Dear Lady Disdain. Paula Marshall
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two months ago, his pockets well-lined with all he’d stolen from the estate. But Lady Emily wouldn’t hear a word against him. Wandering in her mind, she was. I wrote to Lawyer Grimes, but by chance the letter went astray.’
Matt could only suppose that it had. He didn’t suspect Grimes of wrongdoing, only carelessness about matters taking place so far from London. He heard Jeb giving suppressed snorts of laughter as they entered the derelict house of which Matt had talked with such enthusiasm on the way north. It was plain that Lady Emily must have fallen into her dotage unable to control her life, for Horrocks’ lantern showed the entrance hall to be dank and cold, the statuary and furniture covered in filthy dust-sheets, the chandeliers empty of candles, the smell of must and mould everywhere. And the whole house was the same. There was a scuttle of rats in the wainscoting of an unheated drawing-room which Matt remembered as full of warmth and light and love.
His aunt had died earlier in the year in her late seventies, and, by what Horrocks had said, having been pillaged by her agent. Her mind wandering, she had seen Pontisford as it had been, and not as it was.
‘Turned nearly all the servants away, didn’t he?’ quavered Horrocks. ‘Only left enough to keep m’lady fed and bedded. Short commons, we was on, while he lived in comfort in his cottage with his doxy—you remember miller’s Nell, Master Matt?’
Yes, Master Matt remembered miller’s Nell. She had educated him in the coarser arts of love the year he had reached fifteen, on the edge of the park not far from the ford in the Pont from which the Hall and village took its name. He shook his head, avoided Jeb’s eye, and asked to go to the kitchen. Which was, as he had expected, the only warm room in the house.
The cook, a blowsy fat woman, stared coldly at him, bobbed an unwilling curtsy when told who he was, and grudgingly hung the big cauldron, which he remembered from his childhood visits, above the fire to make them tea. Bread was fetched from a cupboard, and a side of salt beef from which she carved coarse chunks of meat to fling at them on cracked plates. It was all as different from Matt’s memories as anything could be.
A thin-faced serving-girl peered at them before being bade to ‘Take the master’s food into the drawing-room as was proper’.
Jeb finally broke at this point, spluttering with laughter, and said, ‘By God, she’d better not do any such thing. I’ve no mind to freeze to death while sharing my meal with the rats.’
Matt would have joined in his laughter except for the agonised expression on Horrocks’ face—he shamedly remembering other, better days.
‘Right, Jeb, we’ll eat before the fire. At least this room is warm.’
The kitchen door was flung open and a hard-faced woman bounced in. ‘What’s going on in here, Cook? Entertaining chance-met strangers, are we? Not in my house.’
It was Matt’s turn to break. Bereft of his childhood’s dreams, unknown in the house where he had been known and loved, he said as coldly as he could, ‘Your house, madam? You are, then, Lady Emily Falconer?’
The woman drew herself up. ‘I was the late Lady Emily’s housekeeper, I’ll have you know, and as such it is my duty to see that the servants here do their duty. I’ll thank you to leave.’
Matt walked to the window to pull back the ragged curtain and reveal the snow falling relentlessly outside, ‘No, madam. It is you who must leave. Were it not for the weather I should turn you out this instant, for it is all you deserve if you say that you are responsible for the state which the Hall is in. I am Matthew Falconer, Lord Radley, and my aunt has left me this house and her estate.’
He was aware of Jeb staring at him, jaw dropped, aware that he had never sounded more like his stern and detested father, and that, for the first time, he had laid claim to the title which he had vowed he would never assume.
The woman before him clapped her hands to her mouth. ‘M’lord, if I had known who you were…’
‘You had no need to know,’ Matt returned savagely. ‘On such a night as this it was Lady Emily’s habit to care for any lonely travellers who might need shelter. The fact that I am your master is neither here nor there. You will see, at once, that beds are prepared for Mr Priestley and myself, and a fire will be lit in the drawing-room and candles provided, and if there are any able-bodied men about they will begin to clear out the rats which have invaded the house. You will work until the weather allows you to leave, madam, taking your wages for the present quarter with you. See to it.’
He had turned his back on her as she’d run to do his bidding, but as he was saying now to Jeb, two days later, ‘It is of no use. Cut off by the snow as we are, with only one half-witted boy besides Horrocks and the cook, and two young girls as maids, and little in the way of food and means to make fires and warm the place…’ He shrugged. ‘There is little that can be done to improve the condition of Pontisford Hall. It needs time and an army of workers, and I have no mind to organise it. Sell up and go back to Virginia, I say.’
The shivering Jeb nodded agreement. They were huddled over the drawing-room fire, with two small tallow candles to give them light, wax ones being unknown at Pontisford. Matt had insisted on using the room for part of the day, carrying wood and coals through himself to light the fire to ease the burden on Horrocks and the half-witted boy, Jake.
‘We shall leave when the snowstorm stops, and I shall put the Runners on the track of that damned agent, and see him swing before I leave England.’
Jeb said, his teeth chattering, ‘And then you can turn back into cheerful Matt Falconer again. I can’t say I care much for Lord Radley.’
‘Nor do I,’ returned Matt. He walked restlessly to the window to look out at the grim scene. The snowstorm had abated and the moonlight showed a white and icy world. ‘I’m sorry for anyone out on a night like this…’ And then, ‘What the devil’s that?’ For someone was beating a tattoo on the big front door and shouting above the noise of the gale.
He seized the second candle, said, ‘I’ll go. Poor old Horrocks will take an age to answer the door and the poor devils outside will be dead of cold before he gets there. You stay here and try to warm yourself.’ He crossed the dim entrance hall, shouting, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ as the knocking redoubled, and then as those outside found the bell it began pealing vigorously—as Horrocks said in the kitchen,
‘Enough to wake the dead.’
Afterwards Stacy could hardly remember how her small party had made its way from the fallen coach to Pontisford Hall. One horse was dead, and another, which Hal and John released from its traces, escaped from their numbed hands and bolted into the distance.
They were more careful with the other two, and they and the recovered postilion put John and Louisa, now barely conscious, on the third horse, and Hall, with the injured Polly riding precariously sideways behind him, on the fourth. Stacy, oblivious to Polly’s wails that it wasn’t fitting for her to walk, helped the postilion to lead them along the lane and up the winding drive to the Hall, trying to avoid ditches and other obstacles, unseen because of the blanket of snow.
Fortunately the snowstorm was gradually abating and a wintry moon came out, which seemed to make the cold worse. None of the party was dressed to be outdoors in such cruel weather. John had put a horse-blanket around Louisa and had covered Stacy with the blanket from the box, which, even if it smelled dreadfully of horse, gave her a little warmth.
The one thing which kept Stacy on her feet and walking was what awaited her at journey’s end. A warm house, a comfortable bed, food and succour, perhaps even some inspiriting conversation after the trivialities of the past few days. The very notion made her blood course more rapidly, kept her head high and her spirits from flagging.
Hal slid off his horse as they reached the steps leading up to the entrance of the Hall, which the moon had already revealed to be a massive and brilliant structure, built in the Palladian style. It was a smaller version of the Duke of Devonshire’s villa at Chiswick, although by now Stacy was incapable of registering such architectural niceties.
She