Stranger at the Manor by Mary Kingswood

12: Harrogate

They stayed two nights at Langridge Hall, and although Phyllida had enjoyed the comforts it provided, she was glad enough to leave behind the somewhat overwhelming grandeur of the aristocracy. Lord Silberry had been a generous host, and had provided his unexpected guests with every attention, but the scale of the house and estate, no matter how beautiful, was too large to be comfortable to her.

Lord Silberry seemed sincere in his wish to be helpful to Peter and the Linches, and when Peter discovered that he had no fewer than twelve boxes of goods to be taken south, Lord Silberry at once offered his own luggage wagon to convey them.

“In fact, I shall accompany you, I believe, to make sure that the journey goes smoothly,” he said. “There is nothing to keep me here, after all, and I have enjoyed your company so greatly that I am not minded to relinquish it too quickly. I have never been to Shropshire, and that is an omission I am minded to rectify.”

“I am sure you will be very pleased with it,” Peter said, “although it is not a county of wildness or majestic scenery.”

“It will be pleasant to travel a little before the autumn sets in,” his lordship said. “Take your time with your business in Harrogate, and when you return, I shall be ready.”

The journey to Harrogate was not long, so they arrived shortly after noon. Harrogate! Phyllida emotions were so churned by the tumultuous memories that jostled her mind that she scarcely knew what she felt. All the anguish of those days returned in full force and yet… there was a difference. As Peter had more than once pointed out to her, she was not the same person she had been then. At eighteen, her terrible mistake had loomed over her like a great, dark cloud, as if her days would be perpetual rain and gloom henceforth. Her life was ruined.

But it had not been so. Even though she had gone nowhere and done nothing of significance in her life, yet she felt it had been worthwhile. She had given her time and energy to the parish and her good works. She had knitted hundreds of socks, had handed out endless pots of beef broth to the sick and sent hams to the poorest families at Christmas. She had sent all the money she could spare to the orphanage. And she had, she hoped, been a good sister to Roland and a friend to Viola and many others. She had been a good Christian, apart from that one blot on the otherwise clean page of her life.

Perhaps Peter was right, and she need not be defined solely by that one, terrible day when she was young and innocent and too shy to speak out, even to protect herself from a selfish man. Ah, Peter! That was the greatest difference. For the first time in her life she had a true friend, one who listened to her when she talked and never judged her harshly or told her not to be silly or to buck up her ideas. What a lovely man he was! She would not have had this adventure at all were it not for him, and now that Great Maeswood and its occupants had receded far enough, both by distance and in her mind, she had decided that she was rather enjoying it.

Peter had booked rooms at the Half Moon for them. It was typical of his thoughtfulness that he had asked Phyllida where she had stayed on her previous visit, and chosen a different hotel.

“It is hardly likely that anyone would recognise me after so many years,” she had said. “Besides, we took lodgings after a few days.”

“One never knows. Now, where is this orphanage?”

“The St Thomas Hospital for Foundling and Orphaned Children is just off Leeds Road,” she said. “It should be very easy to find.”

But when they drove slowly through town, there was no sign of such a place. They found St Thomas’s church, but not the hospital.

“I am sure it used to be there,” Phyllida said fretfully. “Just behind the parsonage. The entrance was on a side road, but the building could easily be seen from the main road. Now there is only the parsonage. What can have happened to it? I have been sending money here every quarter, so it must have been put to some use, surely? There must be some charitable enterprise, even if the orphanage itself has gone.” 

“I expect it has moved, that is all,” Peter said equably.

He turned out to be right, as the hotelier was quick to explain.

“The orphanage moved away years ago,” he said, beaming at them. “Out in the country, now. No one wanted that sort of thing in town, you see.”

“What sort of thing?” Phyllida said, glowering at him.

“Oh… feckless types… they always turn out bad. It’s in the blood, you see. They can’t help it. Best they’re kept away from good hard-working Christian folks.”

Phyllida was too shocked to reply, while Peter made some non-committal noises, and changed the subject hastily.

By the time they had settled into their rooms and enjoyed a modest collation in their parlour, it was too late to attempt to find the orphanage that day.

“How splendid that you have been supporting this orphanage for so many years,” Charu said, sipping tea and eyeing Phyllida thoughtfully over the rim of her cup. “It must have made a great impression on you when you saw it. You were visiting Harrogate with your auntie, I think you said?”

“Yes, she had a chesty cough that plagued her that year, so she determined to take the waters, to see if it would help. We spent a whole winter here.”

“Are the waters so wonderful in Harrogate?” Charu said. “Better than Bath?”

“Cheaper, certainly, and Aunt Margery knew the wife of the vicar of St Thomas, so that was a consideration.” It was the story she and Peter had agreed on, and every word of it was true, even the chesty cough, but it was not the whole story, naturally. That could not be told, although Phyllida had a feeling that Charu suspected. Her bright eyes watched her closely, even though her questions were artlessly expressed and perfectly reasonable ones, under the circumstances.

“They will be very pleased to see you,” Charu said. “Just think, after all this time and you sending money year after year, and here you are! They will be so thrilled. I expect they will want all the dear little children to meet you. What a happy day for all of you, and so many smiling faces! Do they teach them? I am sure they must send them to school or perhaps they have a master to teach them their letters and so forth. How lovely that they have somewhere to live, where they can grow up to be useful members of society. The girls will go into service, I expect. What about the boys, I wonder?”

“Apprenticed to a trade, most likely,” Peter said.

Phyllida could not speak. How many times had she pondered this same question, and hoped that her own boy had gone to some kindly master — a shoemaker, perhaps, or a woodworker — and had not been sent up the chimneys for a sweep. Such boys were a necessity, she knew, but still she hated to see them, for they were always small, undernourished creatures. She shivered.

“Do you wish me to accompany you tomorrow?” Charu said. “Only there is an interesting drapery just round the corner and—”

“I think you would rather be shopping than anything else,” Phyllida said, smiling at her affectionately.

“Of course! Is there a greater pleasure on earth than wandering through the treasures in a simple drapery? There is no need even to buy anything, you see. The imagination creates the gowns and overskirts and spencers and muffs and habits and— oh, everything!” She shivered with delight. “Such a lovely day I shall have, while you are visiting your orphanage.”

That evening, Phyllida was aware that Peter was subdued. He had been withdrawn on their final evening at Langridge Hall, too, but the rest of the company had been so cheerful that his quietness had passed unnoticed by the others. Perhaps she had grown to know him rather well lately, for she was much struck by it. His habitual demeanour was so optimistic that any change was glaringly obvious to her.

So when the others had disappeared after dinner, Taylor to check the horses and Charu on business of her own, Phyllida determined to tackle Peter about it.

“You are very quiet tonight, not at all your usual self. Is anything troubling you?”

“Oh… no, nothing. Just… just a little tired, that is all.” He looked up briefly, then turned back to the salt dish where he was engaged in scooping up salt with the tiny spoon, then watching the grains slowly trickle back into the dish.

“I hope you had no bad news in the letters from home.”

“No, nothing of the sort. I am glad that your letters reassured you that Dr Beasley is surviving without you.”

“Oh yes, Susannah is looking after him prodigious well! He will be quite unbearable when I get home, wanting partridge ragoût every night. Viola grumbles, of course, but I would not recognise her if she ever stopped grumbling, I daresay. At least Cass Saxby is quite recovered now, which is a great relief.” She paused but his head was still down, concentrating with fierce intensity on the salt. “Is it Lord Silberry that bothers you? You are the most charitable of men, but it must gall you to see him unscathed by the disaster that ruined you and your friend. He still has his rank, fortune, position in society, while you have lost everything.”

That brought a lop-sided smile. “No, no. I bear him no ill-will, I assure you. He did not intend to smash the bank, naturally, and as I have said before, the fault was mine, in allowing myself to agree to the loan.”

“Only yours? Does Mr Linch bear no part of the blame?”

“The final word was always mine,” Peter said sombrely. “I was usually so careful, and we agreed — it was part of our founding principles — that we would make no loan above one thousand pounds without security of land. It was absolute, until Lord Silberry came along and wanted to borrow twenty thousand.”

“Twenty thousand!” she said, shocked. “So much! But he has land… the house… farms… surely he could have provided security.”

“All entailed,” he said with a shrug. “Not his to sell… or to mortgage.”

“But you trusted him.”

“Oh yes. He is the sort of person one cannot help but trust. It was a risk, but it seemed like a reasonable one. He was to join in business with a friend in India who would buy up goods and ship them to England to be sold at a vast profit. The friend has access to unique artifacts which were worth a fortune, seemingly. But the first ship was believed lost to pirates and the second has simply disappeared, with no word of it for half a year. Perhaps the same fate befell it, who knows. For a long time Lord Silberry held out the hope that it would turn up. Any day there would be a sighting, he was sure. We tried to persuade him to find alternative funding so that he could repay us, but he was always sanguine. Tomorrow, he always said. Tomorrow there will be word and then I shall be rich again and you will be repaid. But tomorrow never came.”

“I can see why you trusted him,” she said gently. “He is such an honourable man, and such pleasing manners. But if it is not Lord Silberry that weighs down your spirits, what is it?”

He looked up at her, and shrugged helplessly before turning back to the salt dish. “I cannot tell you, Miss Beasley. It would be reprehensible of me to involve you in a matter which is entirely personal.”

“Are we not friends?” she said, reaching across the table to touch his hand, but he was so startled that he dropped the salt spoon, spilling crystals across the table. She withdrew her hand, dismayed. “I beg your pardon. It was wrong of me to pry, but I do not like to see you so despondent. I had the foolish idea that you might wish to talk about it… whatever it is. After all, I have confided my darkest secret to you, and… it helped.”

He smiled then. “You must not worry about me. It is something I must come to terms with on my own account, that is all, but I can tell you that it has nothing to do with Lord Silberry’s dealings with the bank.” His hands carefully gathered the spilt salt into a pile, so he was not looking at her when he went on, “You like him, I think.”

“I do, yes. Who could not? Such an agreeable man, and he truly wishes to help you, I believe, and is not merely driven by a sense of obligation.”

“He likes you, too.”

For an instant, Phyllida was taken aback, but then she saw the funny side. “Oh, really, Peter! He has excellent manners, that is all, and courteously does his duty to a guest of little account.”

“He spent a whole day walking round the gardens with you,” Peter said mulishly.

“Mere politeness.”

“Then what did you talk about?”

“He talked a great deal about his late wife. He misses her greatly, and his children, too. He is lonely, I think, and was glad of the company.” More hesitantly, for she suspected he would misunderstand, she went on, “He spoke of marriage and the difficulty of choosing a marriage partner. His own marriage was arranged and worked out very well for them both.”

“There you are, you see,” he said, jumping up and pacing about the room. “He is thinking about marriage, and he admires you, anyone can see that. He is very taken with you, he has begun to think about the future and so he plans to follow you to Shropshire to pursue his suit.”

She burst out laughing. “Pursue his suit! Peter, he is a baron and I am a dull, middle-aged spinster. It is a ridiculous idea. Can you see me as mistress of Langridge Hall?”

“Yes, perfectly, and so can he, I am certain of it. No, do not shake your head like that, for I am serious. He is thinking of marriage, he likes the look of you, and who would not — little compliment to his perspicacity there, for any fool could see your attractions — and so he follows you to Shropshire to make a final determination.”

Phyllida was by no means persuaded of the truth of it, for Lord Silberry had given her no indication of any attachment. There had been one or two compliments, words which would be commonplace to the ears of most women, but which she secreted away in her mind to be treasured in the years to come. There had been few enough compliments over the years. But marriage? No, she could not see it. Yet clearly Peter was agitated about it for some reason, so it had to be taken seriously.

“I can see you truly believe this,” she began hesitantly. “It may be that Lord Silberry is considering marriage again, but I cannot conceive that he would ever turn his eyes in my direction. He enjoyed talking to me as a sympathetic listener, perhaps, but not as— Well, perhaps you know him better than I do, but whatever his intentions, mine have not shifted by so much as an inch. I have no intention of marrying anyone, Peter, and certainly not Lord Silberry. If you are correct that he is thinking of me in that way, well then, he will go away disappointed.”

He stood still, watching her with an unreadable expression on his face. What was the matter with him this evening? He was such an easy-going man as a rule, and this agitation was not at all like him.

“Then he should persevere until he changes your mind,” he said, with such a savage expression that she was startled. “He should stay and keep trying and trying. He should never give up. I have never understood these men who ask but once and then, if they are refused, they slink away like beaten curs to lick their wounds.”

“Perhaps a woman knows her own mind,” she said.

“It may be so and he will be disappointed in the end, but to surrender like that at the first check — it is feeble! If a woman is worth having, she is worth waiting for… worth fighting for, and you are a woman in a thousand, Miss Beasley. If I were in any position to offer for you, I should not give up — no! I should fight and fight and fight again for your approbation. I should never give up, never, for such a prize would be worth any trial. No man who loves… who truly loves would ever—” He made an exclamation, and abruptly turned away from her. “And now I have said everything that I swore I would not. Pray forget my words, I beg you.”

So saying, he strode from the room, leaving her shaking with distress. There was still wine in her glass, so she carefully raised it to her lips, using both hands to prevent it spilling, and drank it all down. Then she sat, forcing herself to listen to the noises of the ostlers in the yard, the bursts of laughter from the common room below, the shifting of the coals in the fire — anything, rather than Peter’s final, despairing words. Yet still they rang in her head… ‘I should fight and fight again… you are a woman in a thousand… no man who truly loves…’

When she finally stopped shaking, she made her way to her room, undressed herself and crawled into bed. Curling herself into a miserable ball, she cried silently into her pillow until long after the church bells had ceased calling the hours.