by Mary Mackie
‘Then I’m sorry to have troubled you, Papa. It’s really of no consequence. But you know how it is – you remember an old treasure and suddenly you can’t rest until you find it.’
‘Indeed, my love. Indeed.’
He watched her indulgently as she bent and stretched her hands to the fire. The glow from the flames drew mahogany lights from her dark ringlets while her wide skirts spread about her like the petals of a flower. Flora always made him think of flowers, soft and delicate, so easily scorched by heat and wind, so soon withered by frosts.
He didn’t fear death. What terrified him was the uncertainty of his daughter’s future without him.
A sound outside drew his attention and, glad of the distraction, he returned to the window. A dogcart bowled up the drive, bearing two men to his front door. The driver was a burly man wearing a caped greatcoat, a battered beaver hat jammed on to his head. Beside him a younger man sat wrapped in a heavy cloak. Sunlight gilded the brown curls that clustered about his ears.
Ferrers peered down at them, recognising the driver, whom he had been expecting, but too short-sighted to make out the identity of the other man.
‘Callers?’ Flora’s padded petticoats flapped heavily against her father’s calf as she joined him at the window.
‘It’s Farmer Pooley,’ he said. ‘I was expecting him to call about that foal he’s thinking of buying from us. I can’t quite see who the other man might be.’
‘Why, it’s young Mr Hamilton,’ she informed him, her voice soft with pleasure, her cheeks pinkening a little. ‘Will Hamilton. From the bank in King’s Lynn.’
‘Hamilton?’ His voice sharpened as he leaned on the sill and squinted at the pair below, feeling the tightness return behind his breastbone. What was Will Hamilton doing here? Had the bank decided not to extend credit, after all? Had they warned Pooley off from buying the foal? Dear Heaven, was the end upon him so suddenly?
‘What is it, Papa?’ Flora touched his arm, her face full of concern. ‘Aren’t you well?’
‘I’m perfectly well, my love,’ he lied. ‘You run along, now. Go and see if Narnie has found your counters yet. Later, we’ll take a cup of chocolate together.’
She reached to kiss his cheek, drawing back to give him a troubled look before obediently leaving the room. He would have to be more careful, he thought. Flora might be an innocent but she was not stupid. She must not guess how ill he was. He must protect her from that knowledge at all costs.
* * *
Flora paused on the gallery outside the library, removing the small statue and a velvet cloth which covered an oak chest. She lifted the heavy lid and knelt down, ostensibly searching among the bric-à-brac in the chest for her ivory counters while actually keeping half an eye on the stairs. She was anxious about her father, anxious to know what Will Hamilton’s unexpected visit might mean. And, though she hardly dared admit it even in her own thoughts, she was not averse to another brief meeting, in the flesh, with the young man whose apparition often walked unbidden through her dreams.
After a few minutes the butler appeared, ascending the broad stairs with George Pooley a few steps behind and Will Hamilton bringing up the rear.
He was so handsome! Unobserved, still kneeling by the chest, Flora allowed her eyes to feast on the young man. But how pale he was, pale and strained. Something was wrong! Her heart contracted with fear for her father. She had long suspected that all was not well, but he would never confide in her; besides, she could be of no practical help to him, having not brains enough to understand business matters.
Then through the slats of the banisters she caught Will Hamilton’s eye and reality drenched her in mortification. He looked through her rather than at her, clearly signalling that he had not the least interest in her as a person. Indeed, he scarcely seemed aware that she was a woman. His lack of interest confirmed her fears that she was plain and unattractive. Kingsley Doyle, her fiancé, had been the only man who had ever shown any interest in her. Now that he was dead, she knew she was destined to become an old maid. Besides which, Will Hamilton was a married man, and loyal to his wife. She was a fool to think of him.
A flush suffused her throat and face with unlovely blotches as she sprang to her feet and stood poised, hands locked in her skirts as she prepared to lift them and run. But the memory of her father’s strange unease held her there, blinking convulsively.
‘Mornin’, Miss Ferrers,’ Pooley greeted as he reached the gallery, his big beaver hat clutched to his chest as he nodded a bow.
‘Good morning, Mr Pooley,’ she replied.
‘Do you know Mr Hamilton, from King’s Lynn?’
‘Yes, I do. Good day to you, Mr Hamilton. We hadn’t expected to see you here today. Is… is something wrong?’
Will smiled thinly, his eyes bleak. ‘Wrong, Miss Ferrers? No, indeed. Unless you call it a wrong that I lost my wife last night.’
‘Oh!’ Feeling as if she had been hit in the ribs, she stared at him, colour ebbing and flowing in her face.
‘Lost a wife and gained a daughter,’ he added. ‘Would you call that fair exchange, Miss Ferrers?’
‘Now, Mr Will…’ Pooley took his arm, saying to Flora, ‘You must excuse him, Miss Ferrers, ma’am. He’s not himself. You’ll understand that he’s had a bad shock and—’
A step in the corridor presaged the arrival of a stern-faced woman in grey, who glowered at Will and Pooley. ‘Miss Flora, what are you doing here? Come away at once. Come away. And you two… Be about your business. Todd! Don’t just stand there like a lump on a log. If these gentlemen are here to see the master, announce them and be off.’
‘Yes, Miss Narborough,’ the butler replied, and made for the door of the library.
Behind him, Will sketched a bow in Flora’s direction, his expression begging her pardon for his ill manners. Her heart skipped and began to pound, so fast it made her breathless.
‘Miss Flora!’ her nurse exclaimed in outrage.
She flushed, turning away. ‘Coming, Narnie, dear.’
* * *
On Wednesday 31 January 1844, nine days after she died in childbed, Hester Mary Louise Colworth Hamilton left Weal House, in King’s Lynn, for the last time. The local newspaper reported how six sable horses, plumed and caparisoned in black, drew the hearse, and a long line of carriages followed, bearing the chief mourners, the family and close friends, and domestic servants. Along the route, many houses had their blinds drawn out of respect. Flags hung at half mast, flipping wetly in a wind that drove flurries of iced rain into the unprotected faces of people who paused to pay respects as the cortège went by.
Hooves clopping, wheels trundling on cobbled streets, the funeral procession passed out of the town by the ancient Roman South Gate, making its way the seven frost-hardened miles to Morsford, where the funeral service was held in the little country church. Afterwards, Hester was buried beside other lost Hamiltons, under the shelter of dark yews.
Standing bare-headed in a flurry of sleet, Will stared at the obscene slot, freshly dug to receive the coffin. About him his family and friends clustered, all clad in deep mourning, his mother and sister veiled like widows, his aged grandmother thin as a hawk and leaning on her stick, his older brothers and their wives nearby and, beside him, hand clutched in his, his son, Victor. His daughter had been left at home with her nursemaid; less than two weeks old, she was vulnerable to the cold. Besides, he couldn’t have borne her wailing. At Weal House it was irritating; here at Morsford it would have been intolerable.
He had himself under hard control, so hard that retaining it took all his concentration. He was unaware of his son’s growing discomfort until the small hand tried to tug out of his. Will looked down at the child, not seeing Victor himself but thinking of the hopes and dreams that he and Hester had had for the boy. She would never know what kind of man her son would turn out to be. Victor would grow up without his mother’s love and care, without her common sense, her gentleness, her laughter… He sought for her
face in his memory but found only her death-mask, as she had lain in her coffin. He couldn’t find the real, warm, laughing Hester whom he had loved so well. He had lost her. Lost even her memory. Lost her for ever.
His hand tightened convulsively. The small freckled face contorted and Victor squirmed, trying to pull away, starting to cry.
‘Will!’ his mother hissed from beside him. ‘Will!’ She bent and unlocked the two hands, passing Victor to one of the nursemaids who came wet-eyed and sniffing to take charge of the child. From behind her veil, Anne Hamilton glared at her son. ‘You were hurting him!’
He almost laughed. Wasn’t everyone hurting on this awful day? Why should Victor escape just because he was so young? The boy’s own sweet mother was even now being lowered into icy ground while the rector intoned words that sounded thin as the sleet and just as cheerless.
Suddenly Will couldn’t stand any more. He turned on his heel and pushed roughly through the crow-black crowd behind him, ignoring their gasps and exclamations of dismay. His sister Agnes would have detained him but, when he looked at her and she read his eyes, she let him go. Agnes had always understood him. The others would see his behaviour as further proof that he was mad, deranged by his grief. Perhaps he was.
He escaped the churchyard and headed through the village, out to open country lanes where hedged fields lay bare, combed into straight furrows by skilled ploughmen, and where rooks tossed noisily against heavy, snow-laden clouds. Without Hester he had nothing. She had been both his anchor and his guiding star. Now he was adrift, directionless. Except for a dream.
Climbing a five-bar gate, he walked out on to the freshly turned earth and sank to his knees, careless of his clothes and polished boots. The land was the thing. The land would endure, when everything else was done. He threw off his gloves, digging with his hands into cold, muddy loam, bringing out a clod of clay. Within a few short months, nature’s alchemy would produce good things from this bare soil. Perhaps the same miracle might work for him. Perhaps, by giving himself to the land, he might find a new purpose.
The wind breathed with Hester’s voice. ‘Yes, Will. Yes, this is the way. A new direction. You must go on. For me. For Victor.’ If he looked up he would see her. She was there, on the edge of his senses, wavering against the grey sky and the whirling rooks, her eyes soft, her arms held out to him. Hester…
He didn’t look up. He stared at the muddy clod he held in his hands until its image splintered and dissolved. A great sob dredged up from the depths of his being, a cry of anguish hurled at the uncaring gods. And then at last the tears came.
* * *
After the interment, the mourners repaired for refreshment to Morsford Hall, ancestral home of Lady Mary Seward Hamilton, matriarch of the family. Relatives and friends gathered in groups in the panelled hall with its tall-backed chairs, its plump sofas and its potted plants. Its chill recesses remained unmoved by the heat thrown out by a log fire blazing in the vast medieval hearth.
Only the most insensitive of persons so much as alluded to the odd behaviour of the chief mourner, though later in private many opinions would be voiced. Where could Will Hamilton be? Everyone covertly watched the entrance for his return.
Having done her duty in welcoming her guests, the aged hostess withdrew, making her slow way up the stairs on the arm of her personal maid. Lady Mary was in her eighty-sixth year, too old to be standing in damp churchyards on freezing winter days, or so the doctors had told her. Little they knew!
Funerals always depressed her, though she was no stranger to death. It was all part of God’s Great Plan. One lived, and one died, at His behest. His purpose was not to be fathomed by man’s enfettered understanding.
In the first-floor drawing-room, where family portraits stared out from walls clad in crimson brocade, her favourite chair stood beside the fire. Sighing, Lady Mary eased her aching back down among piled cushions and sat for a while recouping her strength. Her hand lay pale and thin against the black crape of her skirts. It reminded her of a claw, dotted with liver spots, twisted with arthritis. Impossible to believe that this ancient hand belonged to her. In her head – and in her heart – she was still a young girl. Yet her body was tired. If God called, He would find her not unwilling to go to her rest.
Lady Mary’s reverie was invaded by the arrival of her two oldest grandsons. Jonathan and Seward were both in their thirties, the older one thin and restless, the other growing broader every year. Jonathan stalked the carpet with long-legged, jerky strides, reminding his grandmother of a mantis, while Seward took up his favourite position by the hearth, back to the fire, glass in one hand. A gold watch chain gleamed across the black silk waistcoat that swathed his paunch.
It amused Lady Mary that her grandchildren resembled the cattle of Pharaoh’s dream – some were lean kine and some were fat kine. The lean ones took after their late father – her son, James; the fat ones were more like their mother.
Anne Hamilton came sailing in behind her sons, skirts swaying, corsets struggling to contain her ample waist. Her grey hair was tortured into fashionable ringlets that dangled either side of a face moulded into lines of disapproval by years of practice.
‘We thought we’d find you here,’ she said, settling in the middle of a settee. ‘Mama, we want to talk to you. About Will.’
Lady Mary took a sip of port and carefully replaced the glass on the table beside her. She dabbed a lace handkerchief to her lips. ‘What about Will?’
‘My reply exactly!’ Seward exclaimed. ‘I knew you’d understand, Grandmama. Grief takes people in different ways. He’ll come to his senses. But he needs time.’
‘Time to make a complete fool of himself,’ his brother Jonathan snorted. ‘I hardly care to imagine what everyone must be saying after today’s performance. I agree it’s hard to lose a wife, but does one have to lose one’s head as well?’
Seward slanted him a gleaming look. ‘Perhaps one does. How would you know? Will isn’t like the rest of us. Never has been, never will be. A changeling, I shouldn’t wonder.’
His mother quelled him with a look, her face pinched. ‘I find your humour in very poor taste.’
‘You should know by now, Mama,’ Jonathan said, ‘that to include Seward in a discussion of any gravity is like asking a crow to sing like a nightingale. The question is, what are we, as his family – as Hamiltons – to do about this?’
Seward threw out his hands. ‘Why should we do anything? Will’s a grown man. Let him plan his own life.’
‘But a tenant farmer!’ Anne Hamilton exclaimed. ‘It’s not the thing. It’s really not.’
‘I say we confront him,’ Jonathan said. ‘Give him an ultimatum. Force him to come to his senses. The scheme is madness. I certainly don’t intend to keep his position open while he plays farmer.’
Lady Mary, sitting erect on her high chair with one hand resting on her cane, said gruffly, ‘You can’t dismiss a shareholder.’
‘No, but I can dismiss a managing clerk. And, if necessary, I’ll call a meeting of the board and demand that he sell his shares. I’ll have him declared incompetent.’
‘Do that and you’ll lose him,’ she argued. ‘Will’s stubborn, and proud. Try coercion and it will rebound on you. On this occasion I agree with Seward. The best action is no action. Stand neutral. That’s my advice.’
Jonathan grimaced. ‘You always were too lenient with him, Grandmama.’
Ignoring that, for she had heard the charge many times and was bored with it, especially since it was true, she looked at her daughter-in-law. ‘And the children? What does he propose to do with the children?’
‘Leave them where they are, at Weal House,’ Anne said, her mouth thinning so that a sunburst of deep lines formed around her lips. ‘He can’t take them to that farmhouse. It would hardly be seemly for him to hire a nursemaid to live in. A man on his own… No, I shall have to keep Victor and Rose with me, though at my time of life I had hoped to have done with raising children once Henry was a
way at school.’
‘Beatrice will help,’ Jonathan said. ‘And Agnes.’
‘Indeed?’ his mother scoffed. ‘Agnes has little enough time for family as it is, what with her charity nursing, her arts societies, and her visits to friends. And what does Beatrice know about children? She shows precious few signs of producing any herself. Too busy visiting that common little tin-roofed chapel and ranting with the rest of those ridiculous Methodists.’
Sighing to herself, Lady Mary closed her eyes. She had heard it all before and she was very tired. In the midst of death we are in life, she thought, her lips quirking at the inversion. Families were strange things, bound by blood but not necessarily by affection. The Hamiltons – her Hamiltons – were no better and no worse than any other family. They maddened her, but she loved them.
Just before she fell asleep she wondered what fate held for the motherless scrap left alone with her wet-nurse at Weal House. Lady Mary decided she would take the child under her wing, give her special attention. The oldest of the Hamiltons, and the youngest. For Hester’s sake, and Will’s.
Perhaps she wasn’t ready to die, not quite yet. She was intrigued to know what lay ahead for Rose Mary Hester Hamilton.
Part Two
Rose Mary Hester Hamilton
One
At King’s Lynn, I climbed wearily aboard yet another train, bound on the final leg of my journey. Friday 3 November 1865 – the date is etched indelibly on my memory. After three long years of exile and disgrace, I was coming home.
The train chuffed and strained and clanked as it drew away from the station, heading out on the new Hunstanton branch line. Through heavy eyes I watched flights of birds scatter, like chaff on the wind, over ragged woods and fields of ploughed stubble. Clouds edged with cold crimson streaked the sky, and the evening star was brightening above the dark outline of the ridge. Despite my tension, exhaustion tempted me to close my eyes and drift.
