“’Tis a babe the moment it begins, Lady Georgiana, and don’t you forget it.”
Apple listened, fascinated, to a lecture on the trials and duties to be undergone by an expectant mother on behalf of her unborn infant. She was glad to think she was not likely to experience them herself. She would hate to have been obliged to suffer all that for Mr Cumberledge’s offspring. Thank heavens Lord Dymond had taken her affairs in hand!
With the hope of diverting Georgy, she suggested a trip to Emmeline’s. “For your brother was quite right, Georgy. I can’t thank you enough for lending me this gown, but it is a little loose.”
This was an understatement, for the maid Nelly had been obliged to pin her into the garment to make it fit and then tack the pleats in place, but the lumps so made were uncomfortable.
Already less tearful, Georgy jumped at the scheme. “Oh yes, Apple, do let us go! I am game for any diversion.”
In the event, they did not make the trip until the following day, Georgy proving incapable of setting forward, just as Apple had been warned, without a great deal of fidgeting preparation, most of which was undoubtedly unnecessary for such a minor excursion. By the time she had recalled half a dozen things that must be done before she could leave the house — including consultations with her personal maid, the cook and the groom who would drive the carriage — and then insisted upon a light luncheon to stave off hunger until dinner, it was time for her obligatory afternoon nap.
“Not that I shall sleep a wink, but I promised Rob I would rest, and I have the second volume of my novel. I am halfway through, and I must say I should enjoy a chance to continue. Do you care for Fanny Burney’s tales, Apple?”
By this time thoroughly exasperated, Apple found it hard to summon enough patience to explain that she preferred robust tales of adventure. “When I was a child,Robinson Crusoewas my very favourite story. And I loveGulliver’s Travels.”
Georgy blinked at her as if she were confronted by a freak. “Prefer such stories to Fanny Burney? Don’t tell me you have not fallen utterly in love with Lord Orville?”
“Who’s he?”
“Apple!He is the hero of Evelina, and so very noble!”
“I thought that was Sir Charles Grandison.”
“No, he is Richardson’s hero. Good heavens, Apple, how could you possibly mistake them?”
“Well, as I haven’t read either, I only know of the latter from the raptures of my school friends.”
Her stock with Georgy had evidently taken a dive, but her hostess bore up well under the blow and suggested Apple might like to look among Rob’s books for something to interest her.
“The library is his especial domain, for the wretch insists upon having somewhere quiet where he may escape from my chatter.”
Apple could not entirely blame Captain Edginton, although she felt a trifle shy of poking about in his library. The room, situated across the hall from Georgy’s cosy parlour, was its counterpart in size and furnished in a masculine fashion, with a desk, a couple of deep leather-covered chairs before the fireplace and several closed bookcases around the walls. Very like Papa’s study, Apple thought, with a hint of nostalgia and more resentment at the changes Walter had effected when he took it over. For one thing, he’d jettisoned some of Papa’s books in favour of his own, and Apple had only just been in time to prevent her favourites from being sold, along with various pieces of furniture Walter considered redundant.
In the event — although she found a copy of one of Smollett’s stories she had not read, though she would have preferred Swift or Fielding — she could not settle to reading. Instead, she sat withHumphrey Clinkeropen before her and her mind on Alex’s mission, wondering whether he had yet reached London and if, when he did, he would find Mr Vergette.
Only now did it occur to her that the lawyer might not be there. She remembered Papa saying he was obliged to travel to serve certain clients whose high status merited more trouble than he was prepared to take for lesser men. He never came to Portsea to see Papa, for example, although her father had known him personally. They must have met at some point, and Apple concluded he had been the one to travel to London to see Mr Vergette. Perhaps when the trust was begun? It was strange Papa had not used the man of business who carried out his workaday contracts. She’d met Mr Twitchin often enough and since he lived in Portsea, he made no bones about coming to his client’s premises.
Why in the world had she not thought to ask Papa about all this? Of course it had not occurred to her that it might be necessary for her to make contact with Mr Vergette. Moreover, it was probable Papa would have brushed it off had she asked. There were some questions he never would answer, deftly redirecting the conversation into other channels. Papa supposed she was distracted, but instead they niggled, storing up in a pocket of her mind where a number of anomalies centred, making no sense.
Why did she not resemble the portrait of Mama that hung upon the wall in the good parlour? She certainly looked nothing like Papa, who’d had reddish hair while his wife was fair. She’d questioned him once, fearing she’d been adopted.
“Adopted? Nonsense, Apple! Just because your hair is dark? A throwback, that’s what you are. Plenty of dark heads in my ancestry.”
Only there were no old portraits to substantiate this claim. Having no desire to find out the worst, Apple did not pursue it. But it raised its head again now, when the matter of her trust had assumed such importance.
There was also the matter of Papa’s will. It contained no word of the trust or her inheritance, only stipulating that the Greenaways must protect Apple until she came of age when she would be free to decide her own future.
Apple had been subjected to a catechism about the trust, for of course Marjorie knew of it.
“All I know is what Papa told me, and the name and direction of the lawyer in London,” she’d told them.
Already suspicious, Apple had not disclosed the existence of the box containing Papa’s exchange of letters with Mr Vergette. Not that there was anything in these to tell her more than that the matter of the trust was completely separate to John Greenaway’s business affairs. But his heir refused to believe it. He had insisted on Apple giving him the necessary information so that he could write to Mr Vergette and find out the truth for himself.
To Apple’s satisfaction, he got nothing by that beyond a brief letter stating that unless he had John Greenaway’s authority to act in the matter, no information about the trust could be disclosed to him. Balked, he’d fallen back on what Marjorie already knew, which was when the trust was due to end and that it might only be broken if Apple chose to marry before that date.
Apple had not known anything about that until Walter had let it slip, after Mr Cumberledge’s attentions became marked and she’d refused to entertain his offer. Had she known, she would have contacted Mr Vergette much sooner. He’d shaken her faith in his willingness to help her, and her flight had been an act of desperation.
At which point in her cogitations, Apple was conscious of a huge wash of relief that she had providentially fallen in with Alex. His promise to keep her hidden from the Greenaways until her birthday could not but change the whole nature of her escapade. She no longer needed Mr Vergette’s doubtful assistance. She need only wait out the time.
