Page 71 of The Marchioness Who Tempted Fate
“He sounds like a kindly master.”
“Oh, he was all of that. He earned his knighthood, after all. But he wasn’t perfect. Far from.”
“How so?”
“Well, he doted on his oldest, and ignored the younger two. When his second son up and married a blacksmith’s daughter, he disinherited him. Nothing to stop him from it. The estate wasn’t entailed. He bought it.”
“Interesting,” Tiffany said. “But what happened to the sons?”
“Well, the oldest went for a soldier. The second tried to go into trade. The third disappeared, along about the time that Sir James and Lady Ann tuck sick an’ died. So that left the second as the rightful heir. But when the time came, no one could find him No one seemed to rightly know where either of the younger boys could be found.”
“You seem to know a lot,” Tiffany said. “So how is it that you and the others moved into the manor?”
“Well, you see, here is the thing. We never moved out.”
“Oh.” Tiffany thought about that a minute. “O-oh!” She drew the word out into two syllables. “You were the staff that was left behind?”
“That we were. Sir James was a frugal man, so’s there weren’t any debtors come to collect, an’ somehow the taxes have been paid every year. Even though the house seems about to tumble around our ears.”
“Taxes paid somehow…” Tiffany fixed her gaze on Old Elizabet’s face. “Oh, you clever thing, you! But what if the son is found?”
“Well, then, we’ll have a lord and an employer again, now won’t we? In the meantime, Constable Brooks helps us out. He acts as our agent, making sure the taxes are paid. Meanwhile, he keeps looking for the heirs.”
“How very odd to be waiting for someone who never comes home,” Tiffany remarked.
“It is all of that,” Old Elizabet said. “It is even stranger than you might believe.”
“After the raid by the Watch, will you be able to go back?”
“We are already back,” Old Elizabet grinned, showing a mouthful of blackened, stumpy teeth. “What the regular Watch don’t know won’t hurt either of us. They didn’t find anything or anyone they wuz lookin’ for. But this place we keep close. Wouldn’t do to let ‘em know about it, since this is where we bring the people who would be in the most trouble if they were to be found.”
“I guess not,” Tiffany said thoughtfully. “But Constable Brooks knows.”
“Oh, Constable Brooks. He’s a downy one. He knows more’n a goose in autumn which way the wind will blow. He’s doin’ some deep thinkin’ now, I do believe. Time will come, he’ll let us know what’s in his head.”
“But you know some of it.”
“Well, now, Miss Tiffany, there’s a time to know, an’ a time to keep mum. I have some thinkin’ goin’ on. But I’m not rightly sure of what I’m thinkin’. So’s best not say until I’m sure.”
“Well.” Tiffany drew a deep breath. “What shall we do now?”
“I believe we’ll let that fine young fellow who has been hanging about the corner of the chimney bank the fire, an’ we’ll go down an’ see how Mrs. Bentley is coming along.”
Mrs. Bentley was sleeping peacefully, a light perspiration beading on her forehead.
“Ah, now that’s the thing,” Old Elizabet said. “She should be past the worst of the poppy sickness now. So you can rest easy on that point.”
“She is so terribly thin, and she looks so much older and smaller than I remember her,” Tiffany said.
“Mayhap you’ve grown a bit,” Old Elizabet suggested. “An’ people do get older.”
“I suppose so. She doesn’t seem nearly as terrible as I remember her.”
“An’ that might have to do with you gettin’ older and becomin’ sure of yourself. She was plenty ready to take you on yester e’en.”
“Yes, very much like old times that was. I’m not sure how I feel about meeting her again. I didn’t want her to suffer, but I’d had about all I could take. Continuing to live with her was impossible.”
“You were young, and she was in the depths of her grief. Then, she was slipping over into madness. She might go that way yet. We’ll have to see how she is when she wakes. Opium does odd things to people, and those who take refuge in it can have a hard time knowing what is real and what is not.”
