Easterleigh Hall by Margaret Graham

contribute to our scintillating conversation.’ She wondered if her stepmother noticed her hatred, or if she did, whether she cared, so preoccupied was she with herself. What on earth would her mother think of her husband’s choice of a wife who was everything that Wainey and her mother had considered a disgrace to women? Auberon had told her that their mother would have stood her ground on the purchase of a title and asked how one could possibly buy status, because such a thing needed to be earned? Veronica wondered if perhaps their father had earned it with his various businesses, because for all his faults he was a worker. She thought not and returned again to the views over the garden.
    Her stepmother hadn’t finished. ‘Veronica.’ It was a command. Veronica turned. The newspaper had been left to fall to the floor. No doubt some wretched minion would be expected to pick it up, re-iron it and leave it on the table in case it was required later. Lady Brampton said, ‘I see my task as bringing you up to par. Miss Wainton was too lax, too full of silly ideas and has let you down. We need to determine on a schedule of visits to your Northumbrian contemporaries and not lose sight of the fact that within two years you will come out. We will, at that time, circulate you amongst your London contemporaries to be viewed. Nineteen will be ideal. We’ll have to find you a husband, one with prospects and a suitable rank.’
    Veronica stared anywhere but at this impossible woman with her immaculate hair and clothes, sitting there as though she was a set piece in this house she had refurbished as a backdrop to her own perceived brilliance.
    It was a house that was too big, too unlike anything Veronica or Auberon needed, or in which her mother would have felt comfortable. ‘I don’t want a husband,’ she said. ‘I want a life. I want a career but I just don’t know what yet.’ She stood and walked to the window, longing to rush down the stairs and outside, to run across the lawn as she used to before this woman became her stepmother five years ago and forbade such unladylike behaviour.
    Her stepmother was staring at her, leaning forward as though to hear better. ‘I don’t believe I heard correctly.’
    â€˜I’ll repeat, then. I don’t want a husband, not yet. I want a life.’
    Lady Brampton shook her head, her eyes narrowing. ‘That Wainton woman has a lot to answer for, indeed she has. I mean, just what do you intend to be, a shorthand writer? How absurd you are, and how can you consider taking a job from someone who has need of it? I absolutely forbid it, Veronica, and don’t want to hear any more about it.’
    The door opened and Auberon entered. Veronica shook her head in warning. He nodded, walked to Lady Brampton, bent over her hand and said, ‘Delightful luncheon, Mama.’
    It was water off a duck’s back. Lady Brampton leaned away from him. ‘I can smell brandy. Sit down and be quiet. You deserve bread and water when I think of the way you’ve behaved, and how on earth can you put your father through this endless worry and embarrassment?’ She was now waving him from her, her eyes as cold as ice. But when weren’t they, the witch. Was that why she had been a spinster for so long, wondered Veronica, not for the first time. Or had her heart been broken somewhere along the line? But no, that couldn’t be so, for that would assume she possessed such a thing.
    Auberon sat opposite his stepmother on the other sofa. From the set of his head Veronica knew that he was only a short step from disaster. She intervened, walking towards them and taking her place alongside Auberon. ‘How long are you remaining at Easterleigh, Mama?’
    â€˜Don’t change the subject.’ Lady Marjorie Brampton had a ramrod-straight back and it was the one thing Veronica admired about her. Her stepmother continued,