Madhouse Bride 2

 

Chapter 2

 

Anne found herself being helped into a nightdress and put to bed by a managing and motherly maid a few years older than herself. A cup of hot chocolate, not too rich, and some bread-and-butter with a coddled egg, and a few slices of chicken with a potato salad made roughly from left over potato chopped with chives in the chef’s own recipe mayonnaise presented to Anne a kingly meal, and she ate slowly and neatly, consuming all of it.

“I can’t remember when I had such a feast,” she said.

“Don’t you worry, Miss, if his lordship has it in hand, everything will be sorted out,” Meggie said, eyes bright with curiosity but refraining from asking any questions.

“Oh, Meggie, you are kind, and I think I need to tell you all about it; and you may share with Mr. Watkins too, as he seems to be devoted to his lordship’s interests,” said Anne. She poured out to Meggie all she had told Julian, along with a few other more personal humiliations enacted on her, which she did not wish to discuss with a man. She ended up in Meggie’s arms, having a good cry, and being rocked and stroked until she fell asleep.

Meggie tucked her down, and took away the dishes to wash, and had a whispered conference with Jem Watkins about the evil creatures who had tried to drive Miss to insanity with calculated cruelty.

“His lordship told me something of it,” said Jem. “Rare angry he is on her behalf.”

“Ooh, Jem, don’t you remember how the old viscount’s younger brother tried to drive Himself out of his mind, with people always shooting at him, but never hitting, and nailing a sheep’s head to the boathouse door, and the queer noises at night, and a knife in his pillow which had vanished when you came to his call, and it was all his old nannie, who took Mr. Lucius as her favourite, and Mr. Lucius’s son, who was a year younger than our viscount?”  said Meggie. “I was tween floor maid then, and I caught her!”

“And that’s when I first noticed you,” said Jem. “Right little virago you was, in righteous indignation of how she could do that to one of her nurslings. And I thought, this here is the future Mrs. Watkins. And that’s when I started saving. And if we sees Miss right, and his lordship, I reckon there’ll be permission to wed, and maybe a bonus in it.”

“We’ll do it because it’s the right thing to do,” said Meggie, bristling.

“That, too, but no harm in forwarding our own case, too,” said Jem.

 

 

Julian was a long time going to sleep; in front of his face was the first good look he had got of Anne Bonnet, a slender waif of a girl, underfed, but with promise of beauty if given proper nourishment, a cloud of dark curls about her pale, pixie-features, and her eyes dark blue, currently like holes in her head, and shaded purple under them, but that would change.

And he knew what she had been through, in some degree. His Uncle Lucius had done his best to have the new young viscount declared incompetent, questioning every decision he made, making sure that there were seeming attacks on Julian, but not when anyone could see, and not harming the youth, so that others might put it down to imagination, and insanity. Julian had questioned his own sanity, until Robbie Hobson had taken to following him about and was able to attest to real shots, and real lines strung between trees to trip Julian, even though they mysteriously disappeared afterwards.

And then Meggie, who was now guarding Anne, caught his old nannie using a secret stair to get into his room.

Nannie had been the one whose mental faculties had broken, in her fanatical devotion to Claud, Lucius’s son. Lucius and Claud had been induced to go and live in Italy. Julian wanted no part of a lawsuit against his own kin, but everything was documented, confessions were signed, and they resided in his bank vault.

Anne, however, had been confined, and that would take more. He would have to break her aunt and uncle, and break the doctor who had certified her insane, who must surely recognise the signs of poisoning; pinpoint pupils, and nausea.  Julian sent for Robbie Hobson and Jem Watkins.

“Robbie; you helped me against my uncle.  Last night, I rescued a young lady in a similar situation.  I need to find out everything about the madhouse in which she was confined, and about her aunt and uncle, and her parents. I will write out what I know, and you will take a message to the man you found before who helped me out, Mr. Blackman I believe is his name?”

“Yes, m’lord, he’s a disbarred solicitor, he got caught using house-breakers to gather evidence.”

“Tell him not to get caught gathering my evidence. Here’s an envelope of money to give him, and you’ll have a bonus in your pay packet. I don’t care what methods he uses, so long as it doesn’t come back to me.”

“Yes, my lord; I’ll make sure he understands that,” said Robbie. Mr. Blackman was a terrifying figure, but he had his moral code. He did not help criminals. Robbie had seen an advertisement and had gone on his own initiative to sound Blackman out, and found a man who was indignant on behalf of a minor under terrorisation, even if he was a peer.

Robbie interacted with Blackman for Julian; he had investigated a bailiff and found him to be feathering his own nest by forcing poachers to work for him. One of those poachers was now the bailiff, and the former incumbent was in gaol.

“Jem, I’ll breakfast in the nursery,” said Julian. “You may bring breakfast for yourself and Meggie there as well.  I need both of you to know what Miss Bonnet has been through.”

“She spoke to Meggie, and Meggie said there was things she wouldn’t tell a man,” said Jem. “They’ve done a proper job on that poor little maid.”

“And she has come through it still strong,” said Julian.

“As you did, my lord,” said Jem. “Meggie said she’s a proper mate for you because she knows.”

“And I suspect the fact that we both know will help,” said Julian.

 

Anne beamed at Julian when he came in.

“May I join you for breakfast?” he asked.

“I’d be delighted, Ravenscar,” she said.

“I need to share something with you,” said Julian. “I understand more than you realise about what you’ve been going through, because when my father died, my uncle and cousin tried to do the same thing to me. So, I know absolutely that you are telling the truth, and how you felt when you wondered if you really were going insane.”

“Oh!” Anne sat back, tears running unheeded down her face. “I… I had no idea; you seem so confident, so powerful, so in control.”

“And you, too, can be confident, powerful, and in control,” said Julian. “I had good friends to help me; my groom, Robbie Hobson, Jem Watkins, and Meggie, who caught my old nannie, who was my father’s pensioner, who was complicit, for the love of my uncle and cousin, also her one-time nurslings. I had her cared for until her death; she was old. I could not bring myself to throw her to the law. My uncle and cousin are in exile. But I plan to break your aunt and uncle.”

“Very well; what do we do?” asked Anne.

“For a start, I need to know about your childhood, your parents, everything you remember; and you said you could forge your father’s handwriting.  I want to draw up a legal document of an agreement to a betrothal with you so that I have every right to question your relatives. I want to make it a legally binding document giving me control of your finances in the event of your father’s death, as your betrothed husband. It needs to be enough to at least freeze your inheritance so they cannot use it.”

“Oh, that’s clever,” said Anne. “I want a written contract from you that even if you do not marry me, I shall be your pensioner with an income of six hundred pounds a year, because I am through with trusting people utterly.”

“You’re a clever girl,” said Julian. “I will write that and Jem and Meggie can witness it, so that you can then hide that and keep it safe and secret from me.”

“Oh! You understand that.”

“I do,” said Julian. “I am ready to start trusting, and I am starting with you; so, I hope things will work out. But I demanded safeguards for everything for years.”

 

After breakfast, Julian wrote an affidavit of his intention, and signed it, witnessed by Jem and Meggie; and Anne took the paper, read it, bowed her head in thanks and went through into her bedroom, shutting the door.

“She don’t trust you?” said Jem, shocked.

“I didn’t trust anyone for a long time,” said Julian. “That’s her safeguard, which will allow her to be able to reach out to me because it’s proof I don’t intend to cosset her and then have her wake up in rags, as a servant, as her delightful aunt and uncle did. You won’t go looking for it, Meggie. I want her to hide it with as much cunning as possible. In time she will learn to trust us, as I have been learning to trust.”

Anne emerged from her bedroom.

“I want you to guess where I put it to see if it is safe enough,” she said.

“On top of the tester,” said Julian.

She looked at him in consternation.

“You told me how you think,” said Julian. “I suggest you may consider mailing it to an old governess or someone you knew and trusted before your parents died and asking them to keep it safe; I won’t offer to frank it as you will want to go to the post office yourself, but obviously you will hide it in the meantime.”

Anne went back into the bedroom.

He had guessed! And it was her own fault.

She retrieved the document, and thought hard. If she put it in the lining of clothes it was with her, but might accidentally be laundered, or felt. Behind a drawer in the press? No. There was a painting on the wall, of children in a garden, a watercolour. She got a chair to reach it, and used a hair pin to pry away the backing paper. She slid it between backing paper and painting. She would ask for some flour to use to cover the shadows under her eyes, and mix up a paste with that and some water, to glue back down where she had lifted the backing.

She climbed quietly down, replaced the chair, and went out.

“And guess?”

“Usual places are under pillows or mattresses, attached with tape to the underside of drawers, or in the seams of clothing,” said Julian. “If you’ve avoided those, well done.”

Anne nodded.

“I don’t want to act as if I don’t trust you,” she said. “I… I think I do… but I never expected what my aunt and uncle did.”

“Indeed, it was a severe betrayal,” said Julian. “Now! Let us consider the wording of a betrothal contract, which sounds as if it was drawn up by or for your father.”

 

The rest of the morning was taken up in producing documents to cover the first part of Julian’s plan. A legal-looking document on parchment catalogued a betrothal agreement in which Julian agreed to take over the administration of Anne’s fortune until it became his on marriage, with a prenuptial agreement to the effect that Anne should have the right to an allowance from the interest on her capital, which would be hers absolutely. 

Anne signed ‘Henri Jacques Bonnet, ci-devant Vicomte de Villeneuf-sur-mer, and the date they had agreed upon, which had to be after Julian’s twenty-first birthday and before Henri Bonnet’s death. The time they had to play with was three years, as Julian was now four-and-twenty; and Anne would have been fifteen on the date two and a half years previously which they picked.

“I don’t know if they have sold my house,” said Anne. “Or whether they have not yet dared.”

“I’ll go and see,” said Julian. “If there are old servants, can you write me something to persuade them that I am worth talking to?”

“Yes of course,” said Anne. “I didn’t want to go and live with my uncle and aunt; I was almost seventeen, and I did not see why I should not continue in my own house, but Aunt Amelia said it was right that I should have company and family to help me overcome my grief. I let her persuade me. I wish I had not, but then, I would not have met you, Ravenscar.”

“You called me ‘Julian’ very nicely last night,” said Julian.

“That was last night,” said Anne. “I am trying to observe the proprieties.”

“Why? We are co-conspirators, Anne.”

She laughed.

“Very well, Julian. I will do my best.”

“And I will do mine to keep you safe.”

 

oOoOo

 

Julian drove to the small manor house where Anne had grown up; it seemed deserted, though not abandoned.

He knocked, and an ageing butler opened the door.

“I’m sorry, sir, there’s nobody in residence,” he said.

“Would you be Jilkins, known to Miss Anne as Jilly?” asked Julian.

The old man stared in shock.

“You ain’t anything to do with that interferritin’ baggage Mrs. Amelia, are you?” he asked, suspiciously.

“No, but Anne escaped, and she has been telling me a lot,” said Julian. “May I come in? I have a letter from her to you and any other old servants.”

Jilkins perused it, his lips pursed.

“Let me bring you some brandy, my lord, and if you’ll suffer the servants to come in, you can talk to them,” he said.

Only the faithful had remained; and Julian found himself confiding to them what had almost happened to him, as well as what had been done to Anne.

And suddenly he had more helpers, and the contents of Henri Bonnet’s safe.

“It’s one o’ Bramah’s unpickable safes,” said Jilkins. “Mr. Thomas Denver didn’t have a key, and I never told him I did, and so did Miss Anne; but he wasn’t one to trust a woman. And I hid the master’s key which was in his bedroom, because I didn’t trust them. You take charge of this and do what you can to put things right, milord.”

“I most certainly shall,” said Julian. “Thank you for this, I shall certainly do my best.  And thank you for trusting me.”

Jilkins sniffed.

“I knows real Quality when I sees it, milord,” he said.