Bertie or Lady V, and she fell silent.
She was far too tired to talk, anyway. Her brain felt like day-old porridge.
At the top of the stairs the hallway stretched off in two directions. After depositing his employer’s luggage in a room on the right, and after Marianne bid Lady Violet a polite goodnight, Bertie turned and led her in the opposite direction, down the left side of the hallway to a door at the far end.
“Here t’are, miss.” He opened the door and set her rucksack down on a chair just inside. “It’s off I go nae, divvn’t you kna, so I’ll say goodnight to ye.”
Marianne stared at him blankly. She didn’t know if it was her sleep-deprived brain or just a Geordie language barrier, but she didn’t understand a word he’d said.
“Um…okay. Thanks, Mr…Bertie.”
But he was already gone.
With a sigh Marianne shut the door and sagged back against it. She knew she ought to take a shower, but decided it could wait until morning. With another yawn she stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and crawled, shivering, under the thick pile of blankets on the bed.
Within seconds, she was asleep.
***
The ringing of a bell woke her late the next morning.
How quaint. Sleepily, Marianne opened her eyes and stretched, like a contented feline, in the patch of sunshine that painted her bed with stripes of golden light. There must be a church nearby.
The ringing came again, and she shot up in bed as she realised it was her mobile phone. Bloody hell, but she’d forgotten to charge it last night…
“Hello?” she croaked as she grabbed the mobile from the nightstand and held it to her ear.
“Marianne!” her mother cried. “Did you arrive safely? You never called.”
“Sorry, mum. I only just woke up…we got here late – very late – last night.”
“Good. We were a bit worried when we didn’t hear from you. Is it very nice there?”
“I didn’t get much of a look round last night,” Marianne admitted, and lowered her voice in awe as her glance swooped around the room, “but my bedroom’s brill.”
She admired the four-post Jacobean bed piled high with white and purple duvets, and the cushioned window seats, perfect for curling up with a book, that looked out over hills thick with yellow gorse and purple heather…and blue skies adrift with clouds as puffy and white as the eiderdown that covered her.
And although the room was lovely, with a lavish, old-fashioned charm that was impossible to resist, she still felt a pang of loss at the thought of the bedroom – and the home – she’d left behind.
“Where’s Elinor?” Marianne asked as she threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her feet dangled at least six inches from the floor.
“Overseeing the packing. You know how organised your sister is, always planning ahead and managing the finances.” Mrs Holland sighed. “Such as they are.”
“It’ll all come right, mum, don’t worry. Ellie’s great at financial…stuff. She’ll get it all sorted. At least we’ll have a place to live in the meantime, and I’ll soon have a job.”
“A job? I’d much rather you both found husbands. I won’t lie about that.”
Marianne laughed. “I doubt we’ll find husbands up here,” she said as she went to the window and curled up on the cushioned sill. “Unless we marry a farmer, or a sheepherder.”
“There’s no shame in marrying a farmer. Perhaps Lady Violet can introduce you to a few eligible young men of her acquaintance –”
“No, thank you,” Marianne retorted. “I can only imagine the sort of boring old aristos she’d consider “suitable”. No way.”
“Oh, well, time enough for all of that later, I suppose. I’ll ring you when our plans are firm. Elinor’s sold her horse to one of the neighbour’s farms so we can buy train tickets to Northumberland.”
Dismay swept over her. “Ellie sold Jingle? But she loves that horse.”
Elinor and the bay stallion were inseparable from the time their father presented him to her on her fifteenth birthday. She rode him nearly every day and groomed and curried the animal herself. She’d worked at the dress shop in the village on weekends to help pay for Jingle’s oats and tack and farrier bills.
“She won’t show it, of course,” Mrs Holland said with a sigh. “You know how stoic your sister is. She hides it, but I know she’s upset. Still – needs must. We can’t afford the care and feeding of a horse any longer, not that we ever really could; we need the money to pay for our train fare and moving expenses.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Someone’s here,” Marianne said. She eyed her phone’s power indicator and saw it was down to one bar. “Plus my mobile’s about to die. I’ll call you later, okay? And give Ellie my love.”
“Of course I will. And don’t forget to call us.”
“I won’t,” she promised, and ended the call.
She was bent over, with her knickers-clad arse in the air as she plugged her phone into its charger, when another, sharper knock followed the first, and the door opened.
Marianne gasped and whirled around, crossing her arms ineffectually over her bra as she did.
“Miss Holland,” Lady Violet chirped as she peered around the edge of the door, “so sorry to interrupt – are you decent?”
“Um…yes, sort of. Come in, please.”
She came in and shut the door after her. “Are you coming down to breakfast, dearest? Only it’s half past nine and Mrs Fenwick won’t hold the buffet over much longer. She’s a dragon about promptness.”
“Sorry. I’ll be right there, promise.”
“Quite all right. I don’t want you to miss breakfast.” She eyed the girl’s bra-and-knickers clad body with barely disguised envy. “What I wouldn’t give to be young again! To have a trim figure and all of my life before me once more…all those pretty clothes…all the parties…all those handsome young men…”
Marianne scrabbled through her rucksack and withdrew a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and stepped into the jeans. “Believe me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Lady Valentine. Everyone’s always trying to fix me up with someone,” she added, “or asking when I plan to get married and how many children do I want to have. It’s beyond tiresome.”
“Yes, I imagine it is. I’m sorry.”
Marianne paused with one leg thrust in her jeans and regarded her hostess in dismay. “Oh, it’s okay – I didn’t mean any offence, Lady Valentine–”
“Lady
