Miss Westlake's Windfall

by Barbara Metzger

  Ada fancied the idea of being dressed as a lady from the days of chivalry, if they could find anything resembling a wimple, farthingale, or stomacher. Surely the sisters could unearth something they could make into an embroidered overdress, even if they had to use the table runner Lady Ashmead had presented to them last Christmas. The fact that Chas was to be garbed as a knight of old had nothing whatsoever to do with Ada’s decision. Tess’s epic needed all the publicity it could get.

  Having taken trunks down from the attic, Ada proceeded to carry a few boxes up. With Jane’s cousin Algernon due home any moment, Ada wanted to hide whatever weapons and ammunition she could. Mr. Johnstone, it seemed, had taken Rodney’s hunting rifle, but Ada stashed away the dueling pistols, the fowling piece, the butler’s old blunderbuss, and the extra shot. She could always say she sold them, to pay for the damages Cousin Algie was sure to incur. If anyone complained about the house being unprotected, too bad. Ada felt safer with the guns out of Algie’s hands.

  Next she inventoried the nearly bare linen closets with Mrs. Cobble, the butler’s wife who was acting as both cook and housekeeper, spoke to one of her herdsmen about winter forage, and to a tenant farmer about his leaking roof. She promised to try to find funds for them all.

  Finally she was ready to set out for Squire Hocking’s, with her sack of gold and silver, enough for most, if not all, her immediate needs, even the green gauze Tess required for her trailing seaweed. They’d just have to use paints, and hope for a rain-free evening, for Ada could not consider the money as theirs. She stuffed it back into her muff, thinking of it more like the apple in Eden than bounty from her orchard. “And lead me not into temptation,” she hurriedly prayed, because the money had to belong to someone else.

  The magistrate disagreed.

  Squire Hocking’s family had held the justice position for the area forever. The Lords Ashmead were too often out of the county, and preferred letting a local man handle local matters. The Westlake baronetcy was much newer.

  Cyrus Hocking, the latest holder of Hocking Manor, was a reluctant officer of the law. Instead of being a hale and hearty, heavy-drinking, hunt-loving countryman, Cyrus Hocking was tall and thin, somewhat stooped, with thinning hair. He presided over the courts reluctantly, much preferring his greenhouses, which was where Ada found him. Squire was, in fact, a botanist by bent, a farmer only by fate, and magistrate by misfortune, his elder brother having succumbed to a wasting disease. In addition to the estates and duties, Cyrus had also inherited his brother’s wife and three daughters. Added to his own five hopeful, and hopelessly undisciplined children, the manor was overrun. Ada preferred the glass houses, too.

  She always liked the smell, the warmth, the weak autumn sun streaming through the clear ceiling. Unlike Squire’s wife, who was eternally increasing, Ada was endlessly fascinated by the odd plants and exquisite flowers to be found in the steamy, jungle-like enclosures. Hocking always appreciated her interest, and often advised Ada about crops for the kitchen garden and ornamentals for the landscaping. He was less helpful about the money.

  “How long did you say you have had the money in your possession since discovering the purse?” He was snipping dead flowers off a trailing vine.

  “Less than a week” was her answer as she followed him down the rows of plants on shelves and benches. Others were hanging from hooks in the rafters, and larger specimens were in tubs of their own, on the ground. Ada tried to keep her skirts off the floor at first, but quickly gave up.

  “It must be in the books, of course.” Squire waved a trowel-filled hand toward the house and his library of legal tomes. “Everything else is. But I cannot quite recall what the exact ruling is. Thirty days? That sounds about right. Yes, if no one claims the purse in thirty days, you may consider it yours. Finders keepers, don’t you know.”

  Then Hocking recalled his visitor of last evening. Fine man, Viscount Ashmead, interested in orchids, he was. Not terribly knowledgeable, but willing to be advised, and there was nothing Squire liked better than talking about his orchids. Why, he could go on for hours, and often did, when he had the rare willing listener like Ashmead or Miss Ada. What had Ashmead called about, before they got on to cymbidiums? “Oh, but you said the money was found on your properly, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, in my orchard.”

  “Well, then, since it was on your own grounds, I would say that five to ten days is ample enough to wait before declaring it yours, since whoever put it there was trespassing in the first place.”

  “Do you mean that if your bull wanders onto my property and stays for five days I can keep him?” Squire was a notoriously negligent landowner, and they had argued about his straying beef before, until Ada realized what a good, free stud the bull was.

  “No, no, not at all.” Squire stuck his finger into a pot of soil, checking the moisture. “There are other rules for livestock. The law is very specific there.”

  “Where do you think it came from?”

  “The law? Some feudal lord who was trying to keep peace at his borders, I suppose, and fancied himself a Solomon.”

  “No, the money.”

  “Well, if it were lying on the ground, I would say that someone lost it. But in a tree? I daresay the hedgehogs did not carry it up there, and not even I have been able to make money grow on trees. Heh heh.”

  “Someone put it there, of course, but have you no idea who it could have been? No highwaymen plying their trade? No bank robberies?” Ada was beginning to wish she had not hidden the pistols, after all.

  “Now, now, my dear, don’t get yourself in a swivet. We don’t have that kind of crime in this neighborhood, thank goodness, or I would never get any of my repotting done. The occasional squabble, a pilfered hen, that kind of thing is what I hear. No, your bounty must have been left by some passerby with reasons we will never know, like why this flower sometimes has pink blossoms and sometimes lavender.”

  “So you think I should just keep it then, not advertise for its rightful owner or anything?”

  “What, and have every beggar in England on your doorstep, claiming to have lost a leather purse?” Squire heh-heh-ed again, then put down his trowel and his shears. “Do you want to know what I would do with this prize, my dear?”

  At her nod, he took Ada’s hand and led her to a stone bench. Luckily she was still wearing her leather driving gloves, for his hands were filthy from the soil. She noticed when she pointedly looked down, signaling him to release her hand. He did not, too rapt in his own thoughts. “If I had a fortune handed to me out of the blue,” he began, all dreamy-eyed, “I think I would run away.”

  Ada tugged on her hand. He patted it with his free one.

  “Yes, I would leave England, take ship for a tropical island somewhere, where orchids grew wild and colorful birds sang overhead and no one wore neckcloths.”

  “But your lands, the estate?” Ada waved her other hand at the manor house behind them, the expanse of the glass enclosure. She could not believe anyone would turn his back on his heritage, not even in jest.

  “I have sons to carry on. One of the dolts seems to enjoy counting cows and cabbages. Let him have the lands and the income, and the responsibilities that go with them. I would have sunshine and soft rain, flowers that bloom once in a lifetime, blossoms as big as dinner plates, the sound of water lapping on sandy shores.”

  The sound of children’s high-pitched voices came to them, even through the layers of glass. “Your sons are not half grown, sir. Would you leave them to fend for themselves, then, along with your fatherless nieces?”

  “Faith, they’d have trustees and stewards to guide them. How do you think I learned enough after my brother died? I was not trained to this life, don’t you know, the way he was. And the children would have their mothers, too, of course.”

  “Heavens, you wouldn’t take your wife?”

  Squire Hocking looked at Ada as if she were an aphid on his roses. “I said I was running away. What is the point of taking ever
ything with you? That is moving, not escaping.”

  Then he patted her hand again, which was beginning to worry Ada, and suddenly those children’s voices seemed to come from far away. She tried to make light of Squire’s fantasy. “Ah, but you would miss the conveniences we take for granted, like enclosed stoves and oil lamps. I daresay tropical isles have no newspaper deliveries, either. You would miss the companionship of your friends and family.” Ada knew she would, no matter how lovely the locale.

  Hocking shook his head, limp strands of hair separating to reveal an even greater expanse of forehead. “You do not understand.” He stared ahead again, not seeing Ada, she assumed, except his fingers started to stroke her hand. She was doubly thankful for her gloves. “I would not be alone.”

  No, Ada thought, not the scholarly squire! Never. She must have misunderstood, and he intended to take a servant or two on his purely hypothetical, she prayed, jaunt. Her new interpretation was comforting, except that Ada could feel the heat of Squire’s dirty hand even through the leather. She pulled harder.

  “A courageous young woman who appreciates growing things, a lovely lady who sees the beauty in nature, that’s who I would take along, my dear Ada, if a fortune suddenly fell into my hands.”

  He could not be suggesting what Ada thought he was suggesting, but she did not want to stay around to find out. Not by half. She reclaimed her hand, her feet, her muff, and, too late, her wits. While Cyrus Hocking was still begging his ladybird to take wing with him, the bird was flown.

  * * * *

  “Run, Lulu, run as fast as your old legs will carry you and the cart. Run, girl. I need a bath!”

  She needed a keeper, Ada told herself, furious at her own idiocy. People laughed at Tess for her eccentricities, but Ada was the one who ought to be locked away for her own good. Addled Ada, indeed. How Chas would gloat at her latest contretemps—if she ever told him, which she never would. How many times had he warned her she could not keep traipsing blithely around the countryside without a chaperone, a companion, a groom, or a maid, without her reputation suffering? Country manners were not so exacting as those in London, he’d often reminded her, but she could expose herself to insults, even danger. Hah!

  What about assault with a deadly watering can? Ada wished she’d taken Tess, or Mrs. Cobble. Confound it, she wished she’d taken her brother’s pistol!

  Here she was, tooling around the countryside, granted not three miles away from her home, with a bag of money. What kind of fool was she anyway? The worst kind, the kind who deserved to have her hand fondled by a flower-fancying philanderer, and worse.

  Men were known to kill for less coin than she carried in her muff, so Ada supposed she was lucky to have suffered no more than a horrid embarrassment on its account. It was evil, that money, overriding men’s principles. Since she’d found it, all the gentlemen of her acquaintance had gone queer as dick’s hatband, with their proposals and propositions and promised dances. Chas, who did not need the money, was the only one who had not made her some kind of offer, but he’d taken to kissing her instead. Evil indeed.

  If that blasted bag had pillars of the community acting like mooncalves, Ada could not imagine what it would do to a common man.

  There were none more common than Filbert Johnstone and his son Algernon.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ada was glad to be home, even if Jane’s relations had returned before her. They were already in the library, discussing the money, her money. Well, if it was not hers, Ada believed, at least the treasure was hers to dispose of.

  Jane leaned forward eagerly, showing more than her usual cleavage after refurbishing another gown by removing its lace insert. “So, did Squire Hocking say we could spend it? I am sure that old windbags agreed with me.”

  That Ada would be better off on a deserted island with a bellows-to-mend botanist? Perhaps. “He did not say that in so many words. There are time constraints, you see, during which the original owner should be allowed to claim his property.” She would not tell them that one span Squire had set was nearly elapsed.

  “Bosh, I say.”

  Uncle Filbert was stuffed into a satin-striped waistcoat this afternoon, puce alternating with pea green, with yellow Cossack trousers. He looked like a balloon ready for ascension, to Ada’s weary eyes. “Whoosh,” she wished to say, wafting him back to his own rooms in Town, if the lease had not been broken for lack of payment.

  “Bosh and botheration, what? Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Did not your county lumpkin lawyer tell you that, missy?” Having heard an hour of complaints from his teary-eyed, domino-desiring niece, Filbert was not in good curl. He was certain Jane would have wheedled at least a golden boy out of Ada while he was gone.

  “Squire Hocking never read for the bar, and he did not have time to consult his legal encyclopedias, but he was very clear on the matter.” About as clear as the dirt under his fingernails, Ada thought to herself. She locked the leather sack in her father’s old desk.

  “No one is going to claim misappropriated funds. That’s what it has to be, what? So there’s no reason to wait the whole time. How long did you say before the blunt is officially ours?”

  Ours? Ada carefully tucked the key, on its ribbon cord, back under the high neck of her gown without answering, which did not stop Filbert from huffing, “Even a slim bit of the ready now could make life a lot easier all around, what?”

  If he meant a sovereign would silence Jane’s grievances against Ada’s cheeseparing, he might be correct, for a time. If Filbert Johnstone thought Ada would spend a farthing on his foppish self, he was far wrong. Furthermore, Ada did not like the way the old coxcomb’s puffy eyes shifted from the locked drawer to Jane’s elaborate coiffure... to Jane’s hairpins, to be exact. She would have to move the leather pouch later, to a safer locale, like the pillow under her head. Not even Uncle Filbert would dare look there. Ada supposed she ought to be glad that he hadn’t offered for her.

  Algernon, meanwhile, was all for searching the orchard for more treasure. Ada was perfectly willing to let the slowtop spend his days, and his nights, too, for all she cared, out of the house and out of her sight. Unfortunately, he meant to search with an ax.

  Worst of all, in Ada’s view, Jane’s relatives were rude to Leo when he and Tess returned from their visit to his ship. Tess looked all windblown and excited, gaily describing the captain’s quarters and her plans for a new chapter, or scene, or song. Ada was losing track of the epic, but not of Tess’s happiness. Leo stood quietly at her side, as usual, looking like a rough-hewn god, but he too wore a wide grin.

  Filbert would not leave, not with tea about to be served, but he dragged Algie to the other side of the room when the youngster’s mouth fell open at the sight of Leo’s broad shoulders and swarthy complexion. “But I wanted to ask him how many men he’s killed,” Algernon whined.

  From the far end of the room, where he was pretending to be asking about his son’s studies, Filbert took out his quizzing glass to survey the impressively built smuggler in his elegant ensemble. He tugged at his own flamboyant waistcoat and said, loudly enough to reach those on the sofa, “Contrary to what you might hear, my lad, clothes do not make the man. Breeding will always tell.”

  If so, Ada thought, it was telling her that a viscount’s by-blow was worth three of Filbert. She wanted to yell out that Leo was a hero, a patriot who was doing more for the country than Johnstone ever had, or would. Of course, she could not, not without betraying a confidence. She wanted to shout to the dastard that the bastard was making her sister happy at last, and Ada would love him for such kindness if he had horns and a tail. She could not say that either, of course, not without mortifying Tess and Leo both, so she did better: she invited Leo to dine with them. And made sure he was seated at the head of the table opposite Jane.

  After dinner, Tess and Leo put their heads together at the pianoforte, going over the music for the opera. Tess played and sang, pausing whenever a new thought occurred to her.
Leo turned the pages and made corrections on the score, when he could drag his eyes away from the auburn-haired beauty at his side. Ada was reading a book and Uncle Filbert was sleeping behind his newspaper until Jane tossed down her cards, declaring that she wouldn’t play with Algernon any longer for he cheated, which meant that Jane was losing. Petulant at being ignored by the only available man in the room, even if he was a baseborn freebooter, Jane started in on Ada again: the curtains were faded, the rugs were stained, the chairs were threadbare, to say nothing of the meager meals that were served. How, then, Jane demanded, was she expected to entertain Lady Ashmead’s lofty company?

  Not with a card party, that was for sure. Luckily Ada was not expected to provide an answer.

  “And why should I have to look like I am paddling up River Tick, in an outdated wardrobe?”

  Perhaps because she’d helped sink the family’s ship, and the tide kept rising. Again, Ada had no chance to express her sentiments.

  “Why, by all that’s holy, must we let the world think we are paupers when you have a fortune in coins locked away? Rodney never denied us anything”—which was a great deal of the problem—“so why must you?”

  “Here, here, cuz. You tell her. You’re mistress here, ain’t you? Dowager Lady Westlake and all.”

  Jane slapped Algernon’s hand away from the dish of comfits. She was not old enough to be dowager anything, and needed no reminder that Emery had left his sisters in charge of Westlake Hall, his younger sister in particular! “I am not a dowager until Emery returns and takes a bride, you dolt.” She turned back to the evening’s target: “Speaking of Emery, I am certain he will be furious to have Westlake Hall become known for its lack of hospitality, when we have the means at hand to throw a party to rival Ashmead’s. Or have you finally realized that you’ll never attract another eligible gentleman, so you don’t mean to try? Just because you are used to whistling fortunes down the wind, Miss True-Love-or-Nothing, is no reason for the rest of us to suffer.”