Page 22 of A Lady in Name

His sister’s mouth fell open. “The curate? What in the world are you talking of?”

“The Reverend Mr Waley. Apparently he wishes to marry her.”

A modicum of satisfaction entered his breast at the astonishment in his sister’s face. “Good gracious! Lucy said never a word of this to me.”

Stefan curled his lip. “You don’t know everything, Dion. Lucy Graydene is a very secretive woman.”

The vicarage, oddly in Lucy’s heightened senses, appeared to be just the same. The rose bush still grew unmanageably all around the low-roofed porch, the closed shutters at the front windows gave the same impression of darkness to the aged stonework, and the cobbled pathway was as full of weeds as ever. The only difference lay in the silence of the house. Somewhere in the recesses behind, Lucy knew, lurked Jenny, the elderly maid who had long been the mainstay of the vicar’s household. Jenny was to retire to live with her sister-in-law once the new vicar was installed.

“It has such an old-world air,” said Dion beside her, looking over the building with a critical eye. Seeming to feel something more was expected, she added, “It is very nice, of course.”

Her over-eager assertion had the effect of lessening Lucy’s sombre mood. She laughed. “Don’t fall over yourself to admire it, Dion. It is nothing to Pennington Manor.”

“Well, but I have not always lived in so grand a style either,” Dion protested. “Indeed, while we were abroad, we managed in the most unsatisfactory establishments. I cannot tell you how many poky bedchambers and stuffy parlours I have been obliged to suffer.”

Lucy extracted the front-door key from her reticule. “I’m afraid it is bound to be stuffy. I dare say Jenny has not opened a window since I went away.”

But once they entered the front parlour, which had been wont to be Lucy’s domain, and she had opened the shutters to let in the light, she could see little had changed. The place was cold, but as homely as ever with its chintz pattern to the upholstery, its faded rugs and the polished dark wood table where Lucy had sat to her lessons.

“Oh, it’s lovely, Lucy,” said Dion, real pleasure in her tone. “Does it all belong to you?”

Lucy shook her head, aware of a returning cloud in her mind. “Nothing of value. The furnishings must pass to the new incumbent. I have some of Papa’s books, along with his watch and a few personal items. The rest will be despatched to my — to his sister.”

How easy to forget that the woman she had ever known as Aunt Harriet was in no way related to her.

Dion picked up on it immediately. “You have an aunt?”

“I thought I had.” Seeing the light of question in Dion’s sympathetic gaze, Lucy made haste to change the subject. “I wonder where Jenny is.”

“Your maid? Perhaps she is out, or she must have heard us enter.”

Lucy laughed. “Unlikely. Poor Jenny has grown rather deaf. Let us try the kitchen.”

But a thorough search of the premises failed to turn up the maid. It was odd, for the fire in the kitchen stove had been allowed to die and there was no fresh milk in the larder.

Dion chattered and exclaimed at every room. Lucy was glad of the distraction, for it left her free to feast her eyes on the familiar patterns and paths of her erstwhile life. Yet she felt strangely out of place. She had been gone barely a week, but in that short time an inexplicable change had come upon her. It was as if she no longer belonged in these dark little chambers and narrow corridors with the creaking beam in the passage and the rickety banister on the stairs.

“I feel like an interloper,” she uttered aloud, forgetting she was not alone.

Dion, who was gazing out at the prospect from Lucy’s old bedchamber window, turned to look at her. “I know what you mean. I felt just the same when we were obliged to move to Pennington with Stefan. We went back to our house, which was to be let, and it was like entering someone else’s home.”

Lucy came into the bedchamber, gratitude in her heart. “You do understand. I thought I must be losing my reason.”

Dion came to her and tucked a confiding hand in her arm. “Do you know, I believe it is a way we have of making possible a break with the past. I suppose all women must experience something of the sort, when they return to their home after they are married.” Her eyes rolled. “Except Paulina, of course. She has never become accustomed to losing her status at Pennington. Yet she left there some years before my uncle died. Paulina looks askance at every change and drives Stefan demented.”

The naughty giggle that accompanied this revelation was not echoed in Lucy’s breast. She was positively glad to know Stefan’s path was not uniformly smooth.

She was recalled to the business of the day by a suddenly brisk Dion, who withdrew her hand and rubbed her fingers together in a business-like fashion.

“Now, where do we start?”

Lucy stuffed the last of the items she had gathered together beside her into the old trunk and rose from sore knees. She put her hands to her back, massaging muscles strained from bending.

“I had not thought there was so much left to pack.”

From a chair by the parlour window, where she was unravelling tangled threads from Lucy’s tapestry-covered sewing box, Dion cast a glance at the bulging contents of the trunk.

“It is extraordinary how one manages to accumulate so much paraphernalia, is it not? Sometimes I wish I was a gypsy, with nothing to take but my bowl and pipe.”