fell early, and John Coachman was now gloomily aware that he must, in the dark among the snowdrifts, have taken a wrong turning, for he had no idea where they were, only that they were lost—something he didn’t see fit to tell his mistress. He called for directions to the postilion who was riding the near horse, who shouted back, ‘I’m as lost as you are, maister. Mayhap we’re nigh to Pontisford,’ which was no help at all, as there was no Pontisford in John’s book.
Worse, the road was growing impassable, and only the sight of the lights of a big house, dim among trees, gave him some hope that he might be able to drive them all there safely—perhaps to find shelter for the night.
He had no sooner made this decision, and told the postilion of it, than the horses, tired by their long exertions, slithered into a ditch which had been masked by the drifting snow. The coach tilted and was dragged along for a few feet before toppling slowly on to its side.
Hal, the footman, who was riding outside, was thrown clear. John, less fortunate, was caught up in the reins, and before he could free himself completely one of the falling boxes of luggage which had been stowed on top of the coach struck him a shattering blow on the arm, fortunately not breaking it.
Somehow avoiding the plunging horses, he fell across poor Hal, who was trying to rise, winding him all over again. The postilion had also been thrown clear, only to strike his head on a tree-trunk and fall stunned into the freezing ditch-water. They were later to discover that one of the horses had been killed in the fall, breaking its neck instantly.
The three passengers inside were flung from their seats to land half on the floor, half across the door next to the ground. Stacy, when everything had subsided, found herself with Louisa still in her arms and Polly, on top of both of them, gasping and moaning, her wrist having been injured in the fall.
Stunned and bruised, but happy to be alive, Stacy could only register that their ill-fated odyssey was at an end, and that she was somewhere in North Nottinghamshire, but where she had no idea…
Matt Falconer was wishing himself anywhere but in North Nottinghamshire. He and Jeb had arrived at Pontisford Hall two days earlier, after a hard and uncomfortable journey in a hired post-chaise which had stunk vilely of tobacco and ale.
All the hard and jolting way to North Nottinghamshire he had sustained himself with the thought of the comfortable billet which was waiting for them at journey’s end. The sardonic mode which ruled his life these days had told him later that if it were better to travel than to arrive then he might have guessed what he would find!
He had dismounted from the chaise in the dark of the November afternoon, the first snow of winter beginning to fall, to be greeted by an ill-clad bent old man whom Matt, with difficulty, had identified as Horrocks, the butler, whom he had last seen fifteen years ago as a man still hale and hearty.
‘And who the devil may you be, sirs,’ he had quavered at them, ‘to stop at Pontisford? There are none here to entertain you since my mistress died—only a few of the old retainers who cared for her are still living at the Hall.’
Matt had blinked at him. ‘Don’t you recognise me, Horrocks? It’s Matt Falconer. My aunt left me the Hall and I have come to claim my inheritance.’
The old man lifted the lantern he was carrying to inspect his face. He shook his head. ‘Master Matt, is it? Lord, sir, I would never have known you. You’ve changed.’
‘So have we all,’ Matt told him gently. ‘Are you going to let us in?’ He pointed at Jeb and the shivering driver.
‘Aye, but I warn you there’s little to eat and little to warm yourselves with,’ mourned Horrocks as he led them indoors. ‘No money’s come in since Lady Emily died, and we had little enough before that.’
Grimes had said nothing of this. Matt asked urgently, ‘And Lady Emily’s agent, where is he?’
‘Gone, Mr Matt. With the money. He upped and left two months ago, his pockets well-lined with all he’d stolen from the estate. But Lady Emily wouldn’t hear a word against him. Wandering in her mind, she was. I wrote to Lawyer Grimes, but by chance the letter went astray.’
Matt could only suppose that it had. He didn’t suspect Grimes of wrongdoing, only carelessness about matters taking place so far from London. He heard Jeb giving suppressed snorts of laughter as they entered the derelict house of which Matt had talked with such enthusiasm on the way north. It was plain that Lady Emily must have fallen into her dotage unable to control her life, for Horrocks’ lantern showed the entrance hall to be dank and cold, the statuary and furniture covered in filthy dust-sheets, the chandeliers empty of candles, the smell of must and mould everywhere. And the whole house was the same. There was a scuttle of rats in the wainscoting of an unheated drawing-room which Matt remembered as full of warmth and light and love.
His aunt had died earlier in the year in her late seventies, and, by what Horrocks had said, having been pillaged by her agent. Her mind wandering, she had seen Pontisford as it had been, and not as it was.
‘Turned nearly all the servants away, didn’t he?’ quavered Horrocks. ‘Only left enough to keep m’lady fed and bedded. Short commons, we was on, while he lived in comfort in his cottage with his doxy—you remember miller’s Nell, Master Matt?’
Yes, Master Matt remembered miller’s Nell. She had educated him in the coarser arts of love the year he had reached fifteen, on the edge of the park not far from the ford in the Pont from which the Hall and village took its name. He shook his head, avoided Jeb’s eye, and asked to go to the kitchen. Which was, as he had expected, the only warm room in the house.
The cook, a blowsy fat woman, stared coldly at him, bobbed an unwilling curtsy when told who he was, and grudgingly hung the big cauldron, which he remembered from his childhood visits, above the fire to make them tea. Bread was fetched from a cupboard, and a side of salt beef from which she carved coarse chunks of meat to fling at them on cracked plates. It was all as different from Matt’s memories as anything could be.
A thin-faced serving-girl peered at them before being bade to ‘Take the master’s food into the drawing-room as was proper’.
Jeb finally broke at this point, spluttering with laughter, and said, ‘By God, she’d better not do any such thing. I’ve no mind to freeze to death while sharing my meal with the rats.’
Matt would have joined in his laughter except for the agonised expression on Horrocks’ face—he shamedly remembering other, better days.
‘Right, Jeb, we’ll eat before the fire. At least this room is warm.’
The kitchen door was flung open and a hard-faced woman bounced in. ‘What’s going on in here, Cook? Entertaining chance-met strangers, are we? Not in my house.’
It was Matt’s turn to break. Bereft of his childhood’s dreams, unknown in the house where he had been known and loved, he said as coldly as he could, ‘Your house, madam? You are, then, Lady Emily Falconer?’
The woman drew herself up. ‘I was the late Lady Emily’s housekeeper, I’ll have you know, and as such it is my duty to see that the servants here do their duty. I’ll thank you to leave.’
Matt walked to the window to pull back the ragged curtain and reveal the snow falling relentlessly outside, ‘No, madam. It is you who must leave. Were it not for the weather I should turn you out this instant, for it is all you deserve if you say that you are responsible for the state which the Hall is in. I am Matthew Falconer,
