Hide and Seek for Love (8 page)

There were flowers arranged in two large bowls by the window and the fire, although it was not needed, had been properly laid.

He recalled his grandfather, standing at the writing desk and speaking to him in a most offensive manner before turning him out of this house, and telling him that he was no longer a member of the family.  

Yet now he was here to take his grandfather's place.

He gave a little sigh, feeling that it was not going to be easy.  If only his beloved father had lived, how different everything would have been.

It was twenty minutes before Benina came hurrying back with his tea on a tray and put it down by the sofa.

“I am afraid Nanny has only been able to make you a very small sandwich,” she announced.  “We have run out of bread.  She also says she has no idea what she can give you for dinner tonight.”

David walked towards the sofa and sat down.

“Suppose you pour out my tea and at the same time tell me what is going on.  I had rather hoped Newman was still here, but I suppose he has retired or is he dead?”

“Newman had to go to the workhouse – ”

“The
workhouse
!
 
What do you mean?”

“The Marquis refused either to pay or feed him!”

David stared at her as if he could not believe what he had just heard.

“I am afraid you are going to be very shocked when you learn what has been happening here,” added Benina.  “But as the servants were given no wages, they left one by one.  Then, as the Marquis refused to feed them, the old ones that were left, like Newman, were forced to go to the workhouse.”

David put his hand up to his head.

“I find this quite impossible to believe.  Why was there no money?  Why could the servants not be paid?”

“I think there
was
some money,” replied Benina, “but your grandfather would not spend it.”

She gave a little sigh and sat down on an armchair.

“To be honest, I think the Marquis became a little mad after he was eighty-nine.  My mother and I came here the next year and he tried not to have us, but we told him we had nowhere to go and finally, reluctantly, he gave in.”

“I don't understand.  You say you are a relative of my grandmother, but why did you come to live here?”

“It's a long story.  My father did not get on with the rest of the Falcon family because, just like your father, he had married someone they all disapproved of.”

David smiled.

“I know only too well how disagreeable relatives can be!”

“They were quite horrible to Papa and Mama and of course as we were only minor relations they paid very little attention to us – ”

She gave a deep sigh, then continued,

“Except for your Grandmamma who was always very kind and continually wrote to my father right up to the time of his death.”

“So your father is dead,” remarked David, trying to put the whole scenario into perspective.

“Yes, and so is my Mama,” said Benina with a sob in her voice.  “When Papa died, Mama came here, hoping that the Marchioness would be kind to her.”

“And was she?”

“She tried to be, but I think the Marquis thought we were a tiresome expense and said that Mama and I would have to leave.”

“But apparently you did not do so?”

“No, because the Marchioness died, and as we kept very quiet and lived in a different part of the house, I don't think the Marquis knew for some time that we were still here.”

“Then what happened?”

“He became very odd and was quite certain that he must save his money and not spend any of it.”

“That does seem rather peculiar.”

“It was terrible,” Benina carried on.  “He dismissed a great number of the staff, especially those who worked in the garden and on the farm.  Then he started on the household, who either left, or clung on like Newman, until they had to go because there was no food for them.”

“And what happened to you?” enquired David.

Benina put her hand up to her face.

“It was terrible, absolutely terrible.  My Mama was growing weaker and weaker, but we had nothing at all and nowhere to go.”

“So what did you do?”

“Finally Mama cleverly persuaded the Marquis that he could save money on us because we would become his servants without payment.  All he had to do was to feed us and we would clean what we could of the house and cook his meals.”

David found this all very hard to believe.

How could any man, most especially a Marquis of Inglestone, behave in such an appalling manner?

“What we did next was to hide Nanny.  We knew we could not do without her and she had nowhere to go if she left us.  She was kept out of sight and the Marquis, who was growing blind as well as everything else, believed that only Mama and I were in the house.”

“It sounds incredible to me,” sighed David.

“Everything about it was horrible, especially when Mama became really ill and we dared not send for a doctor at first as we knew that the Marquis would not pay for him.  Finally, Nanny insisted I go and see the doctor and beg him on my knees to come even though he would not be paid.”

“And did he come?”

“Yes, of course, he did and it was silly of us not to have asked him before.”

There was silence for a moment and then she added,

“It was too late and Mama died.  I think her heart was weak and because of having so little food, she had not the strength she required to keep alive.”

Benina's voice broke on the last words and David said quickly,

“I am sorry, desperately sorry to hear all this.  But I still cannot appreciate why it should have happened.”

“I cannot understand it either.  Neither of us could believe that the Marquis had no money.  I think in a mad way he thought he must keep it safe and not spend it.”

“I will go and see the Bank Manager tomorrow,” David told her.  “Is there any sort of conveyance left in the stables or on the estate?”

“There are two horses, but they are put out to grass, as the Marquis would not buy any food for them.”

She gave a little sob before she continued,

“There were two others that died last winter, but I ride these two when I have the time.”

“Until your grandfather died, he kept Nanny and me running about all day fetching things for him and putting things back, mostly for no reason.”

She paused and then explained,

“By this time he was so blind and thought Nanny was Mama and was quite content to let her dress him.”

“But surely some of the family who came here must have known what was happening?”

“Lord Cecil was killed in the Sudan with his Regiment.  The Viscount spent most of his time in London and when he did come home, he was so uncomfortable and complained to Nanny and me about everything.”

“I am not surprised!”

“When he knew that the Viscount was coming, the Marquis used to give us some money, just enough to buy food for the meals when he was in the house.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper, as she added,

“Sometimes if we were clever, we would get a little more and keep it until after he had gone.  But he did not come very often.”

“Why did you not ask him for money?”

“I did do,” answered Benina, “but the Viscount felt that his father had plenty of money and if he did not want to spend it that was his business.  Then he went back to London and did not return for a very long time.”

David thought he could not blame him, so he said,

“What I have to do is to find out exactly what has happened to all the money.  In the meantime I have some with me and I suggest, as your Nanny is doing the cooking, she will know how to spend it.”

Benina gave a little jump for joy.

“If dear Nanny had not been clever enough to make the boys in the village snare some rabbits for us, I think we would have died from starvation!

“Luckily I had one or two small pieces of jewellery belonging to my mother that I managed to pawn.”

She gave a little smile.

“Occasionally the Marquis would forget that he had given us money one day and gave us some more the next, saying it had to last for the week.”

“I have never heard of anything quite so dreadful,” exclaimed David.  “And now you have to help me, unless, of course, you want to leave.”

Benina's eyes opened very wide and then she asked in a hesitating voice,

“You are not – sending Nanny – and me away?”

“Not if you wish to stay, but I think people might think it strange that you are staying at Ingle Hall without a chaperone, even though we are vaguely related.”

“Actually I think I must be your cousin two or three times removed.”

David laughed.

“I suppose that should be close enough to make it respectable!”

“We do have Nanny as a chaperone,” she asserted, almost aggressively.

“I hardly think that Nanny will be sufficient if we entertain our relatives or people who might call on me out of curiosity,” countered David.

Benina did not reply and he added jokingly,

“You can hardly expect Nanny to cook luncheon and then sit down at the same table with us.”

“Nanny said just that when I told her you wanted dinner, but I don't want you to see the dining room, as I have not had time to polish the candlesticks and the rest of the silver to make it look as you would expect it.”

David chuckled.

“I think tonight we had best eat in the kitchen, but I shall be upset if there is nothing to eat, so please go and give Nanny this.”

He took a five pound note from his pocket and then handed it to Benina.

She took it from him and stared at it.

“Nanny will think that she's dreaming!  Have you any more like this one, my Lord?”

David chuckled again.

“I am a soldier, so I am not rich, but I have enough to prevent us from being hungry and I want to find out as fast as I possibly can, what on earth has happened to all my grandfather's money.”

He was thinking that the Marquis had always been spoken of as a very rich man and he remembered his father telling him how he had often given large parties.

There had been a lavish ball for the Viscount on his twenty-first birthday besides fireworks in the Park, and the house had been filled with guests and an army of servants to wait on them.

It just seemed so extraordinary that his grandfather had stopped cultivating the land and presumably had then driven out the farmers.

From what his father had told him, there had been a great deal of wealth amassed over the centuries and it had made the eighth Marquis of Inglestone a very rich man.

‘I don't understand all this,' pondered David.

But it was a problem he had to solve and the sooner the better.

 

Dinner was rather late.

Benina insisted on bringing it into the study where they were more comfortable.

She made David chuckle by telling him how Nanny had thought that the five pound note he had given her must be fake.

At first she had laughed and put it on the table.

“Then what happened?” asked David.

Benina hesitated before replying,

“It was kept a secret from the Marquis, but I would suppose it's all right to tell you, my Lord?”

“Tell me what?”

“Well, one of the gardeners who was here for years was instructed to leave and your grandfather thought that he had given up his cottage.  But he managed to find work in the village and therefore never left it.”

She threw up her hands.

“Of course, we were most grateful to him because he occasionally brought us vegetables when it was too cold for me to dig them up in the kitchen garden.”

She paused to see if David was still interested.

“We were very grateful to him,” she added quickly, “and his son has helped us move things when they were too heavy for Nanny and me.”

“What you are saying,” David smiled, “is that the son, whoever he is, went to buy the food for my dinner.”

Benina clapped her hands.

“You are so clever and you are quite right!  Nanny will be very upset if you don't enjoy it.”

Actually it was tender meat, very well cooked and David did enjoy it.

He noticed that Benina was eating slowly as if her every mouthful was ambrosia from the Gods and she did look very thin.

He thought the same when he met Nanny and was certain that the lines on her face were owing to deprivation rather than age.

After the excellent meat, there was some fruit and following that cheese.

“We have not seen one of these for years,” Benina enthused, “and my parents loved really good cheese.”

David noticed that although she was delighted with the cheese, she could not eat very much.

Having been so long in India, he knew the reason only too well – people who had been starving could never eat very much until they gradually acclimatised themselves to more and better nourishment.

They retired to bed early because he was tired.

David had found out from Benina that there was a chaise available for hire if he wanted it.

“What about our own horses?” he asked her.

“I think that they are too weak if you are going into town.  They have been out to grass all winter and are only now getting enough to eat.”

David's lips tightened.

If there was one thing that infuriated him most, it was unnecessary cruelty to animals and he knew only too well what effect this would have on well-bred horses.

“I am going to give you a list, Benina, of items we need urgently, like feed for the horses, and something for us to drink.  Perhaps you could go into the village whilst I am seeing my grandfather's Bank Manager?”

“I thought that is what you would do, my Lord.  I know it is very stupid of me, but I did not think before how we could gain access to the cellar.”