“So you took her name. But what happened to her?”
“She died, sir. Two years after we came ’ere. Buried in the churchyard as Abigail Trotter, may God forgive me. I never meant to deceive no one, sir, you must believe me. It just came about that way… that folks assumed.”
“So you were never at High Berenholme at all?”
“No, sir. But she told me all about it. Loved to talk, she did, about ’im — ’er man — and ’er sister and ’er man, and ’ow she married Mr Marford with the special licence and all, though sometimes she said she couldn’t do it in the end, for some reason I never understood. Never quite knew if they was really married or not. S’pose not.”
“They could not have been married, for my father married my mother while Miss Gartmore was alive, and he could not have done so if he had a wife yet living. So you stayed on here and raised Ben alone. But how did you manage for money?”
“I did work about the village, sir, or took in laundry, that sort of thing. Rented out rooms, a few times, this bein’ a big ’ouse. And I ’ad…” She went rather pink. “Friends. Gentleman friends, if you understand me, sir. And then Tom Cartwright — ’e’s Sir Peter’s pig man, up at the big ’ouse — ’e took an interest, and read all the letters, and thought to write to ’is grace. ’im bein’ a marquess and all.”
“He read the letters? What letters?”
“Aye, sir, the letters from ’im — Mr Marford. Lots o’ letters. ’e wrote every week, no matter what. She used to write back, when she was alive, but o’ course she couldn’t when she was dead, and ’e came ’ere to find out why she sent no more letters. Lovely gentleman, ’e was. Very sad, o’ course, to find ’er dead and buried. So romantic. Left a bag o’ money for Ben, not that it lasted us very long, and arranged for the parson to teach ’im ’is letters, and said we could stay on ’ere. You won’t throw me out, will you, sir? Or stop the allowance? Cos I still raised Ben myself, even if I’m not ’is ma.”
“Do you still have these letters?” Reggie asked.
“Everything’s in that drawer over there.” She pointed to a plain wooden table with drawers set in it. When Reggie opened them, he found both drawers stuffed with opened letters. Many were in his father’s strong, confident hand, and a few in Merton’s neat script. But then he spotted a different hand — Monty’s. Why was Monty writing here?
“May I take these, Mrs Trotter?”
For a moment, she stared at him, but then she laughed. “Lord, it’s so long since anyone called me that, I ’ardly recognised my own name! Aye, take them, for they’re no use to me. I can’t read nor write. Tom Cartwright did all the letter writing for me.”
“Thank you. I will tell my brother all that you have told me, Mrs Trotter, but it will be for him to decide what to do about your allowance and the house. I will leave you now.” He opened the door, but then recalled a matter that had puzzled him. “What became of the sister? Annie, was it not? What happened to her.”
“Dunno, sir, and that’s the truth. She never came to see the mistress, that’s for certain. The two of them were thick as thieves all that summer at ’igh Beren’holme, the two sisters and their two men, according to what the mistress said. Maybe she stayed on at ’igh Beren’olme?”
“No, she did not. But perhaps she took a different route from her sister,” Reggie said thoughtfully. “Amelia did not marry, but chose to live outside good society, but perhaps Annie married her young man, whoever he was.”
“As to whether she married ’im, I can’t say, for the mistress never knew what became of ’er sister, but I do know who ’e was, cos ’e was a friend o’ Mr Marford. Sharp, ’is name was. Mr Sharp.”
20: More Letters
“I am very cross with Monty,” Reggie said. “Sending money to the woman every week like that! She had all new furnishings and servants and a bucket of the best coal beside the fire, as if she were a lady. And that house is far too big for her.”
“Yes, perhaps something smaller would be more in keeping with her situation,” Merton said. “Then she will have no trouble staying within her allowance from Lord Carrbridge. But perhaps you might prevail upon Lord Montague to cease sending extra amounts of money.”
“You may depend upon that,” Reggie said. “The boy is too gullible for words.”
“Lord Montague has a generous nature,” Lady Hardy said with a smile. “There, Lord Reginald. All your father’s letters are now arranged in date order, although I have not read any of them, naturally. Mr Merton is to find a box to keep them safe until you or one of your brothers should wish to examine them.”
They were sitting in the ship room, Reggie pacing restlessly about while Lady Hardy, Mrs Burford and Merton sorted and arranged the heaps of letters he had brought from Ottenham.
“Thank you,” Reggie said. “I am not sure I wish to know any more about it.”
“Do you not? But it is an interesting piece of family history, I should have thought. A lady your father loved well enough to wish to marry — and yet they did not. Does that not make you curious?”
“A little, but… as to why they did not marry in the end, despite the special licence, I believe I can guess.”
The two ladies exclaimed in surprise. “Oh, I should so like to know!” Mrs Burford said. “If you wish to tell us, of course.”
“I have been thinking about the dates,” Reggie said. “That year — the year that my father nearly married Amelia Gartmore — was also the year my great grandfather and great uncle died. My grandfather became the seventh marquess, and Father, who had been a no-account third son of a second son, suddenly became very important to the succession. His eldest brother was sickly, and his second brother had only daughters and a wife who could bear no more children. Father would have been under great pressure to make a society marriage and settle down at Drummoor. I doubt that an impoverished cousin to Mr Kiddleston of High Berenholme would be acceptable to Grandfather as a future marchioness. No doubt Father raced off to London to obtain the special licence, and there heard the dreadful news. If he obtained a licence, it was never used.”
“So he abandoned poor Amelia, even though she was with child?” Mrs Burford said indignantly. “That is not the behaviour of a gentleman.”
“He did not abandon her,” Reggie said with dignity. “He established her with a house and a veneer of respectability, and gave her enough money to live on. When he discovered she had died, he made provision for the child. And he took up his responsibilities as the likely heir to the marquessate. He fulfilled all his obligations, as was expected of a man of that rank.”
“But he abandoned the child,” Mrs Burford said gently. “He left his son in the charge of an uneducated, immoral woman, and had no concern for his welfare. It was only Amelia he cared about, for his letters stop at the point where he heard of her death. That poor child! And his nurse obliged to write to his lordship for aid as the child grew.”
“Yet from what he said on his deathbed, he does seem to have had some remorse about that,” Reggie said. “He talked about ‘all my sons’ and finding careers for them and how he should have done it years ago. Yes, I believe he wanted something done for Ben, and I hope we can fulfil that wish now.”
“At least the mystery of Amelia Gartmore is solved,” Mrs Burford said, standing up and shaking out her skirts. “It is time for me to return to the library, I believe. Only nine thousand, eight hundred more books yet to be catalogued.”
Reggie laughed. “You have a job for life there, Mrs Burford.”
“I could imagine no greater felicity than to spend all my time in a library, my lord,” she said with her ready smile. “And the Drummoor library is magnificent. I count myself very privileged to enter it.”
~~~~~
Reggie’s expedition to High Berenholme and Ottenham had kept him occupied for some days, but his return to Drummoor brought him back to all the dreary misery of his failed pursuit of Miss Chamberlain. Each night he lay down with her sweet face in his mind, a
nd told himself that tomorrow would be better, and each morning he woke to the same gaping hole in his life, the same pain of loss that was almost like grief.
There had been losses in his life before, when his father had died and then, even worse, when Mama had died. There had been his short-lived attempt to woo Connie, and the emptiness when he had relinquished his claim on her and she had chosen his brother. But nothing compared to this raw anguish that ate away at him inside, and left him hollow, as if there were no substance to him, as if there were no life in him. He had imagined he was choosing a bride pragmatically, with his mind not his heart, yet he found himself loving her deeply, passionately, unendingly, without having the least idea how it had happened.
He had rank and wealth and a position in society, and what did any of it matter if it could not be shared with the woman he loved? Even seeing her across a ballroom once in a while would be enough to keep him from sinking into utter despair, but without even that to buoy his spirits, he could not imagine how he could get through the next hour without her, never mind the rest of his life.
The letters from London that awaited him on his return brought more pain. Harriet’s were brief and to the point, a list of engagements attended and calls made, with no mention of Miss Chamberlain at all. Connie’s were long and gossipy, and mentioned Miss Chamberlain frequently, but always coupled with another name. ‘R out in Lord S’s fine new phaeton.’ ‘Lord D took R to HP, proposed again, rejected again, poor man.’ ‘Sir M followed R to our box at CG, refused to leave, quite a scene.’
There was no mention of the man Reggie most wanted to hear about, Captain Daker. He had to read the letter from Humphrey for that, although it was impossibly cryptic. ‘Met D at DC, took him to JS, shows to advantage. Settled a matter for Miss C and one or two others, cannot get most. Dangerous. Keeping an eye open. How is rustication going? H. PS Any idea why Monty is short of readies? Has he grown up at last?’
Only the last part of this made any sense, for Reggie could guess why Monty was short of money — the foolish boy had sent everything he had to the woman masquerading as Amelia Gartmore. But he could make nothing of the rest of it. What matter had he settled for Miss Chamberlain? Who were these others? And what was dangerous? It was mystifying, and it drove him half mad to be so far away and not be able to ask Humphrey himself.
He sat down to dash off a letter to his brother, to find out the answer to these infuriating questions. Then he bethought himself to write to Monty, to tell him not to send money to impoverished women, no matter how plausible their tale. Another, rather longer, letter was directed to Carrbridge, to inform him of his findings at High Berenholme and Ottenham about Amelia and Annie Gartmore. But then he laid down his pen, and sat back in his chair.
Annie. What had become of Annie, who had been entangled with Sharp? Perhaps it was time to find out.
Reggie had been avoiding Sharp rather. Ever since discovering the secret inhabitants of Lake Cottage, and learning that Sharp had not only known about the arrangement but had instigated it as a favour for a relative, Reggie had felt rather out of his depth. He had known Sharp all his life, and he had always been one of those faithful old retainers that one felt one could trust with one’s life, someone who put loyalty and duty to the family before anything else. Yet now it appeared that Sharp had been acting behind Lord Carrbridge’s back. Was there duplicity involved? He didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to find out. But it was important, he felt, to make all proper enquiries after Annie Gartmore, since if she were still alive, she would be Ben’s only living relative.
Sharp lived at one end of a row of cottages bordering the stable court, provided for the use of married servants. His property was a little larger than the others, being double-fronted, but even so it was small for the estate steward, but Sharp had always said that his wants were few and he disliked ostentation. He lived there with his wife, a timid woman with a tired and careworn appearance, and five or six children. Reggie wasn’t sure of the exact number. There never seemed to be a maid there, so perhaps it was not so surprising that Mrs Sharp looked permanently exhausted.
Reggie knocked and Mrs Sharp opened the door, curtsying meekly. Sharp appeared from some back room, perhaps the kitchen, pulling on his coat with its old-fashioned skirts.
“My lord! What an honour! Do come in.” He unlocked the door to the front parlour, which he used as an office. It was furnished with a desk, several chairs and an array of cabinets and shelves, but it was hard to see them as every inch of available surface was covered in papers and letters and documents with official seals. “Lucy, some Madeira for his lordship, the best we have. I’m afraid it will not be what you’re used to my lord. Do come in and have a seat. Oh wait!” He picked up a great heap of papers from one chair and dropped them unceremoniously onto another chair, whence some drifted to the floor. He cleared a chair for himself by sweeping the papers onto the floor. “There! Now, my lord, how may I help you? Oh — there is no bad news, I trust? His lordship and her ladyship are both well?”
“Everyone is well, thank you, Sharp.”
Mrs Sharp crept in with an opened bottle under one arm and a couple of glasses. Sharp cleared a space for these on a corner of the desk by pushing more papers onto the floor. “I’ll put them back in order later,” he said cheerfully, pouring wine.
Reggie doubted that. There was no order to be seen anywhere in the room. “I cannot imagine how you know what is going on, with all these mountains of papers,” he said. “Merton is far more organised.”
Sharp took no offence at this slur on his character, merely grinning. He tapped his temple. “Ah, but it’s all in here, my lord. Everything is in here.”
“Perhaps it should also be filed away in some systematic way so that if you fall into a bog one winter’s day, some sense may be made of it all,” Reggie said acidly. “But I did not come here to discuss your methods of filing documents — if any. I came here to ask you about Miss Annie Gartmore.”
If he had seen an apparition, Sharp could not have looked more shocked. The glass of wine ceased its upward motion towards his lips, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “Miss Annie Gartmore?”
“Correct. Last seen at High Berenholme Manor House some thirty-five years ago. Sister to Miss Gartmore who almost married my father. Do not tell me you have forgotten the occasion, Sharp, for it must have been memorable. My father was in love with Miss Gartmore and your name was coupled with that of Miss Annie Gartmore.”
Sharp had not moved an inch, although his hand was shaking slightly. He blinked twice, then turned away to set his glass down, oh so gently, on the edge of the desk. “Miss Annie Gartmore? Not heard that name in a long while. What do you know of her, my lord?”
“Only what was told me at High Berenholme — that she was the younger of the two sisters, and acted as housekeeper. You remember her, I take it?”
“Very little, my lord, very little. It was a long time ago, as I believe I mentioned when you asked once before.”
“Come, man, you can hardly have forgotten. Everything is in here,” he added, tapping his temple just as Sharp had done. “If your memory is good enough to hold all the details of the estate, it can surely recall a pretty young maid who kept you company for a whole summer.”
“Well, of course I remember her, my lord, but I can’t say as I can recall much about her, not after all these years.”
“Did she marry at all? Do you know that?”
“Marry?” He goggled at Reggie, his mouth opening and closing once or twice. “Whatever gave you the idea that she married?”
“Because she left High Berenholme,” he said impatiently. “Her sister left for reasons which I’m sure you know, but Annie did not go with her, although she did leave High Berenholme. She had no family, nowhere else to go, yet she left. Marriage is a perfectly logical explanation.”
“I wouldn’t know, my lord,” Sharp said. “I didn’t know she left, don’t know where she went, don’t know anyth
ing about it.”
And no more would he say on the subject. Reggie was so dissatisfied with this that he went directly to Merton, who was working in the eighth marquess’s writing room. Reggie was much struck by the neatness of the desk, its broad polished surface interrupted only by two boxes of papers, and a writing set.
Merton was busy with the pen, but he set it down, rose and politely bowed to Reggie. “My lord?”
“You see, this is what an office should be,” Reggie said, crossly, gesturing at the desk. “Neat, businesslike, everything not in use filed away. I expect you could lay your hand on a particular document in a moment, could you not?”
“Of those I have already catalogued, I should hope so, my lord. It would be a poor secretary who could not. Although there remain many cabinets which I have not yet broached.”
“And what of an agent? He should be able to lay his hand on a particular document, too, I should say. Ha. I doubt Sharp could even find his desk in that room. Have you seen his office?”
“I have not yet had that pleasure,” Merton said. “When I have had occasion to call on him, I have been made to wait outside.”
“Have you, indeed? That is rude, very rude, for you are a gentleman and he is not. And now he claims to know nothing of Annie Gartmore, and I am not inclined to believe him. He must have known all about Ben Gartmore, yet he said nothing, nothing at all when the young man first arrived here, and denied knowing anything when I asked. And there is that business at Lake Cottage, allowing his cousin to live there for years — years! I do not like it, and so I tell you.”
“I wonder why he travels about so much,” Merton said thoughtfully. “He is hardly ever here.”
“There is nothing in that, surely?” Reggie said. “An agent must go here and there, check up on distant estates, collect rents, that sort of thing.”
“Rents are collected on quarter days,” Merton said. “Distant estates are inspected once a year, at most. Yet Mr Sharp is away from home four or five days out of every seven. I wonder his wife recognises him.”
Sons of the Marquess Collection Page 19