Never Forget Love

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When I wrote this book, the house I was talking about as ‘Lyn’ is really Longleat, one of the most beautiful ancestral homes in England.

  Longleat, which belongs to the Marquis of Bath, is the most perfect example of Italianate Elizabethan architecture in the British Isles.

  It began as a Priory built by the Augustinian Canons and sold for fifty-three pounds to Sir John Thynne in 1515 when King Henry VIII dissolved the Monasteries.

  It is so beautiful and ethereal that one expects it to float away into the sunshine.

  The Great Hall with its lovely stone-flagged floor and hammerbeam ceiling support is unchanged since 1559. In the Red Library there is a copy of Henry VII’s Great Bible of 1641.

  Queen Elizabeth I was entertained royally in the State Dining Room in 1574 and, of course, there is a ghost.

  I have not written about the Longleat ghost, but it came to me in a dream and I find it really fascinating.

  Chapter One ~ 1818

  “You are late!” Nerissa cried out as her brother came in through the front door and threw his riding whip down on a chair.

  “I know,” he answered, “but you must forgive me. I was riding an animal that at least has spirit in him and I was making the most of it.”

  Nerissa smiled.

  She knew that to obtain a horse of any sort to ride was a delight that Harry prized above everything else.

  Sometimes, when she was struggling with housework or the stove in the kitchen, which was so old that it was always going wrong and a dozen other problems that cropped up every day, she would imagine that one of her father’s books had suddenly become a success and overnight he was famous and they were rich.

  It was such an impossible dream that she laughed at herself for being so childish.

  Yet she longed above everything else for Harry to have the horses he wanted and the clothes that would make him as smart and fashionable as his friends at Oxford University.

  No one could be more handsome, she thought, although he was wearing a threadbare old riding coat that he had worn for years and which she had mended and darned until she had thought that there was little of the original material left.

  It was not surprising because their father, even though he was now grey-haired and his face was lined, was still an extremely good-looking gentleman.

  Nerissa sometimes wondered to herself why after her mother had died some woman had not tried to capture her father’s heart.

  Then she laughed again at her fantasies because it was doubtful if Marcus Stanley was aware that there was a woman in the world when he was concentrating on his books, which examined and recorded the development of architecture in Great Britain.

  Harry had admitted quite openly that he was not clever enough himself to understand his father’s work and, although Nerissa loved him, she at times did find his long descriptions somewhat dull.

  They were, however, greatly acclaimed by the Architectural Society, although the sales amounted to such an infinitesimal number of volumes that the income derived from them was almost non-existent.

  Nevertheless she was proud, as she dusted the shelf in the library, to see the row of five large volumes all bearing her father’s name.

  Harry was pulling off his riding boots, which were covered with mud, and Nerissa said,

  “I hope you thanked Farmer Jackson for giving you one of his horses to ride.”

  “He thanked me,” Harry replied. “He said that, having bought the horse, he was almost afraid to get on its back and had been looking forward to my coming home. He knew that, if anyone could break the animal in, it would be me!”

  Nerissa looked at the dirt not only on his boots but also on his breeches and her brother knew just what she was thinking.

  “All right. He threw me twice! The second time I had a bit of a job to catch him, but by the time I took him back to the farm he was beginning to realise that I was his Master.”

  There was a relish in Harry’s voice that Nerissa did not miss and she suggested,

  “Come into the dining room as soon as you have washed your hands and I will tell Papa that luncheon is ready as, incidentally, it has been for over an hour now.”

  “I don’t suppose Papa will have noticed,” Harry remarked and Nerissa knew that this was indeed true.

  She went into the kitchen where there was a savoury smell of stewed rabbit and an old woman with rheumaticky hands was taking the hot plates somewhat unsteadily out of the oven.

  “Let me do that, Mrs. Cosnet,” Nerissa said quickly, knowing how many things had been broken by her in the past.

  She saved the plates at what she thought was at the last moment and carried them into the dining room before running back to lift the stew off the stove and pour it into a china dish.

  Having set it down on the dining room table, she ran across the small hall to the study where her father was working.

  “Luncheon is ready now, Papa,” she said, “and hurry because Harry is back and he is hungry.”

  “Is it luncheontime?” her father asked vaguely.

  Nerissa resisted the temptation to retort that luncheon was long overdue and, if Harry was hungry, then so was she.

  Reluctantly leaving the manuscript he was writing and the book that he was using for reference on top of his desk, Marcus Stanley rose and followed his daughter into the dining room.

  “You have done a good morning’s work, Papa,” Nerissa said as she put some of the rabbit stew on his plate, well aware as she did so it was over-cooked. “You must take a short walk after luncheon before you go back to work. You know it is bad for you not to get some air.”

  “I have just reached a most interesting part of my chapter on the Elizabethan period,” her father replied, “and, of course, it is easy for me to quote this house and to describe how the bricks, although they have mellowed with the ages, have defied the weather as well as the years and are in far better shape than bricks made two hundred years later.”

  Nerissa did not answer because at that moment Harry came into the room.

  “Sorry to be so late, Papa,” he said, “but I have had a splendid ride on a horse that was as wild as a coot until I began to make him see sense.”

  Marcus Stanley’s eyes rested on his son’s smiling face reflectively as he responded,

  “I remember when I was your age finding an unbroken horse an irresistible challenge.”

  “I feel sure you would still enjoy it now,” Harry suggested.

  As he spoke, he took the plate his sister was handing him and started to eat ravenously.

  Watching him Nerissa wondered wistfully if she could manage during the University vacation to have sufficient food in the house to keep Harry satisfied.

  It was difficult enough when he was away to stretch the very meagre amount of house-keeping money, which was all her father could allow her, to supply them with their needs.

  But with Harry ‘eating them out of house and home’, as she expressed it to herself, it was impossible not to run into debt or, even worse still, to fear that her brother, although he never complained, was left hungry.

  Rabbit was really their staple standby at all times of the year, but she was thinking that the farmers would soon be shooting the pigeons that destroyed young crops and Harry often claimed that he enjoyed the way she roasted them.

  She could not help thinking plaintively that baby lamb was now in season, but it was a very long time since they had tasted one.

  What she could usually afford was an old sheep later on, which would be knocked down in price because it would be tough unless very carefully cooked.

  It was a blessing, she thought, as she put a mouthful of rabbit to her lips that her mother had been an exceptio
nally good cook.

  Before she died she had taught her how to make the dishes that her father and Harry always enjoyed.

  Potatoes, of course, were invaluable and roasted, fried, boiled or sautéed, they filled up the gap when a helping of meat, because it was so expensive, could not be very large.

  “Is there any more, Nerissa?” Harry broke in on her thoughts.

  “Yes, of course,” she replied.

  She gave him everything that was still in the dish except for a spoonful, which she added to her father’s plate.

  He was far away back in Elizabethan times and therefore eating automatically and, she often suspected, without the slightest idea of what he was actually putting into his mouth.

  There was a new cottage loaf on the table and Harry cut himself a large slice to finish up the gravy.

  “That was good,” he murmured with relish. “No one can cook rabbit like you, Nerissa. The rabbit they serve up at Oxford is quite inedible.”

  His sister smiled at the compliment and, collecting the plates and the empty dish, she carried them into the kitchen.

  She had been wise enough to make a filling pudding, knowing how much exercise Harry was taking and the sponge had risen light and golden.

  All she had to do now was to pour over it the home-made strawberry jam that she had preserved last year and which, with the minute amount of cream she had managed to skim off the top of the milk, would make, as far as Harry was concerned, a well satisfying dish.

  To finish the meal there was only a small piece of cheese left and Nerissa intended to go shopping this afternoon, but Harry had eaten much more than she expected at yesterday’s luncheon, which had been very much the same as today’s.

  Having finished his portion of pudding, her father rose from the table.

  “Will you excuse me, Nerissa, if I go back to my work?”

  “No, Papa,” Nerissa said firmly. “You know you ought to take a little exercise first, so I suggest you walk to the end of the orchard and see how those new fruit trees we put in are coming along. We had to do something, if you remember, after we lost some of our most precious trees in the March gales.”

  “Yes, of course,” her father agreed.

  Then, as if he thought by hurrying, he would get an unwelcome task over quickly he went into the hall, picked up his old felt hat that was almost in tatters and walked out through the garden door into the sunshine.

  Harry laughed.

  “You bully him, you know, dearest sister.”

  “But it is so bad for him to be cooped up in that stuffy study all day and all night.”

  “It may be bad for his health, but it makes him happy.”

  There was a pause before Nerissa said,

  “I am not so certain about that. I often feel that he misses Mama so intensely that the only way he can forget her even for a short while is to concentrate almost fanatically on what he is writing.”

  Her voice was soft and gentle as she spoke and Harry, looking at her, said perceptively,

  “You miss Mama too.”

  “Terribly,” Nerissa answered. “Nothing is the same without her. When you are away and Papa seems at times not even to know I exist, I feel as if I cannot bear it any longer.”

  “I am sorry,” Harry said sympathetically. “I had no idea you felt like that and I suppose it is very selfish of me to have all the fun of being at Oxford while you slave away here.”

  “I don’t mind ‘slaving’ as you call it,” Nerissa replied. “It is just that sometimes I never see a soul from one day to the next except, of course. when I go down to the village. They are very kind, but it is not the same as being with Mama or having her friends coming to see her.”

  “No, of course not,” Harry agreed. “What has happened to them?”

  “They were kind in their way after Mama died, but they wanted to talk to her not to a girl of seventeen, as I was then, and even when they were generous enough to ask me to a party of sorts I usually had no way of getting there and, worse still nothing to wear.”

  Harry was silent for a moment.

  Then he said,

  “I have only another year at Oxford University and after that I will be able to earn some money and we shall all be in a better position. I suppose it would not be a sensible idea for me to leave before I achieve my degree?”

  Nerissa gave a little cry.

  “No, of course not! It is absolutely essential that you should stay your full time. A degree is very important. Of course it is.”

  “I realise that and I have worked very hard this term. And my Tutor is very pleased with me.”

  Nerissa walked round the table to put her arms round her brother’s neck and kissed him.

  “I am very very proud of you,” she declared. “You are not to take any notice of me if I grumble. I am so lucky to have you home and, of course, to have Papa when he remembers that I exist! It is very ungrateful of me to ‘whine like old Mrs. Withers’.”

  This was a local joke and Harry duly chuckled.

  Then he put his arms round his sister’s waist and told her,

  “I am going to try to think up some special treat for you, so you had better make yourself a new gown.”

  “A new gown!” Nerissa exclaimed. “How do you think I can pay for one?”

  “’Where there is a will there is a way’,” Harry replied lightly. “It is what Nanny always said and perhaps the best thing we can do is to have a day of fasting and the money we save will go on decking you out like the Queen of Sheba!”

  “That is certainly an idea,” Nerissa laughed. “I can see exactly the sort of gown I should buy after such a gruesome sacrifice.”

  “I tell you what I suggest – ” Harry began.

  What he was going to say was forgotten because there came a loud and unexpected rat-tat on the front door.

  Brother and sister looked at each other.

  “Who can that be?” Harry asked. “Whoever it is they sound very impatient. So are you expecting the duns or the bailiff to confront you with an unpaid bill?”

  “No, of course not,” Nerissa replied huffily.

  She took off the apron she had worn while she was preparing and clearing the luncheon and walked from the dining room across the hall to the front door.

  Harry did not move, but picked up a large crumb that had been left on the table and put it into his mouth.

  Then he heard his sister give an exclamation that was almost a cry of astonishment.

  As he rose to his feet, he heard Nerissa saying,

  “It cannot be! But it is! Delphine!”

  “I thought you would be surprised to see me,” a sophisticated voice answered and Harry walked from the dining room into the hall to stare in astonishment at the woman who had just arrived.

  She was dressed in the peak of fashion with a high-crowned bonnet trimmed with small ostrich feathers and its colour matched her gown, which was covered with a cape trimmed with fur.

  She walked two steps further into the house and looking round commented,

  “I had forgotten how small this was!”

  “We thought you had forgotten us,” Harry said bluntly. “So how are you, Delphine, or is that an unnecessary question?”

  Then the vision stopped still to stare at him, taking in with shrewd eyes his height, his looks and his untidily tied cravat.

  “How you have grown, Harry,” she exclaimed.

  “It is not surprising when you have not seen me for six years,” Harry replied. “And I must say, you look very ‘up to scratch’!”

  “Thank you,” Delphine said with just a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

  Then she carried on in a different tone that was almost brusque,

  “I want to talk to you both and I suppose that there is somewhere where we can go to sit down?”

  “Come into the drawing room,” Nerissa said. “It is unchanged and I am sure you will remember it.”

  She opened the door at the far end of the hall and went into a
low-ceilinged room that her mother had always used on special occasions.

  In it was all their best furniture and all the most precious things they possessed. And the most attractive of the Stanley ancestors hung on its panelled walls.

  Delphine walked into the room, her silk petticoats beneath her gown swishing with an expensive sound as she did so.

  Then, taking off her cloak with its costly fur edging, she handed it to Nerissa before she seated herself in an armchair at the side of the fireplace.

  She was, however, not looking at her sister but at the room.

  “This is just as I remember it,” she said, “and, of course, it looks its best in the evening in candlelight.”

  “We don’t often sit in here since Mama died,” Nerissa told her. “Instead we use Papa’s study or the morning room when Harry is at home.”

  As she spoke, she did not think her sister was listening and she wondered why Delphine was here and how she could suddenly appear without giving them any prior warning.

  Four years older than Harry and five years older than Nerissa, Delphine had, when she was eighteen, married Lord Bramwell. He had seen her by chance at a garden party given by the Lord Lieutenant of the County and had lost his heart.

  He was a very much older man and Delphine’s mother had been doubtful if her daughter was wise in accepting his proposal of marriage.

  “It is something you should think about very carefully, dearest,” she had said, “because after all you have not met many men and Lord Bramwell is very much older than you are.”

  “He is rich and important, Mama, and I do want to marry him,” Delphine had replied obstinately.

  She had not listened to her mother’s pleas for her to take her time in considering whether it was a wise move nor would she agree to a long engagement.

  Because there was no other valid reason why Mr. and Mrs. Stanley should not agree to their daughter marrying Lord Bramwell, Delphine had her own way in everything and was married with what seemed almost precipitate haste.

  And when she had driven away in his smart carriage drawn by four well-bred and well-matched horses, she had passed out of their lives.

  Looking back Nerissa could hardly believe that it had happened.