The Master Of Calverley Hall

‘But can I perhaps have a puppy instead? One like this, all white and small? Please? I promise, I would look after him so well! I’d feed him and brush him and take him for walks every day!’

And Connor, for a moment, was lost for a reply. Since her father died, Elvie had rarely spoken more than a few words at a time, even to her grandmother and Connor. There was that stammer, too. The doctors in London had pronounced it was a result of shock and grief. ‘Give the child time,’ they suggested, ‘and perhaps a change of scene. Even so, it could take many months for her to recover. To react normally to her surroundings, and to other people.’

And yet here she was—still chatting to Isobel Blake!

‘Do you think, if I had a small puppy like this one, that he would want to walk very far?’ Elvie was asking Isobel eagerly. ‘Do you think he’d mind being on a leash? And would he eat the same food that Connor’s big dogs eat?’

‘Goodness me,’ he heard Isobel say with amusement, ‘how many dogs has Connor got?’

‘Oh, at least six. He likes big dogs very much, you see. But I would love a little one, like this...’ Her voice trailed away longingly.

Connor broke in, very carefully. ‘Elvie, the puppy is in the care of this lady. Her name is Miss Blake.’

Elvie said, ‘I’m sorry if I’m being a nuisance, Miss Blake.’ She looked crestfallen.

And then Miss Blake—Isobel—was saying to Elvie, ‘You are very far from being a nuisance. In fact, you may have this puppy, if you wish. I think he would be very happy at the Hall. But only—’ she glanced swiftly at Connor ‘—if Mr Hamilton agrees.’

Elvie turned to him in an agony of suspense.

‘Impetuous as ever, Miss Blake,’ he said softly.

He saw the flush of colour in her cheeks, but she looked unshaken. Connor met her steady gaze and went on, ‘Nevertheless, I think your idea is a sound one. As Elvie pointed out, I’ve several dogs already—they’re all considerably larger than this small fellow, but he’ll soon make friends. And I promise you he’ll be very well looked after.’

She nodded. Then, very carefully, she handed the small, fluffy creature to Elvie—and as Elvie cradled him, breathless with excitement, the puppy reached up to lick the little girl’s nose. Mud, thought Connor. Elvie’s bound to get mud on her frock. But what did that matter when she looked so happy?

‘Well,’ said Isobel Blake, ‘I had best be on my way. But I’m very glad of the chance to wish you joy in your new abode, Mr Hamilton. Is it a permanent move, I wonder? Or will the Hall just be your occasional country retreat?’

‘I’m not really sure yet. Most of my business is, naturally, in London. But I hope to spend as much time here as possible.’

She nodded. ‘So you won’t be just a summer visitor, then, like the Plass Valley people?’ She gave her bright, challenging smile. ‘Perhaps,’ she went on, ‘if you’re going to be here for a while, you might be able to do something for them?’

He frowned, not at all sure what she meant. ‘Do something for them?’

‘Yes!’ Though her smile was still bright, something in her eyes took him back suddenly to the old days at the forge, when as a girl she used to ride over to watch him at work. The girl from the big house—rich and inquisitive, and, he thought, very lonely.

‘They come here, after all,’ she was saying, ‘to do vital work, yet they are treated like lepers. They need someone to defend them, Mr Hamilton!’

‘Ah,’ he said mildly. ‘So you want me to become a local benefactor? Following the example set by your father, perhaps? I remember the summer when the travellers decided to stay on in their camp for a few days after the harvest was over, but your father set his men on them with dogs and whips—just so they got the message, I think he explained.’

She drew back as if it were she who’d been struck. Very quietly she said, ‘Do you think I’ve forgotten? Don’t you realise I would have stopped it, if I had had any way of doing so?’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I apologise.’ But he saw now that her cheeks were very pale and her breasts rose and fell rather rapidly beneath her thin cotton gown, as if she was struggling to control her emotions.

‘No need to apologise.’ She lifted her head almost proudly. ‘It was I who made a mistake, in even mentioning the subject of the travellers. But—’ and now her voice was light again ‘—permit me to offer you a word of advice, Mr Hamilton. I think you’ll very soon learn that no one around here ever talks about my father.’

She cast one last, almost wistful look at the puppy, then said to Elvie, ‘You’ll take good care of him, won’t you? I feel certain you will.’

‘Oh, yes! And thank you!’ Elvie’s so often sad eyes were shining with delight.

‘What will you call him?’

It took Elvie only a moment. ‘Little Jack!’ she declared. ‘I shall call him Little Jack—do you think that’s all right?’

Isobel laughed again—that merry laugh he remembered so well. ‘I think it’s absolutely perfect.’ She turned to Connor and gave him the slightest of nods. ‘I wish you joy of Calverley Hall.’

And she left.

Chapter Two

Connor thought, Damn it. He’d guessed he would meet her some time, but not like this, with Elvie here. And even if they’d met when it was just the two of them, what was there to say? How could they talk about the past or—even worse—the present?

He glanced down at Elvie and realised she was clutching the puppy to her as if she still couldn’t quite believe he was hers. Connor took him gently from her, then led Elvie to a leather trader’s stall where he bought a proper leash and a red collar with a silver buckle. Connor swiftly adjusted them and handed the leash to Elvie, commenting, ‘It’s quite a responsibility, you know, Elvie, to own a dog. But I think you’ll look after him marvellously.’

For a while longer they wandered round in the sunshine with Little Jack trotting alongside, to see what else the midsummer fête had to offer. But Connor felt as if the climax of the day had already come and gone. He was haunted by his memories of the past. Especially that night seven years ago, when Isobel Blake had ridden from the Hall to the blacksmith’s cottage where Connor lived with his ailing father.

‘Please, Connor. One of my father’s mares is sick. I can’t think of anyone else to ask. Will you help?’

It was past ten, but he’d ridden back to the Hall’s stables with her in the dark and found the mare suffering from an infected hoof. Really, a qualified farrier was needed—but Connor knew as well as Isobel that no one would come out to work for Sir George Blake, because he was a drunken sot who never paid his bills. So, while Isobel held up the lantern, Connor cleaned out the hoof and poulticed it. He’d all but finished when Sir George arrived.

He’d tried to strike Connor. Connor, eighteen then, was easily strong enough to hold him off, but Sir George had said, ‘I’ll see you and your father ruined for this. What were you after? My horses? My money? My daughter?’

Connor had left the stables without a word. Two nights later, the forge and their adjoining home were set alight. Connor’s father, already seriously ill, died just a week afterwards and Connor set off for London, where he made his fortune—but exactly the opposite had happened to Isobel. Her father took her to London when she was eighteen, presumably to find a rich husband, but instead she brought disgrace on herself by going to live with a middle-aged rake, Viscount Loxley, at his London residence near Hyde Park. Shortly afterwards her father died a bankrupt and Calverley Hall was lost. Her mother had died when Isobel was a child and she had no other family—but even so. Even so...

Society condemned her. She must have had a choice, Connor tried to tell himself. There was no need for her to ruin her reputation so thoroughly. And yet she’d done it. He’d not seen her since that night at the Calverley stables seven years ago, but he heard the London gossip. Heard how she’d become Loxley’s youthful ‘companion’. And when Loxley died, three years ago when Isobel was twenty, she’d moved back to Gloucestershire; she’d chosen to live with an artist, Joseph Molina, who occupied a farmhouse not far from Chipping Calverley and not far from the Hall.

This time, people muttered, she’s not even troubled to find a rich man to sell herself to.

For some time, Connor found it almost impossible to reconcile the stories about Isobel Blake with the girl he once knew. He’d tried to excuse and understand her. But the evidence appeared indisputable.

Couldn’t she have saved herself, somehow? It still smote him to remember her as a girl. There had always been something of the rebel about Isobel and once he’d admired her for it. Admired the way she used to ride up to the forge, her blonde hair windswept, her cheeks golden from the sun as she declared, ‘I had to escape, Connor. I couldn’t bear that house a moment longer! Am I a very great nuisance to you?’

Sometimes she was—but he’d always made time for her. And he hadn’t thought twice about risking the forge and his livelihood that night long ago by coming to Calverley Hall at her bidding, to tend the sick horse. Well, none of it mattered any more. If she’d stood any chance at all of redeeming her reputation after Viscount Loxley’s death, she’d buried it by moving in with her artist. Connor remembered how Haskins, his steward, had responded when asked if he ever saw anything of her in the neighbourhood. ‘Miss Blake?’ Haskins had spoken with distaste. ‘She’s set up house with a foreign painter fellow. She’s shameless. Quite shameless.’

And yet, try as he might, Connor still couldn’t banish her from his mind’s eye. There was something about her that made her unforgettable, yes, even in her stupidly large hat and that shabby, clinging dress. She’d been outspoken, too, about the Plass Valley children. ‘They need someone to defend them, Mr Hamilton!’

The Plass Valley people did trouble him—he’d noted their rough encampment on the day he arrived. But Isobel Blake troubled him even more. He felt his anger rising again, his sense of betrayal—because he’d thought she was different from her disreputable father, but he’d been wrong.

Now he gently ruffled Elvie’s hair. ‘Time to go home?’ he suggested. ‘Let’s take Little Jack and introduce him to everyone, shall we?’

And he carried the tired little puppy with one hand, while holding Elvie’s with the other, as they headed for the field at the far end of the fair where Tom waited with the carriage.

Connor took one last look around. This countryside was idyllic and he had a beautiful new home. The only trouble was—he’d forgotten how powerful were the memories that came with it.

* * *

Tom batted not an eyelid at the arrival of the puppy, but promptly took up his perch on the back of the phaeton as Connor gathered up the reins and set off at a spanking pace towards Calverley Hall. Connor pulled up the horses only slightly as they passed through the Hall’s gates, nodding to the lodgekeeper there, then he let the carriage roll on, following the old road as it wound through ancient oak woods, then over the stone bridge that crossed the river.

Soon afterwards they were clattering into the front courtyard, but suddenly Connor was frowning. There were staff waiting for him there. A ridiculous formality, he thought, since he and Tom could have managed everything perfectly well! But no—there were grooms to take charge of the horses and a footman standing by the front door. And Haskins the steward stood stiffly to attention.

Most of the Hall’s staff were completely new. The ones who’d stayed on since the old days, like Tom, were a rarity. Housemaids, footmen, gardeners and grooms had been hired by Connor’s business secretary, Robert Carstairs, who’d also appointed the new steward Haskins, together with a housekeeper, Mrs Lett.

Carstairs was highly efficient. But sometimes, Connor regretted not conducting the interviews himself.

A young maid hurried forward for Elvie. ‘There now, Miss Elvira! Your grandmother’s waiting for you. Have you had a lovely day at the fair?’

Elvie nodded shyly, looking longingly at Little Jack; but Connor had the puppy firmly in hand. ‘I’ll take him to meet the other dogs,’ he assured Elvie. ‘The groom in charge of the kennels will see that he’s made really welcome.’ He stooped so he didn’t tower over her and added, ‘You tell your grandmother all about your trip out—yes?—and then in an hour or so, when Little Jack’s settled, I’ll take you to see him.’

So Connor led the puppy out to the stables, then returned to the house and headed for his study—only to find Robert Carstairs waiting for him.

‘Some news, sir,’ Carstairs said. ‘And it’s good news. You’re ahead in the race to provide iron for the new east London docks project, in Wapping. Your plans have been received most favourably. I have some letters to that effect here.’

‘Good news indeed, Carstairs,’ Connor agreed. But he wished Miles Delafield could have been here to share in the excitement. I miss you, Miles, Connor said silently to himself as he led the way into his study, where Carstairs began eagerly laying out the various documents on his desk.

‘All we require now,’ Carstairs was saying, ‘before the contract is signed is government approval—and you should get that without any difficulty.’

‘I certainly hope so,’ said Connor mildly.

Carstairs glanced at him enquiringly. ‘You seem a little quiet, sir. Did you enjoy the fair?’

‘I enjoyed it well enough,’ Connor replied. ‘As a matter of fact, I met several people I used to know.’

‘Anyone of importance?’

‘No. Not at all.’ And he started studying those papers again—but he could not stop thinking about Isobel Blake. She’d faced up to him almost defiantly this afternoon. Perhaps she hoped he might not have heard the stories whispered about the years she’d spent with Loxley. Perhaps she hoped he didn’t know she was now living with some artist fellow...

No. She wouldn’t be that stupid. She must realise he would have heard how she’d made a complete mess of her life and the best thing Connor could do was forget her. Completely, he reminded himself. And yet—her skin had felt so warm, so soft when he’d touched her arm.

He pulled out the chair from his desk and sat down. ‘Right,’ he said to Carstairs. ‘The new docks. We need more figures—charts, maps, suppliers. Let’s get to work, shall we?’

* * *

It had taken Isobel just over an hour to walk the three miles along the narrow track to the farmhouse that was now her home.

She opened the door into the big kitchen that took up most of the ground floor. At one end of this room was the black cooking range, surrounded by gleaming pots and pans; at the other end was Joseph Molina, sitting in front of his easel, which had a permanent place there. The room’s numerous windows caught the light all day long and today the sun glittered on the half-finished canvases scattered around.

Joseph turned from his easel with a glad smile when she entered. ‘Isobel! My dear, did you enjoy the fair?’ He rose awkwardly, because his knees were stiff with rheumatism.

He was fifty-seven years old. Once, he had been a successful portrait artist, but when arthritis began to attack his hands, he was no longer capable of the precise detail the work required. Isobel had first met him in a London gallery three years ago. Loxley had died and she’d found herself homeless, with nothing to her name but a besmirched reputation.

At that gallery Joseph Molina had noticed her admiring one of his watercolour sketches of Gloucestershire and came over to her. ‘I know this place,’ Isobel had said, pointing to the picture. ‘I grew up in the house that looks out over this valley.’

He’d told her he was thinking of moving there, permanently. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ he said, ‘and besides, there are practical reasons. I can’t afford the rent on my London studio any more. My sister, Agnes, will be coming with me. Why don’t you come, too?’

He was so kind to Isobel that day, at a time when she’d felt surrounded by enemies. She’d been moved almost to tears, but forced a smile, as she always did. ‘I cannot expect your charity.’

‘No charity,’ he’d answered. ‘I will find you work, believe me!’

So she’d moved back to Gloucestershire with him and Agnes. She’d learned how to grind pigments and mix them with linseed oil and how to care for his canvases and brushes. She knew, of course, what people whispered about her. She expected to make no new friends in Gloucestershire, but then, she’d only ever had one true friend here.

Connor. Connor. The way he’d looked at her today. He’d heard everything. Believed everything. And it hurt, more than she’d believed possible.

‘Look,’ she was saying now to Joseph. ‘Look what I found for you.’ And soon she was proudly showing him the sticks of charcoal and hog’s-hair brushes she’d bought for him from a pedlar at the fair. ‘I enjoyed the fair immensely,’ she went on, forcing a merry smile, ‘but you should have been there, too, Joseph. It wasn’t the same without you.’

‘Did you find anything of interest?’

‘Yes, indeed.’ She laid out the new brushes with care. ‘For instance, I found an adorable stray puppy—together with some stray children. Oh, and I met a little girl. A rich and rather sad little girl.’

‘Perhaps she reminded you of yourself, Isobel? When you were young?’

She lost her smile. ‘Perhaps, yes. But the girl, Joseph! She was very sweet. I gave her the puppy and that made her happy.’

It had made her happy, too, Isobel realised—at least for a little while. Until she’d seen Connor Hamilton’s face and the way he’d looked at her. Something had wrenched the breath from her lungs at that look of his and she still felt bruised—agonised—from it.

Forcing the memory down, she went to examine the painting on Molina’s easel.

‘This is beautiful!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s the sunset over the woods on Calverley Hill, isn’t it?’

‘It’s showing promise,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘But the greens I’ve used aren’t quite right. Will you help me to mix the colours, Isobel? I need aquamarine, I think, and yellow ochre. Also a touch of cadmium, though I don’t know where the cadmium has got to...’

How quickly she settled into her usual routine. Within minutes, she’d found his precious phials of pigment amidst the clutter, as she always did, and the time flew by, until a middle-aged lady in a grey dress and pinafore—his sister, Agnes—came bustling in and scolded mildly, ‘Now, Joseph, it’s time for you to be putting away those brushes of yours and getting yourself ready for your tea.’

‘Agnes is quite right,’ Isobel told him, ‘so off you go and I’ll put these things away for you.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, my dear.’

‘Nor I you,’ Isobel replied. She smiled again, though the minute he’d gone she felt despair washing through her.

She’d been stupidly rash to visit the fair today. To pretend she didn’t care about the whispers she heard everywhere.

‘That’s Sir George Blake’s daughter there. Remember her? Just to think, she was once an heiress! But her father died a bankrupt and she went to live with a London rake when she was eighteen—yes, only eighteen! Then, when he died, she took up with this artist fellow—yes, they live just up the valley...’

Whenever she heard the talk, Isobel reminded herself she was content with her new life. The Molinas couldn’t have been kinder; she had this home in the countryside she’d always loved and indeed she could almost call herself happy—until something happened, like at the fair today, when Connor Hamilton appeared.

* * *

She told the Molinas all about the fair while they ate their supper, describing the livestock tents and the entertainers, and the crowds who enjoyed it all so thoroughly. She told them just a little about the Plass Valley children, at which Agnes broke in, ‘Do you mean the children of those travellers, who arrive every summer to gather in the hay?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Isobel answered. ‘And they’re lovely, but a little high-spirited.’

She went on to explain to Agnes about the runaway puppy—they both loved the story of the lively creature shaking mud all over the Reverend Malpass. At around nine she washed up the dishes and tidied everything away, then she took a candle to her upstairs room under the thatched eaves. She closed her door and leaned against it.

Then, and only then, did she allow the smile she’d put on for her kind friends to fade away.

She closed the curtains on the fast-gathering darkness outside, then by the light of the candle she gazed at herself in the mirror hung on a nail in the wall. Her dress was made of cheap cotton, the kind any country girl might wear, but she realised now that it was too tight around the bodice. Although her figure was slim, her breasts were full and the way the often-washed fabric of the gown clung to them made her look cheap. And that wasn’t all.

Her skin was tinted unfashionably gold from the sun, in a way no lady would permit, and her long, obstinately curling fair hair had tumbled as usual from its pins. Try as she might, her efforts to tidy it never lasted long. All in all, she looked like a girl out for fun—a certain kind of fun. Once she’d been the heiress to Calverley Hall—but now her position in society was lowly indeed. Here she was, twenty-three years old and completely without prospects, yet she’d always told herself she was content. But today, at the fair, her safe little world had been rocked to its foundations.

Over the last few years she’d heard all the gossip about Connor Hamilton. In fact, she often suspected the locals took great delight in repeating it in her hearing, loudly, in the town or the market place. She’d heard what must be every single detail of how Connor had risen in the world—the news had filtered back, month after month, year after year.

‘He’s living in London—yes, the big city. He’s proving himself mighty skilled. He’s become partner in a major iron manufactory and he’s making himself extremely rich into the bargain...’

When someone told her—with more than a little satisfaction—that Connor was buying Calverley Hall, she started hearing fresh flurries of speculation. ‘He’s weary of London,’ people said. Or: ‘Now that he has that little girl and her grandmother to look after, he must feel that a country residence would do them both good.’

He was returning to the neighbourhood he grew up in—only instead of a blacksmith’s forge, he would be living in a mansion. But hadn’t he realised that she still lived nearby?

She would never forget the coldness in his blue eyes today at the fair as he registered her presence. She felt branded by it. Let him think the worst of me, she thought, like everyone else! She was happy here, with the Molinas; she loved helping Joseph with his paintings, she enjoyed his and Agnes’s gentle company.

But Connor Hamilton was back. And a chill of fear caught at her heart, because he had become quite formidable in a way that made her pulse pound faster and her lungs ache with the sudden need for air.

How she’d first met him, she couldn’t even really remember. It was as though he’d always been there and whenever she could she used to ride over to the forge and watch him as he mended ploughshares or shoed horses. She used to ask him question after question about his work and he didn’t seem to mind. She felt safe with Connor and, although he said little, she felt that he liked her. Even on that awful night when she’d got Connor into so much trouble seven years ago, he’d told her it wasn’t her fault.

Since then, he’d become a rich man. An iron master. They said that to keep his hand in he still forged iron himself in the vast foundries that belonged to him—and, looking at him, she could well believe it, because his clothes, though clearly expensive, couldn’t hide the innate strength of his body. A typical rich London gentleman he was not; his face and hands were tanned from the open air; his black hair was thick and overlong for fashion and his deep blue eyes missed nothing, and were fooled, she guessed, by nobody.