Caroline England

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Don’t forget he’s delicate, sir. Maybe he’ll be a bit slower than other little boys.”

  “Nonsense. Never was a Torrys who didn’t take to ridin’ like a duck takes to water.” James turned to the groom. “Lead him slowly down to the first gate, Sam. Let him get the feel of what’s under him.” He nodded dismissal to Nurse. “Up you go. I’ll send him up later.” Ellison, except for half an hour with Aunt Agnes after tea, had never been left without Nurse before. Beyond the fact that he was one of the men who touched his hat and said “Mornin’, Mas’er Ellison,” he had never known Sam. He was rigid with fright. Sam gave him a friendly smile.

  “Doant be feared, Mas’er Ellison. Her name is Lily. She’s a proper little radical. You’ll get that fond of her you’ll be all over the place on her.”

  Ellison moaned.

  “I wanna get down. I want to get down.”

  They were round a clump of laurels at the bend before the gate. They were out of sight of the terrace. Sam put his arm round the child.

  “There now, Mas’er Ellison. That’s better, isn’t it? You can trust old Sam to hold ’ee. But you mustn’t upset the Master. Proper upset he’ll be if you get off her. He took mortal care pickin’ of un for ’ee at the fair.”

  Ellison said nothing. He leant feebly against Sam’s shoulder. He made an ominous retching sound. Quick as lightning Sam had him off Lily’s back and held his head over the flower-bed. When all was over he wiped the child’s mouth. Then, gently, lifted him on to Lily, turned her head, and slowly led her back to the house. He kept his body between himself and James so that it would not be seen his left hand was gripping Ellison’s knee.

  “You took your time,” said James. “I hoped to see her jog along a bit comin’ back.”

  Sam looked round anxiously for Nurse. Not seeing her he sent an urgent call to Caroline.

  “Well, sir, I was tellin’ Mas’er Ellison how you came to pick Lily at the fair.” He lifted Ellison to the ground. “Proper little horseman he’ll be, sir.” He turned to Caroline who, on the excuse of patting Lily, had joined him. “Better take him to Nurse, Miss Caroline,” he whispered. “He’s been, mortal sick down by them laurels.”

  James swung Ellison up on to his shoulder. “Enjoyed that, didn’t you my boy?”

  There was thanksgiving in the way he said ‘My boy.’ He had been waiting fifteen years for this morning. His son’s first pony. A great day in a boy’s life.

  Caroline held out her arms.

  “Let me take him up to Nurse, Papa.” Unwillingly James put Ellison on the ground.

  “Getting a bit old for all this fussing, Caroline. Time we made a man of him.”

  In silence Ellison and Caroline walked hand in hand to the top of the house. Nurse was leaning over the banisters. Caroline looked up at her.

  “I think he’d better lie down. He’s been very sick. Papa doesn’t know.”

  “Sick! That’s excitement.”

  Nurse led Ellison to his bed, covered him up, pulled down the blind, and gave him a kiss.

  “Now you have a nice sleep. Nanny will be in presently with something that will do you good.” She went into the day nursery.

  Caroline was looking out of the window. She played idly with the bobbles on one of the curtains. She felt happier than she had felt since her mother died. It no longer mattered to her that Louisa and Elizabeth were such sycophants. It no longer mattered that Aunt Agnes had dared to try and fill her mother’s place. She had found who really needed her, to whom all her stored-up affection should, and must be given. Ellison needed her. She knew that from the way his ridiculously small fingers had clung on to her hand as they had climbed the stairs. She heard Nurse come in, and swung round eagerly.

  “How is he now?”

  Nurse stopped, struck by her tone. “How is he now?” Caroline had used a possessive note as if she thought she had the first right to know how Ellison was. Well, she would soon show her where she was not wanted. “How is he now?” That was a voice to use! He was his Nanny’s boy and was not needing any fussing from his sister.

  “Now run along down Miss Caroline,” she said briskly, “I don’t want you up here bothering.”

  Caroline grew crimson. How dared Nurse take that tone. Just as if Ellison was hers.

  “He’s my brother. I suppose I’ve got a right to know how he is?”

  Nurse pointed to the door.

  “You’ll know how he is with a thrashing if I have any more of your impertinence. Now off you go.” Caroline went out into the garden and weeded her bed. Each tuft of groundsel or dandelion that she pulled she shook viciously.

  “She shan’t shut him away upstairs. He’s my brother and I mean to look after him.”

  Caroline did mother Ellison, but not in the way she expected. There was no need to get him away from Nurse. In fact, it would have been impossible. Even Caroline could not persuade herself that Ellison’s devotion to Nurse was time-serving. Unwilling though she was to accept such a fact, she had to admit that he adored her. Her mothering of Ellison was in shielding him from his father. James believed that if a boy was not naturally a sportsman he must be licked into being one as quickly as possible. Caroline could not help Ellison to be more sporting, but she could teach him other things with which to appease his father’s wrath. She taught him the Torrys’ history. Round and round the Manor she took him.

  “Who built the very first Manor, Ellison?”

  “What happened to the first Manor? Is there any of it left?”

  Ellison was frankly bored by the Manor, but Caroline was stern with him.

  “You must try and remember, Ellison. One day it will be yours.”

  Her coaching had its effect. James was delighted at the boy’s parrot-like recitals. He liked to see him walking between the coronation oaks, patting each trunk.

  “This one was planted for Queen Victoria. This one was planted for William the Fourth. This one was planted by my great, great, great-grandpapa. He had to plant it himself, because he hadn’t a little boy then. He had a girl, but girls can’t plant trees.”

  James was thankful to think the boy was interested in his family history, for it was the only male Torrys’ trait visible. He could ride, but he made the most blatant excuses not to do so. He was terrified of a gun. His boxing lessons were a farce. What he seemed to like doing was sitting at the piano picking out little tunes with one finger. He could be happy for an hour at a domestic job, such as tidying a work-basket. He was fond of clothes. He liked being dressed up and shown to guests, always provided Nurse was there to hold his hand.

  “Don’t know what’s the matter with the boy. All these women have made a milk sop of him,” James grumbled to Thomas.

  Thomas privately thought Ellison a wretched whining little specimen.

  “He’s delicate,” he suggested tactfully.

  “Delicate! Don’t believe it,” James scoffed. “I shall pack him off to a school in a year or two. Get him licked into shape, then we shan’t hear any more about delicacy.”

  In the summer, just before Ellison’s sixth birthday, in the year in which Caroline was seventeen, was the Queen’s Jubilee. James decided to honour it. An oak should be planted and Ellison should do the planting. From the depths of his soul he considered the planting of a tree by a Torrys on Torrys’ land the most interesting feature of the celebrations. He spent several hours with Pettigrew before he could select a suitable spot for the planting.

  “How’d it be,” Pettigrew suggested, “if it was to stand alongside t’other tree what was put in when she was crowned?”

  James looked surprised at such stupidity.

  “But these are coronation oaks. We only plant oaks there for a coronation. This is a jubilee—a unique occasion.”

  Pettigrew did not grasp the point.

  “It ’uld sit sweet alongside of they.”
/>   “Don’t talk nonsense, man.” James led the way to a possible site on the lawn.

  “June do be aw’ard month for tree-plantin’,” Pettigrew pointed out, when finally the site was chosen. “I shouldn’t like a tree planted by little Master Ellison to die, and him so delicate, too.”

  “Delicate! Rubbish.” James roared. He studied the selected spot on the lawn in silence a moment, then he said casually: “Is planting a tree in June likely to kill it?”

  Pettigrew pursed his lips and looked grave.

  “Maybe. I might choose a little ’un and have it prepared like, but it’s not right, not June isn’t.”

  The oak was planted on June 21st. James had expected the family, the county, the tenants and his workers to be present. He was surprised to learn that many of them were going to see the procession in London. Astounding that they should want to, when they could come to the Manor. Even with many absentees, there was a great gathering.

  June 21st was the happiest day Agnes had spent since she left the schoolroom. She had ordered a quite magnificent outfit for the occasion, and as she trailed about from tent to tent she was conscious that she looked her best and every inch mistress of the Manor. Even her mother could not hurt her that day. She might say: “Oh, duck for luncheon! Never very suitable for a big function I think!” But she was powerless to hurt. The affair was splendidly organised and everyone knew it, and no one so well as Agnes herself. The only fly in her day was Caroline. She was appearing with her hair up for the first time.

  Agnes considered it too soon for Caroline to grow up. She said: “It’s a pity, I think. One is a child for so short a while. Don’t let’s make a woman of her yet.” She honestly thought this was what she felt. Actually, she was jealous of the girl. She had put up with a good deal from her; never once had Caroline attempted to make friends. She thought that Caroline was entirely to blame. She had no glimmering that her own handling of the situation was part of the trouble. She never listened to her sub-conscious mind and would have been scandalised at herself if she had realised that what she really felt was: “The little brute is going to be a beauty. She’ll be petted and spoilt by men. It is insufferable that this child, whom I have had to endure ever since I came to the house, should be prinked up and admired until she is more impossible than ever!” Had the decision as to whether Caroline grew up before or after the Jubilee been left to her, she would have sincerely believed that she was keeping Caroline in the schoolroom from the highest motives. As it was, the matter was settled by family opinion. Almost all the replies to the invitations mentioned her. “Fancy Caroline being seventeen.” “It will be a great pleasure to see Caroline grown-up.” “I expect Caroline looks charming now her hair is up.” If Agnes had been able to follow her instincts, she would have chosen the girl an ugly frock, and found an unbecoming way to do her hair, but her sense of dress had always been excellent and she could not go against her nature. Up went Caroline’s hair, on went the carefully chosen garden-party frock. She looked enchanting.

  It seemed as though all classes were bound to try and spoil Agnes’s day by discussing the one subject she wanted to overlook.

  “How are you, Mrs. Pettigrew? I’m glad you were able to come. Have you seen Master Ellison?”

  “Yes, the little dear. It’s a great day for him. But what Pettigrew’n me ’ave been sayin’ is how Miss Caroline do look as pretty as a picture. Pettigrew he says she do look same as one of they peaches on his wall.”

  “How are you, Puddick? I’m glad you could get away.”

  “Good day, Miss Agnes. It would be a funny thing if the landlord of the ‘Torrys Arms’ didn’t see Master Ellison plant his tree!”

  “It’s a great day for him.”

  “So it is surely. I was surprised to see Miss Caroline. Proper beauty she is. Got a look of her poor dear mother, though it’s Miss Dymphna she puts me in mind of. Miss Dymphna was the best-lookin’ of you ladies when you was young, but Miss Caroline has her beat.”

  Agnes, refusing to be upset, smiled graciously and went among the neighbours. Old Lady Rith patted her arm.

  “Well, Agnes, this is an occasion. Very well planned, my dear. You take after your mother. Very good at managing is your mother. Little Caroline has turned out a beauty. Better keep your eye on her or she’ll break a lot of hearts.”

  Mrs. Ellison sat down to rest on the terrace. The urns were full of hanging pink geraniums. The peacock strolled by. She looked at him wistfully. It had been Selina’s idea that there ought to be peacocks on the terrace. Up the steps, at the other end of the terrace, came Agnes. Mrs. Ellison moved to the end of the seat. She was sheltered there by the urn. She was tired out and not in the mood for conversation.

  “Congratulations, Agnes.” Mrs. Ellison peered round the urn. It was the children’s Aunt Rose who was speaking. She was resting on the seat on the other side of the urn. “How you’ve arranged everything I don’t know. You’re like mother. It must be inherited talent.”

  Agnes joined her sister on the seat.

  “It was a lot of work, but everything seems going splendidly.”

  “Yes.” Rose looked at the moving crowd. She caught sight of Caroline. “Hasn’t our niece grown up a delicious person?”

  Mrs. Ellison peered round the urn. She would not mind joining in the conversation if it was to be about the children. But she did not speak. Instead, after one startled glance, she leant back out of sight. Agnes had turned her head away from Rose as if to watch the peacock. She was not troubling how her face looked, for she supposed no one was about to see. So it was, that all the pent-up bitterness and jealousy was there to be looked at.

  The clock over the stables chimed the quarter. Agnes got up. The face she turned to Rose was the smiling face of a proud aunt.

  “Yes, hasn’t she? Come along, Ellison plants his tree in a quarter of an hour. We must get good places.” Mrs. Ellison stayed on the terrace for the planting. She was a proud grandmother. Ellison looked a picturesque little figure in his white sailor suit. His yellow curls standing out in an aureole from under his sailor hat. With deep absorption, he patted the earth into place, gloriously oblivious that Pettigrew would do a lot of final patting before the day was done. His shrill voice rang out:

  “This tree is planted to commemorate the Jubilee of Our Great Queen.” He took off his hat. “God bless her.” The schoolroom piano was standing behind a rhododendron. Letitia sat before it with her hands raised, her eyes anxiously on Ellison. On the words “Bless her,” she struck the first bars of the National Anthem.

  Mrs. Ellison looked at Ellison through the raised hats of the men and the fluttering handkerchiefs of the women. He looked such a baby. How she wished Selina could see him, how proud she would be. Her thoughts went to Caroline. Of course, a woman of that age could not be jealous of a young girl. It would not be natural. Yet the look on Agnes’s face had not been at all kind. Mrs. Ellison was not given to strategy. She had got quite a lot of her own way in her life, but it had come to her; she had never played for it. But now, thinking of Caroline and the look on her aunt’s face, she thought out a little scheme. She waited for a suitable moment, then she waylaid Agnes.

  “Such a successful function. You must be proud. The children all look splendid. So clever of you. What a becoming gown. Your taste is so good. So fortunate for the girls to have you to train them. I have been thinking, dear, that it is rather hard on a young woman like yourself to have so much on your shoulders. I think it is time I took a little of the burden off you. I thought perhaps you would allow me to take Caroline back with me for a nice long visit?”

  “She’s rather young for visiting,” Agnes objected. “She is still in the schoolroom.”

  “Oh, but of course. I thought perhaps you could spare her governess to come with her. They could go to museums and concerts and she could take some dancing lessons.”

  Agnes was delighted. Carol
ine would have to take her meals in the dining-room now, with herself and James. She would be present when people came to dine. It certainly was a good idea to send her to London. Packed off with a governess to her grandmother, there was little fear of her meeting young people and getting more spoilt than she already was. Agnes smiled graciously.

  “I think it will be admirable for her. Of course, it needs arranging. Miss Long teaches the other girls as well. But I think a little change will do the child good. Of course, I must ask James’s permission.”

  Mrs. Ellison patted her knee.

  “My dear, it’s we women who make these decisions.”

  Chapter X

  CAROLINE had never thought from what kind of home her mother had come. She had heard descriptions of course. The tall London house. The square. The lilac. The pigeons. She had pictured her with a schoolroom much as the schoolroom was at the Manor. Then, perhaps, a bedroom of her own, like her bedroom at home. When she saw her mother’s rooms they were a complete surprise. The atmosphere of the bedroom was unlike any bedroom she had seen. It was prinked out with bows, frills and lace. The colour scheme of the room was rose. The bed, the dressing-table, the day-bed and the chair cushions were made of rose-coloured silk, covered with Brussels net or figured muslin. Wherever it was possible, there was a rose-coloured bow. The carpet was rose-coloured. The paper was white, turning yellow now with age. Bunches of roses rambled over it. Mrs. Ellison showed Caroline the room.

  “There, dear,” she said, giving her a kiss. “I say to you what I said to your dear mother, the day we moved her from her nursery to this little room. A pretty room for a pretty child.”

  Downstairs, the schoolroom had the same bowed appearance. The colour scheme was blue. A blue carpet, blue curtains, blue on the mantelpiece, bunches of blue flowers and bows on the wall-paper, blue satin quilting on the sociable, a blue table-cloth, a blue silk lampshade.

  Along one wall were shelves for toys and books; each shelf was edged with a blue netted fringe.