A Time Like No Other Page 5

  ‘Now tell me how you are. I believe old Harry has been helping you with the estate and now that I’m home I can lend a hand, at least until I’m off again. And just look at you in that frightful black. Oh, I know it’s the custom; what is it, a year for a widow and you with such marvellous dress sense. You were the leader of fashion in Moorend . . . well, never mind, I insist that when I take you to the theatre next week – oh yes, I will not allow you to sit about in this great house moping – you shall wear that lovely apricot silk you had on the night you and I and Chris and . . . what was the name of that pretty little thing who came with us? Vivienne or was it Virginia? Like a hedge-rose she was without a thought in her head, though of course she couldn’t compare with you. Mind you, she more than made up for it in—’

  ‘Roly,’ Harry warned, still standing in the doorway since it seemed neither of them cared where he was, but Roly merely grinned.

  ‘Now then, why don’t you go upstairs and change into something enchanting while Harry and I admire that wonderful Christmas tree you have in the hall. I’m glad to see you’re keeping up the new practice. Good old Prince Albert, God bless him.’

  She was beginning to smile, the sheer audacity of Roly’s cheerful conversation instead of the woeful, sympathetic murmurs her other callers gave her lifting her spirits. She was a widow, they told her and should act accordingly as though they could see the devastation in her heart. Only Biddy knew of it as she held her in her arms when Chris’s ghost came to haunt her. Chris had been a scamp but his heart had been good and cheerful and he had loved her.

  ‘It’s good to keep up the traditions,’ he repeated. ‘For the children, I suppose. Two boys you have now, Harry tells me.’ He turned his affectionate smile on his brother. ‘Come on, old chap, don’t dither in the doorway,’ making it sound as though Harry was some elderly gentleman who was not quite sure of his welcome or even of how to get to a chair. At once Lally rose from the sofa, loosening herself from Roly’s arms, to his chagrin, and moved across to Harry, taking his hand, her smile warm and welcoming.

  ‘Come and sit by the fire, Harry. It’s cold today and Carly assures me it will snow. Roly,’ turning to the wryly smiling man by the fire, ‘ring the bell and we’ll have coffee, or perhaps hot chocolate.’ She held on to Harry’s warm hand and led him to the sofa opposite the one on which Roly lounged. In the last month she had come to realise the worth of this rather quiet, self-contained man who was guiding her through the intricacies of estate management and had even brought her a hefty book on the care and management of stock, on the growing of cereal and grain. He came every couple of days and they had scrutinised every account book, every ledger, every lease and liability for rent, every written agreement and contract that had gathered dust for years in the estate office, getting to know the size of every farm and the tenants in them. He had taken her to see Mr Anson at the bank and had explained the loan which Mr Anson had promised her and had ridden with her once again to visit the farms where most welcomed her kindly if a little warily. The office had been scrubbed and scoured by Jenny and Clara, the books dusted and put back on their shelves, the windows cleaned, the chimney swept and a good fire lit to get rid of the slight smell of damp that hung about the room so long unused. She spent every morning at the desk, making the room her own with bright pictures on the walls and curtains purloined from rooms not used in the house.

  At the end of two weeks Aunt Jane had gone back to her small house in Skircoat, having failed dismally to convince her young, widowed relative that it was not seemly for her to remain in this big house alone.

  ‘I am not alone, Aunt Jane, I have Biddy with me.’

  ‘That is not the same, Amalia, and you know it. I would offer you a place with me but the two boys are somewhat trying to my nerves.’ Aunt Jane suffered dreadfully with her nerves and the couple of weeks she had spent with Amalia had made them worse.

  ‘I cannot run the estate from town, Aunt Jane. I must be here.’

  ‘And that is another thing, Amalia. It is not right for a gentlewoman to run an estate. Could not a . . . an agent be put in to see to it all?’

  ‘I have no money to pay wages, Aunt Jane.’

  And so Aunt Jane had given up, packed her bags and returned to Skircoat, effectively washing her hands of her rebellious relative.

  But it was Harry’s action on Christmas Day that had given Lally the most pleasure. Polly McGinley had trudged over from Folly Farm with a turkey. A turkey with short spurs and black legs which proved it was young and would be tender. A gift, she said, in thanks for the work that had been started on the roof of the farmhouse so that now she and Sean, Denny and his wife Kate were all sleeping in their own beds in the bedrooms upstairs. What a relief it was to have her parlour back and she and Kate were as happy as sandboys in the kitchen without the pallett which had been got out each night.

  Lally had been overwhelmed and had even hugged her, to Polly’s amazement, she told Sean, and that young landlady of theirs had a warm heart and if there was anything Sean or Denny could do for her they must see to it at once.

  So the turkey had been stuffed with forcemeat of Biddy’s own making, fried sausages arranged about it for garnish, the gravy made along with the bread sauce, the bird cooking for a couple of hours, ready to be served at one thirty, when the front doorbell had rung. The dogs had barked furiously and Biddy had hurried along the hallway muttering about visitors on a day such as this what with Miss Lally in a deep depression, the children, sensing their mother’s mood, grizzling and Clara complaining of a pain in her belly.

  It was Harry, standing at the foot of the steps holding the bridle of a large, strong pony, dark brown, and known as a dales pony from the north-east of England, used for pulling Harry’s gig. ‘Stand, Dancer,’ he was saying, then, addressing himself to the astonished Biddy, asked her if she would send the groom round to help him. The back of the gig was loaded with parcels.

  When he had been ushered in to the warm drawing room where Lally was sitting alone, her head resting on the back of the sofa, her face sad and almost plain in her sadness, there had been an immediate change in the atmosphere. Carly had staggered in with an armful of parcels, helped by an excited Clara who had totally forgotten the pain she had complained of, and Harry had asked if the children could be brought down for a moment. Dora, the baby squirming in her arms and Master Jamie leaping and falling and picking himself up in an ecstasy of joy and wonderment, entered the drawing room and for the next half-hour a brand-new railway engine, a bright blue rabbit, a clockwork mouse, a small wooden horse on wheels and pulled on a string, several books and a set of coloured bricks were revealed, over which Jamie said his new word, which was ‘mine, mine’. He allowed Alec to reach with wandering infant fingers for the pretty paper in which they had been wrapped. There was the usual upset when he and the baby were removed at last by Dora and Clara, Jamie howling his displeasure which could be heard all the way up the stairs.

  ‘And now it’s the turn of the grown-ups,’ Harry said, smiling his slow, infrequent smile, for it was the only way to hide his real feelings. ‘Can the maids be spared from the kitchen for a minute or two?’ And when they were brought in by Biddy, the two girls and Dora, of course, were overwhelmed by the lovely rolls of dress fabric in the prettiest colours with which he presented them. There was a silver bracelet for Biddy, plain and simple, and Biddy, beginning to see what was in this cool, unruffled man, thanked him and ushered the girls away to the kitchen.

  ‘Now it’s your turn, Lally,’ reaching into his pocket for a small, beautifully wrapped parcel and handing it to her with a stiff, almost reverent bow.

  ‘Harry,’ she whispered, holding the gift in her hand. ‘You know I can’t . . .’

  ‘Why, who is to know? We are friends, are we not? I am alone on this day when families are supposed to come together, and so are you, though you have your boys. Will you not allow me to be, just for a day, an uncle, or a . . . distant relative to give them a Christmas gift
and having done so how could I leave you out? It’s getting on for six weeks since Chris . . . I’m sorry, forgive me, I should not have mentioned him.’

  He stood irresolute in front of her, looking down at her bowed head, dismayed when she raised her head and he saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes. He had never seen her cry but now, when there was no need, it seemed she was about to do so. He sat down beside her, longing to reach out and touch her, even if it was no more than her hand, the one that held his unwrapped gift but he knew, as he had known before, that it was too soon to show his feelings for her.

  ‘Please, give me the pleasure of giving you a Christmas gift.’

  She said nothing but slowly, her fingers inclined to tremble, she opened the small parcel which contained a velvet box. Opening the box she gasped, for lying on another nest of velvet was the prettiest bracelet, a fine gold chain linked every half-inch with a tiny turquoise the exact colour of her eyes.

  ‘I couldn’t resist it, Lally. It was made for you and I knew it the moment I clapped eyes on it in the jeweller’s window. Will you let me put it on your wrist?’

  ‘Harry, it’s much too—’

  ‘No, it’s not. Perhaps it’s . . . not quite the thing to give a young widow so soon after her husband’s death but if you don’t take it I shall be forced to present it to . . . to Biddy so that she has one for each wrist.’

  Wordlessly she held out her hand and carefully, slowly, so that she would not see his own hands trembling, he fastened it against the deep black of her sleeve.

  ‘There, now not another word and since it is almost one o’clock I must—’

  She had been fingering the lovely bracelet and looking down at it with pleasure, for it was a long time since she had received anything so beautiful and yet so exactly right, but she sprang up at once and took hold of his hand.

  ‘No, you will not go, Harry, not to that empty house; it is empty, isn’t it, for you have just told me so. You shall stay and keep me company while I eat my Christmas turkey, plum pudding and . . . and whatever other Christmas fare Biddy has put together. I shall ring the bell and tell her to set another place at the table. Oh, Harry, I can’t tell you how wonderful this is. I was expecting to eat by myself. Biddy is a stickler for the conventions and says she is a servant and could not sit down to luncheon with me though I’m sure I could have persuaded her. Now reach for the bell and then you can tell me all the news before we eat. I wonder if there is any champagne in the cellar . . .’ Then she began to laugh when he reached into another bag and triumphantly produced a large bottle of the sparkling wine.

  They talked of everything under the sun from the children and Jamie’s amusing antics with his new presents, to the possibility of snow; the gossip his visit would cause should it be known in Moorend, Harry doing his best to mimic Mrs Frederick Anson, the banker’s wife, making her laugh as once she had done with her cheerful young husband. He spoke to her of the state of the army in the Crimea after the Battle of Inkerman and the appalling inefficiency on the part of the government in providing the soldiers with proper clothing and shelter to meet the winter. All this had been reported in The Times during November by Mr W. H. Russell, correspondent for the newspaper in the Crimea, he told her, but then Lally had been so deep in her grieving she had not heard of it.

  Biddy heard their voices and her laughter from the kitchen and though she knew the conventional folk of Moorend would be scandalised by the behaviour of the newly widowed Mrs Amalia Fraser, she didn’t care, for it was the first time her lass had enjoyed herself for months. Even before his death, Master Chris had gone out alone, to hunt, to gamble, to drink with his friends, leaving Lally alone since she could not accompany him on account of her condition. She had moped about the place, cursing the bulge that prevented her from doing all the things he did, but now it seemed Mr Sinclair was entertaining her, making her laugh, and on the very day they had all dreaded. When he finally left it was dark and he would have the devil’s own job to find his way across the moors with the gig but it seemed he did not care, for the expression on his face told Biddy all she had hoped for. Miss Lally needed someone to look after her!

  Now on the day Master Roly returned Lally had Jenny bring in a pot of hot chocolate on a silver tray which Biddy had found in what had once been the butler’s pantry, cleaning and polishing it to mirror brightness. There was plum cake and hot mince pies left over from Christmas, for though she knew her lass still grieved badly for the loss of her young husband, Mr Sinclair had given her something to fill her days, to occupy her mind and a hope for the future. The Priory was her sons’ inheritance and must be nurtured and from a flighty, thoughtless young wife she must now become the protector of that inheritance. With Mr Sinclair to help her she would succeed.

  ‘Now tell us where you have been, Roly,’ she was saying, the pretty bracelet Mr Sinclair had given her twinkling on her wrist. ‘Do you know I have never been abroad, even with Chris. I wanted to go to Italy for our honeymoon but . . .’ Her voice tapered off and Harry longed to reach out to her, hold her hand, kiss the back of it and tell her she had only to say the word and he would take her to the ends of the earth if she wished it, but it was Roly who took her hand, looking strangely like Chris, perhaps not in his features but in his manner, his disarmingly frank smile.

  He spoke about Rome and its splendours, its architecture, its weather, its food, giving the impression that all he did apart from sell Sinclair cloth, which he did superbly, was visit museums and art galleries, bringing a smile to Harry’s strong face and lifting the corners of his stubborn mouth. Harry knew his brother was a complete hedonist, consorting with actresses, courtesans, the bored young wives of wealthy old gentlemen, giving pleasure to women, and himself, dining in the best restaurants, staying in the best hotels, but at the same time not neglecting the business which took him to many parts of Europe and North America. He would be home for a few weeks, studying the latest designs that came off the Sinclair looms, knowing as much as Harry about the many processes that wool went through, sorting and scouring, blending, carding, spinning and weaving. He might give the impression that he drifted from one pleasure to the next with no thought in his head but where to obtain the best champagne and the prettiest women and the fanciest waistcoats, but he was an astute businessman.

  Lally had colour in her face when at last they stood up to leave. She had not run upstairs as Roly had exhorted her to change into one of the lovely gowns he remembered but had promised to think about his invitation to take her to the theatre in Ward’s End in Halifax.

  Roly held her hand and kissed her cheek as they left. Harry took her hand and turned away as Roly ran down the steps to where Carly held the two fine horses, Roly’s chestnut gelding, Foxfire, and Harry’s bay, Piper.

  She watched them walk, then break into a gallop down the drive which Barty and Froglet did their best to keep raked and clear of weeds, but as she watched them go she suddenly felt tired, for it was all so hard. There seemed to be no joy in her life. Roly’s call had rejuvenated her for an hour, as had the Christmas Day she had spent with Harry, taking her back to those magical days of their childhood and later when she and Roly and Chris had ridden and played and laughed their way through their days of golden youth – which was a strange thing to say when she was twenty years old and Roly only twenty-three – but now, with him gone, it was bleak again. She did not for a moment consider the man who, though she was not aware of it, loved her with a growing strength and passion that would have astounded her. It was not the love of a young and eager man, which was how Chris had loved her, but with the depth, the immutability of the stones that scattered the great stretches of moorland, which was Harry Sinclair’s world.

  She trailed up the staircase, her hand touching the banister, turning at the bend in the stairs, her black gown dragging on the wide and shallow steps. A past Fraser had taken a fancy to a cast-iron statue of a full-sized stag which stood at the turn of the stairs and on which she and Chris and Roly had often
sat as they played games the two boys made up. All part of those days when . . . when she . . .

  Suddenly she stood still just as she was about to pass it. There was an enormous gilt-framed mirror, old and flaking, just above the stag and as she caught sight of the dreary figure in black she wondered for a moment who she was. Dear God, it was Lally Fraser, pale, listless, dull and graceless and as she stared she came to a sudden decision. She was twenty years old for God’s sake and though she would love Chris for the rest of her days was she to drift about looking as dead as he was? Was she to have no joy in her life again? She had her children, her two boys who must be cared for and this house and the estate which Harry Sinclair was doing his best to help her run but need she look like a crow while she did it?

  Picking up her skirts, she ran up the rest of the stairs and along the wide hallway to her room. Inside she tore off the black gown and corset – Lord, why did she need a corset with a waist that measured no more than nineteen inches? – and stood in her chemise and petticoats while she rummaged through her wardrobe. Her clothes had been much talked about when she was young Chris Fraser’s bride and she had not enquired where the money had come from to buy them. Chris loved to see her well dressed and that was enough for her. She was seventeen, attractive and in love! She had plain, pastel-tinted afternoon gowns, delicate creams, near whites. Richly patterned crimson and emerald-green silk shawls. A walking dress of coffee-coloured foulard des Indes trimmed with velvet. Light summer dresses with sleeves of puffed muslin and tulle with wrist bands of ribbon and pearl and a dozen sparkling butterflies to choose from to fasten in the dark curls of her short hair. She had once been a butterfly herself in colours ranging from ecru, tawny brown, crimson, flame, apricot, honey gold to sea green and duck-egg blue!