N
ow she’d married, so it was too late for apologies, too late to achieve his long-cherished dream. His chance of restoring his character and winning her approval was gone for all time.
The worst of it was that Nathan doubted she even loved this idiot she’d tied herself to. Too busy playing the vengeful child to plan her life as she should. Though lately, little by little, he could see it dawning on her that marriage was for life. That, once embarked upon, it couldn’t be lightly set aside.
‘There’s a whole shoal running,’ Bertie cried.
Nathan glanced across at Lily’s husband, leaning over the edge of the boat as he squinted at the floats, watching for a tug on one of them.
‘Take care, you’ll fall in if you lean too far.’
‘Just look at them all! We’re in luck.’
One small push and he could topple the fool head first into the water. Wouldn’t that satisfy Lily’s need for sweet revenge against the Clermont-Reads, if they lost their one and only son? Just as poor old Mrs Rawlins had lost hers. There were more bodies in the depths of this lake than would ever be recovered. Who would know?
‘Here,’ he said, reaching forward. ‘Let me help you.’
Margot picked up her plate of poached salmon and threw it at the maid. Since the girl had the sense to duck, it hit the silk brocade-covered wall instead.
‘Now look what you’ve done! Wasted perfectly good food which you know is an abhorrence to me, and ruined my dining-room wall into the bargain.’
Betty dabbed at the marks on the wall with a napkin and considered packing her bags. She’d have left this house long since if it hadn’t been for George Potter, the handsomest chauffeur she’d ever set eyes on in a long day’s march. The only man she knew who didn’t make fun of Betty’s country plainness, or her aching feet. It would take more than Margot Clermont-Read’s wrath to drive her away.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said, trying to sound suitably contrite while hanging on to the last shreds of her pride. ‘Happen you’re right. It were a touch overcooked. I’ll speak to Cook.’
‘Was.
Was
overcooked. Oh, what’s the point? Ignorant fool! Pick up the plate and clear up that mess this instant. Then bring me a very small portion of asparagus soup instead.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Betty could feel the veins in her legs start to throb even now. Hadn’t Cook herself finished off the soup at luncheon? Happen if she hurried with the next course, the mistress might forget she’d asked for it.
‘Really, Mama,’ Selene intervened. ‘It isn’t anyone else’s fault that Bertie is being so stubborn. Certainly not mine, nor Pa’s, nor even poor Betty’s here. Far be it for me to cosset a servant, but it is time you either accepted the situation or did something about it.’
‘So say all of us,’ Edward growled.
‘Why aren’t you fetching my soup, drat you?’ Margot demanded, turning upon the hapless maid again. ‘We can’t sit waiting all day, girl. Clear that up later.’
When Betty staggered back beneath the weight of a huge dish of roast lamb, she placed it before her master without a glance in Margot’s direction. ‘Soup’s off, ma’am. Cook says she’s very sorry.’ Spoken in her smallest voice, leavening the bad news with a bob of a curtsey directed at no one in particular.
Edward, his mind on the state of his shares which appeared to have fallen yet again, according to today’s
Financial Times,
paid no heed and set about attacking the crisp layer of charred fat. He growled his displeasure.
‘Cook will be even sorrier if this lamb tastes as tough as it cuts. Why cannot we get decent produce these days, Margot? I swear this is mutton. Stringy as old leather it is. What are we coming to when we cannot even trust our own servants?’
Weak with fear, yet desperate to defend Mrs Greenholme, since the cook’s temper was every bit as unpredictable as her master’s and mistress’s put together, Betty recklessly offered a reason.
‘It’s the butcher, sir. Says he’s not sending another item of good food into this house until his bill is paid.’
A terrible silence met this offering, and Betty, sensing a deterioration in the atmosphere, hastily begged leave to retire. She scurried away vowing never to return at peril of her life, and carefully closed the dining-room door.
‘Pay his bill indeed,’ Edward stormed. ‘I settle the damned thing once a year, don’t I? What more does the fellow want? Never satisfied some of these shopkeepers. Who do they think they are?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, dear,’ Margot sourly replied, still peeved at the loss of her salmon. ‘But I shall die of starvation if you don’t hand me food of some sort or other, tough or no.’
‘I don’t work every hour God sends to eat burned leather,’ Edward loudly complained. ‘The woman will have to go.’
‘If you’d ever paid the same attention to your son as you do to what’s on your plate, he might not have run away from home,’ Margot asserted, reaching for her handkerchief as the ready tears spurted.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, not that old saw again. Now listen here, Margot.’ Edward waved the carving knife at wife and daughter, making them both sit up very straight, eyes wide with sudden alarm. ‘I’ve heard enough moans and groans about that young idiot to last me a lifetime. Is that quite clear? Either he comes home or he doesn’t. And if the latter, so be it. The choice is his, not ours. There will be no more stopping in bed all day. No more languishing on your couch. No more weeping and wailing, or indulging in tantrums. The boy is not dead, for God’s sake. He has left home. Admittedly not for a home we approve of, but
there isn’t a damned thing we can do about it. Do
you understand?’
‘It is simply that this girl...’
‘Margot!’
Even Margot understood the limits of her husband’s patience and finally subsided. Besides which, she was excessively bored with staying in bed or on a couch all day, and had long been wondering how to end her protest without losing face. It was doing no good at all to her figure. Nevertheless Edward’s outburst had alarmed her. He was normally such a passive man.
The very next morning she rose at eight o’clock precisely, and sailing into the morning room, attended her husband at his breakfast for the first time in months.
‘Good morning, Edward. Kedgeree, my dear? Your favourite.’ Lifting each lid she found sausage, bacon, coddled eggs, but no kedgeree. ‘Heavens, above, has Cook no sense? Even the toast is burned. And this coffee is quite cold. Ring the bell this instant. I’ll have words.’
Edward folded his newspaper with a sigh, secretly regretting the loss of his quiet morning peace as it vanished like mist in the sun.
‘I shall take breakfast on the
Faith
on my way to the station, my dear. Fothergill will attend me.’ He aimed a kiss some inches above her head. ‘I will see you on Friday, m’dear, as usual.’
‘Of course, my darling.’ And fondly they bid each other goodbye, Edward pondering, not for the first time, that the secret of their happy marriage might well lie in his long-distance working life.
When he had gone Margot whirled through the house like a dervish, telling the servants standards had slipped during her ‘illness’. Now she was going to ‘knock their heads together’ and ‘tighten the reins’.
‘No more slipshod behaviour. Do you hear?’
Not a soul could miss her strident voice, or avoid being harangued, shaken or lectured in the following days. And not a soul amongst them didn’t wish her back on her invalid’s couch!
By Friday, when the master returned home, as usual, Betty again approached the dining room in fear and trembling, her face paste white, knees shaking.
‘There’s an urchin at the door, ma’am.’
‘An
urchin?’
Margot spoke the word as if to say ‘rat’ or ‘sewer’.
‘Yes, ma’am. Says could you fetch a doctor to Mallard Street, right quick?’
‘What are you talking of, girl?’
Betty struggled, her mouth gone dry with fear, and continued, pitifully slowly, ‘Close - to - death, he says. Beggin’ your pardon ma’am. So will you come - right quick?’
‘Who dares order me to do anything, quickly or otherwise?’
‘The urchin, ma’am. The messenger. Though what does he know about a person being close to death? Him no more’n a boy.’ Betty turned to go, as if she would personally shoo him off the doorstep and box his ears for daring to sully it with his presence.
‘Who is close to death?’
‘Oh, ma’am, didn’t I say?’
‘No, you did not.’
"Tis Mr Albert, ma’am,’ Betty suddenly wailed, and waited for death to strike her, as it surely must, for bringing such dreadful news to her mistress.
Lily and Bertie moved into Barwick House that very evening. The Clermont-Reads would naturally have preferred to take him in without the encumbrance of a wife but, in his delirium, he’d stubbornly clung to Lily’s hand with such strength no one dared deny him.
Edward put the blame for his son’s illness squarely on Bertie’s own foolish shoulders. Margot blamed Lily. And having now got her son back under her control, meant to keep him that way.
For Lily it was all too much. First her mother, now Bertie.
She’d actually laughed when the two of them had returned from their fishing trip to stand wringing wet on her doorstep, complaining Bertie had fallen in and Nathan had gone to his rescue. They’d looked pleased as two young lads might on baiting their first fish as they held a creel of fat trout between them.
‘Fish aren’t my favourite food,’ she’d told them, hands on hips. ‘Don’t you dare drip dirty water on my rugs.’
‘You’ll love the way I cook them,’ Nathan had replied, blue eyes glinting.
Towels had been brought, and clean clothes found. Then Nathan had fried three fat trout, each wrapped in a sliver of crisp bacon. A right merry and satisfying breakfast it had been too. Lily had gone off to work with a full stomach for once.
She never learned quite how the accident had come about but absolved Nathan of any blame, not simply because of the fried breakfast but also because somehow he’d managed to repossess all her father’s belongings. Even the clock. Lily assumed it was by some foul means or other, but thought it best not to enquire too closely.
Two days later she’d come home from work to find Bertie burning up with fever, his clothes again wet through - this time with sweat. His voice croaked ominously too. Never had Lily known such fear. Without hesitation, she’d sent at once for his family’s help.
Now she could only marvel at Margot’s iron control in what must, for her, be a terrifying situation.
Bertie was quickly installed in his old bedroom where the doctor carried out a full examination, listening to his heart, peering short-sightedly down Bertie’s throat and finally declaring him to be suffering from diphtheria, a dangerous and contagious disease with an uncertain prognosis.
‘See he doesn’t talk. He’ll need careful nursing. Someone will have to sit with him at all times.’
Lily stepped forward, anxious to help.
‘I’ll see to him, Doctor,’ Margot declared, before she had time to speak.
‘Give him lemon juice and honey to soothe the throat, bring down the fever with ice, and steam kettles are good for the congestion. If we can get him through the next few days, the chances are he’ll make a full recovery.’
No one dared consider the alternative. Above all, the doctor informed them, it was vital the contagion did not spread.
His instructions were carried out to the letter. Blankets were soaked in disinfectant and hung at every door. Ice was brought from the ice house for Bertie to suck, and no one but his mother allowed near him. True to her word, Margot herself sat with him throughout the night.
As the fever continued to rage, all Lily’s offers to share the nursing were bluntly refused. She was shown to separate quarters and largely ignored, permitted only to stand behind the shielding blanket from time to time and speak a few loving words. She liked to think that her voice soothed Bertie.
It was the morning of the third day before the fever abated. Even as everyone sighed with relief the doctor issued fresh warnings, saying this was a critical period, that recovery could be halted by unexpected heart failure or paralysis of the throat or limbs.
‘Not in this case, Doctor,’ Margot stoutly declared. ‘I will not permit it.’
‘Indeed, young Bertie is fit and strong. He should do well, particularly in view of the excellent care he has received.’ A warning tone was still strong in his voice. ‘But that care must be maintained for some considerable time yet. Complications can appear up to seven weeks from the onset of the disease. You’re tired, Margot. You must rest or we’ll have two patients on our hands.’
‘I’ve offered to help,’ Lily daringly put in, only to be frozen by her mother-in-law’s glare.
‘I consider that you have done enough already. He would not be in this state at all were it not for you, miss. I assure you, I am perfectly capable of caring for my own son.’
Knowing this to be true, Lily stumbled over her words. ‘I - I could at least sit with him. I’m his wife, after all. He’d want me by him.’
To her relief the doctor supported her. ‘Of course he would. The girl’s right, m’dear. Keep up with the steam kettles, watch for the congestion getting worse, and call me if you are at all worried. Now, Margot, no need to be too protective of the boy. I’m sure you can safely leave him in the hands of your daughter-in-law for a few hours. Bertie will like to see her there when he wakes.’