the servant in black?
He stood at the door when they left, smiling with something akin to relief, bowing low, behaving himself to the very end.
‘And that,’ said his mother as the front door closed, ‘was a wasted morning. I had great hopes of the girl next door – she is attractive, you must admit, Elliot.’
‘Extremely attractive – but only for a fellow aristocrat, it would seem.’
‘Oh, yes! That Igor found the loot they’d hidden. Keys to safe deposits – they probably knew that uprising was coming for years – got their money and jewels out before the war started, I shouldn’t wonder. When the uprising came it was already safe. It’s called hedging their bets and now they’ve got their hands on the family jewels, too, they’re going to be a mite pernickety!
‘Well, you’re going to have to try just that little bit harder, Elliot, because I’ve set my heart on Anna Petrovska – or someone like her!’
‘Did you have to say all those things, Mama?’ Anna tearfully demanded when they were safely out of earshot. ‘You know my dowry will not get me a Russian aristocrat and I wish you hadn’t said I am not yet wanting a husband. Soon I shall be nineteen, then twenty, and too old! And I did so like Mr Elliot Sutton!’
‘Then that is good, because Mrs Clementina is married into an old family and has a great deal of money – that, at least, I have discovered. And always, rich people in England want a title or two in the family. They are name-droppers, the English nouveaux riches, and the lady next door runs true to form. Indeed, she is too eager, too obvious. Does her son please you, Aleksandrina Petrovska?’
‘I find him pleasant – and handsome.’ Anna blushed deeply.
‘Then you shall have him, daughter. Your mother will see to it that he doesn’t escape. Only we must not appear too interested – give me time to consider what else is on the market.’
‘But I am not on the market. I am drawn to Mr Sutton. He has such beautiful dark eyes.’
‘He has the eyes of a gypsy, though what he looks like doesn’t matter. What you must consider, child, is his inheritance, and when I have established what I believe to be true, then you may rely upon me to do what is best for you – as your dear papa would have wished, God rest him.’
In that moment, though she could not know it, Clementina Sutton’s hopes for her son became fact, for Anna Petrovska had fallen deeply in love.
And that, Catchpole thought sadly as he firmed down the last of the six young rowan trees he had just planted, was his final job for her ladyship. Now, with the rowan trees safe in the earth, he could hand Rowangarth’s lawns, flowerbeds, rearing houses and forcing frames to his son, a situation which pleased him enormously. For one thing, he would be able to keep a watching eye on his offspring, warning him of the likes and dislikes of trees and shrubs grown with loving care over the years, and for another, Rowangarth’s walled garden, the most peaceful place on the face of God’s earth to Percy Catchpole’s way of thinking, would still be his to wander in when the mood was on him.
‘There you are then, son. Alus – alus – make sure of the continuity. Rowan trees have grown here since that old house over yonder was built, and while they thrive, the Sutton line won’t die out …’
Suttons had lived at Rowangarth since James Stuart succeeded to the Tudor throne and rowan trees planted at each aspect of the house had ensured its freedom from all things evil and especially from witches. Once, in every generation, new rowans were planted as an insurance.
‘It very nearly did, though – die out, I mean.’ That little lad had saved it in the nick of time. ‘Both sons lost to the war – even Miss Julia’s husband.’
They still called her Miss Julia, but then, she had been married for so short a time. Three years she had been a wife and her man in France, except for a few days together. So few days, you could count them on the fingers of two hands, Cook once told him.
‘Nearly,’ Catchpole nodded. ‘There are things, though, that must survive.’ Like the creamy flowers in the steamy orchid house; milady’s orchids they were called. Once, no one could wear them, save herself. She had carried them in her wedding bouquet and Sir John had said thereafter that no one else but she should have them. ‘There’s yon’ special orchids – her ladyship’s own. But you know all about them, lad. Alus watch them and let me know if those plants ever show signs of distress …’
‘I will, dad.’ Young Catchpole had served his time at Pendenys Place and been glad to see the back of it, truth known. The Pendenys Suttons weren’t real gentry – apart from Mr Edward who’d been born at Rowangarth. That Mrs Clementina paid starvation wages, now, on account of there being so few jobs and too many wanting them, was a known fact. That woman would be an ironmaster’s daughter till the day she died. ‘You can leave it all to me – though be sure there’ll be a lot I shall ask you.’
‘Aar.’ Mollified, he made for the kitchen garden and the seat set against the south-facing wall where he had smoked many a contented pipe. ‘Just one last look around, then it’s yours, lad. You’m working for decent folk, now, and never you forget it.’
Mary Strong looked at her wristwatch, tutting that Will Stubbs was late again. She had been able to buy that watch and many more things besides, from the money she had saved in the war. Good money she had earned in the munitions factory in Leeds. Fifty shillings a week – sometimes more – though every penny of it deserved on account of the peculiar yellow colour they’d all gone, because of the stuff they’d filled the shell cases with. But she was a canary no longer, and back at Rowangarth, taking up her position as parlourmaid again as if that war had never been, though heaven only knew it had!
Gone, now, were Rowangarth’s great days; the luncheon parties and dinners and shooting weekends in the autumn and winter. Just her ladyship left and Miss Julia and that little lad Drew – Sir Andrew – to care for. Tilda, once a kitchenmaid and promoted to housemaid, and Cook and herself; that was all the house staff that was needed, now. And Miss Clitherow, of course; straight-backed as ever, ruling her diminished empire as if Sir John were about to roar up the drive in his latest motor, and Master Robert and Master Giles roaming the fields with young Nathan, from Pendenys. And Miss Julia a tomboy from the minute she’d learned to walk, Cook said.
Mary sniffed and dabbed an escaping tear. Things would never be the same; the war had seen to that – taken all the straight and decent young men and sent back men old before their time and unwilling ever again to speak of France. And they had been the lucky ones …
‘There you are,’ she snapped as her young man appeared from behind the stable block, face red with running. ‘I swear you do it on purpose, Will Stubbs! One night you’ll come here to find me gone!’
‘Sorry, lass. Young lad from the GPO got himself lost round the back of the house – a telegram for Miss Julia. Had to sort him out.’ Telegrams were always delivered to the front door, parcels to the back.
‘A telegram?’ Mary forgot her pique. ‘From France, was it?’
‘Now how would I know? I didn’t ask and if I had, he wouldn’t have told me. So say you’re sorry for being narky and give us a kiss, like a good lass.’
Julia MacMalcolm had learned to dread the small, yellow envelopes since the day, almost, she had fallen in love. They had rarely brought happiness; rather disappointments and death in their terse, cruel words. That day in France
