A Dangerous Undertaking

by Mary Nichols

  But that did not mean she wanted to stay. Her uncle evidently did not want her and she was certainly not impressed with him, but what else was there for her to do? She had no money to return to London. Suddenly she found herself thinking again of Charles Mellison, who had suggested she should marry, and his long-legged, handsome companion, who was looking for a wife. She did not want either of them to be given the opportunity of crowing over her. She smiled and turned from the window; she would just have to make the best of the situation. Straightening her shoulders, she returned downstairs and made her way to the kitchen, intending to ask for mops and buckets to clean her room.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MISTRESS CLARK was thin and dark, reminding Margaret of a scavenging crow as she darted about the kitchen picking up utensils and bowls. She was muttering to herself, but stopped suddenly when she saw Margaret. ‘Miss Felicity!’ The bowl she had in her hand dropped to the floor and shattered. Margaret bent to pick up the pieces.

  ‘It’s a judgement, that’s what it is,’ the woman went on, crossing herself. ‘I knew it would all end in tears; I told you so.’

  ‘I’m not Felicity, Mistress Clark. I’m her daughter, Margaret.’

  The cook let out her breath in a long sigh. ‘My, you gave me a fright, mistress. The image of your poor mother, you are.’

  ‘My mother is dead.’

  ‘And you thought you would come back home, did you?’

  ‘It was Mama’s last wish. I’m sure she didn’t know it would be like…’ She paused, lifting her arm to indicate the house. ‘Like this.’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t. She was only a young girl when she left home. I told her; I told her it would end in misery…’

  ‘Mama wasn’t unhappy, Mistress Clark. She and my father were very happy until he died and then we managed very well, she and I.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. But you aren’t thinking of staying here, are you? This is an evil place and that one…’ She pointed with a wooden spoon at the wall dividing the kitchen from the rest of the house. ‘That one is the devil. Get out. Get out before he drags you under his wicked spell. He’ll——’

  She was interrupted by a bellow from the corridor outside, and the door was thrown open to reveal Henry Capitain, more tousled than ever. ‘Are you going to stand there gossiping all day? I want my dinner.’

  ‘It’s coming,’ the cook said, but there was no servility in her tone. ‘Do you think I’ve got ten pairs of hands?’

  ‘And you mind your manners, or you’ll be out on your ear.’

  Her answer was a laugh of derision.

  He ignored it and turned to Margaret. ‘Get back where you belong. Seeing’s you’re here, you can be my hostess. You can’t be any worse at it than Nellie. Come on, now, we’ve company.’

  Margaret followed him back to the drawing-room, where she found three men and three women who had arrived while she had been talking to the cook. They were all so grotesquely painted that it was impossible to tell what their features were like, and they wore huge wigs which disguised the colour of their hair. The men’s clothes were as vivid as the women’s, in pinks and purples, greens and mauves. They reminded Margaret of a flock of parrots.

  ‘Margaret, I want you to meet our guests,’ he said, waving a hand at them. ‘Entertain them while I go and dress.’

  He disappeared, leaving Margaret unable to utter a word. They stared at her; one of them even lifted a quizzing-glass and moved it up and down inches from her face. ‘Ain’t seen you before,’ he said. ‘Where’d old Henry find you?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ she said coldly. ‘I am his great-niece.’

  This was followed by another long silence, until Nellie came in and diverted them with cries of welcome. ‘It’s been dull,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing to do…’

  ‘Nothing to do, Nellie?’ one of the women laughed. ‘Don’t Henry satisfy you any more? Well, now we’re all here, things will liven up, don’t you think? Is the niece part of the entertainment?’

  ‘My, I could be entertained by that one,’ drawled one of the men, looking lecherously at Margaret. ‘It might be amusing, don’t you think? The quiet ones often turn out to have hidden fire. I had a mistress once, young she was, hardly out of the schoolroom and carefully brought up, but my, was she a demon in bed!’

  He laughed heartily as Margaret turned and fled.

  She ran up to her room, grabbed her bag and hurried down the back stairs to the kitchen. Mistress Clark was just taking a roast fowl from the oven. Margaret dashed past her and out of the door. They would surely catch her if she tried to go back along the only road. She turned and ran over the grass to the landing-stage. They could not follow her if she took the only boat. She threw her bag in the bottom, climbed in and cast off.

  She had never rowed a boat before, but she had seen it done on the Thames and she bent to the oars with a will. At first she went round and round and kept bumping into the bank, but at last she found a kind of rhythm and discovered how to steer. Her direction was clear enough because Ely Cathedral stood out clear against the skyline. She had no idea how far away it was, because distances were deceptive where there were no landmarks except a few windmills, and the light was so strange. She rowed out of the wide water of the fen into the cut. She kept going until her back felt like breaking and her hands were covered in blisters, but still the great tower of the cathedral seemed no nearer. She knew that if she stopped the current would take her back the way she had come. She forced herself to continue, and inch by inch drove the boat forward towards a group of buildings surrounding a church, which she guessed was Winterford. There was a small landing-stage and sloping lawns to a large house. Thankfully, she pulled in and, throwing her bag before her, climbed on to dry land. And then, to her great consternation, she found her legs had become so numb with cold that she could not stand.

  The house was two hundred yards away and much bigger than she had at first supposed. Built of grey stone, it seemed to have been put together haphazardly, with a tall main building and two wings, one with a lower roof-level which jutted out along the frontage and the other set at right angles. The central frontage had half a dozen evenly spaced mullioned windows and a massive wooden door, heavily studded. She began crawling over the grass towards it, dragging her bag with her, but, before she could reach it, she found herself looking at a kid-booted foot and a dark blue woollen skirt and heard the voice of a young woman. ‘Goodness, you poor thing, whatever happened to you? Charles, come here and help me.’

  ‘Mistress Donnington!’ Margaret recognised the voice of Charles Mellison, though she was all but fainting and could not see him clearly. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Never mind how she got here,’ the young lady said, before Margaret could find her tongue. ‘Help me get her indoors.’

  He lifted her easily and carried her into the house and into a small sitting-room. Margaret saw nothing but the glowing embers of the fire, felt nothing but the warmth enveloping her, and then she fainted.

  When she came to herself, she was lying in a beautifully furnished bedroom, covered with clean sheets and warm blankets, and the young lady was sitting in a chair beside the bed watching her. She smiled when she saw Margaret was awake.

  ‘I’m Kate Pargeter,’ she said, picking at the lace edging of the tiny apron she wore over a flower-patterned silk day-gown. It was almost a nervous gesture, as if she was unsure of herself, but then she laughed and revealed the mischievous look of a young girl. ‘Charles told me you were coming to visit us, but I never dreamed you would arrive in so spectacular a fashion. My brother is out on the land but he’ll be back soon. Wait till I tell him you could not wait for him to send for you and made your own way here.’

  ‘I wasn’t…’ Margaret stopped, wondering what Charles Mellison had said about her. Why should Lord Pargeter send for her? ‘I’m sorry, I’m confused,’ she said.

  Kate’s tinkling laugh came to her as if through a fog. ‘You are nothing like as mystified
as I am. I thought you came from London, from Society, but you can evidently row a boat with the best of fen women.’

  ‘I didn’t know I could.’ Margaret smiled. ‘I don’t think I am very good at it.’ She turned her hands over, but the blistered palms had been covered with salve and bandaged.

  ‘No, you poor dear. But how brave you were to try.’ She picked up a glass from the small table by the bed and leaned forward to help Margaret drink from it. ‘Charles said you had to go and visit your uncle before you honoured us with a visit, but he was quite sure you would not want to stay there…’

  ‘He was right about that.’

  ‘Is it as bad as they say?’ The question was asked with a conspiratorial giggle.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, there are all sorts of rumours. Visitors, you know, riotous behaviour——’

  ‘Kate, you should not be bothering our guest with questions like that.’ The speaker stood in the doorway, tall, angular almost, in country breeches and muddied top-boots. He was not smiling.

  ‘Roly, you’re back. Look who’s here. Aren’t you pleased to see her?’

  ‘Very,’ he said laconically, without stepping over the threshold. ‘But I believe Mistress Donnington should be allowed to rest. You can question her all you like after I have spoken to her.’

  Margaret looked up at him, recognising Master Mellison’s companion of the evening before and guessing he was Lord Pargeter. They must have been talking about her or how did he come to know her name? If they had, what had they been saying? And why did Kate say she was expected? The strange conversation she had had with Charles Mellison came to her mind and made her mouth lift in a little quirk.

  ‘I am glad to see you are able to smile,’ his lordship said. ‘Now, please sleep. We will talk as soon as you feel stronger.’

  She wanted to say that they should talk now, that whatever mysteries there were to be solved should be uncovered at once. She felt like a pawn being pushed around on a great chess-board, not in control of the situation at all, and she did not like it. She turned to Kate, who stood up with the empty glass in her hand. Margaret just had time to register that it must have contained a sleeping-draught before her eyes closed.

  The next time she awoke, it was snowing. She could see huge flakes of it sliding down the glass of the window, but the room was warm from a fire which blazed in the grate. Her bag had been unpacked; underclothes, white stockings, a cambric petticoat and a round gown of blue merino wool were laid over a chair near the blaze to warm. She turned her head. A maid was pouring hot water into a bowl which stood on the wash-stand in the corner. It was the sound of that which had disturbed her.

  ‘Oh, did I wake you, mistress?’ the maid said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Ten, mistress.’

  ‘Ten?’ Margaret sat up. ‘You mean ten in the morning? Have I slept all night?’

  ‘Yes, mistress. I’m Penny; I’m to look after you. His lordship said I was not to rouse you, but as soon as you waked to say he would like you to take breakfast with him in the morning-room.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Margaret looked at the window. ‘Has it been snowing long?’

  ‘All night, mistress. I reckon the roads are about impassable. If it freezes harder, we’ll have to get the skates out to go anywhere, but the ice isn’t thick enough yet.’ She turned towards Margaret and smiled. ‘Still, we’re snug enough here. Shall I help you wash and dress?’

  ‘What? Oh, no, I can manage.’

  ‘But your poor hands. Let me help you, mistress. His lordship will be put out if he hears I left you to struggle with them little buttons on your own. And you shouldn’t put those hands in water, not till they’ve healed.’

  Margaret acquiesced, and half an hour later Penny conducted her downstairs and showed her into the morning-room where Lord Pargeter sat alone, eating a late breakfast. He uncurled his great length from his seat and held a chair for her. ‘I trust you slept well, Mistress Donnington?’

  ‘Very well, thank you.’

  ‘Please help yourself to whatever you want.’ He indicated the many chafing-dishes on the table. ‘Or would you prefer me to do it? Your hands must still be painful.’

  ‘Hardly at all, my lord.’ She took a little ham, concentrating on her plate because she knew he was looking at her pensively, as if wondering how to make conversation with her. ‘I am afraid I do not make a very good oarsman.’

  ‘You did very well. Am I to assume you found Sedge House not to your liking?’

  ‘It was not the house,’ she said, ‘though it was in a parlous state.’ She looked round the room as she spoke. It was elegantly furnished in mahogany and walnut, some of it exquisitely inlaid with satinwood. The seat of the chair she sat on, like all the others, was covered in damask. The fireplace was of marble and the plastered ceiling was decorated with gilded scrolls. It exuded wealth and status; there could not have been a greater contrast with Sedge House. ‘My uncle was not expecting me and he had other guests,’ she went on, in a effort to excuse the behaviour of her unsympathetic relative.

  ‘Just so.’ He lifted a pot. ‘Chocolate?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He poured a cup of the thick dark liquid for her. ‘Your great uncle is a Capitain, just as you are,’ he said, as if that explained everything.

  ‘How do you know so much about me, my lord?’ she asked, though she could guess his information came from Charles Mellison, and that made her feel uncomfortable. She began to wish she had not been so open with the young man.

  ‘Master Mellison told me of his conversation with you,’ he said. ‘He told me you were going to live with your uncle.’

  ‘That does not mean I could condone…’ She paused, not wanting to put a name to what she had seen in her uncle’s house. ‘I never knew I had any relations until my mother was dying. Now I wish I had never come.’

  ‘What would you have done if you had not?’

  ‘I could have found work and lodgings, looked after myself.’

  She could not read his expression. One minute it was solicitous, another almost malevolent. His dark eyes never moved from her face; it was as if he was studying every line of it, committing it to memory. What did he see there? she wondered. Was he trying to read signs of debauchery which would tell him she was like her great-uncle? Was he wondering if he dared keep someone like that under his roof? He broke the silence at last. ‘What kind of work have you done?’

  ‘I am a milliner, my lord.’

  ‘I doubt there is much call for hat-makers in Winterford, Mistress Donnington. We are a very rural community. The village used to be on the edge of the winter inundation; it was the only place where the fen could be safely crossed, which is how it got its name, but a hundred years ago, while Cromwell and the king battled it out for supremacy, the Adventurers fought against nature and won. Now Winterford is simply a slight rise in the surrounding land, all of it very fertile, but a long way from the beau monde of London.’

  ‘I was not thinking of setting up as a milliner here, my lord.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘I do not know. I am adaptable, my lord.’

  He smiled and his sombre expression changed; his mouth softened and his eyes twinkled. ‘Just so long as it does not entail keeping house for your uncle, eh?’

  ‘He already has a housekeeper.’

  Her smile dimpled her cheeks very attractively, he decided, though she still looked tense, half afraid. ‘Where would you live?’

  ‘I would have to find lodgings.’

  ‘Live alone? I hardly think that would serve.’ He paused, then asked slowly, ‘Have you thought of marriage?’

  She smiled. ‘Doesn’t every young lady dream of it?’

  ‘Is there no one?’

  ‘No, my lord. I have been too busy…’ She stopped suddenly, remembering her conversation with Charles Mellison.

  Encouraged, he went on, ‘I believe Master Mellison told you
a little of my situation.’

  ‘My lord, he would not be so indiscreet.’

  He chuckled suddenly. ‘You obviously know how to be discreet yourself, but you need not worry, I am not asking you to betray him; I know my friend very well and I can guess he told you I was looking for a wife.’

  ‘He did mention it in passing, my lord.’

  ‘Only in passing? I am persuaded he went out of his way to speak to you about it.’

  ‘I cannot think why he should do that,’ she murmured.

  ‘Did he not say we would do very well together, you and I?’

  ‘My lord!’ she protested.

  ‘Oh, please do not be alarmed.’ He stopped speaking to offer her warm bread in a cloth-lined basket. She shook her head, and he went on, ‘But he is right about my wanting to marry.’

  ‘I am sure you could have no trouble finding a suitable wife, my lord,’ she said demurely.

  ‘As to that, I am not so certain,’ he said. ‘You see, I am very particular and very difficult to live with. In truth, I am impossible.’

  ‘Surely not,’ she said, because she thought it was expected of her.

  Her answer produced a short bark of a laugh. ‘Indeed I am. I am short-tempered, ill-mannered and I am wont to go off by myself for hours at a stretch. And as for making polite conversation…’ He shrugged. ‘Most of the time I find it tedious.’

  ‘You do not paint a very agreeable picture of yourself, my lord.’

  ‘I want you to know the truth.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because…’ he went on, leaning slightly towards her and making her heart beat in her throat and flooding her face with colour. Surely he was not…? No, she was being absurd. ‘I believe you are in something of a fix yourself…’