James, who had been listening to this exchange with a bemused look on his face, suddenly came to life and looked from Bella to the Earl. ‘Are you saying that whoever marries Bella will inherit?’
‘Yes, but he must make a push. I said there was no time to lose and I meant it.’
‘You do not mean to say you have broken the entail?’ Edward said, shocked to the core. ‘You can’t have done. The only people to gain by such a procedure are the lawyers. You’d be left without a feather to fly with.’
‘And you are grasping at straws,’ his lordship said.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Louis said. ‘The old man is trying to gammon one of us into marrying the chit.’
‘I spoke first,’ James put in. ‘Miss Huntley, may I crave a moment alone with you?’
Everyone turned to look at the overweight farmer in his filthy clothes. He was not in the habit of making decisions in a hurry, but he knew that to be first in with his offer would be a distinct advantage.
‘Oh, Bella,’ Edward said, as Bella looked from one to the other, dismay written all over her face. ‘You do not have to accept him, whatever his lordship says.’
Louis, who had been silently watching her through his quizzing glass for some time, let it drop to dangle on its ribbon from his wrist and turned to James. ‘You do not, for a minute, suppose Miss Huntley will receive you looking like that,’ he said. ‘Or smelling like you do. Go home and bath and change.’
‘While you insert yourself in my place.’
Louis laughed in a high-pitched, effeminate way. ‘Lah, that is the last thing I would do. Insert myself anywhere you had been, I mean.’ He fetched a lace handkerchief from his pocket and waved it before his nose. ‘My lord, pray send him on his way.’
‘Bella?’ The Earl appealed to her. ‘Do you want me to send him away?’
Before she could answer, they heard a commotion in the hall and Jolliffe’s voice protesting loudly and another, even angrier, saying, ‘I am come to speak to Mr Trenchard and speak to him I will.’
‘Go and see what is happening,’ the Earl instructed Bella. ‘Tell Jolliffe to send whoever it is on his way. I will not have brawls in my house.’
Bella, thankful for the interruption, hurried to obey. A man of middling years in the working clothes of a labourer was standing in the hall, wringing his cap in his hands.
‘What is it, Jolliffe?’
‘He wants to speak to Mr Trenchard,’ the butler said in aggrieved tones. ‘I told him you were all about to go in to dinner…’
‘And lucky you are to have a dinner to go to,’ the man said, stung to anger. ‘You don’t think I wanted to come here, do you? It won’t serve me well when they hear of it.’
‘Who?’ asked Bella.
‘The Eastmere men, miss. They’re all over the place. They said they’d pull the barn down and wreck the house if Mr Trenchard don’t come and give them money.’
James had followed Bella into the hall. ‘What is it, man? Can I not leave you five minutes but you must come running after me?’
‘Mr Trenchard, sir, the men are rioting and they came to the farm. They want money. Fifty pounds they said on account of low wages and the price of bread.’
‘I wish I had fifty pounds to give them,’ James said morosely. ‘Tell them to go to the parish overseer—he is the one they should be applying to.’ Since the parish had adopted the Speenhamland system, the shortfall on wages had been paid by the poor rates, a far from ideal situation which meant that the farmers had no incentive to pay a realistic wage and their men were forced to go cap in hand to charity. They salvaged their pride by calling it an allowance which they should have as of right.
‘Sir, you must come, or they will burn the house down.’
‘Faith and Constance?’ he queried in alarm. ‘Where are they? Are they safe?’
‘Mrs Clarke is looking after them but she is afraid for her life…’
‘James, you must go at once,’ Bella said, appalled. Was this what the meeting in Ely had been about? The mob must have stopped talking in favour of action. But why pick on James? Where was Robert? Did he know about it? ‘I am sure the Earl will excuse you.’
‘Yes, I must.’ Then to his foreman, ‘I’ll ride on. Follow as fast as you can, I might need you.’ He was halfway to the door when he stopped and turned back to Bella. ‘Miss Huntley, I beg leave to return to settle the matter we were discussing.’
She nodded without answering, wondering if she could have done anything to stop the trouble with the labourers. Perhaps she should have warned James about them, but her mind had been too full of the coming meeting with her cousins to connect a crowd of men in Ely with her cousin and his farm. She returned to the drawing room to acquaint the Earl with what had happened. He seemed not to be concerned for James’s safety. To him it was inconceivable that a handful of unruly labourers could not be controlled.
‘Can’t think what the justices are playing at,’ he said. ‘I knew this would happen when they gave in to the mob in Suffolk last year. Now they are all at it. They should send for the militia to round them up—a spell in prison would soon bring them to a proper sense of their place.’
‘Grandfather, they are starving and driven beyond endurance,’ Bella said.
‘What is that to the point? A few discontented labourers will not make me change my mind.’ The Earl was more concerned with his own little drama than the greater one being played out in the villages and fields of East Anglia. ‘And you would do well to consider your own position. You can assume you have had one offer, at least.’
James, she knew, was desperately pinched in the pocket in spite of his grandfather’s small annuity, and if the mob destroyed his barn, it might well ruin him. She felt sorry for him, but she could not marry him. She could not. ‘My lord, please, do not make me take James.’
‘I am not going to make you, child. I should be unhappy if you had been too quick to say yes. He is not the only one.’
She was mystified. He knew whom he wanted to offer for her and yet he would not say. She looked at the other two men. Edward looked furious and Louis was smiling mockingly. What were they thinking?
Before anyone could give utterance to their thoughts, Jolliffe appeared again. ‘My Lord, Cook asks if you wish to keep dinner back.’
‘Oh, no,’ Bella said. ‘It will spoil if we do. Grandpapa, please, let us postpone this discussion.’
‘Very well. We cannot continue until James returns. Tell Cook we are going to the dining room now. And send Sylvester to tell the Comtesse.’ He allowed Edward to help him to his feet and then escorted Bella out of the room, across the vast hall to the formal dining room. It was a very big room and struck them as cold as they entered it. Bella shivered. She had wanted to dine in one of the smaller rooms, but her grandfather had overruled her. ‘I am going to show those upstarts how an earl entertains,’ he had said. ‘One of them will have to become used to it.’
The Comtesse joined them as they seated themselves at the long refectory table, with the Earl at its head and Bella at the opposite end. Elizabeth took her place on his lordship’s left. ‘This place is as cold as a tomb,’ she said, looking at the dismal fire. ‘And just about as cheerful.’
‘I am sorry, my lady,’ Bella said. ‘We do not often use this room and it is the first fire we have lit in here this year. I fear the chimney needs sweeping. I will see to it first thing tomorrow.’
‘Uncle, you need a proper housekeeper,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Isabella is far too young for such a responsibility.’