‘This is your room,’ he said. ‘Mine is three doors down.’
‘Thank you,’ Poppy replied, seeing his servant had already unpacked for her. ‘What a lovely room.’
Basil stared at her briefly.
‘In England it’s bad form to comment on people’s possessions, Lady Tetherington.’ He paused. ‘However. If you want anything, there’s a bell by the fireplace. Dinner is in forty minutes.’
He nodded and left her. At her feet her little long-haired dachshund shook himself, reminding her of his presence.
‘It’s all right, George,’ she said, picking him up. ‘We won’t be at all lonely. We’ve got each other.’
Even so, as she sat on the edge of the bed – with George beside her – and stared round, Poppy could not help wondering at the change in Basil. He seemed so different. She pulled the dog closer to her and prayed that, like her, he was just tired.
Despite the awkwardness that had permeated their drinks together, Poppy could not help feeling excited as she dressed for dinner. Her choice of dress was stunning. Made of over fifteen yards of white printed satin, it had a high neck, a straight front and a draped back, one half of which overlapped the other to fall to the floor in a long train, but it was not just the cut that made the gown so arresting. It was the fact that the white satin was printed with bright red poppies.
When she entered the drawing room once more, Basil simply stared at Poppy, his startling blue eyes fixed on the abundance of red blooms scattered over the marvellous white satin. However, since he said nothing at first, Poppy at once sensed failure.
‘Whose idea was this, pray?’ he finally wondered, having taken a full tour round Poppy’s stationary figure. ‘Your own or your mother’s?’
‘We both chose it as it happens,’ Poppy said, feeling herself begin to tremble at the edge in her husband’s voice. ‘We both liked it not just because it’s – well – so pretty, but because we thought it was – fun. Don’t you find it fun, Basil?’
‘You buy clothes for fun?’
‘Not always – no. But for me, this is fun.’
‘I really fail to see the humour, alas. Red is so common. I find red common. As I imagine will the servants.’ Basil sighed heavily before going to the drinks table and helping himself to a large gin. ‘However, I’m quite sure Douglas’s servants will have a good laugh behind your back, Lady Tetherington, but behave themselves in front of you.’
‘I’ll go and change. I have other gowns I can wear.’
‘It’s too late, I’m afraid. I dine at eight sharp – not a minute after. I have to think of the servants.’
He drank his drink with his back to her, staring out through the floor-length windows across the lawns and down to the lake, smoking a cigarette carefully between sips. When he had finished, he simply turned and, ushering her in front of him with an impatient wave of his hand, headed for the dining room and a quite obviously more than welcome dinner.
During what seemed to be an endless meal, Poppy once again tried a variety of subjects about which she had made up her mind in advance to talk, only to find each attempt met with a blanket of silence. Basil did glance down the long table at her occasionally when she spoke, but for the most part he ignored her, concentrating his interest on what was in his wine glass. Each new wine was examined first in the glass, then up against the light, before being tested on his nose and palate. Having tasted the wine he would say nothing, but simply nod to the butler to fill his glass to the full. It was a procedure that Poppy found less than interesting to watch.
Dinner being at last at an end, Basil informed Poppy she could be excused, so Poppy thankfully upped and left to powder her nose and check the rest of her appearance while Basil remained at the table smoking and drinking a glass of port. When he finally joined Poppy once more in the drawing room, he suggested they take a stroll down to the lake before retiring, ordering the butler to fetch a shawl for Poppy and a coat for him. Finally, suitably muffled against the evening chill, the newly weds took a silent amble down to the water’s edge.
Basil lit another cigarette as soon as they reached the lake, while Poppy turned back to look at the house behind her.
‘I think this house is really rather pretty. It’s my favourite period for English architecture – about 1780, would you say? And the fact that it has always been lived in by the same family. It gives a place such a settled feel, don’t you think?’
‘Mellerfont was once a house like this, but my grandfather knocked it down to build something larger, and grander.’
‘Are you glad for that, Basil?’
Basil stared at her, then inhaled deeply from his cigarette.
‘I’m not sure,’ he drawled. ‘All I know is that Mellerfont is to be our home. Otherwise I don’t really consider the past very much. There is too much to think about now.’
‘Won’t we – well … rattle a little, Basil? It does look exceptionally large from the photographs.’
‘It is a large house, certainly,’ Basil agreed, tapping ash into the edge of the lake as if it were a giant ashtray. ‘But I cannot imagine you were expecting anything small.’
‘Perhaps it has a dower house we could live in to start with, so we can get used to each other? Dower houses are always so pretty and cosy, don’t you think?’
‘You cannot live in the dower house yet. You may live in one as long as you like once I am dead, but really not before. That is the purpose of a dower house, as I am quite sure you know. Shall we walk on a little? I hope you’re not getting cold.’
Since Poppy was wrapped only in the thin shawl the butler had brought her down she was in fact beginning to feel the cold, but she refused to admit it lest Basil consider it another mark against her. Instead she walked on beside him in silence, racking her brains for something to say. The quiet of the night, punctuated only by the distant hooting of owls and the splash of some large fish rising late in the lake, covered the increasing sense of distance between them.
‘Do you think we might have made a mistake?’ she found herself saying quite out of the blue, unable to imagine what had prompted such an outburst. Basil was even more surprised than she, stopping in his tracks and wheeling round to stare at her in the twilight.
‘I am not in the habit of making mistakes, Poppy,’ he informed her, once more fixing her with his bright blue eyes.
‘I’m sure you’re not, Basil. But I am. At least I’m always getting things wrong – and I just hope this isn’t something else I’ve – you know – I’ve got wrong.’
‘Isn’t it a little late now for you to be drawing such conclusions? Besides, what makes you think such a thing? I find it altogether astounding.’
‘Because it hasn’t been altogether a runaway success so far, I suppose,’ Poppy continued, determined now to see it through. ‘You obviously hated my dress, you disapprove of what I read, we hardly spoke a word to each other over dinner, and now – well, we can’t find much to say to each other at all. In spite of its being such a beautiful night. And being in such a beautiful place.’
‘You had quite a lot to say for yourself at dinner, I assure you. I found your account of being such a flop at Ascot really quite amusing.’
‘You don’t think we’ve made a mistake then?’
‘I think possibly you need to give things a little time. You can’t expect marriage to be like some old overcoat that can just be put on and you expect to feel comfortable, just like that.’
‘As long as you don’t think we’ve made a mistake that’s all right then,’ Poppy concluded miserably, glad that the cloud passing over the moon hid her doleful expression. Further along the bank George barked at some small creature he had disturbed before running back to his mistress in some dismay, his long tail dropped between his legs.
Poppy picked him up and cuddled him, ever grateful for his unconditional love.
‘Time for bed, I’d say,’ Basil said, almost reprovingly, as he watched Poppy cuddling the little dog. ‘Before you get
too cold.’
Without waiting, he turned and strode back towards the house at the top of the lawns. Poppy, still carrying George, hurried after him, but by the time she caught up with him in the drawing room, where the newly stacked fire was burning even more brightly, he had already poured himself a nightcap and lit another cigarette.
‘He who aspires to be a hero,’ he said. ‘Or, in your case, she who aspires.’
‘Yes?’ Poppy queried, at a momentary loss. ‘Meaning?’
‘He who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.’ Basil nodded once at her, holding out the glass as if it were medicine she must take.
Outside owls still hooted hauntingly and somewhere a vixen shrieked, alarming George, whose ears shot up vertically.
‘I have to say,’ Basil said, eyeing her, ‘you look very good tonight. In spite of the dress.’
‘Thank you, Basil,’ Poppy said, looking down at her dog who was now sitting on her lap. ‘And I’m sorry about the dress.’
‘It’s a dress.’ Basil shrugged. ‘It’s not as if the wretched flowers are tattooed on to you.’
They drank their brandies in silence, a quiet broken only by Basil, occasionally humming some unrecognisable tune while tapping his foot in time. Finally, once he had finished his drink and pointedly waited for Poppy to finish hers, he opened the door of the drawing room, this time standing by it to let Poppy go through. She preceded him up the long flight of stairs, George clasped in her arms, while Basil followed on behind, now whistling the same unrecognisable tune.
When they reached the landing Poppy hesitated, wondering into which room she was expected to go. As if to make her mind up for her, Basil stepped forward and opened her bedroom door.
‘Thank you.’
Poppy entered her room, stopping when she got inside and turning back, uncertain as to what was to happen next. She saw Basil watching her from the doorway in the same way she had observed him looking at items in shop windows, head slightly to one side, lips a little pursed.
‘Hmm,’ he said, then fell to a short silence. ‘Hmmm,’ he repeated finally, with a little more decision now. ‘No. No I don’t think so, no, not after all.’ He bestowed a small impersonal smile on her. ‘Goodnight. We shall meet again at breakfast. Sleep well, Lady Tetherington.’
Before Poppy had time to say anything, Basil had closed the door and was gone. Poppy frowned, pushing her spectacles up on to the bridge of her nose before going back to the door, about to open it again. Then, knowing it was pointless, she sat down on the bed, staring ahead of her in bewilderment, before once more lifting George on to her beautiful satin skirt.
‘I think I’d quite like to go home, George,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘But I don’t think that’s going to be allowed tonight, do you?’
George turned a pair of large melancholy eyes on her and licked her nose. Poppy hugged him to her, tightly.
‘No, George,’ she sighed quietly, thinking of her parents who had packed up before the wedding and were about to leave for America on the Queen Mary. ‘I think we’re going to have to sit this one out, until such time as we can think of a plan.’
She sighed, her throat constricting as she realised her isolation, the loneliness of her situation, the stupidity of it all. She had married someone she did not know, and now it was perfectly apparent might never be able to even like.
The next day they completed the final stage of their journey to Mellerfont, arriving there as dusk was falling in and around the large Gothic house with its towers and turrets, its pushy, artificial grandeur looking to Poppy as unappealing as Douglas McKinlock’s house had looked inviting. The red light from the setting sun was reflected in its many windows, giving it a glow that seemed more baleful than radiant, as if the windows were red-eyed from watching for their owner.
The servants gathered, as was the tradition, on the steps in front of the house to greet Poppy. All were in country livery, which was a little frayed, a little too worn, as were their expressions as they stared at the new mistress of Mellerfont. Despite her English patina Poppy felt that they must know that she was a foreigner, must realise she was much younger than her new husband, and therefore bound to be ignorant. The look in their eyes, it seemed to her own tired ones, was therefore not so much welcoming as warning, as if they were saying, You can come here, you can be here, but just don’t try asking for anything.
‘I will have supper in my room, if you don’t mind, Basil.’
Poppy turned in the hall to find Basil all at once deep in conversation with his butler, and the rest of the servants gone.
‘Of course, my dear, supper in your room. Barley water and water biscuits will do, won’t it?’
Poppy looked across at him and knew at once there was a veiled threat behind his words. She also knew that he was punishing her for something, although quite what she didn’t know.
‘Yes, of course that will be perfect,’ she agreed with no outward sign of emotion, adding, ‘just two water biscuits, not more, please, Liddle.’
She had carefully memorised the names of the servants even as Basil had introduced them. Liddle the butler, Craddock the under-butler, Norman the boot boy, Mary, Beattie, and Sorrel, the maids – and at long last she could see a look of surprise in Basil’s eyes. She also saw that he had registered that by ordering only two water biscuits she was throwing down a gauntlet. If he was choosing to send her to bed with a supper fit only for a naughty child, she would make sure that it was truly only fit for a very naughty child.
‘Now, Liddle.’ She turned at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Show me to my suite, please, and goodnight, my lord. I will hope to see you in the morning’
When Poppy awoke the next morning all signs of summer had disappeared, and there were only thunder clouds to be seen beyond her bedroom window, and the sound of heavy rain hurling itself against the thin, old-fashioned glass window panes. The grounds looked very uninviting in the inclement weather, the trees already drooping with the weight of the waters that were pouring out of the skies, while the surface of the great lake looked as though it was being perforated from below by hundreds and thousands of tiny drills. In search of easy pickings a bevy of wild ducks waddled across the flooding lawns, while in the huge flowerbeds a couple of waterproofed gardeners were doing their best to go about their work.
As she made her way downstairs Poppy noticed that rain was pouring in at one corner of the ceiling high above the hall, to be caught in a strategically placed zinc bucket below, while the wind seemed determined to rattle ill-fitting windows everywhere, cross-draughts blowing up and down the staircase and across the fireless hall below where an elderly bald servant sat on a visitor’s chair reading the newspaper. Feeling the chill of the house wrapping itself around her like a damp garment, Poppy at once hurried back to her bedroom in search of warmer clothes, changing quickly out of her light dress and into a wool twin set and a sensible tweed skirt.
Later, crossing the hallway once more, she observed the ancient retainer finally galvanising himself to light the fire, which smoked slowly as it attempted to catch, its fumes escaping the chimney to drift in a faint fog across the large, cold room. The old man took no notice of Poppy other than to nod slightly in response to her polite greeting, standing in his well-stained white jacket and shiny black trousers flapping at the recalcitrant flames with a fanned-out newspaper. Looking about her in dismay as she hurried towards the dining room with her cardigan pulled tightly around her, Poppy found herself wondering how on earth she could ever have imagined Mellerfont would have any charm.
Basil had finished his breakfast by the time Poppy arrived at the table. He barely looked up to greet her, just nodding once at her while turning the pages of the Daily Telegraph.
‘We shall be moving your luggage to a new suite today,’ he informed her. ‘I have had them open it up for a few days to give it an airing. Craddock will help you move your things across.’
‘Craddock will be moving me?’ Poppy wondered as she helped herse
lf to some nearly cold scrambled eggs from under one of the silver-covered dishes on the sideboard. ‘Is that quite suitable?’
‘The maids are all busy with other things. He’s the man lighting the fires.’
‘I do now know who Craddock is, Basil.’
‘You don’t have much, do you? So it won’t take you too long. There are people coming here for luncheon today on business. You will not be required. From today you will be in the west wing. I will be in the east, where I also have my offices. There’s a primitive sort of intercom, but if you really want something, better by far to send someone like Craddock. He’s very handy, you’ll find.’
With that Basil rose and left the breakfast table, whistling yet another of his unrecognisable tunes. Poppy promptly put her plate of unappetisingly cold scrambled eggs on the floor for George, contenting herself with a sequence of cups of black coffee from the pot on the table that was only marginally warmer than her breakfast dish.
Mid-morning she finally finished packing up her clothes once again, preparatory to moving to the west wing. With Craddock pushing her luggage in an old wheelbarrow, Poppy sheltered herself as best she could under a broken umbrella, doing her utmost to avoid the huge puddles of rainwater that had formed everywhere. If she had thought the main house to be in a state of decrepitude, it was as nothing compared to the west wing. The general smell of mustiness that filled her nostrils the moment she entered indicated to Poppy that the wing could not have been properly lived in for an age, and as she surveyed the general state of decoration she quickly came to wonder why her husband should wish her to live in it now, before any of the obviously necessary repairs had been carried out. At least in the east wing the areas of damp were smaller and the damage more contained; even in her slender experience Poppy imagined, given the state of what she had seen of the house, Mellerfont as a whole must be at best a lost cause, at worst, with its ancient pipes and plumbing, an ideal harbour for typhoid to fester.
Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 Page 4