Winslow's Web Page 8

  “What is the problem, Alain? Stop fidgeting so! You had better slow down and start from the beginning!”

  Katie blinked in astonishment. Did he call her Alain? Was this mere girl the one she was to work for? This was absurd, Katie thought hotly! The old woman in the window was much more preferable than this bouncing immature girl! She couldn’t possibly... It couldn’t be true that this was the only woman Lord Emerson was known to pay attention to. Katie consoled herself with the thought that it must be the almost related part Lord Emerson had referred to that made him cater to her dimpled innocence.

  Katie’s attention returned back to Alain, who was still talking to Lord Emerson, and becoming more and more agitated. Katie found herself engrossed in the scene before her.

  “Oh Alden, it is just awful! I can’t impress upon you how dreadful it is!”

  Well she’s having a good try at it! Katie mused to herself sarcastically.

  “We received this note in the post, just after you left to fetch the seamstress, and I...Well come with me and I’ll show you. It’s in the study.”

  With their heads bent towards one another in deep conversation, Katie found herself being left behind, as Lord Emerson and Lady Alain Yarnell started up the entry steps together, now absorbed in some unknown dilemma. Not quite knowing what she should do, Katie followed a few feet behind them.

  The two seemed to have cast Katie completely out of their minds, as though they had forgotten she was even there. With a feeling of being slighted, Katie watched, as they continued on through the huge double doors, not even glancing back at her.

  Katie hesitated, indecision etched on her face, then pushed forward and continued following them on into the Hall. The carriage had already disappeared around back, to the stables. Had it not, she was tempted to get back in it and insist that the driver take her back to Windy Gates. But the footman, who had held the door, and helped her down, had also departed. She was left standing alone at the foot of the porch steps, so there was really no other choice to make but continue on into the Hall. The surprised look of the butler, met her eyes, but then he stood at his post, assuming she was expected, considering she came right behind Lord Emerson and Lady Yarnell. Katie’s temper flared once more at Lord Emerson’s rudeness.

  Katie passed through the entryway just in time to observe Lord Emerson and Alain going into a room just off the main hall. Still at odds as to what was most appropriate to do, she waited outside the door, which stood ajar.

  Alain’s voice sounded distraught behind the half closed door. “Alden, it’s just preposterous! How she thinks she can ever get away with it is beyond me!”

  “Just calm down, Alain.” His own voice was calm and steady. “Tell me what has happened. Who is trying to get away with what?”

  “Why, the impostor who claims she is Katherine Gail Winslow, that’s who!”

  Katie drew in her breath, as the story that Bess had related to her only the night before, came flowing into her memory.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Katie realized she had been holding her breath, as Lord Emerson seemed to be assimilating what Alain had just told him. The name, Katharine Gail, caught Katie’s attention in the same way, as her own heart took a sudden leap.

  “Katherine Gail?” Lord Emerson didn’t sound quite as calm any longer. “I don’t understand, Alain, who is claiming to be Katherine Gail Winslow?”

  “How should I know? I haven’t met her yet! Here, see for yourself! This is the post we received this morning, right after you left. What do you make of it?”

  There was a rustle of paper, and Katie felt guilty for listening at the door, but she had been intrigued by what Bess had said about Alden Emerson waiting for his heiress Katherine Gail Winslow to return, so the turn of events were captivating to her.

  Alain broke the silence. “Well aren’t you going to say anything? Don’t just stand there looking dazed, what are we going to do?”

  “Why, welcome your half-sister home of course!” he answered.

  “Alden! How can you say that? Are you taken in by this deceit?”

  “Aren’t you being a little hasty to judge, Alain? After all, you haven’t even seen the woman yet! She says in her note that she has valid proof. Why don’t you let her present her story and proof before you start accusing?” There was an empty pause, and then he added, “And if she is, in truth, your sister, then you should be glad she has at last returned.”

  “I should be glad!” Alain’s voice sputtered and Katie could detect a hint of hysteria in it. “You should be the one to be glad! After all, you were betrothed to her! If it still holds any water, you stand to lose nothing, but gain everything! You will have Emerson Manor and Winslow Hall as well! While I...I will have nothing! Do you hear? Nothing! She will have it all and you along with it, if you marry the retch.”

  “Don’t get excited, Alain! For one thing, we don’t even know if the betrothal you so loosely speak of is even binding. If it turns out that she is the real Katherine Gail, then the Estate is rightfully hers anyway. There’s no need to start getting excited about it yet. I assure you, we shall investigate everything very thoroughly before we just hand it all over to the woman. However, if by chance she is the heiress, Alain, you will have to accept the fact and hope that she is understanding, in your behalf.”

  “Impossible! After fifteen years, she just suddenly appears from the blue? If she is the true heiress, why hasn’t she come back before this?”

  “Why don’t you wait and ask her?” Lord Emerson suggested with a slight chuckle.

  “Oh Alden, it is not funny! You act as though you are on her side.” Then her voice softened. “Only I guess I should know better than that, shouldn’t I? You do care for me don’t you, Alden? Tell me that this Katherine Gail-who-ever-she-is means nothing to you. I am the only one, isn’t it so, Alden?”

  Katie tore herself away from the door and started walking aimlessly down the hall. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to hear the answer Lord Emerson would give Alain to appease her pleading for his understanding and affection. Instead, she busied herself with inspecting the vast collection of paintings that hung on the walls about her.

  Most were elaborate portraits with amazingly lifelike brush strokes that almost made Katie feel as though the subjects in the paintings could actually step down and talk to her. She assumed that they were most likely depictions of ancestors that once lived at Winslow Hall. She found herself fascinated with each separate person, noting the various names and titles that were engraved on slender metal tabs along the lower portion of the frames.

  It was rather haunting, knowing that the faces she was observing, had once lived here and walked these very halls. There was also something nostalgic about them, and she realized that she felt rather envious of the fact that these long dead family members had belonged to someone’s family, yet she had no one to call family.

  As she continued to wander, caught up in the magnificent structure of the house and the realistic paintings, Katie found herself in another corridor. Katie’s attention was immediately caught by a portrait, which hung at the end of the hall. Instead of the usual elegant lady, or stiffly posed gentleman in ruffles with a sword at his side, this depiction was quite different.

  It portrayed a lady holding a small baby on her lap and a young, happy looking, child playing carefree, at her feet. The child at her feet had long red braids, the same shade as the woman’s. The infant in her arms had short curly blond hair and the same sultry green eyes as the woman and the redheaded child.

  The most extraordinary detail was placed on an unusual broach that the redheaded child had fastened to her ruffled smock. The large green eyes stared out from a face that couldn’t have been more than three years old. Yet the fancy pin hanging on the child’s smock looked too sophisticated and expensive, for a child of that age to be wearing.

  The broach displayed a unique design of jewels that appeared to be rubies, emeralds, and possibly diamonds. Katie had no way of telling if t
hey were even real jewels at all. After all, it was just a painting. Nevertheless, the artist had caught the light just right, and it seemed as if Katie could reach out and grasp the broach in her hand.

  The elegant woman was dressed in a flowing green gown, not much unlike the satin dress Katie had worn at Emerson Manor, which had belonged to Lorna. Yet she realized that the style and cut came from a completely differing era. Draped about the woman’s long slender neck was, what appeared to be teardrop emeralds. They looked just as real as the broach worn by the young child.

  Beneath the portrait was the inscription: Lady Katherine Gail, and her daughters, Katherine and Alain.

  Katie tried to assimilate what that meant. If Alain was Lady Winslow’s daughter, along with Katherine Gail, why was she called Lady Yarnell? Then she remembered Lord Emerson referring to the missing Katherine Gail, as Alain’s half-sister.

  There were so many questions that Katie wanted answers for, but none of them were any of her concern. After all, she told herself, she was simply to be the seamstress, and should only be involved in her duties at hand. Still it would be satisfying to know more about the people she would be working for, Katie reasoned.

  At the thought, Katie realized that her footsteps should be heading back to the main hall where she had left Lady Yarnell and Lord Emerson. Katie reversed her direction, but all her surroundings, now seemed unfamiliar to her. The farther she went, the more confused she became. How could she become so lost just by turning once off the main hall? Katie felt impatience rising at her own stupidity.

  She was about to explore another direction, as she came upon a new unfamiliar branch off of the hall she had been following, when she heard footsteps. Katie’s pace quickened towards the sound, as she discovered how truly disturbed she had started to become at her predicament.

  “Lord Emerson! Lady Yarnell! Is that you?” Her voice echoed against the thick stone walls. However, when she reached the figure approaching her from a dim corner of the hall, she stopped short, her breath coming faster than she had expected. It was not Alden Emerson or Alain Yarnell. The frail figure, before her, was none other than the small, thin woman, with the wiry gray hair floating around her ears, whom Katie had seen earlier peering down at them from one of the windows.

  Her plain gray dress looked worn and hung loosely on thin bony shoulders. Though her face was etched in a mass of wrinkles, she had a pleasant expression on her face, which reminded Katie of her own mother, somehow. Perhaps it was the lady’s somber, brown eyes, which reminded her so much of her own mother’s eyes, Katie decided.

  “Oh!” Katie exclaimed involuntarily, steadying herself with one hand against the wall.

  “Did I frighten you?” the inquisitive voice asked, with a cock of her head. “What are you doing rushing about anyway?” The lady crooked her finger at Katie. “Come here, and let me get a closer look at you.” She thrust her head forward, on hunched shoulders.

  Katie hesitated. “Come, come dear. Old Maggie won’t hurt you. Come closer. My eyes aren’t so good any more, and this hall is all in shadows. Come, let me see your face.”

  Although an unexplainable fright gripped Katie, the curiosity within her made her respond. As Katie complied, the old woman’s face broke into a rapturous smile.

  “Then you have returned!” she cried, to Katie’s puzzlement. “I knew you would! My Katherine has returned!” In an enthusiastic display of emotion, the curious looking lady threw her bony arms around Katie’s neck.

  When the woman released her, Katie fell back, a little shaken by what the old woman had said. “I’m sorry. You... you must be mistaken,” she stammered, backing away even more.

  The woman wasn’t listening. “I knew you would return. When I saw you drive up in Lord Emerson’s carriage, I was sure it was you! You see, I knew everything! No one would listen to me though. I’m just an old addled lady, and they say I’m crazy! They call me the crazy coot. But they don’t know. They weren’t there. They didn’t hear the things I heard. Now they will see I was right. You are home now. They will see… they will see...”

  Katie began to think the woman was crazy, and stepped back a few more steps.

  “Don’t be afraid! Are you afraid someone will try to hurt you again? No one will hurt you, Katherine. He is dead now, and beside, I will not let anyone harm you! Come, Katherine, don’t run away from me. Don’t you remember me? Don’t you remember Old Maggie?”

  The strange feeling suddenly came upon Katie that she had experienced this before. She remembered being frightened and someone was saying to her... “Don’t be afraid. No one will hurt you. I will not let anyone harm you!” It was as though she had experienced this very incident in some other existence! The memory came to her vaguely, as if she had dreamed it and now it was happening! Yet, the feeling vanished as quickly as it had touched her, and Katie shrugged away the shiver that accompanied it.

  The astonishingly obsessed woman came closer, and Katie made herself stand her ground. “You have made a mistake ma’am. I am Katie, the new seamstress. I am not Katherine,” Her voice sounded hollow, even to herself.

  “You’re a silly girl to try and pretend with me, Katherine. Are you still afraid? Afraid he will find out you are back? Is that why you are pretending? I told you he is dead! Don’t you believe me?”

  “I am not pretending! Do you think I am Katherine Gail Winslow? Is that who you are talking about?”

  “Of course, you are Katherine. Let me look at you again. Aren’t you my little Kathy?” She had seemed so sure of herself, but now a shadow of doubt crossed the aged face. Peering closely into Katie’s face, she held Katie’s chin between her long fragile fingers. As she studied Katie’s face, her brow puckered and her eyes remained confused. “Aren’t you Katherine?” she asked again. “It’s been so long. Only you must be her. You have the red hair, her green eyes...!”

  “There are lots of people with red hair and green eyes,” Katie explained softly. “However, you shouldn’t be disappointed, because I understand that Katherine Gail is coming home. They received a letter from her this morning.”

  “Then you’re not my little Kathy?” The disappointment in her voice touched Katie’s heart, and her face had the pouting look of a child.

  “No, I’m not Katherine,” she tried to soothe the old woman, “but I would like to hear about her. Why did she disappear in the first place, and how did you know she was coming back?”

  Old Maggie gave a chuckle. “So," she cackled, “you would like to know Old Maggie’s secrets, eh? Don’t you think I’m crazy like all the rest of them? They wouldn’t listen to me, why should you want to?”

  “You’ve been here a long time haven’t you, Maggie?” Katie assumed the obvious, changing the subject.

  “Oh, that I have, dear, longer than anyone who is here now,” she informed Katie with an unmistakable gleam of pride in her voice. “I was Lord Winslow’s Nanny. Yes, and I would have continued to care for Katherine too, if they hadn’t taken her away. She was such a pretty little thing. Now she’s coming back. You did say she was coming back!”

  “Yes, I did, but who took her away? I heard that she just disappeared. Do you know what really happened?”

  Maggie chuckled in her dry way. “Yes, Old Maggie knows many things, more things than you could guess! Only no one will listen to Old Maggie. They think I’ve grown addled in my old age!”

  “Don’t worry, I will listen to you, Maggie, if you will only tell me.”

  Maggie’s brows drew together for a brief moment, and then her brown eyes brightened. “All right then, all right, I will tell you. No one has asked me to tell before, but I will tell you, because I like you. You remind me of my Kathy, and when she returns you will see what I am going to tell you is true. You just wait. You will see!”

  Maggie started down the hall. “Come with me, girl.” She pulled Katie’s arm. “It’s a long story. Come to my room, where we can sit and be comfortable. I have much to tell you and you will soon find out just how
much Old Maggie knows!”

  She gave another dry chuckle, and Katie wondered if maybe she was a little addled, like everyone seemed to think. Only Katie decided there could be harm in listening, and she was curious to know the story about the girl Lord Alden Emerson was supposed be betrothed to.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Maggie led Katie up two flights of stairs, down an unadorned long hall, and then into a small dimly lit room. The room seemed very haphazardly furnished with what looked like discarded furniture, for nothing in the room seemed to be of the same era. Katie sat down in a deep armchair, and Maggie took the rocker opposite her.

  “Well then, young lady,” Maggie begun, “you are about to hear a very interesting and strange story. A very strange story indeed!

  “The first time Lawrence Bain Winslow saw Katherine Gail Langdon, was at Emerson Manor. Lawrence was Lord Winslow’s son and I was his Nanny. Lawrence and the Emerson boy had gone off to school together, and they were close chums. So, Lawrence was always off to Emerson Manor, or the Emerson boy, what was his name...? Oh yes, Alex. Alex was here a lot as well.

  “Now Katherine Langdon, she has a story of her own. A distant relative of the Emerson’s orphaned Katherine and her brother. The poor side of the family, mind you, and the Emerson’s were kind enough to take her and her brother James into their home and raise them.

  “When she was young, she and young Alex were like brother and sister. There were many who thought they would marry when they grew up. Only it never came to be. I don’t think Alex Emerson ever saw her in that way, though she grew up to be a real beauty. You’re a beauty too.” Maggie’s eyes darted over Katie as she sat in the deep chair. “But Katherine was a real beauty! Not only pretty in the face, but loving and sweet.

  “Charles Yarnell was another school chum, though I dare say, neither boy really cared for him very much. Katherine became infatuated with him though. The sad part was that he would never think of marrying her. She had no inheritance. She and James were not of the peerage, you understand. Yarnell only played on her emotions, the scoundrel that he was. He was charming, and she believed his pretty lies. He just laughed at her naiveté and then went abroad, leaving her with a broken heart.