Stranger at the Manor by Mary Kingswood
7: Walking Home
He had not turned and walked away. That was surprising. Phyllida watched his face closely for a clue, but there was no disgust written there, only sympathy.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” he said gently.
Oh, the temptation! For all these years she had told no one except Aunt Margery, and now there was no one left alive who knew anything about it. But she had told him the gist of it, and it had not yet deterred him, so perhaps it was best to tell him all the dreadful details, so that he would know her true nature and would turn away from her, would stop looking at her in that way he had, that made her desperately unhappy. When he was penniless, she could turn it all aside, for there could be no question of marriage, but now that he would have his share of the money from the paintings, he was penniless no longer. ‘It opens up certain possibilities.’ So he had said, and looked at her in that way that made her knees shiver, and… it had to be stopped!
For a while, they walked on in silence, until they came to one of the many rough-hewn seats along the route, carved out by generations of lovelorn millers’ sons and farm labourers as convenient courting places. She sat down and he sat beside her, asking no questions, not pressing her, his face serious.
“I was eighteen,” she began, rather hesitantly. “That summer, all my friends had been scattered. The Gage sisters were married, or, in Viola’s case, playing nurse and companion to an elderly relation. Henrietta Saxby was dead. Jane Winslade was dead. Even Lucy Cokely was away, visiting cousins somewhere on the south coast. The Gage brothers were away somewhere — not that they were friends, exactly, but they were company, at least. But there was no one of my age. I was alone. But… he was here. I suppose I should give him a name.”
“It would be best,” Mr Winslade said. “Otherwise… I shall be awake all night guessing.”
That made her smile a little. Yes, he ought to know the truth… all the truth, and he was dead now, after all. “Thomas Saxby,” she said. “Lord Saxby, that is. Henrietta had died earlier that year, and Thomas had gone rather wild. He had been a little wild in his youth, seemingly, although that was before I knew him, but Henrietta tamed him… everyone said that she was a beneficial influence on him, and he was calmer after he married her. But then she died and he went to pieces rather. He had spent the spring in London with your cousin, who took a house in London for the season in those days. Thomas had a house of his own, but it was always leased out, so he stayed with the squire. He acquired some rather raffish friends, and he brought them back to the Hall that summer, and as I was the only local female around, I was invited to join in their excursions. Aunt Margery thought it would be good for me to go… to mingle in superior society. She thought it might alleviate my shyness a little. But I did not like them very much… except for Thomas.”
She paused, as much to collect her scattered thoughts as for any other reason, but he turned to her with an anxious expression. “This must be difficult for you. Pray do not feel that you must continue if it is uncomfortable to speak about, Miss Beasley.”
“No, I am not uncomfortable… at least, not much,” she said. Oddly, it was rather a relief to talk about it. For all these years she had kept it all inside her, never even daring to think about it more than she could help. Only occasionally, in the dead of night, when the memories boiled unbidden to the surface and she could not suppress them. But now… she had reached a point of no return, her personal Rubicon, and she was swept forwards inexorably. She could not stop now. The whole story must be told.
“You will remember Thomas Saxby, I am sure. He was not a handsome man, precisely, but he had tremendous presence. When he was in the room, one was aware of him, somehow.”
“I remember Lord Saxby,” Mr Winslade said.
“He had never noticed me before. Why should he, indeed? He was a baron and I was nobody… a poor relation, with nothing at all to attract the attention of a man like that. But that summer… he noticed me. It was almost like being courted… properly courted. Not that I ever thought he was courting me — I was not so foolish! But when he turned his attention on me, it was… it was as if, after so many years in shadow, suddenly the sun was beating down on me.”
“He had a very commanding character,” Mr Winslade said. “I can imagine that his attentions would be quite mesmerising.”
“Exactly so! I knew… in my mind I knew that he had no thought of marriage, that he was merely amusing himself during a dull summer, and perhaps he was more grieved by his wife’s death than he allowed the world to see. Whatever the impetus, he turned the full force of his charms on me, and I was powerless to resist him. At first, he was perfectly correct, never stepping beyond the bounds of propriety and I felt quite at ease with him. But on the third day, there was a picnic in the woods and—”
She stopped, as the memories rose up as clear as on that long-ago day, not faded, not hazy with time, but still as sharply etched as the day they had happened.
“We walked away from the others… some distance away… just talking. I was quite easy with him by then, for he had never given me any cause for alarm. He felt like… a friend. Someone I could trust. We came to a small glade, where the sunlight slanted through the trees… so very beautiful… so we sat there for a while, and then… quite unexpectedly… he kissed me. And that was the moment, Mr Winslade, when I discovered my true nature, that I was not the demure, well-brought-up young lady I had always imagined. I could not resist him… there was no will in me to resist him. Even as I knew perfectly well that it was utterly wrong, still I let him do whatever he wanted. Everything he wanted.”
Mr Winslade listened intently as she spoke, saying nothing, but his face… she tried to interpret his expression, but she could not. He did not recoil in shock or horror, at least. Almost he looked sympathetic, but how anyone could be so in the face of such wilful wickedness was beyond her understanding. But she ploughed on, for the whole tale must be told.
“Afterwards, he walked me back to Whitfield Villa, and thanked me for my company and said how pleasant the day had been, just as if nothing at all had happened. And then he bowed and walked away from me without a second glance. I told Aunt Margery at once, for I was so ashamed of myself, I could not dissemble. Besides, if she were to throw me out of the house in disgust, it was as well to get it over with straight away. But she was so gentle with me! I never expected such kindness… such understanding, although it may be that she had some experience in that way herself. There were letters… I found them after she died. She was practical about it. She told me to wait and see what he did about it, although I knew inside that he would not marry me. He had never seen me in that light, or talked of love or given the least hint of it. And the next day he went off to London with his friends, and within a week there was talk of a betrothal. When next I saw him, he had Felicity Rycroft on his arm. So there was no hope there.”
“That is despicable!” Mr Winslade said, his face clouded with anger. “No gentleman should act so!”
“Perhaps not,” she said evenly, for she had long since lost any capacity for anger in the matter. “It does no good to pursue that line of thought, however. I could have made a great fuss and screamed at Thomas to do his duty by me, and he would still have done exactly as he pleased, and my shame would have been broadcast far and wide.”
“Would it not have been Dr Beasley making the great fuss? Is that not what brothers are for, to protect the honour of their sisters?”
“Oh, no! I could not have told Roland! No, no, no! He would have been mortified to have a sister in such a position.”
“But he could have confronted Lord Saxby over it.”
“And challenge him to a duel? Thomas would have laughed in his face, even if Roland could have worked up his courage to do it, and then Thomas would have killed him, most likely. He would not have held back. No, Roland must never, ever know my shame. He is so upright himself that he could not bear it. It was fortunate indeed that he was not living in Shropshire then.”
Mr Winslade looked thoughtful. “But was there no one other than Lord Saxby who would have married you? You must have had suitors, after all.”
“Even if there had been anyone willing to marry me, how could I inflict another man’s child on him? No, it would never have done. Better to pretend it had never happened.”
“So you went away for your confinement?”
She nodded. “To Harrogate. We had time to plan a little before my condition became obvious, so Aunt Margery let it be known that she was ill. She always had something or other amiss with her, so it was perfectly plausible. She consulted a variety of medical experts, and several of them recommended taking the waters. That is what they always say when they have tried bleeding and an emetic, and there is no improvement, is it not? Which was precisely what Aunt Margery had intended. She made a play of considering all the spas — Bath, Cheltenham, Malvern — but in the end it had to be Harrogate. She had an old friend there who had married a clergyman who was a trustee for a foundling hospital, so to Harrogate we went. I pretended to be a widow — Mrs Barnaby. And there we stayed for five months, until my confinement. A beautiful little boy. Christian, I called him. Christian Barnaby. They let me hold him, just for a little while.”
Her voice shook a little. This was the most difficult part, the moment that ripped away her last shreds of composure. Her lovely boy! So long ago, but still so alive in her mind.
“For an hour, I held him in my arms. I had always assumed that babies do nothing but cry and sleep, but he did not… he was wide awake, gazing up at me with the most beautiful blue eyes… as if he knew me. As if he was sad, too. And then… then they took him away to the foundling hospital, and a few days later we returned home and no one was any the wiser.”
“And how is he, your son?” he said gently, passing her a handkerchief. “He must be… what, twenty now?”
“One and twenty last April… if he lived,” she said, wiping ineffectually at the tears. “He seemed a strong, healthy baby but… one never knows what may happen. Foundling hospitals are uncertain places.”
“You do not know? Not even informally, through the clergyman?”
“No, that was agreed from the start. Aunt Margery said it was for the best, and so it seemed at the time. But he had my token.” She opened her reticule and produced a tiny square of cotton. “Many mothers do likewise, leave a token with the child, so that he may be claimed later, if circumstances improve, or… so that he knows that he was much loved. I embroidered two of these, identical.”
She passed it to him and he spread it out on his knee. “The leopards of Shropshire? And the motto, ‘Floreat Salopia’. You wanted him to know where he came from. And beneath that, ‘Work hard. Help others. Trust in God’. Excellent advice, if he heeds it. This is beautifully done. I thought you said your stitchery was more suited to handkerchiefs and socks.”
That brought a little smile. “I had plenty of time to perfect every stitch. Harrogate is a very dull place if one knows no one, and cannot go out into society anyway.”
He passed the token back to her, saying, “You must have wished to know what became of him. You must have wondered.”
“Every day,” she whispered. “Every single day. But I send money to the orphanage, so I feel I am helping him a little, or if not him, precisely, then the children of other poor mothers who have died or been obliged by circumstance to surrender them.”
She fell silent, waiting for him to speak, but he said nothing, his face grave. As she folded the token carefully and placed it in her reticule, she realised she still had his handkerchief, dampened by her tears. How many tears had she shed over the years? And how useless were they, for the clock could not be turned back and what was done was done. Would her life have been any different if she had not walked into the woods with Thomas Saxby that day, or if she had pushed him away when he tried to kiss her? She would still have been painfully shy, the sort of girl that men’s eyes slide past. But then, she would not have been sitting here, confessing all her wickedness to Peter Winslade to deter him from any thought of marriage. She might even have been trying, in some small way, to encourage him. She might even be hoping—
Such foolishness to think of such things, for it would only make her dissatisfied, which would not do. She was perfectly content with her quiet life, where she was known and respected and could play a small part in village life. She had never wanted more than that.
She rose, and handed him the handkerchief. “Thank you for listening to me, Mr Winslade, but I hope you understand now why I can never marry… why I am not fit to marry.”
He rose likewise, his expression full of dismay. Abruptly, he pushed the handkerchief back into a pocket. “Miss Beasley… you must be aware that no man who truly cared for you would be deterred by your history. You must not turn your back on the prospect of marriage. It would be… such a waste.”
Oh, but the man was stubborn! She lifted her chin defiantly. “That is your natural generosity speaking, Mr Winslade, but even if it were the case that a man might care enough to overlook my past, it would be a very bad match for him, surely you can see that? A woman such as I am has little enough to offer, but without virtue, there is nothing… nothing at all. How could I look him in the eye? How could he ever trust me? If there were children, how could I possibly be that model of rectitude that a mother ought to be? You must acknowledge that it is out of the question. If such a man were so blinded by affection as to offer for me, I should be compelled in all conscience to refuse him, and I must beg you most earnestly never to raise this subject with me again.”
To forestall any objections, she set out resolutely along the path to the village, so that he had no choice but to follow. He was silent, and surely now she had made herself absolutely clear? Within minutes, they were on the outskirts of the village, where she supposed that he might with a sigh of relief abandon her, but no, he seemed determined to escort her all the way to the door of Whitfield Villa.
While she was debating whether politeness dictated that she invite him in, or whether she should simply bid him farewell on the doorstep, he surprised her.
“Miss Beasley, would it be presumptuous in me to wait until you have seen your brother, or Dr Broughton perhaps? You had an unpleasant experience yesterday, and I should like to be assured that you are recovering from your ordeal.”
She could not refuse so kindly a request, so they went in together, only to discover that both physicians had been called away.
“Miss Saxby was taken ill again, madam,” Thomas told them. “Both the gentlemen went at once to the Hall.”
“Oh dear,” Phyllida said. “How unlike Cass to be ill! Is it the same affliction as last time, Thomas?”
“Aye, madam, sounds that way, pains and sickness, only more violent.”
“More violent! Poor child! But she is receiving the best of attention, with both physicians in attendance. Let us have some tea, shall we, Mr Winslade? In the parlour, Thomas, please.”
They drank tea and ate cake, and were quite comfortable and about to embark on a third slice, or possibly a fourth, when the doorbell rang vigorously, followed very soon afterwards by the entrance of Viola Gage.
“Have you heard? Oh, good day to you, Mr Winslade. Phyllida, have you heard… I am sure you have, for Dr Broughton would have been summoned… or perhaps he has not yet, for Cass is not one to send for a physician at the least little cough or chill, which of course is what makes it all the more concerning. We must go and see what we may do to help.”
“Dr Broughton and Roland are both at the Hall, Viola,” Phyllida said, her voice a mere whisper. She hated that Viola always had that effect on her, yet seemed powerless to speak normally in her presence.
“Both gone? Then it is more serious than I had supposed. We must go at once. There is not a moment to be lost.”
Phyllida was perfectly well aware that with two physicians in attendance, not to mention a house full of servants, there was no need whatsoever for the services of two middle-aged spinsters with no special skills to employ. It was useless to argue with Viola, however.
“I shall fetch my bonnet. Mr Winslade, I—”
“Of course, of course. Do not delay your errand of mercy on my account. I shall see you at church tomorrow.”
And then Viola was urging her to hurry and there was no time to say more than a hasty farewell to Mr Winslade.
“We shall call at the parsonage on the way, for it may be that Mr Truman will not be aware of the calamity that has befallen his betrothed,” Viola said, as she strode down the road at a brisk pace, so that Phyllida had to scurry to keep up with her.
Viola’s peremptory rat-a-tat-tat at the parsonage door brought Mr Truman’s very superior manservant to answer it, followed in short order by Mr Truman himself.
“Miss Gage? Miss Beasley? How may I be of service?”
“We bring you distressing tidings, Mr Truman,” Viola said, her eyes sparkling. “Miss Saxby is taken ill… a most severe attack… both physicians called to her side. We felt sure you would wish to know at once.”
“Miss Saxby? Taken ill?” he said in stupefaction.
“An acute attack of the same type that afflicted her a few weeks since, but far more severe this time.” Viola’s voice was almost triumphant. How she loved to have news to impart!
Mr Truman looked at her blankly. “More severe… oh, dear God! But I must go to her. My poor Cass!”
“We are on our way to the Hall now to enquire, when we bethought ourselves of you, and realised that you might not be aware yet.”
“And I thank you with all my heart for that kindness. I must go to her at once. Wait while I fetch my hat and gloves and I will walk with you.”
Mr Truman’s legs being longer than the two ladies’, he had soon outpaced them and left them far behind.
“Poor man, how he must feel it,” Viola said, rather breathlessly, for they were rushing rather. “Did you see his face? Quite distraught! Imagine his distress if she should die.”
Phyllida had rather not imagine any such thing.
Their efforts were in vain, for no one was permitted to see Cass. As they arrived, the two physicians were just leaving.
Roland was reassuring. “A gastric fever, that is all. A few days’ rest will see her right as a trivet again. I daresay she is in an excitable state just now, with her wedding approaching. The least thing may set her off. A delicate constitution like her mother, no doubt. Such things run in families.”
Phyllida thought Cass the least excitable person she knew, but she said nothing.
“But she was perfectly well when I saw her just two hours ago,” Mr Truman said. “What could have brought this on?”
“Did she eat or drink anything that might have disagreed with her?” Dr Broughton said.
“A small glass of sherry only. We meet every Saturday while she tallies up the week’s accounts and we always take sherry together,” Mr Truman said.
“You both drank the sherry?”
“We did. If anything I drank more than Miss Saxby.”
“Nothing to eat?”
“A biscuit each from a batch that I had baked with my own hands.”
He grunted. “Well, perhaps it was something from breakfast. I shall return this evening to see how she goes on, but Dr Beasley and I are agreed that there is no cause for alarm. It is a violent attack, but will undoubtedly pass quickly.”
“Thank God!” Mr Truman said, with feeling. Phyllida had wondered more than once if his affection for Cass was directed more towards her dowry of seventy thousand pounds than at her person, but there was no doubt of his sincerity at that moment.