Amanda Scott (2 page)

Dolly sniffed and said sullenly, “I hope Aunt Emily will at least persuade you that a year is altogether too long for everyone to be forced to give up all pleasure merely because Papa was so unfortunate as to die.”

“Dorothy Rivington,” said her mother sharply, “pray remember where you are and who you are, and do not speak in such an unbecoming manner again.”

“I shall not speak at all then,” said Miss Rivington, getting to her feet and putting her straight little nose in the air. “I can see that you mean to pour all your woes into poor Aunt Emily’s ears, and since I have heard them all until I am sick to death of them, I shall leave you to a comfortable coze.” Whereupon, with a decided flounce of her white muslin skirts, she turned and left the room.

When the door had shut with a snap behind her niece, Emily raised her slim, arched brows and said quietly, “Do you customarily allow your children to address you so rudely, Sabrina? Really, I—”

“Oh, Emily, please. I cannot bear it if you lecture me,” cried Sabrina. She opened her mouth to say something else, but the tall white doors opened again just then to admit the footman and a maid with Emily’s refreshment. There were four cups and saucers and a tray of assorted sandwiches, and everything was set out in front of her ladyship. Sabrina had herself well in hand again and poured out without a quiver. But when the servants had gone, she looked directly at Emily. “It is not only Oliver, as you can see. Dolly has been much affected by her papa’s death.”

“Spoilt her,” pronounced Miss Lavinia. “Spoilt Oliver too, come to that. Always giving them things because he couldn’t be bothered to give of himself. Just a man like any other, putting his own pleasures ahead of all else.”

“I was most sincerely attached to Laurence,” Sabrina said stiffly, “and I am certain that he loved all his children.”

“But you always left the children here at Staithes,” Emily pointed out, piling several sandwiches on a china plate for herself and accepting a cup of tea from her sister. “Though we often saw you and Laurence in town, I haven’t ever even met Giles or Melanie, you know, and I am persuaded that Dolly cannot have been above seven the last time you brought her into Wiltshire to visit Papa and Mama. Oliver was at school then, but of course he has stayed with us several times during his school holidays. Giles has never done so.”

“Well, I am certain that Laurence and I did nothing that everyone else does not do,” Sabrina said defensively. “One doesn’t take one’s children to London for the Season when one has excellent persons at home with whom to leave them. Only think of the upset entailed by such a move! And one certainly does not take children from one house party to the next during the winter or to Leicestershire for the hunting or to Brighton in the summer. We did take them all to the seashore at Robin Hood’s Bay—on the east coast near Scarborough, you know—after Christmas, and only look what came of that! Poor Laurence took a chill and died of it, that’s what.”

“Good gracious, Sabrina, surely you are not blaming your husband’s death on the fact that he finally paid some little heed to his children!”

“No, no, don’t be absurd. You have diverted me from what I was telling you. Emily, Giles has written from Eton to say he will not come home for the long vacation because he does not wish to do so, and poor dear Melanie scarcely speaks a word to anyone anymore. I promise you, she was used to be the most delightful, cheerful little girl. She is very like you, you know.”

“I pray you will cease to think of me as a child, Sabrina. I promise you that I am as fully grown as I am ever like to be.”

“Nonsensical girl.” Her sister regarded her fondly. “You know perfectly well that I meant only that the child resembles you. You were just such a fairy creature when you were her age. Her hair is as flaxen as yours and just as straight and fine. Her governess, Miss Brittan, has convinced her to wear it in two plaits, and the look suits her.” Sabrina paused, but when no one else said anything, she looked down at her teacup and said hesitantly, “I have not told you the worst of it, Emily. Indeed, I am ashamed to confess that such a dreadful thing has come to pass in my very own house.”

“Good gracious, what else can there be? You have cited quite a list of woes to me already.”

“But this last thing is really worse than all the rest,” Sabrina said, glancing apologetically at Miss Lavinia. “Miss Lavinia’s sister, as I believe I have told you before, was Laurence’s mother, Letitia Arncliffe. Dolly is named for her. Her full name is Dorothy Le—”

“For goodness’ sake, get on with the important part, Sabrina,” Emily said impatiently. “The Rivington family tree can be of only the smallest interest to me.”

“Very well.” Sabrina sighed. “Miss Lavinia inherited some of her mama’s jewelry, including a number of excellent pieces—”

“Particularly the rubies,” interjected Miss Lavinia reminiscently. “I was always partial to the rubies. Never could wear them, of course. Looked like a mouse with apples tied round its neck, but I liked ’em.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “You speak in the past tense, ma’am. Can it be that your jewels have gone missing?”

“Stolen,” said Sabrina tragically. “Right out of her jewel case in her own bedchamber. And pray do not suggest that one of the servants may have taken them, for if anyone else makes such a suggestion, I am sure they will all leave. Every one! It is quite odious enough that Meriden has called in the Bow Street Runners. Bumptious beasts asking officious questions. Pompous, dreadful, common little men who—”

“Meriden?” Emily ignored the rest, her attention riveting on the name. “The Earl of Meriden, Sabrina? Crazy Jack?”

“Of course, the Earl of Meriden,” her sister replied tartly. “Who else should have done such a thing? And I do not think it at all becoming in you to refer to him by that dreadful nickname, though now I come to think of it—”

“But all the bucks in London call him Crazy Jack,” Emily said calmly, “and most of the ladies do too, for he is always ripe for mischief. They say he will bet on anything, that he fights duels for the fun of them, and that he is always in the thick of things. I have met him, you know. He is a handsome man, I believe, though I candidly admit that I am partial to men with dark hair and gray eyes. But I liked his quick smile and friendly manner too. Of course,” she added, reflecting on certain specific occasions when she would gladly have slapped the earl’s flashing grin right off his handsome face, “he can be dictatorial, impertinent, and unbecomingly arrogant at times. However, I do not see what he has to do with you.”

“But surely I told you,” Sabrina said, staring at her. “Indeed, Emily, I know that whatever else I may have neglected to write these past months, I did tell you the distressing news about Laurence’s will. I simply cannot comprehend any law that permits a man to put his affairs into another man’s hands rather than into those of his own dear wife.”

Blinking at the thought of her sister attempting to manage anyone’s affairs, her own certainly included, Emily said slowly, “You did write about the will and that things were left in a mess. That was months ago, of course, but I remember clearly that you said Laurence had named his cousin John guardian to the children and principal trustee of the estate. I know you wrote ‘Cousin John’ or ‘Cousin Jack’—good God, Sabrina, never tell me …”

Sabrina nodded. “John Rivington is the seventh Earl of Meriden. Indeed, it was he who franked my letter to you. Cousin Jack and Crazy Jack are one and the same.”

Emily took another sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. “So Meriden calls the tune here,” she said at last. “I cannot imagine such a thing. Is he a strict guardian, Sabrina? I’d not have thought it.”

“You wouldn’t know him now,” said Sabrina, “for he’s changed beyond recognition, although I, too, have a memory, my dear, and I distinctly recall one or two
on-dits
after Christmas, linking your name with his. Indeed, I am surprised to learn that you knew nothing of our connection with him. But truly, Emily, he is the cause of all our troubles. He has expressed himself most unfeelingly over poor Oliver’s troubles, considering that he is as much to blame for them as the boy is. He expects Oliver to get on at Cambridge on the merest pittance. Laurence was always generous, so it is no wonder that the poor boy went to the money lenders when he ran short. And with his expectations, it is even less wonderful that they broke the law just a trifle and lent him the money he required. But the authorities at Cambridge found out and ordered Oliver home till Michaelmas term.”

“What expectations?” Emily demanded. “Unless I’m out in my reckoning, Sabrina, Oliver is barely turned eighteen. Surely everything is in trust until he is twenty-one or older. That is the usual method with such estates as Staithes, I believe.”

“Twenty-five,” said Sabrina.

“Then—”

“He is Meriden’s heir as well,” Sabrina explained, “just as poor Laurence was before him, although Laurence, bless him, rarely mentioned the fact to anyone.”

“But how can that be? Oliver is Baron Staithes. Surely that is not a mere styling, not one of Meriden’s lesser titles.”

“No, no, the barony derives from Laurence’s grandmother, who was a baroness in her own right. Laurence’s great-grandfather was the fourth Earl of Meriden. His elder son was Meriden’s grandfather, and his younger son married Baroness Staithes. The properties march together, you see, so it was an excellent match, but although both sides produced large families, very few of the males survived. Laurence and Jack were second cousins, the only ones left, so Laurence, although he was the elder by nearly twenty years, was Jack’s heir. Now Oliver holds that position.”

“But expectations, Sabrina?” Emily stared. “Meriden is not yet thirty, I believe.”

“But the earls of Meriden have all married young, and he shows no inclination to marry at all. Moreover, I am sure men have died younger than thirty before now,” Sabrina said.

Emily took her temper firmly in hand and changed the course of the conversation abruptly by asking, “Is Meriden also responsible for Giles’s refusing to come home and for the drastic change you describe in little Melanie?”

“As to Melanie, I cannot say. I daresay Jack has always been kind to her in his own careless fashion, but yes, he is certainly responsible for the very unhappy letter I received from dearest Giles.”

“Boy wants smacking,” said Miss Lavinia, speaking up in what Emily was coming to recognize as a characteristically elliptical fashion. “Don’t do to coddle boys, Sabrina. They grow up to be men no matter what you do.”

“I don’t coddle Giles, Miss Lavinia,” said Sabrina, straightening indignantly in her chair. “Really, I do not know how you can say such a thing of me. I am certain Laurence’s school reports can never have been anything special, because he was used to laugh at the cutting things the masters wrote about Oliver. And all they have said about Giles is that he lacks application, whatever that means. Surely there was no reason for Jack to write him a severe scold, as he must have done, for Giles wrote to me that he read only bits of the letter because he didn’t like the tone of it, and I am certain that can be nothing to wonder at. No one would have liked to receive such a letter.”

“But why is Giles not coming home?” Emily asked.

“Because,” Sabrina said, “if he does, Jack has said he must have a tutor for the whole of his long vacation. Can you credit it? Keeping poor Oliver short of money and then expending heaven knows how much on a tutor for Giles—”

“A very strict tutor,” added Miss Lavinia on a note of satisfaction.

“I see.” Emily applied her attention to her tea for some moments while she turned the matters thus described to her over in her mind. Despite the difference in their ages, she felt that she knew Sabrina well, for they saw each other frequently during the year in London and at other people’s homes, and they were avid correspondents. This last fact was true of the entire Wingrave family, of which Emily was the youngest member. But Sabrina was no doting mother, and until the last few months—until the death of Baron Staithes, in fact—she had rarely written about her children.

Emily had dutifully sent each one a small gift on the anniversary of his or her birth and at Christmas, and had received formal notes of gratitude in return. She occasionally received stiff, dutiful missives from one or another, including one letter written in Latin by young Giles from Eton that she had submitted to her brother Ned for translation. When the letter had proved to be no more than a copy of one of Caesar’s letters from a Latin textbook, Ned and Emily had composed a satiric reply and sent it off to the boy, hoping to hear from him again, but there had been no response. Thinking about this episode now, she realized she knew very little about her sister’s children. Even Oliver, whom she had seen most often and who was, after all, no more than a few years younger than she, was nearly a stranger. She remembered a boy with eyes like her own, light blue with dark rims around the irises, and with light-brown hair, who had visited Wingrave Hall briefly at infrequent intervals. All she really remembered about him was a mischievous laugh and an avid interest in hunting and shooting.

“Is Oliver at home now, Sabrina?” she inquired.

“Yes, of course. Haven’t I just been telling you?”

“Well, he might have been rusticated and gone to London or even gone sailing in the North Sea like our John did that time he was sent down from Oxford for playing off one of his pranks and Papa was so out-of-reason cross with him,” Emily pointed out.

“Good gracious, Emily, never put such a notion as that into Oliver’s head,” begged Sabrina. “I don’t know what he will do, though he says he desires to cut some sort of dash and then go into Leicestershire when the hunting begins. Meriden will not hear of it, of course, so it will all be dreadful for me, just as it was when he would not let Dolly go to London in June.”

“But surely you would not have permitted her to do such a thing either,” Emily said.

“No, of course not,” Sabrina replied, eyeing her doubtfully, “though I am persuaded that after six months of deep mourning, no one would have been dreadfully shocked if she had gone with me or with her friend Lettie Bennett from Helmsley to a concert or to a play—not to a comedy, of—”