The Hawthorne Heritage Read online

  Even the thought of the sprigged muslin could not greatly console her; though by the time they had climbed the stairs to the nursery door one small bright thought had afforded her at least a gleam of satisfaction. The interview may have ended in something of a disaster: but at least this time no one could say it had been her fault.

  * * *

  At first it seemed that Jessica’s worst fears might be realized – for three long weeks nothing happened, and she languished, convinced that her mother’s half-made promise had been utterly forgotten. A week after the Scotchman’s visit Jessica’s parents, accompanied by Caroline, went to stay with friends in London, where the Season was in full swing. With John away at school this left Giles as the only other member of the family in residence, and the house was oppressively dull. Mrs Morton the housekeeper took the opportunity to clean the place from cellar to attic, and New Hall became a scurrying ant heap of servants with mops and buckets, scrubbing brushes and polishing cloths. Maria Hawthorne’s luncheons and dinners, the morning calls and the afternoon carriage rides, all ceased when the mistress of the house was away. The weather too was dreary, cold and wet with barely a day without driving rain, and Jessica – worst of punishments! – was confined indoors. Each morning she watched enviously as her brother rode out whatever the weather on the business of the estate, and wished more than once that she had been on the kind of terms with him that might have enabled her to beg him occasionally to take her with him. Apart from those glimpses she rarely saw him; but once, surprisingly late at night, she was woken by his return. Hearing the commotion of a hard-ridden horse on the drive she crept from her bed and peeped from the window. Lucy snored, undisturbed. Below, servants hurried, cressets and torches hastily lit. Uncharacteristically clumsy, Giles swung from the saddle, abandoning Belle to a manservant. He stood for a moment, unsteady on his feet, before weaving his way up the steps to the door, brushing roughly aside a half-dressed footman’s attempt to aid him. Jessica stared, wide-eyed and fascinated. Drunkenness was not countenanced at New Hall; but she had once seen one of the farm boys on Plough Monday down four pints of strong ale in quick succession and then try to walk a straight line. No doubt about it – Giles was managing no better than had that inebriated lad.

  A few days later her parents and Caroline returned, and once again her nerves were strung, waiting for the summons that she feared would not anrive. Almost it had been better, she decided, when they had been away and there had been no chance of its coming. She had not and still did not say a word to MacKenzie, for fear of her scoffing.

  Lucy it was who brought the news first, long before the official summons, whispering excitedly behind her hand, one eye on the door. ‘Ooh, Miss Jessie – ’tis said you’re to eat with the family tomorrow—’

  ‘Who says? How do you know?’ Jessica grabbed her arm.

  ‘Ouch! Tha’ss not very nice, Miss Jess! Now you’re hurting me—!’ The aggrieved Lucy pulled away from her.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry! But – please—! Tell me how you heard?’

  ‘Why down in the kitchen. An extra place to be laid tomorrow, they said. For the young mistress. Tha’ss what they said.’

  Jessica drew away from her. The young mistress. She lifted her head. ‘Thank you, Lucy.’

  That evening, before going to bed, she stood for a moment before the mirror, surveying with an earnest frown her slight, nightgowned figure with its mass of freshly-brushed mousey hair. No doubt about it, her sister was the beauty of the family and had no rival here. But – if her hair were up so – she lifted her hair that still crackled from the brush and piled it untidily on her head—

  ‘Miss Jessie! Whatever are you up to now? Into bed with you before you catch your death!’ Lucy bustled in with a steaming cup of hot milk. Jessica turned from the mirror and took a single flying leap into bed. Lucy, tutting, fussed around her, tucking in the bedclothes, plumping the pillows, picking up the all-but-dismembered doll that had been Jessica’s constant bed-time companion since babyhood and which had been flung onto the floor by her owner’s over-energetic bound onto the bed. ‘Poor Betsy-doll! Just look at her—!’ She held out the doll.

  Jessica lifted her hand, hesitated, and then shook her head. ‘Put her on the shelf, Lucy. I really am too old for dolls now.’

  With Lucy snoring on her pallet beyond the open door and the nightlight flickering comfortingly upon the ceiling she envisaged her triumph:

  ‘Why Jessica, my dear,’ her handsome father said admiringly, ‘how very pretty you look! And how much you’ve grown! See, Maria, our daughter is quite the little lady—’

  * * *

  ‘Really, Jessica,’ her father said, only faintly admiring, ‘I truly don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a little person eat so much. Has Cook stopped feeding the nursery?’

  Jessica blushed to the roots of her hair and almost dropped the silver fork she was awkwardly holding. Then violently, she shook her head at the laden platter that an attentive footman was offering and from which she had fully intended to help herself to a third portion of sweet-sauced pudding. Beside her Caroline pecked like a bird. Giles, sitting opposite, had greeted her civilly enough but after that had not addressed her at all. The whole conversation, indeed, had been about the London visit and to her own disgust Jessica had been too overawed to do anything but listen. And eat. Her father’s remark had been the first directly addressed to her.

  ‘The fork in the other hand, if you please, Jessica,’ her mother said, quietly, ‘and sit up straight, there’s a good child.’

  Jessica transferred the fork and then put it down with a great clatter upon the table. She straightened her back like a guardsman’s, and fortunately did not see her father’s hidden smile. A few moments later her mother folded her napkin and stood. ‘Caroline – Jessica – we’ll take tea in the drawing room and leave your father and brother to talk their business.’ Gracefully erect she swept from the room. Caroline, smiling at the two men, followed, no less collected. Jessica, as she slid from her chair, knocked the wretched fork onto the floor and then clashed with the footman who stood behind her as they both bent to retrieve it.

  ‘Leave it and run along, my dear.’ Her father’s smile, though a shade impatient, was by no means unkind. He was a tall, well-made man, broad-shouldered and long-boned. The red- gold hair had silvered a little at the temples and cheeks of his narrow, angular face, but still the resemblance to dead Edward was remarkable. Not for the first time Jessica found herself wondering as she trailed after her mother and sister how it was that only she of all the family seemed to have missed out entirely on her parents’ striking looks. Even John, if not as handsome as Giles or as Edward had been, had inherited something of the look of his father.

  ‘—dancing lessons,’ her mother said.

  She started from her reverie. ‘I beg your pardon, Mama?’

  ‘I said I have arranged for you to take dancing lessons,’ Maria repeated, and shook her head a little, despairing. ‘Though how successful they’ll be I have my doubts. Lift your head, my dear. And do try to walk more like a young lady and less like a stable lad—’

  * * *

  Spring came at last, and with it in the towns and cities of industrial England came the first stirrings of Luddite rebellion. In the country, however, it brought as always the fresh green of bud and leaf, the busy excitement of nesting birds. Easter Day was glorious, a promisingly bright and windy day, exhilarating and aglow with the dancing flowers of spring. Jessica attended church with her family and was then allowed to join the children of the servants and of the village in their hunt for the painted eggs that had been hidden all over the house. A few days later Robert came home, his studies and his Cathedral duties finished now for four glorious months.

  ‘Oh, Lord, you’re so pale! I hope you haven’t been ill again? Oh, Robert – it’s been so deadly dull without you!’ Jessica and Bran danced about him as they walked through the spring-bright woodlands. ‘You’ll come riding with me tomorrow, won’t yo
u? I have a new pony – an absolute darling! You can ride Spot if you like –I know he’s your favourite – and, Robert, I’ve started dancing lessons, and they’re really quite fun – and I take lunch three times a week with Mama and Papa in the dining room – and oh, I’ve so much to tell you! Still – there’s all summer to tell it, isn’t there?’ Without waiting for his reply she darted off, skirts lifted, Bran bounding by her side. ‘Come and see the bluebell glade! They’re growing already – they’re going to look perfectly lovely in just a couple of weeks—!’

  It took only a week or so for her to realize that Robert had changed, but a little longer than that for her to fathom exactly in what way he was different. Certainly in the few months he had been away he had altered physically, the planes of his face firmer, the softness of boyhood almost gone. But the change went deeper than that and it worried and upset her.

  ‘You’re always going off on your own,’ she complained one day, ‘and even when you’re here I sometimes think you’d rather not be. You’re in a kind of dream half the time. What’s the matter?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  Jessica put an arm about Bran and made a great play of stroking and pulling his ears. ‘Don’t you like us any more?’

  ‘Oh, silly goose, of course I do! It’s just that—’ He stopped.

  She turned swiftly, her face accusing. ‘Just what?’

  ‘Just – well, Jessica, you surely must see? I’m – we’re – growing up. We can’t just keep on doing the same things for ever, you know. We aren’t children any more.’

  ‘Well, I know that. But—’ For a moment she looked lost and anxious, a child if there ever had been one, ‘—that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends any more, does it?’

  He caught her hand. ‘Of course not! We’ll be friends for ever and ever. You know that.’

  ‘You promise? You swear?’

  He spat on his finger, slid it across his throat. ‘I promise! I swear! Robert FitzBolton and Jessica Hawthorne will be friends for ever and ever!’

  She smiled at that, relieved if not altogether convinced. ‘Do you want to come and help me groom Spot and Dancer? You don’t have to do anything,’ she added hastily, eyeing his immaculate clothes and fastidiously clean hands. ‘Just talk to me while I do it.’

  He came to his feet neatly. ‘What do you have stable lads for?’

  She grinned. ‘Once a week I’m allowed to do it myself.’

  He pulled a disbelieving face. ‘A treat?’

  She wrinkled her nose at him, daring him to laugh. ‘Yes. A treat.’

  So she accepted his explanation and his assurances, and tried not to bring up the subject again, knowing it might irritate him. He was fourteen – almost a man – and a large part of his life was now lived away from Melbury and from her. She supposed he was right when he spoke of the inevitability of change. But still it saddened her.

  ‘You don’t seem to see so much of your friend Robert any more, do you?’ Caroline asked idly one day. It was late April, a chill lingered in the air, but the sun shone high and bright in the sky in which white clouds flew like great birds. She and Jessica were walking in the park, well wrapped against the April breeze. They had been, at their mother’s behest, to visit Old Marjorie, who lived alone in a cottage on the edge of the estate. Caroline swung the basket, empty now, in which they had carried eggs and butter to the ailing old herb-woman.

  Jessica shrugged.

  Caroline smiled, a little slyly. ‘I saw him the other day. When I was visiting with Clara.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He mooned about the place like a wraith. Didn’t hear a word that was spoken to him. And didn’t touch his tea and scones.’ She turned sparkling, mischievous eyes upon her small sister. ‘Clara declared him quite a nuisance. If you ask me—’ she swung the basket, watching Jessica, ‘I’d say he was in love.’

  ‘What?’ Jessica stopped walking and stared at the older girl, aghast. ‘Robert? What are you talking about?’

  Caroline tossed her head, her escaping curls flattening themselves prettily against the wide velvet rim of her bonnet. ‘Well – what’s so strange about that? He’s a growing lad – and a handsome one, too, though a little weakly-looking for my taste. Why should it surprise you so?’

  Jessica was astonished and a little alarmed to discover that her heart was pumping hard, hammering against her ribs as if she had been running. ‘Of all the stupid things to say!’ she muttered. ‘Just because you think every man who looks at you is in love with you doesn’t mean that the whole world’s the same. It’s ridiculous.’

  Caroline took no offence. She laughed, and swung the basket high. ‘You just wait, my pet. In a year or so you’ll be talking from the other side of your face! You mark my words – young Robert is in the throes of his first love affair! The sister of some schoolfriend, no doubt. Or a master’s daughter, perhaps. Assignations in the Lady Chapel!’

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’

  She laughed again, light-heartedly. ‘It might even be the sister of this schoolfriend he’s going to stay with this summer—’

  Jessica’s heart appeared to stop altogether, then resumed its odd, lurching beat. A visit this summer? Robert had said nothing to her.

  ‘Two months, Clara said he was going for. Seems a long time to visit with a friend he sees often enough at school, don’t you think—?’

  * * *

  ‘Two months!’ Jessica faced Robert, furious. ‘You’re going away for two whole months, and you didn’t tell me?’

  He made a small conciliatory gesture with his pale hands. ‘Jessie, I’m sorry. I meant to – I was going to – but – the opportunity never seemed to come up—’

  ‘Yet Caroline knows. And your family. And the whole village as far as I know—’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jess—’ Righteous indignation showed for a moment. ‘You don’t own me! I know I should have told you, and I’m sorry. I was just waiting for the right chance—’

  She tugged viciously at a tuft of grass. ‘Who is this schoolfriend, then?’ She invested the norm with disdain.

  ‘His name’s Paul Aloway. He sings in the choir with me. He’s – a little older. He lives in Devon. My parents thought the change might do me good.’

  ‘I see. And—’ she lifted her head, watching him, ‘does he have a family, this Paul Aloway?’

  He nodded. ‘Parents and two sisters.’

  ‘You’ve met them?’

  ‘Yes. His father has business interests in the City and they often travel with him.’

  ‘Are they—?’ She stopped. ‘What are they like?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘His sisters.’

  He shrugged. ‘Pretty. Rather lively. One has a lovely voice. We plan some musical evenings.’

  ‘Well, I hope you enjoy them.’ Stiffly she stood and stalked away from him, leaving him watching after her with an expression half amused, half exasperated.

  * * *

  The May Ball at Melbury New Hall was an annual event in which, one way or another, almost the whole countryside participated. The festivities of May Day started in the village in the morning as the children danced around the decorated Maypole. An ox, donated by the estate, was roasted overnight and almost boundless supplies of ale and cider from New Hall’s brewery were there to help the proceedings along. In the afternoon the fun included dancing, and games – both official and unofficial – the tossing of horseshoes, a bruising game of football, the chasing of surprised pigs and the courting of not-so-surprised village girls. By early evening, however, the focus shifted to the Hall itself as the lanes and byways filled with the carriages of the gentry from miles around as they converged on New Hall for the Masquerade Ball. This year there was added spice to the excitement, for it was an open secret throughout the county that an engagement was to be announced between Caroline Hawthorne and the Honourable Bunwood Standish.

  The week before the ball the house was in subdued uproar. Everyone from the lowest serv
ant girl upwards was infected by the excitement, and Jessica was no exception to that rule. Despite the fact that she had still not reached that magic age when she might attend the masque herself she was pleased that her father had prevailed over her mother’s reluctance to hold the ball this year. Edward had been dead for nearly nine months, and sad as it was her practical mind knew that no amount of mourning would bring him back. For William Hawthorne’s part, business was done each year in the smoke-wreathed library over his fine brandy whilst the ladies gossipped and the young things danced; nothing came before that. Even MacKenzie, for these pleasantly frantic few days, seemed mellower. She spent most afternoons in the village ‘helping with the arrangements’. Jessica spared a wryly sympathetic thought for the Reverend Jones.

  The ball was to be held, as always, in the Long Gallery, in the west wing of the house two floors below the nursery suite. The great room, unused except for these special occasions, was a marvellous sight once Mrs Morton and her army of helpers had finished their assault upon it. For days they scrubbed and cleaned and polished, until windows and mirrors gleamed, crystal chandeliers glittered like diamonds and the shining wooden floor, perfect for dancing, reflected the room’s splendours like a still pool in sunlight. Chairs were brought from all over the house and ranged against the walls or clustered around small tables, where the evening’s chaperons could sit and exchange scandal behind their lifted fans whilst their charges flirted upon the dance floor. Supper was to be served in the anteroom, a large room which overlooked the front court with its champagne-cup fountains. The gravel of the court and drive was raked and cleaned, the box hedges clipped, the already immaculate lawns cut and rolled until they resembled swathes of green velvet.