Banishment (Daughters of Mannerling 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘It will be so good to see him.’
    Again she thanked him and again he refused her offer of refreshment, touching his curly-brimmed beaver and driving off. A rumble of thunder sounded as Isabella went into the mansion.
    ‘Miss Isabella,’ said the butler, his face a white disk in the gloom of the hall, ‘Sir William is returned and requested that you should join the family in the drawing room.’
    The thunder rumbled again. The storm was drawing closer.
    Isabella’s maid, Maria, had appeared at her elbow quietly, in the way of a good servant, and took her mistress’s fan, bonnet, and parasol. As Isabella mounted the stairs, something suddenly made her turn and look back, look down at the hall.
    Maria was standing there, on the black and white tiles, as still as a chess piece, and in her eyes was an avid, gloating look which was banished immediately when she saw her mistress looking at her. She bobbed a curtsy and hurried off. Isabella turned and continued to mount the staircase. A bright flash of lightning stabbed through the cupola above her head and then there was a crash of thunder which seemed to rock the house to its very foundations. She shivered in the increasing gloom. Two footmen at the top of the stairs turned and walked in front of her and then threw open the double doors of the drawing room.
    She was never to forget the sight that met her eyes. Her father was standing by the fireplace, leaning one arm on the marble mantel and staring down into the black depths of the empty hearth; her mother was weeping quietly; and her sisters, Jessica, Rachel, Abigail, Belinda, and Lizzie, were still and white, as if frozen.
    The footmen retired. ‘Papa,’ said Isabella, ‘what has happened?’
    Lady Beverley found her voice. ‘We are
ruined
,’ she wailed.
    Isabella felt for a chair and sat down. For once, there was no waiting footman to slide it under her.
    ‘The jewels,’ she said. ‘What about the jewels? They must have been worth a king’s ransom.’
    The door opened and Mr Ducket came in. Sir William raised his head and looked wearily at his secretary. ‘I have had enough. You tell her.’
    He held out his arm to his wife and they supported each other from the room.
    Another blinding flash of lightning lit up the white faces of the Beverley sisters. It was followed by a roll of thunder, but slightly fainter than the last. The storm was moving away.
    Mr Ducket stood in front of them. He was a plain and neat young man with a precise, unemotional voice. He began to tell them the dreadful facts. Sir William had been gambling and then speculating in risky ventures to try to recoup the money he had lost, and then gambling again. He had finally lost it all. He had lost the money from the sale of the jewels, and in one last dreadful night of gambling in St James’s, he had wagered the house and the estates. The winner was a Mr Judd.
    Isabella was the first to find her voice. ‘Mannerling? Do you mean we shall have to leave Mannerling?’
    ‘Almost immediately.’
    ‘But where shall we live?’
    ‘Brookfield House is vacant.’
    Brookfield House had been vacant for some time. It lay on the outskirts of Hedgefield. It had an acre and a half of garden, but no rolling lawns or vistas or woods or farms.
    ‘Brookfield House is
poky
,’ moaned Jessica.
    ‘I am afraid Brookfield House is all that the Beverleys can now afford,’ said Mr Ducket.
    ‘How could Papa do this to us?’ demanded Isabella fiercely.
    ‘In this gambling age, I am afraid great losses are all too common,’ said Mr Ducket.
    Belinda found her voice. ‘But where will the servants live at Brookfield House? Where will you live, Mr Ducket?’
    ‘I already have another position to go to,’ he said in his dry way. ‘I made provision for this eventuality. As to the other servants, Sir William must decide on the few who are willing to accompany the family.’
    ‘The
few?
’ exclaimed Isabella. ‘What of our lady’s-maids?’
    ‘As to that, I