Until the Colours Fade (6 page)

‘All gone to earth I’d say, George. Too bad.’

‘Wouldn’t care to be in Master Humphrey’s boots,’ chuckled George, evidently intent on humouring Goodchild.

‘You might find them a trifle small,’ muttered the peer.

George laughed, delighted to have been answered with a joke.

‘So they would be, so they would. He’ll need even smaller ones when you’ve cut him down to size. No more top-boots, eh?
Half-boots
for Master Humphrey now.’

‘Surprised you’re not with Miss Crawford, George,’ replied Goodchild, certain this was the best way to be rid of him.

‘I say, where?’

‘With the carriages.’

Goodchild pointed with his whip and watched with
satisfaction
as George raised his hat and turned his horse. In fact he had not seen Catherine Crawford. He even felt a little guilt as George went off hopefully. The man was not the fool he
sometimes
seemed to be. Nervousness did strange things to people. Must watch my own nerves, he thought, as he rode on. Helen would be sure to keep hers.

*

After dressing, on the morning of the meet, Charles Crawford had been disturbed to learn that a tin-lined chest and
portmanteau
belonging to his brother had been delivered an hour earlier. He had anticipated Magnus’s arrival some time during the week and so had not been altogether taken by surprise; but the fact that Magnus, after so long an absence, had chosen to send on his luggage, while himself remaining in Rigton Bridge, had struck Charles, who knew nothing of the riot, as thoughtless and
eccentric
behaviour. His relations with his younger brother had been indifferent since adolescence, but Charles still felt insulted and annoyed.

For this reason he had decided against abandoning his
previous
intention of riding to Hanley Park during the morning. Charles’s timing of this visit, to coincide with the hunt, was
deliberate
, since he wished to see Helen Goodchild alone, and knew his chances would be best when both her husband and her son were riding to hounds.

Having left his horse at the stables, Charles did not make straight for the portico but instead walked round to a small
opening
in the beech hedge screening the formal gardens to the west of the house and slipped through. His object was not to enter the house undetected but to gain more time in which to think about what he would say to Lady Goodchild. The ideal place for doing so unobserved was the area within the box hedges, which
encircled
the central lily pond.

Thirteen years before, when Helen had married Lord
Good-child
, Charles Crawford had not been conspicuous among those offering their congratulations and few people had been
surprised
. Charles’s obsessive desire to marry Helen had been no secret in the neighbourhood. As Sir James Crawford’s
god-daughter
, Helen had regularly come to stay with the family during childhood, and Charles’s love had dated from that time. Perhaps it had been the knowledge that he was his father’s favourite that had led Charles to believe that no ambition of his could remain ungratified, if pursued with the ruthless and
egotistical
single-mindedness for which he so much prided himself. In any case Goodchild’s success with Helen and his own failure had been a blow from which he had never fully recovered. He would have been a better loser if he had been able to believe that Helen had chosen his rival because a rich peer was a better catch than a baronet’s heir, or because Goodchild had been superior to him in worthiness of character, dedication to duty, or in other solidly conventional ways; but his sense of humiliation had been the greater for his conviction that Goodchild had succeeded
precisely
because he had been less earnest and dedicated, gifted only with a superficial charm and reckless gaiety.

Twice during the decade following his rejection, Charles had come close to marrying others, but a lack of enthusiasm at a
critical
time had lost him his first choice, and the second had not been prepared to come out to Zanzibar when he had been serving as First Lieutenant in a frigate on the East African Station. After
that, in emulation of his father – by then an admiral – Charles had replaced love with duty and had lavished the major part of his affections on the navy; but even then, always at the back of his mind, had been the thought, never much more than a wishful dream, that one day Helen and Goodchild might separate.

The past three months had been the only prolonged period, since the start of his naval career, in which Charles had been without a ship, and during this time what had hitherto seemed a remote and foolish hope had come to look more substantial. A far less observant man than Charles, who missed little, would have noted the scarcely veiled hostility between Lord and Lady
Goodchild
on the few occasions on which they appeared together away from Hanley Park. Having made various clandestine inquiries, Charles had decided that Helen might very well wish to separate. If she did, Charles was confident that he could suggest a way in which she would be able to get a reasonable settlement, without the scandal and indignity of a divorce by private Act of
Parliament
– for which, in any case, there were probably insufficient grounds. It was to acquaint Helen with his plan that Charles had come to Hanley Park. His continuing doubts, about how best to broach so delicate a matter, accounted for his last-minute delay in the garden.

Of course, even if Helen agreed to follow his advice, Charles knew that he might still not win her for himself, but he was equally well aware that, if he did nothing, he would also achieve nothing. Gratitude and dependence were supposed to be reliable keys to the heart and he had resolved to see if he could make them fit.

At intervals along the box hedge statues had been placed: a marble faun with a missing arm, a moss-eaten Cupid leaning drunkenly towards a similarly eroded Psyche, as if yearning for a never-to-be-consummated kiss. Having little time for symbolism or allegory, Charles saw no ironic comment on his own mission. In the middle of the pond, a statue of a bearded triton released a fitful trickle of water from the lip of a large stone vase, clutched under a green and slimy arm. Charles stepped forward and looked down at his reflection in the murky water. A face
reddened
by his years at sea and coarser-featured than his brother’s. The same piercing grey-blue eyes of all the Crawford family, and hair as thick as Magnus’s but fairer; fairer too were his pale, almost white, eyebrows and eyelashes. Tall and
broad-shouldered
, Charles looked as formidable as he liked to be thought. His one feeling of physical inadequacy was caused by
two missing fingers on his left hand – these had been crushed in an accident at sea; and although he had kept his flattened signet ring as a memento, he was still morbidly sensitive about the
disfigurement.

His thoughts finally in order, Charles turned and walked
purposefully
away from the pond and emerged from the shelter of the hedge on the open lawn in front of the west wing. He was wondering whether the garden door would be locked, when he caught sight of Helen through a window. She was standing
behind
a young man sitting on a chair, and was looking at some sort of paper he was holding up for her. A moment later the man got up and Helen laughed over something he had said. Charles’s view was not improved by reflections of the sky in the panes of glass, but, moving closer, he was surprised to see that Lady Goodchild’s companion was an artist who had been pointed out to him at Braithwaite’s house a week before. While Charles did not for a moment suppose that her ladyship could be attracted to a man of Strickland’s class and profession, he felt irritated to find him at Hanley Park, especially on this particular morning; and momentarily forgetting that she owed her rank to her
neglectful
husband, he was indignant that Helen should lower
herself
, by allowing an artist to see that she found him amusing. But then Helen had never been conventional, as the identities of many of those permitted to dine at her table in London had already amply proved. It was in spite of such things that Charles cared deeply for her.

Finding the garden door locked, he had to retrace his steps to the beech hedge and go in at the main hall.

Helen came towards Charles as soon as he had been
announced
.

‘An unexpected pleasure, Charles. I believe you have not met Mr Strickland. Captain Crawford, permit me to introduce Mr Strickland.’

Charles nodded briskly to Tom and put down his hat and cane on a small table by the door, making it evident, Tom thought, that he was too insignificant to be accorded the privilege of
shaking
hands. In fact he had seen Crawford at a large reception given by Joseph Braithwaite but had not been told his name. Now he found it incredible to discover that this man, with his awkward movements and set face, was the brother of the poised and graceful traveller he had met so recently on the station road. Tom saw Crawford murmur something to Lady Goodchild, who nodded and then turned to him apologetically:

‘Mr Strickland, I fear you must excuse me for a moment.’

Tom thought she looked irritated as she led Charles from the room, but though he would have liked to have continued
sketching
her, he was too happy to feel any serious disappointment. After seeing two rough sketches, Lady Goodchild had agreed to sit for her portrait.

Helen ushered Charles along a covered colonnade until they reached the tall glass doors of the conservatory. She motioned to him to be seated on an ornate white iron seat but remained
standing
herself. He looked at her against the lush and improbable background of broad leaves and serrated fronds. Everything about her appearance pleased him: her complexion, her hair, the way her clothes always emphasised the perfection of her figure. She was waiting for him to speak. Seeing that the doors were still open, he got up and closed them.

‘Helen, forgive me for intruding into what is clearly none of my business, but, as an old friend, perhaps you will bear with me. I know you will think me absurd for asking this, but the question has some bearing on another matter of great importance.’ He paused awkwardly, covering his embarrassment by resuming his seat. ‘Has your husband employed any new male servants in recent months?’

She frowned and shook her head, as though trying to clear it.

‘Am I to understand, Charles, that you have come to talk about our servants?’

‘Believe me, Helen, the subject is serious enough,’ he replied, wounded by her incredulity.

She gave him a resigned smile, which reminded him of a patient governess with an obtuse pupil, and sat down next to him.

‘Since the matter is obviously of such interest to you – Harry does not interview servants. Our steward employs male staff; the housekeeper takes on the maids, except those who wait on me – naturally I interview them.’ She smiled. ‘I had almost forgotten to say that cook chooses her kitchen maids.’

‘But there have been new servants engaged recently?’ he asked, persevering in spite of her ironic tone.

‘They come and go,’ she replied with obvious impatience. ‘Ought I to be counting spoons and forks?’

‘Have any new servants been seen skulking around doors?’

Helen threw up her hands in amazement.

‘Heavens above, Charles, servants have always listened at doors and always will. Imagine how dull they would be without
that amusement.’ She paused and stared at him with a directness that made him lower his eyes. ‘Spare me your insinuations, Charles, and speak plainly. You think Harry is having me spied upon. Is that not so?’

The sudden change from superior amusement to indignation and deadly earnestness shook Charles.

‘I have no positive proof,’ he murmured, noticing that she was blushing.

‘But you must think he has good reason for suspicion.
Otherwise
why should you wish to warn me?’

Charles could feel his heart thumping and an unpleasant tightness in his throat. He had hoped to manage matters more smoothly.

‘Suspect you of anything, Helen? Nothing could be further from my mind. You ask me to be plain with you and I will try, although I confess to speak of such matters pains me beyond words.’ He paused and looked down at the tessellated floor of the conservatory. When he continued it was rapidly, as though he were eager to be done with what he had to say. ‘Lord Goodchild is at present embarrassed by the possibility of an action being brought against him by a Manchester physician.’

Charles saw her smoothing her dress nervously and then gaze at him as if uncertain that she had heard him aright; then,
recovering
herself, she asked in a level voice:

‘May I ask the nature of this action?’

‘Crim con,’ he replied, with burning cheeks.

She stared at him with sudden anger.

‘Come, Charles, our grandmothers used that term. May we not say adultery? This man’s wife is Harry’s mistress, I suppose?’ He nodded. ‘And Harry is likely to be cited in divorce
proceedings
brought against her by her husband? Have I understood you?’

‘You take this calmly, Helen,’ he replied with open
admiration
.

‘Was it not bound to happen sooner or later?’

‘Perhaps.’ He paused and groaned inwardly at how very
differently
he had envisaged her reacting. He had imagined tears and his comforting arm on her shoulder. ‘Matters are not quite as straightforward as I may have led you to believe,’ he went on. ‘Lord Goodchild will do all he can to stop the proceedings; he has many reasons for wishing to do so.’

‘Mr Braithwaite would not approve, I daresay,’ said Helen with a bitter smile.

‘Harry also has ambitions to be appointed general for the
district
when Delamere goes. A scandal would do little for his chances. Obviously he will bribe the doctor to prevent the action.’