A Lady in Name (17 page)

At mention of his title, the fellow’s eyes narrowed.
He cast a glance at the curricle, in which the two women were still seated, Dion trusted with the reins.

‘Ankerville, is it?’
His eye came back to Stefan’s face, looking him over. ‘You’ll be the son, I reckon.’

Surprise held Stefan silent for a moment.
Was this a guess? Or had the name meant something? Could they have drawn a bull’s-eye at the first throw? No, for this fellow was not old enough to be Lucy’s grandfather. He looked to be forty or thereabouts. Stefan took a risk.

‘No, I am the nephew.
Beves Ankerville was my uncle. You knew him?’

The farmer ruminated in silence for a space, looking from Stefan to the women in the curricle and back again.
Then he nodded.

‘You’d best come in.
I’ll fetch one of my boys to look to your horses.’

Within a very short space of time, Lucy and Dion had been handed down and a young lad, summarily brought from one of the outhouses in the rear, was leading the curricle around the back of the house.
In the absence of his groom, Stefan had no choice but to give the lad careful instructions.

‘Aye
, sir. I’ll take good care of ’em. Proper good ’uns, I can see that.’

Mr Oade led the way through a cavernous hall into a capacious parlour, where the visitors were brought up short by the discovery of a female seated in a comfortable chair by the fire, clearly incapacitated by the crutches set in a corner nearby, and a wheeled chair by the window.

‘It’s the fellow come at last, Ma,’ said the farmer when he had ushered them in. ‘You said he would, and here he is.’

Lucy gazed at the little creature sunken in the chair, and at once recognised the signs of long-endured physical suffering.
The eyes were dull and hollowed with pain, the shoulders sagging with defeat. On impulse, she went forward, her hand reaching out.

‘Oh, you are beset by a disease of the joints, are you not?
I am so very sorry. Pray forgive us for intruding upon you.’

The woman’s eyes flicked into life, and Lucy realised she had astonished her with this greeting.
She halted before the chair, leaning down to touch the damaged hands.

‘You see, I grew up helping my father, the vicar of Upledon.
I know how much pain you have been obliged to endure.’

The woman let Lucy’s touch rest on her without comment, but her gaze remained riveted.
Lucy felt as if her features were being devoured. A hollow sprang up in her breast, and she drew back, taking her hand away.

‘You see my mother in me!
Alice Oade? She was your daughter, was she not?’

One of the woman’s hands groped unsteadily and painfully towards Lucy, and the old eyes grew misty with moisture.

‘She’ll not speak,’ said Mr Oade from behind the chair. ‘Leastways, only a word or two. She’s lost the use of her voice mostly.’

Lucy looked up at him, the thrum of her heartbeat loud in her ears.
‘Is it true? Was Alice from this house? Your sister, she must have been.’

He seemed reluctant to admit as much.
In an agony of suspense, Lucy waited. At length, Stefan took a hand.

‘You invited us in, Oade.
And your mother clearly sees a likeness in Lucy. What is the point of holding out?’

He came away from his mother’s chair, and there was belligerence in his stance.
‘Alice is dead to us. Pa rightly turned her out.’

Lucy’s chest caved in.
She looked wildly round for Stefan and found him near enough to touch. She reached out blindly and felt his hand close about her own.

‘Hold up, now, Lucy,’ he murmured, low enough for her ears alone.
‘It is no more than you expected.’

He was right.
But the truth, when one looked it in the face, had a way of throwing out all semblance of equilibrium. Nevertheless, Lucy stiffened her spine. She would not swoon this time. She caught sight of Dion by the door, shock evident in every line of her slim frame. Lucy released her clutch on Stefan’s hand.

‘Dion is like to faint this time.’

He looked round and went quickly over to his sister. ‘Sit down, Dion.’ He glanced at Oade. ‘You do not object?’ The fellow shrugged, and Stefan led Dion to the nearest chair and thrust her down into it. Then he came back to Lucy’s side.

‘Have you anything more you wish to ask?’

She gave him a despairing look. ‘What is the use? He is determined not to tell me.’

A cracked voice spoke from the chair by the fire.

‘Alice! My Alice. Gone?’

The thread of grief tore at Lucy’s heartstrings.
She went to kneel at the woman’s feet, covering the damaged hands with her own.

‘I am so sorry.
She died a short time after I was born. Pray believe I knew nothing of her. I would have come to you before, I promise.’

The son, guttural with hate, cut in.
‘Why would you come? You’ve no truck here. You’re with
him
. Leastways, you’re with his kin. You’ll have no traffic with the likes of us.’

From her position by the crippled woman, Lucy looked up at him, her heart divided between anger and rough compassion.

‘I can see Alice hurt you all. Her mother most of all, perhaps. I know how grief can affect the body, for I have seen it often and often.’ She let go Mrs Oade’s hands and sat back. ‘But Alice’s sins are not mine, Mr Oade. I was fortunate to be taken in by the man who succoured your sister in her time of greatest trouble. He was a man of God and he chose to bring me up as his own.’

‘More fool he, to take a bastard into his home,’ growled the man.

Stefan took a pace towards him, murder in his face. But Lucy jumped up, throwing out a hand. ‘Stefan, don’t.’

Stefan paused, his furious gaze fixed on Oade.
‘You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, man, or you’ll answer to me!’

The older man snorted.
‘Fisticuffs? I’d like to see you try!’

Dion shrieked as Stefan made a move towards the man again.
She was up, hanging on his arm. ‘Stefan, no! You must not. Remember why we came.’

Lucy stepped in front of Stefan, facing the aggressor.

‘Mr Oade, you are my uncle, and I owe you a modicum of respect. But I take leave to tell you I find it hard to respect a man who would not lift a finger to aid his sister, whatever she had done.’

Suddenly there was motion from the chair by the fire.
The woman threshed and writhed in her seat, crying out her agony in words thrust piecemeal out of her dry throat.

‘Sins!
Your sin, boy. Your sin. The girl seen it. It were him. Not his pa. It were him. Poor Alice! My Alice. Dead!
Dead
.’

Dry sobs racked the creature’s wasted frame, and Lucy’s heart could not endure it.
In a moment, she was at the woman’s chair, clasping her into a convulsive embrace.

‘Hush, poor thing, don’t cry!
She is at peace now. You were not to blame. She is at peace. Rest easy, dear grandmother. Don’t weep, I beg you!’

Behind her, Stefan watched in an unprecedented species of confusion.
On the one hand, he was riven by the sight of Lucy’s compassionate heart. On the other, he was consumed with a murderous rage against the fellow Oade, to whose machinations the whole plight of Lucy’s life might be set down.

Dion was weeping beside him, her hands clutching about his arm, and he could not blame her.
When he looked for the author of this depressing scene, he discovered Oade had left the room.

‘The cowardly wretch has vanished.’

‘He went off the moment his mother started crying, for I saw him.’ Dion sniffed back her tears. ‘Stefan, pray give me your handkerchief.’

He handed it over and she blew her nose with enthusiasm.
Stefan eyed it with revulsion. ‘Yes, I think you’d best keep the thing.’

Dion gave vent to a watery giggle, and drew his attention to Lucy, holding Mrs Oade in her arms and rocking her gently to and fro.
The sobs had died away.

‘Should we not get Lucy away from here?’

‘We’ll go when she is ready.’

But within a few moments, Lucy released the old woman and stood up.
Mrs Oade had sunk into a semi-stupor, her head sliding against the back of her chair. Lucy looked round as if she sought the farmer and caught Stefan’s eye.

‘He departed.
I dare say we will not see him again.’

Lucy gave a tiny smile.
‘As well perhaps.’

An almost overwhelming urge came over Stefan, to reach for her and draw her into a close and comforting embrace.
He pushed it out of sight, taking refuge in his habitual cool manner.

‘What do you wish to do?’

Lucy could not forbear a sigh. She felt utterly exhausted, as if she had spent hours at physical exertion. Her emotions were so dulled she did not think she would ever feel anything again.

‘There is nothing here for me.’

Stefan nodded briskly. ‘Then we shall take our leave.’

Lucy looked again at the frail creature
from whose loins had sprung the female she must call mother. She was sorry for her, but it would be idle to pretend to anything more.

‘I dare say she will have forgotten by the time she wakes up.’

‘Yes, and her son will not remind her,’ said Dion.

By common consent, they made their way to the door and Dion went through as Stefan stood back to let them both pass.
From the doorway, Lucy looked back. Mrs Oade had not moved, and her breathing was even. It was best this way, to leave her in sleep. Lucy turned her eyes away and left the room.

As she stepped out of the front door, the brightness felt oddly out of place.
It was like returning from a dream to normality and finding it unchanged, although the dream had been stormy and dark.

‘At least it is still light enough to see our way,’ said Stefan, ushering the girls to where the curricle was already waiting, the lad holding the horses steady.
‘The boy must have been warned by Oade to bring the team round. Perhaps he is nearer at hand than we supposed.’

He handed Lucy up, and then Dion, and going to the other side, swung himself up into the seat and took the reins and his whip in hand.
Nodding at the boy, he told him he might let go the horses’ heads.

As he gave his horses the office to start, there was a shout from the house.

‘Hoy, Ankerville!’

He pulled on the reins, and the team halted.
The two girls already had their attention fixed upon an upper window of the farmstead. Stefan followed the direction of their gazes and discovered Oade leaning from the window. In his hand was a heavy blunderbuss, pointed directly at the occupants of the curricle.

‘Have you run mad?’ barked Stefan.

Oade waved the weapon. Menace was in his look and his tone. ‘You bring that brat of Alice’s here again and I’ll blow out her brains!’

* * *

Restlessly tossing in bed was not conducive either to comfort or relaxation. Dog-tired as she was, Lucy could not sleep. The events of the afternoon played and replayed in her head, together with the things she might have said and did not say as well as the things she said and now regretted.

As the curricle had swept out of the farm, with the echo of Mr Oade’s threat ringing in Lucy’s ears, she’d been haunted by an image of the broken old woman she must henceforth take for her grandmother.

Dion had been busy stigmatising Oade for a madman. ‘You should have that Stagg man cart him off to the roundhouse, Stefan. Though he would find himself more at home in Bedlam, I dare say. Gracious, what a nightmare!’

Stefan’s attention had been wholly concentrated upon his horses, rendered unruly by the commotion.
Lucy had felt a stronger motion of his arm beside her as he struggled to keep his team in check. Dion was quick to note the difficulty.

‘Are they going to bolt?’

The nervous pitch of her voice drew Lucy’s attention and the visions in her mind faded. She looked to the horses’ heads and saw the twitch to their ears. The uneven pace became apparent.

Her glance went to Stefan and she met his eyes briefly.
Lucy read reassurance in the quick smile he gave.

‘Have no fear
. They are perfectly manageable, if a trifle frisky.’

‘Who shall blame them?’ uttered Dion in forthright tones.
‘I, for one, should be glad to see that awful place disappear behind us in a cloud of dust.’

A pang smote Lucy.
‘It was a dreadfully unhappy house, was it not?’

‘Murderous.
’

‘Don’t mince your words, Dion,’ cut in Stefan drily, and Dion giggled.

‘Well, it was. I’m sorry to say so of any family of yours, Lucy, but they are strangers to you, after all.’