Golden Barrier

by Mira Stables

  “Whereas if the poor little wretch had been possessed of even a modest dowry, she might by now be comfortably established,” pointed out Katherine a little wearily. “Do you wonder that I detect interested motives in most of my suitors, and doubt the efficacy of my very moderate charms?”

  Lady Julia tried to persuade her that the cases were quite different, but none of her arguments succeeded in raising Katherine’s spirits. She finally abandoned them in favour of a suggestion that they should drive to the circulating library and exchange their books. Katherine, falling in with this innocuous proposal, went off to change into a carriage dress.

  Chapter Three

  Katherine arrived at Hays Park at the end of June. Her father, who spent most of his time in his country home, now that he had largely turned over his city interests to his associates, greeted her with affection and promptly took her to task for not going to Brighton with her aunt.

  “Nothing for you to do here, child,” he complained, “and well I know that it is only a sense of duty that brings you. I suppose you think I must be lonely or bored, living here in the country, and may take to fancying myself neglected; but I promise you that it’s no such thing. It’s a fascinating business, this agriculture, if you could only persuade some of its devotees that it is a business, like any other, and will show a fair profit if you practise the right methods. Will they listen? Not a jot. Everything must be done exactly as it was in their father’s day, or even in their grandfather’s. All the miracles of modern invention at their service—and do they make use of ’em? They speak of seed drills and four-coulter ploughs as though they were inventions of the Devil; and enclosing waste land or combining two or three small holdings into one larger one that can be run more economically is a black sin. The only point on which we see eye to eye is selective stock breeding. They can see the point of that, and most of them have a good eye for a beast. But what between insisting that my own men use the machines that I’ve bought, and trying to make some of my neighbours see sense, I’ve no time to mope.”

  Katherine managed to convince him that inclination rather than duty had brought her home.

  “The peace of the countryside is very refreshing after the dust and noise of London. I had no desire at all to go to Brighton, which will be just as noisy if less dusty. Besides, I wanted to consult with you—when you are less preoccupied with your new hobby.”

  Her father declared himself all attention, adding that one of the delights of country life was that most of the work could be done at a leisurely pace. “I meant to take a stroll down to the ten-acre to see how the wheat is coming on. They tell me it’s never grown wheat before, but I reckon that after the cultivation it’s had I’ll get a fair crop. Come with me if you’re not too tired, and we can talk as we go.”

  It seemed to Katherine that her father’s absorption in his new way of life would add force to her own argument. A little awkwardly at first, for she did not wish to appear ungrateful, gaining confidence as he listened patiently to her rather faltering explanation, she spoke of her growing disenchantment with the life of the frivolous society damsel.

  “Pray do not think I have been unhappy, Papa. Indeed, during the first Season I liked it very well. But the next one, and now this last one offered little variety. The same people at the same parties; the same drives in the Park or strolls through the Botanical Gardens. The Opera, the Assemblies, the Play. You will be thinking that I am above being pleased, for I had lovely clothes and the kindest of chaperones—everything that a reasonable girl could desire. And truly I am grateful for your care of me, and for your generosity. Aunt Julia explained to me that you wanted me to have all the advantages that my Mama enjoyed in her youth, and to lead the kind of life that she lead before her marriage. I think that I have done so, but I am sorry, Papa it is not enough. Perhaps I am too much your daughter. You spoke just now of people who wanted to do everything exactly as it had always been done, never making any changes, never learning anything new. And to me Society is like that. Not that I am a rebel against convention. Most of it is good and sensible, meant for one’s comfort and safety. But why should we despise people who do things—like inventing the machines that you spoke of? Why should I gloss over the fact that you are my Papa, and always speak rather of Mama’s genteel relations? I am proud of what you have achieved. I only wish that it was possible for a female to make a useful and successful life for herself. That is what I would like to do. Something useful, however small. Something that would help people. But it is difficult when you are a girl and not particularly clever; I don’t even have any talent that I could develop. I don’t sing or paint, and my devotion to good works is, I’m ashamed to say, only tepid. It has always been easier to give money—your money—for the relief, of necessity, rather than to become personally involved. What am I to do, Papa? When I hear others speak of all that is going on in the world today. I feel that there must be a place where I could help. But where?”

  John Martenhays did not immediately rush into facile comfort. The sincerity of the appeal had touched him deeply. He felt closer to this daughter of his than he had ever done, and he understood that much as she resembled her Mama in physical appearance—the frail, slender build; the small pale face, and the big dark eyes, yet there was in her a tough, questing spirit inherited from himself. Perhaps he had done wrong to shelter and cosset her as he had tried to do. Yet, as she herself had said, what could one do with a girl? There could have been no place for her in his workaday life. It had seemed natural enough to turn to his wife’s cousin and arrange for her to supply the motherly care and the social background that the girl needed. So she had been given her schooling at a highly select academy and had taken her place in her mother’s world. It was what his wife would have wished, and by all accounts she had made a success of it. He was glad of that. It added enormously to the value of what she had just said. She was not a failure, rejecting a world that had defeated her. She had simply decided that she wanted more from life than the social round could offer. He felt the same. But he, luckily, was a man.

  Presently he said temperately, “I believe that many women find the deepest satisfaction in marriage. Making a home for a husband and children might well fulfil your desire to be of use. Naturally I am aware that you have received a number of offers of marriage. Most of the gentlemen paid me the courtesy of asking my permission to address you. Have you not found, among their number, one whom you would choose as a husband?”

  “No, Papa.” And then, since the mood seemed right for open confession, “Nor one whom I could not feel was influenced more by my expectations than by his need of me.”

  Her father nodded slowly. “I know. But don’t despair. It was not my money that prompted your Mama to accept my hand in marriage. It seems an odd thing to be saying to one’s daughter, but we truly loved one another. I met her in the most difficult circumstances. Her father was trying to raise a large loan, practically unsecured, and I had been instructed to refuse it. Which I did. Then she came in with a tray of wine and cakes; meant to sweeten me up, we always joked one another. They had only the one servant, and she had just stepped out on an errand. Your grandfather could do no less than introduce us, wanting my good will as he did, and that began it. But I was only a junior partner then, with all my way to make, so it was not the prospect of wealth that steeled her to resist all the pressure that was put upon her to send me about my business. Poverty poor as they were, her folk couldn’t reconcile themselves to her marrying into trade, though my bank could have bought them up ten times over and never noticed it. We won through in the end, she and I, and had three years of such happiness as I’ll never forget. That’s why I say don’t despair. It’s worth waiting for. And you’ll know soon enough that it’s you and not the money. If you’re my daughter, as you say, you’d soon detect a sham.”

  Katherine laughed. “It concerns me more to be able to recognise an honest man when I meet one,” she said ruefully. “I fear that my disposition is suspicious
rather than gullible. It may be a safeguard, but it adds a bitter tang to all one’s pleasure. Sometimes I wish that I could trust more readily.”

  Her father nodded thoughtfully. “Best not,” he told her. “When you’re tempted to trust, wait. Make sure. Trust, too freely given, is a sore hurt when it is betrayed. Be on good terms with people by all means. You don’t have to trust them till time brings confidence.”

  They had reached the wheat-field, and talk turned to impersonal matters as Mr. Martenhays studied the growing crop, appraising the upstanding straw, estimating the possible yield and outlining the kind of weather that he would indent for when it came to harvest time, if only the Almighty would take account of his needs. They did not revert to the former topic until they met again over the dinner table.

  Since there were only the two of them, they dined informally, Katherine ending her meal with a succulent peach from the succession houses, while her father sipped his wine.

  “This is very comfortable,” he said presently. “And don’t think I’m not very well pleased to have you at home again. But I’m afraid it will be very dull for you. I’m not much of a one for socialising, myself, and not being a hunting man I haven’t mixed over much with my neighbours. In fact,” he looked a little ashamed, “there’s been a bit of falling out amongst us. Nothing serious.” He hastened to allay any alarm that she might feel. “Just that argument gets a bit heated from time to time. I never was one to hide my teeth and maybe I’ve been a bit too outspoken, and me only a Johnny Newcome. But I never could abide stupidity. And then, too, I doubt I’ve been too successful. Most of my innovations have worked pretty well. If I’d made a few mistakes—made a fool of myself now and then, as no doubt I will, given time enough—I’d be more popular. Only, meanwhile, it’s a bit hard on you. I daresay some of the neighbours will call, once they hear that you’re back home, but there’s not so many young folk, and you’ll soon get tired of spending all your days listening to a lot of old fogies.”

  “Older people usually have something interesting to talk about,” said Katherine quietly. “Some of the younger ones are only interested in themselves. But we shall see. For the present I mean to be idle. If the weather is kind, I shall re-visit some of the haunts of my childhood. Do you realise that it is nearly ten years since I spent a long holiday at home? I shall walk with you about the fields if you will have me, and ride every day. And I am planning an orgy of reading and needlework for the wet days. You need not think that I intend to cut up all your peace by demanding parties and entertainments to keep me amused. And since you have just confessed that you are not one for socialising, you cannot scold me if I, too, prefer to live quietly.”

  Mr. Martenhays protested that the cases were very different, but she would have none of it. A quiet country holiday was just what she wanted at the moment. Time to make plans for the future. Mr. Martenhays was very dubious, but he held his peace.

  Katherine put her programme into effect from the very next day. She found the strolling walks in her father’s society, the gentle, leisurely rides, and the evenings devoted to books and sewing, and an occasional idle tinkering with the pianoforte entirely to her present taste. Insensibly she relaxed, now that she was no longer in the public eye. Her laughter came easily. Even a small joke seemed funny when shared with Papa. She settled comfortably into the slow-paced days. As Papa had predicted, some of the neighbours called. She found them, on the whole, friendly and pleasant. No one seemed to have any particular axe to grind, not even the Vicar when he spoke of the cost of repairing the roof of the nave. He obviously trusted that the Lord, assisted by his parishioners, would eventually provide. It might have seemed unfortunate that most of the visitors were middle aged, and that their families were a little younger than Katherine, but at the present stage of her affairs it did not disappoint her. She felt the need for solitude rather than the society of her compeers.

  It was in this peaceful, relaxed mood that she turned her horse’s head towards the Priory, one morning, when she had been at home about a month. She smiled a little for the memories of that long ago visit to the Dorsey home. Even the mare she was riding was a reminder. She had called her Nelly after Dermot Winfield’s mount, the first animal that she had ever ventured to fondle. She had not forgotten Mr. Winfield, either, though she had never met him again. Emma Dorsey had mentioned him once or twice, rather contemptuously, as a poor relation who spent his holidays with them because his parents were abroad. Then Emma had left school, and the brief contact was broken. But ten years had brought vast changes to the Priory. Scraps of information had reached Katherine’s ears from time to time after she had been launched into Society. There had been Emma’s marriage, at the age of eighteen, to a wealthy merchant old enough to be her father. There had been the death of Lord Thomas from wounds received in a duel—a duel which, in one of his drunken, bullying moods, he had forced upon an inexperienced-seeming stripling. It was unfortunate for Thomas that the stripling chanced to be a skilled exponent of the small sword. Thomas’s blustering style was quite outmatched, and it was only thanks to his opponent’s generosity that he was not killed. A pity, then, that this generosity was brought to naught by Thomas’s subsequent behaviour. Having lost a deal of blood, he proceeded to drink himself into a stupor. Recovering slightly, feverish and uncomfortable, he refused to have a surgeon tend his wounds. There was no one to make him yield to proper treatment, and he sought relief from his increasing pain in the brandy bottle. When his ramblings, half drunken, half delirious, frightened his man into sending for the doctor, it was already too late.

  The old Earl had not long survived his son and heir. The Countess had gone to live with her married daughter, and it was generally understood that the estate would have to be sold up, so desperate was the state of the Earl’s finances.

  That had not happened. Somehow, the poor relation, Dermot Winfield, had bought up mortgages, sold timber and one or two outlying fields, and was eking out a hand to mouth existence in the bailiff’s cottage. The Priory itself was reduced to a skeleton staff, most of them too old to seek employment elsewhere, kept on by their employer’s humanity, but few of them capable of a full day’s work. Every one said that young Winfield was mad to sink his modest inheritance in attempting to bring such a decayed place into proper shape. It was not even as though he stood to inherit the title, he being descended from the Dorseys on the distaff side, through his mother, Lady Frances Dorsey, who had married a military man, a mere commoner.

  The mere commoner had known how to hold household. He had left his son in a position to safeguard his mother’s comfort until her tragically early death, and also to launch out, however precariously, on the restoration of the Priory estate.

  Katherine was seized by a sudden whim to re-visit the place. She had no desire to meet Mr. Winfield—doubted if she would even recognise him—but there might be a gardener or a caretaker of some kind, who would admit to her to the grounds—perhaps even to the house itself. Such behaviour was commonplace when a house held any architectural or historic interest. A handsome tip to the servant who did the honours, and everything was made smooth. She assured herself that her purse was in the pocket of her habit, and rode down the lane to the main gate.

  Chapter Four

  “I remember you now, Hilda. Pray forgive me for not recognising you at once. You used to be one of the abigails at Hays Park when I was a little girl.”

  “That’s it, Miss Katherine. ‘Bout seven you would be when I left. Small wonder that you didn’t remember me. I took a post as housekeeper to his late Lordship and the Countess, and thought I was bettering myself.”

  It was a flat statement. The listener was left to draw her own conclusions, until the housekeeper added another piece of information. “Mind, it was through coming to the Priory that I met Armstrong, so maybe it was all for the best, for he’s a kind husband and a good worker. Mrs. Armstrong I am now, and my husband used to be the estate carpenter. He still does all that has to be done in his o
wn line, but nowadays we’ve all got to turn our hands to any job that needs doing. I’m sure I never thought to go back to polishing furniture, and even helping out in the kitchen at a pinch. But with so much to be done and so few of us to do it, not to mention the way Mr. Winfield is always there where the work’s heaviest and hardest, you don’t fancy standing on your rights and saying it’s no part of your job.”

  Katherine was intrigued. She said politely, “It is very good of you to take time to show me about when you are so busy.”

  Her groom had found an ancient gardener who had assured them that it would be quite in order for them to see over the house and gardens—“such as they are”—and added that he would undertake to keep an eye on the horses. He had then handed them over to the housekeeper, who had turned out to be an old friend.

  “I’m afraid there’s little enough to see,” she said now. “Everything in the principal rooms is under holland covers. The main staircase is thought to be very fine and the carvings that adorn the library fireplaces are much admired. But it is all sadly neglected, miss. Indeed I’m ashamed that you should see it as it is, and me responsible for it. If only I had half a dozen strong young girls, or even a sturdy footman or two. But the master says that the land must come first. All his prosperity depends on that. The house must wait its turn—and the roof leaking in fifty different places, according to which way the wind blows. Small wonder that the tapestries are mouldering away and the panelling grey with damp.”