‘Then you’d better go, and I had better return to work. Mr Simmonds will be back shortly from his quarry visit, and I should at least look industrious.’
She rose to go and, as she did so, he caught hold of her hand; she allowed her palm to rest in his. ‘Will you walk this way again?’ he asked.
‘I might.’
‘Soon?’
‘Perhaps tomorrow,’ she hazarded, and he looked gratified.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, and she sensed his eyes watching as she walked away. There was the slightest tilt to her hips, the cluster of pleats that fringed the silk poplin skirt swinging from side to side.
Joshua was waiting for her at the top of the terrace steps, propped against an enormous urn of sweet-smelling cosmos, their pink and white faces swaying in the slight breeze. It looked as though he had been waiting a long time.
‘Where have you been?’ The beauty of the flowers had done nothing to soothe and his frown was etched deep.
‘Just walking.’ She drew abreast of him but avoided meeting his eyes.
‘You shouldn’t walk alone. You know I am always happy to keep you company. You must ask me. It’s a long time since we walked together.’
‘We’ll walk another day, Papa. And please don’t worry. I took a very small stroll and they are our gardens. How can I come to harm?’
‘They may be our gardens, but still—’
He stopped suddenly. A floating grey skirt had appeared around the corner of the building. Alice had barely reached the top of the terrace steps when he turned on her. ‘Your daughter has been out this last hour. Did you know that? Why are you not with her?’
Alice ignored his outburst. ‘I was with Dr Daniels. If you recall, he is here for William. I came to tell you that the doctor is leaving. You may wish to say goodbye.’
‘Daniels, that old woman,’ he muttered. ‘Both of you fussing over the boy. There’s nothing wrong with him, I tell you. You’re encouraging him to be sick.’
As if to prove him right, William chose that moment to fly out of the side door and down the terrace steps, his brown limbs at full stretch. ‘Sorry,’ he panted, weaving his way between them, but not before Elizabeth had spied a crumpled cloth beneath his arm and what looked suspiciously like half a loaf poking out of it.
‘I have to go. Olly is waiting.’
All three of them looked after the rapidly disappearing figure. It was Alice who broke the silence. ‘I am not saying he is sick, simply that we should continue to be careful.’
‘Rubbish! There’s nothing wrong with him.’
When he appeared about to deliver another lengthy diatribe, Elizabeth seized the chance to slide quietly away and make for the house.
Chapter Nine
Joshua glared at the spot she had been minutes before. William was supplanted by a more urgent consideration. ‘About Elizabeth…’
Alice sighed inwardly. What about Elizabeth? she asked herself. She seemed unable to exercise control over the girl. Her father should be the one to hold her in check, but his fondness kept him from any meaningful restraint.
‘Surely, woman,’ he was saying, ‘it can’t be beyond your wit to keep watch over her. Keep her amused so that she doesn’t feel the need to stray.’
‘It’s not amusement that Elizabeth needs, Joshua. It’s purpose. A finishing school would have helped,’ she couldn’t stop herself adding.
She waited for the next outburst, but instead he seemed deep in thought, prodding so savagely at the lawn with the briar stick he carried that Alice feared the gardeners would be called on to lay new turf.
‘There are times,’ he said heavily, ‘when I wish we had stayed in Birmingham. Elizabeth would have had purpose there. The women were… different. More serious. The wives and daughters of the men I knew – they would have been her friends. They would have kept her busy, interested in the world. Given her something beyond dabbing at canvases in an attic. And they would have found her the right husband.’
This final shot went over Alice’s head. In her mind, she was back in Birmingham and hating it. Fifteen years she’d lived there, and for the entire time she had felt adrift. The friends, the contacts, Joshua spoke of were industrialists, factory owners like himself. They inhabited a world wholly foreign to her and had wives who were just as foreign. Women who gave gossipy and uncomfortable tea parties or, worse, were terrifyingly intellectual. Joshua had taunted her that she was too great a lady, too conscious of her family name and thought herself above their company. It wasn’t so but she could never have told him the truth. She was scared of the women, thoroughly scared. Her meagre education, the narrow vision with which she’d been raised, the privileged life she’d led, were poor preparation for holding her own with females who thought nothing of conducting literary soirées in their homes or debating the latest philosophy. They were wives who joined the Women’s Slavery Society or attended public meetings on women’s suffrage and urged her to accompany them. They made her feel stupid and pointless.
And Joshua had not helped. He’d been incapable of understanding her plight and treated her with a growing abruptness. Even when she’d given birth after years of disappointment, she had been made to feel a failure. A girl rather than the boy that was expected. In time, of course, things had changed. Joshua had grown to adore his daughter and to dismiss the son when he arrived, as hardly worth his attention. His partiality was understandable. She thought Elizabeth too headstrong for her own good, but the girl’s spirit and energy were a true echo of her father’s.
When her husband had finally gained ownership of his Sussex acres, she’d felt blessed. For weeks, she had sailed aloft on a tumultuous wave of relief. Until she’d returned. Then came the realisation that she’d find no more congenial company in the countryside of her birth. Her brother had made sure that neither Joshua nor she would find a place in county society. The great and the good had decided for themselves that Joshua was unbearably vulgar, but her brother had made sure with a whisper here and a nudge there that he was seen as dishonest too. A counterfeit. She had buckled beneath the assault, but Joshua hadn’t. He was a strong man and he’d needed his strength. He’d used it to shrug off the mantle of social pariah and create instead the most magnificent gardens in Sussex. They were his triumphal fanfare, a declaration that he had arrived.
Her thoughts had been wandering badly. Joshua was still complaining and she had heard barely a word. She struggled to look suitably abashed when Ivy saved her the trouble by appearing at her shoulder. ‘Beg pardon, ma’am. But you have a caller.’
‘I know,’ she said shortly. ‘The doctor.’
Why could people not leave her alone? First, Elizabeth, then, Joshua, now, Ivy. Her hand crept to the back of her neck. She had the strangest impulse to tug hard at her hair and bring the whole magnificent edifice tumbling around her shoulders. An attempt to break her bonds? she wondered. If it was, it was far too feeble and very much too late.
‘No ma’am. Dr Daniels left ten minutes ago. He said not to bother you or Mr Summer, but he’d be back to check on Master William next month. It’s Mrs Fitzroy that’s in the drawing room.’
‘Mrs Fitzroy?’ Alice looked blankly at the maidservant.
‘You can go,’ Joshua growled. ‘She’s your sister-in-law, not mine. I’ll have nothing to do with that family. In any case, I need to see Harris. I want to talk to him about plants for the fête. The more exotic, the better. And cut flowers – vases and vases of cut flowers. We must make sure the whole of Sussex will be talking about the event for months.’
He would take a grim satisfaction in greeting the county’s old families and rubbing their noses in his wealth. They might own more land, but that was their only source of treasure, and its value had depreciated hugely over the last twenty or thirty years – ever since the great depression. There was no money to pay taxes, no money to pay the new threepence a week insurance for each of their dwindling band of servants. Joshua had the upper hand.
She sup
posed it was some kind of poetic justice, though one that left her indifferent. He had ploughed thousands into the estate but had garnered back as much money and more. Under his management, the once failing Home Farm of the Fitzroys was a thriving enterprise, producing all its own livestock and cereals. There was honey, too – she could vouch for its excellence. And wax from the hives and building timber from the coppiced area he’d planted. There was no doubt he’d proved as successful at farming as he had at button-making, and the estate had grown rich as a result. Now his moment of glory had come: Summerhayes would be a showcase of all he stood for.
She watched him stomp away to consult the head gardener. It would be an interesting conversation. Joshua might be allowed to design pleasure gardens but when it came to produce – the vegetables, the herbs, the soft fruit and flowers – Harris’s word was law, and his master knew it. Reluctantly, she made her way back into the house and had barely reached the drawing room when she was met by Louisa teetering on the threshold. Her sister-in-law was wearing yet another rich ensemble. She blinked in surprise at the shirred silk taffeta hat with its large jet ornament and two huge black plumes that on their own must have cost a fortune. Where did her brother get the money to pay for Louisa’s falderals?
‘I was just coming to find you.’ The woman sounded petulant. ‘I thought that maid of yours must have forgotten my message.’
‘Ivy has just spoken to me,’ she said calmly. ‘What brings you here, Louisa?’
‘It wasn’t you that I wanted to see, in fact. Though, of course, it’s always a pleasure,’ her sister-in-law added rather hurriedly.
‘Is it?’ She would not normally have spoken so bluntly, but the longing to be alone was becoming unbearable and Louisa was the least welcome of visitors. The appalling scene in the churchyard was still vivid in her mind.
She found her sister-in-law advancing on her, a determined smile pinned to her face. The woman reached out and clasped both of Alice’s hands between her gloved fingers. When she spoke, there was an attempt to infuse warmth into her words. ‘I know there are problems between our families, Alice, but there is no need for us to be at odds. It’s really the men who have the problem, isn’t it? We should not allow their disagreements to spoil our friendship.’
She had not been aware of a friendship. Louisa had married her brother the year they’d moved to Summerhayes, or what would become Summerhayes. From the start, she had been aloof. After all, she had married a Fitzroy of Amberley, while poor Alice had had to settle for a Birmingham factory owner. That was fourteen years ago and the situation remained unchanged. At best, it had been an uneasy relationship. She always felt tense in the other woman’s presence, as watchful of Louisa as she was of Henry. She had a premonition that if ever she relaxed her guard, her family would suffer the consequences. Joshua was intemperate, his actions hasty and ungoverned, and it was up to her to protect her children. Her husband could lead them into disaster. He did not know her brother as she did, he did not truly appreciate, even after all these years, the damage that Henry could do. Her brother had hurt more people than she could remember – the servants he’d told tales of, the friends who’d mistakenly thought him an ally – wreaking havoc with a smile and a nod and a quiet word. And sometimes worse. Right now, he would be brooding long and hard. He would not let this latest incident – the breaking of the dam – go by. He would repay the insult. Eventually.
Louisa had released her hands and was holding her at arm’s length. ‘What on earth is the matter, Alice?’
She realised then that for a long time she had been standing silent and dazed. She must pull herself together. It was happening too often these days. ‘If you didn’t come to see me—’
‘I came for the doctor,’ Louisa interrupted. ‘He promised to send a prescription to Amberley, but it must have slipped his mind. My nerves have never been good, you know that, and since this recent trouble between our families, they’ve been completely on end. But Veronal always does the trick.’
‘I’m sorry to hear you’ve been unwell.’ Alice doubted the truth of this, but in any case what was her sister-in-law doing chasing across the countryside to find Dr Daniels? ‘Would it not have been an idea to call at the pharmacy? They’re sure to sell Veronal.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Louisa huffed. Her nerves seemed to be getting the better of her once more. ‘I’m sure they do sell it, but that wretch – the new pharmacist – insists on a prescription. I sent my maid to the surgery to collect one, but she is utterly useless. By the time she got there, she’d forgotten what it was I needed. I’ve been forced to come looking for the doctor myself. Is he here? I heard in the village he was heading this way.’
‘He was, certainly, but he left a while ago.’
Louisa looked disconcerted. She walked over to the window and glared into the distance. Then, as suddenly, her face cleared and she turned back to Alice, who had remained standing in the doorway.
‘Did you call Dr Daniels? I hope you’re not ill yourself. Or is it Joshua?’ For a moment, she seemed truly concerned.
‘We are both well, thank you. The doctor was here on a trivial matter. A brief check on William, nothing more.’
As soon as she said it, Alice wished she hadn’t. She had never spoken of William’s weak heart to anyone, not from the moment he was born in this very house.
‘William? But he’s the picture of health.’
‘He is, isn’t he?’ She could not prevent a surge of pride. ‘And that’s how we wish to keep him.’
‘So why does he need Dr Daniels to visit?’
This was the reason she should have said nothing. To reveal vulnerability in the family was foolish. But Louisa was looking directly at her, her brow creased into small furrows, and she could think of nothing to say but the truth.
‘William has a weak heart, or at least he used to have when he was a baby. He seems nowadays to have grown out of it, or so the doctor thinks. But we like to make sure that everything continues well.’
‘But, of course. My dear, what a worry that must have been for you. You’ve never said a thing about it.’
Alice was already regretting her words. Even if she had been close to Louisa, she knew she would have said nothing. The boy’s fragility was real, whatever Joshua might argue, but that was not something the world or the Fitzroys should know. William would inherit the Summerhayes estate and with it everything his father had worked for. He was gentle, breakable, and as unlike Joshua as it was possible to be. But he would need to be strong, or appear strong, to hold what was his against a covetous uncle.
She schooled her face to lack expression. ‘I’ve not mentioned it before because we have never wanted William to feel in any way a special case. And it has worked. He is a strong boy now. I hope you will keep to yourself what I’ve told you, Louisa.’
‘Of course, my dear. You can trust me.’ But even as she said this, Alice knew that word would be travelling back to Amberley in a very short while. Louisa was Henry’s creature.
‘I’m glad I came,’ her sister-in-law continued. ‘I’ve been thinking about this stupid disagreement between our husbands. Could we not do something to stop it?’
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘If I were able to persuade Henry to attend the fête at Summerhayes perhaps…?’
For a moment she was genuinely touched by the other woman’s concern, but then common sense reasserted itself. There would be a good reason behind her suggestion. The crafty look on Louisa’s face told her that: her sister-in-law did not do plotting very well. But it was possible it could be turned to Elizabeth’s advantage.
‘I suppose that might help,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Your brother is obviously unhappy,’ Louisa continued in queenly fashion, ‘but Joshua was quite right when he said that Summerhayes is the better venue. Henry will need some persuading, as I’m sure you know, but I will do all I can. If I’m successful and he agrees to come, can you persuade Joshua to meet him halfway? It
could be very helpful to you. I know you are both concerned for Elizabeth’s future, and I would like to think that together we can manage an excellent marriage for her.’
It was surely worth a try. If Louisa could smooth the way, then it was possible the right husband could still be found. Elizabeth’s marriage was not something she could dismiss as easily as Joshua, and since this latest quarrel with the Fitzroys, she had been nagged by a sense of inadequacy. Every day she had begun to think the matter more urgent. A moment ago, Joshua himself had seemed to realise his daughter enjoyed far too much freedom. It might persuade him to meet Henry in a more conciliatory mood.
‘It sounds an admirable plan,’ she said, her voice infused with a new energy, as she ushered Louisa to the front door.
‘Splendid.’ Her sister-in-law beamed approval.
In retrospect, Alice was not sure how comfortable that made her.
Chapter Ten
Ivy always knew where to find her sweetheart, but for once he was not tending his beloved Wolseley, but cleaning shoes. The boot boy must be ill, and it was just like Eddie to help out.
‘Are you sure it will be all right?’ she asked without preamble. He’d promised to ask Mr Summer if they could put fresh paint around Eddie’s apartment.
He gave her a lazy smile. ‘Don’t fuss, Ivy. It will be fine.’
‘You haven’t asked him, have you?’ She didn’t want to sound cross but she couldn’t stop herself.
‘Not yet, but I will. In any case, why would he mind us making the old place look better?’
‘He’s got fixed ideas of what he likes and don’t like,’ she said darkly.
‘Three rooms above a motor house? C’mon. It’s not likely.’
‘Then why haven’t you asked him?’ She felt her arms rising to her hips to rest akimbo. Like an old fishwife, she thought, annoyed with herself.
‘There’s not been the opportunity, honest. I’ll drop it into the conversation, casual like, when I can.’
The Buttonmaker’s daughter Page 6