A Woman's Life (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 14) Read online

  “Run away with me,” he said.

  She blinked.

  “Let’s run away and get married,” he repeated.

  Married. It wasn’t a shock to hear, but it still sounded dramatic and forbidden to her.

  “But we can’t. We can’t just go and…” She half believed it.

  “Of course we can. Who’s going to stop us?” He had a decided smile on his face.

  Stepping in closer, he reached for her hand. The feelings she sheltered for him charged through her.

  “Surely that would never change?” she thought.

  “See? You can’t give me a reason why we shouldn’t.”

  “My father…”

  “He loves you, I love you. He’ll understand.”

  She pulled away and sat down on her bed, weighed down by the burden he had just put on her shoulders.

  “But where will we go?”

  “I don’t know. Gretna Green?” He looked at her.

  “That’s so obvious.” She looked at the curved edge of her knees under her dress.

  “We’ll go wherever you want. How about Bath? You said you loved it there.”

  “Bath is beautiful.”

  “That’s where we’ll go then,” he said, somewhat insistent, somewhat desperate.

  “How will we get there?”

  “We’ll take the first train tomorrow morning.”

  She glanced at her watch. “It’s already tomorrow morning.”

  “Even better!” He glanced at the window. “Let’s find a cab to take us to the station. We’ll spend the rest of the night at The Red Lion, until it’s time to catch our train.”

  “And where will we stay in Bath?”

  “In a hotel. The best, most expensive hotel we can find.” He talked fast as if trying to catch a fleeting opportunity offered to him.

  She took in a deep breath and wrapped her cardigan around her. Made of pure merino wool, it was warm and carried the smell of her perfume. She thought about her mother upstairs, her father, lying immobilized in his bed. This late at night they were most likely sleeping thoughtlessly in their rooms. She feared their reaction. Eloping to get married wasn’t something that happened every day in the life of a young woman, who was already promised to someone else.

  Philip always told her she cared too much about what other people thought, but that didn’t dilute how she felt. She thrived on their late night meetings, crossing rooms, opening windows and using soft, secret knocks. She was as subtle and invisible as possible.

  “What happens next, when we get back,” she thought.

  It was the most important question and yet neither of them had even considered it. She shook her head and pushed it to the back of her mind.

  Her hands went up and touched the earrings that used to belong to her grandmother. She felt the lace shawl her mother had given her for her birthday one year. She felt a little sad about her and the predicament she had gotten herself in with him.

  An impatient move of the hand, told her he wished an answer and didn’t want to wait for it.

  “No!” she whispered.

  A traveler, who wanted to go from Nottingham to London by the shortest route, would find that the simplest way was to take a seat in the train and when he booked his place, the friendly hotel clerk told him that he had to take his seat punctually at six o’clock. The next morning, therefore, the traveler had to rise from his bed at an early hour and couldn’t complete his toilet and on arriving at the station, red faced and panting, he would discover that there was no reason for such hastiness.

  At the hotel everyone seemed to be asleep and a cleaner, whose eyes were hardly open, wandered lazily around. There would be not the faintest good in losing your temper or in pouring out a string of violent reproaches. In a small restaurant opposite the train station a cup of hot tea could be bought and it was there that the disappointed travelers congregated to await the hour, when the train really began its journey.

  At length all was ready, the conductor blew his whistle, the train driver pulled the levers, the train sprang forward, the wheels rattled and the train was off at last. Whilst the conductor smoked his cigar tranquilly, the passengers gazed out of the windows and admired the beautiful view of the surrounding countryside. As far as the eye could see on each side stretched woods and fields. The fields were full of game, which had increased hugely, as the owner of the property had never allowed a shot to be fired, since he had the misfortune, some twenty years before, to kill one of his guests whilst out shooting. On the right hand side some distance off was the huge country estate of Bletchley Manor. It was two years ago, since the Dowager Countess of Kidderminster died, leaving all her fortune to her niece, Miss Cora Bletchley. She had been a generous woman, rough and direct in her attitude, but very popular amongst the locals. Further away, on the top of a hill, was an imposing mansion. This was the old residence of the Lords of Swaffham. The left wing was in a dilapidated state. The roof had fallen in at places and the windows were dotted with a thick growth of clustering ivy. Rain, storm and sunshine had all done their work and painted the decaying walls with a hundred different colors. The inheritor of one of the most aristocratic names of England resided here with his only son. His name was Bartholomew Swaffham. He was looked on both by the privileged classes and locals of the country side as an eccentric individual. He could be seen any day wandering around, dressed in shabby clothes and wearing a coat that was frequently in urgent need of repair, an old hat on his head, leather boots and a thick oaken cane in his hand. In winter he added to these an old leather coat. He was seventy years of age, stocky built and possessing huge strength. The expression on his face showed that his will was as strong as his muscles. Beneath his shaggy eyebrows twinkled a pair of light-gray eyes, which darkened, when emotion overtook him and this was a usual occurrence.

  During his military career in the army of Her Majesty, he had received a knife cut across his cheek and the scar gave a strange and unpleasant expression to his face. He was not a bad man, but he was headstrong, violent to a degree. The tenants saluted him with a mixture of respect and dread as he walked with his son to church to which he was a regular attendant on Sundays. During the Mass he sang in an audible voice and at its conclusion invariably put a twenty shilling piece in the plate. This, his subscription to the newspaper and the sum he paid for being shaved twice each week, constituted all his spending on himself. He liked food though. Plump grouse and vegetables of all kinds were never absent from it. Everything that appeared on his table was the produce of his fields, gardens or woods. The privileged classes of the district frequently invited him to their parties, because they looked up at him as the bluest of bluebloods of the district, but he always refused their invitations, telling them frankly, “No man with the faintest respect for himself would accept hospitalities from another, which he wouldn’t be in a position to return.” It was not the grim hand of poverty that drove the lord to this exercise of severe austerity, because the income from his landholdings brought him in hundred and fifty thousand shilling every year and it was said that his stocks and bonds brought in as much too. That was the reason why he was looked on as a penny-pincher and greedy.

  His past to some degree offered an explanation of his character. Lord Swaffham had joined the army and during one campaign in the vast deserts of the Sudan, he had to live on one bottle of wine and one whole roasted turkey for three weeks after a disastrous campaign to dislodge the Mahdi’s forces from a border outpost near the Egyptian border. An implacable desire to live had helped him get through this predicament, where some of his comrades had simply given up and refused to walk on or had shot themselves. He came back to his native land after this ordeal and spent several years in London. At last he was put in possession of his ancestral domains by the death of his father. In his opinion, though, he was living in a state of complete poverty as compared to the huge incomes made by a new breed of Englishmen, who had risen up by the side of the old aristocracy, who made their fortunes in commerce, industry and banking. As he looked at the new order, he came up with an idea, to which he decided to devote what years were left to him. He had discovered a means by which he could restore the aristocratic house of Swaffham to all its former glory and position.

  “I can,” he said, “by living like a poor man and spending no money, triple my wealth in twenty years and if my son and my grandson follow my example, the house of Swaffham will again regain the proud position that it used to hold.”

  Faithful to this idea he married a young woman of aristocratic birth, but completely without beauty, though in possession of a large inheritance. Their union was very unhappy and many didn’t hesitate to accuse the lord of treating the young woman, who had brought her husband an income of eighty thousand shilling, harshly. They didn’t understand why she should be refused a new dress, when she needed one. After twelve months of loneliness and unhappiness, she gave birth to a son, who was named Philip and six months afterwards she died from a broken heart.

  The lord didn’t seem to care about his loss very deeply. The boy seemed to be of a strong and hardy constitution and his mother’s inheritance swelled the income of the Swaffham family. He made his loss the excuse for further reductions of spending.

  Philip was brought up exactly as a poor man’s son would have been. Every morning he went to work, carrying his day’s meals in a knapsack slung on his back. As he grew older, he was taught to sow
and reap, to estimate the value of a field of crop at a glance and to always drive a hard bargain.

  All went well, until the day, when Philip, who was eighteen at the time, accompanied his father to Nottingham for the first time. His father at last decided that he needed a more comprehensive experience of the world they were living in.

  Philip Swaffham looked fully twenty and was a handsome young man. The sun had given a bronzed hue to his features, which made him look even better. He had curly black hair and large blue eyes, which was the only visible trait he had inherited from his mother. He was uncultured and had been raised with such a rod of iron by his father that he had never been more than five miles from the Manor. His thoughts were contained by the limits of his hometown of Bourne on Trent, with its sixty houses, its town hall, its small church and river and to him it seemed a place full of noise and chaos. For more than a year young village women had glanced shyly at him, but he was far too naive to see this.

  At a very early hour in the morning they began their journey in an old automobile. Under the driver’s seat were small sacks, containing over forty thousand shilling in rent money. Philip had long wished to visit Nottingham, but had never done so. Nottingham was a quaint old city with dilapidated roads and gloomy houses, which had been built many centuries before. For Philip, however, it was one of the most exciting places he had ever seen. It was market day, when they drove in and he was completely astounded at the sight of it. He couldn’t believe there could be so many people in one place and he hardly noticed that the automobile had stopped opposite a solicitor’s office. His father shook him roughly by the shoulder.

  “Philip, my boy, we’re there,” he said.

  The young man jumped out of the car and helped mechanically to remove the sacks. He didn’t notice the attitude of the solicitor, nor did he listen to the conversation between him and his father. Finally, the business having been concluded, they took their leave and drove to the market place. They parked their car at an old hotel, where they took their breakfast in the restaurant at a table where the market traders were having a heated argument over their meal. The lord had other business to transact than the investment of his money. He wanted to find the whereabouts of a miller, who was in his debt. Philip waited for him in front of the hotel and couldn’t help feeling rather uncomfortable at finding himself alone. Someone came up and touched him lightly on the shoulder. He turned around quickly and found himself face to face with a young man, who, seeing his look of surprise, said, “What? Have you forgotten your good old friend Charles?”

  Charles was the son of one of his father’s tenants and he and Philip had often played together, when they were younger. They had driven their cows to the ponds together and had spent many days together fishing or hunting for rabbits. The clothes worn by Charles had at first prevented Philip from recognizing him. He was attired in the uniform of the college at which his father had placed him. His father hoped to make something more than a mere farmer out of his son.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Philip.

  “I’m waiting for my father.”

  “So am I. Let us have a cup of tea together.”

  Charles led his old friend into a small shop near at hand. He seemed to presume to have the superior knowledge of the world, which he had recently acquired.

  “If there was a billiard-table here,” Charles said, “we could wile away the time with a game, though, my word, it runs in money.”

  Philip never had more than a few pence in his pocket at one time and at this remark his face colored red and he felt humiliated.

  “My father,” added the young student, “gives me everything I ask for. I’m certain of getting one, if not two rewards at the next examination and when I’ve taken my degree, Count Bletchley has promised to help me find a position as a banker in London. What will you do with your life?”

  “I don’t know,” mumbled Philip.

  “You will, I suppose, toil in the fields, as your father has done before you. You’re the son of the most aristocratic and richest man for miles around and yet you’re not as lucky as I am.”

  On his return some time after this conversation, Lord Swaffham didn’t detect any change in his son’s attitude. The words spoken by Charles had, however, fallen into Philip’s mind like a virulent poison and a few careless sentences uttered by a selfish young man had destroyed the education of eighteen years and a complete change had taken place in Philip’s mind. It was a change, which he carefully hid from those around him, because his upbringing had taught him to keep his thoughts to himself.

  The fixed smile on his face entirely masked the furious feelings that were brewing in his heart. He completed his every day tasks, which had once been a source of pleasure to him, with increasing disgust and loathing. His eyes had been opened and he began to understand things, which he had never before even tried to understand. He felt that his proper position was among the aristocrats, whom he never saw except when they attended Mass at the little church in Bourne on Trent. Count Bletchley with his luxurious hair was so haughty and imposing. There was also the noble-looking Lord Worrall, of whom the villagers stood in the greatest awe, were always courteous and even cordial in their greetings, while the aristocratic dames smiled graciously at him. Proud and haughty as these men were, they always looked on his father and himself as their equals in spite of the old clothes they wore. The realization of these facts caused a change in Philip. He was the equal of these bluebloods and yet he was separated from them. While he and his father walked to Mass in muddy boots, the others drove up in their automobiles with liveried chauffeurs to open the doors.

  “Why this extraordinary difference?” he asked himself.

  He knew enough of the value of crops and land to know that his father was as rich as any of these gentlemen. The laborers on the farm said that his father was a penny-pincher and the villagers asserted that he spent his nights gazing with ecstasy at the gold coins that he had hidden away.

  “Philip is an unlucky young man,” the villagers would say. “He, who ought to be able to experience all the pleasures of life, is worse off than our own children.”

  He also remembered that one day, as his father was talking to Lord Worrall, his wife had said, “Poor boy! He was so early deprived of a mother’s care!”

  Philip began to think that it was a reflection on the cold behavior of his father. He saw that the others always had their children with them and the sight of this began to fill him with jealousy and brought tears of sadness to his eyes. When he trudged wearily behind his cows, goad in hand he would see some of these young scions of the aristocracy driving by on horseback and the friendly wave of the hand with which they greeted him seemed to his feverish mind a premeditated insult.

  To drink himself into a stupor offered no solace to him and yet this was the only pleasure, which the villagers seemed to delight in. He was decided to solve the riddle of his unhappiness. He arrived at the conclusion that he hated his father with a cold and decided loathing. Had he dared, he would have shown this feeling openly, but Lord Swaffham inspired him with an unyielding feeling of fear. These feelings continued for some months.

  One Sunday, after supper, the lord at last felt that it was time for him to make his son acquainted with his plans. Philip had never seen his father as energetic as he was at that moment, when all his family pride showed in his eyes. He explained at length the actions and deeds of those heroes, who had been the pride of their family and spoke of the influential marriages, which they had been able to arrange in the days, when their family name was a power in the whole of England.

  “Nothing has stayed of our power and rank, except for our house in London, these estates and a meagre three hundred thousand shilling of income?” said his father angrily.

  Philip could hardly understand what he heard. He had never known that his father was in possession of such huge wealth. And yet, as he looked around, he saw that his surroundings were those of a poor man’s home. In his anger he sprang to his feet with the intention of reproaching his father about his lies, but his courage failed him and he fell back in a chair, shaking with emotion.

  Lord Swaffham was pacing up and down the room.

  “You think it amounts to anything?” he asked angrily.