‘Yes, sir. Goodnight sir.’ Brinsley stood up to leave, but Kate deduced that she was expected to stay.
‘Excuse me, uncle, if I just tell my brother that there is a letter for him in my room.’
‘You gave me the one from Mother and Father,’ Brinsley reminded her.
‘This one is from Duke. I saw him just before I left. Uncle William’s mention of cricket reminded me of it. Duke’s promised to look after Bristow Great House while we’re away.’
Brinsley went off in search of the letter, closing the door carefully behind him. Kate turned back to her uncle and found that he was staring at her curiously.
‘Bristow Great House?’ he said. ‘What is that?’
‘Just a place where Brinsley and I used to play as children,’ said Kate. ‘In the days when the land was worked by slaves, it was the home of the plantation owner. Now it’s almost a ruin. Nobody has lived in it for years.’
‘You talk of “the plantation”. Which plantation?’
‘The estate which is worked by my father’s congregation,’ said Kate. ‘He’s told you about it, surely.’ She was puzzled by the intensity of her uncle’s interrogation. Since he provided the shipping which brought much of the produce of the estate to England, he must know how his brother’s interests had expanded from religion to agriculture.
‘I’m aware that your father owns a plantation,’ said William. ‘But I’ve always understood it to be called the Hope Valley Estate. That’s the name branded on the crates which he consigns to my ships.’
‘That’s what it’s called now,’ agreed Kate. ‘But in the old days it was the Bristow plantation, and the house still keeps that name. Not that anyone ever speaks of it except Brinsley and myself.’
‘How did your father get his hands on it?’ William had sprung to his feet while she was talking. Suddenly he was pounding the desk with such force that the decanter of brandy jerked dangerously towards the edge. The fierceness of his anger terrified Kate, so that she too rose to her feet as though she might need to defend herself. For a moment it seemed that he was trying to control his feelings, but the restraint was even more alarming than the open fury.
‘I made enquiries,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Not at once, because it was necessary to wait until all danger passed of the Jamaican property being sucked into my father’s estate after his death and disposed of to the benefit of his creditors. I was patient for a good many years. And when at last I put in my claim, I was told that my rights had lapsed. That the land which I should have inherited had been disposed of. And now you tell me that your father owns the property. But I tell you that he has no right to it. Who is the eldest son? Tell me that. Who is the eldest son?’
Kate, bewildered, could think of no reply, but none was expected.
‘If there was anything left after the collapse of my father’s business, if there was any legacy which could have been honoured as he would have wanted, it should have come to me. It should have come to me, I say. Your father is no better than a thief. I shall – I shall –’
He raised his hand to pound the desk for a second time. Ridiculously, it was for the safety of the decanter that Kate was now alarmed. She put out a hand to save it, but the impending blow did not materialize. William was attempting to struggle from the grip of some kind of paralysis. His upraised hand trembled, but would not obey him. He stood as though posing for a statue, frozen into an ungainly attitude of anger, one shoulder hunched towards his neck, a fist poised to descend. His complexion had flushed to the purple which Arthur had described earlier in the day. Kate, at her mother’s side, had witnessed a great many emergencies in Hope Valley, but never anything like this.
‘Aunt Sophie!’ she called; but guessed at once that the thick walls and mahogany doors insulated the rooms of Brinsley House too well for any call to be heard. She tugged at the bell pull and hurried round to the other side of the desk to support her uncle. Try as she might, she was not strong enough to force him safely into his chair, for all his muscles were rigid. Only his teeth chattered a little as he attempted, but failed, to speak.
The butler came in answer to the bell, only to stand frozen to the spot with shock. Kate called again, this time through the open door, and Sophie arrived with an outraged expression. At the first sight of her husband her expression changed and she fainted dead away. It was Arthur at last who took control of the situation, sending messages to a doctor and summoning more servants to carry his father up to bed.
No one, in the general turmoil, took any notice of Kate, and she was glad of it. More than two hours passed before Arthur returned to the study and found her still sitting there, huddled in a leather armchair.
‘How is he?’ she asked. Arthur sat down in his father’s chair on the far side of the desk, for there were no other seats in the study.
‘Still alive,’ he said. ‘But the doctors are not hopeful about his condition. He has had an apoplectic stroke, it seems. I’m not quite clear yet what that implies. He has lost the power of speech, and the whole of his left side is paralysed. The right hand, too, is beyond his control at the moment. If there is to be any improvement, it is to be looked for there, they say. However that may be, he will never work again. Never be himself again. I can hardly credit what has happened – that it should be so sudden. One moment an active, astute man with all his faculties; and then within seconds a helpless object, to be carried and nursed. If he had died tonight, Kate, I would have had those men before a court tomorrow morning on a charge of manslaughter.’
‘The men?’ she queried, not understanding him.
‘The trouble-makers. There’s not the slightest doubt in my mind that they’re responsible for this. I suspect that he came very near to his present condition while they were in his office this morning. No doubt he was going over the conversation again in his mind, so that his anger returned. Or perhaps he was recounting it to you – you were in here with him, were you not?’
‘Yes, I was.’ said Kate. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded faint, and she was conscious of Arthur looking at her with concern. But he would think it natural that she should be shocked by what had happened. He could not guess, and she dared not confess, what had really been the subject of her conversation with his father.
Nothing had ever been mentioned in her presence at home about the way in which the Bristow plantation had come into her father’s possession. She did not even know whether it was his personal property or whether he was a kind of trustee, administering it on behalf of the Hope Valley community. Although feeling herself accused alongside her father, she had no guilty knowledge which would have allowed her to understand exactly what it was which had so greatly upset her uncle. Nevertheless, it was impossible to conceal from herself one fact of guilt: the fact that his loss of control had been caused by something which she herself had said, though in all innocence, and not by the memory of his earlier arguments with the dock workers.
No doubt his anger on the first occasion had made him more vulnerable to the stress of the second upset, but Kate’s conscience was not completely clear, all the same. She would have felt happier if she could have confessed her doubts to her cousin, recounting the conversation in the hope that he could assure her that it was of no consequence. But her ignorance of the background and of the true facts sapped her confidence. If there were truly something wrong, to bring it into the open might cause trouble for her father. There had been talk of a legacy, and the implication that it had been misapplied. What were her uncle’s words? ‘No better than a thief!’
Everything in Kate’s upbringing told her that she ought to be frank and honest. But her uncle’s tirade had frightened her – on her father’s behalf as well as her own. If her uncle recovered his speech, of course, or the power to write, he would be able to explain to the world whatever it was that had made him so furiously angry. To the confusion of Kate’s emotions was added, for one involuntary second, the hope that perhaps he might not recover. Kate was so shocke
d by the wickedness of her own thoughts that without warning she burst into tears.
Almost at once she conquered her feelings with anger at her own behaviour. ‘I never cry!’ she exclaimed, gulping herself under control again. But the moment of breakdown had lasted long enough to bring Arthur to her side. He sat on the arm of the leather chair and she was conscious of his hand gripping her shoulder.
‘It would be remarkable if you didn’t feel upset,’ he said. ‘None of us has properly imagined what this day has meant to you. You’ve left everyone you love and sailed halfway across the world to begin a new life. You find yourself in a family of people who – relatives though we may be – are strangers. We expect you to be at ease in a strange house; and give you, no doubt, strange food to eat. And just as you’re beginning to relax into the normal routine of this new life, it’s all upset by an emergency. No wonder you are disturbed. I can’t apologize enough for giving you such a bleak welcome to England.’
‘You’ve all been very kind,’ protested Kate. Already she had forgotten her own earlier resentment of her aunt’s coldness. Arthur’s arm encircling her shoulders was comforting, and his voice was sympathetic: she did indeed at this moment feel herself to be one of the family.
‘I’m wondering,’ he said, ‘whether you would prefer to go straight to London? You mustn’t misunderstand me. We had expected you to stay with us for several weeks, and I know that my mother was looking forward to equipping you for your life in England. Beatrice, too, saw you as a new recruit to her campaign and will not be at all pleased if I whisk you away. As for myself, I had looked forward to your company even before you arrived, and now that I have met you I’m even more loath to deprive myself of it. But I’m trying to consider the situation from your point of view. There can be no doubt that the next few days are bound to impose a great strain on my mother. Whether my father’s condition improves or deteriorates, she will want to be at his side. In the same way, it will be necessary for me to take control of his business affairs. I’m perfectly well able to do so, but in the past he has been reluctant to allow me too much responsibility, so that at least to begin with it may be necessary for me to work longer hours than usual. If you stay here, I fear you will be neglected. And however much you may protest that you understand the reason, you’re bound to be lonely, since you’ve had no time at all yet to make friends of your own. And so I’m wondering whether you’d like me to telephone Aunt Margaret and ask whether you could begin your stay in London earlier than had been arranged.’
‘Do you think it will be convenient?’ asked Kate. She was anxious not to cause trouble to anyone, but it was hard to judge where she would be least in the way.
‘You probably know that she spends much of her time at the hospital. Whether you go now or later, she may not be able to give you much of her own company. But presumably she has given some thought to the question of entertaining you and introducing you to young women of your own age. And in any case –’
Kate interrupted what promised to be a never-ending list of reasons why she should leave. Her moment of weakness had been caused by guilt rather than either shock or shyness, and she saw the need to form a definite opinion about her own future. It was her aunt Margaret who was her true hostess in England, who had written spontaneously to Jamaica hoping that Kate would live with her while she studied, and had pressed the invitation with warmth and generosity until the offer was accepted. The stay at Brinsley House had been arranged only because it would have seemed rude of Kate to land at Bristol from a Lorimer ship and make no attempt to see her Bristol relatives. But from the first moment she had felt herself to be a nuisance, and circumstances now allowed this to be acknowledged by both sides.
‘If Aunt Margaret is prepared to have me, I agree that it would be best for me to move on to London at once,’ she said, and Arthur’s smile confirmed that she had made the right decision.
3
The home of a warm-hearted woman quickly becomes crowded. Even a small army of servants had not been able to prevent Brinsley House from appearing empty, almost desolate; but as soon as Kate stepped inside her aunt Margaret’s much smaller house in Queen Anne’s Gate she was struck by the atmosphere of bustle and warmth created by a number of people all living full lives in an affectionate atmosphere.
Margaret herself appeared at the door to welcome her niece and nephew – for when told what had happened she had insisted that Brinsley should travel with his sister and stay until the school term began. The housekeeper, Betty, did not slip silently away as any of Sophie’s servants would have done. She waited, beaming, at the back of the hall, and was introduced. Margaret’s son, Robert, was there, too, well scrubbed and looking very respectable in his Sunday suit. His eyes were bright with pleasure and mischief, though, and as soon as he had shaken Kate solemnly by the hand he hurried Brinsley off to the room which the two boys were to share.
‘You’ll find it rather a crush here compared with Brinsley House,’ Margaret apologized, but the cheerfulness of her voice suggested that this did not greatly worry her. To prove her words, a small girl – pursued by her nursemaid – came scrambling down the stairs at that moment to see what was going on. Her blonde hair, bright blue eyes and rosy cheeks gave her the appearance of a china doll, but this impression was at once belied by the energy with which she bounced up and down, demanding attention, until she was picked up for a quick snuggle.
‘This is Frisca.’ Margaret introduced her, gave her one more brisk kiss, and handed her back to the nursemaid. Then she led Kate into the drawing room.
Kate assumed her to say Frisker. That’s an unusual name!’ she exclaimed. She could see that it was appropriate, but was bound to find it unfeminine.
‘She was christened Francisca. But from the moment she could walk she’s hardly been still for a single second – she seems determined to hop, skip and dance non-stop through life. Her mother began to call her Frisky and the nickname was certainly apt enough. But I felt it to be more suitable to a puppy than a little girl. Frisca is my attempt at a compromise. She lives with me here, because her mother spends so much time travelling. Alexa is an opera singer, you know.’
‘And Frisca’s father?’ asked Kate.
‘Her father died before she was born. He was killed in the earthquake at San Francisco. Alexa is in London now, so you will see her this evening – that is to say, if she doesn’t have to spend the night in prison.’
‘Is that likely?’ Kate was startled, but remembered what Beatrice had said.
‘There’s to be a demonstration in Hyde Park this afternoon. A procession of suffragists. One can never be quite sure what will happen. But now you must give me all the news of your dear parents before I allow you to go and unpack.’
How different it was from Sophie’s polite enquiries. Kate knew that as well as being her father’s sister, Margaret had been a friend of her mother’s since they were both girls. They had shared lodgings as medical students, and even after they had qualified as doctors. They had shared, too, all the secrets of their hearts in those long-ago days. Margaret, moreover, had been in Jamaica when Grant was born. Kate knew how much her presence then had meant to the whole family.
Only when the subject of Jamaica had been exhausted did Margaret ask after her elder brother. She had already been informed of his stroke over the telephone, and now pressed for details as soon as she realized that Kate had actually been in the room when it happened. All Kate’s feelings of guilt revived for a moment, until she realized that Margaret was considering the situation as a doctor rather than as a sister. Even then, she was glad when her aunt nodded thoughtfully and suggested that she might now like’ to unpack.
After luncheon, Kate felt a sudden return of her normal energy, which had been restricted first by the cramped conditions on the banana boat and then, almost as much, by the stifling etiquette of Brinsley House.
‘May I go for a walk in Hyde Park?’ she asked. ‘I would very much like to see Alexa’s demonstration.’
She was not quite clear whether Alexa was a cousin or an aunt or connected with the family only by adoption, but she had noticed that her Bristol cousins used the Christian name alone, so presumed that it was in order for her to do so as well. A slight frown on Margaret’s face made her wonder whether she had decided wrongly, but it soon appeared that there was a different cause for disapproval.
‘These occasions are very crowded. And there is always the danger that a disturbance may develop; even a riot. It depends very much on the police. Sometimes there are huge crowds – thousands of people – and yet no trouble at all, because the atmosphere is sympathetic. But on other days, if the Home Secretary has lost patience, there may be arrests, and attempts to resist arrest, and sometimes very unpleasant injuries are inflicted.’ She considered a moment longer and then smiled. ‘Well, if you are to live in London, you must be prepared to face its hazards, I suppose, though I had hoped to protect you for a little longer. You’ve probably realized already that I’m uncertain how I ought to look after you. I’ve no doubt you think of yourself as grown-up, but I may be conscious of dangers of which you can have no experience. I must behave as though I were your mother.’
‘Who has allowed me to run wild all my life,’ said Kate, laughing mischieviously, and Margaret s smile showed that she was well aware of this.
‘At least you must take Robert and Brinsley to protect you,’ she said. ‘And I shall ask you for a promise that you will keep well back from the procession. It’s the people in the front of the crowd who are at risk from the mounted policemen. Will you agree to that?’
Kate was willing to accept any conditions, and said so, but she was a little surprised by her aunt’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for the demonstration. Sophie’s comments on her sister-in-law had given the impression that Margaret was a supporter of the suffrage movement.
The Lorimer Legacy Page 29