Scandal at Greystone Manor

by Mary Nichols

  ‘The Manor is Teddy’s birthright,’ Sophie said.

  ‘Teddy has forfeited that,’ her father snapped. ‘If he had not got into Bolsover’s clutches, the man would not have thought of buying up our debts, too.’

  ‘I think perhaps Teddy was simply a means to an end,’ Jane said quietly. ‘I believe his lordship is conducting some sort of vendetta. I have a mind to discover what it is.’

  ‘It will not help,’ he said, his dejection evident in every word. He was a defeated man and Jane’s heart went out to him.

  ‘Then we must make plans for the future,’ she said brightly. ‘Where do you think you would like to go? Bath is a good place for retirement.’

  ‘Too expensive,’ the lawyer put in.

  ‘We must go home to Scotland,’ their mother said suddenly. ‘There is plenty of room at Cartrose Hall.’

  Cartrose Hall was the home of her parents, Viscount and Viscountess Cartrose. It was in a remote spot in the Highlands, which had glorious countryside, thousands of sheep, but few people. The family had made frequent visits there when the children were small, but they had not been so often as they grew up and developed other interests. Besides, the journey took several days and Lady Cavenhurst, who was a bad traveller, had come to dread it.

  ‘But that’s the other end of the earth,’ Isabel wailed

  ‘But you will not be coming with us, will you?’ her mother said. ‘You will stay here as Lady Wyndham.’

  ‘Then I will never see you again.’ It sounded as if she were coming round to that idea after all and Jane wondered what Mark would make of it.

  ‘Nonsense, Mark will bring you to visit us, I am sure.’

  ‘I shan’t be going either,’ Jane said quietly. In the last few minutes she had been considering how a move would impact on her. She was committed to the Hadlea Children’s Home project, she could not abandon it. ‘I shall move into Witherington House.’

  ‘On your own, Jane?’ Sir Edward queried. ‘Out of the question.’

  ‘I shan’t be on my own. I shall have a full complement of staff. I have to stay to help run it and keep raising funds.’

  ‘Other people can do that.’

  ‘But it is my project. It is important to me.’

  Lady Cavenhurst began to weep and her husband abandoned his altercation with Jane to comfort her. ‘Do not cry, my dear. It will not be so bad. Our daughters were bound to marry and leave home at some time and you would have become used to being without them.’

  ‘But not Jane,’ she sobbed. ‘Not Jane.’

  Made uncomfortable by her weeping, Theodore Halliday rose to leave. ‘I will put the sale in hand for you, Sir Edward. I do not think we need advertise it widely. I will tell a few select people and the whole thing can be managed discreetly.’

  ‘Yes, do that.’ Sir Edward hardly turned from his wife to bid him good day. No one thought about the man’s need for accommodation, until Jane mentioned it.

  ‘Oh, yes, you are welcome to stay,’ Sir Edward said. ‘But we shall be poor company.’

  ‘I thank you, but I have booked a room at the Fox and Hounds in order to make an early start in the morning.’

  Jane rose and went with him to the front door. ‘I am sorry to have been the bearer of such ill tidings,’ he told her, as she handed him his hat from the table in the hall. ‘I am afraid your family is going to need your stalwart good sense in the next few weeks.’

  ‘I know.’ A footman who was soon to lose his job opened the door and the lawyer hurried down the steps and climbed into his carriage. She sighed and turned to go back to the rest of the family.

  ‘To think it should come to this,’ her mother was saying. ‘Me, a Viscount’s daughter, reduced to charity.’

  ‘Charity, Mama?’ Jane said. ‘No one has said you are reduced to that. You are simply moving house for your own convenience.’

  ‘Yes, so I shall say, and for my health’s sake, but it will not make me feel any better about it.’

  ‘Lady Wyndham and Mark will have to be told.’

  ‘Oh, no, surely not?’

  ‘They will think it very strange if we do not confide why we are suddenly selling our home, do you not think? Lady Wyndham has been your friend ever since you married and came to live here. It would be discourteous not to tell her.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you are right. She made me feel welcome when I was new to the area. I shall miss her more than anyone.’

  Jane smiled. ‘More than me?’

  ‘Oh, you did not really mean you would not come with us, did you?’

  ‘Yes, I did, Mama. I cannot manage Witherington House from Scotland, can I?’

  ‘Let someone else take it on. I need you.’

  ‘But so do the orphans.’ She was tired of arguing, tired of going over the same ground again and again, tired of always giving in. ‘Shall I drive you over to Broadacres tomorrow?’

  Lady Cavenhurst sighed heavily. ‘Yes, let us get it over with, though what I shall say to Helen, I have no idea.’

  ‘The truth, Mama. It was you who taught us that untruths will always come back to haunt us.’

  ‘If I could meet this dreadful Lord Bolsover,’ her mother said, ‘I would certainly have something to say to him.’

  ‘Then I am glad you cannot, Mama, he would undoubtedly laugh at you. He is an odious man.’

  ‘You have met him?’ her mother asked in surprise.

  ‘Yes, briefly when we were in London. I did not like him.’

  ‘I hate him!’ Isabel declared. ‘He has been our ruin.’

  ‘Not unless we let him,’ Jane said. ‘Now, cheer up, Mama, and let us begin to make plans how the move is to be achieved without loss of face.’

  ‘I do not want to be poor,’ Isabel said. ‘I won’t be poor, I will not. I don’t want to live counting my pennies and not being able to have a new gown or new shoes when I want them. I would rather marry Mark after all.’

  Jane’s heart sank like a stone and her bright cheerfulness suddenly lost its edge.

  * * *

  The thought of leaving her childhood home, the place in all the world where she had been most happy, was heartrending for Jane, but she refused to weep as everyone else seemed to be doing. Tears altered nothing and it was better to be positive. When she said that to Isabel the following morning at breakfast, her sister snapped at her, ‘It is all right for you, Jane, you are wedded to your children’s home. You do not have to worry about husbands and weddings, you are an old maid and must make do with other people’s children. I am being forced into marrying a man I do not love because the man I do love chose to be chivalrous and leave the field.’

  Jane refused to rise to the bait, but she did wonder if there was some truth in what Isabel said. Was she using the children’s home to fulfil a void in her own life? She shrugged; if she was, it would also benefit the orphans she meant to help, so what did it matter? She went to the stables to ask Daniel to harness the pony to the trap, so that she could drive her mother to Broadacres.

  * * *

  ‘Your papa is going to tell the servants today,’ her mother said as they bowled out of the drive on to the village road. ‘He has agreed I may keep Bessie, if she is prepared to stay with me when we move to Scotland, but the rest are to be given notice.’

  ‘Perhaps the new owner will let them stay?’

  ‘Perhaps, but we do not know who he will be, do we? Your father says they must be given the opportunity to find new positions, in case he does not.’

  Would they be able to find new positions? Jane wondered. Everyone was having to tighten their belts nowadays—having more servants than were needed was a thing of the past, unless you were exceedingly rich. Only stubborn men like her father liked to keep up appearances. She would need some help at Witherington House, perha
ps she could take some of them on. It might be seen as a downward step by Saunders, the butler, and Mrs Driver, the housekeeper, who had been with them for as long as she could remember, but it was better than being without a job and a home. The trouble was that Witherington House might not be ready when the time came to move.

  Mark heard them arrive and came out to meet them. He was dressed for riding, though hatless. ‘Good morning, my lady,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I did not think to have the pleasure of seeing you again so soon.’ He handed her down, then turned to help Jane down. ‘How are you, Jane?’ he asked, searching her face.

  His tender look of concern disconcerted her. ‘I am well, thank you,’ she said, standing on one leg while she fumbled for her crutch. He picked it up and handed it to her with a smile. It was all she could do to return his smile and thank him.

  ‘Is Lady Wyndham at home?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Yes, I will take you to her.’

  ‘I will wait here,’ Jane said. She did not want to witness what she knew her mother thought of as humiliation, nor did she think her mother would want Mark to be present. ‘I need to speak to you, Mark, if you can spare the time.’

  ‘Of course. Can you manage as far as the walled garden? There is a seat in an arbour there.’

  ‘Yes. I am becoming quite adept at using this.’ She lifted the crutch.

  He ushered Lady Cavenhurst into the house and Jane made her way slowly to the arbour garden and sat down heavily. Walking with a crutch was not as easy as it looked and made her shoulder ache, but that was the least of her problems. There was a honeysuckle climbing the frame of the arbour filling her nostrils with its scent and she breathed deeply, more to calm herself than to smell the flower. How much to tell him, how much to leave out?

  She could see him as he came down the path towards her, and could admire his splendidly muscular figure; the way he walked, not stiffly, but upright with an easy grace; the superb cut of his clothes; the way he smiled. Would Isabel marry him? Her sister would not think twice about changing her mind again, if it meant she did not have to go to Scotland. It pained Jane to think that he would be hurt either way. The gossip would be dreadful if she did not. It might be said that he reneged when it was so obvious there would be no dowry and the family were spendthrifts. On the other hand, if she did marry him, could they be happy?

  ‘Now, Jane,’ he said, sitting down beside her. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘My mama is going to tell your mother a piece of news which will have consequences for all of us,’ she began. ‘And I have been given the task of telling you because Isabel flatly refuses to do so.’

  ‘That sounds ominous.’

  ‘I am afraid it is.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Oh, dear, this is difficult.’

  ‘My dear Jane,’ he said, putting his hand over hers and adding to her nerves. ‘Nothing can be so bad that you cannot confide in me, surely? What has your sister done now?’

  ‘Oh, Isabel has done nothing. It is my father. He is in financial straits and must sell Greystone Manor. My parents are going to say they no longer need to live in such a big house and are going to Scotland for Mama’s health.’

  ‘Good God!’ he said. ‘I knew Sir Edward was struggling, but I had no idea it was as bad as that. How did it come about?’

  She told him what her father had said the previous day, keeping nothing back; she felt he deserved to know the whole. ‘Isabel does not want to go to Scotland and neither do I. I shall go to live at Witherington House. Isabel, of course, will keep her promise to marry you. That is, if you will still have her.’

  ‘Leaving you behind?’ She noticed he made no comment on her statement that Isabel would still marry him.

  ‘It is my choice.’

  ‘But Witherington House is not habitable.’

  ‘I am hoping it will be, or at least part of it will, by the time the Manor is sold. The home will need a housekeeper, so why not me?’

  ‘Jane, I do not like that idea at all.’

  ‘You do not have to like it. But I would appreciate your help in getting things moving.’

  ‘That goes without saying. I have already written to Cecil Halliday.’

  ‘No doubt he will know our situation. Do you think it will make any difference?’

  ‘I don’t see why it should. Your father’s affairs are no business of the trust, whose funds are secure.’

  ‘And do you think we could perhaps take on some of the Manor servants if they fail to find positions for themselves?’

  ‘Dear Jane,’ he said gently. ‘Always thinking of other people and not yourself. This must have been a terrible blow to you.’

  She trembled at the endearment. She must not let him see how affected she was by it, she really must not. She forced a smile. ‘My path is clear, Mark. I will tread it firmly.’

  ‘Do you think Sir Edward would accept financial help from me?’

  ‘I am sure he would not and I beg you not to mention it. His pride has already been badly bruised. In any case, the debts are all in the hands of one man and selling the Manor to pay him is the only way Papa will have anything left.’

  ‘You cannot mean Lord Bolsover?’

  ‘Yes. He has done exactly what he did to Teddy.’

  ‘The man is evil. I cannot understand his motive.’

  ‘No, but I found something interesting the other day,’ she said. ‘I believe he has a connection with Hadlea.’

  ‘I have never heard of it.’

  ‘I found a headstone in the graveyard, not in the consecrated area, but just outside it. It commemorated Colin Bolsover Paget, son of Lord and Lady Paget who died by his own hand in 1649. He was only twenty-seven. There were other old Paget memorials, but none with the name of Bolsover that I could see.’

  ‘It was probably his mother’s maiden name.’

  ‘But surely it means there is a connection?’

  ‘It could be coincidence.’

  ‘I do not think so. Lord Bolsover talked of the Manor, of revenge, do you remember?’

  ‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘I doubt it will make any difference, but I am curious enough to want to find out the story behind that suicide. There are old books at Broadacres that my father collected about the history of the area. I will see what I can unearth.’

  ‘Thank you. I do not know what I would do without you.’

  ‘You said that before.’

  ‘I meant it.’

  He stood up and held out his hand to help her rise. ‘We had better go back to the house. Lady Cavenhurst will be waiting for you.’

  * * *

  ‘Did you tell Mark?’ her mother said as the little pony took them back to the Manor.

  ‘Yes. He deserved the truth.’ She fell silent for a moment, then added, ‘What did Lady Wyndham say?’

  ‘She was shocked. We cried together. I shall miss her more than I can say, but she says we are welcome to visit as often as we like. After all, Mark will be our son-in-law.’

  Jane contemplated this idea, but it made her so miserable she thrust it from her. She really must stop thinking about him; he was not for her and never would be. If she could cut herself off from him, she would, but they were both so heavily involved in the Hadlea Children’s Home project, there was nothing for it but do as she had told him she would: tread her chosen path firmly. But, oh, how her heart ached.

  ‘Helen said she would need a butler and a housekeeper when she moved into the dower house and would be happy to take on Saunders and Mrs Driver. Daniel, too, because she would need a coachman and she did not want to deprive Mark of his menservants.’

  ‘That was kind of her.’

  ‘I wish you were not so stubborn about not coming with us, Jane. It is not seemly for an unmarried lady to live alone.’


  ‘I won’t be alone. I’ll have staff—perhaps some of the Manor staff will come with me. Besides, I am well past the age of needing a chaperon.’

  He ladyship sighed. ‘If you must, you must, but at least you will be near Isabel and Mark.’

  Jane made no answer to that.

  * * *

  The following days at Greystone Manor were unhappy ones. Everyone was going about with long faces and tear-filled eyes while they began tackling the packing up of those belongings they would be taking with them. Lady Cavenhurst had received a letter from her parents telling her they would all be welcome, that if they preferred a home of their own, one of their tenant farmers was moving away and they were welcome to move in to his house.

  ‘It’s a barn of a place,’ she grumbled. ‘With no conveniences at all. And freezing in the winter. I am beginning to feel like the poor relation.’

  Jane refrained from pointing out the truth of that and instead suggested her mother should decide what to take to make it more homely. Her ladyship would have liked to take everything—sofas, pictures, ornaments, crockery, cutlery, linen—but was warned by her husband he did not intend to hire more than one large wagon and she had better make up her mind what was essential and what could be left behind and sold. He was, Jane noted, uncharacteristically sharp with everyone and she knew the strain was telling on him. Sophie was flinging clothes all over her bedroom and bemoaning the fact that she could not take her pony. Isabel, who had quite made up her mind to marry Mark after all, was reviewing her wardrobe, knowing she could buy whatever she liked in clothes when she became Lady Wyndham, but she certainly did not look happy about it.

  As for Jane, she discarded the use of the crutch and took the trap over to Witherington House to inspect it more closely and talk to Mr and Mrs Godfrey about the future, telling them what she intended and to ask them to stay on. ‘We’ll be right pleased to, miss,’ Silas said.

  ‘It will be nice to have children about the place again,’ Mrs Godfrey added. ‘There were always children about in the old days, laughin’ and getting’ into mischief. Sir Jasper let them have the run o’ the place and Lady Paget always indulged them with treats.’