Intrigue (Daughters of Mannerling 2) (18 page)

At last the ordeal was over. There was no champagne to celebrate his betrothal. Jessica looked radiantly happy, and only Rachel and Abigail thought her a fool. One day Harry would return on leave and that day would bring a return of their hopes to regain Mannerling.

And so Jessica and Robert were married, Jessica proudly wearing Isabella’s wedding gown, and in her happiness and radiance making it look as if it had been made especially for her. Isabella had failed to make the journey. The weather had been too bad to make the crossing from Ireland, and she was reported to be still weak after the difficult birth of a son. Miss Trumble found herself silently praying throughout the wedding service for the future happiness of the other Beverley sisters. Lizzie was so delighted with the wedding that Miss Trumble had no fears about her. But she was doubtful about the others. Some of their old secrecy had returned. Honoria had been forgiven by Lizzie, and Honoria, so relieved and happy that she was to stay at Tarrant Hall after the marriage, had decided that Jessica was the best of girls.

There was dancing after the wedding breakfast, which was held in the Green Man in Hedgefield, Brookfield House having been considered too small by Lady Beverley, who was still furious with Jessica for having turned down the Deverses’ kind offer to be married from Mannerling.

‘Just look at them!’ said the twins to Belinda as Robert and Jessica waltzed in each other’s arms. ‘How mawkish.’

‘What can you mean?’ exclaimed Belinda. ‘Only see how happy they are.’

‘Harry Devers could have been managed,’ said Abigail sulkily. ‘A woman can always manage a man.’

‘And what would you know of that?’ jeered Belinda. But as the twins moved away, she began to wonder uneasily if Jessica had been too weak. ‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Miss Trumble, popping up beside her.

‘I was wondering whether Abigail spoke the truth, whether she had the right of it. She said that Jessica could have managed Harry Devers.’

Miss Trumble took a deep breath. ‘Stop it now, Belinda. This is madness. Your poor sister was assaulted in the most frightening way and could, who knows, have been killed, and yet you say such as Harry Devers could have been
managed.
Fie for shame!’

‘Oh, well,’ said Belinda. ‘I know nothing yet of men. But I shall.’

And God prevent that day until you come to your senses, thought Miss Trumble.

On their wedding night, Robert and Jessica stopped at a posting-house on the road to Tarrant Hall. They were both silent and nervous, until Jessica said, ‘Robert, dear, I feel I am not yet ready for the intimacies of marriage. I am very fatigued. Perhaps we could wait a little . . . ?’ Robert looked at her, his face rigid with disappointment. ‘As you will,’ he said. ‘But I only reserved the one bedchamber. Never mind, I will sleep on that chair over there.’

Jessica was at first relieved. She undressed behind the bedhangings and climbed into the high bed and tried to compose herself for sleep. The wind whistled outside and a branch tap-tap-tapped against the window.

‘Robert,’ she said timidly, ‘are you comfortable?’

‘No,’ came the reply.

‘Oh.’ Jessica began to feel guilty. She had expected a few kisses and endearments. Not this brooding silence that fell on the room again after that short exchange. He did not understand her fears. She must try to explain. She climbed down from the bed and went round and stood in front of him. She was wearing a white muslin night-gown trimmed with lace. On her head was a ridiculous little lace nightcap. Her auburn hair lay on her shoulders.

‘Robert,’ she pleaded, ‘do not be angry with me.’

‘I am not angry, my heart, but disappointed.’

‘All I beg of you is a little time. Please kiss me, Robert, before I go to sleep.’

He stood up, still fully dressed in his wedding clothes, and kissed her chastely on the forehead.

‘A proper kiss, please, Robert.’

He tried to kiss her briefly on the mouth, but her lips clung to his own and the pair plunged into a vortex of passion that somehow ended up with both of them naked on the floor in front of the fire, with Jessica being only dimly aware of how they had got there. After some time, after she had lost her virginity in a mixture of pain and ecstasy, Robert said plaintively, ‘I think we would be better off in bed. Unless you are still frightened?’

‘Oh, no, darling, and it would be more respectable, I think. What if some servant should come in and find us like this?’

‘Then let us be respectable by all means, my love.’ He lifted her up in his arms and carried her to the bed.

Mrs Devers awoke with a start during the night. As she lay in the darkness, she heard an odd tinkling sound. She got out of bed and put on her wrapper. Her husband’s bedchamber was at the other end of the corridor, but she decided a tinkling noise was not very threatening. She followed the sound and came to the landing overlooking the great hall.

The Waterford crystal chandelier was slowly turning. It would turn half a circle and then turn back and the crystals tinkled. In sudden fear, she stared at the chandelier, which was on a level with her eyes. Judd, the previous owner, had hanged himself from that very chandelier. The chandelier was not lit, but by the dim light of the oil-lamp in the hall below and the light from another on the landing behind her, she could see the sparkle of the crystals. Then a log fell in the fire in the hall, and a red flame shot up. It seemed to Mrs Devers’s terrified eyes that in that red glow she could see a body hanging from the chandelier, revolving first in one half-circle, then back the other way, another half-circle. She put back her head and screamed and screamed until her husband and the servants came running. She could not tell them what had frightened her, only babble mindlessly. The doctor was summoned and prescribed rest and a change of scene.

It was only when they were on the road to Brighton that Mrs Devers recovered her powers of speech. Her husband patted her hand after she had stumbled out that she had seen Ajax Judd hanging from the chandelier. ‘It was a windy night,’ he said. ‘The oil-lamps were flickering and throwing weird shadows.’

‘It’s that house,’ wailed Mrs Devers. ‘It will kill us as it killed Judd.’

‘How can a house kill anyone? Give your mistress some laudanum,’ Mr Devers said to the maid seated opposite. ‘She becomes agitated again.’

Mrs Devers soon sank into a laudanum-induced sleep and the carriage rolled ever forward to Brighton, and as the miles separated the Deverses from Mannerling, so did Mrs Devers begin to recover her full sanity and her spirits.

For the moment, Mannerling was forgotten.

I only took the regular course . . . the different branches of Arithmetic – Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision.

LEWIS CARROLL

Now they were four – the four Beverley sisters, not six any more. They had been proudly aware of the effect of their combined beauty when there had been six of them and felt diminished, and Belinda, Rachel, and Abigail privately thought that Lizzie did not really count, being damned with red hair.

Miss Trumble kept them at their lessons, finding the sisters subdued and biddable. It was as if the sisters had recovered from a madness and yet without it, felt their days quiet and without ambition.

Rachel and Abigail, the twins, both attained their nineteenth birthdays, well aware that there would be no coming-out for either of them. Rachel quietly accepted this state of affairs, but Abigail could not help hoping that either Isabella or Jessica might decide to take a house in London and present them.

The twins were very alike in appearance, both with large blue eyes and fair, curly hair. But Rachel’s eyes held a dreamy look, whereas Abigail’s were usually alive with either frustration or anger. Although she privately agreed that plotting and scheming to get back to Mannerling had been a ridiculous and childish way to go on, she could not help thinking of the days when her birthday would be marked with a present of jewelry from her parents and a grand party.

At last, she sat down and wrote to Jessica, hinting broadly what fun it would be to go to London and how flat and dreary life in the country was with no beaux and nothing but lessons to enliven the tedium of the days.

‘I am going to Hedgefield,’ said Miss Trumble when she had finished the morning’s schooling, ‘and will be happy to take any letters you might have to the mail coach.’

Abigail slid that precious letter from under her mathematics primer. ‘I have one here for Jessica,’ she said. ‘We have not heard from her this age.’

Miss Trumble looked surprised. ‘Jessica wrote every week when she was on her honeymoon and now she is returned, she still writes regularly. Lady Beverley read you out loud her latest letter at dinner last night.’

‘I forgot,’ mumbled Abigail, who had meant that a proper letter never arrived, by which she meant one suggesting a London Season.

‘Will she invite us all to visit her?’ asked Lizzie eagerly.

‘Perhaps soon,’ said Miss Trumble, but casting a sharp look at Abigail. ‘They will wish to get settled in and accustomed to the married state. Perhaps in the summer. The roads are too bad for travel at the moment.’

Abigail handed her the sealed letter and Miss Trumble weighed it thoughtfully in her hand, looking down at it as if wishing she could read what was inside.

But she merely nodded to them all and left the room. ‘What were you writing to Jessica about?’ asked Rachel. ‘We all sent a joint letter only last week.’

‘I hinted – only hinted, mind you,’ said Abigail, ‘that it might be fun to go to London.’

‘London!’ exclaimed Rachel. ‘Why London?’

‘Because that’s where we should be making our come-out. Robert Sommerville could well afford to take a town house.’

‘I do not think he will do that,’ said Lizzie, resting her pointed chin on her hand. ‘He is so scholarly and thinks a life between university and home enough for him. Besides, perhaps he thinks we are a bad influence.’

‘Us? Why?’ asked Belinda.

‘Because of Mannerling. Perhaps he might think we will talk of Mannerling again.’

‘Oh, we would never do that!’ said Rachel. ‘We have learned our lesson.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Abigail firmly. Now that the letter had gone, she felt that a London Season was only a matter of time. And it was London, not Mannerling.

Miss Trumble, being driven to Hedgefield by Barry, said, ‘I have a letter to post. It is from Abigail to Mrs Sommerville.’

‘You do seem worried about it,’ said Barry, glancing sideways at her. ‘What is there to worry about in a letter from one sister to another?’

‘I suppose I must be reassured that Jessica never thinks of Mannerling now that she is married and so much in love. For I believe that Abigail might still harbour ambitions. And there is something secretive about the girls. They are friendly towards me and yet somehow they hold me at bay.’

‘Little Miss Lizzie led me to believe that they were feeling ashamed of themselves for having encouraged Miss Jessica to have anything to do with Harry Devers,’ said Barry. ‘Could be, they really are a bit ashamed of themselves.’

‘I wonder. But I must prevail on Lady Beverley to allow me to arrange some balls and local assemblies for the girls to attend. Ever since Jessica’s marriage, she has left them to me and takes no interest in her own daughters! There are plenty of eligible young men in the county. Lady Beverley should be going on calls, renewing the acquaintance with mothers of marriageable sons.

‘I feel at times that I have all the burdens of a parent without the power or privileges.’

‘And yet,’ said Barry with a sly look at her, ‘I feel you’ve had power and privilege at one time.’

‘Ruling a schoolroom gives one a certain arrogance,’ said Miss Trumble vaguely. ‘Well, here is Hedgefield. I must post this letter and pray that Abigail is not up to any mischief.’

Jessica, Mrs Sommerville, read Abigail’s letter several times, a frown on her pretty face. She and her husband were at Tarrant Hall and Honoria was still in residence, an Honoria so grateful that Jessica had not turned her out, that she had become a friend instead of an enemy.

‘Not bad news?’ asked Robert from the other side of the breakfast table.

‘It is from Abigail.’

‘The twin?’

‘Yes. She hints that she would love to go to London. She says her birthday was monstrous flat and that it is such a pity she cannot make her come-out.’

‘By which she means that you should take a house in London and bring her out?’

‘Yes, I suppose that is exactly what she means.’

‘So what do you feel about that, my love? I am quite happy to fund you.’

‘Robert, I can only remember with shame my cruelty to you and my silly ambition. I would not wish any of my sisters to suffer the same thing. If I could persuade myself that they had given up hopes of Mannerling, I would gladly bring out both Rachel and Abigail. If they still have ambitions in that direction, then they will go to London, determined only to find the richest man possible. I do not know what to do.’

‘Write and suggest they come to us later in the year when the weather is better and the roads safe for travel. That way, you can make up your mind.’

‘Oh, thank you, Robert. You are so good to me, I don’t know how I can ever repay you.’

He rose and went round the table and lifted her straight up out of her chair and cradled her in his arms. He bent his mouth to hers and kissed her long and deep. Then he smiled down into her eyes and said softly, ‘Like this.’

Abigail had run out every day to meet the post boy, always looking for that precious reply. London! She could hardly pay attention to her lessons. Her mind was in the ballroom. She was aware of Miss Trumble’s shrewd eyes on her but she did not care. It would soon be goodbye to Miss Trumble. Let her stay behind and school Belinda and Lizzie! Never for a moment did Abigail think of appealing to her mother. Lady Beverley moved through her days in a vague dream, only rousing herself to get out the account books when Mr Ducket, her husband’s former secretary, came on a visit.

And then one frosty morning, the letter arrived. Abigail snatched it out of the post bag and shot up to her room. With trembling fingers, she broke the seal and scanned the contents. She could hardly believe what she was reading. No mention of glorious London. Trivia about Tarrant Hall and a suggestion that they should all come on a long visit in the summer and perhaps attend local balls and parties.