A Place of Secrets

by Rachel Hore

  “A mere folly…”

  “But it’s a good hypothesis.”

  That night, as she lay in that enchanted country between waking and sleep, she tried to imagine how it might have happened.

  * * *

  They met again one day, as she always knew they would.

  At first after her marriage she kept herself to herself in their cottage in Felbarton, away from prying eyes, but as the years passed and her fear of discovery faded, there were occasions when some errand or a social invitation took her near the Hall. Once she was driven past it in a carriage, leaning forward in her seat to scan the beautiful lines of the building, curiously, as one seeking to rouse feelings long buried by examining the face of an old lover. She hoped for signs of its occupants—Susan shaking a duster from a window maybe, or Sam tending the grass—but in vain. They rolled past and she felt desolate.

  Then, one Whitsun, nearly nine and a half years after Anthony’s death, returning home after a night with Hugh’s father, they passed Starbrough church, and the carriage was forced to slow because the service had ended and people were spilling out into the road. Hugh nudged her arm and pointed out a solemn-eyed young lady in a cape of sky blue, dark curls escaping from her bonnet, shepherding two tussling small boys toward a waiting carriage. “That’s Mistress Wickham,” he whispered. And then, emerging from the crowd to join his wife, came Augustus. She knew him at once, though he was no longer the shy, skinny boy she remembered but a thin, awkward man with a dazed expression. The carriage bowled on and the scene dwindled. But troubled images began once more to haunt her sleep.

  Another year passed and there came a glorious summer’s afternoon when she walked across the fields with her two little daughters and their nursemaid, Molly, to visit Hugh’s married sister at Holt. Where the footpath skirted the woods she saw a man approaching, a man walking with bent head and a dreamy pace, and as he drew closer she saw he was reading a book. They nearly passed without acknowledgment, so deep was he in his text, but then she recognized him. She almost let the moment go, but at the last could not bear to.

  “Augustus,” she cried.

  He stiffened and looked up, then stopped, staring at her as though she were some chimera, come to life from his book. “Esther?” he whispered.

  “I’m Stella now,” she replied, cursing Molly’s curiosity. The little girls, however, deciding him to be of no interest, started prodding a butterfly that lay spread exhausted on the muddy track.

  “Stella,” he repeated. “Still a star.” His smile was feeble.

  “Molly,” she said in a bright voice, “will you walk ahead with the children? Mr. Wickham and I are old friends and wish to speak with one another.”

  She watched the girls dance away, the elder bearing the dying butterfly aloft on a stick like a captured pennant.

  “What happened to you?” Augustus asked, his tone urgent, almost desperate. “I thought … I was afraid you were dead. And that it was all my fault.”

  “Your fault? How could that be? We were children, Gussie. We were powerless. Your mother—”

  “You know my mother is dead?”

  “No, I’m…” But no, she couldn’t say she was sorry, not when she felt such a rush of relief. “When?”

  “Three, no four summers ago. Of a disease of the throat. In her last few weeks she could not speak.”

  That must have been wonderful, Esther thought, but of course did not say. “And your father?”

  “Still lives, but he does not leave Lincolnshire. Esther … Stella … Why Stella, for God’s sake?”

  “I had to change my name. I did not kill Trotwood, Augustus, but Dr. Brundall advised caution. I married his son, Hugh. We live very quietly. I wish to cause no trouble to anyone. Least of all to you and your family.”

  He cried, “Yet, though unwitting, you have caused me trouble enough for a whole lifetime.”

  “How so?” she cried in horror, then, remembering those terrible events of ten years before, she was filled with cold anger. It was she who had endured trouble. Homeless, an outlaw, she had wandered with the gypsies for many months, frequently hungry, always shivering with cold, often ill with exhaustion. She gave them the necklace in payment for sheltering her—such a pity she’d lost one of the charms—so then she had nothing. And she saw a mystery: Rowan was not one of them at all, they’d disguised her as Romany by painting her hair. Whether she’d been a foundling like herself, or a changeling stolen from some rich family’s ancestral cradle, they did not tell and she knew it was no good to ask.

  Finally, after her pleadings, they delivered Esther to the door of the only person in the world she thought would help her: Jonathan Brundall. And he had looked after her for the sake of his old friend Anthony, and been generous when Hugh fell in love with her, when many another father might have forbidden the union. Hugh, after years of study, established a practice in a neighboring parish and it was there that eventually they were quietly married.

  “How have I caused you trouble, Gussie?” she asked again, her voice low, passionate. “It was you who took my inheritance, your family who made me homeless, nameless. If I caused you trouble, it must have been by my very existence, and I can hardly apologize for that.”

  He could not meet her eye. She was right when she blamed the influence of his mother. It was greater than Esther ever knew and the shame would always be with him.

  * * *

  It pleased him, now that he’d found her, that they should meet again. An invitation arrived to dine at the Hall and Hugh judged it wise that they accept. After dinner, Augustus took her to her father’s library and made it known she might visit it as often as she wished. And sometimes she did. He’d kept it exactly as she remembered and it comforted her to sit there and think of her father. There was no other place she could do that. Augustus sometimes went to view the stars, but never again, all her life long, would she agree to visit the folly. To her it had become a place of violence and terror.

  However, as a peace offering and in memory of her father she gave Augustus a book for the library, a new printing of the Atlas Coelestis, which delighted him, but he never found the courage to tell her his secret … the secret of what nearly cost Esther her life. Instead, after her death of influenza, he commissioned the wonderful painted ceiling, the library’s crowning glory. And among her papers Hugh found a thick envelope addressed: “To be stored in the Library at Starbrough Hall.” He opened it and read, “An Account of Esther Wickham.” He took it to Augustus in person. And after he read it, Augustus, shaken, confessed to Hugh what he had done.

  * * *

  Through the half-open door, Augustus had glimpsed her stuff Bellingham’s letter into the writing desk and was intrigued. Later in the day he found it there and read it, not understanding more of its contents than that his rival for the prize of Starbrough Hall was plotting something secret, something that could upset his mother’s plans.

  All the rest of that day he watched Esther, saw her secret preparations, and when she crept out to visit the folly that night he followed her. Once she disappeared up the stairs of the tower with the last bit of telescope, and the trolley stood empty, it was as though he heard his mother’s voice in his ear: “You know what to do, boy.”

  The question was whether to leave the little cart outside, where it might alert anyone passing, or whether to risk her hearing it and apprehending him in his mission. If he were quick, he decided … He rolled the cart inside the tower, slammed and locked the door, then darted back into the cover of the trees.

  For two nights, afraid of what he’d done, he kept his deed a secret. Matters were overtaking him. Esther’s disappearance was interpreted as running away, an admission of defeat, and Alicia announced it as such to the household. Lawyers visited, new documents were drawn up, argued over, signed. The dispute would drag on, with Anthony’s lawyer dogged in his loyalty, but Esther’s vanishment sapped energy from his case.

  On the third night, a light was seen in the folly
and finally he broke down and confessed to his mother what he had done. At first she was startled. Who would have thought that her weak sap of an infant could have taken such a decisive action? But then a look of cunning came over her face and he was struck by cold dread. When Alicia summoned Mr. Trotwood and gave him his mission, Gussie took to his room. He’d never in his worst nightmares believed that his action would have such dreadful consequences. And, though relieved that she’d escaped, he was haunted by his deed all his life until that afternoon on the footpath when he set eyes on Esther once more.

  CHAPTER 40

  It was the week before Easter, the time when Lord Madingsfield always threw open the doors of his stately home for the start of the summer season. Every year he would mount a different exhibition from his archives and collections, one that showcased some aspect of the history of the house and the family. The thirteenth earl, an Arctic explorer, had inspired the previous year’s “White-Out” exhibition. The year before that had seen a celebration of the tenth earl’s contribution to the eighteenth-century Agricultural Revolution. And this year, 2009, the International Year of Astronomy, offered the perfect occasion to tell the story of Esther Wickham, the lost daughter of Lucille, “The Lady with the Star Necklace.”

  It was this portrait that Jude saw first as she walked into the lovely paneled morning room for the private preview of the exhibition. Smiling and beautiful, offering no hint of the troubles shortly to beset her, Lucille looked down on the proceedings from her new home over the carved wooden fireplace.

  “Euan, this is Lucille,” Jude said, and turned to see where he’d gone. Ah, he’d spotted Cecelia, and was bringing her over.

  “I didn’t see you arrive,” said Cecelia, kissing Jude. “Hey, what a gorgeous dress! Come on, I’ll show you both around before the crowds get here. And then there’s champagne and canapés.”

  “There’s so much that’s familiar, of course,” Jude said, glancing around again and noticing the orrery and Anthony Wickham’s big telescope. She had assisted Cecelia in the early stages of preparation for the exhibition, but it was wonderful to see it in its final form. “Oh, and there’s Anthony’s portrait from Starbrough Hall. It’s such a shame there’s no picture of Esther.”

  “There’s plenty about her, though. Why don’t we start at the beginning?” Cecelia said, guiding Jude over to the first exhibit. Jude was transfixed. It was the necklace, cleaned and mended, lying on green velvet in an alarmed case, the diamonds sparkling like tiny fires in the light from the chandeliers. “It looks … extraordinary,” she breathed.

  “As fresh as when it was created, I imagine,” Euan agreed. “I somehow can’t believe that Summer will be allowed to keep it in her bedroom!”

  “Still, it’s a fabulous heirloom to have,” Cecelia said. “Now, you start here and follow the exhibition around. You’ve seen some of it already, I know.”

  “Well I haven’t,” said Euan, his eyes crinkling into a smile. “And don’t rush me. I want to make sure I read everything properly.”

  Cecelia and Jude smiled fondly at one another. The exhibition had been Lord Madingsfield’s idea. Ever since November, when he’d appeared at the auction of the Starbrough collection and bought up so many of the lots, he’d pursued various different ideas with his trademark energy to make Esther’s story known to the public.

  His press release soon after the sale had set the tone.

  Lord Madingsfield is delighted to announce that he has acquired the prestigious Starbrough collection of books, manuscripts and astronomical instruments. The observation journals and autobiographical material concerning Anthony Wickham and his adoptive daughter, Esther, of Starbrough Hall, Norfolk, offer a solution to a fascinating Madingsfield family mystery as well as representing a magnificent contribution to our knowledge of eighteenth-century astronomical discovery.

  The auction itself had attracted a great deal of interest. Jude’s article in Beecham’s magazine stimulated features in weekly magazines and daily newspapers, and she was invited onto both television and radio to talk about Esther. Despite the unfavorable economic conditions, many collectors turned up to bid on auction day. Competition was brisk for some of the items—the rare Sir Isaac Newton volumes, the Atlas Coelestis, the orrery—but in most cases Lord Madingsfield won out.

  At a drinks reception in the evening after the auction, Jude introduced him to Robert Wickham—the only member of the family who had the heart to come to the sale—and to Cecelia, who bewitched him, and after that, everything had quickly gathered pace. A week later he contacted Cecelia to ask her to curate a very special exhibition at Madingsfield, where all the items he’d bought at the auction would be displayed, and Esther’s story told at last.

  Making money would always be a motive for Geoffrey Madingsfield, as well as high culture, Jude warned Cecelia. Yet in the case of the Starbrough collection these two interests became entwined with a third, something even more deep-seated and powerful: a passion for the family name. He’d taken a lifelong interest in the Madingsfield mystery—what had happened to Lucille, the Lady with the Star Necklace, and her daughters—and the Starbrough collection had offered a solution. This threefold motivation proved very creative and effective. Not least because Lord Madingsfield quickly established bonds with the current generations of the Wickham family. His visit to Starbrough Hall just before Christmas caused great excitement in the locality. He pronounced himself “quite fascinated” by the library. With John Farrell’s delighted permission, he was driven up to the folly in his classic Bentley to examine the place where Anthony and Esther had viewed the stars; soon afterward he revealed an infrequently glimpsed generosity, offering Farrell a dazzling sum of money toward the restoration of the folly.

  This in turn had an almost magical effect on the Farrell plans. The first outlines for the development of Starbrough Woods had, as predicted by the parish council, been turned down by the planning authorities in September, as were subsequent modified ones. When Farrell finally submitted a much more modest proposal for two eco-friendly holiday cottages on Foxhole Lane, offering to make a virtue of the folly by restoring it with Madingsfield’s money and opening it to the public, the council seemed prepared at least to listen. And Robert and Alexia chose this point to announce their own plans to improve their income—to turn over some of the Hall’s unused bedrooms for paying guests and for Robert to do what he’d always dreamed: to open his own specialist wine merchant’s on the premises. Jude was interested to know what Chantal’s place was in all this.

  “Robert and Alexia say there will always be a home for me with them,” she told Jude one chilly January afternoon, when Jude called around for tea. They sat in the drawing room, for Chantal could not bear to use the empty library. “And I would be very happy here, maybe helping Alexia with her work and the children. But first I will be taking what these silly modern magazines call ‘me time.’ In May I am going to stay with my late brother’s wife near Toulouse and will meet all the family there. In June I visit my old school friend Audrie in Paris. Then I have booked a cruise. What do you think of that?”

  “A cruise, Chantal, how wonderful! Where are you going?”

  “I embark at Nice and we travel all around the Mediterranean, in a modest, elegant ship, not one of these huge ones. There are all these places I meant to visit when William was alive, but William, he only loved Norfolk. So now I am alone I must take my opportunity.”

  The new sparkle in her eyes at the exciting thought of the trip, made Jude wonder privately whether Chantal would always be alone. She was so beautiful and graceful, and such a lovely person, it was very likely that she would draw people to her, new friends and, perhaps, suitors.

  “That sounds like a brilliant idea,” she cried, “but, well, Euan and I hope you’ll be home for our wedding in June.”

  “You’re getting married! Why am I surprised? Oh Jude!” Her hug told Jude how happy she was and they talked eagerly of how Chantal could fly back from France for the wedding in
Starbrough church before joining her ship in July.

  Chantal was also mollified by the idea of the exhibition and the restoration of the folly. “Happy things can come out of sad ones, Jude, we must always remember that.”

  She’d been looking forward to the opening of the exhibition today for ages.

  “Oh, they’re here,” Jude exclaimed now, waving. “Wow, the whole family’s come!”

  There was Robert in the doorway, holding little Georgie’s hand. Just behind were Alexia and Max, no, they’d stopped to gather up Max’s suitcase of wooden trains, which had spilled open. The grown-ups all greeted one another, shaking hands, kissing and hugging, then Cecelia took Chantal, Georgie and Alexia to see the necklace, leaving Robert to manage Max and Thomas the Tank Engine and to butter up Lord Madingsfield, who had just glided into the room, beaming with triumphant pleasure.

  Jude and Euan took the chance to walk around by themselves, starting with the first storyboard. Cecelia’s story of Esther, like all really satisfying stories, began at the beginning, if we can ever say that there was a beginning, for Lucille, the young, unhappy French wife, had her own story before she arrived at Madingsfield, and maybe it was only possible to guess at how she’d been torn away from family and homeland and, crucially, from an unknown man who’d won her heart, to make a handsome match to a wealthy English aristocrat.

  The storyboard showed a portrait of a sensual, but unsmiling young blade, with a twist of cruelty about his mouth. This was Lucille’s new husband, the Viscount, heir to the Earldom of Madingsfield, darling of his mother’s eye, to whom no one in life had ever said “no.” Cecelia had obviously had marvelous fun digging around in the Madingsfield archives and elsewhere to build up this description of him. But she’d been scholarly as well and careful to separate evidenced information from mere suggestion and rumor.

  Jude had helped by researching everything to do with the dead woman found in north Norfolk woodland in 1765—largely newspaper reports of the time, for the coroner’s papers had not survived. Although it wasn’t possible to say definitively that the woman had been the runaway Lucille, there were several details that pointed toward it: her clothes, her physique and the fact that her skin and hands were fine, that the coroner’s report had described her “possible foreign appearance.” She’d been shot at close range, the motive apparently not robbery, for a gold ring adorned her wedding finger and some coins were found scattered on the ground. No one knew who she was or where she’d come from, and though it was posited that she’d borne at least one child, no report mentioned the discovery of two little girls.