Seth looked uncomfortable, but Eve wasn’t paying attention; instead she gazed about, taking in her surroundings. A fancy room, a little overdressed. Fancy folk, ditto. It was done up in the English style, which surprised her. She would not, if the place were her own, bother with chintz and Chippendale. The ceiling fans were nice, though: like the paddles on a pleasure boat. The blades silently stirred the humid afternoon air and made it tolerable. A small brown boy in grey shorts and shirt wove a path through the gathering, carefully dispensing lemonade with an endearing expression of great concentration. Eve watched him for a moment, charmed. He looked about the same age as Ellen, she thought, though it was hard to imagine the little girl being half as obliging as this child. As he passed he looked at her quite suddenly, as if she’d spoken to him, and he smiled broadly, offering up the frosted jug.
‘More lemonade, lady?’ he said brightly. Eve laughed and let him refill her glass.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And who are you?’
‘My name is Roscoe Donaldson.’ He spoke with a sweet formality and held out his free hand for Eve to shake.
‘Thank you, Roscoe,’ Seth said. ‘Move along.’
‘Sorry, Mr Seth.’
He dipped his head and slipped away, and Eve shot Seth a reproachful look. ‘He was just answering me, you know. There was no need to be unkind.’
‘If the adult staff were more reliable and efficient he wouldn’t be here at all.’
‘Oh, listen to yourself.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Aye, well I think that bairn’s doing a smashing job, and look…’ – she pointed at the boy, who was now standing uncertainly on the fringes of the gathering – ‘…you’ve taken t’wind right out of ’is sails. Somebody should tell ’im well done.’
Seth regarded her a little coolly. He hadn’t expected to be reprimanded, and so soon after her arrival; he had only expected to be admired. He looked away and saw that Roscoe was now leaving the room, draining, as he went, the last of the lemonade directly from the jug into his mouth, and it struck him how little his mother knew about the Whittam Hotel: how very much she had to learn. He could try to explain, or he could let her discover for herself the problems inherent in trying to bend the will of uncooperative Jamaicans. He thought, perhaps, the latter course held more appeal.
‘Would you like to see the kitchens?’ he said now, but she shook her head.
‘I’ll get to work tomorrow. I’d like a stroll, though. Will you come with me, outside?’
So they left, arm in arm, through the French windows, out on to the veranda and down the steps into the English garden that Silas had insisted upon. Here and there Eve smiled and nodded at other guests, people she’d become acquainted with on the ship, and she said to Seth, ‘Everybody looks content, broadly speaking. I can’t see that things are as bad as you think.’
Seth thought of Ruby in the kitchen and Batista waiting on, and merely smiled in a non-committal sort of way. He led her down a herringbone path that was shady and almost comfortable, and which opened out onto a bed of unhappy pink peonies, whose pale-hued petals belonged in the garden of a Cotswold vicarage. Overhead, a great white and black frigatebird wheeled and cried and swept off towards the sea. The heat pressed down from the sky and up from the earth, and the cicadas’ incessant racket filled the air.
‘You’re a long way from home,’ Seth said. She was like the peonies, he thought: transplanted into tropical soil. He hoped she’d fare better than they had.
‘That letter,’ Eve said. ‘Daniel was certain you hadn’t written it.’
Seth blushed. He had never yet successfully fooled his mam, and he wasn’t about to try now.
‘They were Uncle Silas’s words, but it was my idea that you come,’ he said. ‘Are you sorry you did?’
She reached up and placed a tender hand on the back of his head, drawing it down on to his neck and holding it there for a moment. ‘No,’ she said, and she meant it. She wasn’t sorry, she was glad: more than glad, and not just for Seth, but for herself. Easier, much easier, to be the traveller than the one left behind. She felt almost ashamed to admit it, but already, merely hours after docking, she was feeling the intoxicating effects of this island: the mixed and unfamiliar fragrances on the wind; the strange calls of birds the like of which she had never seen; the vast, dense, glossy greenness of the mountains beyond the town; the startling, infinite, changing blues of the sky and the sea. All these things stirred in her an excitement at the unfamiliar, a curiosity she was impatient to sate. She was in a hurry to become properly acquainted, aware, suddenly, not how long a time she would be away from Netherwood, but how short. She had never in her life felt confined or dissatisfied at home, but she felt now that she had sailed from the mundane to the extraordinary. Angus was upstairs in their room, in a deep sleep on a soft mattress under a tent of netting, but Eve felt wide awake, all her senses alive to this extraordinary new place.
‘Evie!’
Silas had come looking for them, and he stood now on an upper terrace of the garden, his hands in the pockets of his loose, linen trousers, a baffled smile upon his face as if he couldn’t for the life of him understand why she wasn’t where he’d left her.
‘Don’t be outside without a hat,’ he called. And Seth, feeling a pang of anxiety at his uncle’s tone, took his mam – his mother – by the arm and led her back up the path to the hotel.
In the kitchen, Ruby said to Scotty, ‘Well? Does she have her brother’s crocodile smile?’
‘She certainly fell from de same tree,’ he said. He snuck a finger into a bowl of custard and sucked it lasciviously. She slapped his wrist, but it was a half-hearted gesture because her mind was on this sister of the boss, whose imminent – and now actual – arrival filled her with apprehension. A female version of Mr Silas at her shoulder by the stove; she shivered, though her skin was delicately laced with beads of sweat and the kitchen shimmered with heat.
Ruby turned back to the haunch of roast venison, which she regarded with distaste: the colour and texture of a coconut husk, and just as dry. She wouldn’t feed it to a stray dog.
‘Carve this, Scotty,’ she said. ‘Then send it up.’
Chapter 22
Lady Henrietta Hoyland, denied bail by a magistrate who detested suffragists in general and suffragettes in particular, was being held at Holloway Prison until her trial at Bow Street Court at the end of June. This harsh decision was, of course, the very thing she had craved, bringing as it did increased notoriety for herself and yet more publicity for the cause.
She had baulked, though, at the sullen grey crenellations of the jail; its alarming resemblance to the Tower of London gave her pause for thought as she was driven through the portals. However, thus far she had borne her incarceration stoically, and her situation had been somewhat eased by the fact that Tobias had arranged for a meal to be sent to her from the Ritz Hotel at seven o’clock each evening. Toby was with her now; they faced each other across a scarred wooden table, cheek by jowl with their near neighbours; privacy was a privilege of the innocent and the free, Henrietta had learned. Toby, in his crisp new lounge suit and spotted silk necktie, was out of context in this harshly dreary institution. He was sleek and groomed, his reddish hair grown longer than usual, his face clean-shaven; women, the other prisoners, stared. Henrietta, unadorned, felt a small pang for her rooms, her clothes, her jewellery, her maid, but it came and went unremarked upon and from their expressions, he might have been taken for the prisoner.
‘Cheer up, can’t you?’ Henrietta said. ‘You have a face like a wet weekend.’
‘I can hardly bear it,’ he said.
‘Well if I can, you certainly ought to be able to.’
‘There’s a permanent stink of old sprouts and piss pots.’
She grimaced. ‘I know, and it’s odd, because sprouts aren’t even in season. Perhaps the smell lingers from last Christmas.’
He looked around the room dolefully. The other prisone
rs – all clad, like Henrietta, in dowdy frocks of grey striped ticking – looked more at home here than she did; their visitors too. He looked at their pale, plain faces, their lank hair, their dull, lightless eyes, and he thought that their presence here must surely be less of a shock, less of a disaster, for them and their families than Henry’s presence here was for him. He looked back at her, and though he had never thought her beautiful – no one did, generally: Isabella was the beauty, Henrietta the brains – she looked finely made by contrast with her surroundings.
‘Do you have companionship?’ he asked, and his voice was so soulful that Henrietta laughed.
‘Oh Tobes,’ she said.
‘Well, they all look so beastly.’
‘I’m not here to add to my social circle. In any case, no one’s being actively unpleasant, apart from a couple of the warders. I’m left alone for the most part. The Ritz dinners inspire some hostility, mind you. Mixed grill yesterday, with the most delicious lamb-loin chops.’
He managed a watery smile.
‘Monsieur Reynard sends his special regards,’ he said. The French chef had left Netherwood Hall three years ago to take up a position in Cesar Ritz’s new hotel on Piccadilly. Tobias had gone to him on the day of Henrietta’s arrest and commissioned his services – at considerable expense – for the duration of her ordeal. It had surprised Henrietta that such concessions were allowed in Holloway. Toby, however, felt it was the very least they might allow for the sister of an earl; if he had his way, she would be held prisoner at the Ritz too. ‘He prepares your meals himself, you know. Doesn’t let the underlings anywhere near.’
‘Sweet of him,’ Henrietta said. ‘Look, can we talk about something other than my plight? I find my spirits are flagging. Tell me something interesting.’
He nodded, and heroically rearranged his features into something less tragic.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘Isabella’s Season continues apace. Hectic schedule, every day, from lunchtime onwards. Mama sends Thea in the evenings from time to time. She’s terribly choosy.’
‘Who is?’
‘Mama. She sends Thea to the functions she doesn’t want.’
Henrietta raised a brow at this news. ‘Thea as chaperone: novel idea.’
‘She enjoys it.’
‘I’m quite sure she does. Anyhow, go on.’
‘It’s Izzy’s dance in three weeks. They’re preparing the ballroom at Fulton House because the proportions are better than Park Lane.’
‘Why not Denbigh Court?’
‘Too far, and from what I gather, Archie’s household isn’t geared up for big flings. So Mama is treating Fulton House as her own and has quite taken over. Absolute mayhem, ladders everywhere.’
‘Not repainting it I hope?’
‘No fear. But the chandeliers are being cleaned, and some of the gilt needs touching up on the plasterwork. It’s to be transformed, on the night, into a flowery bower. Isabella wants garlands of jasmine or some such.’
‘Does she indeed?’
‘Every time she attends a dance she comes home with another scheme. Last night she and Thea drove to Farnham Park for Minty Harrington’s ball. Mama jibbed because they’re new money.’
‘Parvenus throw the best parties. Was it lavish?’
‘Of course. Excess was the order of the evening, apparently. The house dripping with lights and flowers, urns sculpted out of ice and filled with strawberries, that kind of thing. The grounds were lit with hundreds of blazing torches and they brought extra deer into the park to make majestic silhouettes for the benefit of departing guests. You could see the house for miles, Izzy said. Plus there were swing boats on the gravel at the front.’
‘Golly. Do tell her it’s vulgar to compete, though.’
‘Oh, well, Mama makes all the decisions anyway, and she’s constitutionally unimpressed by anything the Harringtons do.’
‘And Thea?’ Henrietta said. ‘How does she amuse herself on these occasions?’
‘Oh, well, she has to take a back seat, naturally.’
‘Not easy for her.’
‘I’ll say not. Positively painful, to play bridge with the oldsters while the youngsters frolic in the next room.’
Bridge my Aunt Fanny, thought Henrietta; if I know Thea, she’d be plucking the young men – and, perhaps, the occasional young woman – from the ballroom like sugared plums from a silver bowl. She was disappointed in Thea: two weeks in prison, and her sister-in-law was yet to visit. Granted, it was a long time since their mutual passion had cooled, but still, Henrietta had fully expected an appearance by now, if only inspired by curiosity. Not that she had been short of visitors in general: Sylvia and Emmeline had been, Eva too. Mary Dixon – released without charge that day in Downing Street – had come every day, with the result that they were beginning to run out of conversation. Henrietta had started to wonder how to shake her off. There was something dogged and desperate about the way she clutched Henrietta’s hand and kissed her on leaving; it gave Henrietta the urge, sometimes, to treat her unkindly, and at the last visit she had asked Mary to come a little less, to give them both time to think of something to say. Yesterday, out of the blue, Anna Sykes had visited – down from Yorkshire for two busy days, but still finding time to look in. She had talked brightly about her commission for the de Lisles and her waiting list of notables, and just how considerable their wait was to be as she was actually trying to spend the summer in Ardington in order to help her grumpy husband with his constituency business. Anna had not, of course, called Amos Sykes grumpy; Henrietta supplied that adjective now, as she related the encounter to Tobias.
‘Anna Sykes,’ he said. ‘Oh, yes. Pretty blonde?’
‘Well there’s rather more to Anna than the colour of her hair, but yes. She married Amos Sykes – used to be one of our miners, now MP for Ardington. Loathes me.’
‘Does she? Then why did she come?’
‘Idiot. He loathes me, not she. He’s against inherited wealth and privilege. I’m just the sort of person he most dislikes in life, and it maddens him that Anna and I get on rather well. Very cross man generally, in fact.’
‘Never met a socialist who wasn’t.’
‘Tobes, you’ve never met a socialist full stop.’
‘Have, in fact. Lloyd George, at the club. Week last Wednesday.’
‘He’s Liberal, dear boy.’
‘Same difference these days. Have you heard his views? Pretty rum, I’d say.’
‘Not rum enough, in my opinion. His ideas for reform certainly don’t extend to enfranchising women.’
There was a pause in their conversation, a natural break, a perfectly comfortable hiatus, yet because of it, the sounds around them became suddenly evident: here a raucous laugh, there a hawking, phlegmy cough; at the back of the room a harsh bark of command from a warder, a snarl of assent from a prisoner and, underneath all of it, a constant, quiet, desperate sobbing from the young woman nearest to them, whose head was low to the table and whose visitor stared at her with impassive eyes. This little tableau in particular seemed to augur a hopeless, helpless immediate future, and Henrietta and Tobias suddenly and simultaneously became aware of the intrusion of awfulness, pushing its way into this innocent break in their own cheerful dialogue. It was as if they had each, for a short while, forgotten where they were, and had now reluctantly remembered: as if, waking from a pleasant dream, they found themselves back in a dire reality. And at this very moment a bell rang out, shrill and startling, telling them that the visit must end; telling them that Tobias would now return to the considerable comfort of Fulton House and that Henrietta must stay within the walls, and behind the bars, of Holloway Prison.
‘Oh God, Henry,’ Tobias said. His voice cracked and his face was once again stricken.
She hesitated on the brink of misery, collected herself, stood up. ‘It won’t be much longer, Toby,’ she said, speaking quickly and low because, after the bell, further conversation was forbidden. ‘By the time the case comes
to court I shall have had four weeks in here, and the lawyers say there’ll be no further custodial sentence.’
He leaned across the table and took her face in his hands. It was a gesture of pure tenderness and concern, such as their father might have made, back in that other, simpler time when he presided over their lives. Again Henrietta fought tears; again, she conquered them. She was glad, in fact, that her father wasn’t here to witness her imprisonment. Before he’d died, she had been in the process of modernising him, thinking to bring him in line with her world and away from his own. She’d made some considerable progress; this, though, would certainly have been too much.
‘So,’ Tobias said, releasing her. ‘No Ascot, but at least you’ll be out for Cowes,’ and his voice, face and entire manner had lightened with relief.
This was so like her brother, thought Henrietta; he saw time not as a series of days or weeks, but of social milestones, events to be attended. She smiled encouragingly, although she was moving now into the stream of inmates heading through a door into the body of the prison.
‘Thea sends her love!’ he called at the last moment, just as Henrietta disappeared from view. Kind of her, she thought. Shame it isn’t true.
Tobias wasn’t sure if his sister had heard. He thought, on balance, that she probably hadn’t, which was just as well because it was a spur-of-the-moment fabrication, a well-intentioned impulse to supply the compassion that his wife seemed entirely to lack. Her unconcern troubled him more than he liked to admit, even to himself. Thea seemed to be turning the pursuit of pleasure into a vocation; her dedication to this cause was unwavering, formidable and excluding. She had always been free of care, and this cavalier spirit had once been, to Tobias, the most attractive and endearing of her qualities, for in marrying Thea, he had lost none of the privileges of bachelorhood: she made few demands of him and he made few of her. They each had liaisons, because he was not a hypocrite who expected his wife to turn a blind eye to his own affairs while indulging in none of her own. And yet, he had begun to wonder if the pair of them weren’t going too far with this freedom business; he wondered if they might have a go, instead, at mutual obligation and respect. He wondered if they might try conventionality. He wondered if they might make an heir.
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