“No, I don’t think it’s that. She says not, anyway. And Mary. Barry tells me Judelet has been surprisingly gentle with her.” Mary Barry was the scullery maid. “I don’t know what the matter is,” Rachel admitted, “but I’m afraid she’s not working out. She’s never where she’s supposed to be, never finishes the tasks she’s assigned. Mary says she spends most of the day in the kitchen garden, whether she’s been sent there for something or not. And she looks a fright most of the time, as if she sleeps in her clothes.”
William grunted and stuck his hands in his pockets, shaking his head. “‘Twould be a shame to send ’er away. She’s only a girl, wi’ no family but ’er father, and I wouldn’t wish the likes o’ him on a dog.”
“No.”
They fell silent for a time, then began to speak of other things, exchanging the daily news of their respective bailiwicks, house and farm. The moon was sinking; it was very late. Dandy had run ahead, and they were passing below the pavilion, a small, derelict, stone building that had once been used as a summer house, when the dog suddenly broke into a frenzy of barking. They halted, gazing up the slight, grassy rise. “Shush, Dandy!” Rachel called softly. “Lord, he’ll wake the whole house.” At that moment something small and dark darted out the door, halted against the white stone facade for a second, then dashed back inside.
William immediately reached for Rachel’s arm and put her behind him. “A prowler, and he’s trapped now. Stay right here.”
She felt grateful for his solicitousness, but she wasn’t afraid; she thought it more likely that Dandy had surprised a pair of trysting lovers than a prowler. She stood obediently still and watched the bailiff stride up the mount to the pavilion, his manner cautious and fearless at the same time. Dandy had stopped barking; in fact, he was whining a welcome. Either he really was the world’s worst watchdog or the intruder in the pavilion was a friend. She heard William call out, “Who goes there?” exactly like a Roman sentry in a play. A low voice said something in reply. A woman’s voice. Unable to stand the suspense, Rachel gathered her skirts and started up the hill.
William stood in the low, arched doorway, his broad frame obscuring the view, having a soft, one-sided conversation. Rachel stood on her toes to peer over his shoulder. At first she couldn’t see anything but shadows in the damp, musty, not very clean enclosure, but as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she made out a slight figure at the back, pressed against the wall. It was Sidony Timms.
“You did ought to come out now,” William was saying in a soothing voice. “Nobody means to harm you. Come out, it’s all right. Mrs. Wade is wi’ me; we was out havin’ a walk. Why’nt you come out so we can talk? That’s it, that’s a girl.”
He stepped back, and Rachel backed up behind him, making way for Sidony. She crept out of the archway, darting glances at them through the curtain of her long, rather wild black hair. She was barefooted; her shoes were lined up neatly on the doorstep, and beside them were a tattered shawl and a pillow.
“What are you doing here, Sidony?” Rachel asked, taking Holyoake’s cue and speaking gently. “Were you sleeping?”
She stared down at her feet and said, “Yes, ma’am. I wasn’t hurting anything, I promise, I was just sleeping.”
“But why? Because of the heat?”
She didn’t answer; she glanced up at William, who towered over her like a giant, and then at Rachel. After a long, odd moment, she finally murmured, “No,” and looked back down at the ground.
Perplexed, Rachel said, “What, then? Why would you want to sleep here, Sidony? Is there something wrong with your room?” Tess was Sidony’s third-floor roommate, a mild, good-tempered girl—surely Tess couldn’t be the problem.
“Oh, no, ma’am, my room’s lovely, I never stayed anywhere so nice.”
“Then what?”
She traced the edge of the concrete step with her big toe and nervously plaited her skirt with her fingers. “It’s just that I can’t stay in there, not for long at a time. I can’t bear it. It’s crazy-sounding, but I can’t stand the walls.” She glanced between them, pleading for understanding, then gave a hopeless shrug and looked away.
Rachel felt a quick frisson of recognition. Impulsively, she touched Sidony’s shoulder. She herself hadn’t suffered that particular torment in prison—the irrational terror of enclosed spaces—but others had, and their miserable cries and useless protests still rang in her ears, because she’d heard them almost daily for ten years.
“Why?” William asked kindly. “What harm can walls do to your?”
Rachel was about to answer for her—that the fear might be groundless but it was still real, still horrible—when Sidony spoke for herself, and the answer made Rachel gasp. “None, I know, but it makes me think on all the times my pa locked me up in a box, and then I feel like I’ve got to start screaming or I might die.”
Holyoake’s honest face blackened with emotion. But his voice was deep and calm when he said, “Let’s set down here for a minute, shall we? Myself, I can always think better when I’m setting.”
So they sat down on the top step of the little porch in front of the summer pavilion, Rachel and William on either side, Sidony in the middle. The moon was gone; the chimneys of Lynton Hall were etched in sharp black against the hazier black of the sky. Filled with pity and shock, Rachel could think of nothing to say. She was grateful when William said quietly, conversationally, “So. Yer pa shut you up in a box, and that’s why you can’t keep long to yer work in the kitchen. Because o’ the walls.” Sidony nodded faintly. “Why would the man do such a low and heartless thing?”
“He said because I was wicked. But . . . ’twould be for small things, leaving the churn out in the rain or not polishing the tinware to is liking. I didn’t mind the hitting so much as the box. ’Twas a cupboard for blankets and such. He’d empty it out an’ make me get in.” She wrapped her arms around her knees—a frighteningly revealing posture. “Just for a night usually, but once for the whole day, too.” Her voice broke at the end; she hid her face in her skirt.
Chilled, Rachel put her arm around the girl’s thin shoulders and hugged her. William looked miserable; his big hand hovered over the curve of Sidony’s spine for a moment, but then he dropped it back to his side. Rachel sent him a commiserating look. She was a woman, so she could comfort Sidony by touching her; William was a man, so he could not.
Sidony wiped her face with her hands, her hands on her skirt. “I’m all right now, ma’am,” she said softly, and her wobbly, grateful smile went straight to Rachel’s heart.
“Mrs. Wade,” Holyoake said ponderously.
“Yes?”
“I was just now thinking. Esther Pole, you know, she’s not as young as she used t’ be.”
“That’s true. Esther’s been slowing down; I’ve heard others say it.” She knew exactly where he was leading, and wondered why she hadn’t thought of the solution herself.
“She could do wi’ some help, and no mistake.”
Sidony’s dark-lashed eyes widened on him. “Miss Pole, the dairy woman?”
“Aye. She’s slowed to a crawl,” he avowed—a shameless exaggeration. “Now you, Sidony, what do you think o’ dairy work? ’Twould be harder’n kitchen work in many ways, not least of all the regularity of it, so to say, plus it takes some muscle, and you being sommat of a puny thing—-”
“Oh, I could do it, Mr. Holyoake, I know I could,” she said excitedly. “I’m the one who always milked Baby, our cow at home, and I helped her birth the calf, too, and ’twas a hard labor, with no one about but me. I’m sure I could work in the dairy for Miss Pole if you’d try me. And I think”—she smiled suddenly, with a charming, adult wryness—“I think ’twould be a great kindness to the Frenchman, for I’ve tried his patience sorely.”
William looked over her shoulder at Rachel, lifting his eyebrows to ask her opinion. She gave a nod of approval and he said, “You could start tomorrow, then. Meet me in the dairy barn at six o’clock, and we’ll tell Esth
er together. Now,” he continued before Sidony could speak, “there’s still the matter o’yer room. You can’t be sleeping out here on the grounds anymore. Tisn’t seemly for a young girl.”
She dipped her head and nodded. “I know. I’ll try—”
“The lads sleep in the stable wi’ the horses. Rough quarters they are, naught but straw beds on planks and a place for a few clothes, wood partitions between them and the animals. Still, they’re snug and warm, and I’ve never heard complaining. What if I was to rig up sommat o’ the sort in the dairy barn? You’d be all alone, but I could make a wee bit of a room, nothing fancy, wi’ a door and a lock so you could be private. The thing is, it’d be open on top, like; ’twouldn’t feel enclosed. And—the animals would be there for company.” He said that self-consciously, as if his sensitivity to Sidony’s plight embarrassed him slightly. “Do you think that would be all right, Mrs. Wade? Think ’is lordship would object for any reason?”
“I can’t imagine that he would, Mr. Holyoake.”
Sidony’s small, pixyish face was a study. Rachel felt in sympathy with her when her hand stole over to Holyoake’s sleeve and touched it shyly. “Thank you,” she said in a small voice. “How kind you are. I don’t know what to say to you, sir.”
William was smiling warmly until she said the word “sir.” Then he gave her hand a brisk, fatherly pat and got to his feet. “‘Tis late. Six o’clock’ll come in no time, so you’d best be going off to bed, girl. Your own bed, I think.”
She nodded, resigned to it.
“I know another place,” Rachel said suddenly, and they looked at her in surprise. “It’s cool and spacious, very airy, and it has a nice high ceiling. A little hard, maybe, but you’ve got your pillow. And you’d have Dandy for company.”
Sidony’s face was all eyes and open mouth. “Where is it, ma’am?”
She smiled. “Come along and I’ll show you.”
XV
A YOUNG LADY was coming out of Sebastian’s study just as Rachel entered it. She was blond, attractive, smartly dressed, with a proud, confident carriage that made her seem taller than she really was. Sebastian, who was behind her, evidently on his way to see her to the front door, halted in the threshold. “Ah, Mrs. Wade,” he said, smiling—a smile that went a long way toward banishing an emotion Rachel recognized with dull surprise as jealousy. “Have you met Miss Deene? Miss Deene, this is my housekeeper, Mrs. Wade.”
The two women bowed to each other and said how-do-you-do. Rachel had seen Sophie Deene in church and knew who she was; indeed, in a village as small as Wyckerley, a woman with her self-assured manner and radiant looks couldn’t go unnoticed for long. Close up, Rachel was struck by the girlish freshness in her features, which seemed slightly at odds with the poised, mature air she projected.
“I’m happy to meet you, Mrs. Wade,” she said with a clear, blue-eyed gaze that appeared guileless, but it was impossible to tell if she meant that or not. “Anne—Mrs. Morrell—told me she’d made your acquaintance; I’ve been hoping you and I would meet.”
“How is Mrs. Morrell?” Rachel asked. “I haven’t seen her in church lately.”
“She’s been a little under the weather. The doctor’s had her keeping to her room these last few weeks.”
“Oh, no. Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“She’s not really ill, only a little, um . . . just not quite herself, you know. And now she’s much better.”
“I’m so glad,” Rachel said warmly. Something in Miss Deene’s manner told her as clearly as words could have that Anne Morrell was pregnant. “Please give her my best regards when you see her.”
“Yes, I will.”
They said good-bye. Sebastian told Rachel he would be back in a moment, and went out of the room with Miss Deene.
While she waited, Rachel tried to come to terms with the bleak mood seeing him with the lovely Sophie Deene had cast over her. It wasn’t the lady herself, it was the fact of him being with, speaking to, admiring, being charming to any woman that made her feel cold and miserable. But what an imprudent reaction; she’d thought she had her emotions in better order. Jealousy implied prior possession, some degree of ownership, and all she owned of Sebastian was his transient attention. She was currently an object of interest to him, a sort of experiment, really. That he would move on to other women when the interest waned was so obvious it didn’t merit a second thought.
But she was making him her best friend. Even knowing she couldn’t have him, she was opening herself up to him a little more each day. She was sinking deeper and deeper, not into despondency but trust. Once she’d wondered if the reason she couldn’t find satisfaction in bed with him was because she was afraid he wouldn’t want her afterward—that the challenge she represented would then be met, and discarded as no longer interesting. But she knew now that the real reason was because she wasn’t brave enough to bear the consequences of ceding to him so much trust.
She heard his footsteps and turned toward the door. When she saw him she started to speak, but he crossed the room quickly, purposefully, and before she could say a word he caught her up in a lavish embrace and kissed her.
Breathless, she pulled away. “What was that for?” He kissed her again, slowly and thoroughly, and when he was finished she had the answer to her question.
They broke away, both remembering at the same moment that the door was open. Smiling the same secret smile, they took up places on either side of the mantel, a discreet six feet apart, Sebastian with his hands in his pockets and rocking on his toes a little, the conscientious country squire having a word of business with his housekeeper.
Rachel heard herself blurt out, “Miss Deene is very attractive, isn’t she?” She could have bitten her tongue.
“Yes, she is,” he agreed, a little too heartily. “Bright, too. I like the way her mind works. I like her enthusiasm.” Rachel nodded glumly. “As a woman, what’s your impression of her?”
“My impression?”
“Yes. Would you trust her? Does she seem competent to you? Levelheaded, honest?”
“Yes, all of those, I suppose. But of course,” she couldn’t help adding, “I hardly know her.”
“No, but I value your opinion. And I’m inclined to agree with you. Which is why I’ve decided to invest in Sophie’s mine and not her uncle’s. It won’t endear me to Mayor Vanstone, but that can’t be helped. What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing.” She resolutely wiped the grin from her face. But she couldn’t help feeling relieved that he was interested in the beautiful Miss Deene as a business associate, not as a woman.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said softly. She blushed; he laughed. “Not that kind of surprise, nothing you have to take your clothes off for. Unless, of course, you want to.”
She had a fleeting vision of it, herself naked for him right now, right here. The blush deepened; she actually felt weak in the knees. She fiddled with a candlestick on the mantel, pretending nonchalance, but Sebastian’s alert look told her she wasn’t succeeding. “What is the surprise?” she asked carelessly, and he laughed again.
“Come and see.” And he took her hand and pulled her out of the room.
They passed down the corridor toward the east wing of the house. He was taking her either to the library, the chapel, or her own room, and it said something for the deplorable state of her mind that she hoped it was the latter. But it wasn’t; it was the library. Most of the floor space was taken up by three enormous wooden packing crates and half a dozen smaller ones.
“Guess what’s in them,” Sebastian challenged, sitting down on one of the big crates and folding his arms.
The only guess was the best guess. “Books,” she said hopefully.
“No. Dogs. All different sizes, males and females, purebreds and mongrels, furry ones, sleek ones—”
“They’re not, they’re books! Oh, lovely. They are books, aren’t they?” When he said yes, she clapped her hands in delight. “Can we open
them? Oh, Sebastian, how wonderful. But where will you put them? There must be a hundred here.”
“Over three hundred, actually. Handpicked by a London bookseller I know and trust. I told him I wanted new books, nothing more than twenty years old, because I have a peevish housekeeper too smart for her own good who keeps grousing about the shortcomings of my library.”
She laughed gaily. “But there’s no room—you’ll have to add an annex!”
“Well, what I thought we could do—you could do, since the books belong to you—I thought you might go through the old ones and weed out the wheat from the chaff, the chaff being the ones you’ve already read. Keep whatever you think is worthwhile, I leave it entirely up to you. For the rest, I thought we might give them to the subscription library Christy Morrell is trying to start for the parish.”
“Oh, that’s a wonderful plan.” Of course the books didn’t belong to her; the very idea was too outlandish to contemplate. But he’d ordered them with her in mind as the primary reader, and the thoughtfulness of that added another snarl to her already tangled emotional state. How could she accept more things from him, even nominally, even when she had no intention of keeping them?
“Look.” He’d prized open one of the smaller crates and was lifting books out by the handful. “Turgenev, Trollope, Thackeray, Tennyson—this must be the T box. No, it’s not, because here’s Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and here’s Browning and Balzac. Have you read them all, my little bluestocking? You couldn’t have read this—Little Dorrit, Dickens—because it’s only just come out. Do you like plays? Poetry? We have Ibsen, we have Dostoevsky, Charlotte Brontë, Mrs. Gaskell. I know you think I’m an illiterate, but here’s one I’ve actually read myself—La Dame awe Camelias. Great pathos; reduced me to tears, I don’t mind admitting.”
She would be reduced to tears herself in another minute. Each new volume was a wonder, a miracle. In prison, reading had saved her life—literally, she truly believed—and even though her new life was rich and full, sensually and intellectually alive, stimulating, dazzling in comparison to her old one, she’d missed the pleasure of new books, new voices. “If you had given me jewels,” she said haltingly, “if you had given me paintings on—gold—you couldn’t have made me any happier. Thank you. Thank you. That’s inadequate, I know, but there aren’t any words to tell you what I’m feeling.”
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