“I do at that,” Sarah said. “Please congratulate him for us.”
“I will, thank you.” Mrs. Pearce hesitated, then added, “The children are eager for the change. They aren’t fond of their schools and think it will be a grand adventure to be tutored. But as for me, even though we moved to Belgrave Square little more than a year ago, I’ve made such good friends. I fear I’ll be terribly lonely.”
Sarah could not help but feel sympathy. Sympathy and admiration, that Mrs. Pearce would make such a sacrifice for her husband’s sake. “You’ll make new friends, Mrs. Pearce. Perhaps you should think of this as a grand adventure too.”
When the woman gave her an uncertain look, Catherine went on. “A new world to discover. Twenty years from now you may even look back and tell yourself it was the wisest thing you ever did.”
Mrs. Pearce pursed her lips in thought. “I confess that notion never crossed my mind, but I’ll certainly try to look at it that way.” She brightened and smiled. “And our new house will seem more a home once we’re there with all our belongings. I’m so glad we stopped by. I really do feel better.”
“I’m glad,” Sarah said, returning her smile.
Avis wheeled in the tea trolley, and Sarah asked her to bring the children’s lemonades outside. After the maid left, Mrs. Pearce said, “As for my unannounced visit, we’re having a garden party on Sunday the twenty-first. A farewell to all our friends. You’ll receive an invitation via post next week, but I do want to impress upon you how much I hope you and your family will attend.”
There was nothing Sarah could do but accept the invitation so graciously extended, especially considering the occasion. And she imagined the Pearce children would be far less taxing upon the nerves in their own arena, with any misbehaviors directed toward their own property.
“Very good!” Mrs. Pearce clasped her slender hands together. “I’m overjoyed! And I must warn you that I plan to steal Catherine away from you for a little while. Virginia’s most recent letter says she’s eager to stay a couple of days with us.”
“But of course.” Sarah poured the two cups, sipped her tea, and made the appropriate sympathetic sounds as her guest described the turmoil that packing had put the household into. When the clock struck eleven and the children still played outside, Sarah was feeling quite magnanimous. “Would you care for a tour of the house?”
Mrs. Pearce brightened, setting her cup and saucer on the silver tray on the tea table. “I wanted to ask, but feared with your leaving for lunch—”
Sarah rose. “We have time.”
It was on their way down the corridor that she remembered the parlor and nursery rooms were locked. In front of those doors, she simply tried the knobs, gave her guest a bemused smile, and moved on. She caught no sight of Hector, and reckoned the same survival instincts that made him an excellent mouser served him well in other areas too.
Fifteen
“We’ll give you another day,” Roger Duffy mumbled as his big soil-stained fingers gently released the Sim’s Mammoth Tomato. But its brother, sharing the same vine, was the perfect deep red, so he picked it and placed it in his basket, atop those he had gathered from the first row of the vegetable patch.
He stepped outside every day in awe that he, of all men, should be so privileged to be allowed to coax living things out of the soil. On mornings such as this one he felt especially blessed. Breezes flitted about from all directions, carrying to his appreciative nose the slightly musty aroma of figs one minute, sweet roses the next, and every now and again, freshly turned dirt—from where Trudy’s sixteen-year-old nephew, Jack Woodley, planted a bed of autumn-flowering Guernsey lilies near the dovecote.
The sounds were pleasant too. The chip-chip-chip, tell-tell-tell, cherry-erry-erry, tissy-chee-wee-oo from a chaffinch perched upon a wire cucumber trainer just five rows down, the dull scrapes of the shovel, the clicking of the mower from the Morlands’ garden, the faint whistled notes of “Alice Grey” from the Pearces’ coachman in the carriage drive, and the laughter of children from the terrace. They weren’t from the Rayborn children or little Guy Russell, who could be easily coaxed into sitting on an upturned pail and playing the harmonica, but the happiness in their voices was pleasant to his old ears.
He moved down the row, and had just started a third when a childish voice said, “Are those apples?”
There was a fluttering of wings as the chaffinch took flight. Roger turned slowly because of the catch in his back. A girl stood staring at him. Though they had only visited twice at Berkeley Square that he could recall, he was aware of who the Pearces were; relatives of Mr. James Rayborn’s wife. The children had not addressed him during those two visits, but then, he couldn’t fault them for that, with his fierce black brows and wild grey beard. And so he arranged his heavy features into as pleasant an expression as possible. “No, child, they’re tomatoes. Apples grow in trees.”
“I lost a tooth in an apple once.”
Roger chuckled. “Well, no tomato never snatched anybody’s teeth. Is there no vegetable patch in your garden?”
“No. Cook buys them at market. Father has them with his eggs sometimes. I don’t like them.”
“Well, now, there’s different sorts of tomatoes.”
When she gave him a blank look, Roger nodded toward the row of Sutton’s Dessert Tomatoes, shining like greenish-orange jewels in the sunlight. “Ever have a plum tomato?”
She stepped over to the row he was motioning toward and gingerly stretched out a finger to touch the skin. “I don’t think so. May I taste one?”
“They ain’t quite ripe, but if you’ve patience, you’ll have yourself a fine treat.” Roger set the basket down in the valley between rows and walked over to the potting shed. She was still waiting when he returned with a small lard pail, and she watched him twist a dozen tomatoes from their stems.
“Mind, you’ll just have to get someone to set them in a window for three or four days.”
“Thank you,” she said and started to leave, but then paused in mid-turn to give him a worried look. “What if I eat one before it’s completely ripe?”
“Why, you’ll know when it’s ripe.” He picked up one from his basket. “It’ll be red. Like this one.”
“I brought up my eggs this morning.” She put a hand up to her neck and grimaced. “I don’t want to do that again. It hurts.”
“Poor mite. Green tomatoes ain’t tasty, but they won’t make you ill like that—unless you fill your stomach with ’em. Or unless you’re a horse.”
“A horse?”
“Aye. They’ll give a horse colic, could even kill ’em.” He narrowed his eyes in mock suspicion. “But you ain’t a horse, are you?”
She smiled at his joke, shaking her head.
“Well, that’s good.” He returned her smile, touched the brim of his felt hat, and turned his attention back to his tomatoes. When his basket was filled, he set it under the shade of a leafy turnip plant and stepped over to the three bare rows where he had sown a winter crop of spinach. “There’s a good little fellow,” he said, when the bit of green he knelt to inspect was indeed a sprout of spinach and not a weed.
The sounds of splashes and not-so-pleasant laughter met his ears. He turned on one knee. The two look-alike boys stood at the goldfish pond with badminton rackets, striking the water with ax-like motions.
His knees creaked as he pushed himself to his feet to hurry over. Jack, in the distance, watched with dirt-heaped shovel in midair. “You mustn’t do that!” Roger yelled, and again. After the third time one of the boys heard him, stopped, and said something to his brother. By the time Roger reached them they were panting and grinning, soaked to the gills in their blue sailor suits.
“We didn’t hurt the fish,” one boy said. “They’re too fast.”
“Aye, but you’re scaring ’em, and that ain’t nice.” Helplessly Roger looked westward. No sign of the coachman, which likely meant he had ducked into the kitchen for a cup—a usual hospitality.
But movement in a pink dress caught his eyes. The girl was walking toward the horses with pail crooked over one arm and a hand extended.
****
“My father was so fond of his library,” Mrs. Pearce said, fingertips brushing the top of a leather chair as she looked about her. “But mother was never a reader. Just Family Herald.”
“You must miss them terribly,” Sarah replied. She had met Uncle James’s in-laws only once, at a Christmas party he and Aunt Virginia had given four years ago.
Mrs. Pearce’s alabaster face clouded. “It took the longest time for me to accept that I couldn’t just pop over to—” But she stopped and leaned her head. In the silence Sarah’s ears picked up sounds of commotion, growing in volume so rapidly that by the time she turned toward the door, it was opening. In the doorway Sarah caught Mrs. Bacon’s anxious expression, just before one of the twins pushed past her, dragging a sobbing Muriel by the arm. The other twin and Claire followed close behind.
“He pushed Muriel down!” The first twin released his sister’s arm so she could run for her mother.
“Pushed her?” Mrs. Pearce clutched Muriel to herself and glared at the second twin. Over the girl’s wails, she said, “What have I told you about mistreating your sister, Bernard?”
“Not me! That old man outside!”
“The gardener!” Douglas piped.
For a couple of seconds Mrs. Pearce stood there as if trying to absorb his meaning. Then she turned a somber face to Sarah. “Mrs. Doyle?”
“That’s impossible,” Sarah said.
“My husband has never struck anyone,” Claire said with hands clasped in front of her so hard that the knuckles were white.
Sarah nodded. “There has to be some mistake.”
“We saw it all, Mother!” one twin exclaimed.
That settled it for Mrs. Pearce. “If you will direct me to your telephone, Mrs. Doyle, I will ring my husband. And the police.”
“Please,” Mrs. Bacon said. “At least allow Mr. Duffy to explain.”
“What more is there to explain?” Mrs. Pearce said tightly. “When a grown man assaults a child . . .”
“Please, Mrs. Pearce,” Sarah coaxed, taking a step closer. “We should see what he has to say.”
They walked the staircase in tense silence, save Muriel’s whimpering and her mother’s soothings. Outside, Mr. Duffy, Mrs. Pearce’s coachman, and Jack were gathered around the Pearces’ horses. Mr. Duffy looked over his shoulder and limped toward them.
“What’s wrong with his leg?” Sarah said to everyone in the vicinity as she hurried across the terrace.
“He’s the one, Mother!” came a boyish voice from behind. “And I kicked him in the shin for it!”
The Pearces’ coachman sprinted toward them, passing Mr. Duffy. He was a compact man with sandy hair and cheeks that were flushed. “The horses are all right, Missus,” he said, panting.
Mrs. Pearce squinted past him. “What have the horses to do with this?”
“Your girl here tried to give ’em these,” Mr. Duffy said when he caught up with the group. He held out a lard pail filled with greenish-orange tomatoes. “That blue roan almost had one in its teeth. Alst I did was take her by the arm—I didn’t intend to make her fall.”
“I didn’t know they would hurt them!” Muriel sobbed, burying her face in her mother’s arms.
Mr. Duffy turned a stunned face to Sarah. “I told her they would when I gave ’em to her, Missus.”
“Muriel?” Mrs. Pearce said with a shade of uncertainty in her tone.
“Mr. Duffy is an honest man, Mrs. Pearce,” Sarah pressed.
The girl look up at her mother, tears trembling from her long lashes. “He’s lying, Mother. He said nothing of the sort. He’s just a hateful old troll!”
“And he shouted at us at the fish pond,” one twin said while the other bobbed his head.
Hurt and helplessness settled upon Mr. Duffy’s craggy features. “I wouldn’t harm no child.”
Sarah moved over to touch the back of his big work-hewn hand, recalling the comforting feel of her small hand in his so many years ago when they learned the Rothschilds’ baby had died.
“Tell me, Mrs. Pearce,” she said. “Do hateful old trolls give gifts to children?”
But Mrs. Pearce was pressing a hand against the child’s forehead. “She’s still warm. Small wonder she forgot.” Her eyes moved from face to face, like a lioness searching for the most defenseless gazelle in the herd. They found their target.
“And where were you all this time, Jim?”
Her coachman colored deeper and motioned toward the carriage house with a shoulder. “In the . . . privy, Missus.”
She looked disappointed and raised her chin. “Well, then . . . get the door.”
“Yes, Missus.” He spun on his heel, sending Mr. Duffy a regretful look before jogging off toward the coach.
“Thank you for showing me your home, Mrs. Doyle.” Mrs. Pearce’s tone was reservedly civil. She ignored Mr. Duffy. “Come, children.”
The parade of Pearces left the terrace with Mrs. Pearce holding Muriel’s hand and the twins at the rear, attempting to elbow each other off the cobbled path. Sarah watched with heart pounding against her ribs, then happened to look again at Mr. Duffy. He was staring at the ground in front of him, lips slack and soil-colored eyes faded with resignation.
You have to say something, she told herself.
“Mrs. Pearce?” she called.
The group halted at the coach’s open door, turning to watch her advance.
“Your children owe Mr. Duffy an apology.”
Mrs. Pearce blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Stopping six feet away, Sarah said, “He was only showing Muriel a kindness. And he probably saved your horses. He doesn’t deserve such abuse.”
The wary expressions on the children’s faces turned into triumph as their mother replied, “I sorely regret that the misunderstanding happened, Mrs. Doyle. But as there was wrong on both sides, I see no need for apology.”
“Wrong on both sides? And how is that?”
“Granted, Muriel should have remembered what she was told, and Bernard should not have resorted to violence—even though he was defending his sister. But your gardener should have used some restraint. Muriel could have been seriously injured, being pushed in such a way.”
Frustration quickened Sarah’s pulse. “But he didn’t—”
“My children say otherwise.”
“Your children did not tell the truth.”
“A mother can tell when her children are telling the truth, Mrs. Doyle. If you had any of your own, you would understand.”
The pity in Mrs. Pearce’s tone, the superiority in her expression, were too much. Sarah’s temples throbbed. Taking another step forward, she said, “When I have some of my own, I will pray to God that I’m not so foolish over them as you are yours!”
The woman gasped, her porcelain cheeks stained crimson. “How dare you!” Mrs. Pearce sputtered, the “ethereal” of her eyes burned up by rage. She herded her children into the coach as if she feared Sarah would lunge, calling over her shoulder, “You may consider the invitation to our party withdrawn!”
The coachman closed the door behind them and scampered up into the box. Sarah fought an impulse to sprint over to the window and inform Mrs. Pearce that she wouldn’t attend their party for all the money in the bank. She was restrained by the sight of Penny Russell’s face between the curtains above the stables. Other curious eyes probably watched from the house windows. As the coach rumbled up the drive with wheels snapping gravel, she returned to the group near the terrace. Claire stood at her husband’s side, a hand resting upon his broad shoulder.
“Mr. Duffy, I’ll telephone Doctor Lloyd to look at your leg,” Sarah told him.
He raised his left leg and swung it from the knee. “Just a bruise, Missus. It’s better already.”
“I’m glad.” Her pulse began slowing, and she realized how drained of ener
gy she felt. “And I’m sorry for what my guests put you through.”
“Ah, it’s naught to worry yourself over, Missus.”
“It isn’t Christian of me to say this,” Claire said, “but it did my heart good . . . hearing what you said to Mrs. Pearce.”
“It felt good to say it,” Sarah confessed. She shook her head. “But I should have used more tact to make my point.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, Missus,” young Jack told her. “What you said was nothin’, compared to what them boys said to Mr. Duffy. Why, it would make a fishmonger blush!”
“Really, Mr. Duffy?” Mrs. Bacon’s brows raised above her spectacles. “Just what did they say to you?”
He wagged a finger at her. “Now, Mrs. Bacon . . .”
“I’m not asking you to repeat it word for word, just . . . oh, never mind. I’ll ask Claire later.”
“But Mrs. Duffy weren’t out here,” Jack reminded her.
Sarah smiled at the knowing look that passed between housekeeper and parlormaid, even as Mrs. Bacon replied, “That’s so, Jack. I quite forgot.”
****
Cloth-covered tables were laid out in the garden of The Spaniard’s Inn, in the shadow of the white weatherboard building that had provided hospitality to the likes of Dickens, Reynolds, Keats, and Shelley. Locals insisted that highwayman Dick Turpin was born there almost two centuries ago, and it was a fact that his father had owned the inn for a time. Over plates of sausage and mash, Sarah related the morning’s incident to her husband.
“Incredible,” William said, shaking his head.
“Where do boys so young learn to swear?” Sarah asked.
“Perhaps their sister taught them.”
“She’s only eight, William.”
Affection shone from his smoky eyes, even as he teased, “Old enough to murder horses, but too young to swear?”
Sarah mugged a face at him. “As horrible as she was, I can’t allow myself to believe that was her design. You know how curious children are. Surely it was just that—wanting to see what would happen.”
Catherine's Heart Page 17