Valley of the Ravens

by Nancy Buckingham

  Jerome regarded his wife thoughtfully down the length of the table. Then, with a conscious effort, he addressed himself to Sir Richard, inquiring what plans he had made for wintering the sheep this year.

  The Westbrooks, I felt sure, treated the incident as no more than a minor tiff between husband and wife. They would laugh about it a little on the way home in their carriage, perhaps, and then dismiss it from their minds.

  But it would not be so easily dismissed from mind by the rest of us. While the light social chatter flowed on, I sensed a threatening undercurrent. I knew that something deeply significant had occurred tonight. Apprehensively, I wondered to what extent it touched upon the dark enigmas that menaced me at Farracombe.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  I had made up my mind to tackle Thirza. Once again, I waylaid her as she was leaving the breakfast table. “Aunt Thirza, I want to talk to you, please.” There was a hounded look on her face. “But Sarah—I have to go up to Nadine.”

  “I’m sure a few minutes won’t make any difference,” I said relentlessly. “Let us go into the salon. No one will disturb us there.”

  “Very well, dear, as you wish,” said Thirza with a sigh.

  I knew she was agitated, but she tried to conceal it. She crossed to one of the buttoned-silk chairs and sat down carefully, folding her hands in her lap. She did not look at me.

  “I hardly know where to begin,” I said. “There are so many mysteries at Farracombe. So many things I don’t understand, Aunt Thirza.”

  ‘It is a waste of time asking me, Sarah. I know nothing at all.”

  “How can you say that,” I demanded, “when you do not yet know what it is I want to ask you about?”

  “I—I meant that Nadine is the mistress of the house, not me. It is she you must consult if you wish to know something.”

  “And if I did ask Nadine, do you suppose she would tell me?”

  “Tell you what, Sarah?” Her hands had begun to tremble, and she tried to hide it by clutching them tightly together.

  “To begin with, why is everyone trying to keep me apart from Ginny? Everything possible seems to have been done to isolate Ginny from other people, right back to the time Miss Fincham was sent away.”

  Thirza jerked her head to look at me.

  “Miss Fincham was getting on in years, Sarah, so Jerome pensioned her off.”

  “But against her will. She was quite fit enough to stay on here for as long as Ginny needed a governess. And after Miss Fincham had gone, her letters to Ginny were intercepted. And Ginny’s to her, too. I know that for a fact, because I myself wrote to Finchy after my return here, and just the other day I had a reply from her. She told me that she wrote to Ginny three times altogether, but Ginny never received one of those letters.”

  Thirza paled. “You mean to say you’ve discussed it with the child?”

  “Not so that Ginny understood the significance of it,” I assured her. “Until now, she believed that Finchy had unfeelingly ignored her letters, as she was intended to believe. But since our talk, she accepts that there must have been some kind of misunderstanding.”

  “Then leave it at that, Sarah. No harm has been done.”

  “No harm!” I exclaimed. “Do you not realize the effect on the poor child? To feel that she’d been abandoned and forgotten by the only friend she had left.”

  Thirza looked shocked. “But we are all Ginny’s friends. All of us.”

  “Are you sure, Aunt Thirza?” I asked earnestly. “You admitted yourself that Ginny has sadly missed having young company. But what has ever been done to provide it for her? In my young days we often had our friends to visit us, and we went to them, but as far as I can gather Ginny never sees anyone of her own age. And now that I am back at Farracombe, she is being deliberately turned against me. Why? That’s what I want to know.”

  Thirza made a helpless little gesture. “You are imagining it, Sarah.”

  “And did I imagine all the other things that have been happening?” I persisted. “You must know that Uncle Joshua’s porringer was hidden in my room, to make it appear as if I had stolen it. And trying to marry me off to Horace Smallbridge, even though I made it abundantly clear from the beginning that I wasn’t interested in the man. Then the day before yesterday, I received a mysterious note warning me to leave Farracombe. Why? Why is it so important to drive me away? Is it because I might succeed in discovering what really happened to Felicity and Ned?”

  I suddenly stopped speaking, appalled by my own words. Yet I think the fearful knowledge had been buried deep down in my mind all along. I felt a conviction now that something dreadful had befallen my sister and Ned Tassell—something dreadful which must at all costs be concealed from me. And Ginny, unknowingly, was the key to it. All the tiny fragments fitted together in a way that made horrifying sense.

  “Aunt Thirza, you had better tell me everything,” I said in a hushed voice. “I shall find out sooner or later, so why not now?”

  Quietly, Thirza began to cry. Huge tears rolled down her cheeks, and she did nothing to brush them away. In spite of myself, I felt a sudden wave of pity for her. She had always been kind to me. I crouched down beside her and took her two hands in mine.

  “I don’t want to upset you, Aunt Thirza,” I said gently, “but you must try to understand how I feel.”

  There was a long silence, then she said, “I was so happy when you first came back, Sarah. Indeed I was. But you want to change everything.”

  “I want to discover the truth, that’s all.”

  “You want to stir things up which belong to the past and are best forgotten. No good will ever come of it. For pity’s sake, Sarah, leave these things alone.”

  “How can I? How can I leave them alone when with each day that passes I become more and more convinced that Felicity and Ned Tassel did not elope together? I have never really believed it. But now I feel certain that some terrible mishap befell them. I almost wonder if it wasn’t fate that brought me back to Farracombe, in order to uncover the truth. Something fearful is being concealed, I feel it all around me.”

  Thirza began rocking back and forth in her chair as if she were in pain. Her hand was pressed to her mouth, trying to still the quivering of her lips.

  “Why is it you are so afraid, Aunt Thirza?” I challenged her. “Why?”

  She made an attempt to pull herself together. With a great effort she dragged herself to her feet, and somehow achieved a pathetic sort of dignity as she moved toward the door.

  “You are letting your imagination run riot, Sarah. Why should you think that I am afraid of something?”

  “It is obvious that you are! Why otherwise do you always run away whenever I try to talk to you?”

  “I do nothing of the kind. Except, that is, when you persist in talking nonsense, which is what you are doing now.”

  But her white face and violently trembling hands denied her words. She was desperate to escape my questions. She was desperate, I guessed, for a tot of brandy to calm her nerves. But I still detained her, crossing swiftly to stand between her and the door.

  “It is time I had some answers, Aunt Thirza.”

  “I tell you I know nothing,” she cried. “Nothing. Why do you pester me so?”

  Behind me, the doors opened suddenly. It was Oscar.

  “What’s all the row about?” he demanded, giving Thirza a dark look. “I could hear you two from across the hall.”

  Thirza seized the chance offered by the open doors and scurried out. Oscar stared after her, frowning, then turned to me.

  “What’s she been saying to you, Sarah?”

  “What are you afraid that she might have said?” I countered.

  His frown deepened. “Look here, Sarah, don’t beat about the bush. Poor old Aunt Thirza is much too fond of the bottle—we all know it, though we pretend not to notice. I’m only concerned that she hasn’t said anything to upset you.”

  “On the contrary, Oscar, it was what I said tha
t upset her”

  He closed the doors behind him. “Suppose you tell me all about it.”

  “Very well, then. I asked Aunt Thirza why it is that Ginny and I are being kept apart—as if someone is scared of us having a closer relationship.”

  He considered that, then gave a careless shrug.

  “Do you want to be continually in the company of a mere child? You’re a deuced attractive young woman, Sarah, and you could have hordes of men prone at your feet, if you wished. Full-blooded men, I mean, not insipid creatures like that curate. You’re much too good for him”

  “Yet your sister kept trying to push us together. Why was that, Oscar, do you suppose?”

  “Nadine thought it was what you wanted, Sarah. She honestly believed you had taken a fancy to the man, but were too shy to admit it.” Oscar paused. “Anyway, you still haven’t properly explained why the old girl was so upset.”

  “I told Aunt Thirza I didn’t believe that Felicity and Ned Tassell had run away together. I told her I thought that something dreadful had happened to them.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Something dreadful? Such as what?”

  “I—I don’t know,” I said lamely, running away from my fears. “It’s just a feeling I have.”

  Oscar laughed suddenly, throwing back his head in a great guffaw. “Is that all? But of course they ran off together—and I for one don’t blame them. Do you honestly think your parents would have looked kindly on a marriage between those two? Or old Joshua? So they decided to elope. And they took money and that pearl necklet to give themselves a start until they got on their feet.”

  “It’s not true,” I insisted. “For one thing, Felicity didn’t love Ned Tassell.”

  Oscar looked at me oddly. “Did she tell you that?”

  “No, but I knew it from the way she talked about him. She was always making fun of him to me.”

  “To put you off the scent,” said Oscar dismissively. “There is no doubt in my mind that they are happily set up in a nice little home with the baby. And perhaps a brother or sister for it by now. Good luck to them, I say.”

  “The baby,” I echoed. “Does that mean you know something about them, Oscar?”

  “Only what anyone could guess,” he replied with a chuckle. “Ask yourself, Sarah, why else do you think they’d have run off, if she wasn’t in the family way?”

  I stared at him, shaking my head slowly, trying to dismiss this highly unpalatable suggestion. And yet, would it not be better if it were true? Would it not be infinitely better if Felicity were alive and well and happy, instead of...

  Oscar stood watching me intently, as though he could see the doubts flitting back and forth in my mind.

  “You take my word for it, Sarah. You haven’t a thing to be worrying about.”

  Stung by his casual, contemptuous attitude toward my sister, I burst out, “I wonder if you could say the same about yourself, Oscar.”

  His expression changed. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “I was thinking of the scene at the dinner table last night. The way it came to light that you and Nadine and Aunt Thirza had spent six weeks in Monte Carlo, not long before Nadine met Jerome. I wonder why she concealed that from him?”

  I knew I had made Oscar angry. But he controlled himself before answering me in a terse, cool voice.

  “Is that any business of yours, Sarah? Or mine either, for that matter?”

  “But you can’t just dismiss it as easily as that, Oscar. Your sister deliberately deceived Jerome.”

  “So it’s poor Jerome’s feelings you’re getting so excited about.” Oscar had fully recovered himself, and his eyes danced with mockery. “But alas, Jerome’s concerns are not yours, Sarah, my love—however ardently you might wish they were. Or are you scheming to come between man and wife?”

  “There is no question of that, and you know it,” I retorted, feeling my cheeks grow crimson. “Oscar, you—you haven’t told Nadine about what you saw in Jerome’s office? It would give such a false impression.”

  He grinned. “If you remember, Sarah, you didn’t pay the asking price for my silence.”

  “But it would be too cruel—cruel to Nadine, I mean.”

  “You would prefer her to be kept in ignorance of the truth, would you? Yet according to you, it was a crime for Jerome to have been deceived by Nadine. It seems you have a double set of standards, Sarah.”

  I felt cornered. Oscar took pleasure in baiting me, and I realized that he would never tell me anything he did not choose to tell me, however much I pleaded.

  With a cool nod I walked past him and out of the room. Mounting the stairs, I knew that he stood watching me from the doorway, and I had the distinct feeling that he was trying to sum me up, trying to gauge what I would do next. But that, I hardly knew myself.

  * * * *

  In the middle of the afternoon Nadine’s maid came to find me. I was in the orangery, broodingly fingering the glossy, aromatic leaves of a lemon tree, and vainly wishing I could be transported to some faraway land, away from all the anxieties that beset me at Farracombe.

  “I’ve been searching everywhere for you, Miss Sarah,” said Phelps. “Madam asks if it would be convenient for you to go up and see her.”

  I felt a curious tensing of my skin. All along, I had known that I must confront Nadine sooner or later. Having tried and failed to gain information—first from Thirza, then from Oscar—it was the logical next step. But, unconsciously, I had been delaying the encounter, because I dreaded it.

  “Very well, Phelps,” I said. “Please tell Mrs. Jerome that I will be with her in a few minutes.”

  I followed the maid upstairs, on my way to my bedroom. She was about to enter Nadine’s room when Jerome came out, and they passed in the doorway.

  His face was cold and angry, his lips drawn in a hard, straight line. I wondered what had taken place between them, recalling that after last night’s dinner party Nadine had asked Oscar, not Jerome, to carry her upstairs—no doubt in order to postpone her husband’s demand for an explanation concerning Monte Carlo.

  Jerome caught sight of me, and halted. He seemed somewhat dazed, as if his thoughts were still back in there with Nadine. Then his face softened and he smiled at me. Somehow, I could not smile in return. I walked swiftly past him and went into my room, closing the door behind me. I stood with my back to it, breathing rapidly. It was a while before I felt calm enough to tidy my hair and go to Nadine.

  From her sofa, Nadine glanced up at me and smiled. She was as elegantly beautiful as ever in a flounced and fluted peignoir of hyacinth-blue silk. But she looked very pale, and her eyes had dark shadows. I guessed that she had not slept last night

  “Sarah, dear, how sweet of you. I wanted us to have a little talk. Do come and sit down, here on the sofa.”

  I did so rather diffidently, not trusting this show of charm. Phelps was setting out a tray of tea things on the ebony table beside Nadine. She lit the spirit lamp under the silver kettle, then glanced inquiringly at her mistress.

  “That will be all, Phelps,” said Nadine. “I will see to it myself.”

  When the maid had withdrawn, Nadine looked at me with a curious expression, half smiling, half apologetic.

  “I’m afraid I have not treated you altogether fairly, Sarah. Perhaps I ought to try and explain certain things.” She paused for a long time, fondling the little dog which had jumped up onto her lap. When she raised her eyes to me again, I saw they were clouded with pain. “I love my husband, Sarah, deeply and passionately. Can you believe that?”

  I stammered some incoherent reply.

  “I cannot blame you for being surprised, Sarah. You are probably thinking, How can she, when she is not a woman in the fullest sense? But I assure you, my dear, that it is true. I love Jerome just as intensely as I ever did, despite this pathetic condition to which I am condemned. I love him, and I desperately need his love in return. Yet all the while I am filled with a sense of guilt—of shame, even. Because I
am not, and never again can be, a true wife to him.”

  Embarrassed by her frankness, I murmured, “You told me once, Nadine, that Jerome thinks he is the one to blame for your accident.”

  She gave a slow, sad smile.

  “Is it not a strange paradox, my dear? Poor Jerome feels guilty because he did not save me from injury, and I feel guilty because I was not sufficiently in command of my horse so I allowed the accident to happen. In consequence of that, I have failed to give him what a man has a right to expect of his wife.”

  She broke off and looked at me directly. I noticed that her lower lip was trembling. Then she said softly, “You are in love with Jerome, aren’t you?”

  I gasped in dismay.

  “I am sorry to be brutal. Sarah, but it needed to be said if we are to understand one another. I do not blame you—how could I? He is so immensely attractive to women. But neither must you blame me for seeing you as a threat. You have youth and beauty on your side, and could offer my husband all that I can no longer give him. I will confess something. When Jerome fell in love with me and asked me to marry him, I could scarcely believe my good fortune. I made a vow to myself that he would never regret it in the smallest way. And then this ...” She indicated her crippled legs with a tragic gesture of defeat. I saw a tear form in the corner of her eye and hang there, glistening. In a broken voice, she went on, “Without Jerome, my life would truly be at an end, Sarah. Do not take him from me, I beseech you.”

  “But Nadine,” I protested, “how could you suppose that I would?”

  “Because you love him. You might feel, as I confess I used to feel once upon a time, that love justifies everything. I might still agree with that point of view, Sarah, if I had the necessary weapons to fight you with. But I have no weapons left. None. I am obliged to throw myself upon your mercy.”

  “But even if it were possible for me to take Jerome away from you, Nadine, which I am sure it isn’t, I would never dream of doing such a thing.” I was swept by a burning pity for her. “Is this why you were so anxious for me to leave Farracombe?”

  She looked away from me and nodded her head slowly.