Chapter Five #2
Kate fumed. She was restless. She was ready for action.
One day she announced to Harriet, ‘I shall ask Joseph to take me into town this afternoon. You see, I’ve read in The Brighton Herald that there is a musical concert this afternoon at Donaldson’s Library on the Steine. Would you like to come with me?’
Harriet said that she really would rather not, so Kate prepared for the outing on her own.
She dressed carefully in what she hoped was suitable attire, a dark blue spencer with pearl buttons over a pale blue muslin gown.
She did feel slightly nervous as Joseph drove her into town in the gig and left her outside the library, but she reminded herself that it was, surely, the kind of event a single lady could happily attend.
Who knew? She might even find allies against the Earl!
There were still a few seats, so she sat next to a woman around her own age who was talking to her neighbour. The woman turned, though, to stare at Kate and said haughtily, ‘I’m afraid that seat is taken.’
Kate was startled. ‘Is it? I beg your pardon. I hadn’t realised.’ She was already rising to her feet, under the frosty scrutiny of the lady and her friend.
After finding another place at the back of the room she sat down again. Was it her imagination, or were more people turning to stare at her?
She felt a horribly familiar mixture of bewilderment and humiliation.
Was it because she had come here by herself?
Had she perhaps dressed incorrectly? She sat through the concert but hardly heard a note, and her spirits were in no way lifted when Joseph, driving her home, cleared his throat and said, ‘Miss. You know that fruit you handed out at the cottages the other day?’
‘Yes, Joseph?’
‘I thought you ought to know it’s annoyed the market traders in town. You’re cutting away their business, you see.’
She nodded, mortified. ‘Yes. I do see. Thank you for telling me.’
Yet another error. She tried to assure herself that it just didn’t matter, for she had a house that she loved and a beautiful garden, and the weather was just glorious.
But every evening, her sense of peace was destroyed by the sounds of raucous laughter floating through the woods that formed only a fragile barrier between herself and her new neighbour.
The Earl will not stay here for ever, she kept reminding herself.
She continued to try and make the best of it.
She still regularly asked Joseph to take her into the town, often with Harriet as well.
They both went to gaze at the Pavilion, which when Kate was last here was a modest summer residence but was now, thanks to the Prince Regent, a palatial construction featuring domes and gilded minarets.
Harriet was breathless with admiration, but Kate privately thought that it lacked taste.
She became a member of Donaldson’s lending library and went there one afternoon to hear a local author talk about his new book on the history of Brighton, but still no one was speaking to her, and the next day she found out why.
Leaving Harriet making raspberry jam, which was perhaps the only way to use up their abundance of fruit, she asked Joseph to take her into the town to return a library book.
After picking another from the shelves—The Many Sights of Sussex by the Sea—she found a seat and settled down to read for a while.
But she couldn’t help overhearing some ladies close by.
‘Isn’t it exciting,’ one was saying, ‘that the Earl of Rivington has come here for the summer? We know his betrothal has ended and he has said that he’s no intention of looking for another bride just yet. But who knows when he might change his mind?’
‘There is one particular female who definitely won’t tempt him,’ declared another, ‘and that’s the woman who inherited Jemima Honeywood’s property. I’ve heard she’s objected strongly to his new house. How dare she?’
The rest were murmuring their agreement. ‘Quite right,’ another said. ‘I’m told she’s hoping to make friends in the town. But why would anyone want to befriend her, when she has made an enemy of the Earl?’
Kate rose from her chair and went to put the book back on the shelf, hearing a collective gasp from the group as they recognised her.
She left with her head held high and decided to take a short walk along Marine Parade since Joseph wasn’t due to pick her up yet, but once again she was foiled because large drops of rain were starting to fall.
She would be soaked if she went for her walk.
On the other hand, how on earth could she go back in there and listen to those women?
She hesitated by the door and was close to despair when a man about to enter the library stopped and said politely, ‘Do you need any assistance, ma’am?’
Surprised by his kind voice, she saw that he was well-dressed and had his left arm in a custom-made black sling. He was a former soldier, she guessed. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I’m actually waiting for my groom to collect me and he should be here any minute.’
That was a lie, since Joseph wasn’t due for at least fifteen minutes.
‘Very well,’ said the man. ‘But I’m going to be in the library for a while, so if you have to wait too long, do find me in there. I have a carriage and driver at my disposal and I’d be pleased to offer you a lift.’
She thanked him again, a little overwhelmed. Someone was actually being kind to her? That certainly made a change. She sighed and resigned herself to her wait.
She had made no friends here. She had been utterly foolish not to realise that the Earl would be a much-admired figure in Brighton, and anyone who made an enemy of him was in danger of being ostracized by all of Society.
Joseph turned up at last with Rupert and the gig, and during the brief journey, just one question preyed on her mind.
Could she continue to live at Clematis Villa, if she was to be universally shunned?
When Kate got home, she helped Harriet to bottle the raspberry jam, which they would, she suspected, be eating every day for the next six months.
The rain continued and Harriet loathed it, but Kate was glad because it meant no noisy parties in the Earl’s garden.
The next day though, the fine weather returned and in the afternoon, Joseph told her that he’d caught sight of two of the Earl’s guests on her land again.
That night she couldn’t sleep, and the next morning she drove herself into Brighton to call at a lawyer’s office.
‘I have a neighbour,’ she explained to the lawyer sitting behind his desk, ‘whose guests, I suspect, frequently stray onto my property. Can anything be done?’
He pursed his lips. ‘That rather depends. Can you tell me the location of your property? And the name of your neighbour?’
As soon as Kate mentioned the Earl’s name, his reaction was instant.
He told her, in a few blunt phrases, that she was being oversensitive and that the legal costs of opposing the Earl over such a trivial matter could be enormous.
Kate said no more but bade him a curt goodbye and went out into the street again, her thoughts in tumult.
It was not fair that one man should have such power, purely because of his title and wealth!
But that was how the world worked, and anyway, it wasn’t just his power that disturbed her, it was him.
She just couldn’t stop the quickening of her pulse whenever she thought of him, which was far too often.
She walked slowly down to Marine Parade and gazed at the bathing cabins lined up on the beach, telling herself that a good dunking in the ocean would banish her foolish thoughts.
She would like to see the Earl thrown in too, as punishment for his arrogance—but wait!
Perhaps she should avoid that thought, because it might remind her of seeing him emerge from the lake with those wet breeches clinging wickedly to his slim hips…
Too late. She was already picturing him far too vividly, and now she was all hot and bothered again.
She hurried along Marine Parade without really looking where she was going, and as a result, she bumped straight into a group of around twenty people, holding up placards declaring, Save Our Town from the Idle Rich!
Forced to a halt, she realised the men and women in the group were chanting, ‘Protect Brighton! Protect our heritage!’ One of them, a respectably dressed man, came towards her.
‘Ma’am, may I offer you one of our leaflets?
My colleagues and I—’ he indicated the others ‘—are weary of the London rich buying up our houses and treating our neighbourhood as their private playground.’
Kate’s eyes had widened. ‘You mean men like the Earl of Rivington?’
‘Exactly! He is a prime example of the way our peaceful countryside is being ruined, with his huge new house on the hillside!’
At last, here were possible allies. Kate clutched at the leaflet as if her life depended on it. ‘May I join you here, Mr…?’
‘My name is Melling. George Melling. And yes, please join us by all means!’
So she stood with the others, between two middle-aged ladies, who nodded and smiled, and she too handed out leaflets while joining in the chorus of ‘Save our town!’
But nearly everyone passing by on the Parade rejected the leaflets, either shaking their heads or muttering something rude, and Kate felt more and more uncomfortable, especially when she noticed that some rough-looking men were pointing and jeering at them.
Her colleagues, though, weren’t deterred.
‘Stop the London rich!’ they kept calling.
‘Stop them seizing land they have no right to!’
Mr Melling called to Kate above the din. ‘You mentioned the Earl. I gather you’ve come across him?’
Kate spoke loudly back. ‘I’ve encountered him, yes.’
‘He’s one of the worst culprits! He must have bribed the Town Commissioners to get permission for that house of his—that’s what men like him do.’