Mademoiselle At Arms, Elizabeth Bailey [bearly read books txt] 📗

is what she wants, is it?’

‘Do you blame her?’ he said stiffly. ‘The poor girl was thrust into a convent to become a nun. How she learned of her heritage I do not know, but you need not imagine that it is greed that drives her.’

‘Well, don’t bite my head off,’ protested Mrs Sindlesham, clearly amused. ‘I am far from imagining anything of the kind. I know nothing about the girl, save what you have told me.’

Gerald shrugged. ‘I know her, ma’am, but I know next to nothing of her story. She will not confide in me. But she has let fall enough for me to understand that she knows about her father’s misdeeds.’ He grinned. ‘Her purpose, if you will believe me, is to get herself a dowry so that she may marry an Englishman.’

Mrs Sindlesham laughed lightly, but her eyes quizzed him. ‘Does she need a dowry for that?’

‘Melusine believes so, and that is what counts.’

‘Melusine,’ repeated the old lady. ‘It is pretty. But it does not sound as if the girl that wears the name resembles either of her parents.’

Gerald frowned. ‘You don’t believe her?’

‘My dear Major Alderley, I do not know her,’ Mrs Sindlesham pointed out. ‘Bring her to me and we shall see.’

For a moment Gerald said nothing at all. His gaze remained steady on the old dame’s face, as he thought about it.

‘Is it worth it?’ he asked at last. ‘Assuming she can prove her identity, does Remenham House belong to her?’

Mrs Sindlesham shifted her shoulders. ‘That is a matter for the lawyers. Jarvis did not leave a will.’

‘What?’ Appalled, Gerald could only gaze at her. In the circles into which he had been born, the passing on of land was of vital importance. To die intestate was unforgiveably irresponsible.

‘I know,’ said Prudence Sindlesham, sympathy in her tone. ‘Unheard of, ain’t it? To tell the truth, I half expected him to leave everything to one of his doxies.’ She grimaced. ‘They lived with him, one after the other, for all the world as his wife. My son went down after his death. To settle things, you know. He said the place had gone to wrack. The last of Jarvis’s harlots must have departed in a hurry, for she had apparently left a roomful of clothes.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Gerald put in with an irrepresssible chuckle. ‘Melusine was making herself mistress of them when we met.’

Mrs Sindlesham’s mouth dropped open. ‘She’s wearing a lightskirt’s clothing?’

‘Nothing obviously so, I assure you. A riding-habit is all I have seen.’

‘Of course she could not have known to whom they belonged.’

‘Believe me, she wouldn’t have cared. I dare say anything seemed better to her than the nun’s habit she had been obliged to use.’

He saw that Mrs Sindlesham, for all her vaunted freedom of speech, was honestly shocked by this revelation. Whether it was the nun’s habit or the harlot’s clothing that distressed her more, he could not begin to guess. She would stare if she knew the full sum of Melusine’s activities.

‘It was your son who left the place empty then?’ he asked.

‘What else was there to do? He paid off the servants and left old Pottiswick in charge, saying that the place would have to remain empty until the heir was found.’

‘What heir?’

‘Exactly. There was none. Only the next of kin. That would be myself, or if she lived, Mary’s daughter.’

‘Not, I trust, Nicholas Charvill?’

‘Hardly. That would be an unkind twist of fate.’

‘Grossly unfair, too.’

‘Have no fear. Since Mary predeceased Jarvis, Nicholas could scarcely argue himself to be my brother’s next of kin. But his daughter might well have a claim.’

‘Why did you not claim it yourself?’ asked Gerald.

‘I had no need of the place, and there was no money, of course.’

‘Ah.’ Gerald sighed. ‘I feared as much. Still, I suppose Melusine can always sell the house.’

A twinkle crept into Mrs Sindlesham’s eye. ‘That will be a matter for her future husband to decide.’

Gerald started. He had not considered this aspect of the business. Until this instant, he discovered, he had thought of Melusine’s plan only in a nebulous fashion, a naïve girl’s dream. But what if she were to marry? He glanced towards the elderly dame and found her watching him, the dimple very much in evidence. What was the old tabby at? Unaccountably embarrassed, he cleared his throat. There was more to be told, and this was as good a time as any.

‘Before she can think of marriage, Melusine must prove her identity. You see, the trouble is that the matter is in dispute.’

‘How can it be in dispute?’ frowned Mrs Sindlesham. ‘There is no question of a dispute.’

‘I am afraid that there is,’ Gerald told her evenly. ‘And it is not only a question of her identity, but a matter of her life as well.’

The full story—or as much as Gerald knew—of Valade’s machinations shocked the old lady so much that she was obliged to recruit her strength with a refill from the Madeira decanter. She listened with growing apprehension to the tale that Gerald told, omitting any mention of pistols and daggers, and at the end delivered herself of various expletives highly unsuited to a lady of her advanced years.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ agreed Gerald with a grin. ‘The so-called Valade is an evil person, and should certainly be got rid of in the manner you describe. However, he has already presented himself to the Charvills, and passed inspection. It is only a matter of time before he presents himself to whoever has the deeds to Remenham House—a lawyer I presume—and claims that property for his wife’s.’

‘I shall stop him,’ declared the old lady furiously.

‘But can you? You don’t know Melusine for Mary Remenham’s daughter, any more than I do.’

‘A pox on the creature,’ swore Mrs Sindlesham, clenching and unclenching her stiff fingers.

‘I trust you are cursing Valade, and not Melusine.’

‘Of course I am, imbecile,’ she snapped, unconsciously echoing her great-niece. ‘But you said she was looking for proof. What sort of proof? There are no papers at Remenham House.’

‘I don’t know,’ confessed Gerald. ‘She would not tell me. But it must have been something that could show her to be Mary’s daughter. Think, ma’am. What might it have been?’

Mrs Sindlesham shook her head helplessly. ‘I have no idea. Unless it was a jewel or locket of some kind.’

‘No, for that would have had to be in Melusine’s possession to start with.’

‘Very true.’

Gerald sat back in his chair, thinking hard. ‘I dare say the best plan will be for me to bring her to see you, after all. Hang it, there must be something about her that will give it away.’

Mrs Sindlesham abruptly sat up straighter in her chair. ‘You said she was beautiful. What does she look like?’

‘Black hair. Very dark, like yours, ma’am. But she does not resemble you in any other way. She has blue eyes, and her figure is more full.’

‘It could hardly be less so,’ said Mrs Sindlesham tartly. She pointed. ‘See that writing table? Go and look in the drawer there.’

Obediently, Gerald rose and walked to the other end of the parlour. He opened the drawer of the writing table. It was a mass of knick-knacks.

‘What am I looking for?’

‘A miniature. Rummage, my boy, do. You will not find it else.’

He did as she bid him, and was very soon rewarded by the discovery of an oval miniature, encased in gold. He stared at the woman depicted thereon for a long moment, awe in his head. Then he looked across at Mrs Sindlesham.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘Is there a resemblance?’

‘This is Mary Remenham?’

‘That is my late niece, yes.’

Triumph soared in Gerald’s chest. Returning to Mrs Sindlesham’s chair, he held up the miniature so the face depicted there was turned towards the old lady.

‘Your niece, ma’am. And your great-niece. It might as well be Melusine herself.’

***

 

Martha sniffed dolefully, scrubbing at her reddened eyes with a large square of damp linen. She was sitting on the mean straw mattress that was placed on the iron bedstead in the makeshift cell, while Melusine stood with her back to the door, confronting her old nurse with the truth.

She was clad in fresh linen, but still wore the riding-habit she had appropriated, having sponged out the spots of blood late last night and left it to dry in the kitchens. She had been obliged to wait all morning for the opportunity to talk to Martha, who chose always to retire to her cell for the period of recreation that preceded afternoon prayers. Last night there had been no time. Not with the unavoidable explanations, and the need to secrete the sword and hide it before returning the priest’s horse to its stable—which had been her excuse for running from Martha’s protestations.

But today Melusine’s new-found knowledge put Martha at a disadvantage.

‘Hadn’t meant you to know,’ said the nun gruffly. ‘That’s why I never told Joan Ibstock that you were still with me when I wrote.’

‘But Marthe, this is idiot. Certainly as soon as I have found my right place at Remenham House, I must find out everything.’

‘Who was to know if you would find your place?’ countered Martha. ‘Odds were against it. Why open my mouth if there might not be a need for it when all’s said?’

Melusine acknowledged the logic of this. ‘Yes, that is reasonable. But still you have told me of my real mother when I thought it was Suzanne Valade.’

Martha looked up, belligerence in her tone. ‘Would you have me face my maker with that on my conscience? If I’d died, there’d have been no one to tell you, for your father would not have done.’

‘Certainly that is true. And Suzanne, even that she has behaved to me not at all like a mother, would also not have said.’

‘She?’ scoffed Martha. ‘Couldn’t even trouble to make a pretence of motherhood.’

Of which Melusine was only too well aware, for her stepmother had done nothing to save her from the convent.

‘What’s more,’ went on Martha, ‘I knew something Mr Charvill didn’t, or he wouldn’t so readily have left it behind him.’

‘You would speak of the house?’

‘Many’s the time little Miss Mary would say her papa meant for her to have it, she having no brothers and sisters at all—when we played together I mean, she and me and Joan Pottiswick.’

Melusine could not regard this view with anything but scepticism. ‘You think my father would not have married Suzanne if he had known? Me, I do not agree. He did not even care for his own inheritance at this place in Wodeham Water.’

She paused, holding her nurse’s eyes.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Martha begged. ‘Oh, dearie me, you make me feel a traitor.’

‘Only because you did not tell me entirely the story? That is silly. I would not think so of you, Marthe. You have been to me like a mother, not only a wet-nurse.’

‘Poor sort of a mother,’ Martha said with bitterness. ‘No, Melusine. You’re a lady. Me—I’m nothing but a country wench, and one who went to the bad.’

‘But this is idiot. Have you not given your life to God? Do you not repent?’ Coming to the bed, Melusine sat beside her old nurse and took hold of one of her hands. ‘And I am very glad you did this bad thing, because if not, who would take care of me?’

Martha shook her head, and Melusine spied wetness again in her eyes, although they met hers bravely. ‘You don’t know the whole, child. I’m ashamed to confess it, but I didn’t want the charge of you—a too close reminder of my own lost babe.’

Tears sprang to Melusine’s own eyes, and she clasped the hand she held more tightly. ‘But do you think I