Page 7 of Winterset
The carriage continued through a small village. There weren’t more than a dozen shops, and I did not see a hat shop, only a general haberdasher—a disappointment, to be sure. Next, we passed through woodland, then by several tenant farms. My tenants, I realized with some trepidation. And then, at last, looming in the distance was Winterset.
The sight sent a chill down my spine. The gray stone house stood ominously afar off. Its stacked stone chimneys stained black from more than three centuries of smoke looked like skeletal fingers reaching skyward. An intricate cornice adorned the roof like a rough-cut crown. And below, oriel windows jutted from the facade like the eyes of a haunted soul. The closer the carriage came to the manor, the heavier the air hung. It felt like the house itself was holding its breath.
The carriage swayed around the final bend and then suddenly stopped. The forceful motion all but threw me from the seat, and my hat toppled to the dirty floor.
Charlie looked up from his notebook. “Have we arrived?”
“It would seem so.” I retrieved my hat from the ground and brushed off the dust. “Although we have not yet passed through the gateway.” I righted myself and opened the door to inquire of the coachman. “Why have we stopped?”
“Gate’s closed, sir,” the coachman called back in a thick Scottish brogue.
“Can you not open it?” The coachman had not seemed a simpleton when I’d hired him, but one never could tell whether a servant was worth his wages until he’d been proven.
“’Tis grown over with ivy,” he said.
Grown over?He must be mistaken. “Certainly a little ivy can’t stop us from passing through,” I said, but when I leaned out the conveyance to get a better view, I found that he was correct. It wasnota little ivy. It was a curtain of ivy that covered the entirety of the gate. The scrolling iron, the red brick pylons, even the stone sentinels were completely cloaked.
“What the devil?” I hopped down from the coach, my boots sinking into the rain-softened soil, and strode quickly to the gate to search for the handle. In tearing away the vines that clung to the iron bars, I discovered the gate was chained and locked.
I stepped back and stared at it, utterly perplexed.
“Strange no one’s here to greet you,” the coachman called down to me.
“Quite.” I stared hard at the padlock.
I’d written to Mr. Moore weeks ago, instructing him to have the servants prepare the house for my arrival. I’d not received a response, but I hadn’t expected one, as I’d been traveling. Besides that, he was a man of few words, writing only when funds were needed for repairs or improvements. I’d appreciated his brevity while I’d been traveling the Continent, but now it worried me.
An uneasy thought crossed my mind: Perhaps I’d been too hasty in hiring Mr. Moore with only his own reference to recommend him.
Charlie joined me and stared at the gate too. “Perhaps Mr. Moore did not receive your letter?” he said.
“It’s possible. But that fact hardly matters. If my steward cannot be trusted to keep my estate in readiness while I am away, he is not worth his wages.”
Still,a gentleman should never be too hasty in his judgment—another lesson I’d overheard Father teach Damon. I dashed it away, determined not to let Father’s voice overrun me now.
It was possible the gate was locked for a reason. What reason, I couldn’t imagine, but itwaspossible.
“I need to see the state of the grounds and manor,” I said, stepping closer to the gate.
It took considerable effort, but I made a small viewing hole through the intricately woven ivy. Though I could not see much through the defense foliage, I saw enough: an overgrown carriageway, a filthy fountain, which I had paid to have him refurbish last past spring, and boarded windows.
“Devil take it!” It was worse than I could have imagined. It looked as though not a single shilling I’d sent Mr. Moore—if that was even his name—had gone to Winterset’s upkeep.
I’d trusted him! And I’d paid him handsomely to serve as my steward and to care for Winterset in my absence.
Evidently, I’d made a grave mistake.
Mr. Moore was not a steward but a thief!
What an imbecile I was! Every person who had passed by this blasted gate these past two years knew it too.
How humiliating!
“Do you want me to search for another entrance?” Charlie asked. “I can see if there are any other servants to help clear away the ivy so the carriage might enter the drive.”
What I wanted was to go back in time two years and shake myself out of my liquor-induced stupor so that I could see clearly enough to discern Mr. Moore’s true character and not have hired him. But sincethatwasn’t possible, Charlie’s plan would have to suffice. “Yes, Charlie. Thank you.”
With a nod, he followed the fence line in search of the servant’s entrance. And when he disappeared around the corner, I turned back to glare at the gate.
