“No, I just wondered. I suppose they might go walking in Grimston Wood if they did, but hardly on a day when it was about to rain.”
Aunt Grace was still. Then she came to the bottom stair. Her face above the glowing flame was unsmiling; her brown eyes shimmered like fathomless pools.
“Did you see a stranger in the woods today from Rookswood?”
Evy swallowed. “No—that is, I do not know where he was from. He did know something about Rookswood, though. He asked if I would like to go there and be with Miss Arcilla.”
The candle slipped from Grace’s hand and crashed to the floor at her feet. It burned brightly for a moment before going out. The wind lashed the front windows with heavy rain, and the leaded panes rattled.
Quickly, Aunt Grace stooped to the spilled wax and tried to scoop it onto the candleholder. “Oh dear, I’ve made a terrible mess.”
Evy knelt beside her to help, but Aunt Grace had already gotten the candle back onto, the holder. “I’ll need to scrape the rest up later. Evy, who was this stranger, and what else did he tell you?”
Evy stared into her aunt’s face. She looked frightened … but why? Her aunts fear made Evy’s own uncertainties leap out of bounds, so that her voice sounded tight and nervous even to her own ears.
“He hardly said anything. Just asked if I—if I was happy. And if I wished to be friends with the squire’s children.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I said I was very happy. That Miss Arcilla did not approve of me.”
Aunt Grace did not reply—she only looked down at the candle as though she had never seen it before. Suddenly she stood. “I’d better relight this in the kitchen,” she said tonelessly and turned away.
“Aunt? I wonder who he was?”
“I do not know.” She spoke quietly, her back toward Evy. “Just a stranger, I suppose. I would not give it a second thought if I were you, dear.”
Evy watched her until she disappeared into the kitchen. She stood, taking it all in, then turned and went up the stairs to her room.
In the following days the incident seemed to have been forgotten, though Aunt Grace was more thoughtful than usual and kept a most watchful eye on her niece. Evy began to think she may have imagined the meeting in Grimston Wood. Hadn’t Aunt Grace always told her when she was small how fanciful she was? Certainly the thunder and lightning and the darkened atmosphere of Grimston Wood could affect her imagination.
Just a few days later Evy had an opportunity to ask her uncle about her parents. It was a Saturday afternoon, and though the sky was clear and the wind chilly, she was happy to be seated beside the vicar in the horse-drawn jingle as he went calling on one of his parishioners for afternoon tea. Evy held the cloth-covered reed basket of pastries that would be given as a gift.
Evy liked Uncle Edmund’s quiet, unassuming ways. She liked how his brown eyes were thoughtful, yet merry. He had a shiny scalp fringed with a mane of gray, and he was full at the waist, blaming it on his love of creamed gravies and flaky cobbler crust. He was the only father she had ever known, and she loved him dearly, despite her daydreams of her missionary parents facing down the Zulus.
“Uncle, Mrs. Croft says you went all the way to Capetown, South Africa, to bring me to Grimston Way after my parents were killed. Is that how I got here?”
He flicked the worn leather reins, and the dappled mare quickened her trot along the wooded road. Squirrels scampered up the tree trunks, chattering as they approached.
“You need to be cautious about listening too much to Mrs. Croft. She’s a splendid woman in many ways, and a great cook”—his eyes twinkled—“but she has a carnal propensity to say things best left unspoken.”
“You mean about your trip to Capetown?”
“Oh, I would not say that, Evy.” He looked down at her as she looped her arm through his. “Actually, I did not voyage to Capetown at all. You see, the mission board in London contacted your aunt and me about Dr. and Mrs. Varley’s death. We had no child, so we were delighted to have you come live with us.” He bestowed a kindly smile on her.
She beamed. “Then it was the mission board who brought me here to England?”
“Well, no, as a matter of fact, someone else brought you to Grimston Way. He was a friend of … your mother’s … of sorts.”
Evy looked at him.
“He brought you here to safety, but he is dead now. An unfortunate death at that.”
There was something in his tone that she did not understand. “Who was he, Uncle Edmund?”
“I … er, never met him personally. He came from South Africa. I believe he was an explorer searching for gold. But never mind him. Your aunt and I chose you to be our own. You ve made our lives very happy, little lamb.”
The words warmed Evy inside. “Was I at the mission with my parents when the Zulus attacked?”
“Yes, you were there.” Uncle Edmund sounded so sad, Evy was almost sorry she’d asked. “You would have been killed too, but someone rescued you and kept you safe until you were brought on a ship to London.”
“I wonder who he was?”
He clucked at the mare. After a moment, he looked down at her. “Sometimes it is best, not to ask too many questions, my dear Evy.”
That alerted her. “Why, Uncle?”
“Oh, because some things in the past are best left forgotten. Your life is here in Grimston Way now. This is as God intended. You have nothing in South Africa. A fine marriage will be made for you here, and here you will be happy, God willing. My fondest hope is that you and Derwent will grow up to care for each other. You will make a fine vicar’s wife, Evy You know everyone in the village, and you know all the ways of the rectory. It is so sensible, so right.” He reached over and put a protective arm around her.
So sensible, so right. But she couldn’t quite still the inner question that echoed within her: Wouldn’t marrying Derwent, whom she’d known forever, also be a bit … boring?
As the days passed, the story of her parents and how she had been brought to live at the rectory would not relinquish its hold on her imagination—nor did the meeting with the stranger in Grimston Wood. Both events developed into a rather heroic tale, which she began to embellish until the players had become heroes and heroines of the highest order. As for herself, well, Evy imagined she was somehow most special. She would sit and dream of escaping tribal Zulus brandishing long spears, of being chased through the trees toward a great lion with a flowing mane. She had come to Africa to do good and had been misunderstood, and was now fleeing for her life. All was hopeless, but as she fled a stranger would suddenly appear and ask her if she needed refuge in his mansion. Then the stranger turned into Rogan Chantry, who swept her up on his sleek horse … just in time.
Neither Aunt Grace nor Uncle Edmund spoke to her of the matter in the woods, and Evy believed they wanted her to forget that it had ever occurred. She did not think, however, that they had forgotten. She even heard that Uncle Edmund had called at Rookswood to see the squire and ask if he had recently entertained a visitor from South Africa.
Evy frowned. Why would her uncle and aunt think anyone from that wild, dark continent so far from Grimston Way would be watching her picking autumn leaves in the woods?
CHAPTER SIX
Mrs. Croft was nearly purring with excitement when Evy went into the kitchen on Sunday morning. Aunt Grace had departed earlier in order to choose the hymns, so Evy breakfasted in the kitchen without her before walking to the church.
This morning Mrs. Croft’s niece Lizzie, an upstairs parlor maid at Rookswood, had come to see her aunt earlier than usual. Evy guessed this meant that the latest news from Rookswood was of an especially tangy flavor. Lizzie’s cheeks had pinked with the rouge of excitement as she hovered near the big stove, chattering like a magpie, while Mrs. Croft whipped the bowl of eggs more energetically than usual into a foaming yellow froth.
“So I says, it’s more’n her poor health that’s the cause of her leaving Sout
h Africa without Master Anthony,” Lizzie said in a hushed tone. “Lady Camilla Brewster’s important, you know? So she wouldn’t just up and leave her husband in Capetown, now would she? I mean, no matter how many giant spiders there is, an’ heat, an’ them naked heathen. So what if the weather be hard on her, I say. She put up with it all those years—since 1879, so it’s said. Now, suddenlike, them savages makes her nervous so she can’t sleep. It’s all a bit too much for the poor woman’s delicate constitution. So the Lady leaves Sir Julien Bley’s big house and comes home to sweet England. Anyhow”—she reached across the stovetop for a cooling slice of bacon—“that’s the tale.” She bit into the bacon, her eyes shining like polished blue stones.
“Seems a bit long for the poor lady to learn the weather was draining her health,” Mrs. Croft said thoughtfully, pouring beaten egg onto the sizzling fry pan. “If she went out to marry Master Anthony in 79, that was—” She stopped and pursed her lips, thinking.
“Twelve years ago.” Evy offered this information cheerfully. She left the table where she’d been listening and came up to the stove beside Lizzie. Evy reached for a second helping of crispy bacon. She looked into Mrs. Croft’s sharp, hazel eyes. “My age,” Evy concluded and lifted her brows as she enjoyed the bacon.
“Ouch!” Mrs. Croft jerked her hand away from the splattering grease in the fry pan.
“Who are you talking about?” Evy looked from one woman to the other.
“The newcomer to Rookswood.” Mrs. Croft frowned at the eggs, which were turning a lovely brown around the edges.
“A newcomer?” Evy became more alert. Her mind went back to the stranger in the woods.
“Lady Camilla Brewster. Lord Montieth wanted her to return to the Montieth estate in London, but she decided to live at Rookswood.”
Evy had never heard of Lady Camilla. “Is she a relation to the Chantrys?”
Mrs. Croft poured Evy a cup of tea. “Anthony is a nephew to Squire.”
“Not a blood nephew, though,” Lizzie corrected as though teaching a pupil.
“Some of the Brewsters married some of the Bleys. And some of the Bleys married some of the Chantrys.”
Lizzie grinned, satisfied whenever Mrs. Croft proved herself capable of explaining a muddled detail. “See?” She nodded to Evy. “It be simple, when you know it.”
“Still seems a bit odd to me why Lady Camilla wants to come here instead of going to her family home in London,” Mrs. Croft remarked.
“Seems so to me, too. Its whispered her marriage to Mister Anthony were never a happy one, and its worse now.” Lizzie lowered her voice. “Has something to do with a terrible scandal. Stolen family diamonds and a baby born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“So that’s the way of it,” Mrs. Croft said.
Evy drank her sweet tea. No wonder Lady Camilla was unhappy, if she was married to a scamp who fathered a wrong-side-of-the-blanket baby.
“Mister Anthony must have stolen the family diamond too.” Mrs. Croft nodded, sure she was right. “He sounds like a scamp all right.”
“That be the strange part.” Lizzie joined Evy at the kitchen table. “Nobody knows what happened to the diamonds.”
Evy spoke up. “Well, what happened to the baby?”
Lizzie stared at her. “Oh, it’s got to be with the mum, what else? Mister Anthony probably paid the woman off and sent her away. That’s what they usually do, I’ve heard. But it makes you wonder why Lady Camilla came here, don’t it?”
“You mean she thinks the baby is in Grimston Way?” Evy stared at the older woman. How could such a thing happen?
“I’ll wager we’ll be learning something more before Lady Camilla leaves Rookswood,” Lizzie said firmly. “Oh, I know the ways of these things. I seen it happen oh so many times when I worked them five years in London. Thought it’d be kinder here at home in Grimston Way, but them Bleys, Brewsters, and Chantrys—”
“ ’Tis the diamond that makes me curious.” Mrs. Croft dried her worn hands on her faded apron. “If I’m remembering how it was years ago, it seems to me there was something sinister about that rogue, Henry Chantry.”
“Aye, he came from South Africa, all right,” Lizzie said thoughtfully.
“There was gossip about a Black Diamond,” Mrs. Croft mused.
“That were before I worked at Rookswood. I was a girl here in the village back then. I remember him, faintly. A handsome man, he was. Young Rogan looks more like his Uncle Henry than he looks like his father, Squire Lyle.”
Captivated, Evy looked from one woman to the other. A missing Black Diamond? Now this was exciting!
Lizzie stood and stretched. “Nobody talks about them days at Rookswood anymore. But I do see Master Rogan sneaking about Master Henry’s old rooms sometimes.”
“A real feisty boy, that one,” Mrs. Croft warned, and Evy thought she glanced her way. Did Derwent tell Mrs. Croft how she’d met him in Grimston Woods?
Mrs. Croft just went on. “Curious, all of it. Curious and a bit scary, too, because Master Henry Chantry were a young man when he died the way he did.”
Evy looked up from her plate quickly. “How did he die?”
Mrs. Croft and Lizzie exchanged glances.
Evy watched them. “Did he have an accident?”
“Nobody knows for sure.” Mrs. Croft sounded grave indeed. “Some say suicide.”
There was quite a scene when Lady Camilla Brewster and the three handsome Chantry offspring arrived that morning to attend the chapel service where Uncle Edmund, his small spectacles low on his short nose, would be reading his sermon. Evy wondered why neither the squire nor Lady Honoria was with them.
Lady Camilla must have been quite attractive when younger, for even now there was a certain prettiness about her, but it seemed any contentment with life had long ago been washed from her heart-shaped face. She entered, with Miss Arcilla, Rogan, and Parnell trailing behind. Many heads turned in their direction. The boys swaggered down the aisle to take their grand family pew at the front of the chapel, situated beneath a stained glass window of the Good Shepherd. Uncle Edmund once said the window was given to St. Graves by the squire’s great-great grandfather, Earl Simon Chantry.
At fifteen, Parnell looked bored with Uncle Edmund’s sermon as though he already knew more than the vicar.
Rogan, now thirteen, had managed to smuggle a book under his fancy jacket and sat reading it, his expression sober. Evy had once learned from Derwent, who had seen the book, that it contained maps of unexplored Mashonaland, South Africa, with tales about gold deposits. Evy cast Rogan a furtive glance. She always sat in the pew beside Aunt Grace, and he would know that, having seen her here often enough. She thought that the ice may have thawed between them by now, since two days had passed since their meeting at the horse trail. Yet, though she glanced his way several times, he seemed not to notice her. Was he ignoring her?
Evy saw Alice Tisdale, her strawberry-blond curls dancing about her face, and some of the other girls in the village glancing toward Rogan and Parnell. From the silly look on Alice’s face, she might have swooned if either of the boys looked her way and smiled. The girls all dreamed of Cinderella romances.
Evy gave a soft snort. Silly twits. Fairy tales never came true.
She wished heartily that Rogan would cast her a glance just so he could see that she was one girl who was not watching him. She lifted her chin a little higher.
Arcilla fussed with her lace-trimmed frock. At twelve, she already had a propensity toward what Mrs. Croft called a “boy-happy” attitude. Not that any of the boys in the village would ever be suitable for Miss Arcilla Chantry. Like her brothers, Arcilla’s marriage would be arranged for her. Most likely the three Chantry children would one day marry those from titled families in London—or else wealthy cousins from South Africa. After all, one had to keep the diamond dynasty in the clan.
Arcilla looked about, and Evy was sure she wanted to see what the other village girls were wearing. Just then her blue
eyes fell on Evy.
She thinks she’s a peacock, and I’m just a little brown wren. Naturally, girls from the families of farmers, merchants, gardeners, and servants, as well as the vicar’s niece, would not be wearing frocks that could compare in the slightest with Arcilla’s fine wardrobe. Oddly enough, Evy had the impression that this comforted Arcilla.
Poor Uncle Edmund! Was anyone listening to his sermon? Ashamed, she sat straighter in the hard-backed pew and concentrated on his message.
After the service Evy spoke with several of her friends from the village. “Did you see what Arcilla was wearing? Oh, to own a frock like it.”
“She always dresses as if she’s going to Whitehall instead of church. Mum says she only does it to be noticed.”
“What do you think she’ll wear next Sunday?”
“Silk.” Emily, the blacksmiths daughter, sighed. “Pink. I always dream of owning a pink silk frock.”
“Silk is impossible to wash.” Evy crossed her arms. “I do not want silk.” But even as she spoke, she felt a tiny nudge deep within. Was that completely true?
“Arcilla will wear velvet. Soft blue velvet.” Meg, the daughter of the head groom at Rookswood stables, all but crooned the pronouncement. She ran her palm along her rough cotton pinafore as though she could feel the lush velvet on her callused fingers.
“You cannot wash velvet either.” Evy said it in an effort to comfort her friend. “Cotton is … more sensible. We must be sensible, you know.”
“Well, whatever it is she wears next week, it will make her look beautiful.” Megs sigh was deep.
“Every boy will stare at her as goggled-eyed as an old frog in Grimston’s pond.” Emily grimaced. “Like our silly brothers do.”
“Milt has a terrible crush on her,” Meg said with sadness.
“So does my brother Tom. As if Arcilla would ever look at him in his overalls. The Chantrys will have picked an earl for her to marry.”
“I would not have an earl.” Evy lifted her chin a fraction as she spoke.
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