Elizabeth Elgin - I’ll Bring You Buttercups

‘But she’s all right now?’ Tom didn’t care about the Pendenys Suttons. All he wanted was to talk about Alice Hawthorn who had scarcely been out of his thoughts since the afternoon he met her. ‘Alice seems happy enough at Rowangarth.’

‘Oh my word, yes. A different young lady, these days. And done well for herself. Her mother was a dressmaker, so I’m told, and Alice seems to have inherited her skills. She’s sewing-maid, now, and answers to nobody but Miss Clitherow – and Lady Helen, of course. And her’s going to London, maiding Miss Julia.’ To London, and her not eighteen till June. All that way away when most folk never strayed beyond the Riding, let alone set foot outside of Yorkshire. ‘Ah, well,’ he consulted his pocket-watch, checking it with the ponderously ticking mantel-clock, ‘if you’ve finished your sup of tea we’d best get on with the rounds. You take the woodland and I’ll see to the rearing field.’

‘Right, Mr Pickering.’ Tom jumped instantly to his feet, giving the older man his full title, which was only polite once in a while. ‘There’s still a few nests not hatched out yet.’

Nests? Reuben chuckled, eyeing the fast disappearing back, when Alice and that Morgan dog should be walking the woodland? Always did, wet or dry, before servants’ tea. And to be hoped when the lad met her he talked about summat more interesting than dogs and the weather, or he’d lose her, sure as eggs was eggs, he would. And Reuben didn’t want that to happen, for he’d found a lot of good in young Dwerryhouse and he was more than fond of the lass who took the edge off his loneliness and was ever willing to sew on a patch, or a button or two, for an old widower. To have her settled with Tom would please him greatly.

‘Sure as eggs is eggs,’ he muttered, pulling on his hat.

Helen, Lady Sutton, sighed deeply and gazed at the lavender dinner dress draped carefully over the bed; at the matching satin shoes, the white silk stockings and the garters laid beside them. She did not want to wear those clothes, for when she had bathed and had her hair pinned and finished the time-consuming ritual of dressing, she would be going to dinner at Pendenys Place and she did not like Pendenys, nor anything about it, nor care overmuch for anyone who lived there – except Edward, that was.

‘Why the frown, Mother?’ Julia Sutton slammed shut the door behind her. ‘I told you not to wear the lavender, didn’t I? You’re out of mourning now and lavender and mauve and purple are mourning colours and you shouldn’t –’

‘Julia! When will you learn to knock on a bedroom door and please, don’t ever tell your mother anything! And what do you expect me to wear, newly out of black? Red, should it be, like a music hall soubrette?’

‘Blue would have been lovely. Pa always liked you in blue.’

‘Your papa is no longer here,’ she whispered, her voice sharp-edged with remembered grief.

‘No, darling. Sorry.’ Julia brushed the pale cheek with gentle lips. ‘And the lavender is perfectly acceptable, come to think of it, for a visit to Pendenys. Shall you wear your pearls?’

‘I think not.’ She didn’t want to wear the pearl choker tonight; not her husband’s wedding gift. ‘Just the ear-drops, and flowers. They’re in the pantry now, keeping fresh.’

Flowers. She would be wearing Pa’s flowers, Julia frowned; she should have known it. Her mother had carried orchids as a bride, and thereafter Pa had ordered the cream-coloured beauties to be grown in the orchid house at Rowangarth. No one was to pick them without milady’s permission, and no one was ever to wear them but her ladyship. A dashing declaration of love it had been, for though their marriage was arranged, they had loved deeply, too. And she, Julia Sutton, would marry for love or not at all. One day she would find the right man, and at the first meeting of their eyes he would know it and she would know it and …

‘Darling Mama.’ She hurried to where her mother sat, dropping to the floor at her feet, resting a cheek on her lap. ‘I know how awful it will be for you without Pa, this coming out into the world again. But Giles will be with you tonight. And I think she meant to be kind, asking you over there when she knew the time was right.’

‘ She , Julia?’ The voice held a hint of reproof.

‘Aunt Clementina, I mean, only I do so dislike calling her Aunt. It means she’s really family …’

‘Which she is ,’ Helen Sutton sighed.

‘Well, Uncle Edward married her, I suppose, though the poor old love had to, him being –’

‘No one has to do anything. How many times have I told you that?’

‘Then when you say I must marry, can I remind you of what you just said?’

‘I merely meant that Edward married her of his own free will.’

‘And for her money …’

‘Married Clementina Elliot of his own free will, Julia, and what else was he to do? What else is a second son whose expectations are nil to do?’

‘Hm. I suppose Giles will have to do the same, poor pet – marry for money, I mean.’

‘Your brother, I hope, will eventually love where money lies. It would be to his advantage were his wife to have some means of her own.’

‘I don’t think Giles will ever marry,’ Julia shrugged. ‘It’s a pity he can’t go to Cambridge. He’d be happy, there. Why must he stay here, just because Robert is too selfish to –’

‘Julia! You mustn’t speak of your brother in that way.’ Helen Sutton rose swiftly to her feet and strode to the window. Mention of her eldest son always agitated her – and the secrecy he wrapped around himself; his selfishness in returning to India.

‘Why mustn’t I?’ She was at her mother’s side in an instant. ‘You know he should have stayed here after Pa died. Why should Giles have all the bother of Rowangarth when it won’t ever be his? Why can’t Robert come home and marry and do what’s expected of him? Why? Will you tell me?’

‘Because your brother is his own master. Because he’s a grown man and –’

‘Then why doesn’t he act like one? He’s needed here, now, but he’s oceans away, growing tea.’

‘Tea keeps Rowangarth going – and besides, Robert loves India.’ They were on dangerous ground and her daughter, Helen Sutton was forced to acknowledge, was altogether too blunt for her own good. ‘And I don’t wish to talk about Robert.’

‘No. Nor his love for India – though I’ll bet anything you like that isn’t what her name is!’

‘Julia! I will not –’ Her voice trailed away into despair and she covered her face with her hands as if to block out the conversation.

‘Mama! I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I know it’s just three years since Pa went and I shouldn’t be talking like this because you’re the dearest mother anyone could wish for. You know I didn’t mean what I said.’

‘I know you didn’t. But could we talk about tonight instead? Could I tell you how much I’d rather stay home – how much I’d rather do anything than accept Clemmy Sutton’s hospitality.’ Her lavish, ostentatious hospitality; her patronizing of the Garth Suttons, who were poor compared to the Suttons of Pendenys. Why did they irritate her so when it was obvious to anyone that jealousy was at the root of Clementina’s discontent; because not all the money in the Riding could buy the one thing she – and yes, her father, too – coveted above all else and would never, could never possess.

She had come to Edward Sutton, that only child of an Ironmaster, with nothing to commend her but her father’s riches, knowing she was tolerated but not accepted by the county society into which she had married. Her father was in trade – it was as simple as that, and Clementina was considered to be as vulgar as the house her father’s money had built. An obscenity in stone and slate was Pendenys Place; a flat-roofed, castellated building that had set out to be a gentleman’s house and ended up believing itself a castle, so much pride and defiance had gone into it. For old Nathan Elliot’s imagination had run wild when he built his daughter’s house, and the architect, being young and ambitious and extremely poor, had not gainsaid his patron.