“I’m sorry, if I’ve done anything to—”
“You’ve done nothing. I simply cannot marry you. I’m not sure I’m ready to marry anyone. Don’t you see I need to stand on my own now?”
Tom got to his feet and walked over to the fireplace. “You’re making a terrible mistake, of course. How can a woman like you possibly survive on your own? You have been cosseted your whole life. What do you know about being independent?” He suddenly sounded bitter. “What do you know of the world?”
“Tom, I really am sorry—”
“Enough!” Tom snapped. His whole demeanor had changed. Gone was the carefree lover. Instead she saw the real Tom, and he was cold and calculating.
“I have heard quite enough.” He almost spat out the words before leaving the room.
Ursula sat at the dinner table glancing now and then at a book propped up against a vase filled with hothouse flowers. After her confrontation with Tom she had little appetite. She pushed the roasted squab idly around her plate with her fork. The room was gloomily quiet with Ursula having only her thoughts for company or comfort. She found it hard to concentrate, as every time she peered hard at the page full of words, her eyes read a sentence before wandering to look at the mantel clock sitting on the mahogany sideboard. It was not even seven o’clock. Finally, with a sigh, she put down her knife and fork, closed the book, and rang for Moira to clear the dishes.
“I’ll wait for Lord Wrotham in the front parlor,” she told Biggs as she exited the dining room. “You may as well decant the wine and bring it in there.”
“Yes, Miss Marlow. Would you like dessert or coffee brought in before then? I believe Cook has made trifle, or there’s always her rhubarb pie you’re so fond of.”
Ursula bit her lip. It wouldn’t do for her to fuel any more gossip, given she had left dinner half eaten. “Please tell Cook I’ll have a small helping of trifle and then bring some coffee in, as well.”
“Of course.”
Ursula made her way down the hall and into the front parlor. Already she noticed changes to this room. There was a pile of books and magazines on the flat-topped side table that, when her father was still alive, she would not have dared to leave out. She had also moved some new items of decoration downstairs; a Ruskin pottery vase now stood on the mantelpiece alongside a bronze miniature of the sorceress Circe. On the small coffee table under the stained-glass lamp, Ursula had placed a Cymric silver bowl from Liberty which she filled with rose petals and lavender. Touches, she thought, that made the parlor seem different somehow, more her own.
She picked up the top book, Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, from the pile on the side table, kicked off her satin shoes, and sat down on the sofa. As she was all alone, she curled up her knees beside her and opened to the front pages. More at ease now, she nearly forgot her determination not to look at the grandfather clock nor concern herself with the time (what was it to her whether Lord Wrotham arrived on time!), and soon found herself successfully immersed in poetry. She didn’t even notice Moira enter bearing the tray of dessert and coffee. She tucked her feet in under her and continued reading, content to have her worries subsumed at least for a few minutes in the beauty of Yeats’s poems.
“What, no welcoming party?” Lord Wrotham’s voice startled her, and she dropped the book in surprise.
“Doesn’t anyone knock anymore?” she replied crossly. “I must have words with Biggs. He really should not have allowed you to just barge in here like that.”
“Don’t take it out on Biggs. I told him not to bother with introductions. I did knock though, you just didn’t hear me.”
Lord Wrotham crossed the room and picked up the book from the floor. Closing it, he peered down at the title with a smile. “Yeats? Hmm, I would have expected Lord Byron.”
“I’m still astonished you can name any poet at all,” Ursula replied as she stood up and slipped her feet back into her shoes.
“Your feather is crooked.” Lord Wrotham remarked, pointing to her head, and Ursula couldn’t help but look over at herself in the mirror that hung above the fireplace. Self-consciously, she tried to straighten the feather band in her hair.
Lord Wrotham walked over and replaced the book on the table. He gazed briefly at the spines of the other books that lay there and smiled again.
“You find my choice in literature amusing?” Ursula asked. When Lord Wrotham did not reply but merely continued to smile, she tossed back her head a little and met his eyes defiantly.
“Not amusing, just surprising,” came his reply.
“What brings you at this hour, Lord Wrotham? It’s a little late for a social call, isn’t it?” Ursula demanded.
“May we first sit down perhaps? Could I even impose on you for some…oh, I see you have already requested coffee.” He gazed down at the untouched tray, the coffee cold in the pot, and the uneaten trifle. His smile this time was softer but it irritated Ursula all the more.
She rang for Biggs, who entered shortly thereafter.
“Biggs, we would like some refreshment. Perhaps Lord Wrotham would prefer wine to coffee.” She turned to look at Lord Wrotham who was just seating himself in the satinwood armchair. “Biggs has decanted a fine Bordeaux, haven’t you, Biggs?” Lord Wrotham raised his eyebrows in apparent amusement and Ursula, not so amused, asked Biggs to bring in two glasses. Biggs merely nodded and retreated as Moira hurried in to pick up the tray.
Ursula sat back down on the sofa, crossing her ankles demurely beneath her dress, as she attempted to regain the calmness she wished to portray.
“I came to discuss the question of your allowance,” Lord Wrotham coughed. “As trustee of your father’s estate, until you are married of course, I find myself in the awkward position of having to ask about your monetary needs.”
“You came here to discuss my ‘monetary needs,’” Ursula said with a deadpan expression.
“Yes.”
“At this hour?”
“Well, what other time was there? I assume you need to purchase spring apparel, and with your, your impending nuptials, I wanted to ensure that you had all the funds you needed for—”
“There aren’t going to be any ‘impending nuptials,’” Ursula interrupted him sharply.
“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand…”
“I told Tom this afternoon that I couldn’t go through with it—the marriage I mean. There isn’t going be a wedding.”
Lord Wrotham opened his mouth but Ursula cut in before he had a chance to speak.
“I decided it was time I asserted my own independence. I plan to take control of my father’s business. I’ll need your support of course, as trustee of my father’s estate, but I’ve had a long, hard think on it and what would be most satisfying to me, I believe, and honor Papa most greatly would be for me to run them as an independent businesswoman.”
“I see…” Lord Wrotham couldn’t keep the note of skepticism out of his voice.
“You think a woman incapable of doing such a thing?”
“You know my politics,” was all he replied.
“Your politics hardly serve as an answer to my question. Tell me, do you think I’m incapable of running my father’s business because I am a woman?”
“You are also very young,” Lord Wrotham commented.
“So was my father.”
“That he was, but he had great instincts, and when he was unsure, he was willing to take advice from those he trusted.”
“I will accept advice. I may not trust as my father did, but I am not such a fool to think I can run this alone. I will draw upon all my father’s advisers. Will they accept me, though, that is the question? Will you accept me?”
“I’m not sure that at the moment you even accept yourself,” was his reply.
“Maybe not—but I must face up to my responsibilities.”
“What of your plans to be a journalist?”
“I must give them up.”
Lord Wrotham sighe
d. “It seems to me that you give up much to gain possibly nothing. They may never accept a woman. They may never accept you. And your politics…How can you reconcile your position—”
“Will you remain as you are?” she asked after a pause.
“As I am?” he queried.
Lord Wrotham got up suddenly and paced across the room. Ursula tried to read his countenance but his expression was inscrutable.
“Yes, as my father’s trusted adviser. Will you remain so with me? As trustee of the estate, will you support my decisions? Will you grant me the financial freedom to do what I must for the sake of my father’s business interests?”
“I’m not sure I could promise to always agree with your decisions but yes, I will remain as an adviser…if that is what you wish me to be.”
The question hung in the air and Ursula flushed. The implication was clear. But she wasn’t ready to make any commitment, least of all to him. She needed to succeed on her own terms first. If she succumbed now, she feared losing all her newfound independence.
“It is.” Her words were quiet, but they seem to echo through the room.
Lord Wrotham stood by the fireplace, his expression still un-readable. Ursula arose and started to approach him. For a moment, as their eyes met, it looked as if he might speak. But he remained silent and Ursula could take little comfort from the manner of his leaving. He merely flipped open his fob watch, commented on the late hour, and then said, with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders, that he had to be going.
“I have to leave for Ireland tomorrow.”
“Ireland?” Ursula exclaimed.
“Yes, I am advising counsel on an important trial that begins in Dublin tomorrow.” He walked across the room and opened the door.
“But when will you return?” she called out.
“I’m not sure. Hargreaves will let you know when I am back.”
And with that he left her standing in the room, wishing he would stay.
Twenty-Three
The following morning, Ursula met with Alistair Fenway and Gerard Anderson at the offices of Anderson & Stowe Ltd. in Threadneedle Street. Both men seemed reluctant to accept Ursula’s proposal that she involve herself in her father’s business affairs. Fenway’s suggestion was that Lord Wrotham, as trustee, oversee the sale of her father’s mills and factories and invest the proceeds on her behalf. Ursula refused and it took two hours of exhaustive argument before both men came to realize the strength of her resolve. Finally, capitulating to her demands, Anderson drew out a massive account ledger and started to lead Ursula through all the various enterprises that provided the foundation of her father’s empire. She ran her finger down the list of Bristish suppliers—all familiar names she’d heard over the years—when a brief notation regarding payment to a German chemical company caught Ursula’s eye.
“What’s this?” she asked.
Anderson and Fenway exchanged glances.
“I didn’t know my father had contacts in Germany. Is it somehow related to the Lambeth factory?”
Anderson rubbed his nose. “Not exactly.”
“What is it then?” Ursula demanded.
Anderson turned to Fenway, who, after a hesitation, replied. “Boehrmeyer is a pharmaceutical company. They investigate chemical compounds to see if they have any medicinal use.”
“But why should my father be interested in that?”
Anderson sighed. “We were hoping you need never see this….” He pulled out a file from a drawer in his desk. “Read for yourself.”
Ursula reached over and took the file. She started to read the correspondence with growing horror. One of the first letters she read was addressed to her father and written in English.
Trials to date indicate that the substance is associated with an 80 percent sterilization rate. The asylum reports, however, that two of the twenty women involved in the trial suffered severe internal hemorrhage and subsequently died. We request your instructions as to whether you wish to proceed with further trials. As we say, the sterilization rate is extremely promising; the question is whether the associated morality rate is sufficiently of concern to halt further commercial development of this substance.
Sufficiently of concern?! Ursula was horrified. So this was the substance discovered on the Radcliffe expedition. Was this what Bates had been talking about all along? It seemed almost impossible to believe that her father had ever considered such an abhorrent plan. She found it hard to reconcile all his contradictions. How could the loving and indulgent father she knew be a man who was responsible for the deaths of two women? Maybe more?
Ursula looked up at Anderson. He refused to meet her eyes and merely gestured for her to continue reading. Fenway got up from his chair and went over to the window. From his profile Ursula could see he was discomfited.
Ursula pored over the remaining correspondence until she found the reply she was looking for. It was in her father’s rough handwriting.
Cease all trials immediately. It was my hope that the substance we discovered would provide a means of preventing further degradation of our race but it was never intended to be an instrument of death. I cannot in all conscience allow testing to continue.
Ursula hands were trembling as she set the letter down.
“Who else knew of this?” she asked quietly.
Fenway remained by the window.
“We all did. But while Abbott and I agreed with your father, Dobbs wanted to continue further investigations outside Europe—that was the South American enterprise he wanted your father to continue funding.”
“Did you or Lord Wrotham know about this?” Ursula directed her question to Fenway. He turned to face her, silhouetted by the light streaming in through the window.
“Neither of us knew anything until your father’s death. Obviously, as trustee Lord Wrotham had to be told.”
Ursula’s mind was awhirl. At least her faith in her father’s humanity hadn’t been totally destroyed. He certainly wasn’t the monster Bates portrayed him to be. Although she had always disagreed with his views on eugenics, she knew his intentions were honorable. He had, after all, been raised in poverty, surrounded by families with too many mouths to feed. But still Ursula’s heart sank when she thought of those poor women and the danger posed by such a substance in the hands of unscrupulous men.
“I need some time to absorb all that you have told me,” she announced abruptly and rose from her seat. Anderson hastened to grab her coat and hat from the stand in the foyer to his office. Neither he nor Fenway could think of anything to say. They stood by awkwardly as she took her leave.
By the time Samuels had driven Ursula home it was nearly four o’clock. She retired to her room early, sat down at her dressing table, and washed her face with some warm water from the basin. Her reflection in the mirror looked strained and pale. Ursula ran her fingers through her hair. It had grown out a little and now hung in loose curls just below her ears, making her look rather like a medieval pageboy. She reached out and opened the lid of her mother’s jewelry box, hoping to find comfort in her mother’s memories.
She removed the enamel locket and opened it to look at her father’s photograph. In the box she had also placed some of the photographs of her mother she found in the attic and she gazed at each of these, seeking solace in a connection with her mother’s past. She carefully replaced these alongside the strand of pearls her father had given her on her fourteenth birthday.
She then lifed out the vermeil rose pendant she had found in the attic, running her fingers along the edge thoughtfully.
There was a knock on the bedroom door which startled her—she dropped the pendant and it slid across the floor, under the bed.
“Come in,” she said.
Julia’s face appeared in the doorway. “Sorry to disturb you, miss, but Biggs is off visiting his sick mum, and Mrs. Stewart just wondered if you were coming downstairs for dinner. I can bring you up something if you’d rather…?” Julia let the question hang in the air for a
moment.
Ursula shook her head. “No need. Tell Mrs. Stewart I’ll have dinner in the dining room—but just tea and a little toast will do. I haven’t got the appetite at the moment for anything more.”
“Right you are, miss.”
Julia turned to leave.
“I was thinking I might visit Freddie tomorrow morning,” Ursula called after her. “So perhaps you could get my day suit with the fur collar ready.”
“Of course, and may I suggest your sable hat and gloves? They will go nicely.”
Ursula murmured her assent as she hitched up her skirt and got down on her hands and knees to try to locate her mother’s pendant under the bed. It had rolled about halfway under the mattress, just out of reach.
“Oh, miss, please allow me,” Julia protested as she rushed to the other side of the bed and knelt down on the floor to retrieve the pendant. She stood up and held it out in her hand. “I didn’t know this opened,” she said curiously.
“No, nor did I,” Ursula said, rushing to her side to find that, to both their surprise, the dainty vermeil pendant had sprung open with the fall, revealing a hidden compartment that contained a photograph.
“Well, you must’ve—you’ve a picture of your Mr. Cumberland in there.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Ursula as she took the pendant over to the light—and found herself looking at the photograph of a man who was most certainly not Tom Cumberland and not her father, but an incredibly handsome youth, with light-colored hair swept back from his forehead, languid dark eyes, and a mocking smile. Ursula placed the pendant down on the narrow window ledge, her breathing shallow and fast. There was no mistaking it. The man whose photograph had been hidden in her mother’s pendant was a much younger, much handsomer Ronald Henry Bates—and without the scars and ruddy beard, he looked exactly like the man who, until yesterday, had been her fiancé.
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