Lace for Milady (4 page)

“It is said that Belview has fifty bedrooms. I can’t think one of them could not house your relative.”

Again there was a pause, then he decided to humour me with an answer. “Sixty actually, but my aunt is ill—lung trouble—and requires sea air without the inconvenience of a large house. Seaview is closer to the sea than I am, and it has the solarium."

One would think his aunt was to have the “inconvenience” of polishing the floors and windows to hear him speak. “It isn’t that much closer, and as to the solarium it is more of a nuisance than anything else. It is very uncomfortable. We never use it.”

“You are not invalids. My aunt would use it.”

“She will not use it for nineteen years, sir. By that time I trust she will be either recovered to health or dead.”

“Suit yourself. You have made a bad bargain, and I thought any
intelligent
person would be happy to extricate herself so easily. You will find no surfeit of buyers for a house that boasts no land of its own, not even the ground it stands on.”

“I don’t want a surfeit of buyers, or even one.”

Again that maddening, superior smile was on his hateful gypsy face. “You will look nohow when it is discovered in Pevensey how Lady Inglewood gulled you,” he said, trying a new tack to make me sell.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.”

“I thought otherwise. Your quite foolish, and really very dangerous maiden ride in a spinney without a groom to help you led me to believe you preferred to keep your blunders to yourself. You should take your first lessons in a clear area that offers soft falling and no dangerous trees or obstacles. An enclosed field is recommended. And
never
alone, just in case you should get thrown—or dismount precipitately—and hurt your knee.”

“I did not dismount precipitately.”

“You did not dismount at all, madam. The word denotes some choice in the matter. You fell, due to your unique method of buckling the girth loosely. If you ever screw up your courage to try it again, get some help. And you would do better to get yourself a tame mount rather than tackling that spitfire Lady Inglewood keeps. I’m surprised she would let you out on such a spirited mount.”

“She has nothing to say about what I ride. She is not my chaperone.”

“Surely she has something to say about your ruining her favourite mount’s mouth with that manner in which you clutch at the reins.”

“Juliette is my horse.”

“Good God! Gulled again,” he said, in a choking voice, and went off into a series of ill-bred chuckles. He arose, still laughing. “I come to see you will be extremely easy to deal with. You will
buy
anything, and I have some hope that you will also
sell
me Seaview before many days are out.”

“Hillcrest
is not for sale.”

“I am not interested in buying McCurdy’s place. It is this house that stands on my land I am after. And shall get,
tard ou tôt
. Good day, ma’am.” He executed two abbreviated bows toward Slack and myself and left.

“I never met such an insufferably rude man in my life,” I said to Slack.

“Sell it,” she replied.

“Sell Hillcrest! I wouldn’t sell it for the world.”

“You never called it Hillcrest before today, and it is too foolish to start doing so now, only because the Duke says it is called Seaview. He is a nasty, foreign-looking person to be sure, and not to be trusted any more than any other man, but still he offered a fair bargain, and I’m surprised you didn’t leap at it.”

“Why does he want it? Why should he want this little place when he owns Belview, a monstrous house, and half the land between here and Dover. No, Slack, there is something afoot here, and I mean to find out what it is."

My next move was to go storming over to Lady Inglewood’s and give her the sharp edge of my tongue. She was very civil, as she always is when she has won a point and knows very well she has been dishonest.

“Oh, my dear, you are limping. I hope you didn’t take a spill from Juliette.”

She wore bile green today, draped to reveal the layer of fat that encircled her waist like a cincture.

“No, I twisted my knee coming down the stairs. The corner of the carpet at the bottom of the .stairs is loose, but I shall have it repaired.” Slack scowled at me, for she is a demon for honesty. “I like Juliette very much. I have had my first ride, and we go on famously.”

She looked unconvinced, and so, of course, knew very well she had sold me a mount much too frisky for my nonexistent skills, but it was the leased land I had come to argue about and was not to be diverted by a trifle. “I have sustained a call from the Duke of Clavering,” I said, squaring my shoulders for battle.

“So unpleasant for you,” was her commiserating reply.

“Unpleasant in the extreme, to discover my land is not my own.”

“Oh, you refer to the leased land. But of course that is all in the papers. You knew that. I made no effort to conceal it. No one would sign such an important document without reading it all.”

“You never mentioned a word of it!”

“You never asked.”

“I never asked if the house were yours to sell either. I assumed that when my
own aunt...
"

“We discussed, I believe, the matter of the Dower House not being entailed with the estate but my own personal property.”

This was her line, and she stuck to it buckle and thong. She let fall a few casual mentions of having consulted her solicitor on the matter, which I make no doubt she had done. “So it is all legal, and you must speak to Clavering on the matter. He will renew the lease, for a price.”

“I have spoken to him. He won’t renew it.”

“Pshaw! Of course he will. What did you offer him?”

“I didn’t offer him anything.”

“Well, my dear, you can’t expect something for nothing. Make him an offer. Say five hundred pounds for another ninety-nine years. See if he don’t jump at it.”

"No, he wants to buy the place from me."

“Does he indeed?” she asked, with a light of interest in her eyes. “Did he mention a price?"

“Yes, he offered me the price I paid for it, though of course, he found it very high, considering the leased land,” I added with a glare.

“Well, there you are, then. If you dislike the bargain we made, you can be out of it easily enough and no harm done."

This was so patently true that I found myself at point non plus. I could hardly complain about the deal when it could be undone with a word.

We—for, of course, Slack accompanied me on this important visit—were left without a thing to say, and settled in for a chat. We had a cup of bohea and some of my aunt’s really lovely scones. She relented and gave Slack the recipe for them on that day—a treat formerly denied us. We were returned to superficial terms of amity. It was usually thus between us. We were at undeclared war but claiming friendship because of kinship. I imagine it is the manner in which many families go on. But enough philosophizing. The door knocker sounds, and I must hide these pages in a drawer or find someone perusing them whom I would prefer not to do so till I have glanced over them and seen if I have been too harsh on anyone.

Chapter Three

The fact of George’s being absent when we called upon my aunt that afternoon necessitated his coming that evening to woo me. George, I presumed, took after his papa. He bore no resemblance to his mother. He was a tall, gangly, unprepossessing gentleman, with lank brown hair, a weak chin, and a mouth that had two positions, sulking and grinning. It is difficult to determine which was the less appealing. He wore mouth number two when he entered, grinning. I suppose the grin is actually the less repulsive of the two. Grown men ought not to sulk.

“I hear Clavering was to call,” he said, before ever he took a seat.

“Yes, he called early this afternoon.”

“Odd he is at home. With autumn coming on he is usually in London. He is active in Parliament, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” I replied, with no effort to feign interest.

“Oh, yes, very active, though I don’t know exactly what it is he does. He is a Whig. But there has been a spot of trouble lately with the Gentlemen, and he might be here to look into that.”

“What gentlemen?” I asked, with some curiosity.

“The
Gentlemen,” he repeated. George is not bright. Sometimes it is necessary to rephrase a question three or four times before he understands it. Even this does not ensure a meaningful reply. On this occasion, Slack devised the second rendition.

“This is Whig gentlemen you’re talking about, is it, George?” Slack is altogether incomprehensible to me. She dislikes ninety-nine men out of a hundred, but for some obscure reason, she has taken a liking to George and treats him with not only civility but downright kindness.

“Lord, no. I mean the smugglers,” he replied, giving us at last his meaning.

“Smugglers?” Slack gasped. I did not gasp. I had heard mention in town of smuggling activities going forth. It is only to be expected on the coast, of course.

“What sort of trouble has there been?” I enquired.

“Caught a bunch of them red-handed. Clavering takes a dim view of smuggling. He’ll speak to the magistrate and see they’re dealt with severely.”

“What has Clavering to say about it?”

“He pretty well runs things hereabouts. Well, a Duke, and his family have been forever. There is no point Mama telling me
I
ought to..." Perhaps he forgot his mother’s instructions to him. “He has the magistrates and all the politicians in his pocket.”

“I am surprised he wastes his time with such a petty matter,” I said. “Surely with the war on and the country in such an abominable state, with everyone being taxed to death and the drop in value of the pound eating up the little that is left us, a politician should be better occupied than out chasing a few miserable smugglers.”

“Well, he is a law and order man,” George explained. “Then, too, there were hunters caught on his lands lately, and that would annoy him no end.”

“Any gentleman who owns the better part of a county must expect that,” I replied irately.

“Not Clavering. He’s posted, and they oughtn’t to have been on his land.”

“What do you mean, posted?”

“Why, he’s put his signs up. You must have seen his signs. Hunting is not allowed on private property if the owner posts signs. Otherwise, of course, those entitled to hunt may hunt anywhere. Game laws,” George explained, rather inadequately.

“Do you mean to tell me, George, that any man with a gun may go on any other man’s property and shoot his game?”

“Certainly not! Only owners of land worth more than a hundred pounds a year, the eldest sons of squires or higher-placed persons, or lessees of land worth one hundred and fifty a year are allowed to hunt game."

“But they may do so
anywhere?
They could go on your land or mine and shoot our rabbits and we couldn’t stop them?”

“Certainly you can run them off, but they are allowed to come on unless told otherwise.”

“I never heard of such a thing in my life!” I declared. I first doubted George had the thing straight, but if there was one thing he did know, it was hunting, and the wealth of detail he was in possession of denoted real knowledge. He would not have the wits to make up arbitrary figures.

“The act was passed in 1671 and is still in effect,” he informed, finding no fault with this iniquitous situation. “If you don’t want them on your land, of course, you can kill your own foxes, for it’s mostly fox they shoot. But then if you kill your foxes, the rabbits breed like rabbits.” He detected no humour in this comparison. “Really it’s six of one and half a dozen of t’other. Clavering killed his foxes, dashed bounder, but his lands are alive with rabbits and badgers and all the smaller game that don’t get ate up by the foxes. Dandy shooting at Belview there’d be if it weren’t for the traps.”

“What sort of traps has he set?” I asked.

“Mantraps. He has the place littered with them. But he’s posted, and there’s nothing can be done. Clavering, after all.” It was sufficient. The Duke of Clavering could lay out mantraps to maim and kill innocent passersby, and so long as he posted it, nothing could be done. Any illiterate who did not understand the signs and decided to take a shortcut through one of his fields might lose a leg, or his life. That would make no difference to
him.
This ruthlessness tallied very well with the opinion I held of the man, but why should anyone be so selfish?

“
Why
does he do it?” I asked George.

He shrugged his sloping shoulders. “Says it’s to protect his ruins.” This was typical George-talk. Uninformative.

“What ruins is this you’re talking about?” Slack asked, knowing I would phrase the question less politely.

“Some old falling-apart bit of a church or some such thing on his lands, in the meadow, I believe. It’s supposed to be built on top of a Roman temple, and he wants to protect it. He collects rubbish found about his place—Roman rubbish.”

“Roman
rubbish? How would he find such ancient things?” I asked.

“This place is full of old Roman ruins. There must have been hundreds of Romans living here at one time. Clavering has a whole room full of broken jugs and whatnot. Likes them better than real ones. He can tell you to a year or two how old they are. The older they are, the better he likes them.”

“He didn’t look like a scholar to me,” I said.

“Scholar? No such a thing. Just collects things, that’s all. Collects other things, too. Has a Marine Room he calls it, with glass cabinets full of shells.”

“And is now taking up house collecting,” I said stiffly. “The acquisitive instinct is strong in him.”

Before George made any reply, there was a diversion in the room. The grate, and indeed the mantelpiece over it, gave a great jump, as though the whole thing were about to fall through the floor.

“What on earth was that?” Slack shouted.

“Grate bumping,” George replied, uninformative as ever. We had noticed the grate was bumping.

“What could have caused it?” Slack asked him, since he did not appear to view this bizarre occurrence as unusual at all.