House and countryside were in an uproar; and William Hawthorne’s fury this time knew no bounds. At least, rumour and gossiping servants notwithstanding, John’s disgraceful behaviour had until now remained a private family affair. Now the word was out, and he saw a knowing smile in every eye, heard sympathy or scorn – both to him equally unacceptable – in every voice.
When Danny asked Jessica in the midst of the commotion to carry a note to Caroline, she all but refused. The thought at the moment of being caught in the slightest wrongdoing was daunting to say the least.
‘Come on, Mouse – please? I have to talk to her.’ Danny was at his most charmingly persuasive. ‘I haven’t seen her for days! I’m worried about her.’
‘You can worry about all of us if you like, while you’re about it,’ Jessica said, for once unimpressed. ‘Honestly, it’s like living on a barrel of gunpowder that’s likely to blow up at any minute—!’ Reluctantly, nevertheless, she took the note he held out. ‘You can’t blame Caroline if she doesn’t come.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with her, then? I was afraid she might be ill.’
Jessica hesitated. ‘No. Not ill. She’s – upset. We all are.’
‘There’s no news of John?’
She shook her head. ‘Not a word yet. Papa rode to Melford, to the Bartletts, but they swore they hadn’t seen him. Oh, Danny – I’m so worried about him! Where on earth can he be? Supposing—’ She stopped, biting off the words, turning her head, blinking, her eyes on the river.
He put an arm about her shoulders in a characteristically warm gesture. ‘Oh, no, Mouse – he won’t have done anything so silly! Not John. He’s already shown more strength than most. He’ll be all right, you’ll see.’
Easily said. But as Apple plodded, head down against a blustering wind, back across the park, Jessica wondered. John had left with nothing but the clothes in which he stood. He had been gone for two full days. Anything might have happened.
In the distance, above the sound of the wind, the weir roared.
Caroline was in her room. She was sitting before her mirrored dressing-table brushing her hair when Jessica peered cautiously around the door.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, come in and shut the door! Do you want me to catch my death?’
From long practice Jessica ignored her sister’s peevishness, which under the stress which at the moment held the household seemed to have come back in full force. She glanced warily about the room, peered through the open dressing room door. ‘Where’s Maisie?’
‘I sent her away,’ Caroline said, snappishly. ‘The girl’s as clumsy as an elephant! She pulls my hair just looking at it! If only this stupid war would end and I could find a decent French maid—’
Jessica did not bother to protest that there might be good reasons beyond that to end a war that was devastating Europe, widowing wives and orphaning innocent children. ‘I’ve a message from Danny,’ she said, shortly, and proffered the note.
Caroline stilled as if frozen, the brush poised in mid-stroke. Then very slowly she lowered her arm, her eyes on the scrap of paper her sister held.
‘Well?’ Jessica asked impatiently, ‘aren’t you going to read it?’
After a moment’s hesitation Caroline snatched it and turned her back as she unfolded it. Jessica wandered to the window, which overlooked the front courtyard of the house. This was a pretty room, warm and cosy with firelight, the canopied bed draped in ivory and gold brocade, the lit candles of the branched chandelier glowing brightly. Beyond the window it was near darkness, and an autumn gale was blowing. ‘I wonder where John is?’ she asked, quietly, almost talking to herself.
‘Wherever he is it’s his own fault that he’s there.’ Caroline’s voice was abstracted and totally lacking in any feeling. She folded the note, turned back to the mirror. On a chair by the bed was draped a dress of deep claret velvet, the matching gloves, scarf and fan ranged upon the bed, set out by Caroline’s despised maid. Jessica fingered the soft material of the dress. ‘I do hope he’s all right.’
Caroline shrugged.
‘It was awful, wasn’t it – Father finding out like that?’ Jessica was talking more or less aimlessly, wanting only to share her own worries, her own fears. ‘Robert says it was gossip. He says that because we’re who we are people watch us, and talk about us. He says we can’t do anything without everyone knowing about it. Isn’t that—’ She jumped as her sister slammed the hairbrush violently onto the dressing-table and the glass pots and jars rattled fiercely. ‘Wh-whatever’s the matter?’ and then ‘Oh – sorry,’ she added, sheepishly, her eyes on the note, ‘I didn’t mean—’
Caroline buried her face in her hands. ‘Go away, Jessica.’
‘But—’
‘Go away!’ Hysteria hovered in the barely controlled shriek.
Jessica pulled a face at the bowed golden head. ‘All right. I’m going. Isn’t there any answer then?’
‘What?’
‘To the note. Danny’s note. Isn’t there any reply?’
Caroline turned her head, and the expression on her drawn face struck her sister to silence. Caroline lifted the note and held it in front of her, staring at it as intently as a child that studied its first words and tried to make sense of them. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there’s no reply.’
‘But Danny said—’
Caroline’s hands moved convulsively, and the note crumpled. ‘I don’t care what Danny said. I don’t care what anyone says! I’m tired. I want to be left alone—’
Jessica lifted her head sharply. ‘What’s that? A carriage? Who on earth can it be? We aren’t expecting anyone, are we?’ She ran to the window. ‘Oh, Caroline, look! It’s Giles and Clara! Father must have sent word to them. Oh, Lord! Giles is going to be absolutely furious with John—’
Caroline had joined her at the window. Beneath them Giles handed Clara from the carriage. ‘Damn!’ Caroline whispered, viciously, under her breath. ‘Damn!’
‘What’s the matter?’
Caroline shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘It doesn’t sound like nothing. I’ve never ever heard you swear before.’
Caroline turned on her, levelling the hairbrush threateningly. ‘Out,’ she said, flatly.
This time Jessica did not argue.
Downstairs the new arrivals, still dressed for travelling, were already with her parents in the drawing room. Jessica slipped quietly through the door, grinning quick acknowledgement of the conspiratorial wink of the footman who stood guard by it.
‘—what the devil’s been going on? – Begging your pardon, Mama—’ Giles added automatically. ‘Father, your message said that John had run away. Run away—?’
Clara, dressed in brown velvet and smooth fur, a sweeping, elegant hat upon her dark head, stood by the fireplace warming her hands, her sharp eyes taking in everything. ‘Good evening, Jessica,’ she said, pointedly.
Every eye turned to Jessica who had been trying to make herself inconspicuous if not invisible behind a large sofa. She blushed violently. Trust Clara! Back in the house for five minutes, and a pain already!
‘Hello Clara. Hello Giles. I saw your carriage arrive. I just thought I’d – come and say hello—’ she broke off.
Giles nodded brusquely. Clara smiled. Jessica’s mother stood up. ‘You’ll see them at dinner, my dear. Meanwhile your father has things to discuss with Giles, so run along now. Clara – a cup of tea after your journey?’
* * *
At dinner, presumably by mutual agreement of the adults present, nothing was said of John. In face of this obdurate refusal to discuss what was uppermost in all of their minds Jessica did not have the gall to broach the subject herself, though she seethed at her own cowardice. Desperately she wanted to know what was being done about finding him – what might happen to him once he was found – but her courage failed her and she ate in silence as the others lightly discussed the marriage trip.
Jessica it was who heard the faint sound of the crunch
of footsteps on the gravel, that was followed by a brisk knocking on the great front door. She cocked her head, listening. No one else took the slightest notice.
‘—and is this Pavillion as much of a monstrosity as I’ve heard?’ Her mother was asking, as if the foibles of the man who ruled England as Regent for his mad father were the most interesting subject she could possibly wish to discuss.
‘Indeed it is, Mother-in-Law—’
The door opened, and the head footman entered and made his silent way to the head of the table, where he bent to whisper in William Hawthorne’s ear. Jessica saw the blood rise in her father’s face, and then drain away leaving it bleached of colour. He stood up. From the hall below the sound of a familiar voice drifted, loud in the silence that had fallen about the table.
With no word William strode from the room.
‘And was the weather really so bad?’ Maria asked, politely, the hand that held her delicate glass shaking almost imperceptibly.
‘It was dreadful,’ Clara said. ‘It rained all the time.’
‘And Lady Belworth? She was well?’
‘Wonderfully. I don’t know how she does it at her age. She was to have given a ball for us next week.’
‘Mama,’ Jessica said urgently, ‘that’s John’s voice.’
Maria surveyed Clara with unseeing eyes. ‘Really? How very kind of her. What a pity you had to leave—’
‘Mama!’ Unable to contain herself longer Jessica leapt to her feet. ‘I’m sure I heard John!’
Maria said nothing. Giles pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘If you will excuse me, Mama?’
Maria nodded without looking at him.
The women watched as he left the room.
Jessica could not bear it. ‘Mama! Please! Can’t we at least go and see if it’s him?’ she begged, tears standing in her eyes.
For a moment she thought that her mother would refuse. Then Maria lifted a finger to the footman who stood behind her and he stepped to her chair, pulling it back so that she could stand. ‘Come,’ she said.
The room led on to the spacious landing from which the great curved staircase swept to the marble-floored entrance hall below. Here Jessica and Lucy had stood to watch the guests as they had arrived for the May Masque. She stood in the same spot now, leaning over the ornate banister. Below in the hall, facing his father and Giles, stood John, dressed in poor and ill-fitting clothes, his face thin and strained. Beside him stood an imposing figure – tall, thin, with a dark, aesthetic face that was dominated by a beak nose, wearing unfamiliar garb that Jessica took to be that of a Catholic priest. In his quietly folded hands he carried a broad-brimmed hat. The skirts of his soutane were mud-stained.
‘—if you aren’t out of my house in ten seconds—’ her father was saying, levelly, his rage on tight leash, ‘—I’ll take a horse-whip to you. How dare you, Sir? How dare you cross my threshold? You, I have no doubt, are the one who has subverted my son—’
‘No,’ John said, hoarsely.
His father did not even glance at him. ‘—And yet you have the gall – the impertinence to—’
‘Please.’ The stranger held up a long, narrow hand. His quiet, pleasant voice was placating. Yet, oddly Jessica thought, William Hawthorne fell to silence. Even the watchers on the landing could feel the quiet power of the man’s presence. ‘Mr Hawthorne, I understand that you are angry – hurt – outraged, even. It was wrong of John to run away as he did. It solves nothing. I bring him back to you—’
‘No!’ John cried again.
‘I bring you back your son,’ the stranger repeated, gently and inexorably, ‘so that we may discuss what troubles us. I would suggest there are arguments you have not considered—’
William recovered his voice. ‘The law will hear your arguments, Sir. And the law will not take a light view of this!’
‘Father—!’ John pleaded.
‘Shut up, John!’ Giles, standing beside his father, glowered at his brother. ‘Haven’t you caused enough trouble?’
The stranger lifted his head, and again Jessica was struck by the commanding aura of the man. ‘I fear that you are right, of course. The law of the land is on your side; sadly it always is when it come to matters of Holy Mother Church. But Mr Hawthorne, I entreat you, for your son’s sake – for his happiness and for the good of his soul; what of God’s laws? What of His claims upon us?’
‘Claptrap!’ Giles snapped.
William raised a hand that enjoined silence. He and the strange priest studied each other for a long, level moment.
‘Do you know your son?’ the man asked, at last, quietly. ‘Do you know his strength? You’ll never break him. Who, ever, has broken you?’
There was a strange moment of silence. Then, ‘Come,’ William said, brusquely, and turned, leading the way upstairs. The priest, the boy and Giles followed. The women drew back as the odd little procession passed. Jessica caught John’s eye and his attempt at a reassuring smile failed miserably. He passed his mother with downcast eyes. ‘Attend the ladies, Giles,’ William said, quietly and in a tone not to be questioned. ‘We’ll not be long.’
As the library door closed behind them Maria unclasped hands that had been white with tension. ‘The food will spoil,’ she said. ‘We’ll dine without your father—’
It was nearly an hour before the strange conference was done, and the rest of the company by then had given up any pretence of eating and had retired to the drawing room and the teapot, though Giles had resorted to the brandy bottle.
Jessica, hearing the library door open, jumped up. ‘They’re coming!’
‘Sit down, please, Jessica.’ Her mother’s admonition was not unkind, ‘We will discover soon enough what is to happen.’
Reluctantly Jessica sat, picked up the ill-executed sampler she had been struggling with.
‘Please, Father,’ – John’s quiet voice filtered through the open door. ‘Do I have your permission to say goodbye?’
There was a moment’s quiet. Then, ‘As you wish,’ William Hawthorne grunted.
Maria rose as her son entered the room and faced him coolly.
‘Father has agreed that I may go with Father Peter,’ the boy explained quietly. ‘It’s what I want more than anything. I’m sorry, Mama. Truly sorry.’
Maria said nothing.
John stepped to her and his lips brushed her cold cheek. She did not move to embrace him. He hesitated, as if to say something further, then shook his head slightly and turned to where Caroline sat. His sister averted her head and neither moved nor looked at him as he quickly kissed her cheek in farewell. Clara offered a hand, gracefully. To Jessica’s surprise she was smiling, very slightly, a small, secret light of pleasure in her eyes as she looked at John’s bowed head. Giles ignored John’s tentatively proffered hand, turning from him in deliberate insult, saying nothing, tossing back the last of his brandy in a swift, angry way. Hurt in his face John shrugged, and turned to Jessica who, uncaring of the proprieties, launched herself at him, flinging her arms about his waist, burying her head in his chest. ‘Oh, John!’ her voice was desolate and wobbling with tears. ‘I wish you wouldn’t go!’
He held her tightly for a moment, stroking the mass of her hair, then gently he put her from him. ‘I must, Jessie. Please try to understand. I must.’
Mute with misery she stepped back and watched him as he walked past his father to where Father Peter waited, calm faced, by the door.
‘Understand,’ William Hawthorne said, coldly, to his son’s back, ‘that this is the end. There will be no going back. You are no longer my son. Not now. Not ever. You have no birthright. You’ll get not a penny nor a brick of mine.’
John stopped, then turned, shaking his head, his face sad. ‘Father – and father you’ll always be, admit it or no – will you never see? I don’t want your money. I never wanted it. You have tonight given me the only thing I have ever wanted, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Please believe that I’m sorry to have caus
ed you so much distress.’ He glanced at his mother’s still face, then turned abruptly and left the room, the priest’s dusty skirts swishing in his wake. Profound silence followed their going. Giles, in a sharp release from tension, stormed to the window and stood nursing his empty glass looking into the darkness. William extended a steady hand to his wife, who as steadily accepted it, and together they left the room. Jessica wondered if she imagined the extra brilliance of her mother’s blue eyes.
Caroline clicked her fan nervously upon her velvet-clad knees. ‘Well, thank heaven for small mercies. Now perhaps we can all get back to normal.’
Clara had joined her husband at the window. She touched his arm lightly, and he turned. She tilted her head and smiled, that strange, small, secret gleam of pleasure once more in her eyes. ‘Poor misguided John,’ she said, gently. ‘We must all pray for his happiness, mustn’t we?’
* * *
It was less than a week later that Jessica began to realize that matters were far worse between Caroline and Danny than she had first believed. The meetings that she witnessed between them were no longer the joyous affairs they had been. Certainly Danny still watched for Caroline with intent and anxious eyes, certainly he still hurried to her side when she appeared, but his manner was strained and, alone with Jessica, he often fell to brooding silences. Then one day she came upon them quarrelling violently. Caroline, on seeing her, turned and fled, tears streaming down her face.
‘Caroline!’ Danny shouted after her, his voice a mixture of anger and entreaty, ‘Caroline, come back! It does no good to run away—!’ But on she ran, and Danny with no word had brushed past Jessica and gone into his cottage, slamming the door behind him.
Caroline kept to her room for a day or so after that, pleading a migraine, and Jessica did not see her until, upon answering a summons from her mother, she entered Maria’s small and elegant sitting room to find Caroline already there, perched sideways upon the deep windowsill gazing in brooding silence out across the park where the last brazen colours of autumn blazed like fire and the leaves skittered across the grass in the breeze. Her sister did not turn as she entered the room, but her mother looked up from her embroidery with a small, welcoming smile. ‘Ah – Jessica. You’ve brought the book?’
The Hawthorne Heritage Page 15
