“Venice, sir. At school.”
“Never could get my mouth around the sounds of other tongues myself.” He eyed her speculatively. “Your folks don’t have a worry over letting you wander about on your own?”
“Oh yes.” The thought renewed the burning to her eyes. “They are so very worried.”
“There, now. Shouldn’t have said a thing. None of my affair.” He tore the page from his book and handed it over. “Here you are. London to Bath.”
“Thank you,” she said, choking slightly on the sorrow and gratitude both. “You are most kind.”
“Pleasure, miss. Harry!”
“Here, sir.” The youth arrived back, breathless and bearing a small hamper.
“Good lad.” He nodded at Serafina. “See her ladyship makes the proper car, will you?”
“Yes, sir. This way, miss.”
Serafina reached across the counter and took hold of the man’s hand with both of hers. “You are a very, very good man.”
“We mustn’t give your young man a reason to be jealous.” He smiled through his embarrassment. “Pretty lass like you must have a suitor.”
“Yes, sir. It is why I rush as I do.”
“What’s the gentleman’s name, then?”
“Luca, sir. His name is Luca.”
“And don’t you have a nice glow about you when you say his name. I hope he realizes how lucky he is.” He leaned back. “Have a pleasant journey home, miss.”
Only when she turned from the counter did Serafina realize the entire office was still watching her in silence. The men all doffed their hats as she passed. She held herself very erect and kept her eyes fastened upon the door. There she turned back and ignored all the gazes save one. “Again, sir. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you.”
Then she pulled the hood back over her hair and face. And she followed the young man along the next step of her journey.
Toward Luca.
The train was even less comfortable than the coach. The car jerked and rattled horribly. The rough passages were so treacherous she spilled more of the tea than she drank. But Serafina ate and drank her way through every smooth stretch, for the meal seemed to quiet her stomach, or perhaps it was just the image of a friendly face helping her onward.
The late afternoon sun angled through the windows, making the car stiflingly hot. The windows had to remain tightly shut, however, as the engine emitted a constant stream of soot and smoke. Even with the windows closed, every surface was covered with gray dust. Yet their speed was so astonishing Serafina could scarcely mark her own discomfort. Indeed, every person on board could speak of little else.
The other passengers said the train reached thirty-five miles per hour on the open stretches. Serafina had no idea what the numbers meant. But the speed was both exhilarating and terrifying. The countryside outside the window was only a blur.
They arrived in Bath station just as the westering sun joined with the golden hills. Serafina made her way to the front of the station, through yet more throngs of people and hawkers. She found herself moving behind a couple whose porter cleared a way forward. She observed how they stepped to a line of waiting carriages. She watched others and saw how they gave the driver an address and then entered. There was none of the bartering she would have expected between a traveler in Venice and a gondolier. Everything seemed very straightforward.
She approached the next carriage in line and said, “I wish to go to Harrow.”
But as she started to enter the vehicle, the driver demanded, “ ’Ere, now, ’ang on a tic. Will you be after the manor or the village?”
The words meant nothing and the man’s accent was mystifying. “Please excuse me, sir. I wish to go to Harrow.”
“And I was ’earing you the first time, wasn’t I. Is you wanting the manor or the village?”
“I don’t . . . My aunt . . .” She stopped. “What is a manor, please?”
“The big house. Harrow Hall.”
“Oh, yes, now I understand. My aunt, she worked there before. But not now.”
“So it’s the village you’re wanting. That’s quite a way to be going this time of evening. Hard going, that road, after dark.” He was a coarse-featured man, his face blistered from riding through all manner of weather. “Cost you the better part of ’alf a crown.”
Now she was back on familiar territory. She had no idea how much it was he had said. But she was a merchant’s daughter and knew never to accept the first price for anything. “Too much.”
“Eight shillings, then. Can’t do you better than that.”
“All right,” she said, fingering what remained in her pocket. “But hurry.”
“Got no need to ’ang about, now, do I.” He cracked his whip. “Gerrup, there!”
Serafina imagined her aunt would be scandalized by a variety of things. Arriving alone after dark, for one. Running from the ship and her parents. Traveling across southern England unescorted. As the carriage jounced and rattled over the rutted road, Serafina knew she should have been formulating a fair response to all her criticisms. But she was awfully tired. Her bones ached from fatigue and the rough journey. Her mind felt so jostled, she could hold on to no thought for very long.
Serafina forced the stubborn window open and breathed deeply of the English evening air. The one thought that came back to her over and over was that she dared not tell her aunt how she obtained the money for this journey. Of all the things she had done to arrive at this point, this most left her twisted inside. It was a wrong as deep as her fatigue. She had stolen from the people who loved her and wished for her only the best. Though they disagreed with her and did not accept her need for Luca, still they were her family. And she had stolen from them.
She tried to see the stars overhead, but the carriage was passing through a forest so thick the boughs formed a living tunnel. She tried to pray but found the words leaden and thick in her mind. She felt as though she passed through a spiritual burrow as dark as the night. Go and sin no more, the vicar had said. Serafina rubbed the moisture from her cheeks and turned away from the sky she could not find. Why did it seem as though the entire world stood between her and the man she loved?
They traveled long through the dark. The farther they went, the worse grew the road’s condition. Finally the carriage pulled past a pair of impressive gates, closed up tight against the night. They continued for a mile and more, a tall stone wall now running alongside the road. The wall drifted back a ways, and she smelled woodsmoke. The carriage entered a hamlet consisting of several dozen stone cottages lining both sides of the lane. The driver called softly to his horse and halted before a house with windows aglow and a tavern’s sign hanging above the entrance. Without a word to Serafina he leaped down, straightened his back, and asked through the window, “Who is it we’re after, miss?”
“E-excuse me?”
“The name of them what’s expecting you.”
“Oh. Donatella. Signora. That is, Mrs. Agatha Donatella.”
“Uppity sort of name for a body livin’ out here in the Wiltshire countryside.” The driver turned and walked to the door.
An aproned innkeeper answered the driver’s knock. As he pointed the way, Serafina caught the fragrances drifting through the night air. Of a fire burning cedar chips and a roast and tobacco and companions sheltered against the night. She wished she could simply lie down right here and go to sleep.
The driver drove her down to the last house in the village. It was larger than the others, with a full second story. But as Serafina alighted from the transom, she found herself sharing the driver’s sentiment. This place was so far removed from Italy. Why had her aunt remained here?
She fished out some coins and handed them up to the driver. “Thank you, sir.”
The driver inspected the coins in the light of the lantern that hung by his right shoulder. “ ’Ere now, you’ve given me too much.”
She accepted her change. He tipped his hat to her, then clicked to his horse. As
Serafina watched him depart, the moon slipped out from behind a cloud. She realized she could see her breath. She turned and looked again at the house. In the moonlight, the stone walls and slate roof gleamed with a hard light. She had never thought she could ever feel so far away from Venice. From home.
The perfume of roses and flowers she could not identify wafted along the walkway. Somewhere deep inside the house, a candle glowed. Otherwise, the night was dark and very silent.
Her knock sounded loud in her ears. She waited and was about to knock again when she heard a slow scraping footstep from within.
“Who’s out there this time of night?”
Serafina found herself trembling such that she could not find the strength to reply.
The voice was sharp and querulous. “I know you’re standing there, I can see your shape. Speak up!”
“A-aunt Agatha?” she asked in Italian.
“Chi è?”
“It’s me, Auntie. Serafina.”
The lock rattled open. Then a second. The door swiveled back. “Saints in heaven above.”
Her chattering teeth made hard go of the words. “H-hello, Aunt A-agatha.”
“Ah, child, let me look at you” came the faltering response. “For a moment there I thought the hands of time had been drawn back. You’re the mirror image of your dear sweet mother.” The woman leaned on her cane and peered out into the dark night. “Where are your parents?”
Only then did Serafina let her resolve melt away in a flood of weary and sorrowful tears.
Chapter 13
The room where Serafina awoke was very strange indeed. A waist-high wall joined to a steeply slanted roof. Beams thicker than her waist jutted out at odd angles. The room smelled of dust and disuse, and the wood was pitted and scarred by a time beyond her imagination. A low table hugged the wall opposite her bed, and beside that stood an armoire and a narrow sofa. Or so Serafina imagined, for all the furniture except the bed remained covered in white sheets. No one had been upstairs in quite some time. In the morning light, she could see where her footsteps had left marks along the dusty floor.
Voices drifting up from downstairs drew Serafina from her bed. She crossed to a window alcove set deep in the roofline. The morning was cold and tasted faintly metallic, as though even in July there remained a hint of winter. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. A blacksmith began a steady banging upon his anvil. A horse whinnied and doves cooed. Serafina took one more strengthening breath and turned away.
She dressed quickly. As she walked down the stairs, the voices grew silent. She followed the morning scents into the kitchen. Her aunt was seated in a high-backed wing chair pulled up close to the fire. Another woman stood stirring a pot on the stove. The two ladies turned to eye Serafina’s appearance with identical expressions—neither welcoming nor hostile. Serafina found enough of her voice to say, “Buon giorno, Zìa.”
“You said last night that you speak English, yes? You will use only that in my home.” She indicated the woman. “You may greet my friend Beryl Marcham.”
“Good morning, madam.”
The woman eyed her distantly. “She’s even prettier than you said.”
“Well, I did warn you.”
“She could be trouble, you know. Very serious trouble.”
“I’m not insisting, Beryl.”
“No, you never would.” The woman stepped away from the stove and smiled down at Serafina’s aunt. “Because you know I would never refuse you anything.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“On the contrary, I owe you everything.” The woman’s smile slipped away as her gaze returned to Serafina. “You should address me as Mrs. Marcham. The only ‘madam’ in this village is the lady of Harrow Hall. And should you meet her, you will address her as ‘my lady.’ But it will be unlikely that you shall see her at all. These days she rarely rises from her bed. Do you understand?”
“I-I’m not certain, mad—Mrs. Marcham.”
“I will explain things in due course,” Agatha said.
“Very well.” Without the smile, Beryl Marcham held to an expression of stern authority. “You must be on time, young lady. Punctuality is critical.”
Something in the way Mrs. Marcham looked at her left Serafina quaking more than the previous night. “Y-yes, Mrs. Marcham.”
“She has an agreeable way about her,” Aunt Agatha offered.
“Won’t do her much good, not with those looks.” Mrs. Marcham started for the door. “You’ll show her how to hide that hair of hers in a kerchief, I suppose.”
“You know I will.”
“And speak to her about the manner of dress.”
“Don’t I always?”
The two women exchanged a look. “I’m off to the village market for a few items,” Mrs. Marcham said. She gathered up her basket and left without another word or glance in Serafina’s direction.
Agatha studied the closed door, kneading the head of her cane.
“Is-is everything all right?” Serafina couldn’t control the tremble in her voice.
“You must be hungry.” The woman spoke the words while still eyeing the closed door. “There’s some fruit in the bowl by the window and husks warming beside the stove. The water’s just off the boil. You know how to make tea?”
“Yes, Aunt Agatha.”
“I’m not at all well, you see.” She spoke the news in such a blunt manner she might as well have been discussing the price of bread. “I have put off writing your mother about my state for too long. I hated sharing my distress with anyone, most especially with my dear Bettina. Which makes this business all the harder.” She rose slowly from her chair and made her way to the table.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Agatha, I don’t—”
“Please come over here and sit down.”
Serafina put an apple on a plate and pulled a cane-backed chair up closer to the kitchen table. Her aunt Agatha was stern by nature, Serafina saw that now. Though the morning was overcast, there was enough light through the broad rear window for her to see her aunt clearly. Serafina had been so tired the previous evening that little had registered. She had sat here in the kitchen and eaten a cold meal, then climbed the stairs alone to bed. Her aunt had asked her a few questions and then stopped, realizing that Serafina had been too tired to even think clearly, much less deal with such complex issues as why she was alone and where her parents were.
“You still look exhausted,” her aunt said.
“I’m fine. Thank you for your hospitality.” She tried to bite into the apple, but her stomach rejected the thought of food. Her limbs felt wooden. She could see the answer in her aunt’s expression, the answer to the only question that mattered.
Her aunt was not going to help her return to Luca.
“You must eat, child.”
“Perhaps later.” She pushed the plate aside. Just looking at the food made her feel weak and nauseous. What was she to do?
“Very well. If you won’t eat we must talk. Look at me, please.”
She had struggled so hard and done so much, and where had it brought her? To the cold stone kitchen of a cold house, in a cold land on the other side of Europe from her beloved. She had one gold ducat and some strange silver coins to her name.
Her aunt thumped her cane upon the flagstone floor. “Look at me!”
Serafina did as she was told.
“Take the sugar there in the pewter pot. Spoon a heaping portion into your tea. Another. No, don’t argue. You are depleted and you need the strength. And we must talk. All right. Drink it down. Yes, I know it’s too sweet. But it will make you alert and there is much to cover. I don’t want you growing faint on me. Drink it like medicine. That’s it.”
Agatha had the manner of one used to giving orders and being instantly obeyed. The woman was not cold nor uncaring. But she was stern to the point of harshness. She wore a long dress of charcoal gray, utterly unadorned save for a small ivory pin at her collar. There were neither rings on her fingers nor ribbons i
n her steel-gray hair. Her eyes were as direct and forceful as her tone.
“Now I want you to start from the beginning and tell me exactly how it is that I am sitting in my kitchen facing the daughter without the mother.”
Serafina did as she was instructed, though she could scarcely identify the voice as her own. She released the words in a dull monotone, barely above a whisper. On and on she spoke. She held nothing back. Why should she? Her only purpose was to return to Luca. Either her aunt would help her or she wouldn’t. Serafina described the fever and the boat and the journey and the final argument with her father. Only the theft of her father’s ducats did she hold back. Nothing else. Then she stopped. The kitchen felt crammed tight with her futile words. She could not bring herself to ask this stern woman for help. It was hard enough even to meet her gaze.
Her aunt did not look at all well. Her hands continued to knead the cane, as though seeking to mask the tremors that came and went through her body. Every now and then she winced and then resumed her severe expression, leading Serafina to believe she was fighting a constant battle with herself.
Finally she heaved herself to her feet. When Serafina rose to aid her, she said, “No, I can rise on my own. But can you cook?”
“A-a little.”
“I assume that means almost not at all. Look there, see that clay pot with the cork stopper? Measure out two handfuls of the milled oats into the smallest copper pan and set it on the fire. Add enough water to cover the oats and then a bit. Take a pinch of salt from the little urn here on the table. Then use the long wooden ladle there and stir constantly. I won’t be long.”
“I’m not hungry, Aunt Agatha.”
“I did not inquire as to your internal state. I gave you instructions. You must grow accustomed to doing as you are told without question.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Serafina hastened to obey.
Her aunt moved with tiny steps, at most a foot’s length at a time. Serafina had the pot filled and set on to boil before her aunt exited through the kitchen’s side entrance. Agatha was not a tall woman to begin with, and she was made shorter by the way she bowed over the cane. Even so, she made no reference to her own discomfort.
Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive Page 13
