by Joan Smith
He looked inordinately pleased at the tizzy into which he had thrown me, and I resolved to show less of my concern. He answered blandly, “My great-grandfather built the place for his sister-in-law, who was a Tilbridge. She was an invalid and required a place by the sea, right on the sea. The solarium was built for her convenience."
I believe I have neglected to mention elsewhere in this disjointed story that Seaview has a solarium, which is nothing other than a large, glassed-in porch that is too hot in summer and I am convinced will be uncomfortably draughty in winter. A useless thing, and not very attractive either since it ruins the lines of the place, sticking out between two sham flying buttresses as it does. Slack has put forward the idea of using it for a conservatory, but at the moment it holds no more than three geraniums, rapidly turning yellow since we don’t often remember to water them.
He continued, “Miss Tilbridge left the place to a niece, and after a few more changes of hands in various wills it fell into Lady Inglewood’s family. Our two families are connected slightly through marriage. But it is not the custom ever for any of my family to let land go irrecoverably out of our hands, and at the end of ninety-nine years the land is to revert to Claverings, whatever about the house.”
“How many years of the lease are up?” I asked. I thought from his wily smile he was about to say ninety-eight, but it wasn’t quite that desperate.
“Eighty,” he said.
It was a frightful blow. That my aunt would play such a low, underhanded trick was bad enough, that I who prided myself a little on my intelligence should be such an easy dupe was worse, but the most severe blow, of course, was that I didn’t own the land on which my house stood.
Before I was required to reply, Slack was back, puffing from a very fast dash to the strongbox where vital documents are kept. She waved them in her hands, pulling off the ribbons and opening them to read in detail what we should have read before. She read aloud the legal mumbojumbo of parties of the first part and parties of the second part, and with an impatient hand I grabbed them from her, to find myself, too, in a sea of heretofore’s and aforementioned’s.
“If you will permit me,” Clavering said, and held out a peremptory hand for the papers. He turned them over to the last page, and there in fine print, though no finer than the rest of the document, to be fair, were the accursed words. “The property held in lease by the Duke of Clavering till January 1, AD. 1832, at which time it reverts to his sole ownership and discretion.”
He held the page in one hand and pointed out the relevant passage with a surprisingly well-shaped finger of the other. On his small finger of the pointing hand a heavy gold ring sat, catching the glow from the sun in a large emerald. Still when I think of my poor leased land, I think of that pointing finger, like a finger of fate, and the green stone winking somberly in the sun. I read it once, twice, a third time. The words did not change, and I could still not believe it.
“Do you mean to say that, that—woman sold me a house that has no land to go with it?” I stormed futilely.
“It certainly seems you made the error of buying a house that stands on land belonging to me,” he agreed with a truly hateful look. Not a smirk but a suppressed smirk, which is infinitely worse. “Tell me, was the purchase, like your ride, a first?”
“Yes, and like the ride, I took a fall, but this is not the end of it.”
He lifted the documents from my fingers. I had snatched them back from him, but he now scanned the papers casually. “Everything here is in order. What do you hope to do about it?”
“Wring her neck,” I said grimly.
"That will help cool your anger, but little else. I have a more practical suggestion to rectify your error."
I looked my question, too distraught to speak, but quite aware of that unnecessary “your error."
“Sell Seaview to me,” he said.
“No!” The response was instinctive. It came out without thought or effort on my part, but it was my feeling: I loved my old sham Gothic mansion. It was like a little fairy castle, a miniature castle on miniature grounds, but it was what I wanted. Inside it was well divided with a few large rooms. I liked the view of the sea, and in spite of her criminal tendencies, I liked dealing with Aunt Ethelberta, too. I had no desire to leave Sussex.
“I know you paid too much for the place, but I am willing to purchase it from you at the same price,” he said reasonably.
I suspected the price I had paid Lady Ing was a good one, though the estate agent in Pevensey assured me it was not exorbitant. Her good friend, no doubt.
“How do you know what I paid for it?” I asked. It seemed the Duke knew a great deal more about me than I knew about him. He knew where I lived when we had met in the spinney, and though I couldn’t remember having a name put to me, no doubt he knew that as well.
“I took the trouble to find out. Three thousand pounds, was it not?”
“Yes, it was, and I do not consider it excessive.”
“Considering the unusual circumstance of the leased land, I doubt she would have found many takers, but, of course, you know what it is worth to you to live for nineteen years in a draughty, uncomfortable, decrepit old house."
Every instinct demanded a rude reply to this speech, but it was my desire to ingratiate the Duke to get him to renew the lease for another ninety-nine years, so I held in my anger. “Surely another lease can be arranged..." I began placatingly.
“I think not.”
“You have no need of it! Belview is huge.” Clavering’s home was a spot known to me only by reputation. So far as actual appearance went, I had seen no more than a tantalizing hint or two from behind the treed park. A branch of beech would sway to reveal a crenellated edge of roof standing against the sky, or a glimpse of a turret, or bartizan swelling out from a corner.
“I do not require it for myself, but I require it.”
“What for?”
The black brows rose perceptibly, and a spark of anger lit his dark eyes. He suddenly looked more duke than gypsy. His Grace was not accustomed to account to anyone for his whims. He hesitated long enough for me to realize the question was an impertinence. At length he replied unhelpfully, “For a relative.”
“It is said that Belview has fifty bedrooms. I can’t think one of them could not house your relative.”
Again there was a pause, then he decided to humour me with an answer. “Sixty actually, but my aunt is ill—lung trouble—and requires sea air without the inconvenience of a large house. Seaview is closer to the sea than I am, and it has the solarium."
One would think his aunt was to have the “inconvenience” of polishing the floors and windows to hear him speak. “It isn’t that much closer, and as to the solarium it is more of a nuisance than anything else. It is very uncomfortable. We never use it.”
“You are not invalids. My aunt would use it.”
“She will not use it for nineteen years, sir. By that time I trust she will be either recovered to health or dead.”
“Suit yourself. You have made a bad bargain, and I thought any intelligent person would be happy to extricate herself so easily. You will find no surfeit of buyers for a house that boasts no land of its own, not even the ground it stands on.”
“I don’t want a surfeit of buyers, or even one.”
Again that maddening, superior smile was on his hateful gypsy face. “You will look nohow when it is discovered in Pevensey how Lady Inglewood gulled you,” he said, trying a new tack to make me sell.
“I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.”
“I thought otherwise. Your quite foolish, and really very dangerous maiden ride in a spinney without a groom to help you led me to believe you preferred to keep your blunders to yourself. You should take your first lessons in a clear area that offers soft falling and no dangerous trees or obstacles. An enclosed field is recommended. And never alone, just in case you should get thrown—or dismount precipitately—and hurt your knee.”
“I
did not dismount precipitately.”
“You did not dismount at all, madam. The word denotes some choice in the matter. You fell, due to your unique method of buckling the girth loosely. If you ever screw up your courage to try it again, get some help. And you would do better to get yourself a tame mount rather than tackling that spitfire Lady Inglewood keeps. I’m surprised she would let you out on such a spirited mount.”
“She has nothing to say about what I ride. She is not my chaperone.”
“Surely she has something to say about your ruining her favourite mount’s mouth with that manner in which you clutch at the reins.”
“Juliette is my horse.”
“Good God! Gulled again,” he said, in a choking voice, and went off into a series of ill-bred chuckles. He arose, still laughing. “I come to see you will be extremely easy to deal with. You will buy anything, and I have some hope that you will also sell me Seaview before many days are out.”
“Hillcrest is not for sale.”
“I am not interested in buying McCurdy’s place. It is this house that stands on my land I am after. And shall get, tard ou tôt. Good day, ma’am.” He executed two abbreviated bows toward Slack and myself and left.
“I never met such an insufferably rude man in my life,” I said to Slack.
“Sell it,” she replied.
“Sell Hillcrest! I wouldn’t sell it for the world.”
“You never called it Hillcrest before today, and it is too foolish to start doing so now, only because the Duke says it is called Seaview. He is a nasty, foreign-looking person to be sure, and not to be trusted any more than any other man, but still he offered a fair bargain, and I’m surprised you didn’t leap at it.”
“Why does he want it? Why should he want this little place when he owns Belview, a monstrous house, and half the land between here and Dover. No, Slack, there is something afoot here, and I mean to find out what it is."
My next move was to go storming over to Lady Inglewood’s and give her the sharp edge of my tongue. She was very civil, as she always is when she has won a point and knows very well she has been dishonest.
“Oh, my dear, you are limping. I hope you didn’t take a spill from Juliette.”
She wore bile green today, draped to reveal the layer of fat that encircled her waist like a cincture.
“No, I twisted my knee coming down the stairs. The corner of the carpet at the bottom of the .stairs is loose, but I shall have it repaired.” Slack scowled at me, for she is a demon for honesty. “I like Juliette very much. I have had my first ride, and we go on famously.”
She looked unconvinced, and so, of course, knew very well she had sold me a mount much too frisky for my nonexistent skills, but it was the leased land I had come to argue about and was not to be diverted by a trifle. “I have sustained a call from the Duke of Clavering,” I said, squaring my shoulders for battle.
“So unpleasant for you,” was her commiserating reply.
“Unpleasant in the extreme, to discover my land is not my own.”
“Oh, you refer to the leased land. But of course that is all in the papers. You knew that. I made no effort to conceal it. No one would sign such an important document without reading it all.”
“You never mentioned a word of it!”
“You never asked.”
“I never asked if the house were yours to sell either. I assumed that when my own aunt..."
“We discussed, I believe, the matter of the Dower House not being entailed with the estate but my own personal property.”
This was her line, and she stuck to it buckle and thong. She let fall a few casual mentions of having consulted her solicitor on the matter, which I make no doubt she had done. “So it is all legal, and you must speak to Clavering on the matter. He will renew the lease, for a price.”
“I have spoken to him. He won’t renew it.”
“Pshaw! Of course he will. What did you offer him?”
“I didn’t offer him anything.”
“Well, my dear, you can’t expect something for nothing. Make him an offer. Say five hundred pounds for another ninety-nine years. See if he don’t jump at it.”
"No, he wants to buy the place from me."
“Does he indeed?” she asked, with a light of interest in her eyes. “Did he mention a price?"
“Yes, he offered me the price I paid for it, though of course, he found it very high, considering the leased land,” I added with a glare.
“Well, there you are, then. If you dislike the bargain we made, you can be out of it easily enough and no harm done."
This was so patently true that I found myself at point non plus. I could hardly complain about the deal when it could be undone with a word.
We—for, of course, Slack accompanied me on this important visit—were left without a thing to say, and settled in for a chat. We had a cup of bohea and some of my aunt’s really lovely scones. She relented and gave Slack the recipe for them on that day—a treat formerly denied us. We were returned to superficial terms of amity. It was usually thus between us. We were at undeclared war but claiming friendship because of kinship. I imagine it is the manner in which many families go on. But enough philosophizing. The door knocker sounds, and I must hide these pages in a drawer or find someone perusing them whom I would prefer not to do so till I have glanced over them and seen if I have been too harsh on anyone.
* * *
Chapter 3
The fact of George’s being absent when we called upon my aunt that afternoon necessitated his coming that evening to woo me. George, I presumed, took after his papa. He bore no resemblance to his mother. He was a tall, gangly, unprepossessing gentleman, with lank brown hair, a weak chin, and a mouth that had two positions, sulking and grinning. It is difficult to determine which was the less appealing. He wore mouth number two when he entered, grinning. I suppose the grin is actually the less repulsive of the two. Grown men ought not to sulk.
“I hear Clavering was to call,” he said, before ever he took a seat.
“Yes, he called early this afternoon.”
“Odd he is at home. With autumn coming on he is usually in London. He is active in Parliament, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” I replied, with no effort to feign interest.
“Oh, yes, very active, though I don’t know exactly what it is he does. He is a Whig. But there has been a spot of trouble lately with the Gentlemen, and he might be here to look into that.”
“What gentlemen?” I asked, with some curiosity.
“The Gentlemen,” he repeated. George is not bright. Sometimes it is necessary to rephrase a question three or four times before he understands it. Even this does not ensure a meaningful reply. On this occasion, Slack devised the second rendition.
“This is Whig gentlemen you’re talking about, is it, George?” Slack is altogether incomprehensible to me. She dislikes ninety-nine men out of a hundred, but for some obscure reason, she has taken a liking to George and treats him with not only civility but downright kindness.
“Lord, no. I mean the smugglers,” he replied, giving us at last his meaning.
“Smugglers?” Slack gasped. I did not gasp. I had heard mention in town of smuggling activities going forth. It is only to be expected on the coast, of course.
“What sort of trouble has there been?” I enquired.
“Caught a bunch of them red-handed. Clavering takes a dim view of smuggling. He’ll speak to the magistrate and see they’re dealt with severely.”
“What has Clavering to say about it?”
“He pretty well runs things hereabouts. Well, a Duke, and his family have been forever. There is no point Mama telling me I ought to..." Perhaps he forgot his mother’s instructions to him. “He has the magistrates and all the politicians in his pocket.”
“I am surprised he wastes his time with such a petty matter,” I said. “Surely with the war on and the country in such an abominable state, with everyone being taxed to death and the d
rop in value of the pound eating up the little that is left us, a politician should be better occupied than out chasing a few miserable smugglers.”
“Well, he is a law and order man,” George explained. “Then, too, there were hunters caught on his lands lately, and that would annoy him no end.”
“Any gentleman who owns the better part of a county must expect that,” I replied irately.
“Not Clavering. He’s posted, and they oughtn’t to have been on his land.”
“What do you mean, posted?”
“Why, he’s put his signs up. You must have seen his signs. Hunting is not allowed on private property if the owner posts signs. Otherwise, of course, those entitled to hunt may hunt anywhere. Game laws,” George explained, rather inadequately.
“Do you mean to tell me, George, that any man with a gun may go on any other man’s property and shoot his game?”
“Certainly not! Only owners of land worth more than a hundred pounds a year, the eldest sons of squires or higher-placed persons, or lessees of land worth one hundred and fifty a year are allowed to hunt game."
“But they may do so anywhere? They could go on your land or mine and shoot our rabbits and we couldn’t stop them?”
“Certainly you can run them off, but they are allowed to come on unless told otherwise.”
“I never heard of such a thing in my life!” I declared. I first doubted George had the thing straight, but if there was one thing he did know, it was hunting, and the wealth of detail he was in possession of denoted real knowledge. He would not have the wits to make up arbitrary figures.
“The act was passed in 1671 and is still in effect,” he informed, finding no fault with this iniquitous situation. “If you don’t want them on your land, of course, you can kill your own foxes, for it’s mostly fox they shoot. But then if you kill your foxes, the rabbits breed like rabbits.” He detected no humour in this comparison. “Really it’s six of one and half a dozen of t’other. Clavering killed his foxes, dashed bounder, but his lands are alive with rabbits and badgers and all the smaller game that don’t get ate up by the foxes. Dandy shooting at Belview there’d be if it weren’t for the traps.”