Henry was racking his brain if there had been any other situation during which he might have embarrassed Sarah unknowingly, but he didnʼt come to any conclusion. Ultimately, he guessed that something had to have happened to her overnight, something which had caused her to act in such a strange way, although he didnʼt have the slightest idea what that could be. And she wouldnʼt let him know what was going on. She just kept avoiding his glances, which he found rather unfair. After all, he had refrained from telling Lord Partridge all about her almost-attack with the horse although he had felt quite in the mood for it. But ultimately, he had decided that it was better to give her at least another chance.
“Are you alright, Miss Sarah...?” he asked her uncertainly when after two hours she still had not loosened up a bit. But she just nodded imperceptibly and blushed red again.
Henry sighed and shook his head. The fact that she was so inaccessible tried his patience to the utmost. But he decided to no longer try and analyse her peculiar behavior and instead gave her a poem to quietly copy into her exercise book. Apart from the positive aspect that this didnʼt require any talking from her side, Henry found that it would be a good way to improve her spelling, which left a lot to be desired. And as the poem consisted of some fifteen paragraphs, he supposed that this would keep her busy for a while. In the meantime, he began to read a book about Seneca, which he had brought with him from London. Seneca was not one of his most favorite philosophers, but Henry found that reading his works was still better than having to put up with Sarahʼs ever-changing pubescent moods.
From the corner of his eye, he could see her secretly peering over to him every now and then, but he had enough of her for the time being and deliberately ignored her.
Later when the lessons were over and Sarah was leaving, two sheets of paper slipped out of one of her books. She didnʼt notice, and when she had gone, Henry walked over to where the papers had dropped to the floor and picked them up.
On one of the sheets were little drawings; sketches, marvelously done with pencil and charcoal, some of them images of peopleʼs faces, some of them images of flowers. Henry also spotted a small drawing of the beautiful white stallion with which Sarah had apparently tried to kill him the other day.
When Henry looked at the other sheet in his hands, though, he momentarily held his breath. It also showed a drawing; the portrait of a beautiful woman who, to Henryʼs astonishment, looked very much like Sarah. The womanʼs face had been drawn so perfectly that Henry immediately believed to get a vivid impression not only of the looks but also of the deeper nature and soul of the person portrayed. Staring incredulously at the pictures, Henry found it rather difficult to believe that someone who was truly evil and vile at heart should be capable of creating such a piece of art with so much detail and obvious love for the objects drawn.
Later that day, after having eaten some sandwiches downstairs in the company of Thelma and her maids, Henry went in search of Sarah as he wanted to give her the drawings back. But as she was nowhere to be found, Henry supposed that she had gone riding again. And so he decided to sneak into the library instead, where he wanted to find himself something to read, but when he opened the door and entered, he saw that Lady Partridge was there. He noticed to his surprise that she had been crying. She held a handkerchief in her hands and her eyes were sore and red.
She startled when she saw him, then she scolded him for not having knocked. Henry apologized profusely and withdrew. He guessed that Lady Partridge, despite her wealth and carefree life, was a rather discontented woman. He didnʼt rule it out that she even suffered from some kind of depression.
Small wonder with that husband of hers… Henry thought bitterly and gathered that despite Lord Partridgeʼs proud and distinguished bearing, he obviously wasnʼt a saint. The previous night, when Henry had been wandering along the corridors in search of the restroom, he had heard whispering voices coming from downstairs. One of the voices had unmistakably belonged to Lord Partridge and the other one to a woman who had most definitely not been Lady Partridge and who had constantly giggled and uttered teasing words. Henry believed to have recognized the female voice as the one of Emily, the chambermaid. He had been unable to understand what the two of them had been talking about, but then again he considered it as irrelevant. After all, it had been obvious enough that this had been a secret, amorous encounter between the lord and the maid.
He wondered if Lady Partridge had just found out about it, or if she had known it all along; if she was aware of the fact that there wasnʼt really anything she could do about it—unless she was willing to separate from her husband and, by doing so, give up the prosperous life that she was leading. But despite having known her only for a few days, Henry was sure that Lady Partridge would rather tolerate her husbandʼs behavior instead of relinquishing the pleasures that came with her marriage to him.
Henry went back up to his room, took one of his own books, and then went in search of a quiet place in the garden in order to read.
And then there she was, Sarah, crouching under the oak tree, writing something into a leather bound book. He wondered if he should walk over to her and give her the drawings, but he didnʼt dare. He guessed that it would be regarded as inappropriate if he bluntly approached the lordʼs daughter outside the classroom.
And so he simply sat down on a chair a little bit further away from Sarah and pretended to read, all the while pondering, though, what it could possibly be that she was writing about.
* * *
Dear Diary,
I am terribly confused. Everything feels so strange.
It is difficult to talk about it, now that Mr. Abbott is sitting nearby. I see him secretly peering over to me every so often, and his gaze is so intent that it makes me worry he might be able to read my thoughts.
And he mustnʼt find out what is going on in my mind! It would leave me so utterly embarrassed that I would not be able to look in the mirror ever again without blushing as red as a poppy.
The reason why I feel so embarrassed is that last night I dreamed about him. And I must admit that it was a rather uncouth dream that left me feeling overwhelmed with emotions as yet unknown to me.
I have never felt this way in the presence of a man; definitely not in the presence of all the young, inexperienced fellows whom I was introduced to in the past: family friendsʼ sons or sons of distant relatives, all invited by my Uncle Horatio, who has always been so keen on matching me up with someone of his standing or even higher, just to shed a good light onto his own family.
Gladly, I would have married someone and leave this awful house if only any of these silly fools had given me the feeling that with the marriage I would enter a safe haven where I would feel welcomed and loved. But that has never been the case. Most often, the families of these young men turned up their noses upon seeing me and ultimately rejected me, being all too aware of my true background.
The only one who has never wasted any further thoughts about my past is Damian, although I am sure that it is not mere love that draws him to me. In fact, it is all about that important business deal that his father arranged with Horatio and that will come into effect once Damian and I will get married. And in Horatioʼs opinion, that day can not come soon enough. But apart from that, it seems to me that Damian views me as kind of a trophy that he wants to obtain, as if he was hunting me down for the mere purpose of taking the credit afterwards—the credit for having managed to break my will and make me his obedient wife.
Ever since Damian has begun to become a regular visitor to the mansion, there have been times when I almost longed back to the days when the foolish silly boys came to court me. I would gladly choose any of them now if it meant that I could avoid a marriage with Damian. But it seems as if my fate has been sealed by Uncle Horatioʼs decision alone to make me Damianʼs bride. I have never even been asked if I want to be his wife at all, and nobody seems to care that I do not love Damian. I do not even like him.
Henry Abbott is still looking
at me and seriously believes that I do not notice.
If being close to him in reality feels the same way as it did in my dream…?
* * *
“I have not been aware that you are an artist...” Henry said to Sarah when he handed her the drawings the next morning. He was on the brink of asking who the woman on the picture was, but he didnʼt dare to pose such an intimate question; and intimate it would have undoubtedly been considering the fact that Sarah never gave anything about her herself away.
Sarah took her drawings wordlessly and put them back in her book, a slightly embarrassed expression on her face.
During lesson she was quiet as usual, but Henry noticed that she at least seemed to listen to him, and she had stopped avoiding his glances.
The next days pretty much followed the same pattern. At the end of the week Henry found that despite the rather strange and awkward atmosphere in the classroom still some work had been done after all. He proudly marked it in his calendar that he had already survived five full days in the house of the Partridges and hoped that this would encourage him to endure all the other weeks to come—if they came at all. Deep inside, he was filled with the fear that Lord Partridge would not be pleased with the overall result and would eventually dismiss him.
Henry found himself spending more and more time in the kitchen than upstairs in the noble part of the mansion where he felt somewhat lonely and forlorn with hardly anyone around. Sarah, for example, had the habit of darting straight out of the classroom and rushing out to the stables. There she jumped on her horse and was gone for the best part of the afternoon. Henry hardly got to see her except during lessons and dinner time.
Lord Partridge wasnʼt in all day either—not that Henry would have attached a certain value to have him around. The lord spent most of his time checking upon the staff in his plough factory in town. And when he wasnʼt busy doing that, he went hunting with friends. Two days ago, Henry had had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of one of these friends, a certain Baron Copperwood who normally lived in London but who owned a summer residence near Oxford. During the conversation with him, Henry had learned that, apart from collecting pinned insects, Baron Copperwood had the habit of ridiculing everything and everyone in his vicinity. And he loved to tell insinuating jokes. Henry hoped that he would never have to meet that unpleasant man again.
The only people who were around in the mansion during the day were moody Lady Partridge and Emily, the chambermaid. Henry found it almost unbearable, however, to be trapped in a room with both of them. With Lady Partridge secretly knowing that Emily had an affair with Lord Partridge, and with Emily guessing that Lady Partridge was aware of this, the tension between the two inevitably hung in the air like a toxic cloud. But, of course, Lady Partridge held the whip hand and hence treated Emily in an extremely cruel and bullying manner by deliberately creating dirt in places that Emily had just cleaned up.
As for Roderick, the butler, he was usually far too busy to talk to anyone, which only left Jeremy, the stable boy, and Angus, the coach driver, to have a conversation with. But having tried to talk to them once, Henry found that this wasnʼt really fulfilling. He simply had not been able to come up with a conversation topic that would have been of interest for all parties involved. And when he had left the stables, he had even believed to hear Jeremy chuckle behind his back. Henry guessed that Jeremy obviously thought of him as an arrogant would-be member of the upper class. And so Henry was not keen on crossing the stable boyʼs paths all too often in the future.
Despite Thelmaʼs strict regime and all the industriousness in the kitchen, Henry felt much more welcome there. The girls seemed to really like him because they beamed when he entered and appeared mesmerized by whatever he said. They had begun to lovingly call him Mr. Henry. He didnʼt mind. It felt good to be a little wooed. Thelma usually watched it going on for a while but soon interfered when she found that Henry distracted the girls too much from doing their work.
“You are behaving like a bunch of silly geese...” she would then say to Heather and Ada, shaking her head disapprovingly. “As if this was the first time you get to see a young man.”
Henry guessed that this probably wasnʼt too far from the truth. Apart from daily encounters with Jeremy, the girls hardly had the chance to get in contact with young men their age, kept put under lock and key as they were in the mansion with hardly any free time at all.
After having called Heather and Ada back to reason and having reminded them of their duties, Thelma would sit down at the table and push a plate with sandwiches over to Henry. Then she let him in on the gossip of the day while she was peeling potatoes or kneading dough; the latter in preparation for some of her delicious cakes, which were served in the afternoon for teatime or in the evening as a dessert.
Today the news had it that the next morning would see the arrival of Damian Cox. Henry recalled having heard his name on the first evening during dinner—Damian, the aspirant to Sarahʼs hand in marriage.
“What an idiot he is. I donʼt like him,” Thelma muttered. “I really donʼt know what the lordship finds in him. And now they are even taking him on this weekend trip to Bournemouth at the coast. Miss Sarah will surely not be amused...”
Henry believed to sense an air of sympathy for Sarah in Thelmaʼs voice.
“Actually, have you tried my pancakes yet? It is a new recipe,” Thelma suddenly asked. Henry had noticed that before: Thelma normally began to talk about a certain subject and then, when it got really interesting, she would suddenly change the topic and talk about something else, usually something completely incoherent and trivial.
“Heather, go and get Mr. Henry one of them pancakes!” she called over to the girl, who quickly wiped her hand at her apron before rushing over to a tray which lay on a table next to the oven. The tray was covered with a towel, and when Heather lifted it, Henry saw that underneath it there were a dozen crispy and lovely smelling pancakes.
Just that Henry wasnʼt really interested in pancakes at all right now. The news about Damianʼs upcoming arrival had made him curious, but Thelma would not tell him more. She was too busy shouting at Heather because the latter had left the cakes in the oven for a little bit too long so that some of them were burnt.
Two hours later, when Henry took one of his strolls through the garden, and even later when he had returned to his room in order to have a little nap, he realized that his thoughts were still circling around Damian Cox—a fact that surprised him a little.
It is none of my business, he thought, feeling slightly frustrated at the fact that he had been unable to provoke more out of Thelma about Sarahʼs mysterious future husband. He was by now desperate to know why exactly Sarah didnʼt like the man.
At about five oʼclock, Henry heard the front door being slammed, which meant, as he knew by now, that Sarah had come back from riding. Shortly afterwards, a heated quarrel flared up down in the hall between the girl and Lord Partridge.
Out of pure curiosity—the afternoon had been boring enough—Henry got up, left his room, and tiptoed along the corridor until he reached the staircase where he carefully leaned over the banister and peered downstairs.
He knew it wasnʼt appropriate to eavesdrop on what the lord and Sarah were talking about, but as the subject Damian Cox was still on his mind and because he heard Lord Partridge mention Coxʼs name, Henry couldnʼt withstand the temptation to secretly follow their conversation. Apart from that, the dispute was so loud that he guessed he would have heard it anyway, even if he had stayed in his room.
“Sarah, you know very well that this travel to the coast was arranged a long time ago,” he heard Lord Partridge say in his usual calm and indifferent manner.
“But I will not go—not if Damian is coming too!” Sarah erupted, her shrill voice echoing in the stairwell.
God, what force... Henry thought, feeling little shivers creeping up and down his spine.
“I will not allow any further discussion about it, my dear,” Lord
Partridge retorted. “We are leaving tomorrow, and I expect you to be ready for departure at half past nine after breakfast.”
Henry heard Lord Partridge walk off and Sarah stomp up the stairs, snorting with rage. He didnʼt want the girl to catch him in the act of crouching at the landing, eavesdropping. But as she was taking three steps at a time, she was so quick that it didnʼt leave him any time at all to turn around and head back to his room unseen. He managed, however, to quickly stand up and pull a highly surprised and innocent face which, as he hoped, would convince Sarah that he had just happened to walk along the corridor and had accidentally overheard their conversation.
Henry & Sarah Page 6