Barny seized the glass and drained it, belching hard as he finished.
‘Frenchies indeed,’ he muttered. ‘Another one, Gordon!’ he ordered, holding the glass out to George.
George obliged, grunting, ‘At least it’s stopped your imperialist ranting for a minute.’
Barny’s bleary round eyes bulged in astonishment and Maggie thought he was about to take another fit. Instead he started to chuckle.
‘By, he’s a blunt bugger, your George,’ Barny said to Maggie. ‘You might just survive around here, son,’ he laughed and jabbed George playfully with his cork leg. ‘Maggie, get George a glass and we’ll get stuck into this here jug while I tell him what’s what.’
Maggie did so without protest, thankful that George had so far escaped being thrown out of the house. The men continued their argument and Maggie could not remember seeing her uncle so animated for years. Usually he slouched in an amiable half-inebriated state, burbling about past glories and being ignored.
Tea was served by a fraught Susan who kept eyeing the clock on the mantelpiece and glancing towards the door. George drew Mabel’s approval by paying for another jug of beer, which Jimmy volunteered to fetch for him. He came back with the foaming jug and plump Tommy Smith, which set Maggie praying that they would say nothing about the encounter at the rowing club.
Barny was in such good humour by the end of tea that he produced his fiddle and they pushed back the furniture to dance. Halfway through the second dance, Susan rushed from the parlour at the sound of heavy steps on the back stairs.
‘It’s Richard!’ she cried in relief. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Started the party without me, I see,’ he teased and staggered in clutching a large wooden box.
‘What is it?’ Helen demanded. The women crowded around him in curiosity.
‘A gramophone,’ Richard announced with a flourish of his hands. ‘Bought it today - just for my special girls.’ He winked at Helen and put a familiar arm round Susan’s shoulders.
‘For us?’ Susan gasped. ‘It must have cost a packet.’
‘A gramophone; look, Mam!’ Helen squealed ‘Does it play anything?’
Richard opened the lid and produced a record from its sleeve. ‘A bit of ragtime, eh, girls?’
Helen clapped her hands together in excitement, though Susan looked apprehensively at her mother and aunt.
They all watched, spellbound, as Richard placed the record on the gramophone and wound it up with a golden handle. It crackled and hissed and then the pulsating piano music filled the room. The older women looked quite dumbfounded, Granny Beaton removing her ear trumpet in fright.
Richard caught Helen round the waist and swirled her into a polka. She threw back her fair ringlets and giggled with joy. Maggie caught Susan’s pained look and felt vexed with Richard. He was toying with both her sisters and turning them against each other in the process. Glancing at George, she saw him fixed in his seat with the boys at his feet, looking unimpressed by Richard’s extravagant gift. Without thinking, Maggie stepped forward, pulling Helen away from Richard.
‘You dance with me,’ she ordered her sister. ‘Richard, it’s Susan you should be showing how to polka.’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ Aunt Violet sniffed.
Maggie ignored Helen’s petulant face, giving the hesitant Susan an encouraging nod. With relief, Maggie saw her mother push Susan forward.
‘Gan on, hinny, dance with Richard,’ she wheezed, her face flushed with beer and bonhomie. ‘And you keep your eyes off our Helen,’ she told the Londoner in her forthright manner. ‘She’s too young for courtin’.’
And so Richard had little choice but to dance with Susan, which he did with a good grace, Maggie noticed. For the rest of the evening it was Susan who had his attention and they played and replayed the one record until a curious Mary Smith appeared from downstairs looking for her son. At this point, Violet said it was time to get Barny home.
‘I’ll walk with you up the hill,’ George offered at once. Maggie knew he thought nothing of Richard Turvey or his flashy music machine. The two men had ignored each other all evening. She regretted that there had been no opportunity to dance with George to her uncle’s fiddle music which had got George’s feet tapping before Richard’s dramatic entrance.
‘Perhaps you’d like to gan for a walk tomorrow afternoon?’ George asked Maggie quietly at the door.
‘Aye, that would be canny,’ Maggie answered at once. There had been no word from Rose yet of a further meeting with Emily Davison, so what harm was there in spending an hour in George Gordon’s company?
When he had gone, Maggie felt suddenly tired and was thankful when her grandmother shooed the others out of the parlour, saying she was needing her bed. She brushed the old woman’s hair and helped her climb onto the high bedstead, tucking her in.
Granny Beaton touched Maggie softly on the cheek. ‘You’re well matched, you and the Gordon boy.’
Maggie blushed furiously. ‘Granny! We’re hardly courting.’
Her grandmother smiled. ‘You both have strong beliefs and you’re not afraid to speak your mind.’
‘Aye,’ Maggie laughed. ‘He’s just as good at upsetting me family as I am.’
Granny Beaton patted her chin like a child. ‘That’s as maybe. But he’s a kind man too - he knew your uncle needed a good blether. Aye,’ the old woman sighed wistfully, ‘I’m thinking your father would have liked him.’
‘Me Da?’ Maggie whispered. She so rarely allowed herself to think of her dead father that it came as a sharp pain to be reminded of him now. It was a bitter-sweet thought that George and her father might have been friends.
‘Aye, lassie,’ Granny nodded and Maggie saw her milky half-blind eyes water. ‘He was a man of principles too, right enough.’
Maggie leaned forward, swiftly kissing the old woman, and hurried from the room.
***
‘I blame you, Alice!’ Herbert berated his elder sister. ‘Felicity won’t listen to a word I say any more. You’ve filled her head full of nonsense about the rights of women and now she just does as she damn well pleases.’
They sat in his study drinking brandy while the sound of laughter from the terrace made Alice impatient to be released. She found these lectures from Herbert so tedious and wondered why she allowed herself to be bullied into his private den. It was hardly a study, Alice thought, glancing once more at the modest bookcase of unread books. Most of the walls were covered in antlers and stuffed animal heads, trophies of his African honeymoon. Poor Tish, Alice thought, in tow behind her new husband as he shot a trail of wild beasts across the African plains.
‘How on earth am I responsible for Poppy Beresford overstaying her welcome?’ Alice sighed.
‘It’s your fault Felicity only wants female company these days,’ Herbert said petulantly.
‘As opposed to yours?’ Alice murmured drily.
Herbert’s fleshy round face coloured. ‘There’s something damned unhealthy about this friendship. Poppy’s manipulating my wife and you’re doing nothing to stop it. You could do - Felicity would listen to you.’
‘Oh, Herbert, you are ridiculous. You make it sound like some sort of conspiracy. Felicity and Poppy are old friends and I have absolutely no right to tell either of them what to do.’
‘You do if it’s affecting the family,’ Herbert said, his expression now hurt. ‘Tell her it’s time Poppy went back home to Beresford.’ He swilled the brandy round in his glass and emptied it in one.
‘Like a dutiful wife,’ Alice teased.
‘Exactly,’ Herbert nodded, scratching his fat chin and trying unsuccessfully to push a finger between his starched white collar and bulging neck. ‘She’s been hanging around my wife for weeks.’
‘They’re old school friends,’ Alice reminded him. ‘You should be glad Tish has someone to keep her company while you’re out shooting.’
‘I don’t shoot all the time!’ Herbert cried defensively. ‘You would t
hink I did nothing else the way you go on - just like Felicity.’
Alice put down her brandy glass and stood up, her patience gone. It was always the same when she visited; tossed like a tennis ball between her brother and sister-in-law as one tried to gain advantage over the other. How tedious their marriage seemed; all they did was bicker.
‘Don’t go,’ Herbert ordered. ‘This business must be settled.’
Alice sighed and flopped down again. ‘Two minutes to put your case,’ she warned him.
‘They do everything together,’ Herbert continued his complaining, heaving his bulky body out of the leather armchair and crossing to the brandy decanter. ‘I’m made to feel an outsider in my own house - not to mention the bedroom.’
‘That’s enough, Herbert,’ Alice protested, feeling embarrassed. ‘I don’t see that Felicity will take a blind bit of notice of what I say. She’ll probably tell me to mind my own business. I’m not sure you’re not just imagining the whole affair anyhow.’
‘No, I’m not. Speak to her for me,’ Herbert pleaded.
Alice felt reluctant. ‘If it’ll stop your incessant complaining...’
‘It will,’ Herbert promised. ‘Get rid of Poppy Beresford and I’ll do anything for you.’
For a moment, Alice was reminded of the eager young boy who used to follow her around Hebron House, irritatingly unable to amuse himself with a book or a game. When he was small she had been moderately fond of her brother, but he had grown into a bumptious bore who bragged about his good shooting and drank and gambled to excess. Yet it amazed her how often he still seemed to get his way and how too often she capitulated to his demands, in the hope of being left alone.
‘Anything?’ Alice asked, glancing at his empty desk, noticing how even the blotter was unmarked.
‘Absolutely, Alice,’ Herbert said, waving an expansive hand.
‘I want to sit next to the Prime Minister at the launch of Courageous,’ she answered, fixing him with a determined look.
‘Oh God!’ Herbert exclaimed. ‘How did you know about Asquith?’
‘Mama.’
Herbert groaned. ‘I can’t let you sit next to the Prime Minister and risk you turning the launch into a spectacle for your wretched suffragettes. Father wouldn’t allow it.’
‘You and I could persuade him,’ Alice insisted. ‘I merely want the opportunity of talking to him in a civilised manner over a civilised lunch. What is the harm in that?’
Herbert sank another brandy. ‘This meeting is important for me now I’ve decided on a career in politics. You promise there won’t be any unseemly goings-on?’
‘There’ll be no public protest,’ Alice agreed. ‘After all, I don’t want to sabotage the launch of a Pearson ship either.’
Herbert looked dubious.
‘Only I can guarantee to keep the local suffragettes in order,’ Alice said persuasively.
‘Very well,’ Herbert answered with reluctance.
‘Good,’ Alice said triumphantly and headed towards the door. ‘And I shall deal with the wayward girls.’
Alice escaped thankfully into the fresh chill air of the terrace, below which Felicity and Poppy were playing croquet in the dark. She watched them tripping over their gauzy evening dresses, feeling a pang of sadness that she had agreed to curtail their happiness. But she had wrested a valuable prize from Herbert, she would have a chance to do verbal battle with arch-enemy Asquith. He alone seemed to stand between women and their suffrage; even his own Cabinet had come round to their way of thinking. Felicity’s personal happiness would have to be sacrificed to the greater goal of women’s freedom.
All week she looked for an opportunity to catch Felicity by herself, but Poppy Beresford was never out of earshot. Alice began to sympathise with her brother, for it seemed he had not exaggerated his wife’s obsessive companionship with her old friend. Alice watched more closely. The young women would get up early and play tennis together before breakfast. After eating a huge amount of kedgeree and toast they would disappear off on bicycles with a picnic lunch or take a rowing boat out on the lake her father had created and swim from the far shore. One day they golfed, another they went for a hike. Always, Felicity pre-empted Alice’s attempts to join them.
‘I know you hate long walks, Alice darling. See you at tea!’
Or Poppy would drawl, ‘I’d love to see you at work in your darkroom - perhaps you’d show me its mysteries when we get back tonight?’
Her exclusion was subtle, Alice thought with admiration, but complete. Felicity appeared to have no time for her husband’s family. Lady Arabella chose to ignore the situation and spent her time on shopping trips or visiting her aristocratic neighbours, while Lord Pearson escaped to London and the House of Lords.
Alice tackled her father about the situation before he went and was dumbfounded by his breezy reply.
‘Herbert should stop bleating and take a mistress if Felicity chooses to keep him out of the bedroom. He’s got his heir.’
‘Papa!’ Alice was scandalised. ‘You make women sound like commodities.’
‘Marriage for people of our class is a business contract,’ her father said brusquely. ‘Felicity has kept her side of it by bringing a dowry and producing Henry, so how she chooses to spend her hours of boredom is her business. Herbert - who is quite happy to spend Felicity’s fortune as well as his own - should remember that.’
Alice looked at her tall, distinguished father, still handsome with his iron-grey hair and jet-black eyebrows over keen brown eyes, and wondered if he kept a mistress in London.
‘What a depressing picture of marriage,’ she grimaced.
‘Well, be thankful you’ve escaped that fate,’ Lord Pearson smiled.
‘I’d not sign away my liberty to any man,’ Alice answered with spirit. ‘Wives have no more rights than servants. But once we women have the vote, we’ll change all that.’
Her father snorted. ‘Poppycock! You’ll not get the vote in my lifetime - I at least agree with Asquith on that. Women have no place in politics.’
‘We’ll win our rightful place, Papa, and you know it.’ Alice advanced on him. ‘You can stand like Canute and posture, but the tide will turn. There are countless able women whose talents are being wasted by the stubborn prejudice of men like you and Asquith. You know very well I would have made a better heir to Pearson’s than Herbert.’
Her father laughed shortly. ‘Yes, Alice, you should have been my son. You’ve the brains for both of you. God got it wrong.’
‘No, Papa,’ Alice said fixing him with a challenging look, ‘you can’t blame it on God. It’s English law that dictates that Herbert inherits rather than me, and laws can be changed by men like you.’
Lord Pearson threw up his hands in submission, ‘Alice, that radical tongue of yours will get you into Parliament or prison - I’m not sure which.’
Alice smiled, enjoying shocking her father. Kissing him goodbye she asked, ‘You’ll come and stay next week at Hebron House?’
‘With pleasure,’ Lord Pearson nodded and strode from the room.
Alice finally saw her chance at the end of the week. Herbert went off to a neighbouring estate where the fishing and the hospitality were equally abundant, grumbling at Felicity’s protestations that she was unwell and could not accompany him. Lady Arabella, who was attracted by the host’s card table, said she would accompany him instead as Lord Pearson was to remain in London for several more days. As Alice suspected, Felicity made a dramatic recovery shortly after her husband left.
‘Let’s take the boat out,’ Felicity suggested.
‘What a good idea,’ Alice answered quickly. ‘I’d like to take some photos from the far end of the lake. Perhaps Henry would like to come too. I’ll suggest it to Nanny.’
‘Oh, Henry,’ Felicity said, unsure. ‘He’s so clumsy with boats.’
But Alice was not going to let her evade taking her son this time. She had observed all week how little attention Henry got from either of his pa
rents and how he showed off to try and gain their approval.
‘We can all swim,’ Alice answered pointedly, ‘so there’s nothing to worry about.’
To Alice’s disappointment, the day did not go well. Henry was over-boisterous in his excitement at being invited and soaked them all with the oars before they reached the picnic spot. Felicity was fretful, Nanny petrified and Poppy bored. Alice did her best to jolly the party along with an improvised game of cricket, but Felicity decreed that she was feeling unwell again and made them return early.
She did not appear at dinner and Alice and Poppy dined alone. Suddenly it occurred to Alice that it was Poppy Beresford that she should be speaking to rather than her wilful sister-in-law. But Poppy evaded her suggestion of taking coffee in the drawing room and retired upstairs to read. Alice stood by the blazing fire in the huge stone inglenook fireplace which echoed the orange sunset through the long casement windows. She fumed to think how she had been outmanoeuvred all week. Two brandies later, she decided to go up to Poppy’s bedroom and confront her.
The staircase was drowned in umber half-light from the glass-domed ceiling and all was quiet as Alice ascended. Taking the landing to the left which led to the guest quarters, she thought she heard a door open somewhere behind her, but when she turned there was no sign of anyone. Unsure of Poppy’s exact room, Alice knocked tentatively on the end door which was slightly ajar.
‘Come, my love,’ a soft voice invited her in.
Alice pushed open the door and peered curiously into the darkened room, aware of a pungent burning smell. The curtains were drawn back to allow the remnants of the sunset to suffuse the room with a purplish light. For a moment she thought the room was empty, then gasped in shock at the figure smoking on the chaise longue. Poppy was stretched out naked on the gold brocade with only a cashmere shawl draped across her lower body. Her feline features were tipped towards the window, caught in the fading light. But at Alice’s stifled exclamation, she turned and sat up like a startled nymph, pulling the shawl to cover her breasts.
No Greater Love Page 13