A Desirable Husband

by Mary Nichols

  If Esme had not been Rowan’s guest and beholden to him for her board and clothes and if she had not been sure that Rosemary was doing her best for her, according to her own standards, she would have fallen out with both of them. It was true she had been foolish to go to the theatre and she was prepared to be punished for it, but it was no reason to blame Felix who was entirely innocent. If anyone was at fault besides herself it was Victor Ashbury. Rosemary had conceded he had behaved badly, but as she was convinced he had acted at the behest of Lord Pendlebury, she was not inclined to blame him. ‘You asked him to call for you,’ she had told Esme. ‘His mother says he would never have done so otherwise, and he was prepared to bring you home safe and sound, except that Lord Pendlebury took over as if he had a right to do so. That is what I find so unforgivable. He was once affianced to that Frenchwoman and, for all I know, still is.’

  That hurt. How could a man, engaged to one woman, kiss another like he had kissed her, arousing in her feelings so strong that even thinking about that kiss brought them all back and she could not sit still or even converse sensibly. She had to go out, go for a walk or a ride, anything to be active until they subsided. She did not see him on any of these outings, nor at the many social functions she subsequently attended with Rosemary. He had disappeared.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Felix looked up as his mother entered the workshop he had built for himself in the grounds of his home. It was here he worked on his inventions and designed items to be made in glass, here he dabbled in painting, here he made models in clay. It was what he was doing now, working from the drawings he had done of Esme.

  ‘Making a clay model.’

  ‘A sculpture?’ She came and stood over him. Dressed in widow’s black, which she had donned two years before on the death of his father, she was a plump woman whose hair had gone prematurely grey, but she had the smooth complexion of a girl and clear blue eyes that missed very little.

  ‘No, it is a model for a glass figure.’ He leaned back to look at it. Fourteen inches high, the subject was dressed in a robe whose folds clung to her figure and swirled about her bare feet, which peeped out from beneath its hem. Her hair was loose and topped with a wreath of leaves and flowers. One hand was lifted to the back of her neck under the hair, while the other hung by her side, holding a posy of flowers, blooms facing downwards.

  She studied it along with him. ‘Very beautiful. Is she a real person?’

  ‘Lady Esme Vernley.’

  ‘Vernley. Isn’t that the Earl of Luffenham’s family name?’

  ‘Yes, she is his youngest daughter. I met her in London. She is being brought out by her sister, Viscountess Trent.’

  ‘And she caught your eye. I am not surprised; she is lovely. Did you see much of her?’

  ‘A little.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t make something of nothing, Mama. I have not found favour with the Trents.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘I am a manufacturer for one thing and for another I support the Great Exhibition and Viscount Trent is wholly opposed to it.’

  ‘But did you not explain that your manufacturing is hardly more than a pastime and that you have a large estate to run? And as for the Exhibition, that is surely not a good reason for denying you the chance to pay your addresses to the young lady?’

  ‘Perhaps not. But I never said I wanted to.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’ She chuckled, indicating his model. ‘Only someone in love with the subject could have fashioned anything so exquisite.’

  ‘It is only a lump of clay, Mama. I have yet to make it in glass and I’m not at all sure that I can.’

  ‘How will you do it?’

  ‘Cover it in molten metal and when that has cooled, melt out the clay. The metal, in two pieces, will become the mould.’ He was busy with a tiny knife as he spoke, working on the folds of the dress. ‘You have seen me blowing glass?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘It will be blown inside the mould. First I will wet the inside of the mould, then blow a cylinder and insert it in the cavity at the bottom and by blowing and turning at the same time it will assume the shape of the inside of the mould. The water will become steam and stop the glass coming into contact with the metal. When it has cooled, I have to remove the mould without breaking the glass and then I should have my Crystal Girl. That’s the theory, anyway. I have yet to put it into practice.’

  ‘Then what will you do with it?’

  ‘Submit it to the selection committee for the Exhibition. If it is successful, I could teach the process to the more skilled of the operatives at the factory and we could market them.’

  ‘Hundreds and hundreds of Lady Esmes, surely not?’

  ‘No, of course not. There can only be one of those, two or three at the most, but we could make other figures—animals, birds, things like that.’

  ‘I see.’ She was thoughtful. ‘Felix, if this is anything like the real person and easily recognised, you cannot exhibit it without the permission of the lady herself and the Earl.’

  ‘I’ll worry about that when I make one worth showing.’

  ‘So long as you do. Now, you have been out here long enough and dinner will be in a half hour, so come indoors and change. You are filthy.’

  He looked down at his clay-bespattered overall. ‘I’ll be there in a moment.’ She left him to wash his hands in the bowl on a side table, tidy his work away in a cupboard and take off the overall, before following her into the house.

  Immediately on coming north he had visited the Pendlebury works in Birmingham, which were run by a very competent manager and hardly needed his presence except that he liked to involve himself in what was going on, especially the design of any new products. He had wanted to talk to some of the operatives to find out if they had heard anything about any uprisings or troublesome foreigners. Having satisfied himself on that score, he had come home to work on his Crystal Girl. Since then, he had been so engrossed, watching the figure of Esme grow under his fingers; he had had little time for anything else.

  He did not want to think about anything else, because if he let his thoughts stray they only led to his predicament: how to satisfy the Duke of Wellington and thereby rid himself of Juliette and how to reverse Viscount Trent’s aversion to him and obtain Esme’s forgiveness for acting so brutally on the night he took her home from the theatre. He hadn’t seen her since, but their parting had been cool enough for him to realise she was angry with him.

  It was strange in a way because, when he had kissed her, she had not been angry, not angry enough to struggle or cry out. It would not have taken very much to wake Miss Bannister, but she had not even tried. He could have sworn she had been almost as aroused as he was. If they had not been in a moving coach and if Miss Bannister had not been present, he would have been carried away past all reason. He ought to try and make amends with the living, breathing girl before even thinking of making her in clay and metal and glass. From wanting to stay away, he suddenly could not wait to get back.

  But in that resolve he was thwarted. The very next morning, Lady Pendlebury received notification of the sudden death of Viscount Gorridge. ‘He had a seizure three days ago,’ she told Felix, as she read the letter from her sister, the Viscountess. ‘The doctors tried to revive him, but couldn’t. She was so shocked that she has only now been able to write with the news. The funeral is to be at the end of next week to allow time for Edward to return from the Continent. We will have to go. I must comfort my sister and you must attend the funeral.’

  ‘Of course. Poor Aunt Arabella. She was devoted to him, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, he was a good husband, though she could not shift him when it came to sending Edward abroad.’

  ‘What was all that about? I never did hear the details.’

  ‘Oh, it was all very sordid. Bella was convinced the silly girl was making it up or exaggerating. Edward said he only attempted to give her a peck on the cheek; he was, after all, supposed to be court
ing her and both families had agreed to the marriage.’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Why, one of the Luffenham girls. Lucinda, the eldest.’

  ‘Lucinda,’ he mused. ‘She married Myles Moorcroft. I met him in London. I liked him, we got on famously.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that. I know she accused Edward of attempting to rape her and the evidence must have been telling because Gorridge believed it and sent him abroad to save him from prosecution. He hasn’t been home since, but now, of course, he will inherit.’

  ‘I remember Edward as something of a gambler. I had to bail him out on one occasion when the dunners were after him and he would not go to his father for relief. Six or seven years ago, I think it was. I thought that was why he had gone abroad.’

  ‘Have you met Mrs Moorcroft?’

  ‘Lady Moorcroft,’ he corrected her, reminding her that an earl’s daughter kept her title on marriage. ‘No, she wasn’t in town. One of the children had a cold, I was told. I wonder if it’s because of what happened to her sister that Lady Trent seems so against me.’

  ‘It had nothing to do with you. You are not a bit like Edward. And if Mr Moorcroft does not allow it to influence him, why should she?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was just a thought. When do you want to go to Gorryham?’

  ‘Tomorrow, if it is convenient for you.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Linwood Park was a house in mourning. The curtains were almost completely drawn at the windows and black crepe ribbons swathed the pillars to the front door. Felix had stayed there once or twice as a child and remembered it as a sparkling, happy house, wanting for nothing money could buy. It was still sumptuous, still beautifully furnished, but all the pictures of the deceased were swathed in black; the female servants were in black dresses and the menservants in black trousers, with black armbands. His aunt greeted them, dressed from head to toe in black, her normally jolly face blotched by recent tears. As soon as she saw her sister, she flung herself into her arms and began to sob again.

  ‘Oh, Fanny, I don’t know what I am going to do without him. He was always my prop, I never had to worry about a thing and now there is nothing but worry. I wish Edward would come home.’

  ‘No doubt he is on his way and will get here as soon as he can,’ her sister soothed her. ‘In the meantime, is there anything Felix can do for you?’

  She mopped her eyes and looked up at him. ‘Oh, Felix, I did not notice you there.’ She moved forward and reached up to peck him on the cheek. ‘Thank you for coming, but I am forgetting myself. Come into the drawing room and I will order refreshments. The staff are all at sixes and sevens and most of them unable to do a thing for weeping…’

  ‘We can’t have that,’ Fanny said. ‘I’ll go and see to them. You go into the drawing room and tell Felix what he can do for you.’ She bustled off in the direction of the kitchens.

  ‘You could talk to the parson for me,’ Lady Gorridge said as they seated themselves in what—in normal circumstances—was a bright, sunny room. Now, lit only by candlelight, it was so gloomy they could hardly see each other. ‘He wants to know about funeral arrangements and how can I do that before Edward comes?’

  ‘Of course, Aunt, I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘It was so sudden, you know,’ she went on. ‘He had no time to prepare himself. We did not even say goodbye.’ She began to weep again.

  He moved over and put his arm about her shaking shoulders. He knew it would be useless to tell her to stop crying, so he said nothing until she stopped of her own accord. ‘I keep doing that, you know. Just when I think I am under control, I’m off again.’

  His mother returned, much to his relief. She was followed by a parlour maid and a footman with the tea things. It was his mother who took charge, his mother who organised the servants, who told the cook what to prepare for dinner, who instructed the chambermaids to prepare rooms for guests, for there would more coming. It was his mother’s bracing practicality that brought his aunt out of her bouts of weeping in order to answer her questions.

  That was how they had learned that the Viscount had been about to go riding and was in the stables talking to one of the grooms when he suddenly collapsed. Two burly men had carried him into the house and one of the best horsemen sent off on the fastest mount to fetch the doctor, but it was all too late. His lordship never spoke again.

  ‘Do you have any idea what brought it on?’

  ‘None at all. He hadn’t even been ill. Oh, what am I going to say to Edward?’

  ‘He knows why he has been sent for, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We had been hoping his father would relent and allow him to come home and make his peace. He had written to him only recently on the subject and I had been praying…’ She stopped to control more tears.

  Edward, in unrelieved black—black tail suit, black waistcoat, black neckcloth—arrived the day before the funeral, accompanied by Mrs Ashbury, the Viscountess’s other sister and Victor. ‘Hope you don’t mind,’ Felix told the new Viscount after offering his condolences. ‘We didn’t know if you would be home in time and your mother was fretting, so I have gone ahead with the arrangements for the funeral.’

  ‘No, glad you did,’ Edward said, while his mother sobbed on his chest. ‘It was a rough crossing or I’d have been here sooner. I stopped with Aunt Sophie and Victor last night and we came on first thing this morning.’

  Felix was glad to hand everything over to his cousin. Edward was pale and sombre, not at all like the wild young man Felix had known years before, but that was hardly surprising considering the circumstances. But was he capable of attempting rape? Perhaps all he had done was kiss the lady with too much passion, as he, Felix, had kissed Esme. Esme could just as easily have cried rape. If she knew what had happened to her sister, no wonder she had been angry. Was that why she had said, ‘Let him try’? If she had complained, he could have been exiled like his cousin. The risk he had taken horrified him.

  There were hundreds of people at the funeral because Viscount Gorridge was a well-liked man, a respected employer and a fair landlord. Among the many people who arrived were Myles Moorcroft and the Earl of Luffenham, which surprised Felix, considering what Edward was supposed to have done. Even more surprising was the fact that they returned to the house afterwards at Lady Gorridge’s request.

  Felix studied the Earl surreptitiously. If he was to obtain the Earl’s permission to make and exhibit the little statue of Esme, he needed to know what kind of man he was dealing with. The white-haired Earl was upright in his bearing, stern of countenance and very correct in the way he addressed everyone. He was a man who knew his rank and would not let other people forget it. Myles introduced Felix.

  ‘Ah, Pendlebury,’ he said. ‘Knew your father, many years ago. Good man. Take after him, do you?’

  ‘I try, my lord. May I present my mother, Lady Gorridge’s sister.’

  The introductions made, he left his mother chatting to the Earl about his father and wandered out into the hall, which was crowded with people who had come to pay their respects to the widow and the new Viscount who, having accepted them, had left the room. It was difficult to imagine Edward with that illustrious title. Having nothing in common with the throng, Felix passed between them and mounted the stairs, intending to go to his room and prepare to leave, but he stopped when he heard Edward’s voice coming from Lady Gorridge’s boudoir, whose door was slightly ajar.

  ‘Why did you have to invite him to the house, Mama? After what he did…’

  ‘The Earl of Luffenham was a great friend of your father’s, Edward…’

  ‘So great a friend, Papa believed him before me.’

  ‘Oh, darling, can you not put that behind you? It was so long ago and best forgotten.’

  ‘Not by me, it isn’t. And, by all accounts, not by my father. If he had put it behind him, he would not have left the estate in the hands of trustees, as if he did not trust me to run it properly.�
�� To the listener in the hall he sounded furious.

  It is only until you reach thirty-five, Edward, and you still have the title. They can’t take that from you. And your father did stipulate that if you married and settled down befor that, the trustees could allow you to take over sooner.’

  ‘Oh, I intend to do that, never fear.’

  ‘No more gambling and loose women? You will settle down and marry a nice girl and give me grandchildren? It is a pity it could not have happened before your father—’ she choked on a sob ‘—before he was so cruelly taken from us.’

  ‘I could not marry while I was kept abroad, Mama, could I? There were Frenchwomen in plenty…’

  ‘Oh, no, I did not mean those. I meant a sound English girl of good family.’

  ‘And where am I to find one of those?’

  ‘If you really do mean to turn over a new leaf and you want to prove it to the world, you could do worse than marry Luffenham’s youngest. She has the pedigree and is young and healthy and, I believe, on the look-out for a husband.’

  ‘Luffenham’s daughter! Are you seriously suggesting I should marry her?’

  ‘Why not, if you are sincere in wanting to make good? The trustees would certainly view that in a favourable light.’

  There was a pause and then Felix heard him murmur, ‘Why not, indeed.’

  ‘She is in London now, I believe, staying with her sister.’

  ‘Not Lucy?’

  ‘No, Rosemary. She is Viscountess Trent now, you know. But you need to make haste, the season is already in full swing and Lady Esme will almost certainly be attracting potential husbands.’

  ‘I am in mourning.’

  ‘I know, but I think marrying and settling down so that you can take over your duties on the estate is more important. I am sure your father would have agreed.’

  Felix changed his mind about going to his room and went to find his mother and tell her what he had overheard. ‘I’ve got to get back to London,’ he said. ‘Esme is vulnerable…’