by Maureen Lang
“I—I’ve a secret, miss. Only I don’t know how to tell ye.”
Berrie offered a smile, hoping the gesture might help. “Surely you know me well enough to guess you’ve nothing to fear by telling me anything.”
The girl closed her eyes as if to shut off valves for ready tears.
Berrie touched the girl’s gloved hands, finding them every bit as stiff as they appeared to be, holding so hard to that little bag. “Whatever it is, Daisy, you must let it out.”
Daisy opened her eyes and grabbed Berrie’s hand, the reticule still in between. “You must come with me tonight, miss. You’ll find out then what I’ve been about.”
It was nearly midnight, an easy time for fear. But that fear was quickly drowned by curiosity. “Where do you want to take me?”
“Not far, I promise you.”
“All right, Daisy, I’ll come with you. Only give me a moment to put on my shoes.”
“Yes, miss. I’ll be late, but I don’t care. He’ll wait.”
Berrie’s heart plummeted. If there was one thing she feared, it was scandal. “He?”
“You’ll see, miss. Only we must hurry.”
Before long, ignoring every sensible thought including the one urging her to tell someone they were leaving, Berrie followed Daisy from the house.
“You must tell me where we’re going, Daisy,” she said as they passed the stable. “I can handle a horse and cart without Jobbin’s help if we’re to go any distance.” No need to wake the stableman; the fewer who knew of their midnight folly, the better. “If you’ll hold the horse steady, I’m almost certain I can handle the rigging.”
“We’re only going down the lane, miss, to meet someone.”
“Whom?”
“I don’t know his name, or sure and I would tell you. It may even be someone different from last time.”
Berrie put a cautioning hand to Daisy’s arm, and the girl stopped, not without a frown. “We’re already late, miss.” She started walking again and Berrie had no choice but to follow.
“And we’ll be later still if you don’t tell me what this is about. You’re meeting a man? For what purpose?”
“Goodness, not for anything unsavory, miss. I just hand him a letter, and he takes it, is all.”
“What kind of letter?”
Daisy patted her reticule. “One like is in my pouch, right here. For Katie’s sister.”
Berrie stopped altogether, but when Daisy kept stride, Berrie had to trot to catch up. “Katie’s sister? Do you know who she is?” Berrie pulled Daisy to a stop. The girl refused to look up from the dark ground. “You know Katie’s family? You’ve known all along?”
Daisy nodded.
“And the letter? What’s this about?”
“I send a message every fortnight as to Katie’s well-being. Miss MacFarland pays me to keep my eye on her.” She looked at Berrie at last. “She wanted to be rid of Katie, but she wants her safe, true and enough.”
“Does her brother know about any of this?”
“No, indeed!” She clutched her reticule to her heart, backing away. “If he knew, he’d have me exiled to the other side of the earth, that’s for certain. And he can do it, too, him with all those barristers and educated fancy people he meets with. Why, he even has the ship to put me on!” She let the reticule dangle from its strap, freeing both hands to take hold of Berrie’s arms. “You mustn’t tell him, miss, or there’s sure to be trouble. I wasn’t going to let you know; I tried to keep it to meself, only each and every time you prayed about it, I felt the Spirit upon me so heavy as to be unbearable.”
“But, Daisy! From what Katie has said of him, her brother must be out of his mind with worry. What about how he feels? Surely he’ll be grateful to you for bringing Katie home or at least for the knowledge that she’s well.”
“That’s Innis MacFarland’s job; she said so herself. She said she would make it so he didn’t worry.”
“And you trust her to do that? She’s set up a lace of lies, all to get rid of her own sweet sister.”
“Aye, sweet; and trouble, too. Especially when a particular suitor can’t abide by such a sister.”
Berrie recoiled from the words. “In any case she’s Katie’s sister, whether she likes it or not. Let me have the letter.”
Daisy fished past the drawstring and produced a folded sheet. It didn’t even have an envelope. Berrie turned around and headed back to the manor house.
“But we have to meet the messenger, miss. We’re late already. If he doesn’t get one, who knows what’ll happen?”
“Perhaps this Innis will be worried enough to come and see for herself how her sister fares. Just as well.”
“Or she’ll tell her brother all manner of tales and have him come down upon us!”
Berrie turned abruptly. “Why are you so afraid of this brother? Have you met him?”
“Not so as he’d remember me, miss. I used to be the housemaid for their neighboring landholder. That’s how Miss MacFarland and I met.”
“I see. She needed to hire someone Katie wouldn’t know, is that it?”
Daisy nodded. “She would have blurted out my connection to her family in no time, had she been aware of one. Sure and enough, she has no way of holding back a thought, even if it’s for her own benefit.”
“And you think it’s to her benefit that she stay here rather than at home with her brother and sister?”
“Of course, miss, or I never would have agreed to the plot.”
“Why? It sounds as if it’s for Innis MacFarland’s benefit rather than Katie’s. She wanted to be rid of an inconvenient sister, one who embarrasses her in front of her suitors, or something along such lines.”
“Oh, you’ve figured it well enough, miss. Only, Katie wanted to go. She may not be a teacher full and true here, but she feels more useful than she’s felt a day in her life back at home. She’s bright enough to know that much.”
Berrie looked at the door to the manor house, then turned back to Daisy, weighing what to do. Lord, help me!
“You’ve successfully shifted the dilemma to me, Daisy,” Berrie said, her own brief prayer an echo of those she’d heard Daisy say. “But we must do the right thing. We must contact Katie’s brother, and if Katie is truly better off here than at home, it’ll be our job to convince him of that.”
Daisy’s eyes widened. “Tell him he’s been wrong to keep her home all her life?”
Berrie nodded. “If he truly loves her, as Katie obviously believes, he’ll realize what’s best for her.” She took another step toward the manor house. “In any case, it isn’t our decision. We’re not Katie’s keepers, at least not the ones God gave her to. We must let them decide.”
Berrie opened the door and let Daisy in first, glancing back once just in case the messenger had spotted them. There was no one in sight.
She would write a new note, but not one for Innis MacFarland through some anonymous messenger. Rather this one would go with the first light of dawn—directly to Katie’s brother.
13
* * *
Inside the Hall, after Rebecca let Quentin take her luggage back upstairs, he disappeared to change into dry clothes. They agreed to meet in the library.
She sipped the hot tea Helen had supplied, letting the soothing aroma and warmth ease her animated insides. Helen had left the beverage without a word, without a single question, though Rebecca could guess she had plenty.
A moment later Quentin appeared at the threshold, looking comfortable in fresh cotton slacks, a blue shirt that matched the color of his eyes, and no doubt dry socks inside his brown leather shoes.
She held her cup in front of her, a first line of defense. He came to stand before her, touched her arm, kissed her cheek.
“We need to talk, Quentin, but first I want to thank you for honoring my wish to live under separate roofs. It means very much to me.”
Quentin sat. “I respect that you want to honor God in all you do, and it wouldn’t do my c
ase much good if I disregarded things that are important to you, now would it? You’ve chosen what you believe and want your life to reflect that. It’s one of the things I most admire about you. Especially since I believe what you believe.”
“Do you, Quentin? Really?”
“I shouldn’t blame you for being skeptical. I’ve spent more time in my mother’s company than my father’s, so you must think I go as she does. I don’t.”
Rebecca put aside her tea, taking the seat near him. “I’d like to hear the reasons you think this might work, Quentin, and then I’ll tell you all of the reasons it won’t. Let’s see whose list is longer.”
“Length isn’t always the determining factor,” he said. “Weight—now that’s something altogether vital.” He studied her a moment, a light in his blue eyes that she’d never seen before. Intimate, honest, intent, they aimed past her eyes and heart, directly into her soul. “When I read Cosima’s journal, it confirmed to me that certain people are meant to be together. If our faith is similar, Rebecca, why shouldn’t we explore a future together?”
“Your mother will object to anything between us, Quentin. You must know that.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, but it does. You’re all she has left; she won’t want you to be alienated from her.” Rebecca picked up her tea again.
He frowned. “And so you think I should do her bidding? marry some witless snob?”
“Of course not.” She grinned. “Not a witless one, anyway.”
He didn’t seem to catch her slight attempt at humor. “I’ll admit my mother will be somewhat of a challenge, but not a barricade to my happiness. She’ll come round, eventually.”
Rebecca held his gaze, knowing there was another question she must ask but uncertain how to bring up the subject. If only she’d had more time to rehearse this sort of thing . . . but before last night, discussing a relationship with Quentin Hollinworth was the last thing she’d expected to do.
“I doubt Lady Caroline was witless.” She whispered the words. Part of her knew the foolishness of bringing up such a thing, yet she was unable to hold herself back.
He took a sip of his tea, then leaned forward. This time he did not reach for her. “I expected to talk about former relationships at some point, Rebecca. I didn’t know it would be so soon.”
“I . . . don’t mean to pry,” she said, “but it seems to me Lady Caroline would be a better match for you than I.”
He looked at her with what appeared to be a mix of amusement and perhaps consternation. “I once overheard you tell Helen Risdon not to pay attention to tabloid newspaper reports. Have you fallen victim to them yourself?”
Never in her life would she reveal the stash of them in her desk.
“Caroline and I had much in common a few years ago,” he said. “That didn’t seem to be true after a while.”
“What happened to change that?”
“I don’t really know. After my father and brother died, it seemed obvious Caroline and I weren’t as well suited as everyone believed. When I began questioning things like God and the Bible and where my father and brother might be, she wasn’t the least bit interested. She humored me by accompanying me to church now and then, but she has a sort of blindness when it comes to anything beyond right here, right now. Going to church is a matter of patriotism, nothing personal. Her future only goes as far as this world can take her. Even my mother has more faith, believe it or not.”
“How sad,” Rebecca said. “But you know your mother only encapsulates the problem between us, Quentin. I’ve no interest in your social set. You go about London and at the cottage in a circle I could never be part of. Photographers clicking shots here and there, never a thought to myself.” She shuddered. “I don’t know how you tolerate it.”
“You realize you have more in common with my mother in that statement than you realize?”
She shook her head. “Oh, I’ll grant you she might not want newsmen snooping round her parties, but whether she likes it or not, that’s the circle she very much wants to be part of. She’s aristocratic through and through. Set apart in this kingdom of man where only a small number of the population really belong.”
“A snob.”
Affirmation came with the silence.
“But your circle, Rebecca—now that’s another story. No snobs to be found there?”
“My circle? I wasn’t aware I was in one.”
“I may hold a Cambridge degree equivalent to yours, Rebecca, but you’re the one with the prestige. If my circle is full of social snobs, yours is full of intellectual ones.”
She stared at him, stunned. “Do you see me that way?”
“No. But of our two circles, yours is the harder to penetrate.”
“That’s hardly true, since all one has to do is go to school. We can’t very well try being born into the aristocracy.”
“You have the wrong blood, so you’re forever separate; is that it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“You have quite an old-fashioned view of things, Rebecca. You and my mother are more alike than either of you realizes. I can name any number of my mother’s friends who’ve chosen to marry someone outside aristocracy.”
“Perhaps so, but they’ve wanted to join that circle; I don’t.”
“Now who’s the snob?”
“Call it what you like. You see the problem, don’t you?” Even as Rebecca spoke she was wounded by his words. How could he think such a thing, anyway? She’d never considered herself a snob of any kind, least of all an intellectual one.
He set aside his tea to take hold of her hands. “Have I hurt your feelings? I didn’t mean to. I only thought to counter some of the negatives I thought you would be listing. Let’s go back to the positives, shall we? We’ve already proven we can get along—we’ve worked well together for three years.”
“Not exactly side by side,” she reminded him, thinking that in those three years he’d probably spent less than six months beneath this roof. A month in the summer each year, a month over the holidays.
“So what do we have going for us? You cannot call your faith different from mine, though I’ll admit I have some learning to do. Some relearning, I’ll call it. I also respect you and I’ll take it for granted that you do the same for me, since we’ve gotten along so well in three years of doing business together. Common faith, respect, mutual attraction. That must be more than many marriages have these days, at least ones I’ve observed. You cannot pass up an opportunity to explore this.”
“I can if I truly believe the outcome will only hurt us in the end. And honestly, Quentin, I cannot imagine any other result.”
He moved closer, his knee brushing against hers. “Rebecca, what do you feel?”
Something positive took hold inside Rebecca, weightier than all her cautions combined. Faith would have been their only real obstacle, but if Quentin had responded to the call of God upon his life, there would be no stopping their future.
“I feel . . . hope,” she told him, “whether I want to or not.”
He leaned closer, and so did she, to meet in a kiss. If this was true, nothing could stop them now.
14
* * *
There are days I am too busy to eat, even though I may spend a good deal of time at the dining table. When helping another at mealtime, it is difficult to take a bite for myself. The dinner hour here, Cosima, would have my mother shaking her head in consternation. Noisy, messy, often accompanied by trauma of one sort or another, especially by those most sensitive to sounds, smells, tastes, and textures. I have thoroughly accustomed myself to seeing food go in, then come right back out. Forgive the image, but I am now able to speak of the most extraordinary things. I doubt I shall ever be able to sit at Dowager Merit’s polite table again, for fear of either assisting the person next to me or speaking lovingly yet honestly of my students.
Perhaps this gives you an idea of our mealtime here, the precise time of day we should never h
ope for a visitor. . . .
“Look what you’ve done!”
The cry, louder than the rest of the noise, came from Katie MacFarland. She sat between Annabel, who rocked in place though she sat on a stiff chair, and Tessie, who hummed, even with food in her mouth. As the two girls who could help themselves the most, they had been assigned as Katie’s “charges.”
One of them must have tipped her glass, judging from the splatter in front of them. Berrie moved closer to sop it up with her serviette.
Katie stared down at the dark spots on her apron. Trivial to Berrie, to Katie it was anything but.
“Katie,” Berrie said calmly, “take off your apron. You’ll see your dress is perfectly fine beneath.”
The young woman seemed incapable of movement, staring at the droplets as though they were her own blood. Berrie had seen Katie act this way before and knew in a moment it would pass. And so she waited.
Commotion broke out at the opposite end of the table, pulling Berrie’s gaze. “He stole my bread! He stole my bread!” That cry was quickly followed by a boy bursting into tears.
Despite Mrs. Cotgrave’s being there in an instant, the tears sent a ripple of upheaval through the room. Moans, wails, and whimpers bubbled from one corner to the other, a noise great enough to forestall whatever calm Katie might have been about to reclaim.
“Time to separate them,” Mrs. Cotgrave called over the hubbub.
The words seemed, at best, incongruous to the melee around them, though Berrie agreed. She took the two boys at her side, one sobbing and the other holding his hands over his ears, groaning. “We’ll finish our lunch in the foyer, shall we, boys?”
Even as they walked Berrie could smell something new, something that often accompanied an emotional trauma. One of the boys hadn’t made it to the lavatory.
No sooner had she determined who would need cleaning than a new noise erupted, this one not from the dining hall. A crash echoed from the manor entrance, as if the door had burst open and hit the wall behind. An unfamiliar voice, strong and male, bellowed down the empty hall. Berrie recognized no words, only the emotion: anger.