The Rival Potters

by Rona Randall

  ‘But things between us have now changed and will never be the same again. That is my fault.’ When she made no answer he added, ‘You had every right to dispose of the sundial in whatever way you wished, but I didn’t think you would be so eager to let Lionel Drayton have it.’

  ‘And what makes you think I was?’

  ‘You seemed to have swung round in favour of him, making excuses for him, suggesting that everyone misunderstood him’

  ‘Yes — I did wonder. I felt guilty for doubting him. He seemed genuine when saying that he had Amelia’s interests at heart. Who was I to disprove that? I felt it was time to meet friendship with friendship.’

  Miguel shrugged and turned away, reiterating that she had every right to dispose of the sundial to whomsoever she wished, but she guessed that he was making idle conversation to avoid any reference to his earlier behaviour…his betraying behaviour. On his part, he was convinced that she must consider him pettish over the matter of the sundial, like a child revealing jealousy over a coveted toy, but it was better to let her think that than to thrust on her his suppressed passion, which he was in danger of doing so long as she remained.

  She said in conciliatory tones, ‘I am already designing others. There may be one among them —’

  The words died as she realized that, for him, the first sundial she had made was the most important because it had strengthened their friendship. It had united them in a common interest, discovering aspects of each other they had never seen before. It had brought them closer and no replacement would be the same.

  ‘I have only myself to blame,’ he said, making conversation as she picked up her crop and walked to the door. ‘I should have told you that I wanted to buy it. Stupidly, I took it for granted that you would know, even that you would want no one else to have it. And now, of course, it’s too late.’ Wryly, he added, ‘At least I won’t be taunted by the sight of it on the wall of Carrion House, for I’m never likely to be a visitor there.’

  ‘I have never know you to be bitter,’ she said sadly.

  ‘I am trying not to be.’

  For the first time in her life she had an inkling of the pain that rejection could bring, and wondered if he had felt rejected ever since his arrival at Tremain Hall as the illegitimate offspring of the heir. She was distressed to think that the preference she had now shown for Lionel added to Miguel’s sense of rejection. And he is not illegitimate, she thought indignantly. Not only had his father legitimized his birth, but the years had rooted him firmly in Tremain soil, in Tremain traditions. He identified with the place and all it stood for because he belonged there, and surely there was not a remaining member of the two linked families who still considered that he did not?

  A thought halted her. Lionel did. Lionel had always regarded him as an outcast. Lionel had mocked him and would continue to. She even wondered if the man had guessed that Miguel wanted to own this particular piece of her work and for this reason had made first bid for it.

  Anxious to atone, she said, ‘It was a commercial transaction, Miguel, no more. It’s true that I didn’t object to Lionel buying it. I don’t even know how much he paid for it. And you mustn’t blame either Amelia or Olivia, because they, like me, had no idea that you had set your heart on it.’

  ‘I set my heart on more than that,’ he said cryptically, and hurriedly opened the door. Plainly, he wanted her to go.

  ‘What can I do to put things right?’ she pleaded.

  ‘Only forget that this past half hour ever happened. Forget everything I said and did.’

  ‘Is that what you really want?’

  ‘It is. I’ve been talking a lot of nonsense. Meaningless nonsense. Meaningless to both of us.’

  ‘And — what you did — was that meaningless too?’

  ‘Of course. You didn’t imagine otherwise, did you?’

  He accompanied her to the stables, helped her to mount, but didn’t even pause to watch her ride away. When she looked back, there was no sign of him.

  Chapter 14

  The rain had ceased by the time Deborah turned out of Tremain’s gates and headed for home, taking the bridle path along the western side of the park. From there she could head down into the valley and through winding cross-country lanes, or take the open road leading to Cooperfield and thence to Ashburton. Either route could be approached from this point by riding across a stretch of Tremain’s fields, now available for all, providing the tracks were adhered to and crops left unharmed — a concession in which, she suspected, Miguel had influenced his father.

  She couldn’t get Miguel off her mind — the new Miguel whom she had glimpsed for the first time this afternoon. She had always believed that the quiet manner he presented to the world was his real self, but now she remembered his passion and the urgency of his desire, and was less sure; less sure of herself, too, for her reaction to him had been bewildering. He had excited her, stirred her. She had not wanted him to leave her and when he did so, abruptly, her disappointment had been sharp.

  She took the bridle path slowly, in the reverse direction from the one she had taken during her early morning rides. She found herself recalling how he would sometimes appear through the gap leading from the ancient gazebo in Merrow’s Thicket where, according to local legend, trysting lovers had once met. Perhaps they did so still. If so, they could be only village lads and lasses who knew the secret byways, for high society was no longer entertained at Tremain Hall, balls were no longer held there, visitors no longer filled the guest rooms, youth no longer held sway. It was a lonely place waiting to come alive again, and within its quiet walls Miguel lived out his solitary life, hiding his feelings, his thoughts, his dreams, his hopes, his fears, his longings.

  Not until this afternoon had she been fully aware of his loneliness. Because he was active about the estate, fulfilling all his duties, she — like everyone else, no doubt had imagined his life to be full and satisfying. Why had she never realized that the library in which she invariably found him was his favourite room because it was a refuge, a place to which he could escape from his father’s sometimes cantankerous company and his aunt’s eternal fretfulness? He loved them, he cared for them, he listened to them, he sympathized with them — but did they do the same for him? She doubted it. Sometimes ageing people could be blind to the needs of the young. Miguel found solace in books while his innermost self craved the solace of love.

  Deborah chose the longest way home because she wanted time for thought. She wasn’t ready to return to Ashburton and her mother’s inquiring glances. Jessica never asked questions, never probed, never interfered in her children’s lives, which was why those who had flown the nest were ever ready to revisit it, but she would naturally wonder if her youngest daughter had seen Miguel and what reasons he had given for staying away from Ashburton, particularly today. To parry those questions she had first to compose convincing answers.

  She took the bridle path slowly and when she reached the gap, she halted. It seemed very empty without him. She recalled how she had always looked out for him, hoping he would appear, looking forward to his company for the next mile or two and for their brief and friendly exchanges. She recalled how he always seemed to materialize just when she was reaching that gap, or be there already, stooping over boundary fences, intent on examining them. But had he been there for that reason? Had he really been there by chance?

  She spurred onward and downward. The ford by Badgers’ Brook proved to be swollen with rains, so she chose the right of way leading to the hill above Burslem where her mother had been born in a house called Medlar Croft, and in which Aunt Amelia still lived. The cutting emerged close to Carrion House, situated higher up. ‘My brother Joseph lived there in splendour, looking down on us from above…’ Jessica rarely mentioned her elder brother, but to Deborah that one remark conjured up a picture of the head of the Drayton family spying on their every action, sitting in judgement, passing sentence…

  Rain began again as she reached the entrance to Carrion
House. Tall gates opened onto a short and well-kept driveway. The whole place had been restored by her mother’s twin sister, but Lionel’s house-warming supper was the first occasion on which Deborah had ever been inside. The dining hall had been impressive, but the pink and gold withdrawing room, festooned with flowers and birds and dimpled cupids high on walls and ceilings, and pink satin upholstery on sofas and fragile gilt chairs had seemed tawdry; its glittering ornaments reflected in glittering Venetian mirrors, and elaborate pink satin window drapes adorned with gold braid and ribbons, had seemed tawdry and garish.

  ‘Like a brothel, isn’t it, my pretty cousin? But of course you wouldn’t know that, would you? You probably don’t even know what a brothel is…’

  Deborah had awarded him a disdainful glance. ‘My brothers enlightened me years ago, when I asked what the word meant. They even enlarged on it. I’m sure brothels can be found in Stoke and Liverpool and Nottingham and all the big cities and towns, but I don’t imagine they’re so expensively decorated as this.’

  At that Lionel had laughed, a note of approval in his voice. ‘I’m glad you’re not an innocent young miss — but I’m going to change this room entirely, get rid of all this gaudiness. I don’t like it. Few people do, whatever compliments they may pay. I notice your mother avoids it. That’s not surprising, since her sister died in this room…’

  Deborah had suppressed a shiver then, and she suppressed it now.

  Her brothers had never spared her anything. They were frank, boisterous, and affectionate, but boys the world over enjoyed shocking their sisters and hers had succeeded when telling her that their Aunt Phoebe had been strangled. ‘In Carrion House, in her bee-ootiful withdrawing room…robbed of her rubies by some break-in thief…’

  It was a horrible story set in a horrible place; a place with a violent history, some said, but the new Master of Drayton’s lived there contentedly.

  Deborah was about to spur her horse onward when the front door of Carrion House was flung open and a heavy figure lumbered down the steps. It was Aunt Agatha and the fact that she had given a footman no chance to open the door indicated uncharacteristic haste. Agatha always reminded Deborah of a placid cow contentedly chewing the cud, for that was how she mainly spent her days. To see her stumbling down the steps and across to her waiting carriage, not even sparing breath to call for her coachman’s aid, was so startling that Deborah’s immediate instinct was to go to her, but scarcely had she moved her horse forward than the man had leapt down from his perch and helped his mistress aboard and then, plainly obeying an urgent command, had whipped up the horses.

  Deborah withdrew hurriedly, but as the carriage rolled by she caught a glimpse of her aunt’s face. It was ashen.

  Disturbed, she rode on. If her aunt had been taken ill, she would be immediately taken care of when she reached Tremain, but her haste indicated energy, not illness. The impression left on Deborah was that Agatha Freeman had wanted to get away from Carrion House as quickly as possible, that something had happened to speed her departure, that she was shocked and distraught and, in such a state, would not have welcomed anyone’s attention — particularly the attention of anyone young. Agatha seemed to have very little time for young people, thoroughly disapproving of their manners and hinting darkly at their morals. Had she known, for instance, that Deborah had been alone with Miguel in Tremain’s library she would have put the worst interpretation on it…and she would very nearly have been right, Deborah thought with wry amusement and a certain wistfulness as she turned up the high collar of her redingote as protection against a renewed spate of rain.

  Far below, she saw Burslem crouched in the valley, the smoke from endless pottery chimneys drifting downward under the rain’s pressure. Water appeared to be rising up the canal’s banks, but there was no danger of flooding because her father had built it and anything he constructed was sound. But some of the mines farther afield might suffer.

  Her route now took her past the gates of the Drayton Pottery, by which time the rain had become a driving force. Her already damp clothes were becoming saturated. Common sense urged her to take shelter and common sense prevailed. She turned through the gates and in the middle of the potters’ yard she nearly ran down a flying figure…young, slight, plainly heading for the Master Potter’s office.

  It was Abby Walker and for a moment Deborah failed to recognize her. The girl had changed. There was a pertness in the way she looked up after dodging the oncoming hooves, a pertness quite unlike her earlier manner, which had been one of shy friendliness when confronted by those whom she regarded as her ‘betters’.

  Abby piped, ‘Don’t run me down, miss! I be wearing me new bodice an’ Master Potter won’t be pleased if it be dirtied!’ Before Deborah could answer she continued, ‘I’d best get back t’me bench if ye be visiting Master Lionel — ladies first, as they say, an’ I ain’t no lady. Not yet…’ Swiftly, she changed her mind and with a toss of the head she finished, ‘On t’other ’and, I were afore ye so I’ll see ’im first,’ and with no further ado she knocked boldly on the Master Potter’s door and walked in.

  *

  The girl’s abrupt entrance annoyed Lionel. He scowled and ordered her back to work.

  ‘But I’ve gotta talk to ye, Master Potter.’ She had developed a way of saying ‘Master Potter’ that hinted at mockery. His annoyance became anger.

  ‘You can have your say this evening; the usual time and place. Now get back to your bench.’

  She burst out, ‘It’s me mam — she be off to Nottingham an’ landlord won’t let me live in t’cottage alone. Got to be shared with “re-spons-ible adults”. Sez it’s the law, but Ma don’t believe it.’

  ‘Then go to Nottingham with her.’

  The unexpected idea presented him with a welcome and convenient loophole, free of dispute and with no lingering ties. The promised gold coin and a last hour of enjoyment and the baggage would be gone.

  ‘Go?’ she exploded. ‘Me? An wot would I be adoin’ in Nottingham?’

  ‘The same as your mother. I have no doubt you would be very successful. You have youth on your side, whereas she has none, and Nottingham is not only prosperous but renowned for its hospitable “ladies” and its wealthy gentlemen.’

  Her confidence was shaken. Her eyes filled with sudden tears. ‘Ye don’t mean it! Ye can’t!’

  ‘I can and I do. There is a time for things to begin and a time for them to end. You must face facts, and an inescapable one is that your work has deteriorated — fallen off,’ he explained, seeing her uncomprehending expression. ‘That means you would find it hard to get work in another pottery, but in any case there are none in Nottingham. Lace is the main industry there, and you have no skilled training for that. On the other hand, I have taught you well in other ways and your mother will know how to get clients.’

  ‘I won’t! I WON’T! ’Sides, she won’t take me. Sez it be your duty to set me up some place. Told me t’tell ye so, and that if ye don’t, ye’ll be sorry.’

  There was a moment’s deadly silence before he said, ‘Get out.’

  His voice was low and threatening. Abby backed to the door. This wasn’t going the way her ma had predicted.

  She quavered, ‘If ye don’t set me up, I got no place t’go. Landlord’s got another tenant waiting —’

  ‘He’s sure to say that if he wants to get someone out. Who owns that row of hovels, by the way? They’re alongside the Red Lion’s livery stables, aren’t they? That means they are tied and the Red Lion’s owner is the landlord. You’ll have to get out if he says so, though I should have thought one tenant was as good as another.’

  ‘Not to Joss Barlow. Sez ’e won’t ’ave no daughter o’ Kate Walker living there on ’er own an’ using the place for — you know wot.’ Her voice became pleading. ‘But if thee were to put in a word, Master Potter — if ye were to tell ’im, confidential-like, that ye want me t’stay there for good reason — then the man would be too afeared of offending the Master o’ Dray
ton’s to think o’ turning me out. Or mebbe,’ she finished, ‘I’ll get me mam to tell ’im, like she wants to.’

  He stared. He half rose. He leaned across his fine desk and said in the same low voice, ‘Get out — you dirty little blackmailer. And stay out. There’s no place for you in this pottery any more. If you come to work in the morning you’ll find that the gatekeeper has instructions to turn you away.’

  She retreated, shocked, sick with sudden hatred. She didn’t believe this was happening. Her mam wouldn’t believe it either — but her mam wasn’t around to hear. She was on her way to Nottingham with a tinker who’d picked her up at the Hiring Cross and by now she wouldn’t even be thinking of her daughter. Had she ever?

  (Mam, you’re a liar! All them things ye told me t’say, an’ all them things ye made me do — where’ve they got me? An’ where’ve they got thee? Nowheres! Ye said’ t’were a fine way t’mak’ a living — well, it ain’t! It ain’t even nice wi’ swine like that… I hates thee, Mam, an’ I ’opes as ’ow I never sees thee no more, ye dirty rotten baggage!)

  Blindly, Abby stumbled down the steps and into the potters’ yard. Rain was torrential now. There was no sign of the Kendalls’ daughter, but her horse was there. Someone had flung a blanket over his haunches and led him under the shelter of an overhang. A bag of oats hung from his neck and he looked comfortable and content, which was more than she felt herself. She was lost. Stunned. She didn’t know what to do or where to go. It would have to be back home — Joss Barlow couldn’t turn her out until morning. But then? What then?

  The door of the glazing shed opened and Dave Jefferson emerged, the young lady with him. Abby heard her thanking Dave for sheltering her, and at that moment both saw Abby, who promptly ran away.

  She knew just where she was going down to that cellar room — and exactly what she was going to do there. Wreck everything…rip those cushions to shreds…pour wine all over the carpet from that damned decanter he couldn’t do without…then smash it and those fancy goblets too…destroy everything…leave nothing untouched — and then…what then? Scream to everybody to come and see what she had done and laugh for the joy of it, and laugh even louder when the Master Potter saw it too.