The Midnight Rose (42 page)

“What’s done is done, Mother, and there’s nothing either of us can do to change it. Selina is an adult and must make her own decisions.”

“If you don’t approve, then why will you attend their sordid little wedding?” Maud retorted. “No one in London society is going, and that’s a fact.”

“She’s my sister, Mother. And as a matter of fact, I happen to like Henri. I think he loves Selina and will take good care of her and Eleanor.”

“In that case, what is it you wish to discuss with me?” Maud said, changing the subject.

Donald steeled himself to tell her what he must. “Mother, the estate is in the most dreadful financial mess, and if I don’t do something about it soon, the house will literally fall down about our ears. The bank may even decide to repossess it, we’re in such debt.”

His mother did not respond, so Donald plowed on.

“Tragic as it is, the only thing I can do is sell up. I must pray I can find a buyer who has enough money to see its potential and take it on.”

At this, Maud’s eyes darted to her son. Even in the dim light, Donald could see they were full of abject horror.

“
Sell
the Astbury estate?”

He watched as his mother threw back her head and laughed.

“Donald, although I recognize the house is in need of some renovation, I think you’re being a little overdramatic. Of course we can’t sell it! It’s been in the family since the sixteen hundreds!”

“Well, Mother, I’ve spent the past month talking to our bankers, the accountant and the estate manager, who all sing to the same tune. The estate is bankrupt and there is an end to it. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”

“Donald”—Maud’s voice rose suddenly from the depths of her debilitating illness—“I can countenance many things, but I will never, ever agree to sell the Astbury estate.”

“Mother,” Donald answered as calmly as he could, “you may remember that three months ago, when I came of age, it was legally handed over to me. Therefore, it’s my decision as to what is best to do. However sad or distasteful this situation is to all of us, sell we must. Or face the bailiffs coming in to forcefully remove us.”

At this, Maud fell back onto her pillow and clutched at her heart.

“How can you be so cruel? I’m a sick woman, and you bring me this news! I have a terrible pain in my chest; please, call Bessie, call the doctor . . .”

Donald looked down at her and saw that her face had indeed turned a ghastly pale color.

“Mother, please, I don’t mean to upset you, but really, we simply have no choice.”

She was panting now, trying to catch her breath. Donald stood up. “I’ll call for Dr. Trefusis. I’m sorry to have upset you like this.” He sighed and left the room.

•  •  •

Dr. Trefusis came immediately. He examined Maud and found Donald waiting nervously outside.

“She’s suffering from some form of nervous attack. I’ve given her a sleeping draft, and I’ll be back in the morning to see how she is. However, for all our sakes, I suggest you leave whatever it was you said to her earlier well alone for now.”

10 March

Received a telegram from A to tell me that the boat docked safely in India and that she is en route to Cooch Behar Palace. Mother is still refusing to
leave her bedroom or allow me entry to it and I rattle around the hall in a constant state of anxiety and despair. Spent this afternoon writing a long letter to A at the palace to comfort myself. The pall of gloom that’s presently cast over Astbury is palpable. Servants are always the first to smell trouble, and I think they all know something’s up. This morning, I had a property agent call around. The estate has been valued and amounts to precious little, considering what it contains. But at least it will be enough to service the debt and buy myself a much smaller country house. And enough too, so my mother can afford similar.

April arrived and Donald was glad of the bright spring days which brought the garden to life and caused the gorse on the moors to begin to turn a vivid yellow. But as he trotted Glory out of the stable one morning, a nagging fear assailed him. He hadn’t heard from Anni for almost a month, not since she’d arrived at the palace in Cooch Behar. As he urged Glory to pick up speed and cantered out across the moors, small demons began to tap holes in his confidence.

Had she returned to India and met someone else? After all, she was a beautiful, accomplished woman—not a princess, no, but aristocratic, with the sort of upbringing, grace and intelligence that any man would find attractive. He was a lord of the British realm, yes, but a penniless one who, as soon as Astbury was sold, would be without a kingdom to rule.

In the past month, Donald had begun to realize his education had only befitted him to become a member of the gentry and to run his estate and his staff. Unless he returned to the army—a thought which horrified him—what would he do with his future if the estate were sold? Dismounting by the brook where Anni and he had talked together that first summer, he lay down in the grass to think.

After his experiences in the war, a life lived in leisure with no purpose seemed pointless. And he felt guilty—guilty because it was
he
who would be the one to erase so many hundreds of years of history of Astburys at Astbury Hall. He found himself trying to think, yet again, if there was a way that the estate could be saved, but no plausible ideas revealed themselves. He knew that if there
were
a way, he would want to take it, not only because of the family history, but also because at least then he’d be doing something worthwhile by giving the two hundred or so local staff and tenant farmers a livelihood—not to mention his mother, who, despite her current histrionics, was genuinely devastated about having to leave.

Donald stood up and remounted Glory. He told himself he would simply have to accept it and concentrate his energies on his new future with Anni, and through that discover a new purpose to his life.

15 May

Yesterday (at long last), Mother emerged from her bedroom. But no word from A for almost ten weeks. I’ve written numerous letters to the address she gave me at the palace but have heard nothing in reply. Where can she be? Never felt so damned low. Perhaps she’s forgotten me. Perhaps she too, like her friend Indira, has met an Indian prince and has run away with him . . .

Donald threw down his pen, stood up and gazed sullenly through his bedroom window. The sun was high in the sky and the day was beautiful, but he couldn’t appreciate it. Dreadful thoughts about Anni and reasons for her not replying to him filled his mind constantly. Or perhaps, he reasoned, it was as simple as her letters not getting through. The post between England and India was notoriously difficult. But he knew he wouldn’t settle until he’d heard from her.

Downstairs at breakfast, he found his mother eating her way through a plate laden with bacon and eggs.

“I’m pleased to see you looking so much better, Mother.” With an effort, he conjured up a tight smile.

“Well, you know how the winter affects me. But summer is here and there’s much to do.”

“Really?” said Donald, wondering what on earth she meant.

“Yes.” Maud passed him a letter across the breakfast table. “Some old friends of your father’s have suggested they might like to come and visit us. Of course I have said yes.”

Donald perused the letter, which had a New York address. “It says they’ll be arriving in about seven weeks’ time. Who are the Drumners anyway?”

“Ralph Drumner is head of one of the oldest and, might I add, wealthiest families in New York. I believe he owns a bank, and his wife, Sissy, from what I remember of her, is delightful. They also have a daughter, Violet, who’s about the same age as you. She’s apparently on her European tour, but will join her parents here at some point during the summer.”

Donald was surprised at her apparent enthusiasm. Maud regarded most Americans as “common.”

“Well, as long as you’ll be well enough to entertain them, Mother, I’m happy the thought of old friends visiting has perked you up.”

“Yes, I do believe it has.” Maud smiled happily at her son.

As she was in such a good mood, Donald decided to tackle the Selina question. “Perhaps, while your visitors are here, you might consider having Selina down to visit. I know little Eleanor is missing her grandmother, and Astbury.”

“As you well know, Donald, so long as she is married to that man, Selina will never be welcome here in this house. Have I made myself clear?”

Donald sighed, knowing that as Lord Astbury and the legal owner of the estate, he was perfectly entitled to overrule her and invite his sister to visit whenever he chose. However, the inevitable aftermath of upsetting his mother again when she seemed so much brighter was not a situation he felt he could currently stomach.

9 June

Been to London to see the bank manager again. More bad news—time is running out now and I must make plans to put the estate up for sale soon. I also went to visit Anni’s matron at the London Hospital, who told me she hasn’t heard a word from her either. Saw Selina briefly and she said she met Indira and her new husband in the South of France. Anni had told Indira she was returning directly to England when she left Paris in April. I really am beside myself with anxiety. Without her, what is there left?

14 July

Ralph Drumner and his wife, Sissy, arrived to stay at Astbury a week ago. They seem sweet enough and, despite the dilapidated state of the house, are charmed at staying in a real stately home with an English lord present. Sissy actually curtsied to me when they arrived! I think that Ralph Drumner is far shrewder than he pretends. He’s obviously as rich as Croesus; Sissy is in all the latest Paris fashions and is dripping in diamonds. They’re here for two months, “doing England,” as they put it, and tomorrow their daughter Violet arrives. Still no word from A. My
heart slowly turns to ice, as really I can think of no good reason why she hasn’t contacted me, except for one.

“The Drumners will be back here at three thirty, in time for afternoon tea,” announced Maud. “I suggest we take it on the terrace. You know they went to London to collect their daughter? She arrived last night from Paris.”

“Yes, Mother,” Donald answered distractedly over breakfast.

“As you’re of a similar age to her, it might help if you joined us and entertained her.”

Donald folded
The Times
and stood up from the table. “Don’t worry, I’ll be on parade.”

That afternoon, Donald took a ride around the estate. The tenant farmers he visited at least seemed cheerful, having had the perfect weather conditions for a bumper wheat crop, which would be harvested within the next few weeks. This was news they thought would please him; little did they know of the fate about to befall them.

A prospective buyer for the estate had been found. Mr. Kinghorn, a Cornish man by birth, was a businessman who’d done extremely well in tin during the war. He seemed a decent enough fellow and was eager to buy his way up the social ladder by acquiring the Astbury estate. He was purchasing it for a song simply because there was no competition for it in the financially grim postwar years. Donald was yet to give his final handshake on the sale. But at least, he thought, comforting himself, as he handed his mare over to the groom and walked back toward the hall, he knew that the estate would probably be run in a far more efficient and businesslike way under the new owner’s watchful eye.

Walking into the garden, Donald spied the Drumners and his mother sitting on the terrace taking tea and realized he was late. They would have to suffer him in his riding breeches; he wouldn’t face his mother’s further displeasure. He strode up the steps and as he did so, the young woman at the table caught his eye.

The masculine in him recognized immediately that Violet Drumner was a beauty. Her slender body was enclosed in a pretty tea dress, her blond hair cut into a modish bob. As he drew closer, he could see that she had vivid brown eyes and perfectly shaped bow lips set in flawlessly pale skin.

“Good day to you,” he said as he arrived on the terrace at the table. “Mother, Ralph, Sissy, my apologies for being late, and, Miss
Drumner,” Donald said, turning to the young woman, “may I call you Violet?”

“Yes, please do.” She smiled, revealing a glimpse of perfect teeth.

“I’m delighted to make your acquaintance,” he said as he sat down and the maid hurried to pour him a cup of tea. “How was your journey down here?”

“Extremely pleasant,” Violet answered. “I haven’t really seen outside London before. All the dances I attended here in England at the beginning of the summer were in town.”

“And, of course, Violet made her debut in New York last year,” said Sissy.

“Indeed,” said Maud, giving a barely perceptible raise of her eyebrow.

“Did you enjoy the season here too?”

“My, yes! I met so many interesting people. I simply adore England,” Violet added in her chirpy New York tone.

“Violet was quite the belle of the London season by all accounts,” said Ralph. “Had a heap of titled young men chasing after her. And don’t say you didn’t, Violet.”

“Oh really, Pa.” Violet blushed prettily. “All the girls were popular.”

“Was there one young man in particular who caught your eye?” asked Maud.

“I think I’m too young to settle down just yet,” she answered.

“Do you ride, Violet?” Donald asked, changing the subject.

“Oh yes, in Central Park, quite often, and when we go to our summer cottage in Newport, I have my own horse there.”

“Then while you’re here, you must allow me to take you out for a ride across the moors.”

“I’d like that very much, Donald.”

24 July

Took V riding again this morning. She’s technically proficient but rides like a girl, whereas A rode like a man. Still, she is sweet, bright and well educated and her pleasure at being here in England makes me smile. She’s also very pretty and I look at her sometimes, thinking how her pale skin and blond hair could not be more in contrast to A’s exotic, sultry looks. At least her being here has helped me take my mind off A, as her natural energy is infectious.