The Buttonmaker’s daughter Read online

  Oliver swished at the towering vegetation with a broken tree branch, one of the few left over from their labours. ‘Are we going to camp here or not?’ he asked moodily.

  William looked uncertainly at his friend. Oliver was a boy who liked action but he wasn’t himself at all sure how wise camping would be. ‘There are all kinds of animals prowling through the Wilderness at night, you know.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got cold feet.’

  ‘How would we manage it anyway?’ he defended himself. ‘We’d have to sneak bedding from the linen cupboard. And apart from lumping it all the way down here, can you imagine how we’d get it from the house unseen?’

  It was midday and the sun was directly overhead. Oliver wiped a sweaty hand over his forehead. ‘Well, we need to use it in some way. I haven’t spent the last three hours killing myself for nothing.’

  He was right, William thought, it was stupid to build the shelter and then not use it, but he wished Olly would sometimes be a little less forceful. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

  Olly shrugged his shoulders, but when he saw William’s downcast face, his mood changed and he walked over to his friend and gave him a hug. ‘What we need first is something to drink. Then we’ll be able to think straight.’

  ‘I’ll run back to the kitchen and grab some lemonade,’ William said eagerly. ‘Cook won’t mind.’

  ‘Take care that your mother doesn’t see you then, or she’ll send you on some tedious errand.’

  He thought it more than likely. He knew his mother would be looking for him. ‘I’ll have to go up to the house and see Mama, in any case. I can bring the lemonade back with me.’

  ‘Why? What’s happening?’

  ‘The doctor is there.’

  ‘So? What’s that to do with you?’

  ‘He has to listen to my heart and he’s coming this morning.’

  Oliver frowned. ‘What’s wrong with your heart? You never said you were ill.’

  ‘I’m not. Not any more, at least. But Mama insists that Dr Daniels comes every month.’

  His friend pulled a face. ‘What’s the matter with parents? Wouldn’t life be perfect without them?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ William agreed. ‘But I’ll get it over with – it’s only a five minute check – then I’ll sneak into the kitchen and bring some grub as well as the lemonade. We can have a proper picnic.’

  ‘Great idea, Wills. That’s what we’ll do with the shelter – it will be our daytime retreat. Somewhere we go when we don’t want to be found.’

  William began to wade through the shoulder-high grasses, walking in the direction of the invisible path, but then stopped. He put his hand up to shield his eyes and tried to focus through the shimmer of heat. ‘Look there,’ he called back to Olly, ‘through the bamboo. It’s my sister, isn’t it? What’s she doing down here?’

  Olly pushed his way forward and the boys stood shoulder to shoulder, peering intently through the jungle of greenery. ‘I don’t think she wants to be found either,’ William said thoughtfully.

  Oliver stood on tiptoe. ‘I can just make her out. She’s in deep blue. But who’s that she’s with?’

  ‘I think it’s one of the architects. He works for Mr Simmonds. He was in church on Sunday.’

  They stood, silently watching the distant tableau. Olly gave a low whistle. ‘She certainly seems interested in him.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Stand this side of me. You’ll get a better view.’ Elizabeth was clearly visible from the new position. She was standing beneath the laurel arch and Aiden Kellaway was by her side. They were talking animatedly to one another.

  William’s mouth drooped at the sight. ‘She better not get too interested,’ he said in a glum voice.

  ‘Why, what’s the matter? Don’t you fancy him as a brother-in-law,’ Olly teased. ‘She could marry him, couldn’t she? If he wanted to.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘But she’s old.’

  ‘Old enough, I suppose, but our parents would never agree to it. In fact, Mama would be furious if she saw her talking to him. Elizabeth has to marry someone a lot more special, I think.’

  ‘In what way special?’

  ‘Someone who is important.’

  ‘You mean someone who’s rich.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Father would supply the dibs, I guess. But someone from an old family. That’s what he wants.’

  ‘Then he’s a snob.’ Oliver was definite in his judgement.

  William simply nodded. He was tired of the conversation and the heat was making him drowsy. He was also perturbed. A dark shadow had seemed to flit across a sky that was cloudless, though he could not say what it might be or why it worried him. He forgot Dr Daniels and his stethoscope and collapsed into the hollow the boys had made, settling himself under a tree fern as he’d done so many years ago. Oliver followed suit. The quest for lemonade was temporarily abandoned. Overhead, the sun was a glowing ball, shepherding the exhausted boys towards sleep. His eyelids were almost closed when he sensed a wavering at the corner of his sight.

  He sat upright, his eyes wide. ‘Look, Olly, isn’t that the most fabulous butterfly?’ The amber wings fluttered closer. ‘And look at those splodges of black. It seems to have veins on each wing. But how beautiful it is.’

  ‘Do you know the name?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think it may be a kind of fritillary. It’s large enough. I’ll have to look it up when we get back.’

  ‘Shall I catch it for you? Then you can put it in your collection.’

  ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘Leave it be.’ And he cupped his hands around the butterfly to bring it closer, entranced by its fur-like body and its bright orange wings.

  Olly came to kneel beside him and cupped his own hands beneath his friend’s. ‘It is beautiful,’ he said, ‘and it likes you.’

  William smiled a rare smile. ‘It likes its freedom better.’ He opened his palms and allowed the insect to flutter away, but Olly’s hands remained enclosing his.

  ‘I’m never going to marry,’ William said staunchly.

  ‘Nor me,’ Oliver agreed.

  Chapter Eight

  Aiden touched her gently on the shoulder and she turned and followed him, through the arch and into the Italian Garden. She found herself looking at a transformation. No longer did the flagged pathway circle a muddy shell but instead a wide expanse of water, its calm surface ruffled here and there by the eddying of the river that nurtured it. For a moment, the glint and glimmer of water beneath the bright sunlight, its occasional plunge into the shadow of sheltering trees, dazzled her. Then she lifted her eyes and saw across the lake’s shining mirror the temple that had begun to rise. It stood, delicate and poised, on a platform of levelled white rock. Two marble columns were now in place, their carved scrolls boldly outlined against the bluest of skies.

  She was rendered almost breathless. She had not truly believed her father when he’d claimed this garden would prove his most spectacular yet.

  ‘It will be magnificent,’ she said in the quietest of voices.

  ‘It will,’ Aiden echoed.

  Except for the slight ripple of lake water, there was complete stillness in the garden. She wasn’t certain she was completely comfortable with it. The stillness was almost unnatural.

  ‘Where are all the men?’ she asked, suddenly conscious of their absence.

  ‘Eating lunch.’

  ‘Why not here?’

  ‘It’s too enclosed and far too hot. They’ll be in the orchard – plenty of shade there beneath the fruit trees. Let’s hope tomorrow is a little cooler. We’ll begin to lift the remaining columns then and it’s heavy work.’

  ‘And after that…?’

  ‘After that, there’s the interior to finish, though that’s likely to take a little time.’

  ‘Have you plans for it?’

  He gave a rueful smile. ‘Your father wanted murals to decorate each wall. He was pretty insistent, but I think
Jonathan has finally persuaded him against. It’s the damp. We’ll proof the building as best we can, but water is insidious. It will find a home within the walls and any mural will last only a few years. Instead, we’ve commissioned a number of reliefs by a local sculptor – classical motifs in the main – and we’re hoping that Mr Summer will approve.’

  ‘It sounds as though you’ve weeks of work ahead. It’s a huge undertaking.’

  ‘It is, but when we’re through, you will see the most wonderful garden ever.’

  She looked up at him. The green eyes had lost their mistiness and were sharp with excitement. ‘You really love this place, don’t you?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? It’s exhilarating. I’ve only ever worked in towns and here there’s space and freedom and so much beauty.’

  A slight flurry among the leaves made her look across at the temple and its guardian trees, but it was an instant only before the garden’s stillness had closed in on them once more.

  ‘You come from a city then?’ She was prying again, but she wanted very much to know.

  ‘If I come from anywhere,’ he answered equably. ‘I’ve lived for years with my aunt and uncle in London. In Camberwell. My uncle owns a small shop there, and when I’m not at lectures or sitting examinations or working on commissions, I help out.’

  ‘He is the uncle who arranged your apprenticeship?’

  ‘The very same.’ He looked down at her, a mocking expression on his face. ‘And before you steel yourself to ask, my aunt and uncle came to England years ago. Like many Irish people, they faced the choice of leaving home or starving.’

  His tone was light but she knew his words were anything but. ‘I don’t know much about Irish history,’ she confessed.

  ‘It’s better that you don’t. It doesn’t make a pretty story.’

  ‘But you still have relatives there – in Ireland?’

  He took her by the elbow and steered her towards the bench in the summerhouse. For a while, they sat in silence looking across the lake until he said, ‘My mother and father are dead but I have brothers.’

  She was surprised. He seemed so self-contained, so much a man who had made his way in the world completely alone. ‘Do you ever see them?’

  ‘We’ve gone our different ways,’ he said shortly.

  That was a part of his story, but a part he was unwilling to tell. At least for now. She tried another tack. ‘So where will you go after you’ve finished at Summerhayes?’

  ‘I’m not certain. I’ve had one or two offers – through Jonathan. They’re jobs that would give me independence, but they’re small projects and a little uninteresting.’

  ‘Isn’t small the best way to start?’

  ‘Possibly, but I’d rather think big from the beginning.’

  She smiled at his earnestness. ‘Big, like Summerhayes,’ she murmured.

  ‘Indeed. It’s been brilliant. Passing examinations is one thing, but you can’t beat practical experience, and being on site with Jonathan has been a hundred times more valuable than sitting in a dusty office working from drawings.’

  His enthusiasm was catching, but she found herself asking, ‘How likely is it that you’ll gain a large commission?’

  ‘Most unlikely. This country can be a closed shop. Canada would be different though.’

  She was startled. ‘Canada!’

  ‘I have a cousin in Ontario. That’s eastern Canada. He writes to me that Toronto is a city that’s growing all the time. It’s one of the main destinations for immigrants and there’s a huge amount of new building. The sky could be the limit, he said.’

  ‘And do you believe him?’

  ‘Why not? Canada is a new country. It’s also very large.’

  She felt a strange emptiness. Since their meeting in the churchyard, she had seen him only once. He had brought to the house the architect’s final drawings for her father to lock away in his safe, and they’d met in the black and white tiled hall. A brief conversation only, interrupted by Joshua’s emergence from his smoking room, but enough for her to want more, to have time to talk with him, time to know him.

  She scolded herself. He was her father’s employee and a chance-met acquaintance; she would be foolish to think him anything more. Imagine her family’s reaction if they were ever to become close. But they wouldn’t – and it shouldn’t matter to her where he went. Instead, she should be cheering him for his ambition, for the passion he owned for his work and the new life he wished to build. His sense of adventure was something she understood. It was what she loved in her father, what she would wish for herself, if she were not a girl.

  She wanted to know more of his cousin, but she’d already asked far too many questions. So she sat quietly by his side, enjoying the coolness of flint and stone. The summerhouse afforded a welcome retreat in what was becoming another broiling day.

  ‘My cousin sailed from Ireland several years ago.’ It was as though he had divined her thoughts. ‘There was no future for him in Galway. He’s working on the railway in Canada and rents a small house for his family on the outskirts of Toronto. He’s offered me a room until I find my feet.’

  ‘It seems you’ve already decided your future.’

  ‘Not yet. Not quite.’ He looked at her as though he wanted to say more, but then abruptly changed direction. ‘And what about yours? Do you intend to stay here?’

  ‘You asked me that before.’

  ‘And I never got an answer. Your father is making Summerhayes a life’s work, but it’s his life, not yours. You have your own creativity. Don’t you want the world to share it?’

  She pulled a face. ‘How very grand that sounds! I paint for myself, that’s all.’

  ‘You should want more. I saw one of your paintings. I’d say you need some formal training, but you’re certainly not the dauber you claim. Women are beginning to be taken seriously as painters, you know. You should go to London, enrol in one of the art schools. The Slade perhaps.’

  She knew about the Slade. Someone she’d met last year, on one of the interminable morning calls she’d been forced to make with her mother, had told her with a shocked expression that women students there had actually been allowed to draw a semi-clothed male. Right now, that was an uncomfortable image, and she found herself challenging him more strongly than she intended. ‘Are you trying to organise my life? How did you see a painting of mine?’

  ‘It was hanging in the hall when I called last week.’

  Her father’s portrait, of course. Joshua had been so pleased with it that he’d had the picture framed and insisted on hanging it with his most precious trophies, the Tiffany wall lights he’d bid for at extortionate cost. And Aiden Kellaway had taken note of the artist’s name, written very small and in the furthest right-hand corner of the canvas. The man was certainly acute.

  ‘I’m happy to stay an amateur.’ Her tone verged on the brusque.

  ‘Then just go to the city and enjoy its pleasures. You’re very young to be hiding away.’

  ‘I’m not hiding,’ she said indignantly. ‘And I’ve been to London already. I told you.’

  ‘And you didn’t like it?’

  ‘Not much.’

  Four months of hedonistic pleasure filled with parties and receptions and dances, and with no time for painting. She couldn’t deny it had been exciting, but the excitement had been gossamer thin. Beneath it always a feeling of being demeaned, of having her essential self disregarded, chipped away bit by bit, day by day. The buying and selling of young women, that was the truth of the Season.

  ‘Why did you go?’

  ‘Papa was keen that I was introduced to polite society,’ she said blandly.

  ‘Polite society,’ he mimicked, and she giggled.

  ‘I shouldn’t laugh. It cost him a great deal of money and I turned out a disappointment.’

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘I didn’t “take”, as the saying goes. I think I was a little too different – maybe a little too candid.’

&n
bsp; ‘I think maybe you were, Miss Summer.’ He seemed to find it amusing. ‘Or may I call you Elizabeth?’

  ‘I imagine you can. We seem acquainted enough to be discussing my prospects of making a good marriage.’

  ‘So that’s what the foray into polite society was all about. Presumably, you didn’t advance your “prospects”?’ He was still grinning.

  ‘I received two proposals, if that’s what you mean,’ she said tartly. ‘I turned them down.’

  He nodded as though he could not imagine her giving any other answer. ‘I dare say you were in trouble for that.’

  ‘For a while. Papa fretted and fumed. Told me I was an ungrateful girl, but in the end I don’t think he minded. Not really. It’s true he spent a lot of money but he’s a generous man.’ For all his irascibility, she could have added.

  ‘And you are his darling.’ It was a statement of fact.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said, blushing a little.

  ‘I don’t think he’d want you to be talking to me. Your mama certainly didn’t.’

  The scene at the churchyard came vividly to mind, her mother frosty and unusually forceful. What had that been about? First, she’d been instructed to greet her aunt and uncle, then commanded in no uncertain terms to disappear. She’d been baffled and just a little threatened. That evening as Alice had sat over her needlework, she’d questioned her mother closely, but received no satisfactory reply.

  ‘I talk to whomever I want,’ she said resolutely, bristling from the memory.

  ‘Those are brave words.’

  ‘I am brave,’ and for the moment his presence gave her the strength to believe it. ‘Though not so brave,’ she amended, ‘that I can afford to disappear for hours.’