Chapter 3
A NEW NOTE AND PLANS
After Mrs. Hargrave and Mrs. Johnston left, James and Gideon said they needed baths to remove all the soot and grime. Mrs. Duggleston agreed and then decided Cecilia needed a warm bath also. And a cup of her restorative tea to ward off any threat of illness.
Cecilia had fussed, but with James complimenting Mrs. Duggleston on her excellent suggestion there wasn’t a good reason to say no.
“Feel better, my love?” James asked after Cecilia left Sarah’s fussing ministrations and joined him in the hallway later that afternoon.
He held out his elbow.
Cecilia tucked her arm through his. “Yes, delightfully so. Mrs. Duggleston gave Sarah some rose petals for my bath. And the water was wonderfully warming after the rain’s chill.”
They proceeded down the stairs. “Good. You had been looking quite peaked when we got back to Pomum.”
“I felt quite peaked as well, but I recovered quickly. So, there is no need to worry.”
“I wasn’t worrying,” he assured.
Cecilia looked at him with a doubtful eye. “Of course not, nothing disturbs the legendary sangfroid of Sir James Branstoke,” she teased.
He smiled softly at her.
At the first-floor landing, a footman directed them to a drawing room where tea and other libations would be served.
Cecilia felt as though she had walked into a theater set for an eighteenth-century play.
A massive marble fireplace, with an elaborate Rococo-style gilt mirror hung above the mantel, dominated the space.
The heavy wooden furnishings with curved legs and claw and ball feet were primarily covered in large-patterned red silk-damask, gently faded.
A red, patterned rug centered the room. The wall panels, originally painted cream, had yellowed with age.
Tables, sideboards, and chairs crowded the space.
She understood why Mrs. Duggleston had suggested the library earlier.
Cecilia thought the room looked like a place where time had stopped; clean, but forgotten.
Gideon was before them, standing by the fireplace, its opening taller than he.
He held a glass of port in his hand. In one of the damask armchairs placed before the fireplace, sat an older, dark-haired, fashionable woman dressed in a dark gray silk gown with white Bruges lace.
A tall woman, Cecilia surmised, for the way she swept her legs to the side.
“Ah! Here they are now. Cecilia, James, allow me to make you known to my nearest neighbor to the south, Mrs. Robert Norcroft. Jocelyn, this is my cousin and his wife, Sir James, and Lady Cecilia Branstoke.”
After an exchange of pleasantries, Cecilia sat on a striped settee at right angles to Gideon’s visitor.
“My sister regrets not joining you for dinner tonight. She is not feeling well and decided to seek her bed early.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it is nothing serious,” Cecilia said, remembering her earlier conversation with Mrs. Hargrave regarding influenza.
“Nothing serious. She will feel much better tomorrow. You know how that is,” Mrs. Norcroft said, looking intently at Cecilia.
Cecilia did indeed know and smiled slightly as she nodded.
“Jocelyn and I have foregone tea for something stronger after the events of the day; however, I can ring for tea if you would prefer tea,” Gideon told Cecilia.
Cecilia shook her head. “No tea. I should like a glass of sherry, if you have some.”
“Of course. I’ll say one thing for my late father; he had a connoisseur’s taste for libations. I have a very good sherry, not too sweet, not too dry.” He walked over to a cabinet near the windows to pull out a bottle of sherry. “For you, James?”
“I was going to say port; however, I shall have sherry as well.”
“Excellent… Jocelyn saw the cider mill fire and came earlier than expected to inquire about it,” Gideon said as he poured their glasses of sherry.
“After all that has happened to Gideon, I had to find out if this was another awful bit of viciousness,” the woman said with playful vehemence.
Interesting, Cecilia thought. From the way he had talked earlier, she’d assumed he’d not discussed the events with others.
She and James exchanged shared glances as she accepted her glass of sherry.
Well, she certainly knew better than to assume!
A pertinent reminder. Who else in the neighborhood had knowledge?
That could throw their investigation into greater complexity.
“You know his history of misfortunes?” Cecilia asked.
“Misfortunes.” The woman laughed darkly.
“That is a quaint way of describing them. And they have plagued him since he was a child. It was well-known in the county that the old earl did not care for his youngest son. He thought Gideon weak because he is short. In his conversation he was forever vilifying him and lauding his heir, Jasper, his eldest son. If my late husband and I hadn’t convinced the earl to allow Gideon to go to Oxford to study civil law, and afterward to apprentice at the Inns of Chancery, I have no idea how Gideon would have gone on. ”
“Jocelyn,” grumbled Gideon.
Cecilia now had an idea as to what Gideon meant earlier when he said the Hargraves kept his father’s cruelties at bay. Her father had never been directly cruel to her—except when he gave her in marriage to Mr. Waddley to cover his gambling debts.
James set his glass on a table near his chair. “He would have survived and thrived. That is his nature. I thank you and your late husband for pushing the earl in the right direction; however, if the earl hadn’t stepped forward, my parents would have fronted him for what he wanted to do.”
Gideon looked at James with a slight smile. “I believe you, cousin, though I am glad it never came to that.”
“Though my husband and your father were close friends, encouraging your father to send you off to school was the only bit of advice Robert got the earl to take. For his part, the earl—besides being enamored of fine wines and brandies, followed investments involving get-rich-quick schemes.”
“And to fund the schemes he tried to sell off parcels—ten acres here, 100 acres there, whatever wasn’t entailed,” Gideon said dryly.
“And though I did not care for your brother, he did try to throw a spanner into each sale.”
“Except for the sale of the apple orchard and this house.”
“What was it about the apple orchard?” James asked. “You already told us someone approached you to buy it.”
“Father and Jasper were approached by different buyers, and each thought their deal was the better deal for the estate. They both died before any deal could be completed.”
“If I recall, that was before I sold my commission and returned to England. I only understood Uncle and Jasper had some sort of bet and that Uncle Joseph died when he tried to ride Jasper’s horse.”
“Yes,” Gideon said, then shook his head.
“They were too alike. That day, my father wanted to go to the Home Farm to inspect a new plow. The groom said his horse had thrown a shoe and was not yet ready to ride. Thinking of the bet with Jasper, he told them to saddle Jasper’s horse.
That horse was known to be high-strung, and at times could be a challenge for Jasper as well.
Nonetheless, they saddled the horse and off father went.
Just like today, a storm blew up suddenly, spooking the animal.
Father was thrown clear but landed on his head—or so it is assumed.
He never regained consciousness and a week later died. ”
“How much later was it before your brother died?” Cecilia asked.
“Two weeks, during the beginning of the apple harvest.”
“During that apple picking festival you described?” Cecilia clarified.
“Yes,” Gideon said. “Father had just died and Jasper had a party,” he said disgustedly.
“No Gideon, you have it wrong,” Mrs. Norcroft contradicted gently, glancing up at Gideon. “Jasper, or the new Lord Monteith as he was then, didn’t want to have the festival. He thought it would be disrespectful.”
“What? Why didn’t I know that?” Gideon demanded, looking at Mrs. Norcroft as if he didn’t know her. “No, that does not sound like my brother.”
In that moment, Cecilia surmised, he probably didn’t.
“What changed my brother’s mind?” Gideon finally asked.
Mrs. Norcroft looked at him. “Not what,” she said.
“Who. Our vicar, Peter Wayne. The crop was bountiful in 1815, not like the year before with the cold and the rain almost every day. The old earl had been excited about the harvest coming and had grand plans for a festival. Villagers were excited about the event. When the old earl died, a pall settled over the village; not because everyone liked the earl, for they didn’t, but because a planned party had been canceled.
And since Napoleon had been defeated, the villagers thought some sort of party was necessary.
Everyone suffered blue megrims at the cancellation.
Mr. Wayne suggested they do the festival as a commemorative to the old earl as he did like the apples and the hard cider and the apple brandy made from the fruit. ”
“I was tempted to cancel the festival last fall because of my brother’s accidental death the previous year.”
Mrs. Norcroft frowned. “How do you know it was an accident?” she asked.
“I talked to Squire Kassell, of course. As magistrate, I felt he could give me the information I needed to know. I only felt irritation that my brother died so swiftly after my father. I felt anger that I must upset my life, and my daughter’s life, to return to Pomum Court.
All because he didn’t watch where he was going and a tall stack of crates filled with freshly picked apples fell on him. ”
“Not everyone agreed with that accidental verdict,” Mrs. Norcroft said carefully.
“If they didn’t, why didn’t they come to me?”
“Did you ask anyone beside Squire Kassell?”
“No.”