Keeping the Castle

Keeping the Castle - By Patrice Kindl




1



WE WERE WALKING IN the castle garden. The silvery light of early spring streaked across the grass, transforming the overgrown shrubbery into a place of magic and romance. He had begged me for a few moments of privacy, to “discuss a matter of great importance.” By this I assumed that he meant to make an offer of marriage.

“I love you, Althea—you are so beautiful,” murmured the young man into my ear.

Well, I was willing enough. I looked up at him from under my eyelashes. “I love you too,” I confessed. I averted my gaze and added privately, “You are so rich.”

Unfortunately, I apparently said this aloud, if just barely, and his hearing was sharper than one would expect, given his other attributes.

“I beg your pardon? You love me because I’m rich?”

“Not only because of that,” I hastened to assure him. He also was reasonably amiable and came of a good family. He admired me and was apparently willing to overlook my lack of fortune, all points in his favor. And, yes, he was rich. Quite enough to turn the head, and capture the heart, of an impressionable and impecunious young girl such as myself.

“So . . .” He thought this over. “If I lost my money, you wouldn’t love me anymore?”

“If I became ill,” I countered, “so that my hair fell out in clumps and my skin was covered with scabs and I limped, would you still love me?”

“Egad!” He stared at me, evidently attempting to picture this. He turned a little green.

“But,” I said, “most likely those things will not happen. You are rich and I am beautiful. We should make an excellent couple. Our children will have my looks and your money.” At least, so I hoped. Only imagine a child with his lack of neck and my lack of funds! The poor man’s head looked exactly like a melon, or perhaps one of those large orange gourds from the Americas, bursting out of his cravat. And he had such big red lips, which he licked incessantly.

We each were lost in our own separate thoughts for a moment, I mourning the fate of these hypothetical offspring, he, as his subsequent commentary proved, considering the finer distinctions of desire and avarice.

“It’s not the same thing,” he said at last, looking sulky. “Admiration of a woman’s beauty in a man is . . .” he waved a hand, searching for the mot juste . . . “it’s spiritual. It shows that he has a soul.” His gaze swept up and down my form, lingering regretfully on my bosom, which was exposed enough for interest and covered enough for decorum. He licked his lips. “But,” he went on, withdrawing his gaze, “any consideration of the contents of a man’s purse by a lady he is courting is—I regret to say this to one I held in such high esteem only a few short moments ago, but I must—it is mercenary and shows a cold heart. I must withdraw my protestations of ardor. Good evening to you.”

He bowed, turned, and stalked out of the garden. I sighed. When would I learn to speak with a tactful tongue? There went another one. I kept forgetting how ridiculously sensitive and illogical men were. He assumed that his fortune would buy a beauty; I assumed that my beauty would procure me a rich husband. It seemed much the same thing to me, but evidently what was permissible in a man was not in a woman.

Ah well. There was yet time; I was but seventeen.



“My dear, Mr. Godalming just hurried away. He was almost rude. You didn’t say anything to upset him, did you?”

It was my mama, appearing at the entrance to the shrubbery accompanied by my small brother, Alexander.

“Yes, I am so sorry, Mama, but I am afraid Mr. Godalming has discovered that he has a soul above marriage to such a one as I. We have parted forever, I fear.”

“Oh dear, and he seemed so devoted!”

“Yes, Mama, but you would not have enjoyed being patronized by his mama; you know you would not.”

“My love, I could bear anything for your sake.”

“Well then, I could not bear to be patronized by his mama. It is for the best. We shall do much better by and by,” I said, linking my arm with hers and drawing her back inside the castle walls.

“I certainly hope so. To be honest, I do not think Mr. Godalming is a man who could make you happy,” she said, putting my brother down on the frayed carpet. “So I am glad you are not to wed him. However,” she admitted, “the whole east wing does need a new roof, or so I fear.” My mama cast her eyes upwards to a tracery of green mold on the stone walls.

“Oh,” she added, “and that balcony out over the guardhouse is sagging; the wooden framework is rotten.”

“It would be easier to tear it down than to replace it,” I suggested, and Mama agreed.

Our home was not a real castle in the sense of being ancient and fortified. My great-grandfather had been a romantic, fond of reading about the gallant knights of the Round Table, and it had been his childhood dream to build a castle by the sea. While influenced by the ruins of Castle Scarborough some miles away, he had not been a stickler for historical accuracy. Indeed, much of the structure was nonfunctional in any but a decorative sense, with winding stone stairs leading to nowhere, murder holes so improperly placed that they could pose no danger even to the most oblivious of intruders, and a hodgepodge of towers and battlements sticking out at random. He called it Crawley Castle, but such was his love for the picturesque that the building produced was immediately and invariably known as “Crooked Castle.”

My great-grandfather had sold most of his holdings in order to build this fantasy on a hundred-foot cliff overlooking the North Sea, and then spent most of the rest of his fortune furnishing it. Since he had exchanged rich farmland for barren chalk cliffs, our family’s financial situation has yet to recover from this architectural extravagance. Now our home, as inconvenient and eccentric as it was, made up nearly the sum total of our wealth, save for a pittance in rents, and for a time following my father’s death our retaining even that was in doubt. His decease took place shortly before the birth of my brother, and for several months we lived in suspense. Had the child been a girl we would have had to leave our home and go, who knows where, in order to make way for the male heir, Charles Crawley, a second cousin none of us even knew, living somewhere in Sussex.

The birth of dear little Alexander saved us from that fate, and ever since his birth it has been the object of all our care to save the property for him (and incidentally for ourselves) when he shall be of an age to hold it.

Two years ago my mother remarried, to a man of fortune but no property named Winthrop. Mr. Winthrop was a widower with two daughters, both several years older than myself, and he had had great plans, enthusiastically seconded by my mother, to repair and refurbish the castle.

Neither Mr. Winthrop nor his plans survived the first month of marriage. He began to cough as he walked my mother down the aisle and did not leave off until a renowned physician, summoned from York at vast expense, closed his eyes in death two weeks later. His money descended to his daughters with only a pittance to us, and we therefore found ourselves in much the same situation as before the marriage with the exception of having two more mouths to feed. My stepsisters did feel some obligation to contribute towards their upkeep, but the sum was ever in dispute, and tardy in payment.

We could not afford to live in and maintain the castle; neither could we quit it. In order to lease it out to a tenant it would be necessary to make some rather expensive repairs, and even had we wished to sell it we could not: it belonged to little Alexander. Other than abandoning it to tumble into the sea, we had no other alternative but to live in it as cheaply as could be contrived and put our hopes in the future, which, sad to say, looked little brighter than did the present. We had no aged, wealthy relative teetering on the brink of eternity, and it would be many years before Alexander could make any attempt to repair our fortunes. Besides, we doted on him and did not like to think of his risking his life and health in the gold fields, or at the helm of a privateer sailing the high seas.

No, our only hope was in marriage. Mine.

I smiled upon my mama. “We shall have a new roof, the furniture new-covered, and three elegant gowns, all for you, upon the occasion of my wedding, you’ll see,” I assured her. “Perhaps I should consider an elderly suitor,” I mused. “They are more easily managed, I believe. And they often have defective hearing, which might be quite an advantage.”

My mother was shaking her head, but I went on, unregarding.

“Then too, you know, if I chose a man of great age and infirmity I might become a wealthy widow quite soon after the wedding. And then we could have the drawbridge over the moat replaced immediately rather than having to wait for him to recover from the wedding expenses; it has become a bit infirm of late.”

“Oh, I believe it would be better not,” interrupted my mama, “not until we have no other options. Best to aim for a younger man. You see, dearest, there are certain aspects of marriage—” She bent her head as she helped Alexander to climb up upon her lap—“it is not proper for you to know about them yet, but you must trust me to know what I am speaking about—that make a young man much more pleasing.”

“Mama.” I took her hand and pressed it, speaking earnestly. “I well understand that the pursuit and acquisition of a wealthy husband is my lot in life, and that achieving that goal is our only chance of assuring ourselves a comfortable future. I shall not disappoint you, I promise.”

“Occasionally,” my mama said, with a hint of defiance in her voice, “I wonder if it would not be possible for a lady to make her way in the world without a husband or inherited fortune. I feel that you and I are nearly as clever as most of the men we know.”

“Oh, my dear madam! How you do go on!” I laughed and squeezed her hand. There were times when I felt as if I were her elder, wiser sister. Indeed, my life would have been a good deal easier in many respects if she had been a more worldly, realistic woman, but in spite of this failing, I loved her dearly. “You know quite well that it has been scientifically proven that a woman’s small brain is not capable of understanding much beyond matters of the household. Tho’ when I think of Mr. Godalming’s brain . . . But no, intelligence is not all that counts in life, but power as well, and a woman without money has none.” I gave her hand another squeeze. “I will find someone, do not fear.”

She smiled then, and laughed a little. “You are right, of course, as always. I am a lucky woman to have such a daughter. Both lovely and practical.”

“Only lucky to have a daughter like Althea? What about us, Stepmother dearest?” My stepsisters, Prudence and Charity, entered the corner of the great hall that stood duty with us for a drawing room. I sighed. I believe my mama did as well, but hers was a tiny, noiseless sigh in comparison with my gusty exhalation, which was powerful enough to flutter the lace on my bodice.

“You know I consider myself lucky to have all my daughters, Prudence,” she said.

“Yes, I should think you might, Madam,” said Charity, smiling unpleasantly. Prudence smirked.

These sneers at my mother referred to the fact that their incomes were essential to keeping the walls about us standing. If one or both married, the castle most likely would fall down around our ears. As things were, they were unwilling to open their purses or to authorize any purchases not for their own comfort or pleasure.

Quite providentially, my stepsisters were both disagreeable and incapable of disguising the fact. Whenever they went to call upon ladies with marriageable sons or brothers, the young men would turn pale and bolt out of doors even into a driving rain, claiming to be going out with the dogs. They knew, you see, how determined the Misses Winthrop were to marry and establish independent households. Of course, given the size of their dowries, they would no doubt succeed some day.

“I saw Godalming leaving,” observed Prudence. She was the elder, with a broad, flat face and figure, and few pretensions to beauty. Her favorite pastime was collecting quotations on the subject of death and mortality. She wrote them out in an elegant hand, decorated them with sketches of weeping willows and mourning urns, bound them up in an album labeled “Memento Mori,” and then gloated over them. “He seemed in a bit of a hurry. I trust you did not chase him away with that indiscreet tongue of yours, Althea.”

“Indeed, I am afraid I did, Prudence. We shall see him no more.”

Charity seemed much put out. “I call that selfish of you, Althea! If you didn’t want him, it might have occurred to you that Pru and I . . . well, we enjoyed his company. He is a most eligible young man.” Charity was several years younger than her sister, with a graceful figure, a great many spit curls plastered over her forehead, and a mean little face like a gooseberry.

“My apologies,” I said, bending my head to hide a smile. I was quite certain that Mr. Godalming’s proposal had been as slow in coming as it was only because he found it a struggle to make up his mind to marry into a family containing such as Prudence and Charity. “Perhaps you will see him at Lord Boring’s ball. I promise to fade into the background so that he will not be frightened away.”

Charity said, “See that you do, then. I know that Prudence is partial to him,” and she cast a sly smile at her sister. Prudence preened herself.

My mama and I exchanged glances. Of the two sisters, Charity was by far the more attractive—if it were possible to ignore the sharp expression in her eyes and the pinching of her lips, one might call her pretty. She compensated for this, however, by possessing a character as acerbic as undiluted lemon juice.

My mother was all kindness, as always. “I hope you both will have a delightful ball. Indeed, I may say I hope everyone does; we need a little gaiety after the long winter.”

“I am looking forward to it,” I said, which was an understatement. Lord Boring’s upcoming ball was likely to bring whole flocks of eligible men from London, most of whom had yet to lay eyes on any of us. In light of this fact, it was almost a blessing that I had not thrown myself away on the likes of Mr. Godalming.

On the other hand, up here in the North of England, in a small, rural neighborhood, there were few single men with either a name or an income sufficiently good to make an offer of marriage to us. Mr. Godalming had been one of those few, and I had frittered him away. I could not blame my stepsisters for being annoyed with me.

Still, Lord Boring’s upcoming ball was to put all to rights; we smiled upon each other and thought of eligible men.