Fairfield Hall (34 page)

‘Annie’s had to do it all on her own, but if we get more maids, they’d manage it between them.’

Annabel nodded her agreement and went on, ‘Now, Mr Searby, if you can somehow bring the topic up with Lady Dorothea and get her approval –
without
mentioning me – then
we can get things moving.’

As Annabel rose to go, Nelly, with tears in her eyes, touched her hand. ‘We can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing, m’lady.’

Annabel felt a lump in her throat and all she could do was nod a reply. Their gratitude was overwhelming. She just prayed the estate would soon start to pay its way. She returned upstairs to
fetch her coat and hat. Jane was nowhere to be seen, but she suspected she was helping out by undertaking more housemaid duties. Annabel went up to the nursery where she found Dorothea giving Theo
his morning lessons.

‘I wondered if Theo would like to come for a walk with me. I’m going down to the village.’

‘Oh please, Mama,’ Theo said at once, but his mother shook her head. ‘Mornings are your lesson times.’ She looked at her son’s crestfallen face and relented enough
to say, ‘Perhaps you may go with your aunt one afternoon.’

He looked towards Annabel eagerly and she smiled and nodded. ‘Of course. This afternoon about two-thirty, when you’ve had a little rest after luncheon. How would that be?’

‘Thank you, Aunt Annabel,’ the little boy said politely, but his eyes were shining with joy.

As she closed the door of the nursery quietly, she heard Dorothea’s strident voice say, ‘Now, back to your lessons.’

As Annabel left the house and walked along the driveway and down the slope to the village, she was unaware of Dorothea watching her with narrowed eyes from an upstairs window.

Soon she was standing outside the row of village shops. At the end of the row, the smithy was already open for business and she could hear the healthy sound of Jabez’s
clanging hammer. The door to the butcher’s shop stood open and joints of meat lay on the cool slab in the window. She could see Percy Hammond serving two customers, his face beaming with
happiness. Next door, Ozzy Greenwood’s grocer’s shop was also open. All the produce in the two shops had been supplied at Edward’s instigation by the farmers in the neighbourhood.
And to add to her delight, Annabel could see that Ozzy appeared to be showing Nancy Banks around the shop. As she stepped in through the door, he turned to greet her.

‘Your ladyship. Nancy and her mam and little boy are settling in nicely upstairs and Nancy is going to help me out in the shop. I know her and her mam are going to start up their
dressmaking business again, but I could do with a few hours’ help a week ’specially when I go into town for supplies. I need someone to hold the fort.’

‘That’s wonderful, Mr Greenwood. How is your mother now?’

‘Doing nicely, thank’ee, but her legs are bad. She can do a bit of housework at home and get meals ready, but she can’t stand behind this counter no more.’

Only Eli Merriman’s shop door remained closed, but as Annabel stepped closer to the window she could see Eli moving about inside. She tapped on the glass and saw him glance up.
Reluctantly, he opened the door, which scraped on the floor. For a moment they stared at each other.

‘I’m not ready to open quite yet, but another day or so and I will be.’

Annabel beamed at him. ‘That’s wonderful news, Mr Merriman. Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘No,’ he snapped. And with that, he shut the door in her face.

So, Annabel thought as she turned away, she hadn’t won over everyone in the village. Not yet.

Two weeks before Christmas, Sarah Constantine arrived at her parents’ farm and word was sent to Annabel that she wished to see her. Luke harnessed the new pony and trap
and Annabel drove herself over.

Her mother came out into the yard to greet her. ‘Surely you have servants to drive you? You shouldn’t be driving yourself, nor using a thing like that!’ Sarah glanced
disparagingly at the pony and trap. ‘Where is your carriage?’

‘Oh, I’m far too busy to bother with such things,’ Annabel laughed airily. ‘And I like to be independent. How are you, Mother? And how’s Father?’ Adroitly,
she tried to steer her mother’s conversation away from herself.

‘Well, but he’s busy. He’s sorry he couldn’t come this time. Perhaps in the New Year . . .’

‘Of course,’ Annabel murmured. Secretly, she was pleased her father had not come. No doubt he would have been far more inquisitive than her mother, but at Sarah’s next words,
her heart sank. ‘However, I hope you’re going to take me to Fairfield whilst I’m here. I want to meet the Lyndon family.’

‘James won’t be home until the New Year now, Mother, and Lady Fairfield has been ill—’

‘I trust you are referring to the
Dowager
Lady Fairfield?
You
are Lady Fairfield now.’

Annabel shrugged. ‘That’s not how I think of myself.’

‘Then you should. I hope you are behaving like a lady and not—’

For a moment, Annabel was in danger of losing her temper and said more than she meant to. ‘I am behaving as is necessary. The people on the estate needed help and I hope I am giving
it.’ She bit her lip, immediately regretting her hasty words.

‘The estate had become rather run down,’ Edward put in mildly, trying to make light of the true condition of the Fairfield Estate and, at the same time, smoothing what he thought
could become very troubled waters.

‘I know that,’ Sarah snapped. ‘How else do you think Lord Fairfield would have been willing to marry someone of Annabel’s birth? He was desperate to get his hands on
Ambrose’s money.’

Edward’s face was thunderous, but it was Annabel who said quietly, ‘So, it was all a business deal, was it? My father’s money to save his estate and James to give me a title?
And were we supposed to fall in love with each other?’

Sarah viewed her daughter through narrowed eyes. ‘Such romantic nonsense has nothing to do with it. Achievement and success are all that matters. Besides, you’ll have a far better
life than you would have done married to an office under-manager.’ Annabel gasped as Sarah continued, cruelly now, ‘Oh yes, we knew all about your assignations with Gilbert Radcliffe,
so your father got rid of him.’

The colour drained from Annabel’s face and she put her hand to her forehead, feeling suddenly dizzy. So it was true. Her voice trembled as she asked, ‘How – how did Father
threaten him?’

Her mother laughed, but the sound was humourless. ‘Radcliffe didn’t need
threatening
. He was only too happy to take the five hundred pounds your father offered him to make a
new start in another country. I believe he chose America.’

Edward moved to his granddaughter’s side and put a supporting arm about her waist as he said, ‘I never thought I’d hear myself say such a thing, but you disgust me, Sarah. I
knew both you and Ambrose were ambitious, but to use your daughter like a – like a pawn in your power struggles – well – it beggars belief. Now, we’d better go in. Your
mother has dinner ready and I don’t want any of this talked about in front of her. You hear me?’

For a moment Sarah glared at him, but then she backed down. Even she had enough respect for her own father to obey him. All she said now was, ‘Well, I still want to visit Fairfield
Hall.’

The visit was awkward. Dorothea was civil to Sarah, but only just, and Elizabeth Lyndon seemed too frightened to say much. Every time she spoke, she glanced at her daughter as
if seeking permission. Theodore did not appear at all. But the luncheon that Mrs Parrish had prepared was a banquet in comparison to the meals which Annabel had been served on her arrival. And when
John Searby hovered attentively at Sarah’s elbow and Annie bobbed a curtsy every time she encountered her, Sarah seemed to thaw in her attitude. Annie was dressed in a smart new maid’s
uniform, which had been Annabel’s first order to Nancy and her mother. Indeed, she had placed orders for new uniforms for all the staff at Fairfield Hall. ‘And there’ll be more to
come. I believe Lady Dorothea is planning to appoint additional staff,’ she told them.

Luke was to drive Sarah back to Meadow View Farm, and as she left, she said to her daughter, ‘There is no reason why you should not be happy here. It’s a lovely house,’ she
cast her eyes around the hallway, ‘though sadly in need of redecoration. Perhaps your father may be persuaded to part with a little more to help you refurnish it to your taste. And, of
course, should you need any advice in that direction, I’d be only too happy to help.’

‘Thank you, Mother,’ Annabel said with steely politeness. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

As the front door closed behind her and Annabel heaved a sigh of relief, Dorothea stepped into the hall from the foot of the stairs. It seemed to be one of her favourite places to stand,
listening and watching. ‘Well, if your mother thinks she can have a say in the restoration of this house, she can think again.’

‘Don’t worry, Dorothea. That’s one thing we are agreed upon – neither my mother nor my father will have any say in the refurbishment of the house. Besides,’ she
added craftily, ‘I shall consult both you and Lady Fairfield in such matters. And now’ – she smiled, her good humour restored at the thought – ‘may I take Theodore out
for a walk? I want to inspect this walled garden I’ve been hearing about and it sounds just the sort of adventure a small boy would love.’

Though she would no doubt have liked to have refused, Dorothea could find no excuse. In fact, when Theo and Annabel arrived back downstairs deliberately dressed in old clothes, Dorothea was
waiting for them, dressed in her outdoor garments.

‘May I come?’ she asked, with a strange hesitancy. ‘It was a place we three loved as children. And I know my mother would be thrilled if it could be restored.’

Annabel smiled, delighted that, for once, Dorothea seemed reasonably friendly. ‘Of course you may,’ she agreed readily, though when she glanced at Theo it was to see that his sunny
smile at the thought of rampaging through an overgrown garden had disappeared.

When Annabel pushed open the gate into the garden that had been untouched for years, Dorothea stood looking about her. To her surprise, Annabel saw tears in the woman’s eyes and she was
moved to put her arm through Dorothea’s. For once, her sister-in-law didn’t object.

‘It used to be so beautiful,’ Dorothea whispered with a catch in her voice. ‘Herbaceous borders full of flowers of every colour and fruit trees that kept the house supplied
with fruit through the late summer and autumn and now look at it. Whenever I see it I feel sad. It would be wonderful for Mama if it could be restored to its former glory.’

‘We’ll get it put right. You can advise on how it used to be and then next summer, we’ll be able to bring your mother here.’

‘She’d love that though I don’t know if she could walk this far now.’

‘Then we’ll get a bath chair for her.’ Annabel was not to be defeated, especially now that she seemed to have found something on which she and her sister-in-law could work
together. Dorothea was a strange mixture, Annabel mused. She could be vitriolic and almost cruel, even to her own son, and yet today Annabel was seeing a softer side. Maybe the restoration of the
house and gardens was the way to reach her sister-in-law, even if she was aware all the time that Dorothea’s motive was purely selfish; she wanted Fairfield Hall to be renovated for her
son’s inheritance. Aloud Annabel said, ‘Did you employ anyone from the village as gardeners?’

Dorothea nodded. ‘Yes, Thomas Salt. He lived somewhere near The Lyndon Arms
–
I expect he still does.’

‘Perhaps you’d see if he’d like to come back here.’

Slowly, Dorothea turned to look at her, their faces close together. ‘If you’d like me to, yes, I will.’

‘And would you also give some thought to what additional indoor staff you’d like to employ? It’s high time we got some more help for Mr Searby, Mrs Parrish and the others.
Don’t you agree?’

‘You – you’d leave that to me? Even when their wages will come out of your money?’

‘I’d be happy to, Dorothea.’

‘Actually, Searby has mentioned the matter, but I didn’t know . . .’

‘Anything you arrange with Mr Searby will be fine with me,’ Annabel reassured her.

They turned back to watch Theo happily thrashing his way with a stick through the overgrown lawn.

‘And think about a tutor for Theodore or whether you might feel able to let him attend the village school until he’s old enough to go to boarding school. I’m sure it would be
good for him to mix with other children in readiness for that.’

But to this, Dorothea did not reply.

During the week before Christmas, three things happened. The portrait of Annabel, painted by a London artist at her father’s request, was delivered to Fairfield Hall with
instructions that it should be placed in the dining room on the opposite side of the fireplace to the one of the earl.

Dorothea was incensed, but there was nothing she could do about it.

‘I’m sorry,’ Annabel said to her, ‘it was not my idea.’

Tight-lipped, Dorothea nodded. ‘James told me about it. Your father wouldn’t hand over the cheque until he’d agreed to it.’ Grudgingly, she added, ‘But it’s a
small price to pay, I suppose, for rescuing my son’s inheritance.’

The second event was that The Lyndon Arms reopened. The public house in the village now had a new tenant, the son of a publican from Thorpe St Michael who, with his father’s guidance, had
been keen to take on the derelict building. He opened the snug for business whilst the rest of the property underwent restoration. Soon, the pub would be a thriving business once more.

The third – and in Annabel’s estimation by far the most important of the three – was that Eli Merriman reopened his small general store. He was, Annabel discovered, an astute
businessman. Although he knew that the villagers would not have much money to spend on Christmas goods, he reckoned – quite rightly, as it turned out – on them wanting to make merry as
much as funds would allow. They had all been through such a hard time and they wanted to give thanks in the only way they knew how: by enjoying themselves.