“I do not think that would help you, Captain. Many of the villagers here owe their livelihoods to Corland in one way or another, so they will not speak out against the family.”
“That your father has already told me. Yet there must be someone, somewhere who knows something germane. After all, someone crept through Corland Castle at dead of night carrying an axe and that person must have been driven by powerful emotions. Sooner or later we will find some trace of that.”
13: A Morning Walk
Winnie woke the next morning to steady drizzle. It was not enough to deter her from her morning walk, although her heavy cloak soon made her clammy and hot. She walked quickly through her mother’s gardens, a riot of colour at this season, the heavy blooms bowed over and dripping from the rain. These walks had been more pleasurable with her sisters. The three of them, Winnie, Hebe and Mabel, had walked out every morning without fail, unless the rain was torrential or snow was falling. It was their greatest pleasure, to be away from adult eyes, chattering about their own affairs. Very often they would end up at the tree house, and one or other of the Athertons would be there, and there would be teasing and laughter, until someone checked a watch. Then they had to run back to the house to avoid being late for breakfast.
Now the Athertons seldom came, Hebe and Mabel were married and gone away, and Lily had never been a great walker. Only Winnie was left to her solitary walks, to wonder where the years went. How had those carefree children turned into seriousadults? How was that she was still here, still taking her walks, still unmarried at twenty-four, when her younger sisters were settled already, their nurseries filling, their lives contented? When the autumn came, she would be off to Knaresborough to support Mabel through her first confinement, and after Christmas it would be Pickering for Hebe’s second. Already she was falling into her rôle of spinster aunt.
Not that she minded that. If she could not have children of her own, then helping with her nephews and nieces would fill the void inside her that so longed for motherhood. Children were such a joy, and she could imagine no greater pleasure than raising them. Her own, if she could, but if not, then those of her sisters and brothers. They would keep her busy and stop her fretting for a life that could not be hers.
Yet she could have married, once. She could have had her own house, and two or three children of her own by now. The offer had been made, but she had turned him away. At the time she still had hopes of Walter, still believed that one magical day he would look at her and see her, trulyseeher, for the first time, and then he would want her the way she wanted him. But that was six years ago, and a year later Bea Franklyn had arrived and set her cap at Walter with unshakeable determination, and he, foolish man, had fallen into her trap. Not quickly, it had to be said, for it took her four years to ensnare him, but inexorably. When Bea set her sights on an object, she never gave up.
Normally, such dreary thoughts would dampen Winnie’s spirits as even the rain could not. But today, nothing could cast her down, for Walter was free! And even if he never discovered all the love stored up for him in Winnie’s heart, she was not yet a confirmed spinster, for she had the example of Aunt Sofia before her, who had married only three years ago at the age of thirty-nine, and was blissfully happy. Twenty-four was not the end of all hope, after all.
She came under the trees of the home wood at last, and although she was dripped on, the canopy kept off the worst of the rain. She was able to throw back her cloak and free herself from its constrictions. That was better! Laughing a little, she lifted her face towards the trees, feeling the little splashes on her face, delighting in even so small a pleasure. There was so much enjoyment to be had, even from a simple walk on her own, so she was smiling and humming a little tune as she rounded the bend to the tree house.
He was there, sitting on one of the swings, idly pushing himself with his foot. Her heart did its usual acrobatics, and a little shiver of delight brought her deliciously awake after her reverie. But he looked so woebegone, his head drooping, that her spirits instantly plummeted. Poor Walter, who had lost everything, even his future wife.
“Walter? Oh, Walter!” Heedless of the mud, she knelt on the wet ground before him. “I am so, so sorry. If only there were something I could do or say that would help, but if you want to talk, I am happy to listen.”
“Thank you, Mouse. You are very good, but I do not wish to talk about it.”
“No, of course not. How is everyone at the castle?”
He gave a wry laugh. “Why do you think I needed to escape? Olivia is hysterical because she is not to have her come-out next year after all, Kent is planning to become an engineer of some sort, if you can believe it, and Tess has vanished altogether. Oh, and Mother says she will not marry Father. He is to find himself some slip of a girl straight from the schoolroom, she says, to breed more sons. Legitimate ones, this time.”
“No!” Winnie cried. “Surely he would not… would he?”
“I have no idea. Everything else at Corland is insane just now, so why not? I hardly know my own family. Mouse, why on earth are you kneeling in all this mud? You will be filthy.”
“It is of no consequence with clothes as old as these,” she said, but she scrambled to her feet and took the other swing. “Was it awful, telling Miss Franklyn?”
“It was, rather, but do you know what was the worst of it? The wretched butler calling me‘my lord’.I told him to announce me as plain‘Mr Atherton’, and he did it, too, but then he just kept going with the‘my lord’. I have been Birtwell for ten years, Winnie, and even my family called me that, and now… now I hardly know who I am any more. Where did Lord Birtwell vanish to, and who is this Mr Walter Atherton? I have lost everything, even my own name.”
“You are stillWalter,” she said gently. “You are the same man, are you not? You have not lost your good character, your honour, your understanding. You have a quick mind, when you choose to use it. You have strength and good health and the proper number of limbs. And you have a family surrounding you who all love you. You have friends who care for you. What does it matter what label is attached to you? No one who truly cares about you is the least bit concerned with what name you declare yourself to the world. The viscountcy was only a courtesy title anyway, not a real one. For legal purposes, you have never been anything other than plain Mr Walter Atherton, as you call it.”
He laughed suddenly, his whole face lightening, so that her breath caught. He should not be so handsome! It was unfair to poor spinsters like her.
“Ah, you always find some way to make me feel better… my wise little Mouse.”
Immediately she recognised the fallacy of her argument. How could she say that names were of no consequence, when she hated with a passion that he called her‘Mouse’. Such a derogatory name, for mice were the lowest of the low, rodents of little account, insignificant little creatures. Small and brown and nondescript, just like her. Not radiant and fiery and sparkling,like Bea Franklyn. But years of hiding her feelings enabled her to summon a smile at the compliment.
“So what will you do now?” she said, trying to sound nonchalant, but her feet twitched in her anxiety, setting the swing moving. “Will you have to… go away?”
“Oh… no. I should not think so. Father has said he will continue to support me. Where should I go, anyway? I have no home but Corland. But I shall have to find some employment, I suppose. Support myself, eventually. Be independent, although I have no idea what I might do.”
“There are any number of things you could do.”
“Like what?” he said suspiciously.
“We are in need of a new groom. Twenty pounds a year, board and lodging found. Oh, and livery provided.”
He laughed. “A groom. Really, Mouse?”
“Well, you are very good with horses, Walter. Or if that does not appeal, Mr Phipps at the home farm is always looking for hard-working young men as labourers. It is only twelve pounds a year, but Mrs Phipps is an excellent cook, and her hams are the best in the North Riding. She has several comely daughters, too, any one of whom would make you an excellent wife.”
“A farm labourer! And this is the opinion you have of my prospects, is it? That I should become a farm labourer and marry a farmer’s daughter. Father thinks I should enter the church. He has several livings at his disposal. Can you see me making sermons?”
