The Tower Room, page 34
Spurred on by shame, she tied a scarf over her hair and set to work. It took all of three days to clean the house and when she had dealt with the inside she began on the outside. The first job to tackle was the dilapidated porch. To that she took an axe lying discarded on a heap of rubbish at the back of Joe Boswell’s shed. Stroke by stroke and blow by blow she attacked the crumbling timbers. Not until the job was done did she notice that she had left the shed doors open and that his old nag had wandered off as if he knew the man he had served had gone too, for the beast would never have dared to roam had Joe been there. If it comes back, Mabel decided, I’ll tie a rope round its neck and lead it to the Saturday market and see if I can find a home for it.
She was tired but exhilarated when her campaign was finished. Pieces of furniture which Joe had smashed or damaged in periodic rages were piled on the heap of rotten porch timbers. Now to get rid of that foul shed, she thought. She was standing by the open doors, wondering how and where to start on it, when a truck halted in the lane and a couple of men descended. ‘Want to get rid of all this?’ the first one said. ‘We’ll do the clearing first and then come back and get on with the other jobs.’
She stared. They were workmen and seemed honest enough but, all the same, a woman on her own had to be careful …
‘What other jobs?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Clearing the land, then giving it a good going over with a hand plough — same as we do every season on patches of Dunmore Park. It’s plain ye can’t do it on your own, lady. Some other blokes’ll be along to do the house decorating soon as ye say when. No use putting something up for sale without it looking at its best, is it?’
‘How do you know — and what — and who is behind all this?’
The first man shrugged. ‘We takes our orders an’ asks no questions, lady. It’s the sorta thing the boss often does — if he hears of someone needing practical help, he sees they get it. An’ your daughter works for ’im at the new pottery premises, don’t she, so maybe he heard through her.’
The men had loaded half the rubbish when Sarah arrived. She propped a bicycle by the gate and called, ‘I’ve brought lunch for both of us!’ Mabel noticed that she no longer called the midday meal “dinner”, the way working folk did. But a lot about Sarah was different from the old days. She didn’t even speak the same, which made Mabel feel proud in an odd sort of way. Dear George would have liked it, too.
Sarah took one look at her mother’s shining hair. ‘It’s beautiful, Mam’ — the old term put Mabel at ease again — ‘I wish Dad could see you now.’
‘Aging and white-haired? Would he recognise me, d’ ye think?’
More easily than he would have done a while ago, Sarah wanted to say, but answered, ‘He would be aging and white haired as well, don’t forget. And now let’s eat. Pru packed this for us. Five children and a husband to look after, and she stopped to pack this when she heard where I was going! Life will be easier in the bigger forester’s house the Master Potter is moving them into. By the way, she sends an invitation to the christening on Sunday week. And what d’ you think the baby’s to be called? Kate. Pru loved the old lady.’
‘But wasn’t it her fault that Kate was — ’
‘No. It was not. Time and babies come when they’re ready, I told her when I saw she was blaming herself, and Gran wouldn’t have had it otherwise. Now let’s go indoors and eat and then I’ve something to tell you — ’ Sarah stopped dead where the old porch had been, and again inside, but all she said was, ‘My goodness, you’ve been busy. You must feel great after it.’
Mabel admitted that she did feel pretty good and asked if it was true that the Master Potter had sent those men along, and how had he known she needed help? ‘Was it through you, Sarah? Do you really know him well enough to ask a favour of him?’
‘I’d no need to ask. He drove past here yesterday and saw the signs and guessed what was going on. First thing this morning he asked if you were planning to move and I said I certainly hoped so but, never having sold property, I doubted whether you knew how to go about it, and that brings me to what I came to tell you. An estate agent from Burslem will be coming to see you and everything will be put in hand — including finding you a place there. You’ve always wanted to go back, haven’t you?’
Mabel nodded, too overcome to speak. When her daughter’s hand reached across the table she grasped it, and the tears she had not shed for Boswell flowed in gratitude now.
*
From a balcony of a luxury hotel set high in El Laquito, Cartagena’s rich area of skyscrapers and casinos and epicurean restaurants, Cynthia Frenshaw viewed the old walled city and, beyond it, the fine residential district of La Manga where, from tomorrow, she would live as the wife of Dom Pedro Felipe de Barajas in one of the area’s most magnificent mansions. Complacency was back on her elegant shoulders. Inwardly, she purred.
Her journey to this place of emerald millionaires had started from the moment she had received the telephone call for which she had waited so impatiently, confirming that her bank accounts and all personal investments had been transferred from Stoke-on-Trent to a leading bank in Panama in accordance with her instructions, thereby speeding her departure from the dull respectability of Midlands England and the unpleasant prospect of being the guilty party in a divorce case from which she could not fail to emerge the loser.
Relief and optimism had accompanied her on the Queen Mary to New York — five days of first class luxury travel across the Atlantic, making the most of every moment and every useful contact. She had been on the high seas for three days when her father had made a less comfortable journey from some one-eyed airport outside London, about which she knew nothing until listening to a daily international news bulletin broadcast aboard. She thanked God that her excuse of wanting to visit him had been so well timed, exactly when dear Mamma’s company was boring her to death and that child nothing but a nuisance and an embarrassment. Even more importantly, it enabled her to get away before Annabel Peterson provided the eyewitness evidence (which she undoubtedly would, the bitch) that would defeat all hope of alimony from a divorce case she now could not hope to win.
Later, in New York, she had picked up a copy of The Times and read further details of her father’s escape. She wished him luck, wherever he was. It was through him that she had first heard of the Caribbean port of Cartagena and its legacy of piracy and plunder and accumulated wealth. ‘It’s one of the places to head for these days — one of the richest sources of emeralds,’ he had said. The other was Brazil. Would he head there? ‘A man can hide in the Brazilian mountains or in the rabbit warren of Rio, a place rich in financial pickings.’ She remembered his words now and wondered which he would choose.
That was the last thought Cynthia spared for the life she had left behind, for Cartagena was proving all she hoped for, though it had taken her more time than expected to reach here. She had dallied for a year in New York, but without success, for the competition was too great in a place where elegant women were the rule rather than the exception. But Cartagena, thank God, proved to be her El Dorado. A woman as blonde as herself and as good-looking as herself and as well dressed as herself caught the eye in a city of dark beauties. She was also poised and self-confident and (when she chose to be) dignified. She looked unattainable and took care to remain so until she settled on the right target.
Dom Pedro Felipe de Barajas caught her eye in one of Cartagena’s leading casinos. He looked, and was, aristocratic. His ancestry could be traced back to the family after whom the once impregnable Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas on the summit of the San Lazaro hill had been named. Cynthia had done her homework before responding to the glances he focused on her night after night in the casino.
She was waiting for him now. Latin Americans seemed to have little sense of time. She supposed she would have to get used to their mañana, mañana approach to life, though when it came to making money here in Cartagena the wealthy ones didn’t let the grass grow under their feet. And that, thank God, included Pedro.
Idly, she picked up a discarded newspaper. It was English and somewhat out of date, but the first thing that caught her eye was a front page photograph of a bridal group on the steps of London’s Caxton Hall following the civic wedding of ‘the pottery lord, Daniel Frenshaw, and his young bride, formerly Sarah Will-cox, the talented ceramic artist who sculptured the portrait bust of her husband which stands at the entrance to the impressive headquarters of the family’s century-old industry.’
My God, she’s done it, thought Cynthia. An uneducated apprentice from the pottery sheds who would have been lucky to become a working potter’s wife, finishing up by marrying the boss — and a pottery lord at that! Grudgingly, she had to admit that the girl looked striking in what was obviously a Schiaparelli model. She wore it superbly. Why did I stick to Worth? Cynthia thought sourly before scanning a picture of wedding guests, some of whom she recognised — the Petersons and their daughter, who was standing hand in hand with a good looking man whom she was startled to recognise as the one with a French name whom she had rather fancied herself at a long-ago New Year’s Eve party in the abbey. She also recognised that tutor from the Design School whose grandfather had turned out to be a famous artist. His arm was thrown possessively round the shoulders of a sophisticated young woman quite unknown to her.
She read on.
Daniel Frenshaw is the hereditary heir to Dun-more Abbey and the family pottery industry, now known as the Dunmore Abbey Ceramics company which rivals Wedgwood and other big names in the Potteries. Dunmore products are exceeding demands in the company’s Bond Street showrooms and their exports are increasing worldwide.
And when did they open London showrooms? I knew nothing about them, Cynthia thought, remembering how she had longed to be part of the London scene. With a husband’s flourishing business represented in the heart of the West End, a London home at a fashionable address would surely have been inevitable, despite Daniel’s affection for the place of his birth.
Petulantly, she tossed the newspaper aside but when she saw Pedro coming toward her she brightened. He wasn’t as striking as Daniel, being rather swarthy and somewhat shorter and might even become portly if she didn’t keep an eye on his diet, but when he smiled his teeth flashed and his dark eyes glowed. And tomorrow she would be his wife, living with him in that La Manga mansion. How could a pottery lord compare with an emerald millionaire?
Pedro’s eyes were glowing now and she responded until she saw he was not alone. A group of Latin-American children stood behind him, looking for all the world as if they were shyly waiting to be presented. Nephews and nieces, no doubt. He was unwed and therefore without children — and would remain so; on that she was resolved.
With a flourish, he presented them. ‘My nifios,’ he said proudly. ‘Their mother died in childbirth, alas, but tomorrow, my lovely Cynthia, we will marry and have more babies, you and I, yes?’
No! she wanted to scream. The complacency vanished from her elegant shoulders. She no longer purred. Her every feline instinct was to bare her teeth and hiss. Instead, she turned tail and headed for Reception to book the earliest possible departure to Rio. In her handbag she had a small sheaf of cards acquired on board the Queen Mary. One had been pressed into her hand by a Brazilian gentleman whose Rio address sounded impressive. He had looked affluent and his spending had matched. Slightly aging … but he seemed like a good start.
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Table of Contents
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Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Rona Randall, The Tower Room
