Page 78 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

Linda looked up sharply. ‘Where did all this come from?’

‘A basket came, my lady. From Miss Havering, the colonel’s sister. With con-condolences.’ Mrs Clegg looked embarrassed, and avoided Linda’s eye. ‘There’s some other stuff, too. I’ll be able to cook you dinner tonight. The girl who brought it said it was to save you the trouble of ordering anything in.’

Linda felt a surge of fury. It would be at the colonel’s instigation the basket was sent – his sister never did anything unprompted. How did he know there was nothing to eat in the house? Had Mrs Clegg told him? Had he had the temerity to question her servants? How dare he pity her? Had she come to this – the daughter of the Earl of Stainton?

But on further consideration, she realised she was extremely hungry and that, as no-one else knew about it, she might as well swallow the insult, rather than send it back.

Giles was met at Frome Magna station by the carriage of the Cordwells’ neighbour, and before he got in, he slipped the groom a shilling to tell him what had actually happened. Such an excitement did not come often in these remote country societies, and the groom was more than willing to furnish Giles with all the details, so that by the time he descended at Holme Manor he had no need to distress Linda with questions. She came out to meet him, eyes bright and lips tight, and kept silent until she had conducted him to Gerald’s study.

For the same length of time he was able to assume her tight lips were holding back tears of grief. Then he discovered it was anger.

‘Look!’ she cried, as soon as they were alone. ‘Look at all this!’ She grabbed a handful of papers from the desk and threw them down again. ‘Bills, unpaid bills, debts, foreclosures! He was ruined. Cordwell was ruined! The bank wrote three days ago to say they would no longer extend any of the loans. I suppose that was the last straw. But it’s the coward’s way out. That’s what I can’t stand! He never thought what it was going to do to us, to me and the children. How could he? How could he?’

Giles was alarmed. ‘Linda, be careful! Think what you’re saying. Walls have ears, you know.’

She snorted in exasperation. ‘Oh, Giles, don’t be a fool! As if everyone isn’t already thinking it! They brought him in on a hurdle, and God knows how many people saw, and who they told. It’ll be all over the county by now.’

‘It was a tragic accident,’ Giles said firmly. ‘That’s what you must maintain. And you don’t know any differently, whatever you may think. I implore you to keep your speculations to yourself. For the children’s sake. And,’ he forestalled her next outburst, ‘because suicide raises many legal and financial problems. However bad things are, they would be worse if that was suspected.’

That made her pause. But then her face darkened. ‘It’s all your fault!’ she cried. ‘How do you dare to stand there being pious and proper when it was you who drove him to it?’

‘Me?’ Giles said, taken aback.

‘How many times did I ask you to continue the allowance Father paid me?’ she demanded furiously. ‘You, with your rich heiress and your jam money – tens of thousands a year! – you have no idea what it is to be poor! You never thought what a difference it would have made to us – that poor, paltry allowance that you were too mean and selfish to part with! This is your fault! You drove poor Gerald to despair. I’m a widow and my children are orphans and we’re penniless and bound for the workhouse because of you!’

‘For heaven’s sake, keep your voice down!’

‘I’ll say what I want! There’s no-one to hear. The servants have all run off – there’s only the housekeeper and her son, and who cares what they think? I don’t suppose they’re under any illusion anyway.’ Suddenly her anger abandoned her, and her face seemed to crumple. ‘What are we to do? There’s nothing left, Giles, nothing! What’s to become of us?’

He had to comfort her. Theirs had never been a happy relationship, but she was a woman, and his sister, and her face was creased with misery. Instinct took over. ‘I’ll take care of you,’ he heard himself say, even at the same moment as he noticed there were no tears. He had never in his life seen Linda cry.

‘But what about the bills, the debts? Who will pay them? He owed a fortune.’

‘The personal debts become void on death,’ he said. ‘But those attached to the estate, any mortgages, for instance—’

‘The house was mortgaged, and the land – what there is left of it.’

‘Well, they’ll have first call on any assets. Everything will have to be sold, up to the value of those debts.’

‘What do you mean by “everything”?’

‘The contents of the house, livestock and deadstock, and if that’s not enough, the house and the land as well.’

‘You seem to know all about it,’ she said moodily.

‘You forget, our father died in dire financial straits. It all fell on my shoulders. I had to learn quickly.’

‘Hm,’ she said, unwilling to grant him any sympathy. ‘Well, they can clear the house, for what it’s worth. Gerald had already sold anything of value. The furnishings can’t be worth much. And we haven’t had any livestock for years. I suppose the bit of land that’s left will sell all right, but who in their right mind would buy this house? It’s falling to pieces.’

‘Gerald didn’t have any stocks and shares? Any gilts or reserves? Any other assets?’

She waved a hand at the desk again. ‘I’ve had a whole day to look through all this. He had nothing left but this house. You’re welcome to try to find a lost farthing hidden at the back of a drawer if you like.’

Giles rubbed his hands wearily over his face. He foresaw weeks of work ahead for him, assembling papers and dealing with creditors, banks and bailiffs, winding up the affairs of a man who no longer had any affairs. As Linda’s next of kin it would fall on him – and Linda and the children, he supposed, would come under his guardianship. He couldn’t abandon them. He didn’t suppose continuing the allowance would have made any difference – a mere pebble against a mountain of debt – but he could not help feeling an unwelcome prickle of unease about it. They would have to live at the Castle, Linda with her constant complaining. And two children: a boy to set onto a career, a girl to find a husband for. Years of responsibility, chains to tie him down.

But first – ‘We’ll have to arrange the funeral,’ he said, emerging from his hands. ‘That had better be done as soon as possible. Is there to be an inquest?’

‘Yes,’ she said indifferently, ‘but the doctor is also the coroner, and he’s promised to make it all easy. And there’s a family plot in the churchyard. The rector knows all about that.’