The Victory (30 page)

‘
Perhaps he has invited your brother to Wolvercote, too,'
Wiske said.

‘Why not? After all, he seems to have asked everyone else,'
Brummell said. 'My invitation was most pressing. He abso
lutely
swears
that I shan't feel cold for an instant, but I can't
think how. My memories of Wolvercote,' he added with a bow
to Lucy, 'are that it is just like every other family seat — too
large, too dark, and too draughty.'

‘
Oh, you needn't look apologetic,' Lucy said cheerfully. 'I
freely admit it. Wolvercote is the most dreadful old pile. I did
something to modernise the kitchens and offices when I was
staying there a few years ago — after all, if the servants
haven't proper facilities, they can't make one comfortable —
but I never bothered much with the apartments.'

‘
It would hardly have been worth your while,' Brummell
said. 'I dare say you weren't indoors often enough to notice.'

‘
But you are coming, aren't you?' Lucy asked. 'Both of
you? Because Lady Barbara called this morning to say she's
been invited, too, and I must have someone to leaven the
lump.’

Wolvercote, like many a nobleman's seat, was a heterogeny
of styles, as Aylesbury after Aylesbury, all down the ages, had
added this and adapted that with a magnificent disregard for
architectural harmony. The result was that it was a shapeless
edifice of rambling corridors and icy draughts. Some of the
rooms were inconveniently large, some gloomy and dark,
others low-ceilinged and cramped, and the decorations were
shabby from long neglect.

Lucy arrived a few days before Christmas to be received by Charlcott, the new butler.

‘
Welcome to Wolvercote, my lady,' he intoned. He was a
thin man with a pinched face and an air of impenetrable
gloom. Lucy wished she could have brought Hicks down, as she had used to in the old days, but since Chetwyn had been
spending so much time at Wolvercote, he obviously needed a
butler to be there permanently.

‘
His lordship and Mr Knaresborough are in the Octagon
Room,' Charlcott offered, receiving Lucy's gloves and driving coat with the air of one accustomed to better things.

Lucy wrinkled her nose. What on earth are they doing
there?' The Octagon Room was a large, cold chamber on the
ground floor at the junction of the west and south wings, which had never been used in Lucy's memory, except for
passing through on the way to somewhere else.

‘
Waiting for you, my lady,' Charlcott said patiently.
‘Yes, but why there?' Lucy insisted.

Charlcott's gloom deepened. 'I could not undertake to say,
my lady.’

Lucy snorted with impatience, and hurried across the echo
ing staircase hall and through the door at the end, to find
herself in a room transformed.

‘
Lucy! I thought I heard a carriage,' Chetwyn said, getting
up from his chair by the fire and coming to meet her. 'Come
and get warm.’

Lucy spared a nod for Robert, who had risen from the sopha on the opposite side of the fire, but otherwise was
occupied in revolving on the spot to look around her. The
room had been redecorated in the Chinese style, the ceiling
made lower by a canopy of silk drawn up, tent-like, to a
central point, the cold stone floor carpeted with thick Chinese
rugs. A fireplace had been put in one of the walls, and a huge
fire roared there, while Chinese lacquer screens cleverly
placed ensured there were no draughts. The room, she
discovered, was actually warm, quite apart from being bright
and welcoming.

‘
I'm astonished,' she said at last, turning to the two men. 'I
thought for a moment I had stepped into the Pavilion at
Brighton.'

‘
Do you like it?' Chetwyn asked, with a pleased glance at
Robert, who met it with a shy smile. 'One can't receive guests
in that damned draughty old hall, and there ought to be somewhere nearer than the drawing-room. All this was Robert's idea,' he added with a wave of the hand at the
lacquer cabinets, the side-tables supported by goggle-eyed
dragons, the silk hangings and intricately-patterned wall
paper. 'He just looked at the room, and imagined the whole
thing.’

Lucy eyed the blushing youth as though she couldn't
believe that exterior concealed an imagination so unfettered.
‘It's certainly much cosier,' she said with monumental tact.

‘
And this is just the beginning. Wait until you see what
we've done to the rest of the house,' said Chetwyn, handing
his wife to a chair and pouring her a glass of wine. 'I've left
the east wing alone: it really ought to be pulled down —
there's nothing you can do with those old Tudor rooms. But
we've made vast improvements to the west and south wings.
New fireplaces, new windows; some rooms made smaller;
everything redecorated; lots of new furnishings. And the ball
room's been completely refurbished, and the floor mended.
We shall have some proper entertaining, for the first time in
years. Do you know, there hasn't been a ball at Wolvercote
since before my mother died?'

‘
So this is why you promised George Brummell he'd be
comfortable,' Lucy managed to say. 'You have been busy. I
wonder Robert has found time to do his studies.’

Robert blushed more deeply. 'Well,' he said, ‘to be honest,
I
...
I haven't been in Oxford very much this term.’

Lucy raised an eyebrow. 'I wish you may not be sent
down,' she said. 'Your mother wouldn't be pleased.'

‘
Oh, Mama wouldn't care about it,' he said, faintly defiant.
‘She didn't want me to go in the first place, and I'm sure I
learn much more here than ever I did at the House.’

He cast an appealing look at Chetwyn, who grinned and
said. ‘No need to attack poor Rob, Lucy. He's been working
his way through my library — I've seen to that — and
besides, he's meeting more people through me than he would
at Oxford, and that's all his mother will care for.'

‘
Oh, it's nothing to me what you do,' Lucy said easily,
standing up. 'I think I'll go to my room now, and change.'
She hesitated. 'I suppose I have got a room? You haven't
demolished it to make a boxing booth, or something?’

Chetwyn grinned. 'No, you have your old apartments, as
before, but we've altered them quite a lot. We'd better come
with you and shew you, or you might not recognise them.'

‘You alarm me,' said Lucy, preceding them from the room.

The family's apartments were all in the west wing.

‘
I've put in a false wall in your bedroom and made you a
proper closet beyond,' Chetwyn told her as they walked up the stairs, 'and by knocking the old closet and the linen-room together into one, I've given you a decent-sized dressing-room on the other side. It gives the bedroom much better proportions, too, and the new window makes it lighter.’

It was also completely redecorated and refurnished in
shades of blue and brown, and the effect was light, comfort
able, and pleasing. She looked around her, more puzzled as to
why Chetwyn had done it, than pleased at the result. He had never cared any more about his surroundings than she had.

‘Do you like it?' he asked.

‘Yes,' she said with an effort. 'Very much.'

‘
I thought you would. Now come and see your sitting-
room.’

It, too, was transformed. It had always been a handsome
room, dating from the best period of the previous century,
but its beauty had been obscured by heavy colours and ugly furniture, and it had never been warm enough in the winter. Now Chetwyn had installed a second fireplace at the opposite
end to match the first, and an enormous new chandelier,
which he promised would make the room 'as bright as day'.

The terracotta walls had been repainted in pale grey, the
ceiling in pale pink, and the elaborate plasterwork of the
frieze and cornice picked out in gold. The curtains were of
velvet, and their old-rose colour matched the upholstery of
the new, modern furniture. A rose-and-white Chinese rug
covered most of the floor, and various pieces of pink-and-
white Sevres porcelain — bowls and vases and urns — decorated the side-tables and chimney-pieces.

‘What do you think of it? The porcelain used to be in my
mother's sitting-room, and the clock. I hope you like the
colours.’

Lucy had never had any particular' views about colours,
but she could see that the grey and pink combination was
subtle and elegant, and the whole room looked far more like the setting for a countess than the shabby, damp, dark room
she had used to use, when bad weather or advanced
pregnancy forced her to be indoors.

‘It's very pretty,' she said.

‘
Robert chose it,' Chetwyn said, placing a proud hand on
the young man's shoulder. 'It is all his taste. I rather doubted you would care for anything so ... so feminine, but he said it
was what the room demanded. I let him have a free hand,
once I'd seen what he did with the Octagon Room. He has a real talent for these things: I had nothing to do but sign the
bills. We've had such fun all this year, planning and choosing.
I never realised before what a pleasure it could be.'

‘I suppose it was never worth doing before,' Lucy suggested tentatively, 'since you've lived mostly in London.'

‘
True,' Chetwyn said. 'But that's all changed now. I mean
to spend much more time here in the future. The estate needs
personal attention if it is to run properly, and I owe it to
Roland to keep everything in order. It wouldn't do to leave
him a run-down house and estate to inherit.'

‘Oh, quite,' Lucy said, and regarded him thoughtfully. He never normally mentioned Roland to her unless she enquired directly of him, and he had certainly never spoken of the child with so much warmth. Evidently more things had altered at Wolvercote than the decorations of the house. Chetwyn had
changed drastically in the last sixteen months, and though the
changes seemed all to the good, Lucy would have liked to understand what had caused them.

‘
Well, I'm sure you must want to wash and change,'
Chetwyn went on. 'We'll leave you alone now, and meet again at dinner.’

Docwra was waiting for her in the bedchamber. 'Well, my
lady,' she enthused, 'this is much more like it, I must say.
You'd never know it was the same room! And so warm, and
not a bit damp, the way you could walk about in one o' them scraps o' muslin and never catch a cold! There's hot water waiting for you, my lady, through in the next room there.’

Lucy allowed herself to be undressed, and went through into
the closet where there was a handsome porcelain bath filled with hot water, and towels hanging to warm before the fire.
Docwra had grown accustomed at last to the Morland habit
of frequent bathing, and she no longer kept up a monologue,
while washing her mistress, on the perils of getting wet all
over.