The Widow (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 1)

by Mary Kingswood

  Mr Blake rushed ahead to open it for her. “I am very sorry,” he said quietly.

  Nell walked past him without another word. What was there to say? There was only one reason for a man to send regular sums of money in great secrecy.

  Jude had had a mistress.

  ~~~~~

  Nell drifted through the days, hardly knowing one day from another except for the regular arrival of the Sabbath. Easter came and went, and she barely noticed. All she could think about was that Jude had maintained a mistress somewhere, and had kept Nell and Louis in poverty so that she might live in comfort. Most of his income had gone to her, while Nell had suffered without tea, and had suffered in other ways too. How… how degrading to be so unimportant in his life.

  One day at breakfast, Maria said to her, “I am going to take Lucy and Jane down to the Beach for a walk beside the river. Why not come with us? And Louis too.”

  “I do not think—” Nell began.

  “It would do you so much good to get out of the house,” Maria rushed on. “Lord, Nell, you sit here day after day, doing nothing, seeing no one, going nowhere. It would do you the world of good just to see the sun and stretch your legs for a while. You will fade away to nothing if you do not make an effort. Please come.”

  And because it was easier to give in than to contest the point, she went. They walked down the High Street, Maria and the girls racing ahead then stopping at every shop window, while Nell drifted along behind them, Louis gripping her hand with painful intensity. He felt as she did, in his way, this strange disorientation, where the world looked and behaved the same, and yet everything was different. She was a widow, and Louis was fatherless, and Jude had had a mistress, and nothing would ever be the same again. All her certainty — the only certainty in her life — that Jude had loved her and only her, despite everything, was turned to dust and blown away, and now there was nothing left. She was an empty husk, all the life and energy sucked out of her by the man who had lied about everything. She had given him all she had to give, and he had betrayed her.

  By the time they had passed through the God’s House Gate and onto the Beach, the warmth of the sun and the benevolence of the soft breeze had begun to have their effect. She began to look about her, to notice the other people strolling about, to see the waters of the Itchen rolling past, to smell the familiar aromas of the river — of fish and salt and seaweed and a certain tang in the air that woke her at last from her deep slumber.

  Maria and the three children scavenged along the shore for the sort of items of interest that river and tide were sure to throw out, while Nell sat gazing out of the water at the ferry and the shore beyond, her mind clear for the first time in weeks. She knew at last what she must do. Jude’s betrayals were in the past. He was dead, and could not hurt her any more — not just physically, but in other ways. What did it matter that he had had a mistress, or that he had impoverished his lawful family to support her? The past had floated away downstream and need not concern her. She must look to the future now, her future and that of her son.

  To set the past entirely to rest, she must force herself to take command of her life. She would look at Jude’s clothes and see what could be adapted for Louis, and what could be sold. She must find a way to open the locked box under the bed. She must obtain a proper accounting of the mortgage from Mr Vessey, and determine how she might repay it.

  It would be stating the case too strongly to say that all her confusion had evaporated, but she felt more alert and enthusiastic than she had for an age. For years, perhaps. As soon as she returned to the house, she would make a list of what needed to be done and then… then she would do it. She would learn to manage for herself. She could do it… she was not helpless, for she was Miss Godney of Daveney Hall—

  But that was not true. She was neither a Godney of Daveney Hall nor a wife. She was Nell Caldicott, widow and mother, and her life was for her alone to make now.

  12: Benefactors

  Nell walked back up the High Street in better spirits than at any time since Jude’s death… no, before that. She had been dull and listless for so long, but no more. She would make herself a pot of tea, and then she would begin taking command of her life.

  The door opened to them even before they had reached it, and Becky’s anxious face peeped out.

  “Please, madam, and I hope I did right, but there’s three gen’lemen to see you on a matter of business, lawyers, they are, and I put them in the dinin’ room. Didn’t seem right to take them up to the mornin’ room, not with you not in the house, and it being business and all, and Mr Lloyd has the study, so I thought—”

  “That is perfectly all right, Becky,” Nell said, as they gained the hall. “But who are they?”

  Wordlessly the maid held out a card. ‘P Willerton-Forbes, of Markham, Willerton-Forbes and Browning, Gray’s Inn, London’, Nell read.

  “I expect they are sent by my brother,” she said, untying the ribbons on her bonnet. “I shall see them in the dining room.”

  “Do you wish me to be present?” Maria said. “Chaperonage?”

  “It is not necessary for a discussion with lawyers. Louis, will you take my bonnet and gloves up to my room, if you please? Becky, please wait in the hall, in case I should need you.”

  Her assured manner was such that they obeyed her unquestioningly. She could dither for days or weeks about financial matters, yet at a moment’s notice she could assume all the self-confidence of rank. Lawyers did not dismay her after her meeting with Mr Blake in Portsmouth, for nothing they said could be as shocking. She lifted her chin, opened the door and entered the dining room.

  They were nothing like lawyers, that was her first impression. One man of ostentatiously fashionable style, another wearing the flamboyant colours of the Four-Horse Club, a sword at his side, and one in plain black, carrying a writing box. He was a secretary, but it was hard to see the lawyer in either of the others.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Nell said.

  They turned, and the fashionable one stepped forward. “Mrs Caldicott?” She nodded. “Thank you for receiving us. Allow me to introduce myself. Pettigrew Willerton-Forbes. My father is the Earl of Morpeth. This gentleman is Captain Michael Edgerton, formerly of the East India Company Army, and this is James Neate, my secretary.”

  “Did my brother send you?” Nell said.

  “We are not here for any family matter,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said. “It is to do with the Brig Minerva.”

  Her stomach twisted in sudden fear. “The inquiry? I thought it was over.”

  “Indeed it is, Mrs Caldicott. I assure you our business is a more pleasant one.”

  “Then pray be seated, gentlemen.” She took a chair in the centre of one side of the dining table. Willerton-Forbes sat down opposite her, and Neate placed himself at the far end of the table. He opened his writing box and laid out a notebook and pencil. Edgerton, meanwhile, did not sit, but lounged against the wall behind Willerton-Forbes.

  “First of all,” Willerton-Forbes said, “may I deal with the preliminaries? You are Mrs Caldicott, widow of Captain Judas Caldicott, commander of the Brig Minerva?”

  “I am.”

  “Your maiden name, Mrs Caldicott?”

  “Godney. I was Miss Helen Godney.”

  “And your father is—?”

  “My father was Sir Lewis Godney of Daveney Hall. He died four years ago. My brother James is the baronet now.”

  Neate’s pencil moved swiftly across the paper, taking everything down.

  “Do you have your marriage lines, Mrs Caldicott?”

  She was aware of a shiver of fear. Her marriage lines? An odd request.

  There was a pause while she dispatched Becky for the box in her dressing table drawer which held all her important papers — her sketches of Mama and Papa, one of Jack as a baby and many of Louis, the few letters from friends since her marriage, the three letters Jude had sent her and her marriage lines. Willerton-Forbes examined the latter with interest.<
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  “St Peter’s at Bishopswood Cromby — that is your parish church at Daveney Hall, I take it? And the officiating minister, Mr George Lumley?”

  “He is still there. Mr Willerton-Forbes, is there some question about my marriage?”

  “Not at all, Mrs Caldicott, not at all. We are just collating all the relevant facts in order to determine that you are, in fact, the next of kin of Captain Judas Caldicott.”

  “And have you so determined?” she said, puzzled but also amused now.

  “Indeed we have. In which case, I am now in a position to reveal to you a matter of great advantage to you.”

  “I am glad to hear it, for I have been short of matters of advantage to me lately,” Nell said.

  Willerton-Forbes nodded, his expression sympathetic. “I am sure you have, Mrs Caldicott. So let me keep you in suspense no longer. There is a person — let us call this person the Benefactor, for want of any other name — who has been greatly distressed by the events surrounding the Brig Minerva. Therefore the Benefactor has decreed that every survivor of the tragedy, and the next of kin of every person lost in the foundering, shall receive the sum of one thousand pounds, free of all constraints or restrictions.”

  “A thousand pounds?” Nell said, staring at him. “That is… a prodigious sum.” What could she not do with a thousand pounds? Settle all Jude’s debts, for one thing. Or invest it for… she worked the numbers swiftly in her head. Thirty or forty pounds a year. A useful increase in her income. And yet… free of all constraints? Was such liberality possible?

  “It is indeed a generous amount. My very pleasant task is to dispense this largesse to all those qualified to receive it.”

  “A pleasant task indeed,” she said. “One thousand pounds apiece? This Benefactor must be a very rich man.”

  “Or woman, perhaps,” Willerton-Forbes said cautiously.

  “You do not know?”

  “I know nothing of the Benefactor, and nor does my head of chambers. But then I do not need to know who pays me in order to perform my appointed task, Mrs Caldicott.”

  Perhaps her head was full of Jude’s mysteries, for she said, “But you must wonder, Mr Willerton-Forbes.”

  He smiled and steepled his hands. “Naturally I wonder, but all that matters is that I follow my instructions to the letter. I must tell you that I am empowered to make the gift available in whatever manner best suits you. I may place it in a bank account on your behalf, or invest it in the funds for you, or buy property or goods, if you should wish that. But if you wish to receive it as a roll of notes, then that is permitted, too.”

  “Oh. I do not know…”

  “Naturally you do not, for this has come as a surprise to you, or I may even say it is a shock. A happy one, but a shock, nevertheless. Naturally you can make no decisions immediately. We will return in a few days to talk further with you on the subject, but you may take all the time you need to reach a decision. You may also request us to carry out any other tasks or offer advice on any subject which may arise as a consequence of your bereavement. That too is a charge laid upon us by the Benefactor.”

  “Any advice? Any tasks?”

  “We are authorised to offer you whatever help you may stand in need of at this difficult time in your life, Mrs Caldicott.”

  She took a breath to speak, then released it again. Mr Willerton-Forbes watched her attentively, his eyes not straying from her face. Captain Edgerton watched her too from his post by the wall, one foot bent to rest against the wainscot. Mr Neate’s pencil wrote on, then he stopped writing and lifted his head to gaze at her.

  A laugh burst out of her. “That is the most ridiculous story I have ever heard! A thousand pounds? For everyone from the duke’s brother down to Tom Kibble? Preposterous!”

  Mr Willerton-Forbes’ smile widened. “What is so ridiculous about it, Mrs Caldicott?”

  “That any man — or woman — of sound mind would give away so much money. There were six and twenty persons aboard the Minerva when it sank, Mr Willerton-Forbes. Why would anyone give away six and twenty thousand pounds, and so indiscriminately?”

  “The Benefactor’s intent is charitable,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said.

  “That is a vast amount of charitable intent,” Nell said, with another laugh. “Depend upon it, either the Benefactor is quite mad, or there is some other purpose behind the gifts, or—”

  “Or?”

  “Or there is no Benefactor at all. You will forgive me, gentlemen, but I have more important things to do than to listen to such taradiddles.”

  She swept out of the room, still laughing, but this time at the astonished expressions on their faces. It was the first time she had laughed properly since Jude’s death. Even before that, there had been few moments of unalloyed amusement in recent years. Her light mood carried her upstairs, but the morning room was empty. Up again, and she found Louis sprawled on his bed, a book open, but his eyes were heavy after so much exercise on the Beach. Perhaps he would sleep.

  Her own room was at the back of the house, where they had moved after the disaster, since the best bedrooms had to be given over to the Lloyds. It was small and gloomy, and even Jude’s efforts at painting the walls a paler colour could not bring light and warmth to a room that had only one narrow window facing north. It contained but little furniture — the bed, a tiny closet to one side of the fireplace, a small desk and chair, and her dressing table, the only item of furniture she had insisted on keeping, since it had come from Daveney Hall. It was the only link now to her former life.

  As she entered the room, all her buoyancy evaporated instantly. So many memories, and none of them good. There was grief here, and anger, and fear — so much fear! The furniture, the bed linen, the very walls exuded it, so that it washed over her, sapping her energy, whenever she entered. It was like a sponge which had soaked up all the misery of the last five years until it was so sodden that the excess seeped out unbidden. When she left the house, her spirits rose up and up, and when she returned they sank again, the small happinesses of the day leached out of her by this reservoir of pain. And it was all centred here, in this room.

  Yet there was nowhere else, unless she crept off to sleep in the attic like a servant, and that she would not do. She was a woman of six and twenty, not a child, she was a mother and had been a wife, and she was mistress of her own household. She would not be cowed!

  Taking a deep breath, then another, she sat down at the desk. Jude’s desk. Her desk, now. She looked into the drawers, opened the lid and examined inside. A few scraps of paper, a couple of dried-up pens, an inkwell and a half-used bottle of ink. Two or three pencils, a sand shaker and a box of pounce. Sealing wax, string, a knife. Nothing else.

  Well, that would not do. She threw away all that was unusable, then went downstairs and fetched some of her own supplies, the gift from Mr Harbottle. That was a good memory to add to the desk, a complete stranger who had taken an interest in her and had showed her a great deal of unsolicited kindness. He was a benefactor, too, like this supposed person handing out a thousand pounds apiece to relatives of the Minerva victims. There truly were people in the world who were unstintingly generous. After that, she collected up all the outstanding bills, and arranged them in piles on the desk. Then she sat down to count her money, and to determine how best to settle all her accounts.

  She had not been working for long when the room’s chill atmosphere began to make her shiver. There was no fire laid, for they had never been able to afford the luxury, so she went to the closet to find her thick shawl, the one Becky’s mother had knitted for her that first winter after the disaster, when she had never seemed able to get warm. It was not elegant, but the colours were gentle, heathery tones and it was blissfully cosy. As she wrapped it around her shoulders, her foot brushed against something that made a crinkling sound.

  The parcel containing Jude’s clothes. She had tossed it into the closet, and there it had lain ever since, unopened and unregarded. Now she picked it up and wal
ked across to the bed. ‘Possessions of Captain Jude Caldicott’, read the label. Could she bear to see the pathetic few rags that were all that remained of her husband? Yesterday, perhaps, she would have left the parcel where it lay, but today— today was different. It was only a nightshirt, after all.

  She sat down on the bed, and carefully unpicked the knot so that the string might be kept. Then, with shaking hands she pulled aside the paper.

  There was a shirt, it was true. She also found a waistcoat, some drawers, breeches and stockings. No boots, for he must have been in bed, but it was rather touching that he had not undressed. Was that usual on board ship? Did everyone sleep in their regular clothes, and only remove their boots? Or was this something unique to Jude, the captain always ready to be summoned in case of mishap? Except that he had not been summoned. The ship had hit the hidden rock and sunk almost at once. There had been no time to wake the captain, for his body had been found still in his bunk. The duke had been retrieved first, and then the captain. She had a vision of him sleeping peacefully on his side, his thick, blond hair in disorder, his face calm. How many times had she watched him sleep, eyes closed, the lashes lying against his cheeks? In the early years, her heart had ached with love for him, but latterly—

  She would not think about that. As she picked up the shirt, it was stiff with salt. All Jude’s clothes came home salt-encrusted, but this was something more, the feel of a shirt that had lain beneath the waves for a while. Everything was the same. One by one she examined each item, tried to remember Jude wearing it and failed. Then she put each into the basket for laundry.

  All except the waistcoat. There was a heaviness about it that spoke of weighty objects in the pockets. She withdrew his pocket watch first, with his initials on the back. ‘JC’, engraved in an elaborately curled script. The silver had tarnished, and it had stopped at twenty minutes past three. That might be sold, perhaps. Some coins in another pocket. The new, practical Nell counted them — two pounds three shillings and sevenpence — added them to the piles on the desk and noted the amount on the paper. Then, more methodically, she went through the rest of the pockets. First, she came across the ring on a long metal chain that he had worn inside his shirt. It was his seal, with a design of a bag of money. ‘Judas’s thirty pieces of silver,’ he had told her. She slipped the chain over her head and tucked it under her gown.