“I see the beauty, certainly. No one could be unmoved by such magnificence. But so much cold marble and stone! So much emptiness! I do not see any laws being born here.”
Lady Lucia must have heard only a part of this, for she clapped her hands delightedly.
“Oh, how true! The house is so empty now. How charming Shotterbourne was when the children played here. Aldwina and Albertina loved to gallop about in the great hall on their hobby horses, with little Elfleda running after them. So pretty they were, and so happy. The whole house echoed to their laughter. They used to play hide and seek behind the pillars just as we did as children, do you remember, Oscar?”
“I remember,” the marquess said in a low growl. His good hand was clenched so tight on the arm of his chair that the knuckles were white.
The atmosphere was so charged that Felicia could scarcely breathe. She was shaking with fear.
Fin cleared his throat. “Those are good memories, Arnwell. At least you have good memories to look back on.”
The shock of hearing her own words repeated almost undid Felicia. Was she about to swoon? She would not — could not!
Once more Lady Lucia came to her rescue. “Oh yes, such good memories! Such wonderful memories. Edith, do you remember when…” And off she went into some tale from her own past. Mr Godfrey Buckley gallantly joined in, and then Miss Edith Buckley, and the conversation became general again.
Felicia felt it safe to take a breath. Then another. Only the marquess’s hand gripping the chair gave a sign that he had not yet recovered. She laid her hand on his.
“I am so sorry,” she murmured.
He frowned, then turned his head towards her, his expression vague, as if he had forgotten who she was. “Nineteen years… nineteen years. Lord, how the years fly by. The girls would all be married by now, I daresay. Perhaps not Edwina. Ha! The youngest always stays at home, and better so in her case. Such a mischievous child, always up to some rig or other, but such a charming little tease. You would have got on famously with her, Princess, being a charming little tease yourself.”
On her other side, Mr Giles Warborough coughed and spluttered. When all heads turned towards him, he said hastily, “Beg pardon. A mouthful of claret went awry.” He coughed again, napkin to mouth. “So sorry. Pray ignore me. Ah, thank you, Edith, some water would —” Another burst of coughing cut him short.
“Wasting my good claret,” the marquess muttered. “It should be left to those of us who appreciate it. If you have finished choking, Warborough, might we have the next course brought in?”
Felicia could only be grateful to Mr Warborough’s timely intervention for drawing the marquess back from his melancholy.
The rest of the meal passed without incident, perhaps because Lord Arnwell devoted his attention to Lady Drusilla on his other side, and Felicia became the target of Mr Warborough’s notice. He talked to her, as he did whenever they met, of Summer Cottage, where he had lived briefly with his adored wife, who had died in childbed within a year of the marriage. He had at first been astonished at the coincidence that Lady Juliana and her children had lived in the very same place, until Felicia had pointed out that he spoke rapturously to everyone of the delights of Southampton. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that when Juliana had needed a place to hide she had been drawn there, and finding the very cottage available for lease, had taken it at once.
Today, however, he passed quickly over Summer Cottage, and said, “But tell me of your cottage, Miss Oakes.”
“Must I? For it was a dreary place, not at all as pleasant as Summer Cottage.”
“You lived there with your guardian, I understand?”
“Miss Armiger was not my guardian, nor any kin of mine. She would never tell me how it was that she was left to raise me, and it was a great puzzle to me, for she never much liked me, nor I her. She was not unkind, but everything must be just as she said, and there was always so much to be done in the kitchen garden.”
“Had you no servants?”
“None. There was a maid when I was very small, but she left and then there was no one except the two of us to do all the work.”
“How very eccentric of her!” he said, his forehead creasing. “Yet when she died, you were well provided for, as I understand it. She was not a poor woman. She must have had quite a good sum by her, to enable her to buy the cottage and to leave you a good independence. How much would she have brought with her, do you suppose? It must have been several thousand pounds.”
Felicia hardly knew how to reply to such an odd question. “I have not the least idea,” she said, bewildered. “My attorney might know, but I do not.”
“Would your attorney be Bradon? That was who I used when I lived there.”
“Mine is Mr Pierce.”
“Ah. That would be on… um, French Street?”
“The High Street.”
“Hmm, I do not know him,” Mr Warborough said. “He must have been after my time there. But you must have been very young when you travelled to Southampton.”
“I was three when we first moved to the cottage, but as to travelling, I cannot say where I was before that, for I have no memory of anything before Boscobel Cottage and Miss Armiger never told me.”
“Boscobel Cottage,” he said, with a strange burst of laughter. “Boscobel… the woods where King Charles hid himself, is it not? He hid in an oak tree.” He laughed again. “Such a curious name for a cottage. What an interesting history you have, Miss Oakes.” And he laughed again.
It was such a peculiar conversation that she was relieved when, after some gentle hints from Miss Buckley, Lady Lucia rose to lead the ladies back to the saloon.
15: A Paid Employee
Felicia could not complain of the dullness of her evening at Shotterbourne. Indeed, it was so far from dull that she was heartily glad to see it end, after an hour trapped with the ladies and a further hour or more trapped at the card table with Mr Buckley, Miss Buckley and Mr Warborough, with some unexplained tension between the men. Then there was the supper tray to be endured before — finally! — the carriage was sent for and they could proceed home.
Home! How easily she had fallen into viewing Hawkewood Hall as home. Yet it felt so, despite the scale of the place and its magnificence. She felt small and insignificant there, and especially so when she saw the portraits of Warborough ancestors glaring down forbiddingly at her encroaching self. Yet the beauty all around her raised her spirits, and in some odd way she felt comfortable there, in a way she never quite had at Summer Cottage and certainly never had at Boscobel Cottage.
And there was Fin, of course, but she would not think about that.
When the carriage decanted them at the front door, she entered as hastily as was consistent with decorum and would have made straight for the stairs, but Fin said, “Will you take a brandy with me?”
Oh, this was dangerous! To be alone with him at night would not be good for her state of mind at the best of times, but after such an evening, when she was so unnerved by all that had been said… Those peculiar conversations with Miss Edith Buckley and Mr Giles Warborough. The unwanted attentions of Mr Godfrey Buckley. The very odd Lady Lucia. And the marquess — he was believed to be mad, yet she could see little sign of it. Eccentric, perhaps, in keeping the burnt-out family wing just as it was, and letting the estate fall into ruin, but he was rational enough in conversation. She felt as if she had swum out of her depth amongst such people, the water threatening at any moment to close over her head and throw her into panic. With such emotions roiling in her breast, there was a real danger that she might throw herself into Fin’s arms, and that was unlikely to end well.
While she dithered, Fin went on, “I have a new painting upon which I should like your opinion.”
A painting. A discussion of art. That would be manageable.
She followed him through the echoing rooms to the south saloon, and then to his private sitting room, where he poured a generous measure of brandy for each of the
m. Then next door to the studio.
“I have told Giles to deal with all those letters you have sorted out,” he said, as he went around lighting one candelabrum after another, with utter disregard for the price of candles. “He will be here tomorrow. My lawyer will be here next week, so he can deal with any legal business, and Hamlett will take care of anything to do with the estate. You will not need to spend any more time over the matter, so you can get back to your painting. You have not been near your easel for days.”
“I have a work in mind,” she said.
“Good. When you start on it, you will be able to proceed quickly. Now, here is my latest effort. What do you think?”
There was no time to explain that her painting of the ballroom was already underway, for he whisked away a cover to reveal his painting. It was a pair to the one he had been engaged on when she had first seen him at work, a view of the temple surrounded by trees, with light behind it — sunset, presumably.
“Where is the other one?” she said. “I should like to compare the two side by side.”
He obligingly set it up on another easel, and Felicia prowled back and forth between them.
“Well?”
“There was so much anger in this first one,” she said. “Such a violent storm. This new one is much calmer. You were happier when you painted it, I think.”
“Anger? Happiness? What does that have to say to anything? What of the composition? What of the brush strokes, the colours, the trees, the perspective, the light? Do you not see the improvement in the second one? Is there not a much stronger contrast between the light of the temple and the darkness beneath the trees?” His voice was a growl, like a dog.
She laughed. “Oh, do you want me to praise you? I shall not. You know your own ability well enough without any flattery from me. But tell me, why have you surrounded the temple with trees? You have done so in both paintings, yet there are none in reality.”
His anger deflated at once. “There used to be. When I was a boy, the temple was a mysterious and secret place, hidden away in its trees, quite invisible. No one ever went there, except for me. Whenever I could escape from Miss Claypole, which was not often enough, that was where I ran to. I kept my drawing things there, and I could spend hours hidden away in perfect happiness, surviving on a couple of apples from the orchard. But then I was sent away to school, and when I came home after the first term, the trees had gone, and the temple was there for all the world to see, visible from miles around. I have never been back since.”
“Why were the trees cut down?”
“I have no idea, and my father was not a man of whom one asked questions. ‘Because I say so’ was his habitual response.”
“The steward might know, and if you do not like the temple to be so exposed, why then, replant the trees. Hide it away again.”
He gave a grunt that might have been laughter. “I suppose I could. Do you truly see anger in this one? Perhaps I was angry at the time. My quiet life had been disrupted by your arrival, and I was very cross about it. Maybe that shows in the painting.” He gazed at it thoughtfully. “Not cross, exactly… agitated… upset. The girls revived all sorts of memories — good and bad — and I did not like being assaulted by such distressing remembrances. But now…” He turned to the more recent painting. “I have come to terms with it. It pleases me to have something of Juliana’s here, some legacy of her to cherish. Although, it is an odd thing that I no longer see any resemblance in the children. At first, I could see it, sometimes, a little glimpse of her, but now… now it is gone. It is as though she is slipping away from me.”
Felicia tactfully remained silent, but she wondered greatly at a man who was still so attached to a woman who had never cared for him, had left him thirteen years ago and had been dead for four. Although, to be fair, he had not known that. She had simply vanished from his life, never to be seen again, and she could understand the frustration in that. It was the not knowing that clawed at one’s insides, like a canker.
“Perhaps I should paint a whole sequence,” he went on. “One for each season, perhaps. Winter would be interesting, with the bare trees. Yes, that would work… the black boughs of the trees silhouetted like lace against the pale, rain-washed sky, the temple starkly exposed. And in autumn, the rain lashing down, and the colours… oh, the colours! Reds, oranges, golds, yellows, browns and still some hints of green… so many colours… I shall need more powder, I believe. Oil… I have plenty of oil… “
He mused on in this vein, but Felicia hardly heard him. Her thoughts drifted to the events at Shotterbourne that evening. Not the upsetting memories for the marquess — not really her fault that Lady Lucia had misheard her words — but to Edith Buckley and Giles Warborough and their odd interest in Boscobel Cottage and Miss Armiger. She supposed they were just being polite, but such questions raised memories she would rather forget.
She remembered something Edith Buckley had said at their first meeting, about being a heroine in her own life. For all her platitudes, Felicia could never see herself as any sort of heroine. ‘There may yet be a time when you step forward to take your place at the front of the stage’, she had said. Felicia should not even be on the stage, let alone at the front of it! She was nobody, yet here she was mingling with all these great people as if she were one of them, and Mr Buckley paying her attention as if— As if what? What was driving him? Was he—?
“You are not even listening to me!” Fin said.
It was too much. “It is two in the morning and I am exhausted,” she snapped. “I would rather like to go to bed.”
“Well, why the devil… why on earth did you not say so?”
“Because I am a paid employee, my lord, and must do as you bid me.”
He looked dumbstruck, as if this thought had never occurred to him. “Then I bid you go to bed, Miss Oakes. Footman! Footman! Ah, Neil, light Miss Oakes to her room. Good night, Miss Oakes.”
Silently she curtsied, then followed the footman’s candelabrum through dark rooms, up the stairs and along a corridor. He carefully lit the candle sitting on a table outside her room, bowed and made his way steadily back down the corridor, the flickering light of the candles making the shadows dance. She entered her room, shut the door, leaned against it in relief. The day was over at last, and she could sleep. Undressing with all speed, she scrambled into bed, blew out the candle and curled up into a ball.
Perversely, sleep eluded her, despite her tiredness. Her mind was wide awake, filling her head with dreams… but no longer were her fantasies of her father as a pirate or a prince or a spy. Now she saw only herself skipping through the enchanting rooms of the Hall as its mistress, a countess, a loving and happy wife. And there was Fin, smiling at her, holding her, telling her how much he loved her, that she had driven Juliana from his mind, that he had never known true love until now, Fin touching her, kissing her…
She buried her head in the pillow and wept until the thin shards of dawn crept through the shutters, and exhaustion caught up with her.
~~~~~
Fin swirled his brandy in the glass. Long after Felicia had left him, he sat on, stretched out on the window seat — her window seat, as he had come to think of it, for she so often sat here. But not lately, and that was puzzling. Why had she not been in the studio for several days?
Then there was this odd friendship of hers with Lord Arnwell. He was a man of impeccable lineage, educated, cultured, powerful. She was a half-educated governess and the natural daughter of somebody or other. He owned half a county, and pieces of half a dozen more. She owned a small cottage where she planned to grow potatoes. He was old, scarred and bitter. She was young, vibrant, pretty… Well, maybe that part of the attraction was not so surprising after all. An old man reminded of his youth by a pretty face.
Perhaps Godfrey Buckley’s interest in her was equally explicable — a young man used to the ways of the ton, intrigued by a woman who had no time for such niceties. There was something so refreshingly different about h
er. She had no idea how to behave in public, and her pertness bordered on incivility, yet Fin liked her straightforwardness. She said exactly what she thought! Despite her protest that she was merely a paid employee, she was like no servant he had ever known. But then, she lived without fear of dismissal. If he were to turn her off, she would go serenely back to Hampshire and grow potatoes. The very thought made him smile. She was not made to grub in the dirt like a peasant!
Buckley may even have marriage in mind. He had proposed a toast to their host — unexceptional although significant on account of the differences between them. He had used the opportunity to make a very elegant little speech expressing his delight at the invitation, his hope for further progress towards reconciliation and his intention to do everything in his power to promote it, and to ensure that Lord Arnwell never regretted his generosity. Arnwell had responded with a non-committal grunt, but Fin had thought he was pleased by the words and the obvious sincerity behind them. Buckley had said he would be contemplating marriage in the not-too-distant future, and hoped Arnwell would advise him. That had led to some lively discussion as to the attributes required of a bride! Eventually Arnwell had said, “Make sure to marry where your heart lies. That is the only way to ensure a happy family life.”
That was remarkably sensible advice from a man who was reputed to be quite insane. He was eccentric, of course, in keeping the burnt-out family wing untouched and letting the estate fall into ruin, but there had been nothing of insanity in his behaviour that evening. His dress, his conversation, the meal he provided were all unexceptional. It was an odd household, with the childlike sister and the drab Buckley woman, and that was perhaps more peculiar than anything, for Arnwell’s hatred of the Buckleys was legendary, yet there Edith Buckley sat at the heart of his family.
The Painter Page 16
