Mr Forster's Fortune (18 page)

There had been no false hope between them
. It was apparent to them both that his lordship should soon depart the world. The only uncertainty was, at what time. The doctor visited as frequently as his other commitments would allow him, and shook his head most gloomily whenever he came downstairs. Miss Forster, perhaps being pleased to have something to occupy herself now that Lady Cecily had gone, and maybe, too, wondering whether her sudden and totally unexpected disappearance had possibly had something to do with her brother, busied herself in distracting her mother, reading aloud to her from the newspaper, pumping up her cushions, and trying her hardest to forget her constant unease.

Lord Barnham spent increasing amounts of time in a state of semi-consciousness, interspersed by periods of such clarity that left his
son quite stunned. It was during one such period, while Robert was sitting by the window, looking morose, that he eyed his son sharply and told him to sit near.

‘Why are you not with Lady Cecily, Robert?’ he asked him, looking critically at his face. ‘You have spent too much time away from her. She will wonder where you are.’

Mr Forster returned his father’s glance, a little startled.

‘Lady Cecily? Well...um... I fear that Lady Cecily has returned to Surrey, sir.’

It was now his lordship’s turn to look a little startled.

‘Returned to Surrey? But why on earth would she wish to do that?’

Mr Forster frowned at him.

‘Perhaps she pursues her cousin
, sir?’

Lord Barnham almost exploded out of his bedclothes.

‘Pursues her cousin?’ he repeated. ‘Pursues her cousin? What ever are you thinking of? Pursues her cousin, indeed.’

Mr Forster was feeling exceedingly uncomfortable.

‘Her cousin has returned to Surrey, sir. She has returned there with her aunt.’

‘He may well have done, and so may they – but I fail to see that there is any connection between the two.’ Lord Barnham eyed his son narrowly. ‘It is more likely something to do with
you
. You have not been upsetting her, have you, Robert? I would not be surprised.’

Mr Forster shuffled and looked at the floor.

‘You have, haven’t you? You mutton head. Whatever have you done?’

‘She will not have me, father. She prefers her cousin to me.’

‘Prefers her cousin? Nonsense, man. The girl does not prefer her cousin. Her cousin may prefer
her
. I am almost sure he will. Any sensible man would try his chance with a woman like her. But you only have to look at her to see she has eyes only for you. Why do you think she will not have you, for God’s sake? Did you ask her to have you, and did she say that she would not?’

Mr Forster remained silent.

‘Ha,’ said his lordship. ‘I see it. You did not ask her, and she did not say that she would not – and she has flown off to Surrey as a consequence. Well, believe me, Robert – and I am a vastly experienced gentleman in all of these things. I am worth believing on this if on nothing else in the world – that girl is as much in love as ever I saw in my entire existence before. You have only to see how she looks at you, man – how she blushes and starts like a frightened woodcock whenever she catches your glance. You’re a blithering addle pate to let her run off like that – to let her slip through your fingers and run back home to hide. Go court her, Robert. A girl like that – a girl the likes of whom you can never hope to meet again – a girl like that is worth pursuing. Oh yes, she is definitely worth pursuing. Go to Surrey, make it up to her and court her, Robert – or I shall climb out of this wretched bed and do so for myself!’

The process
of dying took about a week in the end – but eventually the time came for the blinds to be drawn down, notices to be posted in the newspapers and letters of condolence to be awaited and received. Lady Barnham took the news with some dignity and privately hoped that she could trust her eldest son to pay the jointure that was now her due. Her sister, equally distressed, started talking about sharing more time together now that their husbands had left them to themselves. Mr Forster, somewhat self-consciously, took on the mantle of the third Viscount Barnham and determined on travelling to Town as soon as his mother could be prevailed upon to spare him. His first tasks, he thought, would be to claim his peerage in the Lords, establish the exact state of his finances with the attorney and then, most likely, sell their house in London as a way to alleviate his debts.

There remained
, however, the problem of Great-Uncle Simon.

‘For I do not see that we can
totally abandon the old gentleman, Rachel,’ he told his sister, having briefly – and to her very great surprise – informed her of their relative’s unlikely appearance not two miles down the road. ‘And yet when I went to inform him of our father’s death yesterday he was quite unable to move from his room. I have offered him medical attention, which he spurns every time, and he consistently tells me to hike myself right off. But, I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel that I could do it. He is our relative, after all, and my father felt it important to go to visit him. It does not feel quite right simply to abandon him, now that we know he’s there.’

Miss Forster
wholeheartedly agreed.

‘No, we cannot just abandon him, Robert, but your first duty is to our
papa. Papa wanted you to sort out your inheritance – and that means going up to Town. If you will take me with you next time you go to visit him I will undertake to support him for as long as you’re away. He may be quite disreputable – indeed, I have no doubt at all that he is – but, as you say, a relative is a relative. He’s entitled to our support.’

Lord Barnham was less convinced.

‘I’m not sure that I would like you to go, Rachel,’ he told her. ‘His room is in the most desperate part of the city – there is squalor all around – taverns and inns of the lowest possible sort, nests of criminals, fallen ...err women – I do not think it would be safe for you to go.’

‘Well, let me come along with you just once, Robert, and let me judge for myself. I might be able to take the footman with me if I think it could be done.’

So Lord Barnham had reluctantly agreed, and what his sister was to see on that journey was destined to affect her for the whole of the rest of her life. For, until that very moment, and in common with almost all young ladies with any pretensions to gentility whatsoever, she had never even imagined that such places as Milk Street would exist. The narrowness of the streets, piled with dirt and rubbish, the height of the buildings blocking all light from the muddy, dingy roadways and damp hovels below; the stench of sewage drifting from the river at the far end of the road; the sight of ragged children, little arms and legs exposed to the cold February air, coming up hopelessly to her and begging for some bread - Miss Forster saw horrors and deprivation that she had never even imagined existed, and which she never ever wanted to see again.

But once inside old Mr Forster’s room – once she had checked her tendency to retch at the
noxious smell, and managed to peer through the dusty half light from the grimy black window – it was soon very apparent to both Miss Forster and Lord Barnham that the family should face a further diminution within a very short space of time. Mr Forster was lying on his mattress, as usual, coughing up an evil-looking black mess at regular intervals, which he deposited most disgustingly in a broken bowl upon the floor. He scarcely opened his eyes when Lord Barnham walked in. He didn’t even notice Miss Forster as she hesitated shyly in the doorway. But this time, instead of roundly abusing his great-nephew for visiting him, his reception of him was milder, more welcoming, and he beckoned him weakly to kneel by his side.

‘Your father found me an attorney, Barnham,’ he croaked, so quietly that Lord Barnham had to bend his head to hear. He was acutely aware of the noises from the street – children screaming and shrieking, women bawling to them to ‘get back
’ere this instant or I’ll knock yer bleedin’ blocks off’, men making merry with street girls in the inn – the sound of industry emanating from the grubby workshops at street level, removal men transporting expensive furniture from warehouses to the elegant terraces up in town. But in here, in the dying man’s chamber, everything else was silent. There was only the faint rustle of wind as it crept through the broken pane in the dirty window, and the faint crackling whisper as the old man breathed his last. ‘He will sort out my bits and pieces for you when I am gone. I have left them all to you, Barnham. I would have left them to your father, but he has gone to the churchyard before me. But you are a good lad, Barnham. You’re being more than fair by me. And I want to make it up to the family,’ here he coughed and spat again. Lord Barnham tried not to pull himself away. ‘I need to make things up.’

Lord Barnham looked at him enquiringly.

‘What is it that you need to make up to us, uncle?’ he asked him, quietly. ‘What is it that you have done?’

The old man closed his eyes
weakly. For a moment his lordship thought that he had fallen off to sleep. But they opened again in an instant – opened wide in a look of fear and of regret.

‘I did a very bad deed to your father, Barnham, a very bad deed that I’ve regretted all my life. I wanted to make it up to him, but
he’s gone and left me beforehand – so now I’ll have to make it up to you instead.’

‘But what was it, uncle? What was this very bad deed that you had done?’

The old man took a shallow breath. It was as much as he could do.

‘I know that your father has told you about how he came to
fix his interest with your mother,’ he whispered. ‘We have had some quite long discussions since we found each other in Bath. He has told me a lot about you, Barnham – about how you were pursuing kelter over happiness, about what he said to you in return.’ Here Lord Barnham flushed. He wondered in what terms his father had been speaking of him. ‘But I also know that when he told you about how he came to splice your mother he only told you the partial truth. I know the rest of it, Barnham. I want you to know it before I breathe my last.’

Miss Forster, standing still in the doorway, crept forward a little and sat herself
gingerly on the stool. The dying man hardly noticed her. He was determined to tell his story and he no longer cared about who ever might overhear.

‘
I was the youngest of my parents’ children. My brother, Thaddeus – your grandfather – was the oldest. There were several sisters between him and me, though they all died early, before I was born. And by the time I appeared my parents were getting old. They had worn themselves out. They did not want another son. My mother had no time for me - she was grieving for her girls. My father saw no merit in me – he had eyes only for Thaddeus. Thaddeus was the favourite one – the brilliant one. Thaddeus was the golden child – charming, clever, brave and strong. He was my parents’ firstborn, and the apple of their eyes. He was the one who would make the family fortunes. To my parents he could do no wrong, whilst I – the younger son, the puny one, the spare with no real role,’ here the old man’s voice rose, fierce with bile. It was as if he were re-living the resentments of his childhood once again. ‘Everyone revered him – whilst I could do no right. Everything he did, everything he touched – he seemed to turn it to gold.
He
was the one to fix his interests,
he
was the one to produce the heirs. Ha! He even got hold of a peerage. He went for a soldier, like our father before him. He covered himself in blood and glory, and was handed his peerage as a reward. I saw him being given everything whilst I was given nothing at all. And yet I knew him for what he was, Barnham – I knew him for what he was. Yes, he could be charming. Yes, he could be brave, and strong. But there was another side to him altogether – a darker side, an evil side – as if all of those strengths – all those advantages – all those attractions - they had to face their opposites somehow. So as well as being convivial he was a hell-hound. As well as being a charmer he was self willed – headstrong - ruthless – a knight of the blade - totally and utterly determined to have whatever he wished. Nothing and nobody could ever stand in his way. He used his charm, his cleverness, his deviousness to get whatever he liked. And if his charm didn’t get him what he wanted then his scaly, vicious violence invariably would. He was jealous of what little attention I got from our parents. The sad dog wanted it all for himself. So he got his way by bullying me – his little brother – taunting me, fagging me, demeaning me, constantly putting me down. He managed to rid himself of me in no time. I was only too happy to hike away to sea. And then he wanted a wench that I fell for – a wench whom I wanted to marry and who wanted to marry me. I had not told my brother about her – I did not want him to know – but he learned about her somehow and decided to have her for his own. He had never loved his poor, sweet, badly treated wife. He couldn’t bear the thought that I’d find happiness where he had found none. So he set out his stall to win her. He turned on all his charm. But his charm was rapidly fading. He was a fuddle cap, out at heels, ageing. My sweetheart would not have him. She wanted to wait for me. But he took her anyway – took my poor, sweet Susan and got the wench with child. The devil himself had lain with her and forced her to bear his child. Poor Susan could not cope with it. She went into decline. From a lovely, healthy, blooming mort she turned into a wraith. Three months it took – just three short months – to kill my darling and kill my hopes. I was out at sea when it happened. I didn’t know straight away. But when I did eventually come to hear about it my world just came to an end. My anguish - I was mad with anguish – mad with anguish and overcome by hate. All the petty insults, all the taunts, all the wounds – all these were as nothing compared to what he had done to my poor little Sue. And it was then that I plotted my revenge. I’d take his life and I’d happily hang for it. I’d be free of the bastard come what may. So once I was back from my travels I set out immediately, determined to track him down. But as always he managed to outwit me. I was just a month too late. The blackguard had died before I could even get my hands on him – died in his sleep, like an innocent babe. I could not even get at him. A paltry month too late. The man who had taken everything had stolen my chance of revenge.’