Silk

‘Good afternoon, Mr Pickford.’

The obvious recognition of her cousin surprised Amber a little, although she was too interested in their surroundings to dwell on it.

She gazed round the panelled hall in awe. Could that embroidery she could see on the cushions be the original Jacobean crewel work? She longed to go over to examine it more closely, but the servant was waiting for them to follow him.

The hall had a stone floor with a carpet laid over it and in its centre was a highly polished table on which there was a beautiful arrangement of hothouse lilies and roses, their scent filling the air. A flight of stairs led up towards a galleried landing, its balustrade intricately carved with fruits and leaves in the style of Grinling Gibbons. Dark, heavily framed portraits of past Fitton Leghs looked down on the visitors from the walls, whilst the vast fireplace was surely almost tall enough for a person to stand up in.

‘Come on,’ Greg hissed impatiently, tugging on Amber’s arm as she paused to take it all in.

Obediently she followed the manservant down a passageway of linen-fold panelling, which opened out into the house’s original Great Hall. From two storeys high, its windows overlooked the green lawns that sloped away from the house, with the wall decorated with pieces of armour and swords, and the arms of the Fitton Leghs.

Amber studied them intently. Her father had been commissioned by Lord Fitton Legh’s late mother to incorporate the arms into a design for table linen for the four hundredth anniversary of the granting of the manor to the family. Amber remembered watching him working on the commission, tracing the various armorial crests and then working them into a variety of potential designs, his forehead furrowed in concentration, before he broke off to summon her mother to come and give him her opinion.

The heavy curtains that hung at the windows were embroidered with a pineapple design, which, Amber knew from what her father had taught her, meant that they had probably been commissioned by the Fitton Legh whose bride’s fortune had come from the West Indies trade.

An old refectory table ran the length of the room. On the wall opposite where they had entered the hall was an intricately carved screen, above which was a minstrels’ gallery.

‘Come on.’

‘Sorry,’ Amber apologised. ‘It’s just that it is all so wonderful. I could stay here for hours.’

Beyond the Great Hall the corridor widened out into a large rectangular hallway of a much more modern design and Amber realised that they had entered that part of the house that had been designed by Robert Adam. The walls were painted a soft duck-egg blue and the plasterwork picked out in white. Matching niches held busts of what Amber presumed were past Fittons.

Several sets of elegant mahogany doors opened off this hall. The servant pulled open one pair of them and then announced the visitors.

The room was painted a straw colour, its Regency furniture upholstered in satin of the same colour, so that the room seemed to be aglow with a soft warm light.

Lady Fitton Legh was seated on a small sofa with Cassandra. Cassandra, Amber knew, was staying with the Fitton Leghs, to whom the de Vrieses were connected, Barrant’s late wife having been a Fitton Legh. As a child Cassandra had not spent as much time in Cheshire as Jay had done and therefore Amber did not know her very well.

Cassandra was two years older than Amber. Her parents lived near Brighton and, according to Jay, it had been on a visit to her grandfather the previous Christmas that Cassandra had been entertained by the Fitton Leghs and had then been invited to come and stay at Fitton Hall by Lord Fitton Legh as a companion to his wife.

As soon as she saw her visitors, Lady Fitton Legh jumped up from the sofa and then hurried towards them, exclaiming with obvious delight, ‘Greg, what a lovely surprise!’

In contrast, Greg sounded oddly stilted and not one little bit like his normal relaxed self as he acknowledged her welcome, quickly stepping back from her, as he told her, ‘My grandmother charged me with the task of returning some books to you, and I have brought my cousin, Amber, with me.’

Each time she saw Caroline Fitton Legh, Amber marvelled afresh at her beauty. Her eyes, large and darkest violet, dominated the delicacy of her face; her lips were soft and full, and at the moment seemed to be trembling slightly, making her look both sad and vulnerable. Her skin had a lovely light tan like the models in Vogue, which made Amber immediately long to exchange her own peaches-and-cream English complexion for it. Her hair was dark and cut, in the prevailing fashion, close to her head and perfectly waved. The frock she was wearing was the same shade of silk as her eyes. Amber didn’t think she had ever seen anyone so slender or so delicate-looking. The rings on her marriage finger looked huge and heavy on such a delicate hand.

Cassandra, who had remained seated, now stood up and made as though to stand between them and Caroline. Cassandra was, Amber saw, frowning at them. Poor Cassandra, Amber thought sympathetically. Lady Fitton Legh’s beauty only underlined Cassandra’s lack of it. Tall and thin, with a frizz of ginger hair, Cassandra had a reputation for being abrupt and awkward, in both her manner and her movements. Even Jay had admitted to Amber that he found her difficult to get on with, and that they were not very close.

It was obvious that she didn’t welcome their arrival. She was looking resentfully at them, her face flushing with anger.

‘You must both stay for tea,’ Lady Fitton Legh insisted. ‘Cassandra and I were feeling quite dull. You must tell us some of your silly jokes, Greg, and make us laugh.’ She rang for tea as she spoke.

Amber hadn’t realised that her cousin knew Caroline well enough to tell her jokes.

‘I do so love the ceremony of English afternoon tea,’ said Lady Fitton Legh, laughing. ‘Greg, you must come and sit beside me to observe that I keep to all its little rules.’

But instead of accepting her invitation Greg pushed Amber forward, saying cheerily, ‘I think it’s best that Amber sits with you. I am far too clumsy and all too likely to jolt something or other, aren’t I, Amber?’

‘Is it true, Miss Vrontsky? Is your cousin really as clumsy as he says, or is he just teasing us?’

To Amber’s relief, before she was obliged to answer her, the doors opened to admit the butler, two footmen and a maid, who went about the tea-serving duties with well-orchestrated ease, the butler turning to the footman first to remove the spirit lamp for the kettle from the large silver tray he was carrying, and then once he had lighted that and placed the kettle on it, the teapot. All had to be set in exactly the right position and in exactly the right order on the crisply laundered tea table cloth that covered the table next to the sofa, whilst the maid covered another table with a cloth and then set about placing on it the china from the tray carried by the second footman.

The footmen disappeared back into the hall and then returned with the tea trolley itself, laden with tiny crust-less sandwiches, and a large selection of teabreads and cakes. Not that Amber could eat a thing. She felt so nervous and overawed.

Over tea Amber tried politely to engage Cassandra in conversation whilst Lady Fitton Legh entrusted several messages to Greg for their grandmother, but it was hard work when Cassandra would answer her with either a wooden ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Amber was relieved when Lady Fitton Legh finally rang for the tea things to be removed.

However, her hope that they might be about to leave came to nothing when Lady Fitton Legh said sweetly, ‘Greg, Lord Fitton Legh will be very cross indeed with me if he learns that you were here and I cannot give him a full report of your meeting with the Selection Committee. Cassandra, why don’t you take Amber into the music room so that she may hear the piece that you have been practising? Cassandra is a most accomplished pianist, Amber.’

For a moment Amber thought that Cassandra might actually refuse, she looked so furiously angry, but then she stood up abruptly, her face burning a bright hot red as she rushed towards the door, ignoring Amber, who had to run to catch up with her.

Once they were in the music room Cassandra continued to ignore her, much to Amber’s discomfort. Seating herself at the piano she raised the lid and then brought her hands down on the piano keys in a loud clash of jarring discordant notes, that set the crystals on the light fittings trembling.

Whilst Amber was still recovering from her shock, and without a word of explanation for her odd behaviour, Cassandra then started to play the piano very loudly, making it impossible for them to converse. Amber wished Greg would hurry up and rescue her.

While she played, Cassandra’s face remained bright red and her eyes were glittering strangely. Amber had no idea what to do. Such behaviour was completely outside anything she was used to. At school they had been subjected to a very strict regime, which had not allowed for any expression of personal feelings in public. It was, they had been taught, not the done thing for a lady to betray her feelings.

As abruptly as she had started to play, Cassandra stopped.

‘You know that your cousin is in love with Caroline, don’t you? Not that she would ever look at him. She laughs about him. We both do.’

Amber didn’t know what to say. She felt acutely uncomfortable and, if she was honest, just a little bit afraid of Cassandra.

‘You must tell him to stop coming round here and pestering her. He will be in a great deal of trouble if he doesn’t.’

‘I’m sure you are wrong. Greg is merely being polite,’ Amber told her valiantly.

‘No, I am not wrong. I have seen the way he looks at her. I have heard the lies he has told, the excuses he has made to see her when he has no business to be here.’

She slammed the lid down on the piano, stood up and then without saying another word she swept out of the room, leaving Amber to stare after her in bewilderment.

* * *

‘There, are you feeling a bit more cheerful now?’ Greg asked Amber as they drove home.

Amber looked at her cousin. He was watching the road as he drove.

‘Greg, Cassandra said the most peculiar thing to me.’

‘What kind of peculiar thing?’

‘She said that you were in love with Lady Fitton Legh.’

There was a small pause and then Greg laughed rather too loudly.

‘Lord, what rubbish you girls do talk. Of course I’m not. Lady Fitton is a married woman. I dare say the truth is that Cassandra has a terrible schoolgirl crush on Lady Fitton Legh herself. You know what you girls are like,’ he teased. ‘You are always having a pash on someone.’

His words made sense and brought Amber grateful relief.