Authors: Elizabeth Cooke
“I told him he was not entitled to it.”
“And yet he tried.”
“Yes…he tried.”
Harry let out a breath of exasperation. “He learned it from you,” he said. “Deception. Envy.”
“Envy of a family?” she said quietly. “Of being an accepted son? Yes, perhaps. Perhaps he had always wanted that.”
“And came to me to find it, when he could find it nowhere else?” William asked.
She shrugged listlessly. “To be part of that…to have what he had never had, what he thinks was denied me? It is possible. These things go deep.” It was said with tragic self-pity.
William leaned across the table and touched Helene’s arm. “Helene,” he said, “he made Louisa believe he would marry her. But while knowing that she was not related to him?”
“He knew. But he said nothing about her to me.”
“He did not say he had proposed to her?”
“It’s preposterous. He would not do such a thing.”
“He has done it!”
“I don’t believe it. He is incapable of it.”
William got up and turned on his heel, looking about the small room as if he were trying to find something to hit in frustration. He calmed himself, and turned back to her. “He has done it,” he repeated. “She’s in Paris somewhere with him.”
“No,” Helene insisted.
“How can you be so sure?” Harry demanded.
“Because…” She folded her hands very carefully together in her lap. “He does not like women…in that way.”
The two men stared at each other.
“Helene,” William said, “we have every reason to think that he has done this. Please tell us where he is.” She glanced up at him, and a ghost of the old coquettishness came to her face. Looking down at her, William had every confidence that her present crisis
would pass. There would be some other patron; Helene could not be extinguished, not even by war. She would rise again, and at some point in the future, traveling in Paris or London—if either city could survive—he would see her again, dressed in high fashion, on some other man’s arm, as if war and deprivation and disappointment could never touch her.
“He was called to Gare de l’Est,” she murmured. “At seven o’clock. But you will not find him. The trains were for eight. He will have gone.”
Defeated, they turned to go. Harry did not look back and was at the street door in an instant, but William turned again halfway along the corridor. He looked back at the woman he had known for so long. “Helene,” he said, “have you seen Louisa at all? Do you know if she was with him, in truth?”
“She was not with him,” Helene replied. “He would have told me. I know my son.”
“None of us truly know our children,” William replied.
Her answering gaze was as cold as the grave. “You are wrong,” she said. “Charles may occasionally act in a way I have not foreseen. But in the end, my son’s heart and soul belong to me.”
They left her, shutting the door firmly behind them.
* * *
I
n Rutherford, the morning was deathly still. Belowstairs, the servants were gathered at breakfast with all the solemnity of a funeral.
“It’ll break up the house,” Harrison was saying.
“It will not,” Mrs. Carlisle replied testily. “His lordship lived here before by himself. He can do it again. But it’s not going to come to that. This is something and nothing, this American.”
“There’ll be no breakup,” Nash agreed. “Her ladyship won’t leave. Not this place. Not here.”
“She’s sitting in his lordship’s library, by the telephone,” Mary said. “She came down just after I swept the room.”
“It’s because of Miss Louisa.”
“What is it she’s done?” Mary ventured.
“Never mind,” Nash told her.
Harrison laughed to himself, and was rewarded with a scathing look by the cook. “If Mr. Bradfield hears any of you, there’ll be merry hell to pay. So eat, and don’t speak,” she told them.
Harrison flung down his knife. “I’m tired of being told to keep quiet,” he said. “Sitting here like scared cats. Can’t say this, can’t do that. I’m going to the Border Regiment when war’s declared. I’m going to my brother in Carlisle and we’ll join together.”
“Is it really war?” Cynthia asked, trembling. “Where’s it come from? Why are we fighting?”
“We’re not fighting yet,” Mary reassured her.
“But we will,” Harrison said. “And do you know what? It’ll be a jaunt in France. Give me that any day. We’ll chase ’em off by Christmas, and I want some of it. Better than pressing tailcoats and carrying plates.”
The door opened. Bradfield stood on the threshold; he was holding a newspaper in his hand. He walked around the side of the table and sat down heavily at its head in the Windsor chair reserved for him. “You’d desert us?” he asked Harrison. “That is a comfort to us all, I’m sure.”
Harrison smiled. “I’ll be a war hero, Mr. Bradfield. I’ll plug a hole in the Kaiser for you.”
Mrs. Carlisle gave him a withering look, and leaned forward to point at the newspaper. “What does it say, Mr. Bradfield?”
He spread it out flat on the tabletop. “The Belgians have refused the Germans free passage. The editorial claims that Germany will invade the Low Countries this morning. If they do that…” He
paused and read from the newspaper. “‘It is the duty of every British subject to defend the sovereign rights of Belgium and our allies.’”
“I told you. It’s war,” Harrison said. “It’s war out there, and it’s war in here.” He paused. “Wonder if Mr. Gould will want a valet when they set up house together? I fancy America after the war’s over.”
“Wash out your mouth!” Mrs. Carlisle exclaimed. “Ungodly talk!”
“Now you’re sounding like Mrs. Jocelyn.” And Harrison began to laugh.
Bradfield struck the table with his fist, and the staff turned as one to stare at him; he was a man never known to show aggression of any kind. Cynthia began to whimper; under the table Mary pinched her leg. “Hush,” she whispered.
“Mrs. Jocelyn is unwell,” Bradfield intoned, his voice booming. “Respect will be shown.” He looked at Harrison. “Do you hear me?”
“I’m not disrespectful, sir,” Harrison countered. But there was a look of challenge in his eye. Bradfield was looking down a table where every face was unsettled; the old man shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Nash is right. Her ladyship won’t leave,” Mrs. Carlisle said firmly. “And I won’t hear anything to the contrary in my kitchen.”
“Why not?” Harrison asked. His voice was even, reasonable; he felt Bradfield’s thunderous look on him, but continued all the same. “A handsome man with a fortune. What woman wouldn’t want him? And there’s more reason than just Mr. Gould. She’ll take the children to America because America isn’t at war, and isn’t likely to be. She’d be protecting them, that’s what. Wouldn’t you, wouldn’t any mother, given half a chance?” A murmur, a sense of uncertainty, rippled round the table. “Read out the rest of it, Mr. Bradfield sir, if you please. For the ladies.” Harrison crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Read out the part that says America will declare neutrality as soon as we declare war.”
Silence fell on the room. They finished their meal, eyes down, not meeting one another’s glances.
When it was over, Nash got up and went out into the corridor and walked towards the outer door. When he got to the yard he stood taking in great gulps of the morning air, looking up at the vast roof of Rutherford: at its pretty lines of Tudor chimneys that reminded him of barley sugarcanes, at the dappled color of the brick, at the line upon line of windows all catching the morning light. He felt a tug on his sleeve.
He looked down at Mary beside him. “Will you fight?” she asked. “Will you go, like Harrison?”
“I’ll do my duty.”
“And what is that?” she asked. “Dying for them? Dying for this?”
“Yes,” he said. “If need be. For them. And for this.”
* * *
O
ctavia had been sitting in William’s library for more than two hours. It was very unlikely that the telephone would ring if William and Harry were in France, but all the same the faint possibility kept her within sight of the receiver on his desk. Last night she had spoken again to the de Rays, and heard only that William had sent a note from Folkestone that they were about to catch the ferry to cross the Channel. Since then, there had been nothing at all, except the rumors that France was in an uproar.
John had gone out first thing that morning to Castle Howard; he could not, he told her, miss the opportunity to see Vanbrugh’s great house. She had at first begged him not to go—it was not open to the public, and she did not want him to be invited in and reveal that he had been staying all summer at Rutherford. There would be comment already locally about his prolonged visit, she knew, but it was unwise to fan the flames farther afield. She dreaded their
relationship becoming common knowledge before it was settled, and until they were ready to go, and she thought that John might show his feelings in his face if he were engaged in conversation. He was alight in every fiber of his being—anyone could see that—and desperate to take her away. But for her part, she felt rather like a child who was swept along on some dreadful and thrilling dare, and whose fingers clung to the nearest support, betraying her misgivings.
“I shall stay today if you would rather,” he had offered earlier.
“No…go. It would be pointless for us both to wait by the telephone.”
“You’ll be all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
He had gone, swearing that he would not breathe a word of who he was. “I’ll walk in Ray Wood, at least; I hear it’s a fine plantation. And then spend the afternoon in York,” he had told her. “I’ve not seen it yet. I want to be able to say that I have when we’re back in the States.”
In truth, now she was glad that she was alone; she could not have borne to see John’s impatience waiting for news of Louisa. John always wanted things settled at once—he was used to simply having his way, and making sudden decisions; in that, he was so different from William’s steady, obdurate pace. But patience—yes, exactly that—William’s steadiness and patience were what was needed now. Patience to find Louisa. Patience and steadiness to bring her back.
She sat staring out into the orangerie and, past that, onto the terrace. She felt curiously empty and dislocated from reality. In the music room, far down the great hall, she could hear Charlotte practicing on the piano. She strained to listen; Charlotte had every ounce of William’s calm—nothing stirred her resolve. Everyone always took to Louisa—of course they did; she was so pretty, so
bright. But perhaps it was Charlotte who, in the future, would prove to be the real treasure. And at the thought of Louisa, Octavia’s stomach rolled. She felt momentarily sick; she knew that she ought to have taken breakfast that morning, or at least tried to eat something. But she could not eat, and she had barely slept. Louisa must come back.
She must come back.
That was all that was in her mind, the only thought that she could keep in her consciousness for more than a few seconds at a time.
She glanced again at the windows of the orangerie. The weather had taken a turn for the worse; a strong wind was blowing and the sky threatened rain; far down the lawns on this north side she could see white ripples on the lake. She leaned her chin on her hand. They had once had a small boat, she and William, that they took out there on the glassy water. They had once had a party when lanterns were sent out in little paper yachts onto the lake. It had been a great success, like so many picnics and parties here. And they had once…but she abruptly closed her eyes. It was no use thinking of what had once been. It was all over. She had been living in a locked cage for so long that she had failed to see the bars that enclosed her. Now the door was flung open. She had only to step outside.
She stood up and began to pace the room, trailing her hand along the spines of the books. The ones that William kept in here were more personal, not the great gilt-bound volumes of the next room. He kept his accounts here in little leather notebooks, just as his father and grandfather had done. She opened one now, seeing his modesty and care in every line: repairs to the house, bills for dinners while he was traveling, reminders about meetings.
She noticed that, tucked in the back, was a well-worn piece of paper, sepia at the edges with age. Carefully, she opened it, and found that it was a receipt for a brass-bound collar that he had had made for a mastiff, a great fawn-colored dog that had been his
constant companion when he and Octavia had first been married. He had adored that dog, she thought, but it had quietly lain down and died one morning while William had been walking the estate. Missing it, William had retraced his steps and found his faithful hound stretched out beneath one of the beech trees. He had even tried to carry it back to the house, until Armitage had seen him, and taken the burden from him. Octavia shook her head sadly now at the memory. And here was the receipt, kept safe. On the outside, a much younger William had written,
Collar for Bridgetown
. All the dogs at that time had been named for part of the Beckforths’ Caribbean estates. Sighing softly, she closed the notebook and replaced it, and looked at his desk.
There was the large silver inkwell and stand that had been given to him by his colleagues when he retired from Parliament. There was the daguerreotype of his parents. On the desk blotter, his writing papers were neatly arranged. She touched each one of them warily, and then picked up the fountain pen. He had sat here before she came; he would sit here after she had gone, trying to make sense of it, no doubt. Trying in vain to arrange his life as tidily as the inkwell and the blotter and the lamp and the daguerreotype. She thought of his hands on the long polished mahogany surface; the desk had been made from wood brought back from India four generations ago. Everything in this room—like all the other rooms—had a story, a history. And no doubt in the years to come, her name would be expunged from Rutherford’s life. She would be the black shadow in the family, the empty space. No one would mention her name; the Singer Sargent portrait would be taken down from the stairs.
Biting her lip, Octavia sat down in William’s chair and opened the drawer of the desk. She was, perhaps, looking for something of him, or about him, to take with her, but she was surprised instead
to see a large green leather ledger. Frowning slightly, she took it out and opened it.