“No, it would not! For God’s sake, Ger, this is about Ruth, not her father, nor about me, either. Let us not get distracted. I cannot marry her, despite the betrothal, so it is up to you. Do you like her well enough to marry her?”
“I do like her,” Ger said softly. “I have always held her in great affection, and when I saw her today and we sat down at the instrument together — I like her very well. She appeals to something in me that I can never share with Ginny. She is such a wonderful musician, so passionate and eager! She feels it, just as I do.”
“Passionate?” Ran said, bemused, trying to reconcile the word with the cool, composed Ruth he knew. “Is she?”
“Oh, yes! You have probably only heard her restrained public performances, but when she plays for herself, she is very different, I assure you.”
“I did not know,” Ran said wonderingly. “Well, offer for her then if you think it will answer, but Ger, promise me this — you must make it absolutely clear that she must answer according to her own wishes, and not simply do as her father bids her. You must both of you enter into marriage with willing hearts. If I cannot have her myself, then at least let me know that she chose her own path. You will take the greatest care of her, will you not?”
“I promise you I will be the best husband I can possibly be.”
It was not quite the reassurance Ran had hoped for.
18: Morning Prayers
When Ruth reached her dressing room, she found that a bed had been made up there.
“I’m to sleep in here now,” Pinnock said, a hint of defiance in her tone. “The door from your bedroom to the corridor is to be kept locked at night, too. Her Grace’s orders, milady.”
“Am I a prisoner?” Ruth said, in her mildest tones, although she seethed below the surface.
Pinnock reddened. “Her Grace was very worried about you this afternoon, when you went wandering about the gardens all alone, and no one could find you. There were footmen combing the grounds looking for you. Her Grace doesn’t want any… mishaps, not at this stage.”
Mishaps! No damage to her oh-so-valuable reputation, she meant. It was hard to see to what harm she could possibly have come, when the only single gentlemen in the house were Ran and Ger. And Uncle Arthur, she supposed, but the thought made her laugh.
“It isn’t funny!” Pinnock said.
Ruth raised her eyebrows at the maid. “You forget yourself, Pinnock. Why have you not unfastened my necklace yet?”
After that, the business of undressing was accomplished in silence. Pinnock would have followed her through to the bedroom to draw the curtains around the bed, but Ruth said, “Thank you, but I shall read for a while.”
“What book is it? Her Grace will want to know.”
“The Bible, Pinnock,” Ruth said gently. “Or my Prayer Book, for I have no other books here.”
The maid’s lips clamped shut. She looked as if she was sure there was some deception, but she did not quite have the brazenness to insist upon seeing the Bible for herself.
Ruth bade her a good night, entered her bedroom and firmly closed the door. She had no particular wish to read her Bible, but nor did she wish to be caught in a lie if Pinnock or, even worse, the duchess should come to check on her. Accordingly, she lit some reading candles, arranged them around the chair beside the unlit fire, and settled the Bible upon her knees, opened at a random page. She memorised the first three verses, just in case. Then she closed her eyes and allowed her anger to wash over her. To be locked into her room, as if she were a naughty child or a madwoman! It was insulting.
And yet, even at one and twenty years of age, she was still dependent on her parents for her home, for her clothes, even the food she ate. She could not do as she pleased, even in such trivial matters as walking alone around a house where she was a guest. She must wear the clothes her mother deemed suitable, go where they sent her, behave as they wished. And all of this would continue until she married.
But then… ah, then she would be free indeed! She would be the mistress of her own house, she would order the meals, manage the servants, entertain visitors if she wished or spend the evening alone if she wished. No… not alone. There would be her husband’s wishes to consider, but her own wishes would also be of importance. She would not be stifled, as she currently was. Marriage would set her free as she was not now.
Or perhaps she was. There was the secret door. Picking up a candelabrum, she crossed the room to the corner where the escritoire stood. The flickering light of the candles showed no obvious sign of a door, only a succession of papered panels. But there! Yes, the faintest crack showed where the door would open, and the sconce, just within reach, which would release it.
Dear Ran! He had noticed how hedged about she was, and after she had left he had gone to the Mistress of the Chambers and told her to put Ruth in this room, if ever she came again as a visitor. And the Mistress of the Chambers would have gone to her visitors’ book and found Ruth’s name and scratched out the words ‘Bluebell Room’ next to it and substituted ‘Lilac Room’. Ran had thought of it, and so it had been done.
And now she had a secret door. She withdrew to her chair and picked up the Bible again. She had no wish to walk the corridors of Valmont at night, creeping about in her nightgown like a ghost, but still, it was curiously comforting to know that she could, if she wished. But would she ever dare to do it? If her mama could retaliate by locking her in after she had been alone for no more than an hour, what might she do if she discovered that Ruth had crept away through a secret passage? She could be locked up for weeks… months! She shivered.
Fear of her mother’s disapprobation had kept her docile and well-behaved for years now. Ruth had never had Susan’s rebellious tendencies, or her willingness to lie brazenly. The smallest deception reduced Ruth to quivering torment, in perpetual terror of discovery, and so she had striven to be the dutiful, well-behaved daughter her mother expected. Any diversion from instant obedience brought her too much distress to contemplate. It was cowardice, she accepted that, but she preferred the clear conscience of compliance to the wretchedness of guilt.
She closed the Bible, blew out the candles, and went to bed.
~~~~~
Ruth had not expected to sleep well, and so was not disappointed when, after a restless night, she woke at an early hour. Her Bible still sat where she had left it the night before, reproaching her for her modest subterfuge the night before. If she dressed at once, she would be in time for Morning Prayers in the chapel. She could assuage her guilty conscience in a proper manner.
Pinnock was not pleased to be summoned so early, but she was mercifully silent as she helped Ruth to dress. Taking her Prayer Book, Ruth made her way downstairs to the chapel. The maid, unsurprisingly, followed her. The duchess’s orders, no doubt. When her mother was not able to watch Ruth herself, Pinnock was to creep about behind her like a little brown shadow, watching and noting everything Ruth did, so that she could report it all to the duchess. Ruth chose to make no comment, but it was humiliating that she could not even pray without her mother knowing it.
Unlike the rest of Valmont, the chapel was a starkly plain room, the arched roof embellished with the branching tops of the pilasters along the walls, but with no other decoration apart from a rather beautiful fresco of the Holy Family behind the altar. No one sat in the ornate family pews at the front, but the servants’ rather plainer ones held a few maids and footmen, and two of the gardeners. At the far end of one such pew sat Ran, head low, his expression disconsolate. What was he thinking? Impossible to tell. He had not noticed her, and she could hardly squeeze past the footmen to sit beside him so she passed by and entered a pew near the front.
She had hoped the service would soothe her restlessness. Instead, she found herself watching Mr Ponsonby, and wondering why chaplains were always tall and spare and solemn, as he was. They were never fat and jolly, entertaining the table at dinner, nor young and handsome, riding energetically to hounds and marrying a daughter
of the house. Why was that? Perhaps being chaplain to a great family was a situation which drew a certain type of man, unsuited to the rigours of parish life, or perhaps the great families themselves preferred such men. It was puzzling, although not as puzzling as the question of why she should wonder about such matters at all. Her mind was so frayed that she could not even concentrate on the words of the service.
After the dismissal, she rose and turned to leave, just as Ran slipped out of the door, head down. He must have seen her there, yet he had no wish to speak to her, not even to exchange a courteous greeting. That cut like a knife! He had hardly spoken a word to her since their meeting in the Long Gallery. He had been serious then, too, but he had spoken to her kindly, wishing her to be happy, to make the right choice. Even last night, he had tried to speak to her. He had not avoided her as he was doing now, nor had he seemed so lost and forlorn. How she wished she could offer him some comfort for whatever trouble he was suffering, but she knew not how. Comfort was not routinely offered in the Grenaby family. If one was upset, one would be told briskly to pull oneself together.
Another face attracted her attention — the mistress! Miss Chandry was sitting several rows back, in the final line of ornate pews before the servants’ seats. She knew her place, then. Her eyes were fixed on Ruth, and she divined some intensity in them, as if she would speak but dared not.
Ruth had taken only a few steps, but now she stopped. Pinnock, she saw, was waiting for her, so she waved the maid towards her.
“I shall stay a while to pray before I begin my practice at the instrument. Take my Prayer Book back to my room, if you please.” Pinnock looked sceptical, so Ruth added, “I shall not stir from the chapel, I promise you.”
She turned back and resumed her seat, bowing her head, the picture of pious womanhood, she hoped. Behind her, the shufflings of the attendees diminished. The doors closed with a thunk. Mr Ponsonby, now without his vestments, passed her, the door opened, closed again.
Almost at once the pew door opened and the woman sat down beside her. “They watch you closely, don’t they?” she said, with a low ripple of laughter. “I should hate to be so caged.”
“I hate it too,” Ruth said, surprising even herself. It was impossible to dislike Miss Chandry, with her open countenance and guileless eyes. Nor did she want to, she realised. She liked such refreshing honesty. “My maid will be back very soon, so if you wish to talk to me—”
“I only wish to say that I won’t cause you any grief when you are married to Ger. If you marry him, of course. You don’t have to. We all have the choice, after all. But if you do, I won’t get in your way or cause trouble. I am the one who wants him to marry someone like you, after all.”
“Are you?” That was a surprise.
“Well, can you see me in charge of a place like this?” she said, grimacing. “Raising the next duke, meeting the Queen, mingling with the peers? That’s not me! But you can do all that as easy as pie. I must go before Miss Poker-Face returns, but if ever you can escape from your gaolers, I’m at the Old Manor most mornings.”
She slipped away, and Ruth heard the door open and close again. She was, for a brief moment, alone.
~~~~~
Ruth breakfasted with her father in the Buttery, her mother following her usual custom of breakfasting in her room. Ran had already been and gone, and of Ger there was no sign. Lady Elizabeth came in while they were still at table.
“Good morning, Duke! Good morning, Lady Ruth!” she said cheerfully. “I have decided to bear you company today, knowing that my brothers could not be depended upon to do so. Ah, good morning, Brent. Chocolate, if you please. Well, the other reason I came is to enjoy Mrs Cromarty’s delicious chocolate, for my own cook has not the way of it as yet, and there is nothing better to start the day, I find. Mmm, Bath buns, my favourites. Should you care for one, Lady Ruth? I can recommend them as a very nourishing treat, and how better to enjoy them but with Valmont’s own apricot preserve. We have wonderful apricots here, the trees are most productive and give a good crop every year.”
She chattered away in this artless fashion for some minutes, requiring very little in the way of response from Ruth, and none at all from the duke, whose eyebrows drew steadily lower and lower in annoyance.
Eventually, he got to his feet. “I shall take a turn about the gardens. The exercise will do me good.”
He stomped out of the room, and Lady Elizabeth heaved a noisy sigh. “I knew I should drive him away sooner or later. If you have eaten your fill, let us go somewhere quiet and have a comfortable coze.”
The two made their way out of the Buttery, practically tripping over Pinnock who was lurking in the passageway.
“Oh! Who are you?” Lady Elizabeth cried. “Lady Ruth’s maid, I suppose. Do you have a message for your mistress?”
“I’m to stay with her, milady,” Pinnock said. “Her Grace’s orders. I’m not to leave her alone.”
“A chaperon! How proper. But you see, it is quite all right, for your mistress is with me now, and I shall be her chaperon. Tell Her Grace that Lady Ruth is in the Spinsters’ Parlour with Lady Elizabeth. Perfectly unobjectionable. Off you go now.”
And Pinnock went. Suspicious and unconvinced, but she went.
Ruth laughed. “I wish I could get rid of her so easily.”
“I am autocratic by nature, so I never have the least difficulty, not with lady’s maids, in any event. Dowager duchesses are more of a challenge.”
“Are we really going to the Spinsters’ Parlour? I have never heard of it.”
“Ah, a little known secret. It is not restricted to spinsters these days, but it makes a pleasantly cosy morning room for the ladies of the household. This way.”
The Spinsters’ Parlour was set on a mezzanine floor above a low-ceilinged passageway, and was indeed a cosy room, by Valmont standards, being no more than thirty feet from end to end, and half that in width. It was furnished with an assortment of well-used sofas, chairs and work-tables, with one wall given over to bookshelves and another providing a splendid view towards the stables, a miniature version of the house.
“Now then, tell me about yourself, for we have not had a chance to talk yet, and if you are to marry Ger—”
“Am I?”
“Are you not? I thought— Oh. I suppose it is not quite decided yet. Yes, Brent, what is it?”
“Begging your pardon for intruding, my lady, but the letters have been collected from Andover, and this one is addressed to His Grace the Duke of Orrisdale. However, His Grace is convinced it is instead for Her Grace, and begs that the Lady Ruth be so good as to give it to her when Her Grace arises from her repose.”
“How strange!” Ruth said, taking the letter. “The direction is written very ill, so it could be ‘His Grace’ or ‘Her Grace’, but this word is very clearly ‘Duke’, so why would he—? Oh, I see, it is from Aunt Maria, and she only ever writes to Mama. Thank you, Brent. I shall see that Her Grace receives this. Poor Aunt Maria! She never writes anything worth hearing, but she insists on writing every Monday, if we happen to be—” She paused, realising. “Monday… this is not one of her routine letters. Oh dear! Something is amiss.”
“Take it to your father without delay,” Lady Elizabeth said.
Ruth had no sooner resolved upon this course, when the duke burst into the room, an opened letter in one hand, holding out his other hand imperiously. “Maria’s letter! Quick, quick!”
He tore open the seal and unfolded two sheets, his eyes racing from line to line so fast that Ruth could not believe he understood what he read.
“Papa, what is it? What has happened?”
“Audlyn, the little fool! And Susan! My God, was ever a father cursed with so silly a daughter?”
“Papa, tell me at once, I beg you! Are they injured? Not dead?”
“Oh… as to that… not as bad as that, no. Audlyn’s letter was so garbled I could make nothing of it, but Maria is more sensible and makes it sound not so hopeless. A
udlyn has been rusticated from school for some prank or other of which he does not even dare to tell me the details. Well, young men will have their little outbreaks of mischief, I daresay. I shall have to pay off a few people by the sound of it, and for the damage caused, whatever it is, but that is not the worst of it. Your sister, Ruthie, has quarrelled with Crosby, if you please, and been obliged to leave Crosby Manor under a cloud.”
“Oh, poor Susan!” Ruth cried.
“Poor Crosby is more to the point. For a man of his position to be swept this way and that by a chit barely out of the schoolroom — it is unforgivable. Ah, but Maria thinks the match may still be saved. The engagement is not yet broken off, and he cannot cry off, you know. He will not, anyway. Man of honour, Crosby. And so long as Susan can be persuaded not to end it herself, we shall do well enough. Lord, these children of mine. And there is one line that makes me want to whip the lot of them. ‘Charlotte has been crying all night’, if you please! What has she to cry about, I should like to know? Susan holds her head high, and shows not a drop of remorse, and Charlotte is the one who cries over it. On days like this, I thank the Good Lord for my one sensible child, who has never given me a moment’s worry. You are a good girl, Ruthie, a very good girl. It is the greatest comfort to know that at least one of my children will never grieve her father and mother.”
Ruth bowed her head in acknowledgement of the compliment, but it was not so welcome as her father might suppose. To be the good, obedient one of the family made her also the cowardly, timorous one. Her brothers and sisters might be naughty sometimes, but they were also courageous and spirited, following their own way. Too much of that would make them wayward, and Susan, perhaps, was already far along that path, but sometimes Ruth wished she had but a tenth of Susan’s boldness.
Then perhaps she could follow Ran’s advice. ‘You must follow your heart above all. Do not choose merely in obedience to your father or because you feel that honour dictates it. Choose rather what will bring you the greatest happiness in your life.’
The Duke (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 6) Page 19