The door opened. Everyone else looked round, but Lady Kimber looked at the clock.
‘Good morning, Miss Bambrook. So pleased you could attend. Ten-seventeen, Madam Secretary.’ She consulted the agenda. ‘That concludes the first item. Second item: the fund-raising ball at Ees House.’
She permitted a private sigh. The trouble with hosting a charity event was that one inevitably had to receive new money among the guests. As if they could buy their way into the top drawer.
As the Lord George ladies discussed the ball, the door opened. The hotel manager slipped in, waiting for her to acknowledge him.
‘Pardon the interruption, Your Ladyship. I have a gentleman in the hotel who would like to be heard by your committee.’
‘This is highly irregular.’
‘I understand he wishes to offer his assistance to your cause, Your Ladyship.’
‘Very well. Show him in.’
A man entered – a man, not a gentleman. Were he to exchange those smart clothes for corduroys and a neckerchief, he would look … brutish.
‘My master asks that you excuse the interruption. He’s aware of your intention to hold a charity ball and wishes to offer the ballroom and facilities of the Claremont at his own expense.’
A ripple of gratified surprise passed round the table.
‘This is most generous,’ said Lady Kimber. ‘To whom are we indebted?’
‘My master wishes his contribution to be anonymous. He has heard of your committee and wishes to support your good work.’
With a bow, the man withdrew.
‘Well!’ several ladies said.
‘Kindly make a note, Madam Secretary,’ said Lady Kimber. ‘An anonymous benefactor to foot the Claremont’s bill for accommodating the ball.’
And Ees House not to be sullied by upstarts. She didn’t mind how many nouveau riche attended now. They could be as nouveau as they liked, as long as they were disgustingly riche.
‘My brother doesn’t know I’m here,’ said Evangeline Brewer, ‘though I’ll tell him this evening. I won’t keep a secret from him.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ Mary answered coolly.
So this was Nathaniel’s sister. She didn’t look like him. His hair was dark, hers fair, his eyes hazel, hers brown. It was as though their colouring had got confused, mixing dark with fair.
‘I’m staying with him at present. I was at my mother’s before, but she lives in a village and I needed to get back into circulation. I’ve been attending meetings at the agency and they’ve found me a job. I feared I’d never work again.’
‘Because of your health? I know you were ill last year. It’s fortunate you were at your brother’s at the time.’
‘You don’t know how true that is. But for him, I’d be dead.’
‘You were that ill?’
Evangeline nodded. ‘My sister-in-law nursed me – far more patiently than I deserved.’
Of course: Imogen. ‘I’m sorry. I should have offered my condolences.’
‘Thank you. Angela and Josephine said you worked at the clinic. Did you know Imogen?’
‘Not really, but … but I was there when she lost her life. She was so brave.’
‘So were you, evidently.’
‘Lucky. I was lucky.’
‘It still shocks me to think of it. If I’d died, there would have been some warning, but with Imogen …’
Mary searched for the right words. ‘At least you were there to support Doctor Brewer afterwards.’
‘Not for long. After the funeral, he sent me home with Ma and Aunt Louise. He said I needed to convalesce, but really he wanted to be alone. He has a daily cook-general now, but it’s hardly the same as having a wife who devoted her existence to his well-being. I couldn’t devote myself like that to being a wife, but Imogen lived, thought and breathed it. I couldn’t subjugate myself like that.’
‘Same here,’ said Mary. An uncomfortable idea wriggled through her mind. Hadn’t she suppressed parts of herself when she tried to be a Kimber?
Edith came in with a tray. Mary poured tea and offered petticoat tails. They were fresh and buttery.
‘Miss Brewer, I’ve enjoyed meeting you, but I don’t understand why you’ve come, except that Angela and Josephine swore it was a good idea.’
‘It wasn’t because of my illness that I wasn’t expected to work again. It was because of my radical past. I went to London, joined the women’s movement, had a couple of stints in prison – you know the form. My last boss chucked me out, said I was a disgrace to his firm.’
‘But Angela and Josephine found you a position. Locally?’
‘Through a contact in London. I’m going back there. Nathaniel blew his stack when I told him. He made me swear a great big swear never to do anything to get arrested again.’ Evangeline shrugged. ‘I’ll be honest. Those days are over. Oh, I’ll be there at the rallies, waving my banner, but I’ll stick within the law from now on.’ Evangeline looked as if she was bracing herself to continue. ‘They force-fed me, you know.’
Mary stiffened. ‘No, I didn’t know.’ Her pulse fluttered like a trapped bird.
‘You know I was ill. Well …’ Evangeline stopped. ‘Heavens, I didn’t think it would be so difficult to talk about it.’
Something in Mary reached out to her. ‘I understand.’
Evangeline’s brown eyes gleamed with tears. ‘I know you do. They told me at the agency. When I was ill, I spent a few days heaving my guts up and some of the vomit leaked into my chest cavity through a tear in my gullet. I was – well, I didn’t have long to live when Nathaniel realised what was wrong.’
Her heart twisted. She reached across and touched Evangeline’s hand. ‘You poor love.’
‘It was the feeding tube that did the damage. Nathaniel says we can’t be sure, but I know it was and no one can tell me different.’
The hand beneath Mary’s flipped round and Evangeline grasped her hand tightly.
‘That’s why Nathaniel does the forcible feeding. It’s not that he’s heartless or he wants to keep women in their place. He does it so it’s done as safely as possible. And if you must know, it was my idea.’
‘Yours,’ Mary breathed.
‘Your friends wanted you to know, and if it stops you thinking wrong things about my brother, I want you to know too.’
Hearing the door open, Mary glanced up from her book and saw Nathaniel. The book trembled in her hands. She didn’t have to dislike him any more.
‘Aunt Helen’s outside.’
‘Checking the dahlias for earwigs. Edith told me.’
‘Before you go to her, might I have a word?’
‘More than one, if you like. It’s you I was hoping to see. May I?’
She waved him into a seat. There was a short silence, then they spoke together.
‘Your sister—’
‘My sister—’
They broke off and looked at one another. She was the first to look away.
‘I apologise for thinking badly of you. The thought of you force-feeding …’
‘You weren’t to know. It seems I didn’t need to bring the peace offering after all.’ He fished in his jacket pocket. ‘Wine gums. Mrs Burley told me.’
He smiled, not a full smile that took her cordiality for granted, but a half-smile that assumed nothing. It made him look … boyish. She felt a frisson of surprise. She had thought him serious to the point of severity.
‘Thank you. I’ll extend my own olive branch by offering you one – but not a red one.’
As she reached to take the bag, her fingertips brushed his hand and her pulse wobbled. For one fleeting second, her heart leapt for joy before she clamped down on the feeling. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
She rose. It took a hearty shove to bring her to her feet these days. ‘Shall we see what Aunt Helen’s up to?’
‘I came to see you.’
‘And we’ve sorted out the misunderstanding,’ she said lightly, ‘so let�
��s go outside.’
She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
Too late.
It was on the tip of Helen’s tongue to announce that the letter was from Mr Porter, but she thought better of it. She must be learning discretion in her old age. Usually she opened her correspondence at the breakfast table, an old habit designed to goad Robert, who had believed that while it was acceptable for a gentleman to do so, it wasn’t good manners in a lady, who should no doubt focus her attention on her lord and master’s teacup, ready to spring into action the instant it needed topping up.
Well, Robert could take his cup and shove it where the sun didn’t shine – she stopped mid-thought. For a moment, she had felt all riled up, just like she used to when he got her fuming. Life was far pleasanter now. She hoped with all her heart Mary would stay here after the baby arrived.
Waiting until she was alone to read Mr Porter’s letter, she muttered beneath her breath, calling him everything under the sun for not committing his information to paper. Then she dashed off a postcard, asking him to call at his earliest convenience. Should she tell Mary now or wait until nearer the time? No point worrying her.
And no point in treating her like a child either. Mary wouldn’t thank her for it.
When she told her, the girl paled for a second but soon rallied.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope he’s found something useful.’
Mr Porter’s earliest convenience turned out to be the following afternoon.
Helen brushed aside the formalities. ‘Please come directly to the point.’
‘I’ve found some examples of legal precedent, dating from the last century. That is to say, they might or might not be accepted as legal precedent.’
‘Kindly dispense with riddles.’
‘The instances I’ve uncovered relate to the children of … divorced couples,’ Mr Porter said, with a note of distaste.
Vowing to crown him if he sneered like that regarding annulment, Helen asked, ‘What did you find?’
‘Examples of divorced ladies who were permitted to keep their children until they attained the age of seven.’
‘Seven,’ Mary said in a tight voice.
‘I stress that these ladies were divorced. I can find no precedent involving annulment. Moreover, they were ladies of rank, who married wealthy, titled men.’
‘Naturally,’ Helen said tartly. ‘Mere mortals can’t afford divorce.’
‘This is the only precedent that could be of use to you.’
‘I don’t possess the wherewithal to go to court,’ Mary began.
‘You’re welcome to every penny I’ve got,’ Helen declared. ‘You know that.’
‘Bless you, but the Kimbers have stacks more money – and influence. Influence is everything.’
‘No court will look kindly upon an unmarried mother,’ Mr Porter cautioned, ‘and that’s how you’ll be viewed. Then there’s the question of what the Kimbers can offer the child. The provision they could make would be superior to what you can offer.’
‘Mrs Kimber is welcome here for as long as she likes,’ said Helen.
‘This is a good address,’ Mr Porter conceded, ‘but Jackson’s House isn’t your property and hence her residency cannot be guaranteed.’
Helen’s old heart creaked in anguish as Mary pushed herself to her feet.
‘Excuse me. I … I need to think about this.’
She lumbered from the room, distress lending additional clumsiness to her pregnant waddle. From behind, Helen could see how thin her shoulders were, how narrow her back.
‘I’m pleased Mrs Kimber has departed,’ Mr Porter said. ‘I couldn’t have said this in front of her, but there is one thing that might help her case, though it doesn’t apply to her, of course.’
‘You’re talking in riddles again.’ Infuriating man!
‘If she remarried respectably, it could go in her favour, but as I say, it doesn’t apply. Nevertheless, I considered it my duty to pass on the information. Miss Rawley? Did you hear what I said?’
Helen was planning her next move.
Whenever Nathaniel dropped in, Mary contrived either not to be alone with him or to avoid him entirely, cursing the way her heart beat faster when he was near. She didn’t want this. Not again. It introduced a troubling new idea. Had she married Charlie on the rebound? She didn’t want it to be so, because that would make her marriage even more of a mistake. Yet once the thought was in her head, she couldn’t dislodge it.
And it had happened again, the attraction that had taken her by surprise last year, turning that night at the clinic from exhausting to exhilarating. She was ashamed to feel this pull towards Nathaniel. Her life with Charlie had ended so recently. She was carrying his child, for heaven’s sake. It wasn’t decent to have feelings for someone else. All she could do was ensure she wasn’t alone with him. She would stick to Helen’s side and, if necessary, escape by feigning fatigue.
She came downstairs after a nap one afternoon to find Helen closeted with Nathaniel in the morning room. She felt a flush of consciousness, but she was safe with Helen here. Then Helen excused herself, murmuring something Mary didn’t catch because her ears were ringing with panic.
She started to make her excuses, but Nathaniel interrupted.
‘Mrs Kimber – Mary – I have a proposition for you. Well, not so much a proposition as a proposal. Miss Rawley took the liberty of explaining Mr Porter’s findings to me, including a suggestion he made in your absence. It is his belief that, were you suitably married, it could go in your favour. So it seemed to me that it would help you if – well, it would help you with your child – so the fact is, I’d be glad to marry you.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nathaniel kicked himself all the way home. How could he have been so crass as to make his proposal sound like a business arrangement? He should have thrown his heart at her feet and sworn to love her for ever. Only … how could he have said that to someone who until recently hadn’t even seen him as a friend, let alone a suitor?
‘I’d be glad to marry you,’ he had said.
Not, ‘All I want is to marry you so I can love you for the rest of your life and treat your child as my own.’ Not that, oh no. Not the truth. Just, ‘I’d be glad to marry you.’
She had stared, then looked away. He had felt a ridiculous urge to touch her hair. It was the colour of evening primroses. He longed for encouragement, a glance, a smile. When she smiled, which she didn’t do often enough, her face assumed a glow of loveliness. He ached to ease her burden and give her reason to smile with joy.
At last she asked, ‘Why would you …?’
And he had said – damn him – he had said, ‘We’re friends, I hope.’
Not ‘I love you. My heart beats for the time I spend with you’ but ‘We’re friends’. Ha!
She had said yes. After a long interval, she had said yes – to his delight, and his despair. To her, he was a friend offering her a chance to keep her child. He didn’t want to be accepted on those terms, yet those were the terms he had offered.
Actually, she hadn’t said yes. She had said, ‘If you’re sure you mean it.’
Sure? He had never been more sure of anything in his life, but had he said so? Had he permitted her to glimpse his feelings? No, he hadn’t. Dolt.
‘I’m enormously grateful to you for this,’ she had said, ‘but I’m not accepting your offer simply out of gratitude.’
His heart flipped. This was it! She had feelings for him too.
‘I feel more than gratitude. I feel trust. There is no greater act of trust than to put someone in the place of a parent to your child. I trust you to be a good father.’
He had to look away. What must she have thought? She had just offered him the greatest act of trust she could imagine; she had just given him permission to be a parent to her child; and he couldn’t meet her eyes.
He swung round, ready to march back to Jackson’s House, but he had to get back for surgery. Ther
e was always tomorrow – no, there wasn’t, because he and Alistair were travelling to Sheffield to meet with doctors who wanted to establish a clinic for the poor. It wasn’t a brief visit either, as they were visiting the proposed premises and meeting sponsors.
When he got back, he would tell her the truth.
He barely slept that night for thinking about it.
The Sheffield visit, which for reasons that now escaped him he had been looking forward to, was interminable. He itched to get home, couldn’t wait to see her again.
At long last he walked through the gate and up the path, elated and frightened to death, heart thumping. The door opened before he got there. It felt like an omen, an invitation to walk in and speak of his love. His face split into a daft grin.
Miss Rawley herself had opened the door.
‘I must speak to Mary. It’s important.’
‘Charlie Kimber’s here.’
Lady Kimber surveyed the Claremont Hotel’s superbly appointed ballroom. The Lord George’s anonymous benefactor had let it be known he expected no expense to be spared and she intended to take him at his word.
‘A red carpet beneath an awning at the front steps, arrangements of flowers in the foyer. We’ll have to choose a colour scheme. Perhaps a string quartet in the foyer as well.’
‘And that’s before guests reach the ballroom,’ said Olivia Rushworth with a giggle. Eleanor had been taught at an early age not to giggle.
‘Have you had any ideas?’ Lady Kimber asked the girls.
‘We wondered about hanging garlands from the balcony,’ said Eleanor.
Instead of having its own ceiling, the ballroom was open to the dining room above, which overlooked it all the way round. It was the hotel’s signature feature and worth exploiting. A magnificent chandelier, incorporating thousands of twinkling crystals, hung high above all the way down to the level of the dining room’s balcony.
After the preliminary decisions had been made, Eleanor went home with the Rushworths. Lady Kimber kissed her and returned to Ees House.
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