Page 7 of To Catch a Husband
‘Glad I am to hear you say that, Miss Mary. I was inclined to it, o’course, but since he was the master, and it was his wish …’
‘He is not the master now, and for that the tenants of the Tapley End estate must be thankful, howsoever37they may be good Christians and pray for his soul in church.’
‘Aye, miss. All we has to do now is wonder about the new lord, and what manner of man he will be.’
‘He is a Risley. That tells us enough, Wilmslow, more than enough.’
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CHAPTER THREE
The obsequies for Lord Cradley were suitably well attended by the gentlemen of the local gentry and aristocracy, though, as Harry Penwood revealed, wickedly, to Mary afterwards, most were there just to be absolutely sure the old misery really was dead and buried. There was a notable absence of relatives, with the exception of a thin lady of mature years who was at the house and presided over the meagre provision of cold meats, sniffing loudly throughout. This was peculiarly distracting, and was put down not to excessive grief but a summer cold. Lady Damerham discovered, via the vicar’s wife, that she was a second cousin who had ‘religiously knitted socks’ for him every birthday. This made Mary laugh when she heard it.39
‘Now that is genuinely funny, Mama. I have this image of her in my head, needles clicking away, and muttering psalms as the sock grew. “He breaketh the bow and knit two together, twice”.’
‘It is not an occasion for levity, my dear, though I perfectly see that once such an idea was in one’s mind it would be hard to shoo away. I wonder if she thought it might remind him of her existence and mean he left her something in his will?’ Lady Damerham frowned.
‘He might have left the socks themselves to her, but I doubt he gave her a charitable thought otherwise.’ Mary sighed. ‘And now we will have the new Lord Cradley, who is a Risley of the cadet line.’
‘Do not forget that he and the deceased were not upon speaking terms. It may mean that he is in fact a … a charming man.’
‘As likely to find a whale in the Upper Pool, Mama,’ retorted Mary, shaking her head. ‘No, all we await is discovering what unpleasant type he may turn out to be, assuming of course that he comes to take up residence. The Risleys have always been grasping sorts, so it would seem probable that he will. What he does with Tapley End is another matter. Loth as I am to say it, he would be better moving into it from Brook House, for at least it has been maintained properly and is not the rambling mess that the Risleys constructed, adding bits every generation as they came into even more money.’
‘Well, I am not sure the Lounds ever came into40“more money” after the Lady Elizabeth sold all her jewels to pay for the repairs after the Civil War, and Sir James was elevated to a barony by Queen Anne for that diplomatic affair. Your father never did say what it was all about, other than to say his grandfather knew when to keep silent and when to speak. I think the family has been losing money for the last century.’
‘Yes, and too often by foolishness, not misfortune, which could be forgiven, but it does mean that the house makes sense as a building.’
This was true enough. There was a great hall, of moderate proportions and with later Tudor panelling, that formed half the centre of the house and gave onto the early east wing that terminated in a chapel. The first baron had extended to the west in the Queen Anne manner and created both public reception rooms next to the hall and airy, private chambers in the west wing. The house had grown over centuries, but always in the warm, mellow Cotswold stone, and with symmetry and scale. Brook House, by contrast, had been an empty field until the up-and-coming Tudor merchant Risleys had bought the land, and shown off their wealth with an array of decorative brick chimneys and bay windows that was followed over time by a grand dining room resplendent with plaster caryatids and spurious armorials, a grandiose Palladian portico and, in the last forty years, a ‘mediaeval tower’. As Mary’s father had said, most men built follies they could see from the house, not as part of it. In addition, the early41demise of the late Lord Cradley’s mother had left the house without a châtelaine and someone to oversee its care. It was thus rather tired-looking and unloved.
‘He might feel he ought to remain in Brook House,’ suggested Lady Damerham, thinking again of the new Lord Cradley.
‘Then he is welcome to it as long as he stays there and does no harm to the estate.’ Mary very obviously meant the former Lound estate. ‘Oh … I lose all patience with the whole thing.’
A week passed, and with it July slipped into August, though the weather had been so inclement of late that it felt as if Michaelmas should almost be upon them already. It did nothing for Mary’s gloomy humour. She foresaw an early autumn and long winter, and the winter months were her least favourite. Whilst she would be prepared to brave the elements in all but the worst weather, her mama became very agitated and worried over her contracting some inflammation of the lungs and limited her activities. Added to which she no longer had her two hunters. Last winter she had been in mourning, and now she was without a mount, so there was no hunting to which she could look forward and that made the winter gloom seem even gloomier, and the knowledge that this year they might attend the parties that proliferated about Christmastide did not fill her with eager anticipation. Meeting friends was all very well, and she enjoyed the talk and the food,42but there was an air of, yes, competition, among the young women, and she was now aware that she was looked upon as ‘poor Miss Lound, who could not find a husband’. Well, Miss Lound was now undoubtedly ‘poor’, in the pecuniary sense, but until now the lack of a husband had concerned her not at all. Miss Lound of Tapley End had not needed a husband, at least not from among the men she knew.
It was mid-morning, and Mary was coming down the main staircase, lost in her less than happy thoughts, when the bell at the front door echoed through the hall, and Atlow, with a measured pace that owed as much to his age as a butler’s calm, went to answer its insistent tinkle. He opened it to reveal Sir Harry Penwood.
‘Hello, Mary.’ Harry Penwood drew off his gloves and handed them and his hat to Atlow with what was very nearly a grin. ‘I bring news.’
‘Good news, I should hope, from your expression.’ Mary smiled back at him, casting her depressing thoughts to the back of her mind.
‘Well, interesting news, even if not “good”. I thought I would come over and tell you and Lady Damerham of it as soon as I knew.’
‘Then best we find Mama and permit you to surprise us. Where is her ladyship, Atlow?’
‘In the small parlour, Miss Mary. Shall I bring coffee there?’
‘Yes, please.’ Mary tucked her arm through Sir Harry’s and looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Very43interesting news if your twinkle is anything to go by, Harry.’
‘Wait and see.’
A few minutes later he was sat in a large wing chair by a good fire, for it was indeed so damp and chilly an August day that it felt autumnal, and with a cup of coffee at his elbow.
‘So?’ Mary folded her hands in her lap, feigning merely genteel interest.
‘Old Cradley did not leave Tapley End to the Risley heir, who is that distant second cousin, or some such with whom he had a major falling out years ago,’ he announced with aplomb. ‘Brook House is entailed, and must go to that chap, like the title, but since he, Cradley, had just bought Tapley End he could do with it as he wished, and he has left it to the grandson of his aunt, his mother’s sister. Not sure what relationship that is called, and it does not actually matter, but at least it does mean that there will not be a Risley striding about the place to mock the ancestors. That must please you, yes?’ He beamed at both ladies.
‘I suppose it must. Yes, actually it does.’ Mary sighed. ‘What a pity he had not died before he bought it.’
