A Woman's Estate

by Roberta Gellis

  “Sir John Keriell is here, my lady, and desires to know the…the circumstances of the accident.”

  Abigail looked at the butler but his face was a blank mask. “Has Sir John seen the—seen Eustace?”

  “Yes, my lady,” Empson replied. “I answered the door myself and took him directly to the gun room. Sir Arthur had entrusted me with the key when he told me to have a cot prepared to be used as a stretcher and send it with four men to Mrs. Franklin’s cottage. As soon as I opened the door for Sir John, I told him you were here and said I would ask if you could receive him.”

  “Thank you, Empson,” Abigail said.

  The words were what she would have said in any case, but her voice and expression showed how deeply she meant them, that she understood a faithful servant was a treasure above jewels. The way the butler had phrased his answer told Abigail that no one except he had spoken to the justice of the peace and that he had told Sir John nothing at all.

  She went on thoughtfully, “I will see Sir John at once, of course, but there is very little I can tell him. I do not at all understand what happened. Sir Arthur and I came here to ask Miss Lydden if she knew where Mr. Lydden had disappeared to—and after that I became very frightened and confused. Sir Arthur will have to explain the rest.”

  “Yes, my lady, that is very clear,” Empson said. “I will bring Sir John. Shall I also bring some wine and cakes?”

  Abigail relaxed and nodded. She was sure Empson would relate to Arthur what she intended to tell Sir John as soon as he was in the door, and Arthur would take over from there. But in the end, she did not see Sir John at all. Arthur had returned while Empson was speaking to her. Since Griselda, who had been hovering watchfully, ran out to meet them as soon as they approached and neither she nor Bertram were any longer trying to conceal their relationship, Arthur left her to settle Bertram and went to talk to the justice of the peace.

  By then, the doctor had also arrived. His testimony would be necessary at the coroner’s inquest, but even before he made his statement, Sir John had no doubt that Eustace had met his death by misadventure. He accepted Arthur’s explanation for why Eustace should have loaded and fired a gun when he was dressed for dinner. He was sure that there was a good deal more to the story than what he heard, but he asked no questions because he had seen the horsewhip Arthur had dropped just inside the door, with the other pistol still tangled in its lash. No crime had been committed. It was perfectly clear that Eustace had overloaded a pistol, and it had exploded and killed him while he was trying to shoot someone else.

  The doctor then went up to see if Hilda needed him, and when he had left her an opiate to help her sleep, he went on to see Bertram. Meanwhile, Arthur had seen Sir John out and come back to tell Abigail what he had said to the J.P. and that Bertram seemed to be recovering. In turn she explained what she had learned from Griselda. Before she was quite finished the doctor was shown in and reported that although it was a miracle that Bertram was alive at all, he was now in surprisingly good condition.

  “A few days more of rest and very gentle exercise—sitting up in a chair and then walking about the room—” The doctor stopped and harrumphed, aware that Sir Arthur and his lady did not need these details. “But there, Miss Griselda will take care of everything. There’s no need for me to repeat what I said to her. At Mr. Lydden’s request, I wish to assure you, Sir Arthur, that Mr. Lydden is quite well enough to talk to you. And privately, I would advise you and Lady St. Eyre to go up and let him say what he must as soon as possible. Whatever it is, it is preying on his mind, and he will not be able to rest properly until it is off his conscience. And I hope you will assure him—”

  Abigail was already on her feet. “It is only a sick fancy, Doctor. Mr. Lydden has done nothing wrong. He is worried because he could not accomplish what no one could have accomplished. It was not his fault he was struck down.”

  “That is perfectly true, Doctor,” Arthur added. “You know Bertram has been my friend for many years. He has an overscrupulous conscience, that is all. I suppose I was wrong not to let him explain at once, but I already knew the truth, and I feared the effort would be too much for him.”

  The doctor nodded, and his bright eyes glanced quickly in the direction of the gun room, but he said no more. Abigail and Arthur saw him out on their way up to Bertram’s room. When she saw him, Abigail cried out with horror, for the whole side of his face was blue and maroon and green and yellow with bruises. She rushed forward and bent over the bed.

  “Oh, my darling, darling Bertram, I am afraid to touch you, but I wish I could kiss you and hug you. I am so glad you’re alive.”

  He looked at her with sorrowful eyes, and there was no shade of affectation in his voice when he said, “Even though you were nearly killed because of my pride and my stupidity? I—”

  “Don’t enact me any Cheltenham tragedies,” Abigail interrupted, laughing. “I know you think you are cleverer than anyone else, but if you tell the truth, you will have to admit that you never guessed it was Eustace who tried to run me down in London. It was only after he brought GoGo down with that rope that you put the two things together and figured out that once I was dead, Victor would have to go back to Rutupiae so Eustace could have another try at him. And when you did work it out, Arthur had decided to take me to Ghent. You knew I would be safe there.”

  Abigail had taken his hand while she spoke and squeezed it comfortingly. “Yes,” he said, returning the pressure, but looking at Arthur, “that’s true, but—”

  “But nothing. Abigail is perfectly right,” Arthur broke in. “I never suspected you of such a passion for dramatics. Once I had taken Abigail to Ghent, she was safe, and Victor was safe in school. It was perfectly reasonable for you to try to get proof of what Eustace had done and get him out of the country. Besides, if there is any blame to be laid, it must surely be laid at my door, not yours. If I hadn’t been such an idiot as to suspect you—”

  “Me?” Bertram gasped, pushing himself more upright. “Of trying to kill Abigail?”

  “No.” Arthur grinned. “Of trying to kill Victor and putting the blame on Eustace.”

  An expression of total outrage appeared on Bertram’s battered countenance. “So I could inherit? What a disgusting idea! What had I ever done—?”

  “Your bruises are turning purple,” Arthur said. “Cool down. Actually, I thought of Eustace first, but it seemed incredible that he would do such a thing, knowing he would be the first to be suspected. And it was your own fault that I was afraid you had something to do with it. When Abigail brought Victor’s coat to show us and I asked what Simmons had to tell you that morning, you told me you had been out, and you looked damned queer when you said it.”

  “I had gone out to meet Griselda,” Bertram said. “I should have told you, but—”

  “It was my fault,” Griselda put in, leaning forward from her chair on the other side of Bertram’s bed.

  “If anyone else says anything is his or her fault, I shall throw myself on the ground and drum with my heels,” Abigail announced firmly.

  Bertram’s free hand moved in a characteristically graceful gesture. “It is more elegant to have the vapors,” he fluted in his usual affected tone of voice. Then he sobered. “I don’t want you to think me a complete fool. I hadn’t said anything to Eustace about suspecting him, you know. I was going to warn him after he pushed Victor into the river, but by the time I got to the house, Griselda told me he was packing to go on a visit, and I thought he had been scared off.”

  “Yes, and we know why you didn’t say anything after the incident at the mill,” Abigail told him. “I have only just remembered that Eustace was in the stable when we made our plans to picnic there. But why in the world did you agree to meet him at night at the ruins?”

  “The triumph of hope over experience,” Bertram sighed. “That was stupid, I suppose, but I had a pistol, and I had no idea he had any reason to want to hurt me. He came to Stonar and told me
he was deep in debt and had to leave the country secretly. The road is less than half a mile from the ruins, and he said he would have a carriage waiting for him there. He asked me for money, suggesting that I draw on Arthur’s funds, but I didn’t have to do that because I had been saving.” He turned his head and smiled at Griselda.

  “Good God,” Arthur said, “that would have fooled me too. And I wouldn’t have minded if you had drawn on me. It would have been cheap at any price to be rid of him so easily.”

  “I thought so,” Bertram agreed. “But I had a few thousand. My expenses are low, and you pay me very generously. And when I handed over the money, I was going to tell him that I had found the man in London who had been watching Abigail for him, so that he wouldn’t be tempted to come back. But I never had a chance to threaten him. He came up behind me and hit me without a word. Why? Do you know?”

  Arthur told him about the forged letter. “I suppose he intended to cover your death by making us believe it was you who had fled the country, having first stolen a substantial sum from me. But how could he believe I would not recognize the forgery?”

  “Perhaps he didn’t realize Bathurst would show you the letter,” Bertram suggested. “And I don’t think he ever recognized that you had political importance or realized that Bathurst would not want to make too much trouble for the nephew of Liverpool’s friend. You were only Sir Arthur, and Roger, a mere Mr. St. Eyre.”

  “Yes, but also Eustace was like Mama,” Griselda sighed. “He always believed what he wished to believe, and I am sure he was deep in debt. Mama never gave him much. I think he had been forging bills in her name as he did with Papa long ago. She had been complaining about her accounts to Mr. Deedes. I wrote a letter only two weeks ago. Eustace must have been growing more and more desperate.”

  “I tried to save him,” Bertram said, disengaging his hand from Abigail’s so he could take Griselda’s in both of his own. “I understood that whatever he did, he was still your brother.”

  Griselda looked appalled. “Oh, Bertram, have I brought all this on us through being foolish? I didn’t realize you were trying to spare me pain. I thought you wished to avoid a scandal.”

  “Griselda!” Bertram protested. “I wasn’t too happy about having an intended murderer in the family, but I wouldn’t have risked Victor’s life for that. I thought you loved Eustace.”

  Griselda shook her head sadly. “He wouldn’t let me love him. I don’t know why he enjoyed tormenting me, but even when he was a little boy, he did things on purpose so that I would be punished. He was…cruel.”

  “Well, that makes no difference now,” Abigail said briskly. It was time, she felt, to change the subject, and she intended to provide one sufficiently attractive to divert everyone. “We must have the banns for your wedding posted as soon after the funeral as is decent. Tomorrow I will speak to the vicar. When you are married, you can live here at Rutupiae. Griselda can continue to take care of the house, and it will be no trouble for Bertram to walk over to Stonar every morning to his usual duties.” She laughed and raised her brows. “After all, he has been walking in the other direction even more often. And now there is only the question of Hilda. Do you want me to—?”

  “Abigail!” Arthur exclaimed, his voice slightly choked with laughter. “Haul in your team. You are riding roughshod over two people’s lives.”

  Bertram laughed aloud. “I have not the smallest objection, since her plans, although admittedly precipitous, are exactly what Griselda and I would like best.”

  “And about Mama,” Griselda put in, “I wish to assure you that she really did not know what Eustace was about, nor would she have condoned it if she did. She has always accepted Victor’s right without resentment.” She smiled sadly. “She worried because she felt Abigail was spoiling him. She never understood that she had done anything wrong with Eustace and me.”

  “I never thought your mother was involved,” Abigail said softly.

  “No,” Griselda agreed. “You understood her very well.” She shrugged. “I think she might not wish to stay at Rutupiae now, but if she does, Bertram will be able to manage her, and she will behave differently to me because I will be a married woman.”

  Abigail had her doubts about that, but she said nothing. There would be time enough in the future to deal with Hilda if necessary, and right now Bertram was looking very tired. Arthur had seen that too.

  “I think I had better take my wife away,” he said. “She has done all the arranging possible here. I will have to point her in another direction—perhaps at Vienna. The loose ends there should keep her busy for a while.”

  Actually, there were enough loose ends to keep both Arthur and Abigail busy right where they were. Arthur had all the business that Bertram had put aside for him while he was at Ghent, in addition to everything that had piled up after Bertram had been injured. Abigail had similar duties in Rutupiae. Then there were the funeral arrangements and wedding arrangements and preparations for the family gathering at Christmas. On 23 December there were three particularly welcome arrivals—Victor, Daphne, and a letter from Lord Liverpool thanking Arthur for his efforts and announcing that a peace treaty had been signed by the British government and sent to Ghent for the signatures of the Americans.

  In the joy and confusion of welcoming the children and listening to the momentous events they had to recount immediately, the last item was pushed into the background. Arthur did not get around to telling Abigail about it until they were in bed. Her joy at the news reminded Arthur of a flicker or two of doubt that had been aroused in him. When he thought back on some of Abigail’s behavior, now that he was no longer blinded by fearing she had some strong emotional involvement with Gallatin, Arthur began to suspect that there might be some fire behind the smoke of Eustace’s accusation. Clearly Eustace had picked the wrong evidence, but the basic assumption might not have been so far out of line.

  “I had something more important on my mind in Bathurst’s office,” Arthur said when Abigail had finished expressing her joy over the peace treaty, “and perhaps I felt it would not be safe or wise to ask before this, but—are you a spy, my love?”

  Abigail looked at him warily. She knew those drawling tones and look of indolence could be a danger signal, but what she had done was the one secret she had kept from Arthur, and she wanted the slate to be clean.

  “If you are asking me whether I am in the pay of the American government, the answer is no,” she said, “but I must admit that I have transmitted information—” She paused and eyed her husband, then finished aggressively. “And I will again too, if I think poor little America is being bullied by—”

  Arthur laughed aloud and muffled her mouth with his. “Hush,” he whispered into her ear when he was certain she had been subdued. “You must be careful what you say. Don’t you know that they can hang a husband for the treason committed by his wife as well as vice versa?”

  “No!” Abigail exclaimed, horrified. She knew Arthur was not angry, but it was dreadful to think she might have made serious trouble for her husband. “Oh, I never would have done it if I had known you could be blamed.” She sat up in her indignation. “You see,” she said, “how pernicious the laws are. You, who are totally innocent, might have been ruined just because the stupid law insists on an impossibility—that two people can literally become one.”

  “Yes, my little firebrand,” Arthur agreed, drawing her down into his arms and untying the first of the ribbon bows that held her nightdress together. “Tomorrow we will begin a crusade to change the law, but tonight I intend to try to fulfill its conditions.”

  About the Author

  Roberta Gellis was driven to start writing her own books some forty years ago by the infuriating inaccuracies of the historical fiction she read. Since then she has worked in varied genres—romance, mystery and fantasy—but always, even in the fantasies, keeping the historical events as near to what actually happened as possible. The dedication to historical time se
ttings is not only a matter of intellectual interest, it is also because she is so out-of-date herself that accuracy in a contemporary novel would be impossible.

  In the forty-some years she has been writing, Gellis has produced more than twenty-five straight historical romances. These have been the recipients of many awards, including the Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from the West Coast Review of Books, the Golden Certificate from Affaire de Coeur, the Romantic Times Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period (several times) and a Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy. Last but not least, Gellis was honored with the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.