The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga) (17 page)

‘I know not what to say for the best,’ Susan clasped Brent’s hand and squeezed it. ‘I would not deny you or her. But Brent what if there is no war, if the Prince does not come? He has tried to come often before you know.’

‘He will come, Mother. This time it is sure. In a year we shall have the Stuarts again on the throne.’

‘Oh would it could be. How different everything might be. But I cannot bear to think of what is going to happen until then. Oh look, Furness Grange, and there is Mary on the jetty with John.’ She clasped Brent’s hand again and turned to him, her eyes shining.

‘For you I
will
be happy Brent. We may have so little time.’

There had not been such a feast at Furness Grange since anyone could remember. There had been little enough to feast about and few resources with which to do it. But the family reunion as well as the betrothal of Brent and Mary was considered sufficient reason, and extra servants had been engaged from the neighbouring hamlets to prepare the succulent food and serve it.

The long dining table was set with silver marked with the Allonby crest, crystal goblets stood by each place setting and white linen napkins. The feast was already spread on the sideboard as Brent sat down, on the right of his cousin Mary, and he wondered how much they had sacrificed to prepare this repast for them – a great baron of beef, sides of ham, chickens, pies and crispy newly baked bread.

While they dined and the servants moved around the talk was kept to generalities about the weather, the state of the soil, the quality of grazing land and the bad winters they were having and which had taken off so many souls in recent years.

Brent knew that they had to talk with care because of the presence of Ambrose Rigg, that worthy merchant from Cockermouth who gave Sarah fifteen years and already had a paunch and the heavy-jowled look that comes from excessive fondness for food and drink and the good things of life. But it was not his appearance that worried the Allonbys, but his politics. It was men such as Rigg who ensured the survival of the Hanoverians, who had benefited by years of peace since George I came so wrongfully to the throne. Rigg’s ancestors had been serfs, then ‘statesmen’, yeoman farmers. Ambrose himself had broken away, gone to Whitehaven as a youth and slowly built up a fortune from very humble beginnings first as a sailor then as a ship owner and merchant.

But no amount of money could make up to Ambrose for his lack of breeding, his coarse ways and uncivilized manners. He had looked for a wife to remedy these defects and had found one in the impoverished Allonby family from whom he bought wood to build boats and houses. The history of the Allonby family was well known, how they had once been among the greatest in the county, but how foolish political involvements had reduced them almost to penury. But nothing could take away a good lineage and fine manners and Sarah Allonby, already well over twenty when he met her and looking for a husband, and a fortune, was just what he needed.

There was no question of love on either side, or even of much respect, at least on Sarah’s. Ambrose was nearly forty, an uncouth old bachelor who picked his nose and scratched his behind in company. His face was already purple and his eyes had the rheumy look of the drinker; but as he began to come increasingly over to Furness Grange on his fine horse accompanied by a groom, she knew the reason was not to buy more wood from her brothers, though he did, but to court her.

Then he had invited the family to his new house in Cockermouth, built in extensive grounds with two floors and outbuildings. He had taken them to Whitehaven to inspect his ships and his warehouses and then, while they were still gawping at the scale of his wealth and possessions, he offered for Sarah’s hand. Although her brothers were aghast she had known what to expect and promptly accepted. Not only would she no longer be an old maid, she would be a wealthy woman too. What did Ambrose’s origins, looks and disgusting manners matter?

Over the years they had been married Sarah had improved both his manners and his appearance. He was still paunchy and florid but he did not drink so much; his clothes were well cut and of good cloth, and he no longer broke wind at the table. He had also sired two exceptionally beautiful children and although Sarah found the process of the siring disgusting, she was willing to put up with almost anything to achieve the status in life she now enjoyed. Let Ambrose get her with as many children as he wanted; she was able, and the more she had the more secure was her station in life, the more certain her hold on his possessions and wealth for her progeny.

Susan thought that night, as she looked at her niece from across the table, that you could see from the set of Sarah’s mouth that she had sold herself for money. The mouth was turned permanently downwards as though in a sneer and there was a hard calculating look in her eyes. She had never been a beauty, but had looked well enough and she had had the robust good sense and cheerfulness of the Allonbys. But now Sarah looked every inch a Rigg – the wife of a rich Hanoverian merchant of low origins but great ambition.

Sarah was as much taken aback by her sister’s betrothal as anyone, but at the dinner table she saw quite clearly the reason. Mary was infatuated by Brent’s animal charm –  he had nothing else, no money, no prospects. Well Ambrose would not provide for him, that was for sure. Nor a dowry for Mary either. He bought enough wood and produce from her brothers that he did not need and, besides, his own family would increase and his duty lay with them.

‘Now then,’ Ambrose was saying, his face florid with the abundance of good claret he had drunk. ‘This war in Europe is doing us no good. ‘Twas a mistake to embark on it in the first place. What care we who reigns in Austria? Get out of it. Let us have the peace good Walpole brought us in his day.’

‘If we have foreign kings they will concern themselves with foreign parts,’ John said, clearing his throat. ‘We need English kings on the throne.’

Brent looked at his cousin with alarm, but Ambrose frowned and tapped his goblet on the table.

‘I do not have any love for the Germans,’ he said, ‘as you know John, but I have no love for the Stuarts either if I follow your meaning. I would favour the sort of government this country had under Cromwell. I would do away with kings and such wasteful nonsense and have a good honest republic.’

Sarah smiled at her husband, not fondly, but as one cynically amused. The only thing that mattered to Ambrose was the amount of money that he could amass in the shortest possible time. Politics or who reigned in London were of not the slightest interest.

‘My husband thinks that his coffers would swell greater with a man of business at the head of government,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that true Ambrose?’

‘Aye, ‘tis,’ Ambrose nodded. ‘No frippery, no nonsense, mistresses and the like, such as I hear they have at court. A good man of business.’

‘Some say,’ John said slowly, looking at his brother-in-law, ‘that the war is good for certain business.’

‘Oh?’ Ambrose looked interested as though he might have missed something.

‘Illicit brandy, tobacco, silks from France.’

Ambrose’s frank, shrewd expression which he had when discussing business grew guarded. Although it was well known that the smuggling trade thrived through successful respectable business-men like himself, it was still unlawful, punishable by confiscation of property, fines and imprisonment. It disturbed him to think that John, in whom he did not confide, might have heard something of his activities in this connection. Many of his ships ran a profitable line in smuggled goods through the large entrepot depot on the Isle of Man, plying from Roscoff and Nantes in France and Port Rush in Ireland.

‘I know naught of illegal business,’ Ambrose said blandly. ‘I am a good honest merchant and I pay my duties and taxes. Now, wife, it is late; we should make an early start in the morning ...’

John was quite used to Ambrose’s habit of assuming he was the head of the household at the Grange. He did everything but sit at the head of the table, calling for food when his platter was empty and wine when he needed it. Now he had announced that the dinner was over and it was time for bed.

It was late; the candles had grown low in the sconces and some had even been replaced by the servants. Mary and Brent had said very little, preferring to excite each other by sly amorous glances, or the quick clasp of hands under the table.

But Ambrose had been looking surreptitiously at Brent throughout the dinner, noticing that he was a fine strong man, broad shouldered though slim hipped. A fast mover. Without a home too, Ambrose had heard; a wastrel, kicked out by his brother. He did not look a wastrel, though, to Ambrose who had only met him a couple of times in his life whereas his brother George he knew quite well. They did business together and he knew that George despised him because he was of yeoman class, ill-mannered and self-made. George Delamain had always made it very clear how he felt about Ambrose Rigg: he would take his money or his goods but he would not sup or dine with him, or invite him to his castle – Sarah or no Sarah Allonby for a wife.

Ambrose was a man who nursed grudges. He was conscious of his origins and ashamed of them. His ancestors had been serfs for generations, serving the needs of the Allonbys and Delamains and such folk. Nothing was guaranteed to inspire greater enmity in Ambrose than to be patronized and snubbed by such as George Delamain, now Sir George, and the like. He had, therefore, looked at young Brent with interest; there would be no love here between the brothers. What a good way to pay George back for the humiliations he heaped on Ambrose – he had once made him wait outside the kitchen door when he called in person for payment, Ambrose not being a man to extend credit for too long.

‘Aye,’ John said, echoing Ambrose, ‘’tis late. But let us drink to the health of Brent and Mary.’ John got up and took his glass and the rest of the assembly joined him. ‘Brent and Mary ... Brent and Mary, health, happiness.’

Brent stood up and made a graceful, short little speech of thanks on behalf of himself and his betrothed and then everybody clapped and, at the signal from John, the servants appeared and drew back the chairs.

Ambrose went over and stood with his back to the fire getting out his pipe and filling it with fragrant American tobacco newly smuggled via Nantes.

‘A word with you, Master Brent.’

Brent was passing, his arm through Mary’s, and stopped as Ambrose called to him. He bowed to Mary who continued with her sister into the drawing-room, and went over to where the tall broad merchant stood with a proprietorial air puffing his pipe as if he owned the place.

‘Yes, sir?’ Brent said, respectful of the years between him and his cousin’s husband.

‘Now lad, what do you do with yourself?’

‘Well ...’ Brent faltered. He had done nothing and it was hard to say what he was about to do, especially to someone as much of the Establishment as Ambrose Rigg.

‘Turned out of the castle, I hear.’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes sir.’

‘What are you going to do then?’

Ambrose spewed smoke right into Brent’s face and gazed at him, chin slightly tilted, his hands behind his back.

‘I thought of going to ... abroad.’

‘Ah, to seek work?’

‘Yes.’

‘The colonies maybe, America …’

‘Yes, yes you could say that.’

‘But you don’t have anywhere in mind?’

‘I thought ... the West Indies,’ Brent improvised.

‘You have connections there, of course?’

‘No, sir.’ Brent began to realize he was sounding like an idiot. This man was trying to find out if he was suitable for his sister-in-law and clearly the answer would be no, at this rate. ‘I mean to try and find my own way, sir,’ he said, raising his head and meeting the level gaze of Ambrose.

‘’Twill be difficult with a wife.’

‘Oh, Mary will stay here. I have ... today given her brothers and my mother a promise not to marry her until I am able to support her.’

Brent still choked at the thought of the solemn family conference that had taken place in the library just before dinner and made him so silent during it. As yet Mary knew nothing about it, which was just as well.

‘Ah ... pity.’ Ambrose tapped out his pipe on the chimney piece and belched, looking quickly around to be sure his wife had not observed him. ‘Look here, young Delamain ... I hardly know you but I like what I see. A capable strong lad with a good pair of shoulders, and a good head ... Cambridge I hear? Oh don’t worry, not much of a scholar I know, but neither am I and I’ve done well enough. How would you like to be taken into employment by me?’

Brent wondered if his ears were deceiving him. To work for Ambrose? Doing what? Keeping accounts? The idea was horrifying.

‘Oh sir, ‘tis kind of you but I have set my heart on abroad ...’

‘You’ll get there soon enough, boy. I’ll put you on one of my ships. Learn to be a captain, a master mariner maybe. Learn all the business; be my right hand if you’re good. My son is far too young and will take a long time to catch up wi’ me. You’re about the right age.’

Brent’s senses reeled from the impact of what Ambrose was saying. Here he was about to embark for France on adventure and he was being offered a job as a merchant! The bile in his throat nearly choked him. But he knew Ambrose was far too important to offend out of hand – the Allonbys depended a good deal on business with him and, besides, there was Sarah, a sour piece and going sourer, but an Allonby all the same.

‘Sir, you make me a very generous offer. May I have time to think about it?’

Ambrose’s clap on his shoulder nearly sent Brent staggering. He was a powerful man, almost as tall as Brent and twice as large, though most of it was fat.

‘Think on’t lad, do. Not too long, mind. Talk it over with Mary. A few months in each part of the business, at sea, the warehouses and so on and then maybe a nice house in Whitehaven to bring the bride home to. You’ll have a secure future within a year, Brent. I don’t give a penny for your chances in the Indies or seeing Mary again before five years are out. Besides, are you not lame?’