Mrs Horne announced as the family sat in their handsome parlour. The Vicarage was a large, substantial house filled with the personal treasures accumulated over the last twenty-five years since Mrs Horne had first come there as a bride. It had a slightly shabby air—money had not been plentiful—but until the last few months that had not bothered the family one whit. However, today there was a slightly apprehensive look in her soft blue eyes, for Cynthia Horne had always been in awe of her sister, and the feeling had grown more overpowering since the tragic death of the Reverend Horne some months earlier. ‘Her note says that she has something she wishes to discuss with us.’
‘Do you think she is going to ask us to live with her?’ Jo asked, pulling a face. She had been cutting out a fashion plate from a magazine given her by some friends, which she intended to make into a doll for one of the poor children in the village. It was an attractive illustration; pasted on to a piece of board, it would make a toy for one of her worthy causes. Jo was always willing to help and had spent the morning visiting a poor family in the village. ‘I think I would rather not be her guest, Mama.’
‘You know we cannot stay here for much longer,’ Marianne reminded her sister. At nineteen she was the eldest of the three Horne sisters and generally accounted a beauty, with her honey-blond hair and eyes that were a greenish-blue and often reflected her moods. She had a soft, very appealing mouth and was known for her equable disposition. ‘It is only because the living is in Lord Wainwright’s gift that we have been allowed this special favour—and we cannot expect it to continue for ever. We ought by rights to have left within a month of Papa’s loss.’
The Reverend Horne’s death had been such a shock to his family, for he had always seemed hale and filled with energy, forever working for his parishioners or in his long back garden, where he thought it no shame to grow food for his table and that of others.
‘We need not despair,’ Mrs Horne said, trying to rally herself as much as her daughters, because any mention of the Reverend’s death was enough to have them all in tears. He was much missed by his family and parishioners alike. ‘There is always the cottage that belonged to your grandfather. It is mine, though it has been let for years and provides me with a small income of my own. However, we could live in it if we had to. I know it means moving to Cambridgeshire, but I think I might prefer that to living on Agatha’s charity, which would not be comfortable for any of us.’
‘Please, do not say we must live with Lady Wainwright,’ Lucy cried. Her blue eyes filled with tears. ‘If only darling Papa had not died. He was such a good person, always helping others. Why did he have to get pneumonia and die? I think God was cruel to take him from us.’ The youngest of the three sisters, she was her family’s darling. She burst into tears and was comforted by her eldest sister, who put an arm around her and hushed her.
‘Don’t cry, dearest,’ Marianne said, stroking Lucy’s soft hair, which was like pale silk, shimmering in a ray of sunshine that pierced the long windows overlooking the back garden. Just now the garden was a mass of roses and sweet-smelling flowers, a peaceful haven for the birds and droning bees. ‘We all wish that Papa was still with us, but tears will not change things. We have to decide what to do for the best. Uncle Wainwright has been good enough to let us stay here until we have had time to come to terms with our loss, but he needs to provide a proper house for the new vicar—and this is his property.’
Lord Wainwright was a generous man, and Marianne knew that her family had reason to be grateful to him, but his wife, her mama’s sister, lost no opportunity to make them aware of the fact that they were living on her husband’s charity. Lady Wainwright was very conscious of her position in society and had always let her sister know that she was very much below her in the social scale as the wife of a poor parson.
‘But it is our home,’ Jo said. ‘It is unfair that we should have to move. Why can the new vicar not live somewhere else? Lord Wainwright has plenty of houses. He could let us stay here if he wished.’
‘Because this is the Vicarage,’ Marianne said. Jo was the fiery member of the family. She had hair the colour of flame and eyes that were sometimes as green as the emerald in Mama’s wedding ring. ‘Uncle Wainwright may let us live in one of his other properties, but we must leave this house soon. It is the way things are, Jo, and there is nothing we can do but be grateful that we shall still have a home.’
‘Can you not talk to him, Mama?’ Jo demanded, unwilling to be pacified by her sister. ‘He likes you. I sometimes think he likes you more than he does Aunt Agatha.’
‘Jo!’ Mrs Horne was startled. She was well aware that her sister’s husband had feelings for her, but she was careful never to presume on them. ‘You must not say such things. It is quite untrue, my dear. Besides—’ She broke off as they heard the rattle of carriage wheels at the front of the house. ‘Your aunt is here. Please, my darlings, no more of this talk. Remember that for the moment we are living on your uncle’s charity.’
Jo subsided, though she looked stubborn. Of the three girls, she possibly found it the hardest to hide her resentment of the problems that had beset them since the Reverend Horne’s untimely death. She had a bright, quick mind like her father, and she had taken his loss hard. Marianne and Lucy grieved for Papa, as Mama did, of course, but it was Jo who was angry at the unfairness of their situation. The discovery that Papa’s trust fund, as a younger son, had ceased on his death, had thrown the family into a precarious situation financially.
Marianne smiled at her sister encouragingly. She understood what Jo was feeling, because she had never been particularly fond of her aunt. Lady Wainwright had a dominant personality and her marriage had given her an inflated idea of her own importance. A woman of some temper, she tended to look down on Mrs Horne because she had married for love a gentleman of good birth but little fortune—and perhaps, the perceptive Marianne thought, because she was aware that her sister had been truly loved.
Marianne rose to her feet as the imperious figure of her aunt swept into the room. Lady Wainwright was tall and thin, her features often giving the impression that she found life sour. She surveyed her sister’s family as they curtsied politely, nodding as if she expected no less. They were beneath her in rank, and must be made aware of what they owed to their benefactor.
‘Cynthia,’ she said and kissed the air as Mrs Horne presented her cheek. ‘You look tired. I suppose it is no wonder with all your troubles. Well, I have good news. Wainwright says you may have the Lodge. It is smaller than this house, but adequate, I dare say, for you cannot afford to entertain as you did. You will move as soon as it can be arranged.’
‘That is good of him…’ Mrs Horne was flustered, relieved that she was being offered a home, though there were only three bedrooms at the Lodge, which would mean that two of the girls must share, and their maid Lily would have to sleep in the kitchen on a truckle bed. ‘It is very kind of him, I’m sure.’
‘Yes, for he need not have done anything,’ Lady Wainwright said, ‘and would not but for the fact that you are my sister.’ She smiled in a satisfied way as she saw her sister fade back into her chair. ‘But that is not all my news. I must tell you that my physician has decided I need to take the waters in Bath.’ She put a hand to her ample bosom, just now clad in crimson silk. ‘Wainwright insists that I overdid things when we were in London. It was Annette’s coming out, as you know, and now that she is safely married I have time for your daughters, Cynthia.’
Marianne and Jo exchanged glances across the room, their expressions registering shock and dismay. Neither of them wished to be the centre of Lady Wainwright’s attention, but they knew that it must be one of them, for Lucy was too young to come out yet.
‘But we…’ Mrs Horne subsided under her sister’s frightful eye. ‘Of course we should be grateful for the house, but—’
