by Joan Smith
“I suppose that might explain it,” I said, not completely satisfied. I had to wonder if he had married me to show Eglantine a lesson. But if so, if the romance had begun in that way, it had soon matured into real love. If Norman had been looking for a great match, he could have married Hettie Ferland, the local M.P.’s daughter in Norfolk, a beauty and a real heiress. God knows she would not have refused him. But he chose me. And if he puffed me up unduly at home, it was only to spite them.
“Did Norman settle down?” she asked, her eyes brightly curious.
“He certainly did, but I cannot take the whole credit for it. He had settled down before he came to Norfolk. He never drank to excess, or gambled much. A game of cards perhaps, in a social way, but not for large sums of money.”
“And he seemed perfectly happy? Not unduly high-strung, or morose, melancholy, things like that?”
“He had a temper, I’ll grant you. He flew into rages sometimes, and when I tried to get him to talk to me about his home he became rather—morose, I guess is the word. Now I see he probably still harbored a grudge against the family for having broken off the romance. That must be it. Apart from overvaluing his wife, he was perfectly normal. His work meant so much to him. It kept him busy and happy. He had got a publisher to print his book, you know. That is, it wasn’t finished when he died, but he was in contact with a publisher who was very interested in it.”
“Was it a good book?” she asked.
“I thought so, but I am no expert.”
“Jarvis is the one who will be interested to see it. He is keen on archaeology and all that Roman stuff. I’m glad we had this little talk, my dear. I am especially relieved to hear Norman’s last days were so happy and peaceful. All the little mysteries that were plaguing me are cleared up. It looks like a fine day. Why don’t you go out and have a look around the place?”
“Homer has promised to give me a tour this afternoon. I haven’t seen the inside of the house yet. I think I’ll do that now. Can I get you anything before I leave?”
“The nurse will look in on me soon. When you return I’ll have my paint in place and look less a hag. You know, of course, that Cousin Bulow comes to dinner this evening.”
“It was mentioned last night. I look forward to meeting him.” I was equally curious to see Eglantine Crofft, but there was no mention of her accompanying Bulow.
“He has expressed a keen interest in meeting you, too. He is a wicked flirt. Don’t let him pester you. But perhaps he’ll behave this time, in the circumstances,” she added, glancing at my unrelieved black ensemble. “He won’t do so for long, but on the first meeting he will hardly dare to get out of line. Homer will set him down if he does.”
“Don’t worry, Thal. I shall set him down if he does. I don’t know whether Norman happened to mention I am quite accustomed to looking after myself.”
“No, he didn’t say so,” she said, laughing. “Though to tell the truth, I suspected as much. I notice you didn’t waste any time in getting the matter of Norman’s lies cleared up. Have a good time, Davinia.”
She raised her cheek for my kiss. I placed a peck on it and said, “Thank you, and good-bye.”
I felt a sting of anger at her casual “Norman’s lies,” but of course what he wrote home was untrue. What else would I learn about him, here amongst his family?
All such worries slipped from my mind when I began the tour of the house. Jarvis volunteered to guide me. He had been born and raised here and knew all the history of the place. He was the family historian, and if he had not become active in politics, I suspect he might have made a career of history. In any case, he was amusing and informative as a tour master.
I do not remember all the details of the house and family history, but I recall that a version of Blythe Wyngate had been standing since the fourteenth century, excepting for a period when the original house had burned down and new walls had been erected over the ruins a year later. The chapel that showed us its stained-glass windows from the front was once a part of the Great Hall. If I understood Jarvis aright, the reconstructed house was little more than a rectangle, with the wings being added at later periods by following generations of Blythes. The master plan for the ultimate size and shape had been in existence for centuries, and as money and opportunity allowed, the empty spaces on the plan had come into actual existence.
“For a family of pretty plain folks, the Blythes had baronial notions,” Jarvis admitted. “Had they taken a keener interest in court doings, the family titles would no doubt have lived up to their architectural pretensions, but it was not the case. They were stay-at-homes, putting their exertions into Blythe Wyngate. The baronetcy is as high as we went.”
I remember the theme of granite ran through the house, cropping up here in a window frame, there in a great stone block of a staircase with depressions worn into the surface from the tread of generations of feet, another time in a fireplace. I had a fanciful vision of a great granite skeleton bearing up the floors and walls and roof.
“No queens or kings slept here so far as I know,” he admitted. “We have a bedchamber called the Royal Suite which it seems was readied for a visit of the Prince of Wales in the early 1800s, but he never made it. His white feathers are worked into the woodwork all the same. When the Prince failed to come, the Lady Blythe of the day had them gilded. There they are,” he said, smiling at the three gilded feathers.
Down long corridors we walked, to view library, art gallery, saloons and private parlors, gracious brocade-hung bedchambers with attached sitting rooms enough to accommodate a small village. All were maintained, and used a few times a year for onslaughts of company.
In the art gallery I was shown yellowing portraits of Blythes in period costume, from doublets and ruffs to cassock and mandilion; from ladies in great feathered hats to gentlemen in breeches and topboots; from ladies in Empire gowns with their curls bundled up in Grecian knots to Norman’s father in a black cutaway coat and black pantaloons.
“You and Norman must be added,” he said. “Homer has a daguerreotype of Norman from which a painting can be taken. Then Homer and his lady, when he takes a lady,” he added nonchalantly.
I waited to hear if he mentioned the imminent possibility of this, but he said no more, nor did I enquire. We went out a door into the enclosed courtyard. In March it was not yet in use, nor very pretty.
“Millie has taken it over. It is the ladies’ garden by tradition, and since Thal is not able to do anything with it, Millie has planted her herbs and things. It keeps her out of mischief. One day soon it will be returned to its original use.” It was an oblique comment on Millie’s age.
As I was still young, I was impressed at his long-range way of looking at life. He spoke of the generations as though they came and went in a year. But a generation was only a brief span in the life of Wyngate. Those granite walls did not perish so quickly as human flesh and bone. My Norman would become a picture on the wall, a brief and tragic mention in the tour. “He died young,” or some such thing, before the onlooker moved on to Homer’s portrait. “And this is his half-brother, who succeeded him.”
With our tour finished, we went inside to freshen up for lunch. “I am having Norman’s papers sent forward, Jarvis. Perhaps you will be interested to look at them. You will know whether his work is near enough completion to have someone finish it or not.”
“I am happy to hear he took up an interest in Roman antiquities. He was always into something. It was poetry one year, painting another. Well, there is much work to be done on the Roman remains around Norfolk. Their canal work there is interesting. The Car Dykes at Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire were close to him. I expect he spent a deal of time investigating them.”
“They were not the only item he was working on. He did go off once a month for a few days to do his investigations, and was composing his notes. He had not gotten round to polishing them, I believe. The book begins with the Roman antiquities to be found in London.”
“Londo
n has been pretty thoroughly done, but perhaps it is as good a place as another to begin. Did you go with him on these expeditions to see the canal remains?”
“No, he didn’t feel it would be comfortable for me. For a few days a month I could part with him, since the work was of such interest to him.” I did not tell Jarvis the way Norman worded it: “How should I be expected to get any work done with you there, you temptation!” he had said.
“He went alone?” Jarvis asked.
“He had a fellow he met there who used to go with him. I never met the man. Harold, he used to call him. Norman used to come home dead beat, tired as a crusader at the end of his trip. He always lost weight. My job was to feed and relax him after he got home. I wasn’t lonesome. I had all my friends there, you know.”
“Of course.”
“I wouldn’t have dared to prevent his going. He used to get quite irritable towards the end of the month, and I knew it was time for him to go off exploring. I expect he was afraid someone would beat him to print with the findings.”
“I look forward to reading his accounts. I have published a few articles myself. Nothing so long and weighty as a book, but if God grants me another decade, I might manage to fill a whole book. A man must keep active.”
“Indeed he must, and so must a woman.”
“Did Norman mention my work to you?”
He had not, but I disliked to tell the old man so. Norman had no interest in amateur’s work. “He often boasted of you,” I answered, to please him.
We parted in good harmony. I realized that a person did require work to keep him or her busy. I too must find some absorbing work to fill out the rest of my days. I was too young to mourn myself into ennui. As soon as I had come to terms with my grief, and my status as a widow, I would find a useful role for myself. At the moment, surviving took all my resources.
And yet it was a curious thing: Since coming to Blythe Wyngate I felt more resigned to my lot, more content. I had been too much alone at home, all my surroundings too redolent of my brief, happy marriage with Norman. This place too held memories of him, but they were memories not familiar to me, so they did not touch the inner core so strongly. It was good to be meeting new people, and not exactly strangers either, for we had Norman in common. I had, at last, someone to call family, someone not an ocean away. I smiled as I went upstairs to wash for lunch, waving in at Thal on my way. She blew me a kiss.
Chapter 4
After lunch, I drove out with Homer to view the estate which was to have been mine and was now his. I tried not to resent his proprietary manner of speaking about it, and of Norman’s ill upkeep of the land. As I was no keen horsewoman, we drove in a whiskey, a light vehicle that was deemed capable of traversing the rough terrain, not always with a road to help it. The crops were of little real interest to me. He pointed out from the edge of the fields where he had planted oats, barley, and so on. I tried to sound interested, as I was not knowledgeable, but the fact is, my chief interest was to see the dower house, and to learn whether it was designated for anyone. After that, the windmill beckoned me. But first I had to hear of the depredations of Jarvis, urged on by Norman, on the forest.
I half listened while he rattled on. “... told Jarvis that stand of firs was not ready for the saw, but he went ahead with it. They would have brought more than twice the price if he had waited. I’ve replanted, as Jarvis neglected to do so.”
In other areas, other complaints crept into his talk. “... should have been fertilized years ago. At least marled.”
Never having lived on a farm, I scarcely knew what he was talking about, but I knew at least that he was indirectly criticizing Norman. But Norman had only been owner for six months. In the short time since his death, Homer had already made some improvements.
“As you are so well versed in estate management, how does it come Norman appointed his uncle rather than you to manage Blythe Wyngate?” I asked, hearing the tense, angry timbre of my voice.
“I wish he had!” was the brusque reply. “Jarvis claims to know nothing of husbandry. It was only a nuisance to him. I would have been happy to do it. I was hoping you could tell me why he appointed Jarvis.”
“He never told me. I know he liked his uncle very well.” This was tantamount to saying he did not like Homer, but if he had not, he never told me so. I spoke on to cover the implied insult. “Very likely he thought that with Jarvis’s retirement, he would be happy to have something to do.”
“I doubt that was the reason. Jarvis could hardly wait to have time free to begin his book. I could have managed Wyngate as well as Farnley Mote.”
The name Farnley Mote was vaguely familiar. I remembered then that Homer had a place of his own, a small place, which was the younger son’s patrimony. “It would have been a great deal of work though,” I pointed out in a placating manner. “You would have been always riding back and forth, from one to the other.”
“Our lands march together in places. It would have meant five miles at the outside.” That excuse was not valid, in other words. “Farnley Mote was severed from the main estate some years ago.”
“You have the whole of it now, to do with as you wish.”
“A good thing, too. Another year and... But this is nothing to you.”
“No, Wyngate does not belong to me,” I conceded. A side-wise peep told me how very happy this made my companion. There was pride on his arrogant face, as his head made a hundred-and-eighty-degree sweep of the landscape, his gaze lingering here and there at favored spots.
“You will always be welcome here,” he said, but in a dutiful tone. His gaze had stopped at the house Mrs. Winton and I had selected as the dower house.
“What is that building?” I asked, damping down my eagerness.
“The dower house. I shall rent it to augment mother’s income. It is hers legally, while she lives. It belongs to the heir’s mother, but is entailed, of course, like everything else.”
“Does it belong to the heir’s mother, or the deceased heir’s wife?” I asked pointedly. “They are normally one and the same, of course, but when the heir dies before his time...”
There was a quick flash of angry suspicion in his eyes at my question. That look was little short of a glare. “The heir’s mother,” he stated firmly. Then a frown creased his brow. “That is...as you mentioned, they are usually one and the same lady. Perhaps it is yours, in law. I shall have it looked into by my solicitor.”
“I must hire a solicitor as well. My man from Norfolk can hardly handle affairs here for me,” I said blandly.
“Do so by all means, if you feel it necessary,” he said. “And while we are discussing legal matters, I might as well enquire about the estate jewelry. Now that Norman is dead, it must be returned.”
“What jewelry?” I asked, clutching my wedding ring.
“It is primarily the Blythe emeralds I am interested in, though all the pieces are entailed. The opera rope of pearls, the diamond collar.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! I never saw them. Norman said nothing to me.”
“He had them removed from the London vault when he came into the estate. Of course you’ve got them.”
“Are you calling me a liar, sir?” I gasped, incredulous.
For a long moment our eyes locked. I read on his face the passing parade of emotions: distrust, suspicion, anger, perhaps a shred of doubt that soon firmed into disbelief. “Another matter to be placed in our solicitors’ hands,” he said, flinging out an angry arm. “But unlike the dower house, their ownership is not in question. They belong to me, and I mean to have them.”
“You are perfectly welcome to them if you can find them,” I retaliated sharply. It was not the moment to put in my bid for the dower house as my own domicile, but at least I wanted to see it.
“Very likely they’ll turn up in a vault somewhere,” I said. “In the meanwhile, shall we stop and have a look at the dower house, while we are so close?”
“Certainly, if you
wish. I must caution you, it has not been inhabited for a decade. The girls go over once a month or so to give it a lick and a promise. If you wish to rent it to someone, providing of course it is yours, it will require a good cleaning.”
He had misunderstood my interest in the house. I did not think he would believe the truth, and didn’t bother mentioning it.
“Why has it stood idle all these years?” I asked instead.
“When Father was alive, money was not scarce. It never occurred to anyone to rent it. There are a pair of maiden aunts from the Jersey Isles who spoke of removing to it. They never did so, but I believe it was kept free for them.”
There was an iron fence shoulder-high around the front of the place. The house did not have its own stables, as the estate stable was close by. The horse which drew our whiskey was tethered to the gate, and we went in. The exterior of the house was very plain, done in granite like the big house, but with much less embellishment. There were pretty leaded windows on either side of the door, and the size of it was larger than I required. One could live in more than comfort here. Even the word elegant was not too much.
“High time the place was properly cleaned,” he scolded as we walked into the airless hallway, where a thin patina of dust robbed the scene of any charm it might possess. I stepped into the saloon on the left. It was a gracious chamber, roughly twenty by thirty feet, well lit by the tall windows that marched across the front and down the side. The upholstered pieces were covered in dust covers, but when I lifted two, I saw no sign of great wear below. The rose velvet had faded to salmon at the high spots, as had the window draperies. The walls too wanted brightening, but the basic structure and furnishings were good.
“What’s on the other side of the entrance hall?” I asked. In lieu of answering, he stepped out the door, with myself following. There was a smaller room, a study with French doors leading into the library. We took a quick tour of the dining room and kitchen, then up to the bedrooms. Mrs. Winton, who is quick at estimating a house’s grandeur, had numbered the rooms accurately: There were seven of them. The place was adequately got up. It was a gentleman’s house, not a mansion, but it could be made elegant.
