The Westmere Legacy. Mary Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ chaperone. I have lived here all my life, everyone knows me. I am in no danger.’

      ‘No?’ He turned back to look at the crowd of men behind him. All were watching them warily, including the tall man with the white hair who had stopped speaking until he could regain his audience’s attention. There was a murmur of anger. They were breaking the law by even congregating, and if they recognised Bella as the granddaughter of the biggest landowner in the neighbourhood, they would feel threatened. In their present mood they might even offer violence. He stepped in front of her to protect her, but there were far too many of them for that to be any more than a gesture. ‘Go home, Bella,’ he said. ‘Forget you ever saw these people.’

      ‘Why?’ she demanded angrily. ‘I heard what that man said and so did you. What do you think they mean to do?’

      ‘I do not know.’ He had been about to find out when Bella had arrived and now he doubted whether he would learn anything. And she was in danger. He grabbed Misty’s bridle with one hand and, putting his other hand under her bottom, heaved her into the saddle. It was a most inelegant way to mount and she would have had something to say to him for taking such liberties with her person if she had not been so aware of the menace of the crowd.

      ‘What about you? Are you coming, too?’ she asked, as she settled her foot into the stirrup and picked up the reins.

      ‘No.’ Then he slapped the mare’s rump hard.

      Robert watched her cantering down the road until she was out of sight but by then the men had surrounded him.

      Bella did not go back through the crowds to the main road but turned down the hill to the towpath and rode northwards along it, hardly noticing the barges which brought their goods up from the ports at King’s Lynn and Wisbech to Ely, where they would add to the accumulation in the warehouses. Now and again she had to rein in and walk her mount round the horses which towed them but she did it automatically, her mind on her encounter with Robert. She had quite forgotten her original errand.

      He had infuriated her. As if any of the local people would harm her! But that man on the cart hadn’t been local and perhaps he was out to stir up trouble. Would Robert try and do anything about it? He undoubtedly thought listening to a man like that was more entertaining than obeying her grandfather’s summons. Would any of them obey it? Whatever would Grandfather do if none of them came?

      After two or three miles the towpath continued on the other side of the river and she turned away from it towards the village of Westmere where a few minutes later, she entered the gates of Westmere Hall. She reined in when she came within sight of it. It was a huge house, built a hundred and fifty years before, using a mixture of stone from a local abbey, destroyed during Cromwell’s time, and Peterborough brick. Built on three sides of a rectangle, with steps up to a huge, very ancient oak door, also taken from the abbey, it stood four-square to the prevailing east wind, surrounded by mown lawns and flower-beds, its many windows gleaming in the sunlight.

      Bella sighed, wondering how much longer it would remain her home if she refused to obey her grandfather, then spurred Misty round to the stable yard and left her in the care of a stable boy, before entering the house by a back door. In answer to her grandfather’s enquiry, she said she had been unable to find any extra help in Ely.

      ‘Why go to Ely? There are men in the village.’

      ‘I’ll send Jolliffe to see if he can find someone.’ She said nothing of the meeting she had interrupted, neither did she tell him she had met Robert. It would be interesting to see if he put in an appearance later that afternoon.

      James Trenchard, who lived at Eastmere, barely five miles away, was the first to arrive on horseback. He looked as though he had come straight off the fields. ‘I hope this business won’t take long,’ he said, allowing Jolliffe to take his brown cloth overcoat and flat hat from him. But there was nothing to be done about his hard leather breeches, boots and gaiters, which bore signs of a recent excursion into the farmyard. Bella, greeting him, hoped it was only mud and not something worse. ‘What’s it all about, anyway? Old man’s not ill, is he?’

      ‘No, he is surprisingly well, except for his gout. Please, go into the drawing room. Jolliffe will serve you some refreshment while you wait.’

      ‘Wait for what?’

      ‘The others. The Comte, Sir Edward and Captain Huntley.’

      ‘Oh, family conference, eh?’

      ‘Something like that. Now, if you will excuse me…’

      She escaped with relief. She would not be surprised if he were the first to fall in with her grandfather’s wishes, perhaps the only one. Would she be obliged to accept him if he were? It had been two years since his wife had died and his two little daughters needed a mother. She felt sorry for them, but the idea of marrying him made her shudder. It wasn’t that she had anything against farmers, especially when they worked as hard as James did, but he thought of nothing else.

      He was utterly oblivious of his appearance and she doubted if he had bathed in a twelvemonth. As for his house… It was a good enough house, old and solid, but as there was only a daily woman to keep it clean, it was in a sorry state. She would be expected to turn it round and take the girls in hand. There would be no love, no tenderness.

      Bella went to the kitchen to see how Cook was getting on with dinner which would be served after the Earl had delivered his ultimatum, because ultimatum it was. She had a feeling it was going to be a miserable meal. By the time she returned to the drawing room, Edward had arrived.

      He was standing by the window, looking out onto the garden, but turned when he heard her enter. He was not quite as tall as Robert, but he had the same dark good looks, except that his features were slightly heavier. He was dressed in a brown frock coat of impeccable cut and biscuit-coloured breeches tucked into tasselled Hessians, polished enough to be used as twin mirrors. His hair was cut in the Brutus style and his neckcloth tied to perfection. None of it was flamboyant, but was quietly elegant. ‘Bella,’ he said, bowing to her. ‘I hope I see you well?’

      ‘Very well, Edward,’ she responded. Knowing what was to come, she felt very uncomfortable but did her best to hide it under the veneer of being a good hostess. ‘Are your horses being looked after?’

      ‘Yes, thank you. Took them round to the stables myself. James tells me we are all invited to this jamboree,’ he said.

      ‘Yes, I had thought you and the Captain might have travelled down together.’

      ‘I did not know we had both been invited—the letter did not say and as Rob was in London when they both arrived, his was forwarded on to him. I doubt he will tear himself away from Society to come down here. I nearly did not come myself.’

      ‘Then why did you?’ He obviously did not know Robert was already in the neighbourhood.

      ‘The letter was couched in terms that implied a certain urgency. I thought his lordship might be ill. James tells me he is not.’

      She stopped herself from smiling; Edward had come to the same erroneous conclusion as Robert, that his lordship was dying, but he had not been so blunt in expressing it. ‘He has the gout, but otherwise he is well.’

      ‘Not touched in the attic either?’ queried James, speaking for the first time. ‘Old age sometimes puts people into strange humours. I remember when Sarah’s mother was dying. Couldn’t even remember where she lived at the end—used to roam all over the fens, talking СКАЧАТЬ