Read Candles in the Storm Online
Authors: Rita Bradshaw
Tags: #Romance, #Sagas, #Historical, #Fiction
Candles in the Storm (44 page)
He looked at Gwendoline now, busy heaping a plate with dainty sandwiches and cake for him from a trolley one of the maids had wheeled in a few moments before. They had not really discussed the matter of the divorce, but then they had not needed to. He would have understood why she wanted to leave his father even if he had not heard her whispering about it with his Aunt Lydia one day when they had thought he was asleep. She so wished she had waited and married for love, like Lydia, his mother had murmured, rather than the prestige of a name and great wealth. It had been a mistake from the start, a grave mistake, but at least she had William to show for the years of unhappiness. That had touched him, she had sounded as though she really meant it.
‘So overall you are glad you went to the funeral?’ Gwendoline asked, handing him the plate before reseating herself on a couch to one side of the full-length window overlooking the grounds of Claude’s château in the Loire Valley, the Garden of France. ‘And your father wasn’t . . . difficult about your decision to return here immediately rather than stay at Greyfriar?’
‘No, he wasn’t difficult.’ William bit into a wafer-thin sandwich. But as to whether he was glad he had gone or not, he wasn’t sure. It had been hard seeing Daisy again - seeing her with someone else was perhaps nearer the truth - harder even than he’d expected when he’d considered the matter in the past. But at least it had helped make up his mind once and for all that he would never take up residence at Greyfriar Hall again.
During the weeks he had lain in no man’s land, unable to think or escape the muzziness which had penetrated his brain and kept everything - past and present - muffled in an impenetrable fog, he had expected to die. He should have done, that’s what the nurses in the infirmary had told him once he began to improve, and it was a miracle he was doing so well. He agreed with them, it was a miracle, and that being the case he couldn’t waste this second chance at life.
He had been speaking the truth when he had told the police and his family that he could remember nothing of the attack or the hours leading up to it, but that hadn’t meant he didn’t know who was responsible. He had considered mentioning von Spee’s name, but after thinking about it for a while had to admit he owed the man enough to keep quiet. Make a cuckold of a man and you make an enemy; he had received rough justice but perhaps it had been no more than he deserved. Whatever, thanks to Monsieur Richer who had put his legs back together again he was going to recover, and that being the case he had resolved to put the whole episode behind him. Once he was sufficiently recovered he would follow through on the idea he had had before the attack and join the army, but until then he would keep quiet about his future, for his mother’s sake. He knew she would be aghast at the thought of him becoming a soldier; time enough for her to come to terms with it when she had to. She had already been making noises about this girl or that over here, the matchmaking urge still strong, but when - or perhaps it would be if - he took a wife, it would be his choice and his alone.
‘Were you aware of what was in the letter your father gave you to give to me?’ his mother now asked, bringing William out of his thoughts.
‘No.’
She sighed. ‘Apparently he has asked Francis to come here after Christmas with papers which will then be ready for me to sign. Of course, reading between the lines, what your father is hoping is that Francis will persuade me that a divorce is not necessary. Let him try, he will not succeed.’
‘I didn’t think for a moment he would.’
‘And in the letter your father is adamant that Francis has turned over a new leaf incidentally. Do you believe that, William?’
‘No, Mother, I do not. The man is incapable of it.’
‘Quite.’ They smiled at each other in mutual understanding and continued with their tea.
‘You saw her, didn’t you, Kirby, on the day of the funeral? Butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth.’
It was a few days after Christmas and the night before Francis was due to leave for France, a trip he had been loath to agree to. However, in his new guise of Augustus’s nearest and dearest, he hadn’t felt he could refuse his brother. Augustus was beside himself at the thought of the ignominy of a divorce, and pinning all his hopes on ‘making the damn’ silly woman see reason’ as he had put it to Francis when he’d asked him to go and see Gwendoline.
Not that Francis intended to do any talking round. It suited his purposes admirably to have Gwendoline out of the way and William with her; Augustus was relying on his brother more and more, and in a little while Francis intended to start planting seeds of resentment and bitterness regarding William’s decision to live with his mother rather than his father. There was nothing to stop Augustus capitalising the estate’s assets in his lifetime; by the time William came to inherit he could well find there was little of value left.
But for the present moment Francis’s thoughts were all on Daisy. It had riled him beyond measure that she had dared to show her face at the funeral, and remain so aloof and contained at that.
‘The chit’s brazen! Do y’hear me, Kirby?’ Francis held out his brandy glass and the valet refilled it as he had done several times since dinner. It was now nearing midnight but still Mr Francis did not seem disposed to let him go, thought Kirby, the other man’s drunken breath wafting over his face.
‘Does . . . doesn’t know her place, that’s the thing.’ Francis gulped at his drink before gesturing at the valet, his tone irritable as he said, ‘Have another, man. You know I don’t like to drink alone.’
He waited till Josiah had dutifully poured a small measure of brandy into his own glass, then said, ‘Cu . . . cunning as foxes where she comes from.’
‘Indeed they are, sir.’ Josiah looked at his master’s brother’s flushed face and red-veined eyes. Another few minutes and Mr Francis would pass out, he knew the signs. Then he would call Mallard and they could get him up to bed like they always did when the master retired early and Mr Francis took the opportunity to drink himself senseless.
‘Ma . . . making up to Will . . . William. I saw ’em.’
He could barely speak now. Josiah stretched his legs in the armchair opposite, sitting quietly as Mr Francis continued to mumble on, the words incoherent in the main. He had been livid the night the fishergirl had refused him, that was what all this was about, added to the fact he must have consumed a full bottle of brandy and that after a bottle or two of wine at dinner.
‘. . . arrogant young buck. Von Spee’d got the right idea . . .’ There was more mumbling, and then, ‘Once he’d gone to the devil it would’ve been easy, but they had to bu . . . bungle it, damn their eyes!’
Goodness knew what Mr Francis was on about now but he’d better get Mallard out of bed, it’d take him a few minutes to get dressed. Josiah rose to his feet, and actually had one hand on the bell rope when he froze, suddenly taking in what his master’s brother was saying. ‘. . . only had to dump the body in the water but couldn’t even get that right. Customs men be damned! Couldn’t be bothered, that was the thing.’
Josiah leant against the mantelpiece for support, his head reeling as he stared at the bloated figure in the chair. This was all to do with the attack on Mr William. Mr Francis had had a hand in trying to do away with his own nephew!
Francis was still muttering away but now the indistinct words seemed to be a string of profanities, and after a minute or two even these stopped as the brandy took hold and he slipped into unconsciousness.
Nevertheless, it was some moments before Josiah moved, and then it was only to straighten himself slowly as he covered his eyes with his hand. He remained like this for a little while. He himself had been the one to bring Mr Francis back into the fold when his master’s brother had approached him in France. He had believed Mr Francis when he’d said he wanted to help, preferring to trust the old adage that blood is thicker than water. And all the time . . . He dropped his hand and turned to look at the man he had served, to a limited extent, off and on for many years. What was he going to do? It would break the master to know his own brother had played a part in the attempt to kill Mr William, especially in view of the mistress’s leaving and Mr Francis growing so close to Sir Augustus again.
What was he going to do?
What was he going to do?
At eight o’clock the next morning a carriage containing Francis Fraser and Josiah Kirby left Greyfriar Hall. It was bitterly cold, fat flakes of snow falling from a low laden sky, and Francis was in a filthy mood. He abhorred the process of travelling and was not looking forward to the journey to London and then Dover by train, or the crossing to Calais. Added to which he had the mother and father of a hangover.
He glowered at Josiah as the carriage bumped over ridges of hard-packed snow, his voice reflecting his surly disposition when he said, ‘You packed my white tie, Kirby? Can’t be doing with that new fashion for the dinner jacket, although it seems to be catching on in certain circles.’
‘Your evening dress is at the very top of the trunk, sir, and I stood over the housemaid to make sure everything is as it should be.’
Francis grunted. ‘I should think so. Damn’ useless girls! There’s not one of them with a grain of sense in her head.’
‘Quite so, sir.’
Obsequious so-and-so. Francis belched loudly. Still, that was his job and Kirby was a damn’ good valet.
When the carriage drew up outside the station the snow was coming down even more thickly. It had been arranged that Josiah would travel to Dover with his employer’s brother and see him onto the boat for Calais: one of Claude’s servants would meet him in France. Now Francis exited the carriage and walked into the station leaving Josiah to follow with the trunk. He turned as the valet reached him, his voice irritable as he said, ‘Come on, man, come on. The train’s due any moment.’
Josiah had refused the help of a porter and his face was red with exertion when he placed the trunk on the ground for a moment, only for Francis to say, as the engine puffed into the station, ‘Pick it up, Kirby, I don’t intend to be the last on. Look lively, man!’
‘Of course, Mr Francis.’
It was talked about for months afterwards by those who had been present on the platform.
One minute the train had been chugging to a stop as usual, the next the station was echoing with the most blood-curdling screams as that poor gentleman fell on to the rails and under the wheels. Cut him in two, it did, near as damn it.
What exactly happened no one was really sure. However, the police talked to the valet who had been accompanying the dead man, and it appeared the gentleman had been standing too close to the edge of the platform and just lost his balance. Mind, it did emerge he had been drinking excessively the night before and had still been more than a little unsteady on his legs that morning. At the inquest one of the footmen from Greyfriar Hall said the gentleman had had to be carried to bed after midnight; incapable of even undressing himself, he’d been. You can’t get into a state like that and it not have consequences, can you?
The valet was as upset as the family, poor devil. ’Course, he’d seen it happen, hadn’t he, and it’d live with you for ever something like that. What a way to go, eh?
Chapter Twenty-four
Nellie died on New Year’s Eve and her end was peaceful, with those she loved gathered about her and Daisy holding her hand. It was a gentle, slow slipping away and Daisy knew her grandmother wouldn’t have wanted to continue living with many of her faculties gone. Nevertheless, as the old woman breathed her last she found herself inwardly crying, Granny, don’t go. Please don’t go. Not yet, I can’t bear it. You can’t go. But she had. And in death the lines and wrinkles of years of pain and suffering were smoothed away and she looked young again as she went to meet her Abe.
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