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—”