Christmas Eve arrived and they all set off for Bretford House, well wrapped up against the cold. Their procession was a lengthy one, for it included most of Martin’s family, except the kitchen staff, the gardeners, his steward, and the guards whom he had hired to protect Saxon Hall, but also five more sturdy fellows who would do the same duty for his father’s home while they were there.
The only thing which reconciled him to spending Christmas with his father was his desire to discover what had prompted his invitation. After a slow journey they arrived at the house to find no one waiting for them, and only a bemused footman to answer the door.
The moment that they all streamed into the house after the footman, Martin knew that something was wrong. It was extremely cold in the entrance hall, and the withdrawing-room, when they were shown into it, was no warmer and strangely dingy. A small fire, only recently lit, was sputtering in the hearth. A scuttle beside it was empty of coals.
‘Master Gordon, m’lord’s secretary, will attend to you in a moment,’ they were informed. ‘He is at present with m’lord in his bedchamber.’
It seemed quite plain that their arrival was not expected.
They all stared at one another. Kate thought that her second introduction to Bretford House was even odder than the first. The room was so chilly that she began to shiver. Martin, asked, ‘Do you know this Gordon fellow, Webster?’
Webster shook his head. ‘I have heard of him. He took the post which I left when I joined your family.’ He hesitated. ‘I do not wish to offer you a hasty judgement, but his reputation is not of the best.’
Time passed and the secretary did not arrive. Martin walked over to the bell and pulled it savagely. The footman entered. He still looked bemused.
‘Inform the butler immediately that the fire needs more coal—you may take the scuttle with you when you leave.’
The footman picked up the scuttle, and said, ‘Begging your pardon, m’lord, but the butler left to go to another household a week ago and he has not yet been replaced. I will fetch some coals for you myself.’
‘No butler,’ said Jacko, ‘and, it seems, no secretary who cares to attend on us, either.’ To Aunt Jocasta he said, consolingly, ‘Put your furs back on, mistress, you’ll need them in here. Let me help you.’
‘What the hell is going on?’ exclaimed Martin violently. ‘I will go upstairs at once and try to discover what in the world has reduced Bretford House to such a state.’ And he made for the door—to have it opened before he reached it.
The man who entered said smoothly, ‘Forgive me for not offering you a formal welcome, but I was not aware that you were arriving today. I was attending on Lord Bretford in his bedchamber. He had been taken a little more ill than usual and I felt that it was my duty to care for him. I am James Gordon, his secretary and general factotum. What may I do for you?’
Martin stared at him, at his courtier-like clothing, at his lantern-jawed face and his general air of being in charge—but of what? Certainly not this uncared-for house, which was obviously quite unprepared to entertain a large party over Christmas.
‘I am not in the least disturbed by not being offered a formal welcome, but I am by the state in which I find my father’s home. Dirty, a dearth of servants and deathly cold. Pray take me to his room at once. I wish to speak to him.’
‘Oh, I am not sure that that would be wise. Better to wait a little.’ The secretary was even smoother when he came out with this.
Martin swung round and shouted, in his best quarter-deck voice, ‘Jacko, please remove this fellow from my sight. Take him to the library and guard him there until I return to interview him and decide whether or not to throw him into the Strand—or the Thames, if I feel so inclined.’
‘A pleasure,’ grinned Jacko, showing his teeth. Grabbing Gordon by the shoulder, he bellowed, ‘Let’s be having you,’ and marched him away, his prisoner protesting loudly the while.
Rapidly running up the stairs, Martin was not quite sure why he was feeling so angry. After all, it was only his unfeeling father who was being mishandled, and why should he object to that? He entered his bedchamber to find him wasted, and grey in the face. He was leaning back on his pillows, breathing heavily. The room was nearly as cold and grimy as those downstairs. The bed-linen, like his nightshirt, was grey.
His father stared at him. ‘You came,’ he said feebly.
‘As you invited me, yes.’
‘I thought that you might not.’
‘I always keep my word. It seems, however, that we were not expected—nothing has been made ready and the house is untended and neglected.’
Martin could scarcely conceal his shock at the sight of his father. He had always remembered him as a big man, sturdy and dominant, bellowing with anger at his younger son’s supposed misdeeds. Now his frailty was so great that it seemed that he might not have long to live.
‘If you intend to remain here for Christmas—and I hope that you will—perhaps you could help me to rid myself of that fellow Gordon, who has taken over my life. When he first came here, I thought him a blessing, but now I think of him as a curse. He has dismissed most of my servants, and refused to send for a physician. He says that I do not need one because he will look after me…’
He began to cough helplessly. There was a pitcher of water on his bedside table. Martin poured a draught into a mug and held it to his father’s lips so that, after a moment, the coughing ceased.
‘I think,’ his father said, ‘that when I am safely dead, he will loot the house of its treasures and all the money I keep here. He did not know that you were coming because I did not tell him that I had invited you for Christmas. I sent my letter to you by the butler without his knowledge and kept your reply secret from him. He dismissed the butler last week—for being insolent, he said. My valet was dismissed long ago.’
‘If you will give me permission, sir,’ Martin said—he could not yet call the old man father, ‘I will mend matters here at once. First, though, I shall send for a physician, servants to build you a proper fire, and change your bedding and night clothes. How long have you been at his mercy?’
‘Since Lord Clifton left. He was all that was proper until then.’
‘I will have to leave you now,’ Martin said, ‘to set all this in train. Is Mistress Cray, the housekeeper, still with you?’
‘Yes, but she has been sent to work in the kitchens. He appointed a new one whom I have never seen.’
Then he said, inconsequentially, ‘I’m very hungry.’
‘I fear we must wait for the physician before you eat,’ Martin told him, before leaving. ‘If Mistress Cray is still with us, I will send her up to you, for you ought not to be left alone.’
He ran downstairs and rapped on the housekeeper’s door. It was opened by a tall buxom woman, well-dressed, with a knowing face.
‘And who might you be?’ she demanded.
‘I might ask the same of you. I am Lord Hadleigh, your employer’s son.’ And he pushed past her into the first warm room in the house. A sumptuous meal for two persons, which included sack and fresh white bread, was set out on the table.
‘I am Mistress Joanna Banks, housekeeper here.’
‘Housekeeper no longer, Mistress Banks, and before I hand you your notice you must tell me where I may find Mistress Cray.’
‘Cray? You mean Cray,’ she replied insolently. ‘She’s in the kitchen, of course. And who are you to give me notice? I was employed by Master Gordon and only he can dismiss me.’
‘You mistake,’ Martin told her, without raising his voice. ‘Since you are, I suppose, Gordon’s doxy, you may join him in the library and wait to be turned off—unless I choose to send for the constables.’
He seized her by the arm—and well-built though she was, she could not resist him—and ran her down the corridor until he reached the library where Jacko, and one of the guards he had brought with him, were keeping Gordon prisoner.
‘Here’s his light of love and accomplice,’ said Martin. ‘You may look after her as well. She and he seem to be the only people in this house who are warm and well-fed.’
‘We can soon remedy that,’ grinned Jacko.
‘True,’ said Martin. ‘Take the pair of them to the guardroom by the front door and lock them in. They’re not to be fed, or released, until I decide what to do with them. No candles are to be put in there, either. As I remember it there isn’t a window.’
The housekeeper set up a wailing protest against his cruelty.
‘Why, madam, I do but follow your example—what more can I say than that?’
Now to find Rafe. He and Webster were building a large fire in the withdrawing-room. Candles had been lit, since the day was dark, and the footman was busy obeying them, a sullen look on his face. It seemed that he had not been working either. Kate and Aunt Jocasta were busily tidying the unkempt room.
‘Rafe, I want you to find the nearest physician and bring him here as quickly as possible. If he demurs—then you know what to do?’
‘And I,’ said Webster, rising from his knees now that the fire was going well. ‘What am I to do?’
‘Visit the office off the library and go through my father’s records there. Try to ferret out what Gordon has been doing. I’m sure that he’s been swindling the estate. Among other things, he’s almost certainly been pocketing the wages previously paid to the servants he has dismissed. I don’t think that my father is aware of the extent of his villainy.’
‘So noted,’ grinned Webster, off to have some fun with the Bretford ledgers.
After reassuring Kate and a bemused Aunt Jocasta that all was well, or would be in a short time, Martin set off to find Mistress Cray. She, and only three other servants, were in the kitchen, eating a meagre meal.
‘God bless you, Master Martin. I knew if you discovered what that villain Gordon has been doing, you’d come and stop him. It’s the only reason I stayed here. They wouldn’t let me go near your father.’ They, no doubt, being Banks and Gordon.
‘Well, you may visit him now. I would like you to look after him until we can hire a nurse once the physician has seen him. In his present condition he shouldn’t be left alone. You can then take over as housekeeper again.’
Mistress Cray rose, and to his astonishment stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. ‘You’re a good man, Martin Chancellor, and your pa doesn’t deserve you. Bless you for coming to care for him after all he did to you.’
What next? When Rafe returned with the physician he must send him with orders to transport most of the staff at Saxon Hall to Bretford House, leaving only a small one there. From what he had seen on his rapid tour of the place, a large and competent staff would be needed to restore it to its former glory.
By nightfall the physician had been and treated his father. Later he sent along two nurses to look after the old man. Rafe had brought back with him enough staff from Saxon Hall to keep the house going until the next day—the rest were to come along on the morrow—with extra supplies of food. Webster had untangled the Bretford finances so that Martin could finally confront the guilty pair with their villainy.
Several hours in the dark in the guardroom had stripped them of all their impudence. Released, and confronted by a grim Martin, they agreed, unwillingly, to allow their belongings to be searched. Among them were discovered many of the valuables which they had hidden away—presumably to sell. Not only that, a deal of money was recovered, which they had received from the sale of other precious objects which they had already stolen and sold, together with Gordon’s profits from his swindling of the Bretford estate.
Thus having rendered the conspirators penniless, Martin did not send for the constables, but allowed them to collect their clothing and leave.
‘And if I hear that either of you is engaged in this kind of villainy again, I’ll make sure that next time you’ll swing,’ were his parting words. ‘My friend, Jacko, will keep an eye on you in future.’
Later, after enjoying a good supper in a house which was rapidly growing warmer, Martin and Kate were about to go to bed when Mistress Cray came in. ‘Your father is asking for you, Master Martin—I mean m’lord. He grew agitated when I advised him to wait until morning.’
‘You may call me Master Martin as often as you wish—and I will visit him immediately. Now that he has two nurses you ought to try to rest yourself.’
‘I will that, Master Martin.’
He turned to Kate, saying, ‘You may either wait for me here, or retire to bed. It is as you please.’
Kate’s smile for him was a saucy one. ‘Oh, bed, I think—we are all in need of it after a long and hard day.’
‘Be off with you then,’ he said, giving her a loving smack on her well-padded rear. ‘I shall try not to be too long.’
He found his father sitting up in bed again. Mistress Cray had made him lie down until the physician had seen him. He did not look quite so ill, and one of the nurses was taking away a tray of food. The other was in the anteroom, where a makeshift bed had been set up for her.
‘You look tired,’ were his first words to Martin.
‘But not so tired as you, sir. Mistress Cray said that you wished to see me.’
‘Indeed, there is something which weighs heavily on my mind.’
He stopped and sighed, as though saying the words were almost too great a burden for him. Martin remained silent and waited for him to go on.
‘I know that I misjudged you when you were a boy. Your mother was never strong, and when she died after your birth…God forgive me, but I could not but think that, had there been only one child, she would have lived. I felt such anger against you—and I dealt with you cruelly, especially when I learned of your many sins. And now I learn I was mistaken. Documents have recently come to my hand which reveal that the misdeeds for which you were punished were committed by your brother John. Not only that, but later he led a life which I can only consider wicked, and for which, in the end, God punished him by inflicting on him the Great Pox. I cannot ask you to forgive the cruel way in which I treated you, since I do not deserve it. I may only ask it from God, who is the last, great judge of all men.
‘I shall quite understand if, having heard this, you do not wish to remain at Bretford House with me. Furthermore, since, despite everything, you have saved me from Gordon and his light of love’s persecution, my remorse has become the greater. I do not deserve your care, nor you.’
Martin said nothing immediately. Ever since he had fled Bretford House he had waited for his revenge: for the day to come when he could throw in his father’s face the facts of his innocence, and then leave him, and Bretford House—for ever this time. That day had arrived, and the anger which had sustained him during the years in which he had created a successful life for himself had suddenly leached out of him. He thought that he knew why.
‘Forgive me, father,’ he asked, ‘if I ask you a question before I answer you.’
Puzzled, his father replied, ‘You may ask as many questions of me as you please. It is your due.’
‘Only one: it is this. Did you ever know a man called Bevis Frampton?’
His father’s face cleared. ‘Frampton? Oh yes, I knew him. We were part of a group of young men who came upon the town together, long ago. We thought him a joke, a regular figure of fun. I remember that fellow creeping around after your mother, before we were married, staring at her and making her uncomfortable. He was a friendless creature, and no wonder. Why do you wish to know?’
Could that be the explanation? Bevis Frampton had carried his resentment against Martin’s father and his mother into old age, allowing it to fester and corrupt his whole life. By killing him and John he was paying the Chancellors back for the pain he had suffered in his youth.
And what of himself? He would be little better than Frampton, if he allowed what had been done to him in youth to affect his behaviour in maturity so that he rejected his dying father, who had, mistakenly, treated him so cruelly. More than that—was he not allowing his unhappiness over Mary and his child’s sudden death to cast a cloud over his marriage to Kate?
The past was dead. It could not be changed, but it ought not to be allowed to live on to sour the present.
He leaned forward and took his father’s hand. The old man was looking anxiously at him, doubtless awaiting the storm of anger which Martin would have unleashed on him before maturity had taught him the pointlessness of such a revenge. Besides, strangely enough, it was he who had benefited by being rejected and John, the favoured son, who had been ruined by his father’s indulgent treatment of him.
Instead Martin, his face and voice as grave as he could make them, replied with, ‘All I need to say now is that I know Bevis Frampton to be a vindictive wretch. For the moment, let us forget him. To answer your question, I will, as best as I can, look after you in your old age. You are my father and you gave me life. What happened between us in the past is dead and gone; let us forget that, as well.’
Two tears rolled down his father’s face. He pressed the hand which had taken his. ‘You will stay with me then?’
‘Yes, particularly since when I informed the physician that I wished to take you to Saxon Hall he advised against it, saying that that it would be dangerous to move you. So, if you are agreeable I, my wife and my staff will remain here until you are fit to be conveyed to my home.’
His father said in a low voice. ‘I think that I could sleep now. I have not been able to do so since those documents were sent to me by I know not who. They are in the chest over there. Take them and read them.’
Martin rose and walked over to the chest. He took out the papers which he found there. He examined them briefly before saying, ‘I have no mind to read them. I meant what I said when I told you that the past was dead. With your permission I will destroy them and allow no one but ourselves—and whoever sent you these—to be the only witnesses of my brother’s perfidy.’
‘There is a good fire over there,’ said his father and Martin tossed the documents in and watched them burn. He thought that he knew who had ferreted out the truth and sent the proof of it to his father, but he would never speak of it to him—for that might revive the dead past. He would express his gratitude in other ways, for Webster had made him part of the Chancellor family again.
‘How did you find Lord Bretford?’ Kate asked him, when he came to bed. She had worried a little about what might have been said or done during the interview with his father. Martin had seemed so much happier lately that she did not want him to be disturbed or distressed by having to relive his unhappy youth.
‘Better,’ he said briefly. ‘We had a short talk about Gordon’s wickedness, after which we agreed that, since the past is dead and gone, it ought to remain so. He is my father again and I am his son. We are all to stay at Bretford House until the physician decides that we may take him home to Saxon Hall, where we shall be able to protect him from predators like Gordon and his mistress.’
Kate sat sharply up in bed, her whole face aglow. ‘Oh, I am so pleased for you, and for him. It could not be right that you should be estranged.’
‘No, and since he has admitted that he misjudged me I can let the past go. It must not spoil the present.’
He nearly marred this pretty speech by adding, ‘Oh, and by the by, I love you,’ but he thought that his change of heart was too great and too important for him to tell her, in passing, as it were. The day had been a long one, and they could celebrate their mutual passion tonight, without words: those could come on the morrow.
After all, Christmas Day was a time of celebration, and this year his celebrations would be the most important since he had fled the home where he was now truly welcome again.