The Chaperon (Sisters of Woodside Mysteries Book 2)

by Mary Kingswood

  At once Mrs Kingsley — Augusta — stilled, her face a mask, and Lucy felt a tremor of unease. What was it about her sister that made her look that way?

  “Laurel and I are not close,” she said sadly. “I shall go and have my rest now.”

  While Augusta was lying down in her room, trying to sleep, Lucy threw on an old cloak and went for a brisk walk about the gardens, which were laid out in the old-fashioned regular style, with straight paths and trees artfully clipped to resemble birds and other creatures she could not identify. There was no shelter, however, and the February wind was icy, so she soon retreated indoors again.

  Finding Augusta still resting, she went to her sitting room, the so-called priest’s room, to write letters to her sisters, and perhaps enjoy her first cup of her own tea. What a treat to have her own supplies in her room! There would be no need to summon a maid and then wait half an hour for the tea tray to make its ponderous way from the kitchens through the endless corridors and up and down many stairs, eventually arriving barely warm. She set a kettle of water over the fire to boil and settled down at her writing desk.

  She had been writing for some time when she became aware of little noises nearby. Mice, perhaps. But no mice ever squeaked in quite that regular way. And then, a female voice, very low.

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “Oh yes.” Another voice, speaking a little louder. “The carriage went off just after breakfast and they will not be back before four, so she is not there, and the maids have long finished. There is no one in this part of the house at all.”

  The voices came from the little room adjoining the priest’s room. Lucy had explored it once, but although it had probably been intended as a dressing room, now it was filled with old linens and curtains and all sorts of old junk. And someone was in there, and clearly bent on mischief.

  Lucy picked up the poker, marched across to the door to the little room, and threw it open.

  “Surprise! She is here after all.”

  Two pale faces stared back at her.

  7: The Miss Hardcastles

  Two elderly ladies, one in a chair, the other standing. They gave squeaks of surprise at the sight of Lucy brandishing the poker. The one standing rushing forward, hands flapping.

  “No, no! Please do not be alarmed. We are not burglars, I assure you. Miss Augusta knows we are here.”

  “Miss Augusta? You mean Mrs Kingsley?” Lucy lowered the poker slightly.

  “Yes, indeed. I am Miss Emily Hardcastle, and my sister here is Miss Hardcastle, you see.”

  “She does not know who we are,” the lady in the chair said. “I am the governess, Mrs Price. Governess to Master Leo and Miss Augusta for many years, and recently to Miss Deirdre and Miss Winifred, although I could do little for them and now that they are out…”

  “The governess?” Lucy said, the poker dropping even more. Now that she looked at the two ladies, she could see that their gowns were outdated and faded, and their caps grey with age. They were not in the least alarming, and no one could possibly mistake them for burglars.

  “I am just making some tea,” she said. “Would you like some?”

  They agreed to it with little cries of delight, and Miss Emily pushed her sister’s chair, which was on wheels, through to the priest’s room. The wheels squeaked slightly as the chair moved, the sound which had put Lucy in mind of mice.

  “Oh, you have got it looking charming,” Miss Emily said, gazing around the room. “What a beautiful clock on the mantel.”

  “My mother’s,” Lucy said. “I could not bring very much with me, but there was room for the clock, and the fire screen my sister Fanny worked when she was just nine, and some crocheted covers for the chairs that Rosamund made. Oh, and the miniatures on the wall there. Mama and Papa and all my sisters.”

  “And a brother, too,” Miss Emily said. “What a handsome young man. How old is he now?”

  “Jeremy is dead,” Lucy said, and even after five years, her throat still constricted and her eyes filled with tears. To hide her distress, she busied herself with the kettle and teapot and cups. To her relief they asked no more questions about him, but examined the miniatures and clock and fire screen with great interest, Miss Emily pushing her sister’s squeaking chair about, and enquiring only about Lucy’s sisters.

  Eventually the tea was ready — “Such a treat!” they murmured over and over — and they settled around the square table, the cloth another that Lucy had brought from home, this time her own erratic embroidery.

  “Now, Miss Hardcastle, you have heard all about me,” Lucy said, as she poured, “so please tell me about you and your sister, for I wonder that you have never been mentioned before.”

  Now that she saw the two in clear light, not in the gloom of the store room, she could see that they were not so old as she had supposed. Certainly not elderly, but perhaps between forty and fifty, that uncertain age when single women teeter on the edge, having still some traces of youth about them before the ravages of old age quite set in. These two were greying, but not yet grey, and their faces were lined but not yet wrinkled. And Miss Hardcastle’s eyes, in particular, sparkled with intelligence.

  “I was governess to all the Audley children,” she said with pride. “I went to them when they first moved to Bath, when Miss Laurel was ten and Miss Martha just a baby. Mr Audley married again not long after and then Master Leo was born. Well, such happiness then — a son after four daughters! And such a good-natured baby he was. And five years after him, Miss Augusta, but Mrs Audley died birthing her, and Mr Audley was never quite himself after. That was a sad time. But dear heaven, I was busy! Six children to teach, you can imagine.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Lucy murmured. “And was Miss Augusta a good baby, too?”

  “Oh, yes! Such sunny natures, both of them. The younger two, that is. The older ones — hmm, perhaps they were more like their mother, who knows. I did my best with them, but some children are just awkward, is it not so? One could imagine Miss Caroline coming into her own as a dowager duchess, perhaps, but as a child she was a little strange. And Miss Maria… Well, it was a long time ago, and I am sure all those little foibles are quite gone now.”

  “Mama used to say that every child bore the seeds of his adulthood inside him,” Lucy said. “It seems to me that there is a great deal of truth in the idea. I am not sure that one can change one’s fundamental nature. Master Leo was a good-humoured baby, you said, and he is a good-humoured man.”

  The Miss Hardcastles clapped their hands in glee. “Is he not so? You have met him, of course,” Miss Emily said.

  “I have, yes.”

  “And is he not charming and so handsome?” Miss Hardcastle said.

  “I cannot argue the point,” Lucy said, laughing. “He is also a dreadful flirt.”

  “Oh, these young men are always so,” she said airily. “A compliment to a lady never goes amiss, does it? I am so glad he turned out well, despite the difficulties, for his life was turned upside down when his father died, you see. Ten years old, he was, when the whole fortune became his, and the Audley fortune is vast, an enormous burden for a little boy. And all their relations turned up to try to get a piece of it, and the family torn quite apart.”

  “How dreadful!” Lucy cried, very affected by this tale.

  “It was. Their mother’s relations were guardian to Master Leo and Miss Augusta, and the first Mrs Audley’s relations to the older girls, and two of Mr Audley’s cousins had control of the estate and all the money, and everyone arguing, as you might imagine. Nobody wanted all the children, you see, and the children were not so close that they wanted to stay together. The aunts and uncles wanted to pick and choose, but everybody wanted the money, and the older girls were upset, not sure where they were to live. But in the end, Master Leo said that his sisters might live with whomever they pleased and the estate would support them until they married, but he and Miss Augusta would stay in Bath.”

  “And so they were split up? How sad!�
� Lucy said. “To tear a family apart in that way, when there was money enough to keep them together, is very bad.”

  “Perhaps,” Miss Hardcastle said thoughtfully. “It was done for the best of motives, in the end, that the children might be happy, and whoever took care of them should have enough money to keep them. Miss Laurel was married by then, to your uncle, Arthur Tilford.”

  She paused, head tipped to one side, like a bird, watching Lucy carefully.

  “I did not know my uncle at all until two days ago, so I should very much like to hear what he was like in those days,” she said.

  Miss Hardcastle nodded, as if satisfied. “He was an attorney then, and not at all what Mr Audley would have wanted for any of his daughters, but he was a very personable young man, very winning, and Mr Audley was in poor health and not minded to fight about it. So Miss Laurel was allowed to marry him and he got the full dowry. Twenty five thousand apiece, the girls had. He at once bought a larger house and gave up being an attorney, in order to live like a gentleman. And then, when Mr Audley died and all the aunts and uncles and cousins were squabbling over the children and the money, Mr Tilford arrived with Miss Laurel and she wept all over her sisters, and so they carried the three sisters off to live with them.”

  “And carried off the money, too, no doubt,” Lucy said.

  “For a while,” Miss Hardcastle said crisply, and there was a firm set to her lips as though she disapproved. “I daresay they are all married now. So Mrs Audley’s aunts and uncle moved to Bath to look after Master Leo and Miss Augusta and everything went on swimmingly for a while. I had just the two pupils, and there were tutors for Master Leo and various masters for painting and dancing and German, for I have a good command of French but none at all of German. But then when Miss Augusta was fifteen, I was no longer needed. Emily was employed at a girls’ school in Bath and she found me a position there.”

  A sadness passed across her face at that point, but Lucy could not tell whether it arose from the memory of leaving the house in the Royal Crescent and all its comforts, or from some other sorrow, and hardly liked to enquire in case the flow of recollection was disrupted. So fascinating, to hear all about her employer from one who knew her intimately. Although, it had to be said that Master Leo featured more prominently in the tale than Miss Augusta. Even to his governess, Mr Audley’s charm had worked its devastating magic.

  Miss Emily leaned forward eagerly to cover her sister’s silence. “But after that fell through, why, we heard that Miss Augusta was to marry a gentleman with two daughters and so…”

  “So here we are,” Miss Hardcastle said briskly. “Not that the Miss Kingsleys needed much tuition. They had received the benefit of a succession of governesses and tutors and masters, and at fourteen they felt they no longer needed any learning. But you see, my legs were beginning to fail me by then, and I needed Emily’s help, so it would have been impossible to find another position and it was very kind of Mr Kingsley to agree to it. Very kind indeed. And after the young ladies came out, nothing was said, and here we stay, very comfortable in our cosy little room. Are we not sister? We still hear the girls’ instrument practice, and Miss Augusta gives us some sewing to do, so that we may earn a few coins now and then, and she pays our subscription at the circulating library, and allows us to use whatever old curtains and linens we like to make clothes with. So you see, we are very well situated, Mrs Price.”

  Lucy said all that was proper, and admitted to herself that it was not a bad scheme. The Miss Hardcastles had a home and enough to eat, and in a few more years, there would be more pupils in need of a governess, which would take them through to retirement. Still, they received no proper salary, and it sounded like a lonely life, neither servant nor guest in the house, scraping by and making do. And then she thought of Mr Audley’s twelve thousand pounds a year, half of it unspent, and anger boiled up inside her. Just a tiny proportion of that would make these two ladies perfectly comfortable for the rest of their lives, and he would hardly notice the loss.

  Impulsively, Lucy leaned forward. “I wonder Mr Audley does nothing to help you,” she said. “He has so much money—”

  The two ladies twittered anxiously. “Oh no, dear, no, no, no, we would not expect it! Not charity,” Miss Hardcastle cried. “We could not! If he should marry, perhaps, and have children… why then… but until then, we wait here. Dear Miss Augusta was so obliging as to agree not to tell him. He thinks we are still at that school in Bath, I expect. Sooner or later, there will be work for us, and an employer who will not regard my foolish legs.”

  “Mrs Kingsley, you mean, when her baby is born,” Lucy said slowly, but again they twittered, exchanging glances. “If it is born, perhaps I should say,” Lucy added. “The poor lady seems to have been most unfortunate in not being able to bring her babies to the point of birth.”

  Absolute silence.

  “I beg your pardon, perhaps I should not have mentioned the subject. My unruly tongue will be the death of me, I swear it.”

  “Oh no, it is quite all right,” Miss Hardcastle said, in distressed tones. “But… you do not know. No one has told you what happened?”

  “No. I just assumed…” And then she remembered Mrs Kingsley’s words, ‘Two babies already, and both dead…’ “Oh. Oh no! How old were they when they died?”

  “Just under a month old, both of them. Two lovely boys, apparently,” she said sadly. “Fine, healthy boys… just died in their cradles at night for no reason anyone could see.”

  Lucy was too shocked to say a word.

  ~~~~~

  After this conversation, Lucy was thoughtful. The Miss Hardcastles had not sworn her to secrecy, yet neither had they given her permission to reveal their circumstances to Mr Audley, and she felt quite sure they would not wish it. Yet it was within his power to make their lives so much better. Even if they wished to stay on at Longmere Priory, he could provide them with enough money to buy those little comforts which would improve their lives immeasurably — lengths of cloth for gowns, a book or piece of music occasionally, or some tea, perhaps.

  Lucy had told them, with the utmost sincerity, that she would like them to come for tea regularly, and would provide cakes in future, and in return they had shown her the single large room in the old part of the house which was theirs. The furniture was shabby, the bed hangings threadbare and the shutters rattled, but there was coal for the fire, and an abundance of candles, and they declared themselves very fortunate. Lucy went back to her own room, and wept for poor governesses everywhere. Then she reached for paper and ink, and wrote a long, heartfelt letter to Annabelle, who was even now a governess and might one day be reduced to just such desperate poverty.

  “You are very quiet this evening, Mrs Price.”

  She looked up guiltily to see Mr Audley gazing down at her in amusement. “Oh… I suppose I am. I was thinking, and it is not an exercise I am accustomed to.” She was so early for dinner that the saloon had been empty when she entered it, and so abstracted was she that she had not noticed his entrance. But he was like that, as quiet as a cat.

  He settled himself down on the sofa beside her, folding his arms and crossing his ankles neatly. “You look as if you were immersed in sad thoughts. There is no bad news from your sisters, I hope?”

  “Oh… oh no, nothing of the sort. I was just thinking, I suppose, that it is sad to leave childhood behind. The adult world is complicated and difficult, sometimes, but when one is a child life is so much simpler and happier.”

  “Simpler, perhaps, but not always happier,” he said quietly. “Even children have their griefs and burdens. But what has brought on this bout of philosophy? I have not had the pleasure of your acquaintance for long, but I can say without hesitation that this is not like you.”

  She could not mention the Miss Hardcastles, but she had another cause for her sorrowful demeanour. They were still alone, so she said in a low voice, “I learnt about Mrs Kingsley’s two babies today.”

  “Ah, yes.” H
e spoke sympathetically. “That would make anyone sad. Yet there is cause for optimism, for she is increasing again and is well, and there is no reason to suppose anything but a satisfactory outcome this time.”

  His voice was gentle, but she was not reassured. “Mr Audley, I know nothing about babies, and perhaps a healthy baby may simply die in its sleep in that way. I never heard of it, but I suppose it must happen occasionally. But twice? That seems more than mere misfortune.”

  “And yet all the medical advice offered to my sister is that such occurrences are indeed chance, and the likelihood of a third such event is infinitesimal.”

  “Why, then, must she not leave the house, and is ordered to rest?” Lucy said, but Mrs Kingsley herself entered the room at that point, and the butler and footman behind her, so any chance of private conversation was lost. Gradually, the saloon filled with guests, Mr Audley moved away to mingle with the arriving Miss Turlingtons, and Lucy was claimed by Sir Giles Mathom, so there was no further opportunity for talk. Then, after dinner, they found themselves on different tables, he playing whist and Lucy Vingt-et-un. But she went to bed with her head filled with thoughts of his sympathetic face, his quiet concern for her well-being and the refreshing lack of silly compliments or any other flirtatious behaviour. If only he would continue so, for when he seemed so genuine and solicitous, she felt she could like him very well. She could still not trust him — she would never be able to trust so young and handsome a man — but she could certainly like him.

  The next morning, when she went down to breakfast, she had even more reason to think well of him. She found him alone in the breakfast parlour, and while the footmen lingered he said nothing out of the ordinary. But as soon as they withdrew for some reason, he turned to her and in a low voice said, “Mrs Price, I have thought incessantly of that matter of which we spoke last night, but there may be a way in which I might alleviate your concerns.”