The Reckoning (84 page)

Héloïse was filled with a rush of tender concern towards
her daughter. That was the song which Major Larosse had
sung to her: it seemed her poor little Sophie was still
mourning him, after all this time! And she had believed and hoped – hoped so much! – that Sophie was over him at last, that she had recovered from her loss, and had begun to look
forward rather than backward.

The two long holidays she had spent in Manchester Héloïse had believed were symptoms of that recovery. It was true that
since she came back this last time, Sophie had been rather
quiet and thoughtful, but it had not seemed an unhappy
thoughtfulness. Héloïse was angry with herself that she could
have mistaken, blamed herself for not taking more time to see
that Sophie really was happy. She had been so busy – as
always, so busy! – and Sophie had seemed contented enough, especially now that she had Polly as a companion close to her
own age.

Héloïse looked searchingly at her daughter, sitting at the
pianoforte, her head bent a little over the keyboard so that
her long side-curls fell forward. Her slender hands moved
lightly, barely touching the keys, her long dark eyelashes
drooped, shielding her eyes. Héloïse realised with sudden
shock that Sophie was not a child any more. The full, childish
curve of her cheek was gone, and her profile revealed the
more angular planes of adulthood. She was twenty years old,
a grown woman, with a grown woman's feelings and secrets
and desires. Héloïse realised she had no idea what Sophie
might be thinking, and it was a lonely realisation, a cold
touch of encroaching age. You gave life to your children, and
they were part of you, sustaining you by their existence, she
thought; until the day came when you realised they had
become quite separate, and then they took life from you.

‘
Why Sophie,' she said quietly, 'you are in an absolute
reverie!’

Sophie looked up, turned her head quickly towards her
mother, and a rosy blush coloured her cheeks. 'Oh, Maman,' she said, and in that moment Héloïse saw, with a mixture of
relief and wistfulness, that she had not been sitting in a daze
of reflective sorrow, but had been thinking about something
essentially pleasurable. No woman who had ever been in love
could mistake that blush and that particular smile. Sophie
had been thinking about a man – about her Beloved Object,
in fact.

Ah, very well, thought Héloïse, but who could that be? I should have spent the summer in Manchester with you, my
Sophie! Why had his name not cropped up in conversation? A woman in love usually managed to bring the Beloved Object's
name into every second or third sentence, but when Sophie
talked of Manchester she talked of nothing but the plans for
the betterment of the mill-workers' lot.

Perhaps it was someone Unsuitable, that Sophie dared not
talk about. Pray God that was not it! If he were only poor,
that wouldn't matter – she -and James could always make a
settlement on Sophie, or find some way of promoting him – as long as he was Suitable ...

‘
Well,
chérie,'
she said at the end of this long but extremely
rapid series of thoughts, 'there will be no time for sitting and
dreaming next week, when our guests arrive for Christmas.
I'm glad Mathilde and John are going to stay with us. I know
we see them tolerably often, but it will be lovely to have a
baby in the house again.'

‘
Yes, and Mary is such a little love!' Sophie said. She had always loved babies, ever since she had claimed Aunt Lucy's
Thomas as her own, all those years ago in the little house in
Coxwold. 'All the maids are in ecstasies about it already. I
don't think Mathilde will be allowed so much as to hold her
baby as long as they're here.'

‘
And how nice that Mr Hobsbawn is going to spare us a few
days, too,' Héloïse went on innocently. 'You will be glad to
hear news of all your friends in Manchester.'

‘
I don't suppose for a moment he will have anything to tell
me about them,' Sophie smiled. 'Except perhaps for Prud
ence, I'm sure he never sees any of them. He cares for nothing
but the mills, you know. But it doesn't matter, Maman:
Agnes writes to me now and then — .though I wish it were
more often,' she added. 'She writes good letters — she notices everything, and knows just what will interest and amuse me.'

‘
You're lucky to have such a correspondent,' Héloïse said, and tried another tack. 'Does she ever mention Mr Farraline?
I had a long talk with him when he came to dine with us, and
shared our box at the races. He's a nice man, I think — and he
spoke so pleasantly of you. It was such a pity you weren't here
at the same time.'

‘
I was sorry to miss race week,' Sophie said lightly, 'but
there was so much doing in Manchester. Agnes mentions Mr
Farraline from time to time, but I don't think they go to
many of the same parties.'

‘
Is he above her touch, then?'

‘
Oh, no I don't think so. It isn't that, it's just that he and
Mr Droylsden don't have the same friends.’

She spoke with pleasant indifference, and Héloïse thought she did not seem much interested in Mr Farraline; and yet, if he did not share a circle of friends with the Droylsdens, how
did he come to see so much of Sophie when she was in
Manchester, unless he deliberately sought her out? The
conversation had got her nowhere. She was no wiser about
Sophie's inner thoughts, and it occurred to her, a little
uncomfortably, that perhaps she was not meant to be.

*

Later on that same day, but on the other side of the Pennines,
Jasper Hobsbawn and Jesmond Farraline came face to face in
the ante-room of the Exchange Hall, where there had just
been a meeting on the need for factory legislation. Hobs
bawn's views on the subject were diametrically opposite to
Farraline's, but that did not seem sufficient reason for the
hostility with which he stared at him, especially as Farraline
was favouring him with a very friendly smile.

‘
Well, Hobsbawn, things seem to be going your way at last,
don't they?' Farraline said cheerfully. 'It looks very much as
though Sir Robert is going to get his ten-hours act through
Parliament at the next attempt.'

‘
Why should you think that?' Hobsbawn said resentfully.
‘Your people threw it out this year, and no doubt they'll do it
again next year.'

‘
My people?' Farraline looked quizzical.

‘The Lords,' said Hobsbawn tersely.

‘
My dear fellow, you mistake! The brother of an earl is a
commoner. As witness the appalling state of my hands.' He
spread them ruefully, and Jasper saw the grimy stain along
the side of the forefinger and under the thumbnail familiar to
him from his own hands. It took days of scrubbing to remove
that particular kind of black machine grease. 'One of our engines was overheating today, and somehow I just can't
leave well alone,' Farraline said. 'But these are hardly lord's
hands, you will admit.’

Hobsbawn felt uncomfortably as though he had been
shewn up in an ungracious light. He changed tack. 'All the
same, I know you are against Peel's act —'

‘
Of course I am: any sensible man would be. Is it right, I ask you, that Parliament should have the power to interfere
between parent and child? Or between master and man? It sets a dangerous precedent, Hobsbawn, and I do wonder if
you and your friends have properly thought what it may lead
to. Once you have opened Pandora's box, you will never be
able to close it again.'

‘
I only know that I'm sick of seeing children being beaten
to keep them awake at the end of the day, and falling down from exhaustion outside the factory gates, too tired to walk
home — too tired, some of them, even to eat their supper,'
Hobsbawn said hotly.

‘
Ah yes, you are a romantic, my dear fellow, but not a
visionary. It explains a great many things. Still, I greatly fear
that the age of romance is just beginning, and that Sir
Robert's ill-conceived act will go through — something we will
all have to pay for at a later date.'

‘
If you think the act so ill-conceived, I don't know why you
came here tonight,' Hobsbawn said, finding himself being led
unwillingly ever further down the paths of ungraciousness.
Why could he never be civil to this man, who, after all, was
never less than civil to him?

‘
I came to see you, as a matter of fact. There is something I
want to talk to you about — a matter of some delicacy.’

Hobsbawn stared. 'I can't think of anything you and I can
have to discuss of a delicate nature.'

‘
What about Miss Morland's future?' Farraline enquired
smoothly.

Hobsbawn began to redden. 'Look here —' he began.

Farraline held up his hand. 'Please, don't ride grub before
you know what I'm going to say! Sentences that begin "look
here" so often lead to disaster. Won't you come with me next
door to my club, and take a glass of wine with me? I can't
think of anything I've done to incur your enmity, except for
disagreeing with your views, and surely a man may do that in
a civilised society?’

Jasper drew a deep breath, pushed his resentful feelings
down as far as they would go, and managed to accept the invitation with a fair approximation of civility. Farraline
talked lightly of the weather and a play he had seen recently during the few minutes it took to reach the smoking-room of
his club, relieving Jasper of the need to say more than yes and
no.

When they were comfortably seated with a decanter
between them, Farraline fell silent for a moment, turning his glass in his fingers and watching the light gleam in the ruby-
coloured depths of the wine. Jasper took the opportunity to
survey the handsome, elegant man opposite him, and his
sustaining resentment drained away, leaving him with
nothing but the stark realisation that there was no field in
which he could compete with Jesmond Farraline. Farraline
was ten years younger and four inches taller. His blood was at
least half-blue, his features pure Grecian, his manners
charming, his wit ready, his address engaging. In comparison,
Jasper felt himself to be meagre, pallid, undersized, dull and
surly. No woman in her senses would prefer him. He was
defeated before he began.

‘
Well,' he said upon this conclusion, drawing a resigned
breath, 'what did you want to talk to me about?’