Mary Nichols - The Westmere Legacy

Edward turned to Bella, smiling to soften what appeared to be a rejection of her. ‘I beg your pardon, Bella, I meant no offence. You are beautiful and a man would have to be blind not to see that, but—’

‘But you do not like being coerced,’ she put in quickly, so that he might know it was not her idea. ‘And neither do I. Please, do not consider it.’

‘Then what is the point of this meeting?’

‘I’ll tell you, shall I?’ the old man said. ‘Isabella cannot have the management of a fortune, though I have no doubt she would make a better job of it than you, Louis.’ He looked at the young man’s extravagant clothes. ‘Your tailor’s bill alone would bankrupt the estate. I could appoint trustees until she married but I ain’t keen on the idea. I want to see her married before I hand in my accounts.’

‘Very laudable,’ Louis said. ‘But I shall choose my own wife.’

‘Indeed, I hope you may,’ Bella said, very near to tears, not at being rejected but at the humiliation of it all.

‘Bella, please, do not cry,’ Edward said. ‘There is plenty of time for you to make a good match whatever the old greybeard says.’

‘And I could rule you out for such impertinence.’

‘I have already ruled myself out, sir, but you forget my brother is not here to speak for himself.’

‘Who is to blame for that? I have told Bella she shall have her choice, but if she is sighing after that ne’er-do-well, she must find a way of bringing him to the mark.’

‘Grandpapa, I am not sighing after him. I am not sighing after anyone and I wish you would not speak of me as if I were not in the room. I might as well go and bear the Comtesse company.’ It was unlike her to be so bold but she was being driven beyond endurance.

‘Then it must be one of the others,’ he said, ignoring her.

‘I am your heir,’ Louis said. ‘But that does not mean you may dictate…’

The old man smiled. ‘You are sure of that, are you?’

‘No, of course he is not,’ Edward said. ‘The estate is entailed and must be handed down through the male line. And that means through Papa.’

‘Is that so?’ The old man seemed to be enjoying teasing them, although his tone was crotchety, as if he would quickly lose patience with them. ‘You are very quick to lay your claim, but I have not heard you offer for Isabella.’

James, who had been listening to this exchange with a bemused look on his face, suddenly came to life and looked from Bella to the Earl. ‘Are you saying that whoever marries Bella will inherit?’

‘Yes, but he must make a push. I said there was no time to lose and I meant it.’

‘You do not mean to say you have broken the entail?’ Edward said, shocked to the core. ‘You can’t have done. The only people to gain by such a procedure are the lawyers. You’d be left without a feather to fly with.’

‘And you are grasping at straws,’ his lordship said.

‘I don’t believe it,’ Louis said. ‘The old man is trying to gammon one of us into marrying the chit.’

‘I spoke first,’ James put in. ‘Miss Huntley, may I crave a moment alone with you?’

Everyone turned to look at the overweight farmer in his filthy clothes. He was not in the habit of making decisions in a hurry, but he knew that to be first in with his offer would be a distinct advantage.

‘Oh, Bella,’ Edward said, as Bella looked from one to the other, dismay written all over her face. ‘You do not have to accept him, whatever his lordship says.’

Louis, who had been silently watching her through his quizzing glass for some time, let it drop to dangle on its ribbon from his wrist and turned to James. ‘You do not, for a minute, suppose Miss Huntley will receive you looking like that,’ he said. ‘Or smelling like you do. Go home and bath and change.’

‘While you insert yourself in my place.’

Louis laughed in a high-pitched, effeminate way. ‘Lah, that is the last thing I would do. Insert myself anywhere you had been, I mean.’ He fetched a lace handkerchief from his pocket and waved it before his nose. ‘My lord, pray send him on his way.’

‘Bella?’ The Earl appealed to her. ‘Do you want me to send him away?’

Before she could answer, they heard a commotion in the hall and Jolliffe’s voice protesting loudly and another, even angrier, saying, ‘I am come to speak to Mr Trenchard and speak to him I will.’

‘Go and see what is happening,’ the Earl instructed Bella. ‘Tell Jolliffe to send whoever it is on his way. I will not have brawls in my house.’

Bella, thankful for the interruption, hurried to obey. A man of middling years in the working clothes of a labourer was standing in the hall, wringing his cap in his hands.

‘What is it, Jolliffe?’

‘He wants to speak to Mr Trenchard,’ the butler said in aggrieved tones. ‘I told him you were all about to go in to dinner…’

‘And lucky you are to have a dinner to go to,’ the man said, stung to anger. ‘You don’t think I wanted to come here, do you? It won’t serve me well when they hear of it.’

‘Who?’ asked Bella.

‘The Eastmere men, miss. They’re all over the place. They said they’d pull the barn down and wreck the house if Mr Trenchard don’t come and give them money.’

James had followed Bella into the hall. ‘What is it, man? Can I not leave you five minutes but you must come running after me?’

‘Mr Trenchard, sir, the men are rioting and they came to the farm. They want money. Fifty pounds they said on account of low wages and the price of bread.’

‘I wish I had fifty pounds to give them,’ James said morosely. ‘Tell them to go to the parish overseer—he is the one they should be applying to.’ Since the parish had adopted the Speenhamland system, the shortfall on wages had been paid by the poor rates, a far from ideal situation which meant that the farmers had no incentive to pay a realistic wage and their men were forced to go cap in hand to charity. They salvaged their pride by calling it an allowance which they should have as of right.

‘Sir, you must come, or they will burn the house down.’

‘Faith and Constance?’ he queried in alarm. ‘Where are they? Are they safe?’

‘Mrs Clarke is looking after them but she is afraid for her life…’

‘James, you must go at once,’ Bella said, appalled. Was this what the meeting in Ely had been about? The mob must have stopped talking in favour of action. But why pick on James? Where was Robert? Did he know about it? ‘I am sure the Earl will excuse you.’

‘Yes, I must.’ Then to his foreman, ‘I’ll ride on. Follow as fast as you can, I might need you.’ He was halfway to the door when he stopped and turned back to Bella. ‘Miss Huntley, I beg leave to return to settle the matter we were discussing.’

She nodded without answering, wondering if she could have done anything to stop the trouble with the labourers. Perhaps she should have warned James about them, but her mind had been too full of the coming meeting with her cousins to connect a crowd of men in Ely with her cousin and his farm. She returned to the drawing room to acquaint the Earl with what had happened. He seemed not to be concerned for James’s safety. To him it was inconceivable that a handful of unruly labourers could not be controlled.

‘Can’t think what the justices are playing at,’ he said. ‘I knew this would happen when they gave in to the mob in Suffolk last year. Now they are all at it. They should send for the militia to round them up—a spell in prison would soon bring them to a proper sense of their place.’

‘Grandfather, they are starving and driven beyond endurance,’ Bella said.

‘What is that to the point? A few discontented labourers will not make me change my mind.’ The Earl was more concerned with his own little drama than the greater one being played out in the villages and fields of East Anglia. ‘And you would do well to consider your own position. You can assume you have had one offer, at least.’