Chapter 10
TEN
Douglas Bellamy was in the library, which had always been his favorite room.
It was stuffed with old books, out-of-date magazines, and the week’s newspapers, and smelled of wood, leather, and pipe smoke.
The green leather chairs were well worn and the carpet a bit faded, but Douglas refused to replace either and said the items were still quite serviceable, much like himself.
He sat so close to the hearth, his feet had to be roasting, but he shivered when Geneva opened the door and let in the cool draft from the corridor.
“Are you all right, Father?” she asked as she approached. “Honor said you didn’t come down to luncheon.”
“Just a little tired. Mr. Lefferts went on and on.” He chuckled softly. “That man can talk. Can you hand me my pipe, dear?”
“Of course.”
The pipe and tin of tobacco were on the mantelpiece, but Douglas would have had to rise to reach them. Geneva filled the bowl with tobacco, handed the pipe to her father, then struck a match and held the flame to the bowl until fragrant smoke curled up from the smoldering leaf.
Her father had suffered from a persistent cough for several years, but he insisted it was nothing and tried to fend off the bouts by smoking his pipe.
He claimed it soothed his lungs, which had been damaged by mustard gas during the war.
Despite being the Earl of Gosforth, Douglas had spent his career in the military and had been posted to Belgium just before the Battle of Ypres.
Geneva privately thought the notion of treating compromised lungs with smoke was utter rubbish and that he needed to see a doctor, but there was no arguing with him.
Besides, aside from the cough, he had been remarkably well until the past few weeks, when he’d caught some nasty bug.
His hair was still thick, though now more gray than brown, and his face remained surprisingly unlined for a man of forty-six.
Douglas’s vision had deteriorated somewhat since returning from the front, and he now wore gold-rimmed reading specs, which, at present, reflected the leaping firelight and made it difficult to discern the expression in his dark eyes.
“Sit down, Genny,” he said. “I need to speak to you.”
“Why was Mr. Lefferts here?” Geneva asked as she settled across from him. “Was it about Mrs. Lowry’s pension?”
Their housekeeper had finally decided to retire but had promised to stay on for several more weeks after the new year to train her replacement, who would arrive on January the second.
“Yes, in part. But he and I had other matters to discuss.”
“Anything I need to worry about?” Geneva asked.
She had been teasing, but the look on her father’s face sent a chill down her spine. Whatever he wanted to discuss with her wasn’t going to be pleasant.
“Genny, I’ve made a hash of things.”
“What on earth do you mean, Father? Are we in debt, is that what you want to speak to me about?” she asked, thinking that was probably what he was referring to. Their staff was greatly diminished, and her father hadn’t approved any significant new purchases since he’d come back from the front.
Douglas shook his head. “I should have got my affairs in order before I shipped out, but I couldn’t bring myself to think about my own mortality.
And I had to believe Jack would come back,” he said, his voice cracking.
“I had to trust your brother would get through it or I wouldn’t have been able to do my job. ”
Geneva nodded but didn’t reply. Jack had been her older brother, her best friend, and her confidant.
He’d been her world. And then he was gone, and all she had was a photograph of him in his uniform before he’d shipped out.
His smile was so cocky, so self-assured.
Jack had never doubted he would come back.
None of them had. He had been too alive to die.
But then so had every other young man who had lost his life fighting a senseless war.
“Several months ago, I informed Mr. Lefferts I needed to make a will.”
“Surely there’s time,” Geneva protested.
Douglas shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve run out of time, Genny.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“When I saw Dr. Miller in September, he ordered some tests.”
“Oh, God,” Geneva moaned.
Douglas nodded. “Lung cancer. There’s no treatment, I’m afraid.”
“How long do you…?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
“It’s a matter of months.”
“Oh, Daddy,” Geneva cried. She hadn’t called him that since she was a little girl, but at the moment she felt like a child—frightened and in need of parental comfort. “Surely there’s something that can be done. Surgery, or maybe a stint at a sanatorium.”
Douglas shook his head. “The cancer has metastasized. It’s already in the lymph nodes and the bones. And it might have already attacked the brain.”
“No,” Geneva wailed. “Please, no.”
Douglas looked like he was going to cry. “I fear it gets worse, Genny.”
“How can it possibly be worse?”
Her father smiled ruefully. “Your mother always refused to discuss matters pertaining to the estate, and I suppose I have become accustomed to not talking things over with my family.”
“Good heavens, Father. Are we bankrupt too?”
“We’re not bankrupt. The estate is solvent.”
“Then what is it? What do we need to discuss now, today?”
She could barely keep the tears at bay and couldn’t wrap her head around matters of business when she had just been informed that she was about to lose her only surviving parent.
In the eyes of the law, she was an adult, a woman capable of looking after herself, but she felt like a little girl who’d suddenly realized she was lost and didn’t know how to find her way home.
How did one go on when everything was about to change?
Again, when they had just learned how to live without people they had loved and still mourned.
Douglas sighed heavily, which led to a bout of coughing that lasted several minutes.
He tried to stifle the spasms, but that only made it worse, and his face turned scarlet as blood rushed to his head.
Spittle flew from his mouth, and his eyes bulged as the coughing intensified.
Geneva sprang to her feet, desperate to help, but she knew from past experience that there was nothing she could do.
The fit had to run its course, and it did, leaving her father panting and his hand shaking as he stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket and once again sucked on his pipe.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
Douglas lifted his hand to get her attention, and Geneva fell silent. He had something to tell her, and he needed to get it off his chest before another spasm overtook him and he was interrupted again.
“As soon as I received the results, I went to see Mr. Lefferts about my will. I should have consulted him sooner, I know. But the news came as something of a shock to me as well. And I’m so very sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” Geneva wailed. “I don’t understand.”
“Genny, your great-grandfather had two daughters, and then, years later, when he was in his fifties, his second wife gave birth to a son. When the child was born, in an effort to prevent his daughters from inheriting, he entailed the estate.”
“What does that mean?”
Geneva’s grandfather had inherited Bellamy Hall, and her father had been next in the line. As the oldest, she would inherit when her father passed. Or so she had assumed, since Jack was no longer there to take up the reins.
“An entailment means that the estate can pass only to a male heir. Or the closest male relative if there’s no direct heir.
I had two sons, so there was no cause for concern, and the late Mr. Lefferts, the current Mr. Lefferts’ father, never thought to warn me.
And then Edwin died of smallpox, and Jack died at the Somme, and, suddenly, there was no male left to inherit.
Had you married and had a boy, the title and estate would pass to your son, but now I must make sure you girls are provided for.
So I had Mr. Lefferts make some inquiries. ”
“Inquiries about what?” Geneva whispered.
She was suddenly very cold despite the heat of the fire, since the truth of their predicament was finally beginning to sink in.
As far as she knew, there were no male relations.
The family was all women—her and Honor, Aunt Clarissa and Rose, and two unmarried female cousins who’d moved to a pensione near Florence a few years before Honor was born.
Her father didn’t have a brother or even a living male cousin, so there was no nephew who could come to the rescue.
“Surely the estate must pass to a female descendant if there’s no one else to inherit,” she said.
Douglas shook his head. “If there’s no male heir, then the lot goes to a trustee. If there’s no trustee, the estate is seized by the Crown.”
“Is there a trustee?” Geneva asked, suddenly breathless.
Her father exhaled deeply. “The trustee was my father’s closest friend, John Marlow. The role passed to his son Jason upon his death. Jason passed two months ago. And Jason’s boy died in Belgium.”
“So, what happens now?”
Geneva was doing her best to hold back tears. This morning, her biggest dilemma had been whether she should meet Rory for lunch. Now her whole life was coming undone, and once her father was gone she and Honor might no longer have a home or an allowance to live on.
“As it turns out, there is a male relation,” Douglas said, and smiled for the first time since Geneva had walked into the library. “My father’s cousin, Alan, decamped to America when he was in his twenties. He was seduced by the promise of easy gold and went out to California.”
“Did he find gold?” Geneva asked.
She was surprised by the turn the conversation had taken, but seeing her father smile gave her some hope for the future. Perhaps this cousin would look after them until Geneva married. Then there would be the promise of a new generation.
“I believe he did, but I don’t know how much,” Douglas said with a shrug.
“And this Alan is to inherit?”
Douglas shook his head again. “Alan died some years ago, and it proved quite difficult to locate his widow, but Mr. Lefferts persevered, and the inquiry agent he’d engaged out in California eventually tracked Constance Bellamy to Montana.
She married a rancher, of all things, so her surname had changed,” he said, sounding quite bemused.
“Her son with Alan, Jesseph, is the only remaining male relation.”
“But that’s ridiculous. We’ve never even met him. Why can’t you add your own stipulation?” Geneva demanded. “Your grandfather changed the terms when it suited him. Why can’t you?”
“That’s not how these things work, my dear.”
“Surely it should be up to you who you leave your home to,” Geneva protested.
“My grandfather’s will was a legal document that was ratified by the court. I can’t simply ignore his wishes.”
“What do you even know about this Jesseph?”
“He’s in banking. And he lives in New York,” Douglas announced.
“How old is he?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but he can’t be more than thirty.”
“Is he married?”
“He is not.”
“Engaged?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Did Mr. Lefferts speak to this man?” Geneva asked. Her father seemed uncertain of the most basic facts.
“No, but he wired him, and Jesseph replied by return cable. Then Mr. Lefferts sent him a letter explaining the situation.”
“What will happen to Honor and me once he moves into our home?”
It felt callous to speak of the future as though Douglas were already gone, but Geneva needed to understand what was going to happen.
She was still reeling from her father’s revelation and would need time to absorb the sorrow and shock of it, but he had summoned her to discuss the future of Bellamy Hall, and that was where she had to keep her attention.
The rest would come later, when she was alone and could give vent to her grief in private.
Douglas blanched, and Geneva knew she had reached the heart of the matter. It wasn’t only the house they stood to lose, but everything their life there had meant.
“Darling, the only way to ensure that you and Honor are provided for and that the next generation inherits the title and the estate is for you to marry Jesseph Bellamy. If he’s amenable.”
“Marry him?” Geneva cried. “I’ve never even clapped eyes on him. And what makes you think he’ll want to marry me? He’ll be a man of independent means, if he isn’t already. He’ll have no use for me, especially if he already has a sweetheart in New York.”
“Which is why you must charm him.”
Geneva opened her mouth to protest but then suddenly felt quite overcome.
So much had been going on behind the scenes these past few months, and now the curtain had been pulled back, and her life had been blown up as if she’d just stepped on a landmine.
Her father was dying, her home and the entirety of the estate would go to a complete stranger, and, if she hoped to stave off penury, she had to charm a relation she’d never met and hope he didn’t evict her and Honor the moment their father passed.
“I don’t think I can face it,” she whispered. “I don’t want to meet him.”
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice. Jesseph is coming for Christmas.”
Geneva staggered from the room and had barely made it to the downstairs lavatory before she was sick.
She flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and rinsed out her mouth, but the foul taste remained and her stomach continued to heave.
The past half hour had been like a terrible dream, except she was wide awake and the nightmare was real.
She wanted to march back into the library and tell her father that she would not do it and their American cousin could sod it, but she knew she couldn’t do that.
She had been raised to do her duty, honor her parents, and do right by future generations.
As she leaned against the cool wall tiles and sucked in several deep breaths to combat the persistent nausea, she finally understood just how trapped she really was.