She began to write quickly, while John and Bessie stood by, trying to mask their curiosity. At last she was finished, and she asked them both to sign. John Tremayne was illiterate and made his mark. Bessie had been educated at a dame school, and her bold, quick eyes traveled rapidly down the page before she signed.
Then she helped Mrs. Palfrey back to bed and left the room with John Tremayne.
When the servants had reached the stair landing, John asked, “What was that all about, Bessie? Was it her will?”
Bessie hesitated. It was a great secret, that will; a rare secret. She decided to hug the knowledge to herself. The housekeeper, Mrs. Jessop, was always sneering at her. It would be nice after Madam died to startle the servants hall by saying that she, Bessie, had been witness to the will that was driving Mr. Palfrey mad with rage.
“Dunno,” she said laconically. “Warn't time. I just signed my name without reading it.”
“Well, I hope there's something in there for Miss Felicity,” said John. “Give us a kiss, Bessie. No one's around.”
Bessie giggled and kissed him on the lips, privately thinking that John Tremayne was a bit of an old goat. Then the servants went downstairs together.
At the time the servants were signing the new will, Lord Arthur Bessamy was strolling into his club, Boodle's, in St. James's. Boodle's was not a club for the politically-minded, like White's, which favored the Tories, or Brooks's, which had a membership of Whigs. It was a more comfortable place with the convenience of a “dirty room” in which members who had failed to dress for dinner were segregated.
Lord Arthur made his way to the coffee room, and there, sitting by the fireplace under the Abraham Hondius painting,Stag Hunt, he recognized the wilting figure of his friend, Charles Godolphin.
“You look,” said Lord Arthur pleasantly, “about the sickest thing in London, Dolph. There is an inn in Devon called The Green Dolphin that would suit your complexion perfectly.”
“Been drinking Blue Ruin,” groaned Mr. Godolphin. “Don't tower over me, there's a good chap. Sit down, do. Craning up at you makes my head ache.”
Lord Arthur sat down and surveyed his friend. Dolph was a tubby man, so small that his plump legs, encased in black Inexpressibles, did not reach the floor. His starched cravat supported two chins, and his short-sighted green eyes were crisscrossed that day with little red veins. He had teased his thick head of fair hair into the Wind-swept that morning, only to see it spring back into its normal style which resembled the thatched roof of a Tudor cottage. In despair, he had told his man to set it by using a mixture of sugar and water. That had seemed to do the trick, although it had given his hair a rigid, stand-up appearance that made him look as if he had been struck by lightning. The sugar and water mixture had dried on the road to the club, and little crystals of sugar now decorated the shoulders of his coat like some exotic type of dandruff. A pair of new corsets was playing merry hell with his swollen liver. In all, Dolph felt terrible.
“Did you mention The Green Dolphin?” he asked, as Lord Arthur sat down in a chair opposite him.
Lord Arthur nodded. “I was thinking of an inn of that name down in Cornwall, near Tregarthan Castle.”
“I know it,” said Dolph. “Deuced good food. I had to escape there from the claws of a grasping relative.”
“Which one?”
“My Uncle Frank. He's Lord St. Dawdy. You know I'm always short of the ready, and I've been dipping deep. It occurred to me that the old boy might look at me in a kindly way in his declining years. He jaunters to the Continent a lot-had just got back when I arrived on his doorstep. We had an abominable supper, everything put in a pie, Cornish-style, but with great heaps of pastry to make up for the absence of meat.
“Still, I thought my digestion might be able to stand it-just. I asked tenderly after his health and said he must be curst lonely. Lives in a drafty, miserable place which looks as if it had been built by gnomes on an off-day- you know, low, low roofs, beams that bang even such a small chap as myself on the head, and sloping floors. He grinned and winked at me-he's a gross, vulgar, brutish man-and said he would not be alone for very much longer. ‘Why not?’ I asked, hoping he meant that he would soon be among heavenly company. He said he was getting married to a fine, lusty girl who would bear him sons. Well, after a rocket like that, there didn't seem much point in staying. I murmured something about urgent business and fled to the nearest hostelry-The Green Dolphin.”
Lord Arthur took out a lace-edged cambric handkerchief and flicked a piece of dust from one glossy hessian boot. “When you were at The Green Dolphin,” he said, “did you by any chance notice a weird couple of fellows in the tap-a big, heavyset man and a slim, pretty youth?”
“No one like that.”
“And what is the name of the lady your uncle is going to inflict himself on?”
“Felicity Channing.”
“Ah, that name again,” murmured Lord Arthur. “Is this Felicity indeed a girl-or only a girl to someone of your uncle's age?”
“You may be sure I asked, hoping the marriage would not come to anything, you know. But it seems that even if Miss Channing does not want the baron, she will be forced to marry him nonetheless.”
“I have heard of a Bartholomew Channing of Tregarthan Castle, although that was when I was in short coats. My father said he was an admirable gentleman.”
“Ah, but he died, and the widow married a Mr. Palfrey, a man-milliner sort of fellow, much despised by the locals. He arranged marriages for the elder three of the widow's daughters-not bad marriages as it turned out, but he has settled on my uncle for the youngest, and what he says goes.”
“How very gothic. Do you attend the wedding?”
“Have to. He may yet leave me something.”
Lord Arthur sighed and stretched. “Take me along with you, Dolph,” he said finally. “I have a whim to see that part of England again.”
Mr. Palfrey sat back in the carriage that was bearing him back to Tregarthan Castle and beamed with satisfaction. He had forced the baron to agree to only a very small dowry, explaining that Felicity's youth and beauty were dowry enough. He had had miniatures of all the girls painted as they reached the age of seventeen, but instead of showing the baron Felicity's miniature-for Mr. Palfrey privately thought Felicity a very poor sort of female in the looks department-he had shown him instead a miniature of Maria; Maria who had all the formal beauty of the Channings.
That had settled the matter, and the baron had almost drooled over that miniature and had agreed to the tiny dowry. Then Mr. Palfrey frowned. He did hope his wife was not going to make trouble over this marriage. But she had never made any trouble before. Still, she obviously doted on the odd little Felicity. Better to have a stern word with her.
But Mrs. Palfrey was beyond listening to any stern words. When he arrived in her bedchamber, it was to find her lying serene and tranquil in the endless sleep of death.
Before summoning the servants, Mr. Palfrey sat down at her desk to that he could prepare himself to act the part of grief-stricken husband. It was all his now, he thought in a sort of wonder. Tregarthan Castle, the Channing fortune, and the Channing estates. All his. It was tiresome that Felicity's marriage would have to be delayed while a decent period of mourning was observed.