by Rona Randall
All he had to do was to display compassion. ‘You must rest, dear Amelia,’ he would say. ‘You must give up all responsibilities but domestic ones. You must live quietly and peacefully at home, away from the noise and dust of the earthenware industry. That is what Martin would wish for you.’
By dropping the titles of ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’ he placed himself on an equal footing, no longer a mere nephew but a contemporary who had the right to deal with a situation as he thought fit. And his position as Master Potter would strengthen his hand.
Complacently, he waited. His aunt was carrying a tray bearing crude clay models and Olivia was examining them with interest, but when Amelia finally deposited them on a nearby table Olivia said, ‘We have a visitor —’ at the precise moment that Amelia saw him and stood stock still.
‘Yes, it is Lionel,’ Olivia added, as lightly as if it were no surprise at all. ‘He has changed little, don’t you agree? He was waiting here when I came across from the modelling shed.’
At that, Amelia came toward him, her graceful step as unchanged as her voice. Both attributes had typified her in her youth, and still did. Here was no heavy, ageing woman; no lace cap, no mittens, no thickening figure. Surprise placed him at a disadvantage and that piqued him, but before he could speak she forestalled him.
‘Why didn’t Agatha let us know you had arrived? We knew you were coming, of course, but not that you were already here. I’m so glad you made yourself at home in my treasured museum.’ A gesture of her slender hand indicated pride in the place. ‘It has taken me years to assemble. I expect your mother told you all about it in her letters.’
His mother had done no such thing. Nor had she told him in what way Amelia had been involved at the pottery; only that she still ‘meddled in the place’ and that her indulgent husband permitted it. But Agatha never referred much to her younger sister, her letters being too full of inquiries about Lionel’s welfare and when he was likely to come home, then on to her own trivial affairs coupled, as always, with laments about her ‘delicate constitution’.
Bowing gallantly over his aunt’s hand, he then looked up and said admiringly. ‘You mean you planned all this? My dear Amelia, how clever of you, particularly at your time of life.’
‘I started it long before I reached “my time of life”,’ she answered with some amusement. ‘I began the collection even before you decamped — I mean before you went away,’ she added with apparent negligence.
He ignored the correction, remarking that even so it must have been a fatiguing task and one she must be glad to see behind her.
‘On the contrary, it was an enjoyable one and continues to be. It meant much to Martin and it still does to me. It is a permanent tie with him. I shall develop and increase it as we both planned. There is an adjoining room which can be linked with this and the place can be enlarged in other ways as well.’
Reference to the adjoining room reminded him of the moment when he had discovered her scribbling there and, in her absence, taken a good look at what she had written, becoming so absorbed that he had not heard her return until her voice demanded to know whether it was his custom to read private documents. Her anger had amused him, but vexed him too because reading those ancient diary entries had entertained him as vastly as reading someone’s private letters, a practice he had always indulged, given the opportunity. Her rebuke had rankled, becoming a score which he would be happy to settle when the time came. Opportunity came for everything, if one waited. So he continued to smile, hiding his thoughts.
‘I take it you are comfortably settled in Carrion House,’ Amelia continued, ‘so we must drink a toast to your happiness there.’
She moved to the communicating door and though her erect back seemed to be maintained with an effort, her step was brisk. With time and the fading of her grief, she would be as energetic as she had ever been, a picture which ill fitted his imagined one.
The opened door revealed the Master Potter’s desk — the ancient table that former Draytons had been content to use. So Martin Drayton had vacated the fine office used by his elder brother, and moved into this smaller and less impressive room — how typical of the man! He had always been unprepossessing, though his wife had been known to call him modest and unassuming, seeming to admire such qualities.
Lolling in the open doorway, Lionel watched as she took decanter and goblets from a corner cupboard. ‘Martin always kept wine at hand for important customers,’ she said. ‘You may not be a customer, Lionel, but you will certainly be regarded as important now you are the owner of Carrion House. I have no doubt your health will be drunk by the villagers and others, but ours will be the first toast. Be so good as to carry this decanter for me, dear nephew.’
The affectionate term surprised him, because Amelia had never spared many endearments for him in the past. To use one now perhaps indicated the mellowing of advancing years. The thought pleased him, as did any sign of age taking its toll of her, emphasizing her vulnerability.
‘Why did my uncle use that smaller room?’ he asked as his aunt poured wine. ‘Surely this one was more suitable for the owner of a pottery such as this?’
‘He thought it unnecessarily large, and I confess to agreeing because I very much wanted it for my museum. Even then, he insisted on enlarging it — the better to display things, he said. He designed the vaulted roof with its sloping windows for greater light and had the south and west walls pushed farther out. He predicted that eventually it would be necessary to build a special place to house it all, and he was right. I shall carry out our plans for it, exactly as he would wish.’
‘Always providing the new Master Potter agrees,’ he said, raising his wineglass to the pair of them.
There was an imperceptible silence in which he saw Olivia’s hazel eyes flicker toward the older woman, but Amelia did not see the glance. She was looking at him speculatively and then saying, ‘But there isn’t going to be a Master Potter for a long time yet. In the meantime, Olivia and I are running the pottery exactly as Martin planned. It was his intention to leave it in our joint care.’
Lionel’s glass halted half-way to his mouth.
‘Impossible. He could bequeath it to no one. The inheritance descends by right of birth to the next Drayton in the male line and that, my dear aunt, happens to me. I am the new Master of Drayton’s.’
‘You are mistaken. Our son, George, is his father’s heir, so you see why there will not be a Master Potter at Drayton’s for a long time to come, for he is not yet ten years old. Surely your mother told you about the birth of our two children, George and Emma? Until the boy comes of age, Olivia and I will continue to manage the pottery together.’
‘You are forgetting that I have rights.’
‘But you were Martin’s nephew, not his son. And George will not qualify as a potter until he has grown up and served the customary five-year apprenticeship.’
‘By which time he will be accustomed to my authority as will you, my dear aunt, long before that. I am the son of the eldest Drayton —’
‘Who was succeeded by Martin,’ Olivia interrupted.
‘— whom I now succeed, being the eldest male in my turn. That means head of the Drayton family and all that concerns it, for the rule of primogeniture still prevails.’
He heard Olivia’s indignant protest, and whipped round to her. ‘This is no concern of yours, Cousin. You were born a Freemen, not a Drayton. So was Amelia, exchanging her name only through marriage. Apart from Martin’s son, who is a minor, I and I alone am in the direct male line, and my seniority means that I now take the helm.’
In the midst of an appalled silence, the door opened and Deborah Kendall’s young voice cried, ‘Look what we have brought to show you! I made Miguel bring them at once. Did you ever see such exciting designs? They are Mexican, and all belonged to his mother.’
Amelia rallied and went to meet her. Olivia, too, welcomed her. She was always glad to see Deborah, whose parents she loved and respected. The girl resemb
led both, having inherited her mother’s high cheekbones and finely bridged nose, her graceful carriage, her wide mouth — a mouth considered too big for beauty — but she had also inherited a strong strain of her father. Simon Kendall’s red hair, ‘the Armstrong red’, was quietly reflected in the deep auburn of Deborah’s, and the proud angle of his head and cool challenge of his eye were also very evident. Both depicted characteristics which he had needed in his legendary struggle to rise above circumstance and to achieve the recognition he so richly deserved. Simon Kendall’s rise from deprivation to success was part of Burslem’s story; his genius the spur that had brought vital canals to the potteries.
It had also brought him the support of Sir Neville Armstrong, whose family features and colouring so plainly ran in him though not through Sir Neville himself, as Phoebe had always maliciously declared. Even now, Olivia remembered her mother’s fury when the sister who had ‘married beneath her’ had eventually become mistress of Ashburton, ancestral home of the Armstrongs, with ‘that upstart of a canal-builder’ at her side.
Still chattering, Deborah was unwrapping a pot decorated with primitive and colourful patterns, while Miguel quietly unwrapped others. Amelia’s attention was immediately caught, but Olivia remained aware of Lionel Drayton standing aside, quietly watching.
‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea for Drayton’s to produce something similar —’, Deborah was saying, but broke off, becoming aware of the unknown man whose glance was fixed on her with an interest plainly spiced with admiration.
Their glances held and Lionel was pleased to see colour flood her face. So this was Deborah Kendall, the young woman whom his mother called flighty. He studied her with interest, liking what he saw.
Not so pleasing was the fact that the upstart Miguel accompanied her. I suspect Max’s boy is in love with her… From the way Miguel looked at the girl, Lionel’s mother again appeared to be right.
The situation became immediately entertaining, with boundless, challenging, and very satisfying possibilities.
Chapter 4
Olivia put an end to the encounter by saying lightly, ‘This is your cousin Lionel, who left Burslem so long ago that I don’t suppose you even remember him. He is just leaving.’
‘When we have exchanged greetings,’ he corrected, extending his hand to Deborah. ‘You must be dear Aunt Jessica’s youngest. I recall that she had a leggy little girl much younger than the rest of her brood, but I can see no resemblance to that child in your lovely self…’ He kissed her hand, then held it. ‘Alas, as dear Livvy says, I am just taking my leave, but I look forward to entertaining your parents and their family at Carrion House.’
Faintly embarrassed by his lingering grasp, Deborah withdrew her hand. She was rarely self-conscious, but this man made her so. She forced herself to say brightly, ‘We shall look forward to that, Cousin Lionel, though you are no doubt unaware that the family is now somewhat depleted. Elizabeth, my eldest sister, is now married and living in York, and Penelope is also wed and gone to Lincoln. As for my brothers, Mark, the elder, is a lawyer practising in Exeter — his wife’s home city — and Oliver, who comes next, is away at university so we see him only during vacations.’
‘Then I shall look forward to entertaining your parents and yourself, since you appear to be the only chick still in the nest.’
He smiled and moved away. As he did so, his glance rested briefly on the collection of Mexican pots. ‘Somewhat crude, are they not?’ he murmured before bowing in a general farewell which somehow excluded Miguel.
Then he was gone and Olivia was exclaiming indignantly, ‘Who is he to judge? He knows nothing about pottery or anything pertaining to it! Amelia dear, just look at these! Deborah is right — they are beautiful.’
The four gathered in an enthusiastic group and the atmosphere lightened. So too did Amelia’s tension, but Deborah was glancing from one to the other, sensing something amiss.
‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked in concern, but was reassured when Olivia declared that there was absolutely nothing which she and Amelia did not know how to deal with.
Even so, the undercurrent was there. Deborah could always tell when her spirited cousin was inwardly fuming.
*
From the West Wing of Tremain Hall, Agatha Drayton could see everyone who approached along the winding drive that cut through the surrounding park to the main doors of the mansion. These formed the apex of a three-sided courtyard, the East and West Wings being projections commanding unrestricted views. Only the Heir’s Wing did not overlook the house and had its own private entrance. Not that Max’s son used it very frequently; he would come riding up to the main doors, more often than not in that Mexican jacket of fringed leather which he had worn as a youth and which never seemed to wear out, and she would think how handsome he looked, and how nice his smile was when he glanced at her window and waved in greeting. Such a warm and friendly smile. The sort a mother would delight in from a son.
She always felt disloyal when responding to Miguel, because dear Lionel had ample cause for resenting him and therefore so had she, but he had only to greet her in that friendly way and to inquire after her health with his disarming air of concern, for her to find herself liking him as greatly as everyone else did — Jessica and Simon Kendall especially, which was not surprising since Miguel was obviously attracted by their youngest child and they would no doubt consider him eminently suitable for the girl’s hand.
Whether Deborah felt a reciprocal attraction was difficult to tell, for the girl was an obvious coquette. She flirted outrageously at local balls and accepted male homage with indifference although encouraging it, but if Miguel succeeded in winning her hand, what a match it would be, uniting two great Staffordshire houses, Tremain and Ashburton — but how very undesirable from Lionel’s point of view, and therefore her own, because any marriage Miguel made could ensure further heirs to take precedence over any issue of her son’s.
Such things didn’t bear thinking about, and it was comforting to reflect that since Deborah was only seventeen any interest she felt in any man was likely to be transient, whereas Miguel seemed so enamoured of her that he had eyes for no one else. Agatha was surprised that he was unaware of the girl’s fickleness, for he was old enough to sum her up. Her own son, she was convinced, would have had more sense.
She was also convinced that Lionel would never have gone away had Miguel not usurped him. The dear boy had been driven by a sense of rejection, and when unkind friends declared that he had gone in pursuit of Damian Fletcher’s wife, she stopped their wagging tongues with a whiplash from her own. She knew that Lionel would never have left home if her brother Max had not brought Miguel to Tremain and established him as his legal heir. And if Lionel had wanted to pursue a woman, there were plenty in Staffordshire for him to choose from, every one of whom would have been more than willing to be wooed and won by him.
Memories of the past were Agatha’s constant companions and she had plenty of time in which to brood on them, sitting at the windows during her many idle hours. Her only relief from boredom was to drive over to Carrion House and chivvy the servants whom she had installed to care for the place until its master came to take up residence. As he must. Particularly now. His unwillingness — not indifference, as Max said so unkindly — had of course been due to his extreme sensitivity. No doubt the dear boy shunned the idea of living in a house wherein two people had died, especially people so closely related. Such a sensitive spirit would naturally shrink from unhappy reminders.
Although Lionel had been born after his father’s death, she had kept Joseph’s memory alive by stressing how fine he was, how dignified, how handsome, how greatly admired. She had done her duty in that respect with great diligence, believing that a boy should have an ideal to look up to and to emulate.
She had been equally diligent in extolling the beauties of Carrion House, which Lionel had visited only once when Phoebe held her first reception there.
*
The taste of Lent Potatoes, flavoured with almonds and raisin wine, still lingered in her mouth from the small repast he had served an hour or two after the midday meal. ‘A little fortification, dear Milady…a little sustenance to keep fatigue at bay…’ There had also been a small mound of Puits d’Amour and a glass of the particular brand of Madeira that Joseph had taught her to appreciate. Now, a full two hours later (no wonder she was beginning to feel a little faint!) came a tray bearing a portion of flummery and a wedge of Chantilly cake. Not a great deal, but fortunately she was not a greedy person and this would suffice for the time being.
The evening meal would be something to look forward to after that. Pierre’s menus were submitted to her daily (apart from these tasty snippets) so she knew that tonight she would be enjoying grey plovers stewed with herbs and spices, accompanied by an array of well-seasoned vegetables, with green plovers on toast as a side dish — or plovers’ eggs served on a napkin? She couldn’t quite remember, but she did recall that spit-roasted ortolans were to be a second choice (she would eat well of all, to avoid hurting Pierre’s feelings) followed by a delicious Tansey and a goodly serving of Sack Cream. And, of course, the choicest wines. Age could not wither her cook’s genius, nor custom stale the infinite variety of his menus.