The gloomy silence was broken by the arrival of young Jem, whistling cheerily. ‘Good day! Is there anything you'd like me to do, Miss? Ma’s sent the eggs you wanted, and Pa thought you might like a look at the Lunnon paper, it got left behind yesterday at the inn.’
Donna pulled herself together with a little shake, thanked Jem for the eggs and paper and hustled him outside to sweep all the paths around the house.
Drearily Antonia unfolded the news sheet which proved to be The Times. For want of anything better to do, she began to scan the advertisements. Young men of good character required posts as secretaries (political gentlemen preferred), any number of aliments would be infallibly cured by one patent medicine after another and drapers offered sharp prices on Irish linens.
Then two notices next to each other caught her eye and she read the advertisement aloud. ‘To be let for six or twelve months certain, a genteel FAMILY HOUSE, handsomely furnished…’ said one and then, ‘A GENTLEMAN, late returned from the East Indies, seeks to LEASE a small country estate within fifty miles of the Capital, comprising both UNFURNISHED HOUSE and PLEASURE GROUNDS. Apply to Rumbold and Gardiner, Solicitors…’
Antonia laid the paper aside with a sigh. That would be one solution, if only she could bear to see strangers at Rye End Hall. Or, of course, if it were in any condition to be leased. If they had anywhere else to live. What had she said to Donna about wishes and horses?
Donna reappeared from the garden, a smile on her face. ‘That Jem is such a good, willing boy. Show him any task and he sets to with a will. Is there anything of interest in the paper, my dear?’
‘I have not yet looked at the news, I was simply running my eye over the advertisements. Listen to this one.’ She read aloud the item concerning the country house required for lease.
‘But that is the very solution to our problem.’ Donna reached for the paper. ‘If you let the house, it would remain in your possession and the rental would allow you to have the repairs done and the grounds set to order.’ She talked on, warming to her theme and Antonia began to feel a flicker of hope. ‘If it were a repairing lease, it would free you from those costs and you could set the fences and land and the tenants’ cottages in order. Then there would be a steady income from those lands as well.’
Perversely, as Donna’s enthusiasm waxed, Antonia’s waned and she began to see disadvantages. ‘How would it appear if I let the house? It would be a clear indication of my poverty. And to see strangers in my home would be so painful. And all the repairs to be done, and the grounds in such disorder – who would look at it?’ And,’ she added, ‘where would we live?’
Donna opened her mouth and then turned to stare at the back door. Jem’s voice could be heard plaintively protesting, ‘But, Your Grace, I’d best tell the mistress you’re here. She won’t like it if – ’
‘l will announce myself.’ Marcus Renshaw stalked into the kitchen past the boy, followed closely by his head keeper, Sparrow, who was dragging a man by the collar.
Antonia found she was on her feet. ‘Your Grace, what is the meaning of this intrusion?’
‘l do apologise for disturbing you in your…’ he cast a cold eye around the homely kitchen, ‘…living room. But I regret it is necessary to deal with this matter immediately.’
He gestured to Sparrow, who pushed his captive forward roughly. ‘This, I believe, is one of your tenants.’
Antonia stepped forward. The man had a bloody nose and the beginnings of a black eye, but she recognised him. ‘Indeed, it is Josiah Wilkins from the cottages at Brook End. Josiah, what has happened to you? Has this person struck you?’
She turned on the gamekeeper, the one who had so impudently manhandled her. ‘You. How dare you come on to my land and assault my tenants?’
‘Sparrow was on my land, Miss Dane, and about the duties for which I pay him.’ The Duke was grim-faced, not yielding an inch.
Antonia turned a contemptuous shoulder on both master and man and spoke to her tenant as calmly as she could. ‘Tell me what occurred, Josiah, and how you came by your injury.’
‘Well, Miss, it was like this,’ he began readily enough, although with a wary eye on the keeper. ‘I was shooting pigeons, like what you said we might, and I got a brace, too, but they came down the wrong side of the brook. I didn’t have my old dog with me, see, so I waded across to pick ’em up and this bullying varmint jumped on me.’
‘You watch your language. I’ve got the measure of you, Josiah Wilkins,’ Sparrow threatened. ‘Who’s to say where you shot those birds? I don’t believe a word of it, Your Grace. All these Wilkinses are a parcel of idle rogues.’
‘Hold your tongue, man,’ Antonia snapped. She remembered with a shudder the keeper’s insinuating touch on her arm. ‘Speak when you are spoken to in my house.’
Sparrow threw her a darkling look and slouched back into the shadows.
‘You may not welcome our intrusion, Miss Dane, but I am sure you will agree that I have every right to detain a poacher, and the man is condemned out of his own mouth.’
‘l agree, you do have every right to apprehend a poacher, Your Grace. However, this man is not a poacher. He was shooting my game, on my land and with my permission. And forgive me, for I imagine my knowledge of the law is not as extensive as yours, but I know he was within his rights to retrieve the birds from your land providing he did no damage.’
‘What nonsense is this?’
‘Kindly moderate your tone, Your Grace.’ She was clearly throwing oil on the flames, but she did not care. ‘All my tenants have my permission to shoot, trap and fish over my land. In the absence of crops in my fields, I harvest whatever my land yields for the benefit of both myself and my people. You were the one who told me to look to my starving tenants, after all.’
Donna was talking in the doorway to Jem. ‘Help Mr Wilkins. See that he gets home safely, please, Jem. And see if you can find his pigeons, will you?’ she added, with a vituperative glance at Sparrow.
‘Sparrow, leave us,’ Marcus, ordered, apparently from between clenched teeth.
As the man closed the kitchen door behind him, Antonia remarked conversationally, ‘I presume, Your Grace, that you will be placing that man on a charge of common assault for breaking Wilkins’ nose?’
‘Do not try my patience further, Antonia. This is madness. Are you so penurious that you must give every ne’er-do-well in the county licence to poach on your lands?’
‘My hard-working and deserving tenants are merely harvesting the land, as I have explained. They are not responsible for my father’s recklessness, but they have to suffer the consequences. I do what little I can to mitigate their poverty.’
‘And your own,’ he added quietly. 'I do not understand your stubbornness, Antonia. I have made you an honest proposal to buy, and I would offer you a fair price – and for the house as well, if you would accept it. It would allow you to return to London and to live as a gentlewoman should. Not like this.’ His scornful gaze once more swept the bare flagged floor, the scrubbed deal table with the shabby chairs drawn up to it.
‘Are you suggesting that this household is anything less than respectable, Your Grace?’ Donna had re-entered the kitchen unobserved and Antonia could have smiled as her small figure bristled with indignation at the insult.
‘Forgive me, Miss Donaldson,’ he said with a satirical twist to his lips. ‘I have no doubt that the moral tone of this establishment is as a nunnery. However, it strikes me that Miss Dane might have a better chance of catching herself a husband were she in London.’
Antonia had, for the most fleeting of moments, allowed herself to indulge in thoughts of the pleasures of living in Town: shopping in Bond Street, driving in the Park, congenial evenings at Almack’s where she could dance the night away, her card full. But Marcus’s remarks about her lack of success in the Marriage Mart was as good as a pail of cold water over her head.
‘Catch myself a husband?’ She pulled herself up to her full height and glared at him. ‘Let me assure you, Your Grace, that a husband is something I regret the lack of not one whit.’
Marcus was also stirred by some emotion or another, it seemed. ‘Take it from a disinterested observer, ma’am, in your case a husband would be a most desirable thing. Very well, then, you have made your hard bed, so lie upon it. Perhaps after a country winter, you will apply a more reasoned judgement to my offer.’ He paused to pull on his gloves. ‘I can wait.’
‘Then you will wait a long time, Your Grace. For I intend to lease this house and grounds forthwith to a most respectable tenant.’
‘Indeed?’ Marcus’s dark brows drew together. ‘And supposing you find a person deluded enough to take on this ramshackle estate, where do you intend to live?’
Antonia hesitated, at a loss. He had provoked her into a wild statement of defiance and now she had no answer to his very pertinent question.
‘Why, in the Dower House, of course,’ said Donna calmly, from the shadows.
Marcus’s laugh rang round the kitchen. ‘A neat device, ladies. I must congratulate you upon your optimism.’
‘Optimism?’ Antonia repeated with a calm that masked an urge to throw crockery. ‘Why describe a perfectly practical solution so dismissively, Marcus? Or do you wish me gone from here so much?’ She realised, as soon as the words were out, that she wanted to know the answer to that latter question very badly indeed.
‘Your whereabouts, Antonia, are of little concern to me, provided that you are not inciting your tenants to lawlessness as this episode would suggest.’ Marcus smiled thinly. ‘I shall watch with interest your attempts to gull some Cit into taking on this liability of a house. I wish you good day, ladies.’ He nodded curtly to them both and stalked out.
As the door closed behind him, Antonia clutched the edge of the table to support her shaking legs. That had been exceedingly disturbing and Marcus Renshaw was having the most appalling effect on her equilibrium. She wanted him to like her, to support her efforts to keep her family estates together despite overwhelming odds. She wanted him, full stop. Oh dear.
And he was so inexplicably hostile. She could only conclude that he disliked her – which, she was honest enough to realise, was a disappointment – but that he wanted her lands badly enough to maintain the connection.
‘Well, that was a nasty show of temper,’ Donna remarked as she tidied away the tea things. ‘But I suppose we should be thankful for it because it provoked me into thinking of a solution. Do you truly think it is feasible for us to move to the Dower House?’
‘I thought that was just something you said upon the spur of the moment to irk the Duke, Donna. Were you truly serious?’
‘Yes, I was. I do believe we could live most comfortably there, for from what you told me it is just of a size for the two of us. However, it grieves me to admit it,’ she added with a wry smile, ‘but the Duke is quite correct about this house. How are we to lease it in its present state of repair? We have just agreed we do not have the resources to make it habitable.’
Antonia got to her feet and began to pace up and down the flagged floor, her under-lip caught between her teeth. Where indeed were they to find the money? She passed her small income and the few pieces of jewellery she had inherited under review. Even with Donna’s tiny pension it would not do. There was only one option. It came hard, and the example of her late father, a man ruined by debt, was hard to ignore, but she had little choice.
She took a deep breath. ‘l shall borrow the money. I can put the estate up for security and repay the loan from the rent.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Donna’s brow creased. ‘Debt makes me so nervous. Only consider your late parent’s predicament and what it cost you to retrieve it.’
Antonia remembered only too well the awful moment when their man of law had explained how little remained of the previously substantial family fortune once Sir Humphrey’s debts had been cleared. But she had little alternative other than to borrow.
She leaned across the table and explained, desperate to convince Donna, and herself as well. ‘But this is different. Father borrowed with no intention of repaying the money, unless by gaming. I do not intend to continue borrowing beyond this one contingency. Look on it as an investment, one which should soon realise a return. Pass me Pigot’s Directory and we’ll see which banks there are in Berkhamsted to which I may apply.’
They scanned the commercial directory together. ‘There is only one,’ Donna said, running her finger down the column. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you went into Aylesbury.’
‘But look, it says here that this bank is an agent for Praed and Company in London. Nothing could be better, because I know they act for Great Aunt Honoria, so they must be substantial and safe.’
‘You do not intend to deal directly with the bank, I hope. That would be most unseemly. We may have come to a pretty pass, but for a young lady of breeding to enter a place of finance is unthinkable. You will be writing to your man of business, will you not?’
‘No. That would cause a delay we can ill afford. I shall go the day after tomorrow,’ Antonia said, decisive now she had made up her mind. ‘I shall write now to the manager and make an appointment. Jem can take the letter.’
‘Very well, my dear, if you insist, but I cannot like it. However, needs must. We shall attend to your wardrobe. If you go into town with your kid gloves in the state they are at present, our poverty will be only too evident to all.’
The kid gloves, after much sponging and brushing, were all a lady could desire. Antonia stood on the steps of the Undercroft Bank wishing her courage were as easily restored, because despite her brave words to Donna she was feeling decidedly apprehensive. It was simply not done for ladies of quality to deal with matters of business, and she had neither knowledge nor experience of such proceedings.
Through the discreet veil which Donna had insisted on attaching to her bonnet, she stared at the burnished brass plate that gleamed brightly despite the dullness of the day. Agents for Praed’s Bank. James Pethybridge, Manager. Antonia stepped down again and took a few delaying paces along the pavement, glad of its height above the roadway which was muddy from the day’s light drizzle. Even the dismal weather conspired against her courage today, it seemed.
Perhaps she ought to walk along to the King’s Arms and order a cup of coffee in a private parlour. Even as she hesitated, the church tower clock chimed close by. Eleven o'clock, the hour set for her appointment in Mr Pethybridge's reply. Antonia swallowed hard and raised her hand to the door.
The clerk ushered her into the banker’s inner sanctum with due deference but with a sideways glance that betrayed his surprise at finding her unaccompanied. As she shook hands and sat down, Antonia was relieved to see only a look of polite enquiry on the banker’s face. She had been fearing outright rejection, if not incredulity at the thought of a woman carrying out her own business negotiations.
Donna assiduous work on her walking dress and frogged jacket had obviously passed muster, and the addition of a new ostrich plume to her bonnet had transformed its appearance. She smoothed down the garnet-red cloth of her skirts and smiled back at the banker with a confidence she was far from feeling.
Mr Pethybridge was an amiable-looking gentleman in his early fifties, rotund and greying. His avuncular manner encouraged Antonia as she began to explain her circumstances and the nature of her request, becoming more confident and persuasive as she spoke.
Twenty minutes later, having completely flattened both her optimism and spirits, he ushered her out into the main office.
‘I do hope you appreciate the force of my arguments, Miss Dane,’ he said fluently, with the air of a man long practised in turning down ill-considered requests for advances. ‘It would be most unwise for a young lady, circumstanced as you are, to enter into such an arrangement. Indeed, it would be most irresponsible of me to encourage you to take on such a debt at this time.’
He broke off as he became aware that another visitor was speaking to his clerk. ‘I do beg your pardon, Miss Dane.’ Mr Pethybridge was flushed, presumably with embarrassment at having been caught discussing her business in the presence of another client. ‘Allow me to see you out.’ He ushered her towards the door, bowing deferentially as he passed the newcomer. 'Good morning, Your Grace, I shall be with you directly.’