Master of Gothic House 3

 

Chapter 3

 

It was not long before Mrs. Hymes made a sound of disgust and tore up a letter before throwing it into the chamberpot.

“Really?” said Edwin.

“My lord, you don’t want to know what filth was written,” said Mrs. Hymes. “A vicious rant about a man of colour and ‘defiling’ if you will, English girls. I hardly knew where to look with the coarseness.”

“Mrs. Hymes! I am so sorry,” said Edwin. “I do not know how to make it up to you for having to experience such. But be assured, I will do my best to compensate you in your next pay packet. No woman should have to face coarse language.”

“Bless you, my lord, my dearie, don’t you worry about me,” said Mrs. Hymes. “I am glad you did not see it, though.”

“Some people are vile,” said Edwin. “I first discovered it when a maid was calling my mother vile names, and I asked father if it was sneaking to tell on people who were hurting others, and he said no. She was dismissed with a very truncated reference saying that she was probably honest.”

Mrs. Hymes and Hymes both winced.

“Not many people would employ her,” said Hymes.

“I don’t think anyone who betrays their employer by reviling them to all and sundry purely for their skin tone deserves loyalty back,” said Edwin. “Sarah and I were referred to, by her, as ‘the mongrel brats’ and that was when she didn’t call us worse. Papa was pondering on what to do when Sarah climbed on his knee and asked what a mongrel was and why she was one. That was when he hit the roof, and Elsie went with a flea in her ear.”

“I’ve come across a similar one here,” said Ram Gopal. “Please excuse me; I will open all of them and extract any which begin in such terms as ‘You disgusting epithet,’ since only the epithets used are likely to be different.”

“I’ll do it,” said Edwin.

“No, you will not, sah!” said Ram Gopal. “I won’t let you see such filth.”

“I don’t see why you should see it,” said Edwin.

“Your father charged me to look after you,” said Ram Gopal, stubbornly. “My family have been Kshatriyas, protectors, for many many centuries, and I will protect you from this.”

“Only if you take a note of which of them are local gentry so that I know to snub them,” said Edwin.

Ram Gopal bowed his head, stiffly, and went to work with a pencil and notepaper.

Edwin snorted over one.

“They don’t take any notice of my requirements,” he said. “This one says, ‘You will not mind that I am almost thirty since it will be a privilege for you to marry any English girl and beggars can hardly be choosers. I trust by ‘comfortable’ you mean an income of no less than £800 a year, as I could not consider demeaning myself to marry a man of colour for any less and if you are operating under false pretences, I will not even consider lowering myself to do so.’ Hoity-toity!”

“This one is more hopeful,” said Hymes. “‘Dear sir, My name is Mariah Eddington, and I believe I may suit your purpose. I am two-and-twenty years old with a trim, petite figure, and I am held to be attractive. I have independent means, but my brother is trying to push me into a marriage of his choice, and I am not prepared to marry his choice of man, and would rather explore more widely for myself, so you see, we may be able to help each other.’ A bit silly to admit to independent means, in case this was from a spurious source, my lord, but perhaps worth seeing?”

“Put her on the possible list,” said Edwin. “It seems foolish for anyone who has independent means to be ready to marry a stranger, but if her brother is causing her real trouble, I would be unfair not to meet her.”

Edwin discarded three in a row from damsels who thought they would like to visit India and see an elephant, or an Indian temple, or his diamond mines – and where the idea he had diamond mines had come from, Edwin was uncertain, since he owned a few shares in a ruby mine, and a larger share in both Dhaka muslin and silk, and had said nothing about the source of his wealth, or even its extent, in the advertisement. He snorted over the timid lady of twenty-seven who was prepared to help him with his English if he needed it and would only ask for one new bonnet a year, who might do better applying to his sister as a governess, as she was fond of children but wondered if an arrangement might be made where he adopted as childbirth was so frightening. He put the letter on its own to forward to Sarah, who could do as she saw fit.

“I want to ask about this one,” said Ram Gopal. “It feels... false, somehow.”

“Read, then,” said Edwin.

“‘My very dear sir, it was with great delight that I read your missive in the newspaper inviting the confidence of young ladies of suitable age and gentility to partake in the venture of marriage. I am    22    years old, so well below your maximum. I am well practised on the fortepiano for your entertainment and at embroidery as well. My family is sufficiently genteel for your consideration and I am more than happy to be a hostess for you. I remain your most obedient servant, Abigail Hendry.’ It seems to me as if there has been something else written where she says her age, which has been scratched out.”

Edwin held out a hand and examined the paper with a jeweller’s loop.

“I am almost certain it is a pair of brackets around the word ‘age’,” he said. “The letter is, if I do not mistake, made up of excerpts from an etiquette manual on how to craft letters, copied exactly instead of being used as a guide.”

“How extraordinary!” said Mrs. Hymes.

“I do not like such deception, but if the young lady is tongue-tied, it will, perhaps, be as well to meet her, and see what she is like in her own words,” said Edwin.

He opened another.

‘Dear sir, I am no beauty, but I think not unpleasing of aspect, and I cannot think that one should be prejudiced without finding out the personality of any person. I am nineteen years old, and have sole care of my little brother, Tommy, who is seven years old and I cannot consider marrying where Tommy was not welcomed into the marital home. I have some four hundred pounds a year, which is adequate at the moment, will not be enough to see Tommy through a decent grammar school, or university, so I find myself hoping to marry a man whose fortune is sufficient to see to his needs as a quid pro quo for providing him with children of his own. I am held to be of good natured disposition and do not ask for more than respect and hope that affection will grow. Yours truly, Clara Snowe.”

“Poor girl,” said Mrs. Hymes. “Very young to have care of a lively boy.”

“Indeed,” said Edwin.  “I confess, I am a trifle upset to find so many young girls willing to throw themselves at me, in order to have a little more comfort than that to which they are accustomed. They have no idea who I am, or what constitutes ‘comfortable;’ indeed, I discarded a little reluctantly a letter from the daughter of an apothecary, who says she is not a lady but feels sure she could learn if we lived quietly, and said that she did not wish to be mercenary but she hoped to find a husband worth more than one hundred pounds a year so that she would not have to worry how to pay the bills. She could not handle being a viscountess, I fear, but I put her in this other pile of those deserving to find small legacies.”

“You are a generous man, my lord,” said Hymes.

“I have never wanted, and I feel it behoves me to help the most destitute,” said Edwin.

“This one is interesting,” said Mrs. Hymes. “‘My dear sir, I am two-and-twenty years old, of reasonably pleasing appearance, tall, but with a good and graceful bearing, and I do not lack confidence and feel that I could manage to entertain without difficulty. I assume that there are reasons beyond being of Indian descent that you are in need of advertising, but so long as you are no older than forty, and do not squint very much, and are not affected by any social diseases I look upon this as an adventure. My own income is insufficient to enter society, and if you plan to entertain, you plainly intend to have a social life, which would be an advance upon living well enough but without excitement. My family are keen to betroth me to a yeoman farmer, who is a fine enough fellow, but I want more out of life than feeding hens and milking cows. I would not object if visiting India was indicated. Yours, Esther Mortimer.’”

“Squint, eh?” said Edwin. “I don’t squint at all.”

“The lady is presumably sufficiently ecumenical not to hold your race against you,” said Mrs. Hymes.

“Yes, that is an advantage,” said Edwin.

“My last one runs as follows,” said Hymes. “‘Dear Sir, I am a very beautiful woman of six-and-twenty years, so I have enough beauty for both of us; but it will not last long, and I want to have fun and go dancing and go to London, and enjoy all the pleasures a girl of less moderate means might do. I come from an old family which can lend you respectability, though we have no money. I do not care what you look like, so long as you give me a good time, with the security of a ring on my finger and a prenuptial agreement to see that I am well cared for when you die, assuming you are quite old and likely to predecease me. Yours truly, Jane Northcote.’”

“What an idea they have of me!” said Edwin. “Elderly, ugly, squinting, pox-ridden. Well, I must say, interviewing them might be amusing.  I make it half a dozen to see; and I will pick any number from three to all of that half dozen to test with Gothic House.”

“How do you plan to manage to so test them?” asked Hymes. “I mean, will you invite them here?”

“No, I plan to ask those chosen to join a house party to congregate in the inn, whence they are to be driven, with Aunt Evermore, to the venue of the house party. However, I am going to contrive to break a wheel just about outside Gothic house, late in the evening, so that we have to beg succour.”

“And how will you break a wheel at just the right time?” asked Ram Gopal, suspiciously.

“I will tamp a charge of gunpowder on the hub, and light a slowmatch to it,” said Edwin, calmly. “I toyed with asking you to shoot an elephant gun into it, but I decided that there were too many factors of risk.”

“One should be thankful for small mercies,” said Ram Gopal. “I hear a carriage on the drive; who can that be?”

Edwin looked out of the window.

“Oh, my,” he said. “It’s Aunt Evermore, driving herself with her long-suffering maid in a high-perch phaeton.”

“I’ll go and see to her horses,” said Ram Gopal.

“I’ll show her in,” said Hymes.

“Bring her through to the kitchen; her maid will have hysterics, and will leave her again, but Aunt Evermore won’t turn a hair,” said Edwin.

Presently the upright figure of an elderly lady in panniers swept into the kitchen ahead of Hymes, and embraced Edwin warmly.

“How like Miles to leave you this pile and expect you to pay to get it into order,” she said. “My dear boy! Hymes – we’re old friends, Hymes and I, he doesn’t mind what I say about Miles – says you’re reading the answers to the advertisement, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I looked them over. Betty! Make yourself useful and make a good strong pot of tea, and I’ve a box of salmon some idiot gave me which will do very well for supper, two salmon should go round us all, with a nice parsley sauce and roast potatoes.”

“Thank you, Aunt Evermore,” said Edwin, meekly. “These are the ones I’m going to see.”

The old woman rifled through the letters.

“This Abigail Hendry sounds tuppence short of a shilling,” she said. “Written out of etiquette manuals if I’m not mistaken. Please tell me you weren’t impressed by her felicity of style?”

“No, I had already realised it was copied,” said Edwin.

“Well, don’t marry her. You’ll never handle being married to someone sitting opposite you at breakfast with her mouth flying at half mast sincerely mourning the loss of her brains,” said Elinor.

“I was drawn somewhat to a local girl I met, this is her letter, written before we met,” said Edwin, who had just discovered it.

“Dear sir,

My name is a little outlandish, as my parents were older parents celebrating a late child, and I have red hair, but at the age of two and twenty I fall within your criteria. My father was vicar of a small living, and my mother recently also passed on, so I am an orphan. I am quite adaptable and capable, and though I have never run a society dinner party, I have organised St. Thomas Day meals for the poor of the parish from whatever donations of food or money has been available and which is often a very eclectic selection. I assume that ‘comfortable’ must mean one hundred pounds a year or more, and enough to put aside to entertain, if you plan to do so; and if you mean to live in the country I can milk a cow or goat if you have one, and keep chickens as well as being fond of gardening. I only ask that you have a sense of humour and good conversation, as I would rather be monetarily poor than conversationally so.

Yours sincerely, Angela Cubitt.”

“Huh. Sounds a practical girl, at least,” said Elinor. “About the best of a dubious bunch. The one with the brother sounds promising, but too young... not that she won’t be older than her years to be thrust into the care of a child like that. Interesting that the Mortimer girl don’t want anything to do with hens or cows and the Cubitt lass is prepared to support you with such.  Miss Mortimer is above herself, I fancy. The Eddington wench’s brother might be a problem if he’s trying to fix her dowry to his friend. And the Northcote girl seems to think you’ll pay out for her to have fun.  My goodness, Edwin! You might almost buy a girl from an orphan asylum and train her up to your ways,  rather like that Greek fellow who made a statue to be his ideal and then wanted her to be real.”

“Pygmalion,” said Edwin.

“Yes, that’s the silly clunch I meant,” said Elinor.