Iris beckoned to me and I followed her out into the corridor, where Dora was dragging a heavy carpet sweeper across the runner and into the next room. The library was another large room, each wall lined with leather-bound books. There was a long window with a padded seat and a view over the stable yard and neat lawn. The boundary fence was sunk low into a ditch so that the scrubby grass and clumps of trees that dotted the edge of the common could be seen from the house.
Iris crossed to the window seat and sat on one end, so I followed and sat on the other.
‘I have heard so much about you from your mother,’ she said, smiling. ‘Such wonderful things.’
‘Well, I know that one of you is lying there,’ I said, but then I realised that I had spoken too quickly so I added, ‘Either my mother when she said them or you when you say you heard them.’ But the words did not come out any better and I felt my face warm again so I removed my jacket.
She laughed. ‘I have heard that you are spikey, Nell,’ she said, ‘and I like that, but tell me about yourself. I hear that you are stuck at home, like me.’
‘You mean that I am jobless because—’ I began, but she did not let me finish.
‘Are you bored at home?’ she said. ‘Your mother tries to dress it up but I gather that you do little at the moment.’
‘Oh!’ I said. ‘I…’ But I found that I could not explain.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I do very little too. I was always expected to marry Francis Elliot-Palmer, but my father is now against it and I get no more than a few snatched words with Francis at the season’s balls. Do you know Francis Elliot-Palmer?’ She looked at me earnestly as if she expected me to know him, and that I should.
‘I do not,’ I said, although the truth was that, in a way, I did. I knew that Waldley Court on the other side of the common was known as the Elliot-Palmer House, but I only knew Sam Denman who worked in the stables there. Elliot-Palmer was one of the names you saw carved in stone all over the church walls and on the grandest tombs in the graveyard. It was one of the names you would see at the bottom of the programme for the village fete and in the announcements pages of the newspaper. It was a name you would see in Missensham just as often as Caldwell, and the two names frequently appeared side by side.
I thought of this boy, Francis Elliot-Palmer, the one who had been destined to marry Iris but now never would. I imagined him standing with Iris, side by side as their family names so often were, but not even their hands touching. I fancied that he was just as fair as Iris but tall and muscular like some fairy-tale prince, and at that moment I could not help but feel a little sorry for her.
‘Instead of marrying I will go to finishing school in Switzerland,’ she said wearily, ‘but not until I am sixteen and up till then my father just wants to keep me entertained.’
I thought that it was a funny thing to say and I wondered if I was part of her father’s plans and had been brought here to entertain her like a performing monkey, but this time I did not speak out.
‘Did you ride here?’ she said, leaning into the light of the window and I noticed that her eyes were wide with excitement, the twist of a tiny blue vein in the delicate skin of her temple.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I don’t ride.’
‘Oh,’ she said disappointedly. ‘I thought that everyone in Missensham could ride.’
‘We don’t exactly have the room to stable a horse,’ I said flatly.
‘You should meet my pony then,’ she said, pointing out the window in the direction of the stable yard. ‘We can take her out on the common. There is a direct track from the back of the house.’
‘Yes,’ I said, glad to get out of the house where I felt I would break something or should be curtsying all the time. ‘I would like that.’
‘Good,’ she said smiling, and I realised that I had been looking at her face all the while we had been speaking and could still not understand what it was about her that made it so difficult for me to look away.
‘I knew we would be friends!’ she said. I felt something deep inside me do a little jump but it was a feeling I did not understand and I was annoyed that this girl I had expected to hate had caused it.
‘Come!’ She stood up and held out her hand to me and I took it reluctantly as we headed back to the study.
‘Father!’ she called from the doorway. ‘I am taking a ride on the common with Nell.’
My mother and Sir Howard looked up from their books.
‘As long as it is alright with Mrs Ryland,’ Sir Howard said. Then he turned to my mother. ‘I’m afraid that someone will need to lead the pony as she is a mare and can be skittish. The stable lad at Waldley Court had a few ponies for sale but as soon as Iris saw the mare, she begged to have it. A gelding would have been much more suitable for her first horse but little girls just love white horses, don’t they?’
My mother opened her mouth but he did not wait for her response.
‘We shall all go on to the common together then,’ he said, standing up and holding his hand out to my mother. ‘Go and change, Iris; you can meet us at the stable.’
My mother gathered up her coat and bag hurriedly and took his hand as he led her from the room.
‘My jacket is still in the library,’ I said. ‘I will have to catch you up.’
But they did not offer to wait and continued down the stairs.
My jacket was on the window seat where I had left it. I scooped it up, but as I did, I glanced out of the long window, a dark shape catching my eye. Beyond the stable yard and neat lawn was an area of scrubby grass on the edge of Missensham Common. A man stood not far from the house, among a small clump of trees. He was dressed in dark clothes and carried what looked like a long gun case over his shoulder, and another larger bag that made me think he might have spent the night outdoors, but he did not look like he was taking a stroll nor stalking game. In fact, he stood perfectly still, facing the house and I fancied that he held his head in such a way that he must be looking up to the window where Iris and I had sat just moments before.
I leant forward and raised my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. The man took a step back towards the cover of the trees, but I felt my heart quicken a little when I realised that he had seen me but had still not looked away.
‘Iris…’ I called but then remembered that she had left to change and that I was alone.
‘Nell!’ my mother called from downstairs.
‘I’m coming,’ I shouted. ‘It’s just that…’
But when I looked back to the window the man was gone.
9
I did not mention the man I had seen in the trees to anyone that morning. I told myself that it was not important. He had not been trespassing after all, but there was something unsettling about the way he had been looking towards the house and I seldom saw men carrying rifles in March as it was not the season to hunt pheasant or grouse.
As I followed Sir Howard and my mother downstairs and out into the stable yard, I looked across the little sunken fence and out on to the common, but there was no man in black standing by the trees, and nothing to suggest that there ever had been.
The white mare that Sir Howard had spoken of stood in the middle of the yard, saddled and ready, shuffling her hooves impatiently while Dora gripped her bridle and Sir Howard and my mother stroked her neck and made soothing noises. She was not the animal that Iris had described. She had none of the softness of a pony, her flanks were tight with muscle and her neck was long and arched, and when Dora stepped back to steady her, I barely saw the top of the woman’s head over the creature’s back.