by Sheila Walsh
‘Dearest, this is all pure conjecture.’ Selina was gently reproving, without actually refuting her son’s words. ‘You really mustn’t be vindictive about your cousins.’
‘They ain’t my cousins,’ averred the boy sulkily.
‘No. That, alas, is a circumstance we are seldom allowed to forget! As for the rest …’ She paused, sighed. ‘It is certainly a fact that Lord Radlett has come to rely quite heavily on Benedict, even to the point of charging him with carrying confidential letters to his London attorney, as I am given to understand he did only yesterday.’ She invested this last with deep significance.
Theo was in an agony of indecision. There was a growing certainty in her mind that Selina, for reasons of her own, was seeking to alienate her from her cousin, but how much of what had been said or implied was truth and how much fiction? For some of it must surely be true.
She said stiffly, ‘I had gained the distinct impression that Cousin Benedict has formed a very real attachment towards my grandfather, and I quite fail to see how he would stand to gain by pretending, when it is Beau, after all, who is his heir.’
‘My dear Theodora!’ This time Selina’s laughter was a trifle shrill. ‘You clearly do not appreciate the delicate nuances of the situation. Why do you suppose that you find us all so on edge? It is not simply a matter of the succession. Your arrival has resolved that much at least ‒ the title goes to Beau.’ She almost ground the words out. ‘But not all the estate is covered by the entail. Shallowford and all that surrounds it came to Lord Radlett through his wife, and he may dispose of it as he pleases. It had always been assumed that his heir would get all, but he holds Beau in such aversion that Benedict could influence him otherwise!’
‘Would that matter so dreadfully?’ said Theo.
‘Well, of course it would matter! Shallowford is a very valuable property … Beau would be furious. I daresay he will be praying that his lordship don’t recover consciousness!’
‘Tale-bearing, Selina?’
It was Beau’s voice at its most silky. They spun round as though shot, Selina with one hand clasped convulsively to her breast, to find him leaning against the closed door. How long he had been there it was impossible to say, for engrossed as they had been, no one had heard him enter.
Selina was quick to recover, though she still looked ill at ease, and even in the candlelight it could be clearly seen that her face had lost colour.
‘I was simply acquainting Theodora with the facts,’ she said, bridling.
Beau moved unhurriedly into the centre of the room, only the faint lift of his eyebrows disturbing the bored countenance.
‘Facts, my dear? Or a farrago of malicious conjecture? You do have a poisonous tongue when you’ve a mind to use it.’
The drawled insult was too much for Aubrey to stomach. He sprang to his feet. ‘You have no right to speak to Mama like that, sirrah!’ he cried. ‘And if you weren’t such a … a mincing fop and twice my age to boot, I’d … I’d jolly well plant you a facer!’
It was unforgivably rude, of course, but Theo found her heart warming to Aubrey. He did not want for courage, at any rate. She watched Beau put up his glass and look the boy over in silence for fully half a minute.
Then: ‘Madam,’ he said without moving, without expression. ‘If you cannot control your son’s outbursts, he would be better confined to the schoolroom. I shall speak exactly as I please in this house. I have always done so and it will take more than the temper tantrums of a miserable halfling interloper to induce me now to change the habits of a lifetime!’
The insult was cutting in the extreme. Aubrey squirmed, but he was not wholly crushed. ‘You aren’t Lord Radlett yet, you know,’ he stammered, red in the face. ‘And I, for one, jolly well hope the old codger recovers!’ He rushed to the door and flung out, slamming it behind him. Selina uttered a single sob and pressed a hand convulsively to her mouth.
In the silence that followed, Theo sneaked a look at the dandy’s face and found its expression chilling.
‘I am sure we all hope so,’ he murmured austerely, and then turned to Theo with his usual urbanity as though nothing had happened. ‘Well, my dear child ‒ I hope you were not too upset by the little drama earlier? If only his lordship had not attempted the stairs! I cannot think how Gorton came to permit it, but then, poor fellow, he was clearly not himself.’
The door opened again to admit Benedict. The lines of his face were sharply drawn, and he seemed preoccupied. Beau was the first to speak, his drawl concealing any hint of urgency.
‘Well, my boy? Has Marston been?’
‘He is still here,’ said Benedict curtly. ‘He has gone up to see Gorton.’
‘And … and Lord Radlett?’ faltered Selina, her eyes looking suddenly huge in her pale face.
‘His lordship still lives, though Dr Marston is not optimistic about his chances, and I must say I agree. Without Gorton to attend him …’ He shrugged.
‘But there are others, surely?’ Theo was unaware of the note of pleading in her voice.
Benedict turned to her a little wearily. ‘None capable of acting without supervision, coz. And I’m not sure if they would take on the task willingly if they could, having been too often subject to his lordship’s ill humour in the past. However, Dr Marston knows of a woman living this side of Hatherton who might be suitable.’ He frowned. ‘I can only suggest we try her out ‒ at least until Gorton recovers ‒ if he recovers!’ He looked up, hard-eyed. ‘However, it is for Beau to decide.’
‘Must I?’ The lace handkerchief, never absent for long, came into play. ‘I do so dislike making decisions. However,’ Beau added urbanely, ‘if Marston recommends this person, we can only be guided by him.’ He looked around at the others. ‘I really do not see what more can be expected of us.’
‘We could nurse him ourselves.’
The words were out before Theo had stopped to think. She found three pairs of eyes regarding her with varying degrees of incredulity.
‘Well, why not?’ she persisted. ‘I would be more than willing to do my share.’
Selina shuddered. ‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t! And I think it is decidedly outlandish in you to wish to put yourself to so much inconvenience and … and unpleasantness for someone you don’t even know!’
‘He is my grandfather,’ Theo said quietly.
‘Small difference that makes! He never knew of your existence until recently and behaved abominably when he did!’ Selina rose and flounced across the room. ‘For once I agree with Beau. The matter is best left to those properly versed in performing such menial tasks.’
Beau inclined his head in gracious assent, pressed his handkerchief to his nostrils, and avowed that the merest whiff of anything pertaining to the sickroom could be guaranteed to bring on one of his spasms.
In other circumstances his foppery might have amused Theo, but in the present desperately serious situation it struck her as vaguely obscene.
She said with some asperity, ‘And what if my grandfather should recover consciousness and ask to see you?’
His hand stilled, the heavy eyelids lifted. ‘Why then I should naturally lay aside all personal considerations and make the supreme sacrifice.’
‘Deucedly obleeging of you!’ mimicked Benedict with something perilously close to a sneer.
Beau’s eyes were masked once more, but not before Theo had glimpsed a shaft of cold dislike that was disturbing in its intensity. A waspish note invaded the bland voice.
‘I do my poor best. At least I cannot be accused of endeavouring to ingratiate myself with my uncle.’
An angry flush crept up under Benedict’s skin. ‘I know how I may take that, I suppose …’
‘My dear boy, I care not how you take it. It is surely a matter for your own conscience.’
But Theo had had as much as she could take. ‘Oh, do stop it, all of you! You’re like spoiled children … utterly selfish! Not one of you cares a fig whether that poor old man upstairs lives or dies,
except in so far as it affects your miserable lives!’ Tears threatened to close her throat as she ran to the door, brushing past Selina, heedless of their astonished stares. ‘I wish I had never come!’
In the corridor she almost knocked down Purley, who had with him a large untidy-looking gentleman. They were much taken aback as she fled past with only a muffled apology.
Benedict caught up with Theo at the foot of the staircase. He called her name, and when she paid him no heed, shot out a hand and took her arm in a bruising grip. She protested, struggled in vain to free herself, and finally demanded in tones of stifled fury that he release her at once.
‘Temper!’ he admonished, and swung her round to face him, but upon seeing the wild trembling of her mouth, her eyes sheening with tears, his voice softened.
‘You are being very silly,’ he said gently, as though reasoning with a fractious child.
Theo saw his face through a blur, brushed the tears away with her free hand, and, meeting his softened gaze, had to remind herself that he was probably no better than the rest.
‘I had rather be thought silly,’ she retorted with an undignified sniff, ‘than callous and indifferent!’ She glared at him. ‘Now tell me I’m pretentious.’
‘I wouldn’t dare!’ he murmured with such feeling that in spite of everything she felt almost ready to laugh. But her shoulders still slumped.
‘Was I very bad?’ she asked, biting her lip.
‘No worse than anyone might be at the end of a long, tiring, and eventful day,’ he said bracingly. ‘And in this house it hardly signifies.’
She persisted. ‘And you must allow the provocation to have been great?’
‘Insupportable,’ he agreed. ‘But then I did warn you that you would do better to wait until morning.’
At last his words had the desired effect. A little of her former spirit returned, enough to prompt a rueful smile. ‘So you did, sir. How unhandsome of you to remind me.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘No matter ‒ I shall come about after a good night’s sleep.’
Chapter Four
Tired as she was, Theo had little expectation that sleep would come easily to her. Too much had happened too quickly, and dominating all else was the memory of that gaunt old man swaying on his feet, glaring at her with something akin to hatred in his eyes.
But from the moment she was shown into her bedchamber, something very strange happened: a feeling of peace washed over her that had nothing whatever to do with the welcoming firelight, or the maidservant unfussily attending to her needs. It was as though she had in some curious way come home. And then she remembered Selina’s words ‒ ‘We have put you in your father’s old room, though it is hardly suitable in the circumstances’ ‒ and like a child she climbed into the vast bed, laid her head on the pillow where he had once laid his, and within minutes had fallen into a deep untroubled sleep.
When she finally stirred it was to find pale sunlight penetrating a gap in the heavy curtains to make watery patterns on the counterpane. She lay for a moment wondering where she was and, remembering, savoured her pleasure anew.
And then a sound inside her room brought her senses sharply into focus. She sat up abruptly to find a wispy middle-aged maidservant, whom she vaguely remembered as the one who had attended her on the previous night, on her knees before the fireplace, attempting to breathe life into a few feebly flickering flames with a pair of ancient bellows.
The maid looked up nervously as the bed creaked.
‘Oh, I’m ever so sorry, ma’am,’ she said in a thin pale voice that accorded perfectly with her looks. ‘I was just trying to get a proper fire going afore you woke, only when the wind’s in a certain quarter, this chimney’s a pesky nuisance, beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.’
‘That’s all right.’ Theo searched in the recesses of her memory. ‘Maddie, isn’t it?’ She reached forward to rescue a shawl which was about to slip off the end of the bed, wrapped it tightly round her shoulders and sat up, hugging her knees. ‘What time is it, Maddie?’
‘It must be getting on for nine o’clock, ma’am.’ Maddie abandoned the bellows and hurried to draw back the curtains.
‘Heavens!’ Theo cried, throwing back the bedclothes. ‘You should have called me sooner. I had meant to be up long before now.’
‘That’s as maybe, but Mr Benedict said as I wasn’t to disturb you if you was disposed to sleep on,’ said Maddie, eager to exonerate herself of blame.
‘Did he, indeed?’ The light of battle was in Theo’s eye as she padded across to the washstand and splashed some water into the basin from the ewer standing near by, dismissing the maid’s offer of help. ‘It would seem that Mr Benedict is in the habit of issuing a great many orders around here,’ she continued, her indignation only partially muffled by the soft towel put into her groping hands by Maddie.
‘I don’t know about that, ma’am, but I do know that things has been a lot smoother-running since he’s been around.’ Something remarkably like a sniff accompanied her defence of Mr Benedict. ‘And there’s not many,’ she added with deep significance, ‘as would sit up all night along of the old gentleman the way he’s just done, there being no one else what with Gorton worn to a thread and that Sarah Minchip not able to come till this morning.’
Theo turned from taking her first real look at the rolling countryside beyond the window and observed drily that Mr Benedict had clearly got a staunch champion in her. Maddie looked embarrassed.
‘That’s as maybe, ma’am. Anyways,’ she concluded, her voice prim, ‘though it’s not for me to say, I reckon as Mr Benedict meant what he said for the best, you being tired an’ all.’
Theo accepted the snub good-naturedly, but would make no decision about breakfast or anything else until she had been to see how her grandfather did. Hastily she donned a dress of blue dimity ‒ the first that came to hand ‒ and coiled her heavy chestnut hair into a knot at the back of her head. Then, with Maddie to direct her, she made her way to Lord Radlett’s rooms.
She found Benedict sprawled in a chair beside the bed, legs stretched out and coat discarded. He rose unhurriedly as she entered and subjected her to a frank appraisal in the morning light that filtered between the half-drawn curtains.
‘Well, Cousin Benedict?’ she prompted at last, having returned his appraisal with interest, relieved to find him somehow less daunting with unshaven chin and crumpled shirt.
‘Well enough, Cousin Theo,’ he answered equably. ‘You look suitably rested at all events. No need to ask if you slept.’
Her glance strayed involuntarily to the bed and then lifted to him, an unspoken query in her eyes.
‘No, coz,’ he said. ‘I fear there is little change as yet.’
She stepped closer. In the half-light his lordship’s face looked frighteningly unreal ‒ like a grotesque waxen mask. At first sight he seemed not to be breathing, and for a moment, as the memory of her father’s last hours came back with vivid clarity, her own heart felt squeezed beyond bearing. And then, inexplicably, the feeling grew into a wild consuming rage ‒ she wanted to shake her grandfather into consciousness, to rail at him, to berate him for having the ill grace to contemplate dying when she had come all this way to meet him and make her father’s peace with him.
Benedict watched the rigid profile with some curiosity; he could not hope to guess at the tumultuous nature of her distress, but she was clearly in the grip of some powerful emotion, her hands clasped tight to still their trembling.
‘Have you had breakfast?’ He spoke more roughly than he had intended, but the eyes she turned to him were blindly uncomprehending. He repeated the question, and she seemed to come back as if from a great distance.
‘I’m sorry.’ Theo shook her head, visibly pulling herself together. ‘You will think me very rude. No, I haven’t had breakfast.’
‘Then you should. I’ll get someone to sit with his lordship and we’ll go down together.’
‘Oh, but …’ She met his half-impatient look with a rueful s
mile. ‘The fact is, I am feeling a little foolish this morning. I made such a mull of things last night and must now do what I can to make amends, but … across the breakfast table …?’
He gave a decided chuckle.
‘My dear girl, you don’t suppose our beautiful relations put their noses beyond their doors much before noon? Especially Beau. That kind of magnificence is not achieved in a moment, I promise you.’
Thus reprieved, Theo allowed herself to be taken down to the sunny morning room, and having made an excellent breakfast selected from a quite extravagant quantity of covered dishes, she declared herself to be equal to anything.
‘Well, then,’ said Benedict. ‘The morning is clement ‒ we could walk for a while. If we keep fairly close to the house we shall hear when Dr Marston comes. Do you ride, coz?’
‘Tolerably well.’ She draped the shawl she had brought downstairs with her about her shoulders as they descended the front steps and walked out on to the wide carriage sweep so that Theo might have her first real view of the house. It was not a beautiful building, she realised with a pang of disappointment ‒ certainly not to be compared with some of the splendid mansions she had glimpsed during her journey from Plymouth.
‘What you might call a Gothic pile,’ observed Benedict, voicing her thoughts. ‘The west wing is mainly Tudor, but the rest has been added over the years with scant regard for any particular architectural style.’
‘How far do the grounds extend?’
‘The estate in all comprises about a thousand acres.’
‘Goodness!’
‘Much of it is farmed by tenants, of course. You see that row of poplars …’ Benedict stopped, took her arm, and swung her round, pointing into the distance. ‘A stream runs through there right across to the far side of the estate. It was known as Shallowford Brook long before this house was built.’
He glanced down at her in some curiosity. ‘Your father didn’t talk about the place much?’