Sebastian's arrival at Belmonde had made no difference to his father's routine. Sir Henry took his tea in his business room, as he invariably did, excusing himself from joining Adele on the grounds that he had no time to waste. In fact, he was addicted to tea, which he had brought in to him in a giant teapot at intervals throughout the day, and which it pleased him to drink from a workman's pint mug, an eccentricity which would not have been appreciated in his wife's drawing room. The truth was he felt out of place there: the potted palms and the heavy scent of the tuberoses, gardenias and other exotic flowers she loved, and ordered to be brought in from the hot-houses in opulent profusion, made him feel claustrophobic. The room's delicate colours, the watercolours in gilt frames, the draped ivory silk shades over the lamps, the white fur rugs, made him uneasy, as though he might have brought something in on the sole of his shoe â a not improbable supposition, given the amount of time he spent in the stables and on his farms.
He would, in fact, have liked nothing better than to spend every day of his life at Belmonde, and signified this by donning Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers immediately he came down, only changing into anything else under protest. Begrudging any time spent elsewhere, he kept up with the demands of the social season only when necessary, to appease his wife, for he did not, like the rest of his family, or so he repeatedly said, need the constant stimulus of the outside world.
So, on this miserable, wet afternoon, following an unprecedented series of events which had shaken him to the core of his being, he lit one of the Egyptian cigarettes he always smoked, and took a welcome swig of the extra-strong Indian tea he preferred. A naturally dark and gloomy place, the business room was made even darker by oak panelling and high bookshelves in the fireplace alcoves which contained mouldering, leather-bound volumes rarely, if ever, taken down. The light from the single, green-shaded lamp on the desk threw the corners of the room into deep shadow and glanced off a series of steel engravings
over the mantelpiece. A rubbed and buttoned velveteen sofa, once a fine Victorian peacock colour but now faded to a patchy and indeterminate greyish green, provided a repository for half a dozen amorphous cushions and a crotcheted and fringed Afghan shawl. This room, and the gun room which led off it, comprised the heart of his own little kingdom. Now, while the dogs, after their walk, snored and steamed damply on the moth-eaten zebra skin spread in front of the fire, Sir Henry sat in his fat brown leather chair which had, over the years, sagged in the seat, split on the arms, and accommodated itself comfortably to his form, while his land agent sat opposite.
“Well, now, Seton,” he began, forcing his attention on to the serious business of replenishing the yew hedges along the park boundary, by the Seven Oak Field, which had caught some sort of disease and were apparently dying off.
“Must come out, all of them.”
Although the fifth baronet had every last detail of the management of the estate at his fingertips, he was undoubtedly helped by having such a competent agent as Alexander Seton, a cultivated and amiable man with whom Henry had been at school. He had taken up estate management after suffering a severe reversal of his fortunes when his father died, leaving him with a mountain of debts to pay off and no alternative but to sell his family home in Northumberland. That this, a situation similar to, but so much worse than Henry's own, could happen to Seton (whose wife had been a Percy) had so shocked Henry that he'd agreed to employ his friend as his agent. He was cautious, however, about letting him have his head, and Seton might have resented this had he been temperamentally less amiable, but as it was, Henry's controlling and overriding need to be in on every last detail suited them both, and had ultimately resulted in a long and mutually rewarding partnership.
Henry pushed back his chair, walked restlessly over to the fire and stirred it with the brass poker, then added another large lump of coal from the scuttle with the tongs. “By the way, you were right, Seton. Had a look at Jordan's cottage when I was up there with the dogs this afternoon â time we did it up and let him move back. Suit us better, of course, for him to live permanently
in the lodge if he had a wife to see to the gates during the day, but since he hasn't â¦bad policy to leave them unattended, with all these malcontents around. Tell him he can move back to the cottage as soon as we've had the roof seen to and found another lodge-keeper, will you? Married, this time.”
“He'll be over the moon. He hates living in the lodge â can't bear to be more than a few yards from his pheasant chicks.”
Seton tactfully forbore to remind Henry that he'd been told this situation might arise â in fact, he'd warned him only last week that he was in danger of losing one of the best and most experienced keepers he would ever have. Jordan was seething with resentment at having had to move into the vacant lodge when his original cottage further in the woods had been judged unfit to live in and too expensive to repair. It was one of the niggling, sometimes counter-productive, economies that Henry was introducing all the time â but at least he'd been man enough to acknowledge his mistake this time. The amount of money needed to make the keeper's cottage sound was relatively small, and the repairs would be little trouble compared with losing Jordan. He wondered what had made Henry change his mind and see sense â though on second thoughts it was fairly obvious: up there in the woods today with the dogs, in this weather, he must have seen how quickly the cottage was disintegrating, left entirely as it was to the elements.
“And there's also the question of Ensor's farm,” Seton added, pressing the advantage. “No doubt you'll wish to discuss that with Sebastian, if you're going to sell?”
“When he condescends to come down.” Henry's black brows came together.
“He's here. Arrived about an half an hour ago.”
“What?”
“I understand he didn't wish to disturb you.”
Henry said nothing to this, uneasily aware of the usual mixture of feelings aroused in him whenever his son and heir paid them a visit, or even when they met by chance. He was never as comfortable with Sebastian as he should have been. It had fallen to Sir Henry's lot to be a gentleman landowner and he saw it as a privilege, but one which entailed many responsibilities, to his
tenants, to the land; duties which he fulfilled conscientiously. As he saw it, it was necessary to devote the whole of one's time to the business. One couldn't pick it up and discard it whenever one felt like it, and Sebastian should realise this. He ought to be learning to manage the estate economically (which God knew was in deep enough waters), being ready, when the time came, to step into his father's shoes, though Henry didn't consider himself in his dotage yet, and tried not to remember he was fifty-six and that time might be running out. Not leading, as Sebastian did, what seemed to Sir Henry to be an aimless way of life: when the boy wasn't at the races or chasing some pretty young woman, he was wandering around Europe, messing about with pencil and paper, when at his age he ought more properly to be thinking about getting himself settled in life. By that Henry meant the absolute necessity of finding a wife with money and providing an heir. If Sebastian didn't watch it, Sylvia might even yet upstage him with a son and heir. He'd have to look to his laurels then, or Belmonde could go to a Eustace-Bragge, God forbid.
Adèle, as was to be expected, excused the boy, said he was simply lively and impetuous, but Henry called this attitude bumptiousness. He didn't want to listen to Lady Emily, either, when she said it was a defect time would cure, especially if he was allowed more rope.
More rope? What the devil did she mean by that?
Encouragement, perhaps, rather than disapproval, she replied.
Encouragement? Good God. The boy would get above himself â he'd want to make changes. Besides which, Henry feared his son might have inherited his mother's extravagance, though to give him his due, he rarely asked for money to augment the small legacy left him by his grandfather, as Harry, regrettably, had often done. “Which goes nowhere nowadays,” Adèle had recently exclaimed. “Henry, can't you allow him a little extra?” No, he'd replied flatly. With the new government land taxes he found so deeply offensive, income tax up to one-and-two in the pound, plus supertax, he was not disposed to fling money around.
And now there was this other, unbelievable, damnable business.
When Seton had gone, Henry poured himself a Scotch and to the devil with whether the sun was over the yard arm. His nerves were shot to pieces â and he knew Seton had noticed. He reached out across his desk, and after selecting another cigarette from the heavy Britannia metal box with a picture of the Taj Mahal in enamel on the lid, and lighting it, he slid the box aside and picked up the sheet of paper it had concealed. For the tenth time he read the words written on it, and for the tenth time he didn't believe them.
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Adèle, at least, in the scented and modish luxury of her pretty drawing room, was delighted to see her son. “Sebastian, how lovely. And how well you look. London must indeed suit you, to keep you away from us for so long.”
“Don't tease, Mama. But I'm sorry I haven't been down to Belmonde lately â and to hear you haven't been so well.”
She waved a deprecating hand. “It was nothing. Not the tiniest need to worry, dearest.”
Standing facing her with his back to the fire, he searched her face as she rang the bell for tea. Despite her denial, she did not seem quite up to the mark â not as soignee as usual, and she was having difficulty with her breathing, which usually happened only when she was agitated or upset. His searching glance also revealed a grey hair or two that he'd never before noticed (but wouldn't dream of mentioning) in her luxuriant, wavy dark hair; she was unusually fidgety with it, patting and smoothing it into place, evidently having been out riding or walking so that the damp had frizzed up its usual silky smoothness. It was not beauty (Adele was not beautiful, though her sudden, illuminating smile sometimes made her seem so), but her intriguing, somewhat elusive personality that had charmed all London when she first appeared on the scene and still, wherever she went, made her the centre of attraction. There were rumours, never substantiated, of numerous men who â despite the glowering Chetwynd â had offered themselves as her lover. Half Sebastian's friends declared themselves devoted to her. Nevertheless, to have all London at your feet, to flirt and be a little naughty was as far as she would permit herself to go, of that he was certain. Yet he was always aware that behind the outward extroversion
was an enigma, hiding secrets she chose not to reveal. Not being possessed of a devious mind himself, Sebastian didn't allow himself to dwell on what they might be. Of one thing he was quite certain: he had never come within a mile of understanding the complex and subtle woman his mother was.
Outwardly so agreeable and accommodating, there was, in fact, very little Adele wanted that she didn't get. On her arrival here as a bride, for instance, she had seen the state of Belmonde and promptly put it in order, so that now it was exactly as she wished it to be. She'd installed a heating system to combat the chesty coughs brought on by the English winters. She had been ruthless in disposing of whatever furniture she took a dislike to, and greedy in the acquisition of treasure from other parts of the house to furnish the flower-filled rooms she had made quintessentially her own. The glossy white paint and fashionable pale mauve walls of this particular room made for a modish background that nevertheless went well with the Chippendale furniture, the upright walnut piano with its brass sconces, and the Georgian mirrors. Sebastian was amused to see that her elegant, narrow silk tea-gown with its split skirt, revealing slim ankles in pale silk stockings and elegantly strapped shoes, although faintly striped with turquoise, was of the same delicate mauve as the walls, and wondered whether it was deliberate. Knowing his mother, he thought perhaps it was.
A scatter of rain flung itself against the windows, causing him to glance out over the drenched garden, and without warning the eerie feeling that had made such an impression on him when he had seen â and then not seen â that female figure in the woods, came back sharply. What had she been doing there â and why had her vanishing affected him in that way? Very likely she had simply been up to the house to leave a message for one of the servants and was hurrying away out of the rain. Yet the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and it needed a conscious effort of will to walk across the room and deliberately choose a seat with its back to the window.
As he made to sit down, he almost tripped over some worthy-looking knitting in a repellent shade of dark green, destined for the poor, no doubt, which had fallen on to the floor by the side
of this, the most uncomfortable chair in the room â right next to the French window, where there was a draught. “Where are the Cashmores?” he asked, looking around as if he might find them lurking behind a potted palm, and very glad indeed that he did not.
“I let them have Dombey and the Daimler to pay a visit to that aged aunt of theirs at Much Wenlock. She really can't last much longer and Dora's mother is desperate that she shouldn't leave her money to the missionaries. They had to go and see her â never mind that poor Dora has another of her colds.”