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‘Goodbye, Miss Rose.’ His voice sent her on her way.
Madeleine looked out at the brightening sky, where the sun was just beginning to burn through the cloud. A shaft of light suddenly illuminated them both as he stood on the threshold, watching her go. ‘Goodbye, Mr Shilton.’
* * *
Madeleine’s emotions were in ferment. Billy had gone, the child had bound her in sympathy to Mr Shilton, and they no longer shared that secret conspiracy of affection and care. She was also concerned at what she had inadvertently revealed in the strange, suspended moment when he held onto her hand in farewell and she could not look away.
Turning eastwards towards Grosvenor Street, she shivered; the dark clouds gathered as if presaging a storm. Madeleine took Dot’s arm for encouragement. In her solitary life, the maid had proved herself the most stalwart of friends.
‘Pardon my saying, Miss, but I think that Mr Shilton the best of men,’ said Dot, ‘and methinks he’s quite partial to you too.’
Cast down as she was, Madeleine could not suppress a wry smile. ‘If only life was as simple as a romance.’
They arrived back at the Lockhart mansion before the threatened tempest, but as they entered the front door, Madeleine stepped into a much more alarming storm. Lady Lockhart was on the warpath. She met Madeleine in the hall, her eyes hard and dark with anger. ‘Where have you been?’ she thundered. ‘You disappear like a ghost with neither rhyme nor reason. No one knows where you’re going nor when you’ll be back.’
Dot scurried off to the kitchen and Madeleine was left to face the wrath of her aunt who swept up the stairs, her stiff black skirts rustling as if giving vent to her indignation. The mourning clothes for her disliked mother-in-law intensified Lady Lockhart’s imperiousness of character.
Over her shoulder, she issued the order to her recalcitrant niece. ‘Come to the drawing room. Edwin and Henrietta are there. We have family business to discuss.’
Madeleine walked to her room and removed her pelisse and bonnet; how ridiculous, even disrespectful to Grandmama’s memory, her bobbing red feather now seemed. As she placed it on the bed, she realised the covers were not as she had left them. In a panic, she scrabbled under the mattress. Her book had gone. She could hardly believe such a catastrophe had befallen her. The trouble it would cause. Was this why her aunt was in such a rage, why she herself had been summoned so peremptorily to a family conference?
Full of trepidation, she followed Aunt Lucinda up the stairs and attempted to look self-possessed as she entered the room. Edwin was morose and his sister disengaged. Having won the battle about whom she could marry, Henrietta was less intimidated by her mother’s rages and relieved when they were turned on Madeleine instead. They all looked gloomy in their mourning attire, although the young women had indulged in permitted variations. Henrietta hung a lilac and primrose shawl from her shoulders and Madeleine’s grey muslin was relieved with a cream lace spencer she had created from a dress of her mother’s.
‘Come over here where I can see you,’ she was directed in commanding tones. As Madeleine sat gingerly on the upright chair beside her aunt, she was so full of dread about her novel being read and her most disobliging characters recognised that she almost sobbed with relief when she heard the less ominous question. ‘Well? Are you going to accept Edwin’s offer of marriage?’
Madeleine hesitated, not certain what words might soften the inevitable blow of refusal, but before she could speak, Lady Lockhart intervened with asperity. ‘I’ve been patient. I realise this suggestion might have come as a surprise to you, but I’ve had enough of your missish shilly-shallying ways, my girl. You’re lucky to get an offer from a baronet, a personable young man, when you only have your ill-gotten fortune to commend you.’
This repeated suggestion that she had been left Grandmama’s fortune through some underhand dealing on her own part made Madeleine’s blood rise. Blushing with force of feeling, she said, ‘Grandmama never discussed her will with me. It was as much a surprise to me as to anyone.’ She looked defiantly at her aunt. ‘I think she may have wanted to give me the freedom to choose the kind of life I could live. Perhaps to also make some amends for how my mother was treated by the family when she decided to follow her heart.’
Lady Lockhart was not used to being reproached or challenged, and everyone heard her sharp intake of breath as she seemed to inflate with outrage. She really was like a mythological Fury, Madeleine thought, forever hounding her victims with scourges.
Edwin attempted to defuse his mother’s ire and so hurriedly explained, ‘We know, Maddie, that you had nothing to do with it. But what you decide now is material to the family’s future. I would be honoured if you would consider marrying me, you know.’ His face wore a pleading expression that tugged at Madeleine’s sympathies; she realised he was as much trapped in this net of money and family obligation as she was.
She composed her thoughts and replied at last, ‘I thank you, Lord Lockhart, but I don’t wish to marry anyone. I do realise, however, that the family needs to have its ancestral house restored to its name and title. I propose to return to you the Great Cheney Estate and all its land.’
Edwin Lockhart and his mother were astounded. Who ever heard of anyone inheriting a substantial estate only to give the majority of it away?
‘Are you sure, Maddie?’ Lord Lockhart was pale with the shock. ‘Have you talked to Mr Croft? This is surely the first time any heir has done such a thing.’
Miss Lockhart’s mind had already detached from her family’s troubles and she looked at her brother and said with a sneer, ‘Enough heirs have gambled away their whole estates in the past, and will again. I don’t see that what Maddie intends to do is any more shocking. Equally stupid, but throwing away a fortune is an heir’s prerogative.’
Madeleine ignored this and replied, ‘I’m seeing Mr Croft tomorrow, at his offices. I would like to retain Grandmama’s house in Davies Street and the investments to support it, but the main house and estates would be yours, Edwin.’ She paused. ‘I would like to retain the dower house.’
This was too much for Lady Lockhart. Having been silenced with astonishment and a wave of relief by the first part of Madeleine’s plan, she suddenly sprang back with her usual attack and ill humour. ‘The Cheney dower house is my house,’ she said in terrible tones. ‘I am the Dowager now and that house belongs to me. You’ll have Grandmother’s house in Davies Street, and her bonds as income, why take the dower house too?’
Edwin turned away and said in a dismissive voice, ‘The foolish girl has a wild scheme to care for the abandoned children of London in the country. And at her – or perhaps I should say at our – expense!’
Lucinda Lockhart’s voice was harsh with contempt. Her appetite for a fight was more powerful than any gratitude for unexpected generosity and good fortune, and she launched her attack in defence of the dower house. ‘Imbecile girl! I thought you’d given up on that madcap scheme. Such is thankless, unnecessary work. If it’s anyone’s responsibility, it’s for the Church and charities. Surely you recognise the danger of introducing such verminous creatures with their diseases and bad blood into the vicinity of our land and tenantry? Nothing will be safe again.’
Madeleine had not expected this avalanche of scorn; she was after all proposing to hand back most of the estate and had hoped that finally the dogs of war might be leashed. But Lady Lockhart was most at home on a battlefield, and uncomfortable with the uneventful calm of a truce.
Madeleine’s face drained of colour, she stood up and dropped a quick bob to her aunt and, inclining her head to her two cousins, left the room.
* * *
That night, Madeleine lay troubled in her bed. The whereabouts of her book was a continual puzzle and anxiety, its absence a Sword of Damocles over her head, threatening to fall at any time. But living with her cynical cousins also made her doubt herself. Was she indeed so foolish? she wondered. Were all her plans and dreams just born of ignorance and a naïve simplicity of thought? Perhaps even her writing, which meant so much to her, was merely a way of escaping into a world she could create and control, away from the narrow realities of her life, and had no value in itself? Her story had come to an end. Through tempest, excess feeling and near-fatal misunderstanding, the hero and heroine were united at last. It just needed an epilogue, but she was reluctant to draw it to a close; her characters and their destinies were much more interesting than her own and would be missed like old friends.
She felt bereft. Her book, the companion of her loneliest hours, was gone, Billy had returned to his mother and her own bond with Mr Shilton was dissolved, her part in his and Billy’s life was over. Madeleine had even lost confidence in her main idea that had once seemed so fine. Perhaps her plan to create a home for children in the country was indeed immature and unrealistic, perhaps it was only an expression of her own loneliness and longing for family, combined with protectiveness for the child found on a doorstep. How much more bleak his future would have been without her and Mr Shilton’s care.
