Amberley Chronicles Boxset I: The Impostor Debutante My Last Marchioness the Sister Quest (Amberley Chronicles Boxsets Book 1)

by May Burnett

  His parents had much to answer for, but they were beyond the reach of reproaches or questions. Whatever answers there were to find at this late day, he and this new sister would have to uncover them by themselves.

  Chapter 3

  Cherry had run out of interesting reading matter again. She was not in the mood for the hymnal Patch had brought, and the two novels from Prune were long finished.

  She opened the dusty, moth-eaten velvet curtains a tiny slit and wistfully looked out on the spring day. The sky might be overcast, but she did not mind clouds or even raindrops. She would have loved to go for a long walk, but her dramatic widows’ weeds were so very noticeable, and she only had the one set; what if they got wet? Even thin wool cloth took forever to dry, and she had no fire. Besides, the last time she had gone out, after dark, she had had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Her skin still crawled at recalling the sensation.

  If only she had a key to the door in the back wall, or a ladder to climb over it. Then she could slip out through the back garden into the adjoining estate, with its oak trees and meadows.

  Having nothing to do was the greatest penance possible. She wondered if it was a mercy to prisoners when they were given hard work, compared to the alternative. Needlework or knitting had never much appealed to Cherry, from childhood she had done her best to avoid these feminine handicrafts. Yet in her current boredom she would have been glad to undertake even mending or sewing, had she had thread or a needle.

  The obvious tasks would have been cleaning the dusty house, or weeding the overgrown back garden, but apart from the lack of brooms or rags, she had to be careful of her few clothes. Dear Prune had contributed two dresses, most likely bought off the housekeeper or cook with her meagre allowance, as neither her own nor Patch’s would fit even this well. The waist was loose, and there was an uncomfortable tightness across Cherry’s bosom. At least they were light in colour, a washed-out white; a welcome if illicit change from the depressing black.

  Maybe she could write a book herself during this enforced captivity. Prune would willingly provide paper, ink and quills, if she asked for these items. Cherry had no particular storytelling skills, but anyone could write down a long list of advice to other females, with dire warnings of all the things to avoid. Such books were quite popular. She might even make a little money, if she charmed a publisher into accepting it. Who was more competent to warn other women than she, with her direct experience of being orphaned, widowed, and bankrupt?

  In composing her warnings she might even figure out where she had gone wrong, what had been the crucial false step. Cherry refused to believe that it had just been bad luck. The idea that terrible things merely happened without reason gave her no comfort.

  There was nothing she could have done to prevent losing her parents as a young child. That had been force majeure. Her marriage to Max had been a mistake in retrospect, however; she had been young and eager to escape Bellington. Max, in his thirties and rich, had seemed dashing to her then, and he had been so eager to wed her, despite the lack of dowry. How was she to have foreseen…

  Maxim: Do not marry a weak man. Inexperienced young girls were all too prone to take their suitors at their own valuation. The feet of clay – or worse - did not become noticeable until later.

  Maxim: Take enough time during the courtship to get a clear idea of your future husband’s character and defects.

  Her major mistake, of course, had come much later: allowing Max access to a gun, when he had suffered financial reverses and was struggling with debts to a man she abhorred. She would have taken the pistol from his desk and thrown it into the Thames, had she had the least notion of what Max was contemplating.

  Or would she? By then she had fallen out of the habit of worrying over Max’s welfare. Their relations had turned cold, almost hostile, since that quarrel almost two years ago. That was the real end of her marriage, of any intimacy. If Cherry felt impatient to move on a mere four months after Max’s death, it was because she had done all her mourning beforehand. By his own actions her husband had erased all her respect and affection for him, long before that fatal shot.

  Cherry still could not understand why Max would throw away his life for such a stupid reason. Leaving his wife a destitute widow, defenceless against an unscrupulous creditor like Buckley, was far more selfish and cowardly than staying alive to face the consequences. She still felt angry, but after weeks of fear and anxiety, not even that emotion sustained her any longer.

  Her greatest sorrow hitherto, the lack of children in her marriage, had turned out a blessing in retrospect. A single woman could escape London more easily than a whole family. She had slipped out of town disguised as a maid in an old grey cloak, wearing a red wig she had purchased years ago for a masquerade ball. And if she had her jewels sewn into her stays, well, they were hers, weren’t they? She had to live on something, after all.

  A knock on the door interrupted her reflections. It was the correct signal, two knocks in sharp succession, a pause, two more knocks. With any luck she would soon have fresh reading matter.

  To her surprise, it was her brother-in-law, Matthew Spalding. Prune must have given him the code. He carried a wrapped parcel.

  “Hello, Matt,” she said. “How is Prune? I was not expecting you.”

  “Annie is feeling p-poorly, so Prune could not g-get away,” Matt explained, looking the shabby room over with open disapproval. His stammer was no worse than usual; in his father’s presence he could be completely incoherent. “Do you h-have to hide here in the shadows? The l-lack of light will make you sick sooner or later, and the smell of m-mildew cannot be good for your spirits. It would be much better if you came to stay with us openly, no matter what F-father may say.”

  “Didn’t Prune explain why that would be a bad idea? Is Annie’s sickness anything serious? I do hope not.” Though Charity had not seen her only niece in years, she was fond of the child.

  Matt shrugged, not visibly concerned at his daughter’s state. “She has m-merely eaten something that did not agree with her. Just like Prune, you know how she gets red splotches and n-nausea from anything with mustard. Anne was already feeling better when I left, but clinging to her m-mother.”

  “Well, she’s only five. At least she has a mother to cling to.”

  “She also has two aunts, one of whom is hiding here like a r-rabbit in its burrow. Prune told me the r-reason, but I cannot believe that this m-man you want to avoid would ever come to our little t-town. A rich and powerful t-traveller would stick out like a sore thumb in this p-place, where everybody knows everybody else, and s-secrets cannot remain hidden. It is d-downright insulting that you believe you need to hide away like this, and use a f-false name and veils. You never used to be so t-timid when we were children, Cherry.”

  “When we were children, I had no notion how much evil and danger exists in the world, Matt. The rest of you still don’t, but I have discovered it, and must take precautions accordingly.”

  “This p-package contains sandwiches, and another book,” Matthew said, putting it on the table top. “You should eat warm f-food, though. This cannot go on. What about drink? Do you need anything else?”

  “No, Patch brought several bottles of cider and ale, and there is a barrel of rainwater, though I avoid drinking from it – I don’t want to end up sick like little Annie.” At least it allowed her to wash regularly. “As soon as Prune sells my jewels, I’ll be leaving for a place where I can walk openly, and eat normal, cooked food. You have no idea how much I am looking forward to that.”

  “It’s m-madness, Cherry. All alone in a strange place, under a f-false name? When you’ve only just returned, after all those years away? A-aren’t you going to miss us?”

  Did he not realize that he was only making it harder for her? “Yes, of course, but it cannot be helped.”

  “Prune was planning to go to N-norwich today, to sell your jewels, but now I don’t know when she will be able to get a-away. Even if Annie im
proves quickly, father is in one of his m-moods. M-maybe I can do it instead.”

  Alarmed, she did her best to squash that suggestion. “That’s very kind, but I would much prefer that Prune do it, even if it takes longer.” Matt’s stutter tended to worsen when he dealt with strangers. Competent enough when selling a cow or ewe here in Bellington, he knew nothing of jewels, and might not bring back even a fraction of their worth. “You could help me in other ways – I’d appreciate pen and paper, to while my time away with writing, and you could also keep an eye out for any suspicious strangers. As you said, they should be easy enough to spot in our placid little town.”

  “Very well, though I s-still believe you are just imagining any d-danger. I’ll drop by the inn on my way home, and t-tell them to let me know if anyone out of the ordinary should arrive.”

  “Thank you, Matt. You won’t tell them why, of course? Please don’t mention my name to anyone at all. It is really important.”

  “Very w-well, if you insist.” Matt had always been good-natured. “I’ll make sure to s-send the paper and ink. With your lurid imagination, I suppose you are going to pen a m-melodrama for the stage?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But life already has quite enough melodrama.”

  When Matt finally left, she sat on the badly-sprung sofa and slowly consumed the sandwiches in the package. They were well-made, with chicken, ham, cheese and mustard, just as she liked them. The fillings told her that the cook at Spalding Hall was perfectly aware for whom this food was intended. There was also a sweet bun. She thought back to the many times she had watched Cook prepare these in the kitchen, the smell of the baking, and the homely pots and pans. For no reason at all she felt tears rise, and angrily blinked them away. If she had not cried for her husband’s death, it would be absurd indeed to cry over a sweet bun.

  She had not even thought of the Spalding Hall kitchen for years, during all those heedless seasons in London, when she went to the theatre or concerts with her friends, worked on charitable committees, patronized exhibitions and sent expensive presents back to her sisters and Prune’s children. She had felt guilty for being so much better off, and living in a luxury far beyond her sisters. Yet now she was dependent on them for the very food she ate and clothes she wore, and without Prune’s help in selling her jewels, she might find herself completely destitute. Cherry was still reeling from the suddenness of the change. It was like walking a sun-lit, pleasant mountain path, and without warning, plunging over a cliff into an abyss.

  She would climb back up eventually. She might even re-marry, avoiding the mistakes she had made the first time. Do not keep all your assets in one place, or rely entirely on the survival of one person. Surely that advice alone was worth the price of her pamphlet.

  It was only when she was in desperate straits that she discovered her so-called friends were mere acquaintances, who would not give her the time of day now that the basis of her social existence, a rich husband, was gone. She had only been welcome among them as Max’s wife, never in her own right, as Cherry – none of them even knew that name of her childhood days. In trouble, she had instinctively fled home, to her sisters, though neither of them was related to her by blood. Still they immediately took her in. Patch might disapprove of her, and bring her hymnals to read, but she had arranged for this hiding place. Prune, bless her, had never been judgmental, and even Matt helped out like the brother she’d never had.

  The novel Prune had sent turned out to be Fielding’s Tom Jones, a novel Cherry had last read when she was fifteen, in secret, since it was considered much too racy for females. As a classic it was nonetheless found in most libraries, and she looked forward to rereading it now. Poor Tom’s vicissitudes would help her to forget her own. She felt a special kinship to the flawed hero because just like her sisters and herself, the foundling Tom had grown up without knowing whose child he was.

  Would her life have been very different if she’d grown up with her birth parents? Cherry was convinced that the Trellishams had not been her original parents, though she could not have said why. They had treated all of their daughters with complete and deliberate impartiality, and never said or betrayed by a single word which of the three eldest girls was their own child.

  When she was small, Cherry had believed they were real siblings. Only after their parents’ sudden death had they learned the painful truth: two of the three sisters were of unknown parentage. “Most likely bastards, of parents no better than they should be,” vicious old Mrs. Spalding, Sir Charles’ mother, used to say whenever one of them did the least thing to annoy her. Sir Charles was no better; he detested the slightest noise and boisterous play, and with his cutting remarks gave pain to sensitive children’s souls. They had learned to avoid him as much as possible. The three sisters had pulled together in that time of adversity.

  Old Mrs. Spalding had died a few years after the girls had joined the Spalding household, and was not mourned. Despite all, Cherry’s childhood could have been much worse. How easily she might have ended up in a poorhouse, rather than the joyless Spalding household!

  Yet Cherry still longed to find out the truth about her parentage, the way Tom Jones did at the happy conclusion of Fielding’s novel.

  Chapter 4

  “Jonathan is looking for a young lady of breeding and with good connections,” James told his brother George and sister-in-law, Marianne, two days after he had met his friend.

  They were having tea at Amberley House in Mount Street. The Earl and his Countess were already dressed for a charity concert in favour of officers’ widows and orphans, to which they would proceed afterwards, before going on to a dinner party.

  “Can you think of anyone suitable? He’s a good fellow, though too much devoted to business. His wife will have to put her foot down and make him enjoy all the other pleasures of life. If she gives him children, she’ll be able to wrap Jonathan round her little finger easily enough.”

  “Just how rich is he?” Having inherited his title and wealth, George found it hard to believe that a contemporary of his younger brother could have amassed a very large fortune. True, there were many successful commercial ventures, but the risk was very high. George preferred the safest investments. Most of his fortune was in the funds.

  “At least half a million, but it’s not something I have ever asked him.” James grinned. “It should be enough to make Jonathan acceptable to some aristocratic family, despite the connection to trade. Once a fortune exceeds a certain threshold, people tend to find the source much less shocking. He’s not bad-looking either, though no Adonis.”

  “You are no fit judge of another man’s attractiveness to females,” Marianne told him. “I would like to meet this Mr. Durwent myself, before I recommend any of my friends to his notice.”

  “I already suggested that you might include him in your house party in June, and if he has already made a choice, his chosen lady and her family. Of course I should have spoken to you first -“

  “No, that’s quite all right, we’ll be glad to have them, and it will be amusing to see if he can fix his interest with a young lady.” Marianne seemed to run through her guest list in her mind. “If he’s still at the courting stage, it might not be ideal – Rook has said he would come, and you know how girls throw themselves at him wherever he goes.”

  “If the woman he chooses prefers a hopeless passion for Rook to marrying a solid fellow like Jonathan, she’s a ninny, and he’d better find that out before he proposes,” James said. “It might not be a bad test of the lady’s steadfastness.”

  “But a rather unfair one, surely,” George objected. “Since he shaved off his moustache last year, and cultivated that mysterious air, young ladies everywhere find Rook well-nigh irresistible. The heir of a dukedom, with his good looks - I still cannot understand how Minerva could have preferred Henry to him.”

  “Henry is a good man,” James defended their younger sister’s choice. “And if I were a female, I daresay I would also think twice before takin
g on Rook. Looks and a title aren’t everything.”

  “Evidently not, at least in Minerva’s eyes. I must say, when we saw her last week, she seemed content enough. And Henry is making quite a name for himself with his speeches. Several of my fellow peers have been wondering how I could let such a firebrand into the House, who works directly against our own interests.”

  “And what do you tell them?”

  “What can I say, since he’s family now? Of course I have to support Henry. I do wish at times he were not quite so radical. But I’m not going to say so to him; I would not want to crimp his style.”

  “Good of you,” James acknowledged. “So can I write to Jonathan that he’ll be welcome at your house party? It begins on June twentieth, doesn’t it?”

  “I shall write to invite him myself,” Marianne decided. “And I look forward to seeing Charlotte and your children there as well. Charlotte hardly comes up to London these days, we all miss her.”

  “Will Mother be there?”

  George grimaced. “She has not made up her mind. She knows that Charlotte and you, as well as Minerva and Henry will be present, so her hesitation is already a hopeful sign. It is really high time we buried all these pointless resentments.”

  “Indeed,” Marianne said. “It gets very tiresome, and so I have told her.”

  “Mother may not want to meet Jonathan,” James pointed out. “Ever since I came down from university she has objected to our friendship, though of course I never regarded it. But it would be most unfortunate if she slighted my friend in any way.”