Rutherford Park (22 page)

He wanted only one thing.

He wanted to go home, and to take his son with him.

* * *

T
hose of the staff who had stayed at the London house had come back to Rutherford the day before. In the soft fading light of evening, the trap had come up from the station loaded with luggage, and, sitting on the back among it, the new chambermaid hired in London and the undercook, Catherine, had dozed with exhaustion all the way home through the lanes, past the farms and fields, and all the way up the Rutherford drive, where the last of the sun, barred with long shadows, lay over the lane. Harrison and Mr. Cooper brought up the rear in a motorized taxicab and, as they neared the entrance, they saw Mr. Bradfield come out onto the steps.

The second footmen, Nash and Hardy, stood behind him, but it was Mary Richards who caught Harrison’s attention. She looked fresh, straight out of a bandbox, starched and clean after his two days in the dirt of the train and seven months in the bedlam of the city. He sprang out of the cab, opening the door for Mr. Cooper, taking up his suitcases. There was a flurry of activity in the great hall for a while. Harrison covertly took the opportunity to kick the hallboy out of his way. “You don’t change, do you?” he muttered to Alfred. “Still a great slobbering runt.”

The maids had been taken to the back of the house. Mary was ahead of him as they descended the stairs behind the green baize door; the ribbons on her cap fluttered in front of him; he could hear the swish of her skirts against the narrow walls. At the dogleg bend above the kitchen, he caught her arm. She looked up at him and tried to pull away. “Miss me?” he asked.

She managed to retrieve herself from his grasp. “It’s not improved your manners, then,” she said, “being with the master.”

“The master?” he replied, laughing. “He’s been with his tart. We’ve not seen hide nor hair of him lately.” He cocked his head in the direction of the house. “What’s
she
been doing? Bradfield wrote to Cooper there was some American here he’d have to valet for as well as his lordship.”

“I don’t think he wants looking after,” Mary said. “He looks after himself.”

“Not a gentleman, then?”

“Gentleman enough. More gentleman than you. Get out of my way, please.”

Harrison had stepped in front of her. He leaned down. “Giving me orders,” he murmured, angry. “That’s perky of you.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “In case you’ve not noticed, I’m not Emily Maitland,” she told him. “You can’t bully me.”

“Here you are defending her American friend. I’d have thought you hated her, after this summer.”

Mary looked away. “It’s none of your business.”

“Her mills, they are. Her filthy houses. I heard all about it.”

“Let me by.”

“Did she say anything to you, after?”

Mary was staring at the ground. “She said that she was sorry for our loss. She called me up to the morning room.”

“Very nice,” he said, “for her to find the time.”

He let her go, watching her run down the remaining steps. He could hear the raised voices in the kitchen: Mrs. Carlisle laying down the law already for the undercook. He heard Catherine faintly protesting that she had done her best over something, and Mrs. Carlisle’s patronizing tone in reply. She had come home two months ago to be with her ladyship, as Louisa spent most of her time at the de Rays’ home and his lordship was in France.

Harrison caught sight of the maid of all work and the kitchen
maid scuttling like frightened mice down the corridor to the stillroom, sent for the drinks and desserts; he heard Bradfield’s door slamming. The smile turned to a satisfied smirk on Harrison’s face; he was home with a whole book of scandal on the doings of Master Harry. It would entertain the servants’ table when Bradfield’s back was turned. He had a winter’s worth of disgrace to share with them: Harry rolling in drunk at three o’clock in the morning, Harry and his chums kicking in windows in Regent Street, and knocking a policeman’s hat off his head. Harry taking a boat on the Thames and swimming in the Serpentine. There was a delicious fund of it to keep the parlor maids’ eyes and mouths open in shock.

And there was even more entertainment to be had. The new parlor maid, Jenny, was thin and tall and anxious and eager to please. She had an East London accent you could cut with a knife, and he would have to correct her. He would see what she would do for him if he barked loud enough when they were alone. He knew which room she’d been given—next to Dodd, where the head housemaid could keep an eye on her, out of the clutches of dark little Mary and her Bolshevik cheek. It was girls like Mary, he thought, who caused trouble; he’d had a basinful of suffragettes, with their placards and white dresses and lilies held in their hands and their messages—“Give Me Freedom.” He snorted to himself. Women didn’t need freedom; they needed a man to rein them in like a rider reined in a fretful horse. He’d heard his lordship say something of the sort more than once. Women needed their hearts broken; that melted them. That taught them. He’d seen Master Harry break a few; saw it in their faces as he handed them down out of carriages or cabs—sad little hopeful faces at the few dinners her ladyship had organized before she came home.

He took off his coat and walked down the stairs.

The table had been laid for a late supper; it was a hurried affair,
past the usual teatime of five. Mrs. Carlisle was complaining that dinner must be served as usual upstairs at eight. Harrison sat himself down.

“Who is this Gould?” he asked. Bradfield was still in his room; otherwise he wouldn’t have dared to say it.

“Mr. John Boswell Gould,” Mary corrected.

“What’s he come for?”

“He’s an historian,” Mrs. Carlisle said. “Writes books. Came over here on the
Laconia
.”

“He’s very nice,” Mary commented. “Polite.”

“I wouldn’t get on a big ship,” Cynthia murmured. “If the
Titanic
could sink, so could anything.”

“Never mind the
Titanic
,” Mrs. Carlisle told her. “We all had enough of you weeping about that at the time. There won’t be another sinking.”

“Still, I wouldn’t go near the sea,” Cynthia said.

“You won’t get a chance, so stop harping on it,” Mary told her tartly.

“Whatever ship he came on, he makes himself at home,” Harrison said. The plates clattered; the tea was poured. He began to laugh. “And he charms ladies, so I hear. Especially wives.”

“Does he?” said Mary. “How would you know?”

“Popular in town. Popular all over. Certain titles.”

“That’s enough of that,” Mrs. Carlisle countered.

“I expect
she
likes him.”

“She’s hardly ever at dinner,” Nash said. “So I doubt it.”

Harrison looked at him. “Do you indeed?” he replied scathingly. “So knowledgeable. Such a man of the world.”

“Mr. Gould is in the library most of the day.”

“I saw them walking in the park twice,” Cynthia piped up. “I saw her taking his arm.”

“Enough,” Mrs. Carlisle reprimanded.

“Did you now,” Harrison replied.

He said nothing else; he sat straight-backed, the fingers of one hand slowly drumming the table.

* * *

T
he heat of the day had not seemed to ebb; John sat in his room and counted the lazy minutes until dinner. In his hand he held the letter he’d received from Pierpont Morgan’s household. Egypt, he had been told, was not a great place to be; travel was difficult. The British—who puffed about over there as if they owned the place—had become fractious with permits. Houses in Cairo had been deserted for weeks; a cold wind of unease was blowing.

He sat with his elbows on the windowsill and looked out into the canopy of the beech trees, planning where he could go. He could go overland through Switzerland, or he could try Rome, or he could go south to Spain. Someone in New York had told him that Spain and Morocco were worth seeing, and they were outside the fire burning in Europe, at least at the moment. There were no Prussians marching up and down in Cordoba or Andalusia. Perhaps he would go there; he could ride in the mountains. He could stay somewhere different from Rutherford, somewhere simple and whitewashed and remote. And drink a lot of wine. And go home from Lisbon.

And go home.

He knew in his heart that he didn’t want to do that, however. What he wanted more than anything else was to stay here and watch Octavia Cavendish stirring the sugar in her coffee. He took his elbows down from the windowsill, brushing the sleeves of his evening jacket and shaking his head at himself.

She was already in the sitting room, waiting for dinner when he
came down. She stood with one hand on the lid of the piano, a book in her hand; as he came in, she looked up. She was next to one of the lamps, and she wore a red dress—the deepest, most vibrant scarlet.

“What are you reading?” he asked her.

“Someone called…” She checked the cover of the book. “Stein.”

“Gertrude Stein?”

“You sound shocked.”

“I’m shocked it’s found its way to Yorkshire.”

She smiled, putting it down. “You think we’re all cavemen here, I suppose. Compared to New York.”

“Not at all,” he told her. “Cavemen? At Rutherford? Hardly. But Stein.”

“Rooms and objects…it’s a very curious work.”

“But you like it?”

“I like that a woman has written it.”

They stood companionably by the window and looked at the evening light; the gardens were so still, so perfectly arranged that he felt even to speak would be to destroy the heavenly illusion.

Next to him, Octavia was grateful for his silence. She had been afraid that he would somehow refer to that morning and cause her embarrassment. She stole a look at his profile: the rather aquiline nose, the fine features, the shock of thick blond hair. John sensed her gaze and turned his head. His eyes were a pleasing and unusual color, she realized: hazel, more green than blue. They had an interesting expression. His reputation was for charm, but he was not charming in the empty way she had expected. Those eyes, like the rest of his face, showed both kindliness and curiosity; they were aspects she had rarely seen in a man. He smiled at her now, and a thrill of pleasure ran through her; his look was frankly disarming. She held his gaze for a long moment.

Behind them, Bradfield announced dinner, and she looked away from John, inexplicably flustered.

They went into the dining room. Their places had been laid at either end of the table, and it was like calling down a corridor to talk to each other. At the end of the main course, John took up his plate and cutlery and walked down and sat within a few feet of her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But it isn’t charming to shout. I apologize to you, Bradfield.”

He had turned to address the butler. Bradfield bowed stiffly. The dessert was served. Outside, the summer evening had darkened, but the heat remained. The flames of the candles flickered in the faint breeze.

“Lord Cavendish is home tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes, in the afternoon.”

“I must leave soon,” he said. “I don’t want to be in the way of the family.”

To her own surprise, Octavia felt an acute and sudden rush of disappointment; she looked up from her meal. “Leaving?” she asked. “For where?”

“I can’t decide.”

She felt hurt, almost a childlike hurt; it surprised her with its intensity, this unbidden feeling. She wanted to keep him here, at this table. And in the same moment, she knew she couldn’t say what she wanted. “I’m sure William would like to see you,” she replied. “He would be dismayed that you had come and gone without talking to you.” It was mere bluster; she had no idea whether William would care to see Gould or not.

“Yes, of course,” John was politely replying. “I must thank him for his hospitality.”

“We have a summer festival at the end of the month,” she told him. “You ought to see that. It’s the…well, it is a kind of harvest
festival, but Rutherford has always had the party before shooting begins. It’s…You would like it—” It sounded like a plea; she heard it in her own tone, and abruptly stopped.

They sat in silence. Her gaze darted from the table to the windows as she fanned herself with the napkin. “I want to go into the garden,” she said. She stood up; Bradfield opened the doors. They walked down to the morning room, where the French windows had already been closed. There was a comical crossover of servants as the footmen tripped over themselves to reopen them. As they stepped out onto the terrace, the heat from the stones was reflected back at them. She waved Bradfield away. “We shall walk a little way, there’s nothing we need,” she told him. Bradfield retreated into the house.

They went as far as the steps at the front of the house, and then back again through the garden. It was almost fully dark now, and John could see her more as a glimmer of soft fabric and an approximation of shoulders, neck, and half-averted face in the shadows.

She was intensely aware of him at her side, but did not look at him as she asked, “Do you think I’m an exile here?”

“An exile?”

“I mean from the world. From places that you travel to, from the people you know. From the Steins of the modern world.”

“Not at all. You know a great many people. You have traveled. And Rutherford is a world in itself.”

“Not such a great one,” she said, “compared to some. There are larger houses and greater titles. We’re not so impressive.”

“I’ll beg to differ on that one.”

“It’s true. You must know it. You’ve seen Wentworth Woodhouse?”

Wentworth Woodhouse was forty miles away. “Yes, I’ve seen it,” he said.

“It has sixty indoor servants. The estate outdoors has more than three hundred staff.”

“And they have a tiger.”

She turned to him. “I beg your pardon?”

“A tiger. A boy that rides on the coach in livery. Or they did. I don’t know if he’s still there now. They must have an Armitage over there who’s complaining at the coach houses being turned into motor garages. Perhaps the tiger has become a mechanic.”

They had gone into a tiny walled part of the terrace, where an elongated pool was surrounded by an Italianate veranda. She sat down there, gazing at the water. He hovered nearby; there was barely room for two on the seat.