The Coral Strand Read online

  3

  The Coral Strand

  By Frances Murray

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE 3

  CHAPTER TWO 17

  CHAPTER THREE 78

  CHAPTER FOUR 90

  CHAPTER FIVE 105

  CHAPTER SIX 116

  CHAPTER SEVEN 128

  CHAPTER EIGHT 142

  CHAPTER NINE 187

  CHAPTER TEN 198

  CHAPTER ELEVEN 210

  CHAPTER TWELVE 224

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN 238

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN 252

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN 267

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN 280

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 294

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 309

  CHAPTER NINETEEN 324

  CHAPTER TWENTY 335

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE 349

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE 380

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR 396

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE 410

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX 425

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN 440

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT 456

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE 472

  Other books by the same author 480

  CHAPTER ONE

  Seachnaidh duin’ a bhràthair ach cha sheachain e choimh-earsnach.

  A man may do without a brother but not without a neighbour.

  Gaelic proverb.

  The otter cubs had made a slide on the muddy bank of the river: they hurtled down it with whistling cries of glee and splashed into the water where they dived and swam, gleaming silvery under the surface and seal-sleek when they came out. It seemed to make no difference which element they were in, they were as happy in one as in the other. The bitch-otter swam upstream, a trout in her mouth and the cubs converged upon her, leaving their sport. The bitch swam to a gravel spit and there they ate.

  The light died slowly in a glory of yellow which the water held and reflected long after the trees had lost their colour and the woods were dark. The otters, now only three dark shapes, slithered into the glowing water and were gone. From the alder-brake above the pool there came a slight stirring and a young gypsy dropped lightly down on to the bank.

  “Time to be a-goin’,” he said.

  Another much taller figure slid down from their ambush and came to his feet.

  “Such a splendid sight,” he said, “I’d not have missed it for the world.”

  “There’s badgers again, up to Oversetts,” said the gypsy. “Before long there’ll be cubs, I reckon. But mind you say no word, or the pit-folk’ll be up there with their dogs.”

  “I’ll say no word.”

  White teeth flashed in the dim light.

  “Trust ‘ee for that, I do. I’ll send word by my brother when they’re ready and runnin’.”

  They shook hands and the white teeth glinted again before the gypsy vanished soundlessly into the dusk along the river path. The tall young man set off in the opposite direction, uphill, towards the huge house which stood on the brow of a hill, surveying the low ground and the curve of the river. As he climbed, the yellow, bead-like gas lamps of Blackbourne became visible on his right. He thought as he always did when he reached that point that it was almost possible to see the town growing. Before long there would be houses and streets and gas-lamps right up to the very gates of the Abbey. Down by the river, the stark regularity of the pattern made by the five storeys of Wheadon’s Spinning Mill made the lamps and lights of the narrow streets all about it seem faint.

  ‘Night working,’ thought the tall young man. ‘Poor creatures.’

  Fainter and farther away he could see a long low pattern of rectangles which was Wallace’s Weaving Mill. Blackbourne was in full work, day and night shifts. The glow of light above the roofs, outlining the church spire, were the naphtha flares in the market place where the town’s merchants and shopkeepers were working late for their share of the prosperity. When the mills worked short time, the Tuesday stalls in the market were taken down long before sunset.

  Blackbourne Abbey loomed up in front of him as he emerged from the path on to the south drive. It was a vast rambling pile built by the first Earl of Blackbourne on the site of an Augustinian Abbey. His great grandson, the fourth earl had come back from the French wars and added an orangery in the classical style on the south side. In time, his son, the fifth Earl, who was more interested in agriculture than architecture had, under pressure from his wife, added a neat Gothick tower on to the west corner and at the same time built a luxurious stable-range according to the very latest principles of horse-manage. The sixth Earl had added nothing because he had been in the army when he came into his inheritance and died of fever on the road to Salamanca before he could come home to enjoy it. His brother, the seventh Earl had thrown out a bay window or so at the request of his wife, modernized the kitchens and engaged a Scotch gardener who reduced the pleasing ‘wild’ garden created in the mode of ‘Capability’ Brown to disciplined beds and borders. His son, the present Earl had not been at home long enough or often enough to find anything he wished to change. Now he was at home for good he was confined to his bed or a wheeled chair and had neither the money nor the inclination to set his mark upon the place; unless an air of neglect might be seen as his contribution.

  From the south there were no lighted windows to be seen. The young man strode over the uncut lawn and behind a screen of unclipped yews to the stables. There he saw a barouche pushed under the cover of the carriage house and an ill-matched pair of greys being unharnessed. A groom appeared carrying two buckets of water. He put one down to touch his cap.

  “Evening, Cottle, who’s come?”

  “Evenin’, m’lord. ‘Tis her Ladyship’s father come to stay the night.”

  In the light of the stable lamp the tall young man, Lord Edward Minetop, could be seen to be in his middle twenties. His hair was dark and in repose his expression was unsmiling, even harsh. He looked down at his clothes which were ancient and unkempt and made a face.

  “I’d best change,” he said and grinned fleetingly at Cottle who shook his head reprovingly.

  “You looks a right tatterdemalion, m’lord,” he agreed. ”And his lordship’s sent down twice to say you’re to go to the saloon so soon as you come in.”

  Cottle watched Lord Edward hurry under the stable arch towards the side door and then bent to pick up the bucket.

  ‘If t’was t’other young varmint I’d say he’d been after a skirt,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Not that un. Wonder where he goes, evenin’s, and what he gets up to?’

  A glimpse of Lord Edward’s journal would have enlightened him. It was a record of observations on the weather, and on birds, animals, plants and insects, written in a small legible script and enlivened with pen and ink sketches. This evening he looked longingly at it but hastened to change back into his evening clothes. His evening kit was shabby, worn and on the small side, displaying a glimpse of bony wrist and black-clad ankles.

  In the saloon, his father was waiting as elegant in his dress as he had ever been and sitting in his wheeled chair as if he had chosen to sit there and not been confined to it by paralysis. His face was sallow and seemed shrivelled and immobile, merely a frame for the deep-set dark eyes, eyes which seemed to have all his life concentrated in them as the river-water had drawn the last of the day to itself. Beside him sat Edward’s step-mother, Alexandrina, arrayed in wine-coloured silk, her mittened hands in her lap, her feet on a footstool and her greying blond hair covered by a lace cap. Standing by her side, an arm on the back of her chair was her son, Edward’s half-brother, Theodore. He was just eighteen, small and slender and handsome. It was possible to see in Theodore what Lord Blackbourne had once been. On the other side of the fireplace was his stepmother’s father, the Irchester attorney, a neat man, Danvers Dunne, a neat figure, a round smooth face, disciplined side-whiskers, neat unnoticeable clothes and an ability to merge with the wall-paper and collect indiscretions. Edward made a perfunctory bow in his direction.

  “I am sure I don’t know where you get to after dinner, Edward,” grumbled his father.

  “I went out for a time, down to the river,” Edward said and went to collect a cup of tea from his sister Jane, presiding over the tea urn in a corner. They exchanged smiles for she was privy to the journal.

  “See them?” she mouthed and Edward nodded.

  Cup in hand, Edward found a chair at a distance from the others.

  “Dunne has been kind enough to come at very short notice,” said Lord Blackbourne in the curious voice he had developed since his illness gained on him: it made Edward think of rotten wood, soft and yet thick and dense.

  “Pleasure, m’lord, always a pleasure.”

  “Small matter of business,” Blackbourne added and his eyes seemed to burn in the still face. “Glad if you attend us in the library before you go up, Edward. Dunne wants to be off first thing.”

  Edward’s face stiffened and he was aware of Theo’s smug stare.

  “Of course, sir”

  He knew at once why the attorney was there and his heart sank at what was to come.

  Afterwards in the library, among the mouldering unread books, he was presented with two papers, closely written in copperplate, and a new-sharpened pen, ready-dipped.

  “I need your signature,” said his father.

  “Here.... and here.”

  Dunne pointed at the ruled spaces with the feather of the pen and handed it to Edward. Edward deliberately laid it back in the standish, picked up the papers and began to read them. As he had been expecting ever since his comi
ng-of-age the previous month, he was being required to consent to the breaking of the entail: his father wished to sell a number of properties in Blackbourne as well as the contents of the oak box, known in the family as the Montagu Dower. He read to the end and laid the paper down.

  “No,” he said. “I cannot sign these.”

  His father’s eyes narrowed.

  “Do as you’re bid, boy. It’s all arranged. Dunne’s found us a buyer for the town properties and the Dower will go for auction. I don’t have to tell you that we need the money. Hurry up and sign, fool of a boy.”

  “No,” repeated Edward.

  “Why not?” demanded his father. “Who in hell’s name do you think you are? What do you know about our affairs?”

  “More than you think,” said Edward and heard the astonished silence that followed his remark. “Probably more than either of you would wish.”

  “Impertinent whippersnapper!” said his father. “Do as I say!”

  “No,” Edward said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I will have no say in how the money is spent....”

  “Why should you? I’m not under the sod yet!”

  “Also you still have unentailed resources to pay your debts....”

  Edward saw Danvers Dunne raise his head and exchange a look with his son-in-law.

  “And,” Edward continued, “because you’ve lit on the wrong property to sell, if sell you must.”

  “Insolent jackanapes!”

  “Had I gone into the army,” Edward mentioned, “or been permitted to go to Africa with Putnam....”

  “Young idiot. Wasn’t going to have you wasting your time in the cavalry or bug-hunting with some crazy explorer.”

  “No,” Edward agreed. “And the cost was more than you were prepared to pay. You made that clear at the time. However, I dislike having nothing to do and I have done what I could to learn about my inheritance.”

  There was no mistaking the quality of the silence which greeted this information.

  “Very creditable,” muttered Dunne.

  “Who from?” sneered his father, “not from me. Your distaste for my society is obvious.”

  “From Earnshaw,” Edward said quietly, ignoring the jibe.

  “Earnshaw! That doitered old fool! Much you’ll have learned from him.”

  Dunne nodded agreement with a pitying smile for youthful folly.

  “He is old,” Edward agreed, “but he is not senile and he has spent all his life here. I have learned a very great deal from him.”

  “Stuff!” exclaimed his father.

  “I have seen how every penny is squeezed out of the estate and nothing ever spent on it.”

  “Impertinent young pup! Hold your insolent tongue and sign this paper before I lose my patience with you altogether.”

  “ I have seen the leaking roofs,” Edward went on, “the short leases, the broken drains, the untended roads, the unmanaged timber and the falling rent-rolls.”

  He returned the inimical stare of the other two.

  “What’s more, I have learned about waste, and the penalties which may result from it.”

  There was a second of frozen silence.

  “The felling of Dunham Copse might be regarded as waste,” Edward suggested, “amongst some other matters. My lawyer....”

  He looked at the smooth countenance of Danvers Dunne.

  “.... my lawyer has an interest in such things.”

  “Dunne is your man-of-law as he is mine,” snapped his father, “what sort of talk is this?”

  “My man-of-law,” Edward remarked, “is also my friend.”

  “Are you threatening me, wretched boy?” demanded his father, still in that soft, rotten-wood voice, only his eyes able to express the anger which raged in him.

  “No, sir. Merely indicating that I am neither blind nor ignorant. And I will not break the entail.”

  “I am in debt, damn you. We are up to our necks in debt. I must have the money.”

  “Sell the London house,” said Edward. “That isn’t entailed. You don’t need my consent for that and it would fetch a pretty penny these days.”

  “Hunsford Square is settled on your step-mother,” observed Dunne. He did not add, what Edward also knew, that it had been the only unencumbered piece of property at the time of his daughter’s marriage to the Earl of Blackbourne.

  “”Perhaps she will sign a release at your request,” Edward suggested with a side-glance at Dunne who seemed not to like the notion.

  “Why won’t you sign?” his father growled angrily. “The town property brings in virtually nothing and the Dower lies in its box and collects dust.”

  “The property in Blackbourne is neglected and run down,” Edward admitted. “Nothing has been spent on it for years and of course the rents are low, when they are paid at all. But it is some time since you were in Blackbourne, father.”

  “What has that to say to anything?”

  “I was looking at the price you have been offered for it. It seems to me it does not reflect its value.”

  “A huddle of tumble-down cottages?”

  “They stand,” Edward said, and he was watching Dunne as he spoke, “just where Wallace wants to expand his mill. The houses are worth very little but the land they’re built on which is also part of the estate is worth a great deal more. The price hardly reflects this. Does it, Dunne?”

  The attorney’s face did not change by a hairsbreadth. Edward made a slight bow and went to the door. His hand was on the knob when his father’s voice recalled him.

  “For the last time, Edward, will you do the sensible thing and sign!”

  “No, sir.”

  “In that case, sirrah, let me tell you that you are a milksop, a sour-faced disloyal prig, a disobliging, canting hypocrite and you are no more fit to step into my shoes than a stable boy. You dress like a yokel and you talk like a parson....”

  “I speak as I think and I dress as my means allow me, sir,” Edward retorted.

  “If I could, I would disinherit you!”

  “This I know already. But, sir, you cannot and that being the case you cannot wonder that I want to save what remains of my inheritance from your...from your....”

  Edward stumbled to a halt, struck against his wish by the frailty of the figure in the wheeled chair.

  “Go on! Go on! Don’t spare me. What insult do you mean to hurl at me next? It’s easy enough to insult me now when I cannot reward you as you deserve with a sound thrashing!”

  Edward said nothing but stood with his hand on the doorknob.

  “You whining cur, how dare you set up your will against mine?”

  “I dare because I must,” Edward snapped, his temper flaring. “You may dislike having a prig for a son, do you think I care to have a profligate for a father? You have gone your length and beyond and now I must pay for your follies!”

  He turned and was about to go when his father spoke again.

  “If only Theo were the elder...I’d sell the eyes from my head to make him heir in your room.”

  It was suddenly borne in on Edward how Dunne was enjoying this exchange. His anger flared again.

  “Tell me, Dunne,” he asked, “were you the purchaser who was to make such a tidy profit at our expense?”

  The attorney’s expression did not change but colour spread treacherously over his neat, small features and Edward knew he had hit the target squarely in the gold. He laughed aloud and flung the door open and almost fell over Theodore.

  “Sneaking, little ape!” said Edward between his teeth, reverting to the language of the schoolroom. He took his half-brother by his collar and the seat of his breeches and flung him headlong at his father’s feet.

  “Here’s your preferred candidate,” he declared, “with his ear at the keyhole!”

  With that he shut the door on the trio and went upstairs.

  The release remained unsigned. How his father weathered that particular crisis, Edward did not enquire, nor did he much care. However, he became conscious that the hostility and contempt shown him by his father since his return from Oxford had hardened and curdled into something very close to hatred. He noticed also that Theodore was never short of money to spend. This was not a new phenomenon, Theodore had always managed to wheedle what he wanted from their father. His own allowance was rarely forthcoming, but that was nothing new either. What he did not at first understand was why he, himself, seemed beset by accidents.