Chapter One ~ 1869

The flowers on the grave were already beginning to fade.

Theresa picked one or two of the dead carnations from the wreaths and told herself that tomorrow or the next day she would take them away.

Her mother had always hated dead flowers and she herself felt as if something beautiful had died every time she looked at one.

She put the little bunch of primroses that she had picked earlier in the morning on the head of the grave and remembered how her mother had always said every spring,

“The snowdrops are beginning to show and so are the primroses! The winter is nearly over and is it not lovely to think that the sun will soon be warm and we shall be able to spend a great deal of time out of doors?”

The lilt in her voice had made Theresa feel that it was more exciting to be out of doors than inside and she knew now that what she would miss more than anything else were the walks with her mother in the woods.

She would miss too the rides they took together over the fields and she remembered the times when she was small when they would picnic by the stream and afterwards she would swim in the cool clear water.

It was not only the things she could remember that were so painful, but the knowledge that she was now alone!

The one person she had loved, the one person who had understood what she was trying to say, who always gave her new ideas and what she thought of as new inspirations, was dead.

‘Oh, Mama, how could you have left me?’ she asked. ‘How am I to do without you?’

It was hard to hold back the tears that came to her eyes, but her mother had always said that it was wrong to be anything but dignified and controlled in public.

“In your position, my darling,” she said, “you have to set an example to other people. Always remember that if you cheapen yourself and behave badly or commonly other people will follow you.”

Theresa, looking down at the grave and thought that there were very few people who would look on her as somebody of importance and follow her example,

Ever since her father had left them and gone to live abroad she and her mother had stayed very quietly in the old Dower House to which generations of Dowagers had retired once their sons had inherited Denholme Park, which was always known in the village as ‘The Big House’.

Theresa had often thought that the Dower House, which was a fine example of Queen Anne architecture, was far lovelier than the Big House, which was a mansion of grey stone erected on the site of an earlier house by her great-grandfather.

It was huge and ponderous and, even when run by an army of servants, uncomfortable.

The Dower House always seemed to be filled with light and laughter when she and her mother were together.

But only she knew how miserable and unhappy her mother had been when her husband finally left her and how the dark lines under her eyes in the morning made Theresa know that she had cried all night.

Her mother tried hard not to show how miserable she was or how much she missed the man she loved.

Only when Theresa was much older, in fact just before her mother died, had she spoken to her confidentially and she understood much that had mystified her before.

“Your father married me because I was very rich,” her mother had said. “I did not realise it at the time, but because he was so handsome and dashing I fell head-over-heels in love with him.”

She drew in her breath before she went on,

“Oh, my precious, be very careful who you give your heart to. And