Down in the cutting garden, Daniel MacLeod was thigh high in delphiniums and foxgloves, and apparently impervious to the anxious drone of bees all around him. He had come to cut blooms for the house, Mrs Munster having informed him – unnecessarily – that the family would be arriving tomorrow and flowers were needed for the front and back hallways, the morning room, dining room and drawing room, and for the ladies’ bedrooms. At this time of year, before the summer’s heat could leach the colour from the petals and the moisture from the soil, the cutting garden was bountiful, and it was child’s play to fill the willow trugs and have them sent up to the house to be arranged. At other times of year, everyone’s creativity was challenged; berries, variegated leaves and some of the prettier seedpods had to do, with celosia, gypsophila, statice and lavender, carefully dried in his small greenhouse, interspersed through the foliage. Of course, only when the family was in residence did these standards have to be maintained. At other times the vases and rose bowls stood empty, and the flowers bloomed and died with only Daniel’s appreciative attention upon them.
He was almost finished in his task, with two baskets loaded and resting in the shade, when Eve appeared within his view, though from her unselfconscious manner she clearly thought she was unobserved. He had the luxury of watching her pass along the terrace closest to the house, then choose a path through the plats and down on to the parterre. She was wearing a striped apron, blue – like the delphiniums – and white, and a white blouse with sleeves that stopped just above the elbow, showing slender forearms. Her long hair was off her face, held back in some clever way known only to women. Remove one or two pins, and down it would fall. Even from this distance, Daniel could see that she looked melancholy. He watched her, and wondered at the response she provoked in him. He was nearly forty years old, he thought to himself, with no shortage of experience of women and the world, yet she made him feel like a boy of sixteen, desire flooding his body in that same unannounced and afflicting way that it had when he was young. It was with the greatest effort that he pulled himself together and, bending down to harvest the last of the flowers he needed, began to whistle. He knew she might bolt, but he wanted to give her the choice; he felt like a voyeur, watching her when she believed herself to be alone. At least this way, he reasoned, if she chose to stay in the garden, it would be in the full knowledge that he was here. One, two, three purple foxgloves he snipped at their bases, then three more, from the crop of white ones. Next, unhurriedly, three delphiniums, snip, snip, snip. He forced himself to keep his eyes averted until he had laid all nine stems gently on one of the trugs, then he straightened and looked to see where she was. Wonderful sight. She was walking towards him.
He introduced her to the ancient Greeks: Aristotle, Socrates, Plato; it seemed only polite, since they were there too. To Eve, they all looked alike – bearded and serious in their separate alcoves – but Daniel seemed to know them all and was almost fond of them, said they were his only company on many a day. Their conversation, once it began, came easily. She’d come out looking for the coachman, she said, but as the stable yard was deserted she’d wandered into the garden instead. He said he was glad she had. He asked what her favourite flower was, and she said probably lily of the valley, though she could only rarely find them at home. They talked as they walked through the cutting garden, and he told her the Latin names for the flowers and asked her questions about Netherwood, probing gently for the information which finally emerged: that there was no longer a Mr Williams. He was very sorry, he said, but inside, he rejoiced. He told her he was from Montrose, on Scotland’s east coast, and that he hadn’t been back there since he took up his post at Fulton House twenty-one years ago.
He’d love to go back, he said. With you, he thought. Then they sat for a short while in the sunshine on a lichen-covered stone seat, facing the house with the garden spread out before them. Eve admired it, said she’d never seen the like, even at Netherwood Hall. Daniel thanked her, but the last thing he wanted to talk about his handiwork, so he took the first opportunity for a conversational turn.
‘So. How’s it going, down in the engine room?’ he said.
‘Couldn’t be worse.’
She expected sympathy, but he laughed. ‘Beryl Carmichael, what a right royal terror. She’s very territorial.’
Eve said nothing. She wasn’t interested in excuses for the cook’s ill humour.
‘It’s just insecurity. She’ll be feeling threatened by you,’ he went on.
‘Well, there’s no need. I’m not after takin’ ’er place. I ’ave a life in Yorkshire, and a living to make there.’
Shame, he thought.
‘I’ll speak to her, if you like,’ he said. ‘Let her know you’re just passing through.’
She listened to the cadence of his voice as much as what he was saying. It struck her that other than his name and birthplace, she knew nothing about him, then it struck her further that it could all be discovered, if she wished it. How odd, she thought, that she should know this to be true, and that she could sit so comfortably by this stranger. She turned to speak, but found him looking right at her and it threw her off her stroke. When she looked away, he wanted to stop her, take her chin in his hand and turn her to face him again because he’d seen a connection, he was sure of it. Now though she was all confusion, and she stood up to leave.
‘Ah, don’t go,’ he said, smiling at her, standing up too. She was flustered, and he wondered what was passing through her mind. If convention and respectability didn’t forbid it, he would kiss her and perhaps make matters a little clearer for them both.
‘No, I shall,’ she said. ‘I have pastry to bake. Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘Oh, well. Being kind, I suppose. And don’t talk to Mrs Carmichael. I shall speak to ’er myself, else she’ll always see me as a wet lettuce.’
He laughed again.
‘Can’t have that,’ he said.
She set off through the garden without a goodbye.
‘Come and find me again,’ he called. ‘Any time.’
Then she turned and smiled a thank you, which felt, to him, like a gift.
Eve Williams, he thought to himself. Eve Williams.
At the very bottom of the garden were two majestic cedars of Lebanon and he walked into the shade created by the flat plains of their branches. Growing there, among the parma violets which he had planted for the countess, was a cluster of fragrant lily of the valley, which he had planted for himself. Tenderly, he cut twelve stems of the delicate white blooms and tied them together into a modest bouquet. Then he walked up to the house where he found a housemaid willing to run up to Eve’s attic bedroom and leave the flowers there in a small, glass vase. He paid her sixpence not to gossip.
Chapter 42
Early on Monday morning, as soon as staff breakfast was over, Field Marshal Munster made a final inspection of Fulton House. She had a gimlet eye in matters pertaining to housework, and her small army of staff understood that nothing slipped her notice. Even Mr Munster, who was the butler and as such vied with his wife for supremacy in the staff hierarchy, quaked at the sound of her step on the parquet floor. She spoke in stern Victorian maxims – ‘Idleness hath clothed many with rags’ and ‘If you hope to obtain favour, endeavour to deserve it’ – which she delivered with not even the shadow of a smile. But, in fact, she rarely had need to preach, because it was a matter of honour to the household that whenever the family descended on them, they should feel instantly glad to be there. Most of them had never been to Yorkshire, let alone Netherwood Hall, but nevertheless the place loomed in their imaginations as a pinnacle of fine living. Therefore, they felt, their absolute duty was to maintain a London residence which, while unavoidably smaller than its country cousin, was nevertheless of equal grandeur and sophistication. It wasn’t exactly a competition, but they would have been perfectly happy to be judged.
In these last hours before the family arrived, it was as if the building and everyone
in it held their collective breath for fear that they might disturb the perfect fold of the drapes, or set loose a petal to drift to the floor. The dining-room table was elaborately set for a late luncheon, with a silver bowl of early roses at its centre. Half an hour before the meal was served, the flowers would be lightly sprayed with water, to give the impression that the morning dew still clung to the petals. Rugs had been beaten and swept, wardrobes dusted and lined. Alice, the still room maid, had prepared muslin sachets stuffed with a heady mix of cloves, cinnamon, dried lavender and cedar shavings, and these were placed in the drawers of every upstairs room. For the gentlemen, crystal decanters were loaded with port and malt whisky, while the ladies, presumed to be less in need of a stiff drink, each had a tiny, precious vial of ottar of roses, made to a traditional eastern recipe by the same Alice responsible for the muslin sachets. Elsewhere in the house, inkstands were refilled, stationery replenished and new candles placed in every candlestick. The house was poised in readiness, polished and primed into perfect order.
At half-past eleven, Samuel Stallibrass set off for the station. There was a short debate in the stable yard between himself and Mrs Munster about the necessity or otherwise of two carriages, given that all of the family were arriving in London today. But Samuel, who was one of the very few people who had no fear of the housekeeper, knew best and would concede no ground; if Dickie and Lady Isabella rode with him up top, as he knew they both preferred to do, then there was ample room for everyone else in the carriage. In any case, he said, the earl and young Lord Fulton would very likely be dropped at White’s. Why put two more horses and an under-coachman to the trouble, if one carriage would easily suffice? Mrs Munster, whose remit really didn’t extend to matters outside the house, was forced to retreat. But she had no real cause for concern; she could see for herself the effort Samuel had put into the cleaning of the carriage brasses and the blacking of the harnesses. If King Edward himself were suddenly to demand the use of Samuel’s landau, he would find it fit for purpose.
With Samuel gone and the arrival of the family now imminent, the household assembled front of house, forming two receiving lines down each side of the reception hall, men on one side, women on the other, with Mr and Mrs Munster opposite each other at the head. Daniel MacLeod wasn’t present; he was his own man, and had excused himself from this ritual many years before. Mrs Carmichael, who goodness knew had enough to be doing below stairs, was there though, standing next to the housekeeper, while Thomas Hardiment, the under-butler, flanked Mr Munster. Below them, the footmen, the under-footmen, the housemaids, under-housemaids, kitchen maids and scullery maids, grooms and stable lads all stood in obedient lines of decreasing importance, waiting to pay obeisance to their employers. They were as still and silent as waxworks, Mrs Munster having aired two more of her favourite, joyless aphorisms by reminding them that silence was a virtue and the best proof of wisdom was to talk little and listen well. It made for a tense half hour; the merest sniff would earn the culprit a metaphorical black mark that would stain their reputation for ever. Forgive and forget was not in Mrs Munster’s repertoire.
Into this eerily soundless tableau came a breathless Eve Williams, who burst through the door from the back stairs in something of a panic. Working alone in her pastry room, preparing the first of her fairy pies for tomorrow’s soirée, she was unaware that the kitchen wing had emptied entirely. After all, since no one was speaking to her, how could they possibly direct her upstairs to the reception hall with everyone else? Reasonable enough, at least they all thought so. And Eve, accustomed by now to the absence of conversation, carried on with her batch of miniature veal and ham pies for a good twenty-five minutes after they’d left. It was only when she walked into the main kitchen with a tray ready for the oven that she realised she was alone, except for the little dog who eyed her from his basket as she stood in baffled alarm, looking all around her for evidence of human life.
‘Where’s everyone gone?’ she asked the dog, and felt irrationally betrayed when he didn’t reply. Her conclusion, reached in a matter of seconds, was that the house must be on fire and she’d been left to burn alive below stairs by the callous Mrs Carmichael and her mean-minded underlings. Pausing only to pop her cargo into the bottom of the range – well, she might be in mortal danger, but first things first – she flew out of the kitchen, throwing a black look at the turncoat terrier, and up the stairs, hurtling out through the green baize door like a human cannonball.
Her timing could not have been worse. Or, as it turned out, better. For just as she bowled into the reception hall from where she intended to make her escape from the inferno, the large double front doors were pulled open by two footmen and into the house walked the Earl and Countess of Netherwood with Tobias, Dickie, Henrietta and Isabella.
Eve froze. Mrs Munster gave her a swift look of utmost contempt and Mrs Carmichael smirked nastily and with evident relish. Then Lady Hoyland, espying her favourite protégée at the far end of the hall, swooshed past the field marshal, the generals and the ranks of mute and motionless foot soldiers to where Eve stood, alone and beetroot red. To the utter and enduring amazement of the audience, Clarissa clasped Eve in a fond embrace, though rather gingerly in case there was flour on her apron.
‘Too, too lovely,’ the countess gushed. ‘What fun! I hope you like our little London dwelling. Has everyone been charming to you, my dear?’
She turned and beamed at Mrs Munster and Mrs Carmichael, into whose hands she assumed Eve had been placed. They returned two distinctly watered-down smiles, while trying to process the evidence they had before them: that this unlooked-for upstart cook was on hugging terms with the countess. And as if that wasn’t enough, the earl now bounded over and gave her an avuncular peck on the cheek, followed by Henrietta, who stood before her in a bias-cut skirt and an intricately embellished blouse and said, ‘What do you think? Your friend Anna made me into a Gibson Gal! She took no time at all!’ then twirled so that Eve could assess her costume.
Remembering the form, Lord Hoyland turned and addressed his assembled staff.
‘Splendid to be here, and to see that everything looks shipshape and Bristol fashion. Thank you all, now don’t let us detain you any longer.’ He turned to the cook and addressed her directly. ‘Mrs Carmichael, Tobias and I eschewed White’s today for one of your legendary lunches, so best be getting on with it, what!’
Mrs Carmichael bobbed a curtsey and said, ‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir,’ and made for the stairs.
Mrs Munster clapped twice, peremptorily, and the assembled household instantly dissolved into their various recesses of the residence. The earl strode purposefully into his study and Isabella raced up the main staircase, Lady Hoyland drifting after her calling that she mustn’t be giddy and mustn’t be late for luncheon. Henrietta and Dickie made for the rear door so that they might properly greet the London horses. Tobias, leaning languidly against a pillar, the better to display his new linen sack coat and matching trousers, flashed a rake-about-town smile at Eve, who was still rooted to the spot.
‘I don’t suppose you’d fancy a spin through Hyde Park in the phaeton, Mrs Williams?’ he said.
She snorted with laughter. He was priceless.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘It was worth asking the question.’ He smiled, unabashed. ‘You do look lovely with that flush to the cheeks.’
‘Well, that’s as may be,’ Eve said, putting an end to the nonsense. ‘But you’re barkin’ up t’wrong tree. I’m not one of your foolish dairy maids.’ This was no way to speak to the Netherwood heir, she knew that. But he shrugged, smiled pleasantly and nodded his agreement.
‘No, indeed,’ he said. ‘But such a very great shame. Ah well, enjoy the rest of your day. See you anon.’
He sauntered off upstairs, whistling insouciantly, and Eve watched him go. There was no harm in him, she realised that now. She was sure he would never force himself upon an unwilling girl – no need, by all accounts, when so many of them seemed to be on tap. But,
she thought, heading back down to the kitchen, he was so entirely lacking in decent, upright principles. Life and love for him were merely sport. Amos Sykes, with his badly fitting suit and his ready scowl, was more of a gentleman than Toby Hoyland would ever be.
Chapter 43
‘Why are you wearing your Norfolk jacket, darling?’ Dickie, his mouth full of asparagus and hollandaise, looked across the table at his mother.
‘Always ready for the shoot, aren’t you, Dickie, old son?’ said Tobias. ‘Never know when a pheasant might fly through the room. He has his gun under the table too.’
‘Dickie!’ said the countess. ‘We simply won’t countenance firearms at luncheon.’
Dickie, whose mouth was now empty, said, ‘He’s joshing with you, Ma. There’s no gun.’ He picked up another spear of asparagus and pretended to shoot Toby in the head, then dipped it in sauce, and pushed it, whole, into his mouth.
‘Even so, dear, your shooting tweeds are hardly the thing.’
‘Well, I expect he’ll change for dinner,’ said Lord Hoyland, in a tone with which he hoped to convey that the subject was too trivial to be given any more attention.
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