“Why don’t you stop this folly?” he demanded, his eyes searching hers. “There are more ways than one of settling this debt between us.”
He was propositioning her! Was there no end to his conceit? Did he think to add her to his conquests. And there were many if only half of what she had heard was true.
“Sir,” she said quietly and coolly, “you should know by now that I’m set on a particular path and nothing can turn me from it. Least of all any alternatives that you may suggest. Now, if you will kindly release my hand — we are observed.”
He followed her glance and saw Sarah standing at the head of the stairs, looking down at them, her face pinched and her mouth thin with jealousy. It was well known that there had been — or still was — something between them, and he did escort her to many occasions. But she was by no means the only one on whom he bestowed his attentions, and he was rarely without a pretty woman on his arm.
“So we are,” he remarked dryly. Then, instead of releasing her hand, he put the glove back on it with elaborate care, turning her wrist to fasten the tiny button. Only then did he free her, but with such a wicked look dancing in his eyes that Tansy was hard put to keep a smile from her lips, and she hastened on down the stairs, leaving him to await Sarah’s descent.
The hard, frosty winter weather continued until mid-February, when it gave way to cold, damp days with much rain, which turned the lanes into a morass of chocolate-coloured mud. Never had the drive home seemed longer to Tansy on a particular Saturday afternoon when she came home from market in a heavy rain that had not ceased since early morning. She was soaked through and chilled to the marrow of her bones, for all the time she had stood behind the market stall the wind had driven the slashing rain before it like a curtain, making mockery of the awning, which had snapped and billowed like a sail. She had kept her head tilted against the rain, seeking some protection from her deep hat, its wide brim at eyebrow level offering some disguise against recognition for Nina’s and Amelia’s sakes, a calamity so far avoided. Nina did nothing to help toward the stall, accepting the domestic results of the funds it brought in as a natural right. She alone at Rushmere led a life as near to that of a true lady as was possible in the circumstances, spending most of her time at Cudlingham Manor and in Edward’s company. Everything was going well between them, and Nina sang about the house, was less openly derisive of Amelia, from whom she borrowed shawls, jewellery, and other gewgaws, although she still despised her, and was altogether more agreeable to live with.
Without doubt she was — as Roger had so aptly put it in racing terms — coming into the straight with the winning post of a betrothal looming ahead.
Tansy shivered, aware that she was aching in every limb, and she peered ahead through the rain as she drove past Ashby Woods, straining her eyes for the first welcome glimpse of the gates of Rushmere. It would have been easy to have shown her authority on the night that Roger confessed to joining the Ainderly Hall stables and forbidden him to come to Rushmere again since he had flouted her most anxious wishes, but she had known that for his sake she must swallow her anger and accept that what was done could not be undone, or else such a gulf would widen between them that he would feel unable to come to her should he be in trouble or difficulties at any time. Since he was essentially an honest boy, it would go completely against his nature to find himself party to any stable dealings that were at all shady, and yet, having signed himself away, he was bound body and soul to Ainderly Hall, not able to visit other stables without the trainer’s permission. There could be no buying him out of it, for Dominic would not be like Mr. Webster, relieved to be rid of him, because a trainee jockey with inside information would never be let loose to allow his tongue to wag in the wrong quarters.
Tansy was thankful that after an initial spate of awkwardness on Roger’s part, during which time he stayed at Ainderly Hall and had not come home for a month, he now visited Rushmere freely whenever he felt like it and his long and busy day permitted. All the real work of training had been held up over the deepest winter when the stone-hard ground could wreck a young horse’s brittle legs, but now it had commenced again. Young Oberon officially became a two-year-old from a yearling on the first day of the New Year, and Judith had baked a special cake to celebrate the occasion, which had been much appreciated by Roger. So carefree was he, so full of rosy hopes, that Tansy was sure she would spot the first signs of any unease on his part about what he might see or overhear of crooked racing practices being carried out at Ainderly Hall.
The gates of Rushmere stood wide. The horse in the shafts of the wagonette, as eager to be home in the dry as she, trotted quickly to the stables at the rear of the house. She almost fell from the driver’s seat in her exhaustion and realized that she staggered as she unharnessed the horse and led him into his stall. How her face burned! And there was a strange lightheadedness that came and went. She hoped desperately that she was not going to be ill, because she could not spare the time to lie abed.
Lacking the strength to unload from the wagonette the goods that had not been sold, she left them where they were under cover and entered the house by the back door. The warmth of the kitchen hit her like a buffeting cloud, but still she shivered. With arms that seemed hampered by invisible weights she managed to hook her cloak on the peg by the door, her hat with it, and then she lowered herself onto the bench by the table, where she proceeded to empty the leather pouch that carried the day’s takings, and counted out the coins.
Sometimes she felt like a miser, but every penny mattered. She knew she had less to count than usual, the rain having kept customers away, but surely there should be a little more than the figure she had reckoned up. A pain behind her eyes was confusing her, making it difficult to concentrate, but she totalled up the money again, discovered she had overlooked some shillings and a silver three-penny bit, and scooped it all into a metal box and closed it. Her shivering was making her teeth chatter. She reeled to her feet and left the table to take a seat in the rocking chair by the range where the fire glowed white-hot behind the bars. Her damp clothes began to steam in the heat and she knew she should have gone to change into dry things at once, but in her curiously dazed state she was unable to summon up the will to do it.
On the wall one of the bells jingled. Tansy looked at it without interest. Rushmere had a visitor. If it were the Queen herself at the door she would not be able to find the energy to get up and let her in. The bell could be heard faintly from the long drawing room and other downstairs rooms, so she must only hope that Amelia, whom she supposed to be in, would go to answer it,
Judith having gone with Nina to lunch at the Manor with Sarah Taylor. She closed her eyes, her limbs heavy, her head like a furnace.
The bell jingled again, making her start, and she sat forward, inadvertently setting the rocking chair in motion, and with a sigh she sank back into its soothing rhythm, hearing voices in the hall and knowing Amelia had answered the door at last. She was asleep immediately.
When she woke again the hands of the big-faced kitchen clock had moved forward half an hour, but she gave it no glance, having lost all sense of time and conscious only of a raging thirst. She lurched up from the chair, leaving it rocking wildly, and stumbled across to the sink, where she had to use both hands to work the pump handle, sweat pouring in rivulets down her face and under her clothes.
When she had drunk all she could manage, her one thought was to get up to bed, and she clutched at the edge of the table for support as she made her stumbling way across the kitchen. Never in her life had she felt so ill, and iron bands were crushing her chest. She reached the flagged passageway, the baize-lined door into the hall looking as though it were a mile away.
Then she realized she was crawling on her hands and knees. Hampered by her rain-damp skirts and enervated by her raging fever, she progressed with agonizing slowness, sometimes sprawling out flat, welcoming the chill of the flagged floor against her burning forehead. When she finally reached the door it
was closed and she had to struggle upright to put her weight on the handle. Reeling with it when the door swung open, she fell full length at the feet of the man who was ending his visit and coming with Amelia from her drawing room. It was Dominic. He gave an exclamation of dismay, echoed by Amelia’s shriek, and knelt at once to stoop over her, slipping an arm under her shoulders.
“Tansy! What is it? You’re ill!”
She tried to answer him but could not. Then she thought she was floating, but he had picked her up, and out of the jumble that his strong voice and Amelia’s whispering were creating in her head a few sentences registered in her consciousness.
“Send my coachman posthaste for Dr. Westlake. Which room is Tansy’s?”
“The second door on the right. Er — about your decision?”
“Let’s have no more talk of that in this present crisis, madame.” He had started up the stairs, Tansy’s head lolling against his shoulder, and she thought vaguely how soothing was the clean, male fragrance of shaved chin, crisp linen, and good broadcloth blended with the faint aroma of cigar. Like an arrow to pierce her pain-tormented head Amelia’s sibilant whisper followed them up the stairs.
“But I must know, Mr. Reader” The hissing tones took on an independent note. “Because if you’re not prepared to settle the matter without delay —”
He spun round at the head of the flight and his wrathful answer rumbled in his chest under Tansy’s ear. “You shall have your price! I’ll contact my banker in the morning. Now let that be an end to your prattle, Mrs. Marlow. Have that call sent to the doctor.”
Pillows were soft under Tansy’s head. She opened her eyes once and looked into his face. He thinks I’m going to die, she thought incredulously. Never had she seen such desperate anxiety in another’s eyes. She wanted to reassure him, to tell him that she was never ill and this state of affairs would be over as quickly as it had begun, but although she spoke, her steadily rising fever touched her at that moment into delirium and there was no sense in what she cried out with hands uplifted to him.
She knew little of the care that was taken of her in the days that followed. The faces of Nina, Judith, and Amelia alternated at her bedside with the bearded visage of the doctor, who seemed to be waking her continually from the blissful oblivion of sleep, although later she heard he had only come twice daily after the first day, when he had called thrice. Cold-water sponges burned her body as her sisters sought to bring down her stubborn temperature, and she sobbed when one sweat-soaked nightgown was changed for the newly ironed crispness of another, it being agony for her to be propped up and the garment pulled down over her head, one arm and then the other guided into a sleeve with a gentleness that seemed to her racked form the most rough and brutal treatment.
She emerged at last from the ordeal of her illness to a new quietness. Daily Judith sat sewing in a chair by the bed and tender rays of March sunshine penetrated the mullioned windows to make a chequered pattern on the floor. Tansy learned that she had been near death for several days and was still dangerously sick for two weeks after that, but she had no clear recollection of anything to pinpoint the passing of time. Her room was full of daffodils, and there was a fresh bowl of spring violets on the table at her bedside. Judith noticed her looking at them.
“They’re from Dominic. They were delivered just now while you slept. Aren’t they lovely?” Judith put aside her sewing and took her stick to come across to lift the bowl and hold it toward her sister. “Just inhale their scent. It’s like having spring itself in the room.”
Tansy buried her nose in their dewy depths. Their delicate perfume touched her deeply, moving her almost to tears in her weakened, emotional state, her thankfulness for their beauty also gratitude for being alive.
“I always think they’re my favourite flower until the roses come, and then I’m not sure,” she said with a smile, letting her head drop back against the propped-up pillows, and keeping a single violet to hold between finger and thumb, brushing it against her cheek.
Judith gave a quick little nod, replacing the bowl. “I know. But spring flowers are always special. I think it’s because we seem to wait so long for their coming.” She touched the trumpet of one of the golden daffodils that made a splash of brilliant yellow on the top of the chest of drawers. “Sarah and Edward sent you these. Flowers and gifts of calf’s-foot jelly and beef tea and egg custards have been arriving at the house ever since people we know heard you were ill, and there’s enough hothouse fruit in dishes and baskets everywhere to keep us all fed.”
“Do give Roger some more to take back to his quarters and share with the others in the stable,” Tansy urged, “and you and Nina and Amelia must have all you want. Everybody has been so kind. I must write letters of thanks to all when I’m able.”
Judith sat on the edge of the bed. “You’re the convalescent who has to get her strength back,” she said, patting the bedcovers over Tansy’s legs in gentle admonishment, “but I will let Roger take whatever looks overripe. I don’t think you need write to Dominic. He is waiting for a first chance to see you. You gave him a great shock when you came falling through the kitchen door to collapse at his feet. Not a day has gone by without his calling at the house to ask after you, sometimes two or three times when your condition was still critical. On that terrible night when we sent for Roger, thinking we were really going to lose you, Dominic didn’t go home at all, but stayed pacing about downstairs like a caged lion until dawn when I was able to go down to him with the news that your fever had broken at last.”
Tansy spoke with some distress. “Please don’t ask me to see him,” she implored. “I appreciate his concern, but I’m not ready to face anyone from outside the family circle yet.”
“I think you’re making an excuse directed solely against him.” “Perhaps I am,” Tansy answered a little desperately, “but if you were in possession of all the facts you would understand.”
“I have no idea what those could be, but I do believe he cares for you more than you realize. You cannot yearn after Adam Webster forever.”
Tansy’s head swung back in a tumble of flying strands, her startled eyes meeting that calm and wise, hazel-golden gaze. “How long have you known?”
“For a long, long time. When he rode past the cottage in the days when you were no more than fourteen years old you would stop whatever you were doing in the garden and follow him with your eyes, although he never as much as glanced in your direction. I’ve seen you run to the window at the sound of his laugh and more than once you blushed like a rose when his name came into the conversation. Later when he began to court Nina it went really hard with you. I could tell. It could have been the last straw to break you completely, but you bore it with all the rest.”
Tansy’s eyes showed tears in their depths. “I loved him more than I ever realized at the time. The feeling is still with me. I think of him constantly.”
“I was afraid you did. So often I’ve seen you with a faraway look in your eyes.”
Tansy gave a weepy smile and reached out a hand. “Is there nothing that you don’t see and observe from your corner, little mouse?”
Judith took the girl’s hand and folded the fingers over her own with careful concentration. “Try to put him from your mind. I know that’s trite advice, but he would have been no good for you, and it’s only folly for you to imagine otherwise.”
“When it finished between Nina and him I confess I hoped he might think again about me. During those first weeks at Rushmere I looked daily for a letter, but I suppose you spotted that too?”
“I did, as a matter of fact.”
Tansy released a long sigh. “Well, no letter ever came, nor is it likely to now.” She tilted her head against the pillow with an expression blended of interest and curiosity. “Tell me, since you seem to have missed nothing of importance that has ever happened, did you ever suspect Papa of having a — having another home?”
“No, I didn’t,” Judith answered reflectively, “but I oft
en thought what a sad, proud face Mama Ruth had, and her mouth seemed to get tighter and sterner with each passing year. I’m thankful she was spared ever knowing that one day we should be sharing a home with her husband’s paramour.”
“It could be much worse,” Tansy said phlegmatically. “At least Amelia is placid and amenable and her chief fault is laziness. She is not at all the kind of wicked, scarlet woman I had always supposed mistresses to be in the past.”
“You don’t resent her presence at all?”
“Not any longer. Not since the moment when I realized that Papa had made a last request of me.”
Downstairs the entrance bell echoed faintly. Seeing how Tansy started at the sound, Judith gestured reassuringly as she rose from the bed to go and answer it. “I don’t expect that to be Dominic, since he was here with the violets less than an hour ago.” She paused at the bedroom door before opening it and looked back over her shoulder with a thoughtful, pensive expression. “Don’t underestimate Amelia. She has some metal in her or else she wouldn’t have kept a man like your father on a string for so many years. At first her grief and a sense of insecurity, alarming to her, made her meeker and more docile than she might otherwise have been, but recently I’ve noticed a definite hardening of attitude and an asserting of herself that was lacking before. It has been particularly noticeable since you fell ill. Amelia has come to resent our presence at Rushmere. I hate to say it, but I truly believe she is on the alert to find some loophole to be rid of us.”
“But that’s impossible. She would have to contest Papa’s will to do that, and she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.”
“She might be thinking up some other way. Oh, dear! There’s the bell again and nobody else is at home to answer it.” She went out of the room as fast as she could manage, her stick tapping away along the landing and laboriously down the stairs.
The Marlows Page 15
