Uncle Edgar said, ‘Since we are all here, and since it’s a solemn occasion, I think we might read a chapter out of the Bible. Then, Fanny my dear, we’ll get a couple of the servants to witness that brief document I drew up last night, and you’ll really be your own mistress. Does that alarm you?’
She was thinking that the ten sovereigns, more money than she had ever had at once before, would pay for her journey to London if it became necessary to go. Or to Exeter or Bristol or Liverpool or any part of England. She need no longer feel completely a prisoner. The knowledge gave her a great sense of freedom and lightness of heart. She could even take the children…
‘No, Uncle Edgar. I am not alarmed.’
‘She’s a rich woman,’ said George unexpectedly. When everyone looked at him, he said, ‘How does a woman spend ten sovereigns? I’d know what to do with it, mind you.’
‘Then never mind your dissertations,’ said his father, with some sharpness. ‘Now be quiet. I am going to read the twenty-third psalm.’
He had a good voice for reading aloud, rich and sonorous. Fanny had heard it every day of her life, when the servants gathered with the family for morning prayers. She had also heard it thrown out impressively from the pulpit in church when Uncle Edgar frequently read the lesson. But it had never sounded more moving than now on this, her twenty-first birthday, when she was in the grip of so many emotions. Excitement, pleasure, uneasiness about George, anxiety for the children, a most bittersweet feeling about Adam Marsh, and above all an unexplainable tense anticipation of some event about to happen.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…
‘There,’ said Uncle Edgar, closing the big Bible with a clap, and reaching for the bell rope.
When Lizzie answered the bell he said, ‘Can you write?’
Lizzie looked bewildered, bobbed a curtsey, and said proudly that she could.
‘Good. Then I want you here, and someone else who can write a good hand.’
‘Cook can’t, sir, but Rosie in the dairy can.’
‘Then ask Rosie to come.’
‘Yes, sir.’
As Lizzie bobbed and hurried away, Uncle Edgar produced the narrow sheet of parchment which he had inscribed in his own thick deliberate writing.
‘If you want to peruse this, Fanny, you may. But I assure you it isn’t necessary. I’ve done exactly as you asked. I am your Executor, Olivia your ben—well, never mind. That child will want to know the meaning of the word, and I’ve already had experience of trying to answer her questions. She will at once imagine you—har-har-harumph.’ He chuckled good-temperedly, and handed Fanny the parchment.
Fanny glanced quickly at the script. She saw her own name in large letters, ‘Francesca Davenport’ and further down ‘to my cousin Olivia Davenport all my personal effects including one sapphire and diamond pendant’ (now there would be the cameo brooch and the topaz ring as well for Nolly to receive). Further down she read ‘to my said Executor Edgar Davenport all the rest and residue of my estate’ and thought, with slightly grim humour, that if she died quickly enough, Uncle Edgar was ensuring that he got back his ten golden sovereigns!
The two maids had arrived, Rosie nervously hanging back in the doorway.
Uncle Edgar dipped his quill pen in the silver ink-well, and handed it to Fanny. She took it and signed her name where he indicated. She was in a curious state of unreality, the words
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
mingling in her head with the formal phrasing of the will.
‘Where did you learn these legal phrases, Uncle Edgar?’
‘Ah, that’s easy. I’ve signed enough documents in my time. Now, if you’ll just stand there, Fanny, while Lizzie and Rosie append their names as witnesses.’
With much heavy breathing, the two women complied. Rosie gasped in dismay as a small blot formed beneath the nib, but Uncle Edgar swiftly blotted it away and said kindly, ‘Take your time, my girl. Don’t be nervous. You’re not signing your death sentence.’
Fanny found Nolly at her skirts, whispering agonisedly, ‘What are you writing, Cousin Fanny. Does it mean that you’ll go away, now you’re twenty-one?’
Fanny said, ‘S-sh, Nolly! It’s only something grown-ups do. Something you’ll do one day. Ask Uncle Edgar.’
‘Yes, child,’ said Uncle Edgar absently. ‘Yes, if you have some jewellery and a little money. It’s everyone’s duty.’
‘You’re wasting your time, Fanny,’ said George suddenly and harshly. ‘A married woman’s property becomes her husband’s.’
Uncle Edgar lifted his heavy white eyebrows blandly.
‘A married woman, George? But our dearest Fanny isn’t married. So what can you be talking about?’
‘George—’ began his mother, uneasily.
‘Be quiet, Mamma, Papa. I’ve waited long enough to speak. I knew you wouldn’t allow Fanny to marry me before, but now she’s her own mistress, as you just said. So she’s free to do as she likes. And I’m asking her to marry me. I won’t be put off any longer. Fanny, I want your answer now.’
In that moment George sounded strong and dignified. But the speech had cost an effort of concentration that had made the moisture stand out on his forehead and heightened his colour alarmingly. His blue eyes had a fixed expression of determination and desire that made Fanny wince. She was only glad that this unwelcome proposal had been made in company where she was safe. Had they been alone George would have inevitably tried physical persuasion.
Aunt Louisa made a movement to speak again, but this time Uncle Edgar stopped her.
He said himself, in a perfectly quiet reasonable voice, ‘Well, Fanny? What is your answer?’
Fanny felt Nolly’s small hand holding her own in a hot and panic-stricken grip. She felt almost as panic-stricken as the child, but she made herself speak calmly, ‘The answer is no, as George has always known it would be. I have never given him the slightest encouragement. I am sorry, George, but you can scarcely be surprised—’
George took a step forward. His brow was creased in concentration, his big hands held out. He seemed to be having trouble in understanding her words.
‘Fanny, I told you yesterday on the moor that today I would be doing this. I want you to be my wife. We’d be happy together. You’d be mistress here—’
‘Fanny! Mistress of Darkwater!’ cried Amelia suddenly, deeply shocked. ‘But she’s only—’
‘Be quiet, Amelia!’ That was Lady Arabella, her husky voice full of authority. ‘What is there about Fanny that makes her unsuitable to be the mistress here? She is beautiful, kind—oh, hot-tempered, I agree—but a lady. I commend George’s taste.’
‘Mamma, you’re talking as if I were dead!’ exclaimed Aunt Louisa in high dudgeon. ‘I anticipate being mistress here for the next thirty years, at least, and this whole conversation is nonsensical. George is still ill and quite unfit to marry. I won’t hear of such a thing. I thoroughly disapprove of cousins marrying, anyway. Fanny, be good enough to take the children upstairs. They shouldn’t be listening to this conversation. And George, you are very flushed, I’m afraid your head is bad again. You had better rest.’
Aunt Louisa’s tactics had always been to reduce them to the status of children. To speak in a loud bossy voice, and wield her authority.
This time, however, George, at least, was not to be intimidated.
‘My head is fine, Mamma, and I don’t intend to ask the doctor’s permission to marry. I shall do so when I please. So, Fanny! Listen to me! I warn you whether you do or not, I shall get my own way.’
Fanny’s refusal burst from her. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘No, no, no! I won’t be persecuted in this way. I can’t stand it any more. What do you think I am? A servant to be bribed and bullied into giving in to your wishes? You’re nothing but a bully, George. You always were. I’m glad to say it at last.’
George’s hands slowly opened and closed. His face had gone a curiously dark colour.
‘I’ve told you I would kill anyone who came between us.’ His hands closed again, convulsive. ‘I can kill. I’ve been trained to.’ He gave a sudden high laugh. ‘That’s one thing the Crimea taught me. It’s no trouble at all. A sword and a dark night…’
‘George!’ His father’s voice was icy. ‘There are young ears listening. Have a little self-control. Or if you can’t, leave the room.’
George’s face suddenly and distressingly collapsed into that of a harshly scolded child.
He turned momentarily to Lady Arabella.
‘I must have her, Grandmamma!’ he exclaimed, and then rushed headlong from the room.
In the shocked silence that followed, Aunt Louisa put her handkerchief to her face and began to cry. Amelia ran to her side.
‘Mamma, it was only George in one of his moods. He’ll forget it. It’s ridiculous that he should want to marry Fanny. Imagine—Fanny!’ But her eyes sought Fanny’s in astonishment and resentment. ‘That’s two proposals you’ve had in three months. At least, you won’t be able to say you’ve never been asked.’
‘How could I marry George who is practically my brother?’ Fanny demanded. ‘And I’ve said before I will only marry for love.’
‘A nice sentiment,’ said Uncle Edgar, ‘though sometimes difficult to fulfil.’ His eyes rested very briefly on his wife. ‘Amelia, get some smelling salts for your mother.’
‘Yes, Papa,’ Amelia hurried from the room.
‘A nice sentiment, indeed,’ came Lady Arabella’s deliberate voice. ‘But quite impractical, Fanny. Quite impractical.’
Her grey eyes, round as a cat’s, met Fanny’s with a look of stony hostility. Fanny’s heart missed a beat. She had never thought Lady Arabella her enemy.
The tense atmosphere was broken by Marcus demanding whether Cousin George would sound his trumpet before he used his sword.
‘I wanted a trumpet,’ he said wistfully.
‘Did you, my boy? Then you shall have one.’ Uncle Edgar was trying to restore the previous mood of happiness and normality. ‘And Miss Olivia? What are her present desires?’
But Nolly wouldn’t answer. She was very white and still clung to Fanny. Fanny wished uselessly that that scene hadn’t taken place in front of the children. She murmured something about taking Nolly upstairs, it was time she rested. She didn’t want to look at anyone any more, Aunt Louisa weeping angrily because always, always, this interloper, this girl with more looks and spirit than her own daughter, ruined things, Uncle Edgar earnestly trying to retrieve the happy birthday spirit while his eyes glinted with other thoughts, and Lady Arabella with her look of implacable hatred.
But a flicker of her never quite extinguished optimism came back as she saw the postboy coming up the gravelled drive.
‘Uncle Edgar, here’s the post. Do you think there might be a reply from Mr Craike?’
‘Couldn’t be yet, my dear. Don’t be so impatient. He’s an old man and sick. Give him at least ten days, if he replies at all. Cheer up, child, cheer up. Forget that affair with George. He’s not himself, and you did quite right. Don’t be afraid of his wild threats. We all know him, eh? But I’ll have the doctors back, if necessary.’
‘Uncle Edgar, I’ve always wondered about that night Ching Mei—’ She had to stop, because again the children were listening.
Uncle Edgar, surprisingly, didn’t deride her unspoken suspicion. Instead he said, soberly, ‘I can’t deny I’ve had my own thoughts, too. But that’s over, past, can’t be undone. So run along and begin to enjoy your birthday. Marcus, Olivia, if within an hour you have made your Cousin Fanny laugh you shall each be allowed to make my watch play a tune yourselves.’
So, on the way upstairs, Marcus enquired earnestly the best way to make Fanny laugh, but Nolly, with a shadow of her former spirit, remarked dispassionately that when next she saw Cousin George she would cut his throat.
‘Nolly!’ Fanny exclaimed. ‘Such a thing to say.’
‘How?’ Marcus asked with deep interest.
‘With a knife, of course. Like William uses for wild pigs. He told me.’
‘I thought you’d use a sword,’ said Marcus.
‘Children!’ said Fanny, almost on the verge of laughter after all.
Life was so crazy. It swung from the fearful and the grotesque to the absurd and the touching without giving one time to change one’s mood. Now she found that the alarming scene with George had jolted Nolly out of her apathy. There was colour in her cheeks, and her ingeniously macabre imagination was hard at work to find a way to protect her beloved Fanny. A little warmth and happiness had come back to the day, after all.
When Amelia came into the nursery to report that George had gone out riding, galloping his horse wildly across the parkland to the moors, she relaxed a little more. That meant he wouldn’t be back for hours and when he came he would be tired and wanting only a hot bath and a brandy. So the house was safe until dark.
Safe? That was the word that had instantly sprang to her mind.
‘Goodness, Fanny, you’ve upset everybody.’
‘I!’ said Fanny indignantly.
‘Mamma says it’s your fault. She’s talking of sending George to London for the winter. She says he needs a change of people and scene, and he’ll come back cured. Grandmamma just says, “Try, Louisa. See if he’ll go.”’ Amelia was amusing, the way she could imitate Lady Arabella’s hoarse voice. ‘And Papa says nothing at all except that this will blow over. George is merely suffering from a foolish infatuation, like most young men. But you must admit, Fanny, that it wasn’t a very
romantic
proposal of marriage. It was more like a threat, somehow. I’d hate my first one to be like that.’
There was something wistful in Amelia’s voice that made Fanny say, generously, ‘You don’t need to worry. Your first one will probably be from the right man.’
‘Will it?’ said Amelia, and strangely looked about to weep.
She didn’t, however. She sprang up, crying, ‘Poor Fanny! What a birthday. First it was so nice, then so horrid. Let’s make it nice again. Let’s play games this afternoon. Everyone is to dress up as some well-known character, and the rest must guess who it is. Nolly and Marcus, too. Grandmamma will lend us things. It won’t frighten Nolly, will it?’
‘I don’t think so. But it might be better if she sat and watched. She isn’t strong yet.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Then I wish we had some guests. I wish Adam were here. But who knows, he might ride over.’