by Carla Kelly
When she would not argue or defend herself, the vicar cleared his throat and assumed another pose. “Miss Hamilton, I must leave now and return to Cambridge. I assure you that during this week I will be seriously considering if I have made a grave error in pledging to you my good name in six weeks’ time!”
She looked up at him with her fine Wedgwood eyes. “And I, sir, will be doing precisely the same thing,” she said.
If she had hauled out Jack's pistol and shot him, he could not have looked more surprised. He stepped forward involuntarily, ruining the effect of his “Righteously Indignant Pose,” clutched at the much-maligned piano to hold him upright, and began to laugh.
“You don't seem to appreciate how lucky, how very lucky you are, my dear Miss Hamilton,” he said through his laughter. “Do you honestly think anyone else of even the remotest consequence would ever offer for you? Your effrontery defies belief.” He continued to laugh.
If she had thought his words were a firebrand placed red-hot against her bare flesh, his laughter was worse. She had been ignored and put upon many times, but no one had ever made a mockery of her. She felt sick to her stomach.
His laughter faded finally into a silly titter, and he looked at his watch. “Well, obviously we will be discussing this again in the future. Don't think that you have heard the last from me on this pianoforte, Miss Hamilton, or any other luxuries you plan to sneak into this vicarage. Good day.”
The stricken look in her eyes must have pricked his conscience a little, particularly in light of his chosen sermon for the day. He touched her arm. “Have a little more countenance, Onyx!” he chided. “Is this not what they call a lovers’ tiff?” He chuckled to himself over his wit, sketched a low and mocking bow to her, and left.
She was shaken beyond words. Her fingers grew cold as she clutched them together in her lap. She let out a long, shuddering breath and wished herself anywhere but where she was.
When the knock came at the door fifteen minutes later, she knew it was Andrew Littletree coming back for another swipe at her raw feelings. Again nausea stirred her stomach.
The knocking continued. “Miss Hamilton? Miss Onyx Hamilton?” she heard finally.
Daisy and Mrs. Sable were off for the afternoon, and Alice had taken herself on a walk. Onyx rose slowly and opened the door.
“The post, ma'am,” said the uniformed rider at the door. She took the letter he handed her.
“I … I have no money to pay you for it, sir, should postage be owing,” she said.
“Oh, no, no. See there? It's been franked by a lord,” he explained.
She had never received such a letter. She thanked him and closed the door, wondering at the unfamiliar handwriting. It must be some mistake, but there was her name in bold, dark letters. Other than the letters that Gerald had been able to write from Spain, she had never received a letter before.
She sat down in the parlor again, removed a pin from her hair, and slit the envelope. She spread the closely written sheet on her lap and then turned to the last page and looked at the signature. She traced her finger over the name, turned the paper over, and began to read.
Dear Onyx,
I begin this letter with an apology. You have given me no leave to correspond with you, and indeed, no encouragement, but my need is desperate.
Adrian is dying. There is no other way to dress up the word. He is near to death, partly, I suspect, because of ill management at the hands of a physician I would not scruple to use on Adrian's livestock.
Since the bailiff took French leave several months ago, my sister-in-law, Lady Beresford, has been both managing the estate and trying to care for her husband. I need not waste time here describing the state of affairs at Sherbourn as I have found them, although she has done her best. Emily is in a state of complete exhaustion. If she does not get some relief from her duties, I fear I will have two invalids on my hands, plus a large estate (not to mention the other properties that I haven't even had time to think on).
As for me, I am well. My arm pains me a little, but it is healing nicely. To be honest, I haven't time to concern myself about it, and that may, in fact, be the best remedy for any ailment.
I am asking for your help. I need you here at Sherbourn to nurse my brother. To say that he is desperately ill would be to put a glow on it, I fear. To put the words before you with no bark on them, I need someone who has sure hands and a strong stomach. Someone who won't complain and who is not afraid of the hardest kind of work there is.
I can think of no one else but you. If you suspect that you are being bullied, I assure you that you are, and in the most outrageous fashion. By the time you read this letter, there will probably be a chaise and four pulling up before the gates of Chalcott to take you to Sherbourn. I am not so vain as to be confident that you will accompany them here to me, I am just desperate enough to try in the only way I know how to get you here quickly. The coachman has been given sufficient funds to enable you to make the journey easily, stopping at well-recommended lodgings.
I am certain Lady Bagshott will have many objections. To her credit, I am certain they are valid ones. Your fiancé will certainly echo her concerns. Again, I cannot see that they would do otherwise, if they are at all involved in your welfare. I could never blame them; if you were my fiancée, I would feel precisely the same way. But I need you as badly as ever anyone needed another person. Please help me.
As to the other matter that I broached so ineptly to you on the occasion of our last meeting, I will say nothing. I assure you that I have no intention of bringing up the matter again. I overstepped my bounds, considering that your affections are already engaged elsewhere. Rest easy on that matter.
I must close this overlong letter. Forgive me for its brusqueness, but this is a subject that allows for little sensibility, I suppose. Either that, or I never was much at parlor talk anyway. I hope to see you soon.
Yours cordially,
John H. Beresford, Major
His Majesty's 45th Foot
Onyx read the letter through once, and then she read it through again, not so much that she had not retained its contents on the first perusal, but because the letter had such a conversational tone that she could reread it and almost imagine him there in the room with her. She raised the letter to her nose. There was just the slightest fragrance of bay rum on the paper.
She had not the least doubt in her mind that she would go to Sherbourn. It remained only to pack, brave a brief audience with Lady Bagshott, and wait for the chaise to arrive. She would write to Andrew from Sherbourn. He could make of it what he wished. She could spend pages and pages of paper reminding him of Christian duty and ministries to the sick, but if he did not by now possess the insight to see this himself, there was no reason to bother.
Onyx waited impatiently for Alice's return. The first sound of her footsteps on the front walk brought Onyx shooting out of her chair and running into the entrance hall, waving the letter, which she thrust under Alice's nose.
A little smile of amusement, all that she would allow herself on the Sabbath, crossed Alice's face. She took the letter and sat herself down on the stairs. Onyx sat beside her, pleating and unpleating the folds of her best Sunday muslin while Alice read.
Finally she finished the letter, folded it, and returned it to Onyx.
“I have already packed, Alice,” Onyx said. “It remains for you to do the same. I wish for you to accompany me.”
“There is nothing said about me in this letter,” Alice objected.
“No, but I think I understand this situation already better than Major Beresford realizes. When Papa was sick, remember how many of us were required for his care?”
“Onyx, you know that I am little use in a sickroom,” Alice protested.
“I am certain there must be other tasks you can lift from Lady Beresford's shoulders,” Onyx argued. “Besides which … oh, Alice, I need you.”
“Very well. I will pack while you screw up your courage for an audience w
ith Lady Bagshott,” said Alice as she hurried up the stairs.
The thought of facing Lady Bagshott, particularly after her lunchtime work with the Reverend Littletree, should have unnerved Onyx, but it did not. She tied on her chipstraw bonnet and set off across the lawn. If it were for me, I would be terrified, she reasoned with herself. It is not for me; it is for Jack Beresford.
That thought made her stand stock-still in the middle of the lawn. The memory of her last meeting with Jack Beresford sent the color shooting into her cheeks. His lips were so warm, and she had felt so good with his arms around her.
Well, if he can overlook that impulsive proposal as a momentary aberration, probably a direct result of his heavy loss of blood, surely I can forget that it ever happened, she told herself. She patted her hair into place. It was a kind offer, however misguided. He had likely come to his senses by now.
There was an unfamiliar chaise drawn up to the stable entrance when she crossed the back lawn and entered by the bookroom door. The chaise had a crest on the panel, and the vehicle was covered with mud.
Jenner stood in the hallway. He looked her up and down in his usual fashion and pointed to the closed door of the bookroom. Onyx took a deep breath, patted her hair again, and knocked.
“Enter, Miss Hamilton.”
She knows it is I, Onyx thought as she paused for a heartbeat with her hand on the knob. Well, she sounds no more forbidding than I would have imagined. Courage, Onyx.
When she entered the room, Lady Bagshott looked up from the letter in her hand. She motioned Onyx to sit down, and smoothed the letter in front of her.
“I have received a brief letter from Sherbourn, Onyx. I assume you have come on the same errand?”
Onyx nodded. Lady Bagshott rose to her full height and leaned over the desk until she was almost nose to nose with Onyx. “I would advise you, Miss Hamilton, not to waste the man's time. If you hurry, you can get in several hours of travel before nightfall.”
Onyx looked up at her in astonishment. Lady Bagshott stared her in the eyes and then sat down again, still regarding her.
“Well?” she challenged.
“Somehow I expected … I do not know what I expected,” Onyx concluded lamely.
Lady Bagshott let out her short bark of laughter. “Fooled you, didn't I, Miss Baggage?” She went to the window. “Onyx, I can well imagine what you think of me, but there was a time when a letter like this from Sherbourn would have sent me packing too. There, now, I have surely surprised you!”
“I go to help, madam,” Onyx replied.
“And I am sure that you will,” said Lady Bagshott. Her voice was a trifle unsteady, but Onyx had the good sense not to look at her.
“Adrian Beresford is a scamp and a rascal, a cheerful kind of ne'er-do-well who has no more sense of management than the chief performer in a flea circus. He is also charming and witty and ready for any scrape. He has been a wonderful foil to Jack, who, for all his ramshackle ways, tends to be too serious. They are dear to me beyond words. I am so sorry that Adrian is dying.”
It was quite the longest speech Onyx had ever heard from Lady Bagshott.
“I am glad that you are going, although I know it will be a difficult thing, Miss Hamilton,” Lady Bagshott continued formally.
“Andrew will not approve, I am sure,” Onyx said.
“I will make it right with him,” the other woman replied. Her hands were still on the draperies as she looked across the back lawn toward the stables. She did not turn around. “If you had chosen not to go, miss, I would have abandoned all hope for you.”
Onyx smiled. “I will go now, Lady Bagshott, with your leave.”
“You have it,” she said after a long pause. “And before you depart, stop in the kitchen. I have asked Cook to prepare a little basket with some items you might find useful.”
“Thank you.”
“Surprised you again, didn't I, girl?” said Lady Bagshott. “Just remember to keep your wits about you.”
“I shall try,” said Onyx. She rose. “Lady Bagshott,” she began hesitantly, feeling her way around the words, “I want to apologize … for the trouble I caused over the pianoforte.” She had had no intention of apologizing, but suddenly it occurred to her that she was wrong. “And I mean it,” she added unnecessarily.
“Your apology—although long overdue—is accepted,” said Lady Bagshott, turning around finally.
After a fresh change of horses and food for the coachman and postilions, the carriage drew up in front of the vicarage. Quickly their few possessions were tied down. A postboy, spattered with mud like the carriage, helped Alice in while Onyx spoke to the coachman.
“Sir, I know that Major Beresford has given you leave to stop for lodging during this journey.”
“Aye, he has.”
“I am also certain that you are tired. But if there is any way that you see fit to drive us straight through to Sherbourn, you will get no argument from me. I am sure that you know even better than I how serious matters are.”
“Happen we do,” he replied. “We'll give it a go, miss.” They paused that night only to change horses and eat, the coachman walking around stiff-legged while the horses were unharnessed and led away to the comforts of stall and grain. Onyx closed her eyes against the sharp edge of exhaustion in his voice as he chivvied the ostlers to put a sparkle in their steps and hurry faster. After a bite of meat and cheese and a swallow of ale, they set off again.
The coach was comfortable, but Onyx took no comfort in it, knowing how tired the coachman and postilions were. She sat upright as they bowled along, wishing there were some way she could help.
Before the sun set, Alice chuckled and pointed to Onyx's feet. “You'll get there no faster by pushing.”
She smiled and stopped. “No, I won't. There seems to be little I can do.”
“There is something. I suggest you try to sleep. It may be that we will be wanted immediately upon our arrival.”
The sun set and the moon traveled across the sky, and still they rode on, stopping only for the barest necessities. The coachman's eyes were red from lack of sleep, but he still found a moment during the changing of horses to joke with his postilions, to jolly them into the continuation of their duties.
During one pause, Onyx approached one of the postilions, a lad scarcely beyond his first youth. He stood by the carriage, hands on the small of his spine, rocking backward and forward.
“I want to thank you for what you are doing,” she said simply. “I wish I had money to pay you, even beyond what Major Beresford is paying you.”
“If you had, I would'na take it, miss, meaning no disrespect, of course,” he replied, his speech forthright and with the same North Country burr she detected in Jack's voice. “I did always want to do the major a favor.”
“And why is that?” she asked.
“My older brother Jamie fought with the Major at Talavera.”
“And where is Jamie now?”
“He died there, but Major Beresford saw to it that Jamie came home anyway. None of the other commanders ever did that for their men. Major Beresford said he didn't want his boys to take their final rest away from our dales. I am in his debt for that, miss.”
“I see,” she replied and could say no more.
When morning came, the sun rose on a landscape she never could have imagined. The Pennines, the spine of England, were dark hulks in the near distance. As the sun rose, she saw that their majesty was covered with the pale green of late spring. Here and there, patches of snow sprouted on the north-facing slopes of the higher crags.
In deeper green meadows that marched right down to the road, sheep were waking. Lambs were everywhere, and everywhere Onyx saw the brisk movement of black-and-white border collies, nipping here, bullying there. To the east the land sloped in more refined fashion to the great Plain of York, and beyond that, where she could not see but could only imagine, was the North Sea.
Onyx took in what she could. Her eyes were smarting f
rom lack of sleep, and she ached all over. Even her sagging mattress at the vicarage was preferable to the carriage, no matter how modern and well-sprung it was.
She was beginning to feel sorry for herself when she recalled her last journey and the fateful wish she had made to herself for an adventure to while away the tedium of the summer and provide her with memories for the coming years in Chalcott's vicarage. I have certainly been dealt in large measure what I wished for, she thought. She would have to tell Jack Beresford about her rash daydream someday. He would relish the good humor of it.
After a quick stop for porridge and tea, they continued their excruciating journey, climbing higher and higher as they left the main highway and traveled narrower roads.
And then Sherbourn was before them. She knew it was Sherbourn even before the coachman let out a halloo to put heart into his boys again and urged on the tired horses.
The manor was set in a wide valley—the postboy had called it a dale. The house was large and rambling, not built in the artificially formal style of Chalcott, with its precise lawns and careful symmetrical arrangement. There was a wildness about Sherbourn that appealed to her immediately, a comfort and welcome there that she had never felt at Chalcott. The manor was a mixture of native stone and timber and well-draped with ivy. It spoke of tradition and power, and something more.
“How odd, Alice!” she exclaimed as they drew close. “Do you feel it?”
“Feel what, Onyx?” asked Alice as she struggled to open her eyes.
“Oh, it is hard to explain. Sherbourn looks so … comfortable and safe. As if children have played here.”
“Onyx, lack of sleep has made your brain wander,” was Alice's assessment.
There were no children in the courtyard as the coachman braked to a stop in front of the manor, only another carriage, a smaller one, with a black horse tied and blanketed.
“This is early for a morning call,” Alice said as she sat up. “But it is comforting, I suppose, to know that we are not the only early risers in Yorkshire.”
