The Folly Read online

  “Yes, there was a Mr. Judd. The poor man committed suicide. Then there was the Devers family. Such a scandal. You have surely heard all about it. The son, Harry, was killed falling from a roof in London, trying to escape the law. He was obsessed with Mannerling, as was Mr. Judd.”

  He shot her a sly look. “As are the Beverleys, or so I was led to believe.”

  “You have been listening to the local gossip,” said Rachel with a lightness she did not feel. “Yes, in our case, the loss of our home hit us very hard. But we are become accustomed to our new life. The Blackwoods are very good owners, very suitable.”

  “And you no longer desire the place?”

  “I do not desire what is not possible to have.”

  “Everything is possible. Even Mannerling.”

  Rachel fell silent. Just suppose she wished to marry Charles. How impossible that would be! He, too, knew the tales about the Beverleys’ plotting and scheming to get their old home back and would look on any overtures from her with deep suspicion. She wished somehow that she could still regard him as a much older person, not marriageable, but his face rose in her mind’s eye, strong and handsome with those odd green eyes, and she was only dimly aware that Mr. Cater was still talking of Mannerling.

  There were eight children at Mark’s party, all having a marvellous time playing games organized by Miss Trumble. The Long Gallery was being used for the party and a table with cakes and jellies and jugs of lemonade had been set up at the end of the gallery.

  All went well until Minerva made her entrance, carrying a book. “I am sure you are in need of some rest,” she said to Miss Trumble. “I have told the housekeeper to prepare you something in the servants’ hall.”

  “Thank you,” said Miss Trumble. “But I am not hungry.”

  “Oh, I am sure you are. Please do as you are told.”

  Miss Trumble curtsied. The children, left alone with the statuesque Minerva, looked at her wide-eyed.

  Minerva pulled forward a chair and sat down and opened her book. “Gather round me in a circle,” she ordered. She planned to begin reading to them and then ring for a servant to summon Charles so that he could see how well she got on with children.

  They sat round her in a circle at her feet. She had found a book of children’s stories in the library and she began to read about a little boy who had lost his mother and behaved badly to his father. As she read, she kept flashing meaningful little looks at Mark.

  Mark felt his temper rising. It was his party and Minerva was not only ruining it but telling that stupid story about some stupid boy who was nasty to his widowed father. Minerva paused and rang the bell and told a footman to fetch Mr. Blackwood and then continued to read.

  With the perspicacity of the very young, Mark guessed what she was about. His father should not see the pretty picture she made reading to the children. He rose to his feet.

  “Where are you going, Mark?” demanded Minerva sharply.

  “I am going to get something to eat,” said Mark haughtily.

  The other children rose as well.

  “Come back here!” ordered Minerva.

  “Do not pay her any heed,” commanded Mark. “She don’t live here. Come along.”

  Mischievously delighted at the idea of disobeying authority, the children followed Mark to the table and began to spoon jelly onto plates.

  Minerva’s temper flared. She marched up to the table and seized Beth, who was the nearest child, in a strong grip. “You will all return to the reading!”

  “Leave her alone!” shouted Mark, turning red in the face.

  Beth gave a whimper of fright. Mark seized a plate containing a large green jelly and flung it straight into Minerva’s face just as the door opened and his father walked in, followed by Miss Trumble.

  “You little whoreson!” screamed Minerva, clawing green jelly from her face.

  “What is going on here?” thundered Charles.

  Beth, finding herself released, ran to Miss Trumble and buried her face in that lady’s skirts.

  Minerva began to cry.

  Mark stood, white-faced at the enormity of what he had just done.

  “I w-was m-merely trying to entertain the ch-children,” sobbed Minerva, “when Mark threw jelly all over me.”

  “Miss Trumble, take the children to another room,” ordered Charles. “Not you, Mark.” He turned to John, the footman, who had entered and was avidly watching the scene. “You, escort Miss Santerton to her quarters and fetch her lady’s-maid.”

  Miss Trumble took both children and book with her. Minerva left with the footman. Mark and his father faced each other.

  “Well?” demanded Charles. “I am waiting.”

  Mark hung his head.

  “Am I to understand that Miss Terry perhaps had the right of it and that you need to be beaten?”

  Mark could not find any words.

  The door opened again and Miss Trumble came in, carrying the book from which Minerva had been reading.

  Charles swung round angrily. “I think you should leave this to me and attend to your duties, Miss Trumble.”

  “If you will bear with me, sir,” said Miss Trumble, “I think I can explain Mark’s behaviour.”

  “That is for the boy to explain. He has a tongue in his head.”

  “I think he might find this difficult to put into words. Miss Santerton was reading this story to the children, which I consider most unsuitable and it is probably what upset Mark.”

  “Go on.”

  “It is a story about a boy who had lost his mother and who subsequently behaved badly towards his father. It is a story I never read to children myself, or in fact anything by this author.”

  “But how should this affect Mark? The boy has never behaved badly until now!”

  Miss Trumble’s presence and kind, understanding eyes had given Mark courage. He ran to her and clutched her hand.

  “Did it upset you, Mark?” asked Miss Trumble. “You have behaved very badly and must apologize to Miss Santerton. But we would like to hear the truth.”

  “It was the way she was reading it,” said Mark. “She kept flashing meaningful little looks at me and Miss Santerton had already said something to me about having a new mother and I knew she wanted my father to think she could fulfil that role, and I am…frightened of her.”

  “Let me see that story,” ordered Charles.

  Miss Trumble handed him the book. He studied it in silence while Mark gripped Miss Trumble’s hand even harder.

  Charles felt his fury abating. He had never, he realized, stopped to consider what the loss of their mother had meant to Mark. He had been wrapped in his own fury at her infidelity and then his shock at her sudden death. The boy could not be allowed to get away with such behaviour, but he could not bring himself to beat him, or order a beating.

  He could not believe that Minerva had been so crude as to hint that she might be the children’s new mother. He looked helplessly at Miss Trumble.

  “I suggest you leave matters to me, sir,” she said quietly. “The children are guests and are not to be collected for another hour. I suggest the party should go on. After the party is over, Mark will apologize most humbly to Miss Santerton and I can take things from there.”

  “I am so sorry,” whispered Mark.

  “Run along, Mark. You will find Beth and your new friends in the drawing-room.”

  When the boy had left, Miss Trumble said, “May I ask, sir, whether Mark loved his mother very much?”

  Charles sighed and put the book carefully down on a console table. “I do not think he saw much of her except for a few glimpses. He was passed to a wet-nurse immediately he was born and then to the nursemaid and then to Miss Terry. But he has grossly insulted a guest in my house and that must not be allowed to go unpunished.”

  “No, I will see to that.”

  Miss Trumble curtsied and went to join the party and found the drawing-room quiet and silent. The little group of scared children sat around Mark.


  She clapped her hands briskly. “This will not do. Did I tell you about the treasure hunt?”

  “No!” they all chorused.

  “I will hand you all slips of paper with your first clue. The treasure is hidden somewhere in the house. I suggest you hunt in pairs. Mark, you go with your little sister.” Miss Trumble paired off the rest. Soon the children were off hunting through the great house.

  “Where do you think the treasure is?” Beth asked Mark.

  “I really don’t care,” he said. “All I can think of is that I have got to apologize to Miss Santerton. I am in deep disgrace.”

  Beth suddenly giggled. “She did look such a guy with green jelly all over her.”

  Mark hugged her. “It would be almost worth it if Father were not so upset.”

  “Will he marry her? Will she be our new mother? I should not like that.”

  “It is something we may have to face. Drat! If only I could get this horrible apology over and done with.”

  “We could go now,” suggested Beth eagerly.

  “S’pose so.”

  Hand in hand, they walked to the west wing and stopped outside Minerva’s door.

  Mark reached for the door handle and then stopped.

  “What is it?” hissed Beth.

  “There is someone in there with her. Shh!”

  Mark leaned his ear against the door panels.

  “Someone’s coming out,” he said. He seized Beth’s hand. There was a window in the passage opposite the door. He pulled Beth into the embrasure and drew the curtains closed.

  He heard the door of Minerva’s room open and her brother George’s voice sounded clearly, “’Pon rep, sis, you are become over-exercised about a pair of spoilt brats. Marry Blackwood, send the boy packing to school, give the girl a strict governess, and then you need never have anything to do with them again.”

  “You forget”—Minerva’s voice—“he seems too interested in them to turn a blind eye to their affairs.”

  “You know how to make men love you, do you not? Get him in your wiles and the man will forget he even has children.”

  “I would like to get rid of that Trumble creature. I have an enemy there.”

  “Pooh, what can a faded old spinster like that do?”

  “More than you think. Have you noticed the way the general eyes her? If I do not play my cards right, then that old governess will be mistress at Mannerling and I will not!”

  “What are you going to do? Kill her?” George gave a great braying laugh.

  “Oh, go away,” snapped his sister, “and leave me to prepare for the great apology scene which is no doubt soon to take place.”

  The children waited, hearing George’s footsteps die away along the long corridor and then all was silent.

  They finally crept out. “Not now,” whispered Mark. “I could not face her now.”

  “I heard from the housekeeper at Mannerling that the place is haunted,” Mr. Cater was saying to Rachel.

  “It is not haunted. Someone tried to frighten the little boy by dressing up as the ghost of the late Mr. Judd.”

  “Are you sure it was not a ghost?”

  “Our servant, Barry, managed to strike the ghost on the head. His cudgel contacted a human head and not a ghostly one.”

  “You are unromantic, Miss Rachel. I, for one, am prepared to believe that Mannerling is haunted.”

  Rachel gave a laugh. “In all the time I lived there, I never saw even one ghost. There is nothing at Mannerling to frighten anyone.”

  The party finished with Gerrard, a local farmer’s boy, finding the treasure, which turned out to be a toy sword and a box of paints. The other children all received consolation prizes and went off happily in various gigs and carriages.

  Mark was taken by his father to Minerva’s apartment in the west wing, where he apologized most humbly. To his surprise, and then his dismay, instead of railing at him, Minerva drew him to her and hugged him and said, “I should have known such a story would upset a poor motherless child like you. There. We have both apologized and now we can be friends.”

  She smiled down at him and Mark felt himself trapped in that intense blue gaze. His father was looking at Minerva with a softened look on his normally harsh face.

  Mark repeated again in a dull, flat little voice that he was very, very sorry and then turned to his father and asked if he could leave. “Off with you,” said his father, “and consider yourself a lucky young man. Few ladies would have accepted an apology for such rank behaviour with such grace and charity as Miss Santerton.”

  When the Santertons and the Blackwoods had retired to their rooms to dress for dinner, Miss Trumble made her way through the suddenly quiet house to go down to the hall and wait for the carriage to be brought round to take her home.

  She paused at the top of the staircase, listening to the quiet of the house. And then she realized it was not really quiet. There had always been many clocks at Mannerling and the general, who collected them, had added a great deal more.

  She became aware of the restless ticking and tocking, which seemed to be getting louder as if innumerable little voices were whispering away the time. “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” went the voices. “You are old, old, old, and time is running out for you.”

  She walked stiffly down the stairs, hearing all those time voices chattering away, feeling a sort of brooding menace emanating from the walls. She gave herself a mental shake. Mannerling was a large house, nothing more. It was unlike her to let her fancies get the better of her.

  And then, as she reached the hall, the grandfather clock against the far wall boomed out five hours and from all over the house came the clamour of chimes, until all the tinkling and booming and chiming seemed to merge together in one great mocking, triumphant sound.

  Miss Trumble wrenched open the great front door and went out into the sunlight and took a deep breath. The carriage swept up to the front of the house and a footman ran out and let down the steps. Miss Trumble climbed in, feeling shaken.

  She felt suddenly that Mannerling was no place for those little children. Perhaps the menace she had felt came from Minerva’s presence.

  Her fancies apart, someone had tried to frighten Mark. What kind of person would play such a trick on a child?

  Perhaps when the eldest sister, Isabella, arrived, she could arrange for the children to spend much of their time between Brookfield House and Perival, away from the menace of Mannerling.

  Sanity, like a breath of fresh air, blew into Miss Trumble’s worried life with the arrival of Isabella, Lady Fitzpatrick, her husband, and his aunt, Mrs. Kennedy.

  At first Miss Trumble thought Isabella might be a trifle haughty, but then Isabella had taken her aside and asked anxiously, “And how goes Barry?”

  “Do you mean our odd man? Very well, and a comfort to us all.”

  “He was a very great comfort to me with his kindness and good sense.”

  “Would you like to see him? We could take a turn in the garden.”

  “I would like that above all things.”

  When they were outside, Miss Trumble received another surprise, for the tall and elegant Isabella linked her arm in that of the governess in a companionable way and said, “Barry writes to me from time to time. I hear great things of you.”

  Miss Trumble actually found herself blushing for the first time in years. “That is very gratifying.”

  Barry walked across the back lawn to greet them, his cap in his hand, a broad smile on his face.

  “Well, well, well, my lady, you do be a sight for sore eyes.”

  “Does all go well, Barry?”

  “Very well, my lady. Are the children with you?”

  “They are with their nurse, but you shall visit us and see them for yourself. I do not want to deprive the excellent Miss Trumble or my sisters of your help, Barry, but I do wish you would return with us to Ireland.”

  “Maybe soon, Miss Isabella, I mean, my lady.”

  “You may
call me Miss Isabella if you wish.”

  If only my three girls could turn out like this eldest sister, thought Miss Trumble. If only they, too, could escape Mannerling.

  “So I believe there is a new owner at Mannerling,” said Isabella, “but fortunately of an age too old to tempt my sisters.”

  “As to that,” said Barry cautiously, “he do be a remarkably handsome man and don’t look a bit his age.”

  “Aha!” Isabella looked quizzically at Miss Trumble. “And when I asked Rachel why she had not gone to London for a Season, she hummed and hawed and then said it was because of my impending visit.”

  “Perhaps that was indeed the case,” said Miss Trumble evasively.

  “And Mama seems in alt over the father, General Blackwood. Never say she has hopes in that direction.”

  “That is not for me to say,” said Miss Trumble primly. “But the carriage from Mannerling will be here shortly to collect the children and I must not be found neglecting my duties in case Mr. Blackwood comes himself. Mark has extra lessons as a punishment for an impertinence.”

  She curtsied and left.

  “Miss Trumble is as you described her to be,” said Isabella to Barry. “But I was not prepared to find such a grand lady. Her style and clothes are modish. Where did she come from?”

  “Ah, that’s a mystery,” said Barry. “I believe she gave Lady Beverley references at last.”

  “Perhaps she is of good family and fallen on hard times.”

  “Now that’s the puzzle, my lady, for to tell the truth, Lady Beverley often does not pay her and yet she always seems to be in funds.”

  “Strange. I shall leave you now, Barry, and we will talk again. I hear the carriage arriving for the children and I am anxious to see this new owner should he be there.”

  When Isabella rounded the corner of the house, she stopped short. A tall man was alighting from a curricle. He looked at her curiously and then bowed and smiled. Why, he is almost as handsome as my husband, marvelled Isabella, who never thought any man in the world could match Lord Fitzpatrick.

  “Lady Fitzpatrick,” he said with a bow.

  “You must be Mr. Blackwood.” Isabella curtsied. “You are come for your children. But you must meet my husband and Mrs. Kennedy before you leave.”