‘Ugh! Who would want to go to university?’ Rosie remarked, as they sat down to Sunday lunch at Hartley on a pleasantly sunlit October day. The whole family had gathered together for the weekend to celebrate Henry’s fifty-eighth birthday, and Amanda was about to take a place at Somerville College, Oxford.
‘Anyone with more than two brain cells,’ Amanda snapped acerbically.
Lady Anne looked at her fourth granddaughter with pride. ‘Well, I think it’s wonderful and you’re to be congratulated. So you’re off this month?’
Amanda nodded, pushing her glasses up her nose with her forefinger.
‘There aren’t enough women taking higher education,’ Shane said. ‘I wish we had more women doctors and even surgeons.’
Smiling genially and ignoring Rosie’s remark, Salton turned to Amanda, who was looking radiant in spite of her thick glasses and dowdy clothes. ‘It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it, honey?’
Ignoring the ‘honey’ which she found patronizing, as if he thought men were superior to women, she smiled briefly. ‘If one’s going to be taken seriously in politics, it’s essential to have a university background.’
‘So you still want to be a parliamentary secretary, old thing?’ her Aunt Candida observed. ‘Good show! No prizes for guessing which party you’ll join, I suppose,’ she added with cheerful philosophy.
‘Absolutely none,’ Amanda affirmed. ‘I’m reading politics, and as soon as I have an MA I’ll get a job in Whitehall.’
Liza, in an effort to make the best of it, said hopefully, ‘I suppose you could end up as a great political hostess, like Nancy Astor? Wasn’t she the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons, Henry?’
‘She was, darling, in 1919,’ Henry replied smoothly. Seeing Amanda was about to scoff at the ridiculousness of the idea, he added almost defensively, ‘Lady Astor was particularly interested in women’s rights. She’s an excellent example of how far we’ve come since women got the vote.’
Rosie shifted restlessly in her seat, and looked glumly at the cold slice of spam on her plate, wishing it was hot roast beef.
‘How much longer is this rationing going to last?’ she asked no one in particular. ‘The war’s been over for ages, for God’s sake!’
‘Some time yet,’ Salton said easily. ‘Britain is having to share what we’ve got with the starving people in Europe.’
Rosie snorted impatiently. ‘Oh, damn them!’ Another month had passed and she still hadn’t got pregnant, and she blamed the lack of good nutritional food. ‘I don’t know why you can’t get extra stuff through your contacts at the American Embassy, Salton.’
‘We’re all having enough to eat, honey, we’re just bored by the lack of variety, that’s all.’
‘I don’t suppose you’re suffering,’ she sniped at Juliet, who was picking at her lunch. ‘With Dudley to cater to your every whim on the black market, you’re probably both living off the fat of the land.’
‘You’re wrong there,’ Juliet replied, putting down her knife and fork.
‘Well, he got you anything you wanted during the war,’ Rosie persisted.
‘Even Dudley’s contacts can’t create miracles these days.’
‘Probably because they’ve all been sent to prison by now!’
Henry looked coldly at Rosie. ‘That’s enough. This is supposed to be a happy occasion, and I don’t want any backbiting.’
Rosie shrugged and made a face. Salton looked embarrassed. Everyone else dug silently into their spam and Liza wished they’d ignored Charlotte’s wishes, and killed a couple of the rabbits for lunch.
Daniel leaned towards Henry, smiling darkly. ‘Juliet has something to tell you that will cheer you up.’
Henry’s tired blue eyes lit up and he turned to his daughter with an expression of affection mixed with hope. ‘Have you, darling?’
Juliet took a sip of water and smiled and nodded almost shyly.
‘We’re going to have a baby.’
A chorus of delight went up around the long table. Lady Anne’s eyes brimmed with emotion, remembering how devastated Juliet had been when her first baby had died at birth. Liza clapped her hands, glad that Henry hadn’t been the first to know what Juliet was up to this time. Daniel beamed proudly and received glances of congratulations from the other men. Louise gave Juliet a knowing smile of understanding; when it came to having babies they shared a special closeness. Everyone had something to say, especially Candida.
‘Good show, old girl. I always knew Daniel was a stallion!’
Everyone laughed, and few people noticed Rosie leaving the table and dashing out of the dining room door, her hand clasped over her mouth and tears streaming down her cheeks. It was too, too unfair, she thought, sobbing as she ran up to her bedroom, the room that had been her haven since she’d been a small child. She flung herself on the bed, forgetting that Nanny was giving lunch to Sophia and Jonathan on the floor above in the nursery and might hear her. Not that she cared. She craved a little baby. Her whole body ached to have another child. The very thought of Juliet having a baby made her feel ill with longing.
God damn and blast Juliet, she thought, wretched with self-pity. Juliet always got everything she wanted. Always landed on her feet as if she was blessed by the gods. Ever since she could remember Juliet seemed to have been the favoured child in the family; none of them had been as lucky or successful as Juliet… and was she grateful? Like hell she was! Rosie fumed as she searched frantically for a handkerchief in her chest of drawers.
‘What’s the matter, Rosie?’ asked a sweet soft voice in the doorway. Rosie looked up resentfully at Charlotte who was standing there, exquisite in a delicate ethereal way, with her silvery hair, which she’d grown long again, held back by combs on either side of her face. She was wearing a white jumper and a pale blue linen skirt that showed her long slim tanned legs.
‘I want another baby,’ Rosie explained resentfully, ‘and it doesn’t seem to be happening.’ She eyed her young sister with envy. Charlotte wasn’t only the most beautiful of them all, she also had the rest of her life to look forward to and Rosie wondered if she appreciated that fact.
She was now twenty-nine, nearly thirty, and she was already feeling old and past her best, and she didn’t even have a new baby to look forward to. She started crying again, muttering, ‘It isn’t fair. It’s not asking for much.’
‘Hey, you guys! What’s this all about?’ Salton asked cheerfully as he came into the room. Not that he didn’t know. He was disappointed himself that Rosie had failed to get pregnant and it was obvious Juliet’s news had upset her.
Charlotte looked sympathetically at them both. ‘I’ll leave you,’ she said diplomatically, slipping out of the room. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to actually want a baby; not that babies weren’t sweet and she loved helping Louise with Daisy, but she did think Rosie’s attitude to Juliet’s pregnancy was strange. After all, Rosie already had two beautiful children which she didn’t seem in the least interested in these days, and that, Charlotte thought, really was odd.
Back in the dining room everyone was talking and carrying on as usual and as Charlotte took her own seat again, she saw the family had closed in around the table, filling the gaps left by Rosie and Salton as if nothing had happened.
Candida was holding forth on her latest acquisition, a three-year-old bay hunter. ‘She’s a beautiful mare. Wonderful stamina, and she’ll jump anything! She goes like the clappers!’
Andrew Pemberton, a retired Major-General who Candida had married two years before, nodded in agreement. He didn’t hunt himself but he admired Candida’s amazing courage in the field, especially over high fences. ‘Clover’s a fine animal, and she’s still young. I think she’ll get even better as she matures,’ he observed.
‘Good for you, Candida,’ Henry said encouragingly. His sister was the only one in the family who had inherited their father’s love of hunting.
‘You’re both coming for Christmas, aren’t you?’ Henry reminded them. ‘And you’ll be bringing Sebastian and Marina with you, I hope?’
‘They’re looking forward to it. Goodness, how many of us does that make?’ Candida turned to Liza and her mother. ‘Have you really got room for us all? We could easily come for the day…’ she began, but Henry raised his hand. He wanted this to be a real family Christmas with all of them together, just like it used to be before the war. They’d decorate the house with branches of holly from the garden, and he’d buy a big tree to stand in the hall. When he and Candida had been children they’d always had the tree in the hall, and it was only in the past twenty years that Liza had insisted it should be in the drawing room. All the old traditions must be adhered to he decided, not knowing why it seemed so important to him this year, but quickly dismissed from his mind the thought that his mother wasn’t getting any younger and that that could be the reason he wanted the celebrations to be perfect.
‘Liza and I are going to try and make it as much like a prewar Christmas as we can,’ he announced stoutly. ‘We’ve been promised a goose from a local farmer, and Mrs Dobbs has been hoarding sugar and dried fruit for months, so we should be able to rustle up some kind of Christmas pudding.’
‘Splendid, old boy,’ Candida said fondly. ‘We’ll bring a bottle of port, won’t we, Andrew? And we’ve probably got a drop of brandy for the pudding.’
After coffee in the drawing room, Juliet and her father went for a stroll in the gardens, whilst the others lounged around talking or reading the weekend newspapers.
It was a sunny October afternoon with a cloudless blue sky, but the trees were shedding their golden leaves and the heat had gone out of the sun. Nature was winding down, preparing for the cold and damp of another English winter, and there was a melancholy atmosphere as plants began to retreat into themselves, having stored up their energy to lie fallow until next spring.
Now that she was pregnant, Juliet was beginning to feel an affinity with nature that she’d never felt before. The magical cycle of life from birth to death, the constant replacement and new growth that replaced the old, had awakened her senses to the miracle of nature.
‘Look at all these berries, Dads!’ she exclaimed as they walked past a heavily-laden crab apple tree.
Henry raised his eyebrows judiciously. ‘Sign we can expect a hard winter,’ he pointed out.
‘We could decorate the house at Christmas with leaves and berries, couldn’t we?’
‘Darling, the birds will have eaten all of them long before Christmas,’ he laughed. ‘You’ve been living in town, too long!’
She smiled. ‘Sometimes I think I’d like to live down here, permanently.’ She stopped and turned to look back at the mellow dusky-pink brick walls of Hartley Hall, with its wide-awake windows framed in white. It was a perfectly proportioned George II house, with a grey slate roof, set in beautiful grounds that had grown around it, like loving and protective arms shielding it from the elements.
‘You’d miss London and the bright lights. Remember how you hated living in Scotland?’
Juliet looked at him in astonishment. ‘That was because I was married to Cameron, and that old witch of a mother of his was driving me mad.’
‘I know, but I still think you’re a townie, sweetheart. But maybe, when you’re older it would suit you more than now.’
‘And for our children,’ she affirmed. ‘Dads, I’m warning you, I’ll be coming every weekend when we have children. I want them to know and love this place like I do.’
Touched, Henry put his arm around her slim shoulders. ‘I’m looking forward to that more than I can say,’ he said softly. There had always been a special closeness between him and Juliet, like a golden thread that was tied from her heart to somewhere tender in the middle of his chest; and he cared for her so much that when she suffered, the thread tugged at him as if the pain was his. He knew Liza was jealous of their special relationship and the way Juliet confided in him rather than her mother, but that was the way it was. And as far as he was concerned the way it always would be.
A gust of wind came sweeping across the kitchen garden, tossing the branches of the trees, so the leaves whirled past them as if it was Juliet and Henry who were moving fast, and not the leaves. Juliet shivered.
‘Are you cold?’ Henry asked anxiously. She shook her head.
‘No,’ she said without conviction.
‘Let’s go back. It is getting quite chilly.’ He turned to retrace his footsteps. Juliet stood still, indecisively. Then she followed him slowly.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Dads, do you know a really good lawyer? Or barrister?’
Startled, he stopped and looked at her inquiringly. ‘I expect so, but what do you need a lawyer for?’
She stepped to his side and slipped her arm through his. ‘Don’t tell anyone and don’t tell Daniel I’ve talked to you about this, but I may be forced to sue his sister,’ she said in a serious voice.
‘Daniel’s sister?’
Juliet nodded. ‘She’s got it into her head he’s married me for my money… Cameron’s money, actually,’ she pointed out ironically, ‘and she’s angry I’m not Jewish, and she’s said a lot of dreadful things about me. If she carries on like this I’ve got to put a stop to it.’
Henry looked mystified. ‘How did you find out about this?’
‘She’s been writing to Daniel; the first letter arrived on our wedding day. So I went to see her… and she does know an awful lot about me, Dads.’ Juliet’s voice dropped. ‘She knows about things in my life. Things that even Daniel doesn’t know. Things that happened after we’d split up and I thought I’d never see him again.’
Henry could guess what Juliet was referring to, but he didn’t feel judgemental. That’s what war and danger and fear did to people; made them grab the moment, squeezing every ounce of fun out of it because there might be no tomorrow; and for thousands there hadn’t been.
‘Has this woman any proof to back up her accusations?’
Juliet’s eyebrows were drawn together in concentration. ‘I don’t see how she can have. Except what she’s read in the newspapers.’
‘Which Daniel already knows about?’
‘He knows about Eddie, of course,’ she replied, evading the question. They were silent as they retraced their steps and were once again near the house. ‘But how can she know about people I went, well, out dining and dancing with?’ she added falteringly.
Henry made no comment. Juliet was a beautiful red-blooded young woman; even he wouldn’t have expected her to sit at home alone throughout the war, when there must have been dozens of men who would have been attracted to her.
‘This woman is probably just trying to make mischief, Juliet. You could take out an injunction against her to stop her talking, but do you really want to go to court? If she’s as vengeful as you say, she’ll try and accuse you of all sorts of things, and even though none of it might be true, remember, mud sticks. You don’t want the suicide of Alastair Slaidburn brought up again, do you? Or your divorce from Cameron? Especially as you can’t say why you left him.’
She hung her head, scuffing the fallen leaves with her feet as they stood in the drive. ‘I know,’ she said in a subdued voice. ‘That’s the rub. So what shall I do?’
‘Can’t Daniel get her to stop?’
‘I don’t think she’ll pay any attention. She seems to think I bewitched him and he’s beyond redemption. I had thought of going to see Ruth and talking to her, but Daniel would kill me if he found out.’
Henry spoke firmly. ‘You mustn’t get embroiled with his family, Juliet. He’d have every right to think you were interfering. Why don’t you just sit tight? His sister is bound to get bored with trying to make trouble if you ignore her. Concentrate on having this new baby of yours, my darling. It’s the best thing that could have happened for you.’
She raised her head to look at him. ‘It is marvellous, isn’t it?’ She smiled. ‘It’s what we both want so much.’ But she couldn’t stop thinking about Esther, and how she could ruin everything for them. What effect would it have on Daniel if he were to find out about the lovers she’d had? What if Esther was able to prove it was true? At one level London was a small place and Juliet was a well known figure on the social scene. People talked. Once started, gossip became rife.
‘Let’s go back to the house, Dads,’ she said suddenly, tugging his arm.
When they got back to join the others they found Salton had taken Rosie and the children back to London.
‘She was upset,’ Louise whispered to Juliet. ‘She’s desperate for a baby, you know, and finding out you were pregnant… well, you know Rosie.’
‘But she’ll have one soon,’ Juliet protested, annoyed that it seemed to be her fault that Rosie was unhappy.
Louise lifted Daisy out of the old family pram they kept at Hartley. ‘I’ve got to change her.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ They climbed the stairs, walking side by side, until they reached the top-floor nursery. ‘She’s so adorable and good tempered, isn’t she?’ Juliet observed.
‘Umm.’ Louise carried the baby in her arms like a bundle of washing, not even looking at her.
‘What’s the matter? Are you very tired?’
She turned to Juliet, her expression blank. She spoke in a low voice so no one would overhear. ‘I’m not bonding with her,’ she said flatly.
Juliet looked shocked. ‘What does that mean? You don’t love her?’
‘I feel nothing. When she was born, and she was handed to me, it felt no more wonderful than if I’d been handed the morning newspapers. I mean, I don’t dislike her or anything, it’s just that she means nothing to me.’
They paused on the landing, out of earshot of the rest of the family.
‘You had such a bad time having her, you’re probably still in shock,’ Juliet whispered comfortingly.
Louise shook her head. ‘It’s not shock, it’s not baby blues. I thought I was excited before she arrived, but when she did…’ Her lips suddenly trembled and she looked beseechingly at Juliet, desperate to be understood. ‘I thought,’ she said brokenly, ‘that she’d take over in my life where Rupert had left off? I thought she’d sort of replace him. I thought I’d recognize her because I’d carried her for nine months and I thought she’d look just like him. I thought it was going to be like getting Rupert back!’ She put her hand over her mouth to quell her sobs. Juliet took Daisy from her very gently, and held her close.
‘But she’s not a bit like Rupert!’ Louise continued feverishly. ‘She’s got Shane’s grey eyes and brown hair and she’s small and… Oh, God, I can’t help resenting her because she’s not Rupert.’ She leaned against the landing wall, her arms crossed defensively across her chest.
‘Have you told Shane all this?’
‘How can I? He’s so thrilled and proud, and it’s his first baby; but she’s not my first baby.’
‘I think you should talk to someone, Louise. Lots of mothers reject their babies at first, you know. Stop blaming yourself. You may not think you’ve got the baby blues, but you probably have. Don’t they call it post-natal depression or some new fangled name these days?’
Louise sighed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said wearily. ‘All I know is I love Bella more than Daisy. Isn’t that shameful?’
Juliet smiled sorrowfully. Louise was still so young and childlike herself and her honesty was touching. ‘Well, Bella is a darling little dog. I’m sure you’ll soon feel as loving towards Daisy. Why don’t you come with me to see my gynaecologist? I can understand you’d find it difficult to talk to one of the doctors Shane works with.’
‘What good will that do? I can’t change how I feel.’
‘A specialist will help you feel differently about Daisy. Let’s go one day this week.’ Juliet strode into the nursery, and placed the baby on the old sofa. ‘Now, will you teach me how to change a nappy? I haven’t a clue, and it’s time I learned.’
Down in the drawing room Liza found herself unwittingly embroiled in an argument with Henry and his sister, about Charlotte’s future. Now that they were installed in their flat in Princes Court, Liza was determined to launch Charlotte as a debutante when she became seventeen.
‘We can give a cocktail party and later on a coming out ball at the Hyde Park Hotel because it’s just round the corner,’ Liza said decisively.
‘Coming out ball?’ Candida exclaimed incredulously. Henry remained silent, eyes downcast. Lady Anne picked up her knitting.
Liza continued defiantly, ‘Why not? Hundreds of girls are going to be debutantes next year. My friend, Lady Mackenzie, is determined Susan will do the Season, and as Rosie and Juliet did it, we must do the same for Charlotte! I’ve found out there’s going to be an informal presentation at Buckingham Palace, so it will be low-key compared to before the war, nevertheless…’ She’d run out of breath in her fervent protestations.
‘But does Charlotte want to do it?’ Candida asked, glancing at Henry, who was studying the carpet.
‘She’ll regret it if she doesn’t,’ Liza snapped back. ‘It’s like having a white wedding; you can only do it once in your life. And things are back to normal now. Mrs Clive Arbuthnott is already planning Priscilla’s coming out party, and so is Laura Nepean. She plans to give a dance for Mary at 23, Knightsbridge, which is a house you can hire for parties and receptions these days. Of course Charlotte must do it. Look how many friends Rosie and Juliet made?’
Amanda looked up from the newspaper she was reading. ‘Charlotte’s too scared to refuse. She fears the wrath of God will descend on her if she says “no” and that she’ll end up on the shelf as an old maid, according to you.’
‘Nonsense!’ retorted Liza, flushing. ‘She doesn’t feel like that at all.’
Everyone in the room seemed to be looking at her; particularly Henry. ‘Well, she doesn’t!’ Liza continued. ‘She’s looking forward to it. All young girls want to go to parties and wear pretty clothes.’
Amanda rose, putting down the newspaper with a flourish. ‘That’s a total generalization, Ma. The majority of young women in this country have to get a job at sixteen and they’re lucky if they’re taken down to the pub for a pint when they’re eighteen! Have you the foggiest what real young women want? Or get? Do you imagine that in the Welsh mining communities, or the factories in Sheffield, or for that matter in the slums of Hackney, seventeen-year-old girls are planning their debutante season?’
‘That’s enough, Amanda,’ Henry said severely. ‘There’s no need to be rude to your mother.’
She turned to look at him, her pale face earnest. ‘But Dad, people like us form only four per cent of the whole population! And Mummy talks as if it’s compulsory for every girl in the country to be a deb! As if the daughters of miners in Merthyr Tydvil, factory workers in Skegness, and dockers in Deptford, are planning their coming out parties! I don’t think even many daughters of dukes are going through this rigmarole any more. Society has been wiped away in one fell swoop by the war. And about time, too. Especially now we’ve got a Labour Government. It’s time the workers had a chance.’
Out of earshot, Candida leaned towards her mother, murmuring, ‘The girl’s got it in her to be a top-hole Labour MP, hasn’t she? She certainly knows how to make a case for what she believes in.’
‘That’s how she may well end up,’ Lady Anne agreed. ‘She’s right about one thing. The war has changed everything. Can you get servants any longer?’
‘No, damnit, I can’t!’ Candida laughed. ‘Mama. I think we’re about to become the under-privileged nouveau pauvre!’
‘I thought we already were!’
Amid their good humoured banter and laughter Liza slipped from the room and went upstairs. Lady Anne and Candida shared something, a sort of understanding, that always eluded her and made her feel like an outsider. She had a sneaking feeling Henry was a part of their secret world of jokes, too, but he was too kind to let it show when she was there. No doubt he was joining in their badinage right now, as she sat at her dressing table, powdering her nose and putting on some more lipstick. Then she reached into one of the drawers and withdrew the little box containing her pretty little purple heartshaped pills. She popped one into her mouth and within moments a warm comfortable feeling spread through her body, leaving her quite cheerful.
Knowing that she was returning to their nice new flat tomorrow was a relief. Once in London she could telephone her friends, do some shopping, and perhaps fix a luncheon party, without being under the critical gaze of Henry’s family.