by Sandra Byrd
“Oui,” she replied. “But I think that the woman claiming to be Miss Ravenshaw, who was here earlier, she believed so as well.”
Had she meant I would be found out as a pretender? Or—my face cooled—that I’d be dead, like the first woman?
I reflected upon that for a moment. “What was she like?”
“Oh, I do not speak of the dead,” she said, even though she had. She quickly crossed herself. “But I will say that she was beautiful and well cared for. Even after I came to serve as lady’s maid, she kept her Indian maid close. They were like sisters, non? She did not like to be separated from her.”
“Did you speak to her—the maid, I mean?” I asked. I was as curious about that woman, almost, as I was about the imposter.
“The maid did not speak English, nor French,” she replied. “So we could not talk.”
“What language did they speak?” I asked. This truly surprised me.
She shrugged. “It sounded heathen. You might ask Captain Whitfield. He seemed quite taken with her.” She pulled some of my hair to the front and ran over it with an iron she’d heated in the fireplace grill.
“Taken with the maid?”
She shook her head. “With Mademoiselle Ravenshaw. Perhaps the maid, too. He seems quite appreciative of ladies, and they of him, which is perhaps why there is no Mrs. Whitfield. No one he’s been willing to set others aside for. Though that’s not necessarily a requirement of a happy marriage, d’accord?”
“What? But of course it is,” I said. She tsk-tsked me in that characteristically French manner but said nothing further and indicated I should stand as she adjusted my dress front and back.
I thought about Captain Whitfield and his pull on me. I should have been more resistant to his charms than almost anyone, as he had, for the moment, appropriated my house and doubted my integrity. Was he capable of harming someone, her, me, to keep the house? Had he planned it that way, or was he as he seemed, a gentlemanly victim of circumstance, much like myself ? If she had indeed been murdered, perhaps someone else had done it. Who else had motive? I should seek to find out. Cautiously.
I strengthened my resolve to remain focused on the visitor at hand. It made me quite jumpy. Would she like me? Could she become, I hoped, a friend?
“Tell me about Miss Dainley,” I said. “What should I expect?”
“She’s a mild young woman, at least on the outside. Sweet, like the cherries. But with a hard stone inside, non?” She pulled the top layer of the skirt of my dress up to one hip and hooked it there with a hidden clasp. Then she made certain that the buttons on the bodice of my dress were tightly closed and straight from neck to waist. “I understand she is to leave for India soon.”
“Indeed! Perhaps this is why she wanted to meet with me.” I could be useful!
“Certainly, this is true. She may wish to forgo her departure, if at all possible.” She ran a finger over the fur ruffs on my three-quarter sleeves. I looked at them and smiled; they were so beautiful. She caught my glance and looked satisfied. “She sails with the ‘fishing fleet’ early in the autumn. Unless she can catch the big fish in England first.”
“You said she was not afraid of a Hussar.” I asked tentatively, “Would you be?”
Michelene smiled. “I would not be, certainement. It’s been said that when the Hussars come, everyone begins running. The men away from them, and the women toward them.” She laughed. “They are handsome, yes, and commanding, but also, they have been known to pillage and loot the spoils of war without conscience if they feel it belongs to them. And they adore women.” She did not seem aware that she was nearly purring. She turned me to face the mirror. “Voilà. My handiwork.”
I gathered my courage and looked at my reflection straight on. “Oh!” I was utterly thrilled with the lovely image that was, shockingly, me! I could face anyone now. “You have transformed me into an English lady,” I said to Michelene, embracing her. She, being a Frenchwoman, accepted my embrace with ease.
“You already are an English lady,” she said. “You simply needed a French touch.”
A knock came at the door. It was Landreth. “Miss Delia Dainley has arrived. Shall I show her into the drawing room?”
“Thank you, Landreth. I shall be down directly.”
“Bon courage,” Michelene whispered as she nudged me toward the door.
Mrs. Ross had assured me that, as there would be no gentlemen present, I was free to receive Miss Dainley on my own. Landreth showed me in.
“Miss Delia Dainley, may I present Miss Rebecca Ravenshaw? Miss Ravenshaw, I give you Miss Dainley.” He thoughtfully withdrew.
I instantly recognized her—even without the riding habit. She was the woman who had been riding with Captain Whitfield. “Miss Dainley, I’m so very pleased you have come to call and take tea with me.”
Miss Dainley smiled and offered her gloved hand in response. I indicated that she should take the most comfortable chair in the room, next to the floor-to-ceiling, leaded-glass windows that overlooked the downs.
She wasn’t interested in observing the downs, though; she was busy assessing me. I took from her look that Michelene had dressed me well, and a warm flush of contentment rose within me. She sat down and Annie soon appeared with a tea tray. It trembled in her hands like an unsteady cymbal. All three of us sighed little puffs of relief when it was safely settled on a sturdy side table.
“I’m very happy you were able to see me. After your very long ordeal, that is.” She took a teacup from Annie with a practiced nod. “And journey?” Her raised eyebrows and the touch of asperity in her voice made it clear she, too, did not believe me to be who I said I was.
“Yes,” I said. “It was long indeed. But faith saw me through and here I am now. In my own home.”
She raised an eye to me at that and set her teacup down. She waved away the cake tray that Annie had offered. Preserving her figure, perhaps? She was a pretty woman, her long strawberry-blond hair finely curled around a creamy complexion, protected most days, I was certain, by a shadowing bonnet.
I took a sweet, so long denied to me after the Rebellion, and much to be enjoyed now that I was home. “Michelene, my lady’s maid, tells me that you are planning to embark for India this coming autumn.”
She nodded. “I am the fifth daughter in my family,” she said matter-of-factly. “My brother is already in India, and he has recently assured me that, now things have quieted down and the country is firmly under British control again, it would be quite safe for me to go. He hopes to make introductions.”
She was refreshingly direct and my heart softened toward her. It was a difficult thing to be a woman. Fortunately, an unmarried woman with property was accountable to no one but herself; this was the secure position I would soon find myself in, however temporarily tenuous this mystery had made my fate.
I reassured myself of this, anyway, over and over again, late at night.
“I hope that you will find India to be as welcoming and hospitable as I did,” I said.
She flinched and a look of surprise crossed her face. “You would not be afraid to return?”
“Not at all. I spent many happy years there up until the one of . . . of horror.” My hand shook as the abrupt memory of my rushed and disorderly flight ahead of the rebels came back. I felt, once more, the final embrace of my mother and father. We hadn’t known it would be our last. Perhaps Father had known. He’d looked mournful. I pushed the memory back, afraid it would unsettle me. My real fear, I now admitted, is that one too many unexpected memories or fancies pushing their way in would unsettle my mind for good.
“How did you come to be in India?” Her voice softened.
“My father was a second son, and had fought in the Burmese War, and then traveled a bit,” I said. “He returned home with distinction and, after his brother died from smallpox, my father inherited Headbourne House
. He settled down, married my mother, and my brother, Peter, and I were born here. But he never forgot the people of the East Indies and some years later he put his investments into the hands of his solicitors and returned as a missionary.”
She sat there quietly for a moment. “Did your mother wish to go as well?”
That seemed a rather personal question from a woman I’d only just met, but I sensed that she was asking as much for herself as anything else, so I answered, delicately.
“My mother did not want to leave England; she had envisioned herself here, in Hampshire, at Headbourne. But my father decided we must go, and so we did.”
She nodded. “She made a way once there?”
“After sufficient time. The land is beautiful, of course, bluest of seas, and in the south, palm trees and fruitful soil that grows a veritable cornucopia. Even this”—I indicated my tea—“and coffee. We became inclined toward and grew fond of the people.” I closed my eyes for but a second. “The scent of chickpeas being harvested—it smells of home to me.” Was it possible to smell something that was not present? I smelled them, even now, as much as I smelled the bitter bite of the tea right in front of me, but I dared not share that. She’d think me mad.
“Chickpeas?” she asked. “Is that some foreign vegetable?”
“It is a legume common in India,” I said. Miss Dainley sniffed and sipped her tea and Annie refilled it. I’d noticed Annie hovering in the background, close enough to listen. I could hear the footsteps of several other servants in the hallway just beyond, busying themselves with tasks that allowed them to eavesdrop.
“My mother suffered extreme melancholy. The day my father baptized his first convert, my mother, brother, and I remained in our small house with our ayahs whilst my mother wept.”
Miss Dainley’s eyes grew large and she signaled for Annie to bring cake to her after all. “But she recovered?”
“After some years, yes,” I said. “She made her peace with it, and with my father, who was a good man at heart. Truly, what else could she do? And many, many Indians converted to Christianity after that. Tens of thousands in various places. Eventually my mother founded the first schools for girls in southern India. She made certain that girls of all castes, including slave castes and outcastes, had access to education. And she taught them to make lace. Salvation for both body and soul. I was her closest friend and assisted her ministry in every way.”
“Lace! Why ever would that be of help?” Miss Dainley’s nose wrinkled. A nickname came to me. I should have to be careful in future not to refer to her as Miss Disdain.
I smiled. “Ah, but it was. Great numbers of lower-caste women became skilled lace makers and made an income for the first time, ever. Their husbands became educated and were able to make money on the coffee plantations of Englishmen, as managers.”
“What did they do with the earnings?” Delia leaned forward and now I sensed no reserve, just interest. I weathered the rush of homesickness and imagined my Indian sisters, smiling, chattering, sitting with me, bobbins and pillows on laps on the wide bamboo veranda, its corners concealing lime-green lizards. “They were able to pay their taxes, taxes imposed for things such as men’s facial hair. Worse, lower-caste women were not allowed to wear clothing above their waists, denying them dignity.”
Annie gasped and I could hear Mrs. Blackwood draw in her breath from somewhere out of sight, in the main hallway.
“They were . . . naked? Their bosoms? For all to see?” From the tone Miss Dainley used, I suspected she may have been more concerned for her future husband’s view than for the humiliating plight of the Sudra women.
“Yes. My parents spoke to the rajah and the resident on their behalf. My mother loved Tamil proverbs. One was ‘The word of the destitute does not reach the assembly.’ So someone in power must speak on their behalf. The missionaries helped them win the right to clothe themselves, above the waist, too, and then gave them clothes and the skills to earn money to buy their clothes in the future.”
I stopped, mortified. Why had I been rushing along like a poorly brought up girl, a verbal runaway cart on a first social call? Landreth would most certainly not approve.
“I’m terribly sorry. I apologize. Perhaps I have been a little homesick and have carried on overly long about myself.” I took a deep breath and affixed a courteous smile on my face. “Please, do tell me about yourself.”
Miss Dainley nodded. She seemed pleased to change the subject. Whether it was a relief to be done with my ill manners or that she did not want to learn more about India just now, I did not know.
“You’ll be happy to learn there is an inspiring season of events planned, for the summer, during the periods when the others come back from London,” she said. “A few of these events will transpire in . . . your home.”
“You’ll not be in London?” I asked. I knew it was the season for those well born, and well off, to attend social events in the city.
“No.” She shook her head. Her discussion of her family’s lack of resources made further explanation unnecessary. Even if I had arrived earlier, and had not been in mourning, I would not have known anyone to oversee a London season for me.
“Captain Whitfield has seen to the arrangements for entertainments to be held at Headbourne. He’s a wonderful host if, perhaps, somewhat misunderstood of late. I believe he is to return today?”
I nodded. Had she made inquiries? Or had he told her? I chided myself. Why should it matter to me? “Misunderstood? And what kind of events?” I asked politely.
“Oh, nothing, really.” She waved the topic away with her lace handkerchief. “As to events, musical soirées, shooting parties, dinners and balls, that sort of thing, of course, you will be invited to reciprocal arrangements. As long as you’re still here, of course. The grandest of all will be the costumed ball at Graffam Park in autumn. Lord Ledbury spares no expense. The theme will be announced a month in advance and then it’s a melee to come up with an appropriate costume and a suitable gift for Lord and Lady Ledbury.”
“Something to look forward to. I do hope we can become friends, and I know I shall rely upon your wisdom until your autumn departure, as I reacquaint myself with English ways,” I said. “I’m happy to be of help to you in any way I may, as to India.”
She nodded, but she was no longer looking at me, distracted by the sound of an oncoming team of horses pulling a carriage.
Captain Whitfield had returned.
Miss Dainley stood and I stood as well. Through the front windows, we could see him drive toward the coach house and stable yard. I noted she had told me not about herself, but about the season’s events.
“I look forward to calling upon you, and becoming acquainted with your family,” I said.
For a moment, she did not take her eyes off the advancing carriage. Then she looked directly at me, voice firm once again. “I should much prefer to visit with you here. Such a jolly home, and Captain Whitfield’s hospitality is so accommodating.” She smiled. “You do agree?”
To what was I agreeing? That I had a jolly home or that Captain Whitfield was hospitable? Was she asking me to give tacit approval to whatever visits she planned to make here at Headbourne without offering the courtesy of a return visit? Of course, if I visited her, there would be no possibility of Captain Whitfield’s accompanying me.
In any case, she didn’t wait for a response. We walked to the door and she pulled on her bonnet, but very loosely, which allowed her hair to show to its best, glossy advantage. Landreth began to signal for her carriage, but Miss Dainley stopped him.
“Captain Whitfield would be happy to attend to this himself,” she said.
Landreth nodded his agreement and, as she began to descend the steps, I could see Whitfield move toward her with ease and familiarity.
Landreth closed the door behind her but I could hear cheery conversation and then Whitfield’s laug
h. I turned toward Landreth. Had he suggested Thursdays for my “at home” day because he knew Miss Dainley would want to see the captain, and Landreth approved? Or was it merely a coincidence?
“Will that be all, miss?” he asked me, and I became aware that I should not be idling by the door.
“Yes,” I said. I wavered, then gathered my courage to move forward with something I’d been recently considering. What pushed me to finally act? I knew, even though I barely dared admit it to myself. It was seeing Miss Dainley interact so familiarly with Captain Whitfield.
“Just one more thing. Will you please inform Cook that I shall accept Captain Whitfield’s long-standing invitation to take the evening meal with him in the dining room this evening?”
CHAPTER SIX
On my way back to my room, I stopped at Mrs. Ross’s quarters and knocked. “Yes?” she called out.
“May I come in?”
“Of course.”
She sat in a chair, desk on her lap, Bible open in front of her. It reminded me that I had not yet found a Bible; I should set about that immediately. Whilst I had the comfort of many memorized scriptures, I desired to see the words themselves, living and active on the page.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I wondered if you could take dinner with me in the dining room tonight. Captain Whitfield has returned and I’d like to dine with him, as he’d earlier extended an invitation.”
“Certainly, lassie.” She looked at my face. “Why are ye so long?”
I sighed. “Miss Dainley took tea with me today.”
“She wasna kind?”
“No, she was,” I said. “It’s just that, well, she has a mother and a father. And many siblings. She seems to know everyone hereabouts.”
Mrs. Ross nodded, and thoughtfully did not point out that my response had little to do with her question but much to do with what was on my mind.
I realized that I knew almost nothing about her, except that she was Scottish, Presbyterian, and highly recommended by people whom Mrs. MacAlister knew. “Do you have children, Mrs. Ross?”