‘I hope he’s well?’
‘He had a couple of colds last winter, but now summer’s coming I hope he’ll be all right.’ Rose saw Polly looked embarrassed now. She was pink and blushing, and her hands were twisting nervously. ‘M-miss Courtenay?’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t want you to hear this in the village, so I’ll tell you myself.’ Polly looked past Rose’s head. ‘Miss, I hope I’ve always known my place?’
‘Polly, of course you have. But nowadays–’
‘It’s just that – well, your father is a very lonely man. After you went to be a nurse, and poor Lady Courtenay passed away, he – he had nobody.’
‘I’m back now, Polly,’ Rose said softly. ‘I’ll make it up to him, I promise.’
‘Miss, it isn’t that, and whatever Mrs Sefton says, I’m not a fallen woman! I don’t want his money, or to come between him and his daughter. I love you both too much for that. But Miss Courtenay, poor Sir Gerard–’
Polly was bright scarlet. ‘Them awful, spiteful things I said to you, Miss Courtenay – I’ve thought about them often, and I’m so ashamed.’
‘It’s all right, Polly.’ Rose finally understood. ‘I don’t mind,’ she added, remembering Elsie’s words. ‘I know as well as anyone that we don’t choose whom we love.’
When Rose called at the Dower House, her father wasn’t there. Or he wouldn’t see her, but she didn’t force the issue with the nervous-looking maid.
By the time she returned to Henry’s house, she found that Alex had gone out, but not to work, apparently.
‘He had a phone call, and then he went off somewhere in my car.’ Henry was bumbling round his rotting orangery, tending his collection of dusty-looking cacti and other spiny, predatory plants. ‘I’m just about to have a spot of luncheon, if you’d care to join me?’
‘You’re looking well,’ said Alex, as Chloe leaned her powdered cheek towards him and he kissed the air obediently.
‘You look awful.’ Chloe stared at him. ‘I used to think you were so handsome. But you’re not handsome now.’
Alex was determined not to let Chloe rile him. He ushered her from the street into the inn where he had booked a private dining room.
He ordered all three courses to be brought and left in chafing dishes. Then he sent the man away, saying he and Mrs Denham would serve themselves.
‘Why did you want to see me?’ Alex asked, as Chloe started on her soup. Then, when Chloe didn’t reply, he added, ‘Chloe, I’ve been thinking. If you could see a way to let me go–’
‘So you can marry the harlot?’ Chloe sniffed and shuddered. She stroked the collar of her new and clearly very expensive jacket with one smooth, white hand.
‘I think it would be best for all concerned if you and I admitted we’re not suited,’ persisted Alex.
‘You can admit whatever you choose,’ said Chloe. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’ She glared at him, her pale eyes narrowed. ‘You do admit desertion, adultery and cruelty?’
Alex shrugged.
‘Very well, if you agree you’re in the wrong, I’ll go and see my solicitor tomorrow.’
Alex stared, astonished. What solicitor? Why was Chloe being so decent? Why was she agreeing to let him go? Carefully, go carefully, he told himself. ‘The fault will all be on my side,’ he murmured.
‘Well, I should hope so, too.’ Chloe’s eyes were slits. ‘I don’t suppose any woman had a husband worse than you!’
‘How will you manage?’ Alex asked, aware that he was holding a box of live grenades which threatened to go off all at once. ‘I mean financially?’
‘You’ll have to make a settlement on me.’ Chloe’s blue eyes glittered. ‘My lawyer’s already given me some good advice on settlements.’
‘Chloe, who is your lawyer?’
‘Mr Reade of Reade and Makepeace, not that it’s any concern of yours, I’m sure.’
‘That’s the Easton family’s firm,’ said Alex, and the smell of rats was suddenly so strong and all-pervasive that it overpowered Chloe’s expensive scent of roses.
‘So now they’re my solicitors, as well.’ Chloe’s eyes were icicles of malice. ‘You and that woman – you’re going to be so poor, you know. So very, very poor.’
Alex sat there silent, not knowing what to think – let alone to say. Chloe couldn’t afford the services of Reade and Makepeace. She couldn’t afford expensive clothes. What was Michael Easton up to now, and how was he involved in this?
He pushed his soup aside, got up and left the inn.
‘Let them do their worst,’ said Rose. ‘They can’t take your money, because you don’t have any money. They can’t destroy your reputation. Michael has no influence in the army, and even if he tried to do you down, your commanding officers would all stick up for you. What else is there to fear?’
‘The worst thing – losing you.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.’ Rose stroked his hair back from his forehead. ‘Please stop frowning, it makes you look so grim.’
‘I want to marry you, and make a decent life for both of us, but if Chloe ruins me financially, how are we going to live?’
‘You’ll think of something, Alex. You always do.’ Rose shrugged her shoulders. ‘I could take in washing.’
‘It might come to that.’
‘I don’t care, as long as I have you.’
A few days later, Alex told Rose he had to go to London for a week.
‘Why?’ asked Rose, and followed him upstairs into their room.
‘I have some things to do, people to see.’
‘May I come, too?’
‘It’s only boring army business, darling.’ Alex threw his shaving things into a battered case. ‘It wouldn’t interest you.’
‘But why are you going to London? I thought you were based in Dorchester?’
‘London’s where I’ll find this chap I need to go and see. I’ll soon be home again, don’t worry.’ Alex grinned at Rose. ‘You haven’t seen the last of me.’
Rose saw Alex off at Charton station. Then, mainly to distract her from her fretting, she started cleaning Henry Denham’s house, chivvying the elderly female servants and geriatric butler into taking down the curtains for an airing, cleaning all the filthy, fogged-up windows, and beating all the grime-encrusted carpets on a line.
Two days later, when she’d finished and Henry hadn’t even seemed to notice, let alone be pleased, she wondered why she’d bothered. She looked around for something else to do.
Eventually, she decided she couldn’t put off seeing Sir Gerard any longer. She walked up to the Dower House, prepared to insist on seeing her father, pushing past all his servants if this proved necessary.
But she was admitted straight away and shown into Sir Gerard’s drawing room, where he sat in an ancient dressing gown, drinking his morning coffee.
‘Sit down, Rose,’ he said.
She sat, and saw he looked much better than when she’d seen him last. Polly must be doing him good, she thought.
‘You’ve come to your senses, then?’ he asked.
‘I beg your pardon, Daddy?’
‘You’ve come back home, and you’ve decided you will do your duty?’
‘My duty?’
‘You’re going to marry that young man who always did his duty, and who loves you still.’
‘I haven’t seen Mike since I got back,’ said Rose.
‘Then I suggest you do, before he decides to make any alternative arrangements.’
Sir Gerard stirred his cooling coffee with a silver spoon. Rose looked at the carpet and wondered what to say – should she tell her father what had happened, how Michael had behaved in Russia, tell him the village gossip was all true?
She didn’t think he’d believe her – or the village.
‘I saw our Mr Heatherley on Tuesday,’ said Sir Gerard.
Rose looked up at once, wondering why he’d seen the family’s lawyer, and suddenly afraid her father must
be ill, or even dying.
‘I’ve settled all my affairs,’ he said. ‘Rose, you know that Charton has been in our family for a thousand years, or thereabouts?’
‘Yes, of course, but I–’
‘I have no male heir, so I have had to make some hard decisions.’ Sir Gerard shrugged. ‘You’ve proved yourself to be the usual kind of female flibbertigibbet, so I’ve made sure you’ll have some proper guidance when I’m gone.
‘Rose,’ he continued earnestly, ‘forget this man you’re seeing! Marry someone worthy of you! Marry a man who’ll care for you, look after you?’
Rose didn’t trust herself to speak.
‘I’m gifting the whole estate to Michael Easton,’ said Sir Gerard. ‘I have no plans to marry again, and in default of any male succession, it appears I can do this.’
So Michael Easton would inherit Charton. Rose felt as if her father had punched her in the stomach, or hit her with a hammer. But she wouldn’t beg, she wouldn’t plead, she wouldn’t grovel, and she certainly wouldn’t marry Michael Easton.
‘In that case, Daddy,’ she said stiffly, ‘I’d better tell you now. I’m going to marry Alex.’
Sir Gerard shrugged. ‘If you marry a man who’s been divorced, I won’t be able to see you any more.’
Rose could see he meant it. The choice was Michael, misery, wealth and comfort, or Alex, happiness and poverty.
There was no choice.
She stood up, kissed her father on the brow and left the room. As she left the Dower House, she knew she couldn’t blame him, for he was a product of his class, of prejudice, of narrow-mindedness handed down the Courtenay generations for a thousand years.
In shock, but knowing deep down that she’d expected something like it, she went into the village to see Daisy.
After several visits to the cottage, Daisy got used to Rose, and even started looking out for her, so Rose began to take the little girl for walks or outings in Sir Gerard’s ancient gig.
Rose and Mrs Hobson got on well. By June, she was no longer stiff Miss Courtenay, the landlord’s well-born daughter, but plain and simple Rose.
She often took Daisy to the shingle beach, where they had impromptu sandy picnics, and looked for whelks and fossils.
‘She’s such a little poppet,’ Rose said wistfully, as she returned the sleepy infant to her foster mother at the end of yet another lazy, lovely day spent watching fishing boats go out, and paddling in the surf.
‘She’s my little precious.’ Mrs Hobson took the dozing child. ‘She ain’t my blood, I know. But I loves this baby like my own.’
It was as if the war had never happened. Alex was still based in Dorchester, where he was adjutant to the colonel, doing paperwork all day and grumbling he’d have joined the Civil Service if he’d wanted to be a clerk.
When he was on leave, he joined in Rose’s and Daisy’s expeditions, and Daisy got to know him, squealing with delight whenever Alex picked her up and swung her round, and fishing in his pockets for sweets or little toys.
‘She’s such a flirt,’ said Rose, as Daisy whispered into Alex’s ear, or smiled from underneath her long, soft lashes, coyly looking up at him. When Alex smiled at her or spoke, she blushed and hid her face, then peered round Rose’s skirts and beamed, her lovely blue eyes bright.
She was her father’s child in looks. Everybody in the village said so, and for once the gossip was well-founded, for she had Michael’s eyes, his mouth, his nose, his corn-gold hair. All she had of Phoebe was her heart-shaped face and charming smile, her sweet, flirtatious air. Michael might be able to deny his daughter now, but one day he was going to have to face it.
Daisy Hobson was his child.
‘A letter for you, my dear,’ said Henry, one hot July morning. ‘The fellow brought it from the Dower House.’
When Maria died, Rose had written to Phoebe Gower care of Mrs Rosenheim, but not had a reply. Now she realised why. The letter had come from Leeds, and Phoebe’s scrawled directions were all wrong, so the letter had been sent all over Dorset.
She wrote back at once, inviting Phoebe to come down to Charton and stay at Henry’s house.
Phoebe got down from the train at Charton looking scared. She stared around aghast, as if she’d never seen green fields or rolling hills before. She sniffed suspiciously, as if she’d never breathed sweet, country air.
‘Rose, thank God you’re ’ere!’ She fell on Rose’s neck and hugged her tight. ‘Them people in the carriage, they’ve been giving me such looks! As if I was from Afriker, or somethin’. What’s wrong with me ’at, I’d like to know?’
‘Your hat’s divine, and you look lovely – that’s why people stared.’ Rose took the visitor’s arms from round her neck. ‘Phoebe, this is Daisy.’
‘’Ello, sweetheart!’ Phoebe crouched to smile at the child, but Daisy went all shy and hid her face.
‘She’ll come round,’ said Rose. ‘Where’s your luggage? Just this case? We’ll carry that between us.’
They walked out of the station and through Charton village, then took the road that led them past the Minster.
‘I used to live there once,’ said Rose, and pointed to the honey-coloured house.
‘You never did!’ Phoebe stared, amazed and open-mouthed. ‘Your old man a duke or somethin’?’
‘No, he’s just a country gentleman. The Minster’s been our family home for centuries, but I’m not welcome now.’
‘Where you stayin’, then?’
‘At a friend’s house. You’ll be staying there, too.’
‘You mean with your feller, Daisy’s dad?’ Phoebe’s huge, dark eyes were suddenly scared. ‘Rose, I don’t really think I want to see–’
‘Phoebe, I’ve told you half a dozen times! Michael’s not my feller, as you put it, never has been, never will be!’ Rose scooped Daisy up. ‘Let’s get a move on, then we’ll be in time for tea.’
They got back to Henry’s house just as one of the ancient maids was staggering through the double doors and out on to the terrace with the tea tray, where Henry was sitting in a wicker chair.
‘Ah, Rose and young Miss Daisy and a friend.’ Dressed like a vagrant in his mildewed, ragged tweeds, Henry scrambled up and bowed to Phoebe, who stared at him, astonished. ‘How do you do, Miss–’
‘Gower, Phoebe Gower. Phoebe, this is Mr Henry Denham.’ Rose and Daisy sat down on a bench, and Rose motioned Phoebe towards the other wicker chair. ‘Thank you, Eliza, you may go. I shall pour out the tea.’
Phoebe stared around as if amazed. Although the house was crumbling and decrepit, the terrace looked very beautiful in summer, with its riot of scarlet pelargoniums in the weathered troughs and great stone urns, with its formal paving of lichened, golden stone, and its view of headlands, fields and sea.
Rose blessed Henry Denham, who put Phoebe at her ease, asking her about her journey, smiling and looking interested in everything she said.
He drank his tea and then excused himself, saying he ought to go and see his roses. Daisy toddled after him.
‘I’ll be sorry to see Daisy go,’ said Rose, as they watched the little girl take Henry’s wrinkled hand. He offered her a biscuit from his pocket, and she scattered crumbs for his little flock of tame white doves. ‘She’s such a lovely child.’
‘Yeah, she’s a peach.’ Phoebe gazed across the heat-hazed garden. ‘Looks just like ’er dad, though. Rose, when you brought ’er ’ere, did you ’ave any trouble?’
‘You mean, did people wonder whose she was?’ Rose shrugged. ‘Well, as you say, it’s obvious she’s Michael’s. I imagine all the village biddies thought she must be mine. But as for actual trouble – well, not really, no.’
Leaving Henry to look after Daisy, Rose took Phoebe to her room, ready to apologise for all the mushrooms growing on the walls and the air of general decay.
But Phoebe was enchanted. ‘Look at that enormous bed!’ she cried. ‘All them velvet curtains! Rose, it’s like in a film! Milady’s boudoir, eh? I’ll f
eel like I’m the queen tonight!’
‘Phoebe, it’s just a big, old-fashioned bed.’ Rose put Phoebe’s little cardboard suitcase on the chest of drawers. ‘Let’s go and find Daisy now.’
Rose had arranged with Mrs Hobson to keep the little girl at Henry’s house, so she and Phoebe could get to know each other before they went away.
But as the days went by and Phoebe’s pale skin tanned a golden brown, Rose saw Phoebe took very little interest in the child. She spoke to her and played with her, but never sat her on her lap or cuddled her. If Daisy wanted reassurance or affection, she always went to Rose.
‘You don’t need to be afraid of Daisy,’ Rose told Phoebe one cool evening, after they’d put the little girl to bed. ‘I know she’s small, but children are quite tough.’
‘Yeah, I suppose they must be.’ Phoebe shrugged. ‘Rose, do you play cribbage? Henry was tellin’ me ’e ’ad a board.’
Alex had been away from home, but now he had some leave and was in Dorset for a week. ‘Alex, this is Phoebe Gower,’ said Rose. ‘She’s come to visit Daisy.’
‘Good afternoon, Miss Gower.’ Alex held out his hand and Phoebe smirked, preening herself and patting her neat chignon of dark hair, a flirt just like her daughter.
Although he was polite and pleasant, Alex seemed proof against all Phoebe’s charms. After they’d had tea and cake and talked about the weather for a while, he took Rose indoors, leaving Daisy looking at her mother.
They went straight upstairs. Afterwards, Alex lay back on the pillows. ‘The third battalion’s marked for India,’ he said, and stared up at the ceiling.
‘When did you find out?’
‘There was a rumour several weeks ago.’
‘That’s why you went to London, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, to see a man who’d just got back.’
‘When do you go?’ asked Rose.
‘September or October. I’ve been bumped up to major. So I’ll have a decent bungalow, some money, all the servants I could need. In India, I’ll be living in a style I could only dream about in Britain.’ He turned to her at last. ‘Rose, how would you like to be a mem?’
‘You mean you’d take me with you?’
The Silver Locket (Choc Lit) Page 27