Love's Way (3 page)

None of us at home had a good word to say about his scheme. Neither had Emily, as soon as she learned Edward was against it. She sat with us on a Sunday afternoon out in the garden, where Nora netted (what else?) and I was ostensibly studying Edward’s latest poetical effusion, with a view to criticizing it before submission to
Blackwood’s Magazine.

“I hear the Leroys have sold to Wingdale,” Edward commented idly, with a glance down the road in the direction of Ronald Leroy’s home.

There was only the Chapman’s farm remaining between Leroy’s and Ambledown. “You cannot mean it!” I exclaimed, dropping his ode to the ground in my consternation. “Why on earth would Ronald do such a thing? He is against the new town.”

“He has had a terrible run of luck,” Edward reminded me. “You remember how many head of sheep he lost when some poison got into his spring dip. Close to a hundred it was, and then at the end of June the wool he had stored in his barn for market was burned up. He has been scrambling to meet his mortgage ever since. It turned out Wingdale had bought it from the bank, and he foreclosed. Well, Leroy was three months overdue. Wingdale was very gentlemanly about it, they say in town. He has given Ronald a few months to relocate and has even offered to buy his herd from him so that he will have money to get started up in something else.”

“Where can he go? What will he do? He doesn’t know any other business but sheep,” Nora lamented, when the exigencies of her work allowed her to draw breath.

“I expect he will go to work for one of the larger farmers. Not much else he
can
do. I wish I could afford to hire him,” Edward said. Poor Edward. His heart was in the right place, but his head, alas, was in the clouds. He could hardly afford to hire
me,
at the price of rack and manger.

Edward looks as a poet should look, with a fine dreamy eye, a sweet expression, and an ineffectual mouth which either smiles or sulks but never assumes the determined line of a man of resolution. He looked to Emily and fell into a reverie, very likely composing a few lines on her beauty. He was not to be disturbed during these moments of creation—it was tacitly understood. I addressed my next remark to Nora.

“We’ll be the next to go,” I warned her. “I shall go to the bank tomorrow and make sure our mortgage has not been taken over by Wingdale. I doubt it is legal for them to sell it without letting us know.”

“Wingdale is always legal,” Nora pointed out. “He has hired that London solicitor full time, to represent his interests.”

“I begin to wonder whether he has not hired an arsonist full time as well. You remember how he got Berkens’ place last winter? A fire started in the barn and spread to the house.”

“That kind of talk will get you in trouble,” she cautioned me. “Wingdale’s lawyer threatened Berkens with a slander suit when he suggested the fire was not accidental.”

“It’s not slander if you can prove it. If I were a man I would do some investigating.” I said, speaking rather loudly in Edward’s general direction.

I did not really hope he would hear. His next speech showed me my error. “You are thinking Beetham had something to do with it, Chloe.”

“Beetham? Why should I think anything of the sort?”

“Well, Beetham used to work for Berkens, and when he left him he went to Leroy, so it might look like a connection, but he was in the tavern at Wingdale Hause the night Leroy’s wool was burned, so it could not have been his doing.”

“I had not realized such rumours were running around town. We’ll have to be a good deal more careful, if Wingdale
is
causing these fires and accidents,” I said, feeling a strong sense of alarm.

The afternoon was unpleasant enough, with the news of our old neighbour losing his farm. It soon deteriorated even further when I spotted Tom Carrick jiggling down the road in his whisky. He often comes to court me on a Sunday afternoon. The rest of the week he is busy, thank goodness. The wooing has taken on an even stronger flavour of distaste since the proposal. I would have refused him by now were it not for Nora’s constant singing of his praises, and my own fears for our future.

“Why, here is
Tom!’’’
she said, glancing up as she stopped to turn the mesh in her netting. How she could imbue one monosyllable with so much approval is a wonder. She drew it out, in a sing-song way, going up and down in tones. The two lovers (Edward and Emily, I mean) turned warm, conspiratorial smiles on me. Soon their gaze reverted to each other. A silent agreement being reached between them, they arose to wander off towards Barwick Pike. As Emily was wearing patent slippers, I trusted they did not have in mind climbing it.

Tom dismounted and tethered the reins to a tree, then came towards me. He was carrying an ominous bundle, newspaper-wrapped, which was the manner in which he brought his edible offerings of fish and fowl, and an occasional rabbit. “Don’t leave us, Nora,” I said before he got within hearing range. She was unhappy, but obedient.

I really don’t know why it is I cannot love Tom, or at least like him better than I do, for I am hardly in the springtime of life, where love is all to me. There is nothing amiss in either his appearance or character. He is tall enough (five feet, nine inches), handsome enough (dark hair, fair skin, not deformed in either face or body), rich enough (five thousand per annum), and old enough (thirty-three years). There is just some little
je ne sais quoi
lacking. Maybe I do
sais quoi,
but hesitate to relate it. The man is possessed of no single atom of that element whose excess I have been lamenting all these pages in my brother—romance. Like everything else, it is wanted in the proper degree, which is to say in this case, sparingly. When Tom proposed, for example, he complimented me on my good character, my hard work at keeping Ambledown running, my economy, my interest in the local charity work, and my family’s old origins. He mentioned that I would be a useful helpmate to him. Not in just those words, of course, but that was the gist of it.

I do not denigrate that he took account of these matters, but that it was these and no others he chose to mention at such a time. I did not expect to hear him say, as Captain Wingdale once did, that I was “the prettiest little lady in town”. I am not, but I hope I am not quite an offence to the eyes either. If my brown hair would only turn black, my blue eyes green, my few freckles fade, and my chin shrink about an inch, I think I might be said to possess some claims to beauty.

Tom was upon us, making his bows and asking permission to take up the chair vacated by Edward, while he looked at his soggy newspaper and his hands and my hands, feeling, I suppose, that he should be making some more formal greeting. He is a little inclined to formality.

“Have a chair, Tom,” Nora said.

“Pity about Ronald Leroy,” he commented, sitting down, still holding his bundle. The sun was shining, blackbirds wheeled overhead, and I was wearing a new fichu on my best gown. The man had come courting, but his first words after being seated were, “Pity about Ronald Leroy.”

“We were just discussing it,” Nora answered, glancing to the newspaper expectantly.

“We were wondering whether Wingdale is not having these fires set,” I said, and watched for his reaction,

“There is no evidence of that. I would not say such a thing in company, Chloe,” he warned me, with a nervous look.

“He is too sharp to leave any evidence,” I pressed on. "There is only Chapman’s between Grasmere and Ambledown now. If Chapman’s goes up in smoke, I mean to call in a constable and have it investigated. In fact, it ought to be done now. The men of the area should get together and
insist,”
I said, casting a challenging look on him.

“Chapman won’t give him any trouble,” was his answer. “He has got the concession of brewmaster for Wingdale Hause. Well, he never had more than a nominal interest in sheep and will be glad to be rid of what he has. He is tickled pink with the new village. It will bring a good deal of prosperity to the area. I’m not sure it is a bad thing, when all’s said and done.”

“It is a wretched thing! You would say so too if your estate were situated in his path, instead of safely away on the far side of the mere.”

“As to that, Miss Barwick, you are welcome to join me any time, away from all the construction that will soon be going forth. And your aunt, Mrs. Whitmore, as well,” he added punctiliously, with a nod to include her in his proposal. “As to Edward,” he went on, to account for the whole family, “I expect there would be plenty of room for him at Carnforth Hall. Wingdale will not plan to include
it
in his village.”

Naturally we had not bruited about town the state of Carnforth’s finances, but it struck me of a sudden that the Hall might very well be included in Wingdale’s ultimate plans. It would be easy picking. He might have the mortgages for it in his pocket this minute for all we knew. The Hall had sat like a fortress guarding that situation known as Kirkwell Pass for centuries. The blood fairly boiled to think of its falling to Wingdale’s commercial hands. He would turn it into a haunted house, or some such thing, to attract customers. Ices and lemonades and gingerbread would be served on the grounds, assemblies held nightly in the ballroom. And the only people in the world to prevent this happening were Lord Carnforth, bellowing out his obscene songs in a drunken stupor, and Lady Emily, mooning around under the trees with Edward.

“Someone ought to notify Mr. Gamble in India how matters stand,” I said.

“From what I hear of Jack Gamble, he is more likely to throw in his lot with Wingdale than hinder him,” Tom replied. Then he launched into an exposition on a new carpet he is having installed on his front staircase. These improvements to the nest are inducements to attract me into it. Any lack of refinement, any desired renovation that slips my lips regarding Ambledown is quickly instituted at Tarnmere, as Tom has foolishly called his home. He did not realize the repetition of it (a tarn being a small mere). As he has had the name carved in stone over the front portal, the name sticks.

And still the sodden newspaper was being carefully held an inch about his lap. “Can I take your parcel for you, Tom?” Nora asked, not intimating by so much as a blink that she guessed it to be a gift.

“A nice pair of trout I caught early this morning,” he said, handing it to her. “Small heads and good full back, which make the best eating. Not one of those bull trout I brought you last time.”

The gift served a dual function. It got rid of Nora, as the trout must be taken to the kitchen, and it informed us politely he would accept an invitation to dinner. Emily had long ago stopped bringing her offerings, but it was known that she, too, would accept a Sunday invitation to dinner. We contrived a merry meal and evening, despite Tom’s finding an opportunity to press me for an answer and despite Edward’s not putting his question to Emily.

As our company prepared to leave, however, it struck me that things would not long be running on in this smooth path. Tom must be given an answer; Emily must be asked the question, and either I must say yes, or she must say no. One member of the family must keep his (i.e. her) head screwed on straight. There was not much likelihood of Edward’s doing so.

“I have made good headway this evening,” Nora said, stuffing her woolens away and arising to shake out her skirts. “Two full inches done.”

“What are you making now, Aunt Nora?”

“A wedding gift,” she said archly, and smiled. Her mind had been running in the same groove as my own. She had got farther in her reckonings than I. I believe that coy smile meant she planned to attend two weddings in the near future.

Chapter Three

The announcement of Wingdale’s new town had already thrown us into one conniption. While we were still wrestling with it, another major change occurred in our lives. It proved more vexatious than Wingdale (the town), though it was greeted at first with a sense of relief. Jack Gamble returned from India to take over control of Carnforth Hall. We learned it before anyone else by virtue of Emily’s habit of popping over to see us at all hours of the day. To do the girl justice, I must state at once that she did not usually land in on us before breakfast, which we take at half past eight. On that uncomfortably warm summer day, she did just that.

She was standing at the foot of the stairs when I descended that morning. I knew from the staring look in her eyes that something untoward had happened and thought it must be her father’s death—a thing that was awaited, expected at any time. Not that he had taken any turn for the worse, but he was old and ailing. There was a lost, vulnerable look on her pretty little face. It flashed into my head at once that now Edward must marry her. She could not go on staying alone in that ramshackle old house, with bailiffs for company. It was unfortunate from a financial point of view, but it would surely happen, and I would accept it. On an impulse I opened my arms to her, for she looked so helpless.

She flung herself into them gratefully and hugged me. Starved for human affection, I thought. I never felt so kindly towards her before—or since for that matter. “Oh, Miss Barwick, he has come back!” she declared, when we released our hold on each other.

With the notion in my head that her papa was dead, I pictured a ghost hovering at her shoulder. Her next speech disabused me of the idea. “Jack Gamble has returned from India. Someone sent for him—some judge or something, because of Papa’s condition you know. He looks for all the world like an Indian, and talks so strangely. I am frightened of him.”

“Oh, is
that
all? I feared your father was dead.”

“No, he is very angry, but he is not dead. He says he will throw Jack out again, as the family did before, but Jack says if he does he’ll have a magistrate down to assess the estate, for it has been let go shockingly, and as he is the heir he has the legal right to do so. He is the most wicked man I ever met—so rude to Papa!”

“He has no good reputation,” I agreed mildly, wondering what it was best to do.

“I
cannot
stay in the house with him,” was her next speech, accompanied by a pleading glance from her big, moist eyes and a tremble of her lower lip.