Nightingales Under the Mistletoe (34 page)

Thankfully Sarah made it through the night, but the next morning she was still in a very bad way. Janet Carr had been right, she'd suffered a traumatic haemorrhage brought on by her baby's sudden and dramatic birth. Mr Cooper the Senior Surgical Officer had operated to stitch up the torn artery but Sarah had still lost a lot of blood, and no one seemed to know if she would pull through or not.

‘It wouldn't be so bad if she weren't so weak and malnourished,' Janet Carr told Jess when she went up to the Maternity Ward to check on the patient during her break. ‘I'm not sure she's got any fight left in her.'

‘Oh, she's a fighter, all right,' Jess said. ‘Don't you worry about that.'

‘What about the baby? Have you seen her?'

Jess nodded. ‘I popped down to the nursery before I came up here. She's doing well.' Considering the child was a month early she was already as bright as a button, with her a shock of black hair and her mother's green eyes.

‘Well, I hope she pulls through, for the baby's sake,' Janet said. But she didn't seem convinced.

Jess thought about the ring in her pocket, and the promise she had made to Sarah.

If anything happens to me …

Perhaps Sarah felt the ring was cursed, she thought. After all, she hadn't had much luck since she'd stolen it. Perhaps that was why she wanted to give it back, in the hope that her fortunes would change.

Mrs Huntley-Osborne lived in a grand Georgian house at the far end of the main street, with a commanding view of the village. So she could keep an eye on her subjects, Jess thought.

Jess wasn't looking forward to seeing the woman again. But she had made a promise to Sarah, and she meant to keep it.

The maid showed her into an elegant drawing room with pale lemon walls and dove-grey silk upholstery. A grand piano dominated the room, its polished ebony surface covered with a forest of photographs in silver frames. There were pictures of Mrs Huntley-Osborne as a young girl, playing tennis and sitting astride a horse. There was a wedding photograph, and various pictures of a timid-looking man Jess took to be the late Mr Huntley-Osborne.

But most of the photographs were of the same subject: a handsome dark-haired boy. There were pictures of him as a baby in rompers, of him as a schoolboy winning a prize, in a student's cap and gown. The biggest was one of him looking smart in a Royal Navy uniform, smiling at the camera, a proud glint in his dark eyes.

Jess picked it up and studied it. This must be Mrs Huntley-Osborne's son, she decided. Now she came to look more closely, she could see he had his mother's prominent brow and long nose. But somehow it looked better on him.

‘Put that down!'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne's cry nearly made Jess drop the photograph. She stood in the doorway, her steely gaze fixed on Jess.

‘I was only looking.'

‘I'd rather you didn't touch anything.' Mrs Huntley-Osborne advanced into the room and took the photograph from her. She wiped an invisible mark off the silver frame with her sleeve, then replaced it carefully on the piano, in exactly the same position. ‘My maid said you wanted to see me. You'll have to make it quick, I'm due at a committee meeting in half an hour.'

‘I won't keep you. I only came to give you this …'

Jess handed her the ring. Mrs Huntley-Osborne stared down at it, a curious look on her face.

‘Where did you get this?' she asked.

‘Sarah gave it to me. She said she wanted you to have it back.' Jess looked at her. ‘It is the one she took from you, isn't it?'

‘It's my mother's ring.' Mrs Huntley-Osborne didn't take her eyes from it, turning it round and round in her fingers. ‘And she told you to give this to me, you say?'

Jess watched her warily, a thought occurring to her. ‘She won't be in any trouble, will she? Not now she's given it back?'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne looked up at her blankly. ‘But I don't understand … why would she return it?'

Jess shrugged. ‘I don't know. Just wanted to make amends, I suppose.' She paused. ‘She's in hospital. She gave birth to her baby last night.'

The other woman frowned. ‘But surely the child wasn't due for another month?'

‘She was born early. Took us all by surprise, she did.'

‘She?' Mrs Huntley-Osborne interrupted. ‘It's a girl? How is she?'

‘She's very well. I just wish I could say the same for her poor mother.'

‘Why? What's wrong with her?'

Jess stared at her, surprised. For someone who loathed Sarah, this woman was taking a great interest in her suddenly.' She's fighting for her life. The birth was very traumatic … We still don't know if she's going to pull through or not.'

‘How very – unfortunate.' Mrs Huntley-Osborne's stiff mask was back in place.

‘Yes, it is,' Jess agreed. ‘If Sarah dies, that baby won't have a soul left in the world.'

‘I suppose not.' Mrs Huntley-Osborne's gaze shifted to the photographs on the piano. She seemed lost in thought, oblivious to Jess and everything around her.

Jess followed the other woman's gaze towards the photograph of the good-looking sailor. ‘Is that your son?' she said.

Mrs Huntley-Osborne nodded. ‘Clifford.'

‘He's very handsome.'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne gave her a sad smile. ‘He was. He was killed in the North Atlantic six months ago.'

Jess looked at the young man in the photograph and then back at Mrs Huntley-Osborne. And suddenly everything clicked into place.

‘
IT WASN'T THE
ring,' she said.

Mrs Huntley-Osborne shot her a sharp look. ‘I beg your pardon?'

‘It wasn't the ring that Sarah stole from you, was it? It was him. Your son.'

Something very precious, she'd said. Something that could never be replaced. At the time, Jess had assumed she was talking about a valuable piece of jewellery. But now, seeing Mrs Huntley-Osborne's face, she realised that the ring meant little to her compared to the loss of her son.

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' Mrs Huntley-Osborne said, but her face betrayed her.

‘What happened?' Jess said. ‘Did he fall in love with Sarah?'

‘I think it's time you left.' She reached for the bell to summon the maid, but Jess didn't move.

‘I suppose that must have been difficult for you to accept, your son falling in love with the housemaid.'

‘He didn't fall in love with her!' Mrs Huntley-Osborne snapped. ‘If you must know, Sarah trapped him. Clifford was an impressionable young man, and she managed to twist him round her little finger. By the time I realised what was going on, she was pregnant. And of course, just as she'd planned, Clifford felt he had to do right by her.' Mrs Huntley-Osborne's mouth was a tight, bitter line.

‘So he gave her the ring?'

‘He had no right to do that – and she had no right to take it. Scheming little minx!' Her face was taut. ‘Sarah knew exactly what she was doing. She stole my son from me.'

‘Has it ever occurred to you that he wanted to marry her because he loved her?'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne turned on Jess, temper flaring. ‘How could he possibly be in love with that – that creature?' Her mouth curled. ‘I brought him up better than that. He was well educated, cultured. I made sure he went to the best school and the best university money could buy. He had ambition, he was going to be a doctor. How could someone like my son ever fall in love with a workhouse girl who could barely write her own name?'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne had answered her own question, Jess thought. If Clifford Huntley-Osborne had grown up being pushed through life by an ambitious, forceful mother, he might well be attracted to a girl who was completely the opposite.

‘Sarah might not have been educated, but she wasn't stupid,' Mrs Huntley-Osborne went on. ‘Oh, no, she was as cunning as a sewer rat. The way she pursued him … Clifford had another girlfriend at the time … Evelyn Allen, the ward sister at the hospital? But once Sarah Newland got her claws into him, he dropped poor Evelyn completely. And she was such a nice girl, too.'

There was nothing nice about Sister Allen, Jess thought. Poor Clifford had had a lucky escape. But Sister Allen and his mother were both cut from the same cloth. Mrs Huntley-Osborne had probably hand picked his wife-to-be for him, the way she'd picked his expensive education.

And perhaps Clifford had been willing to go along with it, until Sarah Newland came along and showed him there might be a different way to live his life. She was his last, bold bid for freedom.

Jess could understand why Mrs Huntley-Osborne might dislike the girl so much. Not only did she have to cope with the shame of having a housemaid for a daughter-in-law, and a pregnant one at that, but Sarah was a free spirit, who wouldn't be controlled like Evelyn Allen.

‘None of this would have happened if Clifford had taken my advice,' Mrs Huntley-Osborne continued. ‘I said we could make other arrangements. I even offered the girl money to go away and have the baby quietly, then give it up for adoption. I told him: just because you've made a mistake, it doesn't mean you have to spend the rest of your life paying for it.'

‘And what did he say to that?'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne's nostrils flared. ‘He told me he had no intention of turning his back on his child or the woman he loved. But that was Sarah talking, not him,' she insisted. ‘She got inside his head, made him think differently.' Mrs Huntley-Osborne swallowed hard. ‘We were estranged when he died. I didn't get the chance to say goodbye.'

She stole from me … something precious
. No wonder Jess had thought Mrs Huntley-Osborne was talking about a ring. She talked about her son as if he were a possession.

‘Perhaps he loved her?' Jess said quietly.

Mrs Huntley-Osborne sent her a cold stare. ‘I know – knew – my son,' she said. ‘He would have grown bored with her eventually. But as it is …' Her voice faded. ‘He died before the situation could resolve itself.'

‘And so you threw Sarah out. I bet you couldn't wait to do that, could you?'

‘What else could I do? Besides, I only had her word for it that Clifford was the baby's father. For all I knew it could have been any one of a dozen men.' Her lip curled. ‘You can hardly trust the word of a common maid, can you?'

Jess's hands balled into fists at her sides, and it was all she could do not to launch herself at Mrs Huntley-Osborne's smug, superior face. But she kept her temper with a supreme effort.

‘Your son is the father,' she said, glancing at the photograph on the piano. ‘If you saw the baby, you'd know she was the spitting image.'

‘I don't want to see her!' There was real panic in Mrs Huntley-Osborne's voice. ‘I don't want to have anything to do with her or her mother.'

‘Is that why you've been trying to drive Sarah out of the village? Because you didn't want to see your own grandchild?'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne winced at the word. ‘I want nothing to do with either of them,' she repeated. ‘I loathe that girl for what she did to my family. She took my son away from me, drove a wedge between us during the last few precious months of Clifford's life. I'll never forgive her for that.'

‘And now she could be dying,' Jess said. ‘I'd say you've more than had your revenge, wouldn't you?'

‘That's very unfair,' Mrs Huntley-Osborne said. ‘I didn't cause her illness, did I?'

‘No, but you could help her.'

‘How?'

‘By taking in her child if anything happens to her.'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne reared back in her seat. ‘Certainly not! How could I possibly do that, without giving people cause to talk?'

‘Let them.' Jess shrugged.

‘That's very easy for you to say, I'm sure,' Mrs Huntley-Osborne snapped. ‘But I have my position in this village to consider. People look up to me …'

‘And that's more important than your own flesh and blood, is it?' Jess said. ‘Look at yourself. You live in one of the biggest houses in the village, and you have no one to share it with. You spend all your time on committees and everything else just to keep busy and stop yourself being lonely. Don't deny it because it's true,' she added, seeing Mrs Huntley-Osborne opening her mouth to protest. ‘But in spite of all that, you would rather see your own granddaughter sent to an orphanage than claim her!'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne looked scornful. ‘They're not my family.'

‘No, but they could be,' Jess tried to reason with her. ‘I know Sarah might not be the girl you'd choose as your daughter-in-law, but she was the girl your son fell in love with, and surely that should be good enough for you? Besides,' she went on, ‘I think you'd actually like her if you stopped seeing each other as the enemy and took the trouble to get to know one another.'

Mrs Huntley-Osborne laughed harshly. ‘I can assure you, that will not happen! Hell would freeze over before I ever accepted that woman in my house.' She reached for the bell, ringing it in agitation.

‘If that's how you feel about it, there's nothing else to be said, is there?' Jess said. ‘But just think about this. Sarah kept your secret all these months. She didn't even tell me, and I'm supposed to be her friend. She did it for your sake, out of love for Clifford.'

The maid appeared at the doorway. ‘Miss Jago is leaving,' Mrs Huntley-Osborne said. But she sounded less sure of herself than she had a moment before.

Jess followed the maid to the door, then turned to look back. ‘At least go and see them,' she pleaded. ‘Talk to Sarah, while you can, for your son's sake. And your grandchild's.'

EFFIE SAT AT
a corner table in the Keeper's Rest, watching her future husband flirting with the woman behind the bar.