Netherwood (56 page)

‘Mama won’t like it,’ said Henrietta, when he confided his intentions.

‘Why?’ said Toby. ‘She wants me married, doesn’t she?’

‘Not really,’ said his sister. ‘Not if she’s honest. And certainly not to an American.’

‘She’s from an excellent family.’

‘Trade,’ said Henrietta. ‘Iron manufacturers in Connecticut. Her ancestors made a fortune supplying the American Revolution with arms, so they’re not even covert monarchists.’

‘Well, we’re trade too if it comes to that. Mama can hardly throw that up as an objection. How the dickens do you know these things, Henry?’

‘She told me. I’m not so distracted by her as you are. We’ve had some interesting conversations.’

‘Don’t you think she’s divine?’

‘No, not especially. But I like her.’

And Tobias had had to be content with what he considered an exceedingly shabby and lukewarm response to the object of his infatuation. Henry had been spot on, though, about their mother’s reaction. He’d waited until breakfast the following morning and then had dropped it into the conversation in a careless manner, as if proposing marriage was of no greater import than requesting the salt for a boiled egg.

Lady Hoyland was quite composed, under the circumstances.

‘No, darling. Don’t be absurd,’ she said, when Tobias made his opening gambit. She smoothed her napkin over her lap and poured a second cup of tea with a hand that was completely steady, so sure was she that the matter was closed.

‘Clarissa,’ said Teddy, somehow reproving and conciliatory at the same time. ‘I rather like Thea Sterling. She has a good head on her shoulders.’

Tobias gave his father an appreciative smile, but his mother replaced her cup in its saucer in a decidedly combative manner.

‘No one marries an American unless they have to,’ she said. ‘If we were destitute, I might consider it. As it is, you’d be a laughing stock. The Sterlings scream trade from every pore.’

Henrietta smiled knowingly across the table at Tobias, but he was glaring at his mother.

‘As do we,’ he said. ‘Do you think society forgets that our money has everything to do with industry? Do you think we’ve somehow managed to cover our tracks? Let me tell you, Mama, everyone knows where we’ve come from, as plainly as if we had coal dust on the soles of our shoes.’

Everyone stared. In the history of family gatherings, no one could remember Tobias ever speaking with such harsh authority. And to his devoted mother, too. She blanched elegantly, and made a little show of collecting herself under the assault. Then she nodded at Munster, who was steadfastly pretending to have heard nothing. He stepped forward, blank faced, to assist her out of her chair and out of the room. At the door, she turned.

‘If you propose marriage to Dorothea Sterling,’ she said, carefully, ‘I shall kill myself.’

‘Clarissa, dear,’ said Teddy, but it was a feeble protest, a half-cocked attempt at bringing her back, and it failed.

‘Well!’ said Henrietta.

‘I say,’ said Dickie.

Isabella snivelled, but she was ignored, even by her father. He looked at Tobias.

‘That’s torn it,’ he said.

Now that going home was a tangible prospect, Eve would have hastened her departure if she could. This seemed perverse, given her feelings for Daniel, but she looked at it differently; pain postponed cast a pall over everything. If she had to separate from him, let it be swift – that was her reasoning. The thought of being without him caused a sensation of pure panic, and yet she had lived without him well enough before, and perhaps she could again. In any case, she longed to see her children. She missed Anna, too, and the women at the mill. She had thought she would be absent for the summer months, when they planned to put tables outside in the courtyard if the weather was warm. Anna remembered a street café in Bremen where she and Leo had sat together on their long journey from Kiev to England, and she’d described it to Eve; there were canvas parasols over the tables for shade, and people weren’t chivvied away, but lingered over coffee and cigarettes. Why not bring some continental flair to Netherwood, she’d said, and Eve had said that anything was worth a try. And now she would be there to oversee it; the tables and chairs were being made at the foundry, and she and Anna would paint them white, or yellow, or perhaps pale blue. There would be a new summer menu, with lighter fare – open flans and fishcakes and egg mayonnaise on homegrown lettuce with fresh bread and butter. She filled her mind with these pleasant meanderings, and they protected her from dread.

And then Lady Hoyland summoned her to the morning room one day and said she could pack at once. The whole family would be travelling back to Netherwood at the end of
the week, an emergency, she said, though she didn’t elaborate except to reassure Eve that it had nothing to do with the collieries. Samuel Stallibrass would take her back to the station whenever she was ready.

‘You don’t mean today, m’lady?’ Eve said, her heart suddenly pounding in her breast.

‘No reason why not. Tomorrow, if you prefer. Is there a problem?’

‘I, well, I thought you’d planned a party on Saturday, m’lady? Certainly the food has been ordered. I did it myself yesterday.’

‘Cancelled,’ Lady Hoyland said crisply. ‘Haste is of the essence. Tobias is in danger and I’m removing him to the country.’

‘Oh! Is he ill, m’lady?’ Eve had seen him just this morning, looking right as rain and whistling as he sauntered through the courtyard to collect the phaeton. To Eve’s great relief, he seemed to have stopped eyeing her up. In fact, she’d felt all but invisible as he passed her without so much as a sideways glance.

‘A malady of the mind, not the body,’ the countess said enigmatically. Then she dismissed Eve with no more ado. And now she was seeking Daniel in the garden with a desperate urgency that exposed her previous attempts at calm acceptance as flimsy pretence. She found him on the
parterre
and, ignoring the lasciviously grinning presence of both Barney and Fred, she threw herself into his arms and let the tears flow, feeling relief, at least, that she was properly acknowledging her grief at having to say goodbye.

E
ve disembarked at Hoyland Halt at half-past two on Saturday afternoon, and Absalom Blandford was on the platform. How very awkward, she thought. What a stroke of bad luck. But it turned out he was waiting for her, because he sidled over and attempted a smile.

‘Welcome back to Netherwood, Mrs Williams,’ he said. ‘I brought the carriage, and thought we might take the opportunity to talk
en route,
as it were.’

She looked at him blankly.

‘Is this your trunk?’ It clearly was, since it was the only item on the platform and she was the only passenger.

Still she stared. Undeterred, Absalom barked orders at the porter to load her luggage on the waiting carriage, then he offered her his arm.

‘What are you doin’?’ she said.

‘Accompanying you to the carriage, Mrs Williams.’

‘Why?’

He hesitated, feeling a shred of unease. Several weeks had passed since his Damascene conversion to the merits of romantic attachment, and during that time he had thought of Eve – and her accounts book – every day. But, he conceded
to himself now, in his excitement he had neglected to give Mrs Williams even the slightest indication that he had chosen her. He chided himself inwardly, though he had no doubt that the situation was retrievable. And there was no time like the present.

‘Mrs Williams,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘In the months since we first met I have come to very much admire your, your, your, let’s say, your assets, and I find that the thought of you causes me some considerable agitation.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Sorry about that.’ She had no idea where he was going with this.

He grimaced and dropped down on one knee. She stepped away, as if from a lunatic.

‘Please, no need to apologise,’ he said, suffering all the loss of dignity to which knee-height subjected him. ‘Mrs Williams, I intend to do you the honour of making you my wife.’ That sounded wrong, even to him, but he let it be.

‘Pardon?’

He stood now, dusting the gravel off his knee and thinking what a silly business proposing marriage was. Had to be done, however.

‘Wedlock, Mrs Williams. Holy wedlock. I have a pleasant house and secure prospects. If you wish, the children can come with you, unless other arrangements can be made …’

Eve finally cottoned on, though her amazement knew no bounds. The man was out of his mind.

‘Thank you, but no thank you,’ she said, and she laughed incredulously. ‘’ave my trunk sent home. I’m walkin’.’

She turned from him and left the station without so much as a backward glance. He watched, open-mouthed. Had she just spurned him? He believed she had. For the first time in his adult life he felt the unpleasant after-effects of humiliation. And in the merest fraction of a moment, his admiration of
Eve Williams twisted itself into hatred; he marvelled at how seamlessly the change was made.

The porter, having done as he was bid, returned to the platform with the empty trolley.

‘Have that trunk removed from my carriage,’ Absalom said.

‘Sir? And do what with it, sir?’

‘Whatever you like,’ he said. ‘It’s of no account to me.’

Eve walked through town sparing not a moment’s thought for the surreal encounter with the earl’s bailiff. She was occupied instead by the strange sensation of being at once displaced and at home. The familiar sights of Netherwood lifted her heart, but the complete absence of Daniel dragged it down. She carried a small carpet bag – a gift from Henrietta; it could be used to hold personal effects, but also it opened out flat into a travelling rug, intended to keep off draughts in railway carriages, though she hadn’t felt the need today, and doubted she’d be making many more journeys by rail in the near future. It was a pretty thing though, fashioned out of a fine Persian rug.

‘For your trouble,’ Henrietta had said. ‘For coming to London with little notice, and for going home with even less.’

It was kind of her, thought Eve. Women in Henrietta’s position rarely gave a thought to how others might be inconvenienced by their actions. Certainly it wasn’t a quality Henrietta had learned at the countess’s knee.

In the bag was a book, a parting gift from Daniel. She’d said farewell to him last night, knowing that it would be impossible this morning, and they hadn’t made love, but instead lay in each other’s arms and talked, about everything and anything but her leaving. She had finally crept from his room at four o’clock this morning in order to prepare for departure at six, and he’d handed her a small parcel. She should open
it on the train, he said, and keep it close to her at home. He loved her, he said. He always would.

She had waited for the train to leave London, then had unwrapped the present. It was a small book, bound in olive-green cloth and decorated with an illustration of a daffodil.
A Dream of a Garden,
it was called. A collection of poems by Ellen Clare Pearson. She opened it, and inside was a pressed lily of the valley, perfectly formed and still fragrant. He’d written: ‘Dream of our garden, my darling Eve. You are the life I should have led. Ever yours, Daniel.’