A Damsel for the Mysterious Duke

by Bridget Barton

  “Good afternoon, Sir,” Emerson said respectfully and returned the bow.

  “Mr Ellington, thank you so very much for agreeing to see us today.”

  “How could I not see you, Miss Jeffries? You must understand that I was full of curiosity. That Elizabeth Allencourt’s granddaughter would contact me after so many years was a treat that I could not possibly forego.” He smiled happily and did not seem at all upended by their visit.

  In no time at all, the party was settled with tea and sandwiches, and Georgina found herself so at ease in David Ellington’s company that it loosened her tongue.

  “I must be honest, Mr Ellington, and say that I knew nothing of your existence prior to coming to visit my relations in Devonshire. I did not even know of your sister’s existence, for my grandmother never spoke to me about her. Although it is true to say that my grandmother rarely spoke to me unless it was to chastise me for something.”

  “That sounds about right, my dear,” he said with a laugh. “Although I am bound to say that it was not always the case. It is true that Elizabeth Allencourt was a fiery sort of a girl, and she certainly never got along with her sister Mirabelle. Oh, and Mirabelle was such a dear, it would seem impossible that anybody could have any objection to her. But Elizabeth did, and I had always assumed it to be nothing more than a little rivalry between sisters. Mirabelle was very pretty, but then so was Elizabeth.” He laughed again.

  “But you are not surprised to learn that my grandmother was quite sour by the time I was born? For I had never known her to be any different.”

  “No, I am not surprised at all.”

  “Forgive me, Mr Ellington, but is that because of the influence of your sister?”

  “Well, you have met her, my dear, so you have likely seen a little of what she would have been capable of as a young woman. It is true that my sister was something of an anomaly in our family. There was not another one like her, so where she learned to be so cold-hearted, I will never know. And yes, she was a great influence upon Elizabeth Allencourt. I blamed Beatrice for a great many years for coming between the two of us.”

  “I believe that you and my grandmother were quite close, Mr Ellington,” Georgina said in a gentle, kindly fashion.

  “Oh, how I loved Elizabeth Allencourt. My head was so turned by that young lady that I no doubt ended by making a tremendous fool of myself.”

  “I am so very sorry, Mr Ellington.”

  “I blamed Beatrice for so long because she was very easy to blame. She was such an unpleasant creature, almost evil at times, that she was the perfect target for my anger and disappointment. But in the end, Miss Jeffries, there was only one person to blame for it all, and that was Elizabeth Allencourt herself.”

  “Yes, she was not a pleasant lady.”

  “And as nice as she could be as a young woman, she was not at all simpleminded. I do not believe for a minute that she was an innocent who had been so easily overpowered by my sister. A person cannot be turned into such an ambitious and uncaring person if they have not already a mind to be that way in the first place. But I loved her so much, I was so infatuated, that I could not see it. I refused to see it.”

  “And I suppose a thing like that has quite an effect upon a man,” Emerson said in solidarity. “We have our finer feelings too, do we not?”

  “We most certainly do, young man, and you would be well advised never to deny them. At least not to yourself, at any rate. I am rather afraid that my generation was brought up to be very different; the men that is. We were not taught to hide our feelings, but rather to not have any in the first place.” He reached for his tea and smiled, his lined skin wrinkling pleasingly at the corners of his eyes.

  Georgina smiled, warmed by his elderly grace and that feeling of security that comes from being in the company of a person who has not only grown old but has grown wise with it.

  “I thank you for that advice, Mr Ellington, and I shall concentrate on taking it.”

  “It will come to you; I can see it in your face.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “So, how is my sister?”

  “I believe her character to be largely unchanged, Mr Ellington, although I am bound to say that she is somewhat frail and predominantly bedridden,” Georgina said truthfully.

  “Goodness me, that must be irking her,” David said and laughed. “Forgive me, I do not mean to be cruel; I am simply amused by the irony of it all. I had always thought that her body would go before her mind did.”

  “It would certainly seem to be the case, although I believe she uses a pretense of mental frailty at times to suit her own purposes,” Georgina went on.

  “I do not doubt it for a moment. If she is no longer able to get about, Beatrice will find other ways in which to amuse her twisted humour.

  “Did you ever hear from my grandmother again after the two of you parted?”

  “No, not once. I had sent her a letter not long after her marriage to your grandfather. I had already begun to foster the opinion that I perhaps had something of a lucky escape.”

  “I can assure you, Mr Ellington, that you did.” Georgina laughed.

  “But I still loved her back then, and I wanted her to know it. Not that I wanted to upset her marriage or anything of that nature; I just wanted her to know that I did not harbour any ill will towards her. But I never received a reply, and to be honest, I had not expected one.”

  “And what of Beatrice?”

  “Once she had moved to Cornwall, I never saw her again until our father died. He had lived long, lasting two years more than Beatrice’s own husband.”

  “Beatrice attended your father’s funeral?”

  “Yes, she came back to Rowley with her daughter, Esme. It was the one and only time I have ever seen that child, and yet I have never truly been able to get her out of my mind.”

  “How so?”

  “She would have been barely eighteen years old when I saw her, and hardly like a woman at all. She was such a delicate creature, such pale hair, and a pale face, she was so frail and slight. But the thing I remember most of all is how very cowed she was by her mother. I had been in my sister’s company again not one hour before I realized that she undoubtedly treated her own daughter in the same way that she treated everybody else, perhaps even worse. And to see the young Esme was to see her delicacy and frailty so distinctly; my sister would have despised her for it.”

  “I am bound to say that that is the impression I got on speaking to Beatrice, although she did not talk of her daughter for long.”

  “After my sister returned to Cornwall, I never heard from her again until I received one final letter. For some reason, she had chosen to write to me to tell me that my poor dear niece had died at the County Asylum in Ainsley.”

  “Ainsley?” Emerson said and looked confused.

  Georgina looked from one man to the other and wondered what had stirred Emerson so.

  “Yes, my sister told me that her daughter had been committed to the County Asylum when she was but eight and twenty years old and that she had died there just two years later. I cannot think of it even now without the sadness of realizing that I am still alive in this world, aged and of little use to anybody, and that young, beautiful creature has already been dead these eleven years. I daresay it is all part of God’s plan, but I am afraid that the understanding of it evades me.”

  “But Ainsley is the County Asylum here in Devonshire, Mr Ellington,” Emerson said as he put down his cup and saucer. “Surely it would have been the thing to have had her committed to the County Asylum in Cornwall. For her to have been in Devonshire would have made it incredibly difficult for her mother to visit.”

  “Knowing my sister as I do, I daresay that was all part of it. She wanted her out of the way, forgotten.”

  “Dear me, what an awful thing,” Georgina said and was suddenly hit by a little wave of emotion as she imagined the poor young woman hidden out of the way, so alone in a county that she had not grown up in a
nd with her family so far away. “How abandoned she must have felt.”

  “If she had the capacity for it, my dear. I am bound to say that I do not know the extent of her mental frailty,” David Ellington said with a sigh. “All I know is what I see before me, a lovely young woman who has more kindness and caring in the smallest corner of her soul than her own grandmother had from head to toe.” He smiled at her warmly. “I am very pleased to say that you are by no means your grandmother’s granddaughter, my dear.”

  “Thank you kindly, Mr Ellington. I cannot tell you what that means to me.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon in convivial conversation, with Georgina pleased to discover that David Ellington had had a most contented life, following his own passions for painting and literature.

  He was by no means the sad and lonely figure that she had imagined, but rather a man who had followed the bachelor’s life in complete comfort and contented happiness.

  It was with some regret that their afternoon finally came to an end, and they left David Ellington with a firm promise that they would call upon him again in the future.

  Chapter 30

  “I cannot thank you enough for coming with me today, Jeremy. It really would have been too much of a risk for Emerson to come along, although I suppose this particular inquiry is a risk anyway.”

  They had just drawn up on the great gravel apron in front of the large and imposing County Asylum known as Ainsley. It was built of a much darker stone than any other building she had seen in Devonshire, and it gave it such a sinister air that Georgina shuddered involuntarily.

  She was glad that she had chosen to ask Jeremy to come with her and even more glad that she had not risked insulting Fleur in the process.

  Fleur really did wear her heart on her sleeve, and it would have done no good to take her cousin in and have her so openly disturbed throughout the entire thing. It would have put Georgina off dreadfully, and she knew it.

  In the end, however, Fleur had been relieved that her brother had stepped into the breach and had declared that he would accompany Georgina to the County Asylum.

  “Yes, I suppose this is the one line of inquiry that is the riskiest of them all. After all, although Lady Esme Montgomery has been dead these eleven years, the warden might still feel a certain duty to make contact with her mother as a result of our inquiries. Especially if he distrusts us, my dear.”

  “Then I shall have to do everything in my power to appear trustworthy,” Georgina said and sighed.

  “Now come along, you can manage this very well. Do not suddenly lose your courage, Georgina, for I am afraid to tell you that the responsibility is yours entirely. Although he would not do so openly, Emerson is relying on you just as he did in Cornwall. So, do not underestimate your abilities in this area, for it is clear to me that the Duke of Calder does not underestimate them. If he is so convinced that you are capable, then you are capable, do you hear me?”

  “My goodness, I do not think I have ever heard you speak so sensibly, so seriously, Jeremy,” she said with wide eyes. “And I am bound to say that it is unsettling.”

  “You must not be unsettled by it, my dear. You must take heart and do what must be done. The time has come for you to discover Emerson’s true origins, and I think you know that everything seems to rest upon that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Emerson is very keen to discover that he truly is a man of some standing before he can get on with his life. And by get on with his life, I am sure that you rightly perceive that I mean marriage and children and what have you. With you, obviously.”

  “He told you all of this?”

  “No, he told me some of it, and the rest I simply extrapolated from the data I did have.”

  “In other words, you are making it up.”

  “No, I had the bare bones of it from the man himself, and I think you know very well that my own perception is not only correct but very much as your own is.”

  “You are far more intelligent and far less silly than I have previously given you credit for,” Georgina said with a mischievous smile.

  “Let us make our way into the asylum, my dear, and hope we find a more sensible conversation there,” he said and returned her smile.

  Georgina was relieved to find that the inside of the asylum was far less austere and sinister than the outside. It looked clean and bright, with white painted walls and a good deal of light coming in through the large windows.

  The only things that would easily remind one that they were in an asylum were the occasional cries and wails of the inmates, the ones who could not be soothed.

  They were shown into the office of Dr Martin Ellis in no time at all, and he greeted them with such alacrity that Georgina found herself surprised.

  She had quite imagined that he would be suspicious of their intentions and perhaps even refuse to see them. When she found him most open to their visit, she was greatly relieved.

  “And you are acquainted with Esme Montgomery’s mother, Lady Wighton?” Dr Ellis said with interest.

  “Yes, Beatrice Montgomery and my grandmother, Baroness Elizabeth Jeffries, were childhood friends. They maintained their friendship throughout their lives, although I am bound to say that it was latterly by correspondence. My grandmother moved to Hertfordshire, you see.”

  “I see,” Dr Ellis said with a smile. “Well, tell me how it is that I may help you, Miss Jeffries.”

  “I had really wanted to know a little something of Esme Montgomery. I am greatly interested in the history of our two families and to find out a little something of Esme would help me to fill in a few gaps. It is all very sad, I understand, and dear Beatrice was still too upset to say much of it. And she is advancing in years now and forgets a great deal.” Georgina felt terrible telling such an outright lie to a man who seemed to be so very open to helping her.

  However, she did not want to risk leaving that place without as much information as possible. Ever since Branton Montgomery and then David Ellington had described the young Lady Esme Montgomery, Georgina had been convinced that she must surely have been the young lady she had seen so distressed upon the lawn of Ashdown Manor that day so many years ago. She knew that she was important somehow, a pivotal part of the whole story.

  And she knew that if she did not get to the bottom of the whole thing sooner or later, there was a great chance that she and Emerson would never progress beyond the point of being friends.

  “Well, I can tell you that Esme Montgomery was committed to this asylum shortly before I arrived here. I was a local physician with a great interest in mental infirmity, and when the position arose to take charge of this place, I seized it with both hands.” He paused for a moment and smiled, clearly still content with the decision he had made. “So, Esme Montgomery was admitted some thirteen years ago by my predecessor, a few short months before I arrived. My first and abiding impression of her was a woman trapped in the deepest melancholy. She was never particularly agitated, although my predecessor’s notes would suggest that she was when she first arrived. I have often wondered if her melancholy and sense of resignation had more to do with her admittance to Ainsley than her condition. Although I must say that her mother was most determined that the young woman could not be managed in the world any longer and that her continued stay at Ainsley was absolutely necessary.”

  “But you did not think it so?”

  “She was clearly in need of some assistance, that much was true. She struck me as a young woman who was simply waiting to die, a woman who no longer had any enthusiasm whatsoever for life. But I could not help wondering if that could not have been remedied to some extent if she had been kept at home where she had access to friends and family.”

  “Did anybody ever visit her here?”

  “If they did, then it would have been in the very early stages when my predecessor was still incumbent. But it is true to say that I have never known anybody to visit Esme Montgomery since I have been in my current position.�
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  “Goodness me, how very sad,” Georgina said and once again had the greatest sense of abandonment and wondered what on earth had happened for poor Esme Montgomery to deserve such a fate.

  “As sad as it is, I am bound to say that it is extremely common. People pay for their relatives to be kept out of their lives, and they do not want to be reminded of their existence. I am sure you realize that society views mental infirmity as a failing, and the families of such people are usually subject to the greatest weight of shame imaginable. They do not see such illnesses with the same compassion as they might look at a physical injury of some sort. And it is especially true of the upper classes and most particularly the aristocracy. Once they have placed their relative in just such a place, they do not visit them in the hopes that everybody around them will either not know or will quickly forget. It is a great shame, but there it is.”