Flint and Roses (24 page)

‘Here they are.' Blaize said. ‘Young lords at play.'

And quite abruptly, the hall seemed full of them, their size and their noise, their superb self-command diminishing the towering pine-tree, overpowering the bronze stag, a pink-coated army, mud-spattered and most viciously spurred, an invasion as alarming as if they had ridden their foaming mounts directly up the stairs.

‘Boots.' Uncle Joel said ominously, his eyes on the carpet, but young gentlemen such as these, accustomed to their stone-flagged ancestral halls, where such carpets as they possessed hung moulderingon the walls, did not share my uncle's precise awareness of the cost per yard—and mill price at that—of these brand-new, deep-pile floor coverings; would have shown no interest had they been told. And it was a measure of his affection for Caroline that he did not tell them, allowing Aunt Verity to move forward with her smooth ‘How very nice of you to call,' separating them into individuals so that we realized, with surprise, they were but four in number. Matthew Chard. Francis Winterton, another man and a girl.

She was not, I thought at that first glance, a person about whom Caroline need be concerned, a thin, breathless figure, laughing and swaggering among the men, every bit as hearty and arrogant, and as dirty, as they. She was nineteen or twenty, auburn hair escaping from her tall hat the lamplight picking out a hint of red, a dusting of freckles across her nose, a pointed face, wide at the cheekbones, tapering to a kitten's chin, a wide mouth talking, talking, half-sentences unfinished, ending in sudden laughter. She had a riding habit which had seen better days, a long, flat patch of mud on the skirt, a rust-coloured stain on her cheek, fox-blood, one assumed, proclaiming her the first lady to reach the kill—laughing, I had no doubt, as they had daubed her face with the dismembered tail.'

‘Glorious day,' she told Aunt Verity, a high, clear voice, the long vowel-sounds of privilege. ‘Is that a Christmas tree? I never saw one before. The rage in London, now they tell me, but I hate the city—and my grandfather is too old-fashioned for Christmas trees. You know my grandfather? Surely? Matthew—do come and explain me.'

And, stretching out her hand to Aunt Verity, an abrupt movement followed by a wide, disarmingly frank smile, she said, ‘I am Georgiana Clevedon, and very pleased to make your acquaintance. I am by way of being a cousin to Matthew, or something very like it. My grandfather is Mr. Gervase Clevedon, and we have the Abbey—Galton Abbey, although I never remember to call it so, since I cannot really believe there is another like it. There, I have explained myself, haven't I? And you must be Caroline.'

‘Indeed,' Caroline said, considerably displeased by this unsolicited use of her Christian name, a liberty to be taken, in our experience, only with parlourmaids. ‘I am delighted to meet you, Miss Clevedon.'

But Miss Clevedon, unabashed, held out her grubby hand again. ‘Heavens, Miss Barforth! Please do excuse me for I am sadly lacking in manners. And when I have been all day in the saddle I lose them altogether. Matthew, do come and aid me, for I have blundered. And Perry, do come over here and be presented to Miss Barforth. Miss Barlorth, this is my brother. Peregrine—who has no manners either. Although one day he will have the Abbey so we are glad to excuse him.'

I stood in the drawing-room doorway, near enough to observe, too far away to be noticed or overheard, Blaize and Nicholas standing a step ahead of me, close together; and I was still excited and happy, still very far from the notion that these boisterous, brash young men, this strange young woman, could have anything to do with me.

‘Now that,' Blaize said, his eyes narrow with careful appraisal, ‘is a very rare bird of the wild wood, brother—very rare indeed.'

‘Difficult,' Nicholas replied, his own eyes just as calculating, the hint of coarseness in them, both comforting me, I think, since I believed this was the way men looked at actresses and adventuresses, the kind of women, in fact, men did not marry, and who could be no threat to Caroline—no threat to me.

‘Difficult, Blaize—damn difficult to tame.'

‘Couldn't tame it.' Blaize said, clearly forgetting my presence. ‘Wouldn't want to. I told you it's straight out of the wild wood, and there'd be no point any more if you managed to get it to eat out of your hand. But I wouldn't mind a scratch or two making the attempt.'

And then suddenly, as they both at the same moment became aware of me there was a sharp ‘Blaize—that'll do,' from Nicholas, and from the unrepentant Blaize a laughing. ‘I do beg your pardon, Faith. May I hope this is the one time you don't know what we mean?'

But Caroline was now walking stiffly towards us leaving the much-longed for Matthew in the hall, every bit as offended by his boots as her father, and not greatly pleased with Miss Clevedon uneasy, I thought, at the state of her riding-habit, and altogether shocked—although she would not have admitted it—by the blood on her cheek.

‘This,' she said, with no more than common politeness ‘is my cousin, Miss Aycliffe. And my brother, Mr. Nicholas Barforth.'

And I felt a great, nameless relief when he nodded, quite curtly, and merely said, ‘Miss Clevedon,' staring with a sarcasm that veered on rudeness at her soiled skirt, the emblem of savagery flaking now against her fair skin.

‘And this is my elder brother—Mr. Blaize Barforth. Blaize—Miss Clevedon.'

‘Yes', he said, his face alive with the very same collector's excitement I had seen in my father whenever he had brought home some rare piece of porcelain, some totally unexpected find: except that with Blaize it was warmer, would be more quickly over. ‘Miss Clevedon—so it is—and you are quite wet through. I suppose there is no likelihood that you may catch a chill?'

‘I shouldn't think so,' she told him her abrupt hand stretching out again, her own expression registering a certain surprise, as if she had not expected a member of the manufacturing classes to possess such charm.

‘No—I didn't for a moment imagine it. But do come over to the fire, just the same, Miss Clevedon. I am sure you are above such trifles as the weather, but you must allow the rest of us to be concerned.'

‘Blaize,' Caroline said, the flash of her eyes warning: ‘Boots—carpets.' But, ignoring her, Blaize took Miss Clevedon's shabby elbow in a careful hand and led her away, glancing at Nicholas in a manner which plainly said. ‘I told you. This is a rare one. We'll see, shall we?'

‘What an odd creature.' Caroline muttered.

‘Yes.' Nicholas said, not listening to her, staring at Blaize, watching too intently, neither condemning nor excusing, saying too much by saying nothing at all, so that I—as taut as Caroline—nervously enquired.

‘What do you think?'

‘About what?'

‘About Miss Clevedon?'

‘Oh—not a great deal.'

And, although he smiled at me then, stayed beside me, walked with me to the carriage, waited bareheaded in the rain to see me drive away, and promised he would come and rescue me from Aunt Hannah the following afternoon—and indeed came—I knew, not that night but soon after that the special time I had marked out for myself, and which had only started with my return home in November, was already over.

The Barforths were invited to Listonby Park for New Year's Day, a meagre enough occasion, Aunt Verity afterwards told my mother, nothing but plain roast meats on the table, indifferent service, a housekeeper, she felt who would have been more inclined to receive them at the tradesmen's entrance and, in Uncle Joel's opinion, would not have paid their bills too promptly at that. A beautiful house indeed the original medieval great hall stone-flagged, oak-ceilinged, the long gallery lined with an impressive array of ancestral portraits and not much else, an early eighteenth-century wing so mellowed, the plasterwork and paintwork so obviously nearing its century, that it had reminded Aunt Verity of the musky beauty of rose-petals approaching decay.

Uncle Joel and Sir Matthew went outside together when the meal was over, to smoke their cigars strolling along the avenue of wych-elms a distant Chard had planted in the park, admiring the sycamores, the gnarled and knotted oaks from an even earlier generation, my uncle taking this opportunity to discover, as he had no doubt expected, that although there was money enough for essentials. Sir Matthew's pleasures, albeit of a less dissipated nature than Julian Flood's, were nevertheless not cheap.

The maintaining of even a provincial hunt like the Lawdale—the feeding of fifty couple of hounds, the salaries of huntsman, whippers-in, earth-stoppers, the upkeep of coverts—would be likely to exceed three thousand pounds per annum, of which his own subscription could not be less than fifteen hundred pounds. His personal stable expenses, without much effort, could cost him two thousand pounds and rising, every year, his private kennels a further five hundred. There was, in addition, the expense of preserving game-birds on his land, their careful hand-rearing and safe-keeping from poachers and predators, so that they could be shot in due season, and by invitation only. And it became clear to them both that in Sir Matthew's costly and time-consuming pursuit of sport, a wealthy and efficient wife would not come amiss.

He proposed to Caroline the following morning, riding over to Tarn Edge immaculately turned-out this time, his boots well-polished and clean, his manner ardent enough to please anyone, being a healthy man more than ready to take a healthy mate. And almost at once, having longed for him, despaired of him, she was no longer sure of herself, riding down, in her turn, to Blenheim Lane to bring me her news, her triumph, and her heart-searchings.

‘I'm to be Lady Chard.'

‘Oh darling—I never doubted it.'

But she had not quite forgiven him for his unruliness of Boxing Day, his inbred arrogance which had seen nothing amiss in trampling mud on her father's floor, the oft repeated hunting tales which bored her, making her too aware of the very real gulf between them. Yet—apart from the fact that his presence still caused her heart to miss a beat, the fact that, without having the words to describe it or the courage to admit it, his sharp-edged, patrician profile, his lounging body, had aroused her sensuality—she had already won herself a reputation as a jilt by refusing Julian Flood, and could not do the same again. And, when all was said and done—and she said it many times, over and over again—although he was not rich, he had no gambling debts, no creditors waiting on their wedding day to be paid off at the church door, and there was no reason why handsome, energetic Caroline should not be loved for herself.

‘He was quite charming,' she told me, ‘almost emotional—said he had known at once, seeing me at Listonby, that I belonged there. And, indeed, it is a lovely house. I could do so much with it, Faith. There is a staircase leading out of the Great Hall, carved oak with painted panels on the walls, leading to an enormous room, the size of the Hall itself, not used for anything at all—quite empty—and it would make a splendid ballroom. And the Hall—well, there is nothing much in there now but that huge stone fireplace and a few oak boxes standing around, and a dreadful oak table all scarred and battered. But with some decent floor-covering and a dozen or so deep armchairs and sofas, it would be ideal, for house-parties—a log fire in that tremendous hearth at tea-time, can't you imagine it? For that is the thing nowadays—house-parties—since the railways have made it so easy to get about, and one can invite guests from simply anywhere. Bedrooms should be no problem, for although, naturally, I haven't yet seen them, the upstairs passages are like a rabbit-warren, and there must be accommodation to spare. The kitchens, I suppose may be less than adequate, but something may easily be done about that—in fact it must be done, since I am quite determined to entertain. What is the point, after all, of having a house that size unless one means to
use
it? Yes, I shall have to give some thought to the kitchens—and a really good chef who will bring his own kitchenmaids, since people will not come twice unless they are sure of enjoying their dinner. Well—the really good thing about it is that there is no Dowager Lady Chard to pull a long face when I set about making changes.

‘And Matthew?'

‘Oh, he will not care a scrap. He was not brought up at Listonby, you see. His real home is in Leicestershire, as you know, and he is not so attached to Listonby that he cannot bear a stone of it to be altered—not at all like the Floods and those dreadful Clevedons.'

And so enchanted was she with her plans for Listonby Park that it was a long time before I could introduce again the name of Georgiana Clevedon, whose pointed face and sudden smile I had been unable to forget.

‘Oh, they are connected to the Chards by marriage, I believe,' she said carelessly, ‘and I cannot imagine why they think themselves so grand, for that Abbey of theirs is the gloomiest place I ever saw. A quarter of the size of Listonby, and so old—beyond repair, I should think. It was a real abbey once, before whichever king it was who knocked them down—Prudence will know—oh, King Henry VIII, was it?—Well, the Clevedons'bought it from him, or he gave it to them for services rendered, a million years ago by the look of it, and they built their house from the abbey stones. In fact part of it still looks like a nunnery—they even have a cloister which they seem to think quite splendid, although it is as cold as a tomb and just as foisty. They have no money, of course, and no hope of any that I can see, for Peregrine Clevedon is the most feckless young man I ever knew, and no woman in her right mind would marry him. And if Miss Georgiana imagines she can save the day by setting her cap at Blaize she will have a rude awakening. Blaize will not think of marriage for a long time yet, and when he does you can be sure he will make a brilliant match, something altogether exceptional. No, the best thing they can do is to sell off their land and their precious Abbey with it, while they still have something to sell—for it would not surprise me to hear any day that it had fallen down.'