Chapter Nineteen
G ran had progressed to feeding herself. Jackie had prepared a fragrant chicken soup which was much more substantial than the thin broth that was all Gran had been able to stomach when she’d first arrived. By now, it had barley, carrots and peas in it, as well as pieces of chicken meat. With it were thin slices of buttered bread, a pot of tea, and a slice of cake. The cook at the squire’s often sent Pol home with a basket of food, and the Haricot ladies were happy to trade sewing for items the household needed.
“Sit and entertain your grandmother while she eats,” Madame de Haricot du Charmont ordered Pol. “Tell her what you are up to.”
Pol obeyed, at least in so far as he sat in the chair opposite the elderly lady. “How are you, Gran?” he asked.
“Better than I have been in a long time, my dear boy. Well, enough to know what you have not been telling me. I understand you have removed me from Louella’s grasp, and that she was giving me something to make me ill. How bad was it, Apollo? Did she intend to kill me?”
Pol, who had been prepared for an interrogation about his intentions toward Jackie, was taken by surprise. What should he tell her? He examined her face as he thought about it.
The Gran who faced him with one eyebrow lifted in question was not the frail confused elderly lady he had visited daily in recent years. Frail, yes, but recovering strength day by day. Elderly, of course, but the blue eyes that met his were clear and determined. And they held the wisdom formed by a lifetime of experience. She would not be easily fooled or placated.
The truth, then.
“I believe so, Gran. I think she has been giving you laudanum for a long time, though I do not know why. We think she added something worse to your medicines recently. Arsenic, we think. Jackie—Miss Haricot, I mean—overheard her doctor’s servant ordering arsenic at the apothecary. The doctor here says arsenic fits the symptoms.”
Gran nodded. “Louella is a wicked woman. I would not be at all surprised to find out that she poisoned me. I know too much, you see.”
Pol opened his mouth to ask what Gran knew, but she surprised him again by asking, “And what are your intentions toward Miss Haricot? She is a lady, Apollo, I hope you remember.”
“I know she is, Gran,” Pol replied, managing with a struggle not to look at Madame de Haricot du Charmont, where she sat by the window with her sewing, probably listening to their conversation. “I have spoken to her of marriage, but I have not yet proposed.” He risked a glance. Madame was bent over the fabric on her lap, but her needle was still. “I must first approach her mother to ask for her blessing,” he said.
“See, Eloise,” said Gran. “I told you he was a good boy.”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” Madame de Haricot du Charmont replied, her voice heavy with irony. She looked him in the eye then. “Why do you wish to marry my girl, Apollo Allegro? And how will you support her?”
“He is the real viscount, Eloise,” Gran said. “Once he has reclaimed his title and the estate, he will easily be able to support a wife.”
“It’s true, then? I should be the viscount?” Pol asked. “That is, I think my parents were married, but is it true?”
But before Gran could answer, Jackie came clattering up the stairs and hurried into the room without hesitating. Her eyes were wide and her face pale. “Oscar’s men are in the village. I saw Bill Whitely. The draper says they have been asking for a man and his old sick grandmother, new to the village. Two other women might be with them, they say. An older one and a pretty young one, both seamstresses. They say they have the law on their side, and the man and the young woman are both wanted for theft.”
Bother. With that description, Oscar’s men would be on the doorstep at any time .
But Jackie hadn’t finished. “She says they have been throwing their weight around, insulting people and breaking things. So, the villagers have closed ranks against them.”
“That will only last until threats or bribery causes one of the villagers to send them our way,” Pol commented, and the women all nodded.
“We should all go to London,” Jackie said.
“London?” Madame de Haricot frowned. “Why should we go to London?”
“The enquiry agents that the doctor recommended are in London,” Pol told them. “I have been thinking of going to talk to them—about investigating not just Gran’s poisoning, but also my claim to the viscountcy. Since we must leave this village, I’d also like to seek more substantial employment there. I’ve seen advertisements in the papers from London employment agencies. I should visit one of those. I need to find a position that will support us all, and working part time for the squire is not enough.”
“Jacqueline and I can support ourselves,” Madame de Haricot du Charmont said, sharply.
“Your work is superb, Maman,” Jackie acknowledged. “But would there not be a greater market for it in London? We do not need to open an expensive shop, but perhaps we can find work the same way we did here, through a draper?”
From the arrested look on Madame’s face, her daughter had the right strategy to persuade her. Gran also made a telling point, when she suggested that her friends from her days in Society would be in London for the Season. “We were close, once,” she said. “I have lost touch in recent years, but I am sure one or more of them will help me and my grandson if I ask.”
Even so, it took another fifteen minutes before alternative plans had been proposed and rejected.
“London it shall be, then,” said Madame de Haricot du Charmont. “And as soon as possible.” She stood. “I’ll start cleaning for our departure right away.”
“We will leave tonight,” Pol suggested. “I shall hire a post chaise in Alstonebridge. Would the draper consent to store anything you cannot fit in your luggage, to be sent for once we have dealt with this nonsense of the theft charges?”
“I think so,” Jackie said.
“Then this is what I think we must do…”
*
They traveled under aliases: Mrs. and Mr. Remington, a lady and her grandson, and Mrs. and Miss Harper, a lady and her daughter. Remington was Gran’s maiden name, and Harper was an alias Maman and Jackie had used before, back in the days when Papa had occasionally needed them to pretend to another identity to escape persistent creditors.
They had stuck close to the truth in deciding their story. Mr. Remington was accompanying his grandmother, his betrothed and the mother of his betrothed to London. If anyone asked, Pol had legal and business matters to deal with—likely in a young man approaching marriage—and Jackie needed bride clothes.
“Almost true,” Maman said, “though I have not said that I would approve this marriage, and he has not asked.”
Jackie still doubted that the marriage was in Pol’s best interests, but everyone else seemed so certain it was going to happen that she did not argue. Perhaps in London he would see how unsuitable she was for a viscount. Meanwhile, she would enjoy being his pretend betrothed.
On their first night away from Little Tidbury, Maman and Gran—as she’d asked Jackie to call her—were leafing through a copy of Debrett’s that they’d found at the inn where they were staying that night.
They were using it to confirm names and addresses for the letters Gran wished to write. Gran had apparently kept up a voluminous correspondence with dozens of Society ladies until she became sunk in poppy dreams. Amongst Gran’s friends were a duchess, a marchioness, and several countesses, all of whom might be in London for Parliament and the Season, though presumably they must be close to Gran’s age, so nearly seventy. Some of her friends had died, and some had remarried.
“Would you care for a walk, Jackie?” Pol asked. “I need one after being cooped up in the carriage all day.”
“Do not go too far,” Maman scolded, not taking her eyes off the pages she was perusing.
Jackie was only too pleased to escape downstairs, and soon they were walking along the street. The inn was on the outskirts of a small town, and a few minutes’ walk brought them to a path alongside a canal, peaceful in the evening light.
“I hope Gran is not disappointed,” Pol commented. “Perhaps none of her friends come to London anymore.”
“The copy is a year old, so probably there have been further deaths,” Jackie said. “Perhaps they no longer wished to acknowledge the past friendship, for she has not written in years. But I hope she is as fondly remembered by them as they are by her.”
“Your mother is wonderful with her,” Pol said.
Maman had agreed to care for Gran for the sake of the money Pol had promised, but they had rapidly become warm friends, though Gran was old enough to be Maman’s mother.
“Maman admires your grandmother, Pol. She has suffered greatly and retains enormous dignity.”
“The same applies to your mother, my dearest love. What must I do to gain her permission to our marriage, Jackie?”
Jackie frowned. “Pol, you are a viscount. I am a seamstress. You need a wife suitable to your station.”
“Whether I turn out to be a viscount or not, I need a wife who loves me, Jackie. One whom I love more than life. More than the world and all that is in it. You are a comte’s daughter. Your mother is a lady to her fingertips and has raised you to be the same. If I am not a viscount, then I’m no fit husband for your parent’s daughter, and that has held me back from telling you how much I love you.”
Jackie was taken aback by his admission that he thought he was not good enough for her. “But Pol, someone who knows the Ton could help you in your new role.” Someone who loved him to distraction would surely be even better, though. Someone who would stand beside him every day, whatever life threw at them.
“No one else will do for me, Jackie,” he said. “Will your mother agree, do you think?”
The last of her doubts dissolved. “You do not require her permission, Pol. Only mine. I am of age. You need to ask my permission.”
Pol stopped. Since she was holding his arm, she stopped, too, and found herself looking down on him as he closed his hand around hers and dropped to one knee. “Jacqueline de Haricot du Charmont, will you be my wife? Will you take me to husband? I have nothing to offer you except myself, but I will work for you every day of my life to give you the best life that I can. I love you, Jackie, and I can be twice the man I am with you by my side.”
“Yes,” Jackie replied. “Yes, Pol.” Those were the only words she could manage, though no doubt she’d think of some clever answer later. Something about him being enough, and her standing beside him forever. But the thoughts would not form into speech, and apparently her “yes” was enough, for she was in his arms, and his lips were on hers, and she was betrothed, whether Maman approved or not.
The last of the sun had set and the moon had come up before they made their way back to the inn, reluctant to walk away from the magic they had been making on the canal path, but conscious that Maman would be worried.
Sure enough, Maman complained about how long they had been outside. “I thought you had been taken by those fiends,” she scolded.
Jackie made an instant decision. “Pol asked me to marry him, Maman, and I said yes.” She braced herself for her mother’s disapproval.
“Excellent,” said Maman. “Come and give me a kiss, cherie . You, too, Apollo. It did not take you very long at all.”
“But you said you would not approve,” Jackie said, confused at her mother’s about face.
“You are of age, Jaqueline. My approval or disapproval should not matter to a young man in love. Is this not good news, Clara?”
Jackie exchanged a glance with Pol. I doubt if I shall ever understand my mother.