by Mira Stables
“Very well, then,” she said quietly. “What kind of work can we do?”
“I’ve always wanted to be an opera singer,” volunteered Faith eagerly.
Clemency repressed a twinkle. “I fear Papa would never consent to such a scheme,” she said, treating the absurd suggestion with proper deference. “Nor would it meet our present need, since a long and costly training would be needed before you could hope to tread the boards.”
Faith protested unavailingly. She was sure that her untrained voice was adequate to chorus work and even to minor roles, while diligent study would soon raise her to the ranks of the prima donnas. She was only convinced that her scheme was quite ineligible, at least at present, when Pru pointed out that she could scarcely hope to make the right impression on a theatrical manager when she was so shabbily dressed.
There was a thoughtful silence. It was really very difficult. None of them was sufficiently highly educated to take a post as a governess, and what other position was sufficiently genteel to be acceptable to their father?
Into this silence came Betsy, to enquire if the chicken broth would suffice for their nuncheon, or should she put some potatoes to bake in the embers?
Pru groaned. “I think I shall seek a post as housemaid to a master butcher,” she said hungrily. “At least I should get enough to eat!”
“Little enough you know about it, Miss Pru,” said Betsy. “Lucky if you got bread and dripping. Folk in that class don’t bother to treat servants properly. Nor they wouldn’t employ anything as elegant as a housemaid. Maid of all work, that’s what you’d be, and a reg’lar little slavey, at everyone’s beck and call the livelong day. You’d soon be thankful for a bowl of Betsy’s good broth to stay your stomach.” She began to clear away the breakfast dishes with an audible sniff that indicated her hurt feelings.
Pru put an arm round the bent grey-clad shoulders and hugged the old woman warmly. “Now, Betsy-love, you know I meant no disparagement to your cooking. We think you’re wonderful, producing such savoury dishes out of next to nothing. But don’t tell me you wouldn’t be thankful to set eyes on a baron of beef. You must be just as tired of pinching and contriving as we are.”
Betsy softened a little and admitted that it would be a real pleasure to deal faithfully with a decent joint again. “Had that lawyer gentleman any better news?” she demanded, for having brought in the letter and being wholly in the girls’ confidence she was well aware of its importance.
Pru shook her head ruefully. “No hope at all. That’s why we were talking about seeking situations. We’re all young and strong and willing to work. Surely there must be something we could do?”
The girls were not the only ones who had been worrying about ways and means. Betsy cared little that she had received no wages for months, and though the girls had urged her to seek another situation where she might be comfortable and well paid, not for twenty golden guineas a year would she desert her former nurseling’s children in their need. Cunningly she had dipped into her own savings to purchase small items whose provenance would never be suspected. Miss Clee never wondered why a pound of butter lasted so long, or how it was that they never seemed to lack spices and flavourings. But for all her care and skill the stores in the house were visibly dwindling, and even better than her three charges Betsy knew that something drastic must be done. She had already made her own plan of campaign and had only been awaiting a suitable moment for broaching it. One had to go cannily with Miss Clee. Plaguily proud she could be at any hint of seeking patronage or charity, and her more easy going sisters would certainly follow her lead. Now it seemed that her opportunity had come.
“It’s not for the likes of me to be knowing what young ladies could do, but there’s others could advise you well enough if some folk weren’t too proud to seek help.”
There was a glint in Clemency’s eye. She and Betsy had differed on this head before. “If it’s Lady Eleanor you’re meaning, Betsy, it’s no good. She’s been far too kind to us already, and she’s not a wealthy woman. If she knew the fix we are in, she’d just invent a post for one of us, and I simply will not hang on her sleeve to that extent.”
Pru promptly seconded this view, exclaiming, “No, indeed. It’s quite bad enough with Giles sending over fresh milk every day for never a penny payment and vowing it would only be poured away. Which it would not, for they would use it to fatten the piglets.”
Faith giggled. “Does he think to fatten us?” she enquired. But Pru, who was not unaware of the masculine charm of Lady Eleanor’s son, refused to be amused. It irked her sorely that even in so small a way they should be his pensioners.
The single minded Betsy ignored these irrelevant interruptions. Fairly launched at last upon her project she was not to be deflected. “Not Lady Eleanor,” she told Clemency, “though I’ve no doubt she’d give her nephew the benefit of her advice. I’m thinking it’s Captain Kennedy you should apply to. And no need to think you’d be under an obligation to him, for didn’t your own father save his life, and him no more than a bairn? It’s thankful the man would be to be put in the way of doing you a service.”
Any one of the girls could have passed a strict examination on the story of how their father’s swift action had saved the infant Piers Kennedy from a horrid death. The tale had been a great favourite in their nursery days, with its moment of spine chilling tension as the mad dog raced straight for the toddling babe and its dramatic climax as their father shot the brute in the nick of time. The tale had lost nothing in Betsy’s telling and the little girls had listened spellbound. But that had all happened thirty years ago, and, to Clemency, the tenuous claim on Captain Kennedy’s gratitude was not one that she cared to press. It was not as though they were even acquainted with him. A naval career had kept him from home for years and during the brief intervals of shore leave it had so chanced that they were either still in the nursery or away at school. It was fully six years since he had last been in Yorkshire, and they had fallen into the way of regarding his cousin Giles, who acted as his agent, as lord of the manor.
“There might be someone among his fine friends who stood in need of a governess or a companion,” Betsy went on. “It’s only a start you need — just to introduce you and maybe speak a word in your favour. His friends might well be glad to hear of such respectable young ladies.”
Faith laughed. “Respectability is not our strong suit just at the moment. Prue has just been saying that I’m positively indecent. And maybe Clee could be a governess, since she’s the only one of us who’s the least bit bookish, but I’m sure I couldn’t. I might be an abigail or a seamstress though. What do you think, Clee?”
“I don’t see how a naval officer could usefully advise us on such feminine matters,” declared Clemency roundly.
But Pru was inclined to side with Betsy, and since Faith was eager to do something, anything, rather than drag on in their present miserable fashion, Clemency found herself outnumbered. Reluctantly she agreed that Captain Kennedy should at least be approached.
Fierce argument then broke out over the choice of ambassadress. Faith, a willing volunteer for the task, was promptly snubbed by her elders as too young and irresponsible. Captain Kennedy could not be expected to treat a mere child seriously. Since Clemency was the elder by a full quarter of an hour, Pru thought that she should undertake the mission, while Clemency felt that Pru, whole-heartedly in favour of the scheme, would be a better advocate. Finally they agreed to draw lots for it, the loser to undertake the all important errand, and as might have been expected in face of her reluctance, Clemency was that loser.
“Just my luck!” she lamented. But when Pru relented and offered to go in her place, she refused, saying that they must abide by the luck of the draw or they could not expect the plan to prosper. Instead they had best marshal their combined resources to equip the envoy as respectably as possible for the interview on which so much depended, and with this laudable object in view the meeting adjourned to Clemency’s bedchamber
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Chapter Two
“WON’T your honour consider taking the lad back in the stables?” asked lodge keeper.
Piers Kennedy shook his head in decided negative. “I’ll not trust him with animals again, Grant. Because he’s your nephew and for that reason alone, I’ve told my cousin he may employ him in the gardens. His thoughtlessness will do less harm there.”
The voice, perfectly pleasant and friendly, yet held a note that put argument at a discount. Nevertheless Jim Grant determined on one more appeal. “He’s not a bad lad, Sir,” he urged. “His mother did her best to bring him up decent, but ’twas a losing battle against that smooth-tongued cheating rascal she married on. You couldn’t expect the lad to be as steady and reliable as another. But there’s good in him, Sir, I swear there is. He needs a firm hand, I’ll allow. That’s why I’m wishful to keep him here under my own eye rather than let him go off to strangers.”
“You will be well able to keep an eye on him if he is working in the gardens.”
Grant shuffled his feet uneasily and his eyes shifted away from the cool blue gaze that measured his honesty. “I doubt the gardens’d be too slow for him,” he blurted out. “He’s a lad that’s used to getting about — reg’lar fly-by-night his dad was — always moving on whenever he’d made a place too hot to hold him. Gardening’s too slow for a lad like young Will. Stables is different. Always a bit o’ summat going on there. It’s livelier like for a younker, and there’s no denying he’s a rare hand with the horses. That’ll be the gypsy blood in him. Couldn’t you give him another chance, Sir? I’m sure he’s as sorry as could be about the colt. ’Twas only a lad’s pride in the way he could gentle the beast when t’other lads could do nowt wi’it.”
Piers Kennedy’s black brows met in displeasure. He was unused to having his decisions disputed. “A little more than that I think, Grant,” he said coldly. “A youngster’s mischief I could forgive, even though it has ruined the work of years of careful breeding. But he’s eighteen, old enough to know better; and to run off and leave the poor brute lying in agony after his own reckless tricks had broken its legs, I cannot pardon. If he had found the courage to go to my cousin and own up to his misdeeds, Dark Star could have been put out of his misery. He thought of his own skin rather than the horse’s suffering. I’ll not employ him again in my stables. The offer of a job in the gardens is still open.”
Grant shook his head slowly, accepting defeat. “Don’t know as I blame you, Sir,” he admitted with gruff honesty, “but a man has to do the best he can for his own. ’Tain’t no manner of use me saying yes to your offer. Will ’ud never stand it. I’ll have to think of some other ploy to keep him out of mischief.”
And I devoutly hope you may succeed, thought Piers, as the heavy footsteps crunched away down the drive. A lad with Will Overing’s doubtful antecedents was a problem. Piers fancied he knew the type. Brash, idle, glib liars, it was never their own failings that were to blame when Nemesis eventually caught up with them. In his younger, less cynical, days, Piers might have admitted Grant’s plea for a second chance for the lad. That was before he had acquired his limp and the white lock that streaked his dark head, mementoes of a murderous attack by a convict whom he had tried to help during the years he had spent in Australia. The man had been just such a plausible rascal. The attack had wrecked Piers’s naval career and only a magnificent constitution and grim determination had saved his life. He felt sorry for Grant, decent steady going fellow that he was, but he was not sorry that his offer had been rejected.
With a slight dismissive shrug he turned to more cheerful matters. It was still only mid morning, a crisp October day with a hint of frost and the tang of burning leaves hanging on the still air. He would take out a gun and see if eye and hand had lost their old cunning. There had been scant time for sport of late, but today he would give himself a holiday. He made briskly for the gun room, weighing the choice between Taviston moor which was convenient of access and Keylesden which meant some rough walking but would probably offer better sport.
In the event he was not destined to visit either on that particular October morning, for Beach stopped him just as his hand was outstretched to the gun room door. Beach had been his servant during his seafaring days, had tended him faithfully during that bad time six years ago, and had been installed, with his wife, at the Dower House when Piers had decided that it provided ample accommodation for a bachelor on his rare visits and had turned over the Manor House to his aunt and cousin.
“Lady asking to speak with you, Captain, Sir,” announced Beach. “Miss Longden.”
The name had a familiar ring, but Piers could not quite place the connection. “Alone?” he enquired with a trace of surprise.
“No, Sir. Got an abigail along o’ her. I showed them into the morning room.”
Piers sighed. “Very well,” he conceded reluctantly. Females never knew how to come to the point. They wasted hours in tedious circumlocution before broaching the simplest matter. Doubtless by the time that this one had stated her errand it would be too late to take out a gun. “You can show her into the library in five minutes.”
He was seated at the writing-table when the expected knock came, an impressive array of papers indicating that he was much occupied and had little time to waste on unknown importunate females. He was sure that he did not number anyone of the name of Longden among his intimate acquaintance. Probably some earnest creature was seeking subscriptions for some charity or other.
He rose politely as Beach announced the visitor, a little startled that instead of the austere and elderly female of his imaginings his caller was only a slip of a girl, and, having recovered from this initial shock, at some pains to swallow his involuntary grin at the wench’s extraordinary appearance. He was no expert on feminine fashions, but no one could fail to notice the incongruity between her expensive if somewhat ornate dress, her scuffed and shabby shoes and a feather trimmed bonnet, slightly too large for her, which tilted rakishly to one side as she gravely curtsied her acknowledgement of his greetings. She looked just like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes. He could not, of course, know how accurately he had assessed the situation.
A wave of furious colour dyed the tightly composed little face as the girl straightened the absurd headgear. Piers, hitherto divided between irritation and amusement, noticed that her fingers were shaking visibly, and took pity on her.
“Miss Longden?” he enquired kindly. “Will you not be seated? I regret that I do not at once recall the occasion of our meeting. I must plead long absence as my excuse and beg you to refresh my memory and then to tell me how I may serve you.”
His courtesy did not succeed in setting the girl at ease. She remained standing with downcast head, wrenching nervously at the string of her reticule which had somehow become twisted round her wrist, before she eventually found the courage to raise honest brown eyes to his face and say bluntly, “You have not forgotten, Sir. So far as I know you never have met me before. But I believe you to have been pretty well acquainted with my Papa, and it is upon that score that I have presumed to thrust myself upon your notice. For your other surmise is correct. I have indeed come to — to —” She stopped. Somehow, under the assessment of those cool blue eyes, she could not bring herself to utter the humble, “to beg your help” that she and Pru had agreed upon. Her chin went up as she hastily substituted, “to ask your advice.” It was a grave tactical error. Piers would probably have responded to the open appeal of the first phrase. As it was he merely begged her once more to be seated, indicating a chair which faced the writing table. She poised herself on its edge with the anxious precision of a schoolgirl anticipating rebuke, shabby shoes set demurely side by side on the muted glow of the Persian rug.
Wishful to be done with the interruption to his day as speedily as good manners would permit, Piers did not pursue the question of his acquaintance with Papa, but said only, “I am naturally honoured by your choice of counsellor. Pray continue.”
Intent on the best way of presenting her case without too far demeaning her family pride, Clemency missed the satirical note in his voice and plunged into her story.
“I must first explain, Sir, that Papa has recently suffered a reverse of fortune because of the failure of certain South American investments,” she brought out baldly, and he felt a momentary touch of pity for the girl, young and gently bred, driven by expediency to such a distasteful task.
“My sisters and I,” she went on, “wish to seek respectable situations of some kind, at least for two of us, since Papa cannot be left entirely alone in his affliction. We thought you might know of some family among your friends who could offer us employment. We are not especially skilled, I’m afraid, but we would work hard and we would not expect high salaries. Papa would thus be relieved of the burden of our support.”
The stilted phrases came to an end and the speaker breathed a sigh of relief and fixed expectant eyes on Captain Kennedy’s face. It did not look very encouraging. The dark brows were frowning, the mouth firmly set, almost grim. She could not know that her prim words had taken him half across the world. His friends! He thought of their primitive homes, of the women convicts that one or two of them employed. This foolish little chit had no idea of the conditions of living in that new world. But of course not. She probably supposed him to have a wide acquaintance in his own country, possibly even in London, which seemed to be the Mecca of all young females of marriageable age. He wondered how much of the desire for employment was genuine need and how much was simple boredom with quiet country living. And what, he speculated, was Papa’s affliction, apart from the possession of daughters with oddly independent notions? His frown deepened.