The Widow (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 1)

by Mary Kingswood

  “Since you wish it, and if it will not distress Louis to be left, then I will do so,” she said. “Besides, if you have managed to persuade Julia to admit to being wrong about anything at all, it would be churlish of me not to help you to gloat in your triumph.”

  He laughed, and again she was struck by how much younger he looked when amusement lit his face. “You see, that is what I have missed all these years! Julia has no sense of the absurd at all.”

  “No, or she would have to laugh at herself,” Nell said, then was immediately mortified. “I beg your pardon, James, I should not speak so of Julia.”

  “You mean Lady Godney,” he said, in mock severity, which made Nell laugh too. “Do not apologise, Nelly, for Julia is too pompous for words these days, and you would not speak so to her face.”

  “I should not speak so to you, either.”

  “Oh, believe me, I am fully aware of all Julia’s faults. Now, do not misunderstand me, I am fond of her and content enough in my marriage. I chose her knowing perfectly well that it was not a love match, on either side. I envied you that, Nelly, did you know? You may have left under… difficult circumstances, but you and Caldicott were head over heels in love, and you have had nine blissful years together.”

  Nell could find no answer to that, so she merely smiled and said that she would see him at dinner, and tried not to think too much about those years of bliss. The bruises on her skin had healed well, but the bruises on her heart would never fade.

  7: Demureness And Wickedness

  James’s idea of a family dinner was rather more extensive than Nell’s. In addition to James, Nell and herself, she found the saloon also contained Julia’s scrounging brother Alfred Rutherford, Mr Lumley, the parish clergyman, together with his sister and two sisters-in-law, as well as a stout girl of sixteen, who was a Rutherford cousin being polished up for her come out. There were also two lawyers visiting from London.

  Nell knew and disliked Alfred Rutherford of old, and after making her greeting to him and finding herself intensively ogled by him through his quizzing glass, she moved promptly to the other end of the room where the clergyman and his family sat. She had not seen Mr Lumley since the day she and Jude had stood before him and plighted their troths, but she knew him for a kindly soul, who would be sympathetic and could be relied upon not to flirt with her.

  “My dear Mrs Caldicott, what sad news! I am so very sorry to hear of your husband’s tragic death,” Mr Lumley said.

  “Thank you, sir. How are you? And how is Mrs Lumley?”

  “Ah, you do not know. I had the great misfortune to lose my very dear wife to the grippe seven years ago, so you see, I know exactly how you are feeling at this moment.”

  Nell doubted it, but she made all the right noises, and listened patiently as Mr Lumley related all the long-drawn-out details of his wife’s final weeks and days and hours, with affecting descriptions of his own feelings at every stage of the process. Eventually, he said, “But tell me of your husband, Mrs Caldicott. He was lost at sea, I understand? What part of the great oceans saw his tragic end?”

  “The Cornish coast, sir, somewhere near Trehowick.”

  The two lawyers, who were sitting nearby, exchanged glances. “Not the Minerva?” one of them said.

  “It was indeed the Brig Minerva that my husband commanded,” Nell said. “You have read the reports, perhaps?”

  “Certainly,” he said. “It is a name on everyone’s lips just now. We have just come from Valmont, from His Grace the Duke of Falconbury’s interment, for we had some dealings with his estates, and were required to be there to hear the will read.”

  Miss Lumley leaned forward to say, “The poor young duke! Such a great loss to the nation! And his poor brother, grieving yet obliged to assume his new position. How is His Grace bearing up?”

  “As well as may be expected,” the lawyer said. “However, he is not intending to claim the title just yet. He has made it known that he will remain as Lord Randolph Litherholm for the present, until it is absolutely certain that his brother has not married and sired an heir. He was in America for three years, so—”

  “Oh, quite, quite!” Miss Lumley said, rather pink about the cheeks.

  The lawyer looked thoughtfully at Nell. “So your husband commanded the Minerva, eh? Interesting. There will be questions asked, I make no doubt. Yes, questions will be asked.”

  “Let them be asked,” Nell said stoutly. “Captain Caldicott was an experienced commander, trained in the Royal Navy, and I am certain nothing will be found amiss.”

  “Of course, of course,” the lawyer said. “I am sure you have nothing to worry about, Mrs Caldicott.”

  Which naturally made her very worried indeed.

  ~~~~~

  Despite Nell’s misgivings, the evening was not as difficult as she had feared. Julia said nothing to her all evening, playing the effervescent society hostess to the two lawyers and Mr Lumley, all of whom were either inured to her gushing manners, or too polite to show any distaste. At dinner Nell was seated between one of the two lawyers and James, who were both considerate enough not to expect a new widow to engage in conversation. The lawyer applied himself to his plate as if he had seen no food for a week, and James was much occupied in instructing Julia’s cousin in the finer points of society dining. Since he had grown up steeped in such conventions, and therefore had never been required to think about them before, his instructions were more confusing than helpful and the poor girl was constantly going wrong. Her cries of, “So sorry, Sir James!” punctuated the meal regularly.

  Nell sat quietly, both enjoying herself and simultaneously berating herself for doing so, when Jude’s poor body was even now resting in the churchyard at a remote village called Pendower in Cornwall. Unlike the Duke of Falconbury, Jude was not important enough or wealthy enough to justify the cost of bringing him home for burial. His worldly possessions, such as could be retrieved, were to be sent to her, but she could not imagine there was much to be sent, since the ship had sunk in the middle of the night. His nightshirt, perhaps. The ring he wore on a chain around his neck. Not much else.

  Somehow, Jude seemed very far away now. Nell had not yet come to think of herself as a widow, and sitting there in the family dining parlour beside James, every plate and wine glass and spoon as familiar as her own hand, she slipped readily back into the rôle of daughter of the house. She was still too numb to be sociable, but it was enough to sit quietly and watch and listen. There was comfort, too, in the feel of silk about her — the barely-worn gown, the petticoat frothing around her feet, the luxury of brand new stockings again — it was shallow of her, but such trivial solaces were balm to her spirits. The food was too elaborate for her taste, but there was plenty of it and oh, the joy of good wine again!

  When the ladies withdrew, she had the pleasure of seeing that the drawing room was exactly as it had always been. The saloon, where they had congregated before dinner, had been redone with surprising taste in the Chinese style. The dining room had also been refurbished, less successfully. But Julia’s hand had not yet reached the drawing room, and the pianoforte — her pianoforte, for it had been a present for her fourteenth birthday — called to Nell from its dais at the far end of the room. After a quick visit to her room to assure herself that all was well with Louis, she obtained permission to play and sat down at the instrument.

  At first she was too overcome to do more than run her fingers lightly over the keys, reminding herself of their cool beauty. Memories crowded in upon her — Mama in tears of happiness and Papa smiling proudly as she had performed for dinner guests. She must have been quite small then. The Italian singers she had played for at a musical evening who had called her ‘magnifica bambina’. The earl who had wanted to marry her at fourteen purely on account of her playing. And Jude… watching her with a smile on his face, always watching her. He had never taken his eyes off her, in those days. She had not seen such admiration in a man’s eyes for years until she had seen an echo of it
in Mr Harbottle recently.

  Abruptly, she began to play, something fast and fierce, complicated enough to distract her mind from the past. Gradually, the mellow notes of the instrument wove their magic around her, and she slipped into that drifting state where she was one with the music, her fingers and the keys so entwined together that the whole melody had only to float into her head for it to appear in the air, a fully-formed piece of music. In such a dream-like state, she could play for hours, entirely unaware of her surroundings.

  The gentlemen returned, tea was served and the card tables were set out, but Nell played on, barely conscious of what was happening in the rest of the room. It was only when she became aware of a pink-clad figure sitting quietly nearby that her fingers stilled at last.

  “You play so well,” the pink-clad figure breathed. Nell searched around in her mind for a name… Lucilla Rutherford, that was it. The young lady of sixteen who was preparing for her season in London.

  “Thank you,” Nell said, with a little smile. She herself was aware of her lack of practice on an instrument of such quality as this one, and again regretted that her own grand piano was sitting, unused and probably out of tune, in the Lloyds’ side of her house. “Would you like to play something? I have been monopolising the instrument rather, and would be glad to listen to another performer.”

  “Oh, no, I could not, not after you! I play a little, but nothing like that. I quite see now why Cousin Julia was always so jealous of you, for you play ten times better than she ever did, and you are ten times more beautiful, too. No, no! It is true! Mama said so, and now that I have met you I can quite see what she meant. I remember Cousin Julia wearing that gown, but she never looked half so well in it as you do. Your husband must have been a wonderful man to win your heart, for I daresay you had innumerable suitors.”

  “Yes… I thought he was wonderful.” Nell blinked away tears — such ridiculous sentimentality! Especially as it was so inappropriate, considering all things.

  “Oh dear, I did not mean to distress you,” Lucilla said. “My foolish mouth! Let us speak of other things. Did you have a season? Will you tell me about it? Is it a great deal of fun?”

  “I enjoyed mine,” Nell said, with a smile. “It can be very intense, however, if there are expectations placed upon you. Are you hoping to find a husband during yours?”

  “Oh no, not at all! I have already found the man I mean to marry, although Papa dislikes it extremely. He is only a curate, you see, and not two pennies to his name at present, but he will find a living soon, I am certain of it. Papa says it must not even be thought about until he has a good income and…” She blushed a little and lowered her head shyly. “…and we have proved our love will last. It will, we are both certain of it. He is the kindest man alive, and wishes me to have my season so that I may enjoy myself and see a little of the world before settling down. Is that not generous of him? So I am to have my season, and I am so looking forward to it, although it will not be until next year, or possibly the year after if I cannot learn to be demure, Mama says. I am not sure if I can manage that! I have never been the demure type, not like you. You are so composed and so beautifully mannered that I cannot imagine why Cousin Julia warned me away from you. She said you are very wicked, but you are not, are you? No one so beautiful could possibly be wicked.”

  “Oh, if only one could tell by a person’s appearance!” Nell said. “But you will find, when you go to London, that a beautiful exterior can hide a wicked heart, and a man of honour may hide behind a most unprepossessing exterior. It is often so, and therefore you must be guided by those wiser than you, Miss Rutherford.”

  “Oh, but I can tell for myself. I am a very good judge of character, though I am so young.”

  “Yet you think I am not wicked, but I am, I assure you.”

  “No!” she said robustly, eyes wide. “It is not possible.” Then after a moment’s thought, she added in a whisper, “Whatever did you do?”

  “I married against my father’s wishes,” Nell said quietly. “I was seventeen, and the man I loved was thirty and not in the least suitable for a baronet’s daughter, or so Papa said. He forbade me from seeing him. But I was not at all demure in those days and would not listen, so… I made it happen, and was thrown out of the family as a consequence. This is the first time I have returned here in nine years, and I am not at all welcome, I assure you. It is very uncomfortable to be cut off from one’s family, and although I shall never regret marrying Captain Caldicott, I regret that it caused a breach with my family.”

  Lucilla looked at her, eyes round at these revelations. “But how did you manage it? Make it happen, I mean… what did you do?”

  Nell laughed. “I should not tell you, but you are a sensible girl and perhaps my words will prevent you from making a mistake. Miss Rutherford, I did the thing that unmarried young ladies should never, ever do, and was thereby ruined and required to marry at once.”

  The eyes widened even more. “Ohhhh…!” Lucilla breathed.

  “Precisely,” Nell said crisply. “So be a good girl and do as your father bids you and wait patiently for your curate. There is a time and a place for spirited behaviour, but until you are wed, demureness has the upper hand, I should say.”

  ~~~~~

  Nell waited patiently all the next day for a summons to the library to talk to James, but he was closeted away with the lawyers. They seldom ventured away from London, but having been drawn to Hampshire for the funeral of the Duke of Falconbury, they were taking the opportunity to talk also with their other client in the county. Each time she enquired, she was told that Sir James was engaged and was not to be disturbed.

  So she and Louis sat in their room, Louis reading and Nell staring gloomily out of the window. It was fortunate that it was wet, or she would have been tempted to go out for a walk and revisit all her favourite parts of the gardens, and that would have done her no good at all. There had been many happy times, it was true, but so many places now were coloured by memories of Jude. The gazebo where he had first offered her his arm. The rose walk where he had gazed at her with fire in his eyes, and told her that he would never forget the way she looked that day. The folly on the hill where he had first kissed her. And then there was the summer house where she had crept out to meet him that night and thus sealed her fate. Good memories, but clouded by time and later events. She did not regret what she had done, but her life would have been very different if she had obeyed her father and stayed in her bed that night.

  After a while, Louis stealthily edged nearer to her post on the window seat, and nudged her arm.

  “Look,” he said, holding a book out to her, opened at the flyleaf. It was the book that had been given to him by Mr Harbottle, and on the leaf she read, ‘To Louis Caldicott, with every good wish from his friend, Nathan Harbottle’.

  “He inscribed it — how thoughtful!” she said, her spirits lifting a little. “He is a kind man.”

  “And my friend,” Louis said proudly. “He says so. I wish I could see him again.”

  “Do you?”

  “Mm. I would like to say thank you. Properly.”

  “You could write to him,” Nell said. “Should you like that? We could write to him now, if you wish. The escritoire has everything we need, for Uncle James has plenty of paper and ink and quills and sealing wax.” Seeing his anxious face, and knowing that he had never written with a pen, she added, “You could tell me what you want to say, and I could write it for you, if you like. Then you need only sign your name at the bottom. I shall be your scribe.”

  He nodded, and she sat down, prepared her pen and drew a sheet of paper from the drawer. A whole sheet, fresh and new and of the best quality — such luxury. “Now, we must put where we are first, Daveney Hall, and then today’s date, like so… and then the salutation. Now, what would you like to say?”

  He spoke and she wrote, and although it was not perhaps the best composed letter she had ever read, it was heartfelt and would, she was sure, brin
g a smile to Mr Harbottle’s handsome face. She smiled herself as she imagined him opening it, realising who had sent it and then perhaps chuckling at one or two phrases. Yes, it must please him.

  She had only just sent the letter off with one of the footmen when there was a tap on the door, and James’s head appeared. “Ah, there you are. I have another book for Louis, which I thought of only an hour ago. Another perspective on Byng, you see.”

  Louis whisked it from his hands with a hasty, “Thank you, sir!” and ran across to the desk to read it at once.

  “Clever boy, that one,” James said. “He will do well at Winchester.”

  “Winchester? You have decided on his schooling already?”

  James looked at her in surprise. “Where else? All the Godney boys go to Winchester.”

  “Oh.” That was good, she supposed. He had accepted his rôle as Louis’ guardian without demur. Somehow, she had expected more resistance. A lesser school, certainly. Julia would not like the idea of a sailor’s son being educated at the same establishment as the sons of the baronets of Daveney Hall. “James, have you the leisure to talk to me now? I have no wish to try Julia’s patience by extending my stay, and I only need a little of your time.”

  His face shifted, and she saw the reluctance there. However, he nodded. “The lawyers are still going through papers in my library, so come through to the tower.”

  After arranging for a nursemaid to keep watch over Louis, Nell followed her brother along corridors, down a service stair, past the old buttery and through to what was known as the Tudor wing. It was probably not so old as that, but it was certainly the oldest part of the house and, unlike most of it, had never been remodelled to bring it into the nineteenth century, or even the eighteenth. It was full of solid oak furniture, gloomy paintings and dark wood panelling, and Nell had never much liked it. At one corner, however, was the suite of rooms which had traditionally been allocated to the heir to the baronetcy. Here James had lived from the age of twelve, with his own dining room, parlour and study, with several bedrooms above to house visiting friends.