by Benita Brown
‘Wondering why your cousin Esther looks so cross.’ Constance pointed to where the tall young woman strode ahead through the swirling sleety flakes, not waiting for her father, who was politely walking behind the others.
‘Look!’ Constance’s eyes widened as Esther overtook the Green family and then actually pushed Rosemary Elliot aside as she went past.
‘Don’t worry about my cousin. Esther will always find something to sulk about. Goodness knows what has set her off today.’
Just as John spoke, the car drove past them all, and Constance glanced back admiringly at Esther Barton’s glossy dark curls piled high under a fur-trimmed hat. Constance caught her eye and was shocked at the venom she saw there.
‘Cold, sweetheart?’
Constance turned to find John looking concerned. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re shivering. But don’t worry, the journey’s over. You’ll soon thaw out when we get inside.’
Constance watched her new husband as he opened the waist-high, wrought-iron gate of the small grey-brick terraced house. He took her hand and led her up the short path to the front door. The others had waited and now they followed them. At one side of the path, dividing it from that next door, was a tall privet hedge, and at the other side, a tiny square of garden crowded with frosted shrubs. She had never been invited to this house. Since John had proposed to her, and she had accepted, there had hardly been time.
After that first casual meeting in the park, when the band had been playing, John had asked her to meet him in the Willow Tea Rooms the following week. Constance had hardly been able to contain her excitement but, when the day came, she had not really been surprised that Matthew was there too. Indeed, over the next few months she had been unsure whether or not John was truly courting her. He seemed to enjoy her company, otherwise why seek it, but they were hardly ever alone together.
And then one day he had turned up without his friend. John offered no explanation but he had been flatteringly attentive, making Constance deliriously happy. That was the first time he had reached for her hand and held it as he walked her home. Before parting he had brushed her lips with his own. She could still remember the disturbing sensations his first kiss had aroused.
There had been so few kisses after that; they had not had the opportunity. Matthew had even been there, walking a little apart, when John had asked her to marry him. She had been overcome with happiness as she agreed and she had longed for John to take her in his arms and embrace her. But, with Matthew so near, John had simply raised her hand to his lips instead. But he had looked at her with eyes so full of emotion, she was sure she had seen the glint of tears.
‘You’re supposed to carry the lass over the threshold, you know! I’ll give you a hand, John, if you can’t manage it!’ Albert Green was standing behind them.
‘Albert!’ His mother hissed. Her large, protuberant eyes stared up anxiously at the son who dwarfed her.
‘I only meant because John’s such a little fellow, Mam. Not much bigger than his bonny bride. I mean—’
‘Albert!’ This time his father rebuked him. Mr Green was as tall as Albert, but he was thin and so pale that he appeared almost bloodless. Constance wondered how the pair had produced such a robustly handsome son.
Acute embarrassment made Mr Green address the ground near her feet. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Edington. Our lad’s more brawn than brain but that’s no excuse for bad manners. What will you think of us?’
For a moment Constance was at a loss. Mrs Edington? Of course, he means me! I am Mrs Edington! ‘Oh, I don’t mind.’ She smiled radiantly up at Albert, who grinned back.
The next moment happiness engulfed her as John, with surprising strength, swept her up into his arms. ‘No thank you, Albert, I am quite capable of carrying my bride myself!’
‘I’m sorry that I cannot get up to greet you, Constance.’
‘That’s all right, Mrs Edington. John has explained that you are not strong.’
‘Not strong?’ Frances Edington smiled faintly. ‘I hope he has been a little more precise than that.’
‘Yes, he has.’
After introducing them, John left them alone together while he instructed the maid to arrange more chairs at the table. Constance looked at her mother-in-law. She was so unlike John. He was small with angel-blond hair, fair skin and delicate features. His mother had long limbs and a large frame, although it was wasted now with illness.
Before ill health had made her complexion so pallid, she must have been as boldly dark and attractive as her brother’s daughter, Esther, Constance thought. But it was undeniable that, even although she was gravely ill, her beauty still lingered. In fact the consumption had added something - an air of drama, of tragedy that may have made her even more attractive.
Mrs Edington was wearing a plain, dark blue dress and her black hair was parted in the middle and fell in two raven wings before being drawn back into a heavy knot on the nape of her neck. The severe way she has of dressing her hair suits her, Constance thought. In contrast to her hair, her face was unnaturally pale but as she smiled up at Constance, two pink spots appeared and glowed faintly in her cheeks.
Frances assessed her daughter-in-law. She had had so little time to get used to the idea and this was not what she had expected. She remembered the day John had told her that he was getting married. How surprised and how apprehensive she had been.
‘I thought you would be pleased,’ he had said. ‘I will come into my inheritance, at least some part of it, and if a child is born, Uncle Walter will not be able to withhold the full amount.’
‘Of course I’m pleased that you are marrying, but I hope it is not just for the sake of the money your grandfather willed to you. Are you sure that ... I mean the girl—’
‘Don’t worry, she has nobody, no family to object to her alliance with the son of a scoundrel.’
‘John!’
‘I’m sorry, I know that you loved him.’
‘John, I only meant ... the girl is a servant.’
‘Constance is poor but she’s quite respectable. Don’t you trust me? My good taste?’
‘Of course. But will she ... ? I mean, will you be happy?’
‘What do you want to hear, Mother? Believe me, Constance is perfect. She is young, she is beautiful and she adores me. How could I not be happy?’
He had seemed so eager, so like any young man who had found the girl that he wanted to marry, that she had tried to suppress her misgivings. But there had been so much left unsaid. And now Constance was actually married to her son and she realized that she had been staring for rather too long.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you feel unwelcome. If I seem distant it’s because I tire so easily.’
‘Can I get you anything? Something to eat? Or perhaps a cup of tea?’
‘Do you know,’ she smiled up at Constance, ‘as it’s your wedding day, I think I would like a glass of wine.’
‘I guessed you might and here it is, madam!’ John reappeared beside them. He was carrying a plate of cold roast beef sandwiches cut into small triangles and a glass of red wine. ‘Polly has prepared this for you so that you can join in the festivities without tiring yourself too much.’ He turned to smile at his new bride. ‘Would you move that small table a little nearer to my mother? Good. Now we should join our guests.’
As the others were taking their seats, Muriel found time to approach her sister-in-law. ‘Quite a surprise, eh, Frances?’
‘Surprise?’
‘Well, what kind of servant girl is it who speaks and dresses like a lady and is friends with the daughter of Sir Hubert Elliot?’
Frances glanced at her unexpected guests, her expression unreadable. ‘Matthew Elliot is John’s friend.’
‘Really? You’ve never said anything about it.’
‘Why should I?’
Suddenly, Muriel’s small eyes and mouth formed three speculative circles as something occurred to her. ‘She’s not some castoff of young Elliot
’s, is she?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Constance. Some governess or lady’s maid that the lad has got into trouble? John’s not marrying her to do his rich friend a favour, is he?’
‘How dare you?’ The spots of colour in Frances’ cheeks intensified and burned an angry red. When she began to cough, Muriel sidled away.
From her seat at the table Constance had seen the vexed exchange and, not knowing what was the matter, she half rose to go and see if there was anything she could do for Mrs Edington. But the little maid was already hurrying over to her. John took Constance’s hand and pulled her down again.
‘Don’t worry, I could see before that my mother was getting overtired but I didn’t want to banish her from the wedding feast. Polly will see to her; she’s used to it. Our guests are waiting to begin the meal.’
Constance looked around. There were seats for ten people at the dining table. She had been placed between John and Uncle Walter, John on her right and his uncle on her left. Opposite to her Albert had settled himself between Rosemary and Hannah Beattie and she could see his cheery face towering over the wedding cake.
Round the corner, on John’s right, Esther stared moodily at her plate and did not even look up as her mother settled herself officiously on the seat beside her. At the other end of the table, and next to Walter Barton, Matthew sat and stared almost as moodily as Esther, although he did respond politely every time John’s uncle spoke to him.
On Matthew’s left sat Mr Green, stiff and awkward to find himself in such august company. Constance noticed that Hannah Beattie tried to engage him in conversation but the poor man replied with words of one syllable and looked longingly in the direction of his wife, who had donned a large white pinafore and was helping Polly serve the guests.
Constance looked beyond the table and noticed, for the first time, how low the fire burned in the grate. There was not enough heat to warm this high-ceilinged room. Polly had taken Constance’s cloak away when she had first arrived and she was still cold. How few pictures there are on the walls, she thought, and how few ornaments on the mantelpiece or the sideboard. It is somehow bleak - and yet still preferable to that vulgarly overfurnished dining room at Rye Hill.
The rooms at Lodore House had never been overfurnished. Her mother had created areas of space and light that enchanted all who came there. And yet not everyone had been pleased. She remembered something Robert had said: ‘Grandmother Meakin says that your mother just couldn’t wait to empty this house of anything that reminded you of my mother. She said it’s quite indecent the way that she gets Father to agree to anything!’
Why had she thought about her half-brother now? She had put him out of her mind for years until that moment last night.
‘Hev you invited Robert to yer wedding?’
The question had taken her by surprise. She had not realized that Nella knew about Robert. She had certainly never talked to her about him in all those years in the workhouse. She hadn’t even seen him since the day before she and her mother had had to leave Lodore House.
Captain and Mrs Meakin had come to take their grandson home with them to Berwick. They had made it quite plain that they wished to have no more to do with their late son-in-law’s second family. They would be happy if Robert never saw his stepmother or his half-sister again.
‘You haven’t touched your wine.’ John was smiling at her. He took the glass and put it in her hand.
‘I’m not used to wine. I’m not sure ...’
‘Drink just a little. There, do you like it?’
‘Mm, yes, I do.’
Constance looked down into her glass. The light from the gas chandelier above the table sparkled on the rim for a moment but the dark red liquid inside it remained dull and impenetrable. She took another sip. It tasted rich and sweet; it was strangely warming; at last the ice in her veins began to thaw. The tight knot in the very centre of her being began to ease a little.
She looked around the table. It was all so strange. This was her wedding day; these people, most of whom she’d never met before, were her guests; this house was now her home; she and John would live here together ...
As she drained her glass she was overwhelmed with love and gratitude.
Chapter Seven
‘Her followers call her Gypsy, you know.’
The wedding guests were beginning to leave. John and Matthew were talking beside the door and Rosemary had hurried round to sit next to Constance.
‘Who? What are you talking about?’ Constance asked.
Mrs Green was helping Polly clear the dishes away. Rosemary leaned close, and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Esther Barton, your husband’s cousin. I know her from school.’
‘Which school?’
‘The Girls’ High School in Jesmond.’
‘Esther Barton is at school with you?’ Constance glanced over towards the shapely young woman who had gone with her mother to talk to Frances Edington.
‘Not now - she left at the end of the summer term. She stayed on until she was sixteen. I have no idea why as she never had any hope of going to college.’
For the first time since she had met her the night before, Constance saw Rosemary adopt a superior air. ‘But of course you don’t have to be intelligent to attract admirers.’
‘Admirers?’
‘Well, there is no denying that she is handsome. Although those dark good looks are supposed to be unfashionable, quite a few of the more empty-headed junior girls were her devoted slaves.’
Rosemary’s long nose was shiny and her hair was beginning to escape from Beattie’s tidy arrangement. Constance realized that, in spite of her poise and air of sophistication, in many ways, Rosemary was still a child.
Her own formal education, provided by the workhouse, had been over long before she was Rosemary’s age. She had been put out to service the minute that she was twelve and she’d had to grow up quickly. She had been a bright pupil, she knew that, and her lonely walks around the city on her days off from the Sowerby household had taken her to museums, exhibitions and art galleries in a constant search for knowledge.
She had never ceased to regret the life that she had lost when her father was ruined. Almost certainly she would have attended the same high school as John’s cousin Esther; most of the daughters of the local professional and business families went there, or to the convent school. But she was surprised that Rosemary Elliot was a pupil there.
‘Rosemary did not want to go away to boarding school.’ Hannah Beattie had come to stand behind her charge’s chair and she’d seen the surprise on Constance’s face and guessed the cause. ‘Within reason, her parents like to indulge her wishes.’
‘Constance, be careful.’ Rosemary was frowning.
‘Careful?’
‘She doesn’t like you.’
‘Who?’
‘Esther. I’ve seen the way she’s been looking at you and I’m sorry, it’s probably my fault.’
‘Rosemary, Constance doesn’t want to hear this kind of schoolgirl blether.’
‘No, really, Beattie, dear, Esther has been glowering at Constance all day and I’m sure it’s because she sees that we are friends.’
‘Why should Esther dislike me because of that?’
‘It was something that happened at school. Caroline Blakey, my best friend - at least I thought she was - betrayed me!’ And now Rosemary sounded just like an indignant child - like twelve-year-old Annabel Sowerby when she had been denied her own way.
Constance suppressed a smile. ‘Betrayed you?’
‘Yes, she joined the ranks of the Gypsy’s followers. She would watch her with great cow eyes and simper after her and generally behave in a sickening way. It was all the more exasperating because, until I befriended Caroline, she had been too shy to talk to anyone.
‘One day, when I could stand her look of slavish adoration for Esther no longer, I told her how foolish she was to imagine that there was anything inside that romantic-l
ooking exterior other than greed and self-regard. It was the end of our friendship. Unfortunately, Caroline repeated my remarks to her new beloved. That, and the fact that women like her will always despise my kind, is why Esther Barton hates me.’
‘Your kind?’
‘Women with brains in their heads. Women who want to be equal to men rather than be owned by them.’
‘Rosemary, you have gone much too far.’ Hannah Beattie was vexed. ‘You should not be talking like this to Constance about one of her husband’s family and, furthermore, you should not be bothering her with your unconventional views on her wedding day.’
‘You hold those views too, Beattie!’