Miss Jesmond's Heir

‘You see,’ said Caro, all sweetness and light, ‘Georgie is so very good with them. A pity she never had any children of her own. My health, you understand, does not allow me to run around after them too much. Georgie, now, is as strong as a horse.’

For the first time where Caro was concerned Jess’s critical faculties began to work. Mrs Pomfret appeared to be the picture of health—but perhaps the picture was not entirely truthful.

Sir Garth, aware that his sister had sounded a false note, and had said something which might put off a prospective suitor, particularly one who had inherited Jesmond House, drawled languidly, ‘But you are recovering a little from the shock of your poor husband’s death, are you not, Caro dear? Your health was feared for then, but I gather that you are doing much more than you were.’

He turned to Jess, smiling his crocodile smile. ‘Dear Georgie has been a real tower of strength—so strong and commanding—everyone takes heed of her. Such a boon while Caro has not been up to snuff.’

Well, the strong and commanding bit was true enough, thought Jess, remembering Georgie’s reaction to his well-meant advice. It was plain that she lacked poor Caro’s sensibilities.

Georgie did not return until supper was over and the rest of the party was seated again in the drawing room, waiting for the tea board to appear. She had had enough of watching Caro charm Jess and had decided that seated on poor Annie’s bed, reading her a fairy story, and occasionally comforting her, was a better way to spend the evening than in mouthing sweet nothings to persons she did not like.

Unfortunately, in the middle of the second story Annie fell into a happy sleep, leaving Georgie with no choice than to return to the drawing room where she sat, mumchance, watching Caro and Jess try to charm one another.

She soon realised, though, that Jess was not engaged in mouthing sweet nothings. His apparently idle remarks were intended to winkle information out of both Caro and Sir Garth without appearing to do so.

Caro was discoursing animatedly about Banker Bowlby and his pretensions. ‘Had it not been for the untimely deaths of both my father-in-law and then my husband,’ she was declaiming pathetically, ‘Mr Bowlby would not be such a prominent person in Netherton. He quite sees himself as the Squire—which, of course, he is not. Even buying up Miss Jesmond’s unwanted land does not entitle him to be considered other than a business man who claims to belong to the gentry.’

‘The trouble is,’ said Sir Garth, ‘we have no notion of who old Bowlby—this man’s father—was. He came to Netherton with a bit of money and, it must be admitted, a great deal of drive, and ended up taking over the bank from old Gardiner who had no heir but wished to retire. He claims that his grandfather was Bowlby of Bowlby village near Worksop, but has never shown any evidence to prove it.’

After that there was further gossip about the Wiltons and the Firths. It would be impolite to yawn, though Georgie had heard most of this before and wondered what Jesmond Fitzroy made of it.

Jesmond Fitzroy! What an absurdly pompous name. Fitz! That’s what she would call him. It suited him better than his proper one. The thought made Georgie giggle inwardly. Her face flushed and her eyes shone. Yes, given the opportunity she would call him Fitz.

Jess, all ears, being enlightened as well as entertained by Netherton gossip, looked across at her sitting quietly in her chair and recognised the message of the shining eyes, so at contrast with the unsmiling and silent mouth. He decided that he would like to know more about her, about her dead husband and how she came to be here, running Caro Pomfret’s errands and looking after her children.

The unwelcome thought struck him that she might be the reason for Garth Manning’s presence. Why unwelcome? It was nothing to him if Manning might be after Mrs Herron’s small fortune. He was sure that it was small. Although, if Manning were desperate, small might be enough.

Why did he think Manning desperate? Jess didn’t know. What he did know was that Manning was a poor thing to be a gentle and pretty woman’s brother and her hoyden of a sister-in-law’s suitor.

Meanwhile he stayed talking until the proper time to leave, bending first over Mrs Herron’s hand, and then—a little longer over Caro Pomfret’s, watched by a benevolent Sir Garth Manning. He was suddenly sure that Manning would approve his suit if he decided that Caro was the wife for whom he had been looking.

Back at Jesmond House Twells was waiting up for him, a slightly agitated expression on his old face.

‘You have a visitor, sir.’

‘What, at this hour?’

‘He arrived shortly after you left and said that he was sure that you would wish to see him. He was so insistent that I put him in the library. I didn’t think that the drawing room was suitable.’

Jess was intrigued. Who, in the name of wonder, could his visitor be? He tossed his top coat and hat on to the medieval bench which stood in the hall and strode towards the library. Twells said agitatedly, ‘Shall I announce you, sir?’

He sounded so tired and old that Jess turned to look at him. ‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘You are ready for bed and I need no trumpeter to go before me. And, Twells—’ as the old man moved away ‘—you are not to wait up for me again. Surely there is a young footman about the house—Henry Craig, for example—who doesn’t need his rest so much and who could be trusted to open the door for me.’

‘I am butler here, sir.’ Twells’s tone was both dignified and rebuking.

‘I know that, but you could consider that you are training up a useful deputy—one who can stand in for you at any time. I shall not value you the less, you know—merely commend your good common-sense in agreeing with me. Now, go to bed. I can see myself there later.’

He walked into the library, wondering whom he might find. A man was seated in a chair, reading a book by the light of a candle. He rose when Jess entered.

‘Kite!’ exclaimed Jess. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

‘A good demon to invoke,’ said Kite smoothly. He was a tall, slender man with a clever face, decently dressed, a cross between a clerk and a gentleman. His voice and accent were good, although Jess knew that he could speak London cant when he wished. ‘You might like to look at my letter, sir.’

He handed it over to Jess who broke the seals and began to read it. It was from Ben Wolfe.

‘Dear Jess,’ it said, ‘I am sending you James Kite to be your lieutenant because I am tired of seeing his damned dismal face around the counting house since you left us. It was either him or Tozzy who had to go, seeing that they were both being glum together—I believe they thought that I had dismissed you, and I wasn’t prepared to tell them that you went of your own free will.

‘I chose him for you rather than Tozzy because I thought that he is smooth enough to fit into your new life as Lord of the Manor of Netherton. Pray don’t turn him away. He can do for you what you did for me—he made it plain that it was you he wished to serve, not me, so I have lost two good men at once. My only consolation is that he will keep you, as well as himself, out of trouble. Knowing him, you will take my meaning.

‘Susanna joins me in sending you our best wishes for your future.

‘Your humble servant, Ben Wolfe.’

Jess looked at Kite. ‘You are aware of what is in this?’ he asked, waving the letter.

‘Not the exact words, no, but the gist of it.’

‘And it is what you wish?’

‘Yes—as Mr Wolfe understands.’

‘Mr Wolfe understands a damned sight too much,’ said Jess. ‘You must understand that being my lieutenant, my man of all work, will be very different here in the country from what it was in London.’

‘You need a man at your back anywhere in the world, begging your pardon, sir. Here as elsewhere.’

‘And will you, on occasion, be my valet—should I ask you? I don’t want a regular one.’

‘Anything you ask, sir.’

‘But I have already discovered that I may need your special skills as well—although practising them may not be as dangerous as in London.’

‘Only time will tell.’

He should have remembered how brief and sardonic Kite was. A cross between himself and Ben Wolfe.

‘Your official position will be as my secretary. Tomorrow I shall be seeing the man who was my great-aunt’s agent until she lost her reason, and you will be present, taking notes—and listening. You were good at listening.’

‘My forte, sir.’

Jess rang for the footman, Henry Craig, who he hoped was now standing in for Twells. ‘I shall have a room assigned to you—it won’t be comfortable. The whole damned place is derelict. You can help me to restore it.’

‘With pleasure, sir.’

Jess watched him follow young Henry, who was to be Twells’s new deputy. Craig was carrying the bags which Kite had brought with him. He did not know whether to laugh or to curse—or to congratulate himself.

On the whole, he decided on the latter—but God help Netherton with Kite loose in it.

And Sir Garth Manning and Mr Bowlby in particular, both of whom Kite could track for him.

Chapter Three

Jess had underestimated the size of the social life in Netherton and the ingenuity of its inhabitants in organising it.

The following morning Kite, who had already taken up his secretarial duties, handed him a letter from the Bowlbys which had arrived by special messenger.

It invited him to a fête to be held in the grounds of the Bowlbys’ mansion, Nethercotes, on the afternoon of the immediate Saturday. It also welcomed him to Netherton and hoped that Mr Fitzroy would enjoy his stay in the town.

‘Shall I answer it for you? I take it that you wish to accept.’

‘You take it correctly. I shall be seeing Parsons, the former land agent here, at two of the clock this afternoon in the library. You will, of course, be present. This morning I intend to ride around the countryside, familiarising myself with the lie of the land.’

‘You have a map of the district, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Jess, holding up a tattered scrap of paper. ‘It purports to show the boundaries of the local estates, including those of the land my aunt used to own. I’ll see you at lunch. In the meantime, you might go up to the attics and see if you can find anything useful there. And by useful I mean not only bibelots, pictures and furniture, but also papers and documents, however old.’

‘Understood, sir.’

Kite ghosted out of the room. Jess had forgotten how unobtrusive he was—and how immediately obliging. The letter would go straightway to the Bowlbys and the attics would be searched.

It was a glorious morning for a ride and his horse—named Tearaway because he was nothing of the kind—like Jess, was, for once, eager to enjoy a little exercise. He turned down the main street, openly watched by the villagers—he could not yet think of Netherton as a town.

Occasionally stopping to read the map, he quartered the countryside after the same fashion he had employed long ago in India, only the scenery being different. He had just begun to ride down a green lane at the back of his little property when he saw young Gus running along the bank of a shallow river, one of the tributaries of the Trent, waving his arms and shouting.

Jess grinned. He’d bet a mountain of tin that the young hoyden was at her tricks again! What could it be this time? He ought to find out in case she were in real trouble. He dismounted, tied Tearaway to a fence post, and pushed through the low hedge which bordered the field where he had caught sight of Gus.

By now Gus had seen Jess and was running towards him.

‘What luck to find you here, sir,’ he gasped breathlessly. ‘I thought I’d have to run to your home farm to find help.’

He began to tug at Jess’s coat. ‘It’s Georgie,’ he said. ‘She went into the river after one of the village children who had strayed from home, fallen in and was like to drown. She saved the child, but she’s wet through and has hurt her ankle. She said not to fuss, she could manage, but I disobeyed her because I thought she needed help. This way, sir, this way.’

He had been pulling Jess along while he told his story.

So, he had been right. Georgie Herron was in trouble again. No, that was quite wrong. She had not been in trouble when he had found her playing cricket on his land. The trouble had come after that when he had tried to advise her.

He wondered how badly she had been hurt. He doubted whether Gus was the most reliable of witnesses, although he seemed to have plenty of common-sense.

How like mad Mrs Georgie to hurl herself into a river—even a shallow one—after a drowning child! He couldn’t imagine the ladylike Caro doing any such thing. But then Caro would never have been roaming the countryside with two small children, either.

He found Georgie sitting on the river bank not far from where he had first seen Gus. She had stripped off her boy’s jacket in order to go into the river and was soaked through, her wet shirt clinging revealingly to her. She was cradling on her knee the soaked and crying child whom she had rescued and was trying to comfort her.

She had walked a few yards from the spot where she had rescued the little girl from the river, but the weight of the child, combined with the pain in her damaged ankle, had compelled her to sit down for a moment. She felt her heart sink when Gus and Jess rounded the turn of the river and came into view.

Of all the dreadful luck! What a fright she must look, like a drowned rat with her hair in strings about her face, for the child had sunk on to the river bed and she had had to bend down in order to lift her out. Of course, the poor little thing had had no more sense than to clutch at her so that she had lost her balance, landing in the water and wrenching her ankle at the same time.

Fitz was bound to ring a peal over her again and be full of sound advice on the proper behaviour of a young lady. She tried to stand up to greet him, but holding the squirming child made such an act difficult as well as painful.

Nevertheless, she managed to lever herself upright just before Jess reached her. He confirmed her worst fears by immediately barking an order at her in a sergeant-major’s voice. ‘Whatever do you think that you’re doing? Sit down at once!’

‘Oh, Fitz,’ said Georgie sorrowfully, ‘I might have guessed that you would begin to bully me the moment you saw me.’

‘Of course I shall bully you,’ said Jess, scarcely hearing the ‘Fitz’, but relieved to see that she still had enough spirit left to spark at him. ‘You need to be bullied if you insist on running around the countryside doing dangerous things!’

‘Goodness me,’ she exclaimed, seething. ‘I suppose I ought to have left the poor little thing to drown and fainted with shock at the sad sight instead.’

‘I would never have expected that of you,’ announced Jess firmly. ‘And before you try to walk, allow me to have a look at both the ankle and the child. You could let Gus hold it while I do so.’

He looked around him. ‘And where’s Annie? Have you lost her as well as half-drowning yourself?’

‘It! It! She’s a girl, Fitz—or were you so busy reprimanding me that you failed to notice that she wasn’t wearing breeches? And Annie isn’t with us—she didn’t feel up to a long walk.’

‘Fortunately for her, she appears to be unlike you in every way,’ said Jess severely, ‘seeing that she was obeying the normal conventions which govern the behaviour of females and didn’t want to go gallivanting around the countryside. Take off your wet sock at once so that I may inspect your damaged ankle. And, by the way, who gave you leave to call me Fitz?’

‘The same person who gave you leave to shout orders at me every time we meet. The deity, if you like. He’s supposed to arrange our life, I believe, although where females are concerned he’s made a poor fist of it!’

Jess, bending over her ankle, gave a crack of laughter at this spirited sally. Gus, now cradling the wet and crying girl child, saw nothing to laugh at, particularly since Georgie had begun to shiver with cold.

He said, rebuking Jess a little, ‘It was jolly brave of Georgie to rescue her. You mustn’t be cross with her.’

‘No, it wasn’t brave and I don’t think that he’s really cross. And I was stupid to allow myself to lose my footing in the water,’ announced Georgie, who was finding that there was something strangely intimate and pleasant in having Fitz examine her bare foot and ankle. That stroking motion, now, as he tried to assess the damage, was quite delightful and soothing. She was sorry when he stopped.

‘No real harm done,’ he pronounced at last. ‘A light sprain only. But I don’t think that you ought to walk on it. I left my horse tethered on the byway. If you will allow me to carry you there, he may take you the rest of the way home. Gus can lead Tearaway and I’ll carry the child. Have you any notion of who she belongs to?’

‘None. The first time I saw her was when she was falling into the river. And you don’t need to carry me. I’m quite capable of walking.’

‘Contrary infant that you are,’ Jess told her pleasantly, ‘you cannot really wish to make a light sprain worse. You will miss the Bowlbys’ fête and the Assembly Room dance if you do.’

‘Infant! Fitz, I’ll have you know I’m an old married woman, or widow rather. A little respect from you would not come amiss.’

But Georgie was laughing while she spoke, her green eyes shining and dancing and Fitz—dammit, he was already beginning to think that was his name—held her lightly against his heart. She was really no weight at all despite the one boot she was still wearing and her sodden breeches. Now that he was holding her, he could feel her shivering.

He sat her down for a moment and pulled off his coat. ‘Wrap that around you,’ he told her. ‘Unwise for you to get too cold.’

‘No need,’ declared Georgie, staring at his magnificent shirt which covered an equally magnificent torso. ‘I’m so wet that I shall ruin it. Though it’s kind of you to offer it, Fitz.’

‘All the more reason for you to wear it,’ he told her briskly. ‘And come to think of it, no one has ever called me Fitz before. Odd that, for one would normally expect it to be my nickname.’

‘Oh, everyone was too frightened of you to give you a nickname at all, I suppose. Have you always behaved as though you were the Lord of All?’

‘Now that,’ he told her severely, joining in with her light-hearted game, ‘is really unkind. I’ve a good mind to drop you and leave you to the wolves.’

‘There aren’t any wolves round here,’ said Gus glumly, ‘and if you did any such thing I’d tell on you to the village constable.’

‘He doesn’t mean it, Gus,’ Georgie reassured him. ‘He’s only teasing me. He’d never do any such thing.’

‘Really?’ said Jess, raising his perfect eyebrows. ‘Care to twit me again and find out?’

They had reached Tearaway; before Georgie could answer, Jess had lifted her on to him.

‘Your breeches do have some practical use,’ he told her. ‘You can ride astride. We’re not far from Pomfret Hall if my map is correct. Once there, you must take a warm bath, put on some dry clothes and lie down for a little.’

‘Orders, orders, always orders, Fitz. What were you in your previous incarnation? An Army officer?’

Something in his expression gave him away.

Georgie said exultantly, ‘Caught. I knew it! You were.’

‘You are,’ he told her, but his voice was kind, ‘the most knowing minx I have ever had the misfortune to meet.’

He had a sudden memory of an occasion on which Ben Wolfe had said something similar to his future wife Susanna. The thought made him smile. Georgie saw the smile. It transformed a face whose expression was usually a trifle severe.

‘What sort of a soldier, Fitz?’ she asked him.

‘The usual,’ he said drily, ‘but that was long ago and not worth the telling.’

‘Long ago,’ exclaimed Gus, delighted to meet a real live soldier. They had been thin on the ground since Waterloo. ‘You must have been quite a babe then.’

‘Indeed, Master Gus. Older than you, though. And green, very green.’

‘Green, Fitz?’ called Georgie from her perch. ‘I can’t believe that!’

‘Believe it, Mrs Georgie, believe it. I may call you that, may I not?’

‘If you will allow me to call you Fitz—though we must behave ourselves in public. There I propose to be good. You shall be Mr Fitzroy with just the slightest stress on the first syllable. You’re not green now, though. By no means. Was that the Army? Papa always said that being in the Army made a man.’

Jess decided to tell the truth. ‘Partly the Army and partly a friend I made in it. And that is enough of me. Since you have questioned me so thoroughly, I believe that gives me the right to question you. Have you always been so downright, Mrs Georgie?’

Silence. She was not answering him. He shifted the child on his arm. Fortunately for his comfort, fright and tiredness had finally sent her to sleep. He wondered why Georgie had suddenly become shy, for she was looking away from him and by the set of her body for the first time since he had met her, her ready wit had deserted her.

‘The truth, Fitz,’ Georgie said at last. ‘You want the truth? The answer is no. And it wasn’t the Army which changed me.’

She had not known how to reply. The question had brought the past rushing back and Georgie hated the past and had no wish to live in it again.

Unknowingly it was something she shared with the man walking alongside her. Suddenly she felt desperately tired and very cold. The exhilaration which had consumed her from the moment Jess had walked into view had disappeared. She shivered, a long shiver. Even his coat could not warm her.

Jess felt the shiver. He turned to Gus and said, ‘Can I trust you, young shaver? We are not far from your home. Do you think that you could carry the child there on your own if I mount Tearaway and gallop your aunt there before she expires with cold and shock? We are on what passes for a main road here and you should not meet with any danger. I’ll have them send a footman in your direction when I reach Pomfret Hall.’

‘No need,’ said Georgie quietly. ‘I am not about to faint, but I do feel so dreadfully cold.’

‘The warm bath, remember,’ Jess said, ‘The sooner you reach it, the better. I shall ride in front of you. Loose the reins and allow me to mount.’

She did not argue with him, which told him that she was in need of his assistance. Nor did he twit her again, but concentrated on encouraging Tearaway to increase his speed so that they might reach Pomfret Hall the more speedily.

‘How like you, Georgie,’ wailed Caro gently, ‘to throw yourself into the river after a chance-met child. I don’t say that it’s not worthy of you, only that it’s foolish. Could you not have sent Gus for help instead?’

‘By which time the child would have been drowned dead for sure,’ said Georgie sturdily, some of her old fire returning now that she was back home and about to enjoy the warm bath which Jess had demanded and Caro had ordered. ‘You didn’t really expect me to sit on the bank and watch her dying struggles?’

Jess watched, amused, when Caro threw him a helpless look, saying, ‘I never know what to expect from you, Georgie, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at this morning’s adventure. Do either of you have any notion of whose child it is?’

‘It,’ began Georgie belligerently, ‘she’s not an it,’ only for Jess to put a gentle hand on her arm and say soothingly,

‘Time to go upstairs, I think. That must be your maid approaching.’

It was. Georgie’s maid, Madge Honey, was in her fifties and had been her old nurse. She arrived in time to hear Georgie fire at Jess, ‘Orders again, Fitz!’ and to say reprovingly to her, ‘Now, now, Miss Georgie. None of that. You’re soaking wet through and there’s a nice warm bath being prepared for you. I’ve put some dry clothes out and readied the bed so that you can have a good lie-down. Come along, do!’