I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin

we get what we deserve in life.’

      ‘So you don’t think the Fates will be jealous?’

      ‘Not a bit of it,’ he laughed. ‘How can they be when it was Fate, pure and simple, that brought us together in the first place? Stop your foolish blethering, woman,’ he said fondly.

      Foolish blethering? Of course – that’s all it was, she echoed, contentedly snuggling closer. And may it please those Fates, whispered a small voice inside her, to let them keep that love? For ever and ever?

      The mistress of Pendenys did not look up from her desk-top when the door opened and closed; nor when footsteps crossed the room and came to a halt behind her chair. Yet she knew that whoever stood there was either her son or her husband – no one else – for no other dare enter her sanctuary except to clean it. The room was hers alone; her one private place in this rambling, echoing, too-large house. Clementina’s little room held her precious, private things, and was dear to her. The tantrum room, her servants called it, for in truth that was really what it was; the room the mistress most often retreated into after an upset; when she had flung her final accusation, slammed her last door. It was where she went to pace and fume silently, to simmer down, perhaps even to weep. And the best of British good fortune to it, said the servants, for whilst madam was closeted away, they were safe from the suspicious workings of her mind, the stabs of her tongue.

      ‘Yes, Edward?’ Clementina turned to face her husband.

      ‘Please put down your pen, my dear. I wish to talk to you and I shall require your full attention.’

      ‘Very well. You have it.’ She knew better than to argue. Her husband was a mild, gentle person; a man who could be expected to have fathered the considerate, contented son who was Nathan; but sometimes there was harshness in his voice and anger in his eyes, and she knew, then, it would be to her cost to challenge the Sutton steel that ran the length of his backbone. ‘What can you have to say, I wonder, except to remind me yet again how indulgently I have reared my son?’

      ‘Our son, Clemmy. And the word is spoiled – ruined. Elliot has gone too far this time. London, Leeds, even Creesby we can hush over, but last night, on his own doorstep –’

      ‘On Rowangarth’s hallowed acres, you mean; on Helen’s land?’

      ‘Too near to home. Too near for comfort. And not a street woman this time, but a young girl.’

      ‘Last night, Edward, was different. Elliot had been drinking – perhaps a little too much,’ she murmured uneasily. ‘But how did you find out?’

      ‘Last night, tomorrow night, drunk or sober – where’s the difference? Is no woman safe from his brutish ways? And I got the truth of it from Giles. I met him, walking over to see me, and he told me what Helen told you this morning. Why didn’t you tell me she had visited?’

      ‘Because I didn’t believe what she said – about Elliot, I mean. Everyone is against him – even you, his father. You call him a brute, your own son,’ she gasped, rising in agitation to her feet. ‘But he’s yours! He’s a Sutton, remember; as much a Sutton as Nathan and Albert and that precious pair over at Rowangarth. But after this you’ll say he isn’t one of your breeding, but a throwback from Mary Anne. He isn’t fair, like a Sutton should be, but dark like a Cornishman. Well, you married me, Edward. You were eager enough to trade my fortune for your seed!’

      ‘Clementina! That is enough!’ God! Must her talk be so direct? ‘But if that is what you want, I’ll admit it. You married my name and I went along with it. I had little choice. But I will stand by no longer and see Elliot sink to the gutter and take the Sutton name with him. Enough is enough. Either Elliot goes, or I go! Elliot goes to America for at least a month, or I shall move out into one of the almshouses!’

      ‘Almshouses? You can’t mean it? The talk! The scandal.’

      ‘I mean it. There has been a Rowangarth almshouse empty for months, and it would be heaven to move in there, God only knows. And would a little more scandal make all that much difference? Scandal is nothing new to the Place Suttons. Our son has seen to that!’

      ‘You mean it, don’t you, Edward? This is your way of getting back at me. Well, Elliot shall not go to Kentucky, no matter what that woman of Albert’s says!’

      ‘Albert’s wife wrote you a perfectly civilized and kindly letter, once they had settled into a place of their own. I believe her when she says that any of Albert’s family will be welcome in their home.’

      ‘She’s nothing but a social climber! And can you imagine it – Elliot returning home with an ambitious American heiress on his arm!’

      ‘And would that be so bad?’

      ‘You know it would. He doesn’t need to marry money. Nathan maybe, but not Elliot. What I want for him is a title.’

      ‘I know, my dear. But marriage to the daughter of a duke, even, could not give him the title he – you – so want. Your father tried to buy one for me, and couldn’t. Accept it, Clemmy. The Sutton title belongs at Rowangarth, where it will stay. John left two sons, so there is no chance it will sidestep to me. And no accolade from the King will ever make a gentleman of Elliot, so forget your dreams for him. He goes to Kentucky to cool his heels – or else!’

      ‘Edward, how could you?’ Tears filled her eyes, then ran down her cheeks. She could take no more. It was either tears or temper, and in her husband’s present mood she knew which would serve her better. ‘How can you say such things about our own son? Brutish. Not a gentleman. You’ll be saying next that he isn’t yours – that some passing tinker …’

      ‘Stop it, Clemmy! He’s mine, though, I wish he’d been born last rather than first!’

      ‘Aha! There we have it! It’s Nathan you favour most; Nathan who looks like a Sutton and acts like a Sutton. Are you sure I bore him?’

      ‘My dear – please listen? I am here to talk seriously with you, not flit in and out of the realms of fantasy. So dry your eyes. Tears will get you nowhere and will make you ill again. What Elliot did is completely unacceptable. I have never in my life been so near to giving him the thrashing he deserves. Helen’s keeper didn’t do half enough, to my way of thinking, and you can thank the good Lord the man had sense enough to hold on to his temper.

      ‘So will you compose yourself? I have made up my mind. Defy me in this and I leave this house. The choice is yours, Clemmy.’ He offered his handkerchief, hand on the bell-pull. ‘Now I shall ring for tea for you and, no! not another word,’ he said softly. ‘There is no more to be said. You will drink your tea, calm yourself, then tell Elliot what has been decided. After which you will write a kindly letter to Kentucky, thanking your son’s wife for her offer and availing yourself of it. You will grit your teeth and do it – do you fully understand? Ah …’ He paused as the door opened to admit a butler who had answered the summons with unusual alacrity. ‘Mrs Sutton would like tea. Serve it in here, if you please, then ask Mr Elliot to join his mother.

      ‘And now I shall go for a walk; a very long walk,’ he murmured when they were alone again. ‘I shall walk this terrible anger out of me, and when I return I expect Elliot to be in no doubt as to what is expected of him. A very great deal is expected of you, too, Clemmy, but I know you will do as I wish in this respect. And there is no compromise, remember. It is Elliot, or me!’

      ‘This is very cosy,’ Helen Sutton smiled. ‘Just the three of us. I do so enjoy luncheon in the conservatory.’

      ‘Where is Giles?’ Julia murmured, forking meat on to plates, handing them round. ‘Don’t tell me he’s left his precious books?’

      ‘He has been known to. My son,’ she addressed her reply to Andrew, ‘has been out all morning. First he went to Pendenys, and now he’ll have arrived in York, on estate business. There are repairs to be done before winter to two cottages and one of the almshouses. I so hope the agent won’t tell him we can’t afford it. But meantime,