Lady in the Veil Read online




  Leah Fleming was born in Lancashire and is married with three sons and a daughter. She writes from an old farmhouse in the Yorkshire Dales and an olive grove in Crete.

  Also by Leah Fleming

  The Girl from World’s End

  The War Widows

  Orphans of War

  Mothers and Daughters

  Remembrance Day

  Winter’s Children

  The Captain’s Daughter

  The Girl Under the Olive Tree

  The Postcard

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Leah Fleming, 2015

  Extract from The Postcard copyright © Leah Fleming, 2014

  Extract from The Last Pearl copyright © Leah Fleming, 2015

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Leah Fleming to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-47114-102-7

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  THE LADY IN THE VEIL

  CONTENTS

  2012. YEWBANK HOUSE

  1. 1850

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  2012

  2012

  YEWBANK HOUSE

  I found the photograph album by chance when we were clearing out the old coach house. It must have been sitting on the garage shelf for years among all the family rejects consigned to this glory hole.

  At first I thought it was just a family Bible, the sort the Victorians furnished for their parlours with names and dates at the front. I hoped it might help my current mania for researching the history of Yewbank House, but no such luck.

  There was so much de-cluttering to do before the architect came to discuss turning the stone buildings into a holiday let. As usual, only Bill and I had turned up to see to the clearing up. Stockdales were always hoarders, I thought, as I sifted through the suitcases full of musty books and papers. The farmhouse was big enough to shift stuff from parlour to attic or cellar, cellar to coach house but as this was now our new home I wanted everything out and sorted.

  It must have been at the weekend when Bill and I sat down with the books and the Bible by the fire. ‘You’re not throwing that out!’ my husband laughed.

  I realized it was a fine piece of Victorian tooled leather and gilt work with a gilded clasp opening up into a huge thick album full of photographs of beautiful Yorkshire Dales scenery, hay timing in the fields, the house during renovations, horse and carriages. These pictures were works of art. There were later sepia portraits of ladies with parasols sitting by the front portico, children in ringlets and tartan dresses and I could see at once the genetic inheritance: those strong brows, high cheekbones and ruddy country faces of the Stockdale clan. I looked at Bill and laughed. ‘Easy to see who this lot belongs to. Do you know any of them?’

  He turned over the pages slowly. ‘That must be my great-grandpa as a baby, judging by the date. But what the heck is this?’

  We stared in shock at the toddler sitting in the lap of its mother or at least someone holding him, draped from head to toe in a cotton lace curtain or something, completely enveloped and unrecognizable.

  ‘That’s weird,’ I answered. ‘How bizarre . . . who would take a photo like that? Is she a corpse?’ I had heard that infants were often photographed on their deathbeds, but a mother concealed under lace? I dropped the photo quickly. ‘Put it away!’

  When Bill left the room I found myself strangely drawn to take a second closer look at this portrait. I noticed her ladylike fingers clutching the child as it sat looking puzzled at the camera. The baby was sunk into her groin, relaxed, almost smiling. This was no dead infant and the hand that held it was firm and alive. It was then I noticed another faded hand to the left of the hidden mother reaching out to steady the both of them. This was not a female hand with its broader palm like a spade. I sensed a muscular grip on the child’s shoulder, but why was he also cut out?

  Who were they? Why was this photograph loose, not fixed like the others and what had it got to do with Bill’s family? Why had his gran never shown the album to anyone? Those early landscapes were skilled, taken by a man with an eye for beauty, which made this portrait all the more strange. Who was left now to answer all these questions? It was going to be up to me to find out more about these lost relatives of Yewbank House.

  I turned the photo round, hoping for some clue. In a spidery hand was written: my father, William Albert Dacre Stockdale. Nothing more; but who was the lady in the veil?

  1

  1850

  ‘Last one to the stone cross is a sissy!’ yelled William Dacre as he spurred his horse past his sister.

  ‘Wait for me, that’s not fair!’ Mirabel Dacre shouted, not so easily shaken off, especially as she’d ditched the side-saddle in favour of a proper saddle, her riding habit daringly hitched up. Why should boys have all the fun? They were racing along the ridgeway on top of the Yorkshire moor looking down into the valley where the silver river snaked past the gardens of their residence, Lawton Hall.

  Will was home from his boarding school. There was always good-natured rivalry between them, being just a year apart, while their younger sister, Eliza, stayed indoors, believing it was unsafe to venture out onto the hills.

  Someone had to keep an eye on Papa when he was in one of his black moods. Ever since their dear mama died in childbirth, he had ignored his other children in favour of business activities: the mills, the district bank, the Assizes. Sir Barnett Dacre was renowned for his involvement in Dales affairs. Mirabel knew he didn’t care what they got up to as long as they kept out of sight.

  Will was racing ahead faster and faster on Hector while she was lagging behind, but not for long. She kicked hard and bent her head into the wind to chase after him, breathless, her determined jaw set for victory, her ringlets whipping her cheeks. Her eye was on the stone cross by the finger post at the crossroads from Skelsby to Dallingford. Then to her horror she saw a wild deer leap over a stone wall in Will’s path. Hector reared up catching the deer, flinging it aside but Will was thrown right over the horse’s head and into the stone cross.

  ‘Will!’ Mirabel screamed, screeching to a halt, leaping down from the saddle with difficulty, seeing him lying prostrate on the bridle path not moving.

  ‘Will! Wake up!’ She lifted his head onto her lap. He was breathing but was fast asleep and she felt helpless to know what to do next. The deer lay on the ground wounded. Hector had dashed off. Suddenly the sky glowered over then; the moors empty of carts or coaches. Only sheep grazed curiously. ‘Oh Lord, what do I do now?’ she cried into the wind. ‘Please help us.’

  Matt Stockdale was busy setting up his tripod to catch the light before the sun descended behind the hidden gill. Ever since he had read Mr Fox Talbot’s book, The Pencil of Nature, that told him how to c
apture images on paper by the action of light, he was hooked on the new art of Photography. He had even made his own equipment for outdoors work. His late father had thought it was queer to want to steal pictures from the sunlight. ‘Nowt’ll come of it. Don’t waste yer brass, lad.’ But Matt knew better and the discussions at Skelsby’s Men’s Forum agreed that photography was a new science. Even the Queen had herself portrayed by light.

  As a grammar school boy, he had had some chemical lessons, but he had to leave school to help his mother on the farm when his father died suddenly. Yewbank was a hard taskmaster and with only a yard boy and dairymaids, he was in charge of hundreds of sheep roaming on the fells. It was the life he was born to and they owned a stretch of moorland thanks to the dedication of his Stockdale ancestors who fought off the land-grabbing Dacres for centuries.

  He wanted to capture the waterfall in the rocky gill where the stream cascaded down the ravine in such force. He had even brought his own dark cabinet to process his plates quickly. It was an expensive hobby for a Dales farmer but Matt was careful and made what he could himself. He had brought the cart to bring back some good stones for walling later. Work first, then pleasure, he smiled to himself. It was then that he heard the scream carried over the wind but it often played tricks on him so he stopped. There it was again, not the screech of a bird but a woman’s cry. Someone was in trouble. He left his equipment safe by the stone wall and took the cart in the direction of the cry. It was getting louder as he approached the four lane ends.

  ‘Hey up, I’m coming!’ he yelled. There was a horse grazing and a deer on its side already dead and at the crossroads sat a girl sobbing with a man in her lap.

  ‘You have to help us,’ she whimpered. ‘My brother fell off his horse and he won’t wake up’. She was stroking his fair hair as she stared up at him.

  All Matt could see was a pair of blue eyes with tears rolling down her cheeks but he knew the face of the Squire’s daughter and her brother. By the looks of him he lay half dead with not a mark on him.

  ‘Give him here, Miss,’ he spoke gently as to a child. ‘We’ll lay him down in my cart and take him home.’

  ‘Oh thank you. My father will be so grateful. Master William is his only son, if anything should happen to him . . . Oh do be careful. Wake up, Will . . . Why won’t he wake up?’

  ‘Happen he’s knocked hissen out. Not to worry, Miss. We’ll take him back to Lawton straight away.’

  ‘You know who we are then?’

  ‘Of course, I see you in St Peter’s church now and then. Come on, give me a hand. You can rest him on you.’

  She smiled. ‘How can we thank you? How would we survive if you hadn’t come?’

  ‘You’ve got a good pair o’ lungs on you, I’ll say that, Miss. I heard you a mile off.’

  Matt lifted the youngster gently, aware that there were stones to be chucked out and the cart smelt like a midden. The girl didn’t notice, being so taken up with her brother. She looked a bit of a sight with her hat awry and her hair dishevelled but she was the most beautiful lass he’d ever set eyes on.

  ‘Oh do hurry up!’ she ordered.

  ‘Hold on! We must go gentle. His ribs might be cracked. Sorry, Miss Dacre, but slow is best for him.’

  ‘And who must we thank for rescuing us?’ she replied.

  He turned to reply. ‘Matt Stockdale, Matthias Stockdale of Yewbank Farm up on the tops. I was out collecting stone.’ He didn’t tell her the real reason for his expedition. He just hoped it wouldn’t rain on his precious equipment and that his covers were waterproof.

  They drew closer to the bridge across to Lawton and he saw the golden stone house with its ancient peel tower. The girl leapt off the cart unladylike, racing across the garden lawn to raise the alarm. ‘Fetch Papa! Fetch the doctor!’ she yelled as servants emerged from the kitchen yard and stables.

  He had never been through the front entrance of the hall before. Farmers always came to the tradesmen’s gate out of sight of the Dacres. The boy was lifted from the cart into waiting hands. No one returned to speak to him so he turned the cart round and headed uphill. His job was done but he wondered just how bad young Master William’s injuries were. Doubtless he’d get news one way or another. All he could see were those bright blue eyes the colour of forget-me-nots , staring up at him with such gratitude. And he hoped he would see Miss Dacre again.

  2

  Lawton was a house of mourning even though no one wore black. The summer had ended on a bitter note. No one spoke of the accident and yet the events of that fateful day clung about them like a heavy mist of sadness. William slept for many weeks and when he woke he did nothing but gibber and drool. The heir to the Dacre estate had lost his senses and was assigned to a special asylum in York under his Aunt’s supervision.

  Mirabel was distraught, blaming herself for racing him that day. Her Papa was angry that no doctor could bring his son back to his old self. Once Will was sent away with Aunt Lydia his name was never mentioned in Papa’s hearing. Will’s room was emptied of his clothes and belongings as if he had never lived. The groom was dismissed in disgrace, Aunt Lydia took herself back to York and Papa sat in his study with the door shut admitting no one.

  Mirabel’s sister, Eliza, picked up her sampler as usual and spent hours at her needlework, burying her head in her linen, never wanting to go for walks or ride their ponies or do anything out of doors. She’d never liked being alone and followed Mirabel around the house like a frightened lap dog.

  Sometimes she woke up screaming for her brother, ‘Wake him up, Bella, wake him up!’ Eliza had started using baby talk which Mirabel found annoying.

  In the days after the accident her only pleasure was to put on her riding habit, saddle up her fine pony, Mercury, and ride across the fields racing away from her chaperone, astride her horse like a boy. She galloped across the high fields, hair flying from under her tall hat, flushed with exhilaration, chasing the wind. Here she could forget all the troubles that were waiting in the house down below.

  She loved the open fells and the warmth of her body on the straining pony. He was a friend who would never let her down. Eliza was no fun. Everyone thought they were twins but she was the eldest by a year, stronger and more wilful. She could always bend Eliza to her schemes, though not to go riding out of doors.

  They knew William was always Papa’s favourite and now he was taken to York to be nursed away from prying eyes. Papa hid his distress once more by being too busy to bother with them. There was the Mill to oversee and he was a partner in some new District Bank. He hunted and soon she would join them. The two girls had attended a little seminary in Skelsby but Mirabel hated all that singing and sewing and sitting around. There were no girls of her class to visit, just Eliza for company on the long dark evenings when they sat in the drawing room waiting for Papa to put in an appearance but he never did, waiting for Aunt Lydia to write them a long letter which never came. The servants had more fun and games in the village than they did, she thought, as she raced across the fells.

  Taking the high bridleway path uphill today was no accident, for she knew it was time to make a formal visit to the farm of the young man who had rescued them. Yewbank was high on the windswept moor, she was told, with a great view of the district. The Dacres had nothing to do with the Stockdales even though they were landowners not tenants, but this must be an exception. A lady must show her gratitude.

  She followed the track and dismounted at the open gate leading to the ancient stone farmhouse with all the pungent smells of a busy farmyard. The farm boy doffed his cap at her presence and the dairymaids curtseyed as she waited on the doorstep while a maid rushed in to warn the lady of the house of her unexpected arrival. She could sense the flurry of tidying and clearing away before she would be shown into their best room.

  Mirabel often went with her Aunt to the low beamed stone cottar houses to dole out alms and baskets of fruit and cakes. She had learned not to turn her nose up at the rough smells assaulting her
nostrils but she had never been on a working farm before: not one so high up the hill with such wonderful views over the valley. It had a better aspect than Lawton Hall, which nestled closer to the river and was darker facing south and east.

  ‘Come in, Come in! To what do we owe this honour?’ smiled the farmer’s wife in a fluster of welcome, straightening her mob cap and curtseying. She had a pleasant round face and cloudy blue eyes. ‘I will mash a dish of tea and there are fat rascals straight off the griddle.’

  Aunt Lydia trained them always to take a bite and a sip but no more for they might deprive poor children of their supper but here was such a pile of baking, bread and fancies on cream china plates. There was a wall dresser full of pewter plates and a wall clock ticking away. Everything sparkled in the firelight. The fire in the chimney blazed with such ferocity that she could feel the heat warming her through. Then the son came through the door as if he had been running, startled by her presence, tall and fair like his mother who clucked around him like a mother hen. There was a different warmth here, more like the chatter in the servants hall before it fell silent when she walked in unannounced.

  ‘We don’t get much company passing the door, just pedlars and bog trotters but this is an honour, Miss Dacre.’

  ‘I came to thank your son for coming to our aid so promptly. On behalf of my father and sister I would like to express our sincere gratitude,’ Mirabel replied, sipping the tea and biting into the spicy cake and kept on nibbling until it was all gone, not a crumb.

  ‘Any Christian soul would do as I done,’ the farmer replied. ‘I hope your brother is fully recovered.’

  ‘He has gone for a rest cure in York.’ She blushed at this lie but the truth was too painful to share with strangers.

  ‘Then all is well and that’s what I like to see, a hearty appetite. Have another,’ said the old lady offering the plate again but Mirabel declined.