A Strange Likeness

by Paula Marshall

‘Know everything, don’t you?’

  ‘No, but I know that. Well?’

  ‘Now? You’ll make me choose now?’

  ‘You brought yourself to this, not I.’

  ‘Must he go?’ asked Eleanor, her face white. ‘He’s always lived here. He loves the country.’

  Her eyes dropped beneath Alan’s steady stare. ‘Yes, you’re right. Oh, dear, Nat, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No you’re not!’ Nat flung at her. ‘You stopped being sorry for me long ago. I’ve no choice,’ he said. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘Then pack today,’ said Alan. ‘Tell the girl to pack, too—if that is what you want. You’ll leave tomorrow. Come to me after breakfast and I’ll tell you where to go.’

  ‘Tomorrow! So soon… Sir Hartley…’ Nat stopped, his head hanging.

  ‘He’ll let you go if I ask him,’ said Alan.

  Nat gave him one last look, then walked away, picking up the bucket as he went.

  ‘Be ready to leave by twelve o’clock, sharp,’ said Alan to his back.

  Eleanor said nothing, merely stared at Alan. He put out his hand, touched her shoulder gently and steered her out of the yard to the small herb garden nearby, where they were screened from the house. He helped her to a bench and sat down beside her.

  ‘Where are you sending them?’ she asked numbly, still shocked.

  ‘Outhwaite’s. They’re undermanned. They need someone in the yard to help with the horses and the wagons. He’ll be paid more than he is here, and there are prospects for a likely lad. Hargreaves says that he is a good worker.’

  ‘Oh, Alan, he’ll hate Bradford. He loves the country so. Oh, it’s my fault, all my fault.’ She began to cry.

  ‘Eleanor, look at me. I’ve known what was wrong with him ever since I first came here. I’ve seen him watching you, and the way in which he watches you. He watches me, too. His girl is expecting his child—it’s better that they go.’

  ‘How do you know such things?’ she cried passionately into her handkerchief. ‘You frighten me at times.’

  ‘Eleanor, I often don’t know how I know. But I notice and think.’

  ‘And I don’t—or not enough—although I’m getting better. It’s my fault. I wouldn’t give him up when the boys left. Sir Hart warned me about him, and so did Mother. I never heeded them then, I was so blind. When I came back I knew that I’d been unfair to him, but I had no notion that he… Believe me, I have never encouraged him in any way at any time—although he must have thought that I did.’

  ‘I know that, dear Eleanor. It’s not your fault,’ he told her, his voice kind.

  She had been so unawakened then, but not now, Alan thought, not now.

  To comfort her he put a brotherly arm around her. She wailed into his chest, ‘Oh, I have made such mistakes…’

  ‘We all do,’ he told her. ‘If it’s any comfort I’ve made dreadful mistakes because I take dreadful risks.’

  Her sobbing gradually grew less. Finally, when the noise from the House signalled that the day there was beginning, she said soberly, ‘Oh, Alan, I’m so sorry. I’ve kept you from your sparring with Ralf this morning.’

  He smiled at her. ‘So you know about that?’

  ‘Nat told me,’ she said. ‘It’s one of the things you do which he seems to dislike most. You will be careful, won’t you?’

  Alan debated what to say. He had no desire to tell her the truth, that when he was about eighteen a boxer, an ex-champion transported for theft, had told his father that he could make a champion of him.

  ‘Brains and strength, Mester Dilhorne, and cunning, too. What more could you want? Let me train him.’

  ‘Only for pleasure,’ his father had said. ‘I’m not having his brains knocked out.’

  He had never really wanted to be a pugilist, and to tell her of this would simply add one more page to the tale of his oddity in England. As he so often did, he came out with a half-truth.

  ‘Oh, no fear of my getting hurt. I’m only a gentleman amateur and Ralf is a real bruiser who once fought for money. He knows how to treat me so that he doesn’t spoil my pretty face. I only spar to keep myself in trim. I’m big, you see, and I like my food. I don’t want to end up fat and heavy; that would never do.’

  Ned will get fat, Eleanor thought suddenly. He’s soft, eats and drinks too much and is already putting on weight. The thought depressed her and she began to shiver again.

  Alan thought that she needed comforting. Perhaps a few gentle kisses would help, if he could keep them gentle. He began experimenting—to find Eleanor responding so enthusiastically that the kisses became more and more ardent.

  Fortunately—or unfortunately—they heard footsteps approaching and broke away. By the time that Ned appeared they were sitting decorously side by side.

  ‘So this is where you’ve got to, Alan.’ He looked severely at Eleanor. ‘I went to see him spar with Ralf, and instead I find him sitting mooning about with you.’

  Alan rose to his feet. ‘No sparring today, Ned, I’m hungry.’ He helped Eleanor to rise and they walked back to breakfast together, Ned still complaining about his lost entertainment.

  Sir Hart was waiting in his study for young Dilhorne. The young man had asked to speak to him after breakfast on a matter of business. The study was next door to and opened out of the library, which was one of the glories of the House. Above the thousands of books ranged behind gold lattices there was a Van Dyck painting of the first Baronet, Sir Beverley Hatton, and his family, surrounded by dogs and horses: Temple Hatton House and the moorland beyond it were dim in the background. Opposite to it was a Tudor fireplace ornately decorated with the arms of all the noble families in the district.

  The study, however, was a small jewel, not a large one. No family portraits hung there, and the books were all severely practical, relating to the running of the estate and Sir Hart’s time in Parliament. Only a Turner oil of the House, done when he had come North, glowed against the dark, oak-panelled wall.

  Sir Hart was wondering what young Dilhorne wanted. There was an estate ledger on the desk before him, an old one of sixty years before, open at a page which he had stared at a thousand times until thirty years ago he had closed it and put it away for ever.

  On the night of Alan’s arrival he had fetched it out and stared at it again.

  Sir Hart closed the book, but left it on his desk, for once irresolute. There was a knock on the door. He called, ‘Enter,’ and the young man came in. His handsome face, so apparently open and innocent, but which was no mirror of the devious mind behind it, bore the stamp of worry. He looked briefly around the room, his eye caught by the Turner, before he spoke.

  ‘I am sorry to trouble you, sir, but I have a favour to ask of you.’

  Sir Hart made a slight movement of his right hand which Alan took as a signal to continue.

  ‘It is about the young stable hand, Sir Hartley, Nat Swain. He seems to be a good worker and I have an opening for such a one at Outhwaite’s. I am sure that he would do well there, but I should not like to invite him to leave here without asking your permission first.’

  Sir Hart looked sharply at him. ‘It is he whom you particularly want?’

  ‘Indeed—and I need him immediately. I would wish him to leave tomorrow, if possible.’

  ‘Tomorrow? You are sure that it is necessary for him to go from here?’

  Alan looked the old man full in the eye. ‘Most necessary, I do assure you.’ He hesitated. ‘I told him that you would not stand in his way.’

  ‘I understand you fully, sir. I wish that I did not. Yes, he may go to Outhwaite’s. That is, if he consents. Does he consent?’

  ‘Oh, yes, indeed. I took the liberty of speaking to him first, but said that it depended on you.’

  Sir Hart sighed. His right hand reached out and stroked the old ledger. ‘You are devious, young man.’

  ‘So I believe, sir. I cannot help it. I am like my father.’

  ‘And Ned is like his,’ sighed Sir Hart. ‘
You admire my room, sir?’

  ‘I admire the whole House. We have nothing like it at home, although my father’s home is exceptional in its own way. His treasures are all from the Far East, however.’

  ‘Indeed. He sounds an interesting man.’

  ‘Yes, but devious, sir. We all are. It is our nature.’

  ‘We cannot help our natures,’ said Sir Hart heavily, ‘but we can control them if we are so minded.’

  ‘That is true. I may speak to Nat Swain, then?’

  ‘By all means. The thing is done. I shall speak to Hargreaves immediately. He will need to train another lad.’ He sighed again. ‘I have been remiss in doing nothing about young Swain. You have done my work for me.’

  Before Alan could answer him he said, ‘You are enjoying your stay in Yorkshire, I believe?’

  ‘Very much. The wild beauty of the countryside appeals to me. But I like Bradford, too. That is where the future lies.’

  ‘And here we are living in the past. I take your meaning, sir.’ Sir Hart looked out of the window. ‘It may be beautiful now, but it is grim in winter on the moors. Wild and desolate. I would have liked Turner to see it then.’ He waved a hand at the landscape which had caught Alan’s eye.

  ‘A strange man, the painter. I suspect that my father would not have had him in the House. But then, there were many whom Sir Beauchamp would not have admitted to his company.’

  There was an odd, bitter note in his voice. He looked away and said, ‘We are not all fortunate in our fathers sir. Ned, for example. But perhaps we’re not all fortunate in our sons, either.’

  He moved his hand dismissively. ‘Well, I am pleased that you are happy here. Ned said that you were good for him, and for once he is right. I wish that he had gone with you.’

  ‘He would not have enjoyed himself, I fear.’

  ‘True, true.’ Sir Hart looked at the young man before him and did not wish to send him away.

  ‘You have seen the picture gallery, Mr Dilhorne?’

  Alan wondered why the old man had suddenly spoken his name. He had so far avoided doing so.

  ‘Only in passing, sir, not in detail.’

  ‘And Ned knows nothing of it, I fear. Come.’

  Together they walked the long gallery, whose windows opened on to the moors. The facing wall was hung with a collection of works which would have graced a palace. Prominent among them were the Hatton family portraits, nearly all painted by the great names of their day.

  ‘Here is Sir Berkeley Hatton, our founder. He built most of the Tudor part of the House. He was a nobody, although the family claims that he was related to Sir Christopher Hatton, Queen Bess’s minister. His name was not Berkeley, it was William. It wasn’t Hatton either: it was Clark. I suppose that his real name wasn’t grand enough for such a thruster. Another devious gentleman, Berkeley.’

  Berkeley Hatton had the sandy hair and the brilliant blue eyes which appeared and reappeared in the painted faces of the male Hattons.

  ‘Here is another thruster, the first Baronet, Beverley. You see, we go in for pompous names. He made us uncommonly rich—he was even more devious than Berkeley, and bought his title from James I. Blacks and molasses, drink and corruption were what he dealt in. We were not always gentlemen.

  ‘Here, sir, is our Titian, the glory of the collection. Sir Beverley acquired it. They say that when his agent brought it from Venice he stared at it and said, “My God, it’s a deal of money for a bit of spoiled canvas, but a gentleman has to have his toys to show the world his worth”.’

  Alan laughed. ‘My father would enjoy that.’

  Together they admired Titian’s Venus, naked in a golden sunset, an adoring boy at her feet, cherubs hovering overhead, before passing on to a giant canvas, central to the room.

  A cold, proud man who shared his face with Sir Hart, Ned and Alan, gazed impersonally at them. His bright blue eyes were inimical. The star flashed on his shoulder and the Garter’s blue around his knee rivalled his eyes. He was in white Court dress, one hand on his sword. A storm gathered behind his head. Gainsborough had painted him and, despite the elegance of the feathery brushwork, he had been unable to soften the grim scorn with which Sir Beauchamp surveyed his world.

  ‘My father, Sir Beauchamp, frightened everyone,’ said Sir Hart. ‘He was such a hard man. He was in Government, too. When the French Revolution broke out in ’89 he rose in the Commons and said, “I told you nearly fourteen years ago when the Americans revolted that the old order was doomed. You would not listen then and you will not listen now, and the world is ending—even as I said it would.”’

  ‘They shouted at him, and he walked out and never returned. I did not like, nor love, my father, but he was true to his own harsh principles, which is more than you can say of many.’

  The tour ended at the far door. Sir Hart bowed to Alan and left him.

  Alan walked thoughtfully away, disturbed by what he had seen, and the old man’s showing of it to him in such detail. The repetition of the word devious, which had been earlier applied to himself, and then the showpiece painting of Sir Beauchamp had frightened him. Was Sir Hart trying to tell him something about himself?

  The morning had disappeared while he walked with Sir Hart. Ned met him on the stairs.

  ‘The old man kept you long enough,’ he grumbled. ‘And here is a fine to-do. Great-Aunt is already here, with Charles. I am to tell Sir Hart.’ He hurried along to the gallery, shouting, ‘Wait for me, Alan.’

  Alan stood, irresolute, until Ned reappeared with Sir Hart and they walked down the stairs together.

  Charles ran at him when they entered the drawing room, saying excitedly, ‘Oh, splendid, Alan, you are still here. I persuaded Grandmama to come early so that we should not miss you. Have you been doing famous things in Yorkshire? There are no railways here yet, but I should like of all things to visit a mill.’

  ‘So you shall, Charles. You shall visit my mill,’ said Alan.

  ‘Your mill? Even more famous. Perhaps you could buy a railway and then I could drive one of the trains.’

  ‘That, I fear, is a little beyond me.’

  ‘Now, Charles,’ said Almeria severely, ‘you must not trouble Mr Dilhorne too much. Besides, you forget your manners. Make your bow to your great-uncle.’

  An amused Sir Hart welcomed Charles, who exclaimed, ‘Forgive me, sir, but so few people like railways and machines. You don’t, do you?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Sir Hart, ‘but I do not boast of it, like some.’ And he looked at Ned as he spoke.

  ‘Oh, I prefer horses,’ said Ned.

  ‘Horses are all very well, but they don’t possess interesting things like pistons,’ said Charles, throwing the whole company into laughter.

  Eleanor had been standing to one side, and when the Stanton party were led away to their various rooms Alan took the opportunity to speak to her. She was still a little in shock and her eyes were brilliant in her white face.

  She answered his unspoken question. ‘Oh, yes, I am quite recovered. Ned tells me that you have spent the whole morning with Sir Hart. Was it very difficult for you?’

  ‘Not at all. He quite understood.’

  ‘You did not tell him…?’

  ‘I told him nothing. Sir Hart misses little, you know. I was so long because he wished to show me the picture gallery.’

  ‘It is beautiful, is it not? He showed you his favourites, I’ll be bound.’

  Alan smiled. ‘Yes, he showed me the Titian. The Venus is beautiful, but I prefer the living lady, Eleanor, to the painted one.’

  Her face grew rosy instantly, but she was not coy with him, did not simper.

  ‘I thank you, sir,’ she said, and then, ‘What did you think of Sir Beauchamp?’

  ‘That although I might like to have met him, I am glad that I did not. We are too alike.’

  Eleanor was aghast. ‘Oh, no! You are not at all alike. He was hateful, for all his splendid looks. Great-Aunt says that he treated Sir Hart cruelly when he
was a boy—right from being born, and then later on. For some imaginary misdemeanour—although it is difficult to imagine Sir Hart committing one—he beat him dreadfully and exiled him to France. You are not like that, Alan.’

  ‘No, but I share his ruthlessness as well as his face, Eleanor, and you must accept that. I would not hurt people, as he did, but I understand him.’

  ‘I’m glad that you only share your face with him, and not your ancestry. You are pleased that Charles has come?’

  Alan nodded. ‘Very much. With Charles and Stacy to join us we shall have some splendid times.’

  Eleanor noted ruefully that Ned’s name was missing from this list. Since reaching Yorkshire the difference between the two, from being a slight one, had developed into a gulf. Other than their face they had nothing in common. Ned was becoming impatient with Alan’s seriousness, and Alan privately deplored Ned’s frivolity, more open here because he was bored.

  The afternoon brought further surprises. Seated at tea in the green drawing room, among the Canalettos and the Guardis and the Louis Quinze furniture, the enlarged company became aware of further bustle outside. The Honourable Henrietta Hatton and Beastly Beverley had arrived.

  Beverley entered the room like a mannerless whirlwind. On seeing Alan, he blurted out, before greeting or being greeted by his grandfather, ‘So! You are still here! I hoped that you would be gone before we arrived.’

  ‘Beverley, please,’ bleated his mother. ‘Bow to Sir Hart—and you must not say such things.’

  ‘Why not? Why shouldn’t I? I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he looks at me. When I told my uncle Harry that he had Ned’s face, Uncle Harry laughed and said—’

  Before Beverley could say the unsayable Sir Hart broke into his tirade. ‘Master Hatton!’ he barked.

  For once Beverley stopped speaking, his grandfather’s voice was so fearsome.

  ‘Master Hatton, you will go to your room at once and remain there until I give you permission to return. That will be when you have learned the art of civilised intercourse. Remove him at once, Henrietta.’

  ‘I shan’t go,’ screamed Beverley, purple in the face. ‘She can’t make me.’