embarrassment when I first told you I loved you … can say what you said when we watched the flocks of starlings over the village the week before you left Markenfield. I used to walk alone to the spot where you’d caught perch as a boy … sit where you’d sat.’ She fell silent and covered her face with her hands. ‘I shan’t give you up, Clinton. I’ll never do that. Never.’ She stifled a small choking sob and pressed his hands between hers. Before he could think of any words of comfort, she had swung away from him and was running down the long strip of green between the borders towards the terrace steps, her blouse a vivid splash of colour against the softer blues and whites of the flowers.
6
Sunday morning, church bells ringing, and in the wide squares and crescents between Brompton and Knightsbridge well-dressed families hurrying to church, some walking, others in carriages. Almost impossible to believe it, but a mere decade earlier the whole of this spacious suburb of South Kensington had been largely a district of farms and market gardens. As Clinton walked towards Esmond’s square, he watched the broughams, barouches and victorias carrying the church-goers to their various destinations, neo-classical, neo-gothic , the sun catching on wheel hubs, curb chains and carriage lamps. Under a pale blue sky stippled with light mackerel clouds, the white stucco of the houses and the recently watered streets looked as fresh and laundered as the white gloves and breeches of the coachmen and grooms. The slums and rookeries of Lambeth and Seven Dials were as remote as another continent, shut out from this Eden by the oramented gates and railings, which now closed off the best residential streets from the public highway. A hundred yards from Esmond’s house a uniformed gatekeeper with a cockaded hat kept away the street musicians, hawkers and beggars whose presence was prohibited by notices on the gates.
Informed by the butler that Mr Danvers was at church, Clinton once more prepared to wait, this time at his own request in his brother’s library, among the leather chairs and the glass-fronted bookcases containing rows of creamy vellum, antique brown calf and dull red morocco. Through the half-open windows came the twitter of sparrows and the distant clamour of the bells; in the room the stately ticking of a Louis Quinze clock. Clinton was idly examining the spines of the books, quite expecting to see some rare Decameron or Caxton bible, when he heard the rustle of a dress. A soft low voice.
‘Lord Ardmore?’
He turned and saw Theresa watching him.
‘Not at church, Miss Simmonds?’
She passed through a square of sunlight on the polished floor and gestured vaguely with a hand.
‘Religion to me is more an aspiration than a matter of formal observance.’
As at the theatre, he had no idea whether she was speaking sincerely. He nodded as if in agreement.
‘I’venothing against the deity myself; it’s some of his followers I find it harder to get along with.’
She sat down on the chesterfield in the window, the sunlit panes haloing her auburn hair with wisps of smokey gold. Her dress was plain grey silk, tight-waisted with a high collar and a loose black velvet bow at the neck. Having himself decided against marriage, Clinton no longer had any interest in Theresa’s motives for keeping Esmond waiting. And with the urgent matter of the sale of Markenfield preoccupying him, he was not pleased by the prospect of making polite conversation while waiting to break to Esmond what would undoubtedly be most unwelcome news. But even in these circumstances, he could not help recognising the woman’s unusual beauty. Her face was composed and secretive, with a hint of a smile playing about her lips and eyes.
‘So we meet again after all, my lord.’
‘Indeed,’ he replied crisply, vexed by her smile; certain that she would have told Esmond about his visit to the theatre. Inevitably Esmond would have mentioned
6
Sunday morning, church bells ringing, and in the wide squares and crescents between Brompton and Knightsbridge well-dressed families hurrying to church, some walking, others in carriages. Almost impossible to believe it, but a mere decade earlier the whole of this spacious suburb of South Kensington had been largely a district of farms and market gardens. As Clinton walked towards Esmond’s square, he watched the broughams, barouches and victorias carrying the church-goers to their various destinations, neo-classical, neo-gothic , the sun catching on wheel hubs, curb chains and carriage lamps. Under a pale blue sky stippled with light mackerel clouds, the white stucco of the houses and the recently watered streets looked as fresh and laundered as the white gloves and breeches of the coachmen and grooms. The slums and rookeries of Lambeth and Seven Dials were as remote as another continent, shut out from this Eden by the oramented gates and railings, which now closed off the best residential streets from the public highway. A hundred yards from Esmond’s house a uniformed gatekeeper with a cockaded hat kept away the street musicians, hawkers and beggars whose presence was prohibited by notices on the gates.
Informed by the butler that Mr Danvers was at church, Clinton once more prepared to wait, this time at his own request in his brother’s library, among the leather chairs and the glass-fronted bookcases containing rows of creamy vellum, antique brown calf and dull red morocco. Through the half-open windows came the twitter of sparrows and the distant clamour of the bells; in the room the stately ticking of a Louis Quinze clock. Clinton was idly examining the spines of the books, quite expecting to see some rare Decameron or Caxton bible, when he heard the rustle of a dress. A soft low voice.
‘Lord Ardmore?’
He turned and saw Theresa watching him.
‘Not at church, Miss Simmonds?’
She passed through a square of sunlight on the polished floor and gestured vaguely with a hand.
‘Religion to me is more an aspiration than a matter of formal observance.’
As at the theatre, he had no idea whether she was speaking sincerely. He nodded as if in agreement.
‘I’venothing against the deity myself; it’s some of his followers I find it harder to get along with.’
She sat down on the chesterfield in the window, the sunlit panes haloing her auburn hair with wisps of smokey gold. Her dress was plain grey silk, tight-waisted with a high collar and a loose black velvet bow at the neck. Having himself decided against marriage, Clinton no longer had any interest in Theresa’s motives for keeping Esmond waiting. And with the urgent matter of the sale of Markenfield preoccupying him, he was not pleased by the prospect of making polite conversation while waiting to break to Esmond what would undoubtedly be most unwelcome news. But even in these circumstances, he could not help recognising the woman’s unusual beauty. Her face was composed and secretive, with a hint of a smile playing about her lips and eyes.
‘So we meet again after all, my lord.’
‘Indeed,’ he replied crisply, vexed by her smile; certain that she would have told Esmond about his visit to the theatre. Inevitably Esmond would have mentioned
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