‘The glove keeps the dressing in place,’ he said, studying his cards, and that was the end of that.
A letter came from Uncle Robert’s solicitor. This was the sole address Porter had for him and was he currently in residence? Greg dashed off a line to say he was, wondering what it could be about. Since he couldn’t get his hands on the money, or on the house to sell it, the only reason he could think of was that Helen had snuffed it. He felt a surge of excitement and was in good spirits that evening. When the cards fell his way, it felt like an omen. He laughed at himself for thinking such rot, but it felt good even so.
A waiter murmured that he had a visitor. His spirits froze. This could mean but one thing. Well, sod him, let him wait. He wouldn’t bow out in the middle of a hand for anyone.
This time, the cards fell the wrong way and he was obliged to wave goodbye to twenty guineas of the Louisa money. Perhaps this was an omen, too – he dashed the notion aside.
Tom Varney, decked out in evening dress, waited in the foyer. ‘This way, Rawley.’
He signalled for his things. Outside, a hackney carriage waited.
‘Trollope’s,’ Varney directed the driver, following Greg into the vehicle.
He employed his best blank expression, refusing to be impressed. Trollope’s was a club so exclusive it lent a new meaning to the word.
They were ushered upstairs to a carpeted landing of closed doors. Varney showed him to a door halfway along, knocked and let him into a private sitting room.
‘Good evening, Mr Rawley. How good of you to come.’
Greg made a vague gesture that encompassed Trollope’s and all it stood for. ‘Very impressive.’ He used a light tone, making a polite joke of it.
‘Don’t misunderstand. I’m not a member, though I’m flattered you think so.’ Mr Jonas smiled. ‘Who needs to be a member when one can gain access by … other means? My dear Mr Rawley, where are my manners? Have a seat – but before you do, since you’re on your feet, would you mind?’ He held up his glass. ‘Help yourself too, of course.’
Greg’s jaw hardened but he did as he was asked. When they both had drinks, he made a point of savouring his before glancing at his host.
‘Forgive me,’ said Mr Jonas, ‘but I can’t help noticing your glove. Most discreet. Far more gentlemanly, if I may say so, than flaunting the old war wound for all to see.’
‘Why the whole finger? I met a chap once who had you to thank for parting him from just the top joint.’
Mr Jonas sighed. ‘Evidently your misdemeanour was greater. You promised settlement and then reneged. So disappointing. Bad enough when I set the date, but worse if a gentleman does. I can be most accommodating, as you know, but I’m a stickler for dates.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a foible of mine.’
‘Christ,’ Greg muttered.
‘I would remind you, Mr Rawley, that it was you who set the date. I’d gladly have carried on dealing with you, but now, alas …’ Another shrug. ‘Such a pity.’ He took a sip of his port, closing his eyes. ‘I require settlement in full.’
His heart didn’t skip a beat. ‘You know I can’t. I thought those stones were real. They were going to set me up as well as you. As it is,’ and now it was his turn to shrug, ‘you’ll have to wait the same as I will for my inheritance.’
‘Ah, the inheritance. You borrowed a great deal in expectation of it. Settlement in full, Mr Rawley.’
‘No can do.’
‘You’re a brave man – either that or a foolish one. Already you’re so blasé about your war wound that you try to brush me aside.’
Greg’s heart gave a thud. He thought of Porter’s letter and the possibility of Helen’s demise, but he remembered where speaking of the Dalrymple diamonds had got him and held his tongue.
‘You can talk all you like, but I haven’t got a bean.’
‘Then perhaps it’s time for the next war wound. That unpleasant little incident wasn’t merely punishment, Mr Rawley, it was also a warning. You have until the end of September. You see, I’ve a spark of generosity left after all.’
For the next day or two, Greg waited impatiently for a reply from Porter. If he was right about its contents, all his troubles were over.
But Porter simply wrote to inform him that the first year’s books had been balanced and closed. Did he wish to have a copy of the summary forwarded to him or would he favour Mr Porter with a visit? Mr Porter was at his service.
He ripped up the letter.
Helen was alive.
Well, not for much longer.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Helen plodded home from Southern Cemetery. It had seemed a vast distance when she was a child, but her father always insisted they walk. ‘It’s the least we can do,’ he said, as if they were doing their departed relatives a favour. As she grew older and taller, it became less of a trek; and here she was now, elderly and plagued by her blessed hip, and it had gone back to being a devil of a journey, but that wasn’t going to stop her. Once you gave in, that was the start of the slippery slope.
She turned into Hardy Lane, which was the final stretch – stretch being the operative word. She peered down the hedgerow-lined lane.
‘Best foot forward,’ she said, whereupon her hip delivered an almighty twinge that made her curtsey almost to the ground. She halted. But she got going again before the pain died away. She categorically would not let it dictate to her.
As she passed the cricket pitch and the line of cottages, she heard a horse clopping down the lane behind her. She turned to look, and if her interest stemmed from the opportunity to rest her leg, that was her business.
The carriage halted and the window was pulled down.
‘Good afternoon.’ It was Mr Porter. ‘May I take you the rest of the way?’
‘No, thank you.’ The refusal was automatic, although her leg was screaming at her. Why did she find it so hard to accept help gracefully?
‘It so happens I was on my way to see you.’
‘We don’t have an appointment.’
‘I had to call on another client nearby and thought I’d take a chance. Just to keep you abreast of things, you know. I’ve heard from Mr Rawley.’
‘Have you indeed?’
He apparently took that as assent, getting out to hand her in. To her horror, she experienced a swoony moment as she put her weight on her bad leg, but a sharp gasp brought her to rights. She sank gratefully onto the seat. Her bones felt like glass.
‘What’s this about my nephew?’ Perhaps it would be more polite to wait until they were indoors before asking, but she had never been one to beat about the bush.
‘He’s entitled to see the annual accounts, so I wrote to him at his London address in case he should be in residence and not away travelling, which I understand occupies a considerable proportion of his time. I had a reply from him, and rather promptly, too – ah, here we are.’
He escorted her indoors and Edith brought tea.
‘Mr Rawley wishes to go over the accounts in person, as he will be up here in a day or two,’ said Mr Porter. ‘I’ve offered him an appointment on Thursday afternoon.’
‘Good of him to let me know,’ Helen said, waspishly. ‘I suppose he was going to descend on Jackson’s House unannounced as usual.’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t take it out on you.’
‘Think nothing of it. When one deals with wills, one is often on the receiving end of other people’s frustrations.’
After he departed, she couldn’t stop thinking about Greg. She couldn’t bear the thought of his returning. It was a long time since he left – vanished without a word, more like. When was that? Months back – last summer. Now it was June again, over a year since Robert died.
It had been a lonely year. She and Robert used to bicker, but at least he was company. It had been easier for him: he could go to his club. But since the deaths of her two lifelong friends before she lost Robert, she had been more or less friendless. Oh, she had acquaintances by the bucketful, and jolly irritating
she found most of them, but no real friends.
She winced, remembering her abortive attempt to offer friendship to Doctor Brewer. What a fool he must have thought her.
‘And you are a fool,’ she said, ‘not least because here you are talking to yourself.’
Besides, she did have friends. She had two staunch friends under this roof. Ever since the day Greg sent the builder round, she had counted Mrs Burley and Edith as friends. Sometimes she went to the kitchen, politely knocking before entering Mrs Burley’s domain, to share a cup of tea. At such times, the three of them talked as frankly as women in the wash house. No liberties were taken, though Mrs Burley did make so bold as to call her ‘madam, dear,’ but only when her feathers were ruffled because of Greg.
Greg. All thoughts led back to him. One good thing: after her walk, she wouldn’t lie awake worrying. She always slept like a log after her cemetery visits, apart from occasionally waking to a spasm of pain when her hip locked.
The worst bit was always getting out of bed the next morning. The fight to get moving turned her flesh cold and clammy; she was breathless when she gained her feet. She pressed her hand to her hip, trying to ease the savage discomfort. Her body rang with it, but presently it eased sufficiently for her to dress.
‘Bally rheumatics,’ she said and was horrified to hear the crack in her voice, so she said it again in her clearest voice.
She pulled herself up straight before she left the room. As she walked along the landing, she tried to crush her limp, refusing to hesitate at the top of the stairs, stepping forward—
With a violent swooshing sensation, she toppled and lurched forwards. Her head was flung back as her body plunged. Then her head snapped back into position and she saw the stairs rushing up to meet her. Her temple caught a glancing blow on the bannister, causing a frightful twang in her neck. Her teeth snapped together. She was still tumbling, at top speed and horribly slowly at the same time. She had the oddest feeling that while the rest of her was flying downwards, her feet had been left behind, caught on whatever had tripped her.
She flung out her hand, trying to rescue herself, but it got caught in the bannisters and there was a sickening crunch that flooded her arm with pain. She clunked her way down a couple more stairs, then came to a halt, stunned and winded.
‘Oh, madam! Madam!’
The pain was excruciating, accompanied by a distant bewilderment that it wasn’t in her hip. She tried to hang on but … but—
Pausing at the gate, Nathaniel looked at Jackson’s House, wondering what sort of reception he would get. He hadn’t been here since – was it really last summer? That was when he had been summoned in the dead of night after Greg Rawley received a battering. Imogen was alive then. His fingers wound tightly round the top bar of the gate.
Imogen.
She had occupied his thoughts far more since her death than she had during her lifetime, yet at the time, had anyone asked, he would have said he was a good husband. He knew she would have said so. She had run his house and cared for him, supporting him with her agreement in all things.
After her death, he had packed off Evie to finish her convalescence with Ma and Aunt Louise in Cheshire and appointed a daily cook-general to run his house and provide meals. Sometimes he stopped working for long enough to go home and eat them.
He strode to the door.
‘Morning, Edith. Doctor Slater’s unavailable, so I’m here. Miss Rawley, is it?’
‘Madam fell downstairs. We’ve put her in the morning room.’
Miss Rawley was lying on the sofa, propped up by cushions – he could imagine her refusing to lie down properly. She looked ghastly, grey with pain. A pillow lay across her stomach, her right forearm nestling in it, swathed in a damp cloth.
‘Well, Miss Rawley, I hear you’ve taken a tumble.’
‘I did nothing of the kind. I tripped.’
‘Madam, I swear there was nothing there.’ Edith sounded agitated. ‘I never leave things lying around, and certainly not on the floor, let alone at the top of the stairs.’
‘There was something there.’ Miss Rawley glared at Nathaniel. ‘I didn’t send for you.’
‘Nevertheless, you’ve got me. Let’s have a look, shall we?’
She gasped as he unwound the cold compress. The grey leached out of her face, leaving her hollow-eyed and deathly white. As he conducted his examination, she pressed her lips together and uttered not a sound. He had to hand it to her. She had real pluck. When he finished, she sank into the cushions, looking thin and frail.
‘Rest now,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back this evening. I’ll leave you something to help you sleep.’
Even after some shut-eye, she was still pretty ropey when he returned that evening. The next morning, however, her doughty spirit was back in full force. She was wrapped up to her chin in a highly respectable housecoat and was again propped up by cushions, but her feet were on a footstool and there was a table by her side with a jug of cordial and, unless he was mistaken, the housekeeping books.
‘Thank you for your attention yesterday,’ she said formally, ‘but Edith assures me she sent for Doctor Slater.’
‘He had to attend a funeral.’
‘I see, and is he otherwise engaged today?’
‘No, and if you prefer, I can hand your case over to him, though I’d rather see it through myself.’
She thought about that. ‘I’d prefer to keep you.’
‘How’s the wrist?’
‘It aches a little.’
‘Which I assume means it hurts like billy-o. I can give you something for that and if you want to get dressed afterwards, it should make it easier.’
Her jaw stiffened. Had he offended her by saying something too personal? She wriggled so she could sit up straighter and when she spoke, her voice was half confiding and half peeved.
‘I can’t dress without assistance. Last night I was obliged to let Edith help me, because it was either that or go to bed fully dressed.’
‘And you declined her help this morning.’
‘I’ve no wish to be lady’s-maided by my housemaid. It isn’t seemly.’
‘You won’t be able to manage unaided for some time.’
‘It’s other things too. Writing – I’m right-handed. All sorts of things.’
‘It isn’t nursing care you need, so I can’t help you. Have you a friend you can call on, perhaps, or a relative? Someone who can live in?’
She brightened. She went from tired and vexed to animated in an instant.
‘That’s exactly it,’ she declared.
‘A friend?’
‘Gracious me, no. My friends are dead and when they were alive, they were pretty decrepit. No, I wonder if the Kimbers could be prevailed upon …’ The words drifted away, but her eyes were bright and busy.
‘Didn’t you tell me you and Lady Kimber …?’
‘Had a big falling out. Yes, yes, years ago. But in these circumstances … and if the request went to Sir Edward … I’ll write directly—oh.’
She looked so crestfallen that he couldn’t help smiling. ‘I’ll write and say you’re in need of a companion-help and would rather rely on family.’
‘Family,’ Miss Rawley said with more satisfaction than the idea seemed to warrant. ‘Yes, indeed, family.’
‘So it’s settled. You’ll go as companion-help to this Miss Rawley. She’s Lady Kimber’s aunt, but they don’t keep up the connection, so don’t worry about that.’
Mary listened in silence. Dadda had spent the morning at Ees House, closeted with Sir Edward. She hid her indignation. It was tempting to refuse point-blank, but that would make life difficult for her family.
‘Does Charlie know?’ she asked.
‘If you imagine he’ll come rushing back to make an honest woman of you—’
‘I don’t need making an honest woman of,’ she said tartly. ‘The marriage was annulled in the middle of May, but before that it existed. I wish people would remember that.’
‘Well, they won’t. The popular view of annulment is that the marriage was never legal in the first place, more’s the pity.’
‘Does Charlie know?’ Does Charlie know? Does Charlie know? It was humiliating and infuriating to be reduced to asking about her husband … her former husband.
‘Sir Edward says he’ll be told. What happens after that, I don’t know. I don’t think Sir Edward knows either. It depends whether it’s a boy or a girl. If it’s a boy, there’ll be a devil of a legal question. At any rate, a boy might be taken by the Kimbers in case he ends up as heir.’
She swallowed. ‘And if it’s a girl?’
‘Who knows? That wouldn’t be such a calamity for the Kimbers. You might be expected to bring her up yourself.’ Dadda cleared his throat.
A fist closed round her heart. ‘What is it?’
‘Probably better if Mother tells you.’
Later, Lilian said, ‘It’s to do with when the baby comes. It has to be born within so many days of the annulment.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘To prove it’s Charlie’s.’
‘What? Of course it’s Charlie’s! What a monstrous suggestion. Did the Kimbers decide this?’
‘It’s the law.’
For one furious moment, she hoped the baby would be born on the wrong side of the time limit, and let the law and the Kimbers make of that what they pleased. But she would be damned for ever as a loose woman and an unmarried mother. Come to think of it, she would probably be regarded as an unmarried mother anyway, in spite of the wedding ring she had replaced on her finger and the Kimber name she had felt obliged to resume.
The baby was due in September or October. That was as precise as the doctor could be in the absence of helpful information from Mary. The trouble was that for her, it had never rained in Halifax regularly. She knew that for most girls, it rained in Halifax every month, but it never had for her. That was why it had taken her so long to realise her condition. There hadn’t even been morning sickness to give her a prod. She hadn’t put on weight, either. Quite the reverse: the shock and distress of the annulment had made the pounds fall off.
The Poor Relation Page 27