The Buttonmaker’s Daughter. Merryn Allingham

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      ‘I see,’ was all he said. But she knew that he was thinking through the answer to a question he couldn’t ask: why her mother, a Fitzroy of Amberley, with a family history stretching back to the Conqueror, had married a man like Joshua Summer.

      The dusk was closing in and the crêpe de chine dress she had donned for dinner was proving uncomfortably thin. She shivered slightly and he noticed. ‘It’s getting chilly. May I escort you back to the house?’

      ‘I won’t trouble you, Mr Kellaway. You will wish to be getting home and I can find my own way back, even in the gloom. I know the gardens too well to get lost.’

      ‘I’m sure.’ He smiled the slightly crooked smile again. ‘But I’m walking your way. My bicycle is waiting for me outside the bothy, though I must be quiet collecting it. The boy on duty has to be up and dressed before five.’

      She hadn’t noticed the bicycle when she’d passed by, but that wasn’t surprising. How her father’s men came and went barely impinged on her. Why would it? She lived in a bubble, an affluent bubble, but real life went on elsewhere. Or so it had always seemed.

      ‘Do you live far from Summerhayes?’

      The bicycle had prompted the question but she was genuinely interested. Then she worried that she had been too personal. The rigours of a London Season had not cured her of the candour her mother deplored. Alice’s strictures rang loudly in her ears. They had been repeated often enough for her to know them by heart: A girl should keep her distance from anyone who is not family or a family friend.

      Aiden seemed to find nothing amiss with her question and answered readily enough: ‘I have lodgings in the village. A room with board in one of the cottages by the church.’

      ‘And is it comfortable?’

      ‘Comfortable enough. Though the cooking could be better.’

      ‘It’s late. You will have missed your evening meal.’

      ‘I will. But I’ll get cold meat and pickles instead – my favourite supper.’

      She wondered for a moment how cold meat and pickles tasted, and how wonderful it must be to sit at a kitchen table, still in your work clothes, and just eat. No dressing for dinner, no servant hovering, listening to a stilted conversation, and no trudging through course after unnecessary course before escape beckoned.

      ‘Allow me,’ and before she could protest, he’d tucked her hand in his arm and was steering her along the flagged pathway and out beneath the laurel arch into the Wilderness.

      ‘This is an amazing place,’ he said, as they followed the winding path towards the walled garden. ‘So many rare and beautiful plants.’

      ‘My father chose every tree and shrub. They come from all over the world, I believe. He told me that it was plant hunters in the last century who brought them back to this country, and made a fortune doing so.’

      ‘And each with an adventure attached to it, I’d swear, and a story to tell.’

      She wondered what Aiden Kellaway’s story might be. In the cool of late evening, the warmth of his body as they walked side by side was unnerving her, and she tried hard not to think of it.

      ‘Do you often walk in the gardens?’

      She grabbed at the mundane question. ‘I take a turn on the terrace – where you saw me with my mother. Sometimes I venture a little further.’ When I can, she thought. When I can be free of parents, free of servants.

      ‘Like tonight. What tempted you to wander so far?’

      ‘I suppose because it was such a wonderful evening.’

      They had reached the kitchen garden and in the silvery spread of a just risen moon the most humble of vegetables had taken on a majestic air.

      ‘I thought it wonderful, too. There was no need for me to stay behind. I could have finished the few tasks I had in the morning, and Mr Simmonds urged me to leave with him. But this evening was too good to waste behind the door of a poky cottage.’

      ‘Do you enjoy working with Mr Simmonds?’ It was something else she genuinely wanted to know. Questions seemed to be tripping off her tongue tonight, far more than she’d ever needed to ask.

      ‘He’s a brilliant architect and an excellent mentor. I’ve worked with him for five years and learnt a great deal. I’m lucky he’s one of the old school. He likes to work on site from his own drawings, rather than sit in an office and direct others. And that suits me very well. Since my uncle organised the apprenticeship, I’ve never looked back.’

      He stopped walking for a moment and looked down at her. It was as though he needed to dwell on his own words. ‘You know it was a huge piece of good fortune for me that he met Jonathan – at a race meeting, would you believe?’

      ‘Racing?’

      ‘Jonathan Simmonds is a bit of a gambler,’ Aiden admitted, walking on once more, ‘but don’t tell your father. He might not like to think his architect has such a weakness.’

      ‘And you? Are you a gambler?’

      ‘No, indeed. What would I gamble with? Mind you, my uncle has hardly a penny to his name. But then the Irish can never resist a flutter.’

      ‘He’s Irish?’ She was learning something new every minute. Right now, though, the Irish were not the most popular of nations. Only yesterday, she’d heard her father fume against the ‘Irish trouble’ and predict that a civil war there was all but inevitable.

      ‘It’s not just my uncle that’s Irish. I am too.’

      ‘You don’t sound it.’ He didn’t, though now she was aware, she thought she could detect the slightest of lilts to his voice.

      ‘That’s because I’ve been in England too long. And my aunt and uncle even longer.’

      ‘How long? Why did they come to England? Where do they live?’

      The bicycle was propped against the bothy wall, as he’d said. He took hold of the handlebars and wheeled it onto the path that led to a side gate and out onto the village road. She stayed where she was and he turned back to her.

      ‘So many questions, Miss Summer.’ She blushed hotly. He was right. She’d been intrusive to the point of rudeness. ‘But am I allowed one?’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘Then, what are you doing deep in the Sussex countryside? Shouldn’t you be in London, having a fine time?’

      ‘I’ve had a fine time,’ she was quick to counter.

      ‘Still… you might enjoy a very different kind of company, away from Summerhayes.’ He pointed to her hands where the faintest traces of paint were still visible. He was far too acute.

      ‘I daub, that’s all. And I’m happy enough here.’

      ‘Are you?’

      His СКАЧАТЬ