Master of Gothic House 5

 

Chapter 5

 

Abigail Hendry ploughed doggedly through a pianoforte piece. She played with great accuracy, and all the depth of feeling of a lump of coal. Abigail did not particularly enjoy playing, but she had been taught because it was the thing to do. Abigail could not really see what people saw in music, but she was an obedient girl who accepted that some people did like it. It was her duty to please people and make a good marriage.

“It’s good of you to be prepared to marry some Indian fellow to fund us all having come-outs,” said her sister, Alexandra.

“Oh, well, I have to get married some time, I suppose,” said Abigail, vaguely. “As well to someone rich, so I can have a pink silk ballgown, and hot chocolate in bed every day.”

“You don’t mind that he wants children?” asked Alexandra, anxiously.

“Not really; if he’s rich enough, he’ll have nursemaids and things for them, so I don’t have to have anything to do with them, unless they are clean and smell nice.”

“Having a baby isn’t very nice, they say it’s painful,” said Alexandra, anxiously.

“Oh, well, I can put on a heavy cloak,” said Abigail, vaguely.

Alexandra frowned.

“A heavy cloak?”

“Well, to deal with the thorns from the gooseberry bush where you get babies,” said Abigail.

“Abbie, it... it doesn’t work like that,” said Alexandra. “Babies grow inside you.”

Abigail stared.

“No, don’t you dare try bamming me, it isn’t nice.”

“I’m not! Ask Mama!” said Alexandra.

“I will! You’re unkind!” Abigail ran out of the room to find her mother. “Mama! Tell Alexandra not to lie to me! She said babies grow inside you!”

“Abigail, we had this conversation when your courses started, that a man plants a seed in you which grows into a baby inside you.”

“I... I thought you meant he plants a seed to grow under a gooseberry bush!” she said. “No! I can’t do this! I won’t do this! It isn’t fair, it’s wrong, it’s... it’s wrong! Men shouldn’t even touch a woman!”

Alexandra sighed.

“I told you Abigail’s understanding is not superior, Mama. I’d better go and see the Indian gentleman. I’m sixteen, and perhaps he’ll let me have a ball instead of a come out.”

“Oh, dear!  It was such a long birth, I fear she was quite blue when she came out,” said Mrs. Hendry.  “With Charley at university, and Annabelle, Agatha, Amelia and Alberta in the nursery, and little Christopher about to start school, one of you needs to marry well, and it’s a good chance that a cautious man is playing down his wealth to put off people like us who have to chase money.”

 

 

oOoOo

 

“Clara,” said Tommy Snowe, “You don’t have to get married, you know, if you don’t want to. I don’t mind going to the local school not the Ipswich School. Or maybe going to sea, when I’m older.”

“It’s not your job to worry, sweetie,” sighed Clara. “I could hope to marry for love, but you never know! Maybe the Indian gentleman and I will fall in love, and live happily ever after; it will be an adventure.”

“But I’m the man of the house, and I should be caring for you,” said Tommy, stubbornly. “If I become a midshipman, I’ll have pay to send home, you know, and they have schoolmasters.”

“Oh, Tommy!  I know you like sailing your skiff on the Black Water, but it isn’t the same,” sighed Clara.

“Well, perhaps the Indian gentleman will find me a berth on a merchant ship so I can make my fortune,” said Tommy.

“We won’t be able to make any plans until we meet him,” said Clara, taking the easy way out.

 

oOoOo

 

“You’re a damned fool to throw away a good man like Jeb Curtis, my girl,” said Mr. Mortimer. “I know he isn’t a gentleman, but it’s only since my father put me through university that we are counted with the gentry. Being a doctor not an apothecary gives me the entrée to more places than your grandpapa, but when you consider that the other gentry around here are not as well off as Jeb, who is a resourceful man, and very good with his hands, to make extra as a cabinet maker, it’s not much entrée. The vicar is elderly, his son is his curate, which is not exactly going to keep you as you wish to be kept, the squire is mortgaged to the hilt, so his son must do as he can in the army, and Mr. Pecksniff does all his own work as a solicitor because he cannot afford a clerk.”

“I hate farm animals,” said Esther.

“But to marry some foreigner...” said her father.

“He has English connections,” said Esther. “And yes, I know he’s probably on the wrong side of forty, with pockmarks, or a squint, but I want to marry someone who doesn’t keep chickens, or expect me to milk a cow. And I wouldn’t mind if he wants to visit India.”

“Yes you would,” said her father. “John Company ships keep livestock on deck for fresh milk and eggs. When I was a boy, we had goats, and a pig as well as chickens, and milking goats is a lot harder than milking a placid cow. Getting the hog into the woods to eat acorns, and back was my job, and it’s a lot harder than dealing with chickens, my girl; and I had schoolwork as well to study to go to university.” He frowned. “You’ve grown up far too nice, Esther, with expectations out of your class in life. If you were a beauty, you might hope to pull off a coup like the Misses Gunning, but you ain’t.”

Esther flounced.

“I might at least meet the Indian gentleman,” she said, sulkily.

“Yes, and I won’t forbid it, so you can work out which side you bread is buttered, aye, and Jeb can keep you with bread, butter, jam, and plenty of good vittles.”

 

oOoOo

 

Jeb Curtis was not going to take Esther’s decision lying down. He had every intention of following his lady if she should be chosen to be whisked off to this Christmas party, and gate-crash. She needed someone to look out for her interests.

 

oOoOo

 

Jane Northcote played the pianoforte with verve as well as accuracy.

“Should Bach’s little fugue be played as if it was a declaration of war, dear?” asked her mother, amused.

“Bolstering my courage,” said Jane. “I know the Indian gentleman will probably be glad of a lady being prepared to marry him, but we do not know him.  I have to assume he is elderly, and though one feels a degree of natural distaste in such a union, the older he is, the sooner I shall be a widow and have my independence, security, and a peaceful life.”

Her mother sighed.

“Your father and I are not enamoured of the idea of you going to meet a stranger, let alone go off to a Christmas party with him.”

“He made it clear that his elderly English aunt would be a chaperone, and assuming she is a lady, and I see no reason she should be anything else. I will have my maid with me as well, of course.

“I would not permit it otherwise, and nor would Papa. He is not happy. But you are of age, and we cannot stop you,” her mother said. “Your mind is made up to meet him?”

“Yes, mother, and then we shall decide if I want to go further or not,” said Jane.

 

oOoOo

 

“Well, child, I’m sorry that you slipped between the cracks, as you might say, but at least you can have a decent position, now,” said Elinor to the orphan, named Jane, who insisted she was Jenny, whose blonde locks were strained into two tight pigtails. “And I wager your new mistress won’t expect you to pull your hair so tight and painful either. You can take the coach into Chelmsford and give her the letter to explain yourself.”

“Yes’m,” said the girl. She was in something of a whirl, having been questioned thoroughly by this formidable old lady in the asylum in Brentwood, and informed that her father’s landlord wished to make sure that she was cared for. She had spoken up about her brother, to the ire of the woman Jenny thought of as ‘the Wardress.’

“Well, of course, your brother as well,” said Elinor. “Dear me, the record keeping has not been good. My nevvie will sort that out.”

Jenny hugged her brother, Will.

“You be good, Will,” she said.

“Won’t be no hardship now we ain’t in gaol no more,” said Will. Will was ten, four years his sister’s junior. “An’ not likely to be a climbing boy.”

“As you are used to farm labour, there’s a goat for you to care for and sundry odd jobs under Ram Gopal,” said Elinor, austerely.

“Yes’m,” said Will, obediently. That could be worse.

 

oOoOo

 

“Please’m, I’m looking for Miss Cubitt, wass livin’ here?” said Jenny. “I’m Jenny Wren, I am, and I got a letter for you.”

“You’d better come in while I read it,” said Angela. “Here, have an iced bun, do; you look half starved, and your eyes and nose are straining after the baked goods.”

“Ooh, fanks, m’m!” said Jenny, who did not need a second invitation.

Angela read the letter.

“My dear Miss Cubitt,

Please forgive me for being somewhat forward in hoping that you will do me a favour. I discover that a dependent of mine has died, and left a daughter who went into an orphan asylum. Naturally, I cannot have her in a bachelor establishment, so I hoped you would not mind taking her as your personal maid. Naturally, as she is my responsibility, I will cover her wages, and her clothes allowance. Please find five pounds enclosed for more clothes for her.

Once I am married, regardless of whom I should choose, she can enter my wife’s service if you do not wish to retain her services yourself. In advance, thank you for your help in this delicate matter.

E.A.[the Indian Gentleman]”

 

Angela showed the letter to Mrs. Partridge.

“Well, to be sure, it’s irregular, but perhaps he could not think of anyone else,” said Mrs. Partridge.

“Cookie, I suspect him of finding a girl who believes she’s his dependent to help me out to give me a maid,” said Angela.

Mrs. Partridge considered.

“Well, if that’s so, he’s a generous man but he’s doing this Jenny Wren a favour too. She can have a truckle in your room, so she don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to start baking. Jenny Wren indeed! It’s a liberty and she shall be plain Jane unless her name is Jennifer, and whichever it is, she shall be called.”

It might be said that though Jenny faintly resented being ‘Jane’ again, she did not resent being permitted  some broken cakes and biscuits.

It may also be said that not calling her Jenny only lasted two days.

 

oOoOo

 

“Well, what else was I supposed to do with him?” said Elinor. “It would look odd if you took responsibility for one and not the other.”

“Well, he can take care of Faith and see to the kitchen garden,” said Edwin.

“Just exactly what I thought,” said Elinor. “The girl is a nice child, not cowed, not too troublesome, and as like the Jenny Wren that her name is, ready to be loud and bold defending her and hers.”

Edwin laughed.

“Jenny Wren, really?”

“Jane Wren, officially, but of course the nickname is obvious.”

“Well, she will do nicely for a sweet little robin.”

 

oOoOo

 

Time fairly flew past, until the date Edwin had assigned for the meeting of the girls. The Black Boy was a large, prominent inn, built in the modern Palladian manner, on the corner of High Street and Springfield Road in Chelmsford, on the main coaching road from London. It was three storeys high, its frontage mirroring that of an older, timber building. It still had its own brewery and an extensive inn yard.  Edwin had booked two rooms on the ground floor, and ordered that each be arranged after the manner of a private parlour if not already so arranged. The rooms he had been given were to the left of the arch of the outer courtyard, away from the bustle of the stables and coachhouse which were through another archway to a second courtyard, flanked by the brewery. This courtyard arch had a billyards room above it, Edwin knew, though he had no time for a game today.  He was pleased to have been reserved two small private parlours which did not interconnect, though a passage ran behind them which did connect them. He would have liked to have overheard the women talking, but one could not have everything.

The atmosphere of the inn was like that of any such similar centre of transience; the private parlour in which Edwin was to interview the shortlist had a fire, but managed not to be cosy. It smelled of stale bodies, stale coffee and staler dreams abandoned to the death of hope. The fire burned brightly, burning frostily, as the local vernacular would have it, indicating a good draw to the chimney with cold air outside, a hard frost, and a few desultory snowflakes. And the heat of the fire almost completely vanished more than two steps away from it.

 

Edwin watched out of the window as various women began arriving on local coaches, and Angela Cubitt with her little maid and an older woman, arriving on foot, the frost and light snow crunching under foot, but at least they had good boots. Another, very young, lady arrived with an older woman, as well as a maid, and Edwin frowned. Had one of them misrepresented her age to him? Well, she should have short shrift if so.

A no-nonsense shooting-brake tooled into the yard, behind an unmistakeable doctor’s gig, the doctor having handed out the young lady and her maid, squashed in beside him, to take his equipage through to the second courtyard where he surrendered his gig to the ostlers, and ascended to the billiards room. The occupant of the shooting brake asked a few questions of an ostler, and strode towards the private parlours.

“The yeoman farmer, I presume; Ram Gopal, invite him in with us,” said Edwin.