Mulligan's Yard (20 page)

Margot made no reply. She and Rupert had been ‘doing things’ long before Mother’s death . . .

‘Mrs Smythe came to visit me this morning. You were out walking, I think.’

‘Yes.’

This was so difficult. Amy did not want to hurt her little sister, but Amy had to hurt her little sister before anyone else damaged her. ‘Mrs Smythe was very clear, Margot. She wants
Rupert to stop seeing you.’

Margot leaped up. ‘What? Why?’

Amy, bone weary after worrying about Christmas, about A Cut Above and about Margot, closed her eyes for a second or two. Mature enough to realize that she was too young for all this, she wished
with all her heart that a long-lost family elder would appear and take the reins for a while.

‘Amy?’ Margot’s tone was just a fraction quieter than a scream. ‘Why?’ She had lost her mother – was she about to lose Rupert, too?

‘Because we are poor, I suppose.’ Helen Smythe had not mentioned money; she had simply stated that, in her opinion, Rupert and Margot were not suited. ‘Compared to the Smythes,
we are church mice,’ said Amy.

‘That’s silly and cruel,’ exclaimed Margot. ‘And we are of what Mrs Smythe would call good stock.’ What would she do without him? And surely Rupert was not going to
obey his mother? Rupert was of age, was old enough to decide for himself.

As if reading Margot’s mind, Amy spoke again. ‘Mrs Smythe is an interfering, domineering sort of woman, dear. Remember how she was always there when Mother was preparing to open the
business? Mother had a knack of pretending to be guided by her, though she never allowed Mrs Smythe to make a final decision.’

Margot sat down again and grabbed Amy’s hand. ‘But Mrs Smythe is all modern. She allowed Camilla to start a business, she’s always lecturing women about taking charge of their
own lives. So what makes her dislike me so much? Am I a bad person? And would she have dared to do this to me if Mother had lived?’

‘No, you’re not bad, Margot, not at all.’ She was silly, stubborn and a bit selfish, but Margot could never be described as bad. In fact, she would probably turn out well in
time.

‘What exactly did she say, Amy?’

‘That she wanted Rupert to spread his wings and fly south.’

‘London?’

Amy nodded.

‘That’s part of our plan. He and I have talked about moving to London. Amy, why is she doing this?’

The older girl suppressed a shudder as she remembered her earlier conversation with Helen Smythe. A lady to the core, Amy had distressed herself by yelling, like a fishwife, ‘No, I should
not choose Rupert as husband for my sister, or for anyone of my acquaintance. It is he who is not good enough, Mrs Smythe.’

‘Amy, what am I to do?’

Amy drew her sister close, pulling the tousled head on to her shoulder, heard the words she had delivered so recently to Rupert’s mother. ‘You are a fake, Mrs Smythe,’ Amy had
announced. ‘Modern women are supposedly encouraging their children to find their own feet, yet here you sit, dictating like a mid-Victorian father, forbidding this, insisting on that. If
Rupert were a man, he would not listen to you. And his record is not exactly clean, so perhaps you would do better by sending him to London. After all, he has ruined no chorus girls in that part of
the world. Yes, pack him off to where he is unknown.’

‘Amy?’

‘Yes, dearest, I know how difficult this is for you. I realize, too, that you will not want advice, yet I must tell you that I believe Rupert to be a thoroughly wretched young man. Mother
didn’t like him at all. And Camilla is so nice. I think Mrs Smythe has doted on her son—’

‘Because Camilla is ugly,’ sobbed Margot, ‘while Rupert is so good-looking.’ She rubbed at her eyes. ‘I shall see him tomorrow and find out what is going
on.’

‘No, please don’t chase after him, Margot.’ Was it too late for such advice? Had Margot wasted her precious body on that bone-idle, stupid, self-indulgent creature? ‘You
are too young to settle down just yet. Look, Mr Mulligan is determined to open the hydro in a few months. Think of all the people you would meet there. You could be in charge of the stables, riding
lessons and so forth.’

‘Please, Amy.’ Margot did not want to think or talk of anything except her dilemma. Panic flooded her veins, causing her heart to beat fast, her palms to sweat, her pores to open.
‘I’m scared,’ she whispered. ‘And please, I beg you, Amy, don’t discuss this with Eliza.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Amy had not been sure about Eliza for some time. Since gaining partial rein on her own behaviour and reactions, Amy had become more acutely aware of the behaviour of close companions. Eliza was
deep. The happy-go-lucky girl who had sung in the woods, the sweet, well-behaved darling daughter of Louisa Burton-Massey, the demure pianist, the seamstress – was any one of these the real
Eliza?

‘Amy?’

‘What?’

Margot wiped her eyes. ‘I think I don’t trust Eliza. It’s as if I don’t . . . as if she’s a person I’ve only just met. She has changed since Mother died, she
is a stranger.’

‘The consummate actress,’ mumbled Amy to herself. ‘Like the two of us, Eliza has probably been in shock,’ she added, in a clearer voice.

‘If everything goes wrong between myself and Rupert, I don’t want Eliza running around me and being kind. It would be too much to bear.’

‘I understand.’

Elspeth Moorhead knocked on the door. ‘It’s Mr Mulligan,’ she said. ‘I’ve put him in the drawing room.’

After a final glance at her distraught sister, Amy followed the ageing housekeeper downstairs and found James Mulligan pacing in front of a roaring fire. When Amy entered, he made a cursory bow,
then placed his tall, unfashionable hat on a tea-table. ‘The inn is sold,’ he said, without preamble.

Amy placed herself in a Victorian nursing chair just inside the door. ‘Good,’ she replied. ‘But why are you telling me?’

He opened his mouth, closed it, glanced at the ceiling, then at Amy. He wished with all his heart that he could be somewhere else, but he was here and he must get on with his business. With his
eyes fixed on a point somewhere between the picture rail and Amy’s head, he began again. ‘The inn is sold,’ he repeated lamely.

Amy decided not to encourage him. Occasionally, the annoying man drifted back into his old, silent ways, but when talking business involving the Burton-Massey family, he was sometimes at his
dramatic worst. She knew that he was capable of normal – well, of near-normal – behaviour, so she simply waited.

‘The estate will, eventually, revert to you.’ He cursed himself, knew that he sounded like a phonograph needle stuck in a scratch on a record.

She nodded. ‘Yes, you have said that before.’ It was plain that he continued guilty and embarrassed about the misdeeds of his father. ‘It is very generous of you,’ she
added, trying to put him at his ease. Where James Mulligan was concerned Amy often disliked herself since she knew his kindness was real, yet she persisted in tormenting him. This had to stop, she
ordered herself. Why was he here on this occasion? Just to repeat himself yet again?

He shifted about, moved the focus of his attention lower until he was looking at his companion’s hair. ‘The yard businesses bring in a living, but I fear that Pendleton Grange would
bleed you dry. The roof needs fixing, then there’s some dry rot and the—’

‘I am aware of the state of the house, James.’

At last, he looked directly into her eyes. ‘I am sorry to keep labouring these points, but I must beg you to listen, since I know that you will soon run out of money. If you continue here,
turn the Grange into a hydro which can be run by others, open the dressmaking business, then—’

‘Then we shall all die of over-exertion and nothing will matter.’

‘You will be comfortable,’ he said, rather sharply. ‘And occupied. Now, the price I have received for the inn will pay off some of the mortgage on the Grange, though it will
not stretch to cover improvements. The choice is between paying off a proportion of the loan or using the money to make a hydro. Which is it to be? Or shall I sell the Grange and give you the
money?’

Amy raised a shoulder. ‘This is very kind of you, but it is not my concern. Do as you will.’ She pulled herself up again. ‘Look, I don’t mean to be unkind or to sound
ungrateful, but it is so long since we lived in the big house that I can hardly imagine owning and running it. As for selling it, would you get a good price while it is in need of modernization?
And . . . well, I do have other concerns.’

‘I know.’ He lowered his tone. ‘How is Margot?’

‘Head over heels in love with Rupert, I fear.’

‘And Rupert?’

‘Head over heels with himself. His mother, in spite of her emancipation, is keen to marry him to someone with better expectations.’

James stood up and walked to the window. ‘Would you have me tell Mrs Smythe exactly what Margot’s prospects are? After all, were you to sell everything after I go home, or were we to
sell up now, you might even be rich.’

‘Tell her nothing,’ said Amy. ‘He doesn’t deserve my sister.’

‘And you feel I may renege on my promise and keep everything myself?’

Strangely, that possibility had never occurred to Amy. This man said what he meant, meant what he said. ‘There are few trustworthy people in this world, James Mulligan. You happen to be
one of the few. But, as I have said before, the property is yours. Should your circumstances change, then your priorities would shift.’ Amy lowered her tone. ‘You are not like your
father. Wipe that idea from your mind, marry if you wish.’

He walked back to the fireplace. ‘Eliza played very well today,’ he said.

Amy felt tension settling in her spine, making her stiffen against the back of her chair. She had mentioned the possibility of him marrying; immediately, he had spoken of Eliza. Why did the
concept of a marriage between James and Eliza bother her?

‘She sings well, too,’ he added.

‘Eliza is gifted,’ she replied.

He picked up his hat. ‘You will come for Christmas, I hope. We are to celebrate in the kitchen, because that is more homely. It will be a mixed bunch, no ceremony, no master, no
servants.’

‘I see.’ She rose and followed him into the hallway. ‘Then who will cook the meal?’ she asked.

‘Mrs Kenny. She will have help.’

‘So the servants will cook?’

At the front door, he paused. ‘Will you go through the rest of your life splitting hairs, Amy? Does everything have to be so carefully thought out, analysed and criticized? No matter who
cooks or cleans or washes dishes, we shall be a family on Christmas Day. In fact, I may decide to do the cooking myself.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

He smiled, then placed his hat on his head. ‘Never mind, so,’ he smiled. ‘There’s only one of you, then the mould got broken.’

When he had marched off, Amy closed the door, closed her eyes, leaned against the wall. He disturbed her. She didn’t know why. She didn’t want to know why.

Margot was feeling out of sorts. She was experiencing nausea, headaches and a general lassitude whose sole benefit was a marked diminution of anger. There was no space, no
energy for temper. When aimless thoughts landed on the subject of Rupert Smythe, the resulting resignation was completely alien to the character of the youngest Burton-Massey. He did not want her.
She could do nothing to force him to love her. Amy was right, as usual – few affluent young men would choose to be connected with a family as impoverished as theirs.

She sat as still as stone at the window, her gaze floating loosely across the snow-covered stretch of lawn and flower beds. Beyond the boundary walls, heavy cloud seemed to be sinking on to
moortops as if threatening to drop a cargo of lead. The house was cold. Winter had moved in without invitation, had settled his refrigerated essence in every corner, spreading ice-tipped fingers
along thin glass, breathing frosty air throughout the rooms. Fires had little effect, warming just a small apron in front of each hearth, leaving Winter to do his dramatic worst.

She sighed gloomily. She didn’t want to be here in this sooty parlour with its walls stained by smoky exhalations from a faulty chimney. Parlour? Elspeth Moorhead had christened the room,
and the housekeeper was right. At Pendleton Grange there had been drawing rooms, warmth, light, space. Here, there was no fire in Margot’s bedroom until evening, while even the dining room
was unheated. These days, meals were taken in the parlour, served on a wheeled table with semicircular wings. ‘Poverty,’ she mouthed. ‘I bet it’s warmer outside.’ Yes,
perhaps the house might feel more cheerful after a stroll.

In the hallway, she dragged on coat, hat, scarf and boots. Dusk was beginning to descend as she closed the door in her wake, but the silvery-white earth seemed to produce a light all its own as
she crunched her way alongside footprints left by her sisters. Amy and Eliza had gone to town in search of Christmas presents. They had travelled with Mr Mulligan who, Margot felt sure, was falling
in love with Eliza.

The woods were beautiful, bare trees dripping crystal icicles, leafless limbs stretching upward to embrace a clear sky. Margot kicked the ground, creating tramlines in four inches of white
carpet. She sat on a stump and worried about not being worried. The concept of pregnancy should be terrifying, yet she remained so stupidly calm. It was almost as if she watched someone else, as if
the problems were not connected to her at all. Even when she concentrated on the idea of her family’s further ruination, she continued unmoved. But was she truly concentrating? Was she
capable of that?

Rupert. He was the only one; he was the father. Counting the months, Margot decided that her baby would be due in the middle of June. She was almost three months pregnant, yet her belly remained
as flat as it had always been. Amy would have to be told, of course. What then? A home for mothers and babies, adoption? Margot harboured no sentiment for the child or for its father; she simply
breathed, ate, slept, tried not to vomit. The trouble her predicament would cause meant nothing at this point. Just occasionally, a mild unease would creep over her, unattached, unconnected with
anything real. Although she was in trouble, she was not particularly troubled.