alternative bride 23

 

Chapter 23

 

Jane was used to early rising, having been accustomed to rise with the servants to direct them before her marriage, so sat and ate breakfast with Gerard, Christopher, Mr. Langcostard, Jem, and a Billy Winkle, a tough looking individual who was one of Gerard’s bailiffs. Christopher had been a trifle stiff with Mr. Langcostard, and was positively scandalised at Gerard eating with a groom and a bailiff.

“I don’t want to go over things again, Kit,” said Gerard. “You can be as high-and-mighty as you like at the Hall; it’s the sort of place that asks for it.”

Christopher gave a shy smile.

“Thanks for giving me the chance to run it,” he said. “I’m scarcely needed here, and if you plan to live here most of the time, I’d feel like a donkey hitched unicorn with a matched pair.”

“Well, it needs someone who appreciates it,” said Gerard. “But I am happy to vanish from society and raise a family and be a country gentleman.”

“I wonder how long that will last,” said Christopher.

“You’re a cynic,” said Gerard. “I’ve only been wasting my life in society because I did not know what to do with my life; and because, though I love this house, I was afraid if I lived here alone, I would be overwhelmed with missing Mama, Papa, Amelia, and Annabel. But my life is filled with Jane, and if there are any ghosts here, they are happy for me, and do not torment me.”

“Ghosts, indeed,” scoffed Christopher.

“Ghosts grow in your own head,” said Gerard, softly. “Especially at an age where one is uncertain of oneself as a man. Don’t scoff, Kit, until you’ve suffered great personal loss.”

“I’m sorry, old man, it was insensitive of me,” apologised Christopher.

 

The men left after breakfast, and Jane, well aware that they would be gone all day, if not longer, set herself to explore the rest of the house, and to inventory both the attics, and the boxes of her mother’s things, which arrived by carrier, shortly after the men had gone.  Jane gave a coo of delight, setting up her mother’s writing box and father’s davenport in her own haven, and regarded Gerard’s own library to consider where to stow the old friends of books in the three cases which had comprised her father’s library. Fortunately, the library took two storeys, the upper storey being on a wide gallery, and there were a sufficiency of shelves to take the new arrivals.

“I can sort through and catalogue them in the winter, when an indoor job will be good,” said Jane. “And then where there are duplicates, we can keep the best in the library and box up any others.  But for now, I think we want everything from the attics, and my mother’s trunks, on the front lawn where I can peruse any fabric in daylight, and see if there are any repairs needed, and if Helen permitted the moth in when she would not permit me to touch my own property.”

“A singularly inadequate step-mother,” said Mrs. Jevvins, who had been about to exclaim in horror over the disruption of having the attics emptied onto the front lawn, but wisely perceived that her ladyship needed to stamp her own seal of ownership on the house, and do things her way. And she could not deny that it would be easier to go through things in bright September daylight.

“It won’t last,” said Jane. “This fine weather will break, and then it will be too late. It will be fun finding out what there is!”

“Have you spoken to his lordship about this?” asked Mrs. Jevvins. “Much of the property in the attics would be the clothes of his parents and sisters.”

“Yes, I did,” said Jane. “I asked if you were likely to have inventoried the attics and he said, ‘more than likely, apart from more recent clothes.’ And he gripped his brandy glass, and sat quiet for a moment, and then he said, ‘Look them over, and use them, Jane; it’s a waste not to do so, and my sisters and my mother would think me very churlish not to share. I’ll look over my father’s things, but most of them can go to servants.’ So, he is aware what I am about. But I think it would be more tactful to do when he is not here, so that they are reduced merely to being usable fabric on which I sew.”

“They will be five... no, six years old, and out of date,” said Mrs. Jevvins.

“Much the same age as most of my mother’s clothes,” said Jane.”But the styles are still for high waists, and two gowns can perhaps be made into one for the greater fullness these days, and trains to make long sleeves.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” said Mrs. Jevvins. “The fashion then was for tunics over long gowns, like the Romans, I believe, or the Greeks; some sort of heathen, anyway.”

“Well, doubtless I shall want to sew on baby clothes at some point,” said Jane, colouring. “No, I don’t know, yet, but it is surely likely.  And contrasting bodices are not out of fashion, so the upper parts of tunics may be used.”

Her own mother had, like the former viscountess, owned good winter gowns in velvet and rich wools, which had fortunately not succumbed to moth, and not being excesses of fashion were readily able to be refurbished. Jane was much of a size with her own mother, and the late viscountess had been a small woman beside her daughters, and her clothes had needed very little altering to suit Jane. Those in blue, Jane set aside, but was delighted by an opera gown in dusky pink, not far from the colour of her bridesmaid’s gown, in which she had been married. There were blacks for various royal mourning – the death of Princess Amelia, Jane guessed – which would always be serviceable and useful to have. Her own  mother also had mourning and half-mourning for her father as well as for whichever royals managed to die inopportunely.

“These can go in the cupboard in my dressing room to be worked on,” she said, of those gowns she hoped to make over straight away.  “What would you pick from Lady Wintergreen’s clothes for yourself, Mrs. Jevvins? I am sure she would like you to remember her with something. And you can wear blue.”

“If you’re sure, my lady, I’ll have the two bombazines to put together, and one of her shawls,” said Mrs. Jevvins. She hesitated. “A couple of blue day gowns in poplin?”

“Take more, if you wish,” said Jane.  “This round gown of, I conjecture, Annabel, would suit you very well, for lavender and silver do not argue with your complexion as they do with mine, and Annabel was an amazon, and it seems a shame to cut it short when you can wear it.”

“Some mistresses forbid muslin for their servants,” said Mrs. Jevvins.

“Oh! I can see the point of that with maids who are dealing with fireplaces, and might be feckless enough to permit their muslins to catch fire, but I cannot think you would be so careless,” said Jane.

Mrs. Jevvins decided not to enlighten her ladyship that it was more a desire to deny finery to servants than any fire risk on the part of most, but it was heartening that her ladyship was alive to fire-risk.

Trunks might go back to the attics, but they were now labelled in Jane’s round, firm script as to what was contained, and what might be done with it. She was delighted to fit a pair of walking brogues owned by Amelia, already bidding fair to be tall like her sister before her life was cut so cruelly short, and Jane planned to get to know the estate as well as the house now she might walk out whatever the conditions.

She and Mrs. Jevvins shared a meal somewhere between nuncheon and afternoon tea in the late afternoon, with a sense of accomplishment.

 

oOoOo

 

Gerard approached Sir Gifford Peakes with Langcostard, arriving as he was finishing up breakfast.

“Ah, Wintergreen; you and your friend will join me in coffee? Have you eaten?” said the knight, expansively.

“Thank you, Sir Gifford, much obliged,” said Gerard. “Yes, we ate before we rode over, though if any of that toast is going begging, my belly thinks it’s time for nuncheon.”

“New wife working you hard in the bedroom, eh?” said Sir Gifford.

Gerard flushed.

“More the haying,” he said. “I am still growing, too; I discovered my shirts are too short.”

“Still growing! You’re already a beanpole, boy! Like your father.”

“Yes, I will have to look out his shirts, I fancy, until I can have some made,” said Gerard. “Not that I came to discuss my sartorial vicissitudes.  This is Officer Langcostard, a most excellent man from Bow Street, who is looking into coining.”

“I heard a rumour,” said Sir Gifford, looking slightly askance at Langcostard. “I’d offer him a writ as constable in my bailiwick without a recommendation, you know.”

“It goes further than that,” said Gerard. “I was driving my wife over Shirley Common, and there are some gypsies, or supposed gypsies there, who appear to be doing a lot of metalwork.”

“Oh! I see.  Well, I can raise half a dozen men to help you, ah, Langcostard,” said Sir Gifford.

“Thank you, sir,” said Langcostard. “His lordship has also agreed to loan some of his men if you will sign off on them as constables for the purpose of arresting these purported gypsies.”

“However many are there?” asked Sir Giffard.

“Between a score and two dozen,” said Gerard, grimly. “And whilst some might just be there to add local colour, as you might say... a few purple patches, even, if Horace is not out of place...  they will all need to be rounded up, for Abram here to question.”

“Yes, quite so, and as well to have plenty of men, and not risk losing them,” said Sir Gifford.

 

oOoOo

 

Sir Gifford’s men consisted of half a dozen sturdy gamekeepers, who could put most poachers to shame, and who swore they could get the force right up to the gypsies before being noticed.

“For which I shall be glad,” said Langcostard. “The penalties of coining are harsh, and it would not surprise me if many of them have firearms.”

“And we have shotguns,” said Gerard. “I don’t much care if I cheat the executioner so long as my lads are safe, and a threat is dealt with.”

“Let me and my boys deal with any guards,” said Sir Gifford’s bailiff. “I’ve identified which of the supposed idlers are actually alert; and there’s plenty of bracken and furze to get up close, and neutralise them.”

“I’m not even going to ask,” said Langcostard.

The bailiff grinned.

“Oh, they’ll mostly be alive. Not happy, but alive.”

 

Gerard lurked next to Langcostard in a thick clump of bracken, and noted what could only be described as a snare flung over the head of the closest guard, from whom muffled throttling noises were heard, followed by the sound of what Gerard believed to be a sap, and then silence. When motioned to move up, he found a well-trussed figure with a gag.

“Nice work,” he said.  The gamekeeper grinned shyly and nodded. “Mr. Brown’s orders to keep on keeping on to take down as many as I can,” he said.

“Mr. Brown and you men are going to save us a mort o’ trouble,” said Langcostard, in some relief. They waited as their gamekeeper slithered off again.

Mr. Brown, the bailiff,  eventually gave a signal to stand up and attack by the expedient of a short burst on a hunter’s horn.

“Tantivvy, tantivvy, tantivvy we say,” sang Gerard, enthusiastically, wading in.

“An affront to Mr. Handel,” said Langcostard.

“Salt beef and herring,

With coddled eggs and ham

Cover it with Naples cheeses

And grated parmezan,” sang Gerard, to the tune of Cherubino’s aria. “We mangle Mozart, too.”

“Gawd save us from enthusiasts in battle,” said Langcostard.

“Abram, I’m scared.  I’ve never fought outside of boxing,” said Gerard.

“Then you sing whatever you like, my lord; I’m not averse to having my own courage bolstered,” said Langcostard.

The supposed gypsies were taken so completely by surprise that the whole lot of them were rounded up with relative ease, one of them shot dead, and one of Gerard’s men taking a ball in the arm.

“And if we’d had the militia in, it would have been a mess,” said Langcostard, pleased. “They shoot first and ask questions after, they’d have been fired on, and we’d have nobody to question. I don’t know about you, my lord, but I’m going into the nearest public house for a heavy wet and a meal before I even try to sort out this lot.”

“I’m with you,” said Gerard. “I must say, there’s more to police work than you’d think.”

“It has its moments,” said Langcostard, dryly.

 

Langcostard started his interrogations with the youngest, who was terrified, and told all he knew. It seemed that most of the band were just there as guards and were paid; their pay was in counterfeit coinage, it turned out.

“Insult added to injury,” said Gerard. “I can’t see that there’s much case to answer for them.”

“No, I was going to recommend keeping them in the lockup until we’ve arrested everyone to do with this, and then let them go with a warning about vagrancy,” said Langcostard. “They’ll not heed it, but that’s not my concern.”

The next youngest had been aiding the smith, and also broke down. The smith was his uncle, and he was as much a hostage as a helpmate, as his mother and father ran an inn in Quorndon, which was to be used to pass out bad coin, half-crowns and guineas, made of lead stolen from various church roofs, with a thin layer of gold on top. His other uncle, who worked in the inn, was a willing confederate of the coiner.

“I’m going to ask Sir Giffard if I can’t take this one home, and arrest his other uncle,” said Langcostard.

“I’d back you on that,” said Gerard. “He’s no coiner, just caught up in it; and if his parents will give evidence of the coiner’s coercion, you have a very good case.”

“Well!  It all seems to be wrapped up, bar telling,” he consulted his notes, “Huey Davis that his lay is bubbled and the jig is up. Thank you kindly for all your aid!”

“Pleased to do so; and the offer still stands, my bailiff is getting old,” said Gerard.

“Well, my lord, I’ll see this case through to the end, and then I think I might just do so,” said Langcostard. “I’ll need some instruction, though.”

“Well, I’d a mind to put you under Whitby for a while, to learn the ropes, and enlarge his cottage to house the both of you; it’s his for his lifetime, but he’s a good man, and as my pensioner would be an invaluable man to take advice from in return for caring for him.”

“That I’d be glad to do; I know him now, and he knows me.”

“And he says you’re of an age with the son he lost fighting the French,” said Gerard. “His wife died of grief not long after.”

“Well, mebbe he’d not mind me bringing my mother to live here? My sisters being married, and my brother in the navy. I take care of her, and I bought Abel into being a captain’s servant so he can rise and become an officer when he’s done his six years; he having been the baby when we came to London, and being about your lordship’s age now.”

“I think that would be an excellent idea,” said Gerard.