Dorothy Eden (8 page)

It did not take long to discover which rooms, on the first floor, were Blane’s and Amalie’s. The door she first opened was obviously Lady Malvina’s, for such a fug of coal smoke and scented cologne and woollen garments came from the room that she withdrew quickly.

The next door she tried led to the master bedroom. The gas had been left burning low, and she could see the wide bed with its elaborate headboard, the carved ceiling, the glint of mirrors and shine of Amalie’s discarded silk gown. A maid might come at any moment to tidy up, and turn down the bed. Sarah moved swiftly, startled that she possessed such daring. What was she looking for? She didn’t know. Just anything significant that caught her eye which she could add to her magpie hoard of information. Strangely enough there was no sign of masculine occupation of this room. The dressing-table held nothing but Amalie’s possessions, the wardrobes only women’s clothing. But of course here was the communicating door leading to Blane’s room.

Dare she open it? Sarah held her breath and turned the knob.

But the door didn’t open. It was locked on the other side.

It took only a moment to tiptoe quickly down the passage and open the main door which showed that it certainly was Blane’s room. Smaller than the bedroom next door, it yet was a finely proportioned room. The bed was quite narrow, and Blane, at present, obviously occupied it alone.

Her cheeks hot, Sarah silently closed the door and left. She had stumbled on more than she had bargained for. This, at least, was none of her business, and she was ashamed of herself for discovering it.

But she must not let herself be deterred. Her real goal was the library. If there were any papers to be discovered, they would be in the desk behind which Blane had sat the other day. There would be plenty of time to make a search while the family was at dinner, and her chances of being disturbed there were much less. If she were, she could make the excuse that she had come to look for a book to read.

She had to descend the stairs and actually pass the dining-room door. It was almost closed, however, and safely past she could not resist stopping to listen a moment.

The only person talking was Lady Malvina, and she was doing so with her usual garrulity, and obviously with her mouth full.

‘Better than that sly Annie, anyway,’ she was saying. ‘And Titus seems to take to her. She’s as prim as they come, of course.’

‘I thought she was remarkably forward and impudent for a person in her position,’ Amalie said coldly.

‘Oh, that was just a pose. She obviously desperately needed this position, poor thing. Governesses are two a penny at present. And what else can an educated young woman do, if she’s forced to earn her own living? Anyway, the main thing is, Titus likes her. All that child needs is a little tenderness. You’ve been too hard on him, Blane.’

‘I won’t have him spoilt.’ The uncompromising tones were already so familiar that they should not have made Sarah start. ‘If this girl is going to spoil him she’ll have to go, tender heart or not. Pretty face or not.’

‘I thought you said you hadn’t noticed her face,’ Amalie said in her cool voice.

‘It was Mamma who told me it was pretty. Wasn’t it, Mamma? But naturally it’s a point I shall probably check on. After all, it’s pleasant to have a pretty face around. I hope we shall have the pleasure of seeing Miss Mildmay at the dining table tomorrow evening. My love, can I help you to some more chicken?’

Sarah, her cheeks now flaming, moved on. It served her right. If she deliberately eavesdropped she must hear things she would rather not hear. She must just dismiss them and remember only the facts that mattered. At the moment the important thing was to take a quick look about the library. Not to stand reflecting on remarks made by a man who locked his door against his wife.

The fire was burning brightly, and the room again had a cosy welcoming appearance. She had to overcome the impulse to stand by the warm fire, and go instead to the desk where writing materials were laid out and a letter begun. There was the address, Thomas Whitehouse Esquire, and then a street name in Trinidad.

My dear Whitehouse,

It is my wish to express my gratitude to you in some more tangible form than already…

Whitehouse! That was the man whom Ambrose had sought unavailingly, who had always moved on when his lodgings were located, and who now had reputedly sailed for the West Indies. The man who swore he had known Blane since he first arrived in Trinidad, a runaway youth with his first sailing experience behind him.

So he had been bribed! And now was being rewarded again, whether from desire or because already he had discovered it would be easy to try a little blackmail.

Hesitating as to whether she should merely memorise the letter, or take it with her, as evidence even more tangible than the reward Blane was promising the man, Sarah stiffened as she heard approaching footsteps.

In a flash she had crossed the room and concealed herself behind the heavy curtains drawn against the cold foggy night.

It was the butler, Tomkins, who had entered the room. He was merely doing a little tidying, replenishing the fire, and straightening papers on the desk. But he took an unconscionable time about it, and finally lingered to warm himself at the fire. Sarah was rigid with nervousness and impatience. The devil take the man! First he must hold his hands to the flames, then, leisurely, turn his back and part his coat tails, swinging on the balls of his feet with obvious enjoyment.

Ten precious minutes went by. Then Tomkins’ head shot up as he listened. Deliberately composing his face he crossed the room with his pompous tread, and held the door open and bowed as Blane came in.

‘I’ll take my coffee in here tonight, Tomkins. I have some letters to finish.’

‘Very well, my lord.’

Sarah was almost in tears. Through the infinitesimal parting in the curtains she saw Blane seat himself at the desk and pick up his pen. His dark head was bent as he began to write. He seemed to be scowling. But he wrote without hesitation. Presently Tomkins returned with the coffee service on a silver tray. He put it down and withdrew.

The tantalising smell of hot coffee reached Sarah’s nostrils. She remembered that she had left her own supper tray untouched. If anyone should go into her room and find it, and wonder where she was, she would be in serious trouble. What an impulsive clumsy little fool Ambrose would think her if he were to see her now, with the firelit room on one side of her, and behind her the cold glass of the windows and the foggy night. There were muffled sounds in the street, the crunching of cab wheels, a cockney voice shouting, hurrying footsteps.

If she were not careful she would be out in that cold world, shut completely from this warm room and its dubious welcome. If she were to make a noise so that Blane heard her and discovered her, she would have her bags packed within the hour.

She just must not make a noise. She must stand here until midnight, if need be, scarcely breathing.

It was not pleasant to be an eavesdropper. The adventure was gone. This was the uncomfortable and humiliating reality.

Perhaps half an hour went by, while the little French clock ticked on in its glass case on the mantelpiece, and Blane’s pen made a faint scratching. Then abruptly the door burst open.

‘Blane! We’ve been waiting in the drawing-room for you.’

Blane scarcely lifted his head.

‘You heard me say I was coming here to work.’

‘But not until after your coffee. Oh, you’ve had it here.’

‘I have. And now, my love, if you don’t mind I have urgent business to finish.’

‘But, darling, I waited. You know I waited.’

Now Amalie was referring to something that had nothing to do with the coffee, for her voice, uncertain, pleading, strangely humble, seemed not to belong to her. Yet in appearance she was her usual confident self, a little over-dressed for a dinner
en famille,
in a buff-coloured silk gown with rose point lace, and long ear-drops glittering from her ears.

Blane looked up then. His brows were drawn together in a look of barely controlled patience.

‘Yes, I know, and you know my answer to that. Now please leave me.’

‘But we haven’t quarrelled.’

‘No, we haven’t quarrelled. And there are many other compensations, as you know.’

Amalie’s voice grew high and edgy.

‘Including the pretty governess?’

‘Including the pretty governess, if you insist. There, you see, I’m humouring you, agreeing to your foolish remarks. But Titus, if you will remember, didn’t have a pretty governess in Trinidad. He only had a small rather odorous black boy.’

‘Whom he misses a great deal,’ Amalie flashed.

‘Does he? Then we must get him another. But please leave me in peace now.’

‘Blane! If you only thought a little’ She was in tears, groping for a handkerchief and looking intensely pathetic.

Sarah heard Blane give an impatient exclamation, then saw him spring to his feet and cross over to his wife.

‘Oh, lord! I warn you I can’t stand this sort of tiresome behaviour. Come then. I’ll have coffee with you in the drawing-room and talk to Mamma. And then you shall play and sing to me for half an hour, and we’ll be a completely devoted couple. But heaven knows what time I’ll get to bed tonight.’

Sarah slumped back wearily. She had been rescued by Amalie’s display of temperament. Now she would always remember, when Amalie put on her haughty confident air, that underneath there was this pathetic pleading person, begging something of her husband that he was reluctant to give. Or was that poignant little scene an act? Was she merely a spoilt little creature constantly demanding attention?

Then why the locked bedroom door?

Baffled and more than a little disturbed, Sarah at last ventured forth, and crept upstairs. From the drawing-room Amalie’s voice, with the high virginal note of a young girl, sang a popular sentimental ballad. Lady Malvina talked resolutely through it.

And Sarah remembered, as she reached her room, that she had been too distraught to read the remainder of Blane’s letter to Mr Whitehouse. But she had memorised the address. She must quickly write a letter to Ambrose so that when he received it he could call on Mr Whitehouse in Trinidad. The opportunity to send the letter may not come for a few days, but eventually it would.

T
HE DEPARTURE THE NEXT
morning was complicated by the immense amount of luggage. In addition to her several trunks, Lady Malvina insisted on carrying a canary in a cage. It was a present for Titus, she said, to amuse him on the journey.

It was difficult to say which was the more dejected, Titus in his Norfolk jacket and cap, or the canary, silent on its perch. Certainly neither enjoyed Lady Malvina’s gay jocularity.

Titus clung to Sarah’s hand. He had as yet talked very little, and his face looked peaked beneath the tweed cap. But at least he seemed to trust her, and did not wince away as he did from his grandmother: Certainly his involuntary shrinking was as polite and unobtrusive as possible. But there was no doubt Lady Malvina in her travelling clothes, a befurred bonnet and voluminous cloak which made her look the, width of two people, was quite alarming.

Amalie was elegantly and discreetly dressed in dark-blue, but for all her elegance she looked pinched and cold. She shivered in the morning mist, and hoped there was some sort of heating in the train.

‘There’ll be nothing but a fug,’ Lady Malvina said. ‘You’d better take a hot brick for your feet. And when you learn to dress for our climate you’ll feel the cold less. I warrant you haven’t a single flannel petticoat on.’

Amalie winced, and Lady Malvina went on, ‘I have four, no less. And need ’em all.’

At this moment Blane appeared in his travelling cape and top hat. He also looked impatient and irritable, and scarcely greeted anyone. Sarah, he hadn’t noticed. She might have been one of the maids.

She quelled her resentment as she told herself that she was virtually one of the maids, and the sooner she remembered it the better.

‘Must all this luggage go?’ Blane demanded. ‘This isn’t an expedition across the Sahara. And what the deuce is that bird for?’

‘For your son,’ Lady’ Malvina retorted. ‘The journey is slow and tiresome. And it doesn’t seem as if you’re going to do much about amusing him, with that scowl on your face.’

The early morning start seemed to have everyone in a bad temper. Blane made a belated attempt to be more gracious.

‘Sorry, Mamma. That’s very kind of you.’ The irony which Sarah suspected was never very far away came back into his voice. ‘After all, there’ll be no bands out for us at Mallow. So perhaps a canary singing will keep up all our spirits.’

‘You’ll be welcomed,’ said Lady Mallow briefly. ‘You’re my son.’

Was there a touch of defiance in her voice, as if she challenged anyone to disagree with her? No doubt she had been convincing people for so long that now her emphasis was automatic. At least, Blane flashed her a glance that was half grateful, half amused. But his ill-temper vanished, and he got Titus and the ladies into the waiting cab with brisk efficiency. He himself followed with the luggage, and Tomkins and Bessie in a second cab.

They were to be met by Soames with the carriage at Yarby, the nearest railway station to Mallow Hall. After that there was a ten-mile journey across the marshes, but they expected to reach their destination before dusk. It should not have been an arduous journey, and Sarah was a little perplexed at Amalie making it so. They sat in reasonable comfort in the first-class railway carriage, the windows were tightly closed against the smoke and soot, Amalie had her hot brick, and Lady Malvina her voluminous petticoats. Titus was the most unfidgety small boy Sarah had met. In spite of the fact that it was his first journey by railway train, his excitement was shown only by a tighter grip of Sarah’s hand and an increased pallor.

It was his father who was restless. He spent the journey strolling up and down the corridor and occasionally opening the window to stick his head out and let in a blast of frozen smoky air.