Chapter Twenty-Five
It took herlast penny to hire a hackney to deposit her at Wetherby Park, but Jenny was glad of it. She didn’t fancy walking the five miles, not when dark clouds threatened to blot out the moon. Beyond the carriage lights acres of dark meadows and woodland surrounded them.
The jarvie pulled up at the gates and refused to go any farther. Without another penny to spend, Jenny had no option but the pay him and walk along the carriage drive through the avenue of aged limes, the air decidedly frosty. Overhead an owl hooted and flapped away on giant wings. Her half-boots crunched over the gravel, as she lugged her bag, which had become very heavy as fatigue and the effects of the last two days took their toll. At the bend in the drive, the big house appeared against the dark sky. Candlelight flickered in the downstairs windows, the upper story in darkness. As her father retired early in the country to save on candles and lamp oil, everyone had gone to bed. Papa had long since given up a footman, and the butler had retired some time ago. She was surprised to find the big oak doors unlocked. She stepped into the cold hall lit by candles in the sconces and mounted the staircase. On reaching the landing, she crept over the rug and opened a door. Arabella’s room lay in darkness.
“Bella?”
No answer. Jenny crept over to the bed. “Bella?” She put out a hand and touched the cold pillow. Where was she?
Jenny’s fumbling fingers alighted on a candle on the side table Next to it was the tinderbox. She struck a taper, lit the candle, and the room leapt into focus. The bed had not been slept in. Next door, Beth’s bed, and the boy’s the same. The familiar creaks and groans of an old house greeted her as she crossed the landing, but beyond that, silence. Where was everyone?
She put her bag down in her old bedchamber, which smelled dusty and looked sadly neglected and distinctly uninviting. Divesting herself of her bonnet and pelisse, she changed into house slippers, then ventured downstairs.
She passed the doors to the darkened drawing room and parlor and entered the library where the embers of a coal fire cast an orange glow over crimson rug. Her candlelight flickered over her father’s desk piled with papers, a journal open with his careful script, his glasses, pen holder and inkwell standing ready.
Jenny was about to rouse one of the maids when the front door opened, and a chorus of voices rang through the house.
In the hall, the family trouped through the front door, and stopped, mouths agape.
“Jenny!” Bella and Beth ran to throw their arms around her.
“I’m so glad you’ve come home.” Beth’s big eyes filled with tears. “We have missed you most dreadfully.” She studied her. “What happened to your poor chin?”
“I had a fall, but I’m perfectly all right. I’ve missed you too, Bethy.” Jenny hugged her fearing she would cry too. “I’ve missed you all.”
“We’ve had a turkey dinner at Mr. Judd’s house,” Charlie said with what have been heartless disregard for his sister’s distress, but Jenny suspected was bravado. Charlie put great store by manliness.
Not so Edmond who came to kiss her cheek. “Are you here to stay, Jenny?”
“I…”
Her father edged Charlie and Edmond aside. “Jenny! Why have you come home? Did the duke let you go?”
Jenny shook her head. “I must talk to you, Papa.”
“You look exhausted,” Bella put an arm around Jenny’s waist. “I’ll pop down to the kitchen and make you a hot drink. Are you hungry? There’s some bread and ham. We really should air the sheets on your bed, but a warming pan must suffice. I’m afraid the—”
“Yes, yes,” her father interrupted. “Come into the library, Jenny.”
Jenny sank onto a chair before her father’s desk, squaring her shoulders for the battle which would surely follow. Despite it only being a little more than a year since she left, he looked older, with more white streaks in his hair, and lines painted on his brow. “Bella wrote that she is to marry Mr. Judd.”
“That is correct. Is that the reason you’ve left your position and rushed home?”
“Papa, I told you why I refused Mr. Judd. How can you agree to him marrying Bella? To become a member of this family?”
“I have no choice. He will accept Bella without a dowry and assist in keeping the estate afloat.”
“But Bella is beautiful. If you’ll just give her a Season—”
“There’s no money for any of that,” he said with a frown. “You’ve no idea what bad straits we are in. I can no longer provide for my children’s education. Your brother, my heir, works as a clerk. A clerk!”
She fought to keep her temper as she looked around the library crammed with Papa’s books. He disappeared into the past and cared nothing for the present, and though he protested, she doubted he gave enough of his attention to the necessary changes that would assist the tenant farmers, and improve the estate’s revenue. He had sold off his land to a farmer, and would do so again and again until nothing was left. But if she told him what she thought now, she would lose any chance of changing his mind.
“You cannot let Judd marry Bella, Papa. You know what I told you about him. He imbibed too much at a dance in York and manhandled me, drew me outside…” her face grew hot, “…he likes certain things… in the bedchamber. He is a violent man, Papa.”
“Rubbish. He apologized for being under the weather. Judd is an exemplary man who treats women with a good deal of old fashioned courtesy. He will make an excellent husband. You display an appalling lack of sensibility, my girl. I find it extraordinary how someone of your tender upbringing has drawn such a long and most distressing bow over something you assumed he meant. You should consider the seriousness of such an unfounded accusation.”
She recalled the dangerous look in Judd’s eye, the rough tone of his voice. It had horrified her at the time, and did, every time she thought of it. She stared at him. “Papa, you cannot mean to make Bella his wife.”
