Stranger at the Manor by Mary Kingswood

 

2: A Transformation

“Come along, Phyllida! We shall be late if you do not hurry yourself a little.”

“So sorry, Viola,” Phyllida murmured, jamming her third-best bonnet onto her head and sticking the hat pin in at random. Luckily, her aim was good, spiking hair and bonnet and not her scalp. Grabbing her gloves and parasol, she turned to her friend.

Viola Gage was Phyllida’s particular friend, a spinster descending into middle age, just as she was, and an inveterate gossip. Every morning before breakfast, Viola ventured out to Timpson’s shop, the centre of life in Great Maeswood, to apprise herself of the latest news in the three villages of the parish. Then after breakfast, she would collect Phyllida, and make the rounds of the great families of the parish, of which there were not many, in order to inform them of this news. So it had been for more years than Phyllida could remember and she could not quite see how she could escape the obligation now. It was an odd thing, for Viola was only six years older than she was, but she always made Phyllida feel like a child again, wilting under the withering scorn of Nurse or Miss Deeley the governess. Strange how servants could shrink one, so that it was quite impossible to stand up for oneself, and Viola’s strident tones had exactly the same effect.

Viola looked her up and down, saying nothing but not needing to. Without a word, she spun round and marched out of Whitfield Villa and set off down the drive, Phyllida scuttling in her wake. They were to call first at Maeswood Hall. Viola always started at the Hall, out of respect to Lady Saxby. As the widow of a baron, she was the principal inhabitant of Great Maeswood, and Viola always accorded her the proper degree of deference. After that, they might call upon the Andersons or Drinkwaters, but only if there was news to impart. If there was Very Important News, Viola might summon the carriage and drive out to Astley Cloverstone or Woollercott.

Phyllida was in rather a dilemma. The arrival of Mr Peter Winslade was, she knew perfectly well, a matter Viola would regard as Very Important News, but for some reason she was reluctant to share the knowledge of it. That strange hour in the church, polishing and singing together, had engendered an odd degree of intimacy and Mr Winslade’s revelations later were all a part of that intimacy. To share them would seem like a betrayal, and yet… Viola would expect it, and the news would be all over the village in a matter of days, if not hours, whether she told or not. Still… she was reluctant.

All the way down the road she agonised over it, scarcely listening to Viola’s steady stream of chatter. They turned in through the Hall gates and started up the drive. It was only as they turned aside on to the path that led directly to the house, avoiding the wide loop around the lake, that she made her decision.

“Viola…”

“… and I should not be surprised if there is no heir to be found at all, and then the title will become dormant… or go into abeyance… or something.”

“Extinct, I believe. Viola, there was a man—”

“Extinct? Is it? I shall ask Laurence. Or Mr Willerton-Forbes. He will know. Lawyers always know such things. What man, dear?”

“In the church. Mr Peter Winslade, the squire’s cousin.”

Viola stopped dead, and turned to Phyllida, eyes gleaming. “Mr Peter Winslade? Here?”

“Yes. His bank has failed and so—”

“Failed? Goodness! And you met him? Tell me everything at once.”

Phyllida did not quite feel able to comply with this sweeping command, so she said succinctly, “A loan went bad, and there was a run on the bank. Poor Mr Winslade lost his house and everything he owned.”

“Well, I daresay he became ambitious and overstretched himself, in which case it was no more than he deserved.”

“Oh no, I do not think—”

“But this is excellent news, Phyllida.”

“Is it?”

“You have not told anyone, I hope? Then we are the first to know.” She almost purred in satisfaction.

Lady Saxby graciously agreed that she was at home to the two ladies. Although her ladyship fancied herself in frail health, Phyllida had never known her be too ill to receive a caller. Lady Saxby was still a beautiful woman at the age of forty-seven, delicately pale and fragile, slender despite the travail of having brought six children into the world. Her husband, a baron, had died only that year, but she wore her half-mourning in a fashionably draped style with a quantity of trailing lace. Phyllida was not given to envy, but that lace tugged at her heart painfully.

The ladies were received in the grandly named Italian Room. Maeswood Hall was a large house in the classically elegant Palladian style, all pillars and high ceilings and delicate colours, a suitable backdrop for the Saxby ladies. Only Lady Saxby’s two youngest daughters were with her, Flora and Honora, pretty but vapid young ladies of eighteen and sixteen. They enjoyed gossip as much as their mother, and almost as much as Viola, so they gathered close to hear all the details. Phyllida was not required to participate in the conversation, so she found a seat at a little distance and settled down to sit out the quarter hour. She was not uninterested, however, for Viola remembered far more of Mr Peter Winslade than she had recalled — such as his boyhood, when he had won a scholarship to a very good school, although she could not recall which one. As a young man, being the third son, he had set himself up in business making furniture. When he had unexpectedly inherited his father’s estate, he had sold that business, and gone into banking.

“Somewhat more respectable for a gentleman,” Viola said, rather sniffily. “But now that has gone, and he is all to pieces, seemingly.”

“How old is he?” Honora said speculatively. “Is he quite old?”

“Well… I suppose he must be the same age as the squire, being cousins,” Viola said, doubtfully.

“Younger,” Phyllida put in, but no one heard her gentle voice.

“Too old,” Flora said at once.

“Too poor,” Lady Saxby said decisively. “That is more to the point. Besides, he might be married already.”

“No, I think not,” Viola said. “There was some tragedy… the lady died… or ran away… I forget the details, but he has never looked at another woman, they say.”

The butler came in just then. “Begging your pardon, milady, but Mr Willerton-Forbes is here to see you. He says it is an urgent matter of family business.”

“Have the lawyers found the heir at last?” Lady Saxby said.

“He didn’t say, milady.”

“If it is about the heir, then show him in at once. If it is any other matter, Cass will deal with it. I really am not well enough to cope with tedious matters of the estate.”

The butler bowed and withdrew, but in moments he was back, with the dapper London lawyer in tow.

“Mr Willerton-Forbes, milady.”

Lady Saxby sat up straighter. “It is about the heir! Have you found him?”

“I am very happy to say that there is good news on that front.”

“Let me be the judge of whether it is good news or not.”

Phyllida jumped to her feet. “This is family business, so—”

“Nonsense, Miss Beasley,” Lady Saxby said. “It will be all over the village in no time anyway, so you might as well hear it, since you are here. Do sit down, Mr Willerton-Forbes, and tell us everything without delay.”

The lawyer sat, interlacing his hands over a stomach becoming slightly rounded from too many good dinners, and beamed at them with the air of a cat with a mouse in each paw. “I believe it is good news, my lady. You will recall that my London colleagues had exhausted the line of descent from the Third Lord Saxby, and had begun work on the Second. The Second Baron had four sons in all, and—”

“Yes, yes, but do get on with it!” Lady Saxby cried.

“I do beg your ladyship’s pardon. The second and third sons had no descendants, that was easily traced, but the fourth son went to Scotland.”

“Scotland?”

“Just so. Edinburgh, to be precise. A fine city, so I am told. Have you ever been there, Lady Saxby?”

“Of course not! Are you telling me the next Lord Saxby is a Scotsman? Will he wear some outlandish costume? Will he even speak English?”

“I do not think you need have any fears on that score, Lady Saxby. Edinburgh is very civilised, so I am told. All of this is not yet certain, you understand, for there are still one or two checks to be made, and my colleagues have not yet met the gentleman himself—”

“If he is a gentleman,” Honora muttered.

“—but they have traced the line of descent through the church records, and the clergyman confirms that he exists… is now living. They will inform me as soon as they have more definite information on the matter, but they wished you to have the earliest possible intimation.”

“Tell me the worst,” Lady Saxby said, in sepulchral tones. “Is he a coal miner?”

Mr Willerton-Forbes smiled. “Nothing so dire, Lady Saxby. He is a bank clerk.”

There was a long, long silence, and then Lady Saxby moaned softly.

~~~~~

Peter could not remember Susannah Winslade from his previous visits, but he found her to be a sensible woman of six and twenty, no great beauty, by any means, but with rather lovely eyes. She greeted him with pleasure in Cloverstone Manor’s Summer Drawing Room before dinner.

After the usual pleasantries, she said, “I am very glad you are here, Cousin Peter, for I shall be able to invite my betrothed to dinner sometimes, which I could not otherwise do with Papa and Henry away.”

“The physician? I shall be very glad to make his acquaintance and play chaperon for you.”

There was something very comforting about the dinner table of Cloverstone Manor. Even though only two of them dined that first evening, there were two courses and a bewildering array of dishes. Compared with his frugal meals in Leeds, Peter felt as if he had landed in some hedonistic paradise. He tried a little of everything, sipped the wine cautiously, and declined to sit in solitary splendour with the port. He and Susannah played some gentle games of backgammon, for she was no expert, and retired early to their beds.

The next morning, he went directly to the book room. It looked no better than it had the day before. It was clear that the servants had not entered it, for the used brandy glasses remained exactly where they had been left. He picked up a few of the papers heaped on the desk, and leafed through them. Bills, letters, scraps of paper with scribbled notes on them, pages from a newspaper, even small packages, all muddled up together. He took a deep breath. If he was to be able to work at all, he needed order in the room. He rang the bell.

The young footman answered. “Sir?”

“What is your name?”

“Robert, sir.”

“Well, Robert, I shall need a large box — a travel box, about the length and width of this desk, and about half the height. Not the type fitted with drawers and such, just an empty box. Do you have such a thing?”

“Yes, sir. You want it here, sir?”

“I do. I shall also need a couple of housemaids equipped with dusters and mops and the usual. And do you have another footman, a sturdy young man such as yourself, to help move furniture?”

“Aye, sir. William will help.”

“William,” Peter said, with a rueful shake of the head. “Why is it that footmen are always called Robert or William?”

The footman grinned. “Or John, sir. Mr Binns is a John, and the boy that’s training up, he’s a John, too. But the fellow that just left, he were called Silas. I’ll fetch the box, sir.”

Before the box arrived, Mrs Cobbett arrived with no fewer than three housemaids behind her, like a mother duck with her chicks.

“Are you wanting some cleaning done in here, sir? For we’re not allowed to touch the master’s book room as a rule.”

“I can see that,” Peter said, “and the squire may be happy to exist in such disorder, but I am not. He has asked me to look at the accounts and I cannot do so unless every part of the room is pristine. Especially the desk,” he said, staring at it with disfavour. “An untidy desk is a sign of an untidy mind, and I have a very tidy mind. Ah, my box. Excellent, a perfect size. Thank you, Robert, and you must be William. If you move those two small tables to one side, and slide that chair out of the way, the box may sit alongside the desk.”

For some minutes, the footmen shifted and lifted and dragged until the box was in place. Peter carefully extracted a couple of half-empty brandy glasses and a plate covered in mould from the desk, and then swept a great pile of the papers into the box. The housemaids and footmen rushed to join in the game, gathering up armfuls of papers from tables and the tops of cabinets and even the floor. They all went into the box. At the end of it, the box was almost full and the surfaces were clear, apart from seventeen glasses, seven decanters, three trays, twelve plates and two great towers of books that had been unearthed.

“Now you may clean,” Peter said in satisfaction.

The maids set to work with a will, and within minutes the dust, already thick from moving the papers on the desk, was a positive cloud as cobwebs and years of accumulated grime were stirred up. The dogs, who had eyed the unaccustomed activity suspiciously, now beat a hasty retreat.

“A sensible move, I believe,” Peter said, watching them go. “Mrs Cobbett, do you have document boxes anywhere? Shallow boxes in which to sort papers and so forth?”

“Well, shall we go and have a look in the cellar, sir?” she said.

Peter could hardly believe that he would be enjoying himself so much not a week after the end of all his hopes. Apart from an interlude for breakfast, the whole day was spent in restoring the book room to glorious order. By the time Susannah came in at about three o’clock to see how he was getting on and why the house was in such unaccustomed uproar, the maids had gone and Peter was just putting the final touches of polish to the vast old desk.

“My goodness!” Susannah said, gazing around in wonder. “What a transformation, Cousin! Where are all the papers? Did you burn everything?”

“No, indeed! That would be cheating. They are all in here.” He raised the lid of the box to show her. “I shall remove a few at a time and sort them into boxes. Mrs Cobbett found a few boxes in the cellar, but Mr Jackson’s son is to make more.”

“Forty of them, Mrs Cobbett said,” Susannah said dubiously. “So many?”

“One can never have too many boxes for sorting,” Peter said. “Everything must have a place to be put, and a place where it may be found. I cannot work in any other way.”

She peered into the box, frowning at the mountain of papers in there. “You will find bills dating back twenty years, I imagine. No… eleven years, for my previous stepmother used to manage the accounts, and before that there was a secretary.”

“How do the bills get paid?” Peter said.

“Papa pays most of them — when he remembers. Sometimes, if I am in Timpson’s, say, Mr Timpson will ask me in the politest possible terms to nudge Papa a bit, but I have no idea what is outstanding with any of the tradesmen. I place the orders, and I have an allowance for the children’s clothes and so forth, and the land agent takes in the rent and pays the servants, but everything else is Papa’s responsibility.”

“Miss Winslade, I shall have to check inside the strong box and also the locked desk drawers for sums of money. There are also many small unopened packages and letters amongst all the papers. Given that your father and brother are both from home, it would be best if you were present while I examine such items, for security.”

“Cousin, my father trusted you to do this, so I am sure such a precaution is unnecessary.”

“Perhaps, but it is a banker’s habit to always have two people to observe the handling of money or valuables.”

“I am not sure that I have the time—”

A timid knock on the door heralded the butler. “Miss Gage and Miss Beasley to see you, madam. Shall I show them into the Summer Drawing Room?”

“No, no, no. Bring them in here, Binns. They must admire Cousin Peter’s handiwork.”

“I believe the housemaids did most of the work,” he murmured, but she would have none of it.

“They merely flicked a duster about, but you are the very image of virtuous industry, in your apron, polishing away.”

Miss Gage was someone Peter remembered very well from previous visits to Shropshire. She had aged a great deal, but her voluble chatter and the intense scrutiny she gave him were unforgettable. Miss Beasley seemed very different today from the humming polisher in the church. She crept in behind her friend, head down, clutching her reticule. Susannah performed the introductions, and Miss Gage looked askance at Peter, no doubt taking in the apron and polishing cloth. After a few perfunctory remarks of sympathy for his changed circumstances, she rushed on to what was obviously the point of her visit.

“We have the most exciting news, Susannah. Lord Saxby’s heir has been found, in Scotland of all places, and he is a bank clerk. What do you think of that?” Without waiting for an answer, she went on, “A bank clerk! Lady Saxby is distraught as you may suppose. It must be unbearable for her to imagine her husband’s place taken by such a lowly specimen of humanity as a mere clerk. The late Lord Saxby was a man of such inestimable breeding and stature, and this fellow will be quite uncouth, you may be sure.”

“To the contrary, Miss Gage,” Peter said gently. “A clerk in a bank is the highest specimen of that calling to be found. He will be educated, for a surety, since he must be able to read, to write in a clear hand and to cypher with the utmost accuracy. He will be clean and smartly dressed, will be well-behaved and well-mannered, hard-working, loyal and trustworthy. He will certainly not be uncouth. He might, just at first, have difficulty with the exalted position in which he now finds himself, and may revert to unduly deferential behaviour, but he will be presentable in any drawing room in the country.”

“That must reassure Lady Saxby,” Susannah said briskly. “Miss Gage, will you come through to the Summer Drawing Room and take some tea? Then you may tell me every detail, for I shall have to send word of this development to Papa in Bath.”

“Oh, has he left already? So precipitate, but grief takes men differently, does it not? A woman will be prostrate, whereas a man must be about and doing things. Tea… that would be most pleasant. Come along, Phyllida.”

But Miss Beasley did not go with her friend, moving further into the room and rubbing one gloved finger along the newly polished desk, looking at him with twinkling eyes. “Why, Mr Winslade, here you are with a cloth in your hand again. You spoke no less than the truth when you said you liked polishing.”

“I did, and this is such a beautiful piece, is it not? Good, solid English oak, as fine a desk as any Englishman could ever wish for.”

“Ah, but you know all about furniture, for you had a business in that line, I believe.”

It was a pleasing subject, a reminder of a time when he had been successful in commerce. “Yes, at its peak, I had twenty or more woodworkers in my employ.”

“You did not make the furniture yourself, then?” she said, her eyes brimming with laughter. She had very striking eyes, huge and dark, quite arresting.

“I could, of course. At least, I knew how to do everything, but my skills were not so great as those I employed. One has to know something of the matter in hand to be able to direct the workers properly. But you are right, mostly I worked in my office. Bills and orders and payments — that is where my talents lie, such as they are.”

“And now you are to apply your talents to the squire’s bills and orders and payments.” She peered into the open box. “Quite a challenge, but how satisfying a task! I envy you, Mr Winslade.”

“Do you?” he said, startled.

“Oh yes. To have such an occupation — a worthwhile occupation. I am redundant now, you see. I was helpful to my brother in his work as a physician, but he is retired now and no longer needs me for that. The household largely runs itself, and when Miss Winslade marries Dr Broughton, why, she is so efficient that I can safely leave her to supervise the servants and so forth. To be perfectly honest, Mr Winslade, I feel rather useless just at present.”

“Would you like to help me?” he said impulsively. “I need a second pair of hands, and Miss Winslade’s life is quite busy enough already. I should be very glad of your help.”

“Would you really?” Her face was alight with enthusiasm, tempered with caution. “I should not like to intrude.”

“Miss Beasley, nothing would give me greater pleasure.”