Off the Rails (22 page)

In fact, they were both suffering from indigestion and too uncomfortable to sleep. For the third evening in a row their supper had been so badly cooked
it had been barely edible and now they were cross and hungry. Felix said he had half a mind to get up and get dressed again and take a boat across the river and buy them a hot pie.

‘You’d be better to speak to Polly and tell her it won’t do,’ Milly told him tetchily. ‘I keep a-telling ’ee. If you don’t speak to her, she’ll go on feeding us cinders night after night.’

Felix wasn’t at all sure he
could
scold a servant. Mr Glendinning had always seen to that. Not for the first time he knew he was yearning to be back in the comfort of his old home, where life was ordered and predictable and the food was always well cooked. There were altogether too many things that were his responsibility in this new life of his and it was jolly hard work. ‘Couldn’t you tell her?’ he said, rubbing his chest.

‘No, I could not,’ Milly said. ‘You’re the master. You tell her and tell her tomorrow afore we dies of starvation.’

‘I shall be in court tomorrow.’

‘Court!’ Milly said, even more crossly. ‘You’re allus in court.’

‘If I were not,’ Felix said stiffly, ‘we would have no money for food, burnt or otherwise.’ His allowance was long gone and now he had to make do with whatever fees he could earn. It was all extremely difficult.

‘All the more reason not to let her waste any more of it.’

He turned his back on her. If they went on speaking they would quarrel outright and he couldn’t have borne that. But he couldn’t sleep even though he closed his eyes. It was all too worrying and on top of everything else the interview with his father was drawing closer and closer and how he would manage to cope with that he simply couldn’t think. Especially with no food in his stomach.

Milly lay awake thinking too. If he wouldn’t speak to Polly – and she was beginning to suspect that he wouldn’t – which was cowardly, there was no other word for it, she would have to do it herself. Perhaps she’d have to dismiss both their servants and do the housework herself. She would certainly make a better job of the cooking. The stove couldn’t be all that difficult. If he won’t make the effort, I must.

She made it the following morning when Felix had kissed her
apologetically
and left to catch the ferry. Polly was banging saucepans in the kitchen and looked up cheerfully at her when she walked into the greasy darkness. Why did kitchens always have to be so dark and smell so bad?

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘Polly. We’ve got to talk about last night’s supper.’

‘It’s this dratted ol’ stove, mum,’ Polly said. ‘I’ve tried pokin’ it and proddin’ it an’ all sorts, an’ all it does is smoke sommink chronic. It won’t cook nohow.’

‘Then
I
will try what can be done wi’ it tonight,’ Milly said. ‘Buy two mutton chops for us and some spring greens if ’ee please.’

Polly took umbrage at once. ‘You won’t do no better with the dratted thing than I have, mum,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest in a very belligerent way. ‘I’ll tell yer that fer nothin’. That’s a tricky stove and that’s all there is to it.’

Milly wouldn’t look at her. She turned and left before either of them could say anything else. Really it was too bad to be answered back in such a rude way. She was very angry, with Polly and Felix and herself. A mistress shouldn’t have to cook the supper, not when she was paying a servant to do it. Felix should have taken that girl to task. It was his job, not hers. She was still cross when he finally got home that evening, late as always and just as she was dishing up the chops.

‘My word,’ he said, when he lifted the cover and revealed the meat. It was done to a turn and looked extremely succulent. ‘That’s more the style.’

‘On account of
I
cooked it,’ Milly told him, helping herself to greens and potatoes.

‘Oh!’ he said and was then lost for words. If he praised her for her cooking that might be the wrong thing and he certainly couldn’t ask her if she’d spoken to Polly because it was obvious that she had and that it hadn’t gone well. Fortunately, he was saved by the arrival of the postman and went to the door with some relief to pay him and receive his letter. It was written in Sarah’s beautiful copperplate hand and neatly sealed.

It had a very long preamble, which he didn’t expect because his sister usually came straight to the point. He read the first few sentences without making very much sense of them:

‘My dearest brother,

I cannot be sure whether what I have to tell you will be welcome to you, given the situation in which you find yourself, or not entirely welcome, or not welcome at all, which might perhaps be the more likely probability given your familial affection. It is hard for me to know what would be the most suitable form of words for me to choose, given the serious nature of the news I have to give you. Believe me, my dear brother, if there were any way in which I could mitigate against the distress you must inevitably feel, I would take it but there is not. I truly wish it were not my task to break this to you howsomever it must be done. The truth is that our father is dead. He was out riding with cousin Henry when his horse bolted and threw him and broke his neck. Henry wrote to tell me at once which was kindly of him. He will be travelling to Foster Manor with the hearse on Tuesday and has asked me to inform the family.’

Milly had been watching his changing expressions. Now she leant across the table and touched his hand. ‘What is it, Felix? Is it summat wrong?’

‘My father is dead,’ he told her bluntly. It surprised him that he was
feeling no emotion about it whatever. ‘Thrown from his horse. I must go home and arrange the funeral.’

‘We shall need mourning clothes,’ Milly said, practically. ‘I’ve nowt in black at all. Would ’ee like me to see to it?’

He would. Although he knew he would have to borrow money to pay for it. ‘Do what has to be done,’ he said. ‘Buy the best. Silk, I think, not bombazine. We need to look well or it will be seen as lack of respect. I must let them know in Chambers.’

She got up and walked to the other side of the table to put her arms round his neck and kiss him. ‘My poor love,’ she said.

It was a very large funeral but a dry-eyed one. Family members had
gathered
from York and London and Norfolk and the hearse was followed to Scrayingham Church by a procession of very grand carriages. Milly was extremely glad that she’d taken Felix’s advice and ordered a fashionable gown and had it made up in silk, because the cousins were all beautifully dressed – although, as she noticed with some satisfaction, rather less
fashionably
than she was. If I’ve to hold my own with this lot, she thought, I’ve made a good start, even if that old monster
has
cut us off wi’out a penny.

It felt very strange to be walking in through the front door of the Manor instead of going round to the side and even stranger to be waited on by decorous maids in black and white with a grey-haired Mrs Denman hovering to see that everything was going as it should. There’s nowt much changed, she thought, as she nibbled cucumber sandwiches and drank fruit cup and made polite small talk, taking care that she spoke as well as she could. Sarah and Emma swept across the room to kiss her as soon as they came in but to her relief nobody else paid her much attention and none of them asked who she was. She supposed that was because they were all waiting for the will to be read and had their minds on more important things. Now, she thought, as they took their places on the circle of chairs, they will know that my poor Felix has been disinherited and probably why it’s been done and, even though she felt extremely apprehensive, she smiled at him to encourage him, poor Felix. It really had been very brave and very dear of him to choose her over all this. And as the lawyer cleared his throat in preparation she wondered which of all these relations would actually inherit.

The will was short and succinct. His wife Elizabeth’s jewellery was bequeathed to his two daughters, Sarah and Emma, there were small and equal bequests to all his grandchildren and finally all lands, estates and capital were left to his ‘only son Felix’. He hadn’t altered his will by so much as a comma.

Felix felt quite sick with relief and Milly was so surprised that she was speechless for more than a minute. Then the lawyer gathered his papers, bowed and left them, and the assembled relations stood up and came across to make their farewells to Sir Felix, who was more than happy to introduce them to ‘my wife, Lady Fitzwilliam.’ It was dizzying.

‘Shall you stay here now?’ Sarah wanted to know.

But Felix said not. ‘I must be back in London by Friday afternoon,’ he told her. ‘I have rather an important case coming up.’

‘Then we will call on you in Charlotte Square,’ Sarah said and turned to kiss her sister-in-law. ‘Goodbye for the present, Lady Fitzwilliam,’ she said.

It took quite a long time for the rest of the family to leave them for they all had to stop to commiserate with Felix and to be introduced to his new wife but at last she and Felix were on their own in their newly inherited drawing room.

‘Could we call in at Shelton House on our way back, do ’ee think?’ she asked.

He smiled at her happily. ‘Naturally,’ he said. It was already planned, for if there were two people he really wanted to hear his good news, those two were Jane and Mr Cartwright.

J
ANE HAD BEEN
worrying ever since she received Milly’s hastily written letter telling her of Sir Mortimer’s death so she was relieved when her two babies arrived in her drawing room, smiling and looking quite
themselves
. And when Felix gave them a little formal bow and said ‘Mr and Mrs Cartwright, Mrs Jerdon, ma’am, pray allow me to present my wife, Lady Fitzwilliam,’ she gave out such a squeal that she made Nathaniel jump.

‘’Tis the best possible news,’ she said when the tale had been told. ‘But I don’t understand it at all. Did he change his mind, do ’ee think?’

Felix had been pondering that question too. ‘I doubt that very much,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known him change his mind about anything, once it was made up, and I’m certain you haven’t either. No. I think he was waiting for me to come to heel. He was a man who expected to be obeyed, you see. He thought I would give in.’

‘And now you’ve come into your own instead,’ Jane said, ‘and quite right
too. And just think, you’ll be living a few miles away instead of being in London all the time.’

‘And in that beautiful house,’ Mary Jerdon said to Jane. ‘Who’d ha’ thought
that
, Jane, when we were walkin’ in the gardens all those years ago, you and me and our little Milly? Such a thing never entered our heads. And now …’

‘Did you visit the house, Mrs Jerdon?’ Felix said. ‘I never knew that.’

‘That’s on account of we were allus below stairs,’ Mary Jerdon told him, smiling. ‘Keeping our place.’

‘Well, now you must visit above stairs,’ he told her, ‘as the grandmother of Lady Fitzwilliam.’

‘How this ol’ world do change,’ Mary Jerdon said, shaking her head in the wonder and bewilderment of it.

‘We shall live in London too,’ Milly said, grinning at her. ‘We have a house in Charlotte Square. We’re going there tomorrow. This is just a short visit because we’ve got a coach to catch.’

‘But you’ll come back very soon,’ Jane said. ‘Won’t ’ee, my dears?’

‘As soon as ever we can,’ Felix promised. ‘We would stay here now if it were possible. But I have clients to represent and my word is given.’

There was so much to talk about on that journey back to London. It would take time and a great deal of conversation to digest the enormity of the change that had shifted their lives.

‘We can tell Polly that we don’t need her any more,’ Milly said. ‘What I’ll be uncommon glad to do.’

‘We will tell them both that our plans have changed and that we’re going to live in Charlotte Square,’ Felix said. ‘And we must be there by Friday morning because Sarah and Emma are coming to visit us then.’

‘But you will be in court, will you not?’

‘Indeed I shall, but it is
you
they are coming to visit. You have to be fitted out with a suitable wardrobe, so they say, and it must all be completed before we return to the Manor, and I can’t put that off for there is a lot to be done there and the sooner I start on it the better.’ She looked a question at him, so he explained. ‘I must inspect the place and see what needs
attention
. An estate needs a deal of upkeep, you see. You neglect it at your peril. And when that is done I must visit the farm and see what is needed there.’

I never thought an estate would mean so much work, Milly thought. When she’d lived in the house it had always seemed to run itself. Not that Felix was the least bit deterred by everything he would have to do. Quite the reverse in fact. He looked confident and happy, his thick hair positively bushy and his eyes shining. It was as if he was growing into someone else, which was very curious. He was still her dear Felix, of course, that hadn’t
changed, but he had become suddenly and rather obviously powerful. It was daunting but very attractive. Whatever else, she thought, burnt chops are the least of our worries now.

Sarah and Emma arrived in the Livingston carriage and four on Friday morning and whisked her off at once to visit what they called ‘a first-rate house’ to choose the materials for her new dresses. It was a very impressive establishment, and far more like a gentleman’s townhouse than the sort of draper’s shop that Milly was used to. They were greeted at the front door by a footman, who bowed them into what he called ‘the
premier magazine’
where an elegant lady in a silk dress and a small lace cap was waiting to greet them. She knew Lady Livingston and Lady Smithson Lumley by name and curtseyed to them at once, saying she hoped she could be of service to Lady Fitzwilliam. Then having settled them into three comfortable chairs she produced a dozen rolls of sumptuous silks and velvets for their
inspection
. Lady Fitzwilliam had never seen anything so gorgeous in her life but her sisters-in-law took them calmly and set about choosing the most becoming.

‘We must consider them in daylight and candlelight,’ Sarah said and the silken assistant swayed her head to show how well she agreed.

There were full-length mirrors on every wall of the room, stretching from the sumptuous carpet under their feet to the moulded ceiling above their heads and Milly stood in front of the nearest one while the assistant draped the cloth over her shoulder and arranged it so that it hung in elegant folds that caught the sunlight that streamed in from the long windows. Then they progressed to another mirror at the opposite end of the room where a chandelier full of lighted candles revealed how well the cloth would look ‘gracing a supper or a ball’, as the assistant put it.

‘We will choose three,’ Sarah told the assistant, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

But it took a long time before Milly could make up her mind which three she preferred because they were all so beautiful. And when the choice had finally been made, the entire process began all over again while she picked silks and muslins and figured cottons for half a dozen day gowns and carriage gowns and promenade dresses. And then, while her head was still spinning with colours and textures, she had to choose the styles and
trimmings
she wanted from a huge pattern book of the most fashionable on offer and, even with Sarah and Emma to help and advise her, it was past twelve o’clock before they left the establishment.

‘If this is what it’s like being a lady, I’m not so sure I like it,’ she said to Felix over their beautifully cooked dinner. And she was only half joking.
‘I’m worn out and I’ve still got chemises and shoes and stockings and bonnets and caps and gloves and pelerines and heaven knows what-all to get.’

‘It is important to be well dressed, my darling,’ Felix said. ‘That is how you will be judged I fear and I mean you to be judged well. You will have a lady’s maid to dress you when you get back to Foster Manor and she will notice everything you wear and will report on it to the rest of the house. I want them to think of you as a lady from the first day. Apart from which, you are very beautiful and jewels and velvets will set you off to perfection.’

‘But I shan’t feel like myself,’ Milly complained and then she felt that she was being ungrateful because all these grand clothes were going to cost him a lot of money. ‘What happened to Dumma-dumma?’

‘She is always there,’ he told her seriously. ‘Always there and always dear to me. The clothes are merely her adornment. You
do
like them, don’t you?’

‘I’m sure they will be very beautiful,’ she told him. ‘I only hope I can do them justice.’

She travelled to Foster Manor with a trunk full of new clothes and considerable apprehension and was welcomed like the lady she now was and rather enjoyed it, especially as the lady’s maid Mrs Denham had chosen for her was young and shy and very much in awe of her.

‘We are back in Foster Manor and getting along very well,’
she wrote to her mother the next day.
‘I have a lady’s maid. Imagine that. Her name is Margaret and she grew up in Scrayingham and is very patient and gentle. When Felix has finished his inspection of the estate, you and Nan and Mr Cartwright must come here and hear what we have planned.’

It was an extremely thorough inspection. The house was explored from top to bottom and notes made in nearly every room – faded curtains needed replacing, the old-fashioned bed in the master bedroom was to be discarded, the kitchens were too dark and the stove ‘downright antiquated’, the tiled floor needed considerable repair.

Only the nurseries passed his rigorous test and that was because the nurseries bewitched them. Within seconds of walking through the door, they were back in the days when they’d been children there. They stood together beside their old rocking horse, stroking its mane and running their hands along its flanks.

‘All those rides,’ Felix said dreamily. ‘Do you remember?’

‘Every single one,’ Milly told him. ‘I used to sit up behind you and hold you steady, when you were so little you weren’t even walking.’

‘Do you think the tops and hoops are still here?’ he said, looking towards the schoolroom door.

They were and so were the globes and the child-sized chairs and the little round table where they’d all sat and listened to stories.

‘My dear heart alive,’ Milly said. ‘Not a thing’s been changed.’

And there was the old familiar view from the schoolroom window. They walked across the room hand in hand to enjoy it, while Mr Glendinning lurked at a discreet distance and kept very still, aware that they were sharing childhood memories and that Lady Fitzwilliam must have been one of the children who visited the house when Sir Felix and his sisters were small.

The next day they inspected the park and Milly admired it all over again, and the day after that they took the dog cart down to the farm and the village where Felix said there was a great deal of work that needed to be done and the bailiff made a note of everything he said.

On the fourth day he decided that they had earned a rest and after a leisurely breakfast he said he thought he would go to the library and answer his letters of condolence. So Milly went with him and settled herself on one side of the library table to write a long letter to her mother, while he sat opposite her, busy with his own correspondence. After a while he looked up and gave her a languid, loving smile.

‘Are you happy, Dumma-dumma?’ he asked.

They’d been so busy she hadn’t stopped to consider whether she was happy or not but now that he’d asked she knew that she was more contented than she’d ever been in her life. ‘Uncommon happy,’ she said, ‘although I still find it hard to believe.’ And she got up and walked round the table so that she could kiss him.

He held her about the waist and smiled again. ‘I find it hard to believe too,’ he said. ‘You make an excellent lady of the house, my darling.’

She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘In that case, could I suggest summat to ’ee – as lady of the house?’

‘Fire away.’

‘While you’re making changes and alterations,’ she said, ‘I think you should think about changing the lighting.’

He understood her at once. ‘To gas light.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘’Twould be a much brighter place with gas light – think how good the light is in Charlotte Square – and it would make all the difference in the world to the kitchens, especially on a dark day.’

It was a sensible and obvious idea. ‘I will do it,’ he told her. ‘A letter to the chairman of the gas company, I think.’

He didn’t know it, but a letter would not be necessary because one of the directors of the York Union Gas Light Company was already planning to see him.

Mr George Hudson had been very pleased to hear that Sir Mortimer Fitzwilliam was dead and had been succeeded by his young son. ‘Happen he’ll be more open to a sensible negotiation than his curmudgeon of a father,’ he said to Lizzie. ‘I shall write to him directly.’

Which he did and got an answer back, remarkably quickly, suggesting that they should meet. It was a satisfactory start.

He dressed for the meeting with more than usual care, knowing how important appearances were when you were dealing with the gentry and his first sight of the new master of the estate showed him how sensible his choice of clothing had been, for the young man into whose presence he was ushered was most elegantly attired, in a green frock coat, very expensive doeskin trousers and the whitest cravat he’d ever seen. He was even better pleased to see what a slender young man he was – tall, yes, but apart from that, there was nothing of him and he was extremely pale, with hair like a girl’s and such a silky moustache it was nothing more than a shadow. You could blow him over with a puff of wind. By the end of one swift glance, he was full of his own size and importance and perfectly confident of getting what he wanted.

‘I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Sir Felix,’ he said, beaming as they shook hands. ‘Your father and I were at the point of agreeing a deal when he was so sadly taken from us. A little matter of some land I wished to purchase for the new railway to Scarborough that is currently being planned. I brought the proposal with me, sir, should you care to see it.’

‘I am fully cognisant of the details of your proposal, Mr Hudson,’ Felix said, smoothly polite. ‘I have of course acquainted myself with all such correspondence as was ongoing at the time of my father’s death.’

That was a blow. He’s not as frail as he looks, George thought, and changed tack at once. ‘If that is the case, sir,’ he said, ‘happen we may proceed to business.’

They proceeded and although he wasn’t entirely aware of it at the time, the great Mr Hudson was tied up in legal knots. Such land as was needful for the building of a railway line would be leased to Mr Hudson’s company for a term of twenty-five years, with the provision that a ‘halt’ be built just south of the village and the farm so that his employees could make use of it. The price was declared reasonable by Sir Felix before Mr Hudson could object to it or even begin to barter. It was all over in half an hour and Felix shook hands with the quietly satisfied air of a barrister who has just won his case.

‘There is one other, rather lesser matter we might also discuss while you
are here,’ he said. ‘You are a director of the York Union Gas Light Company, I believe.’