The Lorimer Legacy

by Anne Melville

  ‘No time for a session of reminiscence now,’ he said, and Duke nodded obediently.

  ‘I wrote a letter for Brinsley.’ He held it out to Kate. There was a moment of awkwardness between them, neither knowing how they should say goodbye. Duke solved the problem by holding up his hand in a kind of salute. ‘Well, good times, then,’ he called out. Grinning once more, he left at a run.

  ‘Look after the house!’ shouted Kate after him. He turned and waved again. She was sorry at once for what she had said. Duke, working on another plantation, would not have time to care for a derelict piece of property, which would be no fun without company; and she had given her father the chance to ask awkward questions.

  He took it at once. ‘Which house? he asked, although – knowing where Duke had spent his childhood – he must have guessed the answer before he spoke.

  ‘Bristow Great House,’ Kate answered. ‘Duke and Brinsley used to play there. Duke helps his grandfather look after the garden. He’s very attached to the place.’

  ‘He writes a neat hand,’ commented her father, glancing at the envelope which had been addressed to Brinsley. ‘Or did his mother do it for him?’

  Although the question was a natural one, Kate was indignant on her friend’s behalf. The children of Hope Valley were taught to read and write in the schoolroom, but the lessons did not come easily to them, and in most cases were forgotten as soon as they began to work on the land. Duke, though, as the son of a schoolteacher, had been taught earlier and more thoroughly than the others, and not allowed to forget his skills.

  ‘He’s very clever,’ she said. ‘He’s much better at sums than Brinsley ever was. When they played cricket together they used to have great competitions and work out batting averages and that sort of thing, and Duke always got the right answer first. If ever you need an assistant, Father, to help you with all those accounts you have to do, you ought to ask Duke. I promise, you’d only have to show him once what needs to be done.’

  ‘I’ll bear your testimonial in mind,’ her father promised with a smile. ‘And now, are you ready at last?’ The luggage had already been taken to the railway station on a donkey cart and it was time to move in the same direction. Her mother, who for the past hour had been pressing messages to Brinsley on her, as well as warnings on her own account, fell silent; and Kate, not normally emotional or demonstrative, found to her surprise that she was on the verge of tears.

  ‘What if I should never see her again!’ she thought, suddenly aware of her own youth and good health and exuberant spirits as she embraced someone who looked old beyond her age. The years of Grant’s dependence, added to the rigours of the climate and Lydia’s self-imposed programme of community health work, had left a woman who had never been plump or pretty looking strained and haggard, her sallow skin stretched tightly across the bones of her face. ‘You will come to England soon, won’t you?’ Kate begged aloud. ‘You ought to have a holiday, and Brinsley and I will need to see you.’

  As though Lydia shared her fear, the embrace was returned with an almost painful tightness. Grant, excluded, began to shout for his mother’s attention and was sharply rebuked by his father. Kate held out her arms to the little boy, anxious to leave in friendship, but he turned away petulantly.

  She looked from one parent to another. It was difficult to believe that once upon a time they too had been students, healthy and high-spirited, as sure of their own vocations as she was now of hers, embarking with eagerness on the separate trainings which were to bring them in the end to this obscure corner of the world. Had they been happy, she wondered: was this how they had expected their lives to turn out? There was a moment in which all her excitement and her memories of a loving family life seemed to be obscured by shabbiness and sadness and Grant’s flash of spite, causing her courage to falter. Then she straightened her shoulders and smiled for a last time at her mother before she took her father’s arm. It was time to begin her own adventure.

  2

  To a small child every house is large, and a grand house a palace. Memory increases the illusion, bringing disappointment to a return visit if in the intervening years the visitor has grown to fit the scale of the building.

  Brinsley House, however, was substantial enough to survive the test of remembered grandeur. Even to an adult’s eyes its marble entrance hall was vast, its entertaining rooms numerous and palatial, its terraced gardens spacious. For a moment, as she stood in the doorway, Kate was overcome by shyness. She had hoped that Brinsley might have been at the dock at Portishead to meet her, but instead it was her cousin Beatrice who had come. Beatrice had been polite enough, expressing all the proper hopes for the comfort of the voyage and the enjoyment of her visit to Bristol, but there was a sharpness about her manner which made her seem cold even when her words were friendly.

  The difference of fourteen years in age was another barrier. Beatrice, in her early thirties, belonged neither to Kate’s own generation nor to her mother’s. The two had nothing in common but their relations, and that was a subject quickly exhausted.

  Now it was her aunt’s turn to greet her. Tall, and tightly laced into a stiff stateliness, Sophie’s approach was so formal that for a moment Kate found herself struggling wildly to remember all the petty rules of etiquette which her mother had tried to recall for her benefit. Should she unbutton a glove, or remove it – and one, or both? But of course, even though she might be almost a stranger, an aunt was to be kissed.

  Sophie offered first one pale cheek and then the other. Again there were murmured hopes that the voyage had not provided too much discomfort, that her parents were well. She would no doubt like to be shown to her room at once, in order that she could refresh herself: luncheon would be served in half an hour. Brinsley, she was told, had been staying with a schoolfriend for the past week, but was expected back at any moment. The boat which had brought Kate from Jamaica had arrived earlier than had been expected when his plans were made.

  Kate had been allocated one of the bedrooms which afforded a view of the Gorge. She stared out of the window at the plunging cliffs and the graceful bridge suspended above them and the calm woods on the further side. The climate was not after all as grey as she had anticipated, but even the sight of sunshine and white puffy clouds scudding across the blue sky could do nothing to disperse her feelings of desolation.

  She was not wanted here: it was as simple as that. Before she left home Kate had been unhappy in her belief that she would be an expense to her relations. Her father’s assurance on this score had lightened her mind completely – it had never occurred to her that they might feel her mere presence a nuisance. Anyone, even a total stranger, who came to Hope Valley and asked the pastor for hospitality would be given not only food and shelter but also a genuine welcome from the heart. Sophie Lorimer had more rooms at her disposal than she could possibly use herself, and servants to ensure that little of the work of entertaining a visitor would fall on her own shoulders; yet in spite of all this she could put no warmth into her welcome. To provide accommodation for a niece and nephew when requested to do so was merely an irksome duty.

  Without warning Kate found herself overwhelmed by homesickness. She felt completely cut off from Jamaica: from childhood, friends, loving parents, all the sights and sounds to which she was accustomed. How many years would pass before she saw them again! It was even possible that she might never return.

  For a little while, pressing her forehead against the cold glass of the window, Kate indulged her misery. Then she straightened her shoulders and tossed her head in the gesture with which she had always before been able to shrug away disappointment or depression. Her thick hair, instead of swirling across her shoulders, remained firmly pinned in place. It was a necessary reminder that she was a young lady now, no longer a child.

  And Brinsley would soon be here to greet her. And her stay in Bristol was in any case only an interlude. Everything would be different when she arrived at Aunt Margaret’s house in London. It was only four yea
rs since her father’s sister had visited Jamaica: she was warmhearted, and not a stranger like these cold Bristol Lorimers. Even four years ago Margaret had been sympathetic to her niece’s ambitions: she could be relied upon now for support which would go deeper than the mere provision of a home. Then there would be work to be tackled – hard work, leaving no time for this kind of sentimental self-indulgence, Kate told herself firmly. She had been accepted temporarily into William Lorimer’s household merely because she was a Lorimer. In London, she would be able to make a life for herself.

  Even that prospect was a subject on which it was necessary to be discreet. Her father had warned her, without going into details, that William and Margaret were not on good terms. The quarrel was no concern of Kate’s, he said: there was no reason for her to conceal from either of them the fact that she had visited or was planning to visit the other – but she might find the atmosphere pleasanter if she refrained from talking about her aunt while at Brinsley House, or her uncle when in London. And then Lydia had added another warning, to the effect that any reference to Matthew Lorimer in his parents’ presence might bring a chill to the conversation. Kate had never, so far as she remembered, met her eldest cousin, so to refrain from enquiring after him was not a great problem; but it was an odd family, she thought, which found it so difficult to like each other.

  Then Brinsley came rushing into the room, and the last of her doubts vanished as she was given a genuine welcome to England at last. There were so many questions to be asked and answered that the sound of the luncheon gong came as an unwelcome interruption. For an hour it was necessary to be formal and polite again, although now that Kate had regained her good spirits she was able to accept that Aunt Sophie’s voice did not indicate any active resentment of her young guests’ presence, but merely a lack of interest in anything but herself.

  As for Beatrice, a positive note of friendly enthusiasm came into her voice as she invited her cousin to accompany her that evening to a suffrage meeting. Kate hardly liked to admit that the word suffrage was unfamiliar to her, but fortunately the invitation was expanded to the point of comprehension by a strongly worded attack on Mr Asquith – who had apparently made promises, or half promises, in respect of the claim by women that they should have the vote. The prime minister, it seemed, had broken his word in a treacherous manner. It was necessary for strongly worded resolutions to be passed and forwarded to Downing Street. Such an abrupt plunge into the politics of a country to which she was still a stranger was bewildering to Kate. For once she was glad of Sophie’s calm intervention.

  ‘Stop pestering the child, Beatrice. If she plans to be one of these working women like your aunt, no doubt she’ll form her views on the subject soon enough.’

  ‘But staying with Aunt Margaret will expose her to unsound influences.’

  ‘What do you mean, Beatrice? Your aunt’s opinions may not accord with mine, but I understood that you and she were in agreement. You both attend that committee of Lord Glanville’s, after all.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Beatrice. ‘Aunt Margaret’s views are reasonable enough. But the same cannot be said of Alexa, and she stays with Aunt Margaret whenever she’s in England, so that Cousin Kate will hardly be able to avoid meeting her. And Alexa becomes rasher and more militant with every year that passes.’ Beatrice turned to Kate to explain. ‘Alexa is much in demand because she is famous and her voice is so strong and her appearance so striking. Whenever the militants plan a procession, they ask Alexa to march at the front, and to sing as she marches. The news that she is going to be present increases the number of people who come to watch. I suppose they think they’re being given a free opera performance. Her photograph is always appearing in the popular papers. Would you believe it, the press has nicknamed her “The Singing Suffragette”. In my opinion, she does it only for the publicity it brings her – I suspect her of having no coherent views on the subject at all.’

  Since it was impossible for Kate to guess the cause of Beatrice’s dislike of Alexa, she felt her way cautiously into the conversation.

  ‘Why is it called militant to sing and to march in processions?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s only the respectable part of it. The militants throw stones. Not Alexa, as far as I know – I don’t imagine she fancies the thought of a few weeks in prison – but a lot of the others. And they’ve made it almost impossible for any public figure of whom they disapprove to hold a political meeting without disturbance. The result is, of course, that those of us who believe in pleading our cause with rational argument now find that we can’t get anyone to listen. Alexa and her fine friends are doing a great deal of harm, in my opinion. She’ll almost certainly try to get you under her thumb too. Which is all the more reason why you should come to our meeting tonight and hear a properly argued case.’

  ‘It’s out of the question, Beatrice,’ said Sophie with surprising firmness. ‘Your cousin is bound to be tired after so much travelling. And your father will expect to find her here when he comes home this evening.’

  It was a sharp reminder to Kate that Brinsley House had a master and that she still had to face her uncle and his younger son, Arthur. They both worked in the Lorimer Line’s offices down at the docks, but had not bothered to step outside to greet her when the banana boat arrived.

  An explanation of the apparent discourtesy emerged as soon as Arthur came home that night – although he was past his thirtieth birthday, he was not yet married and still lived with his parents at Brinsley House. He warned his mother at once that there had been trouble at business that day, and that his father was likely to arrive late and in a bad temper. Then he welcomed his cousin more warmly than either Sophie or Beatrice had done, explaining at once that her arrival at the port had coincided with a meeting of such importance that none of the Lorimer staff had dared to interrupt their chairman with the news of her presence. Now he made amends for their neglect. His eyes were admiring as he looked at his cousin, and his voice was friendly when he suggested that they should stroll together in the garden.

  The enquiries he made about the voyage were more detailed than Beatrice’s vague politenesses. It did not take Kate long to realize that he was using her to give him a report on the day-to-day running of his banana boat, which had brought her to England. But although the conversation was clearly for his own benefit rather than hers, it did at least leave her with the feeling that he was listening to the answers. She was conscious of him tucking notes away in his mind, to be acted upon, perhaps, the next day: and because she was herself accustomed to observe and note, this amused rather than offended her. It was not long, in fact, before she felt sufficiently at ease to accuse him of employing her as a spy, and the smile with which he accepted the challenge sparked off a friendly feeling between them.

  His father’s arrival, an hour later, introduced a different mood into the household. William did not come out into the garden to greet his niece. Instead the sound which reached her was the slamming of his study door.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re not going to see my father at his best today,’ Arthur apologized. ‘As well as being Chairman of the Lorimer Line, he’s a director of the company which owns the docks. We’ve had agitators in Bristol recently. They’ve had some success in forming trade unions in London, and now they are attempting to disrupt the economy of the whole country with their demands. A deputation waited on my father this morning. It was a stormy meeting, to say the least.’

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘A restriction of the hours to be worked each day. In some industries this sort of thing may be possible, for all I know. But no shipping line can tolerate it. Your own vessel, for example – she arrived in the normal working hours of the morning, as it happened, but only because sailing conditions were exceptionally favourable. If she had docked in the late afternoon, as was originally scheduled, it would still have been necessary for her cargo to have been unloaded at once. What these men don’t seem to realize is that if all their demands wer
e to be met, even the most prosperous company could be bankrupted – and then who would pay their wages?’

  ‘So Uncle William was not prepared to agree?’

  ‘He didn’t consider that matter even worthy of discussion. I was summoned to attend the meeting to see how he dealt with them – that was why neither of us was able to greet you. There were tempers lost on both sides. One of the men reminded my father that the Lorimer Line could be one of the first to suffer if a cargo of bananas were to be held up in some way instead of being unloaded at once. It was an outright threat. Of course, it won’t happen. The trouble-makers will soon be wishing that they had any job at all, however long the hours. But I was afraid for a moment that Father was about to have a fit. He went so purple that I thought he was actually going to burst with rage. You’ll have to forgive him if he isn’t as attentive to you this evening as he ought to be. It may be better for you not to see him at all tonight than to face him when he’s in such a bad mood.’

  The conversation was not one which did much to put Kate at ease, so when, later that evening, a message was brought to the drawing room asking her and Brinsley to come to the study, it was with some uneasiness that she obeyed. But it appeared that their uncle’s good temper had been restored by a dinner brought to him on a tray, and by a generous pouring of brandy after it. He was affable enough as Kate, for the fourth time that day, reported on her family’s health and spirits and handed over a letter which her father had sent by her hand to his brother.

  ‘Young Brinsley here has been telling you, I’ve no doubt, how he’s been wasting his time this summer,’ he said. Although the words were critical, the tone of his voice was more indulgent than might have been expected for a man whom Kate knew to have few interests of his own outside his office. ‘The youngest boy ever to play for his school at cricket. And the worst Greek scholar within living memory. His father’s son. Not much doubt about that. Well, time you were in bed, young man.’