Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1

by Bingham, Charlotte

‘Never mind what I might or might not have said a moment ago, Mary Jane,’ Poppy interrupted, removing her spectacles and putting them beside her on the table. She hated wearing them, but since her mother had been warning her since she was small that without their aid her lazy eye would slip into the corner of its socket, turning her into a sort of comic turn, she clung to them as a drowning person to the side of a boat. ‘I didn’t say I thought he was joking when he proposed. I simply wondered whether or not he was really serious.’

  ‘I can quite see why, too,’ Mary Jane replied tightly. ‘It’s not as if you’ve been exactly overwhelmed with attention during the summer. So I can imagine how you felt when you found the handsome and dashing Basil Hetherington—’

  ‘Tetherington—’

  ‘With his famous house in Yorkshire and fairly ancient title proposing marriage – yes, I can quite imagine your consternation.’

  Mary Jane pulled a small, sarcastic face, lit a cigarette and turned to gaze out of the restaurant window at nothing in particular, unable to carry on any further conversation about Poppy’s incredible engagement, an engagement that she had to admit was the talk of the town, an engagement for which she herself would have willingly sacrificed her right hand.

  She could not, however, resist making one last unsolicited observation.

  ‘Actually,’ she drawled, tapping her cigarette rhythmically on the edge of the glass ashtray. ‘I have to say that when I was younger I did think one had to be quite head over heels in order to get married.’ She glanced quickly but – she hoped – tellingly at her lunching companion. ‘But then Mummy told me that love was for servants, and not for our class. Love – she said – never puts diamond rings on fingers, or tiaras on heads. So it’s probably a much better thing that he does at least amuse you, Poppy. Especially moving up to Yorkshire. And particularly with a war coming. You will need to be amused.’

  It was Poppy’s turn to stare out of the window, wondering to herself, for perhaps the fiftieth time, quite what her reasons were for accepting Basil Tetherington’s proposal of marriage. Was she marrying him for herself? Or because she wanted to please her parents? It seemed she had made her mother overjoyed by agreeing to be the next Lady Tetherington, and her father had been made to eat his words by his jubilant wife. Much to her surprise even Basil had seemed very pleased at the prospect of Poppy’s becoming his wife, so much so that Poppy thought she could not possibly be doing the wrong thing, not if she was making so many people so happy.

  However, the love quotient did worry her.

  She had no idea whether love was for servants, as Mary Jane’s mother was apparently convinced, or for anyone else for that matter, but she was finding that she was quite definitely feeling something for Basil, although what it was exactly she had no idea. Yet something stirred in her when she thought of her handsome husband-to-be. He was after all an intelligent, urbane, suave mannered gentleman, a man always so beautifully dressed and groomed he could have been a regency buck, a man who it seemed could converse on any subject with anybody, but appeared to also like to laugh, and to tease, and be teased in return, who did not take life too seriously.

  It was only since accepting his proposal that Poppy had come to realise that for her to find someone like Basil was actually, as her mother kept saying, ‘akin to a miracle.’ All of which thoughts led her to suppose that perhaps the strange emotions that ran through her every time she thought of Basil, let alone saw him, constituted this mysterious thing called love. The feelings were very sure and very deep, varying between extreme thrill and an odd though not altogether unpleasant fear, emotions so strong that sometimes when she was lying in bed dreaming of their future together she would suddenly sit up, her heart beating too fast.

  So convinced had she become that this must most surely be love, she had come to accept that recognising this mysterious emotion must be as difficult as recognising happiness before it was too late; and since as a child she had never been shown any affection, never been hugged or kissed – not even by her nanny – it was surely only to be expected, she told her dog in the darkness of the night, that she should feel a little muddled. Up until now she had considered herself as being nothing more than a dreary appendage to her parents’ peripatetic European lives, someone to stem her mother’s boredom when no one else was around, or about whom her father loved to joke – Here comes poor old Popsicle! Here comes the future parrot keeper! being one of his favourite greetings. Now he would have to change his tune.

  She turned away from this thought to another. Love. In reality Poppy had little or no knowledge about the physical side of marriage. She knew there was a physical side to it, because she had heard the servants making jokes in the kitchens. She had also learned enough from books to know that marriage was not just holding hands, although so far her physical relationship with Basil had actually only consisted of briefly holding hands the evening after he had been interviewed by her father, and since then exchanging a few light kisses on the cheek on parting. Basil had never tried to kiss her properly, which, while disappointing, left Poppy to reason that like all good things It – whatever It might indeed actually be – was obviously worth waiting for, although she remembered hearing some disparaging remarks made by her mother on the hideous nature of physical love, and some vague advice that when It happened it was best just to close your eyes and think of shopping in Bond Street, or the Rue de Rivoli.

  ‘Are you actually going to live at Mellerfont?’ Mary Jane was now asking, breaking into Poppy’s private reverie. ‘It’s utterly miles from anywhere, they say, and absolutely vast. Huge, in fact.’

  ‘Some of the time, I suppose, yes,’ Poppy agreed. ‘Basil has a town house as well, but I imagine we shall spend a certain amount of time in Yorkshire.’

  ‘You know there’s no summer at all in Yorkshire, do you? At least not according to Mummy. She says summer starts on June the first and ends on the thirtieth. Most of the time it’s dark. And wet.’

  ‘I think that’s an exaggeration.’ Poppy laughed, cleaning her glasses on her table napkin. ‘I’ve seen photographs and it looks rather sort of splendid. As for Mellerfont – Basil says he has quite a lot of people working for him – in the house, and on the estate.’

  ‘Where are you going for your gown?’ Mary Jane took one last draw on her slim Turkish cigarette before stubbing it out, her eyes now back on Poppy, because she didn’t like to think of Poppy’s being surrounded by servants. ‘The sort of wedding you’re going to have, I should imagine a trip to Worth is on the cards, wouldn’t you?’

  Poppy put her spectacles on again, wondering as always why she did so since they seemed to make little difference to her sight, but grateful as always to hide behind them.

  ‘I don’t know where I’m going for my gown as it happens,’ she replied with perfect truth. ‘Basil and my mother have rather sort of taken over. I’m rather glad actually. They’ve both got much better taste than I have.’

  Mary Jane snapped her handbag shut and prepared to leave. It was really getting far too much altogether. She could not see why Poppy Beaumont, of all people, should ever deserve such good fortune. The strange thing was, nor could Poppy.

  Chapter Two

  In the event Poppy’s wedding dress was not made at Worth. After a brief battle of wills between Basil and Poppy’s mother, and despite the fact that the older generation kept murmuring about war, Poppy went to Paris with her mother but not, as was duly reported in both Vogue and the Tatler, to visit the House of Worth.

  Following the splendour of the Coronation, most brides must feel that they cannot possibly compete, but Miss Poppy Beaumont’s late summer wedding to Lord Tetherington was a more than adequate reply to that most impressive of ceremonies. The bride wore a gown designed and made for her in Paris by Madame Gres, and a more chic dress could not be imagined. The dictates of the heart might be infinitely various, but those of fashion could not surely have produced a more feminine gown. Wide-skirted and flowing, made of Lyons silk
, with embroidered silk veiling, it had all the style and tailoring so often lacking in more romantic designs, yet fulfilled every demand for this most special of days. The new Lady Tetherington looked everything that the bridegroom might have desired, but of which most could surely only possibly have dreamed.

  Because of the now very real threat of war, Basil had recommended they spend the first night of their honeymoon at a friend’s house on the way to Mellerfont. The drive took well over two hours, but as soon as Basil turned his dark green convertible Bentley through the huge ornamental gates, past the lodge that guarded the entrance to his friend’s house, and up the long winding carriage drive through heavily wooded grounds before reaching the park proper, Poppy’s spirits rose in spite of her fatigue. She began to feel altogether better about the prospect of sharing her life with the stranger sitting beside her in the driving seat, particularly when his car swept round a long bend in the drive to give Poppy her first proper view of his friend’s house sitting in the late sunshine of a very late summer evening.

  Thanks to her family’s travels around Europe, Poppy had stayed in fine châteaux that had belonged to rich French diplomats and large ornate villas that were the family homes of Italian politicians, not to mention the beautiful Bavarian castles used for hunting and shooting by the German aristocracy, so she knew at a glance when she saw a jewel, and the estate into which they had driven was indeed a jewel. Early eighteenth century, and built of a pale stone, it had the welcoming feeling of a house that has no real pretensions, and so sits as comfortably as any charming personality within its gardens and grounds.

  A large fire had been laid in the chintz-festooned drawing room, a luxury Poppy found most welcoming after the fatigue of a wedding and a long reception. Furthermore drinks and canapés had been laid out in advance on a butler’s tray placed in front of the log fire, and Basil served them both a fine French champagne that had been left cooling in an old silver ice bucket.

  ‘Well, Lady Tetherington, I confess I was a little nervous today, and I dare say you were too?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Poppy admitted. ‘But then it’s sort of natural, wouldn’t you say? I mean – you know … neither of us has exactly been married before.’

  ‘Not exactly?’ Basil queried as he handed her a glass of wine. ‘Not exactly? I wonder what you can mean by that.’

  ‘Just that people are sort of bound to get a little nervous when they’re doing something they haven’t done before, I suppose.’

  ‘By exactly,’ Basil continued to wonder, ‘does this suppose that one might have done this sort of thing roughly before?’

  Poppy frowned and looked up at the fine paintings on the wall. She supposed this was some kind of patrician tease, and so she let her gaze wander round the room before replying.

  ‘I know that was a stupid thing to say, Basil, but I wasn’t actually thinking. And no, and I’m not really nervous now, as it happens, just a bit tired, which you must be too, do admit.’

  ‘I admit nothing.’ Basil smiled now, much more like the Basil whom Poppy hoped she knew. ‘And you are a little – a little shy perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Then that is all to the good. Women should never be too confident, it’s most unappealing.’ Basil raised his wine glass. ‘To the future. To our future.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Poppy agreed, raising her own glass gratefully. ‘To the future.’

  ‘Although God alone knows quite what sort of future that’s going to be,’ Basil added. ‘The way this country is heading, we can only shudder to think of the future. Even so, we don’t want to talk of politics now, do we? I say, I was wondering, do you think you’re going to be able to manage all right, without a maid? I can find someone to help you dress, if you want.’

  Poppy shook her head, and once again looked down. She knew this was a mark against her. All Society brides were expected to honeymoon with a personal maid in attendance.

  ‘We were a bit short of people at home,’ she explained. ‘I did say I might need a maid, but my mother wouldn’t lend me hers. As I say we’re a bit short of servants, as everyone is. What with so many girls going off to work in factories now that war seems to be so terribly unavoidable.’

  ‘That so?’ Basil replied, without a great deal of interest. ‘Never realised.’ He looked momentarily bored at the mention of domestic arrangements, and fingered his signet ring. ‘Don’t usually talk about servants, you know.’

  ‘No, well, no. You wouldn’t. I dare say you don’t have that sort of problem at Mellerfont.’

  Basil’s eyebrows went up as he examined the question. He shrugged.

  ‘Hasn’t occurred so far – far as I know,’ he said, turning round to consult the clock above the fireplace. ‘Nearly time to change, so if you’re quite sure you can cope, I think we should go up in a few minutes.’

  Poppy nodded in return, and sipped her champagne. Silence fell, relieved only by the crackling and popping noises from the logs in the fireplace.

  ‘Is it all right, Basil, if George sleeps in the bedroom?’ Poppy suddenly wondered, as her beloved dachshund shifted his position and sat fair and square on her foot.

  ‘Of course. Dogs in the bedroom are de rigueur at Mellerfont. My parents, when they were alive, made the rule. Dogs in bedrooms, cats in the garden or the stables, never indoors. Might as well start as we mean to go on, wouldn’t you say? I’m sure Douglas feels the same here.’

  Basil lit a cigarette, glanced once more at the clock then stood smoking with his back to the fire.

  ‘So no news then,’ Poppy said in an effort to break the new silence. ‘That is, no talk about the news then.’

  ‘I always think it’s bad form to talk about the news, unless it directly concerns oneself.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  There was another silence, as Poppy tried desperately to think of another suitable topic, but due to Basil’s apparent indifference to small talk her mind remained horribly blank. In hope of inspiration she turned to examine the books on the table beside her chair.

  ‘Douglas McKinlock obviously likes poetry?’ she remarked, referring to Basil’s friend, the owner of the house. She tried not to register surprise as she examined the anthology she was holding.

  ‘You seem to find that surprising.’

  ‘No,’ Poppy replied hurriedly. ‘No, not a bit. I didn’t mean it that way. I meant it like – as in – I’ve only met him once but he doesn’t seem the type.’

  Basil’s eyebrows were raised once again as he looked down at her, his lips pursing.

  ‘I see,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Yes, I believe Douglas does like poetry. And so do I, as a matter of fact. Does that surprise you?’

  ‘I too have always liked poetry.’

  ‘All poetry? You like all poetry?’

  ‘I haven’t read all the poetry that there is, no, Basil,’ Poppy replied carefully. ‘No, I don’t like all poetry. You’re quite right. I like a lot of the poetry that I have read. What sort of poetry do you like?’

  ‘Epic mostly, if you’re interested. I like poems that tell a story. That have a narrative.’

  ‘I see. At the moment I’m reading the French poets, Verlaine in particular. My French is just about good enough to read him in the original.’

  Basil looked round at her, his expression deliberately blank.

  ‘I don’t really think I want you reading Verlaine,’ he said, after a small pause during which he obviously considered the point most carefully.

  ‘Oh, but I do so love him. He’s so deliberately and horribly cynical, don’t you find?’

  ‘Cynicism is not a suitable viewpoint for you, Lady Tetherington—’ Basil stopped himself from sounding irritated just in time. ‘Let me put it this way,’ he continued, on a different tack. ‘I do not consider Verlaine to be suitable reading for my wife. Along with various other poets – whom I would also rather you did not read – he does not have what I would call a proper morality. Do I make myself clear?�
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  ‘I don’t understand.’ Poppy stopped, frowned, and began again. ‘Are you – you know – are you being serious?’

  ‘What else would I be being?’

  ‘You don’t want me reading – Verlaine?’

  ‘That’s what I said. One must know what one’s wife is reading.’

  ‘I see. Gracious. I never – I never thought of reading like that, Basil, as being something that came under a husband’s jurisdiction.’

  ‘You should have done. I really don’t want you filling your head with a lot of seditious nonsense. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes. Yes of course, Basil.’ Poppy’s gaze once more took in the paintings round the room, to distract from the cold expression in Basil’s blue eyes, and his immutable expression.

  ‘If you are at all confused,’ Basil added, ‘just cast your mind back to the marriage service. What did you do? You promised to obey me, did you not?’

  ‘Yes, Basil.’

  ‘That being so, one of my requirements is that you regard marriage as a supremely serious state, most particularly your moral values – the way we look on life.’

  Poppy nerved herself to look at her husband’s face once again, and as she did so her heart sank. Whereas before Basil’s blue eyes had seemed intelligent and questioning, amused and mocking, now they seemed cold. She had never really taken much notice of the difference in their ages, her eighteen years to his thirty-five, but now, as she saw him staring down at her in the way her father so often had done, the age difference seemed suddenly to be not a thin strip of years, but an insurmountable chasm.

  ‘It is time to change for dinner,’ Basil announced thankfully, having once again consulted the mahogany clock on the chimney piece whose patient tick seemed now to Poppy to have become almost as loud as that of Big Ben. ‘Perhaps you would like to follow me.’

  Tossing his now finished smoke into the fire behind him, Basil walked out of the room ahead of his wife. Poppy was dying to finish her champagne so that she could top up her Dutch courage, but seeing Basil waiting for her in the hall she put her still half full glass down on a table and dutifully left the room. Followed closely by her dog, and Basil, she walked all the way up the wide eighteenth-century staircase to the next floor where Basil leaned past her and opened a door at the end of the landing.