herself when she left. She was annoyingly indecisive about the last of those, which was not her usual state, and she didn’t like it. Her path had always been clear in life before, because there had always been responsibilities, duties, tasks to be done, but that was all the new Mrs. Merton’s now.
Pat tried not to resent it. Naturally a spinster sister would be uprooted by her brother’s marriage. Their childhood home was Jonty’s house, not Pat’s, for all that she had been its mistress since leaving school, and she could well imagine how uncomfortable it would be for Olivia to have her there, telling her she was doing it all wrong. That was inevitable, since Olivia was without question more decorative than practical. If Pat stayed, she would continue running Skirmidge House, and either she would resent Olivia for treating her as an upper servant, or Olivia would resent her for usurping her rights as head of the household, or both. It was far better that she should leave now while there was still goodwill on all sides.
It was, perhaps, a little hard to find herself in need of a new home and occupation, and that she had to leave the village where she’d spent all her life with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Then again, perhaps her discomfort was a sign that she was overdue a change.
She’d been doing the same thing for too long, that was the problem. If one had enough to do, one could carry on doing it indefinitely without looking up from one’s tasks to take a wider view. She’d fallen into that trap, bustling around without ever asking herself what would happen if Jonty married, and now she found herself on an endless plain, with no obvious path in any direction.
She’d find a purpose, of course, with time and application, and she was far from desperate. She had inherited a reasonable sum on their father’s death which her brother Bill had invested shrewdly on her behalf. It was a competence rather than a fortune, but if she found a situation as a lady’s companion, for example, she would do very well indeed.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t terribly well suited to companionship. Pat was neither temperamentally inclined nor trained for most of the occupations that the world presumed women of her class to enjoy: she lacked understanding of fashion, had no perceptible musical or artistic gifts, couldn’t make light conversation, felt no interest in the opposite sex, didn’t see the point of charity visiting unless it led to swift and meaningful change, and was strongly of the opinion embroidery was best done by those who enjoyed it. It made her an uncomfortable match for those who preferred drawing-rooms to ten-mile walks.
She was, however, an excellent household manager, able to turn her hand to most tasks, and a superb shot—the All-England Ladies’ Champion, in fact, as testified by the trophy on her mantelpiece—so all she needed was to find a countrywoman of her own stamp who required a companion and preferred sporting pursuits to social ones. That would be entirely possible. It was just a matter of meeting the right woman. Maybe she could advertise.
But first, she realised as the train pulled into Manchester station, she had to meet Bill. She’d been so preoccupied by her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the passage of minutes or miles.
A porter took her luggage, while Pat attended to her own gun-cases. Bill, who had come up from London, met her on the platform for their next train, and greeted her with a cheery wave, but there was no time to speak in the bustle of supervising the transfer of luggage from one baggage car to another and finding their seats amid the chaos and smoke of the station. Once they were ensconced in the carriage, pleasantly free of other travellers, the train moved off, and Bill sat back with a sigh, fanning himself with his hat against the late August heat.
Pat took the opportunity to look him over. He’d seemed off-colour at Jonty’s wedding, hollow-eyed and tight-lipped, withdrawing into silence whenever his attention wasn’t demanded. She feared he was overworked. He’d unquestionably been the brightest of her four brothers, taking a First at Cambridge then moving to London to pursue a career in some Whitehall department; she hadn’t seen him much since. He came home to Stoke St. Milborough for brief visits at Christmas and gave her lunch when she made her infrequent trips to London for competitions, but this shooting party would be her longest period with him since he’d left university eight years ago.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Oh, very well. You?”
“You look exhausted,” Pat said, not bothering with the niceties. “Has work been busy? Or have you been hitting the night-spots?”
“Two-stepping till dawn? No, sadly, it’s the former. We’ve had rather a time of it at the Bureau. I’ve been burning the midnight oil for weeks.”
“Any particular reason?”
“This and that. A tangle which has not become any less tangled through my efforts. I shan’t bore you with the details.”
“It’s a good thing you could get away.”
“It was that or a nerve-storm,” Bill said, with an effort at cheerfulness that didn’t ring true. “I was done in. Three weeks in the fresh air will set me right and with any luck someone else will have unpicked the whole business by the time I get back.”
“Here’s hoping,” Pat said. “So what are you up to other than work?”
“I suppose that’s some sort of joke.”
“Really, though. You live in London. There must be...” She waved a hand to indicate the delights of the metropolis.
“There’s plenty of...” He mimicked the wave. “But I’m not doing any of it. Well, except for helping out in the club—the Hackney Young Men’s, it’s a gymnasium for poor youth. The aim is to bring them in with boxing and then, when we have them trapped, inflict a spot of literacy on the blighters.”
Pat had no trouble interpreting this description of education work. Bill had boxed for his college, and was a skilled and patient teacher with a strong moral streak. They’d all thought he might go into the Church. “Is that a Christian organisation?”
“Non-denominational. We bar preaching and politics. It prevents arguments, and means Jews and Indians come along too, which is important in those parts. And in my view, we’re all better off when people have the tools to think for themselves.”
“You’re all right, Bill,” Pat remarked. “I must say, I’d like to do something of that sort.”
“Well, I don’t think you should learn to box, but I’ll happily teach you to read.”
“Oh, shut up. I meant to do something useful. I’m uncertain how I’ll spend my time when I move out.”
“Mph. You’re set on leaving?”
“I must. Olivia won’t stand on her own feet if I’m treading on her toes, and I’ll unquestionably do that. I can’t bear watching things done badly.”
“At least you know yourself,” Bill said. “Are you sure she’ll shoulder the load under any circumstances? I struggle to see her as mistress of Skirmidge House, what with the rats and the plumbing. Do you think Jonty’s told her about the plumbing?”
“Of course not: she turned up at the altar. I’m sure she’ll take charge if I’m not there to do it for her. The question is whether she’ll force Jonty to triple the staff and pay for new pipework, or simply move him to London. I wouldn’t underestimate her will.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate Jonty’s idleness, but it may be a case of an irresistible force and an immovable object. You’re probably best off leaving them to it, I agree. Where are you going to live?”
Pat made a face. “I don’t yet know. I’m unsure whether I want a small place of my own or to find someone to share with. I’m going to stay with my old governess—remember Miss Adler?—for a few weeks after the shooting, as a sort of experiment in living with people.”
“Isn’t Jonty people?”
“Barely.”
“Fair,” Bill agreed. “It’ll be something of a change for you.”
“Can’t be helped.”
Bill looked sympathetic, but didn’t press the topic. “Any candidates for companionship?”
“Nothing as yet. I haven’t looked awfully hard.” She hesitated, then decided to say it. “The other thing is, I was toying with the idea of setting up a shooting school for ladies.”
“I say!”
“It’s just a thought. You needn’t mention it to anyone.”
Bill gave her a reproachful look. Alone among her brothers, he had never turned a private confidence into a matter for public ridicule. “Of course not. That is a thought. Do you have the funds to set things up, or will you need a loan?”
“I haven’t done the sums yet. And it depends on where I might settle.”
“Well, call on me if you need a hand. You’d definitely need to be somewhere a bit more central than Stoke St. Milborough. Er, are you thinking of moving to London?”
“Absolutely not,” Pat assured him, and noted the tiny relaxation on his face. If she had been metropolis-minded, everyone would have expected her to set up household with her bachelor brother. Bill was sufficiently laconic for her liking, never interfered, and wouldn’t expect to be looked after, but sharing his life and affairs with a sibling evidently appealed to him as little as London did to Pat. He had always been reserved to a fault about personal matters. “I’d need somewhere reasonably close to a city, but still with a bit of wildness to it.”
“You’re an outdoor soul,” Bill agreed. “You really ought to marry some landowner with a tumbledown house and acres of land that don’t pay. You could spend half the year managing his estate back to health, and the other half striding the moors with a rifle.”
That sounded perfect, apart from the marriage. “I think most landowners in that state would rather have an heiress.”
“Jimmy certainly would,” Bill said, then caught himself. “Sorry. That wasn’t charitable.”
“Yes, I heard he was engaged. One of those whirlwind affairs, wasn’t it? Olivia said his fiancée is a daughter of industry.”
“She certainly is. I suppose that sort of fortune covers a multitude of sins.”
“Does it need to?”
“Well, she has two broken engagements to her name,” Bill said. “And something of a reputation as a jilt, accordingly.”
“Goodness. That doesn’t sound awfully like Jimmy’s sort of girl.”
Bill made a face. “The Wittons have fallen on hard times what with one thing and another, and Carruth, the father, is very well off. Self-made man, Birmingham clerk, invented some sort of telephone-exchange device and got himself a fortune and a knighthood to go with it. One might not call it the best match for an earldom that dates back to the Normans, but I suppose if it wasn’t an industrialist it would be an American. The estate will doubtless do very well out of it, assuming Jimmy gets the girl to the altar this time around.”
Pat frowned. “The Wittons can’t be so hard up that they’d marry him off to any old heiress for ready cash.”
“They really are in a bit of a hole. I’m afraid the Earl was dabbling in finance, which went as well as you might expect considering he has no more brains than Jimmy.”
“Oh dear.”
“Quite. Miss Carruth must have seemed a godsend, and you know Jimmy: he hits on an idea and then thunders along like a juggernaut instead of giving the slightest thought— Anyway, it’s not my business. For all I know, she may be as delightful as she is rich. I hope they’ll be very happy.”
“Will Miss Carruth be at the party?” Pat asked.
“No, it’s just you, me, Jimmy, and Preston Keynes. I don’t recall if you’ve met him? Good sportsman.”
“Thank goodness for that. These sorts of things are miserable for ladies.”
“Technically, you’re a lady,” Bill pointed out.
“Not for the purposes of a shooting party I’m not, and Jimmy had better remember that.”
“He will,” Bill assured her. “Nobody would invite the All-England Ladies’ Champion to a shooting party and ask her to crochet doilies.”
“Oh yes they would.”
“Well, Jimmy has more sense than that, at least,” Bill said, though he didn’t sound wholly convinced.