“I have no family.”
“Nobody? No brothers, sisters, mother?”
“No brothers or sisters and my mother died last year.”
“You’re completely alone?”
She nodded. Suddenly she couldn’t speak for the tightness in her throat.
“So,” he said, “that settles it. Now you’re my housekeeper.”
“Then my first job should be to ensure that you are well fed,” she said, forcing herself to speak brightly. “I think we’ve already used up whatever was in the house. If you will give me some money, I will go to the shops and buy provisions, although they won’t be very grand.”
“I’ll be thankful for anything,” the Earl answered. He put his hand into his pocket and brought out a sovereign.
“Will this be enough?”
“Oh, more than enough,” Rena said.
The Earl laughed ruefully. “I hope you won’t find my stomach is bigger than my pocket, which happens to most people after they leave the Navy.”
“I am sure you were well fed in those days,” Rena said. “I dare say ships are run very effectively.”
“That’s true. Everywhere you looked my ship was clean and bright which is something I cannot say about my house!”
“Leave the house to me. Later, when I’ve seen you fed, I can bring you some vegetables from my own garden. And then there’s Clara.”
“Clara? I thought you said you lived alone.”
“Clara is a chicken. She lays eggs.”
“An invaluable addition to our community,” he agreed.
Rena collected a shopping basket from the kitchen and hurried out to the village grocery. Luckily Ned, the owner, had been to the town the previous day, and was well stocked.
She went through the shop like a whirlwind, buying in flour, milk, tea, coffee, meat, butter, sugar, paraffin for lamps. It wasn’t going to leave much of the sovereign, but she had a hungry man to feed.
“Are you buying for an army Miss Colwell?” Ned asked in admiration.
“No, for the new owner of The Grange.”
He stared. “I did hear someone had arrived but – owner? Are you sure?”
“He’s the Earl of Lansdale.”
“But the family died out.”
“Apparently not. It took time to trace him, and he was in the Royal Navy, which is why it took so long to get hold of him.”
“That’s good news,” Ned answered. “And, of course, if he’s opening The Grange, he’ll have to repair it and that’ll be a blessing to us all. There are too many workmen with no work now.” He added slyly, “Best not tell him about the ghost, then.”
“I wasn’t going to mention the ghost,” Rena declared primly, for the simple reason that there’s no such thing.”
“No ghosts?” Ned demanded indignantly, as if she’d deprived him of a treat. “Course there are ghosts. What’s a house like that without a ghost?”
“I suppose there’ll be a headless horseman galloping through the kitchen while I’m making pies?” she demanded. “Really Ned!”
“Why are you making pies?”
“Because I’m going to be the housekeeper there.”
“Parson’s daughter? Housekeeper?”
“Even parsons’ daughters have to work to live.”
“Well, you’ll be in the right place to keep him in order. You can make sure he knows what we all need.”
There it was, the burden that was to be laid on the new Earl, the yearning expectations of ‘his’ people, who looked to him for succour and sustenance.
But as she left the shop she was too cheerful to heed its warning.
Since it was early in the year the light was already beginning to fade as she returned to The Grange. So she hastily filled an oil lamp with paraffin and ventured upstairs to the master bedroom.
She soon found it, a grandiose room with painted ceilings and dirty gilt furniture, full of glory at the expense of comfort. A door stood ajar. Pushing it open Rena found herself in a small dressing room with a narrow bed. The Earl’s bags were there, and he’d made some attempt to unpack them, but the bed was bare of sheets and blankets.
Further investigation revealed an airing cupboard containing sheets that were incredibly free from moths. She took out some bed linen and conveyed it to the kitchen, lit a fire inside, and hung the sheets on an old clothes horse in front of it.
Then she put a kettle of water on the top. Now everything was warm and cosy, and the Earl, arriving soon after, stopped in the kitchen door and whistled with admiration.
“Now this is what I call homelike,” he said.
“Sit down,” she said cheerfully. “The kettle will boil soon.”
He drank the tea she set before him with an expression of bliss.
“Sweeter than the sweetest wine,” he said. “I see you’ve been busy.”
“You’re going to be really comfortable tonight. You’ve done the right thing in moving into the dressing room. I can put a small fire in there, but the big room would have defeated me. Can you watch the pots on the range, while I go and make up your bed?”
She gathered up the sheets and departed, returning a few minutes later to find the meal almost ready.
“The Earl really ought to eat in the dining room,” she suggested.
“No thank you,” he replied without hesitation. “We’ll eat out here. What’s the wine cellar like?”
“I’ve never seen it.”
He took the lamp and disappeared, returning a few minutes later covered with cobwebs but with a bottle under his arm and a triumphant smile on his face.
“Glasses!” he intoned. “We’ll dine in style.”
She fetched some glasses from the dining room, cleaned them, and laid them out ceremoniously beside their plates. The Earl uncorked the bottle with a flourish and filled the glasses with a delicious looking ruby red liquid, and they toasted each other.
“To us!” he declared. “To finding each other, and all the wonderful things that are going to happen now!”
“I wonder if they will!” she sighed.
“They will because we’re going to make them. And this magnificent vintage wine is the first wonderful thing. Sip it slowly and with appreciation, for you may never taste the like again.”
Together they sipped.
And together they choked.
“Thunderbolts and lightning!” he exploded. “What is this?”
“Vinegar,” she whispered between gasps. Her eyes were streaming.
They patted each other frantically on the back.
“Miss Colwell, I really am very sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I thought it would have – aaaarh! excuse me – matured over the years. But it’s only soured.”
“You said I’d never taste the like again,” she reminded him. “I only hope you may be right. No, give that to me – ” He was about to pour the wine down the sink but she stopped him. “If what it’s doing to my insides is anything to go by, it’ll probably