Dorothy Eden (19 page)

‘Nor can any of us,’ murmured Blane. ‘Not even Miss Mildmay.’

‘This conversation is ridiculous!’ Amalie’s voice was high and thin, as if her own nerves were stretched beyond endurance. ‘I’ve told you all the woman left because she couldn’t sew. She was also a thief. And if Miss Mildmay is going to behave in this extraordinary way, I’m sure she’s not a suitable person to be in charge of Titus.’

‘Never mind Miss Mildmay,’ put in. Lady Malvina impatiently. ‘What I can’t understand is why you haven’t informed the police, if the woman’s a thief.’

Amalie sank into a chair. She looked exhausted and on the point of collapse. She closed her eyes.

‘The woman isn’t worth the fuss. I only want to forget her.’

‘B
LAKE, THERE’S NO NECESSITY
to go. I settled the matter. Don’t you believe me?’

‘I believe you, but do you really think that will be the end of it?’

There was a momentary silence. Then Amalie said in a low voice, ‘I do. That will be the end of it.’ She began to laugh breathlessly. ‘Perhaps I make myself believe it because I can’t bear you to go away again.’

‘Amalie! You know I don’t like possessive women.’

‘Oh! What are you made of?’ The extreme exasperation and anger in Amalie’s voice was painful to hear.

Sarah had begun to dread going down to dinner. She was no longer eager to eavesdrop. The zest had gone out of this adventure. As strangers, impostors, usurpers, they deserved all the harm she could do them. But whatever else they might be, they were not strangers any longer. They were real people. Even Amalie.

Foolishly, she hadn’t visualised this happening, and neither, she was sure, had Ambrose, or he would not have expected so much of her. She was beginning to detest her position. Perhaps if she were to get a letter from Ambrose her ambition and her desire to see a wrong put right would return. But the time had already seemed so long, and so many things had got spoilt. The thought of wearing the Mallow diamonds, for instance, or of boisterous greedy and affable Lady Malvina being deprived of her home, or Titus being thrust back into insecurity, were difficult to contemplate.

Nevertheless, this accidentally overheard conversation revived her intense curiosity. Blane’s reference to going somewhere must have meant that he still wanted to track down the mysterious Sammie. But Amalie disagreed.

Lady Malvina was coming down the stairs, her enormously wide skirts making a great rustling.

‘You’re still very lame, Miss Mildmay. I hope you haven’t been on that foot too much.’

Sarah, caught lingering outside the drawing-room door, blessed the old lady for her genial obtuseness.

‘I think perhaps I have walked a little too much, Lady Malvina.’

She waited for Lady Malvina to precede her into the room, and the conversation within ceased. Amalie was holding her hands out to the fire as if she were chilly in spite of the flush in her cheeks. Blane was pouring sherry. He looked up and said,

‘Miss Mildmay climbs too many stairs. How can she expect her ankle to get well?’

‘Miss Mildmay is good for the child,’ Lady Malvina declared, with her happy irrelevance. ‘He’s getting almost as adventurous as you were, Blane. That’s a very miserable glass of sherry, if I may say so. Fill it up. Well, Amalie, I’m glad to see you keep better health when your husband is home. But you’ve had some fresh air today. I saw you down by the lake.’

‘The lake? Oh, yes. It must be a charming spot in summer, but in winter—B-r-r-r! However, one must walk somewhere.’

‘Are you bored with the ancestral home already?’ Blane enquired softly.

‘No, but I think we should have more gaiety. We do nothing. We’ve been to church three times, and had people in to tea, and had a great deal of fuss and inconvenience with decorators, and that’s the sum total of our exciting country life! I’ve been thinking about that ball you suggested, Blane. Haven’t I, Miss Mildmay? Mamma, when’s the best time to hold a ball in this desolate spot?’

‘In the winter, of course,’ said Lady Malvina. Her face brightened. ‘I must say that’s a splendid idea. We can all wear our finery. Miss Mildmay, I hope you have brought a ball gown.’

‘I’m afraid—’ Sarah began. She was impatient with Lady Malvina’s stupidity in imagining that a governess, naturally poor since she had to be a governess, should possess a ball gown. Then she noticed Blane’s eyes on her throat and knew that he was remembering the diamonds he had hung there. Moreover, he was wickedly intending her to read his thoughts. Her assumed embarrassment became real. ‘I will be more than content to watch, Lady Malvina. I fear my foot—’

Amalie was tapping her own foot. Her anger was scarcely concealed.

‘Mamma, let’s talk about more practical aspects. Whom we should invite, for instance, the catering, the orchestra. Of course, Miss Mildmay, we will expect you to bring Titus down for half an hour.’

I cannot, cannot, cannot stand this kind of treatment any longer,
Sarah wrote that night
. Or my own sickly behaviour, bowing meekly, smiling, hiding my dignity, my pride, my very soul. I didn’t come here to be a doormat! And why should I look dowdy while Amalie dresses like a duchess? Oh, Ambrose, I am sorry, but this has been too much to ask of me. It’s all too humiliating. Though how can I forsake Titus now he has grown dependent on me? What am I to do?

It seemed that her uncertain mind was to be made up for her.

Out riding with Soames the next day, Titus had a fall. It wasn’t a severe one, but Soames sensibly carried the child into his cottage which was near at hand, and left his wife to tend him while he hurried up to the big house.

Blane had gone for a day’s hunting, and Amalie was not to be found.

‘Her ladyship will be down at the lake, most likely,’ Soames said to Sarah in his knowing way. ‘She goes there most afternoons. Perhaps you’d come, miss, and see to the young master. He’s not badly hurt, only dazed like.’

‘Of course.’ Sarah hastened into outdoor things and followed Soames. But as they went across the park her gaze kept going towards the distant steely shine of water beyond the leafless trees. Was that really the only place Amalie cared to walk?

‘There’s a summer house there,’ Soames said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘It’s shelter against the wind. It’s a pity the mistress doesn’t take more to riding.’

‘She does ride,’ Sarah said quickly.

‘Not that she cares for it. She’s too nervous.’

‘Better than sitting in a summer house in midwinter,’ Sarah burst out, forgetting to whom she was speaking.

‘That’s what I thought, miss.’

Soames gave her his sideways glance, and she was sorry she had spoken. This man was not to be trusted.

Titus had recovered a good deal though he still looked shaken and white.

‘Dandy threw me,’ he said importantly. ‘But I’ll ride again tomorrow, won’t I, Soames?’

‘To be sure you will, Master Titus. You see, miss, he’s just like his father was.’

Sarah looked about the cosy firelit room. A well-furnished room for a groom’s cottage, she thought.

Mrs Soames, a small woman with watchful eyes like her husband’s, noticed the glance.

‘Do you like our home, miss? I try to keep it nice. It must seem small to you after being up at the big house.’

‘You have some nice things, Mrs Soames.’

‘My husband had a small legacy from his lordship. I said we’d put it into the home.’

‘From the late Lord Mallow,’ Soames specified pointedly.

‘That was fortunate for you,’ Sarah murmured. (But bribery might pay even better than faithful service. Bribery might have bought the carpet and the carefully polished table and chairs.) ‘Come, Titus, we must go. Can you walk, or am I to carry you?’

‘He can ride on my back,’ said Soames. ‘Won’t be the first time I’ve carried the heir to Mallow. So to speak.’

‘Why so to speak?’ Sarah asked bluntly.

Soames gave his ingratiating laugh.

‘Just a manner of speaking, miss. Don’t mean nothing. The little lad’s the dead spit of his father. I could think the years had rolled back.’

Titus seemed to have quite recovered from his fall, and ate his supper as usual, and even romped a little with Lady Malvina. But by that time Amalie had heard the news, and came hurrying into the nursery. She snatched the child from Lady Malvina exclaiming, ‘Are you sure he isn’t hurt? Titus, my love, Mamma’s darling, are you all right? Did you get a horrid fright?’

Titus immediately burst into tears.

Lady Malvina gathered up her skirts and waddled to the door.

‘Well, of all the foolish behaviour, Amalie! _Miss Mildmay and I had the boy perfectly calm and happy, and now you’re scaring the life out of him.’

‘Miss Mildmay and you! Of course you know best! You’re both so wise. Especially Miss Mildmay! Then why did she allow this to happen to Titus?’

Amalie’s outburst was all the more startling because it was unprovoked. Sarah had said nothing, and even Lady Malvina’s rebuke had been amiable enough. But her high tense voice had frightened Titus into crying harder. It convinced her that he was seriously hurt.

‘Don’t cry, my lamb. You must go to bed at once. The idea of not putting you straight to bed when you’re sick. Really, Miss Mildmay. I thought you’d have had more sense. But perhaps good sense wasn’t part of your programme today.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Lady Mallow. But I assure you Titus isn’t hurt. He was merely a little dazed. Soames said so, too. He’s been kept quiet since, and had his supper. Eliza was just about to put him to bed.’

‘So you take this all on yourself!’ Amalie’s face was darkly flushed, her eyes glittering. ‘You decide not to send for a doctor, not to have me told. Who’s son is he, may I ask?’

Sarah bit back her swiftly rising anger. She forced herself to speak calmly.

‘Perhaps we could discuss this after Titus is in bed, Lady Mallow.’

Amalie sprang up with the sobbing child in her arms.

‘And I’ll put him there myself. Eliza! Where’s Eliza? Have you got bottles in the bed ? Then get some at once. And someone must go for the doctor. I won’t rest until a doctor has seen him. Mamma, could you send Soames, or one of the servants?’

‘Really, I think you’ve gone crazy!’ Lady Malvina exclaimed. ‘All that fuss. My son had falls enough, and simply got up and remounted. What do you want to turn the child into, a mollycoddle?’

She turned and swept out of the room. Titus, much distracted by now, was still sobbing, but there was obviously nothing Sarah could do about it. She went to her own room to wait Amalie’s expected summons.

It came before long. There was a sharp knock at her door, and then Amalie came in. Her cheeks still had their high flush and the almost feverish brightness was in her eyes.

‘Miss Mildmay, I’d like to speak to you.’

‘Yes, Lady Mallow.’

‘I want to know how Titus came to fall from his horse, and why, when he had had a nasty fall, you showed so little concern.’

‘So little concern!’ Sarah repeated, astonished.

‘Don’t deny it. You were letting him romp in that mad way with my mother-in-law as if nothing had happened. And that, after concussion!’

‘But he hasn’t concussion! There are no symptoms.’

‘There are symptoms. Titus is very distressed and feverish. Do you mean to say you didn’t notice? Yet when you have an aching tooth or a twisted ankle there’s fuss enough made!’

‘Are you accusing me, Lady Mallow, of being careless of my duties?’

‘More than careless. How did Titus come to fall?’

‘I wasn’t with him, I’ve told you. Soames was with him.’

‘You’re sure? You’re sure you weren’t crossing the park and startled Dandy?’

‘Just what are you suggesting?’ Sarah whispered.

‘I’m not suggesting anything except your attitude towards your duties. I’m trying to get to the bottom of the matter. For instance, Titus’s nightmares. He never suffered from them before he came here—with you. He never complained of people walking in his room at night.’

‘But that happened while I was in London!’

‘And couldn’t you have arranged to be away to leave the child unprotected? How did it happen you were so interested in Mrs Stone, for instance? Even my husband noticed that. You were the one to find her bonnet, to display interest as to her departure. Is she a colleague of yours? You both got into this household in the same way, you remember, by simply arriving and asking for employment. I find it all exceedingly strange.’

‘And I,’ said Sarah icily, her chin high, ‘find your attitude incomprehensible. You’re not only suggesting that I might want to harm your child, but that I may also be a thief. I fear, Lady Mallow, this is where we say goodbye. I shall pack at once, and leave this evening.’

‘That would be satisfactory,’ Amalie said in a tight voice.

‘Your accusations are scarcely worth defending.’

‘Perhaps you can’t defend them, Miss Mildmay. Perhaps I’m not so easily taken in as my husband by a pretty face.’

Sarah was rapidly folding gowns and gathering up her toilet things. She permitted herself to pause for a moment and give Amalie a searching glance. She didn’t speak. She merely let her eyes wander with deliberate slowness from Amalie’s thin face to her meagre bosom, down her fussy silk dress to her feet. Then she went on with her task. The green silk dress, the black lace shawl that Aunt Adelaide had given her, the evening slippers, the warm petticoats Lady Malvina had advised. Would she have to trudge the ten miles to Yarby, as apparently Mrs Stone had had to do? Was she letting Ambrose down too badly? Did her desire to escape from this intolerable family include him, too? She didn’t know. She only knew she must go at once.

‘Do I leave on foot?’ she asked at last.

‘Isn’t that the way you came?’

‘I came by cab, as you very well know. And I think my references were all that were necessary since Lord Mallow personally looked into them when last in London.’

Amalie’s eyes flickered. For the first time uncertainty came into her face.

‘Why did he do that?’

‘I haven’t the least idea. Unless a governess with a toothache requires references when a perfectly healthy one doesn’t.’