The Secret of Willow Castle - A Historical Gothic Romance Novel (3 page)

*

My thoughts the following morning were less joyful. As Mama dressed my hair and fastened the long row of hooks and eyes at the back of my gown, I tried to stay focused on last night’s fantasies of wedded bliss. But a rogue thought had entered my mind and was putting down roots there. What if Sir Montague did not like me when he saw me? What if I failed to satisfy him and he sent us back to Lisson Grove in disgrace? What if Mama were to be carried off by an illness and I found myself left all alone with a husband I did not know? 

I felt myself growing pale as these thoughts tormented me, but there was no turning back now. When I was turned out to Mama’s satisfaction she summoned the carriage and we began the final leg of our journey, wending our way along narrow, treacherous-looking paths through the peaks of Derbyshire. On several occasions I glanced out of the window only to see a sheer drop outside, sending me shuffling across to the opposite side of the carriage so that we should not overbalance and be sent plunging down the steep, rocky valley. The landscape was more beautiful than any I had seen, but it was a dangerous kind of beauty.
 

Mam Tor lay at the far end of the Hope Valley and the entire journey involved creeping along these narrow hillside pathways, so although we had set out in the morning it was early afternoon before I caught my first glimpse of my new home. It sat on the crest of the hill, surrounded by dark evergreens. The flinty grey rock of the castle was almost entirely covered by the ivy slithering up its walls. I scanned the landscape for a sight of a river surrounded by the willow trees that must surely give the building its name, but I could see nothing but rolling fields and woods and the distant village of Castleton.
 

The park gates, when we reached them, were half off their hinges, and the gatehouse stood empty. There was no-one we could alert to our presence until we reached the castle itself. The coachman handed me down from the carriage and I stood upon the gravel, staring up at my betrothed’s home. Mama had told me that it was a small castle, little more than a fortified house, nothing compared to the building Greycrags had been before her grandmother ordered it to be torn down and rebuilt in the new elegant, Classical style. Yet I could not bring myself to consider this place small. It was imposing, square, not like the castles I had seen in illustrations, but tall and dominant with turreted battlements at each corner.
 

Mama bade the coachman knock upon the door. He banged his whip up on the wood and then we stood and waited in the freezing February air for what felt like hours. At length the heavy wooden door creaked open just enough to reveal a scrawny woman in a long black dress peering suspiciously at us.
 

“
Yes?” she rasped. 

“
Lady Mariah Lennox and Miss Lennox to see Sir Montague, my good woman.” Mama rattled off the words with a practised air, her days of giving orders to servants flooding back to her. The woman glanced over at me and frankly looked me up and down, then she opened the door fully and admitted us. 

“
Wait here,” she instructed us, showing us into a splendid but forbidding hallway. “I’ll let the master know you’re here.” She took herself off and I stared at our surroundings. The hall was long and lined with faded portraits, with a great staircase at one end carpeted in deep green. Heavy furniture in dark wood was positioned at intervals along the walls. Mama sat neatly on an ornately carved chair, but I was too nervous now to sit. I paced a little, feeling my feet sinking into the thick carpet with every step I took. 

“
Lady Lennox,” I heard a voice ring out from the stairs. “Miss Lennox. Welcome to my home.” 

It was him. Sir Montague Chastain, the man who would be my husband before long. He was not a young man, I could tell that from the hints of silver hair at his temples, but nor was he an old one. I guessed that he was around thirty-five. He was tall and thin, a little round-shouldered, and he wore a dark blue coat. His hair, where it was not succumbing to silver, was ash blond, receding slightly. His face was long, closely resembling all the portraits, and his eyes were dark blue.
 I stood dumbstruck as he descended the stairs and glided towards me, my mind full of nothing but the words This man shall be my husband. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mama gesticulating at me to offer my hand for him to kiss. I raised it as if I were an automaton, my gaze fixed on his face. He wrapped his fingers around mine and placed a cool kiss on the back of my hand. I bowed my head and made a curtsey, whispering my compliments.

“
You must be exhausted after your journey,” he said, once he had greeted my mother. “No doubt you are in need of some refreshment. We were just about to take tea in the library, would you care to join us?”

Us? I thought that Sir Montague lived here alone, I thought. Whoever could he mean? I tried to catch Mama’s eye but she was several steps ahead of me, hanging on Sir Montague’s every word as he led us through the dim passageways towards the library. Eventually he opened a heavy carved door and ushered us through.

“Rebecca!” Mama hissed, giving me a vicious nudge. I realised that I was staring at the room, my head tipped back and my mouth slightly open. I couldn’t help myself – this was a library beyond my wildest imaginings! Shelf upon shelf of books, stretching up to the ceiling, accessible only by long ladders on rails! I breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of dusty paper and luxurious leather bindings, warmed by the fire that crackled beneath a dark marble mantelpiece. It was only after I had noticed the glorious collection of books that I realised there was another gentleman in the room, slowly hauling himself out of an armchair by the fire to rise politely to his feet.

“
Your arrival is most opportunely timed,” said Sir Montague, “for it just so happens that the vicar is here, visiting from Castleton. Lady Mariah, may I present Doctor Bagshawe? And Doctor Bagshawe, this young lady is Miss Rebecca Lennox, my intended.”

The portly cleric mumbled his greetings and welcomed us to Willow Castle while Sir Montague showed Mama and me to a chaise longue near the fire and rang for Mrs Chapman. We were soon furnished with a sumptuous afternoon tea. I was famished after our journey and it required great restraint (and years of Mama’s training) to refrain from snatching up handfuls of the dainty finger sandwiches and tiny cakes. Dr Bagshawe made polite conversation, enquiring about our travels and the nature of our life in London.

*

Once we were suitably refreshed Mama and I withdrew, leaving the men to talk while Mrs Chapman showed us to our rooms. As we followed her through the corridors I wondered how I should ever get to know this place. It seemed so vast, full of identical doors and narrow window slits. I imagined that it must be dingy even in the height of summer and tried not to think about how forbidding it must seem at night. Already it felt as if there were more than three sets of footsteps echoing through the hallway.

We had been put in adjoining rooms, larger than those we had had in the hotel, but with furnishings that had lost their grandeur over time. The velvet seat covers were worn and threadbare, the tapestry curtains moth-eaten and the bedposts in need of a good polishing. Yet I could not help but be impressed. A little care would soon set this place to rights, and I would make it my concern to see that it got it. My husband and I – how strange it seemed to think those words – would turn this place into our very own home. The corridors would seem less ominous when they echoed with children’s voices rather than lonely footsteps, and perhaps we would have guests. Perhaps there would be cousins for our children who would visit during holidays and Mama and I should have a proper family at long last. I knew nothing about Sir Montague’s relationship to the rest of the family, but suddenly I was consumed with curiosity and longed to learn.

I passed a few quiet hours in that room, flicking idly through the pages of a novel and gazing out of the little arched window at the dramatic countryside. At length Mrs Chapman tapped on my door and offered to help me dress for dinner, informing me that she would continue to dress me until a suitable maid could be engaged.

“
The heliotrope, perhaps, Miss Lennox?” she asked, whisking one of my new gowns out of the wardrobe. I nodded. Mama and I had selected that dress to set off the deep blue of my eyes. The pinky-purple brocade sat snugly over my new corsets, severely laced by Mrs Chapman, and the skirts flared out over a wide-hooped crinoline. I slipped my feet into a pair of velvet evening shoes and my hands into long white gloves. I was just letting Mrs Chapman drape a shawl round my bare shoulders when Mama came in, dressed in a sombre navy blue evening gown. She gave me an appraising glance up and down.

“
Jewellery,” she said. “You need jewellery.” Of course I had no jewellery of my own, so she whipped the string of pearls from around her own neck and fastened them around mine. “Much better,” she stated, standing back to look at me. “I always think that a young women with no adornment at all looks like a young woman whom no suitor cares for enough to buy her jewellery and who has no family to pass any on to her.”

I couldn’t help but think that this was an entirely accurate assessment of my situation, but I did not say so. I merely thanked Mama for the loan of her pearls, which I knew to be an heirloom that she had had from her own mother and never parted with, not even when times were particularly hard.

I understood that under normal circumstances we would have waited for Mrs Chapman to sound the gong to summon us to dinner, but since we were depending on her to show us the way to the dining room we followed her out of my room and down the stairs.

“
Lady Mariah, Miss Lennox,” Sir Montague greeted us, rising as we entered. “I trust you will forgive me for not entertaining you formally in the Withy Chamber, but I thought something more intimate was in order. In all honesty I prefer this room for such a small, select gathering. Miss Lennox, since you are mistress presumptive of Willow Castle, perhaps you would be so good as to take the foot of the table?”

I glanced at Mama for reassurance and she gave me a small nod. Sir Montague drew my chair back and seated me. As he pushed the chair back in and I leaned back I felt his fingers come into contact with my shoulder for a moment. I suppressed a shudder.

He seems quite charming, I told myself. That was just… unexpected. I have never had a dress that showed my shoulders before. No-one has ever touched me there before.

As Mrs Chapman served beef consommé followed by fillet of sole and roast capon, our little group made conversation on the subject of the weather, then moved on to a discussion of Mr Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities which Dr Bagshawe had recently read, then finally we arrived on the topic of my impending marriage.

“A quiet ceremony in the chapel here, Sir Montague?” Dr Bagshawe enquired, “Or perhaps your lovely bride is looking forward to the arrival of many guests and a lavish celebration in Buxton, or even Derby?”

“
Oh, a quiet affair, certainly,” Sir Montague replied, casting a brief smile down the table at me. I returned it, wondering whether it was just the flickering candlelight that gave his eyes a slightly reptilian look. “I was thinking, my dear, that we should be married here if you are amenable. The castle has a private chapel, a very pleasant place, where the Chastains traditionally wed.”

“
That will do very well, Sir Montague,” Mama answered for me. “We are strangers in this area and it is too far for the rest of the family to travel at such notice.” I saw a flicker of a grin cross Sir Montague’s face, but he indulged my mother’s fantasy that our own branch of the family had not abandoned us.

“
Then we can be married as soon as you please, Miss Lennox,” Sir Montague said, while Mrs Chapman served syllabub for dessert. “I hope you won’t think me precipitate, but considering the circumstances I would prefer that we have the ceremony shortly. We need not wait to have the banns posted, I can obtain a marriage license allowing us to be wed within the week.”

Within the week! I had not realised that it could be so soon. I thought it would be at least a month – a few days to make the arrangements, three weeks of the banns being read in the local church – but I admonished myself that perhaps I was basing my assumptions on the lot of ordinary girls, girls who were not disinherited members of highborn families. I had never met anyone in my situation, therefore I did not know what to expect. As always, I looked to Mama for guidance. She seemed composed and not in the least concerned about Sir Montague’s suggestions, so I reasoned that they must seem acceptable to her.

“Within the week would suit me very well, Sir Montague,” I replied. “I thank you.”

“
Then we shall proceed,” he said. “Let us agree that we shall be married in a week’s time. My cousin, Mr Mervyn Chastain, shall stand witness along with your mother and we’ll have you, Dr Bagshawe, to perform the service. It strikes me that it’s not quite the done thing to have two betrothed people residing under the same roof prior to their marriage, so with your permission, ladies, I shall remove to Castleton and give you the run of this place until after the ceremony. Mrs Chapman will look after you admirably and you must order things to your own satisfaction, get to know the place. I shall depart along with Dr Bagshawe after dinner.”

Our negotiations, such as they were, had concluded and we finished dessert in silence. Mama led me out of the dining room so that we could leave the men to their port and cigars while we were shown to a faded, dusty drawing room to take coffee. A short while later I heard carriage wheels on the gravel outside, moving away from the Castle, and I knew that we were alone and that the plans for my marriage were in swift, unstoppable motion.