Secret Love

CHAPTER ONE 1868-1

CHAPTER ONE

1868Wenda walked down from the stables towards the house.

She had been out riding early and was now thinking about all that was waiting for her inside.

She had realised long ago that it was impossible to make the house look as it had in her parents’ day.

She could only do her very best to make part of it habitable and comfitable for her brother and herself.

Unfortunately for Wenda, Robert or Robbie as they always called him, had found a year ago that he preferred London to the country.

As they could not afford everything he desired, she could understand it.

He enjoyed the parties that took place every night in Mayfair and were obyiously far more entertaining than the routine of life at Creswell Court.

She saw Robbie intermittently, but it was almost five weeks since she had last heard from him and she could only hope that he would be home soon.

There was so much she needed to discuss with him and so much they must decide if the estate was not to go completely to rack and ruin.

As it was there were endless repairs that had been neglected simply because, as Wenda knew, they could not afford to pay for them.

Her father, Lord Creswell, had been an extremely brilliant man.

Queen Victoria had found him of great assistance to her especially after she became a widow, but unfortunately that did not provide enough money for him to keep up the estate that had been in the Creswell family for centuries.

All through history land had played a significant part in ensuring the strength and well-being of England and with her parents both dead and her brother still young and unmarried, Wenda felt sadly that no one was particularly interested in The Court itself.

At one time it had been one of the great sights of Britain and it was close to London and thus easy to reach.

There had always been, when her father was alive, people coming to stay for a few days or even driving down just to see the beauty of The Court and all it contained.

Each successive ‘Lord of the Manor’, as her father was often called, had contributed to its notable collection of pictures, which had been started during the reign of Henry VIII and added to by every succeeding generation.

It was a Creswell who had helped James I to bring in the Entailment Act and this had preserved the collection from being severely depleted in the time of George IV.

Lord Creswell and his friends, such as the Earl of Coventry and other Peers, were throwing away their finest possessions at the gambling tables.

The Earl of Coventry had lost Coventry Street in London on one turn of the cards and many other Peers had lost their property in the same way.

When her father was hard-up, he had often said to Wenda,

“It’s a very good thing I cannot sell anything from the house. Otherwise my son would indeed have just cause to reproach me and so I imagine would you.”

“It would be awful, Papa, if we did not have the beautiful pictures to look at, and of course the silver which, as you have often told me, is unique.”

“The finest silver in England became ours at the time of George III,” stated Lord Creswell. “But I am quite certain it would have been dissipated by our ancestor who was notorious for making higher bets at White’s and other Clubs than anyone had ever done before!”

Wenda sighed.

“We could certainly do with that money now, Papa, especially as we need new horses.”

“The one thing I refuse to economise on,” he had replied, “is our horses. It is the only pleasure left to me and I intend to ride the best bred and the fastest until I am in the grave.”

Wenda had laughed, but he had indulged his wish, unfortunately leaving behind him debts and extravagant commitments that she and Robbie had attempted to meet during the last five years.

And they had not, Wenda thought with a sigh, been particularly successful.

She had now almost reached the front of the house and to her surprise she saw there was a man waiting by the steps leading up to the front door.

As she drew nearer she saw it was Donson, one of the younger men who worked on the land and also when required in the stables.

She thought from the expression on his face before she reached him that he had bad news to tell her and she wondered what could have occurred to upset him.

“Good morning, Donson,” she greeted him. “Are you waiting for me?”

“I am, Miss Wenda,” he replied.

She did not need to ask him if there was anything wrong.

“I’ve been told,” he began, “because I were late this mornin’, I be not needed no longer.”

Wenda gave a little cry.

“Oh, Donson! Who said that?”

She knew the answer even before she even asked.

It was Hatton the Factor, who was in charge of the land and was a rather difficult man to work with. He drove those under him hard and there was no doubt that he got more out of the land than anyone else would have done.

“Yon Mr. Hatton’s been at I for some time, Miss Wenda,” Donson answered. “And there be nothin’ I does that pleases ’im, you can be sure of that.”

“He has really told you, Donson, not to come back tomorrow?”

Donson nodded vigorously.

He was a nice looking man nearing twenty-five and on the whole a good worker, but Wenda, who called at all the cottages in the village, was aware he had difficulties at home.

Donson’s father was dead, his sisters were married and there was only he and a younger brother who was still at school to look after their mother, a helpless invalid who could not walk by herself and yet somehow she managed to cook their meals for them.

Wenda felt especially sorry for the boys as it meant, before they went to work or school, they had to help their mother dress and then place her into a chair so she could propel herself about the cottage.

“I’ve been a little late two or three times recently,” Donson was saying, “because me mother, as you knows, Miss Wenda, can’t dress ’erself and ’er be real poorly in the mornin’s and finds it hard to get out of bed.”

“Did you explain to Mr. Hatton that was why you were late this morning?”

“I tells ’im as I tells ’im before, but ’e won’t listen to me and be pleased of an excuse for me to go. And you knows as well as I does, Miss Wenda, that the cottage goes with the job and I’ve nowhere else to take Mother.”

Wenda knew that this was the truth.

At the same time she felt that pleading with Hatton would not be of any use. He had always disliked Donson who undoubtedly had a way of answering him back and he would have been pleased to find an excuse to be rid of him.

However she felt, if only for his mother’s sake, she must do something to help the family.

The main difficulty was always the same – money.

It was hard enough to get Robbie to give her money for the food they ate at The Court when he was away and Wenda was sure it would be quite hopeless to ask him for more than he was providing already.

The only possession of her own was the jewellery that had belonged to her mother and she had thought when her mother died she would never sell it.

In fact she had firmly resisted various suggestions tentatively made by her brother that she should sell some of the jewels. Even so they were not much use to her and with the proceeds they could undoubtedly employ more people on the estate and in the house.

Wenda had consistently refused, but she knew now that the precious jewels would have to be sold if she was to help Donson.

“I understand, Donson,” she said quietly, “that you do not get on with Mr. Hatton, and of course I cannot go against his decision not to employ you on the estate.”

She saw his expression before she went on quickly,

“I shall employ you myself to work in the garden. Things have been too much for me lately and it always looked so beautiful when I was a child.”

“You means that, Miss Wenda, you’ll take I on as a gardener? You knows I’ll do my best for you and it’ll be a real joy to be away from that Mr. Hatton. He ’ates I and there be nothin’ I can do to please ’im.”

“Well you will have to work very hard to please me, Donson. You know as well as I do that the garden is in a real mess this spring and needs so much doing to it.”

“You leave it to I, Miss Wenda, and I’ll not let you down.”

Donson took a deep breath and added,

“I be real thankful, I be. It’d break Mother’s ’eart if her ’ad to go to the workhouse.”

“I know it would and you will stay in your cottage even though you will not be working on the estate. I will arrange it with Mr. Hatton and with his Lordship.”

“Well, all I can say, Miss Wenda, is that I thanks you, as I know me mother’ll thank you, from the bottom of her ’eart, and I’ll make that garden of yours a sight for sore eyes, that I promise you.”

Wenda smiled at him.

“You can start right away. You will find my tools inside the toolshed, but be careful to put them back every evening and whatever you do, don’t break them.”

“I’ll take real care of ’em, I promise you that.”

Donson went off joyfully in a way that she knew had always annoyed Mr. Hatton as it told the world that he was pleased with life.

He had the type of temper which was very much up or down and she could imagine all too clearly what he must have felt when Mr. Hatton dismissed him.

She had often thought he was difficult, but he got more out of the estate than anyone else could. They had so few men and so many acres requiring attention.

Wenda went into the house and straight upstairs to her bedroom.

She opened the drawer where she kept her mother’s jewellery.

She seldom if ever had a chance to wear it, but she often looked at it and fondled it as it made her remember how beautiful her mother had looked when she went out to dinner with her father or attended a local Hunt Ball.

She could quite understand when she was told how her mother had been acknowledged as one of the most beautiful women in Society.

As soon as her father had seen her, he had fallen head over heels in love with her.

The daughter of the Duke of Netherton, she had been expected to make a distinguished marriage and then to everyone’s great surprise she had married Lord Creswell with his fine family tree but very little money.

There was little doubt that because he was just so handsome and so charming nothing mattered to either of them except to be together.

As the years passed they became poorer and poorer, but it never troubled them.

They laughed whenever things went right and when things went wrong and they were blissfully happy not only with themselves but with their two children.

There was little doubt that Robbie was as good-looking and as intelligent as his father and Wenda was an adorable beautiful baby looking like a small round angel.

She grew up as the years passed to look more and more like her mother.

Unfortunately by the time Wenda should have burst upon London Society, her father was dead and her mother died very shortly afterwards.

Wenda had always believed that it was impossible for them to be apart and she was sure that when they were dead they would find each other again.

Her father had caught a virulent disease at the time when he was inspecting foreign ships entering the Port of London from the East at the request of the Government.

There had been stories of drugs smuggled ashore for large sums of money as well as other articles banned by Parliament and it was in China Town in the East End of London that Lord Creswell had inspected a ship from China and discovered a large amount of drugs and untested foods.

To prove to himself they were right in arresting the Captain of the ship he had tasted the foods himself and in doing so contracted an Eastern disease for which there was no cure.