head, ‘that he is grateful to his lordship for saving him from the threat of the hangman’s noose, taking him in and giving him a clean home where he has regular meals. And though we oblige him to wash regularly, I am sad to say that we are still teaching young Jem to speak the King’s English, rather than the dreadful language he acquired in the gutter that spawned him.’
The hangman’s noose...
Mary’s mind went into a sort of dizzy spin, during which time several apparently random items fell rather more neatly into place. Her husband’s assurance to his sister that he’d made sure she was kind-hearted, her inability to work out how he could have done so, the lad’s pleading for mercy from Mr Morgan and the verger...
And the clincher—this lad’s total lack of fear, even when surrounded by his accusers, threatening him with gaol.
‘No real fear of the noose though, was there, Jem?’ she said acidly. ‘It was just a prank Lord Havelock put you up to, wasn’t it?’
The urchin’s grin widened. ‘No putting anything past you, is there, missus?’
The butler swatted him again. ‘It is your ladyship, not missus,’ he corrected the boy.
It might have been something in Mary’s expression as she realised what a fool her husband had made of her, time after time, or the lad’s vouching for her character, or her own veiled threat—but for whatever reason, the housekeeper was beginning to look rather alarmed.
‘Your ladyship,’ she said, pushing both butler and boy to one side. ‘Please come in out of the rain. We are so sorry you have caught us all unawares.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said the butler, wresting his attention from the boy to his new mistress and permitting Mary to finally step inside Durant House.
The hall was massive. And dark. So dark she couldn’t see to the far end of it. That was due in part to the shoulder-high wainscoting, which seemed to suck up what little light filtered in through the few windows that hadn’t been shuttered. She couldn’t see the ceiling either, no matter how far she craned her neck. But from the echo to the butler’s and housekeeper’s voices, she judged it was very, very high. On either side of the hall was a dark and ornately carved staircase, which ran by several stages, interspersed with half landings, up under a series of grimly glowering portraits until all disappeared into the murk above a gallery landing.
She wasn’t surprised her husband had likened it to a mausoleum.
‘We do not, just at present, even have anywhere for you to sit and take tea while we make your room ready,’ said the housekeeper nervously. ‘Everything is under holland covers.’
Mary wondered how the housekeeper would react if she simply went down to the kitchens and made herself a pot of tea?
But the poor woman had probably sustained enough shocks for one day.
‘I dare say you have your very own sitting room,’ said Mary. ‘Which I’m sure you keep comfortable enough for my needs, for now.’
‘Oh, yes, well, I do. Of course I do, your ladyship,’ said the housekeeper, torn between relief that her mistress wasn’t going to demand another room be made ready at once and consternation at having her invade her territory. ‘It’s this way,’ she said, pragmatism winning.
When Susan scuttled off somewhere with her portmanteau, Mary did her best to calm down. It wasn’t fair to take her hurt and anger out on servants.
‘Even if we had known you were coming,’ said the housekeeper apologetically as she poured the tea, ‘I wouldn’t have rightly known what room to show you into. The whole place has got that shabby.’
‘I know that there is a lot of work to be done here,’ said Mary, reaching for a slice of cake. ‘It is, in part, why Lord Havelock married me.’ Though the reminder depressed her, it seemed to have the opposite effect on the housekeeper.
‘Well, now,’ she said, perching on the very edge of her chair, ‘I’m that glad to hear it. That agent who acts for his lordship—well, I suppose he thinks he has his lordship’s best interests at heart, but—’
It was like a dam bursting. The housekeeper had clearly been storing up a lot of grievances. As they all came pouring out, Mary helped herself to a second slice of cake and turned her chair so that she could rest her feet on the fender. Her appetite had come roaring back now she was at journey’s end and there was no risk of getting back into that vile coach again. And met a housekeeper who was actually glad she’d come. And had a task to perform that would bring benefit to not only her husband, but to all the souls who lived in Durant House.
‘I think,’ said Mary, once she felt she simply couldn’t cram in any more of the delicious fruit cake, ‘that you should show me all over the place. So that I can get an idea of exactly what will be required.’
* * *
The tour took them right up to suppertime. Mary had known that titled families often owned houses in the town as well as having country estates, but somehow she’d never dreamed her husband would own such an impressive, if sadly neglected one. Neither he, nor his father, the housekeeper informed her, had taken any interest in the maintenance of what had originally been built as something of a showpiece.
Now every room cried out for attention. No wonder he’d moved into a set of cosy apartments and rented this place out. Not only was the amount of work required daunting for a bachelor, it was just too large for one person to live in alone.
Though living here alone was to be her fate, she reflected gloomily.
She felt even more alone when, at suppertime, the housekeeper came to escort her to the hastily tidied dining room and led her to the solitary place at the head of a table that could easily have seated thirty.
As attentive footmen served her course after course, she recalled her bold words about how a lick of paint and rearranging furniture could make any place feel more like home. She almost snorted into her soup. It would take more than that to make this dining room a comfortable place to eat her meals. But since she had no intention of leaving, she would just have to think of something else.
Perhaps there was a smaller, more convenient room in which she could eat her meals. Straight after the last footman had removed the last dish from the table, she went to see if she could find one. And very soon came across a little drawing room off the back of the entrance hall that overlooked the central courtyard around which the house was built. The fountain, which was on the housekeeper’s list of repairs, was just outside the window. It would make a very soothing background noise once she got a plumber in to get it working again.
She rang for the housekeeper at once.
When Mrs Romsey arrived, Mary told her that from now on, she wanted to have all her meals served there. And between them, they decided how best to rearrange what furniture there was, to make such a change of use possible.
And then, having started to put her own stamp on the place, Mary suddenly felt bone-weary.
Though she went upstairs, she wasn’t yet ready to climb into the bed where she was going to be sleeping alone for the foreseeable future.
Instead, she went into the sitting room that adjoined her bedroom, where she’d earlier seen a writing desk. Mrs Romsey had told her that the desk contained a supply of paper, should she wish
