“No, it is not your fault,” Edgerton said thoughtfully. “But I shall check on you, mind! And Mr Glover, too, so write his direction and a list of all the pieces the two of you have worked on, with the dates and the money that changed hands. Atherton, have you a notebook on you? I left mine upstairs.”
The jeweller wrote, and Edgerton pocketed the paper with a smile of such malicious glee that the jeweller abandoned his stew, and scurried away, relieved to be free from Edgerton’s baleful glare and barked questions.
“Well!” Walter said. “This is a startling development. What was Nicholson about, to be getting copies made of Aunt Alice’s jewels? Do you suppose she knows about it? Is this the reason for Tess’s unexpectedly large inheritance?”
“These are all excellent questions,” Edgerton said, absent-mindedly tapping his fingers on the table. “There is so much about Mr Nicholson we still do not know. But there is one very good outcome from all of this. I now have the best reason in the world to talk to the Lady Alice again. This needs to be explained, and she will not deny me this time.”
He grinned in delighted anticipation.
24: Regrets
AUGUST
The familiar routine of the house rose up to enfold Winnie in its welcoming arms. While she was busy in the kitchen or the hen house or the still room, she could not brood over what might have been. Callers came to welcome her back to Yorkshire, and that, too, was a distraction, and although they wanted to talk about Mr Lomax, they skirted delicately around the subject. Or most of them did. Not all were so considerate.
“Do tell us all about Mr Lomax. Was he very handsome? And rich! His own estate, Winnie — how wonderful for you. When do you expect him here?”
Mama fluttered in alarm, but Winnie answered calmly. “He was certainly handsome, and he dressed well, like a man of fashion, but I have no expectation of seeing him again,” she said with perfect truthfulness. “I doubt I shall go back to London, Iam most unlikely ever to go to Oxfordshire and he is not likely to travel to Yorkshire.”
“Not travel to Yorkshire? But how can that be? I thought he was on the brink of a proposal.”
Her stepmother smoothly intervened and the subject was dropped, but after the visitors had departed, Mama said quietly to Winnie, “I was very proud of you today, my dear. Such questions would try the patience of a saint, heaven knows, but you answered very properly and without the least display of unbecoming sensibility, which is just as it should be. Lily, I hope you observed your sister’s behaviour, and will take it as your model from now on.”
“Winnie shows no sensibility because she feels none,” Lily said, lifting her chin a little.
“Nonsense, child! Winnie feels her loss as deeply as anyone could do, and if you cannot see that, you do not understand your sister at all. Whatever she feels, however, she conceals from the world, as a lady should. Really, Lily, when you talk in such a wild manner, I cannot but think you are not yet ready to be out in society at all. Do try for a more refined and thoughtful attitude. You will find a suitable passage from the Holy Book, and memorise six verses to recite to your father before dinner. Something about duty or demure behaviour or about Mary, the dear mother of Our Lord, who is the shining example to all womankind. Run, now, and fetch the Bible. You may work on it while I tackle the last flower on my cushion cover. Winnie, you may return to the still room.”
Obediently the sisters separated about their appointed tasks, Lily with a sullen expression, Winnie keeping her resentment well hidden. Yet shedidresent it. Long years now stretched before her of subservience to her mama’s orders. Have you made the damson jam, Winnie? Select a goose for the table, Winnie. Run down to the kitchen and see about the pies, Winnie. Notthat gown, Winnie. Go and change into something less ancient. Oh, to be mistress of her own establishment, to make her own decisions for a change! She would have had Mr Lomax’s wishes to take into account, but a doting husband would perhaps be less oppressive than her watchful mother.
She made no complaint. She had never complained, for a dutiful daughter did as she was bid, but she would have relished her freedom, if Mr Lomax had made his offer. It was not the man himself who haunted her. Occasionally fleeting memories passed through her mind of his pleasant smile, or the warmth of his gaze, but they held no charm for her. It was the life he might have given her that she grieved for — the house in Oxfordshire, with fourteen bedrooms and two thousand acres, as he had told her more than once. The servants who would have danced to her command. The children who would never now be born. Sometimes she imagined them running about, chasing each other across the south lawn, or hiding in the shrubbery. Perhaps one would fall over, and come crying to her for comfort, and she would lift him onto her lap and sing lullabies to soothe him.
That dream was quite gone now. And yet, that was not the sharpest grief. Buried deep within her, never to be spoken of, even to Mama, was the pain that kept her awake at night. As soon as Winnie lay down in her bed and blew out the candle, her darkest thoughts emerged from the deep shadows where they had hidden, and danced around her wakeful mind gleefully.
Walter. It was always Walter who filled her mind and caused her public composure to crumble so alarmingly. Walter who had so casually destroyed her chance of marriage. Walter who had been so oblivious of her feelings. Walter who had believed such terrible things of her. Yes, all of that was bad, but it was not the worst… it was far from the worst.
The real grief, the pain like a knife in her heart, was that Walter had offered for her. Walter, whom she had lovedpassionately and devotedly for ten long years, had proposed to her. Ungraciously, casually but without hesitation —‘If it is a husband you want, then I will marry you.’
And she had turned him down.
If she had hesitated just for a second… if she had not been soangrywith him… if only, if only… perhaps she might now be betrothed to him. And perhaps, finding himself betrothed, he would have accepted it, just as he had accepted the inevitability of his betrothal to Bea Franklyn. Honour would have held him to his word.
How different her world would have been! She would have stepped through the days in joyous anticipation of the halcyon time to come. He had no great house or estate, but what did that matter? They would live on love and smiles and long walks hand in hand.
Instead she had nothing, not the man she loved nor the man with the great house, nothing but a lifetime of dancing to her mother’s tune, and periodically being summoned by one or other of her sisters to help with their growing families. Winnie was not one to fall into despair, but in the wakeful hours of the night she came close to it.
Each morning, however, she rose at her usual hour and read a little from the Bible, which comforted her. Then she donned a plain gown and cloak, and her comfortable half-boots, and set off into the garden. She walked briskly, because that felt as if she were accomplishing something, instead of merely dawdling away an hour before breakfast. She marched, therefore, through her mother’s neat flower garden, skirted the lily pool, and took the path between the walled garden and the orchard. Then she was into the woods, and she could wander at will, unseen, unnoticed, like the little mouse that Walter called her. With her old brown cloak, and brown hair uncovered by any bonnet,which was how he had so often seen her, she supposed she looked a little like a mouse.
On the first days after her return, she had avoided the tree house, terrified that Walter would be there. She had appreciated his forbearance in travelling in the other carriage and then staying with his father for a while, for she was not at all sure she was ready to face him yet. But there came a day, however, when she was so lost in her thoughts that her feet carried her to the tree house all by themselves, and she jumped in shock when she rounded the corner and saw Walter sitting on the swing.
She stopped, irresolute. He sprang to his feet, twisting his hat in his hands, with such a look on his face! Such abject despair. Her heart turned over at the sight, but she could not talk to him, not here, not in the very place where they had confided in each other over the years. It was too intimate. In a drawing room with other people — yes, she could maintain her composure in his company then, but not here, certainly not here.
She turned away.
“Ah, Winnie, no! I shall leave… I would not for the world… this isyourplace, and I will not intrude.”
Slowly, she turned back. Now his face was alight with… something. Something she could not name. He reached out a hand imploringly, then let it fall again.
“Winnie,” he said in a low voice, “I do not expect your forgiveness. I cannot forgive myself! But I hope one day, if I try very hard, to restore your good opinion of me far enough that we might be friends again, as we once were. I… I cannot bear to lose your friendship. It means all the world to me. But for now, I shall leave you. Good day, Winnie.”
