by Sandra Byrd
“They were very happy indeed,” I said. “But I do not believe Papa’s bearings were lost.” We made small talk about the weather and church functions and the duties of the policeman on the street till we arrived at their tidy, but small, home.
If my home was lovely, and it was, and Mrs. Roberts’s was small and cramped, the Collingsworth home fell somewhere in the middle. Plain, but pretty, a brick house on a lane that did not have mews but did not have vagrants loafing about, either. It was neatly cut and held together with freshly pointed mortar; it rather put me in mind of a layer cake. I wondered where their new home would be located, and if the inspector had been investing toward that future, as my papa always had.
“My dear.” Mrs. Collingsworth opened the door; her home smelt of roast and potatoes with the slightest sweet tint hovering round the edges of the room, which suggested a delightful pudding to follow it all. She took me into a warm embrace and until she did I had not realized how I longed for a mother’s touch. I embraced her warmly in return. She held me at arm’s length. “Getting on all right, then?”
I nodded. “I am, such as I can be due to the circumstances.”
She looked a little wan herself, and I noticed she had a rash on her wrists, beneath her short gloves, that looked as though it extended to her palms.
“Caroline will serve dinner if we take our seats.” She indicated that we should follow her into the small dining room. I hoped we hadn’t tarried long and delayed her meal.
Inspector Collingsworth looked over at me; he seemed to look me over long and hard. It was uncomfortable.
The food was served, and after he said a blessing the inspector carved the roast joint for us.
It was silent for a moment. “Constable Collingsworth tells me that you’re leading a charity bazaar,” I said. “I’m most interested in hearing about it.”
Mrs. Collingsworth looked delighted. “Please say you’ll attend. The funds raised will go toward the poor. I’ve been sewing for months to ensure I have something proper to donate.”
“I would love to attend. Just let me know the time and place. I understand sewing for months, believe me! I’ve been sewing for Lady Tolfee, for the Season, and I’m soon to begin work on the costumes for Cinderella, which is my most important commission to date—it means all for my future if I succeed and utter disaster if I do not! I should have liked to have sewn for the opera held at Drury Lane, Esmeralda. It was magnificent.”
Mrs. Collingsworth shook her head a little. “I’m not familiar.”
“It was based on The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.” My comment was received in silence; I do not think the family approved of theater.
Francis cleared his throat. “Miss Young is involved in her own charity work,” he bridged the gap. “And it includes her sewing.”
Inspector Collingsworth forked a large piece of roast and said nothing, but his wife spoke up. “Do tell us!”
“Well,” I said. “I’ve taken on a master beader and two apprentices. I don’t mind saying I’ve grown close to the girls. I found them at the Theatrical Mission, on King Street.”
Mrs. Collingsworth cooed, but the inspector set down his fork and looked at me. “King Street?”
I nodded. “Yes. It’s the Theatrical Mission.”
“Ah,” he said, and dug into his meat again. “I’d heard some noise that you were visiting King Street again, asking questions, and I said to meself, no, no, that can’t be right. If she had any questions about anything she’d come to Francis or to me, as she said she would.” He chewed and swallowed before looking at us each, one by one.
A cold wave traveled through me. How had he heard that I’d been asking questions on King Street—and why should he care?
“I had no idea someone would be speaking to you of me,” I replied, and took a tiny bite of potato though my appetite had fled and been replaced with anger tinted with a little fear.
“You know how it is. We all look after those we care about. Your father is gone, and I feel it’s my responsibility to look after you in a way. Like you’re a . . . daughter of sorts. Your father and me, we were like brothers.” He looked at Francis and broke out in a grin. Francis smiled softly and looked at me. I looked to the table for a moment. Francis had clearly not thought King Street would turn into an issue, or he would not have raised the subject of the Theatrical Mission.
Or was that precisely why he’d raised it? To bring it into the open?
“Just like you look after those young girls, what were their names? Ruby and Charlotte?” the inspector said. “We all tend to the people we care about.”
How did he know the girls’ names? “That’s true,” I said. “I’m very glad for the ways you’ve cared for our family. Lord Lockwood, my neighbor at Winton Park, has told me you accompanied Papa on a visit there.”
I deliberately did not mention when that visit was made.
“Some months ago, yes,” Inspector Collingsworth said. “Your father had not told you?”
He had me there. I shook my head.
“Then he didn’t like you to know,” he said. “Which is the way of men. I understand you’ve inherited that grand house, then?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Will you move there, dear? I shouldn’t like to be all alone in such a huge house.” Mrs. Collingsworth shivered.
I laughed. “If I moved there, I wouldn’t be all alone, have no fear.”
The inspector grinned at that and looked at Francis. “That’s very true, very true. You’d need just the right set of people to help you manage it all, enjoy it with you.” He set his utensils down, and I guessed from the way the family responded we were all to do likewise. “I’m sure, properly guided, you’ll do quite well.”
I nodded uncomfortably, and Mrs. Collingsworth called for a lovely Bakewell pudding to be brought to table. Afterward, the inspector said to his son, “Francis, join me for a pipeful?”
Francis nodded. “Please, sit with Mother for a while and catch up on lady things. I’ll be back to accompany you home in a short while.”
Mrs. Collingsworth’s maid cleared the table, and we retired to the sitting room. I handed her the pincushion ball on a chain, which she could clasp to her waist if she wished.
“See?” I opened it. “You can place buttons in the center if you like. It’s as much an adornment as it is useful to us seamstresses.” We did have that in common. My mother, bless her, had not sewn much.
She cracked the ball open, like an egg, and saw the cavity. “That is wonderful.” Her eyes looked tired and anxious. I hoped the men would soon return so I could leave, and she could rest.
“Do come along to the bazaar,” she said. “It would mean so much to have you there. I don’t have a daughter, you know.”
That was the second mention of the word daughter in one evening. “I shall, I promise. Maybe I could bring along my apprentices? I keep them so busy they have only the rare occasion out.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Collingsworth said. “And here are the men.”
Inspector and Constable Collingsworth returned to the room, trailing thick pipe smoke behind them. I put on my coat and my new feathered hat and said my farewells.
As he left me at my door, a short while later, Constable Collingsworth rested his hand on my arm. I flexed it, a little, rather than yielding and softening.
“Be careful in all you do,” he said. “You’ve no brother, no father, no husband to care for you. I should like to step in as protector if you’ve ever need of one. I can protect you like no one else can.”
I was not sure what that meant—did it follow the conversation he may just have had with his father? I did not wish to explore the topic further just then. I, too, was tired, and truthfully, his father’s intensity and knowledge of my whereabouts had scared me a little.
“May I call on you?” Francis asked as I put my hand to the knob.
I wasn’t ready to dismiss him entirely. He’d been a good friend and was a good man. And yet, there was
little else between us. Perhaps I had not given him enough of a chance.
“An evening to St. James for the music might be lovely, sometime,” I said. “After I return from Hampshire.”
He looked alert. “I’ve heard, from Father, that it’s a beautiful house.”
I nodded. “It is.”
“Perhaps I could visit sometime?” He smiled. “You could show me round. We could bring Mother to chaperone.”
This was an odd line of thought. Had he ever expressed interest in Winton before? I didn’t think so.
“You intend going? Soon? Alone?” Francis continued. “I could accompany you or send someone along with you if you like.”
“Why, yes, I intend to go, very soon, actually. It is my home, and I have staff there, thank you. I’ve informed them I’ll be arriving, alone.”
I fully intended to go unaccompanied. I did not want my handbag searched as I left.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WINTON PARK, HAMPSHIRE
JUNE, 1883
When I caught the train to Hampshire I noticed a man standing near me, following me, first with his person and then with his eyes. I took the first class coach compartment, as I was traveling alone and it was safer; he parted ways with me then. When I departed the train, he did, too, though only one or two others did at our station. They had people waiting for them; I did not. I intended to hire a carriage.
The strange man did not take a hired carriage; in fact, when he saw me get in one he returned to the station and stood in the waiting room on the side where those returning to London awaited the next train, which was very odd indeed. Perhaps he had merely forgotten something of importance in London, and had no connection whatsoever with me. After the dinner at the Collingsworths’, Francis’s declared intentions, and Roberts’s untimely death, I hoped I was no longer being followed.
Perhaps hope was not wise. I had a fleeting thought: Would I have to rid myself of Sarah’s beautiful and distinctive hat as I had my bouclé scarf?
The day was glorious and sunny though already tilting toward dusk when I arrived at my country home. My fingertips tingled as I thought it—it was my country home. The home my grandfather had banished my mother from, but one I had made quiet hopes and plans for each time we’d visited. It was vast and done up like a powdered lady, dressed in exquisite finery that now, sadly, had gone to moths. I paid the driver and then proceeded to walk up. I had but a small bag to carry and wanted to take in the land, the house, the outbuildings, everything that Winton encompassed.
Before the driver departed, I asked him a single question. “Which way is the property of Lord Lockwood?”
He pointed west. “You’ll mean Darington, then. It’s the largest estate in these parts, miss, and we are not short of them hereabouts. He makes it his business, if he can, to enlarge his acreage each year. Successfully, too, I may say.”
I nodded, and he reddened a bit and hurried off, perhaps realizing that he’d been bordering on hedgerow gossip.
The drive was made of crushed rock the color of sand; I walked down one of the wheel ruts, as it was smoother and easier for my heeled boots to navigate. In the distance, Winton beckoned me forward. Its brick front was real, and not a façade. It was guarded by Tuscan columns, straight and tall. To the left of the main house were the empty stables and the unused carriage house, where the footmen had slept in better days. A gate hung ajar, like a dangling broken arm. To the right was the building that housed the kitchens, the laundry, and some storage areas. I had found it curious, as a girl, that the kitchens were disconnected from the house.
“The smells,” Mamma had told me. “That way, the household does not need to smell the food cooking or meat roasting or bread baking, or the nip of the lye when the laundry is being done.” Before dinner the following night she’d shown me down to those kitchens—a visit that had not been well received—to explain how the food was loaded onto the wooden delivery carts, heated with coal. The carts were wheeled through the underground passages to the Servery, where they would be organized and delivered to the dining room.
Dishes, once used, were returned in like manner: I remembered a footman saving all the uneaten ices after they’d been collected from the table; we’d eaten them together, sneakily, he and I. I’d stood in that basement passage for a moment; one small cutout in the ground above framed in iron and shaped cheerfully, like a daisy, allowed fresh air and light, but also rain and ice, to fall through and then upon the heads, for better or worse, of the delivering servants.
I approached the house itself. Some of the stones slumped like Atlas’s shoulders, no longer able to bear their burden. I could see that better in the bright light of summer than I had at Papa’s burial. The lawns were infested with weeds that had capitalized on the weaknesses of the grass and boldly claimed vast swaths of territory. A rabbit hobbled here and there in the distance, which brought a smile.
But for them, there was no sign of life whatsoever. Desolate. Lonely. I could resuscitate her, bring the house back to cheerful life.
If I had more money. A flush of fear passed through me. Had . . . Had Papa been thinking that as well? Could he have been tempted not by money for himself, but to save my estate?
No. Never. And he knew, in any case, that I would likely give it away.
I approached the front door and knocked. This is ridiculous. I’m at my own house, and there is no butler; I shall just walk in. I opened the front door, which was unlocked.
Once inside the staircase hall, I called out, “Hello? Davidson?”
I set my bag down and began to walk through the rooms. I started with the largest, the Saloon. That most formal of the reception rooms opened onto the green that led toward Lockwood’s property, Darington Hall, though it was so far away that should I scream at the top of my lungs no one there would be able to hear me.
I laughed nervously. Why should I be thinking of screaming?
The dust covers were still on the furniture, ghostly; they lifted and trembled in the wind, which crept in through the door I’d left open. The ceiling was blue like the sky, with gilt ribs running from each wall to the center circle, also gilt, and from which hung a French chandelier. None of the candles were placed in sockets, so it looked like a beautiful mouth without any teeth, dark, rotted, and not right.
To the right was the Red Drawing Room, with its red flocked wallpaper and delicately plastered ceilings. Last time I’d been in that room, after Papa’s burial, I’d been with Lord Lockwood. It, too, was shrouded once more. I walked to the Little Parlor.
The wraps had been removed from the furniture, and the wood had been newly polished, yes, it had. I drew a finger across a table and it came back clean. A fresh set of tea trios rested nearby; the setting was for two. I picked up a cup. It had no trace of dust, either.
Empty houses were dusty tombs, indeed. Who had—very recently—set these here? “Hello?” I called once more. Nothing.
I passed the Stone Hall, where Grandpapa had withdrawn with the other men to smoke. The smell from their cigars and pipes remained, perhaps in the oriental carpets, which looked as though they had not been recently beaten.
Then I arrived at the Dining Room. It, too, had been freshened afore my arrival. The table was polished and set for one. The candelabra in the middle of the table had fresh tapers. I ran my finger round the edge of a dish, and then, I heard a noise. Footsteps.
“Who is there?”
They did not sound like the heavy fall of a man’s shoes. In fact, the sound rather put me in mind of the felt shoes actors wore behind the stage so as not to cause thumps on the wood during a performance.
“Who is there?” I insisted as a fright ran through my chest. I turned toward the hallway and a woman appeared like an apparition. She looked to be about forty years old and was dressed in a maid’s uniform of black and white.
“It is I, Miss Young. My name is Ruth. I am one of Lady Lockwood’s maids.”
I exhaled. “Thank you, Ruth. But what are you do
ing here?” At that, I heard the heavier footfall of a man, one heavy step alternating with a limping light one. Davidson.
“I’m delighted to see you home, miss,” he said to me, not wincing at all when using the word home, which made me smile. “Lady Lockwood thought you would need a maid for your days at home, seeing as there is only me now.”
I spoke gently, but certainly, to the old man. “How did Lady Lockwood know I was coming?”
“Why, I told her, Miss Young,” he replied, as if there had been no other choice. Perhaps there had not been. She lived nearby; I had been here but a dozen times in my life. “She’ll be by tomorrow,” he said, “for tea.”
“I’ll come by to prepare it, miss,” Ruth said. “I’ll bring the Grey’s tea. I remember your father preferred it.”
My heart double-beat. “When did you serve tea to my father?”
She dipped her head.
“Did you serve tea to my father?” I asked once more.
“I may have misremembered,” was all she would admit to. “Please, miss, do not mention this to Lady Lockwood.”
Ah, yes. Lady Lockwood. My emotions were tangled. Why did she want to see me? What would we speak of? But then, she was, after all, Lord Lockwood’s mother. I had developed a compelling interest in the man, perhaps too quickly, perhaps too deeply. But I wanted to make a good impression.
“You won’t be spending the night, then?” I asked Ruth.
She shivered. “No, miss. I was not asked to do that. And I should not prefer to. It’s dark and empty here. But I’ll tend to your supper before I leave.”
I nodded. “That’s fine.”
“The house looks well cared for,” I said to Davidson, wanting to encourage what must be a lonely old man.
“Your father pays me well,” he said. “And I do my best.”
My father? Ah. He must have mistaken me for Mamma. Or . . . perhaps not.
Davidson brought my bags upstairs while I gathered my thoughts in the Little Parlor. That was where Grandmamma had sat, when she was old, and stroked her spaniels for their comfort and hers. I remember visiting her once or twice after the old man was gone, with Mamma. Her mind was not clear, nor were her eyes, but her smile had been.