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.
Pendenys boasted a butler, a housekeeper, two footmen and many servants, most of them young and poorly paid. It stood out like a great grey scab on the beautiful countryside, the only thing to commend it being that it could not be seen from the windows of Rowangarth.
Pendenys Place stood brash on a hilltop, a defiant monument to the pride of a self-made man, lashed by wind and rain and still not one iota mellowed by them.
Helen Sutton signed, becoming aware that her daughter’s eyes regarded her with an openness she had come to expect, a frankness that was a part of her.
‘Is something wrong?’ She drew her fingers across her cheek. ‘A smut?’
‘No, dearest. Whilst you were miles away, thinking, I was thinking how beautiful you are and wondering why I’m not in the least bit like you.’ Why she had not inherited the fineness of her mother’s bones, her clear blue eyes, her thick, corn-yellow hair.
‘Not like me? And you aren’t like your father, either. I think you favour your aunt Sutton, child. You have her independence and her courage. But don’t grow into an old maid like she is, because you have your own special beauty, though you won’t admit it.
‘Why do you freeze men out, Julia? Because you do, you know. Sometimes I think you go out of your way to do it.’
‘I know I do. But it’s only because the right man hasn’t come along yet, and you did say, you and Pa, that you’d never interfere and let me marry where I wished. And I shall know him, when we meet. I’ll know him at once, so don’t worry about me. Let’s talk about tonight, shall we, and Aunt Clemmy and her awful Elliot?’
‘Must we?’ Helen Sutton shuddered. She intensely disliked her brother-in-law’s elder son; wondered why a stop hadn’t been put to his extravagant ways, his drinking and his women. And especially to his whoring.
Blushing, she checked herself at once. She had allowed herself to think a word no lady should even know. But whoring – and there was no other word for it – and Elliot Sutton were synonymous, and she would rather her daughter entered a convent than marry a man with so dreadful a reputation. ‘Must we talk about Clementina and her everlasting complaining about the cost of servants and the amount they eat?’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘Nor about her son who is no better than – than he ought to be.’
‘Elliot … I suppose you can’t entirely blame him for being as he is.’ Julia Sutton was nothing if not fair. ‘After all, his father spends his time buying books and reading books. I think Uncle Edward loves learning better than he loves his son, and you can’t, as Mrs Shaw is always saying, make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Elliot can’t ever be a gentleman with a mother like Aunt Clemmy. She’s common!’
‘That is unfair! And Mrs Shaw shouldn’t say things like that,’ Helen gasped, though her eyes were bright with mischief and her lips struggled against a smile. And hadn’t her John always said that a man could choose his friends, but his relations he was stuck with and must make the best of.
So tonight she would try her best to be kind to Clemmy and her eldest son. She would wear her almost-out-of-mourning gown because it would be expected of her, and she would take the arm of her younger son for support and wear John’s orchids with love.
Tomorrow it would be all over, and she could pick up the threads of her shattered life and face the world alone. And tomorrow, too, she would wave a smiling goodbye to Julia and Hawthorn and do nothing that would cast the least sadness on their great adventure.
‘Let’s talk about London,’ she smiled.
‘So