‘So,’ said Lord Ransome, ‘since I am about to acquire a beautiful stepdaughter who requires some tuition in the exact art of using cant, I shall take it upon myself to instruct her. Report to me tomorrow, Mademoiselle Donville, if you please, and ask your long-suffering Miss Maskell to accompany you.’
Claudette’s expression changed from regret to rapture. ‘Oh, yes! Will you?’
‘My duties must begin somewhere,’ he said, and although the lines of his face gave little away, his eyes danced with laughter.
‘Will you teach me to drive a phaeton too, my lord? And a curricle?’
‘No, young lady, I certainly will not. Miss Maskell, you should be knighted, I think, for your services to education above and beyond the call of duty.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ she said, solemnly.
‘You’re teasing!’ Claudette cried.
‘On the contrary, I’m serious. I will, however, endeavour to teach you how to ride a horse properly.’
‘Oh, thank you. But I have no horse, you see.’
‘Then we shall have to address that problem first, shan’t we?’ he said.
The two lovers were still chuckling about Claudette’s ecstatic response later that evening as they lay in each other’s embrace on top of Phoebe’s bed, taking advantage of the light breeze that filled the curtains like sails. They had made love, after a long day of wanting to say more about their passionate feelings than had been said before, about the love Phoebe had discovered, buried, asleep, patiently waiting for summer. Ransome’s waiting, on the other hand, had been far less patient.
‘But you didn’t come to find me, Buck,’ she whispered, sprawling across him. ‘You didn’t even know I was here.’
‘I tried to put you out of my mind, sweetheart. You were so set against remarriage, weren’t you? And even if you had not been, I was nowhere near the top of your list, was I? But I couldn’t get you out of my thoughts, and I couldn’t find a woman I wanted half as much as you. All I could do was to watch what your brother got up to and to be there at the right time. I knew he had a place somewhere in Surrey, but the rest was pure chance. If he’d won that game instead of lost it, it would have taken me a bit longer to find you, that’s all.’
‘Could you not have asked Mama, or the Templeman boys?’
‘Yes, and let her start interfering again? Not likely, sweetheart. And the Templeman idiots would have it all over town that I was still lusting after Hawkin’s sister, after all these years.’
‘Which you were, my lord?’
‘Which I was, Madame Donville. But I’m careful who I tell my affairs to. And since you are so eager,’ he said, sleepily smoothing a hand over her arm, ‘to find out what I’m up to at Mortlake, I shall take you over there tomorrow and show you.’
‘I am not eager to find out what you’re up to,’ she retorted. ‘If you choose to have another house so close to my brother and his wife, I’m sure it’s no concern of mine.’
‘You are bursting with curiosity, madame. You cannot deny it.’
She squirmed as his smoothing hand slid down on to her hip. ‘Well, just a little curious, my lord. I dare say there are plenty of men who require two houses so close together. As long as you have only one wifely mistress, I don’t think I shall be making too much fuss about it.’
‘Good. So the little outing to Mortlake in your phaeton was simply to take the evening air, was it?’ He caught her as she tried to roll away, pulling her back under him. ‘Just a little curious, were you? Eh?’
‘No!’ she retorted. ‘I was green with jealousy, and fury, and desperate to know who you kept there. And how did you know, anyway?’
‘The workmen,’ he said, smiling in the dark. ‘They saw you turn round. They were not too impressed by your driving skills, sweetheart.’
‘I was trying not to weep,’ she whispered. ‘The Countess explained to me today, about the orphans. I would never have guessed it.’
‘Oh…nymph. Come here. I should have told you. I could have.’
She did not ask him why he had not, having been offered a perfectly plausible reason to do with the kind of reticence very few would have associated with the outspoken, devil-may-care Buck Ransome.
‘Do you mind…about the orphans?’ he asked.
‘I think what you’re doing is wonderful, my love. We’ll have one house for them, and this one for our own children. I know several good women who’d want to work there.’
‘I like the sound of our own family, my lovely Phoebe. Like the horse for your daughter, I think we could address that problem immediately, don’t you?’
‘Mmm,’ she said, snuggling closer to him. ‘First things first, my lord.’
The second of Phoebe’s visits to Greenwater, accompanied this time by Hetty, Tabby, Claudette and Leon, was a much more lively affair that did justice to the homeliness Ransome had tried to create in the warm colours and robust farmhouse-type furnishings. She was now able to understand the multiple dining chairs and benches, and the lack of ostentation that had seemed so strange before. The upstairs rooms held only two beds each, but the new extension had provided more, as well as rooms for ‘the mistress’ about whom they could laugh and tease, now she was explained.
Outside in the grounds, gardeners had made small plots where the young boys could learn how to grow things. There were ponies for the lads to care for, an aviary for birds, hen coops, goats and their kids. The boys, Ransome told them, had no idea where milk came from, or eggs, and some had never tasted them. Watching him stride about in his shirt sleeves, enthusiastically leading them from wood-workshop to coach-house and then, finding the two first occupants and catching them up like a father with a squealing hug, Phoebe felt again the astonishment of seeing the other side of the man she had once thought to be no more than a well-heeled coxcomb. Ashamed by her blinkered disposition, she knew that, if her sister-in-law’s opinion of him had not been accidently disproved, she herself would still be harbouring doubts about his ability to be faithful.
The little lads clung to their hands, dragging them along to show them their favourite hen and her chicks, the tack room, the coachman, grooms and ponies, the part of the river they were allowed to fish. Their emaciated bodies were beginning to fill out, their scars of ill treatment to heal with new pink flesh, their speech so full of London slang that Leon and Ransome had to act as interpreters. Claudette was fascinated by it, challenging some of Ransome’s good intentions by her casual references to one’s ‘bread-basket’ and to the ‘bum-trap’ by whom the boys had once been caught and ‘clapped up in the Fleet’ until their release was paid for by ‘this ‘ere High Stickler with rolls of the soft.’ Had they not indicated ‘milor’, she might at first have been no wiser for the information, but in half an hour her vocabulary had improved beyond recognition. The party’s removal to Ham to see the Earl and Countess was seen as an interruption to Claudette’s education, although the visit to Mortlake had shown her the direction in which her young life was about to change, as well as that of the adults.
About the eventual loss of her dear governess Claudette was becoming less concerned since Mama had explained to her what it would mean to Miss Maskell and Uncle Leon. Both of them needed security in their lives, someone to love and make a home with, and if an eldest son marrying a governess was rather unconventional, well, that was hardly surprising, coming from their family. One should not be afraid of being unconventional, Claudette’s mama told her, when one’s happiness was at stake. Besides which, there could be no better woman for Uncle Leon than dear Tabby.
That same morning, the Earl and Countess had been supervising the clearing out of some of the upper rooms and attics at Ham House and had come across spare items of furniture that would be useful to Leon for his ‘cottage.’ Now they were all spread out in the Great Hall like a house auction, with the usual eclectic mixture of junk, valuable and sentimental items covered with the dust of generations, old-fashioned and moth-eaten hangings, toys, pictures, weapons brought home from th
e wars with outdated uniforms and strange headgear. Being comparative newcomers to the house and its accoutrements, his lordship could not recognise much of what had been stored away and saw no good reason to keep it.
‘We shall throw some of this lot on the bonfire,’ he said with a glint in his eye. There was nothing as much fun as a blazing good bonfire. ‘Some of the furniture will do for Leon. These pictures too. Those he doesn’t want can be sold at auction.’
‘I’ll have those miniatures up on the wall of my Duchess’s Closet,’ said the Countess. ‘Now why don’t you take Leon down to the cottage for a look round, Wilbraham, dear? Then we shall know what’s needed. No good giving him rubbish if he doesn’t like it.’
Not surprisingly, the two men were accompanied on their short walk by Miss Maskell and Claudette, who were eager to give advice on every aspect of interior decoration which they saw as entirely their province, while wishing to prevent Leon filling his new home with unfashionable cast-offs from the Dysart’s attic. The Countess had already seen the problem.
‘Some of this stuff,’ she said to Hetty, Phoebe and Ransome, ‘is absolute rubbish, and if it’s not sorted out, Wilbraham will be burning things I could use and keeping things that are quite revolting simply because he likes them. Look at this pair of two turbaned figures, for instance. Did you ever see anything more ridiculous? I expect he’ll keep them. But here’s something I know he’ll not want to keep. Buck dear, just pull out that long box, will you? Yes, that one.’
‘The sword-box, my lady?’
‘Yes, dear, it’s a pair of rapiers. He’ll not want to keep it. I brought it out of the Duchess’s Room hidden just inside the door to the service-passage.’
‘The one in the wallpaper?’ Phoebe said, craning forwards to look.
‘Yes, the concealed one. I believe she used to exercise with rapiers until her gout prevented it. There,’ she said, sweeping off the cobwebs and opening the lid, ‘still as good as new. Wilbraham’s brother John was killed in a duel, you know. Someone made up a song about John’s lovely wife, but he was no swordsman. So rapiers will not be wanted here, I think. You take them, Buck. Why, Phoebe dear…are you all right? Does all this bring back a memory? Would you rather…?’
‘Oh, no, my lady, thank you. Nothing like that. It’s just so…er, strange.’ Taking one of the rapiers in her hand, she lifted it out of its box and held it, balancing it lightly, though with nothing like the skill she had seen demonstrated by the Hawkynnes. So, the rapiers had belonged to the Duchess of Lauderdale who had used them for exercise. But what had she to do with the quarrel? Had that Phoebe Hawkynne suffered from the kind of female interference she herself had fled from?
Ransome took it from her and replaced it. ‘You should sit down, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘See, Hetty has brought you some water. Take a sip.’
‘Thank you. The rapiers are beautifully made, are they not? Is there a date somewhere?’ She took the glass and sipped, just to please them.
‘Inside the lid. Wilkin. Cheapside. London. 1650. That date would be about correct for the Lauderdales, wouldn’t it, my lady?’
‘The Countess of Dysart remarried in 1672, I believe, by which time she had quite a family. The eldest daughter Elizabeth married Lord Lorne, the young heir to the ninth Earl of Argyll, but I believe it was not a success. Her two sons were born up in the Yellow Satin Bedroom. Which reminds me,’ she went on while her hands lifted and moved a pile of papers and pictures spread out on the table, ‘there’s something here that came from the cabinet in that room, which will almost certainly find its way to the bonfire if I don’t rescue it first. A little mystery…ah! Here it is!’ Her hands emerged, holding a small linen package with a piece of faded red ribbon hanging from it, as if it had been undone and put aside. Laying it on Phoebe’s lap, she invited her to unwrap it. ‘There you are. Take a look.’
‘It’s…a button,’ Phoebe whispered. ‘A gold button.’
‘Looks rather like a waistcoat button,’ Ransome said. ‘What does the little note say? Look, there’s writing on it.’
It was faded and brown with age, written in the most beautiful` copperplate hand. Phoebe read, ‘The button cut off my waistcoat by Sir Leo Hawkynne, Secretary to his Grace the Duke of Lauderdale, here at Ham House, being the only man I ever loved, though he will never know of it. Written on this 23rd day of June, AD 1676. Oh, that is so sad,’ she said. ‘So…so sad.’
The memory returned. The young woman’s expression of adoration. The pain as she watched him kiss his wife. The furtive concealment of the button. And exactly whose waistcoat was it? Perhaps she would never know, but if Elizabeth had told a little comforting fib, she could surely be excused? For she had written as if Sir Leo had cut it off the waistcoat while she was wearing it, which put a different connotation on the facts, connotations which were more like what she wanted to believe than the truth. Poor Elizabeth, made to marry, no doubt, a man she could never love, by whom she was obliged to bear children. Was there something about the Yellow Satin Bedroom then, where birds in cages had been placed all round the windows at some stage?
Phoebe knuckled a teardrop away from her cheek before it dropped on to the note, but Ransome had seen it. ‘Why, sweetheart…is it so sad? A little keepsake, that’s all. Don’t weep.’ Tenderly, he removed the linen and its contents and passed them to Hetty.
‘It’s nothing,’ she whispered, mentally sending an apology to the desolate young woman for whom it had meant everything and all she could ever hope for. A button. Cut off by his sword. ‘She meant it to be a keepsake, so it should be kept, my lady.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ said the Countess, sympathetically. ‘Keepsakes are meant for keeping, so you take it, Phoebe dear, since it refers to your ancestor. I’ve no idea who could have been so in love with Sir Leo without him knowing of it. Obviously it was not his wife. If I come across the waistcoat, my dear, I’ll keep it for you, shall I?’
‘Thank you. I would like to have that too. In memory.’
‘In memory of what, sweetheart?’ Ransome said, smiling at her whimsy.
She smiled back at him, her heart overflowing with emotion. ‘Oh, I’m being sentimental,’ she said. ‘Love is such a fragile thing, isn’t it?’
‘It is indeed, dear,’ said Hetty. ‘It is indeed.’
Having shown signs of fragility herself, Phoebe returned to Richmond after a day in which the last remaining pieces of her life fell neatly into place, as if the whole saga of events had been shaped to fit a previously ordained plan. She knew such things happened, but to others, not to oneself.
They sat together in the little topiary garden at the side of Ferry House, talking about plans for the future as they had not done before. ‘I think we might do some entertaining of our own,’ Ransome said, resting a hand on her shoulder and twisting a black curl round his thumb. ‘How does her ladyship feel about holding a dinner party for all the helpful and unhelpful relatives and friends? The French Set, too? We could hold a betrothal ball, if you prefer. Then a wedding breakfast? Whatever?’
‘Then am I betrothed, dear heart?’
‘Er…I think so. Aren’t you?’
‘Well, don’t intended husbands get down on one knee and offer their intended wives some kind of token, my lord? A ring of sorts?’
‘A ring! Oh…er…yes. That’s right. Here—’ he said, digging into his waistcoat pocket ‘—is something I had made in case I should ever find you. I’d have given it to you some years ago, but you seemed rather against the idea, I remember. Now, I wonder if it fits. Give me your hand. No, the other one. There!’
Like the very last piece of the picture, the exquisite golden ring slipped on to her finger as if it had been waiting only for her to submit to Fate. ‘A white pearl moon surrounded by diamonds,’ she said. ‘Oh, it’s perfect! Thank you.’
‘The most perfect I could find, sweetheart. For a perfect woman.’
‘And it’s almost like the pendant in the portrait, Buck. Was that
intentional?’
‘Partly. But Lady Hawkynne’s enamel moon would not have been suitable for my Phoebe. I wanted something more brilliant. More appropriate.’
She had teased him, not in the least expecting he would have given a moment’s thought to the purchase of a ring, let alone the ceremony that went with it. Nor did she think he would have given much thought to whether she was betrothed, or still his mistress, as long as she was his. The process had been fluid, as he’d said to Ross, with his tongue firmly in his cheek.
But now she enclosed his head within her arms, drawing his face to hers, offering herself, her love and her life for as long as he wanted them. ‘Let’s go up,’ she said. ‘It’s getting late, and we have a lot to celebrate, dear heart. We’ll talk about dinner parties tomorrow, shall we?’
She had not been prepared for him to lift her in his arms and to carry her through the house and up the stairs as if she was too exhausted to walk, but she had time, between kisses, to recall something similar that had happened to the other Phoebe. But then, of course, they had been quarrelling, and her quarrels with Viscount Ransome were well and truly over.
Epilogue
The Yellow Satin Bedroom and its adjoining dressing room on the first floor, now closed to the public, was created by the sixth Earl of Dysart after he inherited in 1799. There was, however, a Yellow Bedchamber on the ground floor when the Duchess of Lauderdale lived there at the time of my story in 1676. This became known as The Volury Room after 1683, from the bird theme used to decorate it. All rather confusing, I thought. So I have brought the use of the Yellow Satin Bedroom on the first floor into Part I because it suits my story better, and I have made mention of the birds for the same reason, hoping that those informed people who know Ham House well will accept my fusing of the two rooms into one. All other rooms are as they should be, though it is not easy to find one’s way around the alterations to the grounds outside, the old walks, walls and pathways. I hope any discrepancies will not spoil the story.
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