Kathleen McGurl - The Daughters Of Red Hill Hall

‘I do, don’t I?’ Nat replied, and Gemma was relieved to hear a note of humour in her voice. ‘Thing is, Gemma, I need to find a bloke. My invitation from Anna and Jake was for “Natalie plus one”. I need to find that plus one. It’s bad enough they had to write that on the invite – I hate being the single friend everyone’s trying to pair off – but it’ll be even worse if I end up going to the wedding on my own. I need a man and I need one now – one who’ll last at least till after the wedding. Come clubbing with me, Gem? Then if you pull and I don’t, you can shove him in my direction.’

Gemma couldn’t help herself but laugh this time. The idea of her pulling a bloke when Nat couldn’t was crazy. And the last time she’d been clubbing was years ago. In fact she couldn’t remember if she’d been at all since she got together with Ben. Before then, she and Nat had gone to nightclubs every couple of weeks – when it was Nat’s turn to choose the night out. When it was Gemma’s turn they’d usually spent the evening chatting in the Men At Arms.

‘Well, it’s all very fine for you to laugh, Gem. You’ve got Ben; you’re all smugly coupled up. But a bit of sympathy wouldn’t go amiss. I’m getting on. I’ll be thirty soon – and no boyfriend.’

‘Ah, Nat. Thirty’s no age. I’ll be thirty before you in any case. And you’ll find the right person eventually. I know you will.’ Gemma mentally ran through her male friends, trying to think if any were single and worth introducing to Nat. But she could only think of shy, sweet Roger, and Nat would have him for breakfast.

‘Yeah, right. When I’m old and shrivelled. Anyway, what did you ring me for? We’re still meeting at twelve in the usual café, aren’t we? You’re not going to let me down are you?’

‘No, still on to meet you there.’ Gemma grimaced. After the way this conversation had gone so far, how could she tell Nat she and Ben had got engaged? But if she didn’t say anything now, Nat would be furious that she hadn’t told her at the earliest opportunity. She was kicking herself for having made the phone call. But if she had waited to meet Nat to tell her, she’d have been in trouble for not phoning. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

She took a deep breath. ‘Right, the thing I couldn’t wait to tell you about is that, well, Ben popped the question last night and I accepted.’ There. It was out.

There was silence at the other end. ‘You still there, Nat? I’m over the moon – been longing for him to propose for the last six years! And finally – squeee! – he has!’

‘Erm, wow, yeah, that’s great. Really pleased for you, mate. So, erm, see you later, right? Fuck.’

Gemma was left staring at her phone. Nat had hung up. She wondered whether she’d heard that last word properly. It really hadn’t been the kind of reaction to her news she’d expected from Nat. Well, she’d timed her call wrongly, and it seemed Nat’d had a disastrous night out, so maybe it was all because of that. When they met later in town she was sure Nat would be delighted for her. She hoped so – otherwise, well, otherwise she had no idea what was going on.

Chapter 4

November 1834

‘I am so bored,’ Sarah grumbled. ‘I wish something would happen. Anything. Or at least if it stopped raining we could go out riding.’

Rebecca gazed out of the window. They were each sitting on a window seat in their old schoolroom, on the second floor of Red Hill Hall. Their governess Miss Albarn had been dismissed a couple of months previously – now that they had both turned fifteen the girls were deemed to have learned all that she could teach them. They now used the old schoolroom as a kind of sitting room. Rebecca didn’t mind the rain as much as Sarah. Sarah always seemed to become stressed and fretful if she had to stay indoors, whereas Rebecca was quite happy to sit with a book or in front of the piano, for hours on end. In fact a rainy day was sometimes a good thing, as it meant they were expected to stay quietly indoors and Sarah could not drag her outside on some crazy scheme.

Last week, against her better judgement, she’d allowed Sarah to persuade her to ride their ponies out of the estate, through the woods and across farmland. They weren’t supposed to leave the estate without a groom accompanying them, but Sarah had insisted, and had said she would go alone if Rebecca didn’t go with her. Rebecca had had no choice. She’d followed Sarah galloping across the fields, but her pony had shied at a jump and she’d fallen. She was still bruised.

‘I don’t know that I shall ever want to go riding again, after last time,’ Rebecca said.

‘Spoilsport. Who will I go out riding with, then? If only the grooms were more handsome, I shouldn’t mind having them as companions. If only they were more like that handsome farm labourer, Jed Arthur. He smiled at me last time. And winked. I believe he thinks I am beautiful.’ She paced around the room and sighed, dramatically. ‘Oh, being cooped up in here is so tedious. If only there was something to do.’

With Sarah in this mood Rebecca realised she would not progress with reading her novel. She stood, and held out her hand. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go and find something to do.’ Although Sarah’s plans sometimes went wrong, as Rebecca’s bruised shoulder could testify, Rebecca knew that her life would be far more boring without Sarah around. She loved Sarah for the excitement she brought to what would otherwise be too quiet a life.

They went downstairs, and visited the kitchens where Cook gave them each a finger of shortbread before making it clear to them that they were in the way. When they were younger they’d been allowed to linger in the kitchen, sitting by the fire toasting bread or marshmallows, but now they were supposed to behave like ladies, and ladies shouldn’t be in the kitchens.

‘What now?’ said Rebecca, as she followed Sarah out of the kitchen and back into the main hallway of the house. Sarah stopped in front of a glass-fronted cabinet, which stood opposite the foot of the stairs. It housed two ceremonial swords and a mahogany display case containing a pair of pistols.

‘Those.’ Sarah pointed to the pistols. ‘Papa brought them home last week. I should like a closer look at them.’

Rebecca frowned. Sarah had recently taken to referring to Mr Winton as ‘Papa’. But he wasn’t Sarah’s Papa, he was hers. Sarah had no Papa – at least not one that was acknowledged. While Rebecca loved having Sarah as a constant companion, almost a sister, and she loved her dearly, she did not want to share her parents with her. It was very sad when Sarah’s mama had died, but that was years ago, and Sarah should think herself lucky that Mr and Mrs Winton had continued to care for her all this time. Rebecca knew it was just so that she, Rebecca, had a suitable playmate, and that when Rebecca married Sarah would become her paid companion. She didn’t want to think about that, though. She couldn’t imagine being Sarah’s employer, instead of her sister.

‘The cabinet is locked,’ Rebecca said.

‘Let’s ask Spencer. I want to know how to use them.’ Sarah turned with a toss of her hair and a swish of her skirts, and strode off in search of the butler. Rebecca scurried along after her. It may be a rainy stay-indoors kind of day but it seemed Sarah was still able to concoct wicked plans that could get them into trouble. Not with Spencer – Sarah seemed able to do no wrong as far as he was concerned – but with Papa or Mama, if either of them discovered what they were up to.

Spencer was in his little office in the servants’ wing. He was filling in some figures in the household’s accounts book. He looked up with a scowl when Sarah pushed open the door, but his expression quickly changed to one of fond indulgence when he saw who it was.