The Potter's Niece

by Randall, Rona

  ‘Is that a promise?’

  ‘Of course, it’s a promise! Do you imagine I want to remain in a place where I can come face to face with you and your bastard?’

  She was chilled by the swift tightening of his mouth, which recalled his anger of old and how she had feared it, but all he said was, ‘Very well, but so long as you remain here you will be courteous to my son and never slight him, especially in front of guests.’

  ‘I shall take care not to meet your guests.’

  ‘And I shall take care that you do. The estrangement between us, our dislike of each other, is not to be displayed, because nothing could make Miguel feel more unwanted, more in the way. If he is, I’ll have you turned out of these rooms whether you have a place of your own to go to, or not. A husband still has authority over his wife, no matter the state of their marriage. So those are my demands, and they shouldn’t be too onerous. I’ll make a generous offer for Agatha’s property, and since I can’t imagine that arrogant son of hers wanting to inherit a house that’s inferior to the one he expected to inherit, I have no doubt she will sell it to me. So now you can start meeting my terms. You will receive our guests — guests of my son and myself — as soon as I start entertaining here.’

  ‘And what guests are they? Who can the pair of you possibly know in the neighbourhood?’

  ‘To start with, Mr and Mrs Damian Fletcher, a former local farrier and his wife.’

  Max actually grinned when he said it, then turned away, unheedful of her laughter and the scornful comment about the low social standing of such people. Her final taunt reached him at the door.

  ‘Have you forgotten the level of society you were reared to, the wealth and position of your relatives and friends, or are you afraid you won’t be accepted by them any more, so are obliged to look elsewhere?’

  ‘If wealth and position are so important to you, you should be eager to meet Mrs Fletcher. She comes from one of the most prominent families in Georgia, stemming from notable British antecedents. I have checked. As for her husband, I have yet to meet him, but my father tells me he is a gentleman, son of a scholarly man once well known in these parts, whereas your own forefathers pushed hand carts from village to village, peddling their pots. Olivia told me. She is proud of it. It seems she has inherited much of their spirit and none of yours.’

  Almost beside herself, Phoebe flung back, ‘You scorned the pot bank when Joseph so generously drew you into it. I recall that you entered it unwillingly. Only your father was pleased because he wanted you to make good at something. Naturally, you never soiled your hands. The whole business was beneath you, in those days.’

  ‘But it’s not beneath my daughter, which shows she has more sense than I ever had. But what you say is true. Fortunately, I have learned many things and revised many ideas since those ignorant days of my youth.’

  The door closed behind him.

  CHAPTER 18

  Should it be the emerald satin or the more subdued amber taffeta worn with the garnets which Grandmamma Sophie had given her on her sixteenth birthday? Or perhaps the sapphire velvet with the deep neckline which displayed her white shoulders so well and set off her Titian hair to advantage? With sapphire necklace, ear-rings and bracelets — another present from her grandmother, this time for her wedding — it always won admiration, and tonight admiration was all-important, for this was to be her first social occasion in Burslem, an evening spent with the Martin Draytons at Medlar Croft, and since Mrs Drayton was a daughter of the Freemans of Tremain Hall, it could also be the first real step into local society and the end of boredom such as she had never known back home.

  Even when Damian went away (she never thought of his imprisonment by any other term) the social round had continued, enhanced by the sympathy of friends and by men like Captain Mannering, anxious to alleviate her distress.

  Sometimes she felt a little guilty about Charles Mannering, though she never allowed the feeling to last very long. After all, she had done nothing that many another lonely woman hadn’t done, and surely her personal circumstances had been extenuating? She had been discreet about it, too. So had Charles — at first.

  ‘No one will ever know, sweet Caroline. I can promise you that, because God help me if General Fortescue got wind of it. He disapproves of his officers fraternising with married women, especially the wives of men who harbour your husband’s sympathies. Since women are expected to share their husband’s views, nothing would make the General believe you didn’t feel the same way, so am I likely to risk being found out?’

  ‘But I don’t feel the same way. Nor does my family. We are all ashamed.’

  So really Damian was to blame, not she. If he hadn’t behaved so hot-headedly she wouldn’t have been left alone, in need of comfort. She had wanted no other man so long as her husband was with her, for he was an ardent lover and so was she. Physical satisfaction was her dominant demand from marriage, even more than money and position because her people were well able to supply those.

  Ardour ran in the women of her family; all had married young. Grandmamma Sophie had even had an affair which won much notoriety, though it was the man, not she, who was disgraced by it. At eighteen she had fallen wildly in love with Preacher John Wesley when he arrived in Savannah. In his spare time he had coached her in French, encouraged her affections, then treated her cruelly.

  He hadn’t seduced her, of course. A respectable man of the cloth took care not to treat women that way. He had proposed marriage with the greatest propriety; his cruelty lay in jilting her. So poor Sophie had married on the rebound and John Wesley had taken bitter vengeance. But his actions had ricocheted onto himself, which his dog-in-the-manger attitude well deserved; so much so that he fled the country before his ensuing trial took place and never dared set foot in the Colonies again.

  But why recall such things when she had something more important on her mind? The right gown to wear for this evening took precedence over everything. Mercifully, she had been able to bring her entire Parisian wardrobe, designed and made for her when she and her mother accompanied her father to France on a business trip. It was the hallmark of social and financial success for prosperous Colonials to take wives and daughters with them to Paris, as a result of which French fashions were booming and she had returned to Georgia both dazzling and bedazzled.

  Unhappily, though Damian had admired every item, he had been unable to hide his reaction. It humiliated him to have his wife dressed so lavishly at her parent’s expense, but she had won him over, as always, in bed. With no clothes between them, they were equal.

  It was tiresome of memory to tug this way, but now her fine clothes were unpacked the mere sight of them recalled the splendid social life she had taken for granted in Georgia, and the shock when it ended so abruptly — for Captain Mannering, in his cups one night, had ceased to be discreet. He had boasted to fellow officers about his conquest of her and all Savannah knew about it in a matter of hours.

  ‘You must go away at once, and the most convenient place is England,’ said her father. ‘You will join your husband there. I’ll not stint you. You will be deprived of nothing. If the day comes when you want to return it must be without him, but that day must not be soon. A decent space of time is needed for this current business to be forgotten. Your grandfather insists on that, and so do I. We have tolerated enough scandal. Because you are my daughter you will go with my blessing, but go you must. I know Fletcher has written to you since he escaped. I thought that a pity. Now, I don’t, for it provides an excellent excuse for your departure. It will seem very loyal of a woman to wish to join her disgraced husband, and conveniently give the lie to these rumours about you and Mannering.’

  So here she was, and very happy to be reunited with Damian, for she had never known a man to compare with him. His good looks, his education, his air of distinction — which was there even when in working clothes — his voice, his manner of speech, and his splendid body, all delighted her still despite the modest home he off
ered. But that would improve; she was determined on that.

  She had already taken the first step, hiring a man from the village to remove all those crowded bookshelves from the living room and to replace them with closets. Being deeper than the shelves they reduced the floor space, but she couldn’t understand why Damian should mind so much. He had even been angry because she had hired a man behind his back and paid him out of her own pocket.

  ‘Have you forgotten that I was making them myself?’ he had demanded, to which she replied that he should be grateful to her for saving him further time and trouble, and surely he must realise that she needed bigger closets than those he planned to squeeze into that poky bedroom upstairs?

  She had refrained from pointing out that she had also saved him the cost. In her opinion, many a less tactful wife would have emphasised that, but long ago she had learned that her husband was sensitive about financial matters, especially when his wife paid bills which he considered his obligation. ‘What sort of a man would live on his wife, or on her family?’ he would say, which she thought very silly because what did it matter where money came from so long as it came?

  But in the matter of the closets she did think he was unreasonable. Such accommodation in a living room was certainly inconvenient, but when a bedroom was too small what else could be done? He should realise how patient she was being in tolerating such an arrangement even temporarily. He knew the luxury she was accustomed to, and though he had described his cottage as small and unlike anything she could probably imagine, she had certainly never visualised a place so cramped as this. So it must be only temporary and of course they would move into something bigger and better, and well would she deserve it, for in making the best of things without complaint she was proving herself to be an understanding and tolerant wife.

  She had not let her family know how humbly Damian was housing her. In a letter to her mother she had described the cottage as ‘picturesque and quaint and adorable, like something out of a book of fairy tales’, which indeed it was, though she wasn’t so sure about the adorable part since living in it.

  As for Damian’s books, she had packed them very carefully, for which he hadn’t even thanked her. The carpenter who built the closets also supplied crates and carried them to an outhouse as she filled them, then dismantled the shelves and stacked them alongside. There had been plenty of time yesterday, while Damian was removing the old gates and erecting the new ones at the Drayton Pottery, starting at five in the morning and returning after midnight, for Martin Drayton had insisted on a celebration at the end of the long day, spit-roasting a sheep and splicing a butt of Staffordshire ale with his workers. So by the time Damian reached home the closets were too far advanced to be dismantled, for she had paid the carpenter double to hurry the job, and really it had been most unkind of her husband to declare that they were the worst bit of carpentry he had seen for many a year.

  ‘But Damian, my love, wait until they are finished! I shall have the doors ornamented with leaves and flowers and scrolls and cupids, all picked out in gold leaf, French style. They will enhance the room. I once saw a lady’s boudoir decorated in such a way in Paris.’

  ‘This isn’t a lady’s boudoir. It is the living room of an English country cottage. A blacksmith’s cottage.’

  His anger had smouldered. Beneath it, he had actually seemed hurt, which she failed to understand. Nor could she understand why he turned away from her in bed that night.

  But this wasn’t the moment to remember such things. This evening he would be proud of her.

  She decided on the amber taffeta because Amelia Drayton had referred to ‘a modest Sabbath supper’, which surely meant a tête-à-tête between two married couples. It was a nice way to ease into a friendship which could be very useful. She had liked Amelia Drayton and been not a little surprised by her elegance and good looks. Somehow she had expected neither from a countrywoman in a backwoods corner of England. Her clothes were stylish, her hair modishly dressed, her features extremely pretty and her manner pleasant. She had driven up to the cottage in a smart little gig, handling the reins expertly.

  ‘You met my brother on the voyage over,’ she said, ‘and of course we know your husband well. So I’ve come to welcome you, Mrs Fletcher.’

  Informal, charming, she couldn’t have been nicer, and the discovery that she belonged to the family at Tremain Hall was decidedly pleasing. Only a day or two after her arrival from Georgia, Damian had yielded to his wife’s persuasion to drive her out of Burslem to see the place, which couldn’t even be glimpsed through the massive front gates for it lay beyond a three-mile drive, but Damian told her that a distant view could be obtained from a country road which wound close to Tremain Park at one point. She had insisted on being taken there immediately, and gasped at the sight of a mansion so vast that it dwarfed anything she had known in Georgia.

  Promptly, she had written to her parents: ‘Our near neighbours rule over vast estates, and of course we are invited to their mansion frequently.’ What matter if it were untrue? One day, it would not be.

  So Amelia Drayton’s invitation was important, and the niggling question as to whether her attitude was based on friendliness or curiosity was quite unnecessary. Even so, it teased Caroline’s mind, suggesting that the visit had been no more than the usual courtesy call on a new neighbour which, once discharged, would be a duty done, but the thought was rejected when recalling how pleasantly the visitor had accepted an invitation to take a glass of wine.

  ‘I should be delighted, Mrs Fletcher, for working at the pot bank makes one thirsty.’

  That had astonished Caroline, who had watched her guest descend from her smart turn-out and sweep up the cottage path like any fashionable woman making a social call. When the wine was poured, she had asked, ‘Did I hear you say something about working at the pottery, Mrs Drayton?’

  ‘You did indeed. My husband runs it, and I help.’

  ‘Surely not with your hands! I mean — ’

  ‘I know what you mean. Manual labour. Potting, we call it. Alas, for that I have no skill, but my niece Olivia has great talent. Mr Fletcher may have mentioned her?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘No matter. You will meet.’

  ‘She lives with you?’

  ‘Oh no, she lives with her mother at Tremain Hall, but she is training to be a potter, which means working from the ground up. She will eventually concentrate on ceramic sculpture because that is what she has a liking and an ability for, but of course she has to go through the mill like any other worker.’

  It seemed incredible that someone whose home was that impressive country mansion, and who came from so rich a family, should stoop so low. With a gasp, Caroline had asked, ‘And her mother doesn’t mind? Or her father?’

  ‘Her mother minds very much, but I have always thought her a very silly woman. As for Max, I see no reason why he should. Since he has been knocking around the world I hope he may have acquired more sense than he possessed when young. Somehow I rather suspect he has.’

  ‘Max? Do you mean Maxwell, Miguel’s father? He didn’t mention a daughter on the voyage over … ’

  To that Amelia Drayton made no answer. She finished her wine, lingered politely, then issued the invitation to Sabbath supper at Medlar Croft two weeks hence. ‘That is the only day the pottery closes, and therefore easier for entertaining. On weekdays the works don’t shut down until eight o’clock, and since my husband puts in as long a stint as any of his workers, we tend to rise later on Sunday and to sup later too. I trust nine o’clock will be convenient?’

  ‘Indeed it will. But what dreadful hours to work!’

  ‘It is traditional in the potteries.’

  ‘But you don’t keep such hours?’

  ‘No. I work only part time, in various ways. Writing the Drayton history is one, building up a museum of Draytonware is another, and teaching the workers’ children is yet another. You will have heard about that, no doubt, since Mr Fletcher also
helps. He adapted the curriculum he used for his pupils in America.’

  That was a further surprise, but Caroline had concealed it, vexed though she was that Damian should withhold something from her.

  When he returned from the forge that night she had tackled him at once.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had taken the curriculum my father paid you to draw up for my brothers?’

  ‘Taken it!’ He was unbuttoning his leather working gaiters, but her words brought his head up with a jerk. ‘What in the name of heaven do you mean? That curriculum was my own, used for earlier pupils. Never at any time did your father pay me to produce a new one. What gave you such an idea?’

  She had shrugged it off, though clearly remembering her father’s complaint that Fletcher had made off with the course of lessons he had ordered especially for his sons, which meant commissioning their next tutor to produce a new one.

  When she made no answer Damian had taken hold of her shoulders and said despairingly. ‘Oh Caroline, my lovely Caroline, what is happening to us? There were never these needle-pricks in the old days, never any doubts or suspicions. Now the smallest thing threatens to come between us, things like this which are totally untrue. You know I would never take anything that didn’t belong to me.’

  She had flung herself on him then, begging forgiveness, whereupon he had asked if she were homesick. ‘Is that the trouble?’ he had asked gently, adding that homesickness could be a damnable thing, a sickness of the heart. ‘I felt it myself when I landed in the new world, until I met and married you. That healed the loneliness and the longing. Can’t it do the same for you?’

  ‘Perhaps, in time,’ she had murmured doubtfully, then burst out, ‘If only we could go back together!’

  He had stiffened at that. ‘You mean — you can return home providing I’m not with you? Is that it? Was it a parental command? And would you obey it?’