by May Woodward
Goodness, no, it must have been her, Clemence. Must have been… she called to mind the soreness in her throat and chest. An ache you only get from abandoned weeping.
Aubrey, Aubrey, how can they be so cruel – dancing when my brother has never come home…? Didn’t she see Aubrey – standing on the bank of the mere in the dark? A blood-smeared hussar, looking sad… forever shut out… unable to come and join the party…
Eyes…eyes… all around the great hall… staring at her? Alarmed faces. Turned up as she huddled on the grand stairwell and gripped the banister.…
And then… Richard sweeping through aghast onlookers, grasping her by the arm, steering her upstairs… could not remember any more.
Clemence began to make her way home. She reached the ha-ha. The narrow ditch separated the outer grounds from the parterres, lawns and house, and was crossed by a miniature wooden bridge. A wet August it had been; twigs and sedge were dashing along a channel full of rainwater. Around the posts grew white-bloomed clematis, and silver and gold oat grass which, with the sunlit raindrops caught up in it, looked like a spread fan adorned with a cascade of miniature diamonds.
She mounted the walkway. Before her spread the gardens; the small, round, white-stoned Temple of Victory stood on the house side of the ditch; sunlight struck the pinnacles of its columns and cupola looking, too, like tiny gemstones.
Wasn’t there supposed to be madness in the family? It was one of the Somerlee legends she had grown up with. And it scared her… when she thought of what had happened the night of the wedding ball… the bits she could get her head around, that was. Such a scene she must have been making there on the stairwell that she’d brought the whole dance to a standstill. And made Richard and Amathia very embarrassed indeed. There might have been even worse which she couldn’t remember. Had she flashed her drawers to the assembly as her brother dragged her away?
Her grandfather’s brother had gone away with the fairies… nearly threw himself over the Cheddar Gorge once… had to be confined for life like poor Aunt Cassie, so some aged gardener had once told Clemence in her youth. But the old rogue had been trying to scare her, surely?
The Somerlees could not really be cursed, could they? Brandon Fanshawe had been Dickon’s friend for years. They’d been at Brasenose together. Fanny couldn’t think the Somerlees were tainted or he wouldn’t be Dickon’s bosom bow, would he?
I love Brandon. I know that now.
Well, she was free for him. James Swynton’s death was the blood-soaked tragedy which could bring them together.
Clemence wandered among the flowerbeds. Pink, white and red roses, and some which seemed a combination of all three shades – the colour of sugar, Clemence thought. Lavender, marigold, apple blossom, buttery delphiniums and irises the colour of blue flames – all nodding their heads in the perfumed air. Hovering bees were everywhere. Roving lovers who would leave the flowers weeping in the autumn rain but be back to break hearts anew when June came again.
A sun-shadow slunk over the house as Clemence approached the path which led to the garden door. There was a Lady Somerlee ruling here nowadays, and Eardingstowe was hers; Lady Amathia Somerlee as she insisted on styling herself, because she had been of higher rank than her husband before her marriage.
She doesn’t want me under her roof though, that’s plain. And who could blame Amathia in her delicate condition? Cannot have the gestating Baronet of Eardingstowe exposed to a nutcase raving all over the place.
‘The Consetts are broke, sweetheart,’ Lysithea had once told Clemence. ‘The duke’s been living on borrowed money for years. Oh, they’ve kept it quiet. But I have ways of finding these things out.’
So, now Dickon was shackled to grasping, feckless in-laws. Lord Philo Dunkerley, the duke-in-waiting, would willingly spend the Exchequer on a shooting party or inamorata’s fine tastes. He and Amathia between them could drag Richard to the depths of the mere sooner than Jenny Greenteeth ever could.
‘Oh, Miss Somerlee! Quel darling gown! You must give me the address of your mantuamaker.’
Clemence smiled at the gushing stranger who had stepped in front of her.
‘Why thank you, my dear!’ She tapped the woman’s arm with her fan. ‘And you are looking even more radiant than when I last saw you at the opera! Was it seven months ago? Goodness!’ Which was as good a guess as any. ‘And so delightful to see you here.’
‘What? Miss the wedding of the year, Miss Somerlee? Who would dare?’ the woman enthused.
‘You must come to tea at Somerlee House sometime…’ Clemence managed over her shoulder as she edged past.
She had been to Buckingham Palace before – not least for her presentation. But had there ever been crowds and crowds like these here tonight to celebrate Princess Vicky’s happy occasion? How did they share all the air for heaven’s sake?
Descending the grand staircase meanwhile were Lord and Lady Palmerston. Clemence nodded to the glamorous Prime Minister and his vivacious Lady Emily as they drew level. Clemence couldn’t hear what they were saying. One almighty gallimaufry of yattering and blaring orchestra music was going on.
A blue porcelain vase which stood in a niche was winking critical eyelets. Ivory statues, humungous portraits of dead monarchs… far-seeing eyes following, following, following your every step…
A male figure, his back to her, was standing at the head of the stairs. Gold-braided, cornflower-blue coatee. And red trousers with yellow stripe… The hussar’s hair gleamed, glossy and dark brown. A pretty girl gazed up into his face. He was making her laugh.
Aubrey… she whispered her lost brother’s name.
The hussar turned around. A stranger was looking at her in surprise.
Clemence stumbled against the balustrade.
‘For pity’s sake, Lysithea, get her to a seat before she makes a fool of us!’ came Amathia’s voice from behind her.
The ladies’ crinolines whirling around the South Drawing-Room all blurred into a mélange of colours. Like watching a fairground dobby going around and around when you were a bit queasy from eating too much ice-cream, Clemence thought. Heat from hundreds of sweating bodies, and thousands of candles in chandeliers and candelabra was making a steamy swamp of the great chamber.
Clemence let her aunt and sister-in-law lead her to one of the side chairs, where matrons and wallflowers sat out the measures they had no partners for.
Some of the people gathered nearby were cooing a little ditty.
‘God save the Prince and Bride! God keep their lands allied!’
Clemence had heard the townsfolk, who’d gone out into the January snow to see the passing bridal carriages, chanting it too. The Prussian royal marriage seemed popular.
‘Princess Vicky and Prince Frederick are a sober and serious-minded pair,’ Lysithea was telling her in a low, laughing voice. ‘Well-suited to each other. I cannot imagine they will be giving many gay revels such as this at the Stadtschloss in Berlin!’
‘We all likely lost someone in the Crimea, dear Aunt-in-law,’ said Amathia. She had taken the seat on Lysithea’s other side. Clemence couldn’t help noticing how quickly Amathia had cosied up to the rich relation. ‘It’s peace we want! And our Queen’s daughter marrying the heir to the throne of the most warlike nation in Europe should mean that. Should the Russian Bear roar again, we’ll have the iron Prussians on our side!’
Clemence could make out the ivory-gowned, dumpy little figure of the Queen seated on the dais. Beside Victoria stood her stout husband in the dress uniform of Aubrey’s regiment. Prince Albert was its Colonel-in-Chief. Grey and tired he was looking these days.
Clemence turned her gaze back to the waltzing pairs. Among them she spotted her sister. That wasn’t her husband Isabella was dancing with. Odd chap, Lord Markham. Preferred the company of members of his own sex to that of his pretty, lively young wife. And didn’t seem to care that
she’d flirted with half the household cavalry. Lady Markham was becoming a bit of a scandal, and an embarrassment to her family at Eardingstowe.
Meanwhile, a young man was approaching the corner where Clemence was sitting. In front of her he halted. Her heart skipped a beat. Someone was asking her onto the dance-floor?
‘Miss O’Driscoll? Might I have the pleasure of the next?’
Clemence hid behind the quivering feathers of her fan as the young man led out the eighteen-year old who had been seated beside her.
No-one wanted to dance with Clemence. Three waltzes and a polka had gone by and no-one had asked for her hand.
She gave a small gasp. Brandon Fanshawe had just entered the ballroom. He wore a blue sash beneath his evening coat. Clemence watched him move through the press of people in her direction.
Then a nuisance of intruders crossed her view, and she lost sight of him. They took their time, edging towards the dance-floor; and pausing to utter inanities:
‘My dear Maria! Even more blooming than when we saw you at the Beauforts’ Hunt.’
When the obstacles were gone, Clemence found herself looking up into Lord Fanshawe’s face.
‘Miss Somerlee! How wonderful to see you here tonight. May I join you?’
He flicked his coat-tail and took the vacant place. An arm resting on the chair back, he leaned towards her. On her other side, Aunt Lizzy and Amathia had their heads together in private talk.
‘You look in good health, my dear,’ he said. ‘I hope this means we’ll be seeing more of you this coming season? We have missed you.’
Clemence flapped a small foehn with her fan. It was true she had not been much in society these last two years. Her illness had taken a lot of getting over.
‘I’m very, very well indeed thank you, Lord Fanshawe.’ She cast him a sidelong look. Brandon had lost the tan he had acquired in the south. When he’d stood by her side on the hilltop, tiny pale creases had radiated from the corners of his eyes from having narrowed them against the sun.
‘And putting the Crimea behind you, I hope?’ he went on.
‘Well, that I’m not sure of! Do you believe that inglorious war did any good, Lord Fanshawe?’
‘Certainly! Had we lost, we’d be sitting here tonight supping vodka and that revolting black salty stuff Ivan thinks such a delicacy!’ He laughed and tapped his knee. ‘There was a time in man’s remote past, you know, when he had to fight to survive. The tribe over the hill would take all the game otherwise, and leave you starving. I’m convinced, you know, that our periodic hankering for war every forty years or so is a throwback to all that. Ten thousand years of civilisation hasn’t changed our species much. Perhaps Mr Darwin should reconsider his theories before he publishes this much-talked-about forthcoming book of his!’
‘We’ll watch our sons marching against some new aggressor, then?’
‘Exactly! To learn the same truth you and I did.’
‘Actually,’ she continued, ‘I’m hoping to do something useful with the money my father left me. It’s mine now I’ve turned twenty-one. Something to benefit those who lost so much in the war as I did, I mean.’
‘The Crimea made a few stout hearts quail,’ he said. ‘What have you in mind?’
‘I was thinking, perhaps, of a convalescent home for the war wounded.’
‘Indeed! A most worthy enterprise.’ He regarded her, head on one side. ‘Might you consider marriage again though someday, Miss Somerlee?’ Oh, yes. Ask me, just ask me, Brandon. ‘Captain Swynton left you heartbroken, I know. But he would not want you to shrivel into old maidenhood for his sake.’
‘Oh, I am not intending to remain a bitter spinster, dear as James was to me. But we shouldn’t be remembering the war tonight!’ she pressed on. The Prussian Prince was just at that moment dancing by, a hand clasping the waist of his bride, Princess Vicky, who was wearing a dress of magenta-coloured silk. ‘We should be thinking of marriage and blessing our happy couple.’
‘Indeed! And another happy couple too, I hope.’ He cast a look at her askance.
How heavenly sounded this present polka that the band was playing. She would remember it forever as the tune which was playing when Fanny asked her to marry him.
He took her hand in his. She felt as if she could have taken wing to dance.
‘Miss Somerlee. Clemence. Would you be a maid of honour at my wedding?’
‘A… maid of honour?’
‘I’ve asked Dickon to be my groomsman. Phyllis and I want all our dearest friends around us at our special time.’ He turned fully to face her. ‘We shared so much, you and me, in the Crimea!’
‘Phyllis?’
‘Miss Phyllis Guilfoyle!’ He sounded surprised. ‘Has Dickon not told you, then? We’re to be married next month!’
‘No, my brother has not given me this news.’
‘Ah, well, perhaps he feared you were not yet over your broken heart and talk of someone else’s nuptials might have been hard to bear.’
‘Yes… I suppose he must have…’
She clenched her fingers around her fan so tightly, they blanched.
‘I wish you – and Miss Guilfoyle – every happiness.’
‘Thank you, Miss Somerlee! Clemence. And now…’ Lord Brandon Fanshawe offered her his arm. ‘Would you favour me with a dance?’
TWELVE
‘Are you ready to receive little Miss Caroline, My Lady?’ asked the nursery-maid.
‘Not yet… allow me another half an hour please.’
The mistress of Eardingstowe swung back and forth in her rocking-chair and sulked after the girl had gone again. Amathia tugged her shawl around her goosepimply arms. They mustn’t have updated the Eardingstowe heating system, whatever it consisted of, since the Dark Ages.
The small room where she found herself, on Eardingstowe’s first floor, was known as Lady Clémence’s Sitting-Room after Dickon’s and Clemmie’s grandmother, Lysithea’s mother. She had been a refugee from the Revolution, some sort of distant cousin of Louis XVI. The furnishings might have come from old Versailles: Louis Quatorze chairs and sofa, a Van Der Meer painting, Sèvres porcelain.
Not family heirlooms, of course. Even a Somerlee woman would not have been insane enough to rescue her ottoman from her burning château. Lady Clémence must have acquired these objects from auction houses after her exile from her native land.
Amathia’s eyes moved to the view outdoors – looking southwards towards the village. It was early spring. Patches of stubborn, greyish snow which had fallen a week since were dotted around. In the willow coppice just beyond the walled garden, she could make out four or five labourers clearing the undergrowth with hedging-hooks.
The Quantock Hills and a ring of trees enclosed most of the grounds. If you walked the track which led from the mere to the edge of the woodland, you would see amber eyes and shadows slinking through the bracken and ferns: a guard regiment of badgers, tawny owls and wild ponies. And this feral place was to be home for the rest of her days?
Amathia rose from her chair. She dawdled out into the North Lobby and Picture Gallery.
It didn’t bother her if the nursery-maid was unable to find her again. Each day Amathia was obliged to spend time with the infant … her child… her child. Richard’s fungus more like which had grown inside her from his poisoned seed – that’s what it was.
Now, four months on from her lying-in, she could not distinguish between birthing depression and Eardingstowe depression. The one blurred into the other.
It was not that she regretted her choice of husband precisely, no. She had a fair chance of Aunt Lysithea’s fortune coming her way. But that was but a bubble right now; and she was, meantime, having to endure her growing dislike of Dickon and his home.
A pity the baby wasn’t a boy. Not that she thought boys were superior to girls; but as mother of the baronet
-in-waiting she would have wielded power – over Dickon, Eardingstowe, the master-to-come. Instead, she had it all to do again.
She did not turn into the nursery wing. She could hear the crying voice of Eardingstowe’s newest resident coming from there. Amathia went instead down the south stairs, ambled along the Lower Gallery, and came upon her lord and master’s study. The door was ajar. Amathia could see him in there, with his solicitor.
What was that pair discussing? Her father’s finances perhaps? That thought made her uneasy. Richard had returned from Kingsmede two days ago in a right mood about that. It seemed some of the bills from the sumptuous Westminster wedding had ended up on Richard’s desk after all.
Well, no-one had ever told him the Consetts were rich. He was the one who’d assumed that. Despite all the hints which Fanny and Lizzy had no doubt dropped.
‘Strange how the duke’s penury hasn’t prevented your brother doing the Grand Tour or running a hunting stable,’ Richard had said to her during a heated exchange earlier that day.
The Little Drawing-Room, where she eventually settled, was one of Eardingstowe’s loveliest chambers: Amathia rather liked it compared with the rest of the house. The painted columns were in the Roman style; the ivory of its ceiling sculptured into a pattern of quatrefoils and pendants. Frescoes in the gold-bordered wall panels depicted scenes from mythology: she gazed up at the yellow-tressed Sun wooing the maiden Leucothoe on the Aegean shore.
Amathia didn’t stay long though. She had just heard Richard taking leave of his visitor, and his footsteps heading this way. In the mood to meet him she was not. Instead, she slipped out through the garden door, and followed the path which led past the yew and church wall.
Glancing up at the house, she could see lamplight glowing behind her sister-in-law’s shut drapes. Amathia intended to have that room fumigated once she’d finally got rid of Clemence.