I chatted knowledgeably with Janet, who nodded her head with an air of approval, making me feel like a child who has learned her lessons well.
The next days passed smoothly and I spent the mornings riding round the estate. I stopped and visited some of them, confident in my newly acquired knowledge. Old Mrs. Bell dusted a chair for me and began to tell me about the roof which leaked.
"It is in hand, Mrs. Bell," I was able to tell her. "The thatcher will be along very soon."
"Oh, Miss Susannah," she cried, "I'll be right glad, I will. It ain't nice to be in bed and not be knowing whether the rain is coming in on you or not."
I replied that I was sure it wasn't and she must always let either me or Mr. Carleton know if there was anything else that needed to be done.
"Bless you, Miss Susannah," she said.
"We're going to look after you now, Mrs. Bell," I assured her.
"Well, that's nice. You've come back different, Miss Susannah, if you don't mind me saying so. ... Softer like. Mr. Esmond he was a soft kind sort of gentleman, always promising though not always doing ... if you know what I mean. Praise God, it will be different now... ."
"I shall do my best to make everyone comfortable," I replied. "It's a pity if they are not in such lovely surroundings."
"Oh, it's beautiful, miss. That's what I said to Bell when we come here ... it's fifty years ago, miss."
I said I hoped there would be another fifty years for Mrs. Bell in her cottage and that made her laugh. "You always were a caution, but if you don't mind me saying so, you're a nicer kind of caution now you've come back."
I came out feeling lighthearted. At least they liked me better than they had Susannah.
After Mrs. Bell, I visited the Thorns. This was a bedridden woman with her daughter Emily, who must have been in her late forties. The daughter was a thin scrawny mouse of a woman, small, with quick movements, graying hair and little dark startled eyes that moved fearfully as though in search of danger. I knew the situation from Esmond's diaries. She had been a lady's maid in a good position until her father died and her mother had become crippled with rheumatism. Then she had to come home to look after her mother. She made a living by doing fine embroidery and making garments for a shop in Mateland, which suited her because she could bring her work home. Poor Miss Thorn, I felt so sorry for her.
She was very nervous when I arrived and she looked at me as though I were some prophet of doom.
"I'm only visiting the estate, Miss Thorn," I said. "I want to know how everyone is getting on, you see."
She nodded and ran her tongue round her lips. She was a frightened woman. I wondered why. I must try to find out without too much obvious probing. Poor Miss Thorn, she was like a frightened mouse.
As I sat talking to her there was a banging on the ceiling. I looked up startled.
"That's my mother," she said. "She wants something. Will you excuse me a moment, Miss Susannah? I'll go and tell her you're here."
I sat looking round the little room with the open fireplace and the table covered with a worn but clean red tablecloth on which lay what I presumed to be needlework wrapped up in tissue paper. I could hear the drone of a voice upstairs, going on and on.
After five minutes Miss Thorn reappeared.
"I'm sorry, Miss Susannah," she said. "I was explaining to my mother that you were here."
"Might I see her?"
"Well, if you would wish to... ."
I was not sure whether I should have said that or not. I guessed at once that it was not the sort of thing Susannah would have said. Miss Thorn's startled look assured me of that However, she rose and I followed her up the stairs. The cottages were more or less all alike. Two rooms downstairs with a kitchen and a staircase leading out of the back room and circling up to the two rooms above.
In one of these lay Mrs. Thorn, a large woman who bore a likeness to her daughter in looks, but there the resemblance ended. I saw at once that Mrs. Thorn was a woman who would have her own way. That accounted for her daughter's cowed looks. It was easy to see that Mrs. Thorn was the dominant character.
She peered at me and for a moment I thought she was going to accuse me of being an impostor.
"Well, it's good of you to bother, Miss Susannah, I'm sure," she said, "and not expected. It's the first time anyone from the castle has come to visit me." She gave a little sniff which I gathered implied resentment. "Not much good to anyone since I got so crippled with the rheumatism. Since Jack Thorn went I've no right to be here, I suppose."
"Oh, Mrs. Thorn, that's no way to talk. I'm sure Miss Thorn won't let you think that."
"Oh, her ..." Mrs. Thorn threw a malevolent glance in her daughter's direction. "Gave up her career, she did, to come and look after her old mother. That's something we ain't going to forget in a hurry."
"She keeps the cottage beautifully," I said, feeling the little mouse daughter was in need of protection from her fierce if crippled mother.
"Finick, that's what she is ... a regular finick ... used to living in mansions, that's what it is ... waiting on highborn ladies."
I was growing sorrier and sorrier for the mouse every minute.
"It was a terrible thing that overtook me, Miss Susannah. Here I lay ... day in, day out. Can't move a muscle without pain. I don't get out. I don't know what's happening. I didn't hear Mr. Esmond had died till a week after it happened. And when there was all that talk about his first illness and Saul Cringle did what he did ... well, I didn't hear of that either. Things like that make you feel shut off ... if you know what I mean."
I said I did and I sympathized wholeheartedly. I had come to see if all was well with the cottages.
"Everything is in order," said Miss Thorn hastily. "I do everything I can... ."
"I can see that," I reassured her. "It all looks very neat and orderly."
Miss Thorn said nervously: "They say there are going to be changes now you've come back, Miss Susannah."
"For the better, I hope," I said.
"Mr. Esmond was a very kind landlord to us."
"Yes, I know."
I rose and took my leave of Mrs. Thorn. Miss Thorn conducted me down the stairs and stood at the door, her eyes pleading. "Everything is taken good care of," she repeated. "I do my best."
I wished I knew what was worrying her. I intended to find out.
I rode away and discovered that I was quite near the Cringles'. The farm and its inmates fascinated me. I wondered about Saul. I could picture him, his eyes sullen as he cut the hedge and Susannah taunted him. She had taken a dislike to him, wanted to tease him, show him, I supposed, that he owed his livelihood to the castle.
I dismounted and tied my horse. A boy ran past. He paused to look at me.
I said: "Hello."
He just turned and ran off.
I walked up the path to the farmhouse thinking: I shouldn't have come. It is not very long ago that I called with Jeff Carleton. I thought of quick excuses. I would ask what Jacob (that was his name) had thought about leaving Gravel Three Acres fallow now that he had had time to consider the matter.
I knocked. The old man was sitting in his chair and Mrs. Jacob was washing down the wooden table and a young woman was tying onions into bundles and setting them in a tray.
"Oh, it's Miss Susannah again," said the woman.
The girl looked at me with a pair of beautiful brown eyes, which nevertheless had a haunted look.