“What are we to do?” Carrbridge hissed to Reggie as they followed the others into the house. “We cannot possibly have them dining with us, for I daresay they will have no idea what knife to use. They will have to eat in the servants’ hall, I suppose.”
“No, that will not do either,” Reggie said. “Gartmore is clearly a Marford, and we cannot leave him to the servants. Besides, who knows what they might say.”
“Then what are we to do with them?” Carrbridge said again. “Merton, what is your advice?”
“Lady Carrbridge will know,” Merton said.
And he was right, Connie knew exactly what to do with the Gartmores. “They must stay with old John Coachman. He has room in the cottage now that his children are grown, and he will be glad of the company, for he cannot walk a step nowadays. His wife takes all his meals to him, so it will be no hardship to feed the Gartmores too. They would be uncomfortable staying in the house anyway.”
And so it was decided, and everybody seemed relieved with the arrangement.
~~~~~
It was several days before an opportunity arose to talk at length to Mrs Gartmore and Ben, in part because Lord Carrbridge wanted to wait until all his brothers were at home, and partly because of the intervention of Sunday. But eventually Humphrey and Gus arrived, and it was decided to begin without waiting for Gil.
“I daresay he will not come anyway,” Reggie said gloomily. “He is getting so rackety these days, I have no notion what is to become of him.”
“He will be killed in a duel, I expect,” Humphrey said cheerfully. “Or have such enormous gaming debts he will be forced to flee the country.”
“Thank you for that encouraging thought, brother,” Reggie said. “How kind in you to say such things, for otherwise I might have worried about him.”
But Humphrey just laughed. “We all went through a phase of stretching our wings, Reggie. Well, not you, perhaps, but the rest of us. Gil will come to no harm. What is our approach with the Gartmores — mother first or son?”
“Surely we should begin with Mrs Gartmore?” Reggie said. “She knows all about this supposed marriage, after all. We should deal with that first.”
“That makes sense,” Humphrey said. “Carrbridge?”
“Merton?” said Carrbridge.
“I believe we will get more truthfulness from the son,” Merton said. “If it were my decision, that is where I should start.”
“Then that is what we shall do,” Carrbridge said. “Merton, you may ask the questions and we will—”
“Now wait a moment,” Reggie said, too disgusted that Merton’s advice was preferred above his own to consider his words carefully. “Why is Merton even party to this? It is a family matter only.”
“He is party to it because I wish him to be so,” Carrbridge said testily. “Really, Reggie, you must stop crossing swords with Merton at every opportunity. I trust him, and that should be enough for you.”
“I beg your pardon,” Reggie said stiffly, making a small bow to his brother and a smaller one to Merton. “I meant no offence.”
In the event, Reggie had to admit that Merton did well with Ben, his serious tone exactly suited to the occasion. He knew all the right questions to ask, too, for Ben was too timid to relate his story without a great deal of prompting. Not that there was much to relate. He had never met his father, knowing him only as Charles Marford, and not realising for many years that he had become a marquess. He knew nothing about the supposed marriage. He had lived his whole life in the same small village, where the parson had taken him under his wing and taught Ben his letters and numbers, and later gave him work as a gardener.
“And are you happy with your life?” the marquess said gently when the tale came to an end.
“I have no cause for complaint,” he said, lifting his chin. “I want nothing from you, my lord, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ll be glad to go home whenever it pleases you.”
“Yet your mother’s letter asked my father to fulfil his obligations towards you,” the marquess said.
Ben flushed beetroot again. “I had no hand in that — knew nothing about it! Your father left money for us after I was born, and gave us the cottage, and that’s more than fulfilled his obligation, I’d say. And the purse had his coat of arms on it, so I had proof when anyone scoffed at the idea of me being the son of a marquess.”
“So you told everyone that, did you?” Carrbridge said.
He reddened even more, if that were possible. “Ma told everyone, not me. Very proud of it, she is. But she doesn’t say anything about a marriage. I always thought she had made that part up.”
“Well,” said the marquess when they had sent Ben away, “he is a poor-spirited creature indeed.”
“He is almost penniless,” said Monty. “I sincerely pity him and his mother.”
“Monty, you pity everyone who has to earn his bread,” Reggie said. “The fellow has a good trade, and is clearly managing to keep himself shod and clothed and fed.”
“He is managing to keep his mother excessively well fed,” Gus said. “Have you seen the size of her? And she expects the same from Mrs Galloway, for she is always sending over to the kitchen for a leg or two of chicken or a pie.”
Lord Carrbridge gave a slight shrug. “Let her enjoy herself while she is here.”
“If you feed her too well, she will never want to leave,” Reggie said. “The sooner we talk to her, the sooner we can get rid of her.”
The marquess sighed. “I suppose we had better get it over with.”
Amelia Gartmore sat on the edge of her chair in the ship room, clutching her reticule to her ample bosom, gazing fearfully from one brother to another.
“May I offer you any refreshments, Mrs Gartmore?” the marquess asked. “Some tea, perhaps?”
She shook her head violently, setting the ringlets on her wig flying.
“I should like to know something about you — how you met my father and so forth,” the marquess said. “Do you have any objection to that?”
“Oh no, yer grace — I mean, your lordship. No objection at all.”
“Excellent. Mr Merton here will ask the questions. Merton?”
Merton sat behind the desk, paper, pen and ink in hand, every inch the industrious secretary. “Now, Mrs Gartmore, will you tell his lordship how you met the eighth marquess?”
“Eighth marquess?”
“Ben’s father.”
“Oh. ’ow I met ’im? So long ago — more’n thirty years — ’ard to remember it all, now.” She licked her lips, eyes flying between Merton and the marquess. “Well, lemme see… I was workin’ at ’igh Beren’olme and I met ’im there.”
“Working as?” Merton said in his calm way.
“As… as a maid. Chambermaid.”
Merton scratched away with the pen. “And the eighth marquess—” He looked up suddenly. “What was his title then, do you remember? How did you address him?” Her face was blank. “Was he Lord Charles or Mr Charles?”
“Oh, mister. ’e weren’t no lord, then. Mr Charles Marford, ’e were, and a fine, ’andsome gen’leman. Very took with me, ’e was, and so we got wed and that’s ’ow Ben ’appened.”
More scratching. Reggie watched the performance impatiently, more convinced with every word that Amelia Gartmore was inventing the whole story on the spot. Monty shifted restlessly on a chair in the far corner of the room, crossing and uncrossing his legs, but the rest of them were motionless, Carrbridge on a chair close by Mrs Gartmore, Humphrey and Gus leaning against the mantelpiece, one at each end like bookends, and Reggie on the window seat. Apart from the logs settling on the fire, the only sound was the regular motion of Merton’s pen, dipping into the inkpot, scratching, scratching, then dipping again.
“And you married where, precisely?” he said, without looking up from the paper.
There was a long silence.
Merton raised his head. “Mrs Gartmore?”
Still she said nothing, the edge of h
er tongue raking across her upper lip, the hands gripping her reticule white-knuckled.
“Was it in church? Or in the chapel at High Berenholme? Perhaps there was a special licence?”
“Aye, that’s it! A special licence. ’e wanted it secret, like, so ’is father wouldn’t cut up rough. That was ’ow it was.”
“A secret. I see.” Merton began to write again. “You have the special licence, I take it?”
“No…”
“The name of the clergyman? The witnesses?”
Now there was definite panic in her eyes. “Look, all this, it were years ago. I don’t remember every detail, like.”
The marquess shifted restlessly. “Perhaps you have letters from my father?”
A long pause before she answered. “No letters, no. ’e never wrote. Don’t see why it matters anyway. Why you askin’ all these questions?”
She gazed helplessly at the marquess, but he said curtly, “Merton, explain it to her.”
Merton laid down his pen. “A marriage is a very serious matter in law, Mrs Gartmore, especially where the nobility is concerned. If a secret marriage could be proved legitimate, it would involve the House of Lords, possibly even His Majesty.” Her eyes widened. “Naturally, one looks for evidence — people who might corroborate your story or—”
“Corro—?”
“Confirm the truth of what you say. The testimony of the clergyman who married you, for instance, or papers, like letters or the special licence itself. On the other hand, perhaps it was merely a private arrangement between yourself and the gentleman, something like a marriage, but not quite. What do you say?”
She stared at him, her eyes filling with tears. “Look, I don’t want no trouble, specially not to ’is Majesty, God bless ’im. I just thought… a little extra money would be useful.”
Reggie gave an exclamation of disgust. “I thought as much — this is all a hum. We should send for the constable.”
“No, no, please, your grace — milord, please don’t set the constable on me. I don’t ’ave no papers and I can’t prove nothin’ to you, but I swear on the Good Lord’s name, I meant no ’arm. Just wanted a bit of brass for Ben, like. Please, milord.” And she sobbed in good earnest, scrabbling in her reticule for a handkerchief, and eventually accepting one from Monty, who escorted her gently from the room.
“What the devil are we to do with her?” the marquess said, waving his hands helplessly.
“These people are not our responsibility,” Reggie said. “There seems to have been no legitimate marriage, so at least we have not that worry, and any obligation to support the family lay with Father, not you.” He gave an indifferent shrug. “Send them home. Give them a guinea or two, if you must, but send them away and forget about them.”
“I am not sure,” Carrbridge said, with a deep frown. “As to the mother — it seems to me that Father discharged his obligation to her when he gave her sufficient money to buy a cottage. But the son… he is our brother, after all.”
“Not in any meaningful sense,” Reggie said sharply. “What, do you propose to dress him in breeches and topcoat, and have him dine with us now?”
“Of course not! Good grief, Reggie, you are as prickly as a thorn bush these days. Just because you made a mull of it with Miss Chamberlain, there is no need to inflict your blue-devils on the rest of us.”
Reggie rose and bowed slightly. “My apologies, Lord Carrbridge. I had not realised that my advice was so unwelcome. I shall remain silent in further discussions regarding the future of the family.”
“Now, you must not fly into the boughs, but at least credit me with some good sense. None of us want the fellow treated as a regular member of the family, but I do feel that something is owed to him.”
“Was there not something Father said before he died?” Humphrey said. “Something about sons… it seemed very mysterious at the time, but perhaps this is the sort of situation he had in mind.”
“By Jove, that is true!” the marquess declared. “I had quite forgot that. I wrote down his words so that I should not forget them, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I put the paper.”
“I believe I encountered something of the sort, my lord,” Merton said. “It was in one of the account books…” He opened a desk drawer and rummaged about for a while, before emerging triumphantly with a scrap of paper. “Here it is, my lord.”
“So it is,” Carrbridge said. “What a devilish useful man you are, Merton. Quite indispensable. Now, this what Father said, as best I could remember his words when I sat down to write them at the time: ‘Promise me that you will take care of all my sons. They are all important. The sons of a marquess ought to be somebody. Make sure they have careers and can live well. Never got round to it myself. Thought I had time.’ That is clear enough, I believe. ‘Make sure they have careers and can live well.’ So that is what I shall do — I intend to help this Ben Gartmore to a proper career, one of his own choosing.”
Monty came back into the room in time to hear these words. “A career of his own choosing? Well, that is too bad of you, Carrbridge, when I have been asking forever to go into the church, and you know Gil is wild to join the Hussars. But no, you will not hear of it, and keep us kicking our heels in idleness, and now this stranger walks in from nowhere, and he is to have whatever he wants and we — your own true brothers — cannot. It is so unfair!”
“Now, Monty—”
“I shall not listen to it! You are going to talk to me about the importance of the family and how we must stick together, and I am sick of it, and so I tell you!”
The marquess flapped his hands helplessly. “No, Monty, no. I hate the thought of losing you all. I like having you around, all of you. It would be so uncomfortable if you were all to all leave.”
“Then you should be grateful that Miss Chamberlain turned Reggie down, or else he should have been packing as we speak. And it is just selfish of you to keep us all dangling at your tail here, when you have Connie and the children and a whole flotilla of aunts and the Good Lord only knows how many guests at any time. You hardly need us as well, and I for one would like my independence and a snug little living of my own so that I do not have to depend on the charity of my brother or a rich wife.”
And with that he stormed out of the room.
11: Friends
“Should you truly have gone away and left Drummoor, if you had succeeding in attaching Miss Chamberlain, Reggie?” the marquess said sorrowfully. “There is plenty of room here for any number of us, and where else would you go?”
“Why, the old manor house at Lower Harkwell,” Reggie said. “You made it over to me for my lifetime, if you recall. It would suit a small family very well, and later perhaps… but it scarcely matters, since it is not to be. You are stuck with me, it seems.”
“If that is so, then I am glad she turned you down,” the marquess said. His wife tutted at him, but he shook his head. “You will not persuade me that losing even one of my brothers would be an improvement to my wellbeing.”
“But it might have improved Reggie’s wellbeing,” Connie said, smiling. “Besides, a married woman likes to have her own establishment. It is not as if Lower Harkwell is very far away — no more than a few miles.”
They were seated in Connie’s very feminine sitting room before breakfast, drinking chocolate. Reggie had slept badly and risen early, his head full of Monty’s uncharacteristic outburst. A long walk had dissipated some of his discomposure, but now he was ravenously hungry and paced restlessly, the cup in his hand, and the talk of his failure with Miss Chamberlain had done nothing to improve his mood. He should be receiving the congratulations of his family, not viewed as an object of pity.
“You liked her, I think,” Connie said gently.
“I did,” he said. “You chose well on my behalf, for I believe we should have been very well suited, even if we were not head over heels in love, as you two are.”
Husband and wife exchanged an intimate little glance, their
affection for each other so transparent that Reggie always felt a little pang of envy. It was not solely because he had once wanted to marry Connie himself. He envied them their marriage of true happiness, a love so deep it would last them for their whole lives, and beyond. He could not hope to be so fortunate himself, but affection and respect and the sharing of a life together would content him.
“You will see her again in London,” Connie said.
“She will be surrounded by admirers there, and it will be impossible to get near her,” he said gloomily. “It was so pleasant to have her here, where one can talk and not be constantly fighting through the crowds.”
“She is only in Lincolnshire. Do you not have friends near Lincoln? Should you not like to visit them?”
Reggie laughed as he remembered that he did indeed have friends living very close to Miss Chamberlain’s home. “I do but… I cannot go chasing her all over the country, you know. She has turned me down, and that is an end to it.”
Connie tipped her head on one side, smiling archly at him. “And we all know that a lady who refuses an offer may regret it later, and be very glad to have a second opportunity. Think how sad I should have been if my dear Francis had taken my first refusal as final. Now, Miss Chamberlain may remain firm in her resolve, but there can be no harm in demonstrating the strength of your attachment, can there? You need not show her any particular attention, you know, in case she is at all uncomfortable, but you may make yourself agreeable to her parents. You are very good at that sort of thing, Reggie. And she will have an opportunity to see you in familiar surroundings, which may weigh with her.”
“Connie, what a clever little thing you are!”
She smiled. “My reputation as a matchmaker is at stake, Reggie. Do not fail me!”
~~~~~
Robinia found Lincolnshire very dull after the delights of Drummoor. Although Laurel Grove was not far from Lincoln, it was situated in the very small village of Brigsby, and after three days, she had received calls from their entire acquaintance in the neighbourhood. Her voice was hoarse from describing the marquess and marchioness, their home, their guests, their furnishings, servants, carriages, stables and every aspect of their lives, not to mention the number of chimneys on the roof.
Sons of the Marquess Collection Page 10