Felicity gave Harriet a speculative glance, her eyes turning imperceptibly to the younger women’s figure as she repeated, ‘It sounds as if Master Charles is going to be very spoilt indeed! Which I suppose is inevitable, he being the only child, or are you perhaps soon to add to your family?’
Harriet reminded herself quickly that Felicity could not possibly know that such an event was highly improbable, and in any case, it was not very conventional to discuss such a subject. Ever since her return from Ireland the attractive young widow had been a regular caller, and as Harriet was missing Una’s company, their easy friendship had grown much deeper. Felicity had established herself as Harriet’s closest friend, fulfilling her need for female companionship. For there was not even Bessie now with whom she could discuss the virtues of a new gown, a new way to dress her hair or the success or otherwise of a dinner party.
She had become accustomed to Felicity’s outspokenness and the way she often disregarded social conventions some time ago. She addressed Brook and herself as if they were a brother or sister, and thought nothing of kissing both of them when arriving on one of her frequent visits.
When Brook saw her seated side saddle on her large black mare with only a groom accompanying her, he had once described her as looking like a beautiful Boadicea charging into battle, needing only a chariot with knives on the wheels to complete the picture. Harriet might have felt a trifle jealous of his praise had he not told her that no one was more elegant or more beautiful than she, herself, when wearing her midnight-blue riding habit. It had a tight-fitting jacket finished with a velvet collar and cuffs, and he particularly admired her black silk hat with its gauze veil worn at such a jaunty angle.
More often than not, Felicity rode with the hunt, but Harriet had ceased doing so of late, suspecting as she did that she might once more be with child. Were this to be so, she thought, and she managed not to lose the baby as before, she could not imagine that she would love it more than she adored Charlie. He had grown into the most attractive, cherub-faced little boy, his blue eyes always crinkling in a smile when he saw her or Brook. His high, piping voice was heard wherever he went in the house, singing without words the Irish songs Maire often sang to him.
Every member of staff loved Charlie, but none as much as his father did. Brook’s interest in the child had deepened even further when he discovered how much the boy loved him. Whenever he was home of an evening, he would call Maire to bring the child down to the drawing room when he was bathed, fed and ready for bed. As soon as Charlie saw Brook, he struggled to get down from his nurse’s arms, stretching his own not towards Harriet but towards Brook.
Harriet loved watching them both, Brook often holding his hunter watch to Charlie’s ear and smiling at the child’s delight at the sound. Sometimes when he heard Charlie attempting to sing the melody of one of the nursery rhymes Maire had taught him, Brook would add a verse or two in his rich baritone, and laugh when Charlie stopped, wide-eyed, in order to listen to him.
‘He’s my most appreciative audience, aren’t you, you young scallywag!’ Brook would say, and insist Harriet should instruct the boy to sing to his grandfather, Sir Walter, when next he visited. Brook’s father was now almost as frequent a visitor as Felicity Goodall. He openly admitted that he came to see his grandson, not Brook or Harriet. He doted on the child almost as deeply as Brook. Once, hearing the little boy’s piping voice perfectly in tune and noticing how he took instantly to any form of melody, Harriet was reminded of a fact she would far prefer to forget – that his real father had been a musician.
‘Did you never wish for children before your husband died?’ she asked Felicity now.
Felicity shook her head. ‘I hope this will not shock you, Harriet, dear, but to be truthful, I prefer dogs! Although I only have two of them, a deer hound and a King Charles spaniel, Paul complains he is always falling over one or other of them, and forbids me to have more. He is allowing me another horse though as, being stabled, he doesn’t often see them.’
She laughed at Harriet’s expression and added: ‘Brook was quite upset the other day at luncheon when Paul remarked that horses would soon become redundant now that we had steam engines. Of course, he, like our late father, is entirely besotted with train engines, and he tells me that one day there will be railway lines all over the country, and people will be able to travel very quickly to any town or village they choose. It is hard to believe, is it not, that there will be lots more railways travelling underground like the ones they have built in London. I have asked Paul to take me on one when he invites me to the house he has bought in London. I shall stay there with him whenever I fancy. Just imagine, Harriet, riding in a railway carriage under the ground!’
Brook had long since told Harriet that Paul Denning and his sister were probably among the richest people in the country; that it was new money made from the father’s involvement in the railways, and they could therefore afford to buy a palace – if such were vacant and it was wanted. He had added that if the plantations in Jamaica continued to be doing so poorly, far from buying property he might have to sell the London office and think twice about renting the house in Wilton Crescent for the season.
The previous year they had removed to London for three months and Harriet had enjoyed riding in Hyde Park where all the fashionable people rode or promenaded. They had enjoyed an exciting day trip to Epsom with a party of Brook’s friends and their wives to watch the Derby, gone to St James’s Theatre where the famous Henry Irving was appearing in a play called
The Two Lives
of Mary Leigh
in the part of Rawdon Scudamore and, one wonderful night, they had listened to Madame Patti singing ‘Violetta’ in the opera
La Traviata.
Harriet had liked all Brook’s friends, mostly former Oxford graduates like himself, nearly all of whom she remembered slightly from Brook’s and her wedding day. Their wives were charming and only too pleased to escort Harriet on shopping expeditions where she could replenish her wardrobe with more fashionable attire than that Una had bought for her after she had lost her belongings in Liverpool.
Felicity, needless to say, was always quite up to date with the latest fashions, employing a dressmaker in Leicester who had been working in Paris with an up-and-coming young designer called Charles Frederick Worth. The woman was adept at copying any dress pictured in the
London and Paris Ladies’ Magazine
and, since cost was irrelevant, was sent to London for all the latest and best materials.
Miss Felicity Goodall was very far from being a conventional, somewhat helpless female, Brook commented when Harriet spoke of her. He’d seen her lift her horse’s leg and remove an offending stone from its hoof as fearlessly as if she were the groom! In other ways, too, she was a resourceful, self-assured woman.
As Felicity had promised on Harriet’s return from Ireland, she found a very efficient replacement for Bessie, a fully trained woman from London called Ellen Reed who had, so far, proved to be faultless. Harriet, however, found it impossible to feel any great liking for her. Whilst not actually disliking her, she felt as if there was a transparent wall between them, other than the normal conventional one between servant and mistress. Ellen seldom talked about herself other than to say that her family had always been extremely poor; that all but her sister, Susan, had passed away. The girl was handicapped and dependent upon Ellen, the only wage earner, for financial assistance.
She told Harriet in a rare moment of discussion about her past employment that the nuns at her school had found her a position as a tweeny in a big London house, and by dint of uncomplaining, exhaustingly long hours of work, she had managed to gain promotion to housemaid, then parlourmaid. Finally, having studiously learned from her mistresses the requirements of a lady’s maid, she had reached her present position, and learning that a Mrs Goodall was looking for a lady’s maid, she quickly applied for the position. So far, Harriet had been unable to find fault with her which, she confessed to Brook, had not always been the case with her dear Bessie.
Once a month, on Maire’s half day off, Harriet took little Charlie to the Norman church in the village. There, she would kneel in one of the pews and pray for Bessie’s return whilst Charlie played in the aisle. She did not expect ever to see her again, but she had had a surprisingly optimistic letter from Bessie’s father. On her return from Ireland she had travelled down to Sussex and given Bessie’s parents an account of the attack upon them in Liverpool. His daughter, her father insisted, was no weakling, and as nobody had ever been found and identified as her, he was convinced she must be kept prisoner, and that one day she would find her way home.
Subsequently, Harriet had written to the Liverpool police asking them to continue their search for Bessie, but they had failed to find a single trace of her. She had been missing for over a year now, but Harriet still prayed for her return.
It was after such a visit to the village church that she came home to find Felicity awaiting her return in the drawing room. Harriet rang for tea to be sent up and joined her on the sofa, saying, ‘So much seems to have happened this past year, Felicity, and yet when I think about it, Brook and I have not been very sociable with our neighbours – other than with you, Felicity, dear. You and your brother have been so generous with your hospitality. We both so love your beautiful house. Were you to remarry and move elsewhere to a new home, we would miss you so much.’
Felicity was regarding her strangely. ‘I have not the slightest intention of remarrying, my dear friend. I am not saying anything disrespectful about my late husband, who was a kind, generous and thoughtful man, but he was thirty years older than me – a friend of my father’s, and it was to please Papa that I agreed to marry him. I never loved him. When I marry again, it will be to someone as charming and handsome as your Brook – someone I could love as much as you love him.’
Harriet smiled and turned to regard Brook, who had just come into the room and was also smiling as she replied to Felicity, ‘Then I can only wish that he had a twin brother! Living alone as you do, it must be quite lonely at times when your brother is not visiting. He told me he had many business commitments in London.’
Felicity sighed. ‘It is only to be expected. I think Paul loves his railway empire even more than Papa did!’ She smiled at Harriet, adding: ‘However, I am a great deal less lonely since you and Brook moved into Hunters Hall. You always make me feel so welcome when I come here, and I think it is vastly kind of you, Brook, to waive protocol and permit me to ride over to see you both without prior invitation. You make me feel almost like one of the family.’
For a moment, a picture of Felicity and Brook playing backgammon in front of the drawing-room fire one wet winter’s day with much laughter came to Harriet’s mind. She had been spending an hour in the nursery watching Charlie as he tried doggedly to walk over to her, frequently sitting down with a bump and laughing as he struggled back on to his feet and made yet another attempt.
The slight, unexplained feeling of unease at seeing the two by the fire like a happily married couple quickly vanished when Brook had immediately stood up when she’d entered the room and come straight to her side. He had kissed her on the cheek and told her to come and sit down on the sofa beside him. Their game was almost finished, he said, and he would concede defeat.
Harriet knew he liked Felicity and admired her repartee, her spirit and her horsemanship. She agreed with Brook when he said that her repartee was so amusing that her occasional lapses from conventional ladylike behaviour were of little consequence; it was not her fault. Her father, despite his relatively humble origins, had given his children an excellent schooling, Felicity being finished at a very costly and genteel establishment for training daughters of the growing number of newly rich men who were buying their way into acceptance by the upper classes.
There was no doubt, Harriet agreed, that Felicity was always most beautifully attired whether it be on the hunting fields, at a ball or a simple dinner party. Shyness was unknown to her, and she was a faultless hostess.
‘I do believe you are a little jealous of her, my love!’ Brook had once teased Harriet. ‘You talk as if you were not admired every bit as much as our flamboyant Mrs Goodall. You are intelligent to converse with, utterly charming and far more lovely than Felicity could ever be.’ He had kissed her, held her close to him, and added: ‘You would not believe how many of my men friends have slapped me on the back and told me what a devil of a lucky fellow I am to have you for my wife.’
It was silly of her to have felt inferior in some way to Felicity, Harriet had told herself. Were it possible, she and Brook were even more deeply in love than ever before. Brook was unable to forget the lonely months when he had been living so far away without her, and often, when he had made love to her, he would renew his vow never to leave her again. He was never far from her side, except on occasions when he joined Felicity and her groom on a morning ride, or once when he had driven her into Leicester when she wanted his advice about a horse she was thinking of buying. It pleased him to be asked for his opinion on the making of a marble fountain for the garden on a visit with Felicity to the stone mason in the village near Ramsbury.
Once or twice Harriet had accompanied them on such outings, but she felt the winter cold quite badly, and often preferred to spend an hour or two in the nursery with Charlie.
On this cold February afternoon, Harriet was enjoying Felicity’s amusing account of the week she had just spent in London with her brother.
‘You and Brook should come up to town more often,’ Felicity told her. ‘Paul would love to have you to stay at his house.’ She glanced out of the window and rose to her feet.
‘It will be dark in an hour or so,’ she said, ‘so it is time I made my way home. If you will be kind enough to ask your footman to tell my groom to bring the curricle round to the front, I will pay a quick visit to your water closet and be on my way.’