by Stella Riley
The anger she’d felt earlier re-surfaced. A thousand pounds or even five hundred would make such a difference here. Day after day, the man in front of her struggled to hold everything together without help or hope. If Max was here, she suddenly thought … if Max could see what I see, he would help. I know he would. But he’s not here, nor can he be and nor can I ask him.
She said baldly, ‘There’s a quantity of good wine in the cellar.’
‘Wine?’ he asked blankly. Then, ‘What of it?’
‘You can sell it. If it is as good as I think it is, it should fetch a fair price.’ She paused, then added, ‘I brought a bottle upstairs so that we can make sure it hasn’t deteriorated.’
For a long moment, Julian simply stared at her. Then he smiled; an inviting, half-sweet and half-wistful smile. ‘You want me to come inside and drink wine with you?’
Oh don’t, she thought helplessly. Don’t smile at me like that.
‘Perhaps after you’ve finished the roof? I wouldn’t want you to risk a broken neck.’
‘No more would I.’
‘Later, then. I don’t know why I was in such a hurry to tell you.’ She gave a tiny laugh which, even to her own ears, sounded self-conscious. ‘Stupid of me.’
‘No. It wasn’t. Today … hasn’t been going well. The possibility of making a little money is a much-needed bright spot. So thank you.’
Arabella nodded and walked away, her mind a seething mass of emotions.
Julian watched her until she vanished from his sight round a corner. Then he hauled in a long, unsteady breath and thought, A bright spot? Yes. But it isn’t the wine. It isn’t even that she thought of it and went into the cellar to find out. The bright spot is her. Elizabeth. It’s the easy affection she gives the children … and trying to help in other ways because she sees how bad the need is. It’s listening to her laugh and being able to talk to her without feeling clumsy or stupid. He shoved his hands through his hair, aware of a constriction in his chest. But I can’t – I mustn’t – allow myself to rely on any of it because she may not stay. And if she doesn’t … well, I won’t think of that.
* * *
They met, as usual, in the dining-parlour.
Arabella smiled brightly at him and said, ‘Is the barn roof watertight?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Good.’ She hesitated briefly. ‘What was that you and Ridley were talking about this morning? Something to do with gates being opened?’
He shrugged. ‘Mr Bascombe, whose lands lie alongside mine, has a grudge regarding a stream. He has been threatening legal action for some time now but never taken the final step. He just sends somebody to open gates so the few sheep we have get out.’
Arabella frowned. ‘That is iniquitous. He should be stopped.’
‘Yes. But it isn’t that simple.’ Julian drew one finger down the dusty bottle beside him on the dresser. ‘Is this part of your hoard from the cellar?’
‘Yes.’ She allowed him to change the subject and put the Bascombe problem aside for consideration later. ‘I’ve opened it and allowed it to stand but couldn’t find a decanter. It’s a 1772 burgundy from the Auxerre region.’
‘And that is good?’
‘It comes from a reputable vineyard,’ Arabella temporised, unable to say that it was a label she had seen at home. ‘As to taste, I’m no expert.’
‘Unfortunately, neither am I.’ Flinging an unexpected grin in her direction, Julian poured two small glasses, then turned and handed her one of them with a slight bow. ‘Your very good health, ma’am.’
‘And yours, my lord,’ she retorted, before taking a cautious sip and promptly wrinkling her nose. ‘Oh. It’s very dry.’
Julian examined his glass against the light and then tasted it. It was dry … but also rich and smooth. Compared to the cheap wine he had always been accustomed to it was nectar. He took another very appreciative sip and said, ‘How many bottles are there?’
‘Of this specifically? I don’t know. Altogether? Seven or eight dozen.’ Arabella reached over and tipped the contents of her own glass into his. ‘It must be worth something, mustn’t it?’
‘I imagine so. But to sell … it would have to go to Newark.’ He thought for a moment. ‘There’s a monthly auction.’
‘Perfect!’ Arabella’s face was suddenly vivid with excitement. ‘If it was advertised and if there is more than one gentleman interested in buying … what do you think?’
What Julian thought was that she looked warm and beautiful and he wanted something he wasn’t allowed to want. He said, ‘I think we can only hope.’
She sensed but didn’t understand his withdrawal.
‘You’re right, of course. I’m getting carried away.’
I wouldn’t mind carrying you away, said an unruly and startling voice in his head before he silenced it.
‘And why not? I would never have thought of it and I’m grateful.’
‘Don’t be. It was just an idea. It might have been nothing.’
‘No,’ he said simply. ‘It wouldn’t. You didn’t have to do anything … but you did.’
A wave of increasingly familiar confused tenderness engulfed her. Before he could see it in her face, she turned away to pull the bell summoning Violet with their dinner. ‘I had another idea as well. It concerns the local corn-mill.’
Julian’s brows rose. ‘It’s for sale.’
‘I know. I saw it in the newspaper. It has been for sale for months and, for some incomprehensible reason, no one has yet bought it.’ Arabella continued fussing with the table-settings so she wouldn’t have to look at him. ‘I can’t understand that. How are you and the tenants and everybody else managing?’
‘This is the first year in the last four that Chalfont has grown corn – or much of anything else, for that matter. As to the mill, Mr Bascombe has one.’
‘So everyone mills their corn there?’
He shook his head and, with rare acidity, said, ‘Bascombe doesn’t allow that. He forces them to sell their corn to him for less than market price, then mills it himself.’
‘Does he, indeed?’ Both Arabella’s tone and the glint in her eyes boded ill for Mr Bascombe should he ever cross her path. ‘So put a spoke in his wheel. Lease the corn mill.’
Julian blinked. ‘Lease it?’
‘Yes. Just for a trial period to begin with. It can’t be that expensive and you could recoup some of the cost by charging your neighbours for the use of it. More importantly, it would get your own corn out of the barn and off to market … and give other folk an alternative to Mr Bastard.’
‘Bascombe,’ he corrected on a tiny choke of laughter.
‘Yes. Him.’ Arabella turned back to finish re-arranging the table.
For what seemed a very long time, Julian stared at her slender back … at the velvet skin of her neck and the cunningly-piled silver-gilt hair above it … and discovered that he felt slightly dizzy. Finally, in a voice not quite his own, he managed to summon a few suitably innocuous words.
‘How do you know these things? I’d never have thought of them.’
By the time she looked at him, he had his expression under some kind of control. Her brows rose and she laughed. Somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind was the knowledge that she had no idea what that did to him.
‘It’s only common sense,’ she said prosaically. ‘We can’t have the corn going mouldy in the barn, can we? And I want you free to finish tuning the harpsichord so that I can finally hear you play.’
* * *
‘I shudder to recall,’ said Paul Featherstone, as he and Julian carried wine from the cellar to the farm’s only cart, ‘how close I came to dismissing Mistress Marsden before you’d even seen her. She’s a mystery though, isn’t she?’
‘Is she? Why?’
‘She’s here because she needs to earn her living … yet she knows a good bottle of wine when she sees it and has no trouble working out the cost versus benefit of leasing the mill? How many impoverished vi
car’s daughters are there, do you think, who could do that?’
‘I don’t know.’ And I don’t care, said that extremely active little voice in his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. She’s good with the children.’
‘Ellie likes her,’ sighed Paul. ‘I know. You told me.’
‘It’s not just Ellie. They all do – even Tom.’
Paul looked sideways at him. According to what Mistress Marsden had told Janet, it was Julian himself who had eventually won Tom over. But aware that probing did more harm than good, he said merely, ‘Have you made a decision about leasing the corn-mill?’
‘I’d like to. It makes sense. But we’re barely making ends meet as it is. And the children need new shoes.’ He let out an angry-sounding breath and added, ‘In truth, they need new everything because nothing fits any more – but shoes are the priority.’
Resisting an impulse to curse, Dr Featherstone dug in his pocket, pulled out five guineas and slapped them in Julian’s hand. ‘Take it!’ he snapped, when Julian tried to refuse. ‘Don’t be so bloody stubborn. Call it a loan, if you must. You can pay me back when the wine is sold. In the meantime, buy the shoes, rent the mill and treat yourself to a haircut. You look like a damned pirate.’
* * *
The wine was put in to the following week’s auction and an offer was made to lease the corn-mill. Three days went by during which, just when Arabella had thought the tuning process was complete, Julian had begun the entire exercise again. Consequently, for the past three nights, she and the children had fallen asleep to the accustomed lullaby of endlessly repeated notes. Tonight, however, it was absent and Arabella drifted off vaguely supposing that Julian was either attending to a different task or had simply gone to bed like a normal person.
She dreamed she was in the York assembly-rooms with Mama. It was a concert and someone was playing Bach. For a time, she floated pleasantly with the music. Then she stirred, reluctantly coming half-awake. She turned over, searching for the dream that the music told her was still there. And in that second, she was suddenly fully alert and sitting up, her heart pounding. She hadn’t been dreaming. Someone was playing Bach.
Arabella hurtled out of bed, grabbed her chamber-robe and flew out on to the landing. From the floor below, the music flowed on unabated; from above her, three tousled heads leaned over the bannister. She smiled, put her finger to her lips and beckoned them down. Quiet as mice, the four of them tiptoed down the stairs to the turn above the hall … and there they halted, frozen into immobility.
For the first time, the library door stood open, its interior lit by three branches of candles. And in the centre of that circle of light was the harpsichord … and Julian.
It was a moment like no other Arabella had experienced or could ever have imagined. The air in her lungs was replaced by painful sweetness and she wondered distantly if this was how magic felt. He looked so beautiful there … so relaxed and confident and at home. And the sounds he was coaxing from that poor, abused instrument would have made angels weep. Her knees gave way and she sat down on the stairs, aware that the children were curling up about her. Tom looked amazed; Rob, fascinated; and Ellie’s face simply glowed.
Bach became Mozart, then something hauntingly lovely that Arabella had never heard before … then Bach again. He allowed no time between pieces. Indeed, Arabella wasn’t sure he even knew they were there. He was in a world of his own … his world; the place where he was most completely himself. Every now and then, he tilted his head over the keys, a frown or smile touching his face, as if something had surprised or particularly pleased him; sometimes he played whole passages, eyes closed, head thrown back and wearing an expression that was almost pain; yet the cataract of beauty cascaded flawlessly and unhesitatingly on.
There wasn’t a single sheet of music in front of him. Every note he played was transmitted from his head to his hands with a quality of depth and feeling that, by turn, suggested joy or loss or triumph. Even when he played Bach, crisp and precise as it was, there was somehow an implicit mood or a feeling Arabella had never before suspected; and favourite, familiar pieces she had known for years were transformed into something fresh and new. There was so much more here than the manual dexterity required of any skilled performer. There was an indefinable quality that made one listen, not with one’s intellect, but with one’s heart. And the only word she knew that might describe it was genius.
It wasn’t until Ellie yawned and sagged against her shoulder that Arabella realised how long they had been sitting there … all three children, perfectly silent. Turning, she whispered, ‘Take Ellie up, Tom – and go to bed yourselves. Leave the doors open if you want to … but his lordship could play for hours yet.’
Tom nodded, lifted his sister and went quietly up the stairs. Rob hesitated a moment and said, ‘How does he do that?’
‘I don’t know. Ask him tomorrow.’
He nodded and reluctantly followed the others. Arabella remained where she was for a time, aware that Julian was repeating something he had played earlier; the lovely bitter-sweet piece that bore no resemblance to any composer she knew. Then she rose and went quietly down to stand at the library door.
The piece came to an end and, for the first time, he did not immediately begin another. Instead, he said, ‘How long have you been listening?’
‘A while. Since you left the door open, I presumed that it was all right.’
He turned his head, his expression faintly baffled.
‘I opened the door because it improves the acoustics.’
‘Oh.’
‘But I don’t mind an audience. Did you enjoy it?’
‘Enjoy it?’ she echoed, incredulously. ‘Julian, there aren’t words. I have never heard anyone play like that – or even imagined that anyone could.’
He turned back to the keyboard, a small smile curling his lips. ‘Thank you.’
Arabella detached herself from the door-jamb and crossed to stand over him with folded arms. ‘Don’t thank me, you idiotic man. Just tell me the truth. You’re a concert performer, aren’t you?’
‘I … would have been.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘The day before the lawyer found me, I’d just given my first recital.’
‘In Vienna?’
He nodded and, lifting his hand, played a series of idle chords. ‘I had three further engagements – one of them at the Belvedere. Instead, like the idiot you just called me, I came here expecting to go back … only to find I couldn’t.’
For a moment, she was speechless. Janet had called his current life a waste. Janet, thought Arabella grimly, didn’t know the half of it. She said abruptly, ‘What was the piece you were playing just now?’
‘Which one?’
‘You’d played it earlier on as well. You played lots of pieces I couldn’t name but could guess the composer – but not that one.’ And when he said nothing, ‘You know perfectly well which I mean. The one that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time.’
‘Did it?’ Pleasure flared in his eyes before his lashes hid it. ‘That’s nice.’
‘Isn’t it?’ said Arabella sardonically. Then, ‘Are you going to admit that you wrote it – or do I need to fetch the red-hot pincers?’
Julian kept his eyes on his hands. ‘Did you really like it?’
‘I loved it.’ She fell silent, frowning a little. Then she said, ‘This is ridiculous. You can’t squander the rest of your life here. There must be something we can do.’
He shook his head, recognising the need to be cautious. He was on an emotional knife-edge born of the long-awaited freedom to play whatever he wanted for as long as he liked. And the music, more potent than any drug, was still inside him. He gave a derisive laugh.
‘There isn’t. Arranging a concert requires money and patronage. Nobody in England has ever heard of Julian Langham and the Earl of Chalfont is a bloody farmer. Do you think,’ he finished with unusual asperity, ‘that if there was the remotest chance of p
ursuing the career I’ve spent more than half my life working towards I wouldn’t have found it by now?’
And before she could reply, he declared the conversation over by plunging into the Bach Fantasia. Arabella watched for a minute, half-inclined to stop him but choosing instead to sit on the floor at his side and let him play the piece through to the end. Then, before he could embark on something else, she said flatly, ‘We are going to talk about this.’
‘No. We are not.’ He glanced sideways at her, then away again. He needed to play something else – anything else. It was the only way he could keep his mind off the fact that she was sitting there in her night-rail and wrapper with all that incredible hair tumbling down her back. ‘I’ve already told you that there is no point – and why there isn’t. Talking – thinking – doesn’t help. I know that you mean well but some things can’t be mended. Be satisfied with the wine and the corn-mill.’
‘I can’t. Music – this,’ she touched the harpsichord, ‘means everything to you.’
‘Yes. What else is there?’
There was no satisfactory answer to that so she said slowly, ‘Little – perhaps nothing, right now. But in time, that will change. You will meet someone and --’
‘Are you talking about marriage?’ he asked incredulously. ‘That is about as likely as the concert platform. The title means nothing; the estate is a hairsbreadth from bankruptcy; and I have three illegitimate children. What woman would take that on?’
I would. The words rang inside her head without her having any idea where they had come from. Stupid, she told herself, stupid, stupid, stupid – in every conceivable way. She said carefully, ‘If those are the only things she sees, she wouldn’t deserve you anyway.’
The pit of his stomach seemed to drop away and he shut his eyes. Then, opening them, he said, ‘I’m sorry. I think you should go.’
Arabella thought so too but she did not budge. Inside, she was a seething mass of frustration. Patronage and money, he’d said … and she was fairly sure that the Duke of Rockliffe could provide both. Unfortunately, any approach she made would bring his Grace to Chalfont, thus ending her time here and Lizzie’s stay in London.