The Summer Fields

‘Sit down. Enjoy your port,’ he says and, picking up the candle, he begins to search the cupboards until he finds a pewter flask. He draws a chair up beside her.

  ‘How much do you think the greedy boy would like?’ he says, beginning to pour. He stoppers the flask and places it in front of her. Holding the decanter up to the candle he says, ‘Hardly any point keeping this last bit. We may as well drink it.’ He fills both glasses so full, she fears she may not be able to bring it to her lips without spilling it.

  Sitting back in his chair, he gazes at her. He has shed most of his livery except his waistcoat, which is unbuttoned, and he has loosened his neck stock. Catching a glimpse of the olive skin beneath his throat, she looks down to hide her smile.

  It is cosy sitting in the candlelight. The wine has rushed to her head, so much so that when he reaches across and takes her hand in his, she feels a tremor run through her body. She looks up at him. His eyes glow in the candlelight with such heat that when he rises to his feet, she follows as if in a trance.

  He is going to kiss her. She has wanted him to from the moment she first saw him. His arms fold around her with suppressed strength. The kiss is surprisingly gentle. His lips taste sweet from the port. Her senses fill with the scent of his skin and the vanilla of the wine.

  After a time, he draws back, bringing his hand from behind her head and cradling her cheek in his palm. ‘Meet me tomorrow night,’ he whispers.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Away from the hall. Every minute I’m here with you, I fear we will be discovered. I want to spend time with you – not a moment snatched here, a kiss there, always looking over my shoulder. I want to savour you, delight in you. Meet me tomorrow night.’

  ‘But where can we meet where we will not be discovered?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. I think of little else but you. There’s an old ice house out on the estate. It’s not far from here, but it is quite abandoned. When they dammed the river and filled the valley, the ice cellar flooded, but there’s a room in the building above. It’s a beautiful place, looking right out across the water. Slip away when Mordiford sleeps and meet me there. I will bring us a picnic, maybe some port. We will have a midnight feast. Say yes, Elen, please, say yes.’

  He brushes his lips across hers. When she murmurs her assent, he silences her with another vanilla kiss.

  Chapter 25

  ‘Until tomorrow,’ Ned whispers in her ear before melting away into the darkness of the minstrels’ gallery. Elen makes her way up the spiral stairs, her head light with wine and the passion of his kisses. She screws up her face as she twists the latch. Opening the door, she peers into the room. All is quiet. She slips her shoes off and tiptoes in her stockinged feet.

  The hangings around the bed are half-drawn. Mordiford has taken himself to bed, his breeches and waistcoat slung carelessly across the floor. He lies on his back, his hand against his cheek, his face peaceful with sleep.

  She puts the port on the table beside him in case he wakes in the night, then moves stealthily back across the room to the chaise longue. Loosening her bodice, she pulls a quilt up over her legs. Tonight, the sound of the wind moaning around the building is like a lullaby. As it plays, she runs through the events of the evening, conjuring up the feelings Ned incited in her. She has known infatuations in the past, even a stolen kiss with a lad who caught her during the midsummer revels, but she has never felt such vivid desire. She knew by the way he trembled as he held her that he was controlling his passion. For the whole of their heated embrace she never once felt alarmed.

  Her thoughts begin to fragment, dipping in and out of a dream state. She sleeps soundly for the rest of the night, floating back towards consciousness in a similarly languorous way. In those ethereal moments before fully waking, her mind revels in the dreams that came to her unbidden in the night. The kisses, the trembling embraces, the delight of knowing that someone, somewhere in this vast building cherishes and desires her.

  Suddenly she sits up, fully awake, jarred into consciousness. The arms that held her were stronger than Ned’s, the chest she rested on, broader. She draws forth the face of the man who has been her dream companion through the night. She remembers his look of desire, the smouldering intimacy of secrets that only they share. The eyes are not a tawny gold like Ned’s. They are blue. To her horror she knows that the man who held her in her dreams was not Ned. It was Mordiford.

  She flees from the sickroom the moment Joan arrives. When she takes her place at the breakfast table, she catches Ned’s eye. He looks troubled and she feels ashamed, as if he has guessed that she has been unwittingly faithless in her dreams. The notion is foolish, but the aura of the dream still has her in its spell. Her subconscious has played a trick on her. It has snatched at the feelings Ned roused in her and given them to another man while she slept.

  She glances again at Ned. He smiles at her but his eyes lack intimacy and warmth. He looks regretful, sad even. As breakfast reaches an end, he leans across her on the pretext of collecting her bowl. ‘I shall have to forgo our morning constitutional today,’ he says quietly. ‘I have much to organise in order to leave myself free this evening.’

  She nods her understanding, feeling a glow of excitement. How foolish she has been to worry about the dream. Ned’s are the only arms she wants around her. What a shame she has to wait until this evening.

  On her way back, she passes the looking glass at the foot of the stairs, placed there to facilitate a final check on correctness before serving the family. She marvels at the change in her appearance. A lightness shines from her as if her skin has acquired a deep glow of health and her eyes have the lustre of jet. She fingers the tiny mole at the corner of her mouth – perhaps it really is a beauty spot.

  * * *

  ‘It was good of you to eventually return last night, Miss Griffiths,’ Mordiford says, dressed now and seated by the fire. ‘How satisfied you must have been to see that I did not need strong drink to make me sleep after all. To be perfectly frank, the time it took you to collect it would have rendered a dead fish inert.’

  ‘It was no easy undertaking to find liquor after the servants had retired for the night, sir,’ she says, busying herself with some pointless task to avoid looking at him, certain that those penetrating eyes of his can guess her dreams, the mood of which still pinches and teases her. ‘But by good fortune Ned Harley was abroad and eager to help.’

  ‘I would imagine he was,’ Mordiford says, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

  He watches her with an uncertain look on his face. She wonders if the change she saw in the looking glass is visible to the entire world.

  ‘You are back up here a deal quicker from breakfast this morning,’ he says. ‘I thought you were in the habit of taking a constitutional around the lake of a morning.’

  ‘I am, but today has dawned bitterly cold.’

  ‘Do the cows in your father’s byre go un-milked when the morning is cold?’

  ‘They do not.’

  ‘Then a sharp frost seems a poor excuse for a dairymaid to miss her morning walk. Has there been a lover’s tiff between you and the valet who, I understand, has a habit of accompanying you, much to the consternation of that foul creature who takes your place when you are out and about amusing yourself?’

  She pauses momentarily in the folding of a napkin and looks at him. ‘You are feeling brighter, sir.’

  ‘I am. And you are feeling cussed, I see.’

  ‘Perhaps I find your censure uncalled for.’

  He sits forward in his chair and looks up at her from under his brow.

  ‘I feel too well for complete sloth,’ he says. ‘Yet not fit enough to embrace a more challenging pastime. What you see as censure is in fact nothing more than a forlorn attempt at stimulating a little conversation to fill these idle hours.’

  ‘By vexing me?’

  ‘Come now. If you intend to play the victim, you cannot win. My crusted face and body are powerful reminders that there is only one poor
soul in this room who can claim that title.’ He makes a small flourish with his hand and dips his head as if taking a bow. ‘But as I have failed utterly to animate an interest in a subject that pleases us both, I am content to hand the floor over. What shall we talk about?’

  ‘I am heartened to see that you are feeling a deal recovered for I have seldom known you so loquacious, sir.’

  ‘My, that is a long word for a dairymaid.’ She tightens her lip and glares at him. He raises a hand in submission and says, ‘I apologise, but I am intrigued. Where did you find your learning?’

  ‘You already know that, sir. From my mother.’

  ‘That does not completely answer my question, but perhaps you have learned “obfuscation” too.’

  ‘If I have, it could only be from you.’

  ‘Ah, Miss Griffiths. How I shall miss these little duels when my skin is clear enough to face the world again. But tell me truthfully, where did you learn to read and write and debate with such skill? I have never met a woman with such quickness of mind.’ Not even in your fiancée? she wonders. ‘You surely didn’t acquire these skills from reading those grubby chapbooks you seem so enthralled with.’

  ‘I’ve told you, from my mother. She was charity-school educated and sought the post of private tutor to Lady Ludlow’s children.’

  ‘Did she indeed? Then she may well have taught my cousin, Arabella.’

  ‘I think not, sir.’ If she had, Elen thinks, perhaps your fiancée would be equally as entertaining. ‘Her time at Ellesmere House was short lived.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Because of her association with my father.’

  ‘I see. She sacrificed a life of ease for one of drudgery.’

  ‘I am not sure I would describe the life of a private tutor as easeful, and my mother certainly would not have called her married life a drudge.’

  ‘But a sacrifice, none the less.’

  ‘She did not think so.’

  ‘Was she happy?’

  ‘Exceptionally.’

  ‘Even though she married so much beneath her social status?’ Elen stops fussing with the napkin and gives him a withering look.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he says merrily. ‘I seem to have tainted the conversation again.’ He sighs and looks up at the ceiling. ‘What shall we talk about now?’

  ‘My appetite for discourse has quite dropped away, sir.’

  ‘Come now, don’t be peevish with me. I am content to own that I have not behaved fairly. I offered to throw the floor over to you, but strode in just the same and steered the direction of our exchange. However, let me set that to rights and give you my solemn pledge that you can take the reins and I shall follow.’

  He sprawls back in the chair, throwing one arm over the back, and sits with a composed expression on his face. When she does not speak he says, ‘Any subject you like – proto-utilitarianism, the orderly cosmos, rational theology. Just name it.’

  In order to bring an end to his mockery, she says, ‘How about architecture?’

  ‘That is a capital notion. Have you a taste for the Baroque or is your inclination firmly entrenched in the Rustic?’

  ‘I believe there is an ice house on the estate, is there not?’

  The ludicrous expression of interest that Mordiford has adopted falls away and he says sharply, ‘The ice house? Why do you wish to know about that?’

  ‘I did not query your desire to insult my family a moment ago, therefore I do not think you have the right to question my curiosity.’

  ‘You are absolutely correct. The ice house – what can I tell you about the ice house? It stands on the shore of the lake at the point where the water from the River Lugg is diverted to flow into the valley, the idea being that ice from the river could be stored beneath the ground and used during the hot summer months.’

  ‘I don’t need a lecture on the concept.’

  ‘Well, of course you don’t, how foolish of me to underestimate your understanding. So, what else can I tell you about it? That a foolish countess, a century ago, had it built with a room above it in which she intended to entertain guests. One can only assume these were guests that decency did not allow her to entertain at the hall.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘When it was complete, she admired the fine view across the lake but refused to use the room. Apparently she took a vehement dislike to the trees on the escarpment pressing down upon it from behind, a geographical feature she had failed to notice earlier, despite the fact that the woods had been there for hundreds of years.’

  ‘It was abandoned?’

  ‘It was. A subsequent incumbent decided to increase the size of the lake by several hectares, and so dammed the river up by the Crud y Gwynt gate, flooding the valley along with the underground ice chamber. And that, Miss Griffiths, is about everything I know of the ice house. Why have you suddenly shown an interest in it?’

  ‘For no reason at all other than to give you some other topic to worry at.’

  ‘You are conscientious to a fault, Miss Griffiths. Everything you do is apparently for the benefit of your patient. How do you manage it?’

  ‘By reminding myself that my patient’s enthusiasm for verbal sparring is a confirmation of his improving health and thus an indication that mercifully the end to my duties are in sight.’

  ‘Touché, Miss Griffiths – touché.’

  Chapter 26

  The moon is riding high, fluttering a ribbon of quicksilver across the surface of the lake. The night is fine and bitterly cold. Elen does not mind. She is wrapped in her thick wool cloak and walking fast, feeling the blood coursing through her body, hot and vital. It is not just the cold that makes her speed along. She needs the vigour of exercise to unravel her conflicting emotions. She knows it is reckless to agree to such a liaison, and yet it is the thought of the danger that spurs her on, just as a high cliff draws one to the edge, an invitation to flirt with catastrophe.

  An internal dialogue runs through her head, justifications taking the form of words that she may say to a parent or concerned friend: ‘Ned has always looked out for me,’ and, ‘It is because I trust him that I hurry along to meet him tonight.’ Another emotion seethes below these justifications, one that she is not so eager to put into words. She wants Ned to take her just a little bit further than she has ever gone before, his strength and fervour enabling her to abandon the high morals that have been drummed into her from childhood. She does not quite define what she means by this, and feels a niggling sense of wantonness that doesn’t sit comfortably with her, and yet she is elated to be free from the sick room, free from Mordiford’s piercing scrutiny, free to meet with the one person she has longed to see again all day.

  Her soul fills with the beauty of the night. The earth beneath her feet is hard as iron from the frost, except when her steps stray onto the grass, crunching the petrified stalks like straw. The whispers of the countryside are all around, the distant bark of a dog in the village, the chatter of a rill of water running beneath the crusts of ice at the margins of the lake. The air is so still and the water in the centre of the lake so calm, she can even hear the faintest sounds of revelry coming from the hall.

  She rounds a curve in the lane and sees a dim light glowing at the foot of the escarpment. Although the forest creates too dense a shadow for her to make out the shape of the building, she knows that the light glows from the windows of the ice house. Ned is there, waiting for her.

  The light disappears as an unseen tree or crop of land comes between her and the building. Amplified by the still surface of the lake, the sounds of the revellers seem to increase in volume as if they have flowed out of the building. She imagines them sweeping outside in their capes, their napkins clutched in their hands, as they stumble around the building in search of the ladies already seated for their dessert. As she nears the end of the lake she can just make out the silver glint of the tributary that feeds it. Buried into the triangle of land between the shore and the river, the domed roof of the ice
house frames the oak-mullioned window, which glows a welcoming yellow.

  She reaches the door and taps gently, the sound loud in the night air. Footsteps cross the wooden floor. A moment later the door opens, golden light flooding out, and Ned’s warm dry hand takes hers and leads her into the room.

  She steps into a magical space. Every alcove and beam in the long, low room throngs with lighted candles that flicker and dance before stilling as Ned closes the door behind her. There is no fire lit, but the candles are so numerous, the room is heavy with heat. A table is set near a window that occupies most of the east wall of the building, the oak mullions framing a magnificent view across the lake. She can no longer see the moon for it has risen high in the sky, but the silvered path it creates seems to lead directly towards the ice house.

  An ornate crystal candelabrum is set on the table, a dozen candles burning on the branched arms. The flames flicker on the bevelled drops of glass hanging from the gilt ware. Next to the candelabrum stands a pot-bellied decanter heavy with rich, red wine, the facets of the glass creating patterns of scarlets, vermilions and blacks in the dancing light. There are silver plates of sweetmeats, bonbons encrusted with sugar, squares of marshmallow, dusty with sweet powder. How has Ned managed to spirit these beautiful things away from the hall?

  Apart from the table, there is no other furniture in the room, for the rest of it is taken up by a platform of deep straw, the sweet smell of it filling the room. Layers of damasks and silks have been laid over the straw creating a dipped centre like a huge feather bed, stretching from wall to wall. Bundles of dried reeds and bulrushes stand around it, giving the appearance of a four poster bed.

  She cannot believe a man has put so much industry and imagination into creating such a place, and all for one woman – herself.

  ‘Ned,’ she gasps, ‘however long did it take you to dress this lovely room? And how have you managed to bring all these treasures from the hall?’ He silences her with a rough kiss.