Sir William was out riding Merlin, but James showed them Duchess and Buttercup in their paddock, and let them feed the carriage horses with some carrots. To Nell’s disappointment she couldn’t see Albert anywhere. ‘Is he still working in the garden?’ she asked James. ‘I thought he might show Hope around.’
James grinned. He was twenty now, and since coming here to work he’d grown several inches and developed muscle with all the hard work. He was quite a hit with the other maids, for although a plain lad, with his floppy dark hair and the Renton big nose, he had a nice way with him, funny and warm. ‘You mean you hoped you could meet him!’ he said pointedly.
Nell blushed. She didn’t try to deny it for James knew her too well.
‘He’s round the front of the house, weeding the rosebed. Take Hope round there!’ He grinned knowingly. ‘The boys can stay here with me.’
‘I can’t go there,’ Nell said in horror. There was a kind of unwritten rule that the servants didn’t go round to the front of the house. She would have felt quite comfortable showing Hope the gardens at the back, but the front was different because she could be seen by anyone glancing out of the windows.
‘Don’t be daft, of course you can go round there,’ James laughed. ‘Hope will like seeing the statues. And Albert will like seeing you.’
Emboldened, Nell took Hope’s hand and walked back through the arch of the stable yard to the front of the house. Aside from the big circular rosebed, set into the gravel drive, there were more roses along the front of the house, some of which climbed right up the walls in high summer, and that was where Albert was weeding.
He had removed the brown smock he usually wore and rolled up his shirtsleeves, and the sight of his muscular bare forearms and moleskin breeches tight over his buttocks made Nell feel suddenly shy.
She knew from previous years that in a couple of weeks the roses would be spectacular, but as yet there were none flowering. Had they been in bloom she could have let Hope sniff them, but without any real excuse for being there, she felt vulnerable and rather foolish.
But Hope ran straight up to Albert before Nell could prevent her.
‘Why aren’t there any flowers here?’ she asked him.
‘There will be next month,’ Albert replied, glancing round at Nell and smiling. ‘Roses like the whole bed to themselves, you see. They don’t much care for companions.’
Nell took her courage in both hands and walked over to him. By the time she got there Hope was asking why they didn’t like companions and that she liked gardens that had flowers everywhere, all different kinds.
‘I like that too,’ Albert said. ‘But this ain’t my garden, so I has to do what the master likes.’
Nell blushingly apologized for her sister. ‘She’s no trouble,’ Albert said cheerfully. ‘You bring her again once all the roses is in bloom. I bet she’ll like that.’
Hope was very taken with the marble statues in the big circular rosebed, making Nell blush yet again when she asked why the ladies had no clothes on. Albert chuckled and said it was his opinion that it was harder to carve clothes than nakedness.
They were a distance of some fourteen feet from the porch and the front door, when Nell heard the door open and Lady Harvey saying goodbye to someone.
Not wanting to be seen talking to the gardener, Nell told Hope it was time they went back. But Hope ignored her, and went skipping away in the direction of the front door, reaching it just as a gentleman stepped out of the porch.
‘Hope!’ Nell called out. But to her dismay the child just stood there, hands behind her back, smiling sweetly up at the man.
He was perhaps thirty, tall and slender, wearing a dark green riding jacket, brown breeches and long riding boots, with a rakish yellow and green cravat around his neck. He looked down at Hope and smiled. ‘Hello! Who are you?’
‘Hope Renton,’ she replied without any hesitation. ‘I came to see the roses, but there aren’t any.’
Nell rushed over and grabbed Hope’s hand. Lady Harvey had gone in and closed the door behind her. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said.
‘No need to apologize for a polite child.’ His voice was deep but it held a hint of laughter at her embarrassment.
Nell looked into his handsome smiling face and blanched. His almost black eyes and hair were identical to Hope’s and she was so shocked that she could only stare at him open-mouthed.
‘You must be a sister of the young groom who took my horse,’ he said with an easy smile. ‘You are very alike.’
Nell pulled herself together rapidly. ‘Yes, sir, that’s James. I’m Nell, Lady Harvey’s maid,’ she managed to get out. ‘I’ll tell James to bring your horse round for you.’
Nell ran off then, holding Hope securely by the hand.
After telling James to take the gentleman’s horse round to him, Nell said goodbye to the children and warned them to go straight home. She stayed at the stile by the paddock waving to them for some little while because she didn’t dare go back into the house while she was so shaken.
She hadn’t ever allowed herself to wonder about Hope’s father, just as she didn’t look for similarities between her mistress and the child. She had decided long ago that it was better never to think about such things.
There were many male visitors at Briargate; some came with wives, sisters or even mothers, and some alone if they were friends of Sir William. But Nell had never seen anyone that looked remotely like Hope, and she’d never expected to. After all, a man who had done that to her mistress wasn’t likely to be welcome here.
Yet the underhand way Lady Harvey showed this gentleman out was almost proof of intrigue, for why hadn’t she called Rose? And what was she doing having gentlemen callers anyway when her husband was out?
What if the man had recognized himself in Hope? If Nell could see the similarity, surely anyone could?
Nell went up to the nursery a little later to see Ruth, so befuddled that she forgot her ladyship was often in the nursery at this time of day.
‘Ruth was just telling me that your young brothers and sister came back with you this afternoon,’ she said pleasantly.
‘I’m sorry, m’lady,’ Nell replied. ‘I should have asked if it was all right for me to bring them here.’
‘Nonsense, you don’t need my permission for them to see their brother and sister.’ Lady Harvey lifted Rufus on to her lap and began bouncing him up and down. ‘I wish I’d seen them too, and I’m sure Rufus would have enjoyed a visit. He could do with some little playmates.’
The nursery was the place where Lady Harvey was always at her most relaxed, and she welcomed Nell coming in there too, saying she had never liked the idea of small children being cloistered away from people. Nell wished she hadn’t come in now, but she could hardly leave immediately without it looking suspicious, so she bent down to pick up some building blocks off the floor.
Nell felt relieved that her mistress looked perfectly normal. She wasn’t flushed or excited, and she was wearing a plain, dove-grey gown which was entirely suitable for a mother, but hardly the kind of dress a woman would choose to wear to meet a lover. Her hair was still as neatly pinned up as it had been this morning when Nell fixed it for her. So maybe she was wrong about the man?
‘We wouldn’t dare bring our brothers up here to meet Rufus,’ Nell ventured, trying very hard to act and speak normally. ‘They are too rough for a little gentleman like him.’
Rufus looked like a little girl with his long blond curls, blue eyes and the customary long baby dress. Only a few days ago Nell had heard Sir William saying he thought that at three it was time his son was put in breeches, but so far Lady Harvey hadn’t instructed Ruth to do so.
‘But your sister could come and play,’ Lady Harvey said with a smile. ‘How old is she now?’
‘Hope’s six, mam,’ Nell said nervously, afraid that her mistress might mull that over later and think it was a strange coincidence that the Renton child was the same age as the one she lost. ‘But going on eighteen, she never stops asking questions,’ she added quickly.
‘Get down now, Mama,’ Rufus said, and climbed off his mother’s lap and toddled off to Ruth.
Both Nell and Ruth adored Rufus; he was a sweet-natured little boy with a great sense of fun, and as affectionate to them as he was to his mother.
‘Bring Hope up for tea on Monday,’ Lady Harvey said, getting up off the couch and smoothing her dress down. ‘You can pop off to fetch her after luncheon. By the time you get back Rufus will have had his nap. I want him to learn to share his toys and mix well.’
As their mistress swept out of the nursery, Ruth looked at Nell and giggled. ‘Our Hope in here! She don’t know what she’s letting herself in for.’
Nell was brushing Lady Harvey’s hair that night when Sir William came into the bedroom.
‘You make a pretty picture,’ he said as he leaned against the doorpost. ‘Who brushes your hair, Nell?’
Nell giggled. She could tell the master had drunk too much for his face was red and his shirt was hanging loose over his breeches. He was undeniably the most handsome man she’d ever seen, his features as perfect as the marble statues’ in the rosebed, hair the colour of ripe corn and eyes of an intense blue. Cook had often said he was pretty like a girl, but Nell didn’t agree; his lips might be just a bit too full, but he had a strong chin, and very shapely thighs and buttocks from riding so much.
She knew he was in a good mood, drunk or not, for she’d heard him laughing with his wife as they came up the stairs after their dinner guests had left. ‘No one but me, sir,’ she replied.
He just stood there silently watching her and his wife, and Nell thought this was because he wanted to come into his wife’s bed tonight. She thought it was a good job she’d already got her mistress’s corsets off and helped her into her nightgown. Nell didn’t think it was quite seemly for a husband to see all that.
‘Have you got a sweetheart, Nell?’ Sir William asked suddenly.
‘No, sir,’ she said, blushing furiously.
‘But would you like one?’ he said, moving right into the room and sitting down on the bed. ‘Do you hope to get married one day?’
‘William!’ Lady Harvey laughingly reproved him. ‘Stop quizzing poor Nell!’
‘I do hope to get married one day, sir, when the right man comes along,’ Nell said.
‘Then I think I must look around for a suitable husband for you,’ he said with a bright smile which showed perfect small white teeth.
‘Well, just don’t look too far away from Briargate, William,’ Lady Harvey said with laughter in her voice. ‘I don’t want her running off and leaving me. But you can get off to bed now, Nell. I can manage everything else alone.’
Nell put the hairbrush down on the dressing table, bobbed a little curtsey and said goodnight. As she was leaving the room she turned her head just enough to see that her master had got up off the bed and was kissing his wife’s neck. That pleased her, and went some way towards allaying her fears about the visitor this afternoon.
She had discovered who the gentleman caller was from James. He was Captain Angus Pettigrew of the Royal Hussars, a cousin of the Pettigrews who lived in Chelwood House about two miles away.
She couldn’t of course tell her brother why she wanted to know about him, or indeed ask any further questions for fear of alerting him to her anxiety. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted any information for. All she knew was that she felt threatened.
But by what? She had asked herself that question dozens of times tonight, and had found no answers. But now she’d left her master and mistress together, clearly happy, she thought maybe the Captain might only have called here while he was visiting his relatives because it would have been impolite not to.
Yet Nell was still troubled about her mistress’s request for Hope to come and play with Rufus. If Bridie was here now she’d have thrown up her hands in horror. But Nell couldn’t refuse, or make an excuse. She’d just have to hope that the visit wouldn’t go well, that Lady Harvey would decide Hope wasn’t a fit companion for her son, and that would be the end of it.
Nell’s hopes that the visit would be a failure were dashed. It was raining on Monday, so the children had to stay in the day nursery. Hope was so thrilled by Rufus’s toys, the like of which she’d never seen before, that she was only too happy to play with whatever he wanted. She built him castles with his building blocks and laughed when he knocked them down. They rode on his rocking-horse together, and Hope looked at Rufus’s picture books with him.
Lady Harvey joined them for tea, and Hope turned on her charm shamelessly, admiring the delicate china, eating and drinking far more daintily than she usually did, even reprimanding Rufus for not eating the crusts on his bread and jam.
It was clear Rufus thought she was the best thing ever to come into his young life, and when it was time for Nell to take Hope home, he clung to her tearfully, making his mother promise she could come again the following week. As Nell walked across the paddock with Hope she could imagine Bridie shaking her fist at her and asking why she had been so stupid as to take the child there in the first place.
On Sundays as many of the Briargate staff who could be spared from chores and preparing luncheon were expected to go to church in Compton Dando. All those who came from the surrounding villages were also allowed one Sunday in a month to go home after church to visit their families. James and Ruth often got the same Sunday off, but because Nell had to stand in as nursemaid for Rufus when Ruth was not there, she always went home alone.
It was three weeks since Hope’s first afternoon at Briargate when Nell got her next Sunday off. She was happy as she walked to church with the other servants through Lord’s Wood. The ground was dry, so there would be no mud on her well-polished boots or on her best blue dress, and Lady Harvey had given her a spray of small artificial roses and a blue ribbon to trim her bonnet. Nell was looking forward to seeing her father, for on her regular afternoon off he was always working, and she was lucky if she saw him for more than a few minutes before she had to return to the house. But most of all she was delighted that Albert had joined the other servants today.