Читать книгу The Hemingford Scandal - Mary Nichols, Mary Nichols - Страница 8

J ane spent the next few days tormented by indecision. Anne’s words had sunk deep and though she continually told herself that her friend had an axe to grind, she did not think that was the whole of it. But it was too late to say she would not go—her aunt talked about it endlessly, even so far as calling on the Countess, obeying that lady’s instruction to keep her informed.

‘Her ladyship tells me Mr Allworthy is related to Viscount Denderfield,’ she told Jane on her return. ‘He has a modest estate and an income of twenty thousand a year. The match has her blessing.’

Jane could not see how a modest estate could bring in that income, but she supposed he had inherited some of it. ‘Aunt, how could you discuss my affairs so openly with someone I have only seen once in my life and that for no more than five minutes?’

‘But, Jane dear, I have always done so; she is family, after all. And you must acknowledge Mr Allworthy is a great catch, better than I could have hoped for you.’

‘Why? Am I monster? Do I have two heads? Do I eat with my fingers and never wash? Am I mad?’ She was fiery with passion.

‘My dear Jane, there is no need to fly into the boughs. You know I did not mean that you were not good enough for him. After all, you come from aristocratic stock on your dear mama’s side and you have inherited her looks, nothing wrong there. It is only that you have left it so late and everyone of your age, including most of the eligibles, except widowers and old fogies, are suited. It is only because Mr Allworthy has spent most of his time buried in the country that he was overlooked.’

Jane laughed, but it was a hollow laugh. Mr Allworthy had been overlooked and forgotten in the country while she was being tainted by scandal and ostracised by the haut monde because she had dared to break off her engagement to one of their number. And now it looked very much as if it was all going to be raked up again. Harry was back and not only back, but had returned a hero. She was glad she was leaving town, very glad indeed.

But she was to see Harry once more before she left. Since she now had a fashionable habit and knew the stable from which Blaze had been hired, it was not difficult to go riding. The same groom whom Donald had employed was designated to ride behind her, to protect her from the villains with which London abounded and to act as an unofficial chaperon. Jane did not see the necessity for either role, but she consented to his presence to please her aunt. But it was not a sedate walk or trot she had in mind, but a full-blooded gallop, and once in the park she ordered her escort to wait for her by the gate and trotted off on her own.

Although it was early in the morning, it promised to be a warm day. The sun was a brilliant orange ball in a sky of cornflower blue, with not a cloud to be seen. Her problems were pushed to the back of her mind as she rode away from the usual bridleway where everyone was more concerned with how they looked, whom they might meet, the gossip they might hear and pass on, than with the business of exercising their mounts.

Gradually she became aware that she was not alone; there were other hoofbeats gaining on her and she was reminded that London was not a safe place for a lady on her own, not even Hyde Park in broad daylight. She spurred the little mare on, but the harder she rode, the nearer her pursuer came and she knew that Blaze was tiring. She was obliged to pull up or wind her horse completely. The other rider pulled up beside her.

‘My God, Jane, you gave me a fright. I thought you were being carried away.’

She turned to confront Harry. He was wearing the same riding coat he had worn when she had encountered him in Green Park. It seemed too tight for him. She leaned forward to pat Blaze, who was blowing hard. ‘Carried away, Captain Hemingford? It was you who taught me to ride, if you recall.’

‘I also recall teaching you not to mistreat a horse,’ he said with a twisted smile. She was breathless and her heightened colour was making her look even more desirable. It was all he could do to sound normal. ‘That poor mare is blowing. Dismount and let her rest.’ He jumped down from his own mount, a huge stallion that was hardly breathing above its normal rate, and held out his hand to help her down.

‘I would not have had to gallop her so hard if you had not chased me,’ she said, annoyed by his curt command. Her temper was not lessened by knowing he was right, though she took the offered hand and slid lightly down beside him.

‘Chased you? Why should I do that? I am not so short of female company that I have to chase after it, particularly yours. I have more pride than that. I thought your mount had bolted with you.’

‘I did not know it was you.’ He had not released her hand and the feel of his strong fingers about hers was having a strange effect on her. She had not felt such a fluttering of her heart since— She stopped herself asking when; it was too painful to remember. ‘I thought it was some rogue and I was in danger.’

‘You are in no danger from me.’ He laughed and let go of her hand. ‘But where is your escort? Surely he has more sense than to let you ride so far ahead of him…’

‘There is a groom…’

‘A groom! I meant the gentleman I met last week. What was his name?’

‘Mr Allworthy.’

He laughed. ‘How apt! And I am Mr Unworthy.’

‘You are being silly.’

‘So where is Mr Allworthy?’

‘Gone to Norfolk.’ She lifted her head defiantly. ‘Aunt Lane and I go to join him tomorrow.’

He had known she was planning the visit because Anne had told him so. She had returned from visiting Jane in a fine old miff. ‘I do not know what she can be thinking of,’ she had said. ‘She is not so green that she doesn’t know that if she goes to Coprise there is no turning back, but she has convinced herself that she has only to say no and Mr Allworthy will meekly accept it. He doesn’t seem the meek kind to me.’

‘So?’

‘Harry, she has got herself into a bumblebath or, more correctly, her aunt has tumbled her into it, and she cannot see she is being manoeuvred into an impossible situation.’

‘Anne, please calm yourself. Jane is capable of making up her own mind and perhaps it is what she wants. It is not our affair…’

‘How can you say so? You love her and she still loves you, I know it.’

Looking at Jane now, her cheeks red with exertion and her eyes blazing angrily, she had never looked lovelier, but she showed no sign of softening towards him. And what good would it do if she did? ‘Then I wish you a good journey and a pleasant stay.’ He held his cupped hands to help her mount. ‘Allow me to return you safely to your groom, who must be on hot coals wondering if he is to be punished for negligence.’

She opened her mouth to tell him she did not need his escort, nor was she going to punish her groom for obeying her orders, but he was looking at her in that old teasing way she remembered from her childhood and she felt the hard knot in her chest dissolve away. It was most disconcerting. It would have been a grand gesture to have galloped away from him, but Blaze was not rested enough for that and so she began to walk her sedately back towards the gate. He followed, riding slightly behind her.

They had almost reached the Row when they were met by Anne riding towards them. ‘Jane, are you all right? Did you take a fall? Are you hurt?’

‘No, of course not.’ Then, seeing her friend’s worried countenance, Jane smiled. ‘I simply felt like a gallop. If that mad brother of yours had not come dashing after me, making me think I was being pursued, I would not have gone so fast.’

‘He is not mad. And it was me who told him to go after you. He would not have done so on his own.’

‘Then he has more sense than you,’ Jane said, unaccountably disappointed that he had had to be urged to rescue her. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, my groom is waiting for me and I must go home. There is much to do before I leave tomorrow.’

‘You mean to go, then?’

‘Of course I am going.’

‘Then I hope you know what you are doing, that’s all. Come on, Harry, let us leave the stubborn clunch to go her own way.’ And she wheeled her horse round and trotted away.

Harry turned to Jane and smiled. He had a boyish smile that spread from his mouth to his eyes and crinkled the skin at either side. It seemed to encompass everyone about him. No one could be completely immune to it, certainly not Jane Hemingford, who had once loved him. ‘Do not be hard on her, Jane, she loves us both and she cannot see that what she is asking is out of the question. I will try to reason with her and perhaps, when you return, she will be more her old self and accept that you must tread your own path. As I must mine.’

Jane did not answer, but watched him ride away through a mist of tears. She did not know why she was crying. Was it for a lost love, for a friendship broken or simply that she had been more frightened by that headlong gallop than she was ready to admit?

She set off for Norfolk the next day, determined to put Harry and Anne and all such distractions behind her and enjoy the visit; slowly, as the miles passed, she felt calmer. She sat beside her aunt with Lucy facing them, Aunt Lane’s hatbox and jewellery case on the seat beside the maid and the boot filled with trunks and portmanteaux. Jane wondered why they needed so much baggage for a two-week stay, but her aunt insisted they must be prepared for every eventuality.

‘Mr Allworthy will no doubt wish to take you out and about and introduce you to his neighbours,’ she had said. ‘He might hold a ball or a formal dinner party or arrange a picnic and then there is riding and walking and carriage rides. We must always be appropriately dressed.’ It sounded as if her aunt expected them to be paraded for everyone’s inspection, and her heart sank.

Mr Allworthy had arranged the post horses when he passed that way the week before and everything worked smoothly. They rattled through Woodford and then took Epping Forest at a gallop for fear of highwaymen, before slowing down to enter Sawbridgeworth, where they stopped for a meal. After that, they passed through Bishop’s Stortford and Great Chesterford and in the early evening arrived in Cambridge, where Mr Allworthy had arranged for them to stay overnight at the Blue Boar.

Once north of Ely and its majestic cathedral, which Jane insisted on stopping to visit, they found themselves travelling through a countryside so flat, there was nothing to see for miles but fields and dykes, interspersed with isolated farms. Above them and all round them was a huge sky, dark blue fading to a pale grey haze on the horizon, through which the morning sun tried to penetrate. After their next change of horses at Downham, they left the fens behind and were soon in a countryside that pleased Jane more. The sun came out and bathed the country in warmth.

Here were gentle hills, small woods and farms whose fields were surrounded by hedgerows and everywhere workers were bringing in the hay, loading it on to haywains. The hedgerows were festooned with wisps of it, which had been caught up as the carts passed along the narrow roads. Twenty minutes later they came to a tiny village, and just beyond that the gates of Coprise Manor. The journey was over and Jane sat forward to catch her first glimpse of the house.

Built of red brick and surrounded by a narrow moat, it was squat and square, with a round tower in each corner. Its mullioned windows gleamed in the sun. There were formal gardens on two sides, a wood on a third and a great lake on the fourth that fed the moat. The coach rattled over the bridge and into a courtyard where Donald stood to greet them, wearing a brown riding coat and leather breeches tucked into riding boots. He was hatless.

He hurried to open the coach door and let down the step before Hoskins could do so, and extended his hand to Mrs Lane. ‘Welcome, ladies, welcome.’

Aunt Lane stepped down, followed by Jane. Both stood looking about them. The courtyard was in the centre of the building, surrounded on four sides by the walls of the house. The main door, a vast oak affair that looked as though it might withstand a battering ram, faced the bridge over which they had entered; here were half a dozen servants standing in line. Their host offered each lady an arm and led them forward and proceeded to name all the servants and their duties. It made Jane think of a bride being introduced to her new domain and realised with dismay that was how Donald meant her to feel.

‘You must be hungry,’ he said as they entered the hall, which had a wide carved staircase right in front of them and a corridor leading off on either side. ‘Martha will show you up to your rooms and help your maid unpack. There is hot water and everything you need to refresh yourselves, but if there is anything I have failed to provide, please tell me so and I will remedy the deficiency at once. It is my dearest wish that you should feel at home.’ He handed them over to his housekeeper, who conducted them up the stairs to the rooms that had been allotted to them. ‘When you are ready, we will have dinner.’

‘He is determined to please,’ Aunt Lane said, when they were alone in Jane’s room. It was furnished with heavy oak furniture, including a four-poster bed. The sheets and bed coverings were new and everywhere gleamed with polish. ‘I cannot fault the arrangements.’

They dined in country style. Aunt Lane had no criticism of his table or his manners, and afterwards Donald showed them all over the house, which was more ancient than Jane had expected. All its furniture was old and heavy, but it perfectly suited the house and everywhere gleamed with polish. ‘My father bought the property with a wind-fall he had from dealings on the ’Change,’ he told them. ‘And the furniture came with it.’

‘I had thought it was the old family home,’ Aunt Lane said. ‘You are related to Viscount Denderfield, are you not?’

He seemed a little disconcerted by the question, but quickly recovered. ‘The relationship is a distant one,’ he said. ‘As I understand it, a hundred and seventy years ago the family became divided, two brothers fought on different sides in the war between king and parliament and neither branch has acknowledged the other since. My father always hoped for a reconciliation, but it was not to be—’ He broke off, noticing that Jane had set her foot on the stairs to the tower. ‘Miss Hemingford, I beg you not to go up there, it is unsafe. If you would like to see the view, I will conduct you there myself, but shall we leave it until tomorrow? It is growing dusk now and you will not be able to see much.’

This was obviously sensible and they returned to the drawing room on the ground floor and settled down to conversation over the tea cups, during which they discussed how he planned to entertain them in the following two weeks. At ten o’clock more refreshment was brought in and soon after that they retired to bed. ‘Country hours,’ her aunt commented as they made their way, candles in hand, to their rooms. ‘I think I shall read in my room; if I go to bed now, I shall be awake at dawn.’

That suited Jane, who had asked if she might borrow a mount and ride out before breakfast.

She was awake at six and downstairs clad in her new habit by seven. Donald was waiting for her, dressed for riding. ‘Good morning, my dear. Did you sleep well?’

‘Like a log,’ she said, not quite truthfully because she had had a lot to think about and the silence after London was as disturbing as the noise of night-time traffic passing along Duke Street, but the country air had won in the end. ‘I am looking forward to my ride.’

He led her to a stable block, almost as pristine as the house, where two horses were already saddled for them. Five minutes later they were trotting across the bridge. If it occurred to Jane that she ought to have had a chaperon, she dismissed it. They were in the country and in the country there was no danger, either from ruffians or from the man who rode beside her.

The early morning air was clear and heady as wine and Donald was a perfect escort, pointing places out to her, stopping to comment on the wayside flowers, giving her their Latin names, talking about the farm, not in a condescending way, but as if he knew she would be interested. Which she was. And when they returned to the house he fulfilled his promise to take her to see the view from the north tower, conducting her up the narrow stair to a small room at the top.

She crossed the room to look out of the window over rolling countryside. ‘Why, I do believe I can see the sea,’ she said, catching sight of sparkling water. ‘How far away is it?’

‘Five or six miles as the crow flies,’ he said. ‘But it is The Wash, not the open sea.’

‘And there is a ship out there, I can see its sails.’

He picked up a telescope from the table and trained it out to sea. ‘It is early,’ he murmured.

‘Early?’

‘It is a cargo ship. I have an interest in the freight it carries.’

‘Oh, do let me see.’

He handed her the telescope and she trained it on the vessel. It looked small at that distance, its sails bowed out as it used the wind to sail westwards. ‘Where will it put in?’

‘King’s Lynn. I expect it will dock tomorrow.’

‘Shall you go to meet it?’

‘Yes. Would you like to come?’

‘Yes, if Aunt Lane agrees.’

The outing was a pleasant carriage ride and Jane enjoyed the sights and sounds of the busy port. There were hundreds of vessels, fishing boats, lighters and cargo boats in the harbour and seafaring men and dock workers scurried about their business. ‘They export all manner of produce,’ Mr Allworthy explained. ‘Corn and wool principally, but also manufactured goods. And they import things like wine and tea.’ He paused as one of the dockers came towards the carriage, obviously intent on speaking to him. ‘Would you and your aunt care to wait in the carriage while I do my business? It will not take many minutes and then I shall be free to show you round.’

He left them and they watched as he had an animated conversation with the man, before leaving him to go aboard a vessel on whose side Jane noticed the name, Fair Trader. A few minutes later he rejoined them. ‘All very satisfactory,’ he said, smiling easily. ‘Now, shall we take a stroll?’

He helped them from the carriage and offered an arm to each lady and they walked towards the town. The streets were narrow but well paved and there were a good number of shops and hotels. From the London road they turned on to an avenue lined with lime and chestnut trees and continued to the inner bank of the ancient town walls. Here they rested on a seat in the shade before returning to the carriage and the ride back to Coprise Manor. Mr Allworthy was a perfect guide and host and Jane’s anxieties faded to nothing. London seemed a long, long way away.