Flint and Roses (23 page)

‘This will interest you, Giles.'

‘So it does.' And rapidly scanning every line, he would give no indication that he had—I suspected—seen many of these documents before.

‘They would do so very well together,' I told my mother, and because I wanted it to happen, wanted to believe it, it all began to fall neatly, happily into place, a patchwork of glowing colours with each one of us in the very square we desired. Caroline would be Lady Chard, mistress of Listonby Park. Giles and Prudence would surely find each other. Celia already had her flock wallpaper and her papier mache chairs, Jonas his office in Croppers Court, his growing importance in the community. Blaize had his freedom, had already discovered the way to be a manufacturer in a congenial fashion. I would have Nicholas—perhaps?—surely?—if I held my breath and continued to treat the growing feeling between us with the same care I had seen my father lavish on his porcelain, handling it so gently that it could not break, so firmly that it could not slip away. Surely? And there was so much emotion inside me that I was translucent with it, its radiance spilling out through my skin and my eyes, a joyous overflow of feeling which I could offer most lovingly to everyone. ‘Prudence, how cleverly you have done that. Celia, your house is a dream—absolute perfection. Mamma, you look not a minute older than nineteen. Of course he cares for you, Caroline—who would not?'

Matthew Chard declined to eat his Christmas dinner at Tarn Edge that year, his responsibilities as squire anchoring him, he explained, to Listonby. Nor could he risk engaging himself for the day after, since Chards and Floods and Wintertons rode traditionally to hounds on Boxing Day, an occupation which did not allow the making of firm promises. But, depending on the vagaries of the hunt, if they did not draw for an afternoon fox, he might ride over at some unspecified hour to take a glass of wine, possibly with a party of friends.

‘Very handsome of him,' Uncle Joel said dangerously. ‘And he'd best ride in to make his intentions clear, or he'll ride out again in no doubt at all as to mine.'

And so Caroline spent Christmas day in a sulk, finding no consolation in her over-laden present table when she could have been making herself gracious to Sir Matthew's tenants in the Great Hall at Listonby, while on the morning after she was on such tenter-hooks that her very presence was painful.

Uncle Joel's mills, of course, were back at work by then, his engines having shuddered to a halt at ten o'clock on Christmas Eve, to start up again at five o'clock on Boxing day morning, a circumstance which would take Nicholas and Blaize if not my uncle himself, to the sheds. But Aunt Verity had secured their early release, unwilling, perhaps, to remain too long alone with the tormented Caroline, and Blaize was already in the drawing-room when we arrived, looking as if he had never seen the inside of a weaving shed, Nicholas coming soon after, galloping hatless up the drive, his neck-cloth askew, calling out from the hall ‘I'll only be a minute,' intending the words, I knew, for me.

‘Must you make such a racket?' Caroline called after him. ‘And you'll need more than a minute to make yourself decent. Not that green jacket again, Nicholas—Blaize do tell him, for in the distance it looks like nothing but a workman's corduroy. Goodness—who is arriving now?'

But it was only Aunt Hannah, delayed by her husband—since Mayor Agbrigg too had been required at the mill today—but well-pleased with herself just the same, having finally prevailed upon him to call a public meeting to invite subscriptions for the concert hall.

‘I have already seen Mr. Outhwaite,' she told Uncle Joel, mentioning the name of a local architect once closely associated with my father, ‘and we have fixed on a minimum fifteen thousand pounds, to be raised in ten pound shares, do you think, Joel? He has promised to let me have his thoughts on design by next Wednesday at the latest.'

‘Twenty thousand,' my uncle said, luxuriously at ease by his fireside, the inevitable cigar in his hand. ‘You could do it for less, but if you're going to do it at all, Hannah, then do it right.'

And as she settled down beside him to discuss her views on the site most likely to be chosen, the suitability of Corinthian pillars, who should be invited to lay the foundation stone, and her husband, having given my mother the latest information regarding Celia, who had not cared to venture out, began to talk quietly to Prudence. I went with Caroline to the sofa on the first-floor landing to await the good pleasure of Sir Matthew Chard and to endure the almost visible agony of her nerves.

He would not, of course, put in an appearance. She had quite made up her mind to it and could offer a dozen excuses. The hunt would be unlikely to pass this way. Having started out in the crisp air of that Boxing day morning, a white haze on the horizon, frost pitting the ground, he would have found himself miles away by noon, too dishevelled and weary to call on a lady, even though that lady would be more than willing to send him home in her carriage and stable his horse most lovingly until he required it. It would be unreasonable to expect him, foolish to regard his absence in any way significant, since, having inherited his great-uncle's position as Master, he had been obliged—absolutely in honour bound—to attend the hunt.

‘He may even have broken his neck.' Blaize told her, coming to sit beside us. ‘Have you thought of that? He may be lying in a ditch somewhere, gasping out a dying message to his groom. Go tell my lady that, regrettably, I shall not be dining.' Now that, dear sister, has a certain style to it you must admit.

But Caroline's mind was too full, too busy straining for the sounds of hooves and doorbells, for real anger.

‘Nonsense, he is too good a horseman for that—isn't he?—for he has been riding all his life.'

‘So have we all.'

‘Oh, not like you,' she said, magnificent even in this absent-minded disdain. ‘Not like you and Nicholas on your showy hacks that can take you to the mill yard and back or to the train. I mean real riding—days in the open country jumping fences—steeplechasing. And when did you and Nicky ever go hunting?'

‘Never.' Blaize said with an exaggerated shudder. ‘Too hearty for me, I'm afraid.'

‘You mean you haven't the courage.'

‘No he doesn't.' Nicholas said, appearing suddenly behind us in the green jacket Caroline had affected to despise, although there was nothing about his grey brocade waistcoat or the neat white folds of his cravat about which she could complain. ‘He doesn't mean that at all. He means hunting pink don't suit him and even if it did he'd see no profit in risking his neck or riding down some poor devil's crops to catch what? A fox. There's no money in foxes that I ever heard of.'

And he sat down beside me, not touching me, but his long, hard body making contact, somehow, with mine, a most comfortable homecoming, a sense of naturalness, rightness, that we should be sitting here together.

‘You know nothing about it,' Caroline said loftily, rising with ease to their combined bait. ‘And why should you? How can one expect it? Blaize will not go hunting because he never does anything at which he knows he cannot excel. But you wish you could. Blaize, even if you won't admit it. Oh yes, you do—you'd love to be the dashing hero, leaping those hedges and lording it afterwards—hunt balls and steeplechases by moonlight—yes, you would, if you thought you'd be any good at it. Whereas you, Nicky—you're just not made for such things.'

‘No,' he said bluntly. ‘I'm not, and I'll tell you why. I can't afford the luxury of a broken leg. I've got a living to earn, as your father would be the first to tell you, and a man who needs to be in his mill yard at five o'clock every morning can't work up much enthusiasm for steeple-chasing at midnight. Now, if there was a profit in foxes I'd chase'em all right—in a pink coat if that was the best way to do it—and I'd catch'em too. Except that I'd find an easier way to go about it, or get somebody to invent a machine to do it for me.'

‘If you've nothing more intelligent to say than that.' Caroline informed him, ‘then I'll thank you to hold your tongue when Matthew comes—he wouldn't understand.'

‘
If
he comes.'

‘Oh, he'll come,' Blaize said, smiling an altogether false reassurance. ‘And don't worry about anything Nicky may say to him, for he'll only think it quaint. And he'll be too busy, in any case, telling you where they found and when they killed, and how many hounds it took to tear the poor beast apart.'

‘Foxes,' Caroline said, getting up, ‘are vermin. They kill chickens and—and—other things. If you were a countryman, a gentleman, you'd know. And you, Blaize Barforth if they paid you, you'd tear one apart with your bare hands, unless you happened to have your best jacket on. And you, Nicholas, you'd do it in your evening clothes if the price was right. Not that I care—oh, why must you provoke me—it's not fair—it's simply not fair!'

‘I don't think she much cares for hunting either,' Blaize said quietly, as, gathering her skirts together, she swept away from us to find her father, doubtless aware that he, too, would be unlikely to hazard his horses, certainly not his person, for pleasure.

‘Then she'd best accustom herself,' Nicholas replied, ‘for what else is there to Matthew Chard? He hand-rears his game birds and his foxes for half the year and then slaughters them the other half. And when he's not doing that he is playing whist and faro, which is something else she don't much care for.'

‘He's not a bad fellow, Nick.'

‘I never said he was. He's not our kind that's all. Put Lawcroft or Tarn Edge in his hands and we'd be in queer street at the end of the month, whereas Caroline—she may look like a duchess, but she'd keep those looms turning, one way or another.'

‘So she would,' Blaize said, affection warming his perpetually quizzical smile. ‘And she'd wear her coronet too while she was about it. Dear Caroline, she'll find a good reason for not following the hunt, and if Matthew Chard lives with her for fifty years he'll never know it's because she can't ride. Believe me, once she's Lady Chard she'll know more about horses, from the ground than the rest of them put together. And there'll be no better stirrup-cups served anywhere in the county than at Listonby.'

We went downstairs then, companionably smiling, pausing before the huge, Germanic pine-tree that dominated the hall, its open arms bravely bearing their load of tinsel and candles, a new innovation this, spreading north from London, inspired by our queen's serious-minded, much-loved Teutonic husband.

‘Can it really be comfortable indoors?' I wondered, remembering it, aloof and stately, in the garden a week ago.

‘The roots are still there,' Nicholas said, smiling, but Blaize taking my arm murmured. ‘Let's ask it. A little nearer. Faith—that's right—just there, under the mistletoe.' And one cool hand tilting my chin, he took the traditional Christmas liberty, his lips, as cool as his fingers, curving into a smile as they kissed me, a fresh, sharp scent about him a man, as Caroline had said, who performed only those acts in which he knew he could excel: and in their performance, was truly most excellent.

‘Merry Christmas,' he whispered, his cheek brushing mine, ‘or should it be Happy New Year? That's better. I think, since it lasts longer. Don't move. We've not done with you yet.'

And his teasing eyes moving behind me he said. ‘Your turn, brother. It's the only time we can do it and get away with it—supposing one wishes to get away.'

‘Blaize,' Caroline called from the drawing-room. ‘They're serving tea.'

‘I'm coming,' he said, and their voices were very far away, heard through forest trees and water, the other side of a meadow, as Nicholas touched me not at all as Blaize had done, although perhaps no casual observer would have seen the difference.

It was only a piece of nonsense, after all this Christmas kissing, a breach in the walls of etiquette and propriety, acceptable between young people at this season, something to be whispered about afterwards. ‘I turned quite dizzy—my word. I declare if it had lasted a moment longer, I would have swooned.' Or: ‘Odious boy, for it is the second time this Christmas day and if he comes after me again I shall tell mamma.'

But now there was no swooning, no recoil; a smile, simply, of welcome, as he leaned towards me a feeling of space condensing around us, his mouth polite at first, as Blaize's had been, and then opening slightly, his hands not touching me since he must have known I would not back away.

‘Happy New Year,' he said and kissed me again, holding me now in case the alien sensation of his tongue parting my lips should startle me, unaware, perhaps, in his effort to seem not too urgent, of the giddy overflow of my senses, a joyful movement of my whole mind, my whole body towards fulfilment.

‘Good heavens. Nicholas!' Caroline called again, still at the drawing-room door, seeing only his back screened by the branches of the tree, a fold of my skirt, too intent on her own heart-searchings to notice ours. ‘We must get tea over and done with, don't you see that? Aunt Hannah is wanting to be off for Celia is not well and has only Jonas to sit with her. Nicky—what are you doing out there?'

‘He's kissing Faith.' Blaize said, appearing beside her. ‘What else should a sensible man be doing out there?'

And we went in to take tea together.

The afternoon was drawing in the early winter dark settling, fog-tinted, behind the windows, a sudden tapping on the glass, half rain, half snow, warning us that no horsemen, surely, would venture to Tarn Edge today.

‘Come then, Mr. Agbrigg.' Aunt Hannah said, worried as always about her horses'legs on the wet cobbles, especially now, since, with a donation towards the concert hall to find, they could not be easily replaced. ‘We'll be on our way then, since I like to take my time going down the hill. I'll see you at Lawcroft tomorrow, Elinor, and the young ladies? Well, Faith at least, since Prudence finds so much else, to occupy her these days. Jonas, of course, will look in although I cannot be sure of Celia. I have told her repeatedly how mistaken she is to shut herself away so much—what she is suffering from is hardly a disease. But she has grown quite morbid, Elinor, and you should really have a word with her. You are welcome to come too, Verity—yes yes. I know how you are situated at present, but if there are to be storm clouds ahead you may appreciate a change of scene. I leave it up to you. Tomorrow then, at tea-time.' And it was as her carriage was moving carefully away, and my mother, surveying the remains of plum cake and pepper cake and hot mince-pies somewhat ruefully, her stomach still queasy, perhaps, from yesterday's champagne, was about to suggest we should be leaving too, that the drive erupted with hoof-beats again, not the patient plodding of Aunt Hannah's ageing nags, but, a wild-riding, hell-raking sound that brought Caroline to her feet and held her in an appalling, quite helpless rigidity.