by Nina Clare
‘Good morning, my lord,’ greeted Morris. ‘Are we riding out this morning?’
‘What’s the weather like?’
‘Wet, sir.’
‘I shall use the carriage then. No riding clothes this morning.’
‘Very good. Formal or informal?’
‘Trip into town. Nothing too formal.’
‘Into town.’ Morris’s eyes gleamed. A trip to town meant a public appearance. And a public appearance meant looking the thing to the hilt.
Neville was enjoying himself immensely. The tailor had a whole room full of costumes to be hired out for masque balls, and he was going to try on as many as he could.
‘What think you of this, Monsieur?’ called Neville in a bad French accent, tottering out of the changing room in six-inch red heels and a long black wig, dressed as Louis the Sun King.
‘I think it very bad taste,’ said Lord Marbury. He stood on a platform while the hem of his long coat was being pinned into place. It had been a relief to find that his aunt’s choice of costume was merely a suit fit for an earl from a century ago. He and Neville had agreed on the drive into town that there was no reason to swap identities at the ball. Everyone would be masked until midnight, and then the terms of the will would be either won or forfeit.
‘I should take those things off your feet before you break an ankle,’ he warned his cousin.
Neville tottered back to the changing room and returned some minutes later sans wig and high heels and dressed in a toga and laurel crown.
‘Behold, Caesar!’ he cried.
‘Behold a stinking cold if you spend a whole night in that flimsy bit of linen,’ warned Lord Marbury. ‘You know how draughty that hall is.’
‘You really need to get into the spirit of things, Marbury.’ Neville made a few poses worthy of an emperor before the mirror, then made a stately retreat to the dressing room.
‘Which historical figure am I?’ Lord Marbury asked the tailor.
‘The late Lady Marbury sent a portrait,’ said the tailor, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, for the other corner held a clutch of pins. ‘My instructions were to copy it.’
Henry the Eighth stalked out of the dressing room and posed with hands on hips, legs astride, an ostrich plume falling over his face from his velvet hat.
A trail of feathers floated behind the ponderous king. ‘I think your padded girth has split, Your Majesty,’ said Lord Marbury.
‘Off with your head, you traitorous varmint!’ cried Neville, clutching at the feather-stuffed cushion under his doublet.
‘Is there no jester’s costume in there?’ said Lord Marbury. ‘That would suit you very well.’
‘I shall make the final adjustments to your costume, my lord,’ said the tailor, sliding the white silk coat, glittering with silver frogging, from Lord Marbury’s arms. ‘If his lordship would care to try on shoes for size, we shall have all that is needed. I will deliver the ensemble to Highmott Hall by Tuesday.’
‘Stand and deliver!’ shrieked the highwayman in black, leaping from the dressing room, startling the tailor’s assistant into spitting out his pins. A pair of blunderbusses were brandished wildly. ‘Your money or your life!’
Lord Marbury ignored his cousin prancing about the shop on an imaginary horse. He only sighed as he stared into the mirror at himself, looking as a stranger from a hundred years ago. Neville’s words seemed an apt phrase at that moment in time. Your money or your life. Would he settle for money and a bride he did not love, or would he choose another life? There were only six days left to decide.
Neville claimed he had a long list of necessities to purchase while in town, and the tailor assured them that Messrs. Pinks Wigmore & Co on St. Martin street would supply all the gentlemen’s needs. The shop in question was not to be compared to the London warehouses, but it appeared to sell everything from coal scuttles to snuff boxes. Neville was fond of shopping, and grinned to see the rows of drawers and counters ready to be emptied at his service.
Lord Marbury strolled idly about the shop while Neville looked at gloves, in no humour for a debate over doe or kid, perfumed or lined. But when a grave assistant enquired if he could procure anything for his lordship, Lord Marbury, his eye drifting to the ladies’ section, found that a list of goods did spring to mind. ‘Can you wrap some items in waxed paper?’ he asked, then briskly placed an order before the impulse left him.
‘I don’t need you to sew that tatty old thing into a train,’ said Lavinia when Celia appeared in her dressing room with the sewing box.
‘Aren’t you going to the ball?’ said Celia in surprise.
‘Of course, I am going, you silly! Why, it is the most exciting thing that has ever happened in my life, but I have a real costume now. Look!’
Lavinia pulled the green gown from her clothes chest and held it against herself.
‘Where did you get that?’ exclaimed Celia, reaching out to touch the soft velvet. ‘It is beautiful.’
‘It was a gift,’ said Lavinia, moving to her mirror to admire herself.
‘From who?’
Lavinia shrugged. ‘An anonymous gift.’
‘It could only have come from the earl,’ said Celia, recalling the ham and apples. A wheel of cheese had arrived that morning from Highmott. The earl was certainly making himself agreeable to his neighbours. But such a valuable gift was a weighty attention. Could it be that Lavinia really had caught herself an earl?
‘It looks like something Princess Flora would have worn,’ said Celia wistfully, thinking of the Romance of the North, the favourite novel of the late countess. The green did not suit Lavinia’s complexion, it gave her a sallow hue.
‘Well I don’t want to be Princess Flora,’ said Lavinia, ‘I want to be Guinevere. So I will need a gold crown and a queenly cloak.’
‘We do not happen to have any golden crowns to spare,’ said Celia. ‘You will have to make do with a ribbon.’
Lavinia pouted and put the gown on the clothes chest.
‘Will you wear your kid slippers?’ Celia wondered.
‘Those old things? Don’t be ridiculous. I will show you the slippers that came with the gown. They are divine.’
Celia took up the gown, drawn to the beauty of an expertly cut pattern, the fabric so spotless and perfect, and a stark contrast to her own worn out clothes. She held it up to herself, moving to look in Lavinia’s full-length mirror. The mossy green brought out the green in her eyes, making them startlingly bright. The colour suited the peaches and cream hue of her skin and contrasted with the warmth of her red hair; the gown could have been chosen especially for her. The style was a simple, low waist, with the velvet skilfully cut on the bias to drape in elegant lines. A sudden longing gripped her so hard that her stomach tightened – a longing to go to a ball, dressed in velvet, to dance and laugh and be lifted out of a world of worry and work and into a magical time – even for just one evening! For a moment she had a vivid image of herself facing a young man with smiling eyes who held out his hand, inviting her to dance. Odd that he should look exactly like Mr Neville…
Lavinia returned holding a pair of green dancing slippers and stopped short when she saw Celia’s reflection in the mirror.
‘Oh,’ said Lavinia. ‘It suits you very well.’ Her face fell. ‘Put it down,’ she snapped. ‘It’s mine.’
‘No need to get in a pet,’ said Celia, lowering the gown to see her own faded work apron. The momentary vision of beauty and romance seemed foolish. She thrust the gown at her stepsister feeling a surge of vexation rising.
‘Where are you going?’ said Lavinia, as Celia stalked to the door. ‘I need you to make me a crown.’
‘Not now, Lavinia,’ growled Celia, feeling that she would say something she shouldn’t if she didn’t get away quickly.
She half ran to the hazel grove, the one place she could find some peace. She had spent the past three years cramming down desires, and it had shaken her badly to feel such powerful longing rise up at the sight
of herself in that gown. She could not afford to let herself feel such things, they were so dangerous! If she let one iota of hope for things that were out of her reach get into her heart, she would not be able to endure her life. She had to be strong. She had to cast away all unattainable dreams of another life, a life of beauty and comfort and… love.
The best she could hope for was to keep her estate in her possession and provide a home for those who depended on her. One day her luck had to turn, the crops could not fail every year – there had to be some respite!
She reached the woods, glad to escape into the shelter they offered from the wind that had risen, piercing the thin wool of her shawl. Winter had finally come; it had been mercifully late this year, the mild autumn stretching all through November into the early days of December, but now a cold edge was in the air and Celia shivered as her fingers and nose grew numb.
The hazel tree was still in leaf, the only soft green among the bare branches of the ash and birch trees in the surrounding wood. She scanned the fae tree for any golden nuts, but there were none. But something else was hung among the leaves – a parcel was tied to a branch. She gaped in surprise, then loosed it, and untied the wrapping as quickly as her cold fingers would enable her.
A pair of gloves, in strong, supple leather, lined with fur, lay inside the waxed paper. She stared at them. Then the hazel leaves rustled with movement, and she glimpsed another package hung deeper inside the tree, and another.
A thick shawl of high quality, a fur hand muff, and two pairs of warm woollen stockings. She stared at it all. ‘Thank you, Godmother,’ she whispered, ‘thank you!’
A thought niggled at the edge of her mind: Was it odd that the parcels had been wrapped in waxed paper? That seemed more practical than fae. But if they were not from her godmother, then who did put them there?
She pushed an uncomfortable suspicion aside, and gathered up the precious gifts, wondering how she would persuade Agnes to accept the beautiful shawl and if she could exchange the costly fur muff for a winter cloak for Robin. Perhaps her luck really was turning! Perhaps there was hope yet.
13
The note for the day read: visit tenant cottagers on the estate. That was no unwelcome direction to Lord Marbury. He was curious to see the estate’s tenants, especially after meeting some of the cottager’s children at the charity school. But there was a second direction scrawled underneath: take tea with Miss Asher. He crumpled up the note and wondered if he would get a glimpse of the red-haired girl at the manor. He would like to see if she were wearing the warm cloak and gloves he had left at the hazel tree. Would she guess they were from him? He would deny all knowledge of them if she asked. That fierce, independent light in those grey-green eyes would not take kindly to gifts of charity, he suspected.
There were nine cottages, huddled together in the little valley at the foot of Highmott’s incline, hidden from the road by a line of firs.
‘Upon my word, there’s a sorry sight,’ exclaimed Neville, as their mounts brought them into view of the cottages. Lord Marbury was thinking the very same thing.
Dark, smoky rooms where whole families cooked and ate and slept round the ineffective fireplaces greeted the visitors. Bedridden grandparents tried to rise to show respect to the new landlord; tired mothers curtseyed anxiously, as though afraid a new master would mean an end to their tenancies, or an increase in rent. Young children ran barefoot and poorly clothed in the wintry air.
Lord Marbury noted the leaking roofs, the windows stuffed with rags to keep out the wind, the flimsy blankets on the beds and he could not bear to spend above five minutes in each house. He and Neville rode back to Highmott in subdued silence.
Lord Marbury wandered restlessly about the manor upon his return from the cottages. His note to Lady Asher had been replied to with a handwritten note of her own: she would be delighted to receive him for tea at two o’clock.
It was only half eleven in the morning. Neville was in the training yard with the Beast. A troop of extra servants had been hired from the village to dust and scrub every inch of the manor, ready for the ball in five days’ time. Gardeners pruned and raked and lit bonfires in the south meadow, the lingering smell of smoke drifted through the open windows as rooms were aired after dusting. All manner of smells wafted from the kitchens where the new chef superseded Cook in bellowing orders to the staff brought in to help prepare the Christmas Eve banquet. The only place Lord Marbury could find that was not currently being dusted, waxed, beaten, oiled or polished was the gallery above the great hall.
He paced up and down, his mind busy, his boots clicking on the wooden floor. The gallery ran the whole length of the manor, the wall lined with ancestral portraits.
‘Pardon me, my lord,’ said a polite voice. Sweeting came in, a little breathless from the stairs. ‘You asked to see me.’
‘I have some instructions I want taken care of. Some deliveries to the village I would like arranged over this Christmas week.’
‘Very good, my lord.’ Sweeting took the written instruction his master pulled from his pocket and scanned it; only a slight lifting of his neat eyebrows betrayed his surprise at the directions. ‘All the mince pies?’ he queried. ‘Cook made eight dozen for the ball.’
‘Yes, all. If Cook has not time to make more, she can order some in from the bakery in town.’
‘We might need to send out further afield for so many geese. I doubt the local farms have enough to spare.’
‘Send out as far afield as is needed. I want every instruction on that list carried out.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Now tell me, Sweeting, which of these portraits are of Lord Robert?’ Lord Marbury had examined the gallery closely, but had been unable to find any likeness of the man he had seen in the vision or dream, or whatever it had been.
‘Lord Robert Marbury’s portrait is not here. It was taken by Mr Finch, one of the lawyers handling Lady Marbury’s affairs. This is Lady Margaret, his wife.’
‘She was a beauty,’ remarked Lord Marbury, standing before the lady in question. She was heavy laden with diamonds, wore a mountainous wig in the baroque style, and stared at the viewer with a regal eye.
‘Very beautiful, sir. As was her daughter, also named Lady Margaret, and her granddaughters, Lady Georgiana and Lady Henrietta.’
Sweeting pointed out each portrait in turn.
‘They have the Marbury chin,’ noted Lord Marbury, stroking the slight cleft in his own. ‘No sons?’
‘No, sir. Lord Robert Marbury acquired a special license before his marriage, permitting female heirs of the body. Lady Wilhelmina was the last of the female heirs.’
‘Aunt Marbury.’ Lord Marbury studied his aunt’s portrait, discerning some likeness to his late mother. There was another portrait of his aunt and his mother as children. ‘I wish I had known her better. I don’t know why my father objected so strongly to the connection. He never wanted to visit. Of course, I should have visited my aunt once I was an adult. I intended to. But I never thought she would be gone so soon. I thought there would be many years ahead to make a proper acquaintance.’
Sweeting was too polite to comment on so personal a matter.
‘Was she a good mistress?’
‘My lady was a most fair mistress. I had the honour of serving her for nearly twenty years.’
‘Did she do much for the village? Did she take any interest in the cottagers down in the valley, or the charity school?’
‘My lady sent a goose every Christmas to the school, and a loaf of bread and piece of beef to every cottage at Easter and Christmas.’
‘But those cottages are a disgrace,’ said Lord Marbury. ‘The roofs are falling in, the chimneys are inefficient. I wouldn’t house pigs in them.’
‘My lady was not able to get about much. She would not have seen them for herself.’
‘Why did the estate manager not inform her?’
‘The estate manager was a man who believed in saving expense. Her L
adyship could be said to have retreated in her latter years. She kept to her rooms. Her life was very confined. I think she lacked the strength to consider much beyond the walls of Highmott.’
Sweeting cleared his throat as though he was not sure if what he was about to say was an appropriate manner of speech to his master, but when Lord Marbury remained listening, Sweeting said quietly, ‘You are the answer to many prayers, my lord. Highmott has always been a chief source of industry and trade for the village, and things have been sadly wanting for many long years.’
Lord Marbury was silent as Sweeting’s words resounded in his ears. This marriage to Miss Asher was not only for his own enrichment, the welfare and prosperity of a whole village was at stake.
These thoughts remained with Lord Marbury as he and Neville took tea in the drawing room of Roseleat at two o’clock. There was a plentiful spread of cakes and biscuits on offer on this occasion, contrasting with the single cake they were presented with on their first meeting. There was sliced ham and chutneys and fresh bread and cheese and fruit. Lord Marbury was satisfied to see that the housekeeper had been following his instructions in sending a basket from the Highmott pantry to Roseleat every day.
Lady Asher talked of the upcoming ball, desirous to know who would be attending. Miss Asher was taking care to keep Neville’s plate and cup full, and Neville was obliging her by refusing nothing and insisting she divide the last macaroon and share it with him, which roused much giggling from the lady.
Lord Marbury, in the guise of Mr Neville, turned from the picture of gastronomical intimacy developing between Neville and Miss Asher and engaged Lady Asher in conversation.