by Mary Nichols
‘What’s she like?’
‘Oh, she’s comely enough, or she was, haven’t seen her for years and she’s had two bratlings since then, females, luckily for me. I’ll soon rid myself of her.’ He chuckled. ‘Unless she’s worth keeping. You never know…’
‘Supposing she has married again?’
‘Then she will most certainly be out on her ear and her husband along with her. I want no leeches on my back.’
‘I think, my friend, you need some protection,’ one of the others put in. ‘What say we come with you?’
Stacey smiled, knowing the men were not wishing to protect the man so much as the money he owed them and their debtor was well aware of it, but he shrugged as if it did not matter to him one way or the other. ‘Please yourselves, but be warned—the estate is on the coast of Suffolk, miles from anywhere. A dead end.’
‘Oh, we’ll soon liven it up.’
Stacey was still racking his brain to remember where he had seen the one called Cecil, when he heard his name called. He swivelled round to see a huge man bearing down on him, his face split in a wide grin. ‘Stacey Darton, by all that’s wonderful!’ he exclaimed, holding out his hand as Stacey rose to greet him, revealing himself to be almost as tall and broad as the newcomer.
Stacey had met Gerard Topham in Spain and they had fought alongside each other right to the end of the war, including the aftermath of Waterloo, and become great friends. ‘Topham, my old friend, I did not know you were in town.’
‘Nor I you. I thought you would be in the country with your family, or I would have let you know I was coming.’
‘I needed a respite.’
Gerard laughed and folded his huge frame into the chair next to Stacey’s, beckoning to a waiter to bring more wine. ‘You’ve only been back six months and you need a respite? Civilian life not to your liking, my friend?’
Stacey resumed his seat, forgetting the noisy card players. ‘Civilian life is fine, if a little dull; family is another matter. My father nags worse than an old woman and as for my daughter—’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Never mind that, tell me what you are up to.’
Gerard poured from the bottle the waiter had brought. ‘I couldn’t settle to civilian life either, so I offered my services to the Home Office…’
‘Militia? A bit of a comedown after Spain, isn’t it?’
‘Not militia exactly. I’ve joined the Coast Blockade.’
Smuggling had fallen away after Pitt reduced the excise duty on tea, but it had received a boost when the wars with Napoleon began and a new line in merchandise offered itself: French prisoners of war going one way, spies coming the other. Later, when the French economy began to totter, English guineas fetched more than their face value. If reports Stacey read in the newspapers were accurate, it was still going on. The Coast Blockade had been formed to combat it. ‘Catching free-traders. That must make you very unpopular. Most people accept them, accept what they bring too.’
‘Maybe, but free-traders are far from the romantic figures those of us in our comfortable homes imagine them to be, bringing cheap luxuries, and doing no harm. Many of them are discharged soldiers with no work and a dangerous knowledge of firearms, explosives and tactics, learned in the service of their country, and they are putting their knowledge to good use. They are vicious and often murderous if someone stands in their way, and the damage they do to the economy of the country is enormous. Nabbing them is a challenge and I have never been able to resist a challenge. I came to town to report to the Home Office and tomorrow I’m off to ride along the coast, picking up what information I can along the way. Come with me, if you like.’
Stacey was tempted, but, remembering his responsibilities, smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I cannot. I must go home.’
‘To be nagged?’
‘Most likely.’
‘What about?’
‘Marrying again. My father thinks I have been widowed long enough and my daughter needs a mother, not to mention that he wants a male heir before he dies. Not that he is ailing, far from it. He is hale and hearty. Too hearty sometimes. As for my daughter, she has been thoroughly spoiled by her grandparents. I shall have to take her in hand.’
‘And you are not relishing it?’
‘She is like a stranger to me, treats me with polite indifference as if I were a visitor who has outstayed his welcome. Understandable, I suppose, considering I was with the army all her life and saw her very infrequently. Her mother was expecting her when I was posted out to India and would not come with me because of her condition and her fear of the climate. In the event she was proved right, because she died having Julia…’
Gerard had known that, but he hadn’t known of the difficulties his friend faced on returning home. ‘I’m sorry, old man. So, you are in town looking for a wife?’
‘My father might wish it, but I don’t. Anyway the Season is not yet begun and I am not in the market for a débutante; they are almost always too young and usually too silly. If I remarry, it would have to be someone of my own age or perhaps a little younger if I am to have an heir, with a modicum of intelligence and common sense, not to mention having some regard for me and me for her. I am unlikely to find someone like that in the drawing rooms of the ton. It won’t be an easy task, considering whoever takes me on has to take my wayward daughter with me, and at this moment I do not feel inclined to inflict her upon anyone.’
‘Oh, surely she is not as bad as that?’
‘I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but she has become a hoyden of the first water, rides astride her black stallion all over the estate, shoots and fishes and hunts, just as if she were a boy. I wish she were a boy, I could be proud of a male child with those accomplishments. There isn’t a feminine bone in her body and at thirteen that is to be deplored.’
‘That will change, given the company of other young ladies of her age. Send her away to school.’
‘I thought of that, but I can’t find one to take her. She doesn’t want to go, so, whenever I take her to view a school and meet the teachers, she behaves so badly they won’t even consider her. And my father is no help. He humours her in whatever she wants and told me he likes to have her near him.’ He stopped suddenly and laughed. ‘I am sure you do not want to hear about our family squabbles. Let us have dinner together and talk of old times and free-traders and anything else but wives and children. I assume you have neither shackles.’
‘No, and, if your experience is typical, I am glad of it.’ He turned as the group of card players behind him tipped over their chairs as they rose drunkenly to go. ‘I don’t know what White’s is coming to, allowing people like that through the doors. Who are they, do you know?’
‘No idea,’ Stacey murmured. ‘That swarthy one with the scar on his cheek seems familiar, but I cannot place him. When you arrived he was telling the others he had just come into his inheritance. If it means a title and some blunt to go with it, I suppose that’s why they were admitted.’ He watched the men leave, lurching from side to side and grabbing hold of each other for support. ‘He said the estate had been run by his sister-in-law of late and he was about to go to Suffolk to claim it from her. I pity her, whoever she is.’
They dismissed the men from their minds and did as Stacey had suggested and ordered dinner and enjoyed a convivial evening reminiscing about their time in Portugal and Spain and the horror that was Waterloo, the terrible state of the economy, the poverty and unrest in the country and the extravagance of the Regent, who must surely be the most unpopular ruler in England’s history. And from there they went on to smugglers and lawbreakers generally, many of whom were driven to desperate measures by poverty and hunger, and what could be done to cure the country’s ills. By the time they parted, they had set the world to rights and Stacey was feeling more cheerful, though none of his problems had been solved or were on the way to being solved.
His father had a town house in Duke Street and he ambled back there at two in the morning, deciding that he must d
o something about Julia, though he freely admitted he knew nothing about bringing up children, especially girl children fast approaching womanhood. If only Anne-Marie had not died…
He reflected on his eighteen months of marriage, eighteen months in which he had bitterly regretted being talked into it by his parents. ‘She will make an admirable wife,’ he had been told. ‘She has the right connections and a good dowry and she is more than agreeable.’ That had been true, but what they had failed to point out and what he had been too young to appreciate was that Anne-Marie was little more than a schoolgirl with an empty head. She wanted him for what he could provide: the status of being addressed as ‘my lady’ and clothes and jewellery, piles and piles of clothes and boxes and boxes of jewels. She was entirely ignorant of the duties of a wife and, once he had got her with child, would have nothing more to do with him and sat about all day eating sweetmeats. Who could blame him for purchasing his colours and going off to India to serve with Sir Arthur Wellesley? Later, after a brief sojourn at home, he had gone to Spain with him to share in his setbacks and his victories. Sir Arthur had been showered with honours and become first Viscount, then Marquis and now the Duke of Wellington, beloved of the people. Stacey came home to a problematic daughter and very little else.
Would Anne-Marie have matured if she had lived? Would their marriage have reached any kind of accommodation? He doubted it. But her legacy was Julia and their daughter was his responsibility, not his father’s. He should not have left her so long that he had become a stranger to her. But he did not think returning with a new wife was the answer either. She would then have two strangers to contend with and, as she resented him, how much more would she hate a stepmother? He resolved to return home the next day and take her in hand.
The cold and rain of the last few weeks eased overnight and the sun was trying to shine, though it was hazy and the roads were still full of puddles that drenched pedestrians every time a carriage clattered by. He spent the morning at Gentleman Jackson’s Emporium in Bond Street, honing his boxing skills, and the afternoon at Tattersalls, wondering whether to buy a mare to put to his stallion, Ivor. At six o’clock he went home, changed into a travelling coat, ate a solitary meal and took a cab to the Spread Eagle in Gracechurch Street to board the stage for Norwich. He was only marginally surprised to find three of the card players of the previous evening were also travelling on it. After all, the man called Cecil had said something about going to Suffolk to claim his inheritance and it was roughly in the same direction.
The men were not as rowdy as they had been the night before; in fact, they looked very grey about the face with dull, red-rimmed eyes. Stacey was thankful they were disinclined to talk and, as soon as all the baggage had been stowed and the outside passengers had climbed to their perches, he settled in the corner of the coach and shut his eyes. They were out of town and well on their way before anyone spoke and then it was the man he had heard addressed as Cecil who uttered the first words. ‘I know you, don’t I?’
Stacey ignored him, but the man leaned forward and poked his knee, repeating his question. Forced to open his eyes, Stacey found the fellow close to him, breathing brandy fumes through blackened teeth, although Stacey noticed he had bought himself a new suit of clothes and was looking tolerably smart. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Don’t need to beg my pardon, friend, I was merely passing a comment that we have met before.’
‘Have we?’
‘I believe so. Hobart’s the name. Lord Hobart of Easterley Manor.’
‘Your servant,’ Stacey said without enthusiasm. He had taken an aversion to the man, though he could not have said why. It wasn’t simply his looks, which he could not help, but his manner, which was rough and coarse. And the derogatory way he had spoken of his sister-in-law was not the way of a gentleman. He did not know the woman, but, whoever she was, she surely did not merit such disparagement, especially if she had been looking after his property for him.
‘And you are…?’ Cecil prompted.
‘My name can be of no interest to you.’
‘Indeed it is, if we are acquainted.’ He suddenly banged his head and laughed. ‘Malcomby, that’s it! You are the Earl’s son. I knew I recognised your physog.’
Stacey groaned inwardly. It seemed the man did know who he was. ‘Stacey Darton,’ he said.
‘The Viscount. Well, well. After all these years.’
‘I am afraid I do not recall…’
‘No, you would not, I was only a young shaver at the time and you were a Captain of Hussars, very grand, I thought you. I might have taken up the sword to defend king and country myself if I had not had business on the sub-continent. Do you still not remember where we met?’
Stacey shook his head. In spite of his apparent indifference he was curious.
‘It was at my mother’s funeral. She was Madeleine Stacey, your father’s cousin. You were named for her.’
‘Cousin?’ He remembered now. Madeleine was daughter to his father’s aunt and as, at the time of her death, he had returned from India and was waiting to rejoin his regiment, he had gone with his father to the funeral. And this uncouth man was her son. He could hardly believe it, did not want to believe it.
‘That makes us second cousins, does it not?’ Cecil held out his hand. ‘How d’ you do, Cousin.’
Stacey, never an uncivil man, shook the hand and was then obliged to shake hands with his companions who were agog with curiosity. ‘May I present my friends,’ Cecil said, ‘This is Mr Augustus Spike.’ He indicated the beetle-browed man sitting beside him. ‘And that spidershanks sitting beside you is Sir Roland Bentwater. We are off to Parson’s End to claim my inheritance.’ He evidently had not noticed Stacey at White’s the night before. ‘My dear father recently slipped his wind, but, though he sent for me, I sadly did not arrive in time to see him alive.’
‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Stacey said politely.
‘And you, where is your journey taking you?’
‘Home to Malcomby Hall.’
‘Is it the first time you have been home? Since the war, I mean.’
‘No. I returned six months ago.’
‘And how is your delightful wife?’
‘She died several years ago.’
‘I am sorry for that.’ The man did not seem to notice Stacey’s perfunctory answers. ‘And how are the Earl and Countess?’
‘They are both well.’
‘Good, good. I wonder you choose to travel by public coach when there must be horses and carriages to spare at Malcomby Hall.’
Stacey was beginning to wonder himself; his father would have allowed him to take the carriage, but he knew his mother used it all the time and he did not want to deprive her of it, especially as he did not know how long he would be gone. There was a gig and a phaeton, but they were not suitable for long journeys, nor would his parents use them when the weather was inclement, as it had been. The stage seemed the sensible choice, but now it looked as though he was going to have to spend several hours in the company of this unlikeable fellow.
He was saved having to answer when the coach pulled up at an inn for their first change of horses. He did not bother to go inside for refreshment, but waited in the coach. Half an hour later, they were off again, but, as more passengers had joined them and kept the conversation going, Stacey had only to put in an occasional remark. It grew dark and the countryside could no longer be seen except as a blur of trees and hedgerows; the talk became more desultory and many of the passengers dozed. It was easy for Stacey to pretend to do likewise.
It was gone three in the morning when the coach rumbled into the yard of the Great White Horse in Ipswich. ‘This is where we part company, Cousin,’ Cecil said. ‘Parson’s End is not on a regular coach route, so we must rack up here and make other arrangements to continue our journey. But we are in no hurry and who knows—we might find a snug little inn somewhere where the play is good.’
The coach pulled up in the yard of the inn and im
mediately the business of changing the horses was begun. Cecil Hobart and his friends tumbled out. Before shutting the door, Cecil turned back to Stacey. ‘Give the Earl and Countess my greetings, won’t you?’ he said. ‘You must bring them to Easterley Manor to visit when I have settled my affairs.’
‘They do not travel far these days.’
‘No? Well, neither did my father. But there is nothing to stop you coming, is there? Families should not lose touch, should they? But leave it a day or two, give me time to settle in.’
Stacey smiled and bowed his head politely in response. That the man should turn out to be a relative was repugnant to him and he had no intention at all of visiting him, or even of thinking of him again. People were always claiming they knew him or were related to him, simply because of his title and wealth and whatever advantage they thought the connection might bring. Only in the army with people like Captain Gerard Topham was his title ignored and he was recognised by his rank of Major, which was the one he preferred.
The coach continued on its way with different passengers, taking the road to Norwich where it stopped at the Old Ram coaching inn where he had left his mount. Here he ate breakfast before setting off on horseback to complete his journey.
The sun was warm on his back as he rode and the birds were singing as if to tell him the winter was gone and spring was on its way. His spirits rose. Perhaps he would find Julia in a better frame of mind, ready to listen to him and behave in a more comely fashion. He was sorely disappointed within a few minutes of turning in the great iron gates of Malcomby Hall.
Deciding to take a short cut through the trees rather than ride along the gravelled drive that meandered on its way to the house, his attention was drawn to Julia’s stallion, Ebony, tethered with another horse in a small clearing. He drew up and was wondering where Julia was and who owned the other animal, when he heard the sound of laughter coming from the direction of the lake. He dismounted and, leaving his horse with the others, trod softly towards the sound. Coming out of the trees at the side of the lake, he was stopped in his tracks by the sight that greeted him.
