Chapter 3
Benham Hall, Penarth
Mrs. Needham was wreathed in smiles and hanging off her son’s arm as they stood in the entrance hall welcoming their guests inside.
“Welcome one and all!” she gushed. “Lord Faris, it has been too long since your last visit! Lady Faris, what a beautiful gown! And Lord Atherton.” A hint of coolness crept into her voice.
“I am glad you could visit with us before your return to London. Squire Pebmarsh and the Rylands await us in the drawing room. Please, come this way.”
Gervaise handed his coat to an oppressed-looking butler and followed the others into a well-appointed drawing room which reflected its mistress’s rather faded charm.
A quick scan of the room revealed her daughter was not in attendance tonight.
He and Emmeline exchanged a pointed look, and she turned to their hostess.
“Is Caroline not joining us this evening?” Emmeline asked.
Mrs. Needham’s smile did not waver. “Alas, my poor Caroline is indisposed. She went for a lie-down after luncheon and did not feel well enough for entertaining. Goring shall take her up her supper on a tray.”
“It is such a shame she will miss you all,” Edgar Needham chimed in regretfully.
“I know Caro was looking forward to tonight very much and spent all week going over the menu and coaxing the tenderest vegetables out of old Angwin. Only you know how gardeners are, they never want to give up anything fresh and young. They always want to grow things to prize proportions.”
As he spoke, Mrs. Needham’s expression seemed to tighten. “I think you will find tonight’s menu was my invention, Edgar dear,” she said reproachfully. “Caroline merely carried out my instructions.”
For a moment her son looked surprised by this assertion, but he swiftly recovered himself. “Oh, of course, Mama,” he assured her smoothly, if not convincingly. Emmeline exchanged another significant look with Gervaise.
“I bet that is why Mrs. Needham has locked poor Caroline in her room tonight,” Emmeline whispered in an aside. “She means to take all the credit for the dinner party when it was in fact her daughter’s work!”
The squire joined in at this point, lambasting his own head gardener who could only be brought to part with vegetables as “tough as old boots.” “Should have fired the old devil years ago!” he concluded with a hearty laugh.
The vicar’s wife started an account of the unsatisfactory nature of their own gardener, a grumpy individual called Dawson who held “no sympathy for young people” and decided views about her two sons tramping through his flower beds.
“He seems to think they are his own personal province and that our two boys are trespassers in our own garden!” she concluded, sounding aggrieved.
“He does think that,” the vicar concurred. “It is only natural that he should do so. Moreover, he has a point. Neither Clarence nor Frederick have any business being in those flower beds.”
Mrs. Ryland huffed but fortunately the butler appeared at this point, inviting their party to move into the dining room, and as far as Gervaise was concerned an extremely dull meal commenced, however much the vicar’s wife gushed over it.
It was not the fault of the food which was beautifully presented and cooked to a turn.
No, it was the company that was at fault.
“One does one’s poor best,” Mrs. Needham said with her sad, brave smile in response to a compliment about the starter.
“I hope even an invalid like myself can offer some hospitality to her neighbors on occasion,” she uttered, lowering her blue eyes modestly.
“However much the effort takes out of me to do so.”
“Dear lady!” Squire Pebmarsh exclaimed. “You are the most gracious of hosts, and we are all fully aware of that fact, I dare assure you.”
“I know my poor health makes me a great trial to everyone,” Mrs. Needham sighed. “Though I try to give as little trouble as possible to my nearest and dearest.” She took on a look of long-suffering bravely borne.
“It would be monstrous of anyone to even think of you as troublesome!” Mrs. Ryland cried hotly. “You are all that is considerate and kind, Mrs. Needham, everyone knows that!”
“Well, I know that Edgar always assures me that is so,” Mrs. Needham responded in a voice which trembled with emotion. She threw an adoring look at her son, reaching out a hand to him. He caught her fingers and kissed them gallantly.
“He is such a dear, sweet boy and always the kindest of sons, but I know I irritate poor Caroline with my vagaries and my failing health. I try so hard not to put upon her,” she said, dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “But sometimes I fear I try her patience sorely.”
“You must not say so, Mother,” Edgar murmured, looking embarrassed. “She does not mean to upset you so.”
“I know, it is simply in her nature to be hard and unfeeling,” his mother agreed, biting her lip. “She takes after… Well, I will not speak of him and ruin the mood of the evening.”
Gervaise appreciated the woman’s flair for the dramatic. Mr. Halperston, he surmised, must then have been a villain in her eyes. He found himself wondering how much was based in fact and how much in fiction. She was surely born to take a role on the stage.
If the evening had simply been a series of such remarks and theatrics then Gervaise could have savored the experience a good deal more.
No, it was the between times that stretched on interminably.
Personally, he blamed the Rylands for setting an unfortunate tone to the evening’s conversation which had a tendency to return to complaints about domestic matters.
“You simply cannot maintain the staff you used to in the old days,” Mrs. Needham lamented.
“Those I do have are devoted to me, of course, quite devoted, but one cannot help but reflect that the wages one must pay these days are almost wicked. When I think of the servants my own dear mama retained, at a fraction of the cost, I could almost weep.” She sent a sad smile about the table.
“Oh, I know, my dear,” Mrs. Ryland hastened to agree.
“Why, our parlor maid had the effrontery to demand a raise last month or she would leave us quite in the lurch! Now, if she had come to me, I should put her in her place at once but of course, she went to Charles, and he, being a man, entirely fumbled it!”
Gervaise stifled a yawn. The next course was served, baked chicory with chicken in a sage dressing.
The squire had now launched into an uninspired tale about a man who tried to sell him a horse with sickle hock.
“As though I was some greenhorn who couldn’t tell a good horse from a bad! ” he concluded, shaking his head.
Edgar Needham looked uncomfortable at this and Gervaise surmised he had at some point bought a horse that was a poor investment. To change the subject, he began to give an earnest account of his recent visit to Exeter, particularly to a newly renovated church there.
“A most beautiful place,” he enthused. “And so sympathetically done. They have even added a gothic tower. Why, the choir stalls are now so grand, they could rival those of an abbey! I said as much to the rector there, and he was most gratified. He gave us a tour of the vestry and the bell tower, and Diana—” He broke off his words guiltily, looking around with a stricken expression.
“Oh, er, I mean—” He turned bright red, his words stuttering to a stop on his tongue.
The vicar, sensing the boy had blundered, cleared his throat. “I do not approve of them pulling about the interiors of all these churches,” he began sternly. “They may call it restoration, but it is often another thing entirely—”
“Diana?” Mrs. Needham repeated silkily, putting down her knife and fork.
She tipped her head to one side in a birdlike motion.
“Who pray are you referring to, Edgar? I do not recall you mentioning a Diana to me previously when you told me of your visit to St. Martin’s.
” Despite her cloyingly sweet voice, there was a hint of steel to her words.
Her son’s eyes dropped to his plate. “Why as to that, Mama—” he began, but fortunately for him the door opened at this point, and someone entered the room.
Mrs. Needham gave a choked cry, starting up from her chair. “Caroline!” she gasped, lifting her hand and then letting it fall. She turned white as a sheet and dropped into a crumpled heap on the floor.
Mrs. Ryland screamed as everyone else turned to look at the young woman stood in the doorway.
Something was not quite right with Caroline Halperston.
Her cheeks were hectically flushed, and her eyes glazed.
Normally, so neat in her appearance, her dress was crumpled and her dark hair untidy and straggling down her back.
Edgar leaped to his feet and rounded the table to administer to his stricken mother. “She’s fainted,” he panted, struggling to sit her up. “But still breathing. Thank God!” He cast about wildly. “Can anyone help me get her onto the sofa over there by the window?”
Jeremy and the squire stood up from their chairs. “You grab her feet, squire,” Jeremy advised. “I’ve got her shoulders. Edgar, go and fetch some smelling salts, or Hartshorne, or whatever your mother takes.”
Edgar stood up. “I’ll fetch Goring,” he said, brushing past his sister and hurrying out of the room.
“Caroline,” Emmeline said gently, coming to her feet. “Are you—are you feeling better? Come and sit down.” She took the girl’s elbow and led her toward a vacant chair. “Your mother said you were unwell and resting. Have you perhaps only just woken up?”
Caroline smiled beatifically and dropped down onto the seat. “Oh no,” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “I feel wonderful. I have been walking in the garden. They told me to.”
“They?”
She frowned. “I forget who it was now. They told me to walk down by the pergola, and I would see something. Or was it someone…” She appeared momentarily confused.