A Time Like No Other (8 page)

But Lally Fraser was not one of them. Certainly she was widowed but her life was hardly begun and when the time was right and her period of mourning was over or even a little before, Harry meant to step in and make his intentions known. He could give her what she had had with Chris Fraser and a lot more besides: his love, his protection, expensive clothes, jewellery, her own carriage, a good education for her boys, a life of ease and luxury free from worry. He would employ an agent to run her estate so that she could fulfil her duties as his wife and the mother not only to Chris’s children, but to his own which she would start to bear him within twelve months of marriage. He would surround her with the devotion, the caring, the love she deserved and which he had in abundance.

He was at the end of the row and in the darkened auditorium he could watch her without being noticed himself. He had opera glasses trained on the box and her lovely face was animated, the expressions chasing one another across it as she became absorbed in the play. Roly spoke to her several times but Harry saw her put up her hand as though to silence him as she became enthralled in the action and words from the stage. She was obviously enjoying every minute and he made a small vow to himself that when they were married he would take her to the theatre, here, in London, in New York, or wherever they travelled. Then he pulled himself up and called himself every kind of fool, for it was clear that Harry Sinclair was not, and had never been in her thoughts except as an acquaintance who was helping her to pull the estate together.
London! New York! Marriage!
He must be a bloody fool, he brooded, as he set his opera glasses back in their case, stood up and strode from the theatre. He collected his bay from the stables at the White Horse Inn further up Ward’s End, and with a ferocity that startled the stable lad, as Mr Sinclair was known for his love of horses and his politeness to servants, he galloped full tilt into the street and headed off towards Trinity Road which led to the edge of the town and Mill House where he lived.

Lally, knowing she had already broken every rule of society by not only leaving off her mourning but by appearing in public alone with an unmarried gentleman, refused absolutely to take up Roly’s offer of a bit of supper at the White Horse Inn where the food was good and the wine even better.

‘I can’t, Roly, you know I can’t. Biddy has already told me my reputation is torn to shreds by—’

‘Then if that’s the case, my pet, you can hardly damage it any more. You know you are absolutely safe with me. It’s a shame to end the evening so early and, anyway, what has Biddy to do with it? She’s a servant and has no right—’

Lally’s face closed up. ‘Roly, I will have nothing said against Biddy. I don’t know what I would do without her.’

‘I bet she’s had enough to say about me.’ His hand was at her elbow as he guided her from the box, along the carpeted corridor towards the steps leading down to the street. There were well-dressed ladies and gentlemen moving in the same direction, many of them known to her. There were a few frozen-faced nods in their direction but she noticed that most of them kept their faces averted to make it clear that they disapproved of her behaviour. She knew she had broken every rule of her own class but she had been unable to resist the temptation to wear the last evening gown that Chris had bought her, the duck-egg blue satin trimmed with guipure lace with a crinoline which had filled the carriage. The neckline was extremely low, showing the tops of her small white breasts. She had lost weight since Chris’s death and Biddy had been cajoled into helping her take the bodice in, grumbling the whole time. Well, hardly grumbling, for the tirade that followed her announcement that she was to attend the theatre with Roly had been loud and long and furious.

‘You realise, I suppose, that your reputation will be totally ruined. That not one of your friends will have anything to do with you in the future. No one will receive you or call on you.’ All the time she spoke, or rather ranted, her hands were busy with the seams at the side of the bodice. ‘I know that at the moment you are not yourself—’

‘What
is
myself, Biddy?’ Lally asked passionately. ‘I’m twenty years old and I might as well be dead. Oh, I know I have the boys and I love them more than life but I can’t
make
them my life. I must do something.’

‘Mr Sinclair has given you something to do. You are to look after your sons’ inheritance. Learn to manage the estate. You know he will help you. He already has with the loan you have from the bank and you know the tenants are already glad to have their farm buildings put in order. Polly McGinley at Folly Farm is most grateful.’

‘I know, Biddy, but that isn’t
fun
. I want to laugh and enjoy myself as I used to do with Chris. Roly Sinclair makes me laugh. He makes me feel young again and as I was before . . . before Chris died. Do you know Chris wanted to join some regiment or other and go out to the Crimea to fight the Russians and I wouldn’t let him because I was afraid he might be killed.’ Her tone was bitter. ‘Dear God, I might as well have given him my blessing since he died anyway. Oh, God, Biddy, I can’t bear being a widow, expected to dress in black from head to toe and never have anything that might be called enjoyment. I mourn him, of course I do and I will never forget him and how much I loved him, but why is it considered wrong for me to have a perfectly innocent trip to the theatre with a man I’ve known since childhood? We are almost brother and sister, for heaven’s sake. He and Chris were like brothers and he would never do anything to harm me.’

‘No, I don’t suppose he would but we’re talking about your reputation, lass.’ Biddy bent her head to bite off the thread with which she was sewing. The lovely gown slithered on her lap and the light from the window fell across its folds, rippling them from the palest blue that was almost white to a deep aquamarine and in each fold was the exact colour of the eggs laid by the ducks on the lake at the front of the house.

Lally was roaming about the bedroom, picking up ornaments and putting them down again, stopping to look in the mirror and thrusting her fingers through her short hair. She was restless, bored, and she knew the reason why. It was all very well to talk about managing the estate which she was determined to do but it was not the days that bore her down but the nights in the big, lavender-scented bed she had shared with Chris. She had been married for three years and during that time she had learned the joy, the passion, the repletion of physical love and her body was a jangle of nerves without it. She had loved her husband and she had loved the act of love. Her body had sparkled with pleasure wherever he touched it and no part of it had been deprived of his caress. She had adored it, and him. She had loved his nudity and her own, the sensation of bare flesh against bare flesh, the emotion it stirred in him and in her. When he had entered her body, which he had done every night and sometimes morning too since the day of their marriage, it had closed about him, holding him fast, fusing them together with love and self-abandonment. That was all gone now and she missed it, her body throbbing with loss. She might only be twenty years old but she was a mature woman in the ways of the flesh. She would marry again, she knew she would, but until she did she must subdue these urges that came on her and drove her to a mad restlessness that nothing could assuage. But she could see no harm in her friendship with Roly who was, as she had said to Biddy, in all but name, her brother. She was aware that society deeply disapproved. But she was beginning to find out that she did not much care. The return of Roly had brought a small amount of merriment into her life, since he himself cared for nothing that was considered
proper
in society and the pursuit of enjoyment was second nature to him. She refused to consider that the double standards that were the measure of their class allowed gentlemen to do as they pleased, discreetly if possible, but the same rule did not apply to its womenfolk.

It was the beginning of February, mild, spring-like almost, and each week she rode out to visit her tenants, usually astride having discarded her riding skirt, much to the embarrassment of the men in the fields and farmyards, for they were not used to seeing the shape of a female leg, even those who were married. They made love to their wives in the dark and most had scarce seen them without a layer of petticoats and a sensible, workaday dress since the day they had wed.

Carly had averted his eyes the first time she strode across the stable yard to where he had Merry waiting for her. Automatically he had bent, his hands linked to give her a lift into the side-saddle, not really looking at her, but he had been astounded when she told him to change it.

‘I can get about more easily if I ride astride, Carly. I have to get down to open gates and it’s easier dressed like this.’

‘Mrs Fraser . . .’ he had mumbled, but then it was not up to the likes of a groom to lecture his young mistress on the correct way to dress. He had done as he was told, changed the saddle and helped her into it, opened the gate and watched her break into a trot across the park, her two setters at her heels, turning to the house where three dumbfounded faces peered out of the kitchen window. He shrugged his shoulders at them, then, removing his cap, he had scratched his head in bemusement and returned to the job of mucking out. His young mistress seemed determined not to conform to the practices of her own kind. Just look at the frequency with which young Roly Sinclair had been out here in the last weeks. He’d lost count of the times he had run out to hold Foxfire, Mr Roly’s chestnut gelding, while the young man had visited Miss Lally, and in the evening sometimes which wasn’t proper!

Polly McGinley was in her hen-house when Lally shouted at the gate. She came running to open it and her face bore the same expression of astonishment when the mistress jumped down from her horse with what looked like, for a moment of horror, naked legs. Even when she realised that Mrs Fraser actually had on a pair of beige kid riding breeches she was still startled. Mrs Fraser wore a warm, chocolate-coloured riding coat reaching down almost to her knees and the tops of her polished riding boots, which made the outfit somewhat more decent. Polly was not to know that the coat had once belonged to Chris Fraser though she could see it was far too big for his young widow. A scarf was wound round her neck and she wore no hat so that with her short hair she looked like a schoolboy.

‘Morning, Mrs McGinley,’ she called out cheerfully and Polly was glad to see her young landlord, or rather landlady, was recovering.

‘Mornin’, ma’am. Lovely day fer February. Sean an’ Denny’s down in’t field seein’ ter’t ’taters but me an’ Kate was just about ter ’ave us a brew. Will yer come inside, but I’ve just done’t kitchen floor so I’d be obliged if yer’d keep them dogs outside.’ Mrs Fraser might be her landlord but Polly believed in speaking her mind. She and Sean had paid up the rent owing and as far as they were concerned that entitled them to do as they pleased in the farmhouse and in the fields. She and Kate were doing well with their poultry, the money Mrs Fraser had put into the property allowing them to experiment with different strains of hens and what they didn’t eat themselves was sent each week to the market-place in Halifax. Eggs, butter, trussed chickens, fancy cheeses and they were making steady progress. She had a lot of time for Mrs Fraser who was, at least, unlike her charming, but sadly dead husband, doing her best with the farms on her estate.

Despite her warning about the dogs, which Polly had implied might fetch muck into her kitchen, the yard was as neat as a parlour surrounded on two sides by farm buildings whitewashed and in good repair. The pig pen in which several pigs rooted looked as if it had been freshly cleaned out and the great horse which was used to pull the plough poked its head enquiringly over the stable door, whickering a welcome to Merry. There was a well-tended, well-fenced vegetable garden to the side of the kitchen door with a gate leading into it and, tethering Merry to the fence, Lally followed Polly into the kitchen. Kate McGinley, Polly’s daughter-in-law, was up to her elbows in flour and, like her mother-in-law, did not believe in submissiveness to her betters. Respectful, yes, humble, no, so though she bobbed a small smiling curtsey she went on with making her bread. Tea was poured into great mugs, strong and sweet as
they
liked it and without stopping her task Kate gulped hers down while Lally and Polly sat before the enormous fire in the comfortable rocking-chairs, which had come from Polly’s mam when she died, and drank their tea. Lally felt at ease, comfortable as she listened to Polly’s plans for their future which, it seemed, were to include a grandchild by the summer. Polly was made up, she said, giving their Kate an affectionate look and if Mrs Fraser didn’t mind she and Sean and their Denny meant to make the small cottage at the back of the farmhouse into a cosy home for the new family.

‘Mrs McGinley . . .’

‘Polly, please, ma’am.’

‘Well, Polly, I’m absolutely delighted. The baby will be the first to be born to the estate since I . . . I took over.’

‘If it be a lass . . . well, we was ’opin’ yer might be godmother.’ Polly beamed and when Lally said again she would be delighted Polly McGinley told their Kate afterwards she’d do owt fer the new landlord and whatever it was, she’d only to ask.

When Lally finally returned home she told the girls in the kitchen that she was awash with tea and she had even been forced to use the privy at the back of Cowslip Farm where Elsie Graham had pressed her third or was it her fourth mug of tea into her hand. Thankfully it had been spotlessly clean, which was a good sign for the Grahams had not been expecting her. They were all so welcoming, she told Biddy, she felt as though she had been visiting old friends. After all she had only met them recently, for in all their married life Chris had never done the rounds, with or without her. She had been with Harry Sinclair but the tenants had been somewhat constrained in his presence since he was the sort of man who did not easily thaw to others. He was proud and wealthy, used to giving orders and his rather arrogant, stiff manner did not put them at their ease.