Ravenscliffe

by Jane Sanderson

The condolences were flooding in and everyone was so kind. Clarissa had written almost fifty restrained and elegant replies – ‘your thoughts and words are such a comfort, yours in sorrow and friendship, Clarissa Netherwood’ – in spite of the fact that Henry kept telling her there was no need. No one expects a reply to a letter of sympathy, she said. Perhaps not, her mother had said, but how lovely for them to know the value and beneficial effects of their letter.

  This new Clarissa, the one that had emerged from the dark days immediately following her husband’s death, seemed a veritable saint. Widowhood suited her – quite literally, since she wore black lace or charcoal-grey organza and her ethereal beauty was somehow enhanced by it. She had relinquished the reins of power gracefully, readily, allowing Henrietta and Tobias to argue over the details of what remained to be done, while she drifted about the house and grounds in a state of heightened sensitivity to kindness and loveliness. Daniel, overseeing the meticulous edging in local stone of the Grand Canal, had found he missed the cut and thrust of their old exchanges when she paid him a visit, swathed in sable against the late October day.

  ‘Thank you for working so hard, Daniel,’ she had said. ‘Your progress has been quite remarkable.’

  He had been on his knees pegging plumb lines and hadn’t heard her approach. When he stood, wiping dirt from his palms, she had said: ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you. You must think me an awful nuisance.’

  ‘Not in the least, your ladyship,’ he said. ‘I’m glad to see you.’

  She had looked about her and then down into the yawning chasm at her feet.

  ‘How magnificent this will be. Such a grand and noble scheme.’

  He had looked at her sideways, suspecting her of sarcasm, but all he saw was an expression of serene joy.

  ‘And how are you faring, your ladyship?’ he had said. He felt some real concern for her; she seemed to him quite altered.

  ‘Me?’ she said, with some surprise. ‘Oh, quite well. Everyone is being so very careful with me, but I am quite well.’

  ‘A difficult time,’ Daniel said. ‘Your loss must be hard to bear.’

  Again, a look of surprise. ‘On the contrary, I find I can bear the loss of Teddy,’ she had said. ‘We were less and less in each other’s company, though he was a dear thing and perfectly lovely over all the ruckus of the king’s visit. But what I find unsettling, Daniel’ – here she paused and lightly touched his arm – ‘is the uncertainty. One has always known one’s place. Now I find myself unexpectedly adrift.’

  Their conversation had ended there and Daniel, who anyway had been rather lost for words, had watched her weave her way down through the grounds, away from the house. Now, in the kitchen at Ravenscliffe, he described the scene to Anna.

  ‘Peculiar,’ he said. ‘As a rule she’d be berating my manners, my gardening, my dirty britches – you name it, she’d take issue. It was fine, mind; it was what I was used to. But today – I don’t know. She doesn’t seem particularly sad. Just different.’

  ‘I expect she’ll be all right,’ Anna said, in a voice that invited no further discussion. She was out of sorts and she hadn’t quite worked out why, but in any case, even in the best of humours she thought the countess a vain and silly woman. She’d only ever spoken to her once – and that a year ago, at the grand opening of the mill – but it was enough to form a poor opinion. It was possible, of course, that Amos’s prejudices had squirrelled their way into her mind and coloured her own opinions, but she didn’t think so. Any woman who wore pink chiffon flounces beyond the age of seventeen was of suspect character, in Anna’s view. Daniel sensed stony ground and let the subject drop. He took a slug of strong, black tea and eyed her cautiously. Something was definitely up, judging by the way that iron was being handled. He watched as she shoved it back into the heat of the fire then stood, her small foot tapping an irritable tattoo on the flagged floor as she waited for it to be ready. Daniel, who was really only waiting for Seth, considered pinning a note on the front door and heading off up to the allotment alone, but suddenly from down the hallway came the sound of the front door slamming shut and Seth, his cheeks ruddy with fresh air, barged into the kitchen like a small bull, shoving open the kitchen door with one shoulder so that it swung wide and slammed all the way back against the wall; the brass knob had already made a dent in the plasterwork from previous incidents, and Anna issued one of her loud Russian expletives, the meaning of which they could only ever guess at, since she always refused to translate.

  ‘My ’ands are full,’ said Seth.

  He was holding the slender shaft of his dad’s old knur and spell pummel, and nothing else. She gave him a look.

  ‘I mean, sorry,’ he said. He prodded ineffectually at the dented plaster and flecks of blue paint dropped off the wall onto the floor.

  ‘Leave it be,’ she snapped. She seized the iron and slammed it down onto a grey school shirt, which lay stiff as cardboard on the ironing table, having dried to a crisp on a rack above the range. Seth grimaced at Daniel, who winked at him.

  ‘I saw t’pony,’ Seth said to Daniel. ‘She weren’t even lame.’

  ‘Well, there’s one happy ending, then,’ Daniel said. The boy had nursed the injured pit pony back to health without the assistance of a veterinary surgeon, for whom, anyway, Eve hadn’t wanted to pay, feeling it a sort of betrayal.

  Anna looked at the two of them, the iron poised in mid air as if she might hurl it. ‘That pony is bane of my life,’ she said, her voice fraught with irritation. ‘Always there, looking for food. You must stop feeding it, Seth.’

  Seth dropped his eyes, his good mood ebbing inexorably away. Daniel took action.

  ‘Come on, sonny,’ he said, ‘we’ve pineapple plants to tend.’

  Seth flashed him a furtive, grateful smile and they left, united against the injustice of feminine wrath. Anna, watching them swap significant looks as they sauntered off, banged the iron down once more into the fire because it was no sooner hot than it was cold again.

  But this wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. She bent down again and, taking up a poker, knocked the iron away from the heat. Unceremoniously she dumped the remaining pile of ironing on the kitchen table, and, grabbing her hat and coat from a hook on the back of the door, she left the house. Eve would be home with the girls by six; Anna would be back before then, she was sure of it.

  Amos was struggling with Engels and the development of utopian socialism. Enoch had reckoned it was easy reading, full of principles that Amos held already – ‘but better expressed, like’ – but Amos was making heavy weather of it, reading and rereading the same paragraph and never quite grasping its meaning. The result of this frustrating pursuit was not a greater understanding of Engels and the philosophy of socialism, but merely a heartfelt resentment towards Enoch. Amos closed the book, put it down, stood up, walked to the window, walked back to the chair, sat down again; he was edgy and restless, in no mood for mind-expanding political tracts.

  ‘You’re a bloody idiot, man,’ he said, to himself. ‘A bloody idiot.’

  Misery descended once again. He recalled, for the umpteenth time, his evening here with Anna, just yesterday. How lovely she was, how funny and clever and full of insight. How, when silences fell between them, he had failed utterly to tell her any of this. How, when she stood up to leave, he had nodded and seen her out, as if she was no more to him than a fellow campaigner. He feared rejection, of course he did; the last time he had offered his heart it had been kindly but emphatically declined. But was this past humiliation to mean that he was no longer man enough to face his own feelings? He groaned out loud and closed his eyes.

  Outside, downstairs, someone rapped on the front door and he heard the click-clack of Mrs Birtle’s boots as she crossed the hallway. The murmur of female conversation, and then more footsteps. Someone was coming upstairs, and at quite a clip too. Mac, slumbering at Amos’s feet, cocked an ear and opened an eye. Then a silence – whoever it was had come to a halt – and th
en a voice.

  ‘Amos?’

  Anna. On the landing, outside his door. He stood up.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. He wished he had on a clean shirt. He wished he’d shaved.

  The door opened and she stepped inside. Judging by her appearance, she’d run all the way from Ravenscliffe. Her small chest heaved and strands of blond hair clung to her face and neck. She stood just inside the door and looked at him, catching her breath, preparing to speak. And then: ‘Are you in love with Eve?’ she said. Quite matter-of-fact and collected now, she had her hands on her hips and her head slightly cocked. He gaped at her stupidly. He was thrown, totally thrown.

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you in least,’ she said. ‘But I’d like to know, just so that I can …’ Here she faltered, and he took a step towards her, but she shook her head at him so he waited. ‘What is word?’ she said. He shrugged, helpless. ‘Just so that I can … give you up. For my own peace.’

  There. She had finished. He walked to her and took her in his arms and held her for a long while, saying nothing. Tears coursed down his cheeks. He felt humbled by her frankness, ashamed of his own inhibitions, sorrowful that he had caused her anxiety and doubt; but more than all of this, he felt an upsurge of happiness greater than any he had ever experienced before in his life. He shifted her slightly within the circle of his arms, found her mouth, and kissed her. Two halves of the whole, united.

  ‘No,’ he was finally able to say. ‘It’s you. Only you, now and for ever.’

  The hearse was prepared, a glass and gilt coach swathed in black crêpe, with four of the earl’s black horses in harness ready to pull him on his last journey. Their bridles were trimmed with long, full ostrich feathers, which bucked and shivered in the wind, though the horses stood patient and steady. In front of the house, filling the terrace and steps, the black-clad servants and staff of the household stood together, heads bowed, perfectly still, as if praying. Before them, crowded in the park and grounds, the people of Netherwood stood to attention, young and old. The ardent and the faithful had begun to gather there just after first light, while the merely curious had turned up just in time to hear the great clock strike eleven. And as the last note sounded, out of the house came the mahogany coffin, mounted on a silver bier, lavishly adorned with roses of yellow and white, startlingly bright in the bleak tableau. The casket was placed carefully into the coach and slowly, slowly the horses began to move towards the private chapel.

  The family walked behind. Tobias supported his mother at the head, and though both of them were grave, they appeared serene and collected; behind them, Henrietta and Dickie had Isabella between them, holding her by the hand. The child looked pitiful, ravaged by grief; the stoniest heart among the watchful crowds could not help but feel for her. Here was not a creature from another world entirely; here was a little girl who had lost her father.

  Further mourners followed.

  ‘That,’ said Anna quietly to Amos, ‘is Thea Stirling.’

  She pointed discreetly at a slender young woman, who walked alone directly behind the family. A glossy black astrakhan hat and jacket kept out the cold, but beneath it she wore a dress of exquisitely pleated blue-black satin short enough to show her ankles: on her feet were dainty black patent pumps.

  ‘Next Countess of Netherwood,’ Anna said. ‘I know her. We chatted.’

  He put an arm around her shoulder, brought her closer to his side. She could talk him into anything at the moment, which was why he was here, feeling a bit of a fraud, though riveted by the spectacle in spite of himself. He wouldn’t want Enoch to see him, mind.

  ‘She liked colour of our front door,’ Anna said.

  ‘That right?’

  Anna nodded.

  ‘Well, there’s some paint left in t’pot. You could let ’er ’ave it.’

  He was being facetious; even she – with her tendency, still, to be literal – knew it. But watching Thea walk a lone path on the fringes of the exalted family she would soon be joining, Anna wondered if she might not be exactly the sort of woman to take up a brush and paint her own front door, countess or not.

  The earl’s coffin was carried from the hearse and into the chapel. Next to Amos an old man said: ‘There ’e goes, then. End of an era, right enough.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Amos in reply and then, to himself: amen to that.

  PART THREE

  Chapter 41

  The marriage of Tobias, Seventh Earl of Netherwood, to Miss Thea Stirling should have been the wedding of the decade. Instead it was a hole-and-corner affair, quietly conducted as if they were a pair of former adulterers trying to keep their names out of the newspapers.

  This was Clarissa’s story, at least. For their part, the bride and groom and the select group of eighty friends and family who attended the nuptials cherished their memories of a quite different version of events.

  Of course, it had been rather restrained, as society weddings went. But they were still a family in mourning and, only six months after the death of his father, Toby was pushing the limits of acceptability by insisting on a spring ceremony.

  ‘What’s the tearing hurry?’ his mother had asked brightly, as if she had no agenda of her own and was merely enquiring from polite interest. They were in the drawing room before dinner: Clarissa, Tobias and Henrietta. Logs crackled in the hearth, the wall lights glowed soft yellow and Parkinson offered sherry from a silver tray, but this mellow picture was deceptive, for the atmosphere was brittle.

  ‘Thank you, Parkinson,’ Clarissa said, and then: ‘Goodness, Toby. People will think you have a vulgar secret. Wait until the winter, why don’t you? Winter weddings can be very charming. Snow, berries, fur …’

  ‘Out of the question, Mama,’ Toby had said. ‘Bad enough waiting until April. I’d marry her tomorrow if I could.’

  ‘Why?’ Clarissa’s voice was hard-edged. ‘Are you afraid she’ll tire of you and slip away?’

  Tobias had laughed. ‘Exactly,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.’

  ‘I would have thought Dorothea had too much to gain from this liaison to bolt. Certainly she has more to gain than you do. She’s hardly overburdened with material wealth.’

  ‘She doesn’t see life the way you and I do, Mama. She’s a free spirit.’

  ‘How quaint.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand. But I won’t be dissuaded.’

  ‘Importunate boy,’ said his mother.

  Henrietta, who had listened silently to this exchange so far, said: ‘I don’t believe Thea would flee.’

  ‘And how would you know?’ said Clarissa, a little nastily, as if matrimony was one area where Henrietta’s views were immaterial.

  She coloured, but remained composed. ‘Because I know Thea at least as well as Toby, and I happen to know she’s in love.’

  ‘I’m in love with her, certainly,’ said Toby, missing his sister’s meaning, as she had intended him to do. ‘Not always sure Thea’s in love with me.’

  Henrietta smiled at him, though she didn’t protest. In any case, Toby seemed not to mind either way; Thea’s occasional indifference towards him didn’t worry him in the least. Rather, he welcomed it, since it gave him licence to please himself. Toby lived for the moment – always had. He couldn’t be wasting time fretting about what the future held, when the present was so reliably and thoroughly entertaining.

  The wedding took place on the seventeenth of March at St Paul’s Church in Knightsbridge and afterwards at Claridges, which had Elliot and Dorothy Stirling in raptures. They had arrived in London a week earlier, sailing into Southampton on a Cunard liner to a great fanfare, courtesy of the Choates, on whom the Stirlings seemed to rely entirely for their position in society. There was bunting and a small brass band: by all accounts quite a party, dockside, to celebrate their inaugural steps on British soil. Joseph and Caroline Choate were themselves, in fact, preparing to return to the United States, their tenure in London having almost drawn to a close. Howeve
r, the ambassadorial residence was still theirs for the time being, and they opened its doors warmly to their friends from New York City, whose gratitude and awe were seemingly limitless and never less than fulsomely expressed.

  They were an amiable pair, well intentioned, if not – in Clarissa’s view at least – well bred. In the minefield of English high society they frequently came a cropper, and at every luncheon and soirée in the days preceding the wedding they managed to commit one frightful solecism after another, plunging Clarissa ever further into gloom. They struggled greatly with forms of address; the earl – whose name they invoked in sepulchral tones – was Sir Teddy, while she was Lady Clarissa, and occasionally, dreadfully, Lady C. Mrs Stirling sometimes forgot to remove her gloves at dinner; Mr Stirling ate every meal with a fork only, which he used like a small shovel in his right hand. During lunch at the Savoy Grill he went at his celeriac purée as if he was clearing a path through snow. Form dictated that he and the dowager countess were often seated side by side. ‘Quite the double act, Lady C,’ he became fond of saying. ‘We’ll be running out of things to talk about at this rate.’

  If only, thought Clarissa. She sat glumly through these functions, feeling more and more like an observer than a participant. She had always regarded herself as a forceful person, a woman watched by other women and much admired by men. Now she could feel herself becoming colourless and insubstantial, as if all her magnetism and appeal had, in the end, been finite qualities from a source that was now quite empty. In her darker, less rational moments she took Thea for a witch with the power not only to enchant Tobias, but also to syphon off for her own use all of Clarissa’s wit and charm. Certainly, the duller Clarissa felt she was becoming, the brighter Thea seemed to shine.

  Her dress was ice-blue satin, created for her in Paris by the House of Worth. It had a twelve-foot train and she wore the palest blue tulle veil, which fell in soft folds from a coronet of diamonds. White and yellow gardenias, sent from the Netherwood glasshouses, formed her bouquet. A fleet of Teddy’s Daimlers had been sent for the use of the bridal party, and when Thea drove with her father from the ambassador’s residence, they drew back the roof and crowds collected along the edges of the pavements, although no one was sure who she was.