Daisychain Summer

  ‘I think you should. Write to Alice; arrange for her to be at the Post Office, so you can ring her.’

  ‘Why didn’t I think of it? We could stay a couple of nights in London. Sparrow could take care of Drew whilst I dash round the shops – get something to wear at the wedding. It’s a great idea. I’ll write now!’

  The liner Aquitania steamed slowly into Southampton Water in the wake of the pilot boat. From the ship’s rails, Albert Sutton saw only a grey land mass, mist-shrouded, and hoped it was not an omen. Truth known, he had missed England at times even though now he was thoroughly contented with his life.

  ‘Sir?’ The steward at his side coughed deferentially. ‘Mrs Sutton’s compliments, and will you return to the cabin?’

  ‘Anything wrong?’ He dipped into his pocket, pulling out a coin.

  ‘A cable arrived – madam seemed not to be upset by it.’

  ‘My dear, how kind! It’s from your folks.’ Amelia offered the cablegram as Albert closed the door behind him. ‘Read it, Bertie.’

  Welcome home. At the dockside to meet you. Fondest good wishes.

  Albert shaped his lips into a smile. At least Mama was trying, though her displeasure on hearing of his marriage had been made all too clear at the time. Now, of course, her adored Elliot was being married and she wanted all her sons at Pendenys in a show of happy families.

  He recalled his early dislike of his eldest brother; one who could do no wrong and would inherit the lion’s share of their mother’s wealth. Not that it mattered, now. Amelia too was rich, and generous with her money. An unashamed Anglophile, she had singled him out and he had not resisted. Younger sons with no expectations fended for themselves and married if not for money, at least where money abounded.

  Theirs had been a convenient marriage – neither denied it – but tolerance had turned to affection and with the birth of their second child there were times when Albert truly cared for his American wife. With each pregnancy she had blossomed into an attractive woman whose looks belied her years. Albert Sutton was, he was bound to admit it, almost happy. Until now.

  The cable, received in the ship’s wireless office, bore a Southampton office of origin which probably meant that his mother would be at the dockside, unpredictable as ever. For a fleeting moment, he wished he had not allowed himself to be persuaded into this visit. He had thought of a score of reasons to remain in Kentucky – mares in foal was only one, but Amelia had excitedly overruled them all.

  ‘It’s about time I met your family – and that they meet Bas and Kitty.’ She relished the thought of an English christening for her daughter by an English priest who was also the baby’s uncle. Amelia intended engaging an English nanny for her children; one genteelly spoken, yet firmly kind. The visit to her husband’s roots, to the country house he called a great, cold barn of a place, was eagerly awaited and with a society wedding thrown in – an aristocratic society wedding – Amelia’s excitement spilled over. She had long since ceased to condemn a country she once declared had arrogantly grabbed half the world. In her desperate years she had married an Englishman who had given her status and children; now she wished to be a part of his heritage. She was impatient to step ashore and was delighted, on answering a knock on their stateroom door, to find his father standing there, undisguised pleasure lifting his face.

  ‘Albert! Welcome home! It’s been too long.’

  ‘Come in, sir! We hadn’t expected being met!’ They clasped hands. ‘Meet my family. Amelia, my dear, this is my father.’

  ‘At last!’ Smiling, she held out her hand, then kissed Edward’s cheek warmly. ‘I am so glad to know you, father – might I call you that?’

  ‘You might, and must.’ Edward dropped to his knees. ‘And this is Sebastian, my American grandson,’ he smiled.

  ‘How do you do, sir.’ Gravely the small boy held out a hand. ‘Will you call me Bas? Everyone does, ’cept when I’m naughty. Would you like to see my sister? She’s really Kathryn, but we call her Kitty. She isn’t a lot of fun, right now, but mother says she will improve, with keeping.’

  He led Edward by the hand to the Moses basket in which the small baby lay swaddled, ready for the journey north.

  ‘My grandchildren are a delight. Bas is a fine boy and I’m sure Kitty will be a darling child – when she improves,’ Edward smiled, eyes bright with teasing. ‘Now – have you gone through the formalities? Have the Customs men been on board?’

  ‘Everything has been seen to, except these.’ Amelia waved a hand to the luggage piled high on the floor.

  ‘Then that is easily taken care of. The car is at the dock-side and the estate truck. If the stewards will give our driver a hand to load them, they can follow on behind us. How many pieces are there?’

  ‘Eighteen,’ Albert supplied. ‘I must say you’ve got everything well organized, father.’

  ‘I have been known,’ Edward smiled, ‘to get it right, occasionally. And might I formally welcome you to our family – to the Place Suttons, Amelia? You are prettier – if an elderly gentleman might be granted the liberty – far prettier than Albert described you. I thank you most warmly for my grandchildren. Clemmy will be waiting, impatiently. It was she who sent the flowers.’ He nodded to the large bunch of red roses atop the pile of cases. ‘She begs pressure of work and apologizes for not being here to greet you,’ he added gravely.

  A smile flickered briefly on his daughter-in-law’s lips, then slowly, deliberately, she winked a violet-blue eye. In that second, a bond was formed between them and long before they had left the Aquitania Edward Sutton, did he but know it, had found an ally for life.

  Alice opened the shed door, sending it rocking back on its hinges in her excitement.

  ‘Well, now.’ Tom looked up from the traps he was cleaning and oiling. ‘Good news, was it, that telephone call?’

  ‘She’s coming to stay, Tom – her and Drew. Going to Montpelier Mews first, then coming on here! Got some sewing for me to do, though if you ask me she’s fed up with all the Pendenys wedding talk.’

  ‘Stands to reason,’ Tom acknowledged. ‘Can’t be a lot of fun for the lass and her still grieving for her man.’

  ‘I know, love.’ There were times Alice felt guilty for being so happy. ‘She loved him so much. Right from the start, she was smitten. Went looking for his lodgings without a shred of pride.’

  ‘Pride, Alice? What has pride to do with loving? But we’ll make her welcome. She’s a grand lass.’

  ‘She’s that all right, and a real lady, an’ all. Don’t know where I’d have been without her when …’

  ‘When you fell for Drew, you mean? Yet with hindsight that bairn was meant to be. He saved Julia’s sanity – was the grandson her ladyship was desperate to have. You’re not still bitter about what happened?’

  ‘Not any more. I’m getting fond of the little lad. I’ve come to think of him as Julia’s and it isn’t him I should feel anger against. None of it was his fault. Truth known, I can’t wait for Friday, to see how he’s grown, and I can’t stand here chattering, either! There’s their room to be got ready and baking to be done. Your dinner’ll be on the table in half an hour, so think on, and don’t be wandering off, Tom Dwerryhouse!’

  She was gone in a flutter of excitement, cheeks flushed, eyes bright. She missed Julia, Tom frowned. Miss Julia was the first human being Alice had ever been dose to; the sister she had never had. Once, not all that long ago, Julia had been a good friend to them both, he acknowledged soberly. Would she could find happiness again …

  Elliot Sutton was not in the best of good moods. The family was gathering at Pendenys Place. Nathan visited daily from his vicarage in Holdenby; Albert and his Amelia had arrived from Kentucky and now Countess Petrovska had joined them though Anna’s brother remained in London, pleading a meeting with White Russians who were intent upon setting up a minor court around a minor Romanov.

  The talk, Elliot thought peevishly, was of nothing but the wedding, Nathan’s forthcoming induction
into the living of All Souls and the christening of the child Kitty who, whenever he went near her, began to cry angrily as if she knew how much he disliked babies and small boys, Elliot brooded as he made his way to Rowangarth. Babies made mewling noises he found irritating and small American nephews were an annoyance, too, when they came in the shape of a three-year-old with a too-frank gaze and an inquisitive mind.

  He would be glad when Easter had come and gone; when the wedding – both weddings – were over and done with and his life returned to normal.

  ‘Elliot,’ his mother had purred. ‘You’ll take this parcel to Rowangarth, won’t you?’

  ‘Do I have to, Mama?’ He resented being treated like a messenger boy.

  ‘You do. The servants are far too busy. It’s the pattern,’ she explained in response to his questioning eyebrows, ‘for the wedding suit for Julia’s boy, and the material. Julia is waiting to pack it. She’s going away – London, I believe, and then to stay with the sewing-maid.’

  ‘And is there any message?’

  ‘No. She knows all about it. Now shape yourself, boy, or is it too much that for once I ask you to do something for me,’ she demanded, archly. ‘And please don’t scowl. If you drank too much last night you have only yourself to blame for it!’

  ‘So you monitor every glass I pour, now?’

  ‘While you are living under my roof – yes! Last night you had more than was good for you. Thank heaven the countess seemed not to notice. Now be off with you! Ask your Aunt Helen to excuse me for neglecting her, lately. She’ll understand, though …’

  Understand that his mother’s life seemed so happy and full that she could think of little else save how happy and fulfilled she was. And as for the countess’s bombshell last evening at dinner – he wouldn’t have been surprised had his mother risen from her chair and kissed the arrogant cheek soundly!

  Shrugging, he glanced at his watch, realizing that with luck Aunt Helen might ask him to stay to tea. And not a bad idea, at that. Rowangarth would seem a haven of tranquillity after the turmoil Pendenys had become. Even with Julia’s undisguised stare of dislike to contend with, Rowangarth would be bliss.

  He kicked moodily at a tussock of frosted grass, then made for Brattocks Wood. Be damned if he wouldn’t beg dinner, too. He wouldn’t be missed, if he did. His mother would remain on her pretty pink cloud, scattering benevolence to all and sundry because she had done exactly as she’d all along intended; acquired a real title for Pendenys. It happened without warning, almost. Amelia had been the cause of it.

  ‘And what do we call you, my dear?’ Amelia’s remark had been addressed to Anna. ‘I mean – is it Lady Anna or Lady Petrovska – or what? And when you are married, will it be Mrs Sutton or Lady Sutton? Do please forgive me, but in America we –’

  ‘You will call her neither,’ the countess had interrupted harshly. ‘You call her countess – both now, and after!’

  ‘C-countess?’ His mother had gone so deathly pale Elliot had thought she would swoon. ‘Anna is …?’

  ‘She is the daughter of a count; therefore she is a countess. It is her right by courtesy and by birth to assume the title for the whole of her life. How you do it in England I do not know, but Anna is Russian-born and that is the way we do – did – it in Russia.’

  ‘In Russia,’ Clemmy echoed hoarsely.

  ‘And in my neck of the woods,’ Amelia had smiled cheerfully, ‘she’d be plain Mrs S. on account we waved goodbye to our aristocrats around the time of the Boston Tea Party!’

  Elliot climbed the fence that separated parkland from woodland, thinking back with near embarrassment to his mother’s simpering delight. Had the countess given her the missing Romanov jewels, she could not have been more overcome. There were times when Mary Anne Pendennis would have been ashamed of her granddaughter’s preoccupation with blue blood. Whatever else, Mary Anne had had her pride!

  He smiled sourly. Here he was in Brattocks Wood yet not so very long ago it had been forbidden to him – on account of the sewing-maid, of course. Until he apologized for his bad behaviour towards her, Giles had insisted, he must not set foot on Rowangarth land again – that, or be escorted off it by the keeper!

  A pert little thing, the sewing-maid, with an air of innocence about her. And Giles had fallen for it, had married her, in the end. He wondered if cousin Giles ever suspected that he hadn’t been the first with the brown-eyed Alice; wondered if she had ever thought fit to mention that night at Celverte and what happened in the cowshed.

  Or had it happened? Had she given him the slip again like that first time here in Brattocks?

  The cowshed encounter had all been a little hazy – because of the wine, of course. He remembered seeing her in her nurse’s uniform – that much was clear – and he remembered the straw-stuffed palliasses.

  But it was all of three years ago and anyway, Giles had beaten him to it – that much was obvious. The boy was a Garth Sutton, if ever there was one. Crafty old Giles!

  ‘Julia! What the heck …?’ He looked up to see his cousin blocking his path and so taken aback was he that he stopped in his tracks.

  ‘What am I doing here, Elliot?’ she finished, tight-mouthed. ‘I am walking in my own woods – or in my nephew’s woods, if we are to be precise. What brings you to Rowangarth, might I ask?’

  ‘You might, and if you were half decent about it, I might tell you.’

  ‘Please yourself.’ Julia held out her hand for the parcel he carried. ‘If it’s material and a pattern, then go no farther.’

  ‘You’re going south, I believe; she’s to sew it up for you.’

  ‘She being Mrs Dwerryhouse, Elliot? Yes, Alice has offered to make Drew’s pageboy suit.’ Julia tilted her chin, meeting his eyes, silently challenging him. ‘And please remember she is my nephew’s mother.’

  ‘I’m not likely to forget it. Strange company you Garth Suttons are attracted to. Now me – I’ve landed myself a countess, would you believe? Anna thinks highly of you, Julia, though God knows why. Still, I’m sure you wish me well.’

  ‘Wish you well!’ All at once she saw him for what he was – arrogant and spoiled; womanizer and rapist. A coward, too, who had allowed his mother to manipulate him into safe postings when other men accepted the horror of the trenches without protest. ‘Wish you well, Elliot? God – if you only knew how many times I’ve wished you in hell!’

  White-hot hatred had replaced the agitated thumping of her heart and she grasped the parcel. Then turning abruptly, she made for the stile.

  ‘Strange company I said,’ he shouted after her. ‘Your brothers, and you, too! All of you drawn to the gutter, weren’t you? You talk about your nephew as if he were really something! But he’s only half a gentleman, Julia – though you wouldn’t recognize a gentleman if you fell over one!’

  His head thumped almost unbearably and yes, he had taken too much brandy, last night. But did she have to be so damned superior; did her eyes have to mock him so? He shouldn’t have said what he did, but she was so damned aristocratic; hadn’t had a great-grandmother who’d gutted fish and taken in washing! All from the top drawer, Julia’s lot! He saw the jerking of her shoulders, the stiffening of her back; saw her turn, then walk back along the path towards him.

  ‘What was that, Elliot – the remark about Drew? Say it again, will you?’ She spoke quietly, each word a hiss of venom. ‘Tell me – what is Drew? Only half a gentleman? Then what the hell does that make you!’

  She longed to fling the truth of Drew’s getting in his face, but she dare not. She bit hard on her lip and sent hate sparking out of her eyes.

  ‘You should watch your lip!’ he countered. ‘You can be too outspoken, Julia. That tongue of yours’ll get you into trouble one day. And yes, if you want to hear it I’ll say it again for you. Your precious Drew is only half a gentleman. What else can you call him with a servant for a mother?’

  ‘His mother, Elliot, is my dearest friend and his father was my brother, who was so badly wound
ed in the trenches that he never got over it.’

  Her voice was so even and quiet that had he been possessed of half an iota of sense he’d have cut and left. But Julia irritated him, so he formed his lips into a sneer.

  ‘Your brother was a conchie, and you know it! He was a coward who didn’t volunteer until someone sent him three white feathers! Serve him right they made a stretcher bearer of him!’

  Red lights flashed in front of Julia’s eyes and she closed them tightly, shaking her head so she might think clearly, realize the full implication of his words. Three white feathers, the badge of a coward.

  ‘And I thought it was a woman’s trick,’ she gasped, ‘but all along it was you sent Giles those white feathers!’

  The red lights were gone and with them her anger. Now she thought rationally again, knew exactly what she was about. Slowly, with relish almost, she lifted her hand, then brought it down with all the strength she could muster, slamming it into his face with such force that he staggered backwards and fell sprawling to the ground.

  ‘You – you bastard,’ she spat. ‘Get off this land! Get off it, or I’ll kill you!’

  He got to his feet, knowing he was no match for the force of her hatred, running towards the fence, climbing it clumsily. Then he turned.

  ‘Bitch!’ he flung. ‘You’re mad. Mad as a hatter!’

  She stood unmoving, watching him go, glad she had hit him, wishing she had pulled her fingernails down his face and marked his prettiness.

  Her right hand tingled. She had hurt him. Long before he reached Pendenys the imprint of her hand would be there on his cheek for all to see. How would he explain it away? What would he say to Anna, to the countess, should they ask him?

  She smiled derisively, then turned for home. If she hurried she would be in time for tea, glad beyond measure that in four days more she would be at Windrush, with Alice.

  ‘It is so good,’ Julia said softly, ‘to be here.’ They sat either side of the parlour fire, the room softly lit by lamplight, fireglow patterns shifting on the beige-washed walls. ‘If I hadn’t got away I’d have gone out of my mind – Elliot said I’m mad, did you know? Nothing but fuss, over the wedding. I’m trying, really I am, but things aren’t easy at the moment.’