Love's Way (6 page)

As we were on the main read to the Hall, we could see for ourselves the train of wagons wending their way up the twisting path, stocked with intriguingly closed cartons as big as carriages. One could only imagine their contents. What on earth could be in them? There were enough to furnish the Hall from the bottom floor up.

Edward was virtually useless as a spy. He went to see Emily, and returned home satisfied that the girl was not being abused in any way. He hadn’t but one detail of the cargo from India. “Gamble has given her a monkey, so she will be well amused till my return.”

“It sounds as though he is setting up a menagerie,” Nora declared, “what with tigers and elephants and monkeys.”

“The strangest creatures in it will be the human beings,” Edward then remembered to mention. “I cannot imagine why he brought home so many natives, I think they are servants. They are all washing and polishing the Hall, in any case.”

“Aye,
natives
is
it?”  Nora asked knowingly.   “Half native and half Gamble is more like it.”

“They do look rather like Gamble,” Edward thought, with no trace of condemnation. “But then he is so dark that the likeness may be only one of complexion. In any case, Emily is happy as a dove. She has got her own woman now, a servant girl called Mulla, to take care of her. Oh, and Gamble has paid off the bailiff, Emily said.”

“When is she coming to see us?” I asked, hoping for a more detailed account from her than I was apt to pry out of Edward. “She has not been here for some time now.”

“She will come before I leave,” he said, rooting on the table for his copy of Wordsworth, which was not usually so far away from him.

She didn’t, but as it happened, she finally rambled down the afternoon of the day Edward set out for his tour. He left at daybreak. Emily came in the afternoon. She had Hennie Crawford with her, a lady known to us from former visits during the better days at the Hall. Gamble did not accompany them. The change in Emily was quite simply remarkable. What was first noticed was her more elegant toilette—a new white shawl was around her shoulders, while her curls were brushed carefully into a pannier do, gathered up from her face to hang in a basket of curls at the back.

Her more demure behaviour was in all likelihood due to the presence of Mrs. Crawford. The woman was not precisely a dragon, but she had been known to complain that a card of condolence had a spelling error in it, which gives you, I trust, some notion that she was what is commonly termed a high stickler. It was the dead heat of summer, which did not deter Mrs. Crawford from wearing black mittens to match her black scowl. She had been eating onions.

We were given to understand in short order that a greater honour than we deserved had been bestowed on us in her coming. “Has Mr. Barwick left yet?” she asked eagerly. The closest thing to a smile that decorated her face during the whole visit broke out when the answer in the affirmative was given. Emily showed some traces of regret, but the Tartar was delighted.

“Did he not tell you he was to leave
early
this morning?” I asked Emily, for the day and hour of his departure had been known for a week.

“Yes, he did,” she admitted. “I had hoped to come yesterday, but Aunt Hennie had the migraine, and of course it would not do for me to run about the countryside unchaperoned.”

That she had been doing just that for the past several years caused not so much as a blush to stain her cheeks, the hoyden.

“Certainly not,” Mrs. Crawford seconded her. “Cousin John would be highly displeased with such unladylike conduct.”

“We would have been happy to fetch you, Emily, if you had let us know,” I said, with a withering glance which I hope gave the duenna the idea we were not fooled by imaginary migraines.

“You
do
keep a carriage, do you?” the brazen woman asked, as though to imply we were of that class that walked through the dust to pay our calls on foot.

“Yes, ma’am, we do, and
both
of them happened to be sitting idle yesterday,” I retaliated.

“As it happened, we were extremely busy all day yesterday with Mr. Gamble’s cartons arriving from India,” was her next sally.

I expect a little of my interest peeped out at this speech. Nora and I had been conjecturing wildly on this score for several hours.

“Artworks,” she explained briefly. “Statues, gems, ancient Indian manuscripts. He has brought many scholars back with him, to be employed at the museums and universities.”

“Meanwhile Edward tells me they are trying to clean up the Hall,” I replied. “How are the tiger and elephant? I do hope they have not made a muddle of the artworks and manuscripts.”

“Many botanical and zoological specimens of all sorts were brought back, to be studied and examined. They will be happy to receive them in London,” she said with a blighting stare.

“Exeter Exchange do you mean?” I asked, “to be added to the menagerie there?”

“John brought me a monkey,” Emily said brightly, having at last found an item of interest that did not appear to have been disqualified by the Tartar.

“How many scholars did he bring?” Nora asked. She wished to be polite but was bursting with curiosity, like myself.

“A dozen or so,” Hennie answered. “No doubt vulgar gossip has exaggerated the whole business. I see Grasmere is no different from Windermere. The town whispering about the lord of the village.”

“There is of course some talk about Lord Carnforth, due to his—illness,” I answered in a sweet tone.

She bridled up like an angry mare, sparks shooting from her cabbage-green eyes. “I was referring to Cousin John,” she said.

“You cannot mean to tell me Lord Carnforth has passed away, and we not hearing a word about it!”

“Certainly not. Gossiping about their
betters
is what I meant, Miss Barwick. John will soon be the lord of the village,” she explained patiently.

I opened my mouth to agree that we gossiped about not only our betters but the inhabitants of Carnforth Hall as well, but Nora got in before me. “How is Lord Carnforth?” she asked, in a conciliating spirit. I was left to read her injunction against further rudeness from the manner in which she snapped the mesh out of her netting.

We listened to an outpouring of imaginary ailments besetting the earl, of which overdrinking made up no part, for ten minutes, at the end of which time I had got my temper under control sufficiently to offer our guests a cup of tea. I could hardly believe my ears when the creature
refused!
Why on earth had she bothered to pay this call, if only to insult us?

I did not press her a second time. She did not invite us to call on them at the Hall, nor did I intimate that any second call from Mrs. Crawford would be a joy to us. Throughout the last tense minutes of the call Emily sat like a wind-up doll, receiving and obeying instructions passed silently from her aunt’s green eyes. When the black-mittened hands reached for her reticule, Emily arose and began what was obviously a rehearsed speech.

“It was pleasant chatting with you again, Miss Barwick,” with a little duck of the head and a chilly smile that included Aunt Nora. “No doubt we shall meet again.”

“Unless Mrs. Crawford plans on taking you away from the district entirely, I expect we shall meet again in the village, Emily,” I replied, every jot as civilly, for I would not give the pair of them the satisfaction of knowing I was furious.

“Cousin John
does
plan to take Emily to London to visit relatives, but not in the immediate future,” the Tartar answered, with a smile of triumphant spite, and a stronger than ever whiff of onions as she opened her lips to bid us adieu.

Then they were gone, leaving Aunt Nora and me to regard each other in offended confusion. “Not even a cup of tea would she take!” Nora exclaimed, when she had recovered speech. “I cannot think what she is about. The Barwicks are every bit as good as the Gambles—an older family if it comes to that. Our ancestor, Chloe, sat in Parliament long before that woman’s ancestors knew who they were. Just because the nap is off our carpets doesn’t mean we are nobody! To refuse a cup of tea in such a pointed way!”

“I believe that was what is known as a farewell visit, Auntie. And good riddance too. The onion-breathing dragon was serving us notice we are to cast out no further lures to Miss Two-Face to join us here at Ambledown.”

“I am surprised Emily would take it so meekly, after the amount of friendship that has been between us lately.”

“You forget she has been given a monkey to replace us. We cannot hope to compete with such a lively companion. This is all Gamble’s doings, of course.”

“I had that impression.”

“Let him take her to London. The sooner the better. I don’t care if we never see her two faces again.”

“Poor Edward, he will take this hard,” she sighed dismally.

I doubt very much he had thought of her since his departure. “I suppose Gamble thinks to nab a title for her, taking her to London for a Season. He’ll have to dig into his pockets to provide a dowry, if that is his aim.”

“He must be well to grass, bringing back so many things from India. The shipping fees alone would amount to something. Mrs. Partridge will know what he is worth. The banker has a set of rooms on her second story. I shall drop by next time I am in Grasmere.”

Chapter Six

The rumours of strange doings at the Hall continued, as did the caravans bearing oriental splendours for Carnforth Hall. Mrs. Partridge rolled her eyes, gasped, and admitted that fifty thousand pounds had been transferred from a London bank to Gamble’s local account. She would not venture a guess as to what portion stayed in London, but clearly he was a Nabob—and not a chicken Nabob either.

Of the Nabob himself and his women we saw nothing till church on Sunday. We always had the black carriage dusted off for church, considering our yellow tinker’s wagon to be of insufficient grandeur and excessive frivolity for this ecclesiastical occasion. The neo-Indians came in Carnforth’s old rig, not so much grander than our own, though I must own the pair of grays hitched to it took the shine out of Dobbin and Belle. They were not Carnforth’s team, but obviously belonged to Gamble.

Emily had been redone from head to toe, stuck into a fashionable gown that was surely from London, in a shade of blue that was nearly white, just tinted, like ice. It was simply but elegantly designed, showing her figure off to better advantage than her muslin round gowns had ever done. All the accoutrements were of the finest—blue kid slippers, blue gloves, a dainty bonnet with two short curly ostrich feathers that bent forward and tickled her left cheek. Really she looked inordinately elegant and beautiful, as though she no longer belonged here in Grasmere but was ready to take London by storm. I could not imagine who had made such a chic gown for her. Certainly not our local modiste, Miss Brown, who has exactly four designs in her repertoire. Gamble stood like a bridegroom by her side, smiling, solicitous to find the page for her in her book.

There, in church, was where the man’s full plan hit me in the face. Jack Gamble planned to marry Emily. Tom Carrick, for once, was right. That was why she was being weaned away from Edward and such low company as Nora and myself. That was why the onion-eating chaperone had been installed, to protect Emily and John from any hint of scandal. The gifts of monkeys and gowns were all to allay her hatred and fear of him, to pave the way for her accepting him as a husband. I was a little surprised at his choice. I had thought Black Jack Gamble would select a more dashing female, but there—what lady of good reputation would have him? He was planning to set up as a reformed character—who would have thought to see him in church, for instance?—and was using his little cousin to lend him respectability.

The revelation took my breath away. I had thought he only wanted to break off her infatuation with Edward for social and financial reasons. When the congregation stood up for the hymn I was slow to join them, and when they sat down I remained standing in a daze, till Nora gave my skirt a tug. At that point I looked around to see I stood above the throng, with half the crowd tittering at my foolishness and the other half politely pretending not to notice that Lady Emily, despite her fine feathers, was amongst the titterers, till she received a black-mittened poke in the ribs.

My aversion to Gamble was reaching a pitch that was positively un-Christian. It soared a little higher when the person selected for honour by the Nabob after the service was none other than Captain Wingdale.

When I described this gentleman as a retired sea captain, you perhaps got a wrong idea of him. He is not retired due to his age but due to having cornered enough prize money that he no longer requires the salary paid by the Royal Navy. I cannot think more than a handful of men in the whole kingdom actually
enjoy
to spend their lives at sea on a bouncing deck, with a tightly restricted company.

Wingdale was in his early forties, still in the prime of life. He was dark haired, ruddy of complexion, with deep lines around his eyes, which I imagine to have been formed from looking into the sun to read the weather. He was broad-shouldered, of military bearing, but with, of course, no uniform.

The “Captain” is an honourary title now. He wears jackets of excellent material and an exaggerated cut, the shoulders padded, the waist too tightly taken in for comfort I am convinced. I suspect a corset might account for that wasp waist that a lady could envy. One has always the impression when looking at him that he is pulling in his stomach and expanding his chest as hard as he can. Such a big, barrel chest is not natural, except in baboons or gorillas.

There is nothing amiss in his cunning. He is as shrewd as can stare, and not totally without social graces either, though he is betrayed at times into ungenteel utterances that hint at a past less refined than the present. Oh, and there is no Mrs. Wingdale
,
which makes him more than tolerable to all families with an aging daughter to be disposed of.

Nora and I were accosted by Tom Carrick. We strolled to within eavesdropping distance of the Nabob and the Captain. Also within nodding distance of the Tartar and Emily, though their heads were kept carefully averted. No nods were exchanged.