Banishment (Daughters of Mannerling 1) (16 page)

‘Heaven forbid,’ said Barry. ‘It is only that it is pleasant for a young lady to meet a friendly and easygoing gentleman.’

Isabella looked around her. ‘So this is it, finally,’ she said. ‘This is home.’

‘Until you get married, miss.’

Isabella began to walk away. She said over her shoulder, ‘That day may never come.’

She went indoors, hearing the murmur of voices from the drawing room. She went upstairs and changed into a walking dress and half-boots, went out again and began to make her way across the fields.

She thought of what she had so nearly had and what she had thrown away. Lord Fitzpatrick’s face rose before her eyes. He would marry soon and would probably be happy and consider himself well quit of the Beverley family. Mary would make sure all the Beverleys were invited to her wedding to witness her ‘triumph.’

But Mary was to be pitied, not envied. Isabella wondered whether the queer spell that Mannerling cast on everyone had infected Mary or whether she just saw it as a grand house of which she would soon be the mistress. Her thoughts turned back to the viscount. He would be at the squire’s fete. It would be painful to attend, for everyone would know about how her father had tried to coerce the viscount into marrying her.

She toyed with the idea of pretending to be ill. But then that would mean staying at home and wondering whom the viscount was speaking to, whom he was flirting with. All she could do was put on a brave face and ignore the looks and whispers.

On the day of the fête, Isabella took some comfort from the fact that Jessica’s humiliation had seemed to put an end to her father’s mad schemes, although Sir William was already the worse for drink when they set out in the carriage the squire had sent for them.

Lizzie, sitting quietly in a corner of the carriage, reflected that they all looked very fine in their India muslins. But gowns did not last forever and Lizzie, as the youngest, knew the day would soon come when she had to be content with her sisters’ hand-me-downs. She felt she could be content at Brookfield if only Mrs Kennedy would come back again and fill the house with activity and bustle and things to do.

They could hear the noise of a band playing a jolly tune as they approached the squire’s. Tables had been set out on the lawns and there was a marquee where the dancing would take place later.

The squire and his wife met them and proudly introduced their son, Harry.

He was an engaging-looking young man with curly fair hair worn longer than the current fashion. He had grey eyes which danced with laughter. His face was lightly tanned and he had a good figure, although he was quite small in stature.

Those grey eyes fastened appreciatively on the elegant picture Isabella made in a white muslin gown with a wide green sash and broad-brimmed straw hat embellished with silk flowers.

‘Father,’ he said, turning to the squire, ‘the guests are almost all arrived. I shall escort Miss Isabella.’

The squire, Sir Jeffrey Blane, felt he could hardly protest and comforted himself with the thought that Harry was soon to rejoin his regiment. In any case, the boy had already been told not to become romantically involved with the Beverleys, for the girls could not command any reasonable sort of dowries.

‘We are lucky with the weather, are we not?’ said Harry Blane, leading Isabella across the lawn. ‘A perfect summer’s day. I was lucky to get leave in order to be here.’

‘Will the war never end?’ asked Isabella, referring to the battles raging in the Peninsula.

‘Oh, we will win in the end, never fear. It is a delight to talk to you, Miss Isabella. We have been neighbours for so long and yet we have never met before.’

Isabella reflected that they had never been on intimate terms with the Blanes before, the Beverleys considering a mere squire and his family not important enough.

Mary Stoppard came up on the arm of Mr Judd. Mr Judd hailed Isabella. ‘The temple’s being repaired,’ he said eagerly.

Isabella looked at him in surprise. ‘Surely it was silly to blow the thing up, only to have to restore it?’

He appeared not to hear her. ‘And I have rehung your ancestors in the Long Gallery,’ he went on, still with that strange eagerness in his voice.

Isabella tugged at Harry’s arm as a signal she wanted to move on. She gave a little bow.

‘Was that the famous Mr Judd of Mannerling?’ asked Harry when they were out of earshot.

‘Yes, and how rude of me not to introduce you. I thought you knew him. With him was his intended bride, the vicar’s daughter, Mary Stoppard.’

‘Oh, I know
her
. So her father has toad-eaten his daughter into a good marriage at last. I wish her the joy of him. Judd seems quite mad.’

‘He certainly behaved very oddly. At the Mannerling ball, you must have heard this, the piece de resistance, apart from the announcement of his forthcoming marriage, was when he blew up the Greek temple. Now it appears he is restoring it. I wonder why. Such a great deal of unnecessary expense.’

‘And deuced odd that he should rehang the Beverley ancestors,’ exclaimed Harry. ‘What’s so special about that? They ain’t his ancestors.’

It must be Mannerling, thought Isabella suddenly, Mannerling casting its weird spell on Mr Judd, Mannerling demanding that all should be as it was. She had said she did not believe in ghosts but she began to wonder if Mannerling was a haunted house, a strange place which demanded absolute love from its owners.

And then she forgot about Mannerling, for the viscount had arrived. Mrs Kennedy was not with him. Isabella hoped the old lady was well. It was unlike her to miss any event. Isabella began to chatter to Harry in an animated way, all the time conscious of the tall presence across the garden.

When they went to take their seats at the table, she found to her dismay that not only was she seated well away from the viscount, but in such a position that she could not see him at all. She felt such a great degree of frustration and then of sadness and loss that she found it hard to maintain a polite conversation with the gentlemen on either side of her.

Her head ached by the end of the meal and she longed to go home, but there was dancing to follow. Her hand for the first dance was promptly claimed by Harry. It was a rowdy country dance and Isabella was pretending with all her might that she was enjoying herself immensely so that the viscount’s attention might be distracted from the pretty girl he was dancing with, when she noticed that Lizzie, who was dancing with a young boy, lost her fan, the cord that held it to her wrist snapping. The fan fell to the grass floor of the marquee. Lizzie gave an exclamation and stopped to retrieve it, but at the same time a stocky young man leaped backwards in the figure of the dance and his large foot came down onto the delicate fan, snapping the ivory sticks and crushing it into the grass.

Isabella watched anxiously as Lizzie, her face paper-white, bent to try to retrieve the pieces of the fan. Her partner was laughing and trying to pull her away, but Lizzie suddenly stood up and darted out of the marquee.

‘My sister, I must go after her,’ said Isabella, and before Harry could stop her, she, too, ran out of the marquee.

She stood outside, looking this way and that. Behind her, the tumty-tumty music of the band sounded on the summer air. Isabella ran to the house and questioned the servants. A little maid said she had seen a young lady running through the gardens at the back of the house towards the river.

‘The river!’ echoed Isabella with a feeling of dread.

She hurtled through the gardens, down over the lawn, jumped the ha-ha, straight towards the rushing noise of the river, calling, ‘Lizzie! Lizzie!’ at the top of her voice.

She had just about gained the river bank when a strong arm pulled her round and demanded, ‘What is the matter?’

Isabella looked up into the viscount’s face and said on a choked sob, ‘Lizzie! She is upset. She was seen running for the river.’

He dropped her arm and ran along the river bank, adding his cries of ‘Lizzie’ to those of Isabella.

And then they saw her, a sad little figure standing on the edge of a jutting-out flat stone which overhung a deep pool. Her face was pinched and white and her eyes had a blind look.

‘Lizzie!’ screamed Isabella at the top of her voice.

The little face turned to look first at Isabella and then at the viscount. She gave an odd little wave of her hand and jumped.

‘She can’t swim,’ shouted Isabella.

The viscount tore off his coat and boots and dived into the pool from the other side while Isabella wrung her hands and prayed to God to save her little sister.

The viscount’s black head surfaced. He was clutching Lizzie to him as he struck out for the bank. Isabella ran round and, lying on her stomach, she reached down and grabbed Lizzie’s arm and pulled her up onto the grassy bank on the opposite side of the pool from where Lizzie had jumped.

Lizzie was coughing and spluttering, having only suffered from having swallowed several mouthfuls of clear river water.

‘You bad girl!’ shrieked Isabella, shaking her wet sister furiously. ‘Why did you do it?’

The viscount climbed out and immediately headed round the pool and climbed up to the flat rock from which Lizzie had jumped. He snapped off a stout branch and began digging feverishly at the soft earth and moss under the rock.

‘It was the fan,’ snivelled Lizzie.

‘The fan?’ Isabella, quieter now that her great fright was over, stopped shaking her and hugged her close. ‘Your fan was broken. What of it?’

‘It was my prettiest fan,’ whispered Lizzie. ‘I will never be able to afford another like it.’

‘We still have plenty of pretty fans,’ said Isabella. ‘You may choose from mine, anything you want.’

‘But don’t you see,’ said Lizzie, ‘the fan was a symbol.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of Mannerling. It was executed especially. It had a painting of Mannerling on it. We have lost all, Isabella, and we will never go home again.’

‘Mannerling, Mannerling, I
hate
Mannerling,’ shouted Isabella. ‘I will never go there again. Never. Listen to me, Lizzie, I thought you were the most sensible of us all. We can have a good life at Brookfield House. Look at all the balls and parties we are invited to. You must put Mannerling out of your mind or the place will drive us mad, and it nearly killed you.’

People were coming running up. ‘Oh, what can we tell them?’ asked Isabella. ‘I cannot say my sister nearly committed suicide over a
house
.’

But the viscount was miraculously taking charge. He was already advancing to meet the crowd.

‘All is well,’ he said. ‘An accident. That stone over there . . .’ He pointed to the flat rock which he had managed to dislodge enough to make it look dangerous. ‘We were standing admiring the view when it gave way and plunged us all in the pool. Please return to the party. I will take the ladies home. No, no, please go away. The ladies do not want to be seen as they are with their gowns sodden.’

He did not want any sharp-eyed observer to remark that Isabella’s gown, except from the parts which had become damp when she was clutching her sister, was quite dry.

He waited until they had gone and then said quietly, ‘Come, I will take you home.’

Fortunately, by the time they had returned to the squire’s house, everyone, with the exception of Lady Beverley and Isabella’s sisters, was back inside the marquee.

‘I will take them home,’ said the viscount. He turned and ordered a servant to fetch his carriage. ‘It was an accident. But as you can see, the ladies are wet.’

‘Why do you not put on some dry clothes and return?’ said Lady Beverley brightly. ‘Mr Blane is asking for you, Isabella.’

Isabella looked at her mother in a sort of wonder but said quietly, ‘Perhaps. Pray all of you return to the dance.’

She and the viscount and Lizzie drove home in silence.

When Lizzie had been handed over to the maids and Isabella turned to thank the viscount, he said harshly, ‘Have I the right of it? Was your little sister trying to kill herself?’

Isabella nodded. ‘It all hit her when her fan broke – that we had lost Mannerling forever – and it temporarily, I hope, turned her brain.’

‘So she has excelled you. You would throw away love for a pile of bricks and mortar, but your sister would throw away her life. You are all mad.’

He turned on his heel and strode away. Isabella stood in the shadowy hall, tears running down her cheeks.

Barry, who had been standing in a corner of the hall, listening, moved quietly away.

Something would have to be done.

Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?

OSCAR WILDE

Mrs Kennedy listened in amazement as her nephew told her the tale of Lizzie’s attempted suicide.

She raised her hands in horror. ‘And to think I thought that poor lamb was the only sane one out o’ the lot of them! Order the carridge!’

‘And just where do you intend to go?’ asked the viscount wearily.

‘Why, to Brookfield House.’

‘That is enough, Aunt Mary. Leave those poxy, mad, pride-ridden Beverleys alone.’

‘That I will not. Sure, that poor little child will be sick wit’ misery and Lady Beverley will hang on to that lie you told her about the loose rock until Doomsday. I am going there and I am bringing her back with me and you cannot stop me.’

‘Oh, you are as mad as the rest of them. Go, by all means, and get snubbed and humiliated for your pains.’

Mrs Kennedy called servants to bustle about as she had a hamper packed full of all sorts of food, from meat pies to pastries and cakes. With the light of battle in her eyes, she ordered the coachman to drive her to Brookfield House.

Lady Beverley was reclining on a chaise longue in the drawing room when Mrs Kennedy was ushered in. ‘To what do we owe the honour of this visit?’ asked Lady Beverley languidly, putting one white hand to her brow.

The door opened at that moment and Isabella and her sisters came in, with the exception of Lizzie.

Mrs Kennedy said, ‘I am come to take Lizzie back to Perival with me and nurse her back to health.’