The American Heiress: A Novel by Daisy Goodwin (28)

‘The Dropping of the Daylight’

CORA HAD CONSIDERED EVERY DETAIL OF THE christening, from the flowers in the chapel to the white and silver bonbonnières, but she had not given much thought to the ceremony itself. Normally she found herself becoming slightly impatient in church, wishing the repetition and the ritual would go more quickly so that she could be somewhere else. But today, as she stood by the font, she was grateful for the ceremony that demanded nothing from her but a silent nod of the head. She heard the baby’s baptismal name read out, ‘Albert Edward Guy Winthrop Maltravers’. She had protested about the Albert, but the Double Duchess had told her, ‘If you want the Prince of Wales to act as sponsor you will have to name the baby after him. You don’t have to call him that; even the Prince doesn’t care for the name Albert, but it is a mark of respect.’ Cora looked over at the line of godparents: the Prince of Wales very loud with his amens, Sybil and Reggie exchanging complicit glances as they made their vows, Teddy staring at her as he promised to bring up the child in the ways of God – his eyes telling her that he would look after them both. Cora dropped her gaze, she couldn’t bear to think about what Teddy was offering her, now. When she looked up again, she saw Charlotte staring at the baby with an intentness that shocked her. It wasn’t just the empty gaze of a childless woman looking at somebody else’s baby; there was something watchful and predatory about her, as if she was waiting to spring.

Cora felt light-headed, her legs were shaking and she put her hand on Ivo’s arm to steady herself. He glanced down at her and put his hand over hers. Cora felt her mouth filling with saliva; she swallowed desperately and looked up at the sky through the glass cupola. She willed her body not to panic, she must keep moving forward.

She saw Father Oliver look at her and she realised that he wanted her to take Guy. For a second she wondered whether she would be able to hold the baby, she felt so weak, but she caught another glimpse of Charlotte’s face and put out her arms to take her son.

She kept her eyes fixed on the baby as everyone gathered around her to admire him. He was unmistakably Ivo’s child, the tiny face dominated by his father’s Roman nose. She heard the Double Duchess saying, ‘He has the Maltravers profile of course,’ and Father Oliver agreeing that he had ‘something about him of the Fourth Duke’.

Deliberately, as if she was conferring an enormous honour, the Double Duchess held out her arms to take her grandson, and reluctantly Cora handed him over. To her secret delight Guy started to howl the moment the Duchess took him in her arms, and she could not soothe him. Cora saw the look of annoyance on the Duchess’s face and was about to take Guy back when Ivo intervened, saying lightly to his mother, ‘I see you haven’t lost your touch,’ as he took little Guy and rested him against his shoulder, the long lace skirts of the christening gown flowing like a waterfall over his frock coat. Guy’s sobs faded to hiccups. Cora wanted to laugh and to put her arms round her husband and her son. But she could sense Teddy and Charlotte on either side of her and she could not move.

It was a relief to be outside as the christening party walked back to the house for tea. All the outdoor servants and the villagers were lined up along the path between the chapel and the house and as the Prince walked past talking with Ivo, who was still holding the baby, shouts rang out from the crowd of ‘God save the Prince of Wales’ and ‘God save the Duke of Wareham’, and then some wit said, ‘It’s the Duchess who needs saving.’ The Prince and Ivo were too far ahead to hear this last remark but Cora, who was next to Mrs Cash, was not. Cora looked over to her mother to see if she had heard too, but she was on Mrs Cash’s bad side so she could not read her mother’s expression. Cora’s cheeks burned. The thought that her life was being picked over by the villagers was intolerable. She wanted to look round and find out who had been responsible but she could not show them that she minded.

She heard her mother saying, ‘I have to congratulate you, Cora, you have arranged this very nicely. Lulworth is improved beyond recognition. Of course the servants here are so good, you don’t have to train them the way I do at home. Still, you have made things so much more comfortable. When I think what it used to be like.’ She shuddered. ‘As the Prince himself said, we Americans have such a talent for hospitality and you can understand when you go about here just why he appreciates it so much. Perhaps Mr Cash and I should take a house in London for the season next year.’

Cora felt the stares of the villagers lining the route like blows. She turned to her mother and said, ‘Actually, Mother, I was thinking of coming home for a few months. It would be so nice to see all my old friends again, and I long to show off little Guy. I thought perhaps I could sail back with you when you go.’

Mrs Cash did not reply for a moment and Cora wished she was walking on her mother’s other side so she could see what she was thinking.

‘Well, of course I would love to have you visit with us. You know I just adore my grandson, the Marquis.’ Mrs Cash paused reverently over the title. ‘But are you sure that my son-in-law is ready for a trip? He has just come back from one, after all.’

Cora said quickly, ‘I was thinking of coming alone, Mother, just me and the baby. Ivo has so much to do here…’ She tailed off.

‘But a wife’s place is with her husband, Cora. Whatever your own inclinations are, your duty is to stay by his side. Surely I have raised you to understand that there is more to life than your own pleasure.’ Mrs Cash stopped and turned to face her. Cora could see her good eye glittering.

‘I don’t know, Mother, that Ivo would mind,’ she said.

‘Nonsense, Cora. It’s not a question of minding. You are man and wife and that is all there is to it.’

‘But it’s so hard, Mother. Everyone here has known each other all their lives, so I am always the outsider. You don’t know how much I long to be somewhere where people aren’t gossiping about my accent or my latest faux pas.’ And her marriage, Cora thought but didn’t say.

Mrs Cash took Cora’s hand and squeezed it, hard. It was not a gesture of affection.

‘And do you think that if you came home after one year of marriage without your husband that you wouldn’t be gossiped about? I assure you, Cora, people would talk of little else. There is nothing New York society would enjoy more than the sight of my daughter the Duchess failing in her marriage. I can’t have you ruining everything I have worked for because you can’t manage your husband. I’m sorry, Cora, but this is your affair, not mine.’ Mrs Cash dropped Cora’s hand and turned to talk to the Double Duchess and Mr Cash, who had just caught up with them.

Cora stopped so that she could put up her parasol. She would rather be stared at by the crowd than spend one more minute with her mother. She almost broke the parasol’s ivory handle in her urgency to get the shade up; her hands were trembling so much that she could not slide the spokes over the catch. There was a moment’s respite as the glare of the afternoon sun was filtered by the cream silk. Cora took a deep breath, and tried to compose her face. She should have known that her mother would react this way and yet it was shocking nonetheless that she would put her social supremacy so far ahead of her daughter’s happiness. She tested the corners of her mouth, seeing if she could stretch them into a smile. Then she felt a hand on her elbow, and heard a squeak of excitement.

‘You are going to hate me for doing this today but I can’t help myself.’ Sybil took Cora’s hand and swung it enthusiastically. ‘Dearest Cora, he’s proposed and I’ve accepted!’ Sybil was bobbing with delight. ‘We’re going to announce our engagement at the tea. Please don’t be cross with me for stealing Guy’s thunder, but if the Prince is there then Mama can’t have a conniption fit. Oh, I am so happy, I could burst.’

Cora felt her face soften. ‘Dear Sybil, I am glad. I am sure you will be very happy. You two were meant to be together. Where is Reggie? I want to be the first to congratulate him.’ Reggie was produced, and the three of them entered the house together. As they walked up the steps to the terrace, Sybil went ahead so that she could fetch a handkerchief. ‘I know I’m going to cry.’

As Sybil ran up the steps, Cora said to Reggie, ‘I have always hoped this would happen. But what took you so long?’

Reggie laughed. ‘Now, I have no idea. I suppose I had some notion that a man should make something of himself before he marries. But then I realised that all I was doing was making Sybil unhappy and really there was no point in waiting. We shall have no money, of course, but I don’t think she really cares about that. And last night, well, I realised what could happen if I didn’t act. I didn’t want Sybil to be thwarted.’ Reggie’s eyes flickered over to where Charlotte Beauchamp was standing with Lady Tavistock.

Cora followed his gaze. ‘No, that would never do,’ she said as lightly as she could. ‘And now you must tell Ivo. He will want the satisfaction of observing his mother’s face when she realises that she is about to lose her lady-in-waiting.’

The news of the engagement gave Cora the lift she needed to preside over the christening tea. The cake was cut and Guy’s health was drunk in tea and champagne. After the toast had been drunk, Reggie got to his feet and made a deft little speech announcing his engagement to Sybil. Ivo called for more champagne and the company then drank to the couple – everyone, that is, except for Duchess Fanny who collapsed in a graceful swoon instead. Sybil was about to rush to her side, but Ivo stopped her and called for some smelling salts. He propped his mother against the love seat where she had fallen and waved the sal volatile under her nose. When she started to show signs of consciousness he said, ‘Now, now, Mother, you mustn’t worry about losing Sybil. With her gone, you will be able to knock a good ten years off your age, so that no one will dare to believe that you are a day over thirty-five.’

The Duchess glared at her son but the Prince of Wales laughed so much that she was forced to join in and her smile did not waver when the Prince said, ‘Hard to believe that you are a grandmother now, Fanny. You will always be a slender young thing to me.’

The Duchess put her hands to her tightly corseted waist and said, ‘I hope so, sir,’ and sighed theatrically. But there was no way back to her previous position and she was obliged to look on nobly while Sybil chattered to Cora about bridesmaids and veils.

The Prince took his leave after the tea; he was taking the overnight train to Balmoral. As Cora walked him to his carriage, he paused to look across the hills to the horizon softening in the evening light. ‘It’s a glorious spot, Duchess. It has always been a favourite of mine and now that you are here, I find I apprrreciate its charms all the more. I look forward to coming back.’

Cora smiled and curtsied, but when the carriage had at last driven out of sight, she felt herself go limp and if Ivo had not been standing behind her she would have fallen to the ground.

‘What was the Prince whispering to you just now, Cora, that made you go weak at the knees? I hope he knows that this Duchess of Wareham, at least, is not his to command. Or were you tempted by Tum Tum? Although judging by his performance on the bicycle today, I doubt that he has much to offer.’ Cora knew that Ivo was teasing her but there was a bitterness to his tone that jangled. Surely he could not be jealous of the Prince?

She pulled away from him and said, ‘I have a headache, Ivo, I am going to lie down. I am sorry, but you will have to manage without me this evening.’

‘Don’t worry, I am sure my mother will be only too happy to resume the role of chatelaine. Or shall I ask your mother? What a prospect.’ Ivo put his hand against her cheek. ‘Shall I send for the doctor, I don’t think I can manage without you for long.’

‘No, I’m sure I will feel better once I have rested. It has been a long day.’

‘The longest,’ said Ivo and took her arm as they walked up the steps to the house.

Bertha was just about to join the upper servants who were gathering for their own version of the christening tea when the hall boy stopped her in the corridor, holding out a parcel.

‘Miss Jackson, Miss Jackson, this came for you.’ He shook it. ‘I think it’s from America.’

Bertha took the parcel from him. The parcel had been redirected many times. It had gone to New York, to London and now here to Dorset. The return address was the Rev. Caleb Spragge, South Carolina. She felt her mouth go dry. She took the parcel into the pressing room and put it down on the table. She found a pair of scissors and cut the thick twine that held it together. She pulled away the brown paper to reveal a cardboard box about two feet long and one foot wide. Bertha could hear the bustle and clatter of the housemaids in the corridor, she wanted very much to walk out and join them, she did not want to open the box. But then she saw the pile of string and the elaborately tied knots and she knew she could not ignore what lay inside.

She lifted the lid. Inside was a letter and something that looked like clothing wrapped in tissue paper. She opened the letter – the date was 12 March, four months ago.

Bertha leant against the table for a moment. She had known, of course, when she came to England that she would never see her mother again, but the fact of it still made her faint with loss. She folded back the shroud of tissue paper and took out the quilt.

It was not so big, perhaps the size of the table in the cabin, twelve squares, four by three, of interlocking strips of material around a central motif. With a lurch of her heart she saw a strip of blue and white striped cotton from her mother’s skirt, and opposite, a scrap of paisley from the shawl that Bertha had sent her. In every square she found some memento of the life she could only dimly remember, a faded strip from some overalls, a scrap of material from a flour sack with the letters ash’s finest flo. Bertha recognised in the centre of one square a piece of the red and white bandanna that her mother had used to tie back her unruly hair. The stitching was fine and even in some parts of the quilt, but in others the sewing was erratic, rushed as if her mother was desperate to get to the end. She was sending her daughter a message and she would not go until she had finished it. She could not read or write, so this quilt was her last will and testament, her parting gift to her only child. Bertha held it up to her face, feeling her mother’s hands on the warm soft fabric. For the first time since she had left South Carolina ten years before, she allowed herself to cry.

A bell rang and Mabel came in.

‘The Duchess is down, Miss Jackson. You’re wanted upstairs.’ She saw Bertha’s face and stopped. ‘Are you all right? Was it bad news?’ She seemed eager for details

Bertha nodded. ‘Yes, it was bad news, but it was a long time ago.’

She folded the quilt carefully and wrapped it up in the tissue paper. She went upstairs to her bedroom and laid it out. Only then did she go down to Miss Cora.

Cora was sitting in the window seat when Bertha came in, her face pressed against the glass. She had taken her hair down and the russet weight of it fell over her shoulders like an animal pelt. She had lost her Duchess look, Bertha thought.

‘Oh, there you are. I have got such a headache, Bertha.’ Her voice sounded weak and uncertain.

Bertha poured some eau de cologne on to a flannel and pressed it to Cora’s temples.

‘Thank you.’ Cora looked up at her for a moment, as if deciding something, and then said, ‘Bertha, have you ever been in love?’

Bertha stiffened, she wondered where this was leading. ‘I couldn’t say, Miss Cora.’

Cora shook her head. ‘Well, have you ever known someone who is nice and nasty, who makes you love them one minute and hate them the next? Who makes you feel wonderful and terrible and you never know which one it is going to be?’

Cora’s hands were twisting through her hair, rolling it around her fingers so tightly that they went white from lack of circulation. Bertha thought that the only person in her life who fitted Miss Cora’s description was Miss Cora herself, who did an excellent job in being nice and nasty. But that was not a thought she could utter. She knew that her mistress was talking about the Duke, so she kept her answer as non-committal as possible.

‘I guess the world is full of contrary folks, Miss Cora.’

‘Oh, but he’s not just contrary, Bertha, it’s as if he wants to unbalance me.’ Cora stopped. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you about this, you’re my maid and he’s my husband but I don’t know what to think any more.’ Bertha saw that one of Cora’s fingers was turning blue and she gently disengaged it from the hair.

‘Why don’t you talk to Mrs Cash? She knows a lot more about married life than I do, Miss Cora.’

‘Oh, I tried that. All Mother wants is a duchess for a daughter. She doesn’t care how I feel.’ Cora knocked her head against the glass.

Bertha could say nothing to this as she knew it was true.

‘I just don’t know who Ivo is any more. Sometimes I think – no, I know – he loves me but then the next moment he is someone else entirely. Last night, just before Odo made that scene, I saw something between Ivo and Charlotte. I know there is something there, some feeling that I can’t be part of. Yet when Ivo says he loves me, I believe him, but he can’t love us both, can he?’ She looked at Bertha in entreaty as if the maid’s answer had the power to decide her fate.

Bertha wanted to wipe Cora’s face clean of worry, but she could not lie to her. She knew that Jim would be angry with her for what she was about to do, but she could not stand by while Miss Cora tortured herself.

‘Miss Cora, if I tell you something, do you promise not to be angry with me?’

Bertha sat down on the window seat opposite her mistress so that she could look directly into her eyes.

‘Of course, why would I be angry with you?’

‘Because you won’t like what I have to say. Do you want me to go on?’

‘Yes, yes, I promise that nothing you say can be worse than I have imagined.’ A tear slid out of Cora’s eye, but she did not appear to notice.

Bertha fumbled in her bodice and drew out Jim’s pearl from its resting place next to her heart.

‘Do you recognise this, Miss Cora?’

Cora picked up the pearl and rolled it around her palm. ‘This looks as if it could be from my necklace, but it can’t be, unless someone has broken it…’ She looked over at her dressing table in alarm.

‘No, your necklace is quite safe. This pearl came from another necklace, just like yours.’

Cora tested the pearl against her front teeth. ‘It’s real enough, but what’s it got to do with me?’ She held the pearl in one hand and with the other she rubbed her neck where the necklace would have sat. She thought of Ivo fastening it for her that afternoon in Venice.

‘All I can tell you, Miss Cora, and I am sorry to be the one to do so, is that Lady Beauchamp had a necklace of black pearls just like yours. It broke one night when we were staying over at Sutton Veney and I…’ Bertha paused; she did not want Cora to know that it had been Jim who had stolen the pearl. ‘It was the night you didn’t come back from the hunt. She was wearing it at dinner and it snapped. I guess she picked them all up except this one.’

Cora spoke slowly as if she was trying to add things up in her head. ‘Are you saying that Ivo gave Charlotte a necklace like mine?’ She frowned.

‘Yes, he did.’

Cora stood up and went to the dressing table. She took her necklace out of its green morocco leather box. She compared her pearls to the one in her hand.

‘Identical.’ She turned and looked at Bertha.

Bertha stood up to face her. She could not tell from Cora’s expression whether she was to be blamed for what she had said. She had broken through the invisible wall of deference that lay between them by speaking out. But then she thought of all the things she had never said to her mother and she decided that she could not stop now. She had gone against Jim’s advice, her own self-interest even, to tell Miss Cora something that she might very well decide not to hear. But then she remembered how certain and bright Cora had once been and how dim she seemed now. She was only her maid, but Cora mattered to her. She would not just be a bystander.

‘There’s something else as well,’ she said. ‘Just before your wedding, you got a letter from Mr Van Der Leyden. Your mother didn’t want you to read anything that might upset you so I kept the letter. I didn’t read it, and I didn’t give it to the Madam, but I thought you should know.’ Bertha hoped that Miss Cora would not ask her for the letter, but her mistress did not seem to have heard what she had said. She was rolling the pearls between her fingers.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’ She gestured with the pearls.

Bertha hesitated. ‘It wasn’t my place to, Miss Cora. So long as you were happy, what good would it have done?’

‘So why are you telling me now?’

‘Because now I think you need to know the truth, Miss Cora.’

The pearls clattered against the wood as Cora dropped them on the table.

‘Yes, I suppose I do.’ She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them wide, pulling back her shoulders as if she was rising from a long sleep. She looked at herself in the pier glass and made a face. ‘I need you to put my hair up again.’ She sat down at the dressing table and handed Cora the brush. Her eyes met Bertha’s in the mirror. ‘And then I want you to find out whether Lady Beauchamp has gone to bed. I think it’s time I paid her a visit.’

Bertha nodded and began to brush the conker-coloured hair, which crackled to life with every stroke. When her hair was fully alive like a crown of flames, Cora put her hand on Bertha’s.

‘Thank you,’ she said.