Chapter 14 Dorothea
DOROTHEA
Dorothea felt the breeze on her cheek, cold and laden with the promise of snow.
It tugged at the letter in her hand. Two neatly typed pages with crisp creases.
The envelope bearing her name and a five-pence stamp had looked official.
It had been such an intriguing sort of letter to receive when she and Francis had popped into the post office earlier; she had sent him on ahead so she could open it immediately.
She had no concerns about Francis being in the bookshop unsupervised.
At nine, he was sensible and trustworthy, and Mr Thistlethwaite would keep him occupied.
From her park bench across the road, she felt a heaviness settle through her as she reread the letter.
She looked up. Her eyes traced the deep blue of the painted exterior and the gold lettering that ran the length of the shop above the window: The Bookshop of Buried Pasts.
A tug of regret moved through Dorothea; a longing for the innocence and thwarted promise of the life she had once lived inside those walls.
She spied the bright red phone box on the corner, had an urge to run towards it but forced herself to stay seated in case her hands, her unwilling fingers, betrayed her by dialling the number on the letter.
It was offering a way out, but how could she abandon Francis?
Dorothea blinked away tears. She wondered about her mother’s last days.
Had she changed at all in the years since Dorothea had seen her?
Become kinder? More honest? She considered the details of the letter.
Her mother had once again managed to surprise her.
She stared across the street at the bookshop window, framed by a sprinkling of snow that had fallen overnight.
‘Dorothea?’ Francis was leaning out the door, calling to her.
‘Coming.’ She shoved the letter into her pocket, angry at the illegitimacy it stood for. Dorothea had left her parents’ world, and she stood by her choices.
She crossed the road, stepping carefully on the icy surface. The doorbell tinkled as she entered, a sound as familiar as the voice that followed it.
‘Ah, Thea my girl. Good to see you.’ Mr Thistlethwaite grinned at her.
‘Hello, Mr Thistlethwaite. How’s the arthritis with this awful cold and damp?’
‘Not too bad, my girl. How are things up at the big house?’
Dorothea raised an eyebrow, making sure they were out of earshot of Francis. ‘Not always easy, I’m afraid. I’m worried about Celia. She seems overwhelmed and anxious.’
It wasn’t as if Dorothea had asked to be burdened by the worries of the new Lady Fitzhenry, but for some reason since marrying Edward three months ago, Celia Fitzhenry thought that Dorothea was there to be a confidante.
Celia was twenty-one—though seemed much younger—and something of an innocent, targeted as wifely material by Edward and his mother, probably as much for her family fortune as for her excellent potential to provide him with more children.
‘Call me Cricket,’ she had said to Dorothea, moments before Francis fell, as he ran up the pathway from the lake to greet the newlyweds.
Cricket and Edward had just returned from their Parisian honeymoon and as Francis screamed in pain, knees bleeding, Edward had grimaced and departed, citing work demands.
Dorothea had assessed the damage to Francis’s knees and as she left to retrieve the first-aid box, she heard Cricket say to nobody in particular, ‘What should I do?’ It was as if the girl had only just realised that the job of stepmother might entail some sort of maternal capability.
Mr Thistlethwaite nodded when Dorothea gave him a potted version of her more recent concerns about the beautiful Cricket’s capacity to manage life at Bleddesley House.
‘She’ll get there. Marriage is a big step, but taking on another woman’s child makes it that much harder I imagine,’ he said.
From across the room, Francis looked up from his book. ‘There you are, Thea! There are so many new books.’ He had discarded his coat and was settled in the children’s corner on a cushion beneath gold stars Dorothea had painted on the wall years ago.
A sadness overcame her: a combination of her dead mother’s letter, and the sight of the boy here without his own mother among the books that had been Adeline’s most constant companion.
Her eyes prickled and Mr Thistlethwaite gave a small nod.
He knew how much Dorothea missed Adeline—The Right Honourable the Viscountess Fitzhenry according to the parcels of books Dorothea used to occasionally package up and post for her—because he had seen their friendship flourish up close.
Adeline, or Lady Fitz as Dorothea had named her early on in their decade of friendship, had been a true book collector, and Dorothea had been thrilled to chat to her in the shop every week.
Adeline Fitzhenry had owned one of the finest collections of books and paraphernalia on botanicals and botanical prints in the country, and on the arrival of any decent book or original artwork of botanicals, Dorothea and her employer knew to contact her straight away.
Once, Lady Fitz had travelled to Amsterdam just to view a set of Redouté’s Les Roses.
The hand-coloured plates from the early 1800s had been commissioned by the Empress Josephine.
Only five vellum sets were known to exist in the world, the edition was so rare.
So, it came as no surprise that Adeline’s boy was also enchanted by books.
One of Dorothea’s favourite memories was his delight when she had handed him a dusty rare first edition of Treasure Island, complete with the inscription made to another little boy, written almost ninety years earlier.
It had been enough to make his mother weep.
Dorothea had pointed out the several telltale misprints in the edition and told him this made the book very special.
She remembered Francis hugging it to his six-year-old chest and telling her he would always look after it.
Lady Fitz had given one of her glorious smiles.
Dorothea kneeled beside Francis now and picked through the books he had selected.
‘Can we get this one for Cricket?’ he asked. He held it up: A Practical Guide for Horse Owners by Jack Widmer.
Horses were the only thing Cricket Fitzhenry seemed to care for.
She rode for hours each day. Francis liked to walk down to the stables and watch her grooming the huge, beautiful animals.
Cricket could talk about horses ad nauseum.
It was only when you wanted her to focus on people she found it difficult.
Cricket had confided to Dorothea recently about Edward’s hope for a quick pregnancy.
But the girl seemed terrified at the prospect.
‘It’s all he talks about,’ she said one morning as she found Dorothea picking vegetables in the kitchen garden.
‘Couldn’t we wait a few years?’ She seemed perplexed by her new husband, who wanted at least another three children.
‘I want to keep riding. I don’t want my figure to be ruined.
’ Cricket’s brow had furrowed then: What if she didn’t know what to do with a baby?
Would Dorothea know? Would she help her?
‘Of course,’ Dorothea had said, soothing the poor girl.
‘I’m the nanny. I haven’t much experience with babies, but I’m sure to be completely on top of things when your time comes.
’ Dorothea had felt leaden in this conversation.
Edward’s unforgiveable actions during his engagement to Cricket sat like an elephant across her chest. But she wouldn’t be the one to break the girl’s heart.
Perhaps she need never know of her husband’s true nature.
Francis began reading from a book and pointing to something in the pictures.
Dorothea smiled and thought how immediately Adeline had taken to motherhood with Francis, and how desperately she had wanted it.
She wondered if Cricket really would be up to the task when the time came.
Dorothea wasn’t sure. There was something so fragile about the girl, and so ominous about Bleddesley House.
Nothing about it was welcoming to outsiders.
An eerie quality pervaded the great hall, where Adeline Fitzhenry had died.
Upon being told of her fatal fall, Dorothea had been devastated.
Poor motherless Francis had been her first thought, little more than two years ago when she heard the news.
Then for some reason, a more fearful thought had struck her.
It had not been Adeline’s time. Dorothea had tried to bat away the trickle of dread, but somehow, she knew: Lady Adeline Fitzhenry had been stolen from them.
When Len, the second gardener at the manor house, had told her what had happened to Adeline, Dorothea had not been able to rid herself of the whisper of doubt.
No, that’s not right. That’s not how it happened.
But she had to be calm, to push that thought away.
Because back then, at just seven years old, Francis Fitzhenry had needed her.
She had to leave her lovely bookshop position and her flat above the shop; there was nothing in this world she had been more certain about. She must have that nannying job.