Rose took off her jacket as the plate was set before her. The suet crust looked cold and soggy but she thought the bacon might be edible. She was hungry and began to eat.
Connie sat beside her on a hard-backed chair that wobbled ominously, due to a missing strut beneath it. ‘Nice young man you were with!’ she remarked hopefully. ‘It looked like that Mr Bennley.’
‘It was.’ She poked at the bacon but as she did so cold bacon fat escaped from inside the rolled crust.
‘Stepping out, are you?’
Rose had a mouthful of bacon and could only shake her head.
‘Looks like a gentleman,’ Connie persisted with obvious envy. ‘Romantic, is he?’
‘Romantic? Certainly not.’
‘Don’t let our lord and master know about him. He—’
‘Your lord and master?’
‘Mr Markham. That’s his nickname here. He can be very jealous – and spiteful with it. But this Mr Bennley – is he good to you? Flowers and chocolate and things?’
‘Hardly!’ She sighed. ‘Mr Bennley interferes too much for my liking but he means well. He actually went to the police station to find out what happened to my pa. I am rather cross about that.’
‘And what has happened to him? Your pa, I mean.’
‘Fifty days’ hard labour. He’s in Pentonville.’ Sighing heavily, Rose added salt and pepper to her food but it made little difference. There were some pieces of half-cooked onion and she managed to swallow them down.
Connie pursed her lips, sucked in air, then shook her head for good measure. ‘Pentonville eh? I don’t envy him. Nasty reputation, Pentonville. I know a man – he was our next-door neighbour years ago when I was a girl – who went there. Spent hours, he did, on one of those treadmills. Walking up and up this giant wheel and getting nowhere. Agony, he said it was, on his legs. Torture’s what I call it. Mind you, you got a short break now and again and a cup of tea but it was soul-destroying. That’s the very words he used.’
Rose was staring at her in horror. ‘But Pa will never manage that. He has a gammy leg and limps quite badly.’ She frowned. ‘Perhaps that’s only for the very bad cases. My pa isn’t really bad. I mean, he’s not wicked. Not like some people. He hasn’t murdered anyone or burned down someone’s house.’ She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t much of a crime. I suppose you could call him a minor criminal.’ She glanced hopefully at Connie. ‘He might be treated with . . .’ She searched for the word. ‘With leniency.’
‘He might be and he might not. I mean hard labour has to be hard, doesn’t it? Although if he’s lucky he might just do the oakum. Picking this horrible tarry rope for hours on end. Still, look on the bright side, eh. They have to be punished if they’ve done something wrong like your pa.’
‘He was led astray, Connie!’ Rose protested half-heartedly. Her mind was on other things by now.
‘They all say that, Rose.’ She gave a short snort. ‘I was led astray, m’lud! You can hear them all saying it.’
Rose pushed aside her plate.
‘Aren’t you going to finish it?’ Connie demanded. ‘Give it here. Waste not, want not!’ She took the plate and reached for a clean fork.
‘By the way, Connie, remember I told you I was going to France for a few days – well it starts Saturday and I may be away for the whole week.’
‘But you’ve paid me for your suppers.’ She looked anxious.
‘Doesn’t matter, Connie. You keep the money. It’s not your fault I shan’t be eating them and Mr Bennley is going to pay me for the trip and everything.’ She sat back. ‘Imagine me in France! I can hardly believe it. I just wish it wasn’t going to be so sad.’ Briefly Rose explained the reason behind the trip. ‘It will be interesting to meet Marcus’s mother and her new husband but I can’t stay away too long because I don’t think Mr Markham’s going to be very pleased. I’ve only just started at the Supper Room and I’m taking time off.’
Connie narrowed her eyes. ‘Talking of him, how d’you get along with him, Rose? He can be rather demanding. Some men are like that. He certainly was with me. Couldn’t take his eyes off me.’
Rose considered, her head on one side as she tried to analyse her feelings towards her employer. ‘He’s quite nice but . . . he’s rather intimidating when he wants to be. I thought he liked me but now I’m not sure.’ She decided not to tell Connie about the way Marcus had interfered on her behalf because it made her feel foolish.
One way and another she was beginning to feel depressed and after a few more minutes she made her excuses and went to bed.
While Rose was drifting into an uneasy sleep, on the other side of the Channel Clarice Feigant lay wide awake, thinking about her daughter’s approaching visit and trying to keep calm and not give way to grief. She had to be strong for Marie’s sake because she wanted her last days or weeks to be happy. She told herself that she must never let her daughter see just how devastating her death would be to the whole family.
‘Gerard, are you awake?’ she asked in a low voice, not wishing to wake him if he had been fortunate enough to find sleep. There was no reply and she trusted him not to pretend. He understood how anxious she was about the forthcoming visit and how much she valued whatever time the three of them would have together, and he, too, wanted Marie’s stay with them to be as pleasant as possible. They understood that the end was inevitable but Clarice had notified their local doctor that her daughter was coming in case, towards the end, Marie needed medical assistance of any kind to ensure a peaceful, pain-free death.
No one would ever know how much pain Letitia had inflicted on them by her attitude towards Gerard but they had lived with it now for many years and had come to accept that nothing would change. The knowledge that Gerard was Letitia’s father had effectively broken the family and Clarice deeply regretted telling the truth about it. It had been a mistake, she now realized, but at the time Gerard had longed to see his daughter and she had thought it only fair that he should, especially after her divorce.
Sitting up, she glanced down at her husband, his weathered face and black hair dark against the pillow. He was handsome in a French way, with dark eyes and defined cheekbones that gave him an almost saturnine appearance which belied his warm heart and passionate nature.
She slipped out of bed, slid her feet into her slippers and went downstairs. Sometimes it helped her to sleep if she drank warm milk and she went into the big farmhouse kitchen where the ancient stove still gave out a little heat. Pouring milk into a pan she left it to warm and wandered to the back door and out into the yard.
There was a brand new rocking chair which they had bought from the local ‘cabinet maker’ whose work was sturdy but unsophisticated. It creaked as it rocked but it was a soothing sound and the chair would last for many years. It was a present for Marie but now Clarice sat in it. It had been a warm day but the night air was cool with no wind. Tomorrow the temperature would rise and there would be high humidity. Fortunately the old farmhouse had been built to keep out the summer heat so that July and August would always be bearable.
Gerard had reminded her that July the fourteenth was the Fête de la Fédération, when the revolutionaries had stormed the Bastille fortress in Paris. There would be celebrations throughout France and even the smallest villages would remember Bastille Day with a party and a few fireworks. Hopefully Marie would be able to sit in the rocking chair and watch the display from a distance. Would God spare her that long, she wondered, with the familiar frisson of fear.
Clarice stared out over their land which lay still and secretive beneath the clear night sky. The farm stretched ahead towards the village of Wissant on the Opal coast, near Boulogne. Beyond the little fishing village, the wide currents of La Manche separated them from England’s southern coastline – and beyond that, London and her family.
‘What will you think of our farm, Marie?’ she murmured.
Currently they had two pigs, a small vineyard, a small orchard with apples and pears and three large meadows in
which they grazed milk cows and a few sheep. She hoped against hope that Marie would live long enough to become close to Gerard. He had grown from a young man to middle age without the joys of family life. He had missed so much. At least she had enjoyed the children when they were younger and had many happy memories. Gerard had nothing but he had never once reproached her.
‘But soon, Gerard, you will meet with Marcus and Marie,’ she murmured into the darkness, ‘and also young Rose who has so impressed Marie. If Marie loves her then I will love her also.’
For a little while she rocked gently in the new chair, imagining her daughter sitting there surrounded with cushions and a rug for her lap. When Marie was finally taken from her, Clarice would sit in the rocking chair and imagine that she was Marie and that somehow they were close to each other. Closing her eyes she said softly, ‘Please God don’t take her too soon.’
Seven
Steven ached all over and was finding it hard to breathe. They had knocked him down and kicked him and left him unconscious in the gutter. Apparently he had been discovered and brought to the hospital where he now lay in extreme discomfort and trepidation. But anger simmered within him and there was a desperate longing for revenge.
For the time being, however, Steven was pretending to be unaware of his surroundings because a nurse was standing by his bed, describing his injuries to a young policeman who no doubt waited, with his trusty notebook at the ready, for the gory details of the attack.
‘He was found early this morning, Constable, by a market porter on his way to work. Gave the poor chap quite a turn because he thought he was a dead body. No one knows how long he was lying there. He’s got—’
‘Hang on a minute. I can’t keep up!’
‘Oh, sorry.’
No doubt a slow writer, thought Steven.
The nurse continued at a slightly slower pace. ‘He has two broken ribs, as far as we can tell, and received a severe blow to the head which led to concussion. Sister said it was a nasty beating . . . there are various contusions. He still appears to be in a stupor and we can’t get a word out of him.’
Steven clutched gratefully at this snippet of information. A stupor. He would prolong it while it suited him. He needed time to plan his excuses.
‘So you don’t know who he is.’
‘No, we have no idea, but he was wearing decent clothes, his hair’s been well cut and his shoes weren’t cheap.’
Damn. Steven almost groaned. He had been hoping to remain anonymous but it looked as though they might ferret out the truth. If he could leave the hospital without revealing his identity it might be possible to tell the family that he had had a serious fall somewhere. That way they need never find out about Markham’s thugs and his own humiliation at their hands.
The policeman said, ‘Then someone will be asking about him. That type always do. He’ll be a ‘missing person’. Shouldn’t be difficult to find who he is and why they picked on him. Just a matter of time.’
‘He must have been quite good-looking – under all the bruises.’
Good for you, thought Steven, holding back a wan smile which would have been painful considering the split lip and aching jaw. He wondered what he looked like and shuddered. What grieved him most was his inability to inflict similar injuries, which he could have done if there had been only one attacker. Two made it pretty impossible to retaliate with much effect.
The nurse said, ‘When are you coming back? I’d reckon another hour or so before he comes round. If he knew his attackers you might find them. They must be animals, the men who did this to him.’
When he was alone again, Steven began to consider his options. If he named them, it would become known that they had put him in the hospital and that would offend his dignity and damage his self-respect. If he was unable to claim that a bad fall had been responsible, his family would find out and whatever they said by way of sympathy, they would be thinking it served him right for his profligate ways and might teach him a lesson. That would be hard to live with.
What he really wanted was to search out each of his attackers separately and beat the living daylights out of them but if he did, they could name him and then the whole story of the debt would come out and he, Steven, might even get arrested for assault. To confuse matters even more, he still owed Markham money.
With a groan that was a mixture of pain and frustration, he turned over cautiously in the bed and almost immediately fell asleep.
Mrs Granger came into the room with her hands outstretched in welcome. ‘My dear Miss Paton, this is so good of you. William tells me you are going to visit me and read to me. That will be such a treat.’
‘I will be coming fairly regularly,’ Rose told her, ‘But not immediately because I have to go to France for a—’
The old lady’s expression changed. ‘To France? Oh dear! Are you sure?’ She sat down and Rose did the same. ‘I don’t entirely trust the French, you know. My mother didn’t like them at all.’
‘I have to go with a friend,’ Rose explained, ‘who is not well enough to make the trip on her own. Most likely it will take less than a week and I’ll be back. But I thought I would read to you for an hour today before I go.’
‘Well I’m most grateful, Miss Paton. Now what are you going to read? My mother loved the Greek legends – King Midas and those Argonauts and the man who had wings and the bull in the cave . . .’ She frowned. ‘Do you know those stories?’
Rose confessed that she had never heard of them. ‘But I thought you—’
‘I used to read to the boys when they were young.’ Mrs Granger smiled at the memory. ‘They loved adventure stories. Tales of “derring do”!’
‘Do you have a Bible handy, Mrs Granger?’
‘A Bible?’ She frowned. ‘Most certainly I do. It’s on my bedside table . . . Do you play the piano, my dear? William is a very patient teacher. Everyone says so.’
Rose thought how sad it was for Herbert Granger that his mother seemed unaware of his existence. Not that he seemed to mind. He accepted his mother’s lapses of memory with good-natured resignation. ‘I don’t play the piano,’ she admitted. ‘But I can sing.’
Mrs Granger smiled. ‘Well, dear, that’s better than nothing.’
Rose felt slighted. ‘I have a very sweet voice – so I’ve been told. I perform on stage. That’s my career.’ This produced not a flicker of interest from Mrs Granger so Rose hid her disappointment. ‘So, do you want me to read to you from the bible? I’m only here for an hour and I don’t want to waste your time.’
‘Oh you won’t do that, my dear. I’m always busy. William will tell you that.’ Her smile faded abruptly. ‘But do you have to go to France? They can be very perverse, the French. That’s what my mother believed. That’s her very word. And it’s such a long way and such a big country. And the English Channel . . . well really!’ She tutted with disapproval. ‘Do give it some thought, Miss Paton.’
‘I will,’ said Rose. ‘Now what about that Bible?’
She was beginning to realize that the money she earned from her time spent with Mrs Granger was going to be well deserved.
Later that same evening, in Victoria House, Rose, Marcus and Letitia were together in the drawing room although Letitia sat apart at the small table in the window bay while Marcus and Rose sat on the sofa. The latter were discussing their forthcoming trip to France but Marie had gone to bed early with a headache, insisting that they would manage very well without her and she needed her beauty sleep!
Letitia had spent the afternoon at the dressmakers, trying on her wedding dress and finding it unsatisfactory in several ways. She now sat with a pencil and a sketching pad, trying to work out some improvements.
She glanced up. ‘What do you think, Rose? Can you spare a minute?’
Obediently, Rose crossed the room to peer over her shoulder. Letitia had kept the design of the dress a close secret but now she needed a little help.
‘The waistline was nipped in too tightly, Rose – I
felt it was rather old-fashioned so I suggest keeping a line right down the front but not separated into skirt and bodice. What do you think?’
The sketch had been skilfully drawn.
‘It looks very nice – and certainly more modern,’ Rose hazarded nervously.
‘I’m glad you agree . . . and there were three frills down the front of the skirt which looked rather overdone. A little excessive. I don’t want to seem flamboyant. The da Silvas would not approve of that.’
Rose said, ‘Is it white – or shouldn’t I ask?’
Letitia lowered her voice confidingly. ‘The silk is grey and white stripes. Very narrow stripes. And there’s no bustle as such but the jacket at the back is full and softly pleated over the hips.’
Rose was genuinely impressed. ‘It sounds wonderful! You will bowl Bernard over!’
‘Oh Rose, I do hope so!’
‘What will you wear on your hair?’
‘I shall wear it swept up, naturally, and I thought a cluster of white roses – silk, of course. Or do you think blush pink would be softer? I am wearing long gloves and carrying a prayer book and a single lily.’
Rose thought about it. ‘If you wore blush pink roses you could maybe match the gloves.’
Letitia looked at her, hesitating. ‘That’s a very good idea, Rose! Thank you. I’ll speak to the dressmaker tomorrow for her opinion.’ She smiled. ‘Now you may go back to Marcus. I’m sure there is a lot to talk about for your journey.’
Ten minutes later, Rose and Marcus had decided that they should reserve four inside seats in the ferry boat so that Marie could lie down if she was tired.
They were interrupted by the front door bell and Mrs Bray appeared to say there was a police sergeant at the door.
‘He says there’s been some kind of a to-do,’ she told them breathlessly, ‘and Master Steven is in hospital.’
Marcus left the room hurriedly and the two women looked at each other in alarm.
Letitia said, ‘I wondered where he was at breakfast this morning but I didn’t give it another thought.’
The Birthday Present Page 14
