Rutherford Park (29 page)

Jack pulled a disgusted face here now on the winding footpath. He doubted that Harry would even care about the child growing up in the rooms over the pub in the village; he doubted that he would ask after her or go to see her. They said that she was more like Harry than ever. She would have her first birthday in five months’ time. But she was unlikely to see her father, and she certainly would never have a mother. Jack kicked a stone along the path and followed it, increasing his pace, reaching the stile to the woodland and climbing it rapidly.

It was the longest way round to the yard, probably more than a mile. To his right, the river meandered for a while and then struck out towards the lake and the house. He climbed upwards through the larch and pine that had been planted by Lord William’s father.
A kind of murky darkness was in there under the crowded trees; rain still spattered from branches far above.

He was climbing towards where the path met the track coming down from the moors when he caught sight of something moving a few hundred yards ahead of him. He stopped, thinking it was deer. Whatever it was—it was still two or three hundred yards away in the gloom—seemed to stumble and fall. It was a mingled shape and color: first cream, then brown. He narrowed his eyes, perplexed.

He walked slower, and came to a bank where the ground sloped away. The planting of the larch stopped here; beyond them it was all pine. Somewhere in here he knew that Lord William’s father had planted sequoia, a few precious trees bought from a dealer who had come back from California. He knew that they had their own small plantation, spaced far apart from one another in a long line and guarded from deer by a high wire fence. Mr. March had told him when he was a boy some years ago that he was not to go up there; the sequoias were valuable; it was not a playground.

But someone was there now. Someone or something. Jack stepped down off the bank and walked among knee-high rhododendron that had been cut back but that were growing again, thin, yellowing, searching for light. Here and there a pale mauve flower clung to the branches. And then he saw what it was ahead of him, and stopped dead.

It was Lady Cavendish and John Gould. For a second, he thought that she must have fallen, and then the idea came to him with a desperate shock that Gould had attacked her or hurt her in some way, and he was in the very moment of leaning forward, preparing to rush to her, when he saw that she had not fallen at all, and neither was she being attacked, but that she was talking—they were both talking—and that her arms were around the American’s
neck. And that there was nothing needed from him. And he stood half-hidden between two trees, realizing that, had they turned their heads, they would have seen him. And knowing that they were not going to turn their heads, or hear him, or care.

* * *

H
e got back to the stable yard just before one o’clock.

Out of breath from running, he put his hands on his knees and leaned forward. A door slammed, and his father called him; he looked up but didn’t move. Josiah walked over to him.

“What’s up with you?” he asked. “You’ve missed your dinner.” Jack straightened up and shook his head. “Did yer see Mr. Gray?”

“I did.”

“And what’s he want?”

“The team brought down to Brooker’s Field.”

Josiah eyed him. “You’ve taken yer time, lad.”

“I went up by the woodland. I seen them there.”

“Seen who?”

“Her ladyship and the American.”

“What? Out walking?”

“They weren’t walking when I saw them,” Jack told him, giving his father a significant look.

The older man drew in a breath. “His lordship’s out. He’s gone over to the Kents to see about a shoot in August.”

“I know that,” Jack responded. “He’s out all day.”

“You’ve got it wrong,” Josiah said after a hesitation, protest in his voice. “Not her.”

Jack thought of the American, his trousers pushed down to his knees, rutting like a farmyard animal out there in the open, and of her grip on him, and the fine lawn coat he’d seen her wearing
yesterday spread out on the ground underneath them both. “I’m telling you, Father,” he said. “I’ve seen them. And I’m not wrong.”

* * *

W
illiam Cavendish walked out onto the Green Bridge at Richmond, twenty-five miles from Rutherford, and looked out over the River Swale. It was now late afternoon, and the slanted sunlight had that old-gold look more common to late summer, coloring all the trees along the river. He had spent all day with the Kents, drawing into Richmond’s marketplace in the Napier only at five o’clock, and had decided to take a walk that always calmed him, along the river and up to Castle Walk, which would give him a panorama of the way he had come.

The conversation of that morning was on his mind. He had asked Hamilton Kent what chance there might be of Harry joining the Princess of Wales’s Own.

“Has the boy expressed an interest?” Kent asked.

“He ought to join a Yorkshire regiment.”

“That’s not answering the question, old boy.” Kent smiled, lighting his cigar after lunch. “And you think it’ll come to that?”

“Within weeks.”

Kent had raised an eyebrow. “Of course, you know more than I do, up here in the sticks,” he observed. He tapped his leg, indicating an injury from the Boer War. “Counts me out of most things.”

“We’ll be at war within the month.”

“You think so? The Prime Minister shows no sign of it.”

“Churchill will be the coming man.”

Kent snorted derisively. “Don’t trust a man who crosses the floor of the House.”

“He’s built for war; Lloyd George is not.”

“Hmmm,” Kent mused. He had two sons of his own, both in the army. “Mobilization, then.”

William gave a slow shrug. “Two days ago, Serbia received an impossible ultimatum from Austria. Mobilization can’t be far off for us.”

“You’ve spoken to the Prime Minister?”

“Briefly, on the telephone.”

Kent smiled. “I thought you despised the instrument.”

“So I do,” William replied. “I won’t have it in the main house, only the library.”

Kent began to laugh. “Determined to be an anachronism to the last.”

“I hate intrusion.”

Kent nodded understandingly. “But we will be intruded upon, you think. As a country. Does Grey say so?”

“He fears it. The Austrians are determined to crush Serbia. Churchill has ordered the fleet to war stations; Russia is mobilizing on Austria’s border. France will follow. And if France follows, so must we. We are allies.”

Kent hissed softly to himself. “Hard to believe.”

“It
is
hard to believe,” William agreed heatedly. “Damned bloody whirlpool. Damned Kaiser. He’s at the mercy of his advisers. I would wager you a hundred pounds that he knows only half what’s going on. We’re standing at the edge.” He took his voice down a tone. “I’m sorry, old chap. Your boys and so on. I expect they have told you.”

“They tell me nothing, and quite rightly.” Kent considered William. “As for Harry…”

“He would buckle down to a good officer.” In fact, William had come to the conclusion over the last few days that this was what Harry needed: some structure to hold him tight, to give him discipline. He bucked against his father’s rule, but William had an
idea that Harry would respond to other orders. Besides that, he knew that his boy had the ferocity of determination that would make him good military material. And he was trying very hard to ignore that soft voice in his head that would rather have Harry at Rutherford, growing indolent perhaps, but safe.

“What does Octavia say?” Kent asked.

“Like most of the country, she’s oblivious.”

“Good,” Kent said. Like William, he was of the old school that women, and wives especially, should be protected from reality. “But Harry…last December all he spoke of was flying.”

“There’s no regiment for pilots.”

“There’s the Royal Flying Corps.” Kent leaned forward and tapped William companionably on the knee. “It won’t stay on the ground, you know,” he said. He waved his cigar skywards. “It’ll be up there. Any war at all from now on.”

“It’s too risky, too underdeveloped. The machines are simply toys.”

“You’re out of touch, William. The machines will catch up, if they haven’t already,” Kent said. “And boys like Harry will be in them.”

William stood now and watched the water flowing. Above him, the keep of the castle was an enormous solid rectangle dominating the skyline; the pretty little streets, Millgate and Frenchgate and Lombards Wynd, circled it. He had always loved it here. This was what England was about: ancient churches and medieval houses, strongholds and permanence. The castle itself had been here since the twelfth century and it was inconceivable that it could change, or that the flag that flew above it would alter, or that the ineffable peace that hung over the town could ever be shattered.

He had come here as a boy and paddled about in the river just as children were doing now—although he always would stand apart from the town children, afraid to mix, unsure of himself; and then there was always the traditional walk on to the Culloden Tower.
Richmond’s history was also Rutherford’s, for somewhere in the depths of time—nine hundred years or more, give or take a century—the same Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond who had built the castle had also had drawn out the boundaries of Rutherford’s estate. It was all of a piece, indivisible.

He wondered whether England might be invaded again. It seemed unbelievable, and yet the French had once carved up this land for themselves, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire might yet do the same. He leaned on the wall of the bridge and stared fixedly at the water below; no, it was impossible. It must be impossible.

He and Kent had arranged for the shoot in the last week in August, but it had been done in a low-key fashion. They had no idea how many men they might call on for beaters; Kent had reckoned that ordinary men might enlist. “You’d be in a pretty pickle then,” he had observed. “So would we all.”

“How so?”

Kent had smiled. “Where do you think they’d come from?” he had asked. “Do you think they’d only volunteer in the cities?”

“I can’t see recruitment reaching us here.”

“Can’t you?” Kent had said, surprised. “How many have you got at Rutherford? Forty? Fifty? Counting the farms too. You think they would kick their heels at home when there’s an adventure to be had? You think they’d continue to be happy polishing your silver? There’s no glamour in that when they might have a chance to drill a hole in a fat German and have a sweetheart thank them for it.”

“Glamour, indeed!”

“That’s how any red-blooded boy would see it, old man. You know that as well as I do, and Harry’s no exception. Mark my words. They’ll be cramming the recruiting stations before Christmas.”

“Perhaps it will be over by then,” William replied.

Kent made no comment, other than once again eloquently raising an eyebrow.

William pushed himself away from the wall now, and began to walk. It was a sharp rise from Green Bridge up to the castle, and when he reached the walk he was out of breath.
I am getting old
, he thought, and it surprised him, for he was not a man to dwell on age. He had always been remarkably fit. And yet, next to Octavia…

The idea of Octavia brought him to a complete halt. Octavia was a young woman still, and he thought that he had never seen her look as lovely as she did now, this summer. It was strange how a man could be married for twenty-odd years and lose sight of that one simple thing: his wife’s beauty. In the spring, after Charles had come, the light had gone out of her face, but he was pleased to see that Rutherford had restored it, even if it had not restored any warmth in her for him. He had felt a pang of envy as he had seen her talking to the young American before dinner yesterday evening; she had looked almost girlish again. It was a blessing that Gould had arrived here to lift her spirits. The man was all charm and deference to them both, and his presence had softened what might have otherwise been a very frigid atmosphere. Octavia smiled again, even if she did not exactly smile in his direction. Gould was a valuable distraction.

He had said as much, in passing, to Hamilton Kent.

“Extraordinary combination, wealth and humor,” Kent had said mildly. “One doesn’t often get it, especially in that sort of family. In my experience, the self-made man is a dour blighter, eyes fixed on gain.”

“Gould isn’t the self-made man. That is his father.”

“And another jolly sort, so they say. They all rather break the mold. It’s said that your man Gould will take up the reins of the business.”

“He hardly seems the type to sell hat ribbons to New York matrons,” William said, amused at the thought.

“From what I hear of him, he could sell ice to the Arctic. Rather a charmer. Clever too.”

“Yes,” William agreed. “That’s true.”

William had rested after lunch yesterday afternoon, and then taken himself to see March and Gray, his land steward. Octavia had not, after all, gone walking; she had kept herself in her room after they had spoken. He had left her to her own devices, not wishing to disturb her any further, and the first he had seen of her again was when she had come down to dinner.

She was perfection. Not that he had said so.

No, that had been left to the American. “Perfection,” he had heard Gould murmur to himself as Octavia had come to the sitting room door.

She was dressed in something that William did not recognize; it was some sort of brocade with a deep V-shaped neckline. The material of the skirt was caught up at the sides, and there was a pattern of bright pink and yellow fans on it. He did not make it his business to comment on her gowns usually, but in this she was especially pretty. “Rather Oriental,” he said, as she took a seat.

“I have had it since 1910, William,” she’d replied. “But at least you have noticed it now.” She had smiled; he had nodded. And he suddenly felt himself to be very formal in the presence of Octavia and Gould, for they were both so much younger than him. He had been, truth to tell, too warm in his woolen suit; Gould was lounging in something that might have come from the Continent—white linen; William supposed that it was fashionable. And the man wore a silk bow tie folded very loosely—some kind of silk, at least, rather bright. William had taken his place by the mantelpiece, feeling like
an old schoolmaster surveying a class of teenagers. Octavia and Gould were turned towards each other. He had felt awkward in his own home, an intruder. When they went in to dinner, he had pointedly offered his hand rather than his arm to Octavia, but the fingers that she laid in his were dead, inert. All through dinner, the silk bow tie and the drooping fingers had irritated him beyond measure. He could not explain why that should be. He kept looking at Gould, unmoved by his boyish stories of New York, whereas Octavia was rapt. William had gone to bed early; she had followed. They had left Gould smoking a cigarette on the terrace, obscure in the twilight and his wreaths of blue smoke.