The Land of Summer Read online

  ‘None of those colours are right,’ he said, sliding down the ladder to walk over to the fireplace, where, mercifully, a large log fire burned. He lit a fresh cigarette, blew some smoke upwards in a plume, watched it disperse, and then took another deep pull. ‘And it has to be plain painted paper – anything else would be completely wrong. We need a clean, firm line. Patterned paper would just be so entirely wrong in a room this size.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Emmaline asked, looking at the palette. ‘When you say a clean line, do you perhaps mean to lighten the colour, and make the room somewhat less – less daunting? Because if so I think you may be right. The room does need warming up.’

  ‘The whole place needs warming up,’ Julius interrupted from the fireplace, his back to her. ‘I have never been in such a cold, unwelcoming house.’

  ‘Then blue – all of these blues – you are quite right to reject them. Blue is such a cold colour for a room, particularly a room this size.’ She knew Julius was looking at her now, but she refused to meet his eye. ‘Perhaps what the room needs is a warmer paint altogether – may I?’

  She was standing by a worktable where Julius had placed his pots and brushes among samples of various papers and fabrics, and she gestured to it as if seeking permission to try mixing up some colours.

  ‘What?’ he asked with a look of disbelief. ‘You want to—’

  ‘It’s all right, Julius,’ Emmaline assured him, interrupting him deliberately to stem any immediate objection. ‘I won’t make a mess.’

  ‘Oh.’ Seemingly at a loss for words, Julius hesitated. ‘Oh, very well,’ he muttered, returning to the fireplace, where he lit another cigarette. ‘Very well.’

  When she had finished preparing her mixes Emmaline put samples of those she considered the most suitable on a clean wooden palette and took them over to Julius, who now sat stretched out in a large dust-sheeted chair.

  ‘They’re only suggestions, but they might be something to work on,’ she said, offering Julius the palette. ‘This kind of peachy mix has warmth.’

  Julius stared at the samples in the silence which seemed habitual to him when working, yet Emmaline noticed that he kept hold of the palette, not discarding it or consigning it to the fire as Emmaline had half expected him to do, just tapping it slowly on one knee as he continued to consider her work.

  ‘This is what you would choose?’ He stared around. ‘I see. In that case, you should know how to achieve this effect.’ He smiled at her suddenly. ‘Which of course you don’t, because the light in your ballroom at home was quite different from the light here. If we applied this colour to these walls, because of the way the light plays you would find that it would come out a baby pink, not an apricot. To achieve your colour,’ he leaned forward and pointed, ‘we will have to use this one.’

  Emmaline stared first at his choice of colour, and then at him.

  ‘But – but that looks brown.’

  ‘Precisely. Until we put it up on the walls, when the light will turn it into a beautiful apricot. You will see. But first we must apply two coats of white distemper, and then probably two or three coats of this brown, and go on building on and on until this lovely colour you have chosen is reached.’

  ‘I can’t quite believe this—’

  ‘No, of course you can’t, because you have not studied the light in here. But you are right – it will be a lovely colour on which to work.’

  Emmaline spun round, half pleased that he had approved her choice and half disbelieving that he was right about the method that must be used to achieve it.

  She turned back. ‘There is something else that I wanted to ask you, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘Of course. Please ask me anything you wish.’

  ‘You seem very different from the person I met in America. Is it because I – well, is it because I disappointed you, once I was here? Because if this is so I will quite understand.’

  Julius stared at her, astounded.

  ‘Disappointed? Gracious, no, and I am only sorry that I could have in some way given you that idea.’

  ‘I was wondering whether or not you might wish to discuss the reasons – the reasons for my being here at all,’ Emmaline replied, staring at the top of Julius’s head of luxuriant hair. ‘In England, in my being in England, here.’

  ‘Well, I thought it might be obvious,’ Julius said, looking away. ‘It is because I was so taken by you that I—’

  ‘I am here at your express invitation,’ Emmaline persisted, clasping her hands tightly in front of her. ‘To fulfil a specific wish. Perhaps proposal might be better.’

  ‘There is no need to be too frank – an understanding is what we have, I will agree. An understanding of a certain nature.’

  ‘Julius,’ Emmaline went on, taking her courage now firmly in both hands. ‘We are engaged to be married.’

  ‘That is a fact I had not forgotten, Miss Nesbitt.’

  ‘Until such a time as we are duly married, Mr Aubrey,’ Emmaline said quietly, ‘I need to know where and how I am to live. I trust I shall not be expected to spend the rest of my days here, as that would not be in the least satisfactory.’

  ‘I see.’ Julius raised his eyebrows, then sat back in his chair. ‘As it happens I shall be returning to my house shortly, once I have finalised my intended designs for this place and had them approved, and when I do you can rest assured you will be provided with suitable accommodation locally until – until you take up residence at Park House – with me. Now, if that will be all?’

  ‘I should be grateful for a little more detail, Mr Aubrey.’

  ‘Perhaps, but that is all the information and detail that you require.’

  ‘I need a personal maid, Mr Aubrey.’

  ‘You will have everything you want when we return to Bamford, Miss Nesbitt.’

  ‘But until that time, sir—’

  ‘Until that time, madam,’ Julius told her, looking at her with sudden sympathy, ‘I suggest you try to manage. If you must know, I intend to leave here in the morning. And now I should continue with my endeavours. Thank you.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Aubrey,’ Emmaline replied, as she saw the far door opening and a servant hovering. ‘Thank you. Perhaps I shall see you at dinner tonight with all the other strangers?’

  ‘Perhaps you will,’ Julius agreed, but then he smiled suddenly, and leaning down he touched her cheek with a suddenly tender hand. ‘Perhaps you will, Emma.’

  Chapter Four

  SHE HAD ALWAYS wondered about the beautiful little hand mirror he had made her a gift of, which Emmaline had appreciated not just for its delicate inlay and the warmth that the old silver-backed glass gave to her image in it, but also for the note that had come with it, written in a sloping artistic hand.

  You are infinitely more beautiful than you think yourself to be. JA.

  After another distinctly uncomfortable evening in the company of the same unpleasant group, although this time with Julius among their number, Emmaline remembered the note with gratitude as she sat alone in the carriage the following morning on her way to her new life in Bamford. She straightened her change of travelling clothes. The pale grey paletot, the yellow-lined sash of her travelling coat, and the hat with the mixed feathers, had given her the confidence to realise that she could look stylish, that she was not just a drab female from across the Atlantic. She was the future Mrs Julius Aubrey, and never would she allow herself to look as the company at dinner the previous evening had looked, eccentric and strange, worn and careless.

  Nevertheless, despite the fact that she had formed a resolve not to accept without reservation whatever was given to her, now she was finally travelling towards her new home she fell back to wondering where she had actually landed herself.

  The more she thought about it the more she became convinced that Julius’s odd behaviour over the previous days was due to the magnitude of the task he had undertaken at Hartley Abbey, on behalf of his business. It had to be this that had made him seem so al
oof, when in fact he was obviously merely preoccupied. She imagined the responsibility and weight of the work was distressing in the extreme, with the result that he was unable to concentrate on his own life and the fact that he had promised to marry her. There could be no other explanation for his erratic behaviour, for his seeming neglect, for a more different man from the one she had danced with that first night could not, surely, be found. Once she had accepted this idea she found she could relax a little, and she tried to enjoy her carriage ride through the quiet countryside. The sky, she noticed, was a soft mix of blue and grey – a mix that someone like Julius would do well to emulate. Everything was so small compared to America, as if England had been shrunk by some unseen process. She tried to imagine the Romans in their chariots coming out to their villas, making their way along the long straight roads they had so stylishly hewed – the very roads along which her own carriage was now travelling. She tried to imagine the sound of the horses’ harnesses clinking, the sight of the morning sunlight catching the tops of the Romans’ helmets, their eyes perhaps watching out for the fierce island people whose land they had invaded, who they knew might still be waiting in the forests to attack them.

  The beauty of the scene, however, proved to be ephemeral, for she had hardly begun her long journey when the sun came out and a thaw started to set in, turning the countryside that had only an hour before been so picturesquely whitened into a damp and saddened sight, so that all too soon the view on either side of the carriage was only of dripping hedgerows and flooding roads. With this turn in the weather, Emmaline’s previously buoyed-up spirits started to sink. Supposing, despite his attempts to reassure her, Julius’s house was as damp and unwelcoming as the house that she had just left behind? The all too possible prospect did little to raise the morale of the young woman whose driver was even now being forced to slow his two horses down to a walk in order to try to negotiate the increasingly bad conditions.

  Eventually, after what seemed like days, not just hours, Emmaline arrived safely at her destination late in the afternoon. The light had already begun to fade and the lamplighter was at work on streets ankle-deep in melted snow, where passers-by picked their way through the lumps of half-frozen slush that lay on the pavements while trying to avoid the mire thrown up by the passing traffic. From what Emmaline could see from the window of her carriage the part of town they were passing through had some fine stone-built houses, albeit lining steep streets, but of course they seemed too close to each other and surprisingly narrow after her own home town with its broad and generous thoroughfares.

  She peered out into the increasing gloom as her carriage slowed at a road junction, and her eye was caught by a large sign above what was obviously a works entrance. Immediately above the main doorway, lit by a large lamp, she could make out the words Julius Aubrey Ltd. It seemed the board had been newly painted, for a sign writer was just descending his ladder, while the smaller plate at eye level in contradiction read Aubrey & Aubrey Ltd.

  Staring at the signs, Emmaline called to the driver to stop. Had there been a death in Julius’s family? He had not worn any sign of mourning, no black band, nothing to denote the death of a close relative.

  ‘Carry on, driver, thank you!’

  Shortly afterwards, the carriage stopped in a quiet street and the driver jumped down from his box to help Emmaline alight. As she stood with her skirts gathered up in her hands to protect them from the puddles formed by the thaw the driver knocked at the door of the building outside which he had drawn up his horses, and moments later Emmaline found herself inside a warm and welcoming lodging house, where fires were lit in every visible room, heavy curtains hung closed at the windows to keep out draughts, and gas lamps burned brightly everywhere.

  The woman who showed Emmaline into the drawing room and served her with tea and cakes introduced herself as her landlady, Mrs Shannon.

  ‘I understand that you have entered into an arrangement with Mr Julius Aubrey, a gentleman to whom I am enormously grateful, since he has promised me more business in light of his plans. People will be coming here to see him concerning their homes, to inspect materials and suchlike. Bamford should be most grateful for him, for I understand from his manager Mr Ralph that many of the fine fabrics which were formerly made in Lyons will now be made up here, and will be used by Mr Julius Aubrey in his work, travelling as he does all over England, helping in the restoration of many fine houses.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that Mr Aubrey is more than brilliant at his line of work. He is even now restoring Hartley Abbey for Lord and Lady Parham.’

  ‘I would think that would be a task that will take until kingdom come.’ Mrs Shannon laughed. ‘The Parhams have not been noted for anything except eccentricity for many a century, although they are held in great respect, I believe.’

  She stopped talking suddenly, and leaning forward she touched Emmaline lightly on the arm.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, my dear? You look a little pale.’

  ‘I am in perfect health, thank you,’ Emmaline told her even as a sudden wave of such homesickness swept over her as to make her feel almost faint. ‘Perfect health,’ she repeated, thinking that never had her mother, or her sisters, or Mary, or anyone back home, seemed more dear or more distant.

  ‘You are looking a little peaky after your journey, Miss Nesbitt, if you don’t mind me saying. I would say that you need a little bit of Mrs Shannon’s best looking-after comforts, really you do.’ Mrs Shannon leaned forward once more, and this time put a still motherly but more insistent hand on Emmaline’s arm. ‘Do not fret yourself at all, young lady. You will soon find your land legs in Bamford, really you will. My father was a seagoing sailor, never liked being on land, but even he found his land legs when he settled here. The town is steeply built, that I will grant you, and there is much to be done for the poorer section lower down by the river, but it is a pretty place, most of it built in the early eighteenth century when folk knew how to build elegant houses, not these grand places with every high-falutin’ inconvenience possible. No, the folk in the last century knew what was what. No grandeur, no splendour, just an elegant sufficiency.’

  ‘And Mr Aubrey’s own house?’ Emmaline enquired, as she accepted another slice of her landlady’s delicious sponge cake, more to please her than because she felt in the least bit hungry.

  ‘Of course, you’ll not have seen that yet,’ Mrs Shannon replied, ‘this being your very first visit. It’s in Park Walk, the very best of the avenues in Bamford. There are some exceedingly fine houses there, Miss Nesbitt, Mr Aubrey’s being perhaps the most notable. But no doubt you’ll be seeing it for yourself tomorrow, when Mr Aubrey calls on you here. I should imagine the very first place he’ll be taking you to will be your future home, and about time too, I expect you will be feeling by then!’

  In fact, true to form, Julius did not put in an appearance the following day, nor indeed the day after, finally showing his face after dinner on the Saturday evening. During the intervening period, however, on the advice of the good Mrs Shannon, Emmaline made splendid use of his lack of attention by walking about Bamford and getting to appreciate the feel of it, before returning to the comfort of Mrs Shannon’s lodging house, not to mention her splendid home cooking.

  ‘It is the way of men, you know, dear,’ Mrs Shannon told her at one point. ‘Before they marry they can’t see any reason to think of the feelings of others, let alone the girl they are to wed. Mr Shannon did at least turn up at the church, but I always think my father had something to do with that.’ She gave a rich laugh. ‘There’s nothing like having a father who is a gunsmith to get a man to the church on time!’

  At last there was Julius, looking tall and handsome, and beautifully dressed, reminding Emmaline exactly why she had consented to come to England to marry him. And yet, divine-looking though he might be, and fine though his manners undoubtedly were, nevertheless, deep down inside, she could not help feeling bewildered.

  ‘Was there no way of getti
ng word to me that you had perhaps been delayed?’ Emmaline quietly enquired when they sat on either side of the fire in Mrs Shannon’s drawing room after Julius’s unannounced arrival, with Mrs Shannon placed discreetly at a table in the bay of the window playing a hand of cards with another of her guests. ‘It really is so strange not to know from one moment to the next what I may or may not be doing.’

  ‘Is that so? I am most apologetic,’ Julius replied, staring at the toes of his highly polished shoes. ‘Does this place not suit you, Emma?’

  ‘It suits me admirably, truly it does. But its suitability has nothing to do with your manners, Julius.’ Emmaline looked round discreetly to make sure her landlady was not visibly eavesdropping. ‘This is a very comfortable establishment and I am more than perfectly suited here, thank you.’

  ‘Then what is the cause of your unease, I wonder?’

  ‘The cause of my unease is that I am seemingly without purpose, Julius. As far as I can see I could well be sitting here waiting for you to arrive or not to arrive indefinitely, until the end of the world, until God himself appears on a cloud.’

  ‘I see.’ Julius nodded, tightened his mouth and breathed in slowly and deeply, before rising from his chair. ‘Perhaps your mind may become easier tomorrow when we attend church and the banns are read. I shall be here to collect you in plenty of time, have no fear. So until then, Emma, I bid you farewell.’

  He leaned forward to take her hand and shake it, but then, with a quick look at the window, he raised his fingers and once again touched her cheek, a look of sudden longing coming into his eyes.

  They walked to the church in company with what appeared to Emmaline to be the entire population of the town, all dressed in their Sunday best. On arrival, Julius and Emmaline were shown to the Aubrey family pew, one of a select number of box pews set to one side of the nave at right angles to the rest of the congregation, who were taking their places under the supervision of the churchwardens. Every seat in the large building was filled, the overspill having to stand at the back. To Emmaline’s surprise, and somewhat to her dismay, Matins was celebrated by the Reverend Archibald Welton, who, it transpired, had been invited to Hartley Abbey by the Earl and Countess of Parham in the mistaken belief that, coming from the same town, Julius must find their old friend as congenial as they did. Emmaline noticed that he adopted a completely different voice from the one he had used – albeit sparingly – over dinner at Hartley Abbey, conducting the service in a slow, high, monotonous quaver, a tone he sustained from start to finish of the service, including a twenty-five-minute sermon on the proper meaning and understanding of the Trinity. Emmaline did her best to follow the service, but due perhaps to the curious intonation of the rector she found it more than difficult, and of course her feelings of piety were somewhat distracted by Julius, who sat quietly sketching the church pillars in a small pocket book held low in the pew.