Promise Me This (21 page)

“Jamison?” Annie was not at all certain she wanted to be left alone with Mr. Sprague. Until yesterday he had always seemed fierce and formal.

“I’ll be just outside the door, Miss Annie, whenever you need me,” Jamison replied, not seeming concerned in the least and smiling, much to Annie’s consternation.

“Gregory, bring tea for Miss Allen and see that Mr. Jamison has whatever he would like.”

“Very good, sir.” The butler bowed again, stirred the fire in the grate to a rousing blaze, and disappeared.

Mr. Sprague closed the study door and returned to his desk. He waited until he’d seated himself, folded his hands across the blotter, then looked evenly at Annie.

Annie clasped her hands and swallowed the small lump in her throat.

“I have been the Hargrave family solicitor for twenty-seven years, Miss Allen. Mr. Winston Hargrave, your grandfather, and I attended Oxford together.”

“Yes, sir.” She had known that much.

“When your mother married Mackenzie Allen, then employed as the Hargrave family gardener, Mr. Hargrave vowed to strike his daughter from his will.”

Annie had heard it all before. It reminded her of Aunt Eleanor’s repeated threats to Owen. “It seems to be the family way,” she whispered wryly, much to her surprise.

Mr. Sprague half smiled. “My sentiments exactly, Miss Allen.”

“Yours, sir?”

“I am the family solicitor, Miss Allen. It does not mean that I have always approved of the legal terms I have been required to uphold.” Mr. Sprague’s forehead creased. “Though I daresay if your grandfather knew before he died how your mother would suffer, he would have made arrangements for whatever medical services she required. He loved your mother, in his way.”

Annie stiffened, thinking such words were easily spoken. She could only think of her mother’s racking cough before baby William was delivered stillborn, of the nights that she refused a doctor for lack of means to pay, of the piles of money her grandfather surely possessed.

Mr. Sprague hesitated. “I have always regretted that I did not more carefully counsel your grandfather before he died. I thought there would be time to make amends.”

“Grandfather was an unforgiving man.” Annie was astonished once again at her own frankness, saying aloud the things she had so often thought. What on earth had happened to her tongue? It was as if it knew no discretion. But Annie didn’t care. She felt wretchedly weary and such boldness suited her.

“Well said.” Mr. Sprague nodded. “Unforgiving and vengeful. Do not follow in his steps, my dear.”

“I shall try not to, sir,” Annie returned.

“There will be much to try you on that point in future.”

Annie blinked.
Much to try me? How could he know about Michael Dunnagan? Surely I’ve not mentioned him in my grief.

“Were your aunt in possession of her faculties, I would not be free to divulge the information I am about to share with you, Miss Allen. Mr. Hargrave gave me strict orders to act as your aunt’s guardian until she turned twenty-one. From that time forward she would become fully responsible for herself and her affairs, with one stipulation.”

Annie straightened.

“If at any time she became incapacitated with no legal guardian of her welfare—if she had no husband—then all of her affairs would come under my guardianship until such time as she recovers or until her death.”

“Does that mean I must leave Hargrave House?” Annie could imagine no other reason for her summons.

“No, no, my dear!” Mr. Sprague sounded truly distressed. “It means that at long last I am able to use my best judgment in addressing your aunt’s affairs.”

“Oh.” Annie nodded, though she did not understand how it concerned her.

“When your grandfather Hargrave struck your mother from his will, he made provision for your mother’s future children in terms of a trust, payable on their twenty-first birthday. Your aunt Eleanor was made guardian of that trust.” Mr. Sprague looked as though he was trying to pour understanding into Annie.

She, in turn, tried to push aside the fog in her head and oblige.

“Your grandfather did not want your mother or father to know of this arrangement. He hoped the realization of poverty would force your mother to return home to him.”

“Leave Father? She would never.” Annie was sure of it.

“No, she would not. However, before the breach could be healed, your grandfather died in a seizure—apoplexy—leaving intact my instructions not to reveal the terms of his will to your mother, her husband, or to your mother’s future children until their twenty-first birthday.” Mr. Sprague waited for Annie to absorb his words.

“Does that mean,” Annie began, “that there is an inheritance for Owen and me?”

“For you, upon turning twenty-one. And all that would have gone to Owen will now go to you upon your eighteenth birthday—together, that is nearly half of the Hargrave estate. You will want for nothing.”

Annie turned her head slowly, trying to comprehend. It could not be true, surely. All the months Owen had scrimped and saved, the twelve months they had been separated while he gardened in Southampton—he would have turned twenty-one in July.

If only he’d waited three months, he could have sailed to America first class with Annie by his side. He could have had all he wanted to pour into Uncle Sean’s business in New Jersey. “Owen need not have sailed on
Titanic
at all.”

“No.” Mr. Sprague studied his hands, his fingers still locked. “I urged him to wait until summer, though I was not at liberty to say why. Owen insisted that he needed to reach New Jersey in time for this year’s spring planting. He said your uncle was not well.”

“Uncle Sean died; Aunt Maggie wrote me.” Annie felt as though the blood had drained from her head.

“I am so sorry, my dear. Grief upon grief.”

“Aunt Eleanor threatened to strike Owen from her will if he left for America, if he left London,” Annie remembered. “Did she not know that Owen stood to inherit a sum of his own within a few months?”

“She knew; she has always known, and was under no obligation to withhold that information—a freedom I did not possess.”

The years of Aunt Eleanor’s threats and manipulations, both to her father and to Owen, chased one another through Annie’s mind, a snowball running downhill, gathering speed. She calculated the years between her grandfather’s death and her brother’s birth, then added all the years that followed. “Do you mean, sir—is it true to say—that Aunt Eleanor knew that Owen and I would be provided for by Grandfather, and yet she did nothing, not even a loan, while our mother died and Father had nothing? While Owen—?” Annie could not go on. “Why?”

“I believe your aunt considered her power in withholding this knowledge, and the estate itself, as her only hope of controlling your father or enticing your brother to stay.

“Winston Hargrave ruined your father’s reputation. Mackenzie could not find work within the empire. By the time your mother died, he was penniless, entirely at Eleanor’s mercy for food and clothing—even housing—for you and Owen. She berated him as the cause of your mother’s death and finally convinced him that he had as good as murdered her through their marriage.” Mr. Sprague rubbed his forehead and ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

“She ground and ground away until your father had no way out of the box she and Winston had created. I believe it is not too much to say that Eleanor schemed toward Mackenzie and Owen the same way in which her father had schemed to keep her at his side.” He sighed heavily and pulled back, folding his hands. “She had learned at the feet of a master—a master of misery. In her own sick way I believe she loved your father—or the idea of him.”

“Loved?” Annie choked.

Mr. Sprague looked away. “She wanted to escape—as your mother had—the bondage and servitude her father had forced upon her. But Eleanor never developed the courage your mother displayed in leaving their father. Eleanor could not conceive how to build a life of her own. She could only imagine taking your mother’s husband and children.”

He stood and clasped his hands behind his back, looked fully into Annie’s eyes, and crossed to the window. “When Helen died, Eleanor threatened to legally take you and Owen from your father if he refused to marry her or if he tried to leave England. He dared do neither. Mackenzie was without means or prospects, a man trapped and without hope.”

Annie’s head swam.
This must be what seeing a play upon the stage would be like.

“She preferred to see Father die than leave her?” she whispered, for if she did not whisper, she knew she would scream.

“That is strong language—” Mr. Sprague returned to his chair—“but accurate, I believe. Though I do not think she anticipated his death. She thought she had made him subject to her. Because your father left no will, Eleanor was named legal guardian for you and for Owen. Though Owen was finally released from her guardianship, he was not of age to inherit.”

Mr. Sprague narrowed his eyes in concentration. “I do not attempt to understand your aunt’s transfer of affection to Owen. Affection, control—whatever twisted thing it was.”

“Owen would have cared for me, provided for me. He made every plan for me to join him!”

“Yes. Yes, I know.” Mr. Sprague straightened and drew a file from his drawer. “Eleanor Hargrave did not anticipate your brother’s courage and foresight. In fact, before Owen left, he had me draw up a will.” He passed a legal document across the desk to Annie. “It names you as beneficiary of all his worldly goods. However, your aunt is still your guardian until you are eighteen. In her present condition, she is not capable of exercising that guardianship, and since her affairs fall to me for the time being, I undertake that responsibility.”

It was too much. Annie knew she had not comprehended all that Aunt Eleanor’s vengeful control over her family had meant, but she felt she was drowning in words. “What does that mean for me?”

“It means, my dear, that you and I need to talk about your future and set upon a course that is both pleasing and wholesome for you—for your education, your social and spiritual growth, and your happiness. I regret very much that I was not able to act in the best interests of your dear parents or your brother, for whom I always held the greatest respect.”

Tears of frustration sprang to Annie’s eyes. She blinked and looked away. She would not cry.

Mr. Sprague came round the desk. “I will not make that mistake again, Miss Allen. While I am at liberty to act as your guardian, you will learn all you wish to know of me and the handling of your family’s affairs, and I will do all in my power to prepare you to take your place in society.”

“And if Aunt Eleanor recovers?” Annie held her breath, knotting her gloves.

Mr. Sprague sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “If a doctor testifies that she is fully recovered, she will resume your guardianship until your eighteenth birthday, at which time you will receive Owen’s portion willed to you. At twenty-one you will inherit your own equal portion held in trust.”

Annie wished that her aunt would die, would die that very day. The thought thrilled and frightened her.

As if reading her mind, Mr. Sprague counseled, “Do not absorb the bitter, spiteful character of your aunt, Elisabeth Anne. You can see the lonely, cold woman she has become. Wealth has not comforted her and will not mourn her when she is gone.” He sat in the chair beside Annie and leaned forward, his words urgent. “Take instead your brother’s legacy—the fine person that he was—and let that be the model for your life. You know that is what he would wish for you.”

Annie murmured, “Yes,” but hardly knew what she was agreeing to.

“If your uncle in America were still alive and his business stable, I would urge you to go there, but given the circumstances . . .” Mr. Sprague spread his hands, then abruptly began to detail the arrangements he had in mind.

Annie tried to separate his words from the jumble in her head. She pressed her fingers against her temples even as she shivered in the warm room.

Mr. Sprague stopped talking. “This is too much for one day, Miss Allen.”

Annie nodded. It was the first thing that seemed perfectly clear.

“If you will allow me, I will set a course for your education and socialization. We can certainly amend the plan as we proceed. I would not so urge you forward at this very difficult time, except that I do not know how much time we have before your aunt recovers sufficiently to resume your guardianship. I would like to see your health and well-being firmly established before that happens.”

Mr. Sprague rang the bell. “I believe that, once a plan is set in motion, she will not be so likely to squash it if there is some amount of public accountability. She is rather inclined to succumb to the criticism of her peers—something I believe can be arranged, if need be.”

Annie only nodded and watched as first Gregory the butler reappeared and then her own Jamison. She sighed in relief. She believed, in some fevered part of her brain, that Mr. Sprague must have her best interests at heart, else why would he have divulged such a sordid tale of Aunt Eleanor?

It was all beyond her now, and without Owen or Miss Hopkins, there was no one else to turn to. Jamison seemed to trust him. She would have to trust that.

Mr. Sprague handed Annie a cup of hot tea, laced with sugar and something that burned but warmed her throat as it passed down. She felt a little sleepy but no longer shivered. She was content to let Jamison and Mr. Sprague talk. She needed, for a little while, to shut out all she’d learned and all she had seen yesterday. Annie leaned her head upon her hand and closed her eyes.

The clock bonged the hour when she opened them again. Mr. Sprague was still talking and scribbling away. Jamison nodded and pointed to the paper. Annie tried again to focus on his words.

“My daughter, Constance, has joined Red Cross,” Mr. Sprague was saying. “If you’ve no objections, Elisabeth Anne, I shall have her call for you on her way to their next weekly meeting. It would do you good to socialize. You are rather younger than the age allowed . . . but I think by going with Constance it will smooth the way. Training is not difficult. It is all quite respectable and worthwhile, and I believe the girls have a lively time together. You might also like to join my family in our pew on Sunday.”