‘Nell!’ The sound of my mother’s voice startled me and I realised that I must have been daydreaming. I saw the little silver sewing scissors in my hands and I dropped them quickly back on to the dressing table. My mother had sung the word out with a lightness that she only used in church or polite company, and I worried that something was wrong. I ran to the top of the stairs and saw her at the bottom, looking up at me.
‘What?’ I demanded.
But her voice now seemed strained. ‘There is someone here to see you,’ she said. ‘A gentleman.’ But she spat out the last word as if the caller was anything but.
The bonnet lay on the dressing table in front of me, the folds of lace still a little crumpled from where they had been crushed by Sir Howard’s fingers. I had started to think that I might soon look like Vesta Tilley again, and that my hair seemed artistic, modern even. But Sir Howard had used a word that was quite different. I picked the bonnet up by its knotted strings and pulled the lace cap back over my head. I would wear it, because now I realised what people saw when I did not.
‘Sam!’ I cried as I ran down the stairs.
But it was not Sam. My gentleman visitor stood in the front room, his body stooped and his head lowered as he peered out of the window. He wore a long black coat and, when he heard the creak of the stairs, he turned and fixed his pale eyes on me – eyes that made his every glance seem intimate.
‘Francis Elliot-Palmer!’ I blurted out, because it was always how Iris had referred to him, but from my lips, it sounded stupid.
My mother looked at me questioningly.
‘Francis Elliot-Palmer,’ I repeated. ‘Mother – he is a good friend of Iris Caldwell!’
‘I am sorry, Mrs Ryland,’ Francis said. ‘I should have explained myself earlier, but I am only here on a short visit as I understand from Dora that you have something to deliver to Haughten Hall – a dress for the May Day festivities?’
My mother nodded and looked to the basket that she had placed by the door.
‘I also bring news from Haughten Hall,’ he said. ‘The rain has made the stream very high and the waters are covering the plank bridge. If you were to visit today as planned, you would need to cut across the common and enter the house from the back, which would be an extra half mile and would be especially arduous if the rain were to start again.’
‘Does Dora think we should not come?’ my mother asked, a little worry in her voice.
‘I am only here to offer assistance,’ he said, ‘because if you would let me take you, my motorcar could easily clear the waters of the ford and you would have no need for the bridge.’ I looked to the window and saw what he had been watching through the glass – a large white motorcar was parked on the edge of the green, and some children were climbing into the seats and jumping off the running boards.
‘A motorcar!’ I cried, then looked to my mother.
‘I’m sorry Mr Elliot-Palmer,’ she said, ‘but my husband had very particular views on such things and I could not possibly ride in such a contraption.’ She shook her head. ‘I simply could not!’
‘That is a shame, Mrs Ryland.’ Then he turned to me: ‘Nell?’
‘Yes!’ I said.
‘That would be quite improper!’ my mother spluttered. ‘You know your father’s views on these new-fangled inventions, Nell. If he knew that you were riding in one, he would be turning in his grave! And don’t forget that you would be unchaperoned. I really don’t think—’
‘Yes!’ I repeated. I could not think of what else to say, only that my words had to cancel out my mother’s protests. ‘Yes please!’
‘We really will only go to Haughten Hall, Mrs Ryland,’ Francis said, ‘and maybe take in the view from the common, but then we will come straight back. You do not need to worry as I will take good care of your daughter.’ Then he added, ‘After all, it is something that Sir Howard suggested to me before he left for London.’
‘Well—’ my mother began, but he did not give her time to make a decision. He took a pair of driving gloves from his pocket and made a start for the door. I followed him, grabbing the basket that my mother had prepared. The children scattered when Francis opened the front door and I followed him towards the motorcar and climbed proudly on to the passenger seat as they watched from behind the oak tree. Then he cranked the engine into life and jumped up on to the seat beside me.
We drove. It was a movement so fast that I felt a little lurch in my stomach and I looked down past the running board to see the blur of the road slipping away beneath me. When I dared to look up we had almost reached the end of the green, the police station and church sailing past us, and I marvelled at how Francis could have control of such a thing and how his head was not spinning.
He brought the car to a stop at the crossroads, an old horse and cart pulling out in front of us as it turned on to the dirt track that led to Evesbridge, but then we were off again, the fields of the Sunningdale Farm hugging the road, and the village already far behind us.
At the fork in the road, Francis pulled hard on the wheel and we turned on to the little track that ran alongside the stream. It was swollen just as he had said, the budding iris stems bowed by the current. At Haughten Hall, water seeped between the sodden planks of the bridge, but he did not slow nor turn to cross the ford; he merely continued on the track that led up towards the common. I was glad for it because I did not want the ride to be over.
I held on to the basket tightly as the motorcar bumped along the track, the seat bucking beneath me when the wheels mounted a large stone or tree root. The engine faltered as the wheels spun in ruts, mud spraying over the verges and the tang of hot metal rising from the bonnet, but Francis gripped the wheel tightly and we did not slow until we crossed the twisted elm roots at the thicket. And this is where we stopped.
‘There is no view here,’ I said as the engine cut out into silence. ‘You said that we would take in the view from the common.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘There is no view from the thicket and nobody knows we are here but the foxes.’ Then he looked at me. There was something about his pale eyes and the way that they always lingered just a moment too long that made me uneasy, and I felt as if his every glance pierced right into my very being without asking first.
I did not question him because I did not have the courage to, and I felt my skin start to prickle with fear. There was silence all around us, nothing but the faint breath of the bracken as it woke from the rain and the gentle tick-tick of cooling metal as steam rose from the bonnet, and I fancied that we must be the only people for miles.
Then he said: ‘Do not worry, Nell, for I know that you already have a sweetheart. I saw you leaving the stables at Waldley Court one day back in March, with your drawers unfastened.’
My face warmed. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be at the stable that day,’ I said quietly. ‘You cannot tell my mother.’
‘Oh, I won’t,’ he said, ‘and if she asks I will tell a little lie for you, but the camera cannot lie – have you heard people say that before?’
‘Yes,’ I said weakly.
He looked away from me and stared through the windscreen. I thought his face seemed gaunt, and for the first time I noticed a patch of dark stubble dulling his chin and I remembered that he was unlike any of the boys that I had known before – he was a man and could be as much as ten years older than me.