A Strange Likeness

by Paula Marshall

  ‘I’ve already walked the line,’ he said. ‘We can admire some of the workings together.’

  It was the first time that they had ever been quite alone, out of doors. Eleanor discovered that standing, unchaperoned, beside Alan made her knees feel weak, and what was worse—or better—she wasn’t sure which—she suddenly became very conscious of the rest of her body. She had never been near enough before to a man in the open to discover that men gave off an aura quite different from that of women.

  She had an impression of warmth, of the smell of clean linen, of the bay rum which Alan had rubbed into his hair, and something which was faintly musky, something which was uniquely Alan and neither Ned nor Victor.

  He put his hand on her arm and they looked at one another. Eleanor had once read in a poem about lovers drowning in one another’s eyes, and for the first time she knew what the poet had meant. Alan smiled at her and her heart wrenched.

  ‘Come,’ he said, and led her gently into a completed tunnel, where they were hidden not only from the workmen on the line but also from Mr Dudley, Charles, and the foreman, who were disappearing in the opposite direction.

  He tipped her bonnet back, saying, ‘Nice Eleanor,’ before he kissed her on the cheek, and then on the tip of her nose. She found her mouth suddenly searching for his, and this time they kissed together, her eyes closing and her mouth opening under his like a flower in spring.

  His hand on her shoulder tightened its grasp to pull her closer to him. The kiss, from being tentative, became urgent. His hand slipped from her shoulder and caught against her breast. An exquisite shock ran through Eleanor’s body, and her right hand rose to catch at the back of his head to bring him ever nearer.

  Alan suddenly pulled away, his eyes shining in the half-dark. Desire roared through him, rousing him so much that he was in pain. For her part, Eleanor felt the world spin about her as though she were going to fall. Swiftly, abruptly, she had become a woman, aware not only of the difference between the sexes, but that its existence created in men and women a pleasure between them so sweet that it was overwhelming in its demands on the body.

  Alan took her arm and steadied her.

  ‘No,’ he said hoarsely. ‘No more. Not now. I shouldn’t have done that, but I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long and I’ve never yet had the opportunity.’

  Her heart was beating wildly. She leaned forward, her face questioning him, blindly seeking his nearness again.

  ‘By God, Eleanor, you tempt me,’ he exclaimed. ‘Tell me, if I come to Yorkshire, as Ned wishes, may I speak to your grandfather?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Alan, yes,’ she said breathlessly. ‘But I don’t know what he’ll say. I do know that he wishes me to marry my old friend, Stacy Trent, but I’ve never wanted to marry him. I thought that I never wanted to marry anyone, but now that I know you…’

  She stopped, breathless, clinging to him, hiding her face in his broad chest so that he drew in his breath before giving her one last kiss: a chaste one on the cheek, almost brotherly.

  ‘Well, we’ll have to find out, shan’t we?’ he murmured. ‘Now we must go outside, before anyone notices that we’ve hidden ourselves away.’

  Eleanor feared that the whole world would be aware of the tumult inside her, but when they walked along the workmen stared indifferently at them. Charles came running up to them, excited by his own affairs, and the world seemed to be taking things pretty much as usual.

  Except that young Mr Dudley, who had long worshipped her from afar, gave them a sorrowful, questioning look, so perhaps something of what had happened did show to keen eyes after all.

  For Alan, his belief that his feelings were returned was confirmed in the best possible way. Holding Eleanor and kissing her had been difficult, for he did not want to do anything which would distress or frighten her. All the same he dearly wanted to go beyond what La Bencolin had derisively called nursery games, but there would be time enough for that later, in Yorkshire.

  After he had escorted them home, tired and happy, he returned to the Albany to dress for a last dinner with Frank Gresham before Gresham left for the country.

  Alan found, to his surprise, that he was Frank Gresham’s only guest. He liked Frank, and thought that he was the best of all Ned’s grand friends, and Frank liked him. His home, near Hyde Park, was small and beautiful, rather than grand and beautiful. The room in which they dined was also small, containing two exquisite Canalettos and a portrait of Frank’s mother over the fireplace.

  Alone with Alan before dinner, Frank became adult and serious, not at all the careless companion whom Ned Hatton knew. He held up his wine to the light before saying, ‘I suppose you know that Eleanor Hatton has been promised to Stacy Trent these many years?’

  Now, am I being warned off, or encouraged? Alan asked himself, amused.

  He nodded a yes.

  ‘I thought that you might know,’ said Frank. ‘You make it your business to know things, don’t you?’

  He said nothing more of a personal nature until the brandy arrived at the end of the meal and they sat before a crackling fire, even though it was early August.

  ‘Going to Temple Hatton, are you? Do you think it wise?’ He stared at Alan, hard, over the rim of his glass.

  Alan swirled the fiery stuff around his mouth. He preferred it to port. ‘What is wise?’ he offered.

  Frank laughed. ‘Making you give yourself away is like cracking nuts, isn’t it? I keep forgetting that you’re God’s gift to the City, not a loose-mouth like Ned. Yes, wise. No one in London is much troubled about the odd likeness, you know, since finding out that you’re not at all like Ned in other ways. But going to Yorkshire, the Hattons’ stamping ground, that’s different. You’re tempting fate, aren’t you?’

  His usually idle eyes were suddenly shrewd. ‘Why not come to Greshamsbury with me, instead? I’ve a pretty sister there who don’t like town. I can promise you a good time—and no complications.’

  The next Prime Minister but three, thought Alan. He’s changing before my eyes from an idler to someone impressive.

  ‘Oh, I’ve already accepted Ned’s invitation. I couldn’t cry off without giving offence, could I? Besides, I might like to tempt fate.’

  Frank gave a crack of laughter. ‘You’d find it difficult to offend Ned, I think. Yes, I might have known you’d tempt fate, you’re a devil of a fellow for taking a chance. I’ve heard about you in the City. Want it all, do you? Ned’s pretty sister and check whether the likeness is a mere accident? Is that it? I suppose if I were you I’d feel the same. Forgive me for asking, but what in the world are the rest of your family like?’

  Alan laughed. ‘Like me, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Frank. ‘Thank God I don’t live there, then. Fancy meeting the whole brood of you. Let’s pray that they don’t decide to settle here. Between you, you’d take London over!’

  He paused before saying, ‘If we’re being honest with one another, and you’re bound and determined to take a chance up north, then there’s something you ought to know which isn’t common knowledge. Something I know only through my mother’s connections. It’s about Eleanor Hatton. She isn’t Ned’s full sister, only his half-sister. When Ned’s father became totally intolerable, and impotent as well, her mother had an affair with a sympathetic neighbour. Very brief, I understand, and out of pity on the man’s side. I tell you so that the likeness need not stand in your way. If it’s Ned you’re related to, and mind I’m not saying you are, then Eleanor is no blood relative of yours.

  ‘The world thinks that she’s a Hatton, but since I know that you’re the closest-mouthed creature ever to visit these shores, I also know that you’ll say nothing of this—to her or anyone else.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Alan coolly. ‘No one’s business but the Hattons.’

  Frank raised his glass again at this, and said something which echoed an earlier thought of Alan’s. ‘If you’ll settle here, and I hope you do, when I become Prime Minister I shall wa
nt you in my government—with or without Eleanor Hatton.’

  After that they spoke of nothings, but Alan’s visit to Temple Hatton had taken on quite a different colour.

  Chapter Eight

  Temple Hatton, near Brinkley, Yorkshire Moors and Dales

  In their different ways both Eleanor and Ned missed Alan when they left London for Yorkshire.

  For Ned, Alan was a jolly, if sometimes severe companion, who occasionally joined in the mindless games of Frank Gresham’s set but always refused to go beyond a certain point of upper-class lunacy. He refused to tease and exploit working-class men and women whom many of the set, though not Frank, thought fair game. He considered manhandling cabbies and servants very much not the thing.

  Ned and his friends put this mild eccentricity down to his being a colonial rather than the true reason, which was that Alan’s own experiences as an underling had bred in him respect, as well as sympathy for those less fortunate than himself. Anyone less obviously masculine than Alan, who could ride, box, fence and shoot better than any of them, would have been dismissed as a prig.

  Eleanor missed him dreadfully—her own word—even more than she had expected to: her body, as well as her mind, resented Alan’s loss. After he had kissed and caressed her on the railway workings she had matured sexually and would never look at men again with uncaring, innocent eyes.

  Sir Hart welcomed them, and by their first evening with him he knew at once that twenty-year-old Eleanor had grown up, and that twenty-four-year old Ned had not. He stifled a sigh. It was becoming increasingly obvious that Ned was a softer version of his father, George, Sir Hart’s profligate elder son.

  Eleanor’s mother was only too happy to see her children again. To her loving but uncritical eyes both seemed unchanged. It was true that Eleanor was quieter, and would never let ferrets loose in the drawing room again, and that when she met Nat she looked away from him, embarrassed. Eve had eaten of the apple of knowledge.

  Her changed manner made Nat savage. He took it out on the parlour maid he had been favouring since Eleanor had gone to London. He repeatedly told himself not to be a fool, that Eleanor was beyond him, but he still mooned after her whenever he saw her—which was not often.

  Sir Hart recognised, even if her mother did not, that the old partnership of Ned and Nell was dissolving in the face of her growing maturity. Her mother would not even acknowledge that Ned was becoming more and more like the father who had treated her so badly.

  Soon after his arrival Sir Hart called Ned into his study. ‘Well, sir, I hope that your intentions are becoming fixed on some suitable young lady. It is high time that you thought of marriage, and even higher that Shotton—’ Sir Hart’s land agent ‘—should begin to teach you the running of the estate.’

  Ned made a face. ‘Must he, sir? I infinitely prefer city life to the country. Not that I dislike Temple Hatton, you understand, but London is better.’

  ‘London does not provide you with rents. It is where you spend them,’ said his grandfather severely. ‘You live an idle life there, and make idle friends.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, that is not strictly true,’ said artful Ned. ‘I have made a very serious friend, a little older than I am, who runs a great business in the City. He is from Australia and Great-Aunt Almeria approves of him. She thinks that he is a good influence on me.’

  Fortunately he refrained from adding that Alan was sweet on Nell. Too much ought not to be thrown at the old man at once.

  ‘An Australian and a businessman who is little older than you! I find that beggars belief. Why should he make a friend of an idler like you?’

  This was a difficult question for Ned to answer, seeing that he wished to withhold from Sir Hart the true reason for the friendship—the chance meeting with his double.

  ‘Oh, Frank Gresham introduced us,’ he said vaguely.

  Sir Hart’s face was a picture. ‘Frank Gresham, of all people, introduces you to someone of whom my sister approves. I really find that difficult to believe!’

  ‘Well, sir, it’s true.’ Ned smiled. ‘And, what’s more, I’ve invited him here, and Great-Aunt approves of that, too.’

  ‘Pray, sir, what is this prodigy’s name?’ said Sir Hart. ‘For I take it that he has a name, and not a convict’s number?’

  ‘Oh, sir, Alan is a gentleman, even if he is from New South Wales. His mother is one of the Warings of Essendene and she has just inherited it. You will like him, I know. He is a partner in the business he runs with his father and his twin brother. His name is Dilhorne, and he even had sherry once with Lionel Rothschild when he was doing business there.’

  The expression on Sir Hart’s face was a strange one. ‘Did you say Dilhorne, sir? His name is Dilhorne, you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ned, a little puzzled. He usually found his grandfather uncommonly quick on the uptake. Old age must be getting to him, though, for him not to grasp Alan’s name when told it.

  ‘His name is Alan Dilhorne. He has been managing the London end of the business since he arrived in England. George Johnstone, who works there, and the rest of his staff, think the world of him, too.’

  ‘I see. And you have invited this Australian who drinks with the Rothschilds here? When does he arrive, may I ask?’

  ‘In a fortnight, sir. He says that he cannot neglect his business, and may not stay too long. From what he has let drop I don’t think that his father would approve of his idling.’

  ‘Well, I wish that you would take a leaf from his book,’ said Sir Hart slowly. ‘I look forward to meeting this serious young man, who makes a friend of you and who actually takes note of his father.’

  ‘Sir Hart was at his worst,’ Ned confided gloomily to Eleanor later. ‘Never a kind word from him, and I have to dance after Shotton while I am here. It is too bad. Fortunately he doesn’t mind Alan coming, even if he did roast me a bit over him. D’you think that he dislikes Australians, Nell? I’d half a mind to confide in him how he saved me over Victor, but I thought better not.’

  ‘Better not, indeed,’ said Eleanor faintly. ‘Unless you wish him to disinherit you on the spot.’

  Really, Ned had no sense at all, and, with Alan’s steadying influence gone, was back at his flightiest. The sooner Stacy and Alan arrived, the sooner she could enjoy some sensible conversation.

  Stacy Trent came over from Culverwell Manor a week before Alan was due. He had changed, too. His time at university had conferred on him a maturity which Ned would never possess. It was Sir Hart’s dearest wish to see Eleanor settled for life with such a steady and sensible young man. She would be free of Ned, and her vague mother, and he might die happy.

  Stacy’s first act was to invite Eleanor to walk with him in the Elizabethan knot garden at the back of the big house.

  ‘I’ve met this girl,’ he confided.

  ‘Oh, Stacy, I’m so happy for you.’

  ‘You may be happy,’ he said ruefully. ‘Sir Hart won’t be. You know what he wants for us.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eleanor, sparkling a little. ‘But I’ve met someone I like, too.’

  ‘Tell!’ exclaimed Stacy, eyes glinting.

  ‘No, you first.’

  ‘Well, she’s not like you. She’s fair and small. She’s not clever, but she’s nice.’

  ‘Oh, Stacy, you mean that I’m not nice,’ said Eleanor, laughing at him.

  ‘No, I mean she’s not clever. You’re clever and nice. She’s…well, she thinks I’m marvellous. You don’t think that because we’re much of a muchness.’

  ‘Both clever,’ agreed Eleanor.

  ‘She’s pretty. You’re beautiful, Eleanor, but you’re not for me. You’re my sister, not my lover. What’s yours like?’

  ‘Clever. Much, much cleverer than any of us—cleverer than anyone I’ve ever met. He’s handsome, too. And he’s… I can’t explain. He’s serious. He’s capable. He does things. He almost frightens me sometimes. He’s from Australia.’

  ‘Australia! Does Sir Hart know?
’

  ‘I’m not sure. Oh, dear, I don’t know what he’ll say. Sir Hart is already suspicious because he’s Ned’s friend.’

  ‘Now that is bad. Are you sure that he’s clever and serious and Ned’s friend?’

  ‘Oh, dear, again. You sound just like Sir Hart. There’s a reason that he’s Ned’s friend, but I can’t tell you why. You’ll see when you meet him.’

  ‘That’s mysterious. Does he like you?’

  ‘I have reason to believe,’ said Eleanor pompously, ‘that he does.’

  ‘Then he’s kissed you. I’ve kissed Jane. That’s her name. Allow me to kiss you.’

  Eleanor offered her cheek. Stacy kissed it, then placed a cold kiss on her mouth.

  ‘That’s not it at all,’ he said dismally. ‘Quite wrong—dull, even. Sir Hart will be disappointed. Why can’t life be easy? It would have been so much more convenient if we’d loved one another. Not just been friends.’

  ‘I don’t want life to be convenient,’ said Eleanor. ‘And I don’t think that Alan does. He likes solving things. He sounds to have a really frightening father. Alan says his father is cleverer than he is. His mama sounds nice, though.’

  ‘Jane’s mama is a dragon,’ said Stacy despondently. ‘And she eats Jane’s papa twice a day. He’s like the manna in the wilderness, renewed each morning. You may grasp from this that he’s a clergyman.’

  Eleanor collapsed into laughter. ‘I shall miss you,’ she said at last. ‘You always make me laugh, but I want you to be happy.’

  ‘And I you. I warn you, I shall look this paragon over very carefully. If he isn’t good enough for you, I shall throw him to Jane’s mama.’

  They walked back to the great house, golden in the evening sun, arm in arm and laughing, so that Sir Hart, watching them from his study window, wrongly had his hopes raised. They would always be good friends, never lovers: Stacy needed someone to care for and protect, and Eleanor needed someone to stand up to her, and they had each, they hoped, found their true mate.