The Second Mrs Darcy. Elizabeth Aston

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СКАЧАТЬ If I could have some money, that would be …” She hesitated, fearful of asking too much. “Perhaps fifty pounds.”

      “Fifty? Let us say a hundred, or more if you wish it. I assure you, you can draw on us for a much larger sum than that.”

      “No, no thank you, I shall need very little on the voyage, and I should not like to carry too large a sum on my person.”

      “Very wise, very wise. I shall send a clerk round with it this afternoon.”

      He rose, perspiring more than ever; however did he manage in the really hot weather?

      “One thing, Mr. Gurney, I would request of you.”

      He looked enquiringly at her.

      “Pray, can you keep the news of this inheritance to yourself? Calcutta is a small place, and until I have the details—well, I would prefer that no one knows about it.”

      “Of course, of course. No, I am as capable of discretion as the next man, more so, for in my profession one has to keep mumchance, you know. No danger of this getting out, I assure you.”

      He bowed himself out, the door closing behind him as Harriet, looking cool and neat in a pale green dress, came in through the other door.

      “Was that Mr. Dyer? What did he want?”

      “It was a colleague of his, some papers that needed attending to.”

      “Is it something that Robert can help with?”

      “Oh, no, it is nothing, nothing at all.”

      Why didn’t she want to tell Harriet, to spill out the good news that she knew would delight her friend? Was it caution, for after all, she had only Mr. Gurney’s word that there was any substantial inheritance? The house in Yorkshire might be a tumbledown cottage, and the fortune in the end a few hundred pounds. Or the will might be disputed, some natural child of her great-uncle might appear to make a claim on the estate; her great-uncle must have been a wild young man to be packed off to India in such a fashion.

      “Did you ever hear of a Mr. Worthington, Harriet? He lived in India, in Darjeeling, but died some years ago. He was survived by his wife.”

      Harriet shook her head. “We have only been here for six years, you know. I do remember someone talking of a Mrs. Worthington, perhaps that was his widow. I believe she was very rich, and went back to England. Why do you ask?”

      “Oh, merely that Mr. Gurney wanted to know if I had been acquainted with either of the Worthingtons.”

      “Her money came from tea, I seem to remember.”

      Before Harriet could ask any more questions, Octavia told her that she had decided to go back to England on the Sir John Rokesby. “If Mr. Thurloe can arrange it for me.”

      “My dear, of course he can. How I shall miss you! But it is for the best, I truly think so, you must go back before you lose your looks in this horrid climate, and then you may see if anything can be got out of Mr. Warren.” She paused. “I know you will accept nothing from us, but it did occur to Robert and me that perhaps the cost of your fare was a concern to you. We should be so happy if—”

      “No, no, it is not a consideration, I have the money for that and a little more besides. Which reminds me, I shall need some clothes, some half-mourning for when I arrive back in England. Will you please send a servant to Madame Duhamel for me?”

      Madame Duhamel was a Frenchwoman who had come to Calcutta with her husband, only to be left a widow when he was carried off by the cholera. She had set to making her own living, and employed several local derseys to make up the fashionable clothes she designed. With good contacts in Paris, she had the fashion dolls and the plates only a few months behind the modistes in London; Octavia knew she would dress her in style.

      “Madame Duhamel!” exclaimed Harriet. “She is wickedly expensive, you know.”

      “But I shall not need so many clothes, and it will not do for me to arrive in London black and dowdy; my sisters are very smart, and will abuse me for a provincial if I do not take care.”

      “Oh dear, you are quite right, first impressions are so important. Well, if you have the wherewithal, you cannot do better. I shall send to Ballygunge at once, there is no time to be lost. Indeed, I may ask her to make a gown for me, my blue is looking sadly shabby, I thought, when I wore it to the Lawrences the other night.”

      When Octavia retreated to her room that night, lying under the muslin draped over the posts of the bed to keep insects at bay, she found sleep elusive. In a day, her world had been turned upside down. Hope sprang in her breast, hope that Mr. Gurney had not been exaggerating, that her inheritance would provide her with at least a modest independence. In which case she would no longer be a poor relative, no longer obliged to put up with her sisters’ patronising ways. Perhaps there would even be enough money to rent a house in a quiet part of town; if the house in Yorkshire could be sold, she had no desire to live in Yorkshire …

      Fortune, Mr. Gurney had said. What constituted a fortune? To her, an income of a few hundred a year would be a fortune beyond her wildest dreams. How pleased Christopher would have been for her. Dear Christopher, with his kindness and sense of amusement. Tears slid through her closed eyelids as she finally fell asleep, her mind filled with memories of her husband, and the inheritance quite forgotten.

       Chapter Three

      Octavia lay in her narrow berth in the tiny cabin she occupied on the Sir John Rokesby. She wasn’t asleep, but listening to the sounds around her that had become so familiar to her over these last six months: the creak of the ship as it hit the waves and rolled up and then back, the shrill bosun’s pipe, the noise of the sails and rigging singing in the wind, running bare feet on the deck, orders bellowed out, the slap of halyards against the three masts, and, more often than she would have liked, the scuttle of rodents’ feet as these unwelcome fellow passengers went about their ratty business.

      Tonight, even in the early hours that were the quietest on board, the hours she had come to know as the dog watch, there was an expectancy in the air. The long voyage was nearly at an end. Today, with the wind in the right quarter, which the captain had assured her it would be, the ship would be making land, and then it would sail up the Thames to berth at Tilbury docks, in the heart of London.

      It was more than five years since she had sailed from Tilbury, on a soft June day, alone; none of her half brothers or sisters had felt inclined to take the time to see her off.

      Her brothers and sisters. Half brothers and sisters; at least she had some hope of not turning out like them. She shifted in her bunk, too short for her long legs, and gazed into the darkness, seeing them in her mind’s eye.

      Octavia heard the sounds of the morning watch going on deck, followed by the steady thump as the lascars washed and dried the decks, the sound of the chants as sails were furled or unfurled. She sat up, shivering slightly. She missed the warmth she had grown used to in India; a voyage that had started in brilliant sunshine was ending on a chill March day.

      The Sir John Rokesby slid up the grey Thames in the mist. They could have been coming into port anywhere; for a wild moment Octavia imagined they had taken a wrong turn and were arriving in America, or Canada. Anywhere but London, СКАЧАТЬ