Dear whichever of them you start with, he began. It doesnt matter, theyre all the same. You are requested and required to attend me at Westmere Hall on Thursday the 20th day of March at two in the afternoon
Grandpapa, is that not a little abrupt? Bella ventured. And very short notice. The twentieth is only three days away.
He laughed. They will all come running with their tongues hanging outyou see.
Why do you want to see them all at once? It will exhaust you.
It will be far less tiring than telling them one at a time. And besides, they wont be able to argue among themselves about what I said to each if they hear it together.
Hear what, Grandpapa?
My will
But surely that happens She stopped in dismay. Oh, please, do not tell me you are unwell.
I am old, Bella, and I have been thinking that I ought to make my peace with the past and ensure the future. Your future.
Mine? she queried. It had never entered her head to wonder what would befall her after her grandfather died. She supposed, if it happened before she was married, he would leave her in the care of whoever succeeded, but until recently she had not given a thought to who that might be. Louis was the oldest of the great-nephews, but he was the son of a daughter. On the other hand, Edward was the elder son of a son and he bore the family name of Huntley, which Louis did not. She had no idea how these things were managed, but she could very well see quarrels ahead. No doubt her grandfather had seen them, too, and this was his way of dealing with them. But where did James, also on the distaff side, and Robert, Edwards younger brother, fit into it?
They were all honourable men and would make sure she had a roof over her head and did not starve. Suddenly she was filled with apprehension. Her grandfather must be having doubts about that or he would not be writing to them. She found herself looking at him, her heart thumping, the letters unfinished.
Yes, my dear. You know when I am called to account, I do not want to be found wanting as far as you are concerned. You are a female and a very young and comely one. He paused to scrutinise her from top to toe as if he had not looked at her properly for a long time. He saw large hazel eyes set in an oval face surrounded by dark ringlets, a proud neck, sloping shoulders and a trim figure dressed in a light green merino wool gown. She was taller and thinner than he would have liked, but he supposed she would fill out as she matured. He favoured women with a little more meat on them. And marriageable. You will need advice and instruction
There is Miss Battersby, Grandpapa.
Pah! Her head is full of romantic notions. She would marry you off to the first young gallant with a ready smile and a twinkling eye.
She is not such a fribble and neither am I.
Perhaps not. But I am not going to take the gamble. I want to see you married before I go. He paused. You know, being a female, you cannot inherit Westmere directly?
Yes, Grandpapa, and although I would rather not think about it, I am sure you will make provision for me. I am in no hurry to marry.
You may not be, but I am. That is why I have sent for those four. You shall marry one of them.
Grandfather! She was shocked to the core. You are surely not going to instruct one of them to wed me?
No. The choice will be yours.
The conversation was becoming more and more bizarre and her senses were reeling. She leaned back in her chair, the letter-writing forgotten. She could not imagine herself married to any one them. Although they were not first cousins, she had always looked on the young men as kinsmen, part of the family who came and went and sometimes stopped to chuck her under the chin and ask her how she did. The idea of being married to any one of them was past imagining.
Grandpapa, she said, trying to control the quaver in her voice. They are so much older than I and men of the world. I am persuaded not one of them will want me for a wife. Indeed, she hoped and prayed that was the case.
Oh, indeed, they will. I guarantee they will all be paying you fulsome compliments and begging you for your hand inside of an hour, if not before. He chuckled suddenly. The one who comes up to the mark shall be my heir.
Grandfather! She was horrified. I am to be bartered for a legacy?
Pity you werent a boy, he said, ignoring her outburst. Youd have inherited right and tight and no questions asked. I can leave the blunt to you, but wheres the sense in that? You couldnt have the managing of it. It has to go to your husband and it were better he were one of the family.
She could hardly take it in. She had assumed the estate was entailed, but it could not be if he could dispose of it as he had suggested. But I do not want any of them. I do not love them.
Love, bah! Old Batters been filling your head with nonsense, has she? Love has nothing to do with marriage.
I am persuaded you loved your wife. Bella had never known her grandmother, the Countess, but Ellen had said she had been a beautiful woman but rather cold and haughty. According to Ellen, she had died of a broken heart, though when Bella had questioned her as to why, she had closed her mouth and refused to say another word. But broken hearts and haughtiness hardly went together, and Bella often wondered which was nearer the truth.
No. Arranged marriage, hardly knew the woman, but we became comfortable with each other. Thats the most important thing, you know, to be comfortable.
Well, I am sure Papa loved Mama.
And look where it got him. Dead himself a couple of years after her. A wasted life. All wasted lives His eyes clouded as if he were looking back into past unhappiness. His first wife was not at all suitable. I told him no good would come of it, that he was hardly out of leading strings and should see more of the world before he committed himself, but he would not listen. I let it go. I shant make the same mistake with you.
She had never dared to ask about her fathers first wifeall she knew, and that was from Miss Battersby, was that her father had married the local doctors daughter when both had been very young and that she had died after ten years of marriage and almost as many miscarriages. Begetting an heir had been more important than looking after her health. The heir had been the thing. Her father had married again with almost indecent haste and Isabella had been born a year later. It had been four more years before the longed-for heir had come and he had been dead in the space of a seennight, together with his mother. When her father had followed, Bella had been the only one left, except for her grandfathers great-nephews.
Louis was the son of Elizabeth, the elder of Sir Johns daughters, who had married the French Comte de Courville and had lived in France until the Comte had been guillotined in 1793. Elizabeth had brought six-year-old Louis, now the new Comte, and her baby daughter, Colette, to live in England. Bella had seen very little of Louis as a childhis ambitious mother had been too busy making sure he was seen and noticed in Society. And she had succeeded all too well.
According to Miss Battersby, the fount of all gossip, Louis had made a name for himself as a rakeshame and a gambler and had a different woman on his arm almost every time he went out, but they didnt seem to mind that because he was generous to a fault. Where did his income came from? Bella was not at all sure. Did he need the Westmere inheritance? He was hardly husband material; she did not even like him much.
James Trenchard, the son of Helen, the second daughter, was a widower with twin daughters of six, Constance and Faith. James had inherited his fathers fenland acres and was a farmer from the top of his low-crowned hat down to his mud-caked boots. He was sturdy and reliable but certainly did not excite her senses.
Then came brothers Edward and Robert, progeny of Sir Johns only son. EdwardSir Edward since his grandfathers deathcut a very fine figure, not foppish at all, but well dressed in a muted kind of way. He was tall, well built and dignified. Stiff-neck was her grandfathers description of him but Bella thought that was unkind. She had always looked on him as a sort of favourite uncle. He was, in Ellens words, a catch but as Charlotte Mellish, a Society beauty by all accounts, seemed already to have caught him, he would not offer for her.
Robert she liked as a kind of common conspirator in their childhood scrapes. It had been Robert who had pulled her out when she had fallen through the ice into the dyke one hard winter when they had been skating, who had taken the blame on his own shoulders, though he had begged her not to be so foolish as to venture onto the slippery surface. She managed a watery smile, remembering how cold she had been and how he had wrapped her in his own coat and carried her home.
She had not seen much of him in the last few years because he had been away at the war. He had been a captain in the Hussars and had distinguished himself in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo. Her memories of him were of a tall, gangling youth with a ready smile, but last summer, after the war had ended, he had called at Westmere and she had discovered he had grown tall and well muscled, and heart-stoppingly handsome, with brown eyes that were full of wry humour. Of all the cousins she liked him the best, but Ellen Battersby said he had become somewhat footloose since his discharge. She could not imagine him offering for her, and if he did, she would have to refuse himshe had too much pride to accept him on her grandfathers terms. Besides, liking wasnt love, was it?
I am sure I can rely on you to choose wisely, the Earl went on. Running an estate like Westmere is a grave responsibility. There is not just yourself to consider but everyone who depends on the estate for a livelihood, and that not only means the immediate house and grounds but the villagers. I have always done my best for them
I know that, Grandpapa, but would it not be best for you to choose your successor and not make it conditional on him marrying me? I would rather earn my living.
Dont be a goose, child, you are the granddaughter of an earl, not some peasant. And what do you know of the world of work?
I could learn. Grandpapa, please, dont do this.
My minds made up, he said. Now finish writing those letters and well send em off to the post.
Bella picked up her pen again with a hand that shook. Could she delay posting them? But how could she? The Earl would expect the young men to arrive, and if they did not, he would send again for them. She wrote slowly and a tear escaped and slid down her cheek to drop with a plop on the letter she was writing. She was hardly aware of it. The old man, losing patience, rang the bell at his side. Sylvester appeared so swiftly she was sure he had been listening outside the door. Oh, what a tasty morsel of gossip this would furnish for the rest of the staff!
A glass of brandy, man, his lordship ordered. And pour Miss Huntley a cordial. I think she may need it. And then I want you to take my letters to the village and make sure they are put on the mail. Do it yourself, mind. If I find you have handed them over to some stable boy, I shall turn you off, do you understand?
Perfectly, my lord. Sylvester poured the brandy from a decanter on a side cupboard, then groped beneath it for the bottle of cordial which was kept there for Bella on the few occasions her grandfather invited her to share refreshment with him. By the time her glass was at her elbow, she had finished the last letter and was dusting it before handing it to her grandfather to sign.
Good, he said, scrawling Westmere on the bottom of each. You write a good hand.
Hurriedly swallowing her cordial, Bella made her excuses and left her grandfather to Sylvesters mercies. She needed to get away from the stifling atmosphere of the house into the fresh air, to clear her head and think, to try and make a plan for her future, because assuredly she would need one. Oh, how she wished Miss Battersby would come back. Had her grandfather deliberately timed his announcement knowing she would not be able to turn to the old nurse for comfort and advice?
Grabbing a shawl from her room, she went out into the garden. She hardly noticed the daffodils and gillyflowers in the borders as she wandered across the lawns to the brook which ran along the bottom of the garden, or that the water was very high and lapping the grass. Her mind was on her dilemma. How could she face the men after they had heard what her grandfather proposed? It would be too mortifying to bear.
Would any of them offer for her? Would they show contempt or do as her grandfather said they would and fall over themselves to comply with his wishes? If they did, they would undoubtedly be doing it from the basest motivesmoney and power and a titlenot for any feelings they might have for her. And if she were to accept one of them, her motives would be equally questionable. She needed a home and security and Surely, her grandfather would not leave her penniless if she refused? Supposing she absented herself from the discussion. Would her grandfather abandon the idea? Supposing she left home? To go where? She did not have another relative in the world and no money. There was no alternativeshe had somehow to persuade her grandfather to change his mind.
Bella turned back to the house and saw Sylvester hurrying along the drive towards the village, carrying the four letters which would seal her fate, and she knew it was too late. She had three days to wait and then she would learn the true colours of her grandfathers great-nephews. Three days and after that
She did not want to think of that and forced herself to concentrate on preparing for their guests. The next two days she was busy opening up rooms long disused for their accommodation and trying to soothe the ruffled tempers of Cook and Daisy, who had to cope with all the extra work. By the morning when the guests were due to arrive, they were almost mutinous. Hire a couple of footmen, her grandfather said when she told him of the problem. You shouldnt have any troubletheres enough men out of work.
She didnt bother to argue that most of the men who were out of work were labourers and would not have any idea of the duties of a footman. She hurried to her room, changed into a dark green riding habit and matching hat with its sweeping feather, pulled on her boots and went to the stables to ask for her mare, Misty, to be saddled, glad enough to be free of the stifling atmosphere of the house and enjoy her last few hours of independence.
The grey mare was sturdy rather than elegant but she was game and, because in the last few days the weather had been too inclement to go far, she was in need of exercise. Set to gallop, she responded immediately. As the horse took her across the park, Bellas thoughts went round and round in her head in time with the thundering hooves, but they always came back to the same thing. Her grandfathers ultimatum. He must surely have his own preferences about whom he would like to succeed him, but the choice had been left to her. It was an onerous burden she did not want. Was her happiness not to be considered at all? It just wasnt fair!