Lady Sarah's Redemption

by Beverley Eikli

  “Yes,” she agreed, mildly. “While I was incarcerated with Mrs Hollingsworth in London I had no idea Archie was at Hawthorndene preparing to entice Caro away.”

  Soup splashed onto the tray. He felt as weak as an infant, even eating was an effort. “What splendid story did he weave to make her go with him?” he asked. If Miss Morecroft were going to reveal every sordid detail, he wanted to know if Caro’s dubious parentage were in the public domain.

  “She did not go willingly, sir.” Miss Morecroft looked at him, surprised, as she wiped up the spillage. “Surely you must have known she’d never leave you like that?”

  Roland cast aside his napkin. Exhausted, he lay back against the pillows, unable to meet Miss Morecroft’s eye. “I have not been a good father,” he murmured. When she didn’t reply he swallowed. He hadn’t even asked. “Where is Caro?”

  “Sleeping, sir. She’s very fragile.”

  That was hardly to be wondered at. Roland closed his eyes. They were all fragile. What his darling Sarah must have endured, he could barely imagine. But his darling Sarah was gone now, recovering from her ordeal in the bosom of her family.

  It was best she stay there. She would find it difficult to look upon him without reliving the past. His own inadequacy. A spasm of pain tore through him. He couldn’t bring himself to ask Miss Morecroft the extent of Sarah’s humiliation.

  “You may take away the soup, Miss Morecroft,” he said. He barely cared whether he ever ate again but of course there was Caro. He needed to be strong for her.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Miss Morecroft.” Wearily he dragged his gaze to meet hers.

  “I have a letter.”

  From an oilskin pouch she withdrew several folded sheets.

  “My father wrote it after four of the little ones had died. When he felt the beginnings of fever he bade me bring him pen and ink.” She handed him the brittle, sealed parchment. “He said it was the most important letter he’d ever written and I must guard it with my life.”

  Roland scanned the few lines. Tears burned his eyes.

  Miss Morecroft twisted her hands in her lap. Turning in her chair, she fixed him with a wavering gaze. “I’ve done you a terrible disservice, sir,” she began haltingly. “Not only for my part in what happened to you, and to Caro and Lady Sarah.” She paused, struggling with the words. “I never knew, until recently, why my father was sent to India. And” - she swallowed – “I understand now he owed you his life.”

  Roland drew in a ragged breath. At least this time he was not the villain. He felt as if a great load had been lifted from his shoulders. “Your father was young and he lost his nerve under fire. I’d challenge any of his superiors who were so ready to make an example of him to prove they would not do as Godby under similar circumstances.”

  “Yet he blamed you for banishing him?” Miss Morecroft’s lip trembled.

  “He thought I was doing it for other reasons,” said Roland, recalling that dreadful night he had discovered Venetia in bed with his foster brother. Roland and Venetia had been married only a month, and she was already pregnant with Caro. He’d not thought he could survive her betrayal.

  “Are you able to … forgive him, as he asks?”

  “I only wish he was here to hear it from my own lips,” muttered Roland. Taking refuge in brusqueness, he added, “You’ll stay here, of course. This is your home now, Sarah.”

  To his amazement Miss Morecroft kissed his hand and burst into tears.

  Sunlight glanced off the snow-capped mountain. Roland sat back in his chair on the terrace of the Chalet and savoured the now familiar backdrop of the Swiss Alps that had helped calm his disordered spirits for nearly two months.

  For the first few weeks he had missed his customary eggs, bacon and haddock. The strange foreign food would have been unappetizing, if he’d had much of an appetite. But then, it had been a long time since his appetites were of any consequence.

  He’d taken Caro to this place on the advice of his physician who believed Caro was at grave risk of succumbing to her mother’s emotional excesses. Though Caro had exhibited no such propensities Roland considered time away from Caro’s critical, prying aunt as important as the need for a period of calm reflection for himself. Time, age and maturity had given him an understanding of what had angered and perplexed him before: Venetia’s addiction to the poppy. To some extent, Lady Sarah’s youthful and innocent desire for instant gratification had helped him put Venetia’s desperate pleasure-loving into perspective. But while Sarah’s natural sensitivity and generosity towards others tempered her impulses, Venetia’s wild, untutored spirit had been allowed to develop at will, becoming warped in the process. Her father, addicted to drink and gaming, had lost his wits and his fortune through both.

  Was it any wonder that Venetia’s appetites were what they were? Or that she’d traded on her beauty, becoming venal and selfish in consequence?

  Was it any wonder that Roland had failed miserably as a husband when he, himself, was so green, a slave to his own youthful desires, as yet untempered by the wisdom that came through age and experience?

  He felt the rough parchment of Godby’s letter in his coat pocket and the words chased themselves around his head.

  ‘I make no apologies for what happened between Venetia and myself; from the moment I saw her, reason was beyond my power. Now I am older, and wiser, my heart breaks at the knowledge that my passion for Venetia destroyed your love for me which I have come to value so much higher. Forgive me.’

  “Father, you’ll catch your death!” Caro’s admonition came upon a cloud of frosted air as she seated herself opposite him at the breakfast table.

  Roland transferred his gaze from the magnificent, snow-covered Matterhorn, to his daughter’s green eyes. It was nine o’ clock in the morning. Caro rarely made her appearance before noon.

  “Come,” he said, rising. “Let’s walk.”

  She tucked her gloved hand into the crook of his arm and they left the terrace, taking the snow-covered path Roland was in the habit of taking, alone.

  And as they talked his soul, which had felt a dry and shrivelled thing only hours ago, began to grow and thrive. He felt hope for the future, both for them, and for the reforms he believed would one day improve the lives of all.

  Lady Sarah …

  Sarah was one topic on which he dared not dwell. He acknowledged the great good she had wrought in his daughter, but that was as far as he was prepared to let his thoughts wander in that direction.

  The nightmares that resulted from that ghastly evening at the Hollingsworth’s were too brutal, too vivid to revisit willingly. Whenever his thoughts turned unexpectedly to Sarah his breath caught and his body burned with desire, only to be extinguished by shame.

  Caro smiled up at him. The crisp air had put roses in her cheeks and he no longer doubted his wisdom in removing her from Larchfield’s cloistering atmosphere and the carping of her aunt.

  “You look so much better, Caro.” He was uncertain if it was the right thing to say. He did not want to spoil her lightness of spirit by fostering unhealthy introspection.

  “I am,” she said, simply, adding after a silence, “I’ve been talking to a doctor of the mind. I realize how much worse things could have been for me but for your care and concern.” Her eyes filled with tears. “But now you appear to be the brooding invalid.”

  He looked at her with amazement.

  The gentlest of breezes loosened the snow from the branches of the fir trees. It fell like powder, and caught upon Caro’s lashes so that he fancied she looked like a wood sprite when she turned her large eyes upon him once more. Her words cut him to the bone as she said, wistfully, “I wonder whatever happened to Lady Sarah.”

  “Lady Sarah.” He could do no more than repeat her name with longing.

  Caro glanced up at him quickly. “You were fond of her, weren’t you, papa?”

  Roland shot her a narrow look. What was this? For nearly two months Caro had shown li
ttle interest in her surroundings, had not uttered a word of her ordeal. Now she was dredging up the past and it was intruding uncomfortably on Roland’s own blurred understanding of events after he had lost consciousness.

  It was bad enough to have to remember his lack of heroism while he could still stand; unbearable to consider what might have happened after he had passed out, despite Miss Morecroft’s reassurances.

  “She was a fine young woman,” he conceded, embarrassed.

  “She saved our lives, papa.”

  At Caro’s reproachful look he added, hastily, “I wrote acknowledging that. She is still with her father.” Then – for Caro continued to look accusing, “A very long letter, thanking her for all she did for you, Caro.”

  “And you, Papa!”

  Roland looked away. “I’m sure I thanked her very properly,” he muttered, wanting to turn the subject. “Miss Morecroft tells me you were very brave.”

  “Brave! Lady Sarah was the brave one, for leaving her father once she had learned my likely whereabouts, and venturing alone to the Hollingsworths. Miss Morecroft – the real one - was only brave in taking a risk to escape. Her very life depended upon it. After Mr Hollingsworth grabbed me when he found me walking in the park, then pushed me into the coach and tied me up, I did nothing but quiver and cry.” She bit her lip. “He made me write that letter, you know. You believed I went with him willingly, didn’t you?”

  “It would have been understandable if you had,” he said, squeezing her hand, “considering the lies I thought he’d told you about me-” He broke off, realizing he had said too much.

  “What lies?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Let’s turn back, it’s freezing.”

  But Caro wouldn’t let him off so easily. After some moments in silence she said, softly, “You thought he’d told me you weren’t my father.”

  “I am your father.”

  “I know.”

  The silence wasn’t broken after that. The path took a circuitous route and they returned to the hotel just as luncheon’s enticing aromas wafted out to greet them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  SARAH SAT STIFFLY in her crimson and gilt chair and stared at the guests enjoying this evening’s charades. Once she, too, would have added her laughter to the peals which greeted Miss Emmeline Farquhar’s racy charade but now she felt wrapped in a cocoon of misery and loneliness, disembodied from her old friends. They’d welcomed her back with a rapture born of her novelty, but as she remained withdrawn so too they had ceased to make an effort. Sometimes she almost felt a growing hostility. Perhaps they saw that she despised their thoughtless frivolity. Knowing the depth of pain that came from loving, she certainly despised the use of charades to so publicly mock the pain of a fellow house guest.

  She slid her gaze across to Lady Stokes. On stage the attractive Lord Stokes, playing the Duke of Cumberland, was in an intimate clinch with Miss Emmeline Farquhar who played his mistress. Lady Stokes’s jaw clenched with the effort of appearing to find the charade as amusing as everyone else. Clearly, she did not.

  Sarah turned away in disgust as the audience broke into rapturous applause.

  “And now for True or False!” Lord Stokes, tearing himself from the arms of his lady-love on stage addressed the audience. “The charade will first identify the three people chosen to take part in tonight’s quiz. They will then have to answer questions put to them upon the roll of a dice.”

  “Lady Sarah? Are you alright?” Lord Giles, beside her, touched her arm. His frown was full of concern.

  She smiled weakly. “I’m just a little weary.” How could she admit that games involving the roll of a dice brought back terrible memories?

  “Perhaps we could take a turn around the supper room?” he suggested, and although Sarah knew he had no ulterior motives, she shook her head. His admiration the past few days had been balm to her anguished soul after Roland’s devastating letter but she had no intentions of pushing the boundaries of propriety. Who knew where a turn around the supper table could lead?

  Another spasm of anguish gripped her as she reflected upon Roland’s words. Indirectly, they were the reason she was here. At her father’s admonition. It was he who had almost physically ripped her from Roland’s side all those weeks ago and bundled her into his coach to take her home. But watching his daughter pine over Roland Hawthorne’s silence had driven Lord Miles to the extremes of his limited forbearance.

  “Worthless puppy if he can’t appreciate a prize jewel like you, my love!” he’d fumed, forgetting that he had been strenuously against a possible match from the moment Sarah had finally hinted at her feelings for Roland.

  “A girl with your wit and beauty mustn’t squander her chances mouldering in the country with her cantankerous old Papa. Lady Mettling has invited you to spend the week at Middlebrook with a group of friends. You will write this moment and accept her kind invitation.”

  There had been a fierce battle between the strong-minded Lord Miles and his equally strong-minded daughter before Sarah had finally given in.

  However the past few days only proved that she would have been far happier mouldering in the country with her cantankerous old Papa. The frenetic gaiety she’d once embraced seemed stupid and pointless. Though she tried to enter into the spirit she knew old friends and acquaintances whispered to one another that Lady Sarah was greatly changed – and not nearly so much fun.

  To her confusion she heard several members of the audience cry out her name.

  Lord Giles tapped her arm. He was smiling. “It’s a shipwreck, can’t you see?” he told her, indicating the badly painted backdrop meant to represent waves and Miss Hemmersly acting out a brave attempt at keeping her head above water. “They want you to go on stage.”

  Fear gripped her. Dear Lord, this couldn’t be happening. “I don’t think I can,” she whispered honestly. Her legs felt weak and her head reeled.

  “Mr Roger Burbank, you are also required,” Lord Stokes called amidst general clapping and excitement. “Come, Lady Sarah, you’re not known as a shrinking violet. It’s all in the name of honest fun.” He extended his arm and before Sarah knew it Lord Giles had pushed her forward and she was being helped onto the stage.

  It was not the hostile grilling her overwrought nerves had envisioned. People were naturally curious about her ordeal and after a while she found it cathartic to answer questions like how cold had the water been and about the Belgian fishermen who had bravely swum out to rescue her.

  “Many thanks for your brave answers,” Lord Stokes told her at the end of her ten questions, indicating she could now rise her from her chair on the centre of the stage.

  Smiling, Sarah inclined her head as she prepared to return to the audience amidst more applause.

  “I … have a question.”

  She turned at the interruption.

  “Miss Bassingthwaite, why did you not speak up before?” Lord Stokes, still in his role as Master of Ceremonies stayed Sarah with a hand. “Lady Sarah, will you permit our shyest houseguest one final question?”

  Frozen, Sarah stared at the girl, unable to answer. Millicent looked as plain in her blue round dress as she had the night Sarah had seen her at the London inn before walking into the trap laid for her by Archie Hollingsworth. There was a greenish tinge to her normally sallow complexion and her terror was apparent at commanding the attention of so many people.

  Almost wearily, Sarah accepted her fate. It was clear enough. Lady Bassingthwaite had bullied her daughter into asking the question and Millicent, too frightened to disobey, had only now got up the courage to lay the foundations of a damning exposé. Naturally Millicent’s veiled accusation would be given credence because of the kind of girl she was.

  “What would you like to ask, Miss Bassingthwaite?” Lord Stokes prompted. His manner was expansive and congenial, like a master coaxing a nervous schoolroom miss. Sarah drew herself up proudly, smoothing down her sequin-encrusted crimson net skirts; a colour and picture she was sur
e the audience would always remember as Millicent blurted out, “It’s my mother who wants to know, actually, and I am so sorry, Lady Sarah” — she swallowed, then stammered — “but she asks why you—”

  She faltered, apparently unable to continue until Lord Stokes chivvied her in a friendly, encouraging fashion, “Lady Sarah is not an ogre, Miss Bassingthwaite. I’m sure she’d be delighted to answer your question.”

  Millicent swallowed and cast her eyes downwards as she continued in a voice that could barely carry across the room, but which certainly managed to be heard judging by the tumultuous response when she finally asked, “She wants to know why you were alone at the Crown and Anchor when you said you were being looked after at Larchfield and … and why you then went unchaperoned to Sally Hollingsworth’s address in Marylebone?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “WELL, YOU MIGHT have sent word more than two days ahead for there’s been such a to-do getting the house prepared and matters just as you would like them Roland… Not that, inconvenience aside, it isn’t wonderful to see you back again. And you, Caro, in such rude health. Really, I don’t know what your father was thinking, assuming your heart was so tender it could not withstand a simple rejection. As if it isn’t something most of us have to bear at least once in our lifetimes. My dear, there are far worthier gentlemen than Mr Hollingsworth and you’d do well to bear in mind what you have to offer a gentleman disposed to taking a wife. You may not be endowed with such a pretty face and figure as my Augusta and Harriet but, unlike my poor girls, you have a handsome dowry to entice the most discerning gentleman-”

  “I hope we need not wait too long for refreshment, Cecily,” Roland interrupted, stilling her words with a cursory peck on the cheek as he pushed his daughter out of her path. “It’s been a long journey.”

  “I was hardly craning my neck out of the window for the first sign of your arrival, Roland,” said Cecily, tartly, preceding him into to the drawing room and pulling on the embroidered bell rope. “Bessie knows to expect you. I’m sure if you can be patient a little longer we can all sit down and enjoy a pleasant chat while we wait for tea.”