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CHAPTER 1

Wednesday, 2nd May 1900

I am so tired I can hardly summon any enthusiasm for this diary and if I hear the words 'Isabel's wedding' again I think I shall scream and who will blame me? One would imagine that no one had ever been married before ...

Olivia glanced at the photograph on her bedside table which showed a small family group – two women (the younger one pregnant) and three small children. Sighing, she continued.

... I do miss poor Mother – even though I hardly remember her. I'm certain she would have dealt with the wedding brilliantly and enjoyed every minute of it but I am a poor substitute and am finding it a daunting business. When Theo was married last year Cicely's parents organized everything – I wish I had taken more notice of what went on ...

Olivia Fratton smothered a yawn but decided to press on with her account until she could no longer keep her eyes open. She sharpened the pencil half-heartedly then continued.

... But at least I shall do a better job of it than Isabel herself whose nerves become frazzled by the smallest setback and who then finds relief in hysterics or floods of tears. I sometimes want to shake some sense into her but then she will claim that I am jealous. I know she sees me as 'on the shelf' at twenty-seven. Why, I wonder, did I ask God, all those years ago, for a sister when I already had two very nice brothers?

Poor Izzie. She is so young but cannot wait to be wed. She really should have waited one or two more years when she might be steadier (and might have found a better husband than Bertram Hatterly who himself is very young).

I fear Miss Denny is tiring of her tantrums – Izzie is constantly changing the details of her wedding dress and I suspect that when it is finished she will still be dissatisfied with it. Why do women as intelligent as Miss Denny decide to become dressmakers? Some of the clients must try the patience of a saint.

I have sent a letter to Aunt Alice promising her an invitation to the wedding but, although being our godmother and a very desirable guest, I think she may baulk at the journey from Newquay. She must be in her late sixties if not seventies. We shall see ...

Seeking inspiration she picked up the photograph. Her mother had died two days after Izzie was born.

'Childbed fever!' she whispered and hoped that Cicely, her sister-in-law, would escape the same fate when it was her turn to give birth to Theo's first child. It was only a matter of weeks to go until the due date. What sort of father would her brother turn out to be, she wondered, smiling suddenly at the prospect. Then she frowned. Poor Theo had had no guidance as he grew up since his own father, Jack, had spent two years caught up in the final years of the California gold rush and had returned there in 1870 to rejoin a close friend he had worked with in the earlier years. After a few years neither man had been seen again.

'A pretty poor father you turned out to be!' she muttered to her absent father. The family had received half a dozen letters home and then silence. She picked up another photograph – the two men, taken on her father's last trip – arms round each other's shoulders, looking rugged and dishevelled with straggly beards and untrimmed hair. Aunt Alice maintained that they were no relation to each other but Larry and Jack were often taken for brothers. They were grinning, obviously very pleased with themselves, and Olivia felt the usual rush of irritation.

'While you were enjoying California, Father, your wife was upstairs in this very house, giving birth to another daughter and then dying!' she said accusingly.

'Two peas in a pod!' Aunt Alice had called them when the last letter enclosing the photograph had arrived, 'and not very edible peas, in my opinion! A useless pair! The less we see of them the better!'

Olivia sighed, baffled as always by the disappearance of their father. No amount of enquiries had found any sign of the two men who had last been seen setting out on, of all things, a fishing expedition. Olivia found it impossible to imagine her father killing anything and was glad that they had no stuffed fish hanging on their walls. She glared at her father's likeness. 'Mother said you didn't even like fish.' 'Too many bones and altogether too fiddly,' according to Aunt Alice who had known them better than most.

After their mother's death the four children had been considered 'temporary orphans' but to prevent them going into an orphanage, their godmother, Alice Redmond, had interrupted her burgeoning career as an artist and stepped into their mother's shoes. They expected Jack to return but he never did.

Only Theo could remember much about their mother because he had been five when she died. Olivia liked to believe that she also had hazy memories but these might well have been created by Aunt Alice (Ellen's closest friend) who insisted that they talked about their mother and kept photographs of her dotted around the house. She was not so keen to talk about their father who Alice felt was behaving disgracefully by staying away from his responsibilities.

'Do come to the wedding if you can,' Olivia whispered to her absent godmother. 'It would be wonderful to be all together again.'

Sliding further into the bed she breathed deeply, closed her eyes and waited for sleep to claim her.

Next morning, in another bedroom in the same house, Isabel was opening her eyes and stretching her arms, her thoughts already on the coming day's events. Miss Denny was coming at eleven for another fitting. Isabel rolled her eyes. Perhaps this time the stupid woman would have followed Isabel's instructions instead of claiming them to be impossible and making alterations of her own. They had chosen her because her prices were very reasonable but it had been a mistake and Isabel blamed her sister.

She sat up, hugging her knees, and thought about Bertram Hatterly, known to his family and friends as Bertie. Her face was wreathed in smiles as she thought about the forthcoming wedding but before long her anticipation was overshadowed by the thought of his mother, Dorcas, who Isabel considered a little too forceful, and who had originally declared her son too young to marry! Fortunately Bertie's father had finally persuaded her to accept the situation graciously but Isabel was thankful that she and Bertie would not be living too near them – they were already looking for a flat that was a reasonable distance away! If a bicycle or bus ride was involved, so much the better.

Bertie worked in a men's outfitters in Canterbury and secretly Isabel found this a little disappointing, even though he was promised a possible promotion to Trainee Manager which would lead to a position as Assistant Manager. Isabel rarely went into the shop because she hated to watch her fiancé being what she considered 'obsequious' towards the clients, his lips fixed in a perpetual smile, his hands clasped in front of him, his bright blue eyes exuding a kind of empathy as though the purchase of a pair of leather gloves or a silk scarf was of some importance.

Isabel would have preferred him to be a young doctor or a solicitor, with the appropriate dignity that brought. She liked to believe that he could have become either of these. 'But you couldn't wait, could you!' she muttered bitterly to his absent mother. 'You pushed him into the first job that came along, regardless of his future.'

Although no one in Isabel's family had said an unkind word about Bertie in her hearing, she tortured herself with the idea that they might discuss him secretly and find him wanting.

With a sigh, she threw back the bedclothes and slid out of bed. A jug of hot water waited for her outside the door, brought up by Mrs Bourne who came in daily from eight until ten thirty to help Olivia – her wages paid in part by Aunt Alice and in part by the money Olivia earned from seven hours a week as a reader and part-time companion to a wealthy but immobile neighbour.

As Isabel poured the water into the bowl on her washstand she made a mental list of things to do later in the day which started with a talk to her brother when he and Cicely arrived for the evening meal. Theo had offered to walk her to the altar in lieu of her absent father and she wanted to be sure he would look and act the part to perfection, right down to his buttonhole.

She had also determined to get a preview of his speech in case she disapproved of anything he might say about her. Her wedding day, she had decided, must be absolutely perfect in every respect.

Less than five miles away Theodore stood at the window considering the coming day and his own part in it. The auction house where he worked was a three-mile walk into Canterbury and the doors opened to the public at eleven. He, however, was due at ten so he had plenty of time before he needed to leave the house. Sighing a little he glanced down at the farmyard where his wife's father, with a bale of hay hoisted on one shoulder, made his way towards the stables where the two horses waited, hungry and fretful, for their first meal of the day. Marrying a farmer's daughter had been a piece of luck because Cicely's father had offered them one of his cottages at a very low rent, but it had needed a few repairs and in the meantime the young couple were staying at the farm.

It meant that when the baby arrived Cicely's mother would be near at hand and that was just as well, he reflected, since Cicely was as nervous as a kitten about the process of actually producing the infant. But then she was nervous about most things, poor girl. It was in her nature to expect the worst and to be delightedly surprised when a positive outcome gave cause for celebration.

'Poor little soul!' he whispered, turning to look at her, still sleeping at five minutes to nine. She was terrified of storms which involved thunder, frightened of mice, hated the heavy wagons which often lurched through the narrow streets of Canterbury ... and was reduced to a shivering jelly if a snake came anywhere near her. Even a harmless grass snake had to be carried away and abandoned at least ten yards away, from where, trustingly, Cicely imagined it would not return. It had been this vulnerability which had first roused Theodore's protective instincts and had led to his desire to shield her from all things fearsome. Now, happily married, he intended to shield her from the worst her world had to offer.

Now, of course, deep in sleep, her face was set in calm repose and Theodore was reminded of the first time he had met her, asleep in a hammock, when he called at the farm to value several items which her mother wanted to sell at auction. Waking in alarm at his sudden appearance Cicely had slid expertly from the hammock – a thin young woman with a finely boned face and dark eyes which reputedly she had inherited from her maternal grandmother.

He washed and dressed as quietly as he could in order not to waken her and went down to the farm kitchen where his mother-in-law was stirring porridge with one hand and shooing the cat from the table with the other. The cottage Theo and Cicely were to live in was awaiting two new windows and the newlyweds were staying with Cicely's parents until they were installed. To his eternal gratitude Ann and John Stokes had welcomed the match without argument and treated him like the son they had never had.

Theodore greeted Cicely's mother cheerfully. This was the way he liked his day to begin. Quietly, with no surprises and nothing more to worry about than the usual hours at the auction house – although today he was frowning.

'What's worrying you, Theo?' Ann asked.

'Nothing much.' He shrugged thin shoulders. 'I still haven't worked out my speech for Izzie's wedding.'

She filled his dish and he helped himself to sugar and milk.

'She's given me a list of "dos and don'ts"! Let's see now – no jokes that might make her look silly. No suggestion that she is too young to be marrying. No criticism of Aunt Alice. No mention of Father's disappearance except a toast to absent friends.'

'I wouldn't call your father a friend – the way he's behaved! Going off the way he did. Running away. That's what I'd call it. Giving up on his responsibilities.' She filled the teapot with boiling water, set it on the table to 'brew', helped herself to porridge and sat down.

Theo said, 'Izzie doesn't see it like that. She's carrying a torch for him – always has done – and genuinely believes he will turn up one day. She likes to pretend he was prevented from returning, though Lord knows how. Izzie wants a happy ending.'

'Poor girl.'

'Olivia and I are resigned to the situation and Luke simply doesn't care. He's got his art, he's Aunt Alice's blue-eyed boy and he's got a good future ahead of him!'

His mother-in-law got up again, went to the back door, opened it and shouted for her husband to come and have his breakfast.

'It's Olivia I feel for,' she said. 'Given the best years of her life for you three and what's she got to look forward to at her age? Not that I'm blaming you. But how your father can sleep easy in his bed ...' She shook her head then gave him a sharp look. 'He's never coming back, is he.' It was not a question.

Theo said 'No. He might even be dead.'

Her eyes widened. 'Now there's a thought!' she said.

Luke, the third child to be born to the Frattons, awoke to the realization that he was now free as a bird, having just finished his art training – a private course which combined art and the business of promoting and selling it – a preparation, Alice hoped, for the moment when she eventually needed to give up and pass the gallery into his safe hands. His 'Aunt Alice' had taken Luke under her wing and had found him a convenient boarding school which specialized in art, for which she had paid the exorbitantly high fees. She had recognized his talent many years before and was determined he would make a living from it in the way that she herself did and would eventually inherit the gallery she had developed in Newquay.

For a few moments, grinning up at the ceiling, he relished the memory of the flirtation he had enjoyed the previous night in the Coach and Horses, then threw back the bedclothes and, whistling tunelessly, made his way downstairs. Still in his pyjamas, unwashed and dishevelled, he picked up the day's post from the mat inside the front door. Even half awake, he was able to see that there was something odd about the address:

TO THE FRATTON FAMILY.

LAUREL HOUSE, NR CANTERBURY, ENGLAND.

He rubbed his eyes, frowning. 'The Fratton family? What on earth ...' He looked for a stamp but there was nothing. Scratching his head he frowned and headed for the kitchen. How could it be for the entire family? No one wrote to all of them at once.

'Take a look at this, Olivia,' he said holding it out for her to see because she had a frying pan in one hand and a fork in the other and could not take it from him. 'Someone is writing to the entire Fratton family! It can't be anyone we know because they would know that Father is God knows where and Theo now lives at the farm with Cicely.'

'How odd!' She forked three slices of fried bread on to a dish and put a saucepan lid on it while she fried three eggs. 'Call Isabel, will you, please.'

He shouted up the stairs and came back into the kitchen. 'She's coming.' He glanced round as he sat down at the large kitchen table. 'No Mrs Bourne?' he said, referring to the portly 'daily woman'. Run off with a sailor, has she? I always knew she had it in her to surprise us!'

'Luke! What a thing to say. Run off with a sailor? At her age – and already married? They taught you some funny things at that art school. A good thing you managed to leave before they threw you out!'

He grinned and as ever his charm won her over. With fair hair and pleasant features, Luke was the best-looking of the four Fratton children and his easy-going ways made him easy to live with. Now he assumed a grim expression and said mournfully, 'Little you know about my time at that school. All those terrible beatings ... and the starvation diet and the monstrous matron who —'

Isabel's arrival interrupted his scurrilous description of the boarding school. 'All lies!' she told him. 'You loved that school and everything in it. You were spoilt by Aunt Alice just because you could draw!'

'I didn't enjoy the cricket,' Luke said mildly, 'or the cross country running!'

'You are too lazy, that's why! Lifting a paint brush is all you can manage!'

In a belated answer to Luke's query Olivia said, 'Mrs Bourne has gone into Canterbury to the chemist to collect some medicine for her husband's cough. She asked if she might go and I agreed and said she might as well pick up some liver from the butcher for tonight while she's there.' To her sister she said, 'What time is Miss Denny coming to fit your dress?'

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Excerpted from "Isabel's Wedding"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Pamela Oldfield.
Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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