The Property of a Gentleman. Helen Dickson

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      After Mr Soames had read out the generous bequests Sir John Somerville had made to his loyal retainers and they had quietly left the room, everyone waited for him to continue as he licked his lips nervously, focusing his gaze on Eve.

      With growing impatience Gerald Somerville was sitting with bated breath for Sir John’s will to be read out, finding it difficult to control his excitement. It was like finding a treasure chest just waiting to be opened. His hooded eyes were transfixed on Mr Soames, knowing he was about to inherit the title and complete control over his cousin’s property, which would elevate him at last from the penury and insecurity that had bedevilled him for far too long. It was a moment he had waited for, a moment which had come sooner rather than later owing to the tragic, but fortuitous, carriage accident which had killed Sir John.

      Always the poor relation, all his life Gerald had hated poverty and dreamed of being rich and enjoying all that money could buy. He had loathed his respectable home and his parents’ dull existence. Aware that he was heir to Sir John’s estate he was impatient, knowing that it could be years before he came into his inheritance, but on learning of his cousin’s increasing ill health he had quietly rubbed his hands with hopeful anticipation, suspecting he would not have too long to wait after all. He bided his time, enjoying the adventures and excitement in the gaming rooms of London, which had become his haunts on the death of his parents, seeing gambling as a chance to become rich and powerful, which he craved.

      ‘What I am about to disclose will come as something of a shock, Eve, and you must understand that the will was written at a very difficult time of your father’s life,’ said Mr Soames gently, looking at her in a kind and sympathetic way, having known her from birth.

      Her parents had spoilt and cosseted her to excess from the moment she was born, sheltering and allowing her to go her own wilful way—until three years ago, when, by her own foolishness, she had suffered a lapse from grace and her mother had died, causing her much grief. Her sorrow had increased in intensity when Sir John had become ill soon afterwards with a cancer that had slowly begun to eat its way through his wretched body.

      Sitting perched on the edge of her seat as if her backbone was made of hard steel, Eve tried to fight off her growing alarm. Until now she had believed that the reading of the will was to be a mere formality, confident that she knew exactly what it contained and having no reason to be concerned—that even though the estate was in entailment and that no part of it could be sold to provide for her, her father would have seen to it that she would be well taken care of.

      But suddenly she felt herself grow tense and anxious, sensing instinctively by the tone of Mr Soames’s voice that all was not as it should be. Her throat went dry and she spoke with difficulty.

      ‘A shock? But why should it be a shock? What precisely do you mean, Mr Soames? My father has left me well taken care of, hasn’t he?’

      ‘Yes—that is so, but it may not be what you are expecting.’ He focused his eyes on Gerald, who was watching him intently, every muscle in his face tense. ‘The entire estate—that is, the land, the house and other properties—both here and in London, are to go to you, sir.’

      Eve waited, going colder by the second, trying not to look at Gerald as he tried to conceal his triumph, knowing there was little left to come her way but expecting her father to have made a substantial sum over to her.

      ‘You, Eve,’ Mr Soames went on, shifting his gaze once more to her, ‘are to receive an annuity in the sum of two thousand pounds a year.’

      When he fell silent she waited in expectant anticipation, expecting him to continue, to tell her there was more, until she realised there was nothing more. Her heart rose up to choke her and she stared at him in absolute confusion and astonishment.

      ‘But—but that’s not possible. There must be some mistake. There has to be. My father’s assets—he—he was an extremely wealthy man. It has to be more than this.’

      ‘There is no mistake,’ he said quietly, his voice penetrating the mist of Eve’s bemused senses. ‘His main assets are private matters and have nothing to do with the estate—namely, his shares in several coal mines and interests in various industrial concerns and so forth, several of them in which he and Mr Fitzalan were partners and which he made over to him before he died.’

      All the colour drained out of Eve’s face and her hand rose and clasped the collar of her black mourning dress. She was stunned, unable to believe what he had told her. A silence fell upon the room which seemed to last an age, the small assembly around her becoming shadowy, faceless figures, all staring at her, until Gerald, acknowledging his good fortune in inheriting the estate—and yet beginning to feel a trifle perplexed that not all Sir John’s property had passed on to him as he had expected it would—began talking animatedly to Mr Soames about what it would mean to him, with little regard for the pain and disappointment that was tearing Eve apart.

      The still, quiet figure of Lady Pemberton sat rigidly on her chair towards the back of the room, neither shock nor surprise disturbing the marble severity of her face, but her eyes and ears missed nothing. Only the hand cupping the gold knob of her cane gave any indication of the way she felt, for it gripped the knob hard, so hard that her knuckle bones nearly punctured the thin white skin covering them.

      Only Marcus seemed to be aware of the pain Eve was suffering. She was young and unable to deal with the dilemma in which she found herself. As he looked at her his gaze was secretive and seemed to probe beneath the surface, but he could see by the terror in her eyes, how her face had become drained of blood and the way her fingers clutched her throat, that this unexpected blow from her father had hit her hard.

      From what Sir John had told him he knew she was a strong-minded girl who would know how to take care of herself well enough, but it was only a girl who was behind the artificial ageing of bereavement, and it would not be easy for her to get over something like this.

      Something in the region of his heart softened and he wanted to go to her and offer some words of comfort, wishing he could erase the sad, stricken look from her face, but he knew by the cold hostility she had not attempted to conceal when they had been introduced after the funeral, and in her eyes when she looked at him, that by his own fault she would not welcome his sympathy.

      ‘Is that it? Am I to get nothing else?’ she asked, her voice surprisingly calm, but so quiet Mr Soames had difficulty hearing her. ‘With all his wealth, did my father make no other financial provision for me? Am I to be reduced to such dire straits that I must starve?’

      Mr Soames was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable before Eve’s hard gaze and his eyes wavered as he looked down at the papers in front of him, coughing nervously. ‘No—it is not quite as bad as that.’

      ‘Then please tell me. And where am I to live?’

      ‘Perhaps when I have explained everything to you it will be much clearer. Your father did not leave you as destitute as it would seem—for, as you know, he always had your best interests at heart. But there are certain conditions to be adhered to—certain clauses that may seem strange to you.’

      ‘Conditions? What kind of conditions?’

      ‘That you and Mr Marcus Fitzalan marry within six months of his death.’

      Eve was so stunned she was unable to speak.

      ‘Should this be agreeable to you both,’ Mr Soames went on hurriedly, wanting to get this unpleasant part of reading the will over and done СКАЧАТЬ