Dorothy Eden (16 page)

“My baby?”

“You’ve lost that, I’m afraid. Couldn’t expect much else, could you?” Sister Best wasn’t kind after all. Her face was humourless and disapproving. “Don’t they teach expectant mothers in America to be careful?”

“Freddie—he was lost—we had to look—Nanny was in a taking. So was Julia.” She was babbling.

“Should have left that to someone else. Now you must rest. Doctor will be in later.”

Tears began to flow down her cheeks.

“Why are you so unkind to me?”

“I’m not unkind. I’m practical. Doctors and nurses spend their lives mending things foolish people bring on themselves. We have a military wing here full of seriously wounded soldiers. We haven’t really time for silly young women.”

“Then go away, go away!” Hetty whispered.

Nevertheless she drifted into sleep, not because the sister had told her to, but because she seemed to be so weak. Her next visitor, when she awoke, was much kinder than the stern sister. Kitty in her V.A.D. uniform, harassed as usual, but smiling, although her eyes were full of tears.

“Hetty, Hetty, what a terrible pity. Doctor Bailey tried so hard to save the baby, but it was no use.”

“What’s today?” Hetty asked, looking at sunlight outside the dusty window.

“Thursday. It all happened in the night. Head aching?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You had some concussion, too. That’s why you don’t remember much. Freddie was devastated.”

“Julia said he was lost in the woods, that he’d gone off because of me reading him the
Iliad
and filling his head with myths.”

Did Kitty’s face tighten? At least there was no doubt about the disapproval in her voice.

“Oh, Julia! I never would have thought she had it in her to panic. Cool as a cucumber always. And especially not to panic about Freddie. She scarcely notices his existence. Of course, Lady Flora isn’t saying anything, but we’re pretty angry that Julia allowed you on a horse under those conditions.”

“She did tell me not to gallop. And I didn’t until something scared Bessie. I don’t know what it was, some great beast crashing out of the wood. Is there a bull at Loburn?”

“Or a horse,” said Kitty drily.

Hetty stared at her.

“You can’t mean—Julia?”

“Yes, I do. Accidentally, of course, but it was damned careless of her. She admits it.”

Hetty lay very still, letting her suspicions take possession of her. Julia had planned this so that Hugo’s baby would be lost. It had been no accident; it had been deliberate. Julia had been smouldering with jealousy for weeks. The tea party with the twittering old women admiring Hetty’s looks and manners must have set it alight.

That must be true. After all, why should Julia be so upset about a missing child whom she didn’t even care for? She had simply guessed what Hetty’s reaction would be when told Freddie was lost, and had seized the opportunity to stage the riding accident that she must have been planning for some time.

Julia, the enemy!

The quiet cold voice in her head was speaking.

But perhaps you deserve this, Hetty, for all your own lies and deceits. You weren’t meant to be the mother of the heir to Loburn.

“Was it a boy, Kitty? Could they tell?”

Kitty nodded. “Afraid so. But the doctor says there’s no permanent damage. You can have a dozen children. Different from me. I have to make do with my little frog.”

“Oh, Kitty. I would be happy to make do with your little frog. But supposing,” Hetty added fearfully, “Hugo doesn’t come home?”

“Oh, he’ll come home. He’ll be one of the lucky ones. He always got out of his troubles. Like finding an amenable heiress to pay his crushing debts? I’ve got to go now, love. My boys will be waiting for me. We’ve got two young airmen who crashed at the airfield and got badly burned, poor devils.”

Burned, thought Hetty in pity, remembering Donald Newman with his youthful eagerness. Burning would be worse than drowning. Perhaps Donald had been lucky, after all.

“If your concussion is all right they’re letting you go home tomorrow. But you’ll have to rest.”

And live again with her enemies? Julia, Lady Flora? But you never thought it would be a bed of roses, living someone else’s life. So be quiet, be clever. Wait for Hugo to come home.

“That’s the girl,” said Kitty. “You’re looking better already.”

The servants, Effie and Elsie, had given the winter drawing room a great turning out.

“Mrs Lionel said you were going to have this room for your own, my lady.” Effie was pink-cheeked with pleasure at having her mistress home and at having worked to please her. “Mrs Lionel put the flowers in and got Mr Bates to bring the pictures down from the gallery. The ones she thought you would like, but you can change them of course, she said. Shall I light the fire, my lady? Will you be sitting in here?”

The windows caught the dying afternoon light and the room looked alive. One of the pictures from the gallery was the lady in the faded yellow dress. How had Kitty known she liked that one? The tilted eyes seemed to follow her. For the first time she had the feeling of having come home.

“You’ve done wonders, Effie. Yes, light the fire. I’ll have tea in here. I can rest just as well on the couch as on my bed. I guess plenty of Hazzard ladies have spent a long time resting on that couch.”

“You won’t be doing much of that, my lady, you’re too energetic.” Effie paused. Her face was full of honest affection. “We was all ever so sorry about the accident.”

“Thank you, Effie. It was lucky I hadn’t told my husband about the baby, so at least he won’t be disappointed.”

“I’d keep away from them horses, my lady. Nasty beasts.”

Hetty found she could smile. “That’s sacrilege in this house, Effie.”

“Not with Mr Lionel and Mrs Lionel, my lady. They’re not horse people, either. I wouldn’t think Master Freddie is, neither.”

“Well, thank you for your advice, Effie.”

She wanted to lie quietly, enjoying the luxury of being home, in her own sitting room which, as time went by, would be a small world she had created for herself, filled with her best-loved treasures. The yellow lady with her provocative eyes was only the first of these. One wondered if she too had laid here from time to time, recuperating from little understood fevers, or too many pregnancies. Had she grown to be old and fat and ugly? Or was she like Clemency, doomed to remain for ever young and fair. Perhaps she had hated the winter drawing room and always sought sunlight. Perhaps she had had no secret to hide and no kinship with shadows.

Everyone must be made to ask permission to come in here, Hetty decided. Even Hugo.

But this order had not yet been made known, and presently, without knocking, someone opened the door. Lady Flora was a tall, slender figure in the gloom, insubstantial yet exuding too much authority to be excluded.

“You’re not asleep, are you, Hetty?”

“No, I’m awake.”

“Then I shall just come and have a little chat. How nice the firelight is. But why have you chosen this gloomy room? Kitty tells me you want it for your private sitting room.”

“I like it. It has so much atmosphere. Besides, I can look out of the window and see Hugo coming home, can’t I?”

Lady Flora sat on the edge of a chair, poker-backed as always.

“Yes, poor child. I hope that will be soon.”

“He didn’t know about the baby. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“But you’ll tell him eventually.” That was a statement, not a question. The pale immobile face seemed to be saying, “Don’t ever tell him.” And indeed, before Hetty could answer, Lady Flora went on, “I do hope you’re not blaming Julia too much. She’s desperately upset. She says she’ll never forgive herself, even though it was a pure accident.”

“Did her horse run away with her?” Hetty asked innocently. “I thought she was too good a rider to let that happen.”

“It can happen to any rider,” Lady Flora said sharply. “You were both worried about Freddie, and perhaps neither of you were as careful as you should have been. I must speak to Kitty about Nanny. I don’t think she watches Freddie closely enough. Climbing ladders, indeed! Who was to guess he was up in the roof.”

“Or in the woods,” Hetty murmured.

“There was good reason for thinking that. Pimm had found his hobby horse discarded on the path leading to the woods.”

His winged Olympian steed, Hetty thought tenderly.

“It might have been there for days.”

“I hardly think so. Anyway, that’s irrelevant now. Except that Julia blames herself dreadfully, and is quite alarmed about facing you.”

Julia alarmed? Never. She had probably organised the evidence of the wooden hobby horse herself.

“And you probably don’t know, my dear, that had she not got help so quickly you might well have died. She was quite frantic.”

“I’m far from dying, Lady Flora. The doctor just says I must be quiet for a few days.”

“Of course. We know that. But when you’re stronger you and Julia must be friends again. Remember, you have so much and she has so little.”

“She won’t have so little all her life.”

“Why do you say that?”

Because she is strong, Hetty thought silently. We are really two of a kind, Julia and I. We try very hard to get what we want. Who will be the stronger? It simply has to be me. There’s no alternative.

“She’s very attractive. She must be admired a lot.”

Lady Flora nodded and sighed.

“We’re too many women in this house, that’s the trouble. I wonder when the war will end. Oh, I see you’ve had Jacobina’s portrait brought down. Do you like it particularly?”

The name, discovered at last, gave her pleasure.

“Yes. I wonder about her. What an unusual name.”

“There’s not much known about her. I believe she died in childbirth. The baby, too. So there’s nothing left of her in this family. Except perhaps a ghost.”

“I’ll be luckier than that,” said Hetty.

“Of course you will. By the way, my friends thought you were charming. Much too charming to be shut away here all the time, as if you were in a monastery. We decided you really ought to have a visit to London. Even in wartime there are a lot of things going on. Parties for officers home from the front. That sort of thing. They want bright young women. I can arrange introductions. I’d be happy to take you myself, if it weren’t for my stupid heart. But you’ll probably meet friends of your own from America. You’ll call at the Embassy, of course.”

“No, thank you, Lady Flora,” Hetty said quietly and definitely, “I don’t want to go to London until I can go with Hugo. Besides, as soon as I’m well enough I intend to do hospital work like Kitty does. They can’t treat me as an alien now that I have a British husband.”

“No,” said Lady Flora thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose they can.” She might have been honest and added that she still did so, herself.

It was two weeks before Hetty could bring herself to leave the sanctuary of the winter drawing room in the daytime and her bedroom at night. By that time she had begun to feel stronger, and less plagued by the too familiar nightmares, the icy sea, so heavy on her limbs and the cries of the drowning, the more eerie one of the strange stirrings like old stiffened clothes in the wardrobe, and once, horrifyingly, when she thought she was awake, a misty face at the window. Jacobina’s? Clemency’s? Not Clemency’s. She had never belonged here.

Doctor Bailey said, “Your mind still playing tricks on you? That will stop when you get your husband home. You’re a healthy young woman. All you need is a normal marital life, then all these bad things will slip into the past. But in the meantime you’re alone too much. Who do you see?”

“Kitty. Freddie. The servants.”

“Then I’m going to give you an order. Lady Flora says you have been refusing to eat downstairs. You’re perfectly strong enough now to eat with the family, for both luncheon and dinner.”

The nervous thoughts came into her head. I’ll have to see Julia. I haven’t spoken to her since the accident. I’ve let it be known that I didn’t want to see her. Although I’ve seen her through the window, striding across the lawn as if she owns the place. And I have to admit that she looks as if she ought to own it.

“And then,” Doctor Bailey went on, “why don’t you go into the hospital occasionally? There are some blinded young men there. They need letters written for them, and someone bright to talk to. They’ll love your American accent. I’ll speak to Matron. Will you do it, Lady Hazzard? Sitting alone brooding can be self-indulgent, you know.”

Hetty was shamed out of her dream world.

“Of course I will. I had intended to, anyway. I didn’t know about the blind soldiers.”

“Good girl. So back to normal life, eh? I’ll report to Lady Flora. She’s been anxious.”

Hetty obeyed the doctor and went down to dinner that night, telling no one but the servants of her intention. She took the three women by surprise. Kitty, in her usual exuberant fashion, exclaimed, “Thank heaven for another face! We’re all boring each other to death.” And Lady Flora unbent enough to say, “It is time you took up normal life again, Hetty. I understand how you have felt. I always turn to my piano in times of stress. I know you have your books and your needlework. But one has to live more energetically than that, especially you, a young woman.”

Hetty looked past Lady Flora to her faithful shadow, Julia.

“I won’t be riding any more, Julia,” she said. “I don’t care for horses, anyway. I’m writing to tell Hugo.”

Julia flushed. Her eyes were fiercely bright, but whether from shame or pleasure Hetty couldn’t guess. But when she spoke her voice sounded sincere enough.

“You can’t blame me as much as I blame myself for that accident. Can she, Lady Flora? It was such an unnecessary thing to have happened. Hugo will never believe I could have been so careless.”

So that was what disturbed her, not Hetty’s miscarriage but Hugo’s suspicions. He might not fret too much about his bride taking a tumble, but he would be furious at losing his heir. Julia could not bear him to blame her. On the other hand it would be highly satisfactory to have this silly inept American girl out of the stables and no threat to those intimate early morning rides of which she was so jealous.