Deadly Inheritance (46 page)

Helen, though, was the other reason Ursula had been sent to Mountstanton. Her father had sensed something was very wrong with the household and wanted an insider’s viewpoint. Surely the Earl’s death would bring him over, and Ursula would be interrogated over her failure to find out what, if anything, Helen had been doing with her extremely generous marriage settlement. It certainly had not been put to work bringing Mountstanton back to its glorious heyday.

Ursula felt frustrated. She desperately wanted to do something to help find Belle; but what? The Colonel would ensure she did not join any of the search parties. With her ankle once again causing problems, she would only slow them down. She toyed with the idea of going out on her own and rejected it; her knowledge of the terrain was slight; she was more likely to fall and cause an additional problem than to find Belle.

She made her way through to back areas and the kitchen. Three trays suggested food was being prepared for the Dowager, Helen and herself.

One of the cooks looked at her questioningly. Ursula said, ‘I know as many people as possible are going out to look for Miss Seldon, I thought I would save you some trouble. If you have something you could put on one of those trays, I’ll take it someplace out of the way.’

‘Tell me where you care to dine, Miss Grandison, and I’ll get your tray sent there.’

Ursula opted for the Morning Room. ‘Only something simple, cook, please.’

Entering the room where breakfast was normally served, she found the lamps had not been lit. Light from the corridor allowed her to discover matches and a candelabra. Placed on the centre of the round table, it threw unsettling shadows and the flames’ reflection flickered in the dark windowpanes. Ursula hurriedly drew the curtains with a hand she found was shaking. Perhaps that was why the ancient brocade came apart. It seemed as if the very fabric of Mountstanton was disintegrating.

Ursula sat at the empty table, and thought about all that had happened since her arrival all those weeks ago.

It had been plain from the outset that this was an unhappy household. Helen, who had once been her friend, could not have been less welcoming and Ursula was certain that this was not solely because of their past history. The passionate girl she remembered had metamorphosed into a cool, controlled woman who had no conscience about seducing a young man under her husband’s eyes. For Ursula was sure Helen had made the first move in her relationship with William Warburton. Without that, he would surely have behaved himself. Why, though, had her husband not acted?

Then, almost it seemed on arrival, Belle had become infatuated with the young man her sister had marked out for her own amusement. Why had Ursula not seen what was going on?

She had, after all, with the help of Mr Russell, her dinner partner, been instrumental in rescuing Belle from compromising herself in the shrubbery with the secretary. For a moment, Ursula allowed her mind to be sidelined by enjoying the memory of the amusing Mr Russell. She wished she had been able to stay longer keeping him company while he fished. How soon was he planning to leave his home? He’d made it sound as though it could be almost immediate, talking about sorting out possessions. She had wanted to give him Mr Seldon’s address as a contact in New York. But no doubt Helen would have supplied him with an introduction.

A knock on the door announced the arrival of her meal, brought in by Sarah, the maid who attended to her needs.

‘Oh, Miss Grandison, nobody has lit the lamps!’ She laid the tray on the table and proceeded to amend the oversight.

‘Since no one expected the room to be occupied, I am not surprised,’ Ursula said. ‘Thank you for bringing me my supper.’

Sarah placed one brightly burning lamp on the sideboard and another on the mantelpiece. ‘We all hopes Miss Belle will be found very soon, Miss Grandison.’

‘Thank you, Sarah.’

‘She’s, well, she never puts on airs, she’s always spoken to us like we were friends, if you’ll pardon me saying so.’

Ursula smiled at the worried-looking maid. ‘She’s a delightful girl and I know that everything is being done to find her. She is probably with a neighbour that we didn’t realise she knew well enough to visit with at this hour.’

Sarah’s face cleared. ‘That would make sense, miss. I hope you enjoys your meal.’

The tray contained a delicious-looking breast of chicken confection together with a selection of vegetables. There was a roll and butter, and trifle in a cut-glass dish. A small carafe of wine stood beside a glass.

Without a fire, the room was chilly. Ursula ate quickly and drank some of the wine. She started to take the tray back to the kitchen but was met on the way by Sarah.

‘Oh, miss, you should have rung the bell.’

‘I thought you all had enough to do with so many of the servants searching for Belle. Tell me, Sarah, is the fire in the library still burning? I don’t want to cause extra work but it is so chilly this evening.’

‘I’ll go and see, miss.’ But Ursula said she would attend to it.

Logs were needed on the library fire. Ursula built it up then warmed herself in front of its flames. She could not dispel the image of Belle, soaked through, chilled to the bone, searching desperately for shelter. Ursula herself had suffered from exposure to cold, rain and snow. In winter, the mining camps of the Sierra Nevada could be inhospitable. Jack had had no compunction in warming himself each evening in one of the many bars, downing the raw spirits that were all he could afford, while Ursula herself shivered in their shack, longing for him to return and offer the warmth of his body. ‘Why not come with me,’ he said each time he set off. ‘I’ll protect you from trouble.’

Ursula had known all too well that as soon as he had downed the first drink, Jack would forget all about her. It would be up to her to beat off the advances of miners starved of female companionship. A chilly demeanour and a glass of some vile-tasting, non-alcoholic drink would succeed for a short while. Then drunken leers would turn to aggression and she would have to leave before fighting broke out, stumbling from the small mining centre with a lamp to guide her through the dark, back to their freezing hut. Firewood had to be carefully husbanded for cooking their one hot meal of the day. Ursula had learned over time to cope with the cold, with Jack’s uncertain temper, with the lack of mining success – the small amounts of silver they found did little more than buy essential supplies. Belle, though, had always been sheltered from all of life’s storms – she had no experience of such wretched conditions.

As time went on and no news came back from the search parties, Ursula grew more and more worried. She could not help wondering whether she should go and see if Helen would, after all, welcome her company.

Then Sarah appeared. The girl looked full of suppressed excitement. ‘I have a message from John, miss.’

‘John?’

‘You know, John the footman. He’s found Miss Belle and wants to take you to her.’

‘Is she injured?’

Sarah looked worried. ‘I don’t know, miss. He’s waiting in the stables, says you better be ready to ride. He’s on the old Earl’s hunter.’

‘There’s no sign of Colonel Stanhope?’

‘No, miss.’

‘And John was riding? Wasn’t the horse party searching together?’

‘I don’t know, miss. Only that John wants you to come as soon as possible.’

‘You’d better take a message to her ladyship while I change into my habit.’

‘No, miss,’ Sarah said urgently. ‘John said no else is to know.’

‘Not even her ladyship?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘He said to hurry, miss.’

‘He hasn’t asked me to bring any bandages or anything special?’

‘No, just you.’ Sarah could hardly contain her impatience.

‘Then I’ll go and change and be at the stables as soon as I can. But there’s something very strange about this, Sarah.’

The maid looked embarrassed. ‘John’s always an odd one, miss. We never knows what he’ll do next. He’s even cheeked Mr Benson. Several times we thought he’d lose his job but somehow he’s always managed to stay. Oh, Miss Grandison, he’s found Miss Belle and he needs to take you to her.’

Ursula hesitated no longer. She went and hurriedly changed. Then she stuffed a holdall with a number of items. John might say nothing was needed, but life had taught her that most men had no idea of what could be required. Downstairs in the kitchen she begged some supplies and added them to her holdall. Then she limped along to the stables.

A number of lamps were burning both inside and outside. Hitched to a bridle post was Hector, the ancient hunter that had belonged to Richard’s father. John was just finishing saddling Daisy. He was dressed in working breeches and a rough jacket and looked very different from the liveried footman Ursula was used to seeing – rougher and yet more in command.

‘Have you really found Miss Seldon, John?’

He gave a last tug to the girth, straightened up and nodded. ‘Yes, Miss Grandison.’

‘She’s not injured?’

He checked the harness, his face averted from her. ‘Not sure, Miss Grandison.’

‘Not sure! What does that mean?’

‘It’s just that I haven’t actually seen her, miss.’ She gave him the holdall, told him to secure it to one of their saddles then used the mounting block.

Arranging her legs securely and the folds of her skirt properly, Ursula said, ‘I think you’d better explain exactly what has happened, John.’

Light from one of the lamps fell directly on his handsome face. It looked creased with worry and Ursula decided she could trust him.

‘You can fill me in as we go,’ she said crisply.

He mounted and they set off.

‘Does Colonel Stanhope know you are riding Hector?’

He nodded. ‘Said if I could handle him it were a good choice.’

‘Where did you learn to ride?’

‘My father were a farrier, miss. I were brought up with horses.’

‘But you didn’t want a life with them?’

‘I want more, miss. A life in London, theatres, excitement, like. Reckoned being a footman could bring me that.’

Despite all her anxiety, Ursula was amused. ‘And has it?’

‘We goes to London for the Season, miss, and at other times, every now and then.’

They rode in the same direction she had driven the trap earlier that day.

‘How many of you were in the riding party, John?’

‘Six, Miss. Colonel Charles, the four grooms and me.’

‘And where did you search?’

‘Colonel Charles said we were to go to the tenant farms. He sent us all to different ones. We were to ask if anyone had seen Miss Seldon, to say that she had gone for a ride without a groom and we thought she had got lost. Then we were to meet up with him at Mr Adams’s, the agent.’

‘And did you go to one of the farms?’

‘Yes, Miss. But they hadn’t seen a trace of her. Then I thought I knew where she might be.’

By now the rain had almost stopped but a keen wind blew. Clouds scudded across the sky, alternately obscuring and revealing the moon. It was like a cinematograph showing Ursula had once attended: black and white images flashing across a screen, making a curious kind of sense but remote from reality.

They left the road and started to canter across open ground. Soon John moved into a gallop. In the half dark, Ursula kept as close as she could to the footman, afraid of losing touch with him in an unknown landscape. On her own, she would have no idea which way to take back to Mountstanton.

Unease gripped Ursula. She could think of no good reason why the footman should not have gone to the Colonel and given him the information he thought he had.

And just what was that information?

Their speed increased. Ursula concentrated grimly on following him across first fields, then a gently rising meadow and then onto a wide path that led into a wood.

Here the trees dripped water and the moonlight, fitful at best, hardly penetrated the darkness. Ahead of her, Hector seemed to move forward without hesitation. Ursula felt as if she had entered some sort of sinister fairytale. Her sense of foreboding increased.

All at once the trees lessened and opened into a small clearing. A sudden shaft of moonlight showed a cottage, the type a woodsman might inhabit. Off to the side, a horse snickered in welcome and Ursula realised that Helen’s mare, Pocahontas, was tethered in a rough stall at the side of the cottage.

John dismounted then helped Ursula.

‘Belle is here?’

He nodded. ‘She wouldn’t let me in, just begged me to bring you to her. She sounded, well, strange. I tried to batter my way in but she screamed and screamed, said she wanted you and no one else. I didn’t know what to do, miss.’

He sounded so worried and unsure that Ursula couldn’t help sympathising with him.

He looked at the cottage. ‘When I left there was a candle burning inside.’

The single window was dark. Ursula ran to the door and banged on it. ‘Belle, it’s Ursula. I’m here. Let me in, please.’

There was no answer.

‘Belle, please, are you all right?’

Still no sound from inside the cottage.

‘John, please give me that holdall.’

He unfastened it from his saddle and handed it to her. Ursula extracted some matches and a small lamp, which she lit and held up high, examining the door. It was fastened with a simple latch but seemed to be secured on the inside.

‘John, you need to force it open,’ she said urgently.

‘Stand clear.’ He took a run at it, his right shoulder aiming for the latch.

At the third attempt, the hinges gave way. John managed to squeeze his way in. A moment later he had opened the latch and Ursula was able to enter, holding up her lamp and trying to make out the interior.

Then she saw Belle lying motionless and pale as death, one hand trailing from a rough bed set against the wall. She wasn’t breathing.

Ursula ran to the girl’s side, dropped to her knees and felt for a pulse in Belle’s neck. Then came a violent snore that vibrated through the dank atmosphere.

Ursula almost dropped her lantern with relief. Placing it securely on a chair, she examined the girl. Belle was breathing and there was a strong smell of alcohol. A brief look around revealed an empty, unmarked bottle underneath the bed, the clasp of its stopper open. Ursula dribbled the last few drops onto a finger and tasted gin. Then she pulled back the surprisingly soft couple of blankets that covered Belle. Underneath, the girl was only dressed in a corset over a chemise. Quickly, Ursula drew the covering back over her, and went outside.