Sadly, she was neither.
I am sorry. Please forgive me.The silent plea seemed to echo inside her troubled soul.
She whispered aloud, “What should I do?”
But the words again echoed across the empty chapel and back to her from the stone walls, apparently unheard and unanswered.
Rebecca pressed a hand to her eyes as tears threatened. She had to make a decision, and make it soon.
Later that morning, Rebecca came upon Lady Fitzhoward in the library and writing room, studying a series of framed prints on the wall.
As Rebecca stepped into the room, her employer glanced over her shoulder. “Ah, Miss Lane. Have you seen these?”
She must have walked past them, but there had been little of beauty or color to attract her attention. Now she joined the woman in her perusal of the trio of architectural floor plans in gilded frames.
“You just missed Mr. Mayhew,” Lady Fitzhoward said. “He told me about these. The first is the original abbey as it was in the Middle Ages.”
Rebecca surveyed the black lines on yellowed parchment: the square cloisters at the heart of the monastic building, the long nave of the former church, as well as the chaplains’ room and chapter house in the very space where they were now standing.
The woman gestured to the second frame. “This is a plan for the manor house built over and around the original abbey after the dissolution.”
Rebecca nodded, recognizing the hall, long gallery, and bedchambers, the gaping wound of the destroyed church like a missing appendage. She also noted the addition of a Tudor courtyard with its stables and coach house.
Finally, Lady Fitzhoward pointed to the third frame, the more recent plans to convert the manor into a hotel. The hall, cloisters, and stable yard were still there, but much had been added and changed.
Rebecca leaned closer and pointed from plan to plan to plan. “Look. The night stair is there in all three.”
Lady Fitzhoward nodded. “And there are other constants as well.”
Rebecca studied the drawings again and identified the constantsas she found them. “The cloisters. The remaining chapel, although the wall has been rebuilt and the entrance moved. The cellars...” She slowly scanned the plans, following each drawn wall, wishing she had her reading spectacles. “Mr. Mayhew said the abbess’s room is now room three....”
“Mm-hm.”
“And what is this below it? This little ... curl or hook in the otherwise solid wall?”
Lady Fitzhoward screwed up her eyes, the crepey skin around them webbing into deep lines. “You tell me. My old peepers are not what they used to be.”
“I have spectacles upstairs if you’d like to borrow them,” Rebecca offered lightly, knowing she would refuse.
“Ha. You know I am too proud to acknowledge any imperfections.” She gave a self-deprecating smirk. “Well, when you work it out, let me know. I think I shall retire to the veranda and pretend to read.”
Lady Fitzhoward turned and walked from the room, her echoing footfalls growing softer and fading away.
Rebecca continued to stare at the plans, but they blurred before her as a memory filled her mind—one of Rose telling her and John a story. While Rose talked, she’d sipped from a glass of homemade plum wine, which tended to make her wistful about the past.
———
“When I was young, the abbey was home to the Sharington family,” Rose explained. “I was quite close to their lady’s maid. She slept in a small room adjoining the lady’s bedchamber, so she would always be at her mistress’s beck and call.
“Oh, but we were cheeky girls.” Rose shook her head, smiling fondly. “I would walk over there and let myself in through the chapel, which was open to visitors in those days. From there, Iwould sneak up the servants’ stairs to her room. She was supposed to be mending for her mistress, but instead we would sit shoulder-to-shoulder on her little bed and drink wine and whisper and giggle like a pair of giddy fools.” The housekeeper’s eyes twinkled. But a moment later, those same eyes filled with tears. “I still miss her, after all these years.”
“Did she move away, or ...?” Rebecca let her question dangle, not wanting to say the wordspass away.
Thankfully, Rose nodded. “She moved away many years ago now. Before you were born. You must think me a right nattering goose to still remember her, let alone miss her, but I do.”
———
The memory faded. Rebecca went upstairs to room thirteen and retrieved her spectacles. Wearing them, she returned and again studied the prints. She helped herself to pen, ink, and a sheet of hotel stationery and sketched a plan of her own.
