A Mother's Secret (5 page)

‘If she’s so kind then why won’t she let you take me home with you?’

‘There are reasons, larla.’

Cassy sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘Me name’s Cassy, not larla.’

‘You must trust me, Cassy.’ Mahdu produced a reticule from beneath her cloak and from it she took a small silk purse, placing it on the table.

The clink of the coins brought an instant reaction from Biddy, who opened one eye and then the other. She snatched the purse, weighing it in her hand. ‘What d’you mean coming here in the daytime? Ain’t I told you to come after dark?’

‘You did, but I’m here now and I’m not happy with what I see.’ Mahdu rose to her feet, towering over Biddy with an air of superiority that impressed Cassy and seemed to make Biddy shrink in size.

‘Let’s see the colour of your money afore I throw you out on the street,’ Biddy said, tipping the coins from the purse. Golden sovereigns gleamed in the firelight and she picked one up to bite it between her remaining two teeth. ‘You’ve paid your dues, now get out.’

‘No,’ Cassy cried, rushing across the floor to fling her arms around Mahdu. ‘Don’t leave me, Ma.’

Biddy heaved her bulk from the chair, her mobcap awry. ‘Very touching. I won’t say a word if you get out of that door this minute.’

Cassy felt Mahdu stiffen and she was frightened. ‘Don’t take no notice of her, Ma. Take me with you now.’

‘I cannot, little one. But I will return, I promise you.’ Mahdu extricated herself from Cassy’s frantic grasp. ‘Be brave, larla. This cannot go on.’ She made for the door but Cassy ran after her, clinging to her skirts.

‘No, don’t leave me again, Ma. Not now you’ve found me. I’ll work for your lady. I’ll do anything if you’ll take me with you.’

Biddy’s hand shot out and she grabbed Cassy by the hair, jerking her roughly away from Mahdu. She glared at her, twisting Cassy’s long dark hair until she cried out in pain. ‘Keep your trap shut, woman,’ Biddy hissed. ‘I could set the paving stones on fire if I told what I know, so be warned.’

Mahdu hesitated in the doorway, her expression bleak. ‘We shall see.’ She left the room and at the sound of the front door opening and then closing again, Biddy released Cassy, throwing her across the room.

‘One word from you and I’ll slit your throat, you little bastard. We’ll see who has the upper hand.’

Chapter Three

Belinda sat in front of her dressing table, staring at her reflection in the mirror. The eyes that looked back at her were the same as they had always been, large and blue, fringed with long corn-coloured lashes, but the expression in them was not that of the young girl desperately in love. These were the eyes of a woman ten years older and wiser in the ways of the world but far from happy. In the room behind her she could see the reflected trappings of wealth and luxury that marriage to Sir Geoffrey Davenport had brought her. The elegant Louis Quinze furniture had been imported especially from France in order to please a young bride. The luxurious Chinese carpet in pastel shades of pink and blue complemented the swags and curtains at the tall Georgian windows of their town house in South Audley Street, and exactly matched the hangings on the four-poster bed. The cut-glass jars and perfume bottles and the silver-backed hairbrushes and mirror set neatly on the table in front of her went unnoticed and were taken for granted. The diamond rings on her fingers and the earrings that sparkled with each movement of her head meant nothing when compared to the hollow where once her heart had beaten for joy at the sound of a man’s voice and the touch of his hand.

Belinda studied the looking-glass and Lady Davenport stared back at her, still young and beautiful at the age of twenty-seven, but a pale shadow of her former self. She sighed and her lips curved into a wry smile. She might be known as an accomplished and charming hostess and the wife of an eminent diplomat, but only she and Mahdu knew that the woman who moved about London society with such grace and apparent ease was a living ghost, a polished gem with no feelings or desires other than to sparkle and be admired. Belinda’s heart was buried with the love of her life in a far distant grave, and the child whom she adored had been wrested from her arms the moment their ship had docked in London. Tears welled in her eyes as she remembered that foggy day in February when her three-month-old baby had been taken from her. She could still feel the tug of that tiny but insistent mouth on her nipples as she had given Cassandra her last feed, and the pain of her breasts engorged with milk that continued to flow for days after the baby was spirited away. Only Mahdu knew of her suffering, and it was she who had found a woman to care for the innocent love-child, whose only crime was to be born out of wedlock. Belinda dashed away the tears that trickled down her cheeks. Today was her daughter’s tenth birthday, but there was little likelihood that she would ever see her child again.

She rested her forehead on her hand, trying hard to suppress the bitterness she still felt for her father, who had died not in battle but from an attack of cholera three years previously in the military hospital in Delhi. He had been the one who engineered her marriage to Sir Geoffrey, who at the time was a widowed district officer who had elected to return to London, having accepted a prestigious position in the Foreign Office. Their courtship had of necessity been brief, fitted in between Sir Geoffrey’s return to Delhi from Peshawar and his passage back to England. There had been the formal introduction, followed by well-chaperoned meetings that culminated in a rather stilted proposal of marriage in the grounds of the Red Fort. Schooled by her father and caring little what happened to her, she had accepted politely but with little enthusiasm. If Sir Geoffrey had been disappointed by her lukewarm response he did not show it; in fact he seemed relieved to have brought the matter to a satisfactory conclusion. It was, as Belinda told Mahdu later, as if he had negotiated a truce between warring factions and could retire from the battlefield with honours. He had kissed her hand and then, strangest of all, had blurted out the fact that he had a five-year-old son living in England and did not want to go through all that wretched business of having another child. He must, he had said gruffly, make that plain from the start so that she understood the situation and accepted the fact that there would be no issue from their union. He might have expanded on this further, but Colonel Phillips and the rest of the party emerged from the Red Fort ready it seemed to offer their congratulations even before the engagement had been announced. Belinda was to discover later that Sir Geoffrey’s first wife, again a much younger woman, had died in childbirth, for which he blamed his son and heir. Young Oliver had been left at home in the care of a nanny and under the aegis of Sir Geoffrey’s eccentric aunt, Mrs Flora Fulford-Browne.

Belinda laid her hand on her flat stomach, remembering how she had been kept out of sight as soon as the pregnancy began to show. What stories her father had invented to cover her non-appearance at functions she had never bothered to ask, but she and Mahdu had been sent to Bombay at the earliest opportunity. They stayed in the home of a retired army captain and his Indian wife, and it was there in a small room at the back of the house that Cassandra Phillips had been born. The labour had been long and difficult and Belinda had been certain she was dying, but the Scottish doctor who attended her had been brusque and to the point, never allowing sympathy to cloud his professional judgement. Mahdu had been at her side the whole time, bathing her forehead with cool water fragranced with rose petals and giving her sips of sweet coconut milk in an attempt to keep up her strength. When it was all over, Belinda had held her baby in her arms and for the first time since she heard of George’s death, she felt something other than grief. She fell in love all over again but this time it was with their daughter. She was the most perfect and beautiful thing that Belinda had ever seen, but reality was soon to overshadow her joy and a week later they were on a ship bound for England.

‘My lady, I am come.’

Belinda turned with a start at the sound of Mahdu’s voice. ‘You’ve seen her? Did you speak to her? How is she? Is she well and happy?’ The words tumbled from her lips, culminating in a sob.

‘I saw her and I spoke to her, larla. But all is not well.’

‘What do you mean? Is she sick?’ Belinda’s hand flew to her throat. She could feel her heart beating at twice its normal rate and she could hardly breathe. ‘Tell me, Mahdu.’

‘We knew that the place was not ideal, but until now I had only seen it at night, and the woman we trusted with our precious pearl was drunk today. She was dead to the world and stinking. It was all I could do to keep from snatching the little one up in my arms and bringing her home.’

‘This is terrible news.’ Belinda stared at her maidservant, barely able to imagine the conditions in which her only child was living. ‘Why didn’t you notice this before? How could you have visited there every year on her birthday and not seen that she was living in squalor?’

Mahdu clasped her hands together, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘You have led a sheltered life, larla. You know nothing of how poor people live either in India or in London. If there was to be secrecy then this was the only way. Believe me, it hurt my heart to leave the baby in a slum with that woman, but she was supposed to be one of the best, and your gold was the insurance needed to keep your child alive. Others in similar circumstances are not so fortunate.’

Belinda stared at her in astonishment. This was the longest speech she had ever heard coming from Mahdu’s lips, and she realised that it was the plain and simple truth. A shaft of pain made her clutch her chest as if a dagger had pierced her heart. She had brought this terrible plight on the one person in the world who truly belonged to her: the child born out of the love she had shared with George. If only she had been honest with Geoffrey from the outset, but she had been very young and controlled by a domineering father as well as the mores of the times. But surely, she thought desperately, it would have been better to suffer disgrace and public ostracism than to bear the loss of her baby and to put her child’s life in jeopardy. She raised her eyes to Mahdu’s face and saw her pain mirrored in her trusted servant’s eyes. ‘What is she like, my baby girl?’

‘She is brave and good. She looks like you but she has her father’s dark hair and the eyes of a young doe, big and trusting yet fearful. She looks after tiny babies as if she were their mother. They call her Cassy.’

‘Cassy.’ Belinda savoured the name, repeating it over and over again. ‘What have I done, Mahdu? How can I atone for my sins?’

‘You are not the wicked one, larla. You were forced to give up your child by others. It is they who are to blame.’

Mahdu’s loyalty brought a smile to Belinda’s lips but her words were small comfort. ‘I gave my baby up for all this.’ She dismissed the opulence and luxury of her surroundings with a wave of her hand. ‘I allowed myself to be bought and sold like a commodity, and in doing so I lost my soul. I must do something for her and I want to see her for myself. I can’t live a lie any longer, Mahdu.’ She bowed her head and her slender body was wracked by sobs.

‘There must be a way. We will think of one.’ Kneeling at Belinda’s side, Mahdu wrapped her arms around her, rocking and comforting her as she had done years ago when her mistress was a small child, but startled by a sudden rapping on the door she clambered to her feet.

‘Wh-who is it?’ Belinda asked, taking a handkerchief from one of the dressing table drawers.

‘It is I, my dear.’ Sir Geoffrey’s voice sounded tentative and almost apologetic, as if he were overstepping his conjugal rights by visiting his wife in the afternoon.

‘Tell him I’m asleep,’ Belinda said, mopping her eyes with the scrap of fine cambric and lace.

Mahdu went to open the door. ‘Her ladyship is resting, Sir Geoffrey.’ She held the door slightly ajar making it impossible for him to see into the room.

‘I’m afraid this won’t wait.’

Taking a powder puff from a glass bowl, Belinda dabbed at her red nose and rising hastily she moved to the chaise longue by the fireplace. ‘Come in, Geoffrey.’

Mahdu left the room as Sir Geoffrey entered. He regarded his wife with an anxious frown. ‘Are you feeling unwell, my dear?’

The winter sun had already set and the shadows in the room were lengthening. Belinda had her back to the fire and she welcomed the half-light. ‘I’m a little tired, Geoffrey.’

He nodded his head. ‘You had a luncheon appointment with Adele Pettifer, I believe.’

‘It was in aid of the Houseless Poor. We serve together on the charity committee with several others.’

A glimmer of a smile flickered in Sir Geoffrey’s grey eyes. ‘No wonder you are exhausted, my dear. You must conserve your strength, you know.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what for, but not wanting to hurt his feelings she held her tongue. Geoffrey was undemanding when it came to wifely duties in the bedchamber, and although that in itself was a relief she would have welcomed an occasional show of genuine affection. They had had separate bedrooms from the beginning, and their union had not been consummated for several weeks after the wedding. Even then it had been a brief encounter, repeated infrequently since that time. Sir Geoffrey was a polite lover, considerate but embarrassed as if the act was slightly distasteful and warranted an apology afterwards. If Belinda had not known love with George she might have gone through her married life completely oblivious to passion and ecstasy. ‘Did you want something, Geoffrey?’

‘I’m afraid I have received rather disturbing news.’ He paced the room with his hands clasped behind his back. ‘My son, Oliver, has been expelled from Eton.’

His expression was so tragic that Belinda had an almost irrepressible desire to laugh. ‘Oh, dear. I’m so sorry,’ she murmured, holding her handkerchief to her lips. For a moment she had thought it was something terrible that he was about to tell her, but knowing Olly’s ebullient nature he should have been prepared for something of the sort.

‘It’s such a dreadful thing to happen.’ Sir Geoffrey continued pacing. ‘Such a disgrace. Nothing like this has ever occurred in the Davenport family during the last five hundred years.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t his fault?’

He stopped in front of her, his eyes bleak even as his lips made an attempt at a smile. ‘You are too kind, Belinda. You have a generous nature, my dear. But Oliver is fifteen, almost a man, and he ought to know better.’

‘What did he do?’ Intrigued, Belinda forgot her own problems for a moment.

‘He got drunk. I can’t bear to repeat what he did when inebriated but it led to his expulsion. He’s downstairs in the morning parlour as we speak.’

Concern for the boy brought Belinda to her feet. ‘You haven’t left him there all on his own, have you, Geoffrey? Is he all right? Has he eaten?’

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t ask.’

Belinda signalled to Mahdu. ‘Go and see if Master Oliver wants for anything, please. Tell him I’ll be down as soon as I’ve dressed.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

Mahdu hurried from the room, leaving husband and wife facing each other. Sir Geoffrey glanced down at Belinda’s breasts which were revealed as her peignoir had slipped from her shoulders, and he averted his eyes, a faint flush colouring his pale cheeks. ‘Thank you, my dear. I’m afraid I’m not good at these things. I have a meeting with the Secretary of State in half an hour and I mustn’t be late.’

Belinda clutched the soft folds of silk and Brussels lace to cover her exposed flesh. ‘I understand. Don’t worry about Oliver, I’ll look after him.’

‘Don’t spoil the boy, Belinda. I’ll have stern words to say to him on my return.’ Sir Geoffrey made to leave the room but hesitated, glancing back at her over his shoulder. ‘I’ll send your maid to help you get dressed. You’ll embarrass the boy if sees you en déshabillé.’ He stalked from the room clearing his throat as if he had just said something shocking.