He saw James, riding easily now, cross to the coach-yard and stables. Oliver remained where he was for a little while longer. He liked to be alone, to think without distractions and often he rode or walked in the hills, finding answers to questions that troubled him.
Today he pondered on the feeling of dissatisfaction that had become a part of his life. He saw it as his own ingratitude, for life had given him much more than he had a right to expect. And yet . . .
He had imagined himself, in his youth, as head of a large family, taking his children with him, teaching them to ride and to swim, walking, working and at night seeing them around his supper table, all under his roof, surrounding him, filling his hours with their talk and their joy. He never imagined that the only son of his marriage would be so difficult to understand.
Oliver tried to be rational about James’s character. He knew that he and his son would have to learn to work together if James was to run the estate in his turn. But then, he thought, the boy is only fifteen. Perhaps he was expecting too much of him.
The horse trampled impatiently and all at once Oliver was angry with himself. Providence had given him so much. ‘Hell,’ he said out loud. ‘He’s just like I was – resentful of restriction and ready to fight the world. He’ll be all right when he’s older.’
Oliver leaned forward again over the stallion’s neck. Comet’s hooves beat against the trodden earth of the path. The air was fast and cool against his cheek, and the speed and strength of his favourite mount exhilarated him, clearing his mind of everything but the age-old challenge of man in control of a spirited animal.
He slowed the horse and rode into the yard, dismounted and led Comet to his loose box before handing the saddle and bridle to a waiting groom, then he strode across the cobblestone yard, his boots ringing in the morning stillness, to the back entrance of Suttonford.
Water had been brought and his valet had laid out his business clothes. He washed and dressed and made his way downstairs. Wilkins would have left the morning post in the side room. He’d sort out his letters before he went to see Florence.
Laura and James were talking at the table. They had not seen him cross the hall to the anteroom that adjoined the dining room but since there was no door between the rooms he could hear their conversation clearly.
Laura’s voice was as strong as it had ever been but the drawling, languid tone was now at odds with her appearance. She was past sixty and her haughty demeanour had gone. Time and alcohol had taken their toll on Florence’s mother. The girlish figure and youthful looks were no more. She was a gaunt, waspish woman, dressed always in grey or black, with a face excessively lined and suspicious.
She had never wavered in her dislike of him. He knew that she thought of him still as a rough character; as one who could easily revert to type.
‘Mason!’ Laura’s voice held a note of complaint as she spoke to her foolish companion woman. ‘Ring the servants’ bell and ask for my restorative.’
Oliver heard her tapping with her silver-tipped cane on the table. ‘You’ll soon learn all there is to know, Mason. Don’t be upset if I speak sharply. I’m a sick woman, you know.’
‘Do you need brandy even at breakfast, Gran?’ James asked in a tone Oliver recognised as sarcastic, but which Laura would understand to be one of concern.
‘I have to take a pint each day, James. For medicinal reasons. It must be taken every hour to prevent my suffering another seizure,’ Laura replied. ‘What did you say earlier, darling? You want to stay at home with your new sister and your mother?’
‘Father won’t allow it,’ James replied shortly.
‘Oh, the celebrations we had when you were born, James. My father had the house filled with guests. We had a grand ball and fireworks display. The servants were given a week’s pay and a party in the village hall …’
‘… And by the time I was old enough to enjoy a carnival,’ James said caustically, ‘… I had ceased to be a novelty, I suppose. When did the rot set in, Gran? When did Father decide I should be sent away?’
‘When you were young your father wanted to keep you here,’ Laura drawled. ‘It was the last time your dear great-grandfather imposed his will. It was he – Sir Philip Oldfield – who insisted you go to his old school. Your father would have treated you like a common labourer’s child, making you attend the village school.’
‘Can’t you speak for me, Gran?’ James interrupted. ‘Or ask Mother to send for me? I hate school.’
‘What will you do, darling? If you come home? Will you go to the Transvaal to fight the Boers? Your grandfather was an army man.’
Laura was becoming maudlin. Soon she would be reminiscing about the husband she had lost when Florence was a child, thought Oliver.
James answered. ‘I’ll run the estate. Father prefers his cotton mills. I’m going to inherit one day and I want to have charge of it.’
‘Oh, my darling,’ Laura drawled. ‘You are so like your dear great-grandfather was. Life at Suttonford was so much more pleasant when my dear parents were alive.’
Oliver decided to leave the remaining letters until he’d seen Florence. He could not concentrate with Laura’s inane outpourings ringing in his ears. He could have tolerated her, had she spent more time in the considerable comfort of Balgone, which she’d inherited from Lucy Grandison after her death from a stroke a few years ago. Instead, as ever, she spent her days at Florence’s side, arriving by carriage at nine o’clock and not leaving until dark, her proud boast being that she had hardly spent a day of her life away from her daughter.
Before baby Maud’s birth Laura had taken up residence. She had a suite of two bedrooms and small sitting room for herself and her companion. Oliver now decided to tell her to return to Balgone every night, as before. He knew that Florence often found her mother’s company tiring and wondered at his wife’s forbearance. He left the anteroom, unobserved.
Dr Russell, a youngish man, one of the best doctors in the county, was being shown into the hall as Oliver crossed the upper landing. Oliver ran down the marble stairs. ‘I understand that you wanted to speak to me?’ he said. He held out his hand. ‘Follow me. We’ll talk in my study.’
Since the death of Sir Philip, Oliver had transferred all the books and records into this pleasant panelled room, which overlooked the front of the house and the lake. ‘Come in, Dr Russell. Please be seated.’
The doctor remained standing, stroking his chin. ‘I’ve bad news for you, Wainwright,’ he began. ‘You know that the baby had adopted a difficult position in your wife’s womb?’
He must have seen Oliver’s look of disquiet for he said reassuringly, ‘She was never in danger. She was delivered safely.’ There was a moment’s pause before he added, ‘There must be no more children. A third pregnancy would kill her.’
‘Does she know this?’ Oliver’s voice was steady.
‘Yes. She was naturally upset but I must ask you to comfort her all you can.’ Oliver nodded and waited for him to continue. Obviously the man did not flinch from speaking plainly.
‘You understand what this means? There are no precautions you can take, which are certain to prevent conception. There are ways and we all know about them, but the only safe thing is total absence of sexual contact until her childbearing years are over. And that, I’m afraid, is what you face.’
‘How long must we wait?’
‘If the menses recommence then it could be ten years. If they do not you must wait until a year has elapsed.’
‘Are you certain she’s in no danger now?’ Oliver demanded.
‘There’s always a possibility of something unforeseen but every skill known to medicine was brought to bear on this delivery.’
‘I shall take great care of her, doctor,’ Oliver told him.
‘If Mrs Wainwright has complete rest, freedom from anxiety and young company to look forward to I believe she will make a quick recovery,’ the doctor added.
Oliver looked at him keenly. ‘And you think t
hat she is being denied them?’ he asked in a sharper tone.
‘I think that the constant presence of her mother at her side will not aid her recovery,’ the doctor answered, evidently not inhibited by Oliver’s apparent rebuke. ‘My concern is for my patient’s welfare.’
Oliver smiled and extended his hand. ‘Thank you for your advice,’ he said. ‘I shall see that Mrs Wainwright has the best of care.’ He walked to the door of the study and turned before opening it. ‘There will be no more children,’ he told the doctor solemnly.
Oliver ran up the stairs to Florence’s apartments and found her at the window of her sitting room, a tiny figure in a white silk kimono, gazing out over the lawn and lake of Suttonford.
‘I was looking for you, darling,’ she said. ‘Did you come in the back way?’
Oliver put his arms around her and bent forward to kiss her lightly on her nose. ‘I did. You should be in bed, my love,’ he said. ‘Doctor Russell says that your lying-in must be spent at complete rest.’
‘I’ll be all right, Oliver. Don’t worry so. I was only twenty-four when James was born. At thirty-nine I could not expect to have so easy a time.’
He led her to her bedroom, beyond the sitting room she had decorated in the modern style, lifted her as if she were a doll and placed her in the high bed. ‘I’ve spoken to the doctor,’ he said.
‘Has he told you?’ Florence’s eyes were troubled and he knew that she had been worrying about his reaction to the doctor’s injunction. ‘I’ll risk it, Oliver. I don’t care, darling.’ She held tight onto his hand. ‘You’re only forty-one. Can you contemplate abstinence? It might be years before …’
‘Your life’s more important than children,’ he told her, smiling at his darling, stroking her hand, watching intently as the relief she was trying so hard to conceal flooded into her sweet face. ‘I love you so.’
It was true. Oliver loved her dearly though it had never been a marriage of passion. Florence, from the start, had shied from deep displays of emotion. Something had held her back, some hidden reserve had prevented her from releasing herself, from abandoning herself to the love he wanted her to share. He smiled when he thought of her pretences, her feigning of pleasure in his advances. Long, long ago he had known that she wanted to please him, wanted his attentions, but could not respond to them. He loved her though he had seen through her artfulness.
But there would be no more children. He could not allow her to risk another pregnancy. He would remain in his own separate suite. Florence would protest for the sake of his vanity, he knew, but in her heart she would be glad that her duties were over.
They must both endure this separation for they had so much else. They laughed together, they understood one another, shared friends and pleasures and, most gratifying, Florence still delighted in being his wife.
He fussed over her now, arranging the sheets and the silk coverlet around her. ‘I’m going to Manchester today,’ he announced when she was propped up on her pillows. ‘I’m meeting Albert to look over the site of a new factory. Then I must go to Southport. It’s Dolly’s birthday.’
Florence looked exactly the same as she always had. Her hair was unfaded, her beauty unimpaired. But the strain of the pregnancy had exhausted her.
Oliver brushed her hair from her face with great tenderness. ‘Your little grey shadow is having breakfast, Florence,’ he said, warning her of Laura’s impending arrival. ‘I’m going to tell her that she and her companion must return to Balgone today. They must go home.’
‘But, Oliver,’ Florence said, ‘you know that Mama is only happy here, at Suttonford.’
‘I know,’ he told her, but the tender tone had gone. Command came easily to him now. ‘Suttonford is not her home. She was born here and I understand her attachment to the place. But she has a companion. She will come to Suttonford daily. It’s for your sake that I allow her to come here every day. She has a home of her own and she must return to it.’
Florence gave him an understanding smile. ‘I’ll speak to her, Oliver. It will be better for her – kinder – if I say that I would prefer to be left alone.’
‘As you wish.’ Oliver stood at the bedside. ‘I’ll walk with James to the station. He is going to ask you to allow him to remain here when he comes to say farewell. Don’t encourage him.’
‘Oliver,’ Florence said, pulling herself into an upright position. ‘Why don’t you spend a few days with your stepmother and her children?’
‘Don’t you need me?’ he said.
‘No. I’ll recover all the faster if I do nothing but rest.’ She leaned back against the pillows. ‘And, Oliver …’ She smiled.
‘Yes?’
‘Ask Elizabeth if she’d like to spend a summer here. I’ve never met those young people. And you’ve talked about them so much. Perhaps your stepmother will agree to let her join us. It will be fun to have someone young to entertain.’
Oliver was startled by her request. ‘You know that I have always insisted on their remaining in Southport?’ he said.
‘Yes, I’ve known but I never understood why.’
He sat down on the bed and took her hand in his. It had been a weight on his shoulders all these years, concealing his paternity of Edward. Often he had wondered if he should confide in Florence. She would have understood, and forgiven him. But he could not reveal the deception to Edward and Lizzie. They were happy, confident young people who had no reason to believe themselves anything other than Wainwrights and he their half-brother.
He stroked Florence’s little hand. ‘You know that Edward and Lizzie are registered as Wainwrights?’
‘Yes, but Leach was their true father,’ she answered.
‘You remember that I told you we, Dolly and I, registered them in my own father’s name?’ He watched her face closely.
‘Yes, darling, of course I do,’ she replied.
‘I have always been afraid that they might hear something … that someone at Suttonford would remember Wilf Leach.’
‘Who could? There is no one, Oliver.’ Florence spoke gently.
‘I have never told them about Wilf Leach,’ he went on. ‘He is dead now. He died in prison five years ago.’
‘Well?’
‘Don’t forget that they came from the estate,’ he reminded her.
‘You are protecting them, Oliver, aren’t you, my darling? All these years you have supported and protected them. And now you are afraid they will discover who their father was.’ Florence leaned forward again, a sweet smile of understanding spreading over her tired little face. ‘You are afraid that if Elizabeth comes here I might let slip the truth?’
He knew that she would never do that but he let her go on.
‘Oh, Oliver, I’d never do that. I never think of them as anything but Wainwrights – as anything other than they know themselves to be.’ She gripped his fingers with her own now, to emphasise her words. ‘I swear to you, darling, I’d cut out my tongue if I thought there was any danger.’
‘I know, my angel,’ he said. ‘But if they came here they could see Joe Wainwright’s grave. They would see for themselves.’
‘Truly, Oliver, I had forgotten the details. James knows the grave as that of his grandfather. Edward and Elizabeth should see it.’
He was afraid that she was tiring.
‘Even Mama thinks of them as Wainwrights. She couldn’t bear James to have a grandparent that she could not boast about. She talks about Joe Wainwright as if he were of distinguished – oh, sorry, darling.’
Perhaps he had been unnecessarily cautious. ‘Edward will not come,’ he said at last. ‘He has to return to London and his studies.’
‘I know. Perhaps one day. But Elizabeth? Do ask her, Oliver.’
‘In a few weeks’ time I will. When you are on your feet again.’ Oliver kissed her cheek. ‘I’ll be back in a few days,’ he said, then added impulsively, ‘I’ll ask Lizzie if she’d like to come.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
James and
Laura had left the dining room by the time he returned and Oliver helped himself to scrambled eggs and cold ham. The post had been brought to the table and he made two neat stacks of the envelopes, one of tradesmen’s accounts and one of personal letters.
He kept until last the one written in unfamiliar handwriting. As he read, his face drained of colour. He went to the dining-room door and closed it and found that his hands were shaking with fury. He took the letter to the window and read it again:
Dear Oliver Wainwright,
It has come to my notice that you have committed the very serious offence of falsifying a birth registration.
I have in my possession four items that would reveal to the world your duplicity and callous disregard of your dear wife’s finer feelings. One of these items is a photograph, taken in 1879, of yourself and Mrs Rosalind Hadfield, the mother of your son. This alone is not sufficient evidence of infidelity but I also have three exercise books in her handwriting containing a confession of guilt from your paramour.
It is plain, from the content of these books, that Mrs Hadfield is the mother of the young man who knows himself to be Edward Cromwell Wainwright and who was registered under that name as the child of Dorothea Wainwright and your own father, Joseph Wainwright.
The writer is not greedy, and although the temptation to offer to you the aforementioned for a larger sum was considered, it was overruled in favour of a monthly fee, guaranteeing my silence, of ten pounds. Two five-pound notes must be sent to the above address, in an envelope addressed to A. King, Esq.
Unless this modest amount is received on the first day of every month the incriminating documents and photograph will be delivered into your wife’s hands at Suttonford.
You could try to discover my identity but that would ultimately mean the revelation of your deception to your wife and to both your sons. I am sure that you will consider the price of silence to be worthwhile.
Underneath was a scrawl. The letter had been carefully written in childish print to conceal the handwriting. The money was to be posted to an address in a poor part of London.
The Runaway Page 30
