by A.J. Dixon
Chapter 6
The piano started up again; maids circulated carrying trays of smoked ham and medallions of lamb. A new face stepped into the room – a tall, middle-aged man, good looking, with piercing blue eyes. He didn’t wear the finer styles of the nobility; Sorcha would have guessed he was a lawyer or other respectable, but working, profession.
A strange feeling passed through Sorcha, and she blinked in confusion. Her mother was actually smiling. No, more than that, she had softened somehow. Madeline took a step forward and the lawyer turned. A gentle smile came to his face, and he put out a hand.
“Madeline.”
She took it, and there was a warmth to her face that Sorcha had never seen before. Madeline’s voice held almost a hesitancy in it.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
The corners of his mouth turned up. “Could I have stayed away?”
She pinkened at that. “It’s been a while. I thought –”
He shook his head. “You never had faith, Madeline. After all these years, you still need to learn to believe.”
She looked down at their hands. “Maybe I do.”
He glanced toward the piano. “Come with me. You always did adore Haydn. I had the pianist learn Sonata number 59 in E flat for you.”
She glanced up at him, surprised. “You did that? For me?”
His voice lowered. “I would do far more for you, if I could.”
He nudged his head toward the other room, and in a moment the two were in motion.
Sorcha watched them go, then stared at the empty space they had vanished through. Had she really just seen what she thought she’d seen? For so long she had thought of her mother as an evil, controlling force, one without emotion or human spirit. But it was as if a crack had appeared in her plate armor. As if a glimpse of humanity had peered through that shell. It was something Sorcha had never seen happen before.
A myriad of thoughts whirled through her brain. The hubbub around her rose to a fevered pitch, and Sorcha closed her eyes against it.
She needed somewhere quiet. Somewhere to sit and think.
She maneuvered her way through the crowd over to the buffet area. Taking up a silver plate, she stocked it with a pile of cheese squares and ruby red grapes. Then she filled a pewter cup of wine and made her way out through the throngs into the black-and-white hallway.
The kitchen was oh-so-tempting, but her mother’s warning about being found with the staff rang in her head. She resisted the call of those kittens with every ounce of her being. Surely there was somewhere else in this grand house to tuck away for a few hours.
She looked across the hall into the opposite room. It was the dining room, with a massive mahogany table which could undoubtedly seat twelve or more with extravagant ease. The far end of the table was occupied by three elderly gentlemen, their sparse, grey hair writhing out in all directions like dancers at a May Day festival. They were enthusiastically puffing away on cigars, smoke wreathing their heads.
Sorcha turned away –
An elderly woman’s voice called out from within the room. “Miss?”
Sorcha looked in again through the shadows and smiled. It was the elderly couple she’d seen when she first arrived at the house. They were sitting in the corner of the room in a pair of crimson-embroidered chairs, sipping glasses of port.
Sorcha moved over to stand in front of them with a smile. “How do you do?”
The woman’s smile grew. “You are the spitting image of her. Your mother, I mean. Maddie. Or Mrs. McClintock, she is now. It seems only yesterday she was climbing up every tree in the park.”
Sorcha shook her head. The image of her mother was getting more confusing with every passing moment. It took her a moment before she could ask, “You knew my mother?”
The man nodded his head, his grey eyes misty. “We owned a dress shop across the way. My wife was an excellent seamstress, before her hands became too full of tremors to do the work. But, back in the day, she was in high demand with all the nobility. Even the Queen asked for her services. We would go through the park quite often, on one errand or another. And your mother was always there, her dress coated with dirt, racing with glee after who-knew-what dream.”
Sorcha looked down at her immaculate white dress. If she got even one spot of stain on this, she knew she would be beaten within an inch of her life.
The words slipped out of her mouth before she realized it. “What happened?”
The woman’s eyes sparkled. “Ah, lass, it’s what happens to every woman. It gets time for her to be married. From what I hear, your mother’s family had a good name but little money to back it up. So they ‘shopped her around,’ as they say, and found where the most lucrative deal could be struck. I heard tell that she put up a fuss to wake high heaven, but in the end she went. Up to the untamed wilderness of Scotland.”
The man nodded sagely, patting his wife’s arm. “And I heard that a certain law student in the area was none too pleased by that.”
She made a waving motion with her hand. “That was just rumor, of course. Off she went, and now here you are! So it’s all for the best, isn’t it.”
Sorcha’s head nodded, but her mind was whirling in chaos. Her mother might have had another beau? She might not have wanted to marry Sorcha’s father? The thought had never even entered Sorcha’s mind.
A flurry of notes sounded from the other room, and the woman perked up. “That sounds like Haydn’s Sonata in A Minor!”
The man stood, putting out an arm to her. “Shall we, my love?”
She stood, nestling her hand within his arm. Then she turned to smile at Sorcha. “So good to talk with you, my dear. Have a lovely evening.”
And then they were gone.
Sorcha was left with the wreaths of cigar smoke; the dense billows echoed the clouds of confusion which filled her mind.
Just what was real any more?
She wasn’t sure she knew.
At that very moment she heard her mother’s sharp cry of exasperation echo from the other room, followed by sharp footsteps heading her way.
All instincts in her mind warned her to flee.
She drew her plate and cup closer, spun out of the dining room, and ducked into the next one -