by Sheila Walsh
“He ... he was going into the school, miss.” Lily sniffed and licked her lips. “He had the little ’un with him.”
Oh, dear God! “When was this?” She forced calmness into her voice, when she longed to scream.
Another sniff. “Dunno, miss. Not long.”
Felicity swung away in despair, seeking Ester throughout the anthill of figures scurrying about in the drifting pall of smoke. Men were coming in all the time from the outlying parts of the estate and Johnny was busy organizing them into an efficient fire-fighting team with the same calm cheerfulness he brought to commanding a troop of cavalry. He saw her and lifted a hand in salute; his teeth gleamed white against a dirt-streaked face.
Her agony of indecision lasted seconds and seemed like hours. It would be useless to tell Johnny—besides, Willie would come for no one save Ester or herself.
She ran across to the chain of women passing pails from hand to hand and implored them to soak her in water. The women gaped, uncomprehending, and Felicity seized a pail impatiently. The initial impact of the water made her gasp, but was as nothing compared to the wall of heat which met her inside the building.
Even with her shawl pulled across the lower half of her face, the acrid smoke snatched at her throat; it stabbed her eyes with red-hot needles until they streamed. At first she could see nothing. Hoarsely she called the children ... and then she saw them at the far end of the room where her desk stood. The fire had not yet spread that far, except for the roof, which was well ablaze. Felicity picked her way toward them, side-stepping to avoid the occasional fireball which fell hissing to the floor.
They were a sorry-looking pair, blackened by smuts. Little Jenny sat whimpering on the floor, coughing and rubbing at red eyes, her bright curls unrecognizable, while her brother stood, seemingly impervious to discomfort, watching the flames and clutching his precious ball, which must have been left behind in the rush to leave.
“Red ball,” he said, when Felicity reached them, and she knew that his poor mind was incapable of recognizing danger. “Red,” he said again, pointing to the flames.
Felicity lifted the baby, tucking her safely beneath the shawl. She took Willie’s hand. “Come along, now,” she said gently. “We must go.”
Near the door where the smoke was thickest, her dress snagged on something. She tugged and pulled, but with both hands occupied, she was unable to free herself. They were all beginning to choke now; every second was precious. She set Jenny down and put her hand into Willie’s.
“You must take your sister outside, Willie—quickly, now! I will follow you in a moment.” Felicity willed him to understand and obey, and for once he did. She pushed them toward the door and turned with streaming eyes to free her dress. It was firmly caught on a jagged piece of wood between two broken desks. She pulled it loose and in rising, found a blessedly familiar figure filling the doorway.
“Max!” In her relief she called his name.
His face was distorted by the smoke; he was shouting something, his hand gesturing urgently.
She looked up, too late to avoid the blazing beam which came crashing toward her.
15
She awoke to pain. Every inch of her body throbbed with it; her eyelids were weighted with lead; her mind fuzzy and tumbled in confusion.
Voices came and went, some vaguely familiar...
“Is she badly hurt? ... My God, I thought she was dead when you brought her out! ... That’s a nasty crack on the head ... Oh, but her beautiful hair...” Hands were moving over her, feather-light hands—infinitely gentle, yet every touch sent fresh waves of agony pulsating through her ... a voice she knew now ... a voice she wanted to hear more than any other ... sounding harsher than she had ever heard it...
“No bones broken, but that cursed beam’s put her shoulder out! Where the hell is Belvedere?”
She wanted to tell him not to fuss, but the words kept getting lost in an evil-smelling fog ... it set her throat on fire...
Fire! Of course!
“The children?” It came out as a feeble croak, but the effect on her audience was quite astonishing. Encouraged, she made a supreme effort and forced her aching eyes open.
She was lying out in the open, looking up at the sky through a drifting, sluggish haze. Johnny was there ... and Ester ... others, too ... their faces grimy, like sweeps.
One face swam close—so close that she very much wanted to smooth her fingers along that livid scar. His eyes were intensely black, as though he were angry with her.
“Sorry.” The croak was a bit better that time, but he looked fiercer than ever.
“Don’t try to talk! The children are safe—and the fire is out.”
Her eyelids were growing too heavy to stay open. She drifted away and the voices went on murmuring above her ... until Stayne’s voice suddenly snapped her back to full consciousness.
“Devil take the man! He can’t be away now!”
“Couldn’t you do it?” Johnny’s voice now, hesitant. “I’ve put many a shoulder back in my time, before...”
“So have I, Major—on the hunting field! But this is different. I can’t do it!”
That could not be Max? She had never heard such a rasping note of despair from him. It seemed important to reassure him.
“Yes, you can,” she whispered, attempting levity. “I would as life ... not ... lie here all night!”
“Felicity!” His eyes were agonized, but she knew his decision was already made and she tried to smile encouragement.
They insisted on giving her brandy, which set her throat on fire again.
“Hold on to my hand, old thing,” Johnny said in a distinctly odd voice.
She had thought she knew all about pain, but this was a new dimension altogether! When it was over, they poured more brandy down her throat and bound her arm tight to her side. And then she was jolted home in the gig, held close by Stayne, with her face turned in to his neck. At one point she must have been delirious, for she groaned and thought he murmured “Hush, my dear love!” and brushed her cheek with his lips.
Then events became more confused than ever. There was Jamie’s scared face and Uncle Perry’s strangely puckered one ... and Amaryllis crying, “Oh, Max—her hair!” ... the second time someone had said that ... There was talk of scissors, and Max saying roughly, “Do it now—before she is put to bed.” And the vile scissors began snipping away inexorably.
She cried then, for the first time—sobbing bitterly into his coat, for they were cutting off her lovely hair.
“Oh ... oh, I’m sorry,” she hiccupped. “You hate tears, I know! It m-must be all that brandy.”
Stayne swore. “Your hair will grow again,” he insisted fiercely.
After that, she remembered very little until she awoke to find the late afternoon sun flooding in through gently floating muslin curtains to highlight cheerful hangings sprigged with primroses. Amaryllis sat beside the bed, laboriously stitching a lace border to a handkerchief. She threw it aside as Felicity stirred.
“Well, thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “I had begun to think you would never wake up!”
“This isn’t my room.” Felicity frowned, turning her head on the pillow, and finding it a surprisingly uncomfortable exercise.
“No. We have moved you into the yellow bedchamber. I couldn’t be climbing all those stairs every five minutes!”
A faint smile flickered. “How ... long have I been here?”
“Three days. Dr. Belvedere thought your total collapse a delayed reaction—in fact, your powers of endurance have astonished him, and in view of everything I’m bound to...” Here Amaryllis stopped. Embarrassment flickered across the perfect features. “Max told us ... about Captain Hardman ... well, he had to, for we saw your poor back! Oh, Felicity, however did you survive such a dreadful experience? Without a word to any of us! And then the fire...”
Felicity tried to remember, to raise some degree of feeling, but it all seemed a long time ago.
“Did the
fire do much damage?”
“Lud! The place is a blackened ruin ... the roof gone completely. You were lucky not to have been killed!”
The anger was gone, but a great sadness enveloped Felicity. How much had it been her fault? Perhaps, if she had been less stubborn...? “So Captain Hardman won, after all—in the end,” she said aloud.
“But no! He has gone. You missed quite a drama, I can tell you! Max was riding to Manor Court, you know, when he saw the smoke coming from the village. He rushed over and arrived only just in time to drag you out alive!” Amaryllis was almost incoherent with the recollection. “When he had brought you safely home, he stormed out of the house! I have never seen Max so enraged! Johnny went after him. I truly believe he feared Max meant to kill Hardman!”
“Oh, no!” A terrible panic filled her.
“He was too late!” Amaryllis said triumphantly, “Someone had seen the men who started the fire running away—and recognized them as Hardman’s men. So practically the whole village marched on Manor Court and set fire to it in retaliation.”
“Oh, but they should not ... it was a wicked thing to do! The consequences...”
“Oh, pooh!” said Amaryllis. “One cannot prosecute the whole village! And it was no more than he deserved.”
Felicity tried to sit up and groaned at finding even this simple feat beyond her. “Was anyone killed?”
“Only a man called Rayner. The rest turned tail and ran. Mind you, Johnny reckoned that Hardman would have been massacred if he and Max had not arrived when they did. They found him cowering in an outhouse with his son ... and the crowd outside baying for his blood!” She shuddered delicately.
Tears of weakness welled up in Felicity’s eyes; Amaryllis rushed to pour some cordial and persuaded her cousin to drink a little.
“I shall be shot for upsetting you! Pray, don’t trouble your head any further. That horrid man is certainly not worth your tears! Besides, Max insisted that he be given a carriage and allowed to leave. Johnny did not hear all that was said between them—something about a murder inquiry and Bow Street Runners. Whatever it was, Hardman left—a quivering jelly of a man—and will never return.”
So it was all over.
As Felicity slowly regained her strength, she was not short of company. Ester came often, her quiet gratitude saying so much more than mere words, but she never brought the children, and behind her eyes there still lingered the haunting sense of guilt that it was her son who had so nearly caused Felicity’s death.
Uncle Perry had been shattered by all that had happened. He had been on the point of leaving for London, but delayed his departure until he had reassured himself that she was well on the mend. When he finally came to say goodbye, Felicity thought he looked older.
“You take care, now,” he admonished her.
“I will.” She stroked his coat. “You are looking very splendid this afternoon.”
“Looks well, don’t it?” he enthused, momentarily diverted. Then he bent to peck her cheek. “Don’t know what Max is thinking about?” he muttered. “Didn’t even put a bullet in the fellow—would have done in my day!”
“Well, I am very glad he didn’t,” she said weakly. “I would not have that on my conscience.”
Johnny spent a lot of time with her—so, too, did Jamie. Their uninhibited cheerfulness did much to bolster her flagging spirits. But the person she most wanted, came only once to ask formally after her health and departed from that formality for but a moment to observe brusquely that she looked like Jamie with her short-cropped curls.
Felicity kept to her room long after she might have returned to the family fold. There was a small balcony where she could sit when the weather permitted—and very occasionally she would take a walk.
Her lethargy persisted until the day Jamie came bounding onto her bed with the slightly incoherent announcement that Mamma was to marry Major Tremaine “Isn’t that the most tremendous news? I am to live with them in London. I expect I shall enjoy that no end! Mr. Burnett is to come, too, but later on, Uncle Max says I may go away to school as he and my father did! And I may come here whenever I please. What do you think of that, Cousin F’licity?”
Amaryllis and Johnny followed close on his heels. “I gather the little wretch has stolen our thunder.” Johnny looked like the cat who’d been at the cream pot—and Amaryllis was so obviously happy that any reservations Felicity might have had vanished on the instant.
“Oh, my dears, I am so happy for you!” She held out her hands to them. “I couldn’t be more pleased!”
“Johnny is selling out and we shall live near Town. Just fancy—Max has retained the little house in Chelsea all this time. He is to make us a present of it—besides a most handsome settlement for Jamie’s future. He feels that Johnny is just the father Jamie needs, and is quite agreeable to his coming with us, so we shall be a complete family.”
Felicity knew a pang of jealousy, instantly stifled.
On the following evening there was a celebration dinner, which she made an effort to attend.
Amid the buzz of conversation following upon the Earl’s toast to the happy couple, she overheard Mrs. Lipscombe confiding to a neighbor that she had every expectation of her daughter’s being the next in line to be congratulated. “For I do not scruple to tell you, ma’am,” she gushed, “that I believe it to have been no more than a proper sense of responsibility toward his sister-in-law which has until now held back the Earl’s declaration!”
Felicity slipped away unnoticed. Beyond the doorway she encountered Lord Stayne, and her pallor, which all evening had vied with the ivory foulard of her dress, grew the more remarkable so that her eyes appeared huge and shadowed.
“Felicity?” He grasped her arm and his touch burned her skin. “You are unwell. Let me assist you to your room. This has all been too much for you.”
Indeed it had. “No, sir. I thank you,” she forced a bright smile to her lips. “I have enjoyed myself immensely, but I am now a little tired.”
He looked her over comprehensively and his jaw tightened. “Liar!” he said with soft vehemence. “I know what ails you. Would to God there was something I could do to make it right for you!”
Felicity didn’t try to make sense of his words; she snatched her arm away and ran.
Two days later a letter came from Mollie Patterson; it was like an answer to prayer. Felicity replied at once and made her plans.
When Amaryllis was told, however, she was appalled—and then tearful. “But you cannot leave now—today—just like that! You are not fit! Oh, what am I to do? Johnny has gone shooting with Max ... You cannot leave me to face them with the news!”
“I have left a note for Lord Stayne.”
“But you mean to come back?”
Felicity looked around the room which was home, and had once seemed so grand. How long ago it was—that first dreadful day when she had felt herself an alien in a hostile place! So much had changed since then—she had changed...
“I don’t think I will,” she said abruptly. “I can hardly stay here with you and Jamie gone.”
“Fudge! You have done so before.”
Felicity shook her head. “That was different.”
“Then live with Ester ... she would have you, if you cannot stomach Max—you know she would!” Amaryllis was too upset to see the effect her words had. “Besides, there is your school.”
“Ester can run the school very well without me now.” The words were falsely bright. “No—I mean to stay with Mrs. Patterson for a while and then make a new start elsewhere.”
Amaryllis was genuinely crying now. “But I wanted you at my wedding ... and if you go, we shall lose you ... I know we shall! Oh, I don’t see why you must run off in this hole-and-corner fashion!”
Felicity flung her arms around her cousin and swallowed back her own tears. “It is the best way for me, my dear. Perhaps I have been a traveler too long to settle anywhere. But I promise to write, and I will come and stay with you in Chel
sea.”
The gentlemen returned a little earlier than expected. Cavanah gave Lord Stayne the note from Miss Vale and informed him that Mrs. Delamere wished to see them in the drawing room. Max looked vaguely puzzled, but did not immediately open the letter.
In the drawing room they found Amaryllis almost prostrate. Johnny went to her side. Her mouth trembled visibly as she broke the news.
“Gone,” said the Earl blankly. “She can’t have gone. She is not fit to travel.”
“Why, so I told her, but she would have none of it,” wailed Amaryllis. “You know how determined Felicity can be!”
“I do indeed!” He tore open the letter. The others watched his face as he read. “When did she go?”
“Benson has driven her into Stapleforth to catch the four o’clock stage.”
There was a purposeful gleam in Stayne’s eye as he glanced at the clock and strode to the door. “Then I must go if I am to be in time.”
It was market day and Stapleforth was at its most chaotic. The Earl was obliged to maneuver his curricle through the crowded thoroughfare without the benefit of his young tiger’s strident tongue to facilitate his progress.
His decision to travel without Percy had been the cause of much interested speculation in his stable yard as the dust settled in the wake of his departure ... for had Benson not driven off with Miss Vale only a half hour previous, and her looking properly moped!
The clock on the Norman tower of the church wanted ten minutes to four as he swept under the archway into the teeming yard of the Swan Inn. Here all was noise and bustle, for the stage had not long preceded him. Ostlers scurried back and forth; the sweating horses were being led away and a fresh team stood ready to be put to.
Passengers leaving the coach were fussily arranging the safe disposal of their baggage and calling for porters, but the Earl’s glance strayed beyond them to scan the small group waiting patiently to board.