I used to tell my secrets to the Rowangarth rooks.’
‘They’d be glad to see you, for all that,’ Julia urged.
‘Maybe. But what about her ladyship? Would she be glad? And if I did come – and I’m not saying I will, mind – where would I stay? There isn’t room for me and Daisy in Reuben’s little house.’
‘But mother would love to see you again – and as for sleeping, what’s wrong with Rowangarth? It was your home, wasn’t it? You would stay with us.’
‘What would they all say, though – Miss Clitherow and Cook and Mary and Tilda?’
‘Alice – you know staff don’t usually make comments about mother’s house guests, even though I know they would all say, “Welcome back, Alice!”’
‘There’s Tom …’ She was wavering, she knew it; knew, too, that she desperately wanted to see Reuben just once more – see Rowangarth, too.
‘Tom was a prisoner of war. I shall tell them that and mother will confirm it. And anyway, Tom wouldn’t be coming with you – not on your first visit. Are you afraid Will Stubbs would poke and pry and ask his business?’
‘Will!’ Alice gasped, remembering the inquisitive coachman, bursting into laughter. ‘Is he still a terrible busybody?’
‘As bad as ever, though he’s careful to keep his own affairs a secret – or so he thinks,’ Julia grinned. ‘We all happen to know that he’s setting his cap at Mary.’
‘Mary Strong? Her ladyship’s parlourmaid?’
‘The very same Mary. And Alice – don’t revert to your old ways entirely? You were once married to my brother – you were Lady Alice Sutton. Mother thinks of you still as hers. If you should come home to Rowangarth, don’t call her milady or refer to her as her ladyship? You used to call her dearest, as Giles did – remember?’
Nodding, Alice closed her eyes. She remembered so much and almost all of it security and kindness and the sweet sense of belonging. All at once, Rowangarth called her.
‘I couldn’t leave Tom,’ she gasped.
‘Not if he’d want you to pay Reuben a visit? Tom was fond of him – and Reuben isn’t getting any younger.’
‘You think I don’t know it? He’ll be seventy-five, come September. I’d hoped you would take his birthday present back with you – give it to him on his birthday. I’ve got tobacco and mints and knitted him two pairs of good thick socks.’
‘I’ll take them, gladly, and see he gets them, too. But mightn’t it be nice to be able to tell him on his birthday that one day soon you’ll be bringing Daisy to see him? At least don’t dismiss it entirely?’
‘Don’t, Julia! I want so much to visit, and you know I can’t! There’d always be Elliot Sutton at the back of my mind – not just meeting him, though that would be bad enough. What if he saw me – and blurted it all out? What then?’
‘Elliot won’t say anything – not now. If he’d been going to make trouble, he’d have made it when he realized he’d been cheated out of hopes of the title. He can’t know – not for certain – that Drew is his. Hateful though he is, I’d give him credit for keeping his mouth shut.
‘And you wouldn’t be staying long – a week, at the most? Surely for so short a time we could make sure you and he didn’t meet?’
‘We? You and your mother, you mean? But she doesn’t know that Elliot Sutton is Drew’s father – had you forgotten?’
‘No. But I’m trying to. From the day he was born I always thought of Drew as Giles’s son – just as mother does. You must do the same, Alice. Elliot Sutton is a womanizer and a lecher but he isn’t so stupid that he’d stand on the top of Holdenby Pike and shout it out to the three Ridings, now is he?’
‘N-no …’
‘There you are, then! We stand together, you and I – just as we did when we were nursing. We each took care of the other, in the old days – we can do it again. We’d wither cousin Elliot at a glance. And remember, Alice – I hate him as much as you do.’
‘You can’t. You don’t know what it’s like to – to’
‘To be raped by him? No, I don’t. But he’s alive and my husband was killed in that war, so I hate him more than you do – and never forget it!’
‘I believe you do,’ Alice said, wonderingly. She hadn’t thought, not for a moment, that anyone could hate him as much as she. ‘You really do …’
‘Oh, yes. And you and Daisy would be safe with me. And bring Morgan with you, if you’d feel better. Morgan hates him, too …’
‘Oh, I couldn’t come. It wouldn’t be right to leave Tom on his own. I want to come, Julia – you know I do – but how could I?’
Yet even as she said it, she knew it was only a matter of time. One day, and soon, she would return to Rowangarth. Nothing was more certain.
‘I tell you it was Alice,’ Mary Strong insisted. ‘That’s where Miss Julia has been! Miss Julia and her ladyship were talking on the telephone and it was Alice Hawthorn they were talking about! Her ladyship said, “Where are you ringing from, Julia?” and then she said, “Good. That’s handy to know if ever we need to get in touch with Alice.”’
‘Alice Sutton, don’t you mean, and have you forgotten, Mary, that parlourmaids don’t listen to private telephone conversations?’ Cook corrected, her mouth a round of disapproval. ‘And then what did she say?’
‘Then …’ Mary pushed her cup across the table to be refilled, taking another piece of cinnamon toast without so much as a by-your-leave,‘ … then her ladyship said, “And how are Daisy, and Morgan? We mustn’t forget dear old Morgan.”’
‘Alice took Morgan with her, didn’t she,’ Tilda frowned, ‘when she left for Aunt Sutton’s, I mean. And why has she stayed away so long without so much as a word? Surely she’s better, now. And who is Daisy?’
‘Don’t know anything about any Daisy,’ Mary shrugged. ‘But I happen to know that Alice keeps in touch with Miss Julia. I’ve said so all along, haven’t I? I know her writing on the envelopes.’
‘Aye, and as for us not hearing a word,’ Tilda defended, ‘we did make it pretty plain when Alice came back from France Lady Sutton that things had changed, now didn’t we?’
‘Things had to change,’ Cook murmured. ‘Alice wasn’t below stairs any more – Miss Clitherow made sure we knew that, right from the start. And we still aren’t any the wiser, are we?’
‘Curiouser, though.’ A pity, Mary thought, she’d had to move on in mid-conversation, so to speak, but there was a limit to the time it took any one person to walk across the hall. ‘Wonder if Miss Julia will tell us about it? After all, Alice is supposed to be with Miss Sutton
