An Unusual Bequest. Mary Nichols
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was an ancient house, with irregular rooms, uneven floors, heavy old furniture that had been in its place for generations. Some rooms, like the late Lady Hobart’s boudoir, and the drawing room, had been decorated in the modern fashion with light, stylish furniture and colourful drapes, but much of the rest predated the Civil War. But she loved it, old and new. She loved its huge fireplaces, commodious cupboards and chests, its long deep windows overlooking the gardens, impeccably kept and bordered by pine woods on one side and the cliffs and the North Sea on the other. She did not want to leave it.
Old Lord Hobart had been confined to his bedchamber for the past two years, but, even so, the house seemed empty without him. His presence had always filled it, even when he was not actively engaged in the running of it. He had been a big, much loved man, especially by Charlotte and her daughters, but the servants, too, had admired and respected him. He had been a stern employer, but a fair one, and because Charlotte had his unswerving confidence and support, they had obeyed her as if it were the master of the house himself who had issued the orders. Charlotte did not expect anything to change in that respect, not until the new master arrived and took over. After that, she did not know what would happen. The Reverend had not said anything that had not already crossed her mind.
Cecil Hobart was the son of his lordship’s second marriage and several years younger than Grenville. She had met him once or twice when she and Grenville had first been married, but the brothers did not get on well together and Cecil spent most of his time in lodgings in London and only came to Easterley Manor when he needed funds. She had not been present in the room the last time he had visited, but she had heard the angry words even through thick closed doors. Afterwards Lord Hobart had sent his younger son not only from his house, but from the country.
‘Ten thousand, he owed,’ Grenville had told her later. ‘And not a hope of recouping. Father threatened to let him stew in his own juice, but of course he could not do that. He has paid his debts and undertaken to make him a reasonable allowance, so long as he stays in India.’
‘For the rest of his life?’ she had asked.
‘One must suppose so, unless he can produce evidence he is a reformed character, but I cannot see that happening.’
‘What will happen when your father…when his lordship dies?’
‘Then, my dear, the responsibility will rest with me. I shall do whatever my father asks me to do.’
Nothing more had been said, but how was he to know, how was anyone to know, that Grenville would decide to go off on that ill-fated mission to Spain in 1809 and get himself killed alongside General Moore at Corunna? Charlotte, mother of two daughters, Elizabeth, then three years old and Frances, fourteen months, had begged him not to go, that as his father’s heir he need not, but Grenville had a strong sense of duty and adventure and seemed convinced of his indestructibility. ‘General Moore needs experienced officers,’ he had said. ‘The Spaniards are brave men but ill disciplined and against Napoleon won’t stand a chance without our help. I could not refuse to go. We shall be home again in no time.’
She could not dissuade him and he had set off full of hope and enthusiasm, never to return. Lord Hobart had taken the loss of his son and heir very badly and, though they had comforted each other, it had been the beginning of his downhill slide into senility.
The girls, hearing her mother’s visitor leaving, had come along the hall from the kitchen where Cook had been trying to cheer them up with sugar plums. They came each side of her and put their arms about her waist.
‘Come, girls, tea in the nursery, I think,’ she told them. ‘It is peaceful up there and will give the servants the opportunity to tidy up after our visitors. Then we will play a game of cross-questions before bedtime.’
‘Will we never see Grandpapa again?’ Fanny asked ‘Never ever?’
Charlotte looked down at her, wondering how to answer. A blunt ‘never’ might be accurate, but would only add to the child’s grief. While she paused, Lizzie answered for her. ‘Course not, he’s been put in the ground, but Miss Quinn says he won’t stay there but go to heaven and we may see him again when we go there ourselves.’ She gave a huge sigh. ‘But she said it would be years and years and by then we will be old ourselves.’
Charlotte hugged them both, these daughters who were so dear to her and the only legacy her husband had left her. There was a tiny annuity that had been settled on her as part of the marriage contract, but as the late Lord Hobart had paid all her bills, most of that had been spent on helping the poor among the villagers. Unless the new Lord Hobart saw fit to give her and her daughters a home and continue as his father had done, they would be in dire straits.
Lord Hobart had not expected to lose his heir, nor his wits, and his will had been made years before when Grenville was alive and Cecil out of favour. The house and estate would go to his elder son, who would tend it and care for it and make it pay just as he had done and his father before him. Cecil had, according to his lordship, already been given all that was due to him when his gambling debts were paid and his allowance fixed upon. The old man had been far more interested in his grandchildren, those already born and those yet to come and all unentailed funds had been left in trust for them, to be administered by trustees. It was an unusual bequest and Charlotte wondered how it would stand up in law, but she had no wish to try to overturn it. It provided for her daughters’ dowries and that was all that concerned her. But Grenville had predeceased his half-brother and the Manor now belonged to Cecil.
Mother and daughters mounted the carved oak staircase which rose from the middle of the tiled hall and then up another set of stairs to the second-floor nursery suite and schoolroom where Joan Quinn held sway over her charges. She was waiting for them, her stern, upright bearing belying the loving feelings she had for the two little girls. ‘Has everyone gone, my lady?’ she asked Charlotte.
‘Yes, Quinny, it is all over and now we must try to return to normal.’
‘Of course. Tea has been brought up. Will you stay and have some with us?’
‘Yes, and I promised the girls a game before bedtime. Tomorrow, we will do whatever we usually do on a Thursday.’
They sat round the nursery table and ate bread and butter, muffins and honey cakes, washed down with weak tea. After five days of being unable to eat properly, Charlotte suddenly found that she was hungry and the simple meal was exactly what she needed. She sipped her tea and surveyed her daughters. They had been broken-hearted by the death of their grandfather, who had always managed to talk to them on their own level and thought up interesting and informative games for them, who had taught them the names of the wild flowers that grew in the park and woods, took them scavenging on the beach and showed them the course of his military campaigns on a map. He had been a great soldier in his day, just as their father had been.
Lizzie was raven haired like her father, with brown eyes so like his that Charlotte was sometimes taken aback when she saw in them the intelligence and pride and refusal to be beaten that had been so characteristic of him. Fanny was softer, more rounded; her hair was paler than her sister’s and her complexion pinker. She was the more sensitive of the two and found it hard to accept that Grandpa was not in his room dozing, as he had done so often of late.
‘Do you think the new Lord Hobart will come?’ Miss Quinn asked Charlotte. She had been Charlotte’s governess when she was a child and, when she grew too old to need one, had stayed with her as her maid. Now she fulfilled both functions.
‘New Lord Hobart?’ queried Lizzie. ‘What do you mean? Who is he?’
Miss Quinn looked at Charlotte without speaking. ‘He is your Uncle Cecil,’ Charlotte answered for her. ‘I expect he will be coming soon to take Grandpapa’s place…’
‘No, no,’ Lizzie cried. ‘I don’t want him to. I don’t want anyone in Grandpa’s place.’
‘Nevertheless, he will come because he owns the house and the estate now and we will make him welcome.’
‘Well, I shan’t. I shall hate him.’
‘Why?