You may have noted that in all my maunderings of yesterday, I did not mention Georgy’s poetry or the odd way in which Daniel vanished from Haliwar Tower. I confess that they had quite slipped my mind, but no longer.
When James returned from Leeds today, he brought with him several letters that had not been sent on from the inn there. Three of them were for me, all from Aunt Charlotte. The first had been sent from the watering hole where she has been staying, and you may easily guess its contents. Just as we feared, she has discovered Georgy’s book of verses and guessed the authoress, and she was in even more of a taking than I had anticipated she would be. I am able to report this with equanimity only because in her agitation, she crossed and recrossed her lines, making her letter all but completely illegible.
Both of the other letters were written in Leeds, in a somewhat more temperate (and hence more readable) fashion. It is a wonder she did not meet James in the street while he was there; the final one was dated only yesterday. And the reason she is in Leeds is that she has, through her various connections, traced Daniel there. I was quite wrong to think that she would come directly to Skeynes to blame you for Georgy’s behavior. No, she is evidently well aware that she cannot hold a mere marchioness responsible for the behavior of Her Grace, the Duchess of Waltham, however much she would like to do so.
Since Georgy’s behavior is quite beyond the bounds of what is acceptable in Polite Society, and since Aunt Charlotte must hold someone to blame, she has settled on Daniel, who, as Georgy’s husband, ought to have controlled her better. (I think this is quite unjust of Aunt Charlotte. She never controlled Georgy’s flights when she was the one responsible for rearing you both, and since it is plain enough that she would never own herself inferior to anyone less exalted than a royal duke, I cannot see why she thinks Daniel should have any better success than she did.)
I do not know how she discovered that Daniel had gone to Leeds, nor how she learned that we were there and had dined with him some weeks ago. Still, she did it. Much of her final letter was taken up with scolding me for not sending Daniel in pursuit of his errant wife, with a fine disregard for the fact that at the time, none of us knew or even suspected that Georgy had been erring.
But the worst of it is that she has very nearly tracked Daniel to Haliwar Tower—“He went off to a house party near Stockton with some jumped-up northern Cit” is the way she put it (not without some justice, though how she managed to obtain such an accurate character of Mr. Ramsey Webb, I cannot imagine)—and she proposes to follow him, find him, and confront him there! “Since none of the rest of you appears to have any Notion what is Due to the Family,” if you please!
James is quite put out, as the information he gained at Leeds indicates that the Webbs may well be deeply involved in this railroad business, and he is most anxious that they not be warned or set on edge before he can get at them again. Since Aunt Charlotte is certain to set anyone on edge, we are going back to Stockton tomorrow to find and stop her. Poor James is growing quite tired of all this gadding about, but at least we shall not need to move our entire establishment this time. It will only be an overnight trip, so our trunks may stay here at Wardhill. (Walker, needless to say, comes with me.)
Your much-traveled,
Cecy