Chapter Forty-Four #2
“Explain it to me, Caroline.”
She turned away at hearing her name on his lips and fought the tears of everything that had been lost today.
“What does it matter? You have made up your mind and sacked my father. If it did, you would have asked when I was back at the house. Instead, you treated me as if…as if you had no heart, much like you behaved when you first arrived.”
He sucked in a breath at the insult, but she did not care.
“I am sorry for that,” he offered. “I truly would like to know.”
There was sincerity in his eyes and in his tone, but did she trust that it was true?
Did it matter?
“When my parents first came here, they saw it as an adventure. A new experience. And, like your parents, mine were very happy here. It was my mother who took the most interest in the grapes. To father, it was another crop to manage along with the others. He understood the importance and that the wine needed to be superior or Wyndview Farm would fail, which he could not allow.”
“May I have one of those?” He pointed to her glass of brandy.
“I will return in a moment.”
Caroline left to retrieve a glass and tried to find more composure before she returned and handed it to him.
When she didn’t pour the brandy, he did.
“The vineyard was my mother’s favorite place. They enjoyed spending time there together and she was the one who started experimenting with grafting roots. She would spend hours while Father saw to the other duties required of his position.”
She paused and sipped before she continued.
It wasn’t so much that it was difficult to talk to Wyndham, because she was used to having conversations with him.
It was the fact that he was watching and waiting to disapprove that put her on edge.
Still, she pushed through so that he would know her reasons, even if he never understood.
“As you already know, my mother died while I was sailing back to the Cape Colony. What I also found when I arrived was my father in deep mourning.”
Those were difficult days, for her and for him.
“Your mother was concerned, obviously, but she also had patience. She knew that it was a difficult time and that he would return to his duties fully or so she had hoped.”
“Yet he did not,” Sterling reminded her, his tone cold.
“No, he did not,” she admitted. “He would have resigned except he was anchored here because Mother loved it so and she is buried down the road.”
“Are you saying that your father fell into a melancholy state?”
“He was in mourning as any husband or wife would be after losing their spouse. It was no more than that, or so I thought at the time. I assumed that he had just decided that there was no point in working as hard. He only had himself to provide for. That is, until I returned. I encouraged him to resume all his duties and that if he did not, your mother would write to you and that you would likely be sacked. I did not know at the time that you never read letters from her.”
She took a deep breath then sipped the brandy before she could continue.
“As it was also January, I reminded him of how much mother would be disappointed if he allowed the grapes to die on the vine without being harvested for wine. That is what motivated him the most and I hoped that by the time the harvest was complete that he would have had a change of heart and resume all his duties. Your mother thought the same.”
“He did not?” Sterling asked.
Oh, she wanted to believe that Sterling did care and was trying to understand, but after the way he had spoken to her at the house, she feared what he might say when she was done. Yet, she continued.
“No, he did not. I tried everything that I could but he only cared about the grapes and wine. I had told him that if he did not return to his other duties that he was likely to lose his position. He asked me what other duties, as if he had forgotten, and I came to realize that he had. A senility had set in and he only cared about the grapes or anything my mother had touched, and the rest well, was not his responsibility, as if it had never been. Therefore, I was left with no choice but to step in and assume his responsibilities while I tried to remind him of everything he had managed before. My biggest fear was that you would learn but your mother assured me that you would never visit and never know. I trusted in that.”
He nodded, sadness in his blue eyes and maybe he was understanding.
“Your mother also did not feel it was necessary to tell you because the estate was being managed just as well as it had been under my father’s supervision.” She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “That is how I became your estate manager.”
He just stood there and stared at her and it became very hard to hold onto her false confidence.
“So when I arrived, you decided just to lie to me.”
“I did not see it so much as a lie as an omission,” she reluctantly admitted. “We assumed that you would tour the estate, review the reports and accounting and leave. You did not.”
“Had your father met with me when I asked him to and provided me with the answers I needed, I may have left fully ignorant of what was occurring on my own estate.”
Caroline drew in a shaky breath. He was still angry. He had only appeared calmer.
“My intention had only been to remain a sennight, or fortnight at the most.”
“I am aware.”
“It was my mother who kept me here, and your father by avoiding me, that led to my discovery of what you were doing.”
Oh, if only her father had just reviewed the reports, been able to remember, and care what was written within, had his meeting with Wyndham and answered all the questions correctly, he would have been gone before…before everything.