“Nothing about Sophie’s family? Or the wedding itself?” Miss Blake asked.
“Sometimes less is more.”
“So . . .” Miss Blake glanced at the captain, fingering the fringe on the sofa cushion. “I suppose your brother attended as witness? Or was it that friend of yours from the army, Keith something?”
“Neither, actually. Wesley has sailed for Italy again. And Lieutenant Keith was . . . indisposed. Though he did mention he would be coming here. In fact, I am surprised he isn’t here already.”
“Do you expect him soon?” Miss Blake asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“Heaven help us all,” Mrs. Overtree sighed. “I shall have to warn Cook to double her recipes.”
chapter 10
After the captain excused himself and Mrs. Overtree left to talk to the cook, Kate looked out the window and said, “Come, Sophie. The sun is out and the wind has died down. Let us go and take a turn around the grounds.”
“Thank you. I would enjoy that.”
She and Kate went to retrieve their wraps, bonnets, and gloves, while Miss Blake reclaimed hers from the footman. They went out a side door and through a stone archway into a walled garden beyond.
“In a month or so, there will be flowers everywhere,” Kate said.
For the present, they enjoyed the circle of shaped hedges, the topiaries, vine-covered trellises, and fountain. They walked around the back of the house, past a lawn-bowling green and a pretty stream crossed by a small stone bridge. Then they continued around the side, near the stables.
There, Miss Blake pointed to a rooftop visible through the trees beyond the garden wall. “Windmere lies just there. See that door in the wall? I use it more than anyone, I think.”
They continued their circle around the house until they approached the front. There Sophie admired a charming dovecote resembling a miniature cottage with a tiled roof.
As they reached the entrance gate, Kate pointed out the church on its other side.
“Have you met our vicar?” Miss Blake asked her.
“No, not yet,” Sophie replied.
Sophie’s gaze trailed over the stone wall separating the manor from the churchyard with its leaning cankered headstones and junipers dotted with frosty white and blue berries.
Kate began to explain something of the history of the church, but Sophie wasn’t really listening. She was not fond of moldering old churches. And besides that, she was distracted by something. An awareness. A prickle of unease crept up her neck, as though someone was watching her. She looked at Miss Blake beside her, but the woman’s gaze remained on the church. Sophie glanced over her shoulder at the manor and saw a curtain fall back into place in a top-story window. Had someone been watching them? A little shiver passed over her, even as she told herself she was being foolish. Probably only a curious housemaid. Hadn’t Mrs. Overtree said their rooms were up there?
A thin young man with light reddish-blond hair stepped out of the church.
“There’s Mr. Harrison,” Kate said, abruptly ending her history lecture and breaking away from their trio, walking over to speak to the man over the low wall.
“The vicar is such a young man,” Sophie observed.
“Oh no, that isn’t the vicar,” Miss Blake said, making no move to follow Kate. “That is his . . . well . . . son.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Mr. Nelson and his wife took in David Harrison there when he was a lad of five or six. Raised him as their own.”
“What happened to his parents?”
Miss Blake hesitated. “It is very sad, really. I don’t normally speak of it, but as you are Kate’s family now, I suppose it is all right to tell you.” She lowered her voice. “Mr. Harrison’s mother was not married. His father was supposedly a gentleman, but he could not be brought round to do his duty, apparently. It was a terrible scandal. Her parents were mortified. Her father lost his curacy over it, and refused to receive her or support her. Poor Mr. Harrison was born in a poorhouse—but don’t tell Mrs. Overtree—I don’t think she knows that detail, and it will not help his cause with Kate. Such as it is.”
Sophie was filled with sorrow and empathy for these people she’d never met. “What became of his mother?”
Miss Blake sighed. “She died of consumption eventually. Alone and in poverty. It breaks my heart to think of it.”
Sophie was surprised to see tears brighten Miss Blake’s eyes. Sophie felt tears sting her own eyes, and whispered, “Mine too.”
When they returned to the house, Captain Overtree was just coming down the stairs. “There you are,” he said to Sophie. “Good walk?” When she nodded and removed her bonnet, he said, “Would you mind coming with me? There is someone I would like you to meet.”
“Of course.”
“Let me guess,” Kate said. “Miss Whitney.”
“Yes.” He turned to Sophie and added, “Our old nurse.”
“Horrors.” Miss Blake shuddered. “Don’t let the old thing frighten you, Sophie. Or tell your fortune.”
Kate playfully smacked her arm. “Angela, don’t say such things. Winnie is an old dear, and you know it.”
Miss Blake shook her head. “I beg to disagree. That’s not how I recall her, especially when we were younger. Always seemed to know what we were up to, and caught us misbehaving, as if she could read our minds. . . .” She shivered theatrically.
“You exaggerate.”
“I cannot believe your mother puts up with her.”
“Hush. Don’t give her any ideas. She wouldn’t hesitate to put her out if Stephen were not so insistent.”
“Why he is, I shall never understand.”
“She still lives here in the house?” Sophie asked in surprise.
“Yes,” Kate replied. “Tell her I shall be up to see her tomorrow.”
“That makes one of us,” Miss Blake said. “In fact, you may refrain from mentioning me altogether,” she added, and bid them all good-day.
As Sophie and Captain Overtree crossed the hall together, Sophie said, “I am surprised she still lives here. Kate is too old for a governess, let alone a nurse.”
“I know. But Kate and I have always been fond of Miss Whitney. We have kept her on as a retainer. She had nowhere else to go, and her age and . . . health . . . make finding another position unlikely. It took some doing to convince Mamma to let her remain in the house, but in the end, Kate and I prevailed.”
Captain Overtree led her up one flight of stairs after another, toward the top floor. Sophie thought of the window curtain she had seen flutter closed. Might it have been this Miss Whitney? Was she the reason the captain went up these stairs last night, and not to visit a housemaid as she’d feared?
“Mamma rarely ventures up here,” he said. “None of the family do, save Kate and me.”
They reached the landing at the top of the stairs, and he knocked on the first door.
A female voice called from within, “Just a minute!”
“Winnie? It’s me. Stephen.”
With a reassuring smile at Sophie, he pushed open the door and gestured her inside.
A slight woman beside a wardrobe whirled toward them. “I said, just a minute!” She looked flushed and guilty, as if caught half-dressed or doing something wrong.
“Oh. It’s you, Master Stephen.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “You gave me a start.”
She wore a blue gown with a white lace collar. Fair, silvery hair pulled back in a loose coil framed a well-shaped face and cornflower blue eyes. She had been handsome once, Sophie thought. And still was in her way.
The sitting room was larger and cheerier than Sophie would have expected. And through an open door, she spied an adjoining chamber with a single bed. More than twenty years of memorabilia decorated the walls: finger-painted flowers and childish drawings. A jar of daffodils and hand-lettered sentiments sat propped on her side table. One caught her eye: To Winnie. Get better soon. Love, Stephen.
The
captain introduced her, and Sophie said, “How do you do, Miss Whitney. Captain Overtree speaks very highly of you.”
The woman clucked her tongue, a twinkle in her eye. “So formal. I am Winnie, and he, as you very well know, is Stephen. Of course I realize many married women insist on calling their husbands by their surnames, but if one is to share a life and a bed and children I think one might justifiably use one’s Christian name, don’t you agree?”
“I . . . shall have to give that some thought.”
Miss Whitney remained standing with her back to the wardrobe. From inside came the sound of muffled mewing.
She said, “I . . . was afraid it was your mother come to call. I know how she feels about . . .” She pressed her lips together and darted a glance at Sophie. Another meow of protest came from the cupboard. “And how does the new Mrs. Overtree feel about . . . pets in general?”
Sophie bit back a grin. “I have never had one. But I’ve always thought cats must be charming.”
Miss Whitney expelled a sigh of relief and turned to open the cupboard door. An orange tabby immediately emerged, miffed and indignant, and quickly trotted over to investigate Captain Overtree’s boots.
“Cats are delightful, indeed,” Miss Whitney agreed. She sat gracefully on a worn but pretty chaise longue that reminded Sophie of the one in Mavis Thrupton’s spare room. Sophie noticed an open magazine, spectacles, teacup, and plate of biscuits close at hand.
Sophie had imagined a staid old woman sitting bent over her knitting. But Stephen’s former nurse was not a frail octogenarian, but rather a woman in her early sixties. She was slight but apparently spry. Captain Overtree had mentioned something about her health, but Sophie noticed no obvious ailment. She wondered what was wrong with her.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, my dear,” the woman said earnestly. “Master Stephen is the first of my ‘children,’ as I think of them, to marry. Happy thought indeed.”
Sophie smiled. But the woman did not return the gesture. Instead she studied Sophie’s face with concern, a wrinkle between her brows. Voice low and gentle, she asked the captain, “What is she afraid of . . . ?”
Captain Overtree pulled a face. “Me, I guess.”
“Can’t blame her for that,” Miss Whitney teased, then sobered again, looking at Sophie closely. “Poor girl. . . .” she murmured.
“Whatever do you mean?” Sophie asked, feeling discomfited under the woman’s scrutiny.
“I see . . . sadness in your eyes. Heartache. You miss someone.”
“I . . .” Sophie felt rattled. Awkward. Who did the woman mean? How did she know? “I miss my family, of course. But that is only natural.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Your mother, I think, most of all.”
Sophie blinked in surprise. “Yes. But my mother is—”
“Passed on, yes. Poor child.”
“How did you know that?” Sophie turned to Stephen. “You must have mentioned it to her.”
“Not that I recall, though I may have done.” The captain shrugged. “Winnie has always had a way of knowing things.”
“Or perhaps Miss Katherine mentioned it,” Winnie suggested. “She was just up to see me yesterday. Brought me these lovely daffodils.”
She patted the empty spot next to her on the chaise, and Sophie dutifully sat down. The orange tabby leapt onto Winnie’s lap. “Oh, Gulliver.” Winnie shook her head and scratched the cat between the ears.
“As in Gulliver’s Travels?” Sophie asked.
“Why, of course! Master Stephen’s favorite book as a boy. Every night, he begged me to read one more chapter.”
The captain crossed his arms and said fondly, “Most of the time, she gave in.”
Sophie smiled, trying to imagine Captain Overtree as a little boy, eager for an adventure story.
Winnie shifted the purring cat and grinned at Sophie with girlish dimples. “And what have they told you about me? That I am off in my attic? A danger to myself and others?” She tsked her tongue and shook her head. “The mistress would have put me out long before now, but thanks to Master Stephen here, I have a roof over my head.”
“It is the least I could do, Winnie.”
“You’re a good boy.”
Captain Overtree stepped to the window, frowning at the inordinate number of birds fluttering on the ledge outside. “Deuced things—they must be nesting in the eaves. I shall ask Jensen to send a man up . . .”
“Please don’t, Master Stephen. I have taken to feeding the birds on that little ledge. I hope you don’t mind. They give me such pleasure.”
“Oh. Very well. If you don’t mind the mess.”
Winnie turned back to Sophie and patted her hand. “Well, Mrs. Overtree, you come and visit me whenever you like. But not at night, if you don’t mind. I prefer . . . daytime visits.”
“Of course.” Recognizing her cue to leave, Sophie rose. “A pleasure to meet you.”
The captain held the door for her, and together they made their way back downstairs.
Sophie whispered, “Does she never come downstairs?”
“Not often. She has become something of a hermit up there, sorry to say.”
“But she isn’t an invalid or anything. She appears quite fit, at least physically.”
He nodded. “Now and again Kate cajoles her out into the garden. Or to church on Holy days. Otherwise she prefers to keep to herself. She always ate her meals in her room or the nursery—with us when we were children—and now on her own.”
When they returned to their bedchamber, he said quietly, “I have known Miss Whitney all my life. She is kind and wise.” He made a rueful face. “She is also the person who told me I would not live to see my thirtieth birthday. I don’t credit it completely, of course. But she’s been right about so many things over the years. . . .”
Sophie stared at him. “Then perhaps your mother is correct, and Miss Whitney’s mind is slipping.”
He shook his head. “I think she is perfectly lucid. Yes, she forgets things now and again, especially when she is tired or ill. But that is normal for her age. Probably doesn’t help that she is alone so much.”
“Has she no friends? Other women in her situation? Retired governesses, or nurses like herself?”
“Not that I know of. Most governesses and nurses are the poor spinster aunts to equally struggling relations and end up in an almshouse somewhere.”
“How sad.”
He nodded. “It is why I have made such an effort to keep her here. I want her remaining days to be as comfortable and secure as the early days of my life were, thanks in great part to her.”
Sophie had never heard the quiet captain speak so much or so warmly about anyone else. She found his loyalty to his old nurse touching and, in this instance, slightly troubling.
“May I ask why you are so attached to Winnie, while your mother and others clearly are not?”
He nodded. “She and Mamma have often butted heads over the years. Winnie thought my parents preferred Wesley, so she in turn, doted on me. Mamma always resented it, I think. As did Wesley.”
“But . . . she said you weren’t going to live, and you believe her?” Sophie hoped she didn’t sound as incredulous as she felt.
He shrugged. “I know it doesn’t make sense. But I have to allow for the possibility, because I have never known Miss Whitney to be wrong.” His gaze lingered on her face. “Though I hope that this time she might be.”
Stephen’s explanation had been true, if generalized. He could recount many times in his youth when Miss Whitney had inexplicably known things. But as far as the enmity between Winnie and his mother, he would trace its roots to a specific occasion when he and Wesley were adolescents. The housekeeper had reported two medals missing from their grandfather’s desk. Wesley lost no time in reporting that he had seen one in Stephen’s room. Stephen denied stealing anything, but the major—his grandfather’s rank at the time—had given Stephen one of his campaign medals in private, for his
last birthday. But he was away on duty at the time and not there to defend him. Stephen had not mentioned the medal to his family before then, since the major had given one only to him, and not to Wesley.
Doubting her father would have given away one of his few prized medals, his mother had not believed Stephen’s version of events. Finding the one medal in his possession was damning evidence in her eyes. She accused him of taking both it and the missing one as well. Stephen faced serious consequences for the theft—he would lose his beloved horse and receive a switching in the bargain. Mamma had even brought in the vicar and tried to force her son to confess. Stephen had rarely felt so powerless. His parents’ trust—gone. His word—worthless.
But then Winnie got wind of what was going on, and stood up to his parents, telling them she knew for a fact Major Horton had given his grandson one of his medals, because Stephen had taken it upstairs to show her, so proud of it he was. His mother had not wanted to believe the nurse. Wesley went so far as to say Winnie had made it up to try to protect Stephen, her favorite. So it had been Winnie’s word and Stephen’s, against Mamma’s and Wesley’s.
Then Winnie delivered a final blow, and said she could prove Wesley had taken the other medal. She proceeded to tell Mamma exactly where to find it—beneath a tray of colored pencils in Wesley’s drawing box. Though how she knew where it was, Stephen never learned. Wesley had tried to deny it, saying why would he want an army medal, and accusing Winnie of putting the medal there herself, to shift blame to him. Stephen doubted his accusation but had never asked Winnie about it. He wasn’t certain he wanted to know. . . .
At all events, his parents had gone up to Wesley’s room, and the missing medal was back on Grandfather’s desk the next day. As far as Stephen knew, Wesley was never punished. Apparently their parents believed his claims of innocence, and the matter was dropped.
Later, his mother had apologized to the vicar for the “inconvenience.” She had been misinformed, and the medal found. It had clearly galled her to admit she had been mistaken. She was embarrassed and vexed to be proven wrong by a subordinate. And Stephen knew his mother had never forgotten, and probably still resented it.