The Poacher's Daughter, page 4
Lady Helene Montague swept into the restaurant in a flurry of silk, white fox fur and expensive perfume. The attentive waiters soon came hurrying.
‘My dear Grace, how wonderful to see you. You are looking as lovely as ever. Do the years never touch you? No one would believe you have a son of one and twenty. How is my handsome godson, by the way? Has he found himself a suitable wife yet? Thank you, George.’ She glanced up at the waiter as he held the chair for her.
‘Helene . . .’ Grace smiled at her. It was impossible not to smile when Helene was around. She was so vivacious and gregarious. She was tall and slim and always elegantly dressed. While she paid Grace the extravagant compliment, it was Helene herself who never seemed to age. She looked now – more than twenty years later – just the same as when she had found Grace a husband.
‘It’s strange you should mention Byron,’ Grace said as her friend and confidante took her seat. ‘I should like your advice.’
‘Oh dear. I’m not sure I like the sound of this. He’s all right, isn’t he? He’s not in trouble?’
‘William has heard that Byron has been keeping unsuitable company with a girl from the village.’
‘He’s told you that?’ Helene raised her eyebrows. ‘William, I mean.’
Grace hesitated. It was hurtful to her that her husband never took her into his confidence about anything. Not even about their son.
‘No,’ she said shortly, ‘but I heard about it myself.’ She tapped the side of her nose as she added wryly, ‘I have my sources.’
Helene laughed. ‘Don’t we all? Your lady’s maid, I suspect.’
‘Quite.’
‘So, how can I help?’
‘Are there any daughters of about Byron’s age among your many friends and acquaintances? Anyone you know who would be deemed suitable, in William’s eyes, of course.’
Helene was thoughtful for a few moments. ‘There are one or two who might fit the bill,’ she said slowly.
Grace felt relieved. She hadn’t wanted one particular girl to be thrust at Byron. If there were a few, he would have some choice and perhaps, with luck, he might fall in love with one of them.
‘Are you able to hold a ball or a party at Thornsby Manor?’
Suddenly Grace was animated by the thought of organizing a social gathering. It would take a lot of planning, but she would love that and, with Helene’s guidance, she was sure she could make a great success of it. William had never liked entertaining, except for his shooting parties, but now he could not demure at holding a lavish ball.
‘Oh yes. I know we live in the middle of nowhere, but we have plenty of bedrooms. Guests could stay for the weekend and, if we hold it at the right time, William would arrange a shooting party for the gentlemen.’
Helene’s blue eyes twinkled at Grace. ‘I do hope I’m going to be top of your list of invitations.’
‘Of course. I’ll not be able to manage without you.’
‘Have you heard about this grand ball they’re holding at the manor?’ Nell asked, as the four of them sat down around her table for Sunday dinner in early October.
Deliberately, Rosie kept her eyes downcast but her heart started to beat a little faster.
‘Aye, I had heard summat,’ Sam said. ‘Evidently, there’ll be guests arriving early on the Saturday morning for a shoot and then the ball will be in the evening.’ He glanced at Nathan. ‘We’ll mebbe get a chance to work as beaters for the shoot.’
‘What’s it all for, then?’ Nathan asked. ‘Mr Ramsey isn’t a great one for entertaining.’
‘Rumour has it that they’re inviting some suitable young ladies for Byron to find a wife.’
Rosie’s heart felt as if it had skipped a beat and it began to hammer twice as quickly as normal. Suddenly, she wasn’t very hungry. She kept her head down and picked at her food. She didn’t want to offend Nell, who had cooked them a wonderful meal. But now the conversation went on just between Nell and Sam. Even Nathan fell silent. Later, as they walked down the lane back towards the cottage where Rosie and Sam lived, Nathan asked, ‘You all right, Rosie?’
She smiled up at him, once again in charge of her wayward heart. It had been a shock to hear that a wife was being sought for Byron, even though common sense should have told her it was bound to happen one day. ‘I’m fine, Nathan. That was a lovely dinner your mam cooked. She spoils us.’
‘It’s the least she can do after all the stuff your dad brings us. I don’t know where we’d be without him and neither would a lot of folks in the village. But I do get anxious about him – and you, Rosie. Because if I’m not mistaken, he’s teaching you his poaching ways. I just don’t want to see you get caught – or him.’ Including Sam was almost an afterthought. Rosie’s father had been a poacher all his life and he was wily. As far as Nathan was aware, he’d never been caught. But Rosie was a different matter. Although Sam would have taught her well, Nathan feared for her. And he was also concerned for her in other ways too. He’d never liked to pry about the letter he’d carried to her from Byron but he still wondered what exactly it had contained.
‘I won’t, Nathan.’ She smiled up at him impishly, her good humour restored. She would show a brave face to the world – especially to her father and their friends. And Nathan – and his mother – were certainly her friends. No one must ever guess the secrets of her young heart. Fortunately, Rosie was not only pretty, vivacious and daring; she was also very sensible. She knew she could never be Byron’s wife, knew, deep down, that her romantic notions of one day living in Thornsby Manor were unrealistic, but anyone could have their private dreams, couldn’t they? But they must remain private dreams.
‘And nor will Dad,’ she went on. ‘He knows when old Amos is tucked up safely in his bed.’
‘Ah, now there you have it. Old Amos. He won’t be around for ever and a new, younger man won’t keep to his bed to suit you and your dad.’
‘I don’t think Amos does. It’s just on certain nights of the week – he doesn’t come out.’ Rosie knew nothing of the arrangement between the keeper and her father.
‘But don’t you see, Rosie, Amos is a creature of habit? Another gamekeeper might not be. Probably won’t be.’
‘We’ll worry about that when it happens, Nathan. Now, I’ve got to get home to make up the fire. There’ll be no going out tonight. Not the right weather for it, so Dad likes to toast his toes.’
She kept up her cheerfulness until bedtime, but then, in the privacy of her tiny room, she allowed herself a few tears. ‘Oh Byron, Byron, why did I have to fall in love with you?’
Five
There was great excitement at the manor. There was to be a shooting party for the men and a grand ball in the evening for everyone on the third weekend in October. Several guests would be staying overnight and although there would be a lot of work for the staff, they were all caught up in the fever.
‘It’s mainly for Master Byron,’ the young maids whispered to one another. ‘There are going to be suitable young ladies for him to choose a bride.’
‘Oh, don’t you just wish you could be one of them,’ Elsie Warren, the kitchen maid, said dreamily.
Overhearing her, Cook said sharply, ‘And why would a handsome young man like Master Byron look at the likes of a scruffy kitchen maid? Now get on with your work, Elsie.’ But even Cook’s sharp reprimand could not dampen the girl’s anticipation of such a wonderful event.
‘When the dinner’s over and the dancing begins,’ one of the older housemaids, Lucy, said, ‘We might be able to go up to the balcony and take a peek at the dancers in the ballroom. But don’t let Cook or Mrs Frost know’ – she was referring to the housekeeper – ‘or they’ll stop us.’
‘Master Byron wouldn’t mind and I don’t think madam would either. They’re both so kind.’
‘But the master would,’ Lucy said. ‘We’d be dismissed on the spot without a reference if he caught us.’
The thought was a sobering one, but could still not quell their eagerness to witness such a grand event.
‘Dad! Dad! Quick, get your gun,’ Rosie dashed into the shed at the bottom of their garden. ‘The geese are coming. I can hear them.’
Migrating from the north, wild geese flew to the marshlands on the east coast of Britain around October. Sam snatched up his gun and followed her out. They stood in their vegetable garden, their gaze scanning the sky.
‘There they are,’ Rosie pointed to the north-west. ‘There’re hundreds of them and they’re coming this way.’
‘They’ll be on their way to the Wash, more’n’ likely,’ Sam remarked. ‘Get my cartridges out of the shed, Rosie. I might be able to reload a couple of times.’
As the skein of geese came closer, Sam raised his gun. As they passed overhead, he managed to shoot three. Queenie raced away to find them.
In the distance, they heard the echo of two more shotguns.
‘That’ll be Amos taking a pot shot. Good lass.’ Sam bent to pat Queenie’s head as she arrived back carrying the last of the birds.
‘Take one to Nell. She’ll tell you how to cook ours.’
‘What about the other one?’
‘Take that down to Mrs Merryweather.’
Rosie nodded. Emily Merryweather lived near the village green. She was a widow with one young son and times were often hard for her even though she worked on Jez Crowson’s farm in the dairy.
‘And take her one of the rabbits we caught last night, an’ all. She’ll make good use of it or give it to someone else who will be glad of it. We won’t need it now we’ve got a goose.’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can but I’ve got some bread proving and it needs to be baked soon.’
She picked up two of the geese and collected the rabbit from the shed.
‘My word,’ Nell exclaimed when she saw what Rosie was carrying. ‘This is a rare treat and no mistake.’
‘There’s a goose for you, and Dad said to take the other goose and the rabbit to Mrs Merryweather.’
‘A’ you going there now?’
Rosie nodded.
‘Right, you can take this cake I’ve baked this morning to her. Call on your way back, ’cos there’s one for you and your dad.’
‘Ooh lovely. I will.’ Rosie grinned. ‘And I need you to tell me how to dress and cook the goose. But I can’t stop now. I’ve got bread waiting to go in the oven.’
‘That’s all right. Come here later. I’ll show you then. In fact, bring your goose and you can do it alongside me. That’s the best way to learn.’
Rosie grinned at her and then hurried away on her errand.
‘Byron, please come in and sit down.’
Grace had sent for her son to join her in the morning room where they could talk undisturbed.
With an inward sigh, Byron crossed the room and kissed his mother’s cheek, then sat down beside her.
‘My dear, you must know that this shooting party and the ball is to introduce you to suitable young women. Although your father is keen for you to marry and produce an heir, I want you to know that I do not wish you to marry a girl you don’t love. So, all I am asking you to do is to meet the three young women Lady Helene and I have chosen to see if you like any of them enough to want to get to know them better. You do understand, don’t you, that I am not trying to force you into marriage for the sake of the Ramsey lineage?’
Byron could not fail to understand her meaning. His mother was merely carrying out her husband’s wishes, but she was also making it quite clear that she was not in favour of an arranged marriage. She wanted, as far as was possible, Byron to have a free choice in his future wife.
He took her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘Darling Mother, I know you have my best interests at heart and you want me to be happy. But perhaps duty to my father and the desires of my own heart do not coincide and I fear I will be obliged to choose between the two.’
Grace caught her breath. ‘Oh Byron. Have you met someone? Have you fallen in love?’
Byron hesitated for a fraction of a second, but it was enough to tell his mother, sensitive to her beloved son’s feelings, that there was something he was holding back. ‘No, Mother. It’s just the way this is being done. It’s like a cattle market with suitable heifers being paraded in front of me.’
Grace winced but did not reprimand him for his coarseness of language, for there was truth in what he said.
‘My dear, this is the way things are done in our society.’
‘I know, I know.’ He pushed the image of the red-haired girl with shining green eyes out of his mind and forced a smile and a brightness into his tone that he didn’t feel. ‘So, tell me about these three delectable young ladies whom you and my godmother have chosen for me to meet.’
‘Well, let me see now. There’s Pearl Anderson. She’s a nice, quiet girl. I have met her mother, Bella, once or twice and her father, Henry, is an estate owner in south Lincolnshire, near Stamford. He doesn’t own as much land and property as we do, but they are a well-respected family in that area. As for the other two girls, I have to admit I don’t know them. They are Helene’s recommendation but she tells me they are lovely girls. They live in Lincoln and their fathers are gentlemen of means. They are both very active in the Church and in the community life of the city.’
‘Then I am sure they will be more than suitable. So, do I have free choice among the three?’
‘Of course, but if none of them appeal to you, you must say so.’
‘I’m sure they will all be charming and I shall be spoiled for choice. But will they like me?’
‘Oh Byron, my darling boy. How could they not?’
The three young women had been primed by their ambitious mothers that they were there to make Byron Ramsey fall in love with them.
One, a feisty young woman called Harriet, declined to participate. ‘I’ll go to the ball to please you and Aunty Helene but I will not be married off to a country yokel and buried in the wilds of Lincolnshire.’
‘Oh, but he’s a very handsome young man by all accounts,’ her mother said persuasively. ‘And in line to inherit a large estate in time.’
‘I don’t care if he’s a veritable Adonis or as rich as Croesus. I will choose my own husband in my own good time.’
Her mother had sighed and hoped that on seeing Byron she would perhaps change her mind.
The third ‘candidate’ was Beatrice. While she was not quite as pretty as the other two, she was already in possession of a large fortune which had been left to her by a childless uncle.
The menfolk, who were to take part in shooting game the following morning, arrived in time for dinner on the Friday evening. Their wives and daughters would arrive the following day in time for the grand ball in the evening. Byron was introduced to the fathers of the three girls but all of them declined to get involved. ‘We leave all that to the women,’ one declared, slapping Byron heartily on his shoulder. ‘Let us just enjoy a day’s shooting.’
They were gone for most of the following day, with the servants carrying huge hampers into the fields at lunchtime. The villagers wisely kept out of the way, though several of the men were employed as beaters.
‘I’ll be out till nightfall,’ Sam warned Rosie. ‘Amos Taylor has asked me to join the beaters and the money’s good. Now you be sure to stay indoors or go to Nell’s.’
‘Can’t I work in the garden, Dad?’
Sam shook his head. ‘Best not. You know what these city types are like. Some of ’em have probably never held a gun before and can’t be trusted to take aim properly. No, stay inside, lass. Just for today. And keep Queenie indoors with you. I don’t want her getting hurt. All this fuss,’ he muttered as he readied himself. ‘Just to find a young man a wife.’
Rosie said nothing, but her heart was like a heavy weight inside her chest.
By the time all the wives and daughters had arrived at the manor, the excitement had reached fever pitch. The three girls, who all knew they were there on approval, eyed each other jealously, though outwardly, not wanting to appear peevish in front of their hosts, they chatted together with superficial friendliness.
Byron was scrupulously fair. He danced an equal number of times with each girl and forbore to take any of them into supper. Instead, he escorted his grandmother, Grace’s mother. His grandfather had come to take part in the shoot, but the day had tired him and he had retired to bed.
‘You must choose wisely, Byron,’ his grandmother, Eliza Parker, whispered. ‘A girl who will be a suitable mother to the heir of the Thornsby estate, but you don’t have to be madly in love with her. Once you have produced a male heir – and perhaps a spare – you can take a mistress, though you should always be discreet. There shouldn’t be any scandal attached to the Ramsey name.’
Byron was stunned into silence. He didn’t know what to say. Neither his mother nor even his father had hinted that this was the way things were done in their circles. He realized now how he had been kept in ignorance deliberately. Sheltered from the real world, he was unbelievably naive for a young man of twenty-one. Perhaps, if he had attended boarding school or even gone to university, his outlook and his knowledge of the way of the world would have broadened, but his father had insisted that he be tutored at home, that he should not be exposed to the wild ways of young men liberated from the constraints of parental control. While his thoughts were running riot, Byron merely murmured, ‘Of course not, Grandmama.’
‘The one called Pearl,’ Eliza went on, blithely unaware of the shock she had delivered to her grandson, ‘is a pretty little thing with that blond hair and blue eyes, and she seems biddable. You don’t want a harridan for a wife, Byron. She must know her place within the household, even though one day she will be mistress of Thornsby Manor. But that time is far off, God willing.’
