Chapter Seven #2
‘We met only briefly that first time but afterwards I saw her in London.’ Phillip’s description was so very different from the reality that Willa horrifyingly felt the blood run to her face in a burning flush.
She looked away but she was sure Sarah and Phillip Moreland must have noticed.
A large dog running around the corner saved her, however, as it jumped up on Benjamin with dirty paws.
‘Down, Conan,’ Sarah commanded but the dog took no notice at all, stepping over her husband to get to her.
By now they were all laughing at the muddy footprints everywhere and Willa decided she liked the Harcourts immensely. When the dog was under control Phillip asked Benjamin if this dog was a relative of the ones that used to be at Summerley Court.
‘He certainly is. The great grandson of Fion, if you remember him. We have always had Irish Wolfhounds.’
So that is what this animal was, Willa thought. She’d never seen such a big dog close up but this one looked like an adolescent who only wanted to play. Tentatively, she held out her hand and a tongue came out to lick her fingers, much to her delight.
‘How old is Conan?’
‘Only ten months, which is why he is so unruly. But with training he will turn out to be a fine dog, Ben is sure of it.’
‘On days like this I am less so,’ her husband answered with humour. ‘Shall we walk to the lake? It is a short stroll and then we could go in and have lunch.’
The sky was full of scudding clouds over blue and the breeze was gentle as they ambled down a green pathway cut through the long grass. The lake came into view quickly.
‘Did you swim here when you were on holiday?’ Willa asked the Earl, and he shook his head.
‘Phillip never liked the water much even on the hottest day.’ Benjamin answered for him. ‘I don’t think you ever swam once here, did you?’
‘No.’
She saw the tension in Phillip Moreland even as the others did not and for a moment she wondered at what sort of childhood he had had, the picture being built by Benjamin one of a boy who had been thin, ill-clothed and often injured.
That thought had her listening more carefully to the words beneath the words as Benjamin rattled on about their summer meanderings. The closeness they’d shared was obvious, but why had they not kept up their friendship after leaving school? Why had it been so difficult to come to Elmsworth Manor?
Perhaps Phillip Moreland held as many secrets as she did?
‘Did you invite Benjamin back to Hampshire?’ she asked the Earl as they ambled back up the path. This time they were walking together, the others slightly behind them.
‘I didn’t. My mother was often sick, so it was easier for my father to tend to her without having to worry about anyone extra.’
‘Where did Oliver go?’
‘To our father’s old uncle and aunt in Bristol, but they could only ever deal with one child at a time, and so as the youngest he went. I was glad not to be chosen, as coming here to Summerley Court was far more fun.’
‘Poor Oliver.’
He turned and looked at her.
‘I never thought of it like that but I suppose it was difficult for him. After our mother died, he put his foot down and went to his own friends and I continued to holiday at Summerley.’
‘How did she die?’
‘She drowned.’
‘Is that why you do not like to swim?’
‘It’s part of the reason.’ He said no more.
Wilhelmina St Claire was putting all Benjamin Harcourt’s confidences together and coming up with a picture of himself as a child, Phillip realised.
He could see the pity in her eyes and he did not want that.
He wished Benjamin would say no more about their history or their exploits.
They still had to get through lunch and part of the afternoon before they could leave for London and the hours left worried him.
Why had he not thought of this? Wilhelmina was both clever and intuitive and he saw that she listened carefully to what was being said. He had not wanted to answer the question about his mother but it was difficult not to, so he had only given her a little of the answer.
The lake dark under the evening light and the water rough and deep, blood running down his arms and leg from where his mother had cut him with a knife and Oliver screaming from the upturned boat.
He felt the sweat bead on his forehead. This place brought back memories that he did not want to resurface.
‘Where did you go for holidays as a young girl?’ If he changed the subject it might be easier.
‘Nowhere. Mama and Papa were always busy.’
‘You had no siblings?’
She shook her head.
‘No pets?’
‘I did have a hedgehog that lived under a bush by the front door. I fed him until Papa tossed him into the stream because he was eating too many of the insects that they wanted to study.’
‘Did they know you valued it?’
‘Probably not. They weren’t monsters, they were just extremely focused on their work, as I said.’
‘How do children ever get through childhood in one piece?’
‘I don’t know,’ she returned. ‘Perhaps they do not, really.’
‘Unless they have parents like Sarah and Ben and life is just a wonderful adventure?’
She nodded. ‘And then they flourish.’
Such a truth was sobering but Phillip did not wish for melancholy to blight their day.
‘It is so good to be out of the city, and this part of Richmond is gentle and green.’
‘I thought your part of Hampshire was beautiful as well.’
‘It is wilder, I think. Less civilized.’
‘There is a charm in that, too,’ she gave him back, and sounded as if she meant it.
‘Where exactly is Belton Park?’
‘It lies very close to Winchester, though in all truth we hardly ever ventured to the town.’
‘Why not?’
‘I told you before, everyone was busy with their work and I did not know anyone there.’
‘You were not brought up in those parts?’
‘No, I was born in the south, in Romsey. My parents met Lionel through their meetings with the scientific community, and when I was sixteen he invited our family for an extended stay at Belton Park.’
‘Because he desired you as a bride?’
‘Probably, but I did not know it then. If I had I would never have gone but by that time it was too late. My parents liked him and were happier than they had been for a long time, and I suppose I liked the cordiality and the sense of peace in the house and its grounds. So when he asked me to marry him I said yes without a second thought. Regret came a few months later.’
‘So little time.’
‘Well, I’d made the mistake and had to live with it, and my parents both died within a few months of each other about five years later.’
‘So you were stuck?’
‘I was stuck even before that because Mama and Papa would never have supported me should I have told them how unhappy I was with my marriage to Lionel.’
‘So you said nothing?’
She turned to look at him. ‘What could I have said? There could be no annulment by then and we had no other place left to go to anyway.’
‘Fait accompli?’
She smiled. ‘Exactly. Most people don’t have a lot of choice. It was just that I made the wrong first choice and suffered because of it. You were luckier.’
‘Luck has a certain habit, though, of running out.’
‘Your wife’s sickness, you mean?’
He didn’t answer and was glad when she posed no more questions.
When they returned to the house Ben beckoned them into the old library at the far end of the corridor.
‘I thought you would want to see these, Phillip. They will certainly bring back memories.’
There before them were two boards detailing in words and drawings all the things they had done in the summer holidays at Summerley one year. The date was embellished with paint of all hues and their names were written underneath.
The jolt of being taken back to that time and seeing his teenage handwriting was staggering. 1803, a year after his mother had died and when he was struggling to survive himself.
‘You were not at school at all that year and half of the one before, Phillip, but you came to us in early June and stayed till August. It was the best holiday I can remember because Mama always allowed anything we suggested, even the more outlandish activities.’ He pointed to one of the squares.
‘See, there is that tree hut we built and there is the fire we made? Remember the slingshots we fashioned and you shot that wild turkey and we took it home and the cook prepared it for dinner?’
‘Good memories,’ Phillip said but underneath he could only remember how he had struggled that summer, with sadness and with fear, all the emotions he had been careful to hide from Ben.
The boards were an echo of the time when everything had changed, his family unit, his father, his brother. It was the beginning of an ending that had been so complete. Every picture and caption on those boards was a reminder of an innocence that had been lost and had never again been found.
Wilhelmina was looking at him in a way that he had not seen her look before, and he turned away.
‘I’m starving even thinking about that turkey,’ he said, whereupon Sarah said lunch was ready and about to be served if they could all repair to the dining room.
The rest of the afternoon was easier, the talk about London nowadays and the balls that had occurred so far in the Season. Wilhelmina spoke of her life there, too, and her stories took away the focus from him.
At three o’clock the carriage was ready to depart and they gave their farewells, promising to get together again as soon as possible. As the carriage pulled away Philip took in a breath and closed his eyes, urging himself back into calm.
‘You once asked me why I liked masked balls so much.’ Her soft voice broke into his thoughts and he sat forward and looked at her as she explained.
‘It was simply because everything was more distant and hidden. My mistakes. My family. My husband. I always felt safer when no one could see how much the past had hurt me.’