About this story
When old Lord Maxwell refuses a land exchange, your father burns the letter rather than explain the quarrel behind it, and you resolve to use what standing Mellor has left for the village's sake, starting with its bad water. At the church, decorating for a service, you meet Aldous Raeburn, grandson to that same Lord Maxwell, and he all but admits he knows the story neither family will say aloud.
How it opens
Morning mist lifted from Mellor Park and exposed an avenue whose missing gate matched the neglect nearer the house.
You were Marcella Boyce, newly recalled from London after your father inherited this ancestral but impoverished estate.
Mrs BoyceThe breakfast bell sounds grand enough to make our unpaid repairs feel almost imaginary.
Mrs BoyceYour father is correcting William again; the boy cannot learn while every motion earns a new order.
Choose
Ask William to bring the coffee and ignore the scattered crumbs.
Suggest that the experienced maid resume waiting until William has been trained.