by Anna Jacobs
Mary put up her hand as if to cross herself, then jerked it back glancing nervously at her mistress.
Xanthe was used to this habit of making the sign of the cross by now so said quietly, ‘I see no harm in you crossing yourself, Mary, if it comforts you. Why did you stop?’
‘Mr Hubert didn’t like us doing it. He didn’t like us going to mass, either. I was always frightened he’d dismiss me for being a Catholic.’
‘Well, Ronan and I don’t mind whether you attend Catholic services or not, if that’s what you want to do. But that’s not what I need to talk about today. Look . . . I want to ask your help in cutting right down on expenses in this house.’
That surprised them and was it relief she saw on their faces too? Of course it was! They’d have been afraid of losing their jobs with a new mistress in the house. ‘I don’t mean anyone has to go hungry, but surely there’s food that’s cheaper, ways of economising? I’m not a fine lady, so I don’t need to be pampered or have more food on the table than anyone can eat and Ronan, as you must be aware, will eat anything put before him.’
Mrs Sullivan let out a huge sigh of relief and admitted, ‘I was worried you were going to close the house down, ma’am.’
‘I hope not. Can you help us live more cheaply?’
‘I can do that, ma’am, and willingly. And you’re right. The master won’t even notice. I remember him as a lad, such a cheerful little soul, he was.’
‘That’s wonderful.’ Xanthe turned to Mary. ‘I’m asking the same thing of you. I don’t want to dismiss anyone, but can we run the house more economically? I thought we might close down those rooms not in use. I’d need you to tell me which ones would be best.’ She saw relief writ large on another face.
‘Indeed, ma’am, now I know what’s needed I’ll see to that personally. And yes, we can get out the dust covers and close several of the rooms. Some of them are never used.’
‘Mr Maguire and I will use the small room next to the library for our sitting room and we’ll eat our meals in there too, to save on heating and cleaning. We’ll keep the drawing room for when we have visitors, but we’ll only light a fire in there if visitors actually turn up.’
‘Leave it to me, ma’am.’
‘That’s wonderful. Now, Miss Carr is going to help you in any way she can and will be making an inventory of what’s in this house. You could perhaps help her to turn out the store cupboards and check everything that’s usable. She and I learned to be economical in a hard school when the mills in our town closed down for lack of cotton and many of the people were hungering. I’m going to learn how to do the accounts. Ronan tells me he’s no good at figures, so I can’t be worse than him at it. Mr Hatton is sending a clerk to help me for a few days, till I get the hang of it. We’ll need to find him a bedroom.’
When the two senior servants had gone, she turned to Hallie. ‘Do you think I handled that all right?’
‘You did it well. They were very polite and attentive.’
‘That’s because everyone loves Ronan. They say nothing at all about his brother Hubert, but their expressions speak for them. He wasn’t liked.’
Xanthe twirled round and beamed at her friend. ‘I know things are in a terrible state, but it’s wonderful to have some purpose in life again.’
The young clerk from Mr Hatton’s rooms arrived two days later. Mr Flewett was very nervous of them and seemed surprised that he was expected to eat with them. Within a day he’d lost his fear of Xanthe and was enthusiastically guiding her through the mysteries of keeping the accounts for a large country residence.
‘You’re doing well, Mrs Maguire,’ he said the second evening. ‘You have a real head for figures.’
‘Thank goodness for that!’ Ronan raised his teacup in a mock toast to her.
When they were alone that night he teased her about Mr Flewett being half in love with her. She just grinned at him. ‘Poor man. He’s very downtrodden. I don’t like the way Mr Hatton treats his clerks.’
‘For goodness’ sake, don’t start trying to reform old Hatton. He’s a plain, old-fashioned man and will never change.’
After four days of tuition Xanthe felt confident enough to send Mr Flewett on his way and commandeer for her office another of the little rooms that seemed tucked into corners everywhere in this rambling house.
23
Two weeks later, Mr Hatton arrived at Ardgullan House in a hired carriage, looking harried. Xanthe sent Mary to fetch Ronan in from the stables, whispering that the lawyer looked anxious and the master was to hurry. She took the visitor through to the library, lighting a taper from her sitting-room fire to get the big fire going in there.
Ronan wasted no time changing his clothes, but came straight into the house. As soon as he saw his lawyer’s sombre expression he asked, ‘What now?’
‘Another debt has turned up, and it’s for twenty thousand pounds.’
‘What? How is that possible?’ Ronan demanded. ‘Who is owed that much money?’
‘Mr Johnson.’
‘I don’t believe it. He’d have said something about it before now if he’d been owed such a huge sum. What’s it for?’
‘He says it was a loan for Hubert to make one of his investments. He has the estate down as security.’
Ronan was silent, trying to think this through. ‘My brother was involved in risky investments, yes, but surely he’d not have borrowed to finance them? And especially not from Johnson.’
‘He said that since you were about to marry his daughter he decided not to call in the debt but now that you weren’t going to marry her, he wanted to be paid, and quickly. He presented your brother’s IOU to me yesterday.’
‘I find this hard to believe.’
Mr Hatton hesitated then said slowly, ‘So do I. If it wasn’t for Hubert’s signature, which I’d recognise anywhere, I’d think it was a – well, some sort of sham.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because your brother wasn’t on particularly close terms with Johnson. He told me more than once that he neither liked nor trusted him.’
There was silence as the implications of this sank in, then Ronan asked bluntly, ‘Do you think the IOU is a forgery, then?’
‘I’m puzzled, I must admit. Only – it looks like Hubert’s signature. No mistaking that squiggle at the end of his name.’
More silence until Xanthe felt like shouting at them to put it into words. When they didn’t, she said it for them. ‘This is a trick, then. Mr Johnson told us before he left that he’d have the house off you, Ronan, and this is his way of doing it.’
Mr Hatton stared unhappily down at his hands.
‘Well?’ she urged. ‘There must be some way of proving that this is a fraud, surely? I don’t think that horrible man would ever have forgiven a debt that big, whoever you were. He looked too . . . too . . .’
‘Predatory,’ Ronan finished for her. ‘But how the hell do we prove that this is a trick if he’s made so good a copy of my brother’s signature that even Mr Hatton wonders if it’s genuine?’
No one answered until the lawyer said, ‘What do you want me to do about it? I think we’ll have no alternative but to pay – and to do that you’ll have to sell the estate. There is no way you can raise such a big loan by mortgaging Ardgullan, not in your present circumstances. And even if you do sell, I don’t think the estate will bring in that much money so it and everything on it will be forfeit to Johnson.’
Ronan spoke slowly, still trying to think his way through this. ‘Do nothing yet. Ignore it for the time being and if Johnson presses for payment, say you’ve let me know and are awaiting my response. I’m not going to rush into anything.’
‘That’ll only hold him for a few days.’
‘Every day will help. Now, if you have no more nasty surprises for us, can we offer you some refreshments before you go?’
Mr Hatton glanced towards the windows. ‘Thank you, but no. It looks as if a storm is brewing.’
�
�Could be. Thank you for coming to see me yourself today. I’ll see you to the door.’
When the lawyer had left, Ronan came back to sit with Xanthe. ‘I don’t know what to do. I can hardly throttle Johnson, can I, which is what I’d like to do? And if he goes to court for the money he says he’s owed, I have no way of proving him a liar.’
‘My father always said the main thing in a crisis is not to rush into anything.’
‘Well, as I can’t think of anything to do, rushing certainly doesn’t come into it.’ After a while, Ronan went outside again, but the energy had gone from him. Watching him, Xanthe saw how heavy his tread was, how his shoulders sagged.
She went back to sit by the fire, hands clasped round her knees, feet toasting on the fender, and thought long and hard about the situation. There must be something they could do. Surely that horrible man couldn’t just steal their home?
She continued to mull the problem over during the rest of the afternoon, but no hint of a solution came to her.
The whole house was sunk in gloom. The servants knew only that another debt had cropped up. Hallie knew the truth about what they suspected, but since she was unable to help in any way, she continued to go through the house, sorting out cupboards of things which hadn’t been touched for decades.
It wasn’t until the middle of the night that Xanthe woke abruptly with the thought of Georgina Johnson. Ronan had said she seemed a decent young woman, unlike her father, and indeed, Xanthe had thought she had a pleasant face, the sort that reflected a pleasant nature. Would she know what her father was up to? Would she help them? Or was she so under her father’s thumb that she would continue to live with him and give up the man she loved?
Wasn’t it worth a try to seek her help? She’d been honest about her feelings after Xanthe’s arrival, glaring at her father as she spoke. If that was the start of a rebellion against a bullying parent, perhaps she could be persuaded to help.
Why did she not marry her young man? If her father threatened to put him out of business, the two of them could make a new life elsewhere. Or was Georgina afraid of what her father might do? How ruthless was Mr Johnson? Theft was clearly not beyond him. Was murder? Even Ronan admitted the man was feared in the district.
Xanthe knew the Johnsons lived in a huge new house just off the main road to Enniskillen. She decided to try to see Georgina and ask for her help, because it was the only thing she could think of to do for Ronan.
But how to get in touch with her? She couldn’t just knock on the door and pay a morning call, she was sure, and anyway, she didn’t want to alert Mr Johnson to what she was doing.
No, she had to find some way to see Georgina in secret. And in the meantime she’d continue to rack her brain about other things she might do. Getting Georgina’s help was a forlorn hope.
Only . . . something in Xanthe said it was the right thing to do.
The next day Xanthe confided in Mary, who had been born in the area and might be able to help her without Ronan finding out. ‘How can I get a message to Georgina Johnson without her father knowing? It’s very important indeed.’
Mary pursed her lips, then said, ‘I might be able to help. My second cousin’s daughter is a maid in their house. But I’d need your promise that if Brenda lost her job because of helping us, you’d give her a place here.’
‘Of course we would. But it doesn’t seem right to put the girl at such risk.’
Mary gave one of her wry half-smiles. ‘Brenda’s not happy there. She’s frightened of Mr Johnson and is already looking for another place.’
‘How can we get a message to her?’
‘I can go to market in Enniskillen and call at the back door of the house on my way back. They know me there. I’ve dropped by to see her a few times now.’
Xanthe forgot herself and gave the housekeeper a hug.
Mary stiffened in surprise, then smiled and patted Xanthe’s arm. ‘You write your letter, ma’am. I’ll go and see Brenda tomorrow.’
The following day Xanthe couldn’t settle to anything. It seemed a long time before Mary came home, driving the shabby little pony trap the servants used to go shopping. It was quite a long drive into Enniskillen so they didn’t go every week.
Ronan was standing in the enclosure next to the stables, trying out one of the young horses he had been thinking of selling till this latest blow struck them, so Xanthe didn’t give in to her first instinct to rush out and ask how the mission had gone, but waited impatiently for her housekeeper in the kitchen. She didn’t want to raise his hopes because he was very downhearted about it all.
Mary came in, shaking the raindrops off her cloak. ‘Brenda took your note up to Miss Georgina and brought a message back from her. She’ll meet you tomorrow at her old nurse’s cottage at about ten o’clock in the morning. I’m to take you there. The village isn’t too far away.’
‘Do you think she’s willing to help us?’
‘I don’t know. Brenda said her mistress had to rush off, because her father came home early and she had to go down and pour his tea.’
‘Can’t he pour his own?’ Xanthe muttered, but she’d already learned that ladies did the tea-pouring in the elevated world she now inhabited. There were a lot of silly little customs like that to learn. Thank goodness for Mrs Largan’s patient instruction when she’d been learning to be a housekeeper! It was certainly paying off now.
The following morning Xanthe set out with her housekeeper, ostensibly to take food to a family Mary knew who needed help. They had a basket of leftover bits and pieces to show to Ronan if he asked where they were going, but it turned out that he’d already gone out himself, so it wasn’t needed.
‘There are plenty who’ll take the food, though, and say thank you for it,’ Mary said. ‘It’s mostly things left over from your meals. Mrs Sullivan only gives away the leftovers she can’t use, things like the fat you’ve cut off your meat and left on your plate. She’s not wasting your money, well only a little. There are one or two old folk in the village who rely on us to support them, you see, ones whose children have moved away. We didn’t think you’d mind. They’d starve without our help and they eat very little.’
‘Are they as poor as that?’
‘Some of them. None of the village folk have much to spare these days, you see, so can’t help them as much as they’d like.’
Xanthe made a mental note to go on helping people like these, remembering her own hungry days – well, she would help them if she was still here. Strange how quickly she’d settled in here, begun to feel at home, didn’t want to leave. This was partly because of the friendliness of the servants and the local people she’d met.
Miss Johnson’s old nurse lived in a small cottage in the village to which she’d retired when she became too frail to work. There was a carriage standing outside with a coachman and groom sitting on it, keeping a watchful eye on the cottage. Mary murmured that this was the place, but didn’t point and drove straight past. ‘Good thing I have friends in the village,’ she said as they slowed down further along the only street.
‘You seem to have friends everywhere.’
‘Wasn’t I born round here?’
They left the horse and trap with Mary’s friend then as she took Xanthe along a narrow, overhung path at the rear of the row of cottages it began to rain. She turned through a neat little garden to tap on a back door.
When Georgina answered it, Mary said gruffly to Xanthe, ‘I’ll wait for you out here, ma’am.’
‘You’ll get wet if you do,’ Georgina said. ‘That rain’s setting in. Come and sit in the kitchen.’
That, thought Xanthe, showed that Georgina had a kind heart, which boded well for her mission. She hung back when the other would have led the way into the tiny front parlour of the cottage. ‘Won’t those men see us from your carriage if we go in there?’
‘The windows are covered with muslin because Nurse doesn’t like people looking in as they pass. As long as we keep our voices down, the coachman
won’t know you’re here. Oh, and Nurse is deaf, so she won’t hear what we’re saying but I’ve explained to her who you are.’
Xanthe nodded politely to the old woman then explained the situation to Georgina. ‘We think your father has forged the promissory note.’
Georgina hesitated, biting her lip, then nodded. ‘He did. A man came to the house late one night, someone Father’s used before for forging documents, so I crept downstairs to see if I could find out what was going on. I heard them mention Hubert Maguire and they laughed because his signature was so easy to copy.’
Xanthe sucked in her breath, amazed to have been told this so quickly.
Georgina gave a bitter laugh. ‘It sometimes makes it easier to live with my father if I know what he’s doing and what I should avoid talking about. He’s not an easy man, even with his own family. Since he had a hard life, he doesn’t see why anyone else should have a soft one.’
‘Will you help us, then?’
‘Yes. I know he’s my father, but he’s not a good man and I hate him. In return I want your help in escaping so that Paul and I can get married, not just getting away from my home but getting out of Ireland. I’m twenty-two now so I don’t need my father’s permission to marry, but he’ll come after us if I just run away without a good plan. He’d have me stopped on the road and probably arrange for Paul to be killed.’
‘Is your father that bad?’
‘Yes. Since my mother died, he’s hardly let me out of his sight. You saw my watchdogs sitting outside.’ She gestured to the window. ‘You’ve also met my aunt who lives with us. She doesn’t come with me to visit my nurse because the two of them hate one another.’
‘How exactly are you going to help us?’
‘All I can think of is to sign a statement saying I overheard my father talking to the man who forged your brother-in-law’s signature. I can also give you the forger’s name. And – I’ll also say I heard my father threaten to make Ronan sorry, which I did, several times. You’ll have to ask that lawyer of yours if that’s enough. It’s all I can do for you. You can send a message to my maid again when you’re ready.’
