Cry of the Peacock (23 page)

J
AMES’ ANXIETY ABOUT Abbie had very nearly been relieved upon his returning home. She looked well. Very well, if not radiantly happy—which was perhaps all the better—and with the scene of David’s intervention so handsomely played before him, it was clear his brother had kept his promise to watch out for her. The distance, however, that he had determined to maintain in the endeavor, was questionable. What would it take to have that question answered?

James arose that morning, dressed, breakfasted at leisure, read the paper… And when David had still not appeared, he went to his brother’s room, where he applied his fist to the door. At last it yielded, revealing his brother in trousers and a nightshirt, his feet bare and his hair a tousled mess.

“What the devil do you want!” David demanded.

“You were still sleeping?” James said as he pushed his way into the room. “You’re usually up at the crack of dawn, busy as a bee with one thing or another.”

“I’m not sleeping as well as I’m used to doing.”

“Something on your mind?”

“Perhaps,” David answered testily and closed the door. He sat down upon his bed as he struggled to wake up. “You didn’t answer my question, you know. What is it you want?”

“You’ve not replied to my letters. It’s not because there was nothing to tell.”

Without answering, David arose to check his reflection in the mirror, then pulled the bell which would summon his hot water.

“I asked you to find out about the allotments. Did our father authorize my plans?”

“Yes, but…”

“But?”

“Well, the fact is he wasn’t aware of your little act of benevolence until I pointed it out to him.”

“So they are not to have the land, is that what you’re saying?”

“I don’t know.”

Frustrated, James sighed. “It is rather important that I know, David.”

“Dare I ask why?”

“We must do something for them.”

“I agree, but, I still don’t understand how the issue of allotments and garden space is so great a one as your manner seems to suggest.”

“Well, you see,” he began, “as things were so slow for a while, I thought the laborers might try their hands at a few experimental market gardens. I gave them a little extra land to do it, too.”

David looked up from the chest of drawers, through which he had just chosen a clean shirt. A question hung in the air, but he said nothing. James, consequently went on.

“When they learned they were to be moving, and possibly leaving behind those allotments, they were understandably distraught. If the old cottages were to be torn down, what were the chances the gardens could be saved? And so it was proposed that the new cottages would be built slightly uphill of the old—to provide for better drainage—and situated back to back so that the old allotments would simply become the new. Only there was no telling how they would fare with the demolition, and so I made them significantly larger. I doubled them in fact. Do you really think you’ve spoiled it?”

“I think what Ruskin and our father decide to do with the allotments is going to matter very little in light of the fact that the site of the new construction has been moved, and it’s no easy distance.”

“Where?” James asked cautiously.

“To the meadow on the far side of Whiteheath Hall.”

“What? What are they thinking? They’ll never agree to move there! Do you know the laborers consider that land little better than stolen from Abbie’s family by our own?”

“Well, in a manner of speaking, it was.”

James was halted. “What do you mean?”

But the answer was waylaid by the entrance of a manservant, who filled David’s washing bowl with hot water and left again.

“Stolen?” James prompted him when they were once more alone.

“Or as good as,” David answered, and, turning to face the mirror, he proceeded to shave. “At one time,” he began, necessarily haltingly, for the razor proved an impediment to easy speech, “Miss Gray’s mother, was engaged to marry our uncle.”

“Uncle Ransom?”

“Yes.”

“Well what do you know!”

David put down the razor and looked at him in the reflection of the mirror. “I’m trying to tell you, if you’ll listen.”

James rolled his eyes and sat. But David did not go on right away. He finished shaving, and then, with a towel around his neck, he too took a seat.

David was often serious, but he was rarely as intensely sober as this, and James was consequently a little alarmed. At last David leaned forward, and with his hands clasping the towel around his neck, and his gaze fixed on the pattern in the carpet, he began.

“Elizabeth Fairbourne was once engaged to marry our Uncle Ransom, as I said. It had been a longstanding arrangement.”

“Like yours and Katherine’s do you mean?”

David only looked at him impatiently, and went on with his story. “By all appearances she was amenable to the plans made for her, but when it came time to make the engagement official, she balked. It had long been our grandfather’s hope to unite her family’s wealth with his own, and he was not prepared to resign his hopes to the whims and fleeting fancies of a young woman who did not know her own mind. He consequently thought to offer some further incentive to those in the power of persuading her to reconsider her duty.”

James listened and resisted the temptation to draw comparisons. It was too easy to do.

“Years earlier,” David continued, “our grandfather had rescued Sir Wallace Fairbourne from an enormous debt, which, had it not been paid, would have caused a great scandal and would have cost him his honor, if not his life. Sir William paid the debt, an IOU was drawn up and signed, but, with the arranged marriage of the infant heirs, Sir William was prepared to forget the debt owed him. Once the union was at risk, however, he reconsidered. His friend was reminded of his obligation. Pressure was duly applied to Miss Fairbourne, but instead of reconsidering her position, she took flight, to the shock of everyone, and eloped with the younger son of the vicar.”

David began tapping his ring on the chair’s arm. It was a sort of vent for emotion he dared not display otherwise, and James wished to know the extent of his perturbation.

“Word of the debt quickly spread,” David went on. “Once a hallowed secret between friends, it was soon published far and wide for all to hear of. In time it reached the ears of the Fairbourne family’s creditors. The debts were called in. Of course the money was not to be had. The timing, you see, was particularly unfortunate. Stocks were collapsing in the wake of a series of fraudulent speculating schemes. Banks, in consequence, were failing. The Fairbournes found themselves with no choice before them but to put Whiteheath up for sale. Within the year, Miss Elizabeth’s parents were both dead, the house had been set ablaze by a mob of angry field workers, and all that remained was an embittered sister in London and the charred remains of a once stately mansion.”

“So that’s what became of the house,” James said. “And why we have it, I suppose. What became of Uncle Ransom?”

“Ransom, jilted, scandalized by his father’s underhanded dealings, took refuge from his disappointment in India. Our grandfather wrote to him there, begging for forgiveness. All he had wanted was his son’s happiness. Well, that and Whiteheath, of course. But the land he had once coveted was now in ruins. His favorite son was gone from home, perhaps never to return. He was at fault and was prepared to confess it. He begged to know what he might do to make restitution.”

David stopped there and rubbed at his freshly shaven chin. James waited, rather impatiently, but David did not seem eager to go on.

“And?” James pressed at last.

“And,” David continued, though haltingly, “a letter from India was eventually returned. It bore with it the news that Ransom was deathly ill, and his wish, whether he should live or die, was only that his father would do all he might to make amends, to restore the Fairbourne family, if it were at all possible, to their former position.”

“Our grandfather agreed, I take it?”

“Yes, and Ransom’s death, a month later, sealed that promise.”

“Did he keep his promise? That is what you are trying to tell me, I take it. That he kept it?”

“Yes, he kept it. To the extent he was able, at any rate.”

“How?”

“First, he established a trust. Then he purchased some promising stocks in the railway. He also purchased the land that had gone up for sale. All these acquisitions he recorded in a ledger—a ledger which I have seen with my own eyes, mind—to be kept for the purpose of one day restoring the Fairbournes, if not to all they had possessed, then, as nearly as possible, to that which they had lost at the hands of
our
family.”

“Great God in heaven,” James muttered, fairly astounded.

“With the plan set in place and the money amassing, what remained to be decided was how to transfer the wealth in a way that would most benefit those who had been made to suffer. To grant it to the daughters—to Elizabeth or her sister—could serve no purpose. It would simply go to the unworthy men they had married. Neither was Elizabeth likely to accept anything our family had to give them. As if proof was wanted, Sir William soon found Mr. and Mrs. Gray, out of work and desperate for help. Our grandfather offered Mr. Gray a position on the estate, rent free and with a generous income. They had no choice but to accept the position. They would not, however, accept anything that resembled charity. They would pay rent, they would earn their way, and they would owe nothing to Sir William or any connected with him.”

“So how was it to be repaid, then?” James asked, but understood it almost at once. “They would not accept it, but their children might. Their daughter would inherit it through Ruskin!”

“Their former property,” David explained, “the land, the investments, the money earned therefrom, preserved in a trust, was willed to Miss Gray upon the death of her parents, with the sole condition that she make a suitable marriage.”

“Suitable might mean anything,” James said, suddenly taking hope.

“Or nothing.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Suitable to whom, is the question. If our father is the executor, is he likely to deem anyone besides Ruskin suitable for her?”

“Do you know the answer to that?” James asked. “I mean do you know for certain that he has that power?”

“I only know that he has the incentive, a nearly desperate motivation to see that it comes to pass.”

“So it is not she who is the mercenary after all, it is we. What is this motivation, may I ask?”

David hesitated a moment more. His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed hard. “The recent improvements,” he said, “they were funded with her inheritance as the backing. A loan has been taken out. Her impending marriage to Ruskin guarantees the terms of the loan.”

“What?” James said and was on his feet. “He’s so sure of himself as that, is he?”

“It would seem so,” David answered, and tossed the towel onto the wash stand.

“So what do we do?” James asked now. “Have you a plan? You’ve told her, of course.”

“I haven’t. And I don’t think we should. Not yet, at any rate.”

“You don’t think? What the devil is wrong with you? Of course she should know. She deserves to know!”

In that same, frustratingly calm manner, David answered him, but there was a pulse in his temple that was new, a flexing of his jaw that betrayed his own anxiety and frustration. “Do you think she’ll be more likely to accept Ruskin if she knows there’s a fortune hanging on her decision?”

“Or perhaps she’ll be less likely, after all.”

James looked at him, truly confused. “And
that
is why you haven’t told her? I would think that would be quite reason enough for you to reveal it all.”

“That isn’t the way, James. I won’t be a party to her disenfranchisement. And there is yet the possibility that she might then marry him out of a sense of obligation. Our parents have done a good job so far of instilling a strong feeling of indebtedness in her. If she learns of the will, you can bet she will soon after be made to know of the strain we are presently under, and from which only she, at present, can relieve us.”

“What is Miss Mariana’s part in this? I suppose she has none now?”

“None at all, which I imagine is why her half of the invitation was not renewed with her sister’s.”

James sat again, and when at last he was prepared to reply, it was as much to himself as to David. “It doesn’t seem right to keep it from her.”

David gave him an uncertain look. He put on his shirt and began buttoning it, but apparently struggled with the buttonholes. “It doesn’t seem right whatever we do!” he said, for the moment, giving up on the buttons. “It’s my feeling she should be allowed to make her choice first, so long as she can make it of her own accord.”

“So we do nothing?” James asked, unbelieving. How was that even an option? Perhaps David did not care so much as he had begun to suppose.

“We watch, as you rightly suggested we should, and make sure she isn’t being pushed too hard in any one direction.”