A Bugle For The New Day

 He had seen her as a distant vision in those heady days when he was setting out to conquer the world, a goddess standing aloof on an island surrounded by a lake with water lilies, sunlight filtering through the trees and falling upon her in a radiance that made her whole being glow.

He had wanted her with more than the possessiveness which would characterise the rest of his life and he had ultimately reached her island and captured it with a surprising lightness of foot on the water lilies. Women had played no part in his life before, other than his mother and her steam, and Flora had been confined to a succession of callow fledglings paraded before her with a regularity boring enough to transport Richard into the exalted realm of a knight in shining armour. He was a man who made things happen, and he proved it to her before she could catch her breath.

The Clayton downfall and the death of her father marked the point when things had begun to go wrong. The rosy glow was fading, at first by degree, then going out altogether as more and more of his time was demanded to rescue their affairs. His growing family saw little of him as he became totally committed. The children had become Mother’s province, filed by him under D for Domestic, resulting in Father being seen as an ogre figure, always scolding, admonishing, laying down the law, only in evidence when something nasty was about to happen.

It seemed to him, as he watched tiny motes playing in the cold slab of sunlight slanting onto his desk, that he was in a vacuum of his own making and he thrust out a hand attempting to stop the dust motes from dancing, for they seemed to be celebrating his discomfort, but he only succeeded in making them swirl faster and enjoy themselves more…

© Mark Pearson 2007.

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                                              Chapter two, part four.

Flora fought against her blurring vision by resorting to a lifelong habit of pressing her toes into the soles of her fashioned shoes in an effort to distract her emotions. “We were talking of John Corbett”, she said, taking a deep breath and keeping her voice as steady as she could. “But since you have brought up the subject of our coming here…” She paused, as though assembling her thoughts and considering how best to express them. “Three years it may be but another thirty and it will be no different. I shall never be at home here, you must know that. How can I be? All that I’ve ever known, all my friends, my relatives, they are an eternity away. You knew how it would be for me, yet you still went ahead, regardless of my feelings. I am locked away in a place that is alien to me.”

Richard held up a hand impatiently as though he had heard it all before and had no wish for her to carry on in the same vein.

“My dear Flora,” he drawled, as though dealing with a small petulant child, “All that gay social whirl you had up there in Lancashire, it was so meaningless.”

“To you maybe,” she retorted. “But it was my life. To do with as I pleased. Now I feel I am in a prison with no way out.”

“You are on your way out now. And looking quite smart if I may say so.”

The compliment went unheeded. “To a boring old committee meeting. That is the extent of my freedom.”

“It sounds highly desirable to me, considering what I have in store this morning. You have probably forgotten.”

“No, I have not. You are seeing the Three Crows as you call them.”

He raised an eyebrow in surprise that she had remembered his engagement. He was meeting the landlords, owners of the lands upon which his quarry sprawled.

“They will be here any time now,” he said, glancing at the Adam clock, “with that fool I have in charge of the quarry. More excuses. More demands. They really do believe I’m making a fortune out of that white elephant.”

“Why you ever bought it is beyond me…”

“Because I thought it had something. I can pull it round if it’s not too late. With co-operation and support. Talking of which, where is that son of ours? I want him to sit in on this meeting. It is time he took an interest.”

She began to pull on her gloves. “You will not see him today I am afraid,” she said, hoping that the satisfaction did not show in her voice. “Not if the light holds.”

“What?” he snapped, his brow furrowed as it had done at the mention of Crobett’s name, portending a change for the worst in his mood. “He is aware of this meeting, of it’s importance. I told him so last night. He pushed back his chair, strode to the window as though he expected to find him there. “Did he say where he was going?”

“I’m not his keeper, Richard.”

He turned on her. “You encourage him in this. You do, and that’s a fact. I put him through university, the best education it is possible to provide, the like of which I myself never dreamt of, and he walks out on it. Now this.” His lips curled distastefully. “He wants to be a painter!”

“An artist.”

“Pardon my ignorance. There is a difference, I should have realised. Painters make money, and I should know. They got enough out of me. But he wants to be the sort who starves in an attic and grovels in filth.”

“He is your son,”she said quietly. “There is a gentleness in him, a certain something I cannot fathom. Neither can you: we are not made that way. He is not cut out for your kind of world. You will have to come to terms with it, accept it.”

He clenched his fists as though preparing to strike her. “What kind of children have you given me?” he spat out bitterly. “A son who thinks like a woman and a son who behaves like a man!”

The words fell incisive as an axe cutting all between them and the ticking of the mantel clock became suddenly loud as though it meant to take over the room and it’s occupants with it.

Flora drew herself up to her full height and smoothed her gown as though sweeping away something offensive. “Have your meeting, do not fret over me or Hayden,” she said, ice crackling, turning to go, her hand on the door. “Hawkins is taking me. No doubt he will give you a full report.”

The fine mahogany door with it’s Elkington plate fittings slammed behind her with a finality that left him biting his lip in vexation at the hurtful words he had hurled at her and provoked the acrimony of her departure. He wished that he could recall the untimely taunt, but the words were out as soon as the thought was there, a habit with him these days, one he put down to frustration and his inability to manipulate others into his way of thinking. Maybe he was losing his grip….with Flora that was beyond doubt.

And it had been so different in the beginning…..

© Mark Pearson 2007.

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                                                     Chapter two, part three

The door opened and Flora caught him with a hand clutching his stomach, her grey shot silk gown edged in black velvet with white guipure lace at the throat giving her, even at that early time of day, the appearance of having just stepped out of a portrait.

He quickly took his hand from rubbing his waistcoat and she noticed but ignored it.  “Pardon the intrusion,” she said in a tight voice. “I am about to go into town and thought you would wish to know.”

“Oh,” he replied with an audible sigh, “what is it this time?”

“I am only going into Dolgelly, not Bond Street,” she stabbed back at him, blue eyes cutting glass. “The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, you must have heard of it.”

“Been invited have we?” he said with ill humour.

Flora gave him a pained look. “Since you are so occupied in other directions, it falls on me to sit on the committee. Not that I particularly enjoy it, but we do have a duty to uphold, even here.”

“I thought the matter already settled. A cottage Hospital, in Towyn or somewhere. The illustrious John Corbett, our renowned philanthropist, is he not footing the bill, throwing his money about, as he usually does?” He spoke with heavy sarcasm and she flushed.

Good man that he is,” she replied, noticing with pleasure the curl to his lip at her defence of Corbett, “he should not be expected to provide on every occasion. Particularly this.”

He flopped into the chair behind his desk with sudden indifference, looked up at her with an amused expression. “Maybe, my dear,” he said, “it is his way of easing his conscience.”

“In that case, your name should be first on the list,” she snapped, and she instantly regretted it. His face had darkened, his eyes turned to steel, but his voice when it came was steady, controlled. “I am growing tired of your little game, Flora. Three years we have been here now and still you act out this- melodrama. If it is your way of protesting, and it seems to be, do you not realise after all this time that it is getting you nowhere? This constant friction between us does you no credit and is grossly unfair to me. I should not have to put up with this sort of thing in my position. And no longer am I going to….”

“I have been patient and tolerant. I know you will think differently; I am an ogre of some sort to you, but goddamnit, woman, you are my wife and I expect you to act as such! What does the good book say? Whither thou gouest there shall also go. Any why are you any different? Countless women would count themselves lucky to be in your shoes. When I think-”

His voice failed him. He had noticed tears beginning to swim in her eyes, not yet brimming over, but causing the azure depths to quiver, and not because he had quoted the Bible to suit his own ends. He never knew how to deal with tears, especially women’s tears. They could be turned on at a strategic moment to obtain an advantage, but there was always the possibility of them being genuine. Whichever way you looked at tears they were still sings of weakness, and there was no glory in conquering weakness…

© Mark Pearson 2007

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                                                    Chapter two, part two

 Culver Hall had fallen into a pitiful state. A succession of owners had paid scant attention to it’s deteriorating condition, the gaming tables of Europe obtaining more attention over the last decade than a crumbling encumbrance in the middle of nowhere. It stood unwanted and unloved, unable to hide it’s shabbiness and it’s shame, and Ragway had looked upon his new possession determined to restore it to it’s former glory, knowing that resources beyond the reach of previous owners were available to him to make it possible. Prompting the thought that the Cavalier’s refuge had simply been waiting for him to arrive, to resurrect it and to come home.

Very little remained of the original building; Only the coach house survived from the golden age, with each successive occupant deeming it necessary to contemporise. Ragway had searched Europe for an army of specialists, hiring plasterers from Italy, carpenters from Belgium, sculptures and artists from houses of the highest repute. The antique furniture he had retained with the eye of a collector, but as he had to dress his Xanadu in the clothes of the day, he found it difficult to restrain Victorian flamboyance. All was plush, tassels and twirls, bric-a-brac and objects d’art in the highest and lowest of taste. Paintings  hung in quantity and bought by name regardless of subject, apart from works by David Cox, selected because the were landscapes of Wales, and local artist Richard Wilson.

There had been opposition from his wife Flora. The sheer loneliness of the place to which he intended to banish  her, the absence of friends, of their own class, and, it would seem, their own race. Every available argument she had used, and in the end seeing that she was making no impression, she had restored to ridiculing her husband, scoffing at his reason for buying what she saw as a gilded cage in the wilderness, She could not call on her son Hayden for support, much as he agreed with her, as his father always chose to ignore him, and Sarah, who would have been a likely ally, was away in London pursuing her Women’s Rights or whatever they were calling them now.

Flora had seen the look of conquest in his eyes many times, the unrelenting stare that frightened her, but now it contained the zeal of madness and it had compelled her to retreat into her shell and settle for the uneasy truce so often her only resort, as he showed off his adopted heritage to his business adversaries brought to the Hall so that he could crow; “Of course, we Ragway’s were here in the time of Cromwell.”

© Mark Pearson 2007

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