A Strange Likeness (17 page)

Despite her politeness, her manner to him was so different that rage built up inside him. He controlled himself with difficulty.

His voice hoarse, he began. ‘Begging your pardon, the word is that you are taken with this young man from Australia Master Ned has brought here.'

Eleanor's face froze. ‘I can't talk to you about him, Nat.'

She started to move away from him. Greatly daring, he caught her by the arm. Eyes widening, she looked down at his intrusive hand. He drew it away and stepped back.

‘Don't look at him, Miss Eleanor, don't. He's not for a lady like you. I've seen him sparring with Ralf. He's a coarse brute, a great bruiser. They say that his father's a convict, too. He's not for you,' he repeated, moving towards her again.

‘No,' she said. No more, Nat. Please go. You've already said too much. If you go at once I'll forget what you said.'

‘No,' he said, ‘not until I've finished.' He was very near to her now, and he put both hands out to grasp her by the shoulders this time.

Frightened by his hands, and by the wild look in his eye, Eleanor pulled away. A new voice behind her suddenly said, ‘What is all this, Swain? You forget yourself, I think.'

They both turned to see Alan. It was not the Alan whom Eleanor knew. He was lightly dressed in tan cotton trousers, and was wearing an open-necked white cotton shirt and shoes so light and soft that they looked like slippers. His hair was wet, and clung to his skull. He had a towel slung around his shoulders. But his face was the most changed, so cold and stern it was.

He did not look at all like Ned, more like the great Gainsborough portrait of Sir Beauchamp, Sir Hart's father. He was stiff with anger. She shivered.

Nat stepped back. ‘I meant no harm.'

‘Nor shall you do any,' said Alan. ‘Apologise to Miss Hatton at once.'

‘No,' said Nat, his voice cracking. ‘I meant her no harm. You may beat and bully me, for you're twice my size. I knew her long before you came here. You don't deserve her; she should marry a gentleman—which you aren't.'

Alan froze on the last words and let out a long sigh. ‘Like that, is it?'

He looked at Eleanor. ‘Do I tell Sir Hart? Is he to be turned off? Can he be trusted not to do this again.'

He swung suddenly towards Nat, who flinched away from him.

‘You're right,' he said. ‘I'll not beat you. You're too small for me.'

‘My fault,' said Eleanor painfully. ‘We were playmates once.'

‘Yes,' said Alan gently. ‘I gathered that. But not any more. He can't stay here after this, you know.'

Nat was reckless. ‘So, I'm to lose Miss Eleanor and my work too?'

‘No,' said Alan. ‘I'll find you work—but not here.'

‘Oh, yes,' said Nat bitterly. ‘You fix everything, don't you? I've heard your man talking. It's Mr Alan does this, Mr Alan does that. You'll not fix me.'

‘I think I will,' said Alan, his voice as hard as granite again. ‘Your choice,' he told Nat, as he had told Victor. ‘If I inform Sir Hartley of your behaviour to Miss Eleanor you'll be turned away without a character. On the other hand you can let me find a place for you and your girl. You do have a girl, Gurney tells me.'

‘Know everything, don't you?'

‘No, but I know that. Well?'

‘Now? You'll make me choose now?'

‘You brought yourself to this, not I.'

‘Must he go?' asked Eleanor, her face white. ‘He's always lived here. He loves the country.'

Her eyes dropped beneath Alan's steady stare. ‘Yes, you're right. Oh, dear, Nat, I'm so sorry.'

‘No you're not!' Nat flung at her. ‘You stopped being sorry for me long ago. I've no choice,' he said. ‘I'll go.'

‘Then pack today,' said Alan. ‘Tell the girl to pack, too—if that is what you want. You'll leave tomorrow. Come to me after breakfast and I'll tell you where to go.'

‘Tomorrow! So soon… Sir Hartley…' Nat stopped, his head hanging.

‘He'll let you go if I ask him,' said Alan.

Nat gave him one last look, then walked away, picking up the bucket as he went.

‘Be ready to leave by twelve o'clock, sharp,' said Alan to his back.

Eleanor said nothing, merely stared at Alan. He put out his hand, touched her shoulder gently and steered her out of the yard to the small herb garden nearby, where they were screened from the house. He helped her to a bench and sat down beside her.

‘Where are you sending them?' she asked numbly, still shocked.

‘Outhwaite's. They're undermanned. They need someone in the yard to help with the horses and the wagons. He'll be paid more than he is here, and there are prospects for a likely lad. Hargreaves says that he is a good worker.'

‘Oh, Alan, he'll hate Bradford. He loves the country so. Oh, it's my fault, all my fault.' She began to cry.

‘Eleanor, look at me. I've known what was wrong with him ever since I first came here. I've seen him watching you, and the way in which he watches you. He watches
me, too. His girl is expecting his child—it's better that they go.'

‘How do you know such things?' she cried passionately into her handkerchief. ‘You frighten me at times.'

‘Eleanor, I often don't know how I know. But I notice and think.'

‘And I don't—or not enough—although I'm getting better. It's my fault. I wouldn't give him up when the boys left. Sir Hart warned me about him, and so did Mother. I never heeded them then, I was so blind. When I came back I knew that I'd been unfair to him, but I had no notion that he… Believe me, I have never encouraged him in any way at any time—although he must have thought that I did.'

‘I know that, dear Eleanor. It's not your fault,' he told her, his voice kind.

She had been so unawakened then, but not now, Alan thought, not now.

To comfort her he put a brotherly arm around her. She wailed into his chest, ‘Oh, I have made such mistakes…'

‘We all do,' he told her. ‘If it's any comfort I've made dreadful mistakes because I take dreadful risks.'

Her sobbing gradually grew less. Finally, when the noise from the House signalled that the day there was beginning, she said soberly, ‘Oh, Alan, I'm so sorry. I've kept you from your sparring with Ralf this morning.'

He smiled at her. ‘So you know about that?'

‘Nat told me,' she said. ‘It's one of the things you do which he seems to dislike most. You will be careful, won't you?'

Alan debated what to say. He had no desire to tell her the truth, that when he was about eighteen a boxer, an ex-champion transported for theft, had told his father that he could make a champion of him.

‘Brains and strength, Mester Dilhorne, and cunning, too. What more could you want? Let me train him.'

‘Only for pleasure,' his father had said. ‘I'm not having his brains knocked out.'

He had never really wanted to be a pugilist, and to tell her of this would simply add one more page to the tale of his oddity in England. As he so often did, he came out with a half-truth.

‘Oh, no fear of my getting hurt. I'm only a gentleman amateur and Ralf is a real bruiser who once fought for money. He knows how to treat me so that he doesn't spoil my pretty face. I only spar to keep myself in trim. I'm big, you see, and I like my food. I don't want to end up fat and heavy; that would never do.'

Ned will get fat, Eleanor thought suddenly. He's soft, eats and drinks too much and is already putting on weight. The thought depressed her and she began to shiver again.

Alan thought that she needed comforting. Perhaps a few gentle kisses would help, if he could keep them gentle. He began experimenting—to find Eleanor responding so enthusiastically that the kisses became more and more ardent.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—they heard footsteps approaching and broke away. By the time that Ned appeared they were sitting decorously side by side.

‘So this is where you've got to, Alan.' He looked severely at Eleanor. ‘I went to see him spar with Ralf, and instead I find him sitting mooning about with you.'

Alan rose to his feet. ‘No sparring today, Ned, I'm hungry.' He helped Eleanor to rise and they walked back to breakfast together, Ned still complaining about his lost entertainment.

 

Sir Hart was waiting in his study for young Dilhorne. The young man had asked to speak to him after breakfast on a matter of business. The study was next door to and opened out of the library, which was one of the glories of the House. Above the thousands of books ranged behind gold lattices there was a Van Dyck painting of the first Baronet, Sir Beverley Hatton, and his family, surrounded by dogs and horses: Temple Hatton House and the moorland beyond it were dim in the background. Opposite to it was a Tudor fireplace ornately decorated with the arms of all the noble families in the district.

The study, however, was a small jewel, not a large one. No family portraits hung there, and the books were all severely practical, relating to the running of the estate and Sir Hart's time in Parliament. Only a Turner oil of the House, done when he had come North, glowed against the dark, oak-panelled wall.

Sir Hart was wondering what young Dilhorne wanted. There was an estate ledger on the desk before him, an old one of sixty years before, open at a page which he had stared at a thousand times until thirty years ago he had closed it and put it away for ever.

On the night of Alan's arrival he had fetched it out and stared at it again.

Sir Hart closed the book, but left it on his desk, for once irresolute. There was a knock on the door. He called, ‘Enter,' and the young man came in. His handsome face, so apparently open and innocent, but which was no mirror of the devious mind behind it, bore the stamp of worry. He looked briefly around the room, his eye caught by the Turner, before he spoke.

‘I am sorry to trouble you, sir, but I have a favour to ask of you.'

Sir Hart made a slight movement of his right hand which Alan took as a signal to continue.

‘It is about the young stable hand, Sir Hartley, Nat Swain. He seems to be a good worker and I have an opening for such a one at Outhwaite's. I am sure that he would do well there, but I should not like to invite him to leave here without asking your permission first.'

Sir Hart looked sharply at him. ‘It is he whom you particularly want?'

‘Indeed—and I need him immediately. I would wish him to leave tomorrow, if possible.'

‘Tomorrow? You are sure that it is necessary for him to go from here?'

Alan looked the old man full in the eye. ‘Most necessary, I do assure you.' He hesitated. ‘I told him that you would not stand in his way.'

‘I understand you fully, sir. I wish that I did not. Yes, he may go to Outhwaite's. That is, if he consents. Does he consent?'

‘Oh, yes, indeed. I took the liberty of speaking to him first, but said that it depended on you.'

Sir Hart sighed. His right hand reached out and stroked the old ledger. ‘You are devious, young man.'

‘So I believe, sir. I cannot help it. I am like my father.'

‘And Ned is like his,' sighed Sir Hart. ‘You admire my room, sir?'

‘I admire the whole House. We have nothing like it at home, although my father's home is exceptional in its own way. His treasures are all from the Far East, however.'

‘Indeed. He sounds an interesting man.'

‘Yes, but devious, sir. We all are. It is our nature.'

‘We cannot help our natures,' said Sir Hart heavily, ‘but we can control them if we are so minded.'

‘That is true. I may speak to Nat Swain, then?'

‘By all means. The thing is done. I shall speak to Hargreaves immediately. He will need to train another lad.' He sighed again. ‘I have been remiss in doing nothing about young Swain. You have done my work for me.'

Before Alan could answer him he said, ‘You are enjoying your stay in Yorkshire, I believe?'

‘Very much. The wild beauty of the countryside appeals to me. But I like Bradford, too. That is where the future lies.'

‘And here we are living in the past. I take your meaning, sir.' Sir Hart looked out of the window. ‘It may be beautiful now, but it is grim in winter on the moors. Wild and desolate. I would have liked Turner to see it then.' He waved a hand at the landscape which had caught Alan's eye.

‘A strange man, the painter. I suspect that my father would not have had him in the House. But then, there were many whom Sir Beauchamp would not have admitted to his company.'

There was an odd, bitter note in his voice. He looked away and said, ‘We are not all fortunate in our fathers sir. Ned, for example. But perhaps we're not all fortunate in our sons, either.'

He moved his hand dismissively. ‘Well, I am pleased that you are happy here. Ned said that you were good for him, and for once he is right. I wish that he had gone with you.'

‘He would not have enjoyed himself, I fear.'

‘True, true.' Sir Hart looked at the young man before him and did not wish to send him away.

‘You have seen the picture gallery, Mr Dilhorne?'

Alan wondered why the old man had suddenly spoken his name. He had so far avoided doing so.

‘Only in passing, sir, not in detail.'

‘And Ned knows nothing of it, I fear. Come.'

Together they walked the long gallery, whose windows opened on to the moors. The facing wall was hung with a collection of works which would have graced a palace. Prominent among them were the Hatton family portraits, nearly all painted by the great names of their day.

‘Here is Sir Berkeley Hatton, our founder. He built most of the Tudor part of the House. He was a nobody, although the family claims that he was related to Sir Christopher Hatton, Queen Bess's minister. His name was not Berkeley, it was William. It wasn't Hatton either: it was Clark. I suppose that his real name wasn't grand enough for such a thruster. Another devious gentleman, Berkeley.'