Wild Heritage

by Wild Heritage (retail) (epub)

  Her husband raised his dark head from the desk and said, ‘No wonder! You taught that lad all he knows about building bridges.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, he’d have succeeded in spite of me. Robbie’s very clever and still young, so he’s a long way to go. He can’t be thirty yet.’

  As he listened to them, Sydney was suddenly envious. They had purpose to their lives, goals to achieve, things to do… He wished the clock could be turned back ten years so that they were once again as they had been. But that, of course, was impossible.

  He stood up and said, ‘I see you’re busy. I only dropped in to find out when you’re going north so Bethya can write to the housekeeper at Bella Vista and tell her when you’re arriving.’

  Tim looked up from his papers and said, ‘We thought we’d go up next week. When are you going?’

  Sydney shrugged. ‘Tomorrow, the day after, next week – it depends on Bethya. She always makes such a production out of travelling.’

  A glance at his face made Emma Jane sharply aware of his aimlessness and she felt sorry that they should be so busy that they could not spend more time with him. She pushed the papers aside and said, ‘You must take lunch with us… We’re finishing now anyway…’

  Sydney knew this was a lie, so he, too, rose and said, ‘No, don’t stop. I’m on my way to see Dickie Allandale. I want to hear his news.’ As soon as he heard himself say it, he knew that he’d made a dangerous decision, as if he’d turned a corner and landed himself in a thick and menacing forest but, being Sydney, he would not back out.

  Allandale House was a huge grey mansion overlooking Piccadilly. The old door-keeper knew Sydney and allowed him to pass into a cobbled semi-circular courtyard where another uniformed flunkey stood guarding the door. Once past him, the next obstacle was the butler, who directed the caller into an ante-room and said, ‘I will enquire if His Grace is receiving.’

  At last he was shown into the presence of his friend, who was drinking chocolate in a small parlour overlooking the road. ‘My God it’s easier to get into the Bank of England than see you,’ laughed Sydney, throwing himself down in an easy chair.

  Allandale, whose long solemn face and lugubrious air belied his raffish character, laughed back. ‘Good to see you, Godders. The servants are careful because there’s a lot of people I want to keep out. The butler didn’t know you’re not one of them.’

  ‘Who do you close the door against?’ asked Sydney curiously.

  ‘Clerics and creditors mostly, chaps with bills.’

  ‘Ah, the curse of the upper classes – chaps with bills. Get many of them, do you?’

  ‘I get my share. If they don’t stop, I’ll have to go looking for an heiress to marry to give the bank balance a boost. I hear old Anstruther left your wife a cool half-million.’

  ‘I didn’t marry her for her money,’ Sydney protested stiffly, for this was a sore point with him.

  ‘But old Anstruther was always susceptible to a pretty face. Half a million’s a lot. It’ll pay the bills. And I hear you’ve been doing a bit of gambling recently,’ said Allandale.

  ‘I’d never touch Bethya’s money,’ said Sydney defensively.

  ‘My dear chap, if husbands couldn’t touch their wives’ money, there’d be a lot of marriages that never happened. Don’t be so pious, it’s not like you,’ drawled the duke.

  Sydney was looking out of the window at the traffic rolling and jostling along the wide street. ‘Where are you going to find your rich heiress?’ he asked.

  ‘Perhaps America. There’s serious money there now and some successful businessman in pork sides or railway sleepers would be flattered to have a duke in the family. I’m surveying that market at the moment.’

  ‘It all sounds very clinical. If you get married, what’ll you do about Miss Beresford?’ asked Sydney, still staring out of the window.

  Allandale laughed. ‘So you’ve seen Lucy? Quite a trophy, isn’t she? Half of London’s mad about her.’ Lie sounded like a man who possessed a particularly fine horse and enjoyed showing it off.

  ‘She’s a good-looking girl,’ agreed Sydney. ‘I saw her in the Row the other day but I guessed you were strapped for cash because that isn’t much of a horse you’ve mounted her on. Surely you could find her something better?’

  His friend protested, ‘But she likes them flashy. The more they prance about, the better she’s pleased. She doesn’t care if they’re light in the bone as long as they’re skittish.’

  Sydney shrugged. ‘Pity. She deserves better. Aren’t you worried that some other man will snap her up when she hears you’re heiress-hunting?’

  Allandale was not worried. ‘Lucy’s more than capable of looking after herself. I suspect she’s surveying the market too at the moment because she’s not one to stay with a fellow till the bailiffs come round. You’re uncommonly interested in her. You’re not in competition with me, are you?’

  Sydney turned round from the window and laughed. ‘If I was, would I tell you, Dickie?’

  On leaving his friend, he walked the short distance to his club where he took a few hands of cards and heard the gossip, in which Lucy Beresford figured. He found out that she lived in Curzon Street and her household bills were crippling Allandale.

  Though Sydney’s route home to Berkeley Square did not go by Curzon Street, he found himself walking along it at about four o’clock that afternoon and scrutinising the houses with a curious eye. Lucy Beresford lived at number eight, which turned out to be a smartly painted, discreet double-fronted house. A handsome young footman in livery guarded the door.

  Sydney strolled past, swinging his cane and inwardly laughing. If I was Dickie, I’d be worried about that footman, he thought.

  When he reached his own home, he found it in chaos with servants running here and there and Bethya issuing orders in her most unguarded half-caste voice.

  He groaned because he knew that this was only the start of the complicated preparations that always overtook their household when they travelled. The arrangements for going to Bella Vista were commencing.

  When he saw Bethya, her face was white and strained but there was no point in trying to calm her. She’d be in a state until they were safely settled at the other end – and then it would all start again when they prepared to return to London.

  Events took un unexpected turn, however, because when they were at dinner, she suddenly gave a groan and slumped forward in her chair. Sydney, who was short-tempered with her, thought at first that she was playing for sympathy, but a close look at her pallid face convinced him this was no game. When he crossed from his place, she told him through gritted teeth, ‘Something’s happened to the baby… I’m losing it.’

  She was carried to bed and a doctor summoned. Before midnight she miscarried and the grim-faced doctor told Sydney, ‘Your wife is not a strong woman. She will require a great deal of care and consideration for some time if she is to be restored to full health. I would not advise another pregnancy for at least a year.’

  Contrite and deeply concerned, Sydney stayed with her all next day. Their travelling plans were cancelled and he sent a note to Tim and Emma Jane telling them what had happened but insisting that they did not delay their departure. They were to stay in Bella Vista for as long as they liked.

  When they protested he sent another note saying that Bethya was almost recovered and the Maquires would offend both him and his wife if they did not travel north as had been planned.

  For their journey to Scotland Sir Timothy and Lady Maquire chose a train that would allow them to cross Camptounfoot bridge in daylight. As it drew near after ten hours of travelling, they jumped from their seats and stuck their heads out of the carriage window, straining their eyes in an attempt to see what lay ahead, recognising landmarks and exclaiming to each other like excited children… ‘There’s Falconwood, there’s Camptounfoot, it’ll come into view any minute now.’

  At last the bridge could be seen rising over the river, a series of thin and
elegant arches built of rose-red brick. It seemed to soar in the air like a graceful flight of birds. The excited pair in the train held hands and gasped, ‘Isn’t it wonderful, isn’t it lovely!’ while the nanny, whom they had brought with them to look after Christopher, wondered about their sanity.

  Emma Jane and Tim did not even notice that she was upset. They were like children when they alighted from the train at Rosewell station, where a fine barouche was waiting.

  As she settled into it, Emma Jane asked her husband, ‘Is there somewhere you’d like to go before Bella Vista, my dear?’

  He nodded. ‘I’d like to visit the abbey, but you take Christopher to Bella Vista and I’ll walk up.’

  No explanations were necessary, for Emma Jane knew that her husband wanted to pay his respects at the grave of his first wife Hannah and their infant daughter Kate, who were buried in the abbey grounds. She patted his hand when he climbed down from the carriage and opened the iron gate into the abbey burying-ground. Its rusty creaking awakened a store of old memories for him.

  He remembered carrying the bodies of Hannah and the baby down from the navvy camp – Sydney had shared the load with him. He remembered going to dig up an old Roman stone to mark their grave and Sydney had been there then too. His grief at that time had been terrible. It had burned within him like a raging fire and he’d thought that he would never recover, but here he was eleven years later, happy again, remarried to Emma Jane and a father once more.

  The cholera mound where Hannah lay was covered with soft grass spangled with daisies. The white stone he’d put up at one end glittered in the fading sunlight, tilting slightly askew so that the figures carved on it looked as if they were walking downhill into the grave.

  He passed a hand over its worn surface and whispered, ‘Hannah, Kate, I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll never forget you.’ But he hoped they knew that he had learned a great lesson: that love never ended, that it was unquantifiable and ever-expanding. He loved Hannah but he loved Emma Jane too. He was a very lucky and a very happy man.

  He let the peace of the ancient burial ground fill him before he took the Prior’s Walk to Camptounfoot. Every step of the path was familiar; every stone, every projecting tree root. The silver surface of the river glittering up at him from between its fringe of trees brought back memories of the times he’d walked it before.

  When he reached Camptounfoot, some women standing in their open doorways recognised him, though they would have been little more than children when he was building the bridge at the end of their village. They nodded in his direction and said, ‘Grand day,’ as if he’d never been away.

  He was glad that he was acknowledged because there had been a time when he was met with averted faces as one of the feared navvy gang.

  He had deliberately not warned Tibbie to expect him, for he knew it would start her on an orgy of cooking and cleaning. Anyway, what he liked was to walk in on her and find her in her workaday apron with the cat sleeping on the chair.

  Her front door was unlocked. He turned the handle slowly and tiptoed inside. The kitchen was dim and shadowy though the sun was still shining outside, and Tibbie was dozing in her wooden chair. Yes, the cat was in her lap.

  Tim stood quietly in the doorway looking round the room. A drawing of Hannah in a maplewood frame occupied the middle of the mantelpiece; Bonaparte the parrot slumbered peacefully in its cage; a brightly coloured rag rug was spread out before the fire and a black kettle steamed gently on the hob. An immense feeling of belonging filled him.

  He made a little knocking sound on the wood of the door with his knuckles and Tibbie started up, blinking, before she cried out, ‘Oh, Tim lad, oh, Tim, I didn’t know you were coming. I’m that glad to see you!’

  She held out her arms and he went over to her, kneeling by the chair like a child to accept her embrace.

  ‘It’s grand to see you, Tim. You’re looking awfy grand, sort of lordly,’ she told him.

  He laughed. His surprise was not spoiled. ‘That’s good. It must be because they’ve made me a Sir. Haven’t you heard?’

  She gasped, ‘Made you a Sir! Oh my word, Emma Jane must be a Lady. Isn’t that wonderful? Why did they make you a Sir, Tim?’

  ‘I think Sydney arranged it.’

  ‘They couldn’t give it to a better man,’ said Tibbie loyally.

  He did not stay long.

  ‘I’ll have to get up to Bella Vista now. Emma Jane and Christopher went on ahead and she’ll be wondering where I am. What about walking up to the big house with me?’ he asked but she shook her head.

  ‘Oh no, I’m longing to see your bairn but I couldn’t do that!’ She sounded shocked at the very idea.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s a grand house. I’ve never been in it. I wouldn’t feel right. Besides I’ve got Marie coming in for her tea soon. She went into Rosewell for a message for me.’

  She was glad to have a definite reason for not venturing into the vast mansion that loomed up behind the village.

  ‘Who’s Marie?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you remember my friend Nanny Rush who ran the dame school in Rosewell?’

  He nodded. ‘I remember her. She looked after Mariotta’s children when their mother died.’

  ‘Marie’s one of them. Nanny died and she’s come to me. David, the laddie, is working in Maddiston and only comes back on Sundays, but Marie’s at school and lives here.’

  Tim stared at her, not entirely without disquiet. ‘You’ve got Mariotta’s children! How have they turned out?’

  She shot him a sharp look and said, ‘Nanny brought them up well. They’re good bairns. David’s a bit reserved but Marie’s a sweet lassie and clever too. She can draw the loveliest pictures. She’s settled down here well and she’s made a friend, Kitty from over the road.

  He rose, grabbed his hat and said, ‘I’m glad they’ve turned out well. Who’s Kitty?’

  ‘Wee Lily’s bairn, the one she had after that Bullhead attacked her…’

  Tim raised his eyebrows in surprise and said, ‘And these two girls are friends? There’s a coincidence for you! But I’d have thought Wee Lily’s baby would have gone to a foundling home long ago.’

  ‘Big Lily wanted her to give it up but she wouldn’t. It might have been better if she had because the bairn’s got a hard life and not much to look forward to except giving birth to another bondager’s bastard in her turn. Life goes on like the seasons for folk like that and they have to make the best of it.’

  Tim sighed. ‘I expect you’re right.’

  On his way to Bella Vista, he passed the corner by the village shop, where a red-headed child was sitting on a stone jutting out of a grass bank. There was not a doubt in his mind that this was Wee Lily’s child, for the most obvious thing about her was a recognisable inheritance from her father, whom Tim had cordially hated. She had his fiery hair.

  This child was watching him curiously and smiled when he walked by. He smiled back, for her impish appearance amused him.

  Kitty knew who he was too and when he drew level with her, she hopped off the stone to ask, ‘Your name’s Mr Maquire, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ She obviously hadn’t heard about the Sir either.

  ‘You were one of the navvies working on the big bridge, weren’t you?’ she persisted, walking along with him and stared up at his great height with open admiration.

  ‘Yes, I was, but that was before you were born.’

  ‘But you’d know my dad. His name was Bullhead.’

  ‘Yes, I remember him.’ Tim’s voice became cautious.

  ‘What was he like?’ she asked. She had a secret dream that her absent father might have looked like the man beside her. Tim had a dashing, piratical air. With his thick, curling black beard and his skin tanned by working in foreign lands, he looked like a hero from a storybook romance.

  He had to search very hard for the right words. If he was to be truthful, he would have said, ‘Your father was a bully and a brute, a coward,
a drunkard, a murderer… I loathed him.’ Instead he came up with, ‘He was very strong. He was the best pulley man on any gang I ever had.’

  She was delighted. ‘What’s a pulley man?’ she asked.

  ‘He hauls big blocks of stone up on ropes. Bullhead could haul bigger blocks than anyone else, right to the top of that bridge down there.’

  ‘It’s a high bridge! He must have been strong.’

  Tim, filled with pity for this hapless by-blow of a brutal man, added, ‘Here, wait a minute, I want to give you something.’

  He carried little money with him nowadays, just a few coins rattling in his pocket to make him feel secure as they had always done in the days when he was poor. He pushed a hand in to find one and came up with it between thumb and forefinger.

  When he handed it to the girl, she looked down at the coin lying in her dirt-encrusted palm with amazement.

  ‘How much is it?’ she asked, for she’d never held a gold coin before, never even seen one, come to that.

  ‘It’s half a sovereign, ten shillings and sixpence. Take care of it. Give it to your mother,’ he told her.

  She grinned like an imp. ‘Thank you Mr Maquire, thank you very much.’

  When he walked on she was still standing looking at the coin with her fingers curled up around it. She was so pleased that she could have eaten it. The wonderful Tim Maquire, the hero with the black beard and gleaming smile, had given her half a sovereign.

  He must have liked her father. Maybe Bullhead wasn’t as bad as everyone said after all.

  There was no question of giving the money to Wee Lily because her mother would immediately pass it on to Big Lily. She’d have to hide it, and keep it until the day when she could spend it to good advantage. But where would it be safe?

  With the coin clutched tight in her hand she walked up the road pondering the question. The hiding-place would have to be where there was no danger of Big Lily coming across it, so the farm buildings were out.