Greetings Readers! On this snowy day, I have an excerpt to share with you from my newest release. I hope you enjoy!
December 3rd, 1886
“Well?”
he snapped, not looking up from his papers. “I hope you have good cause for
interrupting me, Chauncey.”
“A
Miss Mayferry has wandered up from the gate, sir, in all this rain.” Hiccup. “She
has come from a place called… Mayferry Marsh.” Hiccup. “Claims to be expected,
sir.”
“What?”
Only half-listening, he still studied the papers on his desk and dimly wondered
whether it was time he started watering down the port, before his steward
emptied the cellars entirely. “If she’s begging for food, send her to the
kitchen door and have Elkins…ah, no, she will have gone home by now. You’ll
have to see if there is any food left out.”
But
he felt the man hovering uncertainly behind him, tilting and weaving even more
than usual.
“Chauncey,
do you have something more to say? Your lurking silence is only marginally less
irritating than the high-pitched twittering of an addled wench who feels
herself hard-done- by. Which is more than three quarters of the damnable female
populace, apparently.”
“No,
sir. It is just that—”
“If
the decrepit crone wants money, send her to the church. Old Sproat has more
coin and gold plate tucked away in his coffers and vaults than anybody.
Besides, he likes to preach about providing for the less fortunate. Can’t say
I’ve ever attended his sermons, but I believe that’s how the church works. Give
us your money and we’ll provide for the poor. Is that not so?”
The
steward cleared his throat, but the next words came in a clear, slightly
impatient voice that was definitely not Chauncey’s.
“I
have, in my possession, a letter confirming my employment and instructing me to
come here, to Stanbury House. This is the place, is it not?”
An
ink blot dripped to his paper. “By the Lawgod All Nighty,” he cursed,
low. Twisting around in his chair, he discovered a damp and dowdy creature
standing at the steward’s elbow and making a wet puddle in the doorway of his
library. He had been so caught up in his work that he had not even heard the
heavy rain falling against his window.
“The
coachman who set me down at the gate assured me this is the place,” she said. “In
the dark and the rain, not knowing the area at all, I was obliged to take his
word for it. I sought shelter at the end of the drive, where I saw light in these
windows, and this good fellow let me in.”
He
remained silent, still retrieving his thoughts from where they were scattered
across his papers like a spilled file. A woman stood inside his library, and
that was an occasion he generally avoided for good reason. Dash Deverell was
not well-schooled in social niceties and would be perfectly happy never having
to use any. It took him a moment to adjust, as it does for an eye coming from
dark to light.
As
the pause lengthened ominously, he heard every clock in the house ticking too
quickly. Was Chauncey over-oiling the cogs again? Rain tickled his window with
mischievous fingertips, and the coals in the grate exhaled a low hiss. As a boy
he used to imagine a dragon lived there, in the fireplace. Tonight, it had slept,
until she caused it to open one eye and give that warning grumble. Now
it turned over again and resumed its slumber. A coal tumbled to the hearth, as
if disturbed by the beast’s heaving hump.
The
woman he could barely see had brought with her a fragrance never before known
in that room, and a sense of anticipation equally rare.
A
disturbance felt even by the sleeping dragon.
“I
pray there has been no mistake,” she said, her sentence ending on a gentle,
tentative uplift.
At
last he gathered his words and managed a reply. “Well, I wouldn’t rely on
prayer. It’s a long time since anybody prayed in this house, and I suspect it
was too little and too late.”
He
heard Chauncey give a little snort. The candelabra held aloft in the steward’s
shaky hand, swayed about like a ship with all its sails aflame, set adrift on a
stormy night’s sea. Somewhere near it, her face floated, a moon sunk into that
dark water, her features fuzzy. Although Dash had two oil lamps on his desk,
she was too far away for that light to reach and help him make her out. As for
the fire, he had let it die away to a lazy smolder that gave out nothing more than
a dull gleam of old, pirate gold.
He
squinted harder, trying to make out where the dark ended and she, in her black
garments, began. “All the way from Mayferry Marsh?” he grumbled. “Forty miles
at least. No little journey for a woman alone. What could possibly have put you
to such a foolish exercise in winter? What name did you say?”
“Mayferry,”
she repeated slowly and steadily. “Miss Daisy Mayferry. I replied to an
advertisement that was posted last month in The Lady, for a companion
with some light housekeeping. And an interest in water painting.”
Once
again Chauncey gave a bemused snort and tittered, while his great height leaned
precariously, first left and then right, his shoulder eventually bumping up
against the doorframe.
“After
my application, I received a letter, inviting me to start my employment here as
soon as possible.” She paused and, even with his poor sight, he caught a gleam
of something strange in her eyes as she finally lifted her gaze from the carpet
to his face.
It
caused just the tiniest of jolts to his pulse. As if there was an electrical
storm in the air.
Apparently,
she suffered a similar shock.
“Oh,”
she exhaled. “Oh, no. Surely not. God help me. Not another one.” The words
dropped from her lips, like rejected bites of something unexpectedly sour and maggoty.
“Deverell.” If both her hands were not tucked inside a black velvet muff, she
would undoubtedly have crossed herself, he mused.
“That
is what they call me. One of the names.”
“You…live
here?”
“From
time to time. When it cannot be avoided.”
“Then
a terrible mistake has been made. I must leave at once.”
But
as the new arrival began her retreat, he gave a sharp whistle.
She
came to a halt out of sheer surprise, he suspected. Doubtless she’d never been
whistled at before.
Still
seated, but twisted around in his chair, he demanded, “Where do you think to go
in this weather and at this late hour, madam? That coachman will be halfway to Folkstone
by now. I suggest you stand where you are, until we get to the bottom of your
curious account of events. For all we know, you could be a thief come here to
steal the spoons. Or sent as a distraction, while your accomplice lurks in the
rhododendrons, waiting for you to let him in through the drawing room window.”
“That
is quite ridiculous, sir.” Her gloved hand emerged from the muff, gripping a letter.
“As you will see, I speak the truth—”
Impatient,
he clicked his fingers and Chauncey quickly took the letter from her hand,
delivering it to Dash with four long and lurching strides and a dangerously
exaggerated bow. Whilst being flung about like flags on a windy day, the flames
of that candelabra clung with admirable and astonishing determination to their
wicks.
“I
was told that the vacant post is for companion to the Dowager Lady Audley,” she
said crossly. “That is what the letter says. And there was no mention of any Deverell
involved in the business.”
He
gave a curt laugh. “Madam, there is usually a Deverell somewhere, involved in
most things. People like you, content in your tidy, tranquil, comfortable
lives, never give much thought to how the world keeps turning. Just as long as
it does, and none of the dirt gets on your hands.”
Her
disdain was so palpable from across the room that she needn’t have put it into
words. But she did. “Aren’t we fortunate? Thank god for Deverells.”
“Place
the blame wherever you will. But I rather think the devil has more right to it
in my case.”
While
Chauncey returned to her side with long, unsteady steps that suggested he saw
puddles on the carpet and meant to avoid them, Dash scanned the note very
briefly in the glow of an oil lamp and then heaved a brusque sigh. “Madam, Lady
Audley lives on the estate in the dower house, on the other side of the lake
and the park. She moved here many years ago and now belongs to the Stanbury
estate. Like the pointless bloody marble folly and the ridiculously
ostentatious fountain.” Refolding the letter, he slid it away in the little
drawer of his desk, and she, after holding out her hand in vain for its return,
finally tucked her fingers back inside her muff.
“I’m
afraid it’s impossible for me to stay,” she said. “Had I known that you were,
in any way, connected to this lady, I would not have come.”
“Once
Miss Mayferry has got her protests out of the way, Chauncey, you can show her to
a box room or a linen cupboard, priest hole or some other out-of-the-way place
upstairs for the remains of the night. Have Elkins traipse her down to the
dower house in the morning.” He turned back to his work. “No point making any
introductions in the middle of the damned evening. The quarrelsome jade is
likely abed now, and if roused from it she will likely meet her guest at the
door with a loaded rifle. She generally shoots first and asks questions of the
corpse.” He picked up his pen. “Now I should like a piece of quiet.”
“Very
good, sir.” With his free hand, Chauncey gave a salute that almost knocked Miss
Mayferry’s bonnet from her head.
“Pardon
me,” she interrupted, pert, “but I just told you that I cannot remain here in
this house with a Deverell. I suppose you do not remember me, but I—”
“You
needn’t be a fretful Fanny. I shall be down here, at my desk, working all
evening. As for the future of your employment, I’m not here very often. When I
am, you won’t know it.” Through gritted teeth he added, “I shan’t expect an
invitation to tea.”
“That
is fortunate, since you would never be invited. I’d as soon throw the kettle at
you. And the name is Daisy, not Fanny. But I prefer Miss Mayferry, since we are
hardly intimate acquaintances. Nor likely to be.”
Find out what happens next in
The Snowdrop.
Image: Yes or No, by John Everett Millais
