Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(37)
The Marquess of Dorchester employed a man of business to manage his investments and numerous properties, among them the cottage in Devonshire. He considered the man upright, honest, and trustworthy, and therefore did not bother his own head too much with details. However, he did seem to recall that the Devonshire property was tended and maintained by a resident housekeeper and a handyman, conveniently husband and wife, who had stayed on after his great-aunt’s death. He could not remember their name when he sent a letter notifying them of his imminent arrival with a guest and of his intent to remain there for a couple of weeks or so. He addressed the letter simply to the housekeeper. As far as he remembered from a few boyhood visits, there were no other dwellings close by, and the nearest town was several miles to the west. Reaching it entailed either a lengthy and tedious journey northward by carriage to a ford and a sturdy bridge across the river, or a more direct descent of the steep hillside below the cottage by foot or on horseback to a narrow stone bridge and a steep ascent of the hill on the other side.
In either case, one did not simply dash into town to purchase an item or two whenever the whim took one. It would not seem wise, then, to arrive unannounced to the discovery that there was virtually no food in the house or other essential supplies.
They arrived on a warm, sunny afternoon, though there had been a hint of autumn in the air earlier. It was much as Marcel remembered it, though he had forgotten the small village on the eastern side of the valley, closer to the house than the town on the other side. The village was really little more than a church and a tavern and a cluster of houses, however, in a slight dip of land with a view out to sea. What the people who lived there did for a living and for entertainment was anyone’s guess. His guess was that the tavern did a roaring trade, and perhaps the church too.
The valley itself was obscured for the beholder by a slight rise and a few clusters of trees until one came upon it suddenly, a wide swath of greenery sliced into the land with a river flowing through the bottom of it. Its long slopes were carpeted in rich green ferns and shaded by trees, some of which were beginning to show signs of autumn. The cottage, just as he remembered it, was on the near hillside, far enough down the slope to be invisible until one could see the whole valley plunging beneath one’s feet. It had no private garden, though its stone walls were festooned with ivy and other climbing plants. The valley was its garden.
There was a way down to it even for the carriage. A wide dirt laneway approached it from some distance to the north rather than from directly above, in order to minimize the slope. It really was quite impressive if one favored remote rural living. Or if one were seeking out a cozy love nest where one was unlikely to be distracted or disturbed.
For his purposes it was perfection itself.
“Oh my goodness.” Viola sat forward in her seat as the carriage topped the rise and began its careful descent to the house. “This is magnificent, Marcel.” She was looking from side to side through the windows, trying to see everything at once.
And it really was. Calling the house a cottage was somewhat misleading, for it was no hovel. Neither was it a mansion, however. There were six—or was it eight?—bedchambers abovestairs and an equivalent number of rooms downstairs, variously designated in his great-aunt’s time by names like parlor, sewing room, morning room, and writing room. It was built of yellowish stone with a tile roof, in which there were dormer windows, presumably belonging to the servants’ quarters. The plants that grew on the walls looked well tended. A thread of smoke rose straight into the sky from a wide chimney. There was a stable block off to one side and a chicken coop.
“What a beautiful house,” she said. “But it must surely have been built originally by a recluse. There is no other building in sight.”
“Or by a romantic,” he said. “Perhaps by a man who wished to escape the bothers of life with a woman of his choosing.”
She turned her head to look at him. There had been a strange tension between them all day with the knowledge that they were approaching their destination. He had been thinking that perhaps he ought not to have suggested this place or any specific destination. For the very nature of running away surely implied no fixed direction, but rather a constant wandering onward as inclination led. They had had a taste of the pleasures of it on the way here.
“Perhaps,” she said, “we are being disrespectful to your great-aunt’s memory.”
“Family lore has it,” he told her, “whispered behind hands, I might add, but children have ears at full attention when they hear whispers. Family lore has it that she lived here for years and years with another woman, euphemistically known as her dearest friend and companion, until that other woman died. And then she lived on here, solitary and doubtless lonely and respectable enough once more to be visited by family members. Respectable and rich. It was during those later years that I was brought here and climbed onto her lap and into her heart—and her will.”
The carriage had drawn to a halt, and a buxom, red-cheeked woman in a mobcap and spotless white apron tied about a voluminous dress was standing on the stone doorsill outside the open front door, smiling and bobbing curtsies while the coachman opened the door and set down the steps.
“Good day to you, sir,” she said when Marcel had descended to the hardened dirt terrace before the door. “I had your letter, and I sent Jimmy into town yesterday with a list as long as your arm. I have a meat-and-vegetable stew bubbling away on the hob and ready whenever you are hungry, and fresh baked bread to go with it, and I took the liberty of hiring Maisie from the village—Jimmy’s niece’s girl—to help me put clean linen on the beds and beat the rugs and dust the furniture and polish the brass, though I always do that once a fortnight anyway. With your permission I will keep her on while you are here to help with the extra work. Jimmy has fixed the door on the carriage house and mended the leak in the roof, and he has mucked out all the stalls for the extra horses and got in plenty of fresh straw and feed for them. And how do you do, ma’am? I daresay you are ready for a nice cup of tea and some of my fresh scones. Jimmy got some more tea yesterday, and I have filled the caddy so there will be plenty whenever you fancy a pot.”