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  “No, no! I can’t do it!” she cried out loud again, remembering how he had crushed her hand in his, as he knelt at her feet in the salon. ‘I cannot spend the rest of my life with that man and never know – what it is – to love!’

  She jumped up from her bed. ‘I will now pack my bag,’ she said to herself, ‘and tomorrow, I shall leave this house, as Aunt Maud wants me to do and never come back here. I will then find a job as a Governess or even as a maid, if I have to, as anything will be better than to marry that man, however rich he may be!’

  She found the old leather valise she had brought with her from Wellsprings Place and began to put some of her clothes into it. Not the elegant new clothes she had acquired since she had come to London, but the familiar worn dresses she had brought with her.

  Her head was full of anxieties, chasing each other round and round like a squirrel on a treadmill. ‘What shall I do for money?’ she thought over and over again.

  If only she had her Mama’s jewels, the rubies and sapphires that had looked so exquisite round her slim neck, when she went out to the theatre or the opera with Papa. But Mama had taken all the family jewellery to Switzerland with her Papa and no one had found out what had become of it after they were killed so tragically.

  Lucilla sighed as she thought of that sad painful time.

  Then she remembered that there was a little pocket inside the valise for keeping valuables in and she searched inside it, hoping that perhaps she might have left some money in there in those happy days when she had joined Mama and Papa on some of their trips abroad.

  Her heart leapt as her fingers met the crackle of a piece of paper. But it was not a pound note, it was a creased and torn envelope with a folded sheet of paper hidden inside it.

  “Oh, my Goodness!” Lucilla cried, as she unfolded the paper and saw the spidery writing that covered it.

  In the upset and confusion of leaving Wellsprings Place, she had forgotten all about the letter that had come to her from Nanny Grove, the old woman who had looked after her and loved her when she was a small child.

  Now she felt her heart turning over as she read the kind words of sympathy and condolence once again.

  “My dearest Lucilla,

  My heart goes out to you at this time, for it would be hard enough to lose one parent – but you have suffered the terrible loss of both your darling Mama and your dear Papa on the same day, and I know how dearly they loved you and how much you will miss them.

  I wish I could be with you, dear Lucilla, but I have not been well and, alas, I am confined to the Cottage now and would not be able to make the journey.

  But you will know that my kindest thoughts are with you and I hope that you will be strong and brave and trust in God and in Providence to keep you safe through this difficult time.

  Your most affectionate and loving,

  Nanny Grove.”

  Lucilla clutched the crumpled piece of paper to her heart and gave a cry of joy, as to read this little note made her feel as if the old lady had come to her and given her a tender loving hug. ‘How could I have forgotten you, Nanny? I’m so sorry, but it was all so difficult – there was so much to do and I was so upset that I did not even reply to your letter!’ Nanny Grove had written an address at the very top of the note, “Holly Cottage, Ferndean, Hampshire” and, as Lucilla gazed at this, she suddenly knew what she must do. Lucilla would go and visit Nanny Grove. If the old lady was still unwell, she could look after her and run all her errands for her.

  And talking to Nanny would help her to work out what her next step might be, as Nanny could always see a way around any problem.

  She folded up the note, stowed it back inside the pocket of the valise and completed her packing.

  Then, exhausted from her difficult morning, she lay down on the bed and slept right through the afternoon and all through the night too, only waking when the sun came up over the bare branches of the plane trees in the street.

  *

  Aunt Maud was already at the breakfast table, her face grim and pale, when Lucilla came down with her bag and peered round the door into the dining room. “Well?” Aunt Maud asked, without even wishing Lucilla good morning. “What conclusion have you come to? Have you decided to be sensible or are you going to persist in your refusal of Mr. Jackson’s generous proposal.”

  Lucilla put her bag down in the hall and came into the dining room.

  Somehow just reading Nanny’s words and knowing that she would be able to see the old lady very soon had given her new strength and courage. And she found she now knew instinctively exactly how to deal with Aunt Maud.

  “Thank you for your concern, Aunt,” she said very politely. “I am not going to be rushed into making a hasty decision, as I believe that would be wrong. I am honoured by Mr. Jackson’s proposal, but I need a little time to think about it as everything has happened to me so quickly and it has quite taken me by surprise.”

  Before her aunt could comment, Lucilla carried on speaking,

  “I appreciate, Aunt, that you don’t wish to have me living under the same roof as yourself at the present time and I don’t wish to cause any inconvenience to you while you are preparing for your wedding, so I am going to stay in the country for a while – ”

  “Where? What do you mean by this?” her aunt demanded. “You cannot just go gadding off at will. If you wish to marry a decent gentleman such as Mr. Jackson, you must behave in a respectable manner!”

  Lucilla smiled. “I shall be perfectly respectable, aunt. I am going to stay with an old family friend in a very quiet village in Hampshire.”

  Aunt Maud seemed at a loss for words and Lucilla took advantage of her silence to ask if she might sit down and eat some porridge before she left, as she was extremely hungry, having eaten nothing since yesterday’s breakfast and the smell of the porridge, which normally she did not like at all, was making her stomach rumble.

  “I suppose so,” Aunt Maud muttered, frowning at her. “But, Lucilla, I hope that you are not thinking about running off with the fine clothes I have purchased for you since you came here. I have spent a considerable amount of money on your wardrobe in the happy anticipation that you would make a good match – and I shall be very angry if I do not see some kind of return for that expense.”

  Lucilla poured milk over her porridge and added a sprinkle of sugar. Suddenly she did not care if her aunt disapproved of her or not.

  “Please don’t worry, Aunt,” she said, “I will take away only what I came with.”

  “And what explanation am I then to give to Lady Armstrong and Ethel for your sudden disappearance?”

  “Please tell them exactly what I have just told you,” Lucilla replied, as she finished her porridge. “That I am going away to think over Mr. Jackson’s proposal.”

  She got up from the table and went out into the hall, saying ‘goodbye’ over her shoulder to her aunt, who stayed sitting in silence and did not offer her any good wishes.

  “Hoskins, would you bring my coat?” Lucilla asked the housekeeper, who was just about to clear the table. Hoskins stared at Lucilla’s face and for a moment she wondered if by chance the woman could see the mark on her cheek where Aunt Maud had slapped her.

  “It’s very cold outside today, my Lady,” Hoskins said. “Your old velvet won’t keep the chill out at all. Why don’t you wear that lovely pink coat? The new one? I can tell by that big bag you’re carrying you be going off on a journey.”

  “Oh – no, I couldn’t.” Lucilla mumbled. She did not like to think of the fact that Ethel had only bought it for her because she was then hoping that Harkness Jackson might propose and she wanted Lucilla to look pretty for him. ‘Ethel doesn’t really care about me one bit,’ she said to herself again. ‘She just wants me to accept Mr. Jackson’s proposal so that she will not be the only girl in London marrying a rich old American and maybe so that she will not feel so lonely after she’s married Mortimer.’

  But then Lucilla remembered how lovely the coat fe
lt when she wore it and how warm and comforting it was.

  And she recalled that thick bundle of money that Ethel had taken out of her handbag and how it had seemed just as thick, even after she had paid for the coat.

  ‘Ethel could buy a hundred coats like that one if she wanted to,’ she reflected. ‘She probably has forgotten that she gave it to me already.’ And so she smiled at Hoskins, “You are right, Hoskins. I will take the new coat. It’s in my bedroom.”

  The housekeeper’s thin face broke into a smile, as she rushed up the stairs to fetch it.

  “Take good care of yourself, my Lady,” she said in a low voice, when she returned and was helping Lucilla into the coat. “I shall miss you.”

  Lucilla’s heart suddenly seemed full, as she stepped out into the frosty sunshine of the winter morning.

  ‘So there are a few good kind people in the world after all!’ she thought. ‘I never knew that Hoskins cared about me.’

  And she set off at a brisk pace for the Train Station, fingering Nanny Grove’s note in her pocket, feeling both hopeful and nervous as she embarked on her journey to Hampshire.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lucilla peered out of the window of the train at the countryside flashing past.

  She was glad that she was wearing the pink coat, as it really was a very cold day, even though the sun shone down brightly over the wintry fields and the clustered buildings of farms and villages.

  There were many stops along the way, but at last the train pulled into Appleton, which Lucilla had been told was the stop for the village of Ferndean.

  Lucilla jumped off the train and looked around for someone to help her. A small man with a large moustache came out of the Ticket Office and touched his cap.

  “Appleton Hall, is it, miss?” he enquired in a warm accent that reminded her of the voices of the Dorset people, who lived round her old home. “Are they meeting you with the carriage?”

  Lucilla shook her head. She had never heard of Appleton Hall, although it sounded impressive. “I am going to Ferndean. Is it very far from here?”

  The man looked surprised and Lucilla realised that he was staring at her glorious pink coat and so he must be thinking that she was someone important and special.

  “Pardon me, miss. But I took you for one of the Marquis’s visitors from the look of you,” the man was now saying. “But Ferndean is just a stone’s throw from The Hall, miss. Shall I send for a pony and trap?”

  Lucilla looked up at the bright blue winter sky and the sunlight gleaming off the roofs of the houses and shops in the centre of Appleton. “If it isn’t very far, I think I should like to walk.”

  “Then you must go through the Market Square and down the hill and over the bridge and, if you keep a good pace, miss, you will be at Ferndean village in less than half an hour,” the man told her.

  Lucilla thanked him and set off, thankful that her bag held only a few of her old clothes and was not very heavy.

  She crossed the bridge over the river, as the man had told her and then the road led out into the countryside through fields of sheep and cows.

  ‘Whoever owns this land is a good farmer,’ she thought, noticing the neatly trimmed hedges and the well-fed contented animals.

  Ferndean village lay in a wooded valley with a little stream winding through it. There were not many cottages and all of them had brightly painted front doors and thatched roofs.

  There was no one about to ask where Holly Cottage might be, but, as Lucilla looked around, she noticed that the smallest cottage on the banks of the stream had a little holly tree covered in red berries in the front garden.

  Its windows were full of the bright geraniums that Nanny had always kept on the nursery windowsills when Lucilla was a child. Lucilla tapped on the green-painted front door and then waited, but no one came.

  ‘Perhaps I am wrong and this isn’t Holly Cottage after all,’ she wondered. And then, for one terrible moment, she wondered if it might be that she had come to the right place, but that Nanny Groves had died and her journey had been in vain.

  Then she heard a rustling from inside the door and a voice called out, “Who is there?”

  “Nanny! It’s me, Lucilla!”

  Slowly the green door opened and a very tiny old woman peered up at Lucilla. “My dear! Well – what a surprise! Come in, come in!”

  “Nanny!” Lucilla cried and bent down to hug the old lady. She was shocked to see how much older Nanny Groves looked. She seemed to have shrunk in the years since she had left Wellsprings Place to retire to Hampshire.

  But Nanny Groves’s little blue eyes were as bright as ever and her white hair was tied in the same neat bun that Lucilla remembered so well from her nursery days.

  “You must go before me, my dear,” Nanny Groves said, when at last Lucilla released her from the hug. “I am very slow these days. Go on into the parlour and put your bag down.”

  The parlour was warm from a fire that crackled in the grate and the sunlight that filtered in through the red and pink geraniums on the windowsill shed a bright glow over the room.

  “Only you could make those geraniums flower in the winter!” Lucilla cried, as Nanny followed her slowly into the room.

  Nanny smiled, her face as wrinkled as a walnut.

  “Hang that beautiful coat, my dear, behind the door – you can see where. There is tea already in the pot and we shall sit down and rest awhile and enjoy it.”

  Lucilla could see that even the short walk to the door had been difficult for the old lady and she helped her to a chair and then poured out the tea before she sat down herself.

  “You are looking so well, my dear,” Nanny Groves said. “You have often been in my thoughts, as I was very worried for you after your terrible loss, but – you have a fine colour in your cheeks.”

  Lucilla laughed and then explained that she had just walked from the Station and that it must be the cold air that was making her look so fresh and well.

  “Ah, but what about that coat, my dear?” Nanny asked with a twinkle in her eye. “It looks very expensive. Someone surely has been spoiling you? I wouldn’t have thought it of your Aunt Maud, but perhaps I am wrong – ”

  Lucilla was just taking a sip of tea, when suddenly she found that it was catching in her throat. She did not want to think of Aunt Maud, who had been so cruel to her over the last months – or, indeed of Ethel, who had only bought that coat for her because she wanted her to accept Harkness Jackson’s proposal.

  “But, Nanny, how are you?” she asked, swallowing her tea. “I feel so bad that I have not seen you for such a long time and I did not even reply to your kind letter.”

  Nanny Groves shook her head. “You must not trouble yourself, dear Lucilla. I did not expect to hear from you, as I knew that you must have been out of your mind with grief.”

  Lucilla nodded, not trusting herself to speak, but she could tell by the caring look in Nanny Groves’s blue eyes that she understood exactly how Lucilla felt when she remembered the loss of her dear Mama and Papa.

  “And how is your aunt?” the old lady asked after a moment.

  “She is well and she will be getting married very soon to a Mr. Pargetter.”

  Nanny Groves blinked in surprise. “Goodness me, my dear! That is the last thing I was expecting you to tell me. I rather thought it was you who had become engaged and that was the reason for your visit to me here.”

  Lucilla shook her head. “No, Nanny, I am not engaged.”

  “And why not, Lucilla? Such a pretty girl as you should have had lots and lots of proposals by now from all the handsome young gentlemen in London. Was there no one you liked?”

  Lucilla sighed deeply and explained to Nanny about Harkness Jackson’s proposal. “I think Aunt Maud would really like me to marry him, but I – he is much much older than me and he is an American – ” Nanny Groves laughed. “Neither of those things should matter the tiniest bit, if you loved him.” “I don’t!” Lucilla asserted. “I really don’t, Nanny.”r />
  “Then you must not marry him,” Nanny said in the determined voice that Lucilla remembered so well from her childhood. “But I don’t know what else to do, Nanny. I told Aunt Maud that I would think about it and she does not want me to stay with her any more, unless I accept Mr. Jackson’s offer.”

  “Do you feel safe and happy when you are with this man?” the old woman asked in the same determined tone.

  “He is very rich and he does seem to care for me,” Lucilla replied.

  Nanny did not look as if she believed Lucilla. “Will you like to be still with him when he is an old man and you are older too?”

  Lucilla shook her head, wishing that Nanny Groves would be quiet, but she was still talking on. “And, most importantly, my dear, do you want to have his children?”

  “No!” Lucilla cried in horror. “I cannot imagine anything more appalling!”

  “Then you cannot possibly be his wife. Finding the right person to spend your life with is the most important thing you will ever do. For, if you make the wrong choice, you will be unhappy for the rest of your days.”

  “Oh, Nanny! I know! I know!” Lucilla cried, her eyes filling up. “I feel that so strongly.”

  “There must be someone you like – ” Nanny said in a lighter tone, a glint of mischief in her bright blue eyes.

  Lucilla felt a little shiver run down her spine as she remembered the dark-eyed young man at Ethel’s party.

  “I did meet – someone,” she murmured, “but – ”

  Nanny Groves smiled. “I can tell by the look on your face how much you like him, whoever he is,” “But he did not seem to – like me very much – ”

  Nanny Groves shrugged her bent shoulders. “If he is yours, my dear, you will find him again. And if not, someone else will come to you. And in the meantime you must treat Holly Cottage as your home.”

  Lucilla sighed, as she felt herself relaxing for the first time in a very long while. Somehow she had always felt cold in Aunt Maud’s unfriendly house and constantly afraid she might be told off or criticised.