‘I would have done so had I not unavoidably been delayed, Sarai.’
Aware that Emil Edelcantz was approaching, a nervous Arabella kept her head down, eyes on the washboard on which she was scrubbing aprons and kitchen linen. Ida Sutton had explained to her that Sarai Adams had recently married Edelcantz who, until that moment, Arabella had only glimpsed from a distance.
His shadow fell on the ground beside her as he came to a halt, and her prayer that he would move on went unanswered. He spoke in a friendly manner with a foreign accent. ‘Are you the new girl, Arabella?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I have been watching you from a little way off, and find that Mrs Winchell was correct when she reported that you are a hard worker. We are lucky to have you.’
‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ Arabella responded, worried as to whether a curtsy was expected or would be in order.
‘You are from the village I understand.’
‘I am, sir.’
‘That pleases me, as I have a need to get to know the local folk,’ he explained. ‘I would like Adamslee House to become a part of the community, and I wonder if you would be kind enough to assist me. A personable girl such as yourself must know just about everyone in Adamslee.’
‘I would be happy to help you if I can, sir.’
‘We have already made a start. Mrs Edelcantz has taken on Mr Lancer as our estate manager.’
Heart missing a beat, Arabella’s voice deserted her. Even if it hadn’t she had no idea what to say. She had heard that morning that Joby Lancer was now working at Adamslee House, and had thrilled at the thought of meeting him again. Yet she couldn’t trust herself to speak of a man who, in his absence, had come to mean more and more to her.
‘I would imagine that Mr Lancer is a born and bred Adamslee man,’ Edelcantz speculated.
Able to speak, although humiliated to hear herself stammering, she said, ‘No, sir, Mr Lancer came here a short while ago when the Paloma was wrecked in a tempest.’
‘I wasn’t here in Adamslee at that time, Arabella and know nothing of that night. Am I to take it from what you say that Mr Lancer was one of the survivors?’
‘Oh no, sir. He was the only survivor.’
‘Dear me, what a tragedy,’ Edelcantz murmured. ‘I have always held an interest in shipping. If I am not mistaken the Paloma is, or rather was, a troopship, so many men must have perished on the night you refer to?’
‘Many hundreds, men, women and children, sir.’
‘Good Lord. The fortunate Mr Lancer was a member of the crew?’
‘I do not believe so, sir,’ Arabella replied, finding it difficult to admit, not so much to the questioner but to herself, that she knew little or nothing about Joby Lancer.
‘Then he must have been a trooper,’ Edelcantz said, more to himself than to Arabella.
‘I really don’t know, sir.’
Really stressed now, Arabella relaxed a little as Edelcantz showed signs that he was departing. He said. ‘You have been most helpful, Arabella. I enjoyed our little talk immensely. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, sir.’
‘You would have been wise to hide your horses.’
Lying together in a little grassy hollow miles from any buildings, believing they were alone, Sarai Edelcantz and Joby Lancer were startled by a voice addressing them. Partly freeing each other from a close embrace they both looked up to see Emil Edelcantz standing just feet away on a hillock looking down on them. Face reddened by rage, he was holding a shotgun.
‘No, Emil!’ Sarai cried out in fear.
‘Do either of you believe that you deserve better?’ he snarled.
‘Stay here, don’t move,’ Lancer quietly instructed Sarai as he stood up and started to climb up the slope towards where Edelcantz stood.
‘Please, Joby!’ She called his name beseechingly.
Unheeding, Lancer continued steadily up the grassy gradient.
‘Stop!’ Edelcantz shouted at him hysterically, tersely adding, ‘One more step and I will blow you to pieces, you scoundrel.’
By that time, with only a yard distancing him from the muzzle of the shotgun, Lancer looked to Edelcantz’s right and cried out a warning, ‘Go back. He is armed!’
Unnerved, Edelcantz did a quarter turn to glance behind him. Moving at a tremendous speed, Lancer closed the distance between them to grab the barrel of the shotgun with both hands to wrench it out of the other man’s grasp. Pulling the weapon towards him, Lancer then thrust the butt hard into the midriff of Edelcantz, who instantly doubled over in pain. Swinging the shotgun, Lancing whacked Edelcantz across the head.
Leaving the unconscious man lying at the top of the bank, Lancer hurried down into the hollow to help the sobbing Sarai to her feet and hold her close.
‘This is the end for me,’ she murmured through her sobbing. ‘What on earth can we do now, Joby?’
‘First we have to get your husband back to the house and tend his injuries, Sarai.’
‘What?’ she gasped in disbelief. ‘He was going to shoot us, Joby!’
‘If I was him I would have pulled the trigger,’ Lancer admitted, filled with remorse. ‘He was the wronged one in this situation. Come, we must find his horse and get him back to the house. He isn’t a fighting man. I could well have injured him seriously.’
‘But you can’t be there when he regains consciousness, Joby.’
‘If he regains consciousness,’ Lancer corrected her grimly. ‘You are my responsibility so I must be there to protect you.’
Bad news awaited Arabella when she reached the Heelan cottage to collect Thelma that evening. Ruth was standing in the open doorway with the baby in her arms.
‘Oh Bella,’ she sobbed. ‘Mum’s been taken real ill.’
Rushing into the house behind the crippled girl, Arabella found an obviously seriously ill Josephine Heelan lying in bed, and asked Ruth, ‘Have you sent for Dr Mawby?’
‘I don’t need a doctor, Bella,’ Josephine protested weekly. ‘I will be right as rain tomorrow morning.’
Taking Ruth to one side, Arabella expressed her anxiety. ‘As you said, she is extremely sick, Ruth. It is vital that Dr Mawby sees her. Do you agree?’
‘I do agree, of course. I am terribly worried about her.’
‘If I run to the doctor’s place can you look after Thelma for a little while longer, Ruth?’
‘She will be fine with me. Please hurry, Ruth.’
Ruth did hurry, rushing through the always near-deserted streets of Adamslee to hammer on the door of Dr Mawby’s small cottage. The old doctor, ever one to turn a call-out into a crisis, became flustered as he donned his coat, picked up his case, and closed the door behind him to hurry up the road at Arabella’s side.
‘Of late I have been concerned about Mrs Heelan,’ the old doctor puffed, out of breath through trying to keep pace with Arabella. ‘She hasn’t looked well for some time.’
‘I hope it isn’t serious.’
‘Chin up,’ Mawby advised in a half whisper as they went in through the Heelans’ door.
Sitting beside the sofa on which her husband lay, Sarai was nervous even though she knew that Lancer was in the next room. Unconscious for half-an-hour, the Emil had just started struggling to open his eyes. A folded cloth that had been soaked in cold water and rung out lay across his bruised and swollen forehead.
Fearful about what to expect, she saw his eyes open. At first unfocused, they then returned to normal to look at her. She waited, holding her breath. Not speaking, he reached up to explore his forehead gently, fingers lifting one end of the cloth.
‘That is to reduce the swelling and the pain,’ she told him. ‘Would you like me to rinse it in cold water again?’
‘How long have I been lying here, Sarai?’
‘It is well over half-an-hour since we brought you back.’
‘We?’ he questioned her sharply.
Sarai hesitated, apprehensive as to what his reaction would be. Make-or-break time h
ad arrived. Within the next few minutes she would learn whether or not she was still married. More worrying still was the fact that she didn’t know whether or not she wanted to be.
‘How did you manage to get me back to the house?’ he enquired in a surprisingly conversational way.
‘I didn’t,’ she began, having decided it would be best to provoke the inevitable showdown, ‘Joby Lancer did.’
Amazing her by taking this calmly, he asked, ‘Where is he now?’
‘In the next room.’
‘I must thank him for doing so. He could well have abandoned me. I probably deserved to be left there for letting a moment of jealousy turn me into a madman.’
‘You were justified,’ Sarai conceded. ‘My behaviour was unforgivable.’
‘If Lancer hadn’t stopped me I would have shot you, Sarai.’
‘That is probably what I deserved.’
‘No,’ he corrected her. ‘What you deserve is a considerate, sensible husband, which is something I have never been since our betrothal. What I have been is the term that I have heard the Adamslee hoi polloi use. I have been a bloody fool, Sarai.’
‘I can’t say that I understand what you are telling me, Emil.’
‘That is because I don’t know exactly what it is that I want to say,’ he confessed. ‘I feel that we have both learned a lesson today: a lesson that we can utilize to save our marriage and remain together here in Adamslee House.’
‘And what of Joby Lancer?’
Obviously in pain, Edelcantz kept his head still while waving a hand vaguely in the direction of the door. ‘Close that door, Sarai.’
Obeying, glad that Lancer wouldn’t overhear whatever decision her husband had made about him, Sarai came back to sit by the bed.
‘Lancer can remain as estate manager.’
‘You mean,’ a stunned Sarai exclaimed, ‘that you forgive him?’
‘Forgiveness is not one of my traits, Sarai, but revenge is.’
‘But you must not tackle Joby Lancer, Emil,’ she blurted out in a dilemma, unaware that she was criticizing her husband’s manliness. ‘Lancer is a fighting man. He was a soldier.’
‘Ah, that is what I had surmised,’ he muttered smugly. ‘Now, my sweet Sarai, I want you to tell me everything that you know about your lover. I have a plan that permits him to stay here in the short term providing that I have your promise that there will be no further intimacy between the pair of you.’
‘My nature, which I find difficult if not impossible to control, prevents me from making you such a promise. Emil.’
‘If my head didn’t hurt so much I would be shaking it now,’ he said. ‘Drink does not help your problem, Sarai. It is a sexual stimulant, and you imbibe it too freely. Limit your intake and help me with my scheme to make Lancer pay dearly for the liberties he has taken with my wife. We must begin with you telling me everything, every detail that you know about him.’
Having known that she had never liked him, at this very moment Sarai become conscious that she loathed Emil Edelcantz. It maddened her that she had no option but to go along with what would certainly be his fiendish plot to harm Joby Lancer, who was a thousand times more of a man than her husband would ever be.
It had added to Arabella’s unhappiness to find Sarai Edelcantz so distant that it was difficult to talk to her. Leaving Thelma yet again with an understanding Ruth, she had started out on the climb to Adamslee House soon after Dr Mawby had left. Before going he had taken Arabella to one side and told her the bleak news. Josephine Heelan did not have long to live.
‘I feel it best that you tell Ruth,’ the old doctor had whispered.
Aware that it wasn’t cowardice on the part of Dr Mawby, but compassion for the crippled daughter of the ailing mother, Arabella had agreed. It was on her conscience that up to now that she had not mustered enough courage to pass the sad tidings on to Ruth. Unable to force herself to do so before she had left, she was deeply troubled by the awesome task that she faced on returning to the village.
‘I am sorry to hear the sad news about your friend’s mother, Bella,’ Sarai sympathized, every bit as distracted as she had been since Arabella had arrived at the house.
‘I am afraid that with Ruth having to take care of her mother I will have no one to look after my baby.’
‘So you will have to leave us?’ Sarai assumed, without showing any real interest.
‘I’m very sorry to let you down, Mrs Edelcantz.’
‘We will be sorry to lose you, Bella,’ a plainly inattentive Sarai said, adding in an attempt at covering her abstract disposition, ‘Mrs Winchell can’t praise you highly enough.’
‘I was happy working here,’ Arabella said, surprised to grasp how sad she was to be leaving.
‘Maybe when your circumstances alter you can come back to us. Goodbye, Bella.’
‘Goodbye, Mrs Edelcantz.’
Going out of the house, Arabella felt hurt at being dismissed so coldly. During the short time that she had worked at Adamslee House she had met Sarai on a few occasions. Each time the older woman had stopped for a short but friendly chat, whereas today she had been unapproachable. Coming to the conclusion that her former employer had some pressing worry, Arabella’s mind now turned to her own predicament. Never having been avaricious or selfish, but out of concern for the future of her child and herself without an income, she had been disappointed when Sarai had not honoured her earlier promise to make Arabella a financial gift should circumstances prevent her from continuing her employment.
When she got back to the village and paid Ruth and her mother for minding Thelma, she would have just enough money, if eked out, to live a fraction above a survival level for one week. What then?
On reaching the top of the slope down to Adamslee, it hit her hard to discover how much her brief spell of employment had been a much-needed escape from the village. It increased her melancholy to look down at the jumble of decrepit buildings that housed neighbours who were overly curious, overly critical, or overly obsequious, all drowning in a world that they had never completely entered. Long ago recognizing this, she knew that she had to be different, must make something of herself. But her ambition had come to nought.
Unable to force herself to walk on down to the village, she sat on a flat rock. Elbows on her knees, face held in her cupped hands, her dismal contemplation of a desolate future drifted into memories of an equally hopeless past. There had been a few good times, such as when her mother and she had enjoyed an occasional happy event, and the early months of her relationship with Lionel.
One highlight had been her short-lived delight as Adamslee’s May Queen, now a sad memory that glowed dimly under the shadow of her mother’s death. The sudden emergence of Joby Lancer had lightened her life, but that, too, had been cut short when he had walked away. Though he had returned once, when she had been pleased that he had seen her as the May Queen, he had not come back since, and she doubted that he ever would.
The shadows were lengthening around her, and she was ashamed at having burdened Ruth with Thelma for so long. Pushing herself up from the rock, she wiped away tears caused by her poignant reminiscences, and started on the way down to the village.
It was late afternoon when Lancer rode back towards Adamslee House. After a visit to a tenant farmer who was behind with his rent, he rued the fact that he had applied pressure that had resulted in an agreement of regular payments that would include fixed amount off the arrears.
Aware of the hardship the arrangement would cause the farmer and his family, Lancer was far from proud of himself.
Yet this didn’t interfere with his intuition. On the battlefield he had learned never to ignore an inner voice whose whispered warnings could he could hear above the roar of guns. It was telling him now that he was being followed.
Although still summer there had been an autumn dampness in that dawn. Dismounting, Lancer concealed his horse in a small copse and swiftly climbed a cliff, moving behind a projecting rock to look down
on the trail that he had just left. Disturbed by Lancer’s arrival, a bird probing for worms at the water’s edge of a nearby stream took flight.
Lancer waited for some fifteen minutes without any sign of whoever he was sure had been following him. Throughout that time he blamed the startled bird for warning off the man, or men, trailing him but so much time had passed now that he was ready to accept that he had been mistaken. However, he waited a further ten minutes before moving on.
On a slow ride back he was once again certain that he was being tailed. Slowing his horse to a walking pace a couple of times didn’t produce any results, and he was ostensibly alone when he rode into the grounds of Adamslee House.
When the old groom, always sycophantic but at that time strangely secretive, had taken his horse, he entered the house and went to Sarai’s office to report the arrangement he had made with the tenant farmer. The office was empty. About to leave, he was prevented from doing so by Emil Edelcatz standing in the doorway. The recent history that they had shared created an invisible, acutely embarrassing barrier between them.
‘Ah, Lancer, you are back,’ Edelcantz began self-consciously.
‘I was expecting Sarai to be here,’ Lancer said, making a motion with his hand for Edelcantz to stand aside.
Ignoring this, the Swedish man cleared his throat before saying with authority, ‘Mrs Edelcantz is indisposed at the moment, but there is a matter that you are needed to take care of in the stables.’
‘I don’t take orders from you, Edelcantz,’ Lancer pointedly but calmly advised.
‘I am not giving you an order, Lancer, but merely repeating a message that Mrs Edelcantz implored me to convey to you. It is a matter that I would willingly attend to myself were my equine knowledge practically non-existent. Caesar, Mrs Edelcantz’s stallion is ailing and she is extremely worried.’
This demolished Lancer’s reluctance, and his gesture to have Edelcantz move aside was obeyed. Striding out of the house, Lancer hurried in the direction of the stables. Seeing Morley at the corner of the building, he was about to call to him to learn something of what the problem with Caesar was. But the undersized groom had spotted him, and hurried off behind the stables.
The Toll of the Sea Page 16