gaze went to the building that stood back from the village, up a cobbled lane across from the church. A lump clogged the back of her throat. This was the schoolhouse where her father had taught. Upon his death, Victoria and her mother had moved out of the schoolhouse into a cottage behind the church.
On reaching the cottage she opened the gate and walked up the short path to the door, noticing that the flower garden was overgrown and badly needed tending. She tried the door, only to find it was locked. Going to the window, she peered inside. There was no sign of her mother and there was no fire in the hearth. In fact, she was unable to see the familiar table and fireside chairs. She frowned, standing back. Perhaps Mrs Knowles across the way would know where she could find her mother.
Mrs Knowles was a widow who had always been kindly disposed to her and her mother. She was a busy, house-proud little woman who lived with her son Ned. Ned worked up at the Hall looking after the master’s horses. Her mouth fell open with astonishment when she saw Victoria standing on her doorstep. Delighted to see her, she drew her inside.
‘Why, just look at you. A right bonny lass you’ve turned out to be. Your mother will be right proud of you.’
The cottage was warm and above the smell of baking Victoria could detect the fragrance of beeswax. The wooden floor was covered with pegged rugs and two comfortable chairs were drawn up to the log fire, while a pile of neatly folded laundry and bunch of spring flowers in a copper jug stood on a gate-legged table under the window.
‘I expect you want to know where your mother’s gone,’ Mrs Knowles said, offering her a chair by the fire and a cup of tea, which Victoria declined.
‘Yes, Mrs Knowles. I thought I’d surprise her. I—I know she hasn’t been well of late and I’ve been most anxious about her, which was why I left the Academy. I couldn’t stay any longer knowing she was ill.’
‘Aye, well, you’re right about that. She’s been right poorly ever since you went back to that Academy. I told her to write and tell you to come home to look after her, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’
Victoria was mortified. Her mother had begun coughing a lot over the last twelve months. In fact, she’d had what she referred to as a ticklish cough for a number of years, but she had refused to find out the cause. Last summer it had become more persistent and she had finally succumbed to Victoria’s pleading and allowed the doctor to examine her. He had confirmed that she had consumption. Resigned to the fact that the time she had left was limited, she had insisted that Victoria return to the Academy until the time when she took to her bed.
‘My mother needed me. I should have been here.’
‘When you went away I told you that I would look after her. I did what I could, mind, but she needed more care than I could give her.’
A feeling of sick dread began to take root in Victoria. She stared at Mrs Knowles, seeing the anguished expression in her eyes. This was serious. Her blood seemed to chill in her veins. ‘She is very ill, isn’t she?’
‘Aye, lass, she is.’
‘Then where is she? Where has she gone?’
‘The master came and took her to the Hall.’
Victoria stared at her. ‘The master? Lord Rockford? How extraordinary! But—I don’t understand. Why would he do that?’
‘Lord Rockford heard how poorly she was and thought she would be best taken care of up at the Hall. I suppose it’s something to do with her being his mother’s maid.’
‘But that was years ago—before she married my father.’
‘Be that as it may, Victoria, I reckon that when the master came up from London and heard how ill she was, he felt obliged. Nobody could have been more solicitous in seeing she was conveyed to the Hall in comfort.’
‘And the cottage? When I looked in at the window it seemed empty.’
‘That’s because it’s been made ready for the next tenant.’
The colour slowly drained from Victoria’s face. ‘The next tenant? Are you saying that Lord Rockford has turned us out?’
‘Well—not exactly.’
‘Then where are our things—our furniture?’
‘They’ve been packed up and taken to the Hall.’
‘But he can’t do that. The cottage is our home.’
‘Can you afford to keep it?’ Mrs Knowles said gently.
‘Of course. Father left us well provided for. How else could Mother have been able to afford to send me to the Academy?’
Mrs Knowles clamped her jaw shut and turned away to stir a pot on the hob. How Betty had managed to send her daughter away to be educated was her business, but Mrs Knowles knew, she had always known, that there was more to it than that. ‘Well, you can see about the cottage later—when you’ve spoken to your mother. She’s the one you should be concerned about just now.’
Victoria was silent as she absorbed what Mrs Knowles had told her, unable to believe this was happening. She thought of Lord Rockford. The details of his face remained strongly etched in her mind, along with the conviction that this man would mean something, impinge on her life in some vital way.
‘You are right. I must go to her,’ she said, fighting to control the wrenching anguish that was strangling her breath in her chest. She refused to think about her home just now. Her mother would explain everything. But the thought of having to face Lord Rockford again was abhorrent to her.
‘It’ll soon be dark and it’s a long trek over the moor to the Hall. You don’t want to be going up there at this time. There’s no telling what might happen to a lass all by herself.’
‘I have to, Mrs Knowles. If I leave now and get a move on I’ll be there just after dark.’
‘Nay, lass, I won’t hear of it. Ned’s out the back. I’ll get him to take you in the trap.’
‘Thank you. I’m most grateful, Mrs Knowles. It is heartening to know my mother had you. I can’t thank you enough.’
‘Get along with you. What are friends for if they can’t help each other out in times of need? Now I’ll go and get Ned. The sooner you start out the better.’
* * *
Ned didn’t mind taking her to the Hall. Victoria had known him all her life and he’d never been one to indulge in idle chatter. She was content with this for she was happy to keep to her own thoughts on the journey to the Hall. She had never been inside, nor had she seen the master until today. As a child her playground had been the moors and she had often stood at the closed gates and looked at the house, never imagining that one day she would step inside and certainly not in circumstances such as these.
The old Lord Rockford had been well respected. His youngest son, Nathan, was a fun-loving man who preferred his horses and country pleasures, while the oldest son, Laurence, was reputed to be a surly, arrogant individual.
According to tales, following a broken romance some years ago, Laurence had left England and gone abroad to seek out fresh enterprises. By all accounts he had succeeded on a grand scale. It was said he owned large tracts of land in America and had a fleet of ships, with warehouses in both America and London filled with silks and spices from the east, furs from Canada and industrial machines which he sold to the woollen mills in Lancashire. His company, Rockford Enterprises, was headquartered in London. Immensely wealthy, Laurence Rockford had become one of the most powerful men in the north of England.
When Victoria had been a small child her mother had regaled her with stories of her time at Stonegrave Hall as lady’s maid to Laurence Rockford’s mother, and often told her of the grand events that had been held there during the late master’s time. Victoria had absorbed the stories in wide-eyed wonder, reliving the fantasies in her dreams. She didn’t know what to expect when she got there, or how Lord Rockford