Merryn Allingham - The Buttonmaker’s Daughter

‘Not like you, you mean.’

The warmth crept into her face and she took hold of the teacup with an unsteady hand. She hadn’t wanted the pick of husbands. She’d only ever wanted one, but a solicitor’s clerk was never going to match Fitzroy ambition. She had loved Thomas with the purity of the very young, and known herself loved in return. But their fate had been inescapable. Once discovered, the boy had lost his position and been harried out of Sussex. By the time she was despatched to London – a last-ditch attempt to save Amberley – her place was already reserved on the shelf for redundant spinsters.

She could still feel the humiliation of that summer in London. The Season had cost her family dear but failed to attract any offer of marriage, let alone from a man with money. That hadn’t surprised her. Since she’d lost Thomas, she had made little effort to please, and she knew she was judged unattractive and insipid. But her family had seemed strangely unprepared for her lack of success, her brother in particular. He’d been a stripling then but it hadn’t stopped him from reminding her, whenever opportunity offered, that she was an unwanted daughter. There had been a barrage of unkind comments – on her appearance, on her lack of personality. And it hadn’t stopped at taunts. On occasions, he’d grabbed her by the shoulders and physically shaken her or pinched an arm or a hand as he’d passed her chair, just to make sure that she wouldn’t forget the family’s disapproval. When she’d returned from London, it was with little hope of ever finding a husband. And even less hope of Amberley ever securing the money that would ensure the estate remained in Fitzroy hands. Until Joshua arrived in Sussex.

‘No, not like me.’ She had taken time to recover her composure. ‘Elizabeth’s situation is very different. There is no need for any kind of business arrangement.’

‘Considering how our business arrangement has worked out, it’s as well.’ He glowered at her and she was fearful that he would start once more on Henry’s most recent act of malice. But he was too busy brooding over past insults.

‘I saved your family from bankruptcy, poured thousands into Amberley, and what was my reward? It took me years to wrench land from your brother, land I was owed, land that your father had signed over. I had to go to law, expend even more money to get what was rightfully mine. And the result? Your brother has made trouble wherever and whenever he can. It’s clear he won’t be satisfied until he reclaims Summerhayes for his own. And, good God, wouldn’t he like to! A ramshackle manor house and the poorest of ground transformed. He longs to get his hands on what my wealth has created.’

There was a long silence while he drank his tea and looked through her at the wall behind, William Morris’s manila daisies seeming to grip all his attention. Whenever her brother acted badly, the old bitterness broke out anew. First her father, then Henry, had attempted to renege on the marriage agreement, and every tactic, every subterfuge, every gambit used to prevent her husband taking possession of land that was rightfully his was engraved on Joshua’s heart.

She had picked a bad time to raise the subject. She smoothed the creases from the messaline silk, one of the many expensive dove-coloured gowns Joshua insisted on buying, and took the empty teacups to the tray. He looked up as she did so, coming out of his studied gloom.

‘You must drop this idea of brokering a marriage, Alice. It will spell disaster. And there is no need for us to do a thing. Elizabeth will stay at Summerhayes and one day a young man will come along who takes her fancy. I’ll be able to inspect him, make sure he’s the right sort. And if he is, I’ll make him welcome. He can join me in the management of the estate, take some of the weight off my shoulders since William looks unlikely ever to do so.’

‘William is only fourteen.’ In defence of her youngest, she lost her timidity.

‘He is old enough to take an interest, but he remains a child. He hasn’t a serious thought in his head. And that boy you’ve invited here – Oliver, isn’t it? – if anything, he’s worse. Playing tricks on the servants, laughing in your face. The boy has no respect. But what can you expect coming from a family of Jews? That’s a little matter you didn’t tell me about.’

Oliver’s family was something to which she’d given no thought before agreeing to the boy’s stay, and she felt guilty at her oversight. But then there was rarely a moment when she didn’t feel guilty.

‘Once we can send him packing,’ Joshua pronounced, ‘he doesn’t come again.’

She wasn’t going to argue for Oliver. She wasn’t at all sure herself of the young boy’s suitability. Instead, she steered the conversation back to Elizabeth.

‘You wouldn’t wish Elizabeth to get into trouble,’ she said cautiously.

‘Of course, I wouldn’t. What are you talking about, woman?’

‘She’s young and headstrong. All this nonsense with the suffragettes – it’s had an effect on her.’

Joshua gave a loud tsk. ‘Don’t mention those women in my presence. They are a scandal, a disgrace to their sex.’

‘Elizabeth reads the papers. She is aware of what is happening beyond our sleepy corner of the country.’

‘Is she intending to create a disturbance, too, then?’ He gave a snort of derision. ‘In parliament perhaps or maybe at the racetrack. Should I give her a little hatchet, do you think, so she can join her sisters in slashing the nation’s works of art?’

‘I’m sure Elizabeth has no such ideas,’ her mother said seriously. ‘It’s their talk of female independence, female equality, that has caught her imagination.’

She saw that at last he was paying attention. ‘What has she been saying?’

‘Only that she sympathises with their aims. And that a woman should be able to decide her own future.’ This latter sentiment was barely murmured.

Despite his corpulence, Joshua bounced up from the sofa, his annoyance lending him flight. He began to pace up and down the drawing room, backwards and forwards across the soft tufts of the Axminster, until he had bruised its thick pile into a clearly marked track. He came to rest, towering over her.

‘And what precisely does that mean – decide her own future?’ His growl threatened trouble. ‘Doesn’t she have future enough here with me? I’ve been a good father; some would say too good. I’ve let her twist me to her wishes more times than I care to remember.’

‘You have,’ she soothed. ‘But perhaps as a good father, as good parents,’ she corrected, ‘we should take time to look for a suitable husband. A man who could guide her and guard her from getting into – trouble.’

‘And where do you propose to find him?’

She was glad he didn’t question the nature of any trouble. In some ways, she knew their daughter better than he, knew her wilful nature, the passion of which she was capable. For a clever man, he could be amazingly blind. He had only to look to himself to see his daughter mirrored there. The hours Elizabeth spent in her studio could only go so far in sublimating such feelings, Alice reasoned, and the thought of trouble was never far from her mind. Elizabeth’s solitary walks did nothing to calm her. A gently reared girl did not walk alone and certainly not after sunset – her daughter knew the rules well enough, but took no heed of them.

When she didn’t answer, he warned, ‘If Elizabeth should ever marry, it must be to a man of stature. I’ll not have her marry beneath her – a tradesman or some such.’

It was a perfect irony. Joshua was such a tradesman, a very rich one it was true, but a tradesman nevertheless. The fact that he appeared oblivious to the contradiction gave her the courage to confess what she had in mind.