Autumn Softly Fell (19 page)

But where in all this do I fit in,
Dorothea asked herself,
where is my place?

She couldn’t even begin to guess.

‘
WHY DID YOU
all stay away so long?’ asked Richard petulantly. ‘What were you
doing
in London all that time? You were gone for weeks and weeks.’

If there was one thing she had missed in those weeks, thought Dorothea, it had been Richard. Hearing his complaints, listening to him feeling sorry for himself, was like putting on a favourite frock. It felt comfortable, it felt good, she was glad.

‘I wanted to go to London too!’ Richard complained. ‘I wanted to see the new house!’

‘You had to stay here. You were too ill to travel.’

‘I was not ill. I’ve been perfectly well for months and months.’

He never
looked
entirely well, that was for certain, being so pale and thin, but finding him today dressed and out of bed, sitting in a big arm chair by the fire, she was struck by the change in him, as if she’d been away for years instead of weeks.

‘I have not been ill,’ Richard continued, ‘since
he
stopped coming: Uncle Jon.’ He whispered the name as if it was some terrible secret. ‘
He
was the one who made me ill. Sometimes he frightened me too. He was so queer. I am glad that Uncle Albert told him not to come anymore.’

He spoke of Viscount Lynford as if he was a figure from the distant past. It was true that his lordship had not called at Clifton Park for over a year now but Dorothea could still remember every detail of the terrible clash that occurred between Lynford and Uncle Albert. She had never mentioned it to Richard.

She shivered and changed the subject, telling Richard about
London, about the house that Uncle Albert had bought and the new BFS showroom on the Edgware Road with its huge windows and display of shiny new motors.

‘Did you—’ Richard leant forward, lowering his voice again although there was no one to hear – not even Nurse. ‘Did you see your papa as you hoped?’

‘No. No, I didn’t. I—’ How could she explain? The wild idea, the hidden hope she’d nurtured before the trip, now seemed like a silly child’s fantasy. The London from which she had just returned had not been
her
London; it had been a different city altogether, a city of wide streets and swept pavements, of majestic omnibuses travelling in procession, of hansom cabs swooping past. Uncle Albert’s new house in Essex Square was as far removed from Stepnall Street as one could imagine. It was tall and pristine white with black railings, set in a serene square where grass grew, and trees too, and where the gutters were speckless. Seeing the house for the first time, looking along the imposing terrace, she had wondered if, after four long years,
her
London perhaps no longer existed.

‘Such extravagance, Albert!’ Aunt Eloise had said as she stepped over the threshold but she had looked on the new house with favour, all the same, and Uncle Albert had preened himself, as if he’d built it with his own hands. ‘It’s so very long since last I was in town,’ she’d added. ‘One forgets quite how….’ She’d waved her arm, as if there were no adequate words to describe all that London was.

‘Why did you stay away so long?’ Richard repeated, interrupting Dorothea’s stories of the capital. ‘I expected you back by the end of September at the latest. It’s October now.’

‘We couldn’t come back until the repairs were finished.’

‘There was no need for any repairs.’

‘Yes there was. The house was falling to bits. Aunt Eloise couldn’t bear it.’

‘But
I
liked it the way it was. It is
my
house, and it shall fall to bits if I say so. Aunt Eloise did it to vex me. That is why she stopped me going to London, too. She hates me!’

But that couldn’t be true. Aunt Eloise would have no truck with
something as unseemly as
hatred
. Richard was too touchy. He took Aunt Eloise’s aloof manner as a personal slight. But she was the same with everyone—even Uncle Albert. As for the repairs, it was silly to say they hadn’t needed doing and Richard should be thankful that Uncle Albert had covered the expense himself. It hadn’t cost the miserly Trustees – or Richard – a penny piece.

‘But the workmen made such a noise!’ Richard grumbled. ‘Every day, hammering and banging for hours on end. It made my head ache!’ He frowned, his eyes sulky but then, unexpectedly, he
brightened
. ‘I didn’t mind it so much when Henry was here. I liked it when Henry came.’

Henry had been installing electric wires whilst they were away, another up-to-the-minute novelty that Uncle Albert had been persuaded to try. Henry had wired up his own home at Hayton Grange months ago – much to his mother’s disquiet. ‘I have no faith in this electricity. We shall all be killed in our beds by it one of these days!’ Aunt Eloise had been equally dubious but Uncle Albert had come to trust Henry, especially after the success of the BFS motors. It was somewhat more of a surprise that Richard should be
interested
in electricity too.

‘Henry explained it to me, he explained about the wires and the switches. And I had a good idea – well, we had the idea together, really. We used the stable boy’s ferrets to run the wires under the floorboards. Isn’t that clever? And when everything was ready, I filled the generator with oil, and I was the first person to switch it on, and— Do you know, Doro? A person who does electricity and makes generators is called an
engineer
, and that’s what I’m going to be when I’m older: an engineer. Henry said he could see no reason why I shouldn’t.’ He stopped, bit his lip, looked at Dorothea almost shyly. ‘You … you don’t mind, do you?’

‘About you being an engineer?’

‘No. About me being friends with Henry. He was your friend first, and—’

‘Silly! Of course I don’t mind! I can think of nothing better than that you and Henry should be friends.’

‘Good. I’m glad.’ Richard’s rare smile seemed to brighten the
whole room. ‘I
do
like Henry. He took such trouble. He carried me downstairs himself.’

‘But Tomlin always carries you!’

‘Tomlin has gone. He has been sent away.’

‘Why? Whatever for?’

But Richard knew nothing of the circumstances and was, in any case, more interested in his plans to become an engineer. A withered leg was no hindrance, he said. Henry had assured him. And maybe, just maybe…. He would always need a stick, of course – two sticks, probably – but (he looked at Dorothea shyly again) imagine if he could learn to walk! They’d always said he was too weak, but if he did his exercises, if he grew stronger….

Dorothea smiled, covering her doubts. ‘You need Bovril. Bovril makes muscle. I read it on the side of an omnibus.’

Richard laughed at this, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and she wondered if her first instincts had been right, if he really had changed. The change was masked when he was being peevish and petulant, sulking about being left behind at Clifton. He’d seemed like a child still. But now, smiling, laughing, getting animated about the idea of becoming an engineer, confiding his secret hope of one day being able to walk, he suddenly seemed a lot older. He was fourteen, she reminded herself, not such a boy anymore. There was a year’s difference between them. She had never really felt it before.

She tried to work out what was different about him. It was as if there was suddenly more to him than met the eye: new depths, a sense of gravity, a seriousness. Outwardly he did not look much different. He hadn’t grown markedly taller, he hadn’t filled out. He was still thin and pale, his clothes still hung off him. But he did look very smart in his button-up jacket and tie. His black hair – rather long, rather raffish – curled over the collar of his shirt. His sunken eyes, round and dark, were like splinters of coal. He was, she thought, rather handsome in many ways.

Why not marry him?

The voice in her head, coming out of nowhere, almost set her laughing. It was absurd! An absurd idea! And yet … and yet … why
not? What was there to stop her? Had she not missed him terribly whilst she was away? And there was no one she could think of who she’d rather marry. Her mind galloped ahead. If she
did
marry him – one day, in the future, when they both of an age – then she would never have to leave Clifton, she could stay here forever, she would
belong
here. She could make herself useful, too. She could help shoulder the burden when the house became his for real at the age of twenty-one. They could send Nurse away – Nurse who was only in it for herself – and find somebody more suitable.

Or I could look after him myself,
thought Dorothea, swept up by her plans, everything seeming to slot into place. They would need a replacement for Tomlin, of course, to carry Richard about the place. Or—maybe he
would
learn to walk when he got older. Maybe he wouldn’t even need a stick if he had her to lean on.

Anything seemed possible. A whole new world had opened up. She wanted to hug Richard on the spot, tell him that she had found the answer to everything. But she kept her peace. She wanted to get used to the idea first and she was afraid Richard might scoff. Roderick would have, and Richard was a boy too. He looked like a boy today, sitting in his chair, and not like an invalid. Smiling secretly, Dorothea thought of all the months and the years ahead – plenty of time to bring him round.

‘Oh Richard! I am so glad to be back! I
did
miss you so!’

He blushed, the colour bold and startling in his pale skin, and she thought,
yes, yes, I certainly shall marry him.
For what nicer boy had ever existed?

There was something unsettling about change, all the same – even change for the better. The house was subtly different, now that it had been spruced up. And Tomlin was not the only missing face. Bessie Downs had gone too, Dorothea discovered. But Nora couldn’t or wouldn’t say why either had left.

Dorothea took her walk on her own that afternoon. Mlle Lacroix had tripped up a kerb in London and was resting her ankle. It was a grey and blustery day, rain in the air, so Dorothea took refuge in the old summerhouse, a draughty, leaky place festooned
with cobwebs, the floor thick with dust. Sitting in an old cane chair, she looked out of the grubby windows, watching dead leaves being blown across the lawn. Nibs Carter would have some choice things to say, no doubt, when he came to rake them up. The house looked smudged and blotted from this distance, separated off by the garden wall, half-obscured by the spreading cedar tree. Where exactly were the new slates, Dorothea wondered, and which of the chimney stacks had been rebuilt? Would the once leaky gutter really drip no more? Spiralling smoke, ragged and tattered, was blown hither and thither by the wind, grey against the darker grey of the heavy clouds.

It had been a wet day, too, the last time Viscount Lynford had come to Clifton – a wet June day over a year ago, not long after she had returned from Coventry with her aunt and her uncle. Aunt Eloise had been out that afternoon, but Uncle Albert had been at home, taking a day off as he sometimes did now, ever since the time of the great fire. The rain had started, Dorothea remembered, as she was walking back to the house with the governess. They had run for shelter but, coming to the doorway in the garden wall, they had seen before them the viscount’s carriage standing on the gravel. The viscount himself had been half way up the steps in his tall hat and long coat, his stick firmly planted. Uncle Albert in his shirt sleeves had loomed above him on the doorstep. Their voices had carried clearly in the rain-sodden air.

‘Come away, Dorossea! Come away!’ The governess had tugged at her arm, but Dorothea had stood frozen. Even now, over a year later, she could still taste her fear, afraid that the two men would come to blows because they had looked so ferocious, so angry. Roderick and Nibs in the Orchard had been bad enough, but Uncle Albert and Lord Lynford – it would have been like trains colliding, the very ground would have trembled.

But Lynford had been in no mood for a fight, she had realized, listening to him, his wheedling voice. He had been talking of money, a debt he owed to Aunt Eloise. So Bessie Downs had been right, Aunt Eloise
had
lent him money. He couldn’t pay it back just yet, he had said. There were debt collectors stalking him and his father
wouldn’t lift a finger. His father, indeed, had turned against him, had taken everything he had, his home, his son….

Lord Lynford had sounded like Richard at his worst, thought Dorothea as she sat in the cane chair. He had felt hard done by, had assumed people were out to get him. But Richard, a child, a cripple, had an excuse for his behaviour. What excuse did Lord Lynford have?

Uncle Albert, it seemed, had been of the same mind. ‘If you are looking for sympathy, sir, you will not find it here! You have had every advantage in life, every advantage, but – from what I
understand
– you have squandered it all.’

‘How dare you! How dare you speak to
me
like that!’ Lord Lynford’s voice had been shrill in the rain. ‘Who are you, anyway? My family can trace its line back to the Conquest, whereas you – you would count yourself lucky to even know the name of your father! You think you are something, with your money earned from trade, squatting in the houses of your betters, but you will never amount to anything, however rich you become. Your place will always be in the gutter!’

Dorothea had cringed at these words but to her surprise her uncle had stayed calm. There had been no anger in evidence as he stood there in the doorway, belying the viscount’s words by looking in his element, as he had in his factory. One’s eye had been drawn to him, a figure of authority and strength.

‘I must ask you to leave now, sir,’ Uncle Albert had said, his voice even deeper than usual, the word
sir
spoken almost as an insult. ‘Go, and don’t come back. I will not have you pestering my wife. I will not have you taking advantage of the regard she once had for you.’

‘Your wife!’ Lynford had sneered as water dripped from the brim of his hat. ‘Your wife! Ha! You are welcome to her! I may once have asked her to marry me, when I was young and foolish. I can’t be sure. I believe I was drunk at the time. But at least she was passably handsome in those days. I pity you now, shackled to such a cold, heartless—’