The Buttonmaker’s Daughter

‘How long? Why did they come to England? Where do they live?’

The bicycle was propped against the bothy wall, as he’d said. He took hold of the handlebars and wheeled it onto the path that led to a side gate and out onto the village road. She stayed where she was and he turned back to her.

‘So many questions, Miss Summer.’ She blushed hotly. He was right. She’d been intrusive to the point of rudeness. ‘But am I allowed one?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Then, what are you doing deep in the Sussex countryside? Shouldn’t you be in London, having a fine time?’

‘I’ve had a fine time,’ she was quick to counter.

‘Still… you might enjoy a very different kind of company, away from Summerhayes.’ He pointed to her hands where the faintest traces of paint were still visible. He was far too acute.

‘I daub, that’s all. And I’m happy enough here.’

‘Are you?’

His face glimmered beneath the arc of moonlight and she could just make out his expression. He was considering her intently, as though wanting to drill down into her deepest thoughts, and she found it discomfiting. It was time for her to leave.

Chapter Three (#ulink_29d86891-78c7-54b3-a74a-b68952dbb333)

Alice was on alert and heard the side door of the house click shut. She hoped her husband had not. But Joshua was still talking, still vehement, though a good deal calmer now. He seemed to have talked himself out of his anger and she had no wish to provoke a further outburst. She looked through the uncurtained diamonds of window glass and saw only darkness. What was Elizabeth doing walking in the gardens so late? At last her husband’s voice dwindled to a stop. He would return to her brother’s perfidy soon enough, but, for the moment, she could breathe freely.

‘Shall I call Ripley for tea?’ she asked hopefully.

He didn’t answer but shuffled to the edge of the sofa, then heaved himself to his feet and trod heavily across the polished oak floor. He enjoyed using the telephone, she knew. It was modern and efficient, two words that were his touchstone. His hand had reached for the instrument when she said, as casually as she could, ‘Did you think any more about the finishing school?’

‘I did not. And the answer is still no.’ He turned to face her, a grimace enlivening his otherwise stony expression. ‘I thought I’d made it plain that Elizabeth has no need to attend a foreign school. In my view, she is perfectly finished already.’

‘She is a credit to the family.’ Alice used her most emollient tone. ‘But would it not be a good idea to allow her to travel a little before she settles down? You have said yourself how wonderfully foreign travel broadens the mind. And, in Elizabeth’s case, it would be particularly beneficial. She would have a new setting in which to paint.’

‘She can paint here. She has her own studio, dammit. And as for travelling, she travelled more than enough last year and didn’t like it. This is where she belongs.’ He stomped back across the polished boards and spread his bulk along the printed velvet of the sofa. The effort pulled the Norfolk jacket tightly across his chest, its buttons looking ready to pop.

‘She travelled to London,’ Alice said mildly.

‘Exactly. And isn’t London the greatest city in the world? Even greater than Birmingham, though some would argue differently.’ His lips pulled back into the slightest of smiles. When his wife failed to acknowledge the pleasantry, he glared at her. ‘Where else should she go?’ he asked belligerently. ‘I don’t want her in Europe. Europe is a dangerous place – more so with every month that passes.’

‘But how is that possible? You are still in touch with Germany, are you not? Surely people there won’t want trouble. Or in France or anywhere else for that matter.’

‘Trade is one thing, war another. I’ll keep contact with Germany as long as it remains a good customer. The old factories do well from it. But it doesn’t mean I trust them. I don’t trust the man who leads them. The Kaiser is a swaggerer and he’s unpredictable; he’ll make trouble, mark my word. It may appear quiet at the moment but the Germans have the greatest army in the world – that’s something we should never forget. And now it has a navy to rival ours. They’ve been building a fleet large enough to threaten us at sea. Did you know that?’

She shook her head. She was hazy about the politics of Europe and could not argue. Not that she would, if she’d been Emmeline Pankhurst herself. It was not what women did. But, surely, Elizabeth would be safe in one of the best schools in Switzerland? And her daughter would gain so much from the experience. Different people, different customs, and encounters that could prove important. Introductions. Introductions that could lead to marriage and put the wild ideas Elizabeth had out of her mind. It was typical of Joshua that he couldn’t see the need for his daughter to widen her horizons. Summerhayes was the only horizon he could contemplate and what was right for him must be right for Elizabeth. But if the girl were to remain here, things could not stay the same. She approached the subject tentatively.

‘If Elizabeth is not to go to Switzerland, we might look for a suitable husband.’

‘She had the chance to find a husband and chose not to.’

He wanted to keep his daughter here. Keep her under his fond but watchful eye. And part of her sympathised. Marriage wasn’t the gilded promise that mothers held out to their daughters. She, of all women, should know that. But the girl’s future had to be considered. Joshua wouldn’t always be here and neither would she. Far better that Elizabeth had a home of her own long before that happened. And her daughter would have choice; she would not be forced to marry for money, as her mother had been.

‘London may have been the wrong place,’ she persisted. ‘The men she met there were not perhaps right for her.’ Though goodness knows what kind of man would attract her wayward daughter. ‘Someone closer at hand, someone from our own county, might suit her better.’

Joshua’s shoulders tensed in an angry fashion and she began to think it wise to abandon the conversation, when a quiet knock on the glass doors of the drawing room heralded Ripley and the tea tray. Her husband was forced to swallow his rancour but, when the footman had poured the tea and departed, he said, ‘Why can’t you leave the girl alone? She’s still young. She is happy here. Let her be.’

‘She is nineteen years old, Joshua. In a few months’ time, she will be twenty. She is in her prime, a time of her life when she should have the pick of husbands.’

‘Not like you, you mean.’

The warmth crept into her face and she took hold of the teacup with an unsteady hand. She hadn’t wanted the pick of husbands. She’d only ever wanted one, but a solicitor’s clerk was never going to match Fitzroy ambition. She had loved Thomas with the purity of the very young, and known herself loved in return. But their fate had been inescapable. Once discovered, the boy had lost his position and been harried out of Sussex. By the time she was despatched to London – a last-ditch attempt to save Amberley – her place was already reserved on the shelf for redundant spinsters.

She could still feel the humiliation of that summer in London. The Season had cost her family dear but failed to attract any offer of marriage, let alone from a man with money. That hadn’t surprised her. Since she’d lost Thomas, she had made little effort to please, and she knew she was judged unattractive and insipid. But her family had seemed strangely unprepared for her lack of success, her brother in particular. He’d been a stripling then but it hadn’t stopped him from reminding her, whenever opportunity offered, that she was an unwanted daughter. There had been a barrage of unkind comments – on her appearance, on her lack of personality. And it hadn’t stopped at taunts. On occasions, he’d grabbed her by the shoulders and physically shaken her or pinched an arm or a hand as he’d passed her chair, just to make sure that she wouldn’t forget the family’s disapproval. When she’d returned from London, it was with little hope of ever finding a husband. And even less hope of Amberley ever securing the money that would ensure the estate remained in Fitzroy hands. Until Joshua arrived in Sussex.

‘No, not like me.’ She had taken time to recover her composure. ‘Elizabeth’s situation is very different. There is no need for any kind of business arrangement.’

‘Considering how our business arrangement has worked out, it’s as well.’ He glowered at her and she was fearful that he would start once more on Henry’s most recent act of malice. But he was too busy brooding over past insults.

‘I saved your family from bankruptcy, poured thousands into Amberley, and what was my reward? It took me years to wrench land from your brother, land I was owed, land that your father had signed over. I had to go to law, expend even more money to get what was rightfully mine. And the result? Your brother has made trouble wherever and whenever he can. It’s clear he won’t be satisfied until he reclaims Summerhayes for his own. And, good God, wouldn’t he like to! A ramshackle manor house and the poorest of ground transformed. He longs to get his hands on what my wealth has created.’

There was a long silence while he drank his tea and looked through her at the wall behind, William Morris’s manila daisies seeming to grip all his attention. Whenever her brother acted badly, the old bitterness broke out anew. First her father, then Henry, had attempted to renege on the marriage agreement, and every tactic, every subterfuge, every gambit used to prevent her husband taking possession of land that was rightfully his was engraved on Joshua’s heart.

She had picked a bad time to raise the subject. She smoothed the creases from the messaline silk, one of the many expensive dove-coloured gowns Joshua insisted on buying, and took the empty teacups to the tray. He looked up as she did so, coming out of his studied gloom.

‘You must drop this idea of brokering a marriage, Alice. It will spell disaster. And there is no need for us to do a thing. Elizabeth will stay at Summerhayes and one day a young man will come along who takes her fancy. I’ll be able to inspect him, make sure he’s the right sort. And if he is, I’ll make him welcome. He can join me in the management of the estate, take some of the weight off my shoulders since William looks unlikely ever to do so.’

‘William is only fourteen.’ In defence of her youngest, she lost her timidity.

‘He is old enough to take an interest, but he remains a child. He hasn’t a serious thought in his head. And that boy you’ve invited here – Oliver, isn’t it? – if anything, he’s worse. Playing tricks on the servants, laughing in your face. The boy has no respect. But what can you expect coming from a family of Jews? That’s a little matter you didn’t tell me about.’

Oliver’s family was something to which she’d given no thought before agreeing to the boy’s stay, and she felt guilty at her oversight. But then there was rarely a moment when she didn’t feel guilty.

‘Once we can send him packing,’ Joshua pronounced, ‘he doesn’t come again.’

She wasn’t going to argue for Oliver. She wasn’t at all sure herself of the young boy’s suitability. Instead, she steered the conversation back to Elizabeth.

‘You wouldn’t wish Elizabeth to get into trouble,’ she said cautiously.

‘Of course, I wouldn’t. What are you talking about, woman?’

‘She’s young and headstrong. All this nonsense with the suffragettes – it’s had an effect on her.’

Joshua gave a loud tsk. ‘Don’t mention those women in my presence. They are a scandal, a disgrace to their sex.’

‘Elizabeth reads the papers. She is aware of what is happening beyond our sleepy corner of the country.’

‘Is she intending to create a disturbance, too, then?’ He gave a snort of derision. ‘In parliament perhaps or maybe at the racetrack. Should I give her a little hatchet, do you think, so she can join her sisters in slashing the nation’s works of art?’

‘I’m sure Elizabeth has no such ideas,’ her mother said seriously. ‘It’s their talk of female independence, female equality, that has caught her imagination.’

She saw that at last he was paying attention. ‘What has she been saying?’