These were the memories that ran through her mind now as she stood at the harbourside, looking out at the
Standart
with the same frank curiosity as she had shown for the cortège fifteen years earlier. The hull of the imperial yacht looked freshly blacked in the bright morning light, like a new kitchen range. Her decks were swagged with awnings of white canvas and there were wicker chairs and steamers set out, some of which were in use, though it was hard from this distance to know by whom. The people on board were indistinct; she could tell women from men, but not empresses from servants. There was a relaxed informality on deck, though – she could tell that – and there were children too, who must surely be the daughters and son of Nicholas and Alexandra. There had been three girls before Anna fled Russia: Olga, Tatiana and Maria, three little grand duchesses. Then, after she arrived in England, she read that Anastasia had been born, and finally Alexis, the tsarevich. They must worry for their frail son, Anna thought: a terrible burden to be heir apparent to the monstrous powder keg that was Russia. She wondered what he understood of his responsibilities at not quite five years old. If she were tsarina, she would bring him ashore to play on the beach.
Anna considered the size of the vessel. Really, she was meant to drop anchor in the Finnish fjords or a remote Baltic cove, or beneath the towering cliffs of the Crimea, where her mighty bulk would be in proportion with the surroundings. Here, in the confines of Cowes harbour, she dominated the scene, a colossus of the seas. The yacht was still surrounded by its security cordon of destroyers, and there was doubtless a whole platoon of guards on board to ward off assailants. This meeting of the emperor and the king had been arranged here precisely because the harbour was easy to seal off and guard, but the scheme had placed the socially reticent tsar into the very centre of a whirlpool of glamorous posturing and pageantry. Anna felt sorry for him; he appeared careworn in photographs, and she thought she could detect kindness in his eyes.
This was not an acceptable view for the wife of a Labour MP, or indeed for a Russian émigrée who had fled the pogroms. She knew she was meant to hate him and, certainly, his empire was corrupt and unjust and cruel, and when she’d escaped with her first husband, she hadn’t felt safe until their ship set sail from Bremen. But in all fairness, could one man be held responsible for the evil prejudices of a million others? The vast empire was ungovernable, the potential for wickedness immense. She knew by heart all of Amos’s strident opinions on the evils of imperial Russia; from the sidelines, he cheered the revolutionaries on. But she wondered how he would have managed, if by an accident of birth he’d become Emperor of all the Russias on his father’s death. This made her smile; the thought of Amos in his pit boots and cap acknowledging the crowds outside the Winter Palace. He would make rather an effective autocrat in another life. His belligerent bearing and stubborn self-belief would serve him well.
She scanned the decks of the
Standart
one last time, looking for the empress, but stopped when she realised that she was being watched by a heavily bearded officer who was out to bag an assassin before lunch. The poor Romanovs, thought Anna; they see a throng of gaily dressed people and wonder who among them would like them dead.
Thea had made quite a pet of Maya, and today the two of them had been sea bathing together, taking a dip from the back of a quaint bathing machine that had been towed for them to the water’s edge by a horse. Maya had a lavender-coloured costume, with straight, knee-length knickers and a skirt with a white-trimmed frill. She was proud of it – rightly so, Thea told her – and she bemoaned the fact that it hardly ever got an outing. She wanted to keep it on while they ate ices on the grass by the bandstand, but even Thea, who didn’t exhibit nearly so many dull, adult preoccupations as most grown-ups, would not allow it, so they both changed into their normal clothes in the privacy of their rented mobile hut.
Anna was already waiting for them on Prince’s Green when they arrived, pink and exhilarated from the sun and the cold salt water. Maya told her about the horse, and said she should have come too; Anna said it would have taken more than one horse to get her into the chilly waters of the Solent. They talked about plans for later: Thea said they were dining with the Duchess of Manchester in the house she’d taken for the week, but Anna and Maya were welcome to dine on the
Lady Isabella
if they wished. Anna said she wouldn’t hear of putting their staff to such trouble on what would otherwise be an evening off. They would eat fish and chips, and then see what they could see. That sounded nice, said Thea a little wistfully, and Maya said, ‘You’re more than welcome to join us,’ which made her mother and Thea laugh, even though Maya knew it had been exactly the right thing to say. Then, suddenly, the child shot up, dropping her ice and startling a seagull, which cawed and flapped and caused a small outbreak of chaos on their part of the green.
‘Dad!’ she shouted. ‘We’re here! Amos!’
She turned her shining face to Anna and Thea and said, ‘It’s Amos. My dad,’ and then she pelted across the grass and Anna saw him, dressed in his summer suit and his winter Homburg, and her heart leapt at the incongruity of him, and the shock.
They made an unlikely party, Amos, Anna, Maya and Thea, but if Amos was feeling uncomfortable, it didn’t show in his face, which was arranged into an expression of benign interest. Thea was talking about her plans for opening the gardens of Netherwood Hall to the public, because she thought it a waste and a shame that so few people were able to appreciate their magnificence.
‘I thought, perhaps, every Sunday, but Toby thinks that might be too much, so he suggested bank holidays, but that seems too little.’
Amos nodded very nicely. ‘Also,’ he said mildly, ‘you don’t close your pits on bank ’olidays.’
‘Don’t we?’
‘Not when I worked in one, anyroad.’
‘Ah, back in the bad old days,’ Thea said merrily. ‘I think Henrietta’s reformed us now. Anyway, it’s neither here nor there, because I’ve plumped for the last Sunday of the month, from May to August. We’ll have one at the end of this month, because I can’t wait until next May.’
She paused, as if waiting for applause. Anna said, ‘It sounds an excellent plan. Does Mr MacLeod know of it?’
‘No-o,’ Thea said, ‘I haven’t seen him in weeks and weeks. But it’s for him, really, so I don’t see how he could object. He works so hard, and sometimes entire borders bloom and die without anyone other than Henry and me showing an interest.’
They were standing on a jetty, waiting for the boat that would carry the countess back to her yacht. When it came, Tobias was in it. Amos’s face was unreadable, but he shook the earl’s proffered hand. Tobias turned to Anna.
‘I didn’t know your husband was in Cowes, Mrs Sykes.’
‘Neither did I,’ Anna said.
‘Ha! Very good! Well, in you hop, darling, steady as you go.’ Tobias reached for Thea and handed her carefully into the craft: she was precious cargo. ‘I say, Mr Sykes?’ he said, when Thea was seated.
Amos didn’t exactly answer, only looked at the earl and raised an enquiring eyebrow. This could have been construed as rude, but not, apparently, by the earl. ‘I was thinking about a cricket match. My wife here has decided she wants to fling open our gates to all and sundry, and I thought an inaugural cricket match would be entertaining.’
‘Oh?’ Amos said neutrally. Toffs
v.
Nobs, he thought: no thank you very much.
‘So, I wondered if you might know anyone in Netherwood who could field an opposition? I’ll provide the house team – call in some favours, get any available chaps over from Chatsworth, Wentworth Castle and whatnot. Do you know any cricketers?’
Now here was something. Amos rocked on his heels and smiled. ‘One or two,’ he said.
‘Splendid. Could you field a team, do you suppose?’
‘Leave it with me. Last Sunday in August, did you say?’
‘That’s it. Not much notice, but it’ll just be a bit of fun. I’ll bet some of your mining pals could probably wield a bat if we gave them one.’
‘They do say,’ said Amos, ‘that if you need a decent cricketer you should whistle down a mine shaft.’
The earl chortled at the thought of recruiting a team from anywhere other than the playing fields of Eton and Harrow. ‘Jolly good,’ he said. ‘Tell them it’s a six if the ball hits the house, and there’s a prize of twenty-five pounds to any man who can break a window.’ He barked with laughter. ‘That should kindle some interest, what?’
‘Oh aye,’ Amos said. ‘I should think so.’
‘Right we are, anchors aweigh.’ The little motorboat chugged off from the jetty, and Thea made Maya squeal with laughter by waving her silk handkerchief and pretending to cry. Anna gave Amos a shrewd look and said, ‘One or two?’
‘One or two bad ’uns, I meant,’ he said. ‘Eleven or twelve belters.’ He grinned at her, but she resisted him and said, ‘Anyway, why are you here?’
‘Oh that’s nice, I must say.’
‘I mean, have you come to stir up trouble?’
He held out his arms in mute appeal. ‘Do I look like a troublemaker?’
‘You do, actually, Dad,’ said Maya. ‘Your hat’s at a funny angle.’
He roared with laughter, picked her up, and rubbed his stubbly chin on her soft cheek until she begged forgiveness. Anna watched them and felt lighter and happier than she had for weeks.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she said.
He put Maya down. ‘It’s
very
good to see you.’
‘Why did you come, though? You were dead against it.’
He shrugged, shoved his hands in his pockets, jangling his change. ‘Fancied some sea air,’ he said. He looked about him, left and right; everywhere there were lords and ladies in bespoke versions of casual yachting costumes, and the harbour bristled with masts and sails. ‘It’s busy though,’ he said. ‘Is there summat going on?’
‘Seriously,’ Anna said.
‘Seriously, I wanted to see you. Correction, I
needed
to see you. I needed to see you to tell you I’m sorry. I’ve been a brute and a clot, and I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t remember you ever apologising to me before.’ She felt a little churlish, reminding him of this now, but nevertheless it mattered. It had always been her, never him, who broke a silence.
‘Then you’ll know what it means that I’m saying it now.’
‘And now, you should kiss,’ Maya said, so they did.
When Henrietta came to find them the next day she was taken aback to see Amos, although she managed very well to hide her surprise and he managed very well to be polite. They were hiring bicycles, Anna said: could she join them? Henrietta demurred, reluctant to impose, and in the end it was Amos who insisted. ‘More t’merrier,’ he said. ‘You can ride a bike, can’t you?’ It was this indirect challenge that Henrietta couldn’t resist. She could ride a bicycle perfectly well, and in fact led the way from Cowes to a sandy cove, where they ate cheese and pickle rolls.
Maya collected shells and those stones which, to her, and sometimes inexplicably, were interesting. The adults watched her, and talked, and Henrietta showed such an informed interest in the ructions created by the chancellor that, before he realised what was happening, Amos found he had complimented her on her grasp of the matter.
‘Thank you,’ Henrietta said, ‘but I can’t take all the credit.’ She smiled at Anna. ‘We had a lesson in radical Liberal tactics from your wife. My mother is still lying in a darkened room with an ice pack on her forehead.’
Anna said, ‘Did she think I was dreadful?’
‘Shocking.’ Henrietta looked at Amos and said, ‘Anna was quite magnificent. We were all quaking, by the end, at the thought of the House of Lords razed to the ground and all the Tory peers castrated. You would have been proud of her.’
Amos looked at Anna, who was laughing with Henrietta, and his heart was full. ‘Oh, I am’ he said.
His wife smiled warmly at him, pleased at the effort he was making, and Amos, who didn’t want to give the impression that he was warming to Lady Henrietta Hoyland, had to look away. He was here in Cowes for Anna, and for his marriage, and for Maya. He wasn’t here to make friends with the foe.
S
ilas’s great rival on his home shores was the Fyfield Steamship Company, which ran a small fleet of banana boats between Jamaica and Bristol. He had hoped to have drummed them off the seas by now, but it seemed there was room for two international banana shippers, because Fyfield’s were no less of a presence at Port Antonio docks than Whittam & Co. It gave Eve some considerable satisfaction to tell Silas that, rather than wait for
Pegasus
to dock in a few days’ time she and Angus would sail home on the SS
Avonmouth
, a Fyfield vessel. It was in now, she said, and would leave tomorrow for Bristol.
‘You’d do that?’ he said. ‘You’d sail home on a cargo ship?’
‘I would and I will.’
‘Out of spite?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘out of expediency. I want to get back, and this is t’quickest way.’ It was perfectly true, though, that it gave her an occasional pulse of satisfaction to be sailing home without his help. The Fyfield captain had promised her a comfortable berth, though nothing like the standards of the
Pegasus
.
‘All said and done, it’s a banana boat, madam, not a passenger liner,’ he had said. Eve had told him that if all he could offer her was a seat on an upturned crate she would still prefer to sail with him tomorrow than wait. Also, she added privately, Silas would be on the
Pegasus
.
After she told him, he rallied swiftly, as was his style, and dismissed her from his office with a shrug of indifference. Then she and Angus walked to Eden Falls so that he could swim with Roscoe, and from there the three of them went to Ruby’s little blue and yellow painted house for lunch. For the first time in a long time, Ruby had given herself a day off; Batista, Precious and Patience were running the lunchtime service, which in any case was much simpler these days, since Mrs Beeton and her recipes had been jettisoned.