Dynasty 8: The Maiden: The Maiden (The Morland Dynasty)

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Now Robert sniffed a different trail. ‘The latest, you say? But how do you know that, sir? You say it was drawn up four years ago – ample time for my father to have changed his mind and made a new and fairer disposition.’

  They had forgotten already, Jemmy thought dully, that they had agreed he was insane. Edmund grasped eagerly at the straw. ‘Yes, of course, that must be it.’

  ‘There is no other will bearing a later date,’ Pobgee asserted. Robert sneered.

  ‘However eminent you are, sir, you are not the only lawyer in England. My father might well have asked a different man of your profession to aid him. Someone from London, no doubt.’

  ‘Yes, of course, a London lawyer,’ Edmund echoed.

  ‘But why should he do that?’ Mary said, startling everyone by her unexpected entry into the argument. Robert was not halted.

  ‘He knew Pobgee’s views on the matter, and did not wish to have to argue with him.’

  ‘As I have already mentioned, sir, I could have no views on such a subject. But in any case, I have, as a matter of normal business, checked that there is no other disposition lodged with any other man of law. I should have done that in any case. You do not have to take my word for it, however. The will has to be proved before it can be enacted, and I think you will find yourself satisfied by the process.’

  ‘I will never be satisfied,’ Robert said, glaring at him. Father Andrews intervened.

  ‘Gentlemen, please, do not wrangle in such a manner and at such a time. And remember, I pray you, that Master Pobgee is the instrument and not the instigator.’ Pobgee bowed his thanks to the priest. Jemmy had had enough of hearing his father abused. He had not forgotten Mary’s accusations, and knew how far short he had fallen in love and duty to Matt, and he felt guilty about it, and deeply regretted there was no means of redress now available. But if he was guilty, how much more so were Robert and Edmund. It enraged him to hear them and see them. The younger boys merely sat quietly and listened; Allen, of course, had had nothing to hope for from the will, and Tom and Charles, being the youngest, could not have hoped for much. George was probably not even listening: his eyes were half closed, and he seemed to be pursuing the last of his dinner around his teeth with his tongue and a forefinger. They were probably all indifferent about the late master, and it seemed that was the best Matt could ever have hoped for. It was Robert and Edmund that Jemmy addressed.

  ‘You know why the will is the way it is,’ he said harshly. Father Andrews made a movement of his hand as if to restrain Jemmy, but Jemmy ignored it. ‘You know that because of our mother’s frailties—’

  ‘I don’t think this is the time to speak of them,’ Father Andrews said quickly. Jemmy shook his head.

  ‘She broke his heart. Great-grandmother says she ruined his temper too, that before he found out about our mother he was a kind and happy person. Well, that wasn’t our fault, but we all know what he thought, how he felt about us. At first he did not regard any of us as his children. Eventually he came to accept that I was his son.’

  ‘Really, sir, I hardly think—’ Lady Dudley began. This time it was Mary who interposed. She simply lifted her hand towards her companion and said, ‘Madam, be silent.’

  Jemmy shot her a look of surprised gratitude, and went on. ‘It is not for my virtue I am chosen as heir, nor for your demerits you are excluded. It is simply a reflection of my father’s beliefs about our parentage. The Morland fortune was his to leave as he wished, and he wished to leave it all to me.’

  ‘Of course, you would be bound to agree with him,’ Robert said nastily. Jemmy looked angrily at him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think or want. As a matter of fact, in many ways I would much rather not be the inheritor, except that I know I will make a better Master for Morland Place than you would. But it is not my wishes that signify.’

  ‘You don’t know what my father wanted. You only know he left everything to you,’ Robert said. ‘Perhaps he meant you to divide it up, so that we could all have a share. As he died suddenly, there is no knowing, is there?’

  ‘After all,’ Edmund added, ‘he did not leave the estate entailed, did he?’

  ‘Just before he died,’ Jemmy said, ‘my father regained consciousness for a few moments. He called me to him, and made me promise something.’

  ‘Promise what?’ Robert asked.

  ‘I could not understand all of it. It was hard to hear him. But he did say very clearly the words ‘Do not break up’. The rest was indistinguishable, but in the light of this will, I believe he asked me to promise not to break up the estate. And I shall not do so.’

  ‘We’ll contest the will,’ Robert said angrily.

  ‘Do so if you wish,’ Jemmy said indifferently. ‘Pobgee will advise you whether it is worth doing so.’

  And Pobgee shook his head gently. ‘There are one or two things I should like to discuss with you,’ he added to Jemmy, ‘if we could obtain a measure of privacy? If the ladies would excuse us?’

  ‘Of course. We’ll go to the steward’s room,’ Jemmy said, and the meeting broke up. Jemmy led the lawyer to the steward’s room in silence, and once safely inside with the door shut, he asked, ‘Master Pobgee, you probably knew my father’s mind better than any of us. What do you suppose his wishes were?’

  ‘I cannot say that I knew your father well. There must be others who knew him better. But in the matter of the estate, I think I understood his wishes, and they were just as you supposed. I am sure that you have interpreted his last words correctly. His desire was that the Morland Estate should pass wholly into the hands of a Morland, and that no part of it should go to the sons of his late wife whom he did not believe to be of his blood.’ He paused reflectively, and went on, ‘I did not mention it in the drawing room as the atmosphere was already rather, shall we say, explosive, but there is a residuary clause in the will. In the event that you had died before your father, the provision was that the whole estate should have passed to John McNeill, Viscount Ballincrea. As the grandson of his sister Sabine, McNeill was his nearest Morland kin, after you.’

  It was not until much later, when Jemmy was alone and able to think collectedly, that he realized the lawyer was wrong. His father, too, had been wrong, for he was acting on insufficient information. After Jemmy himself, assuming that Jemmy’s brothers were excluded, Matt’s nearest kin had been Aliena, his half-sister, and after Aliena, her daughter Marie-Louise. It gave him pause for thought. If he were to follow his father’s wishes, as he intended to, he must not break up the estate to provide for his brothers; but Marie-Louise, ah, that was different!

  CHAPTER SIX

  When they reached Ten Thorn Gap, Jemmy split off from the rest of the hunting party in order to escort Marie-Louise and Allen to Shawes. It had not been a particularly good hunt, for the snow was deep and crisp on the ground, and the air too cold for scent under a brilliant dark-blue sky, but after having been confined to the house by the falling of that same snow, everyone had been too glad to get out of doors to care much. The sun was distant and bright, and now that it was well up, Jemmy could fed just a little heat from it when he turned his face up to its rays. The whiteness was everywhere, relieved from monotony by the deep blue of its shadows and the stark black where snow-slips had revealed dark branches underneath; and by the bright colours of the hunting-party and their horses and hounds. Jemmy smiled as he pushed Auster to catch up with the children, for Marie-Louise was the brightest spot of colour in the landscape. Her riding habit was of deep crimson cloth trimmed with grey squirrel-fur; Annunciata had designed it herself, basing it from memory on the habit the Dauphine had given to Marie-Louise’s namesake and aunt, the Princess Louise-Marie, at St Germaine. Marie-Louise wore her wide-brimmed, grey beaver hat tilted well forward, shewing her glossy auburn ringlets gathered to the back of her head, with the long white ostrich feather curling round them like a cat’s tail.

  She was as pretty a sight as could be imagined, Jemmy thought, and he noticed that
Allen could not take his eyes off her. Just before Christmas Jemmy had conceived the idea that Allen and Marie-Louise ought to be brought up together and share their lessons under Father Renard, and he had approached Annunciata about it.

  ‘You see, I notice a great difference between my brothers who were brought up by Father Renard from a young age, and those who had less of his influence,’a he said, ‘and though I have nothing but good to say of Allen’s temperament, I should like him to have the same education as I did.’ Annunciata had nodded judiciously and, encouraged, Jemmy had continued, ‘Besides, now Tom and Charlie are grown up, it must be lonely for Allen. He and the Princess are about the same age, and would be company for each other. I think it would do him good to be around someone lively. He is a fine boy, but tends to be rather solemn. And it would do Marie-Louise good to have a little competition.’

  ‘I have nothing to say against that,’ Annunciata laughed. ‘But would he provide competition? Would he not rather become her unquestioning admirer and slave? She does not, emphatically, need more adulation.’

  Jemmy cocked his head. ‘He is quiet, but he is very clever, and very determined in his own way. Naturally he will admire her beauty – who could not? – but I don’t think he will allow a girl younger than him to put upon him.’

  Annunciata said doubtfully, ‘I don’t know. Marie-Louise has a way of – but there, I see in your eye another plan suggesting itself, you wicked boy. You are thinking that it would be no bad thing for the children to grow so accustomed to each other that they cannot do other in adulthood than wed.’

  Jemmy smiled sheepishly. ‘Well, it would be no such bad thing, would it? He is a well-born and well-principled boy – all he lacks is money.’

  ‘Which she has in plenty,’ Annunciata finished for him. ‘And do you think I should consider him a good enough match for a girl who will not only inherit a large estate but is a Countess in her own right?’

  ‘I should have thought, great-grandmother, that you would have lived long enough by now to have changed your views of what constituted a good match.’ Jemmy went cold when he had said it, for it came close to being insolent, and was a criticism of Annunciata on many deeply personal levels.

  For a moment there was an ominous silence, but then she said only, ‘I see you have not lived long enough to learn to curb your tongue.’

  At all events, she had agreed to the scheme, and Allen had gone with some apprehension to take his lessons at Shawes, and had very soon come to like it. He was a very quick and intelligent boy, and soon came to admire Father Renard deeply, in a way that was impossible for him with the less intellectual Father Andrews. Marie-Louise quickly went through a variety of behaviours from haughtiness to petulance, but finding that Allen was a true challenge to her in their lessons, and that while he adored her from first sight, he would not be put upon, she soon settled down. Father Andrews was glad to be released from the task of teaching Allen, who was now frequently asking him questions he could not answer, and to have more time for his numerous other duties. Apart from that, Mary’s baby, Thomas, was approaching two-years-old, and almost ready to come into the schoolroom; and now it seemed there was to be another addition, for Mary was pregnant again.

  She had told him at Christmas, had come to him abruptly one morning when he was alone in the steward’s room working on the play for Twelfth Night. Looking up at the sound of the door being shut rather hard, he had noticed that she looked unusually pale, and that her lips were set in a grim line.

  ‘Madam, are you unwell?’ he said, getting up quickly to go to her, in case she fainted. Fand, who had been lying by the fire, was as usual circling her knees in delight, jabbing at her hand with his muzzle. She caressed the dog automatically as Jemmy came to her. ‘Please, won’t you sit down? May I get you some wine?’

  ‘No,’ she said comprehensively. ‘I have come to tell you – tell you—’ She swallowed, and then blurted out the words, ‘I am with child again.’ Jemmy did not at first know quite how to react, but it was the accusatory tone that warned him. He composed his features into a neutral gravity and said only, ‘I see.’

  ‘You see,’ she almost snarled. ‘Yes, you see now the consequences of your actions – consequences that I have to bear.’

  ‘Madam, I am sorry that you are unhappy, and more than sorry that the child should have been conceived in the way it was; but marriage means childbearing, and you cannot surely have expected that Thomas would remain your only child.’

  ‘I know not to expect anything pleasurable from my life’ Mary said bitterly, and Jemmy was suddenly piercingly sorry for her. He tried to take her hand, and though she pulled it away he took it again and held it. It was very cold and very small. He said gently.

  ‘Mary, I am truly sorry that you are unhappy. It is not my desire to make anyone unhappy, much the least my own wife. You and I have been brought together against our will for the sake of duty, and part of that duty is to have children.’

  ‘An easy duty for you! The pains are all mine’ She pulled her hand away from him. Jemmy shrugged.

  ‘That is true, but there is nothing that I can do about that, is there?’ he said reasonably. She looked at him for the first time.

  ‘I suppose not,’ she said unwillingly.

  ‘When is the bairn due?’ he asked.

  ‘The end of June. You could work that out for yourself’ she said sharply.

  ‘Yes, of course’ he said contritely. ‘Well, well.’ There was an awkward silence, and then Jemmy said, ‘Mary, if there is anything that you want, or anything I can do for you, I will try to arrange it for you. Please try not to be unhappy. We are married, come what may, and we have to try to make the best of it.’

  ‘The best you can do for me is to leave me alone’ she said, turning to go; but at least she did not speak sharply or angrily. Jemmy caught back Fand as he went to follow her, and thought that a first step, be it ever so small, had been taken.

  As they approached Shawes, Fand, who had been trotting behind Jemmy to take advantage of Auster’s footprints, suddenly rushed off to one side in a series of huge leaps, barking joyfully, and looking round. Jemmy saw Annunciata also approaching her own house on horseback, with her maid Charley and her man John behind her.

  ‘You look surprised, Jemmy,’ the Countess said when they were near enough. ‘Did you think you were the only one to crave fresh air after these storms?’

  ‘Of course not, but I wonder that you did not come with us, or even mention it.’

  ‘I am too old to enjoy the sort of hunt you would have had this morning,’ Annunciata said, falling in beside him. Her horse Phoenix touched noses with Auster and then jerked his head away, making the coral and ivory decorations on his bridle clink and ring. ‘With such scent as there would have been, you must have spent more time standing around near the coverts than running. Ah, child, don’t look so surprised! I have spent a lifetime hunting. I can judge the scent better than your huntsman, I warrant you. The arrogance of the young! You think the world was new-made the day you were born! Marie-Louise, the riding has given you a fine colour at least. Ride on ahead, children, and see that the grooms know we are coming, and send word that I will have a pot of chocolate waiting for me by the hall fire.’

  Marie-Louise and Allen kicked their ponies into a canter, and Jemmy checked Auster, who thought that was a much better idea than pacing through the snow at walking-speed.

  ‘Well, and so what had you to tell me?’ Annunciata said to Jemmy when they had gone. Jemmy raised an eyebrow. ‘It was not at all necessary for you to accompany the children, was it.’

  Jemmy smiled. ‘The will is proved. I had word from Pobgee this morning.’

  ‘Ah! And so you are now Master of Morland Place, and all Robert’s machinations were in vain.’

  ‘Robert’s and Edmund’s,’ Jemmy said. He frowned and turned a lock of Auster’s mane back the right way. ‘Great-grandmother, do you think I was wrong? Sometimes I wonder if I did what I did through g
reed. After all, my father did not leave the property entailed.’

  ‘It is much too late to begin doubting, Jemmy,’ Annunciata said. ‘Besides, you must look back at the history of Morland Place before you judge. It never has been entailed, but generation after generation, the Master has passed it on intact. It has never been divided, and even the Northumberland estate has been given away only for the lifetime of the recipient, to return to the Master on his death. Matt was doing what everyone has done before.’

  ‘But my brothers—’

  ‘You know what your father felt about them.’

  ‘Yes. But whether or not they were kin to my father, they are without a doubt my brothers.’

  Annunciata smiled. ‘The blood is more surely passed through the female. My mother took the precaution of having only one daughter, and no husband to confuse matters. She left the property to me. I will do the same. Worries about the male line are needless complications. But what of your brothers? Surely it is only Robert and Edmund who are troublesome, and they already have their careers. I am sure Matt intended them to get on by their own exertions. Robert ought to be able to do that. He learned the art early in life, and I hear he dined with the bishop only last week.’

  ‘Yes, but for Edmund it is more difficult. Commissions have to be purchased, and I do not know where he will get together the money to do that.’

  ‘There are ways,’ Annunciata said soothingly. ‘Court sinecures, for one thing. Your brother-in-law ought to be able to help there. And long nights at the Groom Porter’s – if Edmund is any hand at gambling, he will make his fortune. But what of the others?’

  ‘Tom came to me before he left to rejoin his ship, to say he thought I was quite right, and that he was very happy in the navy and would make his own way. At least in the navy one can get on by merit, and his captain thinks the world of him.’