The Prude and the Prodigal

Chapter One ~ 1817-2

It was the principle of the thing that mattered and Prunella told herself that it was her duty to rebuke Nanette and make her promise that it would not happen again.

Charity had gone to the door to bring in a tray holding a pot of the finest China tea and a slice of very thin bread and butter.

She set it down on the table beside Prunella saying as she did so,

“Mrs. Goodwin brought surprisin’ news this mornin’!”

Prunella, pouring herself out a cup of tea, waited to hear what it was without much interest.

Mrs. Goodwin was one of the women on the estate who came in to help with the scrubbing, but spent more time talking than she did keeping the passages clean.

“She says, Miss Prunella,” Charity went on, “that Mr. Gerald came back last night!”

Prunella put down the teapot.

“Mr. Gerald?” she repeated with a questioning note in her voice.

“I suppose I should say ‘his Lordship’ but somehow it comes strangely to the tongue.”

Prunella’s eyes were suddenly very wide.

“You are not saying – you cannot mean – ”

Yes, Miss Prunella, the new Earl of Winslow’s home if Mrs. Goodwin’s to be believed. And after fourteen years!”

“It cannot be true,” Prunella gasped. “I had begun to think that he would never come back.”

“Well, he’s here now,” Charity asserted, “and if you asks me, he’s only come to see what he can sell!”

“Oh, no!”

Prunella only breathed the words, but they seemed to come from the very depths of her being.

As Charity moved across the room to the wardrobe, she said almost as if she spoke to herself,

“The Earl is a relative of Pascoe Lowes and – ”

Her voice trailed away, but Charity heard what she had said.

“If you’re thinkin’ he’ll be any help in stoppin’ that overdressed young gentleman from pursuin’ Miss Nanette, miss, I think you’re mistaken. He’s as bad if not worse than his nephew!”

There was no need to elaborate because Prunella had heard all her life of the indiscretions and the raffish behaviour of the Earl’s only son, Gerald.

When he had been living at home, the estate, the village and the County had talked of nothing else but his escapades, his wild parties, his fashionable friends, the beautiful alluring women whom he pursued and, if rumour was to be believed, who pursued him.

Then in 1803 during the Armistice between France and England things came to a climax.

Prunella had only been seven and at the time was quite unaware of what was going on, but the tale had been related to her so often all through her life that she knew it as well as she knew her Catechism.

By this time it had been varied and embellished until she would have found it hard if she had been hearing it for the first time to believe that it could possibly be true.

Knowing the old Earl as well as she did, there was no doubt that he, like all autocrats, was determined to have his own way and apparently his son was the same.

They were both obstinate, self-willed and undoubtedly overbearing, but the Earl told Gerald that his philanderings were to cease, that he was to stop spending so much money and the best thing he could do would be to marry and settle down.

But Gerald had replied that he had no intention of doing any such thing.

“Like two fighting c***s, they was!” one of the old retainers had said to Prunella. “Neither of ’em would give in and, when his Lordship knew that he was bein’ defied, he loses his temper.”

Prunella had seen the old Earl in a temper many times and knew that it was an extremely awesome sight, but she learned that Mr. Gerald had a temper too.

They had therefore been evenly matched, but the outcome had been that the old Earl had threatened to cut his son off without a penny and had loaded the threat with many insults.

Gerald had told his father exactly what he could do with his money.

“Fine words!” the old Earl had sneered, “but you will soon find yourself in ‘Queer Street’ without it and come running back to ask for my help.”

“I would rather die than do that,” Gerald replied. “So you can keep your damned money, your advice and your everlasting disapproval of everything I do. As for my inheritance and this estate you set so much store on, it can rot for all I care and the house can fall to the ground before I would raise a finger to stop it!”

He could not have said anything that could infuriate the Earl more, but before he could think of a suitable reply Gerald had gone.

The next thing they learnt was that ‘young Mr. Gerald’ had left England taking with him the pretty young wife of one of their neighbours and her elderly husband was threatening to ‘shoot him down like a dog’!

From that moment there had been silence.

*

A month later war had started again with France and all that was known was that Gerald had left England and, if he had gone to Paris, as seemed likely, the lady who had left with him had not returned.

There were a few intrepid people who escaped from the prisons that Napoleon had confined all British tourists in, but Gerald was not amongst them.

It was five years before it was learnt quite casually that the lady who had left England with him had died of cholera in the East.

Whether or not Gerald had died with her was not known at the time, but Prunella remembered four years ago the Earl telling her father that he had received a letter from a friend informing him that Gerald had been seen in India.

There was no question of his coming home and it would have been difficult unless he travelled in a troop ship for, although Great Britain ‘ruled the waves’, it was a long passage from India and a dangerous one.

The only ships that made the six-month voyage were those taking soldiers out or bringing them home.

A year before Prunella’s father had died, the Earl of Winslow had suffered a stroke.

He had flown into one of his rages and, when he had dropped unconscious to the floor, it was impossible to save him and, although he lingered for two or three months, he finally died without anyone knowing until much later.

It was partly the loss of his old friend. Prunella thought, that had made her father relinquish his already frail hold upon life.

She had nursed him day and night because he disliked strangers about him and he clung to her in a manner that made it almost impossible for her to do anything else.

If she was not there in his bedroom in the daytime, he called her and even at night he would send for her two or three times for no reason except that he wanted to see her.

This did not prevent him being querulous, irritable and difficult as only an invalid can be and, when finally he died, Prunella herself had been exhausted to the point of collapse.

It was Charity who put her to bed and she had slept without waking for forty-eight hours.

“I must get up,” she said weakly when she realised that she had lost two days out of her life.

“You’ll stay right where you are, Miss Prunella,” Charity ordered her firmly.

“B-but – ”

“Miss Nanette and I can cope. Go back to sleep, Miss Prunella, and I’ll wake you when we needs you.”

Because she felt so tired and so weak, Prunella had done as she was told.

She knew afterwards that Charity's treatment had really saved her from a breakdown from sheer fatigue.

At first she could hardly believe that she was free to live a life of her own without hearing her father call her and without finding herself thinking every second of the day of his comfort.

Then she found that there were a great many tasks to be done that only she could do.

Now as she got up and dressed she found herself wondering whether the new Earl would behave like his father.

Surely, after being away for so long, he would want to make reparation for the past and take up his position as Head of the Family.

The old Earl had always looked and behaved rather like a Biblical character and, although Prunella could hardly remember his son, she felt sure that he would want to follow the long succession of Winslows who had lived at The Hall and made it a place of elegance not only to the Winn family but in the surrounding countryside.

Then, as she buttoned her gown, she suddenly remembered, almost as if someone had struck her, what Charity had said,

“He’s come back lookin’ for money, I suppose.”

The words seemed to echo and re-echo around her bedroom and she knew that the new Earl of Winslow was going to have a shock, which would doubtless be a very unpleasant one.

*

Two hours later Prunella stepped into the old-fashioned but well-sprung carriage drawn by two well-bred horses and set off for The Hall.

The old coachman who was driving her was not surprised when she told him where she wished to go and she wondered if he knew that the Earl had returned.

After all news about him would run like wildfire through the estate and, if Mrs. Goodwin knew, then so would everybody else by this time.

Prunella gave a little sigh.

It was not going to be an easy interview and she wished that somebody could have gone with her to give her support.

She knew that Nanette would be worse than useless, especially after this morning when she had received the letter from Pascoe and besides, what she had to say to the Earl when she had explained everything else was something that her sister must not overhear.

She could have taken Charity, but she could not help thinking with a little smile that her stringent comments on ‘Mr. Gerald’s’ past behaviour would not help the situation.

It was difficult to anticipate what his attitude would be.

The carriage carried Prunella through the village with its black-and-white inn on the other side of the green, past the small pond where there were always a few ducks and the old alms-houses that had been built by the previous Earl in more prosperous days.

The horses turned in through the gates to The Hall with their stone lodges on either side. They were occupied by gatekeepers who by now were so old and decrepit that they were no longer capable of attending to the gates, which were therefore left permanently open.

There was a long drive that wanted gravelling, bordered by oak trees which needed attention and then there was the lake with its banks overgrown by irises and beyond it The Hall.

It was beautiful architecturally in that it was designed by Inigo Jones, but the bricks needed pointing and there were a number of panes missing from the top floor windows.

Yet Prunella could see that the first and second floors were not only in good repair but shining because they had recently been cleaned.

The carriage stopped at the steps leading up to the front door, which she noticed was open.

Dawson, the coachman, was too old to get down to assist Prunella to alight, but she managed it herself and stepped out.

“Shall I wait here for you, Miss Prunella?” he asked, “or go round to the back?”

She hesitated a moment and then replied,

“I think you should go round to the back, Dawson, and find out what is happening and if the Carters are all right. They must be upset by his Lordship’s unexpected return.”

“I’ll do that, Miss Prunella.”

She did not wait to say anything more, but hurried up the steps and walked in through the open door.

As she had expected,, there was nobody in the main hall and she walked resolutely, although she was feeling a little nervous, towards the library, which she felt would be where the Earl would be.

But the library was empty and so was the large saloon where the shutters had not been opened and the furniture was still covered with Holland dustsheets.

She thought for a moment and then she walked up the staircase with its exquisite seventeenth century ironwork towards the Picture Gallery.