The House at Tyneford (26 page)

He swung his legs out of bed and jumped up, grabbing a dressing gown from the back of the door. He glanced around to check where I was and, seeing me lurking by the window smoothing my apron, he opened the door.

“Morning, Wrexham. Ah, excellent, you brought tea. And aspirin. You really are a champ.”

The butler stepped into the room, holding out a tea tray, and stopped dead when he saw me. Kit, apparently unconcerned, helped himself to the packet of aspirin, swallowing the pills dry. Mr. Wrexham’s face turned as grey as a winter sky and he studied me without blinking.

“May I inquire as to Elise’s presence?” he asked, recovering himself sufficiently to place the tray on the bedside table and pour Kit a cup of tea.

Kit took a noisy gulp. “Yes. Well, if I’m honest, I woke up to find her here. Lovely surprise. Touch irregular, I know. But don’t worry,” he added, seeing the old butler blanch. “Nothing untoward happened. Well, nothing too untoward,” he concluded with a wicked smile in my direction.

I gave a short cry and covered my mouth, turning to face the window. I did not wish to see Mr. Wrexham’s expression.

“Oh, it’s all right, Wrexham,” said Kit. “I love her, you know.”

“Perhaps, Mr. Kit, you would be good enough to inform your father of this fact.”

The butler bent to scoop up a stray pillow and a fallen magazine from the bedroom floor. Kit crossed the room and settled into the battered armchair beside the window, looking slightly troubled for the first time since Mr. Wrexham’s interruption.

“Yes. Yes, I suppose I must.”

He shifted in his chair.

“Think I shall dress first, though.”

“Very good, sir. Shall I draw you a bath?”

“Yes. Excellent.”

During this exchange, I had remained at the window, a few feet from Kit’s chair. I was elated and mortified all at the same time. I wanted to cry, whether from joy or humiliation, I was not quite sure. It was clear that Mr. Wrexham was not going anywhere, and so I decided that mostly I wanted to leave the room.

“I must clean downstairs,” I said. I did not think Kit would try to kiss me in front of the old butler, but I could not be sure. I could feel both men watching me as I fled and was glad that I could see neither of their faces.

I avoided the breakfast room, not wanting to encounter either Mr. Rivers or his guests, certain that the entire household must suspect something was afoot. I washed the netsuke in the drawing room, taking them out of their glass cabinet and cleaning each piece in warm water before drying it and returning it to the appropriate shelf with shaking fingers. They were ugly things: yellow ivory rats crawled over one another, tails knotted; fat warriors smirked. I washed the skirting boards with soap solution and rubbed the dado rails with beeswax. I needed to keep busy; I couldn’t stay still. When I thought about Kit, my fingers fluttered to my throat. I smiled. Perhaps I ought to have worried about my possible dismissal and yet I was happy and untouchable. He kissed me. He loved me. Would we get married? I’d read all the romance novels stashed in the guest bedrooms, from
Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary
to the intriguing
Miss Buncle’s Book
and the more troubling
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
, but all the novels stopped at the crucial point, the wedding itself, and what came after remained terribly intriguing. I wished Margot were here to talk to. The information Poppy and I had shared now seemed rather inadequate and I suspected that no books on Mr. Rivers’ shelves could offer practical assistance. My sister was not coy, and I knew she would deliver without a blush any information I required, between languorous pulls on her cigarette. I pictured her sprawled upon the bed in the blue room in her elegant underwear, eating rose creams and offering advice on married life while surrounded by a haze of smoke. I would write to her, demanding detailed factual advice by return, but I did not want the cold page; I wanted her.

I tried to imagine Kit and me taking tea together on the terrace in summer, the climbing roses filling the air with their pervasive scent, as we discussed the unconscionably warm weather or perhaps the cricket. I giggled. Next, I imagined not leaving the room when he took his bath and sitting on the edge of the tub as I did with Margot—only this wasn’t the same at all. I saw Kit lazing, naked, and smiling at me through the steam. What would I wear for such an occasion? A dressing gown? My underthings? Nothing at all? My cheeks flushed and I bit my lip. Yes, I decided, I could marry him very well.

Kit found me as I was sluicing the back steps by the stable yard. I was so busy scraping at the green moss on the stone that he was forced to shout.

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you all over.”

I stood up and brushed myself down, conscious of the layer of black-green slime beneath my fingernails.

“Come for a walk.”

I cast a guilty look at the bucket of filthy water and the half-cleaned steps.

“Oh, leave it. Do it later,” snapped Kit, grabbing hold of my wet hand and hurrying me out of the yard and along the path leading up the hillside. We didn’t speak for a minute or two, breathless as we climbed the steep hill, slip-sliding over the damp ground. Fragile violets grew among the tangled grass stems, the first I had seen that spring, and I tried not to crush them underfoot. Kit walked swiftly, and I was soon panting to keep up, feeling my forehead moisten with sweat. As we reached the summit he slowed.

“Well, I spoke to him.”

I leaned against the drystone wall crisscrossing the top of the hill. White clouds buffeted across the grey-blue sky. Kit came and stood beside me, a strand of damp hair sticking to his brow.

“What did he say?”

Kit shifted. “Well. I sort of marched in there. Into the library. And I said ‘I love Elise.’ And he looked up at me and he said, ‘I know.’”

“ ‘I know’?”

“Yes. It’s funny—I’ve only known myself since yesterday. I was almost sure when I left. And while I was away, I kept thinking about you. I’d be trying to do other things—dinner with the chaps, a game of tennis—and there you were. I started to wonder if I was in love. Then when I came back and you hurled yourself at me, beside the motorcar, I was certain.”

“I didn’t hurl myself.”

“Oh, yes. I’m pretty sure you did.”

I swatted him, half in anger and half in jest, and he caught my arm, tugging me against him. I smiled, snug in his arms, and thought, so this is happiness.

“And you smoked my cigarettes. I found one that was half spent. It smelled of you.”

Letting me go, Kit heaved himself onto the wall and helped me scramble up so that I perched beside him, our legs dangling. He gazed out toward the sea. It rippled in the distance, waves rushing the beach.

“It was odd. Father didn’t want to know much about me. Already knew all about my grand passion. He was much more interested in you.”

“In me? Whatever for?”

“He wanted to know if you loved me. Asked me several times, if I was quite sure. He seemed rather anxious about it all. No.” Kit paused, searching the pale sky for the words. “That’s not right. Sad. He was sad.”

“Oh.”

I supposed Mr. Rivers must be disappointed in Kit loving me. It couldn’t be terribly good for his reputation. He probably wanted Kit to fall in love with a Diana or Juno or Lady Henrietta. Somebody with no chin and a large fortune and a wardrobe full of mink stoles. And a neat entry in the baptismal register of Some-shire.

We sat and listened to the birds, the swooping song of the skylarks, the chatter of the rock pipits as they parachuted to earth and the yaffle of a green woodpecker. The gorse dotted across the hillside was coated in sticky yellow flowers smelling sweetly of coconut. Kit was silent for a moment, then he fidgeted beside me and said quietly, “He doesn’t want us to be engaged. Not yet.”

“Oh.”

My stomach twisted with uncertainty.

Kit smiled. “Don’t look so worried. He just wants us to wait.”

“Why?”

I found out many years later exactly what passed in the library between the two men. But on that spring morning in 1939, Kit described only part of their conversation, concealing what was said later. Over time I have pictured the conversation so often that sometimes I have to remind myself that I was not actually there and it is not a memory.

Despite it being barely ten o’clock, Mr. Rivers poured two large measures of whisky, sliding one across the desk to his son.

“All right,” said Mr. Rivers. “I accept that you love her and she you. But come on, Kit. This is not what is supposed to happen. People like you and people like Elise. You’re not supposed to marry.”

Kit recoiled. “People like Elise? You mean Jews.”

“Yes,” answered his father, without apology.

“This isn’t 1920. They’re part of the set now,” said Kit, anger rising.

“Yes. They’re welcome or, if we’re honest, tolerated in almost any house in England. But when it comes to matrimony, they stick to their own kind. Their rules as much as ours.”

Kit shook his head. “What nonsense.”

“Don’t be such a schoolboy. Her father would be as furious as I am. And it’s not just that she’s a Jewess. For God’s sake, Kit. She’s a housemaid.” Mr. Rivers drained his whisky. “I don’t like it when people talk. Especially when it’s about us.”

Kit gave a short laugh. “You’re as bad as the rest of them.”

“Yes. I would like you to love a rich woman. I would like you to have something to pass down to your son. I have done my best, but Kit—Tyneford . . . we can’t carry on as we are. The estate needs money.”

“So you want me to marry some girl I don’t love, for her cash.”

Mr. Rivers shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Gone are the days, for better or for worse, when we married for England—to keep her land green and pleasant.”

Kit studied his father with cold curiosity. “Did you love my mother? Or was it just her fortune?”

Mr. Rivers stiffened. “Don’t you judge me. We did our duty. What everyone expected of us both. And that cash kept roofs on the village cottages, paid for Eton and Cambridge. It’s why the limes on the avenue remain unfelled and the fields unsold.”

Mr. Rivers’ face softened in remembrance. “I loved her in a way. She was a kind, sweet girl. A wonderful mother—she doted on you. I hope I made her happy. But did I love her with the passion of the poets? No. But we didn’t expect to in those days.”

Kit stared at his father and felt his anger subside into sadness.

Mr. Rivers sighed. “This is a choice, Kit. If you marry Elise, then you must know that you will probably lose Tyneford—not this year, nor the next, but someday. Will you love her then, knowing that you gave up this place for her?”

“Of course,” replied Kit, with all the indignation of a young man in the flush of his first romance.

“I expected you to say nothing less.” Mr. Rivers gave a bitter laugh. “No one would blink if you slept with her. Took her quietly as a mistress. Half the so-called gentlemen in England carry on discreet affairs. But I wouldn’t let you do that to Elise.”

“And I wouldn’t. I want to marry her.”

Mr. Rivers gave a slow, tired smile. “You’re one and twenty. You don’t need my permission but I would ask you to wait. Please, give it a year to be certain, for my sake. I’ve never asked much of you, Kit.”

Kit was silent for a minute and then nodded. “All right. A year. But only because you ask it. I shan’t change my mind.”

If I had known then the choice that his father presented to him, would it have altered anything? Would I have still agreed to marry him? I don’t know. These things were so long ago.

Beside me on the wall, Kit blinked. I nudged him.

“Why does your father want us to wait, Kit?”

Kit took my hand. “Come on, Elise. We must give him a little time. You’re a Jew and you came here as a servant. It’s nonsense to us but it matters to my father. It matters to all of them—the Lady Ver-nons, the Hamilton girls—and despite appearances my father is still one of them.”