Autumn Softly Fell (8 page)

‘Not that I’ll have any trouble finding a husband,’ Bessie Downs continued, tucking her hair in again, ‘not with my looks. Nor will you, miss, when the time comes, with your curls. But if you ask me—’ She lowered her voice again. ‘If you ask me, it’s the house that Old Sourpuss pines for more than she’s ever pined for any man. It eats her away that it’ll never be hers, for it’s the only thing she has ever cared about!’

‘What do you mean, Bessie? I thought this was Uncle Albert’s house?’

‘Bless you, no! Mr Brannan has no connection here! He comes from up Coventry way. It’s Old Sourpuss who was born here and she’s lived here near all her life. But she’ll never own the place because it belongs to Master Richard!’

‘
Richard
!’ Dorothea gaped at Bessie in astonishment. She
remembered
what Nora had said, that you couldn’t believe half of what Bessie Downs said. This without doubt must be the tallest of Bessie’s tall tales. ‘Richard! But how, why?’

‘Surely you knew that, miss? Well I never, so you didn’t! But it’s true. True as I’m sitting here. Master Richard is the
real
master – or will be once he’s twenty-one. Funny, ain’t it, to think of a wizened little cripple like him owning a big place like this! But they do say that—’

Bessie stopped short as they heard footsteps behind them. They jumped to their feet in alarm.

‘So this is where you’ve got to, miss. I’ve been looking all over!’

It was Nora, only Nora. Dorothea breathed a sigh of relief, although she wished Nora hadn’t appeared at precisely that moment. She had a hundred and one questions buzzing inside her head which only someone like Bessie Downs would answer. Nora, however, took Dorothea’s hand firmly.

‘Come along, miss. The mam’zelle says it’s time for your walk. You must put on your coat and shoes.’ Glancing over her shoulder as they walked away, Nora added tartly, ‘I’d watch what I was saying, if I was you, Bessie Downs.’

Bessie laughed, flicking her duster, her hair hanging loose on both sides. ‘You’re such an old fuddy-duddy, Nora Turner. You want to let your hair down once in a while.’

Nora pursed her lips as she opened the green baize door. ‘She’s no more sense than she was born with, that one. She’ll be for it, no mistake, if Mrs Bourne catches her idling and scandal-mongering.’

‘But Nora, Bessie said—’

‘What? What did she say, miss? I’m surprised at you, I must say, listening to the likes of
her
. But there, you’re only young and you don’t know no better. It’s Bessie Downs who’s at fault. She’ll come to a sticky end one of these days, mark my words! But never mind all that. We must hurry. The mam’zelle is waiting!’

Fresh air, said Mlle Lacroix, was
efficacious
(a French word, perhaps?). A daily walk in the gardens (weather permitting) was part of Dorothea’s new routine. But today her head was in too much of a muddle to enjoy it. She was going over and over what Bessie Downs had said. Did the house
really
belong to Richard? It was so big and solid and deep-rooted that it seemed impertinent to think of anyone
owning
it. It would be the other way round, if anything – the house would own
you
. Was that how Aunt Eloise felt about the place?

Leaving the governess sitting with a book under the pergola, Dorothea wandered off with her secret thoughts. She had felt from the first that the house was somehow
alive
. It might permit you to lodge within for a day or a year or a lifetime but when you’d gone, the house would carry on. It would carry on forever.

Looking up from the cinder path on which she was walking, Dorothea saw ahead of her the old gardener Becket clipping a privet hedge. Becket was none other than the crusty man she had met on the morning of her failed escape. She had met him often since. He had worked at Clifton for years, which he was quick to tell you. ‘I was just a nipper when I started. It was Mr Jephcott as took me on. He was head gardener in them days. It must be fifty year back if it’s a day. Since then, I’ve worked for four different masters and seen head gardeners come and go. Now I’m head gardener myself. Leastways, that’s how I see it, for there ain’t no one but me.’

Dorothea skipped along the path. If anyone would know about
the house, then Becket would. He could be crotchety at times but he didn’t mind answering questions.

Becket stopped his clipping and tipped his cap back, listening to her eager questions. Well, he said when she’d finished, Bessie Downs was nothing but a flibbertigibbet, but in this case she was quite right – the house was Richard’s. Not just the house, either, but the grounds too, and lots of land around – what Becket called
the estate.
It would all be Richard’s when he came of age.

‘I don’t understand, Becket. How did Richard come to own
everything
?’

‘Well, miss, now let’s see. Where shall I begin?’ He laid his shears aside, took off his cap, scratched his head, making his fluffy white hair stand up in tufts. Dorothea knew it was no good trying to hurry him. Becket did everything in his own good time. ‘When I started here as a nipper, Sir Edward was guv’nor, the last of the Massinghams, them what had owned Clifton Park from time out of mind. Titled folk, they were. Baronets. But Sir Edward had no son so the estate passed to his nephew – the estate, but not the title.
Mr Harry Rycroft,
this nephew was named. Title or no, he was a gentleman proper and he loved the gardens here. Ah, but they was kept spic and span in his day! There was a whole troop of us back then, head gardener, under gardeners, no end of boys – everything was done as it should be.’

Hopping with impatience – what had all this got to do with Richard? – Dorothea nonetheless knew better than to interrupt. To interrupt was to invite even more humming and hawing.

Becket paused, giving her a sharp look as if he knew very well what she was thinking, and then he pursed his lips, staring into the distance as if he was trying to see back to days gone by.

‘Now Mr Rycroft, he was guv’nor here for forty year and more. Two kiddies he had, a boy and a girl. Now the girl growed up to be Mistress Brannan – your aunt, that is to say. But the boy was Master Fred – Mr Frederick Rycroft, to be precise. He was the one who became guv’nor when Mr Rycroft passed on. He
inherited the estate,
as they say.’

Dorothea couldn’t let this pass. ‘Why did the estate go to him? Why didn’t it go to Aunt Eloise? Why couldn’t she be guv’nor?’

‘Because Master Fred was the elder. Besides, it’s sons what inherit, not daughters.’

‘But that’s not fair!’

‘Fair or no, it’s the way things are.’

‘And do girls get
nothing
?’

‘Girls get to rule the roost. You ask Mrs Becket if you don’t believe me.’

‘But what has all this got to do with Richard?’

‘Ah, well, I was coming to that, wasn’t I, if you’d just hold your horses.’ He gave her another hard stare from under his bushy brows. ‘Master Fred’s wife was Lady Emerald, Lady Emerald Huntley – an earl’s daughter, so they said. But that’s something else you’ll have to ask Mrs Becket about. She’s the one what knows about earls and dukes and all manner of royalty.’

‘But—’ Dorothea stopped herself just in time, and Becket nodded solemnly, as if he approved of her self-restraint.

‘This Lady Emerald’ – he sniffed as he said the name, as if he didn’t think much of her – ‘was a girl who liked to rule the roost in every way. Very distinguished, as I never doubted, but there was no
sense
there, if you take my meaning. She never fitted in here. Not like you, miss, you’ve taken to it like a duck to water. But then again, Lady Emerald was never happy anywhere, if you ask me. Couldn’t settle. Always gadding about. Spent a lot of time in foreign parts, her and Master Fred, after they was married. And time was marching on, and there was no sign of a kiddie and folks were beginning to think there never would be. And then, out of the blue, they came back one day from abroad (or thereabouts) and Lady Emerald was in a delicate condition at long last. My word, but wasn’t there a fuss and a palaver when that little lad was born!’

‘What little lad?’

‘Why, the one you’ve been harping on about, of course, that poorly mite up at the house.’

‘You mean Richard?’ Dorothea’s head was spinning as she tried to untangle the web of names. ‘So Master Fred is Aunt Eloise’s brother, and he is Richard’s papa as well?’

‘Master Fred ain’t anything anymore. He’s been dead these five years. And that’s how the poorly mite came to inherit the estate. He inherited from his father, the way Master Fred inherited from old Mr Rycroft.’

‘Poor Richard! But how did his papa come to die?’

‘Ah, well, now you’re asking. Some folk say one thing, some say another. It’s not my place to judge. But it was his wife as went first – her that had never been ill in her life afore. Something she picked up abroad, like as not. And Master Fred, he loved her even if no one else didn’t, and nobody nor nothing could console him once she’d gone. If ever a fellow died of a broken heart, then it was Master Fred. It were a great pity to my way of thinking because, while he’d been something of a rapscallion in his younger days, he growed out of it later. He growed some sense. He had all the makings of a half decent guv’nor. But that’s as maybe. Twas not to be. He passed on not three year after his old dad, and that sickly lad you’re so fussed about was left all alone in the world. But there it is. Some
misfortunes
can’t be mended. You just have to make the best on it, be you rich or be you poor. Not that it was any hardship for Mistress Brannan to come back to Clifton. She never took to life in Coventry, by all accounts.’

‘Why did she go to Coventry and why did she come back?’

‘She went when she was married and she came back because she was needed. A young lad like the one up at the house needs
guardians
. Mistress Brannan is his guardian, Master Brannan too. But that’s quite enough talk for now, miss. I must get on. If I stand here chopsing all day, nothing will ever get done.’

He picked up his shears and set about the hedge again, clippings piling around his feet. Dorothea hardly noticed. She’d been given plenty to think about. Poor Richard! Her own misfortunes paled next to his: the terrible illness which had left him with a withered leg, the deaths of both his parents, and now the house – a heavy burden for such frail shoulders!

Mlle Lacroix appeared on the cinder path and took her hand. As they walked back towards the house, she said, ‘You have been talking to Monsieur Becket. A very clever man, I think.’

‘But how can he be clever, mam’zelle? He can’t even read!’

‘Being able to read does not in itself make one clever, Dorossea. Books open one door to knowledge, but there are other doors too. Often experience is the best teacher of all. And no one in the world knows everything. Even a professor of the Sorbonne might have something to learn from an English girl in a country garden!’ And she laughed, a light trilling sound which invited you to join in even when you weren’t exactly sure what was so funny.

In his room later, Richard answered Dorothea’s eager questions somewhat irritably. ‘Of course the house is mine. Everything that was Father’s comes to me. I thought you knew. Everyone knows.’

‘And your papa and mama? What were they like?’ She wondered why she had never asked before. She had known they were dead, but that was all. When she thought of how often she had spoken of her own papa, she was filled now with remorse.

Richard could tell her little. His father had never sat still, had never stopped fidgeting. It had made you tired just to look at him. As for his mother, she had worn jewels and long white gloves, and she had always been going out or going away. She had never looked you in the eye when she spoke to you.

Richard squirmed beneath the bed clothes, pulled a face. ‘I don’t want to talk about her. I don’t want to talk about Father, either. I don’t like to remember.’ He looked at Dorothea with a sullen
expression
. ‘I expected you to come earlier. I was waiting for you. I’ve been waiting all afternoon.’

‘I had to take my walk, and then I met Becket and—’

‘I suppose you like Becket better than me. I suppose you like everyone better than me. You don’t care about me at all. Well, soon I shall be dead and then you’ll be sorry!’

‘What a horrible thing to say!’

‘It’s the truth. I am ill, getting iller all the time.’

‘Such fibs! You aren’t ill at all! There’s your leg, of course, and I’m sorry about that, but it can’t be helped so there’s no point in crying over spilt milk!’ The words were out before she could stop them. It didn’t sound like her at all. It was more like Mrs Browning, hard as
nails. If only Richard hadn’t made her so angry, saying that she didn’t care! It wrung her heart, looking at him now, sunk in his pillows, so flimsy, as if a puff of wind would blow him away. It wrenched at her heart, angry with him though she was.

‘You hate me!’ he gasped. ‘Everyone hates me, Aunt Eloise most of all. She despises me because I’m a cripple!’

‘That’s not true, I don’t hate you, nobody hates you, and you’re not a cripple, not really!’ If only he could get up once in a while, get away from this mournful room with its half-closed curtains and bare walls! If only he could go into the gardens. It would make all the difference, she was sure of it, just as it had made all the
difference
to her.

The sound of their raised voices brought Nurse into the room, demanding to know what all the noise was. Richard was delicate; such excitement was not good for him. But when Dorothea ventured to suggest that Richard might not be so delicate if he was allowed out now and again, Nurse stamped on the idea at once. No, no, no. It was out of the question! Fresh air would have the most terrible consequences! Richard would deteriorate, would get pneumonia, would die. Did Dorothea want
that
on her conscience? Look at the trouble she’d caused already (Richard had started coughing). Wasn’t that enough mischief for one day, without all this talk of
outside
?