by Mary Mackie
‘Eliza’s decided that she wants a few days off. Cousin Oriana is always complaining of her, but Papa says unless we actually discover her being dishonest…’
‘Like taking my ring,’ Jess said.
Lily flicked her a sidelong look and, sympathising, touched her arm. ‘Yes. I did ask her about it, but of course she denied all knowledge. By now one of her brothers will have sold it, I expect. I’m sorry, Jess.’
‘Well, that don’t signify,’ said Jess, resigned. But she promised herself that one day she’d get even with Eliza, or at least let her know that she knew who the thief was, even if she couldn’t prove it.
Meantime, in Eliza’s absence there was work to be done.
* * *
Later that day, with a rustle of taffeta petticoats, Lily erupted into the kitchen, astounded to find Jess on her knees, scrubbing the floor.
‘Jess! Whatever are you doing?’
Jess sat back on her heels, cuffing sweat from her brow. She wasn’t sorry for the interruption; she’d begun to regret her impulse to tackle the floor when she realised she was feeling faint, but stubbornness had carried her on.
‘This here floor wholly need a good scrub, Miss Lily. That was a disgrace. This whole place—’
‘I told you not to do anything strenuous! You’re not strong yet. You were very sick, you know.’ Holding her skirts clear of the wet floor, she came and hauled Jess to her feet, looking her up and down with a mixture of concern and annoyance.
‘I’m all right, Miss Lily,’ Jess muttered.
‘You’re not all right! Look at you – your skirt’s all wet – and your sleeves! Go and get changed.’
‘What about the floor?’
‘It will dry itself.’
‘Not in this weather it won’t, Miss Lily.’
‘Then… then mop it up, if you must. And then leave it. Oh… I shall never forgive Eliza for staying at home today! She doesn’t deserve to have a place here.’ As Miss Peartree appeared, Lily appealed to her, ‘Cousin Oriana, it isn’t fair that Jess should have to work so hard. She’s still convalescent. If she doesn’t rest, she’ll be ill again.’
Miss Peartree came to peer into Jess’s face, her myopic eyes huge behind the oval lenses of her pince-nez. ‘H’m. You may be right. But young Dolly can’t be expected to do it all, and I certainly can’t do much more.’ Turning away, she grumbled, ‘That’s the modern world for you – one can’t get reliable servants. Nobody wants to work any more.’ She blinked at Lily, adding fretfully, ‘When I came here it was on the understanding that I was to be companion and nurse to your poor mama, not a general housekeeper, which is what I have become. At my time of life I had hoped to be taking things easy. Oh… yes, yes. Let the girl have an hour or two off. Didn’t you say you wanted to go over to the Manor? Why not take her with you? But one day this week, Jessamy, we must have a baking session. We’re going to need some pies for Thursday.’
‘Thursday?’ Lily queried.
‘Your papa has been invited to join Sir Richard for a New Year’s Eve shoot. We must contribute our share to the luncheon, naturally.’
Dolly was dispatched to alert the boy to harness up the trap, while Lily and Jess put on their outdoor clothes. Jess wrapped herself in several layers; this was the first time she had been out for almost a month and the first stab of the cold air near took her breath away.
The trap had a well-padded double seat and a plain wooden box, with a lid, at the back; this would take extra passengers, uncomfortably, or serve for luggage. The sturdy vehicle came under the charge of the boy, Button, a great lummox of a lad, with enormous ears and a skin erupting with pimples. He was employed to take care of tasks like cleaning knives and boots and he shared the outside work – care of the rectory’s large garden and outhouses – with the man Fargus, who also acted as the rector’s coachman. Button and Fargus both slept in a garret over the stable which housed the two horses – the rector’s black hackney and the gentle grey gelding, to which Button was evidently attached. Only with reluctance did he hand the reins to Lily, who insisted she would drive. Button had hoped to have that pleasure himself. He glowered at Jess under the peak of a floppy cap, his loose red lips twisting.
‘That’s supposed to be my job, the trap drivin’,’ he muttered. ‘The mawther could go on the back.’
‘She most certainly could not,’ said Lily. ‘Be off about your work and mind your business, John Button.’
As they drove away, the lad came slummocking as far as the gate, where he stood staring after them morosely.
‘He’s not the brightest of intellects, but he’s harmless,’ Lily said, and laughed, her face alight under the sway of a jaunty feather in a little red hat that matched her riding habit. ‘Oh… isn’t this wonderful, Jess? At last we’re off on our own. Hup, Greyman. Hup!’
The horse picked up its pace, heading down a drive whose verges remained deep in spattered snow while the centre was flattened to ice. The temperature hovered just below freezing, the air making Jess’s eyes run as she squinted ahead.
The east lodge entry of Hewinghall was flanked by tiny cottages that guarded the gateway. There were three ways into the park, Lily told Jess – this east gate, the main Lion Gates which led to Hewing village, and the smaller, north-facing Park Lodge gate, which gave access to the coast.
‘The Fynchams were a very great family,’ Lily said. ‘They’re supposed to go back to the Conqueror. But their fortunes have dwindled lately. Cousin Oliver probably has more money in the bank than Sir Richard, though of course he doesn’t have half as much land. Or a title.’
Beyond the gates the lane ran into the village of Syderford, busy with people bundled up against the cold, carts and horses splattering wet mud where salt had been strewn, dogs wagging and sniffing. Shops and cottages stood around a broad triangle of trampled snow – the village green – which bore the remains of snowmen and evidence of snowball fights. At its centre was a well where women stood gossiping, wrapped in shawls, stamping their pattened feet and blowing on mittened hands as they waited their turn to draw water.
‘You’ll love the Manor, I know you will,’ Lily said. ‘And I’m sure you’ll love Aunt Jane – she’s blind and rather lonely, so I visit her to cheer her up. I can go any time – Cousin Letitia has said so. I don’t need a formal invitation. Well, I am part of the family,’ she added, almost defiantly.
In the centre of the village a small, round-towered church bristled with scaffolding. Some of the masonry from the tower had collapsed and gaping holes in the roof were covered with tarpaulins.
‘They’re having to put up temporary buttresses to keep the tower from falling down completely,’ Lily said. ‘The church is very ancient. That long row of yews behind it has a romantic history. It was planted by one of the Fynchams of Hewinghall.’
She chatted on as they passed between cottages with smoke trailing from chimneys. The inhabitants, busy about their chores, paused to stare at the occupants of the trap, curious to see the ‘lost girl’ whom the fey Miss Lily had found.
Jess huddled deeper into her grey-knit scarf – to keep warm, she told herself, though deep down she knew it was also an attempt to hide. Which was silly. No one here would recognise her as the girl who was wanted for questioning after a man was killed in Lynn…
Lily said that in the middle ages the young lord of Hewinghall, as it was then, had fallen in love with the daughter of his neighbour, the squire of Syderford. But the lady rejected him and married his rival, whereupon he decided to plant a yew hedge along the entire border between the two estates, to stand for ever as a symbolic barrier. He began by planting the section behind Syderford church, to shut from view the place where his love had made her vows to his enemy.
Seeing that the hedge extended only half way along the next field, behind the last of the cottages, Jess said, ‘I ’spect he on’y got that far afore he come to his senses.’
Lily shook her head, her eyes full of tragedy as she empathised with the
forsaken lover. ‘The lady died. And soon afterwards the young lord of Hewinghall died, too – of a broken heart. Isn’t that sad?’
‘Seem to me as how he should have found hisself another lady if that one didn’t want him,’ said the practical Jess.
‘Oh, Jess!’ Lily was shocked. ‘How can you say that? He died of grief. Of unrequited love. It was romantic.’
It wasn’t romantic, Jess thought, it was plain foolish. A waste of a life. But it seemed Miss Lily had a fondness for tales with sorrowful endings.
The lane was buried between tall hedges, in frozen ruts of icy mud, hollows filled with stones picked from the fields. Beyond the hedges lay a landscape of rolling fields and hills, white with snow, marked with dark patches of bare trees in many woods and copses designed as coverts for game. They passed a cart fetching mangolds back to be chopped for the cattle, and further on there were two men with guns and dogs, but mostly the country lay quiet, resting between Christmas and New Year.
As they topped a particularly steep hill, Jess had a glimpse of the sea in the distance, a grey expanse whose edges were blurred by mist, blending into a grey sky. The sea…
Riding in the trap had begun to seem like a dream, as if she were floating – past strange fields, along foreign lanes, with never a fishing boat in sight. The few men about were all wearing fustian, or moleskin, most of them with linen smocks over winter warmers. No dark blue ganseys, knitted in the round – knitted tight so they’d be spray-proof. No great thigh-boots turned solid hard by salt. No thick white sea-boot stockings, nor sou’westers and capes, nor seal-skin caps. No smell of salt and sea. Oh, dear Lord. What was she doing here in this alien place? Was this her punishment – exile from everything dear and familiar? Exile for ever?
‘The Clares are entertaining guests,’ Lily’s voice broke across Jess’s anguished thoughts. ‘A house party – Clemency said the house would be full to overflowing.’
So that was what this trip to Syderford was all about, Jess thought – Lily was hoping to find Ashton Haverleigh still at the Hall.
‘They would have invited us too,’ Lily chattered, both nervous and excited, ‘but Papa isn’t the social kind. He prefers his own company unless he feels it’s his duty to be sociable. Like this shoot on Thursday – he’s only going so as not to offend Sir Richard.’
Coming over another rise, she slowed the horse to give Jess a good view of Syderford Manor, waiting in its hollow half a mile away, a glow of unexpected sunlight gilding its red-gold carrstone walls.
‘Isn’t it magnificent? We shall go in by the front door this morning – usually I go by the side entrance, but as this is your first visit I want you to see it properly. They won’t mind.’
Against a flow of snow-clad fields and dark winter copses, the house looked to Jess rather garishly rusty-orange, all turrets and towers and strange outcroppings of red-tiled roofs, standing in a flattened area of land where new gardens were being laid. The new shrubs and trees had had no time to grow and soften the harsh outlines of the buildings. Jess thought it wholly ugly.
‘When Cousin Oliver saw what the Prince of Wales had done with Sandringham,’ Lily said, ‘he decided to make changes here, too. But he didn’t just renovate, he built a whole new house. Wonderful, isn’t it?’
A humped bridge, of that same orange sandstone, newly quarried with sharp edges, took the trap across a stream and into a semicircle cleared of snow. Brick steps led up to a terrace, flanked by statues – draped female figures which looked, to Jess, like churchyard effigies.
A man appeared to take the reins and help Lily down, doffing his cap to her. He gave Jess a sidelong glance from bold, appraising eyes, but she, feeling her scalp tighten, warded him off with a look as she followed Lily up the steps.
‘Good morning, William,’ Lily greeted the liveried footman. ‘We’re here to see Miss Gittens,’ and she would have tripped past him had he not bridled, half barring her way.
‘I’ll announce you, miss.’
Lily paused in surprise. ‘Announce me? But I’m family, William – you know that. There’s no need for you to trouble. I know my way.’
‘Nevertheless, miss. If you’ll follow me…’
Nose in the air, he made his stately way across the marbled hall and up the grand, curving stairs. Lily pulled a face at Jess, deriding the man’s formality but still upset by it.
‘Are the rest of the family at home?’ she asked. ‘And their guests?’
The footman replied that, apart from Miss Gittens and her companion, no one was at home. Most of the party had gone to catch a glimpse of the Prince of Wales, who was riding out with the West Norfolk hunt; the others had gone walking, or looking at churches and historical sites. None was expected home until dusk.
Lily tried to conceal her disappointment, but Jess saw her droop, saw some of her animation and hope fading. Was that what this trip was about – had Lily hoped to see Ashton Haverleigh?
The inside of Syderford Manor was as sumptuous as the façade, all marble and polished wood.
At a door on the upper floor, the footman knocked and entered, saying, ‘Excuse me, Miss Gittens, but Miss Lily Clare is here.’
‘Lily?’ a soft voice cried, full of pleasure. ‘Well, ask her to come in, William. Don’t keep her waiting outside like a stranger.’
Slanting him a gleaming look, tossing her dark curls and her long feather, Lily tripped lightly by and ran to greet the old lady who sat in an armchair by the fire.
Miss Jane Gittens, maternal aunt to Mrs Oliver Clare, had lived at the Manor since losing her sight to the cataracts which made her eyes milky-blue. Her skin had that same translucence, threaded with blue veins that were visible even on her scalp, under a fuzz of thin white hair. She looked as if the slightest breeze might blow her away, but her mind was clearly still active and full of fun.
‘Come and sit by me, my dear,’ she urged Lily, who brought a footstool and squatted by the old lady’s feet, holding her hand as they talked. ‘Goodness, you’re cold! How did you come here? Did you walk?’
‘I drove the trap.’
‘Alone?’
‘No.’ Lily sent Jess a laughing look, her humour restored. ‘Jess was with me. My foundling. My friend, now. You must have heard about her. I know those sharp ears catch every last word of gossip.’
Miss Gittens tutted, but she was amused. ‘You’re a wicked imp, Lily Clare. So… tell me all about your new friend.’
So Lily recounted the story, complete with the dramatic embellishments with which she loved to adorn her tales, making everything more exciting and romantic than it really was.
Told to sit down, Jess chose a hard chair by the wall, from where she could watch and listen. Another spectator was Miss Wilks, Miss Gittens’s companion, an enormously fat person dressed in unrelieved brown. Most of the time she kept her eyes and her mind on the embroidery frame where she was working a cross-stitch calendar for the coming year, her fat hands deftly forming the daintiest of stitches.
Another occupant of the room was a sleek, cream-coloured cat, its paws and pointed ears tipped with darker brown. It lay curled on an embroidered cushion in a low chair and might have been sleeping except that its ears twitched now and then. Jess had never seen such a cat; it looked thin, but its coat was silky with health.
They rang for tea, which Jess poured. As she placed a cup by Miss Gittens’s chair, the old lady put out a cool dry hand and caught her wrist, pressing it in an exploratory manner.
‘You’re small-boned,’ she observed. ‘But strong, I’d guess. Good blood in your veins.’ Jess sensed another message in the thin fingers that pressed harder before the old lady released her, saying, ‘Put some cream in a saucer for Ching,’ and returned her attention to Lily.
As Jess floated cream into a bone-china saucer painted with roses, Miss Wilks gestured her to put it by the cat’s chair. The animal stretched and yawned, showing perfect rows of sharp white teeth. Miss Wilks watched it, every muscle tensed as the cat got up,
stretched, tested its claws on its beautiful cushion and indolently stepped down to lap at its cream. Having finished, it began to prowl around the room, causing Miss Wilks to follow its progress with her eyes, stiffening every time it turned in her direction. She was terrified, Jess saw, and the cat seemed to be tantalising her.
‘Here, Ching,’ Lily called, rubbing her fingers to attract the cat’s attention. It came running lightly and allowed her to pick it up and place it on her lap, where it settled happily, purring under her stroking fingers, much to Miss Wilks’s relief.
Lily was relaxed, as she seldom was in company. But of course the old lady, being blind, didn’t react in any way to the queerness of Lily’s eyes, only to her bright personality, Jess divined. Watching them, she felt protective – the same emotion she had sensed in Miss Gittens.
The feeling was confirmed when, eventually, they took their leave. ‘And Jessamy…’ the old lady said as Jess was about to close the door. ‘Look after her.’
‘I will,’ said Jess, and for an instant it seemed that those milky eyes actually looked into hers, binding her to that vow.
She didn’t see the cat slip out by her feet until Lily cried, ‘Ching! Oh, you naughty…’ and she hurried away in pursuit. ‘He’s not supposed to be out unless he’s on his leash. Ching! Ching, come here, you wicked cat!’
As Jess was about to follow, a sound from somewhere behind made her pause and look round, puzzled. ‘Psst!’ the sound came again, and Jess saw a part-open door behind which a shadowy figure lurked. A maid, by the look of her, with her cap pulled down to cover all her hair. From beneath its floppy frill a pair of worried eyes stared at Jess as the figure beckoned frantically – Come here, quick.
Glancing around her, Jess saw that Lily was out of sight, gone into the staircase hall still chasing the cat.
‘Quickly!’ the maid hissed, beckoning again.
She was standing on a landing of the back stairs, bare treads lit by a skylight in an angle of the ceiling. Jess had just a glimpse of it before the maid was thrusting a piece of paper into her hands. ‘Give it to Miss Lily,’ she whispered. ‘Oh— Help!’