THERE’S more than a whiff of an ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ intrigue within the walls of a Herefordshire country house where whispers of forbidden romance are only now coming to light.

One woman’s earnest search for answers to a longstanding puzzle about an errant grandmother has led to The Vine at Tarrington, a handsome house with much visited gardens where her forebear worked as a servant more than a century ago.

Author Cheryl Booton chose to commit her findings to a novel, enabling a little poetic licence to fill in the gaps in the unfolding story about Bessie Dora.

An enigmatic character, she was shown to be economical with the truth, lying about her age to secure a job - and a second husband - and abandoning her “gruff” Herefordshire farmworker husband and children before vanishing into thin air.

Bessie Dora was never mentioned. Yet Cheryl’s father remembered her kindness and her lilting voice and before he died, asked Cheryl to try to unravel the mystery.

“Piece by piece, just like a jigsaw, Bessie's life began to unfold through further records and certificates that came to light,” Cheryl explains.

“I felt that she had a life that was worth living and that it was a tale that was worth telling, hence the title of the book.”

Born in Cornwall, she moved to Herefordshire where her father came in search of farm work with his large family.

Though Bessie Dora claimed to be 21-years-old when she worked at The Vine, records show she was just 16.

Present owner, Richard Price has a fascination with the house’s history, and has also taken up the story of the young servant who would have slept in the attics.

Photographs of shooting parties recall times in the early 20th century when wealthy widower and bene-factor, A.S Zimmerman lived at The Vine with his son, Arthur Ulric.

As a pupil at Hereford Cathedral School before the First World War, he has been described as “shy and unassuming”.

He did not forget his old school: a £100,000 donation launched the Old Herefordian Fund and he became its president.

After his death in 1963, Arthur Ulric left his entire estate to the OH club.

Though pure conjecture, Cheryl believes a romance could have flourished between her grandmother and the young Arthur Ulric.

In 1917, Bessie Dora gave birth to a daughter, Monica in distant Upton-on-Severn.

After the First World War she married “gruff” local farmworker, Arthur Booton and the couple had a son, Cheryl’s father, grandly named Douglas Wyndham Booton.

They lived at Callow Marsh, Much Cowarne, but the marriage was “stormy”: one heated exchange ended when Arthur threw Bessie Dora into a water trough.

Arthur petitioned for divorce in 1933, his wife’s whereabouts “unknown”.

Further researches have revealed Bessie Dora later working at a specialist hospital in Birmingham.

It just so happened that Mr Zimmerman’s silversmithing business and town house were based in the same Kings Heath street.

Said Richard: “There may have been a romance at The Vine, she was probably a winning, little thing.” He feels that such an old house must hold secrets.

“Part of the charm of the book is that you can imagine the dramas, the tensions, the passions and the antagonisms that would have gone on in the house.

"You wonder what other seductions went on.”

The atmosphere at The Vine, surrounded by its splendid gardens which are occasionally opened under the National Garden Scheme, was that of a “happy house”, he added.

Bromyard and District Local History Society also stepped in to help Cheryl’s mission, while staff at the Cornish Records Office in Truro assisted with Bessie Dora’s early life.

“Her date of birth surprised me though, 1895.” Cheryl added.

“I came to learn from further research that this was not the only time that she would lie about her age!”

Records show that Bessie Dora later married a Belgian soldier during the Second World War, claiming to be 38 when she was in fact 48.

“I wanted to tell her story," explained Cheryl.

"I felt that she had a life that was worth living and that it was a tale that was worth telling, hence the title of the book.

n ‘Bessie Dora : A Life Worth Living ; A Tale Worth Telling’ by Cheryl Booton is available from Ledbury Books and Maps, The Trumpet tea rooms, Food for All, Bromyard, and via Amazon.