The Homecoming (8 page)

“How can I say this?” Lizzie looked at him sadly.

“Such an invitation to such a family from the great Duke of Severnshire must have given them hopes of a marriage for Sarah, and not with you either.”

“They must see that such a match is unthinkable.”

“And yet what else can they think?” said Lizzie patiently. “The Walters are not in the way of receiving invitations from dukes.”

“But they must know it was because of me!”

“The squire has great vanity, I think,” said Lizzie. “And Sarah did not recognize you. Was she even aware of your existence?”

“We danced several times at the local assemblies, and then, one beautiful day which will live in my memory forever, I was out walking and I met her. We walked and talked for an hour.”

“And did Sarah show any warmth towards you?”

“Oh, yes, she said I was the easiest person to talk to she had ever met.”

“And what did you talk about?” asked Lizzie curiously.

It transpired that Peter had done most of the talking. The local vicar had introduced Peter to his bishop and the bishop had given Peter a letter of introduction to the duke. Peter had talked of his hopes of securing a position as secretary in the duke’s household.

“I will try to become friendly with Sarah,” said Lizzie at last, “and try to find out if she has any feelings for you.”

“Would you? You are the best of friends. Tell me, do you approve of my choice of beau for you?”

“Mr. Parkes is very handsome,” said Lizzie cautiously. “He appears sunny and good-natured. Farther than that, I have no opinion.”

When Peter had left, Lizzie went next door to talk to Miss Trumble.

She wondered whether to tell Miss Trumble about her odd feeling that the house was angry with her, but decided against it. Miss Trumble would worry that the old Beverley obsession with Mannerling had returned.

Instead she told Miss Trumble about Peter’s worries. “There is not much hope there,” Said Miss Trumble, “unless the obvious hopes of the squire are well and truly dashed and the duke says something about allowing Mr. Bond to marry and set up his establishment.”

“Could you speak to him about it?” pleaded Lizzie.

“Gervase is…difficult. He is still angry with me for remaining at my post. But we will see. How did you find Mr. Parkes?”

“Very handsome. Very cheerful.”

“Try to look beyond his looks, Lizzie. I sense a carelessness and heedlessness there.”

“He is very young,” said Lizzie sententiously.

Miss Trumble smiled. “And you so old. Now let us repair to your rooms and get you ready for dinner. The duke keeps fashionably late hours. Seven-thirty for dinner! I remember when not so long ago dinner was served at four in the afternoon.”

The duke, without thinking, took his aunt in to dinner, as she was the highest-ranking lady there. Lady Verity frowned awfully and Celia flounced. Sarah was, in her head, setting up her nursery, having successfully married the duke. Squire Walters greedily surveyed the table. Such a profligacy of dishes! This could be the sort of life the Walters family could lead if only his daughter would make a push to attract the duke.

Lizzie was placed between Gerald and Peter. The secretary’s presence at the dinner-table made the Earl and Countess of Hernshire think their host must be an eccentric. Sarah was on Peter’s other side, but to his despair she answered all his sallies with monosyllabic answers. He did not know that he was interrupting a really splendid dream.

When the ladies retired to the drawing-room, to leave the gentlemen to their wine, Lizzie went to sit beside Sarah. “You must be delighted to meet Mr. Bond again,” she began.

“Mr.—”

“Bond,” said Lizzie sharply. “The duke’s secretary.”

“Ah, yes,” said Sarah. “Mr. Bond is very kind, I think.”

“Do you know why you and your parents were invited?” demanded Lizzie.

Sarah blushed slightly and looked down at her hands. “Why, Papa says he must have heard of me and considered me a suitable lady to make his bride.”

“That was not the case at all,” said Lizzie. “It was Peter, Mr. Bond, who prompted the duke into asking you.”

Sarah looked at her in bewilderment and then her face cleared. “That explains how His Grace came to learn of me.”

“Yes.”

“He must have asked Mr. Bond to find him a suitable lady,” said Sarah with a little laugh, “and Mr. Bond remembered me. How clever of him!”

Lizzie raised her eyes to the painted ceiling in exasperation. “My dear widgeon, Mr. Bond has formed a tendre for you and his sympathetic master, on learning of it, suggested he invite you and your parents.”

Now she had Sarah’s full and undivided attention as all her rosy dreams of marriage and children and being a duchess whirled about her head and disappeared. She raised her hands to her white face. “That cannot be true. It
must
not be true!”

“Mr. Bond is a friend of mine and an excellent gentleman.”

“But he is only a secretary!”

“And you are only a squire’s daughter,” said Lizzie brutally.

Sarah eyes swam with tears. “Papa will be furious. He will say it is all my fault and he will shout at me and call me useless.”

“There now,” said Lizzie, pressing the girl’s cold hand. “We will think of something.”

In the dining-room, the duke stifled a yawn. The various fathers were pressing on him descriptions of the beauty and wit of their daughters. It was all quite vulgar and he had only himself to blame for having behaved vulgarly, for having gone shopping for a bride, as if he had sent for lengths of cloth on approval. But one did not need to entertain lengths of cloth or entertain the shopkeeper’s family.

He had a sudden bright picture in his head of Lizzie and young Gerald. Had he, Gervase, tenth Duke of Severnshire, ever laughed in the sunlight with a young lady? Not that he could remember. The sad fact was one could not choose a bride in the way one chose a mistress. If he married some lady, she would bear his children and be part of his life. There was Lady Verity, of impeccable lineage and impeccable hauteur. Were he to marry her, they would settle down to a correct life with children relegated to the nursery and produced occasionally before dinner for his inspection. She would never play with them or worry about them. And yet what was so strange about that? It was the way of the world. But she would not be popular with his tenants and servants, a fact he had not hitherto considered important. As for Celia Charters, he would strangle her one day at the breakfast table, being unable to take her mindless prattle any longer. He was alarmed that the dreadful squire with the crushed wife appeared to assume that Sarah had been selected as a possible candidate.

He began to wonder how soon he could be shot of the lot of them and what excuse he could make to get rid of them. Perhaps Mr. Bond could think of something. His thoughts turned to his excellent secretary. Come to think of it, he saw no reason why Mr. Bond should not marry. He could live in a house on the estate and report each day for his duties.

He cut the conversation short by rising to his feet. “Shall we join the ladies?”

He noticed the way Gerald crossed immediately to Lizzie’s side. Lizzie was sitting with Sarah Walters. Mr. Bond joined them and the four were soon chatting happily, or so it looked to him.

He had a sudden desire that little Lizzie Beverley would notice him. He crossed to join them and all conversation died.

“Miss Beverley,” he said, “I crave a few moments of your attention.”

Lizzie rose reluctantly and curtsied. He led her to a corner of the room.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“I am interested to find out how Mr. Bond is faring with Miss Walters.”

“Alas,” said Lizzie, “Miss Walters was under the impression that she had been invited as a suitable bride for you. I disabused her. But whether she will notice Mr. Bond is in question. Love is a strange thing. You cannot choose whom you will love. You cannot make yourself love someone just because they are suitable, or so my sisters tell me.”

“I think love is an invention of poets and ballad-mongers,” he said harshly.

“I suppose you would,” said Lizzie candidly, “never having had the need of anyone or any affection.”

“But you are different?”

“I think I would rather be like Miss Trumble than be married to someone whom I did not love or respect. I am very fortunate. With all my sisters married so well, I do not
have
to marry.”

“I would have thought the alternative would have distressed you. Confined to the country with nothing much to occupy your time.”

“As to that, I can visit my sisters, and be a good aunt to their children. I have my books for company and my dreams.”

“And what do you dream of?”

“Other countries. I would like to see some of the places I have only read about in books.”

“Do you ride?”

“I used to ride when we lived here. But at home, we have only the carriage horse.”

“Perhaps you might care to ride out with me tomorrow?”

“But you will be neglecting your guests!”

“I doubt if any of them will rise before noon. Do you rise early?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Then I will meet you in the hall at nine—provided the weather stays fine.”

“Thank you,” said Lizzie demurely. Her eyes strayed to Gerald, who was now talking to Celia and looking very well amused.

Sarah was only lending half an ear to Mr. Bond’s conversation. She watched Lizzie and the duke. What was Lizzie saying? Sarah longed for her dream about the duke to come back. The world was such a drab place without dreams and her wedding to the duke had been a simply splendid one.

When she saw Lizzie coming back, Sarah rose and went to join her, leaving Peter with a sentence unfinished.

“What were you talking about?” asked Sarah eagerly. “Did he mention me?”

“He was anxious to know how Mr. Bond’s suit was faring.”

Sarah’s face fell. “And for some odd reason,” said Lizzie, “he wishes me to go riding with him tomorrow.”

“But you are not even a candidate for marriage!” exclaimed Sarah, biting her lip. “Why should he waste time with you?”

“I suppose it is some sort of whim,” said Lizzie. “I am to meet him in the hall at nine o’clock. Shall we join Mr. Bond and Mr. Parkes?”

Sarah went back and resumed her seat next to Mr. Bond, but her eyes were fixed on the middle distance. And then she thought she saw it all. Lizzie Beverley wanted the duke for herself. Had not her own father warned her just before dinner that he had learned from their maid of the legendary Beverley obsession to regain Mannerling through marriage? Her face cleared. Lizzie must have invented that story about Mr. Bond. She felt all at once very courageous and scheming. Lizzie would not be there at nine o’clock, but
she
would. Her eyes clouded up with happy dreams as she rode out across the sunny countryside on a milk-white steed at the side of the duke.

It was only when the company retired for the night that Sarah came out of her dreams and into the reality of the fact that she had nothing planned to stop Lizzie Beverley from going on that ride.

Her maid brought her in her usual glass of hot milk on a tray. When the maid had retired, Sarah slowly went over to the toilet-table and picked up a bottle of laudanum. She tipped the contents into the glass of milk, and then rang the bell.

When a footman answered it, Sarah said, “Pray take this milk to Miss Lizzie Beverley. It was given to me by mistake.”

The footman bowed, picked up the tray and left.

He carried it along the corridor to the west wing and scratched at Lizzie’s door, and then hearing a faint “Come in,” opened it and carried the milk over to Lizzie, who was in bed, and placed it on the table beside her.

“What is this?” asked Lizzie sleepily.

“It is hot milk, miss.”

“I did not ask for any.”

“Miss Walters sent it to you. She said it had been given to her by mistake.”

“It is not for me. Ugh, it is getting cold already. Leave it.”

When the footman had left, Lizzie turned on her side and went to sleep, leaving the milk untouched.

*   *   *

Sarah awoke very early. She had already laid out her riding-dress. What if Lizzie had not drunk the milk?

She impatiently rang the bell. Sarah felt slightly guilty at sending for a servant so early but then decided that as a future duchess, she must learn to be authoritative. A sleepy footman finally answered, and to her question said that Miss Beverley was in the Blue Room in the west wing. Sarah waited a few moments after he had left and then hurriedly dressed and made her way along the corridors to the west wing. She stood outside the Blue Room and then gently turned the handle of the door and opened it. She found herself in Lizzie’s sitting-room. The key was on the inside of the sitting-room door. Sarah locked it and put the key in her pocket. Then she crept through the door which connected the sitting-room to the bedroom. Lizzie had woken during the night and knocked over the glass of milk with her elbow. She had sponged up the fallen liquid and replaced the glass and gone back to sleep. Sarah saw the empty glass and Lizzie apparently in a drugged sleep. But just to make doubly sure…

She extracted the key from the inside of the bedroom door, went out and locked the door behind her. There now, she thought. I am become a veritable Lady Macbeth! Now all I have to do is wait until nine o’clock.

L
IZZIE DID NOT
have a lady’s-maid, since Betty, who acted as such to the Beverleys, had gone to Bath with her mother. She did not want to rouse Miss Trumble, for that lady might protest at her going out unchaperoned.

So she dressed herself in a smart riding outfit of dark-green velvet and put a saucy little green velvet top hat on her head, angling it rakishly to the side to show off her glossy curls.

Lizzie glanced at the clock. Five to nine. She went to her bedroom door and found it locked. Irritated, she went through to her sitting-room and found that door locked as well.