She felt hurt and unhappy, but she still found a smile or a friendly word for the many people who greeted her. The days of ostracism were over now that she had been fully restored to the bosom of the Woodville family. For this – and especially to Margaret, to whom she knew she owed such a lot – she was grateful.
Her mother had now retrieved Hugh from the nursemaid who stood protectively by, and eventually, Eliza joined her again. She stopped to inspect the spot on the baby’s face.
‘It is nothing,’ she said shortly.
‘You don’t take proper care of your children, Eliza,’ Henrietta rebuked her.
‘Mother!’ Eliza exclaimed. ‘How can you say that?’
‘They are running all over the place. Laurence seems to do exactly as he pleases, helped, no doubt, by George, who has a will of his own. I would like to see you taking more control ...’
‘And I would like you to mind your own business, Mother,’ Eliza said sharply. She felt close to tears: nothing had really changed between them after all. ‘And as for your rudeness to Ryder, I find it unforgivable. You were not only rude to him but to Uncle Prosper. The two men didn’t know what to do with themselves.’
‘Oh, they will recover,’ Henrietta said with a careless toss of her head. ‘Men always do.’
‘I don’t think Ryder will ever speak to you again’
‘That won’t worry me.’
‘But Mother, you can’t accept me and my children but not my husband, who is also their father.’
‘I don’t see why.’
‘I find you very stupid, Mother.’ Eliza stamped her foot. ‘And I...’
‘Now now!’ Guy, who had returned from a brief flirtation with Agnes, was just in time to hear the last part of the exchange. ‘This is no way to behave on the occasion of my youngest son’s christening. Please stop your quarrelling, Mother and Eliza. I did a lot to bring you together. It would greatly distress me if you were to part again. ‘Now –’ he looked around for a neutral subject of conversation ‘– do you not think Euphemia looks well?’
‘Who is Euphemia?’ Henrietta lifted her lorgnette and peered through it.
‘You remember Euphemia, Mother.’
‘Oh, Euphemia Monk.’ Henrietta’s face cleared. ‘I thought it was her, but I could not believe how fat she has got.
Mother, she is married and is to have a child,’ Guy explained with a smile. ‘She married Eliza’s father-in-law, John Yetman. You know she did. It was a great romance. Everyone was very pleased for both of them, and I’m sure you are too, Mother.’
Henrietta did not look convinced. She searched her brain for something unkind to say, and at last she found it.
‘You mean that old man by her side is her husband? I thought he was her father.’
Guy, still in high good humour, began to laugh to humour his mother, but Eliza continued to look annoyed.
‘It is true there is twenty years between them. Yet they are newly married, expecting a child and extremely happy. It is simply that you can find nothing good to say about the Yetmans, Mama.’
‘You can’t blame me,’ her mother said. ‘There is little good in them. Now I do recall poor Euphemia Monk, never strong and always looking for a husband. Never did I realise she would stoop as low as that!’
‘I find you most offensive, Mother.’ Eliza had gone pale with anger. ‘You must know the effect your words are having as I, too, am a Yetman. I can’t understand what has got into you today.’
‘You are a Woodville,’ Henrietta said, in a voice so loud that a few people turned to stare at her.
‘Oh, Mother, do desist,’ Guy said, giving her a warning look, ‘or you and Eliza will not talk for another ten years.’
‘I would never give up Eliza or my baby Hugh.’ Henrietta gazed fondly at the child sleeping in her arms, then at her daughter. ‘I’m sorry if I offended, Eliza. I know I let myself be carried away. You must pity a poor, lonely woman neglected by one and all.’
‘I’ll go and get Effie. I’m sure she’d like to see you again.’
Eliza crossed the room, though in her progress she was stopped by so many people that it was some time before she returned with the newlyweds.
‘My dear, how nice to see you again,’ Henrietta said to Euphemia with a palpably false smile. ‘And my daughter tells me you are enceinte.’
‘Thank you, Lady Woodville.’ As John quietly brought up a chair, Euphemia sank thankfully into it. ‘I am not, alas, in the best of health.’
‘I hope you have a good doctor – although they are all rogues, believe you me.’
‘Lady Woodville.’ John Yetman bowed before her. ‘We have not met since your son’s wedding, ma’am.’
Henrietta gave him a chilly smile. ‘How long ago that seems! My dearest Eliza was still a girl, at home with me.’
John Yetman did not feel at ease in Lady Woodville’s presence. He shifted from one foot to the other, sensing – accurately – an innuendo in everything she said.
Euphemia was aware of his discomfort and, rising, put her hand on his arm.
‘I think we should be going soon, dearest. I am a little tired.’
‘Of course, my love,’ John Yetman said solicitously. ‘I will call for our carriage.’
He bowed to Lady Woodville, who inclined her head and, putting out a hand towards Euphemia, looked at her anxiously.
‘Do take care of yourself, my dear, and be careful of the doctors.’
Without another word, John Yetman hurried his wife away. ‘What an alliance,’ Henrietta murmured sotto voce to Guy. ‘God knows what sort of monster they will produce.’
‘Mother do let me introduce Agnes to you,’ Guy pleaded. ‘I think you will like her.’
‘Go and fetch her then, for goodness’ sake.’ Henrietta gave her darling boy an indulgent smile. ‘But do be careful, dearest. That wife of yours watches you like a hawk.’
In a moment of freedom, between passing from one group of people to the next, Margaret paused to look with satisfaction at the crowded cream and gold drawing room which, for the christening of Carson, could be seen at its best. The beautiful, ornate plasterwork and cornices, part of the original eighteenth-century decoration of the room, had recently been re-gilded. From the oval painting of Diana the Huntress in the centre of the ceiling hung a magnificent chandelier, made up of thousands of tiny pieces of crystal which, mirroring the bright sunshine outside, twinkled as they turned and twisted in the breeze wafting in from the open windows.
The Wilton carpet had been part of the refurbishing before the marriage and, specially woven for Pelham’s Oak, had worn well. The priceless furniture, much of it purchased from the Continent in more affluent days before the family had begun to decline, had now been restored to its original magnificence: burnished mahogany, rich ebony, walnut and cedarwood, intricate marquetry, shone with the patina of age.
It was an assembly, in a setting, that one could be proud of. Margaret would have liked to grace it with her husband attentively by her side; but he was like a will-of-the-wisp, here one moment, gone the next, never where she thought he was or where he should be. And why was it that Guy was invariably seen talking to women and not to men? And why did all the heads of the women turn as, with varying degrees of success, they tried to catch his eye?
She saw that he had returned to the Mounts; saw the special, almost intimate smile Eleanor Mount gave him – but of course she was a very old friend – then watched as he drew Agnes Yetman from their group and took her over to his mother, talking animatedly to her all the while.
Yes, Agnes Yetman was a pretty woman, but perhaps just a little overdressed, a little too eager and coquettish, trying too hard: a spinster in the making if ever there was one.
Margaret gave an involuntary shudder. Women like Agnes reminded her of what she herself might have become had it not been for Guy Woodville.
Maybe she should let him have a little licence after all. To be seen with a pretty woman was not necessarily to ma
ke love to one.
By five most of the guests had gone, but there was to be a family dinner. There the important gifts would be made to the baby; the promises of sums of money to be realised at such and such a time. They had been made to George and Emily, and they would be made to Carson. They would not amount to much, but it was a way, neatly devised by the family, of circumventing giving money to Guy by putting it in trust for his children. By keeping Guy comfortable, well fed, but short of money, Margaret intended to keep him at home. Prosper Martyn, who strolled about rather like Guy among the prettier ladies, had already announced his gift: a hogshead of port which would mature in twenty-one years’ time and some shares in the Martyn-Heering Bank.
Before dinner Prosper detached Ryder from his family, ostensibly to discuss business, but first he had something else on his mind.
‘You mustn’t take any notice of my sister. She is not as bad as she seems,’ he said.
‘She hates me –’ Ryder scowled ‘– and she will never forgive me. I can’t be expected to accept that sort of rudeness from her, and I will forbid Eliza ever to invite her to our home.’
‘You must try and understand how she feels,’ Prosper pleaded.
‘What happened, happened a long time ago,’ Ryder said. ‘I think everyone agrees that I have done my best for Eliza and made her happy. We have three fine children. I have worked very hard to enable her to live in the style she was used to. It was this, and this alone, that was behind my determination to rebuild the Yetman business to what it once was. And I have succeeded. I will not allow my mother-in-law to demean me; to hang on to the bitterness which made my wife so unhappy and may well do so again. Eliza saw her mother against my wishes. I said she should agree to see us both, but Eliza persuaded me differently. Now her mother insults me in my brother-in-law’s home. I tell you I will not lay myself open like that again.’
‘Dear friend, try and be generous when Henrietta is uncharitable,’ Prosper urged. ‘You will be rewarded, I promise you.’ Prosper briefly touched his arm and then, as they resumed their walk, he said: ‘Your business acumen has impressed me and my colleagues. Your work is of high quality and renowned. However, I’m sure that a man like you has ambition to go even further than you have already. For instance, we have great opportunities for investment.’
Ryder seemed surprised.
‘I assure you,’ he said, ‘I know nothing about the City. My business is on a very much smaller scale. I would feel quite out of place dressed in a frock coat all day and walking to work wearing a top hat.’
‘I am not asking you to be there all the time,’ Prosper said jocularly. ‘In fact you need come up no more than two or three times a year ...’
‘Oh ...’ Ryder drew on the Havana cigar Prosper had thoughtfully provided him with and stared down at the ground.
‘My company is anxious to extend its own interests into the building industry ...’ Prosper continued.
‘I have plenty of work ...’
‘But wouldn’t you be interested in expansion?’
Ryder raised his head and looked thoughtfully at Prosper.
‘In a way, I would. I am ambitious, and I have enlarged my father’s business in the years I have been in charge.’
‘I know that.’ Prosper put a hand on his shoulder. ‘And I have admired it because you have done it virtually by yourself. What do your brothers do?’ He looked at him curiously.
‘My brothers are professional men – one a lawyer, the other a banker. They have ample money of their own. In addition to what they earn, father settled on each of them a considerable sum when they married which they have invested wisely. I am not close to my brothers – our interests diverge – and the families do not see much of one another. However, they are still on the board of the company and are entitled to a share of the profits.’
‘Maybe we could change the structure of Yetman’s?’ Prosper suggested.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Buy them out so that you are in sole control.’
‘Oh, we don’t need to do that.’ Ryder waved his cigar dismissively in the air. ‘It would cause more trouble than leaving them where they are, because they would begin to suspect something is amiss. I’ll give your proposals some thought, Prosper. I’ll discuss them with my wife.’
Eighteen people sat down to dinner round the long table in the rococo style which had been purchased, along with other pieces of furniture, by an eighteenth-century Woodville ancestor from the workshops of Thomas Chippendale in St Martin’s Lane. Guy Woodville sat at one end, his lady at the other. Between them were six elaborate silver candlesticks, each holding lighted candles, and in between them bowls of choice blooms especially cut that morning from the greenhouses and gardens and arranged by Margaret, who numbered flower arranging among her accomplishments.
The Woodville silver had been supplemented by Margaret as part of her dowry, and the dinner service, also from her, was by Meissen. The servants had been trained to serve dinner punctiliously and on time, a stream of them issuing from the kitchens as the various courses were served and cleared away. There was salmon from the Tay to begin with, consommé of beef, with roast woodcock, from the Woodville estate, as the entree. Syllabub, fruits and sweetmeats followed, and the finest French Burgundy, red and white, accompanied each course except for a Sauternes, Château d’Yquem, served with the sweets, one of the finest vintages of the century.
Afterwards there was dancing to the overworked string orchestra, and enthusiastic revellers kept its perspiring players active until nearly three in the morning. After that the carriages made their way in leisurely fashion down the hill from Pelham’s Oak to their various homes, through the dawn.
Ryder and Eliza sat for a while without speaking. They were tired but keyed up by the activities of the evening, both aware of a constraint between them, caused by Henrietta’s ferocious attack on her son-in-law.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eliza said in a tense voice as the carriage went slowly down the drive, part of a long procession of homegoers. ‘My mother didn’t change after all.’
‘You must not blame yourself for what your mother said,’ Ryder commented stiffly. ‘And people rarely do change.’
‘Nevertheless I’m sorry.’ Her hand stole into his and she was aware of him unbending. ‘I should not have brought you over. It should have been done some other way.’
‘She will never accept me.’
‘Well, if she doesn’t I won’t see her any more. It’s as simple as that.’
‘You should not have gone in the first place. I did warn you.’
For a while Eliza sat silently looking out of the carriage window at the landscape shimmering peacefully in the light of the setting moon. Already in the east the sky was growing lighter at the approach of dawn.
‘I wanted to see my mother. She is my mother. There is a bond. I also wanted to make Guy happy.’
‘You care more for your own family than me.’
‘That is not true.’ Eliza realised that, perhaps because of the tensions as well as the excitement of the evening, she felt close to tears. She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘I love you, Ryder. I love you and the children best of all, and if you desire it I will not see my mother again, until she improves her temper and her attitude towards you.’
‘My darling,’ he murmured, ‘I know how much that sacrifice means to you.’
‘But I will do it, to show you just who is the most important person in my life.’
She turned to him and their embrace lasted some moments, lulled as they were by the even pace of the horses trotting towards Wenham. It was as well that they knew their way, for the weary coachman dozed in his seat.
Eliza murmured into Ryder’s shoulder: ‘I feel very, very happy now.’
‘I’m happy too,’ he sighed, and leaned back against the seat. ‘We have cleared the air, my darling. By the way’ – he looked at her with a smile – ‘Prosper has made a business suggestion to me that I find quite attractive.�
��
‘Oh?’ Eliza smiled lazily at him. ‘Is he going to build a house? I had heard that he wanted a country residence.’
‘It’s better than that. He wants me to be a partner.’
‘Oh!’ Slowly Eliza withdrew her hand and stared straight in front of her. ‘You refused, of course.’
‘No, as a matter of fact I didn’t. But I said I would consult you, of course, before making up my mind.’
‘I would scarcely think that necessary, my dear,’ she said. ‘Surely you knew that I would be very much against it.
‘No, I didn’t.’ He looked at her in surprise. ‘Why should you be?’
‘Because you have more than enough to do.’
‘It is not more work. In fact I may have even less, because I shall have partners who will share the burden with me.’
‘And look what trouble partners cause! Look what happened to poor Guy.’
‘Oh, my dear, you can hardly blame Prosper and the Heerings for what happened to Guy. He had only himself to blame.’
‘I’m not so sure about that.’ Eliza’s voice rose. ‘That is not the story I heard from Guy. They used his name as a baronet to get business, and then they got rid of him.’
‘Well, I never heard that version. I think it’s preposterous. Guy admitted to everyone that he had no head for business. He didn’t like it and he resented it. You know that as well as I do, Eliza. He told you that story to save face. But please, dear, let’s not quarrel about this matter.’ He laid his hand over hers, but she snatched her hand away.
‘Well, whatever the truth is, it did Guy no good, and I’m sure it will do you no good either. You are too much of an independent spirit, Ryder. You like to make up your own mind what to do and not be guided by others.’
‘I will still have my independence, my dear. You exaggerate too much. I shall be in charge of Yetman’s, but I will have more money to spend on expansion. My partners will expect to be consulted, but I will still be in control.’
The People of This Parish (Part One of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 30