‘All I’m saying,’ said Eve, ‘is Ruby and I are friends now, and Angus and Roscoe are friends too, as well as cousins, and in England, there’ll be a world of opportunity that doesn’t exist in Jamaica.’
‘No sunshine, or not much,’ he said, trying to lighten the mood. ‘No sea or sand. No ackee and saltfish. No hummingbirds, no jacaranda.’
‘All right, all right, that’s all true,’ she said, not ready to be amused, ‘but none of those things are reasons to stay.’
‘She’s a negro, Eve.’
‘I’ve noticed.’
‘Well, how do you think it’ll feel for her and Roscoe, being the only black-skinned residents in Netherwood? In the entire county, for all I know.’
‘Anna was – is – the only Russian. She’s managed well enough.’
‘Absurd comparison,’ he said. ‘Anna is blonde and blue-eyed and five foot two, not statuesque with ebony skin. Anna doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb in the Netherwood Co-op, does she?’
Eve conceded the point with a curt shake of the head, which swam a little when she moved it, after two glasses of champagne. Now a deep red claret had arrived, to drink with the beef. ‘Try it,’ he said, nodding at her glass. She did, and its mellow liquid weight slipped warmly down her throat.
‘Eve,’ he said. ‘This is something I understand, believe me. I’m a shade or two darker than most of the people I live and work among, and it can be difficult, being different.’
She looked at him, the gloss and polish of him, the cut of his jacket and the crisp white of his shirt against his light brown throat: hard to imagine him suffering a failure of confidence in the company of anyone. Though it was also hard to imagine anyone getting the better of Ruby, and the fact was she didn’t even know yet if Ruby would come. What she did know, however, was that she profoundly regretted mentioning it today.
‘Please don’t mention this to Silas,’ she said, and he held up his hands in a non-committal way.
‘I think that if you’re planning to abscond with the cook the boss should probably be told.’
‘She’s not an indentured slave, you know.’
‘I do know that, thank you.’
‘Then she’s free to leave your employment if she wishes.’
‘She is indeed.’
They moved on, then, to speak of other things, but the air between them had cooled and it proved difficult to completely regain the friendly footing on which they’d begun earlier in the day. Even the first-rate hospitality of the Mountain Spring began to grate, and by the time they left Eve was ready for the authentic, if slightly unpredictable, charms of the Eden Falls Hotel.
What Eve hadn’t told Hugh was that she wanted to take Seth back with her too; she wanted to take him but he wouldn’t go. She had asked him the very same evening of her row with Silas, the evening she’d begun packing – far too hastily, of course: it had all had to come out of the trunk again – in her frenzy to be away. She had found Seth sitting alone on the terrace late at night, long after the hotel had fallen quiet and still. He had seemed very content, and she remembered thinking this was odd, given the drama of the day, the ripples of which had surely not escaped him. Even Wendell, the kitchen lad, had looked at her with saucer eyes when she passed him on the stairs. She had told Seth her story, recounted her conversation, left nothing out; this all must be in strict confidence, she had said, but if he didn’t know the truth he would never understand how much it mattered that he left with her and Angus, that he remove himself from his uncle’s influence. Seth had heard her out in placid silence, and then had simply said no.
His uncle valued him, Seth said. He had told him so, just this evening; he saw his potential – more so, perhaps, than she did. His uncle had told him, more than once, that the company would be his in the end. And the paternity of Roscoe Donaldson, while admittedly a surprise, was neither here nor there. ‘Not my concern,’ he had said. ‘Not yours either.’
Eve had looked at her son, her firstborn child, and although she was close enough to have taken his hand, she had never felt further away from him. He held her gaze, with the defiant challenge that, over the years, he had always reserved for her, and she felt, amid her sadness, a slender but quite distinct thread of relief at his decision.
‘Mam,’ he had said, ‘you look after yourself and Angus. I’ll look after myself.’
So she had left him in the dark, with just the crickets for company. After she’d gone he tried to smoke a cigarette, a habit he longed to acquire, but the taste was too bitter and he stubbed it out. He thought about Ruby Donaldson, whom he disliked, and felt glad that his uncle had spurned her. If he hadn’t, then her little bastard – he felt a thrill at the ugly word – might be a threat. As it was, so long as he, Seth, could make himself indispensable to Uncle Silas, he was on a straight, clear road to success. He lit another cigarette, determined, this time, to see it through to the end.
Chapter 49
The Victoria and Albert was only ten years old and very fine, but even so she was eclipsed in grandeur and elegance by the Russian imperial yacht, which had sailed with immense grace into Cowes harbour, masts gleaming like golden spars in the soft morning light. The day before, Tsar Nicholas, gaunt but elegant in the white uniform of a British admiral, had stood at salute, shoulder to shoulder with the rotund and somewhat florid Edward, to review the mighty armada of British battleships at Spithead; but now the sailing races were about to begin and, with them, the fun.
Tobias invited the household staff up on deck when the Lady Isabella took her place in the busy harbour, so that they could properly observe the Standart, the tsar’s yacht. She was a magisterial craft. Four hundred feet long, with a gleaming black hull and a bowsprit adorned with gold leaf. There were three towering, varnished wooden masts and two vast white funnels, and her deck seemed to be crowded with people, so that it was difficult to pick out Nicholas and Alexandra, although everyone claimed they could. Parkinson stood at the rails, mesmerised: that the tsar and tsarina were practically within hailing distance was a remarkable and memorable thing. Poor Mrs Powell-Hughes, he thought; she had had to send up her sincerest apologies from the darkened sanctuary of her cabin.
‘She’s feeling decidedly seedy, Your Lordship,’ Parkinson said with a knowing smile, one sailor to another. That neither he nor the earl had ever sailed before seemed to escape him, although Lord Netherwood said, ‘Poor soul, me too, and it was only eight miles.’
Sarah Pickersgill was a natural, however. She didn’t even hang on to the rails but stood twitching her nostrils in the breeze like a foxhound, and shading her eyes with her hand so that she appeared to be saluting the other vessels. All the while, she kept half an eye on the boatswain, who wore his best blue coat with brass buttons and, if she wasn’t mistaken, had winked at her when she emerged from the galley, slightly flustered from cooking for the first time on the move and tucking rogue strands of unruly blonde hair into her cap.
There were hundreds of yachts at anchor, and all of them were required to keep a respectful distance from the king and the tsar, who were moored side by side in the centre of the harbour and closely guarded by a circle of small gunboats. Nicholas was famously anxious, Ulrich told them – not about his own safety but that of Alexis, the sickly little tsarevich; in Russia, he said, assassination was a constant threat, and subversives came in the most unlikely guises. Ulrich was a fount of information. He knew the yachts of all the European royals, and pointed them out as they passed: the Prince of Battenburg’s Sheila; the King of Spain’s Hispania; the old, exiled French Empress Eugenie on her beloved Thistle; and the kaiser’s racing cutter Meteor.
‘All of Cowes is en fête,’ Isabella said gaily. She had been giddy since their arrival at Cowes, as if the salt air itself were intoxicating. Here, in this remarkable melting pot of continental nobility, her own status – as bride-to-be of Ulrich von Hechingen – had hit new and dizzying heights. Uli appeared to know absolutely everyone who wasn’t English, and at a
regatta overrun with crown princes, archdukes and romantically exiled French royals, this was a distinct and exciting advantage. He wasn’t on terms with the kaiser, being too distant and obscure a relation, but nobody minded that, as Wilhelm was such an angry-looking, off-putting little fellow. It was enough, for Isabella, that the kaiser’s cruising yacht was named Hohenzollern and there was she, sporting a fat diamond with the very same pedigree. Small wonder that she currently existed in a state of exultation. Even her mother was finally impressed; her daughter’s fiancé had secured invitations for dinner with the Crown Prince of Bavaria, whom Uli called Rupert. ‘He’s not much fun,’ Uli warned the duchess. ‘He’s very much the military man.’ But Clarissa didn’t care a jot; in her view, fun was overrated anyway. Certainly, it played second – even third – fiddle to connections, especially those of a royal nature. She had half hoped that Edward VII would remember her kind hospitality at Netherwood Hall five years earlier and bring her and Archie aboard the Victoria and Albert, but it quickly became evident that the king’s attention was all taken up by the tsar, who didn’t seem to want to meet anyone. He had yet to set foot on dry land. Crown Prince Rupert, while rather a minor royal, was nevertheless better than nothing, and Clarissa was very glad that the Plymouth tiara would get another outing so soon after the last.
Anna and Maya’s rooms were in a quaint, blue-painted cottage in a street just behind the Parade. They had a bedroom and a sitting room, and a key for the front door in case they came in after dark. ‘I hope we do,’ Anna whispered to Maya as their landlady led them down the front hall to demonstrate the idiosyncrasies of the lock. ‘Otherwise we shall be having a very dull time.’
She was pleased, though, that she hadn’t accepted Henrietta’s invitation to occupy a cabin on the Lady Isabella. The modesty of their rented dwelling was perfectly in keeping with Labour ideals, she felt. Was it her fault if, whenever she and her daughter stepped out of the house, they were cheek by jowl with all of England’s aristocracy?
They met Henrietta on the lovely, lawned sweep of land behind Cowes Castle. She was arm-in-arm with Thea, and they made a small spectacle with their hugs and hearty hellos. Maya looked beguiling in a sailor frock and red patent-leather shoes, and Thea, who was in white embroidered linen and lace with a navy satin ribbon trim, at once took her by the hand and said, ‘Look! We’re the best-dressed pair on the Parade.’ They walked ahead, and Henrietta and Anna followed.
‘To be perfectly frank,’ Henrietta said, when they were far enough behind the others not to be overheard, ‘I thought you wouldn’t come. I gather the chancellor has rather put the spotlight on the idle rich with his Limehouse speech.’
Anna said, ‘Well yes, and I did waver. I think if my husband hadn’t been so against the plan I might have stayed at home.’
Henrietta laughed. ‘I never could bear to be told no myself,’ she said. ‘When I was young, my dear father was always forbidding things. I think that’s why I became such a rebellious soul.’
‘I don’t wish to make Amos unhappy. But he does try to bend me to his will.’ She glanced at Henrietta. ‘And he disapproves of some of my friends.’
‘Well he was extremely kind to me, the last time I saw him,’ Henrietta said, and Anna frowned, trying to think when that might have been. Certainly, outside the Caxton Hall back in May, his manner had been far from kindly.
‘I called on you in Bedford Square,’ Henrietta said. ‘Toby took me, after he had fetched me from Holloway. I wanted to show you I was free, and to say thank you, but you’d gone to Netherwood. Amos answered the door.’
‘Oh?’
‘He said he was happy that you’d been able to help, and told me to look after myself.’
‘Did he? That doesn’t sound very much like Amos.’
‘And yet it was, unless you have a very gruff housemaid. He didn’t tell you, I suppose.’
‘Not a word.’ She wondered why. Perhaps the silence that so often existed between them lately had proved too intractable. Ahead, Thea and Maya had settled in a sunny spot on the grass at Prince’s Green, and were looking at the boats on the water. They were chatting animatedly, each of them speaking and listening in equal measure. Anna allowed herself a rush of pride at her daughter: her grave, sweet face, her sociability, her curiosity about the world. Maya saw her and patted the grass.
‘Come and sit down, Mama. This is the best view of the races.’
‘Is that so?’ Anna said. She smiled at her daughter and sat down, and Henrietta joined them. The grass was warm and dry, and although there were deck chairs for hire, it suited their unceremonious mood to sit on the ground. The four of them made a picturesque group, and a photographer, roving the Parade with his Box Brownie, insisted on taking their picture exactly as they were. Afterwards he gave them a small card bearing the address of his studio. Before she left Cowes, Anna bought a copy of the photograph from him: there she was with Maya, sitting on the ground between the Countess of Netherwood and Lady Henrietta Hoyland. Three attractive young women and a child. Thea and Maya were squashed up close; a more decorous gap separated Anna and Henrietta. All four wore happy smiles. No one would be able to say, from looking at their images, which of them were titled and which were not. This fact seemed to Anna immensely significant; it lay, she felt, at the very heart of everything she believed.
In the galley kitchen of the Lady Isabella, Sarah was managing terrifically well. It was an acknowledged fact that for a head cook of a large private household she was very young. When Mrs Adams – her predecessor, mentor and bully – had keeled over in the cold store and died, she had been two days shy of her fiftieth birthday. Sarah wasn’t yet thirty. But perhaps it was precisely because of her inexperience that she was so undaunted by a challenge. This was Mrs Powell-Hughes’s theory, which had come to her as she watched Sarah assemble nine platters of lobster Thermidor, and a plain boiled lobster with mayonnaise for the child. This, after mixed hors d’oeuvres and stuffed artichoke hearts, and before roast saddle of lamb and a frozen chocolate Bombe Nabob.
‘I take my hat off to you, Sarah Pickersgill,’ said the housekeeper. ‘I can’t imagine Mrs Adams would’ve taken this in her stride in the way you have.’
Sarah snorted. ‘I’d like to have seen ’er in this kitchen. We should ’ave ’ad to get ’er out with a shoe ’orn.’
It couldn’t be denied. Mrs Adams had had arms like hams and the girth of a beer barrel. ‘Anyway,’ Sarah went on, ‘it might be small, but it’s very well thought out. Everything in its place, and a place for everything. I walk miles in t’course of a week in my kitchen at Netherwood ’all. At least on a yacht your legs are spared.’
Mrs Powell-Hughes smiled at her. ‘Well, I think you’ve done a marvellous job in very difficult circumstances.’
Sarah stopped what she was doing. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She was touched. ‘And I’m glad you’re back on your feet.’
The housekeeper pulled a wretched face. ‘Only because we’re steady now. As soon as that anchor’s pulled I shall be queasy again. I tell you, I’m not like you; I can’t adapt.’
‘You should ask leave to travel up on deck when we sail for Portsmouth. You’ll do better in t’fresh air.’ The boatswain had told her this, but she delivered it as her own advice. The less Mrs Powell-Hughes knew about her conversations with Mr Clough – for that was he – the better. Even Sarah blushed to think of the confidences they’d swapped in the close confines of his cabin. Not to mention the rest of it. He was a very ardent man when his coat was off. As soon as she’d told him she was only Mrs Pickersgill because she was the cook, not because she was married, he had been after her with all the unbridled eagerness of a ferret down a rabbit hole. She smiled at the half-hearted way she’d tried to halt his advances. In the end, she’d thought why the dickens not? Soon enough, she’d be back below stairs at Netherwood Hall and his salty lips and firm flesh would be a distant memory.
The cautious clip of Mr Parkinson’s shoes on the narrow galley st
airs heralded his imminent arrival, and sure enough he appeared in due course with a loaded tray. He held it out to the housekeeper and said, ‘If you wouldn’t mind, Mrs Powell-Hughes.’
She took it, and put it down carefully. Glassware, mostly; lovely plain crystal, with gold-plated stems, all bought new for the boat. ‘Are you managing?’ she said. ‘Up there, I mean.’
‘Oh, I’m managing perfectly well,’ the butler said with a sort of snippy stoicism that, in spite of his words, suggested some displeasure. He was unhappy with the guest list, Mrs Powell-Hughes suspected. He didn’t think the Earl of Netherwood’s butler should have to wait on Anna Sykes and her little girl. She didn’t want to hear about it, so she just said, ‘Excellent,’ in a bracing voice that left him no opportunity to expand his views. She handed him an empty tray and he turned on the stairs and disappeared, little by little, from view.
The seating plan for the upper-deck dining table on the Lady Isabella was thus: Tobias at the head of the table, Thea at the bottom. Anna was on the earl’s right, and to her right was Henrietta, then Peregrine Partington, Isabella, and Ulrich. Thea had insisted on having Maya at her right-hand side, and next to the child was Archie. Amandine, Perry’s wife, came next, and then Clarissa, who was displeased to find herself opposite Anna Sykes, whom she found inappropriately opinionated for one so lowly. Neither, in her sadly unsought opinion, should there be a child at dinner, but somehow the fact that they were afloat had changed all the rules. She shared an occasional, comforting glance with dear Parkinson, whom she knew would perfectly understand, and share, her discomfiture.
Tobias was in full flow. Earlier in the day he’d bumped into Sir Francis Knollys, who as the king’s private secretary was meant to be a tower of discretion, but instead was rather a gossip. He had told Tobias that the king was wild with fury at Lloyd George over the Limehouse speech.
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