Part 46 (1/2)

Nell shrugged. 'She's not one to think about other folk much. And of course I did my best to keep you in your place. Mother, Father and me, we weren't too pleased when you used to go and play with Rufus. We didn't want you getting ideas above your station, and neither did we want Lady Harvey to growfond of you. You see, we thought of you as ours. But sometimes I thought the whole world could see that you were born to gentry.'

They talked and talked until the small hours. There were shared memories of Meg and Silas to mull over, Nell's viewpoint of her little sister's childhood sc.r.a.pes and triumphs, and there were new tales about the other siblings which Hope hadn't heard before.

As one story after another was related, some with hilarity and some with sadness, Hope felt truly part of the Renton tribe, and if in the past, she had had the odd feeling she didn't 'belong', she could see now that it was because of her position as youngest in the family, nothing else. Nell pointed out that being the eldest made her different too.

'I had to help Mother when the little ones could play,' she said. 'I was was.h.i.+ng and feeding babies when I was six or seven. I didn't get to run about in the fields the way you all did. Matt had to be a man too, well before his time. That is just the way it is in a big family. But you, Hope, you were the little darling, everyone's pet. We all made big allowances for you.'

Later, Nell went on to tell Hope about each and every time she was reminded of who her little sister's real parents were. 'You were never cowed by gentry. You'd stand out in the lane and talk to anyone who came riding by. You just couldn't seem to understand that folk like us were supposed to be humble. And I was so frightened when you got older and you and Rufus became so close.'

'But why?' Hope asked with some amus.e.m.e.nt.

'In case you became sweethearts later on,' she admitted. 'I can't tell you how many nights I lay awake worrying about it. But I feel like a load has been taken off my shoulders now. If we hear Bennett is coming home tomorrow that will end all my worries.'

'At least this has distracted me from thinking about him for a while,' Hope sighed.

Nell got up stiffly from her chair, and held out her arms to Hope. 'What will be, will be,' she said as she embraced her. 'I wish I could promise you he will come home, but I can't. But whatever happens I'll be right beside you.'

The autumn days went slowly by, each one a little colder, wetter or windier. It was dark by four in the afternoon, and mostly the weather was too bad to go out. Yet still no letters came from either Angus or Bennett.

Uncle Abel got word that post from both the Crimea and Turkey had gone astray. He also went to Winchester to the Rifle Brigade barracks, and was told that Bennett had not been reported dead. But by the same token they could offer no proof he was alive either for his name wasn't on any of the lists of sick sent to Scutari. But from talking to a couple of soldiers who had been invalided home, it seemed their families hadn't been informed either, and letters they'd written from hospital hadn't turned up until after they'd got home.

Angus had definitely left the Crimea there was evidence he'd boarded a steamer bound for Constantinople. Uncle Abel felt sure he had gone there to look for Bennett.

Hope's anxiety had settled into a constant dull ache, but almost every day there was some distraction to take her mind off it. Two weeks after Albert's death there was the inquest in Bristol, in which she and Rufus had to give their evidence. It lasted less than twenty minutes and the coroner p.r.o.nounced it self-defence and complimented Hope on her courage.

Before they went home that day, Hope took Rufus to Lewins Mead to show him where she had lived. It was shocking to see the appalling conditions there again and Rufus thought it a miracle she'd survived it. But Uncle Abel told them later that plans were afoot for it to be pulled down, the river Frome covered over, roads widened and new houses with piped water and drains built.

Hope put some flowers in St James's graveyard, for although she suspected that neither Gussie, Betsy, nor any of the cholera victims had actually been buried there, it was a place they had often walked through together. She even thought she heard Betsy's laughter on the wind, and knew her friend would be thrilled to think she was accompanied by a t.i.tled gentleman and that she had given her name to her child.

The strangest thing about that visit was finding she was a target for beggars. Until then she'd imagined she could walk around there at any time without being troubled. She realized then it wasn't only her neat dress, bonnet and fur-trimmed cloak which identified her as someone who might hand out a few pennies, she remembered how she too had once been able to sniff out sympathy and concern and play on it. She gave what little money she had to some ragged barefoot children, and then walked quickly away.

'When Bennett comes back,' she said thoughtfully on their way home, 'we'll have to find some way of really helping those children. A hot pie now and then does little. But education with a hot dinner thrown in could do such a lot.'

Aside from the day-to-day ch.o.r.es and making clothes for Betsy, who seemed to be growing at an alarming rate, there were many visits from all her brothers and sisters to keep Hope's mind off Bennett. She also visited Matt's farm, Ruth's home in Bath and many of her old neighbours in Compton Dando. Sometimes during the family gatherings Hope felt an overwhelming desire to tell them that she wasn't a true sister, especially when Ruth claimed that her daughter Prudence was just like her. But she refrained from the temptation; she needed to discuss that with both Lady Harvey and Angus first, for they would be the ones to suffer scandal, not her and Rufus.

Rufus kept saying that he would bring Lady Harvey over to see her and Nell just as soon as there was a mild, dry spell. But on 30 November she died in her sleep.

Matt brought the news to them. Leaving Betsy with Dora, Matt drove Hope and Nell over to see Rufus, and they arrived just after the doctor had left, confirming her heart had given out.

'She was a little odd last night,' Rufus explained distractedly. 'She said she thought she saw Father on the drive and that he was waiting for her. But she went to bed as normal, and when I went in there early this morning, she was dead.'

Once Matt had gone home leaving Hope and Nell alone with Rufus, they all cried. 'I should have come over again,' Hope sobbed. 'I might have known that she was too frail to live much longer. Now I can't say any of the things to her that I wanted to.'

'I wish too that I'd been kinder,' Rufus admitted. 'She was on her own so much, I used to get so impatient with her. But you've got nothing to reproach yourself for, Hope, you were kind to her.'

'I could have said I understood how it was for her when she had me,' Hope said. 'I could have told her that none of that mattered any more.'

'I think she knew that was how you felt,' Rufus said, drying Hope's eyes with his handkerchief. 'A few days after you'd been here, she said that she was proud of you, that you had all the best of Angus in you and that the Rentons had made you strong and loving.'

Nell had listened to all this saying nothing. Then she got up from her chair and put an arm round each of them. 'If I'd seen her one more time I would have pointed out how lucky she was to have you two and how fortunate it was that neither of you inherited her selfish nature.'

'Nell!' Hope exclaimed. 'Don't speak ill of the dead.'

'I can say it for I was with her through thick and thin,' Nell said firmly. 'I loved her; I would have done anything for her, and I think I knew her better than anyone. She didn't want to be an old lady, she'd settled everything, and I think she was happy to go. Maybe William did come back for her. There was a lot of love between them despite all the problems they had. So we should be happy for her.'

'Would you like to see her now?' Rufus asked, biting back tears. 'I was going to get Jane Calway in to lay her out later, and then we'll bring her down here.'

'Let me lay her out,' said Nell, her voice as soft as a prayer. 'I know how she liked her hair, how she'd like to be dressed. And I'd like to say my goodbyes that way.'

'Of course, Nell.' Rufus wiped his eyes on his sleeve. 'Shall Hope and I go out while you do it?'

Nell nodded. 'Yes, you go for a walk, I'd like to be alone with her.'

Rufus and Hope walked in silence into the woods. The trees were bare, and the recent heavy rain had swollen all the streams so they gushed over rocks, making a beautiful, peaceful sound.

'All the times we came here as children, we never knew we were brother and sister,' Rufus said sadly as he threw stones into a stream. 'I was miserable because Mother and Father were always arguing; you had Albert to contend with. Now they are all gone, it's just you and me, back here again. I'm a farmer, and you're a mother yourself. And the troubles go on and on.'

'Not for ever,' Hope a.s.sured him. 'Bennett will come home, I'm sure, and you can get married now. There's nothing to stop you.'

'Maybe in the spring,' he said lethargically. 'That is, providing Bennett is back, because I'd want you there at my wedding, happy again. Was it a mistake to let Nell lay Mother out? I'll wager she's crying over her!'

Hope nodded. 'She's as good at holding in her feelings as she is at keeping secrets. But now the secrets are out there's no reason not to let the feelings out too.'

Nell was indeed crying. She had stripped off Lady Harvey's night dress, washed her from head to foot, and put on her undergarments through a veil of tears.

It felt so strange to be back in the bedroom which had been a source of such unhappiness, but it was no longer a stark, sterile s.p.a.ce, for Lady Harvey had filled it with frippery. She might have lost all her old belongings in the fire, and only worn mourning since then, but Nell had to a.s.sume her sisters had sent her some of their old things.

A pink velvet dressing-gown was tossed over a b.u.t.ton-back chair by the window; there were pretty hat boxes piled up, and an array of perfumes, necklaces and combs for her hair on the dressing-table.

The bed itself was a beautiful carved mahogany one which matched the dressing-table, and the carpet on the floor was as fine as any Nell remembered in Briargate.

Dressing her mistress now she was dead was like dressing a life-size doll, and it grieved Nell to see how thin she'd become. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were little more than loose flesh, and her hip-bones jutted out through her petticoats. But Nell put two rolled-up stockings into the top of her camisole to give her more shape, then went to the wardrobe to look for a dress.

They were nearly all black, but right at the back she found a turquoise one. She guessed that Lady Harvey's vanity had got the better of her sense of decorum at some time since her husband died, for it had always been her favourite colour.

An hour later Nell stood back to admire her work. The dress had long sleeves and a high neck, and she'd padded it a little on the hips to give it a good shape. Gauze pads inside her lady's cheeks had filled them out perfectly, and with a little rouge she'd managed to bring youthful radiance back to the once beautiful face. Even her eyelashes had been given a smudging of ink to darken them. Nell thought the hair was her very best achievement, for she'd taken it up over hair pads so it looked fuller, and fastened it becomingly with two artificial rosebuds. With a few tendrils curled around her face to soften the gauntness, and gloves on her hands to hide the cruelty of age, she could pa.s.s for thirty again.

'You look beautiful, my lady,' Nell whispered. 'Rest in peace. I'll be watching over both your children.'

She tried to suppress her tears, for it seemed ridiculous that she should still care so much for this foolish, self-centred beauty. But such a large proportion of their two lives had been spent together, and everything Nell knew about society, fas.h.i.+ons, love and marriage came from Lady Harvey. She'd been to grand shops in London with her, to concerts in Bath, to country houses ten times larger than Briargate. They'd ridden together on the Great Western train, and even shared a bottle of champagne on many an occasion.

'And I ended up with Angus,' Nell whispered. 'I know he can never love me the way he loved you. But I'm in his house and in his heart. Thank you for that, my lady.'

Hope and Rufus looked down at Lady Harvey and tears rolled down their cheeks. To both of them the clock had been turned back and she looked just how they remembered her from when they were children.

'Sleep peacefully, Mother dearest,' Rufus whispered as he bent to kiss her cheek. 'And thank you for giving me a sister.'