The Rival Potters

by Rona Randall

  The Rival Potters

  Rona Randall

  © Rona Randall 1990

  Rona Randall has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1990 by Penguin.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 1

  If he rode to Merrow’s Thicket at about seven o’clock in the morning, he could be sure of seeing her. There was a bridle path running along the western side of Tremain Park, so emerging onto it would appear to be quite natural since he was heir to the place. The meeting would therefore seem to be by chance rather than intention and this impression would be reinforced by the fact that, since his father’s injuries now rendered him even more incapacitated, many extra duties fell upon the son.

  One of these duties was a regular inspection of all boundary fences, so a weekly examination of those bordering Merrow’s Thicket could be timed for when Deborah Kendall went riding by. She invariably took this route homeward from her favourite early morning ride. Country folk were not like city folk, lying abed until all hours.

  But a weekly glimpse of her was not enough. When she commented, as she occasionally did, on how frequently he inspected those boundary fences, he merely smiled and said it was unwise to neglect such things. ‘It’s better to keep an eye on property than to let it deteriorate. But no doubt you know that, Ashburton being your home and your father a conscientious landowner.’ With such remarks he concealed his true motive.

  Sometimes he even avoided a meeting in an attempt to convince himself that he could do without seeing her, but love made a man impatient; hungry for the sound of her voice and the sight of her face and the warmth of her smile. The damnable part was having to hide it because, to her, he was no more than a longstanding friend, much older than herself. How could she regard him as anything else since she hadn’t reached the age of seven when his father brought him from Grenada to the family home of Tremain Hall at the age of seventeen?

  When, precisely, had he fallen in love with her? That was not so easy to pinpoint as the moment when he realized that he had been aware of her for a very long time. At one of the charity functions her mother frequently held at Ashburton, she had seized his hand and dragged him on to the ballroom floor, saying urgently, ‘Dance with me, I beg you, Uncle Michael, or I’ll be burdened with Horace Prendergast again! The man is a pest!’ And shock that was almost painful had run through him, made worse by a rush of sexual desire. The touch of her hand, her smile, her radiance, her vitality, her undisguised delight when whisked away from a tiresome admirer, her slender waist beneath his hand, the lightness of her movements, the sheen of her mane of auburn hair and the dark blue of her deep-set eyes — everything about her stirred this desire, but also the pain of knowing that she regarded him only as an uncle. And elderly, at that. Uncles were always elderly.

  Spinning about the floor she had smiled up at him and said, ‘Is it true that some people consider the waltz to be wicked? If it is, then I enjoy being wicked! Does that shock you, Uncle dear?’ And the pain and the desire had increased.

  More than ten years. The gap in their ages was not really enormous although, when they first met, it appeared so to the small girl. That was why he had always been linked, in her mind, with her elders. He was turned twenty-seven now and, thank God, she no longer used the hated appellation; but if she no longer saw him as avuncular, she certainly saw him only as a family friend. A good friend, even a close one, but no more than that.

  There was an ancient gazebo in Merrow’s Thicket, close to the gate leading on to the bridle path. It was his habit to tether his horse and linger there until the sound of approaching hooves told him she was coming and then, very casually, he would emerge on to the path, pretending to examine the boundary fences and straightening up only when she greeted him.

  *

  On the other side of the bridle path was a right of way leading to the hill above Burslem where Deborah’s mother had been born in a house called Medlar Croft. Generations of Draytons had been born there and Draytons lived there still — widowed Amelia and her two children, whom Deborah visited frequently. That gave him other opportunities for chance meetings and he seized them as often as possible, but always casually and with an air of mild if pleasurable surprise. Never must she guess that the encounters were anything but accidental. Embarrass her, and she might avoid him thereafter. He wasn’t prepared to risk that.

  He was early today, as always. By the time she reached the bridle path after her long ride she would have slowed down, and the deliberate tread of her horse would be heard as far away as the gazebo, giving him plenty of time to emerge. And so he waited, seated on the ancient stone seat on which, his father had once told him, many trysting couples had sat in the past. ‘And done more than that, I’ll warrant, lovers being lovers — though I’d’ve chosen something more comfortable for laying a woman, wouldn’t you, m’boy?’ His father usually made remarks like that when Aunt Agatha was present. His father always enjoyed shocking ‘poor Aggie’.

  He jerked his mind to other thoughts. It wasn’t wise to think of trysting lovers because they would be immediately transformed into himself and Deborah Kendall, quickening his blood. He must be calm when they met. His English side must control his Latin side. Nothing must betray him. Disciplining himself, he continued to wait.

  The moments dragged. He was vaguely aware of the early morning bird chorus, but didn’t consciously listen to it. There was no room in his mind for anything but Deborah and nothing could distract him from the need to listen for distant hoofbeats. Outside the gazebo, his own horse cropped unhurriedly, oblivious of anything but equine contentment; from the distance came the sound of Tremain sheep, bleating as shepherds led them out to pasture; from even further away, down in the valley where Burslem crouched, came the clang of bells summoning potters to work. These late summonses were for the lucky ones employed at potteries like Drayton’s, where the traditional starting hour of six had been changed to seven and the traditional knocking-off time of eight in the evening also changed to seven.

  That had been Martin Drayton’s doing, of course. Other potters thought him a fool to reduce the working day from fourteen to twelve hours, but Martin had been the instigator of many changes in the smoke-ridden world of the potteries; changes which other Master Potters either resented or reluctantly adopted rather than lose some of their best workers. Too many turners and throwers and glazers and firers had sought work at the Drayton Pottery; too many had considered Martin Drayton to be not only the best potter in Staffordshire, but the best Master Potter to work for. He had established new traditions, new methods, all of which would continue under the supervision of his widow and his niece, though everyone in the potteries was now predicting failure.

  ‘Whoever heard of females managing a pottery?’ they said. ‘Whoever heard of a Mistress Potter?’

  That had inflamed Deborah. ‘Then it’s time people did. Everyone will eat their words, believe me!’

  But Aunt Agatha, siding with the general prediction of failure, had merely smiled — the faintly malicious smile that he never liked but always excused because she was a disappointed and lonely woman. She
had emphatically stated that a pottery needed a man at the helm. ‘A man as clever as my dear Joseph was. They’ll find out, those two silly women…’

  *

  There it came at last — the first, distant hoofbeat! His ear was so attuned to the sound of it that he could estimate both pace and distance. The air was still and sounds told him now that she had reached the curve beyond the ford by Badgers’ Brook. From there, once the shallow water was negotiated, she would be faced with an uphill climb and she would not press her horse at that point because she would have already galloped across Tremain’s fields. Everyone in the neighbourhood was now free to use them (to Aunt Agatha’s disapproval). Now Deborah would be letting the animal relax before traversing the bridle path and taking the alternative route back to the village of Cooperfield and thence to the Kendall home of Ashburton.

  So he had plenty of time to listen for her approach and to anticipate the moment of meeting. What would she be wearing today — the royal blue riding habit with the black silk hat swathed with matching blue, or the dark green which so strikingly set off her rich auburn hair, or the tartan with the sweeping black velvet skirt and black velvet toque with upstanding quill feathers? And would her lovely hair be drawn back into a snood, revealing small ears and emphasizing a firm but delicately formed chin and a nose as straight as her mother’s? Some said that her mother had once been the most handsome young woman in Staffordshire. She was handsome still, but of course her youngest daughter was lovelier than Jessica Kendall could ever have been.

  Now! The moment had come and his pulses were throbbing and his Latin blood was stirring and, dear God, how could he go on pretending?

  ‘Miguel — how nice to see you! Isn’t it a beautiful morning? And isn’t it good to be alive on such a day?’

  She used his real name now; no longer Michael. That was pleasing, because from childhood she had used the Anglicized version which came more easily to the local inhabitants and which sounded more English coupled with the surname of Freeman. ‘But Miguel suits you better,’ she had said one day, and from that moment had never called him Michael, or Uncle, again. It was a step forward, but by how much did it narrow the gap?

  She lifted her young face to the sky and took deep breaths of the clear air. Down below, in the valley, the pottery furnaces were belching smoke as always; clouds of it could be seen in the distance, drifting away on an obliging wind. Some of the more venturesome potters were already investing in Simon Kendall’s new smoke-reducing scheme, involving complicated revolving fans based on windmill sails. But that invention still had a long way to go. ‘If I fail to perfect it in my lifetime,’ Kendall would say, ‘someone will carry on where I leave off, someone will rid the potteries of air pollution…’

  Meanwhile, he had a new project underway. Had there ever been a time when this man, born of the poorest in Staffordshire and now one of the richest, had not had a new project underway in his valley workshops behind and below Ashburton? Stable blocks, disused byres, barns…every abandoned outhouse on the estate had been put to good use once he inherited the place. The former Surveyor General of the Grand Trunk Scheme which had linked the river Trent with the Mersey and the Mersey with the Severn, who had also been responsible for building hundreds of miles of canals criss-crossing the Midlands and the North like a giant grid, was forever embarking on new projects from which the fast-growing county of Staffordshire benefited handsomely. The latest was a new type of watermill about which, with characteristic reserve, he talked little. Simon Kendall had always been a man of few words.

  But it wasn’t Si Kendall in whom Miguel was interested at this moment. It was the man’s youngest daughter.

  *

  She was wearing the dark green and, at her throat, a white lace jabot. Hands neatly gloved in doeskin held the reins and her mane of hair was coiled into a net in the nape of her neck, for the wind was gusty today. This, no doubt, accounted for the small, head-hugging hat she wore, for many were the times when she had bemoaned the disadvantages of a high hat in the wind. When younger, she had raced across the countryside with unrestricted hair streaming in a cloud behind her, but at seventeen she was acquiring decorum. And about time, too, in Aunt Agatha’s opinion. ‘The girl’s a romp; as bad as her mother when a girl…’

  But his father had contradicted that. ‘Jessica Kendall was unlike any other young woman in Burslem, and certainly different from that twin sister of hers whom I was fool enough to wed. But a romp — no. Independent, yes.’ When they spoke like that Miguel would listen, saying nothing, avid for any item which had some association with Deborah.

  He said now, trying to sound casual, ‘I have to visit the northern end of the park, so I’ll ride with you,’ and untethering his horse he mounted and rejoined her. His heart lifted when she welcomed his company.

  The bridle path brought them to the highest point on the edge of the Tremain estates and here they paused to survey the panorama below. The vast acres of Tremain Park, sweeping toward the Tremain Woods, surrounded the mansion like a rich, undulating green carpet. The immensity of what would one day be his inheritance never failed to awe him. Even now he could remember the impact of the place when seeing it for the first time. All the descriptions he had absorbed throughout his boyhood in Grenada had not prepared him for such magnificence. But awe had not extended to intimidation; it had stirred gratitude and pride and a permanent desire to be worthy of such a home.

  ‘I do believe it means more to you than it ever did to me, my son…’

  But his father had been born to it and had therefore taken everything for granted — the wealth, the splendour, the sheer enormity of it all. None of it had meant anything to Maxwell Freeman when young. Appreciation had only come years later, when unexpected parenthood wrought a change which no amount of hereditary influence had produced in him. The birth of a son and love for the child’s mother had been a catalyst in his life so that, on her death, he had wanted to do only one thing.

  ‘I’m going back. I’m taking you home, my son. The time has come.’

  He had not added that without Conchita Quintana he could no longer endure Grenada, where everything would be a reminder of her.

  So the nutmeg plantation was sold; everything was sold. After more than twenty years, during which he had not communicated with his family, Max Freeman had abruptly returned to England, bringing with him another heir in line for Tremain Hall and all that went with it: the spreading park, the rolling acres of farmland, the prime herds, the valuable flocks, the miles of forestry, the coal mines at Spen Green. ‘And there’s nothing you can do about it,’ he had told his astonished relatives, who had thought him long since dead (except his mother, Charlotte, who had never given up hope). ‘Contesting things will make no difference and you can’t brand my son a bastard. I’ve legalized his birth and he bears the family name by deed poll. He is my son, and will succeed me. You may not accept him, but you cannot reject him.’

  Only three people had wanted to reject Miguel — his father’s wife, Phoebe, his father’s nephew, Lionel, and his father’s sister, Agatha; Phoebe because she coveted Tremain for her daughter Olivia (not because she was outraged as a wife, though she pretended to be), Lionel because he had confidently expected to inherit, and Agatha because she was Lionel’s mother. But Phoebe was now dead, Lionel had chased off to America after a woman, and Agatha lived in self-pitying comfort in the West Wing, surrounded by luxury and over-indulged by her ageing French cook.

  The rest of the family had not only accepted the half-breed Mexican boy, but welcomed him; his uncle Martin Drayton and pretty Amelia, his wife, who had herself belonged to Tremain before marriage; Old Ralph, his rumbustious grandfather; Charlotte, his elegant grandmother, and Olivia, the half-sister who might have been expected to dislike him. Instead, Olivia had become his first and immediate friend. He often wished that she still lived at Tremain and sometimes he even envied her the happiness she shared in her unorthodox union with Damian Fletcher. For himself, life had become
an isolated affair in this magnificent place, for a light seemed to have gone out of it with Olivia’s departure, followed in time by the deaths of old Charlotte and Ralph.

  Now he lived alone with a father who had never been wholly good, but whom he loved, and an aunt who had never been wholly likeable, but whom he pitied — three members of the Tremain family, far outnumbered by the retinue of indoor and outdoor servants whose welfare was the family’s traditional responsibility.

  It had been a surprise, to a youth born and reared in totally contrasting circumstances, to learn that, contrary to the widely-held belief that indulged aristocracy owed no allegiance to servants, a lord of the manor’s responsibilities toward his employees were immense.

  Surveying Tremain Hall now, with Deborah beside him, Miguel thought it resembled nothing so much as a self-contained world sleeping placidly in its endless acres, with its farms, its workers’ cottages, and its stables which were amongst the best-stocked in the country; its workshops for carpenter and glazier and blacksmith; its slaughter-houses where home-cured carcasses were hung, along with game killed on Tremain’s own lands — killed not merely for the exhilaration of the chase but, more importantly, to feed and provide for the large number of inhabitants within the estates.

  The immediate grounds demanded a whole team of gardeners, with more working in hothouses and kitchen gardens and orchards. Even the spreading woods required a permanent forestry staff. Additional outdoor workers were gamekeepers and wardens, park-keepers and handymen, coachmen and grooms, stable boys and blacksmiths.

  This regiment of employees, together with their dependants, had to be housed and fed and eventually supported in retirement. A mansion like this, with its spreading wings, its countless bedrooms and innumerable reception rooms; its sprawling kitchens and sculleries and servants’ quarters; its still-room, laundry, dairy, brewery; its stone-floored larders which had to be perpetually chilled and perpetually filled, and its wine cellars and store-rooms which housed supplies big enough for a siege — all demanded an army of attendants compared with whom, Miguel sometimes felt, the three remaining members of the reigning family were insignificant.