1 Arrivals #2
“How are you, Hester dear?” Cora said. “Looking better, I vow. It is so good to see you here, where you belong.”
“The kitchen, that is where I belong,” Hester said, with a glimmer of her former robust self. “Still, his grace is very good to me, even when I am useless.”
“But you are family!” Cora said, shocked. “The duke is very lucky to have had you to run the house for all these years, saving him the need for a housekeeper.”
“And we are all lucky to have your Charlotte to take over,” Hester said. “But tell me about these people from Gloucestershire. So exciting, to have another guest from Mr Goodenough.”
“We do not know that yet, not for certain.”
“But what other explanation could there be?”
“Indeed, it must be so,” Cora conceded.
The Garths arrived just then, stiffly formal and correctly attired, with the duke, still unbowed despite his advanced age, not far behind. Under cover of the flurry of introductions, Cora told Hester all that was known of them, which was not a great deal.
“How interesting that Mr Goodenough has sent us an entire family this time!” Hester said, eyes gleaming. “The duke said there would be more and he was right. Oh, here is Mr Hammond now. He will want to know if there is a black sheep in Mr Garth’s history.”
Cora chuckled. “His theory of Mr Goodenough’s purpose may founder here. Mr Garth does not strike me as a man willing to admit to any blot on the escutcheon.”
Hester was drawn away to be introduced to the newcomers, so for a while Cora was alone, her workbasket unopened as she watched the comings and goings around the Garths. After a while, Miss Violetta Garth slipped away from her family and came to sit beside Cora.
“Goodness, everyone is so excited about our arrival, even though no one expected it. It all seems very mysterious. Will you tell me about this Mr Goodenough, who does not exist?”
“Of course, Miss Garth. His first letter was sent to a Miss Rowena Holt, the daughter of a clergyman in Oxford, who was looking for a post as governess or companion. When she discovered there was no such opening here, she was all for leaving at once, but my son liked her and persuaded her to stay. They were married soon after—”
“Oh, how charming!”
“—and now they have two little girls. Caroline was two last month and Jane was born in January. That is Rowena in the pretty green gown over there.”
“So that ended very well for everyone,” Miss Garth said, nodding vigorously, but the curls around her face were so stiff they barely moved.
Cora longed to see her with softer hair, and gentler curls that bounced at the slightest movement.
How enticing that would be! Surely any man would be entranced.
“The second letter brought us Mr Simon Payne, an architect, who was asked to design an orangery for the duke, which is now being built. He married my youngest daughter, Sophia, a year last June, and they have a baby daughter, too.”
“Another success,” Miss Garth said. “Mr Goodenough is remarkably fortunate in his choosing.”
Cora smiled. “Yes, a happy choice indeed. We are delighted for dear Sophia. She is in the yellow gown near the fire. Mr Payne is presently with the duchess in Cheshire, advising her on improvements to a house there. The third letter was to Mr Lance Chamberlain, who—”
“The famous portrait painter?” She giggled.
“Our neighbour, Lady Nutting wanted him to paint her daughter, but he would not. He went off to paint Lady Patience Torbuck instead, and nearly married her, too, for the announcement was in all the newspapers, but she is married to the son of a viscount now. Did Mr Chamberlain marry one of your daughters, too?”
“Almost. He proposed to my eldest, Charlotte, but she turned him down in the end. She likes being single, I think. She is the one in grey and gold beside your mama. Mr Chamberlain is in Cheshire, too. And now we have your papa."
“Who is already married.” She chuckled, then inclined her head towards the group gathered around her father. “That gentleman in the spectacles beside the duke—”
“Mr Hammond, the secretary.”
“—he thinks all the people brought here by Mr Goodenough are what he calls black sheep, but Papa is adamant there is nothing of that sort in our family. We are perfectly respectable in every conceivable manner, he says. Mama says nothing at all. It is all so intriguing, is it not? One wonders why Papa was chosen. Is it possible that a mistake was made?”
Cora had no immediate answer to give, for unless one knew what Mr Goodenough’s purpose was in sending strangers to Staineybank, how might one guess that a mistake had been made?
She had no great faith in Jamie Hammond’s theory of black sheep, for Lance Chamberlain was just as fearsomely respectable as Mr Garth, and the only black sheep connected with him was his valet.
Still, there had to be some reason for it.
In the end, she said only, “How would one know if a mistake had been made?”
“The name was wrong,” Miss Garth said brightly.
“It was written as ‘Mr Calvin Garth’ not ‘Charles’, and there is a Calvin on the estate. Calvin Garford, one of the gardeners. The name was not very clear — it could have been ‘Garford’. I thought it was when I first read it, but Edward and Papa thought it was ‘Garth’ and Papa said the Duke of Brinshire could not possibly be writing to one of the gardeners.”
“I thought the letter was from Mr Goodenough, not the duke?” Cora said.
“I believe it is, or at least Papa has not denied it, but it was franked by the duke. So he must have known about it, do you not agree?”
“The duke occasionally franks blank pieces of paper for the convenience of guests… or Mr Hammond, one presumes,” Cora said. “All the frank reveals is that Mr Goodenough is someone from this house, and we suspected that all along.”
Miss Garth’s eyes widened, but just then Mr Godley, the chaplain, sidled over to talk to her, and not long after they were called in to dinner.
Miss Garth was whisked away to sit beside the duke, who, despite his advanced years, still had an eye for a pretty young lady.
Much of the talk around the table was about the Garths and their journey, but Cora said very little.
She had Mr Pyott, the comptroller, on one side of her, who never talked when he could be eating, and on her other side, Mr Garth was boring Rowena with a monologue about his house, Lampton Priory.
She was glad when Rowena did not linger after dessert, and they could escape to the White Drawing Room.
Jamie Hammond was the first of the gentlemen to come through, grinning from ear to ear.
“Did you find a black sheep?” someone called out.
He shook his head, the grin widening. “Nothing like that, but the duke has discovered that he knew Mr Garth’s grandmother very well.
‘Fanny Garth!’ he said, as soon as he heard the name.
‘What a fine young woman she was, the toast of London and several other cities as well.’ He is convinced that Mr Goodenough is sending the descendants of ladies he admired in his youth. ”
“We shall be inundated, then,” Hester said in an undertone that only Cora could hear.
“He was something of a flirt when he was younger, I understand,” Cora said brightly.
“Flirt? He was an out and out rake. Not a libertine, precisely, but he was always in pursuit of one lady or another. Married women, of course. He never seduced innocents, and the housemaids were safe from him, but he loved women, and especially the beautiful ones. If Mr Goodenough is sending a representative of every woman the duke has ever admired, he will never run out of material.”
“Do you think that is the connection?” Cora said. “It certainly seems to fit better than Mr Hammond’s black sheep theory.”
Hester pondered for a moment. “I suppose it is as good an explanation as any other.”