Waterloo.
The word was on everyone’s lips.
Waterloo.
Near this small and hitherto unheard-of village in Belgium that until that mid-June day of 1815 could never have dreamed of such lifelong notoriety, Napoleon’s might, at last, had come to nothing. In England and all over Europe the bells rang jubilantly for victory, and in every town and village Wellington’s success was fêted. Melbury was no exception. Seventeen-year-old Jessica Hawthorne, deceptively demure and slight in pale green silk and a large, shading bonnet, sat with her mother in an open carriage on the edge of the green and smiled with unaffected delight at the village children who danced energetically around a hastily-erected Maypole.
‘What a good idea to have just red, white and blue ribbons! It makes a very patriotic show, doesn’t it, Mama? – Mama?’ she prompted, turning her head to look at her mother.
Maria Hawthorne’s preoccupied gaze was fixed not on the dancing children, but upon her husband, who was engaged in conversation with a group of men on the far side of the green. Jessica’s eyes followed her mother’s, and her smile faded. The past months had seen a marked and frightening change in William Hawthorne, and although, almost as if in conspiracy, no one openly spoke of it those nearest to him were both acutely aware of it and even more acutely apprehensive of what it might betoken. And in the past weeks his physical decline had accelerated. His handsome, ruddy face had lost its colour, his large, spare frame shed weight that it could ill-afford. Despite all his efforts it was sometimes impossible for him to disguise the fact that he was in considerable pain. Suddenly grey-faced he would turn from the company, or leave a room with no excuse and no explanation, leaving behind him a concerned silence that was laced with uncertainty and question. With terrifying and savage rapidity a vigorous man was wasting away before their eyes, and no amount of frightened self-deception could disguise it. Only last week Jessica had ridden up to the house in time to see Mr Jeffries, the family physician – who was only called in times of dire need – deep in conversation with her mother at the top of the steps. As she had pulled her mare to a sharp standstill the man had doffed his hat, grave and unsmiling, before bending briefly and solemnly over Maria’s slim hand and mounting to his carriage. Her mother’s face as she had watched the carriage drive away had brought Jessica’s heart to her throat in a sudden spasm of panic. What could the man have said to produce such naked grief in one whose emotions were almost always masked? For the past week she had tried desperately not to remember that look, not to watch her father, not to see that which it was becoming impossible to ignore. William Hawthorne’s pain grew worse by the day, and his constitution, once so robust, could no longer fight it. He stood now, leaning heavily upon a stick, talking to Squire James, a local Justice of the Peace, whose own face showed a politely disguised shock of concern.
The music and the rhythmic sound of the bells the children wore jigged on.
‘Your father is dying, Jessica,’ Maria said, suddenly and quietly, her voice strangely distant, as if she did not herself believe the words she spoke.
Jessica sat, rooted in shock.
Across the green her father doubled over, coughing, his face a distortion of pain. The squire stepped to him, anxious hand outstretched. William waved him impatiently away, fought for breath, then straightened. Try as she might, Jessica could not speak. Her throat appeared to have closed up altogether. She turned stricken eyes to her mother.
Maria nodded. ‘It’s true. You see it is.’ Then, ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, ‘I should not have told you in such fashion. I had not planned it so. I just—’ she shook her head in an odd and uncharacteristically perplexed fashion ‘—I just had to tell someone.’
‘Does he know?’
Maria nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘And yet – the ball tonight? And – all this—?’ Jessica spread her hands, indicating the revelry around them.
‘But of course.’ Faint reproof edged her mother’s voice. ‘A great victory must be celebrated. The people expect it.’
Jessica swallowed protest. She had known, she realized now, without being told, for the past few days at least. What difference did it make after all that the unthinkable had been put into words? Her mother was right. Life went on. And William Hawthorne would have been the last to deny it.
‘Do you know – how long?’
Her mother shook her head. ‘Not long.’ Then, ‘I believe,’ she said, her voice still calm and low, ‘that we should send word to Caroline.’
Dumbly Jessica nodded. Caroline – for the past four years the future Lady Standish – rarely visited New Hall since her marriage, for all that Standish House was a mere twenty miles from Melbury. Her ‘illness’ four years before and her ‘recuperation’ at a small and exclusive clinic somewhere in the south of England had been a five-minute wonder in the neighbourhood, and if anyone had had suspicions none had ever dared voice them aloud to a Hawthorne. On her return to health a visit had been paid to the baronet, the obliging Bunty’s equally obliging and penurious father, the upshot of which had been a swift and in the circumstances a remarkably quiet wedding. In the wake of these celebrations Standish House, whose fabric had been crumbling for nigh on a hundred years, had received extensive repairs and renovations. A year after her marriage Caroline had dutifully produced the son and heir that Jessica was certain had been part of the bargain, eighteen months later another and so, the Standish line safe, everyone was apparently happy. Jessica had never found herself able to take to her two fair, dull-eyed nephews whose small round faces were unremarkably regular and chinless as their father’s. She could never see Caroline without wondering; did she never dream of a sharp, dark angel’s face? – of a shock of black hair – gleaming, laughing, graceless eyes? Did she never think of the child, conceived in love, denied in terror and cowardice, to whom life had been so brutally denied? Jessica never asked – rarely, indeed, ever spoke to her sister if she could avoid it. The betrayal had been too great. As much by luck as by design Jessica’s part in Danny’s escape had never been discovered. She would not at the time have cared if it had been – her father might have beaten her half to death and she would have counted it a worthwhile bargain – but now she was happy that to this day no one at New Hall knew of her friendship with Danny. For it still to be a secret somehow kept the magic untarnished.
She had no idea where he might be, had no hope ever of seeing him again, but yet hardly a day passed when she did not think of him, did not think of that lovely, bittersweet summer of his coming, of those days before Caroline had taken him from her, and then discarded him.
And now, remembering that summer, another face came to mind.
‘Mama—?’ she asked, hesitantly, ‘Should we not – try to contact John—?’
‘No!’ The snapped word brooked no argument. ‘Absolutely not. I forbid it.’
‘But—’
‘John made his choice, Jessica,’ her mother’s voice was even. ‘May God forgive him for it, for I have not and neither has your father. No, child, we shall not send to John.’
She knew her mother well enough to know there was no arguing with that tone. ‘Do Clara and Giles know?’
‘Not from me.’ The words were cool. Her mother cast her a swift, veiled look, then turned back to the scene before them.
Jessica sighed. Even before her father’s illness life at New Hall had been far from comfortable since Giles’ and Clara’s return after their marriage. The battle, politely vicious, between her mother and Clara for control of the household had been – Robert had declared, only half-joking – an affair only slightly less cut-throat than that between Napoleon and Wellington. To Jessica, caught between them, that had been all too shrewd an analogy; she, like many of Wellington’s men, had become adept at keeping her head down and staying out of trouble. In various ways, some more devious than others, Clara had brought her innovations to New Hall. By appealing prettily to her father-in-law she had her peacocks, that now strutted the lawns of New Hall, their raucous cries mocking any who did not care for them. As Maria did not.
By relentless pressure, charmingly applied, she had introduced to the house the new and fashionable habit of eating the family dinner early so that a later ‘company’ supper might be enjoyed. It seemed to Jessica that never an evening passed without its card game, its theatrical pleasantries, its musical entertainment, over which activities the new young mistress of the house presided, sparkling and graceful. The carriages bowled to the door at six and rarely left before midnight, except of course during the Season, when she and Giles rented a London apartment and New Hall was left in peace. The small suite of rooms that Maria had had decorated and furnished for the newly-weds had within six months been entirely refurbished to Clara’s taste and inclination. Giles, so forceful with everyone else, so stubbornly set upon his own way, seemed incapable of standing against his wife in the smallest thing. In everything it seemed her wishes were paramount; yet time and again, still, Jessica sensed that strangeness between them, a barbed tension bordering on violence that to her bore little relationship to love or affection. And for all her relatively small triumphs, Clara, Jessica suspected, was not a happy woman, for she had signally and publically failed on two counts; for all her efforts she had in no way succeeded in usurping the quietly-wielded power of her mother-in-law, nor had she produced a child. Seated beside her mother, struggling to adjust to the devastating knowledge of her father’s coming death as the village celebrated the freedom of Europe about them it came to Jessica with something of a shock that the first of these failures was about to be rectified. With William Hawthorne dead Giles would be master of New Hall. And his wife its mistress.
She looked down at her hands, which still small, square, decidedly inelegant were clasped in her lap. Tears were burning suddenly behind her eyes.
Her mother’s lace-gloved fingers lay upon hers for a moment, gently and with sympathy. ‘Come. We should go back. There are preparations for tonight still to be made.’
For Jessica the Victory Ball, so much anticipated, was ruined before it started. Try as she might she could not take her eyes off her father. He played the perfect host, upright, courteous, dauntlessly attentive to the ladies, an unfailing part of the camaraderie of the men. Yet his face was ashen and his loss of weight horribly obvious in the immaculate dark dress suit that hung upon his gauntness, a mockery of times past.
Her card was full – it always was, though she had no illusions as to the reason for that. She bore with harassed equanimity the efforts of the younger local gentry to convince her – and her rich parents – of their eligibility as they galloped with more or less skill and enthusiasm around the ballroom floor, her usual amusement at their often less than polished efforts to gain her attention on this occasion totally lacking. Her relief when Robert, with whom there was no necessity to play silly games, claimed her at last for an energetic polka was palpable.
‘Well,’ he said, grinning, as he led her onto the floor, ‘I suppose it will occur to me next time to book the supper dance three weeks in advance? Such a popular young lady you are these days—’
‘Oh, don’t be silly.’ She was a little brusque, her eyes upon her father as he steered the overweight Lady Felworth around the floor. ‘We both know that I’m the only Hawthorne left on offer. That’s got to be worth a few dances, hasn’t it?’
He missed a step in the dance, cocked a surprised eyebrow. ‘So sour on such a day?’
She bit her lip. ‘Robert, I need to talk to you. I really do. Are you hungry? Do you mind skipping supper?’
He shook his head readily, his eyes curious. ‘Surely not. But I’m engaged with the Honorable Lady Mary—’
‘And I with the young Mr Mowbray. I’m sure they’ll suit each other very well. If I can arrange it – will you meet me on the terrace when the others go in? I really can’t face the thought of food.’
‘Of course.’ His eyes searched her face. ‘A problem?’
She nodded.
The music lifted, bizarrely light-hearted, and the breathless dancers, smiling and perspiring, whirled past them.
With a diplomacy worthy of her mother she freed them both. They met on the terrace, the cool air a benison after the crowded, foetid atmosphere of the ballroom. She leaned beside him at the balustrade, looking towards the lake. The full, glowing moon threw shadows in the park.
She stood in silence, trying to marshal words, and failing. ‘How’s Oxford?’ she asked, at last.
He turned his head to look at her, quizzically certain that they had not forgone supper to talk of Oxford University. ‘It’s pretty good.’ At nineteen he was of no more than medium height and still slim as a girl. The neat, dark cap of hair and the equally neat regular features were reassuringly the same as they had always been. Whilst others of her acquaintance had, with the onslaught of adolescence, produced violent and awkward changes as disturbing to them as they were to her, Robert had maintained that fastidious collectedness that for Jessica held the uncomplicated attraction of long familiarity. Their affection for each other had in no way dimmed. He was still the trusted companion of her childhood; her other, more reliable and less passionate self.
‘Father’s dying,’ she said.
He drew breath in a long silence. ‘Yes,’ he said, and the soft compassion in that one word almost drew the tears again. ‘I guessed.’
She swallowed. ‘Is it so obvious, then? Does everyone know?’
He turned, his back against the stone balustrade. The light from the house caught his face and she saw the pain and the sympathy. ‘Yes. I would imagine so.’
She made a small, choking noise, then lifted her head to look up into the star-strewn sky. ‘What will we do without him?’
He shook his head, gently and in silence.
She closed her eyes, took several deep, even breaths, fighting off anguished tears.
His small hand covered hers, firm and warm. ‘It’s awful, Jess. Of course it is. But these things happen. It will happen to you. To me.’
She nodded.
‘He’s very brave,’ he said quietly. ‘Very strong. I admire him greatly. I think you have to follow his example. If he can face it, so can you.’
She tried to speak, and could not. In the warm night she trembled. The arm he laid about her shoulders was brotherly and loving. She leaned to him, miserably. Softly and with no words he laid his cheek against the mass of her hair. Behind them the music had started again, garishly cheerful.
‘Jessica?’ Her mother’s voice, quietly, behind her.
She pulled away from Robert, sniffing. ‘Yes?’
‘Our guests are waiting.’ The firm words were not unkind, but Maria’s gaze was steady and uncompromising. ‘Lady Felworth was asking for you. You should speak with her.’
Jessica ducked her head. ‘Yes, Mama.’
As she moved away, Robert made to follow her and was detained by a light touch on his sleeve. ‘She must not be allowed to break, Robert,’ Maria’s eyes were on a level with his own. ‘Not yet. Afterwards—’ she paused, ‘—afterwards she will need your friendship. For now she must stand alone. As we all must.’ Calm and beautiful she turned and walked back into the brilliance of the ballroom, her back straight as a lance. Robert watched her go, an odd mixture of emotions on his face.
‘So there you are!’ Lady Mary Bentley, flushed and perspiring in inappropriate red velvet had appeared beside him. ‘Really, Robert FitzBolton, times have come hard when a girl has to search out her partner—! Think yourself lucky that I’ll dance with you at all—!’ With a firm grip and a dangerous gleam in her eye she steered him forcefully back to the dance.
Three days later William Hawthorne rode out to inspect the summer wheat that Giles had planted on a fertile stretch of newly-enclosed land, and a mile from the house he collapsed. They brought him home upon a cottage door, wrenched from its hinges to provide a stretcher. His face was a death’s mask of pain. For twenty-four hours he lay struggling for every breath, the last of his obstinate strength of will the only thing that kept him alive. He died in the darkness of the second night, his family by his bedside. Caroline, sobbing hysterically, was led from the room by her husband. Jessica stood by her mother, dry-eyed and exhausted. On the opposite side of the vast testered bed stood Clara and Giles, side by side but not touching each other. Giles’ eyes were fixed upon the still face of his father, drawn even in death into lines of mortal pain. Clara’s unfathomable dark eyes lifted to her husband’s face. And almost Jessica was ready to swear that she smiled.
The battle began the very day after William’s death.
‘Purple drapes for the dining room, I feel. Not black. Black is so very—’ Clara paused, delicately, ‘—depressing, don’t you think? I’ll tell Mrs Benson. And perhaps, Mother-in-Law, you might let me have a list of guests who might expect to eat with us? I must know the numbers if I am to discuss the funeral meats with Chef this afternoon—’
Even in her grief, Jessica fumed. Her mother, her face set in an iron mask of composure, her eyes shadowed with pain, acquiesced to this overriding of her authority with more grace than Clara deserved – yet Jessica sensed the stirrings of anger and wondered if Clara really believed that Maria Hawthorne would so easily surrender her place and her influence.
The funeral was huge; the whole county and half of London were there. Jessica struggled through it with a strange sense of unreality. Surely it could not be true that her handsome, forceful father could be dead? Sometimes, absurdly, she found herself listening for his voice, looking for his red-gold head above the crowd of mourners. It was hard to accept that such vivid life could have been extinguished.
She sat before her dressing-table late in the evening of the funeral, the tears of the day still reddening her eyes, her exhausted sadness a dull ache in her head and in her heart. Lucy brushed her hair gently. The windows of the room high up in the west wing were open to a balmy night. On her sixteenth birthday, with MacKenzie triumphant in her final capture of the unfortunate Reverend Jones and her schoolroom books packed into a trunk in the attic, Jessica had begged to keep the nursery suite as her own. Her mother had been surprised; all the family suites – her own Yellow Suite, William’s very masculine rooms, Giles’ and Clara’s small suite – were in the east wing, and it had been assumed that Jessica would take the Blue Rooms, three small rooms on the top floor above Giles’ and Clara’s. But Jessica was adamant. She wanted the nursery suite, and she wanted Lucy to go with them. She ignored Robert’s shrewd teasing about little girls who did not want to grow up. Stubborn as any of them she dug her heels in; and half-exasperated, half-amused her mother had given in. Jessica loved the familiarity of the little rooms – refurbished and refurnished to be sure, but still comfortably and reassuringly hers – loved even their isolation from the rest of the family’s accommodation. And Lucy was a friend, utterly reliable and devoted, even if as Clara frequently and caustically pointed out her skills as a lady’s maid were limited. So, Jessica had been known to retort sharply, were her own skills as a lady.
‘I’ll bring you a posset, Miss Jess,’ Lucy said now, gently. ‘T’will help you sleep, maybe.’
‘Thank you, Lucy.’ Jessica, sighing, rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it – I don’t think I believe it even now.’
Lucy nodded knowingly. ‘’Tis the shock. You’ll get over it, Miss Jess. Quicker than you think. You’ll see.’
‘And Mama?’ Jessica asked, more of her own reflection than of Lucy. ‘Will she?’
‘Why bless your heart, of course she will. You mark my words. Now. Into bed with you. I’ll go and get a nice warm drink—’
Too tired to sleep Jessica lay in bed watching, as she had so often watched as a child, the flicker of the nightlight upon the bedroom ceiling, and wondered for the first time and faintly uneasily how this horrible upheaval would affect her own life. For it suddenly came to her that her brother Giles was now the head of the family and as such presumably had the disposal of her hand in marriage. There had been in the past, Jessica knew, some approaches to William Hawthorne, none of which, thankfully, had met with his approval. She did not know why she did not share Caroline’s eagerness to marry before she was eighteen; she only knew that, as with so many other things, she did not. Would Giles be as scrupulous for her welfare as her father had been? Or would he simply be so anxious to get her off his hands that he would hand her over, bag and baggage, to the first man who bothered to offer? Her father had left good provisions for a dowry – who in heaven’s name might that not attract once the mourning period was done? Just before she slipped at last into uneasy sleep she resolved to speak to her mother on the subject; Maria, hopefully, would not see her youngest daughter, gauche as she still might be, married off to an old man with grown children – or a young one with no brains and less money, like the fatuous Bunty Standish—
Maria, however, it soon became apparent, had worries of her own.
Two days after the funeral – Jessica later grimly came to wonder how she had left it so long – Clara made her first real move to claim her place as undisputed mistress of the household. Jessica came to breakfast that morning a little late – breakfast was served at ten and she always walked in the park with Bran, weather permitting, before joining the family for this first meal of the day. That morning Bran – a rather more staid Bran now, his puppy exuberance somewhat tamed, but still as accident-prone as ever – had chased a duck into the lake and on emerging had shaken himself happily, covering Jessica from head to toe in flecks of mud and slime. Consequently on arriving home she had to change her clothes before making her way to the breakfast room.
Clara’s voice, sharp and clear, stopped her in her tracks outside the door. ‘—is perfectly obviously my right as your wife and mistress of this house. You must move in to your father’s rooms, of course – and the Yellow Suite must be mine. Your mother will see that, I’m sure. She can move into our rooms. They’re perfectly adequate for a woman alone. You’ll arrange it—?’
Giles muttered something.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Clara’s voice was icy.
‘I said – yes! I’ll speak to her.’
‘Good.’ Jessica could hear the cool smile in her sister-in-law’s voice. ‘And I’m quite sure she’ll understand.’
‘Yes,’ Giles said, flatly, ‘I’m sure she will.’
A knife chinked quietly onto a plate. ‘I really must go,’ Clara said, ‘I am expected in Lavenham for a meeting of the Committee for the Relief of Mendicants. You’ll be in for luncheon—? Why, good morning, Jessica—’ Clara’s dark brows climbed in surprise as she swept past Jessica, who stood hesitating at the door. ‘Whatever are you doing there, my dear? Eavesdropping?’ and she was gone, smiling.
Jessica glared after her, then erupted into the room where Giles stood, hands in pockets, in characteristic pose, glowering out of the window.
‘Giles!’
He did not turn.
‘Giles!’
He swung his head. ‘Eat your breakfast, Jessica,’ he snapped ill-temperedly. ‘And be quiet.’ Steaming silver dishes of eggs, bacon and kidneys sat upon a side table.
Jessica ignored them as she ignored her brother’s words and their dangerous tone. ‘Giles – you can’t! You can’t turn Mama out of her rooms – not yet—’
He turned back to the window.
‘Giles, answer me!’ Jessica was livid. ‘You can’t do it! It’s too cruel! Those rooms have been hers ever since Father bought the house. At least give her time! You can’t let Clara just turn her out—!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake! You make it sound as if Clara’s throwing her out into the park!’
‘As she would if she could!’ Jessica snapped back without thought, then drew back as Giles swung on her. ‘Giles please!’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t you think that Mama has enough to contend with at the moment? You can’t be so heartless—!’
‘Leave it, Jessica.’
‘I—’
‘Leave it, I say!’
She subsided, biting her lip. Giles’ handsome face was set in anger, though whether with her, with Clara or simply through being so dragged into the squabbles of women Jessica could not tell. ‘It really is none of your business,’ he said after a moment in quieter tone. ‘Leave it to me.’
And with that for the moment she had to be content. But it was by no means the end of the affair. She rode that afternoon in the park and came back to an odd air of tension about the house. The maid who relieved her of riding hat and whip glanced at her surreptitiously as she did so, a curious gleam in her eye. ‘The mistress—’ she stopped, flustered ‘—that is the older Mrs Hawthorne – asked to see you when you came back, Miss.’
Jessica stared at her. ‘The older—?’ She stopped. The older Mrs Hawthorne? Was this more of Clara’s malice? ‘Very well. Thank you.’
She heard the voices before she reached her mother’s sitting room – her mother’s shaking with uncharacteristic rage, Clara’s cool as cucumber and utterly calm. ‘—then I’m sure you’ll see reason. After all, if Giles is to have the adjoining suite it’s obvious that these rooms should be mine—’
‘And they would have been!’ Maria’s voice cracked sharply across the words, ‘if you’d had the courtesy – the decency! – to wait! I’d have given them to you, Clara, in time. Or if I had been asked. But, by God, you shall not demand them as a right!’
‘But it is my right.’ Clara’s voice was level and reasonable. ‘You know it is. Really, Mother-in-Law, you surprise me – such an exhibition is not worthy of you. There cannot be – I have to insist that there will not be – two mistresses at New Hall. You must understand that, and so must everyone else.’ The words, beneath the calm, were steely. As Clara spoke she turned, and caught sight of Jessica, standing struck to silence by the door. ‘Really, there you are again, Jessica, hovering by a door!’ she said, mildly malicious. ‘A quite reprehensible habit, you know.’
Jessica flushed deeply, and pointedly ignored her. ‘You asked for me, Mama?’
For a moment Maria looked at her almost absently before pulling herself together with an obvious effort. ‘Oh – yes, Jessica. I’m sorry. I had forgotten. Other things intervened.’ The words were biting.
‘I could come back later if you’d like?’
‘No, no.’ Maria put slim fingers to her forehead for a moment. ‘It’s quite all right.’ She lifted her head then, her eyes direct and challenging upon her daughter-in-law, ‘Clara was just leaving, I think.’
Clara smiled. ‘So I was.’ She nodded to Jessica, and to Maria. ‘Jessica. Mother-in-Law. I’m sure you’ll see the good sense of my suggestion when you’ve had a chance to think about it.’ She left the room quietly.
Jessica stood, watching her mother. Maria shook her head, slowly, her eyes upon the closed door, suddenly calm. ‘I should not have lost my temper. I – should – not!’
‘With poisonous Clara an angel would be hard pressed,’ Jessica said gloomily, and was surprised by her mother’s sudden, genuine laughter.
‘That’s true.’ Gracefully erect Maria sat upon a small velvet upholstered chair, waving to Jessica to do the same. ‘Have you heard my new title?’ she asked, bleakly humorous.
Jessica eyed her a little warily, uncertain of this swing of mood. ‘The older Mrs Hawthorne?’ she ventured.
Maria nodded, straight-faced.
Jessica nibbled her lip, and then at the grim gleam of laughter in her mother’s brilliant eyes she could not help but laugh herself. ‘It’s ridiculous!’
‘Of course it is. And that’s how we must treat it.’ Maria sat in thought for a moment. Then, ‘Ring for tea, my dear, would you? And send to Mrs Benson to say I wish to see her at four. If I am to vacate my rooms then at least some of my furniture will vacate them with me.’
Jessica stared at her, aghast. ‘You’re – you’re going to let Clara have them?’
‘But of course.’ Her mother’s voice was even. ‘She is right. These are the rooms of the mistress of the house.’ She moved her head a little to look directly into Jessica’s eyes. ‘She will, however, regret the manner of her acquiring them. I do assure you of that.’
And at the perilous glint of rancour in those sapphire eyes Jessica suddenly did not doubt it. As she moved to the bell she found herself wondering if Clara realized who and what she was taking on; for if the war in Europe were over at last, only the first skirmish had been fought in the battle for New Hall.
Unexpectedly the next, and inevitable clash came not through a matter pertaining to the household but through a change of policy on the estate, in this case instigated by Giles but certainly encouraged if not actively suggested by Clara.
The Game Laws were – as was to be expected in a country still more or less entirely ruled by the landed gentry – punitive. Not a bird could be taken, not a fish nor the smallest game except at risk of prison and the treadmill – or at worst transportation for the culprit and consequent destitution and starvation for his family. It was forbidden for anyone apart from the squire and his eldest son to carry a gun on the land except by express permission. In common with many other landowners William Hawthorne had never invoked the full force of the law upon his own people; upon New Hall land the owner was the law, and his was the hand that dealt it. Let a stranger be caught on Hawthorne land with a gun, a cudgel or a noose and the orders had always been clear; to Melford and the officers of justice he would be marched and the law could take its harsh course, and welcome. For the locals, however, as long as no large-scale operation was suspected, a beating from the gamekeeper and the threat of worse should the offence be repeated had long been regarded as sufficient punishment for the loss of the odd partridge or pheasant. Often a blind eye had been the order of the day, as long as such leniency was not abused. It was with horror, therefore, that Jessica learned of the arrest and threatened prosecution of a lad she had known since childhood for the taking of a hare. Perhaps unwisely she took her distress to her mother.
‘Mama, Jem has two sisters and a sickly mother – his father died, you remember, in the epidemic last year? – who’ll surely starve if he’s transported. The new gamekeeper took him last night – badly injured they say – and has already delivered him to the Justices in Melford. There must be a mistake—’
‘How was he injured?’
‘I don’t know. It’s said by a man-trap, but that can’t possibly be – there are none on New Hall land. His sister came to me – we’ve known each other since we were children. She says they’ve been told they are to leave the cottage – Mama, where can they go? What will they do? We must do something—’
Her mother stood up. The severe black she had worn since the death of her husband suited her. Certainly it added a formidable aspect to her slim, arrow-straight form. ‘Come.’
They tracked Giles down in the Estate Office behind the stables. He looked up in more than half-exasperated surprise at the interruption. ‘Mother? Jessica? What are you doing here?’
‘We wish to speak with you, Giles.’ Maria’s tone was uncompromising.
Ben Black, the estate manager, a ruddy-faced, bulky man in his early forties who had scrambled to his feet as they had entered the room took the hint readily, to a glint of approval from Maria.
‘I was just going. I’ll see you tomorrow, Sir, with those reports.’
Giles nodded briefly. ‘Very well.’
The man left. Giles steepled his fingers before him. His face was bland, his eyes cold. Jessica had no doubt at all that he knew their errand. ‘Well?’ The word was polite enough, but not encouraging.
Impulsively Jessica opened her mouth to speak. Her mother held up a commanding hand, and with unthinking obedience she fell to silence. ‘I should prefer to sit, please Giles,’ Maria said gently reproving, ‘and so I am sure would your sister.’
The natural high colour in Giles’ cheeks darkened a little. ‘Of course.’ He came out from behind the desk and drew two chairs forward. Jessica perched impatiently upon one, her mother settled herself with equanimity and grace upon the other. Giles returned to his own chair behind the desk and waited, warily.
‘It seems,’ Maria said at last, ‘that an error of judgement has occurred. I think that one of our employees has been – a little overzealous. I’m sure the matter can be speedily rectified.’
Giles said nothing.
‘A lad – what was his name, Jessica?’
‘Landry. Jem Landry.’
‘Ah yes – Landry – it seems he’s been taken for poaching and has been delivered to the Justice in Melford?’
‘He was hurt too – badly his sister said—’ Jessica burst in, not able to keep quiet.
Unperturbed, Giles nodded. ‘He was caught in one of the new traps. That’s what they’re for.’
Jessica stared at him. Even Maria appeared for the moment bereft of words.
‘A man-trap?’ Jessica gasped. ‘On our land?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But – Father always said—’
Giles stood up and the muted violence in the action cut off the words almost before they were spoken. He leaned forward on the edge of the scarred and littered desk, his weight turning his knuckles white. ‘Father is dead,’ he said, the words clipped and precise, ‘New Hall is mine. As he intended. You – both of you—’ he added with emphasis ‘—know Father’s feelings and intentions in this. That the house and the land and the management of it should pass from eldest son to eldest son. Not to a damned committee!’ The suppressed violence had for the moment silenced even Maria. ‘Mother – New Hall is your home. It will always be your home. But you have to accept this – I am a man! And New Hall is mine! I’ll run it as I see fit and I will not have you interfering in that. Is that clear?’ On the last word he hit the desk violently with his fist. Jessica jumped. Maria did not even blink. ‘The Game Laws are there to be used.’ Giles’ voice had calmed a little, ‘And I will use them. I will not have the tenants taking my game. They have to learn that. They were warned. The boy Landry was taken, red-handed. He pays the penalty.’
Jessica jumped to her feet, pleading. ‘But, Giles, please! His mother – his sisters—! They are to be turned out of their home! He’s hurt – isn’t that enough? He must have had the fright of his life! He will have learned his lesson – and the others too, I’m sure of it! Please don’t do this! If they transport him – Giles, it was only a hare—!’
Stone-faced Giles resumed his seat. ‘No.’
‘You say we know your father’s feelings and intentions,’ Maria said, her voice quiet, ‘well let me say this, and I dare you to deny it. This was never his intention! That his people should be trapped – transported—? Their families turned out into the road? Never!’
‘He ruled his way,’ Giles said, evenly. ‘I rule mine.’
Jessica looked in desperation to her mother; and even she was taken aback at what she saw in the spare, lovely face as Maria Hawthorne looked at the man who was, to all intents and purposes, her only surviving son. Giles held his mother’s eyes for a moment, then sat back, looking down at his clenched hands.
‘No,’ he said.
In silence Maria stood and left the office with no backward glance. Jessica trailed after her. At the door she turned, beside herself with a frustration of fury and distress. She lifted a small finger, pointing. ‘The day that Edward died—’ she heard herself say in a voice she barely recognized as her own, ‘—was a bad day for everyone. Everyone but you!’
His chair rocked violently as he leapt to his feet. ‘Get out!’
She ran.
The situation, as it was bound to, went from bad to worse.
Within the house Clara, finding something to be desired in some of the older servants’ attitude to the new order of things simply and without consultation dismissed them and hired others from farther afield who were too pleased to find work to find fault with the young mistress who had provided it. Maria, the recipient of desperate appeals, could do nothing but provide good references – which Clara had refused – and a guinea apiece to soften the blow.
Jessica seethed, and was ignored. ‘I’d like to hang, draw and quarter your sister!’ she told Robert furiously as they strolled the banks of the river on the day before he left to go back to university. ‘She’s awful! And getting worse! And as for Giles—!’ She lifted hands to heaven, words deserting her.
Robert smiled a little, sympathetically. The early tints of autumn once more tinged the leaves, but the day was warm with just the softest of breezes to ripple the water. A dragonfly darted, poised and elegant, glinting metallically in the sun. ‘Perhaps you should get married,’ Robert said, teasingly.
He might have suggested that she throw herself in the river. ‘What?’ She spluttered.
‘Get yourself married off.’ The sideways glance he threw her was not altogether laughing. ‘Then you could move out and leave her to it. You must have thought of it?’
She said nothing.
‘Jessie?’
She shrugged and averted her head. ‘Don’t be silly. There’s plenty of time for that.’ She had never told him – had never told anyone – of the strange feelings of panic that assailed her at thought of marriage. She watched Caroline, a docile doll obeying her husband as she had her father with no thought but what she might gain from it, and she could not bear the thought of becoming like her. Worse, she watched Clara and Giles, and hated and feared that undercurrent that she sensed between them. Weeks before she had come across them unexpectedly in the drawing room, quarrelling. The cause of the quarrel she had not known, but she had heard Clara taunt her husband, seen the strange, wild light in her eyes, the challenge in her face as Giles had lifted a hand as if to strike her. But he had not. Instead he had reached for her, and dragged her to him, kissing her with a fury that had been worse than violence. Jessica had fled, had sat upon her bed in the old nursery shivering as if with fever. Was this what marriage was? If so she wanted none of it. ‘It’s all right for you,’ she said now, miserably. ‘You’re a man. One day Old Hall will be yours. Oh, Robert, how I envy you! I wish I were a boy! I wish I could come to Oxford with you tomorrow!’ She laughed suddenly, forcing gaiety, ‘We could share a room! And I’d torment the life out of you and stop you from studying!’
He said nothing. She glanced at him and was surprised when something close to a flinch of pain flickered upon his face. ‘Why, whatever’s the matter?’
His face rearranged itself into a swift smile. ‘Nothing, you goose,’ he said, and laughed; and Jessica was too preoccupied with her own problems to hear the falseness of the sound.
The real storm broke after an uneasy two weeks of peace when a small deputation of estate workers, bleak-faced and embarrassed, respectfully requested an interview with Maria Hawthorne; an unprecedented occurrence.
Jessica was with her mother in her small sitting room, perched in the window seat, a book open on her lap when the group were shown in, caps clasped in their hands, booted feet scuffling the carpet uncomfortably.
‘Good morning, Mr Arkwright,’ Maria addressed the obvious leader politely, concealing her surprise, ‘You wished to see me?’
‘Yes, M’m.’
Maria waited.
‘Tha’ss – tha’ss Mr Giles, M’m. We – we wondered if you’d ’ave a word, like, with ’im—’
‘Oh?’ The expression on Maria’s face had sharpened infinitesimally at her son’s name. ‘In some particular aspect?’
‘Yes, M’m. That is—’
‘Oh, get on with it, man,’ someone muttered from the back of the group.
Poor Arkwright flushed like a beetroot. ‘Tha’ss like this, M’m,’ he said in a rush, ‘Mr Giles is cuttin’ the wages. Cuttin’ them to the bone. We can’t live on what he wants to pay us, an’ tha’ss a fact. The little ’uns’d starve, that they would—’
There came a murmur of agreement from the others, a small growl of outrage that stirred the hairs upon Jessica’s neck, though there was no overt hostility within the group.
Maria had lifted her head, frowning. ‘Mr Giles is cutting your wages?’
‘Yes, M’m. By more than half he says. I tell you, M’m – we can’t live on that—’
‘No.’ Briskly Maria stood. ‘No, of course not. I see that.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Might I ask – why have you come to me?’
There was much shuffling of feet and clearing of throats.
She nodded grimly. ‘You’ve already spoken to Giles.’
‘Tried to, M’m.’
‘And?’
The man shook his head, almost puzzled. ‘He threatened to have us thrown out, M’m, for a bunch of trouble-makers. He says the estate can’t afford to pay the wages—’ His tone clearly indicated what he thought of that for a story. ‘—He says that the parish will make up the difference. But, M’m, you know they don’t make it up to a livin’ wage – Mr William always said—’
‘Yes. I know what Mr William always said.’ Maria paused for a moment. Then, ‘I’ll speak to my son for you,’ she said quietly, and lifted a hand to stem their muttered thanks. ‘That doesn’t mean I’ll get anywhere. On the contrary,’ the words were edged with bitterness. ‘But I’ll try.’
‘Thank you, M’m. Thank you kindly.’ They shuffled out, pushing and shoving at each other in their eagerness to get out of the unfamiliar and to them obviously uncomfortable environment of the house.
Jessica closed her book with a snap and laid it aside. ‘He can’t do that. Surely he can’t? Father always said that New Hall would never use the Speenhamland system! We’ve never sent our people to the parish for poor relief !’
Her mother sighed. ‘That was your father. We’re dealing with Giles now.’
‘But he knows as well as we do that the relief only makes up the wages to barely above starvation level.’
‘He knows also,’ Maria said quietly, ‘that very many farmers in the southern counties use the system to line their own coffers and force the parish to feed their people.’
Jessica shook her head violently. ‘But it’s immoral! It pauperizes the people! Not even Giles would do that!’
Her mother did not reply.
Giles’ fist slammed the table and silver cutlery jumped. ‘I tell you, Mother, I’m tired of your interference! This is none of your business!’ He levelled a long accusing finger. ‘Clara’s right. You try to keep me at your apron strings! When Father was alive you never tried to interfere with the running of the estate!’
‘When your father was alive,’ Maria returned with calm asperity, ‘there could never have been any question of cutting the workers’ wages by half.’
‘The war is over, Mother. Food prices are falling. There’s a depression coming in agriculture. Profits are going down—’
‘By how much?’
He ignored the sharp question. ‘If we are to restore our profits we must do as others do – use the supplementary system—’
‘Abuse it, you mean!’
Giles sat for a moment, fists clenched upon the dining-table, head down like a baited bull’s as he forced control upon an all but uncontrollable temper. When he lifted his head his face was a mask of calm in which his brilliant eyes, so like his mother’s, blazed with rage. When he spoke his voice was absolutely steady. ‘Understand this, Mother. I will not discuss estate matters with you. My decisions are not open to your questions or to your criticisms. New Hall is your home, and of course always will be. But I have to remind you that your presence at this table is at my sufferance. I will not tolerate your interference—’ He stopped as, very collectedly, Maria laid down her fork and stood, the footman behind her hastily stepping forward to move her chair.
‘In that case,’ Maria said, quietly and clearly, ‘I no longer choose to eat at—’ her scathing glance moved from her son to his wife and back again, ‘—your table. From now on I shall take my meals in my own rooms. No, Jessica,’ she added gently as her daughter started to rise, her usually pale face flushed with anger, ‘You will remain, please. This is not your quarrel, and I would not make it so.’ And in the utter silence that followed her words she turned and left the room.
‘Damn!’ Giles in a frustration of fury buried his fair head in his fists.
Clara laughed quietly, the heartless, beguiling, tainted laughter that Jessica so hated.
‘Damn!’ Giles said again.
Maria kept to her word. For months she did not eat with her family, neither if she could help it would she set foot in any part of the house but her own small suite of rooms. To Giles and to Clara she was invariably civil but always cool. With Jessica she refused to speak of the quarrel, was adamant that her daughter should not take sides. She had made her gesture, there was nothing else she could do. Giles went ahead and cut the wages; and on the estate and in the village the effects began to show.
Jessica hated it all. She hated the atmosphere in the house, could not face the workers, who had known her all of her life and whom she had considered without thought and in the true sense of the word her friends. She did not now begrudge them their resentment against her family, but that did not ease the hurt or the embarrassment.
This year it had been planned that she should spend at least part of the Season in London. With no word spoken it was understood that the hunt for a husband was on. Jessica kept her own thoughts on that subject to herself. Her mother planned to take an apartment near Hyde Park, it now being out of the question that they should share a house with Giles and Clara as had been originally intended; though to keep up the fiction of a united family much of the entertainment would be shared. As autumn wore on, damp and melancholy, Jessica submitted with little grace to sessions with dressmakers, sessions with hairdressers, sessions with the makers of dancing slippers. She did not want to go. Yet neither did she want to stay. As melancholy as the weather she wandered the parkland with Bran, isolated in that half-world between childhood and adulthood, unhappy about the present, confused about the future.
It was upon one of these aimless expeditions that she chanced across an old woman and a child plodding up the drive from the village. She watched them, frowning. The woman was decently if shabbily dressed, a threadbare shawl about her grey head to keep out the mist of drifting rain. It was the child who arrested the eye. His face beneath the bright, dripping hair was sweet as a summer’s day, his brilliant smile as he looked at Jessica tugged at her memory and at her heart. It had been a long time since she had seen such a smile. The sapphire eyes were merry and trusting. He was better dressed than the woman, his shoes stout, his coat of good and sober cloth. Bran licked his hand and as the boy chuckled delightedly the dead lived again. He was perhaps eight or ten years old. His hair was bright as marigolds in sunshine.
‘Can I help you?’ Jessica addressed the old woman uncertainly. She could not take her eyes from the child, who was playing now totally unselfconsciously with the dog.
‘Yes.’ The old woman was short of breath, and her colour was not good. ‘You can tell me if the lady of the house is at home?’
‘Yes. That is – I’m not sure if you mean my mother or my sister-in-law?’
The shrewd old eyes were thoughtful. ‘Not the young one,’ she said at last.
‘Then it’s my mother you’re looking for?’
The grey head nodded affirmation.
The child shouted with laughter and ran with the dog.
‘Come on, boy! Come on! Oh, look, Gran! He’s just like old Tim!’
Even his voice held that light, pleasant timbre that Jessica remembered still in Edward’s. ‘I’ll take you to her,’ she said.