The Secret of Willow Castle - A Historical Gothic Romance Novel

by Burns, Nathaniel

  I adopted Mama’s routine of visiting the post office. Day after day I would step in on my way to the butcher’s, dispatch Mama’s latest missives and ask whether any replied had arrived, and day after day the post mistress would give me a little smile and shake her head. It was such a small triumph, but for me, for a young woman who had seldom even spoken to anyone outside her home, it was a sweet-tasting victory.

  *

  “Miss Lennox! Miss Lennox!” The postmistress pounced on me the moment I walked through the door, waving a letter at me. “This has arrived for your Mama! I know she will be waiting for it - there’s a penny to pay, then pray hurry home with it!” I fumbled in my purse for the penny and pushed it into her palm, staring in surprise at the envelope. I did not recognise the hand, nor the postmark – it was from Derbyshire, and I knew of no relations so far north. Forgetting all about my remaining duties, I rushed straight home.

  “Mama!” I cried as I opened the door. “Mama, come quickly!”

  “Rebecca!” She scolded as she bustled down the stairs. “What have I told you about raising your voice? Is something the matter? Are you hurt?”

  “No, Mama, I’m sorry,” I gabbled. “It’s just – look! I thought you would wish to see this at once.” I held the letter out to her and watched as she broke the seal and unfolded it. Her eyes flicked back and forth across the paper and I wondered what to expect. If the letter had come from Norfolk, where my grandmother and uncles resided, I would have anticipated further disappointment for Mama and prepared myself to comfort her, but I did not know what to think of news from Derbyshire and in my heart I felt sure that this message was of greatest importance.

  I realised that there had been something inside the letter, for there was a folded piece of paper which had fallen to the floor when it had been opened. I stooped to pick it up and unfolded it, ready to hand it to Mama, but something caught my attention – this was not another page of the letter, it was a five pound note! I stared at it, speechless. Suddenly Mama lurched forward and threw her arms around me.

  “We’re saved!” she cried, squeezing me tight. “Rebecca, my darling child, we are saved! And it’s all thanks to you, my sweet girl!” I felt her damp tears wetting my hair as she buried her face in my neck. I paused. I had never known my Mama to cry before, at least not openly like this.

  “Calm yourself, Mama,” I told her, guiding her over to her chair and settling her there. I laid the bank note in her lap and left her to read the letter over and over while I went to fetch her some tea. When I returned she immediately set the teacup aside and took my hands.

  “Rebecca, my child,” she said, and her voice was alive with a joy I had never heard before. “Sit down and let me tell you of our great good fortune. Ever since I learned of your uncle’s unkind decision I have been appealing to our relations to intercede with him, or otherwise to help us as best they can. I had hoped for a little pecuniary aid or that I might be able to find a secure position for you that would not expose you to the horrors of the world, but the offer we have had – it surpasses all my hopes! A distant cousin of mine, Sir Montague Chastain, has written to make a proposal!”

  I stared blankly at her. A proposal? I tried to imagine Mama married, sitting at the foot of the dining table while an unknown man sat at the head, a man whom I must learn to call Papa. Would she be happy? Would he have children of his own who might be company for me? Yet I wondered, did Mama consider herself free to marry? Surely not, since my real Papa was not dead. Suddenly I realised that Mama was speaking and dragged my attention back to her.

  “Well?” she asked, “Should you like to be Lady Chastain?”

  “Me?” I exclaimed. “But Mama, I thought you meant he had made an offer of marriage to you! Sir Montague has never met me.”

  Mama tutted. “That is of little importance, child! He has never met me either. This is not a romantic gesture, it is a suitable arrangement. Look at what he says here – Sir Montague’s father recently passed away, and now he requires a bride of appropriate birth and breeding in order to have access to his inheritance. His family seat is remote and he is seldom in society, so he has formed no attachments. When I asked for his father’s help I explained that it was not simply for me, but for the benefit of my innocent daughter. I wrote in detail about your upbringing and education, I even enclosed the daguerreotype we had taken on your sixteenth birthday, hoping to elicit some sympathy. But this! This is beyond my wildest expectations. Such fortunate timing! Sir Montague sees you as a suitable bride and is prepared to marry you to rescue us from penury and bring us back into the family.”

  I stared dumbfounded at the letter. Sir Montague’s handwriting was a delicate, swirling copperplate script and the paper felt heavy and expensive between my fingers. Mama had always spent as much as we could afford on the notepaper she used to write to her relations, stressing the importance of quality, but our stationery felt cheap and flimsy next to that of the Chastains. I skimmed over his formal greetings to Mama and his offer to waive the dowry, my eyes coming to rest on his final paragraph.

  Should you be amenable to these arrangements, I shall expect your arrival at Willow Castle no later than the 28th of February. I should advise you to take the train to Stockport and change there for Buxton, where you will be able to engage a carriage to convey you the rest of the way. Willow Castle lies close to Mam Tor at the head of the Hope Valley, near the village of Castleton. As a gesture of my goodwill I have enclosed a five pound note for your fares. I shall also instruct my London bank to advance you a sum of money for Miss Lennox’s trousseau. Arrangements for the ceremony shall be made upon your arrival.

  “Well, Rebecca?” Mama asked. “Shall I advise Sir Montague that you accept?”

  *

  Of course I accepted. It had always been Mama’s fondest hope that I should marry well and live comfortably, safe from poverty. I had known from infancy that this would be my fate if only Mama could find a husband for me, and that it was a better fate by far than anything else that a girl in my position could expect. She had told me time and again of the horrors that awaited governesses and paid companions, thrust into other people’s homes, cut off from their own loved ones and subject to the unwanted attention of married men, eldest sons and male servants. She had warned me that I could not go into trade, for a woman in trade could expect nothing better than to marry a tradesman who would surely turn out to be a brute. None of these options would provide a lifetime of security, nor would they allow me to take care of Mama in her old age. A husband from our own class was our only hope, and now… it appeared I had found one.

  *

  Thus began a flurry of preparation. I scribbled furiously as Mama dictated a list of the things I would need: a wedding gown, shoes, gloves, corsets, crinolines, stockings, garters, a veil, a trousseau, hairbrushes, fragrance, creams and lotions, replacements for all the everyday items that would pass for Lisson Grove but not for Willow Castle. For the first time in my life I had new dresses that were not simply Mama’s old gowns remodelled. She took me into town, where we called at Sir Montague’s bank, then to Piccadilly.

  “This is where my Mama brought me when we were in town for the season,” Mama told me as we swept through the doors of Swan & Edgar. “Not for dresses, of course. We had the best seamstresses in the city call upon us for that. But we visited Swan & Edgar for all sort of things – ribbons, bonnets, gloves, all the things you will now need. Now that so much time has passed I no longer know which are the best seamstresses, but doubtless we shall find some in Derbyshire. In the meantime, we can outfit you here so you will be presentable when you meet Sir Montague.”

  I had grown used to the shop in Lisson Grove, where the shopkeepers chatted to their customers, exchanged gossip and yelled orders to the shop boys. Shops were noisy, bubbling hives of activity, but Swan & Edgar was another matter. It was serene and elegant, laid out across several storeys. Assistants glided noiselessly across the floor and conversed with customers in hushed tones. W
ithin minutes we were seated on overstuffed couches watching a parade of young women modelling the latest fashions, while Mama indicated her choices by discreet gestures. Seamstresses whipped out measuring tapes and flung them round me, draped dresses against me, pinned hats on my head. By the time we left I felt quite ashamed of my plain cotton day dress but quite thrilled by my new wardrobe, neatly packed into long rectangular boxes.

  The assistants asked if we would like our packages delivered, but Mama refused to give them our real address. “Our home is in Derbyshire,” she informed them grandly. “Willow Castle, you may have heard of it? To have them delivered there would take too long, we shall simply take them with us. Pack them into our trunks and call us a cab, if you would be so good.”

  We had bought brand new trunks, shiny beige leather with thick brown straps, deep enough to hold all the possessions I had ever had. Seeing them being loaded into a hackney cab was exciting, but nowhere near as thrilling as seeing them being carried off by railway porters a week later.

  I had been on a train before – only once, though. Mama and I had been overwhelmed by curiosity when the new underground railway had opened between Paddington and Farringdon, two years earlier. I hadn’t liked that much. It was dark and crowded and the flickering gaslight cast eerie shadows on the walls of the tunnels. The train we took from London to Stockport was a different experience altogether! We travelled first class thanks to Sir Montague, sitting in a spacious compartment where I could sit opposite Mama and watch the countryside rushing past me, flowing backwards towards London. Never having been out of London, I had only ever seen the countryside in illustrations in Mama’s books and the couple of cheap prints that had decorated our home.

  Thinking of the house in Lisson Grove made me sad for a moment. I had not expected to experience sorrow upon leaving it, but when we locked the door for the last time I had felt a strange wave of melancholy wash over me. Mama dropped the keys through the letterbox for the landlord to find, and as I heard the snap of metal on metal and knew that the door would never open to us again, I suddenly felt that I would miss the place, the only home I had ever known. Gazing out at the rural beauty beyond the window and comparing it to the industrial sprawls that we passed through every time the train reached a city, I set my sorrow aside. Willow Castle, I thought. I am certain that it will be a beautiful place.

  We changed at Stockport and arrived at Buxton, where the station still had the gloss of newness upon it. As I stepped off the train I took a deep breath of air so fresh and sweet that I wished I had been breathing it all my life. What awaited us beyond the station was a smart little spa town full of steep hills and elegant people. I had assumed that we would proceed directly to Willow Castle as per Sir Montague’s instructions, but Mama had other plans.

  “We shall go to a hotel tonight,” she informed me. “It is getting late, and I would not wish for us to arrive in the middle of dinner and begin our acquaintance with Sir Montague by inconveniencing him. Besides, we are dusty from the train. We shall take a room somewhere and you can bathe and then tomorrow we shall engage a carriage to complete our journey.”

  We found rooms in a magnificent building, the Old Hall Hotel. Mama ordered dinner to be brought to our suite and arranged for a bath to be drawn before a blazing fire. Stepping into the hot water, cloudy with mineral salts, felt like washing off a lifetime of London grime. Emerging from the water to wrap myself in warmed linen and sit snug before the fire, watching the flickering flames as I let my hair dry, was luxury itself. Silently I blessed Sir Montague for coming to my rescue. That night, when I curled up beneath the down coverlet in the soft hotel bed, I gave myself over to ecstatic thoughts of my husband-to-be. He had saved me from poverty and I promised myself that I would repay him by becoming as perfect a wife as any man could wish for.

  *

  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.