Chapter 18
A Cosy Chat
She had a great deal to listen to; all the particulars of past sad scenes, all the minutiae of distress upon distress, which in former conversations had been merely hinted at, were dwelt on now with a natural indulgence.
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Normally, the staff would have questions if a guest came to them asking for the family rooms. But the maids who were stationed at the edges of the receiving rooms did not seem to have any more interest in their work than the men serving at dinner had.
Rosalind was pointed directly toward the stairs, and no one appeared to be the least bit curious as to why a guest should be deciding to roam about the house.
The decor on the second floor was much plainer than that on the main floor. There were very few pictures on the walls, and the corridor was only dimly lit by two lamps. Rosalind felt as if she had stepped backstage at the theater and could now see all the ropes and boards that held up the scenery.
There was only one corridor and it ran the length of the house, ending in a back stairs. As directed, Rosalind went to the last door on the right and knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again.
This time the door opened. Cynthia stared back at her, shocked. Whatever she had been about to say, she swallowed it, rather painfully, Rosalind thought.
“I … oh … Mrs. Rutherford. I did not expect you.”
“I came to see how you were doing,” said Rosalind. “May I come in?”
Cynthia hesitated. “Well, yes. I suppose.” She stepped aside to let Rosalind enter.
The private sitting room was plain, worn, and quiet.
It was clearly shared by all three of the Kinsdale sisters and reflected their various tastes in leisure.
A few books and poetry annuals were stacked on the tea table.
A tapestry frame with a partially completed canvas stood by the window.
There was also a table with a lit lamp, and three well-used portable writing desks.
Through an open doorway, Rosalind could see a boudoir with three beds and as many dressing tables.
While Rosalind surveyed the apartment and waited for an invitation to sit down, Cynthia hurried to one of the writing desks and snatched the paper off it. Rosalind had the impression of a badly splotched page with a great deal of crossing out, before Cynthia shut it away.
“Will you sit down?” Cynthia said belatedly. “I’m sorry, I’ve nothing to offer you. …”
“Thank you, I don’t need anything.” Rosalind settled on the faded sofa by the hearth. “I just wanted to ask how you are.”
Cynthia twisted her hands. “I will be much better if you can tell me that you’ve learned something useful about Mrs. Lynn.”
“I know that you and your sister are right to be suspicious of her,” said Rosalind. “Mr. Harkness and I both think that the story may be more complex than what is commonly known as fortune hunting.”
“Yes, of course,” murmured Cynthia. “Why should anything simple come to our doorstep?” She knotted her fists.
“You must work quickly, Miss Thorne. You must. If you don’t …
with Father now saying he will end the admiral’s lease …
” She swallowed. “You understand, it is vital that Admiral Walsingham be allowed to keep Kinsdale House.”
“Are your circumstances that difficult?”
Cynthia nodded rapidly, her jaw clenched as if she did not trust herself to speak. “I … We need him.”
“How is it Admiral Walsingham came to be your father’s tenant?” asked Rosalind. “Were they previously acquainted?”
To her surprise, Cynthia laughed. It was a harsh, unpleasant sound. “Oh, no. Father has a deep antipathy for naval men. He says they come from all sorts of undesirable classes and are filled with native cunning, and always sunburnt besides.”
Rosalind thought of the nature of the gathering downstairs, and found her opinion of Sir Anthony lowering itself still further.
“As to how he came to be our tenant … it’s something of a complicated story.
” Cynthia finally came to sit down on the sofa beside Rosalind.
But she did not, Rosalind noted, meet her gaze.
Instead, Cynthia’s attention shifted restlessly from her own hands to the writing table and the curtained window, and then to the door.
Round and round she shifted her gaze, as if trying to make sure everything remained as she left it.
“We actually—well, Clara, Elizabeth, and I—became acquainted with the admiral and his wife when our mother fell ill. Mother decided it would be better if we went to stay with a cousin of hers in Lyme.” Cynthia paused.
“I think she knew then she could not live, and wished to spare us. I wish she had not,” she added softly.
“But, of course, at the time we could not have known and because of that … well, I for one found our time away very pleasant. There was warmth at our cousin’s house, and a kind of ease.
I didn’t feel like I always needed to be walking on tiptoe, or that there was constantly something that needed to be hushed up—” She giggled abruptly, a high-pitched manic sound.
She slapped her hand hard over her face.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. ”
“That’s all right. Tonight has been a strain.”
“Yes.” Cynthia sighed. “But a familiar one. I should not take it so.” These words were reflexive, and her tone without true meaning.
“Have you remained close with your cousin?” asked Rosalind.
“No,” said Cynthia. “When Mother did die, Father took it into his head to blame her. He decided that she should have offered to come and nurse Mother rather than simply agree to take us all away. Never mind that it was Mother who asked her to keep us.” She rubbed her hands together restlessly.
“But it was at Lyme that we became acquainted with Admiral and Mrs. Walsingham, and all their family. While we were there, he often remarked that he planned to retire, and take a house somewhere away from the coast. In fact, he joked about being like Ulysses—marching inland until he came to a place where no one had ever heard of the sea.” She smiled fondly at this memory.
“So, when the crisis came, and the horses had all been sold off, and father’s man of business mentioned that we might put the house up for rent, I naturally thought of the admiral, and suggested he be written to.
There.” She smiled, but something strained and uncomfortable remained in her eye and her demeanor.
“I did tell you it was a convoluted story.”
“Only a little,” said Rosalind. “You’ve said your father was reluctant to rent out the house. Did Mrs. Lynn play any part in convincing him?”
Cynthia laughed again. “Oh, yes! Elizabeth brought her into all our counsels, but this was another point where, I must say, she proved herself remarkably useful. She kept up a constant stream of talk about the delights of Bath—how many grand people stopped there, how one could not call oneself a true person of consequence unless one were known in Bath … she quite won him over.”
Rosalind paused for a moment, and then said, “The admiral spoke of visiting the stables, and he accused your father of playing some game. Do you know what he meant?”
Cynthia shook her head. “I have no idea.” Her gaze slipped to her writing desk.
Rosalind pretended to ignore this. “Whose idea was it to enter Kinsdale’s Pride in the sweepstakes?”
“That came from Elizabeth. She and Clara kept up the management of the stables between them, although, of course, Father took the credit. However, once Beth proposed it, Mrs. Lynn took up the cause with enthusiasm.”
Rosalind filed this fact away with the others she had gathered.
“If Elizabeth and Clara oversaw the stables, did they have anything to say when the head groom was fired?”
“Oh. You’ve heard about Nathanial Spence.
” Cynthia sighed. “He was a good man with horses. He looked after our stables diligently and tried to interest breeders in our thoroughbreds … but when the money really began to run out, to the point where the bailiffs were threatening to drag him into court, Father began to cast about for people to blame. Spence was one of the people he settled on.”
“Is that why Mr. Spence was accused of poisoning your horses?”
“Oh, that.” Cynthia twisted her hands. “You must understand, Miss Thorne, Father has always been a man of … obsessions. Ideas get planted in his head and they take very firm root. His dislike of the navy is only one such example. He saw that our studs were no longer in demand, and our brood mares no longer selling. He had also heard some story somewhere about a groom poisoning a family’s stock out of spite, and he knew he had not paid Spence—or any of our staff—what he owed them, and these things got mixed together in his mind.
And from the mixture rose the accusation. ”
“But there was nothing to it?”
“Good lord, no! If there had been, Elizabeth would have seen it immediately. Or Clara would. Father just makes pronouncements and curates his wardrobe.” She stopped. “You don’t think Spence has something to do with this?”
“I think that a man who has had his reputation damaged for no reason may try to get some of his own back. It may be he had something to do with making sure Sir Anthony found out about the admiral’s nephew.”
“Because it is very well known that Father will cut off his nose to spite his face,” murmured Cynthia.
“Yes, that could have happened. Putting the house up to let was one blow to Father’s pride that he has never quite managed to rationalize away.
It eats at him. Now that he has an excuse to assert himself, no matter what the cost, he will do it.
And we will all suffer for it.” These last words she spoke in a whisper.
“It may not come to that,” said Rosalind. “Mrs. Lynn seems to have soothed his spirits.”
“Yes.” Cynthia’s voice grew stronger. “How very strange I should yet again have a reason to feel grateful to that woman.”
“Well, from what you and Clara have told me, she would also have an interest in matters remaining, as they are.”
“Yes, there is that,” agreed Cynthia grimly. “If our family goes into a full collapse, there will be no house at which she can entertain her many friends.”
“How is the expense managed?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Cynthia. “I know she justifies it by saying these are men who should know my father, because they will be interested in our horses once Kinsdale’s Pride wins the sweepstakes.
” Her hands twisted. “She’s quite taken over the house.
I’ve seen her turning away tradesmen with bills at the door, insisting they come back next week, when they will be paid in full.
But I ask you, Miss Thorne, how could that be?
” She spread her hands. “Even if Casselmaine is not driven away by this profligacy, she cannot assume he will be ready to pay all her bills without blinking.”
“Is the frequency of the parties increasing?”
“We have as many as one a week now.”
Rosalind nodded. “It is possible she is trying to hold as many as she can before the wedding. But I wonder—”
A knock on the door cut off her words. The door opened.
“Cynthia dear, I came to see—”
The woman who spoke saw Rosalind, and stopped in mid-sentence.
It was Mrs. Lynn.