Grace Gibson (5 page)

From the seat of Bromley’s curricle, Lord Robert noticed a pen of black swine next to a small cottage bordering Margill. He could never pass by a pig in the country without recollecting one certain day at the Greenly home farm. He and Mary had argued over whether the smell of pigs was worse than the smell of the back alleys of London. When he flung at her the accusation that, having never been to London, she could hardly be the judge, she had grabbed the nearest youth and furiously set him to washing pigs in the clover patch. In truth, the image of poor Jim Barry running after squealing pigs with a bucket and a brush gave rise to a smile, but that same smile quickly turned to a grimace at the recollection of Miss Mary Fanley’s treachery.

It wasn’t only Jim Barry who was laughed at by most of Fanley’s tenants. His argument with the mistress of Greenly had not been discreet. By the time the last pig was polished, the tale was spread that the heir of Devonshire’s nose was dainty and that he was squeamish as a girl.

He had been livid, but determined not to betray his feelings by storming away from the scene. “I believe I am in need of help above stairs,” he yawned. “Send that young man to wait on me. His grooming skills seem promising for what I might need in the country.”

He had not been sincere of course, but she had taken glee in rubbing salt in the wound by taking him at his word. When Jim had presented himself, nervous but shiningly clean and sweet smelling, he was in a condescending mood and allowed the lad to serve him.

“Pray, Jim,” he had said while he was helped on with his tight red coat, “is your Mistress always so capricious?”

“Begging your pardon, sir?” Jim stammered.

“Is it her habit to have the pigs washed?”

“Oh, no, sir, that was just a lark of hers, that was. I’m sure she only made me do it on account of me eating one of cook’s pies that was meant for your honour’s dinner.”

“Fascinating,” Lord Robert said glumly.

“I beg your pardon?” Susan Bromley asked.

He was driving Miss Bromley on a pleasure outing along a country road in Somersetshire, and had been caught speaking aloud what he had been thinking.

“Oh, fascinating!” he said, making a recovery and taking a tighter grip on the traces. Miss Bromley had been talking at length on the subjects which primarily made up her conversation. She specialized in facts about town life she had heard but never experienced, the unfortunate looks and circumstances of all the poor, eligible girls for miles around, and her family’s rank and consequence in the neighbourhood. Lord Robert had been very willing at first to hear all these anecdotes, as she spoke charmingly, but the repetitiveness led him to a firm belief that she had been coached as to how to go on when speaking with a gentleman. At last he felt only desperation. That he would find contemplating Mary Fanley’s pig washing incident a refuge from the tenth telling of what the parson said about poor Miss Somebody’s terrible limp, severely aggravated him.

“Tell me, Miss Bromley, what think you of pig sties?”

Her amber coloured eyes showed terror, for it was apparent she could not think anything that she had not been told to think. “Oh,” she managed, “they are so…common?”

“Indeed, that they are, here in Somersetshire,” he replied in a spiritless voice, “but the pigs in Greenly Village are uncommonly well-kept, or so I have noticed.”

At his family home in London, Lord Eversham spared no thought for his nephew. He had many responsibilities — most self-inflicted, but heavy nonetheless. Having assumed control of such a vast wreck of noble heritage, Lord Eversham thought of Denley mostly in terms of a cost to be relegated or remediated.

By the second week after leaving Somersetshire, Eversham received news of Denley via a rare note from him, franked from Margill Estate.

Uncle,

Miss Bromley, though initially promising, has proven to possess such a want of intelligence that I can claim acquaintance with cattle of more understanding! However, the younger sister Catherine is a most agreeable young lady, and I mean to get acquainted with her before your planned return.

This short missive was closed with a firm assertion he would see through his stay at Margill as planned.

The note, although burned immediately upon being read, caused Eversham to suffer a rare qualm. He had seen enough of Margill to feel his decision to place Denley in the midst of such a family had been well-calculated. Yet, at seventeen, Miss Catherine could hardly prove suitable — particularly with regard to stabilizing the profligacy of a young Marquis hell-bent on self-destruction. However, at the end of his ruminations on this turn of events, he reminded himself that whether Denley were married to a model of bourgeoisie pretension or rotting in Marshalsea, at least the expense of his dissipation would be at an end. So he took a small glass of fine claret and thought no more about it.

That is to say, he thought no more about it until six days later, when, at a late morning breakfast, while reading the business notices of the newspaper, the butler announced a visitor. Looking over his quizzing glass with a distinct frown, Eversham said, “Pray admit him, Quinley.” That grave person returned in a moment’s time with a large, rough man, clad in a burlap coat with his grey hat in hand.

“Explain what you are doing in London when you are being paid to mind my nephew?” Lord Eversham barked.

Brinkley, one of two stalwarts whose mission was to assure that the young Marquis did not bolt off to a gaming hell or out of the Sovereignty, stammered and coughed. “Beggin’ your Lordship’s pardon, sir, but I’m ’ere only on account of mindin’ the young lord.”

Eversham’s ever-dark face grew a shade darker as his eyebrows lifted. “Explain yourself then, if you please, Mr. Brinkley. What has Denley done?”

“It’s that he petitioned us to bring him here safe like, on account of some scrape he was got in, and he won’t be coming up to see your Lordship lest you give him leave like, sir,” came the halting reply.

“A scrape,” came the very frigid voice.

“Yes, sir, so he said.”

“And where is he at this moment?” came the next question, in even icier tones.

“He’s in the kitchen with Mr. Drake, your Lordship,” coughed Brinkley, “awaiting your leave to come up.”

Lord Eversham took in this information with an unnatural calm which caused Mr. Brinkley to fear for his employment. But rather than vent fury on the hired man he rang crisply for the butler. “Mr. Quinley,” he said evenly, “pray escort Mr. Brinkley to the kitchen and fetch my nephew.”

“My Lord Denley is here?” Mr. Quinley asked, in no small surprise.

“So it would seem. You will know him — although I am sure he has affected some disguise?”

This last he addressed to Mr. Brinkley, who said, “Sure enough, sir. We would not be bringing him right past Bow Street without making him look like he ain’t like no Marquis who’s a person of interest.”

To Quinley, Eversham said with asperity, “No doubt he will look like the hurley-burleys with whom he’s been keeping company.”

So the Marquis was ushered into the breakfast parlour, where his uncle sat waiting for bad news.

“I thank you, uncle,” Denley said, brushing past Quinley in a rush and discarding his rough coat in that worthy’s extended arm, “for seeing me. I believe you will not like me being here, but allow me at least to explain myself.”

“Indeed, I am agog,” professed the uncle while poring himself a cup of tea. “But, pray tell me first: how much this will cost? So that while you are ranting on about your side of the story I can be deciding whether or not I shall rescue you this time.”

“Cost?” Denley exclaimed in surprise. “I should dare say very little, although there is the money I owe Brinkley for the expenses of travel — you have left me without a feather to fly with!”

“I find I do not care for you as a high flyer. Now, are you quite out of your mind to be coming to London where you are known to be adrift from the law for duelling, indebted to a criminal degree and hunted by a dozen enraged fathers that we know of? Not to mention the trifling matter of the moneylenders who do not care to operate within the boundaries of common law?”

“Sir, I felt it worth the risk to escape Margill,” Robert replied with conviction.

Lord Eversham stood up and glared at his nephew. “Good God, you have not…”

“No!” cried Denley. “Are you suggesting I would seduce a daughter of such a scheming mercenary as Mrs. Bromley? She set many a trap, I assure you, but my conduct was quite Christian and above reproach. You yourself witnessed me going there with every honourable intention! Then Miss Bromley revealed herself to be the most intolerably witless creature. And Miss Catherine- A shrew! A temper like that of a sea witch over some little trifle or other, and all of them trying to contain her so I wouldn’t hear her screeches and her mama telling me that she is prone,
but very rarely,
to the megrims, but nothing that a few hours in seclusion with the hartshorn and smelling salts won’t cure.” He caught his breath after his tumbling oration, and glared at his uncle. “I am
insulted
you would accuse me of intrigue in such a wretched quagmire of characters. Indeed! And I am quite enraged that you thought to introduce me
there,
and to leave me quite friendless in such a coil.”

“Ah,” Lord Eversham said, retaking his seat and picking up his newspaper again. He placed the paper between his flushed and panting nephew and himself, and after a moment, bent the corner enough to peer over it. “I infer that the Miss Catherine is no longer an object of pursuit?”

Lord Robert let out a deflated, exasperated snort in reply.

“Then may I also infer that, upon reflection, the evils of Miss Mary Fanley are not so very insurmountable?”

Lord Robert stared at the newspaper, behind which his uncle sat quite at his ease. After a moment he took a chair, and began to laugh; a low, mirthless chuckle.

“Pray, what has amused you sir?” Eversham asked from behind the commodities page.

“Oh, I see how you have played this hand — and
touché
, I am pinked.” Denley made a mock bow from his chair.

“Then I suggest you prepare to travel to Greenly at week’s end, for I cannot like to harbour unsavouries of your ilk.” Eversham rang the bell. “Quinley, Lord Robert and I will travel on Friday morning to Yorkshire. See that the arrangements are made.”

“And my lord’s luggage?” Mr. Quinley asked meticulously of Lord Robert.

“Send to Somersetshire for it, if you please. Margill Manor,” Eversham instructed.

“And,” Lord Robert said, a little tentatively, “inquire at the Red Pony, in the village, for a Molly Harper. Have her sent to Treehill. I have engaged her as a housemaid.”

Mr. Quinley flicked an inquiring look at his master, who only nodded. But, after the door was closed, Eversham said, “Really, Robert, I had not thought you would be chasing the servants in the back stairs while visiting an acquaintance of
mine
.”

“It is no such thing, sir,” Robert replied with dignity. “She was turned out by Miss Catherine for breaking a hairbrush, the parts of which I believe were used to beat her. And she took my note to the village, to fetch your watchdogs to Margill bearing some false pretence of urgent business, so I could, in all good appearances, make my escape.”

“So you have employed her. I see. And, since I am your banker, I suppose you expect me to make good on such a promise? Really, Robert, you must learn to curb your more charitable instincts.”

“I will have need of a maid, you will allow.”

“And now you have one.”

“A grateful one at that.”

Riversham sighed in exasperation, even as a shadow of a smile crossed his eyes. “Be gone, brat.”

“Ah, the happy sounds of my childhood,” replied Denley in equal charity.

“You will stay hidden above stairs, like the scoundrel you are, until Friday morning. Your meals will be sent up, and you will have paper and pen to write a marvellously flattering letter to Bromley thanking him for his hospitality, et cetera, and explaining why you will not be returning.”

“Cannot your secretary do that?”

“No, he is busy. Also, send some word to Mr. Fanley if you please.”

Four days stretched interminably for the Marquis of Denley, imprisoned in a bed chamber as if he had the pox. His one escape attempt, a dimly formed plan to enlist Brinkley and Drake to take him out for air, was quashed by his vigilant uncle. Eversham. He had put his men on notice that, should they aid and abet his nephew again, they would find themselves discharged without references. All that was left for the young man to do was to pace and rake his hands through his blond mane in a fit of unspent energy, and to think. The letter to the Bromleys was done after several attempts — each more false, flowery and pretentious than the last, until the final draft fairly dripped with condescension and satire.

“It will suit,” Eversham said upon inspecting the document. “I dare say they will think it a treasure, once they’ve got over the fact you’ve wriggled out of the net.”

Robert did not reply. He had, by the third day, become morose and silent. Eversham noted it, but felt little in the way of compassion or concern.

He finally relented on the second day of the long journey to Yorkshire, when the silence of his companion simply overwhelmed him by its longevity.

“You had best tell me what has you so bedevilled,” he said, after an uncommunicative luncheon at a wayside inn, followed by an hour of jostling on a rutted road that did not spark a single oath from his companion.

Denley hesitated before he straightened his back and focused his gaze. “Is there truly no recourse to settling our affairs that does not involve Mary Fanley?”

“Do you object to her so much?”

“Indeed, I do not object to her as much as I did. It is, rather, that she should object to me.”

“You are feeling scrupulous again? First some poor maidservant, and now Miss Fanley’s prospects. I despair, Robert.”

Denley made no response, but retreated into his silence, forcing Eversham to a rare capitulation. “Do not trouble yourself so on Mary’s account. You will make her a duchess for God’s sake. And think. What is her future otherwise? She cannot have any society — you know her father. He will not put her in the way of an eligible match, and he will be very happy should she pass on to spinsterhood waiting on him hand and foot. Reflect on the ways in which your association will benefit her, and rest assured your perfidies will not touch her, for I intend you to live quietly, in the strictest economy.”

“So, by your own account, we will be poor and isolated in the country without the acknowledgement of society. Am I to find aught in this that elevates her from what she is now? By my reckoning, she is poor and isolated in the country without the acknowledgement of society already.”

“If I could trust you with more than a competence, I would. It is your due, and your station in life demands privilege. But in truth, Robert, we have no money.”

The Marquis of Denley’s young face turned stony and masked, and an extended silence followed that stark revelation. Eversham spoke no more, for he wanted the reality of such a nightmare to sink deeply into the consciousness of the heir apparent.

At last, Lord Robert stirred. “It is not the money that vexes me, sir,” he said, in a sober man’s voice. “Our family has other curses that make living on a competence in the obscure country seem like a holiday.”

“Ah.” Now it was Eversham’s turn to fall into the gravest of silences. At length he spoke. “You do not want to expose Mary Fanley to the spectre of madness that runs in the house of Devonshire.”

“I do not want to expose Mary Fanley to a husband who, by degrees, becomes irrational and runs amok in the moonlight!” cried Robert. “I do not want to expose Mary Fanley to a child, or God forbid,
children,
who become more and more strange or difficult and must eventually, for the sake of common courtesy to neighbours and servants, be sent to an institution in Wales!” He gathered himself then, and said with conviction, “I am not, as you allude, afraid to introduce her to my father. I do not relish it, but it is an evil I can endure. Nor do I shy from the odious introduction to the opera singer turned profiteer who is my stepmother. I find myself confronted with the task of wooing and wedding a respectable girl, one who should not have to bear any burden, much less the extraordinary one of marrying a ruined, dissipated man.
That
is a prospect that causes me to ask — is there truly no way to settle our affairs that does not involve Mary Fanley?”