Buch lesen: «A Dangerous Undertaking»

CHAPTER ONE

THERE were two men in The White Hart inn, sitting in a corner with a bottle of wine between them. They did not appear to be enjoying it. One was tall, judging by the length of the buckskin breeches and leather top-boots which stuck out from under the table as he leaned back in his seat. His full-skirted coat with its large button-back cuffs was well cut and, though not exactly the height of fashion, certainly did not proclaim him as anything but a man of substance. He was surveying his companion under well-shaped brows, which at this moment were drawn down in a frown, spoiling what was otherwise a handsome face. He wore no make-up and had a clean-shaven, well-shaped jawline and thick dark hair which was unpowdered and tied back into the nape of his neck with a black ribbon. The light of the lantern hanging from the ceiling showed up glints of red-gold in it. His right hand, curling round the stem of his glass, was long-fingered and neatly manicured. He wore a large signet-ring but no other jewellery.

His companion was of an age with him—twenty-six or thereabouts—but somewhat broader. His eyes were grey and he wore a lightly powdered brown wig with long side-curls. His mauve satin coat with its high stand collar was flamboyantly decorated with rows of pleated ribbon. He wore more jewellery than his friend—a cravat pin, a fob across his braided waistcoat and a quizzing-glass, as well as several rings. In London he would not have been considered over-dressed, but in this sleepy town he shone like a beacon. He grinned at his morose friend.

‘Cheer up, Roly, old fellow; you’ll turn the wine sour.’

Roland, Lord Pargeter, smiled, and his rather taciturn countenance lightened, so that it was easy to see the charming man he could be if he chose. ‘It’s all very well for you, Charles; you haven’t got an insoluble obstacle in the path of your happiness.’

‘No, thank heaven, but then I don’t believe in witches and curses and nonsense like that.’

‘I wish it were nonsense. It’s been true for the last four generations, so my grandmother tells me, and that can surely not be coincidence.’

‘You know,’ Charles said slowly, ‘what you ought to do is marry.’

Roland looked at his friend in exasperation. ‘Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? I have just finished telling you why I cannot do so.’

‘You have told me why you cannot wed Mistress Chalfont. What’s to stop you marrying someone else?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Yes, you do. Think about it, Roly. You cannot marry Susan because you care for her——’

‘I love her too much to——’

‘Don’t interrupt. So why not marry someone you do not care for? A complete stranger, in fact. It won’t be forever, will it? A year. What’s a year?’

Roland looked thoughtful; it was just what his grandmother had said when she had warned him to choose his bride carefully. He had not told her of his intention towards Susan because the time had not seemed propitious, what with his father so recently dead and heaven knew what arrangements to be made about the inheritance. And he had been obliged to return to London to clear up certain financial matters and consolidate his position at court. He could not assume that because he had inherited the title and the estates he had also inherited his father’s position and privileges. Having secured those, at least for the time being, he was on his way back home. ‘No, I cannot. And who would have me in the circumstances?’

‘Oh, anyone,’ Charles said airily, waving his empty glass round the oak-panelled room. ‘You would be a very good catch. You ain’t bad-looking—at least not when you smile—and you’re not short of a penny or two. I reckon you would have no difficulty.’

‘It’s a mad idea.’

‘But growing on you, eh?’ Charles paused to look closely into his friend’s face. ‘If it meant happiness with Susan in the end…’

‘It would have to be someone desperate enough not to care why I married her. I don’t think I could pretend…’

Charles grinned. ‘Not even a little?’

‘No.’ Roland paused, realising it was desperation which had led him to humour his friend, but the idea really was out of the question. ‘How could I live with someone for a year, face her over the dinner-table, talk to her, smile at her, knowing what I had done to her?’

‘You don’t have to, don’t you see? As soon as the wedding is over, you leave for London, say you have been called back to your regiment—after all, there is still trouble with the Jacobites—stay away the whole year. She will be happy enough playing lady of the manor here without you.’

‘I could not do it.’

‘Not even for Susan? If it were me, and it was the only way I could have Kate, I’d do it. I wouldn’t have any scruples at all.’

‘I am not you,’ Roland said, thinking of Susan as he had last seen her in September, waving goodbye to him from the steps of her father’s mansion in Derbyshire and calling out that she would see him in London in April, if not before. April, five months from now and a whole year after he had received that wound at Culloden, a year in which he had gone from being so badly wounded that he was not expected to live, back to full health, and it was all because of the devoted nursing he had received at her hands. Well, perhaps not all at her hands because there had been nurses and servants too, but she had been the one to sit with him hour after hour, reading to him and amusing him as he slowly recovered. It had been almost inevitable that they would fall in love. He had left her to return to his regiment in London, full of confidence that, when the time came to propose, she would accept and they could look forward to a happy future together. In London he had learned that his father had died and he had hurried home, and that had led to the interview with his grandmother, and now here it was December and he was miserable. Charles was trying to cheer him up but with little success. Roland smiled at him, humouring him. ‘Where would I look for such a one?’

Charles shrugged. ‘Anywhere. There’s a little waif just come in on the stage. If you turn round slowly, you will see her sitting in the chimney-corner with all her worldly possessions in a bag at her feet.’

The room, which had been empty except for the two men, had filled in the previous two minutes from a coach which had clattered into the yard and disgorged its passengers, most of whom had come into the inn to stay the night before continuing their journey north in the morning.

Roland turned in leisurely fashion, searching out the girl Charles had mentioned. The hood of her black cape hid most of her face, though he could see the line of her chin and a firm mouth. Beneath the cape, her mourning gown was neat rather than fashionable, but it did not disguise a figure which was slim, bordering on thin.

‘Half starved,’ Charles commented.

‘Do you know who she is?’

‘No, but that’s the beauty of it. A complete stranger to these parts.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘It would be easy enough to find out.’

‘No, Charles, I forbid it.’

The girl looked up suddenly and met Roland’s gaze. She had clear violet eyes and very dark hair which curled over her forehead beneath the black lace which lined the cape’s hood. Her face was pale and she looked apprehensive, though not exactly frightened.

‘She seems a little lost,’ Roland said pensively. ‘Like a kitten that’s strayed from its mother.’

‘Perhaps she has. She is in mourning.’

Margaret Donnington could not hear what they were saying but she sensed they were talking about her and she felt herself blushing. She turned away in confusion. She should not have come into the building at all. It had made her the object of curiosity.

She had never in her life before been into an inn alone; it was not something a well-nurtured young lady should ever have to do and, though she was not really afraid, she was certainly nervous. She had been uncertain whether to come in at all, debating whether to enquire the way to Winterford and see if she could find someone to take her there at once, or to use some of her precious savings on a meal and a room for the night, and continue in the morning. She had written to Great-Uncle Henry advising him of her arrival, and had expected that he would send a conveyance for her, but there was no conveyance, no Uncle Henry, nothing, and if she turned up on his doorstep at this time of night there was no telling what sort of welcome she would be accorded, especially if he had not received her letter.

Until a week ago, she had not even known of his existence and she was not sure he had known of hers. She was beginning to wish she had never left London, but it was too late now; she had burned her boats. She had given up the tiny apartment she and her mother had occupied, and spent all but a guinea or two of her savings on the journey, so there was no going back. Besides, what was there to go back for? Her darling mama had died and she had no relatives in the whole world except Great-Uncle Henry Capitain, her mother’s uncle. Mother had made her promise to go to him. ‘He is family,’ she had said, that last day when not even Margaret could convince herself that her mother would get better. ‘He will not turn you away.’ She had gone on to explain that Henry Capitain lived at Winterford, a small village in the Fens, not far from Ely.

Margaret had been too concerned with making her mother’s last hours comfortable to ask questions about the unknown relative, and only after the funeral had she found herself wondering what was to become of her. There was no money, hardly enough to pay the rent they owed. Mama had been ill for some months and unable to work herself, and though Margaret had had a position with one of London’s leading milliners, which was just enough to keep them both, she had been forced to give it up to nurse her mother. Walking away from the simple grave, Margaret had been overwhelmed by grief, and not until she had returned to the tiny apartment that had been her home did she realise that she no longer had a home. The landlord had been adamant, telling her that he had not pressed for payment because of Mrs Donnington’s illness, but now the time of reckoning had arrived. He wanted the back rent and he wanted Margaret out; he had others waiting to move in who would pay more, and regularly too.

She had sold everything except her clothes and one or two pieces of inexpensive jewellery which had been her mother’s, and paid him, then taken a stage-coach to Cambridge. In Cambridge she had changed to another coach, a very heavy old-fashioned vehicle which had jolted its passengers unmercifully over the rutted tracks which went by the name of roads, making her wish she had never set out. The feeling had been heightened as the coach had taken them through the bleakest countryside she could ever have imagined. True, it was winter, not the best time to see it, and there had been a cold mist which hung over the fields and obscured everything except one or two houses which stood very close to the road. And even these signs of habitation had disappeared as night fell. In common with the other passengers, she had been glad when they’d finally turned into the yard of The White Hart, but she was still short of her destination.

She called the waiter over to her and smiled, determined not to be cowed. ‘Would you please tell me how to get to Winterford?’ she asked.

‘Winterford?’ he repeated. ‘It’s a fair step. Eight miles, I reckon. You weren’t aimin’ to go tonight, were you, mistress?’

‘Eight miles.’ Her smile faded. ‘Then is it possible to hire a vehicle to take me there?’

‘I doubt anyone would want to turn out at this time o’ night,’ he said. ‘Whereabouts do you want to go? There’s nobbut there but a fen, a church and a handful of houses. And Winterford Manor, o’ course…’ He paused, looking her up and down, wondering if anyone going to the Manor would arrive without being met, but then, his lordship was sitting on the other side of the room; he would surely have come forward if the young lady were his guest. ‘You weren’t going to the Manor, were you?’

‘No. Sedge House.’

‘There!’ His manner suddenly changed. ‘That ain’t even in Winterford. Right out on the edge of the fen, it is, miles from anywhere, and there’s many that’s thankful for that, everything considered.’ He looked at her again. She seemed on the verge of tears, not the sort of girl who normally visited that old reprobate, Henry Capitain. Sedge House guests were usually colourfully dressed, painted and be-wigged, and licentious, to say the least. ‘Are you sure you mean Sedge House, miss?’

‘Yes. Is something wrong there?’

‘No,’ he said hurriedly.

‘You haven’t answered my question. How can I get there?’

‘I should send a boy with a message in the morning and Master Capitain will send his carriage for you.’

It seemed a reasonable suggestion and Margaret resigned herself to waiting until the following day, and asked for a room for the night, something she had wanted to avoid doing. But tomorrow, perhaps, the sun might be shining and everything would look better; even her prospects might seem rosier, though she doubted it. She stood up and picked up her valise to follow the man up the stairs.

‘There!’ said Charles as she disappeared from sight. ‘Did you hear that? She is going to old Henry Capitain’s and no one with an ounce of good breeding would be going there. She is some waif he has picked up and invited to visit him. You could save her from a fate worse than death.’ He gave a cracked laugh when he realised what he had said. ‘Well, a short life but a merry one, eh?’

‘It is not a matter for jest.’

‘I am not jesting.’

‘We don’t know anything about her.’

‘We don’t need to know anything, apart from the fact that she is not already married, because that would certainly be an insurmountable obstacle.’

Roland laughed harshly. ‘And what about Susan?’

‘What about her? She is miles away in Derbyshire and she won’t come here in the middle of winter, considering the state of the roads and the fact that you have not yet issued the invitation.’ He paused, looking at Roland with his head on one side. ‘Have you?’

‘No, but are you suggesting I should keep news of my marriage a secret from the woman I love?’

‘That’s up to you, old fellow. You aren’t exactly betrothed, are you? You have not yet offered for her?’

‘No, but I believe there is an understanding…’

‘What good is an understanding to a young lady who has her heart set on a wedding-ring, not to mention babies? If my estimate of the fair sex is correct, she will not wait forever, so why not do something to hasten the day?’

Roland had polished off the best part of two bottles of claret or he would never have embarked on such a conversation, let alone taken it seriously. But he was in a fix and it seemed like a way out. If he married a complete stranger, someone he found not in the least attractive, as different from Susan as chalk from cheese, perhaps it would work. ‘And where did I meet this new bride of mine?’ he asked. ‘I can hardly tell Grandmama I picked her up in an inn.’

‘You’ve just come back from London, haven’t you? You’ve been away for weeks on business. You were introduced by Lady Gordon at one of her soirées, or something of that sort. You brought her home with you.’

‘Now?’ Roland was astounded. ‘You mean me to take her home now?’

‘No, tell the Dowager you left the young lady at the inn while you went on ahead to break the news to her. By the time you come back I shall have made the acquaintance of the woman in question.’

‘You assume she will agree.’

‘Well, yes, there is that,’ Charles conceded. ‘But it’s worth a try. In any case, it does not have to be this young lady; we can find others. You could advertise.’

Roland laughed, but it was a cracked sound and not in the least mirthful. ‘"Wanted, a wife for a year. Must be of mean appearance and desperate, not to say a little mad." They will flock to answer it.’

‘Have you got a better idea?’ Charles demanded, miffed. ‘Apart from remaining a single man for the rest of your days?’

‘Forget it,’ Roland said, rising unsteadily and picking up his tricorne hat. ‘I wish I had never told you. I’m going home. Are you coming?’

‘No, I’ll stay here for the night and come on in the morning.’

Roland looked at him suspiciously. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Nothing, my dear fellow. Simply ask a few questions, see how the land lies.’

‘I wish you would not.’

‘It can’t do any harm, can it? I will not commit you to anything.’

‘I should hope not,’ Roland said fervently. ‘What shall I tell Kate?’

Charles looked up in surprise. ‘She is not expecting me tonight, is she?’

‘How do I know?’ Roland was beginning to feel irritable. He supposed it was his friend’s unfailing good humour which irked him, his ability to find something to smile at even in the worst situations, but it was unfeeling of him to make a joke of Roland’s predicament. ‘You are the one who writes to my sister, not I. What did you tell her?’

‘That I would see her before the week was out. This is only Thursday. Tell her you saw me in London and that I was just going to Tattersalls to buy a horse. That’s true, because you did. Tell her I will be with her tomorrow. Send your curricle in for me.’

‘Very well, but I want your promise that you will not propose to the little kitten on my behalf.’

‘As if I would.’ Charles laughed. ‘You can do your own proposing.’

‘Never. I bid you goodnight.’ With that, he clapped his hat on his head and left the room to go to the stables, where he confidently expected that an ostler would have changed the horses on his travelling carriage.

Charles sat on while the room he asked for was prepared. A faint smile played around his lips. Roland would never have his heart’s desire if someone didn’t take him in hand.

Margaret opened her eyes to bright sunshine, and hurried to the window. It looked out on to the market, which was dominated by the great cathedral. The street was muddy and unpaved and was busy with carts loaded with produce, carriages, farmers on horseback, and men herding cattle and sheep to the pens from which they would be sold. Men and women hurried past and a coach rolled down the street and under the archway below her window. Perhaps when it had changed its horses it would be going on, and pass somewhere near Winterford. She washed and dressed and went downstairs.

The coffee-room was full, as it had been the previous night, and the waiters were hurrying to and fro serving breakfast. She hurried over to the one she had spoken to the previous night. ‘The coach that just came in. Does it go anywhere near Winterford?’

He turned from serving a gentleman with ham and eggs, and smiled thinly. ‘No, nothing goes out there; there’s nothing to go for. You’ll have to hire privately or walk—-’

‘Excuse me, did you say Winterford?’ the man he was serving interrupted.

Margaret turned to him, a smile on her lips which faded when she realised it was one of the men who had been surveying her so openly the evening before. ‘Yes,’ she said coolly, to let him know she deplored his insolence.

‘I am going there myself. I could take you.’

‘We do not know each other, sir.’

‘I beg your pardon. Let me introduce myself. I am Charles Mellison, of Mellison Hall in Huntingdonshire. You may have heard of the family.’

‘I have not.’

He smiled. ‘Ours is an old family with the very best of antecedents, I assure you. I am going to Winterford Manor, the country home of Lord Pargeter. You and your maid will be quite safe in my company, I promise.’

‘I have no maid,’ she said, and then wished she had not admitted it when she saw a little gleam of triumph in his eye. ‘But that does not mean I will allow myself to be taken up by a perfect stranger.’

‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘I only thought I could help you out of a difficulty. Lady Pargeter would not like to think a guest of hers had been left to make her own way.’

‘I am not a guest of hers.’

‘No? Then I do beg your pardon.’

‘I am going to Sedge House. Mr Henry Capitain is my great-uncle.’

‘But the Capitains and the Pargeters have known each other for centuries!’ he exclaimed, as if that made everything right. ‘You must allow me to escort you…’

‘Well…’ She hesitated. Was she in a position to look a gift-horse in the mouth?

‘Have you broken your fast?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Do join me. Waiter, set another cover at once.’

He would not accept no for an answer. As they breakfasted, he drew her out, little by little, and by the time the meal was finished he knew almost all there was to know about her, and she had relaxed. It seemed perfectly proper to allow him to escort her to Winterford in the curricle which appeared as if by magic when they went outside.

There had been a sharp frost overnight, and the hedges and trees as they left the town were covered in sparkling rime. In no time, they seemed to have left these and all other signs of civilisation behind them and were on an uneven lane, going straight as a die, towards a flat expanse of nothingness which stretched for miles, with hardly a hillock to be seen. There were no trees either, except a few frosted willows and alders growing along the banks of the ditches. There were a great many of these dykes, where geese and ducks swam on gaps in the ice. Strange windmills with buckets, instead of paddles, were dotted about the landscape, their sails hardly turning in the windless air. But the sky was magnificent, layer upon layer of dark cloud rising from a horizon that was so wide, it seemed to take on the curve of the earth itself. Each cloud was streaked by fire, red and mauve and awesome. Margaret found herself admiring it at the same time as it frightened her. She felt tiny and insignificant.

‘Most of this land was drained in the last century,’ Charles told her. ‘All but a few acres are owned by the Pargeters. Lord Pargeter is a good man, a fine fellow all round.’

‘What of Sedge House?’

‘That is not exactly in Winterford, but two or three miles further on. Have you not been there before?’

‘Never.’

‘It’s a bleak place, right on the edge of the unreclaimed fen, and Henry Capitain has done nothing to improve it. I doubt you will like living there.’

‘I have no choice.’

‘Everyone has a choice,’ he said softly, wondering whether to broach the subject of Roland and his dilemma. ‘You could marry.’

‘One day perhaps,’ she said with a sigh. ‘At the moment I cannot bring myself to think of it.’ She smiled. ‘Are you married, Master Mellison?’

‘I am betrothed to Lord Pargeter’s sister. We hope to marry soon. His lordship is unmarried, though his grandmother has been pressing him to find a wife for some time. He has to secure the lineage, you understand.’

‘Does he not wish to marry?’

‘Oh, yes, but he cannot find anyone prepared to live in this out-of-the-way place. But whoever becomes Lady Pargeter would have to, you see, at least three-quarters of the year. Roland is almost resigned to never marrying.’ He hoped his friend would forgive him the half-truth.

‘I am sorry,’ she murmured politely.

‘I shall introduce you to him.’ He turned to her as if suddenly thinking of it. ‘I’ll wager you would deal well together.’

‘I thought the days of matchmakers were gone,’ she said, smiling and revealing a twinkle in her eye and a dimple at the side of her mouth he had not noticed before; it gave him a twinge of conscience.

‘Sometimes it is necessary. Shall we stop at Winterford Manor, so that you may make his acquaintance?’

‘No, thank you,’ she said firmly. ‘I am flattered that you should think me worthy, but we are strangers and I am in mourning. Making calls will have to wait until I have settled down.’

He sighed and turned the curricle away from the village they had been approaching and down a narrow rutted track which ran alongside a high bank, on the other side of which was a wide ribbon of water which was too straight to be a river. Halfway along it was one of the strange windmills she had noticed before.

‘What are those for?’ she asked, pointing.

‘The land round here is often flooded in winter. The windmills take the water off the fields in the buckets and tip it into the dykes.’

‘How clever.’

They rode on in silence, Charles wondering how he could further Roland’s cause without frightening her away, and Margaret apprehensive of what she would find at the end of her journey,

She realised he was making for a speck on the horizon which, as they drew nearer, was revealed as a house. It was a big square brick building which stood almost abutting the lane. On its other side, an overgrown lawn went down to a boat-house and a tiny jetty where a rowing-boat was moored in the water of the fen. The road went no further.

‘Do you want me to wait?’ he asked as he pulled the horses up at the door.

‘No, thank you. I am grateful for your trouble, but I shall manage now.’ She did not want a witness to her first encounter with her great-uncle and was glad he took her at her word.

‘Very well. But if you change your mind about meeting his lordship, do not hesitate to let me know.’

As soon as she had alighted he turned the vehicle round and was soon bowling away along the flat road, back to Winterford. She sighed and turned to knock on the thick oak door.

She was taken completely aback when it was opened by a girl with a white-painted face, full red lips and several patches. She wore a pink satin open gown whose laces strained across her bosom, and a petticoat of red silk, beneath which Margaret could see white stockings and red high-heeled shoes. She stared at Margaret. ‘Well, you’re a little out of the ordinary, I must say.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Different, I mean. You look as if you couldn’t say boo to a goose.’

‘Then my looks belie me,’ Margaret retorted, putting her chin in the air. Who did the hussy think she was? ‘Is Master Capitain at home? I wish to speak to him.’

‘Henry!’ the girl yelled over her shoulder. ‘Come on out here and see what’s turned up.’

There was a shuffling noise behind her and a man pushed past her to stare at Margaret with myopic eyes. He wore white small-clothes which were stained with wine or tea, or something of the sort, and a shirt which was opened almost to the waist, revealing an expanse of flabby white flesh. His legs were clad in dirty white stockings but he wore no shoes. He had discarded his wig and his thin white hair stood up at all angles round his head. He had about six chins which wobbled down into a thick neck. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘Did I ask you to come?’

‘No, but I wrote to you. Did you not receive my letter? I am Margaret Donnington.’

‘Margaret who?’

She countered with a question of her own. ‘Are you Master Capitain?’

‘Yes, of course I am. Who else would I be? And I don’t remember any letter.’

‘I am your great-niece. I am Felicity’s daughter.’

‘Great Jehosophat! I thought she was dead.’

Margaret gulped hard to take control of herself, though she felt like fleeing back down the road. ‘She is dead. She died two weeks ago.’ She paused, but he seemed unable to take in what she was saying. ‘Before she died, she told me to come to you.’

‘Why, for God’s sake? We ain’t seen each other in…’ He racked his brain to remember. ‘It must be nigh on thirty years. I did hear she had married. What did you say your name was?’

‘Margaret Donnington.’

‘How did you arrive here?’

‘I came by stage to Ely and then a gentleman going to Winterford Manor brought me on.’

‘Pargeter!’ There was no attempt to disguise the contempt in his voice.

‘No, it was one of his guests.’ She paused, waiting, then added. ‘Are you not going to invite me in?’

‘The house is all in a muddle,’ he said. ‘Not fit to be seen. This slut——’ he indicated the girl at his side, who had continued to stare at Margaret with unveiled amusement ‘—Nellie, here, don’t go much on keeping house.’

‘’Tain’t what I came for,’ the girl retorted. ‘I’m not a servant. If you don’t like it you know what you can do.’

Margaret was wondering if she was ever going to be allowed over the threshold, and he was looking at her with bright little eyes, almost buried in the flesh of his cheeks, as if he wished her anywhere but on his doorstep. It was a wish she shared. At last he said, ‘Better come in, though this ain’t the place for a well-brought-up young lady.’

The girl he had referred to as Nellie laughed as she led the way through a dusty hall to an even dustier drawing-room with heavy old-fashioned furniture and faded velvet curtains. ‘That’s a fact and no argument,’ she said, with a chuckle that hinted at something Margaret was not sure she wanted to know.