by Peter McAra
‘Indeed I did. My advisors reckoned the prices fetched by fine wool would give us a handsome return. With the coming of the spinning mills, the world developed an enormous hunger for woollen cloth. Now the mills of Britain are paying a fortune for wool. I planned to garner a little of that fortune for you and your sister.’ He took another sip of brandy. ‘Now to the sad tidings. You’ve heard of Botany Bay?’
‘Yes, father. Is it not the place to which convicts are transported?’ He had learned of the discovery of the great empty southern land of Terra Australis Incognita in Mr Harcourt’s schoolroom. Botany Bay was the faraway land’s main port. Soon after its discovery, the British government had chosen to use it as a cesspit, a place to dispose of the blighted souls spilling from Britain’s overfull prisons.
‘Indeed.’ the viscount sighed. ‘Lately, flocks of fine-woolled merino sheep were sent to Botany Bay from Spain. It seems they thrive in that climate, and the enterprising landowners, aided by plentiful supplies of convicts, have expanded their flocks to meet the booming market for their fine wool. Which means that the inferior stuff we scrape from the backs of our poor sheep sells for a price which does not even cover the cost of shearing and shipping. You may not have realised that I sold my herd of Jersey cows for a song, then borrowed a fortune to pay for the sheep. At the time, it seemed every other landowner in Britain had elected to follow the same plan. So the price for sheep rocketed and the price for cattle crashed.’ He filled his glass again, took a generous mouthful.
‘Which means that the estate you will inherit is on the verge of bankruptcy. Without money to appease those vultures of bankers, you will be left with nought but an enormous debt, a debt which grows daily as the interest accrues. More likely, they will force the sale of the estate, and you will become landless.’
‘But Father, is not our land entailed against just such a happening?’
‘I must admit I thought so. But those evil bankers have beaten me. You will recall your elder half-sister Hepzibah, child of my first wife Isabella. Poor Isabella died giving birth to Hepzibah, God bless her. Then when Hepzibah came of age it was said by her aunts, who had undertaken to find a match for her, that she was rather…plain. They suggested I offer a portion of my estate to any young man who would wed her. I did so willingly. Hepzibah had expressed deep sadness at the prospect of becoming an old maid.
‘You will know that Hebzibah married the village parson, but alas, she also died in childbirth soon afterwards, along with the infant. Now those cursed bankers have found clever lawyers who claim that the entail is become void because of my naïve act of offering a portion to her suitors. Of altering the words on the document to allow that dispensation. It seems the old entail was rendered obsolete, and its replacement not perfectly constructed. Some pernickety word out of place. Some punctuation mark wrongly disposed.’ He took a long sip from his glass.
‘Now the estate is mortgaged to the hilt. My agent says the bankers have retained the best lawyers in England. I cannot fight them. I no longer have the means nor the spirit, Harry.’ He slumped in his chair.
Now Harry saw behind the surly depths of his father’s moods over the past twelve months, the reason he had taken to the brandy bottle. On many a night lately, Harry had tiptoed into the library to find his father lying snoring drunk across his desk, the empty decanter beside him.
Then the stables. Now he understood why the younger, more valuable horseflesh had been sold, the old lame nags pressed into service. The same might be said of the servants, come to think of it. Jem Smith, the young gamekeeper, had lately left, along with Louisa’s pianoforte tutor. Then the woman who had groomed Louisa’s hair and taught her the art of dressing and comportment for her upcoming visits to the London Season had been suspended. Even the estate’s extensive gardens, pride of the estate for centuries, showed signs of neglect.
He remembered the many afternoons Eliza and he had walked those gardens, hand in hand if they were out of sight of the Great House, and talked of their love. He had even promised, in his innocence, that he would extend them when he became master of the estate, especially to please her. She had laughed, said that she was glad he loved gardens, and yes, she would happily take his hand as they walked through his new creations.
Some of the viscount’s former servants had undoubtedly decamped to the estate of De Havilland’s portly neighbour, Ernest Thurber. The wily Thurber had resisted the temptation to join the masses who’d planned to grow wool. Instead, he’d bought his neighbour’s Jersey cattle to graze on the estate he’d acquired with his earnings from the spinning mills. Then he sold tons of salt beef, cheese and butter to the military at extortionate prices as the wars ground on.
‘But Father, what has this to do with Eliza Downing?’ The moment the words fell out, Harry knew the answer. It was not long in coming from his father’s now slurring lips.
‘You must marry. Marry a woman of substance. And soon.’
‘You mean…Agatha Thurber?’ Harry said. He knew that everyone in the village had seen the match coming since the two participants were babies.
‘Yes. Indeed, Ernest Thurber has spoken for years of the desirability of such a match. You will not find Agatha hard to please. Quite the opposite, I’ll warrant.’
‘But sir, Agatha is…’ He must not demean his shy, downcast neighbour in front of his father. ‘She’s…dull. No sensible man will wed her. She’s been to a London Season or two by now, and always come home without prospects.’
‘That is of little import.’ The viscount straightened, fixed his gaze upon his son. ‘As her father’s only heir, she comes well endowed. She has the prospect of inheriting a generous fortune.’ He coughed. ‘Lately expanded at my expense, when I sold my cattle to Thurber for a song. Her parents, they expect the match. No doubt they see a brace of fine sons flowing from the union; a succession of gentlemen to carry on the family name. Last time I saw Thurber — it was at the horse sales — he said, I repeat his very words, “Your Harry is grown to a fine figure of a man, John. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a handsome look about him. I hear he is a good horseman, a crack shot, and a mean batsman on the cricket pitch. My Agatha sighs over him for days every time they meet.”’
The viscount turned to his son. ‘To bait the hook to catch you, Harry, he has offered to buy part of our estate for a quite generous sum. A sum which will go some way towards paying my debt to those cursed bankers.’ The viscount paused. Harry waited for the fatal blow. ‘But he will buy the land only if the marriage takes place. To put it in plain words, Thurber is buying an estate for his heirs.’ Harry reeled. He was being sold as a breeding bull.
‘We are bankrupt unless you make the match, Harry.’ Sir John had read the emotions plainly displayed on his son’s face. ‘Eight hundred years ago, William the Conqueror gave this land to one of his faithful generals as a reward for his conduct at the Battle of Hastings. Now, hundreds of years of De Havilland family history will end, hacked to death by those ruthless bankers.’ He hesitated. ‘Unless you marry Agatha.’ He watched as Harry stared into his glass, then continued.
‘Thurber will populate our now barren land with cattle. Because our land adjoins his property, it will suit him well. To sweeten the pill, he has said that if I agree to the arrangement he will let me see out my days in this house. I guess that when I depart this life, you and your young wife will live here. And so may your offspring’s eldest sons, God willing, for another thousand years and more.’ He drained the contents of his glass, clunked it onto the table.
‘You must marry Agatha, Harry. You must begin to court her forthwith. The Thurbers are to host a ball a few weeks from today with the express intention of having you court their daughter. The date has been chosen to fit with Oxford’s end of term. We expect you to woo her at that ball, then become betrothed soon afterwards. Very soon afterwards. My agent has hinted that he may persuade the bankers to hold back from foreclosing if they see some cash glinting on the horizon. Otherwise…’ The viscount e
mptied the last of the decanter into his glass, slumped back into his chair.
Harry took his leave, sick at heart. He had been born into a household that put the value of the family estate above all else. It had provided his ancestors with a gracious, affluent lifestyle for the past seven hundred years. Now reality loomed. His father was poorly, and if his addiction to brandy continued unchecked he would likely die soon. Harry must not let his father die in disgrace, burdened with the knowledge that his foolishness had cost his heirs the estate which had belonged to the family for centuries.
As Harry walked upstairs to his chambers, a picture of Eliza flashed into his mind yet again. As she stood to greet him at their rendezvous, she smiled up at him. Her arms locked round his body. She nestled close against him, purring like a happy kitten. Then she lifted her face to him, eyes wide with happiness. He kissed the open, inviting lips. The heart-pounding joy of her closeness swept through his body. He crushed her hard against his chest, kissing her in a frenzy of delight. At last, at last, she was back in his arms. Their kisses lasted an eternity — an eternity of joy. Then the warmth of her compliant body begged him to explore. His nose caught the warm scent of her womanliness. In his fantasy, he abandoned himself body and soul to the visceral urges seething inside him like a boiling cauldron fit to explode.
‘I suppose Sir John has his reasons,’ Hannah said to her foster-daughter when Cook told her that Eliza’s schooling arrangements were at an end. ‘It don’t do to question the gentry’s ways. No good ever comes of it.’ A few days later, Hannah gave her listless daughter a letter handed to her by Mrs Hawkins.
‘It must be from your friend Harry,’ she said. Eliza thanked her and hurried to a private place to read it.
My dear Eliza,
I am at Oxford, and I hate it extremely. Father was beastly, and packed me off as soon as he could. I could not find a way to tell you of my fate. But I guess you know it by now. The servants gossip so.
The other men here seem very smart. They laugh at me because I am a country yokel. Some of the tutors are kind and some are not. I have been punished once because I couldn’t calculate the square root of 289. You’d have known it instantly. The students and the lecturers would think you very clever. I have a servant who blacks my shoes and makes my bed. He is a decent fellow, and comes from the country too.
I think about us every night. And I remember our heavenly times at the lake. Don’t forget the four children. And our blood promise. Write to me and tell me about Marley, and what you do each day.
God bless you and keep you till I see you again.
Harry.
As soon as she could steal a moment of privacy, Eliza found pen, ink, and paper and replied.
Dear Harry,
I was so happy to receive your letter. I miss you more than I can express. I heard about your father sending you to Oxford. Jem told me one day as he drove the wagon past our cottage. I can guess what passed through your father’s mind after Louisa told him about us. I am sure he was shocked.
Mr Watson has asked me attend the village school to help him teach the young pupils. He says that I will learn a lot by teaching, and he will train me in the art of instruction in lieu of paying me wages. He says it will be very interesting for me. I doubt that. Nursery rhymes grow boring after a thousand repetitions. It is a long way from our days with Mr Harcourt and our afternoons by the lake. I will never, never forget those joyful days.
I would tell you about Marley if there were anything to tell. You will forget about it soon enough. All I ask is that you do not forget me. Write soon and often.
Your Eliza
Not wanting her foster-mother to know about the letter, Eliza decided to waylay Jem the coachman and ask him to make certain it reached Harry. He assured her that he would. A few days before, the viscount had told the servants that he wanted no more contact between the village maid and his children. A certain flush of his face gave them to think he meant it. That look boded ill for anyone who was caught disobeying the new edict. For a while, Jem toyed with the notion of handing the letter to the viscount, but thought better of it. After a few days indecision he threw it on the fire, glad to be rid of it.
Harry was first puzzled, then hurt, then cynical about the lack of a letter from Eliza. He could not find the courage to write again. When he came home to attend the ball arranged by the Thurbers to begin his courtship with Agatha, he discreetly enquired after her from Mrs Hawkins, who had always loved the little boy, now become a strapping young man.
‘Ah, she be gone back to her cottage. She helps to care for her old father. He be a cripple nowadays. She’ll be put to scrubbing and cooking till she’s old enough for the dairy, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘But is she — ?’
‘Don’t get no ideas about that girl into your head, Master Harry. Your father said if anyone caught you trying to find her, to tell him straight away or he’d sack them from his employ. We’re all dumb here.’
Harry had fretted for weeks after his letter to Eliza remained unanswered. During his brief visits home, during which his father ceaselessly supervised his contacts with Agatha Thurber, he could scarcely court Eliza. He recalled again and again the blood vow they had made in their youthful innocence all those years before. Would Eliza remember? Would she plan to honour her vow? For now, he was handcuffed against being with the woman he would always love. He could but hope that she would remember him as he would always, always remember her.
CHAPTER 8
‘I been meaning to tell you, Eliza.’ Hannah wiped her hands on her apron and fixed her daughter with a meaningful look. ‘Young Will Hardy, as works as a carpenter. I saw him giving you sheep’s eyes at church not so long ago.’ She stretched her arms wide. ‘Now there’s a decent, upstanding young man. And him with a good trade, as can one day make enough money to build his wife a cottage.’ She hesitated, then added a postscript. ‘A cottage fit for a large family.’ Eliza turned away. The last thing she needed now was a matchmaking scheme from her mother.
For long months Eliza had dreamed of the kisses they might share if Harry ever returned. From village gossip, she had heard of his obligation to marry Agatha Thurber. Even if he might still love Eliza, they could never share love again. Yet her illogical instincts, her dreams, refused to accept the too-obvious. How many nights had she lain awake, sensing again the desperate hunger of their last kiss? How often had she relived the rapture that had surged through her body as he lay naked beside her by the lake on that last summer afternoon? For too many nights, she let those dreams sweep her to ecstasy, let them take over her mind.
She feels the skin on her naked back tingle as she lies in the soft grass. She watches Harry slide closer. Watches as his hands reach towards her. Her whole body quivers as those hands touch her shoulder, her arm, her breast. She begs him to lie closer, so their nakedness touches from shoulders to toes. She opens her mouth to invite his kiss. Drown in the warm wetness of it. Beg for more, more…
She had wondered often what making love with Harry would be like. What tidal waves of sensation might wash over them as she gave her body to him? What might the future hold for the two of them? What would it be like to bear his children?
Even back then, in the months before that wretched afternoon, a part of her mind — the part fuddy-duddies would call common sense — had told her none of those girlish imaginings could ever be. Now, in the cold light of her workaday mornings, she had ordered herself to accept reality. But to spite her logic, her love had grown each day, a huge oak weathering the storms of winter, gaining strength from adversity.
Now, as weeks turned to months, Eliza wrestled again with cold reality. Her dreams of a life with Harry must now become dust, blown away in a bitter wind. Before his departure, she had never understood her foster-mother’s too-often-repeated wisdom that peasants and gentry were cut from different cloth.
‘The gentry are people, and we are people, Mother,’ she’d often remonstrated. ‘We have the same arms and l
egs and hands and feet. We think the same, we move the same.’ She remembered her joy at discovering the classics, of reading Shakespeare, of unravelling the mysteries of mathematics. The vicar had told her often enough that her passion for learning was often experienced by the more intelligent of the gentry; another instance of common ground between the classes.
‘They are gentry, and we are village folk, and that’s an end to it, Eliza,’ her tired mother would say as she kneaded a mound of dough.
‘But I love my learning, Mother. I — ’
‘I said that’s an end to it, Eliza.’
Now, as she walked to the garden nursing her wounded heart, basket in hand, to pull carrots for dinner, Eliza saw the truth that formed the bedrock of her mother’s homely wisdom. She wiped away a disobedient tear, set the basket on the ground, and began to look for carrots ready for the pulling.
In the days that followed, Eliza came to a decision. She might spend an age bleeding for a love that could never be, or she could turn the next page in the book of her life. She would always love Harry. He had been her first love, and he would be her last. Had not many poets rejoiced over their first love, written that such depth of passion could be experienced only once in a lifetime? Very well, then. As some kitchen philosopher had once said, ‘T’is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ Eventually, Eliza would settle into a new life that would grow from the battered stump of her hacked-down dreams. Indeed, she had loved and lost.
For a time after Harry had left, Eliza took evening walks to the iron gates of the Great House, reliving the sweetness of their kisses in the secret places beyond that forbidding gate. Now she saw the foolishness of that stupidly romantic act. She had cut a scar with a knife each time it began to heal. Now, as she began her new life, she must wean herself away from that destructive addiction.