This was similar.

The letters of the alphabet, the numbers and:

‘My lips shall not speak wickedness neither shall my tongue utter deceit.’

‘The price of wisdom is above rubies.’

And underneath that ‘M. Herriot in the year of our Lord 1619’.

Magdalen, I thought. She lived here. This was her room. It was for that reason that Richard had not wished me to come here.

Now that Richard was not here, the servants’ attitude definitely changed towards me. Mrs Cherry liked to talk to me, and when I went to the kitchen my stays were longer than they had been.

Richard had wanted me to learn the duties of the mistress of the house and this was something in which I did not need a great deal of tuition, for my mother had always been a woman deeply concerned with domestic matters and she had brought us up to feel the same. It was one of the areas in which I did better than Bersaba, and I was often in our kitchen at Trystan when my mother gave the orders for the day.

So I had no difficulty with Mrs Cherry, who sensed this and respected me for it.

I made a point of going down to the kitchen each morning to tell her what I would have for dinner and supper. She would sit down with me, purring slightly. She seemed a very contented woman, I thought.

She called me ‘my lady’ as all the servants did, and she spoke of the General in hushed whispers which implied great respect.

I asked her if she had done a lot of cooking at any time and she answered yes, she had, for there were occasions when the household was full of guests. ‘Military gentlemen,’ she said. ‘They’d come here and stay for a few days. The General would ride out from Whitehall with them. Big appetites they had and good drinkers most of them. That’s why the General keeps a good cellar. Cherry says we’ve got some of the finest malmseys and muscadels in England.’

‘You must tell me what happens on these occasions, Mrs Cherry. I shall want to make sure that they are a success.’

‘You can rely on me … and Cherry, as well as Mr Jesson, and we see that the rest of them behaves, if you know what I mean. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for the General.’

‘It must have been difficult for him without a hostess all these years.’

‘Well, I reckon you’ll be a help, my lady, but I can tell you that these military gentlemen like to eat and drink and fight their wars on the table and they’re content. I remember one night when we went in to clear away after supper and there they were … my best game pie was some fort or other and my boar’s head was the enemy’s cavalry, if you please. There they were arranged there all over the table … you never saw the like … and one of them started making pellets of bread and throwing them around. Shot and shell they was.’

I laughed. I could well imagine that.

‘Their profession is fighting, Mrs Cherry, and preserving the country from our enemies.’

‘I don’t doubt that, my lady. But as I was saying … give them a good sirloin of beef and a leg of mutton and plenty of pies and plover and partridge and hare or peacock and something good to wash it down with, and they’re content.’

‘I am sure everything will work splendidly.’

‘Oh, you can rely on me, my lady … and Cherry. And the rest of them too.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And there’s one thing we have to be ready for. At any time the General can arrive. You can be sure that he’ll be back here as fast as he can … he being such a newly married man.’

‘Mrs Cherry,’ I said, ‘how long have you been here?’

‘It was before the General … er … before his first marriage. Cherry got a wound in his leg, and the General thinking highly of him, and Cherry being unfit for service, he says … the General I mean … well, come along and be my general factotum … that’s what he said, and Mrs Cherry can be the housekeeper and cook for me. Cherry jumped at it, and so did I. Always a high regard Cherry had for the General … who wasn’t a General then … that came after.’

‘So you were here at the time of his first marriage.’

‘Oh yes. I remember the day he brought her here. We talked of it here in the kitchens only the other day … your coming reminded us … those of us who were here, of course. I said: “He’s not made a mistake this time,” and Cherry agreed with me.’

‘A mistake?’

‘Oh, I’m speaking out of turn again. Cherry’s always telling me I talk too much. Well, it’s good to be sociable. Well, since you ask, my lady and it’s as well to know what’s gone before, I reckon, she was a delicate little thing. Too young she was.’

‘How young?’

‘Seventeen … going on for eighteen.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘I know you’re a young lady yourself, but she seemed younger, if you know what I mean. One of the Herriots. Thought a good deal of themselves, the Herriots did … one of the finest families in the north. The families were in favour and I think that had to be the reason for it. So they were married, and the General … only he wasn’t a General then … brought her home. She knew nothing about housekeeping. She was frightened of her own shadow.’

‘She liked needlework.’

‘Yes, indeed, my lady. She’d sit up there in the Castle Room and she’d have her tapestry set up there and she’d work away and sometimes you’d hear her singing. She had a pretty voice … oh, a very pretty voice … but not strong, and she’d play the spinet and sing as she played. It was very pretty to hear her. There was one song she used to sing … ’

‘Yes, Mrs Cherry?’ I prompted.

‘We were trying to remember the other day because Grace was saying it was funny in a way … oh, not to make you laugh. I don’t mean that … queer, if you like. The song was about her being laid in her grave and she hoped her wrongs wouldn’t be held against her. The last line used to go “Remember me, but forget what brought me to this state”, which was very odd in a way.’

‘You mean because she died so young … and unexpectedly.’

‘Oh, it was expected. She’d been ailing all the time … The midwife—Mrs Jesson that was. She was here then and died a few years later—spoke to me a few days before and said she didn’t think her ladyship could survive.’

‘She was very ill then?’

‘Every woman must be a bit afraid of her first. It’s natural, and there’s many who give their lives for the sake of the child. It’s nature’s way … but it ain’t natural for anyone to be quite so frightened. That’s what I reckon.’

‘And so she and her baby died.’

‘It was a sad time, I can tell you. The General he just went away, and the house was quiet and dead like for more than a year.’

‘How very sad.’

‘Oh well, things are different now. You’re a strong healthy young lady, if you’ll forgive me the liberty of remarking on it. I reckon when your time comes …’

She looked at me intently, and for the first time I noticed an alertness in her eyes which did not quite accord with her placid rotundity. I supposed that she was naturally interested to know if I had already conceived. Women like her would like to have children in the house.

I stood up suddenly. I felt I had talked enough, and I had a sudden notion that Richard would not approve of this chattering with the servants.

So I said: ‘There is no need to cook a great deal, Mrs Cherry, as I shall be alone.’

‘Well, of course not, my lady. You just tell me what you want and I promise you it will be just to your liking.’

I had always had a strong curiosity about what was going on around me, and I thought a great deal about Richard’s life with Magdalen and wondered whether he had fought out old battles with her and admonished her about her lack of concentrated effort over the chessboard.

I smiled indulgently. Well, he wouldn’t have wanted a wife who could beat him, would he? I was not sure. There was a great deal about him that I did not understand. I was glad of it, for it made our future life full of interest and discovery.

I feared I was much more easy to read.

I was longing to work on a canvas. I did wish Bersaba were here. She used to draw my pictures for me, making the finished work a joint affair. When people complimented me on the finesse of my stitches I would always draw attention to the design. ‘That is my sister’s work,’ I would say.

As I went through the canvases I found one of them already mapped out. The design was beautifully drawn and I thought Magdalen was quite an artist. It was a garden scene. There was a pond with lilies on it, and I realized at once that it was a study of the pond garden which was enclosed by a hedge and surrounded by a pleached alley. I studied it intently. What beautiful colours one could use. And then I saw that above the alley there was a glimpse of the towers of the Folly without the tall wall which was now there.

I must work that canvas, for it solved the problem of the drawing, and when I found exactly the silks I needed I could not wait to begin, so I sat down there in the room, for it was an ideal spot and I could understand why she had used it so much. The light was exactly what one needed for such work.

As I sat there a strange feeling came over me. I felt at home and as though I were not alone.

‘I hope, Magdalen,’ I said aloud, ‘you don’t mind my using your canvas.’

The sound of my voice startled me and I laughed at myself, but at the same time it was almost as though I heard a murmur of contentment as I sat there selecting my silks. How I loved working with bright colours! The room was full of sunshine, and I thought: Could I make this my room? Richard wouldn’t like it. Or had I imagined that? Perhaps he had merely been eager to show me the rest of the house and that was why he had not wanted to linger.

I worked on for a while and then suddenly the room darkened. I turned sharply and went to the window. It was only a dark cloud passing across the face of the sun. There was a tetchy wind and quite a number of clouds had sprung up.

I watched them scurrying across the sky. Now the sun was completely hidden and darkness hung over the towers of the Folly. My mood had changed and I fancied there was a menace in the air. I turned away to look round the room. It was different now it was darker. My canvas lay on the table and the room had lost its homely atmosphere.

It seemed full of menacing warning, and I had the feeling that I wanted to get away.

As I went out I could almost hear Bersaba’s voice mocking me as she had when I had wakened sometimes from my nightmares.

‘You’re too easily afraid, Angelet. Why should you always be afraid? You should make other people afraid of you sometimes.’

I hurried down to the room I had shared with Richard.

Meg was there putting my clothes away.

‘It’s getting really dark, my lady,’ she said. ‘I reckon we’re in for a storm.’

The days began to speed past. A messenger arrived after three weeks with a letter from Richard, in which he said he was in the Midlands and would be going north shortly. He believed he might be away for as much as six weeks. ‘You can be sure that as soon as I can I shall return to you.’

That was as near as he could get to saying he loved me, but it was enough; and I knew he would be as good as his word.

In the meantime I would learn all I could about the management of his house and would surprise him. It was a lonely life because no one called. I suppose his friends knew that he was away and when he was home it would be quite different. They had left us alone for the weeks following our marriage because they would reason that would have been what we wanted; and now they would wait for his return.

I had several talks with Mrs Cherry and I was getting to know the girls Grace and Meg very well. I chose Meg as my special maid—well, it was not exactly that I chose her as that she seemed to fall naturally into the role. I learned that Jesson had been with the General as long as the Cherrys had, and that he had brought his wife and daughters with him to serve the household. I was glad they were there because without them and Mrs Cherry it would have been a household of men.

Meg was more talkative than Grace; the younger of the two, she was thirty-seven and told me proudly that she had been born in the January of the year the great Queen died. Grace could say she had actually lived during that glorious reign.

She remembered the previous lady of the house. ‘Very gentle, she was, and kind,’ she told me. ‘She’d sit up in that room with her stitching, just like you’re doing. Funny you should like sewing too. I used to dress her hair for her. She didn’t have one of them curly fringes, though. Beautiful hair, it was, and she was as pale as a lily. I used to love to hear her play on the spinet, and when she sang with it, that was lovely.’