House of Shadows (23 page)

Ashdown Park, 26th February 1801

I
t has happened, as I knew it would. Robert and I are lovers. I did not plan it. I swear I did not, for truly it is the most enormous folly on my part for were Evershot to discover my perfidy he would surely kill me. Yet oddly that knowledge adds spice to my clandestine affair. It is most exciting. No, I must be truthful here, between the pages of this book. It is splendid, and entirely wonderful. It is the most delightful thing that has ever happened to me.

Unfortunately I have had to entrust my maid with knowledge of the affair since she is the one who takes my notes to Robert and covers for my absence if required. Clara has been with me from the first but even though we have endured a great deal together I do not trust her. Whilst I pay her sufficient and she sees where advantage lies, all will be well, but God forbid that one day she will choose to turn coat. It is dangerous. I know that. But oh, it is worth it!

I adore Mr Verity. He has all the skill and concern for my
pleasure that Evershot lacks and so I tell myself that I deserve such an indulgence when I have to tolerate Evershot’s appalling behaviour the rest of the time. Nightly Robert and I face each other down the long table in the dining room with Evershot sitting at the head and we converse so stiffly it would be painful if it did not hide a delicious secret. How strange and delightful it is to speak to Robert so formally when we are so intimate! Sometimes I could laugh aloud at the pleasure it gives me to address him as Mr Verity whilst I remember the sensation of his kisses and his hands upon my body. On these occasions we are careful not to touch nor betray ourselves with so much as a glance. It is most thrilling although I suspect poor Robert could manage well without the deceit. He is not a natural liar as I am.

On those days when I can slip away from the house, Robert and I meet at the old mill on the edge of the wood. The last miller left a month ago so the place is empty. I say he left but in fact he drowned in the millpond, which was extremely careless of him. Still, his loss really is my gain for the place lies empty now. I suspect it is full of rats but I do not care. When Robert and I lie together in the beautiful chamber above the mill wheel I forget all else in the pleasure of his company. Sometimes we do not even make love but hold each other and talk of everything and nothing, whilst the sun plays across the room in bands of glorious light and shadow and my heart fills with joy to be there with this man. If it were not so foolish I would say that I had fallen in love, but that is impossible. I know myself to be too shallow, too worldly, to commit my heart to any man.

Fortunately Evershot is distracted by courtship at present. He is paying his addresses to a Miss Francombe in the hope of winning her hand and, more to the point, her fortune. He goes from my bed to her father’s drawing room with great regularity. Last week
he came back unexpectedly early and I had mud on my shoes from the walk through the wood, which he remarked upon, and I was obliged to concoct a tale of an interest I had developed in studying the wall hangings in the church. Even I thought that he would see the ridiculousness of that but apparently he did not. I think he has no interest in me beyond the slaking of his lusts. In contrast Robert treats me like the lady I so singularly am not and it is a delight. So just for a little I shall indulge myself in this happiness …

Soon, too, I know Robert will confide in me what it is that Evershot seeks here at Ashdown Park. I know he trusts me now and as I am of so curious a disposition I simply have to know. Whatever it is, I hope he does not find it, for that would spell the end of Robert’s time here and that is something on which I cannot bear to think.

M
arlborough Crafts, previously the Merchant Adventurers’ House, was a charming seventeenth-century town house in a prime position on the High Street. Holly stepped through the door and inhaled the scent of frankincense, lavender and old wood. The shop was elegantly laid out and she saw immediately what Greg had meant when he had said that his sister was only interested in high quality crafts. There were exquisite scented candles, hand-painted cards and a mixture of other charming, eclectic and very expensive gifts.

Karen Hunter was waiting for her and came forwards, hand outstretched. Like Greg she was tall and angular, but she also had a white blonde pixie crop and startlingly green eyes. She was as elegant and coolly confident as her environment.

‘Hi, Holly,’ she said. ‘Come into my office.’ She led the way up a couple of rickety old steps into a back room and gestured Holly to a chair. ‘I don’t usually stock glass,’ Karen
said, ‘but Greg told me yours was wonderful so …’ She smiled. ‘Show me.’

Holly was desperate to ask Karen about Ben’s visit but she wanted to get the business stuff out of the way first. It had been kind of Greg to give her an opening and she knew that if she was serious about locating her studio at Ashdown she needed to start looking for new outlets for her work. One thing she realised she had not thought about at all was what would happen when – if – Ben came back to discover that she had moved in. She knew she was deliberately pushing the thoughts away because they were too difficult to face. She was being a coward but just at the moment she didn’t want to consider the opposite; what would happen if Ben didn’t come back.

She took some engraved rose bowls out of her bag and unwrapped them. Karen picked one up, turning it around so that it caught the light.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said, eyeing the engraved crystal dubiously. ‘I mean, they’re very beautiful but they’re a bit too traditional for what we do here …’

Holly nodded her agreement. She knew she had played it safe in showing Karen the bowls first. For all its old premises, Karen’s shop had as bright and modern a vibe as she did herself.

‘I can see it’s not the sort of shop to sell old-fashioned engraved glass,’ Holly said. ‘How about this?’

She unwrapped a paperweight.

The piece had been inspired by a cold grey morning out on the River Thames. Holly had been crossing Waterloo Bridge and had seen the screaming seagulls whirling over
the water. She had itched to capture their bickering madness in the glass. The finished result had been pleasing even to her. Paperweights were her favourite. She loved their roundness. It was intensely satisfying.

The soft cloth fell away and she thought she heard Karen catch her breath as the light took the glass and struck back into her eyes.

‘Oh!’ Karen said. She looked up, her face bright with pleasure. ‘Now that is gorgeous. I love it. I’ll take ten of those.’ Her expression clouded a little. ‘I know it’s a small order but I can’t carry a lot of stock …’

‘No worries,’ Holly said. ‘I’m building my business up again from scratch so if people like them and tell their friends and I get more commissions, that’s the best way I can build.’

‘I don’t know how you make a living,’ Karen said.

‘With difficulty,’ Holly said, truthfully. ‘But I’d rather do something I love than earn a fortune in a job I hate.’

‘I’d rather earn a fortune in a job I love,’ Karen said.

‘Well yeah,’ Holly said, laughing, ‘That would be nice.’

Karen reached for the coffee pot and topped up their mugs. ‘Greg said that you live at the old mill on the Ashdown estate,’ she said. ‘Do you have any locally-inspired engravings? They usually sell well.’ She opened a fresh packet of biscuits. The wrapper crackled and the scent of chocolate caught Holly, making her mouth water.

‘I’ve done some glass panels engraved with the White Horse image, if you’d like to see one,’ Holly said. ‘I find the landscape on the Downs fascinating.’ She reached for her bag and brought out a slim panel of glass with the stylized
lines of the Uffington White Horse trapped in mid-gallop, handing it to Karen.

‘You’re a rubbish saleswoman,’ Karen said, looking up from the panel with laughter in her eyes. ‘You should have shown me them first.’ She propped the little panel up on her desk. ‘That is stunning. They’ll sell like hot cakes. It’s such an icon.’

Holly knew she was far too reticent in promoting her own work. She hated blowing her own trumpet and was shockingly bad at negotiating. From the shop came the murmur of voices as customers regularly came in and out from the High Street. Holly stood up and stretched. She could feel the buzz of the caffeine. The coffee had been strong.

‘If you’re interested in Ashdown Park you might like to see the rest of this building before you go,’ Karen said. ‘It was built in the 1650s, just before Ashdown House, although it was a Puritan merchant’s house rather than a hunting lodge belonging to an aristocrat. We open it to the public on some days but you’re welcome to have a quick peek now if you like.’

‘Thank you,’ Holly said. ‘I’d like that.’ She hesitated. She felt awkward under Karen’s bright green gaze, as though she’d been keeping secrets.

‘Actually I think my brother came here a little while ago,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure why, though I think he was doing some local history research. I wondered if you remembered him coming in – Ben Ansell?’

Karen frowned. ‘Ansell – wait, that’s the guy who went missing.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘I saw the article in the local
paper but I didn’t connect it. He’s your brother? Greg didn’t tell me your second name.’

‘Sorry,’ Holly said. ‘I didn’t intend to be mysterious. It’s just that I’m following up on some of the stuff Ben was doing and I think he visited here. He had a piece of paper with the shop name on it.’

‘Really?’ Karen looked surprised and Holly’s heart sank. She was not sure what she had expected but probably something along the lines of Karen immediately remembering both Ben and the reason for his visit. That had been naïve of her – or probably wishful thinking.

‘Do you do mail order?’ she said, a little desperately. ‘Perhaps he visited your website and ordered something online and they sent a compliments slip with it?’

‘Yeah, that’s possible,’ Karen said. She tapped the keyboard on her computer and immediately a spreadsheet rolled down the screen, lines and lines of orders, names and addresses.

‘Here you are,’ Karen said, tapping a couple of keys. ‘Ben Ansell. Two months ago. Hmm …’ She frowned. ‘He ordered one postcard. How odd. The postage cost more than the card itself.’

Holly felt the same leap of excitement she had experienced when she had read about the Sistrin in Lavinia’s diary. ‘Could you show me which one it is?’ she said.

‘I can do better than that,’ Karen said. ‘It’s one of the portraits upstairs. Kitty Bayly. I can show you the original.’ She stood up. ‘Come this way.’

They went out into the tiled hall. To the right there was a corridor and at the end a rather grand staircase. Holly caught her breath.

‘Yes.’ Karen sounded slightly smug. ‘Greg says it’s the spitting image of the stair at Ashdown, possibly even made by the same craftsmen. But I assume you knew that?’

‘No.’ Holly felt a little dazed. ‘I mean I’ve never seen a picture of the interior of Ashdown House but I can imagine …’ Her voice trailed away. Just as the view from the roof of Ashdown had come to her so vividly when she had stood in the lavender garden with Mark, so now she could imagine the stair at Ashdown rising up towards the cupola, the wide low rise of the steps, the curved elm of the hand-turned balusters, and the sturdy uprights of oak whose panels were decorated with a fall of carved fruit and flowers. There was the scent of beeswax polish in her nose and on the white-painted walls she could see those haughty aristocratic portraits that Lavinia had mentioned …

She blinked and the vision turned back into the Merchant Adventurers’ House. There were no portraits on the wall and it was the smell of lilies that was overpoweringly strong where they stood on a polished table at the bottom of the stairs.

Karen was looking at her curiously and Holly said quickly: ‘The plasterwork ceiling is stunning. I was just wondering whether that pattern of shields and roses would work on glass.’

‘Come on up.’ Karen already had her foot on the first step. ‘There’s more exquisite plasterwork on the first floor.’ She waited for Holly to join her on the first half-landing.

Holly felt oddly reluctant to follow her. The wood of the handrail felt warm and smooth. Her fingers tingled from the
contact. She almost felt afraid, as though she was about to step back in time.

Their footsteps sounded loud as they went up the steps, Karen chatting about the history of the house and the cloth merchants who had traded from there, but Holly barely heard her. She could imagine Lavinia ascending Ashdown’s stair, the lamplight casting golden pools on the mellow wood, the sound of masculine voices and the clink of glasses coming from the drawing room below. On the first landing Lavinia would turn and look back and there would be Robert Verity in the shadows at the bottom of the stair, watching her …

It had not remotely surprised Holly to read that Lavinia and Robert had become lovers. It had felt both right and inevitable. Over the previous pages of Lavinia’s diary Holly had traced the process by which Lavinia had fallen in love, because despite Lavinia’s protestations to the contrary, Holly had thought she really did love Robert Verity. He was a true gentleman. He brought Lavinia gifts, talked to her, and treated her with kindness and consideration. Respect had been a rare commodity in Lavinia’s life. It was no wonder that she found it irresistible.

They reached the first floor and she followed Karen into the parlour, which was bright with sunlight that poured through the oriole windows. The oak panelled walls were hung with portraits: a gentleman with a dark, watchful face wearing a rich lace collar and jacket with slashed sleeves, a lady whose ethereal silver gown made her pale face and blue eyes fade into insignificance beside the gorgeousness of her attire.

‘Those are members of the Bayly family,’ Karen said. ‘They were the merchants who built the house.’ She frowned slightly. ‘I forget their names but the portraits are seventeenth century. There’s a trust that runs the historical side of the house. I just manage the shop.’

‘You seem to have picked up plenty of historical information all the same,’ Holly said, and Karen smiled.

‘It’s difficult not to,’ she said, ‘working in a place like this. Besides, I love it. Buildings like this make the past feel so close, somehow, as though it’s only a touch away.’

Holly nodded. She walked over to the window. Below her she could see the bustle of Marlborough High Street through a prism of distorted glass and latticed panes. There was another portrait to the right of the window alcove but this one was very clearly not seventeenth century. It was a watercolour of a young lady in a white dress with a fur-lined stole of yellow silk and elaborately upswept blonde hair. Her eyes were hazel and her mouth had a soft curve.

‘That’s Kitty.’ Karen spoke from beside her. ‘She looks terribly sweet, doesn’t she? She was one of the Victorian Bayly brides, I think. An heiress. They all married into money.’

The name meant nothing to Holly and she felt a sharp pang of disappointment. She had no idea why Ben would have requested the postcard.

‘She didn’t have any connection to Ashdown Park, did she?’ she asked. ‘I mean, she wasn’t a member of the Evershot family or anything?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Karen said. ‘Maybe the local history group would be able to tell you more about her.’ She picked
up one of a pile of postcards that was lying on the round walnut table. ‘Here’s a postcard like the one we would have sent your brother.’

Holly took it automatically. Kitty’s shyly smiling face looked out at her from its gilt frame. She turned the card over. It had Kitty’s name and dates, but it also had something else.

‘Kitty Bayly, nee Flyte, 1801–1872.’

Holly’s stomach dropped with shock. She felt slightly dizzy. She looked into Kitty’s hazel eyes and knew without an ounce of doubt that she was looking at Lavinia’s daughter.