Hope - Lesley Pearse [239]
‘A word of warning,’ Rufus said, his face tensing. ‘Mother isn’t the way she used to be. At times she’s distinctly odd. If you feel uncomfortable with her, just make the excuse that you’ve got to go and I’ll walk you down to Matt’s. I sawhim last night; he told me he would be taking you home.’
‘Does that mean we can play hide-and-seek in the woods?’ she grinned.
‘You couldn’t hide from me now,’ he laughed. ‘Remember what good times we had?’
‘Some of the very best,’ she sighed. ‘I haven’t forgotten any of them.’ She could feel that time hadn’t weakened the old bond between them, and even if Lady Harvey should prove difficult, she was very glad she’d come today.
Yet everything else was different. The drive was full of weeds now, and rutted by farm carts. At the end, where the big house once stood, was nothing but a flat ploughed field. Almost all trace of the beautiful garden was gone, apart from a few lovely old trees.
The stables were still intact, but as the arch which connected them to the house was gone, they looked like farm buildings.
‘Does it shock you?’ Rufus said.
Hope nodded, remembering how often she’d sat at the back door of the gatehouse looking up at the house and thinking it was the finest in all England.
‘Does it hurt you? I mean, that it’s gone?’
He smiled wryly. ‘No, not really. Of course I still feel savage that Albert could do such a thing, and if he ever came here I think I’d tear him apart with my bare hands. But my sorrowis about not being able to say goodbye to Father, and of course what it’s done to Mother, not about the house. In a strange way I often feel that it never belonged there. That this was meant to be farmland. Do you know what I mean?’
Hope looked thoughtfully over the land. It didn’t look as if anything was missing at all. ‘Yes, I think I do,’ she agreed. ‘And Nell says you are happier farming than you were studying. Is that true?’
His wide smile came back. ‘Yes, Nell’s right, I am much happier. I feel a sense of purpose, a belonging that I never felt before.’
‘Then you are lucky.’ She reached out and touched his cheek affectionately. ‘I felt that way when I was nursing. It’s a good feeling.’
‘I want to know everything about the Crimea,’ he said eagerly. ‘But we’d better go and see Mother first.’
It was the strangest sensation to go into the gatehouse again. Hope glanced up the stairs, remembering in a flash what she’d seen there. She could almost feel Albert’s blows raining down on her, and her terror that he would kill her.
But it didn’t look the same now. The rough old table and chairs were gone; it seemed bigger, softer and warmer, almost gracious, with a carpet on the floor, comfortable armchairs and a polished wood table. It was a minute or two before she realized that part of the reason for this was because another room had been added, presumably a new kitchen, beyond where the back door used to be.
‘How good of you to call, Hope.’ Lady Harvey rose rather stiffly from a velvet armchair by the fireplace to greet her. ‘You look well, and the happy event will be soon, I understand?’
Lady Harvey had aged dramatically. Her hair was white now, her face was almost skeletal, and the flesh appeared so thin that it was as if her sharp cheekbones could pierce through it at any time. Her mouth was sunken too, and Hope guessed she’d lost a good many teeth. Her black dress drained any colour there might have been in her face; even her blue eyes seemed to have faded.
Hope realized this change must have come about gradually over a long period or Nell would have warned her, but coming upon it so unexpectedly, she felt suddenly tongue-tied.
‘I am so very sorry about Sir William,’ she said in a rush. ‘I didn’t hear of it because I had just got married.’
‘Don’t let’s dwell on that,’ Lady Harvey said, and smiled, which brought back a glimmer of the beautiful woman she’d once been. ‘I was so pleased when Nell told me you were found, and that you’d married a doctor. And now a baby!