Nell shrugged. 'She's not one to think about other folk much. And of course I did my best to keep you in your place. Mother, Father and me, we weren't too pleased when you used to go and play with Rufus. We didn't want you getting ideas above your station, and neither did we want Lady Harvey to growfond of you. You see, we thought of you as ours. But sometimes I thought the whole world could see that you were born to gentry.'

They talked and talked until the small hours. There were shared memories of Meg and Silas to mull over, Nell's viewpoint of her little sister's childhood sc.r.a.pes and triumphs, and there were new tales about the other siblings which Hope hadn't heard before.

As one story after another was related, some with hilarity and some with sadness, Hope felt truly part of the Renton tribe, and if in the past, she had had the odd feeling she didn't 'belong', she could see now that it was because of her position as youngest in the family, nothing else. Nell pointed out that being the eldest made her different too.

'I had to help Mother when the little ones could play,' she said. 'I was washing and feeding babies when I was six or seven. I didn't get to run about in the fields the way you all did. Matt had to be a man too, well before his time. That is just the way it is in a big family. But you, Hope, you were the little darling, everyone's pet. We all made big allowances for you.'

Later, Nell went on to tell Hope about each and every time she was reminded of who her little sister's real parents were. 'You were never cowed by gentry. You'd stand out in the lane and talk to anyone who came riding by. You just couldn't seem to understand that folk like us were supposed to be humble. And I was so frightened when you got older and you and Rufus became so close.'

'But why?' Hope asked with some amus.e.m.e.nt.

'In case you became sweethearts later on,' she admitted. 'I can't tell you how many nights I lay awake worrying about it. But I feel like a load has been taken off my shoulders now. If we hear Bennett is coming home tomorrow that will end all my worries.'

'At least this has distracted me from thinking about him for a while,' Hope sighed.

Nell got up stiffly from her chair, and held out her arms to Hope. 'What will be, will be,' she said as she embraced her. 'I wish I could promise you he will come home, but I can't. But whatever happens I'll be right beside you.'

The autumn days went slowly by, each one a little colder, wetter or windier. It was dark by four in the afternoon, and mostly the weather was too bad to go out. Yet still no letters came from either Angus or Bennett.

Uncle Abel got word that post from both the Crimea and Turkey had gone astray. He also went to Winchester to the Rifle Brigade barracks, and was told that Bennett had not been reported dead. But by the same token they could offer no proof he was alive either for his name wasn't on any of the lists of sick sent to Scutari. But from talking to a couple of soldiers who had been invalided home, it seemed their families hadn't been informed either, and letters they'd written from hospital hadn't turned up until after they'd got home.

Angus had definitely left the Crimea there was evidence he'd boarded a steamer bound for Constantinople. Uncle Abel felt sure he had gone there to look for Bennett.

Hope's anxiety had settled into a constant dull ache, but almost every day there was some distraction to take her mind off it. Two weeks after Albert's death there was the inquest in Bristol, in which she and Rufus had to give their evidence. It lasted less than twenty minutes and the coroner p.r.o.nounced it self-defence and complimented Hope on her courage.

Before they went home that day, Hope took Rufus to Lewins Mead to show him where she had lived. It was shocking to see the appalling conditions there again and Rufus thought it a miracle she'd survived it. But Uncle Abel told them later that plans were afoot for it to be pulled down, the river Frome covered over, roads widened and new houses with piped water and drains built.

Hope put some flowers in St James's graveyard, for although she suspected that neither Gussie, Betsy, nor any of the cholera victims had actually been buried there, it was a place they had often walked through together. She even thought she heard Betsy's laughter on the wind, and knew her friend would be thrilled to think she was accompanied by a t.i.tled gentleman and that she had given her name to her child.

The strangest thing about that visit was finding she was a target for beggars. Until then she'd imagined she could walk around there at any time without being troubled. She realized then it wasn't only her neat dress, bonnet and fur-trimmed cloak which identified her as someone who might hand out a few pennies, she remembered how she too had once been able to sniff out sympathy and concern and play on it. She gave what little money she had to some ragged barefoot children, and then walked quickly away.

'When Bennett comes back,' she said thoughtfully on their way home, 'we'll have to find some way of really helping those children. A hot pie now and then does little. But education with a hot dinner thrown in could do such a lot.'

Aside from the day-to-day ch.o.r.es and making clothes for Betsy, who seemed to be growing at an alarming rate, there were many visits from all her brothers and sisters to keep Hope's mind off Bennett. She also visited Matt's farm, Ruth's home in Bath and many of her old neighbours in Compton Dando. Sometimes during the family gatherings Hope felt an overwhelming desire to tell them that she wasn't a true sister, especially when Ruth claimed that her daughter Prudence was just like her. But she refrained from the temptation; she needed to discuss that with both Lady Harvey and Angus first, for they would be the ones to suffer scandal, not her and Rufus.

Rufus kept saying that he would bring Lady Harvey over to see her and Nell just as soon as there was a mild, dry spell. But on 30 November she died in her sleep.

Matt brought the news to them. Leaving Betsy with Dora, Matt drove Hope and Nell over to see Rufus, and they arrived just after the doctor had left, confirming her heart had given out.

'She was a little odd last night,' Rufus explained distractedly. 'She said she thought she saw Father on the drive and that he was waiting for her. But she went to bed as normal, and when I went in there early this morning, she was dead.'

Once Matt had gone home leaving Hope and Nell alone with Rufus, they all cried. 'I should have come over again,' Hope sobbed. 'I might have known that she was too frail to live much longer. Now I can't say any of the things to her that I wanted to.'

'I wish too that I'd been kinder,' Rufus admitted. 'She was on her own so much, I used to get so impatient with her. But you've got nothing to reproach yourself for, Hope, you were kind to her.'

'I could have said I understood how it was for her when she had me,' Hope said. 'I could have told her that none of that mattered any more.'

'I think she knew that was how you felt,' Rufus said, drying Hope's eyes with his handkerchief. 'A few days after you'd been here, she said that she was proud of you, that you had all the best of Angus in you and that the Rentons had made you strong and loving.'

Nell had listened to all this saying nothing. Then she got up from her chair and put an arm round each of them. 'If I'd seen her one more time I would have pointed out how lucky she was to have you two and how fortunate it was that neither of you inherited her selfish nature.'

'Nell!' Hope exclaimed. 'Don't speak ill of the dead.'

'I can say it for I was with her through thick and thin,' Nell said firmly. 'I loved her; I would have done anything for her, and I think I knew her better than anyone. She didn't want to be an old lady, she'd settled everything, and I think she was happy to go. Maybe William did come back for her. There was a lot of love between them despite all the problems they had. So we should be happy for her.'

'Would you like to see her now?' Rufus asked, biting back tears. 'I was going to get Jane Calway in to lay her out later, and then we'll bring her down here.'

'Let me lay her out,' said Nell, her voice as soft as a prayer. 'I know how she liked her hair, how she'd like to be dressed. And I'd like to say my goodbyes that way.'

'Of course, Nell.' Rufus wiped his eyes on his sleeve. 'Shall Hope and I go out while you do it?'

Nell nodded. 'Yes, you go for a walk, I'd like to be alone with her.'

Rufus and Hope walked in silence into the woods. The trees were bare, and the recent heavy rain had swollen all the streams so they gushed over rocks, making a beautiful, peaceful sound.

'All the times we came here as children, we never knew we were brother and sister,' Rufus said sadly as he threw stones into a stream. 'I was miserable because Mother and Father were always arguing; you had Albert to contend with. Now they are all gone, it's just you and me, back here again. I'm a farmer, and you're a mother yourself. And the troubles go on and on.'

'Not for ever,' Hope a.s.sured him. 'Bennett will come home, I'm sure, and you can get married now. There's nothing to stop you.'

'Maybe in the spring,' he said lethargically. 'That is, providing Bennett is back, because I'd want you there at my wedding, happy again. Was it a mistake to let Nell lay Mother out? I'll wager she's crying over her!'

Hope nodded. 'She's as good at holding in her feelings as she is at keeping secrets. But now the secrets are out there's no reason not to let the feelings out too.'

Nell was indeed crying. She had stripped off Lady Harvey's night dress, washed her from head to foot, and put on her undergarments through a veil of tears.

It felt so strange to be back in the bedroom which had been a source of such unhappiness, but it was no longer a stark, sterile s.p.a.ce, for Lady Harvey had filled it with frippery. She might have lost all her old belongings in the fire, and only worn mourning since then, but Nell had to a.s.sume her sisters had sent her some of their old things.

A pink velvet dressing-gown was tossed over a b.u.t.ton-back chair by the window; there were pretty hat boxes piled up, and an array of perfumes, necklaces and combs for her hair on the dressing-table.

The bed itself was a beautiful carved mahogany one which matched the dressing-table, and the carpet on the floor was as fine as any Nell remembered in Briargate.

Dressing her mistress now she was dead was like dressing a life-size doll, and it grieved Nell to see how thin she'd become. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were little more than loose flesh, and her hip-bones jutted out through her petticoats. But Nell put two rolled-up stockings into the top of her camisole to give her more shape, then went to the wardrobe to look for a dress.

They were nearly all black, but right at the back she found a turquoise one. She guessed that Lady Harvey's vanity had got the better of her sense of decorum at some time since her husband died, for it had always been her favourite colour.

An hour later Nell stood back to admire her work. The dress had long sleeves and a high neck, and she'd padded it a little on the hips to give it a good shape. Gauze pads inside her lady's cheeks had filled them out perfectly, and with a little rouge she'd managed to bring youthful radiance back to the once beautiful face. Even her eyelashes had been given a smudging of ink to darken them. Nell thought the hair was her very best achievement, for she'd taken it up over hair pads so it looked fuller, and fastened it becomingly with two artificial rosebuds. With a few tendrils curled around her face to soften the gauntness, and gloves on her hands to hide the cruelty of age, she could pa.s.s for thirty again.

'You look beautiful, my lady,' Nell whispered. 'Rest in peace. I'll be watching over both your children.'

She tried to suppress her tears, for it seemed ridiculous that she should still care so much for this foolish, self-centred beauty. But such a large proportion of their two lives had been spent together, and everything Nell knew about society, fashions, love and marriage came from Lady Harvey. She'd been to grand shops in London with her, to concerts in Bath, to country houses ten times larger than Briargate. They'd ridden together on the Great Western train, and even shared a bottle of champagne on many an occasion.

'And I ended up with Angus,' Nell whispered. 'I know he can never love me the way he loved you. But I'm in his house and in his heart. Thank you for that, my lady.'

Hope and Rufus looked down at Lady Harvey and tears rolled down their cheeks. To both of them the clock had been turned back and she looked just how they remembered her from when they were children.

'Sleep peacefully, Mother dearest,' Rufus whispered as he bent to kiss her cheek. 'And thank you for giving me a sister.'

Chapter Twenty-seven.

'What are you doing?' Nell yelled from the kitchen as Hope opened the front door and a squall of icy rain blew in. 'You can't go out, it's pitch dark and you'll catch your death of cold.'

But Hope could hear nothing but the voice inside her head telling her to run.

Once out on the road she ran headlong down the hill. The driving rain was so heavy that she was soaked to the skin within seconds and she lost one of her slippers in thick mud, but all she was aware of was her own misery and the need to end it.

The day had begun with torrential rain, and Hope had a sinking feeling that such weather on the day of Lady Harvey's funeral was a portent of worse things to come.

The cab which took her and Nell to Compton Dando had a leaky roof, and by the time they'd got to the church both she and Nell were wet through. Their umbrella blew inside out in the high wind as they got out of the cab and the church was so cold their teeth were soon chattering.

The church was full, the front few pews all taken up by gentry, some of whom Hope recognized as people who had called at Briargate in the past. Nell whispered that the rest were Dorvilles, Lady Harvey's family from Suss.e.x, most of whom she'd met on her trips down there.

But the bulk of the congregation were ordinary people from the surrounding villages and their wet clothes created a steamy, evil-smelling fug. Hope recognized a great many faces from her childhood. The Nicholses, the Webbs, Boxes, Pearces, and Calways, all so much older now and all looking as cold and uncomfortable as she herself felt.

Rufus, Matt, Joe and Henry carried the coffin in on their shoulders, Rufus's blond hair standing out like a beacon against the Renton darkness. The wreath of holly and Christmas roses on the top of the coffin seemed to Hope to be too stark for Lady Harvey, who had always favoured flamboyant flowers. But she had to suppose that in December it wasn't possible to get anything more colourful.

The Reverend Gosling seemed to have shrunk since Hope last sawhim and his voice was quavery and uncertain throughout the service. When he spoke of Lady Harvey it was as if he had no memory of when she was a young and vivacious woman, but had only met her after Briargate was burned down when she was frail and disturbed.

Even the hymns were gloomy, tuneless ones, which Hope knew Rufus would never have chosen.

Hope had not expected to be uplifted by this service, yet she had thought she'd gain some kind of comfort that her true mother's earthly struggles were over, and that she had gone on to a better place. But there was no comfort in this cold, pitiless rite, not even a few well-chosen words spoken with some emotion by a family member.

When they moved outside for the interment, the strong wind, driving rain, and the mud underfoot made most of the village people scurry for the shelter of the Crown Inn without so much as a thought for the final words at the graveside. Hope saw Rufus's desolate expression and she knew he felt his mother had been slighted.

Hope herself was emotionally confused for she wasn't sure which camp she belonged in. She was aware that many of the village people had already lost a day's wages to come and pay their last respects to Lady Harvey; to also expect them to risk their health by standing in pouring rain was perhaps asking too much. Yet she was very disappointed as she had expected, and perhaps needed, to see a huge outpouring of grief from everyone today. But to want that seemed ridiculous; she'd scarcely shed a tear herself, and in fact only the previous night she'd been nasty enough to remark that she sawno good reason why anyone in the village should attend the funeral.

Nell had been outraged at that, but Hope had pointed out that Lady Harvey had never done anything for the villagers, not even back in the days when she and Sir William had been wealthy.

Yet the sight of the yawning grave, already half-full of rainwater, suddenly made her feel utterly bereft. Taking Nell's arm firmly, she drew her through the ranks of women holding black-edged handkerchiefs to their eyes and ignored their sharp, disapproving looks. Maybe they didn't think anyone but gentry should come so close to the grave, but Hope felt she and Nell had the right to be among the chief mourners.

As the Reverend Gosling intoned the last words of the burial service, Hope looked down at the polished oak coffin with its bra.s.s handles and plaque bearing the inscription 'Lady Anne Harvey, 18061855', and thought of the burials in the Crimea. There were no coffins for those brave men; often their boots and clothing were s.n.a.t.c.hed before they were even cold. They would be shoved unceremoniously into ma.s.s graves, the only marking a roughly made cross which would probably be lost in the first storm. Bennett, who had spent his whole life caring for others, might be in such a grave, while Lady Harvey could sleep for eternity next to her husband, marked by a marble headstone.

Hope was reminded too of the day they buried Meg and Silas Renton and how abandoned and angry she had felt then. Their grave was over by the churchyard wall, next to Prudence and Violet, with only the smallest and simplest of headstones. She remembered with a pang of conscience that she always felt jealous when Meg came here to put flowers on the children's grave.

Yet the incident which set off Hope's rage came later. Lady Harvey's two sisters were standing in the shelter of the lychgate waiting for their carriage and Nell went over to them to offer her condolences. To Hope's astonishment and outrage, they brushed her aside as if she were a beggar asking for money.

To Hope it was unbelievable they could be so callous as Nell had met the sisters before on innumerable occasions and had even attended both their parents' funerals. Hope almost ripped into them, telling them that Nell had been far more than a loyal servant, she was also Lady Harvey's one true friend. But angry as she was, she was aware that once she started she might very well follow it up with a loud proclamation that she was in fact their niece. Knowing that such an admission would only distress Rufus, Nell and her other brothers, she forced herself to turn her back on those women and lead Nell away.

The wake was being held at Hunstrete House, and it was very clear that common folk like the Rentons wouldn't be welcome there. Rufus came running after them as they made for their waiting cab to go home, but Hope told him they had to get back for Betsy.

The bleakness in his eyes told her he understood the real reason they were leaving, and she urged him to go back to his relatives for a while, then perhaps join them later at Willow End.

The journey back seemed endless, and when they reached the mill at Chewton the river had burst its banks, flooding the road. The horse was reluctant to go through the swirling water at first, and Hope had visions of being forced to retreat and take the long way home. But fortunately he moved with a touch of the whip, and eventually they arrived home, very wet and chilled to the bone.

Betsy was screaming fit to burst because she hadn't liked the milk Dora had tried to give her while they were out, and she latched on to her mother's breast like a leech before Hope could even change her wet clothes. And Nell kept going on and on about the funeral and the sisters who had been so hurtful.

'I shouldn't have spoken to them,' she said with a quiver in her voice. 'It was my own fault, they probably blame me for everything as Albert was my husband. Of course they wouldn't have wanted the likes of us up at Hunstrete.'

'What on earth do you mean by "the likes of us"?' Hope snapped indignantly. 'We are all better mannered than that stuck-up lot. Sir William took Albert on, it was he who allowed the man to run the place, and therefore his own fault things went badly. I despise those sort of people who do they think they are? I pity poor Rufus having to suffer an hour or two with them, he'd have been better off in the Crown with our boys who at least care about him.'

'I saw them all looking at Matt, Joe and Henry. They didn't think it was fitting they were carrying her coffin.'

'Are they numbskulls?' Hope exploded. 'Matt rescued Lady Harvey from the burning house, all three of them spent the whole night trying to put out the fire, and they've done countless jobs for her without ever expecting payment. Who could be more fitting? And who else would have done it? Most of that family are too decrepit to wipe their own backsides.'

'You mustn't say things like that,' Nell exclaimed. 'You should showthem some respect.'

Hope launched into a bitter tirade about the upper cla.s.ses, including the fools of officers she'd met out in the Crimea. It was only when Nell began to cry that she stomped off to her bedroom with Betsy. But she had no intention of apologizing to Nell, for why should she? It was all true.

It seemed to her that she had no 'place'. She had got too much spirit and fire to be anyone's lackey, and she couldn't ever pa.s.s for gentry because of how she'd been brought up. Even if Rufus was to acknowledge her publicly as his sister, that wouldn't change anything. They would just tag 'b.a.s.t.a.r.d' on to her name, 'fly blow', or any of the other ugly words they used for illegitimate children. The Dorvilles wouldn't want to be a.s.sociated with her, and after seeing them today she wouldn't want to lay claim to being related to them anyway.

If Bennett did come home and set up a practice away from here she would probably be accepted as 'the middling sort', but she doubted her ability to accept the narrow confines of that kind of life either.

She had seen and done things few women could even imagine. How could she settle down in a neat little house with lace at the windows and a maid doing all the ch.o.r.es? She wasn't cut out to spend her days doing embroidery and receiving visits from dull women who could only talk about the price of fish, or the latest fashion.

The walls seemed to close in on her then. She had been glad to leave the Crimea; being reunited with her brothers and sisters was everything she expected, and bringing Betsy into the world in a clean, safe place had been wonderful. But now it all seemed so empty.

She put Betsy down to sleep, and stood at the crib watching her. She wasn't as dark as Hope now, nor yet as fair as Bennett. The slightly uptilted nose came from her, but she had a very solemn look most of the time, just like Bennett.

Icy fear gripped Hope as she contemplated that Betsy might never know her father. That year after year she would have to look at her daughter's face and be reminded of all she'd lost.

This time last year she and Bennett had climbed up the slippery steep path to the Heights with baskets on their backs packed with dressings, bandages and medicines for the field hospital. She could remember how the icy wind had stung her face, that she was hungry and lice-ridden, but Bennett had kept turning to her, holding out his hand to help her over the worst places, telling her that it was imperative they made it up there because men were dying for want of these precious items.

It was the most wretched she'd ever felt in her entire life, but with Bennett leading the way, urging her onwards, she made it to the top. Later, when they'd finally staggered into the field hospital and seen the relief on those gaunt, pain-filled faces, she had felt it had all been worth the struggle.

She couldn't have made it up there without him, and she couldn't bring Betsy up without him either. Without him she was nothing and no use to anyone.

Unable to breathe because the room suddenly seemed so hot and stuffy, she knew she had to get out of the house immediately.

Hope's second slipper disappeared into the mud unnoticed as she ran full tilt down the road in the direction of Bath, and she kept running blindly until she was down on the flat, past the last of the cottages.

Way over to her right and up on the hill was a big house, lamplight in the windows twinkling in the darkness. To her left were the meadows which the train from Bristol to London pa.s.sed through, and beyond that the river Avon. By day, in the sunshine, it was beautiful, but seen in darkness it felt threatening.

She was almost at the crossroads by the Globe Inn when a st.i.tch in her side forced her to slowdown, and at once total desolation washed over her.

Bennett was never coming home, she had just been fooling herself that he might. The only future ahead of her was that of a lonely widow, dependent on the charity of others. She began to sob, all the images of the life she and Bennett had planned together streaming through her head as if to mock her for ever believing they would come true.

They would never live in a cosy cottage with poorer patients paying Bennett with a chicken or a few eggs; they would never sit outside in the moonlight on warm summer nights, or pull their children on a sledge through the snow. Never again would she know the bliss of lovemaking, or wake to find Bennett holding her in his arms. It was all a foolish fantasy; in real life people didn't get what they wanted.

Lady Harvey loved Angus but she had to live out her life with a man who wanted other men. She'd even died without knowing her daughter didn't hate her for what she'd done. Rufus might marry Lily, but he'd have years when his crops would fail, chickens wouldn't lay and they'd go hungry. Nell would never have a baby of her own. Matt would never be rich. Even dashing, handsome Angus had not got what he wanted. He might come home to find he had a daughter, but that wasn't going to make up for Lady Harvey being dead.

She felt she was back to the night Albert had thrown her out of the gatehouse, the same feeling of despair overwhelming her, the same icy rain mingling with her tears. She'd forced herself to survive then, ever the optimist that things would get better. But she knew better now: life was just one long series of calamities until you died.