A week later a letter at last arrived for Robert from Arthur, a long-awaited event that first brought happiness to Jessica’s husband but then, perversely, plunged him into a depression deeper than ever, a mood from which he could be neither coaxed nor bullied. Arthur’s letter, Jessica could not help but notice, was very brief, a mere page of scrawled, widespaced writing. The one that Robert wrote in reply was the length of one of Lord Byron’s epic poems; but neither to that nor to either of his next two epistles, equally long, did he get any reply. Jessica tried valiantly to ignore his ill-temper, as she ignored the fact that the bulk of the work and organization of Old Hall had fallen upon her shoulders, with little or no support from Robert at all. She did not dare to protest, knowing too well how he would counter any complaint. So whilst poor Sarah drifted about the house like a plump, pale ghost Jessica ran the household on their meagre means, hired the essential governess for Gabriella – she had in the end chosen the very young Jane Barton, since neither of the other two more experienced applicants would accept the pittance that was all she could offer – went through the Home Farm accounts with Charlie Best and continued doggedly with her cataloguing of the medieval books and manuscripts that were to be sent to auction.
The summer, after a promising start, was disappointingly cool and wet, and the crops stood, bedraggled and green in the fields. Several days’ thunderous rain flattened the wheat and the barley and with no sun to ripen them they lay in the mud, weedbound and rotting. The rain dripped dismally into the buckets that stood about the floors of most of the rooms of Old Hall.
Jessica, whatever the weather, made a point of riding each afternoon, to get her out of the house. Sometimes she would go up to the Home Farm for a chat with Charlie, sometimes she would ride the New Hall parkland as she had done as a child, often calling in to visit her mother. Sometimes Gabriella was allowed to accompany her on these trips; the child was already showing her mother’s fearlessness and natural ability in the saddle and pestered constantly for a pony of her own.
‘Of course the child must have a pony,’ Maria said. ‘There surely must be something in the stables?’
‘I don’t know. I hardly think Giles—’
‘Fiddlesticks! What is it to do with Giles? Gabriella, my pet – ring the bell and John shall take you to the stables. Tell one of the stable lads to help you pick a pony. A small one, mind, and docile. There are two or three lazy ones out there that don’t earn their way.’
‘Thank you, Gran’mama!’ The child deposited a huge kiss upon the soft cheek. Maria winced a little at the enthusiasm of the embrace yet smiled indulgently. It never failed to astonish Jessica that her mother, who had taken little or no notice of her own children at this age, openly adored Gabriella and left to her own devices would indulge the child’s every whim.
‘You spoil her, Mother,’ she scolded, smiling. ‘You really shouldn’t, you know. I’m not sure we can afford to keep a pony just at the moment.’
‘Nonsense.’ Maria, as had become her habit, massaged one painful hand with the other, the dry skin rustling. It worried Jessica that her mother’s condition seemed to be worsening rapidly. Certainly the damp weather did not help. Maria eyed her a little slyly. ‘Anyway – what’s this I hear about you coming into a fortune?’
Jessica was startled. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘The gossip is that you’re playing the pirate with Old Hall’s library—?’
‘Oh, Lord! Has everyone heard?’ Jessica rolled her eyes. ‘It’s hardly going to be a fortune, Mother. And believe me, I hate to let them go. But we’re desperate, and the old house needs the money more than it needs the books. So yes, we’re selling some of them at auction in November. With a bit of luck they’ll make enough to get us back on our feet. Needs must when the devil pushes, as they say.’ She stood up. ‘We’d better be getting back. I don’t like to leave Mother Sarah for too long alone. That little Janet does have a tendency to drop off at the oddest moments – I sometimes suspect that Mrs Williams’ scurrilous suspicions are right, and she has a secret gin bottle somewhere! – and unattended there’s no knowing where Mother Sarah might end up.’ She sighed, softly. ‘It’s so sad. She spends the whole time looking for Robert’s father. She’s convinced he’s there somewhere – talks all the time as if he’s just going to walk in from the garden.’
Maria lifted her cheek for her daughter’s kiss, patted her hand. ‘Come to supper tomorrow night, my dear. Both of you. Patrick’s coming home for the summer. I know he’d love to see you. He finds it dull indeed, I fear, closeted here with no one but a rheumatic old lady for company.’
Jessica laughed. ‘I’m sure that isn’t true, but if you’d like us to, then yes, of course we’ll come. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen Patrick. He must be very changed? He’s – what? – sixteen—?’
‘Nearly seventeen.’ Maria’s face and voice were strangely sober, ‘And as handsome a lad as you’ll ever see. The very image of his father.’
‘He’s doing well at Harrow?’ asked Jessica.
Her mother gave a small, sharp bark of laughter, and flinched at the pain it caused her. ‘Well? Good heavens, no! Not if you mean academically, that is. They haven’t been able to hammer the first principles of learning into his head! I believe they have despaired of him and left him to his lazy ways. But he’s played cricket for the school and is wildly popular, according to his tutor. That seems to be enough both for him and for them.’
‘He’s happy then?’
‘Oh yes. He’s happy.’ Maria seemed about to add something, but did not.
Jessica eyed her curiously. ‘Nothing’s wrong?’
Maria shook her head firmly. ‘Wrong? Silly child, whatever could be wrong? The boy’s a little wild, that’s all. He made some rather odd friends a year or so ago, and got himself into a scrape from which it cost me a considerable amount to extricate him.’ She held up a quick finger, ‘Not a word to anyone about that, mind. The boy has turned over a new leaf. He gave me his solemn word, and I believe him. There’s nothing wrong with Patrick that a few more months of growing up won’t put right. He’s a splendid boy.’
The following evening, watching the tall young man with the ready smile and engaging, frequent laughter, Jessica remembered her mother’s words and dismissed her first slightly worrying impression that she had been talking to convince herself. Patrick even had Robert relaxed and laughing as he told an obviously well-censored but hilarious story involving a Harrow inn-keeper’s pretty daughter and a student he swore with innocent face and twinkling eyes was not himself.
‘If it wasn’t you,’ Robert chuckled, ‘you seem to know an awful lot about the escape route!’
Patrick inclined the red-gold head that was so vividly reminiscent of Edward’s and held his hand to his heart. ‘My best friend,’ he said, ‘I swear it!’
He was one of those rare people, Jessica realized as the evening progressed, who with unthinking ease and no particular intention could capture and hold the attention of those about him without appearing overbearing or causing resentment. His personality was warm, his laughter easy. He had an attractive voice and a handsome face. He had the disarming knack of listening with lively attention to the opinions of others, whilst always, with humour, being ready to advance his own. He had wit, and he had charm. Smiling to herself she shuddered to think of the number of feminine hearts he would flutter. How many, indeed, he already had—
‘What are you smiling at, darling Jessica?’ He had crept up on her and pounced, clicking his fingers and making her jump. His real delight at seeing her again when they had arrived this evening had warmed her heart. She smiled at him.
‘I was thinking how very far removed you are from that little tinker who climbed out onto the church roof at our wedding!’
He laughed aloud. ‘Oh – not so very far!’ He pulled a funny, self-deprecating face, ‘I can still do some pretty silly things to impress a pretty girl!’
‘I’m sure you can.’
‘As a matter of fact—’ his voice was rueful, and for a moment his smile slipped a little, ‘I can still do some pretty silly things altogether.’
She laughed a little. ‘Oh? That sounds a little dire?’
He shook his head swiftly. ‘Oh no – not really – it’s just—’
‘Yes?’ She had stopped laughing.
He grinned. ‘Nothing. Well – nothing that won’t wait for another day.’ He pulled up a chair. ‘May I ride over to Old Hall tomorrow? I want to hear all about your wicked adventures in Florence.’ He wagged a long finger under her nose. ‘Everyone tells me I get my wild ways from my father – but it seems to me that my old Aunt Jessica has her share!’
She assumed a look of outrage. ‘I really can’t imagine what you mean, young man!’
He chuckled. ‘Then you’ve got less imagination than I give you credit for!’
‘Jessica? Patrick?’ Imperiously Maria tapped upon the floor with her stick. ‘What are you doing over there giggling in the corner like a couple of silly schoolgirls? Patrick, ring for tea if you please – a poor old woman could die of thirst with such neglect!’
Patrick was true to his word and rode, in the rain, to Old Hall next day where he charmed the impressionable Gabriella into ecstasies of bad behaviour, brought a smile to Robert’s face, cajoled a handful of buttery biscuits from Mrs Williams, produced flutters in the inexperienced Miss Barton’s heart that took a full day to calm and finally ran Jessica to earth in the library where she was all but hidden behind a mountain of books stretched upon a vast desk.
‘S’truth!’ he whistled, laughing. ‘I’ve found a little bookworm, no less!’
She came out from behind the desk, stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. ‘Less of the “little”, please,’ she said, severely.
The afternoon was dark and despite the early hour Jessica had lit a single lamp, economy dictating that to be sufficient. The light glinted in his hair and gleamed in the vivid blue of his eyes. ‘I just made Robert laugh,’ he announced, solemnly. ‘And for that I deserve a drink.’
She laughed, a little ruefully, ‘It certainly isn’t easy these days, I have to admit. What would you like? Tea? It’s a little cool for lemonade—’
He leaned to her ear, blowing gently to stir the tendrils of her hair. ‘Wine,’ he whispered, conspiratorially, ‘A – very – large – glass!’ He exaggerated the words.
She hesitated, then capitulated. She reached for the bell pull, laughing, ‘I see you’re picking up all the bad habits at good old Harrow?’
He looked at her strangely for a moment, then without answering he threw himself with graceful force into a battered sofa, lifting his booted feet onto the scuffed arm. ‘Oh, I do like this place! When Sotheby’s make your fortune, you won’t change it, will you?’
She tutted. ‘Sotheby’s aren’t going to make our fortune, Patrick! They’re going to help us to make ends meet. If we’re lucky. Ah, Mary—’ the door had opened and a small maid entered, smoothing her black skirt with small hands, eyelashes fluttering at Patrick, ‘—a glass of wine, if you please, for Mr Patrick.’
‘A large one.’ Patrick smiled, beguilingly, and the girl blushed to the roots of her hair.
As the maid left Jessica turned and surveyed the tall young man who sprawled on her sofa. ‘I used to prefer Old Hall to New Hall,’ she volunteered.
He did not show surprise. ‘Of course you did. You always were a lady of very great sense. Not,’ he added in slightly guilty haste, ’that I’m saying that Grandmama isn’t the most wonderful person in the world. Of course she is. She’s just – a little difficult to live with sometimes, that’s all. She has such very great expectations of a fellow—’ He fell to pensive silence for a moment, then lifted his head, grinning and changing the mood. ‘Is that why you married Robert?’ he asked, slyly.
Taken aback by the easy impertinence of the question she did not reply for a moment. Then she laughed. ‘You mean because of Mother’s expectations, or because I preferred Old Hall?’
‘Both. Either.’
She looked at him for a long moment, half-smiling.
He shrugged. ‘Sorry. It isn’t my business, is it?’
She shook her head, attempting severity, and failing, as she suspected most people did when faced with the lad’s winning ways. He swung his feet to the floor and sat up as the maid returned with a large glass of wine on a tray. Jessica noticed with well-concealed amusement that her hair was tidier and her cap perched at a more becoming angle than it had been a few moments before. Patrick smiled at her with almost unconscious charm as she set the tray carefully beside him and bobbed a graceful and somehow impudent curtsey. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome, Sir.’ She walked with small, quick steps to the door, her wide skirt swaying to the movement of her neat hips. Patrick watched her go appreciatively. As she turned to shut the door he caught her eye and winked, bringing a rosy blush of colour to her face. She shut the door with a click.
Patrick leaned back again, glass in hand, and resumed the conversation, undaunted by Jessica’s earlier attempt to repress him. ‘He’s a duller bird than I remember him. He was always quiet. Now – well he seems downright miserable.’
‘He misses Florence.’
‘So do you, I daresay. But I’m pretty sure you don’t make the rest of the world suffer for it.’ He glanced at her astutely and as, colouring, she opened her mouth to speak made an easy gesture of apology and apeasement. ‘All right. All right. I’m sorry. I’ll change the subject.’ He tilted his head and to Jessica’s surprise she saw the wine disappear at a gulp. He emerged grinning, ‘But only if you send for the rest of the bottle. And have one with me.’
She eyed the empty glass. ‘Is that what they teach you at Harrow?’
He shrugged, avoiding her eyes. ‘Amongst other things.’
He walked to the window and stood looking out into the dark afternoon as Jessica rang once more for the maid. This time, for all her swinging hips and artfully perched cap he took no notice of her at all. As she left, having deposited the bottle and another glass upon the table she glanced at his back and cleared her throat.
‘Thank you, Mary,’ Jessica said.
Clearly piqued the girl put her small nose in the air and stalked from the room like an offended duchess.
Jessica poured the wine and joined him at the window. The drizzle had given way to driving rain that hit the glass like flung gravel. The room was very dark, but it was not the physical gloom brought by the low, rain-hung clouds that caused the sombre look she surprised on Patrick’s face as she glanced at him. Then he turned, smiling again as he took the wine, and she wondered if she had imagined that look of strain. He toasted her. ‘Angel of mercy! Grandmama doesn’t approve of strong drink before five o’clock.’
‘I’m not sure I do myself.’ She sipped her wine, watching him as he took a thirsty gulp then held up the glass to the rain-washed window and studied the play of light in the blood-red depths. ‘I wondered—’ he said, very casually, not looking at her, ‘—if you might – well, do me a favour. Help me out a bit—?’
‘Of course. If I can,’ she said, readily.
‘It’s – a little difficult.’ He sipped his wine, then went back to his absorbed contemplation of it.
She waited.
‘I’m a little – short of the ready. You know? Strapped for funds, as you might say.’ He glanced at her, a swift, sideways look, and then turned back to the window.
She laughed. ‘You aren’t alone.’
‘No. This is – well, serious. I need the loan of a few guineas.’
‘We-ell.’ She was doubtful, but wanted to help him, knowing how hard it would be for him to go to Maria, ‘We’re not exactly rolling in money ourselves, but I’m sure I can manage a little. A few guineas, you say? Exactly how few?’
He did not respond to her lightness of tone. He hesitated for a moment. ‘Five hundred.’
The silence rang with shock.
‘Five hundred!’ She stared at him. ‘Patrick – five hundred guineas is a small fortune! What in the world can you possibly want that much for?’
‘Need,’ he said, grimly, ‘not want.’ He turned and walked to the sofa, sat down, his shoulders slumped, the wine glass hanging in his lax fingers.
‘Actually, Jessica, it’s more than a bit desperate. I owe it to a chap – a nasty piece of work – he’ll break my head if I don’t get it for him.’
‘But – Patrick! – what have you been doing to get into such debt? You have an allowance, don’t you?’
He made a small, impatient gesture but said nothing.
‘Patrick!’
He lifted his bright head. His eyes gleamed savagely blue in the light. Then he turned away, and the fierce, frightened expression was gone. ‘All the chaps at school have a flutter. It’s nothing unusual.’
‘A flutter? You mean – gambling?’
He shrugged.
‘Patrick? Gambling? Five hundred guineas?’
‘I had a run of bad luck, that’s all.’ His voice was defiant. ‘I’d have made it all back – I’ve done it before. It went wrong this time, that’s all. Then this bounder started to dun me for the money. The others are willing to wait, I don’t see why he—’ He stopped.
There was a long silence. ‘What others?’ Jessica’s voice was tight.
He shook his head.
‘Patrick – what others?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake – what does it matter? It’s this one that’s after me – Jessie – please – I have to get hold of this money—!’
‘Patrick – my dear – we don’t have five hundred guineas!’
He gestured at the pile of books, eagerly. ‘You’ll make it though, won’t you ?’
‘Not for months yet – and in any case—’ The words died. She made a small, helplessly worried gesture.
‘Oh, well—’ Falsely bright he tossed back the wine and stood up, putting the glass on the table with a hand that was not quite steady. Beyond the window the full-leafed trees bent in a sudden storm-wind. ‘I’ll just have to go elsewhere. Trouble is these loan chappies strap a fellow for interest rather, and I hoped I could get away without, that’s all. Don’t worry. I’ll get it.’ He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, ‘You – wouldn’t mention this to anyone, would you? I don’t want to – worry – grandmama—’
She was looking at him soberly. ‘No. I don’t think you should. And of course I’ll say nothing. But, Patrick—’
He shook his head and held up his hand, a ghost of the old smile flickering on his young face. ‘Don’t “but”, Jessica darling. I couldn’t stand it. Sorry I brought the matter up. I’d better go now, or I’ll be late for supper. I’ll see you soon.’ He dropped a perfunctory kiss on her cheek and was gone.
She was still standing at the window, a worried frown on her face, her wine untouched in her hand, when he galloped through the curtain of rain at flat speed down the river path and disappeared from sight towards New Hall.
The sad if not altogether unexpected news of Theo’s death reached Jessica in September, in a letter from a Florentine lawyer written in July and telling her of a single bequest left specifically to her and forwarded under separate cover.
Jessica stared at the letter, the florid, stylish handwriting blurred by her tears.
‘What is it?’ Robert had come in from a walk by the river and unusually his eyes were bright and his pale face flushed with sunshine. Perversely, after the awful summer, the autumn was proving to be glorious – warm and balmy, the colours in the trees and hedgerows like the flames of a triumphal fire.
‘It’s Theo.’ She brushed a hand across her wet eyes. ‘He’s dead.’
They stood in silence for a moment, each separately lost in thought and sudden recollection. This time last year they had been in Florence, and like children they had believed that nothing need ever change—
Robert put an awkward hand on her arm. It was the first time he had touched her in months. She smiled a small, tearful smile and moved a little away from him. ‘I think – if you don’t mind – I’d like to go for a walk.’
‘Would you like me to come with you?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’ll go alone.’
St Agatha’s was shadowed as always, but the usual chill was gone. The warmth of the autumn air had seeped through even these grey, defensive walls. There was a strange, faint smell of something evocative of incense, a heady, dream-provoking scent that must be the product of one of the herbs that grew in straggling profusion with the weeds of the churchyard. Jessica sat for a very long time, calmed by the silent peace of the place, small disjointed memories flickering in her mind like the dance of flame, whilst the helpless tears welled and coursed down her face almost unnoticed.
Theo, that first night she had met him: wicked, unscrupulous. And kind.
Despite her tears she almost smiled. How Theo would have hated that word!
Theo, discoursing – gnarled, discoloured hands gesturing impatiently, grotesque wig askew, his passion for the perfection of David or the form of the Pieta evident in every movement.
Theo causing trouble between a group of earnest young artists too self-absorbed to see his mischief – the small, triumphant wink he would send her once he had got them fighting.
Theo stumping awkwardly through the Boboli Gardens. Theo watching her with bright eyes as she fell in love with the Villa Francesca.
Danny.
Danny in the sunshine, the glorious, endless Italian sunshine, laughing, a glass of wine in his hand. A look that could melt the marrow in her bones sent across a busy room, or a crowded, happy alfresco table. Danny, loving her that first time in the via Condotta. Danny angry. Danny happy. Danny working. And above all Danny’s lovemaking, fierce and intense, that reduced her soul to willing slavery.
For months, stubbornly, she had fought the memories. For months she had endured the loneliness of living without him, and hardly once had she cried. But now her grief for Theo had released a flood of memories that would not be denied or ignored.
St Agatha smiled, cool and enigmatic, a hand lifted in blessing.
Danny’s hands worked upon you, too. He is as much a part of you as he is of me.
For some reason the thought, absurd as it was, brought a fresh rise of tears. She bowed her face into her hands, sobbing. In the darkness behind her closed lids the memories rolled inexorably on.
Danny, so many years ago, here in this very building. ‘So. My little Mouse, in a trap at last.’ And then; ‘Don’t be afraid, little Mouse. I won’t hurt you.’
‘Jessica Hawthorne – little Mouse – I hereby declare a day of rest. I’ve got bread, and cheese. Let’s go and eat them by the river—’
Of such small decisions were tragedy made. She saw, though she fought against it, the look that had passed between Danny and Caroline that day, when her sister had appeared on that same riverbank. The look that had excluded her as surely as a barrier of steel.
And then his face, a mask of confused pain. ‘She’s expecting my child. We were to leave together. Tomorrow.’
She lifted her head, easing the painful tension in her neck.
Florence, and Theo again: ‘So – yer want ter fall in love, eh? More fool you, gel. More fool you!’
Then a note. ‘The library. A present from Theo.’
‘Oh, Theo,’ she said aloud, on a little sobbing catch of breath, ‘Devil you were! I feel sorry for Lucifer! He doesn’t stand a chance against you! You’ll be taking over in no time.’
Overwhelmed with sadness she laid her arms tiredly upon the pew in front and buried her face in them, sobbing bitterly. But this time the storm was brief. In a while she raised her aching head, brushing the tears from her hot face with her fingers.
She tilted her head back and shut her eyes, the soft silence calming her. For perhaps an hour she sat in the lulling, strangely perfumed warmth, mourning Theo, longing for Danny, tempted almost beyond endurance to give up her fight to save Old Hall and to return to Florence and to Danny before it was too late. But when she stood, at last, the decision she had made was clear on her calm face. The sun was sinking. Duty called. The house that had survived for so long would not perish because Jessica Hawthorne mourned the loss of a lover.
The fresh air was very welcome. Her head was aching, her eyes heavy from weeping. It was as if the oppressive, scented air in the church had crept sluggishly into her veins, slowing her blood.
She walked to the gate and stood, a little dizzily, her hand to her head.
‘You all right?’
The voice startled her into a near-shriek. Calmly Charlie Best steadied her with a huge, calloused hand. ‘I’m sorry. Tha’ss daft of me. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’ His voice was very quiet.
‘I – didn’t know you were there. You startled me, that’s all.’ Slowly her head was clearing. She was suddenly acutely aware of her dishevelled and undignified appearance, her swollen, tearstained face.
‘I was passin’,’ he said. ‘I heard you—’ he hesitated, then continued, ‘I waited. Seemed somethin’ might be wrong. Seemed there might be somethin’ I could do?’
She shook her head, ‘Oh, Charlie, thank you. But – I’m all right. Truly. It’s just – I had some bad news. Someone I loved more than I knew has died. I just had to go somewhere and have a good cry.’
He nodded and she remembered that here was a man who knew about grief. ‘Best thing. You want me to walk back with you?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Thank you, but no. I can manage. And just at the moment I think I’d rather be on my own.’
He nodded again, unembarrassed, understanding. She wondered how long he had stood, patiently waiting for her, wondered too, suddenly and with a tiny spurt of amusement, when he had at last stopped calling her ‘Your Ladyship’ at every other word. ‘As long as you’re all right.’
‘Truly I am. I just need a walk, that’s all.’
He nodded, and with no other salute turned and left her, striding heavily and purposefully back along the path that followed the river. Like a shadow his small collie Bess had appeared at his heels, following him.
The dipping sun lit the water to fire where it glittered through the drifting willow-branches, yellow-gold now, but still in full leaf.
Jessica watched Charlie’s sturdy form disappear around the curve of the path and then set out slowly after him, a little comforted.
The world was not, after all, an entirely friendless place.
Theo’s bequest to Jessica arrived a couple of weeks later. Jessica had been to Home Farm to discuss with Charlie the possibility of putting more land to pasture the following year. Charlie had long since become used to discussing such things with her, rather than with Robert, the true master of the estate, for try as she might she could interest Robert in neither her plans for the house nor in the running of the lands that went with it. He left it all to her, shrugging if she asked his advice, agreeing almost off-handedly to anything she suggested as long as it required no effort from him. But at least lately it seemed to her that he had been a little more settled. He spoke less often and less desperately of returning to Florence, and spent more time outside the dilapidated walls of Old Hall. He had begun taking long, rambling, lonely walks at odd hours of the day, his only companion his battered volume of Byron’s poems which he would, Jessica presumed, pore over in solitude in some quiet corner of the estate, lost in a dream from which he did not want to awaken. But the walks brought no colour to his cheeks, and he was still distrait and very quiet. He rarely spoke and even more rarely listened to anything going on around him. He was like a man constantly in a reverie and at odd moments in her busy life she wondered a little worriedly what was going on in his mind and where this aimless dreaming might lead him.
She had spent an hour with Charlie and was riding back to Old Hall when she saw Gabriella riding towards her on her fat little pony, heels drumming at the animal’s rounded sides as she pushed him as close to a gallop as his dumpling proportions would allow. ‘Mama! Mama! There is a package! A package from Italy! And it has your name on it!’
Smiling, Jessica reined in. The child’s dark eyes were shining with excitement in her pointed, smooth-skinned face. Behind her stood the young groom who accompanied her wherever she rode, his long legs keeping easy pace with the pony’s short ones. He touched his cap to Jessica, smiling. ‘She would come to find you, Y’re Ladyship. That excited she was.’
Jessica leaned down to pat the pony’s shaggy head. ‘Well – we’d best go to see what the excitement is all about, hadn’t we?’
‘It’s pretty,’ Gabriella announced, judiciously, an hour or so later, studying the book her mother held, one of the two that the package had held. ‘Is it yours?’
‘Yes, it is. Theo gave it to me.’ Jessica looked at her daughter fondly. ‘Do you remember Theo?’
The child narrowed her eyes a little in thought, then nodded uncertainly. ‘I – think – so.’
‘He was a very good friend.’ Smiling with pleasure Jessica leafed through the beautifully decorated pages of the book. ‘Is Papa somewhere around? I think he might like to see these.’
Gabriella shrugged. ‘He was. He went out I think. Perhaps he came to find you, as I did? Mama—’ She turned a bright, momentarily serious face to her mother. ‘—Miss Barton says that when I grow up I must marry a lord and live in his castle. Is that true?’
Jessica turned from the drawing. Gabriella’s dark eyes, so heartbreakingly like Danny’s, were fixed solemnly upon hers. She laughed affectionately, and gathered her daughter to her, hugging her until the child giggled breathlessly. ‘Only if you want to, my precious. You may marry a prince, or a beggar, live in a palace or a gypsy’s tent. Just as long as you’re happy.’
‘May I tell Miss Barton that?’
‘You may.’
The little girl smiled and tucked a confident hand into her mother’s. ‘And when I get married, may I stay here? I want to live here for ever and ever.’
Jessica dropped a quick kiss onto the small, tender fingertips. ‘Nothing would make me happier, my darling. Nothing at all.’
It was more than two hours later, with Gabriella abed and supper almost ready, that Jessica realized that Robert still had not returned to the house. To her surprise no one remembered his going nor knew where he might be. Mrs Williams agreed with Gabriella that he had been on hand when the package from Italy had been delivered, and suggested the same thing that the child had. ‘Perhaps he went off to look for you, Miss Jess?’
Jessica shook her head, puzzled. ‘I can’t really see why he’d do that. I’m sure I told him I was going down to the farm. If he had gone that way I’d have passed him on the way back—’ The first faint stirrings of unease drew her brows together in a frown. The path to Home Farm followed the river at its deepest almost all the way. ‘Mrs Williams – wait supper awhile, would you? I’ll ride back to the farm and see if he’s there. Perhaps he’s got talking to Charlie and forgotten the time?’
‘You want some help, Miss Jess? Shall I call young Sam?’
‘Oh no. There’s no need. I shan’t be long. Just ask Sam to saddle Bay Dancer for me, would you?’
She rode fast to the farm, sure now that that was where Robert would be. The sun was dipping below the horizon, sending spears of scarlet and gold into the clear sky as she rode up the track. Charlie came to the door, shading his eyes. She did not dismount. ‘Charlie – have you seen my husband? I think he may have come here looking for me?’
Charlie shook his head. ‘He hasn’t been here.’
‘You’re sure?’
Charlie nodded. ‘Somethin’ wrong?’
‘No.’ She spoke the word a shade too quickly. ‘No, I’m sure not. It’s just unusual for him to be gone so long.’
‘You want me to come help look for him?’
She laughed a little. ‘Oh no, Charlie! He’d be furious if he found me sending out search parties!’ Bay Dancer backed restively away from the door, eager to be gone. ‘I’ll go back to the house. He’s sure to have come home by now.’
She stopped once or twice on the way back along the river path, calling above the sound of the moving waters. ‘Robert? Ro-bert!’ Almost certainly, she thought, ignoring the chill that the sight of the dark river brought, he had found some sheltered spot and become so absorbed in Lord Byron’s heroic poesy that he had forgotten the time. Perhaps he had even fallen asleep. With the sun gone the evening was cooling very quickly. He’d soon be home.
Mrs Williams was waiting at the gate, watching for her, her own eyes worried. No, Sir Robert had not returned, and there had been no word. No one knew where he was.
Jessica did not dismount. One more idea had come to her. ‘Perhaps he’s called in at New Hall, and has stayed to supper with Patrick and Mother?’
‘The master has been seeing a lot of Mr Patrick lately,’ Mrs Williams conceded, ‘so yes, tha’ss very likely what he’s done.’
Jessica was astonished. So involved in Old Hall’s affairs had she been lately that the information that Patrick and Robert had been meeting was a complete surprise. She felt a twinge of guilt that she should neglect Robert so that he felt it necessary to seek the company of a seventeen-year-old, however charming. ‘I’ll ride over and see if he’s there,’ she said on impulse. ‘Don’t worry about supper, Mrs Williams – feed the rest of the household – I’ll probably eat at New Hall.’
‘Very well, Miss Jess.’
Jessica turned Bay Dancer along the path that led to the lake. The sun had gone now, and the air was chill, though the last colours of a brilliant sunset still washed the sky, tingeing the underbellies of a few clouds that hung like painted patches upon the darkening sky. The sound of the horse’s hooves were muffled by a fresh, deep carpet of leaves that gave off the sharp, sweet smell of autumn as they were disturbed. A bird twittered sleepily and was still. About the tower of St Agatha’s bats swooped, flickering like swift shadows in the still half-dark. Surprised, she reined the horse to a quiet halt. The door of the church stood a little open, and through it she had thought she detected the faintest rosy gleam of light. She frowned and narrowed her eyes. She must be mistaken. But no, as Dancer moved a little, restively, she saw it again – a narrow slither of lamplight, bright in the growing darkness.
Silently she slid from the saddle and tethered the horse to a tree. Then quietly she moved up the overgrown path to the church porch. As she neared the open door she stopped, sniffing the air. A heavy, unpleasantly sweet smell drifted to her nostrils and caught at her throat. She remembered the faint, strange, incense-like scent she had smelled in the church the last time she had come here. This was the same, but stronger, sickly and cloying, strong enough almost to taste.
It was becoming rapidly darker, and as it did so the gleam of light from beyond the door brightened.
Very quietly she stepped to the door and pushed it.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the interior, a darkness that seemed strangely clouded despite the rosy halo of the lamp that stood upon a small table in the centre of the church. The smell enveloped her, sweet and nauseating. She put a hand to cover her nose and mouth. Smoke stung her eyes. There was a faint rustle of movement. A wisp of smoke spiralled and hung in the air like an evil genie escaping from a bottle. Jessica stood rooted to the spot.
Patrick reclined amongst cushions on a pew, his long legs crossed, his bright head, propped upon one hand, glinting in the fitful light. The heavy perfume of the drugging smoke that lifted from the pipe he held drifted eerily in the space above him. He was smiling, the long fair lashes veiling his eyes. Robert sat upon the floor beside him, his back against the end of the pew, his head back, his eyes closed, a look of calm ecstasy upon his narrow, dark face. As Jessica watched he opened his eyes, inclined his head a little and drew deeply upon the pipe he held, the twin of the one that Patrick was smoking. Upon the table with the lamp was a saucepan, something that looked like a sieve and a spoon, beside which, incongruously, lay a lemon cut in half. The smoke from the pipes gathered in the dark air like an evil cloud, carrying with it its sweet, drugging perfume.
Jessica had begun to tremble, and her stomach roiled. She felt as if she were suffocating, the poisoned air catching her throat and choking her lungs. She stepped back. The door creaked. Robert turned his head, looking directly towards the sound. For a moment their eyes met: but she knew with a stirring of horror that lifted the small hairs upon her neck that he did not see her. He did not see anything. He smiled, gently.
She fled. Brambles clawed at her riding-skirt, branches whipped painfully at her skin. Bay Dancer turned his head to her as she stumbled to him. Shivering violently she put her arms about the horse’s strong, warm neck and stood for a moment, leaning against the animal, drawing comfort from the simple, uncorrupted strength of the beast. Her eyes were stinging, the opium-smell hung about her hair and her clothes, cloyed her throat. It was full dark now. Somewhere close an owl hunted, crying in the darkness, its great wings brushing the air like the pinions of death. A small, terrified animal shrieked and was silent. With an enormous effort Jessica swung herself into the saddle and turned the horse’s head for home.
Robert returned to Old Hall minutes after the clocks of the house had chimed midnight. Jessica sat where she had remained almost unmoving since she had returned, in a deep armchair next to the oriel window of the Old Drawing Room, a single lamp burning at her elbow. She saw the lantern he carried, watched it as it approached, bobbing like a will o’ the wisp along the river path, across the drawbridge and over the courtyard. She saw it stop for a moment as Robert caught sight of the lamp burning in the window, and then come on more slowly to the door below.
She heard the opening of the door, and its closing. Heard the hesitancy of his footsteps as he mounted the stairs. Then he stood, lantern still in hand, at the door. As he stepped into the room a faint, sickly-sweet smell drifted in with him.
Jessica did not move.
‘Jessica? You’re still up?’
She said nothing.
‘Is – something wrong?’ His voice was wary.
‘Yes, Robert. There’s something wrong.’
‘What’s happened?’ He came further into the room. She saw that the hand that held the lantern shook. With care he set the light upon a table and turned to her. ‘What’s the matter?’
She lifted her head. He blinked at the look in her eyes. His own were smudged with tiredness, the pupils unnaturally big.
‘I came to look for you tonight,’ she said.
He drew a long breath, loud in the silence. ‘And—’ he asked, carefully, ‘did you find me?’
‘Yes.’
‘In the church?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see.’
The silence that fell was like a door closing between them.
She shook her head, bitterly. ‘Robert, you fool! What do you think you’re doing? To yourself? To us?’
He threw his head back, hair flying from his forehead. His mouth was tight. ‘Be quiet, Jessica. You don’t understand.’
‘Understand?’ She almost laughed at that. ‘Oh, I understand! Better than you’ll ever know! You can’t face reality, so you drug yourself into stupidity to escape it!’
He spun on her, took a step forward that was clearly threatening. ‘That isn’t it! It isn’t! When I smoke the dreams come – and the dreams are music – music, Jessica! I compose like a master! I hear it – it releases me—’
She leapt to her feet, facing him, a tired, savage anger overwhelming her. ‘You’re mad! Opium has softened your brain!’
‘No! Opium is my salvation!’ he glared back at her, breathing heavily. ‘With the dreams I can make music. With the dreams I shall write something truly great at last—!’
She shook her head, her temper dying as quickly as it had flared, a terrible sadness filling the vacuum it left in its going. His face was pallid and thin, the eyes huge and burning. The neatly handsome features that had been familiar to her since childhood were sharp-drawn and anguished. He looked a haunted man, and the chilling depths of fear and misery she saw in his eyes terrified her.
‘Robert – please! – can’t you see how wrong this is? Can’t you see the harm you’re doing to yourself? Your music has gone – you have to face it—’
‘No!’
‘You tried! And – you failed. Opium won’t change that—’
‘But it does! Jessie – it does!’ Eagerly he stepped to her. ‘I tell you that in the smoke-dreams I hear the music I could write—’
‘And do you write it?’ she asked, quietly.
He nibbled his lip.
‘Robert?’ she prompted, gently, ‘Do you write it?’
He turned from her. ‘Not yet. When I try it – slips away. But I will! I know I will!’
The depth of her pity for him brought unexpected tears. As she watched him they burned, blurring the lamplight. She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. If she allowed herself to weep now she suspected that she would not stop for a very long time.
‘Don’t interfere, Jessica,’ his disembodied voice was quiet in the gloom. ‘Don’t try to stop me. I don’t know what I might do if you tried to stop me.’
She lifted her head, shocked. He stood very still, watching her, his white face all but expressionless.
‘Patrick is my friend,’ he said. ‘He showed me the way.’
‘The way to hell,’ she said, bitterly.
‘No. The way to paradise.’
She shook her head in wordless despair. The awful smell still clung to him, revolting her, like the sick-sweet smell of death.
He came to her, seeing her misery, his voice suddenly gentle. ‘Jessica – many great people have used opium. Poets. Painters. Musicians. They make no secret of it. It is a benign influence. It’s nothing to be afraid of.’
‘And the dreams?’ she asked quietly. ‘Are they never to be feared?’
She saw something flicker in his eyes, and she had her answer, for all that he would not speak.
‘The dreams are not always of music,’ she said softly, ‘are they?’
He turned and walked to the window, stood looking at his reflection in the glass, broken and fractured by the lead lights and the flickering lamplight.
‘What of the horrors?’ Jessica asked. ‘How can you face them?’
He shook his head. ‘Stop it.’
‘Stop what? Trying to make you see the truth? That in the end this will control you – drive you insane—?’
‘No!’ It was a muted cry of agony.
She bowed her head for a moment, closing her eyes, suddenly entirely exhausted. ‘Sweet Jesus Christ. What are we going to do?’
She heard a rustle of movement, smelled the drug-smoke smell as he paused by her side. ‘There’s absolutely nothing we can do.’ His voice was suddenly, astoundingly normal, apparently perfectly controlled. ‘It is gone too far. Jessica – you’re tired. You’ve got everything out of perspective. Wait till morning and you’ll see that things are not so terrible. We are a nation of opium-eaters. The lord in his castle, the poor man by his hearth. Why, even your mother takes laudanum—’
She dropped her hands to her side. ‘Don’t be stupid! How can you compare it? Mother takes laudanum to ease her pain—’ she stopped.
He smiled, bleakly. ‘Exactly. I could not have put it better myself.’ He moved to her as if he might have been going to kiss her cheek. She drew back from him. He shrugged a little. ‘Goodnight, Jessica.’
When he had gone she collapsed into the chair like a stringless puppet abandoned by its master. She sat for a long time, staring sightlessly at the smoking flame of the lamp.
Before she slept, huddled into the chair, one thought came, just one constructive thought. ‘Patrick is my friend,’ Robert had said. ‘He showed me the way—’
Patrick.
Tomorrow she would talk to Patrick. God help the boy.
She rode to New Hall the following morning. She had not seen Robert – he had not come down to breakfast and she had not sought him out to enquire why. She rode across the New Hall parkland fighting to control the anger that rose each time she thought of the events of the previous evening, trying to marshal reasoned argument, to bury deep the too-bitter words that seethed in her tired brain. Her neck was stiff from an awkward night’s sleep, and her eyes felt as if the dust of the desert had blown into them. But still she kept a brake upon the impulse to blame Patrick for what was happening to Robert. She recognized that the reasons for Patrick’s undoubted wildness were more than the simple and the obvious. She remembered the frightened child, his mother newly dead, his grandmother dying, thrown into a hostile environment like a small martyr into a den of lions. She remembered those early letters from Harrow while she had been in Florence with Danny, too busy then to read between the lines. More than once a shadow of doubt had crossed her mind about a child from a background so chequered holding his own in a bastion of privilege and of petty power. She thought of the boy’s facile charm, his easy ways, his readiness to indulge in extremes of behaviour. He was not, she told herself determinedly, too much to be blamed. But this game with fire must be stopped, before it destroyed himself and Robert.
The morning was cold. Heavy clouds massed to the west, and the smell of rain sharpened the wind. Leaves swirled past her as she rode and the grass flattened in the strong breeze. As she rode to the front door of New Hall one of Clara’s peacocks, no longer Clara’s, stalked away from her, crowned head high, the long, beautiful tail blowing gracefully in the wind as it trailed behind the bird.
She handed her hat, crop and gloves to the footman who opened the door. ‘Is Mr Patrick at home?’
‘Yes, Your Ladyship. He’s breakfasting in the morning room.’
‘And my mother?’
He shook his powdered head. ‘Has been unwell, I fear, Your Ladyship, and has been confined to her room for two days. Her breakfast has been taken to her.’
‘I see. Please let her know that I’m here, and tell her I’ll visit her after I’ve had a word with Mr Patrick.’
‘Certainly, Your Ladyship.’
She smiled her thanks and left him. The house was very quiet. A small maid scurried by, dressed in her dark morning work-dress, carrying a bucket and mop. As she acknowledged the child’s shy greeting it came to Jessica with some surprise that this was the only servant she had encountered between the front door and the morning room. As a child it had seemed to her that New Hall had always at this time of day been an ant-heap of hurrying servants. It was a surprise too to discover that no footman waited at the morning room door to open it and announce her. For the first time she saw that what her mother had told her was true; times at New Hall might not be as desperate as they were at the old house, but neither were they as easy as they had been in the past.
‘Jessica!’ As she entered the room Patrick looked up from the paper he had been reading, tossed it on the table and came to his feet in a quick, graceful movement. He looked fresh, rested and bright-eyed as a child. He was wearing pale buckskin peg-topped trousers, neat fitting at slim waist and ankle, and a white silk shirt, the cravat loosely tied. He looked delighted to see her. ‘What an unexpected pleasure! I always say that the nicest things happen when you least expect them! And here I am, eating a dull-dog breakfast – and in you walk, pretty as a picture. Have you come to take me riding?’ He grinned, his eyes taking in her tailored jacket and flared riding skirt, ‘I swear I’m overeating so that if I’m not forced to some exercise soon I shall be as fat as butter!’ He slapped his narrow hips, laughing.
She stopped just inside the door. If he noticed her silence, her strained expression, he gave no sign.
‘Won’t you take some breakfast? We’ve kidneys and bacon – I think they’re still hot. The eggs are gone – but I could order some more?’
‘No. Thank you.’
‘Why, Jessie—’ he smiled, a little cautiously, ‘—how very ill-tempered you look! Did you get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning? Is something wrong?’
She had already decided that there would be no easy or tactful way to broach her subject. ‘I want to talk to you.’
He smiled warmly. ‘Talk away. Here I am. Won’t you sit down first?’
She shook her head. ‘Patrick – last night I rode by St Agatha’s. I was looking for Robert.’
The bright eyes narrowed. ‘Ah.’
‘I saw a light in the church.’
‘And you investigated?’ His voice was light and pleasant, but all movement of his body had stilled.
‘Yes.’
He sucked his lower lip, eyeing her speculatively. There was a small silence.
‘Patrick – in God’s name – what do you think you’re doing? Do you know what you’re playing with? It’s bad enough for you, but to involve Robert—! Can’t you see he’s already—’
‘What?’
She hesitated. ‘—not as stable as he might be,’ she said. ‘You’ll drive him insane.’
‘Oh, nonsense!’ He threw the napkin he had been holding onto the table, smiling. ‘Jessica, you don’t understand the nature of—’
She shook her head sharply, interrupting him. ‘No, Patrick! It’s you who doesn’t understand!’ She paused for a moment, controlling her anger. ‘Please. Listen. I haven’t come to argue with you. I haven’t come to reason. I haven’t even, God help me, come to plead with you to give up the filthy habit yourself. Something tells me that the breath would be wasted. I’ve come to ask you – to tell you – to stay away from Robert. And don’t dare – don’t dare – to supply him with any more of that – that disgusting drug—!’
He turned away from her, his young face impatient. ‘For God’s sake, Jessica, that’s up to Robert, isn’t it? He’s a grown man—!’
‘Which you are not!’ She was holding her calm with difficulty. ‘Whether you like it or not, Patrick, you are controllable. You are not yet your own master. If I told Mother of this – or of your gaming debts—’
‘I’d deny it!’ His voice had risen. ‘Grandmama would never believe you over me! Never! Take care, Jessica! Don’t cross me! I have Grandmama here—’ He tucked a long finger into the palm of his own hand. ‘Don’t make me use that against you. Oh, Jessica—’ Even now he tried to laugh, tossing the hair from his eyes, the anger of a second before replaced by shameless coaxing, ‘I thought you were my friend—!’
The fury that Jessica had been so determined to control was flooding her, and she was helpless against it. ‘And this is how you repay friendship? To feed Robert some horrible concoction that makes for him dreams that could drive him to addiction and insanity? To game with money that is not yours to gamble? To—’ she stopped. Patrick was looking past her, a stricken expression upon his face, every vestige of colour drained from his fine, fair skin.
Very slowly Jessica turned.
Maria Hawthorne, leaning heavily upon her gold-knobbed stick, stood in the open doorway.
‘Go on, Jessica,’ she said, the trembling of her voice barely discernible. ‘Really, my dear, you can hardly stop there.’
‘Mother—’ Jessica glanced distractedly at Patrick. Of all the things she had wanted, this was the last.
Slowly, watched by two young people who seemed to have become rooted where they stood, the old woman limped into the room and closed the door behind her, then made her careful way across the shining polished floor to a chair at the head of the table, the irregular tapping of her stick loud in the quiet. With iron determination she allowed no tremor of pain to show in her face as she sat down straight-backed and autocratic, both hands folded upon the gold-knobbed stick that rested upon the floor before her. ‘Now. Where were we?’ she asked, pleasantly. ‘Jessica?’
Jessica stood in silence.
‘Let me refresh your memory, daughter.’ The old woman paused. Bright colour was stealing into Patrick’s face. ‘Robert is being fed a horrible concoction that will drive him to addiction and insanity – really, Jessica, I can’t help thinking that your reading matter must lately have left a little to be desired! – And Patrick has been gaming with money that, as you quite rightly point out, is not his to gamble. You might add—’ apparently speaking to Jessica her eyes were upon Patrick’s burning face, unblinking, ‘—against his sworn word to me. Shall we start there? Or is there more?’
Jessica miserably held her tongue. There seemed nothing she could say that would not do more damage.
Patrick took a step forward, his hand outstretched. ‘Grandmama—?’ The word was a plea.
‘Leaving other matters aside for a moment, Patrick—’ Maria’s voice was cool, but still held that tremor of tightly-controlled emotion, fire burning beneath a fragile crust of ice. ‘Let us first establish something. What are these new debts of yours?’
He shook his head. His face was taut and frightened.
‘What – are – your – debts?’ The old lady emphasized each quiet word with a rap of her stick upon the floor.
He took a breath as if to speak. His mouth worked. He said nothing.
Maria sighed, and for a brief moment closed her eyes. ‘Patrick – this is not the first time we have had this conversation. Is it?’
‘No, Grandmama.’
‘In three years – how many times? Five? Six? How many times have you cried repentance? Sworn and promised reform?’
He said nothing.
‘How many times have I taken your word? Foolishly taken your word that you will curb your wild behaviour?’
‘Mother—’ Jessica stepped forward, her eyes worried upon her mother’s drawn face.
Her mother turned her head. ‘Yes, Jessica?’
‘This – this is my fault. I lost my temper—’
‘So I heard. And for good reason, it seems.’
Jessica bit her lip. Angry as she had been with Patrick the last thing she had intended was to precipitate such a scene. ‘This – this is between me and Patrick,’ she said, ‘there’s no reason for you to upset yourself so—’
The still formidably bright eyes flickered to Patrick and back again. ‘Really?’ Maria asked, very gently. ‘Are you quite sure about that?’ She waited in silence for a moment. Neither of the young people spoke. Maria’s gaze transferred to Patrick. He sustained it for a difficult moment then looked away, ducking his head, his fair skin flushed. Maria’s rigid control had slipped a little. Her shoulders drooped, her face was tired as was her voice when she spoke. ‘What is it you’ve been doing this time that made Jessica so very angry?’
His long index finger rubbed nervously at the buckskin of his breeches. He neither looked up nor answered.
‘Patrick?’
He lifted his head at last. His young face was bright with a kind of guilty defiance. ‘Jessica found Robert and me in St Agatha’s last night. We were—’ he faltered a little ‘—we were smoking opium.’
Maria did not move, but Jessica saw the swift shadow of distaste that flickered in her face. ‘Robert? You induced Robert to smoke opium?’
Patrick shrugged, childishly insolent.
Slowly and with great care Maria stood and tapped her way to the window, where she stood with her back to the occupants of the room, looking out into the park. Patrick stole a glance at Jessica’s concerned face, then looked quickly away. There was a long silence. At last, with a long sigh that visibly lifted her shoulders, Maria turned. ‘Patrick – what are your debts?’ she asked again, very quietly.
The habit of authority won. Patrick’s bravura left him. ‘I’m – not sure.’
‘But – you can guess, surely?’ The words were deceptively gentle.
He sucked his lower lip. ‘A thousand – perhaps fifteen hundred guineas—’ he mumbled. ‘I can’t be certain – the interest—’
Jessica gasped. Maria said nothing, but her grip on the cane that supported her visibly tightened.
‘It was a run of bad luck, that’s all,’ Patrick said defensively, ‘and when I couldn’t pay I had to go to the moneylenders again—’
‘Last year,’ Maria said, ignoring his words, ‘the estate settled debts of yours totalling over twelve hundred pounds. The year before—’
‘Mother, please—’ Jessica could not bear the flame of embarrassment in Patrick’s face. ‘I really think I should leave. This is between you and Patrick—’
‘No. Stay. You must stay.’ Beneath the sharpness of tone there was a thread of urgency she could not ignore. Maria looked levelly back at Patrick. Her back was to the light and her face was shadowed, but not enough to hide the depth of sadness in her eyes, the tiredness that invested every line. ‘Patrick. What is to become of you?’ she asked. ‘And of New Hall, when I am gone and there is no one to control you?’
Patrick shifted uncomfortably.
‘You have flouted every rule of decent behaviour. You have broken every promise, to me and to others. You are eighteen years old. An inveterate gambler, a compulsive womanizer. And now opium.’ A trace of weary bitterness had appeared in her voice. ‘What other surprises do you have in store for me?’
‘It – it won’t happen again, Grandmama. I promise.’ The words rang weakly in every ear that heard them, including Patrick’s own. He fell to silence.
Maria was watching him, her face intent. ‘No,’ she said, her voice oddly flat. ‘I don’t think it will.’
He frowned a little at the tone.
Maria walked back to the table, laid her stick upon it and then leaned forward, palms flat upon the shining surface, supporting her. ‘I have something to tell both of you. Something I believed I would never reveal to a living soul.’ Her eyes rested upon Patrick’s face. ‘Something I would have given my life not to have you know.’
A deep foreboding stirred in Jessica. ‘Mother—’ she began, uneasily.
Maria silenced her with a quick movement of her hand. ‘It is necessary, Jessica. I am forced to it. Forced to it by Patrick’s weakness. I have deceived myself for long enough. Patrick – if you cannot control yourself then I must do it for you by any means within my grasp. However painful it may be.’ She lifted her head to look at her daughter. ‘And Jessica must know so that always, when I am gone, there is a check on you.’ She paused, then spoke directly to Jessica. ‘You are the only one I would entrust with such a burden.’
Jessica shook her head. She wanted nothing of secrets. And she had burdens enough of her own—
The unstable colour had lifted again in Patrick’s face. ‘Grandmama—’
She would not let him speak. ‘When you go to your moneylenders, Patrick – to pay off your gaming debts – to pacify angry fathers and brothers – to purchase your drugs and your alcohol – with what do you secure your loans?’
He frowned a little, puzzled.
‘Well?’
‘With – with my inheritance. They know what I’ll be worth when I’m twenty-one. They know they’ll get their money in the end. Specifically, this time, I mortgaged the lands to the east of the village, next to the Lavenham Road. The enclosed commons that haven’t been sown yet. Giles himself said he doubted their worth to the estate—’
‘I see.’ For the first time Maria bowed her head, tiredly, looking down at her spread hands. It seemed to Jessica that all at once she looked unsure of herself and the step she had obviously decided to take. Yet when she lifted her head there was nothing but painful and simple determination upon her face. ‘And – if I told you that, legitimately, you have no inheritance? That it has all been built on a lie?’
The boy watched her as if struck to stone. ‘What do you mean?’
Maria looked down at her hands again. Jessica’s stomach churned uncomfortably.
‘Grandmama – what do you mean?’
She shook her head, not looking at him. ‘Even that is a lie,’ she said. ‘I am not your grandmother.’ She looked at him, clear pain in her eyes. ‘Sadly we are not even actually related. Though truly I’ve loved you as if you were.’
The boy stared at her, uncomprehending.
On a sudden fierce spurt of anger Maria struck the table with her hand. ‘Why did you have to force me to this?’
The silence was fretted with tension.
Jessica watched as with an effort her mother straightened and squared her narrow shoulders. ‘Patrick, you are not Edward’s son. You are a byblow of William, my husband, upon a young Cambridge girl, Anne Stewart, whose mother was the true grandmother that you remember, who brought you to us when she knew she was dying and could no longer care for you. You are not heir to New Hall. You are bastard half-brother to my sons.’
‘No!’
‘I’m sorry, but yes. It’s true.’
‘You’re lying.’ Patrick sounded dazed. ‘You must be lying—’
She shook her head.
‘But – the proof! There was proof—!’
Maria moved to a chair and lowered herself painfully into it, resting her elbows on the table. Her face was haggard. ‘Forged,’ she said. ‘Forged, perjured and bought. Have you not discovered that anything – anything! – can be bought by one willing and able to pay the price? Anything and almost anyone—’
‘But – Sir Charles! A reputable lawyer! You surely couldn’t have—?’
She made a small, tiredly impatient gesture. ‘Of course not. One doesn’t have to buy fools. They give themselves away for nothing. I bribed a man of the cloth and the son of a peer. Impeccable witnesses. I don’t think it crossed Sir Charles’ pathetic, parchment-bound mind to doubt them. The best forger in the land worked for two days and nights to reproduce the parish register of St Margaret’s. Every entry is absolutely authentic. Except one.’
‘I don’t believe it.’ His voice was flat with shock.
She took a very long breath. ‘I’m afraid you must. It’s true. Your extraordinary resemblance to your half-brother Edward – the thing that first put the plan into my mind – made it all quite ridiculously easy. Even Giles was fooled by that, and decided not to fight. But, if he had, it would have made no difference. He would have found nothing. With the help of your grandmother – your real grandmother – I was very thorough.’
Jessica saw that she was trembling a little. ‘Mother – how could you—?’ she asked, softly.
Faint defiance lit the tired face. ‘I had my reasons.’
‘You?’ Patrick asked, his voice shaking. ‘You had your reasons? Is that all you’re going to say? What about me? What about me?’
Maria threw her head back. Her face was anguished. ‘You need never have known! I never intended that you should! But you have forced me to it! I have to stop you. You have to understand. Before you ruin us all! You have to know that if you don’t curb yourself—’ she stopped.
He stepped back, shaking his head.
Jessica reached an urgent hand to him. ‘Patrick—!’
He shook her off, roughly. ‘Leave me alone!’
‘Patrick – please – listen to me—’
‘Leave me alone, I say!’ He was backing to the door. His face was livid, his wide eyes fixed upon Maria’s face. ‘You talk about me!’ he said, wildly. ‘You’re the wicked one! Wicked and heartless! You’ll go to hell for this!’ There was an edge of hysteria in the young voice, ‘And you deserve to! You deserve to!’
‘Patrick!’ Jessica jumped forward as he lunged for the door handle. ‘Don’t go! Wait – we have to talk—’
He pushed her away with muted violence. ‘Talk? What is there to talk about? Leave me alone, do you hear? Leave me – alone!’ And he was gone, slamming the door behind him, his running footsteps echoing down the corridor.
Appalled, Jessica turned to her mother. The old woman was sitting ramrod-straight, her hands folded before her upon the table. In the light from the window the bright tear-furrows shone on the age-softened cheeks. Jessica stepped forward and stopped, her hand outstretched, as her mother turned her head to face her. It was the first time in her life that Jessica had seen Maria Hawthorne cry. ‘I shouldn’t have told him,’ she said, very steadily. ‘I thought it was the right thing to do. But I was wrong. Find him, Jessica. Bring him back to me.’
Jessica hesitated for only a moment longer. Then she turned and ran back to the door.
Patrick was nowhere to be seen.
It was two hours before he was found. Two hours in which Jessica searched every corner of the house she could think of. Two hours in which Maria sat, pale-faced and silent at the window of her small sitting room. Jessica, returning finally to report a fruitless search, to her surprise found Giles with her. He was standing by the window. Something in his stance, the grim look on his face, alerted her. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Patrick,’ he said.
Her heart was beating with a horrible rhythm, thumping in her chest, drumming in her ears. ‘What?’
He turned to look at her, his eyes sombre. ‘They’ve just found him. In the barn.’
Maria, very slowly, bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. Giles stepped back from the window. In the distance Jessica could see the roof of the ancient barn, where once long ago Giles had imprisoned Bran and a child had cried as if the end of the world had come.
Across the park came a small, mournful procession. Bareheaded the estate workers bore their burden. A girl – one of the servants – walked beside them, weeping into her pinafore. She was carrying an empty bottle and a shotgun. Upon the door that the men carried carefully between them lay a long, shapeless mound covered in a blanket. At its head a dark stain spread, black in the bright light of midday.
No one in the room made a sound as the solemn group crossed the garden and disappeared from sight beneath the window.