Lady Brock came in. ‘Ah, Ellen. You’ve come to admire the copper. Good. Let me show you William’s. It’s better than his apprentice-master’s, though he would never agree.’
I followed her silently into a buttery. I glared up at the shining pans and kettles hanging in rows from the ceiling. My hands were shaking, so I made them into one large fist and held them at my waist. ‘Those are most fine.’ I found my voice shaking too.
‘You mustn’t mind Mrs Hicks. She—’
‘It wasn’t even true. I did not push myself—’
‘She can be the most vicious animal.’ Lady Brock reached up, took down a pan. ‘Look. A fish kettle.’ She handed it to me and bent to a cupboard. ‘Here’s the drainer and the lid. Look at the handles, look how the lips are rolled.’ She turned the pan, letting the light play over the beaten, rosy gold. ‘William made that when he was sixteen. He’d barely been apprenticed a year. And then the Boche blew off his hand, or most of it.’ Her eyes met mine, her mouth in a level line. The top lip protruded as before. ‘I knew you came to William’s shed. With Lucy Horne and Daniel Corey.’
‘Yes.’ I still felt sick from the attack. ‘I used to do their sums and spellings for them.’
She smiled. ‘William’s a sweet man, an unimpeachable man. Unlike some, gross people, who take advantage of good girls. Despicable people.’ She held me in a steady gaze, and Sam Pearce was condemned. ‘The worst of it is,’ she went on, ‘the good men must all carry on, even though the war did so much damage. William. My husband …’ She took the kettle from me and reached up with her long arms to suspend it from its hook. ‘Selwyn,’ she added lightly, turning towards the door.
‘Selwyn?’ I said to her back.
‘He never thought he’d come to the mill, of course. He wasn’t the heir, you see; it was his poor cousin Victor. But Victor and Henry both died at the Somme. Selwyn wanted to be a priest, but the war made everything harder. He abandoned his training.’
She began to walk back through the kitchen, now empty of Mrs Hicks and the tray. ‘He went to Jerusalem, taught in a school. Oh, I missed him dreadfully during those years.’ We crossed the hall and travelled into the gloom of the dining room. ‘I was glad when his uncle died, because I knew it would bring him home.’ She came to a halt in the doorway of the sun room. Above us the notes of the piano continued to fall. ‘Ellen,’ said Lady Brock, ‘I’m telling you all this because you’re very young. Selwyn’s not a demonstrative man, but he’s very much in love with you—’
I closed my eyes as a glorious golden blush washed from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. ‘Oh …’
‘He’s in love with you, and he’s never been properly in love before. His life has been – dreadfully dislocated. It’s left him …’
I opened my eyes as the music came to a stop above us.
‘Somewhat damaged.’
I shook my head, bemused. ‘I’ve seldom met a more … undamaged person.’
She covered her mouth with her hand, as if to stem laughter, but I realized it wasn’t that. She was trying to keep words inside her.
‘Do tell me, please, Lady Brock.’
But she turned and walked ahead of me into the sun room. She started pulling down the blinds at one end of the room, intensifying the green of the shade. ‘Don’t you adore alyssum?’
It might have been chickweed for all I cared. ‘Lady Brock. Please. Whatever it is …’
‘Have you heard the expression mariage blanc, my dear?’
I pondered the words. ‘Is it the French for “white wedding”?’
‘No, it is not, my dear.’ Footsteps sounded in the hall. Lady Brock bent to the tea tray as Selwyn came in.
‘Sir Michael wishes to sleep.’ Selwyn gave a wan smile. ‘He won’t have Nurse Fletcher give him his dose. He’d prefer his dear love, he says.’
Lady Brock poured milk into each cup before standing up straight. She turned to me. ‘Come up with me, my dear. Sir Michael has a rather glorious bedroom ceiling.’
I followed her up some dark stairs to an oak-panelled corridor with a door at the end. She took a few paces, then came to a halt. ‘Ellen, a mariage blanc in good plain English is a marriage without any breeding going on.’
A hot blush rose up my neck. ‘Ah. Oh. I see.’
Lady Brock shook her head. ‘Oh God, Ellen. I’ve said far too much. I’ll leave it to Selwyn …’ She trailed off with a sigh. ‘He’s such a bally fool.’
She pushed open the door and a barrel-vaulted ceiling yawned above me, cross-hatched with heraldic beasts and symbols, a chequered pageant of the Middle Ages. In each square a sword, a griffin, a shield, a dragon, all wound about with leaves, rare lobed fruits, crested birds. I held my breath along with the curved in-breath of the ceiling. Reflected in a long mirror was a slanted shard of a man, a face white above dark bedclothes, lips dry and parted. ‘Darling?’ whispered the lips. Lady Brock patted my arm, and went in, closing the door behind her.
When I returned to the sun room I found the French windows open and Selwyn sitting outside, on the third stone step, clasping his arms around his knees. I went and sat beside him. His fingers clenched and unclenched. He was a thin man; his wrists, where they came out of the sleeves, all sinew and bone. I placed one hand upon his clenching fists to stop him saying what he was going to say, but he spoke anyway. ‘Ellen, I’ve done something very stupid. I should never have asked you to tea. I’m sorry. I can no longer see you.’
I took my hand away and fixed my eyes on the tops of the elms. The sky was blue behind the rooks’ nests, pale blue, and the nests straggling. It was astonishing, how much it hurt.
‘Is it something to do with breeding?’ My lips trembled as I spoke. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t understand what Lady Brock said. I mean, of course I know about that sort of thing, but …’
He buried his head in his hands and laughed in despair. ‘It appears Althea has blundered in on my prepared speech. Pre-empted it somewhat. I don’t blame you for being confused—’
‘Can’t you explain it to me?’
‘Not now. It’s become a bit of a mess. I would need to write it in a letter.’
‘A letter?’ Anger seethed unbidden up the column of my torso. ‘What am I, a fainting maiden? Selwyn, I’m old enough for you to be frank.’
‘It’s not a matter of age.’
I got to my feet and shook my skirt out. I took the remaining steps down with caution, as my knees felt unstrung. Even so, it was ungainly. His shoes scraped on the step behind.
I turned back. ‘So we won’t meet again?’
‘No.’
‘Then let’s not prolong it. Please take me back to Waltham. I’ll send a note to Lady Brock and apologize for spoiling the tea.’
He went into the house, spent five minutes there in conversation. Then he did as he was bid.
He drove faster than before, running through the gears, his hands alive on the wheel. We barrelled through the light and shade of the lanes, and my anger and pain were lit up by the beauty of the day.
‘Ellen, you are absolutely splendid—’
‘Oh, shut up.’
We screeched to the junction. He stared at me. A man who’d never in his life been told to shut up.
‘Be careful, Selwyn,’ I said with satisfaction. ‘That was a skid.’ I sat back in my seat. ‘My father used to skid the car on purpose, to make my mother scream. She loved it. Anyway, what you did was hardly worth the name. My father would have called that a mere wheel protest. I doubt you’re capable of a real skid.’
He said nothing. Gave me a sudden white smile, and put the car into gear. We tore out onto the road to Waltham. The corner approached but he didn’t brake. A girl appeared, leading a donkey. Girl and donkey whipped towards us, the donkey skittering on the bank, the girl clinging to its halter. ‘I think that’s Dan’s sister, Esther Corey.’ I craned to look. Esther was mouthing, her face crimson. ‘Selwyn, you road hog!’
In answer he put the handbrake on. The rear of the car swung round. My head brushed the doorframe. We curtseyed against the hedge and bitter smoke funnelled up into the window. I gave a ludicrous, wobbling scream of delight. ‘You’ll ruin the tyres.’