The Earl and the Hoyden

by Mary Nichols

  ‘Do you not wish to go yourself?’

  ‘No, I am too old to travel and I must stay and look after the house as best I can until this dreadful conflict is over.’

  Roland had hesitated. The journey would not be an easy one, bad enough on his own, but with a gently nurtured girl it would be doubly difficult. The Count had seen his reluctance. ‘She is my only joy,’ he had said. ‘The jewel of my bosom, but I dread what would happen to her if the French find her here. I am an old man and I would not be able to defend her.’

  ‘How do you know you can trust me?’ Roland had asked him with a wry smile. ‘I might be as bad as the French.’

  ‘No. You are an honourable man, I can see it in your eyes and the way you are so courteous to Juanita.’

  ‘She is a lovely young lady and deserves every courtesy.’

  ‘So you will take her?’

  It was necessary for him to make a start and so he had allowed himself to be persuaded. Juanita and her maid were given into his care, and though he had protested he wanted no recompense, his host persuaded him to accept a small bag of jewels and an ancient carriage pulled by two very scrawny horses. But it had been a good disguise after all, and though they had had one or two scary moments, he had brought his charge safely to the house of her uncle. He had become very fond of her by then and they had parted with a promise from him that if he were ever in Coimbra again he would call. He had done so once, over a year later, only to find she had married her cousin and died in childbirth. Poor little thing, she had been no more than a child herself.

  Apart from a diamond ring that he’d kept, thinking that one day he might marry, he had turned the jewels into ready money in Lisbon, surprised and delighted to discover they were worth a small fortune. He had banked the money, intending to save it against the day when the army no longer needed him and he had to settle down in civilian life. Believing he would not be welcome at home, he had planned to buy a farm, work the land and breed horses. Together with his annuity and half-pay, it was enough for him to make a good start. Must he give up that dream for this rotting mansion? But the rotting mansion was his birthright and his responsibility; he could not please himself, not anymore.

  ‘I think I shall move in at once,’ he told Travers as they wandered about the almost empty rooms, followed by Bennett, hanging on their every word for a morsel of information that might indicate what his lordship intended. ‘It behoves the Earl of Amerleigh to live at his country seat, not at the dower house with his mama. Besides, there is very little room there.’

  They went up to the attics where they found a couple of old beds with damp mattresses, one or two cupboards, a sofa and some uncomfortable chairs, which even the creditors had disdained. ‘Fetch it all down and make up two bedrooms,’ he told the two men. ‘You will need to take the mattresses down to the kitchen and dry them off by the fire. And light fires in all the rooms to air them. I will be back later.’

  He set off back to the dower house to acquaint his mother of his decision. She was dismayed and tried to dissuade him, but he was adamant. ‘If I am to restore the Hall to what it was, I must live there,’ he told her.

  ‘How can you do that without servants?’ she said.

  ‘I have Travers and Bennett.’

  ‘You will make yourself a laughing stock.’

  ‘I will be a bigger one if I stay here, attached to your apron strings.’

  She sighed. ‘Shall you take Mr and Mrs Burrows back?’

  ‘No, you need them. I will take on a woman from the village. Do you know of such a one?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘There is a Mrs Fields. She used to work at the King’s Head, but lost her position over some dispute with the landlord. I never had a meal prepared by her, but I have heard she is a good plain cook. As long as you are not contemplating entertaining…’

  He laughed. ‘That I am not. Will you do the necessary for me?’

  Having agreed, she insisted on making up a parcel of clean bedding for him and gave him a basket containing a cold cooked chicken, a meat pie and a boiled ham. ‘You will starve if left to yourself,’ she said, forgetting, or not realising, that he was perfectly capable of subsisting on his own, and had been doing so for the past six years with the help of Travers. ‘I will have Mrs Burrows make something up for you every day until you take on a new cook.’

  He thanked her with a kiss and left.

  It was not the discomfort of the lumpy bed that had kept him awake that night, but the knowledge that he was in the devil of a fix. There was no money in the estate coffers and the only income was rent from the tenants and he had no doubt their holdings had been neglected too and would need repairs. The money from the sale of the jewels would only stretch so far and then what was he to do?

  However, he had always maintained there must be mutual affection in a marriage, which was why, he supposed, he was still single. He had met no one to whom he could give his heart and now he wondered if he ever would. And if his heart was not engaged, could he bring himself to look for a wealthy bride? Would the women around here all be like Miss Cartwright—mannish, spoiled, arrogant? There was only one way to find out and that was to mix socially and assess the situation. But putting the estate to rights must come first.

  He was used to rising early and it was no hardship to get up at dawn, eat a Spartan breakfast and set off on horseback for Shrewsbury. He planned to see Mountford, have a look for furniture and carpets to make the principal downstairs rooms of the Hall presentable, and buy himself some clothes.

  It was a mild spring day and he stopped on the way to admire the pink-and-gold sunrise over the hills. He breathed deeply and continued on down into the valley to Scofield. As he approached the Cartwright mill, he could hear the bell, warning employees that time was running out. They came hurrying along, men, women and children, streaming in through the open gates.

  He reined in to wait for them to pass before proceeding. Some of them noticed him, pointing him out to their fellows, others bobbed a knee or touched a forelock. Two of the girls he remembered seeing in Amerleigh. They were probably daughters of estate workers. He smiled at them. ‘Good morning, young ladies.’

  They stopped and giggled, then, remembering themselves, dipped a curtsy.

  ‘You come from Amerleigh?’ he queried.

  ‘Yes, sir, I mean, my lord.’ It was the older of the two who answered him.

  ‘Tell me your names.’ He asked because he thought he should know all his people, and they were still his people, even if circumstances meant they had to work in the mill.

  ‘I am Elizabeth Biggs,’ the elder said. ‘This is Matilda.’ Her sister, too shy to speak, looked at her feet.

  ‘And do you enjoy your work?’

  ‘It’s work, ain’t it?’ Beth said. ‘Better than the workhouse anyday.’

  Everyone had gone into the mills and the clanging of the bells had suddenly stopped. ‘Oh, my, we’re late.’ Beth grabbed Matty by the hand and ran towards the gates just as they were being closed. Roland watched, expecting the gatekeeper to hold them open for the girls, but they were shut in their faces. They stood for a moment, then turned sorrowfully away, their shoulders drooping.

  ‘Why doesn’t he let you in?’ he asked them.

  ‘No one goes in after the bell stops,’ Beth told him. ‘We lose a day’s pay. It’s to teach us not to be late.’

  ‘But you were not late. You were here, ready to go in. If I had not detained you…’He stopped speaking and reached in his pocket for his purse. ‘Here,’ he said, offering them half a crown. ‘I made you late, so I must recompense you.’ It was more than the day’s wage they would lose and they hesitated. ‘Go on, take it,’ he urged, holding it out.

  Beth accepted the coin, murmuring her thanks, and they scampered away just as Miss Cartwright bowled up in her curricle.

  She drew up beside him. He doffed his hat. ‘Good morning, ma’am.’

  ‘What was the matter with Beth and Matty?’ she asked. �
��Was one of them not well?’

  ‘No, they were shut out for stopping to speak to me.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am?’ It was a question, not an apology, uttered stiffly.

  ‘I mean you must have misunderstood.’

  ‘No, I do not think I did. I spoke to them and they stopped to answer. It was a brief exchange only and the gatekeeper could see them quite clearly. He shut the gates in their faces. If that is how you treat your employees, Miss Cartwright, then I pity them.’

  ‘Save your pity for your own employees, my lord,’ she retorted and drove up to the gates, which were immediately opened for her. She disappeared through them and they were shut behind her, leaving him staring at the words Cartwright Mill painted in large letters on them.

  Charlotte left the curricle in the yard where a small boy came to walk the pony away and look after it until she was ready to leave again, and went in search of William Brock. She was seething. To be criticised by the Earl of Amerleigh over her treatment of her employees was the outside of enough. At least she was employing them, which was more than could be said for him. ‘What is your policy over latecomers?’ she demanded.

  He looked puzzled. ‘You mean the hands who are late for work?’

  ‘Yes, the hands.’

  ‘They are locked out, ma’am. It’s to teach them punctuality, Miss Cartwright. They are rarely late more than once.’

  ‘I assume from that you mean they lose a day’s pay.’

  ‘Yes, of course. It has always been so. All the others mills do it.’

  ‘Not this one, Mr Brock. The two I saw turned away today are good workers and now we have lost their labour for a day. That is not good business sense.’

  ‘Their looms are not idle, I can find good weavers who can manage two at a time.’

  ‘Not good enough. In future, you will instruct the gatekeeper to take the names of those who arrive late and you will see that they are deducted half an hour’s wages for every five minutes they are late. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said resentfully.

  ‘Good, now let us get on with the business of the day.’

  They went on to discuss other matters, then she inspected the looms, peeped into the schoolroom where the young man she employed to give the children an hour’s tuition during the midday break was preparing his lessons. She could not afford to take all the children off their work at once, so they came to him in two shifts. They were given a good dinner and then settled down to lessons. Any that showed promise she intended to send to school. She hated employing children, but knowing that not to do so would harm their families, she tried to make their working conditions as pleasant as possible.

  By the middle of the afternoon, she had done as much as was needed and, sending for the curricle, drove herself to the Shrewsbury office of Robert Bailey, her mining engineer, to talk to him about opening a new level. The encounter with the Earl that morning had added to her annoyance with him and made her all the more determined to thwart him. He was a thorn in her side. For the first time in her life she was being illogical and unbusinesslike, but she could not help it. She did not care what it cost, she wanted that new adit.

  ‘If you do not mind my saying so, Miss Cartwright,’ the engineer said. ‘You are thinking like a woman.’

  ‘I am a woman, Mr Bailey.’

  ‘So you are, but you have always figured things out like a man, pros and cons, objectively.’

  ‘And who is to say that I am not being objective now? The deep level is causing problems with flooding, so we need to abandon that and sink another. There is lead down there, you know it as well as I, and lead commands a very high price, so we weigh that up against the cost of bringing it to the surface and we arrive at the conclusion that it will take less than three years to make a handsome profit. And it will give work to many.’ Even while she was arguing with him, she was picturing Roland Temple, Earl of Amerleigh, standing where the engineer was standing now, telling her he would have his land back. When she had extracted all she could from the mine, she might offer to sell it back to him at a highly inflated price. She wondered if he would try to raise the money or give up. Why did she sense the Earl was as stubborn as she was? And why, oh, why did it matter?

  Charles Mountford, who had been the family lawyer ever since the late Earl had inherited the title twelve years before, was in his forties, dark haired, dark eyed and dressed in black. He had been expecting his lordship, he said, after the usual greetings had been exchanged. ‘Please take a seat.’ He indicated a chair placed on the other side of his desk, then he sat down and began shuffling papers. ‘May I offer condolences on the demise of your father,’ he said. ‘And congratulations on your coming into your inheritance.’

  ‘And what exactly is my inheritance?’ Roland asked him. ‘Apart from the title, that is.’

  ‘Amerleigh Hall and its domain—very little else, I am afraid.’

  ‘I thought as much. Tell me what happened. My mother said something about a lawsuit.’

  ‘Yes, that has been unfortunate.’

  Unfortunate for whom? Roland wondered; not for the lawyers, he was sure, but he did not speak aloud. ‘Tell me how it came about.’

  The man coughed as if reluctant to begin, then, seeing Roland’s look of impatience, made a start. ‘The estate had not paid its way for many years, harvests had been poor and taxes heavy on account of the war, and in order to recoup the late Earl invested in stocks that he hoped would make a quick profit, but they failed, leaving him with heavy losses.’

  ‘Did you advise him to buy them?’

  ‘No, I did not.’ The man was outraged by the suggestion. He was very small and wiry and his bony hands were continually on the move as he spoke. ‘I do not know who advised him. It might have been Cartwright, but if he did, he did not take his own advice, or he was high enough in the instep to absorb the loss. As soon as I heard what had happened, I begged his lordship to retrench, but he would not. He continued going on as he always had, entertaining lavishly, buying the latest fashions for her ladyship, maintaining horses and hounds—for he was Master of the Hunt—and gaming. The more his pocket pinched, the more he gambled and the more he lost.’

  ‘And all this happened in the last six years?’

  ‘No, my lord, it started while you were at university, but he would not have told you of it even if you had been at home.’

  Roland acknowledged the truth of that. ‘So when Cartwright came along with a lifeline, he seized it?’

  ‘Yes. Unfortunately he did not envisage you would not agree to the arrangement. Naturally, Cartwright demanded the money back. The Earl did his best, sold off a few paintings and ornaments and managed to find the initial capital, but Cartwright refused it. He wanted a vast amount of interest as well. He was a businessman, he said, and money was a commodity like anything else and should make a profit. Your father had deprived him of the profit he expected, namely a title for his daughter, so he was entitled to make it another way. He offered to expunge the whole debt in exchange for Browhill. The strip of land was nothing but heather and scrub, so I advised his lordship to agree. Soon after that Cartwright began successfully mining for lead…’

  ‘Poor Papa. That must have galled him. According to my mother he thought he had been tricked into parting with the land and Cartwright knew there was lead there even before he suggested taking it. Is that true?’

  ‘I have no way of knowing. It was enough that your father believed it. He thought if he could recover the land and take over the mine, the profits would be enough to set all to rights. After all, there was a war on and lead was needed for ammunition, not to mention for roofing, piping and paint.’

  ‘Are you still pursuing the suit?’

  ‘I have had no instructions to the contrary. Of course, if you should instruct me otherwise…’ He stopped to look enquiringly at Roland.

  Roland had been prepared to drop it, but the notion that his father had
been bullied into agreeing to the transaction when he was far from well made him hesitate. ‘Tell me, when the bargain was made, was it wrapped up tight? No loopholes?’

  ‘That is what we have been endeavouring to discover, but Cartwright was far from co-operative and I have no reason to think his daughter will be any more so. My dealings with her have led me to believe she can be stubborn. And as money means nothing to her…’

  ‘On the contrary, I think it means everything to her.’

  Mountford gave a twisted smile of acknowledgement. ‘She has that from her father. He made a fortune trading cotton, sugar and slaves.’

  ‘So she would not mind losing a few pounds fighting me.’

  Mountford shrugged. ‘Who is to say? Do you want me to continue with it?’

  ‘I will think about it and let you know. Now, what about the house and its contents? Could they not have been saved?’

  ‘As soon as the Earl’s problems became common knowledge, the dunners were on the doorstep. Tailors, vintners, jewellers, saddlers, butchers, those he has lost to at the tables, not to mention estate workers and servants, all turned up, wanting to be first in line for whatever was going. I was obliged to advise his lordship that simple retrenchment was not enough.’ It was said apologetically. ‘He stubbornly refused to sell, but in the end he did allow himself to be persuaded into moving into the dower house, letting it be known it was on medical grounds and as soon as his health recovered he would return to the main house. The Hall was put up for rent, but no one came forward and he was obliged to realise whatever assets he still had, except the house itself and the rest of the estate, to pay everyone off.’

  ‘And have they all been paid?’

  ‘I believe so, yes.’