The Last Baronet

by Caroline Akrill

  Anna bent to remove the ticket from her sleeve, blinking hard. There must not be tears. There could never be tears. As always, looking at Lavinia, being with her, seeing how she was, caught at her heart, snagged it. She told herself that it was self pity. That all that mattered was that Lavinia herself was perfectly happy in her own little world. It didn’t make her feel any better. She supposed that there were some things, some lost things, some things that could never be recovered, that would always be regretted; mourned; grieved over. The reluctant safety pin released itself at last, leaving a small rust stain on the material. On the pedals of the piano, she could see thick brown socks that were clearly Vivian’s and, on top, a pair of narrow, pearlised pink ankle strap shoes that might once have been just the thing for Thé Dansant at the Savoy. ‘I don’t mean today. Nobody is coming today. I mean when our guests arrive for the Christmas house party. I wondered if you might like to play in the dining room whilst they are having dinner? Only if you would like to, of course. Only if you would enjoy it.’

  ‘But, my dear, I simply love the idea! I shall be delighted to play for them whilst they are having dinner. Would evening dress be appropriate? I shall go and change at once. Perhaps you could assist me to select a suitable gown? At what time did you say they were expected?’

  *

  Anna, mounted on the chestnut livery, with Nicola on the grey gelding, rode out of the drive and into the lane leading to the bridleway. It had been Nicola’s idea and Anna had been pleased to get away from the house and its workmen, and Rupert in particular.

  Summer had come and gone and the banks were dry and scorched. The last of the wild roses in the hedgerows were turning to hips, elderberry branches were heavy with fruit and blackberries were ripening everywhere. Riding along the lane with the regular clop of hooves in her ears, becoming accustomed to feeling the length of her legs against the horse’s sides, the weight of her feet in the stirrups, the soft, steady feel of the horse’s mouth on the end of the reins, Anna realised how much she had missed the physical pleasure and intimacy with a horse that, once experienced, is never forgotten. But this ride had a serious purpose. It was her opportunity to talk to Nicola. Alone. The perfect opportunity. She had planned to lead into the subject gently.

  ‘Nicola,’ she began as they rode, stirrup to stirrup, along the lane. ‘We need to talk about the stables.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about the stables,’ Nicola said.

  ‘Well then, perhaps we should talk about the horses; about keeping them; about how you manage to keep them.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about the horses,’ Nicola said.

  Anna had not anticipated that it takes two to make meaningful conversation. ‘But there are things I need to say to you. We have to talk about it.’

  ‘We have to talk about some things,’ Nicola allowed. ‘But not the stables and not the horses. Not today. Not now.’

  That then, appeared to be the end of that. They rode along in silence for a while.

  ‘When you first came to Rushbroke, I thought you and Rupert were an item,’ Nicola said. ‘I was surprised to find you weren’t. Presumably there is a relationship elsewhere.’

  Anna, who had set out to talk to Nicola, now found the tables turned. Well, perhaps she had to share a few confidences in order to get something in return. ‘Yes. It started a long time ago. I was a student at Catering College. He was one of the tutors.’

  ‘Isn’t that against the rules?’

  ‘It is. I thought that was why we had to be discreet.’

  ‘And it wasn’t?’

  ‘One day I was sitting in the park reading a book and I saw him with his wife and two small children, a perfectly happy little family, laughing together and feeding the ducks.’

  ‘That must have been awful for you. I suppose that was the end of it.’

  ‘It could have been. Perhaps it should have been.’ Anna could not bring herself to say she wished it had been. She didn’t want to dwell on the pain, the hurt, the feeling of betrayal. Nor the fact that, in many ways, there would never be an end to it; never could be. ‘No, it was by no means the end of it.’

  Nicola looked thoughtful. ‘Shouldn’t you have told him? Rupert, I mean. Rather than leave him hanging on? Wouldn’t it have been fairer?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell him. I wasn’t ready. There was another issue. It’s complicated.’

  ‘Everything’s complicated if you allow it to be. You seem to have mastered the art of leaving people guessing. Of making excuses. Of keeping secrets. It isn’t good, Anna. It isn’t fair.’

  ‘You are probably right.’ Anna fell silent, listening to the sound of the chestnut gelding’s hooves on the lane: one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. A perfectly regular gait. Four beats to the bar. She had learned about gaits. It was all coming back to her now. She knew she was prevaricating. ‘Not just probably,’ she admitted. ‘You are right. I know you are.’

  ‘There are things we need to talk about,’ Nicola said, ‘and I don’t mean the stables or the horses, I mean about us, about family. It’s all very well, pressing on without saying anything, assuming we don’t know who you are, but it needs to be out in the open. It needs to be discussed. Surely we can talk about it.’

  The gait of the horse was regular but Anna was wrong-footed. This was not the moment. She was not prepared. Everything needed to be in place, and it wasn’t quite, not yet. ‘It isn’t that I don’t want to talk about it. It’s… It’s just that…’ She hesitated, knowing that she had to say something, and being unprepared, was not sure what it might be. ‘Nicola, you have to know; I have to be sure that you know; that the reason I came here wasn’t… what I’m trying to say is that I haven’t come here to claim anything. I don’t want, I don’t expect anything. If I’m to gain anything at all out of it, it has to be because I have earned it; not because I think I’m entitled, but because I’ve done something to help; because I’ve contributed. So in a way, what I’m doing is nothing to do with what you already know; nothing to do with who I am and what I haven’t said because I didn’t come here to take away anything that is yours, and now we are taking away the stables,’ Anna’s voice petered out on a miserable note, ‘and that wasn’t part of the plan.’

  ‘We are not talking about the stables,’ Nicola said firmly, and then: ‘He tried to find you, you know. Vivian. Afterwards.’

  Anna kept her eyes on the chestnut livery’s silken mane. She didn’t want to hear this. She wasn’t ready for it.

  ‘He always felt it; the guilt. But when he married her he didn’t know. He had no idea. And neither did she. But Vivian made her do it. He couldn’t bear the thought of not being the father. He wanted an heir. He didn’t get one. That was his punishment. It was very Old Testament.’

  ‘He leaves me clues,’ Anna said miserably. ‘Passages marked in the St. James Bible.’

  ‘He’s very fond of the Old Testament. He’s very Old School. It’s partly why he’s banned from St. Saviours. He can’t stand the new prayer book. He can’t abide modern hymns. The man with the guitar was the last straw.’

  ‘He tried to find me? Really?’

  ‘He did. And he succeeded. But by then he… we… had nothing to offer you. By then we had lost everything, and Lavinia was… well, you have seen for yourself how Lavinia is.’

  ‘Yes.’ Of course Anna knew how Lavinia was. It had been the worst thing.

  ‘I know you haven’t come to claim anything,’ Nicola said. ‘Not that there is anything to claim anyway, and I am glad that you are here – glad, glad, glad. But Vivian is not good. He isn’t going to last. You need to talk to him. He needs to know that he is forgiven.’

  ‘How could there be anything to forgive? It was all a very long time ago. And. after all, I had no idea that I was not their child until after my adoptive parents had died. They had instructed their solicitor to tell me. To give me what little information they had. To enable me to do what I thought was best.’ Anna remembered the last time she had ret
urned to her parent’s home to find bulldozers already at work in the garden, grubbing up lawns and flattening flower beds, their great wheels smashing the rose bushes, crushing everything into the earth. It had been a shock. It had really hit her then. They had never been a close family unit. Her childhood, though well-provided for and lacking for nothing in practical terms, had been short on love and affection. Her parents were not demonstrative, tactile people. They had a narrow social life. Visitors were few and those who came were regarded as an intrusion, an inconvenience; their presence something to be endured rather than celebrated. They were so wrapped up in themselves; their garden maintenance; their household routines, that Anna had often felt, especially once she left home for college, that she didn’t really belong; that she was no more welcome than the visitors they greeted with such false conviviality. Anna had missed them of course. She had been alone afterwards and vulnerable: she had been fair game…

  ‘There really is nothing to forgive and I will talk to Vivian. I do plan to. But there is another issue to deal with first, and for that I shall need your help.’

  Nicola’s look was speculative. ‘What sort of issue?’

  ‘Something you need to know about; something you don’t know about me. And you do need to know, Vivian needs to know, Rupert needs to know. At least,’ Anna corrected herself, remembering, ‘I thought he did, before… you know, before you and he…’

  Nicola said pensively ‘So you know about Rupert.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘I know about Rupert.’

  ‘Then you should know that he only comes to me because he’s lonely and miserable and he can’t come to you. You should know that it’s you he wants. He comes to me and he doesn’t know why. He really hasn’t a clue about all this. I would have thought it obvious but he hasn’t realised. He only comes to me, Anna, because I remind him of you.’ Nicola knew when it was time to move on. ‘We will deal with your issue, Anna, whatever it is. I’ll do whatever you need me to do. But that’s enough for now, I think.’

  The horses went into trot. It was enough. Anna needed time to absorb what had been said. Now was not the time to deal with it. She packed it away carefully in her mind for later perusal. For contemplation. For meticulous examination. Later, in the privacy of her room she would unpack it and examine every detail and ponder its significance. Now, she concentrated on the chestnut livery’s hooves as they hit the lane. One, two. One, two. One, two. A perfectly correct and rhythmic gait. Two beats to the bar. By tacit agreement the subject was closed.

  The perfectly correct and rhythmic gait was shortly interrupted by the grey gelding who, perceiving that a car had appeared behind them and was about to overtake, began to lift up his feet like a hackney and sidle towards the bank, his eyes rolling in alarm. The chestnut livery, sensing impending trouble, shot forward, taking Anna by surprise, leaving the grey horse exposed to the car as it inched past. The woman driver, with an anxious smile and the very best of intentions, attempted to minimise the disturbance by slowing down even more, causing the grey gelding, wild-eyed, to try to escape crabwise up the bank. He was only just prevented from diving through the hedge by some vigorous hauling at his head and the smart application of a whip, with the result that he slithered back onto the lane as the driver of the car accelerated away in relief. Anna brought the chestnut livery, now distinctly skittish, back alongside Nicola, who rode on as if nothing untoward had occurred. Anna could only applaud her calmness in the saddle. In comparison, the grey horse was a nervous wreck. His neck was streaked with sweat. He let out a long, shuddering sigh, dropped his head in exhaustion and closed his eyes. He looked if he had just been an unwilling participant in the Grand National.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I’m a bit worried about the Boxing Day Meet.’

  ‘It’s going to take some time, I’m afraid. It’s a shame because otherwise he’s a really good horse; he jumps and events, but he’s murder to box and if I can’t cure him, he’s for the glue factory. I thought I might ask David Williamson if I could put him in that little strip of field that runs alongside the lane for a few hours every day, just to get him used to a bit of traffic going past. He only uses it as a cattle trap when they are ready for market. As for Boxing Day, I might lead him to the Crick and Mr Pomeroy can mount up at the meet. That way there won’t be any traffic problems at the start of the day, at least.’

  It seemed a reasonable plan. They turned onto the bridleway; the horse’s hooves sounding hollow on the bone dry ground. Together they cantered along a wide, grassy ride which took them around the edge of the village, past a new development of houses which, despite vociferous opposition from almost all the inhabitants of Rushall St. Mary, were already rising from their foundations, past the Crick in the Neck, until they reached the top of a narrow road from which they could rejoin the drive to Rushbroke Hall. It was at this point that David Williamson unexpectedly appeared round a bend, in his Land Rover.

  The shock of suddenly being confronted with the Hon. Nicola and two of her unspeakable equines caused him to brake violently and noisily in front of them. Horrified, the grey gelding flung himself to one side in a half rear, as a result of which he slid backwards into the ditch, pitching Nicola onto his neck. The chestnut livery, having absorbed traffic hysteria from the grey gelding like an infection, ran backwards away from the scene despite the energetic application of Anna’s heels, and only a thwack from her stick arrested her progress. As the Land Rover stalled and swerved to a standstill, David Williamson fell forward onto the steering wheel and inadvertently set off the horn, occasioning further upset. There was a goodly interval of chaos before a relative calm was restored.

  After several abortive attempts, Nicola, seizing the moment, managed to persuade the grey gelding to approach the Land Rover, which it did with a great show of reluctance, lifting its feet up in an exaggeratedly high, slow motion, as if it had springs attached to its hooves, the performance accompanied by a lot of indignant snorting, its neck held unnaturally high, crested and wrinkled with effort, and as solid as a plank.

  Anna, too far away to hear what was being said, could nevertheless see a nervous tic working furiously in David Williamson’s cheek and his hands set fast upon the wheel.

  She urged the chestnut livery nearer.

  ‘You don’t really mean no,’ Nicola was saying, despite the antics of the grey horse, who was now furiously digging a hole in the drive with one of his front hooves. ‘I’m sure you mean yes, really. And I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you any way you like. Perhaps you would like to think about it?’ She smiled down at David Williamson (who looked almost as wild-eyed as the grey gelding) in what could only be described as a provocative manner, ‘About how you would like to be rewarded? About how I could possibly repay you?’

  David Williamson didn’t even stop to think about it. The Land Rover suddenly roared into life as if it the flag had gone down at Brand’s Hatch. It bucketed off down the lane at a furious rate, scattering gravel. Wheels squealed in protest as it turned onto the drive leading to the Home Farm.

  ‘Good,’ Nicola said with satisfaction. She turned the by now completely demented grey gelding into the wrought iron entrance gates, restored to their former glory by Len and his welding equipment, against which Rupert had propped a sign:

  RUSHBROKE HALL COUNTRY HOUSE.

  LUXURY ACCOMMODATION AND RESTAURANT.

  OPENING SHORTLY.

  ‘That seems to be settled then.’

  TWENTY FIVE

  The library was finished, the carpet laid, books purchased by the metre supplied by the second hand book shop in Hadleigh filled the shelves. Squashy leather chairs and small tables with lamps were set into companionable groups. Len had set up the scale model of the stable development on a library table in one corner. It sat on a board; a miniature miracle; the apartments set around a courtyard with a central fountain, the whole complete with realistic little people, sponge rubber trees and shrubbery.

  ‘It looks grea
t,’ Rupert said approvingly. ‘If things had turned out differently, I could even imagine living there myself.’

  ‘Dream on, my boy. You’d never afford it anyway. This is a top of the range development. The council wouldn’t agree to anything else.’

  ‘Not an affordable housing scheme then?’

  ‘Hardly. You need a car to live here,’ Len pointed out. ‘And it is a tad isolated. But then that’s what will attract our buyers; hopefully the sort of people who will use the hotel as a facility. Rupert, sit down a minute. I need to tell you something.’

  ‘What sort of something? Not another workman done a runner?’

  ‘No, not that.’ Len sat down in a wing back chair and looked around appreciatively. ‘Nice, this room. Comfortable. Not too new looking.’

  ‘Yes, Anna has a knack of putting things together. Everything works. The bedrooms are beautiful.’

  ‘It’s about Anna I wanted to talk.’

  ‘Oh,’ Rupert looked uncomfortable. Sadie put her head on his knee. Although she could not have known what was coming, it was as though she sensed it might not be good news.

  ‘Look, Dad, Nicola has…’

  ‘I’m not going to lecture you. You’ve done what you’ve done for your own reasons. It’s none of my business.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Rupert looked marginally relieved. ‘But Nicola…’

  ‘Me first. You can tell me your news later, if it’s still appropriate. What I want to tell you is that I went to see Anna to ask about the gardener’s cottage. It’s a ruin and it’s small, but, done up, it would have been ideal for Sadie and me.’

  ‘But what about your own house; yours and Mum’s? What about The Close?’ Whatever Rupert had expected, it hadn’t been this.

  ‘Too many memories. And I’ve grown to love this place, I’ve got attached to it, and to Anna too; she’s a great, courageous girl and she’s done a brilliant job so far. I’ve been proud to help and I’ve got you to thank for that because this job has given me my life back. I just thought it would be good to live on the premises, you know, do up the cottage at my own expense, stay on to look after the building, only…’