Carson, in fact, detested him.
He was therefore rather glad to arrive at the Martyns’ imposing house and find that his cousin was not there. He was apparently to be alone with the Martyns for lunch. He had ridden over on horseback, but had taken unusual care to shave and wear a collar and tie.
Uncle Prosper gave him a glass of sherry on arrival to warm him, and then sent for his valet to brush his clothes while Carson combed his hair and washed his hands.
When he re-entered the lounge, Aunt Lally was there, looking, as usual, cool, elegant, even regal. Carson closed his eyes as she kissed his cheek; the fragrance always reminded him of his grandmother, though it was more sophisticated than violets; something, surely, Parisian and expensive.
They sat at the great table in the dining-room, three people served by six servants; the fare, simple and delicious, was produced by Aunt Lally’s chef, whom she claimed she had poached from the Ritz in Paris. The vintage wines were from Uncle Prosper’s cellar, carefully chosen and racked for years.
Carson wished that his parents would live like the Martyns; but his mother had stopped his father drinking and only water was ever served at table. The fare at home was simple, locally produced, and cooked by a motherly body called Mrs Pine whose skills were basic.
At one time his parents had kept a grand table and been waited on by servants; but now there was only Arthur, who had been at the house over twenty years, and a few housemaids who were seldom seen unless scurrying about with pails of water or scuttles full of coal, or blacking the grate or scrubbing floors.
Aunt Lally was very entertaining about her recent visit to the Continent, the scale of her purchases in Paris and Rome, bringing a fond smile to Uncle Prosper’s lips because he loved her and indulged her. Carson was a little in love with Aunt Lally too, although she was more than twice his age. He listened to her quite rapt, envious of the life she led.
After lunch Aunt Lally left them in the drawing-room with brandy and coffee. She liked to rest in the afternoon, and would join them for tea. Uncle Prosper stood gazing at the door through which Aunt Lally had gone, as though still savouring her presence. Then he lit a cigar and drew on it, blowing smoke into the air.
‘I love her, you know,’ Uncle Prosper said, after he had got his cigar drawing to his satisfaction. He was a fine, distinguished-looking man, his hair pure white but still thick; rather bushy-browed, and as tall as Carson, who was six feet two.
‘She is a fine woman,’ Carson agreed politely. ‘I am very fond of Aunt Lally.’
‘And you, Carson,’ Uncle Prosper thoughtfully considered the tip of his by-now glowing cigar. ‘Is it not time you thought of settling?’
‘I’m only twenty-one, Uncle.’ Carson looked aghast.
‘I don’t necessarily mean settling to marriage,’ Prosper said gently. ‘I mean to say, settling down in general. You know what I mean.’
‘I am quite settled, thank you, Uncle,’ Carson said huffily.
‘In your own opinion, perhaps.’
‘What do you mean?’ Carson paused in the act of raising the brandy glass to his lips.
‘Your parents find you very unsettled.’
‘You mean, “difficult”?’
Carson scowled. It was an ugly sight, Prosper thought. It made him look petulant, rude and uncouth. And yet he was a handsome boy and, to him and Lally, invariably charming, but towards Roger he was abrupt.
‘Well, why should they find you difficult, Carson?’
It then dawned on Carson that he had been invited to lunch – a rare occurrence in itself – for a purpose. He was being given a grilling.
Carson, looking towards the clock on the mantelpiece, rose to his feet, hands in his pockets. ‘I think I should be going, Uncle,’ he said stiffly, not answering the question.
‘Sit down,’ Prosper commanded, inclining his head towards the chair. ‘Where are your manners? Your aunt expects you to stay for tea. She would be most disappointed to come down and find you’d gone.’
‘Well ... in that case.’
It was put in a pleasant yet authoritative manner. Hard even for one as direct as Carson to refuse. Abruptly, he sat down again, and Prosper leaned towards him, replenishing his glass.
‘Yes, I have as a matter of fact asked you for a little chat today, as you seem to suspect, Carson ...’
‘Did my father suggest it?’
There was that scowl again.
‘Well.’ Prosper inclined his head. ‘Maybe. You are the heir, his only surviving child. He expects much from you.’
‘And he thinks it is not forthcoming?’ Carson growled.
‘Well, perhaps not yet ...’
‘Why did he expect so much of me?’
‘For the reasons I suggested. Maybe he was over-indulgent towards you when you were younger, mainly because he had every expectation that George would succeed him. The death of dear George changes everything.’
Carson pursed his lips stubbornly. ‘I can’t see why.’
‘But you must see it, my dear boy,’ Prosper insisted. ‘You are relatively uneducated. You got yourself expelled from school. You have no particular skills and I believe – I am told – you have an unsavoury reputation in the neighbourhood.’
‘What sort of reputation?’
‘You know what I am talking about, Carson.’ Prosper began to sound exasperated. He could recall the scene so long ago with Carson’s Aunt Eliza when they had tried unsuccessfully to marry her off to a most suitable man. They were stubborn, these Woodvilles. Maybe his talk with Carson would have the same unsatisfactory outcome as the talk with Eliza who, after all, had eloped with Ryder Yetman.
‘I suppose you mean women,’ Carson suggested after a moment.
‘I suppose I do.’ Prosper suddenly chuckled, and the atmosphere between them seemed less fraught.
‘My father also had a reputation when he was young,’ Carson said with a smirk.
‘So he did,’ Prosper agreed, ‘but he was lucky to find a good woman like your mother.’
‘He married her for her money.’
‘I see. So that’s what you think?’
‘It’s what everyone says.’ Carson, clearly not intimidated, stared boldly at his uncle, who began to appreciate how right his parents were to be worried about him.
‘Well, whatever happened, and whatever the reason was then, you need have no doubt now but that your parents love each other.’
‘Yes, I think they do.’ Carson sat back.
‘It is a good marriage, and it has grown; but, as I said, I’m not talking about marriage yet for you, Carson. I would like to offer you a position in my firm ...’
‘What?’ In one movement Carson bounded out of his chair and stood facing his uncle, his expression aghast.
‘At the Martyn-Heering concern, to learn the business as Roger has, to become a partner. Perhaps, in time, a man of substance ...’
‘No thank you.’
‘Hear me out.’
‘I don’t want to. I have no intention of being a business man.
‘Then what is it you intend to be?’ Prosper’s tone suddenly grew less friendly.
‘A free spirit ...’
‘Ah!’ Prosper was again reminded of Eliza, who had used the very same expression. ‘And how long do you think that will continue?’
‘Until Father dies, maybe, and as he is still young and in good health, that will be a long time.’ He tossed his head confidently. ‘I mean to enjoy myself, Uncle. I will not go to the City, I will not be a business man, certainly not that! I came into a little inheritance when I was twenty-one, so I am not inclined to work.’ He paused momentarily. ‘In fact there is nothing much I wish to do ...’
‘Except upset your parents more and more. The little money you inherited – a few shares plus a hogshead of port from me, laid down at your birth – won’t last forever.’
‘My parents must accept me as I am.’
‘Carson!’ Prosper leaned towards him and pl
aced the stub of his smouldering cigar carefully in an ashtray. ‘I wish to speak to you very seriously, and I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say.’
‘Please, Uncle.’ Carson reluctantly sat down again. ‘I don’t wish to be rude to you, but ...’
‘I’m sure you don’t, and you won’t. If you hear me out I think you will realise why I’m so serious, Carson.’ For several moments Prosper looked steadily into his great-nephew’s eyes. ‘I wonder if you realise how ill your mother is?’
‘Ill?’ Instant alarm showed on Carson’s face.
‘Had you not realised it?’
‘I knew she was tired.’
‘She is very ill.’
‘You mean ...?’
‘She could be dead within a year.’
‘Oh no!’ Carson gazed defiantly at his uncle. ‘Are you saying this to frighten me, to get me to do as you wish?’
‘I wish I were.’ Prosper sighed. ‘Your mother has a disorder of the blood, a kind of cancer, which is slowly killing her. No one knows how long it will take; but the fact is, Carson, that you and your behaviour are causing her great distress, and it cannot help her condition. Only recently a farmer spoke to your father about your relationship with his daughter.’
‘Susie Platt!’ Carson said derisively.
‘Apparently you told this girl you wanted to marry her.’
‘I tell them all that,’ Carson said with a sly smile. ‘It is sometimes the only way ...’
‘Carson!’ Now the normally equable Prosper felt his patience snap. ‘Please be serious. This man was your father’s tenant. Your father told your mother. Your parents are very, very distressed by such behaviour.’
‘So they want me to be a business man.’ Carson laughed derisively.
‘It is not only that. They want you to assume the responsibility that George had.’
‘I can never be like George.’ Suddenly Carson had a stricken, vulnerable look on his face, the look of a bereaved younger sibling.
‘You can be like George, if you wish.’
‘Never, never,’ Carson protested. ‘George was everything that was good.’
‘George was everything that was good,’ Prosper agreed. ‘He gave his life in a noble cause. You have the same parents, so why should you be as worthless as George was good? Tell me.’
‘I cannot.’ Carson, bending his head, spoke in a whisper. ‘I loved George. Most truly. I was broken by his death. But Mother ... If what you say is true?’
He looked hopefully up at Prosper as though wishing he would say he had been joking, but Prosper only shook his head.
‘I’m afraid it is only too true. They did not want to alarm you. They thought that if they told you you would not believe them. In fact your father does not truly believe it, because he does not wish to either. But I have spoken to the doctor and it is a fact that pernicious anaemia can lead to death.’
Prosper rose from his seat and, walking over to the fire, threw a couple of logs onto it so that the flames blazed up the chimney. Then, hands in the pockets of his waistcoat, he turned and gazed solemnly at Carson. ‘Your parents know that I am talking to you. It would be well to mention that I have brought up the subject of your mother’s health. If God wills it, she may have, perhaps, a few more years, but if she dies ...’ Prosper shrugged. ‘Imagine the effect on your father. He will be devastated. He will need you to lean on. If you continue to be so irresponsible you will not be someone on whom he can lean. I want you to reflect, Carson, to reform; to think about your family and your place, sooner perhaps than you think, at its head...’
‘But Father will not die ...’
‘Who knows? Imagine his grief if anything should happen to your mother. Anyway, consider your life here.’ He sat down again, looking a little contemptuously at the younger man. ‘It is not much, is it? It is not really satisfying? Whoring and drinking? Really, at twenty-one, is that all you wish?’
‘Well ...’ Carson scratched his head.
‘Exactly. Now I do not wish you to become a monk but, believe me, in London you could have a very good life, work during the day, play at night. Your father did it, you know, for several years.’
‘He hated it.’
‘It is true he was not cut out for the life of business ...’
‘Neither am I.’
‘I’m not so sure.’ Prosper glanced at his watch. ‘I think you’re different from Guy. I think you could be ambitious. I think you are capable; you could even, perhaps, be very successful. Guy had a wealthy wife and felt he did not need to work. You do. Your father’s fortune is not what it was. Your mother’s dowry was spent long ago.
‘You see,’ he realised suddenly that Carson was paying careful attention to him, ‘your father’s indifference to business meant the estate was badly managed. Gone are the days when a man could live on capital, on the fat of the land, without either work or wise investments. Your father was good at neither. Now, what say you think about it?’ Thinking the message was beginning to get home, Prosper tapped the face of his watch with his fingers. ‘Your aunt will be along any minute. Please be good enough to pull the bell, as it is time for tea.’
Carson lay with his head in his mother’s lap, something she could hardly recall since he was a small boy. Margaret stroked his thick ash-blond hair, thinking how fair it had been when he was small. All Guy’s children were like Guy, which was fortunate. She had never been a beauty, with her over-large mouth, her long, protuberant nose; now her thin angular body was gaunt and wracked by disease. Nor had she been an overtly loving mother. But, despite that, her children were her life; in the early days of her marriage they had done much to make up for the misdemeanours of her husband.
‘I am not so gravely ill ...’ she whispered.
‘They said you were. Uncle Prosper and Aunt Lally. Oh Mother, why did you not tell me?’
‘Because I do not really know myself, that is the truth,’ she said with a weary smile. ‘Some days I feel worse than others. I am anaemic. I must drink wine and eat plenty of red meat, and this I do.’
‘Then you may still get well?’ Carson raised his head, and to her astonishment she saw tears glistening on his lashes. This most wilful, recalcitrant of children cared about her after all! It was a pity he’d waited until she was nearly dead to show affection.
‘Of course I may,’ she said, smiling, ‘and if you will reform and do as Uncle Prosper suggests ...’
‘I will do anything for you, Mother.’
‘That will make me better, then.’ Margaret raised his head with her hands and gazed into his eyes, relishing each precious, unique minute of their intimacy.
‘But if I go to London you won’t have me near you.’
‘But, my darling, the very fact that you are engaged in some profitable activity will be like meat and drink to me. You have no idea how much your father and I have worried about you, dearest child. Your wayward behaviour has been a source of much misery to us ...’
‘Oh Mother, and has made you ill ...’
Carson once more flung his arms around her and buried his face in her lap. ‘I promise that those days are gone forever. I will do everything I can to make you well again, even if it means leaving you, Mother. I will never let you worry about me again.
‘Well then.’ Margaret, realising that she did feel strangely better, took a clean handkerchief from her pocket and began to dab his eyes. ‘We shall get you some new clothes and pack your bags. Believe me, my dearest, nothing will give your father and me more joy than to see you happily at work. After all, half of you is Dutch, and we Heerings have such a strong tradition of industry ...’
But the other half? Her voice trailed off into uncertainty as she saw the look of doubt which came into Carson’s eyes. Yes, he was her son, but he was Guy’s too.
3
Sophie Woodville was an unhappy, frustrated woman. She had not, it was true, exactly looked forward to her return home, but though she had tried valiantly to overcome the many o
bstacles confronting her, she had not been completely successful.
Her parents were elderly, her father semi-retired. He was very dependent on the Reverend Turner, who more and more came to assume the duties of parish priest.
Whatever Turner’s private ambitions, he seemed a nice enough, modest man, not quite as full of the spirit of God as dear George had been, perhaps a little too worldly but, nonetheless, a diligent and worthy clergyman.
Then there was the question of her children, fatherless and now adjusting to a climate very different from the one into which they had been born. They felt the English cold, the harsh westerly winds, the snow that lay like a thick blanket over the countryside for much of the January following their return.
The main drawback, when it came down to it, was the fact that parents and daughter had not lived together for several years. And when there was added to this the fact that Sophie had left under a cloud, that the Lambs disapproved of her marriage almost as much as the Woodvilles, it was not surprising that the reunion was only moderately successful. Discord lay just below the surface, tempers were short, and Sophie decided to look for a place to rent so that she might establish a home of her own. She was a married woman, a widow, who had exercised considerable control over her younger husband. She did not now enjoy being treated like a girl, the daughter who, in her parents’ eyes, had never left home.
The trouble was that she had very little money, scarcely enough to exist. George had not been well off, had spent his small inheritance on his studies, and she hadn’t a penny of her own. She was dependent on the goodwill of her parents, and that rapidly evaporated when eventually, after four troubled months, she told them what she had in mind.
‘I fear I may be too much a burden on you,’ she explained, knowing how lame, how inadequate her excuse sounded.
The Rector's Daughter (Part Two of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 6