Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Something was happening at Fenmore, and Ellie didn’t know what it was.
She had never lived at Fenmore without knowing exactly what was happening and when. She did not appreciate that changing.
She didn’t know how to be in this house without knowing what was happening and controlling what was happening and . . .
It had started when she had come up from the kitchens after breakfast, and the corridor of the main house was brighter than normal. Enough that it made her pause her step and change direction to investigate.
Every door was open in that corridor, and every window within every room exposed to the light. The sheets were not removed from the furniture in every room, but that didn’t matter as much. What mattered was that the rooms were open and exposed.
Why? No one was using the music room, blue room, yellow room, dining room, billiards room, ballroom, or morning room. No one had used those rooms since she had been at Fenmore, and they had only ever worried about cursory cleaning there.
Previously, they had only ever opened up the study, the mistress’s parlor, and the library, and the last had been a recent one.
Who was opening these rooms? The doors were one thing, but the windows?
Did they not realize that they would have to clean the glass more regularly than they already did if the windows were exposed to the naked eye?
And if the rooms were opened, furniture would need to be uncovered, which meant exposing a probable decade of damage and neglect to what few things remained.
And if the rooms with damaged furniture and moderately clean windows were going to be used, then fireplaces would need to be lit, which would mean that the chimneys would need to be inspected and swept first, and then more wood would be needed than the household already used.
The expenses just to be habitable were too much, but if they wanted to look better than that?
Unfathomable.
Clearly this was one of the newcomers. West or his stupid cousin Fred. Mrs. Havens would never venture to do this, knowing the amount of work that would fall to her and Ellie, not to mention Worsley, if they did so.
But why would West do this without discussing it with anyone else? There was no staff here, so who did he think was going to tend these rooms?
A screech erupted from Ellie’s throat as she stormed out of the billiards room—which had a table, miraculously, though it was still covered—and down the corridor towards the kitchens again, avoiding the hall and foyer as much as possible.
She hadn’t heard the heavy steps of the gentlemen visitors, but she would avoid any place they might linger.
The interaction with West the day before had been uncomfortable and inconvenient, but once they had begun talking with the farmers and walking through the fields, he had been far more tolerable.
He’d been silent, which was why he had been tolerable.
Well, mostly silent. He had asked a question or two for clarification while she and the farmers did most of the talking, but his questions had been intelligent and relevant, so she didn’t mind them.
It had been surprising that he’d let her control those conversations, but then again, he didn’t know his tenants, nor their particular issues with crops and harvest predictions, so it would have been foolish to have him lead.
Thank heavens he possessed some common sense.
His tenant farmers were stubborn, hardened men, and arrogance and incompetence would have been a weakness they would not soon forget.
Nor would they trust him with their cares without some significant change.
But him showing interest without naive exuberance or showmanship was well played, indeed.
What exactly he was playing now was the complete opposite of the man he had been there.
Was this something Fred had cooked up? He seemed the mischievous sort, but surely he would not do something that would cause his cousin to spend money the estate did not have.
No one was in the kitchens, so she stormed to Mrs. Havens’s office, apparently making enough noise to draw the woman up from her desk in anticipation of her arrival.
“I know,” Mrs. Havens said with a longsuffering sigh before Ellie got a single word out. “I know, I tried to express my concerns for opening that many rooms without a staff to clean them, but his lordship assured me he was going to start things slowly and just air out the rooms for now.”
Ellie snarled and dropped herself into a chair beside the desk.
“What things?” she protested. “The rooms and their airing out is one thing, but what about the floors? The ceilings? The wallpaper or the paint, for heaven’s sake!
This place has not been frozen in time where nothing ages or wears or breaks! ”
“I know, Ellie.”
There was a fatigue and a heaviness in the housekeeper’s tone, and Ellie felt a slight pang of guilt at being so direct in her complaints.
It wasn’t a criticism on the woman before her, of course.
Mrs. Havens could not make these sorts of decisions for the house with Lord Bickham in residence, so she was simply left to put forth her best effort to fulfill her master’s requests with the resources at hand.
Never mind that it was an impossible request, given their resources.
Or the lack thereof, more like.
“What is he planning?” Ellie ground out, not even certain Mrs. Havens would know. “He has eyes, hasn’t he? He can see the state of this place?”
Mrs. Havens quirked a smile, however brief. “I trust he can, yes.”
“And I know he has not come to me to ask how we have been running this place in his brother’s absence,” Ellie went on. “Has he asked you?”
Mrs. Havens shook her head. “Only the most cursory of conversations.”
Ellie nodded once. “So he is simply doing as he likes without any consideration for the rest of us.”
“Well, I don’t—”
“He is taking up as lord of the manor and expects you and Worsley to manage everything,” she continued.
“He cannot make demands of me, as I am not employed here, yet I feel certain he will expect me to assist the two of you simply because I have been living here in this state and settling into the village in some semblance of a life. I trust I will be sent packing the moment my convenience wears out.”
Mrs. Havens paled before clearing her throat. “Don’t say that.”
Ellie gave her a hard look. “I will, Mrs. Havens. I am a young, unmarried woman, as far as he knows, and my living here is a scandal. So my days are numbered.”
“He is hiring a cook and a gamekeeper,” Mrs. Havens told her, her hands needling together in her lap. “The Fulton girl and her new husband.”
“A gamekeeper?” Ellie repeated. “For what game? The poachers have cleared us out.”
“I didn’t ask.” Mrs. Havens managed a laugh. “I think it was in order to get them both here on the estate and settled in the gamekeeper’s cottage.”
Ellie snorted softly. “Which is in no fit state for anyone, let alone newlyweds.”
“That, he does know,” Mrs. Havens assured her. “And he will inform the Andrewses of that fact. They will be given funds to see it properly made up for them.”
Oh, would they, now?
Ellie felt one of her brows rise in a slow, suspicious ascent. “And is he planning on such funds for those of us living here at Fenmore?”
The housekeeper gave her a scolding look, though it was rife with amusement. “Ellie . . .”
“I am only asking,” she protested with a wry smirk. “We would love to have better mattresses, easily accessible water, and a larder that is actually stocked.”
“And comfortable places to sit in the rooms we actually use,” Mrs. Havens grumbled.
Ellie grinned brightly and pointed at her friend and mentor in delight. “Yes! I knew you were hiding some nettles in there.”
Mrs. Havens flushed and averted her eyes quickly. “Oh, hush.”
Letting her humor fade, Ellie groaned and looked up at the ceiling, frowning at another crack in the plaster above her. Just one more sign of the many, many items that would need to be repaired at Fenmore before it became anything that the precious Lord Bickham would be proud of.
He was a second son, so he could not possibly have an extensive fortune.
Leonard spent more money than he ever saved or invested, so she highly doubted that West would have inherited much by way of funds in that regard.
Whatever inheritance had remained from the passing of their father and whatever income he possessed from his own occupation would be all that West could claim.
None of this was actually Ellie’s business, she supposed. Not anymore. If West wished to drive the estate into debt, something not even Leonard had managed to do, then so be it.
She would simply get out of here sooner and write off her extensive efforts as a lesson.
She could succeed in the way she wished if only given a chance.
“Do you know where I might find his illustrious lordship this morning?” Ellie asked of the housekeeper. “I would like to question his actions.”
“Don’t provoke him, Ellie,” Mrs. Havens warned.
“Why not?” she shot back. “What is the worst he could do that does not already await me?”
Mrs. Havens had no response for that, and simply patted her still-dark hair as though ascertaining if all was still in place there.
It was, of course, and she only sniffed. “He should be in the study now. Unless he and Master Fred are in the library.”
“I did not see them there before,” Ellie mused in thought.
Mrs. Havens gave her a flat look. “Did you go into those rooms? Or did you pass them without knocking because all the other rooms distracted you?”
Ellie pushed to her feet, ignoring that accurate barb. “Thank you for your assistance, Mrs. Havens. I will see you this afternoon when we clean the library.”
She slipped from the room to the sound of Mrs. Havens chuckling at her evasion of the answer.