Eva Ibbotson - The Morning Gift

‘I have heard nothing about this,’ said Leonie sternly.

‘It doesn’t matter, Mama,’ said Ruth quickly. ‘It’s just some practical work that happens in the autumn term, but I don’t need it.’

Leonie ignored her.

‘Everyone is going except Ruth?’

Pilly nodded. Desolate at having upset her friend she moved towards Uncle Mishak, as those in trouble go to lean against the trunks of trees and her eyes filled with tears.

Sam now entered the lists. ‘If Ruth hasn’t mentioned it, it’s because of the money. It costs quite a bit to go, but Pilly’s father has offered to pay for Ruth — he’s got more money than he knows what to do with and everyone knows how Ruth helps Pilly, but Ruth won’t hear of it. She’s as obstinate as a mule.’

‘It is Professor Somerville who is giving this course?’ Leonie asked.

‘Yes. And it’s the best in the country. We go to Bowmont and —’

Ruth now interrupted. ‘Mama, I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’m not taking money from Pilly and I’m not going and that’s the end of it.’

Leonie nodded. ‘You are quite right,’ she said. ‘To take money from friends is not good.’ She smiled warmly at Pilly. ‘Come, you will help me to make more coffee.’

Only when the students were leaving, did she take Sam aside.

‘It is Dr Felton who makes the arrangements for this course?’

‘That’s right. He’s a really nice man and he’s very keen for Ruth to go.’

‘And Professor Somerville? Is he also keen that she goes?’

Sam frowned. ‘He must be, she’s one of his best students. But he’s odd — they both are. I’ve hardly heard him and Ruth exchange a word since she came.’

Leonie now had the information she wanted. On a practical level, her course was clear — but how to deal with her obstinate daughter?

‘Mishak, you must help me,’ she said that evening, as the two of them sat alone in the sitting room which was in no way improved by the presence of the piano.

Mishak removed his long-stemmed pipe and examined the bowl to see if a few shreds of tobacco still adhered to it, but they did not.

‘You are going to sell your brooch,’ he stated.

‘Yes. Only how to make her go?’

‘Leave it to me,’ said Mishak. And Leonie, who had intended to do just that, hugged him and went to bed.

Quin had never had any fault to find with the behaviour of the people who worked at Bowmont, but as he drove through the village and up the hill, it seemed to him that everyone was in an unusually genial and benevolent mood. In spite of the rain driving in from the sea, Mrs Carter who kept the post office, the blacksmith at the forge and old Sutherland at the lodge, came out to smile and wave and several times as he stopped, his hand was shaken with a cordiality which seemed to hint at some particular pleasure lying in store for him in which they shared.

‘But you’ll be wanting to get along today,’ said Mrs Ridley at the farm when they had exchanged a few friendly words. ‘You’ll not be wanting to waste any more time, not today.’

Arriving at the house, he found Turton in a similar mood. The butler called him Master Quinton, a throwback to some twenty years ago and told him, beaming with good will, that drinks would be served in the drawing room in half an hour, giving him plenty of time to change.

This alone indicated more formality than Quin usually permitted, for he made it clear that when he came for the field course, he was here to work, but as he went inside he found further signs that all was not as usual. The hall at Bowmont, with its arbitrary collection of broadswords, incomprehensible tapestries and a weasel which the Basher had stuffed, but without success, was not a place in which anybody lingered. Today, though, in spite of his aunt’s conviction that warmth inside the house spelled softness and decay, the ancient deposit of pine cones in the grate had been replaced by a fire of brightly burning logs, and though flowers were seldom cut and brought indoors, Frances preferring to let her plants grow unmolested, the Chinese vase on the oak chest was filled with dahlias and chrysanthemums.

But it was his aunt’s attire as she came forward to welcome him, that confirmed his fears. Frances always changed for dinner, which meant that she replaced her lumpy tweed skirt by a slightly longer one of rusty silk — but there was one outfit which for decades had signalled a special occasion: a black chenille dress whose not noticeably plunging neckline was covered with an oriental shawl. It was this that she was wearing now, and Quin’s last hope of a quiet evening to prepare for his students vanished.

‘You look very splendid,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Do we have visitors?’

‘You know we do,’ said Aunt Frances, coming forward to give him her customary peck on the cheek. ‘I wrote to you. They’ll be down in a minute — you just have time to change.’

‘Actually, I don’t know, Aunt Frances! I’ve come straight from Yorkshire. What did you write?’

Aunt Frances frowned. She had hoped that Quin would come prepared and joyful. ‘That I’ve invited the Placketts. Verena and her mother.’ And as Quin remained silent: ‘I knew Lady Plackett as a girl — surely she told you? We were together at finishing school.’

She looked at Quin and felt a deep unease. The signs of displeasure were only too familiar to her after twenty years of guardianship: Quin’s nose was looking particularly broken, his forehead had crumpled into craters of the kind seen on pictures of the moon.

‘Verena’s one of my students, Aunt Frances. It would be very wrong for me to treat her in a way that is different from the rest.’

Relief coursed through Aunt Frances. It was fear of seeming to single Verena out that was holding him back, nothing more.

‘Well, of course I see that, and so does she. In fact she’s said already that she expects no special treatment while you are working out of doors, but Lady Plackett is a friend — it would be very strange for me to refuse to entertain her daughter.’

Quin nodded, smiled — and the devastated features recomposed themselves into that of a personable man. Already he felt compunction: Aunt Frances must have been lonelier than he realized if she could contemplate entertaining the Placketts. Perhaps it had all been a mask, her unsociability, her stated desire to be alone — and he wondered, as he had not done for a long time, just how hurt she had been over her rejection on the Border all those years ago.

‘That’s all right, I’m sure it’ll all work out splendidly. I’d better go and change.’

But before he could make his way to the tower, he heard, somewhere above him, a cough. It was not a shy tentative cough, it was a clarion cough signalling an intention — and Quin, searching for its source, now saw a figure standing on the upstairs landing.

Verena, who had read so much, had also read that no man can resist the sight of a beautiful woman descending a noble staircase. She had watched Quin’s arrival out of her bedroom window and now, gowned simply but becomingly in bottle-green Celanese, she placed one hand on the carved banister, gathered up her skirt, and while her mother waited unselfishly in the shadows, began to make her way downstairs.

The descent began splendidly. Not only the long back, the long legs of the Croft-Ellises came to her aid, but the training she had received before her presentation at court. Verena, who had kicked her diamanté-encrusted train backwards with unerring aim as she retreated from Their Majesties, could hardly fail to walk with poise and dignity towards her host.

The first flight was accomplished and Quin stood as she had expected, his head thrown back, watching. She was not quite ready yet to utter the words she had prepared, but almost. ‘You cannot imagine what a pleasure it is to be in Bowmont after all we have heard of it,’ was what she planned to say.