The Linden Walk

‘Well, not really. I have seen your emerald before. What I really wanted was the chance to wish you much happiness. It makes an old lady very glad to see it all coming right for Sir Andrew, you know. And could I presume to ask you to open the window a little? Can’t abide a stuffy room. Most kind …’

So this was how it was to be, Lyn thought as she unscrewed the window catch. Sir Andrew and Miss Lyndis. A far cry from the sailor on a minesweeper and she and Daisy meeting him when his boat docked.

‘How’s that? Feel a draught?’

‘That is fine, thank you. I wouldn’t have asked, but it’s my hands. A little arthritic. Fiddling catches …’

‘Miss Clitherow! If I can’t open a window without –’ She bit back her words, knowing at once it was the wrong thing to have said. Agnes Clitherow was a servant of the old order and did not ask the woman who was to be lady of the house to open windows. ‘And I’m pleased we can have this chat,’ she rushed on, ‘because you have been here so long, know so much about the Rowangarth Suttons. I’d be so glad if you would sometimes talk to me about them. My ring, for instance. You said you had seen it before. When, exactly?’

‘When Sir Gilbert Sutton gave it to his wife, Lady Mary – Sir Andrew’s great-grandmother – on their tenth wedding anniversary. I was housemaid to the Suttons, then.’

‘And you came to Rowangarth …?’

‘I came here with Lady Helen as a bride. By the time she was married I had been trained up to parlour maid. It seemed natural for me to accept when she asked me to come here to Rowangarth with her – as housekeeper, mind. Such a promotion, and me only four years older than Miss Helen. But I put my hair into a bun and tried to look severe, so no one quite knew how old – or young – I really was.’

‘But, Miss Clitherow – that means you were born in 1856 and that you are –’

‘In my ninety-second year, Miss Lyndis, and you are one of the few who knows it.’

‘Then I won’t tell. Promise.’

Come to think of it, there was a lot she would not tell, Lyn brooded, like the future Lady Sutton being illegitimate. Strange that for so long she had never known who her real mother was. Such a shock – a wonderful shock – to discover it was really the woman she had always believed to be her aunt. Blodwen, who had given her all the love she had ever known, and taken over her upbringing when as a young girl she was put in charge of the ship’s nurse at Mombasa, en route for school in England. And never, had she but known it, to return to Kenya. Myfanwy and Blodwen. Twin sisters. Chalk and cheese. Myfanwy, her name changed to Margot, looking forward at her wedding to Jack Carmichael to a lady’s life in Kenya; Blodwen, two months pregnant with Jack’s child, loving him so much, yet saying not one word about it until it was too late. And Lyndis, their indiscretion, being grudgingly taken to Kenya by Jack’s wife.

‘Did you know I’m to wear Daisy’s wedding dress, Miss Clitherow?’ Forget the past, Lyndis! Her father and her real mother happy at last, even though they are miles away, in Kenya! ‘It’s so beautiful. I think it’s better, even, than Princess Elizabeth’s.’

‘Ah, yes. A fairytale wedding. Such a glorious gown. It was right and proper the princess should be given an extra coupon allowance for it.’

‘Hm. I wonder, at two clothing coupons for one yard of material, just how many that wedding dress gobbled up. And I still think Daisy’s dress is the nicest I’ve ever seen. So soft and full and floaty. She offered it to Tatiana, you know, but Tatty wants a quiet wedding.’

‘Miss Tatiana has grown into a lovely person. It’s sad her father didn’t live to walk her down the aisle. And sad she never had a brother. Things would have been very different at Pendenys Place if that little boy had lived.

‘But you wanted to know about the Rowangarth Suttons, about how it was. Lady Helen and Sir John. Miss Helen she was then. Helen Stormont and hardly out of the schoolroom when they met.’

‘Tell me,’ Lyndis smiled, ‘was it romantic?’

‘Oh my word, yes! Her coming-out ball. I was in service, then, with the Stormonts as parlour maid and they had rented a house in London for the social season. I was one of the lucky ones they took to London with them. I remember seeing Miss Helen before she went off to that ball. Dressed in baby blue silk, trimmed with white lace, and white rosebuds in her hair. It was that night she met Sir John and fell head over heels in love. Sir John was smitten, too; but then, the Rowangarth Suttons have always been lucky in love.

‘Miss Julia was twice lucky. Doctor Andrew, her first husband, was a fine gentleman. Lady Helen adored him. And the Reverend has made Miss Julia happy, too,’ the old woman smiled, eyes misty with remembering. ‘And now Sir Andrew is to be married. I pray I’ll be spared to see that day.’

‘Miss Clitherow – of course you will. June the eighteenth, next year. Not long to wait.’

‘I suppose not. The poor young man has waited long enough. But for that dreadful bomb, he and Miss Kitty would have – Oh, I am so sorry. Shouldn’t have said that. Whatever was I thinking about? Getting old, you see. Sometimes I don’t think.’ Her voice trembled, tears filled her eyes. ‘Forgive me?’

‘Miss Clitherow, don’t be upset. Please, please don’t cry.’ Gently Lyndis wiped away the tear that ran down the wrinkled cheek, then took the agitated hands in her own. ‘I know how much everyone loved Kitty. I held Daisy in my arms and we both cried for her when she was killed, and for Drew, too.

‘Kitty will always be remembered because she was such a special person. I know that and I won’t ever try to take her place in the Clan. But I know how much you care for Drew and I promise always to love and care for him. There now – does that make you happy?’

‘It does, Miss Lyndis. And bless you for not taking offence where none was meant. I think you will do very nicely for Sir Andrew. Just then, when you dried my tears and spoke so kindly and gently to me, you reminded me of Lady Helen. Oh, yes, Sir Andrew will be twice happy, just as Miss Julia has been.’

‘Thank you. And I think you are tired. Shall I go, now, and let you have a little sleep?’

‘Most kind. Yes, I generally have a little nap about this time.’

‘Then close your eyes. I’ll tuck your rug around you.’

But Agnes Clitherow did not hear. Already she was asleep, breathing softly, a small smile on her lips.

‘I’ll make Drew happy, I promise.’ Gently, Lyn kissed her cheek then quietly closed the door behind her. ‘But oh, Kitty Sutton from Kentucky, you are going to be such a hard act to follow …’

For just a moment, doubt took her and she wondered how she would cope, and if she had been wise to say yes to Drew. Because the man she had loved since first she laid eyes on him already had two other loves to lay claim to him – Kitty and Rowangarth, and if Lyndis Carmichael was to have any chance of happiness she, too, must learn to love them both. They were a part of Drew and nothing could, or would change it.

Her eyes, as she walked slowly up the stairs, met those in the portrait of a long-ago Sutton – the one, was it, who fought at Balaclava? He wore a splendid red jacket, braided with gold, and was not one bit like the sailor whose cap she retrieved when Daisy, in her excitement, had thrown herself into his arms and sent that cap rolling along the pavement in wartime Liverpool.

She stood for a while, head high, eyes accepting the challenge.

‘I will make him happy, I damn well will!’

A light shone from the kitchen window at the Bothy and Julia opened the front door and called, ‘You there, Polly?’

‘I am, Mrs Sutton,’ Keth’s mother, Polly Purvis, smiled, from the top of the stairs. ‘I’ve been having a good look round. Upstairs is ready for the carpets and curtains, now.’

‘Y’know, Polly, I never thought I’d say this, but thank heaven for Pendenys Place and all those carpets and curtains going to spare.’

‘And thank heaven the dratted moths didn’t get at them. Six years in storage is a long time.’

‘There isn’t the moth flying,’ Julia grinned, ‘that would dare eat Aunt Clemmy’s carpets.’

Only the very best for Clementina Sutton’s father who had built Pendenys Place for his only child as a wedding dowry, then furnished it with ostentatious bad taste.

‘Curtains came back from the cleaners yesterday. I hung them on the line outside to sweeten. Will Stubbs said he’d make a start on getting the curtain poles put back if someone will tell him what height they’re to go. I’ll see to it, if you like.’

‘You’re a treasure, Polly. I’m glad you are coming to work for Nathan and me and you’ll know that as a Sutton employee you won’t have to pay rent on your almshouse any longer. Starting October first, I think it should be.’

‘Why, thank you I’m sure.’ She flushed with pleasure to think of five shillings a week saved.

‘And see Tom if you want the odd rabbit or two, don’t forget. Rowangarth perks, Polly.’

‘Then I’ve got to be honest and admit that he slips me a rabbit every week.’

‘Well, he would,’ Julia laughed, ‘your son being married to his daughter. But it’s official, now. And a load of logs at Christmas.’

‘I’m obliged, Mrs Sutton.’

Life, Polly Purvis thought, seemed only to get better with each year that passed. Rowangarth had been good to her after what had happened in Hampshire and a far cry away from the night she accepted she was a widow, with a child to rear and only ten shillings a week to manage on. Rowangarth – and the Suttons – had given her more than she ever dare hope for. Now, she was contented with a son who had married his childhood sweetheart, Daisy – aye, and given her a granddaughter, too. If only she could go back, just the once, to the little house called Willow End they once lived in, and on to the village and the churchyard, where Dickon lay.

But Hampshire was a long way away, and sentimental journeys cost money, so she had contented herself with the photograph of the grave that Keth and Daisy took when they honeymooned in Winchester. Dickon was resting sweetly and out of his pain and shame, Polly brooded, and if there was a heaven then he would know how often she thought about him and missed him, still.

‘I’m going to miss Rowangarth.’ Julia’s voice called Polly back from her rememberings. ‘Was born there, lived all my life there, too. But Nathan and I will be very snug here, and it’s only right and proper that Drew takes over Rowangarth. After all, it belongs to him. Come to think of it, it’s been his since he was two hours old.’