Rebel Heiress (22 page)

‘Tell me,' he said, reining in his horse to a walking pace as they passed the Pen Ponds, ‘as my sister, what chance do you think I have with the heiress?'

Somewhat taken aback by this direct question, Henrietta nonetheless answered him with tempered encouragement, but warned him of her new friend's feelings on the subject of debt.

He pulled a wry face. ‘It is all very well for you to preach, Henrietta. You do not know what it is to be a young man of fortune — without the fortune. You are well enough, with your expectations, your allowance from your father, your living free, and no calls upon you. I wager you have the whole of your last quarter's money untouched to this day.'

‘Well, not quite.' Henrietta began to wonder just where the
conversation was leading. And, looking up, she saw that the rest of the party had already vanished into the wood at the top of the hill. She made as if to spur on her horse and catch them up, but Cedric leaned over and put a hand on her reins.

‘One moment, Henrietta. I have a favour to ask of you. Or, to be exact, it is on my mother's behalf.'

‘For Lady Marchmont?' Henrietta did not try to conceal her surprise.'

‘Well, yes, in a manner of speaking for her. It is a debt — a debt of honour, you might call it — which must be paid. And she and I, alas, are both penniless. We must throw ourselves on your mercy.'

‘But' — she looked around her, puzzled, at the peaceful park with its grazing deer — ‘why now? Why today?'

‘Because it is urgent. It has been left too long. It is but to leave the party for ten minutes. We can easily explain it away. You wished to look at the White Lodge … or Ham House … or what you will. The house is just outside the park gates, in Richmond. Henrietta, you would not let a child suffer?'

‘A child?'

‘Yes. Come, I will show you.' And before she had time to collect herself, he had turned his horse's head towards Richmond and whipped it up to a gallop. Hers followed suit, and an exhilarating five minutes brought them to a group of poverty-stricken cottages on the Richmond edge of the park.

Cedric reined in his horse at last outside one cottage that was somewhat neater than the rest. Some attempt had been made at tidying the little garden and in it stood a strapping, red-faced young woman hanging out shabby half-washed children's clothing on a makeshift line. She stopped when she saw Cedric and ran over to the gate.

‘Mr. Smith,' she said ‘is it yourself at last? We began to think you was never coming. And where is the madam? This ain't she, I know, and little miss has been pining for her something cruel. And as for Ma, she's fit to be tied, ‘twould have been bread and water, and no mistake, for missy if you had not come today. “We're no charity house,” says Ma, “and so I'll tell ‘un if he ever comes back, and if he don't, so much the worse for miss.” You'll be sorry, sir, when you see her, and no mistake. They don't thrive here, when they ain't paid for, and can you wonder? But you'll be wishful to see the child, no doubt. Bill!' She raised her voice to an eldritch shriek. ‘Come you here and
hold the gentry's horses. I won't be more than a minute,' she added as she left them. ‘It's but to change her smock and make her half-way decent for the lady.'

And she disappeared round the side of the house as a gangling boy of thirteen or so appeared to take charge of the horses.

‘I forgot to warn you,' said Cedric as he helped Henrietta alight, ‘that when I come here, I am Mr. Smith. You had best be nameless, as my mother is, and the less you say the better. But first tell me how much money you have with you. They drive a hard bargain here.'

More and more puzzled, Henrietta took out her purse and counted its contents.

He sighed with relief. ‘Excellent. Six guineas will keep them quiet for some time to come. Best give it me now. I do not know what the old harridan would do if she saw how much you have. But, come, let us walk round into the garden. I had as lief not be seen here.' He took her arm and led her round the side of the house into a bedraggled-looking back garden, where two pigs and five shabby children were routing about under a few gnarled old fruit trees. The only difference between them seemed to be that at sight of Henrietta and Cedric the pigs ran squealing away while the children came tumbling forward and began to beg in wheedling cockney.

‘Give us a penny, miss,' said the oldest, a boy of seven or eight whose scarred face and knees bore witness to a series of neglected accidents, or fights.

‘Or some sugar plums,' chimed in a slightly younger girl, whose face, Henrietta thought, might have been pretty if it could have been seen for the dirt, and whose black hair hung in filthy collops on her shoulders.

‘I'se want an apple,' appealed a very small creature of indeterminate sex. ‘I'se been hungry all morning.'

‘Burnt porridge,' explained the oldest.

‘And not much of it, either,' added the girl.

Henrietta, horrified at these revelations, was reaching for her purse when she was interrupted by the appearance of an old crone in a rusty black dress and a cap of dubious whiteness. ‘Damme if it ain't Mr. Smith,' she said from toothless gums. ‘And come without warning too, which he knows is what we hates here. How are we to have the little dear fit to be seen if we don't know you's coming? “Rough and ready's” our motto
here, as you well know, and I hopes you's brought the ready, Mr. Smith, for we's been awaiting on you too long already and rough it's been for poor miss. I tell you it quite made me sad to see the little darling crying for her crust last night when the others had theirs, but “Can't have what ain't paid for,” said I. “Business is business” is our motto here, as I've told you often enough, and the sooner the little angels learn it the better. “This world is a vale of tears,” says I, “and you might just as well start crying now as later.” And blessed if she don't stop there and then and look at me with those big eyes of hers in that scrap of a face. Damme if she's long for this world, Mr. Smith, and who's to say it wouldn't be a blessed release from toil and trouble? But, see, here she comes, the little darling, and if she ain't quite apple pie, blame yourself for coming unbeknownst, and bringing a fine young lady, too; and if a future customer, so much the better.'

Henrietta left off puzzling over this speech at sight of the buxom young woman who now reappeared from the house leading a little fair-haired girl by the hand. The child was so thin and small that Henrietta first thought she could be little more than two years old. Her face was red with a recent and vigorous washing which had not, unfortunately, extended as far as her filthy neck. Her hair, too, which was fine and plentiful, had been smoothed out over what Henrietta suspected of being a perfect rat's nest of tangles. Two large tears, still trembling in the corner of her eyes, bore witness to the vigour with which this operation had been conducted. But it was the shape of the thin little face that caught and held Henrietta's attention. The fine bones and delicately pointed chin combined with her fair hair to produce a speaking likeness to Lady Marchmont. Concealing amazed horror, she held out her hand to the child.

‘What is your name, my pretty?' she asked.

The child merely shrank closer to her guide, put a dirty finger in her mouth and stared up at Henrietta.

‘It's Caroline, miss,' said the old lady. ‘She don't speak nohow. Had the doctor to her and all, we did, after the last time my lady come, and his bill not paid yet neither, and all the good he did was to say it was nought but the sullens and she could talk as well as you or I, if she but cared to try. But not a word we've had out of her since. Only tears, which don't rightly count, to my way of thinking, though at least it shows she's got enough sense to know she's in disgrace. But we'll have
her speaking yet, never you fear, sir,' she told Cedric, who had by now handed over Henrietta's six guineas.

‘Course it's the sullens,' said the girl. ‘Talked all right, she did, last time my lady come. Found her begging on her bended knees, I did, to be took away from here.'

‘The ingratitude of it,' said her mother. ‘After all we've done for her. I never did see the like. Now, these others know their manners, don't you, me little dears?'

‘Yes, Mrs. Muggeridge,' answered the ragged band in a dutiful chorus.

‘You know who's good to you, and gives you apples when the pigs don't get ‘em, and an egg when they're to spare.'

‘Yes, ma'am, Mrs. Muggeridge,' they said again.

‘And brimstone and treacle in the mornings, and prayers at night, for all the world like their mothers would, and still this little vixen won't speak. And girls who don't pray go to hell direct, as I've warned her often enough.' And the old lady lowered down on little Caroline with such effect that the child suddenly let go of Miss Muggeridge's hand and made a dive for Henrietta, catching and clinging desperately to the skirts of her habit.

‘Well, damme,' said the old lady, ‘if she ain't took a fancy to you, miss. I never did see the like; it almost makes one wonder, don't it?' She shot a sharp glance from Henrietta to Cedric and back again.

‘You are not paid to wonder, my good woman,' Cedric said angrily. ‘And now we must be taking our leave. I am sorry you have not a better report to make of the child, but we must hope she will make some progress before we see her next.'

‘Oh, yes,' said the old lady, ‘she'll make progress all right, either in this world or out of it, never you worry for that. I knows my job and don't you be thinking different, sir. And honoured, I'm sure, by the visit, Mr. Smith and miss, and commend us to my lady when you see her and tell her the child's cared for like my own, and I can't say handsomer than that, can I, my love?' And she leered at her daughter, who returned the look with one of such loathing that Henrietta shuddered involuntarily and put a protective arm round the thin shoulders of the child, who still clung to her skirts.

But Cedric had taken her arm. ‘Come, we must be going, or we will be missed and perhaps looked for. You would not wish that, I collect.'

‘No, no. But, Cedric —'

‘Hush!' He interrupted her. ‘No names, I beg of you. Come, we will talk of this later. Miss Muggeridge, I must beg you will remove the child.'

And Henrietta had to watch, in agony, while the child was roughly picked up and carried off, sobbing with the quiet of despair, under Miss Muggeridge's arm. At the same time, Cedric said a curt good-bye to Mrs. Muggeridge and hurried Henrietta to her horse.

‘We have been too long already,' he said as he helped her to mount. ‘But my mother was frantic for news of the child and I fear it is true enough that old Madam Muggeridge knows how to make them suffer if their shot is not paid. But Caroline's all right now, for some time to come, so do not you be fretting about her. I am sorry to have exposed you to such a sordid scene, but there was no help for it. To have rode off by myself would have been to court exposure.'

‘And besides,' Henrietta could not help remarking, ‘you had to have the money for the poor child's board, did you not? But, Cedric, if she is what I assume she must be, how can your mother bear to leave her in that dreadful house?'

‘Why, what else can she do?' Cedric asked, surprised.

‘I don't know,' Henrietta said mechanically. The whole scene had shocked her inexpressibly and she was desperately trying to sort out its implications. That the child was Lady Marchmont's she could not for a moment doubt, but: ‘Cedric?'

‘Yes?' He had pushed his horse to a trot and turned back impatiently to answer.

‘I must ask. The Father?'

‘No one you know.'

‘You swear it?'

‘Cross my heart. The child's older than she looks. It was a long time ago and best forgotten. You'd do my mother untold harm by stirring it up, asking questions. She never did have any luck. No call to look so missish, Henrietta. You know it happens often enough. It was all very well before the war, when a lady could retire to Europe and rusticate there till her time was out, but in England, I tell you, it was no joke. Dodging about from one watering place to another, trying to avoid discovery! I was dragged along too, from pillar to post, from Cheltenham to Buxton; from Buxton to Harrogate, always out of season, and still someone would turn up and we had to pack
our traps and move on again. And in the end the brat had to arrive unexpectedly, and when least convenient, and the upshot of it all is that my mother will never be able to give your father an heir.'

‘Did she tell him?' Henrietta did not try to keep the horror out of her voice.

‘What do you think?' He was impervious to it. ‘The brat had lost her my father… Oh, yes, that was what finished things for him. She wasn't going to take another chance, was she? That's why the poor little beast has to be farmed out with those Muggeridges.'

‘The father doesn't help?' It was an effort to make herself ask.

‘I tell you she lost touch with him years ago. He refused to help when the child was born. Why should he now?'

The casual answer laid to rest a horrible fear that had been creeping through Henrietta's bones. The child could not be Charles Rivers'. ‘Poor Lady Marchmont,' she began, and was relieved to have the conversation ended by the sight of the rest of the party still loitering near the Pen Ponds. Miss Jenkinson, it seemed, had conceived an invincible desire to feed the swans, and had sent Peveril and Stanmore to beg some stale bread from a keeper's cottage. Now they were standing anxiously by, talking of powerful wings and broken legs while she lightheartedly threw crumbs to a miscellaneous conclave of birds.

‘There,' she said to Henrietta, as she skilfully threw an enormous crumb to a timid duck on the outskirts of the crowd. ‘Am I not a true friend? We have been so busy with these tedious birds that I truly believe no one but I has so much as noticed your absence. But, come' — she raised her voice — ‘it is time we started homewards. Lady Liverpool will be giving us up for lost.' And then, lowering it again. ‘You shall tell me later what you meant by carrying off my beau so shamelessly.' She turned to Cedric. ‘Here, Beaufrage, a wager for you. A riding crop to a pair of gloves I beat you to the park gates.' And she set off full gallop across the park, scattering deer and swans alike. Having assured herself a good start, she won by a head, and spent the rest of the ride home teasing Cedric about the French gloves she expected to be given. She pooh-poohed his talk of the war. ‘Do not tell me you have not a smuggling friend who sneaks to and fro with brandy and news. But, remember, I beg, that my
hands are something of the largest. Do not use your sister's for a model, I beseech you, or I shall have to use my gloves for fingerstalls.' And having thus neatly established that Henrietta was at least technically Cedric's sister and therefore entitled to loiter with him if she wished, she led the cortège home to Coombe Wood.