The Marlows

by Rosalind Laker

  THE MARLOWS

  Rosalind Laker

  © Rosalind Laker 1977

  Rosalind Laker has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 2001, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1977 by Doubleday, U.S.A. as Ride the Blue Riband.

  Published in the UK in 1978, by Robert Hale Ltd.

  Paperback edition reprinted by Methen in 1977.

  This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10.

  11

  12

  13

  14

  Extract from The Fragile Hour by Rosalind Laker

  1

  On the brow of the hill Oliver Marlow reined in his horse and looked down at the Hampshire village of Hartsworth with a feeling of intense well-being. Thatched roofs and some of slate lay clustered together around the gray stone Norman church and the green with its duckpond. He was home again. After a full season at the races, which had taken him away from his cottage in March and had allowed him to return on this crisp, amber-hued fall afternoon, he was about to be reunited with his wife and family. No dark sense of premonition touched him, no chill concern that all might not be as he had left it. Ruth was a good wife and used to managing in his lengthy absences. All would be well.

  “Come on, boy,” he said aloud to his horse in his deep, throaty voice as he dug his heels into its scrawny flanks. “We’re almost there.”

  With a clop of hooves on the hard, rutted surface the nag jogged on down the winding lane. Oliver did not press his tired mount to greater speed, being content to take his time and look about him as he rode along, his light-blue eyes under the forward-tilted brim of his tall beaver hat keen and alert, missing nothing. He had a good seat on a horse, natural and easy in spite of his bulk, and altogether he was a fine-looking man and knew it. Thick, wheat-coloured hair and heavy brows gave dramatic impact to a well-moulded, leonine face much weathered by hard living. Deep lines ran from the straight nose to the corners of a fleshy, mobile mouth, which looked as if it enjoyed many things, not least of all laughter, and its corners were relaxed in amiability as he took note of the changes that had been made since he had last ridden the dusty lane. Over there the flint wall had been repaired, and in the copse a quarter of the trees had been felled. An extra rick in one of the fields told him that the summer had been dry and no excess rain had spoiled the hay crop.

  He always savoured the last half hour of home-coming. It was a breathing space spiced with anticipation that settled on him comfortably, without excitement, but with contentment, knowing that the gifts he had in his saddlebags would delight his children, who would show their joy, no matter that all four had grown into young adults. He had a double-barrelled fowling piece for his son, lengths of silk, lawn, and light wool for his daughters — he always thought of the eldest as his own child — and there was velvet for Ruth, who was also to receive a fine Cashmere shawl, its muted shades well suited to her fair colouring. Not that she would wear it, except to try it about her shoulders after taking it from its wrappings, simply to show Judith and Tansy and Nina, who would want it displayed. Then it would be folded away in a drawer with most of the other peace offerings he’d given her, always reluctant to adorn herself in any way that might inflame his ever-swift desires.

  Ruth had changed much since he had first taken her in the silent, green woods half a mile from her home amid the scent of fern and leaf and waving willow herb. She had loved him and he had been wild for her, that frail sprig of a girl with the pansy-dark eyes, whom he had waylaid and haunted at every turn, having been barred from calling on her at her home through his own scallywag reputation, for all that he came from a great house and was better born than she. He was the younger son of a straitlaced Yorkshire family, rebelling at an early age and taking to gaming, wine, and women with a gusto that had appalled all except his paternal grandmother, who doted on him and alone refused to condemn him as a black sheep. After her death, he had cause for gratitude to her. Ruth was the only child of a first wife, resented by the second spouse, who had time only for her own brood, and ignored by her dour, Bible-thumping father, a banker by profession, who held her responsible for her mother’s death in childbirth. No wonder Ruth had been starved for love and affection, her natural desires warring with her strict upbringing, but eventually he had coaxed her into secret meetings and had known it would not be long before he had his way with her. Never before and never since had he waited thus to possess and be possessed, for in the end she caught him on the hook of love and there had been no other thought in his head but he must marry her. They had eloped together, and from that moment forth they had been rejected and disowned by their respective families, he for this final evidence of his profligate ways, she for daring to defy her overbearing parent. She had never cared for the travelling existence that had followed, for he had been forced to earn a living out of the only two assets to his credit: a knowledge of horseflesh and skill at cards. He had always had a wanderlust and revelled in the freedom of it, but she had become more thin and wan with every move, suffering several miscarriages. Eventually he had bought her the Hartsworth cottage, where she had struck tenacious roots, never again venturing out of the village, content to let him come and go at will with never a word of reproach for a lack of letters, knowing it was purgatory for him to put pen to paper, for he had no scholastic or literary turn of mind whatever. Yes, she understood him. Too well for her own peace of mind, but he was as he’d been made and there was no changing him now.

  Sometimes he wondered if in her heart she had never believed what he had told her about their foster child and remained convinced that the girl, now twenty-eight, was his by-blow, but she was wrong there. Judith Collins had been ten when he’d brought her to Hartsworth, seated before him on a horse far superior to his present mount, for he had been in the money on that occasion. Her mother had been a wanton creature, who had come to a bad end, and her father had been a notable jockey in his time, but had succumbed to the bottle and gone downhill after his wife deserted him; then, on a soft, misty day at Aintree, he had taken a fatal tumble during a steeplechase. Judith, seeing him fall, had screamed and darted under the rails to reach him before anyone could stop her, and was knocked flying by the hooves of one of the other runners taking the fence after him. Miraculously she had not been killed, but had suffered broken bones that were to leave her permanently crippled and ever to walk with a stick. Discovering that the child had nobody to take charge of her, he had paid for her to be treated for her injuries and looked after until the day when the last race of the season had been run and he returned to take her home with him to join his family. Ruth had stared from him to the child and back again with stark, unhappy eyes, no doubt thinking to see some similarity in their features, in spite of listening to what he had to say, but when he lifted Judith down from the saddle that good wife of his had put all else from her in consideration for the child, who stood shy and frightened and bewildered, leaning on a stick, her outgrown dress revealing beneath its hem the terribly twisted foot. Holding out her arms, Ruth had said softly, “Come to me, Judith dear. I’ve been wanting an older daughter just like you to help me care for my baby. Her name is Tansy. Let’s go indoors and see her, shall we?” Judith had trusted and loved Ruth from that moment forth, and there was not one of his three children who did not look to the girl as an older sister. It was a pity she had not married, for she had a sweet nature and would have made some man a loving partner, but her disability had been against her chances and now it was doubtful t
hat marriage would ever come her way. Not that it seemed to trouble her, and with her quiet good humour she had shared the ups and downs of his fortunes with the rest of the family and had helped Ruth shoulder many a burden when the others had been growing up.

  He could not help wishing he’d had a better season during this year of 1847. Then, as he had done so many times before, he would have come home on a thoroughbred with sovereigns weighing down his pockets, and looped across his waistcoat there would have been a new gold watch and chain to replace the one he’d had to hock for a final flutter on the last race. He should have known by long experience that he couldn’t turn his luck at such a late hour and must wait for it to smile on him again when the next season started. That was the way of it. Ah, but he’d had some strokes of good luck in his time! Take last year’s Derby, for instance. He’d lost disastrously this year, but not on that previous sweet day in May, which had made him a rich man for a while. In his mind’s eye he could see again his winner romping home while he cheered and shouted and threw his hat into the air. The roar of the crowd seemed to echo once more in his ears, that multicoloured sea of people from all walks of life, who flocked annually to the lush, green slopes of the Epsom Downs within easy reach of London for the grandest race in the world. Nowhere else was such a supreme test of speed, strength, and endurance put to the best three-year-olds in the land, and so greatly had the occasion fired the imagination of all that the race had become an unofficial national fete, even Parliament retiring for the day to allow Members to attend. Gentlemen mostly arranged their wagers privately, ladies were beginning to place their bets discreetly in pairs of gloves, and the bookmakers in the Betting Post handled the money of common folk, but no matter if the bets were in hundreds of thousands of guineas or as little as a tanner warm from some costermonger’s pocket, every punter shared on an equal footing the glorious thrill of watching a field of thirty runners or more thundering along the horseshoe-shaped, undulating course to the winning post. In the Grand Stand, the private stands, and the elegant carriages drawn up at vantage points at the rails, the elite in their tall silk hats and befrilled bonnets roared their enthusiasm with the humbler spectators who clustered about the course and covered the famous Hill with no room to spare. It was a day when class was forgotten, when a Duke could rub shoulders with a gypsy, and all mingled freely in that superb setting. How the flags and the bunting waved! What a trumpeting of bands and a jingling of bells and a merry screeching of individual fiddles! Never empty of customers were the striped booths offering refreshment, the gaudy canvas enclosures of the sideshows, and the brightly hued beer tents. And what a hubbub of delighted noise came from the swings and other fairground pleasures! Derby Day at Epsom was unique, an experience not to be missed. Long may it continue! Oliver smiled to himself, his thoughts reaching out to a certain long-legged colt, gambolling in a faraway paddock, a future winner if ever he saw one. May it bring home to him in the not too distant future the great fortune that any punter worth his salt determined to make one day! May it win the wonderful Derby!

  Lost in his reverie, he had reached the bottom of the hill, and when the horse brought him over the hump of the stone bridge that spanned the river he saw to his surprise the slender figure of his elder daughter stumbling to a breathless halt in the middle of the lane ahead of him. Tansy! She must have spotted him on the hill and come at a run from wherever she was to meet him. A grin of pleasure spread across his face and he did not find it amiss at first that she did not dart the last few yards to reach him, but stayed hesitantly where she was, watching him approach, and twisting round and round with nervous hands the wide brim of the hat that she held, which was dusty as if it had flown more than once from her head and been retrieved from the ground. Exuberantly he urged the horse into a canter to shorten the distance between them as quickly as possible. At the same time he was struck anew by the beauty of his dear child, his special pet, and pride soared up in him. Her luxuriant hair, windblown and tumbled, was a richer, brighter shade than his own. Not for the first time he congratulated himself on having chosen the perfect Christian name for her, for even as a tiny baby her wispy curls had been the colour of the little meadow tansy, which spread its gold amid the tall grass and along the wayside under summer skies, and he had swept aside all Ruth’s wishes on the matter and been ever glad of it. He marked how tall she was, how graceful, and how her black dress accentuated the exquisite pallor of a skin immune to freckles. From him she had the high forehead and straight nose, although with her the nostrils had an almond curve and were delicately moulded above a generous, soft-lipped mouth, but in the shape of her chin there lurked a stubbornness that reminded him of Ruth, and there was a marked resemblance across the eyes, which were more violet than blue, dark and glistening, full of secret thoughts.

  “Tansy, my child!” he explained boisterously when he came within earshot. “Trust you to be the first to welcome me!”

  Only then did she come forward with reluctant steps, and she stood looking up at him as he drew level with her. With compassion she saw the easy grin fade from his ruddy face, comprehension dawning on him that all was not as it should be, and it was some terribly serious mission that had brought her there. Slowly and deliberately he swung himself from the saddle and took hold of her by the shoulders. She could smell the dust of travel on him, sweat and leather, and the pungent aroma of tobacco on his breath.

  “Tell me!” he ordered harshly.

  A great wave of filial love swept through her and with it came the tears she had not dared to shed before, filling her eyes, half-blinding her. With a gulp she dropped her hat and threw herself against him, her haven, her refuge, her adored father who was the tower of strength she needed in this hour of trouble. The others had looked to her to succour and comfort them, and yet at heart she had been the weakest and the most sorely grieved. She clutched the lapels of his coat, twisting them, her face pressed into the hollow of his shoulder. The words wrenched from her.

  “I wanted you to hear the news from no one else. Mama — is dead.”

  She felt rather than heard the gasp that shuddered through him. “How? When?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper.

  “Seven weeks ago. At night. There was a fire. The wall behind the kitchen range ignited — the one in need of repair” — her voice faltered and became choked by sobbing, but he gave her a kind of angry shake, forcing her to go on — “and the flames took hold before Roger woke and raised the alarm. It was too late. Mama was trapped in her room. The thatch burned like a torch. People came and formed a chain with buckets from the well, and someone put a ladder against a window to get us out. There was nothing we could do. Nothing anyone could do. The staircase was ablaze. Roger nearly went insane. They say it must have been over quickly for Mama. The smoke. Perhaps she knew nothing.”

  An awful animal-like groan of despair broke from him. With a swiftness that caught her off balance he thrust her from him, making her stagger and fall, but although the result of his violent action must have been unintentional he made no move to help her up again and threw himself back into the saddle, bringing his whip down with such force across the horse’s rump that it leaped forward with a startled whinny into a full gallop, thundering off in the direction of the village, leaving her in a cloud of dust that stung her eyes and was gritty in her mouth.

  Fear gripped her. What was he going to do? Where was he bound? She scrambled to her feet, vaguely aware that she had grazed her elbow in the fall and that her palms had been cut and pitted by stones on the lane’s surface, but she did no more than brush them clean against her skirt, breaking into a run to follow after her father, who had already vanished from sight.

  Ever after, the rest of that day seemed a nightmare to her, and indeed it was to return to her many times in dreams that made her cry out while she searched in vain for a distraught man who blundered about somewhere ahead of her, his frantic hands taking up one piece of charred wood and then another as if by putting the burnt timbers together
again he might restore the home he had lost and bring back to life the woman who had lived in it.

  It was a full two miles from where Tansy had been left on her own to the far side of the village where the blackened ruins of the cottage still stood, an ugly jumble of scorched inner walls, fallen beams, and powdery cinders. She came to it at a stumbling run and knew he had been there. The only door still left on its hinges had been kicked in and the ash and pieces of debris lay disturbed where he must have trampled them under a ceiling of open sky, which was already fading to dusk. Where was he? Where had he gone? To the churchyard. That was where she would find him.

  She turned with a swirl of petticoats and followed the footpath that led to it, slowing her pace when she came to the gate, which opened with a faint screech, for she did not want to intrude on his private moments of grief, but now that he was home she could not bear to be far from him. Yet at first glance she saw he was not in the churchyard and when she looked into the church itself he was nowhere to be seen.

  Retracing her steps she hurried down the cobbled street of the village where most of the shops were still open, although there were few people about. When she came to an arched passageway near the green she went through it, making for the wide green gates at the end of it, on which was painted in white lettering the name of the owner and his business: Edgar Webster and Son, Builder and Contractor. It had occurred to her that her father could have sought out her brother Roger, who at the age of fifteen was apprenticed in the carpenters’ workshop there, not through his own choice, but through pressure from their mother, who had distrusted his love of horses. She hated his hanging around stables and riding as though born on horseback whenever the opportunity presented itself, and it was her fear that he would follow his father into the racing world that had made her deal somewhat unjustly with him, committing him to a trade that he worked at obediently, but with little heart. After the cottage had burned down Mr. Webster had allowed him to sleep under the workbench at night and he was fed in the household’s kitchen. Whether it had been Mr. Webster’s own idea that Roger should do two extra hours of work a day in return for his keep Tansy did not know, but she suspected it was at Mrs. Webster’s instigation, for the woman was as tight-fisted as she was snobbish. It was well known that she held the purse strings, it being her money that had enabled Mr. Webster to establish himself and build her a grand house, keep a carriage and pair, and accumulate a stable of good hunters which he and his only son, Adam, rode to hounds. Tansy felt sorry for Roger having to work such a long day, but it had been necessary and he had done it without complaint.