It was chilly. The morning sun had long ago disappeared, leaving a sky that was a faded, pale blue, almost without color.
The smell of autumn assailed me: dampness, rotting leaves, and wood smoke, acrid on the air. Somewhere, not far away, one of the gardeners had a bonfire going. It was that time of year, when dead plants and roots, dried leaves, and garden debris in general went into the flames; I had just had my own winter bonfire last weekend at Indian Meadows.
As I turned the corner of the house, I practically stumbled over Wilf, the gardener, who was shoveling dead leaves and roots into a pile, obviously fodder for the fire.
He glanced up when he heard my sharp exclamation.
"Aw, it's you, Mrs. Andrew." He touched his cloth cap and grinned at me. "How you be doing then?" He rested his filthy hands on top of the shovel and stood gaping at me, staring right through me.
"Fine, thank you. And how are you feeling these days, Wilf?"
"Can't complain. Me rheumatism's a bit of a bother, but there's nowt much else wrong with me. I don't expect to be kicking up t'daisies in yon cemetry for a long time." He laughed. It sounded like a cackle.
"I'm glad to hear it." I nodded and hurried away, heading for the pond. There was something odd about Wilf Broadbent. He always seemed to have a baleful glint in his eye when he talked to me. I thought he might be a bit touched. Andrew said he was just gormless, using the Yorkshire word for dumb, stupid. Diana laughed at us when we discussed Wilf. She believed him to be the salt of the earth.
Four brown ducks swam away as I approached the water.
I stood watching them paddling as fast as they could to the far bank, absently wondering if it would freeze by Christmas. The twins so longed to skate on this pond, just as their father had done when he was a little boy. But I didn't think it would be cold enough to freeze; it was a decent-sized body of water.
I set off to walk around the pond, my mind focusing on Lettice and Clarissa, those two other Keswick women who had been the brides of Keswick men, and who had lived out their entire lives here. If only walls could talk to me, what marvelous secrets they would reveal, what tales they could tell.
On the other hand, the diary had talked, hadn't it? Only for a short while, but still, it had spoken to me of a time past, given me a bit of the family history.
Even Clarissa's frontispiece, short as it was, and her act of copying it so meticulously had told me quite a lot about her. She must have been a good woman, conscientious, God-fearing, a typical Victorian, but obviously an intelligent and caring person. Certainly she had cared about the diary, had understood what it meant to the family. Also, she had had the foresight to realize that the original might not survive the passage of time; and she had considered it important enough to preserve it for posterity. Of course she lacked artistic talent because she had not copied the drawings or watercolors, but that wasn't so important.
And what did the diary tell me about the diarist herself?
First and foremost that Lettice was a born writer, articulate and with a thorough knowledge of the language and an understanding of its beauty. It was at her fingertips, and she had made excellent use of it. The illustrations indicated that she had been artistically inclined, the household hints and recipes proclaimed her to have been a good housekeeper and cook, not to mention an excellent herbalist and wine-maker. Her many references to her husband and children revealed that she had been a loving wife and mother, and lastly, I decided that she had had a political turn of mind. There were innumerable references to Parliament in her diary, and acerbic comments, and certainly she had been a dyed-in-the-wool royalist, elated, no, overjoyed when Charles II returned to England to accept the throne.
It struck me again that there must be another volume of her diary somewhere in that vast library. A truly natural writer such as Lettice Keswick would not stop just like that, with such terrible abruptness. But how to find it amongst those thousands of books lining the hundreds of shelves?
There was no time for me to look for it now, not today or tomorrow. Perhaps when we came back for Christmas I could have a stab at it. The effort would be worth it. After all, in my opinion the diary was a little jewel. I knew Diana would be intrigued by it and so would Andrew, if I could ever tear him away from that briefcase and those wretched papers. I couldn't imagine what that awful Malcolm Stainley had done, unless he had been cooking the books, God forbid. If he had, Andrew would go for the jugular, and Jack wouldn't be far behind, wielding a very sharp knife, figuratively speaking.
As I walked up the wide path carved out between the expanse of green lawns, I saw a car approaching the house. It was moving at a snail's pace up the driveway between the giant oaks, and it was not Diana returning, I knew that. This was not her car.
Within a few seconds the car and I had drawn closer. I saw that it was a pale blue Jaguar.
Was Diana expecting a visitor? It was odd that she hadn't mentioned it, if she were. She usually told us if someone was coming to tea, warned us, really, in case we felt we had to escape. Usually Andrew did, since her guests for this truly English ritual were people like the woman who ran the church institute, the vicar and his wife, the head of the garden club, or some such local character.
The car slowed, then came to a standstill at the bottom of the stone steps. I strode across the terrace to the top of the steps and stood looking down expectantly.
The door of the Jaguar finally opened. A woman alighted.
She was tall and slender, with a mass of dark, wavy hair that tumbled around a rather narrow but attractive face. Her eyes were dark, intense, and her generous mouth was a slash of bright red lipstick.
At first glance, her clothes looked like a gypsy's odd assortment, but as my eyes swept over her swiftly, I realized there was a degree of coordination about them. At least as far as the colors were concerned. She wore a long, full, green wool skirt, topped by a short bomber jacket made of red, green, purple, and yellow patches. Joseph's coat of many colors. Or so it seemed to me. Long scarves of yellow, purple, and red were wrapped around her neck and trailed down her back. Her boots were red, her handbag yellow.
I did not have to be introduced to this colorful woman.
I knew exactly who she was.
Gwendolyn Reece-Jones in person.
My father's mistress.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We stared hard at each other, she and I. And for a split second neither of us spoke.
I was aware from the expression in her eyes that she knew who I was, had recognized me as Edward Jordan's daughter, but I doubted that she would acknowledge this. Certainly she would not confide her relationship with my father or even say that they were friends. I knew this instinctively.
She spoke first.
Moving closer to the bottom step, she said, "I'm looking for Mrs. Keswick. Rude. To come without calling first. Tried. Your phone's been engaged for a long time. Is Mrs. Keswick in?"
I shook my head. "No, I'm afraid she isn't, she went off to do a few errands. But she should be back any moment. Would you like to come in and wait for her?"
Gwenny bit her lip, and an anxious expression crossed her angular face. "Don't want to impose."
"I'm sure Diana won't be long. I know she'd be very upset if she missed you."
"Frightfully kind. Yes, well, er, thank you. Perhaps I will hang around for a few minutes." She began to mount the steps. Drawing level to me, she held out her hand. "Gwendolyn Reece-Jones."