The Westerby Sisters (Changing Fortunes Series)

by M C Beaton

  "Ah, I see Your Grace is looking at our Sam's work," said Mr. Armstrong. "Powerful clever with his fingers he is."

  "But he is a genius!" exclaimed the Duke, turning the small figurine around and around in his long fingers.

  "Well, people do ask him now and then to do a bit for them," said Mr. Armstrong. "Yes, there's even a shop in Chester that buys o' him. As matter o' fact, a great lady came all the ways from Lunnon a whiles back. Had heard o' his work in the town. Got him to do a rocking horse for her boy."

  The Duke turned and stared at the farmer. "Do you think Sam could describe this lady?"

  The farmer scratched his head. "Dunno. Sam can't tell one day from the next. Bess," he shouted to his wife. "Fetch Sam here direct!"

  After a short wait, Sam shambled into the kitchen, turning a large sun hat between his fingers.

  "Now, Sam, this here is the Duke o' Collingham."

  Sam grinned sheepishly and tugged his forelock.

  "He wants you to try to remember what that grand lady who paid you for the horse-toy looked like," said Mr. Armstrong. His son's pale blue eyes held a calm look of stupid innocence. He smiled at the Duke and looked down at his boots.

  "He can't remember a thing and that's a fact," said Mr. Armstrong helplessly.

  The Duke walked over to Sam and said in a very gentle voice, "I want you to make a carving for me—like this." He held up the carving of the farmer. Sam smiled and nodded happily. "I want you to make me a carving of the grand London lady," pursued the Duke. "Can you do it now?"

  Sam nodded urgently. "Money," he said.

  Mr. Armstrong looked horrified and began to protest. Sam had done enough damage to the Duke's carriage. He should not be asking for money.

  But the Duke ignored the farmer's protests and held up a gold sovereign. Sam nodded again and left the room, returning a little later with a piece of wood and a short, sharp knife. He sat down in a corner by the fire and began to whittle away, whistling between his teeth.

  The Duke stared at his busy fingers, hypnotized by the rapid shaping of the wood. Mr. Armstrong interrupted him to request that His Grace might walk over to the nearby field and inspect a new bull he had just bought.

  The Duke politely went with him and patiently discussed the finer points of the animal while the sun rose high in the sky and a hammering from the distant roadway announced that the wheelwright was hard at work.

  He was then taken on a tour of the other livestock and found himself becoming interested at last and shoved the thought of the rocking horse to a corner of his brain.

  At last his servant came to tell him the carriage was ready for the road and he hurried to the farmhouse, eager to see the results of Sam's work.

  Of Sam there was no sign, but his handiwork was standing in the middle of the parlor table. The Duke felt a superstitious impulse to cross himself.

  A tiny Mrs. Maria Bentley stared up at him from the table. It was exquisitely done, from the folds of her gown to the small smile on her face. The Duke picked it up and stuffed it in his pocket and placed a sovereign on the table.

  He must forget about Eppington Chase and go directly to London. He knew now where to find Simon, Lord Westerby—if the child were still alive . . .

  Betty was moping; there was no other word for it. She pined for Simon with such an intensity now that she could hardly think of the Duke. His demand that they should be married despite Simon's continued absence struck her as callous in the extreme. Only Eppington Chase seemed to comfort her, her great love of her home seeming to put a barrier between her and the real world outside.

  The guests had begun to arrive for Fanny's wedding and Betty meticulously attended to their needs although she resented this influx of strangers into her home.

  She was sitting in the morning room, trying to ease her aching heart by stitching some handkerchiefs.

  The door opened quietly and Mr. Osborne walked in. He seemed abstracted. After exchanging a few courtesies about the weather, he pulled up a chair opposite Betty and said half to himself, "I often think of your stepsister."

  "Oh, I wish she were here now," said Betty, her eyes filling with tears. "I miss Simon so terribly, and perhaps Jane might have known what to do."

  "There, now. I did not mean to distress you." Mr. Osborne patted Betty's hand in a helpless kind of way. "It was just that Jane was brought back to my mind by an odd happening. Dear me. I must be getting old. I was looking across at the windows of Number "Ten, you know, and I was so sure I saw Lady Jane's face staring down at me through the bars of an attic window. But when I looked again there was nothing there. Just my fancy, of course, and the mist playing tricks with my old eyes . . . Lady Betty!"

  Betty had turned very white. "Simon!" she whispered. "Don't you see? It must have been Simon you saw. He is so like Jane."

  "My dear lady!"

  "It's so. I know it is so," said Betty. She rang the bell. "Fetch Miss Bentley here directly," she ordered the footman.

  When Fanny finally came tripping in, she stopped in alarm at the white, set look on Betty's face. Quickly Betty told her of her suspicions.

  Fanny struggled to say it was false. Her mother would never, could never . . . But her voice trailed miserably away.

  "We must go to London right away," said Betty. "Have you a key to Number Ten?"

  Fanny nodded dumbly.

  Betty ran from the room and soon the great fire bell of Westerby could be heard clamoring across the countryside, summoning the farmers, the cottagers, the keepers, and every able-bodied man to the aid of Westerby.

  In no time at all, a long procession of carriages and farm carts and chaises and wagons and horses took the road to London. Every man who owed his allegiance to the name of Westerby was riding down on London to bring young Simon home.

  "What is the matter, Mama?" pouted Frederica as she pulled on her gloves, preparatory to going out shopping with her maid.

  Mrs. Bentley was sitting in the high carved-back chair in Number Ten Huggets Square, the chair in which old Lady Comfrey had sat so many long days.

  She had a piece of parchment crumpled on her lap and her eyes were pale and sightless.

  "Go," she said. "Nothing is the matter."

  Frederica looked at her doubtfully, but the lure of a new bonnet she had seen in a shop window in Oxford Street was too strong and she gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and, after a little hesitation, left.

  Mrs. Bentley slowly opened the letter, smoothing it out, and reading it for the fourth time.

  There was no doubt about it. That weakling Chuffield had escaped her clutches—on the advice of Collingham. All at once she was sure Collingham had been influenced by Betty and all her mad hate for the Westerbys returned, double, and all at once she realized that she could kill Simon Westerby with her bare hands and enjoy doing it.

  A red mist swam before her eyes as she purposefully arose and left the room. Slowly she walked to the staircase and began to mount.

  She had reached the first landing when there came a tremendous pounding at the door and the cry of many voices in the square outside. Then she heard Betty's voice shouting, "The key! Where is Fanny? She has the key."

  Mrs. Bentley's alarmed servants came rushing into the hall.

  "Bar the door!" shouted Mrs. Bentley to her frightened servants. " 'Tis the mob. Bar the door."

  They rushed forward and pulled down a great metal bar over the front door just as the key turned in the lock.

  "Put furniture against it," said Mrs. Bentley in a calmer voice, and without waiting to see whether her orders were carried out or not, she turned and proceeded to mount the stairs.

  Outside the clamor was deafening. The Duke had arrived almost at the same time as Betty to find her white-faced, and strained with a mixture of hope and fear.

  The Westerby tenants, finding that the door was barred, had found a large beam and were making ready to use it as a battering ram.

  Henry Fielding's famous Bow Street Horse and Foot Patro
les had turned out in force, and above all came the harsh sound of the watchmen's rattles.

  For the first time in all its staid life, the peace of Huggets Square was shattered.

  The news of young Lord Westerby's fate spread from street to street. People started trying to force their way into the square to swell the crowd.

  Lady Hester Dunbray, jogging through London beside her husband in the carriage which had taken them from the docks, paid little heed to the excitement of the streets. It was only when she began to catch the name Westerby repeated over and over again that she clutched Captain Jimmy's arm and told him to order the carriage to stop.

  Thrusting her head out of the window, she demanded what was amiss.

  "That young Westerby's been found in 'Uggets Square wiff 'is throat cut," said a thin, dirty woman obligingly.

  Hester turned pale under her tan. "Huggets Square!" shouted Captain Jimmy to the driver as his wife picked up the long gun she kept beside her in the carriage and started to prime it.

  But they could only get within a few streets of the square, so great was the press.

  Undaunted, she and Jimmy jumped down from their carriage and began to beat a way through the mob.

  THUD! went the battering ram against the door of Number Ten.

  "Have it down in a trice," said the Duke, watching a great crack appearing in the panels. The Westerby men pulled back for another onslaught.

  "Stop!" cried a voice high above their heads.

  Holding Betty tightly, the Duke edged back and looked upward. A great stillness had fallen on the crowd.

  On the roof, at the very edge, stood Maria Bentley. Beside her stood Simon, his small figure bound, hand and foot.

  Maria Bentley's pale eyes raked the crowd, coming to rest on the Duke.

  "Grant me free passage," she called, "or I will throw the boy over."

  The crowd gave a great gasp and fell silent. The news of what was afoot spread out of the square and the streets all around fell silent, too, until it seemed as if the whole of London were waiting.

  The Duke stared up. Mrs. Bentley stared down. She seemed very calm, the long skirt of her blue gown fluttering against the blue of the sky.

  "Do as she says," pleaded Betty. "Oh, do as she says."

  Still the Duke hesitated.

  Mrs. Bentley smiled, a small curved smile.

  In the middle of the crowd, Lady Hester hissed, "Give me room, damn you. Give me room!"

  People pressed back from her as she swung her gun to her shoulder.

  Mrs. Bentley had been holding Simon by the shoulder. Now she released him and leaned a little forward.

  "Well, Collingham?" she demanded.

  Lips muttering in prayer, Hester took aim and fired and then closed her eyes tightly.

  There was a silence and then a tremendous roar from the crowd.

  Hester's ball took Maria Bentley full in the heart. She fell back against the slates and then collapsed against the low stone parapet that bordered the roof.

  She hoisted herself to her feet and turned to grab Simon who crouched away from her, his bound hands behind his back, his bound ankles stopping him from fleeing.

  But with a sudden groan, Maria Bentley lost her balance and plunged down from the roof, down into the square, landing with a sickening crash on the steps of the mansion.

  It was nearly three o'clock on the following morning when the Westerby contingent arrived at Eppington Chase. Betty was clutching the sleeping Simon to her as if she would never let him go. The boy was painfully thin and white, but Hester in her old bracing way had pointed out that he had all the advantages of extreme youth on his side and would be bragging about his experiences in a very short space of time.

  Betty felt the day had been shock after shock. The discovery of Mrs. Bentley's diaries and all its revelations had been a nightmare. All their worst fears were confirmed. Mrs. Bentley had hired this man to impersonate her late husband, thereby frightening the old Marquess to death. She had employed that one to saw through the lynch pin of Lord Charles Welbourne's carriage and throw such a scare into his horses that he and his wife had plunged to their deaths.

  She had been responsible for the attempts on Simon's life. She had not mentioned the names of any of the people she had employed to carry out the murders.

  Frederica had arrived, hysterical with fright and distress and had to be hustled out of London to some relative in the North before the mob tore her to pieces.

  Fanny had calmly and sadly told Mr. Beauly that she would release him from the marriage, but so great was his dismay and so loud his protestations of eternal devotion that Fanny had cried tears of gratitude and promised to marry him on the day arranged, since she did not mourn her mother nor did she wish to pretend to do. so.

  Betty realized that now she was free to marry the Duke. He had often said that as soon as they were married he would bear her off to his home and leave Eppington Chase to wait until Simon grew up. Betty had mourned passionately at the thought of leaving her beloved home, but as the Duke's carriage swayed over the bridge and onto the road leading to the Chase, she watched as the great pile came into view and for the first time wished to be free of her obsessive love for her home.

  Pictures from the past flashed through her weary mind, herself as a child hiding under the table at Mrs. Bentley's dinner party, playing a trick on Fanny so that her visiting beau ran away in fright, the old Marquess, her stepfather, his eyes glittering as he seized the deeds which meant the return of his home and lands, Jane and Charles, their dead bodies being carried up the long drive, and Maria Bentley always there, always smiling.

  She was weary at the thought of having to go through with all the preparations for Fanny's wedding, but at least it would be something to keep her busy and banish the nightmares from her mind. Mrs. Bentley's diary had made it clear that neither Fanny nor Frederica had known of her villainy.

  There was the house at last and there were all the servants turned out in their livery to welcome them home, having returned earlier than they.

  There was Bella, clucking and crying and holding out her fat old arms for "her little ducks." There was Simon being borne up the broad staircase by Bella, his sleepy head on her shoulder and his eyelashes fanned out over his thin white cheeks.

  Then there was the Duke, amazingly polite and distant. Betty must go to bed immediately, he said in a light indifferent voice, and without knowing quite how it had happened, Betty found herself bathed and in bed as the first fingers of dawn crept across the lawns. All at once, just as she was about to drift off to sleep, an alarmed thought crept into her tired brain. Dolph was tired of her!

  She sat up in bed and pulled back the bedcurtain. Certainly the Duke had had an exhausting day since it was he who had to deal with the authorities, marshal the servants to help the authorities, clear Huggets Square of the mob, arrange for Frederica to be removed from danger, put a guard on Number Ten, since many of the mob were set on burning and looting to end an exhilarating episode.

  Enough to make anyone tired. But he had been cold and formal with her as in the old days.

  Had he suddenly realized that for all these months she had held him third in her affections? Her great love and longing for Simon and her love of her home had taken up her intellect and emotions entirely until the Duke had been slowly cast in the role of a rather importunate stranger who was always wanting to get married.

  Betty realized she must go to him, and quickly, or it might be too late. Perhaps it was too late already.

  She crept quietly along the corridor to his room and gently pushed open the door.

  He was not in bed but sitting by the embers of a dying fire, wrapped in his dressing gown, a calf-bound volume lying on his lap.

  He looked up at her, his eyes hooded and enigmatic. "So Simon is safe and now I am to get my reward," he said harshly. "But I still have another rival, have I not, my sweeting? This pile of bricks and mortar called Eppington Chase which possesses your heart so much th
at you shrink from the idea of leaving it."

  Betty felt her temper mounting. It had taken a great deal of courage to visit his room. Did he not know that?

  "I see it is of no use talking to you," she said in a carefully controlled voice. "You are determined to think the worst of me."

  He gave a little sigh and picked up his book. "You are tired," he said in a weary voice. "Go to bed."

  Shaken and humiliated, Betty turned to leave. And then, as she placed her hand on the handle of the door, she thought that this time it was her own pride that was at fault. She had held him at a distance for so long. But he should understand . . . should be kind.

  Betty turned to make amends and found to her horror that what she was saying was in fact, "You stupid, pompous man, to reject me thus!"

  The Duke put down his book and lazily got to his feet, walked toward her, and took her chin in his long fingers and gave it a little shake. "Now you know what it feels like," he said.

  She looked up at him mutely, her large blue eyes slowly filling with tears and her still childish mouth trembling beneath his gaze.

  He gave a muttered exclamation and bent and kissed her hard, kissed her until they were both shaken and breathless and trembling. He undid his magnificent brocade dressing gown and pressed her body against the naked front of his own, easing her nightgown down over her shoulders and down over her arms until it lay at her feet.

  "Love me," pleaded Betty. "I love you, Dolph, more than anyone or anything in the world. I hate this house. Hate it. It's evil. I never want to live in it again!"

  A great wind suddenly swept round the house, rattling the casements and causing the candle flames to send wild shadows dancing up to the painted ceiling.

  Betty shivered in sudden superstitious dread. "It heard me," she whispered. "The house is angry."

  "It is the wind," said the Duke. "Bricks and stones do not feel. Cannot make you feel. Do you feel my hands here . . . my lips . . . my body?" He swung her up and carried her to the bed and made love to her for a very long time until all her fears vanished and the great house sat silently in the rising sun, watching its black shadow vanishing from the grass.