Read Online The Penny Heart by Martine Bailey - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Martine Bailey
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be put in order, yes, Miss Moore. With a little plain dealing.’
Our landlord had once been a carpenter, before shrewd use of his small capital had allowed him to buy and put to rent a number of properties in the town. Once he had been Father’s customer too, and it was a credit to the man that he still tipped his hat in greeting, where many now cut him dead. I had not forgotten that it was thanks to Mr Croxon that we stayed on at Palatine House, for without his having made an arrangement with Father, we might have been turned out by bailiffs.
He strolled past me and pulled up a chair beside my father. I listened at the door as they talked of news from France. Some dreadful machine had been invented to decapitate the French nobility, Mr Croxon recalled with some glee. ‘Had enough of French Liberty yet, eh, Moore?’ My father mumbled in reply; the fire for reform was dying within him. Like many Britons we had rejoiced at the Bastille’s fall, but now read each news despatch with horror.
There could not have been a greater contrast between the two men: Mr Croxon smooth-faced and lively in his brass-buttoned coat and boots polished like glass, while Father looked a slovenly wreck, and no credit to my hours of laundering. As to the house – I did my best to keep up the old grandeur, but the tell-tale signs of a drunkard abounded, in stains on the carpet and a high smell of spirits.
‘Right, to business. You back to your full senses yet, Moore?’
‘Fetch some ale,’ Father barked. I brought it in, muttering an apology to Mr Croxon, and retreated. The two men grimaced as they supped. Well, I could not brew a miracle from stale alewort, which was all Father would pay for. But soon curiosity drew me back to the kitchen door.
‘What her grandmother were thinking, to settle it on our Grace, the Lord only knows,’ Father grumbled. ‘I should have taken that will to law, I should. The old woman must have been crazed to leave it to her and not me, her own son-in-law. As for the terms of her damned will, what’s the use of land you cannot sell? She be laughing from her grave, I reckon.’
‘Aye, she be that.’ Mr Croxon’s wry amusement was lost on my father.
I recollected that a letter, bearing a beautiful black seal, had arrived some days earlier; but my father had hidden it from me. So here was news – my grandmother was dead. She and my father had been at loggerheads all my life, forcing an estrangement from my mother and me.
‘The tight-fisted bitch must have been crack-headed.’
‘Maybe, maybe not.’ Mr Croxon paused, collecting his thoughts. ‘I could barely make sense of your jabbering last night. So what do the terms say precisely?’
‘It’s Grace’s land to keep. I cannot even build on it. I could have got a thousand pound—’
I held my breath. The truth was, I knew nothing of the details of my mysterious prospects. Though sneering hints of it had haunted my youth, until that day I had only the haziest notion of what it comprised. I listened hard and understood it was a thousand acres beside a river in Whitelow, in Yorkshire’s West Riding. It had been my grandmother’s from when she was widowed, since which time she had only collected rents from the farmers who lived on it and loosed their cattle on its pastures.
‘Aye, but what can Grace do with it? Can she build on it?’
‘Grace can. But I’m forbid from being a partner. It’s a pig in a poke.’
‘So who can Grace be partner to?’
‘I cannot partner her. Nor any person “of my association”,’ Father said in a mocking, gentrified tone. ‘Tully, her pettifogging lawyer, threatened me. Said if I tried to fangle it he’d find me out soon enough. Damn his lawyer’s tongue!’
‘Grace’s husband, perhaps?’
‘Well, you can’t marry her. Your missus wouldn’t let you.’
‘Not me, you daft lummocks. But I’ve got sons – a son. Michael. My elder lad.’
As I listened, the room seemed to move like water around
Our landlord had once been a carpenter, before shrewd use of his small capital had allowed him to buy and put to rent a number of properties in the town. Once he had been Father’s customer too, and it was a credit to the man that he still tipped his hat in greeting, where many now cut him dead. I had not forgotten that it was thanks to Mr Croxon that we stayed on at Palatine House, for without his having made an arrangement with Father, we might have been turned out by bailiffs.
He strolled past me and pulled up a chair beside my father. I listened at the door as they talked of news from France. Some dreadful machine had been invented to decapitate the French nobility, Mr Croxon recalled with some glee. ‘Had enough of French Liberty yet, eh, Moore?’ My father mumbled in reply; the fire for reform was dying within him. Like many Britons we had rejoiced at the Bastille’s fall, but now read each news despatch with horror.
There could not have been a greater contrast between the two men: Mr Croxon smooth-faced and lively in his brass-buttoned coat and boots polished like glass, while Father looked a slovenly wreck, and no credit to my hours of laundering. As to the house – I did my best to keep up the old grandeur, but the tell-tale signs of a drunkard abounded, in stains on the carpet and a high smell of spirits.
‘Right, to business. You back to your full senses yet, Moore?’
‘Fetch some ale,’ Father barked. I brought it in, muttering an apology to Mr Croxon, and retreated. The two men grimaced as they supped. Well, I could not brew a miracle from stale alewort, which was all Father would pay for. But soon curiosity drew me back to the kitchen door.
‘What her grandmother were thinking, to settle it on our Grace, the Lord only knows,’ Father grumbled. ‘I should have taken that will to law, I should. The old woman must have been crazed to leave it to her and not me, her own son-in-law. As for the terms of her damned will, what’s the use of land you cannot sell? She be laughing from her grave, I reckon.’
‘Aye, she be that.’ Mr Croxon’s wry amusement was lost on my father.
I recollected that a letter, bearing a beautiful black seal, had arrived some days earlier; but my father had hidden it from me. So here was news – my grandmother was dead. She and my father had been at loggerheads all my life, forcing an estrangement from my mother and me.
‘The tight-fisted bitch must have been crack-headed.’
‘Maybe, maybe not.’ Mr Croxon paused, collecting his thoughts. ‘I could barely make sense of your jabbering last night. So what do the terms say precisely?’
‘It’s Grace’s land to keep. I cannot even build on it. I could have got a thousand pound—’
I held my breath. The truth was, I knew nothing of the details of my mysterious prospects. Though sneering hints of it had haunted my youth, until that day I had only the haziest notion of what it comprised. I listened hard and understood it was a thousand acres beside a river in Whitelow, in Yorkshire’s West Riding. It had been my grandmother’s from when she was widowed, since which time she had only collected rents from the farmers who lived on it and loosed their cattle on its pastures.
‘Aye, but what can Grace do with it? Can she build on it?’
‘Grace can. But I’m forbid from being a partner. It’s a pig in a poke.’
‘So who can Grace be partner to?’
‘I cannot partner her. Nor any person “of my association”,’ Father said in a mocking, gentrified tone. ‘Tully, her pettifogging lawyer, threatened me. Said if I tried to fangle it he’d find me out soon enough. Damn his lawyer’s tongue!’
‘Grace’s husband, perhaps?’
‘Well, you can’t marry her. Your missus wouldn’t let you.’
‘Not me, you daft lummocks. But I’ve got sons – a son. Michael. My elder lad.’
As I listened, the room seemed to move like water around
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