On Sparrow Hill

by Maureen Lang

  “You’d best listen to him, Thaddeus,” Finola said, now like a hummingbird, flitting around her brother. “This is Simon MacFarland, and he’s an MP. Sure and enough he can have you arrested—and he ought to—for putting me and Conall in that room.” She turned from them to Berrie, rushing to her side and helping her to her feet. “He forced me to make those charges against poor Duff, thinking if the school closed, the estate would be sold and we could get half the inheritance. Duff didn’t do a thing except be nice to me.”

  Berrie let go of Finola’s hand, grabbing her arms. “You’ll come with me then, and tell the justice of the peace and the constable? drop the charges against Duff?”

  Finola nodded just as tears began clearing a trail through the dust on her face. “I suppose I’ll be in some trouble for lying.” She turned away, going to her son and taking him up in her arms.

  Berrie looked at Simon. “Is she?”

  Instead of addressing either Berrie or Finola, Simon cast a somber look at Thaddeus. “Not as much trouble as is about to land at the foot of your brother. Come on.” He took Berrie’s hand, then touched Finola’s elbow. “Jobbin, I was told you’ve been taking Berrie around in your wagon. Do you have it ready?”

  55

  * * *

  “What are you saying?” Rebecca asked, confused. She followed Dana into her empty room. “Where is she?”

  Rebecca heard someone behind her and saw Talie, looking every bit as concerned as Dana.

  “I thought she was in with Talie, but she wasn’t. I checked in the kitchen, then in every room up here. She’s gone—with her toy Emma.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “No, no, she must be here somewhere. We’ll all look for her. You two get dressed and meet me in the kitchen. I’ll ask Helen and William if they’ve seen her.”

  Dana was already throwing on a long-sleeve shirt over the T-shirt she slept in, exchanging cotton sleep pants for a pair of jeans from a nearby chair. She followed Rebecca from the room.

  Talie grabbed Dana’s hand. “We’ll find her, Danes. Don’t get all stressed. She’s here, probably somewhere in the house. It’s big enough to get lost in. I’ll get dressed too and meet you downstairs.”

  Rebecca didn’t have to look at Dana’s face to know the words wouldn’t have brought comfort. Padgett had been exploring this house for over a month now; she wasn’t likely to get lost anymore.

  As they walked steadily down the stairs, Rebecca saw immediately that Padgett’s favorite spot at the top of the stairs showed no sign of her—no toys, no empty bowl from cereal she might have served herself before anyone else was awake.

  Dana had looked in all of the other favorite spots: the playroom, where Quentin’s and his brother’s toys had been left for future generations; the library, where a shelf of children’s books had drawn Padgett more than once; the media room, where a large-screen television had been installed, complete with a selection of children’s movies Dana had brought along; the garden room, where she often passed time with Winston.

  “Helen was already in the kitchen when I went downstairs,” Dana was saying. “She hasn’t seen her.”

  “Do you know how long she might have been gone?”

  Dana’s eyes shut tight. “I didn’t sleep all night, until this morning around five. Then I must have slept so soundly I didn’t hear a thing. She was gone when I woke up—about seven forty-five.”

  Rebecca glanced at her watch; it was half past eight. Full staff was due any minute with the tours to begin at ten. “We’ll soon have all the help we need to search every inch of this place, Dana.”

  They went to the kitchen, where Helen was putting scones made from one of Cosima Escott’s favorite recipes into the oven. She turned with brows lifted. Obviously reading the answer to her unspoken question on their faces, she took off her apron and turned back to the oven only long enough to turn it off. “I’ll get William.”

  Rebecca and Dana split up, searching every room on the first floor, calling Padgett’s name. Making her way to the foyer, Rebecca glanced out one of the windows, seeing several of the tour participants gathering on the portico with Rebecca’s education manager. If Padgett wasn’t found in the next few minutes, she would begin recruiting searchers.

  Rebecca found the old servants’ staircase in the hallway leading from the ballroom. It was one place Rebecca had never shown Padgett. It was dark inside, used these days for cleaning supplies.

  “Padgett? Are you in here?”

  She looked behind hanging dustcoats and up the straight staircase. No Padgett.

  “That’s an odd place to look for someone,” said a familiar voice from the hall.

  Rebecca stepped into the light, seeing a perplexed look on Quentin’s face. He was dressed for the importance of the day: a dark blue Italian suit, crisp white shirt, tie daubed with blue, a platinum pin holding it in place.

  “Good morning,” he greeted.

  Rebecca had no words, not even the ones she’d contemplated saying the moment she saw him again. “Padgett’s missing.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “Dana woke a little while ago, and Padgett’s bed was empty.”

  “She has to be here somewhere. I suppose you checked the playroom first?”

  Rebecca nodded. “Last night she overheard us talking. Dana was quite upset. I think—”

  “This is all my fault, isn’t it?”

  The words came from behind the open staircase door, which Quentin gently closed. Dana’s face was wet with a new supply of tears, her eyes puffy, her skin a mix of ash white and feverish red.

  “Of course not, Dana,” Rebecca said, stepping closer. “I was going to say she might have been upset and perhaps is hiding, that’s all.”

  “Or run off!” she cried. “Who knows where she could be if she left the house?”

  Rebecca exchanged a glance with Quentin. If she had left the house, there would be only one place she’d go.

  “The cuddle farm,” Quentin said before Rebecca could.

  They fairly raced to the ballroom veranda exit, the fastest way from the house in the direction of the farm. Rebecca heard a call behind them from Talie, but no one stopped, and she saw Talie dart onto their path.

  The full staff was already there, no doubt readying things for the Featherby tours.

  “Chad, has Padgett been here already this morning? Maybe to see Emma?”

  “I was just going to check Emma and her family,” he said as he walked, not seeming to notice the urgency behind Quentin’s inquiry or the uncommonness of having visitors to his barn at this time of the morning. “Saw to the cow, fed the horses and the chickens, but haven’t seen to the lambs yet.”

  He opened the back barn door that led to the paddock area, the small pasture where the lambs and goats grazed and slept.

  Rebecca scanned the area. No Padgett. “There’s Emma’s mama,” she said, pointing to the familiar, pleasantly plump ewe. Emma was old enough for her own adventures but often stayed close to her mother anyway.

  Emma was nowhere to be seen.

  The bleating of a goat off to the side of the paddock called attention. His horns were stuck in the gate.

  “Now that’s peculiar,” said Chad from behind them. “Excuse me, will you? Got to keep that one from letting loose and into the garden, today of all days, isn’t that right, Miss Seabrooke, Mr. Hollinworth?”

  Quentin followed, and so did Rebecca. Talie and Dana went back into the barn. Rebecca heard them call Padgett’s name.

  “What’s odd about the goat’s getting caught, Chad?” Quentin asked, while he looked over the animals.

  “He’s our scoundrel,” Chad said, grabbing one horn and unlatching the gate, freeing the struggling animal without letting him behind the confines of the paddock. “Has a taste for ferns and’ll nibble ’em flat.” The goat stumbled off and shook his head. “Strange he was caught that way. He must’ve gotten the top latch undone somehow. See here?”

  Rebecca gauged the height of the
latches. The lower one was well within reach of Padgett, but the upper? She probably couldn’t reach it, the way the ground dipped away from the fence. Rebecca exchanged a glance with Quentin. He seemed to be thinking as she did: Padgett could have come this way, climbed the fence to unlatch the top, but then been unable to fasten the top latch from the other side, where the grading was steeper.

  “Emma’s not here,” called Dana from the barn.

  Quentin waved her forward. “She went this way.” He turned to Chad. “I want you to tell the entire staff we’re searching for Padgett, and this takes precedence over the tours today. Everyone is to lend a hand searching. Everyone and everywhere, mind you—even the Featherby judges themselves if they get here before we find Padgett. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Chad.

  “I have my mobile phone and you’re to call me if she’s found.”

  Chad nodded again, and his pace was quicker back to the barn.

  Quentin led Rebecca, Dana, and Talie outside the paddock. “Let’s split up, but not beyond sight of one another.”

  The three fanned out, looking ahead at the wheat field, the wooded glen, the fallow field, and the numerous hedgerows along the rolling countryside. Ponds and lakes dotted the landscape, but Rebecca couldn’t bring herself to ask if Padgett could swim.

  They passed the cottage the land agent used as his office. Rebecca saw Quentin head there. If Padgett had come this way, perhaps she’d been attracted to the house with its gingerbread-style roof.

  Watching Quentin traipse across the uneven land in his expensive shoes and tailored suit made one thought stand out in Rebecca’s anxiety-ridden mind—one she would contemplate later, once they had Padgett safely back in her mother’s arms. Quentin Hollinworth was as much a servant as she was, or he wouldn’t be out looking the same way the rest of them were.

  The office must have been empty based on the lack of response Quentin received from his knock.

  “Everybody’s praying, right?” Quentin called as they resumed their search. With only a short distance between them, Rebecca had no trouble hearing the words she welcomed almost as much as any others. A reminder of the One who was really in control, who knew exactly where Padgett was this moment.

  Just then Rebecca heard the chime of Quentin’s mobile phone. Hope flared.

  “Yes, Chad? . . . What’s that?” Quentin’s voice hinted the same hope he must be holding. “Oh.” Hope abandoned them all in that single, deflated word. “No, that’s fine. Tell her it’s silly to wait; I’ll not be available the rest of the day.”

  Rebecca kept walking, praying. Each of them took turns calling Padgett’s name. Rebecca listened as she’d never listened before. She prayed for Padgett’s call in return or Emma’s bleat.

  “Here! Look at this.” Dana rushed a few feet ahead, bending low to pick up something from the trimmed meadow grass. Rebecca recognized the toy immediately.

  “It’s Padgett’s toy Emma!”

  “At least we know we’re heading in the right direction,” Quentin said.

  “Wait,” called Talie from Dana’s other side. “Did you hear that?”

  All four stopped. Rebecca heard nothing, but a moment later Dana dashed forward, racing beyond Talie.

  “Padgett! Padgett, can you hear me?”

  Rebecca saw Dana scale a rise and nearly disappear in a dip in the ground. Sprinting after her, Rebecca saw what she expected: the other side green and blue with a pond reflecting the wide blue sky.

  And there, lying on the bank, was Padgett beside Emma.

  The lamb struggled to its feet, bleating at the sight of rushing oncomers, although tethered to a rope and unable to go far. Padgett lifted her head at the lamb’s warning, and to Rebecca’s first glance she looked groggy.

  “Oh, hi, Mommy,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

  Dana pulled her into her arms, and the tether connecting her to the lamb dropped, but the lamb stayed nearby.

  “Is that all you have to say, young lady?” Dana said through her tears. “Why are you so far from Rebecca’s? Why did you leave without telling me?”

  “I just went out to think, same as you did, Mommy. Only I couldn’t find that lake you liked for your thinking time. Emma led me to this one, and then I lost my—oh! You found Little Emma.” She grabbed the stuffed animal from her mother’s hand.

  “You were looking for the lake outside the front of the Hall?” Dana moaned, cuddling her daughter closer. “You only needed to go to the front . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence, kissing Padgett again. “Padgett, don’t you ever, ever do that again. Never leave without telling me, so I know where you are, okay?”

  “Okay. But I wonder about something. You know how you went to sit next to the pond to think ’cause you were sad? I was doing that because I was sad for you, because you were crying all night, only I didn’t know what I was supposed to think about. So I just said that prayer Rebecca says about God making everything. Is that okay?”

  Dana laughed first, and Rebecca, Quentin, and Talie joined in. It was a balm to frayed nerves.

  “You, young lady,” said Quentin firmly once the laughter dwindled, “need to think about something else right now: how to make your mommy never worry again. Can you do that?”

  “Okay. She wasn’t supposed to worry now.”

  “And how would you have gotten back home, Padgett?” her aunt Talie asked. “Do you know which way goes back to the Hall?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t, but I thought maybe Emma would. She always knows how to find her mommy back at the farm, so I thought she would lead me back. That’s why I took her on the leash, so she wouldn’t go too fast and leave me behind.”

  Quentin took up Emma’s rope leash, and the lamb did indeed lead the way back to the Hall while he called Chad on the mobile to let them know Padgett had been found. The staff was to resume “Featherby mode,” as he called it with a grin.

  The judges were due any minute if they weren’t there already.

  Rebecca’s relief and gratitude over finding Padgett was too soon replaced. The judges awaited . . . and so did Quentin’s decision about where he wanted to be—here or in his London flat.

  56

  * * *

  Mr. Truebody was shocked to learn of the O’Shea plot to close our doors. I will not say that he went so far as to admit he should never have given up hope, but I will say this: when Simon MacFarland is in the room, the embodiment of true power in this country (so stark a contrast to our justice of the peace), Mr. Truebody is a man nearly tolerable. He assured me he would do all he could to calm residual fears of both parents and benefactors alike and see if the Commission might approve Finola’s residence with us (an option he never bothered to broach to this point!). He also offered a bit of advice. . . .

  “It is commendable that Mr. MacFarland has accompanied you here today, Miss Hamilton,” said Mr. Truebody. “He has not only expressed his own confidence in having you run Escott Manor but has taken full responsibility for the reports in the papers regarding his sister’s misunderstanding. I have only one thing to add.”

  Berrie waited, not daring to glance Simon’s way. It had been humiliating enough to stand in this office with him at her side, listening to him explain that a kiss had indeed taken place. He went on to tell Mr. Truebody that the kiss was not at all scandalous, given that it had been accompanied by a proposal of marriage, albeit that proposal had been flatly refused for the sake of the school that was now endangered.

  “You ought to have accepted that proposal, young lady,” continued Mr. Truebody. “If you truly want to save the institution, then let me assure you it should be run by a married woman rather than a maiden such as yourself. It would offer much greater security to the benefactors. I can safely vouch for this office that if you were under the safekeeping of a man, a man to whom you are first responsible, I am certain such benefactors would be assured of the highest quality of leadership and protection from any further scandal.”

&n
bsp; Myriad protests went through her mind, a demand as to what made a man better fit to oversee her school, but she knew this was neither the time nor the place. Besides, she had already seen Simon humble enough to publicly admit he’d been refused; she didn’t need to announce to one and all she refused to need him, or any man, to help her in this mission.

  Instead, she imagined what a demure young lady would say. “Thank you, Mr. Truebody. I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Then this session is at an end. I trust Mr. Duff Habgood is already on his way back to Escott Manor since you first went to the constable’s office with Miss O’Shea. He is welcome to remain in the employment of the hospital, Miss Hamilton, but under the circumstances it would be best if he resided outside manor grounds, especially if we are to gain the Commission’s approval for Miss O’Shea to return. Until memories fade.”

  “And myself?” Berrie asked.

  “You may resume your role. If there is any change, I will summon you here and give counsel. You will, in turn, inform me if your status as an unmarried woman changes?”

  Berrie grew warm, sparing no more than a glance at Mr. Truebody, who wasn’t eyeing her but rather looked at Simon beside her.

  She was sure her step was a bit quicker on the way out than it had been on the way in. Simon stayed at her side, opening doors when necessary, taking her hand to help her board his carriage outside.

  “So your school is saved,” he said, sitting across from her.

  She couldn’t help smiling. The past two days had been little more than a blur of misery. “Yes, thanks in no small part to you.”

  “Me? It was you, Berrie.” He held her gaze a moment, then shifted to look out the window. “I would say you proved quite thoroughly that you don’t need anyone, despite what Mr. Truebody wants to believe.”

  Berrie looked down at her hands, glad they were covered in gloves. Despite the cool weather, her palms were moist. If she was honest, she would blurt the truth, that she’d missed him and regretted her refusal. How could she admit that now? He would think she did so only to follow the advice of Mr. Truebody and thus ensure the survival of the school.