The Daughter of the Manor

‘Write? My dear girl, when do I ever have time to write letters?’ He squeezed her arm and gave her a charming smile. ‘Be good.’

She gravely said, ‘Yes, Tony,’ and he laughed as he got into the car.

‘Not much chance of being anything else, is there?’ he shouted at her as he started the engine.

He would have to go carefully, he decided as he drove; no more mention of moving her mother and father out of the house. Perhaps it might be a good idea to wait until they were married. He had no doubt at all that he could persuade her to do anything he asked of her once she was his wife.

A few weeks of comfortable living, new clothes, new faces, meals out—once she had a taste of all the things a girl wanted in the way of a carefree life she would come round to his way of thinking. The more he saw of the house, the more he intended to have it…

Leonora, happily unaware of his schemes, went indoors, placated her parents with very early morning tea, soothed a grumpy Nanny and went up to the attics to see if the rain had come in during the night. It had.

CHAPTER THREE

AT ABOUT the same time as Tony was getting into his car to drive back to London, Dr Galbraith was letting himself into his house. He had been called out in the very early hours to a farm some miles away from the village where the farmer’s elderly father had suffered a stroke and he’d waited with him until the ambulance had come to take him to Bath. He had followed it to the hospital, made sure that his patient was in good hands and then driven himself back home.

There was no question of going back to bed; he had morning surgery and a scattered round before mothers and babies’ clinic in the early afternoon. He went quietly across the square hall and up the uncarpeted oak staircase to his room at the front of the old house. He had his hand on the door when another door at the far end of the passage opened and a tall, bony man emerged.

He was middle-aged, with a long, narrow face, dark hair streaked with grey, combed carefully over a bald patch, and an expression of gloom.

‘Good morning, sir. You’ll need a cup of coffee. I’ll bring it up at once. Breakfast in an hour suit you?’

‘Admirably, Cricket. I’m famished.’

Cricket went back to his room, shaking his head in a disapproving manner. He never failed to disapprove when the doctor was called out at night, but that didn’t prevent him from making sure that there was a hot drink and a meal waiting for him. He had been with the doctor for a number of years now, running his house to perfection, cooking delicious meals, making sure that the cleaning lady did her work properly. In fact, he was a treasure.

The doctor drank his coffee, showered, dressed and went downstairs to his breakfast. It was light now, a chilly, breezy March morning, and he opened the door to the garden before going into the small sitting room at the back of the house, where Cricket had laid his breakfast.

It was a charming room, facing the rising sun, furnished comfortably with some nice old pieces and decidedly cosy, unlike the drawing room which was rather grand with its magnificent carpet, vast bow-fronted cabinets and the pair of sofas, one at each side of the marble fireplace. The drawing room also had comfortable chairs arranged here and there and a beautiful drum table in the bay window overlooking the front garden. It was a room the doctor used seldom, for dinner parties and on the occasions when his friends came to stay.

There was a dining room too, on the opposite side of the hall, with its Regency mahogany table and chairs and the splendid sideboard, and at the back of the hall his study, the room he used most of all.