The Morning Gift

Oh, why couldn’t Quin marry, she thought, making her way across the courtyard. Not one of those girls he brought up sometimes: actresses or Parisiennes who came down to breakfast shivering in fur coats and asked about central heating, but a girl of his own kind, a girl with breeding. Once he had a lusty son or two, he’d forget all this nonsense about the Trust.

Later, in the drawing room, the subject came up again. Lady Rothley was the closet thing to a friend which Frances Somerville allowed herself and there was no need to make a fuss when she came. No need to light a fire, no need to shoo the dogs off the chairs. Ann Rothley bred Jack Russells and all the tapestry sofas at the Hall were covered in short white hairs.

‘I thought Quin would be back by now,’ she said, lifting the famille rose cup and sipping her coffee appreciatively. Frances might dress like a charwoman, but she kept the servants up to scratch.

‘He was delayed in Vienna,’ said Miss Somerville. ‘They gave him an honorary degree and he had to stay on to see to some business or other.’

Lady Rothley nodded. A dark, handsome woman in her forties, she did not object to Quin’s scholarship. It happened sometimes in these old families. At Wallington, the Trevelyans were for ever writing history books. ‘Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to break it to him, Frances. I simply had to get rid of that German he landed me with. The opera singer from Dresden. I sent him to the dairy because all the indoor posts were filled and it’s been a disaster. The dairy maid fell in love with him and he was useless with the cows.’

Miss Somerville nodded. ‘A Jew, I suppose?’

‘Well, he said he was, but he had fair hair. I can’t help wondering whether some of them go round pretending to be Jewish just to get the benefits. The Quakers are giving away fortunes in relief, I understand. I didn’t like to dismiss him, but the cows are not musical. There’s almost nothing I won’t do for Quin, but he must stop trying to get us all to employ these dreadful refugees. Poor Helen – he made her take a man from Berlin to act as a chauffeur and handyman and as soon as he’s finished work he gets people in and they play chamber music. It’s like lemons in your ears, you know – screech, screech. She’s had to tell them to go and do it in an outhouse. I wish Quin wasn’t so concerned about them. I mean, there are lots of other people to worry about, aren’t there? The unemployed and the coal miners and so on.’

Miss Somerville agreed. ‘Of course one cannot approve of the way Hitler carries on – he really is a very vulgar man. Not that one likes Jews. When they’re rich they’re bankers and when they’re poor they’re pedlars and in between they play the violin. I’m not having any of them at Bowmont while I’m in charge and I’ve told Quin.’

One of the Labradors yawned, jumped down from the chair, and rearranged himself across Miss Somerville’s feet.

‘Mind you, if there’s a war we’ll get evacuees from London,’ said Lady Rothley. She spoke cheerfully and no one knew what it cost her to do so, for Rollo, her adored eldest son, was eighteen years old.

‘Well, I’d rather have slum children than foreign refugees. One could keep them separate in the boat-house on mattresses with rubber sheets and take their food across. Whereas refugees would . . . mingle.’

There was a pause while the ladies sipped and the freshening wind stirred the curtains.

Then: ‘Has he said any more about . . . you know . . . the Trust?’

That Ann Rothley, so forthright and uncompromising, spoke with hesitation was a measure of her unease.

‘Well, I haven’t seen him for months, as you know – he’s been in India – but Turton said someone rang up from their headquarters and said Quin had asked them to send a man up later in the year. I think he means it, Ann.’

‘Oh God!’ Would the desecration never end, she thought wretchedly. Estates sold for building land, forests felled, townspeople gawping at the houses of one’s friends. ‘Isn’t there any hope that he will see his duty and marry?’

Miss Somerville shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Livy saw him at the theatre twice with a girl before he went abroad, but she didn’t think he was serious.’

‘He never is serious,’ said Lady Rothley bitterly. ‘Anyone would think one married for pleasure.’ She was silent, remembering the horror of her bridal night with Rothley. But she had not screamed or run away, she had endured it, as later she endured the boredom of his weekly visits to her bed, looking at the ceiling, thinking of her embroidery or her dogs. And now there were children and a future. Oak trees remained unfelled, parkland was tended because girls like her gritted their teeth. ‘It is for England that one marries,’ she said. ‘For the land.’

‘Yes, I know. But what more can we do?’ said Frances wearily. ‘You know how many people have tried . . .’