Sisters and Brothers

by Judith Glover

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

Isabelle and Frank Flynn...Rosannah and Harry Weldrake...sisters and brothers from opposite ends of Victorian society. The Weldrakes are decadent heirs to a wealthy family of racehorse breeders, the Flynns the illegitimate children of a notorious stallion leader and a country alehouse keeper. When Rosannah defies convention to marry Frank, she allows unbridled passion to blind her to the fact that her social position is the bait that attracts the young fist-fighter. There are those determined to put an end to this sham marriage, but it is left to Frank's naive sister, Isabelle, to suffer the consequences of his ambitions to become a gentleman. The drama between the Weldrakes and the Flynns, played out against the richly evocative background of Sussex in the 1870s, creates tensions which must finally explode into violence, bringing with it the taint of public scandal... and finally a love that redeems all.

Release date: May 21, 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 286

Sample

“No … I won’t listen to you! I won’t, I won’t!”

The auburn-haired girl clapped both hands to her ears and hunched her shoulders.

“Why not?” jeered the youth with her. “Does the truth upset you?”

Without answering, she swung round and walked quickly away from him along the narrow field track; but in a few strides her companion overtook her and stood blocking the way so that she was forced to stop again.

“Well, does it?” he repeated.

Isabelle Flynn lowered her hands and stared resentfully at him.

He stared back, tossing the coarse brown hair from his eyes.

“You’re ashamed, aren’t you. Ashamed o’ being a bastard –”

“Don’t use that word!”

“Well … chance-born, then. Chance-born, same as me. Why pretend different?”

“I don’t pretend. I’d soonest not be reminded of it, that’s all.”

Reaching out, she snatched away the sketch-book Joel Adams had been carrying for her and hugged it to her breast, arms crossed over it in a gesture of defiance.

“Let me go by, why won’t you. It’ll be dark afore long and they’ll wonder at home where I’ve got to.”

Young Joel moved reluctantly aside, his boots sinking into the wet clay of the plough furrow beside the track.

“And don’t go following me, neither,” Isabelle flung over her shoulder.

“I’ll follow you if I’ve a mind to. Or isn’t your own half-brother nice enough company for you these days?”

He dragged his feet out of the sticky clay and began walking after her, stepping deliberately on the faint outline cast by her figure, a sulky expression turning down the corners of his mouth.

Away in the far distance, the smooth flanks of the Sussex Downs were stained red by the dying rays of sunset streaming from the west. Nearer, the wealden valleys lay veiled in a thin gauze of twilight, their open fields shadowed, stands of trees showing black against the skyline. In the dip beyond the sheep pasture a glow of oil lamps would soon be reflected in the cottage windows of Weatherfield.

The two went on in silence, leaving the village behind as they crossed the top of a second field to where a solitary hawthorn marked the opening to a steep holloway. Dusk had already thickened between its gorse-dotted banks and Isabelle slowed her step as she began the descent, lifting her long skirts clear of the mud underfoot.

She was no more than a short way down when she slipped suddenly on a stone, and in trying to keep her balance let her sketch-book fall to the ground.

Joel put out a hand to steady her.

“Careful – you nearly legged yourself over.”

She struggled to free herself from his grip; but he only held her the tighter and gave her a little shake.

“And don’t you push me off like that, neither. What’s the matter wi’ you? Can’t you even bear to be touched no more, eh?”

“I don’t know what you mean. Let go o’ me. You’re hurting.”

He thrust her away and said bitterly, “You’ve grown very high and mighty since you come back from staying wi’ your fine friends at Bonningale. Going about wi’ your nose in the air like Lady Muck. It would have done no harm to treat me civil this afternoon.”

“I would have treated you civil,” Isabelle threw back at him, “but you had to go making fun o’ the way I spoke, saying I was putting on airs.”

She bent to retrieve her sketch-book; then, seeing the splashes of mud staining its cover, exclaimed in vexation, “Now look what you’ve made me do, Joel Adams.”

“What? Me? It was you as dropped it. Oh, give it here –” He snatched the book from her and started rubbing at it with the sleeve of his shirt.

“It was a new book, an’ all. Aunt Rachael Bashford only give it me the day afore I left. Oh, leave go of it – you’re making it worse wi’ your dirty sleeve.”

She made to pull the book away but he held obstinately on, and a tussle developed as they began tugging it this way and that between them.

“Do as you’re bid, blast you!” came a sudden sharp voice.

Before Joel realised what was happening, a hand had gripped him by the shoulder and pushed him roughly away so that he almost lost his footing and half-fell backwards into the gorse at the bankside.

“Frank? Frank – !” Isabelle turned, and with a glad cry hastened to fling her arms about the neck of the newcomer, a well-dressed young man of powerful build whose good looks were marred just now by a surly cast of feature.

“Oh, Frank – you’re back!”

Frank Flynn, coming up the holloway to meet his sister, had caught sight of the struggling pair silhouetted ahead of him on the rise; and not liking what he saw, had approached in silence, moving on the balls of his feet with the light step of the trained prize fighter.

He jerked his head.

“What’s this? He’s pestering you, is he?”

“I was seeing her safe home, that’s all.” Joel Adams faced his half-brother warily a short way up the track. “There’s nothing wrong wi’ that, is there? Or are you Flynns so swelled now wi’ notions of your own importance you’ve forgot we come from the self-same stock?”

Frank Flynn’s dark eyes narrowed slightly.

“Seems to me,” the other went on, prudently widening his distance, “what they’re saying in the village is true. That you’ve had your heads turned, the pair o’ you. Our Belle wi’ her rich relations at Bonningale taking her in out o’ charity and learning her their fancy ways –”

“It’s not out o’ charity!” Isabelle protested, releasing her brother from her embrace.

Joel ignored her. “And you, Frank, wi’ your crowd o’ fair-weather friends in Lewes mopping and mowing about your heels, inflating your self-conceit wi’ their talk, and for why – on account you make money wi’ your fists … money to buy yourself good boots and a silver-topped cane. It don’t count wi’ us in Weatherfield, all that. You’re Frank Morgan’s come-by-chance, same as me. Born out o’ wedlock. So it’s no use you coming here acting the gentleman and making out you’re quality.”

Frank looked at him in silence. When finally he spoke, his voice was thick with disgust.

“You’re piping that tune again, are you? I’d have thought you’d be wearied of it by now. Lord knows, you’ve wearied me enough. Aye, mebbe he did get us out o’ wedlock – even so, he was one o’ the best men ever bred, was Frank Morgan. And by God, you should be proud to be of the same blood.”

“Proud? Proud o’ that ’un?” Joel flung back. “What did he ever do that I should be proud of him? A stallion man – a common gipsy horse man! Why should I be so proud to have that ’un for a father when half o’ Sussex is filled wi’ his bastards?”

“I’ve never been ashamed to count myself one o’ them –”

“No, you wouldn’t be. You’re cast in Morgan’s mould all right. You’re the spit o’ the old devil.”

“A pity you couldn’t have favoured him more yourself, you miserable runt.”

“Please …” Isabelle laid a hand on her brother’s arm, sensing his aggression. Hurt though she was by Joel’s words, she had no wish to see him harmed. “Leave it. It’s not worth a quarrel.”

“It’s worth a damn’ sight more than quarrelling if he’s been using you abusefully, Belle.”

“He vexed me earlier, but he meant nothing by it. I was sketching up near Stillborne’s and he come along and started on about me ignoring folk since I’ve been back. That’s all.”

She picked up the sketch-book lying where Joel had discarded it among the gorse, and went on, “Please, Frank. Let’s go on home. Mam’ll wonder what’s become o’ me. I don’t like to worry her when she’s ailing.”

Her brother glanced down at her; and after a moment, nodded.

“Aye. We’ll not mention this business, though. She’ll only fret the more. And you –” he swung menacingly back towards Joel – “you mind your step, d’you hear? Because if I catch you ill-speaking us again, I promise you, you’ll be sorry. And leave our sister alone. If you must tag along at women’s skirts to vex ’em, go and find yourself some easy wench in the village to cut your puppy teeth on.”

“Don’t you puppy me, Frank Flynn,” Joel retorted hotly. “I’ve had all the easy wenches I want round here.”

“Is that so?” his half-brother sneered back. “Then you’ve savoured my leavings, haven’t you.”

The man who had sired Frank and Isabelle Flynn, and their half-brother Joel Adams, had in his day pursued the occupation of stallion leader: procuring a livelihood by his champion Shire horse, leading the stud around the country farms to cover the breeding mares. Eighteen years ago, in 1852, he had met with an untimely death; and the woman he had promised at last to marry, red-haired Dinah Flynn from the alehouse at Weatherfield, had been left to bring up their young son and infant daughter alone.

Frank Morgan had been a handsome, virile man of gipsy stock. His lusty nature and the dangerously potent allure of his work had together proved irresistible to the weaker sex; and proof of his passage was to be found stamped on the features of a number of bastard offspring – most of them sons – around the farming communities of the wealden and downland countryside.

Weatherfield, on the edge of the Ashdown Forest, had expanded itself since the stallion man’s time, pushing outwards along its by-ways and boundaries as the three young lives he had fathered here left their years of infancy behind. The alehouse no longer stood alone beside the lane running through fields and woodland to Troy Town: the way was now broadened to a road, and cottages had been built along it to accommodate the families of farmworkers brought into the area by new landowners.

Nor had the alehouse itself remained untouched by the change going on around it. Its old name of “The Man in the Moon” had been revived and a painted sign hung out above the road, bearing a crude representation of a bent figure against a silvered crescent for those who could not read the lettering. Inside, the ale-room had been altered to take a handsome mahogany counter with brass pump handles, and what had formerly been the storeroom behind was now a snug for the wives and children of customers.

Dinah Flynn was busy at the counter when Frank and Isabelle came in together; but as soon as she could get away she left a helper in charge and followed them down the passage to the living quarters at the back of the house.

“Belle’s gone up to her room,” Frank remarked as she came through into the kitchen. “It was slippy underfoot in the holloway. She took a bit of a fall.”

“She’s not hurt herself?”

“No, no. Just muddied her skirts, that’s all.”

He began leafing idly through the pages of his sister’s sketch-book left lying on the kitchen table; and after a moment or two observed with a touch of satisfaction, “She’s come on well since I was here last. Getting quite a hand at making a picture. Look at this one. She must’ve done it today. The old barn, isn’t it?”

“What’s that? What d’you say?” His mother looked at him sharply, then at the drawing held up for her to see.

“Stillborne’s old barn. I recognise the – Here! What d’you think you’re doing, mam? There’s no need to snatch at the damn’ thing.”

Before he could move to prevent her, Mrs Flynn had seized the book from his hand and pulled the page out of it.

“What did you want to do that for?”

“I won’t have her drawing that place,” she said loudly. “Not that place … not where your father got hisself killed. You tell her, Frank. Much note she takes of anything I say to her. Tell her to keep off Stillborne’s in future.”

“Now don’t go working yourself up over it. Sit down for a bit and stop ripping at that picture. I thought the doctor said you’re not to be agitated?”

“Don’t talk to me o’ no doctor! There’s naun that ’un can do save charge the earth for his service. I’m sick o’ paying his bills, I am. I don’t know which makes me feel worse – them, or the rubbish he keeps making me swallow. There’s only one thing cures this dratted pain o’ mine, our Frank. Laudanum and brandy – neat.”

She put a hand to her chest and shook her head, the peppery-grey hair falling untidily from its pins; and after a moment reached out to pick up the torn pieces of her daughter’s drawing.

“Here, we’d best put these to the back o’ the fire, afore she comes down. We’ll say there was lamp oil spilt on the page. She was pleased to see you, was she, when you went out to meet her?”

“Aye.”

“I’m sure she was. She misses you nigh on sorely as me when you’re not here. Oh, but it does my heart good to have the pair o’ you both home again. The place is never the same when you’re gone – you always so busy in Lewes, and our Belle over at Bonningale. She wrote to you, did she, while she was there?”

Frank nodded.

“She’s a good girl,” his mother went on, getting up to unfasten the long white pinafore she had been wearing in the ale-room and hanging it on a hook behind the kitchen door. “I’m glad Mr and Mrs Bashford take such a kindly interest in her as godparents. They’ve had her to stay nigh on a month this time, did you know?”

He nodded again and picked a piece of gorse from the cuff of his well-cut Norfolk jacket.

“She’s done nicely there,” he said, “getting herself so close in with ’em. It’s an advantage to know the right folk.”

“To be sure. And you, our Frank, you’ll be staying a good while this visit? I’m that glad to see your face again.”

“Two or three days. No more.”

“Two or three days? Oh, son! When we haven’t set eyes on you for Lord knows how long?”

“What’s that?” Isabelle came from the staircase door into the kitchen. “What’s that, mam?”

“Would you credit it. He’s stopping no more’n a couple o’ days. Hardly in the house five minutes afore he’s off again. I know what the excuse’ll be. Same as it always is. Training. Always blessed training. That Boaz Palmer has him leaping up and down like a monkey on a stick, he does.”

“Now you know he’s got to do it. If he doesn’t keep hisself properly fit he’ll lose his fights,” Isabelle said philosophically, seating herself beside the range. She had brushed her hair out so that it hung in loose curls over her shoulders and the soft light of the oil lamp above her on the mantelpiece glowed in its rich auburn depths.

“What’s he want to go and fight at all for, that’s what I’d like to know,” her mother grumbled. “You tell me, our Frank. Why d’you do it? You had a good enough job, working as groom to that Mr Weldrake. Why couldn’t you stay content wi’ that, instead o’ getting yourself mauled about in them fisty-fights?”

Frank Flynn pulled a leather purse from his jacket pocket and threw it down on the table.

“Here’s your answer … thirty pounds of it.”

“Thirty –?”

“Aye. Go on. Count it. There’s thirty pounds in sovereigns there.”

“Frank! You won that much wi’ fighting?”

“I did. By getting myself mauled about, as you put it.”

Mrs Flynn stared at the purse. Cautiously, she leaned over and stretched out a hand until her fingers touched the soft leather shape.

“Well, go on. Open it and count it. It’s yours, all of it.”

“What – for me?”

Frank reached out impatiently and pulled at the purse strings. Holding his mother’s hand open within his own, he poured out the golden coins into her palm.

“For you, mam. You and our Belle. And d’you know how long it took me to earn that much in a fist-fight? I’ll tell you. Just eighteen minutes.”

“But … why all for us, Frank?” Isabelle looked up at her brother. “You don’t usually bring home your prize purse. What’s behind it?”

He shook his head and smiled at her, his teeth showing white in the swarthy clean-shaven features.

“Why not? I can make you a gift if I want, can’t I?”

She stared at him, wondering whether she had imagined the note of condescension.

“I’ve got some’at to tell you both,” he continued, glancing away towards his mother. “Are you listening, mam? Good. Now, that money’s to be used to buy the pair o’ you new clothing. So don’t go hoarding it away in the old tin box behind the brick, d’you hear? You’re to spend all of it – every last shilling of it – on fitting yourselves out to come to Lewes.”

“To Lewes? Whyever for? What’s Lewes got to do wi’ it?”

“I’m to be married there Saturday week.”

“Lord above!” Dinah Flynn snatched her hand to her mouth and sat down in amazement, her eyes fixed on her son’s face.

“But – who to? Who is she?” Isabelle immediately wanted to know. “Who are you marrying? Why haven’t you said anything to us afore this? You’ve not mentioned any girl in your letters, has he, mam?”

“It’ll be that ’un he’s been keeping a secret. I knew it! What’s her name, now? Oh – what is it, our Belle, can you think? He did tell us the once. Don’t you remember? He wrote as how he’d met this young woman at Midhurst … Elizabeth somebody, wasn’t it?”

Frank Flynn’s expression altered instantly. The smile left his lips and his dark brows drew together in a scowl.

“I don’t recall any o’ that name,” he said, a curious edge to his voice.

“But you do, surely, son? You said as how you’d –”

“I said nothing.”

“You said Elizabeth –”

“Let it be, mam,” Isabelle interrupted gently. “We’ve misremembered the name, evidently.” She looked across at her brother again. “Well? So who is she? Come on, don’t leave us to guess. Who is it we’re having into the family?”

Frank let the question hang in the air for a second or two, savouring the coming surprise.

“Miss Rosannah Weldrake,” he said at last.

And was duly gratified by the reaction.

“Miss Rosannah –? Rosannah Weldrake?” His mother’s face was a study. “Her? No! Go on wi’ you. You’re having us on a string!”

Isabelle echoed her disbelief. “Not Miss Weldrake … It can’t be.”

“Why not? Why can’t it be?”

“Well –” She looked about her, shrugging her shoulders. “Because she’s Mr Weldrake’s sister, that’s why. She’s a lady.”

For some reason, this made Frank Flynn laugh.

“Lady or no, she’s the one I’m marrying, right enough.”

His mother clutched her hand on the money he had given her.

“Oh … our Frank! Oh, but you’ve done yourself proud there, son. Just think. Miss Rosannah! Well I never … who’d have believed it.” Recovering from her astonishment she was full of admiration. “Only the best for you, eh? You’ve ever been the same. Never satisfied wi’ second-rate, always wanting to get on in the world. Just imagine it, though, my daughter-in-law a lady o’ quality. All that money of her own, an’ all. You’ve fallen on your feet this time, an’ no mistake. You’ll be a gentleman now!”

Then another thought struck her.

“But where will you live, the pair o’ you?”

“At the house in Tea Garden Lane.”

“She shares that with her brother, surely?” Isabelle asked, a little uncertain.

“Aye. But Harry keeps to his own apartments.”

“Oh, so it’s Harry now, is it? No more Mr Weldrake, I suppose. Does he approve o’ the match?”

Frank looked away. “No,” he said bluntly after a moment. “He doesn’t.”

“Oh? So … so Miss Rosannah doesn’t have his permission to wed you?”

“She’s of age, and her money’s her own. Even so, if she needed it he’d have to give it.”

“But, then … I don’t understand –”

Her mother interrupted. “No more do I, our Belle. What’s this, Frank? He’d gi’ his permission, but not his approval? How’s that come about?”

Frank Flynn smiled drily. “Because I’ve got his sister in the family way, that’s how.”

Rosannah Weldrake stood on a low stool regarding herself in the rosewood cheval glass in her dressing room. Her beautiful face wore an expression of discontent.

“It still isn’t fitting properly at the waist,” she told the woman kneeling to pin the hem. “Can’t you do anything better?”

The dressmaker got to her feet and took a few paces backwards among the clutter of garments and shoes, examining the heavy white silk wedding gown anxiously.

“See how it pulls?” Rosannah twisted herself about. “No, it won’t do at all, Miss Perrins. You’ll simply have to undo the band and make it up again.”

Miss Perrins removed the pins from her mouth.

“But –”

“No! I dare say the town biddies are hinting already behind their hands about my condition. But I’m damned if I’ll give them proof positive by going to the altar in something that makes me look like a bow window.”

“But Miss Weldrake –”

Rosannah stepped down from the stool.

“Get me out of the wretched thing.”

There were thirty tiny pearl buttons to be unfastened one by one from the crocheted loops at the back of the bodice. The dressmaker worked at them nervously with a button-hook.

“If I might make a suggestion, ma’am?” She eased the tight-fitting sleeves over her client’s arms. “An extra gusset, perhaps? It won’t do any good unpicking the waistband, not again.”

“Why not?”

“Well …”

“I’m growing larger?”

Miss Perrins nodded.

“Nonsense. I’m three months into my time, that’s all. It hardly shows.”

“It shows on my measure, ma’am.”

“Oh, don’t be tiresome. Have a little gratitude for the work. I could just as easily have taken my custom to Miss Martin.”

Rosannah stepped out of the layers of skirts and petticoats and stood bare-foot in silk-embroidered drawers and camisole.

“Except that she lacks your discretion. They’ll know about the child quite soon enough once I’m wed, but I dislike giving the tea-party circle the satisfaction of a gossip in the meanwhile. Let them be content wagging their silly tongues over my choice of husband.”

Miss Perrins said nothing. It was the talk of Lewes that Rosannah Weldrake was marrying in unseemly haste. And not the man she had been virtually engaged to, either, but to her brother’s own groom, a common young brute who fought for money and, to cap it all, was fully five years her junior.

Public speculation had been rife ever since the wedding was announced; and those loudest in voicing disapproval had hastened to accept their invitations to the ceremony for fear of missing a single moment’s enjoyment. But then, what could one expect? The Weldrakes, after all, had rather come down in the world, and the reputation of the family name was hardly one of the best, being already more than a little tarnished by the scandalous behaviour of its bearers.

Miss Perrins produced a tape measure from her workbox and held it out.

“If you’d raise your arms a moment, ma’am?”

Rosannah complied, catching back the heavy golden-blonde hair that fell in waves to her waist. Later in the day she might wear it in a chignon, ringlets covering the nape of her neck, or plaited in braided loops to frame the oval of her face; or whatever other style might appeal to her fickle fancy. At twenty-six she was at the full bloom of her beauty, a spirited, headstrong young woman who delighted in scorning the rigid social conventions of her time, and in so doing had alienated many who clung to the belief that the church, convention and class were the triple pillars of Victorian society.

Regarding herself in the cheval glass, she made a critical examination of her figure and was reassured that the rounding abdomen was still not pronounced enough to spoil her shapely outline.

Though men admired her greatly among themselves, there had been few suitors of the right background to pay her court: when a man is making his way up in the world, it is more to his advantage to select a wife for the virtues of respectability and prudence, however plain her looks, than for what others might regard as the vices of sensuality and pleasure.

At the time she first became acquainted with Frank Flynn, Rosannah had as good as accepted the proposal of one of her brother’s gambling companions, a Frenchman working as agent for a Parisian firm of wine importers. Adolphe de Retz had asked for her hand in marriage on several occasions; and she had been disposed to give it – not because she loved her suitor enough, but because he loved her far more than enough, and being the object of such utter and absolute devotion appealed to her capricious vanity.

Even here, though, society held her at fault: being a foreigner, de Retz was accounted no more than a second-rate gentleman, and his courtship of Rosannah was viewed as but a further example of her flouting of the acceptable standards of her class.

She turned away from the reflection, tossing her hair back over her shoulders.

“I’ll lace myself. That will do, don’t you think? If I were to pull in my waist tightly enough we might get it down to twenty inches.”

Miss Perrins’s red-rimmed eyes held a look of doubt.

“You’ll only harm yourself doing that, ma’am. I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Oh, but not for long. Only during the service. I’ll let the stays out in the vestry afterwards, and wear something comfortably loose for the wedding breakfast.”

The dressmaker shook her head, and made the necessary adjustment to the figures in her book. This was intended to be one of those premature infants, of course. Plump, lusty and the picture of good health, for all that the mother’s confinement had not been expected for another ten weeks.

There was a knock at the door.

“Oh … there, that will be my brother on his way. Quickly, my wrapper. No, not that one. The other – the mauve.”

The dressing room door opened and a lace-capped maid appeared.

“Beg pardon, Miss Rosannah –”

“Yes, thank you, Minnie.”

She turned, tying the wrapper about her, and looked across at the young man in riding attire who had followed in behind the maid.

“Well, Harry?”

Harry Weldrake returned her look and seated himself in a chair, throwing aside a discarded underbodice before swinging a booted leg casually over the worn brocade of the arm. He ignored Miss Perrins, hastily tidying her workbox, and occupied himself studying his fingernails until the maid had seen her out.

Then he raised a languid eyebrow.

“Well?”

He had his sister’s pale complexion and blue eyes, but there the resemblance between them ended. Weldrake’s eyes were heavy-lidded above a strong nose, giving him a faintly predatory appearance. The fair hair was parted at the centre and brushed back above the ears, and a thin, neat moustache outlined his upper lip.

“Did you make the killing you intended last night?” Rosannah went across to the window embrasure and sat down at her cluttered dressing-table.

“Scarcely a killing. I took two hundred guineas from Cross and fifty from young Jermyn.”

She made a face. “I thought Jermyn’s father had threatened you with prosecution if you encouraged the boy to gamble any more of his money?”

“What’s fifty guineas? A bagatelle. But it was sufficient to salve my pride –”

“And pay some of your creditors.”

“– not to mention keep up appearances for a few weeks more. Though God knows, Rosannah, you make it deuced difficult to keep up appearances of any sort with this outrageous marriage of your. . .