Scandal at the Dower House

by Marina Oliver

  Without waiting for her reply he sprang down and was ready to lift her before she had disentangled herself from the rug.

  She gasped as he seized her round the waist and for a moment Nicholas stood there looking deep into her eyes. Then she lowered her gaze and moved away from him. He let her go, but his mind was made up. He wanted her; whatever the truth about the child it made no difference to him.

  There was a gravel walk nearby. He drew her hand through his arm and led her along it.

  ‘What I have to say, Catarina, is not for my tiger’s ears. I told you before that I had been about to ask you to be my wife. I was a fool to allow my surprise to deflect me, and even more of a fool to disbelieve you about the child. I made some wild accusations. Will you forgive me?’

  She bowed her head and again he had to struggle to hear her words.

  ‘I understood. Yes, I was hurt you did not believe me, but afterwards, when I considered the facts, I realized they could be interpreted as you had done.’

  ‘Then can we go back? Will you forgive me enough to accept my hand? Will you be my wife?’

  Catarina slowed to a halt. He turned her to face him, but she kept her head lowered. After a few moments she spoke.

  ‘My lord, I am honoured. I forgive you your suspicions, the facts looked damning. But I have no wish to marry again. I’m sorry, but I cannot accept your offer. Now, please, can you take me back home?’

  Delphine had just arrived home when Catarina entered the house and, taking one look at her friend, she dismissed her maid and led Catarina to her boudoir.

  ‘My love, what is it? Have you had bad news?’

  Catarina laughed, a wild, broken sound, and buried her face in her hands.

  ‘Delphine, I don’t know if I have been a fool or not. Nicholas made me an offer and I refused him.’

  ‘Nicholas Brooke? One of the most sought after bachelors in London, the despair of all the mamas, has proposed to you and you have refused him? For heaven’s sake, why?’

  Catarina suddenly realized there was no way she could explain her real reasons to Delphine, a noted gossip. Once more, she thought wryly, she was reduced to telling lies.

  ‘I don’t love him, and I do not wish to marry again.’

  That was two lies, she told herself, weary of all the pretence. How many more would she have to tell before she could escape back to the peace and safety of the Dower House?

  Delphine was disbelieving, but when Catarina begged to be left alone, as she had a raging headache, which was the truth, she thought wryly, her friend left her, saying she would have a light supper sent up later.

  ‘You must go to the reception,’ Catarina managed, as Delphine drew the curtains closed and was leaving the room. ‘If I need anything Blodwen can look after me.’

  Left alone, she allowed the tears to fall. She could not tell Nicholas the truth, that Maria was Joanna’s child, and she could not marry him without there being complete truthfulness and trust between them. Bleakly she wondered whether he would ever speak to her again. Would he think she had refused him in retaliation for the hurt he had caused her? But that did not make sense. If she had never wished to marry him, she would have refused him. There would have been no thought of revenge. She gave up trying to puzzle it out, submitted meekly to Blodwen’s anxious attentions with eau de cologne and a tisane of rosemary and honey, rejected the offer of cucumber slices on her forehead, and announced she meant to try and sleep.

  Sleep would not come, but when Blodwen peeped into the bedroom two hours later she pretended to be so. She knew her face was ravaged with tears, and felt utterly unable to look at food. Blodwen withdrew. Soon afterwards Catarina did fall asleep, emotionally exhausted.

  She woke early and for a while lay there in a dazed state, wondering why she felt so despondent. Then it all flooded back, Nicholas’s apology and proposal, and her own inability to accept the latter.

  Getting out of bed she looked at her face in the mirror. Her eyes were red with weeping, there was puffiness around them. Even after she bathed them in cold water the evidence of her tears remained.

  Delphine was unusually tactful. She brought Catarina some breakfast herself, tea and toast, and gently insisted she eat and drink.

  ‘Then you shall stay in bed all day, tomorrow as well, and be made to see no one. Would you like a book to read?’

  Listlessly Catarina agreed. ‘I left my library book in the drawing room. I have only just started it.’

  It would perhaps distract her thoughts, prevent her from thinking of what might have been.

  The following day Catarina felt better and insisted on getting up. Her eyes were suspiciously pink still, but she would stay quietly at home, reading. Delphine offered to stay with her, but Catarina said she would be perfectly content on her own. If Delphine gave up her plans she would feel guilty.

  ‘And you’ll be all the better without my fussing, no doubt. Very well, I will do the shopping I had planned, and pay visits. You won’t be disturbed.’

  Blodwen seemed to be the only servant allowed to come near her, and she was careful only to come into the room to bring Catarina a nuncheon on a tray, or to make up the fire.

  ‘It’s dreadful, it is, having to have fires in June,’ she said. ‘My lady, there’s a letter come for you.’

  She fished in her pocket and brought out the letter. Catarina hoped it was from Joanna, but she recognized the handwriting of her butler. Quickly she scanned the contents and frowned. He reassured her that all was well at the Dower House, told her they had organized a big search for Dan but had failed to find him, then came to the real point of the letter. Jeremy, Staines had written, had ordered the common to be enclosed now the hay had been gathered.

  There’ll be trouble, my lady. I cannot write to Mr Brooke myself, it wouldn’t be seemly, and unless Mr Trubshaw has done so, which is his duty, Mr Brooke will not know the deep feeling there is in the village against him. I doubt if Mr Trubshaw will make it clear to him, which is why I am venturing to ask you, if you would be so kind, and can speak to Mr Brooke, that is, if he is in London, and let him know of our concerns.

  After some thought Catarina wrote a note for Jeremy and sent it with one of the footmen, asking him to call on her. She did not expect to change his mind, but the least she could do was remind him of his legal rights and inform him of the unrest his enclosure was causing.

  Somewhat to her surprise he came at once.

  ‘To tell the truth, Catarina, I’m glad to be out of the house. Nicholas has been in a foul mood for a couple of days. He even snapped at Olivia when she mentioned Vauxhall, and told her she could forget the idea. And he’d virtually promised to take her.’

  Catarina felt guilty. It was most likely her refusal of his offer which had put him out of countenance.

  ‘I’ve had a letter from Staines,’ she said abruptly. ‘He says you have ordered the enclosure of the common. Don’t you need an Act of Parliament to do that?’

  Jeremy sighed. ‘I’m merely putting a fence round it so that the animals don’t stray. The people will still be able to graze them there. Why, has Trubshaw not told them this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Is he is in charge while you are in London?’

  ‘Yes. But the man seems incapable of explaining things in simple enough terms for the villagers to understand.’

  ‘Staines says there is a good deal of ill feeling in the village against you. Can you not go down and reassure them?’

  Jeremy frowned. ‘I won’t be at the beck and call of a pack of disgruntled villagers! Some of them resent me so much they’ll not believe anything I tell them. Besides, I have plans for the rest of the Season, then I’m going to Brighton, and afterwards to visit an army friend for some shooting up in Yorkshire. If it weren’t for this wretched leg of mine I’d be glad to be back in the army, and Nicholas could deal with Marshington.’

  He left soon afterwards. Catarina decided she had had enough of London. She dreaded the thought of seeing Nicholas
again, was tired of parties and balls and polite conversation. She was also missing Maria, and looked forward to seeing how the baby had changed during the few weeks she’d been away. Perhaps, if she were back at the Dower House and could explain the position to the villagers, they would understand.

  Delphine was reluctant to see her leave, but assured Catarina she understood how difficult it would be for her to be always fearing seeing Nicholas again.

  ‘I hoped you might come to Paris with me. I’m thinking of going there instead of Brighton, but I will write and tell you all the news,’ she promised, ‘and you must write back. I want to know how Joanna fares in Brazil, and what happens in Marshington.’

  Three days later Catarina was home and breathing a sigh of relief. Maria had grown, could sit up by herself, and had produced two teeth. At first she was shy of Catarina, but she was such a happy and contented child she soon accepted her once more. Catarina praised her servants for the excellent care they had taken both of the baby and the Dower House. Even though she had not been able to warn them of her return everything had been in perfect order and it only needed dust sheets to be removed from the drawing-room furniture for the house to return to normal.

  Conditions in the village were not happy, though.

  Catarina, driving her gig, and looking at the changes to the trees and flowers since she’d been away, went first to see Mr Lewis, to tell him what Jeremy had told her, and ask how she could convince the villagers they could still use the common for grazing their animals.

  ‘That wasn’t what Mr Trubshaw was telling them.’

  ‘He must have misunderstood Mr Brooke. From what he told me he means to leave the common for them to use, both for hay and grazing. He thought a fence to keep the animals from straying all over the village would please them. He would need an Act to take the land away from common use.’

  ‘He offended a good many people trying to force them to accept his new ideas. Country folk need time to absorb them and see the benefit, but there, young men are always in a hurry.’

  ‘Has there been much resentment?’

  ‘Folk are worried. The hay was poor, and it was so wet we couldn’t dry it properly,’ Mr Lewis told her. ‘There won’t be enough to feed all the animals during the winter. We’ll have to slaughter more than usual, and they won’t be full grown and have enough flesh for meat.’

  ‘Can’t they be sold at market?’

  ‘No. Everyone is suffering; no one has the spare hay to feed them up or keep them. Besides, the way the weather is, the rest of the harvest will be poor. It’s going to be a lean winter for everyone as well as the animals.’

  ‘I see. There was something else I wanted to ask you. Is Dan still around? Did he evade that manhunt and return?’

  ‘I think he did, though he’s not seen in the village now. But Trubshaw says he’s found more shelters built in the woods, and we don’t know of any other vagrants living rough.’

  Catarina drove home wondering who to see next. Would the Reverend Eade be able to convince the villagers that Jeremy intended them no harm? Or ought she to talk to Mr Trubshaw and discover exactly what he had been telling people?

  Nicholas was unsure whether to be sorry or pleased when he heard Catarina had gone back to Somerset. Meeting her would have been awkward and, as neither Jeremy nor Olivia knew of his offer, they would continue to see her and invite her to their parties. In particular, repenting of his brusqueness towards Olivia he had agreed to her holding a masquerade, instead of taking her to Vauxhall.

  It was on the morning of the masquerade, when the entire house was in an uproar of preparations and he had retreated to his library, that a letter from Portugal was delivered to him.

  Thomas had news for him. Nicholas was reluctant to open the letter. It could matter little to him now. Catarina’s refusal had been so decided he doubted whether she would ever again agree to listen to him, and he was at a loss to find a way of making her do so.

  He wanted her more than ever, whatever the truth about Maria, he acknowledged to himself. Was this simply because she had refused him? He had been aware from an early age that he was a major prize on the marriage market. He had wealth, birth, looks, and the prospect, now realized, of a title. He had assumed, arrogantly, it seemed, that any girl he honoured with an offer would gladly accept him. To be refused had been a shock to his self-esteem, as well as a more personal disappointment. No, that was too mild a term: he was devastated. From the first moment he had been able to think coherently after driving back home he had known he would never offer for anyone else. Other women might match the beauty and allure of Catarina, but he did not love them.

  Eventually he opened the letter, which he had been turning over and over as he sat ruminating, wondering what he could have done differently to make Catarina accept him.

  Thomas came straight to the point.

  ‘I have spoken to several members of the de Freitas family in Oporto,’ he wrote, ‘including Senhora Madalene de Freitas, who seems to be the leading member of the family. They all assure me that none of their relatives, however distant, has died recently, within the past year. Nor have any of the ladies been delivered of babies. It occurred to me that the child who is now in England might have been born to a girl who was not married, but from what I can discover, all the members of the family in Portugal were at some family celebration at the end of October, a wedding anniversary, I believe, and any late pregnancy would have been obvious and commented on. I was able to speak to one of the senior servants who was present on that occasion, some sort of major domo, whose wife is housekeeper at the quinta where the celebration took place, and they were both sure no lady present was on the verge of giving birth.’

  Nicholas put down the letter and stared across the room. What did this mean? Catarina had told him the child had been born to a cousin who had died. According to Thomas no cousin had given birth at the right time, and none had died. So Catarina must have lied to him. Why? Either the baby was her own, after all, or belonged to some unknown woman and Catarina had adopted her. All his doubts came flooding back.

  Supposing the baby was hers, had Walter been the father? Given that he and Catarina had been childless for eight years, it seemed unlikely. Had she taken a lover? A sudden surge of jealousy made his hands shake. He made an effort to calm himself and think clearly. In some ways, tied to an elderly husband, it would not have been surprising had Catarina wanted romance with a younger man. How long might she have been involved with him? Had they been careless, allowing the pregnancy?

  That led to even blacker thoughts. Walter had died from a fall and not been found for hours. Might he have survived if he had been found earlier? No one had essayed any thoughts on that. But how had the fall happened? Was it at all possible that Catarina or her lover had engineered an accident? But no lover apart from George Pearce had been noticed, and Nicholas, who had known him for years, felt that George was not serious about any woman.

  His instincts made him reject the notion. He did not want to believe Catarina could have been a party to murder, but a niggling doubt remained. Who might her lover have been? Would he have been less scrupulous? Would they, at some time, marry? Was that the reason for her rejection of his offer? Who the devil could it be?

  Suddenly Nicholas could bear his thoughts no longer. He tore Thomas’s letter into a hundred tiny pieces, rang for his valet and left the house. He would seek some congenial company at White’s, order wine and try to forget Catarina and his suspicions.

  Catarina was aware of continued unrest in the village, as people speculated on what their new landlord would do next. They had treated with considerable reserve the fact they were allowed to graze their animals still, and openly asked for how long this concession might last. They treated it as a concession, and all assumed it would not continue.

  The harvest was as bad as Mr Lewis had predicted. The cold and wet weather earlier in the year had damaged the crops, and often what had survived was barely worth the harvesting. T
he villagers faced semi-starvation that winter, many of them blaming Jeremy. Especially they blamed him for not being there to listen to their complaints. Many of them approached Catarina.

  ‘We can’t be doin’ wi’ that Trubshaw,’ one of them said to her. ‘He don’t listen; all ’e can say is that Mr Brooke will be told, but ’e never comes back to us wi’ any replies. ’Tis my opinion ’e never tells Mr Brooke.’

  ‘He tells ’im, but the young feller don’t care. Enjoyin’ ’isself in Lunnon, or that there seaside place where the Prince teks all ’is wimmin.’

  Catarina did what she could. She still had friends in Bath and some acquaintances in Bristol, and she begged them for promises of help in providing money, or finding food later in the year when conditions would be worse. She wrote to her family in Portugal, but was told that all Europe suffered in the same way, and they could not help. Rather ruefully she wondered whether supplies of olives would have been acceptable to the villagers in any case. She even wrote to Joanna, without knowing what her sister might be able to do, but she received no reply, just another ecstatic letter saying what fun it was to be living in Rio, and how much she enjoyed life as a married woman. Eduardo was apparently still infatuated with her, loading her with fabulous jewellery, the Brazilian and Portuguese aristocracy were delightful, so attentive, and she had absolutely no regrets at leaving England and Portugal behind her.

  In that last sentence, Catarina read an unspoken reference to Maria. Joanna had never once enquired after her daughter, and this remark seemed to imply she had no regrets at abandoning her. She had always known Joanna was tougher than she was herself, but this showed her sister was hard and selfish.

  Though keeping Joanna’s secret had involved Catarina in so many lies and caused her to reject Nicholas, she delighted in the baby. Maria was an enchanting little girl. That was the one joyful outcome of the whole miserable business, and made life bearable.