by Val Wood
‘Well, don’t you see? Our parents invited most of these people and we said we wanted to invite our real friends, those we’re comfortable with. Some of the fellows from school are all right, I’ll introduce you in a minute, and then we’re going to set up some games. That’s what Bea wants to do, anyway.’
‘What sort o’ games?’ Daniel asked suspiciously.
‘Charades,’ Charles said, ‘and Consequences. Bea’s in charge of those, then someone will play the piano and we’ll all sing, and then we’ll have supper.’
Daniel suppressed a groan as Charles marched him across to a group of his school friends, or chums as he described them. This was much worse than he’d anticipated and he looked round for Maria, but smiled when he saw Beatrice holding her firmly by the arm as if to stop her running away.
‘Daniel, I’d like you to meet Toby Hanson, and George Meldrick,’ Charles said. ‘Edward Pickard and Clifford Roxby. We’re all in the same year. Chaps, this is my good friend Daniel Tuke.’
They all bowed stiffly and two of them, Hanson and Pickard, put out their hands to shake Daniel’s. ‘How do you do,’ Hanson said in a drawl. ‘I gather you’re one of the locals?’
‘I am,’ Daniel replied. ‘We farm up in ’next dale.’
Hanson rubbed together the fingers of his right hand as if to wipe off the imprint of Daniel’s hand. ‘Ah, yes, I’d put you down as a farming boy.’
‘Hardly a boy,’ Daniel answered drily. ‘I’m seventeen and a working man. And you’re still a schoolboy, I gather?’
Hanson flushed. ‘I’m almost seventeen and I’ll be going to university next year.’
‘Where are you from?’ Clifford Roxby asked him. ‘Not locally bred, are you,’ and Daniel heard Hanson snigger.
‘I am as a matter of fact,’ he said slowly, and thought that had they been anywhere else he might have been less polite than he was being now. ‘But I have more exotic forebears than most.’
‘A Roman plebeian, I bet!’ Hanson laughed. ‘And do you intend going back?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Daniel confirmed. ‘Possibly in a year or two.’ Well, he thought as he realized what he had just said, I always told Granny Rosie that I would, so why not?
‘And I’m going with him,’ Charles interrupted. ‘I’ve always wanted to travel.’
Daniel grinned. They would discuss it later. He was fairly sure that Charles wouldn’t be allowed on such an adventure.
‘Going where?’ As if on cue, Beatrice appeared behind them with Maria in tow. ‘You’re not going anywhere without me.’
‘We’ll discuss it later, Bea,’ Charles told her. ‘Are you going to start the charades?’
‘Hold on,’ George Meldrick said pleasantly. ‘You haven’t introduced us to your other sister.’ He gave a short bow in Maria’s direction. ‘I’m George Meldrick, one of Charles’s school friends.’
Charles and Beatrice turned to Maria. ‘I’d never noticed the likeness before today,’ Beatrice exclaimed, ‘but as I said, you could easily be mistaken for our sister.’
‘Maria is Daniel’s sister,’ Charles explained, turning back to his friends. ‘I’d like you to meet Miss Maria Tuke.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Someone else had remarked to Melissa Hart on Maria’s likeness to Beatrice and Charles, but not to Stephen, whose hair was a mid-brown colour and who had strong facial features; at fourteen he had not wanted to be at the party either, unlike their youngest brother, George, who did, but after a brief appearance to say hello was sent up to have supper in his room. Daniel commiserated with him as he sulked and told him that Joseph had wanted to come too but hadn’t been invited either.
‘I don’t think I know Joseph,’ George said. ‘Would he come over sometime, do you think?’
‘He’s younger than you, George,’ Daniel told him. ‘Leonard is nearer your age, but he’s already busy on ’farm when he’s not at school.’
‘Everybody has a better time than me,’ George grumbled as he climbed the stairs.
From the open doorway of the drawing room Melissa Hart had watched Daniel as he talked to George and then turned to look again at Maria. Although she had appeared to be shy when she first arrived, under Beatrice’s wing she seemed to blossom, and although she didn’t want to play charades she agreed to help the other young ladies into their various disguises – masks and fans and shawls to hide their faces – and some of the young men into top hats or bowlers and scarves and greatcoats to play the parts of villains or heroes, and clapped her hands in delight when she succeeded in concealing their identity.
It had been Anne, one of the young ladies from South Cave, who had remarked on the likeness. She was from a family Christopher had known when he was young and with whom he had recently become reacquainted. She was a child born to an older father and younger mother in a second marriage, just as the Harts’ children were.
‘I had thought that Beatrice was your only daughter, Mrs Hart,’ she had said confidently. ‘I was sure that Mama said you were lucky to have three sons and a daughter, whereas they only have me and no heir.’
There will be no shortage of suitors then, Melissa considered, for she will be worth a fortune. ‘I do have only one daughter, Anne,’ she told her. ‘Why do you think otherwise?’
‘Then she must be a cousin,’ the young woman went on artlessly, ‘for she is so like Charles! Maria, is it? She’s been by Beatrice’s side constantly.’
‘A neighbour’s daughter,’ Melissa said. ‘No relation whatsoever. Will you excuse me?’
She had seen that Stephen had sought Maria out and was taking her to the anteroom where the supper table had been laid, and she was filled with a sudden misgiving. The evening had been deliberately informal so that the young people could come and go as they pleased, to the supper room, or to sing by the piano or play chess or cards in the library, but now she decided to make the short announcement as planned. The party was to be the forerunner of similar events over the next few years, for although Melissa believed in love in marriage above all else, she also believed that young people should have the chance to mingle before deciding on their future life partner and to this end she had chosen the guests carefully.
She signalled to Christopher, who had kept very much in the background, disappearing into his study from time to time, and he came across to her. She picked up a silver teaspoon and tapped it gently on a crystal celery vase to bring everyone back into the drawing room.
‘I wanted to say how very pleased we are to see you all, and trust you are enjoying yourselves. Beatrice and Charles are today celebrating their sixteenth birthday, a time that bridges the line between childhood and adulthood, and we hope that today you will have made lasting friendships.
‘We also wanted to tell you that in January, Beatrice will be going away to school in Harrogate, which will prepare her for finishing school in Switzerland.’
Delighted applause broke out from some of the young ladies, and then Christopher spoke up.
‘Charles will continue at school in York,’ he said, ‘and then go on to university, after which I sincerely hope he will join me in running the Hart Holme estate. With three sons,’ he joked, ‘I will soon be able to retire.’
Daniel glanced at Charles from across the room. Charles caught his eye and gave him a negative look, and Daniel realized that Charles’s father had no idea that his son wanted to travel first. As for Beatrice, he thought that a few feathers might fly in Switzerland if any attempts were made to turn her into a lady. He saw her looking his way and couldn’t read anything into her expression, but he grinned at her and put his thumb up.
She came over to him when the speeches were finished. ‘What was that supposed to mean?’ She put up her own thumb. ‘Will you be pleased to see me go away?’
‘No!’ he protested. ‘Of course not, but I suppose it’s what you want.’
‘I told them I was bored,’ she said petulantly. ‘I’d grumbled about still having a governess and so Mama said I ought
to see some of the world and she sent off to Switzerland for a prospectus. But where are you going, Daniel? I heard Charles say he was going somewhere with you.’
‘Oh, it was nothing,’ he said. ‘One of Charles’s pals was being stupid and asked if I was going back to Rome; he called me a plebeian. I think he thought I didn’t know what it meant, so I told him that yes, I was going there.’
‘To Rome?’ she said breathlessly. ‘Oh, Daniel!’
He shrugged. ‘I only said it to shut him up, but then I thought that perhaps I might. Not to Rome especially, but somewhere,’ he added. ‘When I’ve given it some thought.’
‘But that will ruin my plan,’ she said.
Daniel raised his eyebrows. ‘Surely whatever you’re planning, Beatrice, it won’t mek any difference where I am?’
Her cheeks turned pink. ‘It might, and you know that Papa won’t let Charles go with you.’
‘I never supposed that he would,’ he said drily. ‘It was Charles who said he was coming with me, and I only mentioned it to score over that toffee-nosed idiot Hanson. It wasn’t something I’d really thought about.’ Although, he realized, I suppose the idea was planted in my mind a long time ago.
‘So you might not?’ Beatrice persisted. ‘You might still be here when I come home again?’
Daniel gazed at her curiously. She seemed to be held in suspense, not full of bounce and vigour as she usually was but waiting expectantly for his answer.
‘Will it matter if I am or not?’ he hedged, and wondered why it should. Their lives were not intertwined; whatever one of them did would not make any difference to the other. They had been childhood friends but they were from different worlds; that much was becoming more apparent as they grew older. Sooner or later their paths would separate, and thinking of that made him feel quite melancholy.
‘It will matter to me,’ she said quietly. ‘But seemingly not to you.’
It was as if she had suddenly become older than her years and he wondered why. He thought that he liked the old capricious Beatrice, the girl who was full of energy and wild foolish ideas, better than the solemn one in front of him now. Was this what happened with young girls? Would Maria and Dolly and Elizabeth change when they reached sixteen? Was this womanhood? Perhaps he should ask his mother, for surely she would know.
‘I don’t understand what you mean, Beatrice,’ he said, and she turned her back on him and walked away.
Christopher Hart broke off from speaking to the young men from Charles’s school and sought out his wife, who was watching the proceedings rather pensively, he thought.
‘Melissa,’ he said, ‘everything seems to be going splendidly. I think you and I could slip away to my study and enjoy a quiet brandy.’
‘I think you have had one or two already,’ she remarked, and glanced around at the young people, who seemed to have formed themselves into groups of compatibility. The schoolboys were hovering on the edge of the young ladies’ circle, except for one who was in conversation with Daniel Tuke.
Christopher had questioned Charles’s insistence that Daniel should be invited, pointing out that although he was an old friend he might feel out of his depth; but Beatrice had also wanted him to come and had suggested that they ask his sister so that together they’d be more comfortable. But I was wrong, he thought. He’s perfectly at ease.
Melissa was looking about her to make sure that no one was alone or not mixing with the others, and she noticed that Maria Tuke and Stephen had disappeared once more into the supper room. She bit on her lower lip. I’m being foolish, she thought. They are still children, and Stephen will be going back to school in January. But still, there was an anxiety in her mind that she couldn’t dispel.
Christopher poured her a brandy, adding a little soda water as she requested, and sat down in his favourite leather chair opposite her. He sighed.
‘I suppose this was a good idea? Mixing and getting to know the sons and daughters of families in our circle?’
‘I think so,’ she said. ‘It was how you met Jane, wasn’t it?’
‘Mm, yes, a similar way, that’s true,’ he mused, swirling his brandy in the glass. ‘Except that my parents had already earmarked several possibilities.’
He smiled, and Melissa thought that he was still very handsome, although he’d been looking rather tired lately. She thought, rather sadly, that there was little possibility of her having any more children, and she would dearly have liked another daughter. But I’ve given him three sons, she told herself, and he’s pleased about that.
He lifted his head and continued, laughing, ‘My father looked at their income and my mother at the suitability of the daughters.’
‘Well, it does work quite well, I suppose,’ Melissa agreed, ‘and although I didn’t realize it at the time, I dare say my parents arranged that I should meet Albert, even though we were very young.’ As Beatrice and Charles are now, she reflected. But Albert died of influenza before they could marry, and it was a chance meeting with Christopher several years later, after he was widowed, that drew them together, for love rather than convenience.
Her thoughts ran back to their guests, to the young men and women who might be attracted to someone here tonight and so begin the precarious process of courtship. Enquiries would be made; families and fortunes would be looked into to assess their quality and durability. Again her thoughts ran back to Stephen and Maria. She must, for her own peace of mind, put a stop to any developing friendship.
Casually, she remarked, ‘Daniel Tuke and his sister Maria are mingling very well. It seems your fears that they would be ill at ease were unfounded.’ She took a sip of brandy. ‘Tell me again, darling, because I forget the detail, how did you come to meet their grandmother, Ellen Tuke?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Maria couldn’t wait to tell her mother about the party. She’d given her father a potted version of it as they drove home, but he seemed to be rather sleepy. He was usually in bed by this time, and she didn’t think he was listening.
Harriet had waited up for them although she was ready for bed and in her nightgown, with a warm shawl round her shoulders and her hair hanging down her back.
‘Oh, Ma,’ Maria burst out as soon as they went into the kitchen, where her mother was making hot drinks for them. ‘I’m so pleased that I was persuaded to go. It’s been lovely. I’d such a good time. We had lots to eat, didn’t we, Daniel, and I tried some fruit punch, and although I didn’t play any games I helped with ’dressing up.’
‘And spent time with Stephen Hart,’ Daniel grinned. ‘Don’t forget that, will you?’ He shook a finger at Maria, and turning to his mother joked, ‘You’ll have to watch her, Ma or she’ll be ’lady of the manor afore you know it!’
Harriet turned sharply. ‘What! What do you mean?’
Maria blushed. ‘He’s being silly.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Stephen hadn’t wanted to be at ’party either, or play games, and so we talked about what we did like to do. He wants to farm. He doesn’t want to go to university after he’s finished school but his father expects him to.’
Harriet exchanged glances with Fletcher, then, looking at her daughter’s glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, said softly, ‘Don’t get any ideas above your station, Maria. His parents will have mapped out his future and it won’t include you.’
Daniel protested. ‘That’s a bit unfair, isn’t it? If Stephen—’
Fletcher cut in. ‘It might be unfair, but that’s ’way it is. We’re all equal, but there’re some who are more equal than others. I’ll tek my drink upstairs, Harriet.’
Harriet handed him his mug of cocoa. ‘I’m coming up too. Turn ’lamp down whoever’s last to bed.’
Daniel finished his drink. ‘I’m going up, Maria. Are you staying?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m going to sit by ’fire for a bit. I’ll see to ’lamp.’
She sat by the banked-down fire and cradled her cup between her hands. Of course Daniel was only joking, but why had her mother
been so swift and negative, and then her father, rebutting any suggestion of friendship between her and Stephen? They had only had a friendly talk, which she had found quite easy, and she hadn’t been shy with him, which she often was with people she didn’t know very well. But he was down to earth, she thought; quite ordinary, and unlike Charles who, although he treated her kindly, always seemed superior.
She gave a little smile as she thought of the moment when her father had arrived to fetch them home and Daniel had come to find her. Stephen had put out his hand to say goodbye, and as she bobbed her knee he had taken hers, and given it a little squeeze. ‘It’s been very nice to see you again, Maria,’ he had said. ‘I hadn’t realized that it had been so long since we last met. Perhaps I could call at your farm next time I’m home from school and we can talk again? Would your parents mind, do you think?’
She’d said that they wouldn’t, and then thought that maybe he wanted to talk to her father about farming and wasn’t coming to see her at all. But he had kept hold of her hand and only dropped it when he saw that Daniel was watching.
Daniel was climbing into bed in the room that he shared with Leonard, who was asleep and gently snoring, when he heard his parents talking next door.
‘You’ll have to speak to her,’ his mother was saying. ‘Ask her. If it can happen once it can happen again.’
‘Nowt can come of it.’ Fletcher’s reply was muffled. ‘Lad’s away at school for most of ’year. Besides, I don’t believe her. We know that she can lie.’
Daniel drew in a breath. Surely they weren’t speaking of Maria, who was as honest as the day was long? But then he knew they weren’t when his mother answered irritably, ‘You must tell her we need ’truth, that our children’s lives depend on it. They have three sons and we have three daughters.’
He lay on his bed thinking. They’re talking of the Harts, but who else? And why have they mentioned the Harts’ sons and not Beatrice? And why not my brothers and me? He turned over and thumped his pillow to cradle his head. Another mystery to solve.
