The Master of Winterbourne

by Louise Allen

  ‘He did find me. And Marcus Willoughby.’

  ‘Marcus Willoughby? What have you done?’ her aunt wailed, the cloth dropping unheeded to the floor. ‘You foolish, foolish girl.’ She took a pace towards the window, wringing her hands in her skirts. ‘Whatever possessed you? Where did I fail that you should behave so? Sir Matthew will never marry you now… we'll all end up in the Low Countries.’

  ‘I wasn't doing anything.’ Her aunt’s panic steadied Henrietta as sympathy never would. ‘I was up there alone, looking for peace to think in, and Marcus saw me. He tried to kiss me and Matthew found us, but he could tell I was unwilling. He sent Marcus off with a flea in his ear, no more.’

  ‘Then he has not broken the betrothal?’ Her aunt was urgent. ‘Tell me it is all right.’

  ‘No, he has not broken it,’ said Henrietta with a sigh. ‘Quite the opposite.’

  A knowing smile touched the older woman's lips as she reached to touch the torn lace at Henrietta’s bosom, the tangle of disarrayed hair. ‘Ah, so jealousy made him passionate and that scared you?’ Without waiting for an answer Susan settled on the bed in a comfortable rustle of skirts. ‘I had meant to talk to you tonight, but I see we must come to it sooner. Sit by me.’

  Henrietta sat down as she was bid, twisting the ends of her girdle between her fingers.

  ‘Now, you know what passes between a man and a woman?’

  Face burning, Henrietta nodded.

  ‘What happened when he came to your room the night before he left?’

  ‘You knew he was here?’ Henrietta was startled. Her aunt had given no indication that she was aware of Matthew's visit.

  ‘Of course I knew. You do not think a man could go to my niece's room alone, at night, without my cognisance?’

  ‘And you permitted it?’ Henrietta discovered she was shocked.

  ‘You were betrothed, it is accepted.’ Susan hesitated, obviously finding this difficult. ‘And I thought the waiting was preying on your fears.’

  ‘He didn't… we didn't do anything.’ She wasn't going to tell her aunt about that kiss.

  ‘I know he did not lie with you, Alice told me. But did you not at least talk of your future together?’

  ‘We quarrelled. And again just now.’ Perhaps she could tell her aunt, explain how he still loved his first wife and how that pained her. Susan had so much more experience of life.

  ‘What ails you, girl? Not only is he a good man but he has been married before, he will understand and guide you. By all accounts his devotion to Sarah was admirable.’

  Henrietta jumped up. The last thing she wanted was another lecture on the late Lady Sheridan’s virtues. ‘Don’t talk to me about Sarah! I am weary of hearing her name on every lip. Sarah was so perfect, the devoted wife…’

  ‘Niece, you shock me. She is dead. How can you speak so of her? It is sinful and unworthy of you. Look to your conduct, Henrietta, or your jealousy and shrewishness will drive him away. I have nothing more to say to you on this matter. I believed it was your innocence causing these problems, now I can see it is your wilfulness.

  ‘Be meek and obedient to your husband, be guided by him and all will be well. As for your wedding night, put away your frowns, at least pretend to welcome his embraces. Any right-thinking girl would rejoice at the thought of such a fine man for a husband.’ She frowned at Henrietta, her cheeks mottled with annoyance. ‘Now I have much to do. I have no time to spend on vapours and silliness.’

  She swept out of the room, banging the door behind her, leaving Henrietta speechless and aggrieved.

  ‘Mistress?’ Letty sounded puzzled, and Henrietta, pulling herself together with a jerk, realised the girl must have been standing in the doorway for some minutes.

  ‘What is it, Letty? I did not call for you.’ She glanced down at her skirts as she spoke, realising for the first time how dishevelled she was. ‘Never mind, now you are here you can help me change. The brown linen will do.’

  Henrietta sat down at her dressing-table and began to brush out, then re-pin her hair. ‘Hurry up, girl, there is much to be done.’ Perhaps by throwing herself into the preparations for the wedding she could regain some sort of composure.

  ‘But I've got a message.’ Letty still found it difficult to do more than one thing at a time.

  ‘Well, tell me. Your tongue will work while your hands are busy, won't it?’ Letty looked pained and Henrietta reminded herself yet again of the need for patience.

  ‘Master Weldon says,’ Letty began, the tip of her tongue stuck out in the effort of remembrance, ‘I was to give you his compliments and could he please speak with you as soon as possible?’

  Henrietta's fingers clenched round the hairbrush. It must be the messenger from Oxford at last. And Matthew was in the house. Did Robert know the master was returned? She must act very carefully but speedily if the papers were to be safe away before she walked down the aisle with Matthew.

  ‘Thank you, Letty.’ She controlled her breathing and finished pinning her hair. Too much haste would arouse suspicion.

  As she passed her aunt on the stairs she dropped a slight, repentant curtsy. ‘I am sorry, Aunt. You are right, and I am ashamed for what I said. Now I must see Robert, then I will come and help you. I know you have much to do and I have been neglecting my household duties.’ Despite her words Henrietta was guiltily aware of a little worm of jealousy still gnawing at her.

  ‘There's my good girl. We will forget all that foolishness.’ Mistress Clifford patted her cheek in passing. ‘Just show a pleasant face and all will be well. These megrims are natural at such a time. When you have seen Robert, please oversee the girls in the stillroom, they are finding rosewater for the bedlinen.’ She bustled off importantly with Mary in tow and Henrietta hurried down to the steward's room.

  Robert was sitting at his desk, pen in hand, but he dropped it in the pewter standish, shook sand over the wet ink of the document and rose at her entrance. ‘Mistress.’ He cast a swift glance over her shoulder, then pulled the door to behind her.

  ‘Where's Cobham?’ Henrietta moved to the window and glanced out, but the garden beyond was empty.

  ‘Summoned by his master. Did you know Sir Matthew was returned?’

  Henrietta nodded as she sat down on the long settle against the wall. ‘A day early. Is there news from Oxford yet? Is that why you asked to see me?’

  ‘No. That is what concerns me. I would send another messenger, but how to explain his absence at this time?’

  He was right. Everyone in the household and Home Farm, from steward to potboy, was fully occupied in preparations for the wedding of their master and mistress.

  ‘But why the delay?’ Henrietta demanded fretfully. ‘I was so sure you were going to say you had word. What if a messenger comes now?’

  ‘The next few days are perhaps the safest,’ said Robert thoughtfully. ‘The house is so full of people, some of them from outlying farms. One strange face will not look amiss.’

  ‘Yes, you are right. And so many messengers are coming with letters and gifts from our neighbours… There's still tomorrow.’ If only the messenger would come, take those papers, relieve her of her promise to her brother before she had to make her vows to Matthew, pledges of obedience and loyalty she would break as soon as she made them.

  ‘Let me know directly there is any news, Robert,’ she was saying as she opened the door and came face to face with Matthew and Cobham, just emerging from the head of the cellar stairs. ‘That mare had such difficulties last time she foaled,’ she added to account for her words.

  Matthew's nod of acknowledgement was coolly distant and he continued talking to his clerk. ‘There's enough ale and cider in the cellars to intoxicate the entire village twice over.’

  ‘They should drink small beer like God-fearing, sober persons,’ Cobham said with a sniff.

  ‘Even the Apostles drank wine, Nathaniel,’ Matthew answered his clerk's grumbling with a clap on the shoulder. ‘Speaking of which, see if we hav
e wine enough. Master Weldon should know.’

  Robert joined them in the corridor. ‘I sent the wagon to Aylesbury yesterday, Sir Matthew. It should return this afternoon.’

  Henrietta left the men and slipped quietly down the passage to her right. The stillroom was empty, a row of rosewater jars on one broad slate ledge proof that the girls had obeyed Aunt Susan's instructions to scent the linen before making up the guests' beds.

  The light filtered dim through cheesecloth draped across the latticed windows to protect the delicate herbs and spices from the sun. The room was cool and still, redolent with smells, an exotic mingling of flowers and spices with an underlying astringency of medicines and potions. Henrietta gathered a bunch of long-stemmed lavender, then searched through a basket on the work-table for a piece of ribbon to tie it. It was quiet and peaceful, the only sound in the room the steady drip, drip of an infusion straining through a muslin bag. She would make lavender bunches for herself and Aunt Susan to hang among the folds of their best dresses to scent them for the wedding day. It was a task she should have finished the day before, but at least she was doing something useful, not just running away.

  Her fingers worked dextrously among the stiff stems, weaving the ribbon into a lattice pattern to hold the bundle firm. It was a skilful art her aunt had taught her young, one she was trying to instil into Letty along with countless others that a lady's maid needed to master.

  The door opened behind her and, without turning, her mind on the girl, she said, ‘Letty, take these and hang them in the skirts of my yellow gown. Throw away the old bunches, their savour will be quite gone after all this time. Then come back and I will have finished the bunches for my aunt.’

  There was no reply. She turned, expecting to find the girl hesitating on the threshold, but it was not Letty who stood there.

  Matthew was looking at her across the wide stone flags. Even in the gloom she saw the watchfulness in his eyes. The blood rose hectically to her cheeks and she made an instinctive backward movement away from him. Whatever he had been about to say died on his lips and they stood in silence for a long moment.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Only to say that I shall endeavour to keep apart from you until our wedding day as you seem to find my presence so upsetting. After tomorrow morning I am afraid that, as my wife, you will have to resign yourself to my company.’

  Before she could deny that was what she desired, before she could move across the shadowed room to touch him, read his face, he was gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lawrence Stone stood in the church porch. ‘Come along, my dear Henrietta, your bridegroom awaits you impatiently.’

  Henrietta looked up and met his kindly smile. He patted her cold hand as it lay on his forearm and waited while Letty and Alice fussed around, smoothing Henrietta's primrose silk skirts, dusting the faint traces of their slow procession from the house from the silver embroidered petticoat revealed at the front.

  ‘Ready?’

  She took a deep breath and nodded against the weight of unbound hair cascading down her back from a circlet of palest yellow roses. The interior of the church was shadowed and, after the brilliant sunlight and warmth outside, the air struck chill, despite the throng of people lining the side aisles and filling the pews. On Lawyer Stone's arm she walked slowly towards the altar, conscious she was the focus of attention as the congregation turned to watch her pass.

  The smiling faces were all familiar, all friends from her childhood, members of her household, villagers she had known all her life. Yet at that moment she could not have put a name to a single one of them, her entire attention focused on the tall dark figure whose garnet-red jacket glowed like a beacon at the altar steps.

  Snatches of overheard words reached her ears but meant nothing. The old building was full of sound, the rustle of best clothes, the whimpering of small children, coughing and clearing of throats, all of it could have been a hundred miles away as Matthew turned to face her.

  She was close enough to see his expression change from sombre calm to warm welcome and knew then that all the hours of preparation that morning had not been in vain. She could not doubt he found her beautiful and desirable.

  The lingering warmth in his eyes in the moment before he turned back dutifully to the altar and the waiting vicar unfroze her numbness and she became conscious of sensation again. Beneath her fingers the rich stuff of Lawyer Stone's best coat, through the thin soles of her embroidered slippers the cold of the stone floor, the tickling caress of her hair on her bare shoulders, all this and the low buzz of voices in the church hit her as if she had just opened a door.

  And she knew also, as clearly as if someone had opened a door in her mind, that she could fall in love with Matthew. They reached the altar steps at last and she glanced shyly up at her bridegroom, convinced that her awareness of him must show on her face.

  Matthew had grudged no effort for his wedding day. Newly trimmed, his hair curled thickly on the heavy lace of his collar, the deep red velvet of his coat moulded his lean, well-muscled body, the darker breeches emphasised the length of his legs, clad to the knee in burnished black leather boots.

  He put out a hand to receive her from Lawyer Stone and Henrietta saw that the only adornment on his long fingers was the ring she had given him at their betrothal. She glanced up at his face again, but his attention was on Mr Halsey as he opened his address to the congregation. Dutifully Henrietta followed the words, trying not to let the disturbing presence at her side distract her from the seriousness of what she was about to enter into.

  If the old vicar, Mr Hale, had still been alive she might have gone to him and told him of her divided loyalties to James and to Matthew, sought his counsel. But she knew little of Mr Halsey beyond his willingness to obey every directive of Parliament concerning the running of the church. The vivid wall-paintings depicting death and redemption that had survived the purges of Edward's reign had been whitewashed in the past year, leaving the church unadorned. No doubt he would be as eager to obey the rumoured directives to make all things in the church as plain. No, this was not a man to trust with a Royalist secret.

  As she rose from her knees beside Matthew Henrietta could see the tombs of past Wynters in what had once been the Lady Chapel. Knights and their ladies lay in effigy, lapdogs or lions at their feet, forever frozen in stone. On the wall a new tablet stood out from the rest, the writing sharply chiselled, as yet unworn by time. Her parents' names and that of James were clear from where she stood and the mason would be coming from Oxford soon to add the short record of Francis's life.

  Matthew's fingers tightened on hers and she realised he had followed her eyes. ‘They would have told you this is the right thing, Henrietta.’ His whisper was so low that she sensed rather than heard the words, but she pressed his fingers in return, grateful for his unexpected understanding.

  The vicar began on the vows and Henrietta listened with a full heart to Matthew's clear, firm voice repeating the words. She watched his face and saw the fleeting touch of pain as he spoke the final phrase, ‘. . .'til Death us do part.’

  He was thinking about his first wife, about Sarah whom he had loved and lost, and, true to his vow, was loving even now beyond death. It might be a sin to be jealous but how could she ever rival the perfect memory of the other woman when she was only human and imperfect?

  ‘Henrietta?’ The vicar was prompting her and she gathered her painfully wandering thoughts. Whatever Matthew's feelings for her she had her duty to do, and that duty began with the vows she was about to take.

  She spoke clearly and calmly, her voice audible in every part of the packed church as she swore to love, honour and obey the man beside her. The first was perhaps going to be possible, whether she liked it or not, the last two were more difficult – they would only be attained when she had got rid of the casket according to her conscience. She made a silent vow to herself to fulfil those promises as swiftly as possible.

  The cong
regation launched into a psalm and Henrietta found herself isolated in the sea of sound beside Matthew, her husband. At the end of the first ragged chorus the vicar led them to the vestry to sign the register. The old book held the record of her parents' marriage, her birth, the burials of her father and James. She took the pen from Matthew's hand and signed her old name for the last time, the last Wynter ever to sign in that book.

  ‘You may kiss the bride.’ Mr Halsey appeared to regard this as a necessary but distasteful part of the ceremony. Blushing, Henrietta lifted her face to Matthew who took her lips in a warm, gentle kiss.

  Aunt Susan, who was signing the register as a witness along with Lawyer Stone, Alice and Robert, looked up and sighed sentimentally. ‘How overjoyed your dear mother would have been to see you so happily married. I feel I have fulfilled my promise to her today.’

  ‘Now, now, my love, don't weep.’ Lawrence Stone hurriedly produced a large kerchief and dabbed her cheeks for her. ‘It will be our turn next, and I wish it with all my heart.’

  ‘Oh, Lawrence.’ Susan began to weep in earnest until Matthew bent to kiss her cheek.

  ‘I'll not have tears at my wedding, my dear aunt, if I may call you so. Not even though they are of joy.’

  ‘Are you not going to kiss Alice too?’ Henrietta asked slyly, knowing her friend's soft spot for her handsome bridegroom.

  ‘Willingly.’ He clasped Alice's rounded figure and gave her a smacking kiss under Robert's tolerant eye, leaving her flushed and giggling. ‘And now, Lady Sheridan, if you are ready?’

  Matthew offered her his left arm and she rested her fingertips lightly on the soft pile of the velvet doublet, feeling the hardness of muscle beneath. Her heart was beating faster than the measured steps they were taking down the length of the aisle. The bright sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, casting pools of colour on the grey stone flags as they walked past the rows of beaming faces, the knots of flowers Alice and the girls had tied to the pew ends, and out into the brilliant sunshine.