by Anna Jacobs
Another sigh whispered through the air.
‘Shall I ring for a tea tray and some cake?’
‘You know I never eat when I’m upset. I have a bird’s appetite at the best of times.’
Daniel gritted his teeth. She was the heartiest eater he had ever seen! And it was no wonder she could spurn food in company and pleaded a lack of appetite; she never stopped nibbling from the time she got up to the time she went to bed. Why she wasn't as fat as his best sow, he couldn’t understand! Even now there was a dish of fresh shortbread set temptingly on a small table next to her, and the sofa bore district traces of crumbs.
Up and down the room he paced, unable to sit still. From the window, he watched his mother select another piece of shortbread and nibble at it as delicately as a mouse. Desperately he began to cast round for an excuse to dine away from home that evening, or at least to escape after dinner.
Why did she always make him feel so inadequate? Why could he not cope better with her vagaries?
His friends thought him mad to put up with her as he did. But they didn’t know what an unhappy life she had led. He could never forget how badly his father had treated her or how, when he was a boy, she had often shielded him from his father's drunken anger and even from physical violence. He usually managed to see the humorous side of things, but not today.
When the gong rang to dress for dinner, he opened his mouth to offer his apologies and invent a prior engagement, but she forestalled him.
‘We'll have such a cosy little chat over dinner this evening, my dearest. I'm so glad you're not going out again tonight!’
How in hell's name had she found that out? The cook, probably, he thought gloomily. She and the cook were as thick as thieves, for Mrs Banning loved to bake for someone truly appreciative of her skills. But now he had to face another evening in his mother's company!
However, no excuse would have availed to free Daniel from his mother that evening, for just after the gong had summoned them down to dinner, there was a knock on the front door and a messenger was revealed, bearing a letter from Rome. This was carried ceremoniously into the dining room by the maidservant who waited at table, her awed expression showing that she realised the import of the missive.
‘Oh, my dearest, dearest boy,’ Celia breathed, clutching her son's arm. ‘Steel yourself! It may be the news for which we have been waiting.’ She fumbled for her handkerchief and released her grasp so that he could stretch out his hand for the letter.
He stared at it. Mr Napperby’s handwriting.
‘Are you not going to open it, Daniel dearest?’
He pulled off the seal, unfolded it and scanned the contents:
My dear Daniel
I regret to inform you that your Cousin Charles, passed away last night. The end was sudden and was a merciful release from pain.
I shall wait here for a few days and escort his widow back to England myself, together with her young son. The lady wishes to take up residence in the Dower House at Ashdown Park, as is her right.
Your cousin wishes to be buried with his ancestors, so we shall also be bringing back his body for interment in the family vault. I would be grateful if you would go to Ashdown, which now belongs to you of course, under the entail, as soon as you receive this, and make all the necessary arrangements for a suitable funeral.
It is my duty to inform you that . . . ’
Daniel stopped reading the letter aloud.
‘Ah!’ declared Mrs Carnforth with great satisfaction. ‘You are now the owner . You can style yourself Carnforth of Ashdown Park. That has a very noble ring to it, do you not think? I'm so glad we didn't call you John, as your Aunt Susannah wished. It wouldn’t have done your position justice.’
She turned to her son. ‘Why have you stopped reading? What else does Mr Napperby have to say, pray?’
But she had to wait to find out, for her son had forgotten her presence entirely. Face flushed with annoyance, he was holding the paper as if it were a snake about to bite him and re-reading the last part of the letter. He muttered something which sounded suspiciously like an oath, screwed the letter up and threw it on to the floor. Then he bent and snatched it up to smooth it out and read it again.
‘I'll be damned if I will!’ he exclaimed, and thumped the table to emphasise his point. ‘How dared Charles do such a thing? Without even asking me!’
It took Celia quite five minutes to calm him down enough to divulge what had enraged him. By this time she was so anxious to know what it was that she even refrained from pointing out to him the shocking nature of the language he had used. ‘What is it, my dearest?’
He was still having great difficulty in speaking calmly. ‘If you must know, Charles has named me guardian to that woman's brat, whom he had apparently adopted! His dying wish. Foisting such a child on me! And I'll be damned if I'll do it!’
She shared his outrage at once. ‘Guardian! But - he can't - can he? I mean - you weren't asked, so it can't be legal. And even if it is, you must certainly refuse! She's bound to be the most vulgar person. He had a deplorable taste in women. Not even good actresses!’
‘Of course I mean to refuse. You may set your mind at rest upon that point! I have no intention whatsoever of taking on such an onerous task. What do I know of schoolboys? Or wish to know?’
‘Quite right.’ Doubt seized her even as she spoke and her hand fluttered to her brow. ‘But -
dying wish, did you say?’
‘Yes. That’s why he summoned Mr Napperby. And it’s as outrageous as everything else about the man. Well, if he thinks I'll be coerced into accepting the task merely because it's his dying wish, he's wrong. Was wrong. You know what I mean. I'll have enough on my plate with Ashdown Park, from all accounts. The estate's quite gone to pieces. Shamefully neglected, in fact. The agent will answer to me for that, I can tell you!’
‘Dearest, if you would but sit down and discuss matters peacefully. You know how such tirades give me the headache.’
Daniel flung himself into a chair. ‘What is there to discuss? I shall refuse to become a guardian to some hobbledehoy about whom I know nothing and care even less!’
‘Is there - is that all the letter says?’
‘What? Oh, no. There's more. I am, if you please, to ensure that the Dower House at Ashdown is cleaned, aired and made ready to receive Mrs Carnforth and her son. How old is the brat, anyway?’
Thump went a clenched fist on the table again. ‘I am also to hire whatever servants are necessary to look after the place. And finally, I am to make suitable arrangements for the funeral.’ He ground his teeth quite audibly.
‘Precious one! Your teeth! You know how I hate that sound!’
He ignored her. ‘I shall have to arrange for the funeral, I suppose. As the heir, I can do no less.
And I suppose I must do something about the Dower House, too. It is her right to live there. But those are the only things I shall do! Guardian, indeed! Not so much as a by-your-leave! And to the son of a fortune-hunting harpy, who took advantage of a sick old man to worm her way into one of the oldest families in Dorset!’
Daniel, who had not met his cousin since he was ten years old, was basing his judgement on his knowledge of his own mother, who was roughly the same age as Charles had been, assuming that a gentleman in his fifties would be elderly, in ill health and susceptible to flattery - or whatever wiles that woman had used. Probably an actress, as his mother had said.
Celia gazed at her son in fascination. She had never seen Daniel so angry before. ‘I shall come with you to Ashdown Park, my dear son,’ she announced suddenly. ‘You cannot know how to organise such an important funeral,’ her tone became enthusiastic, ‘but I, alas, am very experienced in such matters.’
‘There's no n- ’
She ignored his interruption. ‘Besides, I haven't seen the place for years, not since you were a baby. I wonder if the Chinese Room is still there? Such a marvel it was reckoned in my younger days! And the house has a very e
legant facade - featured in several guidebooks to the county, you know.’
‘Yes, you told me.’
‘I do recall, however, that I found the woods very depressing. Such dark, gloomy places, woods!
Perhaps you could cut them down! My sensibilities are so acute! I must have peace and beauty around me, or I pine.’ She saw that Daniel's attention was wandering again and cut short her reminiscences.
He was torn between annoyance at the thought of having to continue suffering her company and the knowledge that she was right about his inexperience when it came to organising a funeral for a major landowner. He shrugged. He’d better take her with him. ‘Very well, Mama. I shall be grateful for your help with the funeral.’
He tried to be optimistic. No doubt she would return to Bath as soon as the obsequies were over.
She had very frequently voiced her detestation of rural life. Personally, he was more concerned with taking over management of the estate. He would make its restoration his life work.
Daniel’s pleasure in his inheritance diminished immediately he caught sight of it. Ashdown Park was in a far worse state than last time he’d visited the district. Grimly he followed the elderly agent round the neglected acres. The old-fashioned barns and cow-byres were so badly in need of repair that he thought it would be easier to knock them down and build new ones. He dreaded to think of the cost of that. There had better be some money left from the Carnforth fortune, or he didn’t know how he could afford to bring things up to scratch.
On and on it went! He was downright ashamed of the state of the cottages in which the estate workers were housed and could hardly bring himself to acknowledge their salutations. Many of the lanes were so deeply rutted as to be almost impassable after even a light rainfall, while as for the hedges, they were overgrown and . . .
The more the new owner investigated the way the estate had been let run down, the angrier he became. And couldn’t help showing his scorn about the mismanagement. Within two days, he had accepted the agent’s resignation, not caring to employ a man who had allowed this to happen. If his employer had refused to allow improvements to be made, the agent should have gone after him in person and made him understand what was needed. Daniel would have done that in the agent’s place. Instead, this man seemed to have settled for a quiet life and had simply let things fall down or moulder away.
Until he knew how he was left financially, Daniel decided not to employ another agent, but to take matters into his own very capable hands.
Once that decision had been taken, his mother saw little of him, for he was out from dawn till dusk, checking that the work he had put in train was being carried out properly and sometimes even helping with it himself. This soon began to win him the grudging approval of his tenants, in spite of his brusque way of speaking.
He got to know every copse and thicket on his land more quickly than anyone would have believed possible, as well as learning about the people who depended on him for their livelihoods.
He never forgot a name or face. And he accepted that things needed to be done without complaining or blaming anyone for the neglect, though he sometimes said bluntly that he couldn’t yet afford that, but would have to put it on his list.
‘He’ll do,’ they said in the village inn. ‘He's like his grandfather, this one is. A farming Carnforth, not a roistering Carnforth.’
Unlike his mother, Daniel fell in love with the woods around the house, though this didn’t blind him to the fact that a lot of work would be needed to set them in order, dead trees cleared and saplings planted to ensure renewal of the woods. It galled him to have to wait upon the lawyers before he could make a proper start in that, or in anything else.
In the evenings, Daniel usually joined his mother for a hasty meal, listened to her complaints for an hour or so (many of them concerning the lack of servants and the dilapidated state of the house), then escaped to shut himself up in the estate office and go through pile after pile of dusty papers.
Had no one ever thought to file them away neatly?
This task took him longer than he had expected, for the papers afforded him fascinating glimpses of the history of the Carnforth family. How he wished he could have grown up here and learned about his inheritance properly!
For once, Celia didn’t protest about her son's neglect, for she was enjoying herself enormously, going through all the cupboards in the house, re-arranging the furniture and ornaments, and planning the most splendid funeral the district had ever seen.
She was also pleased to receive visits from the other families in the neighbourhood. They were plain folk, most of them, worthy of course, but gentry rather than nobility, a bit stiff with her, she couldn’t think why.
Of the middling people, the parson and his wife were the first to call and offer a welcome to the new heir. Since the living was in the gift of the Carnforths, they couldn’t afford to offend the new owner. However, Henry Morpeth took an instant aversion to his lordship's mother and, when she developed a habit of driving over to the parsonage to discuss her latest ideas about the funeral (and these changed almost hourly, causing notes to be sent as well as visits to be made), Henry took to slipping out of the back door of his house and taking refuge in the vestry.
He had one or two close shaves, but fortunately for him, Mrs Carnforth seemed to be short-sighted. His wife nobly took the brunt of these visits and, by dint of agreeing to all suggestions, but declaring her inability to act without her husband's authority, she managed to put a stop to some of the wilder extravagances without giving offence.
Daniel assumed that his mother would see to the cleaning of the Dower House and the hiring of servants, while she conveniently forgot the need to make it ready for the new occupier. Why should she put herself out for such a woman? And anyway, Daniel must have set matters in train, since he hadn’t repeated his request.
But Celia did not forget to drop a few poisonous remarks about ‘that wicked woman who preyed on my poor cousin in his declining years’ into her conversations. And, although people had little time for her, the idea stuck that Charles Carnforth’s widow was an ill-bred harpy who had married him for his money.
Sylvia Morpeth did wonder whether something should be done about readying the Dower House for occupation, but when she mentioned the matter to her husband, he shuddered and begged her to do nothing that would bring ‘that dreadful Carnforth woman’ down upon them again.
‘Depend upon it,’ he said, ‘they are waiting to hear from the Dowager or Mr Napperby about the exact date of their arrival, and will do what is needed at the proper time.’
Chapter 14
Three weeks later, on a rainy afternoon in early August, an imposing procession of carriages passed through Asherby village and brought the inhabitants to their windows or doorways to stare through the driving rain and speculate about the occupants of the mud-splashed vehicles.
‘They’ve brung him back, I reckon,’ said one villager.
‘Who else can it be?’ her neighbour agreed.
‘Poor soul, he didn't make old bones,’ sighed a woman who remembered Charles Carnforth as a rather handsome young fellow who had once stolen a kiss from her at harvest home - when she had been young and rosy, with all her teeth still.
Many eyes noted all the details to be discussed at leisure later - the smart travelling chaise, the coach full of luggage, and the hearse, drawn by four weary black horses. Yes, they agreed, it could only be him.
As it had been pouring down for most of the last three days, reducing the roads to quagmires and making the farmers shake their heads about the prospects of a good harvest, the occupants of the carriages were only blurs seen through the hissing rain. Even the horses looked weary and dispirited and the coachmen were huddled in their greatcoats, not looking to right or left.
‘They'll be tired out,’ said Mrs Bagham, comfortable in her warm cottage near the green. ‘’Tis dreary work travelling in this weather. Pity we ha'n't got one of they railways to the villag
e, ent it?
That’d make things easier. Though they’d still have to get a carriage to take him to the big house.
We’re old-fashioned here, that we are.’
Mrs Bagham was all for progress and had actually ridden on a railway train when she went to visit her sister, who was in service in London. Since that time, she had not stopped boring her friends and neighbours with the details of this wonderful modern invention.
Men plodding home from their day's work paused to take off their hats and bow their heads as the hearse passed by. Respect paid, they strained to catch a glimpse of the wicked woman who had married poor Mr Charles, but all they could see was a veiled figure in black.
Inside the carriage it seemed almost as damp and chilly as outside and Helen sighed as she tried to wriggle some life into her numbed toes.
‘Nearly there now, my dear,’ said Mr Napperby encouragingly.
She managed a tired smile, for he had been very kind to her throughout the long sea journey, then she tried to move her cramped arm without waking up her son, who hadn’t proved any better at travelling than he had been as a tiny child. Harry hadn’t complained, but he was so wan and weary from the sickness that had embarrassed him at regular intervals on the ocean that he had at last fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. He lay now with his head on her lap, like the boy he was, not the brave man-child he’d tried to become since his step-father's death.
Mr Napperby followed her gaze. Good as gold, that lad had been, he thought, and him only nine too. He had several grandchildren of a similar age, and, fond of them as he was, he couldn’t imagine Tommy or naughty little Paul bearing up under adversity as Master Harry had done - or being so sensitive to their mother's needs.
With a quick apology to Helen, Mr Napperby let down the window and leaned out to direct the driver to turn left. He was a little dubious as to whether to take Mrs Carnforth and her son to the big house, or whether to go straight to the Dower House. In the end, he concluded that it was only polite to go to the big house first, where, no doubt, she and her son would be invited to stay until after the funeral.