Page 182 of Feathers in the Wind
The gravel crunched beneath our feet as we walked up the path toward the house. An elderly woman in a pink cardigan opened the door to our knock.
‘My, you are early.’ She pointedly checked her tiny wrist watch and looked us up and down. She gave Nathaniel a curious look. ‘Come in. That will be three pounds. Do you want a guidebook?’
‘Three pounds... but—’ Nathaniel expostulated, only to be silenced by a dig in the ribs from Alan.
The woman handed us the explanatory self-guided tour leaflets. Nathaniel took the paper and turned it over several times. He squinted at the floor plan of the house.
‘Where is the west wing?’ he asked.
The woman looked surprised. ‘The west wing? Oh, that was lost in a fire in the mid-eighteenth century and never rebuilt. You must have a good knowledge of the house to know that, young man.’
Nat glanced at me and opened his mouth but I took his arm and led him away before he could say anything
‘Okay, I will pay you the west wing,’ I murmured. ‘Shall we start?’
The tour took us into the large room described on the plan as ‘The Great Hall’. Nathaniel went straight to a portrait of a man dressed in the extravagant clothes of the mid-seventeenth century. Long auburn hair tumbled over a wide lace collar that topped a green velvet suit. Every bit the seventeenth-century cavalier, he stood behind a seated woman, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
My heart jolted. I had been in this room many times before but never paid much heed to the portraits. Now two thoughts raced together. Even allowing for artistic license, the resemblance between the man and the portrait could not be denied. If he was not the seventeenth-century Nathaniel Preston then he must be a close descendant.
My second thought came from a distinctly female reaction to the inscription below the painting Nl Preston, Esq. and wife, school of Van Dyck.
And wife...? He was married?
As Alan read the inscription aloud, Nathaniel frowned.
‘School of Van Dyck? It was the artist himself. I paid a fortune for that piece of vanity.’
‘When was it painted?’ I asked.
‘The spring of ‘42. Just before the war. My wife and I had spent the winter with the court and I had it painted for her birthday.’
‘Your wife?’ I enquired, an unexpected feeling of disappointment lodging in the pit of my stomach.
He nodded, looking at the portrait with his head on one side as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Anne.’
‘She’s probably wondering where you are,’ Alan remarked.
He shook his head. ‘She was taken from me in childbirth just over two years past.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Even as I spoke, it struck me absurd to be commiserating over a recent bereavement that had happened three hundred and fifty years ago. I cleared my throat. ‘And the child?’
He straightened. ‘Two sons, Christian and Nathaniel.’
‘Twins?’
He nodded and his expression softened. ‘They are my delight.’
I thought about poor, dead Anne. No wonder the poor woman had died. The mortality rate for first time mothers at that time was horrendous, particularly in multiple births.
‘Stay still,’ I commanded and wrenched the rubber band from Nathaniel’s hair.
The rough cut auburn hair tumbled around his face just as the woman in the pink cardigan bustled into the room holding a feather duster.
She stopped and gaped at Nathaniel.
‘My word. Forgive me saying this, young man, but there is quite a striking likeness. That portrait is of Nathaniel Preston. He was killed during the Civil War.’
Her words were met with a blank silence from Nathaniel. I cast a sideways glance at Alan as the woman prattled on, ‘Oh yes. Now let me think. His memorial is in the chapel. You could see for yourself. His son’s portrait is there.’
