Silent In The Grave

THE THIRD CHAPTER

And then again, I have been told Love wounds with heat, as Death with cold.

—Ben Jonson

“Though I Am Young and Cannot Tell”

After the funeral, everyone repaired to March House where Aunt Hermia had conspired with Father’s butler, Hoots, to provide an impressive cold buffet and quite a lot of liquor. My relations seemed very pleased with both. And so was I. The more they ate and drank, the less they spoke to me, although I still found myself repeatedly cornered by well-meaning aunts and faintly lecherous cousins. The former doled out advice over shrimp-paste sandwiches while the latter made me dubious proposals of marriage. I thanked the aunts and rebuffed the cousins, but gently. They were an intemperate lot, especially with the amount of spirits Aunt Hermia had offered, and if I offered one of them an insult I had little doubt there would be a duel in the garden by sunrise.

It was a relief when Father finally fetched me to his study.

“Time for the will,” he said tersely. “You haven’t accepted your cousin Ferdinand, have you?”

He glanced over my shoulder to where Ferdinand was still tipsily proposing marriage to a marble statue of Artemis and her stag, completely unaware of the fact that I had excused myself.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I am glad to hear it. He is a famous imbecile. They all are. Marry one of them and I will cut off your allowance.”

“I shouldn’t marry one of them if you doubled it.”

He nodded. “Good girl. I never understood why we Marches always married our cousins in the first place. Bad breeding principle, if you ask me. Concentrates the blood, and God knows we don’t need that.”

That much was true. Father had been the first to marry out of the March bloodlines and had ten healthy children to show for it, all only mildly eccentric. Most of our relations who had married each other had children who were barking mad. He had strongly encouraged us to marry outside the family, with the result that his grandchildren were the most conventional Marches for three hundred years.

In the study, the solicitor, Mr. Teasdale, was busy perusing a sheaf of papers while my eldest brother, Lord Bellmont, viscount, MP and heir to the family earldom, browsed the bookshelves. He was fingering a particularly fine edition of Plutarch when Father spied him.

“It isn’t a lending library,” Father snapped. “Buy your own.”

Bellmont bowed from the neck to acknowledge he heard Father, nodded once at me, then took a chair near the fire. His manners were usually impeccable, but he hated being barked at by Father. Mr. Teasdale put aside his papers and rose. I offered him my hand.

“My lady, please accept my condolences on your bereavement. I have asked Lord March, as head of the family, and Lord Bellmont, as his heir, to be present while I explain the terms of Sir Edward’s will.”

I took a seat next to Bellmont and Father took the sofa. He snapped his fingers for his mastiff, Crab, who came lumbering over to lie at his feet, her head on his knee. Mr. Teasdale opened a morocco portfolio and extracted a fresh set of papers, these bound with tape.

“I have here the last will and testament of your late husband, Sir Edward Grey,” he began pompously.

My eyes flickered to Father, who gave an impatient sigh.

“English, man, plain English. We want none of your lawyering here.”

Mr. Teasdale bowed and cleared his throat. “Of course, your lordship. The disposition of Sir Edward’s estate is as follows: the baronetcy and the estate of Greymoor in Sussex are entailed and so devolve to his heir, Simon Grey, now Sir Simon. There are a few small bequests to servants and charities, fairly modest sums that I shall disburse in due course. The residue of the estate, including Grey House and all its contents—furnishings, artworks and equipages, the farms in Devon, the mines in Cornwall and Wales, the railway shares, and all other properties, monies and investments belong to your ladyship.”

I stared at him. I had expected a sizable jointure, that much had been in the marriage contract. But the house? The money? The shares? All of these should have rightfully gone with the estate, to Simon.

I licked my lips. “Mr. Teasdale, when you say all other monies—”

He named a sum that made me gasp. The gasp turned into a coughing fit, and by the time Mr. Teasdale had poured me a small, entirely medicinal brandy, I was almost recovered.

“That is not possible. Edward was comfortable, wealthy even, but that much—”

“I understand Sir Edward made some very shrewd investments. His style of living was comparatively moderate for a gentleman who moved in society,” Mr. Teasdale began.

“Comparatively moderate? I should say so! Do you know how little he gave me for pin money?” I was beyond furious. Edward had never been niggardly with money. Each quarter he had given me a sum that I had viewed as rather generous. Generous until I realized he could have easily given me ten times as much and never missed it.

Father’s hand stilled on Crab’s head. “Do you mean to say that he kept you short? Why did you not come to me?”

His voice was neutral, but I knew he was angry. He was famous for his modern views about women. He favored suffrage, and had even given a rather stirring speech on the subject in the Lords. He made a point of giving each of his daughters an allowance completely independent of his sons-in-law to offer at least a measure of financial emancipation. The very idea that one of his daughters might have been kept on a short lead would gall him.

I shook my head. “No, not really. My pin money was rather a lot, in fact. But there were times, when I wanted to travel or buy something expensive, that I had to ask Edward for the money. I always felt rather like Marie Antoinette in front of the mob when I did, all frivolity and extravagance in the face of sober responsibility. It’s just lowering to know that he could have thrown that much to a beggar in the street and never missed it.”

Father’s hand began to move on Crab’s ears once more. She snuffled at his knee, drooling a little. Bellmont stirred beside me.

“Mines in Cornwall. Surely those have played out by now,” he said to Teasdale.

Mr. Teasdale smiled. “They are still profitable, I assure you, my lord. Sir Edward would not have kept them were they not. He was entirely unsentimental about investments. He kept nothing that did not keep itself.” He turned to me, his manner brisk. I swear he could smell the money in the air. “Now, if your ladyship would care to leave the management of the estate in capable hands, I am sure that their lordships would be only too happy to make the necessary decisions.”

“I do not think so,” I said slowly.

Beside me, Bellmont stiffened like an offended pointer. “Don’t be daft, of course you do. You do not know the first thing about managing an estate of this size. You will want advice.”

Father said nothing, but I knew he agreed with me. He would not say so, not now, because he wanted to see if I would stand my ground with Bellmont. Few people ever did. As the eldest son and heir, Bellmont had been entitled since birth, in every sense of the word. Mother had not died until he was almost grown, so he had felt the full force of her far more conventional ideals. It was not until her death, when the raising of the younger children had been left to Father and Aunt Hermia, that the experiments had begun. Bellmont had been sent to Eton and Cambridge. The rest of us had been educated at home by a succession of Radical tutors with highly unorthodox philosophies. Bellmont had never gotten accustomed to thinking of his sisters or his younger brothers as his equals, and of course he had the whole of the English legal, judicial and social systems to back him. He paid lip service to Father’s Radical leanings, but when the time came for him to run for Parliament, he had done so as a Tory. Father had refused to speak to him for nearly four years after that, and their relationship still bumped along rockily.

I swallowed hard. “Of course I shall want advice, Bellmont, and I know that you are quite well-informed in such matters,” I began carefully. “But I am an independent lady now. I should like very much to make my own decisions.”

Bellmont muttered something under his breath. I could not hear it, but I had a strong suspicion Aunt Hermia would not have approved. In spite of Bellmont’s elegant demeanor, he was always the one who had contributed the most to the family swear box. The box had been established by Aunt Hermia shortly after she came to live with us. We had fallen into the habit of cursing after a visit by Father’s youngest brother, our uncle Troilus, a naval man with a particularly spicy vocabulary. He had taught us any number of new and interesting words and Father had made little effort to curb our fluency, believing that the charm of such words would dissipate with time. It did not. If anything, we grew worse, and by the time Aunt Hermia came to live with us, it was not at all uncommon to hear “damns” and “bloodys” flying thick and fast at the tea table or over the cricket pitch. It only took a day for Aunt Hermia to devise the swear box, which she presented to us at breakfast her second morning at Bellmont Abbey. The rule was that a shilling went into the box every time one of us cursed, with the proceeds counted up once a year and shared among the family. For the most part it worked. We learned that while we could speak more freely in front of Father, Aunt Hermia’s sensibilities were more refined, and we curbed our swearing in public almost entirely. Except for Bellmont. The year that he was courting Adelaide we all had a nice seaside holiday at Bexhill on the proceeds.

Now he turned to Father. “You must speak to her. She cannot play with such a sum. If she speculates, she could lose everything. Make her see reason.”

Father’s hand continued to stroke lazily at Crab’s ears. He shrugged. “She has as much common sense as the rest of you. If she wishes to manage her own affairs, under the law, she may.”

Bellmont turned to Mr. Teasdale, who shrugged. He had been retained by the family for more than thirty years. He knew better than to involve himself in a family quarrel. He busied himself with papers and tapes, keeping his head down and his eyes firmly fixed on the task at hand.

I put a hand to Bellmont’s sleeve. “Monty, I appreciate your concern. I know that you want what is best for me. But I am not entirely stupid, you know. I read the same newspapers that you do. I understand that to purchase a share at a high price and sell it at a low one is unprofitable. I further understand that railways give a better return than canals and that gold mines are risky ventures. Besides,” I finished with a smile, “having just acquired a fortune, do you think I am so eager to lose it?”

Bellmont would not be mollified. He shook off my hand, his face stony. “You are a fool, Julia. You know less than nothing about business, and less still about investments. You are not even thirty years old, and yet you think you know as much as your elders.”

“Don’t you mean my betters?” I asked acidly. He flinched a little. He was always sensitive to criticism that he was playing the lordling.

“I wash my hands of it,” he said, his voice clipped. “When you have thrown this money away with both hands and are leading a pauper’s life, do not come to me for help.”

Father leveled his clear green gaze at Bellmont. “No, I daresay she will come to me if she has need, and I will help her, as I have always helped all of my children.”

Bellmont flushed deeply and I winced. It was unkind of Father to needle him so. Bellmont had called upon Father’s famous indulgence himself once or twice, but applying for a favor rankled him twice as deeply as it did the rest of us. He felt that, as the eldest and the heir, he should be entirely self-sufficient, which was ludicrous, really. He should and did take his livelihood from the March estate. He oversaw many of the family holdings on Father’s behalf, and his future was so deeply entwined with the future of the family that it was impossible to separate them. Even his title was on loan, a courtesy title devolved from Father’s estate at Bellmont Abbey. He had nothing to call his own except dead men’s shoes, and I think the highly Oedipal flavor of his existence sometimes proved too much for him.

As it did now. His complexion still burnished from his humiliation, he rose, offered us the most perfunctory of courtesies and took his leave, closing the door softly behind him. Bellmont would never create a scene, never slam a door. He was too controlled for that, although I sometimes wondered if a little explosion now and again mightn’t be just what he needed. He longed so much for normalcy, for a regular, unremarkable life. We were alike in that respect, both of us rather desperate to be ignored, to be regarded as conventional. We had spent a great deal of time and effort suppressing our inherent strain of wildness. I knew it cost Bellmont deeply. I wondered what it had cost me.

I looked up to find Father smiling down a little at Crab.

“Oh, don’t. It’s dreadful. I did not mean to hurt his pride—and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Bellmont cannot abide being made a figure of fun.”

“Then he ought not to provide such good sport,” Father retorted. He and Mr. Teasdale made a few polite noises at each other and the solicitor, after several more protestations of his willingness to be of service, left us. Father gave me a moment to unbend, but I did not. I kept my gaze fixed upon the window and its rather unpromising view of the garden. For May, it seemed rather unenthusiastic, and I wondered if Whittle was attempting sobriety again. He was a brilliant gardener when inspired by drink, but when he turned temperate, the garden invariably suffered.

“Oh, don’t be in a pet, Julia. Monty will come round, he’s just having a bit of a difficult patch just now. I remember forty—a hard age. It is the age when a man discovers that he is all that he is ever going to be. Some men are rather pleased at the discovery. I suspect your brother is not.”

I shrugged. “I suppose I shall have to take your word for that. But you might be kinder to him, you know. He wants to please you so badly.”

Father fixed me with a stern look and I broke, smiling. “Well, all right, that was a bit thick. But I do think he would like it if you approved of him. It would make life so much simpler.”

Father waved a hand. “A simple life is a dull life, my pet. Now, tea? Or something more medicinal, like brandy?”

I shuddered. “Tea, thank you. Brandy always reminds me of the cough preparations Nanny forced us to drink as children.”

He rang the bell. “That is because it was brandy. Nanny always said the best remedy for a cough was cherry brandy, taken neat.”

That did not surprise me. Nanny had always been one for ladling dubious remedies down our throats. It was a wonder she never poisoned one of us.

Hoots appeared, his long mournful face even more dour in honour of the occasion. Hoots had been with the family for more than forty-five years and often viewed our tragedies as his own. Father gave him the order and we waited in comfortable silence for our refreshment, the quiet broken only by the ticking of the clock and the occasional contented sigh from Crab.

When Hoots reappeared, laden not only with tea, but sandwiches, cakes, bread and butter, and a variety of pastries, we both perked up considerably. So did Crab. She sat politely on her haunches while I poured. I handed Father a plate with an assortment of titbits and laid another for Crab with slivered-ham sandwiches. She ate noisily, her thick tail slapping happily on the carpet. Father toyed with a scone, then cleared his throat.

“I believe that I owe you an apology, Julia.”

“For what? The tea is quite good. Cook even remembered a dish of that plum jam I like so well.”

“Not the tea, child.” He paused and put his cup down carefully, as though weighing his words and the china. “I ought never to have allowed you to marry Edward. I thought you could be happy with him.”

I dropped another lump of sugar into my tea and stirred. “I was. I think. At least as happy as I could have been with anyone under the circumstances.”

He said nothing, but I could tell from the way he was crumbling his macaroon he was troubled. I forced a smile. “Really, Father. You’ve nothing with which to reproach yourself. You told me at the time that you had doubts. I am the one who insisted.”

He nodded. “Yes, but I have often thought in the years since that I should have done more to prevent it.”

A thought struck me then. “Have you talked about it? Within the family?” I remembered Beatrice, bent stiffly over her needlework, not meeting my eyes.

“Yes. Your sisters were concerned for you, especially Bee. The two of you were always so close, I suppose she could sense your unhappiness. She said you never confided in her. I knew that if you had not broached the subject to her or to Portia, that you had not spoken to any of your sisters.”

“No, Nerissa is not an easy confidante. Nor Olivia, for that matter. Perfection is a chilly companion.”

He grinned in spite of himself. “They can be a bit much, I suppose. But, child, if you were truly unhappy, you should have come to us, any of us.”

“To what purpose? I am a March. Divorce would have been out of the question. I offered to release Edward from his marital obligations, but he would not hear of it. So why speak of it at all? Why air our soiled linen for the whole family to see?”

“Because it might have eased your loneliness,” he said gently. “Did you never speak to Griggs?”

I put my cup down. I had no taste for the tea now. It had gone bitter in my mouth. “I did. There was nothing to be done. A bit of a shock, really, coming from a family as prolific as ours. You would have thought I could have managed at least one.”

Silence fell again, and Father and I both resumed our teacups. It gave us something to do at least. I offered him another scone and he fed Crab a bit of seedcake.

“So, do you mean to keep Valerius with you at Grey House?” he asked finally. I was relieved at the change in subject, but only just. Val was a very sore point with Father and I knew I had best tread carefully.

“For a while at least. And the Ghoul, as well. Aunt Hermia is concerned about the propriety of my sharing a house with Val and Simon without a proper chaperone.”

Father snorted. “Simon is bedridden. His infirmity alone should be sufficient chaperone.”

I shrugged. “No matter. Aunt Ursula has actually been rather helpful. As soon as she realized that Simon was not expected to live, she settled right in. She reads to him and brings him jellies from the kitchens. They are quite cozy together.”

“And Val?” he persisted. “How does he fit into your little menagerie?”

“He comes and goes—goes mostly. I do not see much of him, but that suits us both. And when he is at home, his is quite good company.”

Father’s brows lifted. “Really? You surprise me.”

“Well, he stays in his room and leaves me to myself. He doesn’t demand to be entertained. I don’t think I could bear that.”

“Is he still pursuing his studies?”

I chose my words deliberately. Val’s insistence upon studying medicine had been the source of most of his considerable troubles with Father. Had he wanted theoretical knowledge, or even a physician’s license, Father might have approved. But becoming a surgeon was no gentleman’s wish for his son. It would put Val beyond the pale socially, and close any number of doors for him.

“I am not certain. As I said, I see little of him.”

“Hmm. And what is his diagnosis of Simon’s condition?” The words were laced with sarcasm, but lightly. Perhaps having Val out of the house was softening his stance.

“Val has not seen him, not medically. Simon is attended by Doctor Griggs. It was only at Griggs’ insistence that Simon did not come to the funeral. He would have had himself propped in a Bath chair, but Griggs was afraid the damp air would be too much for him. He continues the same. His heart is failing. It will probably be a matter of months, a year at most, before we bury him as well.”

“Has he made his peace with that?”

“I do not know. We have not spoken of it. There will be time yet.”

Father nodded and I sipped at my tea. I felt a little better now, but not much. Edward’s death had left me with vast financial resources but few personal ones. I had a year of mourning left to endure, and another loss yet to grieve.

“Your Aunt Hermia will expect a sizable donation to her refuge when word of your inheritance becomes public.”

I smiled. “She may have it. The refuge is a very worthy enterprise.” The refuge was properly known as the Whitechapel Refuge for the Reform of Penitent Women. It was Aunt Hermia’s special project, and one that simply gorged itself on money. There was always one more prostitute to feed and clothe and educate, one more bill for candles or smocks or exercise books that demanded to be paid. Aunt Hermia had managed to assemble an illustrious group of patrons who paid generously to support the reformation of prostitutes and their eventual rehabilitation from drudges to proper servants or shopgirls, but even their pockets were not bottomless. She was constantly on the prowl for fresh donors, and I was only too happy to oblige her. She prevailed upon the family to visit occasionally and teach the odd lesson, but I far preferred to send money. It was quite enough that I hired my own staff from her little flock of soiled doves. Enduring Morag was as much as I was prepared to suffer.

“And I am sure a pound or two will find its way into the coffers of the Society of Shakespearean Fellows,” I told Father. He beamed. The society was his pet, as the refuge was Aunt Hermia’s. It mostly consisted of a group of aging men writing scholarly papers about the playwright and scathing commentaries on everyone else’s papers. There was a good deal of recrimination and sometimes even violence at their monthly meetings. Father enjoyed it very much.

“Thank you, my dear. I shall dedicate my current paper to you. It concerns the use of classical allusion in the sonnets. Did you know—”

And that is the last that I heard. Father was entirely capable of wittering on about Shakespeare until doomsday. I sipped at my tea and let him talk, feeling rather drowsy. The numbness of the morning had worn away and I was simply bone tired. I drained the last sip of tea and went to replace it on the saucer.

But as I put it down, I noticed the spent tea leaves, swirled high onto the cup, curved perfectly into the shape of a serpent. I was no student of tasseomancy. I could not remember what the coil of a serpent meant. But we had known Gypsy fortune-tellers in Sussex, and I had had my future read in the leaves many times. I did not think that snakes were pleasant omens. I shrugged and tried to listen politely to Father.