A Time Like No Other

by Audrey Howard

  ‘Shake the mixture well and rub it on with a clean piece of linen then polish with a dry duster. It will produce a lovely shine,’ she was saying while Tansy watched somewhat mutinously, for hadn’t she been housemaid at Mill House for years and knew all about cleaning. They both turned towards the door as their mistress and Mr Roly entered and for some reason unknown to Tansy, Mrs Stevens muttered something under her breath, something Tansy could not catch.

  ‘Beg pardon?’ she said, but Mrs Stevens, with a twitch of her head, indicated that Tansy should return to the kitchen. Mrs Stevens’s face had lost all its colour and Tansy wondered why.

  Lally knew, of course. She smiled or rather grimaced in what was meant to be a smile, turning brightly to Roly. ‘Would you care for coffee, Roly?’ she asked.

  ‘That would be most welcome, Lally.’ He nodded at the frozen figure of the housekeeper, probably wondering why the woman looked so strange but Lally distracted him as she removed her cloak and tossed it carelessly in Biddy’s direction. If he was surprised, and he was, at the fullness of her figure, he did not show it, though it seemed to him, having been married for no more than five months, she was remarkably plump. Not that he knew much about women who were pregnant since those of his own class kept to their homes during pregnancy and only took exercise in their closed carriages and even after giving birth remained secluded for at least six weeks.

  He followed Lally into the drawing room. Everywhere was warm, even the huge stone-floored hall where a crackling log fire blazed. As he entered the drawing room he was quite amazed as his feet sank into the thick velvet of a carpet and his gaze encountered the comfort and luxury that had been added to the room which he remembered as rather threadbare and only warm about the fireplace and that only lukewarm! It was filled with flowers, pictures hung on the freshly papered walls and ornaments of what he recognised as highly valuable porcelain stood on dainty-legged tables. He also recognised that his brother must have spent a great deal of money to transform this house, for he supposed the bedrooms had had the same treatment, into one in which he could live comfortably and entertain his business friends and acquaintances. He wondered if Lally was up to such a thing, for she and Chris had been careless as host and hostess to their many, equally careless, friends of whom he had been one. It had not mattered to them who had turned up, or when, and the glorious romps in which Lally had been included were not the sort of thing his rather staid brother would expect.

  ‘And how long are you to be home this time, Roly?’ Lally asked politely after he had seated her rather heavily on the sofa to the side of the roaring fire and had sat opposite her in the matching and extremely comfortable sofa on the other side of the fireplace. She had pulled her . . . well, he could only call them draperies about her thickening figure, fine woollen garments, but full and ingeniously constructed to hide her belly, in a light rose, the colour flattering and he had to admit she looked very lovely. Her skin was flawless, her dark, curly hair tumbling about her head in a glossy cap. Her eyes were a clear blue-green and the lashes surrounding them seemed thicker and darker than he remembered. It was as though her pregnancy had enhanced the natural beauty that had been hers the last time they met.

  ‘Well, as I have been away for eight months, travelling the length and breadth of America and then on to Russia and Europe I feel I might stay at home for a month or two. Harry has plans for an extension to High Clough and I believe I should be here when he starts. After all I am an equal partner in the business and he is inclined to go hell for leather at things without consulting me. I go away and when I come back he has altered something I’m not sure I agree with. He intends to turn the carding of the wool entirely over to West Heath which seems, on the face of it, to be a good idea but I would like the chance to consider it.’ He smiled, as polite as Lally, brooding on why he was talking to her, to Lally, who was as fun-loving as himself, about business. Something in her demeanour was burrowing into his alert mind and though he could not have said what it was he felt himself wondering at his own sudden unease. Well, not exactly unease but a feeling that there was something in the air, in Lally herself, that disturbed him.

  ‘What a shame you missed Christmas at home.’

  He grinned impishly. ‘Oh, I enjoyed Christmas in America so I did not exactly miss it. They are very hospitable, the Americans. I brought some presents back, Christmas presents and though it’s now March I hope you will accept them. I have them here.’

  He stood up and from his pocket produced a small, beautifully wrapped parcel. To her astonishment he handed it to her with a bow.

  ‘Oh, Roly, really, you should not have . . .’

  ‘Rubbish. I saw this and at once thought of you. It is nothing . . . well, I say it is nothing but the jeweller told me it once belonged to a European princess.’ He stood over her, though at the same time he did his best to assume a casual air.

  When she unwrapped the parcel she found it to contain an exquisitely hand-made box covered with fine tooled leather, slightly worn. She opened it slowly. The box was lined with silk and lying snugly on the silk was the most beautiful necklace and bracelet she had ever seen. It was a combination of pearls, gold and enamel set off by a dazzling selection of diamonds. It was made of multiple strands of small pearls, the focal point of the necklace the diamonds which were set like a heart hanging from the pearls. The bracelet which nestled at the centre of the box matched it in miniature.

  ‘I thought it would match all the evening gowns I have seen you wear though I’m sure by now my brother has bought you many more. Or will when your confinement is over.’

  She could not speak, since she knew as well as she knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west that there was nothing more certain than that Harry Sinclair would not allow her to wear this beautiful jewellery bought for her by the father of her child!

  13

  Caterina Sinclair, to be called Cat to the end of her days, was born on a gentle April day, a soft day filled with bright sunshine and nodding daffodils, those that Barty had planted at back end, adding to those that had already pushed through the earth and the grass about the house for the past century and which made a magical golden carpet as far as the eye could see. There were golden catkins on the graceful weeping willows hanging over the lake and in their shade the ducks glided and dived for something tasty to eat. Marsh marigolds were in bloom mixing with primroses and wood anemones, clustered by the lake and under the great trees which had stood there when the monks had worked and prayed beneath them in the time of Henry V. The sky was a cloudless blue and the first swallow was spotted by Barty as he and Froglet hung about in the stable yard, since it had been reported that the mistress had started in labour and they were eager to hear how she did, for they were fond of her. A bit early, they whispered to one another, the servants, who had been taken by surprise since the child had not been due for several more weeks but still it was a lovely, healthy little girl, Dulcie reported to them importantly just as though she had been present at her mistress’s bedside during the infant’s birth, helping out Miss Lally’s new doctor. Doctor Burton was a young, recently qualified medical man direct from London and the great teaching hospital of St Thomas’s, very up to date in his method of delivering babies and not at all like the old-fashioned Doctor Channing who had ministered to the Fraser family for many years. Brought from High Clough at Miss Lally’s first pang, Mr Sinclair had moved restlessly about the house and even into the garden, smoking cigars one after the other, but could you blame him for worrying since it was his first. Pity it wasn’t a lad though since the maister had a splendid business to hand on but, still, Miss Lally was young and there was plenty of time for many more.

  Lally lay in her nest of pillows, washed and changed into her clean nightdress, her hair brushed and a bright blue ribbon tied in her curls. The birth, her third, had been relatively easy and Doctor Burton was pleased with her and the child. He was obsessed with cleanliness, hygiene, he called it, finding favour with Bi
ddy who had helped him at the last, offending the nurse who had been employed by Mr Sinclair to look after his wife. Not that, in Biddy’s opinion, she had been needed at all, for wasn’t Biddy there to see to Miss Lally, before and after the birth and was the one who put the baby, even before she was properly cleaned up, into Lally’s arms. The doctor was engrossed in sterilising his instruments because after he had made a small cut to ease the passage of the child a stitch or two had been needed. Better a clean cut than a tear, he had told her, and Mrs Sinclair would heal more easily; and if the father would like to come in and see his child, and his wife, of course, he had no objection.

  Harry had done no more than eye the child politely, seeming to recoil from the lustily bawling red-faced kicking scrap who gave the impression she would like to box his ears!

  ‘The doctor tells me you have done well, Lally, and that the . . . the infant is healthy.’ He smiled or at least showed his teeth for the benefit of the nurse and the doctor. The doctor knew quite well that this was a full-term child, as did the nurse, both assuming that Mr and Mrs Sinclair had anticipated their wedding night, for it was known in the district they had been married in October of the previous year.

  ‘A fine child, and what are you to call her?’ Mr Sinclair asked politely, surprising the doctor who was wrapping his instruments carefully away in a spotless piece of linen, placing them in his leather bag and making ready to avail himself of the steaming hot water brought up by the maidservant. Surely a man and his wife would discuss the naming of their first child – together – before the child’s birth but from Mr Sinclair’s manner one would think it was really nothing to do with him.

  ‘I don’t know, Harry,’ Mrs Sinclair answered just as politely. ‘Have you any preference?’

  ‘No, not really. Perhaps a family name?’

  ‘Your mother . . . ?’

  ‘She was called Agnes.’

  ‘Well, no, I think not but there is plenty of time.’

  ‘Of course, well, I will let you rest.’ Harry turned to the doctor who, being young and rather pleased with himself, was waiting for a word of approval but none came. The new father merely nodded and walked stiffly from the room and there was none to see or hear him as, in the privacy of his own spartan bedroom he sat down abruptly on his bed, his face in his hands and groaned aloud.

  Oh, dear God, how am I to bear this? he agonised silently. I took it on willingly. I knew it was coming, but she looked so beautiful, like a Madonna with her baby in her arms and the child . . . the child is . . . is his. I am to pretend a joy which is a bitter thing to me but I must . . . it’s hard just now, for it is new to me but I cannot let them see . . . it was a shock, my brother’s child at her breast . . . Dear sweet Jesus, give me the bloody strength . . . they must not know, any of them. The child must be kept to the nursery so that I can avoid . . . I must get out, go to the mill. Jesus, if I did not love her as I do I might be able to manage it. If I could view her dispassionately as a woman who will be useful to me – entertaining, a hostess for my table, a woman in my bed to serve my needs. What will she be like when Roly comes home? Please God he does not recognise . . . it is supposed to be a premature child but even I, who know nothing of such things, can see it is not.

  Savagely he stood up and strode about the room, twitching back the curtains to look out on the daffodil-carpeted slope, watching the nursemaid Dora following Jamie and Alec and the two boisterous dogs as they made unerringly for the lake which, as children will, they would do their utmost to fall into. Why did water fascinate them, he mused, taken out of himself for a moment as he watched them tumble down the slope, the dogs leaping round them, doing their best to elude the harassed nursemaid. His thoughts jumped from one thing to another, unable to land firmly on any particular one. Thank God it was a girl, a girl who could be fitted into the household without too much trouble. A girl who would have no claim on the Sinclair inheritance, a girl who he would not be expected to notice since it was well known that a gentleman only valued and was interested in a son to inherit and continue the family name.

  He reached for his jacket and made for the back stairs, since he had no desire to run into the doctor whose small gig was still standing at the front door, fetching up in the kitchen. It was a big room with a massive table in its centre which had stood up to years of pounding, chopping and scrubbing and from its ceiling, thanks to the expertise of Biddy Stevens, hams were suspended. The walls were whitewashed and beside the pots and pans standing in neat rows on the well-scrubbed shelves, was a vast array of highly polished copper utensils hanging on the walls. A leg of pork was being spit-roasted over the open fire and set in the wall was a huge enclosed range, blackleaded, glowing and dark, and cleaned every morning by Dulcie. Everywhere they could be handy were all the implements of a good kitchen, trivets and skillets, toasters and grills, and on the enormous dresser jelly moulds of copper and earthenware jostled with a tea set and dinner service in a delicate blue willow pattern from which the servants ate and drank. Everything was spotless, for Mrs Stevens was a devil for tidiness and cleanliness and was behind them all the livelong day. There were several beautifully carved and well-proportioned Windsor chairs, old and well cared for and at the end of the day, when everything was to Mrs Steven’s satisfaction, the maids were allowed to rest in them and drink the cocoa that set them up for bed. Not that they needed a sedative of any kind, for they worked hard and slept the sleep of the just!

  To the astonishment of the servants who were clustered in the kitchen ‘wetting’ the baby’s head, the master strode through them without a word and out into the yard, shouting for one of the grooms to fetch his horse and be quick about it. Ben, who had been celebrating the birth of the master’s first child with the rest of them, ran after him, slapping his glass of ale on to the kitchen table.

  ‘Well, wouldn’t yer think ’e’d be up there wi’ Miss Lally?’ Is first bairn, an’ all,’ Tansy said, quite astounded as they all were. With Mrs Stevens still up with Miss Lally they felt free to express their amazement.

  ‘Aye, now if it ’ad bin a lad,’ Dulcie offered knowingly, smacking her lips over the small glass of port Mrs Stevens had allowed the maids. The men were drinking ale and all of them agreed that if it had been a lad they would have been tipping back a glass of champagne. Mr Chris, God bless him, had pressed them to champagne on the birth of both his sons but then Mr Chris had been free-handed. Not that Mr Sinclair was a bad employer. He wasn’t, for weren’t they all well fed and housed, fairly treated and counted themselves lucky to be in such a household.

  ‘Still, yer’d think ’e’d be up there wi’t missis, wouldn’t yer?’ Clara added, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. For a moment they were all silent as they considered this last remark then the door to the front of the house opened and Mrs Stevens entered. At once, even though they had been given permission to do what they were doing, they all scattered, Barty and Froglet and the outside men darting to the back door, with Carly elbowing them to be the first through it. Mrs Stevens could be a bugger at times. She was in charge of them – well, not Ben, Alfie, Clancy and Seth who were really Mr Sinclair’s men, having come with him from Mill House, but all the women servants. Ben had run out to saddle Piper who he had just unsaddled and given a rub down, not expecting the master to return to the mill this day, the day his first child was born but Mr Sinclair could be seen racing off down the lane leading to the moorland track that led to High Clough just as though the devil were after him.

  Lally was alone with her child. The nurse had gone off to the nursery to make suitable arrangements for the baby, telling Lally she would be back soon, for the baby must be bathed and the wet nurse, the one thought appropriate by all ladies in society, got ready. The baby would need to be fed and if Mrs Sinclair would hand her over Nurse would take her . . .

  ‘No, Nurse will not,’ Mrs Sinclair told her imperiously. ‘Go and do what you have to do and then come back for her. I wish to be alone with my daughter.’

  ‘B
ut, Mrs Sinclair, she still has birth blood on her . . .’ The nurse was appalled.

  ‘I don’t care and therefore neither should you. Leave her with me, if you please.’ Lally looked down into the face that rested against her breast, searching for signs of Roly Sinclair but she could see none. The Sinclair brothers were alike in their colouring apart from their eyes, Roly’s being a cat-like grey and Harry’s a deep brown and the screwed-up eyes of the infant did not reveal their colour. They were both dark with smooth amber skins, tall, lean, wiry, only their nature being vastly different. Roly was good-natured, light-hearted, with a firm belief in his own ability to get what he wanted from any woman, or man for that matter who crossed his path, which was why he was such a good salesman. Harry was the steady one, firm, fair, shrewd, and with no inclination towards the charming ways of his brother. But he was also kind, reliable, so why was she staring into this child’s face looking for something that, even if it was to come, would scarcely show itself on the day of her birth. The baby was yawning now, having worn herself out with her own birth and the hullabaloo she had set up in the minutes after it. She rested her tiny, starfish hand against Lally’s breast and Lally waited for that glow of maternal pride, that bond she had formed with her sons in their first meeting. For that soft wonder and the awed need to touch her child’s cheek, to put a finger in the curled shell of the child’s hand but none came. The baby might have been another woman’s and she wished that the nurse would hurry up and come back. She had needed this moment to contemplate the child, Roly’s child, to be alone with her, waiting for that precious moment in a mother’s life, but it had not come and when the nurse returned she handed her the baby without protest.