An Unconventional Miss

Barely able to meet the look of disbelief in his client’s eyes, Humphreys had been obliged to steel himself in order to continue his recital of the sorry catalogue of the late earl’s excesses, the sad truth of the matter being that, had it not been for the dedication of the small handful of staff who had stayed loyal to their rapidly declining young master, the once carefully husbanded and prosperous estate might well have run to seed. In addition to which, he revealed that Theodore had penned a list containing the names of his creditors, who were collectively owed an amount in excess of thirty thousand pounds—twenty-five thousand of which was in unpaid gambling debts!

As the enormity of his beloved brother’s fall from grace had gradually began to force its way into Wyvern’s shocked sensibilities, the reasons for Theo finally having elected to put a period to his life had become all too clear to his reluctant successor.

Nevertheless, as he now pointed out to Fitzallan, who had digested his friend’s halting narration in a frowning silence, the question still remained as to how the devil he might set about salvaging the situation?

‘If what your man says is correct,’ observed Fitzallan, carefully inching his way through the congestion of traffic on Grosvenor Street, ‘it would seem that you have very little option left but to sell up and take what you can get out of the deal.’

‘Oh, not you as well!’ exclaimed Wyvern, affronted at his friend’s casual dismissal of the estate that had been in the family’s possession for nigh on eight generations. ‘That was Humphreys’s advice too, but the whole idea is unthinkable! I would sooner die!’ But then, as the awful significance of these melodramatic words hit him, he let out a hollow laugh and added, ‘I trust it won’t come to that, of course!’

‘Steady on, Ben, old thing!’ protested Fitzallan. ‘We have not quite reached point-non-plus. If we all put our heads together, we may yet come up with a solution. You might even find that her ladyship has the odd idea or two up her sleeve—she always used to keep her ear pretty close to the ground, as I recall.’

Wyvern attempted a grin. ‘From what Humphreys tells me, Grandmama would seem to be as mettlesome as ever—still haring around the countryside as though she were no more than twenty-five!’

‘Must be close to eighty now, I imagine?’

‘Admits to sixty, I believe,’ returned Wyvern, as Fitzallan’s curricle swung into Grosvenor Square. ‘You will come in and say “hello”, of course—she always had a soft spot for you.’

Pulling out his timepiece, Fitzallan looked down and shook his head ruefully. ‘Some other time, if you will excuse me. Arranged to meet Holt at Brooks’s—half an hour late already. P’raps you’ll get the chance to look in on us later this evening?’

Promising that he would see what he could do, Wyvern leapt down from his perch, saluted his friend and mounted the shallow steps up to the front door of the family’s Grosvenor Square residence, to which he shortly found himself admitted by his grandmother’s elderly retainer.

‘Good to see you back safely, your lordship,’ beamed Jesmond, as he ushered Wyvern into the hall and signalled to a waiting footman to relieve him of his outdoor garments. ‘Your luggage arrived this morning. Her ladyship has been expecting you hourly. You will find her in the red salon.’

Still unable to prevent the recoil of distaste that he felt at hearing himself addressed by what had been, until a mere two months previously, his older brother Theodore’s title, the new earl strode across the hall to greet his grandmother, who was presently emerging from the doorway of the aforementioned salon.

‘Benedict! My dearest boy—you have arrived at last!’

A tall, white-haired lady, now in her eighty-first year, Lady Lavinia Ashcroft, Dowager Countess of Wyvern, moved gracefully towards her grandson, exhibiting considerable agility for one of her advanced years. Unlike a good many of her peers, she disdained the prevailing fashion for the semi-transparent muslin afternoon dress and was elegantly clad in a simple but expertly cut round gown of black kerseymere, trimmed at the neck with a neat white ruff.

After kissing Wyvern soundly on both cheeks, she held him at arm’s length, carefully scrutinising his ruggedly handsome face.

‘You look tired, my boy. I shall have Mrs Winters prepare you a bath—but first, you must join me in a glass of brandy. Jesmond!’

Taking his arm, she allowed her grandson to escort her back into the red salon, so named because of the crimson silk wall hangings and curtains with which it had been furnished many years earlier. Smaller than any of the other reception rooms in the house, it was the Dowager Countess’s favourite place to sit in the afternoons, due mainly to the fact that its window overlooked the busy London square, providing her with not only ample advance warning of any impending visitor but, perhaps more significantly, enabling her to keep her eye on her neighbours’ comings and goings.

‘You have seen Humphreys?’ she enquired, as soon as Wyvern had taken his seat and Jesmond had left the room.

Wyvern nodded. ‘I went to Brentford first thing, as soon as we docked. But it is just as you said in your letter—Theo does appear to have taken his own life.’

‘Humphreys gave me to understand that your brother had left a letter for you. I trust that it contains some sort of explanation for his extraordinary behaviour of late?’

Extracting his brother’s missive from his pocket, Wyvern passed it to her. ‘Nothing of any consequence, I fear—apart from his apology. He was clearly very confused when he wrote it.’

Leaning back wearily, he ran his fingers through his crisp dark hair, mentally reviewing the singularly odd tenor of his brother’s last words.

Ben, old chap, the note read, Can’t go on—got myself into an unholy mess—can’t seem to sort it out—mine is yours now—too late for me. Save the Grange, I beg you—relying on you—remember where we used to play when we were lads—forgive me, Theo.

His forehead puckered in a frown. ‘I am still finding the whole affair almost impossible to comprehend. I was aware that Theo was pretty cut up after losing Sophia and young Edwin, of course, but I had no idea that he was in such a bad case. A fellow officer did hear a rumour that he was drinking heavily, but to learn that he has frittered away the entire family fortune on gambling and profligate living is unbelievable—especially when you consider that he was the one Father was wont to call “old sobersides”!’

Save for the sonorous ticking of the long-case clock in one corner, the red salon was silent until, suddenly conscious that his grandmother was waiting for him to continue, Wyvern, striving to keep his innermost feelings under control, took a deep breath.

‘Nevertheless,’ he managed eventually, ‘it is to his credit that Theo seems to have stopped drinking long enough to recover his senses. But he was clearly not himself when he wrote that note—if everything is as bad as Humphreys has given me to understand, how could Theo possibly have expected me to put it all right?’

‘I trust that you do not intend to fall into an emotional stew over this, my boy!’ retorted the countess, eyeing her grandson sharply. ‘Your brother proved himself to be a weakling and, in the end, it appears that he took the coward’s way out, so let us have no more repining over the matter!’

‘Hold hard, Grandmama!’ protested Wyvern, altogether taken aback at the countess’s apparent lack of sympathy towards his late brother. ‘You can hardly expect me to agree with your view that Theo was a weakling. Any man might turn to drink after such a tragedy, especially if he holds himself responsible for the death of his family, as Theo clearly must have done—he was driving the carriage, after all! His suffering must have been very great—’

‘Pish and tush!’ interrupted his grandmother dismissively. ‘He is not the first person in the world to have been bereaved and left to get on with life—nor will he be the last! I would remind you, young man, that I myself was left a widow at no more than twenty-two when your grandfather was tossed from his horse and broke his neck. Did I fall into a decline and take to drink, I ask you?’

Since this was clearly a rhetorical question, Wyvern shook his head and did not reply, knowing from past experience that to interrupt his grandmother when she was in full flood was a pointless exercise.

‘No, I did not!’ she went on. ‘With an estate to run—as well as two young children to raise—I put aside my grief and tears, buckled down and got on with it, so please do not whimper to me about suffering. It is bad enough that your brother gave in to his demons, but to leave you to deal with the problems that he had created and then decided that he could not cope with, is simply the outside of enough!’

At her grandson’s continued silence, she tossed back the remains of her drink and gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Well, I have said my piece—you may get up and leave in a huff if you choose but, if you are the man that I take you for, you will pour us both another brandy and let us get down to the business of discussing how we may set about undoing the damage caused by Theodore’s lack of self-discipline!’

Loath as he was to agree with his grandmother’s harsh observations regarding his much-loved brother, Wyvern had to admit that she did, perhaps, have something of a point and if, in fact, the very perceptive old lady could come up with any useful ideas concerning the rescuing of Ashcroft Grange from its creditors, it would certainly be unwise of him to lock horns with her at this juncture.

‘I take it that we have no wealthy relatives of whose existence I have been previously unaware?’ he asked, as he refilled her glass and handed it to her, retrieving at the same time his brother’s note, which the countess had carelessly tossed on to the drum table beside her seat.

‘Sadly, no.’ She chuckled, relieved to see that she had not dented his good humour. ‘If your Aunt Fiona’s begging letters are anything to go by, her Irish earl has even less than we have! No, dear boy, it seems to me that what we could really do with at the moment is a rich heiress on the lookout for a peerage!’

Wyvern stiffened. ‘I had always supposed that I might have some little say in the matter of choosing a bride,’ he demurred.

She peered at him suspiciously. ‘You are not already promised, I trust?’

Regretfully setting aside the intrusive images regarding a certain little Parisian opera-dancer he had lately had in his keeping, Wyvern gave a short laugh.

‘No such thing, I assure you! However, to return to the point, I am inclined to think it that it is fairly unlikely that even the most pushing of mothers would be willing to marry her daughter off to an absolute “down-and-out”—belted earl or no!’

‘Nonsense, Benedict!’ chided his grandmother. ‘The Ashcroft name must still count for something in this country.’

‘Not if what Humphreys has told me is anything to go by,’ returned Wyvern bitterly.

‘How dare the man!’ exclaimed the countess, lifting her chin and drawing herself up to her full height. ‘What has he been saying?’

Wyvern shrugged. ‘Well, I certainly received the impression that the Ashcroft name alone no longer carries sufficient weight to get us any more credit with Coutts—Theo, apparently, having exhausted their goodwill! Fortunately, Humphreys has managed to persuade the partners not to press for immediate repayment. Unfortunately, there is still the matter of all the other creditors who, I have little doubt, will soon be baying at our door!’

Lady Lavinia sipped thoughtfully at her drink.

‘Then it is clear that we will need to make a push right away, my boy,’ she said, ‘before the upper echelons get wind of the full extent of your brother’s transgressions—they have been known to close ranks for far less serious demeanours!’

She paused, contemplating her grandson for a moment, then gave a decisive nod.

‘We must set about arranging a soirée!’

‘A soirée!’ replied Wyvern, considerably taken aback. ‘But we are in still in mourning!’

She shrugged. ‘We do not have the time to consider all the social niceties, my boy. I was not thinking of a huge affair—just a few close friends, perhaps—simply to announce our re-entry into society. As for suitable bride material, we could do worse than start with Eulalia Capstick—she has been out for a couple of years now and still no takers! Or, better still, what about Felicity Draycott?’