burned in the fireplace. The room was warm. I stood there, holding George too
tightly, feeling as if my blood had frozen in my veins. I stared at the shadowed
corners, unable to see clearly, knowing that there could be things in those
shadows, hiding from me.
George wuffed and strained to get away from me. He didn’t see anything amiss.
Still, I just stood there, looking now toward the windows. Belinda had pulled
the draperies closed. I’d told her to leave them open. She had forgotten, or
perhaps she was trying to break me of what she considered a very unhealthy habit.
I locked the door, turned the knob one way, then the other, did everything I
could think of to pry it open, but it held. Yes, it was well locked. I walked to
the windows and jerked back the draperies. I opened the windows. Cold dry air
washed over me. I breathed in deeply.
There was nothing and no one here. It was very possible, if I had indeed locked
my door last night, that the person had come through my open windows. I shut and
locked them. I looked down at the empty bar holes on the casement and wondered
if Caroline was still here, if the violence of her death was somehow holding her
here. Poor, poor girl. I couldn’t imagine such an illness, but I knew it existed.
One of grandfather’s oldest friends had even forgotten his own wife and his
children. The day he no longer recognized Grandfather, I saw my grandfather cry.
He would die alone, my grandfather had said, alone, because there was no one he
knew and loved to be there with him.
I took off my clothes and pulled my nightgown over my head. I tied the pale blue
satin ribbons into pretty bows. I suppose it had been my mother who taught me
that. So long ago. I couldn’t call up her face anymore. I picked up George, and
together we settled ourselves under the mountain of warm covers. I didn’t wake
up once.
The next morning I rode Small Bess into Devbridge-on-Aston, a small village
clustered around a central square that held an old church, a vast graveyard
whose oldest stone was dated 1311, and a meandering stream. I looked closely at
all the now-white ducks swimming in the stream, at the clumps of skinny oak and
lime trees. Stone houses lined up on either side of a very old inn called The
Queen’s Arms. There was an almshouse, a blacksmith, his hammer ringing loud in
the morning air, and a good half dozen other small shops that carried everything
from tobacco to leather to barrels. Many villagers were out and about, and I
smiled and met a good thirty of them. Everyone was friendly, which I certainly
appreciated. It had been a long time since there had been a mistress at
Devbridge Manor. I began memorizing names, something, I knew, that would hold me
in good stead. I also spent money at every store I visited. My last stop was the
gunsmith, housed in a ground-floor narrow little room just off High Street. The
owner was Mr. Forrester, a very short smiling individual, with freckles covering
his face and his bald head, who looked to be about my husband’s age. His
grandchildren were playing in a corner. Near the guns. That surprised me, but
didn’t seem to faze him at all. He knew who I was, and was voluble in welcoming
me to Devbridge-on-Ashton. I was from the Big House, the new mistress, and I
knew that every word I spoke, every look that could possibly convey any opinion
at all, would be remembered and then shared with everyone in the village. If
Grandfather had seen me going through the village, he would have just patted my
cheek and told me that I was behaving exactly as I should. I was treating people
with the respect that some of them might even deserve. Everyone would believe me
a nice proper young lady, just so long as they didn’t notice the wickedness in
my eyes. Then Grandfather would laugh.
“Ashton is the name of that stingy little meandering stream that used to be much