Chapter 19
“But where would we go if we fled to the continent?” whined Denver. “They all speak Foreign there.”
“What do you mean, ‘we?’” said Amelia. “Clarinda and I are staying here.”
“He won’t press charges,” said Denver, confidently. “Think of the scandal!”
Herein Denver was thinking like the petit bourgeoise he truly was; since the aristocracy have never given a damn about scandal.
oOoOo
Julian and Anne had a cheering crowd of servants to greet them on their return, and stopped to speak to every one of them,. Abram Thomas had several guineas pressed into his hand when Julian shook hands with him
“We brought back your brazier in good condition and I replaced the charcoal on the way home,” said Julian.
“That do be a handy piece o’ equipment,” said Abram. “Romance is all very well, and better in summer, but no lady ever turned down a nice cup of tea.”
“Quite right,” said Julian. “A man cannot aspire to be a good husband unless he can procure his lady a cup of tea, a Hackney carriage in the rain, or a good seat at the entertainment of her choice.”
The stable-hands were all clamouring about how Thomas Denver stole Julian’s phaeton, and Henry Cubitt was waiting to speak. Julian turned to his butler.
“Mr. Jilkins brought the best of her ladyship’s cellar, as laid down by her ladyship’s father,” Cubitt said. “He apologises for shaking it a trifle, but he was concerned that the Denver fellow would try to steal it, and Mr. Jilkins is an old man, and frail.”
“Quite so, and he did the right thing,” said Julian. “It will settle down. I must go and see Jilkins.”
“He sent word that Thomas Denver came to steal plate and jewels as well as the cellar, my lord; and Jilkins locked him in the cellar until an officer of Bow Street could come and take him in charge,” said Cubitt. He delicately cleared his throat. “Seemingly, the same officer Denver tried to get to break the law by searching the house here; he seemed an honest man, and most uncomfortable. An Officer Peabody.”
“Well, now! I suppose Denver bailed himself; I will, however, be pressing charges. And foreclosing on the mortgage,” said Julian. “Have my guests arrived in the dower house?”
“Yes, my lord; two females of impeccable manners if lacking in breeding, and three young ladies with… problems,” said Cubitt. “And some other young ladies I have accommodated there pending Mr. Blackwood’s investigations on their behalf.”
“Excellently done, Cubitt,” said Julian. “I am happy to pursue to penury anyone who makes an inconvenient person appear to be insane.”
“Quite so, my lord,” said Cubitt, who had, to his everlasting shame, given credence to the stories put about by Mr. Lucius and Mr. Claud, and had needed to revise his opinion under the evidence from more partisan members of the household, and had still not heard the last of it from Mrs. Watkins, the housekeeper.
Anne was busy embracing this worthy, and apologising for not having her at her son’s wedding.
“Why, my lady, we shall have a fine wedding breakfast for you and his lordship, and we’ll celebrate your nuptials and those of Meggie and Jem too in the servants’ hall,” said Mrs. Watkins.
“Oh, and you must be sure and make them a good bridal cake,” said Anne. “You must purchase extra eggs if we are likely to run short, of course, and anything else needful. Do we had an account with tradesmen?”
“Yes, my lady, and his lordship settles it regular, not like some of the aristocracy,” said Mrs. Watkins.
Julian wrote to Bow Street, affirming that he meant to press charges.
He also sent in bailiffs to give the Denvers a month’s notice to vacate the premises.
Jem slipped over to see Chalkie White, and assured him of a place helping Jilkins keep up Maison Bonnet.
He distributed some dead mice which Meggie had dressed for him whilst he was there.
oOoOo
A letter awaited Anne when they settled into the master chamber, which Meggie found and brought to her.
“My dear Anne,
You will be, no doubt, intrigued to know that someone we surmise to be your wicked uncle thrust his way past poor Jeeby, and went to grab me. Arthur stood up and roared at him about not permitting anyone to assault his betrothed wife – though I had not, at that juncture, accepted his suit, but he was so protective, I was quite overcome! And Aunt Agatha pulled a pistol out of her reticule and pointed it at him, as he perceived that I was not you, and he retreated in poor order and at the trot, looking quite ridiculous. I knew you would like to know!
Arthur and I got married by special licence as Aunt Agatha knows the Archbishop, and for all I know has something to his detriment to hold over him.
Oh, Anne, I made such a silly fuss over marrying him, because he is not the least how Papa made him sound, and he likes me being whimsical. He can also stand up to Aunt Agatha, which is not given to just anyone. I can do it, because I know she likes it.
And then Papa turned up, and I told him that he could not chastise me as that was the place of my husband since I was already married. I did not tell him it was to Arthur, and he flew into a passion that I had ruined myself and made him a laughing stock [which I might have been glad to do, had not Arthur been just the perfect beau and not in the least elderly or censorious of my lively spirits, but indeed likes me the way I am.] So then Arthur bellowed at Papa about assaulting his wife, and Papa was so perplexed that on top of his apoplexy he fell into what he calls melancholia and Aunt Agatha calls a fit of the sullens.
Lucy.
“Dear me, I am glad that Lady Corbythwaite and Sir Arthur were more than equal to dealing with Uncle Thomas!” said Anne, happily.
oOoOo
“What do you mean, notice to leave the premises?” demanded Denver, of the bailiff.
“I have a notice to you to quit,” said that worthy. “The mortgage being owned by Lord Ravenscar, who does not want you as a tenant; so either pay out the full value of the property, or leave within thirty days.”
“I can’t raise three thousand pounds just like that,” said Denver, appalled. “I… why, it would cause me serious problems.”
“Your choice, squire,” said the bailiff. “Pay up and stay put, and don’t forget the interest; or don’t pay, and lose the house. Simple as that.”
“He’s a vindictive bastard, is Ravenscar,” opined Denver.
“He can be hard, but don’t go questioning his parentage, or you’ll be sued,” said the bailiff. “He’s a good man to those who give him loyalty and serve him well, but I reckon you got on his bad side.”
“Look here! Tell him I’ll pay it off over a year, but if he presses me for it, I can tell tales of his wife’s madness he wouldn’t want the ton to hear.”
The bailiff laughed.
“I’ll tell him, but you’re more likely to find yourself in court for malicious slander and blackmail,” he said. “And a word to the wise; blackmail isn’t a civil matter, it’s a criminal matter, and me a witness to it.”
“What have you got against me?” whimpered Denver. He had not meant to whimper, but it came out that way, to his embarrassment.
The bailiff laughed.
“Lord Ravenscar doesn’t like you, and that’s enough for me. He paid for the doctor for my children when they had scarlet fever, and not one of them took rheumatic fever. And his lady is a lovely lady and not a bit insane, so I’d watch my step if I was you.”
“Go to hell,” said Denver.
The bailiff laughed and left him with his notice to quit.
oOoOo
Julian narrowed his eyes when Juby, his bailiff, told him what Denver had said.
“I think I want to get hold of a certain doctor,” he said. “Francis Clement is his name. I think he still lives at the house that was raided. I’ve a mind to offer him his life in payment for his testimony. I won’t offer immunity.”
“I’ll ask Robbie to get Mr. Blackman on that, shall I?” said Juby.
“Thank you,” said Julian.
oOoOo
Julian asked three alienists to attend upon his wife as soon as possible before their wedding breakfast.
“And what is your purpose in having your wife examined, my lord?” asked the senior alienist, one Dr. Fairlees. “If you have married in haste and find her to be now what you had not expected, you cannot expect anything but an annulment; it isn’t grounds for divorce unless her mental state was falsely represented and a fraud was perpetrated.”
“On the contrary,” said Julian. “I believe my wife to be perfectly sane, but her uncle is slandering her. I want depositions as to her mental state from experts.”
“I see,” said Dr. Fairlees.
Anne endured the questions, becoming increasingly waspish.
“You know, you give me an urge to do something totally silly like climb on the table and scream about the giant spiders,” she said.
“Can you see giant spiders?” asked Fairlees.
“No, but I thought if any of you dislike them, I might make you look nervously over your shoulders,” said Anne. “Dr….Nelson, wasn’t it?” she indicated one of them, “Definitely twitched.”
“I did,” said Nelson, ruefully. “I don’t like spiders. I think we can confidently say that anyone who both plays games with the thoughts of alienists and admits to doing so is about as sane as anyone can be. I would not like to be the subject of the barrage of questions we have put to you, and would feel like protesting in some measure.”
“Why spiders?” asked Fairlees.
“I don’t mind spiders,” said Anne. “I rescued the housemaid from one this morning, which is why it was in my thoughts. Or possibly, I rescued the spider from the housemaid; I believe the terror was mutual, she having thrown the carpet brush at the poor thing, and jumped on a chair, shrieking.”
“Well, Lady Ravenscar, you appear to be very well balanced indeed,” said Fairlees.
oOoOo
Denver did not feel well balanced.
The mice had started appearing again, beautifully dressed, and arranged as a male and two females in tiny coffins hidden about the place. Jem had a macabre sense of humour.
“Who is doing it? Who? Who?” Denver demanded in a hysterically shrieked whisper to Wilcox. “I am ruined, that bastard is taking my house, my wife wants me to flee to the continent for some supposition that Ravenscar will not care about scandal, and now these bloody mice again!”
“It looks to me as if Ravenscar is trying to send you insane, and he appears to be succeeding,” said Wilcox. “Can he take your house?”
“Unless I diminish my capital still more, and expect my wife and daughter to run a household on little more than five hundred pounds a year,” said Denver.
“You are a piece of work,” said Wilcox, scornfully. “Five hundred a year is beyond the dreams of avarice to most people.”
Denver stared at him.
“Why, some of Clarinda’s gowns to come out in cost as much!” he cried.
“Then as she did not take, sell them,” snapped Wilcox.
He was sick of his confederate, who had not been the pathway to a life of luxury that he had been supposed to be.
Wilcox did not bother to give notice.
He merely packed, and slipped away in the middle of the night, desperate to remove his fortunes from those of his erstwhile nominal employer, who was going to talk himself into more trouble, if he was not mistaken, and who would doubtless contrive to put the blame on Wilcox.
In this surmise, Wilcox was quite correct; it had, after all, been he who had first suggested having Anne declared insane and who had helped with that scheme, and Denver was quite happy to share the blame if it came to it, and Denver’s idea of sharing blame was to shift it onto someone else.
It took half the next day for Wilcox’s absence to be discovered, by which time Clarinda was shrieking incontinently and battering at the door of her chamber where her father had locked her, whilst he gathered up her ball gowns to attempt to sell them at a reasonable proportion of the price he had paid for them.
As they were now out of fashion, the best Denver could do was half price. It raised a considerable sum, but not enough.
It was then that Denver had what he thought was a brilliant idea.
To burn the house down.
After all, it still stank like nothing on earth, and he could find no reason for that!
He plotted.
He paid fire insurance, and reckoned that as he paid it, he deserved it all, and then all Ravenscar would be left with was a pile of ashes. He was unaware that one could not insure what one did not own, and the sum he was paying was for the contents of the house, as the bank had first taken on the insurance for the building, which had been taken over by Julian. Denver merely thought it was fortuitous that his monthly insurance bill had decreased, without wondering why.
He then had what he thought was an even more brilliant idea.
He wrote a careful letter to Julian, asking if he might entreat his presence at a dinner party to make his entreaties for clemency.
It would not be a wonderful dinner party with only one footman and an irascible cook, but Denver decided that spending some of what he had recouped from Clarinda’s dresses to hire footmen would be an investment. With Ravenscar persuaded to stay the night, he could burn Ravenscar in his bed as well. Or drugged well to make him stay.
It was perfect.
“My dear Lord Ravenscar,
I fear that we got off to a bad start, and of course you are most properly partisan with regards to my poor niece. I wish to apologise to you for taking certain liberties, and to discuss reparations towards yourself. I entreat you to be merciful and consider discussing the matters between us, for the sake of my innocent daughter. I should be delighted to entertain you to dinner on the 16th inst. and further my apologies in a mellow social situation.
Thos Denver, esq.”
oOoOo
Julian read Denver’s letter. He tossed it to Anne.
“I feel as if my hands are drenched in oil for reading it; indeed, I feel soiled,” he said. “What do you think?”
Anne read the letter.
“He’s up to something,” she said. “And I doubt it would be good for your health. Perhaps he means to poison you with mushrooms and laudanum and have you declared insane. Please don’t go.”
“I shan’t,” said Julian.
He wrote a note on the back of the entreaty, then changed his mind and got fresh paper, to keep the original letter and a copy of his reply.
“Denver,
If you think I cut my eye teeth yesterday, I assure you that you are mistaken. I am never going to eat in your house since those who do are liable to be fed insalubrious substances. You can make your pleas in court.
Ravenscar.”
He sent Jem with the reply, and the instruction to remove his friend Chalky White forthwith.
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