Once inside the house, white-moustached, and looking very like the Duke of Connaught, Lord Duffane looked around the drawing room, first at the old furniture and the country liveries of the footmen, and then at the floor coverings and the fireplace, and smiled suddenly.
‘Do you know, Violet, my dear, this is very pleasant, coming to see our dear Mercy in her marital home. A home, I have to say, that reminds me very much of our own. Home from home indeed.’ He smiled proudly across at Mercy. ‘Well done, Mercy, my dearest, well done.’
Mercy blushed and smiled and looked about her with a sinking heart. She could not tell her father that it was all about to be changed, for ever, and irrevocably, just so that it would not remind anyone of Cordel Court.
‘You are going to do what did you say, my dear?’
Mercy looked away at something, nothing and everything, before murmuring, ‘Oh, you know how it is, Step-maman, change a few things. Make everything a little more authentic, more Arts and Crafts, if you will. Only in a few rooms.’
‘You are to make it Arts and Crafts in style, did you say?’
‘Only a little of it, enough of it, not completely, of course. But then the original parts of Brindells are Tudor, so a little Arts and Crafts influence will not come amiss I should have thought.’
‘You are not, I hope, going to tamper with the gold and the brocade, the plasterwork and the ornamentation, the chandeliers and the velvet?’
‘I could hardly say at this point, but there will be some remodelling, particularly of the kitchens which are so far from the dining room that it is impossible to keep anything warm that is not already on fire. Oh look, there is Papa!’
Mercy turned away, relieved to see her father at the end of the long corridor down which she and her stepmother had wandered. She had no intention of carrying on their conversation unless absolutely essential.
‘But which architect are you to use for this? Not Lutyens, I hope. I do so hate Ned Lutyens, all that insistence on cosy-cosy, and Tudor motor-homes. And I particularly hate that dreadful Gertrude Jekyll’s gardens. Surrey, Surrey, Surrey, and not a pack of hounds to be found worth their weight in breeding.’
Lady Violet always did become a little different once the hunting season was well on its way, and Mercy was quite used to this. When she had first come to Cordel Court even Mercy’s brothers would make hounds in full cry noises the moment the hunting season began, and say to anyone who called I am afraid Lady Duffane is gorn away! which they always found immensely amusing, but which was not really.
‘Oh, I don’t think Mr Lutyens would be remotely interested in Brindells, Step-maman, really I do not. No.’
Mercy paused, because she knew that she was about to tell a lie, and before she started to tell her lie she needed not to ask for God’s forgiveness for so doing but to demand it.
The point was that she felt sorry for the bearded young Mr Chantry. He was, after all, such a nice young man. The second reason for her untruth was that she knew that if she told Lady Violet whom she had in mind for the alterations, her stepmother would throw up her hands in horror and demand that Lord Duffane tell John to tell Mercy that she was out of her senses, and that using a mere antiquarian to carry out alterations at Brindells was madness, because, Lady Violet would surmise, he would know nothing.
Even as she heard herself say, ‘We have not thought whom to use, yet,’ Mercy was aware of her stepmother’s voice telling her that she was far too young to take on Brindells and that she herself would be able to recommend someone much more suitable. She would also be sure to tell John this, and so all would be lost.
Yet Mercy had the feeling that Chantry knew a great deal more than any so-called trained architect, or builder, about the Tudor period. And he knew it, she felt, in the only truly valuable way of knowing anything – he knew it not just through scholarship, but through instinct.
Alas, the subject was by no means exhausted, however.
At dinner that night Lady Violet turned and said sweetly to Brancaster, ‘I hear Brindells is to be remodelled, John? And Mercy tells me that you have given her a completely free hand.’
‘Yes, it is to be remodelled.’
‘But with a concentrated effort on the kitchens, Mercy tells me?’
‘Oh no, Lady Violet,’ John told his beautiful guest with some relish, ‘it is all going to be remodelled. Mercy has the most tremendous plans. But I am to stay well away, for this is a woman’s business, is it not? To talk to artistic men with sketchbooks and make the place a home for both of you. Would you not say this is a woman’s preserve, Lady Violet?’
He looked at his stepmother-in-law with a serious, if mocking, expression.
‘But will this mean a complete change of style at Brindells?’
‘A complete change? Well, I dare say. But then I have been an old bachelor for far too long. The place needs to be given a good dose of salts, if you will forgive the vulgarity. It needs a young hand to make it a home.’
‘And what kind of home would that be? Will the brocade go, and the gilding?’
‘I have no idea, Lady Violet, but if Mercy so wishes, then, yes, it will go, and if she wants it to stay it will stay. As she said, I have given her a free hand. She is a sensible person, she will do what is right. I trust her.’
‘I think you should put your foot down. I really think you should. Young gels have very little taste to speak of, you know. It takes a few years of marriage to acquire it. And as to doing away with the brocade and the gilding, I think I should have a word with her, really I do.’ Lady Violet lowered her voice. ‘I must insist. And if she talks of doing away with the Italian chandelier in the library—’
‘I have told darling Mercy that she has a free hand. Besides, what is taste compared to the exuberance of youth? Youthful enthusiasm in a house is so touching, I find. She has already brought this place to life. Even my dogs have changed – they are gayer, more full of life, take themselves less seriously.’
John laughed as his stepmother-in-law frowned.
‘I think it is very unwise to allow dear Mercy a free hand, very unwise.’
‘And I think ...’ He paused. ‘I think it is none of your business.’
The effect was as if he had thrown a glass of water over her, but Lady Violet was too well versed in the ways of the world to be upset by this put-down. She smiled with all her usual grace and, sensing defeat, immediately changed tack.
‘Oh, you men,’ she said, suddenly lightening her voice. ‘You will never be told, will you, except of course by your grooms! Now tell me, when are you coming to Leicestershire? This must be the first time you have missed the opening meet of the season in ten years. Are we never to see you up there with the rest of us? Has marriage changed you so much, John Brancaster?’
Brancaster smiled at his beautiful stepmother-in-law.
‘I shall be up soon, but to tell you the truth, for once in my life I have not missed my hunting.’ He looked down the dining table at his young wife. ‘I cannot remember ever being so happy. And do you know, Lady Violet, it is all the better for being such an unlooked-for happiness.’
Lady Violet smiled. ‘That is good. That makes us all happy, as it must. But nevertheless, once things have settled here, perhaps the sound of the horn and the cry of the hounds will bring you back to Leicestershire after all.’
Nowadays the Brancasters were so happy at home together, making plans, and talking about everything that they hoped to do, that it seemed that not even hunting held any of its old fascination for John.
‘I had promised to go for a week or two to Leicestershire while you get on with the alterations here, but I find I can not leave you.’
‘No, John, no. I insist you go to Leicestershire for your hunting. You love your hunting. You must go.’
‘I find I have no wish to do anything without you. If I am out, I think only of coming back to you.’
Mercy felt the same, and indeed she did not want him to go to Leicestershire, but considerin
g all the chaos and disruption to come, she thought it would be better for him really if he did go, leaving her and Gabriel Chantry to oversee the alterations.
‘Show me the plans for the house again.’
They spread Gabriel Chantry’s beautiful, delicate drawings out over the library table, holding them down at either end with ink wells and paperweights of silver foxes engraved with souvenirs of days out, Ten miles clinking without a check, and horse shoes from old mounts, the bases silvered. Old horses, old memories of days with the Quorn or the Beaufort, or weeks spent with the Galway Blazers in Ireland, or some other pack. Mementoes of John Brancaster’s great sporting past, albeit a past in which he seemed to have really rather lost interest since his marriage.
‘So, here it is, or how it could be, we hope.’
Mercy leaned over and put out her hand with its love knot engagement ring on the plans to straighten them, and as she did so John Brancaster became overwhelmed with love for this young woman who had changed his life so completely.
He had never realized before what a tedious round of the same pointless pleasures he had been enjoying before he met Mercy. He regretted leaving her now, even for his hunting, but he knew that whatever his own feelings he must go to Leicestershire, if only for the sake of the groom who had been keeping his horses up and hunting fit for many a long day now. The man would be furious if he had spent so much time on keeping the string fit, only to have his master prefer to spend his time making love with his new wife, or shopping, or doing any of the other innumerable things with which husbands, John had come to realize with pleasurable surprise over the last months, occupied themselves.
‘You have changed me completely,’ he said suddenly to Mercy, and she, smiling, touched his cheek, before saying, ‘Now, John, pay attention, like a good boy. We have to think back to when the house was first built, and how it would have been.’
‘Mercy, I find I must ask you to come upstairs.’
‘No, John, not now. Before dinner, when we are changing, perhaps!’
She laughed, and John obediently turned his mind from love-making to housekeeping, to kitchens and ovens, to drawing rooms and libraries, and to the realization that no matter what – and this was to his great amusement – the chandelier in the library was definitely going to be given its marching orders.
‘I shall miss you so much.’
Mercy kissed John. He looked devastatingly handsome in his travelling clothes, so much the sporting aristocrat that of a sudden she said, ‘I think it is very dangerous to let you out of my sight, John Brancaster. You are, after all, everything that every woman wants. Not just tall, dark and handsome, but long-legged, tall, dark and handsome.’
He smiled.
‘You are in no danger, madam, I promise you. I have eyes for no-one but you, and will never have eyes for anyone but you. You are my sun, my moon and my stars. God bless you, Mercy.’
She watched him climbing into the coach below her bedroom window, and she wondered that she had ever held back from marrying him, that she had not suspected that beneath the reserve of the sporting man was a character of such generosity and gentleness.
She went to his dressing room and taking one of his handkerchiefs from his cupboard she put it into her pocket. Thank heavens there was so much to be done that she could not feel sorry for herself for too long, and the three weeks that he would be away would be spent pleasantly enough, choosing colours and materials with Mr Chantry, and overseeing what now seemed to be about a thousand men. Craftspeople of all kinds swarmed all over the house from breakfast till dinner, some of whom, even now, were being put up in cottages on the estate.
Chantry was the greatest fun at this time. He had overcome his inhibitions with Mercy and was now, she realized, taking the place of her younger brother in her day to day life. Like her brother he loved to tease and joke but not about the same things.
He teased her most particularly about her lack of architectural knowledge.
‘If we take that down, Mrs Brancaster,’ he would say, straight-faced, ‘with the greatest respect, we will be taking the house down.’
He always said with the greatest respect because, as Mercy insisted, he actually meant quite the opposite.
‘You have no more respect for me than my brothers have, Mr Chantry. And the more you profess it, the less I believe you.’
She pretended to look stern, but immediately after smiled.
‘Do you know, I never realized that restoring a house could be so exciting? I feel ashamed to say it, but I was so ignorant. I can not think when I have enjoyed shopping with someone as much as I enjoy shopping with you, just because, I suppose, you are so knowledgeable. I learn something each time we are together.’
Gabriel Chantry looked modest, but appreciative of her praise, as Mercy continued, ‘You may be surprised to know, Mr Chantry, that you more than anyone have taught me to appreciate the world I live in. Even the woods and the fields, which I thought I understood along with the rest of the world, take on a different aspect because of your ideas. What a wonderful thing it is to realize what the life of a single tree really means, and how many oaks went into the making of just this one table. It is truly amazing. And humbling too.’
She looked up from examining a large oak trestle table that had newly arrived in Chantry’s shop.
‘Just think how many trees went into the making of this, and how long they took to grow, and what it takes to grow them. Reverence for nature is reverence for life, would you not say, Mr Chantry?’
Gabriel looked across at Mercy, feeling almost dizzy with emotion, but remaining outwardly polite and detached while at the same time half wishing that this lovely young woman had never come into his life.
‘You are entirely right, and that is what William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement are all about. We must try to fight the emergence of machine manufacturing, to hold on to the hand crafts of our ancestors, or they will be lost to us for ever. One day we may not even have a single man who will know how to thatch a roof!’
Mercy nodded, straightening up from examining a large oak dresser with much ornate carving.
‘I will take this piece, Mr Chantry. It is very well made, is it not?’
‘It is not just very well made, it is the same date as Brindells,’ he told her, and was delighted to see how gratified she was that she had shown the right instinct.
Once they had decided on the carved oak dresser Mercy drove him back to Brindells in the trap, and Gabriel was asked to stay for dinner, because ‘the rector is coming and he is quite serious, not to mention his daughter of whom everyone in the village is terrified, our housekeeper tells me. Every time she pays a visit all the villagers hide under their beds, or leave a pig in the front garden to put her off. Alas, it seems that it does not always have the desired effect and she carries on into their cottages anyway, insisting on giving them her home-made preserves, which they all loathe and feed to those very pigs the moment she leaves.’
Gabriel Chantry had been brought up in London, in the environs of Putney, quite near but not near enough to fashionable stamping grounds, and so he realized at once just how unused he was, how unexposed he had been, to the preserved gentility which exuded from the rector and his daughter as they entered the library to take drinks before dinner with Mrs Brancaster.
Not so Mercy, who was well used to the Church coming to dinner at Cordel Court. Necessarily so, for the incumbent of her father’s parish church was his cousin, and most welcome at the Court at any time of day, if only so that Lord Duffane could instruct him in the exact nature of the next sermon he expected him to preach. But Lord Duffane’s cousin had enough of the irreverent hunting parson in him – irreverent towards humanity although not towards the deity – to make him excellent company.
The same could not be said of the rector and his daughter, Miss Tingles. Indeed, they entered the library with the air of two people who were well aware that at Brindells they were, in a spiritual sense, in darkest Africa,
and that the incumbents of the house were as much in need of God as the African heathen. But unlike the heathen they were virtually living at the bottom of the rectory garden. The fact was, as they all knew, until his very recent marriage it was common knowledge in the village that Mr Brancaster had taken as much interest in the Church as the rector took in motor cars.
‘This is Mr Chantry…’
As he was introduced to them and lightly shook their hands Gabriel Chantry saw the words in trade flashing up into the eyes of the rector and his daughter. This was swiftly followed, a few minutes later, when they realized that he was an antiquarian, by the words dangerously artistic young man.
‘Surely Brindells should be left as it is for future generations to marvel at, Mr Chancery?’
‘Chantry.’
‘Yes, quite so. As I was saying, if I were you, which happily I am not, I must admit that I would feel considerable qualms at the idea that I was helping to destroy the past of this ancient house.’
The rector’s tone was really quite accusing, so much so that even the footman who was holding out a dish of chicken from which Gabriel was expected to help himself glanced briefly at the parson and sighed.
As Gabriel interpreted it the sigh said, Here goes the Church, at it again, poking their nose where they should be minding their own business.
Heartened by the feeling that he was not alone if the footman was on his side, Gabriel retorted, ‘With the greatest respect’ – at which opening Mercy concealed a smile – ‘all I am doing at Brindells – all we are all doing – is restoring the house to how it was before it was swamped by gilt and brocade.’
‘Oh, come, come, Mr Chantry, surely you can not criticize the taste here? We have always found the taste in this house to be impeccable.’
The rector looked across at Mercy, and then back at the young antiquarian.
‘Why, most of this house was redecorated under the firm guidance of Mrs Brancaster’s own stepmother, Lady Violet Duffane.’
The Love Knot Page 20
