Chapter Forty-Three
The estate agent, a stocky, middle-aged countryman named Brummage, opened up the Dower House for them the following day, since the Countess had no idea where her husband kept his set of the keys.
For a house that had been shut since the death of the Dowager some ten years before, they found it in surprisingly good order.
The walls showed no sign of damp, and the furniture, all shrouded in holland covers, appeared to be in good condition.
The rugs had been rolled up in canvas and there were no obvious mouse nests or dead birds in the empty fireplaces.
When they commented on that, Brummage said, “Well, my lady, my lord, I’ve taken it upon meself to have it looked over a couple o’ times a year, when the men aren’t over busy — after the harvest and spring planting as a rule.
A house do go to ruin if you don’t look after it.
Specially the damp. That’s yer main culprit.
I gets ’em up on the roof to replace tiles if necessary.
But it’s a well-built old place and we don’t have much trouble.
You just tell me when you’ll be wanting to move in, my lady, and we’ll have good fires going in all the rooms to get it ready for you. ”
“Thank you, Brummage,” said the Countess, “It has always been a comfortable place. I remember my dear mother-in-law being very cozy here.”
“But what about your lordship?” said the agent. “With the Park let, where will you live? We’ve nothing suitable on the estate.”
“That isn’t a problem. I plan on living in quite another location. I shall, however, visit you regularly to see how things are going on. Come to see me at The Park after dinner. We have much to discuss.”
“How funny to hear you calling luncheon dinner, Andrew,” said his sister-in-law later. “One can tell you have been living amongst country folk.”
“I suppose it is,” he replied. “But it is the main meal of the day. I don’t know why we all don’t do it that way.
Going to bed at all hours after consuming a heavy meal can’t be good for your digestion.
When I think of the dinners I’ve eaten over the years that didn’t end until eleven or later, then tossing and turning in bed trying to sleep.
Finally going off at just before dawn and sleeping until almost midday.
What a fearful waste of time! These days, I go to bed not long after it gets dark and wake up when the sun does. It’s amazing what you can get done!”
Dottie laughed. “Richard would have thought you were mad! We do keep earlier hours in the country, but I know when he was in London, he was never up and about before eleven in the morning at the earliest. Of course, he didn’t actually do anything.
No one of the ton does. It does seem a useless sort of life, now that I think about it. ”
“Yes, I couldn’t go back to it,” said Andrew. “Thankfully, I don’t have to.”
The discussions with the estate agent went on all afternoon, but neither of them was sorry.
Andrew had only met Brummage a couple of times over the years, but had formed a good opinion of the man.
He had brought the plans of the estate with him from Parsons’ office and spread them out on the library table.
“You are aware that my brother left many debts,” he said.
“To settle them, we have to retrench. I must sell the unentailed portion of the estate, here, here, and here.” He traced the area on the map with his finger.
“The best would be if I could sell it to neighbors. They will know how to care for it better than any stranger. Can you find out if any of them are interested?”
“Well now, sir,” replied Brummage. “I reckon there’s more than one as would be glad to buy, ’specially them that’s bought the new steam pumps.
I’ll ask around, quiet like, but there’s not many as hasn’t suspicioned that his lordship was in a bad way.
You don’t have many secrets in a place like this. ”
“I can well imagine. But tell me about these pumps.”
“Well, sir,” said Brummage, “you know that years ago, farmers began draining the Fens by just cutting channels so the water under the peat would flow into the rivers. But what nobody didn’t think of was, you dry out the peat, the land sinks.
The channels ended up lower than the river banks and the water didn’t flow out no more.
So then they went to pumps driven by windmills.
You remember they was everywhere when you were a lad, and heaven help us, that’s what we’ve still got on the Doncaster lands.
But they don’t keep up with the water and the fields still flood every year, as you know.
Folks with the blunt have bought them Cornish Engines made by Richard Trevithick.
They’re a wonder! I tried to persuade his late lordship, God rest his soul, to get one, but he always said ‘maybe next year.’ They do cost, and that’s a fact. As much as a thousand pound, I hear.”
“Can they be moved from place to place?”
“Yes, I b’lieve so, sir. ’Course, you’d need a team and four men minimum.”
“Do you think there’s anyone who’d go in with us, if we could raise ￡500?”
Brummage’s face lit up as he understood what his employer was driving at, “You mean, share one, like?”
“Yes. At least, in the beginning. That is, if you think the revenue from the land could cover the cost.”
“Well, prices is down since the wars is ended. I hate to say it, but those wars with the Frenchies were a good thing for us farmers. Some folks made a tidy package. Not so good for the soldiers, o’ course, poor souls.
I don’t rightly know about the money side of the pumps.
Folks keep their mouths shut. You can plant earlier, that I do know.
But now and then I hear one or t’other of them after a few jars down the alehouse, saying as how the pumps has been a gold mine.
You remember Smithers?” Andrew nodded. The family had been in the area as long as the Doncasters had.
Until having to go off to Eton, he remembered collecting chestnuts in the autumn with the oldest son of the family.
They and the other village boys would engage in fearsome conker battles.
“Well, he put a pump in two year ago and he’s bought himself a new gig, and my wife claims his old lady has a new bonnet every other Sunday.
Exaggeratin’, o’ course, but there’s got to be a mite o’ truth in it. ”
Andrew thought about the money he had earned from his portraits.
He could just about come up with five hundred if he took the rest from his inheritance.
It would clean him out and he’d have to go back to painting over the winter.
He didn’t want to be away from Cynthia, but needs must when the devil drove.
“Right,” he said. “You have a nose around, Brummage. See who might want to buy that acreage. I’ll talk to some of the neighbors about Trevithick’s pump. The sooner I can get this arranged, the sooner I can get back to… get back home.”
Like Mr. Parsons, Brummage noticed he didn’t mean Doncaster Park House.