Banishment (Daughters of Mannerling 1) (17 page)

Lady Beverley sat up and stared at the Irishwoman in amazement. ‘Take Lizzie . . . Why? The dear child fell in the river at the squire’s and got a soaking, nothing more. I am . . . ahum . . . perfectly capable of looking after my own children. I am sorry your journey has been wasted.’

Isabella stepped forward. ‘I think Lizzie should go,’ she said quietly. ‘You did not hear the correct story. Lord Fitzpatrick was trying to save our ridiculous pride. When Lizzie’s fan broke, it was symbolic to her of all we have lost and she realized for the first time that we would never live in Mannerling again. She did not slip into the river. She jumped. She meant to take her own life. Lord Fitzpatrick loosened the rock on which she had been standing before she jumped so that it would look like an accident. He dived in and saved her life.’

‘I . . . I cannot bear any more,’ whispered Lady Beverley. ‘You must be lying, Isabella.’

‘No, I am not,’ said Isabella. ‘Pray come with me, Mrs Kennedy. Your kindness is more than any of us deserve.’

She led the way upstairs to the small dark bedroom where Lizzie lay with her face turned to the wall.

‘Now, Lizzie,’ said Isabella gently, ‘you will rise and get dressed and you will go to Perival with Mrs Kennedy, who is come in person to take you. The change of scene will do your spirits the world of good.’ She then went to the doorway and shouted for Betty, the maid, and when the girl came running, ordered her to pack Miss Lizzie’s things.

Lizzie rose from bed like a sleep-walker and allowed herself to be dressed.

‘I’ve got a hamper of things delivered to your kitchen,’ said Mrs Kennedy robustly, although her shrewd eyes watched Lizzie’s still, white face anxiously.

‘You are so very kind.’ Isabella’s voice trembled and Mrs Kennedy looked at her in surprise, for she had put Isabella down in her mind as a scheming, heartless jilt.

With Isabella’s arm around her waist, Lizzie was helped down to the carriage. When she was seated beside Mrs Kennedy, Isabella leaned in at the open carriage window and said quietly, ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Mrs Kennedy. I apologize humbly to you and your . . . family . . . for my callousness. May I call on Lizzie?’

‘Oh, any time you like,’ said Mrs Kennedy warmly. ‘Do not worry about Lizzie. I shall send a man over with daily reports.’

The carriage drove off. Isabella waved her handkerchief and then went indoors to face the recriminations of Lady Beverley, who begged her again and again to say that she had been lying.

By the end of November, Lizzie was still at Perival. She was completely restored to health and spirits but yet dreaded returning home, clinging all the time to Mrs Kennedy and begging to be allowed to stay ‘just a little longer.’

The rest of the Beverley family went out to various functions where Isabella sometimes saw the viscount and sometimes she did not, and all the time she remembered how he had kissed her in the tower and tortured herself with the thought that had it not been for her father’s pushy vulgarity, the viscount might have asked her to marry him.

And then, at the beginning of December, Mr Judd married Mary Stoppard. The Beverleys did not go to the wedding but learned that it had been a very quiet affair, without any great celebrations.

Barry watched and waited, wondering if there was any way he could bring Isabella and the viscount together. He had gone with Isabella several times when she went to visit Lizzie, but on each occasion the viscount had been absent, probably, thought Barry, due to the fact that on each occasion Isabella had sent a note warning of her coming.

Mrs Kennedy was, however, beginning to warm to Isabella more on each visit. The girl, she decided, had changed a great deal, and whereas she lacked her earlier spark and animation, there was a quiet humility and gratitude about her which was pleasing. From thinking her nephew had made a lucky escape, she began to wonder if a beautiful and pleasant girl like Isabella, although she probably had little dowry, if any at all, might not be a highly suitable bride for the viscount after all. Mrs Kennedy had long believed that when her nephew married, she would need to move out of the house. But if he married Isabella, she would not need to move at all. They dealt together extremely well.

One dark winter’s evening, when a high wind rushed through the newly planted trees about Perival and Lizzie had gone to bed clutching one of the novels which Mrs Kennedy had just had delivered, Mrs Kennedy looked up when her nephew entered the drawing room and put aside her sewing.

‘That is one of Isabella Beverley’s ball gowns,’ he said harshly. ‘Will you never be done slaving for that family?’

‘Sit down, sit down. There is no need to be driven to a passion by the very sight of the girl’s duds. I do not slave for anyone. I am helping Isabella make over a gown for the Christmas ball at Lady Tarrant’s.’

‘If she had less pride, she would be content to go to balls and parties in gowns which the county have seen before.’

‘She is a normal female creature like any other. No lady worth her salt likes to turn up in the same old gown.’

‘May I point out that she probably has a wardrobe full of “same old gowns.” Mr Judd did not take their vast amount of clothes away.’

‘Why is it anything to do with Isabella makes you angry? I declare you are in love with her, and she is in love with you, and you are both being very silly.’

‘Hah! If I proposed marriage to that one, the first thing she would demand as a wedding present would be her precious Mannerling.’

‘No, she would not. It is my belief she had come to her senses long before Lizzie jumped in the river. But you will never know now, will you? For you are as stubborn as an ox. I was tempted, the last time I received a note from her to say when she would be calling, not to tell you so that you might stay and see for yourself what a sweet girl she has become. She was brought up to be proud and then driven to try to ensnare Judd by what she wrongly thought was her duty to that family. Oh, well, sulk on and see what good it does ye. Why do you not call on the lass to say how-d’ye-do? ’Twould not hurt.’

‘I will never call at Brookfield House again,’ he said, and strode from the room.

But his aunt’s words niggled away in his brain that night, preventing sleep. Could it possibly be that she loved him? He had savagely believed her acceptance of his caresses in the tower was because she was party to her father’s plot to coerce him into marriage. But he had kissed her, not she, him! And did she cause the rain to fall at the right moment?

He fell into an uneasy sleep just before dawn, confident that when he woke up he would once again be buoyed up with all his old resentment of her.

But when he awoke in the morning he was filled with a sudden longing to see her, speak to her, study the expression in her eyes.

He could not bring himself to tell his aunt, however, where he was going. He rode off in the direction of Brookfield House, unaware that his aunt was standing by the upstairs window of the drawing room watching him go, a smile of satisfaction on her face.

Isabella, wrapped in a long fur-lined mantle, was standing talking to Barry by the hen-run when he rode up. He dismounted and walked towards them, leading his horse.

‘I’ll take that to the stable for you, my lord,’ said Barry. Isabella blushed and studied the hens as if she had never seen such interesting birds before.

‘No need,’ said the viscount. ‘I shall not be staying long.’

Barry was torn between a desire to leave the couple alone and yet worried if he did so that they might never get down to what he privately designated as ‘business.’

‘And how do you go on?’ the viscount asked Isabella.

‘Very well, I thank you, my lord.’

‘The weather is very cold. Perhaps I should not keep you standing here, talking.’

‘I suppose not,’ said Isabella dismally.

Barry suppressed a click of annoyance. He found his voice. ‘Have you observed my fine hen-house, my lord?’

The viscount looked at the shack. ‘Very fine,’ he said. ‘Keep the fox out, does it?’

‘Haven’t lost a hen yet, my lord,’ said Barry proudly. ‘I beg you to step inside and have a look.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said the viscount ungraciously.

‘Come as well, Miss Isabella,’ urged Barry. ‘I am uncommon proud of my work.’

Isabella looked at him and tried hard to mask her irritation. She had already admired the hen-house when he had first built it. The hens were in their run. She followed the viscount into the small shed, which smelled anything but pleasant.

‘Excellent,’ the viscount was just beginning to say politely when Barry slammed the door on the pair of them, leaving them in semi-darkness.

The viscount tried the door. It was locked fast.

‘Is this another of your family’s tricks?’ he demanded wrathfully. ‘Am I supposed to stay in here with you until your loving family consider you have been well and truly compromised?’

‘I do not know what is going on,’ said Isabella desperately. She raised her voice and shouted, ‘Barry, let us out of here immediately.’

‘Your little plot won’t work,’ sneered the viscount, ‘for I am about to kick this flimsy edifice to pieces.’

And Isabella slapped him across the face as hard as she could.

He stared down at her in the malodorous gloom of the hen-house, lit only by one small window of glass made from the ends of wine bottles.

Her eyes looked enormous. Her lips were trembling. He cursed softly under his breath and jerked her into his arms and kissed her mouth over and over again, as if trying to quench a thirst, until she moaned softly against his mouth and wound her hands in his thick hair.

‘You love me,’ he said at last, looking down at her in wonder.

‘Yes,’ she said simply, ‘I think I always will. Please let us get out of here or Papa will indeed turn up and consider it a good opportunity to force you to marry me, and I could not bear that. What sane man would want such in-laws?’

‘I am not sane,’ he said huskily. ‘My senses are reeling. Kiss me!’

And she did, while outside, Barry pressed his ear harder against the wood. Ask her outright to marry you, he prayed silently.

But the couple were too intent on kissing and stroking and murmuring sweet nothings for quite some time. At last the viscount said, ‘And you are not going to ask me to buy Mannerling for you should it come up for sale?’

‘I never want to see the place again,’ said Isabella.

‘We are going to be married, are we not?’

Isabella leaned her head against his chest and sighed, ‘Oh, yes, my darling, my heart, I would like that above all things.’

He crushed her lips under his again and she responded with such vigour that it took them some time to realize the door of the hen-house had mysteriously swung open and their performance was being watched with interest by several beady-eyed hens.

‘What a romantic setting,’ said the viscount with a laugh. ‘Where is the dreadful Barry? I assume he locked us in deliberately.’

‘Do not be angry. He always wanted me to marry you. Oh, dear, Papa is going to be so
mercenary
.’

‘Nothing your family can say or do can worry me now.’ He put an arm about her waist and she leaned her head on his shoulder and together they walked out of the hen-house.

The former Mary Stoppard, now Mary Judd, looked bleakly out at the gathering dusk of the winter’s evening and was thankful her husband had gone off to London and she did not know when he was expected back. Being mistress of Mannerling was not what she had dreamt of, not what she had expected.

Also, her relationship with Mrs Judd had turned sour. Mrs Judd blamed her for her son’s absence, saying if Mary were a proper wife, she would be able to keep him at home. She also blamed Mary for their lack of callers, sighing and moaning like the winter wind outside and saying that this was what came of ‘poor Ajax’ marrying beneath him.

Mary had been used to occupying her time with parish calls and gossip. But in her new position as mistress of Mannerling, she considered herself too grand to call on her old humble friends, and yet when she went calling on any important members of the county, she was always told they were ‘not at home.’ Snubbed and rejected, she blamed the Beverleys and thirsted for revenge. She felt sure it was they who had alienated the great and the good from visiting Mannerling.

Then her father, her very own father, had begun to compare her unfavourably to Isabella. ‘If you had some of her air and elegance, my dear,’ he would say sadly, ‘then you would be more of a social success.’

On the outside of it, therefore, there was much to be pitied about Mary. But the hard core of devious selfishness and self-interest inside her kept her protected in a way. Nothing was or had ever been Mary’s fault. There was always something or someone to blame. And Mannerling itself was a great comfort. She thought of it as hers, rather than her husband’s, feeling the great house enfolding her, protecting her, calling her its own.

She had been on another search for the Beverley jewelry. How often had she imagined herself wearing some of those sparkling gems, seeing the Beverleys at a ball or party recognizing what had once been theirs and being as jealous of her as she had always been of them. So she wandered from room to room, under the ornate cornices and painted ceilings, looking, always looking. Mrs Judd had retired early for the night and so, apart from the odd servant going about his or her duties, she and the house were alone together.

And then she heard shouts outside and the sound of horses and carriage wheels. She ran to the window and looked down. Her husband was arriving with travelling carriage and outriders. The outriders extinguished their flaming torches, footmen rushed out to help the master down, John in the forefront, who had become the most obsequious of servants in case Mr Judd should ever change his mind and build that ruin and need a hermit.

Mary went down to the hall. She was determined to ask him about those jewels, but when he strode into the hall and she saw his glittering eyes and noted the unsteady way he walked, she gathered he was the worse for drink. So she tripped forward and kissed him on the cheek.