The mood of the church was still with her. She belonged here. No matter what others did, or thought, or wanted, she belonged here. She wanted Danny – oh, how desperately she wanted him! – but yet she knew she had done the right thing in coming home. And – for better or for worse – that was what this was to her. Home. For her – and for Gabriella. She would make it so.
She picked a handful of twigs from the ground near her feet and threw them into the water, watching them reflectively as they spun and drifted lazily in the water. Then she lifted her eyes to take in the shining span of the lake and suddenly and painfully she remembered Edward’s death and its awful aftermath.
The water lay still and brilliant as a sunlit mirror.
She drew a breath, blinking; then stood, shaking out her skirts, and turned to set out along the path through the bluebells that led to the park and New Hall.
* * *
Maria Hawthorne was breakfasting when she arrived. Jessica – astounded and a little amused at having to explain to the strange young footman who opened the door to this unwontedly early caller who she was – declined to be announced and slipped into the morning room quietly. Her mother looked up from the paper she was reading, eyes sharp and bright above the pince-nez she wore. Jessica was a little shocked to see that she had aged quite visibly, a network of tiny lines marring the fine skin, deep furrows in her forehead and about her still firm and well-shaped mouth. Composedly and for all the world as if Jessica had been for an early-morning ride in the park and absent for hours rather than years she extended a graceful hand. ‘Jessica, my dear. I heard you were back.’
Jessica came to her swiftly and bent to kiss the cool cheek. ‘Mother.’
‘Sit down, sit down—’ With a small grimace of pain Maria reached for a small silver bell that stood by her hand. ‘We’ll have more tea. You’re well, child? And Robert?’
‘We’re both well, thank you.’
‘And my granddaughter?’ Maria smiled. ‘Have you brought her with you to meet her rheumatic old grandma?’
Jessica laughed. ‘She was still sound asleep when I left this morning. She’s had a long and tiring journey.’
‘Of course, of course. But you must bring her to see me directly.’
‘I will. Tomorrow, I promise. I just came to say hello, and to thank you for writing to us. We didn’t know – about Sir Thomas’ death. Or Robert’s mother’s—’ she hesitated, ‘—illness.’
Maria nodded. ‘Poor, poor thing. I hadn’t realized, you see, just how bad she was. Or I would have written sooner. I have—’ she paused, a shadow on her face, ‘—some small difficulty with my hands nowadays. It has made writing difficult. And I had of course assumed that—’ she stopped.
‘—that Clara would write,’ Jessica finished for her a little grimly. ‘I still don’t understand why she didn’t. Do you?’
Maria shook her head calmly as the door opened and a small uniformed maid appeared. ‘More tea for Miss Jessica, please Maude – ah, I’m sorry—’ she touched her forehead in a small, pretty gesture of amused apology, ‘—for Lady FitzBolton, of course.’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’ The girl threw an interested glance in Jessica’s direction, bobbed a quick curtsey and left.
‘I’m afraid,’ Maria continued as the door closed behind the maid, ‘that I can’t help you there.’ All amusement had fled her voice.‘Clara and I have little or nothing to do with each other if we can possibly avoid it. I suspect that she was simply too caught up in her own self-interests to bother to tell her brother what had happened. She has, it appears, no interest in Old Hall at all—’
‘But – her mother!’
Maria shrugged a little. ‘Clara isn’t greatly influenced by sentimental ties. And Sarah rather took to Patrick.’ She sent a small, oblique glance at her daughter. ‘That, as you can imagine, was enough to cause trouble between them. They haven’t spoken in two years, even after old Sir Thomas died. As for myself – Giles I see of course – he manages the estate, and does that, at least, well—’ her voice held a strange small note of asperity ‘—but apart from that there’s little contact between New Hall and Tollbridge House.’ She smiled, with mocking and austere amusement, ‘Clara changed the name. She could not be found living in a mere farmhouse—’ Her voice was outwardly pleasant but deeply beneath the assumed nonchalance Jessica sensed a bitterness that shocked her a little. Clearly the years had done nothing to heal the rift between Giles and Clara and her mother. Maria stirred her tea, lifted the small cup to her lips and sipped it, then carefully replaced it in the saucer. For the first time Jessica noticed the painful distortion of the joints and knuckles of her mother’s delicate hands. Maria saw the flicker of her eyes. ‘The rheumatics,’ she said, calmly.
‘Is it – very bad?’
Maria took a small breath, and her smile was strained. ‘Yes. It is. It’s beginning to affect my legs as a matter of fact. Oh, don’t look so worried, child. Old age is all – who am I to escape it altogether? Now, come – tell me of your travels – there is so very much to catch up on—’
* * *
When Jessica, at lunchtime, appeared at Old Hall riding a borrowed horse, her skirts kilted to her knees, she was met by an out-of-temper Robert and a delightfully scandalized Gabriella.
‘Why Mama! What are you doing riding a horse so? – and whose horse is it? – and where have you been all the day—?’
‘English, Gabriella, English!’ She bent to give the child a hug. ‘You must learn to speak English!’
The pretty child pouted.
‘Where on earth have you been? You’ve been gone all morning!’ Robert looked pale and sickly, his dark eyes shadowed. Jessica correctly assumed that he was paying penance for his unaccustomed drinking bout the night before. She shook out her skirts and brushed the dust from them, smiling thanks at the boy who came to take the horse from her.
‘I’ve been to New Hall to see Mother.’
‘You might have told me.’
‘You were sound asleep and snoring,’ she teased. The old Robert would have capitulated and laughed, she knew.
‘What news?’ Not an inch did he give.
She pulled a small, childish face at his bad-tempered back as she followed him across the yard. When she did not reply to his question he looked back across his shoulder. ‘Well?’
She hesitated. She had mulled over the things that her mother had told her as she rode back across the park, but still had not quite managed to marshall them into coherence. She followed him into the darkness of the Great Hall and up the stairs. ‘Mother’s in a good deal of pain. She’s having some trouble with her joints – in fact can barely walk. Giles and Clara are well, and living at Tollbridge Farm – Tollbridge House, that is. Patrick—’ she frowned a little, ‘Patrick is still at Harrow – I think – well, Mother didn’t say so in so many words but I think the lad has turned out to be a little wild. There were – I don’t know – some things she very obviously didn’t say. She seemed a little worried about him.’ She smiled a little ruefully. ‘Like father like son, I suspect. I do vaguely remember the most awful rows, on and off, when Edward was about this age—’ She followed him along the passageway that led to the parlour. ‘Actually,’ she added, a little reluctantly, ‘things are not exactly what I expected over there.’
He turned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s hard to say exactly.’ She wandered to the window, stood with her back to the room looking out.
Sensing her very real concern Robert watched her, his ill-humour and discomfort giving way somewhat to curiosity. He waited.
Jessica turned from the window, sat on the battered sofa and kicked her shoes off that were still cold and damp from her morning walk in the May dew. ‘I didn’t realize – I don’t think any of us did – that after the war, in ’15 and ‘16, when the price of corn dropped so very rapidly, Father lost rather a lot of money. He was ill at the time, if you remember, and not himself, and he never made it good. Then Giles took o
ver. And apparently before Patrick came along Giles made one or two rather bad investments. He’s a good farmer, but no financier.’
Robert was staring at her. ‘You don’t mean – your father’s fortune is gone?’
‘Oh, of course not! Nothing as dramatic as that! But certainly things are not as easy as they were. Even in Florence we heard, if you remember, about the agricultural depression and the disturbances? That doesn’t help. Giles apparently is convinced that the answer lies in mechanization. It’s making fortunes in industry – Giles thinks the same thing could happen on the land. It’s causing a lot of trouble.’ Her brow was deeply furrowed.
‘Trouble?’
She rubbed her cold foot. ‘In the village. Giles is experimenting with a new threshing machine. If it works that means no jobs – and no money. He’s already cut wages to the bone. There have been threats – unpleasant threats – but of course, Giles won’t be threatened. Whatever else you can say about him he’s no coward.’
‘Did you see him?’
‘No. Things are obviously still very strained between him and Clara and Mother. Giles still runs the estate, I think, simply because he fears it will go to rack and ruin without him. Unfortunately it’s beginning to look as if he may be right. Much as Mother still dotes on Patrick she’s obviously worried about him—’
‘In what way?’
‘She didn’t say in so many words. He’s young – and a little wild – and really much too attractive for his own good. But then the same thing could have been said about both Edward and Giles in their own day, and they both came through it without too much harm—’
‘Apart from Edward’s unsuitable marriage.’
She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Mm. I don’t somehow think Patrick’s problem is marriage.’ She laughed a little. ‘Quite the opposite I shouldn’t wonder. Phew!’ She laid her head back, breathing deeply and running her hand through her hair, ‘I had quite forgotten how exhausting my mother can be!’ she said, ruefully.
‘So—’ Robert clasped his hands behind his back and walked the floor restlessly. ‘There’s no help for us there?’
She looked at him in astonishment. ‘Help?’
‘I had hoped – hadn’t you? – that your family might have been able to help us out of our—’
‘No!’ Her exclamation cut his words short. She scrambled to her feet, tiredness forgotten. ‘Absolutely no! Under no circumstances would I take money from them! – Always supposing they’d give it!’
‘Jessica – we have to get it from somewhere! What do you suggest? That we mint our own?’
She picked up her shoes. Barefoot, she barely came to his shoulder, small-built as he was. ‘We’ll get it,’ she said, grimly. ‘If we have to clear that library shelf by shelf we’ll get it.’
He turned, his face blank. ‘I beg your pardon?’
She made a sharp, exasperated movement. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Robert – how can you have lived with something all of your life without realizing its value? It surely must have occurred to you? Some of the books in that library are worth a lot of money. Whether it will be enough or not I don’t know – but at least we’ve got something! It will be heartbreaking to see them go, but nowhere near as heartbreaking as to see the house fall down about our ears.’ She ignored his silence, and the surprised look on his face. ‘The first thing we must do—’ she turned and made for the door, ‘—is to make sure that the hole in the roof is mended before the damned rain ruins our nest egg!’
* * *
The gentleman from Sotheby’s was guardedly encouraging: Jessica, with the knowledge gleaned from Theo, was indeed right – several of the books and manuscripts in Old Hall’s ancient library would very probably be of interest to collectors and might well fetch a handsome sum.
‘How handsome?’ Jessica asked, bluntly.
The man was flustered. ‘Really, Your Ladyship – you must realize that I couldn’t possibly commit myself to suggesting that. If the right buyers can be contacted—’
‘How long will that take?’
‘It’s hard to tell. The sale next month is too soon. These things cannot be arranged overnight, you know. It will have to be the next one—’
‘When’s that?’
‘November.’ He looked a little injured at her briskness. He was a tall young man with a prominent Adam’s apple, an already receding hairline and, Jessica suspected, an overestimation of his own importance in the scheme of things. His skin was very pale and the hand he had offered had been soft and a little damp. ‘The items will have to be catalogued, of course.’
‘I can do that.’
‘Lady FitzBolton, I hardly think—’
‘I’ve spent the last four years helping to catalogue one of the most extensive and priceless private collections in Europe, Mr Branston,’ she said, coolly, ‘I don’t think this will be beyond me. It will be much more simple for me to catalogue them here and then for you simply to send someone down to check the work. Don’t you think?’ She smiled beguilingly at him. ‘I have a strong feeling it will be cheaper, too?’
He was not used to such straightforwardness. Colour rose from his high collar to his ears. ‘I – yes, I suppose that will be satisfactory.’
‘Now—’ she took his arm firmly and steered him to the door, ‘you’re welcome to stay to supper of course – but if you’d rather catch the afternoon coach there’s still time—’
* * *
She settled to work in the library with a will. It gave her something positive to do and kept her mind fully occupied. They were living for now on what little remained of her marriage settlement, and the small income from the Home Farm. The financial situation was tight, but not impossible. They had even managed to scrape together enough capital to repair the worst hole in the roof, though what worried Jessica most was the thought of the onset of the winter rains and snow before they had managed to acquire the money to have the rest of it done.
‘Really, almost everything else can wait,’ she said to Robert, a week or so after Mr Branston had come and gone. ‘The roof is the most important. It leaks in several places still. The fabric of the place will rot if we can’t keep the water out.’
Robert said nothing. He was sitting in the window seat of the small parlour staring into space, his face set.
She looked up from the figures she was studying. ‘Robert?’
With an effort he brought his attention to her. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Didn’t you hear a word I said?’
‘No. I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. Tell me – isn’t it the day for the mail coach?’
Understanding flickered in her eyes. ‘Yes. It is.’
‘Ah. I thought so.’ He turned back to the window.
She watched him for a moment, helpless sympathy in her eyes. At least she did not torment herself by expecting to hear from Danny. Robert had sent two letters a week to Florence since they had returned home, and had received not a single reply. He was pining visibly, his moods erratic. He was not, it seemed, interested in the state of the house, his mother’s health or their fortunes. He simply wanted to return to Florence, where he had been happy.
‘Someone has to go down to see the tenant of Home Farm,’ she said, gently, trying to draw his attention from the window. ‘We don’t seem to have a detailed copy of the accounts for the past years. I don’t think it’s the tenant’s fault – your father had to let the estate manager go a couple of years ago, and really since then no one seems to have bothered much. The tithes and rents come in regularly enough, but we really should check what’s happening. Could you pay them a visit, do you think? You really should, you know – show your face, so to speak, reassure the tenants—’
He made a small, impatiently negative movement with his head.
‘Robert – you really should try—’
He stood up, looked at her coldly. ‘Why? Why should I try? What has any of it to do with me? If you care what’s happening on some grubby little farm, you g
o and – show your face—’ he spoke the words with scorn. ‘What are they to do with me?’ he asked again.
‘You take their money,’ she said, suddenly acid. ‘You live off their rent and the sweat of their hands.’
‘It isn’t their money. It’s ours. It’s our land. And I still think that we should sell it and go back to—’
‘Oh, stop it! Why can’t you stop it! You’re like a silly child—!’ She put her hands over her ears.
They glared at each other in hostile silence.
Then she took a breath and forced her voice to conciliation. ‘Robert – think! Who’d buy the place as it stands? It’s run-down, neglected – virtually worthless! If we build it up, then it will be worth something, then – perhaps – we’ll think again.’ Over my dead body, added a small grim voice in her mind: but she had to play for time, and if hypocrisy was called for to do it then so be it. ‘But we have to work to get the place back on its feet. Please – won’t you ride down to Home Farm this afternoon and find out what’s going on?’
With the stubbornness that she had grown to recognize Robert shook his head. ‘No. I’ve a letter to write.’ He walked past her and out of the room. For a moment the rising frustration of anger gathered like a scream in her throat. It haunted her that Robert would enforce his prerogative and sell the house over their heads. She rubbed her eyes with her clenched fists, sat quite still for a moment, her head bowed. Then, very collectedly, she laid down her pen, closed the ledgers and went to change her clothes.
The Hawthorne Heritage Page 41