CHAPTER TWO
Her own money. Verity sipped her tea as Charles left the room, her thoughts alive with new possibilities. She had known Uncle James would help with Mama’s future comfort, for he had said so the first time he visited after Papa’s death. It had never occurred to her, however, that she herself might benefit. Foremost in her thoughts was the significant circumstance that - depending upon the size of the bequest - she might not now have to marry in order to live comfortably. She would be able to support herself rather than depend on the whims of a husband.
This would be an excellent boon. Verity had no great opinion of the married state. Some of her friends seemed happy, it was true, but others appeared very little better off than when they had been living under their father’s roof. Additionally, Mama had been so much more content and their whole lives so much less proscribed since Papa had died that, apart from the finances, she could not see why matrimony should be thought desirable. That being the case, it was more important than ever to keep Charles here for a few days, to impress upon him her sobriety so she might command her own affairs sooner rather than later. She opened her mouth to observe as much when her mother gave a tiny sigh.
“It is a shame George Tweedie did not come himself. I would have liked to welcome him here.”
Verity looked at her mother, surprised. “Mr Tweedie, Mama? I was thinking Charles would be far more amenable to our notions of wresting your dowager’s pittance away from John’s control.”
“I am sure he will do so in handsome style, my dear, but I assure you George Tweedie is a most dogged man. You have only met him once or twice. I saw a great deal of him in former times. He was at school with your uncle many years ago, though he was older of course, and his family has always acted for the Harringtons. It was he who drew up my marriage articles. I remember he was so unobtrusive and thoughtful of my comfort during the process. His restful presence was one of the few blessings in what was a very turbulent period.”
Verity hid her startled reaction to this confidence. Mama had often recounted episodes from her childhood, but she’d rarely mentioned the time immediately before her marriage. It was not so very surprising, perhaps. She was in general so quiet and reflective, that the bustle of a betrothal and wedding must have been very trying to her sensibilities. Verity tried to imagine her grandparents getting up grand schemes for the entertainment of the wedding party. No, it couldn’t be done. They were all correctness and show. Their eldest son was exactly in their image, so how they had produced her loud, rumbustious Uncle James, who had always said what he thought exactly at the moment he thought it, she had no idea.
“Then we must certainly invite Mr Tweedie to visit us when he is not so busy. Oh...” She jumped up, having caught a glimpse of a visitor advancing up the dower house path. “Mama, you don’t wish to see Reverend Milsom, do you? Shall I give orders that we are not to be disturbed?”
She whisked out into the passage before her mother could answer and hissed instructions to the footman.
“There,” she said, re-entering the room. “I declare that man must have spies the length of the village. No sooner does he hear that a visitor from London has bespoke the gig from the Horseshoes than he must needs hasten up here to find out why.”
“I daresay he would not have stayed so very long,” said Mama.
“Long enough to cut up our peace.” Verity clicked her tongue against her teeth, keeping a covert eye on the window. “And now the wretched man is heading across the park to John and Selina. How long do you suppose it will be before we are favoured with a visit from them?”
“John will be about the estate at this time of the day,” said her mother peaceably. “Selina will no doubt be resting.”
“This is true. She is certainly making the most of her interesting condition. Reverend Milsom will have a wasted walk which is only what he deserves.” A small smile played around Verity’s mouth. “All the same, Mama, these constant interferences in our business are becoming somewhat wearisome. I begin to have a little idea...”
Mrs Bowman regarded her daughter with a wariness that showed she was not quite so gentle and passive as others often thought her. “Am I to know what it is?”
Verity smiled properly as the beauty of her plan unfolded in her head. “Oh yes, and I think you will like it.”
Verity might be playing a game with him, but Charles still found pleasure in escorting the two ladies through from the saloon to the small dining room. Whether the spread on the table was their normal fare, he couldn’t tell. He suspected Cook would have added a couple of dishes to cater for a gentleman’s appetite. Whatever the answer, it was a far cry from his bachelor dinners at home and he intended to do full justice to the excellent cooking.
He helped them all to portions of chicken in a butter sauce and said conversationally, “I did not know you had recently been in town.”
“We have not,” said Verity. “Why would you think so?”
“That gown did not come from Bury St Edmunds.”
She stroked the rich satin with a roguish smile. “No indeed. I had it made up in Bond Street for John and Selina’s wedding.”
Charles was taken aback. “You wore black to your brother’s wedding? That seems rather singular, even if you have little love for him.”
Verity and her mother exchanged amused glances.
“You had best explain,” said Mrs Bowman.
“Explain what?”
“You would not know the circumstances, I daresay, as you did not act for my father,” said Verity. “Unless you have been talking to Julia?”
“I frequently talk to Julia,” said Charles. “It is the fastest way to find out what is going on in town. About what, particularly?”
“John’s wedding. Oh no, I remember now, she was away at the time or we would have called.”
“Verity,” said Charles, exasperated.
She flashed an engaging smile at him. “I beg your pardon. The facts are simply that Selina, having been modestly indecisive about marriage these past two years, accepted John within moments of learning Papa had left him Kennet End Hall and the whole estate, without even Mama and I as distraints upon his purse. I promise you, Charles, within moments. In one breath she was commiserating with us prettily on our loss and saying how she couldn’t bear the thought of John’s broad shoulders having to support the burden of the estate alone, and in the next breath she was accepting the situation of loving helpmeet and arranging a mutually convenient time to visit the foremost goldsmith in Bury St Edmunds for the purpose of choosing a ring. She was then overcome with remorse at having kept John dangling for so long. It was very affecting, was it not, Mama? She fixed on an early, very quiet, wedding at St George’s, Hanover Square because our period of mourning had barely started and she did not wish to offend the sensibilities of the district. So noble of her, do you not think?”
Charles shook with laughter. “You are a wicked young woman, Verity. Your brother’s wife is a sensitive lady, I apprehend.”
“Can you doubt it?” Verity ate a couple of mouthfuls of the chicken and continued. “Clearly my provincial mourning dresses would never do to celebrate such an auspicious occasion so, as we had been invited to stay with her well-connected cousins in town, I thought it safest to visit the same modiste as Selina, and to charge my wedding finery to John’s account.”
Charles regained his composure with some difficulty. “Do remind me never to annoy you.”
She opened her eyes wide. “I was not annoyed in the least. As I explained to John, it was a compliment to my new sister-in-law, designed to show how much I trusted her taste and judgement. He must have agreed, for he didn’t argue the outlay at all.”
“You are a minx.”
“But a nicely dressed one, you have to admit.”
Charles was betrayed into another smile and didn’t even begrudge her the tiny curve of her lips in triumph at having coaxed him into a better humour. That was the other thing he had forgotten, that despite the outrageous scrapes she and Julia had required rescuing from when they were younger, Verity herself was never less than amusing to be with. The danger lay in encouraging her.
Accordingly, he turned to his hostess. “I am glad to see you in good looks, Mrs Bowman,” he said. “Forgive me, I should have mentioned it as soon as I arrived, but you basely distracted me with those excellent macaroons.”
He spoke nothing but the truth regarding Mrs Bowman’s looks, yet she was still a water-colour painting compared to Verity’s vivid oils. It was difficult to credit Mr Tweedie’s assertion earlier this week that over twenty years ago, Miss Anne Harrington had been the prettiest girl in the county and much in demand as a dance partner.
“She was as pretty as her brother was handsome,” he’d said, sitting at his desk in unaccustomed stillness with the admiral’s problematical will in this hands. “We have always had a number of clients in Suffolk, so I saw a good deal of them, being the junior partner myself in those days and thus the one to be sent whenever something needed dealing with.”
“My commiserations,” said Charles pointedly.
“It was the tragedy that changed her. You would have been too young to remember, of course.”
“I should think I was. Twenty years ago I was still in the schoolroom. What happened?”
“Long before he made Admiral, James Harrington had a friend William Lawrence. One saw them everywhere, they were up to all the rigs and rows in town. Both James and Anne were cut from a different cloth to their parents and elder brother. Anne had a tendre for Will Lawrence who was lively and witty, and as darkly dashing as the Harringtons were fair. Will and Anne had an understanding, but his prospects depended on his grandmother, so he would not declare himself in public until he had been to see the old lady to discover what she might do for them.”
“That seems most correct. Did she disapprove? Was that the tragedy?”
Mr Tweedie sighed and came back from the past. “Alas, we never knew what she would have thought. James Harrington was under orders to join his ship. Will Lawrence travelled down to Portsmouth with him, saw him safely away, then set off to visit his grandmother. He was held up by highwaymen and killed on the turnpike en route. It was a shocking thing, quite terrible. The joy went out of Anne Harrington like a... like a chandelier with all the candles snuffed at the same instant.”
Charles felt a moment of pure astonishment at his prosaic partner’s sudden incursion into poetry. “A tragedy indeed,” he said. “Were the perpetrators caught?”
“I do not believe so. Anne took it very hard. Too hard, in my opinion. Mr Bowman was a widower who had been pressing his suit with her parents. She had been keeping him at arm’s length, as she had everyone, but with Lawrence gone, she married Bowman almost at once, as if she simply couldn’t put up a fight any more. I was involved in drawing up the marriage articles for her father - principally to ensure her portion would be settled on her own children rather than those from Bowman’s previous marriage - and I never saw such a pale, wan bride. I know James Harrington considered it a shabby thing for his sister to do, so soon after Will Lawrence’s death, but there you are. He was at sea, there was no one at home to counsel her otherwise and it certainly wouldn’t have been my place to say anything. All I could do was to tie up her settlement as tightly as I knew how. From my knowledge of her, it troubled me greatly that Bowman wasn’t a warmer man, but an offer is an offer and she was under considerable pressure from her parents. Do give her my best wishes. She will always be a beautiful woman in my eyes.”
Which Charles now did, and was rewarded with a lightening of Mrs Bowman’s expression and a smiling message to take back, although he wasn’t sure he’d agree with her description of his rather fussy senior partner as a dear sweet man. He turned the talk instead to whether they had any plans to improve the dower house, now they were living there.
“Pull it down and start again?” said Verity. “This time without the cramped rooms, mean windows and high ceilings? Truly, I do think whichever of Papa’s ancestors it was who built this house, he must have nursed a truly remarkable hatred for his mother. The only nice features at all are the front bays and they were added later.”
“It is a very trying building,” murmured Mrs Bowman.
Verity put her head on one side. “Dearest Charles,” she said in a coaxing voice, “if we put our incomes together, could Mama and I afford to take a house somewhere else? There are some nice properties in Newmarket itself, towards the London road. Furze House has been free this past month, though it is somewhat run down and may need a little work. This one is so gloomy, as well as being too close to John and Selina. I am not sure I can be rational here. It simply cries out for gaiety and frivolity as an antidote to being crushed.”
Charles looked at her with horror. The prospect of Verity setting up an independent establishment, even with her mother, especially in a house that needed a little work, filled him with the liveliest unease. John Bowman might be a loud, pompous, self-important bore, but at least his presence across the park was some sort of brake on his half-sister’s wilder schemes.
The next morning, Charles gazed with wry appreciation at the array of breakfast dishes laid out for him on the sideboard. It seemed Verity wasn’t finished yet. He filled his plate and mentally braced himself for whatever the next idea was that she had in mind to spring on him.
Early morning, however, appeared to be sacrosanct as far as assaults on his better judgement were concerned. Verity made sensible, cheerful conversation whilst not troubling to hide a hearty appetite, and was ready to leave the house in half the time his sister Julia usually managed. She reminded her mother not to agree to anything John and Selina might suggest should they visit, nor to mention Uncle James’s money, and then settled herself neatly on the carriage seat opposite Charles as the coachman gave the horses the off.
“Yes?” he said.
She chuckled. “I do like an intelligent man. Such a relief after living with Papa and John all these years. Charles, I have been giving some thought to my uncle’s bequest. The wording, as you say, is awkward. Nice as it is to have you here, I daresay you would not find it very convenient to live in the dower house with us for the next six months in order to continually observe my behaviour.”
A lesser man might have shuddered. “It would be most inconvenient,” he said repressively.
She nodded with a satisfaction that increased his alarm. “I thought as much. So, I believe I have come up with a solution that will suit us both.”
He took a guarded breath. “Yes?”
She smiled at him. “Yes. In the interests of following a rational programme of which my uncle would approve, I propose that Mama and I should remove to London with you.”