Elisabeth Kidd (9 page)

* * * *

Two hours later, Sabina entered Bromleigh Hall, paler but composed now, to warm greetings from the footman who opened the door and varied expressions of welcome from her brothers, who each seemed to have formed his own opinion of her flight but all of whom were, at least temporarily, taking their cue from Henry’s brief negative gesture and were tactful enough not to tax her with questions.

She paused in the hall and looked around her, amazed that she had been away less than a week. It seemed she had not seen her home for months. Yet the elegant lines of the Palladian architecture were as she remembered, and the long Persian rug on the floor was the same one she had played on as a girl, and the faces of the servants who found some excuse to come into the hall to welcome her were those of old friends. She began to feel the comfort of home pulling her in, soothing her lacerated heart, and refreshing her tear-reddened eyes.

Dulcie had succeeded in procuring only a light cape from Miss Morville to cover Sabina’s borrowed garments, so both ladies proceeded at once to Sabina’s bedchamber to divest her of these. Dulcie waited until Sabina had undressed herself down to her chemise and stockings before admitting her maid, then departed herself with her sister-in-law’s discarded raiment bundled under her arm, promising to have them returned to Rose laundered and pressed.

“Oh, Lady Sabina,” breathed the young maid, Emily. “We’re all ever so glad to have you home again. “Would you like a bath? Something to eat perhaps?”

Sabina cudgeled her brain, which seemed reluctant to make even the most inconsequential decision.

“Yes,” she said finally. “That is, I should like a bath, please. And then find me my flowered silk dressing gown. I can’t think where I might have put it.”

“It’s nearly time for dinner, ma’am,” Emily pointed out. “Should I lay out the black sarsenet, the one with the braid trim? Or would you prefer something else?”

Black. Oh, God, she had almost forgotten. Anything other than her most intimate apparel would have to be black for some time to come. She could not face it.

“I shan’t go down to dinner tonight, Emily. Please convey my regrets to Lady Bromleigh—after you have seen to my bath. Oh, and perhaps you could tell Lady Henry that I do not wish to be disturbed.”

“Yes, my lady.” Emily, looking none too happy at the instructions she had received, nonetheless departed silently to carry them out.

Sabina wandered listlessly around her room, fingering her hairbrushes, the bed hangings, the scar on the window glass that she had carved years ago with her ring. It was all so familiar, yet at once so foreign.

After sitting in her tub until the water cooled, she ordered a tray to be sent up to her room and moved a chair to the window to nibble at her food as she gazed out the window at the setting sun. What had happened to her appetite? she wondered, staring at a fresh roll as if it were made of paper. The cook had sent up some of her favorite dishes, too—a little cold roast chicken, a wedge of Caerphilly cheese with green grapes, and a gooseberry tartlet. She picked up her fork and tried again.

A soft knock on the door announced Alicia, who did not wait for permission to enter, but did so with her customary air of the squire’s lady ministering to the poor of the parish. She seemed not to touch any part of the room out of deference to its owner’s prior claim; even her feet did not seem to disturb the floor.

“Well, my dear,” she said, gliding to a tentative landing on the windowseat and contemplating with a grave air Sabina’s nearly full tray, “we are certainly glad to see you. Indeed, the servants have not ceased asking after your welfare ever since we heard you had had an accident.” Alicia paused, apparently taken aback by this show of loyalty from persons not actually connected to the family by blood or marriage.

She soon recovered her equanimity, however, and asked, benevolently, “How are you feeling, dear?”

“Well enough,” Sabina said, then looked more sharply at her elder sister-in-law. “Why? What has Dulcie been telling you?”

“Oh, nothing in great detail. Henry says you had a little fall when you were stopping at Missenhurst Grange and are still suffering from occasional dizzy spells.”

Sabina did not know whether to thank Henry for the excuse he had thus afforded her to stay in her room or to curse him for meddling. It was plausible that she might have fled to the nearby home of Dulcie’s parents, the Jeromes, yet how could he or any of the family think she was such a poor a creature that even a knock on the head would produce so long-lasting a malaise?

But then—here she was moping like an invalid. And then—here was Alicia, the very person who would believe such a tale against all the evidence, being solicitous. She supposed she had built her own house; now she must live in it. She smiled mirthlessly at the irony of the situation.

“Shall I send for Dr. Abbott?” Alicia asked when Sabina said nothing more. “Perhaps a sedative draught…?”

“Thank you, no, Alicia. I shall be perfectly well before long. Indeed, up until my—accident—I was enjoying an active holiday, walking in the home wood and so on.” Sabina found herself about to embroider another fictitious account of her past and stopped herself, coming instead to a quick conclusion. “I think I merely let myself become over-tired and thus became careless. I shall come about.”

Alicia accepted this and changed the subject, for which Sabina was grateful. She was not yet ready to discuss the past week with anyone, least of all with Alicia, who was everything kind but possessed of no imagination whatever. Sabina did not think she would believe the truth if she knew it.

However, her sister-in-law’s social skills were highly developed, and she talked for fifteen minutes about household matters, about who had called to leave cards and expressions of sympathy on the recent sad event, and about how Randolph’s valet had failed to starch enough black neckcloths on one of those rare occasions when his employer was insufficiently adept to succeed in achieving a satisfactory fall within four tries.

“Edward and Diana have been very good about observing the requirements of our period of mourning,” Alicia observed, with a hint of pride in her voice at her well-mannered children. “As have Henry’s twins,” she then added, to be quite fair, “although they are really too young to quite understand that their grandpapa has gone away for always.”

She sighed and shook her head slightly, as if to regret the insensibility of the young. “As you know, Sabina dear, there has never been a death in the close family since Edward was born, and they were both fond of their grandpapa. Indeed, Diana shed many a tear following the event, and even Edward was melancholy for days. They still talk about him with affection, you know.”

“I am certain they do.”

Alicia seemed to sense that she had committed a gaffe. “Oh, I do beg your pardon, Sabina, dear. I should perhaps not remind you of your loss.”

“Please do not tread on eggshells for my benefit, Alicia. Indeed, if any of the children wishes to talk about Papa, please send them to me. I will be happy to help keep his memory alive in them, if I can.”

“You were always a dutiful daughter, Sabina dear.”

When Alicia took her leave, promising to send up a nice cup of chamomile tea, Sabina found herself more exhausted than she would have expected from doing nothing. She glanced around, determined to occupy her mind in some way that would not leave it open to memories she was not ready to face. She pulled a novel off a shelf and sat down again by the window determined to read herself to sleep.

But she could not concentrate, even on
Guy Mannering
. A dutiful daughter, Alicia had called her. She had always hoped she was an affectionate one, too, but perhaps “dutiful” meant the same thing to Alicia.

Henry had been less approving on the drive home from Market Harborough, calling her an “unnatural child” for taking such violent exception to her father’s last wishes. He had wondered aloud why she had found it necessary to pretend to have lost her memory and pointed out, in the plain-spoken terms that only brothers could use, that her deception had been greater than Robert Ashton’s and if she did not mind her tongue, the family would think she was only having a temper tantrum and treat her accordingly.

She had put up no defense to this diatribe, having none, and Henry had apologized, even without Dulcie’s prompting, as quickly as his temper had flared. Sabina recognized it now as an expression of his concern, but that did not make him any the less perceptive in his judgment of her behavior.

Striving not to dwell on her faults, she passed a restless night, dropping off to sleep only to dream of gliding over the canal in a narrowboat. There never seemed to be anyone on the boat but herself, look in vain though she might for someone—anyone—else. She then woke herself with the fright but, too tired not to sleep, dropped off again only to wake with the same dream.

The next morning, she still did not care to descend to greet the family at breakfast, but had a tray sent up to her. Randolph, the next person to visit, found her finishing her meal and regarded the tray interestedly.

“I see that your—er, adventure has not robbed you of your appetite, despite Alicia’s dire prediction,” he remarked. “Dare we hope that you will rejoin the living today?”

Sabina regarded her brother’s impeccably tailored black coat and pantaloons and raised her eyebrows at him.

“A poor choice of phrase, perhaps,” he conceded. “I daresay the obligation to wear black may depress your spirits, although I fancy it suits me. What do you think?”

He turned around, offering his slim figure for inspection, and Sabina was forced to smile. Apparently, Randolph was going out of his way to be pleasant to her today; she must therefore humor him in this rare mood. “Anything becomes you, Randolph, and well you know it, so do not expect compliments from me. I see you have conquered your neckwear.”

“You heard about that little contretemps, did you? I would not have thought black muslin to be any different to my touch than white, but so it has proved. Manson has learnt his lesson, however, I do believe.”

“Will you take Manson with you when you remove to Stonehaven?”

“I shall be obliged to. No one else knows my tastes as well as he, and I certainly have no wish to train another man to take into account my—er, slight defects of figure in order to instruct my tailor.”

“You have no defects of figure, Randolph, and you are by far the handsomest of my brothers.”

“Do you think so?” he said, pleased despite this being an acknowledged fact among them. Randolph had few faults, but a niggling self-doubt he had never been able to banish was one of them; Sabina had always suspected that it was this that drove him to taunt his siblings and make game of innocent strangers.

“You should come and see Stonehaven, Sabina,” he offered magnanimously. “I have begun any number of renovations only in the last week. Perhaps I may give you some ideas for improvements to Carling.”

“I hardly think I want to turn Carling into a hunting box,” she replied. Randolph had naturally not given the matter any thought, but she was fully aware that she might never be able to live at Carling as she had planned.

Fortunately, Randolph had numerous topics of conversation at his command and did not linger on that one. Instead, he brought his sister up to date on tidbits of news and gossip he had received from his many correspondents, an account of the horse sale in Melton Mowbray three days earlier, and an excellent Greek wine he had unexpectedly encountered in a public house there and of which he was attempting to purchase a case for his cellars at Stonehaven.

“Which reminds me that I meant to bring along a new snuff box for your approval. I acquired it the same day I discovered the wine, and it was in fact my original purpose for the outing. It is silver, with turquoise panels—exquisite!”

“Do you remember, Randolph, when I was small and found an empty snuff box Papa had left in his study? He had intended to fill it, but was interrupted by something or other.”

“I remember. You took it, thinking it would make a charming house for your family of beetles.”

“Well, I fancied the rubies looked just like them, and of course I had no idea what the box was really used for. Poor Papa could not imagine where it had gone and was about to overcome his scruples and interrogate the entire staff when I came along bursting to show him my beetle-box!”

Brother and sister chatted in this manner for a full half hour, which left Sabina somewhat lighter in spirit, as Randolph always did when he was witty without being cutting. Yet when he had gone away again, she found herself brooding, even becoming a little annoyed that he had scarcely even enquired after her own health. Did he not care how she felt? She knew that this attitude was entirely irrational and unjustified on her part, but none of her feelings these days were familiar to her. She wished she could return to her old self quickly. She greatly feared that she never would.

Later that afternoon, it was Lewis who came to visit, wheeling himself into her room and deftly moving his chair into position in front of her. Unlike Randolph, he wasted no time in chatter and came immediately to his point.

“How are you feeling today, Sabina? I’ve asked Mrs. Carstairs to send up some barley water. I’m sure you must be parched up here with practically no food or water.”

“I am not precisely in solitary confinement, Lewis. You are my third visitor—or is it my thirtieth? I have lost count.”

“Perhaps we ought to send for a surgeon,” Lewis went on, as if she had not spoken, “or at least the apothecary to prescribe a restorative—or a paregoric, I can never remember which is which. Do you know, I heard about a widow in the village or county or somewhere who took her husband’s death so to heart that she refused to eat and was reduced to a shadow of herself? She took nothing but goat’s whey and cinnamon water and spent the short remainder of her days reclining on a sofa. They said it was a great pity, but I would call it a blessed release.”

He came to a halt, but Sabina did not immediately reply. She waited for an interminable moment before asking, “Are you quite finished, Lewis? Listen carefully now—
I am not ill
.”