“It was you,” came a voice from the doorway.
All eyes went to Stanley, who stood with bare arms folded and chin thrust forward. “You tried to make me second-guess myself, Mr. Knight. But that was you with Myra Rose. I never told anybody I rode bareback that night, not even my wife.”
Then it’s true?” Marie said.
Shrugging Ethan’s hand from her arm, Sarah got to her feet, set the box on the cushion, and went over to kneel at her grandmother’s knees. As she laid her head upon the lap quilt, she felt trembling fingers stroking her hair.
* * *
Dorothea watched the blurred figure get up from the divan and move to the door. She blinked and Ethan Knight came into focus. I remind you so much of your grandmother . . .
“Nothing has been proved here!” he wheeled around to growl. Stanley stepped aside, and the curate stalked out of the room. All faces but Sarah’s turned to Dorothea, all expressions wary.
“Shall I send for Doctor Raine, Madame?” Marie asked.
Dorothea stroked the girl’s corn silk hair again. She felt physically drained, but some stronger part of her mind pressed onward. “No. What I would like is for everyone to sit down and explain.”
Stanley moved an ottoman over for Sarah before telling his part and returning to the stable. Between Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Rayborn, Dorothea heard the rest, beginning with the reason James Rayborn turned down the tutoring position and ending with why a tutor would question his student’s suitor about his nocturnal activities.
With a heart filled to aching, Dorothea looked at Sarah seated on the ottoman at her knees. “I should have told you the day I discovered you weren’t Jeremy’s daughter. But I didn’t want to stop being your grandmother.”
“You’ll always be my grandmother,” said the girl. Still, wonder filled her face every time she glanced at Mr. Rayborn.
I almost ruined your life. Dorothea’s eyes felt the sting of tears again. “I wanted so badly to know that you would be cared for when I’m gone.”
“She will be, Mrs. Blake.”
It was Mr. Rayborn who had spoken, and he gave her a smile so genuine that Ethan’s doting looks of affection now seemed like play-acting. “And I have wanted to tell you for a long time how much in awe I am of your selflessness.”
“Selflessness.” The word was painful to speak, for in Dorothea’s recollection of her long life, she had been anything but that. “I failed my son, Mr. Rayborn.”
“You learned from your mistakes, Mrs. Blake. You continued to love a child you knew was no relation.”
“Madame even gave up her friends for Miss Matthews,” Marie said, then crimped her nose. “Such as they were.”
Mr. Mitchell nodded. “And there are over eighty orphaned girls playing in the sun in Hampstead today because of you.”
You are loved, Dorothea told herself, pressing her lips together to keep from weeping. Even more wondrous, she was beginning to understand that it was the love she gave away without expecting anything in return that now brought her the most happiness and would live on when her aching limbs no longer hobbled her little part of the world. Saint Matthew’s girls would warm themselves by coal fires every winter, Stanley Russell’s little son would climb the crab apple tree and grow into a sturdy young man, and her servants would have tidy pensions to provide for them when they grew old.
And Sarah will have a real mother and father. Dorothea basked in the warmth of her smile. Perhaps she would even marry dear William one day. But that was between Sarah, William, and God, she told herself. Old women had no business meddling in young people’s affairs of the heart. She would tell Marie to remind her of that, should she forget.
****
“You’ll remember that pounded spices keep their best flavors for only a month.” Naomi stood with Trudy at the spice cupboard while the leg of mutton and potatoes roasted. “That’s why it’s best not to buy more than you think you’ll be able to use during that time.”
Trudy nodded, her spaniel eyes wide. “I’m used to you tellin’ me all this, Naomi. How will I remember when you’re gone for good?”
Recalling her own fears when she took over the kitchen, Naomi gave her an understanding smile. “You’ll have much more confidence in yourself by then.” Mrs. Bacon would soon be hiring a scullery maid to take Trudy’s place while she learned the more complicated details of culinary art. “And just think—no more washing dishes.”
“No more dishes,” Trudy said and sighed wistfully. “Do you recall tellin’ me I’d be a cook in a fine house one day? I never thought that dream would come true.”
“I do recall.” Naomi thought how nice it was that both of their dreams were being fulfilled. Her own tidy kitchen and the liberty to cook whatever pleased her husband and herself! Or not to cook once in a while, when the pages of a novel refused to loosen their grip.
She heard footsteps and glanced over her shoulder. Daniel and Sarah stood near the worktable. Sarah’s eyes were reddened, her face splotched.
“Miss Matthews . . . what’s wrong?” Trudy asked. Naomi looked at the smiles on both faces and knew. Just to be sure, she asked Daniel, “You told her?”
“I did.”
Naomi moved a step toward the two and held out both arms. A fraction of a second later Sarah was in them.
“Will someone tell me what’s wrong?” Trudy asked.
While Daniel explained in a quiet voice to the scullery maid, Naomi stroked Sarah’s hair and listened to her murmur, “Do you remember that night my first week here when you came to my room and told me not to worry about something I’d overheard in a shop?”
“Yes,” Naomi replied thickly. She could recall it very well, for the thought that accompanied her out of the girl’s room that evening was How wonderful it must be to have a daughter!
Chapter Forty-Five
The next morning Sarah and her father stood at the brick wall separating the Victoria Embankment from the Thames while Stanley waited with the coach several feet away. Noisy gulls dipped and soared upon a relentless eastern wind. Stretched out from bank to bank before them was the multiarched Waterloo Bridge where Deborah Rayborn had sought to drown out her tormenting thoughts.
A line from one of Edmund Spenser’s poems came to Sarah. Sweet Thames, run softly, til I end my song.
“What was she like?” she asked in the moving coach when the bridge was no longer visible through the window.
Memory softened her father’s smile. “She was kind and funny and energetic. Always wanted to go somewhere, see people. I understand now why she feared the quiet.”
Sarah had no recollection of Deborah Rayborn and had probably never even felt her embrace until that fateful night. Still, a knot rose in her throat as she asked, “Would she have loved me if I had been perfect?”
His green eyes were frank upon her. “You were perfect.”
“I mean . . . if my hand had not been like it is,” she said, though touched by his pride in her.
“We’ll never know,” he said at length. “But I suspect her illness would have come out in some other form eventually.”
“Is my mother’s father still living?” She would never consider him her grandfather.
“I don’t think so.”
“But we have other family.”
“You’ve already met your uncle James.”
“Who has a wife and two young girls.”
“Your aunt Virginia and cousins, Catherine and Jewel.”
“When may I meet them?”
“We’ll go tomorrow evening so they can meet Naomi at the same time.”
Sarah hugged her folded arms to herself and wondered at the whole incredible turn of events of the past two days. After taking a much needed rest yesterday afternoon, Grandmother sat with Father, Naomi, and Sarah to discuss plans for the future while Marie left—and seeming reluctant to do so for a change—to be with her sisters. It was decided that the present routine would be altered only a little for now. Grandmother still intended
to leave Sarah her estate. Father would still come back and forth from his home to give lessons, and Naomi would move in with him after the wedding. Perhaps that would change after Grandmother’s passing—after being without a father and mother for so long, Sarah hoped that he and Naomi would consider coming to live under the same roof as her. But for now Grandmother’s comfort was the supreme concern.
“Are you terribly hurt over Mr. Knight?” her father asked as the coach crept up Piccadilly, clogged with traffic. It was the first time he’d mentioned Ethan since the scene in the sitting room yesterday morning, and his tone was hesitant, as if he wasn’t certain if he had the right to ask. It would take some time, Sarah realized, for both of them to feel completely at ease in their newly reestablished roles as parent and child.
Sarah had to think before finally replying, “I miss very much the person I thought he was. So does Grandmother. But I don’t suppose that person ever existed.”
He nodded understanding. “Pity.”
“Do you think he even believed his own sermons?”
“In his head, he probably did. As to the heart? Hopefully one day. He’s still very young.”
“What will happen to him?” As disappointed as she was in him, she could not help but hope he would not go to prison.
“That’s up to Vicar Sharp and the church hierarchy. For now I suspect the tithe ledgers are being examined. If they show evidence of fraud, they’ll have to decide whether to turn him over to the authorities or to impose Church discipline.”
Concern was still heavy upon his face, and after a space of silence, he said, “I hope this experience—and what you knew about Jeremy Blake—doesn’t cause you to mistrust all men, Sarah. There are still many who are decent.”
“I know that, Father.” She wished she could summon the words to add how proud she was of him for possessing that same decency of which he spoke.
“I’m glad.” His expression eased. “William Doyle, for example. Now, there’s a decent young man.”
Sarah nodded. “Very decent.”
“Genuine through and through.” He cleared his throat. “If you happen to write to him any time soon, do pay my regards.”
“I plan to write him this very evening, as a matter of fact.”
“Very good,” he said in a trying-to-sound-casual tone. “You exchange letters often, do you?”
“Very often,” she replied, amused as his obvious attempts to advise her without appearing to meddle.
“You must be quite fond of him.”
So much so, she realized, that the thought of how close she had come to choosing another over him gave her chills.
Her father smiled, and she smiled back. They sat wrapped in a silence that grew more companionable as the plane trees of Berkeley Square moved past the window.
Back in the library a short while later, they were discussing poets of the Romantic Movement when another question occurred to Sarah. She supposed there would be many more in the coming days. “How old am I?”
“You were nineteen just two months ago,” he replied, closing a copy of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads. “You were born on the eighteenth of May.”
“Wasn’t that the day you gave me Jules Verne?”
“And the reason Naomi prepared pullets for lunch.”
“Very thoughtful of both of you.” Musing aloud, she said, “How odd it will be . . . to have a complete set of parents after all these years.”
Her father raised an eyebrow. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind?” Sarah smiled. “I can’t imagine anyone being more blessed than I am. Naomi and you . . . two of my favorite people in the world . . .”
The relief that washed across his face, as if all the while he had feared otherwise, filled Sarah’s heart so that little room was left for awkwardness. She reached across the table to touch his hand. “I love you, Father.”
His green eyes filled as he pushed out his chair. “Oh, Sarah . . .”
An instant later she was standing in his embrace, hearing him say thickly, “I thank God every day for bringing you back to me.”
The security from resting her head upon a paternal shoulder brought a lump to Sarah’s throat. Yet there was a familiarity about it that puzzled her, until she recalled the dark times when another Father had wrapped unseen arms of grace and comfort around her. Mrs. Forsyth’s words drifted back to her from so many years ago. Remember, Sarah, you have someone who is a Father to the fatherless.
That evening she wrote a long letter to William, pouring out everything that had happened over the past two days.
I have to get used to thinking of myself as nineteen now. But at least I’m pleased to have back that year I lost when I came to Berkeley Square.
****
“Nineteen to twenty-eight, if you please,” Grandmother told Sarah in the sitting room exactly four weeks later.
Sarah moved the round black draughts piece, thinking how much easier the game was now with Avis’s neatly painted numbers. Marie, still working the needlepoint of Jesus in the Garden, continued a conversation she began a few minutes earlier by saying, “It was so much fun to watch. We have decided we will try it ourselves next week.”
“And you’ll be needing your own cane when you get home,” Grandmother cautioned. “You’re not so young anymore, Marie.”
“All the more reason to try it,” Marie insisted.
The “it” of which she spoke was the talk of London, since the opening of the world’s first roller skating rink just days ago. “Would your sisters mind if I came along?” Sarah asked. “I could ask Father to shorten the lessons next Thursday.”
“We will be happy to have you with us, Miss Rayborn.”
“Yes, they’ll be happy to have someone young enough to catch them as they fall,” Grandmother warned, but teasingly so. “I do wish you would pay attention to the game, Sarah.”
“Oh . . .” Sarah gave her an apologetic smile, then focused her attention on the seven red pieces remaining on the checkered table. She had no choice but to move one diagonally to a border square, where it risked becoming trapped by one of Grandmother’s two kings. “I could really use a crown,” she murmured, then started when she realized Marie stood at her side.
“What—?”
“Sh-h-h.”
Sarah looked at Grandmother. The elderly woman rested the side of her head against the chair wing with eyes half-closed. Marie gently held her wrist for several seconds.
“She’s gone?” Sarah asked, feeling the sting of tears.
“Yes.” After closing Grandmother’s eyelids, Marie leaned down to kiss the wrinkled forehead. Her amber eyes glistened when she turned to Sarah. “Madame’s last sight was of you, and now she looks upon Jesus. It is the way she would have wanted to go.”
****
Saint George’s pews were filled on Wednesday morning. Whatever opinions were held about the widow who chose an out-of-wedlock crippled child over the good opinion of Mayfair, she had been a fixture in the church as long as health allowed and given due respect with her passing. Even Mrs. Gill attended, her blinking eyes mournful and her cheeks wet as she pressed one against Sarah’s.
Blake Shipping employees, given the day off, brought their families. Mrs. Forsyth and the Rothschilds, Hester and Addison Smith, Marie’s sisters, James and Virginia Rayborn, Doctor Raine, and Mr. Mitchell were some of the more familiar faces. Each face, even those not so familiar, gave Sarah some measure of comfort. Not that her grief could be divided and parceled, but it helped to be reminded that Grandmother mattered to so many.
While Vicar Sharp conducted the service, Sarah sat on the first pew with her father, Naomi, Marie, and William, who had arrived late the night before. Behind sat the rest of the servants, along with little Guy Russell, asleep on his father’s shoulder. The women in the two rows wore black gowns, and the men were in black suits and had black crepe bands around the hats they wore in the churchyard, where Mrs. Blake’s body was laid to rest between her husband�
��s and son’s.
“I still find it remarkable that she wanted me to believe she was my grandmother, even after learning the truth,” Sarah said to William that afternoon as they sat on the dovecote bench. The last mourner had left, and the house and garden were permeated again by natural quiet instead of a subdued bustle.
“You were a blessing to her,” William said. It was their first time to speak privately since May, and it would not last long, for Father and Naomi would be seeing him off at King’s Cross Station in two hours.
“And she to me.” Her face felt the prickling sensation of threatening tears, so she drew in a deep breath to make it go away. “She tried to get me to think ahead about this time, but I usually made light of it and changed the subject. Now I see that I should have made some plans, for I’m not quite sure what I should do.”
He nodded. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course,” she said. But an unsettling dread came over her, for his smoke-colored eyes were filled with affection, just as when he professed his love in the dining room. Please not now, William. My heart is too filled with missing her.
“You have the liberty of not having to make any radical changes at the moment. Don’t think about the future just yet. There is time enough for that later.”
Yes, later. “I’ll do that, William.”
They sat without speaking for a little while, then she asked, “Are you hungry?”
“Starving. And you?”
“The same.” She felt guilty to admit it. “I’ve not had a bite since supper. Marie and Naomi tried to coax me, but it didn’t seem right to sit down for a meal today.”
“Not right to eat?” Getting to his feet, William held out his hand for Sarah’s and helped her to hers. “And what would Mrs. Blake say about that?”
“She would order me to eat.” Sarah didn’t even have to think about that one. They walked toward the terrace holding hands. “You’ll still be back in October for the wedding?”
“I’m hoping for good.”
“A month early?”
A hopeful smile dimpled his cheeks as he held open the door for her. “The laboratory’s ready, and the two chemists we hired are already making investigative calls. It would be nice not to have to leave again.”
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