Brides of Aberdar (17 page)

Their step-mother had been right, perhaps, in feeling impatiently that really Christine should put up more of a fight for herself. But the guileless heart confided, aside, to her sister: ‘Did he really say that to you? He said the same to me and I—Lyneth, I believed that he meant it.’

‘I’m ashamed to confess to you,’ said Lyneth, biting on her under-lip, ‘that I thought that he meant it to me, too.’

‘How pale that child has grown,’ said one of her neighbouring dowagers to Lady Hilbourne. ‘They so easily get over-tired, these very young girls, especially with all the excitement of their own first ball. Do you think the time has come for me to gather my party and take them off home, and so start an end to this delightful evening?’

And certainly you have contrived it all very well, she thought, eyeing the stiff figure in the plain dress of heavy grey moiré with its matching shawl of magnificent heavily patterned Lyons silk, the severe coiffure, the absence—despite so much wealth—of any touch of jewellery. I suppose she learned her manners in the days of her governessing, and the Parisian aunt has added a bit of polish all round. Nevertheless, what a poker she is! However, poker or not, it was prudent to keep in with the upstart; the girls would be immensely rich and one had grandsons and cousins, and the grandsons and cousins of friends and indeed the welfare of all the County, to be considered. Heaven send that the boy from Plas Dar across the river, hadn’t captured already the heart of the heiress, as some were suggesting. Though for that matter, there he went with the sister on his arm… Or was it the sister?—yes, the elder twin was the one with pink roses in her hair. Seen together, it was not so difficult to mistake them; the other had a gentle, sweet expression—this one looked a proper little huzzy.

‘Young Mr Jones looks much
épris
with his pretty partner?’ she suggested, tossing a trifle of Stardust into the eyes of the presumably gratified step-mama.

‘I hope the same may be said for other eligibles also,’ said her ladyship, not batting an eyelid. ‘Lawrence is a close neighbour; of course, they would be good friends.’ To the offer of a move to end the ball, she responded, rising, ‘Your ladyship is most kind but you may trust me to bring matters to a close when I judge the time ripe.’ Stiff as a ramrod in her tight corseting, hooped skirt swaying, she moved calmly away.

‘Put firmly in my place!’ said the dowager to her neighbour, leaning across the vacated chair. ‘You’ve got to respect her!’

‘I daresay our respect will satisfy her,’ said her friend. ‘She is one who does not look for love.’

‘And I daresay never has. Though it’s faded now, in her youth that scar must have repelled all comers. May not that have embittered her? It must have ruined her life.’

‘I know one or two who would be happy to have their lives ruined to the extent of a Hilbourne title and the manor of Aberdar,’ said the other, laughing. ‘And they not penniless daughters of some obscure curate, either, reduced to jumped-up nursery-maid.’

‘Have a care—she may yet be step-mother-in-law to your grandson or mine—or to both,’ said the dowager, laughing too.

But in fact their grandsons were quite safe from any such fate.

They were coming very close, very close. ‘Tetty,’ said Lyneth, ‘do you think the guests are warm enough? The whole house seems cold tonight.’

Echoes of a dream, unremembered and yet closing in with wisps of half-knowledge in the guilty heart. She said irritably: ‘The house is old—it’s a cold house. Fires have been lit and I’ve enquired, everyone seems comfortable.’

‘Tante Louise says so too. But then she never feels the cold. Not this kind of cold. I suppose it’s just our special kind of cold.’

‘Nonsense, Lyn, you’re tired, that’s all. You’ve been dancing too much.’

‘Oh, yes, and it’s all been so wonderful!’

‘Yet you still must have something to grumble about. Considering all that’s been done for you—’

Christine, pale and fagged-out, trying to find her way back into favour. ‘Oh, no, it’s been perfect, Tetty, you’ve contrived it all so beautifully, you and Tante Louise…’

‘Yes, well as to your aunt, she does what she’s asked and is paid well enough for it.’

‘But she does it so beautifully,’ said Lyneth with a naughty wink at her sister. ‘Without her, we shouldn’t have been half so successful. Everyone is saying it’s the best managed ball of the season.’

‘Perhaps she had better take on the management of the whole house?’

‘Well, she does have the management, doesn’t she?’ said Lyneth, all innocent-eyed.

‘Why do you tease her?’ said Christine, as her ladyship walked away with an angry flounce. ‘She’s tired too, I think, and
I’ve
been a fool and offended her. And she’s done so much for us.’

‘She’s so jealous of the poor old Walloon!’

‘Only when you praise her. You know you’re her pet, why should you want to upset her?’

‘And talking of pets,’ said Lyneth, ‘there goes Lawrence, the Plas Dar party must be going home. I must rush and say goodnight to him…’

Was it only the strangeness of the cold, that filled the little sister’s heart with dread?

They toiled off up the path next morning, to tell Hil all about it. Nothing was said as to these expeditions; since their childhood declaration that they would accept no curtailment of their relationship with him, it had been tacitly accepted; his name never spoken between themselves and their step-mother.

Hil was middle-aged now—as, for that matter, Tetty was growing middle-aged, thirty-six years old and he moving towards forty: a tall, gaunt man with a haggard face and all the sweet colour gone from his red-gold hair. But they loved him still. What had happened at the time of their father’s death, they had never understood—in recent years had come to suppose vaguely that there had been, perhaps, some understanding between himself and Tetty, which had been destroyed by the death-bed marriage. Why Menna had so precipitately disappeared had also remained a mystery—at the time, overwhelmed by all the events in the house, by their father’s death, the over-throw of Tante Louise at the hands of a suddenly imperious new ladyship, they had scarcely had time to dwell upon the loss of beloved Menna. Nor would anyone speak of her and, in the total re-adjustment of the household at the decree of an ex-governess, overnight promoted to rule over them all, The Walloon bustling about her new business in a resentful savagery of re-organisation, dismissing and hiring without sentiment, crashing like a hippo through all the old comfortable routines—there had been little time for anyone to think of the past, of sweet Menna with her easy, kindly ways.

In byres and stables and kennels also, and on the tenant farms, change had come about. Unrelaxed in fairness, a proper generosity, what the Squire would have called compassion—the bailiff, now sole manager, stalked with unsmiling blue eyes and had lost all his eagerness and joy in the work once so much loved. ‘I am responsible to a new over-lord,’ he would say in reply to intemperate pleading; adding quickly that Edward’s Hilbourne cousins, John and Henry, were the highest powers now, in the affairs of the manor lands. ‘But that’s not what he meant first-off,’ the staff would mutter behind their hands. ‘A new over-
lady
is what he meant first-off; and a harder task master than ever the Squire’s gentlemen-cousins, who never come near the place.’

They had come, however, soon after the Squire’s death. The widow received them with perfect coolness, making no apology at all for her present situation; entertained their ladies with calm civility, while the gentlemen talked in the estate office with Hil. Hil’s own situation in the family had been revealed to them, on a tacit understanding that while it invested him with a superior claim to remain on the estate, to special trust and a due respect, it need be no further referred to, outwardly or otherwise. To enquiries as to the comportment of the new Lady Hilbourne he had replied with his now accustomed brevity that he kept himself too much occupied with the business of the Manor, he saw very little of her—he duplicated to her such information or question as he sent to each of them, preferring a reply in writing, which might be filed for future reference. For the rest, he knew his place and kept to it. And she knew hers.

‘We were thankful, Hil, to our cousin for taking off our hands the responsibility of orphaned children.’

‘No doubt that was the main purpose of his marriage.’

‘You know he had an idea to exchange homes with me? But wouldn’t entertain the idea of exchanging with Henry. He was a strange fellow. I sometimes wonder whether he wasn’t a little deranged? Anne Hilbourne… Too much inter-marrying, it’s not a safe thing. This branch of the family have suffered from it, all down the line.’

‘The Squire thought the house situated too low, and itself not light and bright enough for children. I think he would not ask you to bring other children here, while he sought a better climate for his own.’

‘There was a great idea when he left us, of building for himself, on his own land.’

‘He returned home already in the early stages of his illness, and that idea was laid aside.’

‘That’s why we bring it up now. Will the new lady not consider it?’

‘I daresay she thinks it best not to unsettle them, their father being dead.’

‘He was highly set on it. Should we propose it to her?’

God forbid! thought Hil. We want no more slamming doors or mysterious fires, no more maladies incapable of diagnosis. Her own removal to a house more distant from the estate office and buildings, would deeply have eased his own comfort but with her would go the little girls and, helpless in their affairs as he might be, he wished still to keep an eye upon them. ‘I think she would reply that they are thriving quite well here. With the history of the Aberdar Hilbournes, he might perhaps have been over-anxious for them.’

‘Does she adhere to this madness about keeping them segregated from other playmates?’

‘I am not in her ladyship’s confidence as to the children,’ said Hil coldly.

‘The ladies are having a word with her about it. The idea was preposterous; if she concurs in it, they will have to talk her out of it.’

They’ll have their work cut out, he thought, to talk Lady Hilbourne out of anything on which she had made up her mind. But already the cousins were shrugging it off. ‘Impossible of accomplishment, anyway. Children will be children and find playmates, and young men and women equally will find mates. They’ll always sniff their way to freedom—if marriage can be called freedom.’

‘You speak as if they were animals, Henry,’ said his brother.

‘Well, and so they are animals—and animals will mate, it’s the oldest law in the world. Let you tether them never so closely, these pretty little heifers will find out a suitable young taurus to couple with.’

And now the pretty heifers were toiling up to the house on the hill to tell him all about their conquests. At least, he thought, watching them cross the little lawn, like two flowers risen up out of his garden, halo’ed with gold, their father’s second marriage had saved them from the crudities of life with such as their Cousin Henry. ‘Well, my doves—how high did you fly to the stars last night?’

‘Oh, Hil, it was beautiful—’

‘Everything went so splendidly—’

‘Lyneth danced with Lord Benchly and he
nearly
proposed—’

‘But he’s only a no-Lord really, so of course I refused him.’

‘Fancy on the very first time he met her!’

‘He didn’t really,’ said Lyneth, laughing. ‘I was mostly only teasing.’

(Were you teasing, thought Christine, when you said that Lawrence had wished he might dance with you for ever?) ‘And Sir Edward Groome danced with her and said she was as light on her feet as the pretty white feathers in her hair…’

‘And who made pretty speeches to
you
, my darling?’

‘Oh, she had more successes even than I,’ said Lyneth, ‘only she’s too modest to speak of them. But my cousin Bertha overheard old Lady Lilac, at least we call her Lady Lilac because she’s dressed in lilac all over, even down to her silk stockings, Hil!—well, she said that Christine was a sweeter looking girl than me. She said I looked a proper little puss.’

‘And so she is, and so you do,’ said Hil, laughing. But his heart was sick within him, for was not this all that their father had dreaded for them?—was not this part of the reason why he himself…? He turned his mind from that thought: the sick thought that, buried away in his consciousness, was with him night and day, the marriage that had been acceptable because it could bring no more doomed Hilbournes into the world. Well, let them be happy now, with their sweet faces and shining eyes; God knew what was in store for them all too soon! And upon his thought, Christine said, ‘Only it was very cold. I thought the house too cold.’

‘It was a cold night,’ he suggested.

‘It was warm,’ protested Lyneth. ‘Everyone felt it warm. Even going home, the people were saying what a warm, starlit night it was.’ Of course, she admitted, shrugging, there were the hands; but the hands seemed to be always there nowadays, one got used to the chilly brush across one’s cheek. ‘Tetty feels them too. She doesn’t say so, but now and again you see her unconsciously move her own hand as if she brushed a cold cobweb aside.’

‘She is a Hilbourne now,’ said Christine. ‘It’s just the Hilbournes.’

‘You didn’t catch a chill, my pet?’ said Hil, moving away from the dangerous name. ‘You look a little pale, today.’

‘She doesn’t want to ride with me and Tetty.’

‘Might I stay here instead, Hil, with you?’

‘Yes, indeed; I must do a little gentle pottering among the store cattle down in the Long Meadow. Come round with me, it will be less tiring than to be with this energetic young lady who goes to bed at dawn and sets off for a gallop in mid-morning…’ But tucking her hand into his arm, starting off down the far side of the hill with her, he said at once: ‘So what is it, Christine? You are unhappy.’

‘Oh, Hil—! I danced with him last night, he held me in his arms, it was as though the sky turned upside down and my feet touched the stars. And he said that he could dance with me for ever. He asked me if I should grow tired of dancing for ever only with him. He said his father had told him I was too young for—well, to make up my mind. So he must have spoken to his father about me, Hil, mustn’t he?’