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“You must hear all the gossip as you go about here and there. You would know if aught were said that I should know about. Or my brother, for that matter.”
Thomas looked uncomfortable suddenly. “Ah, gossip. Reports of your comings and goings are one thing, for anyone might see you enter or leave a house by the front door, but rumour and supposition… that I cannot like, nor will I repeat such things. But I will tell you that I have heard nothing to the detriment of your young lady, except that she spills her soup occasionally, which I dare say you already know. And Miss Rose is a paragon of maidenly decorum, by every account I ever heard.”
James could pry no further, but he was left with the uncomfortable feeling that Thomas could tell him a great deal about the Fletcher family, if he chose.
~~~~~
‘To Miss Jupp, St Peter’s Road, Sagborough, West Riding. My dearest friend, I am in the direst straits, for Mr Michael Plummer continues to be attentive, calling almost every day when the weather is fit, and Mama has warned me that his visits can only mean one thing and that I should prepare myself to receive his offer! I shall sink through the floor, I swear it, if it comes to that for I know that it is a very good match and he will be a baronet one day and inherit Chadwell Manor and be a person of importance in the county, but I do not want to marry him in the slightest, and my reasons are the most dishonourable in the world. I do not mind him, at least not much, for although he is very thin and looks as if he has been stretched, that is not his fault and not every man can have broad shoulders like Ricky. It is the house, Bel. I truly think Chadwell Manor is the horridest house in the world, for it is dark and poky, at least the rooms are poky, except for the great hall which is massive and gloomy and echoing, and there are all sorts of dark passageways and peculiar staircases, and there are ghosts! A man without a head has been seen, and a woman dressed all in grey and crying, only sometimes she is not seen, but only the crying can be heard. Miss Bellingham told me so, and although she has never seen anything herself, she knows many people who have, and I could not live in a house with ghosts, I could not! I should be too terrified to sleep. I cannot think what I am to do! I am in despair. My very best regards to you and Ricky, and oh, how I wish I were safely back in Sagborough with you both. Your frightened friend, Rosie. Post script — good news! We are to hold a ball after Easter! Is that not the most wonderful thing?”
~~~~~
After the service, when James had shaken fifty or sixty hands and was thinking longingly of his breakfast, Michael sidled up to him.
“May I walk back over to the rectory with you? I should like to talk to you, if I may.”
“Of course.”
Thomas’s delicate sense of propriety took him off to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, leaving the brothers alone in the drawing room. It was a comfortable place, or had been once, but years of neglect had rendered it shabby. It was clean enough, for Mrs Pound and her daughter, who between them combined the duties of cook, housekeeper and housemaid, were conscientious, but the rugs were worn to nothing, and several chairs sported little tufts of stuffing where a tear had not been attended to. James no longer noticed, especially as he generally only sat there in the evenings, and candlelight hid a multitude of sins. Now he saw his brother’s disdainful gaze, and looked at his house with new eyes. But it was of no consequence, for Julia would remake the place as soon as they were married. She would enjoy that, he supposed. Most women did.
James poured Madeira for his brother and waited for him to unburden himself.
“It is this business with Miss Fletcher,” he began tentatively, then stopped.
“Is there any business to discuss at present?” James said, rather amused. Michael always made such heavy weather of things! “You do not seem to have made much progress so far.”
“Tell me what I should do!” Michael cried. “Should I marry her, James? Do you think it would be a good match?”
“What do Mother and Father say?”
“Mother says nothing. Father assures me it is up to me, but he wants her fifty thousand, I can tell. I thought we were supposed to be secure financially now, but he still wants me to marry for money.”
“One can always do with additional income, brother. The sale of the Park may have righted the ship and prevented us from sinking beneath the waves, but we are not yet away from the rocks. Another fifty thousand would set us up very comfortably, and even Father would have a smile on his face, under such circumstances. But he will never force you into it, Michael, you know that. He never has.”
“I know, I know, it was my choice, and never a word of reproach afterwards. But heexpectsme to marry, and now that I am thirty… I am the heir, and it is my duty. And Miss Fletcher is… acceptable.”
James sighed inwardly.Acceptable.Such an unenthusiastic word for a man to use about the woman he was considering marrying. Would he say that of Julia, that she wasacceptableto him? How would he describe her?
Adorable.The word arrived unbidden in his mind, startling him. Good heavens! Was he… surely he could not be… falling in love?
“Do you like Rosie?” James said hastily, to distract himself.
“Of course. There is nothing about her to dislike.”
“But you do not love her.” A statement, not a question.
“Lord, no! That would be impossible. I shall never love again, that much is certain. Once in a lifetime is enough.”
“What is it like, being in love?” James said.
“Agony. Sweet, blissful agony, a terrible maelstrom of hope and despair. There are moments of unimagined ecstasy, and moments so black that life is not worth living, and one swings between the two like a pendulum, quite unable to stop oneself.” His thin face was afire with the memories, and James could only wish he had never raised the subject.
“One day you will recover, and be able to look back on it with equanimity,” James said.
“No, I never shall, because I shall never forget,” Michael said evenly, the animation draining from his face. “That is why I hesitate to marry. Marriage can never obliterate the past, you see, and my dread is that it will make the torment even greater. I cannot do it, James. I should have seen it at once, but I cannot do it. And yet I must! The succession is my responsibility.”
“And mine also,” James said at once, “and so I can set your mind at rest. You need not marry Rose Fletcher, or anyone, if you choose not to, for I shall soon marry and give Father the grandsons he needs.”
“You? Marry?”
