Read A Particular Circumstance Online
Authors: Shirley Smith
A Particular Circumstance
Shirley Smith
Dedicated with love and best wishes
to
my daughters, Helen and Lucy
Charlotte Grayson looked across the room at her mother, who was nodding with satisfaction and pleasure at the two
gentlemen
from the law firm, Messrs Brown and King.
Charlotte knew this was a tremendously important day in Jane Grayson’s life and she also knew that it would herald a significant change in her own life and that of her sister, Kitty.
‘This is indeed wonderful news, Mr Brown,’ her mother was saying as she accepted the deeds. ‘Felbrook Manor, mine at last.’
Jane Grayson was a small, slim woman, dressed soberly as befitted her widowed state and with her greying hair tucked neatly under a pretty lace cap. Eagerly she took up the legal documents, written on heavy parchment and tied with
official
-looking legal tape. She almost stroked them, so intense was her pride of ownership.
Adam Brown smiled over his steel spectacles. ‘Yes, my dear ma’am, you are now sole owner of the house you have longed to possess ever since your dear husband passed away. Felbrook Manor, your childhood home, ma’am. I hope that you and your charming daughters will be very happy there.’
‘I am sure we will be, Mr Brown. I have told my girls of the happy years I spent there as a child and my fervent wish is for the three of us to be settled at Felbrook Manor as soon as may be.’
Carefully, she placed the legal documents on a small
polished bureau with hands that trembled slightly and then she turned to smile at him.
‘I trust that you and Mr King will stay and take some tea with us, sir?’
Adam Brown, a tall, spare man in his fiftieth year, looked quizzically at his young partner, Matthew King, and then he bowed.
‘It would be a pleasure, ma’am, especially for an elderly gentleman like myself, to take tea with such charming ladies.’
‘Pooh,’ laughed Jane Grayson. ‘Why, down in Felbrook village, they would call you “no’ but a lad”, my dear sir. And as for Matthew, now that he and Charlotte are almost betrothed, why, I count him as one of the family. Charlotte, my love, ring for some tea, if you please and Kitty, I can smell the lardy cake that Mrs Palmer has made for us. Do go to the kitchen, my dear, and see if it is cooled enough to eat.’
Both girls rose obediently to do their mother’s bidding. Charlotte, at twenty the elder of the two, was tall and
graceful
, with the sort of vivid dark good looks which always commanded attention. Kitty was two years younger than her sister and was smaller with brown hair and her mama’s steady grey eyes and pleasant charm.
They smiled at each other and Charlotte pressed her mother’s shoulder affectionately as she passed her chair. In the last eighteen years, they had never been apart, and once childhood was over, had rarely quarrelled.
Adam Brown went to the window and looked out over the garden. ‘That cloud is looking very threatening,’ he said. ‘Judging by its direction, I think there must be a bad
thunderstorm
over Grimston way.’
As the maid entered the room, Mrs Grayson said, ‘Will you bring in the tea, please, Phoebe? I had hoped we might sit in the garden, but Mr Brown is quite right, yonder black cloud means we are going to have a downpour. We would indeed be foolish to risk sitting out.’
The girl curtsied and went for the tea tray and Kitty bounced in smiling, to say that Mrs Palmer had declared the lardy cake well and truly ready and was bringing it in
personally
.
Straight on Kitty’s heels came Mrs Palmer herself, a stout body in a large starched pinafore and old-fashioned mob cap, who carried the cake with some ceremony, on its silver cake stand.
‘The cake, ma’am,’ she declared importantly.
Just as if she were announcing the arrival of the prime minister, thought Charlotte Grayson, and smiled to herself.
The housekeeper placed it on the little side table, bobbed her head at Jane and nodded to the two gentlemen. ‘I hope as it’s adequate, ma’am,’ she sniffed. ‘Seein’ as no one told me nohow as we was havin’ company.’
‘Oh, did they not?’ Jane Grayson said serenely. ‘But we always count on you to know everything, Mary. Come now. Who is always in touch with the village gossips? Who do we go to when we wish to know who’s born, who’s married, who’s died…? Mary Palmer, of course. You are the fount of all our knowledge and wisdom, my dear Mary, but it was very remiss of me if I forgot to mention the visit of Mr Brown and dear Matthew.’
‘S’all right, ma’am,’ Mary said cheerfully. ‘I heard it said in Felbrook market yesterday, as they were coming here this afternoon.’
She waited expectantly, looking at the bureau where the deeds to Felbrook Manor still rested. No one spoke.
Jane Grayson knew that news of the purchase of her old childhood home would get out soon enough and so she said, gently dismissive, ‘Thank you, Mary. I am sure the cake will be delicious as always. That will be all for now.’
Her mother seemed to have forgotten about pouring tea and Kitty tactfully filled Matthew’s cup and smiled at him. ‘It will be so exciting to move house again and we find this is such a gloomy place, do we not, Mama?’
Jane Grayson looked round the dismal high-ceilinged room with its dark furniture and faded curtains and nodded.
‘But we have been so grateful to Sir Benjamin Westbury for allowing us to lease his family home,’ she said gently. ‘And now, we shall soon be leaving.’
As the cake was handed round, Jane Grayson continued to talk enthusiastically about her plans for Felbrook Manor.
She and her husband had brought up their daughters in a Lincolnshire vicarage and when he died, she’d been
determined
to return to her Norfolk roots and make a new home for them in the house where she herself had spent her youth. She’d been obliged to rent Westbury Hall from Sir Benjamin Westbury who was in India, but now that the lease was almost up, she was pleased and relieved to be moving to her old home.
‘It was where I had the honour to be born,’ she said. ‘And now, think of my delight at being able to take you to live in my childhood home. It is such a wonderful old house and before I married your dear papa, I passed some of my
happiest
years there.’
Jane Grayson now put down her tea cup and looked round at the assembled company before she said slowly, ‘It is quite true that Mary knows everything in the village. She has heard that Sir Benjamin is returning from India with a vast fortune and with his great-nephew in tow.’
Both Kitty and Charlotte looked at her very attentively. Then they automatically turned to gaze just as intently at Adam Brown.
He smiled at their eagerness to have the village gossip confirmed and said, ‘Why, as to that, I believe Sir Benjamin and his young relative are already in this country, so it is fortuitous that you will be able to move to your own Felbrook Manor before he comes to claim back his home.’
There was no pretence now of eating or drinking. Both girls began to ply him with questions, while Matthew smiled and listened quietly to Adam Brown’s answers.
‘And do you think they will make good neighbours?’ Charlotte asked.
‘I cannot say. My only dealings with Sir Benjamin have been as his man of business. He was more than a client to my late father, he was a friend, but he has lived abroad for so many years….
‘All I know is that he is elderly and seemingly rather frail now, but a very wealthy nabob indeed. My friend and
partner
, young Matthew here, reckons he remembers the
great-nephew
, Hugo, from Oxford. Is that not so, Matthew?’
Matthew King inclined his golden head and Charlotte took a moment to admire his fine profile and pleasant smile. She knew that his unassuming modesty belied his sharp brain and clever mind and that he was determined to work hard.
He was a tall young man, good-looking and well mannered, but with ambition. An orphan, he lived with his equally handsome Aunt Lavinia on the edge of the village and this lady had nurtured and supported him throughout his childhood until he was now able to make his way in the world.
She saw that Adam was listening to their excited
conversation
and looking very affectionately at Matthew.
Adam had been Lavinia King’s friend for years and had encouraged her young nephew’s talents since he was a little boy. Now Matthew was a confident young man of
twenty-four
, competent and well trained in the complexities of the law.
Yes, thought Charlotte. It was Adam himself who’d
recognized
his ability and persuaded Lavinia to encourage him. He’d finally rewarded Matthew’s persistence by first taking him into the law firm and recently making him a junior
partner
.
Now, she could see the amusement in Adam Brown’s eyes as she and Kitty hung on Matthew’s every word and the young man tried to answer all their questions.
‘And what is Hugo Westbury like?’ Kitty asked eagerly.
Matthew smiled at her and Charlotte noticed the kindness in his eyes while he took in every detail of her sister’s rather homely appearance. With her slight body, softly curling dark hair and honest grey eyes, Kitty would never be a beauty, but her expressive face was sparkling with interest.
‘Well….’ he said slowly. ‘It is all of five years since I last saw Hugo Westbury. We were never close friends and both of us took our studies seriously. Neither of us had the luxury of a Grand Tour, as I remember. Hugo sailed for India as soon as he left Oxford. He went into Sir Benjamin’s business, but I do not know what business it was. Perhaps he was a merchant or importer of goods. I know not.’
‘And what does he look like?’ Charlotte asked. ‘Is he tall? Dark? Fair? I expect he must be quite burnt by the sun if he has been in India.’
His eyes softened as he looked at her. She’d only lived in the village for just over a year and yet already they somehow had an understanding. Tall, almost too tall for a woman and with a beautiful flawless face dominated by dramatic grey eyes, fringed with coal-black lashes, Charlotte Grayson would stand out in any company. A vivid personality, an arresting beauty all her own and a remarkably strong will. This was Charlotte Grayson as Matthew had come to know her and he was sure she would never alter.
He looked at her for so long that both Charlotte and Kitty became impatient for his answer. ‘Well?’ Charlotte demanded. ‘Are you going to tell us what the nabob’s heir is like?’
‘He is dark as I remember him,’ Matthew said slowly, as though trying to recall a distant face to mind. ‘I do not remember his eye colour. Dark skinned with the sun? I know not. We shall no doubt see him and his great-uncle soon enough when they return home.’
Even Adam Brown, who had lived in Norfolk all his life, could tell them no more. ‘Suffice it to say,’ he said. ‘Sir Benjamin has indicated to me that he has vowed to go
travelling
no more. He has sold out his concerns abroad and is desirous of settling back in his family home.
‘This house is not in the very best of condition, but it is his country seat. With lavish care and plenty of money, he intends to restore it to its former glory, to repair and replenish the stables and, in short, to retire and live in the style befitting a wealthy landowner.’
Jane Grayson now thought of a question for the first time. ‘And is there a
Lady
Westbury?’ she asked quietly.
‘No,’ Adam Brown said. ‘Sir Benjamin never married. His youngest brother had one son and one grandson, Hugo Westbury. His other brother I believe had the same, but I do not know that one’s name.’
With that, they had to be content and as soon as Phoebe had cleared away the tea things, Jane Grayson whisked Mr Brown into the library to talk about her plans for the
refurbishing
of Felbrook Manor.
‘Sir Benjamin is not the only one with pretensions to style,’ she laughed. ‘I too have ideas for my family home, now that it is mine at last.’
Kitty tactfully remembered some sewing that she was very keen to finish and disappeared up to her room, leaving Matthew and Charlotte alone with each other.
After a moment Matthew rose and went to stand by the window, looking out at the darkly threatening sky. ‘Your mama seems to be expecting an announcement of our betrothal any time now,’ he said quietly.
Charlotte stared at his back, frowning a little. ‘What do you mean, Matthew?’
‘Well….’ There was a pause and he turned away from the window and strode over to her. ‘Do your mama and Kitty really believe that we are already engaged to be married?’
Charlotte shook her head. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I have never led anyone to believe such a thing.’ She was
deliberately
flippant as she said, ‘After all, a lady usually waits to be asked before making such an announcement.’
Even so, she wondered why Matthew had not so far made a formal declaration for her hand. They’d known each other for a year. He was a frequent visitor to their home and Charlotte was sure he was in love with her.
‘I am pleased that you have not led anyone to believe we are as good as engaged, Charlotte. You see, I feel I am not quite ready for such a step. Not yet. I have only just been made a partner. I have my way to make in the world…. I want to be able to keep a wife in style…. You do
understand
… don’t you?’
Charlotte was angry and hurt and spoke more sharply than she intended. ‘Yes, I do understand, Matthew. It was merely an ideal dream of romance on the part of my lovely mama,’ she snapped. ‘I have never hinted at it by word or deed. I am not sure if I want to be betrothed to you either.’
‘Hell! What a pig’s ear I am making of this,’ he said. ‘That is not at all as I imagined I was going to say it.’
‘And why does it matter?’ Charlotte asked coldly. ‘I am sure I have no wish to lure you into a parson’s mouse-trap if you are so unwilling.’
Matthew took her hand and his eyes were tender. She knew that he was very fond of her, in spite of his rather clumsy remarks, but she still felt angry.
He looked uncomfortable and said diffidently, ‘It is just that Adam has been making very pointed remarks recently and then your mama saying….’