23 Apstead House
E dward found that the journey to Myercroft was not to be a straightforward one. Captain Edgerton had requested that Tess and her maid might look around Apstead House, to see if they could determine whether anything had been removed from it by Mrs Mayberry, so they were all to go to Pickering first. Mrs Edgerton joined Edward and Tess in Edward’s carriage, while Captain Edgerton rode alongside them, leaving his own carriage for the servants and luggage. Mr Neate had vanished, to make his way there by some other means.
The journey was made less tedious by a small travelling chess set that Tess had produced from some dusty recess of Corland, so they beguiled the time with a demonstration of Tess’s superiority in the game, much to Mrs Edgerton’s amusement.
“How is it that you are able to defeat Lord Tarvin so comprehensively?” she asked Tess. “He seems to me to be playing quite well, but then everything collapses and you put him into checkmate with ease.”
“He forgets about his queen,” she said at once. “It is the most powerful piece on the board, yet he seldom uses it. But is that not typical of a man, to overlook the capabilities of the female?”
“I might have done so once,” Edward said, “but the longer I am in your company, Miss Nicholson, the greater my respect for female ability.”
“A gallant answer,” Mrs Edgerton said.
“Which has the added virtue of being entirely true. And I shall remember the queen next time.”
“I hope you will, for you might perhaps defeat me once in a while. Next time we play, I shall explain how best to use your pawns.”
“How did you learn to play so well?” Mrs Edgerton said. “Who is the chess champion at Corland?”
“Kent taught me. You would not know it, for he is always funning, but he is very clever. He understands how all sorts of machines work. Whenever the fountain in the garden breaks, Kent makes it work again, and he loves clocks… engines… mill machinery. He says he wants to be an engineer, but Uncle Charles will not let him.”
“That is hardly fitting work for the son of an earl,” Edward said at once.
“Even so, if he has a skill in that direction, it is a great pity he is not permitted to build a career on it,” Mrs Edgerton said.
“Engines! Who needs engines?” Edward said. “Noisy, smelly things with their great chimneys belching smoke.”
“They bring us cheap cottons and woollens for our gowns,” Mrs Edgerton said with a smile, “and provide employment for many people.”
“And thereby put thousands of cottage weavers out of work,” he said seriously. “I do not like all these mills that are springing up here, there and everywhere. Yes, they employ many people, but they must live in cramped accommodation in smoke-filled towns, and watch their children play in filthy streets crowded with horses and wagons. Is it not better to live in a cottage in the country, surrounded by clean air and fresh water, with a bit of land to grow vegetables and keep chickens? The man has employment on the farms or for the local squire, and his wife sits at home with her loom and the baby on her knee.”
“And they all live in poverty, town and country dwellers alike,” Mrs Edgerton said. “At least the mills and their engines make goods cheaper, and so help those who have little money to make the pennies stretch a bit further.”
“Would you then encourage the farm labourer to go to the nearest town and seek employment there?”
“Perhaps. A man may be better off taking employment from whichever mill owner will pay him the most money, and find his own lodgings, rather than working on a farm with a tied cottage such that a single disagreement with his employer would see him lose his livelihood and his home as well. But in all cases, it is for the employer to ensure his workers are contented. So many of them will pay as little as they can, even though they make vast profits.”
“And how do you make them pay more?” Edward said. “If there is an abundance of workers, wages need not be high. Only if there is a shortage will pay increase.”
“I do not have the answer to that,” Mrs Edgerton said with a sigh. “I should like every family to have enough to live on and a little to spare, and nobody have to depend on the parish for the necessities of life, but I do not know how that is to be achieved.”
“All we can do, those of us who own land and have tenants, is to ensure our rents are fair, and that we offer a helping hand to those who might need it. We cannot fix the world, only our own small part of it.”
Tess was listening intently to the discussion, and now she said, “I think you could do more. Those with money can always do more. Why must mill-workers live in cramped accommodation? Why do their employers not build decent housing for them, with a little bit of land to each cottage for vegetable and chickens?”
“That would be expensive,” Edward said frowning.
“But you have money to spare, do you not? It could be a charitable project… or I could do it!” she cried, an excited smile lighting her face. “I do not need fifty thousand pounds, after all, for my wants are small. I only need a cottage myself—”
“With a drawing room and dining for twenty-four,” Edward said, chuckling.
“Well… a large sort of cottage, certainly, but the rest of my money could be put into something of the sort… decent housing for families.”
“Who would pay rent, so it would be an investment,” he said.
“Oh, yes! So it would.”
She beamed at him happily, and since they were approaching Pickering, the subject was allowed to drop. To Edward’s surprise, the carriages drove directly to Apstead House.
“Should we not secure accommodation first?” he said.
Mrs Edgerton smiled. “Michael has already made arrangements.”
The front door opened, revealing the blond Scotsman, Mr Alexander, and James Neate, who had contrived to reach Pickering before them. Behind them stood two neatly dressed maids. Captain Edgerton dismounted swiftly enough to open the carriage door and assist first his wife and then Tess to alight.
“Since the house is presently uninhabited, I thought you might like to stay here while you are in Pickering,” Edgerton said to Tess.
“Stay here? Am I allowed to?”
“It is your house, Miss Nicholson,” he said gravely.
“Is it? This is not a part of my inheritance that Uncle Charles will take from me?”
“My understanding is that he will take what is owed to him in gold bars, and you may have the house and everything within it. Which you may choose to sell, if you have no need for it.”
“Or I could live in it,” she said, her face alight with enthusiasm. “It is the size of a large cottage, is it not?”
Edward laughed, although Edgerton looked mystified.
“Only if your trustees agree,” he said quickly. “Sandy, have you acquired a cook?”
“In a manner of speaking,” the Scotsman said. “Ye’ll have a good dinner, Michael. Come away in. Yer attracting some attention from the neighbours.”
It was true that a little crowd had gathered to watch the arrival of two carriages, laden with luggage, outside Apstead House, where such occurrences had not been commonplace. The watchful neighbours were no doubt aware that the ladies of the house had fled in the night, after which a number of men had come each day, and now it seemed there would be people staying there, perhaps living there. Naturally they were curious.
Edward crossed the road to the largest group of onlookers. “Good day to you all! I am Lord Tarvin. I shall be staying at Apstead House for a day or two.”
“Is it your house now?” one of the crowd called out.
“Not mine, no. You see the young lady in black? Miss Nicholson. It is her house now.”
Heads craned to see the new owner. “Better than they women,” one of the men said. “This were a respectable street before they come along.”
“There will be nothing like that in future,” Edward said soothingly. “Miss Nicholson is the daughter of Lady Alice Nicholson, sister to the Earl of Rennington.”
There were murmurs of approval at this news, and Edward felt it was safe to retreat to the house. He had never seen the main part of it, but he knew that it contained many valuable furnishings and works of art, so he was not surprised to find it well appointed. Its glory was somewhat faded, leaving it looking rather shabby and neglected, but he detected the hand of a person of excellent taste in the arrangements.
There was a great crowd of people in the hall, including some that Edward did not recognise. The Scotsman was waving his arms about excitedly, his accent suddenly impenetrable. An unknown gentleman, for some reason carrying a small child in his arms, was laughing at him, while a small, dark woman talked back in an accent just as strong. Tess was watching the three of them in bemusement, while the servants milled about shifting boxes and bags and umbrellas.
“Lord Tarvin, come and meet my cousin, Jeanie,” the Scotsman called. “She’s frae Edinburgh, too. And this is her husband, Rycroft of Melverley, in Leicestershire. The wee man is Archie, their son.”
Rycroft inched through the mayhem to Edward’s side, shifting the child onto one hip to offer his hand. “Delighted to meet you, Lord Tarvin. We have been hearing all about your exploits with tree-climbing and the like. Quite an adventure!”
“It was indeed. But what brings you north? You are a long way from Leicestershire.”
“My wife brings me north,” he said with a grin. “Finding that Cousin Sandy was fixed in Yorkshire for a while longer, Jeanie decided she would like to take the sea air at Scarborough. Then, when a cook was needed, she brought her skill with dumplings to Pickering.”
“Mrs Rycroft is to cook for us? Surely we can eat at an inn? I do not like to think of her trapped in the kitchen.”
“There is nothing she likes better,” Rycroft said. “In fact, if ever she disappears at Melverley, I know precisely where to look for her. We have assigned the best room to you, Lord Tarvin. May I show you the way?”
“If young Archie will not mind being taken away from his mama.”
“So long as he is carried by someone, even Papa, he is as good as gold. He only protests when he is put down. This way.”
The room was surprisingly masculine. He had expected a former brothel to be strongly feminine, and some of the other bedchambers were decidedly so, from the glimpses he caught of floral wallpapers and delicate bed hangings. His room, however was almost unrelievedly sombre in tone, apart from a garish swathe of pink fabric adorning the bed.
“What do you make of it, Deakin?” he said, finding the valet busy unpacking evening clothes. “Strange place, is it not?”
“I’ve been in stranger,” the valet said. “Kitchen seems to be running smoothly, anyway.”
“My wife keeps a very orderly kitchen,” Rycroft said a little smugly. “Most houses have the principal rooms at the front, but this seems to be the best room, and the most appropriate for a lord, so you have a view over the gardens.”
“And the coach house,” he said, glancing out of the window and recognising the apple tree he had climbed. “Quieter at the back, too. Where have you put everyone else?”
“Miss Nicholson has the middle room at the front, with the Edgertons to one side and Sandy to the other. Mrs Rycroft and I are next door to you.”
“And Mr Neate?”
Rycroft laughed. “We were told he would make his own arrangements. He will eat his dinner here, but after that he may well disappear to one of the inns for a spell to listen to the locals talking. He is a very good listener, apparently.”
The afternoon passed with Tess and her maid walking from room to room, looking about and declaring that they could notice nothing missing. Indeed, it seemed as though there was hardly a space anywhere on mantels or shelves or sideboards where another piece might be inserted. Even a small display cabinet of pill boxes, small, portable and valuable, was full.
Captain Edgerton walked behind the ladies with his notebook, but there was nothing to write down. They finished in the principal room, a rather handsome saloon fitted up in a style fashionable some twenty years earlier.
“It is strange,” Tess said. “This house is excessively well furnished, yet I never noticed it when I was here before pretending to be a housemaid. My eyes were constantly fixed on the floor — the rugs to be swept, the wood to be mopped and the fireplaces! Oh, the time I spent on my knees before those fireplaces. Those I know intimately! But the mantel above was not my responsibility and so I never looked at it. But that is a very beautiful ormolu clock. My uncle has one rather similar, although surrounded by lions, not elephants. I have never seen an elephant. Is it a good likeness, Captain Edgerton? You must have seen plenty in India.”
“Yes, it is rather a good likeness, and the monkeys, too. The ear is not quite right for the Indian species, though. The artist may have confused African with Indian elephants. It is still an exquisite clock. And still here, along with everything else, seemingly. It does not appear that Mrs Mayberry and her nieces were light-fingered. Even the cash box in the room above the coach house retains the full amount you reported. It seems we shall have no reason to pursue the widow,” he added sadly.
“Ye’ll have enough to do without chasing round after people who don’t want to be found,” Sandy said.
“Oh, they will have set up in business somewhere,” Edgerton said. “They would not be hard to find. However, it is not my principal concern just now. There are Mr Nicholson’s papers to be gone through, to see if we can discover any murderous enemies in his life. Apart from that, it is six weeks since Miss Peach disappeared, and I cannot now believe that she will simply turn up one day, none the worse for her adventure.”
“That is a long time to take up the chase,” Edward said. “What can you do that you have not already done?”
“I can begin again, with a new eye,” Edgerton said. “I thought at first that she had simply gone away on her own, and was living incognito somewhere in her quiet, unobtrusive way. Whatever she was about, it would not keep her away for ever, I should have thought, and so I supposed that one day she would simply reappear, and laugh at us for worrying about her. But I cannot deny that I am now very concerned for her welfare. So I shall talk again to everyone who had dealings with her, and see if I can prod loose any useful memories.” He sighed. “I am not hopeful, however. Not after all this time.”
“Poor Peachy,” Mrs Edgerton said sadly.
***
T ess felt very strange that evening. The house — her house, she had to keep reminding herself — had never been more than a means to an end, a way to recover her fortune, which was still sitting in the safe, awaiting instructions from Lord Rennington to convey it to a bank for safe keeping. But now that her gold bars had been put out of her reach, there was still the house. And it was beautiful, she discovered. A little faded, and where draperies had been replaced, overpoweringly feminine and downright vulgar, but on the whole tasteful and elegant.
As they gathered in the saloon before dinner, Edward had leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Shall you live here, do you think?”
“My uncle would never permit it.”
“Why not? With a respectable companion, someone mature enough to lend you countenance, you could be independent here without the need to marry at all.”
“Ah. You are still trying to dissuade me from marrying Ulric.”
He smiled. “Indeed I am. I understand your reasons, but I think with an appropriate companion, even Lord Rennington might be convinced to make you an allowance from your fortune.”
“Until I am thirty, at which time, if I am still unwed, the money disappears to Pembroke College, to finance some unworthy young man… or men, I suppose, given the size of it. That gives me precisely ten years of independence.”
“Long enough to find a husband more to your taste, or at least postpone the evil day when you must surrender your freedom. What do you think? I had not thought it would be possible… a nondescript little villa seemed unworthy of you, somehow. But this is very elegant, and with some new paint and wallpaper, would be a very suitable setting for your charms.”
That made her laugh. “Flatterer! You do not believe I have any charms at all, do you? And where am I to find this appropriate companion? I should not want some penniless widow who will chatter non-stop and eat until she bursts, at my expense, and I have no distant relations to call upon. None with whom I am on speaking terms, anyway.”
“How about a close relation, then?”
“Mama cannot leave Corland.”
“Not your mama. Your aunt.”
“My aunt? Oh! Aunt Caroline? That aunt?”
“Why not? Now that your uncle is set on remarrying, she has no fixed home at present, and it might suit her very well to live here, with you. And your uncle, you know, could hardly object to you taking his own wife as companion and chaperon. Who more suitable?”
And he grinned at her, delighted with his own cleverness.