1859.

January 16, 1859.

    There was once an old house at the back of the estate. The house was considered small, made of stone with twelve bedrooms, a study, library and dining hall, a grand staircase, and the servers’ quarters where the old kitchen once lived. It was the main house, built in 1303, along with a small, stained-glass chapel and a cold, dark cemetery. Paintings in the library hung from the walls. The paint was thick and oily, which rendered landscapes layered by textures. As a little girl, I was always hiding. Claire, the old woman who has worked here longer than one would know and my maiden for my teenage years, would find me reading into a new adventure beneath the towering picture frames. With the dancing fire, it was my cabin in the woods and my sanctuary. Lady Sybil, my mother, often spoke of my adventures in the library to guests. There was always a new story to be told. Mother was a graceful storyteller, making up new stories as I aged. However, as we both grew, I became the author for my younger siblings.
    At the turn of the century, in 1701, the old house turned to rubble as the foundation burned to the ground. The Earl – Benjamin Worthington, my great-great-grandfather – hired a new, inexperienced cook and her sidekick kitchen maid. The elements blazed, smoked filtered through the corridors and up into the dining hall where a dinner party was being held.  The Earl’s butler, his aunt Ellie, and his wife, succumbing to smoke inhalation a few days later, died in the fiery ambush. Two years after this tragedy, 1703, the church was reconstructed, including sections of the house repurposed as the current servants’ hall. It later took four years for Flinton House to be built.

January 17, 1859.