Dulcie had no idea what to say that could comfort her cousin. Poor Mary! Cousin Vivienne seemed to delight in upsetting everyone.
“And now we have Mark and Hugo home for the summer, and the Dower House is dreadfully crowded,” Mary went on.
“Is it so small?” Dulcie said. “It seemed quite a large building to me, although nothing like Willowbye, of course.”
“Even Willowbye would be too small with Mama in it,” Mary said, with a wry laugh.
“Oh dear!” Dulcie said. “How trying for all of you.”
Mary sniffed. “Not for all of us. The boys are out a great deal, naturally, for their horses have not been taken from them, which in Hugo’s case is a relief to all of us. He is such a brooding young man, one never knows what he is thinking. But Mark — I cannot quite believe it, but Mark is quite changed. He had a tutor this past year at Oxford who has had a marvellous effect on him, and now he walks about with a book of sermons under his arm and is quite depressingly moralistic. He lectures us, which is rather trying, but a vast improvement on his previous wildness. He was always in some scrape or other, and somehow it always needed the expenditure of money to alleviate the situation. He was so expensive. But now he is civil even to Mama, which is more than I am capable of. And as for Papa—” She stopped, with a frown. “Papa seems quite resigned to Mama’s return, and she is as mild as milk to him. He was so angry at first, but now… I would almost say he is happy.”
“He must have missed her dreadfully all these years,” Dulcie said. “Perhaps he still harbours an affection for her, despite everything.”
“It may be so,” Mary said. “I am glad of it, if it be true, for he deserves a little happiness. But it leaves me as the primary object for her petty and vituperative nature, and it is so difficult to smile and pretend she has not hurt me. And to think that I was mistress of Willowbye for years before she condescended to return home.”
They had reached the cottage, and as they entered, the rumble of Mr Drummond’s voice could be heard from the schoolroom. It sounded like the final prayers of the day, so lessons would soon be over. Dulcie propped his letter on the shelf in the hall, and went through to the kitchen to finish the vegetables. Mary found a spare apron hanging in the scullery, and sat down to help. Dulcie could hardly believe how pleasant such chores became with a friend to share the work and to gossip with, one who never gloated or made sly comments on her incompetence. The time flew past, and since Mary helped her to prepare the stew as well, there was no risk of another culinary disaster.
All too soon Grace and Hope appeared to whisk Mary away, and Dulcie was left to the sour-faced scrutiny of Polly. Perhaps she could never win Polly’s approval, but Mr Drummond declared himself pleased by the stew.
“That was excellent, Miss Allamont,” Mr Drummond said, pushing away his plate with satisfaction, and emptying the last of the Madeira into his glass. “You managed to salvage a good quantity of the mutton, in the end.”
“She had help,” Polly said, before Dulcie could speak. “Miss Mary Allamont was here and showed her how to do it, or it’d have been another mess, I reckon.”
“Polly, I do not like your attitude,” Mr Drummond said. “If you cannot be civil to Miss Allamont, you must hold your tongue.”
For a moment, Polly seemed about to respond in anger, but she thought better of it. Collecting the plates with a clatter, she went through to the scullery to begin washing them.
“She is a good worker, so I do not want to turn her off,” Drummond said in a low voice. “Even so, if she cannot curb her insolence, she will have to go.”
“I do not know why she dislikes me so much,” Dulcie said. “I do my best.”
“You do very well, and I admire your persistence, especially in the face of Polly’s antagonism,” he said. “She was the same with Jess, at first, but I have no idea why.”
“Polly’s sweetheart went away to the war and never came back,” Dulcie said. “She has been unhappy ever since. Her last mistress threw her out for her sharp tongue, and she could not find another place until you took her on.”
“Then we should show her compassion, I daresay, however hard she makes it for us,” he said, with a wry grin. “And now I shall read for a while in the parlour.”
“And I shall shut up the chickens — those that the fox left behind,” she said. “Oh, but I forgot — there was a letter for you. I left it on the shelf.”
His face lit up. “A letter? Oh, thank you! I wonder who it might be from?”
She bit back the urge to tell him, and he went happily through to the hall. A moment later he returned. “I shall read this upstairs.”
It took Dulcie an hour to complete her round of the animals. She had just returned with the bucket of fresh milk, and was helping Polly to finish tidying the kitchen, when Mr Drummond came into the room. Dulcie knew at once that something terrible was about to happen, and the way his eyes bored into hers told her that she was in the most appalling trouble. She had seen him angry before, but this was different — a silent, but far deeper, rage that had her shaking where she stood.
Without shifting his gaze from Dulcie, he said quietly, “Leave us, Polly.”
Polly looked from one to another, then turned without a word and left the kitchen. There was no brooking that tone.
Dulcie’s stomach turned over, and despite the heat, she shivered violently. He knew! Surely nothing else could account for that grim expression.
His first words confirmed it.
“You have read my letters,” he said, with icy contempt.
6: Cousins
She could say nothing, do nothing, frozen in place like a statue, as the bottom fell out of her world. What could possibly be done to alleviate the situation? If she denied it, who else could be blamed but Polly? And then Polly would lose her place… for the briefest of moments, Dulcie was tempted. The urge to have her revenge on Polly for all the accumulated slights and insults of the last few days was almost overwhelming. That would be a triumph indeed, to rid herself of such a vicious thorn in her side.
Yet something held her back, and it was not on Polly’s account. She cared not if Polly were sent packing, for she deserved it, with her perpetual sharp tongue. But she could not conceal the truth from herself — there was much of the same ill-humour in Dulcie herself. She had always snapped at those around her, even her own sisters whom she loved more than anything in the world, and afterwards, when she had made them cry or sent them away in anger, she felt like the veriest worm. Her own temper had led to her present position as unpaid kitchen-maid, and she could admit the justice of it. How she had wished she could be a better person, like Amy, always seeing the best in people, or Belle, with her easy temperament and good sense. This past week had been her opportunity to improve, and do something good for Jess, even if it had come about accidentally. She had submitted to Polly’s abuse with tolerance, and it had made her feel virtuous and even a little superior. It was an unusual state for her, but she rather enjoyed it.
Now her one moment of weakness had been found out, and once again she was nothing but a worm crawling on the earth, and Mr Drummond was angry enough to crush her under his boot heel. But she would not fight, nor lie. There was too much pride in her to resort to self-justification or deceit. She had done a great wrong and been found out, and now she could do nothing but bow her head and accept whatever punishment he cared to administer. Her fate was in his hands.
“Do you deny it?” he said sternly, and his tone was so like her father’s when he admonished her for some transgression that she could not help the tears from flowing.
Mutely she shook her head.
“Why would you do such a wicked, wicked thing? Those letters… they are all I have left to remind me of everything I have lost, and I will not have a spoilt vixen like you pawing over them, do you understand? Now tell me why.”
A little sob escaped her. “I… do not know.”
“You will have to do better than that.” His voice
was harsh, the anger barely contained, although he had not moved since entering the room.
“I do not know!” she cried, stung. “I never know why I do such hateful things. There is some evil in me that compels me, and then I say or do terrible things, and afterwards guilt consumes me, but nothing seems to make me stop.” Another sob. “I am very, very sorry. God knows how much I regret it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I must be a very bad person.”
“No one is innately bad, Dulcie,” he said, his voice softening. “You can do better if you try, I am sure. You are doing better, for you have admitted your offence with regret and humility, and I admire you for that. Do you know how I deal with my pupils when they err?”
She shook her head, but her spirits lifted at his gentler tone.
“If they confess their guilt and show remorse, they receive a lesser punishment, or perhaps no punishment at all. The worst crime, in my mind, is to lie. Honesty is the greatest virtue, Lord Strathmorran once said to me, because it is the hardest to achieve. Nothing in the world is easier than the swift lie! You have been honest with me, Miss Allamont, and I commend you for that.”
“Thank you, sir. I do try to be good, but my attempts are not always successful.”
“Yet look how well you have endured Polly’s taunts, and that is no easy task, I am aware. Jess had so many arguments with her that I thought they should never get along, but they did, eventually.”
“Jess argued with Polly?” Dulcie said in surprise.
“Loudly and frequently,” he said, a sudden smile breaking out, like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. “Jess may seem very carefree in company, but she has a volatile temperament beneath that sunny exterior. The change in circumstances was hard for her to take.”
“It was hard for both of you, I think,” Dulcie said. “Especially—” She stopped, for she could not mention Cousin Isobel without reminding him of the letters.
“Especially…?”
“It is of no moment.” She took a deep breath, and wiped the tears away with her sleeve. She had to be brave now, and face her faults fully, without evasion or excuse. “Mr Drummond, I cannot beg your forgiveness, for what I have done is unforgivable. I should not have been in your room at all, still less looking through your cupboards. But when I saw the letters, the word ‘Glenbrindle’ jumped out at me, and I could not resist reading on. We know so little of Mama’s kin, you see. Do you wish me to leave? It is still light enough for me to walk home tonight if—”
“Good God, no! Wait here a moment.” He left the room, and returned almost at once with the brandy bottle and two glasses. He poured and pushed a glass across the table towards her. “We have needed the brandy a great deal this past week, have we not? Here. Drink and you will feel better. And another mouthful. Good. Dulcie — Miss Allamont — we have had a difficult moment, but I believe we can overcome the awkwardness of this. For myself—” He paused, head down, hands clenched together so hard the knuckles were white. Then, with a sigh, he went on, “I should burn all those letters. I am no longer betrothed — we were never formally betrothed, if truth be told. And… this is hard for me to admit, but there was nothing personal in Izzy’s letters. My anger against you was, in part, that I was afraid you would discover the truth, that she was never more to me than a friend. A very good friend, and one I would have been proud to call my wife, but I do not believe we ever had the deep affection that I have seen between your two oldest sisters and their husbands, for instance, or that I now see in Jess for this worthless young man who betrayed her. There! I have spoken the words openly, and confessed my fears to you. Having preached to you of honesty, I cannot set a lower standard for myself. I find that I cannot be angry any longer, only ashamed of my own behaviour to a guest in my house. Miss Allamont, do you think we can forget this evening, and be friends again?”
“I should like that very much!” she cried, with the utmost sincerity.
“Then we shall not speak of any of it again, to each other or to anyone else,” he said. “It is best left in the past. And now you may explain to me how it is that you knew about Isobel yet you say you know very little of Glenbrindle, for I am somewhat confused.”
She coloured, but answered him honestly. “I discovered your betrothal to Cousin Isobel through your letters, I am ashamed to say. Before that, I knew nothing about her. Indeed, if you were to ask me to name all the Glenbrindle cousins, I am not certain I could do it.”
“Your mama does not talk about Lady Strathmorran?”
“I do not recall her ever mentioning them. What I know of them is all from Papa.”
“How curious,” he said. “Did Lady Sara quarrel with her sister, then? There must have been some great breach, for they never talked about her, either.”
“It is very likely,” Dulcie said. “Either Mama or Papa quarrelled with almost everyone they were related to.”
He chuckled then, a low rumble in his throat that made Dulcie smile. He smiled back, his blue eyes so much friendlier than they were just a few minutes ago.
“Families are curious, are they not, Miss Allamont? To the world, they look contented enough — happy, even. Yet who knows what is going on behind the elegantly shuttered windows? Your parents are spoken of as the epitome of respectability, yet they isolated themselves from all their relatives, whether by design or accident. And my father must have got himself deeper and deeper into debt with each passing year, yet said and did nothing to improve his situation. We are all creatures of artifice, are we not, pretending, always pretending, and keeping our real selves hidden away for fear of the world’s disapprobation.”
“Yet honesty is more comfortable, I find,” Dulcie said.
“Indeed it is. Honesty and openness, with no secrets. So let us banish the secrecy. You know nothing of your relatives at Glenbrindle, a lack which I am in a position to correct. Whatever you wish to know, I shall tell you, if I can.”
“I want to know everything!” she said eagerly.
He laughed, emptying the last of the brandy into their glasses. “Let us start by finding out how much — or how little — you know of them already.”
“Very well.” She folded her hands in her lap, as if reciting. “The head of the family is the Earl of Strathmorran. Lady Strathmorran is Mama’s older sister. The oldest son is Lord Kilbraith — James or Jamie, I think. Then there were twin boys — but one died in childhood. I cannot remember their names — oh! Maxwell — there is Maxwell, too, but I do not know how he fits in. There are two girls, Isobel and… is it Katherine? And another son, Daniel or David or some such. But as to ages, or which of them might be married, I cannot tell.”
“None of them have yet married. Maxwell is one of the twins. The other was Angus, who died at the age of seven. After them, Katherine and Isobel, then David, who is seventeen now. What you do not know, it appears, is that Jamie, the eldest, died two months ago, and Maxwell is now the heir. He has been sent for, but he is on the Peninsula, so who knows when he might return, or whether he is even alive still?”
“What a dreadful thing to happen! How did Cousin Jamie come to fall sick and die?”
“Fall sick?” He gave a bark of laughter. “No such thing. He was shot in a duel over a lady — that is to say, I assume she was a lady, although with Jamie there can be no certainty about it. It was a great piece of foolishness, and his poor mother is distraught.”
“I can imagine. But… not his father?”
“The Earl has never had much time for Jamie, for he was always a wastrel. He adores Maxwell, and will be very happy to have him home. The Countess, on the other hand, has an irrational dislike of Maxwell, and adored Jamie. But there it is, for Maxwell is the heir now, and nothing to be done about it. Difficult times ahead for them all.”
They talked for half the night, and even though Dulcie had never met them, Drummond brought them vividly to life in her mind. Jamie, with his dark, brooding charm, so devastating to the young ladies. Maxwell, the golden-haired, handsome one, seri
ous and clever. Katherine, the skittish beauty with three broken engagements behind her and still husbandless. Steady, sensible Isobel. David, with his sunny good humour and winning ways. Less was said about the Earl and Countess, and she got the impression Drummond did not get on with them, although they were neighbours and must have met often. Of Glenbrindle itself, he talked with enthusiasm, describing it as a great castle, although built in the modern style and not the uncomfortable medieval sort with spiral staircases and tiny, dank rooms. It was a normal house with every comfort, it seemed, except that it also boasted towers and turrets. Dulcie went to bed with her head full of it, and above all, a man with fair curls, a charming smile and twinkling eyes.
~~~~~
The next morning, Dulcie was drawn away from her task of picking peas by the sound of a horse arriving at speed. Rushing round to the front of the cottage, she beheld Mary in the act of dismounting and detaching saddle-bags.
“There you are, cousin!” Mary said cheerfully. “Why, you look the very picture of housewifely domesticity, with your apron and bucket.”
Dulcie had to laugh. “Pea-picking is a very soothing occupation. I think when I go home, I might startle the gardeners by taking an interest in the kitchen garden. This is a pleasant surprise to see you here again so soon, and you have managed to steal Hercules away from your mama, I see.”
“Steal? Why, so I have!” Mary said, chuckling. “For I have quite run away, and I intend to stay with you and help with the peas and chickens and whatever else it is that you do until poor Jess is quite well again.”
“You are going to stay?” Dulcie exclaimed. “Oh! How will we manage? But we have some chickens still to be eaten, and the vegetables will stretch, so we will do well enough until Sunday, and someone always gives a joint for the roast. But next week…”
Mary’s face fell. “I am an extra mouth to feed. I had not thought.”
“It would not be a difficulty at another time, but the village children are all gone off to help with the harvest, and the boarders will be gone by the end of the week,” Dulcie said. “That means that there will be no money coming in, and there is the horse as well. We will see what Mr Drummond says.”
Dulcie (The Daughters of Allamont Hall Book 4) Page 6