Inherit the Skies (21 page)

Blanche swept across to the window, a stately figure in a chiffon blouse of dove grey and full gored skirt in rich blue poplin. Blue velvet bows on the blouse swayed gracefully, blue ear bobs skimmed the high lace collar. So completely did Blanche seem to blend with the room that Sarah found herself wondering incongruously if she changed the decor to match her clothes.

‘Now, madam.' Blanche turned abruptly, hands folded in front of her, cold eyes fixed on Sarah, and all such foolish thoughts fled the girl's mind. ‘I think it is high time you and I had a little talk.'

Sarah stood quite still, returning her gaze.

‘What have you to say for yourself?' Blanche demanded.

‘I … I suppose it is about yesterday,' Sarah faltered.

‘You suppose correctly,' Blanche snapped. ‘How do you explain your behaviour?'

‘I – it wasn't my fault,' Sarah said lamely. ‘I only came to the stables to see Sweet Lass and …'

‘Really!' Blanche snorted. ‘ Would that that were all there were to it! Unfortunately it is not. You came here deliberately to try to throw yourself at Mister Hugh. Isn't that closer to the truth?'

‘No …' Sarah broke off, wondering how she could explain without denouncing Hugh to his stepmother. Even now, frightened as she was by the turn their relationship had taken, she felt a fierce loyalty to him. Blanche had always treated her as an intruder while Hugh … ‘No, it's not true,' she said, trembling.

‘Please don't compound your behaviour with lies!' Blanche snapped. ‘The boys have already told me what happened since I demanded an explanation of their injuries. You lured Hugh into the stable and attempted to seduce him, something I believe you have aspired to for some time now. I was afraid of something of the sort happening one day. I foresaw it from the moment Gilbert brought you here and I tried to tell him so, but he would have none of it. Well now I have been proved correct. Oh!' She raised a slim hand, gesticulating at the empty air, ‘I suppose you are not entirely to blame. That sort of behaviour was born in you. It's in your blood. Your mother … Gilbert could not see it. He is a good man – too good – and he mistakenly believed he could do something for you and prevent you from falling into her ways. Well, he was wrong, wasn't he? Blood will out!'

Sarah's brow furrowed. ‘I don't understand …'

‘Don't you? I think you do. Just what you had in mind I am not certain. Perhaps you meant to compromise Mr Hugh, inveigle yourself into a position where he would feel compelled to make an honest woman of you, something your mother, with all her wiles, was never able to accomplish. Perhaps you merely wanted an adventure. I don't know – and neither do I very much care. All I do know is that I cannot – will not – have you behaving in this way under my roof. Quite apart from leading Mr Hugh astray I have to consider the effect you could have on the others. Mr Hugh will be off soon to Sandhurst but in his absence you might turn to Leo or even James. And your influence on Alicia could be quite disastrous.'

Sarah gazed at Blanche almost unable to comprehend what she was saying. Not only was she accusing her of being the instigator of what had happened between her and Hugh, was she truly suggesting that she might become involved with the hateful Leo or little James, still scarcely more than a child? It was monstrous! And as for influencing Alicia – it would be almost amusing if it were not so ridiculous – and serious. Alicia despised her. She would sooner die than copy Sarah in anything she did.

If I
had
done anything, Sarah thought. And I haven't – I haven't!

‘I have thought this over carefully,' Blanche was continuing, ‘and I have come to a decision. If Gilbert were here he could deal with the situation but he is not. He is still in France and likely to be there for a few weeks yet. I have decided this matter is too serious to await his return. It needs to be dealt with immediately. You cannot be allowed to remain in proximity to this family for another day, Sarah.'

‘What do you mean?' Sarah asked, trembling. I mean that I am going to send you away,' Blanche said coolly.

‘Send me away? But where?'

Blanche raised a hand to smooth her elegant chignon. Her hand gleamed palely as the sun, streaming through the window, caught the creamy skin and the gold rings she wore.

‘Since this appalling story was relayed to me I have been busy,' she said. ‘I have friends in Essex. They recently lost one of their maid servants when she married and was foolish enough to find herself in the family way. I have spoken to them and out of friendship to me they have agreed to take you on in her place. You start there immediately.'

Sarah was speechless. The unfairness of this entire interview had left her shell-shocked and she was frighteningly aware that nothing she could say would make a scrap of difference now. Blanche had made up her mind that she was to blame for the whole incident and she would not be swayed.

‘Go back to the farm and get your things together,' she said coldly. ‘Tom will take you to Bristol and put you on a train. Perhaps well away from this family you will come to your senses, though I doubt it.' She glanced at her watch, pinned to the chiffon blouse. ‘Tom will come for you in an hour. You had better be ready. Now this interview is at an end.'

Sarah drew herself up, distraught but determined not to humble herself before Blanche. She raised her chin and her eyes met Blanche's squarely.

‘What will Mr Morse say when he comes home and finds me gone?'

Blanche shrugged. ‘I believe he will be of the opinion I have acted in the best interests of all concerned. Especially when he hears how you have abused his kindness and generosity.'

Horror flooded through Sarah. She could not bear the thought of Gilbert hearing this appalling story – believing it even. Let Blanche think what she liked – but not Mr Morse! Oh, not Mr Morse …

‘Please – you've got it all wrong …' she whispered.

Blanche's mouth tightened and she reached for the bell pull.

‘I do not wish to hear another word. Now – will you leave of your own accord or must I ring for someone to show you out?'

Sarah turned, lifting her chin again.

‘It's all right, Mrs Morse. I'm going.'

‘Good. And I can only hope, Sarah, that you have the grace to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.'

With those parting words ringing in her ears Sarah left Blanche Morse's sitting-room.

The tears were pricking at her eyes as she emerged from the house and she blinked them fiercely away. She would not cry. She would not! Bad things had happened to her before. Worse. Nothing could be as bad as her mother dying.

It was Mr Morse thinking badly of her that really hurt. And having to leave without ever seeing Sweet Lass's foal.

I must say goodbye to her, Sarah thought.

She went around to the stables, half afraid of entering them again after what had happened there yesterday yet determined to overcome her fear.

In the dim interior Sweet Lass poked her nose over the door of her stall enquiringly, muzzling Sarah and looking for her usual sugar.

‘I haven't got any, Sweet Lass,' Sarah said. ‘ I won't be bringing you any ever again.' A tear escaped and rolled down her nose. She wiped it away and buried her face in the mare's neck. ‘Goodbye, my darling horse. They'll look after you and your foal. You'll have her soon, you'll see.' The tears were blinding her. She could not bear to prolong the goodbye. She dropped a kiss on Sweet Lass's muzzle and left the stable without a backward glance. Hugh was in the stableyard on Satan, his hunter. He saw her and looked quickly away. A shaft of desperation lent her courage. She ran towards him.

‘Hugh – oh Hugh, she's sending me away!'

He bent to check his girth fastening, unable to meet her eyes.

‘I know.'

‘Hugh, she's got it all wrong! She thinks that I … Oh Hugh, please, you've got to tell them it wasn't my fault!'

He looked up. She saw the evasion in his face.

‘What do you mean?'

‘You've got to tell her I wasn't to blame! She said I … seduced you!'

His mouth lifted at one corner but without any of his usual humour.

‘Well – didn't you?'

‘You know I didn't!'

‘You could have stopped me,' he said stubbornly. ‘You wanted it, Sarah, just as I did.'

‘But I didn't seduce you! You must tell them …'

He looked away again.

‘My father would kill me if he thought that I …'

‘And what about me?'

‘I'm sorry, Sarah,' he said. ‘There's nothing I can do that would make any difference.'

He touched Satan with his heels and the horse began to move away.

On the point of running after him, Sarah checked herself. It was as useless to plead with Hugh as with Blanche. He would never admit to his father that he had been the instigator. Well she wasn't going to beg. At least she still had her pride.

‘All right, Hugh, but I hope you're satisfied,' she called after him. ‘I hope you can sleep at night. And I hope at Sandhurst they make you into an officer
and
a gentleman!'

He did not answer. With a quick proud flick of her head Sarah tossed her hair back over her shoulder. She turned on her heel and walked out of the yard. Hugh did not see her tears, nor she his.

Deedham Green, the home of Blanche's friends the Carsons, stood bleak and isolated on the Cooling Marshes, silent and morose but for the whistling of the wind in its tall chimneys and the mournful cries of the curlews, its grey walls seeming to merge and blend into the swirling mists which crept up the estuary with the tides. When she had been there a day Sarah knew she hated it, after a month she felt that its desolation was invading her very soul.

The house was dark and draughty, pervaded by a dank chill which emanated from the centuries-old walls and the flagged floors even on those rare days when the sun broke through the thick river mist and a musty smell hung in the rooms, overcrowded with Victorian bric-a-brac and faded glories of days gone by which she was required to clean, polish and dust until she felt her arms would drop off.

Each morning she rose with the dawn, washing and dressing herself in the little attic room which looked out over the marshes and hurried down the back stairs to the cheerless flagged kitchen to begin the endless round of tasks which had been allocated to her. There were floors to scrub and grates to be blackleaded, heavy scuttles of coal to be filled and endless piles of dishes and stacks of greasy pots and pans to be washed and all beneath the eagle eye of Mrs Edgell, the Carsons' ill-tempered cook-housekeeper, whose nature seemed to have been soured by the loneliness and the creeping mists until she was virtually impossible to please, and Mr Smith, the pompous fault-finding butler whose chief mission in life was to make himself important by belittling others.

Apart from Emily, the ladies' maid, who never demeaned herself by undertaking any of the menial tasks below stairs, and a greasy looking woman who came in from the nearby village to assist when the Carsons entertained, Sarah was the only servant so she was not only lonely but also run almost literally off her feet and she sometimes paused to wonder how it was that her predecessor, whom she had never heard referred to by name, had found the opportunity to meet a young man at all, much less become pregnant by him. But she felt no spark of envy for the unknown girl who had, she considered, merely exchanged one form of slavery for another. More fool her! Sarah thought scornfully. More fool her to let a man near her! And fury at Hugh and what he had done to her burned in her so fiercely and painfully it almost frightened her, along with relief that she had not shared the unknown girl's fate.

Sometimes, lying in bed too tired to sleep, Sarah wondered about the connection between Blanche and the Carsons. They were, she thought, the most unlikely people for the worldly and sophisticated Blanche to have selected for her friends. The Misses Carson, Catherine and Olivia, were a strange pair, stiffly correct and depressingly dowdy in their dresses of heavy grey and bottle green serge which no doubt helped to keep out the creeping cold of the marshes but which would, in Sarah's opinion, have been more suitable for a housekeeper of years gone by than for gentlefolk of means in the bright new century, while their brother, Sir Percy, was choleric and gouty. All three lived strictly celibate lives, Sir Percy taking his comfort from the brandy bottle,
The Times
crossword and the form pages of the racing papers, the women working at needlepoint and maintaining their position as pillars of the local church. As young women they had been engaged to be married, Emily their ladies' maid had told Sarah when in a rare communicative mood, but their beaux had been killed in the Crimea. As for Sir Percy, he had been married once, but his wife had had a weak heart and an even weaker mind and she had died young leaving no children. Frankly Sarah found it difficult to believe the Misses Carson could ever have been young and in love and since faded portraits in the drawing-room were the only evidence that any of the three had ever existed Sarah sometimes wondered if they had been dreamed up, figments of the imagination, like characters in the novels of Jane Austen and George Eliot with which they peopled their otherwise barren lives.

During those first weeks at Deedham Green two things kept Sarah going. One was the anger at the way she had been treated. The other was the faint hope that when he returned from France and found her gone Gilbert would seek her out and whisk her away from the prison to which Blanche had sentenced her. How he would accomplish this she did not know for clearly there was no place for her now at Chewton Leigh but she could not believe he would abandon her totally. He had saved her once before when she had been in the depths of despair and Sarah had implicit faith in his ability to do so again if he chose to do so. But as the weeks passed with no word from him hope began to fade. It revived briefly when one morning Sarah overheard Mr Smith reading to Mrs Edgell from his newspaper that a Mr Santos Dumont had made a short flight in an aeroplane somewhere in France. Perhaps, Sarah thought, Gilbert had extended his visit in order to see Mr Santos Dumont get his aeroplane into the air, and as yet knew nothing of what had happened during his absence. But her hopes that he might yet seek her out when he found her missing were clouded by the sickening certainty that Blanche would justify herself at Sarah's expense. Every time she thought of the story Blanche would tell, of the distorted version of the truth she would present, Sarah felt as if the whole of her inside was curling up like a piece of paper crinkling and shrivelling in the heat of a fire. She thought she would have died rather than have Gilbert believe that she had betrayed his confidence in her in such a despicable way, and as the weeks passed with no word from him she was forced to the unwilling conclusion that this was indeed the case. Blanche had told him of her disgrace and he had believed her version of events. The knowledge was a leaden weight in her heart, dragging her down, shackling her. And when hope was gone there was nothing left but the anger.