Mary Nichols - A Dangerous Undertaking

Physically Lady Pargeter was a tiny, very frail woman who had to be helped to her chair, but mentally, Margaret was sure, she was strong as iron and just as unbending. She wore a white powdered wig with a cap trailing ribbons sitting on top of it. Her undress gown of patterned silk flowed in pleats from an embroidered yoke, which did little to disguise the fact that she was little more than skin over bone. Her face did not look painted, although it was chalk-white and the cheeks sunken. But her brown eyes were alive, darting about the room, taking everything in, missing nothing. She lifted the lorgnette which dangled from a ribbon on her wrist and peered through it at Margaret.

‘So,’ she said, when everyone was seated and the silent footmen began to serve the meal, ‘are you my grandson’s choice or is he yours?’

Margaret did not know what to say, but before she could think of a suitable reply Roland came to her rescue. ‘It was mutual, Grandmama.’

He had changed into a lilac satin coat over a long embroidered waistcoat. His white breeches were tied with a bow below the knee. Pristine white ruffles adorned his throat and wrists and white stockings graced his elegant calves. He wore a powdered wig with side-curls and ringlets tied at the back with a black ribbon. He looked very stylish, but Margaret found herself thinking that she liked him best in plain country clothes which seemed to suit his muscular physique better. She blushed suddenly when she realised he was looking at her. Could he possibly have read her thoughts?

‘Do you know what you are letting yourself in for?’ Lady Pargeter demanded of Margaret, ignoring her grandson.

‘I think so, my lady.’

‘Good, because I wouldn’t want you to be under any illusions. Being married to a Pargeter heir is a dangerous undertaking, especially for a Capitain.’ She looked venomously at Margaret. ‘Did your mother never tell you that?’

‘No, she never mentioned Winterford at all, not until…until the day she died.’

‘Hardly to be wondered at.’

‘Grandmama, you are making something of nothing,’ Roland put in before Margaret could ask what she meant. ‘We will hear no more of it. Tell me, what have you been doing today?’

‘What is there to do in this God-forsaken place? Hannah read to me a little while and I worked on my needlepoint, but my eyes are not good enough for that now. I don’t know why I continue with it. Obstinacy, I suppose. I do not like being beaten. Oh, and I sat for a time looking out of my window.’ She gave a cackle of a laugh. ‘A wonderful view I have from my window—nothing to behold but the horizon and the sky.’

‘The sky is very beautiful,’ Margaret said. ‘I never realised it until yesterday.’

‘I did see something today, though,’ the old lady went on, ignoring Margaret’s comment. ‘I saw a woman in a rowing-boat, coming upriver from that…that place. She stopped at our jetty.’

Kate giggled and Charles said, ‘I didn’t see anyone, did you, Roland?’

‘At our jetty?’ he queried. ‘No, I did not.’

‘It’s funny she should turn up again,’ the old lady said, peering at Margaret. ‘You have a look of her…’

‘No, she hasn’t,’ said Roland quickly. ‘Mistress Donnington is nothing like her. And it was years ago, Grandmama…’

‘Is it? Oh, time means nothing to me now. Sometimes it drags, and weeks seem like years, and sometimes it is the other way round.’ She sighed. ‘What it is to be old. Everybody standing about waiting for you to die.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Roland.

‘Oh, Grandmama!’ said Kate. ‘You must not talk like that.’

‘Why not? I am long past the age when I should be in my coffin. My daughter-in-law has been dead these many years and now my son is gone. Why have I been left behind?’

‘Because we love you and do not want to part with you,’ Kate said.

‘There’s more to it than that,’ she said. ‘It has something to do with this young man here.’ And she poked Roland’s arm with her lorgnette. ‘I have been preserved, pickled in wine and brandy, simply in order to see the Pargeters with a new heir. I shall go to my grave in peace when that happens.’

Roland looked at Margaret as if defying her to deny the possibility. She concentrated on her plate, picking without appetite at fish in oyster sauce. What was going on? They were all talking in riddles.

‘So, when is the wedding to be?’ her ladyship continued. ‘I think it should be soon.’

‘But I am in mourning, my lady,’ Margaret put in, reluctant to talk of a marriage she never intended should take place, but she remembered just in time Roland’s warning to humour the old lady. Arguing with her might bring on a seizure. ‘My mother died less than two weeks ago.’

‘Where?’

‘In London.’

‘Your father? Was he one of the Donningtons of Devon?’

‘I don’t think so, my lady. He died when I was very small. In India.’

‘Oh, a merchant!’ There was contempt in her ladyship’s voice, and Margaret was tempted to defend the father she had never known, but changed her mind.

‘I believe so.’

‘Was he successful?’

Margaret forced herself to smile. ‘If he had been, I would not be here now.’

It was not an answer which pleased her ladyship. She drew her lips down into a thin line and tapped Margaret impatiently on the back of her hand with her fan. ‘My grandson honours you, and you would do well to remember it.’

‘Indeed, I do, my lady.’

‘Good. Have you any other kin, besides that reprobate Henry Capitain?’

‘I know of no one, my lady.’

‘Then who is there to complain if you marry while you are in mourning?’ She turned to her grandson. ‘I want it done and I want it done quickly. I have no time to waste, even if you think you have. And you haven’t, you know. Twenty-six and still single. You are not even a widower, which might excuse you.’

‘Oh, I say,’ Charles broke in.

‘I call spade a spade,’ she said. ‘And we all know it sometimes takes two marriages to produce an heir.’

Margaret was perplexed. ‘What does she mean?’ she whispered to Roland, who sat next to her.

‘My father’s first wife died in a fall from a horse soon after they married, and they had no children,’ he answered in an undertone. ‘My sister and I are the result of his second marriage. Grandmama is a little confused; she sometimes relives these little dramas. Pay no heed.’

The meal ended silently. It was as if the old lady’s talk of death had put a constraint on them all, and Margaret was glad when it was over and her ladyship rose to leave the table. Hannah, the old lady’s companion, who had shared the meal but not the conversation, was immediately at her side to help her to her room, leaving Kate and Margaret to go to the withdrawing-room together.

‘Oh, I am so glad you came,’ Kate told Margaret. ‘It gets dreadfully dull here sometimes.’

‘What do you do for amusement?’ Margaret asked her.

‘Sometimes we go to Cambridge or to the races at Newmarket. And there is always the fen.’

‘The fen?’

‘Boating and fishing and wildfowling. I don’t shoot, of course, but Roland is a crack shot, and Charles nearly as good. It isn’t surprising when you consider they both served with distinction in the army. They were in the same regiment—did you know that?’

‘No,’ Margaret said, choosing her words carefully. ‘His lordship and I had very little time to get to know each other. I had to nurse Mama.’

‘Of course, I understand. But you must think of the future now.’

Margaret didn’t want to think about it. ‘Tell me about yourself,’ she said.

‘Roland is eight years older than I am, you know. I believe my mother had several miscarriages between the two of us. I don’t remember her, but Roland says Papa was so delighted to have a daughter after so long, he spoiled me dreadfully.’ Her voice became sad as she added, ‘He died five months ago. Roland was missing at the time—it was just after the battle at Culloden—and we did not know what had happened to him. It was only when Charles got leave in the summer and came to tell us Roland had been wounded, and was being cared for by the Chalfonts in Derbyshire, that we knew he was alive. As soon as he was well enough to travel he returned to his regiment, and then of course he learned of Papa’s death and came straight home to take up his inheritance.’ She laughed lightly. ‘You know, sometimes he treats me like a daughter instead of a sister. He can be very pompous when he chooses.’