Chapter 4
“You are not dressing up in clothes you do not normally wear, Edwin; that’s just play-acting and tomfoolery,” said Elinor. “Wear a suit. I’ll be asking most of the questions and you and James Ringshall shall sit each side of me and ask any questions you wish to add, but if they assume you are the gentleman advertiser’s man of affairs in India, that’s their lookout.”
“Yes, Aunt Evermore,” said Edwin.
“You don’t fool me by acting meek,” said Elinor. “I know fine well you go your own path. But wearing anything but what you were reared to wear.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Edwin, who had been wont to play with the local boys dressed only in a loincloth in the glorious days when he could get away with it, and before they had come to England.
oOoOo
“Now, then, Miss Angela,” said Mrs. Partridge, “I have no doubt that dark skinned men are no different than white men, and white men are trouble so that applies to all men. I’m coming with you to the inn when he meets his shortlist, so there.”
“You need not put yourself out,” said Angela. “I... I am convinced the gentleman I met was the Indian gentleman, and when I was destitute and homeless, he could have used that to entice me, but he did not try.”
“Well, I hopes so, my dear, but I’m coming anyway.” Mrs. Partridge could afford to shut up shop; Edwin had arranged for her stock for the day to be purchased as a buffet for the visiting ladies, with sandwiches and filled rolls made by the inn, to add to Mrs. Partridge’s the sweet confections. Angela was not sure if this was philanthropy on the part of the Indian Gentleman, or merely that he was glad to have the direction of a baker’s shop making more fancy goods; the making of bread was hard physical labour which was beyond the elderly woman.
oOoOo
Gothic House almost shook to a regular fusillade of knocking.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” muttered Hymes, irritably. He opened the front door, and in strolled a goat.
“Well, I’m damned, that’s my friend from the village,” said Edwin. “Hymes! Look at the state of her, she’s half starved and her udders are full to bursting! You can count her ribs!”
“Take her through to the kitchen, my lord; my wife can milk a goat,” said Hymes. “That’s Faith, the vicarage goat, that is; and still in milk, after they sold Hope and Charity, too. Her kids,” he explained.
Edwin led the goat through to Mrs. Hymes, who exclaimed.
“You hold her head, my lord, and feed her some salad, and I’ll relieve her poor udder,” said Mrs. Hymes. “And I’ll throw away what comes first, too. We can hope to avoid mastitis.”
“Hymes, nip down to the village, and ask what the devil the vicar means by letting her get to this state,” said Edwin. “And if he has no reasonable answer, I’ll be writing to the Bishop about him, as the living is in my gift, and I want him replaced.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Hymes. “Will I mention your involvement?”
“No, I don’t think so, nor that I plan to write to the bishop; he’s likely to turn up here and be unbearably oleaginous once he knows I’m the new viscount,” said Edwin. “Poor old girl! We’ll have you up to scratch in a brace of shakes.”
Hymes returned, looking sour.
“Them ow’ vicar say that the goat is nothin’ ter do with him,” he said. “He declared goats to be beasts of Satan, and that he wants nothin’ ter do with it. Nothing to do with it, of course, I mean,” he added, his plummy tones returning. “Abrogating his responsibilities,” he added.
“And I wager he told that poor girl not to take anything belonging to the vicarage, as well,” said Edwin, grimly. “He’ll have to go.”
He duly wrote to the bishop; it could go in the next mail. This letter, he did frank.
Faith was given a stall in the extensive stables, which she mostly ignored during the day time, being content to spend some time on the kitchen garden turnip tops, and wander into the kitchen to the irritation of Ram Gopal.
“This caprine is not a sign of a well-run house, my lord, no, not at all,” he complained.
“She’s a more welcome guest than the spiders in the vestibule,” said Edwin. “This house is not, as yet, well-run; that’s the whole point.”
“I cannot like a goat in my kitchen,” said Ram Gopal.
“Put her out in the vestibule, then,” said Edwin.
And with that, Ram Gopal had to be content; though Edwin pretended not to hear him threatening Faith with becoming kebabs, whilst slipping her a handful of weeds to eat.
oOoOo
“You know what, Peter?” said Mariah Eddington, “I’ve answered an advertisement for a man seeking a bride. He’s an Indian gentleman, with a comfortable independence, and I don’t care if he’s brown, as long as he isn’t Tobias Carrington.”
Her brother stared at her.
“I thought you wanted to marry Toby?” he said. “You were used to say you would marry him when you grew up, when we let you hang around with us. You never made much of a push to fix the attention of any other gentleman when I squired you to the assembly rooms in the summer after you came back from that deucedly expensive finishing school, so I assumed you were still of the same mind; and as Toby admired you now you’ve grown out of being gawky, and asked if I minded if he courted you, I said yes. If you don’t want him, that’s an end to it.”
Mariah stared.
“But you seemed adamant that I should marry Toby!” she said.
“Only because I thought it was what you wanted!” said Peter. “I thought I was reassuring you that Toby was happy to marry you!”
“Oh!” said Mariah. “Well, in that case, I don’t have to run away and try to marry the Indian gentleman who advertised.”
“You’ll jolly well write to him, then, to whatever poste restante address he left, and apologise for wasting his time,” said Peter.
“Why should I apologise?” grumbled Mariah.
“Because you essentially accepted an implied potential offer of marriage, and are now turning it down,” said Peter. “I won’t make you apologise to Toby, that’s on me for assuming you had not changed your mind, but you will write to the Indian gentleman.”
“Very well, Peter,” sighed Mariah.
oOoOo
“I don’t know why she doesn’t want to marry you, all of a sudden, Toby, when she used to be mad keen,” grumbled Peter. “I’m sorry; I know you carry a torch for her, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have as my brother.”
“Why, then, Pete, let us apply our famous pranking brains to the matter,” said Tobias Carrington. “I will thank her for her honesty, but in a week or so, I will be seen in the winter season to be dancing attendance on a lovely lady. And if Mariah is jealous, I will know not to lose hope.”
“You can’t go encouraging some other poor girl,” said Peter Eddington.
“I shan’t,” said Toby. “I know a young widow who has no desire to re-marry, as she would lose her widow’s portion, and she has young children to rear, but she’d take a small fee to pretend to be my flirt du jour. George Abbott’s bride, you know,” he added, naming a third member of a schoolboy friendship, who had died in the wars with the French.
“Oh, well, that’s different,” said Peter. “A captain’s pension isn’t large, and Abbott was well enough blunted for a bachelor from his own fortune, but raising children on her third of six hundred a year won’t be easy, in addition to whatever his pension was.”
Toby smiled. Peter was the best off of the three friends, and Toby thought that Laura Abbott would suit him very well; and then, if Mariah was duly jealous, he could tell her he was matchmaking for Peter.
It all fell nicely into place.
oOoOo
“Well, look at this,” said Edwin. “Two letters; one at the poste restante address, and one from the bishop.”
“A late entrant for the marriage mart?” asked Aunt Elinor.
“I suppose so,” said Edwin, opening it. “Oh, the reverse; one of the ladies is apologising for her withdrawal, as she misunderstood her brother’s intent, and she is not being forced into marriage after all. I must write and thank her for her honesty and apology.”
“And the bishop?”
Edwin tore open the letter, well decorated with a letterhead and seals, giving the grandeur of the letter scant respect. He snorted.
“Silly old fool,” he said. “Asked me to try to tolerate my uncle’s choice until after Christmas when he will try to find somewhere for him. I’ve a mind to write back and say that I will indulge him thus far, but withhold all pay in the New Year if he is not withdrawn. See how long the nasty fellow stays put when he isn’t being paid.”
“Do,” said Elinor. “You need to state your intent, after all.”
“Yes, I jolly well shall,” said Edwin. “And I’ll write that one first as I can work off my temper and show a doucer face to the young lady who cried off. I wonder if it was just a misunderstanding, or whether she used leverage of not running off with a gentleman of colour?”
“You’ll never know, but if it made a difference to her, you are well shut of her, my boy,” said Elinor. “What were you going to do with the second carriage, by the way?”
“What second carriage?” asked Edwin.
“Well, you said you were considering up to half a dozen young ladies; five, now, I assume,” said Elinor. “And I will be travelling with them as chaperone.”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Edwin. “The Berlin will take three on each seat,”
“And where are you going to put their maids?” asked Elinor.
There was a long silence.
“I am not as clever as I thought,” said Edwin.
“You can hoop the old shooting brake and add a tarpaulin to keep off weather; it is one which has the seating arranged so the back of the long seats are outermost, and the feet inside. And maids will feel safer in that configuration than if they sat back to back with their legs outside the vehicle, too,” said Elinor. “And the compartment for dogs to take extra luggage, for those dratted girls will bring more than they need, and likely the kitchen sink too,” she added.
“You have saved me many blushes,” said Edwin. “And of course, it will not take everyone so we still have to stop when the Berlin breaks down.”
“Gunpowder! Honestly!” sniffed Elinor. “And what if it is wet?”
“Straight to the nub of the matter, Aunt Evermore!” said Edwin. “All I can do is to pack it in oilcloth to guard against splashes, and if it’s very wet, I’ll have to loosen the nuts on the hub and deliberately drive into a rut. It’s not as certain, but it can be done.”
“Or, you could stop the coach a little before where you want to have an accident, and check the wheel, and tell us there’s a nut worked off, and say that gently does it will take us all the way, and then fit your contraption when there’s no chance of any of the girls or their maids seeing it and asking questions, and being out in the open the shortest time possible,” said Elinor.
“You are a superior plotter, and I bow to your wisdom,” said Edwin.
“That’s as maybe, but you’d better sort out a maid for your ginger wench from the village,” said Elinor.
“Dear me, how do I arrange that without offending her?” cried Edwin.
“You send her a letter telling her that you are embarrassed to find that a dependent of yours passed away, and his daughter ended up on the parish, and being unable to take her into a bachelor household, you wondered if she would be kind enough to take the girl on, and you would, naturally, cover the wages and clothes allowance.”
“I adore you, Aunt Evermore! If only you were thirty years younger and a few more degrees of separation between us, I’d look no further for a wife,” teased Edwin.
“Well, well, I shall take over the training of this ginger chit of yours, and make sure she is suitable,” said Elinor.
“I might not choose her, you know,” said Edwin.
“You might not. But we shall see how it goes,” said Elinor. “I’ll go into Chelmsford to the orphan asylum and pick a suitable girl, who can be persuaded to conform to the right story.”
“You are going to get an innocent child to lie?” Edwin was shocked.
“Of course not! I’ll convince her you just discovered her, of course,” said Elinor. “Bound to be a girl whose family were tenants somewhere, so long as she believes it was your land, she’ll say as she believes.”
“You are a most devious person,” said Edwin.
“If I wasn’t, I shouldn’t have survived the idiot husband who was my parents’ choice and the far from idiot but most reprehensible rogue I took up with when he died,” retorted Elinor. “Oh, he was a handsome rascal, but I will say, he never let any scandal touch me, and he shot himself to save anyone finding out about his thievery, and I was never caught wearing any of the sparklers he stole, for I never knew about much of it, until he wrote about it all before he shot himself. Such a wicked man, and so much gaiety.”
“Was your second husband a highwayman?” gasped Edwin.
“I prefer to think of him as a gentleman of the road,” said Elinor. “Oh, I knew he was a crook, and I’ve bound up wounds tight enough for him to act quite healthy when Bow Street came too close, but I loved him to distraction, and he loved me.”
Edwin shook his head. Who knew Elinor had had such an exciting life!
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