The Lorimer Legacy (37 page)

‘It's out of the question, Beatrice,' said Sophie with surprising firmness. ‘Your cousin is bound to be tired after so much travelling. And your father will expect to find her here when he comes home this evening.'

It was a sharp reminder to Kate that Brinsley House had a master and that she still had to face her uncle and his younger son, Arthur. They both worked in the Lorimer Line's offices down at the docks, but had not bothered to step outside to greet her when the banana boat arrived.

An explanation of the apparent discourtesy emerged as soon as Arthur came home that night – although he was past his thirtieth birthday, he was not yet married and still lived with his parents at Brinsley House. He warned his mother at once that there had been trouble at business that day, and that his father was likely to arrive late and in a bad temper. Then he welcomed his cousin more warmly than either Sophie or Beatrice had done, explaining at once that her arrival at the port had coincided with a meeting of such importance that none of the Lorimer staff had dared to interrupt their chairman with the news of her presence. Now he made amends for their neglect. His eyes were admiring as he looked at his cousin, and his voice was friendly when he suggested that they should stroll together in the garden.

The enquiries he made about the voyage were more
detailed than Beatrice's vague politenesses. It did not take Kate long to realize that he was using her to give him a report on the day-to-day running of his banana boat, which had brought her to England. But although the conversation was clearly for his own benefit rather than hers, it did at least leave her with the feeling that he was listening to the answers. She was conscious of him tucking notes away in his mind, to be acted upon, perhaps, the next day: and because she was herself accustomed to observe and note, this amused rather than offended her. It was not long, in fact, before she felt sufficiently at ease to accuse him of employing her as a spy, and the smile with which he accepted the challenge sparked off a friendly feeling between them.

His father's arrival, an hour later, introduced a different mood into the household. William did not come out into the garden to greet his niece. Instead the sound which reached her was the slamming of his study door.

‘I'm afraid you're not going to see my father at his best today,' Arthur apologized. ‘As well as being Chairman of the Lorimer Line, he's a director of the company which owns the docks. We've had agitators in Bristol recently. They've had some success in forming trade unions in London, and now they are attempting to disrupt the economy of the whole country with their demands. A deputation waited on my father this morning. It was a stormy meeting, to say the least.'

‘What did they want?'

‘A restriction of the hours to be worked each day. In some industries this sort of thing may be possible, for all I know. But no shipping line can tolerate it. Your own vessel, for example – she arrived in the normal working hours of the morning, as it happened, but only because sailing conditions were exceptionally favourable. If she
had docked in the late afternoon, as was originally scheduled, it would still have been necessary for her cargo to have been unloaded at once. What these men don't seem to realize is that if all their demands were to be met, even the most prosperous company could be bankrupted – and then who would pay their wages?'

‘So Uncle William was not prepared to agree?'

‘He didn't consider that matter even worthy of discussion. I was summoned to attend the meeting to see how he dealt with them – that was why neither of us was able to greet you. There were tempers lost on both sides. One of the men reminded my father that the Lorimer Line could be one of the first to suffer if a cargo of bananas were to be held up in some way instead of being unloaded at once. It was an outright threat. Of course, it won't happen. The trouble-makers will soon be wishing that they had any job at all, however long the hours. But I was afraid for a moment that Father was about to have a fit. He went so purple that I thought he was actually going to burst with rage. You'll have to forgive him if he isn't as attentive to you this evening as he ought to be. It may be better for you not to see him at all tonight than to face him when he's in such a bad mood.'

The conversation was not one which did much to put Kate at ease, so when, later that evening, a message was brought to the drawing room asking her and Brinsley to come to the study, it was with some uneasiness that she obeyed. But it appeared that their uncle's good temper had been restored by a dinner brought to him on a tray, and by a generous pouring of brandy after it. He was affable enough as Kate, for the fourth time that day, reported on her family's health and spirits and handed over a letter which her father had sent by her hand to his brother.

‘Young Brinsley here has been telling you, I've no
doubt, how he's been wasting his time this summer,' he said. Although the words were critical, the tone of his voice was more indulgent than might have been expected for a man whom Kate knew to have few interests of his own outside his office. ‘The youngest boy ever to play for his school at cricket. And the worst Greek scholar within living memory. His father's son. Not much doubt about that. Well, time you were in bed, young man.'

‘Yes, sir. Goodnight sir.' Brinsley stood up to leave, but Kate deduced that she was expected to stay.

‘Excuse me, uncle, if I just tell my brother that there is a letter for him in my room.'

‘You gave me the one from Mother and Father,' Brinsley reminded her.

‘This one is from Duke. I saw him just before I left. Uncle William's mention of cricket reminded me of it. Duke's promised to look after Bristow Great House while we're away.'

Brinsley went off in search of the letter, closing the door carefully behind him. Kate turned back to her uncle and found that he was staring at her curiously.

‘Bristow Great House?' he said. ‘What is that?'

‘Just a place where Brinsley and I used to play as children,' said Kate. ‘In the days when the land was worked by slaves, it was the home of the plantation owner. Now it's almost a ruin. Nobody has lived in it for years.'

‘You talk of “the plantation”. Which plantation?'

‘The estate which is worked by my father's congregation,' said Kate. ‘He's told you about it, surely.' She was puzzled by the intensity of her uncle's interrogation. Since he provided the shipping which brought much of the produce of the estate to England, he must know how his brother's interests had expanded from religion to agriculture.

‘I'm aware that your father owns a plantation,' said William. ‘But I've always understood it to be called the Hope Valley Estate. That's the name branded on the crates which he consigns to my ships.'

‘That's what it's called now,' agreed Kate. ‘But in the old days it was the Bristow plantation, and the house still keeps that name. Not that anyone ever speaks of it except Brinsley and myself.'

‘How did your father get his hands on it?' William had sprung to his feet while she was talking. Suddenly he was pounding the desk with such force that the decanter of brandy jerked dangerously towards the edge. The fierceness of his anger terrified Kate, so that she too rose to her feet as though she might need to defend herself. For a moment it seemed that he was trying to control his feelings, but the restraint was even more alarming than the open fury.

‘I made enquiries,' he said through clenched teeth. ‘Not at once, because it was necessary to wait until all danger passed of the Jamaican property being sucked into my father's estate after his death and disposed of to the benefit of his creditors. I was patient for a good many years. And when at last I put in my claim, I was told that my rights had lapsed. That the land which I should have inherited had been disposed of. And now you tell me that your father owns the property. But I tell you that he has no right to it. Who is the eldest son? Tell me that. Who is the eldest son?'

Kate, bewildered, could think of no reply, but none was expected.

‘If there was anything left after the collapse of my father's business, if there was any legacy which could have been honoured as he would have wanted, it should have come to me. It should have come to me, I say. Your father is no better than a thief. I shall – I shall –'

He raised his hand to pound the desk for a second time. Ridiculously, it was for the safety of the decanter that Kate was now alarmed. She put out a hand to save it, but the impending blow did not materialize. William was attempting to struggle from the grip of some kind of paralysis. His upraised hand trembled, but would not obey him. He stood as though posing for a statue, frozen into an ungainly attitude of anger, one shoulder hunched towards his neck, a fist poised to descend. His complexion had flushed to the purple which Arthur had described earlier in the day. Kate, at her mother's side, had witnessed a great many emergencies in Hope Valley, but never anything like this.

‘Aunt Sophie!' she called; but guessed at once that the thick walls and mahogany doors insulated the rooms of Brinsley House too well for any call to be heard. She tugged at the bell pull and hurried round to the other side of the desk to support her uncle. Try as she might, she was not strong enough to force him safely into his chair, for all his muscles were rigid. Only his teeth chattered a little as he attempted, but failed, to speak.

The butler came in answer to the bell, only to stand frozen to the spot with shock. Kate called again, this time through the open door, and Sophie arrived with an outraged expression. At the first sight of her husband her expression changed and she fainted dead away. It was Arthur at last who took control of the situation, sending messages to a doctor and summoning more servants to carry his father up to bed.

No one, in the general turmoil, took any notice of Kate, and she was glad of it. More than two hours passed before Arthur returned to the study and found her still sitting there, huddled in a leather armchair.

‘How is he?' she asked. Arthur sat down in his father's
chair on the far side of the desk, for there were no other seats in the study.

‘Still alive,' he said. ‘But the doctors are not hopeful about his condition. He has had an apoplectic stroke, it seems. I'm not quite clear yet what that implies. He has lost the power of speech, and the whole of his left side is paralysed. The right hand, too, is beyond his control at the moment. If there is to be any improvement, it is to be looked for there, they say. However that may be, he will never work again. Never be himself again. I can hardly credit what has happened – that it should be so sudden. One moment an active, astute man with all his faculties; and then within seconds a helpless object, to be carried and nursed. If he had died tonight, Kate, I would have had those men before a court tomorrow morning on a charge of manslaughter.'

‘The men?' she queried, not understanding him.

‘The trouble-makers. There's not the slightest doubt in my mind that they're responsible for this. I suspect that he came very near to his present condition while they were in his office this morning. No doubt he was going over the conversation again in his mind, so that his anger returned. Or perhaps he was recounting it to you – you were in here with him, were you not?'

‘Yes, I was.' said Kate. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded faint, and she was conscious of Arthur looking at her with concern. But he would think it natural that she should be shocked by what had happened. He could not guess, and she dared not confess, what had really been the subject of her conversation with his father.

Nothing had ever been mentioned in her presence at home about the way in which the Bristow plantation had come into her father's possession. She did not even know whether it was his personal property or whether he was a kind of trustee, administering it on behalf of the Hope
Valley community. Although feeling herself accused alongside her father, she had no guilty knowledge which would have allowed her to understand exactly what it was which had so greatly upset her uncle. Nevertheless, it was impossible to conceal from herself one fact of guilt: the fact that his loss of control had been caused by something which she herself had said, though in all innocence, and not by the memory of his earlier arguments with the dock workers.

No doubt his anger on the first occasion had made him more vulnerable to the stress of the second upset, but Kate's conscience was not completely clear, all the same. She would have felt happier if she could have confessed her doubts to her cousin, recounting the conversation in the hope that he could assure her that it was of no consequence. But her ignorance of the background and of the true facts sapped her confidence. If there were truly something wrong, to bring it into the open might cause trouble for her father. There had been talk of a legacy, and the implication that it had been misapplied. What were her uncle's words? ‘No better than a thief!'

Everything in Kate's upbringing told her that she ought to be frank and honest. But her uncle's tirade had frightened her – on her father's behalf as well as her own. If her uncle recovered his speech, of course, or the power to write, he would be able to explain to the world whatever it was that had made him so furiously angry. To the confusion of Kate's emotions was added, for one involuntary second, the hope that perhaps he might not recover. Kate was so shocked by the wickedness of her own thoughts that without warning she burst into tears.

Almost at once she conquered her feelings with anger at her own behaviour. ‘I never cry!' she exclaimed, gulping herself under control again. But the moment of breakdown had lasted long enough to bring Arthur to her
side. He sat on the arm of the leather chair and she was conscious of his hand gripping her shoulder.

‘It would be remarkable if you didn't feel upset,' he said. ‘None of us has properly imagined what this day has meant to you. You've left everyone you love and sailed halfway across the world to begin a new life. You find yourself in a family of people who – relatives though we may be – are strangers. We expect you to be at ease in a strange house; and give you, no doubt, strange food to eat. And just as you're beginning to relax into the normal routine of this new life, it's all upset by an emergency. No wonder you are disturbed. I can't apologize enough for giving you such a bleak welcome to England.'