Prologue
BRANTON, LANCASHIRE: MARCH
MissKatherineParishwaitedin the hall, bonnet and pelisse on, her gloves and reticule beside her. At her feet were the two boxes of personal effects she was permitted to keep. She sat on the elderly wooden settle since it was fixed to the wall, and might therefore escape the attentions of the bailiffs. Nothing else escaped their notice. The silver was the first to go, and the paintings from the drawing room and dining room. Then the good furniture — the escritoire, Papa’s desk, the pretty lacquered console table. She had closed her eyes when her pianoforte had been carried past. In the last hour or so, it had been boxes of books, the contents of the linen closet and the big copper pans from the kitchen. Soon their attention would be drawn to the smaller items, like the plain wooden chairs from the servants’ rooms and the rows of preserves in the larder.
The afternoon wore on, and even the bailiffs began to slow down. But then, on the road outside, were the sounds of a carriage arriving, slowing, then stopping. Her uncle, at last.
He strode into the hall, the skirts of his greatcoat flying, another younger man behind him. Katherine jumped to her feet.
“Katherine! My dear girl, what are you doing here, watching all this? And alone — is there no one who could have sat with you? Where is your maid?”
“She had another position arranged, so I let her go first thing this morning.”
“But have you no friends who could have borne you company?”
“Some offered, but I did not wish it,” she said quietly. “No one else should witness our disgrace.”
“My dear girl!” he said again, wrapping her in an embrace so tight that her nose was pressed against the damp wool of his greatcoat, her bonnet sent askew. “My poor niece! How dreadful for you! Oh… you remember James, of course. He has grown a little since you last saw him.”
“I should hope I have, Father! I could not have been more than four or five when last Cousin Kate saw me.”
Katherine straightened her bonnet and dipped a curtsy. “Cousin James.”
She had a vague memory of a scruffy and nondescript little boy, bigger than her despite their similar age, who had pushed her about unmercifully. He had grown into a well-looking man, only a little taller than she was, and not at all scruffy. Like his father, he looked like a country gentleman, a well-dressed one with a good tailor and an efficient valet.
A footman in livery came in, and he and James manhandled the boxes out through the front door. Katherine donned her gloves and picked up her reticule.
“Are you ready to leave?” Uncle Cathcart said gently. “Is there anything you need to do? Any farewells to make?”
“I have made all my farewells. I am ready, uncle.”
“Then let us go. I shall be glad to leave this smoky town behind. So many great, tall chimneys! You will be astonished how much cleaner you will find the air at your new home, my dear.”
He offered her his arm and she rested one hand on it. There were times when the support of a man’s arm was no more than a courtesy, but today her knees trembled so much that she was glad of it. Head lowered, she walked slowly beside her uncle, out through the door of the home she had lived in all her life.
A great crowd had gathered on the street. Some, no doubt, were drawn to the spectacle of the bailiffs’ wagons filling up, but many women held handkerchiefs to their eyes, and the men were grim-faced. She recognised them from the mill, men who had lost their livelihoods now, but bore no resentment. They knew her father had been doing his best for them, and it was not his fault he had died when he had just borrowed a great deal of money to install the huge beam engine.
“God bless you, Miss!” someone called out, and many others took up the refrain. Several women rushed out from the crowd, sobbing, to hug her fiercely. Clusters of children looked on, wide-eyed and silent, taking it all in. Her Sunday school children, she realised. Who would teach them their letters now?
A little way down the street, beyond the bailiffs’ wagons, sat the Cathcarts’ carriage, a fine equipage drawn by two pairs of post horses, the postilions waiting patiently. The door was held open by the footman, and her uncle handed Katherine in, then went to supervise the arrangements for her luggage to be strapped on. Outside, the crowd on the street moved to surround the carriage, waving handkerchiefs at her. Hesitantly, she waved back, and someone shouted out, “Three cheers for Miss Parish!” and the whole crowd set to whooping and cheering. Katherine blushed and blushed again, hanging her head low in embarrassment, but they seemed disinclined to stop.
Her uncle appeared at the door. “Other seat, my dear. Ladies always ride forwards. James, do you sit opposite. There now, I think we are ready.”
He climbed in to sit beside Katherine, the footman closed the door and set the carriage swaying as he climbed up behind. Then the postilions called to the horses, the crowd cheered again and the carriage lurched into motion, moving slowly off down the street. Katherine did not look back. What was the point? She would never forget the house as long as she lived, and she did not want to have a single memory of it as it was today, with everything dear and familiar loaded onto the bailiffs’ wagons. Better to remember it as it had been… when Papa was alive, or better still, when Mama was alive, too, and her brother Harold, and they had been just another mill owner’s family, slowly rising to prosperity.
Debt and disgrace were best forgotten.
***
Theytravelledonlytwostages that day, as far as Skipton, where rooms were already reserved for them at the Black Horse, and Mr Cathcart’s very grand valet waited. Katherine had never stayed at an inn before, but her uncle made everything easy for her, and paid for a maid to help her dress and undress, and to sleep in her room at night.
“Just in case,” he said.
“In case of what?” she said.
“Well… should anything occur during the night,” he said vaguely.
Nothing did occur, except that coaches came and went at all hours, seemingly, with great noise and bustle and confusion in the yard below. In the quiet spells, the walls and roof and even under the floorboards were alive with scratchings and patterings and odd little muffled squeaks.
