Daisychain Summer

  ‘I’m sorry – forgive me? Perhaps when you do decide to come to town we’ll talk about it then. And when you come, could you give me a little notice? Perhaps then I could book pantomime seats – for Drew, I mean, if you think he’s old enough.’

  ‘That might be nice,’ she had said, though for the life of her she couldn’t think why. Could she, maybe, have been at a loss for words? Excuses were hard to find when the invitation had most likely been kindly meant. And it would mean nothing more to him than Aunt Sutton’s solicitor taking out Aunt Sutton’s niece and her child. A business courtesy, that was all. So it would not seem quite so graceless, would it, if she were to tell him – nearer the time, that was – that lately Drew was restless cutting the last of his teeth and might it not be better if they were to forget the pantomime, this year? Some other time, maybe?

  Yet in all truth, the real reason lay with Andrew and the fact that she had no inclination to find pleasure in the company of any man – even for Drew’s sake. It should be she and Andrew, she thought bitterly, taking Drew to his first Christmas panto, with the baby of their own coupling asleep at Montpelier Mews, watched over by Sparrow.

  Why had it happened? Just six days before the war ended. She had been so sure Andrew would come back to her, which only proved that nothing in life was certain – except that she would love him always and that no other man would do. She shivered, all at once cold. Best get to bed.

  I want you, my darling. I need you to touch me, kiss me, make love to me. I’m a woman, Andrew; a flesh-and-blood woman and I shall never forgive the war for taking you from me. Why did you make me love you so much? How am I to endure a lifetime without you?

  She picked her way carefully across the dark conservatory, jaws clenched, head high. She would endure it because she must. The war had not taken her memories. At least she had those; enough to see her through two lifetimes. She walked quietly up the stairs, hugging herself tightly.

  Please, God, help me not to want him so much? Show me, please, how I’m to live without him? Help me to count my blessings? Blessings like Alice, who listened, and Drew who loved her, made it possible to live out each day. But God, why did he have to die? And why is Alice so far away? She wanted her back at Rowangarth. Only Alice understood.

  Tomorrow, everyone would know. In the morning, it would be in all the newspapers of any consequence.

  Olga Maria, Countess Petrovska, formerly of St Petersburg, is pleased to announce the engagement of her daughter Aleksandrina Anastasia to Elliot Edward Sutton of Pendenys Place, Holdenby, York.

  Of course it had been she, Clemmy, who had had the bother of it all, borne the cost of it, even though the announcement of an engagement should appear to come from the girl’s family. But it would be splendid to read it in the morning papers, to breakfast leisurely, then receive the callers and telephone calls she knew would come; tell them about Lady Anna and how beautiful and well-connected she was – or had been – before they had been forced to flee St Petersburg. And she would not call that city Petrograd, even though that was now what it was called – what the Bolsheviks decreed it should be called. Those Bolsheviks had a lot to answer for; not only for the havoc they had caused in Russia but for the trouble they were trying to stir up in every civilized country in Europe. Encouraging working men to join trade unions and to demand better jobs and working conditions, as if jobs grew on trees and there weren’t millions on the dole or parish relief!

  A man with a job was lucky, these days, and never let him forget it! And as for the miners, refusing point blank to take a cut in their pay! It defied words and it was all too much. What was more, she would not waste time thinking about the ungrateful wretches when there were far more important thoughts with which to fill her mind.

  At last, Elliot had proposed! Soon – perhaps at Easter – he and Anna would be married. Little more than a year would see the first of her grandsons safely in the nursery at Pendenys Place. Anna Petrovska knew where her duty lay. Young ladies of her station in life were well-schooled in such matters. Find a husband – a rich one – and give him sons; thereafter, duty done, enjoy life to the full. Be discreet, of course. Take care not to break the eleventh commandment – Thou shall not get caught breaking any of the aforementioned ten!

  Elliot knew all about the two most important; those concerning adultery and not coveting his neighbour’s wife, and Elliot must be careful from now on, if he knew what was good for him!

  The Yorkshire Pullman hurtled north. From her seat in the dining car, Clementina watched lights shining in the distance. She would soon arrive at York to be met by car and driver.

  She lifted a finger, summoning the steward, accepting another cup of coffee, asking for the bill. Tonight, her tip would be generous to match her relief. Elliot down the aisle at last, his philandering over – or over as made no matter. He would make the odd slip from time to time, of course. It was natural in one so handsome, so attractive to ladies. They would never leave him alone, so he would be forgiven for the odd excursion into infidelity. And Anna, if she knew which side her bread was buttered on – aye, and jammed, too – would turn a blind eye to it as most wives did. Anna Petrovska was no fool, in spite of her air of wide-eyed virginal innocence!

  Clementina smiled at the chauffeur who held open the car door for her, causing him much embarrassment. She smiled again at her butler, who stopped in his plod-footed perambulations across the hall, his mouth wide with amazement.

  She took the stairs quickly and, guided by the aroma of her husband’s after-dinner pipe, threw open the door triumphantly.

  ‘There you are, Edward!’ She bent over his chair so he might kiss her cheek then tugged on the bell-pull before sinking into a low, leather chair. ‘Such news! The announcement will be in tomorrow’s papers so he can’t go back on it without making a fool of himself! Tell me you are pleased!’

  ‘I did, my dear, when you rang me this morning. I am still pleased.’ And not a little relieved. He’d be even more relieved when the knot was tied. ‘When is it to be, and where? The Minster?’

  ‘I think not, Edward. Holdenby will be better.’ Clemmy Sutton preferred to be a big fish in a small pond. ‘And I’d thought Easter might be a nice time.’ June would have been better, though, but June was all of nine months away; too long for Elliot to behave himself! ‘The countess wants it in London, would you believe? Insists on an Orthodox priest, the awkward woman.’

  ‘So what have you decided, Clemmy?’ Edward Sutton paused as the door opened and his wife ordered a tray of tea from the footman who stood there.

  ‘Decided? She can have her ceremony, I suppose. Nothing to stop them being married twice. All the better for it, I suppose.’ A quiet ceremony in London in the Russian manner if they must, then a proper marriage in a proper English church by a proper priest; by her second son, if all went to plan. Such an event it would be! Lilies for an Easter wedding. Easter brides always carried Madonna lilies.

  Pendenys would glitter. There couldn’t be a better setting than Pendenys Place. Marquees on the lawns – at least three – and a ball, afterwards, for the carefully chosen few; after the bride and groom had left for a honeymoon in Venice, that was.

  ‘When did it all happen?’ It was best, Edward knew, to show interest. Elliot was his son and heaven only knew he’d wished him married and out of harm’s way more times than he cared to admit. But only when vows and rings had been exchanged would he believe it. Elliot had come dangerously close to wedlock in the past, to be saved only by his mother’s chequebook.

  ‘Happen? When did he propose, do you mean? It was at the theatre, two nights ago. Venice, I think …’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Venice for the honeymoon! They were at Drury Lane when he asked her. Her mother seemed pleased, though her brother scowled a lot.’ Igor scowled all the time. ‘I think they must travel by Orient Express and Golden Arrow.’

  Then on to Florence and Rome, and if Anna were not expecting by then, maybe to Lisbon and Madrid
and home by way of Gibraltar. But the better-class brides were usually pregnant long before the honeymoon was over!

  She would have such fun, Clemmy sighed, planning the wedding and the honeymoon; refurbishing rooms at Pendenys for their use – for live at Pendenys the newlyweds must! Room for three families, here. Her father had built wisely. A pity he was not alive to witness his grandson’s triumph.

  She hoped her second son would shift himself and secure the living at Holdenby. It would be quite delightful to have him marry them. Nathan spoke so beautifully; his voice was so sincere. Or should she, perhaps, have the Bishop? Or the Archbishop of York?

  Pure joy shivered through her. She had not been so happy for a long time. And just wait until morning when Helen would open the papers! It would make her think, and no mistake. Bound to, when her elder son had been set on marrying a woman of another race; her younger son had married a servant and her daughter – the living, breathing image of Anne Lavinia – had married the son of a coal miner! And such a hurried, hole-and-corner wedding that had been that she was sure, at the time, that Julia must have been three months gone!

  But no matter. She, the daughter of an ironmaster, would show the lot of them! Who needed blue blood? It was brass that mattered and Pendenys had the brass! She would show the North Riding aristocracy how a wedding should be; show them all that she could spend money as well as make it!

  But how to celebrate the engagement? A splendid dinner in London? Perhaps, though, now that it was almost October, a shooting party at Pendenys. She hoped the Petrovskys would understand how it was done; know how to conduct themselves at an English country weekend.

  ‘Madam.’ A white-gloved footman set down a silver tray.

  ‘Oh, take it away!’ She waved an impatient hand. ‘I’m much too busy to sit drinking tea!’

  And it wouldn’t wait until morning! She must ring Helen; tell her the good news and make her green with envy. She would ring her now!

  Julia gazed around her. The curtains fitted perfectly; the iron fireplace with its kettle hob was an exact replica of the one in Andrew’s surgery at 53A, Little Britain. Even the skeleton seemed at home, though she must always keep the door locked. Anyone entering without warning, could be frightened into hysteria by the grinning, gap-toothed skull.

  She moved the stethoscope a little to the right of the blotter then straightened pencils and pens on the inkstand. The room was uncannily perfect. Andrew would never be lost to her, now. She could open the door of this room any time she wanted; believe herself a wife again and her man no farther away than St Bartholomew’s hospital.

  She closed and locked the door, placing the key on the ledge above it. Now, whilst Andrew was so near to her she could almost believe her foolish daydreams, she would open her wardrobe, gaze at the blue dress she had worn in Hyde Park and at Harrogate; worn to her wedding and again for Andrew’s leave. Four days of complete happiness and nights so passionate that even now she had to close her eyes, just to live them over again.

  They had said goodbye at the Gare du Nord on the twenty-sixth day of March, their hopes high now Andrew had exchanged the trenches for the comparative safety of a field hospital. Their last goodbye, had she but known it. That day, too, had brought sorrow to Alice. Tom killed, and Elliot Sutton –

  Quickly she checked her thoughts. She could not, would not, think of her cousin whose engagement had this very morning become official. She slid the hangers along the rail, stopping at the hobble-skirted costume.

  Had she really worn it and had she, to Alice’s shock and dismay, pulled that too tight skirt high above her knees and kicked out like a hoyden at the policeman? And had she, not long after, opened her eyes to look upon a young doctor and instantly and for ever fallen in love? Did it really happen? Seven years ago – did it?

  She closed the wardrobe door on her remembering. Her mother and Drew were visiting at Pendenys. Soon they would be home for Drew’s mid-morning sleep. He still needed it, even though he was almost two. And she would steel herself, she knew, to listen to her mother’s account of it all, even though she had no wish to hear about engagements and weddings and honeymoons.

  She wanted Andrew; wanted Alice with her to remind her that Andrew had happened – that those so-few nights they spent together might never lose their brilliance.

  Julia was glad she had visited the red-brick house at the turning of a beech-lined lane in the New Forest. Now, she could recall at will the village shop and Daisy’s pram at the back door, with Morgan asleep beside it.

  ‘I miss you, Alice,’ she whispered to Julia-in-the-mirror. ‘I want you back here with me, living for Andrew’s letters and phone calls and you taking Morgan to Brattocks in the hope of seeing Tom. And Giles in the library, still; Robert growing tea in India and war an obscene word.’

  Yet now Andrew and Giles and Robert were gone and Alice was far away.

  ‘And she isn’t,’ Julia whispered to the wide-eyed woman whose lips trembled on the edge of tears, ‘ever coming back. She and Tom will never live in Reuben’s cottage.’

  Best accept it. Alice would never return to Brattocks Wood.

  ‘You understand, both of you?’ Cook demanded. ‘Miss Clitherow’s orders. No one to go into that room.’

  As if they would, Tilda thought. Morbid, that’s what; moving all the doctor’s things from his surgery and putting them next door to the sewing-room. And worse than morbid if you thought about that skeleton. Not that she’d seen it, but a skeleton was a skeleton; a dead body that ought to have been buried, decent. You couldn’t blame Miss Julia, though. So in love they’d been.

  Tilda Tewk understood. She too had loved; kept his photograph on the kitchen mantel all through the war. And like Miss Julia, the parting of the ways had come. Tilda made the supreme sacrifice; ended their romance and said goodbye to him with her heart. For his own good. The Prince of Wales must marry a princess; put duty before love. Her beautiful, boyish David could no more marry a kitchenmaid than an ordinary mortal could take wing and fly off to the moon.

  ‘Course I understand. That surgery is all Miss Julia has left of the doctor. Private, it should be, between her and him.’

  Understand? Then young Tilda had the better of her, Cook frowned. Unnatural, that’s what, especially as nothing could bring back the dead and Miss Julia should acknowledge it and not accept being alone for the rest of her life.

  ‘All right, then. As long as it’s understood.’ Cook looked at the kitchen clock. ‘Time for elevenses. Get the kettle on, lass.’

  No matter what, life must go on.

  Anna Petrovska, her mother and Elliot, together with the servant in black, Karl the Cossack and the three Pendenys servants, travelled north by railway to be met at the station by Clemmy and three motors.

  The Petrovskys and the Suttons rode in the largest car; their five servants in the second-largest with their luggage in the smallest one, following at a discreet distance because the chauffeur-handyman who drove it was not possessed of the fine, bottle-green livery worn by the regular drivers.

  It was most upsetting, Clementina brooded, that Anna’s brother had not been able to accept her invitation to the lavish weekend to celebrate her son’s engagement; had declined it, be the truth known. Confined to his bed – or so the countess said – by a particularly painful bout of stomach gripes, brought on by eating foreign food in an English restaurant in Soho.

  Stomach gripes? He simply had not wanted to come! That young man would be out of his bed the minute the train left King’s Cross station.

  But wait! Only wait until the Petrovsky money ran out, because they couldn’t live for ever on pride and house deeds, no matter how splendid the houses! The magnificent mansion in St Petersburg and the vast country estate belonged to the peasant Bolsheviks now, and serve that young man right! How dare he look down his nose at Clementina Sutton.

  ‘We shall soon be there, now,’ she smiled, grateful it was still light enough for them to see the magnificence of Pendenys Place
enhanced by a setting October sun. Then let them try to patronize her Elliot!

  But she would show them all how things were done. Her son’s wedding would be the highlight of her life, would open doors hitherto closed to the daughter of an ironmaster! And if Elliot so much as looked at another woman between now and the wedding, may heaven help him!

  12

  Clementina picked up her hairbrush, brandishing it belligerently. She could not believe it; not after all she had done to make her son’s engagement Holdenby’s best-remembered event since the Armistice. She had spared neither money nor effort; had driven her servants to the point of despair and so upset her husband that on one occasion he had taken himself off to the top of Holdenby Pike. And now the countess had completely spoiled it all!

  They had been sitting in the great hall after the last dancer had left and the orchestra departed, Clementina wallowing in the glory of a shooting weekend that had gone magnificently, with pheasants all but throwing themselves at the guns; two dinner parties the likes of which St Petersburg could scarce have matched; and the ball – oh, such an affair!

  ‘Well now, Countess.’ Clementina had nodded to the footman to refill brandy glasses. ‘I think the weekend went rather well?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Olga Petrovska eyed the gently swirling liquid in her glass.

  ‘And an Easter wedding – are we agreed?’ She glanced at Anna whose flushed cheeks and overbright eyes confirmed that Easter could not come soon enough.

  ‘It will depend,’ the countess retorted flatly.

  ‘Depend?’ Clementina sat bolt upright. ‘On what?’

  ‘On how soon the young ones can find a home.’

  ‘A home?’ But they will live here, at Pendenys Place!’

  Of course they would! Where better than this house with rooms to spare and servants to wait on them and no worries about food bills nor wine bills!

  ‘I fear not, Mrs Sutton. My Anna must have her own home, be mistress of her own establishment. In Russia, she would not even consider a young man who did not have the means to provide this.’