Page 2 of The Heart’s Choice (Cotton Cops Mysteries #1)
Chapter 1
Good News And Bad
Milton Abbas, Dorset, England, 1862
F earing she’d misheard, Beatrice Parker fought to extricate herself from the deep cushions of the settee. “A barony?” she exclaimed, eyes wide.
Her father drew on his pipe, filling the air with the redolent aroma of tobacco. “It would seem so, Bea,” he replied, scanning the unexpected missive once again. “I didn’t even know I had a distant cousin who was a baron. According to this letter, they’ve conducted an exhaustive search, and I’m Algernon Fothergill’s only surviving relative.”
“But where is this barony?” Bea’s mother enquired.
“Somewhere in Lancashire,” he answered. “Belmont Grange, near Bolton, apparently.”
“It’s out of the question,” Abigail Parker retorted. “Lancashire is so … so…”
“Industrial,” her husband supplied. “That’s apparently true of the towns and cities. The birth of new industries and the decline of traditional ways of earning a living has resulted in thousands flocking to the towns. Improvements made to cope with the overcrowding are already inadequate. Cities and towns have been created such as the world has never seen before. Great masses of people are living crammed close together. It’s a new world, a new England.”
“I’ve heard there are slums where the stench is unbearable,” his wife murmured, clearly unimpressed by her husband’s well-informed explanation.
“From what I’ve read,” Bea’s father added. “Muddy, rubbish-strewn alleys have become the norm in some places.”
Arthur Parker was an avid reader who considered it his moral duty to keep up with current affairs, but Bea wondered where her mother had heard these rumors, since she rarely ventured out of the house. “Belmont Grange sounds rural,” she said, struggling with conflicting emotions. Rural was certainly a word that described Milton Abbas, and she loved the quaint village where she’d lived for all of her nineteen years. However, life could be dull and predictable. Village folk had high expectations of the only child of the local vicar. She had just one friend her own age in Milton Abbas, and there were certainly no interesting young men. She and Edith enjoyed each other’s friendship and weren’t interested in pimply youths. The prospect of marriage to a farmer knotted her innards, whereas Edith Rexton had grown up on a farm and considered farming a fine life. When Bea accompanied her father on parochial visits to local farms, the stench of pigs and sheep churned her stomach.
“And, if I did consent to go, how would we travel such a great distance?” her mother asked.
Not consent to go? Bea deemed this a ridiculous notion. The Reverend Arthur Parker and his family barely survived on a diocesan pittance. Belmont Grange had an opulent ring to it. Surely her sickly mother wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to live in comfort?
“I believe the train goes to Lancashire,” her father replied.
“Not the train!” her mother exclaimed, clutching a lacy kerchief to her nose before she swooned.
“Glenda,” her father shouted.
The family’s maid-of-all-work bustled into the drawing room so quickly, Bea suspected she’d probably been listening at the door, as usual. With her came the overwhelming scent of her cheap eau de toilette . Glenda had worked for the Parkers since before Bea’s birth and tended to think of herself as part of the family. “Oh, my poor mistress,” she wailed, producing a small bottle of smelling salts from the deep pocket of her cotton apron. “Lancashire, of all places.”
It was fortunate Bea’s mother had been seated when she swooned. Glenda’s large frame wasn’t suited to kneeling, only eavesdropping.
Mrs. Parker’s delicate constitution made her prone to fainting spells, hence the maid’s readiness to address the latest episode.
“The train,” Abigail moaned, as Glenda waved the uncorked bottle under her nose.
A good deal of sobbing and dire warnings about the horrors of train travel ensued as Bea and the maid helped her mother out of the armchair. After seeing her tucked into bed with Glenda repeating, There, there , over and over, Bea found her father at the desk in his cramped study.
“I’m replying to the lawyer in London,” he explained. “Perhaps he can arrange our transportation to Belmont Grange. No harm in going to see the place.”
Bea worried for her frail mother, but couldn’t deny the excitement bubbling in her own heart. Moving north meant her father would have to give up his living. Once they made the trek, it was unlikely they’d ever come back. The prospect should have terrified her, but she found herself eager to set out.
* * *
With Glenda’s help, they spent the next three weeks selling off bits and pieces of furniture and sundries. Some items, like the china cabinet and its contents, were difficult to part with. Her mother declared the whole enterprise too much to bear and took to her bed. They boxed up books which her father insisted on taking with him. Clothing and personal items lay ready to pack into valises. The parishioners organized a small but heartfelt send-off in the parish hall. She’d known them all since childhood and felt guilty she wouldn’t miss any of them, except her friend, Edith.
In the midst of this flurry of preparations, they received a surprise visitor. Abigail was delighted by her nephew’s arrival from London. “How is my dear sister, Peter?” she asked over and over.
“She is well, Aunty,” Bea’s cousin replied. “What’s this I hear about you moving north?”
Bea wondered how he knew of their changed circumstances, but since her mother was clearly reluctant to explain, Bea told him, “Father has inherited a barony in Lancashire.”
Peter winked at his uncle. “I suppose I’ll have to address you as Baron Arthur,” he jested.
“Nonsense, my boy. But you’ll have to visit us once we’re established in the north.”
“Indeed I will,” Peter replied. “Shall we take a walk in the grounds one last time, Beatrice?”
Tempted to make her excuses—she truly did have a lot to do—she couldn’t ignore her mother’s nod of approval. “Of course, Peter.”
They strolled around the vicarage garden, until they came to her mother’s favorite rambling rose. “I shall miss this,” she confessed, inhaling the fragrance of the blossom he plucked from the arbor and presented to her. She was mortified when he suddenly dropped to one knee.
Casting aside the bloom, she urged him to stand. “Please, Peter. I do not wish to be rude, but …”
He stood but took hold of her hands. “I realize this is a bad time, given your imminent move. However, I believe we are well suited. I’d be honored if …”
“Please, Peter,” she begged. “I am not ready to marry and I barely know you.”
She didn’t mention she’d never trusted him since a childhood visit to his mother’s home in London. He’d pulled her hair and put a spider in her bed. Since his arrival, he’d struck her as an overconfident townie. Marrying such an irritating man was out of the question.
Peter departed Milton Abbas the same day, his nose clearly out of joint.
The next day, a Mr. James Odlum arrived unannounced. Bea’s father greeted him like a long-lost son. Bea personally thought the young law clerk dispatched to Dorset by the late baron’s solicitors had too high an opinion of himself. His superior tone was a sure sign he considered himself above their station, despite the fact Arthur Parker was now a baron. His frequent mention of an uncle who was a duke made it clear that escorting a parochial family to Lancashire was beneath his dignity. “But what’s a young man to do when Messrs. Hardman, Burgesse, and Hilton instruct him to venture into the wilds of Dorset?” he asked. “After all, Messrs. Hardman, Burgesse, and Hilton have been the Baron’s London solicitors forever.”
Bea was mildly surprised this patronizing monologue didn’t cause her mother to swoon, although Abigail Parker had managed to weather the startlingly foppish colors of the young man’s attire and his cloying cologne without fainting.
Whenever she encountered the young man, Glenda seemed unable to take her eyes off his tight yellow pantaloons, pink ruffled shirt, and purple topcoat.
“Well, we appreciate your coming all this way to help us,” Bea’s affable father said. “We’ve never ventured further than Weymouth before.”
“We’ll start our journey from Poole,” Odlum replied, in a tone that suggested Weymouth was beyond the pale. He then stuck his nose in the air and demanded Glenda show him to his chamber.
The Parkers had only ever referred to the guest room as the back bedroom, and Bea couldn’t recall the last time it had housed a guest. She was quite certain Odlum wouldn’t be happy with his cramped chamber .