by Rona Randall
Jessica was alight with happiness. There would be no stopping Martin now. His feet were already set on a Master Potter’s road.
In all this excitement the impending marriage of Joseph and Agatha was forgotten. Jessica had heard from Martin that it was to take place during the last week of October and that already Burslem was agog with anticipation. But six miles away in Cooperfield the Kendalls continued with their quiet life and gave no thought to the Master of Drayton’s wedding. Nor did Jessica care that they were to be excluded yet again, for at the beginning of December her child would be born and a whole new chapter of her life would begin. The months of waiting would come to an end; there would be a signpost pointing the direction her life should take and she would follow it, accepting each day as it came, as she had done since becoming Simon Kendall’s wife.
But deep inside her there was also a certain apprehension, for although Simon was a kind and considerate husband, he was also an honest one who adhered strictly to his promises. He had promised her a marriage of convenience and this he had maintained. Getting to know each other had been a slow growth which, in recent weeks, had strengthened, but they were still strangers in many ways and sometimes she wondered whether the advent of a child that was not his own might thrust them farther apart, despite his acceptance of responsibility.
Another thing troubled her. Never at any time had he given any indication that after its birth he would wish for a change in their relationship, yet Jessica’s mind dwelt more and more on this possibility.
More disturbingly, she began to think about Roger Acland, even recalling their moments of passion. She would waken in the night, aware that she had been reliving those moments in dreams and she would lie there, feeling troubled and guilty and strangely frightened, wondering if it indicated a longing which no man but he could ever satisfy. And then she would take herself to task, reminding herself that he had gone out of her life and was never likely to come back into it.
Chapter Seventeen
Agatha’s only regret about her wedding was the necessity to wear the traditional Tremain bridal gown, worn by generations of female forebears on her mother’s side, and skilfully altered according to prevailing fashions and the stature of the bride. Charlotte sighed over it sentimentally, but Agatha considered the unadorned Brussels lace decidedly dull, and said so.
“It may have harmonised with your pale colouring, Mamma, but my dark looks need something more striking.”
“On the contrary, my love, the ivory shade becomes you well.”
That was better than saying it was mercifully subduing. Her daughter’s high colour, which she exaggerated with powder and rouge, needed neither emphasis nor striking contrast and Charlotte’s authoritative command forestalled Agatha’s desire to litter the entire ensemble with massed red and purple poppies.
“My dear,” protested her mother, “whoever heard of purple poppies?”
And, “Dear Miss Agatha, with your excellent taste you would never choose to overdo things, I am sure,” cooed the seamstress. She sounded like a cat mewing between clenched teeth.
Agatha dismissed them both, her mother as old fashioned and the sewing woman as stupid.
“Then let the poppies be wholly scarlet!” she cried. “Large and small massed together, or cascading from waist to hem. Can you not imagine how striking they would look against this flowing lace? Poppies of scarlet satin with gold centres, with a matching hair adornment. And a decorative stomacher, encrusted with sparkling red gems — ”
“No, my love.”
“Then if not bejewelled, elaborately embroidered in red and gold — ”
“NO, my love.”
Agatha pouted, looking very much like a petulant pug dog. Her mother sighed.
“My dear daughter, no more must be done than the necessary insertions to enlarge it all over. These can be removed and the gown taken in again when it comes to Amelia’s turn.”
“Oh, I daresay its plainness would please Amelia mightily. She has always favoured the nondescript and the insipid.”
By now Agatha wanted to rip the thing off, and nearly did so until her father’s restraining glance met her eye. Charlotte had invited him to attend the fitting, chiefly because she hoped he would recall how handsome she herself had looked in this gown and how awed he had been as he stood at her side in the historic Tremain chapel. But it seemed that he had forgotten. Such compliments rarely came her way these days — the penalty of middle age, she sighed inwardly. At Max’s wedding her husband had admired her absently, patted her shoulder affectionately, and said gruffly that he wished the whole thing was over. But he had been out of humour that day, angry with Max and ashamed of the boy’s behaviour — not to mention his friends’. And since then Max himself had become what his mother called subdued and his father called surly.
Max’s daily visits to Drayton’s Pot Bank displeased him greatly. “It’s all mud and water,” he had snarled after the first day. “A filthy place. Thank God I don’t have to soil my hands with it.”
“A bit of honest dirt hurt no man,” Ralph had growled.
“It could ruin his clothes nonetheless,” Max had retorted.
“Then if you are not learning the business from the ground up, what are you doing?”
Max’s characteristic shrug had imparted nothing. All he would admit was that he had a desk and a chair in a room off the Master Potter’s and that time hung heavily, at which his father frowned and only resisted further questioning at a glance from Charlotte.
As for his pretty little bride, she kept mostly to their own wing or ventured no further than the park, trotting on a docile pony and abandoning the ride if wind or rain threatened to disarray her hair or mar her clothes. Or so said Amelia, very much out of patience after a morning jaunt one day. But Amelia was a skilled horsewoman and it was plain that the two young women did not get on. Amelia had declared that Max’s wife could devise her own amusements in future — “If she has any, other than prinking before her mirror!”
Charlotte was inclined to agree with that, for she had never considered any girl good enough for her son. But at least Phoebe never got in the way, nor said the wrong thing when invited to her mother-in-law’s withdrawing room to meet guests. At least she had been brought up to be well mannered and docile, though a spark of vivacity might not have come amiss. Odd, that, for she had always considered Phoebe to be a lively, if empty, little thing.
It seemed an unfair reflection on dear Max that his newly wedded wife should appear so listless, almost sulky at times. She had been spoilt, of course. Emily Drayton had always indulged the child. With that thought Charlotte was able to dismiss her peevish daughter-in-law and turn her mind back to Agatha who, thank heaven, could never be accused of either listlessness or sulkiness, though a little less flamboyance could be desirable.
Charlotte suspected that Joseph Drayton might share that opinion, for it needed barely half an eye to see that such a man would desire more restraint in a wife’s appearance. His reaction to Agatha’s garish gown, on the night he had broken the news of Jessica’s deplorable lapse, had not escaped shrewd Charlotte, though she had hidden it admirably.
But that was in the past; the immediate moment was more important and to have her way over this wedding gown Agatha, most decidedly, should not. She had already swayed her parents into agreeing that the marriage service should take place in the parish church, because such was Joseph’s wish.
“It is only natural that Burslem’s leading Master Potter should desire it,” she had protested. “The entire neighbourhood and beyond will want to see so important an event. Our family chapel was sufficient for my dear brother’s — indeed, being heir it was right and proper to hold it there — but dear Joseph is a notable figure in these parts.”
“But not the only Master Potter.”
“All others are inferior, their establishments smaller, as well you know, Mamma. Besides, our family has always maintained a pew in the parish church and frequently worshipped
there. It would be seemly to patronise it now.”
“Let her have her way,” Ralph had advised, diplomatically pointing out that Burslem’s church would hold a great many more guests than would the chapel, and since Charlotte was mother of the bride this time, no doubt an even greater number would be invited. So have her way Agatha did.
But not in the matter of bridal attire.
“My dear daughter, it is a family tradition that the wedding gown shall be worn without further embellishment, and with no alteration other than that which is necessary to adjust to an individual figure or fashion. She who dares defy that tradition, does so at her own risk.”
“Whatever do you mean, Mamma?”
“It is believed that to garnish this valuable Brussels lace brings ill luck to any bride,” lied Charlotte, avoiding her husband’s eye. “Call it superstition if you wish, but personally I would not dare to fly in the face of fate on such an important occasion.”
She had won. Charlotte prided herself on being able to handle all her children without their even realising she was doing so.
If she was not to have her way over the bridal gown, Agatha was determined to do so in all else. She viewed her mother’s arrangements with a critical eye, including the guest list, taking her to task because the Aclands had not been included.
“But they are not relations,” Charlotte pointed out. “Nor are they close friends. They are your Aunt Edith’s family only by marriage — the children of her late husband by his former wife. We scarce know them. Indeed, Edith herself is not your aunt in direct line, but a second cousin of your dear father’s, referred to as an aunt merely for convenience. I have met her but once and her step children never — ”
“Except Roger Acland. He paid us a visit last Spring. It would be impolite to omit him.”
Charlotte frowned.
“I fear your father would scarce welcome him. He took a dislike to the young man.”
“Because he sought my hand? Does Papa fear it would be painful for poor Roger to see me wed another? No doubt that could be so, but surely it would be equally distressing for him to hear, later, that we had deliberately ignored him.”
Charlotte doubted whether concern for Acland’s feelings would enter her husband’s mind. He had dubbed the man a scrounger and had welcomed his abrupt departure, attributing it to his fortune hunting ambitions being thwarted.
“Though I confess he tried to get not a penny-piece out of me once he knew there was no hope of laying his hands on Agatha’s money,” Ralph had admitted grudgingly. “He took himself off without another word.”
So perhaps there was some virtue in the man after all. At least he had had the decency to take his leave with good grace, Charlotte reflected, quite forgetting that he had been summoned home unexpectedly. Ah well, Tremain Hall could always find room for one more guest, she decided, and did her daughter’s bidding.
Agatha was well pleased. She enjoyed manipulating things and there would be a certain relish in telling dear Roger about Jessica’s unfortunate marriage. She would watch his face carefully when she did so, for it would either confirm or deny her suspicion that there had been something between the pair. It might also reveal whether his unexpected request for her own hand had been prompted by love or by avarice; if by the latter, she would enjoy punishing him with the news that another man now shared Jessica’s bed; if the former, her vanity would be satisfied. Either way, she would be hitting back at one or other of them.
The invitation despatched, Agatha switched her attention to other matters. She was a born meddler who never looked beyond her immediate actions, switching her mind from one moment to the next with ease. Dominant above all was her coming marriage to the man she had craved for years, and at last — at last! — she had won him.
He was the ideal bridegroom, good looking, proud, dressed with elegance and restraint. No lavish cloth of gold for Joseph Drayton; pale grey satin adorned with splendid falls of lace and delicate silver embroidery. Embroidered clocks ornamented his silken hose, but his narrow toed shoes carried no other adornment than the pale grey satin they were covered with, plus splendid silver buckles. Matching buttons sparkled on his flaring surcoat and on the deep, turned back cuffs beneath which further falls of lace enhanced his graceful white hands. Perhaps regrettably, but very impressively, his fine head of hair was concealed beneath an elaborate wig of white curls sprinkled with silver dust.
At the ensuing celebrations he removed the wig and let his hair flow, a practice which was becoming more frequent in London society, as Freeman guests who had travelled from there well knew. The gesture confirmed that dear Agatha was marrying anything but a country yokel.
Joseph was aware of the admiration he stirred, but naturally betrayed no inkling of it. Throughout the entire proceedings he was modest, gracious, and dignified, and maintaining the pose was surprisingly easy since Agatha’s appearance was unexpectedly restrained. He was also surprised, but pleased, by the simplicity and elegance of the bridal gown, by the fine lace in a becoming shade of ivory, by the simple necklet of pearls which was her only adornment.
Even her hair style was restrained, worn smooth instead of curled with hot irons into a great mass above her heavy face.
Approaching him on her father’s arm, even her lumbering gait had been less noticeable, the widely hooped petticoats mercifully concealing clumsiness, but dear God, thought Joseph behind his inscrutable mask, the legs beneath are no doubt elephantine, and tonight must I be banked between them…
As expected, villagers turned out in force. Two such events within two months lightened their entire year, and since this one was more available to public view than the last, many had ridden or walked or trundled in carts from outlying villages, determined to miss nothing. There was a maypole on Cobblers Green, with free ale for everyone and apples for the children. The landlord of the Red Lion made an exception to his rule and opened his doors early in the day, so access was available to those who could pay for something stronger than the brew provided by the bride’s parents in honour of the marriage.
By nightfall, the barrels on Cobblers Green would be empty, and the ditches filled with many of those who had emptied them, and there would be penance to be paid by those who arrived for work later than six o’clock the next morning, particularly at Drayton’s. To Max’s disgust, that edict had been issued by the Master Potter, and even included himself.
For two pins, Max would have refused to attend the damned wedding. Hanging around at Drayton’s, doing nothing, was boring enough, but having to start at the crack of dawn was not only pointless but, after a celebration, inconsiderate.
“I shall have plenty of use for you later on,” Joseph had assured him when, after the first few days, he had expressed boredom. “For the present, you need only observe how things are done and the goods we make. Why complain when so favourably treated? Receiving money for doing nothing is something to be grateful for. You are a spoilt young devil, Maxwell Freeman, but I shall use you for my own good purpose in my own good time.”
But that purpose, it seemed, was merely to recommend Drayton’s goods to influential or moneyed friends, though such people would never look at such homely ware. Nor did he hesitate to say so.
“You should produce more elegant stuff. Things to grace a rich man’s table, things I would not be ashamed to use myself.”
Joseph’s frown had pleased him; he had got under the man’s skin. That was gratifying because, all too frequently, Joseph made him feel inferior, especially when reminded, as happened frequently, that he was tolerated only because he was Phoebe’s husband.
“Your participation here was part of the settlement, part of the bargain,” he was told. “No more than that.”
A poor sort of bargain, Max wanted to retort. A wife who doesn’t want me in her bed, a stupid creature who declares that I defile her! A man well deserves financial compensation for putting up with that.
But one thing he had to admit in Joseph’s favour — the ma
n made no bones about his drinking. He even condoned it by offering him wine during working hours, though never imbibing himself. He would call him in for a talk, and the bottle would be waiting — inferior stuff, in Max’s opinion, but better than nothing. The talk would ostensibly be about Drayton affairs, though at the end of it Max was as ignorant as at the start, for Joseph had the ability to talk at length without revealing a thing, so inevitably much wine was necessary to bolster endurance.
And at the end of it, Joseph would wave the bottle aside, indicating that Max could take it, and if he fell asleep across his desk afterwards, the Master Potter was apparently unseeing.
Oh yes, there were things to be grateful for in this alliance with Drayton’s pot bank. Sometimes Joseph would ignore him for days, not even missing him were he absent, nor enquiring where he had been should that absence be noticed; thus Max was able to slip away to indulge his taste for horse racing, cock fighting, bear baiting, or any other form of gambling. Continuous losses never discouraged him. Money had always been freely available, and would continue to be. And if short of ready cash, promissory notes could always be signed and forgotten.
Occasionally, Joseph even cleared his debts. “Just sign the promissory notes over to me, and not a soul will be the wiser.” This Max agreed to more than willingly when creditors became tiresome. Owing money to a relative who never demanded repayment was a far more comfortable arrangement.
So all in all, he was under an obligation to attend the marriage of his sister Agatha to the Master of Drayton’s, and for this reason Max went to some trouble to cut a fine figure beside his wife who, pretty as ever, at least did him credit in the public eye. The incredible thing about Phoebe was that she could appear so delectable, so appetising, so physically enticing, when actually she was physically cold. She yielded to his rights with as much ill grace as she had shown on their wedding night, forever adopting an air of suffering which aroused his resentment and made him more demanding than he would otherwise have been.
