by Joan Smith
“Oh, yes, they are still active,” he told me, without a moment’s hesitation.
“I have heard that in wartime they do less smuggling because France is not safe for them.”
“Ever since Boney went to Prussia, it has been going on much as it used to. Englishmen don’t stop drinking brandy and buying silk only because of a war.”
“The majority of it comes ashore at Romney, I understand.”
“Most of it, for the landing is easier there, and concealment, too, but from Margate to Bournemouth there are men engaged in it. We have some right here in Pevensey.”
“Officer Smith keeps a close eye on them, I should think.”
“He does what he can, but he’s no Argus with a hundred eyes. He took a boatload a week or so ago, but there is collusion between them, of course.”
“The revenuemen let them through for a price, you mean?”
“They have clamped down pretty heavily on that. There was some scandal of one fellow, Lazy Louie they call him, who had the revenuemen from Romney to Pevensey on the take, and they dismissed the officers. It amazes me that Lazy Louie walks the streets a free man this day. Bribed the judge, I suppose,” he said, laughing.
“What did you mean by collusion, then, if the practice has been stopped?”
“You must know the smugglers are in an excellent position to do a little spying for England. Who but they would know if Boney is assembling a flotilla at Boulogne? Some of them are spies as well as smugglers, with a gentleman’s agreement that they will not be caught, I think. They do a great deal of good in their former capacity and little enough harm in the latter if you don’t bother them. The government is taxing us to death. Ten percent on our income wasn’t enough, they had to raise it for the war, and a guinea a head for male servants, a tax on our carriages and our windows and I don’t know what else. They could at least let a man have a glass of brandy without paying through the nose for it. I don’t buy smuggled brandy myself, but I drink it. A little, I mean—I don’t blink an eye if a friend offers me a glass of brandy. I know it is smuggled, but I don’t resent it, and it is no secret every inch of silk at Peters’ Drapery Shop is smuggled.”
My mind flew to my green silk gown, and I felt that I, too, was an unwitting accessory to the Gentlemen.
“Well, half the men doing it are so poor it is all that is keeping body and soul together,” he went on. “With the common lands enclosed they have nowhere to graze a cow, and with fellows like Clavering trapping their land so that even a hare is beyond them, what are they to do? Of course they can fish. We on the coast can at least depend on cheap and ready food from the sea.”
We arrived at Eastbourne, a quaintly formal little place, rather elegant in appearance. McMaster went to the grain merchant, and I poked about the shops for an hour, meeting him for lunch at an inn. It was a trifle chilly on the way home. Quite a brisk breeze blew in from the ocean, and when we got to Hillcrest, I asked him in for tea. Slack was on her high ropes at having been abandoned. She had not gone to visit Lady Inglewood, after all, but had sat home the whole time to make me feel guilty.
She succeeded only in making me angry. “Cut off your nose to spite your face if you like,” I told her, after McMaster had taken his tea and left us. In retaliation she kept from me a note that had been delivered at our door shortly after my departure. This was not given over to me till an hour after dinner, when we were sitting by the grate where we had again laid a fire. No rattling had followed the lighting, and I assumed it was at an end.
“Oh, this note came for you after you left,” she told me then and handed me an envelope bearing a crest. I am morally certain she hadn’t forgotten it for a moment but kept it back for spite.
“Kind of you to bother giving it to me,” I replied, mistaking it for my aunt’s stationery. Naturally, Aunt Ethelberta used nothing but crested paper. In fact, the ugly Inglewood crest designed by some totally unaesthetic person adorned many of her belongings. But this was not her crest. I did not recognize it at once, but as I was acquainted with only one other titled person, I had a fair idea it was from Clavering, as indeed it was.
“If it is an offer to purchase Hillcrest, I will pitch it straight into the grate,” I said angrily.
It was not an offer to purchase. It was a bare two lines scrawled in black ink in a fist that managed to be both casual and arrogant. The two lines filled the card, as Clavering’s black presence filled a room. “Please come to tea tomorrow at four o’clock,” it said, and was signed “Clavering.” Not your obedient servant, or yours truly, or anything but “Clavering.” Blunt to the point of rudeness. He could make even a social invitation an insult.
“You should have given it to me sooner and I could have sent in our refusal,” I told her, handing the note along to her.
“Refusal? Will you not accept?”
“Certainly not. This is no invitation; it is a summons.”
“I’d like to see Belview. It looks very interesting from what I can glimpse through the trees.”
“We would be overset by mantraps along the road, I fancy. I shall not accept.” She returned the card, and I flung it into the flames.
“Lady Inglewood says he asks no one there,” she began, trying to tempt me.
“Which means he does not ask her.”
“It would be fun to go to spite her.”
“What a petty mind you hide behind that pious face, Slack. I’m ashamed of you. Well, I suppose I can’t reply before tomorrow. I don’t intend sending my servants out into the night.”
“You might change your mind.”
I saw Slack was eager to go. I was curious to see Belview myself but would not accept a summons. “My mind is made up.”
We discussed the trip to Eastbourne, and I painted a rosy picture to give Slack an idea what she had missed by her sullen temper.
“It seems I am not to go to Eastbourne and not to go to Belview. I might as well take to my bed, for it seems I am to go nowhere of any interest!”
“You go to visit Belview if you think it is your company he seeks. But pray don’t sell Hillcrest out from under me. That is what this invitation is all about.”
"I know it, but we could go without selling the house."
The knocker sounded. It was nine o’clock in the evening. If George came in the morning, he came at eleven; if in the evening, at nine. I assumed we were to have the pleasure of looking at the back of whatever magazine he chose to read this evening, and waited for his shuffling entry. The firm tread on the hallway floor told me it was not George even before the deep voice spoke. “Evening, Wilkins. Are the ladies at home?”
It was Clavering, come in person for a reply to his invitation. He was certainly eager to buy my house. The evening took an unexpected turn. Slack found herself a beau, but I shall write all about it in the next chapter. It deserves its own, and I am too fagged to do it justice at this time.
* * *
Chapter 5
Clavering waited to be announced on this occasion, adopting formal manners to match his attire. He wore black evening clothes, jacket, and pantaloons. I surmised he had been out to dinner, but was incorrect.
“I have just seen the last of my guests home and took the liberty of dropping in to see if you had my invitation,” he said, helping himself to a chair with a mere vestige of a bow, a ducking of the head really toward us both in turn.
If he had been seeing guests home, I took for granted they were female guests and felt some little anger that he invited us to tea, others to dinner. I had placed little reliance on my aunt’s statement that he did not entertain. Certainly a man in his position must entertain lavishly.
“Yes, I just received it this moment. Miss Slack forgot to give it to me earlier. I was out all day. Very kind of you to offer, but I’m afraid we are busy tomorrow.”
“All day? We could make it a morning visit, if that is more convenient for you."
“Yes, all day,” I said firmly.
&n
bsp; “And the evening? Are you free for dinner?”
“We are dining out,” I lied amiably. Slack told me later I used a very spiteful tone of voice, but that was only her anger at my rejecting all his offers.
“How busy you manage to make yourself in this quiet little backwater. Morning, noon, and night.”
“Quite so. Taking advantage of the good weather while it lasts, you know, and the roads are passable.”
Slack’s temper came to the boil and then boiled over. “We could cancel tea with Lady Inglewood very easily,” she informed me.
We had no plans for tea with my aunt, no plans of any sort, but this she considered would force me to accept Clavering’s invitation. “I wouldn’t like to do that,” I told her with a repressive stare.
“Surely she would forgive you. You are neighbours. You might visit her any time; I am here only for a few days and would like to see you at Belview,” Clavering said.
I felt a little pang then at my refusal. Really I was very curious to see Belview, and if he would soon be leaving, when might we have another opportunity? I sat undecided, and silent.
"I should think you would be interested to see it, since it is the model of your own home. I had thought to give you a tour of the house. It has some interesting features—a Marine Room with a good collection of shells, and some quite intriguing Roman artifacts.”
“Well, perhaps..." I said, intercepting a vigorous nod from Slack.
“Your aunt will not mind in the least. It’s settled you come to tea at four o’clock,” Clavering said in a very high-handed manner, then turned immediately to other topics. “As you were away all day, I assumed you did not ride at all?”
“No, I drove over to Eastbourne with Mr. McMaster. It seems a charming city.”
“They have a fair museum,” he answered. I had not seen it, nor heard that it possessed such a place.
“What sort of museum?” Slack asked.
“Oh, a Roman museum, of course,” he answered, as though there were no other kind. “About your grate, Miss Denver, has it ceased troubling you with its noise?”
“Yes, it has been very good lately. Not a sound out of it today. I think it has settled down and am very happy, for we have checked everything from cellar to chimney and can’t see what should be causing it. We were half afraid of ghosts.”
"You believe in ghosts?” he asked, in quite a polite voice.
"Certainly not: It was a joke, though it was a very odd noise all the same.”
"I could swear I heard voices when you were in the cellar,” Slack said.
"Where did they come from? What part of the room?” Clavering asked as he arose and walked to the grate. It was Slack who kept speaking about voices. I wished she would let the matter drop, or he’d take us for a pair of nervous spinsters, but, no, she joined him and tried to decide from behind which stone the voices had come.
“It seemed to be more on this side,” she said, pointing to the right-hand side. The fireplace is on the east wall, facing Clavering’s land, as I believe I mentioned earlier. The south wall faces the sea and is all windowed. In the corner between the fireplace and front wall there is a large, nicely carved parson’s bench with a high back. The room is panelled three-quarters of the way to the ceiling, and the bench blends in perfectly with it, being of the same wood and carved in the same manner, with a trefoil design repeated three times at the top of the arched panels, to fill in the point. I have often seen such a design in the pews of old Gothic churches.
“The fireplace itself or the bench?” Clavering asked. I felt he was making a deal too much of her foolish imaginings, and perhaps he knew it, too, for Slack tells me I have acquired a revolting way of twitching my shoulders and pursing my lips at such times of displeasure. If this description is true, and I sincerely hope it is not, I say in my own defence it is a mannerism I picked up from herself. One I always considered the peculiar prerogative of old maids and had determined to avoid.
“A bit in between,” she informed him, and walked to his side. Now I have told you Slack dislikes men, especially masculine men, whereas she occasionally takes a shine to a man-milliner like George, what Papa would have called a “skirter.” Yet another facet of her personality has not been shown. It is about to reveal itself now. I think she dislikes real men because she thinks they hate her, or are laughing at her, or some such thing. Only let them show a jot more than the minimum of politeness and she falls under their spell like the veriest schoolgirl with her Italian dancing master. I could see in her pleased glances at Clavering that if I didn’t watch her closely, she would begin touting him up to me as an excellent fellow.
"This is nonsense,” I said firmly, and refused to leave my chair to join them in the search for the echo of an echo.
They both ignored me. “Maybe more from the wall than the grate,” I heard Slack say next, and she began glancing along the panelled wall, as though the imaginary sound may have left a visible trace. And Clavering, who was certainly up to something, went right along with her foolishness, tapping panels and putting his ear to the wall for hollow sounds.
“It was the metal in the chimney expanding with the heat,” I said.
“The fire wasn’t lit the first time,” Slack reminded me. “Could it have come from the bench, I wonder,” she went on, enjoying very much showing me she had Clavering’s attention. Oh, yes, he would be a paragon before she went to bed that night. If he went much further, she’d be trying to tell me the swarthy old gypsy was handsome.
“Maybe if we moved the bench away from the wall..." she said, already placing her hands on one end to assist the Duke of Clavering to move my furniture about, and likely discover a roll of dust and a ridge of grime behind it.
“It doesn’t move. It’s built in,” he told her.
I don’t know why it should have annoyed me so much that he knew things about my house I didn’t know myself. “Nonsense, of course it moves,” I heard myself say. And I was the one who wanted this folly stopped.
He didn’t say a word but lifted his black brows at me and put his two hands around the corners of it and began pulling and heaving. It was awkward to get a good hold on it, because it went right to the floor; it was not on feet.
“All right. Please stop before you pull it loose from the wall!” I said angrily, for it was perfectly plain that if that ox couldn’t budge it, it didn’t budge.
“Really, I think the voices came from a place closer to the fireplace,” Slack then said, unwilling to have her moment of glory shortened.
"I begin to think they emanated from your head, Slack.” I said. She had become so infatuated with her new beau that she didn’t bother to reply, but only smiled at Clavering in a way that said as clear as day, I must humour the moonling.
Clavering too decided to humour me, and they both took a seat. “Well, I believe the Duke has earned a glass of wine, Priscilla,” Slack told me.
“I hope a guest in my house doesn't have to earn a glass of wine by rearranging my furniture,” I said, quite curtly, and she was off with a swish of her black skirts to get not only wine but macaroons, nuts, and dried cherries. This was treatment reserved for her special pets. It was not just any visitor—duke or no—who was favored with the dried cherries. Even George in his heyday never got so much as a glimpse of them. They were from her own private store. The nuts and wine and macaroons were household stock, but the cherries were kept in a tin box in Slack’s own room. She must have flown up those stairs on wings of delight, for she wasn’t gone a moment yet had assembled the feast from three different corners of the house.
Clavering proceeded to put on a performance that was as disgusting as anything I have witnessed in my life. “I am worried about you two ladies alone here and at the mercy of the smugglers,” he said, dipping into the cherries.
“Officer Smith assures us there is not the least danger,” I told him.
“Oh, poor Smith. He never catches anyone, so refuses to believe the smugglers are active.”
/>
“I understand he caught a boatload about a week ago,” I said.
“Caught them bringing two kegs down from Romney. Some catch! It’s time I replace him.”
“Have you been put in charge of customs?” I asked him.
“I have always had a hand in it, and in most local appointments,” was his insolent reply. “I think I shall send two of my stout footmen down here at night to watch over the place for you.” This was said to Slack, intimating no doubt to that besotted ninny that he didn’t want a precious hair of her head touched.
“We have a butler and two footboys, as well as the groom. Thank you all the same,” I told him.
“Still, I’ll send my men down to give them a hand. Your butler is old, and your footboys and groom only boys.”
“I would much prefer it if you keep your footmen at home.”
Again the two exchanged that smile of toleration for the moonling, and Clavering hunched his hulking shoulders, taking another fistful of cherries. The pair then went on to a discussion for which I can find no other word than flirtation. Before I knew what was happening, Slack, usually so discreet, was telling the private details of her life, which involved in no small degree those of my own. I had the pleasure of hearing that I was not a bad child to mind, though always self-willed and headstrong to an extraordinary degree. I was a quick learner but would not apply myself unless goaded unmercifully.
“I don’t envy you your task, ma’am,” he told her, and held his glass out for her to refill to the brim. I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least had she dashed to the cupboard for a larger glass. Slack’s pets are force fed. It is the manner in which she shows favour.