AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Perhaps if Will or Johnny—”
“We have to see to the stables,” Will said.
“Let her go.” That was Pa, ever the peacemaker. “She’ll be the better for some exercise. I only wish I could go with her.”
“But the ways here are unfamiliar,” Mama said. “What if she were to lose her way?”
“I shall only walk up to that gate there,” Julia said. “You will be able to see me from the house at every moment. I shall not go further than that, I promise. Ohpleasemay I go?”
Pa looked at Mama, one eyebrow raised. She laughed, and said, “Oh, very well then, Julia. There will be nothing but bustle for an hour or two yet, but do not stay out long in this cold weather.”
“I won’t,” Julia cried, turning away with a wave almost before the words were out of her mouth.
She was free at last! With eager steps she sped along a gravel path between beds brown and bare at this season, balls of drab green standing forlornly at the corners, and then a rose garden, already pruned almost to the ground, and finally the lawn. Another path wound down to a narrow part of the lake, spanned by an arched stone bridge, and then up, up, up to the woods and the intriguing gate. What would be beyond it? A dark, mysterious forest? A river… a vast uncrossable lake… wild moorland, filled with curlews and pipits… mountains, even? No, probably no mountains. They were a very long way from anything that might properly be called by that name. But hills… there might be hills.
It was farmland. At first, her spirits plummeted, for what could be duller than cows and bare grain fields? But when she looked again, she saw more, a great deal more. Therewasa river, now that she looked more closely. She could catch glints between the leafless branches of a line of trees some distance below her which could only be water. Another line of trees probably marked a road, for it led to a small hamlet, the smoke rising vertically from several cottages.
Nearer at hand, a tiny cottage peeped through an untidy hedge. From it, a man in rough clothing emerged and walked steadily up the slope towards her, a gun in one hand and a tidy haul of game dangling from his belt. The gamekeeper! One of the estate workers, one of their own people. Someone who would not disdain the newcomers from the north, the mercer and his family, because his livelihood depended on them.
She waved cheerily to him. He looked up, saw her and smiled. He had a kind face, she thought. A friendly face. She clambered onto the gate and waited for her first new friend to reach her.
~~~~~
There was a girl sitting on the gate. As soon as James emerged from the hut, he saw her leaning on the top bar, watching him. Then she waved, and climbed up to sit on the gate, one leg swinging, a merry smile on her face.
He had never seen her before, that much was certain. As he drew nearer, she called out merrily to him, “Good day to you, sir! That looks like a good haul. What have you there?”
“Nothing too exciting, only pheasant and a couple of ducks. There were some woodcock, but they got away from me.”
She was an odd sort of young lady, he decided. Her clothes looked expensive if not exactly fashionable, but her pelisse and the gown beneath it were both mud-bespattered, and loose tendrils of hair escaped from a rather battered bonnet.
“Are they for the house… I mean the Park?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh good, because I like pheasant. It’s a pity about the woodcock, because that’s one of Pa’s favourites, but maybe you’ll have more luck tomorrow.”
“Maybe I will,” James said. Her lively face and enthusiasm made him want to smile, and at least he now knew who she was. “You must be a part of the Fletcher family.”
“I am! We just arrived an hour or so ago, but I couldn’t bear to be indoors, so I came out for a walk.”
“And only got as far as the gate to the High Field.”
“Is that what it’s called? I don’t know the names of anything yet. I would have walked further, but the new Mama didn’t want me to go out of sight. She thinks I’ll get lost, but I never do. If I walk from one place to another, I can always turn round and go back the way I’ve come, can’t I?”
James laughed. There was something so open and artless about her that he could scarcely resist. “Do you like your new home?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t seen much of it yet. I’ve left that to Mama.”
He knew she was one of the sisters… one of the four. But which one? The eldest was a beauty, allegedly, but this girl, although pleasantly featured, would never be described as such. But she was so open that he had no hesitation in asking her directly. “So which Miss Fletcher are you?”
She laughed merrily. “The second one. Well… strictly speaking, the third, but Allie, the eldest of us, is married and left behind in the West Riding. Rosie is the eldest unmarried, then me — I’m Julia, then Angie. And Bella, but she’s still in the schoolroom. There are two boys, Will and Johnny. Oh, and Aunt Madge. Mama’s sister. Our real mama, that is, not the new one. The new Mama is the one who wanted to move here and be gentry. The rest of us would have been quite happy to stay in Sagborough, but Pa wanted her to be happy and so here we are, and lucky for us this place was for sale, I suppose. Although unlucky for the Plummer family, who got into debt and had to sell it to us. Our neighbours, now. Oh, but you must know them, of course. What are they like? Are they quite horrid?”
James knew perfectly well that he should tell her at once that he was a Plummer himself, but the mischievous streak in him intervened. He had not enjoyed himself so much in an age. Life was so boring, as a rule, and here was someone who was not in the least boring. It was deliciously amusing that she had no idea who he was, and was not on her best behaviour. She would find out his name soon enough, so where was the harm? “I would not say they are horrid,” he said cautiously. “In fact, they are very pleasant people.”
“Pleasant, are they? I hope that’s true, and they don’t despise us too much. They’re very grand, though, aren’t they? The father is a baronet, and that’s like nobility, isn’t it? Mama says not, but I’m not sure if she’s right about that.”
“She is quite correct,” James said. “A baronet is gentry — just like your family, although a little more distinguished, perhaps.”
