Intrigue (Daughters of Mannerling 2) (2 page)

Downstairs, lessons and Miss Trumble were forgotten as all exclaimed over the precious invitation to a ball at Mannerling ‘in honour of the return of our son, Harry.’

Mrs Kennedy, Lord Fitzpatrick’s aunt, had taught them all how to make over their old dresses, but now the thought of having nothing new to wear was nigh unbearable.

Nevertheless, Lady Beverley proved adamant. Much as she shared her daughters’ obsession with Mannerling, she had also become obsessed with saving pennies. As she had been profligate in the past, now she had become almost miserly. ‘You still have beautiful ball gowns,’ she protested.

‘Everyone has seen them,’ wailed Rachel. The others pleaded in various ways for new gowns. ‘No,’ said their mother firmly. ‘We must make do. It is more important to arrive in style. We cannot all fit into our own little carriage, and so a carriage must be hired and coachman’s livery must be found for Barry.’

Miss Trumble appeared among them. ‘You must return to your lessons, girls,’ she said.

‘Such momentous news!’ exclaimed Lady Beverley. ‘We are to go to a ball at Mannerling.’

‘When, my lady?’ asked Miss Trumble.

‘Why . . . next week, next Friday.’

‘And you will accept such an invitation?’

Lady Beverley looked at the governess in surprise. ‘Why not, you odd creature? Have we not all been waiting and praying for such an invitation?’

‘All the invitations were issued three months ago, or so I learned at the market at Whitsun, all the
other
invitations. Surely to receive yours now is an insult.’

‘I do not look at it that way,’ said Lady Beverley mulishly. ‘Why, ’tis an oversight, that is all. Of course we shall go.’

‘As you will,’ said Miss Trumble quietly. ‘Come now, ladies, return to the schoolroom.’

‘But there is so much to do,’ said Jessica haughtily. ‘This is more important than poring over a lot of silly old books.’

‘I do think,’ put in Lady Beverley, ‘that my dear girls should be excused from lessons until after the ball is over.’

‘So be it,’ said Miss Trumble. ‘It goes against the grain, my lady, to be paid wages and not to earn my keep.’

‘Oh, that is true, very true,’ said Lady Beverley, who had conveniently forgotten the governess’s pay last quarter-day. ‘Off with you, my chucks. We will look over your gowns this evening.’

Scowling and muttering rebelliously, the sisters went back up to the schoolroom.

In the evening, while the girls fretted over their ball gowns, Miss Trumble let herself out into the garden. The air was cool and sweet. The sun was going down behind the trees. She gave a little sigh. She felt defeated. There was so much good in ‘her’ girls. The lateness of the invitations was insulting. They should not have accepted. ‘Evening, miss,’ said a voice behind her. She swung round. The stocky, reassuring figure of Barry Wort stood there in the evening light.

‘Good evening, Barry.’ Miss Trumble had a sudden desire to talk to someone, anyone, anyone at all who was not obsessed with Mannerling.

‘Walk with me a little,’ she ordered. ‘How goes the vegetable garden?’

‘Very fine, miss,’ said Barry. ‘More than plenty for the table.’

They walked around the side of the house and so into the herb-scented calm of the kitchen garden.

‘There is great excitement in the house,’ said Miss Trumble. ‘Late invitations to the Mannerling ball, and yet they are going.’

‘Of course, miss. If I may be so bold, to my reckoning they would have accepted the invitations had they arrived on the day of the ball itself.’

‘Quite.’ Miss Trumble half turned away. She should not be gossiping about her ‘betters’ with a lower servant. But she turned back and pulled her shawl more tightly about her thin shoulders. ‘I am . . . concerned for them. From what I hear, at least Miss Isabella did not seem to be possessed with the same demons.’

‘I am afraid that was not the case,’ said Barry. ‘I worshipped Miss Isabella – Lady Fitzpatrick, that is. But somehow she will always be Miss Isabella to me. Miss Isabella writes to me. Having been cured of all her longing for her old home, she is now concerned about her sisters. Did they tell you that Miss Lizzie tried to commit suicide?’

‘Over Mannerling? Over a
house
?
’

‘Yes, miss. Tried to drown herself in the river. Lord Fitzpatrick, he rescued her.’

Miss Trumble looked at him consideringly. Here was someone worth knowing. She could understand why the eldest Beverley sister wrote to him. He exuded a trustworthiness and calm that she found most endearing.

‘What can we do to save them?’ she heard herself asking.

Barry stooped down and pulled out a weed. Then he straightened up and looked at her seriously. ‘I have thought and thought, miss, and I have come to the conclusion that nothing but fate and God can do anything. I say my prayers for them nightly. I know more about these Deverses than even they do, servants being party to gossip between households. They are monstrous cold and proud and haughty, worse than the Beverleys ever were at the height of their glory. It is Miss Jessica who is setting her cap at Harry Devers. I have found, miss, that the only cure for false pride is humiliation. They will not receive the special treatment they still expect when they go to the ball. That might go a little way towards bringing them to their senses.’

‘And yet I would protect them from such a lesson,’ said Miss Trumble, half to herself.

Barry looked at her curiously. ‘I am a retired army man, miss, and have not been in service as an odd man for very long, but I have a sharp eye for quality. You do not seem at all like a governess to me.’

Miss Trumble looked amused. ‘And what are governesses like, Barry?’

He scratched his head. ‘They’re always reckoned to be poor things, miss. Neither fish nor fowl, bullied by their charges and treated badly by the lower servants. But to my mind, you seem more like the lady of the house at times than my Lady Beverley.’

Miss Trumble smiled. ‘A great compliment, and I thank you.’

‘Mr Ducket, Sir William’s secretary, called on quarter-day to help my lady with the servants’ wages, and the maid, Betty, did hear him ask as to why you had not been paid and my lady said, “Perhaps later. Miss Trumble is on trial.” ’

‘Ah, as to that, I had no immediate need of money, having saved from my previous employ. But thank you for telling me this. I shall demand my wages immediately. There was no question of a trial, believe me.’

Miss Trumble said good night to him and returned to the house. Bracing her shoulders, she went into the parlour where Lady Beverley was seated at her desk, going over the household accounts.

‘My lady,’ began Miss Trumble.

Lady Beverley turned round and gave a gracious smile. In that moment, the ghost of a pretty young girl appeared behind her faded and discontented features, showing that she had once been as beautiful as her daughters.

‘I did not receive my wages on quarter-day, my lady.’

Lady Beverley stood up and began to walk about the room, picking things up and then discarding them. ‘As to that,’ she said finally, ‘I understood you were here on trial, and I have not yet received your references.’

‘I was not aware that I was here on trial. Perhaps I should seek other employ?’

‘No, no,’ said Lady Beverley with a trace of petulance in her voice that showed she had realized she would have to pay the governess’s wages after all. She was proud of this elderly governess with her aristocratic air and manners, which Lady Beverley felt added to the family’s consequence. ‘I shall have the money for you in the morning. I would also like you to accompany us to this ball.’

‘In what capacity, my lady?’

‘Why, as chaperone to my girls.’

‘But you will be there yourself, and I have not been invited.’

‘No matter,’ said Lady Beverley haughtily. ‘I will send a note by Barry informing the Deverses that you will be accompanying us.’

Miss Trumble was about to protest, but the protest died on her lips. She was suddenly curious to see for the first time this great mansion that held the Beverleys in thrall.

Jessica peered round her bedroom door and watched the thin, erect back of the governess ascending to her room at the top of the house. She waited until the bobbing light of Miss Trumble’s bed-candle had disappeared around a turn in the stairs before she retreated into her room and firmly closed the door.

‘Now we can talk freely,’ she said to her sisters, who were sprawled about the room. ‘To be fair, one cannot expect such as a mere governess to understand our love of Mannerling. Do you think Mr Harry Devers will be fetched by the blue muslin or the white?’

Rachel said, ‘I think you should borrow my silver overdress.’

‘But that is your favourite, besides being quite the prettiest thing you have.’

Abigail, Rachel’s twin, said, ‘But it is you, Jessica, who is to marry Mr Devers and get our home back for us, so I think you should have the pick of what we have.’

The others murmured their agreement.

Lizzie looked around at her sisters. ‘If only we knew more about these Deverses. Barry could tell us, I am sure, but Mama says we are not to speak to him or to any of the other servants.’

‘Quite right, too,’ said Belinda languidly. ‘We had begun to forget our station in life.’

‘And yet,’ said Abigail, her fair hair glinting in the soft light from the oil-lamp, ‘servants’ gossip could be so useful. All we know is that the Deverses are very high in the instep.’

‘So are we,’ said Jessica. ‘It means they will not have vulgarized Mannerling like Mary and the dreadful Judd did.’

‘Try on your ball gown and let’s have a rehearsal,’ urged Lizzie.

So, laughing and giggling, they helped Jessica into the white muslin gown and the silver gauze overdress. Abigail then acted the part of Harry Devers, and Jessica flirted so outrageously that they were soon all helpless with laughter.

Upstairs Miss Trumble heard that laughter and wished in her heart that all the joy and excitement were for a worthier reason.

Two days before the ball, Miss Trumble gave up all efforts at trying to teach her overexcited charges and obtained Lady Beverley’s permission to take the carriage into the neighbouring town of Hedgefield. Barry was driving. It was another perfect day. Miss Trumble realized as they drove farther away from Brookfield House that she had been beginning to find the atmosphere of almost mad excitement very disturbing. How five intelligent and beautiful girls could suddenly decide that it was only a matter of time before they all returned to Mannerling was beyond her. If by any remote chance Harry Devers proposed to Jessica and married her, what then? How could the rest of the Beverley family take up residence, with Mr and Mrs Devers very much alive? Besides, there had been no gossip at all about young Harry planning to sell out of the army. He was home only on leave.

‘Is Mannerling so very beautiful?’ she asked Barry.

‘So people do reckon, miss,’ said Barry. ‘I can’t see it myself, having taken the place in dislike on account of what it nearly did to Miss Isabella, not to mention poor little Miss Lizzie trying to drown herself.’

‘Is it haunted?’

‘No, but ’twill be if there are any more deaths. John, an oily footman who worked for the Beverleys, then Mr Judd and who is now with the Deverses told me last market day that he had seen the ghost of Mr Judd, but he always was a silly fellow.’

‘Have you seen the Deverses?’ asked Miss Trumble as they began to drive into the centre of Hedgefield.

Barry nodded. ‘They were in town last market day. Why, there they are!’ He pointed with his whip.

A tall lady and gentleman were standing outside the Green Man, followed by a lady’s-maid and two footmen. Mrs Devers was expensively and fashionably gowned. Her husband was a miracle of good tailoring. He wore a white wig, curled and pomaded, under a high-crowned beaver. With them was a younger man, possibly in his early thirties. He was standing with his hat in his hand. His black hair was cut in a fashionable Brutus crop. He had a clever, handsome face, a proud nose, and intelligent black eyes.

‘That must be Mr Harry with them,’ said Barry, ‘although he’s older than I was led to believe.’

For the first time, Miss Trumble began to have some hopes about the Deverses. Mr and Mrs Devers were pretty much what she had imagined them to be. But their son appeared intelligent, good humoured, and very, very attractive.

Perhaps this ball might not be so bad after all.

Jessica found herself becoming increasingly nervous about the ball. It is very easy to allow other people to put you into roles and you may end up acting that role for the rest of your life. Jessica had certainly maintained that Isabella lacked ‘bottom,’ that she should have kept her sights on Mannerling and forgotten about love, the implication being that she, Jessica, would never have been so weak. And so her sisters looked up to her as a strong character, the sister of iron, and Jessica came to believe that was exactly what she was. But when she was alone, she felt weak and vulnerable and prey to doubts. Had her parents been more loving and less proud, then perhaps Mannerling would not have been so predominant in her thoughts. As children when they long for home think of their mother and father, so Jessica thought of the cool elegant rooms of Mannerling and remembered her days there as being full of sunshine and laughter, which had not been at all the case. She forgot that her hitherto uneducated mind had made many of the days long and tedious, particularly after the long winters set in.

So basically rather timid and shy, Jessica, like most shy people, found it easier to play the part thrust on her, and the bolder and more ‘clear-headed’ she seemed in her ambitions, the more her sisters appeared to admire her.

She was taking one of her solitary, restless walks around the garden one evening when she was joined by Lizzie. Like her sisters, Jessica never liked to dwell too deeply on Lizzie’s attempted suicide, putting it down to the temporary madness of a delicate nature. As other girls might find excuses for the monstrous behaviour of a drunken father, so did Jessica shy away from the truth that an obsession with Mannerling had nearly killed Lizzie.