The beautiful folds of the Siamese silk cascaded to the ground; the plain, almost virginal bodice ended in a high, stiff collar from which tiny pearl buttons ran down to the waist. The long sleeves were tapered, the shoulders slightly puffed so that it added much-needed fullness to Connie’s figure. Indeed, nothing of the dressmaker’s art was spared to try and make a swan-princess out of an ugly duckling.
The veil, which would be surmounted by a diamond tiara worn at her wedding by every Lady Woodville, or future Lady Woodville, for over a century, had a twelve-foot train which would be carried by her small attendants. There would be no senior bridesmaid. The best man was to be Laurence Yetman, and Sarah Jane was to keep a motherly eye on all the proceedings while, of course, Miss Fairchild would not be far in the background.
‘Perfect!’ Miss Fairchild’s admiration was unstinting as Connie carefully revolved yet again after the hem had been slightly altered. ‘Now you must get out of it very carefully, Constance dear ...’
‘And I should like her to try on the dress for the dinner-party next week,’ the dressmaker muttered, mouth still full of pins. ‘I understand that is to be a very special occasion.’
‘It is given by Sir Guy especially for the bridal pair, to introduce Connie formally to what will soon be her home and, I expect, to show her how she should behave once she is chatelaine of that great mansion.’
It was obvious from the levity of Miss Fairchild’s tone that this was said with tongue in cheek, but the idea seemed to offend Connie, who burst out:
‘I know quite well how to behave, thank you, Aunt, and I know what to do. I am not a child, as I have to keep on reminding you. Besides, Sophie is to continue living there and, in effect, she runs Pelham’s Oak.’
‘Oh dear!’ Miss Fairchild joined her hands together and emitted a profound sigh.
‘Oh dear what, Aunt?’ Connie rather roughly eased herself out of the dress which was still full of pins and tacks, to the horror of her dressmaker, who gently urged caution.
‘I wonder if it is a good idea that Sophie should continue to live there,’ Miss Fairchild ended in another prolonged sigh.
‘But it’s her home.’
‘Well, it is at the moment, I suppose.’ Miss Fairchild looked very worried indeed. ‘But how long is she to go on living there? And is it a good thing that she should? What do you think, Mrs Pond? Is it a good thing or not?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know.’ Mrs Pond didn’t want the responsibility of voicing an opinion on such a delicate matter. ‘There are good things and bad, I suppose, as there is in everything. It’s certainly not for me to say.’
Needless to say, Mrs Pond, as a good citizen of Wenham, a member of the Ladies’ Guild and a regular church attender, knew everything there was to know that went on in the town; but if she had opinions about the place of Sophie Woodville at Pelham’s Oak, she certainly would not voice them to the woman who would supplant her.
‘My feeling is,’ Miss Fairchild said with the utmost delicacy, ‘that at the back of Sophie Woodville’s mind there must always be the idea that being mistress of Pelham’s Oak is her rightful place. Had George lived she would have been Lady Woodville.
As it is,’ she smiled with quiet pride at her ward, ‘that will eventually be the position of my dearest Constance.’
Connie made no reply as Mrs Pond gently slipped over her head the dress to be worn at the dinner. This was made of satin and had the fashionable underskirt and tunic, and – for Connie – rather a daring plunge at the back; though it was chaste enough in the front.
‘Beautiful!’ Miss Fairchild was in ecstasies once again, though Connie was looking critically at herself in the mirror.
‘Isn’t it a little old for me?’ she said, still staring at herself.
‘Old?’ Mrs Pond looked surprised. ‘I wouldn’t have said so, Connie.’ But a doubt now placed in her mind, she turned to the older woman. ‘Would you say so, Miss Fairchild?’
Miss Fairchild, in fact, also had her doubts about the dress. ‘I’m not sure,’ she opined. ‘I like the pattern well enough. But the colour worries me, especially on Connie.’
The dress was pink, the colour of a certain kind of petunia. Bright pink; and indeed, on Connie’s skeletal form, and in conjunction with the pallor of her face, the effect was slightly startling. It was a beautiful colour in itself, but somehow looked altogether different when draped on a small, slender person such as Connie.
‘It’s certainly bold,’ Mrs Pond said briskly, beginning to gather together her bits and pieces, her scissors, tape-measure and precious box of pins. ‘But I like it. After all, Connie is soon to be a married woman. She is no longer a girl.’ Mrs Pond stood up and looked critically at Connie. ‘And that is how married women dress, in fine, bold colours, Connie, and you had better accustom yourself to the fact.’
‘I’ll wear it just this once,’ Connie said sulkily as Mrs Pond helped to ease her head out of it, ‘and then I’ll see.’
Mrs Pond said no more, but carefully folded the dresses into a large box and her bits and pieces into a copious bag. Promising that everything would be ready by the day, especially the big day, the wedding, she was seen by Miss Fairchild and Connie to the door. They then turned slowly back and walked along the corridor to the sitting-room, where the maid, Nancy, had just put out the tea-things. It was a cold afternoon, with overcast skies, and smoke from the fire rose briskly up the chimney.
‘Oh dear, I do hope you soon settle at Pelham’s Oak.’ Miss Fairchild reached emotionally for Connie’s hand. ‘I shouldn’t say it, but I shall miss you.’
‘And I’ll miss you, Aunt Vicky.’ Connie knelt on the floor, resting her head against her aunt’s knee, as she often did when they sat by the fire together. ‘More than you know.’
‘But you have no regrets, child?’ Miss Fairchild looked alarmed. ‘Carson is the best of men ...’
‘I am very, very frightened, Aunt Vicky.’ Connie hugged her knees and started to shiver. ‘I won’t hide it from you. I feel I am not ready for marriage; but I do love Carson, however he feels about me. More importantly...’she gazed up at her aunt with eyes that seemed suddenly wise ‘... it is the thing I must do. I don’t want to be ...’ She stopped and bit her lip as Miss Fairchild leaned forward and began stroking her head:
‘A spinster all your life? Is that what you were going to say, dearest?’
Connie avoided a straight answer. ‘I love you and admire you so; but you have been lonely, Aunt Vicky. If you hadn’t had me you would have been lonelier still.’
‘Never lonely with you, my precious darling.’ Miss Fairchild had a catch in her voice as she put her arm tenderly round Connie’s shoulders. ‘Never for a single moment lonely with you. You have been the light, the joy of my life. But it is right for you, Connie, more than anybody. It is a wonderful, wonderful opportunity. To be Lady Woodville, mistress of Pelham’s Oak! How proud your dear father and mother would have been. How I wish they could be there on that happy day ...’
‘But does Carson care for me at all?’ Connie went on, almost as though to herself. ‘It is a very formal relationship, Aunt. Sometimes I don’t know how he feels, honestly I don’t.’
‘What do you mean, dearest?’ Again Miss Fairchild looked alarmed.
‘It is not at all as though we were going to be married. He is so very ... detached with me.’
‘My dear, he is behaving as gentlemen should behave. Doubtless he is nervous too, and hesitates to show emotion. I quite approve of that. And Connie ... dearest ...’ Miss Fairchild shifted a little uneasily ‘... talking about matters of intimacy, are you aware ... do you know ... ?’ She put a hand nervously to her head. ‘I have never been married, so I cannot tell you. But, what happens between a man and a woman ... well, do you know, my dear Connie? With the utmost delicacy, that is what I am trying to discover.’
‘Oh, dearest Aunt.’ Connie seized her hand, feeling as embarrassed as she was. ‘Do not distress yourself about that.’
‘I thought perhaps Sophie, as a married woman ...’ Miss Fairchild seemed to be searching for words with which to express herself.
‘Oh, I could never ask Sophie!’ Connie seemed indignant at the idea. ‘Besides, it’s not necessary. Other people have found out after they were married, haven’t they, Aunt?’
‘I suppose so.’ Miss Fairchild looked doubtful. ‘But most girls have a mother; you do not.’
And for a long while neither spoke, as though remembering with grief, affection and regret the woman who, in, giving birth to Connie, gave her life as well: Euphemia Yetman, formerly spinster of the parish, and happily married for but a single year.
***
Guy stood impatiently in the hall while Agnes remained in the empty drawing-room with the estate agent who had shown them round the house. It seemed to him an interminable length of time and made him decidedly nervous. He only hoped she didn’t commit herself to anything; but if he knew the new Agnes she would proceed with caution. Every house they saw she discussed with him: its size, suitability, location. Guy remained unenthusiastic because each house seemed further away from Wenham, further and more remote. This one was on the eastern side of Salisbury, towards London, and although it was a beautiful house in a park landscaped by no less a person than Capability Brown, it was ridiculous to think of a woman like Agnes living here all alone by herself, staff or no staff.
When at last she appeared, Guy gave a sigh of relief and put on his hat. They went down the stairs of the imposing porch from which in the distance could be seen the spire of Salisbury Cathedral.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ the agent enthused, extending a hand in a wide, sweeping gesture.
‘Enchanting,’ Guy said perfunctorily, not really taking the trouble to look.
‘Out of this world.’ Agnes was the most positive. ‘Furthermore, they say the army is encamped not so very far away.'
‘Oh, the army will not disturb you, madam,’ the agent hastened to reassure her.
‘I shall not be disturbed,’ Agnes replied sweetly. ‘I mean, one meets the nicest sort of person in the army from the highest echelons. I believe I may have an introduction, through mutual friends, to the commander-in-chief.’
They stood now on the gravel of the drive where Agnes’s hired Hispano-Suiza, complete with chauffeur, stood awaiting them. She had been most assiduous in recent days in her search for property, relentlessly dragging Guy with her hither and yon, inspecting notices and orders to view, visiting agents, consulting solicitors. It had become a fixation with her, to find a suitable home; and each one she saw was bigger, finer, better than the one before.
Agnes now paused by the car and looked towards the house, a gracious Palladian mansion that had come on the market through the death of the last surviving member of a family of prosperous Wiltshire merchants.
‘It needs a lot doing to it,’ she said sharply, biting her lip. ‘That might lower the asking price. In places the stone is very much corroded by the weather.’
‘It would cost a fortune to repair,’ Guy said. ‘It stands too high up. Besides, it is too far. Much, much too far.’
‘Too far?’ Agnes looked enquiringly at him.
‘Too far?’ the agent echoed, not understanding.
‘Too far from Wenham,’ Guy explained emphatically and, as the chauffeur opened the door of the limousine, he stepped inside and invitingly patted the seat beside him. ‘Agnes, come. It will soon be dark.’
The agent had arrived in a pony and cart which, upon seeing the imposing limousine, he had hastily left round the corner near the old stables. Even then Mrs Gregg and her escort were so involved in each other and the house that they didn’t seem to notice they might be leaving him high and dry, five miles from Salisbury. Maybe they thought that, as he had made his own way there, he could make his own way back. However, they made no offer of a lift. The rich were rather thoughtless, he told himself, watching the car as it disappeared down the drive, conscious at the same time that, for reasons he could only guess at, a sale of the property would not be made this time.
The car bowled in stately fashion down the drive, which was of immense length. It seemed to go on forever, until it came to the huge wrought-iron gates which were held open by a lodge-keeper, respectfully touching his forelock in time-honoured fashion at a gracious nod from Agnes.
‘I liked it very much,’ she enthused, pulling on her gloves, a far-away look in her eyes. ‘The nicest by far we’ve seen. Don’t you think so, Guy?’
‘Beautiful for a large family,’ Guy said drily, ‘dozens of servants and the like. For a woman on her own, ridiculous. As for what you said about the army, I didn’t think that in very good taste.’
‘Really, Guy!’ Agnes gave him a bewitching smile. ‘I do think you’re jealous. To be perfectly honest, I do have an introduction to the major-general ...’
‘Agnes!’ Guy clamped his hand firmly over hers. Then turning his face towards her, he gazed for a long time into her eyes. ‘This is ridiculous, Agnes. This must stop.’
‘I don’t understand you, dear,’ she said, trying to remove her hand from beneath his.
‘Agnes, I have a very large house and, even with other people in it – my son, his future wife, or wife as she will be then, my daughter-in-law and grandchildren – there is still room to accommodate a beautiful and most desirable woman I happen to love very much.’
‘What are you suggesting, Guy?’ Agnes pretended surprise, yet her eyes glinted with amorous intrigue.
‘I am suggesting, Agnes Gregg ...’ Guy glanced at the chauffeur in the front but decided to ignore him. ‘No, I am asking you to make me the happiest man alive; to complete something that was begun many years ago but never finished.’ He seized her hands and, after kissing them feverishly, held them to his heart. ‘Oh dearest Agnes, I am asking you to be my wife.’
Much later, after they had been into Salisbury to look at rings, and had dined at a hotel on the way; and after Guy had kissed her goodnight at the door of her suite at The Crown, promising to be there at first light in the morning, Agnes stood in her room in front of her mirror and gazed at herself.
What she saw did not displease her. She saw a fine-looking woman of some fifty-one summers, with blonde hair carefully waved and a fringe in front. Its colour owed a little to artistry, which was why she made her occasional visits to London; visits which poor Guy was meant to misinterpret. What woman would wish to admit to dyeing her hair? She saw also the lustrous, vampish eyes which had gained her so many admirers, the complexion which, though a little withered, some people still thought flawless. She saw a firm bust, a thickened waist and rather ample hips, the result of years of good living. But then there were her legs, long, firm, shapely, though seldom seen now beneath her ankle-length dresses. In many ways these had been her fortune, and for a good many years, more than she could count, they had been much admired by the multitude of gentlemen who had paid for her favours.
There never had been a Mr Wendell Gregg, railroad millionaire, although there was a faked wedding-certificate to suggest there had. There had never been millions left to her from the railroad, but she had acquired real estate in New Orleans, and had run an extremely profitable business as the owner of first one brothel, then two, then three.
When she had read in the London papers of the death of Lady Woodville, she had realised that the fulfilment of her lifetime’s ambition was near at hand.
She had sold her brothels, she had sold her real estate, her investments in stocks, bonds and shares. She did not have millions, or anything like it, but she had enough, for the time being, to pretend, to give the impression of someone who could afford the trappings of great wealth.
She had come back to Dorset to claim that title for which she had waited all her life, and which many years ago Guy had told her she should have. He had promised then to divorce his wife, but of course his promise was meaningless. He had left her with a child, without a future or a penny to her name.
> That night, Agnes Yetman went to bed a very happy woman, dreaming of that goal, once so far distant, which she could now at last see:
A baronet for a husband, and a house set on a hill: Pelham’s Oak.
Revenge; oh, revenge would be very sweet indeed.
19
Carson’s horse, Prince, drank thirstily from the stream, and watching him, the reins held loosely in his hands, Carson wished he too was a dumb, unthinking animal provided with fresh hay, a warm stall, a groom who watched over him and an owner who loved him. Carson put his hand out and ran it along Prince’s sleek neck. Prince’s grandmother had been Lady, the horse that had belonged to his Aunt Eliza when she was a girl, and Prince had the same loving, affectionate and faithful nature. Carson, his aunt and his cousin Dora had always shared a love of horses, which made a strong bond between the three of them.
From where he sat he could see Pelham’s Oak, surrounded by scaffolding, the decorators busy running up and down their ladders applying fresh coats of paint; the stone-masons working on repairs to the walls. As it had been done over in time for his father’s wedding, again to a wealthy heiress, so it was being done over in time for his. It only ever seemed to be thoroughly refurbished when the baronet, or his heir, married money.
Carson sighed and, as Prince raised his head, giving a snort of satisfaction, he gently dug his heels into his flanks and guided him slowly across the fields, past the cottage from which Ryder and Eliza had eloped, past the home farm to the house.
Would that there was some woman he loved so much that he had eloped with her, as Aunt Eliza had eloped with Ryder Yetman in those far-off days before he was born. Every time he thought of marriage to Connie his heart seemed to freeze over like a glacier, and he knew that, intelligent girl that she was, Connie knew this. He was not a diplomat, he was not good at pretence. He showed his feelings too clearly, and Connie knew he didn’t love her – rather as his mother must have known, all those years before, that his father hadn’t loved her.
The Rector's Daughter (Part Two of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 36