sure. I am the mildest of men myself.’ Her father had died in 1805 when Bella had been six, and the event had hardly registered on her young mind except that she had suddenly found herself free of fear.
As for her grandfather, the Earl, he did have a temper, whatever he said to the contrary, but, unlike her father, he was never harsh with her. He had once been a very handsome man, tall and upright, with thick wavy hair and brown eyes beneath the finely arched brows which were the mark of nearly every male Huntley. He was old now, of course. Seventy-nine was a great age, and the hair, though still thick, was pure white, the eyes more often than not clouded with pain. He was always talking about ‘kicking the bucket’, which Bella found distressing.
Sometimes he would talk nostalgically of the times when he and his brother, John, had been boys and Westmere had simply been a bump in the fens, above the level of the fields that surrounded it, which had been frequently flooded in winter. It was hard to imagine that now because much of the marshy ground of the fens had been drained and cultivated.
It was the death of his brother which had made him more crabby than usual, she decided. John had been the younger by three years and it must have made the Earl aware of his own mortality. ‘Who would have guessed I would outlive him?’ he had said, on hearing the news. ‘He never had a day’s illness in his life while I am plagued by gout and a bad heart, have been for years.’
Sir John Huntley, baronet, had died suddenly in his sleep at his home, Palgrave Manor in the county of Essex, just as the church bells had been pealing in the new year of 1816. He had outlived his wife and only son, just as the Earl had done, but was survived by two widowed daughters, a granddaughter and four grandsons. Bella had been aware of undercurrents of feeling at the funeral they had attended two months before, though she could not exactly put her finger on why that should have been.
The church had been full, everyone dressed in deepest mourning, and during the committal they had obviously been distressed, but afterwards, when friends and distant relations had departed and close family had congregated at Palgrave Manor for refreshments and the reading of the will, there had been a certain tension and whispered comments about the inheritance.
‘But I could not see there should be any dissent about it,’ Bella said to her grandfather on the return journey from Palgrave to Westmere. ‘I thought Sir John disposed of everything very properly. Edward has the title and the estate, which is surely as it should be, but he did not neglect the others. An annuity for the other three men and generous gifts to the ladies. Everyone was remembered, even the servants.’
It was a very uncomfortable journey with the roads deep in snow and the poor horses struggling to pull the heavy family coach through the drifts. And though they had hot bricks at their feet and warm rugs wrapped about their knees, Bella was still numb with cold and was quite sure her grandfather felt it even more than she did. It worried her that he had insisted on making the journey at all. He would have been excused his absence in the circumstances, she was sure.
‘Of course they were,’ the Earl growled. ‘It’s not John’s estate they are concerned with, but mine.’
‘Yours?’ she queried in surprise.
‘I have no son living and no grandsons. My brother was my heir. Now he is gone they are gathering like a crowd of vultures, waiting for me to stick my spoon in the wall, too. Got their eyes on my blunt, not to mention the title.’
‘Oh, Grandpapa, I’m sure not,’ Bella said, unwilling to believe any of her four second cousins were so mercenary. ‘They are concerned for your health, that is all.’
‘Oh, indeed they are,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘I’ve a good mind to live for ever to confound them.’
‘I hope you may, Grandpapa.’
‘Dear child, I do believe you are the only one who means that.’
And then he abruptly changed the subject, looking out of the coach at the bleak white landscape and saying how he would be glad when spring arrived and he could see the new lambs frolicking in the fields—the home farm had a large flock of sheep—and from that she deduced he was not expecting to die quite yet.
He did not mention it again and they resumed their usual humdrum routine. Every day he had his breakfast in his room and then followed a leisurely toilet, after which he made his way down to the little parlour and then, if he felt well enough, took a gentle hack round the estate and spoke to his steward about the work that needed doing. Sometimes she accompanied him on his rides or they would go out in the carriage together to visit neighbours. They would have dinner at three and supper at seven and he would retire early to his room.
Every Sunday morning, they went to the church in the village of Westmere, after which the Earl would stop and make some caustic comment to the parson about the sermon or the text and they would return home in time for an early dinner.
Apart from discussing the daily menus with Martha, Bella’s only other duties were to write letters for her grandfather and read to him from The Morning Post and The Times which were sent down by mail from London every day. He also subscribed to Cobbett’s Political Register, which often had him exploding with indignation. She wondered why he continued to require her to read it aloud if the author’s radical views annoyed him so much. ‘Tuppeny trash,’ he called it, but, then, the Earl would disagree with almost everyone, just for love of an argument.
When not attending to her grandfather, Bella occupied her time with walks, charitable works, sewing and writing her journal. Not that she had a great deal to commit to paper, but she liked to observe people and their foibles and watch nature unfold, year by year, from winter to spring and into summer and autumn, to record the first snowdrop, the first cuckoo, the day the harvest began and the day the meres froze over and everyone took to their skates. She wrote about little domestic problems and news of the village—who had been taken to bed with child, who had died, which young man was courting which of the village girls.
She read the Ladies’ Monthly Museum and subscribed to a lending library so that she could read the latest novels. She had even begun to write one of her own, full of unrequited love, mystery, duels and dangerous adventures. It helped to relieve the boredom of a life that was mundane to say the least. She often longed for something exciting to happen to liven it up. And now it looked as though it might. Something was in the air. But what?
She did not have long to wait. As soon as they had finished their breakfast, the Earl stood up, pushing Sylvester aside when he ran to help him. ‘Leave me, man, I am not slipping my wind yet.’ Then he turned to Bella. ‘Come with me, I want some letters written.’
She followed him to the library, where he sank into an armchair beside the fire. ‘You don’t look quite the thing, Grandpapa. Are you sure you want to do this today?’ she asked. Spring was a very long time coming this year and the dismal days seemed to make him more and more tired.
‘Yes, been putting it off too long as it is.’
‘Very well, but you must stop if it becomes too much for you.’
‘Will you cease fussing, child, and fetch out the writing things? I want four letters written.’
‘Four?’ she queried in surprise as she seated herself at his big leather-topped desk and took notepaper and pens from the drawer.
‘Yes, one to each of my great-nephews. You know their directions.’
‘Yes.’ She dipped a pen in the ink and waited while he assembled his thoughts.
‘Dear whichever of them you start with,’ he began. ‘It doesn’t matter, they’re 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 out—you see.’
‘Why do you want to see them all at once? It will exhaust you.’