The Hawthorne Heritage

by The Hawthorne Heritage (retail) (epub)

  ‘Do you know – how long?’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘Not long.’ Then, ‘I believe,’ she said, her voice still calm and low, ‘that we should send word to Caroline.’

  Dumbly Jessica nodded. Caroline – for the past four years the future Lady Standish – rarely visited New Hall since her marriage, for all that Standish House was a mere twenty miles from Melbury. Her ‘illness’ four years before and her ‘recuperation’ at a small and exclusive clinic somewhere in the south of England had been a five-minute wonder in the neighbourhood, and if anyone had had suspicions none had ever dared voice them aloud to a Hawthorne. On her return to health a visit had been paid to the baronet, the obliging Bunty’s equally obliging and penurious father, the upshot of which had been a swift and in the circumstances a remarkably quiet wedding. In the wake of these celebrations Standish House, whose fabric had been crumbling for nigh on a hundred years, had received extensive repairs and renovations. A year after her marriage Caroline had dutifully produced the son and heir that Jessica was certain had been part of the bargain, eighteen months later another and so, the Standish line safe, everyone was apparently happy. Jessica had never found herself able to take to her two fair, dull-eyed nephews whose small round faces were unremarkably regular and chinless as their father’s. She could never see Caroline without wondering; did she never dream of a sharp, dark angel’s face? – of a shock of black hair – gleaming, laughing, graceless eyes? Did she never think of the child, conceived in love, denied in terror and cowardice, to whom life had been so brutally denied? Jessica never asked – rarely, indeed, ever spoke to her sister if she could avoid it. The betrayal had been too great. As much by luck as by design Jessica’s part in Danny’s escape had never been discovered. She would not at the time have cared if it had been – her father might have beaten her half to death and she would have counted it a worthwhile bargain – but now she was happy that to this day no one at New Hall knew of her friendship with Danny. For it still to be a secret somehow kept the magic untarnished.

  She had no idea where he might be, had no hope ever of seeing him again, but yet hardly a day passed when she did not think of him, did not think of that lovely, bittersweet summer of his coming, of those days before Caroline had taken him from her, and then discarded him.

  And now, remembering that summer, another face came to mind.

  ‘Mama—?’ she asked, hesitantly, ‘Should we not – try to contact John—?’

  ‘No!’ The snapped word brooked no argument. ‘Absolutely not. I forbid it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘John made his choice, Jessica,’ her mother’s voice was even. ‘May God forgive him for it, for I have not and neither has your father. No, child, we shall not send to John.’

  She knew her mother well enough to know there was no arguing with that tone. ‘Do Clara and Giles know?’

  ‘Not from me.’ The words were cool. Her mother cast her a swift, veiled look, then turned back to the scene before them.

  Jessica sighed. Even before her father’s illness life at New Hall had been far from comfortable since Giles’ and Clara’s return after their marriage. The battle, politely vicious, between her mother and Clara for control of the household had been – Robert had declared, only half-joking – an affair only slightly less cut-throat than that between Napoleon and Wellington. To Jessica, caught between them, that had been all too shrewd an analogy; she, like many of Wellington’s men, had become adept at keeping her head down and staying out of trouble. In various ways, some more devious than others, Clara had brought her innovations to New Hall. By appealing prettily to her father-in-law she had her peacocks, that now strutted the lawns of New Hall, their raucous cries mocking any who did not care for them. As Maria did not.

  By relentless pressure, charmingly applied, she had introduced to the house the new and fashionable habit of eating the family dinner early so that a later ‘company’ supper might be enjoyed. It seemed to Jessica that never an evening passed without its card game, its theatrical pleasantries, its musical entertainment, over which activities the new young mistress of the house presided, sparkling and graceful. The carriages bowled to the door at six and rarely left before midnight, except of course during the Season, when she and Giles rented a London apartment and New Hall was left in peace. The small suite of rooms that Maria had had decorated and furnished for the newly-weds had within six months been entirely refurbished to Clara’s taste and inclination. Giles, so forceful with everyone else, so stubbornly set upon his own way, seemed incapable of standing against his wife in the smallest thing. In everything it seemed her wishes were paramount; yet time and again, still, Jessica sensed that strangeness between them, a barbed tension bordering on violence that to her bore little relationship to love or affection. And for all her relatively small triumphs, Clara, Jessica suspected, was not a happy woman, for she had signally and publically failed on two counts; for all her efforts she had in no way succeeded in usurping the quietly-wielded power of her mother-in-law, nor had she produced a child. Seated beside her mother, struggling to adjust to the devastating knowledge of her father’s coming death as the village celebrated the freedom of Europe about them it came to Jessica with something of a shock that the first of these failures was about to be rectified. With William Hawthorne dead Giles would be master of New Hall. And his wife its mistress.

  She looked down at her hands, which still small, square, decidedly inelegant were clasped in her lap. Tears were burning suddenly behind her eyes.

  Her mother’s lace-gloved fingers lay upon hers for a moment, gently and with sympathy. ‘Come. We should go back. There are preparations for tonight still to be made.’

  * * *

  For Jessica the Victory Ball, so much anticipated, was ruined before it started. Try as she might she could not take her eyes off her father. He played the perfect host, upright, courteous, dauntlessly attentive to the ladies, an unfailing part of the camaraderie of the men. Yet his face was ashen and his loss of weight horribly obvious in the immaculate dark dress suit that hung upon his gauntness, a mockery of times past.

  Her card was full – it always was, though she had no illusions as to the reason for that. She bore with harassed equanimity the efforts of the younger local gentry to convince her – and her rich parents – of their eligibility as they galloped with more or less skill and enthusiasm around the ballroom floor, her usual amusement at their often less than polished efforts to gain her attention on this occasion totally lacking. Her relief when Robert, with whom there was no necessity to play silly games, claimed her at last for an energetic polka was palpable.

  ‘Well,’ he said, grinning, as he led her onto the floor, ‘I suppose it will occur to me next time to book the supper dance three weeks in advance? Such a popular young lady you are these days—’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly.’ She was a little brusque, her eyes upon her father as he steered the overweight Lady Felworth around the floor. ‘We both know that I’m the only Hawthorne left on offer. That’s got to be worth a few dances, hasn’t it?’

  He missed a step in the dance, cocked a surprised eyebrow. ‘So sour on such a day?’

  She bit her lip. ‘Robert, I need to talk to you. I really do. Are you hungry? Do you mind skipping supper?’

  He shook his head readily, his eyes curious. ‘Surely not. But I’m engaged with the Honorable Lady Mary—’

  ‘And I with the young Mr Mowbray. I’m sure they’ll suit each other very well. If I can arrange it – will you meet me on the terrace when the others go in? I really can’t face the thought of food.’

  ‘Of course.’ His eyes searched her face. ‘A problem?’

  She nodded.

  The music lifted, bizarrely light-hearted, and the breathless dancers, smiling and perspiring, whirled past them.

  With a diplomacy worthy of her mother she freed them both. They met on the terrace, the cool air a benison after the crowded, foetid atmosphere of the ballroom. She leaned besid
e him at the balustrade, looking towards the lake. The full, glowing moon threw shadows in the park.

  She stood in silence, trying to marshal words, and failing. ‘How’s Oxford?’ she asked, at last.

  He turned his head to look at her, quizzically certain that they had not forgone supper to talk of Oxford University. ‘It’s pretty good.’ At nineteen he was of no more than medium height and still slim as a girl. The neat, dark cap of hair and the equally neat regular features were reassuringly the same as they had always been. Whilst others of her acquaintance had, with the onslaught of adolescence, produced violent and awkward changes as disturbing to them as they were to her, Robert had maintained that fastidious collectedness that for Jessica held the uncomplicated attraction of long familiarity. Their affection for each other had in no way dimmed. He was still the trusted companion of her childhood; her other, more reliable and less passionate self.

  ‘Father’s dying,’ she said.

  He drew breath in a long silence. ‘Yes,’ he said, and the soft compassion in that one word almost drew the tears again. ‘I guessed.’

  She swallowed. ‘Is it so obvious, then? Does everyone know?’

  He turned, his back against the stone balustrade. The light from the house caught his face and she saw the pain and the sympathy. ‘Yes. I would imagine so.’

  She made a small, choking noise, then lifted her head to look up into the star-strewn sky. ‘What will we do without him?’

  He shook his head, gently and in silence.

  She closed her eyes, took several deep, even breaths, fighting off anguished tears.

  His small hand covered hers, firm and warm. ‘It’s awful, Jess. Of course it is. But these things happen. It will happen to you. To me.’

  She nodded.

  ‘He’s very brave,’ he said quietly. ‘Very strong. I admire him greatly. I think you have to follow his example. If he can face it, so can you.’

  She tried to speak, and could not. In the warm night she trembled. The arm he laid about her shoulders was brotherly and loving. She leaned to him, miserably. Softly and with no words he laid his cheek against the mass of her hair. Behind them the music had started again, garishly cheerful.

  ‘Jessica?’ Her mother’s voice, quietly, behind her.

  She pulled away from Robert, sniffing. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Our guests are waiting.’ The firm words were not unkind, but Maria’s gaze was steady and uncompromising. ‘Lady Felworth was asking for you. You should speak with her.’

  Jessica ducked her head. ‘Yes, Mama.’

  As she moved away, Robert made to follow her and was detained by a light touch on his sleeve. ‘She must not be allowed to break, Robert,’ Maria’s eyes were on a level with his own. ‘Not yet. Afterwards—’ she paused, ‘—afterwards she will need your friendship. For now she must stand alone. As we all must.’ Calm and beautiful she turned and walked back into the brilliance of the ballroom, her back straight as a lance. Robert watched her go, an odd mixture of emotions on his face.

  ‘So there you are!’ Lady Mary Bentley, flushed and perspiring in inappropriate red velvet had appeared beside him. ‘Really, Robert FitzBolton, times have come hard when a girl has to search out her partner—! Think yourself lucky that I’ll dance with you at all—!’ With a firm grip and a dangerous gleam in her eye she steered him forcefully back to the dance.

  * * *

  Three days later William Hawthorne rode out to inspect the summer wheat that Giles had planted on a fertile stretch of newly-enclosed land, and a mile from the house he collapsed. They brought him home upon a cottage door, wrenched from its hinges to provide a stretcher. His face was a death’s mask of pain. For twenty-four hours he lay struggling for every breath, the last of his obstinate strength of will the only thing that kept him alive. He died in the darkness of the second night, his family by his bedside. Caroline, sobbing hysterically, was led from the room by her husband. Jessica stood by her mother, dry-eyed and exhausted. On the opposite side of the vast testered bed stood Clara and Giles, side by side but not touching each other. Giles’ eyes were fixed upon the still face of his father, drawn even in death into lines of mortal pain. Clara’s unfathomable dark eyes lifted to her husband’s face. And almost Jessica was ready to swear that she smiled.

  * * *

  The battle began the very day after William’s death.

  ‘Purple drapes for the dining room, I feel. Not black. Black is so very—’ Clara paused, delicately, ‘—depressing, don’t you think? I’ll tell Mrs Benson. And perhaps, Mother-in-Law, you might let me have a list of guests who might expect to eat with us? I must know the numbers if I am to discuss the funeral meats with Chef this afternoon—’

  Even in her grief, Jessica fumed. Her mother, her face set in an iron mask of composure, her eyes shadowed with pain, acquiesced to this overriding of her authority with more grace than Clara deserved – yet Jessica sensed the stirrings of anger and wondered if Clara really believed that Maria Hawthorne would so easily surrender her place and her influence.

  The funeral was huge; the whole county and half of London were there. Jessica struggled through it with a strange sense of unreality. Surely it could not be true that her handsome, forceful father could be dead? Sometimes, absurdly, she found herself listening for his voice, looking for his red-gold head above the crowd of mourners. It was hard to accept that such vivid life could have been extinguished.

  She sat before her dressing-table late in the evening of the funeral, the tears of the day still reddening her eyes, her exhausted sadness a dull ache in her head and in her heart. Lucy brushed her hair gently. The windows of the room high up in the west wing were open to a balmy night. On her sixteenth birthday, with MacKenzie triumphant in her final capture of the unfortunate Reverend Jones and her schoolroom books packed into a trunk in the attic, Jessica had begged to keep the nursery suite as her own. Her mother had been surprised; all the family suites – her own Yellow Suite, William’s very masculine rooms, Giles’ and Clara’s small suite – were in the east wing, and it had been assumed that Jessica would take the Blue Rooms, three small rooms on the top floor above Giles’ and Clara’s. But Jessica was adamant. She wanted the nursery suite, and she wanted Lucy to go with them. She ignored Robert’s shrewd teasing about little girls who did not want to grow up. Stubborn as any of them she dug her heels in; and half-exasperated, half-amused her mother had given in. Jessica loved the familiarity of the little rooms – refurbished and refurnished to be sure, but still comfortably and reassuringly hers – loved even their isolation from the rest of the family’s accommodation. And Lucy was a friend, utterly reliable and devoted, even if as Clara frequently and caustically pointed out her skills as a lady’s maid were limited. So, Jessica had been known to retort sharply, were her own skills as a lady.

  ‘I’ll bring you a posset, Miss Jess,’ Lucy said now, gently. ‘T’will help you sleep, maybe.’

  ‘Thank you, Lucy.’ Jessica, sighing, rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it – I don’t think I believe it even now.’

  Lucy nodded knowingly. ‘’Tis the shock. You’ll get over it, Miss Jess. Quicker than you think. You’ll see.’

  ‘And Mama?’ Jessica asked, more of her own reflection than of Lucy. ‘Will she?’

  ‘Why bless your heart, of course she will. You mark my words. Now. Into bed with you. I’ll go and get a nice warm drink—’

  Too tired to sleep Jessica lay in bed watching, as she had so often watched as a child, the flicker of the nightlight upon the bedroom ceiling, and wondered for the first time and faintly uneasily how this horrible upheaval would affect her own life. For it suddenly came to her that her brother Giles was now the head of the family and as such presumably had the disposal of her hand in marriage. There had been in the past, Jessica knew, some approaches to William Hawthorne, none of which, thankfully, had met with his approval. She did not know why she did not share Caroline’s eagerness to marry before she was eigh
teen; she only knew that, as with so many other things, she did not. Would Giles be as scrupulous for her welfare as her father had been? Or would he simply be so anxious to get her off his hands that he would hand her over, bag and baggage, to the first man who bothered to offer? Her father had left good provisions for a dowry – who in heaven’s name might that not attract once the mourning period was done? Just before she slipped at last into uneasy sleep she resolved to speak to her mother on the subject; Maria, hopefully, would not see her youngest daughter, gauche as she still might be, married off to an old man with grown children – or a young one with no brains and less money, like the fatuous Bunty Standish—

  Maria, however, it soon became apparent, had worries of her own.

  Two days after the funeral – Jessica later grimly came to wonder how she had left it so long – Clara made her first real move to claim her place as undisputed mistress of the household. Jessica came to breakfast that morning a little late – breakfast was served at ten and she always walked in the park with Bran, weather permitting, before joining the family for this first meal of the day. That morning Bran – a rather more staid Bran now, his puppy exuberance somewhat tamed, but still as accident-prone as ever – had chased a duck into the lake and on emerging had shaken himself happily, covering Jessica from head to toe in flecks of mud and slime. Consequently on arriving home she had to change her clothes before making her way to the breakfast room.

  Clara’s voice, sharp and clear, stopped her in her tracks outside the door. ‘—is perfectly obviously my right as your wife and mistress of this house. You must move in to your father’s rooms, of course – and the Yellow Suite must be mine. Your mother will see that, I’m sure. She can move into our rooms. They’re perfectly adequate for a woman alone. You’ll arrange it—?’

  Giles muttered something.