The Seventh Miss Hatfield (13 page)

‘We’re fine, thank you,’ Henley said, giving the cups back to the shepherd. ‘If you don’t mind, I think we’ll retire to bed now.’

The shepherd pointed up and I saw there was a loft above us.

‘Thank you,’ Henley said again. He took me by the hand and began climbing up the ladder. ‘Careful with your skirts.’

Henley pulled me up the last few rungs, and I saw that the loft contained little more than a mattress of straw and a window in the far corner.

Henley took off his jacket and put it at the foot of the makeshift bed along with his hat. He acted as if everything was perfectly normal and proceeded to spread blankets he’d found somewhere over the bed.

‘You’re not going to sleep in that, surely?’ he asked when he saw me move towards the bed still fully dressed. ‘At least take off that hat – that can’t be comfortable to sleep in.’

I’d completely forgotten I was wearing a hat. I took it off and put it with Henley’s things. Not wanting to wrinkle my dress, I took that off, too, and ended up going to bed in my petticoats. When I took off my dress, Henley drew back in shock. I informed him I intended to be comfortable and not get strangled in my corset. He offered to sleep on the floor, but I bluntly told him it was more important for both of us to get a good night’s sleep, than it was to preserve his old-fashioned sense of propriety.

I was very aware of where my body ended and his began, but nothing felt out of place as I listened to Henley’s breathing even out as he lay beside me. The warmth of his body against my side appeared to dissolve all my anxiety and fears about my impossible situation. I felt oddly complete – everything I’d wanted was fulfilled. The only thing that mattered was him; everything else vanished into the blackness of the night.

The whistling of a kettle woke me, though my eyes remained tightly closed, determined to stay asleep. I prised them open to see sun already rising, reaching out to us through the window, and I rose as well.

I looked down at Henley’s sleeping form, moulded around where I’d slept, and wondered if we’d shared the same dream. But try as I might, I couldn’t recall exactly what my dream had been about. All I remembered was that it had been beautiful, almost glorious; something a person would suspend reality for, if they could.

The kettle continued whistling and I hurried as fast as I could down the ladder to stop it boiling over. The kettle hadn’t woken Henley when it started whistling, and I was determined it wouldn’t wake him up now. Sadly, my plan was short-lived.

There was a knock at the door, and before I could answer it, Henley had sprung out of bed, rushed down the ladder and run to answer it himself.

‘I can get the door,’ I said, and Henley looked bemused.

‘In that?’ He gave me a once-over with his glance, and I remembered I hadn’t put my dress back on yet. ‘It’s a good thing people think we’re cousins.’

I felt my cheeks and the rest of my face growing hot as I climbed back up the ladder. As I dressed, I could hear Henley and another person’s voice below. I couldn’t quite make out their words and they soon fell silent. They were still sitting in silence when I went down again.

The shepherd sat wide-legged on a shaky bench with his arms around a young boy. The boy had a small knife in his hands and was carving a piece of wood. The shepherd’s much larger hands enveloped the boy’s, guiding his motions.

I understood the silence when I noticed Henley seated at the other side of the room, watching the pair intently. I saw something in his eyes, but it wasn’t the envy I’d expected. What I saw was much closer to a deep and sinking sadness.

Seeing me, Henley stood up immediately. The boy followed suit.

‘I left my watch on the counter,’ Henley said. ‘I don’t have anything else of much value with me, but that should be enough for the horse.’

‘That’s most generous of you, sir.’ Hearing the boy’s voice, I realized he couldn’t have been much more than twelve years old. ‘My father and I can use the money to buy more sheep.’

The boy looked willowy – tall for his age – but his face still had the roundness of a child’s and his freckles made him all the more lovable.

‘Very well, then.’ Henley nodded. ‘Is that the horse outside?’

‘Yes, sir, that’s old Nancy-Ann. We’ve had her for as long as I can remember.’ I heard a tinge of sadness in the boy’s voice.

‘We’ll take good care of her,’ I assured the boy, and he smiled gratefully.

After Henley checked the bit in the horse’s mouth and the buckles in the bridle, he hoisted me up onto the horse’s back and soon followed, sitting behind me and taking the reins around me. My skirts made sitting astride uncomfortable but I wasn’t prepared to risk riding side-saddle.

As we rode away from the little cottage on its picturesque hill, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the fairy tales I’d read when I was little. Was I the princess being whisked away by her prince to something better? Could I escape immortality? Or was it already a part of me I could never leave behind?

‘Look behind us,’ Henley said, and I was startled by how close his voice was to my ear. ‘Doesn’t the house look like a painting?’

‘It does,’ I murmured. ‘I still feel bad for the shepherd and his son, though. They have nothing, and … look at us.’

‘They have something I never had.’ Henley’s voice didn’t sound bitter at all, nor did it reveal any hint of resentment. ‘There wasn’t any sense of obligation in their relationship,’ he noted. ‘It was all love; pure, confusing, and without need of a reason.’

‘But what kind of obligation could the son have to his father? It’s not as if he’s the heir to his father’s fortune and business.’

‘He might have a much simpler obligation; one that most people, wrongly or rightly, feel towards the disabled.’

‘The disabled?’

‘Or the deaf, to be more precise.’

‘I–I don’t understand.’

‘How can you not understand? We don’t live in so different a world from them.’

‘It’s just that … the shepherd … he’s deaf?’

‘You didn’t notice?’ Henley asked. He sounded surprised. ‘Why else did you think he wasn’t comfortable talking?’

‘But you spoke to him.’

‘He reads lips well – he has to in order to communicate with his son.’

I wondered how many other things would have passed me by if Henley hadn’t been there to tell me the obvious.

We rode on in silence for a while, then Henley pointed off to one side and said, ‘Look – you can see the house in the distance. We’ll be there soon.’

Though Henley simply called it ‘the house’, it was anything but. Henley’s country ‘house’ was a grand confusion of buildings set amid a rolling green estate. It was gleaming white, and getting closer and closer.

‘Are you ready?’ Henley suddenly had a boyish grin on his face.

Before I could ask what I was supposed to be preparing for, Henley spurred the horse into a full gallop. We flew down the hill, and for a few seconds I couldn’t feel the horse below me, as if we were afloat on the air itself. Then it was swiped from beneath us and we fell, crashing to the ground. The impact jolted me awake, throwing me into another world; one with country estates and horse riding on acres of green.

The house gleamed in the mid-morning sun, a startling white against the verdant landscape surrounding it. The pure, timeless elegance of the grand building took my breath away. I turned to Henley and found the same awestruck expression on his face that must have been on mine. His eyes held an unmistakable love for the house, and I was surprised that I understood what kind of love it was.

‘Welcome to Maurrington, sir,’ a severe-looking man said as he and the other servants filed out to line up in front of the house.

I counted eight servants in total but there might well have been more still working away behind the scenes. The maids were dressed in starchy aprons and the valets looked equally pristine in their black coats.

‘This is Wilchester, head valet.’ Henley introduced him. Wilchester nodded towards me.

‘I trust you had a good journey,’ Wilchester said, and I noticed he had an English accent. ‘I’m sorry the kitchen couldn’t ready some food for your arrival – the staff in the city failed to send word of when you would be joining us.’

‘Don’t be too hard on Jim – he didn’t know our automobile was going to break down.’

‘Forgive me. I had no knowledge of your troubles. I was merely stating that he should have sent word you were on your way. When I was head of staff to the late Duke of Northumberland—’

‘That will be all, Wilchester,’ Henley said, dismissing him. I’d never heard him talk to a servant in such a distant and cold tone. It was as if he kept a barrier between himself and Wilchester. When Henley tired of him, he shut down and pulled the wall up higher.

Wilchester appeared accustomed to Henley’s tone, however, and led the way past imposing double doors into the grand house. The foyer was an open space with a stately staircase that branched in two as it ascended. The room was filled with antiques and lavish furniture as well as paintings. The walls rose up and up to dizzying heights, and when I tilted my head back, my eyes were drawn to the spectacular gilded flowers adorning the golden ceiling.

‘Miss Beauford, Hannah will escort you to your room.’ Wilchester motioned to a slight girl standing near the stairs.

‘Thank you, Wilchester. You may leave us,’ Henley said, and all the servants except for Hannah disbanded and returned to their posts and duties.

‘I’ll be in the library if you need me, but if not, I’ll see you at dinner, promptly at eight.’ With that, Henley walked away, abruptly leaving Hannah and me alone in the foyer.

I felt that he had dismissed me in the same way that he had dismissed Wilchester, but I suspected Henley was just acting in a way that was deemed appropriate.

‘If you will, miss,’ Hannah said. I nodded and followed her up the stairs. Our footsteps echoed in the quiet hall and sounded lonely.

As Hannah was leading me to my room, I heard a bit of a commotion in the downstairs hall. When I peeked over the banister, I saw Wilchester carrying in Miss Hatfield’s painting, and a couple of other servants I hadn’t met yet toting boxes. I reached up to touch young Hannah’s elbow. ‘Just a moment, please, Hannah,’ I said.

She nodded and paused on the stairway. She couldn’t have been much older than I’d been when I was Cynthia, but that life was beginning to feel like a distant memory. No matter. I had to focus on what was going on at that moment.

I cleared my throat and called down the stairwell, ‘Excuse me, Wilchester – could you please tell me where you’re taking my uncle’s painting?’

He glanced up, a brief look of curiosity flickering across his face which seemed to say Why on earth should that matter to you? But what he said aloud was, ‘Why, it’s going into Mr Beauford’s study, Miss Margaret, as per his orders, along with these other items.’

‘Ah, of course.’ I began to feel conspicuous, knowing they thought it odd that I cared about an old painting. ‘It’s just that I’ve grown to admire that painting. It should look well in the study. Thank you.’ I dismissed them with a slight wave of my hand. ‘Let’s go on now, Hannah, please.’

I did my best to act as though nothing was out of the ordinary, but my heart was pounding fast. The house was teeming with servants – how was I going to find time away from prying eyes to figure out the best way to snag the painting and get it out of this house? Furthermore, how would I find my way back to Miss Hatfield from this strange new location in the country? She hadn’t told me how that was to be achieved.

At the top of the staircase, Hannah and I turned left and walked down a long hall. She stopped at the fourth or fifth door on the right. I was too distracted about the painting to notice exactly which one. But when she opened the door, the beauty of the room nearly took my breath away.

‘Here we are, miss,’ Hannah said softly.

Against one wall was a four-poster bed with a lovely ivory lacy bedspread and a canopy to match, artfully strewn with several huge fluffy pillows. Fresh roses in a blue vase sat on the dresser, along with a large bowl and a pitcher of water, which I knew – from Miss Hatfield’s instructions – were for washing my face and hands. An ornate dressing screen, which looked as though it had come from the Orient, stood in one corner of the room, and I could see some of my new dresses hanging to one side of it. There was a small desk, or what I recalled Miss Hatfield referring to as a ‘writing table’, in one corner. On it was some crisp, fresh ivory stationary which somehow magically matched the bedspread; beside it, a fountain pen and an ornate ink bottle. A huge fireplace stood opposite the foot of the bed, a small fire within cheering the room with a nice glow and warming it slightly. I found it all beautiful, and at the same time very overwhelming. A nagging feeling in the back of my mind whispered that something wasn’t quite right about me being here. How would I ever get the painting—

‘Pardon me, miss. Will there be anything else?’ Hannah’s soft, young voice enquired as she looked at me inquisitively. She was probably wondering why I was so preoccupied with my thoughts and looking so concerned. As Nellie had pointed out, what would someone of my station possibly have to be worried about?

‘No, that’s all for now, Hannah. Thank you so very much.’ I awkwardly patted the young girl’s shoulder a couple of times. She was a sweet child, and obviously quite shy. I wanted to make her feel at ease, but didn’t think I was doing a very good job so far.

‘As you wish,’ she said quietly, looking downwards as she made a curtsey and quietly departed. I found myself standing alone in the middle of this large room, slowly turning a complete circle and taking in all the tasteful, elegant decor. I should have felt grateful, I supposed, but something about the whole affair sent a cold shiver down my spine.

I slowly crossed over to the writing table and sat down on the fragile-looking blue-velvet-cushioned chair. I was tempted to journal my thoughts, but realized how foolish that would be. Someone might see them and either figure out who I really was, or decide I was stark raving mad and have me put away in an asylum. I sighed and glanced at the small clock on top of the mantle. Only 4 .30? Almost four hours until dinner. I couldn’t go wandering downstairs in search of the painting. My initial curiosity about it had already raised some suspicion. No, I would have to play this next part carefully. Suddenly I remembered Miss Hatfield saying she would contact me with further instructions. But how on earth could she do that, since I hadn’t known the country estate’s address to give her?

My head began to throb, so I carefully took off my dress and hung it up. Then I put on one of the soft nightgowns Miss Wetherby had made for me and stretched out on the bed. Hopefully a nap would make my headache subside, and possibly some clarity would come to me in a dream. I chuckled to myself. This all felt so much like a dream – would I be having a dream within a dream, then? I realized at that moment why Miss Hatfield often found odd things amusing. When you’re a time traveller, even ordinary things take on completely different meanings. I closed my eyes and found it surprisingly easy to fall asleep on the big, comfortable bed.