Banishment (Daughters of Mannerling 1) (15 page)

‘Young Farmer has many friends, army friends, young and heedless.’

‘Monstrous! But at least I can put my sisters’ fears to rest.’

‘Then I had better get you home quickly. Captain Farmer will have a search party looking for you by now.’

Isabella began to laugh with relief. ‘How frightened I was. And I lost one of my best bonnets in my flight.’

She turned and went down the stairs and he followed her. But as Isabella was about to leave the tower, she drew back with an exclamation of dismay. The rain had started to fall, steady, drumming rain.

The viscount looked over her shoulder. ‘We cannot leave in this downpour. Come, sit over here.’ He pointed to a flat slab of masonry. ‘I will go and find some shelter under the trees for my horse.’ He took off his coat and put it about her shoulders and then ran off into the rain.

When he returned, his fine cambric shirt was wet and raindrops glistened in his thick hair. He sat down beside Isabella, thinking she had never looked more beautiful than she did at that moment, with her hair tumbled about her shoulders.

‘So tell me,’ he asked, ‘what led you to believe that Mr Judd was going to announce his engagement to
you
at the ball?’

Isabella hung her head. ‘He courted me. He sent me presents. He . . . kissed me.’

‘The devil he did! So the whole idea was to humiliate you and your family. Why?’

‘Betty, one of the maids, said that the night you brought me back after rescuing me from the field, she saw Mr Judd listening at the parlour window. That was when we were talking about my marrying Mr Judd to get Mannerling back.’

He thought of the conversation he had recently overheard and gave a wry smile. ‘You and your sisters should be more careful when you are plotting. Anyone could be listening. You should also be more careful with your kisses.’

Isabella blushed and her eyes filled with tears. She was conscious of his nearness, of the warmth emanating from his body, of his wet shirt clinging to his powerful chest.

‘Don’t cry,’ he said softly. He tilted her chin up and kissed her gently on the lips, and then harder, feeling a tremendous surge of passion.

Isabella buried her small white hands in his hair and returned his kiss, deaf and blind to everything but the feel of warm strong lips bearing down on her own.

And then he suddenly drew back and said, ‘Listen! What’s that?’

From outside came cries and shouts.

He smiled at her tenderly. ‘The search party, or I am much mistaken.’

They walked to the doorway and looked out.

A strange sight met their eyes. Men carrying torches were coming across the field towards the tower, fanning out. In the vanguard was the squire, pushing in front of him a trembling Mr Stoppard, who was holding up a large cross.

The viscount laughed. ‘They probably think you have been dragged off to hell.’ He waved and pointed to Isabella standing next to him.

The look of relief on Mr Stoppard’s face was comical. The viscount shrewdly guessed his relief was not so much at the sight of Isabella safe and well but the realization that he did not have to face any phantom.

Sir Jeffrey Blane, the squire, came hurrying up. Behind him, Isabella saw her father approaching.

‘My dear child,’ cried the squire, ‘what on earth has been happening? That young fool, Farmer, told us some tale of a frightful ghost and how he had run off with the others and left you.’

‘Someone was playing tricks,’ said Isabella. ‘You will find, up in the tower room, a Norman helmet and some green gauze and a lantern. That is your ghost.’

Sir William had now joined them. His eyes darted from his daughter’s flushed and happy face to that of the viscount.

‘Do I take it, Lord Fitzpatrick,’ he said, ‘that you have been
alone
in this tower with my daughter?’

‘We had to shelter from the rain,’ said the viscount quietly. He drew a little away from Isabella, as if he knew what Sir William was about to say next.

‘Well, my dear Fitzpatrick,’ said Sir William, rubbing his hands gleefully, ‘it appears you will have to make an honest woman of my daughter.’

‘Don’t be a fool!’ snapped the viscount. ‘When did sheltering from the rain with a gentleman count as compromising a lady’s honour?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said the squire in amazement. ‘In faith, sir, you should be thanking Fitzpatrick here for having minded your daughter instead of trying to force him to marry the girl.’

Others had clustered about and were listening eagerly.

Isabella wondered whether it was possible to die on the spot from shame.

The viscount’s face was hard with contempt.

‘But,’ said Sir William with awful eagerness, ‘you are dishevelled, Isabella, and where is your bonnet?’

Goodbye, love, thought Isabella bleakly. Aloud, she said, ‘I will tell you what happened. Captain Farmer and my sisters in their great fright ran off and left me. I was at first too frightened to move and then the prankster in the tower let out a wail and I fled. In my flight my hair came down and I lost my bonnet. When I gained the road, I found Lord Fitzpatrick riding towards me. He suggested, as it was about to rain and that you would be worried, that he should take me straight home. But I had recovered my wits and remembered that I do not believe in ghosts and so I persuaded my lord to accompany me to the tower. We found the evidence that it had all been a trick and were prepared to leave, and then the downpour started. We had only been waiting at the entrance to the tower a few moments when you arrived. And now, Papa, if you consider you have shamed me enough, may I please go home.’

The viscount looked at her dejected face. He wanted to cry out that he would marry her, but, firstly, to do so would mean that the listeners would think something had happened between them that made him think he ought to. Then, secondly, he could only remember his own passion. A horrible thought that Isabella might be party to the Beverleys’s plan to get him to marry one of them and then try to get him to buy Mannerling would not leave his mind. And so he said nothing as Isabella was led away towards the road, towards the waiting carriages.

Mr Ajax Judd wandered gloomily through the stately rooms of Mannerling. Faintly, from across the lawns, filtered the sounds of the workmen repairing the temple. With all the superstitious nature of the true gambler, Mr Judd felt the falling of his fortunes was due to the blowing up of the temple. Now he was tied to a woman he did not really rate very highly and had only used to irritate the Beverleys. But Mary had made great friends with his mother and to get rid of her appeared unthinkable. He had not realized just how much money was entailed in running an estate like Mannerling. Certainly it was in good heart, but he had invested money on various ventures on the Stock Exchange thinking that they might prosper, only to lose money. He had paid a brief visit to London to gamble in St James’s, with disastrous results.

He felt Mannerling was punishing him. It was almost as if the great house had a soul, had thoughts. He loved it all with a passion. In an effort to placate it as he would have tried to placate a human being, he had rehung the Beverley ancestors in the Long Gallery, had bought back some of the paintings he had sold and put them back in place. The heavy Jacobean furniture, which he liked so much but Mannerling did not seem to, had been consigned to the bonfire and the pretty, light drawing room pieces restored to their former places.

He paused on the landing and patted the banister. ‘There now,’ he whispered. ‘Everything will be as it was. Change my luck for me. I must keep you.’

Isabella faced her family in the drawing room. Sir William stood with his back to her, staring at the window. In a clipped cold voice, Isabella told them what had happened and about how her father had tried to constrain Lord Fitzpatrick to marry her.

‘And,’ said Isabella, glaring at Jessica, ‘I know you are probably plotting to see if you can get Lord Fitzpatrick for yourself. Well, mark my words, after this day, he will certainly have nothing to do with this family ever again.’

‘We must think of something,’ said Lady Beverley. ‘Perhaps a present for Mrs Kennedy . . . ?’

Her voice trailed away before the wrath in her eldest daughter’s eyes.

‘Cannot you understand?’ shouted Isabella. ‘
MENNERLING IS GONE
!’

She turned on her heel and left the room. She went up to the bedchamber she shared with Jessica and flung herself face down on the bed.

She heard Jessica come in but did not look up. ‘I shall not give up so easily,’ she heard Jessica say fiercely. ‘I am going to Perival tomorrow to make my peace with Mrs Kennedy and see what I can do.’

‘Go away,’ said Isabella in a muffled voice. ‘You weary me.’

The weather was dry and breezy as Jessica and the twins set out for Perival. Isabella, watching them go from an upstairs window, noticed that a gig and a horse had been hired for them, so Sir William knew why they were going. A man had been hired from Hedgefield to drive them. Isabella thought they would have been better to take Barry. He would at least comfort them after they had been snubbed. But then Jessica would never turn to a mere servant for comfort.

Jessica was in high spirits. She was taking
action
, not like that widgeon, Isabella, who had now let two men slip through her fingers. Rachel and Abigail were infected by her high spirits. Barry had been right in what he had said to Isabella. The Beverleys were determined to live in hope, for to accept the fact they had lost Mannerling forever would be to accept their changed circumstances.

As they were approaching Mannerling, for the road to Perival took them past the gates, Mary Stoppard could be seen in an open carriage with her father coming down the drive of Mannerling. The lodge-keeper ran to open the gates for them.

Mary saw Jessica and the twins. Her black eyes flashed with triumph as they raked over the shabby hired gig and then she gave them a brief little nod before her father drove her right past them.

‘Did you see that?’ demanded Jessica furiously. ‘Giving herself all the airs of the lady she is not! Well, let’s see her face when Mannerling is bought back by us!’

The old horse which was pulling the gig clopped lazily along the winding country road which led to Perival. ‘I’m hungry,’ said Rachel.

‘Never mind,’ consoled Jessica. ‘Mrs Kennedy will be so glad to see us that she will provide us with tea or even a cold collation.’ For Mrs Kennedy’s dislike could only be temporary. A visit from any of the Beverleys was an honour.

As they drove up the drive to Perival, Jessica looked all around. There were men putting in full-sized trees and men gardening. She gave a little smile. Lord Fitzpatrick was obviously as rich as her father had heard him to be.

She could see that the windows of the drawing room upstairs were open and she could see the comfortable figure of Mrs Kennedy. And then the viscount came into view and bent over his aunt and said something.

‘Both at home,’ said Jessica with satisfaction, for she had begun to think that she should have sent Barry over with a letter first, which was what she originally had planned to do.

She waited impatiently for the driver to jump down and knock at the door, but he was only a hired driver and so he just sat there.

She climbed down herself and performed a brisk tattoo on the brass knocker.

There was a silence and then the door opened and the butler stood there.

Jessica handed him her card and asked for both Mrs Kennedy and Lord Fitzpatrick.

‘Wait there, miss,’ he said. He took the card and she could see him mounting the stairs.

She was just turning to tell the twins to get down from the gig, so sure was she of her welcome, when she heard the butler returning.

He bowed slightly and said, ‘Neither Mrs Kennedy nor my lord are at home.’

Jessica blushed painfully. The cut direct!

She turned and walked to the gig, as stiff as an outraged cat.

‘Take us home,’ she said to the driver.

‘What happened?’ asked Abigail.

Jessica frowned her to silence. A hired driver must not know of the Beverleys’s humiliation.

How long and weary the journey back seemed!

‘They are here and so soon!’ cried Sir William, who had been standing at the drawing room window.

Isabella slipped quietly through to the kitchen, smiled wanly at Joshua, and then escaped into the back garden. She saw the comforting figure of Barry over by the hen-run and went to join him.

‘Trouble, miss?’ he asked.

The hens scratched and uttered sounds like rusty gates.

‘I think so,’ said Isabella. ‘I did not wait to hear the news. But when my sister Jessica and the twins go calling on Lord Fitzpatrick and return very quickly, looking miserable, I can only assume they were snubbed. So this is it, is it, Barry? Brookfield House for ever and ever, amen?’

‘And not a bad place either, if I may say so, miss,’ said Barry. ‘And if I may also say so, cards are still arriving. You will have plenty of amusements. You go to the squire’s garden fête on Saturday, do you not?’

‘I believe so. Yes, yes, of course. The good squire is sending the carriage for us. At least Captain Farmer will be there,’ added Isabella, half to herself.

Barry threw the last of the grain to the hens and put down the bowl. ‘As to that, miss, I did hear on good authority that the young captain was so thoroughly ashamed of himself and his cowardly behaviour in running off and leaving you that he has rejoined his regiment.’

‘And who exactly is this good authority?’

‘Sir William, miss. He received a letter from the captain this morning. You know, miss, thinking about military men and all that, the squire’s son, Harry, now, he is expected to be at the fête and he is an army captain. Have you met him?’

‘No, but I have heard of him.’

‘He is accounted handsome, miss, and very genial.’

‘I do believe you are trying to matchmake for me, Barry,’ said Isabella with a smile as she thought how the old Isabella would shun the mere suggestion that she should be at all interested in a mere squire’s son. But then the old Isabella would not have stooped to converse on friendly terms with any servant.