“Not exactly.”
“Ooo!” I rub my hands together. “This is about to get juicy, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“How juicy?”
“Fairly juicy.” Isabella says, chuckling. “Juicier than a properly cooked Sunday roast.”
“Ooo, dish.”
“All of those passionate love letters and moonlight trysts and the next thing you know, old Sophie is in the pudding club.”
“In the pudding club?”
“Pregnant, love.”
“Archie and Sophie had a love child?”
“Twins.”
“No way!”
“Way!” Isabella says. “Honora and Hartley DeMille were born in a cottage Archie had built on the edge of the estate.”
Isabella steps off the path and begins walking up a gently rolling hill toward the Abbey ruins.
“Does it still stand?”
“It does, though it stands empty at present,” Isabella says. “It is a charming, snug little place, with a thatched roof, exposed beams, and windows that look out onto the ruins. The wooden beams over the windows are carved with Sophie and Archie’s interlocking initials.”
“The house that love built!”
“Indeed,” Miss Isabella says. “Would you care to hear another story?”
“Abso-bloody-lutely!” I toss my hair back and attempt my best Bingley impersonation. “I say, these are cracking good stories, Izzy-B! Cracking good.”
“Well done, you.” Miss Isabella laughs. “You sounded like Bingley attempting to sound like a P. G. Wodehouse character.”
We arrive at the top of the hill and pause to take in the magnificent sandstone ruins, glowing in the late afternoon sunshine. From a distance, the ruins reminded me of those ceramic castles you see in home aquariums, a tumble-down pile of bricks but up close it is breathtaking, with pillars towering into the clouds. Miss Isabella leads me on a tour, pointing out what would have been the nave, cloister court, and refectory. She tells me the Abbey was first established in the twelfth century.
“The ruins are not as large nor as well preserved as Fountains Abbey, but they are still quite dramatic, and they have a wonderful history,” Miss Isabella says, taking a seat on the ledge of an arched window and patting the space beside her. I sit beside her, leaning my back against the cool, damp stone and turning my face up to the sun. “William the Conqueror awarded this land to Sir Robert Welldon in recognition of the bravery he demonstrated at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Having survived a bloody battle, most men would have built a large home and spent the rest of their days living off their spoils, but not Sir Robert. He vowed to give thanks to God. Proper thanks. Sir Robert polished his armor, mounted his horse, said farewell to his betrothed, and rode off to the Holy Land. Something must have happened to Sir Robert on his way there, though, because eight long years passed without word as to his well-being. Believing Sir Robert dead, Helewise became a bride of Christ.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
“She became a nun.”
“That’s saaaad.”
“Wait,” Miss Isabella says, raising a finger. “The story is not over. Sir Robert finally returned from the Holy Land, thinner, wiser, holier, ready to settle down to married life, only to find Helewise gone. He searched every abbey, chapel, and convent in England but did not find his beloved. Sir Robert spent the next twenty-four years crusading in the Holy Land, amassing enormous wealth, which he donated to the Church with the stipulation it be used to erect an Abbey here, in Helewise de Morville’s honor.”
“Oh my lawd,” I gasp. “Sir Robert’s tribute to Helewise is the sweetest thing I have ever heard, sweeter than Mark Darcy telling Bridget Jones he liked her just as she was, sweeter than the real Mr. Darcy risking scorn and ridicule to court Elizabeth Bennett.”
“Careful there, love.” She wags her finger at me. “Not Darcy. He’s sacrosanct.”
“Ugh!” I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t get the whole Darcy thing. Personally, I think he was reaching with Elizabeth. Did you see his bushy sideburns? I don’t care if manscaping wasn’t popular in the nineteenth century, someone needed to tell him to weed whack that mess. And don’t even get me started on his broody-moody moods! I heard Katy Perry’s ‘Hot N Cold’ playing in my head every time he came on the screen. Hot and cold. Yes and no. In and out. Up and down.”
She pats my hand.
“We will have to agree to disagree there, love.”
I let it go, but deep down I reckon Miss Isabella must agree with me or she would have named her sons Bingley, Brandon, and Darcy, not Bingley, Brandon, and Knightley.
“Where was I?” She frowns, staring off. “Ah, yes. When Sir Robert was an old man, too broken to crusade, blind in both eyes, without family or fortune, he returned to his home at the bottom of this hill to die.”
“No!” I hold my face in my hands, pressing my palms against my closed eyes to erase the image of poor, broken-down Sir Robert dying alone on some sad straw pallet. “I thought you said this was a good story? You lied! This is definitely not a good story.”
“Do you want me to finish?”
“You are killing me, Miss Isabella. Kill-ling!”
“As if by divine intervention, Sister Helewise suddenly returned. She took care of Sir Robert in his final days and was by his side when he drew his last breath.”
Miss Isabella stands and walks out of the nave. I follow her to a small graveyard.
“It is believed Sir Robert Welldon is buried here”—she points to a worn stone slab set into the ground and then takes a step to her right and points to a small cross-shaped headstone freckled with lichen—“and Sister Helewise de Morville is buried here.”
I look at the graves, worn by time and forgotten by most of the world, and a wave of emotion washes over me. I pluck a wildflower from the ground and place it over Sir Robert’s grave, my tribute to a man who showed undying devotion to the woman he loved. Sigh. Sir Robert and Sister Helewise are relationship goals! Such undying devotion.
The sun has settled low in the sky and the ruins cast long shadows down the side of the hill as we begin our hike back to Welldon House.
“You are unusually quiet,” Miss Isabella says.
“I am thinking about Sir Robert and Sister Helewise.”
“What about them?”
“Their graves make me saaaad.” I stick my hands in my pockets, rubbing the monogram on Knightley’s handkerchief between my thumb and forefinger, feeling the silken threads. “The writing on the stones has been worn away. Why hasn’t more been done to preserve them?”
“It costs an enormous amount of money to run an estate the size of Welldon Abbey.” She exhales, and her shoulders roll forward, as if she suddenly slipped on a backpack filled with Jane Austen novels. “We considered expanding the gardens and adding extravagant water features to draw summer tourists, but the liability would be extraordinary. Longleat has a safari park. Goodwood has a racetrack. Waddesdon has the Diamond Jubilee Wood walk. Cliveden has a scandalous past. Chatsworth has grandeur. Little Moreton Hall has a bloody moat! When you compare Welldon to other manor homes in England, I am afraid we come up woefully short. Tourists want Downton bloody Abbey, not Welldon Abbey. They want the dowager countess to greet them as they enter and Mrs. Patmore to serve them a fresh scone as they exit. We can’t compete with the illusion of Mrs. Patmore and the reality of Highclere Castle.”
“I don’t like to hear anyone sound defeated”—I link my arm through hers—“especially my fairy godmother turned real godmother.”
“I feel defeated,” she says. “We lost a substantial amount of our savings in the economic crisis several years ago, money we relied upon for the upkeep of Welldon. Knightley contributes most of his salary and his annual bonus to compensate for the loss, Brandon assists the groundskeeper with maintaining the gardens, and Bingley sold the Aston Martin he inherited from his father. Easton Neston, a country pile in Northhamptonshire, was rescued by a Russian
clothing tycoon who invested forty million pounds to restore the estate to its former glory! We need a Russian clothing tycoon. We need a Max Leon!”
“I had no idea things were that difficult.”
“We are hardly destitute,” she says, tightening her scarf. “We aren’t the Dashwoods, after all. We haven’t been forced to vacate our family home because of England’s ridiculously patriarchal primogeniture law. We haven’t been reduced to accepting charity from a distant cousin.”
Dashwood. Dashwood. I know that name. Agnes Dashwood. Isn’t that the name of the girl who works at Call Me Darjeeling? No! Wait! Elinor Dashwood is one of the characters in Sense & Sensibility. I saw the name when I was flipping through the pages to get to Emma.
“Thank God you aren’t Dashwood-ing it. Still, there must be something I can do to put the Bibbity back into your Bobbity-Boo. A fairy godmother should float in a cloud of glitter, not slog along, head down, too defeated to sparkle.”
Miss Isabella squeezes my arm.
“You have enough glitter for all of us, love. Truly, just being around you makes me feel happier and less burdened.”
“Aw! Thank you.” I drop my head on her shoulder and lift it again. “I believe you should spread joy like confetti, tossing it around by the handfuls. You have given me so much joy. I am glad to give you some in return. I just wish I could think of something to do to help”—I stop walking and squeeze Miss Isabella’s arm—“Oh my lawd! I have just had the most brilliant idea!”
Chapter Nineteen
Emma Lee Maxwell’s Facebook Update:
Junior year I took medieval studies with Professor Aleron because Roberta Hearst told me he spent a lot of time talking about the romance of Camelot (Sir Lancelot, sigh) and because he gave open-book exams. I remember he said, Chivalry is serving all, but loving only one.
“Tell me your brilliant idea.”
“First, have you heard of Rush Week?”
“No.” She turns to face me. “What is a rush week?”
“A superexciting, superintense time at the beginning of the school year when fraternities and sororities try to recruit pledges.” Miss Isabella frowns and I realize she feels the way I feel when someone makes a reference to classic literature. “A pledge is a potential member. Some years, there are hundreds of potential pledges and all the sororities are vying for the same select group of girls. I learned early that a good recruiter must have a keen understanding of what makes their sorority unique. Then, she capitalizes on that special thing—whether it be a designer-decorated day room or celeb alums—to woo the pledges to her sorority.”
“I would wager you were brilliant at recruiting pledges.”
“Aw, thank you.” The enthusiasm for my idea is growing and I must shove my hands in my pockets to keep myself from doing cartwheels the rest of the way down the hill. “Think of visitors as pledges and offer them something unique, something that entices them to consider Welldon instead of, or in addition to, Highclere. It’s true: Welldon Abbey doesn’t have a safari park, it hasn’t been a shooting location for a massively popular historical drama, but it has a unique feature.”
“It does?”
“It does!” I say, grinning. “Do you want to know what that unique feature is?”
“Abso-bloody-lutely,” she cries.
“Welldon was the setting for one of the most romantic stories of all time, the story of Sir Robert and Sister Helewise.” I look back up the hill, at the graveyard silhouetted against the late-afternoon sky. “India has the Taj Mahal, a beautiful mausoleum built by a Mogul as a tribute to his first wife, and Welldon has an abbey built by a crusading knight as a tribute to his lost love. People from around the world flock to see the Taj Mahal, so why wouldn’t they flock to see Welldon Abbey?”
Miss Isabella shields her eyes and follows my gaze, looking at the little graveyard perched at the top of the hill.
“Do you seriously think anyone else would be interested in Sir Robert and Sir Helewise?”
“Are you kidding me?” I cry. “We aren’t the only hopeless romantics in the world. I’ll bet there are loads of people who would get as weepy as I got when I heard Sir Robert’s story. The problem is, nobody knows his story.”
“The best way to tell his story would be to write a book, but we don’t know enough about his life to support such an undertaking.”
“I wasn’t thinking about a book.”
“What are you thinking?”
I look from the ruins to Welldon, judging the distance, envisioning what it would take to make my idea a reality. Designated parking spaces, permanent bathroom facilities, an easy way up the hill that wouldn’t destroy the natural aesthetic, a commercial generator, a place to store chairs and supplies.
“Don’t keep me in suspense, love,” Miss Isabella says. “Tell me your idea.”
“I think you should turn Welldon Abbey into a wedding venue!” I pull my hands out of my pockets, clapping them together, and bouncing up and down on my toes. “The most romantic wedding venue in all of England.”
“But—”
“Wait!” I stop clapping and hold my hand up. “Before you tell me there are loads of wedding venues scattered all over England, consider that those venues do not offer the romantic history of Welldon Abbey. Sir Robert Welldon did not build an abbey as a tribute to his lost love in those locations. Archie Nickerson, the dashing nobleman who ran with Marie Antoinette’s set, did not have secret rendezvous with his beloved in those locations.”
“You make Welldon Abbey sound frightfully romantic.”
“Take a look around,” I say, sweeping my arm through the air. “The manicured gardens filled with flowers of every hue and variety, the cute little footbridges spanning the stream, the panoramic views of the Gloucestershire countryside, the historic manor home brimming with museum-worthy art, the thatched cottages in the distance, clinging to the sides of the hills. I don’t make Welldon Abbey sound romantic; it is romantic!”
Miss Isabella gazes at the gardens—glowing in the golden light of gloaming, throbbing with the sound of buzzing bees—and a slow smile spreads across her face.
“Of course,” Miss Isabella says. “Weddings at Welldon. It is a brilliant idea, Emma Lee. A bloody brilliant idea!”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“It most certainly is!” She hugs me, laughing. “I can’t wait to share the idea with Knightley, Brandon, and Bingley.”
“Will you tell them tonight?”
“No.” She continues walking down the hill and I follow, a step behind. “I want to have a clear and comprehensive vision before approaching them. Otherwise, they will dismiss the idea as another of mum’s mad schemes. They will bombard me with questions—particularly Brandon; he is a stickler about details.”
“I’ll bet there are more stories buried in your archives, romantic stories of love found and lost.”
“You do?”
“Yes, ma’am! If I were you, I would dig through all the old diaries and letters. I will bet you a pot of I Love You Oolong Time and one of Harriet’s Nutella muffins you will find a few more stories. Deal?”
I hold out my hand.
“Deal,” Miss Isabella says, shaking my hand. “Though, I am a trifle confused as to what we are supposed to do with these stories after we find them. I thought we were capitalizing on Sir Robert’s story.”
“We are definitely going to capitalize on Sir Robert’s story, but we are living in the digital age, and millennials are distractible creatures. They have the attention spans of golden retriever puppies. They need loads of stimulation.”
“You’re saying one story is not enough to hook them?”
“One story might be enough to hook them, but we would need fab visuals to go with the story. You wouldn’t happen to have any paintings of Sir Robert or Sister Helewise lying around your archives, would you?”
“I am afraid not,” Miss Isabella says, sighing. “We do have a rather spectacular plaster relief of his tomb effigy that
was done in the early eighteenth century by Lady Anne Welldon, when it was removed from the Abbey and brought into the great hall at Welldon.”
“Tomb effigy?” I frown. “You mean a statue?”
“Precisely. A recumbent statue of Sir Robert, garbed in a tunic with a cross on his chest, hands pressed together in prayer.”
“What happened to the statue?”
“Destroyed.”
“No!”
“I am afraid so. The Nickersons fell on hard times after the Great War, like so many families. Sir Reginald Nickerson sold the effigy to a collector. Unfortunately, the statue fell out of the cart during transport and Sir Robert suffered irreparable damage.” Miss Isabella raises her hand and makes a slicing gesture across her neck with her finger. “When I arrived at Welldon, Sir Robert’s head was being used as a doorstop. Horrifying, that.”
“Where is his head now?”
“Sitting on a shelf in my private library.” Miss Isabella shakes her head. “Imagine, surviving the Battle of Hastings and numerous Crusades to the Holy Land, just so your effigy can take a tumble from a lorry and lose his head? Such an undignified and inglorious ending.”
Even though the demise of Sir Robert’s effigy is saaad, I am glad his head has found a safe resting place in Miss Isabella’s library. I imagine the stone head nestled between a stack of Jane Austen books and a crystal vase of fresh peonies.
“Emma Lee?”
“Yes?”
“Once we have all the stories, what do we do with them?”
“I think we should give them to Bingley and ask him to write a short piece about each of the couples, something smart and romantic. Then, we post the stories on your website.”
“But we don’t have a website.”
“Brandon handles marketing and publicity for Nickerson Publishing, right? I’ll bet he knows loads of people who could build you a slick website.”
“Of course.”
“We will need glossy pictures of Welldon House and the Abbey ruins—the kinds you see in posh travel mags, like Condé Nast and National Geographic Traveler. Too bad Manderley is in France; she’s a fantastic photographer.”
Badly Done, Emma Lee Page 18
