by Dorothy Mack
Though she had been careful to keep her gaze trained on the boy, she encountered Aunt Ridgemont’s eye as she returned her attention to her plate. The contact was so brief that afterward Sarah could not be sure that she had really glimpsed a degree of malevolence she would never have credited in one habitually so divorced from the concerns of others. Her heart seemed to miss a beat before galloping on while a guilty presentiment ran through her mind that Mrs. Ridgemont knew about her and Mark. Despite William’s superb performance, he had not managed to throw dust in his mother’s eyes.
Compelled against her will, Sarah shot a covert glance at the woman calmly eating pudding, the mild blue eyes as vague as ever in her apple-cheeked countenance. Most likely a trick of light and shadow and her own guilty knowledge had caused her to see something that didn’t exist, Sarah told herself, but she was more than happy to leave the table shortly thereafter for an hour or two of blessed privacy in her own quarters.
Despite a lingering concern for William’s unhappiness, Sarah’s solitary musings were eminently satisfying that afternoon. She thought — she hoped — that Lady Eversley was disposed to like her and would approve of her for a daughter-in-law. For her part, she had no doubts that her grandmother’s friend would prove to be one of the benefits of the marriage. She was an incredibly fortunate individual. A few weeks ago, life had seemed all challenge and struggle and uncertainty about the future. Suddenly the future was full of the promise of love and happiness. Richard would have his fair chance to make a good life for himself, her grandfather had the healing promise of the gratitude and companionship of his older son’s children at the end of his life, and she would have Mark’s love.
Thoughts of Mark and visions of a happy harmonious life together, hopefully blessed by children, filled Sarah’s mind as she rested on the chaise longue in her room with an unopened book of poetry lying in her lap. She was only distracted from a particularly appealing image of herself holding a little boy with his father’s deep-brown eyes and black hair when a stray glance at the clock brought her back to reality with a crash. She was already late for the daily ritual of tea in the drawing room, and she particularly desired to give no cause for criticism until this family gathering could be brought to a close.
Sarah tidied her hair and freshened her appearance in record time and headed off at a brisk pace to the drawing room. She forced herself to an artificial composure as she entered, a composure that was immediately shattered by the sound of Aunt Adelaide’s commanding voice directed at herself. This in itself was so unusual that Sarah blinked.
“I beg your pardon, Aunt?”
“I asked you where Arabella is.”
“I’m afraid I do not know, Aunt Adelaide. Perhaps she is in the nursery playing cards with Richard. Once Richard gets involved in a game, he is extremely loath to let his victims escape,” Sarah said with an indulgent smile meant to invite a like response.
Her invitation was not accepted. Lady Townsend fixed her niece with a basilisk stare and stated accusingly, “Arabella told me that you and she had made plans to walk to the village this afternoon to visit Grace Medlark’s little girl.”
CHAPTER 14
Sarah’s insulating bubble of happiness burst with a pop as she took in the sense of her aunt’s words, and her mind began to function at double speed.
Drat Arabella!
Obviously the girl had sneaked off to meet Simon Rydell, whether by prearrangement or not did not concern Sarah for the moment. Her domineering aunt was expecting an explanation.
“I … I fear that after our late evening at Eversley I succumbed to the lure of my bed this afternoon, Aunt, and fell fast asleep. Not wishing to disturb me, Arabella would have gone by herself to visit Minnie so as not to disappoint her. The child is vastly taken with my cousin and no doubt begged her to remain. Arabella is wonderful with Richard too,” she went on chattily. “She has a real affinity for the young.”
If Sarah hoped to divert her aunt’s thoughts with praises of her daughter, she had sadly misjudged her woman. Lady Townsend began to catechize her about previous visits to the Medlark house. Sarah, replying with seeming candour, came to the dismaying realization that Arabella had probably been using visits to Minnie as a cloak for assignations with the doctor since that first accidental meeting. Fortunately, before she had been pushed to the point of perjuring her soul, her cousin appeared in the doorway, somewhat breathless but sweetly apologetic.
Before Lady Townsend could open her lips, Sarah nipped in to say warningly, “I am so sorry you had to go alone to Grace’s because I fell asleep this afternoon, Arabella. Had I been there, I’d not have let Minnie make you late for your tea. That child has you wrapped around her little finger.”
“She has me wrapped around her heart, actually. She’s really the most enchanting little creature with her big eyes and funny little lisp.” Arabella had rallied fast and had even produced a creditable little laugh, but she had looked stricken for an instant to see the battery of eyes expectantly turned on her, and some of her rich colouring had drained away.
Vincent was studying his sister with a speculative expression that promised trouble in the near future. Though she gave no sign, Sarah was aware when his gaze shifted to herself, and she made a mental note to avoid her eldest cousin for a time.
Dressing for dinner in her own suite later, Sarah reflected with a significant lack of complacence that a crisis had been narrowly averted, though perhaps for the present only. Thanks to William’s efforts, which she had striven to abet, the conversation at tea had been firmly focused on subjects unlikely to provoke any controversy. Lady Townsend had been uncharacteristically silent, not seeming to notice her daughter’s attempts to wait upon her comfort. Mrs. Ridgemont had been more abstracted than ever, her attention concentrated on a heap of tatting in her lap. They may have brushed through today’s situation without a confrontation between Arabella and her mother, but unless the temporary residents left Beech Hill immediately, Lady Townsend was going to learn of her daughter’s involvement with Doctor Rydell. Sarah would have preferred to remain completely ignorant of the issue, but by using her as an alibi, Arabella had plunged her right into the middle, as it were. Though she did not relish the task, the idea of having a talk with her cousin was taking hold in her mind, though what advice she could hope to offer was beyond her at the moment.
As Maria slipped the cream silk over her head and began to do up the buttons, Sarah stood rather limply before her. Too much of a highly emotional nature had already occurred today. Any further scenes would wait upon the morrow.
Alas, for such cowardly shrinking from confrontation…
Insulated by his isolation from the undercurrents swirling within his house, Sir Hector chose that evening to announce that his lawyer would be arriving at Beech Hill the next day.
Sarah noted that Horace Ridgemont, seated on her right, tightened his fingers around the handle of his knife involuntarily, but he gave no sign that his father could have seen from the other end of the table that this news disturbed him. Lady Townsend, however, had never learned the wisdom of concealing her reactions to her father’s baiting, nor did she on this occasion.
“Why should you want to summon a lawyer all the way from London?” she asked, glaring at him. “What do you intend to do?”
“I should have thought that would be obvious, my dear Adelaide,” replied her parent with a purring quality to his bland tones that must have set his daughter’s teeth on edge. “I am going to change my will, of course.”
Having enjoyed the effect of this little bomb in the sudden cessation of conversation down the length of the table, Sir Hector returned his attention to his dinner, choosing that moment to articulate fulsome praises of the quality of the veal scallops in mushroom sauce. “Be sure to pass on my compliments to Mrs. Hadley, Sarah, my dear,” he ordered at his most debonair as he smiled at her.
“Yes, Grandfather.” Sarah’s tones were wooden, but she choked back rising hysteria, convinced that invisible wave
s of antagonism were rolling across the table toward her from all her relatives, with the single exception of William. Not for a moment did she credit that her grandfather intended to make a new will in favour of herself or Richard, but true to the spirit of his name, he took a fiendish delight in setting his family at odds. It was all she could manage to remain decently upright for the rest of the meal and try not to dwell on the depressing notion that her very existence was deplored as an affront and an evil by those who should be closest to her by ties of blood. So much for her hopes of a quiet peaceful evening!
Sir Hector commanded Sarah’s escort when he retired to his rooms directly after dinner, declaring his preference for brandy and solitude over port and endless contention. He had the satisfaction of seeing his son’s lips set tightly at this gibe, but Horace made no reply except to wish his father a good rest. Sarah, silently waiting for the old man to rise and leave, could not suppress the ungenerous thought that her grandfather was secretly disappointed that his daughter, at a look from her brother, had not pressed him for details of the changes he intended to make in his will, thus depriving him of the pleasure of refusing to disclose his intentions. Demanding his granddaughter’s company rather than accepting the arm of his son or one of his grandsons on the trek to his rooms was just another manoeuvre in his endless campaign to discomfit his family.
Sympathy for her grandfather’s frail state of health warred with a desire to protest the unenviable position his blatant championing always placed her in vis-à-vis the rest of the family, but as usual, she could not bring herself to complain to him about her treatment at the hands of the others, fearful that any retaliation on his part would only serve to exacerbate the situation and further alienate her. How was it going to end? she wondered, not for the first time. The situation was all the more deplorable because she truly felt that with a little goodwill on all sides the source of contention could be removed. Her relatives were not depraved and evil by nature, but greed was not an ennobling characteristic. They invariably showed themselves at their worst when questions of inheritance came up.
By the time she left her grandfather in Somers’ capable hands after a short discussion about preparing accommodations for Mr. Hammond, Sir Hector’s attorney, Sarah’s reluctance to join in the after-dinner farce of conviviality was heightened by her disturbing reflections. Any company was to be preferred to that of her current thoughts, however, so she forced herself to enter the drawing room with the appearance at least of composure.
The room was not very well populated at the moment. The only man present was Cecil, lounging in a chair talking to Arabella. Lady Townsend was also absent, Sarah noted, just as Arabella, catching her roving eye, explained blithely, “Mama has retired early with a headache.”
Her cheerful manner bespoke a sad want of filial sympathy, but Sarah, giving her cousin the benefit of the doubt, decided it was more likely an expression of her relief at evading the possibility of being taken to task by her mother over her disappearance this afternoon.
Mrs. Ridgemont was seated in a comer of a long sofa, almost buried in a heap of tatting, which she must have fetched from her rooms after dinner. Sarah hesitated, then seated herself beside her aunt, who did not look up from her work. She appeared to be having difficulty getting it untangled, and Sarah asked, “May I help you with that, Aunt?”
“No, thank you, I can manage,” Mrs. Ridgemont returned shortly, her eyes never leaving the untidy mass beneath her fingers.
Stung by the decided rebuff, Sarah edged farther away on the sofa just as William came into the room, followed a few seconds later by his father. He seemed to size up the situation at a glance because he joined Sarah with a smile, asking, “Do you play the pianoforte, Sarah?”
“Not really,” she said, explaining with a rueful smile, “Mother tried to teach me, but every time we suffered a reverse in our fortunes, the pianoforte was the first thing to be sold. I have not touched an instrument in years, though I would dearly like to resume lessons sometime when … when…” She faltered.
He finished smoothly, “When your life settles into more of a routine? I hope you will. Shall we ask Bella to play for us, then?”
The next hour passed quite pleasantly with Arabella playing and then singing some very accomplished duets with her brother when Vincent wandered into the drawing room. It wasn’t until Millbank appeared with the tea tray that she looked up and said, “Goodness, Sarah, it must be well past the hour when you usually go up to say goodnight to Richard. Here is the tea tray.”
Sarah jumped up. “So it is. I was enjoying your music so much I lost track of the time. Will you excuse me, everyone?”
She hurried from the room, amazed that she could have forgotten what had settled into a nightly routine of dropping in to say goodnight to Richard after he had drunk the hot milk and honey Clara brought up to the nursery suite each evening.
Generally, on leaving the drawing room, Sarah went right up the west staircase and down the long corridor toward the nursery quarters above her apartment in the front of the house, but she had promised to bring Richard a book she had been reading, so tonight she detoured by her own rooms first, intending to use the back stairs in the hall outside her apartment.
She had her foot on the second step when a rustling sound drew her eyes upward in the dimly lighted hall as Clara appeared at the top carrying a tray. “You shouldn’t have made a special trip for the tray, Clara. I would have brought it down to the kitchen as usual. I am quite late tonight, I know.”
“That’s all right, Miss Sarah. I didn’t come —”
Clara’s words were lost in a shriek of terror as she suddenly pitched down the stairs, the tray flying out of her hands to bounce and roll down the flight to the added sounds of clanking metal and breaking china. Sarah sprang forward, her book joining the other debris as she flung it down to free her hands as she instinctively dashed up the stairs to break Clara’s fall. She was never quite sure where she found the strength to grab the hurtling girl and hang on to the railing without the impact sending them both down the rest of the flight. Her arm felt like it was being pulled from her body and she was jostled off one step, but she managed to right her balance on the one below without letting go of Clara. With one shoulder and the hand that had been gripping the rail, she gently eased the maid’s inert figure back safely against the stairs, leaning her weight forward into this task to keep from overbalancing and going over backward herself now that she had no hold on the railing.
By the time Sarah, breathing heavily, had eased herself slightly away from Clara’s slumped form, the stairwell was full of noisy humanity, or so it seemed to her in her dazed state. Actually, the crowd consisted only of Somers, puffing up from the floor below, and Richard and Lottie, dashing to the top of the staircase from the nursery suite. Though the din had seemed loud enough to wake the dead to one in the echoing stairwell at the time, the house was too well built and too large to transmit sounds from one section to another.
Trying to examine the now-weeping girl for injuries was no simple chore. Sarah’s gentle exhortations to Clara to tell her where she hurt met with no response except an intensification of her sobs. It took Lottie’s stern command to stop “wailing like a banshee” to penetrate Clara’s hysterics. Meanwhile, Sarah sent Somers to fetch Joseph and reassure her grandfather in the apartment below hers that the accident had not been serious, her reasoning being that Clara could not possibly produce so much noise if she were seriously injured.
It was nearly a half-hour later before order was finally restored. In that time, Clara’s weeping was stemmed by the sheer force of Lottie’s personality and she was found to have suffered no more than a wrenched ankle and a thorough shaking up. Joseph carried her up to the room she shared with Maria, where Mrs. Glamorgan skilfully bound the ankle after hot and cold cloths had been applied for a time. A restorative pot of tea containing a generous tot of brandy was produced by Sarah, who delivered it personally while the mess was being cleaned up
by two of the maids. She wished to assure herself that Clara would drink it and settle down as comfortably as her throbbing ankle would permit. Other than repeating that something seemed to grab her leg, the girl could not explain the accident, but the emotional fury of her weeping had worn her out, and Sarah went back to the nursery suite convinced that the accident victim would sleep soundly.
Her intention was merely to reassure Lottie and Richard as to Clara’s improved condition before seeing that her brother went to bed, but the gravity of their expressions as she entered the day nursery warned her that something else was amiss.
“Richard found this tied around one of the balusters at the top of the stairs,” Lottie began without preliminary, holding out a coil of some material.
“What is it?” Sarah overcame a strong reluctance to accept whatever it was, and held out her hand.
“Thin picture wire, I should imagine. On the wall side of the staircase it was fastened to a tack that was pulled out of the wall, no doubt by the impact when Clara hit the wire. Richard found the tack too.”
Sarah closed her eyes for an instant, wishing to scream a denial. She had to clear her throat twice before she could produce any sound at all as she stared from one grave face to the other. “Are you saying that Clara’s fall was not an accident, that someone tried to … to injure her?”
“Not exactly. Here, sit down.” Alarmed by Sarah’s loss of colour, Lottie pushed her down onto a straight chair that Richard brought forward.
“What do you mean, not exactly?”
“Think, Sarah. That wire was obviously put there to hurt someone, but it is not Clara who usually comes down this staircase every night carrying a tray.” As Sarah’s hand crept up to her throat, fear looked out of the eyes that clung to Lottie’s. She wanted to deny the truth staring her in the face, but the words would not come.
Instead, she murmured inanely, “Poor Clara.”