Love Bade Me Welcome

by Joan Smith

  LOVE BADE ME WELCOME

  Joan Smith

  Chapter 1

  When I first saw Blythe Wyngate, I could not believe it was to be my home. Norman had not told me it was so huge, nor so very beautiful. The gray granite of its walls shone in the rays of the setting sun like burnished silver. There it nestled, a silver giant, in the soft green palm of the valley’s hand, with gentle hills rising all around. At the cusp of the hill behind stood a windmill, its arms motionless against the sky, as rooks soared above and about. The house was essentially square, the wings surrounding a courtyard, though this could not be seen upon the first glimpse. The facade facing the road boasted an enormous Gothic window with stained glass. The doorway was to its left, in one of the four crenellated towers that anchored it to the landscape, while themselves soaring skywards.

  I drew the check string of the carriage. I wanted to stop and gaze at Blythe Wyngate from the vantage point of the hill, before descending into the valley.

  “I’m getting out, Mrs. Winton. Will you come with me?” I asked my traveling companion. She had come from Norfolk with me, deeming me, at twenty-two years, too young to travel alone, even if I was a married woman.

  “I’ll bide in the carriage,” she said dourly. “You’ll not be long, I trust.”

  “Only a moment,” I assured her, and got out.

  Glancing down the road, I saw a boy approach. At a distance, he looked to be twelve or thirteen, and wore the fustian shirt of a farm boy. As he drew closer, I judged by his face he was older, but of a small stature.

  “Is that Blythe Wyngate ahead?” I asked him. When your husband has described his ancestral home as “a crumbling old heap of a place,” you are in some doubt that it is a veritable castle.

  He smiled laconically, his head wagging. I repeated the question. “You’re pretty,” he said. When he finished speaking, his lips remained open, giving his face a witless appearance.

  “Thank you. And is that building there Blythe Wyngate?” I asked again.

  “Aye, Wyngate,” he answered, with a glance towards it. “I don’t know you,” he added, a crease wrinkling his brow, while his lips still wore their smile. The combination increased his resemblance to an idiot. “Who are you?”

  “Mrs. Blythe. That is, Lady Blythe.” Norman had inherited a baronetcy upon the death of his father. He had never called himself Sir Norman, nor had I ever used the title before, but now that I had come to Blythe Wyngate, I would no doubt be called Lady.

  “You’re not old,” he said, after some frowning consideration.

  “You’d better get back in the carriage, Davinia,” Mrs. Winton suggested.

  The poor retarded boy was by no means frightening, but the wind was chilly, and the sun was rapidly setting. Already it cast long shadows on the countryside, painting gray and purple splotches beneath the tall beech and oak trees that dotted the park. The access road to the house wound like a twisted ribbon through the park, giving way to the trees.

  “What is your name?” I asked the boy.

  “Woodie.”

  “I am happy to meet you, Woodie.”

  He smiled—a pathetic, witless smile. He had the slightly slanted eyes often seen on idiots, set in a face that too closely resembled a child’s face for a grown man. After having looked at him for a few moments, I had realized he was not a boy at all. There were wrinkles etched on his brow and around his eyes. He was still standing in the road, looking after our carriage, when we resumed our drive towards the house. He didn’t know enough to move out of the dust cloud our carriage kicked up.

  “The village idiot,” Mrs. Winton remarked. “What had he to say?”

  “He said I was pretty,” I told her.

  “Hmph” was her answer to that piece of boasting.

  I really only said it to vex her. She had vexed me for three days during the trip from Norfolk. Nothing was to her liking. Inns were cold, filthy, and larcenous; the roads a collection of potholes and infested with highwaymen, who magically did not disturb us once. The carriage was hard-sprung, and I was a fool for thinking I would be welcome at Blythe Wyngate after having married the eldest son without the blessing of the family. And a widow should keep her face veil in place in public, she never forgot to advise me.

  It was our local clergyman, Reverend Clark, who had suggested that she should come with me. The fact of her having a sister she had not seen in seventeen years living nearby was also instrumental. She was not likely to have another offer of free transportation. But it was kind of her to come. I must learn to curb my less charitable thoughts.

  The truth of the matter is that I was angry with God, and took it out on the world. Why did He give me such a wonderful husband, if it was His plan to rob me of him within the year? Norman Blythe was a wonder in Norfolk. We had never seen anyone like him. He rode into town on a jet-black Arab gelding, with his hat tipped rakishly over his eye, and every girl in town fell madly in love with him. Fathers and brothers cautioned us he was a gambler, a ne’er-do-well, a trifler who would break our hearts and leave. He wasn’t like that at all. He wouldn’t have married me, the dowerless daughter of an Army captain, if he had been a fortune hunter, and that was really what they feared.

  He was a gentleman and a scholar, and a man of a good fortune besides. He had had a disagreement with his family—”a great thundering row with Papa” was the way he described it—and left home in a fit of pique. There is no denying Norman had a hot temper. Oh, but how sweet and charming he was when not in a temper, and he hardly ever was with me. We only had one real argument, which occurred when his father died six months before. I felt he ought to go home. Blythe Wyngate was his; he should be there to tend it. Norman refused. He was close to irrational about it, in my opinion.

  “It will destroy me,” he said simply. “I hate the place, I’d sell it if I could, but as it is entailed, I shall stay away and reap the income. My Uncle Jarvis will be happy to run it, and send us the income quarterly.”

  And that’s the way it was. We removed from our small hired house in town to a grander house three blocks higher up the hill. Norman bought the carriage in which Mrs. Winton and I were sitting, a few horses, some new jackets, and several dashing gowns for me. We took a few small trips, but basically our life didn’t change much at all. Norman continued his scholarly research into the Roman occupation of England. I made a fair copy of his notes for him, and we were as merry as grigs.

  His fits of temper were more likely to be aimed at editors, publishers, librarians, valets, and housekeepers. He was hot at hand with them, but he treated me like a goddess. He said I was his good luck charm. He cherished me, and made me promise I would never desert him—as if I would! He was all in all to me.

  I had been billeted at girls’ seminaries from the time my mother died, when I was ten. I was reared in dormitories and schoolrooms, taking occasional holidays with my father, when he was on leave from the Army. Somehow, Papa didn’t get his leave when other people did. We had our summer vacations in November or March or January, whenever the country’s military strategies made it convenient. But it was not at all convenient to have to stay at school alone in the summers, with only a dry teacher or two for company. When I turned eighteen, my father hired a companion and I lived with her.

  My father was in India when I got married; he was still in India.

  I received occasional letters from him. Six months after my wedding, I received his congratulations, and some enquiries regarding my groom. I wrote him before I left Norfolk. In another six months, I might receive a note from him at Blythe Wyngate.

  “A very prosperous-looking place,” Mrs. Winton decided, after staring hard for several minutes. “I confess I had not thought Mr. Blythe—Sir Norman—to be so well
to grass. You are fortunate, Davinia.”

  “It is poor consolation for losing my husband,” I answered stiffly. “And I shall be only a poor relative here. Norman had no son. The place is entailed. His half-brother will get it, I expect.”

  “Ah yes, his mother was dead, and his father remarried, I recall his saying. Still, they can hardly turn you from the door. There will be some widow’s dowry.”

  “There is a dower house, Norman said. I might live there.”

  “Unless the Dowager Lady Blythe occupies it,” Mrs. Winton said. “His stepmother is still alive, is she not? We never heard otherwise.”

  “Surely she will live with her son, at the big house.”

  “Till he marries, she will. What age is the half-brother?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Two years younger than Norman, I believe. His father married a year after the wife’s death, and had a son after that. Norman was thirty—would have been,” I amended. He had died the day before his birthday.

  “Then the half-brother is twenty-eight. You may be sure he’ll be engaged, if he isn’t married already. If I were you, Davinia, I would move into the dower house immediately, and stake a claim to it before his mother does so.”

  “I wonder where it is,” I said, looking all around. No smaller house was visible, though it was possible one was concealed behind the big house.

  As we drew closer, executing the last curve that brought us in front of Blythe Wyngate, the details of its architecture and ornament became clearer. A bay window protruded on either side of the largest front window. Clipped yews made a fence waist high around the concrete apron at the bottom of the front steps. In the middle, forming the entrance, two trees had been allowed to grow taller than the others, becoming evergreen posts, clipped to resemble the newel post of a bannister, with a ball on top. We alit, and went with some little trepidation to the front door.

  Mrs. Winton, who considered herself the leader of the expedition, lifted her hand to employ the brass knocker. After two sharp knocks, the door opened, giving me my first glimpse inside Wyngate.

  A mile of black and white marble floor gleamed off into the distance. On it stood a black-jacketed butler, who strongly resembled a goat. His face was long and lean, with white wisps of hair floating around his ears. He had shifty eyes.

  “Lady Blythe has arrived,” Mrs. Winton said, elbowing him aside and sailing in, with Lady Blythe at her heels, eyes agog.

  The butler followed, rather than leading us, to the saloon, where two gentlemen jumped to their feet in greeting. My chief interest was in the younger, whom I judged to be Norman’s half-brother, Homer, as indeed he proved to be, when we got around to introductions. But first I got around to an acute examination of his person.

  I would have known him for some kin to my late husband even had I first seen him at some other place than Wyngate. He was tall and tapered, like Norman. The head was of a similar shape, well-formed, the dark hair unwaved, growing in a peak on the forehead. He was not quite so handsome as my husband. Here Norman’s sweet expression had hardened into something approaching grimness. Though the nose was similar, a prominent feature, the eyes were dark blue, not gray, and the lips were thinner. I always told Norman he had lips like a Leonardo angel. But how they could kiss! Nothing angelic in that.

  While I observed Homer, he returned the courtesy, his eyes flickering quickly over my face, down the length of my black outfit, over my shoulder to Mrs. Winton, and back again to my face. He did not look happy to see me, but not unhappy either. Curiosity was the most noticeable expression, unless surprise outdid it. Yes, he appeared surprised, but at what I could not guess. I was expected; that I would be wearing black must have been inferred.

  “Lady Blythe, we are delighted to welcome you to Blythe Wyngate,” he said, waiting to see whether I curtsied or preferred my hand. I gave him my hand, and soon regretted it. The man didn’t know his own strength. He nearly broke my bones.

  “I am delighted to be here. Let me introduce my traveling companion, Mrs. Winton—a friend and neighbor from Norfolk.”

  “Mrs. Hillary Winton, of the Norfolk Wintons, from Battleford Hall,” she expanded, laying all her glory in a dish for their admiration. “I could not like to see Davinia come such a distance alone. My sister lives close by, at Bridgewater. I shall be continuing on to her tomorrow, if you can give me rack and manger for a night.”

  “I hope you will stay longer than that,” Sir Homer said.

  Mrs. Winton certainly heard him, and it gives an idea of her curiosity that she immediately turned her attention to the other gentleman, for in the usual way she will not pass lightly over any invitation to make or extend a visit.

  “My uncle, Jarvis Blythe,” the younger man said, seeing where Mrs. Winton looked.

  Mr. Jarvis Blythe stepped forward to welcome us. He had little of the Blythe looks. His hair, whatever its original color or style, had dwindled to a white semicircle around the edge of his dome. His nose could never have been prominent, for it was a little mushroom of a thing. His eyes were blue. His body sagged to a well-developed paunch, which a jacket hanging open did not begin to conceal.

  “Your mother—is she here, Sir Homer?” Mrs. Winton asked next, with a meaningful glance in my direction.

  “Lady Blythe is an invalid,” he replied. “She is unable to leave her room. She is resting at the moment, but is eager to meet Norman’s wife. Perhaps you could slip up for a moment before dinner,” he said, looking at me.

  “I look forward to meeting her,” I said, as we were led to seats. The saloon was a pretty place, with gold brocade draperies at the tall windows, gold and green upholstered pieces, and mahogany tables. A pair of fireplaces on the outer wall were white marble, done in the Adam style. I made some vague comment in praise.

  Again Sir Homer looked surprised. “We are not very grand here, I’m afraid, but we try to be comfortable,” he said quickly. Given a choice of tea or wine, Mrs. Winton decreed we would have wine, thank you. She would sooner lose all her hair than admit it, but she is fond of the wine bottle, though I do not mean to say she is a drunkard.

  After a brief discussion regarding the difficulties of our trip, “a discussion” being French for monologue, Mrs. Winton thanked Sir Homer very kindly for offering to have us shown to our rooms to freshen up for dinner, which was to be served at seven.

  “If that is not too early to suit you?” Sir Homer asked, still regarding me with more curiosity than I could well account for. Too late to suit me I find seven, but too early it was not. Norman and I had kept country hours, dining between five and six, unfashionably early, like all our neighbors.

  “Seven is fine.”

  Mrs. Winton informed me, when we were alone, that my late husband’s relatives were “very gentlemanly,” and that I would be happy with them. From a window in her room, she discovered the dower house, or what she assumed to be the dower house, and called me to view it.

  “No smoke coming out of the chimney, you see,” she pointed out with satisfaction. “It will be yours if you want it. Fortunate for you the mama is bedridden. I daresay she could not be removed to it if she wanted. It has its own little house garden, and even a few shrubberies at the back. The front will be prettier. I believe there are not less than seven bedchambers. You might be more than comfortable there, Davinia. How happy Reverend Clark will be to hear it. He took a great interest in your plight when Norman died. I hope you remember to write and thank him.”

  I was happy to see such a handsome dower house, presumably for me if I wished, but it was impossible to devote much attention to it. At the rear of the house the topiary garden demanded the attention. It was a terraced affair, enclosed by yews clipped into perfectly square shapes.

  Within this wall was a rigid pattern of geometrical forms that must have been laid out with help from compass and rulers. There were perfect circles and pyramids, squares and rectangles, others layered like a wedding cake, with the circles diminishing in size as the tree reached up.
In the center of it all, a tree had been fashioned into the shape of a windmill building, with arms made of wood sprouting from the top. They were actually in motion, whirling slowly but steadily. It was a strange conceit, not particularly beautiful either, but curious. On a level closer to the house was a more natural sort of garden with bushes and flowers whose species could not be determined in March, though some of them were roses.

  “That monstrosity must cost a fortune to keep pruned,” Mrs. Winton remarked. “It would take a full-time gardener to keep it so neat. We shall change into evening wear, Davinia, and meet at six-thirty to go downstairs.”

  “Dinner is at seven,” I reminded her.

  “In such a house as this, there will be a drink before dinner. You may be with old Lady Blythe, but I shall go below at six-thirty.”

  I did not make any of the ironic comments that occurred to me. God was being kind, and I would behave myself. Our trunks had arrived in our rooms and were in the process of being unpacked. I had little choice of an outfit. All the lovely gowns Norman had bought me must wait till the period of mourning was up. I felt no inclination to deck myself out in my finery in any case. It rested always like a heavy weight on my heart, the grief for Norman. How different, how infinitely happy this arrival might have been, with him by my side, the master of the house, and myself its mistress.

  I shook out my good black evening dress, and the crinoline to go beneath it, and after washing away the dust of travel, put them on. The gown I had had copied from a picture of our heartbroken Queen’s mourning outfit for her husband. Indeed I associated myself closely with Queen Victoria, as Norman’s death had occurred a month to the day after Prince Albert’s. It was on December 15, 1861, that the shocking news of the Prince’s death from typhoid reached us. We were just preparing to retire when a neighbor—Mrs. Winton, in fact—came bustling in with the sad tale.

  I little thought at the time how soon I too would be donning crape. The Queen’s hairdo did not suit me. I did tame down my more stylish dos. Norman was a great one for wanting me to appear fashionable. I now arranged my black curls discreetly in a chignon at the back of my head. It made me look older, yet I was not so old that I failed to notice the style suited me. It lent me an air of sophistication my insular life did not entitle me to. I had lost ten pounds since the tragedy. For a week afterwards it had been impossible to eat a bite, and ever since I could only peck at my food.