The Trail to Love Read online

  She then stood up and swept away from the table, her mauve skirts whispering over the floor.

  It felt odd to be all alone in the dining room, just as she had been on her first night at Fellbrook Towers.

  For politeness sake, Elissa tasted a little of each of the courses that the butler brought to her, and she was glad that she did, as despite his silence, she detected a look of pleasure in his faded grey eyes.

  She even took a couple of sips of the champagne, and felt it run through her body like sparkling sunshine.

  The feeling reminded her of her dream out on the hillside earlier that day.

  She was certain that she had felt her Mama’s hands touching her hair in the dream. But why had she seen the white feather drifting down to fall in her lap?

  It had looked so beautiful, glinting like snow in the bright sunlight. She could still see it now if she closed her eyes against the glow of the candlelight.

  What was the meaning of it?

  In the other dream where Mama had come to her, she had been given a date written in a book, which turned out to be the date of her dear Papa’s death.

  But a feather from a little white dove?

  What was she supposed to make of that?

  The butler approached and asked if Miss Valentine would be taking coffee in the drawing room.

  “Thank you, but no,” she told him. “I think I shall retire early this evening.”

  She ran up the wide staircase and along the landing and into her cosy bedroom where, as he did every night, Marmalade lay on the sofa, purring while he watched Ellen warming Elissa’s nightgown in front of the fire.

  Ellen was bursting to hear all that had happened at dinner.

  “Did he speak to you, miss?” she asked.

  “Lord Hartwell? No, Ellen, he did not! I might not have been in the room for all the notice he took of me.”

  “Oh, miss!”

  Ellen looked disappointed.

  “But don’t feel sorry for me.”

  Elissa sat on the sofa and took Marmalade onto her lap, stroking his fur and listening to his purring grow loud with ecstasy.

  “When he was here before, his manner was teasing and unkind and I would much rather he left me alone.”

  “They say, miss, that ’e has – lost all ’is fortune,” Ellen blurted out, looking sideways at Elissa.

  “Now who told you that?” demanded Elissa. “You should not listen to the other servants’ gossip.”

  “I could not ’elp it, miss. I went to fetch your ’ot water and his Lordship’s manservant, who came with him from London, was in the pantry talkin’ to Mrs. Nantwich.”

  Elissa could no longer resist asking what Ellen had overheard.

  “Why, miss, the man said ’e be very afraid for ’is position if Lord Hartwell did not mend ’is ways. And then Mrs. Nantwich told ’im that we would all be out of a job if things went on as they ’ave been.”

  “That does sound very bad, but we do not know the truth of the matter. Only Lord Hartwell could tell us that and he is keeping his own counsel. So do not fret, Ellen. I am sure that all will be well.”

  She remembered her cousin’s troubled face and the way that he had snapped at Lady Hartwell. But Elissa said nothing of what she had witnessed at dinner. She did not want to add to her maid’s anxieties.

  “I shall retire early tonight,” she said. “Ellen, why don’t you take Marmalade with you? It is very warm and comforting when he sleeps on one’s feet.”

  “You are so kind, miss, but my bed is in Ernestine’s room and I don’t think she would approve, even if I could persuade ’im to leave you!”

  Elissa laughed.

  “Oh, dear, no! Ernestine would be horrified! She would imagine Marmalade’s ginger hairs all over her smart black dress. That would never do!”

  And she was rather relieved to see that Ellen, too, was looking amused at the idea of Lady Hartwell’s fierce French maid coming face to face with Marmalade in her boudoir.

  “Please, Ellen, don’t think any more over what you overheard. I will speak to Lord Hartwell tomorrow and see if I can find out the truth.”

  As Elissa lay in bed, watching the fire sink down to dull red embers in the grate, she reflected at what a strange eventful day it had been.

  And then Marmalade jumped up onto the bed and curled himself up on her feet.

  She fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.

  *

  Next morning the world outside Fellbrook Towers was swathed in a thick white mist.

  After breakfast Elissa stepped out into the garden, but after just a few moments her hair and her clothes were wet with the drops of moisture drifting through the air.

  “We should not stay out too long, Nelson,” she said to the little pug. “There is nothing to be seen and we will get wet and cold.”

  The mist hung all around like a thick white blanket and only the gravel and the nearest flowerbed were visible.

  Upstairs in her parlour, Lady Hartwell was nervous and distracted, constantly picking up her embroidery and dropping it, as she rose from the sofa to pace up and down.

  “What am I to do?” she fretted. “He will leave us again, I just know he will, and I still don’t know the half of what has been going on. How much has he lost? He will not tell me.

  “Oh, how I hate this fog, I can feel it creeping in through the window frames. Draw the curtains, Elissa! I cannot bear to look at it.”

  Elissa drew the curtains and lit several candles as by now the parlour was particularly gloomy.

  “What will he do?” Lady Hartwell continued, “I am sure he is planning to leave us again and without speaking a word to me – ”

  “He cannot go anywhere this morning or he would get lost on the moor. I could hardly see my hand in front of my face when I went out just now.”

  “Go to him, Elissa! Tell him he must stay, at least until luncheon.”

  Elissa felt her face grow hot at the idea of trying to tell her impetuous cousin what he should do.

  But Lady Hartwell insisted.

  “I am out of favour, I know he will just send me away with an unkind word. But he will listen to you. Go and find him, Elissa!”

  Her heart was beating faster as she approached the library door, where one of the footmen had directed her.

  She tapped softly on it and heard her cousin’s voice as he barked,

  “Come!”

  The book-lined library was filled with a grey fog of strong-smelling cigar smoke – almost as thick as the soft moorland mist outside.

  Lord Hartwell was nowhere to be seen, but Elissa noticed a smoke-ring rising above the back of one of the leather armchairs by the fire and she walked towards it.

  Her cousin was reading a newspaper and did not look up as she approached.

  “Trojan Warrior, Bold Buccaneer, Pots of Gold. Which? I don’t know, I don’t know – ” he muttered to himself.

  Elissa stepped a little closer and at last he saw her.

  “What, Governess?” he called. “Have you come to borrow a book to read? Help yourself.”

  He waved haughtily at the rows of leather-bound volumes that covered the walls of the library.

  “No, I – ” she stammered, struggling to keep from blushing.

  “What, then?” he demanded impatiently, “I suppose Grandmama has sent you here to pester me with something or other.”

  He sighed and thrust the newspaper at her.

  “Quick, Governess. Which would you choose from all these useless nags?”

  Elissa glanced down the page quickly and realised that he had given her a list of horses in a race.

  “I know nothing about racehorses,” she blurted out.

  “So? Nor, it seems do I, judging by my luck on the Racecourse. I have studied the form, I have watched the stupid creatures prancing around the paddock and yet still I cannot seem to pick a winner. So – Governess – you do it! Go on!”

  He laughed, breathing a cloud of bitter cigar smoke into her fa
ce.

  Elissa recoiled.

  His rudeness made her skin shiver.

  She felt tears spring into her eyes and the long list of horses’ names faded into a blur as she tried to look at it.

  The big brass clock on the library mantelpiece gave a little whirr and began striking.

  It was eleven o’clock.

  “Curses! Is it so late already?” Lord Hartwell gave an angry shout. “Get on with it, girl! The race is at two-thirty and the Racecourse is many miles away! Make your choice!”

  She blinked to clear her vision.

  Trojan Warrior. Bold Buccaneer. Flight of Fancy. Pots of Gold. Wings of a Dove. Egremont.

  Suddenly she seemed to feel her Mama’s hands on her hair again and saw the white feather drifting before her, circling down and brushing one of the printed names with its fine filaments as it fell on the page of the newspaper.

  “Wings of a Dove,” she whispered to him. “That is the one.”

  “What on earth do you mean? Are you out of your mind? Wings of a Dove is a rank outsider!”

  Elissa was trembling as she persisted,

  “That is the horse you must choose.”

  The bookshelves were shimmering like a mirage all around her, her head felt full of mist and cigar smoke and she did not know if she was awake or if she had fallen into another dream.

  “Whoa, steady!” her cousin exclaimed and seized her arm roughly.

  “Don’t get a fit of the vapours on me!”

  He pushed her down on one of the leather chairs.

  Elissa dropped her head into her hands and as she struggled to clear her mind, she heard a sharp rap at the library door.

  “My Lord, if you are still set to go we must leave – there is mist and mizzle over the moor and our pace must be slow.”

  Elissa recognised the gruff voice of Oldroyd, the coachman, who had brought her to The Towers.

  Lord Hartwell began cursing angrily.

  “I am held back at every turn. Impeded, hampered by fools!”

  “We will lose our way, my Lord, if we go too fast,” the coachman told him patiently but Lord Hartwell was not listening.

  “My charming little cousin here – the Governess – look! She has picked out what will no doubt be the slowest horse in the race! Wings of a Dove! What do you make of that, Oldroyd?”

  He flapped the newspaper in front of his face.

  The stout man screwed up his eyes to read the page.

  “The odds are very good, my Lord. Your winnings will be high, if the mare wins.”

  “But the creature has never won a race!”

  Oldroyd was still peering at the page.

  “Well, my Lord, I cannot advise you. But this one is bred to stay and to jump. And an ’orse of that ilk can be slow to come to its prime.”

  Suddenly the library seemed to be full of the same golden light that had shone over the hill in Elissa’s dream.

  The mist was breaking up and long bars of sunshine were shining in through the window.

  “So it is then,” Lord Hartwell trumpeted, throwing his cigar into the fire. “Everything on Wings of a Dove. Let’s go, Oldroyd. And woe betide you, Governess, if it loses.”

  ‘What have I done?’ Elissa thought, as the two men left the library, their boots thudding over the wooden floor.

  But deep inside she knew that she could not have made any other choice.

  She had seen the feather from her dream again – the dove’s feather – and it had fallen exactly where the rank outsider’s name was printed – Wings of a Dove.

  All she could do now was wait and pray that all would be well.

  *

  Richard’s legs ached as he climbed up the rocky path, peering through clouds of mist drifting towards him.

  ‘I just need to get a little higher and I’m sure I will find the sunshine,’ he told himself. ‘What a strange wild place this is.’

  It seemed even wilder because he could not actually see where he was going.

  He was climbing stoutly and he was pretty sure that there would be a steep drop on the other side of the path, but beyond it was all mysterious and quite unlike anywhere he had ever been before.

  He had spent the night in an attic room in a tiny cottage listening to owls crying and the rustle of the wind under the roof slates.

  And Mrs. Oldroyd, his grey-haired landlady, had served him a bowl of thick porridge for his breakfast, and listened in total silence as he had explained to her that he was an artist and that he was delighted to be visiting the wonderful County of Yorkshire.

  He was feeling quite unsettled by the time he had finished the porridge and the silent Mrs. Oldroyd then put a large packet wrapped in greaseproof paper in front of him.

  “Ah, sandwiches! Just the ticket. Thank you very much, Mrs. Oldroyd!” he had smiled at his landlady.

  She nodded and disappeared into her kitchen – and Richard had stepped out into this eerie white world that seemed to muffle all the sounds around him and coated his clothes with droplets of water.

  ‘Onwards and upwards, Richard,’ he told himself, forcing his tired legs to keep going.

  He was now recalling Monty’s words just before he left London,

  “A Yorkshireman will never use two words when one will do!” he had advised.

  Richard had not taken much notice at the time, but it might explain why Mrs. Oldroyd scarcely seemed to use any words at all.

  Now the mist was thinning and up ahead of him, he heard a bird singing – a skylark.

  He quickened his pace until he found his head and then his whole body emerging from the mist as he reached the top of the hill.

  If he had been more musical, he might have burst into song as he there stood looking down on the great lake of mist spread out for miles across the countryside below him, and shining white under the golden light of the sun.

  It was one of the most glorious sights he had ever seen.

  ‘If I was a genius like Turner,’ he mused, ‘I might be able to capture it in paint, but I have a long way to go yet before I’m as good as him!’

  And feeling hungry after such a long climb, he sat down and opened the packet of sandwiches.

  They were made with thick coarse bread and when he opened one of them up to see what was inside, he burst out laughing.

  ‘Well, this is a far cry from Mayfair!’ he smiled as he took his first hearty bite of Mrs. Oldroyd’s bread-and-dripping.

  It did not taste too bad at all and as he munched away, something very remarkable started to happen.

  The mist in front of him began to melt away under the sun’s rays and the top of a ruined stone arch surrounded by broken and crumbling walls emerged.

  He caught his breath as he realised this beautiful ruin must have been just below him hidden in the mist all the time he had been climbing up the path.

  He sat very still, hugging his knees, as he waited for the last clouds of vapour to disappear and for the whole of the mysterious building to reveal itself to him.

  *

  “I am certain my cousin will be back soon,” said Elissa, thinking that at any moment she must send for some lavender water to calm her grandmother’s nerves.

  She felt much in need of some for herself, as all day long her heart had been fluttering with fear every time she thought of what had happened in the library, and now her head was aching with a sharp intense pain.

  “But you do knowwhat he is like!” Lady Hartwell moaned, her voice grown thin with constant complaining. “What if he runs off again, and leaves us none-the-wiser as to what he is up to, while he gambles away all the estate?”

  Elissa could not reply to this.

  With all her heart and soul she hoped she would never see Lord Hartwell again.

  Let him never never come back to The Towers!

  All through luncheon and the long bright afternoon she had kept to herself what she had done.

  She could not confess to her grandmother that she had picked out the name of a
horse in a race and given it to her cousin.

  How could she possibly explain her dream and the strange feeling that had come over her in the library?

  When Wings of the Dove lost the race, which surely it would, then she, Elissa, would be responsible for the loss of Fellbrook Towers and the ruin of the Hartwell family.

  Her heart heavy with despair, Elissa turned to gaze out of the window at her beloved hilltop and the path that stretched away over the moor.

  Far away in the distance two riders, one on a black horse were approaching at a breakneck pace.

  ‘They look so like men who fear nothing, who have nothing left to lose,’ Elissa thought and felt sick with fear.

  “Please excuse me, Lady Hartwell. I am feeling a little unwell.”

  At all costs she had to tear herself away from the parlour and find somewhere quiet and then decide what she must do, as she could only believe that the worst must have happened.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As Richard bounded back down the steep path, his rucksack filled with many sketches of the beautiful ruined building that had risen out of the mist, his main worry now was how he was going to pass another meal in the taciturn company of Mrs. Oldroyd.

  ‘How can I get her to speak to me?’ he wondered. ‘I could ask if there is a Mr. Oldroyd and then she might talk to me about him – but what if there isn’t? If she is a widow, she’ll be upset and then it could be days before she says another word to me!’

  When he arrived at the tiny cottage, the kitchen was filled with the delicious aroma of boiled ham, whilst Mrs. Oldroyd was busy stirring something on the stove.

  “That smells quite marvellous!” enthused Richard.

  Mrs. Oldroyd nodded to him, just as she had done when he left that morning and carried on stirring.

  “Oh, by the way,” he continued, braving her stern expression, “what is that ruin in the valley with the arches and broken walls. It looks like it was once some kind of Church?”

  “The Old Priory,” Mrs. Oldroyd told him curtly in her thick Yorkshire accent.