“Miss Arabella? Is that you?”
Arabella did not speak but crossed the distance to the woman who had been her only haven in the years after her mother died. She meant to offer her hand, to press the elderly lady’s free palm between her own. Instead she wrapped her arms around Mrs. Fielding as tears coursed down her cheeks.
Mrs. Fielding dropped the herbs she had picked onto the ground. She held Arabella close, pressing her hands against her back, stroking and soothing her as if she were a child still and had run to her after a beating. Mrs. Fielding said not a word but offered her strength as she always had to a girl who had nothing in the world, and no one.
Arabella was the first to pull away. “I am very happy to see you.”
Mrs. Fielding smiled, wiping her own eyes with the edge of her too-large apron. “We thought you dead or worse,” she said, “gone off to London with that old devil.”
“Better than the devil I knew,” Arabella quipped.
At first, Mrs. Fielding looked frightened, as if old Mr. Swanson might hear the girl’s words and beat her for them. But when she remembered that the old man was dead and buried, she laughed a little. “The old duke wasn’t bad to you, was he?”
“No, Mrs. Fielding, he was kind. As kind as his nature would allow.”
Mrs. Fielding harrumphed at that. She had seen enough of what passed for the occasional, halfhearted kindness of the cruel in her time. She wrapped one arm around Arabella’s slender waist and drew her toward the kitchen. “And who is this fine young man you bring us?” Her brown eyes gleamed with mischief and with pleasure. “Might this be the young lord from over the way? The young man I had picked out for you to marry?”
Arabella blushed and Pembroke stepped forward, smiling. Charming old women was one of his many talents. Arabella’s heart ached to see it, a deep pain that was harder to bear than any other, a pain so broad that she thought she would collapse beneath it.
“I would have married her, too, if the duke hadn’t carried her off,” Pembroke said, the lilt of his tone so like his voice when he was a boy.
Mrs. Fielding smiled up at him as if she were a girl of fifteen. “And you still might,” she said.
Pembroke’s laughter boomed as they entered into the whitewashed walls of the kitchen. Arabella’s blush grew deeper, her embarrassment overwhelming her pain. Seeing her blush, Mrs. Fielding finally let that fruitless subject go.
“Sit here and drink some tea. What brings you here, Miss Arabella? Or ought I to call you Your Worship now, or some such?”
Arabella laughed. “Just Arabella, please, Mrs. Fielding. My days as a duchess are behind me.”
“And good riddance,” Mrs. Fielding said. “Now you can come home and live among decent people, God be praised.”
Arabella did not contradict her but drank her tea. That was indeed what she hoped for, if she could elude Hawthorne and his schemes for her future.
Pembroke sat at the old oak table in the kitchen as well. The sunlight streamed through the open doorway and lit his hair with gold. His blue eyes smiled at her over the mug he drank from. Earl or not, he seemed not to care that he drank from earthenware.
Ten years had fallen from his shoulders at the sight of her old cook. He looked light and at ease, though that might just have been his joy in the spring day and happiness at the thought of finally being rid of her.
Mrs. Fielding sliced off hunks of her fresh white bread, covering it with newly churned butter before handing a slice each to Pembroke and to Arabella.
“You still need fattening up, Miss Arabella. Have they no decent food in London either?”
Pembroke laughed again, but this time he silenced himself by taking a great bite of the bread. Arabella savored her own, the butter melting on her tongue, covering the soft white crust with inexplicable sweetness. She blinked back tears. She could not be overcome by her love for her old savior or by memories. She had come back to Swanson House for only one reason, and she must see it through. Now that she was there she had only one fear, that by some strange mischance, her husband had found the cache of gold first.
“Mrs. Fielding, after my father died, did you ever see the old duke come to Swanson House?”
Mrs. Fielding’s eyes ceased to sparkle, and she sat down heavily on the other side of the table across from Pembroke. “Aye, we saw him indeed. Just twice. Once after the old master died, and once again three months ago.”
Arabella almost could not hear herself think over the sound of the pounding of her heart. She took a fortifying sip of tea and another bite of bread under the watchful eyes of her old cook. She thought to ask another question, but Mrs. Fielding spoke on, as if a dam had broken. Her words flowed out in a torrent, and Arabella found that she could only listen.
“The old duke had little use for this place. He said it was part of your dower portion and no good to him. He sold off the horses and the cattle, the best furniture, even your mother’s spinet, God rest her soul. He drank us dry of every bottle of port and Madeira your father ever put by, and what he didn’t drink, he carried off with him to London.”
Mrs. Fielding spat out the word London as if she were spitting on the devil. Arabella was shocked at her vehemence, but the old woman was not done yet with her tirade.
“His High and Mighty Grace turned out all the staff but myself and the old steward, Grayson. He said that we two might stay and keep the house in order, like he was granting us a boon. Most of the others found places elsewhere, but some had to go to Manchester to work in the factories.”
Mrs. Fielding shuddered, and Arabella could not blame her. She knew little of the industry that had become a blight on the landscape, but she had heard nothing good. Pembroke sat listening to this litany of horrors with no expression on his face at all. For a moment, Arabella wished she had not brought him. She was ashamed of her husband and of his dismissive cruelty to the people who had lived on her family’s land for generations.
“The tenants are all well. They keep planting the corn, wheat, and barley and bringing it in. I’ve had to shut the house up. With no one to keep it, it has become a moldering tomb.”
Mrs. Fielding broke off to sip her own tea. Arabella finally spoke. “Perhaps that is fitting.”
The old woman looked into her eyes. Arabella felt as if her soul was bared to the woman who had seen her through so much pain. It had been Mrs. Fielding who had dressed the wounds from her beatings. There had only been two bad enough to leave scars, but the old cook knew of the years of cruelty and offhand slaps that Mr. Swanson had delivered to his daughter from the age of six onward.
“Perhaps it is,” Mrs. Fielding said. “But this land is yours, as is this house and all in it. It was wrong of the old duke to sell it off and to turn out the staff like stray dogs.”
Arabella felt tears rise in her eyes. “It was wrong of him. I am heartily sorry for it.”
Pembroke caught her hand in his, and there was no hint of lust in his touch, only compassion. Her palm and fingers disappeared into his great paw, and the warmth of his touch gave her immeasurable comfort. She felt her tears recede.
“Well, none of the evil was your doing, Miss Arabella. You’re the one to suffer with your dower portion gone. Though the furniture and wine cellar have long been sold, the land is still here. That’s something, after all.”
“Indeed,” Arabella said. “Mrs. Fielding, you said that my husband came here twice. When he visited the second time…”
“In the dead of this winter he came… well, in early March of this year. You know how cold the wind blows even then, and the snow just melting on the roads. He came alone on horseback. I’d have thought a ride like that would kill a man as old as the duke. When he arrived, he was coughing up blood. I was sure he had the consumption, and I thought it the judgment of God.”
Arabella flinched and Pembroke pressed her hand.
“I am
sorry for speaking so plain, miss. But he was a bad man, and not worthy to kiss the hem of your gown, no matter how many coronets he wore.” Mrs. Fielding was defiant.
“How long did he stay?” Pembroke asked.
“A good two days, though I think he’d have left sooner if he had not been so ill. He spent all his time in your father’s library. It was the one room he left alone in the whole house.”
Arabella felt sick. If her father’s money was still in the house, it was in the hidden safe in the library. If her husband had found it, that cache of gold would have become one more part of his duchy. She shuddered but pushed her fear aside. One step at a time. She would deal with disaster when she was certain it had come.
“May I see the house, Mrs. Fielding? I might find something left of my mother in there.”
From the look on Mrs. Fielding’s face, Arabella knew the futility of that. The only things she had of her mother’s was the locket she had tucked at the bottom of her traveling bag and the gold chain wound around her throat, holding the ring Pembroke had given her. Mrs. Fielding stood and rummaged in a tin can above the stove. She pulled out an old iron key and handed it to Pembroke along with a can of oil.
“The house is yours, or should be, if the world was not an evil place. Go and look if you like, Miss Arabella. May it bring you comfort. Then come back here and have a slice of pie. I have a few apples left over from last fall’s harvest, tucked away in the root cellar. I’ve cinnamon and cloves. I know apple pies are your favorite.”
Arabella blushed, for Pembroke smelled of cinnamon. The scent had been her favorite since she was a little girl. “Thank you, Mrs. Fielding. That will be most welcome.”
The old lady drew her near and pressed Arabella close to her heart. “I am glad you are here. But don’t linger overlong in that house. It’s ever been a dark place, and the last few years haven’t made it any brighter.”
Arabella remembered the long, trailing staircase that led into the shadows of the upper floors. Her father had not allowed many candles or lamps to be lit, even in winter, so the bedrooms and the corridor that led to them had always been shrouded in darkness. She felt the cold fingers of her father’s hand on the softness of her upper arm. She shuddered as the illusion passed, but she still felt cold, even standing in bright sunlight.
“I won’t linger, Mrs. Fielding. I promise you that.”
Thirteen
Arabella and Pembroke left the whitewashed neatness of Mrs. Fielding’s kitchen and traced their steps back to the path that led into the formal garden. Though the hedges had been clipped recently, most of the flowers beds were overgrown with weeds. Arabella could see evidence that one man had tried to keep them up alone, and failing, had left them to flourish as they would. One path was clear of weeds and encroaching plants: the shell-lined walk led to her father’s back door.
She drew back at first, her breath leaving her lungs in one sudden exhale. She stood looking at that door, the same door she had snuck out of so many times to visit Pembroke. Her father had caught her the last time she tried to sneak away, the night she tried to leave this place and her father behind. He had not struck her on the face that night, for her wedding was arranged for the morning.
Even as the old duke slept upstairs in the guest suite, oblivious, her father found her with her hand on the latch, her single bag packed and on her arm. Her father had twisted her arm behind her back in the downstairs hallway, dragging her to his library, where he took a cane to the bottoms of her feet so the blows would not show, punishing her for her attempt to run away.
Mr. Swanson had not laid the cane on too hard, but the blows had hurt. What had hurt more was the knowledge that Pembroke waited for her, and that she would never be able to go to him.
She had tried to send word to him, but just before her wedding ceremony her father had brought that letter to her room. He had intercepted it in the hands of the upstairs maid, turning the girl out of the house on the spot. He had showed Arabella the letter, then burned it before leading her down to the parlor so that she might marry the Duke of Hawthorne.
Arabella stood frozen before her father’s back door, the memory of that horrible day coming back to stab her like knives, one in her back, another in her heart.
Pembroke, the man who had been hurt almost as much as she was by that terrible day, now stood beside her and offered her his arm. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Will you sit on this bench while I go in and look?”
His expression held no mockery. She could see no hint of his old resentment, his old bitterness. He was more like the boy she had known in that moment than in any year since. It was almost worse to see him as he once had been and to know that he did not love her anymore, as that boy once had. If he still loved her, he would have come to her all those years ago. At the very least, he would have answered her letter. Though his anger may have fled, he had not forgiven her.
Arabella fought her way back against the tide of memories, the wave of pain that swamped her. She could not mend the past, only build her future. She forced herself to focus on the here and now, where she was, and why. “No,” she said. “I am going with you.”
Pembroke oiled the lock and slid the great key into it. He turned it, and the bolt slid free as he pushed open the large wooden door. The only light in the house beyond came from the doorway they stood in. All of the curtains in the house were drawn. Arabella was sorry that she had not thought to bring a lamp.
Pembroke reached into his jacket pocket and drew out two thick candles and a flint. He lit them, handing the first one to her before lighting his own. Arabella found herself smiling.
“How is it you thought to bring these?” she asked.
“The house has been unoccupied for years,” he answered. “And I learned on the Continent that it is always best to be prepared for anything.”
“And is there a pistol tucked away in another pocket of your coat?” Arabella asked.
It was Pembroke’s turn to smile. “Do you think I should have brought one?”
“Let us hope not.”
She turned to the doorway then, and after only a moment of hesitation, she stepped into the darkness of her childhood.
***
No spirits haunted the old house. No madmen lurked along its corridors. Arabella smiled at the memory of all the gothic novels she had read. Clearly Mrs. Radcliffe and her ilk were as fanciful as her father’s tenants who all believed in fairies.
The sound of her footsteps was loud on the wooden floor of the entrance hall. All the carpets had been taken up and sold. The old duke had sacked the house, plundering it of all that might bring him a profit. Arabella thought of her mother’s china from the Orient, of her silver from India, but after a pang of nostalgia, she pushed those thoughts aside. She was here not to unearth the past but to claim her future.
She passed through the hall, turning her head to look at the wide staircase that led up into the darkness. She shivered, thinking of all the years she had avoided that staircase, taking the servants’ corridors as much as she could, trying to avoid her father and failing. Arabella turned her back on the staircase and its shadows and continued into the right wing of the house where her father’s study lay. The paintings that had once lined the hall were long gone, leaving dark stains on the walls.
The door to her father’s study stood open as if waiting for her. The candle in her hand cast a feeble light, and she stopped in the doorway. Pembroke came to stand beside her, raising his candle above her head.
She could see into the room then, the old leather sofa still sitting by the empty fireplace. The rug had been taken up and dust covered the mahogany floor. She pressed back the memory of being called before her father for infractions, both major and minor. Her back stung with the memory of the riding crop her father had struck her with. Her shoulders ached, and she shrugged the memory away.
She stepped into the roo
m that held so many of her old demons and set her candle in an empty holder on her father’s desk. The books had all been taken down from the shelves and sold, but the great walnut desk remained. A lamp sat on its surface and she used her candle to light the wick. To her surprise, the flame caught and burned bright, for there was still a bit of oil in the base of the lamp.
She turned to the windows behind the desk and pushed back the heavy velvet drapes. Sunlight shone in through the dirty windows and dust rose from the velvet, choking her as it covered her hands, her face, her hair. She stepped back and brushed it off ineffectively, until Pembroke offered her his handkerchief. She wiped her face and fingers, smiling up at him without thought. “Thank you.”
He stood staring down at her, dust caught in his golden hair. He reached for her and she jumped, but instead of taking a liberty, he simply wiped a smudge off her cheek. The simple gesture touched her heart as if it had been punctured. She breathed deep, trying to control her emotions, but only swallowed a mouthful of dust.
She turned without a word to the desk, the only table left in the room. Pembroke paced the edges of the study, raising the lamp as he examined the bookcases, looking for hidden compartments. Arabella knew he would find nothing. If there were compartments, her father would never have hidden money in them.
She sat in the cracked leather chair behind her father’s desk, shivering as if his specter had touched her hand. She opened the top drawer, surprised to find it unlocked. Pembroke gave up his silent perusal of the empty bookcases and came to her side.
A voice from the corridor made Arabella jump, her hand pressed against her beating heart. Pembroke looked completely calm, but she could feel tension along his arm as he stood beside her, careful to keep his body between her and the door. Arabella caught her breath as her father’s steward, Mr. Grayson, stepped into the room.
“Your Grace, I offer my condolences on the death of your husband,” Mr. Grayson said. He bowed to her, ignoring Pembroke completely.
Christy English - [Shakespeare in Love 02] Page 11