by Joan Aiken
“Grandmother’s maiden name?”
“Armstrong.”
“Parthie?”
“Age fifteen. Straight flaxen hair, pale complexion, china-blue eyes. Has an affection of the legs which makes them thick and unsightly.”
“She is always asking when her skirts may be lengthened, poor child,” put in Isa. “It is an hereditary condition from my mother’s side of the family. Mamma suffers from it too, to a lesser degree.”
“My father’s dogs?”
“Batty, Roan, and Ginger; two spaniels and a pug.”
“Grandmother’s cat?”
“Maudge.”
“Mrs Slaley?”
“Ah—let me think. I know! The cook: no husband, never had one. Striped apron, round pink face, curly brown hair. She makes excellent hodge podge and collops and tatie stovies.”
“Amble?”
“The butler. Sir Aydon’s batman in the siege of Dunkirk. Saved his life in the battle of—of Linselles. Face pock-marked all over with powder-burns. Very devoted to your father.”
“My brother James?”
“You never described him.”
“No more we did. There seemed so little likelihood of his returning home. He and my mother do not—do not—”
“Do not like each other,” gently, from Isa.
“Well! He is not her son, after all.”
“What does he look like?”
“His hair is thick and very fair. Not tall—under six foot in height, but very active. Rides well, yet never shared Papa’s passion for hunting.”
“He likes to fish. And his favourite author is Sir Izaak Walton.”
“Wounded at the battle of Waterloo. We do not know how badly. He is a very poor correspondent.”
“He and Louisa always detested one another,” Isa said bluntly.
“So,” added Meg, “you have a good excuse for avoiding him.”
Oho, thought Alvey, Meg is apprehensive that I shall fall in love with Brother James. Well, and indeed that would be a complication! But I do not intend to become involved with the Winships in any way; why cannot Meg comprehend that I am strictly an observer, a detached onlooker?
Aloud she said, “And has your brother a sweetheart? Is there any local beauty whom he has escorted to balls—with whom he plighted his troth before he went off to battle?”
The sisters exchanged looks.
Meg said, “Oh, when he was sixteen or so he used to moon after Maria Chibburn, but she was two years older and paid no heed to him. Then, when he came down from Cambridge—”
“James is of a very reserved disposition,” broke in Isa. “Since the calf love for Maria, he has never singled out any young lady for attentions, or worn his heart on his sleeve. Last spring, when he was on furlough, we hardly saw him. Fishing, he said, up the Hungry Water. But, after he had rejoined his regiment—seven months after—Annie Herdman, a girl from the village, came to Mamma and said she was expecting James’s baby; she asked for money to go away and have her confinement in Alnwick where she had cousins, as her father was being hard on her. He is a disagreeable, harsh old man, a widower—”
“Did your mother agree to this?”
“No, she did not. Papa would probably have done so, but Mamma was within three months of bearing her own latest child, little Katie. She was very displeased, of course,” said Isa moderately.
Meg took up the tale. “She flew into a rare passion. She said that, since Annie had disgraced herself, the least she could do was come to Birkland Hall and make herself useful as a wet-nurse, for Mamma has not been able to suckle her last three babies.”
“So she moved into a loft over the stable and had her baby there. And now she looks after little Katie.”
“What of her own child?”
“At first Mamma said that she could not keep him with her, that she must leave him with her father or some neighbour. But Annie was vehement that she would do no such thing—her father would ill-treat him, she said, and the neighbours would despise him as a love-child; so in the end she was permitted to keep him. Of course at first it was no great matter, for he slept in his crib all day. But then he learned to crawl and to walk—he is a forward little fellow and nearly a year old now. He learned how to scramble down the steps to the stable.”
“Mamma will not allow him in the house,” Meg said. “She ordered Annie to keep him locked up in the loft.”
“But he had already encountered Papa in the stable, who said he was a fine fellow and should not be shut up,” put in Isa.
“However this was no great kindness to Annie, for she is occupied in little Katie’s nursery all day, so the child roams about at will, getting into all kinds of mischief.”
“Papa encourages him and gives him comfits.”
Alvey found herself completely silenced by the oddness of this arrangement, and what seemed callous indifference on the part of Sir Aydon and Lady Winship to the feelings of the unfortunate Annie. What a very extraordinary woman Lady Winship must be! Unable to find any appropriate comment, Alvey said at length,—
“Does your brother—is he aware of this arrangement?”
“We supposed so. Papa wrote to him. But that was some months ago, when he was overseas. He has never replied to Papa’s letter. Perhaps he never received it.”
“And—and Annie? She complied with your mother’s wishes?”
“What could she do? She had no other recourse. And at least she can have her boy with her. I fancy that Papa is truly attached to the little creature,” Meg said remotely. “As we told you, Papa prefers boys; and his own sons have turned out a disappointment. James has never entered into his interests; Tot is always off on his own ploys, hand in glove with Nish—and he is delicate, also. Perhaps Annie hopes that Papa may provide for her child—”
“Of course,” added Isa, “bastards were quite a commonplace in our family during the last century. It is said that our grandfather and great-uncles fathered dozens, about the countryside; wherever you see a long nose and a pair of bright blue eyes, it is probably a cousin sinister.”
“So, when James returns to Birkland,” Alvey said, pursuing her own line of thought, “supposing that by any mischance your father’s letter never reached him—it may come as a considerable shock to find his child and his mistress boarded out in the stable loft. Unless Annie may have informed him?”
“Oh, Annie can neither read nor write,” said Meg calmly. She then added, with more than a touch of malice, “All this would make a suitable theme for one of your romances, would it not, sister Emmy?”
Alvey decided that the best response to this would be an enigmatic smile, accompanied by a lift of the eyebrows. “Pray, Miss Winship, be under no apprehension; all my stories are constructed entirely out of my own head, they bear no relation whatever to real life.”
And that was no more than the truth, she thought fondly, surveying in her mind’s eye the outrageous escapades of Wicked Lord Love, who had, like Athene, sprung fully armed and accoutred from his creator’s brain—with, perhaps, a little assistance from English literature in the persons of Mr Walter Scott and messrs Fielding, Richardson, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
The carriage rolled on its way, going faster now, as the horses began to recognize familiar territory. Up, up, up great ridges of heather-covered hillside, the long straight road mounted, then down, down, down the other side.
“It is like a switchback,” Alvey murmured.
“This is a Roman road, of course,” Isa replied absently, her eyes noting every clump of trees, every shade of cloud over the far landscape as they crested some high ridge. In the narrow tree-filled valleys they crossed tumbling, rock-studded water by ancient high stone bridges; then the passengers would leave the coach to ease the horses while a further steep hill was tackled.
At a bare crossroads on a treeless summit,
from which yet another blue and craggy range could be glimpsed ahead, Meg said with satisfaction, “Now we shall be home in half an hour. This is Worship Hill. Those are the Cheviots over there, and Scotland lies beyond them.”
Alvey looked about the landscape with surprise. “I do not see any sign of a dwelling.”
“Birkland is hidden in the valley.”
And indeed, almost at once, the road began a precipitous descent, for which Archie made ready by putting the drag on the chain and himself walking by the horses to slow their pace and lead them, snorting and slipping, down the steep and peaty slope.
Alvey stared ahead eagerly, her heart beating rather fast. They had travelled so far to reach this place where she was to become a kind of voluntary prisoner. What kind of people would she find, what kind of haven would it prove? Suppose the family were repulsive, the location unendurable?—But she comforted herself by remembering how detestable Louisa had found it, and how wholly dissimilar Louisa’s tastes were from her own. Whatever Louisa disliked so heartily, Alvey thought, surely I am bound to find quite delightful?
Then it struck her, with a curious chill, how singular it was that, on the occasion of a daughter’s return after more than four years of absence, neither parent had troubled to come, even as far as Newcastle, to meet her. Was not this rather cold-blooded? True, Louisa was not a very lovable person—I would not cross the street to meet her myself, reflected Alvey—but still, she is their daughter. What kind of parents can they be?
Perhaps Meg is right, Alvey thought, with a degree of irritation. Perhaps there will be doings and dealings at Birkland Hall which, as a writer, I shall find irresistible as a vein of fictional ore; but how I hope not! I don’t want to be distracted; all I ask is peace and quiet in which to finish the tale of Wicked Lord Love.
Now the road swung sharply into a plantation of tall pines and sycamores.
“Papa planted these trees when he came into the property,” said Isa. “They block any distant view of the house as one approaches, but shelter it from the north and east winds, which can be bitter.”
Alvey imagined the place in winter, inaccessible under successive snows, and shivered.
Now the track passed between two high stone columns, topped by stone balls.
“The blocks of stone were taken from the Roman Wall. And the balls are cannon-balls from some medieval war.”
“How very thrifty. Everything put to use.”
Passing between the gateposts they continued to descend the curving drive and at last, across a gravel sweep, came in sight of the house. Set among beech-trees, it was a large, rambling three-storeyed building which had plainly been much altered and added to by successive generations, but the basic structure, of pale yellowish-grey stone, was E-shaped with a central porch reaching halfway up the second storey. At the right, or northern end of the house a square battlemented stone tower rose to a height of forty feet.
“We told you about the pele tower,” said Meg, noticing the direction of Alvey’s gaze. “It was for protection against the Scots. The whole neighbourhood could take refuge, with their animals—But, good gracious, there is my mother! Positively coming out to greet us.”
“How very singular,” was Isa’s pensive comment. “I have never known her bestir herself to such a degree.—It must be in honour of Louisa’s regeneration. You had best brace yourself, my friend.”
To the best of her ability, Alvey did this, as the girls descended from the coach. She was no little daunted by the appearance of Lady Winship, who had a tall, massive figure, robed in ample garments whose unfashionable appearance did nothing to lessen the formidable impression she created. Her face, large, flat, high-cheekboned and high-coloured, seemed set in a permanent expression of absent-minded disapproval evinced by a straight, thin-lipped mouth and a pair of rather small grey eyes holding a curiously distant expression.
“Well, Mamma!” called Meg. “As you can see, we have brought back a grown-up young lady to gladden your heart. Would you recognize Louisa in this elegant person?”
Admiring the adroitness of this introduction, Alvey approached, to curtsey and submit to a formal kiss on the cheek. The other two girls were greeted without any greater degree of warmth, and Lady Winship at once proceeded to explain the reason for her taking the unprecedented step of coming out to meet her daughters.
“A most shocking occurrence—I stepped out expressly to warn you, so that you may say nothing to overset your Papa—he has been so distressed by the whole affair—”
“Why, what is it, ma’am?” cried Meg. “What can have happened? Nothing concerning John Chibburn, I hope?”
“Or my brother James?” said Isa.
“No, no—hush! Walk this way a moment.”
A stocky, pasty-faced girl appeared in the doorway of the house. She had pale flaxen hair and was, Alvey judged, in her early teens. Parthie?
“Go inside!” called Lady Winship irritably. “I expressly forbade you to come out.”
“But Papa wants you!”
“Tell him that I will be with him in a minute.”
Beckoning the girls away from the immediate vicinity of the house, Lady Winship turned to order Archie: “Put the carriage away. And see the young ladies’ luggage carried indoors.—It happened early this morning,” she went on, in a lower voice. “A most deplorable business! How the miserable child could have got so far.—But I should never have permitted her to keep him here. That was the mistake: a most foolish piece of indulgence. Aydon would have it so. He said old Herdman ill-treated the boy. Now it has led to this—”
Alvey perceived that Lady Winship was one of the kind who cannot tell a straight tale.
“What boy?” demanded Meg, but Isa, quicker-witted, exclaimed, “Why, has something happened to Annie? Or to her baby?”
Lady Winship wrung her hands together. They were all standing, now, on the far side of the gravel sweep, which curved round in a half-moon shape and was partly screened from the house by a bank of evergreens. Beside them, at the foot of the piny hillside, Alvey saw a charming small pool of deep, clear water, surrounded by hart’s-tongue ferns, fed by a spring which gushed from the mouth of a stone lion’s head. It was an attractive feature of the approach to the house, yet, looking at it, Alvey felt a premonitory shiver.
“Drowned himself this very morning,” Lady Winship finally brought out, with a kind of strangled outrage. “Yes, Isa, Annie’s boy. Saw something bright in the water perhaps—servants, ignorant people will drop in pins, nails, even coins—yes, I see something even now, though I told Carey to scour the pool—your father, in his passion, said it must be filled in, bricked over—”
“Drowned? Here, in this pool? Oh, no! Oh, poor, poor Annie,” whispered Isa. “How can she bear it? Where is she? Who is with her?”
“She was very distraught—naturally,” said Lady Winship. “I believe Mrs Slaley administered a tisane. Some such draught. But it is your father who—” She drew a sharp, angry breath. “Anyone would think—Well, I am sure I do my—”
She glared at the three girls who stood, aghast and listening. In spite of being fatigued and crumpled from their journey they were all so fresh, blooming, glossy-haired, as yet unbruised by time. She surveyed them with exasperation.
“Oh, you all look so shocked and puzzled! Wait until you are my age! Then you will know more about what it is like to bear a child and lose it.” With an angry laugh she added, “You think me heartless, I daresay. Eh well—take your sister Louisa to her room, Meg—you will be wanting to change your clothes and freshen yourselves.”
“Should we not greet my father? And the younger ones?”
“Not now. Papa is in his library. You may see him at dinner time. The little ones? Betsey and little Kate are in the nursery with Tushie. They know nothing about all this. Best to keep them away—your father would not—As for Nish and Tot, they are who knows where?
They have not been seen all day.”
Lady Winship turned away abruptly and, instead of re-entering the house, walked off along a cobbled path and vanished round the side of the pele tower. Meg and Isa looked doubtfully at one another, then Meg said,—
“Well, I suppose there is nothing we can do. We may as well go up, as she says. Archie or somebody will have carried up our bags.”
They climbed three shallow circular steps and went through the front entrance into a stone-paved hall adorned with deer’s antlers and pieces of marble statuary. Ahead of them a handsome stone staircase led up and branched to right and left: Meg, running in front, took the left-hand fork.
“You are to share with me at present, Emmy—but you will soon have the room to yourself when I am married and gone,” she said, opening a door at the end of a short, wide passage. “Then you can remain up here all day and scribble to your heart’s content. Ah, capital, the men have brought our things. And here is Grace; well—would you have recognized my sister, Grace?” Meg added with her naughty grin, evidently well-satisfied by the success of this gambit.
“In course I would, Miss Meg.” Grace, a weatherbeaten woman in apron and stuff cap, made a sort of token bob to the young ladies; Alvey got the impression that she felt little joy at Louisa’s return, though she dutifully added, “Welcome home, Miss Louisa.”
“She’s fallen into new ways at school, Grace; she wishes to be known as Miss Emily.”
“Eh, I beg pardon; Miss Emily then.”
Grace, Alvey was relieved to note, spoke with a much more intelligible accent than Archie the coachman. As the maid moved about, unpacking her young ladies’ immediate necessities and pouring hot water for them to wash, Alvey glanced with deep interest around the room which, so soon, would be all her own. It was far larger than any bedchamber she had ever occupied before; she began to realize that the Winships must live more grandly than she had realized. Perhaps everybody did up here, in the north of England?
The room was on a corner, with windows facing two ways. When Alvey approached the west window to look out she drew in her breath with surprised delight—the view was much more extensive than she had anticipated, judging from the tree-girt approach to the house. Remembering the presence of Grace she caught back her exclamation of wonder and gazed out in silence over a grassy terrace, a spiked fence guarding a sunken ha-ha, and a rough pasture running down steeply to a rocky river. Beyond, at some distance, lay the blue Cheviot hills. The approach to the house had given no hint of this wide prospect westwards. The river was so near that the sound of it could clearly be heard, murmuring among its rocks.