by Janet Grace
Genially, Mr. Tabbett swept them all into the inn and ordered food in a private parlour, insisting that Louisa bear them company. Food and wine appeared with commendable efficiency, and, while the family enjoyed a spread of cold chicken, fresh bread, assorted local cheeses, fruit and a white wine of surprising excellence, Mr. Tabbett questioned the innkeeper about Alnstrop House.
It emerged that Lord Alnstrop was in residence, as indeed were his brother, sister and ailing mother, but the family were not entertaining guests, so there should be no problem in applying to Mrs. Ruddick for a tour of the house. And it was well worth a visit, the landlord assured them enthusiastically—what the old lord had done up there was a wonder. As for the present Lord Alnstrop, what a good man! The way he cared for his family, and his tenants! He was very highly thought of hereabouts.
The innkeeper’s eulogies lasted unabated throughout the meal, and he only withdrew reluctantly with the dirty dishes. Before he went, however, he did confirm that the stage would leave the inn at four o’clock sharp, and naturally the lady could leave her boxes in the inn-yard—he would personally ensure they were loaded safely.
It was still early afternoon, and the Tabbett family suggested that Louisa should accompany them up to Alnstrop House rather than wait alone in the inn parlour. She was keen to do so, having become curious to see the home of this paragon of virtues.
The lodge-keeper emerged promptly at their call, a tall young man hampered by an awkward limp. An assortment of inquisitive children peered over the lodge garden wall at the strangers. Like the innkeeper, the man spoke keenly of his lordship, and seemed proud to show off the house and grounds. He recommended a walk right around the lake, if the ladies felt capable of it. There was, he said, an excellent clear path, and they could emerge through the far drive and walk straight back to the village. The views, he assured them, were splendid.
Much encouraged by this enthusiastic friendliness, the Tabbetts and Louisa walked briskly up the drive, pausing to admire the vistas that opened across the parkland at every turn. Great drifts of daffodils nodding and swaying in the breeze moved even the Tabbett girls to seem quite animated with admiration, and Mrs. Tabbett was garrulous with praise.
A last turn of the drive brought them out on to a great sweep of gravel. Before them was the main entrance to the house. The huge oak doors were studded with vast bolts, and mullioned windows of warm yellowed stone stretched away to either side. At the extreme right, a monumentally ornate brick archway, added at some later date, apparently led through to the stables and coach-houses. To the left, an ornamental red-brick tower spiralled eccentrically above the stone tiles of the main roof, and beyond it the end of Lord Alnstrop’s father’s new wing was just visible, with open lawns behind.
Louisa stood silently while the Tabbett family exclaimed fulsomely. The house, she felt, was truly beautiful. The sight of it moved her unexpectedly, for she had never been especially interested in architecture or buildings. Its strange, mongrel design combined a gentle stateliness and dignity with a welcoming homeliness. It appeared to Louisa, above all else, a house to be lived in and loved. Her thoughts oddly disturbed her. She suddenly felt that she could not bear to walk round this house, just a gaping tourist, and run the risk of meeting the young man who owned it. A man who was so close to Papa’s world, but would be so distant from her world of tomorrow.. She scowled abruptly. Anyway, a man possessed of so many tediously enumerated virtues would undoubtedly be exceedingly dull! Who would wish to meet him accidentally?
The sound of men’s voices, talking and laughing together, floated out to them from the great archway to the stables, and the scuff and ring of footsteps on cobbles indicated their approach.
Louisa made a quick decision.
‘I believe I must leave you here,’ she said. ‘I am worrying a little about missing the stage. I would certainly not have time to view the whole of Alnstrop House,’ she gestured towards its vastness, ‘and I would hate to interrupt your tour. I think I will take the route around the lake that the lodge-keeper recommended.’ She surveyed the distance hastily. ‘That should take me back to the village in good time. Thank you so much for all your kindness and help.’
Naturally, Mrs. Tabbett protested volubly, but Louisa remained adamant and she was able to leave them, their good wishes for her future ringing in her ears, just before the men she was so irrationally fleeing emerged out into the sunshine.
She did not see the tall, dark-haired man with the unexpectedly bright blue eyes give a puzzled start as he saw her retreating figure, shake his head at the unlikelihood of his own wishful thoughts, and fret frustratedly over the necessity of polite conversation with the Tabbetts. Nor did she know that, when he learned from the Tabbetts that this glimpsed girl was merely someone they had been kind enough to give a lift to for the Alnstrop stage-coach, he dismissed her from his thoughts. The girl he was remembering would surely not be travelling in such a way.
Louisa set off at a good pace down the lawns that sloped gracefully away from her. Half-way to the lake she paused and looked back. She was now hidden from the front of the house by the new wing. The finely proportioned windows seemed to gaze down at her with reproachful solemnity from around their imposing central portico. She thought she caught a hint of movement in one of the upper rooms, and hurried on self-consciously.
The lake was very beautiful, lying curved in a fold of the valley below the house. Louisa passed a boat-house cunningly hidden by a clump of young trees, then paused for a moment to admire the view from the rustic bridge that spanned the stream feeding into the head of the lake. The reeds below her were busy with moorhens and coots nesting, and assorted ducks were feeding in the shallows of the open water.
This is my last day of freedom to walk when and where I please ... The thought rose unbidden into her mind. Tomorrow I shall be somebody’s governess. A paid servant ...
She glanced back up at the great house above her, and took a deep breath to quell her rising panic. This must not all be a terrible mistake. I can do this, I know I can. She made herself think of their penny-counting life at Thesserton and the alternative of Mr. Sowthorpe, and was steadied.
Shaking her head to dispel such unquiet thoughts, Louisa strode off the bridge and along the far lakeside. A clear swathe of short, mown turf stretched before her the length of the lake, making walking a pleasure, while on her right hand thick woodland rose steeply up the valley-side, almost cliff-like in places.
She walked briskly to make good time back to the village, and might have missed seeing the doorway altogether had not a hare suddenly leapt up from almost beneath her feet and catapulted into the woodland, startling her to a halt.
A curious, conical, grass-covered mound was set out from the hillside before her, its odd shape betraying its artificial origins without the added evidence of the door. This was unusually small, and constructed of heavy dark timber, damp and spotted with fungi. It stood ajar in the side of the mound, almost hidden by trees and brambles.
Louisa stared at it in astonished perplexity. It seemed this could only be the dwelling of some mountain troll, or burrowing dwarfs. Her lively imagination visualised the little men deep in the hill beside her, chipping away for gems with bright hammers in the candle-light. Taking herself to task for her absurdity Louisa walked firmly round the outside of this unlikely pile and studied it, intrigued.
It was not until she spied the heavy wooden trapdoor, set into the side facing the lake, that her reason suddenly told her what this place must be. The Alnstrop’s ice-house. The trapdoor would be opened in the depths of winter, when the lake was hard frozen, for the estate workers to shovel great loads of the ice through it into a huge sunken pit that would be dug beneath the turf-covered dome. There it would remain frozen throughout the year, to be used for cooling summer drinks and puddings up at the house. Louisa had heard of such places, but had never seen one—her father had never bothered with such a luxury at Thesserton.
Fascinated, she walked
back around to the open door. It was surprising, surely, to find it standing open in such mild weather, although it was shaded by trees? Peering into the gloom within, she could just distinguish a short length of dank passage, a second door, and a glimmer of light showing where it was not quite shut. Someone was working in there.
Remembering that she had come for an official tour, had been recommended to come this way, and how friendly everyone seemed to be on the Alnstrop estate, Louisa suddenly had no qualms about indulging her curiosity. She would love to see how the ice was stored and collected. Impulsively, she pushed open the little door, stooped down the clammy length of passage and touched the second door.
‘Good afternoon!’ she called cheerfully, and entered further, looking around.
The deep gloom was barely pierced by the light of the one candle she saw burning, and the only response to her call, which she scarcely heard, was a sharp intake of breath before, with a blinding crack on the back of her head, Louisa collapsed and knew no more.
CHAPTER FOUR
The morning-room at Alnstrop House was a mellow, homely room, much favoured by the family when they were alone. The deep, mullioned windows admitted bright shafts of sun on summer mornings, lighting up the fine panelling that glowed from centuries of beeswax energetically applied by generations of cheery maids born and bred around Alnstrop. The ceiling, divided by carved beams into panels of plaster, was painted with intricate designs of twined ivy and mythical beasts, now faded and smudged by smoke from the fires of countless winters. It was lower than was currently fashionable, giving a cosy feel, and the furniture, though of excellent quality, was old and sturdily comfortable. A thick red patterned carpet covered the stone-flagged floor, and the large stone fireplace, with the Alnstrop arms carved in the stone above it, dominated one wall.
Guests who stayed at Alnstrop would be entertained largely in the late Lord Alnstrop’s imposing new wing: admiring the distinctive Wedgwood room, warming themselves by the elegant fireplace in the large drawing-room designed, they would be told, by Sir Robert Taylor—and seated on an interesting, and probably unique, selection of chairs from Sheraton and Hepplewhite, all the old lord’s personal choice—even to details of the design—while they admired the sweep of rich, green sward beyond the long sash windows, and the distant wood cunningly framing the lily-studded lake.
But the family and their oldest friends preferred the less splendid surroundings of the old house, as generations of their ancestors had done before them. The room they now called the morning-room had been a comfortable family parlour almost since the house was built.
Thus it was that Robert, fourth Lord Alnstrop, and his sister, the Lady Henrietta Cairshaw, were together in the morning-room where a blazing fire, freshly lit, warmed the sharply chill air at the end of the spring afternoon.
‘Oh, do stop prowling so, Robert. It quite unnerves me!’ Lady Cairshaw looked far from unnerved. She sat perched unconventionally on a large couch, her feet, in absurdly thin silk slippers, tucked up out of the draught, and her arms hugging her knees. Her demure grey dress betrayed the hand of an expensive London stylist, and she swung a neat widow’s cap in matching grey silk idly in one hand. It was hard to imagine the cap subduing the riot of black curls that framed Henrietta’s merry face. A very attractive face, too, if still a little thin, her brother considered, surveying his younger sister critically, with her great blue eyes glowing in the firelight and her wide smile mocking him.
‘Do sit properly, Hetta. You look about twelve, perched like that. No one would take you for twenty-five and a respectable widow!’
She stretched her legs out and laughed at him.
‘It’s time you learned to stop playing papa to me, my dear. Especially now I am a respectable widow!’
‘Perhaps when you act like one I will,’ Robert replied, but he laughed with her.
It had never been easy to discipline Henrietta, although after their father’s early death and their mother’s long sickness he had done his best—for her and for John. Though John, the youngest of the family, would always take a stern lecture when he deserved one, Hetta could always charm him and make him laugh. He suspected that she succeeded in her own way far more than she ought. It did not seem to have done her too much harm, he reflected with an inward smile.
‘Oh, Robert, if you knew how tired I am of being a respectable widow. So tired of these dreary, dreary clothes!’ Henrietta glared at the offending cap and flung it impatiently across the room. ‘I want to wear something beautiful, something exotic, something bright, even vivid! In fact, I would love to wear something positively vulgar!’ She began to giggle, and shape the air with her hands. ‘I shall buy scarlet dresses with purple lace and galaxies of sequins, vast purple hats festooned with improbable fruit, and enormous, dyed feather fans over which I shall simper, so—’ She fluttered and smirked over an imaginary fan, ogling him shamelessly.
‘Baggage!’ Robert laughed. ‘I can see it all. Each time you went out, mincing and flirting down the street, you would be mistaken for an overladen costermonger’s barrow and assailed by the populace fighting to buy fresh Kentish cherries and best French grapes!’
She grinned cheekily at him, gave him an impulsive hug, then went to stand facing the fire.
‘It’s not that I didn’t care for Edward. You know how much I did. He was the kindest of husbands, and on occasion I miss him sorely. But it is almost a year since his death. I have thought sometimes that when I married him I was really looking for someone to replace papa, someone so much older, so secure. A safe and affectionate home.’ She paused, then continued quietly, ‘I think now I have grown beyond needing another papa. I wish perhaps I could meet someone else, someone younger, more exciting, perhaps even a little...’ she gesticulated, searching for a word ‘...dangerous!’ She stopped and sighed. ‘But then ... poor Edward. It seems such a wicked thought.’
Robert gently rested his hands on Henrietta’s shoulders and turned her to face him. She did not often confide serious thoughts, and he was touched and oddly proud that she felt she could do so to him.
‘Not wicked, Hetta. Very natural. Edward would wish you to be happily established again. He was a generous and caring man, not jealous or possessive. You will be out of mourning in a few weeks. Why not go up to town and order yourself a new wardrobe? See a few friends and get back a little into the social round. You are getting moped down here; the change will do you good and you will be back with all the gossip. Why not? The new clothes can be a present from your aged brother!’
He smiled as she stretched up to kiss him and thank him, then he set her away with mock severity.
‘But only on condition you do not reappear as a costermonger’s barrow!’
‘You shall judge for yourself when I return.’ She touched his arm lightly. ‘But what is bothering you, Robert? You have prowled like a caged tiger ever since I sat down; the carpet will be threadbare. Is it John? Surely he is often away from home? This is nothing out of the way. I should suppose him to have a variety of unmentionable little pleasures that might delay him. He is twenty-one now, Robert, and he does have all of his share of the family charm!’
Robert shook his head, frowning.
‘I know, Hetta, and I expect I am being an irrational fool, but I feel that something is amiss. There was a certain air of suppressed excitement about John this afternoon when we were talking in the stable-yard, and there has been on other occasions, that I don’t believe is caused by the charms of the local maidens.’ Robert paused and frowned at the fire. ‘I had wanted to speak longer with him, but was distracted by a most garrulous woman in that party of sightseers. It was quite fifteen minutes before Mrs. Ruddick appeared and I could make good my escape, and by then, of course, John had vanished. He had laughed off all my questions, but later I spoke to his groom, who said he believes John has ridden down to Bullockstone Cove and the Gannet. He has no crew arranged that I know of. What can he be doing?’ Robert drummed his fingers on the mantelp
iece. ‘I had expected him to return to town long ago.’ He looked queryingly at his sister. ‘What do you think keeps him at Alnstrop?’
The young widow shrugged.
‘I don’t believe he is so keen on town life. You know he finds social functions a dead bore; confess it, you do yourself. He had told me he dislikes gambling. He called cards “a tame and tedious way to waste my money”! Why, he much prefers sailing his yacht.’
Robert forced a smile.
‘I’m sure you are right. You make me feel distinctly mother-hennish!’ He shrugged ruefully. ‘I think all the same that I will take a ride up on to the moor above the cove. There will be time enough before it is fully dark, and I may “inadvertently” come upon John and discover what the boy is up to. I hate to think of Mama distressed if there were serious trouble, and the cove has a wicked reputation for smugglers.’
He stood for a moment in thought, then smiled lightly at Henrietta, the time for confidences past.
‘I’ll leave immediately. I trust I won’t be late back, but don’t hold the meal back for me. Why don’t you eat upstairs with Mama tonight?’
He strode to the door, only to pause, hand on handle, as his sister spoke his name.
‘Truly, Robert,’ she looked up at him, a deceptively innocent twinkle in her bright blue eyes, ‘what you really need to take your mind off your troublesome siblings is a wife!’
And she laughed at him as, before she could elaborate on this theme, her long-suffering brother grunted unappreciatively and departed, firmly shutting the door.
With his exit Henrietta drew her feet up on to the couch once again and, with a happily musing, even faintly calculating, expression on her face, began a mental review of her friends and acquaintances.