by Mira Stables
A MATCH FOR ELIZABETH
For Dee-Dee and James
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter One
“Very restless, my lord,” answered the butler, as he took the Earl’s driving coat and indicated to the young footman that he should proceed with the bestowal of the baggage. “Mr Tressidy says he has been on the fidget all day in expectation of your arrival. The physician is with him just now and his orders are that you were to be admitted whenever you so desired, since it was plain that his lordship would have no peace until he had concluded his business with you.”
Behind the professional mask the old man’s face was drawn in lines of quiet grief, though his voice was calm and controlled. It seemed as though he was prepared to thrust this eagerly awaited guest into his master’s room without even allowing him time to remove the dust of travel. The Earl’s harsh countenance softened a little, but he only said, “I’d like a word with Mr Tressidy before I go in to his lordship. Ask him to come up to my room if he’s about.”
“In the library, my lord. I will inform him of your arrival and ask him to wait upon you. Mrs Bateson has put you in the India room, so that you will be close at hand if the master should ask for you.”
The Earl nodded and made his unhurried way to the quarters allotted to him. Cheringham was familiar ground. His visits had been irregular but fairly frequent, as befitted the nature of his friendship with its owner. Drying his hands on the fine towel that the good Mrs Bateson had put ready for his use and gazing absently out of the window over the spring glory of the rhododendrons, his mind drifted back across the years to his first meeting with Major Kirkley. His lips twitched involuntarily at the memory of that callow young ensign who had reported to the Major in that rather squalid cottage that had been his billet in Roliça. Nearly twenty years ago. He had been quite disappointed, he recalled, by the gentle courtesy of manner which distinguished his superior officer, having expected something much more brusque and swashbuckling. The disappointment had been short-lived. Vimiero had shown him the sterling qualities of the man, both as leader and comrade-in-arms, and during all the delays and frustrations that followed, as the army saw the hard-bought fruits of victory dissipated by a divided leadership, the fiercely outspoken youngster had found solace in the calm fortitude of the older man. Major Kirkley had accepted the vagaries of the politicians equably, and had gently conveyed to his seething subordinate that it was his business to get upon terms with the men of his troop, rather than to be canvassing the rights and wrongs of a distant court martial. The advice had seemed good to that much younger Richard, though his first clumsy attempts to see to the welfare of his men had been received with good humoured tolerance rather than gratitude. His stolid cohort seemed to be under the impression that it was their job to look after him, and in their experienced hands his knowledge of the arts of campaigning had developed rapidly, if along somewhat unorthodox lines.
What a good crowd they had been! Instinct and upbringing drew him more naturally to the rustic types with which he was already familiar, yet there were moments when he would be swept by a passion of mingled pity and admiration for some impudent rascal, spewed out of a city slum, foul-mouthed and untaught, yet facing up to life boldly with only the inadequate equipment of his scrawny under-nourished body. To these sons of the gutters every kind of crime was commonplace. Pilfering and poaching, if undetected, were accounted praiseworthy, and drunkenness was their only avenue of escape from intolerable conditions. Yet they could perform prodigies of valour and endurance, they could be generous to a comrade, and their rough jokes and salty comments enlivened many a weary mile. Respect for their good qualities had been born in the young subaltern in those early days. Over the years it had deepened to affectionate understanding. He had gained an insight into the feelings and difficulties of the lower orders that was rare indeed in a man of his class.
For several long moments he stood gazing out of the window, his eyes blind to the lovely flaunt of blossom on which they rested, as his inward vision reviewed the kaleidoscopic medley of figures that revolved about the steadfast presence of Major Kirkley. Though his visits to Cheringham had been less frequent since he had sold out in ’16 and had found himself increasingly occupied with the cares of his own wide domains, yet how he was going to miss the serene unchanging friendliness which had always enveloped him as soon as he crossed its hospitable threshold. For the message which had summoned him had been painfully explicit. His friend had but little time left, perhaps only a few days, and would ask a service of him before bidding him farewell. The Earl had not lingered upon his going, as three exhausted teams stabled along the route would testify, and he a man notoriously careful of his cattle.
A quiet knock upon his door broke into the reverie, and he turned to bid Mr Tressidy enter. Greeting exchanged, the secretary was able to supply further details as to the Viscount Cheringham’s illness, and to endorse the butler’s remarks as to the impatience with which he was awaiting his friend’s arrival. The doctor had just left, but had promised to return at nightfall.
“You will come to him soon, won’t you, my lord?” the secretary urged. “Indeed I fear he will have no rest until he has unburdened his mind to you. He refuses to take the drops that have been prescribed to ease his pain lest they should cloud his wits and prevent him from explaining his need and his wishes to your lordship.”
The Earl surveyed him thoughtfully, tossing the towel into a linen basket and pausing to remove a thread of lint from his coat sleeve. “At once,” he said quietly. “But in the interest of sparing Lord Cheringham’s strength, can you give me any notion of what service he requires of me?”
Quentin Tressidy’s face was a study. The composure which had masked his grief and inward perturbation during the brief interchange broke up. He looked positively ill at ease, almost furtive. “Why, Sir,” he stammered, even his meticulous formalities forgotten in his dismay, “I do indeed know something of what his lordship wishes. But it is so unexpected, so recently learned, that I cannot even now believe—in short, my lord,” he pulled himself together into some form of coherence, “the matter is of so strange and so intimate a nature that I must beg you to hold me excused. His lordship needed my assistance in securing copies of certain documents. Had this not been the case, I am assured that he would not have divulged a secret that has been buried these twenty years and more.”
The Earl found his own curiosity stirred by these half-disclosures. He had not supposed that his old friend’s past held a mystery that could have so discomposed his staid and devoted secretary. “Then I will wait upon him without further delay,” he said, and led the way from the India room to the vast bedchamber where Viscount Cheringham lay propped against his pillows, his weary gaze flickering hungrily towards the opening door, his pale lips curving to a smile of welcome.
“Why, Sir! It seems I find you in sad case,” said the Earl, stooping over the bed and clasping the sick man’s hand in his own cool firm one. “Disobeying orders, too,” he added, lifting the medicine glass from the table. “I dare swear your doctor bade you swallow this evil-looking potion, did he not? Yes—I thought as much—” noting the wry twist of Lord Cheringham’s lips and the infinitesimal shrug of his shoulders. “Let me hold it for you.”
His solicitude was gently but quite firmly rejected. “No, Richard. Let be. I must make my
dispositions first. Make all safe. Time enough then for potions—and sleep.” The voice was a mere thread, but the Earl made no further protest.
“As you wish, Sir,” he said quietly. “You know my will to serve you. Only tell me how I may do so.”
The dark eyes were lambent with confident affection as they gazed up into the cool grey ones. “Yes, I know,” whispered Lord Cheringham. “Quentin, set a chair for Colonel—” He broke off, smiling faintly. “You see, my wits are wandering already. And the papers, Quentin—put them here to my hand. Then you may leave us. No, stay. Have Pennypool bring up the Madeira. My apologies, Richard. I am grown sadly neglectful.”
“It is quite shocking,” agreed the Earl solemnly. “I cannot think why I put up with you. However, I think, with your permission, we will dispense with the Madeira. It will keep until you have given me your instructions, and then we may enjoy it at our leisure.”
There was the ghost of a rueful twinkle in the dark eyes. “As you wish, dear fellow, though I fear you are more like to call for the brandy!”
“Good God!” exclaimed the Earl in mock horror. “I begin to fear the worst. Not—oh no! Charles. Not one of your forlorn hopes? You really cannot expect daredevil gallantry from a man of my years and sober habits!”
But the gleam of humour had faded from Lord Cheringham’s expression. His eyelids drooped and he appeared to sink into silent brooding. Then his voice came more heavily. “It’s just your years and your respectability that I need, Richard. No daredevil business. Just—a father confessor for myself—and a guardian for my daughter.”
Even the Earl’s celebrated savoir-faire was shaken by this remark, coming from a man whom he had known intimately for years; a man of rigid, almost puritanically high moral standards, and one who certainly had no children as far as the world was aware. He remembered Quentin’s stammered phrases. Was he to be asked to take charge of some base-born child, fruit of a youthful indiscretion of which he could scarcely, even now, believe his friend to have been guilty? Through his fast-whirling thoughts he heard his own voice saying, with a fatuous ineptitude that he would have been the first to condemn, “Your daughter, Charles? I did not know you had a daughter.”
The sick man sighed. “She does not even know that she is my daughter. I have not seen her since she was a mere babe. Even her grandparents believe her to be illegitimate. But she is my true-born daughter, and you will see to it that she is restored to her rightful place in the world, and that she enjoys all the comfort and consequence that my cowardice has so long denied her. It is my earnest hope that you will be able to contrive a suitable match for her, so that her future may be happily settled.”
The Earl could not help wondering if this queer tale was some figment of a fevered brain. But the thin hand clasped in his held no trace of heat, and the dark gaze that so eloquently beseeched his assent was sane enough.
“I will do just as you wish,” he promised soberly, though he wondered ruefully the while to what sort of an imbroglio he was committing himself.
The grip on his fingers tightened convulsively for a moment, and then was relaxed as the feeble hand fumbled for the documents that the secretary had laid upon the counterpane. “The papers are all here,” went on the threadlike voice. “There are copies of the entries in the parish registers. In face of those, no one can question the child’s legitimacy.”
“Of course they will not,” said the Earl, with a calm certainty that was not without its effect. Viscount Cheringham leaned back against his pillows, smiling contentedly, almost sleepily at his friend. “And now that you have ensured that in case of need your daughter will be in safe keeping, do you think that you could bring yourself to follow your physician’s advice and submit to acceptance of this noxious-looking medicine? There will be time enough, when you are more rested, to acquaint me with any further details that might prove useful.”
Chapter Two
The Earl checked his team at the top of the incline and studied the choice of roads that was offered to him. He had never previously journeyed into Gloucestershire, and had it not been for the tiresome cause of this particular journeying, would have admitted to considerable pleasure in the scene that lay outspread before his gaze. Pasture and meadow in lush profusion spoke to the richness of the soil. Far below him the river looped its leisurely way towards the sea, and all this pastoral display was admirably set off by the dark background of the ancient forest. As matters stood, however, he bestowed scant attention on the beauty of the passing scene but expressed himself eloquently and bitterly on the state of the roads in terms that caused his groom to bite a quivering lip.
“A matter o’ seven miles, Sir,” said Hanson, in answer to his master’s final query. “Or so the ostler at the Golden Guinea assured me, if I understood him aright.”
“With these spirited steeds that may well take us the better part of an hour,” said the Earl acidly, giving his stolid hirelings the office that further effort was required of them. “Especially as this apology for a road would not appear to have been repaired since King Charles raised the siege of Gloucester. Only an artillery train could create such furrows.”
“’Tis at least better than Spain, Sir,” said Hanson, “in that it’s dry. Do you remember the mud at Rodrigo?”
A reluctant grin dispelled the Earl’s expression of deep gloom. “The night we lost the commissariat?” he queried. “Well, I don’t think we shall go hungry tonight. From what I can make out the place is small but quite comfortable. It’s to be hoped they can put us up, for there are no decent inns in the neighbourhood, and with the onset of old age I find myself much nicer in my requirements than I was in Spain.”
Hanson treated this sally with the silent contempt which he felt it deserved; the Earl, too, relapsed into silence, concentrating his attention on his horses and the treacherous descent. He had no idea what sort of a welcome awaited him. His letter had been brief and non-committal, merely introducing himself as an agent acting on behalf of the late Viscount Cheringham, and announcing his proposed visit. He knew that he might expect to find his newly acquired ward living in modest circumstances with her maternal relatives, who believed the girl to be illegitimate. During long hours spent with the sick man he had finally pieced together the tangled story. Charles had loved his Elizabeth to desperation—but his parents had already selected his future bride. He was only nineteen, and in the immemorial fashion of youth he had been confident that time would reconcile them to the secret marriage that seemed to him the only solution to his problem. But time was not to be allowed him. His girl wife had died in giving birth to their child, and Charles, half crazed with grief, had handed over the baby to grandparents desolated by the loss of their only daughter, despite their belief that she had disgraced their name.
At least no one was likely to contest his protégée’s inheritance as a brief consultation with the new Viscount Cheringham had elicited, despite the very questionable legality of that secret ceremony. Charles’s bachelor uncle was quite prepared to accept an orphaned great niece of whom he had never heard before along with the more comfortable aspects of his new estate, though he was only too thankful to shuffle off any further responsibility for her welfare on to the shoulders of the younger man. “That’s the dandy,” he had wheezed affably. “The chit will do far better with your sister than with an old codger like me. Lady Maria will know just how to go about the matter without setting the ton by the ears. Might even fix up a match between the girl and that young nevvy of yours, hey? Been on the town a few years now, ain’t he?”
The Earl, receiving the suggestion with the blandest of smiles and an evasive shrug, privately thought it extremely unlikely that any countrified miss would suit young Timothy. At twenty-five he had no longer the taste for rustic innocence. Something much more subtle and sophisticated was required to titillate his jaded palate, and in any case this girl, at twenty-three, was by far too old for him. No doubt when the time came Maria would amuse herself in arranging a suitable m
atch for the girl. It shouldn’t be too difficult, in spite of her age, since quite a respectable portion went with her.
He steadied the horses on a sharp zig-zag, and it was at this point that Hanson suddenly said, “Would that be the place, Sir?” and jerked his head to the left, where a single farm gate gave access to a narrow drive.
The Earl contemplated the modest entrance thoughtfully. “It looks more like a farm than the entrance to a gentleman’s residence, but we’ll try it, John, and see.”
They proceeded at a gentle trot along a narrow but well-kept road. If this was indeed a farm it was a prosperous one, decided the Earl, viewing the sleek cattle with appreciative eyes. The buildings were in good repair and the land appeared to be in splendid heart. The man who was running this place certainly knew his work. He recalled that Charles had told him that the household comprised just the three women—his daughter, her grandmother, and some elderly female relative. He wondered how they had managed to discover and retain so superlative a bailiff. The fellow must be worth his weight in gold.
The road swung away from the barns and pigsties and climbed a gentle slope towards the house, snugly set below a beech hanger. Not an imposing residence—just a small stone house which seemed to have grown naturally in its setting, its only ornamentation the line of dripstone above its windows and the modest canopy above its door. Smooth turf swept almost to the walls, where narrow beds of flowers, gay with pinks and sweet-williams, added a note of demure femininity. In increasing confidence that this was indeed the place he was seeking, the Earl trod up the three shallow steps to the front door and set the bell pealing.
His instinct was correct. A rosy-checked country girl who looked somewhat out of character in her grey stuff gown and prim cap admitted that Mrs Hamerton did indeed live here, and said she would ask if the gentleman should be admitted. The Earl, entrusting his card to a moist pink palm, thought that the lass would have looked more at home in the hayfield, and since he had not been invited to pass beyond the small square hall, awaited her return with what patience he might and studied his surroundings with mild interest.
