***Chapter 41***

***Gwendolyn***

Gwendolyn knew next to nothing about horses. That they lived in stables, neighed, chewed grass, and that people sometimes rode them could justifiably be claimed to be the sum total of her knowledge. But that newspaper report, shamelessly using a minor fire as an excuse to write a short biography of architect William Drumgold, was to change everything.

The elderly and cantankerous heiress's mundane existence was broken only by sacking staff for any real or imaginary slight and by terrorizing herself in speculating what germs may lurk beneath the most innocent of household objects. And her childhood was so very long ago that she could barely remember being a child at all. But, deep within her psyche, lay her very first memory.

There was someone with her - mother? father? governess? servant? - she couldn't recollect who her companion had been now, though she remembered…

…A thrill runs through her as they feed the horse, and colours shining Technicolor bright, clouds silver-grey, the grass and trees a rich, rich green…a breeze sweeping impatiently by, lifting her hair, fluttering the horse's mane, shivering through trees…quiet raindrops starting to fall, gaining strength, glistening on the beautiful animal's coat, trickling through branches, cold on Gwendolyn's shoulders…

Years pass by, faster than the wind, faster than thought, faster than the timeless rolling of the ocean. But the image is constant and it leaves her with tears moistening her eyes and wishing again for a long-ago time, when everything was tinged with a breathless, magical wonder. What happened afterwards? Did she and her mystery guardian, no more than a shadow now, laugh as they ran for shelter, was she scooped up into someone's arms, was she loved once? Or was it always as lonely as this?

For another memory of childhood is cold as ice.

It is a year or so after the death of a father she barely remembers. She is perhaps seven or eight years old, sitting at a mahogany writing bureau, pasting pictures into a scrapbook, sketching ink patterns in childish, spidery hand. Pale and distracted, her mother, who, in the fashion of Queen Victoria, still wears widow's weeds, hurries by, her skirt rustling along the floor. She is carrying something folded inside a muslin cloth and the grandfather clock in the hall is loudly ticking and dust motes dance and fall. She walks through the French windows and into the summer-scented garden, to the cherry tree, so they tell Gwendolyn later, so they tell her when she has finally calmed enough to listen. Days after the loud bang pierced the air, days after Gwendolyn, suddenly knowing, had begun to shudder violently, while shouts and screams rang out and footsteps clattered from every direction.

A childhood gone then.

Keep out the world. The world is full of misery and harm. Never touch or be touched. Was it always so?

If things had been different…If there had been a different ending to a story so full of promise when colours were bright and the world new, could she, would she have been someone else? If Mother had never been prone to fits of depression, would the summer afternoon have been no more than a summer afternoon, and Gwendolyn never lived this lonely, miserable existence?

Could people, would people, change, if given another chance?

A splash of tear fell on to the newspaper report, a damp grey star smudging words and pulling them randomly out of the comfort of their sentences, mixing "problems avoided young" irrevocably together. Oh, if only, if only! She dropped a tear-sodden paper tissue into a bowl of disinfectant, kept there for the purpose, and reached for another.

A thin shaft of sunlight crept over the tiny chink above the closed curtains, its tremulous light, unsteadied by the March winds, crawling cobwebby fingers across ceiling and walls before slipping noiselessly away again. Gwendolyn's blurred gaze fell back down upon the newspaper and she thought of another time sunshine had streamed indoors and left nothing but darkness behind. problems avoided young. She read the jumbled words once more and suddenly a rare optimism consumed her. It had to be a sign! The only truly happy memory she had was of a horse. The article had been about an apparently world-famous riding stables. There was a way to protect herself AND to change the future. According to William Drumgold, young folk kept out of trouble if kept occupied…

The stipulation was that Hepplethwaite's must employ those in their teens or twenties, but especially those for whom life had dealt some cruel blow or who had nowhere else to turn. A helping hand, as it were, she explained to a startled Mr Henry Dingwall, of Shuttleworth, Dingwall & Brown, long time Hepplethwaite solicitors, for he had often remarked to his wife on the family's lack of charity towards those less fortunate.

Ironically, almost as soon as the ink was dry on the paper, Miss Gwendolyn Hepplethwaite breathed her last and shuffled off this mortal coil, perhaps to be held accountable to a greater god, perhaps to return forever to dust, none of us will ever know, until our own days on this Earth are done.

But the riding stables thrived. The wheels set in motion rolled on, smooth and well-oiled, with barely a bump or a squeak, and Shuttleworth, Dingwall & Brown were kept extremely busy dealing with the venture. The waiting list to work at Hepplethwaite's was always exceptionally long and, for once, the privileged found themselves at the very back of the queue while those who were used to being shunted to the back found themselves, for once, enjoying the giddy heights of the front.

You might think it a strange coincidence that Dora should visit Hepplethwaite's and later join Follyfoot Farm, which, oddly enough, was the inspiration for Hepplethwaite's. I, too, often puzzle over the coincidence and I wonder whether it was coincidence or her destiny. Now you might well point out anything can be tweaked and twisted and turned to make it seem so. You might well observe that the more gullible among us will insist on ghosts, goblins and good luck charms, when there is inevitably a common sense explanation. Always, but always, a common sense explanation.

Oh, so you say, my logical friend, so you say!