In Distant Fields (10 page)

It was a remark that embarrassed Kitty into silence, as it was perhaps meant to do.

‘How many dances did Al beg from you, Kitty?' Partita called, having, as was now their habit, left the intervening doors open, the better to gossip until they fell asleep.

‘I cannot now remember.'

‘Yes, it must be difficult for you to remember, since there were so many. You might just as well have reserved your whole dance card just for him. He never dances, not usually, you know.
He vastly prefers almost anything you care to mention more than dancing at balls, and yet there he was at your side at every possible moment.'

‘Partita—'

‘Should you like to be a duchess?' Partita continued ruthlessly.

‘Partita—'

‘I have to warn you, life at Bauders is dreadfully old-fashioned and draughty, but it can be fun when it is full of people.'

‘You danced with Peregrine Catesby several times,' Kitty retorted.

‘Yes I did, but – Perry does not see me except as his little sister,' came the forlorn reply.

‘Everyone is in love with you, Partita,' Kitty reassured her. ‘They queued to dance with you.'

‘Oh, yes, everyone is in love with me except the one I wish,' Partita agreed. ‘Except Perry. But I will make him love me, one of these days, truly I will.'

‘Certainly you will,' Kitty agreed, and fell to silence.

This satisfied Partita, and shortly after, they both fell asleep, filled with that particular warmth that the whole-hearted admiration of the opposite sex always brings, knowing that whatever lay ahead must be good. They were both, after all, young and beautiful.

Maude Milborne was convinced that their New Year's Eve ball had been a great success,
until she saw her husband's face at luncheon the following day. Cecil's face was not like thunder, it was like stone. It was a mask of icy cold fury, which, as everyone knows, is the worst kind of fury.

‘Is something the matter, Cecil?'

Cecil looked down the table at his wife with obvious reluctance. His marriage had brought him an aristocratic wife, a large fortune, and no happiness. He blamed Maude. He should never have left the army. He had left the army at her instigation and encouragement, both of which now, over the distance of the years, seemed to him to have been less like encouragement and more like insistence. At least he had managed to stay on the reserved list.

‘Bertie has lamed me best hunter,' he stated baldly, and he speared the food on his plate and positively threw it into his mouth. Behind him, some yards away from the main dining table, Cheeseman, their butler, shuddered. ‘The beast is now as lame as your conversation, Maude,' Cecil went on.

Maude winced. She hated people to witness Cecil's unkindness to her. However, patience as ever came to her aid, so she sighed inwardly, took a pull, and started again, speaking slowly, because she knew that Cecil's intake the night before had been huge, magnificent, foolhardy, or hideous, depending on your point of view.

‘Bertie did not hunt on Boxing Day, Cecil.
There have been no days out since Christmas, on account of the weather. You may remember that. It was you yourself who took Almonds out. Bertie went to Castleton to see that poor boy who subsequently died – Mrs Thorncroft's youngest son. Yes, poor Alfred died, you know, and Bertie stayed over to comfort her and her family – Alfie and Bertie being such friends in the old days.' She went on as if speaking to herself, ‘Always ragging each other, always fishing and swimming together.'

Cecil stared at his wife through bloodshot eyes. The fact that their asthmatic son, Hughie, was the heir to Maude's title had not helped their relationship; nor was it made any better by the knowledge that when Maude kicked the bucket, or, as she would put it, ‘was gathered', Cecil himself would, more than likely, and equally promptly, be kicked out of the house, his wife's fortune having long ago been entailed on her sons.

‘Where is
Cuthbert
?' he asked, using the tone of voice that he would sometimes employ in the training of one of his gun dogs.

‘That is what I have been trying to tell you – Bertie, today, is attending Alfred Thorncroft's funeral, Cecil.'

‘He is at the funeral of the Castleton grocer's son?'

‘He is at the funeral of a dear friend—'

‘He should be out with Daylesford, doing the rounds.'

‘He excused himself to Daylesford. Daylesford understood. He is a gentleman.'

There was a small silence, during which Cheeseman stared at the space between the two protagonists. If it had been a cricket match and he the umpire, he would have raised his arm to indicate that her ladyship had hit a six. However, one look at Mr Milborne told him that this realisation had not gone unnoticed by him, and that boded ill, so no one was really surprised when the door slammed behind Cecil, and both the footmen blinked as it rattled the decanters on the sideboard, taking up the sound and seeming to throw it across the room and from there to slip seamlessly out between the ill-fitting dining-room windows to join the icy weather outside.

‘Would your ladyship care for some fruit?'

Maude looked up at Cheeseman. A few years ago after such a distressing moment, the eyes she now lifted to her butler would have had tears in them – but thankfully no longer. She had grown stronger with age.

‘Yes, I would care for some fruit, Cheeseman. Thank you. Such a pity that the dining-room door will keep slamming, do you not think? We must ask Daylesford to get Jeffryes to see to it, when things are back to rights.'

‘Yes, your ladyship.'

Cheeseman took the grape scissors and carefully cut Maude some grapes grown in her own hot-house, and placed them on a gold and blue
decorated fruit plate, itself resting on a wrought-silver server in front of her.

‘Thank you, Cheeseman.'

Cheeseman retired back to his original position in the old, shabby dining room. All the servants at Milborne House would do anything for her ladyship. Such was certainly not the case when it came to Mr Cecil, who was known as ‘the Kaiser' below stairs, and, secretly, to his sons too.

‘A bully is born every minute,' Cheeseman's mother used to say, ‘and it's up to us to stand up to them, George my boy.'

How right she was. Ever since he had taken up his position at Milborne House, Cheeseman could honestly say that he had made it his business to stand up to Mr Cecil, if only by his silence. Silence could not only be deafening, it could be defeating – at least he had always found it so. It said much more than words. More than that, silence was ominous; it threatened. He could honestly swear on the family Bible that he had hardly addressed a look to Mr Cecil in many a month. He knew Cecil did not like it. Cheeseman, on the other hand, greatly enjoyed it. It was this enjoyment more than anything that had kept him from leaving Milborne House. He had had offers from guests who came to stay at the house and were impressed by his work, naturally, but his devotion to her ladyship was one hundred per cent. While her ladyship was at Milborne House, Cheeseman made it his business to stay put, refusing more lucrative
offers, even turning away opportunities to become a butler in a royal household. In his view her ladyship was a heroine out of a book, not that he would ever be caught reading one, but if he did, he would certainly have expected it to star someone such as Lady Maude Milborne.

Maude stood up, only too glad luncheon was over, yet already dreading dinner, and when the time came she was only too glad of the company of her sons. She appreciated that Hughie and Cuthbert made it their business to miss as many meals as possible when their father was in residence, making sure to come to breakfast at dawn, and remain out of doors all day, and only reluctantly appearing at night for dinner, which they now did if only to support their mother. The meal dragged on, and on, and on until at last they were able to follow Maude out of the room, their faces showing understandable relief that dinner was over, but perhaps because the weather outside was crisp and clear, Hughie's asthma was at its worst, as a consequence of which he was in no mood to see Cecil bully Maude. But he was determined to be strong, which made it all the more difficult when he announced that he was going to America, because on hearing the news his parents seemed to change roles instantly. His mother fell silent, and his father brightened.

‘Doing something at last, are you, Hughie?'

Cecil took up his oil lamp from the drawing-room table, swaying a little as he did so – the port that evening having been unusually good.

‘Yes, Papa, doing something at last.'

Inwardly Hughie cursed the noise from his chest, knowing that at any moment his father was quite likely to make a derisory comment about it.

‘Perhaps your brother will be tempted to follow your example? No trouble following you – your chest makes enough noise for ten men!' Cecil went on, laughing heartily.

Hughie smiled at this. He and Bertie had made an agreement when they were quite small that they would smile, no matter what the Kaiser handed out to them.

‘Have you any particular ambition that you wish to pursue in America, Hughie, dear?' Maude put in quickly.

‘Yes, Mamma, I have been offered a position in a bank.'

There was a ghastly silence. It was a silence that, in a novel, would be described as ‘the silence of the morgue'. Seconds turned into a full-blown minute, until at last a voice was heard.

‘You have been offered a position in a bank?' Cecil turned to Maude. ‘Did you hear that, Maude? Hughie is all set to become a
snob
!'

Snobs, as anyone employed in charging interest on money were always called, were looked down on, as was
anyone
who made money on the back of some other person's wealth. Cheeseman knew this, as did all the servants. Bankers, stockbrokers, folk from the City would never expect to be invited to places such as Bauders Castle or
Milborne House, being all too aware that old families considered usury to be one of the root causes of evil in their society. The lending and making of money by the exacting of percentages was considered base; so, if Mr Hughie had suddenly announced that he had just been out to the stables and shot his pet spaniel, his news could not have been more terrible.

‘When are you due to depart, Hughie, dear?' Maude put away her handkerchief and shut her reticule with a snap.

‘From Southampton, as soon as there is a sailing.'

Cecil turned to Maude, a triumphant look in his eye. ‘I always told you that Hughie was no good,' he said, taking up his lamp. ‘Do not,' he said, turning round at the drawing-room door, ‘do not ever expect me to address another word to you. As of this minute, if you pursue this ambition, you are no longer my son.'

Bertie waited until the door had been closed behind his father, and then he looked across at Hughie.

‘Well, that is a relief for you, Hughie, at any rate,' he said, going across to fetch his own oil lamp, preparatory to going to bed.

Maude turned to Cheeseman. ‘You may all go now, Cheeseman.'

‘Thank you, my lady.'

Cheeseman withdrew with dignity, followed by a sleepy footman.

Outside the drawing-room doors, and having
made sure that the master of the house had indeed retired to bed to be undressed by his valet, Cheeseman let out a vast sigh of relief, and his step towards the green baize door that separated the world of the servants from the world of the masters, was lighter than it had been for weeks. One son down, now only one to go. Whatever Mr Hughie's life in America might turn out to be, it had to be a great deal better than that which he had not enjoyed at Milborne House.

With the thaw that had started two days earlier continuing to take the frost out of the ground, it was decided that hunting could be resumed on New Year's Day.

Naturally the house party at Bauders Castle was, as always, divided between those who wanted to shoot and those who preferred to ride to hounds. After a late night many of the young men usually chose to shoot rather than ride, preferring the noise of their shotguns to a line of fences on board a keen hunter. This New Year's Day, however, found most of the bloods electing to follow hounds, which was quite understandable once the rumour was abroad that Partita and Kitty were to make their appearance, which they duly did, riding sidesaddle on perfectly turned-out matching greys.

‘What a sight to set before a duke!' Pug Stapleton murmured as all eyes rested on the two young ladies, their shiny top hats and veils
at just the right angle, their impeccably cut riding jackets and tailored skirts showing off their tiny waists and perfect deportment. Partita was in a velvet habit of the same dark blue as her father's personal hunting livery, with a matching hat worn to the front of her perfectly coiffed blonde hair, while Kitty was wearing a superb hunting skirt and tailored jacket in lovat green, once the treasured property of Aunt Agatha.

Top hats were raised to the ladies, caps were doffed and forelocks touched as the two lovely young women rode into the heart of the restless and excited horses, all ready for the off, highly polished hoofs dancing restlessly over the gravel of the forecourts as stirrup cups were handed round, to the accompaniment of the sounds of bits rattling and leather slapping against gleaming coats steaming gently in the crisp air.

The Duke sat apart from the throng, as still as the handsome horse under him. The only part of Barrymore Boy's body that was moving was his head, his huge dark brown eyes seeming to be swivelling under frowning brows as if checking on the behaviour of the younger equines in his charge, his large ears moving backwards and forwards, seeming to be listening in two directions, as his reddening nostrils slowly flared until he snorted a light warning to his master that, as far as he was concerned, they were ready to go and do the day's business.

As if prompted by his horse, the Duke nodded to his huntsmen, his Field Master and his
whippers-in, an ancient silvered hunting horn was raised and the call to move away blew out across the park. At once all chatter stopped as girths were given a final check, reins were gathered, and glinting spurs dug into horses' sides and the field moved off. Everyone tried to contain their excited mounts at the walk or the trot, not all of them successfully, as several of the more highly strung animals, resisting their bits, attempted to break into a canter, their riders managing to rein them in tightly, so they were forced to dance on the spot, the steam rising from their bodies adding to the mist that had not yet cleared.