Emily (13 page)

‘She’s eminently suitable, Mother. She has money, she’s from a good family – one of the best in the area. The only thing she hasn’t got is brains and I’m not too bothered about that.’

No, Mrs Purnell agreed. Brains were not as important as breeding for a wife. But there was something he wasn’t telling her. She knew her son well enough to know when he was holding
something back. ‘So, who is she? Do I know her or her family?’

He smiled faintly but looked away. ‘I’m sure you will be pleased, Mama, when you get used to the idea.’ His voice was placatory. ‘You know her well. It’s Deborah Francis. Daughter of your cousin and Roger Francis.’

Mrs Purnell’s face turned ashen. ‘You can’t be serious? You
can’t
be serious! You know the history. There is madness in the family! Think again, Hugo.’ She shook her head disbelievingly. ‘Not her! Anyone but her! Besides her father would never agree. He’s very protective towards her, to both of his children. He won’t allow it!’ She tried to be convincing, but the look on his face told her she had failed.

‘Listen, Mother.’ He knelt beside her and whispering softly he topped up her glass of sherry. ‘He will agree. We’ve concocted a story to make him agree. No, I’m not going to tell you what it is. But listen to what I have to say. She is the richest young woman of marriageable age in the district. No-one else will take the risk of proposing marriage because of her background, but it doesn’t put me off. I don’t intend to give her children so there will be no imbeciles in the family, you may be assured of that – and she’s very attractive. You haven’t seen her since she was a child. I tell you, she is a lovely young woman, a little excitable, I agree, but quite a beauty.’

He hesitated. ‘I met her mother, of course, and she saw how attached Deborah was to me. I think I can safely say that she will be quite agreeable to the
marriage. If anyone can persuade Roger Francis that his daughter should marry me, his wife can.’

‘He
can’t
be serious!’ Roger Francis confronted his wife, a letter held limply in his hand. ‘He says that he met you and Deborah in Italy and that he is sure that you approve of his intentions toward our daughter!’

He stared glassily at his wife. ‘He surely knows of the situation here? His mother must have talked about us. How can he possibly think of marriage? It’s out of the question!’

His wife gave a grim laugh. ‘I fear you will find that Deborah has different ideas. She is quite besotted with him. It was quite embarrassing at times.’

‘She has these phases of adoring particular people,’ he said angrily, ‘but it passes when she gets bored with them. She can’t possibly marry.’ He threw down the letter. ‘He’s a fortune hunter! Don’t tell me he’s not!’

‘I’m quite sure that he is.’ She looked away into the middle distance. ‘But I’m afraid we have no alternative but to allow it.’

‘What do you mean? Eleanor? What do you mean?’ He sank down into a chair, but then got up again. ‘What has happened? Speak, for God’s sake!’

‘Do not raise your voice to me!’ She glared angrily back at him. ‘I found your
precious
daughter and Hugo Purnell in a compromising situation as we were returning home.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I had searched all over the ship for her and was about to call the Captain, when I suddenly
thought of asking Hugo Purnell to help me look for her. I had left them together having coffee on the deck about an hour before.

‘I need some time to myself,’ she added resentfully before he could protest, ‘I can’t be watching her the whole time! Anyway,’ her voice dropped, ‘I knocked on his cabin door and when he opened it, I saw that Deborah was there. She was sitting on his bed. She’d taken her shoes and stockings off and was swinging her legs and looking very pleased with herself!’

‘Blackguard!’ He spat out the insult. ‘Do you think that he –?’ He couldn’t bring himself to ask the question.

‘How would I know?’ She looked at her husband with loathing in her eyes. ‘You’re the one who would know that! You and all whoring men.’

‘Eleanor! Enough!’ The hurt showed in his anxious face. ‘God knows I have tried to make amends.’

‘Well it’s too late now; for you and for her,’ she spat out. ‘When I questioned her about what she was doing there she just smiled sweetly and said, “Nice things”! Then later she told me that she was going to marry him. I cannot take any more,’ she whispered. ‘This tour was a nightmare for me. If you do not agree to this marriage and we find that she is with child, then I shall insist that we send her to join her brother in the asylum.’

He sank down into his chair again and rubbed his forehead. His hands trembled. ‘I’ll have to speak to Purnell. I’ll try to find out, explain the situation in case he doesn’t realize it. I mean,
she shouldn’t have children in case –.’

‘In case they inherit your line of madness!’ There was no sympathy in her voice, no compassion.

‘You are being so unfair, Eleanor,’ he said wearily. ‘You know that I hadn’t been told. I would never have had children had I known. My parents have a lot to answer for,’ he said bitterly. ‘They were ashamed, I know, but they should have told me.’

Hugo Purnell arrived the next day and Deborah greeted him with squeals of delight, throwing her arms around him. ‘Hugo! Papa – this is Hugo. Isn’t he so handsome? So adorable? And he wants to marry me. Don’t you, Hugo?’

Hugo bowed politely to Roger Francis and then kissed Deborah’s hand. ‘I would like to speak to your father alone, Deborah.’ He spoke gently but firmly to her. ‘You and I will talk later.’

‘Go and find your mother, Deborah, and tell her that Mr Purnell is here.’ Roger Francis ushered his daughter away and coldly invited Hugo Purnell to join him in the library.

‘First of all, sir,’ he began without preamble, ‘if what my wife says is true, and I have no reason to doubt her word, then I must tell you that I consider your conduct towards my daughter most reprehensible.’

Hugo opened his mouth to protest, but Roger Francis continued, ‘You must have heard of her condition and I consider that you have taken unfair advantage of her vulnerability. What do you have to say, sir?’

Hugo gave a lazy smile. ‘Your daughter, sir, practically threw herself at me, there was no conniving
for her affections on my part. During the whole of my time in Italy I was besieged by her attentions.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You must know how warm and affectionate she can be towards those she takes a fancy to.’

Roger Francis conceded this with a slight nod of his head.

‘However, sir,’ Hugo rubbed his hands together, ‘I must confess that my affections, which are quite genuine I assure you, were rather carried away on our journey home – Mrs Francis will have told you of the rather embarrassing incident? I did not intend inviting Deborah to visit me in my cabin, but she just arrived at my door.’

‘She has the mind of a child,’ Roger Francis broke in. ‘You took advantage of her!’

Hugo smiled thinly. ‘Believe me, sir, she is not a child, far from it.’ He stared him in the eyes. ‘But I have an affection for Deborah. I would take care of her if we were married. We would live with my mother, therefore she would have a constant companion.’ He appeared to hesitate, yet Roger Francis felt the hesitation was contrived. ‘And if I may be so bold, Mr Francis, she would not be at the mercy of undesirable philanderers who, without honourable intentions, might take advantage of her – erm, passion, should I say, which if you will forgive me sir, can stir the fire somewhat.’

‘I consider you a scoundrel, sir, to speak of my daughter in such a manner.’ Roger Francis was full of cold fury. ‘And I would like to receive your assurance that you have not violated her innocence!’

Hugo said nothing but merely patted his fingertips
together, then, raising his head, he said, ‘I have said I am willing to marry her. To do the honourable thing. What more can I offer?’

The door burst open and Deborah flew in, followed by her mother. Hugo gave her a small bow. ‘Charmed to meet you again, Mrs Francis. I trust you are well?’

She ignored his pleasantries and looked towards her husband. ‘What has been decided?’

Deborah looked from one to another. ‘Have you been talking about me, Papa? With Hugo? We’re going to be married! I’m going to have a cream silk dress with pink rosebuds embroidered all over it, and a sweet little pink bonnet, and what else did we say, Hugo? I can’t remember.’ She went up to him and put her arms around his waist.

He gently extricated himself from her grasp and looked significantly at her father. ‘You must discuss the finer details with your parents, Deborah. It’s in their hands now.’

‘Emily! Come here.’ Mrs Anderson beckoned to her. ‘You were in service with the Francises. Can you tell me why Mrs Purnell is not pleased with ’news that Mr Hugo is to marry their daughter?’

‘Marry Miss Deborah?’ Emily received the news with a mixture of relief and foreboding. Relief that perhaps Mr Hugo would not pay her quite so much attention if he was married; several times he had caught her alone on the landing and seized a kiss, but she had a foreboding that she might see more of Miss Deborah and be the butt of her attention again. ‘Well,’ she began doubtfully, remembering Mrs Castle’s advice not to see or hear anything in an employer’s household, ‘she is a little excitable sometimes.’

Dolly snorted and put her finger to her forehead. ‘I heard as she was a bit –!’

‘Well, it’s a mystery.’ Mrs Anderson was perplexed. ‘But ’news is enough to send ’mistress to her bed when you’d think she would be delighted.’

‘
Delighted!’
Mrs Purnell had exclaimed when Hugo told her that he had a letter from Roger
Francis saying he accepted the proposal of marriage on his daughter’s behalf. The letter had been formal and without compliments. ‘I am
not
delighted,’ she emphasized when Hugo complained of her negative attitude towards the tidings. ‘Of all the young women you could have chosen you have to choose someone who is unhinged!’

‘You will like her, Mother,’ he insisted. ‘She is charming and merry, full of life. She will brighten your day considerably.’

‘Brighten my day?’ She frowned suspiciously. ‘What do you mean, brighten my day?’

‘When I bring her home,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You will get along so well, I’m convinced of it.’

‘You are not thinking of bringing her here to live?’ She gazed at her son in marked trepidation.

‘But of course.’ Nonchalantly he stretched and smiled. ‘Where else would we live? I couldn’t possibly live in the country, and besides this place is too big just for you; and you would miss me, now wouldn’t you, if I went away?’

And it was then that Mrs Purnell took to her bed whilst Hugo went about making arrangements for his wedding to Deborah Francis and ordering the decorators to come in and paint and paper the bedroom which he had designated as suitable for his future wife.

‘What do you think, Emily? Come and see. Will the new Mrs Purnell like the choice I have made?’ He took hold of her arm as she walked by and pulled her into the room, which still smelled of paint. A new mahogany tester bed had been
installed, its drapes covered over with sheeting. A mahogany writing table had been placed in the window, whilst on the marble washstand a jug and washbowl in white and decorated with pink flowers stood beside an ornate oil lamp.

Hugo took the pile of laundry that she was carrying and placed them on the bed. ‘Come and look at the painting I bought in Italy. Charming, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she murmured, trying to remove herself from his grasp and with some dismay, reasoning that a painting of a nude woman wasn’t really a suitable subject for him to be pointing out to her.

He stood her in front of him and held her shoulders as they observed the painting. ‘She has a fine body, don’t you think, Emily?’ His hands dropped to her waist. ‘Plump, but not too plump.’ His fingers strayed across her breasts as he whispered, ‘Much like you, I would imagine? Nicely rounded, just the way a man likes a woman. Not just skin and bone.’

She struggled away. ‘Sir, Mrs Anderson will be looking for me.’

He moistened his lips with his tongue. ‘Ah, yes. Mrs Anderson. We mustn’t forget Mrs Anderson, must we?’ He slapped her rump. ‘Off you go, then. I’m glad you approve of the room, Emily.’

She dashed away, quite forgetting the sheets until much later and not daring to go back for them until she heard him go out and the front door slam behind him.

‘Master’s in a bit of a mood, isn’t he?’ Dolly said. ‘Looks as if he’s lost a guinea and found sixpence.’

Emily said nothing, but wished with all her heart that Christmas would soon be over and the New Year begun and Mr Hugo and Miss Deborah married so that she might feel safe again.

Mrs Purnell, Hugo and Emily travelled in the carriage to the wedding, whilst Wilson, Hugo’s manservant, travelled on top next to the coachman. It was a bitterly cold February day and the roads were deeply rutted and hard with frost. ‘What a god-forsaken spot,’ Mrs Purnell complained. ‘Does anything ever happen out here?’

‘Now you will realize why I don’t want to live here.’ Hugo bit his nails and stared at Emily sitting quietly in the corner. ‘Roger Francis offered us a house, but I turned it down.’

‘I didn’t know he’d offered you a house,’ his mother said sharply. ‘You should have taken it. You could still have kept some rooms at my house.’

‘Our house, Mother,’ he corrected her. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to be too near my in-laws and I want to be where the parties are and the clubs, not stuck next to a field of potatoes or turnips.’ He glanced at Emily. ‘You’re a country girl, Emily. What did you do for excitement?’

She considered and thought of her childhood. There hadn’t been any time for excitement since then, not once she had started work. ‘I used to row down the river, sir. Towards Spurn. And once I caught a salmon.’

‘You caught a salmon!’ he said dryly. ‘What a thrill. Lucky old salmon!’

‘Not an old one, sir,’ she said seriously. ‘A young
one. It would be returning to ’sea to feed and grow before coming back again to spawn.’

He yawned. ‘Really! What a mine of information you are, Emily. Who would have thought it?’