The Poison Tree

Book 17: Morland Dynasty

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

1831: as England emerges from the post war depression, the country is changing, and the birth pains of the Reform Act bring it to the brink of revolution.

The violent times breed violent acts, both outside and inside the Morland family. Sophie's life is shattered by a hideous crime. Rosamund learns that achieving her dreams brings as much pain as pleasure. Heloise, mourning her beloved James, lets control of Morland Place fall into chaos- Benedict has to flee his home and makes a life amongst the railway pioneers, while Nicholas now has the freedom to indulge the dark side of his nature.

And amongst them all stalks the deadly, invisible threat of cholera.

Release date: August 25, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 448

Sample

November, 1830

‘Do you realise,’ Benedict said, lifting himself on one elbow to look down at his mistress, ‘that it’s exactly two years since
we met?’


‘Is it so?’ said Serena. ‘But you shouldn’t remind me, my dear. At my age the passing of years is not something to celebrate.’

Benedict sat up, ruffled. ‘Oh, you talk such nonsense about your age, as though you were —’

‘Past my prayers,’ she finished for him. ‘But the fact remains that I’m thirty-four and you’re eighteen.’

‘Nearly nineteen. I’ll be nineteen in March.’

‘Four whole months away!’

‘Three,’ he corrected seriously. ‘My birthday’s on the first of March.’

‘Oh, to be young enough to count in months!’ she teased. ‘I remember when it seemed an eternity between birthdays. Now they
come round only too soon.’


‘But age doesn’t matter,’ Benedict said restlessly. He hated it when she distanced herself from him. ‘If it mattered, we wouldn’t
be here together like this, would we?’ He took a strand of her luxuriant red-gold hair between his fingers and turned it into
a curl. ‘With your hair loosened on the pillow like that, you look so beautiful. I swear anyone would think you were nineteen!’


‘Foolish beyond permission!’ She reached up to tug one of his vigorous dark curls in response. Though he was not exactly handsome,
his face had the charm of youth and good humour. Everything about him seemed brimming with health and vigour. He was dark-haired, dark-eyed, brown-skinned as a gypsy
from his outdoor life; a strongly-made, rather bull-necked young man, with fine teeth for his boyish smile, and fine, powerful
hands that knew a man’s business. She found him utterly irresistible. Every time he had come into her shop she had shivered
with desire for him, which was why she had engineered the meeting at last, bumping into him in Micklegate and dropping her
parcels so that he felt obliged to offer to carry them home for her. After that, the rest was easy. Benedict Morland already
had a reputation for liking women.


‘Two years,’ she mused. ‘Two years since I knocked you down in the street by way of beginning our acquaintance.’

‘Lord, yes! You made me sit down in a puddle. How wet and cold it was inside my trousers!’

‘But I wish you could have seen the expression on your face when I invited you into my house to get dry: propriety was battling
with some most improper desires!’


‘It was not!’ Benedict said indignantly. ‘I thought only of you: I was afraid I might compromise you.’

‘I’m sure you thought I was a woman of easy virtue.’

‘With a butler like Avis standing there holding the door? No-one could be more fearsomely respectable!’

‘But my dear, respectable widows do not seduce young gentlemen half their age – particularly on first acquaintance. I must
be a harpy at least, if not a painted harlot.’

His smile disappeared rapidly. ‘Has someone said such a thing to you?’

‘Young Mrs Cowey whispered the words to Mrs Percy Bolter in the doorway of Hargrove’s Library yesterday. But they may have
been talking about someone else, after all. It was probably mere coincidence that I was passing them at the time.᾿


‘If anyone speaks ill of you, I’ll kill them!’ he said fiercely.

‘Of course you’d like to,’ she said sympathetically, ‘and I love you for it, but it wouldn’t change the facts.’

‘The facts are that I love you and nothing else matters!’ He looked down, biting his lip, and she knew what was coming next.
‘Oh Serena,’ he said passionately, ‘why won’t you marry me? I’ve asked you often enough.’


She reached up and cupped his cheek. ‘It wouldn’t do, my love. I’m too old for you.’

He pulled away angrily. ‘Age again! Why must you always go back to that?’

‘Because in ten years’ time you will be twenty-eight and still young, while I shall be forty-four and old. How would you get
rid of me then, when you were tired of me and wanted someone younger?’


‘I will never be tired of you,’ he declared passionately.

‘And never want anyone else?’

‘Never, I swear!’

‘Don’t perjure yourself, my love. Haven’t you already been casting eyes at a certain lady’s maid from Clifton?’

He blushed too plainly to be able to deny it. ‘How did you —? Oh – well, I – but that’s nothing! I only talked to her. And it isn’t love. I really do love you, you know.’


She sat up, drawing her hair round her like a shawl, modestly covering her breasts. They were fair and round and taut, and
hiding them in that way had the opposite effect to the one intended on Benedict’s attention.


‘Bendy, listen to me,’ she said. ‘You are a young man, and full of the sap of life, and there will be many women before you
settle for one and one only. When you do, I hope she will be handsome, accomplished, young, and very rich. By then I expect
you will be far away from here, and if you think of me at all, it will be as a distant – and I hope pleasant – memory.’


‘But I want to marry you,’ he protested.


‘It’s not possible. Quite apart from the difference in our ages, I am not of your station in life. You are a gentleman: your
family is one of the oldest and most distinguished in Yorkshire. I am only an artisan’s daughter and a tradesman’s widow.’


‘Oh, that sort of thing’s all nonsense! Not of my station? Who cares for that sort of thing nowadays?’

‘I never took you for a Jacobin,’ she said mildly. ‘What would your mother say?’

He blushed. ‘It isn’t as if I’m the eldest son. Morland Place and everything else will go to Nicky. I shall have nothing.’

‘Then how would you support a wife?’ she asked gravely.

‘Well, I don’t think Mama has really thought about what’s to be done with me. I ought to have a career, but I have the feeling
that she expects me to stay at home and help Nicky with the estate. But if I married you I’d be provided for, and it wouldn’t
even cost her anything, as it would to send me into one of the professions —’ He stopped anxiously as Serena put her hands
over her face and made a choking noise; but the look of concern changed to one of annoyance as he realised she was not crying,
but laughing. ‘Now what have I said to set you off?’ he asked indignantly.


‘What a picture you paint!’ she gasped. ‘I am not quite of your order, of course, but I am very, very wealthy!’

‘Well – yes, I suppose I did say that,’ Bendy stammered, digging an ever deeper hole for himself. ‘Not that you aren’t of
my order, of course, but – well – if I’m not to have a career—’


‘Quite a reversal of the usual way of things, don’t you think? In my young day, it was portionless girls who were married
to rich old men to provide for them.’


He looked at her with dismay, not knowing how to make amends for his clumsiness.

‘But Serena –’ he began hesitantly, ‘there’s no denying that it does make a difference, your being wealthy.’

‘Yes, it does. My wealth makes me independent. It means that I can do as I please, and go where I please, and even flout the
conventions a little. It means I can live alone without having a tiresome lady-companion forever hanging about me – which
in turn means that I can have you for my lover, my dear one,’ she cupped his cheek, ‘as long as we are discreet about it.
So let’s be grateful for what we have, and not make ourselves ridiculous by striving for more.’


She could see that she hadn’t convinced him, and, in a way, she was glad. He was all youthful ardour, all chivalry, and she
loved him for it, even though she knew perfectly well that it was not just for her, that he would be the same towards any
woman he temporarily loved. Indeed, she loved him because of that very thing. There was something gentle and kindly about
him – a lovingness at the bottom of everything he did, which itself attracted love.


‘I have been very happy these two years,’ she said. ‘You have given me more happiness than I dreamt possible.’


He took her hand and lifted her fingers to his lips. ‘Whatever you say,’ he vowed with conviction, ‘I shall always love you.’

She left it at that, put her arms round his neck, and drew him down into a most satisfactory silence.

The weather had changed while he was in her house. When he emerged into Micklegate the sky had clouded over, the air was bitterly
cold, and the numb greyness of the sky promised snow before long. Indeed, as he set off for Morland Place, the first fine
flakes were just beginning to drift down. Fand, his dog, ran ahead of him, her head down, intent on getting home, only occasionally
glancing back to be sure that he was still close behind. Benedict felt in his pocket for his gloves, then dropped the reins
on Beau’s neck while he searched two-handed. Beau put an enquiring ear back for a moment, wondering what was happening, then
pointed them both homewards again and clopped steadily on. He was not the sort of horse to take advantage of a loose rein,
which was one of the reasons Bendy loved him, and did not pine (or at least, not very much) for a younger, faster mount.


Not, of course, that he would have got one if he had pined, he thought. (No, the gloves were not in any of his pockets. He
was sure he had put them there this morning. Could he have dropped them somewhere?) One might have thought, now that he was
nearly nineteen – a man at least, if still a minor – that he would have been given a proper horse of his own. If Papa hadn’t
died the matter might have been adjusted by now; but Nicky was in charge of running the estate, and Nicky would not part with
so much as a rotten potato if he could help it. He meant to have everything to himself.


Of course, everything really belonged to Mama, hers to bequeath wherever she wished (though there had never been any doubt
that she would leave everything to Nicky, the eldest). The difficulty was that since Papa died she had withdrawn more and
more into herself, taking no interest in anything but her memories. She worked all day on the History of the French Revolution
which she had been writing haphazardly for as long as anyone could remember. She seemed suddenly, for some reason, to be determined to finish it, and she spent her days poring over notes and letters, reading
other people’s histories, and talking to Father Moineau, their chaplain, about the olden days in France.


Any question put to her about the estate she simply referred to Nicky; Nicky, on the other hand, used her as an excuse to
refuse to do anything he didn’t want to do – like giving Bendy a horse of his own, for instance. ‘It’s not for me to make
the decision,’ Nicky would say smugly. ‘You’ll have to ask my mother.’ When it was a matter of his own comfort, though – like
moving his own horses into better and more convenient stables – Nicky gave orders like the Autocrat of Russia, and expected
instant obedience.


Benedict checked these thoughts guiltily. Nicky was his brother: it was disloyal, and impious, to think so unkindly. He could
be annoying and arrogant, but he was the eldest after all; and since he did not enjoy robust health, every allowance must
be made for him. He had always been delicate, and Bendy thought it must be dreadful never to feel really well and full of
energy.


In any case, it was just plain wrong to judge other people; and if one once allowed oneself to stray down the path of resentment,
there was no knowing what awful things one might find oneself suspecting. Bendy had already had experience of that danger:
he had found himself wondering about Nicky’s actions on the day their father was killed, and had brought himself to such a
pitch of anxiety that he had had to seek advice of their chaplain. Father Moineau had warned him gravely that unfounded suspicion
of other people, even if one never voiced it, poisoned everything around one. One must always keep a cheerful mind and a grateful
heart, said Father Moineau, and leave judgements to God, whose business they were.


So Benedict reminded himself now, very firmly, that he wanted for nothing; and if his future looked uncertain, still he had
a comfortable present. He had his home, enough to eat and to wear, and this good horse to ride. He leaned forward and patted
Beau’s neck, and the bay replied with a little friendly snort and a slight quickening of pace as they passed under the arch
of Micklegate Bar and out of the walled city.


Nicky was his brother, and Bendy was obliged by every commandment of religion and civilisation to love him. And whenever things
grew uncomfortable in Nicky’s vicinity, Benedict could always go and visit Serena.


She was the widow of William Makepeace, the saddler and harness-maker whose vast shop in Coney Street was such a landmark
in York. Her father, a tanner, had no other child, and gave her the education and fortune he would have lavished on a son,
with the result that when she was fifteen, she caught the eye of Makepeace, who was then fifty-five.


Though it had been an arranged marriage, it had worked very well. Makepeace was a kind and liberal man, Serena an intelligent
and ambitious girl. Under her influence he had wrought a number of improvements to his business, eventually increasing his
profits fourfold. He expanded from harness into whips, canes, umbrellas and walking-sticks; valises and trunks; and finally
into gentlemen’s gloves, boots and shoes. By the time Makepeace died at the age of seventy, his shop had engulfed those to
either side, and it was difficult for any gentleman of York or the surrounding country to get through a month without a visit
to Makepeace’s.


In justice to his partner and helpmeet, and to the surprise of the stiffer elements of society, Makepeace had left his entire
fortune to Serena, who had thus found herself, at the age of thirty, both wealthy and independent. She remained in the large
old house in Nunnery Lane which had been in the Makepeace family for generations, continued to run the business with success,
and two years later had met Benedict.


It had been a dazzling experience for Benedict: she brought him not just physical delights, but companionship, something he
had been short of all his life. Nothing in his previous sexual experience – which though wide had been necessarily shallow
– had suggested that one might enjoy the company and conversation of the woman one bedded. He had no vocabulary for something
so new and all-consuming, except to call it love; and loving her, he wanted to marry her, for his natural instinct was always
to serve, protect, and cherish.


Sooner or later, he feared, there would be trouble if they went on as they were. Serena’s servants were loyal and discreet,
and he tried to be careful, but the time would inevitably come when someone would find out, and inevitably that someone would tell Mama. Bendy quaked at the thought of the storm he would have
to face then. Mama would be so shocked, so angry. He knew she would think it a grave sin – well, he supposed it was a sin, though it didn’t feel like one to him when he was engaged in it. He dreaded exposure, both for Serena’s sake – young
as he was, he knew the public odium would fall unfairly on her rather than on him – and because he didn’t want to upset Mama.
She was neither young nor strong any more, and when he thought how distressed she had been by his minor kick-ups, he felt
he would rather do anything than risk her finding out about Serena.


He didn’t want to give Nicky anything to use against him, either; for loyalty to his brother notwithstanding, Bendy had to
admit that Nicky liked making trouble for him. Not that it would matter in the long run – when Nicky finally inherited Morland
Place he would turn Bendy out, that was certain. He had hinted as much – more than hinted – on many occasions. But though
Bendy knew he would have to leave one day, he didn’t want his mother’s mind to be poisoned against him. He loved her, and
wanted her to love him. It was an uphill struggle: not only did she love Nicky best – which was inevitable – but Bendy seemed
naturally to fall into scrapes which made Mama shake her head over him, while Nicky always managed to keep out of trouble.


The snow was falling more thickly now, beginning to gather in a crust on Beau’s mane, and muffling his hoof beats. Ahead,
Fand was growing harder to see through the murk, and worries over the complicatedness of life sank under a simple desire to
be home and out of the cold. Benedict hunched up his shoulders and urged Beau into a faster trot down the darkening road.


The first large, light flakes of snow were falling as Nicholas emerged onto the wooden staircase which led down into Little
Helen Yard, and he paused automatically to fasten his greatcoat at the neck and turn up the collar. He was feeling light,
almost transparent, with shock, and his fingers fumbled at the buttons. The familiar stream of thought ran through the background
of his mind: he had a weak chest, and it would never do to get a cold on it at this season of the year. November was always a tiresome month, with its fogs and chills,
and no-one really appreciated how delicate his health was. Even his mother had been known to be unsympathetic, and suggest
that he needed fresh air when what was really wanted was a good bright fire and no draughts. Now it was beginning to snow,
and he had come to York in his tilbury. If he were to get a wetting on the way home, he would be in bed for a week.


But the habitual trickle of complaint was like the murmur of a distant stream, only half heard and barely regarded. The forefront
of his mind was occupied with images and emotions so large and violent they shut out the capacity for rational thought. It
was as though the inside of his head was frozen in a silent scream.


He had come in normal spirits to the little apartment for his usual entertainment. There had been the usual small itch of
excitement, the little hot trickle of expectation – which sadly these days was often the forerunner to a feeling of anticlimax
afterwards. However, he had entered the apartment in all innocence, calling out to Annie as he opened the door … He shuddered
as the ghastly image sprang again before his mind’s eye; and he glanced instinctively behind him to make sure the door was
shut, half afraid that it would swing open and expose his hideous situation to the public gaze.


The public gaze? Self-preservation rose up hot and strong, thrusting back even horror and distress. He must at all costs prevent
anything from being discovered! There was no-one in the yard; but through the gaps between the plank-steps of the wooden staircase
he could see the window of the ground-floor apartment. Here lived Clulow, the stained-glass artist, whose bench was set up
right against the window to get the light on his work. Nicholas could imagine Clulow now as he had so often seen him, the
bald crown of his head gleaming as he bent low over his work, his attention thoroughly absorbed – or so it seemed.


Nicholas had always taken pains to come and go unobserved. He had made sure that Clulow had his head down before he crossed
the yard, and had kept his face averted and in the shadow of his hat. He didn’t think he had been recognised so for; but this time it mattered so much more if Clulow
looked up and saw him. Sooner or later the thing in the upstairs apartment would be discovered, and then questions would be
asked of the little, pallid-faced artisan. Nicky could imagine the scene: Clulow before the magistrate, his eyes gloating
behind his gold-rimmed spectacles as he identified the gentleman who visited the upstairs tenant…


The hideous image, which Nicholas had temporarily blocked from his mind, leapt out violently from his memory. He stood immobile,
held rigid by the horror of it as it dangled before him again just as it had when he pushed in through the door half an hour
ago. The thing – he could hardly think of it as a person – was hanging from the crossbeam in the middle of the room by a rope. It was bloated
and black in the face, blotchily swollen in the limbs. The teeth were bared in a ghastly grin, and the tip of a purple tongue
stuck through them like a lump of ox liver jammed in a white paling fence.


He did not think he had screamed. He had been too frightened at first to move. He had stood there trembling, unable even to
look away as the image was etched ever more deeply into his mind. It was plain that she was dead, and had been dead some time.
She must have stood on a stool and kicked it away, but her neck had since stretched grotesquely, so that her feet were now
scraping against the floor. One of her shoes had fallen off and he noticed with front and fainting horror that the yellowish
toe of her stocking was neatly darned. It had seemed too human a detail to be borne in that context.


His first impulse, when he was able to think at all, was to call for help. Someone had to do something. He had to get Clulow
up here and make him go for a doctor or a constable or – or anyone! His legs, however, scotched these early plans by threatening to collapse under him. He staggered to a chair and sat down,
trembling violently; and while he was recovering, second and wiser thoughts came to him.


If he made a public outcry, how would he explain what he was doing here? The minds of the vulgar would instantly fasten on
one explanation and one only; and while many a gentleman kept a little lovebird in a secret nest, not every gentleman had a mother like his, a mother of stern moral fibre – and whose entire fortune, moreover, was unentailed. Such
a mother might well leave everything away from a son who offended her ideas of propriety, and Nicky would do anything – anything
– rather than let Bendy have what was rightfully his!


Furthermore, Nicky’s love-nest had some unusual aspects to it which, even if all else were forgiven, would be extremely embarrassing,
to say the least, to have to explain. There were the articles in the wall cupboard for one thing: they might cause some searching
questions to be asked. And for another, his last visit to Annie had been pretty boisterous, and he was fairly sure the marks
he had left would not have disappeared yet. People might even blame him for what she had done to herself – the rope, after
all, had been brought there by him, though for quite other purposes.


And then there was the question of what everyone – and in particular his boon companions – would say about him if it came
out that his mistress had hanged herself rather than remain in his keeping. He imagined the sneers of Jack Cox, the sniggers
of Carlton Husthwaite… No, no, his name must not be connected with this business at all! Thank heaven he had not acted on
his first impulse and raised the alarm. He must think, think.

He thought, staring blankly round the room. All looked as usual. It was a rather bare little room: his allowance was not so
generous he could afford to furnish it with any luxury, and he had hardly ever bought Annie presents. In any case, by origin
she was nothing but a pauper slut from the workhouse, and however bare the room, it was better than she deserved or could
have hoped for. The bareness suited his purposes, anyway: the austerity, almost grimness of the place and the lowness of his
companion had been part of the play he made for himself there.


Of late, indeed, she had seemed to be sinking ever lower, practically to the level of a dumb beast. She had never been very
clever, but he had begun to wonder if she weren’t getting a little touched in her upper works. Just lately she had greeted
him when he visited with dull eyes and sullen wordlessness, replying to his comments and questions in grunts, doing what he bid but without even the pretence of willingness. He had been keeping her for three years, but he had begun to think she
had outlived her usefulness. He had even planned how he would tell her he no longer required her services and that she must
vacate the apartment. But of course, he checked himself, he could never have let her go. She knew his secrets. She might have
spoken to others of what they did together, and he could never have allowed her to do that, even if it meant…


An eddy of wind spattered snowflakes into his face, bringing him back from the deep cavern of his thoughts. He realised he
was still standing at the top of the steps, exposed to the elements and being chilled to the marrow by the icy wind. He must
move before he caught his death of cold. He must get away from here before someone came and saw him. It was growing dusk and
getting colder all the time, and he fumbled in his pocket for his gloves. His hands were already numb and as he struggled
to drag the first one on, the second one slipped from his grasp and fell; he cursed and made a grab for it, and dropped the
first glove too, scuffled after them, and saw them tumble through the gap between the steps into the yard below.


Crouching, he peered down and saw them lying on the cobbles just before Clulow’s door. Damnation! What the hell was he to
do now? To reach them he would have to walk right past Clulow’s window, and there was no chance in the world that the artisan
would not look up at someone apparently coming to his workshop door. He would just have to abandon them, he thought resignedly.
They were an expensive pair his mother had bought for him for his last birthday; but then she had gone on to buy Bendy a pair
almost identical for his birthday, which had spoiled the gift as far as Nicky was concerned.


In fact, now he thought of it, that was Bendy’s pair anyway! He brightened at the realisation. He had left his own upstairs
this morning, and rather than go all the way back for them, he had taken Bendy’s out of the pocket of his greatcoat, which
had been lying across a chair in the hall. Nicky smiled to himself. He would make good sure to draw Mama’s attention to the
fact that Bendy had cared so little for her gifts he had already lost the gloves she had bought for him. When the moment arose, Nicky could make good use of that!


So now he pulled his hat firmly down, tucked his stick under his arm and thrust his frozen hands into his pockets, hunching
his shoulders so that as much of his face as possible was obscured by his greatcoat collar as he went quickly and quietly
down the steps. He could only hope that the dusk and Clulow’s devotion to his art would prevent his seeing – or at all events
recognising – Nicky as he left.


He hurried across Little Helen Yard and dived into the narrow alley which led into the next court. He had to get to Grape
Lane where his horse and tilbury were stabled, but his first aim now was to make sure he did not meet anyone who knew him.
If he went through the courts, rather than along the respectable streets, he would be safe, for it was here that the poorest
of the poor lived, crammed together in tiny rooms in the rotting carcases of what had once been the large houses of well-to-do
tradesmen. The better-off now lived outside the walls in Bootham or Clifton or Fulford, and the indigent had settled like
flies in the vacated spaces. Their filth, and that of the animals they kept, was thrown into the street to stand in festering
dungheaps and stagnate in black pools. Now Nicholas was glad of the bitter weather, for it had frozen the surface and killed
the odour, making the going a little less unpleasant than it would otherwise have been.


There would be no gentleman to recognise him in these blighted alleys. Human creatures there were, but he hardly regarded
them even as people; like the disgusting thing that was approaching him now along Mucky-Peg Lane – an