"I wasn't a legatee. "
"You mustn't refine too much on that. It was mischance, not intent. Horrocks is a letter-of-the-law man, however. If you like, I shall instruct him to shew you how things stand."
To his surprize, Vincent leaned forward. "Would you dislike it, sir? Not knowing is the devil."
"It is at that." Julian regarded his brother thoughtfully. "I'm calling on Horrocks tomorrow morning. Postpone your escape for another day, and I'll put him to answering your questions."
"Not sure I'll ask the right questions," Vincent said with such unexpected shrewdness that Julian smiled.
"Then we'll both ask. Between us we should devil the truth from him... Vincent?"
"Yes?"
"I've seen the letter of instruction my father intended Harry to follow. Did you know the provisions?"
"No. That is, Harry happened to mention I was to have Fern Hall. It ain't entailed," he added defensively.
"I know. Did he mention the mortgages?"
"Mortgages?"
"Two," Julian said drily.
"I say, how paltry!"
"Well, I thought so. I considered breaking the Rosehaugh entail--it' s not so encumbered and the house is in better repair--but Horrocks says it's impossible as things stand." He hesitated, then said carefully, "Besides, from what little I knew of your interests, I wondered whether you'd care to spend your time overseeing an estate."
"I daresay you think I'm a dashed fribble."
"I don't think that. I didn't know. Do you want to manage land?"
"Oh, if it was mine--" Vincent stammered. His face fell. "I don't know the first thing about it."
"There's nothing to prevent your learning."
"I'm one-and-twenty," he said glumly.
"Past praying for."
"Well, sir, you can't deny I've made a hash of things lately. I'd be a cawker if I expected you to believe I've a head for figures."
Julian bit back a grin. "There's more to land than ciphering."
"Yes, dash it. What thingummies go in what field and how many sheep to the acre. I'd make a mull of it, sir."
"I think you'd learn soon enough, but that's by the way if you don't wish to. Fern Hall or Rosehaugh--or whatever property I may be able to settle on you--will need a master. If you'd liefer not be tied to land, I'll fix the equivalent in monies on you to do with as you wish. Not just immediately. As soon as may be. But you must tell me what you wish to do, Vincent."
Vincent's beautiful brow furrowed in unaccustomed thought. Watching him, Julian reflected that it must be difficult to grow up so entirely innocent of purpose.
"You needn't decide just now," he said gently.
Vincent started and flushed. "The thing is, sir, if I could just try my hand..."
"Oh, if that's the problem, I've been needing help at Meriden these two months past. I'm my own agent, you know, and my experience is not precisely vast."
"What happened to Peavey? "
"He was skimming the rents."
"No! I didn't like him above half, but I'm dashed surprized. I say, sir, you've taken on rather a lot of work."
Julian preserved his gravity. "It would seem so." Since his arrival at Meriden he had been up at dawn, riding most of the day from one property to the next, and rarely cleared his--or rather Peavey's--desk before midnight.
"Well, I don't know what I can do, but I'd like to try."
"Thank you. "
Vincent looked down at his shapely hands. "I know very well I should be thanking you. You're dashed generous, Meriden."
There was a bad taste in Julian's mouth. Lord Bountiful. Not for the first time he felt a rush of anger toward his deceased parent. It was bad enough that a grown man like Vincent should be left dependent on a brother six years his senior, but that that man should know less about making his way in the world than a day-old chick seemed to Julian an equally grave crime. He resolved that the same fate should not befall his younger brothers. Now he said merely, "If that's the way you feel, you can pour me another sniff of your brandy. Gratitude gives me the headache."
Vincent stared. "You're bamming me, I daresay."
"No. I assure you. "
Vincent began to grin. "Well, I'll be--"
"Dashed," Julian supplied helpfully.
* * * *
Vincent returned alone to Meriden within the week. Aside from looking unnaturally pale and subdued, he did not appear to have taken permanent harm from his sojourn in a sponging-house. He said very little about it and even less about his rescue.
Lady Meriden killed the fatted calf. She wept over Vincent in the privacy of her rose-scented boudoir, and even exerted herself so far in his honour as to appear at dinner two evenings in a row, once in grey and once in purple. If Vincent fancied Felix and his sisters would make much of him, however, he was doomed to disappointment. Maria avoided his eyes. Drusilla stared. Felix, deprived of these expedients, was more forthright.
"Where's my brother?" he demanded.
Vincent looked rattled. "In London. Dash it, Felix, how should I know? Left him in London."
Felix continued to scowl. "It' s been more than a week. If he don't come back it's your fault."
So that was Felix's fear. Jane said hastily, "He'll return soon, Felix. His lordship no doubt has affairs in Town that require his attention."
"That's it." Vincent cast her a grateful look. "Left him closeted with old Horrocks."
Felix grumbled into his meat.
"You were on terms with his lordship when you left him?" Jane ventured cautiously.
Vincent avoided her eyes. "Oh, yes. Dashed civil when he wishes to be, Meriden. Told me to come on home and do the pretty. Gave me orders for his bailiffs, as a matter of fact."
"Did you execute them? "
"Who, the bailiffs?" Vincent laughed heartily. "Yes, yes. First thing." He sobered. "I say, Jane, I don't know why you should be asking me such devilish questions."
Jane regarded him silently.
He flushed. "Gave him my word. Dash it, a gentleman don't go back on his word."
"Only, I collect, on his debts," Jane murmured and regretted the jibe at once. The old Vincent would have flared at her. Now he merely mumbled something indistinguishable and took to poking at his dinner in a disheartened fashion. No spirit.
Lady Meriden shewed no want of emotional vigour, however. She broke into lamentations and gave Jane to understand she was out of grace.
For two days her ladyship did not send for Jane. As Miss Goodnight was capable of coping with her aunt, Jane relished the respite. She took Maria and Felix into Whitchurch and spent a good amount of time finishing the long-deferred green walking dress. It became her charmingly, though it was dashing, and she determined to wear it, if only to provoke Meriden to satire. If he had been tied so long to his man of business, he would require cheering. Vincent must have got into deep water.
On Tuesday morning she donned the gown and walked nearly an hour in the garden. In vain. Meriden had not returned. Wednesday she repeated the fruitless process and felt such disappointment she began to wonder why it should be so.
Two minutes of reflexion shewed her the absurdity of her reasoning. Because she had taken pleasure in the moments of conversation she had had alone with his lordship nearly every morning, she had fancied he must regard the encounters with the same pleasure, even look forward to them. Whether she wore the green dress or did not made little matter. What was grave, very grave, was that she had grown to depend upon Meriden's presence for some part of her comfort. Felix, even Maria and Drusilla, must entertain such feelings with justice. They were Meriden's dependents. She could not. She would not.
Next morning she came down late dressed in her oldest muslin and, having eaten with Felix, persuaded him to walk with her. As he was cross as crabs, she revelled in her mortification. For some little time, for they soon exhausted the weather as matter for conversation, they paced along the low terrace without speaking. As they turned to go in, Meriden came up the first steps.<
br />
Jane stopped short.
"I hoped I should find you here," he said, smiling.
Jane swallowed and returned the smile.
Unfortunately there was no time for her to respond as she wished. Felix, his. face glowing, shouted, "Julian! I thought you'd never come." He turned and took an unregarded step forward.
His brother caught at him, laughing a little. "Well, cawker, I've come. You needn't spring at me." He gave the boy a hug and listened to him for some minutes, a hand on his shoulder. "Yes, I perceive you've worked like the devil. Not the entire sonata?"
"Note-perfect," Felix said modestly.
"Splendid, maestro, but you must allow me to form my own judgement."
Felix grinned.
Meriden smiled at Jane. "How do you do? We're a rag-mannered lot."
"Yes, I know, and I don't regard it." Jane smiled too, though her mouth felt stiff. Taking his other arm, she walked on into the house with the two brothers.
That his lordship was glad to be home, even glad to see her, she could not doubt, and she should have been more pleased than Felix had she not observed the tired lines about Meriden's mouth and eyes and the stiff, betraying gait. He was dusty and windburnt, and she fancied he had risen at dawn to ride home.
She said merely, "Have you broken your fast?"
He had been listening to Felix chatter and turned back to her, "I beg your pardon. Yes. In Dorchester. I put up there last night. How is Lady Meriden?"
Jane's heart sank. "I'm not perfectly sure. She has not spoken to me in two days."
Meriden stopped in his tracks and gave her a wicked grin. "These are news indeed."
"Oh, Mama's in one of her pets," Felix interposed scornfully. "She'll come about. I say, Julian, you will hear me, won't you? Now?"
"I must sluice off an inch or so of dust first. Give me an hour, Felix. Here's the stair." He laid a hand on the newel and gave his brother a friendly tap in the right direction. "Go on up and limber your fingers. I expect nothing less than mastery."
Felix. grabbed the banister and swung up the steps with jaunty assurance. "An hour, then." He called back over his shoulder, "I'm dashed glad you're back, Julian," and vanished.
Meriden said ruefully, "I'm tolerably sure Vincent is in residence."
"How, sir? "
"The effect on Felix's vocabulary. Now what is this about my esteemed stepmother?"
Jane told him of Lady Meriden's state, on impulse adding a description of Miss Goodnight's plot to remove her aunt to Bath.
He looked dumbfounded and kept his grip on the newel.
"What should you do with Meriden Place if my aunt were gone?" she asked, teazing, for she wished for a light answer.
He took a long breath. "Close it. No, to be honest, let it to the first Nabob Horrocks should unearth for me." He added rather wearily, "Don't look so dismayed, Miss Ash. I'm fairly sure Miss Goodnight's amiable plan will come to nothing."
Jane murmured a polite disclaimer and watched his slow progress up the stairway. In fact, she was dismayed, not so much at the prospect of his closing the house as of his feeling the need to do so. She had to remind herself that he was not deeply attached to Meriden Place and that such a course must seem less desperate to him than it seemed to her--or would seem, she thought with sinking heart, to her Aunt Louisa.
* * * *
The Bath scheme received an unexpected advocate in Vincent. One day, quite unprompted, he suggested to Lady Meriden that she remove his sisters to Bath to give them a taste of Society before their come-outs. It transpired that his principal reason for the suggestion was to provide himself with a base in that dowdy but respectable spa. He found Lyme Regis flat. At least in Bath the Assembly Rooms were Assembly Rooms.
Lady Meriden was seldom inclined to put anyone's comfort before her own, but she was still compassionate toward Vincent, and besides, the idea had apparently been working in her mind with greater vigour than either Miss Goodnight or Jane had imagined.
Her ladyship announced with a sigh that she would enjoy a visit to Bath of all things, that a course of the waters must be helpful to her shattered nerves, but to be finding a house so late...
"I'll find a house for you, ma'am," Vincent said, his eyes lighting. "Dashed if I don't."
He was as good as his word. Abandoning his brother to the bailiffs, he trotted off to Bath of a Monday morning and returned on Friday to announce that he had found her ladyship an excellent small house in Laura Place. Somebody's great-uncle had died without warning. The owners must find a tenant. Not just anyone, of course, but the Stretton name had power still. Lady Meriden had only to instruct her lawyers to see to the lease, and the house would be hers in mid-June.
Appalled by the precipitate course of events, Lady Meriden nearly balked at the gate. If Jane or Miss Goodnight had tried to cajole her, she would certainly have scratched. Vincent had greater address, however. In no time at all his charm worked its way, and it only wanted Meriden's disapproval to convince her ladyship to begin her preparations to remove.
Jane broached the matter to Meriden next morning at breakfast.
"So you see, sir, if only you will raise a few objections, the thing is done..."
He looked dazed. "Very quick work, Miss Ash."
"Oh, I did little enough. It was all Vincent." She explained Vincent's miracle, and after a stunned moment Meriden began to laugh softly.
"I'm very much obliged to Vincent."
"Then tell him so," she urged. "He wants your encouragement, sir, for he is still a little in awe of you, and he has been so well-conducted lately."
"Yes. I begin to think Vincent was meant to be a country squire; he plays the rôle so well. You don't think he'll run amok from an excess of rural virtue, do you?"
Jane smiled but said thoughtfully, "He is country-bred, after all, and I believe his recent, er, experience shook him badly. He is glad enough to be home, if only he may escape now and again. To Bath, for an instance. Is he a great nuisance to you?"
"No, not at all. He knows the people and they him. I find him helpful." He stared at the dregs of his coffee and grimaced. "He won't like it above half if I let Meriden Place."
"Do you still think it necessary?"
"No. It was never necessary--merely expedient. I can't staff Meriden as I ought. The grounds are beginning to look unkempt. And what you so delicately refer to as Vincent's experience has put me in a bad road to be making the repairs my tenants need." He broke off and said ruefully, "Good God, Miss Ash, I wish you won't repeat any of that to Vincent. His withers are already sufficiently wrung."
"I shall say nothing to anyone," Jane replied, "but I think you underrate Vincent's good nature." And his obligation to you, she added, but to herself.
"He does have a happy disposition, does he not? Well, we shall see. I daresay it would take Horrocks some time to find a suitable tenant. Meanwhile, you feel that I should take up my cudgels to her ladyship's boudoir? I can think of several objections--for one, I don't care to lose Drusilla and Polly so soon. Shall I play the heavy guardian?"
"Excellent, and by all means call Maria Polly, for it is a nick-name my aunt abominates, but do not, I pray you, drop a word about letting Meriden Place or all is irretrievably lost."
He smiled, a little wryly. "You're a deceitful woman, Miss Ash. A true Machiavel."
Jane flushed. "If I believed my aunt's interests would be better served by staying here..."
"Don't," he said gently. "I shall do my possible with Lady Meriden. This afternoon?"
"Yes, and I warn you I'll be there, for I'd not miss the encounter for the world."
His eyes lit. "I always perform better for an audience. Shall you invite Miss Goodnight and Vincent as well?"
"No, I prefer closet drama," Jane said with dignity and poured two fresh cups of coffee.
Meriden did not play the heavy guardian. Jane thought he did not play at anything. Instead he attempted to make as reasonable a case against her ladyship's removal as cou
ld be made--a disinterested act that did not entirely surprize Jane. He pointed out to her aunt that he intended to supervise his brothers' education and therefore meant to keep Felix by him--and the twins in the school holidays.
Had Lady Meriden's professed need to have her children about her been as sincere as it was dramatic, she would then have abandoned her plan, but she had never intended to take the older boys with her. Little Thomas and his nurse must come--with flashing eyes she dared Meriden to deny her her baby--but she did not attempt any such lioness-like rescue of Felix and the twins. Beyond intimating that her stepson had alienated their affections from her, she seemed ready to Make the Sacrifice.
A few probing questions from Meriden about his sisters' future finally did the trick. Suddenly the move to Bath became a means of rescuing her daughters from his clutches. Jane saw her aunt's resolution harden, and gave a small sigh of relief. Lady Meriden would remove to Bath. She had at last found a gothick reason for doing so.
Afterwards, in the privacy of the library, Jane congratulated his lordship on his adroitness, but he did not seem disposed to be amused by the encounter with his stepmother.
"I'm sorry for Drusilla and Polly," he said bluntly. "They deserve better than to be turned into an invalid's handmaidens."
"Goody and I shall see that they get about and meet other young people."
"If I didn't think so, I'd kick up a dust. And then I daresay Lady Meriden would remove to the Antipodes to spite me."
"Surely not so far," Jane murmured, but he was frowning, abstracted, at his hands and did not seem to hear her.
After a moment he stood up and moved about the room restlessly, coming to a halt once more by his chair. "I ought to rejoice, but I wish I could deal with your aunt on a reasonable basis, Miss Ash."
Involuntarily Jane sighed.
"You don't think it's possible?" He began rubbing the ivory fabric of the chair with one brown hand.
Jane met his eyes. "It's possible to deal with my aunt, as you, sir, have shewn, but she seems to me fixed in unreason."
The lines about his mouth deepened.
"I wish it were not so," Jane said gently.
His hand clenched on the chair back, but he seemed to catch himself in the action and after a pause smiled at her. "Sackcloth and ashes. The truth is I shall miss female company. What a delightful prospect to be mewed up all summer with Felix and Vincent. I'll look forward to the twins' holidays as a composer."
A Cousinly Connection Page 13
