Page 21 of A Lady’s Fortune

‘You wouldn’t be a proper heroine of one of those novels you enjoy so much if your heart didn’t quicken at the thought. Come now, make a list of what you have already which we can alter and trim, with Nanny P’s help.’

Mrs Priddy came into the room carrying her needlework. ‘Do I hear my name promised for some enterprise?’ Her blue eyes looked from one young face to the other.

‘As you’re the finest needlewoman either of us know, I hope you’ll be able to help us make more fashionable and freshen some of our old gowns. Charlotte is going to London!’

‘Oh la! I expected as much,’ she said with some satisfaction at her powers of deduction.

‘Well, did you also expect me to have to accompany her?’ Leonora’s eyes were fixed on her old nanny’s face with a challenging gleam. Mrs Priddy nodded with a smug look. ‘And did you also foresee that you were coming with us?’

Peg Priddy put down the linen she was embroidering. ‘What makes you think I will? I was last in London when I was a girl and did not care for it. So clamorous, noisome and dirty, and the behaviour of the populace was not much better!’

‘I know you’ll come, because you’re the most important person in my life, and both of us depend on your good counsel.’

Mrs Priddy batted this compliment away just as there was a knock at the door and Jack Clegg peered into the room. ‘Miss Leonora, Ned Fleming wishes to see you.’

Leonora got up in a hurry; her bailiff was the most competent of men and rarely bothered her outside the hours allotted for their weekly meetings. She followed Jack Clegg to the back door where Ned Fleming stood, his weather-beaten face looking more anxious than usual. ‘Pardon my interrupting you at this time but I am concerned.’

‘Come in, Mr Fleming.’ Leonora led him into the office by the pantry. ‘What has happened?’

‘I’m afraid Silas Sproat, the son of your tenant who farms the acres which lie alongside Fopling land, has been shot for poaching.’

Leonora’s heart plummeted with shock. The Sproats were a good hard-working family and Silas was their eldest, a fine strapping boy of about sixteen. ‘Oh no! Is he still alive?’

‘It’s a flesh wound in his forearm, but the Fopling gamekeeper killed his dog.’

‘Not Molly!’

‘I’m afraid so. She just managed to escape with Silas but collapsed from blood loss when they got home and died on the kitchen floor.’

‘This is terrible. Has Silas had any medical assistance?’

‘No. His family don’t want Sir Roderick to be able to track him down. You know what a ferocious Justice of the Peace he is.’

‘What can we do? Do they have any medicine that might stop the wound festering?’

‘Mrs Sproat’s so successful healing with herbs that people think her a witch. She has immediately strapped up her boy with a honey bandage and given him clove water and wild marjoram. But she has nothing to heal a broken heart. Molly was his pride and joy.’

Leonora felt a spasm of sympathetic grief for Silas. ‘She was the best of dogs. But why did he risk poaching on Fopling land? He knows we allow the villagers to hunt for rabbits for the pot. The family could always come to us if they were in need.’

‘He’s a rumbustious boy and I think was poaching for the fun of it, Miss Leonora.’

‘At least he wasn’t caught in one of those fiendish mantraps Fopling employs in his woods. I can hardly believe they are still allowed. So destructive of man and beast!’

‘Your grandfather banned them from ever being used on Hasterleigh land.’ Ned Fleming turned to go. ‘I’ll get back to the fencing I’m repairing along our southern boundary.’

‘If you see the Sproats, tell them I’ll visit tomorrow with a basket of food.’

‘Don’t draw any special attention to them for a few days, ma’am. Fopling’s man will be looking for clues.’

‘I’m surprised Silas’s red hair wasn’t enough to identify him.’

Leonora returned to see Charlotte in conversation with Mrs Priddy who was sewing a hem on some linen cloth. She said in distress, ‘I’m afraid Silas Sproat has been wounded poaching on Sir Roderick’s land. And Molly’s been killed.’

Both women looked at her, horrified. Molly was loved in the village for her sweet nature and beauty. Her speckled coat of blue and white splotches stood out as she pranced beside Silas down the village street. Silas too was a fine, high-spirited young man, and no one liked to think of him in pain and danger. ‘I’ll take some food over to the family tomorrow, but we are to be careful not to draw attention to their cottage; the Fopling gamekeeper is on the rampage and they intend to prosecute.’

Charlotte’s face grew pale. ‘He doesn’t risk deportation or—’ she paused with a bleak expression ‘—or death?’

Mrs Priddy put a hand on her arm. ‘More likely it’ll be imprisonment these days. The law is not as draconian as in my youth.’