Stranger at the Manor by Mary Kingswood
8: A Worrying Illness
Peter walked home thoughtfully, his mind full of all that Miss Beasley had told him. He was not shocked, for such things happened all the time. It went without saying that Lord Saxby should have married her, for although she was not a person of great rank or wealth, she was still of gentle birth and did not deserve to be mistreated in that way.
And mistreatment it was, of that he was in no doubt. He could find no reason to absolve Lord Saxby of the full blame for the incident. A man of his age and maturity should have known better than to seduce an innocent girl. Saxby had not been a handsome man, precisely, for his features were too strongly carved for such an epithet, but he was an imposing one, both in size and in character, who dominated any company in which he found himself. How easy it would have been for a gentle, timid girl like Miss Beasley to be dazzled by him, and fall quickly under his spell. It was entirely understandable.
Poor Miss Beasley, to be forced into a most unnatural subterfuge in that way! And never to see her son again, nor even to know what became of him. He could understand the aunt thinking it best to put the whole sad episode behind her and sever all ties, yet it was cruel. And now that she was of mature years and with no husband or children to be affected, surely it would be safe to make discreet enquiries?
And that brought him round to the point he was evading, but could evade no longer. Miss Beasley was forty and unwed and, what was far worse, had set her face against ever marrying. Such a waste, a woman as handsome and quick-minded as she was. And a good Christian, for all her protestations of guilt and sin. She would make any man a fine wife indeed.
Especially him, his heart whispered. All the little hopes and wishes he had tried to keep buried came jostling to the forefront of his mind. So many reasons for him to be drawn to her. Those lovely eyes, and that thick, dark hair, so enticing. Her gentle speech, mellow and soothing. Her quickness, such that he never had to explain anything more than once, for she always understood him. And that glorious evening when she had for once donned a gown worthy of her. She was magnificent! That was the night that he knew his own heart completely.
There was no use thinking about it. She had made it very clear that she would never marry. He was not by nature a pessimistic man, seeing always the best in any situation, and he knew himself to be very fortunate. He had a good, kind cousin who was generous enough to house him, he had an occupation to fill his days, the sale of the paintings might bring him a little money again and he wanted for nothing…
Except Miss Beasley. Phyllida… such a pretty name! Sometimes he imagined himself married to her, sitting at the breakfast table, and he would say, ‘Would you please pass the strawberry preserve, Phyllida?’ and she would reply, ‘Of course, Peter. More tea?’ Each evening they would sit at the head and foot of the dining table, telling each other all the doings of the day. On Sundays they would walk to church, sit side by side in their pew, and then walk home together, discussing the sermon. No matter how futile it was, he could not get these pleasant vignettes out of his head, and it was unutterably depressing that none of them would ever come to pass.
He felt somehow as if all the sunshine had gone from his life, and there were only heavy grey clouds in the sky. When he was with her, the darkness lifted a little, but when he was bereft of her company, as now, then the world was a miserable place. Once or twice, he took his handkerchief from his pocket and gently stroked it, feeling the dampness of her tears still upon it, but that was no consolation. There was no comfort to be found anywhere.
“You are very quiet this evening,” Susannah said, as she poured the tea after dinner that evening. “Is aught amiss?”
Peter could not deny it. Dr Broughton had dined with them, and he and Susannah had kept the conversation going between them, but since the physician had left to make a final check on Cass Saxby, the silence had become oppressive.
“I am a little… downhearted, it is true, but I shall come about,” Peter said.
“Have you had a disagreement with Miss Beasley?”
“A disagreement?” he said, startled. “Not at all. It would be a hard-hearted man indeed who could find any cause to fall out with Miss Beasley.”
She smiled, handing him his tea. “And you are far from hard-hearted, at least in that direction. So I must conclude that she has turned you down.”
Peter hardly knew how to respond, but he managed to say, “There was no… I have not…”
“Forgive me, Cousin. I do not mean to pry, but it seemed such an obvious and happy resolution for both of you. You get on so well together, and the affection you share is clear to see.”
“Is it?”
She laughed. “Come now, you could not take your eyes off her last night, and did she not respond in the liveliest fashion? I have never seen her so sparkling before, and that is all because of you. She is such a quiet little creature, as a rule, but you have quite drawn her out of her shell. I confess, at first I thought it was a hopeless case, but now that you have a little money coming your way, you may begin to take thought for your future happiness.”
“I do not depend upon receiving a share of the proceeds from the sale of the paintings,” Peter said cautiously. “I am a banker, remember? I do not count money until it is in my hand. Your father may decide not to sell after all, or he may have other needs for his money than to share the largesse with an indigent relative.”
“What other needs could he have?”
“Why, settling his debts, of course. Have you any idea how much he owes?”
Susannah looked startled. “No. Is it… is it a very large sum?”
“Almost three thousand at the bank, to begin with.” She gasped. “I have not yet got a full accounting of all the tradesmen’s bills, but from those I have seen so far, he must owe close to a thousand. Then there are the vowels — IOUs. Five hundred owed to Mr Gage. Two hundred to a Colonel Pollard. Three hundred to Mr Whittel. Those are just the ones I know about.”
“Are those gaming debts?”
“I think not, because those would have to be repaid at once, and some of these go back years. I shall have to approach these gentlemen, but not, I think, until I have managed to reduce Cousin John’s other debts. Perhaps he will permit me to work with Jackson to collect the Michaelmas rents.”
“I had no notion things were so bad,” she said. “But there will be the rent from the property in Market Clunbury at Michaelmas, too. That will be a great help.”
“You mean 17 Water Street? I found the title deed in a drawer, but that will not bring in much. A hundred pounds a year, or perhaps two, if it is a particularly desirable property. I have not found any record of rent being paid to date.”
“Papa was bequeathed it by Lord Saxby, so he has only owned it since January, and he receives a share of the profits from the business instead of rent. The Lady Day payment he received in cash, and promptly gambled it away. The Midsummer payment was passed on to me to pay for my wedding clothes, and it was considerably more than the amount you suggest.”
Peter set his cup and saucer carefully on a side table. “How much more?”
“Seven hundred and eighty-four pounds and six shillings.”
“For one quarter? What on earth kind of business is carried on in Water Street?”
Susannah laughed, shaking her head. “Best not to enquire, I should imagine. For it cannot be legal, can it?”
“It seems unlikely,” Peter said slowly. “I will make it my business to find out, however.”
“The man who brought the Midsummer payment to me was called Erasmus Kent. No card,” she added darkly.
“I have no cards myself, at the moment.” He chuckled. “I had not the energy to cross out the words ‘Director of the Franklin House Bank’ on every one, and I cannot afford to have them reprinted.”
“Ah, Cousin Peter, you speak of it so cheerfully, but it must pain you every day to consider all that you have lost.”
“No, there is no pain,” he said pensively. “I saw it coming over many, many months, so when it happened there was no shock, only resignation and a scramble to protect as many as possible of those who stood to lose by our mismanagement. Once my house in Leeds is sold, I hope that all those who deposited funds in the bank will be fully recompensed.”
“But what of you… no one will recompense you!” Susannah cried. “You have lost everything you owned, even your home that had been in your mother’s family for generations. You have nothing left.”
“I have everything that I need — I have family,” he said, spreading his hands wide for emphasis. “I have a roof over my head, good food, good society — what more could any man want for? A house is only stone and wood and glass, after all. It does not nourish the soul. When I have completed my work for your father, then I shall set about re-establishing myself in business.”
“Not banking again?” she said, laughing.
“No, no! Who would ever trust a banker who has already failed once? No, I shall return to my first career as a producer of furniture. I shall look about me for one or two men who can work with wood, and start from there. I have done it once, and I can do it again. It will be an adventure, and I do so like an adventure.”
“You are an optimist, Cousin,” she said, smiling. “No matter how bleak the world is, you always see some good in it. And perhaps you may yet persuade Miss Beasley to join you in another kind of adventure. Ah, you shake your head modestly, but she likes you very well and it would do her so much good. She is in a rut, Cousin. She devotes herself to her brother and her good works, and scurries about in Miss Gage’s wake, always doing the bidding of others. ‘Miss Beasley will do it,’ everyone says, whenever there is a thankless task to be done. And she does, quietly and without complaint, and no one appreciates her. I should so like her to be appreciated as she ought.”
Peter entirely concurred with this ambition.
~~~~~
SEPTEMBER
Sunday was a gloomy one for the parish, for Cass Saxby was still very ill, and both Dr Broughton and Mr Truman dashed into church at the very last minute, and rushed away again afterwards to the patient’s bedside.
“She is very weak, very weak indeed,” Miss Gage told anyone who would listen. “I fear the worst, truly I do.”
And everyone shook their heads sorrowfully, and a few of the ladies wept.
Peter had hoped to speak to Miss Beasley again after church, if only to satisfy himself that she was well, for although she made light of the incident, she had fallen quite a distance through the attic floorboards, with nothing to cushion the impact. She must at the least have a few bruises to show for it. But he could not get near her for the crowds around Dr Beasley hoping for information on Miss Saxby, and then she was swept away by Miss Gage. She threw Peter a rueful glance as she hurried after her friend, and he consoled himself with the thought that she too regretted that they were unable to speak. At least he would see her tomorrow.
But she did not come. Instead, a note arrived while he was at breakfast.
‘My dear Mr Winslade, Pray forgive my absence today, but I am needed by Miss Gage to accompany her on her calls. She plans to visit friends in Woollercott, Astley Cloverstone and Market Clunbury, so we shall be gone all day. I hope to join you as usual tomorrow. I am very sorry to let you down. Yours, Phyllida Beasley.’
“Needed by Miss Gage, indeed!” Susannah said scornfully. “Miss Gage likes to have an audience for her chattering, that is all, someone who will not have the temerity to interrupt her or offer a contrary opinion. Poor Miss Beasley! What a dull day she will have, listening to Miss Gage tell all her acquaintances that Cass is on the brink of death. There is nothing that woman likes better than bad news.”
“I believe she likes good news just as much as bad,” Peter said mildly.
“You are quite right, Cousin. I should not speak so of Miss Gage, for she is a good-hearted creature.”
“Is she right? That Miss Saxby is on the brink of death?”
Susannah heaved a sigh. “We must hope not. Dr Beasley is sanguine, but Dr Broughton is very concerned. He spent much of yesterday talking to everyone at the Hall to try to determine precisely what Cass had eaten or drunk, for he would be reassured to hear that it was nothing but a piece of meat gone bad in the hot weather. However, he has not been able to find anything that Cass alone consumed, nor has anyone else been ill.”
“He would prefer rotten meat to the alternatives?”
“Definitely, for that is something that might happen to anyone, and a healthy young woman like Cass would shake it off quickly. But if it is truly a gastric fever, then there might be a weakness in Cass that would cause such bouts of illness to recur over and over, wearing her down until she has no resistance. That is his fear. She had another occurrence of this nature a few weeks ago, but milder, and seemingly there were others before that, although they passed off so quickly that she sought no medical advice. Now this more severe case. Even if she recovers from this, there may be another and another… One can understand his concern.”
“Yes, indeed. And she is not a sickly person as a rule?” Peter said.
“No, far from it. She was seriously ill as a child with infantile paralysis, which left her with a mis-shapen leg and a pronounced limp, but since then she has not had a day’s illness until these last few months. It is very worrying.”
Peter spent the day diligently at his desk, slowly and methodically reducing the mountain of assorted papers in the huge box to a mere hill, adding lines to his many lists, and gradually filling the array of document boxes that lay in serried ranks on every available surface. It was just the sort of work he most enjoyed, and yet his pleasure was dented by the empty seat opposite him. A score of times as the morning wore away he discovered an interesting bill from twenty years ago, or an amusing family letter, and looked up, ready to share it with Miss Beasley, only to experience a pang of disappointment as he recollected that she was not there. Somehow, his neat piles of sorted papers gave him less satisfaction when she was not there to share it.
Only one moment brought a ray of sunshine into the gloom. Susannah received a letter from her father in Bath, informing her that the jewel box was locked away in a drawer in his dressing room.
“For some reason he mentioned it to Trent, who informed him that he had given the box to him to lock away after the Easter ball, and finding the strong box lock quite seized up and unable to be opened, Trent hid the jewels somewhere else. Honestly, I despair of Papa sometimes. All that searching and falling through floors by you and Miss Beasley, and it turns out it was entirely unnecessary, needing only a locksmith to fix the strong box.”
“Not even a locksmith,” Peter said. “A drop of oil did the trick on the lock, and look at what we discovered as a result of our search. It was well worth while, in my opinion.” He spoke with some feeling. Had it not been for that enforced stay in the secret room, he would never have got on terms of greater intimacy with Miss Beasley. He was not sure how far that intimacy might progress, but every step forward was a matter for gratitude.
The following day brought more good news, for Dr Broughton sent a note first thing to say that Miss Saxby had passed a better night and was on the mend. But there was bad news, too, in the shape of another note from Miss Beasley.
‘My dear Mr Winslade, I am afraid I must beg your forgiveness once again for not presenting myself as your helper in the book room, but for what I am sure you will agree is the very best of reasons. Cass Saxby is feeling a little better, and has requested my company today to read to her. I had thought that with her mother and three sisters on hand, my services would be superfluous, but Lady Saxby is unequal to sickroom duties, and now that her eldest daughter is on the mend, wishes to visit Shrewsbury with her three youngest to obtain gown lengths for the Michaelmas ball. She assures me that Mags will be on hand for nursing care, and Cass was so kind as to say that she prefers my presence to her sisters’ since my voice is so soothing. Is that not a lovely compliment? Naturally, I am anxious to do all I can to help, and I know that you, being so kind and generous yourself, will understand that Cass must come first. I very much hope to return to the Manor tomorrow. Your friend, Phyllida Beasley.’
Peter did understand, but that did not stop him feeling a spasm of jealousy. To think of Cass Saxby, who would probably be asleep most of the time, enjoying the undivided attention of Miss Beasley, while he, who would appreciate her far more, was deprived of her for another day! At that moment, he did not feel especially kind or generous. Everyone, it seemed, had a greater claim on Miss Beasley than he did. When they were married, he would keep her close by his side and not allow her to go gallivanting off at the beck and call of the entire village.
When they were married? Where had that thought come from? He pulled himself up sharply, for this would never do! It was madness to allow such an idea to worm its way into his brain. She had no intention of marrying…
But could he change her mind? Not, he suspected, while she was still drawn hither and thither by the needs of the parish. If only he could take her away from there, so that they could talk freely. Even then, she would be hard to persuade, and perhaps he was wrong even to think of trying. But it was such a waste! She was such a wonderful woman, everything he could ever want in a wife… surely he owed it to himself and to her to try? But he could not see how it could be done.
He went through to the book room, but he was so unsettled that he could not even begin work. Instead, he asked Susannah if he might take the carriage to Market Clunbury. There was a property on Water Street that merited a closer examination.