Ravenscliffe

by Jane Sanderson

  Chapter 32

  Samuel Farrimond drove his gig as slowly as was possible without actually stopping. He wanted time to observe his surroundings and order his thoughts, so he kept the pony in check up the elegant sweep of Oak Avenue in order to delay his arrival at Netherwood Hall. He was not a man to be easily awed; indeed, he was an imposing presence himself. The Methodist ministry called, as in all things, for simplicity of dress, but within those boundaries Reverend Farrimond was never less than immaculately turned out: a handsome, silver-haired fellow with a carrying voice that served him well at the pulpit. But this rolling parkland, this immaculately swept driveway of dusky pink gravel, this fine, long, classical house with its windows lit as if by homecoming beacons – perhaps he had been too long in Grangely, he thought, for it seemed he had forgotten how arresting was the world inhabited by the very rich. It was his first visit to Netherwood Hall, for what business would a Methodist minister from an impoverished neighbouring parish have at the sumptuous family seat of the local earl? None whatsoever, until life’s unexpected twists and turns made it necessary, and it was indeed an extraordinary sequence of events that had brought him here today to unite Eve and Daniel in holy matrimony. Actually, he mused, as he kept a crawling pace past the classical portico of the south front, if it wasn’t for him, none of this might have happened. Credit where it was due. It had been his idea, after all, that Eve should make a living from her peerless pies, and what a runaway success that had been. And now look – she had come so far that the Netherwood Hall family chapel was at her disposal, and the earl was sending a car to convey her to it. Fairy tales had been spun from less.

  Ah, there was the chapel now: modestly proportioned, which was all to the good, and from what he could see through the open door, relatively unadorned inside. Well, perhaps the Hoyland ancestors had Methodist leanings, though from what he knew of the family, he had expected they would have thrown their money at God’s house in the same way they threw money at their own. Now, now Samuel, he chided himself, these are friends, not foe. And after all, they had shown real discernment and good taste when they took a shine to the lovely Eve, and her a poor Grangely girl, with a Grangely girl’s traditional burdens; a hapless wastrel for a father and a mother so reduced by illness and poverty that she surrendered her last breath with a grateful smile. Samuel Farrimond knew this, for he had been there at the time and had gently closed Dinah Whittam’s eyes, so that her children would understand she was gone. He had buried Dinah, and had feared for Eve, knowing her own resilience was all that would save her. And how she had risen! The minister had watched her progress through life with increasing joy, for she had truly flourished on the journey. No one was more deserving, of either her happiness or her success. She was a thoroughly splendid young woman. He hoped Daniel MacLeod was worthy of her; himself, he had hardly had time to form an assessment of the man’s character, and that handsome face of his might blind a woman to other faults. One must look beyond the obvious to seek the truth; the longer he lived, the more he trusted the wisdom of this position. Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty, but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature. Now who wrote that? He wondered if his faculties were beginning to fail, because time was when he would have had the source and the date off pat. In any case, it was a man of great good sense. Never a truer word.

  The gig rolled eventually into the rear courtyard where the minister was obliged to stop, though he continued to stare, mesmerised still by the opulence of his surroundings, even here, at the business end of the house. If it wasn’t for the horses and the stable doors, these outbuildings could pass for a respectable country manor: how many of his parishioners, he wondered, could comfortably be housed here?

  ‘Ah, Reverend, splendid, splendid. Welcome sir, welcome.’

  He had expected a stable-hand, not the earl, but there was Lord Netherwood striding towards him in mud-caked boots and a flat tweed cap and, in his hand, a shovel. This he flung to one side as he approached and it was instantly retrieved – so quickly it was almost caught before it fell – by a menial, who darted noiselessly from the shadows then darted back again. Placing one steadying hand round the pony’s bridle, the earl held out the other in welcome. The minister reached across and shook it, then sprang down from the gig in a surprisingly sprightly manner for a man who was the wrong side of sixty. He had met the earl on other occasions and found him likeable enough, though Reverend Farrimond held a dim view of vast privilege – working tirelessly as he did among the very needy – and in his experience a person’s capacity for spirituality diminished in direct proportion to their wealth. Only the poor could be relied upon to turn to God with constancy and humility, though they might have every reason to believe He had forsaken them. These thoughts were not written in his countenance, however, and he returned the earl’s easy smile with what certainly passed for warmth.

  ‘Very good of you to come, very good indeed, what,’ said Lord Netherwood. ‘I know what it means to the bride.’ He whistled, and from a stable came another young lad, falling over his own feet in his haste to respond to the earl, who silently handed over the minister’s pony to be led away.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Reverend Farrimond to the boy, rather pointedly.

  The earl, oblivious to the veiled reprimand, went on.

  ‘Best altogether to avoid the associations with sorrow at the Methodist chapel. Very understanding of you to come, we’re much obliged.’

  ‘But it’s entirely my pleasure, your lordship,’ the minister said, and if he sounded tetchy it was because the earl spoke with a proprietorial air, as if Eve’s wellbeing was his concern alone. ‘Not to mention entirely appropriate. I’ve known her since girlhood.’

  ‘Quite so, quite so. Still, it’s a fair trot out from your own parish, and I’m quite sure you have your work cut out there. Grangely, isn’t it? An unhappy place, I gather?’

  Piqued again, Reverend Farrimond said: ‘Ah, Grangely’s fabled unhappiness. Please be assured our reputation for misery is much exaggerated.’

  In fact, misery was in the very air they breathed in Grangely: the water they drank and the muck they were obliged to walk in. But like the mother of a badly behaved child, the minister was immediately protective of his flock when an outsider dared to comment on its troubles. Especially when the outsider was a soft-bellied aristocrat whose closest brush with privation was doubtless nothing more severe than running out of creamed horseradish just as the roast beef was served.

  Lord Netherwood hesitated, sensing at last a certain froideur in the minister’s demeanour. Prickly fellow, he thought. Then: ‘Good show,’ he said, his all-purpose, failsafe response that had served him well through the decades. ‘Good show.’

  Across the cobbles came two younger versions of the earl, with the same sandy hair and eyebrows, the same high complexion and the same amiable, ready smile. There’d be more of them inside too, depicted in oils and hanging on the walls, thought Reverend Farrimond. He was feeling distinctly peevish now, and he didn’t admire it in himself. No harm had been done to him and any slight – if slight it could be called – had been delivered unintentionally. Best altogether to clear off, though, before becoming involved in an inconsequential conversation with these two scions of the Hoyland line.

  ‘If you’ll forgive me, your lordship,’ he said, though he was already walking briskly away, indicating with a wave the vague direction of the chapel.

  ‘Of course, of course, make yourself at home, as it were. If there’s anything you need …’

  ‘Only the good Lord, thank you, and I imagine he’s already there,’ said Reverend Farrimond. The earl and his sons watched him go.

  ‘So who’s that?’ said Dickie.

  ‘Methodist chappie from Grangely. Here for the splicing.’

  ‘Speaking of splicing …’ said Tobias.

  ‘Not now, Toby, not now,’ said the earl. ‘Let your mother absorb the reality of the engagement before we inflict an actual date upo
n her.’

  Toby’s betrothal to Thea was official. The Stirlings had been informed, their permission sought by telegraph and joyfully granted by return – ‘Goodness,’ the countess had said, ‘how terribly eager’ – and an announcement had been made in the Telegraph and The Times. Everyone was delighted, and the countess pretended to be. But now, Thea was back with the Choates in London and Tobias worried constantly that if he didn’t push hard for a wedding date, his miraculous fiancée might yet slip through his fingers; she was a seeker of fun, and who knew what temptations were being laid at her feet?

  ‘Before Christmas though, Pa,’ he said now. ‘A winter wedding.’

  The earl held up a silencing hand.

  ‘I will not discuss further,’ he said, then to Dickie: ‘Marley still lame?’

  Dickie nodded. ‘More so, if anything. He’s with Maltravers now and he reckons it’s chronic founder again. No chance he’ll be fit for the cub hunt. I’ll take one of your hunters, if I may.’

  They walked together towards the stables and Tobias, temporarily thwarted, pulled a cigarette from its case and lit up. Betty Cross appeared at the door from the kitchens and he watched her through the smoke of his first draw. Yesterday’s girl, he thought. Seeing him, she lifted her skirts a little higher than was necessary and ran across the cobbles to the dairy. Not so long ago Tobias would have chased her there, and this thought passed through his mind along with the memory of the creamy swell of her breasts and the way she would boldly smile into his face while she guided his hand up her skirts. He could still have her, if he wished, and the thought wasn’t wholly unpleasant, he had to admit. And yet he let her go. He knew where she was, if he needed her.

  The motorcars couldn’t negotiate the rutted track that led from the road to Ravenscliffe, so they waited for the little bridal party to pick their way down to them. Two yellow Daimlers. One for Anna and the girls, another for Eve and Seth. Would Amos be coming? Eliza had wanted to know, and Anna and Eve had looked at each other. It was a good question, but there was no simple answer to it, except to say no, which had prompted the perfectly reasonable subsidiary question, Why?

  ‘We’re ’oping he’ll be at t’do afterwards,’ Eve had said, hoping this would satisfy Eliza. ‘The wedding part, well, it’s just for fam’ly.’

  ‘But Amos sort of is fam’ly,’ Eliza had said. ‘I mean, Uncle Silas is comin’ and we only just met ’im, really. But Amos, well – I really love Amos.’

  ‘And Amos loves you, sweetheart,’ Anna said. But he hates Lord Netherwood, she thought. And also … She looked at Eve, and Eve looked at Anna. That Amos had loved Eve was known between them, but never discussed. Did he still? Anna wasn’t sure, and couldn’t blame him if he did, because how would you stop loving her once you’d begun? She took her friend’s hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Be careful, this is uneven ground,’ she said.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Eve said. And they smiled at each other, in perfect understanding.

  Chapter 33

  The congregation was very small. Eve had asked Ginger, Nellie and Alice, and they were there, sitting right at the back because to be any further forward seemed to them presumptuous. Also, Ginger had reasoned, they needed to be first out afterwards, because the food wouldn’t serve itself, would it? The three of them had been up at the mill since half-past five, so the lion’s share of the work was already done, but still, none of them wanted to be caught on the hop. Nellie had been marvellous: you wouldn’t know she was suffering. It couldn’t be easy for her, Ginger had whispered to Alice; other folk’s weddings were bound to bring back memories of your own. Alice nodded, but thought Ginger was mistaken. This was nothing like her own wedding day and if she hadn’t been sitting in a house of God, she’d have been willing to bet that Nellie felt the same. It had rained when Alice married Jonas, and he’d worked the afternoon shift, leaving on the dot of one o’clock as if he couldn’t wait to be gone.

  Silas was there, up at the front, and Anna sat with him, though there was space for another two people between them, and they found nothing to chat about while they waited. The girls were outside with Eve and Seth, subdued into absolute obedience by the sense of occasion, waiting for their cue. On the other side of the aisle to Silas and Anna sat the earl and countess and their two daughters, Lady Henrietta and Lady Isabella. This was simply astounding to Alice Buckle, who couldn’t take her eyes off the backs of their exalted heads. She knew she couldn’t do what Eve was going to do, in front of people such as these; she would faint clean away and miss her own wedding. Ginger, beside her, was less diverted by the aristocrats than by the groom, who stood at the front in a full Scots rig-up, the like of which she had never seen before: tartan kilt, tweed jacket, garter flashes on long woollen stockings, stiff brown brogues. Ginger stared. A man in a skirt should, by rights, look like a right nancy, she thought: and yet he looked manlier than anyone in the chapel. When he shifted, even only slightly, the pleats on the back of his kilt swung and rippled like the surface of a pond when the wind blew across it. She was mesmerised. Nellie, catching the direction of Ginger’s fixed gaze, gave her a nudge with a sharp elbow.

  And then Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ struck up on the organ and all heads turned to the back of the church, because no one was too grand to want to see how the bride looked. The wooden doors had been flung open and she stood just inside the chapel on the arm of her son, whose face was endearingly grave. Lady Netherwood, who goodness knows had seen enough weddings in her time, felt the welling of unexpected tears: Eve was simply beautiful, and that gown! It was a masterpiece of couture: surely not the little Russian girl’s work this time? The countess stole a glance at the groom, who had turned like everyone else and now seemed unable to drag his eyes away from the vision Eve presented. She didn’t wear a veil, so the smile on her face was there for everyone to see, though at the moment it was directed only at Daniel. Henrietta, watching her progress, wondered how a gown could be at once magnificent yet entirely simple: alluring yet wholly modest. Quite a feat, and with her long hair loose in that way and the band of white jasmine – she was a Millais or Rossetti made flesh. Simply divine. She wished Thea were here to share the moment. Then again, perhaps it was as well she wasn’t.

  Anna, meanwhile, had tried to get a smile out of Seth but though he caught her eye, he held his expression of fierce concentration. Ellen and Maya were solemn too: shy suddenly, now their big moment had come. Not so Eliza. She looked about to explode with joy. She beamed with the full force of her excitement and Anna thought if she were allowed, the child would be turning cartwheels. Instead she adhered conscientiously to the slow and dignified step-together they had practised in the entrance hall at home, but it was an effort of will, anyone could see that.

  They reached the front. The girls slid into the pew next to Anna, Eliza with evident reluctance. Seth stepped away from his mother and she in turn moved to stand close beside Daniel. Samuel Farrimond cleared his throat and the couple looked away from each other and at the minister but it appeared, for a long moment, as though he was lost for words and it’s true that he was quite diverted by them, by the impression they made there, side by side. Never, he thought, had he seen a couple that looked so well together. He hoped that God would grant him the time to see for himself what these two might make of their union.

  A cough – the earl’s, quite deliberate – broke the silence and the minister, looking up, was reminded of the task in hand. He was not a man to be perturbed by a brief lapse into reverie, however; a wedding service was a time for reflection, in his view, and life was lived already at too fast a pace. He paused a few beats longer, and then he began.

  ‘We are gathered here today in the sight of God,’ he said, delivering the familiar words in his rich baritone, ‘to join together Eve and Daniel in holy matrimony. Who gives this woman to be married to this man?’

  A long pause, then: ‘Oh, me. I mean, I do,’ Seth said. He reddened, thought he’d blundered, fluffed the one
simple thing he had to say, but his mam, Daniel, the minister – they were all smiling at him.

  ‘Thank you, Seth,’ Daniel said. Anna reached for her handkerchief.

  They came out of the chapel to a guard of honour formed by the Netherwood gardeners, who stood in two lines with hoes and spades and forks raised high to form a tunnel. Stevie, who had known all about this plan yet still kept the secret, was at the furthest end with his seven-pronged leaf rake and a smile that would have lit up a dark room. Eve and Daniel ran through, and then the children had a go, and then Eliza went again, on her own. This, she thought, is how I want my life to be: silk frocks, laughter, an audience. Happiness bubbled away inside her at a constant simmer and her face ached with smiling, but she couldn’t stop. Freed from the constraints of the service, she danced flamboyantly on the gravel drive until Anna shepherded her into a waiting motorcar.

  ‘Mrs MacLeod,’ said the earl, taking Eve to one side. It sounded so strange to her ears, and it would be weeks before she could answer to it without hesitation. Lord Netherwood enveloped her in an unexpected bear hug, which crushed her bouquet and left her breathless when he released her. ‘I couldn’t be prouder of you if you were one of mine.’

  There was a tremor in his voice and Eve herself felt the threat of tears. She had so much to be grateful for, and most of it was due to him. He wasn’t joining the gathering at the mill – Lady Netherwood felt that gracing the church service with her presence was glory enough for the happy couple: any more would be de trop, she said, a compromise of one’s dignity. Her husband, while disagreeing heartily with her rationale, nevertheless had business to attend to at Long Martley and he supposed, also, that the wedding breakfast might go off with more of a swing without the inhibiting presence of the aristocracy. But there was something he had to say to Eve before she left; his wedding gift to her had to be explained.