‘It’s already fated that I’ll fall in love with someone brilliant? I don’t need to go to dinner parties and dreadful polo games to meet them?’
‘I’d say that’s right. But you’re not yet ten, Francis! You have a while to wait, darling.’ Dorothea tickled his arm and laughed. ‘Love will certainly find you, because who could possibly resist you?’
He nodded in serious agreement, then brushed his fingers against some petals.
‘Those are lilies,’ she said. ‘Don’t touch the middle bits. See, the stamens? They will stain and your father will be cross if you turn up to dinner with mustard-coloured fingers.’ She said it in a jolly voice, but he gave her an uncertain look. She should know better than to joke about his father’s general displeasure. Her nerves were jangled.
It was because of Edward, of course. With the birth of the baby, he was home more. Cricket was mostly out, grooming the horses or teaching them little tricks. But between periods inside his office and farm meetings with staff, Edward could often be found hovering in the nursery doorway or the schoolroom, checking she was paying the right sort of attention to baby Louis, she supposed; that his son was being raised into the fine strapping version of himself that was so obviously absent in Francis.
Cricket had become sullen and withdrawn when she was inside. Mrs Wilson thought her strange, but Cricket was a child, really, caught in a marriage and a situation she despised. Seduced into it, no doubt, by Edward’s early displays of charm. Cricket must surely regret the marriage, now that it was quite clear her husband decided what opinions she should have and whom she might see. Dorothea felt protective of her, but her priority was Francis, and now baby Louis. Dorothea was only in this situation because fate had dealt her dear friend Adeline an awful hand. The library, the nursery, the manor house gardens represented all the love Adeline had bestowed on Francis; all her years of mothering and reading to him while, no doubt, suffering througha marriage to a man Dorothea now knew to be a monster. She had to be on her guard.
The tension in the house had increased in recent weeks. It was clear that Edith Wilson felt that Dorothea was overstepping the boundaries of her position. Well, she hadn’taskedto be raising a baby in this terrible place. She had quietly mentioned her desire to leave to Cricket, but the girl had begged her not to go.
A heavy understanding had arisen between them; that Dorothea would leave Cricket to her horses and hobbies and would occasionally run interference with Edward if he was looking for her, and in return Cricket would encourage Edward to attend his London club, his own hobbies, his work and the farm and leave Dorothea and the children to their own devices as much as possible. But still, the girl relied far too much on her, and Dorothea knew more than she should.
When Edward was not around, things worked well. Stan, the head gardener, was lovely and she could put up with Clive, Edward’s assistant, despite the fact that he was an old-fashioned snob and preferred the staff to refer to him as a valet. She was circumspect around him, because she assumed he reported back to Edward about her and Cricket and the children. Otherwise, though unlikeable and insipid, he seemed harmless.
‘Can you carry the vase, do you think?’ she said to Francis now.
He grinned. ‘I won’t drop it. Where will we put them?’ They were standing outside Edward’s office, and Dorothea glanced in at the pile of ledgers on the desk.
‘In the schoolroom!’ Francis announced. ‘Then we can study them for science.’
‘Good idea.’ Dorothea’s heart gave a little skip of pleasure at his dear, animated face. She followed him to the schoolroom, which she had tried to make into a playful space. The dark wood panelling of the walls had made it tricky, but they had cut paper chains in the shape of flowers and strung them across the fireplace and along the back of the ornately carved timber bench seat that lined one wall. In one corner was a table and two chairs, and a pile of books. Francis placed the flowers in the centre of the table. He stood back and then stepped forward and fussed with the arrangement, lifting blooms to different heights until he was satisfied with his artistry.
‘Perfect,’ said Dorothea.
The housekeeper’s voice reached them. ‘Francis? Where are you, boy?’
‘In here, Mrs Wilson.’ Dorothea poked her head out into the hallway.
‘His father is looking for him. They’re going to shoot pigeons.’ Mrs Wilson stood in the doorway in her floral dress, apron tied at her waist, peering at Francis.
Dorothea glanced at the boy’s worried face, and he gave her a tiny shake of his head.
Mrs Wilson gave him a stern look. ‘Don’t keep your father waiting. He’s in the stables. Get your clothes changed and meet him there.’
Mrs Wilson was only about forty, Dorothea thought; a childless widow for the years Dorothea had known her. She ran herself ragged cooking meals, serving several sorts of cakes whenever his Lordship was home, ensuring the fires were lit in whichever room he wanted to be in. Mrs Wilson seemed to havea reverence for the titled elite, even though so many like her had left service and despised the upper classes. Why didn’t Edith Wilson leave and marry again? She was pretty enough beneath her stern features. Not that looks should matter, Dorothea chastised herself. She should be a better feminist. Perhaps Edith Wilson only stayed because job prospects were slim; here she had free board and food, and a pay cheque every month.
Dorothea turned to Francis. ‘You go up and find some clothes to wear in the fields.’ She peered out the windows. ‘It’s cloudy. You’ll need your jacket.’
‘I don’t want to hurt the birds.’
‘I know, but Mrs Wilson can prepare them for dinner. It won’t be for nothing.’ Cold comfort, but what else could she say? Francis often turned his delicate heart over in his hands and offered it to a world that didn’t want it. It was her job to place it back into his wounded chest and keep it beating, like the wings of the little birds that he would soon be forced to shoot.Bang, bang, Francis. That’s how we survive.
The baby was still sleeping when the boy had changed, and Dorothea found him loitering in the great hall. ‘Come along,’ she said in her spit-spot voice, and they headed outside, over cobbled paths and across the lawns.
Edward’s old green Land Rover was parked outside the stables. She wondered how many years of bird slaughters it had tolerated with its own silent grievances. Inside the darkened building, the horses watched from their stalls. Edward was in the gun roomat the rear, fiddling with something, his shotgun case open on a bench.
‘What kept you, Francis?’ He snapped the case shut. ‘This time you can have your own shotgun. I’ve bought one the right size. I’ll teach you how to handle it.’
‘No,’ said the boy, the word slipping from his mouth, just as Dorothea said, ‘Really?’
Francis’s dissent caused the vein in Edward’s temple to bulge, and Dorothea felt her own mistake in the atmosphere.
‘He’s almost ten, Dorothea. No longer a child.’
She murmured, ‘Yes, yes. Time to learn.’ She tried to catch Francis’s eye, but he was looking at the ground.
