Belle (The Daughters of Allamont Hall Book 2) (15 page)

And yet in a peculiar way, he was glad it had happened. For one brief moment, he had tasted paradise, loving a woman who, for that one moment, had loved him in return. That one kiss —
‘ae fond kiss’
indeed — would sustain him through many miserable moments. Never had the words of a poem rung so true.
‘To see her was to love her; love but her, and love for ever.’

But that would never do. He should not be glad of the wrong he had done. Buttoning his coat, he crossed the road to the church. The clack of the latch echoed in the arched roof. Ah, the smell of a church was so reassuring. Whatever wrong he had done, however laden with guilt his conscience might be, that odd mixture of dust and candle smoke and beeswax always comforted him.

He made his way down the aisle, every footstep sounding hollowly, like a drum. He felt himself unworthy of the main altar, with its great window of the risen Lord in all his glory, surrounded by his devoted saints. Instead, he knelt at the lady chapel altar to the side, as if the Madonna might be more understanding of his human weakness.

How long he prayed he could not tell, but he gradually became aware that he was not alone. Opening his eyes, he turned his head. Miss Endercott sat beside him, watching him. Was that sympathy in her eyes or censure? He could not tell, but it was clear that she knew something of what had occurred. Rising to his feet, he sat a little further along the pew.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she said, her tone blessedly mild. Not censure then, not yet.

“I have done something very wicked.” His voice shook, but he steeled himself to say the words. “I kissed her. Miss Belle Allamont. I kissed her. Such a madness came over me for a moment, as I cannot account for at all.”

“Can you not?” She raised an eyebrow. “And was it observed, this moment of madness?”

“I think not. Samuel was in the garden, I believe, and Eliza was at work on the front step. I thought… I believed that having the maid nearby would be sufficient, combined with my profession. I failed to take into account the effect of a poem in the Scots dialect. Miss Endercott, what am I to do? Belle says we must pretend nothing has happened, but how can we?”

“Belle is a sensible girl,” Miss Endercott said. “That is indeed what you must do. A little pretence and a lot of prayer will see you through this.”

“But I cannot pretend for the rest of my life. I must not be dishonest with Hope, not when I—”

“You will say nothing to Hope! Not a word, I implore you! She may notice some little change in you, but that is of no consequence. If you tell her of this, you destroy her happiness for ever. If you then marry her, she will always know that you loved Belle better. If you do not, she will always regret you. What you must do, John, is nothing at all, or at least nothing precipitate. You cannot contemplate marriage for some years, since your income cannot support a wife, and Hope must wait until all her older sisters are wed. So you wait in patience for those years to pass. She is very young, and anything may happen in that time.”

“The only thing that will happen is that Belle will marry that wastrel cousin of hers, and I shall have to watch her face grow thin with unhappiness. How can I bear it? And meanwhile, I am eaten up with all manner of forbidden desires, and can do nothing about them.”

“As to that, it is the price you pay for your moment of madness, and you must bear it with fortitude,” Miss Endercott said, but despite the stern words her voice was gentle.

“If I can,” he said miserably.

“We must all pray that you find the strength within you. Patience, John, patience and fortitude and prayer. Do nothing now, and see what the future brings.”

16: The Journal

The new schoolmaster arrived. To the delight of the young ladies of the parish, he was a single man both handsome and amiable, with a ready smile and an easy manner. To the delight of the young gentlemen, he brought his younger sister to keep house for him. All agreed that it was the greatest pity there was no money attached to either of them, no more than a hundred pounds a year each from their mother, and beyond that they had only their own persons to recommend them.

Mr Burford brought them both to Allamont Hall the very day after their arrival, accompanied by Mr and Miss Endercott. It was the first time Belle had seen Mr Burford since their unfortunate lapse in the cottage, and she was naturally aflutter with nervous anxiety. How would he seem? Would he even speak to her? And could she speak to him with any composure?

In the event, the meeting passed off more smoothly than she had dared to hope. He was a little flushed, but then he often was in company. She blushed herself, hoping no one would notice. She made her curtsy, he bowed over her hand and asked how she did, she made a random response and he moved on. There! It was over, and she could compose herself. Burford settled next to Hope, across the circle from Belle, and she was able to take notice of the conversations going on.

The two newcomers were a wonderful distraction, scattering their charm like blossom petals. Mr Alexander Drummond was a fine looking man of six and twenty, stylishly attired but without flamboyance, quite open about his reduced prospects in life, but not in the least downhearted.

“I shall like very well to be a village schoolmaster, Miss Allamont,” he said in answer to Amy’s polite enquiry. “It will be delightful to be usefully employed for a change, and in a profession where I might hope to do some good. My wants are few, so I shall manage to live quite comfortably, I am sure. And my friend Burford assures me that the neighbourhood affords some excellent society and all manner of entertainments. You have plenty of balls, I trust? For I dearly love a ball. There is no more agreeable manner of passing an evening than by dancing with a succession of beautiful and amiable young ladies.”

“We have monthly balls at the Assembly Rooms in Brinchester, Mr Drummond,” Grace said. “In addition, the Grahams hold several private balls over the winter.”

“Who are these Grahams, who are so obliging as to hold several balls each year?”

Grace giggled. “Why, Sir Matthew and Lady Graham of Graham House. They love to hold dinners, as well.”

“Burford, you must introduce me to Sir Matthew and Lady Graham at the earliest opportunity.”

Despite her current agitation, Belle could not help smiling at his enthusiasm. His sister was even more lively, her curls as black as his were fair, and as pretty as a flower, with a delicate nose and mouth and chin, and eyes of a deep blue. Miss Jessica Drummond was one and twenty, and within fifteen minutes of her arrival at the Hall had got all the sisters’ names straight in her mind, and had discovered everything about Amy’s wedding, her future husband, her new home and their planned wedding tour to the lake country.

She too, it seemed, was a great dancer. “So when is the very next public ball to be?” she said to the room at large. “For I love a ball above all things.”

“The next at the Assembly Rooms is two weeks on Tuesday,” Hope said, leaning forward in her eagerness. “It will be the first since we came out of mourning for Papa, and my very first ball.”

“Your first! How excited you must be!” Miss Drummond said. “I declare I could not sleep or eat for a week before my first ball, or for at least a week after. Oh, how much you will enjoy it! And you will stand up for every dance, I am sure.”

“I do hope so!” She giggled. “Who else will be going? Mr Burford, do you mean to attend?”

“Indeed I do, Miss Hope,” he said. “I am looking forward to it immensely.” But his heavy tone belied the words.

Hope looked at him oddly, and then across at Belle, as if wondering. Belle quickly turned away to say something to Mr Endercott, who sat beside her, and Miss Drummond’s merry voice said something that made everyone laugh, and the moment passed.

Even so, Belle’s nerves were over-set by the time the visitors rose to leave, and as soon as she could she escaped to the book room. She spread the account books on the desk, opening the one she had last been examining, but she did not sit down. Her mind was in too much turmoil to settle to anything. It was a relief to have got the first meeting with John out of the way, and a relief also that it had passed off reasonably well. Neither of them had disgraced themselves, and the small signs of embarrassment were easily overlooked in such lively company as the Drummonds provided. Even so, she was happy to be alone.

She paced up and down the room, wishing she had something more active to distract her. If only she rode, she could exhaust her agitation with a gallop across the fields. A brisk walk would provide the activity, but it had the unfortunate effect of leaving her mind free to wander wherever it would go, and lately that had been a very gloomy place indeed.

The difficulty with having a clear insight into her own heart was that she could never deceive herself. She had discovered, rather belatedly, what it was to love, and now she could not erase the memory of that fatal kiss. It haunted her as she went about her daily duties, and it kept her restless and awake at night.

The worst of it was that her mind was rational enough to offer possible solutions. In her wilder moments, she pondered manoeuvring John into truly compromising her, so that they would be forced to marry. Or she could go directly to Hope, explain the situation and ask her to step aside. But she was too sensible to execute such plans. Her care for her own reputation and John’s in the first instance, and her care for her sister’s happiness in the second prevented her taking any action. She could not see any escape which did not hurt one or other of them. Her lot was to be unhappy and take her secret with her to the grave.

The thought of secrets reminded her of her father’s own secrets, and his locked journal that she had found in the desk. Who knew what might be written there? Perhaps there would be some clue to reveal his feelings about Jack Barnett. Did he acknowledge him as his son? Perhaps — a thrilling thought — there might be a hint about Ernest and Frank, and why they ran away.

Yet she could not find out what was hidden inside it. None of the keys she had found so far fitted it, indeed, they were all far too large. The key would be small and delicate, and very easy to conceal. But where could it be hidden? John had searched every likely place in the book room, and had even managed to find the key to the small money box hanging from a hook at the back of a desk drawer. It was unlikely that any more keys remained to be found. But perhaps Papa had kept it with him at all times? Perhaps it still sat in a pocket somewhere amongst his clothes, or in a drawer beside his bed.

Something to keep her busy at last! Her quick steps took her from the book room and up the stairs. The first door was the sumptuous guest bedroom where Mr Eddington had stayed recently, called the Duke’s Room, because the first Duke of Marlborough was supposed to have slept in it. Belle rather doubted it, however, since he was dead before Allamont Hall was even built. Mama’s room was to one side of it, and to the other, Papa’s room.

Here Belle stopped, hesitant. She had never in her life been in Papa’s room. She had rarely been in Mama’s room, either, although she had a dim memory of being led there to admire the latest baby. Hope, probably. She recalled very little about the room, other than the wallpaper, which had peacocks all over it. Nanny had chided her for paying no attention to her new sister, but to her six-year-old self, peacocks were far more interesting than tiny, wrinkled babies.

But Papa’s room was new territory, a foreign country with unimaginable dangers lurking. What did a gentleman’s bedroom look like? How different would  it be from Mama’s, or her own modest room in the east wing? But she would never find out by standing outside on the landing. Taking a deep breath, she turned the knob and opened the door.

It was a room, like any other. This should not have been a surprise, yet somehow it was. There was a bed, the hangings neatly arranged, two wardrobes, symmetrically placed, with a dressing table precisely midway between them and a matching pair of folding screens across the corners. Against the opposite wall, two wash stands, one in each corner. Papa had loved symmetry. There were no pictures on the walls, no ornaments and even the wallpaper was plain, without even a pattern to relieve it. A door led to a dressing or powdering room, but it was empty, with no furniture at all, not even a carpet on the floor.

The room was free of dust, so the maids must attend to it regularly, but there was nothing in the room to remind Belle of her father. There were no hair brushes, no mirrors, no books or papers, no small personal items scattered about to suggest that anyone had once undressed and slept and drunk his morning chocolate in here. It was as impersonal as an hotel room.

Belle swung open the door of the first wardrobe. The rest of the room was so empty of any reminder of her father that she had almost expected the wardrobe to be the same. Not so. There were all his clothes, arranged in sequence: breeches, then shirts, then waistcoats, then coats. On shelves were cravats and other garments she could not identify and did not like to examine closely. But the key would not be amongst his nightshirts.

The other wardrobe contained a similar array, but of evening wear. Belle started with the day wardrobe, working systematically through every pocket. No key. The evening wardrobe was equally disappointing. The drawers of the dressing table contained an array of personal items, but no key. There were several books at the back of one drawer, but mindful of the one in the book room which John had burned, she left them there unopened.

She looked around the rest of the room. Where else could a key be hidden? She wished she had John’s quick mind and willingness to crawl about on the floor to aid her search, but she would have to do the best she could on her own. The rugs yielded nothing and there was no sign of a loose floorboard that might suggest a hiding place there. There were no ornaments to conceal anything. Even the window had not a single loose piece of wood. She stood in the centre of the room, slowly revolving, looking for better ideas.

Where else did people keep keys? On chains at waist or neck, of course. On nails in the wall. In reticules and pockets. Inside books. Reluctantly, she took the books from the drawer and shook each one vigorously upside down, trying not to look at the pages. No key fell out. Where else?

An image rose unbidden in her mind of her last visit to John’s cottage. Samuel had been bringing coal from the cellar, and had locked the door behind him and the key— the lintel! He had put the key on top of the lintel.

Eagerly, her fingers felt above the door. Nothing. She tried the door to the dressing room. Still no key. She even went into the dressing room to try the other side, without any luck. But now she had another idea — the tops of the wardrobes.

And there it was. A small silver key with an intricately worked handle, tucked into a notch in the wood on top of the evening wardrobe. Even the housemaid’s vigorous dusting would not dislodge it from there.

Triumphantly she skipped back down the stairs to the book room and drew out her father’s journal, and eagerly inserted the key into the lock. It fitted! A single turn, an almost inaudible click and the lock fell open.

And then she hesitated. To read her own father’s private journal, a journal so secret, moreover, that he had kept it locked and hidden the key — that would be a great intrusion. And yet she had to know more about Jack Barnett, and this, surely, was the only way to find out.

So she opened the journal and began to read.

At first she wondered if she had misunderstood, for the handwriting was so different from the account books. Where she had needed a magnifying glass to read the accounts, the journal was written in a larger, much freer style. But then she began to see similarities in the formation of the letters and the tell-tale pen-strokes, and realised that it was indeed her father’s, but composed in a different mood. The very first page told her more about her father than three and twenty years of eating at his table had taught her.

‘M gave me such news on Friday last that I am like to burst. It is so delicious, yet there is no one I can share it with, no one I can sit with over my port and laugh about it. And it is such a good joke. Part of me wants to tell S just to see if it will wipe the smug superiority from her face. But I cannot. She knows all my weaknesses, and grinds me into the dirt, making me grovel in my own house, so it must be secret. But I absolutely must have some relief for my feelings, and therefore I have decided I will keep this journal. Everything I would have told a good friend, I will write here.

‘We have decided that she needs a house. M’s present lodgings will no longer answer, for there will need to be nursery maids and a wet-nurse and all manner of other expenses. And a garden, she tells me, for the child to play in. Then there will be education to be thought of. It will be difficult to find the extra money, for the tenants are having trouble with the rents lately, with the poor harvests, and my own investments are not bringing in what I had hoped. And then S is quite an expense, as always. Why did I ever look so high? A clergyman’s daughter would have suited me rather better.

‘So I must economise. The chaplain can easily go, for that will save hundreds of pounds a year in beef and brandy. Nor do we need three footmen. I shall not let any of the servants go directly, for S might object to that, but as they leave, they need not be replaced. I think it can be done. M has her eye on a house already, and she has the most ingenious idea for concealment — it shall be a home for foundling children, and a charitable institute that I may support and visit in perfect propriety. She is so clever, my M! We laughed so much when she came up with the idea, that she clean knocked over the wine, and I do not suppose the stain will ever come out. But I am so excited I shall buy her another carpet. She shall have as many carpets as she wishes.’