Constance looked beyond the table and noticed, for the first time, how low the fire burned in the grate. There was not enough heat to warm this high-ceilinged room. Polly had taken Constance’s cloak away when she had first arrived and she was still cold. How few pictures there are on the walls, she thought, and how few ornaments on the mantelpiece or the sideboard. It is somehow bleak - and yet still preferable to that vulgarly overfurnished dining room at Rye Hill.
The rooms at Lodore House had never been overfurnished. Her mother had created areas of space and light that enchanted all who came there. And yet not everyone had been pleased. She remembered something Robert had said:
‘Grandmother Meakin says that your mother just couldn’t wait to empty this house of anything that reminded you of my mother. She said it’s quite indecent the way that she gets Father to agree to anything!’
Why had she thought about her half-brother now? She had put him out of her mind for years until that moment last night.
‘Hev you invited Robert to yer wedding?’
The question had taken her by surprise. She had not realized that Nella knew about Robert. She had certainly never talked to her about him in all those years in the workhouse. She hadn’t even seen him since the day before she and her mother had had to leave Lodore House.
Captain and Mrs Meakin had come to take their grandson home with them to Berwick. They had made it quite plain that they wished to have no more to do with their late son-in-law’s second family. They would be happy if Robert never saw his stepmother or his half-sister again.
‘You haven’t touched your wine.’ John was smiling at her. He took the glass and put it in her hand.
‘I’m not used to wine. I’m not sure ...’
‘Drink just a little. There, do you like it?’
‘Mm, yes, I do.’
Constance looked down into her glass. The light from the gas chandelier above the table sparkled on the rim for a moment but the dark red liquid inside it remained dull and impenetrable. She took another sip. It tasted rich and sweet; it was strangely warming; at last the ice in her veins began to thaw. The tight knot in the very centre of her being began to ease a little.
She looked around the table. It was all so strange. This was her wedding day; these people, most of whom she’d never met before, were her guests; this house was now her home; she and John would live here together ...
As she drained her glass she was overwhelmed with love and gratitude.
Chapter Seven
‘Her followers call her Gypsy, you know.’
The wedding guests were beginning to leave. John and Matthew were talking beside the door and Rosemary had hurried round to sit next to Constance.
‘Who? What are you talking about?’ Constance asked.
Mrs Green was helping Polly clear the dishes away. Rosemary leaned close, and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Esther Barton, your husband’s cousin. I know her from school.’
‘Which school?’
‘The Girls’ High School in Jesmond.’
‘Esther Barton is at school with you?’ Constance glanced over towards the shapely young woman who had gone with her mother to talk to Frances Edington.
‘Not now - she left at the end of the summer term. She stayed on until she was sixteen. I have no idea why as she never had any hope of going to college.’
For the first time since she had met her the night before, Constance saw Rosemary adopt a superior air. ‘But of course you don’t have to be intelligent to attract admirers.’
‘Admirers?’
‘Well, there is no denying that she is handsome. Although those dark good looks are supposed to be unfashionable, quite a few of the more empty-headed junior girls were her devoted slaves.’
Rosemary’s long nose was shiny and her hair was beginning to escape from Beattie’s tidy arrangement. Constance realized that, in spite of her poise and air of sophistication, in many ways, Rosemary was still a child.
Her own formal education, provided by the workhouse, had been over long before she was Rosemary’s age. She had been put out to service the minute that she was twelve and she’d had to grow up quickly. She had been a bright pupil, she knew that, and her lonely walks around the city on her days off from the Sowerby household had taken her to museums, exhibitions and art galleries in a constant search for knowledge.
She had never ceased to regret the life that she had lost when her father was ruined. Almost certainly she would have attended the same high school as John’s cousin Esther; most of the daughters of the local professional and business families went there, or to the convent school. But she was surprised that Rosemary Elliot was a pupil there.
‘Rosemary did not want to go away to boarding school.’ Hannah Beattie had come to stand behind her charge’s chair and she’d seen the surprise on Constance’s face and guessed the cause. ‘Within reason, her parents like to indulge her wishes.’
‘Constance, be careful.’ Rosemary was frowning.
‘Careful?’
‘She doesn’t like you.’
‘Who?’
‘Esther. I’ve seen the way she’s been looking at you and I’m sorry, it’s probably my fault.’
‘Rosemary, Constance doesn’t want to hear this kind of schoolgirl blether.’
‘No, really, Beattie, dear, Esther has been glowering at Constance all day and I’m sure it’s because she sees that we are friends.’
‘Why should Esther dislike me because of that?’
‘It was something that happened at school. Caroline Blakey, my best friend - at least I thought she was - betrayed me!’ And now Rosemary sounded just like an indignant child - like twelve-year-old Annabel Sowerby when she had been denied her own way.
Constance suppressed a smile. ‘Betrayed you?’
‘Yes, she joined the ranks of the Gypsy’s followers. She would watch her with great cow eyes and simper after her and generally behave in a sickening way. It was all the more exasperating because, until I befriended Caroline, she had been too shy to talk to anyone.
‘One day, when I could stand her look of slavish adoration for Esther no longer, I told her how foolish she was to imagine that there was anything inside that romantic-looking exterior other than greed and self-regard. It was the end of our friendship. Unfortunately, Caroline repeated my remarks to her new beloved. That, and the fact that women like her will always despise my kind, is why Esther Barton hates me.’
‘Your kind?’
‘Women with brains in their heads. Women who want to be equal to men rather than be owned by them.’
‘Rosemary, you have gone much too far.’ Hannah Beattie was vexed. ‘You should not be talking like this to Constance about one of her husband’s family and, furthermore, you should not be bothering her with your unconventional views on her wedding day.’
‘You hold those views too, Beattie!’
They glared at each other as if no gulf of age, upbringing or enormous wealth lay between them, and Constance wondered again at their easy familiarity. She remembered her childhood at Lodore House: her own nursemaid, Frazer, had been cheerful and kindly but, even when she had cause to scold her, she had respected the division of class between them and had always addressed her as Miss Constance.
‘It’s all right, Miss Beattie,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe that Esther dislikes me because of anything that Rosemary has done.’
‘Oh, Constance,’ Rosemary was contrite, ‘Beattie is right. I should not have said anything to upset you on this day of all days!’
‘I’m not upset.’
‘Truly?’
‘Truly.’
Rosemary smiled and then put her arms round Constance and hugged her. But, before she drew back, she whispered, ‘However, I still think that you should be careful.’
‘I will be.’
For Rosemary was right, of course. Constance had known since their eyes had met on the way home from church that Esther Barton disliked her. She also knew that it had nothing to do with Rosemary Elliot.
‘Well, Constance, I haven’t had a chance to talk to you yet.’
Esther’s mother was standing regarding her from the other side of the table. While she and Rosemary had been talking, Polly and Mrs Green had finished clearing away and all that remained was the top tier of the wedding cake. Muriel Barton looked at it and her lips thinned into an imitation of a smile. ‘I suppose you’ll be keeping that for the christening?’
‘I ... I suppose so.’
‘Have I embarrassed you?’
‘Rosemary and I will leave you to talk to Mrs Barton,’ said Hannah Beattie.
She looked at her charge, and Rosemary got up obediently, took Constance’s hand and said, ‘We’ll talk again before we go.’
The two of them moved off and Constance rose to face the older woman. ‘No, I’m not embarrassed. I know it is a custom to keep one tier of the bridal cake for the christening of the first child.’
‘And there will be a child?’
‘Who can say? I hope so.’
‘Now, I have embarrassed you. You’re blushing. Perhaps that’s natural modesty, but I suppose you know very well how much John needs an heir?’
‘No, we’ve never spoken of such things.’
‘Haven’t you? Surely he has told you that he comes into his full inheritance the moment he becomes a father. I imagined you were very happy to marry him in the circumstances.’
‘Circumstances?’
‘Your own.’
‘My circumstances? You mean because I’m poor?’
‘No, not that.’
‘Then, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about!’
‘Don’t adopt that tone of voice with me. You may have married my nephew but, as far as I’m concerned, no amount of airs and graces will make people forget that you’re only a little jumped-up servant girl who has probably tricked John into marrying her!’
Constance felt the blood draining from her face. Her eyes dilated. What did Muriel Barton mean? Could she have guessed? No, surely there was no way she could know that Gerald Sowerby had raped her. She swayed forward and put both hands on the table to steady herself. She heard Muriel Barton’s indrawn breath.
‘So there is something. I knew it.’
‘No! There’s nothing! What reason would I have for tricking him? I love John and he loves me.’
For a moment the other woman’s tight-lipped smile faltered; she frowned. ‘Love? You believe that he loves you?’ But then she shrugged. ‘Quite a performance. He’s chosen well for himself.’
Constance watched her walk away. She had not been entirely surprised by the woman’s animosity but was bewildered as to its cause. At first she had thought that, as Esther’s mother, Muriel Barton might not view her favourably. It was obvious to Constance that Esther wanted John for herself.
But that was not why this woman disliked her - was suspicious of her. It was more than that. She had hinted that perhaps Constance had reasons for tricking John into marrying her. And she had cast doubts on something Constance preferred not to think about: John’s reasons for marrying her.
‘Mrs Edington, I’ve got to go now.’ Mrs Green was buttoning up her coat. ‘Albert and his father are both working late shifts tonight and I’ve yet to put up their bait boxes.’
‘Oh yes, thank you for all your help today.’
‘I was pleased to do it. Your husband has been good to Albert, giving him samples from the shop, shirts and so on. I’ve always been happy to keep an eye on his mother for him on Polly’s day off but, of course, she’s got you to look after her now.’
‘Yes.’
‘By the way, Mrs Edington said it would be all right for me to take some of the leftovers for my menfolk.’