With Amy holding one hand and Belle the other, Hope allowed them to lead her to the morning room. A quick peek inside satisfied Belle that it was empty.
“Now we can have a comfortable coze.”
“Could we not have done that in the drawing room?” Hope said, mystified.
Amy and Belle both giggled, and Amy blushed.
“Not really, sister,” Belle said. “We need no audience for this subject.”
“How ominous,” Hope said, eyes wide.
Again they giggled.
“You see, you will soon be a married woman, and so there are matters which you will want to be informed upon beforehand.”
“Oh, you mean about men? Mama has told me all about it.”
Their mouths opened in astonishment. “Truly?” Belle said. “For she told us nothing at all. So then we decided to speak to Connie beforehand, because it is a great deal better to know something of the matter before one needs to. Mama told you everything?”
“Oh, yes. With pictures. She has a book with…” Here Hope blushed. “Well, I cannot describe it, but drawings of… of men. And women. It was… very surprising. And did you speak to Dulcie also?”
Amy blushed again, but Belle gave a deep-throated chuckle. “There was no need. Mr Drummond got to Dulcie before we did. And Grace was taken under Lady Graham’s wing, so she did not need our advice either. But how strange Mama is! To say nothing at all to any of us, and then to decide that she will explain everything to you. Well, I am glad of it, dearest, but it is quite odd in Mama.”
“But she is so different these days, not at all as stiff as she once was, you must have noticed it. She has been helpful with my wedding clothes, bringing a modiste from London, which she never did for either of you. She has found me a lady’s maid, too, which I am most grateful for, because I should not at all know how to interview such a person or check references or anything of that sort, but Mama did everything.”
Belle nodded. “She is certainly happier, I think. My suspicion was that it was due to Cousin Henry, for I was sure that they would make a match of it, but that prospect seems to have faded somewhat, and now he has gone away.”
“I noticed he has not been to visit so often,” Hope said. “Where has he gone to?”
“To Shropshire, according to my maid, who is friendly with one of the grooms,” Belle said.
“Now, is that not the oddest thing?” Hope said softly. “Just when Mama seems to have lost interest in that county, Cousin Henry has developed an enthusiasm for the place. I wonder what the attraction is?”
But none of the sisters could answer.
~~~~~
With the arrival of Connie and Dulcie, all the daughters of Allamont Hall were reunited. Belle also stayed at the Hall, for Willowbye was too far away and the roads too mired in mud for easy travel. Amy and Grace visited every day, the sisters taking over the morning room as their private parlour, filling it with laughter and whispered secrets and excited chatter.
“Only a few more days, Hope, and then you will be mistress of all this,” Amy sighed contentedly one day. “How fitting that one of us should live here, and not some horrid strangers. I am so glad for you.”
“There is still time for Ernest to appear,” Hope said. “I shall not feel secure until Mr Plumphett’s office is closed on the fifteenth, for that is the last possible moment for Ernest to make a claim.”
“Or Frank,” added Belle. “Either of them could inherit.”
Hope hesitated, but she could keep no secret from her sisters. “Frank will not claim the estate. He came here and told us so. He has a good career now, and has no wish to be a gentleman in society.”
The others exclaimed in astonishment at this news, and Hope told them all about his visit.
“What is his career?” Connie said. “It must be very appealing if he turns down such a lucrative inheritance on that account.”
Hope flushed uncomfortably. “I am ashamed to admit it of a brother, but he… he manages a number of gaming dens in Shropshire towns. Gentlemen’s clubs, he called them, but Hugo says that such places are merely a front for gambling, where honest players are cheated and the wine is watered down.”
“I believe there are respectable clubs, too,” Connie said. “Lord Carrbridge and his brothers are members of White’s, and there is any amount of gambling goes on there, but it is not in the least shady, I assure you.”
“But there are others less scrupulous,” Belle said. “The one in Market Clunbury in the house that Papa owned is just such a place. Mr Burford visited it with Lord Carrbridge and Mr Drummond three years ago, and they were quite sure that it was not as respectable as it appeared.”
“Oh dear,” Hope said. “I wonder if that is one of Frank’s? He said he had such a place in every town of any size in the county.”
“We should not sneer at such establishments,” Dulcie said. “After all, that is where our dowries have come from, and while the rest of you have married wealthy husbands, Alex and I have been very glad to have such a healthy sum to supplement his income. Even though the school is doing very well, better than we could possibly have expected, his salary as a headteacher would not allow us to live so comfortably.”
“We are all grateful to Aunt Lucy for setting up the dowry fund, I am sure,” Connie said. “And to whoever has been conscientiously paying money into it week after week, although why anyone should do so for strangers I cannot imagine.”
“Can you not?” Belle said, with a smile. “What if we were not strangers to this benevolent person?”
“But of course we are!” Amy cried.
“Oh, do you mean—?” Grace said. “Could it be possible?”
“I believe so,” Belle said. “It makes sense, does it not?”
“Well, it does not make sense to me,” Dulcie said crossly. “Would you care to be a little less enigmatic, sisters?”
“Just consider what we know,” Grace said, jumping up excitedly to pace about the room. “Aunt Lucy set up the fund so that we should have dowries, and it originated in the Market Clunbury house, which belonged to Papa but which was also connected with Aunt Lucy through her less than respectable associates in Liverpool. That enabled her to make sure that whoever ran the gambling den there would put money into the account. But she was astonished at the amount we got, remember? When we told her it came to twenty thousand apiece, she was amazed. And in fact, I believe mine was even more than that, for George and his father were excessively pleased about it, as I recall. So someone made sure that there were large amounts of money put into it, over a number of years, and who else could it be?”
“That is just what we want to know,” Amy said.
“Yes, do get on with it, Grace,” Dulcie said.
“Why, is it not obvious? It could only be Frank!”
The sisters digested this in silence for some moments.
“That does make sense,” Connie said slowly. “The Market Clunbury business was managed from Liverpool, Aunt Lucy told us that, so presumably that is how Frank came to leave Liverpool and found himself in Shropshire. And once he discovered that some of the profits were being set aside for our benefit, he may have decided to ensure that the sum would be a generous one.”
“He has certainly shown kindness towards Hugo and me, by waiving his right to claim the Hall,” Hope said. “Ensuring substantial dowries for us would be equally kind. He has been looking after our interests for years, it seems, without our knowing a thing about it.”
“I think he must have been Mr Smith,” Dulcie said suddenly. “Alex said that the Mr Smith they met there was a very young man, so most likely that was Frank. How amusing to think that they met him and did not even know it! But did he not mention the dowries when he was here, Hope?”
“Not a word, no. He said very little about his work, except the nature of it, and that his role was to travel to the various establishments in his control, and ensure that none of the customers were cheating. He makes himself very unobtrusive, he
said, so that he moves about unnoticed, and then he can watch what goes on.”
She did not attempt to describe the oddness of the conversation she and Hugo had had with Frank, nor the way he had altered his voice and his mannerisms and even his mouth, it seemed, so that he was like a different person. She had not known him even without such disguises, but with them he was a stranger.
“With the proper clothes, and a wig and so forth, even my own mother would not know me,” he had said. Then, laughing, “To speak the honest truth, I am very sure that Mama would not recognise me anyway, so perhaps I should say that even my own brother and sisters would not know me.”
Then he had demonstrated the different ways he could disguise himself. It was uncanny, and, having seen him at work, she believed him utterly, but she could not begin to explain that to her sisters.
“So at least he is honest,” Amy said eagerly. “He does not cheat his customers, nor water down the wine.”
“So he says,” Hope said gloomily.
~~~~~
With the Hall full of visitors, the dull days and quiet evenings with just Hope and her mother were long gone. The servants’ quarters were overflowing with valets and ladies’ maids and grooms and coachmen, and extra help was sent for from the village. With the wedding fast approaching, there were dinners and evening parties and innumerable callers to be shown a glimpse of the wedding clothes. It was hard for Hope to find a moment to herself for quiet reflection. Perhaps it was just as well, for when she found herself alone, she was assailed by every kind of doubt.
Was she really doing the right thing? There was still time to draw back, and wait for a husband who made her heart leap for joy, a man with fire in his eyes, who smiled at her as she saw her brothers-in-law smile at her sisters. She liked Hugo well enough, and especially when he kissed her, or smiled at her in that lop-sided way he had, but he was not a man to set her heart alight. She did not skip in delight when he entered the room, or feel as if the world grew a little darker when he were not there.
But then she remembered his pleasure when she had finally accepted him, and his excitement at the prospect of owning the Hall and all its demesnes, and she knew she could not draw back now. It would hurt him too badly to turn away from him at this late stage. And then the Hall would have to go to the church after all, which she could not bear to see, nor could she condemn herself to living at the Dower House with her mama and some dreadful companion. Better by far to be mistress of Allamont Hall with Hugo.
So when the day came, she put on her finest gown and went to the church in Lower Brinford, there to stand beside Hugo reciting the time-honoured words in front of Mr Endercott. Most of the village squeezed into the pews to witness it, or else stood outside in the bitter autumn wind to wish her well.
That night she and Hugo each slept alone in their grand new bedrooms, and the following day she and her sisters and all their husbands drove to Brinchester, to sit in Mr Plumphett’s office until the hour he had deemed the final moment for any claim to be made on the estate from either of the brothers.
The office was rather crowded, but Mr Plumphett and his partners had provided tea and cakes for the ladies, and a decent Madeira for the gentlemen, and it felt like a strange sort of party. The others ate and drank and joked with each other, but Hope was too nervous to enjoy the company, too aware that even now it could all be lost. She could not be comfortable until the hands on Mr Plumphett’s ormolu clock had passed the critical moment. Beside her, Hugo’s knee twitched restlessly, as he tapped his foot in a fidgety drumbeat.
As the minutes ticked away and the clock showed no more than ten minutes remaining, the Marquess of Carrbridge poured another round of Madeira and began describing the antics of his youngest brother, currently engaged in terrorising Oxford in his first term at university.
“He will never last,” the marquess said sorrowfully. “Or Oxford will never last, more likely. He will be rusticated by Christmas, I am sure of it. Even in his first week, he was up to mischief, for he went down to the river and—”
From the floor below, a sudden thump suggested that the door to the street had blown open. They all fell silent, wondering. Voices were heard, loud and abrupt.
Terror tore through Hope like a whirlwind, and she reached for Hugo’s hand, and squeezed it. He looked at her with fearful eyes.
Footsteps pounded on the stairs, the door flew open and a man stood there, grinning wildly.
“I am Ernest Allamont and I claim my inheritance,” he yelled into the shocked silence. “Am I in time? I am sure I am in time! Is it not a good joke?” He roared with laughter. “I have been here all week, you know, but I wanted to surprise you. Are you surprised? Is this not the perfect timing? Look, just three minutes to go!” He waved his pocket watch at them, rocking with merriment, as they stared at him, horrified.
“You are in time, sir,” Mr Plumphett said, his voice flat.
Hope burst into tears.
11: The Day After
Because of the season and the lack of a full moon, a return to Lower Brinford was not possible that day, and they had all arranged to stay at the White Rose Hotel. The managers had arranged a celebratory dinner for their distinguished guests, but somehow it felt more like a wake. Ernest had to be invited too, and while he bubbled over with delight in his own cleverness in arriving at the very last moment to astonish them, the rest of the party sat and ate in near silence.
It was indeed Ernest, of that there could be no doubt. All six of the sisters recognised him, despite the whiskers on his face and a darkening of his complexion in the passage of eleven years, and although Hope would have denied it if she could, honesty compelled her to acknowledge her brother.
He had been in the West Indies, he told them, but a chance letter from Aunt Lucy to an acquaintance there, asking for information on Ernest’s whereabouts, had alerted him to the situation, and he had returned on the first available ship, determined to claim his inheritance.
“How long have you been in the West Indies?” Mr Burford enquired politely.
“Seven years now, since I settled on Jamaica. It is a fine life out there, the climate favourable and every comfort provided. I have wanted for nothing, I assure you. We do not miss England in the least. Slaves are a far superior foundation for the life of a gentleman than paid workers, and the plantations so profitable that I am no longer employed as manager and junior partner, but have my own land. Now I shall be able to expand even further, no doubt.” He grinned. “I shall be as rich as a nabob before long, you may be sure.”
“If the life is so enticing, I wonder you wished to return to England at all,” Burford said mildly.
“For myself, I should never have left, but my wife has a desire to be an English lady, and what Clarissa wants, Clarissa must have.” He laughed. “It always pays to keep the ladies happy, eh, gentlemen?” And he winked broadly.
“Have you been married long?” Belle asked.
“Oh, not so long,” he answered with a vague wave of the hand. “Long enough, yet not so long.” And he laughed again, a strange, wild laugh that made Hope shiver.
“I am surprised to hear that there are English women in such a part of the world,” Connie said. “Is the heat not disagreeable for Mrs Allamont?”
He cackled as if she had made a great joke. “She never complains of it.” He clicked his fingers at the hotel manager attending them. “You there! More wine.”
After that, the rest of the party lapsed back into silence, while Ernest rattled on at great length about his plantation and his journey back to England and his own deviousness in concealing his presence until the last possible moment.
Hugo had said next to nothing the whole evening, nor had he eaten anything, his countenance dark with anger. Hope had picked at her food, watching Hugo covertly, too distracted with waiting for the inevitable explosion to have any thought for her own feelings. When they at length retired to the room assigned to them, his wrath spilled out in a stream of invective again
st Ernest.
“How could he do this to us? He must have known, for he admitted that he made enquiries about the town. He must have known that we had married solely to keep the Hall out of the hands of the avaricious bishop. If he had only let us know, we need not have bothered. We could have been free as birds in the trees, instead of bound forever and with nothing, nothing at all to show for it.”
He strode up and down the tiny room like a caged animal, his boiling anger too great to be contained. His hands stabbed the air for emphasis, the movement making the candles flicker, so that Hope was in terror of being plunged into darkness.
“Hugo—”
“A letter — is that so much to ask? He could have written from Liverpool when he first arrived to let us know. What a way to treat his own family! It is unforgivable! And to see his own stupidity as the greatest joke! How could he?”
“Hugo, please stop.”
“Such a sly, nasty way to behave against those who have never offered him the slightest injury, or shown him anything but goodwill. I shall never forgive him, never.”
“Hugo, you are frightening me.”
He stopped abruptly. “Oh, Hope, I am so sorry. Please, you must not cry. No, no, hush now.” He took her face in his hands with such gentleness that she could hardly believe the sudden switch in mood. “There, now, I did not mean to upset you with my ravings. Sshhh.” Softly he wiped away each tear as it rolled down her cheeks. She had been so intent on him that she had not noticed her own weeping.
“Are you not angry?” he asked, still cradling her face. “You have lost everything, too.”
“Of course, but… I still have you,” she said quietly. “We still have each other.”
“But you never wanted to marry me,” he said, kissing her forehead. “How many times did you refuse me, and only agreed to it in the end to save the estate from being sold off? Two days earlier, and we could have called it off, and we would all have been happier.”
“There is no point in thinking that way,” she said. “It is done now, and cannot be helped, and we must learn to live with it. At least the Hall will not go to the church. Better by far that it should be Ernest and his wife. That is what we were trying to do, after all, to keep it in the family.”
Hope (The Daughters of Allamont Hall Book 6) Page 9
