An Unusual Bequest (15 page)

There was no mistaking the grey blaze on the stallion’s nose and its proud head as it whinnied on seeing her, almost as if it recognised her. ‘Ivor?’ she queried, reaching forward to stroke his nose. ‘What are you doing here?’ She turned as a groom came into the yard, carrying an armful of tack. ‘This is Viscount Darton’s horse, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He hung the tack on a hook beside a stable door.

‘Is he staying at the inn?’

‘No, ma’am, just left his horse here.’

‘When? How long ago? Where did he go?’ She could not keep the eagerness from her voice.

He looked sideways at her, as if wondering whether he ought to answer this barrage of questions, but she was obviously Quality with a capital letter and his lordship had not said he was incognito or that his business was secret. Still…‘What do you want to know for?’ he demanded.

‘I am Lady Hobart and I have been expecting him at Easterley Manor and his non-arrival worried me. Anything you can tell me will be helpful.’ She opened her reticule and took out a handful of small coins to offer him.

‘Well, my lady, can’t say as I can tell you anything,’ he said, pocketing the money. ‘His lordship left the horse here about a se’ ennight ago, I disremember exactly. He took the London mail, not that I can swear to that being his destination, o’course. He came back two days later, but then he was off again. Said he didn’t know when he would be back, but if he needed the horse he’d send for it. We ain’t seen hide nor hair of him since.’

‘Was he well? Did he seem troubled or anxious, or in a hurry?’

‘Oh, he were in a hurry all right, but I can’t rightly say whether he were anxious.’

‘Where did he go the second time?’

‘Don’t know, my lady, an’ that’s the truth, but if he don’t come back after that horse soon—’ He stopped when he saw the head groom come towards him. ‘I must get on with my work, my lady.’

She thanked him and asked him to harness the gig; ten minutes later, having paid her dues, she and her girls were trotting out of the town in the direction of Parson’s End. She was no nearer to discovering the whereabouts of Stacey Darton than she had been before; in fact, the mystery deepened. Where had he gone after leaving Ipswich? Why had he come back and then gone again? Had he been coming back to her? If that were so, why had he gone off again? He would never abandon that horse; it was a valuable beast and he prized it above everything, more than humans, she thought. So had he met with a terrible accident? But where was he going in such a hurry? Not back to her or he would have ridden the stallion.

Her new found tranquillity had been blown away on the wind and now she was as unsettled as she had been before. Her mood must have conveyed itself to the little pony, for it laid back its ears and broke into a gallop, swinging the light vehicle all over the road.

‘Mama!’ Lizzie cried. ‘You’ll have us over.’

Charlotte returned her attention to the pony and brought it under control and for the rest of the journey concentrated on driving. Nothing had changed, she told herself, as they clopped gently through the Suffolk countryside, nothing. She was just as much alone as ever. She could have left a letter at the inn to be given to Viscount Darton when he returned for his horse, but then what could she have said? She had too much pride to tell him she missed him and too much independence to demand to know what he had done with her jewels. After all, he had won them fair and square in the first place. Why, oh, why could she not banish him from her mind?

Stacey sat by his daughter’s bed and watched her thrashing from side to side, trying to loosen the covers that were wrapped tightly about her. A fever of the brain, the family doctor had told him, brought about by being out all night in the damp air. It had been said in a tone of disapproval that had not been lost on Stacey. His daughter was out of control and he was to blame. Oh, he had told Charlotte he blamed his parents, but that was unfair. They were elderly and Julia was too high-spirited for them to manage. He should have done something about it when he came home at the end of the war and saw what was happening. But years away from home, dealing with men whom he could shout at and flog—not that he believed in too much of that—had taught him nothing about bringing up a motherless child. It had taken Charlotte Hobart to make him begin to see and that made him feel more out of his depth than ever.

Charlotte. How was she faring? She would have received Hardacre’s letter long ago, a letter the lawyer had been loath to write. ‘It makes me look incompetent,’ he had said. ‘What will she think about a man of business who can overlook something as important as a mystery fund?’

‘We can tell her the truth later, when it doesn’t matter any more,’ he had answered. ‘What is more important, Lady Hobart’s safety or your pride?’

And so the letter had been written and Stacey had signed over twice what Charlotte had noted she needed, and set off back to Ipswich, looking forward to seeing her again, seeing the pleasure on her face when she realised she would not have to part with her jewels. He was supposed to have sold them, but he could easily say he had only pawned them and then pretend to return to Ipswich and redeem them for her. He would put them back into her hands and see her lovely eyes light up and he would suggest helping her to set up her school and then bring Julia to be her first pupil.

The mail left Gracechurch Street at half past seven in the evening, which meant he had some time to spare and he had spent it at White’s, where he had a good meal and dozed off in an armchair afterwards. He had been at the Spread Eagle in good time and the journey of the night before had been made in reverse. It seemed to take much longer than it had in the other direction, although when he checked the time on their arrival at the Great White Horse, he discovered they were only five minutes later than their scheduled time of a quarter past three.

Before he returned to Parson’s End he must visit the school to which he had been heading when he first met Charlotte. He had told her he would do so and it was only common courtesy to tell them he had changed his mind about sending his daughter there. It was far too early in the morning for that and he had been dog-tired, so he had taken a room at the inn and gone to bed, asking to be roused at eight.

The servant had to shake him hard to wake him but, remembering his errand and looking forward to being back in Parson’s End by nightfall, he completed his ablutions in record time and went down to the dining parlour to a welcome breakfast.

‘Darton!’ He had looked round to see Gerard Topham grinning up at him from a nearby table.

Stacey went over to him and shook his hand. ‘What are you doing here, Gerry?’

‘I told you I was going to ride along this coast, don’t you remember?’

‘Oh, so you did. Any luck?’

‘Not so far. Join me?’ He indicated the chair opposite him.

Stacey sat and beckoned the waiter, ordering coffee and bread and butter. ‘No time for more,’ he said.

‘You look as though you’ve been on the march a full se’n-night,’ Gerry had said.

‘It feels like it.’ He had explained all that had happened since they had last met and Gerard told him of his lack of progress at catching smugglers. ‘They’re wily as foxes,’ he said. ‘And half the population ready to shield them. As far as they are concerned, the free-traders are doing a good service. They don’t see the other side of it, the intimidation and violence and the damage they do to the country’s economy, or if they do, they are prepared to shut their eyes to it for the sake of a few bottles of brandy and a half a pound of tobacco. It’s more than a few bottles of brandy and a half a pound of tobacco, it’s a huge business. I know there’s something in the wind, but I haven’t had a whiff of it yet.’

‘Perhaps you are looking in the wrong place.’

‘Perhaps. There’s no sign of them in the usual spots, so I’m going to ride north. Shall we travel together as far as Parson’s End?’

‘I’d say yes, but I have a call to make first. Maybe I’ll catch you up.’

‘Right. I’ll be off then.’ He stood up, a huge man, strong as a bear, not one Stacey would like to tangle with. ‘If you should hear anything, let me know, will you? A letter sent to the Customs House here will reach me.’ They had shaken hands and parted, though Stacey had expected to catch up with his friend long before he reached Parson’s End.

But it was not to be; he had found his father’s letter waiting for him when he arrived at the school at ten o’clock. ‘Come home at once,’ it said. ‘Julia very ill.’ Nothing more. No explanation.

He had started back to fetch Ivor, but decided riding would be too slow and instead paid the livery stable to keep him a little longer and had taken the mail to Norwich and hired a chaise from there, his head in a torment of anxiety and guilt. And his father was no help. ‘What that child needs is a mother,’ he had told him almost as soon as he had put a foot in the door. ‘You should be doing something about that, not gallivanting about the countryside on that great horse of yours, pretending to look for schools. We sent for you over a week ago, wrote to that school you went to see in Ipswich, but, according to the man I sent, they had not even seen you. Where have you been?’ It was only his worry talking, but it had annoyed Stacey when all he wanted to know was what had happened to his daughter.

‘I have been looking for a school, and found one a hundred times better than that establishment in Ipswich.’ He was tired and worried and snappy, torn between his duty—no, his love—for his daughter and his love and concern for Charlotte, left to the mercies of those three rogues. She should by now be in possession of funds to enable her to set about finding a house. Had she done it? Had she left the Manor? If she had, where had she gone? It would be perfectly understandable if she left no forwarding address, so how was he to find her again? And he could not go looking for her until he knew Julia was safe and well. He felt as if he were being split in two.

‘What happened?’ he demanded, watching a nurse bathing his daughter’s brow with a cloth wrung out in water.

‘She was out all night in the rain,’ the Earl said.

‘All night in the rain?’ Stacey felt his voice rising and changed it to a fierce whisper. ‘Why? Where were you? How could you let it happen?’

‘My lord,’ the nurse remonstrated. ‘If you cannot keep your voice down, I must ask you to leave.’

‘Come downstairs, we’ll talk down there,’ the Earl said. ‘The nurse will call us if there is any change.’

Stacey had followed him down to the large airy drawing room, where his mother sat waiting for them. ‘How is she?’ she asked, looking up from her Berlin work.

‘About the same,’ her husband answered. ‘We can do nothing but wait for the fever to break.’

‘Sit down, Stacey,’ she said, as he stood with his back to the fire. It was a big old house and a beast to keep warm so, except on very hot summer days, there was almost always fires in the rooms. ‘You can do nothing fidgeting about like that.’

He flung himself down on to a chair. He was still agitated, still feeling helpless and guilty, but his temper had cooled. It was no good blaming his parents. ‘Tell me what happened?’ he asked wearily. ‘How did Julia come to be out all night?’

‘It all began over a runt of a puppy,’ the Earl had explained. ‘You know how soft she is about animals…’

Stacey didn’t know, but he let it pass. ‘Go on,’ he said, quietly.

‘I told her it would never be any good, that it ought to be put down. After all, if it was allowed to grow, it could weaken the strain.’

‘You mean it was one of a litter of hunting hounds?’

‘Yes, of course it was. What other dogs would I be breeding? Anyway, she took a fancy to it and when Bolton went to deal with it, she grabbed it up and ran off with it. He chased after her, but he’s full of the rheumatics and she easily outran him. We thought she would come home when she was hungry, that’s usually what she does, but she didn’t. I sent every able man off the estate out looking for her and went myself, but we couldn’t find her in the grounds, nor the village and we started to search the heath, but when it got too dark to see, I had to call off the search until the morning. If you had been here, you might have carried on all night, but you weren’t, and she might have been anywhere. I hoped and prayed she would seek shelter and come home as soon as it was light…’

‘So where was she?’

‘Out on the heath almost as far as the marshes, further away than we expected. She is as stubborn as a mule and had decided she was not coming home until we had forgotten all about doing away with the puppy. There was a heavy mist when we set out next morning and we could hardly see a hand before us, but we kept calling and calling. It was the dog told us where she was. We heard it barking. She had sheltered under the lee of a rock, but it was not enough to keep the damp off her and she had not taken a coat. The dog was in her arms and must have afforded a little warmth. She was only half-conscious. She’s been like it ever since.’

‘Where were you?’ his mother asked. ‘It is not like you to be neglectful of your duty.’

He smiled wryly, thinking of the answer Charlotte might have given to that question. His duty and his love should go hand in hand, so why had they not? Did he think bringing up daughters was not a task for a man? Did he resent the fact that his wife had died giving birth to her and he had wanted a son? If that were true, it was despicable of him and he must do his best to make amends.
If
he was given a second chance. His daughter was flickering between life and death and only now did he realise how much she meant to him. ‘I’ll explain later,’ he said and left the room to return to Julia’s bedside.

He was still there twenty-four hours later when she opened her eyes. Not that he saw them open; he was slumbering uncomfortably in the chair he had drawn close to the bed, too exhausted to stay awake. His hair was tousled and he had a three-day stubble on his chin.

‘Papa.’ The soft voice woke him at once. ‘Is that you?’

He stirred and stretched his cramped limbs and leaned forward to take her hand. ‘Yes, Julia, sweetheart.’ Her eyes were bright, but the fever had gone and only a soft blush stained her cheeks. ‘How do you feel?’