The Ragged Heiress (27 page)

Mary’s cheeks reddened and she gave a shaky laugh. ‘What indeed, Giles?’

Phyllis opened the front door. ‘Best not keep her out too long, Mr Giles.’

As the door closed on them, Mary uttered a heavy sigh. ‘I am quite well now. I do wish everyone would stop fussing and treating me as if I were ten years old.’

Giles tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. ‘If you’re going to be a crosspatch, I won’t tell you what your father and I have planned to speed your convalescence.’ Smiling, he proffered his free arm to Lucetta. ‘This includes you too, Lucetta.’

She fell into step beside him as they crossed the road to enter the gardens through a gate in the iron railings. ‘That sounds interesting, Giles.’

Mary came to a halt, leaning heavily on his arm. ‘This is too much excitement for me on my first outing. If you don’t tell me at once, I’ll have to go back indoors and lie down in a darkened room.’

Her tone was serious but Lucetta noted a twinkle in Mary’s dark eyes. ‘And I too, Giles,’ she said, smiling.

He raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘I can’t win if the pair of you gang up on me.’

‘Then tell us,’ Mary insisted. ‘Please, Giles.’

He led them to a seat beneath a huge plane tree in the centre of the lawns. Above them the sky was a soft baby-blue dotted with fluffy white clouds and the sun filtered through the fresh summer foliage, making dappled patterns on the grass. Mary sat down but Lucetta remained standing. This was a family matter and she felt quite suddenly that she was intruding.

‘Everything is arranged,’ Giles said, taking a seat beside Mary. ‘We travel to Dorset tomorrow where we will stay for a month while Uncle Hector deals with constituency affairs.’

Mary stared at him wide-eyed with surprise. ‘But Giles, I have to go back to the hospital. I can’t just take a month off as I please, and neither can you.’

‘And I would love to accompany you,’ Lucetta said, thinking that this might be the chance she had been waiting for. ‘But I must go to Devonshire. I’ve put it off for too long already.’

‘Don’t you think you would have heard something before now if your friend wanted to contact you?’

Lucetta met his steady gaze with an angry toss of her head. ‘Sam is more than a friend, Giles. You know very well that we are unofficially engaged to be married. He loves me.’

‘Then why hasn’t he replied to your letter?’

Lucetta gasped as a shaft of genuine pain shot through her breast. The same question had been running through her mind, but hearing it voiced by Giles was more than hurtful and worst of all, it was a just comment. Before she could think of a reply, Mary had risen to her feet.

‘Giles, I’m surprised at you. That was uncalled for and unkind. There could be all manner of reasons why Sam hasn’t written to Lucetta and the most obvious of all is that he is away at sea and her letter has not yet reached him.’

Giles stood up, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry, but his family must know his whereabouts and one would think they might have either forwarded the letter, or opened it in an attempt to discover the name and address of the sender.’

‘It was private,’ Lucetta murmured. ‘I would not want anyone but Sam to read it.’

‘Then you must face the fact that he is either sailing the high seas or has had second thoughts.’ Giles moderated his tone with an obvious effort. ‘You knew him only for a short time, Lucetta. His feelings might have changed.’

‘Giles, that is cruel,’ Mary said in a voice that
throbbed with emotion. ‘How can you say such things to poor Lucetta? Hasn’t she suffered enough?’

‘I am being realistic, Mary. I don’t want to see Lucetta’s heart broken or for her to waste her youth dreaming impossible dreams.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lucetta cried passionately. ‘Sam loves me. He loves me, Giles.’

‘You’re so young,’ Giles said gently. ‘You have little experience of life. Don’t throw yourself away on the first man who says that he loves you. This fellow is a seafarer, one foot in sea and one on shore as the great Bard wrote. You deserve better, my dear.’

Mary laid her hand on his shoulder with a warning glance. ‘Giles, stop. You’ve said enough.’

Lucetta bit back tears of anger and frustration. ‘I’m not a child. I will be nineteen at Christmas and I know my own mind and heart. You can take Mary to Dorset, but I am going to Devonshire to find Sam.’

Taking her by the shoulders, Giles looked deeply into her eyes. ‘If the man loved you as you say he did, don’t you think he would have moved heaven and earth to find you, even if it was just to lay flowers on your grave?’

‘He might have done just that. You don’t know him, Giles. You are being very unfair. I hate you for saying such things.’ Lucetta broke free from his grasp and she raced across the grass heading for the gate. She could not bring herself to return to the house and she left the square, walking briskly with her head down so that she did not have to meet the curious gaze of passers-by
who might wonder why a well-dressed young lady was allowed to roam the streets unaccompanied.

She passed the fever hospital in Liverpool Road without giving its impressive façade a second glance. She had no purpose to her walk; she just wanted to put distance between herself and Giles Harcourt, who had the unhappy knack of speaking his mind and hitting on the truth. It was over a year since she had left Sam in Bali. He had thought her dead for almost all that time, and even if he had tried to find her he would have been met by a wall of silence from Uncle Bradley. If he had visited the churchyard he would have seen a grave where some other unfortunate young woman had been laid to rest. Sam might have been sincere in his love for her, but he was young and attractive and one day he would inevitably take a wife. She gulped back a sob, narrowly avoiding bumping into a burly workman carrying a stepladder over his shoulder. He muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath and carried on in the opposite direction. She paused at a road junction, finding herself in the City Road, outside a public house called the Angel. She knew then that she had come too far and she started back the way she had come, but she had lost her bearings, and jostled by the crowds of pedestrians, costermongers and urchins begging at the kerbside she took the wrong route and only realised her mistake when she came to the open space of Islington Green. She was hot and tired but it was quieter here amongst the trees in a place that had retained a little of its rural past. She sat down on the grass beneath
an oak tree and blew her nose on one of the handkerchiefs that Sir Hector had given her at Christmas. The gold bracelet on her right wrist glinted in the sunshine, and she was immediately assailed by feelings of guilt. She had shouted at Giles when she knew that he had been thinking only of her welfare, and worse still she had upset Mary, who was convalescing from a near-fatal illness.

Lucetta dabbed her eyes and sniffed. The whole family, with perhaps the exception of the Harcourt sisters, had shown her nothing but kindness. Giles and Mary had taken her in when she had nowhere else to go. They had fed and clothed her and treated her like a sister. They must think that her behaviour rivalled that of young Caroline at Christmas. She rose a little unsteadily to her feet and shielded her eyes against the sunlight, looking around in an attempt to get her bearings. The spire of St Mary’s church dominated the skyline; it was a familiar landmark and she could use it to guide her way back to Lonsdale Square. She straightened her bonnet, droped the cape around her shoulders and headed in the direction of home, intent on apologising and begging her friends’ pardon.

The journey to Stockton Lacey took a whole day. It could have been accomplished much faster had the family taken the train, but Sir Hector liked to travel in the comfort of his own carriage, stopping frequently at coaching inns to change horses and to allow the family time to stretch their legs and to take sustenance. The mail coach, he said proudly, could travel from
Dorchester to London in twelve hours, but that entailed travelling at breakneck speed and he preferred to progress at a more leisurely pace. The family rode in the landau with the servants and luggage preceding them in the wagonette.

It was almost dark when the party arrived at the Grange, but Lucetta could just make out the house set amongst tall beeches, horse chestnuts and oak trees. The carriage crossed a narrow stone bridge over a fast-running but shallow stream, which Mary said flowed around the property like a moat. And, she added, as the carriage passed through wrought iron gates opened by a boy who had come running from the coach house, there had been an even earlier building on the site, erected by the Norman lord of the manor who had owned the farmland for miles around. The farmhouse had been added to by successive generations and largely rebuilt in the time of Queen Anne when the stone façade had been added.

Giles patted Mary’s gloved hand as it lay in her lap. ‘There, Lucetta, you have a potted history of the Grange. You can see how Mary loves her old home.’

‘I grew up here,’ Mary said, smiling. ‘I have many happy childhood memories of living in the country.’

Sir Hector had been dozing for the last half an hour but he opened his eyes as the carriage slowed down. ‘I hope that Cook has improved on her culinary efforts since I was last here,’ he said, as they came to a halt outside the main entrance. ‘I’ve worked up quite an appetite since luncheon.’

Lucetta stared out of the window at the square,
three-storey house surrounded by a flagstone terrace and low balustrades. The warm glow of candlelight flickered in the downstairs windows and bats zoomed about overhead. Starlings swooped and dived in noisy formations as they came home to roost in the tops of the trees and beneath the eaves.

As she alighted from the carriage Lucetta stood for a moment, breathing in the sweet country air, so different from the putrid odours that had descended upon London with the early summer heat. She could smell roses and honeysuckle, mingling with the aroma of new mown hay from the surrounding fields. The Portland stone exterior of the house was mellowed by encroaching ivy and a Palladian pediment framed the main entrance. The door had been flung open to reveal a square entrance hall that was more homely than grand. As she entered the house Lucetta had the feeling that she had stepped back in time. The wainscoted walls were hung with family portraits and generations of the Hastings family seemed to stare at her, their glassy eyes following her every move. She almost felt the need to curtsey to a high-nosed lady who peered at her over a ruff as big as a dinner plate, but she was brought back to the present by the sound of footsteps echoing off the flagstones. Phyllis appeared from the back of the house, adjusting her white mobcap as she ran towards them. She bobbed a curtsey to Sir Hector. ‘I’m all of a dither, sir. We’ve only just arrived ourselves and the men are still unloading the wagonette.’

‘That’s quite all right, Phyllis,’ Sir Hector said,
handing her his top hat and gloves. ‘There’s no hurry.’ He glanced over his shoulder as a tall, gaunt-looking woman appeared from a corridor which Lucetta later discovered led to the servants’ quarters.

‘Good evening, Sir Hector. I hope you had a good journey.’

‘We did indeed, Mrs Comben,’ Sir Hector replied affably. ‘You are keeping in good health, I trust?’

‘Thank you, sir. Tolerably good considering the winter we’ve had, and the damp that rises from the river and gets into my bones. But here I am going on about my rheumatics and you’ll be wanting your dinner, I’m sure.’

‘Quite so, ma’am. We’re looking forward to sampling your excellent cooking. I hope it will be ready soon.’

‘And I too,’ Giles said, stepping forward to clasp Mrs Comben’s hand. ‘It’s good to see you again, Mrs Comben. You look a picture of health, quite blooming in fact.’

Mrs Comben’s thin cheeks flooded with colour and a smile transformed her taut features. ‘Oh, sir, you are a one.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ Sir Hector said drily. ‘But we can’t stand about in the hall all evening. I’m sure that the ladies would like to refresh themselves after a long and dusty journey.’

‘Your rooms are ready, sir.’ Mrs Comben eyed Lucetta with a curious twitch of one eyebrow, but her expression softened as she turned to Mary. ‘I was sorry to hear you had been unwell, Miss Mary.’

‘I am quite recovered now, thank you, Mrs Comben.’
Mary held her hand out to Lucetta. ‘As you know, we have a house guest. This is my good friend, Miss Lucetta Froy.’

Mrs Comben bobbed a curtsey. ‘Welcome to Stockton Lacey, miss. I’ve put you in the room next to Miss Mary. I hope it will suit.’

‘I’m sure it will, thank you,’ Lucetta murmured, but Mrs Comben had turned away and was heading towards the wide oak staircase.

‘Don’t worry,’ Giles whispered, grinning. ‘She’s always like this with strangers, but she has a heart of pure brass beneath that steel exterior.’

Mary raised her finger to her lips with a warning frown. ‘Hush, Giles, she’ll hear you. Come along, Lucetta. Let’s hope that Phyllis has had time to unpack our clothes. I want to change before dinner.’ Linking her arm through Lucetta’s, Mary led her up the shallow flight of stairs which curved round to a galleried landing. The oak floorboards glowed like warm honey in the candlelight and the air was redolent with the scent of beeswax and lavender.

The door to the room at the top of the stairs had been left open and Lucetta could see Phyllis feverishly unpacking garments from Mary’s leather valise.

‘That is my room,’ Mary said happily. ‘You will be next door.’

Mrs Comben threw the door open and stood aside. ‘I had a fire lit in both rooms. It’s not cold but there’s always that chill rising from the river.’ She shivered. ‘It gets into my bones.’

‘Yes, Mrs Comben,’ Mary said sympathetically. ‘I’ll
ask my cousin to prescribe some medicine to ease your rheumatics. Giles is an excellent physician.’

Mrs Comben sniffed, but her thin lips curved into a reluctant smile. ‘I’m sure he is, miss. Perhaps he could take a look at Cook’s bunions while he is here. She never stops complaining about them, but I suffer in silence.’

‘Of course you do.’ Mary patted her on the shoulder. ‘Please tell Cook that we’ll be ready to dine in half an hour.’ She waited until the light from the housekeeper’s candle had vanished into the darkness before turning to Lucetta with an apologetic smile. ‘Don’t take any notice of Mrs Comben. She’s all bark and no bite, but like many country folk she’s suspicious of strangers. It doesn’t mean anything.’